DeLay, Coulter, Kristol Defend Lieberman

posted by John Nichols on 08/04/2006 @ 5:32pm

Email
Print
Share
- Buzzflash
- del.icio.us
- Digg
- Facebook
- Mixx it!
- Reddit
What is this?
Take Action
Comments (203)

Subscribe Now

The polls show Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is falling far behind anti-war challenger Ned Lamont as the state's August 8 Democratic primary approaches.

But it's not all bad news for the embattled senator. At least Tom DeLay's rooting for him.

The former House majority leader from Texas is a Republican who may not agree with the Bush White House's favorite Democrat on every issue but who thinks the Senator is right-on when it comes to foreign policy.

"[Lieberman's] very good on the war," DeLay said during an interview this week on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" program.

With the Connecticut primary, in which Iraq War-enthusiast Lieberman trails war-critic Lamont by 13 points in the latest poll, just days away, the incumbent's neoconservative allies are rushing to his defense.

Lieberman's latest campaign contribution list features a $500 donation from Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, a publication so Pravda-like in its cheerleading for the Iraq imbroglio – and for an attack on Iran -- that Vice President Dick Cheney has stacks of each new edition delivered to the White House for distribution to the staff.

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter's defending Lieberman, as well, going on at some length during an interview with Fox's Neal Cavuto to explain how much she admires the senator and suggesting that, instead of fighting for the Democratic nomination in Connecticut, Lieberman ought to switch parties. "I think he should come all the way and become a Republican," argues Coulter, who says of Lieberman and the GOP: "at least he'd fit in with the party."

Even though it comes from Coulter, that's not entirely crazy talk. In February of this year, Connecticut Republican Congressman Chris Shays told editors of the Stamford Advocate newspaper that he would be voting for Lieberman this year and urged other Republicans to do the same. The Hartford Courant reported on February 28 that "GOP officials have discussed cross-endorsing Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman this fall."

The Courant story, which broke before a cross-endorsement deal could be brokered, squelched it for the time being. "One GOP operative who was aware of the discussions said premature public disclosure of the possible cross-endorsement probably would kill the idea. That seems to be case," the paper observed last winter.

But with Lamont pulling ahead in the polls, and with the Lieberman's backers circulating petitions to run him as an independent if he loses the Democratic nod, some Connecticut Republicans have again been discussing the prospect that a defeated Lieberman might find a new political home on the GOP line. The campaign of the endorsed Republican candidate for the Connecticut Senate seat, former legislator Alan Schlesinger, has been rocked by charges that he may have a serious gambling problem. Connecticut's Republican Governor Jodi Rell suggested in July that Schlesinger might want to consider quitting the race. Schlesinger stayed in for the time being. But all bets could be off if Lieberman – a Senate supporter the Bush White House does not want to lose -- suddenly becomes available.

Comments (203)

I think this post shows that Joe has "excommunicated" himself....

Posted by leftofcenter at 08/04/2006 @ 4:12pm
...and if DeLay and Coulter started saying nice things about me in public, I'd get in the shower with comet and a wire brush just on principle.

Posted by leftofcenter at 08/04/2006 @ 4:13pm
This is quite in line with the perception of this man. Changing parties would be more in line with his character. But having stated as recently as last week that he is true democrat, that may be not easy.

Posted by kevin99999 at 08/04/2006 @ 4:21pm
beat ya Mask

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 4:10pm | ignore this person

Congratulations...hehe.

Interesting idea. Lieberman pretty much despised by the Left, no point in staying in a Party where the base is demanding "purity" (atleast on Iraq....ref: Bob Casey Jr).

So, why not become a Republican. He'd take all the GOP votes in CT (more than he's gotten in the past)...hold a FAIR share of the unaffiliated (less than he's gotten in the past)....and maybe pull a few Democrats (who still haven't gone Ned-happy).

Meanwhile, Lamont, with "Move On" and "Daily Kos", is out there trying to move left to appeal to them....like, going after Wal-mart, while owning stock in it...and moves away from the average CT voter on the OTHER ISSUES (that CT has been returning Joe to the Senate for for years).

The GOP will have "no problem" with Joe staying pro-gay rights, pro-environment, etc....as long as he votes for the GOP Senate majority leader.

And he'll probably get treated better by them, than Jeffords got treated by the Democrats.

Posted by Mask at 08/04/2006 @ 4:31pm
He'd take all the GOP votes in CT (more than he's gotten in the past)...hold a FAIR share of the unaffiliated (less than he's gotten in the past)....and maybe pull a few Democrats (who still haven't gone Ned-happy).

Posted by MASK 08/04/2006 @ 4:31pm | ignore this person

And still loose the election in liberal Connecticut by a sizeable margin!

Posted by Lillian at 08/04/2006 @ 4:41pm
Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 4:34pm | ignore this person

Frank....SOMEBODY was voting for him. Lamont is almost most admitted (by supporters, such as Ari Berman here) as a "one issue" candidate...the Iraq War.

And if all the "anti-war" vote was as big as claimed, then a primary challenger should have been able to take out Hillary and Ben Nelson...but they aren't.

Polls, even PRO-Lamont polls posted here, show Lamont-40%, Lieberman-40%, Schlesinger-13%.

Okay...so Schlesinger is ousted, and Joe gets his 13%....ball game.

Posted by Mask at 08/04/2006 @ 4:42pm
Posted by LILLIAN 08/04/2006 @ 4:41pm | ignore this person

See above to FRANK

Posted by Mask at 08/04/2006 @ 4:42pm
Coulter... holy crap man. I still can't believe people actually listen to this skreed. Her filth is so toxic, every time she happens to come on my tv screen (like on Real Time, for example) I feel the need not only to wash my tv, but swab my ears and take a shower. Ugh...

Posted by jorcheim at 08/04/2006 @ 4:45pm
Getting supported by Ann Coulter is like getting kissed by Judas Iscariot. You're fixin' to get crucified, sure as hell.

Goodbye, Joe Lieberman.

Posted by EnviroVarmint at 08/04/2006 @ 4:50pm
With friends like Coulter and Delay, who needs Clorox enemas?

Posted by New Dawn at 08/04/2006 @ 4:51pm
MASK:

In the polls I have seen between JUST Lamont and Lieberman, Lamont edges out Lieberman 53%-47% +/- 2%. Even with the margin for error adjusted in Lieberman's favor, he still loses.

As far as Lamont being a one-issue candidate, I would have to disagree with you. I did some reading up on him over the past few days, and find that he has a pretty comprehensive platform he's running on. The Iraq issue may be what got him noticed, but his platform is surprisingly more complete than you give him credit, and is surprisingly more in line with pre-Clinton American liberalism (and hence, the bulk of Democratic voters in CT) than Lieberman could ever hope for.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/04/2006 @ 4:51pm
I am going to make a prediction right here and now, for all to see.

And as God is my witness, I hope I am wrong.

The Republicans will lose control of NEITHER house of Congress this fall. Just seeing all the voting fraud and chicanery that was tested in 2000 and 2002, and perfected in 2004, I do not have high hopes at all. My prognostications:

Dems pick up 2 Senate seats, 4 House seats.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/04/2006 @ 4:54pm
Some tidbits from Josh Marshall sites...

It now seems almost like a given that Joe Lieberman will lose his struggle for the Democratic nomination next Tuesday. But his fall is so precipitous and the possible margin of his defeat so large, that it now seems increasingly questionable whether he'll even appear on the ballot in November, let alone win reelection to his seat. Yes, could have walked away with it as an independent had a hypothetical race been held a month ago. He may even lead in one today. But as Mark Schmitt's been saying for a while the negative momentum created by a clear defeat in the primary will have a catalyzing effect. I really doubt that more than a smattering of Dems will rally to his independent bid. Suddenly he'll be branded as a loser. And the pressure to get out will be fierce. If Joe goes down, I think the day he sealed his fate was when he decided to hedge his bets and not abide by the results of the Democratic primary.

-- Josh Marshall

This morning a close colleague and supporter of Lieberman's, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., told USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page that if Lieberman loses by more than 10 percentage points, he thinks it's unlikely the senator will mount an independent effort to keep his seat.

And from Quinnipiac...

Momentum for Ned Lamont, the anti-war Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate, increases as he rolls to a 54 - 41 percent lead over incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman among likely Democratic primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Posted by Lillian at 08/04/2006 @ 4:57pm
Nobody wants to comment on the anti-american demonstration by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's in Baghdad today huh?

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 5:14pm | ignore this person

I belive the 'real' demonstration is scheduled for tomorrow. I understand that it is basically in answer to Muqtada al-Sadr's call for a "million man march" in support of Lebanon's Hezbollah, yes?

So far, little mention of it in the western media nor the current convoys that are arriving in Baghdad with demonstrators waving Iraqi flags, chanting "Death to America! Death to Israel", and some of them wearing white shrouds symbolising their readiness to accept martyrdom.

Something tells me we will be hearing more soon.

Meanwhile, the latest from Riverbend at Baghdad Burning...

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Posted by Lillian at 08/04/2006 @ 5:35pm
Posted by JORCHEIM 08/04/2006 @ 4:51pm | ignore this person

Lamont vs Lieberman ALONE...is the primary, not general.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/04/2006 @ 4:54pm | ignore this person

Oddly,, I predict a Dem House...by 2-3 seats...but GOP Senate.

Posted by Mask at 08/04/2006 @ 5:36pm
Nobody wants to comment on the anti-american demonstration by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's in Baghdad today huh?

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 5:14pm

I don't think the Robots have yet had their talking points handed down from their superiors on that particular subject...have they?

Probably, as Condi would say, just the "birth pangs of a new Middle East," anyway. Or, perhaps the Rummy view...it's a good thing that throngs of angry Muslims are marching in the streets shouting "Death to Israel and America"...it shows that they're asserting their democracy. Or maybe they've just run out of things to loot and they need some other way to fill up their time since none of them have jobs and the electric isn't back on yet.

Posted by liveeasy at 08/04/2006 @ 5:38pm
I think this post shows that Joe has "excommunicated" himself....

...and if DeLay and Coulter started saying nice things about me in public, I'd get in the shower with comet and a wire brush just on principle.

Posted by LEFTOFCENTER 08/04/2006 @ 4:13pm

LoC, Thank you. I needed that. LMAO

Posted by Rapaport at 08/04/2006 @ 5:44pm
Frank....SOMEBODY was voting for him. Lamont is almost most admitted (by supporters, such as Ari Berman here) as a "one issue" candidate...the Iraq War.

Posted by MASK 08/04/2006 @ 4:42pm | ignore this person

Although your grammer is a bit fractured, I take it to mean that you are asserting that Ari Berman has stated that Lamont is a 'one issue' candidate. I suppose you got that from this?...

BLOG | Posted 08/03/2006 @ 11:58am

It's the War, Dummy

Ari Berman

"Lamont is not a single-issue candidate, as Lieberman has repeatedly tried to suggest."

If you can't see that's NOT what Mr. Berman said, then it's back to Reading Comprehension 101 with you Mask!

Posted by Lillian at 08/04/2006 @ 5:46pm
LILLIAN - thanks for the link...this is the type of thing that should be re-printed in every American morning paper. It might help add some feeling, depth and genuine thought to the conversations people have with each other over breakfast, at work, in the store, etc...instead of just parroting the main talking points of one side or the other over and over again with no end in sight.

Sigh

Posted by liveeasy at 08/04/2006 @ 5:46pm
Polls, even PRO-Lamont polls posted here, show Lamont-40%, Lieberman-40%, Schlesinger-13%.

Gee, Mask, weren't you the one saying two weeks ago that Liberman was going to coast into the general electoin because of his 24-point margin? Now, you are saying, "The best polls say it's a tie"? Well, Mask, as I said earlier, the real issue is not the actual numbers, but the trend of those numbers. If that is true that Lamont has pulled to a tie, he will beat Lieberman to a bloody pulp again in November because he will already be damaged goods from his primary defeat, which is looking more and more inevitalbe. Lieberman went from a 46-point lead in the primary four months ago to a 13-point deficit earlier this week. If Lamont can make a 59-point swing in four months, what makes you honestly believe that Lamont can't pull ahead in a tie?

You know, when your words are hear for all to see, it makes it a lot harder to get away with the kind of spin you are trying to pull here.

Posted by steve4wv at 08/04/2006 @ 5:49pm
SOMEBODY: tell FRANKGITS that i have responded to his joyful news, he has me on his ignore list:

Nobody wants to comment on the anti-american demonstration by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's in Baghdad today huh?

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 5:14pm

Firstly it wasnt hundreds of thousands it was tens, a big difference.

Secondly, what do you expect nimrod, its an Arab Muslim country and it was Shias demonstrating.

Posted by CPT at 08/04/2006 @ 6:12pm
Carpet bomb the demonstrators!

Posted by barry25 at 08/04/2006 @ 6:19pm
Mask,

Typically, I would not trust your analysis of the Lamont/Lieberman race, but considering the fact that I am presently sitting 5 minutes from the Lamont campaign headquarters, in Meriden, CT, myself working with the Lamont campaign--well, I know for certain that you're full of crap. Lamont is not a one issue candidate, that's just what you hear on the idiot box. Yes, the war is the most crucial of issues, but Lamont has a record on education (he has taught as a volunteer in inner-city public schools) and has also been advocating a national health care plan. The war is the issue that has delivered credibility to his name with Connecticut voters, but he also offers other ideas that resonate. And remember, Joe L. helped kill health care plans during the 90s, so this presents a nice contrast between the two candidates and shows that Lieberman does not have a clean record on nonwar issues.

Posted by Oustbush at 08/04/2006 @ 6:23pm
FrankG

From your old buddy CPT

SOMEBODY: tell FRANKGITS that i have responded to his joyful news, he has me on his ignore list:

Nobody wants to comment on the anti-american demonstration by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's in Baghdad today huh?

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 5:14pm

Firstly it wasnt hundreds of thousands it was tens, a big difference.

Secondly, what do you expect nimrod, its an Arab Muslim country and it was Shias demonstrating.

Posted by leftofcenter at 08/04/2006 @ 6:25pm
RAP

You're welcome!

Posted by leftofcenter at 08/04/2006 @ 6:26pm
Web Exclusive Frank, the protest was indeed today! Here's the first paragraph from the MSNBC coverage (with a highlight for CPT)...

By Scott Johnson

Newsweek

Updated: 49 minutes ago

Aug. 4, 2006 - The pavement was painted with American and Israeli flags so that when the demonstrators came, their feet would trample the chalked images to dust. Draped in the white shrouds symbolic of Muslim burials, the 100,000 or so Iraqi Shiites who took to the streets of Sadr City today came out in force to show their support for Hizbullah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who has emerged as a rallying point in a conflict that is spreading far beyond Lebanon's borders. "Allah, Allah, Yanssur Hizbullah," the demonstrators chanted, "God will bring victory to Hizbullah." They pumped fists and arms in the air as they marched through the scorching 110-degree heat. "Death to Israel, Death to America," came the chorus, thumping in unison through another bloody Iraqi afternoon. Abu Mustafa, 33, a worker at a Sadr City marble factory and a block commander in the Mahdi Army, was one of those draped in a shroud as an indication of his willingness to die a martyr. "People are ready to die," he said, "We are just waiting for the order."

Posted by Lillian at 08/04/2006 @ 6:27pm
"they hate america"...Wishful thinking Mr. Franktits! Now, we all know YOU hate America, but the protesters today do not speak for all of Iraq...but nice try, traitorboy!!

Posted by barry25 at 08/04/2006 @ 7:23pm
Joe Lieberman is disgusting, wearing his religion on his shirt sleeve, saying I'm religious, I'm spiritual, I even love mass-killers, I even love war profiteers. Then George Bush comes up right there on TV, reaches around, massages Joe Liebermans neck, shoves his tongue right down Joe Liebermans throat, then Joe Lieberman starts giving George Bush a bunch of hickies. Meanwhile in Iraq, George Bushs Salvadoran Option for Iraq is getting off the ground, the Salvadoran Option - thats what DNI John Negroponte calls it - its a civil war. Joe Lieberman was mad at Bill Clinton for getting a tawdry blow job - but at least Bill Clinton did it in private, then that hypocrite Joe Lieberman goes and lewdly gives George Bush the tongue right there on TV for all the world to see. It is disgusting - these 2 lovers and their pre-emptive wars of choice.

Posted by LiberalPride at 08/04/2006 @ 7:41pm
Nobody wants to comment on the anti-american demonstration by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's in Baghdad today huh?

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 5:14pm

If the Iraqi Shia get angry enough about Lebanon to start full scale attacks against US troops- then all Americans will finally see what a profoundly incompetent group of ideologically-driven mules are formulating our policies.

It could break loose just in time for CPT's rotation and he'll be wishing that he had stfu.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/04/2006 @ 8:15pm
re: MASK- You know, when your words are hear for all to see, it makes it a lot harder to get away with the kind of spin you are trying to pull here.

Posted by STEVE4WV 08/04/2006 @ 5:49pm

MASK is like someone who walks around with the seat of his pants missing and wonders why everyone is staring at him. In other words he's becoming more and more like LVLIBERTY1 minus the hypocritical bible thumping.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/04/2006 @ 8:21pm
Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 5:18pm

WTF happened to America that someone with such a rudimentary intellect could become President?

Rough estimate: a coalition of neo-fascist "Christians" in bed with the israel lobby and the self-serving, self-loving better off element of society that doesn't give a s*** about anything but their own self-indulgence and privileged position in society.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/04/2006 @ 8:27pm
CARPETBOMB THE DEMONSTRATORS?

BARRY25 I bet you would have supported the shootings at Kent State, you crypto-fascist moron.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/04/2006 @ 8:36pm
Posted by BARRY25 08/04/2006 @ 7:23pm

Ba, is it true what they are saying? Because if it's not true, you really need to make a statement of denial or something. I mean just about everyone's talking on the back channel about your affection for manly men. I tried to defend you, but they had some pictures. Pretty disgusting stuff, actually. I think you will need to defend yourself.

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/04/2006 @ 9:05pm
Why did millions of our fellow citizens vote for traitors Bush & Cheney? Fox 'News' convinced them that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Why do Fox propagandists support Lieberman and other go-along-to-get-along 'Democrats'? A Congress of real Democrats would expose the deliberate falsification of 'intelligence' about Iraq and the treasonous cover-up of the Saudi sponsorship of 9/11.

Posted by samcrossett at 08/04/2006 @ 9:40pm
OH GEEZ LOUISE....will you people PLEASE just come off of it.

"I hate Lieberman and his support of Bush's evil war...I'm supporting Ned Lamont!"

"I hate Lieberman and his support of Bush's evil war...I'm supporting Ned Lamont!"

"I hate Lieberman and his support of Bush's evil war...I'm supporting Ned Lamont!"

"I hate Lieberman and his support of Bush's evil war...I'm supporting Ned Lamont!"

"I hate Lieberman and his support of Bush's evil war...I'm supporting Ned Lamont!"

"I hate Lieberman and his support of Bush's evil war...I'm supporting Ned Lamont!"

"I hate Lieberman and his support of Bush's evil war...I'm supporting Ned Lamont!"

"Oh...and Ned Lamont isn't a 'one issue' candidate!"

Yeah, right. Ari Berman (if you read his TITLE and not his denial, and even after the "denial" where he says "And so what if he is") ADMITS that Lamont is a one-issue candidate.

Why else do all the other Democrats, who DID NOT write Op-Eds in the NY Times supporting the war, get a pass from "Daily Kos" and "Move On"?

Lieberman supported the war to the bitter end, so Lamont was pushed out by the bloggers to take him down...end of story.

And if Joe had pulled back and gone Hillary or even Biden...Ned would be home counting his Wal-Mart dividends tonight.

So please stop this phoney "Ned's changing the Soul of the Party" "We need to return to pure progressivism" crap...while Bob Casey Jr is running as a PRO-LIFE Democrat in Pennsylvania.

Posted by Mask at 08/04/2006 @ 10:25pm
Joe Lieberman refuses to stand up for what is right! Look at the man's character.

George Bushs Operation Salvadoran Option is really getting off the ground. There wasnt a civil war, now there is one. There wasnt a religious fundamentalist theocracy but now there is one.

Iraq is a disaster much as Salvadoran Option for El Salvador was a disaster. The people of Iraq are sick of being occupied, they are sick of the privatization, they are sick of the killings, the torture, they are sick of people being kidnapped.

Saddam Hussein tortured people and now the new Iraqi government is still torturing people - according to George Bushs State Deptarment. They said, we are so honest, when our puppet government tortures people we admit it, you wouldnt see Saddam Hussein do that. All Saddam Hussein ever did was lie, all Saddam Hussein did was lie and say, we arent torturing anybody. Now people are turning up with holes drilled in their bodies, now people are turning up in garbage bags, people are being dumped in the streets of Baghdad.

Salvadoran Option style militias, or death squads, are roaming the streets. That arrogant little fool John Negroponte said, we need a Salvadoran Option for Iraq, a Salvadoran Option for Iraq. What is a Salvadoran Option for Iraq? Well, he told us, it means you train militias, to keep the people under your control.

We are now into George Bushs slaughter in Iraq, they said it would take days, they said it might take weeks, months at the very very most. They said, we are getting ready to draw down troops. They said, Iraqis have freedom of speech.

Any of you Conservatives want to go to Iraq? They have freedom of speech there now. So, I suggest you go to downtown Baghdad and carry around a sign that says I love George Bush - they have freedom of speech there now.

Eventually the theocracy in Iraq will want weapons. Republicans only plan is to pass that problem on to the next president. George Bush has no plan for Iraq other than to stuff his pockets and the pockets of his rich upper crust friends in the oil business and the arms trade.

Posted by LiberalPride at 08/04/2006 @ 10:39pm
George Bush has no plan for Iraq other than to stuff his own pockets

Posted by LiberalPride at 08/04/2006 @ 10:40pm
Well, I know what you mean, but there's absolutely nothing holy in the actions of Hassan Nasrallah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Posted by FREIHEIT

That's the problem with "Holy". To each his own. Can't disprove someones God given right to control a plot of land. Too bad He does not have a register of deeds dept. Sure would clear things up.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/04/2006 @ 10:54pm
So, if LieberMan ran as a repube, would he run on his record of voting with the dems 90%, as he has done in the primary? That would go over swell with the GOP'ers.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/04/2006 @ 10:58pm
There will be no insurgency

There will be no civil war

There will be no quagmire

This is not like Viet Nam

We have killed Saddams sons, the insurgency will fold

We have captured Saddam, the insurgency will fold

We have disbanded the Ba'ath regime, terrorism will falter, the palestinians will lose their major funding

The Iraqi people have elected a government, the insurgency will end soon

The constitution is written, the insurgency is in it's last throes

The government has been seated, the insurgency will lose it's public support

Al-Qaida in iraq has been dealt a death blow

We will stand up as the 280,000 strong iraqi police force assumes control

If we just remain resolved, stay the course and get out the check book, all will be cool. Do not panic, all is well.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/04/2006 @ 11:11pm
Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 9:54pm

You obviously haven't been following the shenanigans in post-Saddam Iraq young Frank. If you had you would have realised just how well these Shia lads are beginning to embrace the trimmings of Western style democracy. Just a peaceful demonstration by some fun loving Iraqis consisting of a bit of liberal style, flag stomping, flag burning. Some of us conservatives have a bit more trouble with your mob's demos, particularly when the peace-lovers roll steel balls under the hooves of cop's horses. No doubt as Iraqi democracy develops they will get up to similar tricks but that may take time and contact with Western libs. Understand they even applied to the Goverment for permission for the festivities.

Afraid you are a little off the pace with this democracy thing Frankie. Democracy doesn't mean they have to love everyone. It would be like you having to love Bush and the neo-cons.

Oh forgot. For your education these Mahdi boys tried the military option against the US a few times and found it wasn't getting them anywhere. Maybe they are slow learners but it seems that at last they are into the swing of this democratic rights thing. (And at least they won't be shredded through a Saddam meat mincer for their efforts).

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/04/2006 @ 11:19pm
Spot on Mr Frank!

All those lefties have to eat their words now, Iraq is free of terror. All those things they were worried about, no wmd's, urban guerilla warfare, out of control soldiers running on empty, cost overruns and cheating by private contractors, long drawn out tours of duty with no clear mission plan. None of that happened.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/04/2006 @ 11:19pm
(And at least they won't be shredded through a Saddam meat mincer for their efforts).

Posted by LRJONES4 08/04/2006 @ 11:19pm | ignore this person

nope, but a hundred a day show up at the morgue.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/04/2006 @ 11:21pm
Although... I bet Saddam would have granted the permit for such a march. It would have shown his democratic flair, and been a fart at the US/Israel marriage. He was smart enough to play that game.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/04/2006 @ 11:23pm
Posted by LRJONES4 08/04/2006 @ 11:19pm

You're right about one thing...

The peaceful liberal styled protest is a breath of fresh air in a county that is otherwise up to its ears in conservative orgy of murder and mayhem.

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:31pm
and it's a shame that the American flag has become the symbol of hamster conservative blood lust and immorality.

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:35pm
Jesus Will, where ya been. I was just about to pop an ambien.

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 11:33pm

I had such a wonderfeul day at work and then a nice dinner with my sweety that I let it linger on berfore coming up here and dirtying myself with conservatives

:)

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:38pm
What asshole we are to be spending 300 billion and losing all those lives and limbs for these assholes.

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 11:38pm

I have to disagree with you there

The Iraqis are not assholes. They are just people...

who have been royally screwed by the Republican Party

(and we all know how that feels)

if only they didn't take it out on our flag. We should send them over a few hundred thousand photos of Rumdud to walk on and burn

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:44pm
let's remember to keep the blame were in belongs...

in hamsterland

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:44pm
Will, none of the most infamous of wingers are present tonight. They're either at a prayer vigil or they just can't understand why democracy hasn't taken hold in Iraq yet. Can't wait to see who wins the next election there. By that time they might have a government in place.

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 11:43pm

Well, like LR said. Really! They are embracing democracy!

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:47pm
Or maybe they're having their semi-annual coitus experience with the mrs.

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 11:45pm

yeah right.

like the guy in the joke who admits he only has sex once a year but is so happy about it he can't contain himself...

because tonights the night

TONIGHTS THE NIGHT!

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:50pm
Faux news keeps reporting that there were about 14 thousand demonstrators there today. every other news outlet reported at least a hundred thousand. Why do you think Faux news is understating the size of the crowd so drastically.

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 11:47pm

denial

it tough coming to grips with the reality of your world coming down around you

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:51pm
see ya bro

Posted by Will C. at 08/04/2006 @ 11:56pm
Posted by CRABWALK 08/04/2006 @ 11:23pm

C,

Frankie has trouble with the notion of a peaceful demonstration and you have trouble with very recent Iraq history. Shiites, those who hadn't been on a one way trip through the shredder, were either expats (perhaps millions of them) or repressed. Suggest the Shia would not have got a permit, as Saddam was fearful of them and their Iranian ties but they could have been forced to a "We love Saddam" demo at the end of a gun or threats to family.

The hundred being killed per day would no doubt escalate, (until one side imposed its will, given the Government could not at present implement its agenda) if the Coalition forces were to retire too early. The present Iraqi/Coalition forces are no doubt keeping a lid on the killings. Most if not all of these deaths are a further powerful indication of the barbaric repression of the Shia by the Baathists, as well as the tribal-revenge mentality of both sides, Shia and Sunni.

The Iraq Government is suggesting they will no longer need Coalition forces after the end of this year. That seems to me to be a starting point for a reduction in Coalition forces.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/04/2006 @ 11:58pm
Why else do all the other Democrats, who DID NOT write Op-Eds in the NY Times supporting the war, get a pass from "Daily Kos" and "Move On"?

First off, Mask, the op-ed that Lieberman printed wasn't in the NY Times, it was in the Wall Street Journal. Second, there are plenty of pro-war Democrats who have not faced the wrath of the anti-war left (and there is nothing like being sent to a war based on a lie to strengthen your opposition to a war) because none of them ever said that it was "undermining the Commander-in-Chief in these next three critical years" to criticize the war. Why can't you get that through your head? That is why Clinton, Cantwell, Feinstein and the Nelsons don't have a seroius primary opponent, and why Biden won't either if he decides to run for re-election after losing the Presidential primary.

There is a huge difference between a spirited discussion and being the GOP's wingman in quashing the right to dissent. If Lieberman had never said that, my guess is that he would not have a serious opponent. After all, the Democratic leadership convinced Cindy Sheehan to abandon her plans to run against Feinstein in the primary, because Feinstein never questioned the right of the majority of the party to speak out on the most important issue of our time. And now, Lieberman is trying to have it both ways, which means that his political career will be similar to that of Ralph Nader. Both are the equivalent of Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense: they're already dead, they just don't know it yet. Nobody wants to see Lieberman get obliterated twice, but if he refuses to accept the will of the voters on Tuesday, that is just what will happen.

Posted by steve4wv at 08/05/2006 @ 12:03am
nope, but a hundred a day show up at the morgue.

Posted by CRABWALK 08/04/2006 @ 11:21pm

remember... that's what LR calls keeping a lid on it

but it's so nice to hear that it's going to be all better soon and in a few months, our kids get to come home

Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2006 @ 12:14am
The old Vietnam Veteran in me just feels so happy at the imminent demise of Holy Joe "Don't Give Up Your Day Job" Lieberman --so happy, in fact, that I just had to compose a little verse in honor of the occasion. I call it:

"A Glad Goodbye to Senator Holy Joe Lieberman"

Goodbye, Holy Joe, (and feel free not to write) / You RepubLikud, war-monger louse / And don't let the doorknob connect with your butt / As you make your way out of our house

While GIs and Arabs went down to their doom / You encouraged Boy George in his bubble / Like Robocop said, you should go "quietly" / Or else there will be ... "trouble"

For masochist reasons that few understand / You enjoy getting kicked in the crotch / Like the time you "debated" with Darth Vader Dick / And wound up admiring his watch

You can see how much visits from Bill matter now / As whomever he counsels goes down / You forgot that with Monica gone from the scene / His advice "helps" the struggling to drown

You delighted in smooching George Bush, front and back / You savored his flatulent gas / While a crowbar the Democrats had to employ / prying both of your lips off his ass

Oh I know I sound mean and my vulgar words stink / But those years in Vietnam rubbed off / And I cannot forget how you helped start these wars / With a Bush-kissing smirk and a scoff

You can take comfort, though, in the knowledge that soon / You will get to retire as a perk / John Ashcroft will no doubt make room at his firm: / Surely AIPAC will give you some work

And you might want to pause and reflect on a truth / That for real men a blow job ain't bad / And the fact that you hounded poor Bill for his luck / Only managed to make most men mad

So off you go now to your swell right-wing friends / Whom you've served with a whimper and moan / No doubt they'll reward you with less than contempt / As a fink who would sell out his own

But the dying continues, thanks greatly to you / Even though you seem hardly to care / And if somewhere on earth there's a meal made of crow / Then I hope you eat all of your share

Posted by Michael Murry at 08/05/2006 @ 12:48am
Barry 25 -

Chill, my friend. Besides needlessly destroying lives, current US leadership has ruined our personal reputations as Americans. I, Frank, Lillian, LoC and others are more than entitled to be critical. We want to take this country in a different direction - not destroy it through traitordom, as you suggest.

Can't you see the damage that's been done?

B.

Again, good early post, LoC. LMAO!

Posted by Blinky at 08/05/2006 @ 01:05am
Posted by WILL C. 08/05/2006 @ 12:14am

Shivers Willie past your bedtime, lovely late winter Saturday afternoon here.

Just trying to lighten the load a bit for you worriers. Have you ever seen those Shiite fellas on a religious pilgrimage. Whippin' and torturin' themselves and having a right old royal time. They love that sort of get together.

In that context I don't think their emotional anti-US/Jew event was much out of the ordinary. This group anyway has never loved the US. How else would one expect them to react to the Lebanon war seeing they are Hezbollah clones. It is a significant grouping but doesn't represent the majority of Iraqis. Seems to me that these throw backs (a fair percentage of them in all the Arab countries) to a benighted medievalism need to be brought into the modern world. Hopefully without too much kicking and screaming. In the context of Iraq there are those modernising elements within the government and other institutions that could help in that process. I remain optimistic for the longer-term future of the ME. Think the US intervention has certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons, in some ways but given those Arabs who want better governance, a better economic future and a real place as equals in the modern world, a chance of achieving that.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 01:09am
What asshole we are to be spending 300 billion and losing all those lives and limbs for these assholes.

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 11:38pm

The assholes you're talking about are LVLIBERTY1 and CPT, right? This war is for them- to pay them back for voting for Bush. Their reichsfuhrer was appointed and now the state has created a blood trough for them to bury their snouts in. People like this go into an altered state that resembles orgasm when they see photos of dead Arabs.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 03:58am
(And at least they won't be shredded through a Saddam meat mincer for their efforts).

Posted by LRJONES4 08/04/2006 @ 11:19pm

Oh, yeah- the old "Saddam's people shredder" lie. What ever became of that? Why no photos of "Saddam's people shredder"? As a matter of fact, why no photos of Saddam's many "doubles"? All just horse manure for the American saps.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 04:01am
"Oh, yeah- the old "Saddam's people shredder" lie. What ever became of that?"

FIRST HAND ACCOUNT FROM SADDAM HUSSEIN'S BRUTAL REGIME

INDICT

"On that day which followed the visit of QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN to the prison, 180 prisoners were executed. The guards walked up and down the corridors calling out names. They took some prisoners from nearly every cell...when QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN visited a prison, mass executions would often follow and so we all realised what it meant when they began calling out the names of prisoners...""On several occasions I saw QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN walk along the row of cells, open the slot in the door and spray what I believe to be something like mustard gas into the cell...The bodies of the dead were bloated by the gas. They foamed at the mouth and were bleeding from the eyes...The prisoners were screaming. I remember one of them was only about twelve years old. I remember QUSAY shouting something like "Put this bastard in - he's a member of the [X] family'...The little boy was screaming. He was already bleeding from previous beatings. QUSAY killed him along with all the others...The little boy screamed out "I am sorry, I don't want to die, I want my father." QUSAY said, "Your father is in the cell next door", which was true. QUSAY then proceeded to spray him with gas and he died after about ten minutes of agony. We could hear them screaming... I estimate that QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN personally murdered between 1200-1300 people during this period.""There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they were put in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food.... On one occasion, I saw QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN personally supervising these murders.""QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN went into the torture room...screaming..."I'll put an end to you with my own hands"...[the prisoner] was brought back into the cell with his right foot covered in filthy bandages. It had been cut off during his torture...the amputation had been carried out with a power saw during his torture under the direct supervision of QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN...it had not been done cleanly and it had taken some time to cut the foot off."

In the leadup to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, there were a large number of reports of an infamous plastic shredder into which Saddam and Qusay Hussein fed opponents of their Baathist rule.

The first mention of the woodchipper came at a March 12 2003 meeting, when James Mahon addressed the House of Commons after returning from research in northern Iraq. Ann Clwyd wrote in The Times six days later, an article entitled See men shredded, then say you don't back war, saying that an unnamed Iraqi had said the Husseins (sic) used a woodchipper to gruesomely kill male opponents, and used their shredded bodies as fish food. Later she would add that it was believed to be housed in Abu Ghraib prison. Two days later

Australian Prime Minister John Howard made reference to the "human-shredding machine". Melanie Phillips wrote in The Daily Mail, saying that the machine resulted in "bodies...chewed up from foot to head". In William Shawcross's 2003 book Allies: The United States, Britain, Europe and the War in Iraq, he claimed that Saddam Hussein "fed people into huge shredders, feet first to prolong the agony".

In 2003, Ken Joseph claimed to have been one of the anti-war Human Shields that had traveled to Iraq, but said that he returned disgusted by tales of slow torture like the plastic shredder, and became an advocate of the war instead. However, it was quickly asserted by the groups that organised the shield action that they had never heard of him, and that it was possible he had never even been to the country. The Sun's political editor Trevor Kavanagh wrote in February 2004 that "Public opinion swung behind Tony Blair as voters learned how Saddam fed dissidents feet first into industrial shredders"

In 2004, in The Guardian, Brendan O'Neill openly questioned the existence of the woodchipper, asking for Clwyd and Mahon to provide evidence or the names of the Iraqis who gave them the story. He spoke with the doctor who dealt with executed prisoners at Abu Grahib during Saddam Hussein's rule, who said that all executions were performed by hanging, and denied claims that there was a shredder of any type.

Clwyd responded to O'Neill's allegations in a letter published in the Guardian stating that "Brendan O'Neill was told by my office, but chose not to include in his article, the following information. In his statement, the witness who said that people were killed by the shredder was very specific: he named individuals who he said were killed in the shredder and the individuals who he said supervised the execution by shredder; he stated where the shredder was located and the month and year when the executions took place. The witness was closely questioned by Indict researchers and was described by them as being "unshakeable". He said he is also prepared to testify in court about the incident."[1].

O'Neill never responded to Clwyd's letter or the offer of more corroboration.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 05:57am
((Sometimes you merely need to dig a bit to get The Truth...))

You are right about one thing though. This election is an indictment of the occupation in Iraq.

Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/04/2006 @ 10:44pm | ignore this person

((And yet, Lamont "isn't a one-issue candidate"? Sorry, FRANK, you gave it away. Lamont may differ from Lieberman on a few other issues...but they're NOT why he's being supported or why he was pushed out in the first place. If Lamont didn't differ from Lieberman on ANYTHING, other than Iraq, "Nation" and "Move On" would be perfectly happy with him. And THAT was my point about the phoneyness and "changing the soul of the Party".))

Posted by Mask at 08/05/2006 @ 07:50am
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 05:57am | ignore this person

Don't fret, FROMREDBIRD, LRJONES....he's the local Hezbollah spokesman here, and if you doubt it ask him about his opinion on even the CONTINUEING EXISTANCE of Israel.

Makes Nasrallah sound like a moderate!

Posted by Mask at 08/05/2006 @ 07:53am
Sigh...

Bush II has buggered up US foreign policy so badly it is a crying shame. In Clinton's last year we were close to peace between Israel and the Palestinians; Iraq and N Korea were non-isssues; we were a respected voice in world leadership.

Looking at what that insulated blue-blood has done with his ignorance and intransigence is enough to make me sick.

Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS at 08/05/2006 @ 07:59am
Posted by RIO BRAVO 08/04/2006 @ 7:48pm

I posted this for you over on the "Poll: Lamont Leads Lieberman by 13 Points" thread, but you seem to have ignored it so I'll take a trick from your book and repost it here (apologies to all who actually read it there.)

Well Rio, it seems like you've finally tripped over an already cold story. The best commentary on it comes from the Hartford Courant [courant.com] (not exactly a Lamont booster) and is critical of both candidates. Let's try facts before your hyperbole gets the best of you.

First, Lamont's Wal-Mart holdings, like his Halliburton holdings, are in funds, not in individual stocks. In this he is hardly alone, since Lieberman also has holding of this kind (including in Halliburton, despite the fact that he tried to criticise Lamont for his holdings.)

Second, it's doubtful that Lamont even knew he had these holdings, since $31,000 is a drop in the bucket compared with his overall net worth (about $300 million, according to his Senate ethics filing.) That would be .01% in case you're wondering.

Third, Lamont has been consistently critical of the way Wal-Mart does business, while Lieberman has only jumped on the bandwagon recently (once it appeared that this was an issue that could hurt him.) Many shareholders disagree with the practices of companies they invest in, it's what they do about it that counts.

The real question you should ask is "who does Wal-Mart support politically?" The answer is: Joe Lieberman. He has received campaign contributions from the Wal-Mart PAC and from the principle Wal-Mart heirs. See the story here [myleftnutmeg.com]. Lieberman is the hypocrite, showing up at an anti-Wal-Mart rally when he has taken their money directly. There's your favorite Democrat, Rio, behaving just like his Republican friends.

Oh, and a bit I forgot to add to the other post; Lieberman showed up at the same anti-Wal-Mart rally as Lamont, so I think given where the political money is going we can see who the real hypocrite is.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/05/2006 @ 08:16am
Posted by MASK 08/04/2006 @ 10:25pm

Lieberman supported the war to the bitter end, so Lamont was pushed out by the bloggers to take him down...end of story.

And if Joe had pulled back and gone Hillary or even Biden...Ned would be home counting his Wal-Mart dividends tonight.

Well, you might try reading what Conn. insiders have to say about this "the netroots did it" idea Mask. You'll find that this is an old allegation long put to rest. DailyKos and the rest of the netroots didn't create Lamont, they just backed a candidate they agreed with. Try this article [blogs.courant.com] from the Hartford Courant's blog (by Denis Horgan) on exactly who is responsible for Lamont and his current success. And I'd also suggest a look at Lamont's own issues page [nedlamont.com] to see just how broad his grasp of the issues is. Your own rhetoric even shows that he's not a one issue candidate, or you wouldn't have the "counting his Wal-Mart dividends" quip to throw around. Get up to speed Mask, you're way behind on this one.

So please stop this phoney "Ned's changing the Soul of the Party" "We need to return to pure progressivism" crap...while Bob Casey Jr is running as a PRO-LIFE Democrat in Pennsylvania.

He is a progressive, unlike Lieberman, as you would know if you paid any attention to his issue statements.

Casey. No argument that that's a bad way to go for Democrats from me, since I voted for Pennachio in the primary (I live in PA) but we didn't get our progressive in. I applaud the Conn. Democratic voters for doing better. There's really very little similar in these races anyway, since Casey is an old-line and very popular politician here (unlike Lamont who is a newby) and he's running against (Republican) Santorum, who makes Lieberman look like a left-wing radical. I don't like the man myself, but I'll still hold my nose and vote for him because the alternative is six more years of Senator Sanctimonious. Rememeber though, PA tends to be a lot more conservative the Conn. outside of the major cities. The PA Democratic party may have been right to run Casey as he's currently so far ahead of Santorum that a win is almost assured. Sometimes the winning strategy sucks.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/05/2006 @ 08:55am
LR, Rio,CPT, genocide is taking place right now in Africa. You consistently use Saddams atrocities as a reason for OIF. What are you and chimpy doing to stop the ONGOING slaughter in Sudan/Chad/Somalia?

What about Khazikstan, Uzbekestan? Cheney LOVES those guys. Why not zip into Cuba right now?

Posted by crabwalk at 08/05/2006 @ 09:07am
LR, Rio,CPT, genocide is taking place right now in Africa. You consistently use Saddams atrocities as a reason for OIF. What are you and chimpy doing to stop the ONGOING slaughter in Sudan/Chad/Somalia?

What about Khazikstan, Uzbekestan? Cheney LOVES those guys. Why not zip into Cuba right now?

Because there is no familial grudge there. If there was, Bush would have probably been there a while back. The coziness to some of these countries proves that human rights had nothing to do with it, because they are all Dick Cheney's business partners. It reminds me of Jon Stewart's commentary on the inauguration, where Bush said the words "freedom" and "democracy" a combined total of 42 times. After the counter stopped, Stewart said, "Offer not valid in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey" and a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head. Rheotric is one thing, but it is quite another to actually believe in it as a consistent set of principles.

Posted by steve4wv at 08/05/2006 @ 09:30am
How many think w could actually have gone down as a great prez if he had gone into Afghanistan with a full complement of troops, engineers, teachers and doctors? I think about that a lot. If we had actually done it right in the place that hid and trained the 911 scum. It could have been a showcase for American goodwill and policy. By now it could have been 95% peaceful, with stuff actually getting rebuilt. Then we really could have shown the Muslim world how good we are. Instead we have the current morass in the region. Opportunities lost, sigh.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/05/2006 @ 09:37am
CRABWALK:

It just goes to show that we didn't invade Afghanistan because of 9/11. We already had plans to invade way before that. And we certainly didn't have justice on our minds when we went there.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 09:58am
STWRILEY:

Lamont is FAR from a left-wing radical. Last I checked, he is still very much a capitalist. That doesn't sound left wing to me at all.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 10:00am
While I will be the last to say that he is nowhere near as conservative as Lieberman, to call Lamont anything but a moderate (as seen through the lens of American political history) New Dealer is to misrepresent him.

And for all you rightwingnuts... no, the New Deal was NOT socialism. It was a payoff from the capitalist classes to the middle and lower classes so they wouldn't get any "silly revolutionary ideas" in their heads.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 10:04am
Posted by FREIHEIT 08/04/2006 @ 9:25pm

"[ Lieberman's ] less a hawk than a realist. Being a realist gets you ostracized from the Democratic Party these days. Too bad."

I assume you're using the word realist in a broad, general sense. If on the other hand you're using it to characterize a more or less formal set of principles guiding a coherent approach to foreign policy you should listen to what true Realists like Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzeznski or Richard Clarke have to say about the Bush adventures. Democrats ( if not always the leadership of the party ) are much closer in their beliefs to authentic realists like these men than they are to the half baked idealogues of the neo-con think tanks and the fantasies of Wolfowitz and Kristol and Krauthammer. Fantasies that Cheney, Rice et al expound on the Sunday morning talk shows and, I can only assume since I never watch it, ad nauseam on Fox news.

By the way, in case anyone missed Frank's 5:18 p.m. post it's worth repeating:

[ Ambassador ] Galbraith reports that the three [ Iraqi Americans ] spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"

This is the guy directing our "realistic" foreign policy Freiheit. This is the guy whom the realist Lieberman backs.

Posted by Red Neckerson at 08/05/2006 @ 10:22am
There's a decided difference between Realism and fascism. I think, FREIHEIT, you need to learn that difference.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 10:42am
Posted by STWRILEY 08/05/2006 @ 08:55am | ignore this person

Sorta missed my point...Lamont is a "one-issue candidate", NOT because he only HAS "one issue", but because ONE ISSUE is the only reason he's garnering that support from CT Dems or the blogs or whoever.

If Lieberman had done his mea culpa on the war in Iraq (instead of his pro-war Op-Ed in the NY Times)...Lamont would have gone nowhere, because, like Hillary or Ben Nelson, the blogs would have left Joe alone.

And if Lamont was down-the-line EXACTLY like Lieberman on those "other issues"...he'd STILL be suppported by Kos, Democracy Now, ect...because it's about one issue...Iraq.

So how is Lamont about "changing the soul of the Party"....if it's JUST about Iraq and the other DLC Dems can "switch" on Iraq (a la Hillary's attack on Rumsfeld)...and nothing else about the "soul of the Party" is changed?

Posted by Mask at 08/05/2006 @ 10:47am
"LR, Rio,CPT, genocide is taking place right now in Africa. You consistently use Saddams atrocities as a reason for OIF. What are you and chimpy doing to stop the ONGOING slaughter in Sudan/Chad/Somalia?

What about Khazikstan, Uzbekestan? Cheney LOVES those guys. Why not zip into Cuba right now?"

C,

If you want to take on every autocratic regime practicing genocide and terror you need to be reminded that your last President's inactivity resulted in the deaths of about 900,000 persons in Rwanda.

Afghanistan was not as one suggested an exercise in nation building as the following UN resolution indicates:

"The UN Security Council first imposed sanctions on Afghanistan in October 1999, to force the Taliban, the de facto government of Afghanistan, to hand over the terrorist Osama bin Laden to the "appropriate authorities." " (Bin Laden had been indicted by the United States). Thus Afghanistan was an exercise in destroying the AL Qaeda training camps and capturing bin Laden plus retribution against the Taliban for not handing bin Laden over to the US.

The subsequent attempt to rebuild the governance of Afghanistan was not primarily an American attempt at nation building but rather a European initiative. The UN is also involved and in fact the present military activities there are being headed up under the direction of NATO forces. Essentially it is still a battleground to restrain the re-emergence of the religious extremists.

How interesting that when faced with the terror and genocide of the Baathist Regime in Iraq (and there is a multitude of equally harrowing, documented accounts of that regime's barbarity practiced against its citizens) you and the Left generally want to divert attention from Bush's good work in removing this horrendous regime in Iraq. The fact is that most of you couldn't give a stuff about genocide where ever it is being practiced but merely want to play childish little party political games and/or pursue ideological agendas.

If you were on the level you would have applauded the removal of the Baathists, advised Bush of his mistakes in its implementation and said OK let's go and get some more practitioners of genocide. So why don't you just quit the hypocritical bullshit and admit you couldn't care less about the suffering of others except in a coldly indifferent intellectual way. Bush, unlike any other president you have had or are ever likely to have, at least got off his arse and did something about it. Warts and all he stands, morally, head and shoulders above most of you yanks if this forum is anything to go by.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 11:14am
Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 10:00am

Lamont is FAR from a left-wing radical. Last I checked, he is still very much a capitalist. That doesn't sound left wing to me at all.

And I called Lamont a left-wing radical where exactly? I termed him a progressive, which he is, though not as radical a one as I would prefer (but I'll take what I can get.) I did say that our own (in PA) junior senator Santorum makes Lieberman look like a left-wing radical, but that would fall firmly under the rubric of sarcastic hyperbole (and given Santorum's right-wing radicalism, not too much hyperbole either.)

To answer both this and your following post, I wasn't aware that being a capitalist disqualified you from being a progressive. While I agree that on some issues Lamont is still too moderate (health care, for instance, where he supports mandated universal coverage but not a single-payer system) he does have some solidly progressive positions on others that place him to the left of the DLC moderate crowd (on transportation infrastructure, for instance.) He's not ideal, but what politician is? I'll still take him over a pseudo-Democrat like Lieberman any day.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/05/2006 @ 11:15am
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 01:09am

shivers willie?

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Shithead, it's summer here. We had this conversation once before... you remember don't you? You're not swimming in fosters are you? The seasons are reversed between here and the down under hamster contingent

but the phases of the moon remain constant

(yeah that one)

As for the protest in Baghdad representing the majority of the people of Iraq. It probably doesn't. That was a peaceful liberal styled protest: freedom of assembly, freedom of speech... liberalism at its finest. Most of the rest of the country seems to be writhing in a sweaty, twisted orgy of conservative killing and torture.

When you said earlier that it was all going to be better soon I can only imagine that means that things will get worse in the mayhem department allowing ol gee Dubya to pull our kids out...

his job being done and all

Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2006 @ 11:23am
"[ Lieberman's ] less a hawk than a realist. Being a realist gets you ostracized from the Democratic Party these days. Too bad."

Posted by FREIHEIT 08/04/2006 @ 9:25pm

This is American moronism on steroids. America's upper middle class and upward are so exceedingly wealthy, privileged, and self-confident in comparison to other human beings on this earth that they don't give a second thought to the fact that their highest office is occupied by the close equivalent of a mental retard. I think a lot of them take pride in it. It's their way of thumbing their nose at the rest of humanity and rubbing it in and that attitude attracts a certain number of adherents from the fascistically-oriented elements in the lower classes.

FREIHEIT is like some dunce on the freeway who causes a fifteen car pileup then gets out of his car and says, "that's what I get for being a good driver".

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 11:25am
Posted by MASK 08/05/2006 @ 10:47am

Nope, didn't miss the point at all. The point of Lamont and his success is that he's appealed to a broad spectrum of Conn. voters on many issues. The Plan B availability issue, for example, really hurt Lieberman and has nothing to do with Iraq. The point you're missing is that it's about Lieberman's support for a wide range of BushCo actions and his criticism of his fellow Democrats on many issues, not just the war. That's why he's in his current position, not because the netroots have comeout against him. You're echoing the right-wing talking point that "it's all those DailyKos and DemocracyNow bloggers bringing Lieberman down." It's really Conn. voters, who are upset that he's not representing them. The war is part of that to be sure, but by no means the only part. No mea culpa could have gotten Lieberman out of this one. You cite Hillary and Nelson, but they've stuck much closer to their own constituents on most issues besides the war, that's why they don't have serious challenges. Lieberman has gone too far on many issues, which is why he's in trouble.

Oh, and Lamont is no DLC Democrat. Many of his policy positions are much more progressive that that. I never said anything about "changing the soul of the party", but he sure is getting them back to what that soul used to be; a party that actually pays attention to what average citizens need from their government.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/05/2006 @ 11:32am
Thank you Willie for those little lessons in geography. You'll have to give me the run down on latitude and longitude one of these days. I did eventually work out why your posts always seemed to be more than half a day behind us.

Notice you are still fixated with poo. Obviously it can be quite a heady thing.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 11:38am
you and the Left generally want to divert attention from Bush's good work in removing this horrendous regime in Iraq.

Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 11:14am

Great work GEE!

(clap clap clap clap)

thanks for saving the people from that meenie QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN who on a whim would execute dozens of prisoners in those dark nasty cells.

It's so much better now that they are butchered by the hundreds on a daily basis on sunny streets of Baghdad

Frosty beverage anyone?

Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2006 @ 11:45am
perhaps a little hot chocolate for you LR?

Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2006 @ 11:45am
The real question is why did it take so long for Connecticut voters to recognize what a bloodsucking animal Joseph Lieberman is?

He has always had an unalloyed loyalty to israel and the invasion and occupation of Iraq by America is strategically beneficial to israel. We can see that it isn't stopping there. Now they want us in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

For that to happen America has to have an immense military and the budget that goes with it. That means progressive social programs will eventually have to be eradicated to finance the made-for-israel war machine.

To bolster the political base for what is an essentially un-American policy orientation the zealots of zion are also working overtime to promote the neo-fascist, armageddon-now elements within the evangelic movement. The resulting distortion of policy prorities in America and conversion of this nation to a self-defeating behemoth has reached such an extent that it has taken on similarities to a host organism infected by a fatal virus. After all the life has been sucked out of America it'll be thrown on the nearest pile of corpses.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 11:47am
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 11:14am

If you want to take on every autocratic regime practicing genocide and terror you need to be reminded that your last President's inactivity resulted in the deaths of about 900,000 persons in Rwanda.

Oh LR, where to begin with all this? Well, let's start with the fact that Clinton did try to do good nationbuilding work (in a truely failed state, Somalia) but was opposed by the very right-wingers that now trumpet our "humanitarian liberation" of Iraq. He couldn't have gotten any support from the Republican congress for action in Rwanda no matter how he framed it.

Afghanistan was not as one suggested an exercise in nation building as the following UN resolution indicates:

"The UN Security Council first imposed sanctions on Afghanistan in October 1999, to force the Taliban, the de facto government of Afghanistan, to hand over the terrorist Osama bin Laden to the "appropriate authorities." " (Bin Laden had been indicted by the United States). Thus Afghanistan was an exercise in destroying the AL Qaeda training camps and capturing bin Laden plus retribution against the Taliban for not handing bin Laden over to the US.

While all this is true, and the US did have to go into Afghanistan to take care of the very real problem of al-Qaeda, that doesn't negate the nationbuilding aspect. Indeed, the very nature of what we had to do necessitated nationbuilding afterwards. And how has this been done? Badly, at best. BushCo failed both at the initial task (eliminating al-Qaeda) and at the nationbuilding. The result is a resurgence of the Taliban and growing problems that are resisting any attempts to control them.

How interesting that when faced with the terror and genocide of the Baathist Regime in Iraq (and there is a multitude of equally harrowing, documented accounts of that regime's barbarity practiced against its citizens) you and the Left generally want to divert attention from Bush's good work in removing this horrendous regime in Iraq. The fact is that most of you couldn't give a stuff about genocide where ever it is being practiced but merely want to play childish little party political games and/or pursue ideological agendas.

But the whole point of this wasn't to remove Saddam for his actions against his citizens, if you recall. That was just the justification that BushCo came up with later when their other justifications were shown to be lies and fantasies. They are the ones who don't give a fig for what regimes do to their citizens unless it serves their interests.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/05/2006 @ 11:49am
. . . thanks for saving the people from that meenie QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN who on a whim would execute dozens of prisoners in those dark nasty cells.

It's so much better now that they are butchered by the hundreds on a daily basis on sunny streets of Baghdad

Posted by WILL C. 08/05/2006 @ 11:45am

Were the stories about Qusay actually true? Where is the "people-shredding machine"? Where are "Saddam's doubles"? Not to mention, the "mushroom clouds".

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 11:52am
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 11:38am

Thank you Willie for those little lessons in geography. You'll have to give me the run down on latitude and longitude one of these days.

You're welcome

Seattle, Washington LAT= 47.45 LON= 122.30 TIME-ZONE 8

It's easy to find on the internet dummy

I did eventually work out why your posts always seemed to be more than half a day behind us.

Eventually eh? And it took work? We're on opposite sides of the International Date Line dummy. But of course that is just an accounting tool. In the here and now is where we all really live

Notice you are still fixated with poo. Obviously it can be quite a heady thing.

Such a disdain for science you have. Perhaps you don't have the head for it

Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2006 @ 11:55am
Too much work?

Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2006 @ 11:55am
Were the stories about Qusay actually true? Where is the "people-shredding machine"? Where are "Saddam's doubles"? Not to mention, the "mushroom clouds".

Posted by FROMREDBIRD 08/05/2006 @ 11:52am

doubtful

it difficult to spray mustard gas into a prisoners cell and not contaminate the prison, you...

the guy standing next to you

Posted by Will C. at 08/05/2006 @ 12:01pm
I T ' S

A L L

A B O U T

T H E

P R E T E X T

If you retrace Bush 41s footsteps from the Reagan era forward, you'll see how a criminal enterprise was developed between Bush Senior and many co-conspirators (Primarily Israel and the Christian Coalition) whose primary motivation was power and greed.

Former CIA Head and US President 41 was in bed with Israel and Mossad running tons of drugs.

He was floored when he lost his power to the Sax-playing Governor from Arkansas with whom he had a secrecy pact that allowed for Bush 41's CIA drug shipments to Mena Arkansas:

"I have put thousands of Americans away for tens of thousands of years for less evidence for conspiracy with less evidence than is available against Ollie North and CIA people. . . . I personally was involved in a deep-cover case that went to the top of the drug world in three countries. The CIA killed it."

Former DEA Agent Michael Levine CNBC-TV, October 8, 1996

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/mena.html

ARKANSAS GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH CIA DRUGS FOR GUNS CONNECTION

http://www.ncoic.com/clinton.htm

Mena began as the brain-child of CIA's Bill Casey, operated by CIA pilots flying out of NSA-controlled facilities. But the process became an NSA institution, a vast money-making enterprise by the nation's largest, best-financed intelligence agency. And they've been making too much money to stop.

No, the Systematics project overseen by Vince Foster wasn't just a matter of NSA spying on U.S. domestic transactions (the data turned over to analysts at FinCEN). It was a vast project that also involved the oversight of money for covert operations, and the laundering of the proceeds of drugs and arms sales. When Vince Foster spooked, the NSA was one of several parties who had a good reason to want him dead.

Is that why when Vince Foster left the White House at approximately 1 p.m. on July 20, 1993, approximately two hours before his death, he met with a man whose Arkansas license plates were registered to a company that builds signals collection facilities for the National Security Agency?

Why did the Rose Law Firm begin shredding files upon hearing of the death of Vince Foster? What was Foster involved in that made it necessary to destroy the files? Why did two Rose Law Firm lawyers show up at Foster's house and remove approximately eight boxes of records? What happened to those records? Why did Foster keep them in his basement? What was in the envelope addressed "eyes only, not to be opened, William Kennedy" that Deborah Gorham testified Vince Foster kept in Bernard Nussbaum's safe?

Why have the U.S. Park Police been guarding the grave of Vince Foster in Hope, Arkansas? Have they done the job with the same bungled skill they demonstrated at Ft. Marcy Park? Or are they there simply to keep the Wackenhut Corporation from stealing the body?

Why has someone reportedly put out a murder contract on Lt. Com. Alexander Martin? Who would have an incentive to see him dead? Is NSA's National Programs Office involved? Is an ex-Vice- President of the United States involved? Does it have to do with a little company he has an interest in common with General Secord?

Why is the Mossad, like the White House, in panic mode over the reopening of the investigation into Foster's death? What is it they don't want the U.S. public to find out? Why did the operating code for a new computer developed by NSA-subcontractor E-Systems of Dallas, Texas, end up in the hands of the Israelis within one month? Did Vince Foster sell it to them? Why are two LAKAM representatives offering a fee of $75,000 plus 1 percent of the proceeds to recover money from Swiss Bank Corporation? Is it because Vince Foster is not around to release it for them? Or did the armed raid on Mossad headquarters by U.S. contract agents within the past year create so much confusion someone just forgot the authorization codes?

http://orlingrabbe.com/part33.htm

http://orlingrabbe.com/part34.htm

http://orlingrabbe.com/vince_foster.htm

N U C L E A R

B L A C K M A I L

One nation, ISRAEL, becomes a VIRTUAL NUCLEAR POWER.

Missile launches take place in a virtual reality. Given the proper launch code, the missile will attempt to go to its programmed destination without further theological debate.

A country possessing the launch codes and also targeting information for another country's nuclear missiles could become a virtual nuclear power. (The targeting information would be as important as the launch codes. For before you launched a missile, you would first want to know where it is going. After all, it could be aimed at you.) Getting your nuclear arms this ways would have obvious economic advantages: someone else would foot the military bill.

Jim Norman states in Fostergate:

"According to a heavily-redacted New Mexico FBI counter- intelligence report, Maxwell was apparently allowed to sell two copies of PROMIS back to the U.S. weapons labs at Sandia and Los Alamos, for what Inslaw claims was a hugely inflated price of $37 million. That would have allowed Pollard, if he was using the rigged program, to obtain U.S. missile targeting data long before Israel had its own satellite capability, thus making it a real nuclear threat to the Soviet Union."

Well, yes, it could make Israel a real threat to the Soviet Union. But not from Israel's own puny missile program. Rather, Israel could be a threat to the Soviet Union because it would be able to launch our (U.S.) missiles at the Soviet Union. Being a virtual nuclear power would mean not having to say you are sorry. If a U.S. missile were launched at Russia, the defense system of Russia would, in its virtual view of the world, see the missile as coming from the U.S. It would launch a retaliatory strike against the U.S., because in its reality only the U.S. could be responsible. It wouldn't be programmed to recognize "Missile from U.S. not U.S.-intended action."

Being a virtual nuclear power means you could blackmail people in both directions: you could blackmail the targeted city or area. More importantly, you could blackmail the U.S. If the U.S. doesn't go along with your demands, why, you could involve it in a nuclear war in which you would be a spectator, not a participant. The U.S. would know it has more to lose than you do, so it would give in to your demands.

Vince Foster's NSA connections wouldn't give him access to such launch codes and targeting data. Not even with the help of Jonathan Pollard. It would take the cooperation of a small circle of friends--friends with Defense and Intelligence connections. People with access. People with authority.

Would any of the U.S.'s own Defense Department or Intelligence personnel in the 1980s or the 1990s, people other than Jonathan Pollard, have been involved in such a transfer of information to a foreign power--whether to Israel or to anyone else?

Surely not anyone connected to the account numbers KPFBMMBODB or KPFBMMBODE held at the Union Bank of Switzerland? Please, say it ain't so.

http://orlingrabbe.com/part7.htm

The existence of a so formidable nuclear power in Israel's hands can not be convincingly attributed to its own Research and Development efforts nor even to its role as a tool of American policies. On the contrary, a nuclear power of that magnitude must be presumed to run counter to U.S. imperial interests.

The only plausible explanation is that Israel has acquired its nuclear power with at least some help of its 'Jewish friends' in the U.S. Yehezkeli's and Sadeh's information about 'the nuclear bases on the territory of the former USSR' fits well with what Geoffrey Aronson, relying on State Department sources, reveals about the Pollard affair ("The Christian Science Monitor", January 27). He writes that according to 'unanimous response' from these sources, what Pollard has been always said to have betrayed, were 'this country's most important secrets', namely the 'information relating to U.S. targeting of Soviet nuclear and military installations and the capabilities and defenses of these sites'.

This seems to accord with Israel's global aspirations based on its nuclear power. Aronson also quotes his sources to the effect that much of intelligence passed on by Pollard 'was unusable to the Israelis except as bargaining chips and leverage against the United States and other countries' interests'. In view of this fact Aronson conjectures that Pollard's intelligence was used by Israel for deals with Moscow consisting of 'trading nuclear secrets for Soviet Jews'."

Why is it that the sale of bona fide national security secrets is tolerated, even rewarded with lucrative payments to Swiss accounts, while journalistic reports about THE LOOTING AND SALE OF U.S. NUCLEAR SECRETS are quashed as "national security"? Is the Pentagon run by lunatics and thieves?

http://orlingrabbe.com/part8.htm

Clinton had the goods on Bush 41, and was likely still receiving hush money from him as they ran against one another for President.

Bush loathed the fact that Clinton was in the White House and sought to bring him down. Remember the vast Right Wing Conspiracy claim by Hillary. She knew what she was talking about. Bush Senior aligned himself with his Israeli drug-running partners to bring down the Democratic Party once and for all - with Israel as the promised beneficiary.

The "VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY" of which Hillary spoke was a deal done between Bush 41 and Israel.

The CIA and Mossad were already BUSINESS PARTNERS in the drug trade - under the protection of Bush 41s network. Both 41 and Israel had broader strategic goals - and a common purpose in pursuing them together. A critical third leg of the stool was America's Christian Coalition, who would serve to provide the moral authority for the criminal enterprise.

The co-conspirators were impatient, and didn't want to wait 8 years for the popular Clinton/Gore White House to run its course, leaving Gore in position to retain it for 8 years thereafter. A PRETEXT was required to destroy the Clinton Presidency.

First they launched a full blown investigation into the Whitewater land deal, and when that didn't stick, they looked to more extreme measures to accomplish their GOAL OF DESTROYING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

S E X P I O N A G E:

Sexpionage is so important to Israel, that it opened an office for this purpose right smack in the center of US political power -- Washington D.C. The office fronts as a post 911 anti-terrorism institute and is located at 3811 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 720 Arlington, VA 22203. The Chief of the office is non other thaN the former Director of the Israeli MOSSAD, Shabtai Shavit.

http://www.aztlan.net/israeli_sexpionage.htm

Mossad had just the agent for the job - and her name was Monica Lewinsky. The case of intern Monica Lewinsky is now history. It was one of the major factors in the destruction of the legacy of the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Lewinsky was actually a "sexpionage agent" working on behalf of the Israeli government. She was, and probably still is, what the MOSSAD calls a "Swallow".

It is believed that Lewinsky's primary mission was to sexually compromise Bill Clinton in order to bribe him to release the Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. The timing and unfolding of the "White House Sex Scandal" coincided with the efforts and meetings by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu with President Bill Clinton in the White House.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky's phone at the Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same time, the FBI's hunt for "Mega" (the code name of a top Mossad Operative inside the White House) is called off.

The fact that Jerry Falwell's acknowledgment of how the Lewinsky affair was used as a club against Clinton--in tandem with "Bibi" Netanyahu's appearance at the White House, following the meeting with Falwell--was published in Vanity Fair is interesting in and of itself. That magazine is owned by the far-flung publishing empire of the billionaire Newhouse brothers ("Si" and Donald) whom Forbes dubbed the 25th richest family in America and who are known to be generous contributors to the Anti-Defamation League and other elements of the pro-Israel lobby.

http://www.iamthewitness.com/by_MichaelCollinsPiper3.htm

In an effort by Clinton to rid himself of the "Swallow", he transferred her to the Pentagon with the highest "security clearance" possible and which is only afforded to top brass and a few high level government officials. Soon Monica Lewinsky was cavorting with Admirals and Generals and became pregnant. She says she aborted the baby.

No one knows what Pentagon secrets Lewinsky was able to pass on to the Zionists, but perhaps Paul Wolfowitz' great success in involving the USA in the War against Iraq may be the results of Monica Lewinsky's efforts on behalf of Israel. Sexpionage pays and it is paying big for Israel.

AND REMEMBER PRESIDENT CLINTON'S FINAL ACT UPON DEPARTING THE WHITE HOUSE? THE PARDON OF MARC RICH.

Rich was known to do business with Iran and Iraq as a means of supplying the Mossad and other Israelis with intelligence information.

http://www.liesexposed.net/nfp/issue0109/israel.htm

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/rich.htm

And who are the agents of Marc Rich and Mossad in the White House?

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3005target_libby.html

THE PLAN FOR THE MILITARY COUP TO OVERTHROW THE US GOVERNMENT UNDER THE FALSE-FLAG BANNER OF THE "CONSERVATIVE" REPUBLICAN PARTY – AND CHRISTIANITY.

Lobbying for Armageddon

By Sarah Posner, AlterNet. Posted August 3, 2006.

Some influential evangelical leaders are lobbying for an attack on Iran. But it's not about geopolitics -- it's about bringing about the End Times.

In a perfect world, a reporter at last week's press conference with George Bush and Tony Blair would have asked Bush, in the presence of his principal European ally, if he believes the European Union is the Antichrist.

Although it sounds like the kind of Pat Robertson lunacy that makes even the wingnuts run for the nearest exit, it's a question Bush should be forced to answer. Bush and other leading Republicans have lined up behind a growing movement of Christian Zionists for whom a European Antichrist figures prominently in an end-times scenario. So they should be forced to explain to the rest of us why they're courting the votes of people who believe our allies are evil incarnate. Could it be that the central requirement for their breathlessly anticipated Armageddon -- that the United States confront Iran -- happens to dovetail so nicely with the neoconservative war agenda?

At the center of it all is Pastor John Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee doesn't fear a nuclear conflagration, but rather God's wrath for standing by as Iran executes its supposed plot to destroy Israel. A nuclear confrontation between America and Iran, which he says is foretold in the Book of Jeremiah, will not lead to the end of the world, but rather to God's renewal of the Garden of Eden.

http://www.alternet.org/story/39748/

Posted by plunger at 08/05/2006 @ 12:02pm
ENTER KEN LAY AND THE PRETEXT FOR OIL EXPERTS TO BE INSTALLED IN THE WHITE HOUSE…

THE FAKE CALIFORNIA ENERGY CRISIS.

Bush 41 and Ken lay conspired to create a pretext for the Republican Party to recapture the White House AND THEREAFTER – A SECONDARY PRETEXT TO JUSTIFY THE invasion of Iraq and Iran in order to acquire their oil. Their ISRAELI PARTNERS IN CRIME were hell bent on EXPANDING THE REALM OF ISRAEL TO INCLUDE ALL OF "ERETZ ISRAEL" - which conveniently overlapped the OIL MONGER's strategy. Getting the American Public behind such an invasion was just one part of the essential pretext to justify an invasion. An oil shortage in the US was a REQUIREMENT – and Mr. Lay's electronic oil trading platform was more than capable of creating a distribution log-jam in DEMOCRATIC California sufficient to sway voters to elect OIL EXPERTS to the White House. The plan was ALWAYS to have Dick Cheney be on that ticket.

Wouldn't if be nice to learn the details of how Lay and Cheney were divvying up the oil fields in Iraq on a big map, even before 9/11?

Wouldn't it be enlightening to hear that Lay knew for a fact that 9/11 was going to happen as the pretext for the war plan which he clearly had knowledge of prior to 9/11?

Why would you sit around countless energy planning meetings dividing up the oil fields of Iraq in advance of 9/11 unless there were a plan in place to make it possible?

Such a plan would by necessity be a war plan, and this war plan was actually in place prior to 9/11.

Surely any good war plan requires at its core a starting point, a trigger if you will that provides a good "cover story" to implement it. Clearly you can't just go around invading countries without a good reason...you need to be attacked first, then retaliate.

Was 9/11 simply part of the war plan?

Why wouldn't it have been?

You can't hit the "GO" button without a pretext.

9/11 was the pretext for the invasion of the Middle East - all by design.

9/11 - THE TERROR PRETEXT

The term NeoCon roughly translates to "Israeli Spy." If you always assume that anyone referred to as a "NeoCon" is in fact an operative for the Zionists – you'll likely be correct.

GIVEN A CHOICE, THE NEOCON WILL ALWAYS CHOOSE THE BEST INTEREST OF ISRAEL OVER THE UNITED STATES – AND LYING IS JUST PART OF THE EQUATION. Lying for Israel is the right thing to do.

Whenever you hear that testimony is being given without the requirement of being sworn under oath – you can be certain a NEOCON is behind that decision.

If one-half of the pretext required an apparent energy crisis in the United States, the other half of the pretext required TERROR. Bush 41 was well acquainted with false flag terror tactics, and knew full-well that Mossad were the experts. With Cheney and Rumsfeld firmly in control of the entire plan, and with the aid of their internal NeoZionist Operatives (Libby, Feith, Wurmser, Zakheim, Chertoff, etc.) running interference from inside the US Government, Mossad could be relied upon to recruit the operatives necessary to implement the PNAC's "NEW PEARL HARBOR," which would serve as the ESSENTIAL PRETEXT for the activation of their new business arrangement with Israel.

Beginning in early 2001, Cheney and Lay began meeting with other top oil industry executives to iron out a strategy for how best to handle the acquisition of the oil fields in the Middle East.

Although we recognize the need for executive privilege, it is hard to imagine anything related to something as non-national-security related a topic as our an energy policy, that would be such a threat to national security as to declare it off limits to all. By US Law this is public information, but Mr. "Shred the Constitution" Cheney has used every ounce of executive power in order to keep the lid on his meeting notes.

What could they contain? Dealings with the Taliban; negotiating a pipeline perhaps? Enron deals? Does anyone remember that Bush used an Enron company jet to travel during his campaign and that one of his campaign platforms was to deal with the "energy crisis", which turned out to be nothing more that an Enron scam on California? Could it be details parsing out Iraqi OIL? Hmm? Must be some important stuff in there, Dickey;-)

http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/cheney_s_secrets.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR200511 1501842.html

For a full accounting of all of Cheney's lies relative to his plan to take over the oil fields of the Middle East, go here:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/cgi-bin/search/exec/search.cgi?search=chene y+maps&perform_search=Search&skin=

As Cheney was working to lay the groundwork for the enrichment of himself and his cronies (through the increase in oil prices and the requirement for replacing the infrastructure that he knew would be destroyed), other Operatives within the administration were busy knocking down any attempt to uncover the developing plot for 9/11.

GW himself personally told the FBI to back off any and all investigations related to the Bin Laden Family, the Able Danger Unit was shut down and all of its files were destroyed, and field reports regarding suspicious foreigners at flight schools in Minnesota and Florida were magically buried.

ENTER MOSSAD SWALLOW #2 – CHANDRA LEVY

Whereas the Monica Lewinsky case involved mere deviant sexual trysts in the Oval Office, the Chandra Levy case involving Democratic Congressman and senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Gary Condit, involved murder.

As member of the committee, Condit was privy to highly classified information of much interest to Zionist Israel. The MOSSAD leaned on their "sleeper and sexpionage agent" Chandra Levy to obtain the secret US government information that the Israeli government needed. The MOSSAD arranged for Chandra Levy, than a US government intern, to meet Congressman Condit.

Whatever classified information Levy was able to obtain, on her "sexpionage mission", was at the cost of her life. One day before she was to return to California, she disappeared without a trace.

A spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney, said Cheney met with Condit around the same time Levy was logging off her computer in her apartment May 1, 2001 – the day she disappeared.

Juleanna Glover Weiss said the meeting happened between 12:30 p.m. and 12:50 p.m. in Cheney's office in the House of Representatives. The meeting was "at Condit's request," she said, and included Cheney and some of Cheney's staff discussing the California energy crisis.

Had Condit informed Levy of a pending attack on the World Trade Center – or did she learn of it on her own? Remember it was Cheney's job to ensure that the TERROR PRETEXT come off without a hitch. If Levy knew, she had to be eliminated. She was about to fly home to California to visit her parents, and told them that she had some "BIG NEWS" to share with them.

In 2001 it was discovered that US drug agents' communications have been penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys, both owned by Israelis. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7545.htm

It is quite likely that Mossad had tapped Levy's call to her parents, and informed Cheney that the "Big Wedding" (9/11 plot) had been compromised. Levy's meeting with Cheney at the exact time of her disappearance was specifically designed to provide Levy with an alibi.

Zbigniew Brzezinski and September 11th

December 23, 2001

For those who are able and willing to accept the way in which history actually works, the evidence provided by the U.S. events of Sept. 11th permitted but one concise conclusion: The crucial developments inside the U.S.A., between the bookends of approximately 08:45 and 11:00 h EDT, were a reflection of an attempted military coup d'état against the U.S. government of President George W. Bush.

My detailed knowledge of the onrushing strategic crisis within which those attacks were situated, allowed no other conclusion, than that this was an attempted military coup d'état with a global strategic purpose of the most ominous implications imaginable.

Once those facts are taken into account, two leading problems in subsequently adopted U.S. policies must be emphasized.

First: Why, apparently, did senior professional military and intelligence professionals not advise President Bush against permitting the diversionary targeting of former U.S. special-warfare asset Osama bin Laden, as the alleged prime culprit in this affair?

The second, related question, is: Why, despite the massive accumulation of relevant actual evidence since Sept. 11, do many official circles around the world still prefer to defend the consoling delusion, the current, officially blessed explanation of the events of Sept. 11, that "Osama bin Laden did it," even after months (years) of their failure to present the public with any solid proof of their allegation?

For competent counterintelligence specialists, the first question posed by the bare facts of the attacks on New York and Washington, was: What was that continuing action waiting to be unleashed by the successful effect of those attacks? The coup-attempt could not have been mobilized without the presence of such pre-existing, more broadly based intentions. Those intentions are well known to all relevant authorities: a.) setting off a richocheting thermonuclear alert; and b.) the launching of a generalized state of religious and related warfare throughout most of the planet, with the ongoing actions of the current Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as its leading expression. Now, after the events of Sept. 11th, there is no reasonable doubt of such broadly-based intentions. Therefore, any competent counterintelligence investigation, and consequent strategic assessments, must be crafted accordingly.

Therefore, the investigation must judge the plot behind Sept. 11th as crafted as a means to an end; it is that end on which our attention must be focused, and against which the effort must be concentrated. As in war, once the plot itself has failed, the plotters will become vulnerable to exposure, and their complicity can be reviewed safely, calmly, relatively at leisure.

http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2002/2901zbig_sept11.html

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Grand Chessboard

American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives

Key Quotes From Zbigniew Brzezinksi's Seminal Book

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last."

As America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."

"It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization."

http://www.wanttoknow.info/brzezinskigrandchessboard

Posted by plunger at 08/05/2006 @ 12:02pm
Joe's Democrat Last Hurrah & Goodbye Chance of D Senate?

Democratic "heavyweights" came sprinting this week to Connecticut to endorse Ned Lamont were ultra-liberals Al Sharpton and Rep. Maxine Waters D-Ca.). Lamont welcomed them with open arms. I noticed another strange thing, while perusing the ultra-left wing website: Lamont lists no endorsements. Why do endorsements mean something? They are a vote of confidence in the recipient. Joe Lieberman has been endorsed by both Connecticut newspapers, nine Democratic women Senators, including Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband former-President Bill Clinton . Also giving Joe the thumbs-up are NARAL, Defenders of Wildlife, Planned Parenthood, veteran civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga), fellow Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, League of Conservation Voters, Human Rights Campaign, and millions of hardworking labor union members of the AFL -CIO, Food and Commercial Workers, Teamsters, Letters Carriers, Firefighters, Carpenters, Communications and Postal Workers. Why do these representatives of Connecticut 's working men and women support Joe Lieberman could it be because he has brought thousands of jobs to Connecticut . What will a ultra-liberal freshman Senator do for Connecticut in a moderate to conservative U .S. Senate? What has as a 18-year veteran of the U.S. Senate accomplished for Connecticut ? Joe has worked for every piece of progressive legislation for nearly two decades. The truth is Ned Lamont will be a backbencher. Now, more than ever, in this era of chaos who should we trust to make foreign policy decisions for our country Joe Lieberman or Ned Lamont? Who should continue to be Israel 's voice in the United States Senate? Who should utilize the advise and consent power with regard to the actions of this president and the next? Who, according to Al Gore, had the steadiness and temperament to be President of the United States ? These are the questions Connecticut voters must asked before they cast their vote for trust-fund baby Ned Lamont. Let's hope the Quinnipiac poll showing Senator Lieberman 13 points down, and a New London poll showing Joe 10 points behind his ultra-left challenger are wrong. If it isn't and Democrats true-to-form once again eat their own, let's look to a Fall campaign where Democrats leaders absent themselves from Connecticut . If elected as an Independent who is Joe going to vote with to organize the Senate the Dems or Repubs? While Joe's a strong adherent of Democratic values fighting off an entourage of Democratic heavyweights campaigning for Lamont just might p..s Lieberman off. A Senate with a swing vote, if socialist Bernie Sanders is elected to the Senate from Vermont and organizes with the Democrats, would leave each party in a bid of a pickle.

US & FRANCE REACH UN RESOLUTION AGREEMENT ON M.E. PEACE? Today, agreement on possible resolution may be approved by the UN Security Council to end hostilities in the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict. The agreement calls on a cease fire and permanent disarmament of Hezbollah. The latter, particularly if disarmament is left to the Lebanese Army, is ill-conceived. A UN peacekeeping force on the Syrian border will also spark hostilities. We are facing a widespread war in the Middle East involving both client terrorist groups, possible national armies, and a spillover of the civil war in Iraq . We can not forget last week Iran 's president called for a Final Solution regarding the existence of Israel . A regional instability in the Middle East threatens the security of the United States and our European Allies. Unfortunately, a wider war will include conscription to enlarge truth strength. I consider myself a dove, however, surrogate armies as Hezbollah, Hamos, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations organizing in Iraq and Lebanon being funded by Iran and Syria must be liquidated before they kill American lives and those of our Allies.

Flacking Part D On July 27, the Chamber of Commerce kicked-off its 2006 election efforts with a $10 million media campaign touting the benefits of the Medicare Part D plan which provides seniors with prescription drug coverage. The campaign included nearly identical ads in twenty congressional districts thanking incumbents for having "supported the Medicare Part D law" and listing the number of seniors from that state who benefit from drug coverage. However, as the Associated Press initially reported, the group changed the ad for two members who were first elected in 2004, and not yet members of Congress when the bill became law in 2003. On August 3rd, the Seattle Times reported that a similar mistake had been made in ads featuring freshman Rep. Dave Reichert. Medicare Part D is so confusing even the Chamber of Commerce can't figure it out.

ARAB VIEW ON MID-EAST Below is a link to an Open Letter by Ibrahim Ebeid a US citizen and a veteran of the Vietnam era. I could not disagree more with Mr. Ebeid but thought it offers a good summary of fundamentalist-Arab sentiment. http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m25401&l=i&size=1&hd=0... Cash & Sleaze from Ohio

Ohio Governor's race, the almost Blue state in '04 Dem Gov. candidate Strickland raised $2.5 million in June and July. Republicans are trying to gain traction on a story involving the husband of their Auditor General candidate who took a $5000 illegal campaign contribution. Barbara Skyes' husband is running for her former state house seat.

20,000 It took the DNC 3-days to come up with a number of participants in last Saturday's so-called "Democratic Reunion". I like such round numbers. The DNC press office said 20,000. Was this number polled before it was released, maybe focused grouped. Why does my old cynical flack genes tell me the numbers were abysmal? The old chicken shit into chicken salad.

Remember the Right Wing Conspiracy Now a member of that conspiracy is telling us of another, the Shadow Party. Read all about it: http://www.sitnews.us/BillSteigerwald/080206_steigerwald.html... Apparently this group is trying to sabotage Joe Lieberman too: "It's odd that the book "The Shadow Party" is coming out the same day of the Connecticut primary. The mere fact that Joe Lieberman, who is a three-term senator, an incumbent, and who was on the presidential ticket of the Democratic Party in 2000, should be fighting for his political life against these forces shows how powerful the people in the Shadow Party are."

Posted by joegarcia at 08/05/2006 @ 12:17pm
you and the Left generally want to divert attention from Bush's good work in removing this horrendous regime in Iraq.

LR, why should we applaud the replacement of a brutal secular Sunni dictatorship with a brutal Shiite theocracy? It is six in one hand and half a dozen in another. Are you one of the people who applauded the removal of the Shah of Iran in 1978? Look at how that turned out. It does not deserve applause if someone replaces one set of tyrants with another one.

Posted by steve4wv at 08/05/2006 @ 12:54pm
STWRILEY:

My apologies. I misread your post. Mea culpa, mea culpa. I stand corrected.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 12:54pm
STWRILEY:

I would say, however, that I do not consider the DLC to be moderate at all. If anything they simple prove Vidal's comment about the state of politics in this country... that we have a party with two right wings.

I had just gotten up when I responded to your post. Hadn't had my first cuppa yet. Ugh...

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 12:57pm
We can not forget last week Iran 's president called for a Final Solution regarding the existence of Israel.

Posted by JOEGARCIA 08/05/2006 @ 12:17am

That's 100% hyperbole. Ahmadinejad said, "eliminate the zionist regime". If someone says they want the elimination of the Bush regime does that mean they're advocating the extermination of the American people? Of course not. No more so would the elimination of land grabbing zionism or any of it's particular governments equal advocacy of the extermination of the Jews in israel. The "Final Solution" comment above indicates a severe lack of interest in facts on your part.

If the Jews in israel had reined in their zionism a long time ago they could have been living in relative peace with their Arab neighbors for all this time. The Palestinians have for decades been ready for a settlement of the conflict. Polls have consistently shown this. israel prefers less peace and more land no matter how much it damages America.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 1:01pm
FROMREDBIRD:

I find it rather interesting that until the Crusaders invaded the Holy Land on the first crusade, Jews and Arabs lived in pretty consistent peace for centuries.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 1:06pm
LRJONES4:

Please give me 5 good things Bush has accomplished since he took office. I am betting you can't do it.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 1:07pm
And fucking his wife doesn't count.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 1:07pm
Posted by JOEGARCIA 08/05/2006 @ 12:17am

The complete divorcement of your above "Final Solution" comment from reality is illustrated by the fact that the Iranian Constitution requires representation in Parliament of their Jewish minority (about 250,000[?] Jews) even though they wouldn't be able to achieve that representation by normal electoral means.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 1:08pm
FROMREDBIRD:

I find it rather interesting that until the Crusaders invaded the Holy Land on the first crusade, Jews and Arabs lived in pretty consistent peace for centuries.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:06pm

Jews fled to Arab lands during the Spanish Inquisition and were given haven. This is the history that the zionist-appeasers want to cover up. For them, history in the Middle East starts in the 1930's and the Arabs are the cause of everything bad since then. The fact that it's Arab land and homes which are the object of contention rather than the land and homes of the zionist Jews in the European countries where they originated doesn't faze them in the least.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 1:15pm
Very good point, FROMREDBIRD.

I'm sure that the neo-con/Zionist combine in this country would try to assert that the Palestinians were a nomadic people without a homeland. LOL. So were the Jews for a good portion of their existence.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 1:19pm
WOW! i agree with anne coulter about something! go ahead, joe...just join the republican party and to hell with the dem primary! yould win the pub every time from the sound of it!. guess u thought you would win the dem primary everytime too, though...

Posted by ibbleblibble at 08/05/2006 @ 1:23pm
Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:07pm

He has done wonders to the Chinese and Indian economies.

He has proven that Ivy League degrees can mean nothing than Phoenix University degrees.

He has fought for the embryonic and the vegetative with a zeal unseen in previous presidents.

He has re-energized the national discussion about the flexibility of the English language as all creative orators have, but as very few previous presidents have.

He has not shot anyone in the face.

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 1:57pm
oops.

"nothing MORE than Phoenix..."

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 1:57pm
If you were on the level you would have applauded the removal of the Baathists, advised Bush of his mistakes in its implementation and said OK let's go and get some more practitioners of genocide

LRJONES

Seems this line struck a chord.

Had he done it with even a modicum of effectiveness I would have applauded. If there had been a hint of understanding about the prevailing culture, that woud have helped. If we were not still there 3 years on, we could move to the next probem. But we cannot, cuz chimpy has failed.

When Powell gave his speech, I was convinced. Then Blix crushed that. When the statue fell, I thought I was wrong all along, it would work out. Then I learned that was staged too. Then the whole country, minus the Kurdish area, hit the fan. Joseph did not change his stategery, he went along with w. They both deserve new careers.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/05/2006 @ 2:05pm
LRJONES4:

Please give me 5 good things Bush has accomplished since he took office. I am betting you can't do it.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:07pm | ignore this person

I thnk it was LR that tried this last week, in response to me asking to point out were chimpy has shown leadership. He came up with; Afghanistan, Iraq, tax cuts and some other non issues that "proved" his "leadership". Basically it was failed counterstrike, failed experiment, run the nation into debt and get his fellow tax cutters to go along with tax cuts.

If you set the bar real low, chimpy will get over it. He may need a booster seat, though.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/05/2006 @ 2:11pm
Dick Cheney, father of lesbian Mary, Master of deception and the false word and all around tough guy...SHOT HIM IN THE FACE!!!

God, I never get tired of that story. Thanks for apologizing Harry. Clearly it was your fault.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/05/2006 @ 2:15pm
...advised Bush of his mistakes in its implementation...

LRJONES

I'm sorry, he did NOT make any mistakes. Just ask him to list them once.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/05/2006 @ 2:20pm
Leiberman is 'feeling the heat' from Lamont (remember when you denied that, Mask?) because his stance on the war was 'the straw that broke the camel's back' for many Connecticut voters. A very large straw, no doubt, but NOT the only one by any stretch of the imagination.

I think John Nicols makes this point well when he notes...

Lieberman has been the most vocal Democratic backer of Bush's foreign policies, and he has also sided with Senate Republicans to block attempts to filibuster Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination, to explore Social Security privatization, to back free trade and corporate bailouts, to intercede in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case and, of course, to engage in tiresome moralizing about Bill Clinton's extramarital shenanigans.

There's more really...for instance, several more paragraphs could be written expounding on the details of "...back[ing] free trade and corporate bailouts"...that clearly added to voters' disenchantment with Leiberman. But the point is clear to any with eyes (and minds) that are open...if indeed he does go down, Leiberman was NOT 'sunk' by just his stance on the war...he had already filled all of his pockets with lead weights BEFORE he picked up that particular anchor and jumped off the boat!!!

Posted by Lillian at 08/05/2006 @ 2:26pm
He has done wonders to the Chinese and Indian economies.

He has proven that Ivy League degrees can mean nothing more than Phoenix University degrees.

Posted by TJBEHRENS1 08/05/2006 @ 1:57pm

Republican control of both Congress and the Executive will go down in history as the period that saw an unprecedented degree of bilateral economic and political development that didn't include the US. This is what's happening while we waste treasure and blood in self-defeating, wasteful wars. It has encouraged others to ally against us and for good reason. Our economic and political competitors have been delighted with America's Bush-league nincompoops.

I don't have a degree from the University of Phoenix but I think you're mischaracterizing it when you imply that it's a diploma mill. It's accredited and there is nothing for anyone who has a degree from there to be embarrassed about. A lot of business people use it for advanced degrees and certificates.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 2:58pm
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/05/2006 @ 2:35pm

I think you've just concocted the list for the DLC in '08. Nice going!

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 3:13pm
Rats!

I meant the DNC!

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 3:14pm
LRJONES4:

Please give me 5 good things Bush has accomplished since he took office. I am betting you can't do it.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:07pm | ignore this person

And fucking his wife doesn't count.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:07pm

Why not? Rightwingers think monitoring your bedroom activity is their god-given right

Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS at 08/05/2006 @ 3:18pm
Slobbering idiots like this belong in a mental institution.

Mr Hagee called the Israeli attacks on Lebanon a "miracle of God" and suggested that a ceasefire would violate "God's foreign policy statement" towards Jews. The evangelist is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which predicts a final battle between good and evil in Israel, where two billion people will die before Christ's return ushers in a 1,000-year period of grace.

"The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching . . . Rejoice and be exceeding glad -- the best is yet to be," Mr Hagee has written in a book that has sold 700,000 copies.

President Bush sent a message to the gathering praising Mr Hagee and his supporters for "spreading the hope of God's love and the universal gift of freedom". He is said to have added: "God bless and stand by the people of Israel and God bless the United States."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2298531,00.html

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 3:18pm
LVLIBERTY1:

I said list 5 GOOD things he's done, not give me a list of his failures. Perhaps you should go take an "English as a second language" class.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 3:19pm
I don't have a degree from the University of Phoenix but I think you're mischaracterizing it when you imply that it's a diploma mill. It's accredited and there is nothing for anyone who has a degree from there to be embarrassed about. A lot of business people use it for advanced degrees and certificates.

Posted by FROMREDBIRD 08/05/2006 @ 2:58pm

What are you talking about?

My point--not too complex here--is that an Ivy League school is generally not perceived to have the stature that a school such as Phoenix has. I could have inserted "a degree from a community college" or "a degree from Mississippi State" or "a degree from Bob Jones University"...any non-Ivy League school or group of schools would have sufficed to make the point that our most honored group of schools has been sullied by the incompetence of our president. Quite honestly, I am sure that Phoenix U is glad it cannot count him among their alumni.

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 3:20pm
This nutcase's "miracle from God" is proving less than miraculous: [antiwar.com]

Israel Admits Air War Failed to End Rocket Threat

Hezbollah Rockets Hit 50 Miles Inside Israel

Israel's Vaunted Tanks Are Succumbing to Hezbollah's Missiles

Israeli Public Support Begins to Fray as Toll Rises

Report: Iran to Supply Hezbollah With Surface-To-Air Missiles

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 3:21pm
ILOVEPHYSICS:

Because Laura Bush is kinda cute for being as old as she is. So he shouldn't be rewarded to doing something that, were I older, would probably do gladly.

And yes, you rightwingnuts, I meant for this to be as offensive as possible. So before you start with the comments about how inappropriate I am, shove it. Get a sense of humor.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 3:22pm
LVLIBERTY1:

I said list 5 GOOD things he's done, not give me a list of his failures. Perhaps you should go take an "English as a second language" class.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 3:19pm

Or maybe "America as a second nationality".

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 3:23pm
TJBEHRENS1:

Actually, from what I have seen and read about U. of Phoenix, the ceo is a solid supporter of Bushit.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 3:24pm
Well, then, there.

And as for Laur-Laur, what do you think you might see if you gaze deeply into her eyes? I'm not convinced there is any activity going on beyond the exterior. 'Droids really don't do it for me.

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 3:36pm
My point--not too complex here--is that an Ivy League school is generally not perceived to have the stature that a school such as Phoenix has. I could have inserted "a degree from a community college" or "a degree from Mississippi State" or "a degree from Bob Jones University"...any non-Ivy League school or group of schools would have sufficed to make the point that our most honored group of schools has been sullied by the incompetence of our president. Quite honestly, I am sure that Phoenix U is glad it cannot count him among their alumni.

Posted by TJBEHRENS1 08/05/2006 @ 3:20pm

Don't get hot under the collar. There is a big difference between an Ivy League College and a community college or Bob Jones University. There is also a big difference between University of Phoenix and a community college or Bob Jones University.

The fact that a complete idiot like Bush attended and graduated from Yale should tell you something about the integrity of it's reputation. There's no doubt that brilliant people graduate from there, also, but it's obviously not a requirement. In Bush's case, his ruling class pedigree is what made the difference.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 3:38pm
Maybe I just always had a librarian fantasy... lol.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 4:01pm
Ol' Arnold Lieberbaby is now officially toast with the endorsements of the truly anally retentive, this has to be the ultimate kiss of death.

lvl the great antichrist & mouse that roared has once again proven that senility is a virtue! Keep trying though your posts are now on par with the funnys. To prove my point how do you rationalize the handle "love liberty" while being such a hypocritic ass.

Posted by dycel8r at 08/05/2006 @ 4:11pm
US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said he was keen to get the resolution adopted as quickly as possible.

He said the text did not include a requirement for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

But it does call for "the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military actions".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5248868.stm

Hasn't Israel claimed that all of its attacks on Hezbollah/Lebanon have been "defensive", in a way similar to the mindset of the Neo-Cons' vis a vis Iraq? This obviously means that Hezbollah is being ordered to stop firing first and that Israel can let 'er rip as long as they can put forward any claim that Hezbollah still poses a threat.

Librarians, eh? Wasn't Batgirl in the Batman TV series a librarian? If so, then one wonders just how W has enough stamina to hop on his bicycle or clear brush. Quite a man.

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 4:13pm
LL

There might be 3 "good" things on that list.....but certainly no more.

Posted by leftofcenter at 08/05/2006 @ 5:02pm
LEFTOFCENTER:

Ok... and which 3 are they?

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 5:04pm
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/05/2006 @ 2:35pm

Excellent! I love lists, they're so easy to review. Let's see what this one contains and just how far its points are from reality.

1. Cut Taxes 3 times

While perfectly true, in that BushCo is responsible for it, it hardly qualifies as a success. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has pointed out [cbpp.org], the current recovery has most likely been slowed by the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Any claim that they have succeeded has been thoroughly disproved by the lack of strong growth in the very sectors they should have aided. Sorry Lvliberty, but your first item belongs in the "failure" column.

2. Invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban

Also sort of true, as far as it goes, but again hardly a success. While the initial overthrow was accomplished, it was mostly done by the Northern Alliance with our limited support. However, we never committed the forces necessary for finishing the job and it remains unfinished to this day. The result is the current resurgence of the Taliban and their control of Helmand province. Nope, failure number two on this one.

3. Invaded Iraq, killed Saddam's sons and captured Saddam

Yes we did, and in the process trashed our international reputation, our real strategic interests, and virtually all the good will we gained as a result of 9/11. The result is a three-year-and-running quagmire that is costing American and Iraqi lives for no good purpose and has brought the "liberated" nation to a state of low-scale civil war. Solidly in the "failure" column there, too.

4. Stood up to Socialist Europe on global issues like Israel and Iraq

Only you could come up with this one, Lvliberty. First, most of the European governments aren't Socialist, even in the democratic socialism sense. The French government everyone on your side so vilifies, for instance, is run by Chirac's UMP, which is a conservative, right-wing party. The Europeans stood up to BushCo on Iraq (and in some but not all respects on Israel) because they knew as many here did that his policies are wrong. Sorry, failure number four.

5. SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts

This is only a success if you think like a right-wing nut job. I'll give you that for you end of the political spectrum this is one, but for the rest of us it's a complete disaster. He's an advocate of the Unitary Executive, for one thing, a concept so Constitutionally dubious I find it hard to believe that anyone takes it seriously. No, for the nation as a whole this is also a failure (though it was a political success for the Republican right-wing.)

6. SCOTUS Associate Justice Alito

See above about Roberts, but x10. Alito is even worse, being more extreme and less rational. Once again, failure for the nation but political success for BushCo.

7. UN Ambassador John Bolton

This is an appointment so far out BushCo couldn't even get his pet Republican Senate to confirm him. He had to use the dubious means of a "recess appointment." That this was clearly not meant by the Founding Fathers for nominations that had been submitted to the Senate but only for those that actually happened during a recess has been overlooked by far too many. And of course he's proved to be exactly the kind of obstructionist at the UN that everyone feared. I'd call this a failure all the way around.

8. Kept Al Gore and John Kerry out of the White House

This is pure politics, so it too hardly counts. Besides, it may very well be that this was only achieved by underhanded methods at best and by outright fraud at the likeliest. That would make even this a failure, since it would by its very nature undermine our political system.

9. Removed US from Kyoto

An unmitigated failure. Global warming is the most important issue we face, yet here we have BushCo removing us from the only effective thing that has been done on an international level about it. And did they substitute any action on their own? Not a one. Failure to even understand the magnitude of their failure on this one, both by BushCo and by you Lvliberty.

10. Negotiated and signed Nuclear Warhead Reduction Treaty with Russia (2002)

The title you give is incorrect, it is properly the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty. It is also the single worst arms control treaty this country and the Russians (and Soviets before them) have ever ratified. The final treaty does not actually reduce nuclear warheads at all, only limits their operational deployment to 1700-2200 warheads (which is still enough to effectively destroy all human life on Earth several times over.) It is also much weaker than what was proposed by Putin or by the Yeltsin/Clinton portion of the talks that started the SORT process. A full analysis and be found here [idds.org]. While it's marginally better than no treaty at all, it's so weak as to be virtually the same as nothing (there is no verification regime included, for instance, so we don't actually know if the Russians are following it or not.) I'll follow the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies and call this one a failure too.

11. Committed more funds to AIDS than any previous president-1st president to commit funds to AIDS in Africa

Both of these are incorrect. In adjusted dollars Clinton committed more funding to AIDS (though not much more) so there's no real improvement there. As to the claim that BushCo is the first to commit AIDS funds to Africa, the USAID did this during the Clinton administration as well, so that is clearly not a success. BushCo has created a "new program" with the Global Health and HIV/AIDS Initiative, but it is simply doing work that was once done by USAID's health programs. I'll admit that BushCo has increased funding somewhat (they were embarrassed into it by their friend Tony Blair at the G8 summit) but by only about 56% for all foreign aid to Africa (and the bulk of that has been for military and food aid, see The Brookings Institution [brookings.edu] on how this funding has actually been done. Not a failure per say, but also not what you're claiming either Lvliberty. I'd call BushCo's actual actions on this a partial and reluctant success.

12. Captured or Killed more than 25 leaders in Al-Qaeda including those who plotted 9/11

This all depends on who you count as a "leader" of al-Qaeda, but it has serious flaws on several levels that don't even need to take that into account. First, the real leadership is still in the wind. When BushCo produces bin Laden or al-Zawahiri then they can claim to have the "leaders of al-Qaeda", but not before. Second, virtually none of the al-Qaeda figures that have been captured can really be credited to BushCo or American action. They were mostly rounded up by the Pakistanis as "gifts" for their friend George. So that's not their success, it's the Pakistani's. Third, they've allowed the propaganda machine of al-Qaeda to operate freely with the result that affiliation (at least on the network/informal level) has gone up rather than down and has produced the proliferation of the very kind of groups we don't want running around, like the bombers in Madrid, London, etc. (and the would-be ones in Miami, a pack of dissatisfied Hatian refugees for goodness sake!) This is a resounding failure on the part of BushCo, since they've demonstrably failed on the purpose of going after al-Qaeda no matter the technique employed.

That is a good start.

Well, lets take a tally on that start, shall we? Out of your twelve points, I have a total of eight unqualified failures, three political successes that are nonetheless failures for other (and far more important to the country as a whole) reasons, and one qualified and limited success. Not a good record if you ask me, nor what you might want to put out there as BushCo's greatest hits. But then, it was the best you could come up with since it's all BushCo has. So to round out our review, I'd call this a failure for you too Lvliberty, since you still haven't managed to come up with five successes to answer Jorcheim's challenge.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/05/2006 @ 6:05pm
STWRILEY:

Great post. You beat me to it.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 6:42pm
By the way,

Don't get hot under the collar.

Posted by FROMREDBIRD 08/05/2006 @ 3:38pm

Not even luke-warm under the collar. Trust me, you'll know if I'm pissed. ;-)

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/05/2006 @ 6:49pm
Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 6:42pm

Great post. You beat me to it.

Thanks, I do my best to shoot down these right-wing flights of fancy.

BTW, sorry about my own snippy tone earlier. I was up a bit early myself.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/05/2006 @ 7:25pm
Good evening to everyone! I've got a cold beer, KCSM jazz streaming audio feed, and I am blogging on the Nation website. It reminds me of my time last Summer and Fall in San Jose. And so does the weather - low humidity, temp in the mid 70's, and sunshine. Good memories.

I hope everyone else is doing as well as I am right now...

Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS at 08/05/2006 @ 7:28pm
Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:07pm

J,

What's the significance of 5. You're not by any chance a religious nutter? I was dealing with one, the removal of the Iraqi Baathist regime. You blokes seem to have a short attention span when you stray from your catechism.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 7:30pm
ST,

Very disingenuous. What on earth has nation building got to do with saving the lives of 900,000 Rwandans? Nation building is a work of generations. Clinton himself is aware of his own failure in standing idly by while so many were being slaughtered.

My reason for mentioning Clinton was not to get the party faithful leaping to his defence, as you have done, but to point up the difference between an inactive dithering president and one who does something.

Going out today (9am Sunday morning) but will get back to your other points later.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 7:32pm
LRJONES4:

I actually do happen to be religious, but I don't see how that bears any importance on you being able to come up with 5 actual policy successes of the Bush junta. Are you trying to deflect the question in the vain hope that we may forget to hold you to task for supporting a criminal regime in the Bush administration? I think not. And seeing as I am not Catholic, I don't follow catechism.

And the removal of Saddam Hussein, seeing the horrible destruction that action entailed hardly seems worth all the lost lives, treasure, and materiel. And it certainly doesn't measure up to the lies constructed and religiously repeated like a mantra by you rightwingnut(ter) boys and girls.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 7:34pm
STWRILEY:

No worries. When dealing with the monumental myopathy of the rightwingnutters (my new word for those with whom we have to deal on here), it is a labor of patience. Sometimes that patience wears might thin.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 7:36pm
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 7:30pm: I was dealing with one, the removal of the Iraqi Baathist regime.

Are you seriously calling Iraq a success? If so, you are truly a moron. The "removal of the Iraqi Baathist regime" has been one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in US history. While we have indeed removed the "Iraqi Baathist regime", it has come at tremendous cost. A cost that is certainly not worth the reward. And a cost that the American people would certainly NOT have supported if the lying bastards that are BushCo had been honest about the reasons for war. And, we have replaced "Iraqi Baathist regime" with, at best, anarchy, and at worst civil war.

Are you seriously claiming that this catastrophe is viewed a sucess by the wingnut faithful?

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/05/2006 @ 8:58pm
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 7:32pm: My reason for mentioning Clinton was not...

Right. Your reason for mentioning Clinton was simply that this is what rightwing whackjobs do when they have no argument. They bring up Clinton.

Why you think this argument is effective is beyond me. Clinton was a popular president who presided over a prosperous period in America. Hell, he left office with higher approval ratings than Dear Leader Ronnie.

But, even if he were the worst president ever, why would you think his perceived failures provide any justification for the failures of your hero, Georgie Boy?

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/05/2006 @ 9:05pm
Posted by FRANKGRITS 08/05/2006 @ 9:21pm: They put him in the Oval Office andnow they are going to have to live with it.

Unfortunately, we all have to live with it.

Except the people who he and his followers are killing. They get to die with it.

And moronic cowards like LRJones cheer on the death, perversely believing that the more people we kill, the closer we are to peace and safety.

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/05/2006 @ 9:37pm
Jor

I was thinking "bits' of 1 & 2, and 10, 11 part of 12 (if there was no 3) So maybe 2 1/2?

Posted by STWRILEY 08/05/2006 @ 6:05pm calls the few snippets of good amidst the ruble of his admin much more definitively than my short jape.

Dubya's reign has, at some level, been like someone eating a bowl of alphabet soup. Even a dumbass might spell a word now and then...and this one did (perhaps) a couple times too.

Posted by leftofcenter at 08/05/2006 @ 9:57pm
FRANKGRITS:

As often as we do indeed agree, on the topic of Clinton, I must disagree. I believe him to be an average president at best, even though he presided over a period of American history belived by many (not I) to one one of our most prosperous.

NAFTA has proven, much as many people foretold prior to it getting passed, to be the single worst economic mistake in our nation's history.

That alone ranks him low in my book. I have many other reasons for disliking Clinton, but for now, as I am tired, this is sufficient.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/05/2006 @ 10:03pm
That Joey's being supported by the worst of the fascists on the right should come as no surprise to anyone; after all, he supports the majority of their policies. He's just another Zell who's learned to keep his comments under better control.... Maybe the death of Joey's Democrat political career will wake up other Dems currently pandering to the Repubs--are you paying attention, Hillary????

Posted by Nez at 08/05/2006 @ 10:38pm
And moronic cowards like LRJones cheer on the death, perversely believing that the more people we kill, the closer we are to peace and safety"

"We" ? What killing have you been doing lately O ? I thought even you might have been aware that the "people" don't need your help or that of the US military in that exercise. They are doing it themselves quite successfully without any foreign help. It's easy to see how you fellas get confused. If you began to think for yourselves instead of following the party line you wouldn't get lost in the fog caused by wacky conclusions such as the above.

If you want an opinion of who should be killed, in the interests of peace, of course, I think I would favour quality over quantity but that's a non- military man's point of view.

ps. Jones family motto: "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" (Could do it in Latin for you if you like).

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 11:26pm
FROMREDBIRD:

I find it rather interesting that until the Crusaders invaded the Holy Land on the first crusade, Jews and Arabs lived in pretty consistent peace for centuries.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:06pm

Jews fled to Arab lands during the Spanish Inquisition and were given haven. This is the history that the zionist-appeasers want to cover up. For them, history in the Middle East starts in the 1930's and the Arabs are the cause of everything bad since then. The fact that it's Arab land and homes which are the object of contention rather than the land and homes of the zionist Jews in the European countries where they originated doesn't faze them in the least.

Posted by FROMREDBIRD 08/05/2006 @ 1:15pm | ignore this person

Very good point, FROMREDBIRD.

I'm sure that the neo-con/Zionist combine in this country would try to assert that the Palestinians were a nomadic people without a homeland. LOL. So were the Jews for a good portion of their existence.

Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 1:19pm

Astoundingly, that's exactly what zionists do say- that the Palestinians are mostly recent immigrants and most of the Jews were already there. They don't include an explanation for how the al-Aqsa mosque was built in 637 AD or why British immigration records show that 95% of the Jews arrived in the early 1900's against the wishes of the people already there. That caused huge riots by the Arabs that were . . oh, sorry . . weren't there.

This is the kind of childish pablum that can influence only simple-minded bigots like LVLIBERTY1.

Posted by fromredbird at 08/05/2006 @ 11:32pm
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 11:26pm: "We" ? What killing have you been doing lately O ?

Intelligent adults take collective responsibility for the actions of their government. As Will C. likes to say, it's we the people.

Cowardly warmongerers, on the other hand, hide under their bed and scream, kill, kill. I do not feel safe. Kill.

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/05/2006 @ 11:45pm
And we the people are collectively responsible for the mayem and destruction unleashed by the Dear Leader Society. For we have allowed them to do it.

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/05/2006 @ 11:46pm
" Posted by ORWELL2005 08/05/2006 @ 9:05pm

O,

Just picked this one up. Think you are a little reactionary and over defensive. Bill Clinton has been to Australia on speaking tours over the last year or so and I've listened to several TV interviews. I found him to be very stimulating intellectually and a charismatic speaker with a very substantial grasp of international affairs

It was on one such interview that he mentioned Rwanda and his failure to act as something that he regretted deeply.

Bush does not compare with Clinton in any of the above personal traits but the point I was making, in the post on Bush's removal of Saddam, was that inactivity in the face of the Rwandan genocide or Baathist barbarity (and genocide), has a moral dimension. I suggest that Bush saw that inactivity was moral cowardice. Clinton at the time of the Rwanda affair either did not or was not willing to act on his conscience.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/05/2006 @ 11:58pm
"I actually do happen to be religious, but I don't see how that bears any importance on you being able to come up with 5 actual policy successes of the Bush junta. Are you trying to deflect the question in the vain hope that we may forget to hold you to task for supporting a criminal regime in the Bush administration? I think not. And seeing as I am not Catholic, I don't follow catechism.

J,

I gathered you are a literalist so will need to patronise you in future by using less irony. The issue was not about five or ten or any number one could think of but the one issue of removing the Baathist regime. I suggest it was you who would not or could not argue against that moral imperative, so got into an irrelevant "numerology" game.

I was not talking about religion at all but the weird doctrines that so many of you seem to hold and which could only be held by those catechised in them. If you or one of your mob ever comes up with an original slant on the Leftist's "catechism" I will be the first to acknowledge that you are not all intellectually lazy.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/06/2006 @ 12:23am
Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 7:32pm

Very disingenuous. What on earth has nation building got to do with saving the lives of 900,000 Rwandans? Nation building is a work of generations. Clinton himself is aware of his own failure in standing idly by while so many were being slaughtered.

Not disingenuous at all. You pointed to Rwanda as a counter to BushCo's "humanitarian" nationbuilding exercise in Iraq, claiming the Democrats don't care about what happens to other people in the world, and I pointed out that Clinton had also tried nationbuilding in Somalia (where we had no interests other than humanitarian ones) to show that the example was misplaced and drew incorrect analogies. He was forced to out of Somalia by Congress over the "Blackhawk down" incident and thus had no political capital to spend on Rwanda no matter what he may have wanted to do. He has apologized because that's what responsible and caring people do, whether they are the ones principly responsible or not when something goes wrong. If BushCo ever apologizes for Iraq, I'll be glad to eat the crow. But he won't, because he has followed his own narrow party and crony interests (not any humanitarian impulse to save Iraqis) and could care less about the bad effects of what he's done. By the way, the death rate in Iraq is now higher than it was under Saddam, so even the humanitarian contention is misplaced. You hardly save people by making death more prevalent in their daily lives.

My reason for mentioning Clinton was not to get the party faithful leaping to his defence, as you have done, but to point up the difference between an inactive dithering president and one who does something.

Clinton's record is mixed when it comes to successful action, but it was hardly inactive. While he did fail in Somalia (with a lot of negative Republican help) he succeeded in Bosnia (remember the Dayton Accords, that have now brought ten years of peace and a reunited state to the Balkins.) BushCo has simply failed, no mixed about it. He's action for its own sake (or for political purposes, which is worse) and shows none of the understanding of international realities that Clinton did. It is both poor ideology and poor application in foreign policy and it has harmed this country far more than Clinton's modest failures. It has also been marked by inaction and dithering of its own (can you say Darfur? I knew you could.) So forget that nonsense about Bush being active where Clinton was inactive, it just doesn't fit the facts.

The whole point is, LR, that BushCo has never acted from humanitarian motives. The neo-con program they've liked from day one is based on a fantasy version of old-fashioned imperialism, not on anything most Americans would call idealistic foreign policy (the type you're implying with all this bunk about removing Saddam.) If they really gave a damn about people instead of their imperialistic dreams of perpetuating American dominance into the infinite future we'd have been in Darfur before you could say "boo!" But they don't, so save the santimony and deal with the real issues, like whether or not invading a sovereign nation because the leader is a nasty piece of work is really something we can countenace under international law. If you insist that the answer is "yes" then you'd better be ready the next time someone finds the Aussie PM too [fill in your favortie gripe here] for them and sends a few "liberators" to help you out.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 01:00am
STWRILEY

Excellent posts, as usual. I might also add re the AIDS post that a large chunk of Bush's funding goes to faith-based [thenation.com] organizations that downplay the use of condoms in favor of an abstinence-only policy. See also h ere [laweekly.com]. The policy has also pandered to the religious right in that it requires that all recipients explicitly condemn prostitution. The institution is certainly condemnable but you don't get information and assistance to an at-risk population that way. Brazil has actually rejected [tinyurl.com] American aid for that reason.

Posted by brunowe at 08/06/2006 @ 01:15am
Posted by JORCHEIM 08/05/2006 @ 10:03pm

I too would call Clinton an average president. He did (or tried to do) a number of good things and also did some not so good or downright bad things (and NAFTA would certainly be among them.) He'll be mentioned historically but will only be a major figure because of the impeachment (and that as a negative example of when the power was abused by Congress.) I had hopes for his potential (he's one of the smartest guys ever to be president, with the possible exception of Carter and Wilson) but he didn't live up to it.

BushCo, on the other hand, will definately be remembered as a bad, and probably as the worst president ever. Historians [hnn.us] have already weighed in on this and the verdict is overwhelming; BushCo is one of the worst presidents ever (and the poll cited above was taken in 2004, before the election and the further spiraling downturn in Iraq, the Katrina debacle, the genocide in Darfur, or the current Israel/Lebanon disaster.) He ranks only behind Nixon and that just barely. He's already passed Buchanan, which is serious damnation from historians (given Buchanan's role in bringing on the Civil War.) In the long run, as the damage BushCo has done becomes more apparent, he'll top Nixon too. There's even a Quinnipiac poll [quinnipiac.edu] of American voters just released on June 1st that puts BushCo at number one on the all-time worst list (at 34%, versus only 17% for Nixon in second place.) He'll be remembered all right, but only in the way that we remember Aaron Burr or Benedict Arnold.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 01:30am
Posted by LRJONES4 08/06/2006 @ 12:23am

I was not talking about religion at all but the weird doctrines that so many of you seem to hold and which could only be held by those catechised in them. If you or one of your mob ever comes up with an original slant on the Leftist's "catechism" I will be the first to acknowledge that you are not all intellectually lazy.

And what is this "leftist catechism" pray tell. We await your answer so that we may be enlightened, oh political guru.

Seriously, a good half of the progressives that post here aren't exactly "typical" leftists in any sense (me included) so I'm at a loss as to how you find something consistent enough to be termed a "catechism" among our opinions. Of what does it consist? How are we the spouters of dogma? Feel free to point this out and I'll be glad to answer anything you can come up with. In the meantime, I should think the trashing you've sustained here at the hands of several of us should lay the "intellectually lazy" claim to rest quite easily.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 01:45am
Posted by BRUNOWE 08/06/2006 @ 01:15am

You are, of course, quite right about BushCo's AIDS funding and his appeasement of the Religious Right. I was avoiding gilding the lily by adding to what Lvliberty had proposed, as I could have gone on for far longer than I did if I had (and that post was long enough, I don't want to turn into Plunger or anything.) There was so much I had to skip (like the connection from the SORT Treaty to BushCo's abrogation of the ABM Treaty without congressional approval, for instance) but I had to stop somewhere. Still, you're right that these points do need to be made again when the right-wingers bring up BushCo's supposed successes.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 01:52am
I suggest that Bush saw that inactivity was moral cowardice. Clinton at the time of the Rwanda affair either did not or was not willing to act on his conscience.

Posted by LRJONES4 08/05/2006 @ 11:58pm

The genocide in Rwanda lasted for about 100 days and then it was over. That's all the time Clinton had to react

Bush was in office for two years before he invaded Iraq... more than 100 days

He's been in office for six years and done nothing about the Sudan... more than one hundred days

and he still hasn't gotten Osama, the poppy fields are blooming again in Afghanistan... the drugs they produce are headed for the veins of American kids. The Taliban is making a comeback. Iraq is in flames. Israel and Lebanon are in flames. North Korea has nuclear weapons. Iran is working to get them...

ol gee dubya doesn't have a problem with moral cowardness

ol gee dubya doesn't have recognizable morality

and neither do the people who support him

Posted by Will C. at 08/06/2006 @ 02:13am
Posted by STWRILEY 08/05/2006 @ 11:49am

ST,

I do expect better from you. I'm not interested in US party politics or who wins or loses mid term. Instead of you dealing with the substantive issues you appear to be in Democratic Party sloganeering mode. Looking from outside can be an advantage and there is little to distinguish either party on Afghanistan and Iraq. So no matter who gets the numbers there are probably enough Iraq hawks on both sides to enable Bush's wings to keep flapping and let him walk without a limp.

I responded to your defence of Clinton earlier. It seems to me that Clinton's 1998 apology to Rwanda should put paid to any attempt to justify his inaction. That inactivity is, I would suggest, a serious moral failure on his part. The consensus is that the Mogadishu incident spooked Clinton and the US. Is moral cowardice too strong a term to use? Bush was not guilty of that.

"While all this is true, and the US did have to go into Afghanistan to take care of the very real problem of al-Qaeda, that doesn't negate the nation building aspect. Indeed, the very nature of what we had to do necessitated nation building afterwards. And how has this been done? Badly, at best. BushCo failed both at the initial task (eliminating al-Qaeda) and at the nation building. The result is a resurgence of the Taliban and growing problems that are resisting any attempts to control them."

The point in Afghanistan is that there is no "consolidated state" so until the state apparatus is more or less functional, nation building must wait its turn.

Europe through the Bonn Meeting has been heavily involved in trying to get Afghanistan up and going. There are still massive problems in terms of consolidating and unifying the country. The allied forces still depend to some extent on the support of the warlords in its fight against the insurgents. Foreigners may be able to help get the state functioning but ultimately nation building is best done by the indigenous, if it's going to work at all.

Your claim that Bush failed in eliminating Al Qaeda and in nation building is indicative of an armchair view of the world. The real world is not like that. Look around the world and observe how many "terrorist" organisations are flourishing after decades of trying to eliminate them. It is the same with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. That means ongoing military operations, against the insurgents to control and minimise their negative influence on the "growing" state apparatus and the nascent nation will need to continue for years to come.

To suggest that any country could perform the miracle of standing up a diverse ethnic grouping into a unified Afghani nation in a few years is pipe dream stuff. It will take many years of co-operation and aid from the international community before that happens.

The resurgence of the Taliban? My reading of the skirmishes in Southern Afghanistan is that the Taliban has suffered very high casualty rates compared with those of the US and NATO forces.

Bush a failure in his Afghanistan objectives? What relative influence does Al Qaeda now have compared with what it exerted prior to the Afghanistan invasion? Remember Afghanistan is still a work in progress and may even achieve what Bush intially said he was not seeking to do in that country.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/06/2006 @ 03:13am
ST,

I do expect better from you.

Posted by LRJONES4 08/06/2006 @ 03:13am | ignore this person

LR, are you familiar with Monty Python. Specifically, the movie called The Holy Grail. there's a very funny scene where King Arthur encounters the Black Knight who is protecting a bridge and refuses to let Aurthur pass. King Arthur proceeds, one by one, to hack all the limbs off of the Black Knight...and still the Black Knight keeps saying "come on, come on, you can do better than that."

STWRILEY has thoroughly and completely disected every lame argument you've come up with. At this point, your posts have become every bit as ridiculous as the Black Knight at the end of that scene, reduced to just a bleeding torso and crying "OK then, we'll call it a draw" as Arthur strolls past.

It's very entertaining...but certainly at your expense.

Posted by Lillian at 08/06/2006 @ 03:48am
"But the whole point of this wasn't to remove Saddam for his actions against his citizens, if you recall. That was just the justification that BushCo came up with later when their other justifications were shown to be lies and fantasies. They are the ones who don't give a fig for what regimes do to their citizens unless it serves their interests".

ST,

Your last point is an illustration of a doctrine from the "catechism".

"The whole point"? That is simply not true (could we call that a false doctrine?). Here are some excerpts from Bush's 12th September 2002 address to the UN as he seeks to build a case against Saddam Hussein. It is replete with references to human rights abuses, which indicates that your statement is false, through ignorance, or worse a countenanced big fat juicy lie of the left. (Sorry a doctrine from the "catechism")

..."He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.

In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities -- which the Council said, threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored.

Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state...."

"...If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions..."

"..If we fail to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq will continue to live in brutal submission..."

These issues were very much highlighted in Australia and the UK pre the Iraq invasion. It is obvious also that they were in Bush's discourse at least six months before the invasion so to make the statements you do is unacceptable in one who claims to be an historian (Perhaps you've been reading your "catechism" after lights out and got the pages mixed up?).

OK let's have a look at another doctrine from your "Catechism". Bush, presumably through Cheney and other Admin members, leaned on the intelligence community to skew its data and thus fabricate an excuse for Bush to invade Iraq.

The only credible source that we have to confirm this at present is the October 2004 Senate Select Committee on the pre-war intelligence.

There are 117 conclusions in that report and not one conclusion gives any credence to the idea that the Administration leaned on anyone in the Intelligence community. Conclusion 114 criticizes Cheney for the content of a statement to the UN. This statement is not relevant to the issue at hand. If you read the report you will find that intelligence was pushed hard to respond to the charge of political interference but claimed no such pressure was exerted.

I think it is reasonable to assume that the biggest lie being perpetrated is that Bush and company went to war on a lie.

You fellas can believe that "catechism truth" if you want to but all the rules of testing evidence indicate that your intelligence gurus fooled not only themselves but also every one else including your President.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/06/2006 @ 04:54am
.."LR, are you familiar with Monty Python. Specifically, the movie called The Holy Grail. there's a very funny scene where King Arthur encounters the Black Knight who is protecting a bridge and refuses to let Aurthur pass. King Arthur proceeds, one by one, to hack all the limbs off of the Black Knight...and still the Black Knight keeps saying "come on, come on, you can do better than that."

STWRILEY has thoroughly and completely disected every lame argument you've come up with. At this point, your posts have become every bit as ridiculous as the Black Knight at the end of that scene, reduced to just a bleeding torso and crying "OK then, we'll call it a draw" as Arthur strolls past."

Lillian. What a nice name. What's a lovely lady like you doing out of bed at 3.48am?

Love your style. You would make a good security guard (for ST). Bet your running the stone over your sword now.

So you like pommy humour? When I first came to this country of my adoption they called me a pommy bastard. I didn't know that was a term of endearment then. Lucky for the natives I didn't have that sword.

Apart fron rooting (that's a rude word over here) for ST what do you do for a crust?

Fancy that. The first leftie intellectual I run into is a lady poet.

Whoops! Just checking to see if my arms are still attached.

OK it's back to the bridge for me. See ya later.

Posted by lrjones4 at 08/06/2006 @ 05:35am
The resurgence of the Taliban? My reading of the skirmishes in Southern Afghanistan is that the Taliban has suffered very high casualty rates compared with those of the US and NATO forces.

But that resurgence would've been far less likely if our Afghan operations hadn't been short-changed by the diversion of manpower and funds into the Iraq fiasco.

Posted by brunowe at 08/06/2006 @ 06:29am
For anyone on the bridge--the capital of Assyria is Ashur, although you could probably get away with Niniveh.

Posted by brunowe at 08/06/2006 @ 06:32am
STWRILEY

...to BushCo's abrogation of the ABM Treaty without congressional approval, for instance

Actually, that may not be required constitutionally. The question is up in the air as SCOTUS never got to that issue in Goldwater v Carter. Carter had abrogated our mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. Goldwater and other senators sued making the argument you mention. However, SCOTUS ordered the complaint dismissed on grounds not touching the constitutional questions. The main rationale was that Congress hadn't passed any sort of action asserting its authority (i.e., a resolution saying that its consent was necessary) and thus the issue wasn't ripe. Rehnquist, in a concurrence, held that it was a political question and thus not justiciable. You can read the opinion here [tinyurl.com].

Posted by brunowe at 08/06/2006 @ 06:42am
LR,

That you simultaneously see little difference between the Democrats and Republicans as far as Afghanistan and Iraq are concerned yet ascribe "moral" anything only to Bush is a remarkable bit of detective work. If there is little difference, on what basis do you determine that Bush's shit smells so sweet?

And your interest in American politics is adorable, but you might want to continue to take the point of view of the outsider. Whatever Bush told the UN was irrelevant to virtually any American citizen. His pitch to us for going into Iraq was about a very imaginative interpretation of Saddam as a threat to our national security. Without his fairy tales of doom and gloom, the president would have received the consent of Congress nor the American people. Why your country and England were similarly persuaded, I have no idea. But our administration certainly does enjoy its bitches.

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/06/2006 @ 10:02am
lvl the great antichrist & mouse that roared has once again proven that senility is a virtue! Keep trying though your posts are now on par with the funnys. To prove my point how do you rationalize the handle "love liberty" while being such a hypocritic ass.

Posted by DYCEL8R 08/05/2006 @ 4:11pm | ignore this person

I have been wondering the same thing since I began reading the humor page here at The Nation.

it goes along with warring for peace. Or claiming hippies are protesting at military funerals. Or saying we are winning the war on terrorism.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 10:04am
STWIRLEY

I continue to be impressed by your lengthy refutations of the wingnut claims. Keep in mind that EVERYONE here that disagrees with w's policies are all super far left automatons that think alike. We ALL are influenced by Jane Fonda and ALec Baldwin, and no one else. That is the intelligence level we are dealing with here.

STWIRLEY for town council!!

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 10:08am
I'm going to go out on a limb here (all you "MASK Archivists" get ready)...

I'm going to say Lamont wins the primary....AND the Senate seat.

Yep, I think the "heat" (which Lieberman was NOT feeling when I said he wasn't feeling it, LILLIAN!) is on full-blast. Joe won't be able to turn it around by Tuesday (8/8) and he'll bow out from an Independent race. Then Schlesinger will get creamed.

Then....Lamont will be the "pure progressive" that the bloggers asked for....for a while. And he'll be gone by 2012, losing to either a Dem challenger or a liberal Repub, when it becomes apparent that the man has no political savvy and won on a war that ended years before.

Posted by Mask at 08/06/2006 @ 10:12am
The list reflected what the overwhelming majority of conservatives would view as Bush's successes and what a great many if not majority of moderate independents and "Reagan Democrats" would agree with.

Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/06/2006 @ 10:08am | ignore this person, my favorite guy!

Buchanon, Danforth, Whitman, Hagel, O'neal, My dad, Bartlett.

Retired General Tony McPeak, the Air Force Chief of Staff during the first Gulf War, a former fighter pilot who campaigned for Bob Dole in 1996 and for George W. Bush in 2000, say Bush's first 3 years have been "a national disaster"

Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, in a statement Wednesday. They said Bush should be defeated, without explicitly endorsing Kerry, 60.

The group included Jack Matlock Jr., President Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet Union; retired Admiral William Crowe, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman under Reagan; Charles Freeman, President George H.W. Bush's ambassador to Saudi Arabia; and retired Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak, who is advising Kerry's campaign.

Francis Fukuyama, one of the founding fathers of the neo-conservative movement that underlies the foreign policies of US President George W. Bush's administration, said on July 13 that he would not vote for the incumbent in the November 2 US Presidential election.

"On countless times, in front of TV cameras, I've supported President Bush and the Administration views. I had to battle against Belgian Ministers and Political Leaders. I took the bruises, I took the insults, because I thought I was fighting for the right cause. Now I realize I was wrong. The war in the battle field was easily won, but we lost it in the field of honor and in the field of ideas..." - Christian D. de Fouloy

"No one wants to be a Republican more than I, but I can't in good conscience vote to continue this dishonest, arrogant, ignorant and irresponsible administration. I have two beautiful kids, and I'd love to have them grow up in a world where they can take my grandchildren fishing in clean streams, travel abroad without being hated, and (for my son) not have to worry about being drafted into some unnecessary, interminable foreign quagmire."

- Dr. Robert Smith of Kansas City, Missouri, who voted for Bush in 2000

"I have been a Republican since my teenage years. I proudly served as a senior political appointee in the Reagan and Bush senior administrations at the US Commerce Department. I believe that George W. Bush has essentially stolen my party from me. My Republican party has a core set of principles and beliefs. We don't hold these beliefs to get elected. We seek election to put these beliefs into action...

"By any measure, this Administration has abandoned the prudence and caution that were the hallmarks of my Republican Party..." Dr. Tim Ashby

Gen Hoar, Gen Clark, Gen Shinseki..

I could go on, and on and on.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 10:19am
chimpy has a 39% favorability rating. 30% are religious zealots like LuvDespotry.

That is amongst the sheeple of the US electorate, many of whom still believe Saddam did 9/11.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 10:23am
Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

It Stands at 158, unfasten you shoelaces luvdespotry1.

Record High 182 Record Low 57 24 Sept 01 12 Dec 93

Record low, during Clinton, Record high, during chimpy.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 10:30am
Record Low 57 12 Dec 93

Record High 182 24 Sept 01

sorry, they copied weird.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 10:39am
Posted by MASK 08/06/2006 @ 10:12am

Glad to see being mistaken hasn't deterred your idea that your predictions are worthy of consideration...unless that is part of your cunning plan: predict what you don't want to happen, knowing that you are certainly wrong. Clever.

Please predict a set of losing numbers in the next Powerball.

Posted by tjbehrens1 at 08/06/2006 @ 11:19am
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/06/2006 @ 10:08am: If you took my list of successes and polled the American people using objective questioning you would probably see a result in line with this:

You whackjobs have truly lost it. You now resort to making up polls and then citing these imaginary polls as evidence that your views are mainstream.

I hope you realize that you are exhibiting signs of mental illness.

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/06/2006 @ 11:26am
ORWELL2005:

They make up everything else. How are fake polls any different?

Posted by jorcheim at 08/06/2006 @ 12:16pm
The polling therefore reflects the "fatigue" of the American public because this war is not one that can be won in days, weeks, or months. Rather we are looking at decades of war.

Well, LL, it was Donald Rumsfeld himself who said, "This war could last six days, it could last six weeks. I doubt it will last six months." I remember beore the war when I expressed my opposition because I felt that people were thinking that this was going to be a lot easier than it would be, the constant refrain I heard from war supporters was, "It won't take long at all." Now, they are saying, "Nobody said it would be over quickly." It's funny how easily the right forgets such recent history all for the sake of their love for Brainless Leader.

'm going to go out on a limb here (all you "MASK Archivists" get ready)...

I'm going to say Lamont wins the primary....AND the Senate seat.

Yep, I think the "heat" (which Lieberman was NOT feeling when I said he wasn't feeling it, LILLIAN!) is on full-blast. Joe won't be able to turn it around by Tuesday (8/8) and he'll bow out from an Independent race. Then Schlesinger will get creamed.

Well, you were saying just two weeks ago that anyone who thought that Lieberman would lose the primary or the general election was delusional, so I think it's a positive step that you have at least welcomed reality to some extent. That being said, some of us were saying all along that the real issue was the trend of the polls more than the actual numbers. So glad to see that you have jumped on the reality bandwagon. As far as your predictions for 2012, considering how badly you screwed up 2006, no offense, but I won't be taking it too seriously.

Posted by steve4wv at 08/06/2006 @ 12:37pm
Posted by LRJONES4 08/06/2006 @ 03:13am

I do expect better from you. I'm not interested in US party politics or who wins or loses mid term. Instead of you dealing with the substantive issues you appear to be in Democratic Party sloganeering mode. Looking from outside can be an advantage and there is little to distinguish either party on Afghanistan and Iraq. So no matter who gets the numbers there are probably enough Iraq hawks on both sides to enable Bush's wings to keep flapping and let him walk without a limp.

Well, I expected better from you than misdirection and obfuscation, but it appears that you're taking more cues from the BushCo playbook (or more accurately the Rovian playbook) and running off at right angles to our conversation. I never mentioned party politics in the US except in so far as you did (by criticising Democrats and Clinton for "moral cowardice") and only to refute your arguments. I have dealt with politics elsewhere in this thread, but not with you and not in the context of our current argument. By the way, your "outside" view must be obscured by distanced, because the likelyhood of the Iraq war continuing indefinately (which is exactly the prospect we have from BushCo) will not be the case if congress changes hands. The Democrats have already seen the writing on the wall and understand that the American public's patience has run out on the war. They'll make a show of not "cutting and running", but they'll be out as son as they can manage it nonetheless. They'll also be aiming to clip those BushCo wings ASAP, and there they won't have any problems at all. Now, I'll leave this little excursion into politics (since you seem to want it, despite needing to bring it up) and return to the subject at hand; your analogy between Iraq and Rwanda and why that still doesn't work despite your attempt to obscure this with prattle about my "defense of Clinton" and distract from my point that the analogy doesn't work.

I responded to your defence of Clinton earlier. It seems to me that Clinton's 1998 apology to Rwanda should put paid to any attempt to justify his inaction. That inactivity is, I would suggest, a serious moral failure on his part. The consensus is that the Mogadishu incident spooked Clinton and the US. Is moral cowardice too strong a term to use? Bush was not guilty of that.

As I've already pointed out, Clinton takes responsibility for this even though he was hardly the only one who did not act in time and was in a position that would have prevented action regardless of desire to act. That is the exact opposite of moral cowardice, for to be unable to act and still take responsibility is a highly moral act. Do you see the American politicians who argued that we had no business in Africa apologizing for their role in preventing action on Rwanda? No (though Kofi Annan did, in 1998, directly to the Rwandans just as Clinton did.) I say all this not as a defense of Clinton for his own sake (as I've pointed out to you, I think Clinton's record mixed on his actions) but as a defense of fact in the face of your attempt to paint BushCo as somehow being a moral actor and use the Rwandan genocide as an analogy to prove that point.

The proper analogy to Rwanda is not (as I have already pointed out and you have ignored) Iraq, but Darfur. In both situations we had no national interests (oil supplies, ties to allies, imperialistic interests, etc.) and the only reason to take action was humanitarian. And the comparison between BushCo and Clinton? Neither took action, but where Clinton could not, BushCo would not. Instead he has stood by far longer than the entire course of the Rwandan genocide and allowed an ethnic cleansing to continue. The recent "agreement" with the Sudanese government shows just how they approach this, since it has done nothing to actually stop attacks on refugees nor has it drained Sudanese government support for the janjeweed. What it has done is provide cover for BushCo's inaction. Now it seems to me that this is the height of moral cowardice. Where the Clinton administration was always cautious about trying to solve other people's problems (but willing to try if it could be done effectively), BushCo insists that it is a moral imperative and then weasels out of doing it. Hypocrisy cetainly counts as moral failure in my book.

Now, on to Afghanistan. First, your idea of what nation-building is pretty far from the standard definition. The whole point of nation-building is to establish a consolidated state where none exists (that's why it's called nation-building, LR) and to develop it sufficiently so that its citizens can then continue the development on their own. Try this excellent deconstruction [amconmag.com] of nation-building to see where your ideas on this have drifted away from how most use the term (and before you go spouting about politics, I'll note that the article comes from The American Conservative.) What the Bonn meeting has been doing is nation-building.

An armchair view of the world? Now you've gone from misdirection and obfuscation to dismissiveness, but to no better effect. I am (as I've mentioned before) a strategic historian. Analyzing the effects of actions like our involvement in Afghanistan is part of my job, not some armchair dalliance. Now on to your attempted rebuttal of my analysis of BushCo's Afghan mission.

First, they have demonstrably failed to eliminate al-Qaeda by most measures, and even the few successes they claim are less impressive when viewed critically. The central al-Qaeda organization may not be operating training camps in Afghanistan anymore, but Iraq has become more than an adequate substitute (nothing like a little real combat training if you really want to get your fighters up to speed.) They may or may not be planning operations (we simply don't know) and since even their original organization depended on a dispersed cell structure that hardly matters. The vast majority of original al-Qaeda operatives are probably still in the wind (just as Osama and Zawahiri are) and able to take action as they please. Given that we do know they operate on long planning and operational schedules (by the best estimates the 9/11 operation was at least five years in the planning) that gives them plenty of leeway to attack again when and where they choose. BushCo's reliance on military solutions (rather than police methods) as exemplified by their Afghan and Iraq fixation shows exactly why they have failed to eliminate al-Qaeda. There is also, as I mentioned before, the failure to counter the psychological aspects of al-Qaeda and to make their propaganda efforts more effective than even, so that the growth of affiliated organizations has made the situation worse. This is not a simple matter of it taking a long term committment to counter terrorist organizations, it is doing the exact opposite of what's needed in either the long or short terms. If you count this a success, I'd hate to see what failure looks like to you. And there have been successful counter-terrorism campaigns that didn't take decades. Heard much from Sendero Luminoso?

The Taliban resurgence is very real. If you expect much hope from the body counts, then I'd suggest you study the experience of the US in Vietnam. They have solid control of a province (Helmand) and are showing no signs of folding. Instead they are using classic insurgent tactics to attack where the US and other foreign forces are not present. It is a perfect example of why the BushCo plan failed. If they had devoted the forces necessary in the first place and the money necessary in the second place to both squash the Taliban organization and then build up viable alternatives (both political and economnic) they would never have been able to stage such a resurgence at all. No, Afghanistan is a failure, and we're just beginning to see how much of one.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 12:42pm
mask likes to predict homers after the ball is bouncing around in the center field bleachers

and he has such a remarkable success rate too

Posted by Will C. at 08/06/2006 @ 12:43pm
MICHAEL MURRY:

Damn. Good work. And it rhymes, too!

Posted by jorcheim at 08/06/2006 @ 1:03pm
I hate all of you.

Posted by IAMIRONMAN at 08/06/2006 @ 2:01pm
we know

Posted by Will C. at 08/06/2006 @ 2:02pm
It's a plot! The Republicans set this up! Leiberman said he'd run independent to scare the Democrats. That act will insure a Republican victory! These people don't like Leiberman! They want the anti-war people to stay angry. They want the Republican, Ned Lamont to win the primary! It's working beautifully. There will be a Republican in the seat, if Leiberman runs as an independent. Man, this is terrible! Joe

Posted by angryman6 at 08/06/2006 @ 2:06pm
I hate all of you.

Posted by IAMIRONMAN 08/06/2006 @ 2:01pm | ignore this person

Thank you...and on this beautiful sabath morning, God bless you.

Posted by Lillian at 08/06/2006 @ 2:40pm
Posted by STWRILEY 08/06/2006 @ 12:42am | ignore this person

STWRILEY, I do enjoy reading your posts, even if they are a bit on the long side. Your patience and clarity of thought and reasoning are admirable.

I just can't help feeling that you efforts are wasted on the Black Knight.

Posted by Lillian at 08/06/2006 @ 2:47pm
"Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen."

Unless you saw the Cold War.

Posted by jorcheim at 08/06/2006 @ 4:27pm
"From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

Does this mean we are considering ourselves enemies of ourselves?

Posted by jorcheim at 08/06/2006 @ 4:36pm
"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest."

Hmmm... interesting. When are we ever going to bring Orlando Bosch or Luis Posada Carriles to justice?

Posted by jorcheim at 08/06/2006 @ 4:45pm
One must keep in mind that one reason the cons view Iraq and Afghanistan as victories is that they view government as best when it governs the least. Those countries are fine examples of that. Add in some war profiteering, graft and cronyism and you have the perfect republican Utopia. Why not claim victory and come home?

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 5:50pm
i love it when they start making up phony polls to buttress their arguments. it's so substantive.

Posted by pretzel at 08/06/2006 @ 5:53pm
iraq has lasted longer than most of our wars, i think. and what, wingnuts, do we have to show for it?

Posted by pretzel at 08/06/2006 @ 5:54pm
Wife of Convicted GOP Official Hired by Chafee Campaign By David A. Fahrenthold and Zachary A. Goldfarb Sunday, August 6, 2006; Page A04 Washington Post

Interesting fact: In its latest filing to the Federal Election Commission, the campaign of Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.) lists $386,000 in payments for "consulting services" to a firm called Northeast Strategies LLC, listed on Kenduskeag Avenue in Bangor, Maine.

Tantalizing fact: The same Kenduskeag Avenue address is home to James Tobin, a former regional official of the Republican National Committee.

James Tobin, a former regional GOP official, was convicted of violating federal election law in a 2002 Senate race in New Hampshire. (Jim Cole - AP)

Eyebrow-raising fact: James Tobin was found guilty last year of criminally violating federal elections law, having participated in a scheme by New Hampshire Republicans to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002.

What does this all add up to? Well, not what you're thinking, according to Chafee's campaign.

Campaign manager Ian Lang said that Tobin has no role in the company or the Chafee campaign. Instead, he said, Northeast Strategies is made up of Tobin's wife, Ellen, and a political consultant, Kathie Summers

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 5:56pm
right, i think i remember john gotti using the same kind of excuse. mafia? hey, im just a poor inmate.

Posted by pretzel at 08/06/2006 @ 5:59pm
How about Vincent "The Chin"? "I'm just crazy. Crazy in love."

I see Rummy wandering NewEngland in his robe and Birks in five years, avoiding war crimes tribunals.

Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2006 @ 6:05pm
rummy with a lantern, looking for wmds

Posted by pretzel at 08/06/2006 @ 6:36pm
Posted by LRJONES4 08/06/2006 @ 04:54am

Your last point is an illustration of a doctrine from the "catechism".

"The whole point"? That is simply not true (could we call that a false doctrine?). Here are some excerpts from Bush's 12th September 2002 address to the UN as he seeks to build a case against Saddam Hussein. It is replete with references to human rights abuses, which indicates that your statement is false, through ignorance, or worse a countenanced big fat juicy lie of the left. (Sorry a doctrine from the "catechism")

Oh come now, LR, I had thought better of you than this. Have you actually read the full text [archives.cnn.com] of BushCo's speech to the UN? If you had you would know that the mention of UNSCR 688 is a mere introduction to his litany of "broken agreements" by Saddam, the vast majority of which stressed his supposed attempts to acquire WMD, support terrorists and threaten his neighbors, accusations that have since been proven incorrect at best. In front of the UN BushCo tacked on these admonitions about human rights, as he did occasionally for US audiences as well, but they were never presented as the cause for military action. They were included only to show how Saddam was a bad man who was capable of much worse (and they were supplying the "much worse" as the justification.) It even miscontrues UNSCR 688 [fas.org], as this was referring to the refugee problem created by Saddam's oppression post-Gulf I and the driving of refugees across international borders. It is you, LR, who has not done his reading. This isn't "catechism", it's simple fact. Bush never presented Saddam's treatment of his people as the justification for war, only as the background to "prove" the actual justifications (WMD, terrorism and the implied link to 9/11, and threats to the US and the region.) While these humanitarian aspects were doubtless played up in Australia and the UK (as even a cursory reading of those countries news outlets show) even there it was the other justifications cited above that were presented as the reasons action had to be taken. Like many right-wingers, LR, you have a very selective view of history.

OK let's have a look at another doctrine from your "Catechism". Bush, presumably through Cheney and other Admin members, leaned on the intelligence community to skew its data and thus fabricate an excuse for Bush to invade Iraq.

The only credible source that we have to confirm this at present is the October 2004 Senate Select Committee on the pre-war intelligence.

There are 117 conclusions in that report and not one conclusion gives any credence to the idea that the Administration leaned on anyone in the Intelligence community. Conclusion 114 criticizes Cheney for the content of a statement to the UN. This statement is not relevant to the issue at hand. If you read the report you will find that intelligence was pushed hard to respond to the charge of political interference but claimed no such pressure was exerted.

Ah yes, I knew we'd come to this. While BushCo did not, as the Senate Select Committee insists, actually demand that agencies change intelligence, they did keep sending back what they didn't like for "reasessment" (and if your boss asked you to "reassess" something, who would you take it?) That alone should make us question the committee's report.

It is also hardly the only "credible" source, nor even one that deals with the real substance of the issue of pre-war intelligence. The second phase of the committee's work, which was to look into how the Whitehouse used intelligence has never been convened. That is the critical point, not whether they pressured the agencies but the fact that they simply ignored them whenever what they were told didn't fit with what they wanted or that they cherry-picked questionable and disproven intelligence for their own purposes even when warned against it. That's just as much a lie as any other, because BushCo knew full well that they were acting on bad or doubious information, but they didn't care as long as it could be used for their purposes.

I think it is reasonable to assume that the biggest lie being perpetrated is that Bush and company went to war on a lie.

That is simply double-speak. Orwell (George, that is) would be proud.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 7:07pm
Posted by LRJONES4 08/06/2006 @ 04:54am

Your last point is an illustration of a doctrine from the "catechism".

"The whole point"? That is simply not true (could we call that a false doctrine?). Here are some excerpts from Bush's 12th September 2002 address to the UN as he seeks to build a case against Saddam Hussein. It is replete with references to human rights abuses, which indicates that your statement is false, through ignorance, or worse a countenanced big fat juicy lie of the left. (Sorry a doctrine from the "catechism")

Oh come now, LR, I had thought better of you than this. Have you actually read the full text [archives.cnn.com] of BushCo's speech to the UN? If you had you would know that the mention of UNSCR 688 is a mere introduction to his litany of "broken agreements" by Saddam, the vast majority of which stressed his supposed attempts to acquire WMD, support terrorists and threaten his neighbors, accusations that have since been proven incorrect at best. In front of the UN BushCo tacked on these admonitions about human rights, as he did occasionally for US audiences as well, but they were never presented as the cause for military action. They were included only to show how Saddam was a bad man who was capable of much worse (and they were supplying the "much worse" as the justification.) It even miscontrues UNSCR 688 [fas.org], as this was referring to the refugee problem created by Saddam's oppression post-Gulf I and the driving of refugees across international borders. It is you, LR, who has not done his reading. This isn't "catechism", it's simple fact. Bush never presented Saddam's treatment of his people as the justification for war, only as the background to "prove" the actual justifications (WMD, terrorism and the implied link to 9/11, and threats to the US and the region.) While these humanitarian aspects were doubtless played up in Australia and the UK (as even a cursory reading of those countries news outlets show) even there it was the other justifications cited above that were presented as the reasons action had to be taken. Like many right-wingers, LR, you have a very selective view of history.

OK let's have a look at another doctrine from your "Catechism". Bush, presumably through Cheney and other Admin members, leaned on the intelligence community to skew its data and thus fabricate an excuse for Bush to invade Iraq.

The only credible source that we have to confirm this at present is the October 2004 Senate Select Committee on the pre-war intelligence.

There are 117 conclusions in that report and not one conclusion gives any credence to the idea that the Administration leaned on anyone in the Intelligence community. Conclusion 114 criticizes Cheney for the content of a statement to the UN. This statement is not relevant to the issue at hand. If you read the report you will find that intelligence was pushed hard to respond to the charge of political interference but claimed no such pressure was exerted.

Ah yes, I knew we'd come to this. While BushCo did not, as the Senate Select Committee insists, actually demand that agencies change intelligence, they did keep sending back what they didn't like for "reasessment" (and if your boss asked you to "reassess" something, who would you take it?) That alone should make us question the committee's report.

It is also hardly the only "credible" source, nor even one that deals with the real substance of the issue of pre-war intelligence. The second phase of the committee's work, which was to look into how the Whitehouse used intelligence has never been convened. That is the critical point, not whether they pressured the agencies but the fact that they simply ignored them whenever what they were told didn't fit with what they wanted or that they cherry-picked questionable and disproven intelligence for their own purposes even when warned against it. That's just as much a lie as any other, because BushCo knew full well that they were acting on bad or doubious information, but they didn't care as long as it could be used for their purposes.

I think it is reasonable to assume that the biggest lie being perpetrated is that Bush and company went to war on a lie.

That is simply double-speak. Orwell (George, that is) would be proud.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 7:10pm
Sorry folks, my system seems to have sent my last post twice when it lost connection in the middle of uploading it. Apologies for the duplicate.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 7:12pm
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/06/2006 @ 10:08am

Actually ST, you've done nothing to debunk my list. What you have done is respond with a litany of stereotypical leftist opinions. I did not expect anything different from the left than has been posted. After all, the left is suffering from a complete disconnect with reality (a condition that is endemic among the left, otherwise you wouldn't even hold to leftist beliefs).

The list reflected what the overwhelming majority of conservatives would view as Bush's successes and what a great many if not majority of moderate independents and "Reagan Democrats" would agree with.

Oh my, you are good for a laugh my friend. This only proves your capacity for self-deception, Lvliberty. I've presented solid reasoning to refute each of your points (and even concede one to you as a partial success) and all you can come back with is that it's "opinion." Come now, try evidence for a change, you might like it. It works so much better in making an argument than simple assertion. Of course, it does require that you actually have evidence, so that's probably why you don't try.

The continued negative polling for Bush is pretty much a given in today's culture, not because Bush has actually done a poor job as president. Rather it can be attributed in large measure because with our technology advances and the age of 24 hour media, we have unfortunately become an instant society. Instead of understanding as previous generations did that wars take time, now we expect our wars to last days or weeks at the most. The polling therefore reflects the "fatigue" of the American public because this war is not one that can be won in days, weeks, or months. Rather we are looking at decades of war.

Maybe they expected a short war because that's what BushCo told them they would get in Iraq. To blame this on the media is a classic right-wing dodge, but they played along with the administration line so I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for a scapegoat.

Now, if you mean to imply that this is part of BushCo's "War on terror", well then I'll give you that they didn't promise a short war in that regard, but rather a perpetual war. Still, that's not what people dislike (though they should, but I've already lectured you about the nature of that idea elsewhere) but the war in Iraq, which they expected would go exactly as BushCo promised, but hasn't.

If you took my list of successes and polled the American people using objective questioning you would probably see a result in line with this:

Conservative approval = 85%

Moderate/Independent = 55%

Liberal Democrat = 22%

Overall=55%

So you may keep patting yourself on the back but all you have succeeding in doing to regurgitate leftist talking points.

And are there any actual polls that show any such thing? No. I notice that you throw in "objective questioning" so you can back out of any results you don't like, but I think you'll find that most poll results don't go the way you predict. If you look at polls on tax issues, for instance, you'll see that the BushCo tax cuts have very little popluar support (well below your imaginary 55%) and that most Americans feel that the main bebficiaries of the cuts now pay too little tax. This excellent compilation [pollingreport.com] of a wide variety of polls on tax issues shows the comparisons. This Pew Global Attitudes poll [pewglobal.org] shows clearly the only 29% of Americans approve of BushCo's withdrawal from the Kyoto accords, and that was in August 2001 when BushCo's popularity was otherwise still quite high and awareness of global warming was less than it is now. I could go on but then this post would get so long as to be unreadable and the point has been made.

I'll gladly stand by my points.

No doubt, but it will be with the ground falling out from under you as you do.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 7:48pm
Posted by BRUNOWE 08/06/2006 @ 06:42am

Actually, that may not be required constitutionally. The question is up in the air as SCOTUS never got to that issue in Goldwater v Carter. Carter had abrogated our mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. Goldwater and other senators sued making the argument you mention. However, SCOTUS ordered the complaint dismissed on grounds not touching the constitutional questions. The main rationale was that Congress hadn't passed any sort of action asserting its authority (i.e., a resolution saying that its consent was necessary) and thus the issue wasn't ripe. Rehnquist, in a concurrence, held that it was a political question and thus not justiciable. You can read the opinion here [tinyurl.com].

I've seen Goldwater v. Carter before, but I still think it was just the SCOTUS ducking the issue rather than a substantive ruling. Rehnquist was especially fond of this "defer to congressional action" line when he didn't want to deal with an issue.

Posted by Stwriley at 08/06/2006 @ 7:52pm
Perhaps I didn't phrase it adequately enough for you, but I was referring to the war on Terror of which the president has correctly stated that Iraq is a central battleground.

Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/06/2006 @ 2:48pm

Perhaps you didn't read your own quote dummy. Bush never states that Iraq will be a central front. This is what he states.

Now, this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion.

He's simple providing an example of what not to expect: a quick decisive war (he must a known he had ol Rumdud as defense secretary)

He does it again with this statement

It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

See, he's saying the GWOET will require troops and casualties.

Tie the two together and he is saying It (the global war on evangelic terror) will not be quick and decisive (think... Rumdud) and it will require a commitment of troops and the sorrow of casualties (but not for him, he don't go to the funerals. Or let them caskets be on the Telervision)

This is a perfect example of how retarded you hamsters are. Witness the mechanism for how saddam gets linked with 9-11. Ol gee Dubya says Iraq and 9-11 in the same speech a few hundred times and suddenly in the dark sick depths of the hamster mind

a connection is made

Just like here, before our very eyes a simple statement of what the global war on evangelic terror will not be...

Now, this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift

transmogrifies in the twisted hamster mind into this conclusion.

but I was referring to the war on Terror of which the president has correctly stated that Iraq is a central battleground.

Liberty… you are still hands down the dumbest mutha fucka on the planet

Posted by Will C. at 08/06/2006 @ 8:03pm
Posted by WILL C. 08/06/2006 @ 8:03pm: Liberty… you are still hands down the dumbest mutha fucka on the planet

C'mon Will. That's a bit of hyperbole, don't you think? While I accept that Liberty is one dumb mutha fucka, there is plenty of competition for the title of dumbest mutha fucka on the planet.

I hardly think that that Liberty is the best at anything he does, including being a dumb mutha fucka. Can't we just leave it as "Liberty… you are still one dumb mutha fucka"?

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/06/2006 @ 9:24pm
Besides, Liberty is scared. very scared. And fear has a way of interferring with one's capacity for rational thought. So, you should cut him some slack.

He might not be quite as stupid as he seems if he could just lose a little bit of his cowardice.

Posted by orwell2005 at 08/06/2006 @ 9:26pm
It's so much better now that they are butchered by the hundreds on a daily basis on sunny streets of Baghdad

Frosty beverage anyone?

Posted by WILL C. 08/05/2006 @ 11:45am

Maybe a frothy mug o' blood?

Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS at 08/06/2006 @ 9:33pm
LL

"..not because Bush has actually done a poor job as president. "

Oh, but he has.....for quite some time actually. Anti-science, no foreign policy, etc., etc.

Posted by leftofcenter at 08/07/2006 @ 12:53am