Politics As Usual

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
CNN (well, AP) reports that Kerry didn't quite offer the job to McCain, but that McCain has declined overtures. Which doesn't surprise me, either, but it's smart politics by Kerry to be getting these stories.

McCain has said repeatedly that if asked he would not accept. I think you nailed it - this is good politics.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Some day, a few decades from now, I'll be sitting with Sidd Jr., sipping on a cocktail and smoking cigars, laughing about how one day, a long time ago, his daddy was a socialist.

Yeah, but you'll also be crying about how your own kids are protesting globalization and climate change.

[SlaveNoMore]

sgtclub
That analysis is thin, to say the least.

After reading this, I'm more convinced it was Darko, the border guard with the bolt cutters, that won the Cold War.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
Yeah, but you'll also be crying about how your own kids are protesting globalization and climate change.

I know, I know. They get it from her, dammit.

[Gattigap]

I've realized that the GOPers' worries about the Iraqi prison scandal are overblown. What they should actually want is for it to get worse. Worries Matthew Yglasias:

But I've been afraid since the first word of this [the Abu Grahib story breaking wide open] started trickling out that it might be a dead end for American liberalism. The charge that he's been overzealous -- that he's gone too far, that he's done to much -- to try and defeat America's enemies is, I think, one that George W. Bush can live with. The American people may well feel that he really has gone too far in one or two points, but you'd rather have the guy who does too much to defend America than the guy who does too little. Pressing this line of argument makes it seem as if Democrats are saying that the government needs to be more evenhanded between the terrorists, on the one hand, and American soldiers on the other.

Now, of course, I know that that's not the right way to understand all this at all, but I'm afraid it'll come across that way. The good issues for Democrats are things like, "the war was a distraction," "bad diplomacy raised the costs," "stingy budgeting (not enough armor, etc.) got soldiers killed," "who's guarding the ports?," and "sure, terrorism's bad, but that doesn't mean we don't also need a better health care system." Running as the defender of the rights of accused terrorists, on the other hand, doesn't seem like a winning game plan to me.

Brilliant, I tell you! Genius, I say!

So, I see Rove's commercials coming out in, say, September with sequential images of:

• Lyndie grinding it out on film, then
• Kerry (or a more attractive liberal surrogate) complaining about the US violating the GC and Bush being responsible, then
• various 9/11 images, with a voiceover stating that this is what Democratic, sissyliberal policies will bring us, then
• A statement from Bush in the Oval, saying "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."*

Game over. Landslide, GOP.

Gattigap

* I know, I know. But he's been dead for a while. No one will connect the dots, and the line is handy these days.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
That analysis is thin, to say the least.

What's your problem with it? No matter how much we congratulate ourselves for what we did, the Berlin Wall came down when the people stood up to the repressive regimes behind it. People who had stood up previously -- Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 -- had gotten themselves killed in the process.


Soviet soldiers and tanks in front of the National Museum on Wenceslas Square in Prague were surrounded by Czechoslovaks in 1968.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Yeah, but you'll also be crying about how your own kids are protesting globalization and climate change.

Slave has cleverly decided never to have kids in order to thwart The Left by denying us new recruits. But if I ever, EVER catch my kid reading Ayn Rand . . .

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
But he's been dead for a while. No one will connect the dots, and the line is handy these days.

Are you kidding? I would pay good money not to have read the David Broder columns about it.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What's your problem with it? No matter how much we congratulate ourselves for what we did, the Berlin Wall came down when the people stood up to the repressive regimes behind it. People who had stood up previously -- Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 -- had gotten themselves killed in the process.


Soviet soldiers and tanks in front of the National Museum on Wenceslas Square in Prague were surrounded by Czechoslovaks in 1968.

Yes, the people that rose up deserve a great deal of credit, and I've never argued that RR did it singlehandedly. But that article ignores things like this

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110005204

[Lech Walesa on Reagan]

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Enter your best caption for this photo:

Clinton:
At the wake, once Hillary goes back to work, I'm hitting on Nancy. Ted Kennedy says that Pete Lawford claims she was a vacuum fucking cleaner- and discrete. and shit, that was back when she had teeth.
Kerry:
At first i thought i'd let her blow me- then i decided no.- just kiddin bill- go for it! HaHa

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Yes, the people that rose up deserve a great deal of credit, and I've never argued that RR did it singlehandedly. But that article ignores things like this

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110005204

[Lech Walesa on Reagan]

That article begins:

• 
  I ungrudgingly grant Ronald Reagan his modest (yes, modest) role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Sometimes, geopolitics is as simple as a schoolyard game of chicken, and Reagan played a keen game of chicken as he built up the U.S. military....

It then veers into retelling the Hungary story.

Only this week, in this festive atmosphere of Reaganohagioography, could one conceivable complain that an article that starts by praising Reagan and then goes on to tell someone else's story can be faulted for failing to praise Reagan in other ways as well. Fortunately, this week will be over soon, and we can all start living in the real world again. It's going to be a tough transition for the Republican pundits who've spent the world in the political equivalent of a circle jerk, but then a funereal mood should be appropriate, right?

[sgtclub]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...er_1&printer=1

[Atticus Grinch]

Yet another rock-solid GOP voting block unclear on the repercussions of voting for pro-NAFTA, free-market candidate. On the other hand, the good news is that apparently the feds are looking for a deal on uniforms. Who says government is hopelessly broken?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Yet another rock-solid GOP voting block unclear on the repercussions of voting for pro-NAFTA, free-market candidate. On the other hand, the good news is that apparently the feds are looking for a deal on uniforms. Who says government is hopelessly broken?

"Customs and Border Protection spokesman Jim Mitchie said, 'We are buying American. But we're also buying elsewhere.'"

That Mitchie guy is worth his salary, let me tell you.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
That article begins:

• 
  I ungrudgingly grant Ronald Reagan his modest (yes, modest) role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Sometimes, geopolitics is as simple as a schoolyard game of chicken, and Reagan played a keen game of chicken as he built up the U.S. military....

It then veers into retelling the Hungary story.

Only this week, in this festive atmosphere of Reaganohagioography, could one conceivable complain that an article that starts by praising Reagan and then goes on to tell someone else's story can be faulted for failing to praise Reagan in other ways as well. Fortunately, this week will be over soon, and we can all start living in the real world again. It's going to be a tough transition for the Republican pundits who've spent the world in the political equivalent of a circle jerk, but then a funereal mood should be appropriate, right?

I've been waiting for this all week. The true feelings finally come out. You've been biting your tounge all week, so as to appear respectful, but it's just getting the best of you isn't?

For what it's worth, I am a bit bothered by the coverage as well. That is to say that I've had my fill of the lionization. The presidency speaks for itself. There is no reason to push it down the nation's throat.

As to the article, I read it as suggesting that the cold war was really won because some east germans slipped throught fence and Reagan was just on the sidelines. Folks like Walesa, who were on the wrong side of the fence, obviously disagree with that characterization.