I'm Pleased
 

On an intellectual level, a very difficult thing for the right to come to terms with is that this is a President who has expanded government employment by over 800,000 jobs, abandoned Gramm-Rudman, embraced deficit spending, and generally followed economic policies at odds with what the right has stood for over the last thirty years. In the post-Clinton age, Democrats now own fiscal responsibility as an issue, and "big government liberal" no longer rings true.

I expect this is going to be a topic conservatives get to debate in depth and openly after the election, whoever wins. Until then, I know you've got to keep the game face on.

Oh, you mean that timber company
 

A better showing by dubya, but WTH there was only one way to move. This cracks me up though. Kind of like Cheney, would have made for a good zinger had it been true:

Timber

KERRY: The President got $84 from a timber company that he owns that he's counted as a small business…

BUSH: I own a timber company? That's news to me.

REALITY:

“President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)” [Factcheck.org; 9/23/04]

ABC: Peter Jennings, 10.50: Mr. Bush looked up and said ‘I own a timber company? And we all sort of looked at one another and said who was right? Well it turns out Senator Kerry was right.

NBC 10:50-11:00, Brian Williams: Joke about timber – President once owned a small share of the timber business – Bush according to FactCheck.org reported $84 of business, that would have qualified him as a small business owner.

St. Louis Post Dispatch 9:15: At one point, Kerry said Bush's timber company would benefit from economic proposals, and Bush countered: "I own a timber company? That's news to me."

Need Some Wood?
 

Containment was working, and the sanctions were part of containment. The sanctions helped keep materiel out of Iraq.

From Kos.

• Mort Kondracke: "... I think Kerry won this debate as he won the first debate I don't think... I thought that Kerry was much more aggressive and the president was basically on the defense and didn't have new arguments didn't have...wasn't as facile as he should have been." [Fox News Channel, 10/8/04]
  
  Bill Kristol: "I guess I think if you think the President was doing okay and didn't need a win in this debate, he did fine, but I think, if one thinks that Bush missed an awful lot of opportunities to go after Kerry in the first debate he had to make some of them up in this debate, I'm not sure he really succeeded in doing so." [Fox New Channel, 10/8/04]
  
  Brit Hume: "Is it now fair to say that in each of these debates in terms of marshaling arguments, and remembering them and presenting them that this is something John Kerry has proved he is very good at. And that it doesn't play to the president's strong suit." [Fox News Channel, 10/8/04]
  
  Mort Kondracke: "I thought [Kerry] was very effective. I thought that he was also on the attack a lot and frankly I thought that the President seemed to be on the defense a lot and trying to explain things and not explaining them all that well." [Fox News Channel, 10/8/04]
  
  Tim Russert: "John Kerry, also, energetic, forceful." [NBC, 10/8/04]
  
  Jonah Goldberg: "On the question of whether Bush did everything he needed to tonight, I don't think so. I think he helped himself, but Kerry leaves these debates energized." [National Review Online, 10/8/04]
  
  Mark Shields: "He just absolutely, I thought, demolished the President's claims about the coalition in Iraq." [PBS, 10/8/04]
  
  James Fallows, Atlantic Monthly: [Kerry's best moment] "I think his best moment was at the series of new lines. Again like this Missouri line of saying that that I was able to do with some of my votes in the Senate what you have failed to do, which is balance the budget, so I think it was the general vividness of his approach." [CBS, 10/8/04]
  
  Perry Bacon: "I actually was struck that Kerry was pretty strong, I thought, in the foreign policy section, actually, and sort of hit the president hard on that." [CNN, 10/8/04]

I'm trying to think of a rational explanation for bringing up Dread Scott in that question. The only thing that I can think of is that someone suggested it as a good example of why constitutional amendments can be a good thing, in case someone asked about the gay marriage amendment and he wanted to show that he knew a few Supreme Court cases.

I'm Pleased
 

I will concede this last point and happily agree with you.

There is going to be a day of reckoning down the road when the Republicans will square off amongst ourselves and fight - the party of small government is getting fat, lazy and content now that we're in power and don't seem to be losing it (the Congress) any time soon*

However - IMHO - this is secondary right now. Foreign affairs are and should be the primary issue these days.

Secondly, as bad as the GOP has been on the domestic spending front - and they have been abhorrent - for you to claim that the Dems now "own" fiscal responsibility is not only misleading, but laughable. Kerry tonight claims to be FOR a tax cut AND the expansion of tens of government programs. Please tell me how he and the Dems are for reducing spending?


* My buddy Less - more conservative than he ever puts out here - has always argued the virtues of gridlock.

Need Some Wood?
 

France and Russia were working (and succeeding) with eroding the sanctions.

That Iraq report - from the excerpts that I've read - is quite compelling.

As idiotic as Kos is, I give them credit for gleaning the most negative comments from all these right-leaning commentators.

Except, of course, Shields. This dottering fool makes Dowd sound cnetrist.

From Josh Marshall:

Knowing Josh's bias', Bush must have kicked to get this type of answer.

.... Meanwhile, the books burn.
 

Cry me a river. Find the "news" in some paper that doesn't turn the "right" story into an effin editorial every time, and then tell it, maybe. She objected that the pamphlets were produced, with USA money, by someone with a decidedly anti-USA bent. Someone else listened. Good for them.

I'm Pleased
 

But, in balance, the other choice will leave us all with Sharia.

a note from my pen pal
 

Joe Lockhart, who presumably should have better things to do right now, just sent me an e-mail:

• Dear [RT],
  
  Two presidential debates and two clear wins. John Kerry is going to be the next president of the United States, and more people know it now than just two short hours ago.
  
  Tonight, George Bush had another chance to make his case to the American people. Again he failed.
  
  Again, he showed that he is out of touch with reality on Iraq.
  Again, he offered no plan for jobs and no plan for cutting the cost of health care.
  Again, he pretended that our problems don't exist.
  Again, he refused to level with the American people.
  George Bush just doesn't get it, so he can't fix it.
  
  John Kerry held George Bush accountable for the failures of the last four years. He demonstrated the strength and character we need in a president. He made it clear he could lead as commander in chief.
  
  John Kerry offered real solutions to real problems. He told America the truth, and offered a plan for a fresh start on the economy, Iraq, and the war on terror. Simply put, he was presidential. Ironically, the president was not.
  
  Right now, I'm here on the front lines in St. Louis. Down the hall is what they call the "spin room." It is where Republican operatives are trying to put their best face on what was another clear victory for John Kerry. I've done this a few times before, and I can tell you firsthand that my job is a lot easier when our candidate has a big night like John Kerry did tonight.
  
  I know, and more importantly John Kerry knows, how hard YOU are going to work to make sure the Bush campaign doesn't spin this debate.
  
  Here is what you can do:
  
  1) Call into talk radio
  
  http://volunteer.johnkerry.com/speakout
  2) Write local newspapers
  
  http://volunteer.johnkerry.com/speakout
  Sincerely,
  
  Joe Lockhart
  Senior Advisor

a note from my pen pal
 

Think he wrote all of that after the debate was over?

lHey, Ty . . .
 

Hey, Ty:

I can't find this cover anywhere in the current issue site.

How did you find this?

lHey, Ty . . .
 

It's here on the National Review's site, a link I found on Andrew Sullivan's blog.

eta: Not to worry -- later they say not to judge the magazine by its cover.

The thing of it is, Bush could not have been more wrong about the Constitution there.

• Bush: Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges years ago said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's a personal opinion; that's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all -- you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America.

Remember the Thirteenth Amendment? After Dred Scott, the Constitution was amended to forbid slavery. And the Equal Protection Clause is in the Fourteenth Amendment, also enacted later. It wasn't Justice Taney's personal opinion that the Constitution allowed slavery -- it was the law of the country for decades.

So, you're saying that, before the Amendment, the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights?

I'm saying it wasn't Roger Taney's personal opinion -- the sort of judicial activism that we now know that Bush doesn't like.

Need Some Wood?
 

This chronology posted by the UN here (1991-1999) and here (1999 onward) on UN web sites (the earlier chronology including links to actual resolutions) of the zany inspection efforts would actually be a funny read but for the fact that while all this was going on, an estimated 5,000 infants and toddlers were dying PER MONTH in Iraq from sanctions-related causes. It's hard to read of all the obstruction and conclude, "the sanctions were working". A decade is long enough to pussyfoot around.

Need Some Wood?
 

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about WMD. Containment allowed a brutal dictator to continue to repress his people. It also didn't cost $200 billion and 20,000 Coalition lives.

Coming soon to an election near you.
 

I thought having a lot of fast-twitch muscle fiber only presented a competitive advantage in the FB posting events. Live and learn.

Where's the Outrage
 

I am sure it clearly establishes the liberal media bias that one guy that no one has ever heard of used offensive language to insult another guy that no one has ever heard of but it didn't make the front page of the NY Times.

The argument for a big win
 

#1. I don't hear a lot of lefties screaming about it. You mention it, and I scream. Perhaps you should email some middle or rightest news sources, because this is the kind of stuff that the Right (and people who have suffered from discrimination at the hands of a government somewhere) care about. I'll organize from the Right and you get the attention of the Left. Deal?

#2. Or if you are looking for any of the 60-70% of adults in this country who register. Like people who are trying to establish credentials. You know, like people who are trying to establish fraudulent credentials. Looky here Officer, me and Mo are registered Republicans. And no, you can't search my trunk for a newclaire bomb. Of course, it would come in handy looking for them-there underage drinkers too. By the way, you know they should be shot, right?

Hello

My 2 Cents
 

I thought Bush was very good tonight, though at times a bit too agressive. Kerry put in a very good performance, equal to the first debate. No doubt, he is good on his feet. The problem is that he's full of shit. This was a clear move to the middle, which is smart, and may work to sway the uninformed. Overall, I call it a draw or a slight edge to Bush, but I can see how others could call its slightly for Kerry.

What I can't figure out is why Bush continues to allow this to be cast as a defense of Bush's record. That automatically puts him at a disadvantage. If I was advising him, each time a question like this was asked I would use 30 seconds to answer and 1:30 to turn the question on Kerry. His record is NOT strong and should be exposed. For example, when asked about failures on intelligence, I would give the canned answer and then ask why Kerry cut intelligence and failed to show up for X% of senate intelligence meetings.

The Last Temptation of a Golddigger
 

His Eminence, John Cardinal Kerry, on his pro-life Catholic, pro-Roe, anti partial-birth abortion stance:

Fact Check
 

The Heritage Foundation says that non-defense, non-Sept. 11 funding has increased roughly 11 percent during 2001-2003, up from 7 percent.

Look, the $84 timber goof isn't a big deal or core to governing, but a good way to show how Bush uses fuzzy math to support his point. This "misstatement" (Hi Bilmore!) goes to the core of his governance and his so-called conservative ideology.

Need Some Wood?
 

No. The topic was whether sanctions were "working". I said sanctions had not had their intended effect: to cause Saddam to comply with UN resolutions. Your reply was "Containment was working, and the sanctions were part of containment," to which I say again: the sanctions were not working.

Well that's an understated response to my posting that 5,000 infants and toddlers die each month due to sanctions-related causes. Repression indeed. I'm sure glad you concede these atrocities, caused by continued sanctions as well as Saddam's failure to allow sanctions-exempt humanitarian aid into the country, constitute "repression".

Yeah those sanctions were really great, Ty. And continuing them would have bought us another 15 years of "containment" (or at least "containment more likely than not" since inspectors couldn't fully measure what was happening over there.) Just what we needed - another 15 years of "working sanctions". Another 180 months with 900,000 more dead kids, continued mockery of our inspectors and further encouraging other regimes to develop WMDs since the repercussions aren’t so bad.

Look, apparently you think we should have let this pussyfooting with inspectors/non-compliance with resolutions go on forever, kind of like the parent who continually threatens his child with "do A, B, and C" 'OR ELSE" and then never follows through with the "or else" part. Your candidate’s suggestion that we “bring in allies” instead of “going it alone” may sound nice [to some] on the debate floor but you can’t get blood from a stone or force a country to step up to the plate. Might it be that no matter HOW MUCH “diplomacy” the US President uses, countries like France and Germany aren’t going to be swayed? Might it be that these countries have alterior, unstated financial motives to putting the issue off? That Kerry would be jumping through hoops to sway a country that has no intention of ever being swayed at all – an “ally” like France that is, conveniently, forever in the "stage of ideas" ? That perhaps these “allies” are not, with their current leadership, in fact allies anymore?

I'm Pleased
 

If we listened to the candidates talk, then Bush would be a small-government conservative who would restore fiscal responsibility while cutting taxes and maintaining compassion to everyone in need, while Kerry would be a big, but not too big, government non-liberal who would avoid raising taxes on too many people while expanding government programs that are necessary and bringing back the surplus.

In other words, I think GGG (or whoever you responded to -- I forgot by now) was suggesting that you look past the talk to the record, by contrasting the records of the Clinton presidency and the Bush (and Reagan?) presidencies for fiscal prudence. It's this record that leads to the conclusion that only the Dems can claim fiscal responsibility over the past 25 years. And no, don't respond by saying "the bubble economy was what killed the deficit," because the bubble of the late 80s sure didn't do that. Clinton killed the deficit through a combination of luck, tax increases, and not spending beyond the government's means.

Kerry cannot conceivably do everything he's promised from a fiscal perspective. Nor can Bush. This is one of the many very sad things about American politics, and the electorate's refusal to accept fiscal reality.

I'm Pleased
 

Mostly the Republican controlled and hostile congress forced him to kill the deficit. the past few years show what happens when its all controlled by one side.

I'm Pleased
 

How can you make this claim when the DEMs controlled Congress for roughly 15 of those 25 years? You can't. The fact is that both parties are out of control on spending, which I can't see stopping as long as the country is so divided, unless there is another extraordinary event, like the Contract.

Aphgan Elections
 

Seem to have come off without a huge hitch, relatively speaking,though I understand the opposition party is claiming that there were problems with the voting machinery (sound familar). However, most importantly, millions voted witout any major incident. This is heart-warming news.

I'm Pleased
 

Because the Republican controlled and hostile congress was so eager to raise taxes?

The "we're just too powerful now to control ourselves" argument fails to account for the other Repub presidencies, when the Repubs didn't control congress, and yet the deficits were at -- well, at Repub-presidency levels.

I'm Pleased
 

Because ultimately I think that the president -- at least a strong president -- has more power than you seem to think. Reagan managed to push through spending cuts when he wanted to, and tax increases when he needed to. It wasn't the dem-controlled congress that prevented him from balancing the budget; it was his tax-cutting (until even he -- unlike Bush 2 -- realized that you gotta pay for at least some stuff you want to buy) and his military spending. Those who disagree, please identify all years in which Reagan submitted a balanced budget to congress for approval.

Dems controlled congress, and we had deficits. Repubs control congress, and we have deficits. Repubs control the white house, and we have deficits, regardless of whether it's a dem congress or a repub congress, regardless of whether it's a recession or economically flush times. Dems control the white house..... and there's no more deficit. Draw your own conclusions (mine is that Clinton actually meant the fiscal prudence he preached -- and knew that he had to perform, because otherwise Ross Perot would run again on a platform that was largely about dealing with the deficit).

I don't dispute that "tax-and-spend" is a label that can be applied to Dems, if you are using an extremely broad and general brush. But, as I've said before, that's a hell of a lot better for the country than "borrow-and-spend."

The Last Temptation of a Golddigger
 

It'll be interesting to see what will happen when the GOP is able to find a candidate capable of struggling with insoluable national controversies --- insoluable meaning where the electorate demands one thing and principle demands another. The current best available technology on the GOP side is to have Bush say one thing, and Cheney/Powell/Rumsfeld/Rice say the other, and then assure the base that that they were taken out of context by the liberal media. That this gambit works so effectively on certain people after four years is testament to its flexibility. I think it was target marketed to the hayseed crowd, but it seems to work with equal effectiveness here, which is nice.

The Last Temptation of a Golddigger
 

This strikes me like a John Kerry vote. I think i know what it means- but relying on that is a sucker's game. I'm going to sit back and wait; later you'll explain what you meant.

The Last Temptation of a Golddigger
 

We Dems always go for the hand-wringers and self-reflective types. The only D who regrets nothing about their role in how Iraq went down is Barbara Lee. Meanwhile, Reps nominated a guy who's so stuck on the Decisiveness Factor that he'd probably have to say he was proud to have had the opportunity to execute so many retards whilst governor of the great state of Texas.

What W is indecisive about is revisiting anything that might be seen as a mistake or a close call. So he calls revisiting things a new kind of leadership sin. Whatever. Anyone who votes for W merely because he's "decisive" (and not because of underlying policy agreement with him --- hi, Slave!) is not thinking. "I'm voting for W because he won't turn back from building a base on the moon!"

The Last Temptation of a Golddigger
 

I would hope, and I think the bulk of reps would agree, that Bush's main regret with regard to killing retards in Texas should go to a lack of efficiency. no offense.

Lessons
 

If one is going to run the kids down the mile or two to see the President of The United States (because, really, how often do kids get to see something like that?), and one of one's Lesser Children is currently walking with crutches - nice, shiny, tubular-aluminum crutches - one should warn said Lesser Child ahead of time that pointing out where the President is sitting in his limo is a task best done with something other than said crutch, especially when Secret Service types are nearby.

Interesting times . . . .

I'm Pleased
 

Wrong. Reagan was a pragmatist, far more so than W. He wanted a tax cut but had to get it through the DEM controlled congress, so he struck a deal with Tip. This has been documented everywhere.

I, and I bet every R on this board, would agree, however, that W has no excuse for the size of the budget defs he's run up. It would be understandable to have run up a def for the military spending necessary to fight the war and protect the country, but everything above that is not excusable.

I think Clinton was a convert. Surely you are not suggesting that, absent the 94 takeover and the contract with amercia, that Clinton would have been the def hawk that he was? This notwithstanding, he should get his fair share of credit for not standing in the way. But to say that this was solely a Clinton driven endeavor is just a joke.

InternetS
 

When I heard that, all I could think of was:

"Not 'internet.' InternetS. Plural. President Man bleed on the inside. But you wouldn't know nothing 'bout that because youse a big ketchup-eatin' motherfucker."

Thurgreed(love workin' instead of watchin' football)Marshall