Ann Coulter
 

And presto change-o, we're back to having everyone sit down and shut the fuck up so we don't embolden the terrorists.

I am so goddamned sick of these circular arguments. "It's OK to criticize the war -- but don't say he lied! It's honorable to call him negligent, but don't say it out loud, or don't have someone who's been elected to something say it, because then -- THEN -- that eeeeeevil mainstream media will take it!

"Yes, that mainstream meadia will take it and bend it to their own, diabolical, French-loving ends! They'll run it on Al-Jazeera 24/7! Abu Al-whatsisname will watch it and say (in Arabic) 'You know, I was ready to pack it in today, but you know what? Some WV congressman I've never heard of is sending me a love note! Let's go back to the barricades, brothers!'

"We would've won this thing two years ago if it weren't for that fucking MSM. We'd have won the battle, their hearts and minds, and been drinking oil at $15/bbl."

I'm beginning to understand how Rather held the unadulterated power that he did, and why he had to be destroyed.

Ann Coulter
 

I'm thinking there has to be a way to do it that accomplishes the goals, and yet doesn't provide huge solace and support and actual strategic advantage to the enemy. I didn't make up that part about the NVA leaders looking to our antiwar movement's hysteria and caricature-like behavior as being a major part of their victory - that's a fact. There's a difference in the argument between "don't say those things, they're unpatriotic" and "don't say those things that way, they harm our effort and cost us lives."

Ann Coulter
 

The message as she read it started with "Tell Congressman Murtha that . . ." Given that Murtha was a Marine, the statement could reasonably be construed either way -- and a bunch of folks in the room took the statement that way. That's why Rep. Whooziwhatzits apologized and/or retracted the statement (I forget which) later that day. Claimed in a WaPo interview this weekend that she had had no idea that Murtha was a Marine.

Gatti obviously used some hyperbole, but there was a statement by McClellan that day comparing Murtha to Michael Moore, by name. I'll post a link. (Shit, now you've made me do research!)

S_A_M

eta: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/17/murtha.iraq/

Of course, the statement was slightly more nuanced than that:

"In a broadside issued Thursday night, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said that it is 'baffling that [Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha] is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party.'

"McClellan called Murtha, a retired Marine colonel who earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, 'a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting America.'

"But McClellan added, "The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists.'

Here was Hastert's take:

"US House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) quickly shot back at Murtha: 'I am saddened by the comments made today by Representative Murtha. It is clear that as Nancy Pelosi's top lieutenant on Armed Services, Representative Murtha and Democratic leaders have adopted a policy of cut and run. They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans. To add insult to injury, this is done while the President is on foreign soil ... Representative Murtha and other Democrats want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world."

Yes, I want to surrender to the terrorists so that my daughters can be killed. I'm sure all the Democratic leaders want that too. Not saying that I'm necessarily in favor of Murtha's proposal, because I'm not sure, but -- Why, oh why, do we hate America?

I hate our politics and our political system -- it seems that it is now almost impossible to respectfully disagree with each other. There is too much focus on scoring points with memorable, inflammatory rhetoric.

Ann Coulter
 

Go in-house. No more research.

Ann Coulter
 

This?:

"'Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America,' said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. 'So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party'."

I don't think this means what you think it means. It also fails to convince me that anyone treated Murtha with disrespect. This sounds pretty durn respectful.

Ann Coulter
 

That was it, as you see.

A lot of the furor grew from the Ohio Rep.'s statement on the House floor -- colored everyone's perceptions of the thing. (BTW -- during the campaign she was nicknamed "Mean Jean" for her sharp tongue.)

S_A_M

Ann Coulter
 

Ah, so you were being respectful towards me last week when you lumped me in with MM. Thanks, bilmore!

Ann Coulter
 

Actually, I was being disrespectful to MM.

(Kidding, kidding, kidding - too many softballs, too little time . . . ;)

Ann Coulter
 

I'm thinking you are getting a little too close to making the word "treason" impossible to apply. To the extent someone has a genuine personal motive, can he or she ever commit treason? If I sell secrets to the enemy under the belief that, in the end, this will benefit my country which is currently going "off track" in terms of what I think is the "right road", I'm not committing treason?

Ann Coulter
 

Is selling secrets in those circumstances treason? I don't know. Arms? Hell, no! Apparently, they'll name a fucking airport after you.

Treason is pretty well defined as a crime. Democrats (and others) advocating a change in policies through the political process are not committing treason.

Republicans secretly selling arms to rogue states in the Middle East to fund facist paramilitaries in Central America, however, were.

Ann Coulter
 

To some extent, I agree. But, I can't bring myself to draw a bright line in an ambiguous idea simply to allow myself to apply the word. Too result-oriented.

Galloway took money for his personal account and then hurt his country's interests. What's-his-name-the-spy did the same here. I can easily call them traitors. Not so sure about someone who thinks America would do better under Saddam. "Dumb", maybe, but "treason"? Dunno.

Ann Coulter
 

It all happened. Frist suggested that Murtha was part of the "Michael Moore wing" of the Democratic Party. I forget the name of the asshwipe congresswoman from Ohio who called him a coward, but I remember her shouting it above Denny Hastert's voice as he called for order on the floor of the House. The next day, when the press and the polls excoriated the R's for their smear of Murtha, they backpedalled so hard they nearly tripped over the ghost of John Kerry.

Ann Coulter
 

STP, dear.

Ann Coulter
 

Your spin would have a bit more substance if it weren't for the fact that Murtha is a decorated Marine vet.

Ann Coulter
 

Yep. That's it. It was all public relations. That's why our Hamlet project worked so well in the South. That and all the other press and public relations work.

It really had very little to do with the fact that the Viet Cong knew the territory and they were far more committed to winning or dying than we were.

And naturally, the NVA generals would be the first to admit that the propganda war was a lot of bullshit on both sides.

Ann Coulter
 

It's just not my style, Old Man. You should know that by now.

Ann Coulter
 

Has nothing to do with it. Yeah, he did his three in VN, and then 27 years of reserves, but the point was, what he was suggesting strikes many as a cowardly route.

(BTW, this is all sounding like the whole "reporting for duty" thing. How many times can you repeat "he was a DECORATED 37-YEAR MARINE!!" and use that as the basis for your "it's not a bad strategy" argument? I have friends who were decorated VN vets who I wouldn't trust to mow my lawn.)

Coincidently, in the news today is another veteran of merit. The "eight-term Congressman and decorated Vietnam War veteran" (wow!, huh?) Duke Cunningham is goin' to prison!

(ETA - it's getting so you can't swing a stick without hitting a decorated VN veteran of distinction. Which doesn't sound like a bad idea for some of them, BTW.)

Ann Coulter
 

Wilfull blindness?

Of course they were more committed. They had no huge violent public dissent, and no media actively making up shit to hurt our chances.

All PR? Didn't say that. But the NVA say it was to a BIG extent PR. How else could they, a small, relatively poor and backwards country, defeat a megacountry like ours? By making and encouraging us to fight ourselves, and by enjoying the fruits of it when we did. Our withdrawals did more than their battles ever did. We won most of the battles (not so you could ever tell listening to Walter, of course. Remember Tet?)

Ann Coulter
 

Now you're reversing yourself. I said that her comment about "cowards" running and "marines" staying and fighting was a direct slur on Murtha, that's all. You said that her comment was a general comment, not directed at Murtha, who just happened to be a former marine. Now you're saying that, yeah, it was directed at Murtha, and who cares if he's a marine, a lot of people think he's a coward.

I never endorsed Murtha's plan. I just differed with your defense of Mean Jean. You don't know how I feel about Murtha's call for a withdrawal because I haven't said and you didn't ask.

As it happens, I think we need to start working on an exit strategy, but I don't agree with Murtha that we should start withdrawing now. Iraq isn't ready to stand on its own yet, and it would be sheer folly to let the whole escapade fail now without at least giving them a fighting chance.

Ann Coulter
 

They beat us for one simple reason. They were fighting for their future and they were willing to fight and die forever until they won.

That's the same reason we beat the Brits, the Algerians beat the French, and the Isrealis continue to beat all comers, except the Palestinians. It's also the reason the Isreal will never beat the Palestinians. They both have the same skin in the game.

Ann Coulter
 

You see, Balt, this is where you leapt the hyperbole track in a way that harms your credibility.

The contras were quite a mixed bag -- and the little group operating along the border of Costa Rica were run by someone who was darn near a democrat. Only a few of the Contras were _actually_ fascists.


S_A_M

Ann Coulter
 

I can't speak for Coulter (nor would I want to) but I think her references to "traitors" were those who (1) for politically advantageous reasons, *say* they are against the war and want the troops home, but (2) really do not, evidenced by their failure to vote "troops come home now", and therefore, their anti-war stance is not supported by any personal reason (however wild) and it is irresponsible to bluff like this at a time when our troops are getting shellacked.

That said, I am with you in finding it hard to label speech as treasonous. Maybe because I'm a social liberal (you can't get any more pro-first amendment than me). But... I have nothing against forcing these idiots to shit or get off the pot. One of the few victories I saw on the Bush side of the second debate was that he drove home how Kerry also supported going to war. This seemed like a big deal to me b/c most people I know voted for Kerry b/c they thought he was against the war. (This perception still amazes me). Same stuff with politicians who claim we should "get out of Iraq". Fine, give them the opportunity to vote on it, rather than bluff. I think it was a slimy tactic, but I kind of liked it. If, at the end of the day, the majority view the war as a total mistake, the Dems will have to share some of the blame for letting it go on.

Ann Coulter
 

The Republican resolution was an absurd ploy that was completely transparent. Anyone who can't understand how a person might feel that it's time to start trying to extricate ourselves from Iraq and still vote against a resolution that says "We all go home right now" is a fucking moron.

Yes, I say that realizing that there is a good chance a majority of Americans fall within that definition of moron.

Ann Coulter
 

No, that's not what I'm saying. I will defend the guy's honor and cred right along with you. But, in the past week, you'd think he was Audie Murphy. The D's pointedly did NOT talk about his proposal, but zeroed in on his credentials to make the proposal, and made up that R's were calling him a coward.

(Most posters are going "who?")

I know. Problem is, you wanted to personalize comments on the plan to Murtha himself. I can say that your war strategy is stoopid, while respecting your intelligence. I can also call it cowardly, without calling you a coward. I think Mean Jean was going for that, and treaded over a line grammatically. No more, no less. But you guys are jumpin' all over dat . . .

Every time we hand over a province and a village and a line to the Iraqis, we ARE working on our exit strategy, and we're doing that every day. Remember back when the MS made such a big deal about "only three units are fully vetted"? Well, it's a lot more now, and so they don't want to talk about it.

Ann Coulter
 

They beat us for one reason. They beat us because a whole lot of idiots - that would be me - bought the line that peace and passivity are always virtues. We was wrong. Passivity as you watch the big guy kill the little kid across the street is not a virtue. Several million rue my stupidity.

Or they would if they were still alive.

Ann Coulter
 

We might be a little less sensitive had it not been for the Swifties and the smear of Max Cleland.

Ann Coulter
 

So, you've reduced this all to the idea that "we should at some point be able to leave" is the dividing line, and we R's are firmly on the "disagree" side? Bullshit. You want to make speaking points without substance. The proposal, which generated so much faux support, was "immediate", and then, when called on it, you caved. (Sorry - like SAM says, I overgeneralize groups.) We ALL feel, since the beginning, that the earlier the extrication (with success) the better. No disagreement. Murtha might as well have said "humans need oxygen to live." Problem is, you all wanted to claim that we Rs disagree with that.

Ann Coulter
 

A. I don't remember the Swifies being disproved. "Christmas in Cambodia"? Those guys seem to hate Kerry with a visceral intensity that scares me, and I doubt such feelings come from after-the-fact politics.

B. Don't send a multiple amputee to do a job when his only qualification is that he's a multiple amputee. I have a friend who flew choppers in Nam. He lacks two legs and an arm. And some of his face. He gets near violent when speaking of Cleland. Someday, in a bar, I can tell you why. But, for now, know that it has to do with Cleland's honor in using his injuries to make nonexistant points.

Ann Coulter
 

I disagree. We didn't lose Vietnam because of that -- in fact, the US didn't "lose" Vietnam at all. Vietnam went communist because the government in the South had no popular support. Our blood and treasure went into supporting a government that was hated and feared and despised by their own people, and our military was so crippled by the war that we're lucky that Breshnev didn't send the Red Army across the Elbe, or we might all be radioactive cinders.

Were the people of South Vietnam worse off after 1975 than they were before it? For most, absolutely. But they didn't think that they would be, and, unless we were prepared to continue to prop the Theiu regime up indefinitely, we never were going to "win" -- no matter that we "won" every battle in the war. It was just a question of time.

Ann Coulter
 

This falls within the Sebby Theory of "We're just one big unhappy party with made-up differences." He invented that.

Ann Coulter
 

Practicality v. morality.

How many millions of people were murdered because we bugged out? I think that question counts. Cleansing is a basic beginning stage of the communistic takeover, and I think we allowed ourselves to be talked into forgetting that. It was more convenient in the end. When Jane said that we would all be communist if we knew what it was, she forgot that most of us would be compost instead.

Ann Coulter
 

What if we never were there? Should we have intervened in China in 1949?

Ultimately, I think that there is a difference between places where outside forces were seeking to impose a communist regime (and our intervention worked -- Korea in 1950, Greece/Turkey in 1946-48, Malaysia in the 1950s)(ok, the UK gets credit for Malaysia and partial credit for the Greeks) and places where the communists had true indigenous support (China in 1949 and Vietnam). No amount of intervention would have prevented Mao from winning over the KMT (short of nuking his army as he was getting ready to cross the Yangztee, I suppose), and I don't think that we could have kept the Theiu regime in power much longer, either.

Ann Coulter
 

I'm not saying that the Republicans in Congress or the White House are not in favor of an exit strategy. I just don't see evidence that they've planned one out. And the R House Resolution was up or down as part of a concious effort to stop debate on the wisdom of continuing for the indefinite future, which is what the public is being shown right now.

You can't deny that. At least not with a straight face.

Ann Coulter
 

You forget that the Thieu regime was doing its own cleansing. With our help, primarily after the Hamlet Program revealed that VC was far more entrenched in the villages than we could ever hope to be. And that's not even getting into the CIA's black ops from the 50's on.

You can argue morality v. practicality up to a point. But eventually, it all comes down to who's willing to fight to the last man standing. That's the story in the Middle East, it was the story in Vietnam, and it's the story anywhere the indigenous population decides that it doesn't really care what the foreign devils believe, it just wants them to go home.

Ann Coulter
 

Had we been there, and had the strength, yes. But then, I always choose the "yeah, I'd kill Hitler or Stalin" option in the polls.

True. Can you save lives in spite of themselves? I think you can, and should. (Why else have drug laws?) Mind you, this isn't the blind hate-commies thing - it's the "hate the cleansing phase" thing. Plus, I don't think the support for the Khmer Krahom was all that widespread in either VN or C at the time. It was mostly vague promises of food in every pot.

Ann Coulter
 

Our performance was poor at that point, granted. But we let that point overwhelm the idea that we needed to be there. Tactics over strategy. Tactics shouldn't win.

Picture yourself as am eighteen-year-old. Now, try to make those same words. Ouch.

We could have had the last man standing five hundred times over. You can't use that analogy when we make an arbitrary choice that we'll leave no more standing men in sight.

Traitor!
 

WASHINGTON - A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that wrongheaded ideas for the handling of foreign detainees arose from White House and Pentagon officials who argued that "the president of the United States is all-powerful" and the Geneva Conventions irrelevant.


In an Associated Press interview, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson also said President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of postwar planning. Underlings exploited Bush's detachment and made poor decisions, Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and likeminded aides. He said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051128/...rson_interview

Interesting
 

It's not just my party:

Medicaid Cutbacks Divide Democrats

The lede:
Controversial House legislation designed to gain control of Medicaid growth has split Democrats, with lawmakers in Washington united in their opposition while Democratic governors are quietly supporting the provisions and questioning the party's reflexive denunciations.

It would appear that you and Balt have the reflexive denunciation part down pat.

Ann Coulter
 

What do you think caused Daniel Ortega to finally call for open and free elections? Did he just realize the error of his ways?