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| Jul 28th, 2003 03:31 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
Here's a pretty biting commentary on the issue this thread started to be about.... It's clearly very biased, but I think it makes a valid argument about the Bush "lying" matter (perhaps excluding the whole "hereditary liar" argument it tries to make). http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/071803a.html Lying -- a Bush Family Value By Robert Parry July 18, 2003 In most cases, it wouldn’t matter much that a 40-year-old long-time heavy drinker refused to admit to his alcoholism, nor that years later, he continued to play word games when asked about his cocaine use. Doctors might say that denial isn’t good for a person’s recovery, but that wouldn’t affect the rest of us. The difference in this case is that the substance abuser somehow became president of the United States. And by hiding his earlier problems, George W. Bush learned what is becoming a dangerous lesson – that his family and political connections can protect him from the truth. Politicians with less powerful friends may pay dearly for their little lies or perceived exaggerations, as Bill Clinton and Al Gore learned. But the Bushes are not like lesser-born men. The Bushes have asserted themselves as a kind of American royalty. When the rare question about their truthfulness penetrates the outer defenses, aides step in to spin the facts, or a cowed news media minimizes the offense, or if necessary, some subordinate takes the fall. Meanwhile, the American people are supposed to bend over backward with testimonials, saying it would be unthinkable that "straight-shooting" George W. Bush would ever intentionally mislead the people. The Bushes simply aren’t capable of lying, even when the public is watching a train wreck of lies about the reasons for the Iraq War. The American public's not even supposed to notice when Bush – as recently as July 14 – altered key facts about how the war to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein began earlier this year. "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in," Bush said at the White House. "After a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power." With U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan sitting next to him and White House reporters in front of him, Bush lied. In reality, Hussein’s government had allowed the U.N. inspectors to scour the countryside for months and was even complying with U.N. demands to destroy missiles that exceeded the range permitted by international sanctions. In early March, U.N. inspectors were requesting more time for their work and noting that the Iraqis finally were filling in details about how they had destroyed earlier stockpiles of weapons. But Bush cut the inspections short and launched his invasion. Now, asserting a kind of kingly right to say whatever he wishes without contradiction, Bush revised the history to put himself in a more favorable light. The lie was so obvious that some Bush watchers suggest it indicates either a growing brazenness in his deceptions or a disconnect between Bush’s mind and reality. Still, Bush continues to chastise those who question his honesty about the Iraq War as "historical revisionists." He accuses them of trying to rewrite or falsify the history. Meanwhile, Bush’s own rewriting of the prologue to the Iraq War drew only passing notice from a U.S. news media that still accepts the myth of Bush, the "straight shooter." A Family Legacy Bush’s words and deeds around the Iraq War suggest that deception was one lesson that George W. Bush learned from his father. With his blue-blood connections and his CIA experience, George H.W. Bush understood the expediency of truth. From his CIA tradecraft, the elder Bush also knew how a population could be manipulated through lies, which could then be covered up or forgotten in the glow of victory. As CIA chief in 1976, the elder Bush led the counterattack against the historic congressional and press investigations of CIA abuses, including the agency’s involvement in assassinations of foreign leaders. Those cover-ups reached into Bush's own tenure at the CIA, with efforts to frustrate an investigation into the murder of Chile's ex-foreign minister Orlando Letelier, who was blown up while driving down Embassy Row in Washington on Sept. 21, 1976. Though Bush promised that his CIA would do all it could to help identify the killers, senior CIA officials instead took actions to divert investigators away from the real killers – agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, a Bush favorite. Bush's CIA leaked a phony intelligence finding to Newsweek magazine. "The Chilean secret police were not involved," the CIA told Newsweek. "The agency reached its decision because the bomb was too crude to be the work of experts and because the murder, coming while Chile's rulers were wooing U.S. support, could only damage the Santiago regime." [Newsweek, Oct. 11, 1976] Years later, prosecutors would learn that the CIA had important evidence linking Chile's secret police to the assassination – assassin Michael Townley even had claimed the purpose of his trip to the United States was to visit the CIA – but CIA director Bush withheld that information. "Nothing the agency gave us helped us break this case," said federal prosecutor Eugene Propper. [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com "Bush & the Condor Mystery."] Iran Capers The senior Bush's hand appeared in other intelligence mysteries of the era. In 1980, with the Republican Party desperate to regain power, then-vice presidential nominee Bush allegedly joined other senior Republicans in secret talks with the radical Iranian government, obstructing President Jimmy Carter's attempts to win the release of 52 American hostages then held in Iran. Carter’s failure paved the way for Ronald Reagan's election, followed by the release of the hostages on Reagan's Inauguration Day. [For details on George H.W. Bush’s role in these events, see Consortiumnews.com’s "October Surprise X-Files" or Robert Parry’s Trick or Treason.] Later, the elder Bush became enmeshed in other secret negotiations with Iran, the illegal Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scheme. But he was always careful to cover his tracks. When the Iran-Contra scandal broke in fall 1986, Bush asserted that he was "not in the loop." He then got help from Representatives Dick Cheney and Henry Hyde, who protected Bush’s political flanks as the investigation wound through Congress in 1987. By the time the elder Bush secured the Republican nomination for president in 1988, his role in the Iran-Contra scandal had been carefully concealed from the voters and was treated as "old news" by much of the U.S. news media. In summer 1988, Bush still found himself trailing Democrat Michael Dukakis in the polls. So Bush realized that another lie was in order. Since the Massachusetts governor was refusing to rule out the possibility of a tax increase as a "last resort," Dukakis was open to a charge that he was a "tax-and-spend" liberal. Bush sealed the deal in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. After mocking Dukakis’s "last resort" comment, Bush declared, "Read my lips: No new taxes." The lie helped the elder Bush get what he wanted: the presidency. He then broke his "read-my-lips" pledge by agreeing to raise federal taxes. In 1992, Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh uncovered evidence that proved George H.W. Bush was very much in the loop on the arms-for-hostages operation and had misled the American people. But Bush stanched further disclosures about his secret involvement with Iran’s fundamentalist government by pardoning a half dozen Iran-Contra defendants on Dec. 24, 1992. [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Bush Family Politics."] A Strategy This strategy of expedient lies, mixed with aggressive cover-ups, has served the younger Bush well, too. He ducked the cocaine-use question with a clever answer about being qualified to serve in his father’s White House – where time limits were set for disqualifying employees over illegal drug use. He one-upped his father’s "no-new-taxes" pledge with his own promise to cut taxes while paying off the federal debt. Handing out nicknames to reporters, the back-slapping George W. Bush skipped through Campaign 2000 with even less press criticism than his father got. More importantly, he escaped the scrutiny that the press corps concentrated on Gore, whose every utterance was dissected for possible signs of exaggeration or deception. Bush was, after all, a Bush, who was expected to restore "honor" and "dignity" to the White House. [For more details on the imbalanced campaign coverage, see Consortiumnews.com’s "Protecting Bush-Cheney," or "Bush's Life of Deception."] Once Bush was in the White House, the news media routinely hailed him as a "straight shooter," a man the people could trust. That image became self-perpetuating even as many of Bush’s central campaign promises crumbled. For instance, Bush’s vision of paying off the federal debt, doling out large tax cuts and still having plenty of money in reserve for emergencies has turned out to be a bitter myth. While Bush won passage of three major tax cuts, supposedly reversing his father’s "mistake" of violating his no-new-taxes pledge, Bush also has encountered the logical result of what Gore derided during Campaign 2000 as "fuzzy math." After inheriting a $290 billion surplus from Clinton, Bush has piloted the United States into a vast ocean of red ink. The latest White House estimates project a federal deficit this year of $455 billion, only to be exceeded next year by a deficit of $475 billion, figures that actually understate the scope of the problem by applying a $150 billion surplus from the Social Security trust fund. The actual government deficits will top $600 billion, according to the White House projections. In breaking his balanced-budget pledge, Bush even employed what looks like another lie. He claimed over and over again in speeches during 2002 that he had left himself an escape hatch. He claimed to have stated during a campaign swing in Chicago in 2000 that he would only run a deficit in the event of a war, a national emergency or a recession. "Never did I dream we’d have a trifecta," Bush joshed in what some critics saw as a tasteless joke about the Sept. 11 murders of more than 3,000 people. As the New Republic later reported, another problem with the supposed escape-hatch remark was that nobody could find a record of Bush ever making it during the campaign. It later turned out that Gore, not Bush, had offered a similar formulation about the three kinds of situations that could justify a deficit. The Iraq Case Even more dramatically, this say-whatever-is-needed strategy has carried over into issues of war and peace. Last year, as Bush decided to drive the American people to war, like so many cattle being herded to market, he and his administration engaged in wholesale misrepresentations of the dangers posed by Iraq. While much attention has focused recently on Bush’s use of the apparently bogus claim that Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger or some other African country, that was only one element of Bush’s larger strategy of deception. In pushing the emotional hot button of nuclear war, Bush and his aides also cited Iraq’s purchase of aluminum tubes as evidence of a reconstituted Iraqi nuclear program. Scientific experts concluded that the tubes were unfit for that purpose. Still, the notion of a nuclear-armed Iraq succeeded in spooking the American people. "We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," declared White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. Bush and his team also hyped claims of an Iraqi connection to al-Qaeda, causing nearly half the American public to believe falsely that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Bush and his administration insisted, too, that Iraq had trigger-ready weapons of mass destruction consisting of tons of chemical and biological weapons. The administration also said the Iraqis had unmanned aerial vehicles that somehow could spray these lethal agents over the United States. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s "Misleading the Nation to War."] As crude as these lies and exaggerations may appear in retrospect, they worked. Bush got what he wanted. Congress granted him the authority to go to war, and by significant percentages, the American public supported Bush launching a pre-emptive invasion against a country that was not threatening hostilities against the United States. The distortions were less effective with the United Nations and with world public opinion. Despite a much-praised performance displaying satellite photographs and intercepted phone calls, Secretary of State Colin Powell failed to convince the U.N. Security Council that U.S. intelligence had solid proof of its allegations that Iraq was hiding vast stores of WMD. In reality, Powell’s presentation was just an extension of the administration’s propaganda drive – the photographs proved nothing and Powell even grafted incriminating words onto the transcript of one intercepted conversation. But Powell, a media favorite, suffered little from his dishonest performance. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s "Bush's Alderaan."] A majority of the U.N. Security Council refused to authorize war and pressed for additional time to let U.N. weapons inspectors complete their searches for Iraqi weapons. Bush, however, insisted that the danger posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction required immediate action and he launched the invasion on March 19. Uncertain Victory In three weeks, the U.S.-led invasion had defeated the Iraqi army and ousted Hussein’s government in Baghdad. Thousands of Iraqis were killed along with more than 100 U.S. soldiers, but American forces found nothing resembling Bush’s pre-war assertions about tons of WMD. Belatedly, as U.S. soldiers continue to die in a growing guerrilla war against the U.S. occupation, the American news media has begun to focus on the disparity between the pre-war claims and the facts on the ground. Nevertheless, the Bush administration’s distortion of intelligence and outright lies have continued unabated. The CIA and the Pentagon issued a report in May alleging that two captured trailers amounted to proof that the Iraqis had a mobile biological weapons program. The report rejected explanations from Iraqi scientists that the trailers were for producing hydrogen for weather balloons used for targeting artillery. "Those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons are wrong," Bush declared, referring to the mobile labs. "We found them." However, more detailed analysis of the trailers by U.K. and U.S. experts determined that the trailers were unfit for biological weapon production and appear to have been for making hydrogen as the Iraqis had claimed. [For one of the first critiques of the CIA-Pentagon report, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Matrix."] Bush's revisionist history about the prelude to war – cited above – is just another example of the continuing pattern of lies and cover-up. Still, for the U.S. news media, there remains a great hesitancy about stating the obvious, calling Bush a liar. It’s one thing to suggest that Bush was badly served by his staff on the Iraqi intelligence, but it remains outside the bounds to conclude that Bush willfully lied to the American people. The evidence, however, indicates that Bush played a central role in the deception campaign. Last January, for instance, the White House portrayed Bush as the man in charge of the State of the Union address. He edited the drafts, the White House said. He wrote notes in the margins. He gave his speech writers pointers. It's now clear that Bush’s aides, in turn, pressed the CIA to let Bush use the strongest possible language about Iraq’s alleged pursuit of uranium in Africa. Bush’s speech then exaggerated the uranium claim even more, giving millions of Americans the impression that the uranium allegations were true, even as Bush’s own intelligence officials thought the charges were bogus. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," Bush said in the speech. His "has learned" construction conveyed a sense of accuracy about the charges. Still, even in a story about Bush’s uranium deceptions, Time magazine observed what it calls "the faith Americans had in his essential trustworthiness." [See Time’s "A Question of Trust," posted July 13, 2003] National Denial The discrepancy between the Bush as presented by the news media and the Bush who seems so ready to deceive has created confusion among many Middle Americans, who only now are beginning to question Bush’s honesty. "I’d like to know whether there was any deliberate attempt to deceive," said Jim Stock, a 70-year-old retired school administrator who voted for Bush in 2000. "My feeling is there was not. But there was an eagerness in the administration to pursue the battle and to believe information that wasn’t quite good. … It’s painful to say, but I don’t like where this is coming down." [NYT, July 17, 2003] So how did this national denial about Bush’s apparent dishonesty develop? Why does the U.S. press corps fail to hold the Bushes to the same standard of honesty demanded of other politicians? How do the Bushes maintain a reputation for honesty when the facts don’t square with that image? Part of the answer, of course, lies in the power of the Bush defenders to trash anyone who questions that image of integrity. Already, Bush’s defenders are heaping ridicule on those who challenge Bush over his Iraqi deceptions. "The flap over who baked the yellowcake uranium story is so transparently political that it is tempting to ignore," sniffed a Wall Street Journal editorial. [July 14, 2003] And if past history is any guide, one must assume that Bush may well wriggle away from this latest attention to his half-truths and lies. Nevertheless, Americans will still have a chance in November 2004 to enforce some accountability on this Bush. With the U.S. deficit soaring to record heights, with the U.S. economy shedding more than two million jobs and with American troops dying in Iraq, the voters may be less and less tolerant about Bush’s casual relationship with the truth. Perhaps, finally, the American people will demand that the Bushes no longer be treated like a protected royal family, but rather like the rest of us who pay a price when our words and the facts don't fit. -30- |
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| Jul 26th, 2003 11:46 AM | |||||||||||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore | Right, but you have also claimed to be a Libertarian, so I thought you may have shared the same view on it as him (or at least the tone of your post kind of implied that). | ||||||||||||||||
| Jul 25th, 2003 04:08 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| The One and Only... |
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Wasn't he the one who said that "If you want a Socialist, vote Democrat. If you want a Democrat, vote Republican. If you want a government based on the Constitution, vote Libertarian."? |
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| Jul 25th, 2003 02:06 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore | Prove that such a shift has happened. | ||||||||||||||||
| Jul 25th, 2003 01:35 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| The One and Only... |
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| Jul 25th, 2003 12:14 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| mburbank | I hate that. I had an email evaporate after a crash yesterday and it's just so demoralizing to have to reconstitute the whole damn thing. I'm actually off work in about five minutes and won't be back till Monday, so take you time. | ||||||||||||||||
| Jul 25th, 2003 12:08 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Preechr |
Max, I just wrote a great big reply for you that i think you would have probably enjoyed thoroughly. It was witty and poignant and... Damn, I was so proud of that post... Unfortunately, whatever button I pushed to post it was the one that deletes everything you just wrote. I hate that when that happens. Please give me a bit to collect my thoughts, and I'll get back to you on that, Ok? |
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| Jul 25th, 2003 09:27 AM | |||||||||||||||||
| mburbank |
"Politics needs to be put back in its proper place in this country." I'm not sure what you mean by that. |
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| Jul 25th, 2003 12:45 AM | |||||||||||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
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Most people weren't sure what the war's outcome would be. Some Pentagon brass WERE predicting a long, drawn out battle. Those aren't anti-war hippies, those are soldiers. Two things should also be kept in mind: 1. Even Paul "it's nice to be a God sometimes" Wolfowitz conceded yesterday that the Iraqi soldiers didn't fold in the volumes that were expected. Maybe this isn't Vietnam or a "quagmire," but it has certainly become more than what had been expected. 2. More U.S. soldiers are already dead than the last Gulf War, and it's uncertain as to whether or not the death of Hussein's sons will lead to less guerrilla assaults or more (some militants have already promised retaliation). Quote:
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But what if these people can't do anything about their situations??? Wasn't that the case made for Iraq...? Quote:
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One of the key justifications for war with Iraq was the conditions which the Iraqis lived under, some argued they lived in "mud huts." This simply isn't true, and the reality is that Iraqis enjoyed a higher standard of living than most others in the Middle East. Does this justify their regime?? Absolutely not. Does pointing out basic truths serve as an apologetic for Saddam? I don't believe so. Quote:
Osama on the other hand had more of an anti-globalization, anti-western culture, anti-American imperialism thing going on, and much of his beef with us (if not all of it) was naive at best. Quote:
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If they were supposedly moved during the war, don't you think our military/intelligence would've caught it?? I mean, we had satellite images of tubes being transported, why wouldn't we cath that...? Hey, a lot of their weapons were probably either made by France or Russia. Why haven't we invaded them along with Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon??? We also shouldn't forget that Qatar's government was financing the terrorist networks in the Kurdish occupied north of Iraq, so maybe we should invade Qatar...? Heck, if Al-Islam or whatever is up near the Kurds, maybe THEY are involved in it! Maybe we should help them create a state, and then BLOW IT UP! Forgive me if the quest for the WMD reminds me of O.J. Simpson's promise to find his wife's murderer. |
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| Jul 24th, 2003 12:10 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Preechr | Ok... so everybody's given up, then? | ||||||||||||||||
| Jul 23rd, 2003 07:08 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Abcdxxxx |
kevin "some communist groups even chastized "the Left" for condemning Saddam Hussein (something folks like ABCDxxxx claims never happened). " Huh? I don't think I've ever addressed that particular issue...I HAVE mentioned the contradiction in leftists working alongside these same communist groups. I'm not so concerned with who chastizes who within the "the left" nearly as much as I am with the Left's reluctance to recognize and chastize Saddam for who he was. One should learn to express arguments against the war without feeling the need to showcase pro-Saddam sentiments, such as how he gives "free education" or provided a good sanitation system. Kevin - "Bin Laden had declared war on America, and was also a top operative for one of the largest terror networks in the world. This makes him more of a likely target, IMO. " Are you saying Saddam never has declared war on America? He was a top leader of an oppresive Middle Eastern regime that aided some of the largest networks in the world. It makes him a likely suspect. Kevin - "Question, no problem. Declare a factual link? Big problem. " Fine, but you're saying it's suspect because it was brought up. Kevin "Eeverybody said it and meant it prior to 1998. But that was then, this is now, and things change..... " What's changed since 1998? Certainly not the policies Saddam employed nor his abuse of the food for oil program. We haven't been able to prove the existance of WMD within Iraq...but can you prove WMD or the chemicals to make them weren't stored in Syrian controlled Lebanon? |
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 05:37 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Preechr |
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I was born a Libertarian, and then learned a little about them. I've actually looked at the web page twice, though I link it in my Newsfilter sig (or used to...) I can defend any of it successfully, I believe. Quote:
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I personally would have LOVED for him to have a little fireside chat on TV, discarding the endless repetition and rhetoric that seemed designed to hypnotize his viewers, and addressing the many valid points made by those truly opposed to THIS war as well as those opposed to ALL wars. I would like to hear that this war was a step toward ending war altogether, as I believe it can be, but I want to hear our president SAY THAT. I guess he's just not that guy. The sad part is, none of the guys lining up to oppose him are either. My main problem is with the anti-Bush (only) opposition to the war. They've made major asses out of themselves and embarrassed, if not outright harmed, America. Politics needs to be put back in its proper place in this country. Quote:
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I'm just re-phrasing what you said after the above quote really. I think we're on the same page here... Quote:
VERY fair taxation, with tons of built ins to guarantee the poor are still sheltered... sheltered BETTER, actually. The main advantage over a flat tax is that a sales tax is optional in times of dire need. That site is extremely comprehensive and, as far as I can see, bullet-proof. </tangent> Quote:
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This isn't economics. Pure Politics... Quote:
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 03:06 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 02:43 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
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Partisan voting these days, in its popular sense, is presented as the opposite of compromise or "moderation", which is untrue. It can also mean to be dedicated to a certain interest, which isn't uncommon in a country where everybody has an acronym waiting to represent them. But I'm glad you "know what I mean" anyway. Quote:
I don't prefer the DNC over anything, and I'm sorry if I gave that false impression. I think Terry McAuliffe is a twit, who probably had a big hand in many of the defeats suffered by the Dems in 2002. I despise the DLC even more. Quote:
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You Sir give "the Left" far too much credit. It's far too divisive and elitist to actually agree on one slogan or thought pattern, and personally, I think most of thwe anti-war folks I know sincerely wanted our men and women to sit this one out. I also have a problem with your claim that the war didn't go as expected. Do you think people on the Left deny the military capabilities of America?? I personally, when realizing the inevitability of the war, wanted it to be swift and painless as possible. I HOPED al of our gadgets and toys payed off. But next you're going to tell me that it was a careful and humane war, which is true, but why? In February (?), Rummy was throwing the word "nuclear" around in the same sentence as Baghdad. Don't ya think record breaking protests around the world had just a tiny bit to do with our military's caution...? Quote:
Granted, those same polls tend to show that most Americans DON'T care about the WMD, and are just proud that we have liberated Iraq (these same citizens will of course dismiss the possibility of sending troops into Liberia on humanitarian grounds. One puritanical crusade is enough for them). Quote:
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Defamation occurs on both ends, and it's also the lesser-Party of the time who does their fair share of it. I think this is an important aspect to being the opposition, however I will agree that the Democrats need to balance this with MUCH more substance. But I think George F. Will recently made a good point pertaining to that matter. The reason "Joe Six Pack" votes Republican is because Republicans have black and white answers for things. They speak with a perceived "moral clarity" that appeals to Joe. Joe doesn't want discussion, he doesn't want debate, he want to hold an economic sumit, he wants definitive answers and solutions. That's why he voted for "you." I personally don't like this way of thinking, and it's an American flaw, IMO. However it must be respected, and this is something the Democrats seem to have ignored. Quote:
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 Mike Savage couldn't have said it better himself. |
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 01:44 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Abcdxxxx |
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I think it was a no brainer to assume the US would start making plans to topple Iraq the day a second Bush was sworn into office. The Iraq to 9/11 links are only as suspect as the Bin Laden to 9/11 link announced only hours after the event happened. Again it's a no brainer. Saddam was involved with terrorist groups, and had been linked to prior attempts on the WTC. Why not question it the day after? Wasn't it Clinton who was the first to say Saddam had WMD??? I think the best argument is that we know Saddam had WMD because WE sold them to him!!!!! Wasn't that a popular leftist damning America argument at one point? (and as for mentioning Hawaii - I can't say they're any better from American Imperialism, but as I understand it, they would have been taken over by France or Japan with far less freedoms had we not gone in. Nations have never acted out strictly for moral improvements alone) |
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 01:13 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Preechr |
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I also agree with many of your points, just not your Liberal perspective from which you've derived them. I believe your own ideas wholly transcend the DNC agenda, and that your preference to them is a matter of the better of two evils... and you are definitely no Republican... hehe... Quote:
The majority of voters think a neo-con was the guy in the Matrix or something. DNC rhetoric is more than ever preaching to the choir when it needs more than ever to be reaching out to the masses. That means decrying the decidedly NON-Republican things their Republican President is doing on the Homefront. They are still paying the game as if they were the equal of the GOP, which they just aren't right now. The Dems need to run on issues, not just the defamation of the other guys. Joe's just not buying that tactic because this is NOT 1996 anymore. Quote:
And: I am interested, but not in the way you are. I'm more results oriented, and willing to give the guys in charge a bit more leeway, I guess (no matter which side of the same barrel they came from...) I'm also a Libertarian, so I see Bush and Clinton as two shades of grey. I was also happy to see W looking seriously at a national sales tax, and seriously dissapointed to never even see a report issued before he failed to bully through a meaningful tax cut while signing more checks than any president you remember. And I had a typo. I'm truly sorry. I hope you will forgive me. I was referring to the fact that our economy grows every year, so it's stupid to look at raw numbers and announce that we have the biggest deficit ever. It's still a smaller slice of a bigger pie. Deficits, for that matter, are a GOP tool used to fight Democrat spending, and you know enough about politics to know that, I think. To me, that's fine as long as the Republicans aren't outspending the Dems. As I said, everything has slipped a notch to the left. If you want a Socialist, vote Democrat. If you want a Democrat, vote Republican. If you want an America based on the Constitution, vote Libertarian. Quote:
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 12:34 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| kellychaos |
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 12:22 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Preechr |
...which brings us back to "Doh!" One of my original points was that BOTH sides of Congress voted for military action against Iraq to enforce the UN resolutions BEFORE the SOTU address. Yes, I know this has turned into a wider discussion at this point, but I'm just redirecting traffic a bit here. The original issue was taken with the DNC push to claim those 16 words from W constituted a LIE. They did not. The British Government is still standing behind the intelligence reports he referenced, and Coalition forces are still searching for WMD evidence, and there's a political commercial being tested in small markets (soon to be appearing on your own TV, presumably) that conveniently omits "The British Government has learned..." from that SOTU quote to further the accusation that HE LIED, HE LIED!!! Saddam has a long histoy of actively seeking WMD technology and of using whatever he could manage to produce on civilians as well as enemy army forces. He mocked the intent and enforcement of UN resolutions designed to show the world he'd disarmed himself of the WMDs stockpiled in Iraq, and scoffed at the international guidelines for the minimally "humane" use and non-proliferation of those types of weapons. He has purchased equipment and supplies necessary for the production of many types of WMDs and some of that equipment has been discovered in Iraq in perfectly usable order. The amount of risk to our own troops is no higher now than it was to those patrolling the UN required no fly zones over the last 12 years. Saddam's loyalists were shooting at us then, and they still are... we have just taken some additional initiative toward stopping them from doing that anymore. Now, we go to their houses at night and ask them nicely to stop before we shoot them. Bush never said that the war in Iraq was over. He said that the main fighting effort was complete, and it was. We took control of Iraq. Now that it is under Coalition control, our troops are sifting through millions of people and tons of dirt and paperwork in order to find insurgents and WMD evidence while simultaneously getting the structure of the country back online and in control of it's citizens. More than half of those 50 most dangerous regime leaders have been found and either killed or imprisoned. Hundreds of suspected enemy fighters are processed every day and those that are found to be dangerous are detained. The prisoners we take and the rewards we have offered are used in the search for the rest of the Ba'ath loyalists, and that process yeilded Uday and Qbert just yesterday. Once a basic and secure Iraqi run government is in place and in charge, Coalition troops will be free to divert more attention to combing the countryside of Iraq for hidden WMD evidence. By then, there will be more good news coming out of Iraq (and most likely the middle east in general) than bad, and EVEN IF (unlikely) absolutely NO WMD evidence is found, the entire effort, misguided or not, will have proven to be a massive success. By then, W will probably have won another election because those that oppose him focused all of their efforts to defeat him on Iraq, his bright, shining star. I just don't get that! Oh... and I didn't say I don't vote. I said I don't vote (R) (L), BTW.... |
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 11:40 AM | |||||||||||||||||
| kellychaos |
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 01:47 AM | |||||||||||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
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Once again, condescension may serve to be a down fall. I, like many others, think it might be worth knowing why Wolfowitz (or as he claims, one of his staffers) drew up a plan to topple Iraq before 9/11. Americans might be interested in knowing why there was an increase in air patrols and bombings near the south of Iraq, even as early as the Fall of 2001, shortly after 9/11. Americans might be curious as to why Gen. Wesley Clark would be asked to link 9/11 to Iraq on 9/11 (or was it 9/12?). I think these are valid foreign policy questions, in connection to the laundry list of falsifications and bogus leads on the WMD. Some Americans just might be interested in knowing.....perhaps yourself excluded. Quote:
And perhaps you mean GDP??? Forgive me, I'm no economics wizard, but I believe you are referencing for example the deficits Reagan faced, but were counted in GDP.....? Reagan, unlike Bush, had the insight to realize he'd need to raise taxes in order to deal with the deficit, thus altering his own tax cut plan. Quote:
I also think it's an unfair stereotype to call the Democratic platform a quest for "socialist paradise". We should avoid sweeping generalizations such as these, lest we come across as a blind partisan, no??? 
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| Jul 23rd, 2003 01:14 AM | |||||||||||||||||
| Decadent Maestro |
I hate to wander off the path of current politics, but I felt a strong urge to add my opinion about Hawaii. Ever since I read about Princess Kaiulani of Hawaii, I've felt guilty about invading other countries for the good of our own. Do we have the right to change the way others live, just because we can? There's no real answer, I suppose, though I've contemplated it many times (and I'm sure many of you have, also). (Back to the present) I was against the war in Iraq, and I still strongly dislike war and its tolls. However, when I read the stories of many of the Iraqi people who were "liberated", I can't help but think that in a way, the war was useful - it helped these people to live without the fear of total oppression. It's all very confusing, and leaves me torn at times. If there is a chance of bettering a people's lives ('better' in their terms), should another country attempt it, maybe at great cost to themselves? Leave your thoughts, please. |
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| Jul 22nd, 2003 11:46 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Abcdxxxx |
More soldiers are dying now then during the actual war, so why is there a lack of large scale protest marches now? I think the anti-war movement tends to be more anti-bush then anything else....with little desire to seperate these issues. When did it become mandatory for a nation to provide proof and evidence to justify aggresive actions? I think the Panama Canal is a good example of America acting in an aggresive manner in a way that wasn't justified, but helped to "better the world". Our tampering with Hawaii might be another. |
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| Jul 22nd, 2003 11:02 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Perndog | Bush was elected not only by the Republicans and the non-voters, but by a lot of the third-party voters as well. When a liberal independent candidate is on the scene, he draws more voters from the Democrat side of things and thus weakens the Democratic candidate more than the Republican. There are occasional exceptions, but I think it's a better idea to pick the guy you *least* want to win and vote for the other major party, no matter how appealing those independents are, because there are too many strictly partisan voters for them to have a reasonable chance anyway. | ||||||||||||||||
| Jul 22nd, 2003 09:32 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| Anti-Xocial |
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*goes next room, leaving door ajar* |
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| Jul 22nd, 2003 08:07 PM | |||||||||||||||||
| The One and Only... |
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