• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Mobile Menu

  • 4 Directions VA 2025 Raffle
  • 2025 Activism
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Oliver Is Confused Again

Oliver Is Confused Again

by John Cole|  June 25, 200411:49 am| 18 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Stupidity

FacebookTweetEmail

Oliver states:

It’s possible that he’s lying. But I think the poor dear just believes the stories Cheney & Co. are telling him:

“First of all, most of Europe supported the decision in Iraq. Really what you’re talking about is France, isn’t it? And they didn’t agree with my decision. They did vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. … We just had a difference of opinion about whether, when you say something, you mean it.”

Flashback to Feb 2003: Polls find Europeans oppose Iraq war.

Unless Oliver is under the misguided impression that UN Security Council votes are now popular referendums in Europe, he has this ass-backwards. Resolution 1441, the last UN Security Council resolution to pass, passed unanimously. After the inspections were once again stalled, the administration proposed the eighteenth resolution, which would have been Resolution #1442. That was subsequently withdrawn because of Russian, German, Chinese, and French opposition, and would not have passed because of the positions of the permanent members.

In short, Bush was right, Oliver is wrong. Of the European nations, France and Germany were opposed (Germany presided over the council), Russia was ambivalent- against but willing to cooperate under certain circumstances, Bulgaira, Spain, and England were in favor.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Good Question
Next Post: So Predictable »

Reader Interactions

18Comments

  1. 1.

    Dean

    June 25, 2004 at 11:59 am

    John,

    You’re missing a bunch of countries. Remember the group announcement from the eight-nation group (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles), which said that they supported us (and which earned them the French rebuke that some nations should not be heard)?

    And, for better or worse, most references to Europe are discussing the number of governments, not referenda (which don’t happen all that often there in any case).

    After all, “Europe” supported the deployment of intermediate-range missiles, even if polls didn’t.

    But then, Ronnie was a Republican, too (and shtooopid).

  2. 2.

    willyb

    June 25, 2004 at 12:28 pm

    “First of all, most of Europe supported the decision in Iraq. Really what you’re talking about is France, isn’t it?”

    With the ongoing investigations of the U.N.’s Oil for Food program, I think it will become more and more apparent that France had economic motives to keep Saddam Hussein in power. After all, what’s wrong with a little torture, abuse, and U.N. resolution violations, when there are billions at stake. This scandal will probably turn out to be the largest in history. And if were Bush were at the or near the center of this fraud, rather than France, Russia, and others, this story would have been the front pages for months. Just another example of the failure that the U.N. has become.

  3. 3.

    Andrew J. Lazarus

    June 25, 2004 at 5:54 pm

    John, would you define the metric we’re supposed to use to measure support of the Iraq War? (Certainly not 1441, which the Europeans did not find tantamount to war.) Once that’s clear, we can try to figure out the merits of Bush’s claim. I must say, the naive reading is that he believes the majority of the European PUBLIC (not just governments) supported the war, and that is most certainly not true. Maybe Rove handed him an alternative poll.

  4. 4.

    John Cole

    June 25, 2004 at 6:00 pm

    Since Bush specifically inoked thename of theSecurity Council and easrlier in the intrview was discussing NATO, I am assuming we are talking members of the Sewcurity Council and nation states.

    Why Bush would give two hoots in hell what the population of France thinks in an opinion poll is beyond me, and something Oliver just injected into the interview.

  5. 5.

    Oliver

    June 25, 2004 at 6:24 pm

    Bush is changing the focus of the conversation. From the populace to the gov’t because he knows the answer to the first bit stings him in the rear. And even in the UN the opposition was more than just France, hence us totally wimping out on the followup resolution to 1441.

  6. 6.

    Yan

    June 25, 2004 at 8:37 pm

    See, see, foreingers don’t like Bush! And not just the French, the Russians and the Chinese don’t like him either! See, See?!

    And we should care about that how?

  7. 7.

    Jay

    June 25, 2004 at 11:43 pm

    Oliver, if it was done your way, there would be no military action in Afghanistan since most Europeans were opposed to attacking there as well.

    Do you ever get tired of tasting your own feet?

  8. 8.

    Oliver

    June 26, 2004 at 1:03 am

    I never said that Euro opinion was a pro – or – con endorsement, Jay (and you know that). I’m just pointing out yet another of your beloved leader’s leaps of logic.

  9. 9.

    Dean

    June 26, 2004 at 8:40 am

    Oliver,

    You believe that the President is lying because he says that much of Europe endorses his decision, but you don’t think whether European opinion is pro- or con- matters?

    Then why bother making the comment at all?

    Methinks it’s you who’s having the ‘leap of (il)logic’.

  10. 10.

    Andrew J. Lazarus

    June 26, 2004 at 12:15 pm

    I followed Jay’s link. According to the cited poll, im late 2001 the Europeans favored the extradition and trial of Osama to war. It’s far from clear from the cited article whether the poll was conducted before or after the Taliban government refused to consider any such extradition, and how the respondents who put extradition as their first choice felt when it was removed from the options.

    If I thought that any sort of extradition of Osama and all the officers of Al Qaeda was remotely possible, I suppose I might have said it was better if I had been in a poll. Given that I could no more imagine Japan handing over Hirohito and Tojo in January 1942, I view this as an exercise in silly polling, rather than a true determination of European opinion.

    Google disgorged this poll from April 2002, where support for the Afghan War was 83% US, 73% UK, 64% France, 61% Germany, and 59% Italy.

  11. 11.

    Dman

    June 26, 2004 at 1:23 pm

    If you notice, the liberal /leftist must always interpret a statement from a conservative and say that though the statement did not actually have those words in it they really meant such and such. But when addressing an liberal/leftist statement that actually has the words contained in it that make it a controversial statement , they defend it by saying though he said it that way he did not really mean it that way.

  12. 12.

    Ricky

    June 26, 2004 at 6:28 pm

    Dman summed up so much of the left(but not all, thankfully…..most of blogsom) nicely.

    I can do it in two words: dishonest propaganda

  13. 13.

    Andrew J. Lazarus

    June 26, 2004 at 10:56 pm

    So what did Bush mean? That he had a majority of the Euro governments’ support for the invasion of Iraq, or a majority of the European public? It would be helpful to cut my Google search time in half for seeing if either claim is true.

    The claim that Europe opposed the Afghan War does not appear to be true.

  14. 14.

    Ricky

    June 26, 2004 at 11:06 pm

    The part about voting on resolutions @ the UN should’ve been a dead giveaway.

  15. 15.

    Dman

    June 26, 2004 at 11:34 pm

    Last time I checked, the public did not vote at the UN.

  16. 16.

    Dman

    June 26, 2004 at 11:38 pm

    To eliminate any confusion I was anwsering Andrews question. By the way Andrew, did you ever find out what the definition of is is?

  17. 17.

    Dean

    June 26, 2004 at 11:53 pm

    Andrew:

    Did you actually read the link? In the SECOND paragraph, it said that the poll was held in late September. The US invaded in October.

    But I don’t quite understand your point about this poll. You seem to suggest that the Europeans would have supported war if extradition was unlikely, yet in your next breath, you admit that extradition was impossible (a la Hirohito and Tojo).

    Are you suggesting the average EUropean (who is considered more aware of international politics than Americans) is somehow LESS aware of this reality? Why would you think that?

    So, if EUros are aware that extradition won’t happen, but would prefer extradition to war, I’d interpret that as meaning that EUros opposed war w/ Afghanistan.

  18. 18.

    Andrew J. Lazarus

    June 29, 2004 at 10:02 am

    What I suggested, Dean, is that the European poll results have to be read in the context they were offered an imaginary alternative (extradition). I’m not sure how votes for an appealing but impractical choice should be accounted in terms of support for the subsequent war. (The poll was approx contemporaneous with the Taliban’s refusal to accede to our ultimatum.)

    DMan, your criticism of me appears to be incoherent. I’m actually ASKING the conservative to explain which of various alternatives is meant, precisely so I don’t misinterpret it. If your claim is that I should have interpreted the statement as referring to GOVERNMENT’S support of the Iraq and Afghan wars, then you should be coming down on Jay (not me) for bringing in a poll about the European public. The European governments all supported the Afghan War. I think this is all over your head, maybe we can argue on a simpler thread that you can understand.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - way2blue - SINALEI, SAMOA—RESPITE EDITION—FEBRUARY 2025.  (second of five) 8
Image by way2blue (7/16/25)
Donate

Recent Comments

  • NotMax on Repub Corruption Open Thread: Don TACO, King of All Scammers (Jul 16, 2025 @ 11:59pm)
  • Fair Economist on Repub Corruption Open Thread: Don TACO, King of All Scammers (Jul 16, 2025 @ 11:58pm)
  • Westyny on War for Ukraine Day 1,238: Shaking Things Up (Jul 16, 2025 @ 11:44pm)
  • Ramona on Repub Corruption Open Thread: Don TACO, King of All Scammers (Jul 16, 2025 @ 11:44pm)
  • Chacal Charles Calthrop on Flailing & Failing (Open Thread) (Jul 16, 2025 @ 11:25pm)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Feeling Defeated?  If We Give Up, It's Game Over

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!