Lack of Imagination

286 comments on “Lack of Imagination”

1. Bush has plenty imagination. Just look at that negative ad campaign against Kerry. Pure fiction, that stuff.

2. They couldn’t have averted it because of what Rice said some time ago: “No one could imagine terrorists flying planes into buildings.” That’s not true. No one *in the Bush administration* could imagine it. Writers of fiction have imagined it. Information gatherers imagined it. The administration simply could not because they consistently display lack of imagination. Every job requires a proper tool. In this case, the tool–imagination–simply wasn’t in their toolbox. If a carpenter needs a Philips head screwdriver and all he’s got is flatheads, oh well. You’re screwed.

   Is this the best shot you can take, PAD? I’m beginning to think I’m wasting my time coming here.

3. On the other hand, You did title the thread correctly. That’s okay. They can’t all be gems.

4. I think it’s a quite valid criticism. Not one many people want to admit or accept, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Then again, it doesn’t make it necessarily true either.

   Monkeys.

5. I agree that it’s quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing…see the pilot episode of Chris Carter’s Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck…it was even specifically the World Trade Center.

6. I don’t normally come here for political commentary, but I’m beginning to think that’s as good of a reason to come here than any other.

   Excellent Chicago Parody from a couple days ago, and I agree with the administration’s apparent lack of imagination as well. Politics is a chess game. You don’t have to be able to predict your opponent’s next move, but you have to be aware of all possibilities, and be prepared with a counter-move for each.

7. Peter:

   “In this case, the tool–imagination–simply wasn’t in their toolbox. If a carpenter needs a Philips head screwdriver and all he’s got is flatheads, oh well. You’re screwed.”

   Is there some irony going on here? As near as I can tell, this situation would result in being unscrewed.

8. I think even “lack of imagination” is glossing over the issue. I don’t think anyone expected suicide bombers in the US – and certainly not ones that were middle-class Muslims.

   Most extremist activity comes from poverty. Take the 14-year-old boy who the Hamas almost talked into setting off a bomb at the Israeli checkpoint. He was offered NIS 100 ($12) to do it – and it was almost enough.

   Suicide bombers were not expected in the continental US because it was assumed that no one would be desperate enough to come here just to commit suicide. Hijack? Sure. Our security infrastructure was built to prevent hijackings for that reason.

   The fact that the 9-11 bombers were well-educated, well-financed, had families and lives in this country and were STILL willing to kill themselves is what really undid the intelligence agencies. That’s not the fault of the Bush or Clinton administration. That’s a monumental paradigm shift.

   What we should be doing is stop trying to cast blame but finding ways of dealing with the new threat.

9. I agree that it’s quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing…see the pilot episode of Chris Carter’s Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck…it was even specifically the World Trade Center.

   A few weeks after the World Trade Center was destroyed, the news media reported that the Bush administration had called together a number of writers and screenwriters to brainstorm ideas about possible attack scenarios. The adminstration was ridiculed. Now PAD wants to make analogies because the Bush administration didn’t already have that concept in their “toolbox”. At least Bush realized that he needed said “tool” and went out to get it. When future adminstrations take over, that tool will be in their “toolbox”. Wish I could say that about the PREVIOUS administration.

10. Let’s be clear about something here – If the Bush Administration had correctly realized that there were terrorists planning on flying planes into the World Trade Center and had taken decisive action to prevent it, we all know who would be screaming the loudest.

    Democrats.

    There would have been an outcry of complaints about how mean-spirited the Bush White House was. How racist is was for picking on poor Middle-Easterners who weren’t doing anything wrong. (Even after the attack, caution about Islamic terrorism drew cries of “racial profiling” and “bigotry.”) Here was the evil, sinister Shrub Bush persecuting some innocent people of Middle Eastern descent because of some intelligence reports that nobody could prove or disprove anyway.

    And if Bush had succeeded in preventing 9-11 (even though that was the next best thing to impossible)? Would they have been able to say, “See? We saved the World Trade Center!”

    No way. Dems would just say that there was no plot to blow up the World Trade Center and the Bush Administration was inventing intelligence reports to cover up its own bad behavior.

    All this is is Monday morning quarterbacking at its worst. And Bush loses both ways. Because the towers fell, Dems can claim that he should have prevented it, even though they would have fought him tooth and nail if he had tried.

    One thing I can say with certainty is this – at least after the towers fell, President Bush reacted exactly the way every president should act. Decisively, quickly, and with the determination to let every terrorist in the world know what they would face if they ever attacked us again.

    That’s a whole lot more than I can say for Team Clinton, who never saw the multiple terrorist attacks on its watch coming and didn’t do anything about them after the fact. USS Cole, anyone? Clinton sure taught Osama a lesson after that, didn’t he? And 9-11 wasn’t the first attack on the World Trade Center.

11. Based on what has happened before with terrorists and their attacks, I can understand why they would put off the idea of terrorists taking over planes.

    Based on previous events/attacks on the U.S., and the fact that the Bush team was following the Clinton-style of handling terrorist activities as a law-enforcement issue, one could look at the 9-11 attack as a way of trying to push the U.S. in to the ground. It’s already been seen that the Clinton administration wouldn’t pursue terrorists for attacks on the U.S., and a physical body count would cause us to cut and run.

    It’s too bad for them we changed tactics once we got a body count.

    As for the “imagination that Saddam had WMD”, that wasn’t imagination in the slightest, since he did use them in the past. One would have to assume then that he still had them. Clinton believed that in 98. So did Gore, and so did a whole bunch of democrats who wrote and implored Clinton to do something about Hussein.

    Regarding the “mission accomplished” item, the mission was accomplished: the mission was to remove Saddam from power. We did that. Job done. To believe that the transfer of power, and that we wouldn’t get any other resistance is proof of a different lack of imagination.

    As for Kerry having an idea — heh. That’s imagination in and of itself, IMO. Seriously though, if he says “we’re out of there” — it’ll be looked at as once again the U.S. is weak, and can be pushed over. Again.

12. I agree that it’s quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing…see the pilot episode of Chris Carter’s Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck…it was even specifically the World Trade Center.

    Even earlier, in Debt of Honor, we had Tom Clancy speculating about a 747 crashing into Congress, taking out the President and a good chunk of the legislature. Clancy was even interviewed about it in the weeks following 9/11.

13. Personally, I think the WMDs are somewhere else. I found it funny that they thought Saddam was dealing in plutonium enrichment tools and a day or two after he’s captured, Kadafi is throwing his hands in the air saying “we’re stopping our nuclear program!” Probably because Iraq is where they got part of the equipment for their program. It just seemed like much more than a coincidence.

    As for the nerve gas and such. It was carried out probably a month before we went in. You didn’t have to be Carl Sagan to know that we were making plans to come in there.

    I’m not saying Bush was lying and I’m not saying he was being totally honest. I found it hard to believe the WMDs weren’t there at all. Even with all the nice new chemical suits they found in the bunkers.

14. “I agree that it’s quite valid. Writers of fiction have indeed imagined such a thing…see the pilot episode of Chris Carter’s Lone Gunmen for an example. Heck…it was even specifically the World Trade Center.”

    “Even earlier, in Debt of Honor, we had Tom Clancy speculating about a 747 crashing into Congress, taking out the President and a good chunk of the legislature. Clancy was even interviewed about it in the weeks following 9/11.”

    PAD also had Omnibus blow up the World Trade Center (and simultaneously, a wing of the White House) in an issue of Hulk. 438, I think it was.

    Jason

15. I think Peter

16. PAD, you’re clutching at straws here. This Monday morning quarterbacking (wow, how many metaphors will I cram into this?)will only resonate with hard core Bush haters. Preaching to the choir (zing!)

    I love the folks who harp on about how it should have been OBVIOUS to anyone with more ganglia than a planarian worm that if an Arab is taking flight lessons in Florida but is spending more time learning takeoffs than landings…well jeeze, do we have to draw you a picture??? What the hëll was WRONG with our intelligence?

    But take a peek at THE AMAZING BIZARRO WORLD, where the FBI did indeed put the pieces together and foil the plot. Can you imagine the NPR “All Things Considered” episode.

    Cue: sad music
    VOICE OVER: Meka leka Hi meka jamie ho
    TRANSLATOR: I came to America because I was told it was the only way I could fulfill my dream. To fly…
    NINA TOTENBERG- Mohammed Attaa’s dreams crashed on the night of September 3rd. That’s when over a dozen FBI agents burst into his apartment and took him at gunpoint….

    And so on. The ACLU would be wondering just how the hëll the FBI is able to know so much about some poor immigrant’s flight school lessons. The folks who STILL think that America turned into a den of anti-Arab violence post 9/11 (despite it being, well, not true) would have FREAKED if even the mildest “profiling” had occurred without any “reason”.

    And the terrorists, assuming they knew that the airline bit was foiled, would have gone to plan B. And since I don’t want it on my conscience just in case some whack job reads this I won’t do the demonstration but I’ll wager that myself, Tim, PAD, Karen, Eclark, the Other John Byrne, and several other regulars here could, over pizza and beer, come up with about 12,000 perfectly viable plans for mass slaughter. (it still amazes me to this day that some very obvious and completely unstoppable things have NOT been done

17. Mark L.
    What about the Japanese Kamikaze fighters? There’s a precedent that isn’t from fiction. If it’s happened before, it can happen again.

18. I can tell you who is at fault for 9/11. The terrorists and nobody else. This crusade by the Left to blame Bush is almost as stupid as the Rights blaming 9/11 (and every other problem known to man) on Clinton. Some very bad people wanted to hurt us. They had been trying for years. Go look up how many terrorist acts planned for U.S. soil were stopped in the 90’s. Including a few involving planes in one way or another. They got stopped then and just kept trying until they got one through. Had we stopped the 9/11 attackers, had there been no 9/11 and its aftermath, they may very well have done something else just as big a few years later. This blame garbage is stupid and just gets in the way of dealing with it.
    Iraq. There’s a pain and a half. Bush wanted to go in and we did. Guess what? We’re stuck there. Stuff the twisted way we got there for now. That’s another blog. We’re stuck there. There is no winning exit from this. We stay and we become the ruling invaders in the eyes of many in the middle east. We become an even bigger tool for terrorist to get followers whether we like it or not. We, leave and it goes to chaos and it becomes more like the image of a terrorist breeding ground then Bush and Co. tried to paint it as before. Or, we leave and the Iraqi people put in place rulers that we don’t like. Back to square one. Anyone who believes that we’re going to make an America style democracy over there is nuts. Things like that have to come when it’s their time. You can’t force that kind of change and the middle east has shown no signs of it being their time.
    Iraq is just going to become another club to be used by the left or right to pound on whichever man wins in Nov. If Bush wins, it will be the continued failure of Bush that all these people are going to their deaths for. If Kerry wins, even if he changes not a single thing, Iraq will be the Bush success that fell apart thanks to the D’s and Kerry’s foolhardy handling of Iraq and how they bungled it once they gor Bush out of the way.
    No winners.

19. Bill’s last point is dead on. Because of where I work we do that for our area exactly that way. Over pizza and beer or pints and nachos. We look at our own security and others and work up table tops for ourselves. It’s amazing how much you can find when you just start looking at things and thinking like that.
    That’s a big point he and I can agree on in this. They wanted to hurt us. They would have one way or another. This Monday morning crap is foolish.

20. Gotta go with M. Martin’s last point as well. That one always got me. How many times are our leaders going to hop into bed with the Devil himself just because he’s not as bad (in their eyes) as that other Devil and then act surprised when he turns on us or acts true to his nature. Saddam has always been a bášŧárd and he has always done what he’s done. It just became a problem when he was no longer “our” bášŧárd. Bigger questions… How many more times are we the people going to keep letting our leaders play this game. Can we even stop it?

21. Cutting through the crap that is in this thread:

    Bush is as much a murderer as those who flew the planes into the buildings on 9/11. Since his daughters weren’t around, he needed another way to get rid of the constand hard-on he’d been sporting since the attacks. Thus, he fabricated stories of WMDs and attacked Iraq. Now, we’re bogged down with good men dying for nothing every day, and that PIECE OF SHÍT HILLBILLY IS DOING ****NOTHING****!!!

    He sits in his comfy office, thumb UP HIS ÃSS, playing with people’s lives for his own amusement. If that sorry sack of SHÍT is not out of the White House in November, I will seriously consider moving to Canada. I don’t need a man who is dámņ near mentally retarded running my country into the ground and fûçkìņg me over.

22. I think if we are going to use football metaphors here 9/11 should be considered at least Monday Night Football so it would be Tuesday morning quarterbacking.

23. Let’s be clear about something here – If the Bush Administration had correctly realized that there were terrorists planning on flying planes into the World Trade Center and had taken decisive action to prevent it, we all know who would be screaming the loudest.

    Democrats.

    For the first two seconds? Perhaps.

    Once hard evidence is presented that “here’s what they had in mind”? Abso-fragging-lutely not.

    I think the “failure of imagination” card is partially valid, in that pretty much everyone in this administration who deals with defense/security issues is an old-style Cold Warrior who worried about countries and not stateless regimes.

    I don’t know, however, that the Clinton team would have done much better than they were in place. The only real argument for such is that there wouldn’t have been (a) a settling-in period for a new team (made much worse by the controversy in 2000, of course), and (b) a group coming in with “whatever Clinton did, change it” high on the agenda in many places.

    While I do think on the whole that this is an administration that settles on an ideology and an action first, then thinks about it later, I completely agree that it’s silly to hold that and that alone responsible for 9/11. The 9/11 hijackers, as Bill says, were a lot smarter than that, and almost assuredly had backup plans.

    I am much more interested in what we as a country have done after the 9/11 attacks, and I don’t think this commission is going to have much to say about them.

    And to Tim Butler — I really don’t think Democrats would be accusing the administration of making up intelligence reports out of whole cloth. Apart from a few really extreme conspiracy theorists, no one’s accusing them of making up intelligence about Iraq. Cherry-picking it and ignoring the items they didn’t like, yes, but not inventing it. Flash back two and a half years earlier, when this administration had yet to show some of its more egregious “forget the facts, give me my answer” moments, I doubt anyone would have raised questions for more than a minute.

    TWL

24. I don`t think the problem was lack of imagination. I think it was a combination of arrogance and naivety.

    I can imagine that a lot of theoretical possibilities for terrorism were also thought of before 9/11 but nobody thought it was likely to happen in the USA. Terrorism, especially on a big scale, happens elsewhere, but not here. Unfortunately it was not the first time that something really terrible had to happen so that people realize the dangers. As I keep saying, in a way the USA lost its innocence.

    In a way, the same happened when the USA invaded Iraq. Destroying is always much easier than rebuilding. I was amazed from the beginning that the USA was so naive to believe that people in general would embrace the US troops as liberators and welcome them. That with getting rid of Saddam all serious problems are gone and the rest is comparatively easy. It seems to me that very little planning had been done what is actually necessary to turn Iraq into a stable, democratic country – hopefully with a government at the end that is to the liking of the USA. The USA really should have known better. Afghanistan is still far from stable and of course there is the situation in the Middle East.

    Unfortunately too much has gone wrong in Iraq. The situation is getting more and more difficult and dangerous. In a way, it is a no win situation: The US soldiers need to protect themselves and go after extremists but by doing so, they also kill innocent people and tensions grow. This cycle of hate and revenge is certainly nothing new and I see no reason to be optimistic.

25. ” USS Cole, anyone? Clinton sure taught Osama a lesson after that, didn’t he? And 9-11 wasn’t the first attack on the World Trade Center.”

    The investigation that proved bin laden was behind the Cole attack wasn’t completed until after Clinton left office and the people behind the first WTC attack were caught and tried (including the mastermind of the attack).
    There are tons of things to criticize Clinton about butb to say that he was weak on terrorism isn’t one of them.

26. I am much more interested in what we as a country have done after the 9/11 attacks, and I don’t think this commission is going to have much to say about them.

    I expect them to. However, I also expect them to throw out a few “it would have been better if” scenarios. That’s not what will be reported.

    Look at “Meet the Press” this week. The two leads on the committee said, respectively, “More could have been done” and “maybe we could have done better if we were lucky”. However, they were both even-handed and trying to look forward.

    Headline the next day? “Committee Members say 9-11 could have been prevented”

    So, what I expect is a reasonable report, but the reporting and analysis will center on a few provocative phrases.

27. Lack of imagination ?Arrogance ?Yes and Yes.The current administration and its advisors are all still living in the cold war days .They were more concerned with a big hulking threat from a country instead of a sneaky little bášŧárd with nothing to lose.In iraq it was never considered that maybe the big bad guy you know was better than the little badguys you dont.Look at the chaos in the former soviet union as result of breaking up that” evil empire”.Also i recall a story where the fantastic four liberating Latveria threw the country into complete disarray without Doom in charge.Was a saddam a bad guy ?Yeah .The guys we are facing now however are worse for one reason .They were crushed for years under that bášŧárd and have nothing to fear or lose in thier eyes from us .Once again showing we never IMAGINED a group in the country would resist” freedom “on OUR terms.
    To get back to the main point when planning on things of this nature consider all possiblilities before you commit not just the ones you want to hear.
    WMDS many agree that they were there and that Saddam was working on them .however whether or not they were an immmediate threat to this country is the bigger issue and did he have the means to deliver said weapons assuming they still existed.Mobile weapons labs,unmanned drones…hmm
    maybe there is some imagination after all

28. Andrew,
    The “crap” you are cytting through on this blog consists of things people have which are called OPINIONS; they use these OPINIONS in things called ARGUMENTS or CIVILIZED DEBATE. Through the exchange of these OPINIONS/DEBATE we may learn something more about each other or the topic at hand.
    I won’t even get into the rest of your hysterical, hateful, ridiculous post. Just let me know if W. wins in November if you need any help packing your bags.
    And until then, make sure you take your meds.

29. To back Derek up a bit,

    Not only were they caught, questioned and jailed for life but they were pumped for info. As is now public record, some of the info they gave helped the U.S. (under Clinton) stop a few other large terror attacks.

30. Andrew,

    Give my love to the Baldwins:)

    Toodles:)

31. I recall one episode of “Babylon 5”, in which Sheridan, facing multiple assassination attempts by a fanatic, raised what I consider a valid point – that if someone is so determined to kill you that they’re willing to die in the process, there isn’t really that much you can do to stop them. (Other than killing them first, of course – which was the action taken in that episode…)

    As regards Clinton and terrorism, it’s fascinating that many of the same people who insist Saddam managed to hide his WMDs also believe that really was an aspirin factory that was blown up in the Sudan on Clinton’s watch. Why would someone lie about such things during the Bush administration, but not the Clinton administration?

32. Jerome,

    Let me know if you need help cramming your opinions up your ášš.

    Just because someone states their opinion does not mean I need to respect it. I can insult, berate, and ridicule a person for what they think if I please. It’s quite alot of fun, actually.

33. Unfortunately, Andrew, that’s not what grownups do. Most of us outgrew your kind of behavior in 2nd grade.

34. Explain to me WHY I should respect the opinion of someone I disagree with? Let’s say some ignorant fool says Bush is doing a good job, or that JFK was one of this nation’s finest “leaders”? NOT point out that one is little more than a hillbilly, and the other a womanizing sleeze who had the election purchased for him by his father? Am I supposed to say “Well, That’s What You Think, And It’s OK.”

    I think not.

35. Andrew,

    Stay home, we have enough lefty wackos here!

    cheers!

36. You know how much of a pain in the ášš airport security is nowadays in response to 9/11? Even after we’ve seen in all the gory details what can happen without ridiculously tight security we’re all incredibly sick of how much slower the process is and how much of an invasion of our privacy rights it is.

    Now, imagine that the Bush administration, after hearing that a plane hijacking might be used by terrorists in the future, implemented this strict security even without any terrorist attacks had occurred. He would have been completely raked over the coals by everyone. Even if it led to a group of Arabs with weapons getting caught and jailed for conspiracy on 9/11, we wouldn’t care about that nearly as much as how we were now late for everything.

    This is simply an unwinnable situation, and no matter what Bush had done he would have been demonized by his critics, in much the same way that Clinton would have been if this had happened (or attempted) on his watch.

37. I saw it on a special last night about airport safty measures, “Tombstone Technology” one does nothing until it takes a life or many.

38. Sorry, PAD, I love your writing, but I’m tired of the Left Wing “Bush = Evil” talk I’m hearing here. I care about your writing skills, not your personal opinion on everything you think is Bush’s fault.

39. Anthony – Actually, I used to be a strong supporter of President Slappy. I supported us going into Iraq, even.

    Now, with more US troops dying every day, Bush screwing over the working class and trying to institute bigorty as law (y’know, that whole “I ain’t gonna let dem dámņ queers marry!” stuff he stammers out), I realize that we need someone who isn’t a waste of life in the White House.

    I hate Bush quite alot, and will cheer the day he leaves us on a course to recover from his blundering, drunken mistakes.

40. Uh, folks, I think that “Andrew” is just some guy having fun with us. Probably a right winger putting on an act to make left wingers look stupid.

    Doing a good job too.

41. Peter, it wasn’t a lack of imagination (NASA used the same explanation, that they couldn’t imagine one of the rockets, filled with flammable liquid, might catch fire on the launch pad before launching, unless Tom Hank’s FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON made that ‘fact’ up), it was a lack of CLOUT.

    OF COURSE someone had IMAGINED it could happen. The problem was who had the CLOUT to DO something about it–given the PROBABILITY.

    People in the administration have already imagined a huge meteor crashing into Earth, a ray beam blowing up the White House and the Empire State building. The question is who has the CLOUT to implement some kind of defense based on the PROBABILITY of those events happening.

    Simple example:

    Nuclear missile launched against the USA–accidentally. Now what? Sure, failsafes prevent the missile from spreading radiation, but that’s still an ICBM hitting the downtown of some major city, what to do? Having an anti-missile defense sure would be handy, but look at the political reaction. I’m sure in September 2001, NYC would have liked having a defense system to shoot down two plane-sized missiles.

    Of course, getting such a system built would require . . . clout.

    — Ken from Chicago

    P.S. Of course like a lot of arguments, the use and definition of terms lies at the heart of the argument. If Reagan had called it a missile defense “deterrent” or “buffer” instead of a “shield”, or even a missile-“resistant” shield (like a bullet-“resistant” vest), maybe the debate might have been more substantial. Arguments that technology would “never” be capable of intercepting a missile seem incredibly lame.

42. Mike:

    >Sorry, PAD, I love your writing, but I’m tired of the Left Wing “Bush = Evil” talk I’m hearing here. I care about your writing skills, not your personal opinion on everything you think is Bush’s fault.

    Which begs the question, “Why do you come to this site and read his personal opinions?”

43. Let’s say some ignorant fool says Bush is doing a good job, or that JFK was one of this nation’s finest “leaders”? NOT point out that one is little more than a hillbilly, and the other a womanizing sleeze who had the election purchased for him by his father?

    Now that is entirely unfair.

    JFK’s no hillbilly. [rimshot]

    TWL

    P.S. Sorry, Andrew, but here I’m going to echo others I frequently disagree with. Your opinions are your own and you can certainly have them, but if all you do is rant for no good reason you’re not going to change the dynamic you’re ranting about .

44. As for the “imagination that Saddam had WMD”, that wasn’t imagination in the slightest, since he did use them in the past. One would have to assume then that he still had them.

    I see.

    So, because I know my downstairs neighbor had something dangerous at one point, it’s acceptable for me to decide unilaterally to bust down his door and go in guns blazing because he might still.

    Understood.

    *******************

    Sorry, PAD, I love your writing, but I’m tired of the Left Wing “Bush = Evil” talk I’m hearing here. I care about your writing skills, not your personal opinion on everything you think is Bush’s fault.

    I can’t speak for PAD, only myself…someone that most Republicans would quickly and happily label a “Bush hater” (i.e. I don’t think he’s a very good leader, and find that he stands against what I stand for, and vice versa.)

    But, I don’t think “Dubya” is evil. I don’t think he’s smart enough to be evil. I do, however, feel that he’s grossly out of touch with everyday life in this nation. And, as we’re seeing more and more each day, it’s dangerous.

45. “Explain to me WHY I should respect the opinion of someone I disagree with? “

    You should respect it if it’s thought out, informed and well presented. Dissing it *only* because you disagree with it gives it short shrift. Dissing the person who says it out of hand reflects far more on you than it does on the person.

    Granted, I’ve gotten impatient with people who disagree with me. But usually it’s because they get in my cyberface repeatedly, aggressively and arrogantly.

    PAD

46. Bush is no hillbilly, either. There’s not enough trees or mountains in Crawford, Texas for it to be considered “hillbilly” country 🙂

47. ” I can insult, berate, and ridicule a person for what they think if I please. It’s quite alot of fun, actually.”

    Yes, you can insult, berate and ridicule people.

    But I don’t want you to. Not here.

    I want you to know two things, Andrew. First, we’re more or less on the same page about Bush, so you’re not talking to a knee-jerk Bush-lover here. Second…we aspire to be civil to one another ’round here. We aspire to be tolerant and decent, because once the insults start getting tossed around, intelligent discourse goes away. It goes away from both the people you despise and the people you agree with, and sends the entire discussion spiralling into a pit of ‘Oh yeah! Well you are too!”

    If nothing else, consider this: The real challenge in the little debates that occur here (and around the net) is that not to change the mind of the person you’re debating. It’s to bring over to your way of thinking the people who are on the fence. The people who aren’t really sure or committed one way or the other. That’s the real triumph, and I admit it’s ephemeral since you rarely know when or if you’ve accomplished it. But what I can tell you with an absolute certainty is that NO ONE is swayed by an advocate who primarily leads with insults.

    You can, of course, claim you don’t care if people come to agree with you or not. But if that’s the case, then might I suggest that you should be. After all, persuade just enough people…and it might be the votes needed to get Bush out of office.

    PAD

48. Andrew,
    I think it’s much more fun to discuss our differences of opinion without resorting to name-calling and insults. Since you disagree, will you be calling me names now, too? Jerome and I have had major differences of opinion on another thread, but he has kept the conversation civil and lively. Your insults toward him are not appreciated. You have an opinion, state it. If you only want to rant, find people who wish to read nasty and foul thoughts. All here know I am firmly against the current occupants of the White House, but a free and open society allows for those who support them to express that without being belittled.

    Boy, sometimes it’s really tough trying to stay on the high ground. The thoughts in my mind about that kind of behaviour…..

49. For a non-partisan view, let’s remember that, pre-9/11, in case of a hijacking the hijacked were encouraged *not* to fight back or make an escape attempt. The theory was that if you stayed calm, negotiations could work things out and you & your fellow hijacked could eventually be released; while if you fought or fled, you’d be much more likely to get killed on the spot.

    This actually seems to have ended on 9/11 itself. I’m told the Pennsylvania plane didn’t reach its target because the passengers were contacted, learned that their plane was going to be used as a missile, they knew they had nothing to lose.

50. The terrorists plot escaped the Bush Administration for one reason: Greed. When Bush came into office the administration was more preoccupied with selling a missile defense system to the public. Considering that many of the top officials are holdovers from as far back as Nixon it

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