Voodoo Economics
 

I don't even know where to start describing what is wrong with that utterly unsophisticated analysis.

david gregory is W's whiny little bitch
 

I am capable of being a "wiseass" but here I was just trying to support what you were saying.

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

Did you make this up? If not where did it come from?

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Or even photo spreads in Vanity Fair

Dykes on Bikes
 

Thanks. That is exactly how I was thinking about this. This good work will be taken into your account in determining your annual bonus.

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

I think it was his divorce proceeding deposition.

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

It was. I remember reading about the Thai hooker incident in the Houston Press.

Voodoo Economics
 

In that case, I don't know what to make of your views, or how to respond.

david gregory is W's whiny little bitch
 

Excellent. You'll fit right in.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Whiff.

Responding to discussions of Rove lying to the press and public that he had "nothing to do" with the outing of a CIA agent with "GodIhateWilsonandtheRovethingdoesn'tmatterbecauseWilsonisalyingassholeandwasaskingforit" is irrelevant, but at least it's somehow connected to the main story line.

Using it to respond to an observation that it's a little hypocritical to savage (say) Sandy Berger for his security breaches while evincing little concern for Rove's (alleged) security breaches in the absence of dead bodies in the street? I'm afraid that even that connection is gone.

Dykes on Bikes
 

1) different laws
2) different protections. Copyright isn't a true monopoly--there's no right to exclude, just a right to prevent unreasonable use.
3) this isn't law school--not everything is perfectly in line with everything else.

I don't get why you even would post something like this. Do you think of yourself as a racist or a bigot? If you agree with the sentiments of this post you are. If you think Arabs are not capable of democracy you are a racist. It is that simple. Not ready for Democracy? Don't want Democracy? This has been the cry of every tyranical dictator since time started. This exact same argument was made about Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and almost every Asian nation. Turkey is a muslim nation. So is Indonesia and Malaysia. What person does not want a say in how they are governed. Everyone does. Everyone has an opinion. Sure. Not everyone in Iraq wants a democracty. But only those people that think their opinions will hold sway in a nondemocratic nation. Like the Taliban. Members of the Taliban are against democracy because they know in a Taliban regime what they think is right for the government will prevail. A lot of them sure voted in Iraq. Those people don't want democracy? Or is it possibly the insurgency is a minority, like the Taliban, that thinks that they know what is good for everyone else.

See the problem with the people that are against the war is that they will throw out any argument that is against the war. The problem th some of these arguments are not only weak but are racist and bigoted. If you want to argue - not in our strategic interest - fine - If you want to argue that the country may divide up - fine. But the arguments that Arabs don't want democracy or don't have a culture amenable to democracy, or that the people were better off with Saddam Hussein does not strengthen your argument and reflects much more negatively on the person making the argument than it does on the war.

Diagnostic scan completed.
 

[spock] Fascinating. [/spock]

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

Punch "Neil Bush," "divorce," "deposition" into Google.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

The more and more that comes out, the more it becomes evident that (as Sebby so excellently put) that Rove was, if anything, a middleman, who told Novak (when questioned by Novak) that he also heard Plame worked for the CIA, and who told Cooper, when solicited by Cooper, that he may want to hold off on the Wilson lies, as his wife at the CIA (note - he didnt say covert agent, secret-agent woman, Spies-R-Us, 00Plame) was involved in the selection of Wilson.

He stole documents, no?

Alleged is the key word. While all the Dems are calling for Rove's head, I'm waiting for any evidence of the security breach. She wasn't covered by the Act, as the evidence shows she was desk analyst for 6 years prior. It was common knowledge in DC she worked for the CIA (if not her role). She's still working there.

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

I am all over it. You would think that if someone was dumb enough to hook up with a Thai Hooker they would at least use a condom. That is like having sex with a petri dish. Hell, someone with a Yale education should use at least two.

This is no more racist or bigotted than assuming that everyone must want the system we have.

Alexis de Toqueville visited the United States in the early 1800s and observed that Americans had a passion for liberty and equality -- two different principles sometimes in tension with each other. Liberty may lead you to democracy; equality may lead you to, for example, some sort of socialist dictatorship. A country's culture can be a complicated thing. Attempting to describe it is not necessarily racism or bigotry.

Conservatives are usually intolerant of those who throw around these terms lightly.

I don't think the author of that e-mail said Yemenis are "not capable of democracy." Maybe you should re-read it.

Mussolini made the trains run on time. Does this mean we should prefer that the trains are late?

Perhaps it was correct about Spain and Portugal for a while longer than it was true about Germany, for example. Germany had a democracy in the 1920s, and turned away. Spain and Portugal were ruled by dictators long after the rest of Western Europe had turned to democracy. Do you deny that these things had anything to do with the culture, politics and history of these respective countries?

Many Turks would be bothered by what you said here, but I, for one, do not think it makes you a racist or a bigot.

What you seem to be ignoring here is that people care about other things in life besides their form of government. A chance for democracy seems to have been missed in Russia, in part because people cared about things like the economy and Russia's place in the world order.

This person is actually living in Yemen, and is reporting that Yemenis don't seem to want democracy much. I would find your rebuttal of that account more persuasive if I thought you knew something about Yemen.

[/QUOTE]
Like the Taliban. Members of the Taliban are against democracy because they know in a Taliban regime what they think is right for the government will prevail. A lot of them sure voted in Iraq. Those people don't want democracy? Or is it possibly the insurgency is a minority, like the Taliban, that thinks that they know what is good for everyone else.

See the problem with the people that are against the war is that they will throw out any argument that is against the war. The problem th some of these arguments are not only weak but are racist and bigoted. If you want to argue - not in our strategic interest - fine - If you want to argue that the country may divide up - fine. But the arguments that Arabs don't want democracy or don't have a culture amenable to democracy, or that the people were better off with Saddam Hussein does not strengthen your argument and reflects much more negatively on the person making the argument than it does on the war. [/QUOTE]

Please note that the e-mail came from Yemen, not Iraq. You're spending a lot of time responding to things the author did not say.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Keep your eye on the ball. There's either a perjury case, a charge arising from some Admin/Rove cover up, or there's nothing. Middle man or not, Rove didn't violate the statute. The action here is in what he and the admin did AFTER the leak.

My guess is there won't be charges, but the political fallout will be bad enough that Rove will resign.

Yes in a moraless vacuum. In a moraless vacuum being bigoted or racist wouldn't be a bad thing either. But in a world of right and wrong I stand by my comment. So is it racist to assume that black people in Africa should get human rights? Or is that me imposing my "western values" on Africans. Is it racist or bigoted of me to say that Nazism was bad for Germany. Democracy is not just a system. It is a belief that it is a human right to have a say in how your own government is run. Just like it is a human right to not be tortured. To say that Arabs don't want or need democracy is like saying African Americans don't want or need an education.

Do you belive in Human rights. Then Arabs deserve live in Democratic governments. If you don't, then the Arabs don't want or need democracy and slavery is OK. In which camp are you?

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

And this must be true, since it's what Rove's lawyers seems to have anonymously told major newspapers. End of story!

She can no longer travel as a NOC, and the firm she and others used for cover (Brewster Jennings?) is blown. Who knows what else was blown? The CIA, which may be why they referred the matter to the DOJ. You're willing to trust the CIA's say-so that there were good reasons to believe there were WMD, but not that this was important? Funny, that.

2

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

What do you think is in Jeb's closet that kept him from running? They say he's got some filthy shit in his past. Oh, and the old Man, "Poppy," allegedly lived with his mistress in NYC for several months at one point in the 50s. Ya think Kitty Carlisle just made all that shit up out of thin air? The Bushes and Clintons are uniquely qualified to keep succeeding one another. Garbage in; garbage out.*

* I don't consider tham garbage for enjoying their lives. I consdier them garbage for pretending to be pious and actually expecting us to believe it.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

The fuss this week was because it became clear that Rove was misleading people ("I didn't leak her name"), that Scott McClellan was misinforming reporters ("ridiculous"), either because he was lying to them or because Rove was letting him spread untruths in ignorance, and that Rove had done something that Bush had said would get him fired (see my sig line), and yet he was still coming to work every day.

You just have all these Republicans pretending like the only thing that matters is whether Rove can be convicted. Restoring honor and decency to the White House!

It this sort of smug self-superiority that causes many in the Arab world to turn away from Western democracy. They're not rejecting democracy so much as they're rejecting us.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Yet Rove's, and the WH's, immediate reaction was to declare loudly from the mountaintops that they didn't know anything about it. And from the more and more that comes out, that explanation appears to be shit.

"Look -- Vanity Fair!"


Yes. He's a bad, bad man. And should be punished. And was. Though not stringently enough in the eyes of some, even in the absence of dead bodies.


Recall, NotBob's original question posited that even if Rove's done nothing illegal, was this conduct troublesome. My point, similarly, is fine with positing that it's only alleged that he violated the law. Regardless, is this acceptable conduct?

Your response - there and here -- is, far as I can tell, either (a) hey - no harm, no foul, or (b) c'mon, everyone knew that she was CIA! Shit, I bet she did the photo shoot before the Novak article!

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Say Rove resigns. What does it matter? Do the dems get to put call-blocking on the WH phones to his number? Does he get to visit the WHonly if he gets the tour ticket?

Sure, there are some access disadvantages, but does it really matter?

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Hey, I'd just like to see somebody in this Adminstration take responsibility for something.

I always enjoy the "You're a [racist/bigot/nazi/pedophile/goatfucker] if you don't agree with me" argument. Its a close second to my favorite - the "You're robbing me of my freedom of religion by forcing me to be tolerant of others' moral choices I don't like and preventing me from putting my religious code into law to stop them from acting in a way I don't like."

Karl would be proud, if he weren't busy setting up his new office on K Street.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Its funny, really. Bush wanted to be Reagan's successor, but history will place him next to Nixon. Recall, Nixon was a brilliant foreign policy president and began relations with China. If Bush's Iraq policy works, he'll be considered a brilliant forward thinker... who ran a secretive, vindictive, probably criminal administration. Just like Nixon.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

The purpose of security classification is to prevent the wrong people from learning secrets. In Berger's case, there is absolutely no reason to think that the wrong people learned government secrets, or that he intended that this happen. He was reckless, and stupid. In the case of Valerie Plame, someone --- maybe Rove -- intended that many people learn a government secret, and they did. That is not just reckless. Especially when the country is at war. Whoever outed her risked the national security to score political points.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

It doesn't matter. In fact, as Slave said, it frees Rove to become the Evil Emporer.

This is irrelevant. In our modern era either you think people are entitled to human rights or they are not.

I have heard Israeli conservatives argue that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is OK because Arabs don't want or need democracy. The might as well be governed by us as any other dictator. Under us their standard of living is better off than any other arabs. Do you agree with their argument or do you think they are being bigoted when they say Arabs don't want or need,or are not ready for democracy.



Don't go there. You know why you posted this email. We both know what point you were trying to make.



If that means getting rid of Mussolini - yes. When I lived in Italy the trains never ran on time. But I don't think most Italians would want to return to Mussolini.



No. But if anyone had every argued that Spaniard, or Germans, as a people do not really want democracy or that they do not need a democracy, or that their race is not amenable to democracy then I would say they are being bigoted. The torturing of political prisoners lasted in some countrys longer than others, and that had culutural and other reasons behind it. But I would never argue that the torturing of political prisoners is the type of system that fits the Germans, or expecting them to change that policy is ridiculous because they don't want to change or they can't be expected to change.



You find me a Turk that would not agree that he lives in a muslim nation and I will apologize to him.



What you seem to be ignoring is that Democracy is an international human right that everyone deserves. And to say that a certain people can rightfully choose another system is saying they don't deserve human rights.

How do you know that I know nothing about Yemen? Did you know that part of Yemen used to be Marxist? Did you know that Saudi Arabia has intervened in that country trying to insure a monarchy. A very large part of the population fought against the monarchical institution. There are clearly alot of people in Yemen that think about politics and have an interest what form of government they have. This is one idiot, with one non scientific idiot opinion of the people of Yemen and you post it to this board as if it has some meaning.




You and I know why this was posted. It was to bolster the argument that the U.S.'s attempt to spread democracy in Arabia (starting with Iraq) is naive, stupid and an exercise that will backfire on us. Trying to encourage democracy in the region is like trying to encourage human rights. And anyone that argues against encouraging human rights, in my opinion, is morally bankrupt. Thier opinion hold as much water is a bigot arguing in favor of bigotry.

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

Kitty Carlisle: Actress, regular on a game show called "To Tell The Truth." (PLF irony?)

Kitty Kelley: Author, wrote acid-tongued biography of the Bush family, among others.

Carry on.

So you think it is smug self superiority to believe that all human being on this planet deserve basic human rights. The southern slave owners always referred to the norther abolitionists as smug, self superior and self righteous. Of course they were avoiding the point.

Just answer the question:

Do you believe having a say in the government that governs you is a human right?

Do you believe Arabs deserve basic human rights?

If you answer yes to those:

Do you think it is bigoted to want to impose "human rights" on arab nations?

Do you think it is bigoted to say that arabs don't need or want "human rights?

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

My response is (i) no harm, no foul and (ii) again, this has nothing to do about Plame, and everything to do with that lying sack Joe Wilson.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Wartime Consigliere.

"Hairpiece?" "No, Herpes."
 

Writing talent's about the same... distinction with little difference.

"Hack" Wilson keeps talking
 

Keep dreaming. This has everything to do with (a) Bush being stuck with his early promise to fir the leak, (b) Admin/Rove lies about Rove not being the leak after the fact, and (c) public perception.

If Fitzgerald prosecutes for obstruction/perjury or issues a report ripping the admin, this is a big fucking problem.

You, me, Andrew Sullivan, and the author of that e-mail all think that people are entitled to human rights.

An argument that some people are not ready for democracy might be based on bigotry -- it would depend on the reasons given. I do not believe that is what the e-mail to Sullivan is saying, though.

No, I believe that you have misunderstood the point I was trying to make in a significant way.

All else equal, most people would rather live in a democracy than a dictatorship. All else is rarely equal. As I tried to suggest in my last e-mail, there are all sorts of other things that people care about that may get in the way. For example, religious beliefs may lead people to place power in the hands of clerics, rather than elected leaders. Or, people may get aroused by nationalism, and may give power to leaders who are non-democratic. Both are happening to some degree in Arab countries. Both have also happened in non-Arab countries. Suggesting that this is happening is not racist or bigoted.

My point was that if a dictator says something that's true, or exploits a sentiment that people have, that in itself does not may that thing or sentiment false.

Then you might (*might*) be throwing the term around too loosely. Because there was real support in Spain for Franco. And there was real support in Portugal for Salazar.

You seem to have some confusion about positive and normative statements. I infer that Sullivan's correspondent would be a fan of democracy in Yemen, and is disappointed that the Yemenis don't seem interested. Arguing that the facts on the ground are poor for democracy is not the same as arguing that democracy would be a bad thing.

Since Ataturk, Turkey has tried very hard to be a secular nation, albeit one populated mostly by Muslims.

How am I ignoring that democracy is a human right, or suggesting that people can rightfully choose another system?

I know those things about Yemen, and more. And yet I would not pass myself off as an expert on the country. And when I read something written by someone who is actually there, I naturally believe that they have access to a perspective and information that I do not.

Why do you think the author of that e-mail is an "idiot"? Because their view of the world doesn't jibe with your policy prescriptions? This is the same sharp thinking that got us into the present mess in Iraq.

See, I read it and concluded that the author is in favor of spreading democracy, but believes that the U.S. has pursued specific policies that are counterproductive to that end. I feel that way, as does Sullivan.

The simple world view that President Bush articulates -- you're either with us or against us -- had its uses after 9/11, but it often gets in the way now. Policy matters. Policy is hard. But our president has everyone focused on which side they're on.