Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[SlaveNoMore]

taxwonk
Your whole point is that Kerry is vile for pointing out that Allawi was allowing himself to be used to promote George Bush's electoral agenda, and yet you claim he isn't a puppet?

Allawi came to Congress to thank the US for liberating the people of Iraq and to describe to the joint houses of Congress the status on the ground. He spoke of the victories and the long road ahead. Contrary to some, he did not lie about the conditions on the ground and make up some stories of a "kite-flying paradise" like FatMoore. He also asked the US to stand firm in its resolve and mission.

Rather than perform his Senatorial duties (i.e. show up), Kerry chose instead to mock Allawi from afar. Kerry then sent out his "puppet" Joe Lockhart to further condemn the man.

Since Kerry's explicit agenda is to now turn-tail and run, and to get UN approval for any future defensive actions, I guess one could read Allawi's comments as "promoting Bush's agenda".

Tell me, why wasn't Allawi merely promoting the IRAQI agenda?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Gattigap

In engineering school the people with better graphs typically had lesser content. No offense.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Way to rebut yourself.

You - 1
You - 0

Way to recognize an honest question from a flame.

Me - 1
You - 0

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Tell me, why wasn't Allawi merely promoting the IRAQI agenda?

Because the admin insisted that he stick to the talking points.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Because the admin insisted that he stick to the talking points.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Allawi came to Congress to thank the US for liberating the people of Iraq and to describe to the joint houses of Congress the status on the ground. He spoke of the victories and the long road ahead. Contrary to some, he did not lie about the conditions on the ground and make up some stories of a "kite-flying paradise" like FatMoore. He also asked the US to stand firm in its resolve and mission.

Rather than perform his Senatorial duties (i.e. show up), Kerry chose instead to mock Allawi from afar. Kerry then sent out his "puppet" Joe Lockhart to further condemn the man.

Since Kerry's explicit agenda is to now turn-tail and run, and to get UN approval for any future defensive actions, I guess one could read Allawi's comments as "promoting Bush's agenda".

I thought you were just repeating GOP spin for fun, but then I got to this last paragraph, which is just plain ignorant. You guys betray a fear of Kerry and a deep concern about Bush when you insist on attributing to Kerry views he does not hold. On Kerry's "explicit agenda" for Iraq, he gave a speech a week ago at NYU* which prompted Bush to say that Kerry proposes "exactly what we're currently doing." The "UN approval" canard plays well with the black-helicopter crowd, but I would have thought you were above that.

* Fight ignorance: read it

eta: Oh, and spare some of your ire for Donald Rumsfeld why don't you?

THE PUREST FORM OF CUTTING AND RUNNING: Controversy exploded when Kerry foreign policy adviser Jamie Rubin advocated withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq even as the insurgency rages:

• Any implication that that place has to be peaceful and perfect before we can reduce coalition and U.S. forces I think would obviously be unwise because it's never been peaceful and perfect and it isn't likely to be.

Oh, sorry, that wasn't Jamie Rubin, or anyone else from the Kerry camp. It was Donald Rumsfeld on Friday, advocating the purest form of cutting and running there is--backing away under fire.

IRAQ'd

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I thought you were just repeating GOP spin for fun, but then I got to this last paragraph, which is just plain ignorant. You guys betray a fear of Kerry and a deep concern about Bush when you insist on attributing to Kerry views he does not hold. On Kerry's "explicit agenda" for Iraq, he gave a speech a week ago at NYU* which prompted Bush to say that Kerry proposes "exactly what we're currently doing." The "UN approval" canard plays well with the black-helicopter crowd, but I would have thought you were above that.

* Fight ignorance: read it

Kerry have given speeches that say lots of things. You can't point to any one speech to say that he didn't say something else a week earlier.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
In engineering school the people with better graphs typically had lesser content. No offense.

Ooooooo, low blow.

No fair, Hank. You don't see me observing that in liberal arts colleges, the free-verse afficianados were all stoned slackers, do you?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski

OTOH, you're learning quickly.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
On Kerry's "explicit agenda" for Iraq, he gave a speech a week ago at NYU* which prompted Bush to say that Kerry proposes "exactly what we're currently doing." The "UN approval" canard plays well with the black-helicopter crowd, but I would have thought you were above that.

* Fight ignorance: read it

Kerry's positions on Iraq have changed so much in the last month - since the Clinton people have apparently advised him to channel Dean - that I highly doubt the NYU speech is (1) what he even thinks today and (2) what he'll say during the debate.

The UN approval line is a nice mantra and perhaps partially untrue. However, you have to love it that (1) he parrots the words of Kofi Annan (begging the question, is one of these men a puppet?) and (2) he promises to get additional aid from France and Germany - which is immediately rebuffed.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Kerry's positions on Iraq have changed so much in the last month - since the Clinton people have apparently advised him to channel Dean - that I highly doubt the NYU speech is (1) what he even thinks today and (2) what he'll say during the debate.

You guys like to say this, so I refer you back to the article cited here by me and (noted lefty) Less in which the SF Chronicle's Washington bureau chief, Marc Sandalow, actually looked at Kerry's position over time -- instead of the GOP talking points you've been sucking up somewhere -- and reported that's he's been consistent over time. Moderate, so he gets attacked from both sides, and maybe too nuanced to make an effective presidential candidated, but consistent:

• No argument is more central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq.
  
  * * * * *
  
  Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation.
  
  As foreign policy emerged as a dominant issue in the Democratic primaries and later in the general election, Kerry clung to a nuanced, middle-of-the road -- yet largely consistent -- approach to Iraq. Over and over, Kerry enthusiastically supported a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even as he aggressively criticized Bush for the manner in which he did so.
  
  Kerry repeatedly described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan for the post-war peace.
  
  There were times when Kerry's emphasis shifted for what appear to be political reasons. In the fall of 2003, for example, when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean surged to the top of Democratic polls based on an anti-war platform, Kerry's criticism of the president grew stronger. There are many instances in which clumsy phrases and tortuously long explanations make Kerry difficult to follow. And there are periods, such as last week, when the sharpness of Kerry's words restating old positions seem to suggest a change.
  
  Yet taken as a whole, Kerry has offered the same message ever since talk of attacking Iraq became a national conversation more than two years ago.

The UN approval line is a nice mantra and perhaps partially untrue. However, you have to love it that (1) he parrots the words of Kofi Annan (begging the question, is one of these men a puppet?) and (2) he promises to get additional aid from France and Germany - which is immediately rebuffed.

It's completely untrue. I cannot believe that any major Democrat or Republican who thought the country was truly threatened would decline to act because he or she lacked UN approval. The real point is that the UN is a force multiplier, and we are stronger in the long run when we use it well.

[Gattigap]

Best description I've read of the 2000 Bush/Gore debates (from here) was that "Bush spoke English as if it were his second language and Gore spoke it as if it were your second language. The smirking jerk versus the condescending preppy." This characterization, Kerry absolutely must avoid.

Any thoughts on the upcoming debates? I haven't read too much about the expectations games going on, though I'm sure that they are.

It'll be interesting to see if they can get Kerry a personality injection, and what strategy they'll devise for Bush now that the "Caveman Lawyer" strategy is now inapplicable.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Gattigap
It'll be interesting to see if they can get Kerry a personality injection, and what strategy they'll devise for Bush now that the "Caveman Lawyer" strategy is now inapplicable.

"He used to be a caveman,
but now he's a lawyer.
Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer!"


"Thank you! Thank you very much, thank you! First of all, let me say how happy I am to be your nominee for the United States Senate! [ applause ] You know.. thank you.. I don't really understand your Congress, or your system of checks and balances.. because, as I said during the campaign - I'm just a caveman! I fell on some ice, and later got thawed out by scientists. But there is one thing I do know - we must do everything in our power to lower the Capital Gains Tax. Thank you!"

[Gattigap]

The good news: There've already been some elections in Iraq!

The bad news: They guys we like are, uh, not doing too well.

• In the September balloting, the delegate from the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Jawad al-Maliki, came in first with 56 votes. This is a Shiite group that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld lambasted as a tool of Iran during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Another Iraqi even less attractive to Washington, the Secretary General of the Iraqi Communist Party (www.iraqcp.org), Hamid Majid Moussa, came in second with 55 votes. Meanwhile, Rasim al-Awadi, the delegate from the Iraqi National Accord--the group once backed by the CIA and whose leader, Iyad Allawi, who was supported by the Bush administration to become the Iraqi prime minister--came in third with 53 votes. Nasir A`if al-Ani--the delegate from the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni group, sympathetic to the Ba’athist-based, anti-American resistance operating both west and north of Baghdad--came in fourth with 48 votes.
  
  By any count, getting only one ally elected out of four seats on this potentially all-important electoral oversight body does not bode well for the Bush administration. After the Iraqi National Council was formed, but before it voted, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, while at President Bush’s family ranch in Crawford, Texas, declared: “The selection of the council is a sign that the Iraqi people will not allow terrorist elements to stand in the way of their democratic future.”
  
  But what if elections in Iraq early next year lead to a government unlike anything ever expected by the Bush administration? The respected Arabist from the University of Michigan, Juan Cole, was among the first to report the Iraqi National Council election results on his blog, www.juancole.com. “So,” he quipped, “this list is further evidence that the U.S. invaded Iraq to install in power a coalition of Communists, Islamists and ex-Ba’athist nationalists. If you had said such a thing 3 years ago you would have been laughed at.”

[sgtclub]

duplicate post