A blast from the past.
 

Ty said nothing of the sort (I know, whiff). All he did was point out that a vote does not a stable, peaceful country make. They may have voted, but I'm not buying any time shares on the banks of the Euphrates any time soon.

A blast from the past.
 

ball don't lie!

Does This Resonate?
 

• Maybe you're like me and have opposed the Iraq war since before the shooting started -- not to the point of joining any peace protests, but at least letting people know where you stood.
  
  
  
  You didn't change your mind when our troops swept quickly into Baghdad or when you saw the rabble that celebrated the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue, figuring that little had been accomplished and that the tough job still lay ahead.
  
  Despite your misgivings, you didn't demand the troops be brought home immediately afterward, believing the United States must at least try to finish what it started to avoid even greater bloodshed. And while you cheered Saddam's capture, you couldn't help but thinking I-told-you-so in the months that followed as the violence continued to spread and the death toll mounted.
  
  By now, you might have even voted against George Bush -- a second time -- to register your disapproval.
  
  But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?
  
  It's hard to swallow, isn't it?
  
  Americans cross own barrier
  
  
  
  If you fit the previously stated profile, I know you're fighting the idea, because I am, too. And if you were with the president from the start, I've already got your blood boiling.
  
  For those who've been in the same boat with me, we don't need to concede the point just yet. There's a long way to go. But I think we have to face the possibility.
  
  I won't say that it had never occurred to me previously, but it's never gone through my mind as strongly as when I watched the television coverage from Iraq that showed long lines of people risking their lives by turning out to vote, honest looks of joy on so many of their faces.
  
  Some CNN guest expert was opining Monday that the Iraqi people crossed a psychological barrier by voting and getting a taste of free choice (setting aside the argument that they only did so under orders from their religious leaders).
  
  I think it's possible that some of the American people will have crossed a psychological barrier as well.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/brown...s-brown01.html

Proper Planning by our agencies
 

And Ty thought we weren't promoting democracy in Ukraine!

S_A_M

Does This Resonate?
 

You sometimes hear of people who fall from great heights and somehow survive -- perhaps with many broken bones, sometimes with barely a scratch.

That person may rightly be congratulated as they recuperate, but their survival does not mean it was wise to jump off the bridge.

S_A_M

Does This Resonate?
 

Are we speaking of the operational wisdom of the tactics of the jump chosen, or the basic morality of the choice to jump? Hindsight might give us insight into how we waged the war, but the success or failure of the vote doesn't, I think, speak to the rightness of the decision to depose Saddam.

Does This Resonate?
 

What if it is Butch and Sundance? You know, there was a good reason to jump- even though they didn't want to, they knew they needed to.

A blast from the past.
 

The Dean persona wasn't right or left in any meaningful sense -- it was anti- the Iraq war.

A blast from the past.
 

Kiss my ass, Hank.

A blast from the past.
 

the Saudi 9/11 phone call rant was centrist?

A blast from the past.
 

The persona, in my mind, isn't composed so much of Dean's actual positions - heck, he was fairly anti-tax, anti-welfare when he started the campaign - but what he became in the minds of the far left. Even now, he's assumed a position so far to the left of reality in their minds that it's unreal. He's a demigod to the HC Du set. He's a lot like Ashcroft in that respect, in that the public persona that's been built is fairly far off the mark.

Does This Resonate?
 

Ummmm, dunno who this joker is, but I mostly think we can all mainly agree that freedom really has meant something to the Iraqi people even before Sunday. Among the freedoms they might have cherished was the freedom from getting blown to shit as collateral damage in our war to rid the world of the clear and present danger of Saddam's WMDs.

Don't get me wrong - I read the papers and I know that history has been revised so that now the war was all about giving them the chance to elect a puppet government and getting rid of the sadistic psychopaths who ran the place previously. But what exactly is this guy saying Bush was "right" about?

Does This Resonate?
 

Sorry. It wasn't Ty who thinks the vote was bad news, but it was one of your crew. And I suspect more of you feel the way Club's guy does then like to admit it.

Does This Resonate?
 

Suspect away, and I'm sure lots of people are softening now that there's some feel-good stuff going on over there. This is because people have short attention spans. They watch the news and see happy Iraqis with blue fingers, and, well, who gives a shit how we got here, right? It was, like, two years ago already.

Does This Resonate?
 

So, we've deposed a mass killer of his own people and others, the people who have been freed have expressed, through polls, an overwhelming happiness with both this deposing and their resulting freedom, they have exercised their new democracy in a rather enthusiatic and heartwarming way, this may well be the first step in bringing an entire region into a more democratic, less despotic era, and you're bitter about this because it goes against your core values?

Scary core values.