The comedy stylings of John Kerry have provided something else to play into GOP hands besides congressional pages. They’re teeing off on his statement that lack of education “lands you in Iraq,” claiming that he was trash-talking the troops. Everyone knows that lack of supporting the troops has replaced social security as the third rail of politics. Kerry’s response is that he was making a misfired joke about the administration.
Who to believe? Well, putting aside my personal dislike for Bush and the fact that I voted for Kerry, let’s see what makes more sense: The notion that Kerry, who served in the armed forces, would be dissing the troops, or that Kerry, who despises Bush and Co., would be dissing the administration.
To quote that great pundit, Daffy Duck: Pronoun trouble. Displaying the comedic instincts of a California Redwood, Kerry SHOULD have said “we.” “We wind up in Iraq,” which would have made it at least somewhat clearer. Or if he insisted on “you,” then it becomes, “you wind up landing us in Iraq.” Something like that.
Considering word around the campfire is that “Studio 60” may be shutting down soon, perhaps Kerry can draft Aaron Sorkin to write some jokes for him.
PAD
• 
I’m more interested in how much Kerry will be blamed for single handedly and in no more than 40 words wiped out the election efforts of the Democratic candidates. For me, I think he has seriously done damage to more than a few candidates and I think he deserves not just the hatred of millions of service personnel but millions more in his own party.
Bill (Ritter, for those easily confused), I don’t think the kerry thing will amount to much. I’ll be very surprised if the Democrats don’t pick up at least 15-20 seats in the House, probably even 25. House seats are less likely to be influenced by national events and th etrend has been bad for republicans for some time. Keep in mind that many votes have already been cast.
I suppose this may help fire up some Republicans who were content to sit this one out but I just don’t see it as changing the outcome much.
The Senate races are more confusing to me, though I’d give the Republicans a narrow liklihood of keeping the Senate or at least making it a 50/50 tie (and boy will you see Democrat leaders suddenly LOVING Joe Lieberman again!).
One advantage of the internet age is that these stories tend to burn out quickly. By next week it’s old news.
And if Republicans try to extend Kery’s misfortune for too long it will backfire on them.
Sean Scullion–I’m sorry if I’ve somehow encouraged the nut to turn his attention to you.
Mike, allow me to clear this up for you:
Posted by: Sean Scullion at November 1, 2006 04:28 PM
It reminds me a little of the Captain Underpants thread, where someone who will remain nameless(but we all know who it is) was taking every post as being directed RIGHT AT HIM.
See, Sean originally posted that remark, which was directed at you.
Posted by: Bill Myers at November 1, 2006 04:40 PM
HUH? WAS THAT A CRACK AT ME? HUH? WAS IT?
And I want my blue sock back, you bášŧárd.
🙂
That was a reply from me to Sean. I was pretending to believe that his remark was directed at me. Then I referenced a joke about a blue sock from a prior thread.
Posted by: SeanScullion at November 1, 2006 05:12 PM
Eeeesh! Calm down, Bill! I was actually talking someone else who was reacting just like you did now actually at everything YOU said.
And as long as I hold the sock, I AM IN CONTROL!
Or rather, THE CLOTHESPIN ON MY NOSE IS IN CONTROL!
The above is a reply from Sean to me. Sean is making it clear he is referring to you, even though he isn’t naming you. He then continues to play off of the joke about the blue sock.
Posted by: Bill Myers at November 1, 2006 05:31 PM
I know. I was just kidding. 🙂
Now I’m reassuring Sean that I know he is joking.
Posted by: Bill Myers at November 1, 2006 05:31 PM
I told you to burn that dámņ thing.
The above is another reference to the lame joke about the blue sock.
Posted by: Sean Scullion at November 1, 2006 06:51 PM
Bill, you know there are serious consequences for burning that kind of waste, don’t you?
The above is from Sean to me. The lame joke about the blue sock continues. (Although Sean and I are enjoying it, lame or not.)
Posted by: Mike at November 1, 2006 07:11 PM
I have to agree with Sean, Bill Mulligan. You are way better off admitting you signed a check with your mouth your butt couldn’t cash.
The above is where you begin to go barking mad.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 1, 2006 05:37 PM
It reminds me a little of the Captain Underpants thread, where someone who will remain nameless(but we all know who it is) was taking every post as being directed RIGHT AT HIM.
The above is where Bill Mulligan QUOTES Sean.
Posted by: Mike at November 1, 2006 09:10 PM
Sean, so you climbed through the tubes of the internet to Bill Mulligan’s computer
The above is where you now experience a complete psychotic breakdown.
All clear?
By the way, Bill Mulligan, no offense, but if you climbed through the “tubes of the Internet” and poked your head through my computer, I’d whack you with a stick until you turned around and went back where you came from.
It would be a gut reaction. Nothing personal.
Bill Mulligan, do you mean by making explicit that Sean’s chickenshit statement (for which he apologized) was directed at me? By matching it to:
Don’t beat yourself up to badly, Bill Mulligan. I mean, you tried to build the consensus for it, but he said it.
Oh.
Bill Myers, care to cite in the other thread where Sean’s chickenshit comment (for which he apologized) applies to me?
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 1, 2006 09:27 PM
House seats are less likely to be influenced by national events and the trend has been bad for republicans for some time.
Yeah, I live just outside of Tom Reynolds’ district (Lousie Slaughter is my Congressional representative). Reynolds, a Republican, should have had this election sewn up. Unfortunately, he allegedly saw some of Mark Foley’s inappropriate e-mails to Congressional pages and has been accused of not doing enough in response. As a result he’s neck and neck with a Democratic businessman named Jack Davis. It should be interesting to see what happens.
By the way, Bill Mulligan, no offense, but if you climbed through the “tubes of the Internet” and poked your head through my computer, I’d whack you with a stick until you turned around and went back where you came from.
Judging from the way my “tubes” seem to keep clogging I don’t think I’ll risk making the trip.
Have you been getting the sense lately, upon reading certain posts, that the Twilight Zone theme is playing in the background?
Judging from the way my “tubes” seem to keep clogging I don’t think I’ll risk making the trip.
Don’t blame you. I attempted a tube trip once. Tripped on a wiki and landed in a pile of Goatse.
I just… haven’t been the same since… *shudder*
-Rex Hondo-
Bill Mulligan: “No, I don’t hold up Bush’s GPA as proof that he is smarter than Kerry.”
So what? You just comment out of the blue that Bush is smarter than Kerry, without ANY evidence? Okay, you cite the results of the election. The one that was very, very close. Was it mishandled? Sure. Is that an indication of a lack of intelligence or more particularly, evidence of Bush being MORE intelligence. No. No matter how you spin it, no. In which case, the only thing left on the table is the GPA.
Bill Mulligan: “How Kerry did in college is of no relevance at all, really.”
Who is more intelligent is both impossible to accurately discern and equally irrelevant. Yet as far as i can see (and I apologize if I am incorrect) YOU introduced the topic to this particular dialog.
Bill Mulligan: “The fact that Kerry’s dwindling band of defenders STILL try to spin his grades as indicative of some level of superiority shows just how deeply the revelation of his sub-Bush achievement cut. Again, it’s no big deal…except to those who made it one.”
Then why perpetuate the dialog? Why introduce the comparison?
Why introduce the comparison?
i think it was R.J. who first mentioned the GPA thing and then it was Sasha who commented on it. I was, alas, a distant third to chime in.
As far as bringing up intelligence of Bush or the voters, that has been a part of this thread form the get go.
I don’t think Kerry is very smart and certainly nowhere near as smart as his supporters thought he was. But you are correct that my opinion, like that of the many here who opine that Bush is an idiot, is an opinion that cannot be backed up with solid facts, no matter how much we may claim otherwise.
I would add one caveat–“smart” and “intelligent” are related terms but not, in my mind anyway, exactly the same. The most intelligent person I know has done some pretty dumb things in their life. I’ve worked with kids who were of below average intelligence but had a clarity of mind that gave them far more common sense than their peers. The average kid who studies twice as hard as the genius who blows off his studies is probably a lot smarter than our genius (and will probably go further, which is one reason why life is littered with so many talented failures).
Anyway, I’m sorry if I came off too gleeful in all this. Kerry can be a pompous ášš but I think he’s genuinely upset with how this all fell out. And you have to give credit to anyone who takes the risk of running for president when there’s an even chance of failure on a scale that most of us can only imagine. Kicking a guy when he’s down is nothing to shoot for.
“Have you been getting the sense lately, upon reading certain posts, that the Twilight Zone theme is playing in the background?”
You’re only just getting that sense of background music now? Dude, I’ve been getting it for about a year or so now. Only I get it with one slight dif. I keep hearing Baby Elephant Walk.
🙂
Oh, look. An honest Republican. Pol. I didn’t think there were in left in Bush’s world.
October 31, 2006 – MSNBC’s Hardball
Former House Majority Leader Ðìçk Armey (R-TX) speaking about the attacks on Kerry’s remarks:
“Well, it’s pretty standard fare in political discourse. You misconstrue what somebody said. You isolate a statement, you lend your interpretation to it and then feign moral outrage.” When Matthews stated that Kerry “was bashing Bush,” Armey responded, “Right,” and went on to say, “A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out.”
Does anyone have that picture of the Troops holding up a sign that says Halp us John KERY get out of IraK. I can’t find the thing.
The notion that Kerry, who served in the armed forces, would be dissing the troops, or that Kerry, who despises Bush and Co., would be dissing the administration.
I don’t know about that. He was talking about what happens if you don’t do well in school, and as I’m sure we’re all aware, Bush did slightly better in school than Kerry, and Kerry’s the one who ended up in the military.
Styer, that was mean.
And absolutely frickin’ hilarious. Well done.
over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the “Winter Soldier Investigation.” The term “Winter Soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, no reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out. We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.
We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Vietcong.
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.
We watched the U.S. falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against “oriental human beings,” with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater or let us say a non-third-world people theater, and so we watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the high for the reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn’t lose, and we couldn’t retreat, and because it didn’t matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point. And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881’s and Fire Base 6’s and so many others. Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese. Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to dies so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.”
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to dies in Vietnam? How do ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President’s last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says, and says clearly: But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people. But the problem of veterans goes beyond this personal problem, because you think about a poster in this country with a picture of Uncle Sam and the picture says “I want you.” And a young man comes out of high school and says, “That is fine. I am going to serve my country.” And he goes to Vietnam and he shoots and he kills and he does his job or maybe he doesn’t kill, maybe he just goes and he comes back, and when he gets back to this country he finds that he isn’t really wanted, because the largest unemployment figure in the country- it varies depending on who you get it from, the VA Administration 15 percent, various other sources 22 percent. But the largest corps of unemployed in this country are veterans of this war, and of those veterans 33 percent of the unemployed are black. That means 1 out of every 10 of the Nation’s unemployed is a veteran of Vietnam.
The hospitals across the country won’t, or can’t meet their demands. It is not a question of not trying. They don’t have the appropriations. A man recently died after he had a tracheotomy in California, not because of the operation but because there weren’t enough personnel to clean the mucous out of his tube and he suffocated to death.
Another young man just died in a New York VA hospital the other day. A friend of mine was lying in a bed two beds away and tried to help him, but he couldn’t. He rang a bell and there was nobody there to service that man and so he died of convulsions.
I understand 57 percent of all those entering the VA hospitals talk about suicide. Some 27 percent have tried, and they try because they come back to this country and they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn’t really care, that doesn’t really care. We are here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country, the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions also, the use of weapons, the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is party and parcel of everything.
The Winter Soldier Investigation did not involve, for the most part, genuine testimonies from genuine veterans. The entire project was a hoax formulated by a group called the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Lt. Kerry was an integral member of the group.
If you don’t believe those three claims we really can’t find intellectual common ground and can’t really have this discussion. We can suggest that Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) would never insult the military or besmirch the American fighting man but the truth is that Lt. Kerry, USN certainly cast the US Armed Forces in a negative light and for many tainted an entire generation of soldiers. Every stereotype or bit of common wisdom regarding Vietnam vets started somewhere. We probably don’t agree where.
Is it believable that John Kerry was trying to insult Bush? Yes. Is it believable that he fumbled it? Yes. That pretty much ended the issue for me.
The fact that it goes any farther than that with anyone saddens me. I liked the Daily Show’s bit on it tonight. Then Stephen Colbert’s bit set my teeth on edge. He showed the clip of Tony Snow saying, “where could you possibly put the word ‘us’ in that sentence? Maybe, “you wind up us landing in Iraq?” that makes no sense.”
That made me have to leave the room. I just couldn’t watch anymore. Tony Snow is smart enough to figure out where the word ‘us’ would go. So he’s deliberately pretending to be stupid, and it infuriates me that he can do that *successfully*. Acting like he’s too stupid to figure out 4th grade grammar actually does exactly what he wants it to, and I just couldn’t watch the TV for awhile after that.
Craig J. Ries, in response to Only masochists or psychopaths actually want to be in Iraq right now:
I’m still trying to decide between those which one my brother is.
If you’re saying that right now your brother is in Iraq…and that he’s HAPPY there…and doesn’t want to go home…then yes, there’s something wrong with him, sorry.
If, on the other hand, he is reluctantly staying even though he’d rather be somewhere else because he feels that an abrupt, simultaneous pullout of all U.S. forces would cause things to become even worse than they are, that’s something entirely different. But I said anybody who wanted to be in Iraq was either a masochist or psychopath.
If he also thinks that every single thing the U.S. has done over there has been completely justified from day one, then I have to add “delusional” to the list of applicable adjectives.
Mike, in response to Near the beginning of this year, Joel Stein wrote a column in which he stated his belief that saying “I support the troops but I don’t support the war” is a copout. I partially agree with him. Me, I do not support the war and I do not support anybody who believes the war is right. If some of the troops believe the war is right even today, then I say fûçk them. They aren’t deserving of my support, respect or the planet’s oxygen. wrote:
Supporting the troops by opposing the war is not a copout. Every soldier takes an oath to place the constitution above his own life, and it isn’t done casually. That dedication is being squandered to feed the insurgency. It’s simply the conservation of an endangered national resource.
I honestly wonder if they really know what they are getting themselves into when they take that oath. If you “place the constitution above your own life” does that mean that you blindly follow whatever orders you’re given and don’t consult your conscience?
I support the troops who come back and speak out against the war.
I support the troops who are over there against their will and can’t leave because they’d be locked up for going AWOL.
I even support the troops who are willingly over there because they feel that regardless of whether or not it was right to invade in the first place, the only thing standing between complete bloody anarchy in Iraq is the American military presence there. In other words, the ones who feel that they owe it to the Iraqi people to help clean up the mess.
I do NOT support the other kinds of troops. The ones who run places like Abu Ghraib. The ones who think that the past three years have been completely worth it and that the deaths of thousands of civilians somehow serve a greater good. The ones who are willing to do anything, kill anybody, torture anybody, act like savages, in order to make themselves feel safer and to feed their delusion that their brutality somehow honors and protects America. They are a disgrace to their uniforms. There is no honor in their actions.
DaveOConnel: I’m not sure why Kerry thinks its OK for *Iraqis* to terrorize kids and women in the dead of night, but that’s a different headache, and one I’m not going to invite upon myself.
If Kerry is a genuinely decent man, he doesn’t think it’s all right for Iraqis to terrorize other Iraqis.
In late 2002 and early 2003, there was a choice. The U.S. could:
A) Allow Hussein to remain in power, occasionally killing and brutalizing those under his rule, maintaining order through fear and the threat of violence and/or imprisonment
or
B) Remove Hussein by any means necessary. This includes bombing the hëll out of Baghdad and many other cities, imprisoning and tormenting people without evidence of guilt, getting rid of the police force that was keeping the oppressed Shiites from going to war with the Sunnis, acting surprised when civil war broke out on top of the already problematic insurgency, etc.
Seems to me that the lesser of the two evils would have been to leave Saddam in power. Removing him by any means necessary makes about as much sense as removing a brain tumor by decapitating the patient.
In the end we have caused far too much damage to make it worthwhile. I find it very hard to believe that the death toll caused by three more years of Saddam (from 2003 to 2006) would be more than the death toll after three years of U.S. occupation.
Back to your original question, Dave. Is it okay for Iraqis to terrorize Iraqis? No. Is it okay for Americans to terrorize Iraqis? No. But I would be more comfortable if it were Saddam’s people doing instead of American troops, because that way I would be able to hang onto my belief that Americans were above terrorizing people, that Americans could never be that cruel.
Well, now people have seen what Americans are capable of. It has made people around the world look at America in a new, very negative way. It has even caused some of the people whose country is occupied by American forces to take up arms against them.
Bill Mulligan: “i think it was R.J. who first mentioned the GPA thing and then it was Sasha who commented on it. I was, alas, a distant third to chime in.”
True. You did not, and I admit that I was under the impression that you had. My mistake 100%. But I must say, I will forever despise the fact that many people feel comfortable quoting within a debate setting without leaving any indication of who they are quoting. Complicates the process and contributes to misunderstandings, particularly in longer discussions.
Bill Mulligan: ” I would add one caveat–“smart” and “intelligent” are related terms but not, in my mind anyway, exactly the same. The most intelligent person I know has done some pretty dumb things in their life. I’ve worked with kids who were of below average intelligence but had a clarity of mind that gave them far more common sense than their peers. The average kid who studies twice as hard as the genius who blows off his studies is probably a lot smarter than our genius (and will probably go further, which is one reason why life is littered with so many talented failures).”
No argument there.
Bill Mulligan: “Anyway, I’m sorry if I came off too gleeful in all this. Kerry can be a pompous ášš but I think he’s genuinely upset with how this all fell out. And you have to give credit to anyone who takes the risk of running for president when there’s an even chance of failure on a scale that most of us can only imagine. Kicking a guy when he’s down is nothing to shoot for.”
No worries. And please don’t take my responses to you as an attack. I’m an infrequent poster on this forum, but a longtime reader. Because of this, I’m familiar enough with your general attitude to know that you’re an intelligent and reasonable guy, even when presented with differing viewpoints. Which is a welcome change of pace from some of the other forums I frequent.
So the “purple heart band-aid” crowd are up in arms, pant-hooting for the corporate-shill media, and intentionally “failing” to air Kerry’s remarks in full context — as in, including the preceding sentence or three that made it absolutely clear that he was discussing Bush all along.
Our servicemen and veterans *are* being defecated upon, but not by John Kerry.
Wildcat
No worries. And please don’t take my responses to you as an attack. I’m an infrequent poster on this forum, but a longtime reader. Because of this, I’m familiar enough with your general attitude to know that you’re an intelligent and reasonable guy, even when presented with differing viewpoints. Which is a welcome change of pace from some of the other forums I frequent.
Right back at you, sir. I’d say this forum has a pretty high number of smart creative people. It’s kind of ironic that a place that has as it’s central core a devotion to “mere” comic books, particularly those written by a specific writer (“Writer? Those things have to be writen?”) has much more intelligence on display than a lot of forums I’ve seen supposedly devoted to “important” topics.
Not that we don’t attract the occasional troll as you, ah, might have noticed.
“The reason Bush doesn’t get hung by his gaffs the way Kerry gets hung by “If you don’t [study hard], you get stuck in Iraq,” is because democrats don’t offer obvious summaries of their positions. I said as much last year.”
I think it’s valid to say that the Democrats don’t offer nice, concise, bite-sized, pre-chewed summaries of their positions, yes. It’s a complicated world full of complicated and nuanced positions. Kerry’s mistake was believing that it was possible to explain that to a people who cherish ten second sound-bites. I think it’s unrelated to the Bush-gets-a-pass-on-gaffes situation.
“In their own self-interest, the conservatives here disagreed this was the case. The liberals, including Peter, refused to believe it also. The obvious thesis is what shelters Bush. It’s a shelter the liberals refuse to occupy.”
Nnnnnoooo, what sheltered Bush for the longest time was 9/11. The media was happy to eviscerate Bush’s every misstep pre-9/11. The man was a joke. Then 9/11 happened, everyone rallied behind him, and making fun of his inability to convey even the simplest thought without tripping over his tongue became verboten. As we know, he pìššëd away all that good will and solidarity, but by the time he did, his staggering verbal ineptitude simply became old news.
PAD
The following from the master of charm:
“Of course, now Senator Kerry says he was just making a joke, and he botched it up,” Vice President Ðìçk Cheney said in remarks prepared for a campaign appearance in Montana. “I guess we didn’t get the nuance. He was for the joke before he was against it.”
Yeah, well, better to shoot yourself in the foot than someone else in the face.
PAD
Posted by: Jerry C at November 1, 2006 10:56 PM
You’re only just getting that sense of background music now? Dude, I’ve been getting it for about a year or so now. Only I get it with one slight dif. I keep hearing Baby Elephant Walk.
I’m hearing “Dueling Banjos.”
I’m very worried.
Retaliation against 9/11 is an obvious summary.
Yet as the loser in 2004, John Kerry won more votes than any other presidential candidate in history — without offering one “nice, concise, bite-sized, pre-chewed [summary].”
There are two kinds of solutions: convergent solutions and divergent solutions. Convergent solutions remain stable over time. Divergent solutions offer valid alternatives to existing solutions.
In a campaign, if you don’t offer your own convergent solution, what is the point of running in the first place?
Posted by: Mike at November 2, 2006 08:31 AM
Yet as the loser in 2004, John Kerry won more votes than any other presidential candidate in history — without offering one “nice, concise, bite-sized, pre-chewed [summary].”
Uhmmm… how did John Kerry win “more votes than any other presidential candidate in history” when George W. Bush won roughly 3 million more votes than Kerry???
I mean, what is that, “the new math?”
“The Winter Soldier Investigation did not involve, for the most part, genuine testimonies from genuine veterans. The entire project was a hoax formulated by a group called the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Lt. Kerry was an integral member of the group.
If you don’t believe those three claims we really can’t find intellectual common ground and can’t really have this discussion.”
No I don’ accept those three claims, since they are not supported by the facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_Investigation
Of course not much the Republicans claim these days are supported by the facts, including saying Kerry meant to insult the troops.
Hey anybody here outraged that Bush bowed to Maliki and stopped the search for a missing serviceman in Baghdad. Or doesn’t that count as supporting the troops?
Had he just said “Hey, I screwed up a joke.” right at the beginning it would have been a 1 day story, mostly ignored. By hitting back to show the “NEw & Improved, with 20% More Backbone” John Kerry and THEN admitting he screwed up he made it a 3 or 4 day story. Way to go. The man has the poilitical smarts of a lemur.
Sorry, to bring this back up from the beginning of the thread, but I have to agree with this. The GOP were desperate to find something, anything that they could use to get the media’s focus off of the bad news coming out of Iraq and the Foley scandal in the weeks before the election. Kerry’s gaffe was like mana from heaven. They were going to make a meal out of it no matter how Kerry tried to phrase his apology and their supporters on Fox “News” were going to replay the original excerpt again and again no matter what.
Saw this on various newspapers
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11022006/photos/news004.jpg
Bill Myers, you’re excluding a logical qualifier sitting in the same sentence.
You were part of a group of defensive white guys who jumped on someone for comparing something one of them said to the Merriam-Webster definition of genocide. My guess is that that is eating at your pretense that you are some kind of decent person. I can’t say I would relent against that kind of guy either if I tried to pull that kind of šhìŧ.
I’m still waiting for you to cite where the comment Sean apologized for applies to me. Otherwise, why write a check with your mouth your butt can’t cash?
Posted by: Mike at November 2, 2006 08:59 AM
Bill Myers, you’re excluding a logical qualifier sitting in the same sentence.
No, I’m not. You wrote a poor sentence. Here’s what you should have written:
“Yet as the loser in 2004, John Kerry won more votes than any other presidential candidate in history aside from President George W. Bush.“
The above sentence, as revised by me, includes the necessary qualifier that your original version lacked.
You’re welcome.
Posted by: Mike at November 2, 2006 08:59 AM
You were part of a group of defensive white guys who jumped on someone for comparing something one of them said to the Merriam-Webster definition of genocide.
How do you know what the color of my skin is? There’s nothing I’ve written that couldn’t have come from someone of any race. It is racist in the extreme to suggest otherwise.
Also, I never engaged you in the genocide debate/šhìŧ-storm you tried to stir up. I wasn’t interested.
Posted by: Mike at November 2, 2006 08:59 AM
My guess is that that is eating at your pretense that you are some kind of decent person. I can’t say I would relent against that kind of guy either if I tried to pull that kind of šhìŧ.
No, what’s eating at me is that I’m in love with Sarah Michelle Gellar but she only has eyes for you. How do you do that?
Posted by: Mike at November 2, 2006 08:59 AM
I’m still waiting for you to cite where the comment Sean apologized for applies to me.
You’ll be waiting until Hëll freezes over and beyond. I didn’t make that remark, Sean did. If he saw fit to apologize for it, then that’s that. I’m not going to presume to speak for a guy who is perfectly capable of speaking for himself.
All I did was point out that the remark was directed at you, which it was.
Posted by: Mike at November 2, 2006 08:59 AM
Otherwise, why write a check with your mouth your butt can’t cash?
I don’t know. It must be my Lennie-like predatory agenda against which there is no defense from a checking account that does not have a sufficient balance to cover a draft written for butt-sex. You didn’t invent that problem any more than you invented the rain or the sky.
Wait-a-minute. Where were you when the rain and the sky were invented? Can anyone vouch for your wheareabouts?
What’s that? It happened before you were born? How convenient.
Don’t leave town, Mickey.
Everyone: I know, I know, it is infantile in the extreme to poke the troll with a stick and it detracts from the quality of the thread. I’ll try to resist any more of this nonsense. 🙂
Comparing something someone said to the Merriam-Webster definition of genocide? That’s only incendiary to defensive white guys.
“That’s that” for me, but not for you, hunh? Yeah, if you like you games fixed it is.
But it IS funny!
You’ve got a wicked sense of humor that doesn’t always show up in your more serious comments. Of course it helps when the, um, opposition sounds like a kid who has been watch just a few too many pro wrestling videos.
Don’t blame you. I attempted a tube trip once. Tripped on a wiki and landed in a pile of Goatse.
I just… haven’t been the same since… *shudder*
Y’know I hear there’s an interesting Goatse site out there — it’s not of the actual . . . thing, but rather pictures and video of people seeing and reacting to Goatse for the first time.
I understand in some of the pictures, if you look closely enough, you can actually see the innocence leaving the body.
Rob Brown –
If you’re saying that right now your brother is in Iraq…and that he’s HAPPY there…and doesn’t want to go home…then yes, there’s something wrong with him, sorry.
Shortly before my wife and I took our vacation to New Zealand back in August, my brother (the younger of my two brothers) called to say he had joined the National Guard. He has lots of student loan debts, so I can see the appeal in the ‘easy money’, but he’d also gotten work as an electrical apprentice, which is good pay if you can stick with it.
He said my mom was ok with it. I found out later she wasn’t quite so amused by the prospect – she’s a Republican, but even she recognizes how badly we’ve screwed up with Iraq.
After we got back from our trip, I talked to my dad and he had said that brother wanted to be sent to Iraq. This was not something that my brother had told my mom; again, she wasn’t very amused.
He left for basic in mid-Sept. So, I don’t know what his problem is. And I say it quite openly: if you join the military now, knowing what Bush has done, you’re an idiot.
Either way, it’s not like I haven’t had some level of personal stake in this whole mess to begin with. I have an aunt who’s career Air Force, and even though neither her nor her also career Air Force husband have been sent to Iraq, you can’t discount the possibility. I mean, we’re now training our Naval sailors for ground work. Who knows who’s next?
Howard –
Saw this on various newspapers
Well, iirc, that’s the same image Bill Mulligan linked to earlier in the thread.
But, as I mentioned elsewhere, this is No Child Left Behind in action. 😉
Goatse
Ok…what is this? From your description I’m afraid to even google it. Can you describe what it is in a way that will not potentially put me over the brink that my recent flu shot has placed me (Really, if I wanted aches, pains, and a low grade fever I could have, you know, just waited to get the flu.)
(ok, ok, I know, I don’t want to discourage anyone from getting their flu shots. It’s just a matter of time before we have a 1918 situation all over again)
MArk, funny story about Limbaugh. My mother didn’t drive, so me being the nice Celtic oy that I am, I used to drive her places. Now, we had two dogs at the time that were VERY attached to her, so she used to leave the radio on for them when we went out. If she happened to leave the station that had Limbaugh’s show on, invariably we would have to clean up evidence of dog when we got home. Never happened when we left the oldies station on. I’d laugh every time, after wishing that we had outside dogs so we wouldn’t have to clean it up.
One thing that always pops into my head whenever the whole GPA thing comes up in general, but with Bush and Kerry in particular. First off, there are FAR too many variables for just the GPA to be a valid medium of comparison. For example, my first three semesters of college I was dean’s list, while three people I know that I’d say were just as smart as me were on academic probation. Now, the fact that I was taking English and computer science classes and they were taking nursing, biology and pre-med evened it all out. Unless Bush and Kerry were taking exactly the same classes at exactly the same time under exactly the same professor, the GPA is good for nothing but bragging rights.
And Mr. Mulligan, (Gods, now there’s THREE Bills around here. Can we PLEASE make one a law?) when I crawled up the tube into your computer, did I leave five bucks on your monitor?
Ok…what is this? From your description I’m afraid to even google it.
Smart man.
Can you describe what it is in a way that will not potentially put me over the brink that my recent flu shot has placed me.
It’s one of those internet shock images that sadistic bášŧárdš occasionally shepherd poor, trusting, unsuspecting people to. Goatse is designed to make a proctologist react badly.
And as a friendly suggestion and general public service announcement, if you ever are offered to link to something called tubgirl . . . run.
Goatse
Ok…what is this? From your description I’m afraid to even google it. Can you describe what it is in a way that will not potentially put me over the brink that my recent flu shot has placed me (Really, if I wanted aches, pains, and a low grade fever I could have, you know, just waited to get the flu.)
Hmm… Y’see, I’m debating whether to be a good person, or to be a jáçkášš, since nobody warned me before I went and clicked the dámņ link.
Oh, what the hëll. Let’s consider it my good deed for the month. For anybody who hasn’t heard of it, goatse is an acronym that stands for:
Guy
Opens
Ass
To
Show
Everybody
If your curiosity gets the better of you at this point, I wash my hands of it. However, if you haven’t guessed already, this is one internet phenomenon that is just about as Not-safe-for-work as you can get.
Gee, between this and my Halloween costume ideas, I think I’d better rein it in before people really get the wrong idea about me. 😛
-Rex Hondo-
Rex, we had the wrong idea about you from the start.
Gee, between this and my Halloween costume ideas, I think I’d better rein it in before people really get the wrong idea about me.
Weird bit. I was sent one of those e-mails that have pictures of creative jack-o-lanterns and one of them was a Goatse-o-Lantern.
Goatse apparently also is was the design basis of a building you attack in one of those FPS games.
If your curiosity gets the better of you at this point, I wash my hands of it.
At this point I want to take a whole shower.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 2, 2006 11:02 AM
At this point I want to take a whole shower.
That’s something you should be doing every day, anyway.
Bill Mulligan,
Go ahead and Google it. The first link you get is to Wikipedia. Although, after reading that… Man, am I SOOOO glad THAT was the first link.
I may also never be able to play Doom 3 again.
“Of course it helps when the, um, opposition sounds like a kid who has been watch just a few too many pro wrestling videos.”
Hey!!! What are you talking about? He sounds nothing like me! Trying to call me out, Mulligan? Lucky for you I’m in too much of a state of mourning over the passing of the great legendary luchador Huracan Ramirez (creator of the Huracarrana) to slap you around.
You know what really saddens me?
I keep fantasising about how classy Bush would have looked if he’d treated it like a botched joke.
Just imaging it. The news reports are harping on the statement like they are now, the pundits are driving it into the ground like now, and everyone is blowing it out of proportion.
Then Bush goes up to the podium and someone asks him about Kerry’s comment. Bush shrugs his shoulders and says. “He botched a joke. No big deal.”
Right there, I’d have had more respect for him. It wouldn’t have changed my opinions about his policies, but I’d have felt a little better about him as a person. The current tactic of nailing Kerry to the wall for insulting the troops is probably the best political move, it’s certainly rallying all the republicans who want to support Bush and are looking for a reason. But it would have been so classy for the President to just treat a botched joke like a botched joke. Plus, Kerry would still have looked pathetic for failing to insult Bush and Bush being gracious about it.
“Hey anybody here outraged that Bush bowed to Maliki and stopped the search for a missing serviceman in Baghdad. Or doesn’t that count as supporting the troops?”
I thought what they did last night on “The Daily Show” was priceless. Jon Stewart began by reporting an incredibly serious story about actions taken by the Iraqi government that bode ill for the situation over there, and suddenly is “interrupted” for a “breaking news story” reported with delirious urgency by Samantha Bee: John Kerry muffed a joke.
PAD
Hey anybody here outraged that Bush bowed to Maliki and stopped the search for a missing serviceman in Baghdad. Or doesn’t that count as supporting the troops?
It’s a dámņëd if he does, and a dámņëd if he doesn’t situation. From what I can tell, the soldier was illegitimately away from the base. The search is pìššìņg øff the locals as it was far too much, far too restrictive and far too unproductive. And NOT to bow to the demands of the local ruler (who we helped put in office) would have the US act as more of an occupying force, rather than a liberating, freedom-aiding force.
I’m more pìššëd that Bush & Co. were so dámņ incompetent to let the situation degenerate into this.
“Hey anybody here outraged that Bush bowed to Maliki and stopped the search for a missing serviceman in Baghdad. Or doesn’t that count as supporting the troops?”
I’m not. About time we let someone in their own country have their way.
Jason’s right, but then expecting any politician anywhere to respond to something with class is like expecting bologna to taste like lobster. This whole thing, not just the thing with Kerry’s joke but the way all the media pounce on every single word someone says reminds me of something I saw somewhere in college. A reporter goes up to a candidate, asks if she can ask him a question about his speech, and says, “Could you clarify, sir, for my readers, what you meant by the word, ‘the’?”