Kerry lies...Media elides...Clinton cycle redux?

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Orson, Aug 12, 2004.

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  1. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: It just goes to show

    I don't think Kerry is proud of everything he did in Vietnam; he's been pretty hard on other aspects of his war record.
    Bob Dole had this problem in '96; fact of the matter is that in the Senate, most of the really useful stuff is co-sponsored, and there's nothing at all weak about that.
    Colin Powell, too liberal for you? Hrm. On which issues?
    I think three more Scalia-type appointments would end civil liberties as we know them.
    Actually, he didn't; the U.S. military did, and I don't see why it wouldn't have done the job just as well under Democratic leadership. But I think he certainly made the right choice to go to war here.
    Whoa--you mean the Bush administration just released a batch of fresh terror alerts about an ineffective organization? So are you saying this really is an election-year tactic? I'd assumed al-Qaeda really was in the planning stages of doing something really nasty, but I guess now that you mention it...
    I'm still ambivalent on the Iraq war (and suspect that Gore would have probably ended up waging it too had he been in office, his anti-war posturing aside), but I would say that (a) the humanitarian case is indeed the strongest case and that (b) by calling the United Nations "irrelevant," interrupting the weapons inspection process (which turned out to be pointless since the danger wasn't imminent), and personally insulting some of our strongest allies in Europe and some key military allies in the Arab world, he made the job harder for our troops. And he had the unmitigated gall to put on a flightsuit and codpiece and fly the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" photo-op. And don't even get me started on "bring it on."
    I'm happy for you, but you know as well as I do that tax cuts, when used as a campaign issue, amount to bribing the electorate--and when they cost hundreds of billions of dollars we don't have, they're not exactly a hallmark of fiscal conservatism, either. That's assuming it's still okay for Republicans to be fiscal conservatives...
    That's okay, Bruce; I'm unwilling to let the reins of power remain in the hands of a theocratic Texas governor who lies about foreign policy. But you know what? I think we can safely bet that Massachusetts is going Democrat and Mississippi is going Republican regardless of what either of us thinks.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 15, 2004
  2. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It just goes to show

    As I said before, I really think that has more to do with the bad candidates the Dems have fielded. They had the last election locked-up until Romney stepped into the race, and it was still headed the Dems' way until Shannon O'Brien self-destructed under questioning by Tim Russert during a televised debate.

    The election before that, the Dem nominee was Scott Harshbarger, the then-Attorney General who has all the charisma of Al Gore on depressants. It's kind of humorous the sad candidates the Dems field in this state, considering they control almost every other elected office.
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It just goes to show

    Affirmative action, for one. Discrimination based on skin color is wrong, regardless what color the victim is.

    I also think he advised Bush 41 to end combat action in the first Gulf War too soon. We had a chance to destroy even more of Iraq's military at very little risk to us (using air power) and he chose not to.

    True, but it's still fun to argue about it. :D
     
  4. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It just goes to show


    What lies? The same ones Clinton told when he bombed Iraq? The same ones Kerry told when he stated a much stronger case against Saddam than Bush ever did?

    Making statements and devising a foreign policy based on intelligence, although faulty (if it proves to be) is not lying.

    If a church member calls me on Sunday morning and says her husband had a heart attack and I state from the pulpit that John Doe had a heart attack that later proves untrue, I didn't lie. I spoke based on faulty information.

    Besides, an Iraqi scientist recently admitted Saddam did in fact have WMD's and the Republican Guard hid them. Does anyone really think Saddam would have risked invasion and left power if he had nothing to hide. He's evil, he's insane but he's not stupid!

    I believe WMD's will be found within the next two months. The main question, regardless, is this: Is the world a safer place without Saddam? Is America safer? Before you answer, remember that we have not been attacked since 9/11.
     
  5. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It just goes to show

    I can respect that position; I believe in affirmative action on a philosophical level, but I have some doubts about it myself. It seems a little patronizing. I think the problem it was created to solve is a real problem, but it's a clumsy, awkward solution. I wish I knew of a better way.
    If that was Powell's call (and he wasn't just backing up Bush 41), then I agree 100%. Had Bush 41 finished the job in Iraq, we would have had a democracy there 13-14 years ago with a much stronger resistance movement to populate it. As it is now, the resistance was already crushed brutally right after Desert Storm and in smaller ways off and on throughout the 90s.
    Couldn't agree more. And I hope you know I don't take any of this stuff personally either--some of my best friends on the flip side (and most of my family) are further to the right than you are, sometimes much further to the right than you are.

    I do find it kind of funny that if you look at the threads we've been having lately, the most prolific conservative has been in Massachusetts and the most prolific liberal has been in Mississippi. What are the odds?


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 15, 2004
  6. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It just goes to show

    (This is an aside, but I mentioned earlier in the thread that I'm not sure Gore would have invaded Iraq. I am sure Clinton would have; he set the rhetorical groundwork in '98. Clinton has refused to condemn the war, and IMHO with good reason, because if he had another term to work with I'm sure it would have been a foreign policy priority.)
    You may be right. I suspect Bush probably believed that there really were WMDs in Iraq, that they would be found soon after the war started, and that they would vindicate his decision to pursue war unilaterally. But he also implied that he had stronger evidence than he did--in other words, he bluffed. Is a bluff the same thing as a lie? Maybe not, but it seems to be a dangerous basis for war. I wish he'd done what Tony Blair did and focus on the humanitarian purpose of the war, because I suspect that was one of the motives of the Bush administration--maybe the primary motive--and it makes for a much more sympathetic case than vaporware WMDs.
    The trouble with refugees is that they tend to understandably be anti-Saddam; he wasn't a very nice man. So an Iraqi scientist, while credible for practical purposes, also has one very big reason to...bluff: s/he has probably known people who suffered under the Baathist regime.
    I've mulled on this question an awful lot, and here's where I think he was going: Saddam's objective, in my opinion, was to get rid of the international sanctions which were crippling his regime (and also his country, but he probably didn't care as much about that). He did not expect the United States to be given anything approaching the authority to wage war unilaterally, so he was the provocateur and attempted to play the United States against Europe by feeding the Bush administration false information about WMDs; his eventual goal was to make the United States look irrational and war-hungry, creating sympathy among European nations who would have lobbied to have the sanctions revoked once no WMDs were found. How did he know no WMDs would be found? Because by then he had already had them shipped to a sympathetic regime nearby, a regime that also happens to have a lot of U.N. influence. Now, that's only my theory--I can't prove it, and I have no special evidence to support it. But it's the only scenario I can think of that fits the facts; if the WMDs were hidden in Iraq, I have no doubt that he would have used them against our troops once it became clear that the United States had gained a foothold.
    If they are, that will obviously be very good news for the Bush administration; it will also make Kerry's nuanced position on the war look more reasonable to anti-war Democrats than it does now.
    I don't think the invasion of Iraq has made the world a safer place yet, but I think it will in the long run, as the country stabilizes. Remember that we hadn't been successfully attacked on a large scale before 9/11 either, despite the fact that organized groups of Islamist terrorists have been gunning for us since the seventies, so a three-year window with no attacks is not necessarily proof that we're winning the war on terror. What will make the world a safer place right away is if the Pakistanis hand us Osama bin Laden in a bright orange jumpsuit, so that we can have him do the perp walk in front of Al-Jazeera's cameras. I'm not sure an execution would make good strategic sense--he'd just be considered a martyr--but part of me wishes he could spend a few weeks or months or years in a prison much like Abu Ghraib with Zawahiri and others of similar rank, and then maybe we could have certain photographs leaked to the Arab press. That would do much more damage to al-Qaeda than his actual death would. Not gonna happen--and the rational part of me knows that isn't how we should do things in America--but that's one case where this card-carrying ACLU member wishes he could whistle and look the other way.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 15, 2004
  7. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It just goes to show

    Of course, it was ultimately Bush 41's decision as Commander-In-Chief, but Powell said in his book (an excellent read, BTW) that he advised the President to cease combat operations, and Bush went with the recommendation.

    Of course!

    I didn't know that was possible! :)

    As the saying goes.....only in America! Ironically, I've spent a lot of time in the South (I went to HS in Virginia, did basic training & Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was stationed at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky) and I didn't particuarly care for it. I like the change of seasons in New England, plus everyone down South said that I talked way too fast. :D
     
  8. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

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