Still Hating America.

[Shape Shifter]

• The Waning of the GOP
  
  By William F. Buckley Jr.
  
  The political problem of the Bush administration is grave, possibly beyond the point of rescue. The opinion polls are savagely decisive on the Iraq question. About 60 percent of Americans wish the war ended — wish at least a timetable for orderly withdrawal. What is going on in Congress is in the nature of accompaniment. The vote in Congress is simply another salient in the war against war in Iraq. Republican forces, with a couple of exceptions, held fast against the Democrats’ attempt to force Bush out of Iraq even if it required fiddling with the Constitution. President Bush will of course veto the bill, but its impact is critically important in the consolidation of public opinion. It can now accurately be said that the legislature, which writes the people’s laws, opposes the war.
  
  Meanwhile, George Tenet, former head of the CIA, has just published a book which seems to demonstrate that there was one part ignorance, one part bullheadedness, in the high-level discussions before war became policy. Mr. Tenet at least appears to demonstrate that there was nothing in the nature of a genuine debate on the question. What he succeeded in doing was aborting a speech by Vice President Cheney which alleged a Saddam/al Qaeda relationship which had not in fact been established.
  
  It isn’t that Tenet now doubts the lethality of the terrorists. What he disputed was an organizational connection which argued for war against Iraq as if Iraq were a vassal state of al Qaeda. A measure of George Tenet’s respect for the reach and malevolence of the enemy is his statement that he is puzzled that Al Qaeda has not, since 2001, sent out “suicide bombers to cause chaos in a half dozen American shopping malls on any given day.” By way of prophecy, he writes that there is one thing he feels in his gut, which is that “Al Qaeda is here and waiting.”
  
  But beyond affirming executive supremacy in matters of war, what is George Bush going to do? It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq. The indicators rise and fall from day to day, week to week, month to month. In South Vietnam there was an organized enemy. There is clearly organization in the strikes by the terrorists against our forces and against the civil government in Iraq, but whereas in Vietnam we had Hanoi as the operative headquarters of the enemy, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq, and that is a matter of paralyzing importance. All those bombings, explosions, assassinations: we are driven to believe that they are, so to speak, spontaneous.
  
  When the Romans were challenged by Christianity, Rome fell. The generation of Christians moved by their faith overwhelmed the regimented reserves of the Roman state. It was four years ago that Mr. Cheney first observed that there was a real fear that each fallen terrorist leads to the materialization of another terrorist. What can a “surge,” of the kind we are now relying upon, do to cope with endemic disease? The parallel even comes to mind of the eventual collapse of Prohibition, because there wasn’t any way the government could neutralize the appetite for alcohol, or the resourcefulness of the freeman in acquiring it.
  
  General Petraeus is a wonderfully commanding figure. But if the enemy is in the nature of a disease, he cannot win against it. Students of politics ask then the derivative question: How can the Republican party, headed by a president determined on a war he can’t see an end to, attract the support of a majority of the voters? General Petraeus, in his Pentagon briefing on April 26, reported persuasively that there has been progress, but cautioned, “I want to be very clear that there is vastly more work to be done across the board and in many areas, and again I note that we are really just getting started with the new effort.”
  
  The general makes it a point to steer away from the political implications of the struggle, but this cannot be done in the wider arena. There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican party will survive this dilemma.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...lkOTE5OWVkOTc=

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Really, it's my favorite government agency.

• A reader who works as a TSA screener emailed me a couple of weeks ago to say that he has had "easily dozens of run-ins with passengers (and other screeners)" about whether it's legal to carry on a 100 gram bottle. You see, 100 grams is 3.52 ounces by weight (just over the limit!). But, by volume, 100 grams of water = 100 milliliters, and 100 ml is 3.38 fluid ounces (just under the limit!). So that 100 gram bottle probably contains 3.38 fluid ounces of stuff, but 3.52 avoirdupois ounces. What to do?

link

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Replaced_Texan]

This makes me sad to read (spree: craigslist rant)

[Adder]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
This makes me sad to read (spree: craigslist rant)

Hank, care to opine about how these complaints are irrelevant because she and her husband signed up knowing that they were getting into this?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
Hank, care to opine about how these complaints are irrelevant because she and her husband signed up knowing that they were getting into this?

fuck you. i never said the troop's complaints are irrelevant. I said yours were. she (assuming not a fake) is understandably devastated. however, you could have found similar complaints (and they are widely available) from troops in WW2. that doesn't mean that WW2 was wrong, EVEN though lots of people in the States felt it was a war we didn't need to touch.

That troops on the ground face terrible costs has never been questioned by anyone. anyone, i suppose, besides you, when you questioned if they weren't too poorly educated to understand the risks.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Adder
Hank, care to opine about how these complaints are irrelevant because she and her husband signed up knowing that they were getting into this?

If that is real and not somebody playing a sick joke or writing something they think may help gin up antiwar sentiment, I don't think she was hoping it'd be co-opted for melodramatic smugness.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
fuck you. i never said the troop's complaints are irrelevant. I said yours were. she (assuming not a fake) is understandably devastated. however, you could have found similar complaints (and they are widely available) from troops in WW2. that doesn't mean that WW2 was wrong, EVEN though lots of people in the States felt it was a war we didn't need to touch.

That troops on the ground face terrible costs has never been questioned by anyone. anyone, i suppose, besides you, when you questioned if they weren't too poorly educated to understand the risks.

He's his brother's keeper. I sleep well at night knowing liberals everywhere are watching out for all of us who are too stupid to think for ourselves. We can only achieve true equality if someone smarter than us applies the proper handicapping out of the gate.

See, you... You're smart. So get get a position waaaay back. If you can manage to damage your brain enough that a liberal will feel sorry for you when you suffer the consequences of your action, you might get a little closer to pole position.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
If that is real and not somebody playing a sick joke or writing something they think may help gin up antiwar sentiment, I don't think she was hoping it'd be co-opted for melodramatic smugness.

if ppnyc weren't around the guy would be so clearly the biggest bottom feeding idiot with a nasty mean steak, only made bearable by the fact that his rants are so insipid as to be impotent. since she is around, he's only in second place.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
anyone, i suppose, besides you, when you questioned if they weren't too poorly educated to understand the risks.

Cite please?

But one of us (and now that I think about it maybe it wasn't you) said that Cindy Sheehan shouldn't be out protesting the war because her son must have support it because he re-enlisted after the war had already started. Why do you see a distinction here?

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
He's his brother's keeper. I sleep well at night knowing liberals everywhere are watching out for all of us who are too stupid to think for ourselves. We can only achieve true equality if someone smarter than us applies the proper handicapping out of the gate.

See, you... You're smart. So get get a position waaaay back. If you can manage to damage your brain enough that a liberal will feel sorry for you when you suffer the consequences of your action, you might get a little closer to pole position.

Leave it to Vonnegut.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
Cite please?

But one of us (and now that I think about it maybe it wasn't you) said that Cindy Sheehan shouldn't be out protesting the war because her son must have support it because he re-enlisted after the war had already started. Why do you see a distinction here?

distinction with what? the woman has the right to her outrage. you have no right to sling your vile attacks, however, especially when you now admit have no idea who posted whatever caused the synapse gaps in your brain to fire up and post that crap.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
if ppnyc weren't around the guy would be so clearly the biggest bottom feeding idiot with a nasty mean steak, only made bearable by the fact that his rants are so insipid as to be impotent. since she is around, he's only in second place.

Your hypocrisy is even more tiresome than Sebby's transported '70s political over-simplification.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
distinction with what? the woman has the right to her outrage. you have no right to sling your vile attacks, however, especially when you now admit have no idea who posted whatever caused the synapse gaps in your brain to fire up and post that crap.

Well, it was you, Spanky, Club or Penske. Most likely Penske or you.

But whatever. I agree with you that she has a right to her outrage. She even has a right to turn her outrage into political activism, should she choose to do so. Some around her do not extend that level of respect to Cindy Sheehan. I am glad to hear you are not one of them.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
Your hypocrisy is even more tiresome than Sebby's transported '70s political over-simplification.

if you're tired you should leave. no one would miss you.

if you stay be sure to be on firm ground before making hate attacks- anyone with any integrity who read your attack against me, then read "maybe it was someone else" cannot help but wonder how unhinged you truly are. try there is a reason you have to separately hit a "post" button. it's to make you think and make sure that you should post what you've typed. takle that opportunity.