Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Not Me
Iraq=flypaper. Regardless of the reasons we attacked, the outcome has been car bombs driven by arabs killing other arabs on arab soil (and unfortunately also US soldiers). But since we invaded Iraq, no planes flying into skyscrapers in US cities and no car bombs in the Mall of America. The arab/muslim terrorists are less focused on Israel since we invaded Iraq, too.

Cousin whose husband is fighting in Afghanistan -- and who fits the undecided category -- wants to know why Kerry was the only one who wanted to talk about Afghanistan. He may be swinging her.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Cousin whose husband is fighting in Afghanistan -- and who fits the undecided category -- wants to know why Kerry was the only one who wanted to talk about Afghanistan. He may be swinging her.

What did Kerry have to say about Afghanistan other than we let Afghan warlords go after OBL. He had nothing productive to say and nothing of substance to say.

FYI - OBL is dead. We may never find his body.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I was referring only to all of the Jews in West Palm Beach who voted for Buchanan, without getting into all of the recounted chad, etc.

West Palm is not 100% Jewish Ty. And guess what? If you were a gentile living in a county that is 85% Jewish people over the age of 75, you might start agreeing with the Nazi parts of Buchanan's platform more then you do now.


In-laws visiting this weekend!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by dtb
The difficulty with that approach (and I agree it would be an effective one were it not for what I'm about to say), is that Bush refuses to acknowledge that there is even a problem in Iraq. To hear him talk about it, everything is going just swimmingly. Notwithstanding the fact that virtually every news-gathering organization in the world believes Iraq is in complete and utter chaos.

Well, I've never gotten a witness to break down and give me an admission, nor have I ever seen one. You just hammer away, forcing him to say implausible, absurd things, and those little absurdities build up until the audience or jury says "Fuck, this guy has no credibility."

You never convert the rabid partisans, but you do get the swing voters. This whole election is Bush betting on the people who give him a pass on his obvious lies or are too stupid to recognize the lies outnumbering the swing voters who get sick of his lies and vote ABB.

[SlaveNoMore]

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
My eight year old saw a chunk of the debate last night (1/2 hour in the middle - she woke up and came down while we were watching). I asked her what she thought this morning. Her answer: "Bush kept saying the same thing over and over - did he think we weren't listening the first time?"

Did you remind the little tot that Kerry never says the same thing twice?

There you have it - Bush's pitch insulted the intelligence of an 8 year old. In his defense, she's a very smart girl.

Your 8 year old must also not be responding to post-debate Gallup polls:

***Demonstrated he is tough enough for the job Bush 54/ Kerry
37
***Likable Bush 48/Kerry 41
***Believable Bush 48 / Kerry 45
***Agreed with you more on the issues you care about Bush 49/ Kerry 46
***Had a good understanding of the issues 41/41
***Expressed himself more clearly Bush 32/Kerry 60

On Iraq: Before Debate: 54 said the president would do a better job handling Iraq than Kerry (40)
After: 54/43

Kerry needed to bond with the American people. All he did was demonstrate (1) he is better public speaker, (2) he is taller, and (3) he doesn't know the difference between a Nazi death camp and an Russian outpost.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Washington Post reported today that "the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush's reelection campaign had been heavily involved in drafting the speech given to Congress last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi." I imagine that all of you who criticized Joe Lockhart will be lining up to apologize now that subsequent reporting has proven him correct. It turns out that one of the puppeteers' names is "Dan Senor, former spokesman for the CPA who has more recently represented the Bush campaign in media appearances." I imagine that y'all will also be criticizing the Bushies for demeaning the putatively independent and sovereign Iraqi government by enlisting Allawi in the re-election campaign.

TDS nailed the (uncanny!) similarities the same evening after Allawi's remarks. WaPo's falling down on the job.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Your 8 year old must also not be responding to post-debate Gallup polls:

***Demonstrated he is tough enough for the job Bush 54/ Kerry
37
***Likable Bush 48/Kerry 41
***Believable Bush 48 / Kerry 45
***Agreed with you more on the issues you care about Bush 49/ Kerry 46
***Had a good understanding of the issues 41/41
***Expressed himself more clearly Bush 32/Kerry 60

On Iraq: Before Debate: 54 said the president would do a better job handling Iraq than Kerry (40)
After: 54/43

Kerry needed to bond with the American people. All he did was demonstrate (1) he is better public speaker, (2) he is taller, and (3) he doesn't know the difference between a Nazi death camp and an Russian outpost.

This is my take on it, too (as I stated last night). Joe average american isn't impressed by the skills one learns in debate club. Not saying joe average american is someone to be admired or someone to emulate. However, am saying that joe average american will decide this election. Not the intelligensia. So it really doesn't matter if Kerry doesn't know the difference between a Nazi death camp and a Russian outpost. But it does matter if joe average american doesn't like or identify with Kerry.

Hell, even most Dems don't like or identify with Kerry. They just hate Bush more than they don't like Kerry.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Guiliani might be a good candidate, but a talking head he is not. Sure, Jon Stewart was a complete partisan and totally underprepared to boot, but so was Rudy, and Guiliani's defense of W's performance was embarrassing to all three of them. "Saddam Hussein was a weapon of mass destruction"? It's like Sorkin's writing the dialog --- making the GOP sound stupider than it is.

2. It was a stupid line, and I expected Rudy to do much better.

I did like the Indecision '04 special last night, though, particularly the faux-spin room bit:

"Jon, the Kerry camp would like to remind everyone that Kerry was raised by rich, French Communist homosexuals. He never should've been able to connect with the common man. He wins this debate!"

"Jon, the Bush camp reminds you that Kerry is the smartest.man.in.the.world. The President never should have won this debate. The President, you should know, under some tests has qualified as borderline retarded. A retarded man beat a Senator tonight, Jon! You've got to reelect this man!"

[SlaveNoMore]

Apparently, James Lileks heard enough last night, and boy he seems ticked today.

Best part

• But mostly I hate the debates because I simply cannot abide hearing certain statements I’ve been hearing over, and over, and over again. I can’t take any more talk about bringing allies to the table. Which ones? Brazil? Mynmar? Microfrickin’nesia? Are there some incredibly important and powerful nations out there whose existence has hitherto escaped me? Fermany? Gerance? The Galactic Order of the Belgian Dominion? Did we piss off the Vulcans? Who? If we mean “France and Germany,” then please explain to me why the reluctant participation of these two countries somehow bestows the magic kiss of legitimacy. They want in? Fine. They don’t? Fine. At this point mooning over France is like being that sophomore loser dorm pal who spent his dateless weekends telling his loser roommate about a high school sweetheart who stood him up for the prom. Give it up. Move on. I understand; they are wise and nuanced, we are young and dumb. We’re the cowboy leaning with his back against the bar, elbows on the rail, watching the door; we need our European betters to teach us how to ape the subtle forms of Nijinsky, limbs arrayed in the exquisite form of the Dying Swan. Understood. But I don’t want to be the Dying Swan. And I don’t want posture lessons from a country that spent the last 20 years flopping on its back and grabbing its ankles when Saddam showed up waving stacks of Francs in exchange for bang-sticks. Don’t you think I know about France’s relations with Saddam? Surely the advocates of the French Touch must know, and don’t care. Or they don’t know – in which case their advice is useless.
  
  Germany? Whatever.
  
  And it took lots of dead Americans to be able to say that.
  
  Also dead Russians. Is Russia the great ally we’ve dissed? If we invite Russia to help, then we have to tell them things. I don’t want to tell them things. At least as they relate to the battlefield.
  
  Perhaps the “ally” is that big blue wobbly mass known as the UN, that paragon of moral clarity, that conscience of the globe. You want to really anger a UN official? Tow his car. Short of that you can get away with anything. (Sudan is on the human rights commission, to cite a prominent and amusing detail. It’s like putting Tony Soprano on the New Jersey Waste Management Regulation Board.) I don’t worry that the UN is angry with us. I’d be worried if they weren’t. And I find it interesting that someone who would complain about outsourcing peevishly notes that we hired <psycho screeching strings> HALLIBURTON </strings> to do the work instead of throwing buckets of billions to French and German contractors who sold them the jets and built the bunkers.
  
  I’ve been hearing this shite for years! That’s why I can’t stand the debates! ENOUGH WITH FRANCE AND GERMANY!
  
  (pause; huffing into a plastic bag to restore blood chemistry)

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Ya know, for this offensive thingy to work, we gotta be attacking somebody.

I hear you loud and clear. You make a fine point - why not Iraq? We had to start somewhere and it was in the middle of everything and an easily winnable war. But when you attack a third party on a comically bad pretext, you cede the necessary moral authority behind the pre-emption. You need the moral authority here. We had it in Afghanistan, we had it in Pakistan. We could have pressed Musharraf to let us into the provinces and run roughshod through the whole place, taking out madrases left and right, really making an impact on the brand of Islam we're up against. Instead we're in Iraq, one of the few places where a secular dictator did not allow radical Islam to flourish. The war should out in the desert in Afghanistan and Pakistan, further from Israel and the Middle East. Instead, we've moved it right next door to Israel and put it next to Saudi Arabia, the biggest source of militant islam in the world.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Not Me
What did Kerry have to say about Afghanistan other than we let Afghan warlords go after OBL. He had nothing productive to say and nothing of substance to say.

FYI - OBL is dead. We may never find his body.

You missed the critical part on Afghanistan - that invading Iraq diverted attention from the critical fight in Afghanistan. This is the reality our soldiers in Afghanistan feel every day of the week. Bush's cavalier "we can do both" ignores the frustrations being faced on a daily basis by those fighting in this half-forgetten country that just happens to be more populous than Iraq and have tougher, more diverse terrain.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Did you remind the little tot that Kerry never says the same thing twice?

Your 8 year old must also not be responding to post-debate Gallup polls:

***Demonstrated he is tough enough for the job Bush 54/ Kerry
37
***Likable Bush 48/Kerry 41
***Believable Bush 48 / Kerry 45
***Agreed with you more on the issues you care about Bush 49/ Kerry 46
***Had a good understanding of the issues 41/41
***Expressed himself more clearly Bush 32/Kerry 60

On Iraq: Before Debate: 54 said the president would do a better job handling Iraq than Kerry (40)
After: 54/43

Kerry needed to bond with the American people. All he did was demonstrate (1) he is better public speaker, (2) he is taller, and (3) he doesn't know the difference between a Nazi death camp and an Russian outpost.

The debate ended roughly 15 or so hours ago. How scientifically accurate do you think those numbers are? Fuck polls. I hate Bush and Kerry and I'd score it this way:

Bush won the first 30 min.

Kerry won the next 60 min.

If you prefer a football score, I'd say Kerry won 24-17. This morning I said Kerry won by a field goal. I now amend that after watching some streaming video. Bush looked like he'd shot all his talking points early and had no original thoughts later in the debate.

Oh, BTW, I don't know if its true, but MoveOn is alleging Gallup's owner is a Jesus Freak, so, in addition to discounting the polls because a poll based on something that took place 15 hrs ago - prior to most respondents' going to bed - is a piece of shit by necessity, its also worth considering the source.

I'd rethink offering poll numbers as proof of anything.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You need the moral authority here. We had it in Afghanistan, we had it in Pakistan.

What do we need the moral authority for? To get help from France and Germany? Yeah, I am sure that if only we had France and Germany on our side, we could win the war on islamic terrorism.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
We could have pressed Musharraf to let us into the provinces and run roughshod through the whole place, taking out madrases left and right, really making an impact on the brand of Islam we're up against.

Get real.

[ltl/fb]

I liked the stuff about Poland being a crucial coalition member on TDS last night.

So the RNC did mass mailings in West Virginia and Arkansas that basically said if you vote for Democrats, they will ban the Bible? Charming.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Gattigap
2. It was a stupid line, and I expected Rudy to do much better.

Guiliani would suck off W and swish the load around in his mouth if he thought it would get him to higher office. Rudy's a whore, plain and simple. I've seen him say some amazingly ridiculous things in support of Bush recently. He's suspended disbelief and is just taking orders from the party. Rudy won't speak any sense until after Nov 2, at which point he'll suddenly regain consciousness.