A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[SlaveNoMore]

SlaveNoMore
It's even greater to watch you lefties bemoan and belittle all of the democratic progress currently occurring in the world.

On this note, the latest from Rich Lowry:

• When Good News Strikes”
  Glum liberals’ try coping with a changing world.
  
  If the world that Democrats have been living in lately were made into a reality disaster show, it would be called “When Good News Strikes.”
  
  One of the inconveniences of political debate is that occasionally reality intrudes to invalidate a given position no matter how much its partisans want to believe it. This is what has been happening recently to the argument that the invasion of Iraq produced an irrecoverable mess. Although surely setbacks still await us in Iraq and the Middle East, stunning headlines from the region have left many liberals perversely glum about upbeat news.
  
  Schadenfreude has faded into its happiness-hating opposite, gluckschmerz. Liberal journalist Kurt Andersen has written in New York magazine of the guilty “pleasure liberals took in bad news from Iraq, which seemed sure to hurt the administration.” According to Andersen, the successful Iraqi elections changed the mood. For Bush critics, this inspiring event was “unexpectedly unsettling,” since they so “hat[ed] the idea of a victory presided over by the Bush team.”
  
  The legendary liberal editor Charlie Peters confessed to his own attack of gluckschmerz: “New York Post columnist John Podhoretz asked liberals: ‘Did you momentarily feel a rush of disappointment [at the news of the Jan. 30 Iraq election] because you knew, you just knew, that this was going to redound to the credit of George W. Bush?’ I plead guilty …”
  
  On his show the other night, comedian Jon Stewart — half-jokingly — expressed a feeling of dread at the changes in the Middle East and the credit President Bush will get for them. “Oh my God!” he said. “He’s gonna be a great — pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, ‘Reagan was nothing compared to this guy.’ Like, my kid’s gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.” Stewart is badly in need of the consolation of a yet-to-be-written pop theological tract, “When Good Things Happen to Bad Presidents.”
  
  The Democratic foreign-policy expert who was Stewart’s guest that night, Nancy Soderberg, tried to comfort him, pointing out that the budding democratic revolution in the Middle East still might fail: “There’s always hope that this might not work.” There is historical precedent for that, of course. Liberal revolutions failed in Europe in 1848 and Eastern Europe in 1968. What is an entirely new phenomenon is liberals calling such reverses for human freedom — half-jokingly or not — occasions for “hope.”
  
  Soderberg added: “There’s still Iran and North Korea, don’t forget. There’s hope.” The way Bogart and Bergman “will always have Paris,” liberals now tell themselves they “will always have Iran and North Korea.” No matter the good news anywhere else, these nuke-hungry rogue states will provide grounds for bad-mouthing Bush foreign policy. But these two intractable problems won’t seriously detract from Bush’s world-changing accomplishment should he succeed in transforming the Middle East.
  
  Some liberals are reluctantly giving him his due. The New York Times surveyed the fresh air sweeping the region and concluded, “The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit.” Liberal commentator Daniel Schorr remarked: “During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush said that ‘a liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region.’ He may have had it right.”
  
  Has the administration gotten a few fortunate breaks in the Middle East lately? Well, yes. Asked how he seemed to make so many lucky saves, the great Montreal Canadien goalie Ken Dryden explained that it was his job to be in the right position to get lucky. By toppling Saddam Hussein and insisting on elections in Iraq, while emphasizing the power of freedom, Bush has put the United States in the right position to encourage and take advantage of democratic irruptions in the region.
  
  And so we have created the conditions for being pleasantly surprised by the positive drift of events in the Middle East, or unpleasantly surprised — depending on your politics.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
It's even greater to watch you lefties bemoan and belittle all of the democratic progress currently occurring in the world.

We think progress is wonderful. But we get sick and tired off conservatives taking credit for the sun coming up in the morning. When the sun sets, though, it's someone else's fault.

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
It's even greater to watch you lefties bemoan and belittle all of the democratic progress currently occurring in the world.

And it's the greatestest to watch the Bushies try to take credit for "all of the democratic progress currently occurring in the world," whether or not there is some arguable connection to the last episode of bombing the living fuck out of a bunch of people. Not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent, right?

ETA: Ty, as usual.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
It's even greater to watch you lefties bemoan and belittle all of the democratic progress currently occurring in the world.

They failed to see it in the 80s as well. It's a repeat. This is why they are simply not credible on foreign policy, though they have become more credible on fiscal policy.

[SlaveNoMore]

sgtclub
They failed to see it in the 80s as well. It's a repeat. This is why they are simply not credible on foreign policy, though they have become more credible on fiscal policy.

Dissent.

They haven't become credible on fiscal policy at all. It's just that we haven't been credible either.

[SlaveNoMore]

ironweed
ETA: Ty, as usual...

As usual, he proves the point.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
They failed to see it in the 80s as well. It's a repeat. This is why they are simply not credible on foreign policy, though they have become more credible on fiscal policy.

Who failed to see what in the 80's? And does your brain hurt when you say something that stupid?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Dissent.

They haven't become credible on fiscal policy at all. It's just that we haven't been credible either.

I want to believe this as well, but if you take the Clinton years and you add to that the DEM position against tax cuts and private accounts because they are too expensive in a time of war, and they make a much better argument for fiscal stewardship.

The question for them is how serious they are about it. Clinton was very serious. I'm not sure how committed the current DEM leadership is, other than as a useful argument in attempting to propel the president's agenda.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by ironweed
And it's the greatestest to watch the Bushies try to take credit for "all of the democratic progress currently occurring in the world," whether or not there is some arguable connection to the last episode of bombing the living fuck out of a bunch of people. Not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent, right?

ETA: Ty, as usual.

That wall was coming down by itself anyway!

And Uday was going to depose Saddam just that next week!

And the Lebanese were just feeling frisky because of the weather!

All just accidents of timing, weren't they?

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
As usual, he proves the point.

As usual, he layeth the righteous smackdown on the minions of darkness who speak foul untruths. Booyah!

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Who failed to see what in the 80's? And does your brain hurt when you say something that stupid?

The left in both this country and Europe. Go back and look at how RR was chided. The left didn't realize it was wrong until the bricks started hitting them in the head.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
As usual, he proves the point.

Having spent years not giving a shit about democracy overseas, you have a bunch of conservatives who are astonished to learn that dozens of people protested the other day in Egypt, or that there are protests in Morocco and Bolivia. Who knew?!?! The thought that people have been protesting in other countries for a long time, without regard to who our president is, shouldn't darken these conservatives' happy thoughts for even a moment. In our solipsistic little world, there weren't people protesting yesterday, there are today -- freedom is clearly on the march, and George Bush deserves the credit. The advantage of not knowing anything about other countries and relying on FOX and CNN to tell you about them is that you can readily disregard facts and complications that don't fit into this tidy little picture.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Having spent years not giving a shit about democracy overseas, you have a bunch of conservatives who are astonished to learn that dozens of people protested the other day in Egypt, or that there are protests in Morocco and Bolivia. Who knew?!?! The thought that people have been protesting in other countries for a long time, without regard to who our president is, shouldn't darken these conservatives' happy thoughts for even a moment. In our solipsistic little world, there weren't people protesting yesterday, there are today -- freedom is clearly on the march, and George Bush deserves the credit. The advantage of not knowing anything about other countries and relying on FOX and CNN to tell you about them is that you can readily disregard facts and complications that don't fit into this tidy little picture.

Well us as the conservatives are not alone. Newsweek, Time and the NYT seem to be suffering from the same lack of knowledge.

ETA: And I guess it was Tip O'neil standing up to communism in South and Central America.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The left in both this country and Europe. Go back and look at how RR was chided. The left didn't realize it was wrong until the bricks started hitting them in the head.

Wrong about what?

And don't start suggesting that conservatives knew the Soviet Union was about to collapse. They had no idea, and were scaring people -- doubtless in good faith -- about the Soviet military.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Well us as the conservatives are not alone. Newsweek, Time and the NYT seem to be suffering from the same lack of knowledge.

ETA: And I guess it was Tip O'neil standing up to communism in South and Central America.

In two years, listen for a Kennedy speech about how the Democrats brought democracy to the ME through their unflagging supervision of that damn Bush nazi.