Not really caring what happens there, because I’m convinced none of these guys can beat Bush.
PAD
145 comments on “THE IOWA CAUCUSES”
You know, I think we’ve all learned something during the last few years…Democrats have learned how easy it is to get caught up in the craziness of thinking a political opponent is the epitome of evil and Rpublicans have learned just how unappealing that looks.
It amazes me that Democrats have repeated so many of the excesses of the right wingers in their quest to send Bush home. The sheer ugliness of the spectacle has turned off a lot of folks who might otherwise have been sympathetic. It has, admitedly, stirred the blood of the radical left but they are not sufficiant for victory.
If the Moveon.org gang don’t learn to tone it down they will be an albatross around the neck of whoever the eventual candidate is.
BTW, howcum nobody is predicting teh winner of the caucas? No guts, no glory…I’m going out on a limb and predicting a surprise come from behind victory for Gephart. Not that he will be the nominee or anything.
And by gephart I actually meant Kerry, with Edwards close behind. yeah, THAT’S the ticket..
Wow, did Dean fold up like a cheap tent or what?
Randal writes…
There was no lying to the public [about the reasons for war — TWL]
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
Now, if you mean the 9/11 links … it’s all been tricks with mirrors and lies of omission. I agree in that I don’t know of any demonstrably false statements, but lying by implication is still up there on the list of Things I’d Like My Leaders To Not Do.
And as that was never the sole primary reason, it’s a non-starter.
Wrong. It was THE primary reason given to the public for months. After we didn’t find weapons, it turned into “well, we liberated the Iraqi people.” Then it turned into “now we can get troops out of harm’s way in Saudi Arabia” (which, let’s remember, was one of bin Laden’s stated goals in the first place). Now it’s just “Saddam was a bad bad man and it’s good that we got rid of him.”
Yeah, well, there are a lot of other bad bad leaders out there. Funny how we don’t go after them unless they also happen to have resources we’d like.
Look — the PNAC documents with the plan for toppling Saddam have been out there since ’98. It’s no secret that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. wanted Saddam gone gone gone, and it certainly looks like they were more than willing to bend intelligence to make that happen.
Call that justified if you like, and I’ll respectfully disagree. But don’t insult my intelligence by claiming no lies have been told.
Seems to me the war STOPPED the killing of Iraqi citizens.
The families of the thousands of Iraqis killed since March might just possibly beg to differ on that.
Regardless, your use of the word “letting” is obscene. Bush never LET anyone get killed.
The families of those killed after Bush dared insurgents to “bring ’em on” might humbly beg to differ on that.
I vaguely recall the musem-theft numbers being downgraded somewhat — not to the extent you claim here, but I’m willing to chalk that up to bad memory on my part. My apologies — it was one of the first examples that popped out of my head, and shouldn’t have been.
On global warming, however…
Not like THIS is a new issue. Some scientists have been saying global warming is a myth for a long, long time.
Yep. About as many as those who say evolution’s bunk. (Have you heard of the “Steve List”?)
In both cases, the debate is over the specifics of the process (and in global warming’s case, over exactly how big a temperature change is at issue here). Nobody with any credibility is denying the basic trends.
And since you are so passionate about incontrovertible evidence, I expect you agree 100% that it should be studied more.
Absolutely.
However, the difference is, despite the Bush administration’s insistence on making it an either/or question, it’s possible to do both: you can devote further study while taking action in the face of the evidence we have. If even half of the evidence facing us is true, we should have cut fossil fuel emissions way the hëll back a decade or two ago — at this point it’s a question of limiting the damage, not preventing it.
The longer we wait, however, the less prevention we’re going to get. Lest we forget, some industry folks with close ties to the Bush administration have been quoted outright as saying that all of this data about millions of years is bunk, because “we know the Earth is only six thousand years old.”
I can provide a reference to that quote if you like, though it may be a day or two. That’s the sort of mentality running the country.
On two other issues…
I confess ignorance on these two issues, but I’m sure your non-biased take on and understanding of the issues is enlightening.
Oh, I make no bones about being biased. The feelings I have about the last three years are deeply rooted and very passionate: they ain’t going away easily and they ain’t easily stifled.
I’d like to think, however, that I can admit error and correct my arguments in the face of an error. I’d also like to think my fifteen years of Usenet experience is evidence of that.
In other words: sure, I’m biased. That doesn’t make me wrong. 🙂
Seriously … there’s nothing about this administration’s actions or attitude that bothers you? You think the country’s been perfectly justified in all of its actions both domestic and foreign?
If so, I’m stuck scratching my head. I absolutely don’t get it.
TWL
It amazes me that Democrats have repeated so many of the excesses of the right wingers in their quest to send Bush home. The sheer ugliness of the spectacle has turned off a lot of folks who might otherwise have been sympathetic.
Change that to “a lot of Democrats” and I’ll wholeheartedly agree.
Personally, I oppose this administration because it’s not been particularly competent. Their use of intelligence circumvented the vetting process that separates the reliable from the unreliable sources (which led to the WMD imbroglio), their unpreparedness for running Iraq once the war was over (the looting, their losing the Iraqui army [who would have been ideal in implementing policy], their inability to control terrorist infiltration (terrorists operate quite well in a chaotic situation’ they’re drawn to them. Invasions will create chaos. Duh), and so forth makes it quite clear that this administration has no business running the country.
And we’re not even getting into the abuses of civil liberties and the economy….
Whoa! Nice to see that there’s somewhere where Tim Lynch still lurks. Well, I guess this is a lot shorter than writing reviews.
Anyway, I’m going to avoid most of the political issue, since I can only rehash what Tim’s been saying, but I wanted to let you all know about another global warming twist…
It seems NASA will be scaling back all programs not related to the new Moon-Then-Mars mission. Now, I’m not saying that manned missions in space again is a bad thing; anything but. I’m completely in favor. But when they scale back everything else, that includes all the global warming research:
“Setting up operations on the moon is affordable, as long as it is taken as a primary goal for the American space program and not larded onto all of the other things that NASA does,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), chairman of the House subcommittee on space and aeronautics. As an example, he cited NASA’s efforts to assess global warming, saying: “Over the years, we have spent tens of billions of dollars of NASA money proving global warming is occurring, which I think is suspect and debatable.”
In retrospect, I should have known Dean was in trouble when Gore endorsed him. The man is the freaking Angel of Political Death. Even the very Gods are against him–he gives a speech on global warming and the temperature drops to the point where street urchins are making ice cream on the sidewalks.
I didn’t even vote for the guy and I’m sort of wishing he would catch something like a break.
My own response to “Where’s the outrage?”
The American public *should* be outraged. Livid! But it’s not as if it’s simply hearing these news bits and shrugging them off. No, it’s the fault of the media here. When george pushed hard to derail *any* investigation into those attacks, the press found something *else* to report that day. The same holds true for Paul O’Neil, and the subsequent “whistle blowers” who have stepped out and backed him up — instead, the media is all about Michael and Brittney, Brittney and Michael.
“Liberal Media” my áršë.
Clinton got his knob polished, and that’s impeachable. But when Dubya lies, people DIE, and that’s okay, because violence is far more tasteful and acceptable than sex.
This is just an excuse for Iowa to get more attention than its population warrants.
Now there’s a silly and baseless comment.
After the BS in California this past year, I don’t think anybody can say that any single state’s population gets more attention than it deserves.
I lived in Iowa during the 2000 election, and I recall how close the race was (as it was in a number of states).
The fact remains that the caucus allows people to get together and rally behind those they wish to see in office.
Of course, if Iowa means so little, you can pitch it from the Electoral College, along with 20 other “meaningless” states (New Hampshire immediately springs to mind).
Results from the Iowa caucus are apparently in.
Gephardt is already said to be dropping out of the race after his 4th-place finish (hmm, I didn’t even know that he won the Iowa caucus in ’88).
Again, it does say something about the process though.
I mean, here was Dean, going into this as the front runner, the only guy making headlines. And he finished third.
Amusing.
I told my liberal father-in-law this summer that Edwards scared me, as a conservative, more than any of the others. Why? He is Bill Clinton 2.0!
Oh, and I love that “No one can beat Bush” attitude! I hope a lot of Dems think that and stay home on election day.
Well, looks like we’re at a four person race; Kerry, Edwards, Dean, and Clark. With his Iowa standing, the smartest thing for Gephardt to do is bail now (assuming the candidates do recall the more important thing is to beat Bush). New Hampshire and the following big week (I believe 7 primaries) should knock out another one or two of the four.
My thinking on November? It really does get down, for a re-election, to the question “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” (with a side order of “And do you think the incumbant’s opponent will improve things or not?” As a ridiculous sample of the latter, if it were Bush-Sharpton, I’d be checking out my company’s foreign offices despite my intention to vote against Bush).
So. My advice to the Democrats is to remember James Carville/Bill Clinton’s campaign against Bush Sr.. Namely “It’s the economy stupid”. Pick 1-3 things to focus on, and just drive those puppies home. Said focus needs to be couched in how it affects individuals…and how you plan to fix them (a big weakness of candidates like Bob Dole, and to a degree Al Gore, was the feeling that they felt they were the candidate because, well, it was their turn. The voters need to think *they* *want* you to be President, not that you want to be President.)
The other bit is to remember the general polarization of the electorate i.e. the red states vs. blue states. Your commercials and campaign statements have to get people on the fence, or only somewhat committed to Bush, to *think*. Ask questions, to which the answers are shocking (jobs lost, last time we had civil liberty attacks ala Ashcroft, etc.) so that people have to consider things rather than just blowing them off as propaganda.
For example, while the winning MoveOn ad isn’t too bad, most of the finalists were terrible in that they preached to the choir. You’ve got the core anti-Bush vote already, with people motivated to go to the polls. You’ve got to work on the ones who aren’t yet or as convinced what a horrible job this administration has done.
Assorted comments:
1) PAD, I thought the “where’s the outrage” catchphrase was trademarked by Dole? It didn’t work when Clinton was committing perjury in office, I don’t know why it would work now.
2) The last time a Senator won the Presidency was 1960. Someone asked, possibly rhetorically, but there ya go.
3) I’m all in favor of a true leftist Democratic renaissance, because it would mean Republican victories for 20 years.
Y’know, come to think of it, there’s a very strong possible campaign aspect that the Dems could use.
Namely, is Bush a Republican a Republican can be proud of? Treatment of people actually in the armed services? Stomping on basic civil liberties? Blowing up the deficeit (sp?)? There are already some cracks in Bush’s armor from the right, where it’s starting to be recognized that this admin isn’t driven by traditional conservative views but by who’s buying them off and the odd neocon/religious fanatics (Wolfowitz (sp?) and Ashcroft).
It seems NASA will be scaling back all programs not related to the new Moon-Then-Mars mission.
And the three states which are the centers for robotic and manned research are California (with a ton of electoral votes), Texas, and Florida.
Probably a coincidence.
PAD
Oh, and I love that “No one can beat Bush” attitude! I hope a lot of Dems think that and stay home on election day.
I never said “No one can beat Bush.” I said I don’t think anyone at the Iowa Caucus can. I’m not sure why, but I have this gut feeling that Clark might be able to. Although even that would be problematic.
Notice that the Clintons have carefully made sure not to ally themselves with anyone. I think it may be because they’re politically savvy enough not to want to be tied to a loser…which would translate into their thinking none of these guys is a winner. That they’ve basically written off 2004 and are looking ahead to 2008.
PAD
And the three states which are the centers for robotic and manned research are California (with a ton of electoral votes), Texas, and Florida.
Don’t remind me. This is what I don’t like about President Bush–he says the words I’ve wanted a president to say for as long as I can remember, rekindles the dream that I thought dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and it’s still a political power play. Everything’s politics with him–no dream, no hope, no morality, no humanity, just expediency as far as the eye can see.
My President, whom I voted for and will vote for, has a shot at losing the Presidency.
That said, whomever wins the Democratic primaries has a narrow shot at getting the Presidency. In order for one to win, the President has to make a mistake.
No matter how good any one of them is, the President in his current state isn’t presenting a poor enough position to be beaten so handily.
One problem is that most of the Democrats have large, glaring weaknesses.
Dean would be the most apropriate nominee and so far is the one most likely to get nominated thus far. Dean is as far to the left and even farther to the left as Bush is to the right. It is important that in a sense that the Democrat and Republican be far enough to apart to signify the differences between the parties. I shudder if Dean wins. His rhetoric is dangerous. He’s like Governor GW Bush in 2000 only more pro-active… that makes the wierd things he says more aggressive and provocative.
Unless the President screwed royally former Governor Howard Dean would have no chance of winning. He has as much foreign policy experience as pre-President GW Bush. I doubt Texas Governor Bush could win a Presidential bid against incumbent Bill Clinton if HE could have ran for a third term. I doubt former Vermont Governor Dean can take the current incumbent.
Lieberman is the most centrist of the Democrats in the current bunch. That’s why he won’t get nominated in a Democratic Party that is slowly shifting left. I think in an election he’d have the best chance against the President, being the most proper and the least negative. That’s also a dangerous position, because right or wrong win or lose the closer the Democratic candidate is in ideological position to his opponent the closer actual party-lines get blurred. Strong competition is important for the integrity of both parties.
Clark is a waffler. He can’t make up his mind. He refuses to answer hypothetical questions. He fought an air war in Europe, not a land war, and we still had three guys captured. They were freed by Jesse Jackson of all people. Some military genius. He was also not very well respected by his contemporaries and peers at the time or the then-current President, Bill Clinton. That makes me wonder what they saw that was so bad.
Gephardt I can’t respect. He misses out on voting and doing the job his constituents elected him to do. He avoids performing in the very profession that supposedly earns his bloody paycheck and he wants a promotion. SCREW HIM!
I feel sorry for Gephardt, Edwards, Lieberman, Kerry, Clark, and Dean for having to take Sharpton, that woman, and Kucinich seriously as candidates for the Presidency.
CJA
Notice that the Clintons have carefully made sure not to ally themselves with anyone. I think it may be because they’re politically savvy enough not to want to be tied to a loser…which would translate into their thinking none of these guys is a winner.
More likely hoping. If a Democrat is elected this year, that scuttles Hillary’s run in ’08.
As for Clark, he’s got military experience, but keeps flip-flopping on his positions, and isn’t an effective speaker.
Whereas Kerry has the military experience, political experience, and has a commanding public presence. He can pick Edwards as his running mate, thus creating a solid North/South coalition. And he’ll tear Bush apart in debates… he has a command of policy matters as well as personal charisma (which Gore didn’t). So I’m not sure why you’re so down on Kerry, at least.
I’m down on Kerry because he resorted to using some f-cking language in his Rolling Stone article…. I think in order to get attention or seem more relevent or something.
You can’t sell me on the notion of his politcal charisma if the most notable thing he said to Rolling Stone is the F-word.
Politicians have a tendency to change positions, I accept that. However, doing it this early in his supposed political career (not to mention starting a career by aiming for the top spot) is a scary thing. It scares me. That and to start any career by running for the top position stinks of arrogance to me. At least everyone else is a former Governor or a current legislator, and that includes the incumbent.
CJA
And the impression I’ve gotten is that many of the people who have worked with him hate his guts, so I don’t know that he will have big appeal among the enlisted men and women.
Even President Clinton hates his guts from what I read. And check this out: [Clark] reportedly circumvented both Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Henry Shelton on numerous occasions in speaking directly to the media and the president. In fact, the situation got so bad that Gen. Clark was relieved of his NATO position several months before his term ended, and in a major snub, neither Mr. Cohen nor Gen. Shelton attended his retirement ceremony.
“I’m down on Kerry because he resorted to using some f-cking language in his Rolling Stone article”
I find that trait admirable. It sets him apart from the hypocrite who called a reporter a “major league a**hole” — the same hypocrite who was so “offended” about Kerry’s comments in the magazine.
Yeah, him.
Privately I doubt the Democrats will do it either, any of them. And as said earlier, I think the Clintons will be quietly happy about that, as it secures Hilary’s clear shot in 2008. But this isn’t necessarily as clear as that.
Dean I honestly think hasn’t a prayer of knocking out Dubbya in November, and quite simply because the message of “I’m anti-Bush”, although highly principled, means nothing to an electorate which is being taught to be scared, is being conned into a system of electronic voting which is being slowly rigged, and is receiving mixed economic messages about their future. To connect with Democrats and disgrunted Republicans you’d have to have someone who could wreck Bush in a debate (to be fair anyone can do that), beat him convincingly on the national security issue, and have a positive plan for America that is positive for the candidate, not necessarily negative against Bush. Elections don’t win like that. Lastly they’ll have to stick at the centre. Gore won in the centre, remember, and following Bush’s tactic of running into an extreme isn’t a winner.
So is Clark the man to do this? Possibly, but he hasn’t motivated as many people and hasn’t got the money Dean has. With a few more upsets (Iowa means nothing at this stage) this could yet swing his way, as the real campaign issues start to make themselves felt and the neocons start playing really nasty. He *can* best Bush on national security, intelligence, leadership, background, and appealing to North and South alike, Dean cannot (imho).
Will he get that far? I doubt it but anything can happen, and although I’m desperate for a Hilary run in 2008, I’m terrified of what another four years of the neocon extremists will mean to America and the world.
Incidentally, I don’t know if anyone’s been reading Boondocks lately, but they’ve been running a very funny series of strips comparing the Democrats to the Justice League, beginning with comparing Gephardt to Aquaman (“because nobody knows what he does and nobody cares.”)
You put forth a very good question in the OP. “Where’s the outrage?”
Personally, I think it’s the leftist’ fault. It’s the ‘never cry wolf’ syndrome at work. They (and the right for their issues) have screamed so long and so loud at the stupidest things that when a good question does arise, the general public thinks “ho-hum, another trumped up charge.”
As for who can beat Bush? None of these guys without a GW implosion. I think Clark would be a hoot to run, simply because making the guy self-destruct would be so easy. His “character” is non-existant.
Gary Trudow wouldn’t want Clark to win because he’s already used the Waffle as a presidential icon in Doonesbury.
Beginning to wonder if they’ll try to draft Hillary, despite her probable plans for 2008.
2008 is going to be the most frightening election ever held.
I find that trait admirable. It sets him apart from the hypocrite who called a reporter a “major league ahole” — the same hypocrite who was so “offended” about Kerry’s comments in the magazine.**
It’s admirable to want attention that badly? In my book someone who wants attention so badly that he’d say any ol’ thing is usually listed under “pathetic” not “admirable”.
He did win Iowa, and I assume that’s not because he called them all F-heads or F-wits.
Personally, calling that guy a “major-league áššhølë”, not in an interview, but in an assumed private moment seemed… honest.
CJA
I find that trait admirable. It sets him apart from the hypocrite who called a reporter a “major league áhølë” — the same hypocrite who was so “offended” about Kerry’s comments in the magazine.
It’s admirable to want attention that badly? In my book someone who wants attention so badly that he’d say any ol’ thing is usually listed under “pathetic” not “admirable”.
[some snipped]
Personally, calling that guy a “major-league áššhølë”, not in an interview, but in an assumed private moment seemed… honest.
I think you may have missed his point, at least in part.
I don’t think I have much of an opinion either way on Kerry’s swearing in Rolling Stone — but the point above was that for Bush to decry Kerry taking such a seemingly low road while referring to reporters as áššhølëš was more than a little hypocritical.
That’s not to mention that Bush is always talking about his faith and how the love of Jesus is what guides him in all of his choices. Seems to me someone who actually paid attention to Jesus’ teachings generally doesn’t go around calling people “major-league áššhølëš.” On the other hand, it’s been a while since I’ve read the Bible — perhaps I’m forgetting the Book of Smackdowns. (Verse Yo:Mama, to be specific.)
And from what I remember of it, I don’t think Kerry’s statement was proof that he’d “say any ol’ thing.” It’s not like he started swearing for no reason — he said that he didn’t expect Bush to f**k the war up this badly. Perhaps an ill-chosen word, but not out of line with the sentiment.
As for Kerry in general, though — wish I could get excited about him. I’m not, at least not yet. I prefer Dean, and hope he makes a contest of it in NH.
TWL
Tim writes…
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
No. We can argue semantics. II don’t know the exact quote, but they said that “British intelligence claims that…” and that wasn’t a lie. And when they found out that the British intelligence may have been wrong, they said it was a mistake to put that in the speech. Besides, as I’ve said before, even the Clinton administration believed that Iraq was sniffing for uranium. That’s not a lie.
Now, if you mean the 9/11 links … it’s all been tricks with mirrors and lies of omission. I agree in that I don’t know of any demonstrably false statements, but lying by implication is still up there on the list of Things I’d Like My Leaders To Not Do.
Good God…if it looks like a duck…Ok, I did say that there was probably guilt by omission. But there was no lying on the par of, say, Clinton.
Wrong. It was THE primary reason given to the public for months.
No, it was a reason, not the primary reason. Now, I’m not saying you’re one of those people, but a lot of people opposed to the war can’t even seem to agree what the hidden agenda was. Was it:
A) finishing daddy’s war?
B) all about the oil?
C) take over the middle east?
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor. Yes, WMDs were a reason. Yes, intelligence that turned out to be untrue was a reason, and YES, LIBERATING THE PEOPLE WAS A REASON. Why this is impossible for people to beleive is beyond me…do they hate George Bush so much that if he helped an old lady cross the street they would accuse him of vote-fishing and stealing her purse? That’s where I’m scratching my head.
After we didn’t find weapons, it turned into “well, we liberated the Iraqi people.” Then it turned into “now we can get troops out of harm’s way in Saudi Arabia” (which, let’s remember, was one of bin Laden’s stated goals in the first place). Now it’s just “Saddam was a bad bad man and it’s good that we got rid of him.”
Check the dates. It’s always been about the people.
Yeah, well, there are a lot of other bad bad leaders out there. Funny how we don’t go after them unless they also happen to have resources we’d like.
And there it is. Go ahead, let’s talk about all the oil we’ve stolen. Yes. We’re so greedy. We’ll rebuild the oil wells and build a pipeline like Mr. Burns did and funnel all the precious, precious oil away. We won’t turn it over to those silly, worthless Iraqi people. Prove it.
Look — the PNAC documents with the plan for toppling Saddam have been out there since ’98. It’s no secret that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. wanted Saddam gone gone gone, and it certainly looks like they were more than willing to bend intelligence to make that happen.
Bend intelligence? They worked with that they got. That’s not bending intelligence. You want to complain about the quality of intelligence, knock yourself out, because they got some dámņ quirky intelligence and I’m not happy about that. But I’d rather they put me on orange alert and make protect me than stay at yellow and say “my bad” when another building blows up because they didn’t act on intelligence. Seriously, think about it, they either go overboard and get yelled at, or they do too little, something happens, and they get yelled at.
Call that justified if you like, and I’ll respectfully disagree. But don’t insult my intelligence by claiming no lies have been told.
Not insulting your intelligence. Just telling you no lies have been told.
The families of the thousands of Iraqis killed since March might just possibly beg to differ on that.
Thousands? THOUSANDS? Well, I’ll dispute that those deaths were caused by George Bush, but, ok, compare that to the TENS of THOUSANDS killed by Saddam.
The families of those killed after Bush dared insurgents to “bring ’em on” might humbly beg to differ on that
Oh please. Draw me a line…a direct correlation. I’m sure the insurgents were sitting in their spider holes thinking, “Ok, if Bush doesn’t taunt us, we’ll give in peacefully. But if he says Bring Em On, we’ll go and kill Iraqis! Spread the word.” What a joke.
And the thousands of Iraqis thanking Bush and army because their children aren’t being raped and killed would, and have, been loudly differing with your point of view.
I vaguely recall the musem-theft numbers being downgraded somewhat — not to the extent you claim here, but I’m willing to chalk that up to bad memory on my part. My apologies — it was one of the first examples that popped out of my head, and shouldn’t have been.
According to Spinsanity, which I just checked, initial reports put it at 170,000 artifacts stolen, and says that the number was drastically lower, with 33 significant objects missing. That’s where I got that 30-soemthing number from. I don’t knoe how many are truly missing, but another article says 11,000. Which is still significant, granted.
However, the difference is, despite the Bush administration’s insistence on making it an either/or question, it’s possible to do both: you can devote further study while taking action in the face of the evidence we have. If even half of the evidence facing us is true, we should have cut fossil fuel emissions way the hëll back a decade or two ago — at this point it’s a question of limiting the damage, not preventing it.
And why do you think they’re not? I guess I’m just asking for a link so I can see this for myself.
The longer we wait, however, the less prevention we’re going to get. Lest we forget, some industry folks with close ties to the Bush administration have been quoted outright as saying that all of this data about millions of years is bunk, because “we know the Earth is only six thousand years old.”
I can provide a reference to that quote if you like, though it may be a day or two. That’s the sort of mentality running the country.
I don’t disbelieve you, beacuse as we both know, people say the wildest things, but yeah, I’d like to see a link. But still, “people with ties to Bush…” Lest we forget, Enron had a heck of a lot of ties to Clinton, and much of their malfeasance occured under his watch (ever look into the German branch that Clinton forced through?) but nobody ever points those ties out, because “ties” is meaningless.
Seriously … there’s nothing about this administration’s actions or attitude that bothers you? You think the country’s been perfectly justified in all of its actions both domestic and foreign?
If so, I’m stuck scratching my head. I absolutely don’t get it.
Yeah, I dislike the immigration policy. I dislike the medicare policy. I dislike the spending.
But the one thing I’m not upset about is the justified war with Iraq. And I have to admit I’m flummoxed by people who hate the man so much that they’re willing to ignore the good that has come out of getting rid of a murdering rapist.
Tim (Hi again, Tim!) writes:
As for Kerry in general, though — wish I could get excited about him. I’m not, at least not yet. I prefer Dean, and hope he makes a contest of it in NH.
Me too! But for different reasons.
YYEEEAEAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!!!
It’s the ‘never cry wolf’ syndrome at work. They (and the right for their issues) have screamed so long and so loud at the stupidest things that when a good question does arise, the general public thinks “ho-hum, another trumped up charge.”
Exactly. The combination of ideologues on both sides have lowered the level of debate.
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
No. We can argue semantics. II don’t know the exact quote, but they said that “British intelligence claims that…” and that wasn’t a lie. And when they found out that the British intelligence may have been wrong, they said it was a mistake to put that in the speech. Besides, as I’ve said before, even the Clinton administration believed that Iraq was sniffing for uranium. That’s not a lie.
Then this was incompetence. You simply don’t use intelligence of such questionable origins (and it WAS quite questionable and known so at the time) in a major policy speech. Doesn’t matter if previous presidents did that kind of thing; aren;t you supposed to be better than that?
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor. Yes, WMDs were a reason. Yes, intelligence that turned out to be untrue was a reason, and YES, LIBERATING THE PEOPLE WAS A REASON. Why this is impossible for people to beleive is beyond me…do they hate George Bush so much that if he helped an old lady cross the street they would accuse him of vote-fishing and stealing her purse?
I see you’re starting to understand the thought-processes of the “BUSH-HITLER” Left.
I find it interesting that almost everyone who’s posted here espousing a right-leaning point of view also seems to be an illiterate cretin.
Who says you can’t judge people by the company they keep.
Randal and I go back and forth some more. Sorry for what I expect will be some considerable length here.
Me:
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
Randal:
No. We can argue semantics.
Isn’t that exactly what you condemn Clinton for? Based on the exact text of the question Clinton was asked under oath (and the infamous “depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” line), Clinton did not lie.
But hey, you want semantics, let’s go for it. The exact quote Bush used is:
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
“Has learned.” Not “claims.” Given that the charge is at this point demonstrably false, so is Bush’s statement.
And last I checked, lying before Congress is explicitly mentioned as an impeachable act.
You’ve said you consider the war justified. That is your right. How you can claim with a straight face that everything we did to get there has been totally aboveboard and legit, however, makes me wonder which of us has dropped into an alternate universe.
Here’s what I see (limited to 4 items, as we both have other time commitments):
1) Bush’s shrug and “what’s the difference?” when asked about active WMD’s versus WMD programs shows a clear willingness to shift the goalposts.
2) Wolfowitz’s admission that we violated international law gives the rest of the world pretty strong justification to consider us a nation to distrust rather than ally with.
3) Days after 9/11, Rumsfeld wrote a memo saying (among other things), “[Want] best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden.] Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related an not.” That shows a predisposition to use 9/11 against Iraq regardless of whether it was justified to do so.
4) Early in 2002, Bush dismissed concerns about Iraq with a wave and a statement of “Fûçk Saddam, we’re taking him out”. That shows a clear willingness to shape the means towards an already-established end.
You say that “well, a murderous rapist is gone.” I will agree with that, and I applaud the fact that Saddam is out of power.
I do not believe the U.S. did it in the right way or for the right reasons — and for that reason, I will not give Bush credit for getting us into war.
Clinton says Iraq was “sniffing after uranium”, you say. True enough. Nowhere, to my knowledge, has Clinton made the claim that Iraq had active WMD’s ready to go, nor that he was only days away from striking at the U.S. and/or turning the Middle East into a killing field.
Containment was working.
Containment would have continued to
work for some time. It is now clear, after the fact, that there was absolutely no imminent threat — and that, Randal, was the main selling point of the war. Had Bush simply said to Congress, “We should remove Saddam because his people are suffering,” he would not have had the blank-check resolution he got, nor the public support.
Your claims boil down to “the end justifies any and all means.” I do not agree.
But there was no lying on the par of, say, Clinton.
Correct. One person was lying about a consensual sex act that wasn’t really the American people’s business. The other was lying about policy. Funny how the former is always used to justify the latter.
I’m not going to get into “hidden agendas” with you, because they’re not hidden. Read the PNAC statement and our official security strategy unveiled in 2002: they make our agenda quite clear.
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor.
We are, however, able to spell it. 🙂 (Yes, a cheap shot…)
I’m not saying liberating the people wasn’t A reason. I’m saying it wasn’t the reason we were told it had to happen right this instant. I have said that before. You are sidestepping it.
Me:
Yeah, well, there are a lot of other bad bad leaders out there. Funny how we don’t go after them unless they also happen to have resources we’d like.
Randal:
And there it is. Go ahead, let’s talk about all the oil we’ve stolen.
I don’t see a need to. Or would you like to explain how one of the few public documents to come out of Cheney’s 2001 energy task force include detailed maps of Iraqi’s oil fields and lists of people interested in Iraqi oil contracts?
To paraphrase your own argument … I’m not saying oil was THE reason. But to deny it was A reason is to intentionally shut your eyes.
Yes. We’re so greedy. We’ll rebuild the oil wells and build a pipeline like Mr. Burns did and funnel all the precious, precious oil away. We won’t turn it over to those silly, worthless Iraqi people.
Um … you’re kind of going off on a frothing rant here.
Bend intelligence? They worked with that they got.
Let’s just agree to disagree on this one. Plenty of low to mid-level CIA folks are saying that their intelligence had plenty of disclaimers about how speculative everything was, and that said disclaimers were routinely ignored. Perhaps it’s not bending outright, but it’s absolutely cherry-picking and consciously choosing only those facts which fit one’s chosen ends.
But I’d rather they put me on orange alert and make protect me than stay at yellow and say “my bad” when another building blows up because they didn’t act on intelligence.
Ah. And another attempt to link Iraq to 9/11 rears its head.
Randal, Iraq ain’t no threat to us. We didn’t go to orange alert because of them. Those goalposts won’t move.
Not insulting your intelligence. Just telling you no lies have been told.
Sorry, both aren’t possible simultaneously.
Me:
The families of the thousands of Iraqis killed since March might just possibly beg to differ on that.
Randal:
Thousands? THOUSANDS?
Yep. For just one reference, here’s the Christian Science Monitor:
“Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country.”
That was in May. Deaths have obviously continued since then. I think “thousands” is more than accurate — if anything, it may be understating the case.
Well, I’ll dispute that those deaths were caused by George Bush, but, ok, compare that to the TENS of THOUSANDS killed by Saddam.
Over 25 years as opposed to 10 months. Our rate of return is a hëll of a lot higher.
On to global warming. Me:
If even half of the evidence facing us is true, we should have cut fossil fuel emissions way the hëll back a decade or two ago — at this point it’s a question of limiting the damage, not preventing it.
Randal:
And why do you think they’re not?
1) We’ve withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords.
2) We’ve done nothing to change fuel efficiency in this country.
3) The Bush administration has reclassified CO2 as “not a pollutant” so as to claim that pollution levels are dropping.
That’s the short list. Fire away.
Me:
The longer we wait, however, the less prevention we’re going to get. Lest we forget, some industry folks with close ties to the Bush administration have been quoted outright as saying that all of this data about millions of years is bunk, because “we know the Earth is only six thousand years old.”
Randal:
I don’t disbelieve you, beacuse as we both know, people say the wildest things, but yeah, I’d like to see a link.
You may not trust it, since it’s from a site that isn’t exactly predisposed favorably towards Bush, but here’s the relevant quote:
“During the Kyoto climate change negotiations, Leggett candidly asked Ford Motor Company executive John Schiller how opponents of the pact could believe there is no problem with “a world of a billion cars intent on burning all the oil and gas available on the planet?” The executive asserted first that scientists get it wrong when they say fossil fuels have been sequestered underground for eons. The Earth, he said, is just 10,000, not 4.5 billion years old, the age widely accepted by scientists. “
I will concede that Schiller has no direct ties to the Bush administration — I misremembered that part. (I don’t think it’s a particularly big leap to say that the administration is friendly with Ford executives, but there are no direct ties.)
And I have to admit I’m flummoxed by people who hate the man so much that they’re willing to ignore the good that has come out of getting rid of a murdering rapist.
I don’t think we’re ignoring the good; I’m not. We question the reasons, and we question whether the good is outweighed by the ill. Personally, I’m not seeing it.
TWL
BTW:
I do wish we could put aside partisanship and cynicism when it comes to the space program.
We went to the Moon while embroiled in Vietnam and while near race riots were occurring at home. Comparatively speaking, we’re in better shape to consider going to the moon again and perhaps to Mars.
At the end of the day, I’d rather have a President who lied about his private sex life while having a nation that was secure, well-off, and friendly with the rest of the world, than a President who lied about WMDs while leaving us with a shattered economy, a gaping deficit, and most of our allies pìššëd øff at us.
Why some folks cannot grasp this simple fact is beyond me.
And I have to admit I’m flummoxed by people who hate the man so much that they’re willing to ignore the good that has come out of getting rid of a murdering rapist.
See, I find this position rather sad, in a way.
You defend the war in Iraq by noting the good that came of it, rather than the way in which it was justified and fought.
People defend the dropping of nukes on Japan because it ended WWII quicker and supposedly saved lives. Such great justification.
I wonder how many around the world are getting cancer today as a result of it.
Doesn’t sound so justifiable in the end, does it?
I wonder why the hëll we have such an interest in Saddam when there are greater threats in the world.
Again, N. Korea comes to mind, but no Republican is keen on bombing their áššëš to kingdom come.
I do wish we could put aside partisanship and cynicism when it comes to the space program.
I certainly would if I knew it was something more than a political ploy.
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor. Yes, WMDs were a reason. Yes, intelligence that turned out to be untrue was a reason, and YES, LIBERATING THE PEOPLE WAS A REASON. Why this is impossible for people to beleive is beyond me…do they hate George Bush so much that if he helped an old lady cross the street they would accuse him of vote-fishing and stealing her purse? That’s where I’m scratching my head.
Well, I suspect Bush’s simple desire to help people is insincere — then again, I suspect just about everything that man says and does as insincere. Only by running against a man who does not emote can a man incapable of convincingly conveying emotion be elected president.
Anyway, I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with the motives for going to war with Iraq; every bad thing that’s been said about Saddam Hussein is probably true. My problem is the timing. Why are we so het up to go help hundreds of thousands of people whom we’ve let suffer for decades, ignoring the hundreds of millions of other suffering people not from Iraq, while we aren’t really in a position to do so? We, as a country, aren’t flush. We just paid the rent and have to wait two weeks before we can spend any money again; invading Iraq is the shopping trip that should wait until next Friday.
So, when unemployment is high and there are many, many Americans in need, how can we afford 80 billion dollars today for a war that honestly could and should have waited? I partly agree that the UN has proven themselves worthless by refusing to enforce their own resolutions, but for the US to go after Iraq without international support is just stupid right now.
Screw the morality or ethics of it; judging the morality of a political maneuver is like judging the height of an iceberg — you can easily measure what’s on the surface, and you can see below the surface enough to make a guess, but you have no idea just how far down it really goes. No, I question the fiscal responsibility of this. When I’ve got bills to pay at home, I don’t go spend all of my money on something I don’t really need. If I do, I get hit with an overdraft fee and my power and phone get shut off. Is the White House going without hot water until the war is over? I sincerely doubt it.
“People defend the dropping of nukes on Japan because it ended WWII quicker and supposedly saved lives. Such great justification.”
And many of the people who say so are the Japanese themselves. At least among my friends over there. A couple of whom are old enough to have lived through part of those times. And a few more whose parents did a good job of filling them in on the unpleasantness of the times. A conventional invasion would have resulted in far more deaths on both sides.
As for a blockade, again, many civilians would have died of various deprivations before the fanatical commanders would have considered surrendering. If at all.
If a Democrat is elected this year, that scuttles Hillary’s run in ’08.
Hillary won’t be the first woman president. The Conservative establishment never liked Bill, but they hate Hillary. The first woman president will be a Republican.
Interesting that no one mentioned the true reason Dubya is likely to win, God help us all. Money. He has $100 million already, and will likely have have twice that beford it’s over.
The only Democrat with a chance is Kerry, since he’s married to Teresa Heinz and has access to the fortune she inherited when Sen. Heinz was killed in a plane crash (years before she married Kerry).
Everything else is irrelevant.
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
“Has learned.” Not “claims.” Given that the charge is at this point demonstrably false, so is Bush’s statement.
**I find it interesting that almost everyone who’s posted here espousing a right-leaning point of view also seems to be an illiterate cretin.
Who says you can’t judge people by the company they keep.**
A comforting belief, no doubt. Hush now lad, grownups are speaking.
It’s not false, it just concerned the Congo:
Unless you think the Guardian is pro-Bush.
Interesting read — but step back for a moment. If the intelligence were entirely legit and the problem was that everyone had leapt to the wrong conclusion about which African nation we meant, don’t you think everyone in the administration (and the CIA) would be absolutely trumpeting that fact to say “see, we were right after all?”
Instead, we’ve got Tenet falling on his sword and coming forward to say “gee, yeah, I suppose we should have fought harder to get that phrase out.”
Nobody is saying “we stand by that claim and here’s why.” Everyone backpedaled.
Based on that, it seems reasonable to suggest that the statement (or at least its implication) is now acknowledged as false. Perhaps the Congo news is true, but it doesn’t seem to be what they meant.
As Roger Tang’s pointed out above, seems we’re talking about incompetence of one facet or another. Take your pick which one, I s’pose.
TWL
\\I find it interesting that almost everyone who’s posted here espousing a right-leaning point of view also seems to be an illiterate cretin.
Who says you can’t judge people by the company they keep.\\ – some arrogant áššhølë.
Well, considering that most of the people expousing the Democratic Party Line on this thread appear to be arrogant semi-literate psuedo intellectual I could probably say the same about them.
But I won’t. Why?
Because while I may be an áššhølë, I’m not as big an áššhølë as you, or most of the so called ‘liberals'(who seem more stridant and reactionary than any so called ‘Reactionary’) posting here.
In a somewhat PAD related note, has anyone else noticed how many commentaries this morning compared Howard Dean’s post caucas meltdown to Bruce Banner right at that moment before he actually turns into the Hulk?
I don’t see a need to. Or would you like to explain how one of the few public documents to come out of Cheney’s 2001 energy task force include detailed maps of Iraqi’s oil fields and lists of people interested in Iraqi oil contracts?
i explain it that Cheney was doing a survey of oil supplies. There were similar documents for Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.
“What Mylroie says about the “Foreign Suitors” document is correct. The Judicial Watch link still works as of this morning, and as you can easily see, the document, dated March 5, 2001, has nothing to do with post-war planning. It is merely a list of existing and proposed “Iraqi Oil & Gas Projects” as of that date. And it includes projects in Iraq by countries that obviously would not have been part of any “post-war” plans of the Bush administration, such as, for example, Vietnam.”
Interesting read — but step back for a moment. If the intelligence were entirely legit and the problem was that everyone had leapt to the wrong conclusion about which African nation we meant, don’t you think everyone in the administration (and the CIA) would be absolutely trumpeting that fact to say “see, we were right after all?”
Unless they think there’s no profit in bringing the subject up again. I could use the same arguement about Clinton’s failure to condemn Bush’s use of intelligence.
I don’t see a need to. Or would you like to explain how one of the few public documents to come out of Cheney’s 2001 energy task force include detailed maps of Iraqi’s oil fields and lists of people interested in Iraqi oil contracts?
i explain it that Cheney was doing a survey of oil supplies. There were similar documents for Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.
Yes, but the UAE and Saudi Arabia are friendly nations (well, except for that whole “9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudis” thing, but let’s ignore that — everyone else seems to). Those are oil reserves we can reasonably expect to have some ability to talk about with the parties involved.
Iraq was completely off the table at the time, and there’s no reason to act otherwise unless the task force had the expectation it would be back on the table in the near future.
Why they might have had such an expectation I leave as an exercise to the reader.
TWL
Interesting read — but step back for a moment. If the intelligence were entirely legit and the problem was that everyone had leapt to the wrong conclusion about which African nation we meant, don’t you think everyone in the administration (and the CIA) would be absolutely trumpeting that fact to say “see, we were right after all?”
Unless they think there’s no profit in bringing the subject up again.
No profit in putting to rest one of the single biggest accusations made about this administration’s truthfulness? No profit in putting to rest a scandal that’s involved the outing of a CIA agent for political purposes?
Gee, guess you’re right. It’s so much easier to take advantage of the country’s lack of attention span and simply manufacture some event elsewhere.
That mystifies me. If someone falsely accuses me of lying and I can find evidence showing I was telling the truth, I’ll shout it from the hilltops until I’m satisfied everyone realizes the accusations were wrong. Guess that’s why I’m not in charge.
• 
You know, I think we’ve all learned something during the last few years…Democrats have learned how easy it is to get caught up in the craziness of thinking a political opponent is the epitome of evil and Rpublicans have learned just how unappealing that looks.
It amazes me that Democrats have repeated so many of the excesses of the right wingers in their quest to send Bush home. The sheer ugliness of the spectacle has turned off a lot of folks who might otherwise have been sympathetic. It has, admitedly, stirred the blood of the radical left but they are not sufficiant for victory.
If the Moveon.org gang don’t learn to tone it down they will be an albatross around the neck of whoever the eventual candidate is.
BTW, howcum nobody is predicting teh winner of the caucas? No guts, no glory…I’m going out on a limb and predicting a surprise come from behind victory for Gephart. Not that he will be the nominee or anything.
And by gephart I actually meant Kerry, with Edwards close behind. yeah, THAT’S the ticket..
Wow, did Dean fold up like a cheap tent or what?
Randal writes…
There was no lying to the public [about the reasons for war — TWL]
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
Now, if you mean the 9/11 links … it’s all been tricks with mirrors and lies of omission. I agree in that I don’t know of any demonstrably false statements, but lying by implication is still up there on the list of Things I’d Like My Leaders To Not Do.
And as that was never the sole primary reason, it’s a non-starter.
Wrong. It was THE primary reason given to the public for months. After we didn’t find weapons, it turned into “well, we liberated the Iraqi people.” Then it turned into “now we can get troops out of harm’s way in Saudi Arabia” (which, let’s remember, was one of bin Laden’s stated goals in the first place). Now it’s just “Saddam was a bad bad man and it’s good that we got rid of him.”
Yeah, well, there are a lot of other bad bad leaders out there. Funny how we don’t go after them unless they also happen to have resources we’d like.
Look — the PNAC documents with the plan for toppling Saddam have been out there since ’98. It’s no secret that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. wanted Saddam gone gone gone, and it certainly looks like they were more than willing to bend intelligence to make that happen.
Call that justified if you like, and I’ll respectfully disagree. But don’t insult my intelligence by claiming no lies have been told.
Seems to me the war STOPPED the killing of Iraqi citizens.
The families of the thousands of Iraqis killed since March might just possibly beg to differ on that.
Regardless, your use of the word “letting” is obscene. Bush never LET anyone get killed.
The families of those killed after Bush dared insurgents to “bring ’em on” might humbly beg to differ on that.
I vaguely recall the musem-theft numbers being downgraded somewhat — not to the extent you claim here, but I’m willing to chalk that up to bad memory on my part. My apologies — it was one of the first examples that popped out of my head, and shouldn’t have been.
On global warming, however…
Not like THIS is a new issue. Some scientists have been saying global warming is a myth for a long, long time.
Yep. About as many as those who say evolution’s bunk. (Have you heard of the “Steve List”?)
In both cases, the debate is over the specifics of the process (and in global warming’s case, over exactly how big a temperature change is at issue here). Nobody with any credibility is denying the basic trends.
And since you are so passionate about incontrovertible evidence, I expect you agree 100% that it should be studied more.
Absolutely.
However, the difference is, despite the Bush administration’s insistence on making it an either/or question, it’s possible to do both: you can devote further study while taking action in the face of the evidence we have. If even half of the evidence facing us is true, we should have cut fossil fuel emissions way the hëll back a decade or two ago — at this point it’s a question of limiting the damage, not preventing it.
The longer we wait, however, the less prevention we’re going to get. Lest we forget, some industry folks with close ties to the Bush administration have been quoted outright as saying that all of this data about millions of years is bunk, because “we know the Earth is only six thousand years old.”
I can provide a reference to that quote if you like, though it may be a day or two. That’s the sort of mentality running the country.
On two other issues…
I confess ignorance on these two issues, but I’m sure your non-biased take on and understanding of the issues is enlightening.
Oh, I make no bones about being biased. The feelings I have about the last three years are deeply rooted and very passionate: they ain’t going away easily and they ain’t easily stifled.
I’d like to think, however, that I can admit error and correct my arguments in the face of an error. I’d also like to think my fifteen years of Usenet experience is evidence of that.
In other words: sure, I’m biased. That doesn’t make me wrong. 🙂
Seriously … there’s nothing about this administration’s actions or attitude that bothers you? You think the country’s been perfectly justified in all of its actions both domestic and foreign?
If so, I’m stuck scratching my head. I absolutely don’t get it.
TWL
It amazes me that Democrats have repeated so many of the excesses of the right wingers in their quest to send Bush home. The sheer ugliness of the spectacle has turned off a lot of folks who might otherwise have been sympathetic.
Change that to “a lot of Democrats” and I’ll wholeheartedly agree.
Personally, I oppose this administration because it’s not been particularly competent. Their use of intelligence circumvented the vetting process that separates the reliable from the unreliable sources (which led to the WMD imbroglio), their unpreparedness for running Iraq once the war was over (the looting, their losing the Iraqui army [who would have been ideal in implementing policy], their inability to control terrorist infiltration (terrorists operate quite well in a chaotic situation’ they’re drawn to them. Invasions will create chaos. Duh), and so forth makes it quite clear that this administration has no business running the country.
And we’re not even getting into the abuses of civil liberties and the economy….
Whoa! Nice to see that there’s somewhere where Tim Lynch still lurks. Well, I guess this is a lot shorter than writing reviews.
Anyway, I’m going to avoid most of the political issue, since I can only rehash what Tim’s been saying, but I wanted to let you all know about another global warming twist…
It seems NASA will be scaling back all programs not related to the new Moon-Then-Mars mission. Now, I’m not saying that manned missions in space again is a bad thing; anything but. I’m completely in favor. But when they scale back everything else, that includes all the global warming research:
“Setting up operations on the moon is affordable, as long as it is taken as a primary goal for the American space program and not larded onto all of the other things that NASA does,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), chairman of the House subcommittee on space and aeronautics. As an example, he cited NASA’s efforts to assess global warming, saying: “Over the years, we have spent tens of billions of dollars of NASA money proving global warming is occurring, which I think is suspect and debatable.”
Whee.
(Source: http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003002.html)
In retrospect, I should have known Dean was in trouble when Gore endorsed him. The man is the freaking Angel of Political Death. Even the very Gods are against him–he gives a speech on global warming and the temperature drops to the point where street urchins are making ice cream on the sidewalks.
I didn’t even vote for the guy and I’m sort of wishing he would catch something like a break.
My own response to “Where’s the outrage?”
The American public *should* be outraged. Livid! But it’s not as if it’s simply hearing these news bits and shrugging them off. No, it’s the fault of the media here. When george pushed hard to derail *any* investigation into those attacks, the press found something *else* to report that day. The same holds true for Paul O’Neil, and the subsequent “whistle blowers” who have stepped out and backed him up — instead, the media is all about Michael and Brittney, Brittney and Michael.
“Liberal Media” my áršë.
Clinton got his knob polished, and that’s impeachable. But when Dubya lies, people DIE, and that’s okay, because violence is far more tasteful and acceptable than sex.
This is just an excuse for Iowa to get more attention than its population warrants.
Now there’s a silly and baseless comment.
After the BS in California this past year, I don’t think anybody can say that any single state’s population gets more attention than it deserves.
I lived in Iowa during the 2000 election, and I recall how close the race was (as it was in a number of states).
The fact remains that the caucus allows people to get together and rally behind those they wish to see in office.
Of course, if Iowa means so little, you can pitch it from the Electoral College, along with 20 other “meaningless” states (New Hampshire immediately springs to mind).
Results from the Iowa caucus are apparently in.
Gephardt is already said to be dropping out of the race after his 4th-place finish (hmm, I didn’t even know that he won the Iowa caucus in ’88).
Again, it does say something about the process though.
I mean, here was Dean, going into this as the front runner, the only guy making headlines. And he finished third.
Amusing.
I told my liberal father-in-law this summer that Edwards scared me, as a conservative, more than any of the others. Why? He is Bill Clinton 2.0!
Oh, and I love that “No one can beat Bush” attitude! I hope a lot of Dems think that and stay home on election day.
Well, looks like we’re at a four person race; Kerry, Edwards, Dean, and Clark. With his Iowa standing, the smartest thing for Gephardt to do is bail now (assuming the candidates do recall the more important thing is to beat Bush). New Hampshire and the following big week (I believe 7 primaries) should knock out another one or two of the four.
My thinking on November? It really does get down, for a re-election, to the question “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” (with a side order of “And do you think the incumbant’s opponent will improve things or not?” As a ridiculous sample of the latter, if it were Bush-Sharpton, I’d be checking out my company’s foreign offices despite my intention to vote against Bush).
So. My advice to the Democrats is to remember James Carville/Bill Clinton’s campaign against Bush Sr.. Namely “It’s the economy stupid”. Pick 1-3 things to focus on, and just drive those puppies home. Said focus needs to be couched in how it affects individuals…and how you plan to fix them (a big weakness of candidates like Bob Dole, and to a degree Al Gore, was the feeling that they felt they were the candidate because, well, it was their turn. The voters need to think *they* *want* you to be President, not that you want to be President.)
The other bit is to remember the general polarization of the electorate i.e. the red states vs. blue states. Your commercials and campaign statements have to get people on the fence, or only somewhat committed to Bush, to *think*. Ask questions, to which the answers are shocking (jobs lost, last time we had civil liberty attacks ala Ashcroft, etc.) so that people have to consider things rather than just blowing them off as propaganda.
For example, while the winning MoveOn ad isn’t too bad, most of the finalists were terrible in that they preached to the choir. You’ve got the core anti-Bush vote already, with people motivated to go to the polls. You’ve got to work on the ones who aren’t yet or as convinced what a horrible job this administration has done.
Assorted comments:
1) PAD, I thought the “where’s the outrage” catchphrase was trademarked by Dole? It didn’t work when Clinton was committing perjury in office, I don’t know why it would work now.
2) The last time a Senator won the Presidency was 1960. Someone asked, possibly rhetorically, but there ya go.
3) I’m all in favor of a true leftist Democratic renaissance, because it would mean Republican victories for 20 years.
Y’know, come to think of it, there’s a very strong possible campaign aspect that the Dems could use.
Namely, is Bush a Republican a Republican can be proud of? Treatment of people actually in the armed services? Stomping on basic civil liberties? Blowing up the deficeit (sp?)? There are already some cracks in Bush’s armor from the right, where it’s starting to be recognized that this admin isn’t driven by traditional conservative views but by who’s buying them off and the odd neocon/religious fanatics (Wolfowitz (sp?) and Ashcroft).
It seems NASA will be scaling back all programs not related to the new Moon-Then-Mars mission.
And the three states which are the centers for robotic and manned research are California (with a ton of electoral votes), Texas, and Florida.
Probably a coincidence.
PAD
Oh, and I love that “No one can beat Bush” attitude! I hope a lot of Dems think that and stay home on election day.
I never said “No one can beat Bush.” I said I don’t think anyone at the Iowa Caucus can. I’m not sure why, but I have this gut feeling that Clark might be able to. Although even that would be problematic.
Notice that the Clintons have carefully made sure not to ally themselves with anyone. I think it may be because they’re politically savvy enough not to want to be tied to a loser…which would translate into their thinking none of these guys is a winner. That they’ve basically written off 2004 and are looking ahead to 2008.
PAD
And the three states which are the centers for robotic and manned research are California (with a ton of electoral votes), Texas, and Florida.
Don’t remind me. This is what I don’t like about President Bush–he says the words I’ve wanted a president to say for as long as I can remember, rekindles the dream that I thought dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and it’s still a political power play. Everything’s politics with him–no dream, no hope, no morality, no humanity, just expediency as far as the eye can see.
My President, whom I voted for and will vote for, has a shot at losing the Presidency.
That said, whomever wins the Democratic primaries has a narrow shot at getting the Presidency. In order for one to win, the President has to make a mistake.
No matter how good any one of them is, the President in his current state isn’t presenting a poor enough position to be beaten so handily.
One problem is that most of the Democrats have large, glaring weaknesses.
Dean would be the most apropriate nominee and so far is the one most likely to get nominated thus far. Dean is as far to the left and even farther to the left as Bush is to the right. It is important that in a sense that the Democrat and Republican be far enough to apart to signify the differences between the parties. I shudder if Dean wins. His rhetoric is dangerous. He’s like Governor GW Bush in 2000 only more pro-active… that makes the wierd things he says more aggressive and provocative.
Unless the President screwed royally former Governor Howard Dean would have no chance of winning. He has as much foreign policy experience as pre-President GW Bush. I doubt Texas Governor Bush could win a Presidential bid against incumbent Bill Clinton if HE could have ran for a third term. I doubt former Vermont Governor Dean can take the current incumbent.
Lieberman is the most centrist of the Democrats in the current bunch. That’s why he won’t get nominated in a Democratic Party that is slowly shifting left. I think in an election he’d have the best chance against the President, being the most proper and the least negative. That’s also a dangerous position, because right or wrong win or lose the closer the Democratic candidate is in ideological position to his opponent the closer actual party-lines get blurred. Strong competition is important for the integrity of both parties.
Clark is a waffler. He can’t make up his mind. He refuses to answer hypothetical questions. He fought an air war in Europe, not a land war, and we still had three guys captured. They were freed by Jesse Jackson of all people. Some military genius. He was also not very well respected by his contemporaries and peers at the time or the then-current President, Bill Clinton. That makes me wonder what they saw that was so bad.
Gephardt I can’t respect. He misses out on voting and doing the job his constituents elected him to do. He avoids performing in the very profession that supposedly earns his bloody paycheck and he wants a promotion. SCREW HIM!
I feel sorry for Gephardt, Edwards, Lieberman, Kerry, Clark, and Dean for having to take Sharpton, that woman, and Kucinich seriously as candidates for the Presidency.
CJA
Notice that the Clintons have carefully made sure not to ally themselves with anyone. I think it may be because they’re politically savvy enough not to want to be tied to a loser…which would translate into their thinking none of these guys is a winner.
More likely hoping. If a Democrat is elected this year, that scuttles Hillary’s run in ’08.
As for Clark, he’s got military experience, but keeps flip-flopping on his positions, and isn’t an effective speaker.
Whereas Kerry has the military experience, political experience, and has a commanding public presence. He can pick Edwards as his running mate, thus creating a solid North/South coalition. And he’ll tear Bush apart in debates… he has a command of policy matters as well as personal charisma (which Gore didn’t). So I’m not sure why you’re so down on Kerry, at least.
I’m down on Kerry because he resorted to using some f-cking language in his Rolling Stone article…. I think in order to get attention or seem more relevent or something.
You can’t sell me on the notion of his politcal charisma if the most notable thing he said to Rolling Stone is the F-word.
Also, on Clark the waffler:
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200401190949.asp
Politicians have a tendency to change positions, I accept that. However, doing it this early in his supposed political career (not to mention starting a career by aiming for the top spot) is a scary thing. It scares me. That and to start any career by running for the top position stinks of arrogance to me. At least everyone else is a former Governor or a current legislator, and that includes the incumbent.
CJA
And the impression I’ve gotten is that many of the people who have worked with him hate his guts, so I don’t know that he will have big appeal among the enlisted men and women.
Even President Clinton hates his guts from what I read. And check this out: [Clark] reportedly circumvented both Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Henry Shelton on numerous occasions in speaking directly to the media and the president. In fact, the situation got so bad that Gen. Clark was relieved of his NATO position several months before his term ended, and in a major snub, neither Mr. Cohen nor Gen. Shelton attended his retirement ceremony.
The source: http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004060
Read read read.
“I’m down on Kerry because he resorted to using some f-cking language in his Rolling Stone article”
I find that trait admirable. It sets him apart from the hypocrite who called a reporter a “major league a**hole” — the same hypocrite who was so “offended” about Kerry’s comments in the magazine.
Yeah, him.
Privately I doubt the Democrats will do it either, any of them. And as said earlier, I think the Clintons will be quietly happy about that, as it secures Hilary’s clear shot in 2008. But this isn’t necessarily as clear as that.
Dean I honestly think hasn’t a prayer of knocking out Dubbya in November, and quite simply because the message of “I’m anti-Bush”, although highly principled, means nothing to an electorate which is being taught to be scared, is being conned into a system of electronic voting which is being slowly rigged, and is receiving mixed economic messages about their future. To connect with Democrats and disgrunted Republicans you’d have to have someone who could wreck Bush in a debate (to be fair anyone can do that), beat him convincingly on the national security issue, and have a positive plan for America that is positive for the candidate, not necessarily negative against Bush. Elections don’t win like that. Lastly they’ll have to stick at the centre. Gore won in the centre, remember, and following Bush’s tactic of running into an extreme isn’t a winner.
So is Clark the man to do this? Possibly, but he hasn’t motivated as many people and hasn’t got the money Dean has. With a few more upsets (Iowa means nothing at this stage) this could yet swing his way, as the real campaign issues start to make themselves felt and the neocons start playing really nasty. He *can* best Bush on national security, intelligence, leadership, background, and appealing to North and South alike, Dean cannot (imho).
Will he get that far? I doubt it but anything can happen, and although I’m desperate for a Hilary run in 2008, I’m terrified of what another four years of the neocon extremists will mean to America and the world.
Incidentally, I don’t know if anyone’s been reading Boondocks lately, but they’ve been running a very funny series of strips comparing the Democrats to the Justice League, beginning with comparing Gephardt to Aquaman (“because nobody knows what he does and nobody cares.”)
You put forth a very good question in the OP. “Where’s the outrage?”
Personally, I think it’s the leftist’ fault. It’s the ‘never cry wolf’ syndrome at work. They (and the right for their issues) have screamed so long and so loud at the stupidest things that when a good question does arise, the general public thinks “ho-hum, another trumped up charge.”
As for who can beat Bush? None of these guys without a GW implosion. I think Clark would be a hoot to run, simply because making the guy self-destruct would be so easy. His “character” is non-existant.
Gary Trudow wouldn’t want Clark to win because he’s already used the Waffle as a presidential icon in Doonesbury.
Beginning to wonder if they’ll try to draft Hillary, despite her probable plans for 2008.
2008 is going to be the most frightening election ever held.
I find that trait admirable. It sets him apart from the hypocrite who called a reporter a “major league ahole” — the same hypocrite who was so “offended” about Kerry’s comments in the magazine.**
It’s admirable to want attention that badly? In my book someone who wants attention so badly that he’d say any ol’ thing is usually listed under “pathetic” not “admirable”.
He did win Iowa, and I assume that’s not because he called them all F-heads or F-wits.
Personally, calling that guy a “major-league áššhølë”, not in an interview, but in an assumed private moment seemed… honest.
CJA
I find that trait admirable. It sets him apart from the hypocrite who called a reporter a “major league áhølë” — the same hypocrite who was so “offended” about Kerry’s comments in the magazine.
It’s admirable to want attention that badly? In my book someone who wants attention so badly that he’d say any ol’ thing is usually listed under “pathetic” not “admirable”.
[some snipped]
Personally, calling that guy a “major-league áššhølë”, not in an interview, but in an assumed private moment seemed… honest.
I think you may have missed his point, at least in part.
I don’t think I have much of an opinion either way on Kerry’s swearing in Rolling Stone — but the point above was that for Bush to decry Kerry taking such a seemingly low road while referring to reporters as áššhølëš was more than a little hypocritical.
That’s not to mention that Bush is always talking about his faith and how the love of Jesus is what guides him in all of his choices. Seems to me someone who actually paid attention to Jesus’ teachings generally doesn’t go around calling people “major-league áššhølëš.” On the other hand, it’s been a while since I’ve read the Bible — perhaps I’m forgetting the Book of Smackdowns. (Verse Yo:Mama, to be specific.)
And from what I remember of it, I don’t think Kerry’s statement was proof that he’d “say any ol’ thing.” It’s not like he started swearing for no reason — he said that he didn’t expect Bush to f**k the war up this badly. Perhaps an ill-chosen word, but not out of line with the sentiment.
As for Kerry in general, though — wish I could get excited about him. I’m not, at least not yet. I prefer Dean, and hope he makes a contest of it in NH.
TWL
Tim writes…
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
No. We can argue semantics. II don’t know the exact quote, but they said that “British intelligence claims that…” and that wasn’t a lie. And when they found out that the British intelligence may have been wrong, they said it was a mistake to put that in the speech. Besides, as I’ve said before, even the Clinton administration believed that Iraq was sniffing for uranium. That’s not a lie.
Now, if you mean the 9/11 links … it’s all been tricks with mirrors and lies of omission. I agree in that I don’t know of any demonstrably false statements, but lying by implication is still up there on the list of Things I’d Like My Leaders To Not Do.
Good God…if it looks like a duck…Ok, I did say that there was probably guilt by omission. But there was no lying on the par of, say, Clinton.
Wrong. It was THE primary reason given to the public for months.
No, it was a reason, not the primary reason. Now, I’m not saying you’re one of those people, but a lot of people opposed to the war can’t even seem to agree what the hidden agenda was. Was it:
A) finishing daddy’s war?
B) all about the oil?
C) take over the middle east?
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor. Yes, WMDs were a reason. Yes, intelligence that turned out to be untrue was a reason, and YES, LIBERATING THE PEOPLE WAS A REASON. Why this is impossible for people to beleive is beyond me…do they hate George Bush so much that if he helped an old lady cross the street they would accuse him of vote-fishing and stealing her purse? That’s where I’m scratching my head.
After we didn’t find weapons, it turned into “well, we liberated the Iraqi people.” Then it turned into “now we can get troops out of harm’s way in Saudi Arabia” (which, let’s remember, was one of bin Laden’s stated goals in the first place). Now it’s just “Saddam was a bad bad man and it’s good that we got rid of him.”
Check the dates. It’s always been about the people.
Yeah, well, there are a lot of other bad bad leaders out there. Funny how we don’t go after them unless they also happen to have resources we’d like.
And there it is. Go ahead, let’s talk about all the oil we’ve stolen. Yes. We’re so greedy. We’ll rebuild the oil wells and build a pipeline like Mr. Burns did and funnel all the precious, precious oil away. We won’t turn it over to those silly, worthless Iraqi people. Prove it.
Look — the PNAC documents with the plan for toppling Saddam have been out there since ’98. It’s no secret that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. wanted Saddam gone gone gone, and it certainly looks like they were more than willing to bend intelligence to make that happen.
Bend intelligence? They worked with that they got. That’s not bending intelligence. You want to complain about the quality of intelligence, knock yourself out, because they got some dámņ quirky intelligence and I’m not happy about that. But I’d rather they put me on orange alert and make protect me than stay at yellow and say “my bad” when another building blows up because they didn’t act on intelligence. Seriously, think about it, they either go overboard and get yelled at, or they do too little, something happens, and they get yelled at.
Call that justified if you like, and I’ll respectfully disagree. But don’t insult my intelligence by claiming no lies have been told.
Not insulting your intelligence. Just telling you no lies have been told.
The families of the thousands of Iraqis killed since March might just possibly beg to differ on that.
Thousands? THOUSANDS? Well, I’ll dispute that those deaths were caused by George Bush, but, ok, compare that to the TENS of THOUSANDS killed by Saddam.
The families of those killed after Bush dared insurgents to “bring ’em on” might humbly beg to differ on that
Oh please. Draw me a line…a direct correlation. I’m sure the insurgents were sitting in their spider holes thinking, “Ok, if Bush doesn’t taunt us, we’ll give in peacefully. But if he says Bring Em On, we’ll go and kill Iraqis! Spread the word.” What a joke.
And the thousands of Iraqis thanking Bush and army because their children aren’t being raped and killed would, and have, been loudly differing with your point of view.
I vaguely recall the musem-theft numbers being downgraded somewhat — not to the extent you claim here, but I’m willing to chalk that up to bad memory on my part. My apologies — it was one of the first examples that popped out of my head, and shouldn’t have been.
According to Spinsanity, which I just checked, initial reports put it at 170,000 artifacts stolen, and says that the number was drastically lower, with 33 significant objects missing. That’s where I got that 30-soemthing number from. I don’t knoe how many are truly missing, but another article says 11,000. Which is still significant, granted.
However, the difference is, despite the Bush administration’s insistence on making it an either/or question, it’s possible to do both: you can devote further study while taking action in the face of the evidence we have. If even half of the evidence facing us is true, we should have cut fossil fuel emissions way the hëll back a decade or two ago — at this point it’s a question of limiting the damage, not preventing it.
And why do you think they’re not? I guess I’m just asking for a link so I can see this for myself.
The longer we wait, however, the less prevention we’re going to get. Lest we forget, some industry folks with close ties to the Bush administration have been quoted outright as saying that all of this data about millions of years is bunk, because “we know the Earth is only six thousand years old.”
I can provide a reference to that quote if you like, though it may be a day or two. That’s the sort of mentality running the country.
I don’t disbelieve you, beacuse as we both know, people say the wildest things, but yeah, I’d like to see a link. But still, “people with ties to Bush…” Lest we forget, Enron had a heck of a lot of ties to Clinton, and much of their malfeasance occured under his watch (ever look into the German branch that Clinton forced through?) but nobody ever points those ties out, because “ties” is meaningless.
Seriously … there’s nothing about this administration’s actions or attitude that bothers you? You think the country’s been perfectly justified in all of its actions both domestic and foreign?
If so, I’m stuck scratching my head. I absolutely don’t get it.
Yeah, I dislike the immigration policy. I dislike the medicare policy. I dislike the spending.
But the one thing I’m not upset about is the justified war with Iraq. And I have to admit I’m flummoxed by people who hate the man so much that they’re willing to ignore the good that has come out of getting rid of a murdering rapist.
Tim (Hi again, Tim!) writes:
As for Kerry in general, though — wish I could get excited about him. I’m not, at least not yet. I prefer Dean, and hope he makes a contest of it in NH.
Me too! But for different reasons.
YYEEEAEAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!!!
It’s the ‘never cry wolf’ syndrome at work. They (and the right for their issues) have screamed so long and so loud at the stupidest things that when a good question does arise, the general public thinks “ho-hum, another trumped up charge.”
Exactly. The combination of ideologues on both sides have lowered the level of debate.
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
No. We can argue semantics. II don’t know the exact quote, but they said that “British intelligence claims that…” and that wasn’t a lie. And when they found out that the British intelligence may have been wrong, they said it was a mistake to put that in the speech. Besides, as I’ve said before, even the Clinton administration believed that Iraq was sniffing for uranium. That’s not a lie.
Then this was incompetence. You simply don’t use intelligence of such questionable origins (and it WAS quite questionable and known so at the time) in a major policy speech. Doesn’t matter if previous presidents did that kind of thing; aren;t you supposed to be better than that?
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor. Yes, WMDs were a reason. Yes, intelligence that turned out to be untrue was a reason, and YES, LIBERATING THE PEOPLE WAS A REASON. Why this is impossible for people to beleive is beyond me…do they hate George Bush so much that if he helped an old lady cross the street they would accuse him of vote-fishing and stealing her purse?
I see you’re starting to understand the thought-processes of the “BUSH-HITLER” Left.
I find it interesting that almost everyone who’s posted here espousing a right-leaning point of view also seems to be an illiterate cretin.
Who says you can’t judge people by the company they keep.
Randal and I go back and forth some more. Sorry for what I expect will be some considerable length here.
Me:
Oh, come on. The “uranium” bit in the SOTU was a bald-faced lie; that’s become very, very clear in the six months since Joe Wilson came forward. They knew it was 99% likely to be bûllšhìŧ, and they put it back in the speech anyway. That is a lie.
Randal:
No. We can argue semantics.
Isn’t that exactly what you condemn Clinton for? Based on the exact text of the question Clinton was asked under oath (and the infamous “depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” line), Clinton did not lie.
But hey, you want semantics, let’s go for it. The exact quote Bush used is:
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
“Has learned.” Not “claims.” Given that the charge is at this point demonstrably false, so is Bush’s statement.
And last I checked, lying before Congress is explicitly mentioned as an impeachable act.
You’ve said you consider the war justified. That is your right. How you can claim with a straight face that everything we did to get there has been totally aboveboard and legit, however, makes me wonder which of us has dropped into an alternate universe.
Here’s what I see (limited to 4 items, as we both have other time commitments):
1) Bush’s shrug and “what’s the difference?” when asked about active WMD’s versus WMD programs shows a clear willingness to shift the goalposts.
2) Wolfowitz’s admission that we violated international law gives the rest of the world pretty strong justification to consider us a nation to distrust rather than ally with.
3) Days after 9/11, Rumsfeld wrote a memo saying (among other things), “[Want] best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden.] Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related an not.” That shows a predisposition to use 9/11 against Iraq regardless of whether it was justified to do so.
4) Early in 2002, Bush dismissed concerns about Iraq with a wave and a statement of “Fûçk Saddam, we’re taking him out”. That shows a clear willingness to shape the means towards an already-established end.
You say that “well, a murderous rapist is gone.” I will agree with that, and I applaud the fact that Saddam is out of power.
I do not believe the U.S. did it in the right way or for the right reasons — and for that reason, I will not give Bush credit for getting us into war.
Clinton says Iraq was “sniffing after uranium”, you say. True enough. Nowhere, to my knowledge, has Clinton made the claim that Iraq had active WMD’s ready to go, nor that he was only days away from striking at the U.S. and/or turning the Middle East into a killing field.
Containment was working.
Containment would have continued to
work for some time. It is now clear, after the fact, that there was absolutely no imminent threat — and that, Randal, was the main selling point of the war. Had Bush simply said to Congress, “We should remove Saddam because his people are suffering,” he would not have had the blank-check resolution he got, nor the public support.
Your claims boil down to “the end justifies any and all means.” I do not agree.
But there was no lying on the par of, say, Clinton.
Correct. One person was lying about a consensual sex act that wasn’t really the American people’s business. The other was lying about policy. Funny how the former is always used to justify the latter.
I’m not going to get into “hidden agendas” with you, because they’re not hidden. Read the PNAC statement and our official security strategy unveiled in 2002: they make our agenda quite clear.
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor.
We are, however, able to spell it. 🙂 (Yes, a cheap shot…)
I’m not saying liberating the people wasn’t A reason. I’m saying it wasn’t the reason we were told it had to happen right this instant. I have said that before. You are sidestepping it.
Me:
Yeah, well, there are a lot of other bad bad leaders out there. Funny how we don’t go after them unless they also happen to have resources we’d like.
Randal:
And there it is. Go ahead, let’s talk about all the oil we’ve stolen.
I don’t see a need to. Or would you like to explain how one of the few public documents to come out of Cheney’s 2001 energy task force include detailed maps of Iraqi’s oil fields and lists of people interested in Iraqi oil contracts?
To paraphrase your own argument … I’m not saying oil was THE reason. But to deny it was A reason is to intentionally shut your eyes.
Yes. We’re so greedy. We’ll rebuild the oil wells and build a pipeline like Mr. Burns did and funnel all the precious, precious oil away. We won’t turn it over to those silly, worthless Iraqi people.
Um … you’re kind of going off on a frothing rant here.
Bend intelligence? They worked with that they got.
Let’s just agree to disagree on this one. Plenty of low to mid-level CIA folks are saying that their intelligence had plenty of disclaimers about how speculative everything was, and that said disclaimers were routinely ignored. Perhaps it’s not bending outright, but it’s absolutely cherry-picking and consciously choosing only those facts which fit one’s chosen ends.
But I’d rather they put me on orange alert and make protect me than stay at yellow and say “my bad” when another building blows up because they didn’t act on intelligence.
Ah. And another attempt to link Iraq to 9/11 rears its head.
Randal, Iraq ain’t no threat to us. We didn’t go to orange alert because of them. Those goalposts won’t move.
Not insulting your intelligence. Just telling you no lies have been told.
Sorry, both aren’t possible simultaneously.
Me:
The families of the thousands of Iraqis killed since March might just possibly beg to differ on that.
Randal:
Thousands? THOUSANDS?
Yep. For just one reference, here’s the Christian Science Monitor:
“Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country.”
That was in May. Deaths have obviously continued since then. I think “thousands” is more than accurate — if anything, it may be understating the case.
Well, I’ll dispute that those deaths were caused by George Bush, but, ok, compare that to the TENS of THOUSANDS killed by Saddam.
Over 25 years as opposed to 10 months. Our rate of return is a hëll of a lot higher.
On to global warming. Me:
If even half of the evidence facing us is true, we should have cut fossil fuel emissions way the hëll back a decade or two ago — at this point it’s a question of limiting the damage, not preventing it.
Randal:
And why do you think they’re not?
1) We’ve withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords.
2) We’ve done nothing to change fuel efficiency in this country.
3) The Bush administration has reclassified CO2 as “not a pollutant” so as to claim that pollution levels are dropping.
That’s the short list. Fire away.
Me:
The longer we wait, however, the less prevention we’re going to get. Lest we forget, some industry folks with close ties to the Bush administration have been quoted outright as saying that all of this data about millions of years is bunk, because “we know the Earth is only six thousand years old.”
Randal:
I don’t disbelieve you, beacuse as we both know, people say the wildest things, but yeah, I’d like to see a link.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15814
You may not trust it, since it’s from a site that isn’t exactly predisposed favorably towards Bush, but here’s the relevant quote:
“During the Kyoto climate change negotiations, Leggett candidly asked Ford Motor Company executive John Schiller how opponents of the pact could believe there is no problem with “a world of a billion cars intent on burning all the oil and gas available on the planet?” The executive asserted first that scientists get it wrong when they say fossil fuels have been sequestered underground for eons. The Earth, he said, is just 10,000, not 4.5 billion years old, the age widely accepted by scientists. “
I will concede that Schiller has no direct ties to the Bush administration — I misremembered that part. (I don’t think it’s a particularly big leap to say that the administration is friendly with Ford executives, but there are no direct ties.)
And I have to admit I’m flummoxed by people who hate the man so much that they’re willing to ignore the good that has come out of getting rid of a murdering rapist.
I don’t think we’re ignoring the good; I’m not. We question the reasons, and we question whether the good is outweighed by the ill. Personally, I’m not seeing it.
TWL
BTW:
I do wish we could put aside partisanship and cynicism when it comes to the space program.
We went to the Moon while embroiled in Vietnam and while near race riots were occurring at home. Comparatively speaking, we’re in better shape to consider going to the moon again and perhaps to Mars.
At the end of the day, I’d rather have a President who lied about his private sex life while having a nation that was secure, well-off, and friendly with the rest of the world, than a President who lied about WMDs while leaving us with a shattered economy, a gaping deficit, and most of our allies pìššëd øff at us.
Why some folks cannot grasp this simple fact is beyond me.
And I have to admit I’m flummoxed by people who hate the man so much that they’re willing to ignore the good that has come out of getting rid of a murdering rapist.
See, I find this position rather sad, in a way.
You defend the war in Iraq by noting the good that came of it, rather than the way in which it was justified and fought.
People defend the dropping of nukes on Japan because it ended WWII quicker and supposedly saved lives. Such great justification.
I wonder how many around the world are getting cancer today as a result of it.
Doesn’t sound so justifiable in the end, does it?
I wonder why the hëll we have such an interest in Saddam when there are greater threats in the world.
Again, N. Korea comes to mind, but no Republican is keen on bombing their áššëš to kingdom come.
I do wish we could put aside partisanship and cynicism when it comes to the space program.
I certainly would if I knew it was something more than a political ploy.
And they absolutely can’t deal with Occum’s Razor. Yes, WMDs were a reason. Yes, intelligence that turned out to be untrue was a reason, and YES, LIBERATING THE PEOPLE WAS A REASON. Why this is impossible for people to beleive is beyond me…do they hate George Bush so much that if he helped an old lady cross the street they would accuse him of vote-fishing and stealing her purse? That’s where I’m scratching my head.
Well, I suspect Bush’s simple desire to help people is insincere — then again, I suspect just about everything that man says and does as insincere. Only by running against a man who does not emote can a man incapable of convincingly conveying emotion be elected president.
Anyway, I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with the motives for going to war with Iraq; every bad thing that’s been said about Saddam Hussein is probably true. My problem is the timing. Why are we so het up to go help hundreds of thousands of people whom we’ve let suffer for decades, ignoring the hundreds of millions of other suffering people not from Iraq, while we aren’t really in a position to do so? We, as a country, aren’t flush. We just paid the rent and have to wait two weeks before we can spend any money again; invading Iraq is the shopping trip that should wait until next Friday.
So, when unemployment is high and there are many, many Americans in need, how can we afford 80 billion dollars today for a war that honestly could and should have waited? I partly agree that the UN has proven themselves worthless by refusing to enforce their own resolutions, but for the US to go after Iraq without international support is just stupid right now.
Screw the morality or ethics of it; judging the morality of a political maneuver is like judging the height of an iceberg — you can easily measure what’s on the surface, and you can see below the surface enough to make a guess, but you have no idea just how far down it really goes. No, I question the fiscal responsibility of this. When I’ve got bills to pay at home, I don’t go spend all of my money on something I don’t really need. If I do, I get hit with an overdraft fee and my power and phone get shut off. Is the White House going without hot water until the war is over? I sincerely doubt it.
“People defend the dropping of nukes on Japan because it ended WWII quicker and supposedly saved lives. Such great justification.”
And many of the people who say so are the Japanese themselves. At least among my friends over there. A couple of whom are old enough to have lived through part of those times. And a few more whose parents did a good job of filling them in on the unpleasantness of the times. A conventional invasion would have resulted in far more deaths on both sides.
As for a blockade, again, many civilians would have died of various deprivations before the fanatical commanders would have considered surrendering. If at all.
If a Democrat is elected this year, that scuttles Hillary’s run in ’08.
Hillary won’t be the first woman president. The Conservative establishment never liked Bill, but they hate Hillary. The first woman president will be a Republican.
Interesting that no one mentioned the true reason Dubya is likely to win, God help us all. Money. He has $100 million already, and will likely have have twice that beford it’s over.
The only Democrat with a chance is Kerry, since he’s married to Teresa Heinz and has access to the fortune she inherited when Sen. Heinz was killed in a plane crash (years before she married Kerry).
Everything else is irrelevant.
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
“Has learned.” Not “claims.” Given that the charge is at this point demonstrably false, so is Bush’s statement.
It’s not false, it just concerned the Congo: http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh072803.shtml
Unless you think the Guardian is pro-Bush.
**I find it interesting that almost everyone who’s posted here espousing a right-leaning point of view also seems to be an illiterate cretin.
Who says you can’t judge people by the company they keep.**
A comforting belief, no doubt. Hush now lad, grownups are speaking.
It’s not false, it just concerned the Congo:
Unless you think the Guardian is pro-Bush.
Interesting read — but step back for a moment. If the intelligence were entirely legit and the problem was that everyone had leapt to the wrong conclusion about which African nation we meant, don’t you think everyone in the administration (and the CIA) would be absolutely trumpeting that fact to say “see, we were right after all?”
Instead, we’ve got Tenet falling on his sword and coming forward to say “gee, yeah, I suppose we should have fought harder to get that phrase out.”
Nobody is saying “we stand by that claim and here’s why.” Everyone backpedaled.
Based on that, it seems reasonable to suggest that the statement (or at least its implication) is now acknowledged as false. Perhaps the Congo news is true, but it doesn’t seem to be what they meant.
As Roger Tang’s pointed out above, seems we’re talking about incompetence of one facet or another. Take your pick which one, I s’pose.
TWL
\\I find it interesting that almost everyone who’s posted here espousing a right-leaning point of view also seems to be an illiterate cretin.
Who says you can’t judge people by the company they keep.\\ – some arrogant áššhølë.
Well, considering that most of the people expousing the Democratic Party Line on this thread appear to be arrogant semi-literate psuedo intellectual I could probably say the same about them.
But I won’t. Why?
Because while I may be an áššhølë, I’m not as big an áššhølë as you, or most of the so called ‘liberals'(who seem more stridant and reactionary than any so called ‘Reactionary’) posting here.
In a somewhat PAD related note, has anyone else noticed how many commentaries this morning compared Howard Dean’s post caucas meltdown to Bruce Banner right at that moment before he actually turns into the Hulk?
I don’t see a need to. Or would you like to explain how one of the few public documents to come out of Cheney’s 2001 energy task force include detailed maps of Iraqi’s oil fields and lists of people interested in Iraqi oil contracts?
i explain it that Cheney was doing a survey of oil supplies. There were similar documents for Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.
“What Mylroie says about the “Foreign Suitors” document is correct. The Judicial Watch link still works as of this morning, and as you can easily see, the document, dated March 5, 2001, has nothing to do with post-war planning. It is merely a list of existing and proposed “Iraqi Oil & Gas Projects” as of that date. And it includes projects in Iraq by countries that obviously would not have been part of any “post-war” plans of the Bush administration, such as, for example, Vietnam.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/005628.php
Interesting read — but step back for a moment. If the intelligence were entirely legit and the problem was that everyone had leapt to the wrong conclusion about which African nation we meant, don’t you think everyone in the administration (and the CIA) would be absolutely trumpeting that fact to say “see, we were right after all?”
Unless they think there’s no profit in bringing the subject up again. I could use the same arguement about Clinton’s failure to condemn Bush’s use of intelligence.
I don’t see a need to. Or would you like to explain how one of the few public documents to come out of Cheney’s 2001 energy task force include detailed maps of Iraqi’s oil fields and lists of people interested in Iraqi oil contracts?
i explain it that Cheney was doing a survey of oil supplies. There were similar documents for Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.
Yes, but the UAE and Saudi Arabia are friendly nations (well, except for that whole “9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudis” thing, but let’s ignore that — everyone else seems to). Those are oil reserves we can reasonably expect to have some ability to talk about with the parties involved.
Iraq was completely off the table at the time, and there’s no reason to act otherwise unless the task force had the expectation it would be back on the table in the near future.
Why they might have had such an expectation I leave as an exercise to the reader.
TWL
Interesting read — but step back for a moment. If the intelligence were entirely legit and the problem was that everyone had leapt to the wrong conclusion about which African nation we meant, don’t you think everyone in the administration (and the CIA) would be absolutely trumpeting that fact to say “see, we were right after all?”
Unless they think there’s no profit in bringing the subject up again.
No profit in putting to rest one of the single biggest accusations made about this administration’s truthfulness? No profit in putting to rest a scandal that’s involved the outing of a CIA agent for political purposes?
Gee, guess you’re right. It’s so much easier to take advantage of the country’s lack of attention span and simply manufacture some event elsewhere.
That mystifies me. If someone falsely accuses me of lying and I can find evidence showing I was telling the truth, I’ll shout it from the hilltops until I’m satisfied everyone realizes the accusations were wrong. Guess that’s why I’m not in charge.
TWL