Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
I believe the "Wag the Dog" accusations were made when he sent the missiles into the Sudanese "aspirin plant", but I could be mistaken.

That's a pretty difficult distinction to make -- and not one that any Repubs did make -- when the missiles were launched into Sudan and into Afghanistan on the same day.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
That's a pretty difficult distinction to make -- and not one that any Repubs did make -- when the missiles were launched into Sudan and into Afghanistan on the same day.

Perhaps if Billy had been able to restrain himself, this would not have been an issue.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Perhaps if Billy had been able to restrain himself, this would not have been an issue.

The beauty of this argument, of course, is that it absolves all subsequent sins, no matter how tangentially related. Kenneth Starr probably utters it repeatedly before sleep each night.

[Not Me]

I have all stafford loans and want to consolidate them. Which is the best way to go - consolidate directly through the feds or consolidate through sallie mae? Anyone look into this recently?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Perhaps if Billy had been able to restrain himself, this would not have been an issue.

This reminds me of when Bush I's campaign manager blamed Michael Dukakis for not defusing the "Pledge of Allegiance" issue.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Perhaps if Billy had been able to restrain himself, this would not have been an issue.

Mebbe so. But one thing is certain - if the Repubs had been able to restrain themselves, it surely would not have been an issue.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Mebbe so. But one thing is certain - if the Repubs had been able to restrain themselves, it surely would not have been an issue.

Do you not thing it was a reasonable conjecture, knowing what we know about Billy?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Serious question -- has the US proposed any multilateral action, or any action by the UN or the Security Council?

Yes. The U.S. (with some support from Britain) was strongly pushing the IAEA to refer Iran's violations to the U.N. Security Council for consideration and action. The IAEA had declined to do so, the Europeans, etc. trying to work it out with Iran out of fear that Iran would just say FU and pull out of the NPT regime. Remains to be seen how it will work out.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
I believe the "Wag the Dog" accusations were made when he sent the missiles into the Sudanese "aspirin plant", but I could be mistaken.

Same attack, same screaming.

And BS on the aspirin plant thing -- that plant was used intermittently to produce chemical agents. We just couldn't prove it without getting a bunch of folks killed, so we defaulted in the civil suit filed by the owner in U.S. court.

S_A_M

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Mebbe so. But one thing is certain - if the Repubs had been able to restrain themselves, it surely would not have been an issue.

If the prosecutors had only restrained themselves, the Martha Stewart case wouldn't be an issue, either.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Do you not thing it was a reasonable conjecture, knowing what we know about Billy?

There are things we know. Then there are the things we think we know. Among these, there are the things we think we know which we actually don't know, and things we think we know which we actually do know. Then there are the things we don't know, and which we know we don't know; not to be confused with the things we don't know but which we think we do know, which is previously mentioned.

All of which is to say, unless you were there and heard him say, "Damnation, if I launch a few missiles at this bin Laden guy nobody has ever heard of, maybe it'll distract the VRWC", you don't know. You may BELIEVE in your heart of hearts that's what was going on, but you don't know.

We know Billy was a philanderer. We don't know if he would launch missiles into a sovereign nation under the guise of taking out a terrorist leader solely or partially to distract everyone from his political troubles. The reasonableness of the conjecture that he would do so is, I believe, a function more of how you view him overall and less of what you think you know about him.

I could (and should) say I am likely to be the same about Bush.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Not Me
If the prosecutors had only restrained themselves, the Martha Stewart case wouldn't be an issue, either.

Yes, but if four years from now the prosecutors complain that Martha didn't mislead enough people, then they will be as hypocritical as you members of the Republiban.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Do you not thing it was a reasonable conjecture, knowing what we know about Billy?

No, it's a pretty moronic conjecture given what we know about Clinton. He was anything but an inept politician. Couldn't keep his dick in his pants, no doubt. Bad judgment, certainly. But launching missiles to distract people from an event that was dominating the headlines? Bullshit. Particularly when Wag the Dog had just come out -- it's not Clinton who pulled his ideas for second-rate movies (everyone remember "Boys' Town"?)

[sgtclub]

Interesting and honest expose from self-proclaimed liberatl Tom Junod in Esquire:

http://www.keepmedia.com/ShowItemDet...geId=1&x=7&y=9

About President George W. Bush, though, I felt the satisfaction of absolute certainty, and so uttered the words as essential to my morning as my cup of Kenyan and my dose of high-minded outrage on the editorial page of the Times : "What an asshole."

Then I read the text of the speech he gave and was thrown from one kind of certainty—the comfortable kind—into another. He was speaking, as he always does, of the moral underpinnings of our mission in Iraq. He was comparing, as he always does, the challenge that we face, in the evil of global terrorism, to the challenge our fathers and grandfathers faced, in the evil of fascism. He was insisting, as he always does, that the evil of global terrorism is exactly that, an evil—one of almost transcendent dimension that quite simply must be met, lest we be remembered for not meeting it . . . lest we allow it to be our judge. I agreed with most of what he said, as I often do when he's defining matters of principle. No, more than that, I thought that he was defining principles that desperately needed defining, with a clarity that those of my own political stripe demonstrate only when they're decrying either his policies or his character. He was making a moral proposition upon which he was basing his entire presidency—or said he was basing his entire presidency—and I found myself in the strange position of buying into the proposition without buying into the presidency, of buying into the words while rejecting, utterly, the man who spoke them. There is, of course, an easy answer for this seeming moral schizophrenia: the distance between the principles and the policy, between the mission and "Mission Accomplished," between the war on terror and the war in Iraq. Still, I have to admit to feeling a little uncertain of my disdain for this president when forced to contemplate the principle that might animate his determination to stay the course in a war that very well may be the end of him politically. I have to admit that when I listen to him speak, with his unbending certainty, I sometimes hear an echo of the same nagging question I ask myself after I hear a preacher declaim the agonies of hellfire or an insurance agent enumerate the cold odds of the actuarial tables. Namely: What if he's right?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
No, it's a pretty moronic conjecture given what we know about Clinton. He was anything but an inept politician. Couldn't keep his dick in his pants, no doubt. Bad judgment, certainly. But launching missiles to distract people from an event that was dominating the headlines? Bullshit. Particularly when Wag the Dog had just come out -- it's not Clinton who pulled his ideas for second-rate movies (everyone remember "Boys' Town"?)

Jesus Sidd - we'll never flip him if we keep pissing him off.