Politics: A new beginning

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
You spend months making up stuff in support of the "he lied!" crap, and then blame your incivility on me by saying that I shouldn't have elected such a liar.

He said things that flat-out were not true. No one needs to make things up. What's the defense that he's not lying? Intent?

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
bitch please! if you are a Democrat who felt going into Iraq was correct*, then the "lack of a plan" is a red herring. None of them have a plan**, just disagreement with what's going on. If this purposeless bitching actually changes what happens in Iraq in a negative fashion***, then the Dems are closer to doing real harm, commercials aside.

*Larry, I don't think you were here pre-war, and I assume you would be against it, but most of the Presidential candidates did vote for a war.
**I haven't watched the debates but aside from Kerry reminding us he was sitting on a destroyer in the ocean during Vietnam, have any offered any alternate plan?
*** I really hope Bush doesn't knuckle under to this and compromise to silence this crap.

Weren't you saying just last week that we didn't have to worry, that this president was a man of conviction and would see this task to its end no matter what the polls say? Why then are you now worried about the Dem criticism doing "harm"?

On the larger point, I believe that this crew had their shot to reconstruct and remake Iraq, as they had said was the primary aim of this regime change enterprise. I believe that this enterprise hasn't gone so well. I believe that I as a citizen am justified in criticizing what has gone on based on those facts alone. I believe the true "harm" will arise if I see something like this go awry and I stay silent. Clearly you disagree.

Moving further, if we're talking about a candidate for public office rather than a disgruntled drone typing his shrill opinions at faceless internet personas, the answer to the what's-your-plan question should not be "these are the different things I would have done then". Rather, the answer should be "Here's what I'll do when I'm in office."

I have heard several statements from the Dem candidates to this effect, most notably from Clark and Dean. But if your not being aware of these statements allows you to keep ignoring the criticisms of the Dems and those who agree with them as "pointless bitching", then I suggest you don't make much of an effort to find them.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
On the larger point, I believe that this crew had their shot to reconstruct and remake Iraq . . .

Wow. I guess those "cure cancer" people are gonna get - what? - two more months?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
Weren't you saying just last week that we didn't have to worry, that this president was a man of conviction and would see this task to its end no matter what the polls say? Why then are you now worried about the Dem criticism doing "harm"?

On the larger point, I believe that this crew had their shot to reconstruct and remake Iraq, as they had said was the primary aim of this regime change enterprise. I believe that this enterprise hasn't gone so well. I believe that I as a citizen am justified in criticizing what has gone on based on those facts alone. I believe the true "harm" will arise if I see something like this go awry and I stay silent. Clearly you disagree.

Moving further, if we're talking about a candidate for public office rather than a disgruntled drone typing his shrill opinions at faceless internet personas, the answer to the what's-your-plan question should not be "these are the different things I would have done then". Rather, the answer should be "Here's what I'll do when I'm in office."

I have heard several statements from the Dem candidates to this effect, most notably from Clark and Dean. But if your not being aware of these statements allows you to keep ignoring the criticisms of the Dems and those who agree with them as "pointless bitching", then I suggest you don't make much of an effort to find them.

Clark/Dean don't come under my statement because they didn't vote to go to war in the first place. I was asking about the others. I believe almost everyone on the Board agrees with me about the others.

I mean, a few thousand irregulars hide out in the cities. Bush didn't have a plan for that- not sure I agree he could have been expected - but what would Kerry do instead of what is being done? Gephardt?

For the record, I am not disgruntled or a drone. My opinions are often vapid, but seldom shrill.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
He said things that flat-out were not true.

We've definately did this one to death. Most peopel on the Board agree you didn't show any lies. Is it really necessary to do over?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
He said things that flat-out were not true

Are we back to parsing "learned" again, when the Brits still stand by their statements? Or that he shouldn't have used the word "imminent" in a sentence, even though he was expressly disclaiming imminence at the time? Or is it the WMD thing, where everyone who knew anything for years, including Clinton, believed the same thing? Or maybe it's the terrorism-link thing, where all new evidence seems to support a direct tie to AQ, but even if that doesn't turn out to be true, it seems to be accepted that SH was providing huge support to, at the very least, terrorists in one of the most unsettling hotspots in the world? Or possibly it was that SH was a bad guy, and you're not convinced, and think that maybe he just had a different point of view that we should respect in its diversity?

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
Wow. I guess those "cure cancer" people are gonna get - what? - two more months?

Hmmmm. I wonder how strong GWB's support would have been before the war if he had compared building a democratic Iraq to curing cancer. I would think less, but then I remember that he could have just shifted his focus to one of his other justifications for the war.

[edited because i'm eating lunch and apparently can't type at the same time]

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Clark/Dean don't come under my statement because they didn't vote to go to war in the first place. I was asking about the others. I believe almost everyone on the Board agrees with me about the others.

I mean, a few thousand irregulars hide out in the cities. Bush didn't have a plan for that- not sure I agree he could have been expected - but what would Kerry do instead of what is being done? Gephardt?

For the record, I am not disgruntled or a drone. My opinions are often vapid, but seldom shrill.

So if Clark and Dean don't come under your statement, does that mean their bitching isn't "pointless"? Because frankly I'm not going to be taking sides with Kerry or Gephardt anytime soon.

I am the disgruntled drone. You are the faceless internet persona. I will try to be more clear next time.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
You are the faceless internet persona.

think of me as looking like my avatar. that's what i tell all the chicks!!!!!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
So if Clark and Dean don't come under your statement, does that mean their bitching isn't "pointless"?

they get the benefit of dodging with the "I never would have gone in." It'll be a losing argument next November, but at least it's not flat out hypocritical.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
Hmmmm. I wonder how strong GWB's support would have been before the war if he had compared building a democratic Iraq to curing cancer.

I know. I wish he hadn't downplayed it so much, saying things like this in 2/2003:

"Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more.
. . . .
Much is asked of America in this year 2003. The work ahead is demanding. It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in a country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal divisions, and war. It will be difficult to cultivate liberty and peace in the Middle East, after so many generations of strife. Yet, the security of our nation and the hope of millions depend on us, and Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard. We have met great tests in other times, and we will meet the tests of our time. "

He made it sound so easy. What a liar.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Are we back to parsing "learned" again, when the Brits still stand by their statements? Or that he shouldn't have used the word "imminent" in a sentence, even though he was expressly disclaiming imminence at the time? Or is it the WMD thing, where everyone who knew anything for years, including Clinton, believed the same thing? Or maybe it's the terrorism-link thing, where all new evidence seems to support a direct tie to AQ, but even if that doesn't turn out to be true, it seems to be accepted that SH was providing huge support to, at the very least, terrorists in one of the most unsettling hotspots in the world? Or possibly it was that SH was a bad guy, and you're not convinced, and think that maybe he just had a different point of view that we should respect in its diversity?

I have a hard time believing that this is really up for discussion. A whole range of administration people said things about Iraq that have now been shown to be baseless. There were no WMD -- no matter what Clinton believed, it was Bush who went to war over it -- and there is no direct tie to Al Qaeda. If Hussein was supporting terrorists,* he doesn't seem to have been doing so any more than every other government in that part of the world. The Administration clearly believed they were going to go in and find support that they didn't find. Their (and your) efforts to marshal scattered pieces of evidence on these subjects are reminiscent of the teenaged boys and elderly men who were sent out with Panzerfausts to try to stop the Red Army from its westward progress in 1945.

And no one but no one disputes that Hussein was a bad man. Throwing that into the argument is a cheap rhetorical ploy to distract from what the Administration was saying.

Speaking of rhetoric, you've done a nice job of spinning the Niger uranium thing as a sign of persistence on the part of Bush's critics, rather than an illustration of the Administration's disregard for the truth in its effort to muster support for the war. You don't need to parse what "learned" meant. Bush -- or someone writing his speech -- kept that sentence in over the objections of the CIA because they wanted to scare the American people about the threat of WMD. No WMD have been found. I say this again only on the off-chance that you've been reading the National Review for so long that this basic fact is still eluding you.

* The lack of evidence that Hussein was supporting terrorists can be seen in the repeated efforts by Cheney and others to point to Ansar-al-Islam's activities, even though they were functioning in a part of Iraq outside of Hussein's control.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by bilmore
And, yes, I do think that the level, and tone, and general pervasiveness, has vastly soured. There were the rabid voices contra-Clinton, sometimes many, after Clinton sort of called in his own incomings by getting blown in the White House by a teenager, fer gawd's sakes. (It's like he had a contest amongst his staff, with the assignment of finding the one way to generate the most Leno jokes on one topic in history. Talk about self-destructive.)

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth here. Profess to hate puke politics, but then say the last guy brought it on himself. And to say those rabid voices arose only after Monicagate is rather, um, revisionist.

But now, there is one rabid voice contra-Bush, and it's your party. The whole damn party. Yeah, I see it as a deterioration of the discourse.

This has got to be the stupidest thing you've ever posted. Of course the loyal opposition despises GWB; he's never offered them an olive branch after 2000. He interpreted an electoral college victory as a mandate for sweeping policy changes across the board. He appointed Ashcroft as AG. Taking his lead, the GOP minions in the House and Senate think that it's acceptable to hold legislative conferences on sweeping legislation at which industry lobbyists are welcome, but Dems are not.

Saying your guy is being unfairly savaged by his opposition, and more so than his predecessor, remains a gaping hole in the credibility of your political analysis. What say you, fellow posters? Is is more plausible that attacks on the veracity of the sitting president were invented by gutless toads in January 2001, or that Bilmore had simply not noticed the goring of other people's oxen for the prior eight years?

I like your logic. You spend months making up stuff in support of the "he lied!" crap, and then blame your incivility on me by saying that I shouldn't have elected such a liar.

Stop foaming. I said Bush oversold the war. I don't need to adopt your word for what happened any more than I need to adopt Eli Pariser's or Barbra Streisand's.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
He made it sound so easy. What a liar.

Ah, point well taken. Bilmore, will you do me a favor and let me know when it is ok to criticize the admin's prosecution of this difficult task in Iraq? I certainly hope it's before we have to write another $87 billion check. Because frankly I don't think any of us would feel ok about spending that kind of money without asking where it's going. But maybe you disagree on that. We haven't given them that much time, after all.

On the same day that President Bush told a Las Vegas audience that things were “getting better” for the United States in Iraq, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist hedged that bet after a Memphis speech Tuesday night, responding, “No, it’s as bad as it looks,” when asked if there was “light at the end of the tunnel” in Iraq.

http://www.memphisflyer.com/onthefly...ew.asp?ID=2703

I looked for other reporting of this exchange, but found no word on whether Dr. Frist has expressed similar sentiments regarding cancer research.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
they get the benefit of dodging with the "I never would have gone in." It'll be a losing argument next November, but at least it's not flat out hypocritical.

Here's what I don't get. From your point of view, why can't someone say "I would have invaded iraq, but I would have done x differently"? Why is it, if one is in favor invading Iraq, one necessarily must agree with the admin's prosecution of the war and the reconstruction thereafter or else be branded a hypocrite?