See how much political mileage you and allies like tatertrader get with the country's grown-ups using obscenities like that "post-war action figure... shipped in boxes daily." A fine example of why pleas for civility and claims of high responsibility come across as so phony from Administration critics.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. soldier was killed Wednesday in an attack on a convoy in Baghdad, bringing the number of American battle deaths in the Iraqi conflict to 148 surpassing the 147 killed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
lol. first note that I didn't draw the cartoon or dictate its content, I linked to it. maybe that's contributory phoniness? and while conversing with the responsible, non-phony "country's grown-ups," ask them which is more obscene: the cartoon, or the death of the soldier? or maybe the response to his and thousands of other deaths being flippant, juvenile taunts and swaggering from the comfort of the white house, under protection and luxury funded by the dead soldier's taxes?
You linked the cartoon because you disavow it? You were just trying to show us how tasteless and demented Bush opponents could get? You should have said something. Which comments nicely demonstrate your distance from all those who consider a soldier's death in service to his country and to the people of another country to be supremely noble and supremely deserving of respect. Sure, the actual killing can be thought of as an obscenity, but equating the obscenity of the event with the intention that guided the individual who suffered it is a second crime. Regardless of what you think of the war, can't you see how presumptuous that is? Imagine yourself at the soldier's funeral, telling everyone how "obscene" his or her death was. (You might even find someone, in the depths of despair, who agreed with you... for a moment... ) As for "juvenile taunts," I think you must have "Bring 'em on!" primarily in mind. You make a similar mistake here when you turn a response aimed at would-be attackers - a refusal in common speech to submit to violence with cowardice - into a commentary on the dead. Surely you don't believe that giving in or acting afraid would be likely to lessen the frequency of the attacks, or that soldiers would prefer to have themselves thought of by their leaders and characterized to their enemies as fearful. Look, you and I have had our differences, plenty of times, but, unlike some of the contributors here, you seem to have a conscience. I honestly believe you mean well, are even kind of an idealist. I'm not suggesting you need to be deported, silenced, held up to ridicule (ok, maybe a little), or expelled from the human race. I'm asking you to think about whether you really feel comfortable associating yourself with stuff like the part of the cartoon I'm pointing out.
Gotta love the neocons, the only ones who think they have a conscience. PAAAAALEEEEEEEEEZE!!!! HOW SELF RIGHTEOUS CAN THESE PEOPLE BE?
Look, I'm not getting hung up on one cartoon. As I said it is clever and humorous. My point was this entire exercise to smear Bush as a liar, while clearly politics as usual, is more serious given the country's current situation. Let's say it succeeds beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and the country decides Bush is a serial liar who invades foreign countries that pose no threat to us or anyone else so Texas oilmen can steal their resources. Doesn't that situation pose a serious risk for the country? It encourages reckless behavior by rogue states and terrorists, it puts us right back into the helpless giant, post-vietnam scenario. If you examine that part of our history, it was not a good one for freedom and democracy around the world. Of course, one has to examine the merits of the criticism of Bush. I find the charges to be totally lacking in substance and on a par with the typical domestic political smears, eg Republicans are out to kill seniors, starve children and poison the water. If there had been serious deceit and fraud, I would agree that criticism is warranted. Rather clearly that is not the case here, and the critics are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. They are playing a dangerous game, both for the country and for themselves. Windbags like Ted Kennedy already sound like they wish Iraq had won or at least put up a better fight so that the quagmire warnings would have seemed prescient. Any day now I expect them to start a "Free Saddam" movement with celebrity sponsors, a website, snazzy tee shirts and rock concerts. I suspect this plays better in Manhattan and LA than in flyover country.
I suspect this plays better in Manhattan and LA than in flyover country. ________________________________ You don't have to suspect it doesn't play well in flyover country. Bush is our boy through and through.
I understand that a lot of Republicans, like Shelby, have it in for Tenet, but Bush isn't one of them. Being forced to sacrifice an official he trusts to this pseudo-issue, in the middle of the war on terror, might be exactly the admission of weakness, or an escalation of it, that you feel the Administration made in semi-withdrawing the SOTU statement. It could take this non-issue, which has mainly served to make a bunch of Democrats and fellow travelers look like soft-on-Saddam, blinded-by-bitterness hysterics, and turn it into the governmental "crisis" that Bush for obvious reasons would rather avoid. On this note, I would think you'd have approved of the White House's aggressive response to Durbin. Tenet was virtually alone among major US officials in warning, before 9/11, of the danger of megaterror events, and in trying to rally a concerted effort to head them off. 9/11 wasn't his humiliation, it was his vindication - and if it was anyone's "fault," it was probably more the fault of the paleolithic FBI under Louis Freeh than the fault of the CIA. (Remember when we learned that the FBI self-consciously refused to computerize its operations?) Also, if you read BUSH AT WAR or some of the other immediate post-9/11 reporting, Tenet impressed Bush with his coolness and his command of the facts. Maybe more important, when the Pentagon's off-the-shelf Afghanistan war plan was rejected, Tenet appears to be the one who came up with a viable strategy - Special Forces + CIA operatives and ex-operatives + Afghan resistance - which was implemented at much less cost and much more successfully than anyone at the time thought possible. Over the course of this critical episode and many others, as well as in daily exchanges, Bush has decided he's comfortable with Tenet. Apparently, the other high officials in Bush's war cabinet are also comfortable with him. Shelby and a few others may have their own reasons to dislike Tenet, but getting rid of him would be interpreted as offering his head on a platter in order to protect the President from the Kennedys, Kerrys, and Deans.
Just saw Alexander Haig on Hannity and Colmes. Colmes play the clip of Rumsfeld speaking on June 30th where he categorically denied that what is going on in Iraq as guerrilla warfare. Then Colmes played the clip of a day or so ago of the military commander in Iraq describing the conflict and resistance they are experiencing as guerrilla warfare. When Colmes was asked how he could explain this disparity, rather than offering any reasonable analysis of the discrepency, Haig got all pissy and blamed Colmes for even bringing it up, alluding to asking such questions as somehow weakening our efforts in Iraq, demeaning our country. Of course Hannity grabbed his American flag in full agreement and began whistling Yankee Doodle. Madness, pure madness how if you clearly point out a problem with the war or the administration the right wing nutballs label you as a some kind of threat to national security. Someone needs to put Alexander Haig out to pasture. The guy was out of control in the Reagan days, and he appears to have a very advanced case of shell shock and amnesia.