Kerry a Republican in disguise??

Sorry Mav, can't respond to this thread any more. Because of posts like this one:

Or this one:

Which is completely bullshit. Since Danny Boy has no regard for social graces nor any respect for the implied confidentiality of a private message, I guess I should point out the total hypocrisy of this post. Here is what Spect8tor wrote me:

"Hope you don't ever get offended at anything I say. I rarely mean it. I have to get my comic relief from somewhere. We all do. Unfortunately mine seems to involve pissing off a lot of people. For the most part, I don't care. Every now and then I get a pang of regret. Like right now.

I'm not even that "staunch" of a conservative either. Taking shots at liberals is just too much fun though, even if I actually agree with them on some things. Like the war in Iraq. No doubt to me whatsoever it was founded on a heap of bullshit. But I happen to think it was a good thing so I don't rail against it. At the end of the day, as you say, the differences between the parties are minimal. "

So whatever Danny Boy says is only said to agitate. By his own words, he has no convictions (other than to try and annoy others). Oh, and just in case anyone is wondering why I can post his PM to me, well, he forwarded my PM to him onto the infamous Max401 just to instigate trouble.

Which brings me finally to this:

(didn't know Eisenhower was a Democrat, but what do I know?)

Case closed. I can not participate in any threads in which this troll follows me.

Mav, Pabst, AAA, if you REALLY want to discuss or debate any political issues, I would be more than happy to. But the venue has to be cleansed of these vermin. If a moderator will set up a debate by invitation only, I will go toe to toe with any of you. Issue by issue.

I will not be heckled by the "peanut gallery". And you guys should not want supporters you wish were not on your side. Makes you look bad. So a better format would work better for all of us.

Peace,
RS

 

There is no moderator, and obviously no moderation either.

Just extremism, hate, and ideology.

I assure you this:

If Bush had been the democrat, and Gore the republican, and Bush was elected as a democrat, and reacted exactly the way he has reacted during his presidency (it has been a reactive administration, rather than pro-active) these "trolls" would be condemning Bush because of his party.

It is no longer about issues nor what really happens, we have reverted to the disgusting stage of "my party right or wrong."

 

I am an independent and I believe ART just spoke a truth that few can see.

JB

PS. I find this "party" thing just so useless

 

ART, True and True! Obviously my call for a moderated "debate" was tongue in cheek. There is no reasoning with closed minds.

As for you, keep the faith baby (no pun intended). Your posts, as often as I disagree with them at least are usually well thought out and reasonable. And readable.

As an agnostic myself, I would far rather read your pro-theology argument than the angry and senseless rants of GG or Longshot.

Axe usually will make a good case for his side, but somehow loses it and reverts to ad hominem attacks. Why Axe? How do you go from thinking clearly to spewing frustration?

What so many don't seem to get is that none of us here are ever changing any minds. You get that. I respect that. The anger of those who don't get that is just plain sad.

Peace,
RS

 

I want to respond to the comments regarding parties versus candidates. I know a lot of voters think this way, and consciously or not reduce the Presidential race to a question of which candidate they view as the "better" man or perhaps I should say "person." I think this is a mistake and ignores how our government is actually run.

The vast majority of policy making is done by the army of political appointees the President appoints. The President knows maybe a handful of these himself and is forced to rely on recommendations to select the remainder. Most are party hacks, campaign workers, big contributors or their relatives and out of work ex-congressmen ( see "political hacks"). Particularly in Democrat administrations, people from activist groups are comprising a larger percentage of these appointees. Often, they are considerably more extreme in their views than the President, who has to worry about gewtting elected after all.

When you vote for a candidate, you are therefore not just voting for him. You are voting for this army of Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointees, as well. This is where the party affiliation comes in. Frankly, I will vote Republican if there is any way to justify it, not out of blind party allegiance, but because I profoundly distrust the activists the Dem's will put in these slots.

There are additional considerations. Judicial appointments are at the head of the list. A Democrat, any Democrat, is going to appoint significantly more liberal jdges than any Republican. The Dem's have a litmus test that judicial candidates have to pass, beginning with unfailing allegiance to any and all forms of abortion, a strong commitment to racial quotas, total disregard for union thuggery and , at least for the Clintons, willingness to make messy campaign finance violations disappear.

No candidate is going to stray too far from the fundamental planks of his party's platform. For Dem's, that means high taxes,weak defense and an intrusive nanny state. The Republicans are basically the opposite. I'm sure soemone will say the Republicans are for the rich and ignore corporate wrongdoing, but all these major corporate scandals involve behavior that took place during the Clinton administration.

So bottom line, whenyou vote, you are voting for far more than candidate A or canidate B. Each carries a lot of baggage with him, and to make an informed decision, you need to understand what's in that baggage.

 

You're the King of Ad Hominem Argument, RS7. Your sickness is such that you even create special threads to spread your venom and fabricated bs.

As far as Eisenhower... How many Vietnam combat deaths occurred under his Presidency? Your pal LBJ said that James Davis, KIA in 1961, was "The first American to fall in defense of our freedom in Vietnam." Truth be known, two Americans were killed in 1959. Your pal JFK sent 100's of soldiers in his first 6 months in office.

 

Taken for a Ride
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." So George Bush declared on Sept. 20, 2001. But what was he saying? Surely he didn't mean that everyone was obliged to support all of his policies, that if you opposed him on anything you were aiding terrorists.

Now we know that he meant just that.

A year ago, President Bush, who had a global mandate to pursue the terrorists responsible for 9/11, went after someone else instead. Most Americans, I suspect, still don't realize how badly this apparent exploitation of the world's good will — and the subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction — damaged our credibility. They imagine that only the dastardly French, and now maybe the cowardly Spaniards, doubt our word. But yesterday, according to Agence France-Presse, the president of Poland — which has roughly 2,500 soldiers in Iraq — had this to say: "That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."

This is the context for last weekend's election upset in Spain, where the Aznar government had taken the country into Iraq against the wishes of 90 percent of the public. Spanish voters weren't intimidated by the terrorist bombings — they turned on a ruling party they didn't trust. When the government rushed to blame the wrong people for the attack, tried to suppress growing evidence to the contrary and used its control over state television and radio both to push its false accusation and to play down antigovernment protests, it reminded people of the broader lies about the war.

By voting for a new government, in other words, the Spaniards were enforcing the accountability that is the essence of democracy. But in the world according to Mr. Bush's supporters, anyone who demands accountability is on the side of the evildoers. According to Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, the Spanish people "had a huge terrorist attack within their country and they chose to change their government and to, in a sense, appease terrorists."

So there you have it. A country's ruling party leads the nation into a war fought on false pretenses, fails to protect the nation from terrorists and engages in a cover-up when a terrorist attack does occur. But its electoral defeat isn't democracy at work; it's a victory for the terrorists.

Notice, by the way, that Spain's prime minister-elect insists that he intends to fight terrorism. He has even said that his country's forces could remain in Iraq if they were placed under U.N. control. So if the Bush administration were really concerned about maintaining a united front against terrorism, all it would have to do is drop its my-way-or-the-highway approach. But it won't.

For these denunciations of Spain, while counterproductive when viewed as foreign policy, serve a crucial domestic purpose: they help re-establish the political climate the Bush administration prefers, in which anyone who opposes any administration policy can be accused of undermining the fight against terrorism.

This week the Bush campaign unveiled an ad accusing John Kerry of, among other things, opposing increases in combat pay because he voted against an $87 billion appropriation for Iraq. Those who have followed this issue were astonished at the ad's sheer up-is-down-ism.

In fact, the Bush administration has done the very thing it falsely accuses Mr. Kerry of doing: it has tried repeatedly to slash combat pay and military benefits, provoking angry articles in The Army Times with headlines like "An Act of `Betrayal.' " Oh, and Mr. Kerry wasn't trying to block funds for Iraq — he was trying to force the administration, which had concealed the cost of the occupation until its tax cut was passed, to roll back part of the tax cut to cover the expense.

But the bigger point is this: in the Bush vision, it was never legitimate to challenge any piece of the administration's policy on Iraq. Before the war, it was your patriotic duty to trust the president's assertions about the case for war. Once we went in and those assertions proved utterly false, it became your patriotic duty to support the troops — a phrase that, to the administration, always means supporting the president. At no point has it been legitimate to hold Mr. Bush accountable. And that's the way he wants it.

 

BS.


By Ann Coulter

After a terrorist attack by al-Qaida that left hundreds of their fellow countrymen dead, Spanish voters immediately voted to give the terrorists what they want -- a Socialist government that opposes America's war on terrorism. Al-Qaida has changed a government.

THE REIGN IN SPAIN FALLS MAINLY ON THE LAME

Ann Coulter

Until the bombings last week, the center-right Popular Party of outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar had been sailing to victory. But then the al-Qaida bombs went off and Spaniards turned out in droves to vote against the government that had been a staunch Bush ally in the war on terrorism. (I guess it's OK for a Spanish Socialist to "politicize" a terrorist attack just to get elected.)

In a videotaped message, the al-Qaida "military commander" for Europe claimed credit for the bombings, saying that the terrorist attack was meant to punish Spain for supporting the war in Iraq (news - web sites). The message came as a total shock to liberals who have been furiously insisting that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with al-Qaida.

Apparently al-Qaida didn't think so. After the Madrid bombings, it looks like liberals and terrorists will have to powwow on whether there was an Iraq/al-Qaida link. Two hundred dead Spaniards say there was.

The New York Times called the Spanish election "an exercise in healthy democracy." And an ATM withdrawal with a gun to your head is a "routine banking transaction." Instead of vowing to fight the people who killed their fellow citizens, the Spanish decided to vote with al-Qaida on the war. A murdering terrorist organization said, "Jump!" and an entire country answered, "How high?"

One Spaniard who decided to switch his vote in reaction to the bombings told the Times: "Maybe the Socialists will get our troops out of Iraq and al-Qaida will forget about Spain so we will be less frightened." That's the fighting spirit! If the violent Basque separatist group only killed more people, Spain would surely give them what they want, too.

After his stunning upset victory, Socialist Party leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero vowed to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq if the United States does not turn over Iraq to the United Nations (news - web sites). He also vowed that all of Spain's remaining trains will run on time.

Zapatero said the war with Iraq had "only caused violence" and "there were no reasons for it." One reason for the war, which would seem to be a sufficient reason for a more manly country, is that the people who just slaughtered 200 Spaniards didn't like it.

But, like the Democrats, the Spanish hate George Bush more than they hate the terrorists. Zapatero said the war in Iraq was based on "lies" and called on President Bush (news - web sites) and Tony Blair (news - web sites) to "do some reflection and self-criticism." So don't think of the Spanish election as a setback for freedom -- think of it as a preview of life under President John Kerry (news - web sites)!

What kind of lunatic would blame Bush for 200 Spaniards killed by al-Qaida bombs? Oh wait -- Howard Dean (news - web sites) just did. Summarizing the views of Socialists everywhere, Dean said: "The president was the one who dragged our troops to Iraq, which apparently has been a factor in the death of 200 Spaniards over the weekend."

Yes, with 1,700 dead or injured Spaniards, George Bush certainly has some explaining to do. What have the terrorists ever done besides kill and maim thousands of innocent civilians? Bush isn't fully funding "No Child Left Behind," for God's sake!

Before he was put into office because he supported policies favored by al-Qaida terrorists, appeasement candidate Zapatero said: "I want Kerry to win." Kerry is also supported by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, who broadcasts Kerry speeches over Radio Pyongyang with favorable commentary.

So now Kerry really does have two foreign leaders on record supporting him: a Socialist terrorist-appeaser and a Marxist mass murderer who dresses like Bea Arthur.

Zapatero predicted that his own victory would help the anti-war party "in the duel between Bush and Kerry." Would you mind repeating that, sir? I was distracted by that large white flag you're waving.

However Spain's election affects Americans, we can be sure that Spain's surrender to terrorism hasn't been lost on the terrorists. It's difficult to imagine the American people responding to a new terrorist attack by deciding to placate the terrorists, as the Spanish did. A mollusk wouldn't react that way to an attack. Only a liberal could be so perverse.

No matter how many of our European allies may surrender to the terrorists, America will never be alone. This is a country founded in a covenant with God by people who had to flee Europe to do it.

Sailing to the New World in 1630 on the ship Arabella, the Puritans' leader and governor, John Winthrop, said Americans were entering into a covenant with God to create a "city upon a hill." We would be judged by all the world if we ever broke that covenant. But if we walked with God, "We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when 10 of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies." He has intervened in our affairs before, such as in 1776, 1861 and 1980.

With the Spanish election, we are witnessing a capitulation to savagery that makes full-scale war inevitable. The Democratic candidate wants to represent godless Europeans. The Republican candidate wants to represent Americans. As Winthrop said: "The eyes of all people are upon us."

 

"godless europeans."

I think that reveals the true nature of Coulter's bias and position.

 

You're reading it out of context (what else is new?).

"No matter how many of our European allies may surrender to the terrorists, America will never be alone. This is a country founded in a covenant with God by people who had to flee Europe to do it.

Sailing to the New World in 1630 on the ship Arabella, the Puritans' leader and governor, John Winthrop, said Americans were entering into a covenant with God to create a "city upon a hill." We would be judged by all the world if we ever broke that covenant. But if we walked with God, "We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when 10 of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies." He has intervened in our affairs before, such as in 1776, 1861 and 1980."