Mother Sheehan:
Mother Sheehan, commingling with occupying forces.
One thing that truly troubled me about my visit to Louisiana was the level of the military presence there. I imagined before that if the military had to be used in a CONUS (Continental US) operations that they would be there to help the citizens: Clothe them, feed them, shelter them, and protect them. But what I saw was a city that is occupied. I saw soldiers walking around in patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me. Sand bags were removed from private property to make machine gun nests…
I don’t care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don’t care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don’t care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don’t fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.
Power to the people. (h/t Jeff)
Trent
I would chalk it up to a bunch of guys having served in Iraq doing what they know how to do: Patrol in groups with guns drawn.
I don’t have too big a problem with this. Yet.
circlethewagons
Its a good thing she didn’t ask that question.
One of them might actually have shot her.
ppGaz
I guess, so far, this is today’s “let’s stir up shit” thread.
How wonderful. A day without shit is like breakfast with orange juice.
I just made that up.
Stormy70
Dear Mother Sheehan,
Thank you.
Your not-so-secret Admirer,
Karl Rove
circlethewagons
ppGaz, that doesn’t make any sense.
ppGaz
Whhop,s so excited here! I meant “without orange juice”, of course.
Apologies to Anita Bryant, and all.
John Cole
Hehe.
Plus, she is legitmately an idiot.
ppGaz
Whoops! Original title inadequate to stir up the kaka, new title! Whee, fun!
Quick thinking on someone’s part!
Trent
Hey, let’s debate who’s a bigger idiot: Bush or Sheehan?
Batter up!
ppGaz
As opposed to, uh, not legitimately?
What you mean is, you’ve laid the groundwork to call her an idiot and figure that it can’t be challenged.
I take her to be a ditzy middle aged woman who lost her kid in a war. I don’t think she deserves to be called any schoolyard names.
But, that’s just me. And, that’s just you.
Elvira Spoggins
Karl Rove? After last night’s “spend ’til we can’t spend no more” speech from Mortimer Bush, he of large fanny and wiggly jowls needs some friends.
Maybe Mother Sheehan will take him over her knee and give him something he’s needed for a long long time.
You can almost imagine the tears of gratitude streaming down his flushed pink face.
p.lukasiak
Plus, she is legitmately an idiot.
So, John, care to explain why Casey Sheehan was sent to Iraq to die?
Defense Guy
Prune juice will help with that more than orange juice. Or so I’m told.
Defense Guy
p.lukasiak
Because Bush hates the military. And the Iraqi’s. Duh!
ppGaz
Okay: First pitch:
How many controversial wars has Sheehan started, wars for which there is no apparent planned end in sight, for which the benefits of the likely outcomes cannot be described, and in which thousands of people have died? Which have apparently destabilized the most dangerous region on the planet? Which have divided and upset the American people? Which have lost public support to the point at which the will to finish whatever it is we think we started is now very questionable? Which are ostensibly to create a situation for which there is zero historical evidence to believe that the outcome is either likely, or even possible? Which have, after going on three years, not evidently made America either safer in fact, or made the country feel safer in general? Which have drained the nation’s military resources and its coffers without any measurable ROI on the horizon?
Back to you.
gratefulcub
How can anyone love the troops, support the troops, and even have an unflattering action shot photo taken with a man in a USMC T-Shirt, yet not support the president and the war? Boggles the mind.
John must have just hated BJ Civility Thursday
ppGaz
Welcome to the blog where Stormy is not an idiot, but Sheehan is.
Welcome to the blog where the death of Stormy’s frigging cat gets more visible sympathy than the death of Sheehan’s son.
Drinks for the house. Everybody dance. This is going to be a fun party.
circlethewagons
And how exactly DO you “excuse yourself from power” anyways?
John Cole
For oil, Bush’s buddies in industry, and because the Jews said so! Don’t you even pay attention to the deep insights of your leader, Mother Sheehan?
Peter Holsapple
Can’t help but think that deep down in their queasy little hearts the more authoritarian amongst us resent Sheehan so bitterly because she truly is a fairly average person, one who has dared to speak out against the nation’s so-called elite. And that she has used whatever leverage she has to embarrass the exalted (though obviously incompetent) leadership of this country causes them to have a very bad reaction.
Something like this:
http://website.lineone.net/~dannygreen/122.wav
ppGaz
I’m sure he did, but help is on the way.
Civility Thursday is over. It’s Friday.
Defense Guy
He re-upped in the middle of the war. He has my sympathy and my gratitude. He knew what he was getting into and yet did so anyway. She has every right to be against the war and the president, but to pretend that her son would be in agreement with her is wrong.
She has my sympathy for the loss of her son.
ppGaz
Your answer makes about as much sense as the crap that comes out of the White House. The difference is, theirs is less disrespectful of citizens in general than yours is.
KC
You know, I’m just glad to see something about Sheehan again. It has been a long time for me. And, we’ve got a picture no less! Thanks John, I appreciate the fix. Now I’ll go back to avoiding hearing or seeing anything about her for . . . well . . . as long as I can.
ppGaz
To pretend that your opinion on that subject has any value to anyone, anywhere, is grotesque, dishonest, shitty, and completely in character with everything you say around here.
What the hell do you know about what her son would agree with or not agree with? Who the hell are you to say anything about it?
slide
Cole:
Do you mean legitimately, Professor?
ppGaz
Maybe I can help with the lesson plan here.
Let me browse John’s utterances over the last year or two, and have access to some unflattering snapshots of him.
I guaran-fucking-tee you that I will make him into a “legitimate idiot.” It’s easy, any wiseass highschool kid can do it to anybody.
gratefulcub
Exactly
Idiot
Perfect
scs
I’m going to point out something that I haven’t seen much anywhere, and that is the REAL reason for the Iraq war. Here goes. Al Qaeda gave three reasons for 9/11. The Arab/Israel conflict, US troops in the holy land of Saudi Arabia, and the sanctions in Iraq. So Bush pulled out the troops from Saudi Arabia. He’s leaning on Israel to withdraw from parts and make a peace settlement. And he wanted to lift the sanctions from Iraq. But he was worried that if he did that, Iraq would get weapons of mass destruction, like Iran is now. Hence the war to change regimes and prevent Iraq from getting WMD after the sanctions were lifted. All you all who claim “lies” just don’t get the subtle nature of the WMD thing, which, in your defense, was dumbed down for the people to sell it. Okay you got it now? Glad I could be of help.
slide
Last year or two? Give me a thread or two.
ppGaz
Complete fiction, unless you have some facts to back it up.
Yeah, that was a great help. If there’s anything this country needs right now, it’s another layer of fiction on top of the fucked up reality of the Iraq war.
Peter Holsapple
SCS: Wow. Reason number 6,596 for our going into Iraq. The “subtle WMD thing.” Cool. So now we can say that Saddam possessed the Nuance Bomb?
Endlessly creative, these dittomonkeys.
scs
Okay, it’s my interpretation. But it was true, a fact, that Al Qaeda did gave those three reasons I mentioned. Stands to reason to me.
gratefulcub
He just enjoys watching us defend someone that says some truly idiotic things. She has the average american’s knowledge of the world and foreign policy. So, when she has a microphone in her face everyday, or access to post diaries at Kos, she is going to let slip some garbage. At the same time, many of us agree with most of her sentiments at least in a big picture way. So we half heartedly defend her, while cringing at the idiotic statements. It is easy to see why John loves her so much. There is no way putting a picture of her on the site won’t start a discussion that ends up in nastiness by comment 100, then he can post about all of us lefties calling him a bush apologist and pretend to be really pissed, just to turn around and intentionally start shit the next day. In all fairness, if I had a blog that conservatives posted on because they thought I was a sensible moderate, I would do the exact same thing he does to us.
slide
since John is so fond of idiotic statements, I’ve got one for ya:
Ahhh.. the logic.. the genius… the wisdom that is Condi. Shoe shopping anyone?
Defense Guy
Good to know the angry old fart can’t stay out of character for long. Be careful though, you’re starting to get delusions of meaningfulness and intelligence.
Ah the classic fallback position of righteous indignation. Yes you doddering old fool, the fact that her son re-upped during the war, having already been in Iraq could never be construed to indicate that he supported the endeavor to which he was a part. As his mother does clearly not…
Let me know if I’m going too fast for you. I know how the firing of your synapses can slow down in older age or when you gummy them up with one too many bong hits.
Man, it’s good Thursday is over.
slide
scs said:
So Bush is totally capitulating to Al Qaeda’s demands? Ok, if you say so.
gratefulcub
SCS,
You just went way over the president’s head. He couldn’t even follow that nuance. But, maybe it was a bit simpler. UBL wants us out of SA, the saudi people want us out of SA, and we feel the need to get our of SA. Move our bases to Iraq, problem solved.
ppGaz
Sure, makes perfect sense. We sit here and watch Iran and North Korea practically assembling the weapons in public just to get our goat, but we start a war over some guy who couldn’t have built such a weapon if we had given him 20 years and an illustrated instruction book with accompanying DVD and a 1-800 hot line.
What fucking nonsense. If Hussein wanted any kind of weapon, he had enough money to go out and buy it and have it drop shipped overnight to anyplace on earth. But he didn’t because it made no sense to his agenda, which was quite simple: Steal more money. Anything that threatened that plan was nonsensical. Mo money, mo money, mo money.
Nothing subtle about it.
KC
Hey, I think what scs is saying as it least sort of plausible. After all, we worked for a long time to strengthen sanctions against Iraq out of fear they’d get weapons. Frankly though, even under that interpretation, the administration was acting under a deceptive facade of WMD driven fears to get its war. The question then becomes, were they wrong to lie to us to get into a war over issues that were uncertain, namely that Saddam Hussein would have gotten WMD? More to the point, that he could have gotten WMD that were so dangerous they warranted our invasion?
slide
Could be construed that he had loyalty to his fellow marines and didn’t wish to desert them at a time of peril.
ppGaz
The irrefutable fact is that you don’t know, you lying sack of shit. You don’t know, and you have no license to speak for him.
STFU.
M.A.
Al Qaeda gave three reasons for 9/11. The Arab/Israel conflict, US troops in the holy land of Saudi Arabia, and the sanctions in Iraq.
So you’re basically saying that Bush is the world’s biggest appeaser of Al Qaeda.
As for the Sheehan thing, whether she’s an idiot is hardly the point, is it? She is right about Iraq, idiot or no. It’s sort of like George Galloway: he’s an idiot and a jerk, but as he correctly points out, he was right about Iraq not having WMD at a time when all the non-idiots and non-jerks were right.
My feeling is: being right deserves respect, even if you’re an idiot. And being horribly wrong deserves scorn even if you’re really super-smart.
M.A.
It’s sort of like George Galloway: he’s an idiot and a jerk, but as he correctly points out, he was right about Iraq not having WMD at a time when all the non-idiots and non-jerks were right.
I meant “when when all the non-idiots and non-jerks were wrong,” of course (Freudian slip?).
scs
.
Yes thanks Grateful, I forgot that was another reason. The reason the US troops were in Saudi in the first place was to guard against Saddam. To remove the troops there, they had to get rid of Saddam. And
Yes that’s my theory why he didn’t explicitly say this. He didn’t want to act like he was giving in.
slide
now back to the question at hand, who is a bigger idiot, Cindy Sheehan, or the Commander in Chief?
I offer into evidence this, which seems to indicate the Commander and Chief cannot even button his own shirt without assistance, a prime indicia of idiocy.
gratefulcub
SCS,
Well, sh is gone. We don’t have to protect the Saudis from SH. So, is Saddam really the reason we need troops in the Middle East?
Davebo
I have a nephew (who returned from a year in Iraq yesterday) who re-enlisted while still in Baghdad.
Does that mean he supported the war? Not according to him. He just figured that since he’d done his year he might as well stay (in guard) for the educational benefits.
That and someone managed to convince him it was impossible for him to be deployed to Iraq again.
Just saying, re-enlisting doesn’t equate to supporting Dubya’s boondoggle.
scs
Grateful, well now we need them to rebuild the country so that the Saddam’s Sunni gang doesn’t take over again. (which doesn’t seem impossible at this point). But thanks for the convo- got to go.
Defense Guy
Yes, repeat the same claim only up the ante by calling me a liar. The inescapable truth of your claim is that you don’t know with any amount of certainty anymore than I. At least I am willing to use reasoning to come to my conclusion, whereas you only have the anger of a delusional old man. What you do seem willing to do is shout down all who would oppose the sainted mother of Bush hatred.
But by all means, point out some fact, some small scrap of information that will help to support your thesis that Casey would be supportive of his mothers efforts to demean the fight of those he called his brothers.
We both know you can’t, so perhaps you should STFU you vile sack of monkey dung.
kl
You didn’t get the memo, Kaptain Kinko’s?
Nikki
Actually, Defense Guy, since Cindy Sheehan actually gave birth to and raised Casey Sheehan, I think she has a better handle on what his thoughts might or might not be than anyone else outside of his immediate family and friends.
Are you family or friend of Casey Sheehan?
ppGaz
I’m not the one claiming to know what he thought, about anything. I don’t know, and I have the decency not to put words into a dead man’s mouth, or thoughts into a dead man’s head. I also have the decency to let his mother own the subject. The same common decency you’d give to any such mother standing in front of you. But you’re a coward, and in here, you can stick your words and your thoughts into the equation, because you think you can get away with it.
You’re scum.
kl
That’s right, everybody knows mind-reading is strictly a family affair. These Zionists keep saying Casey reinlisted. Liars!
Defense Guy
Actually Nikki, the ones who are likely to know the best how he felt about the war are the ones that were with him when he died and the ones he served with the entire time he was in country.
Did you serve with him in Iraq?
Krista
The thing is, there is absolutely no way that any of us could know this. We don’t. All we know is that she’s an average American mom, whose son was killed in a war that a large percentage of the population thinks was unnecessary, and she feels that the man who sent her son to war has been very cavalier about the whole thing. Personally, I don’t think she’s trying to “demean” the fight of the troops. And those who are against the war are not automatically against the troops. Most of them feel that these young men and women are just doing their job, trying to stay alive, and are in conditions too horrible for most of us to imagine. So why WOULDN’T we want them out of there, if we feel that they were not ordered there for a good reason?
As far as what Casey Sheehan would or would not have wanted, I think it’s grotesque of any of us to even try to pretend that we would know. We don’t know why he re-upped. Maybe a sense of duty or obligation, or maybe he did feel that the war is a noble cause. He certainly didn’t tell any of us. Regardless of what Casey would or would not have wanted, I think that Cindy Sheehan has the right to think whatever she wants to think about the war, and she most certainly has the right to speak about what she thinks about the war. Whether people agree with her or not is irrelevant. She has that right, and to possibly have different views than her son did..I don’t think that dishonors his memory in any way.
circlethewagons
Then again, how many of us here would really want our mom’s to speak for us?
ppGaz
Here’s an honest title for this thread:
“Portrait of a blog that wants to deflect from collapsing support for the war in Iraq …. a collapse that started a long time before anyone ever heard of Cindy Sheehan.”
A title that truthfully describes the thread.
Krista
Good point. Have any of them spoken up to say that yes, Casey did genuinely believe he was there for a damned fine reason? I’m not being snarky, I’m just curious.
Nikki
Did you?
Mac Buckets
Riiiiiiiight. I hope you’re taking the piss.
No, she actually says Bush “killed” her son (not the anti-Iraq-democracy terrorists), because of the Joooooooos and Halliburton, of course. Average mom? Want another shot at that?
Charlie (Colorado)
…patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me.
Be still, my heart.
Defense Guy
You’re tactics are a joke you idiot. You have nothing but emotional appeal, and a poorly constructed one at that. You have no decency, and you certainly don’t know shit about me. Throw your feces you fetid little monkey, it’s all that you have left. Remember to wash your hands before you eat though or you might get an infection.
It is amusing to watch you devolve into ever more incoherent and illogical rants, all the while bringing up the same stale old talking points. Then again, I suppose I should look at your intellectual crumbling as a taste of what is to come for all of us.
You’re next line should include something about how I can sleep at night, in case the early onset is starting to kick in.
You’re a joke.
Nikki
And by the way, I believe those guys who served with him in Iraq fall under the venue of “immediate family and friends.”
So, I take it, ya’ll ain’t one of them.
Tim F
Being a conservative now, I think we need to bring America back to the good old days when we could convict people like that of witchcraft.
Another Jeff
Damn, i have to go back to the Larry Holmes/Tex Cobb fight to remember a beating like the one Defense Guy is putting on ppGaz.
Tim F
Cindy Sheehan turned me into a newt. I can prove it.
Krista
I’m not saying that everything she says is factual. But people sometimes say dumb things when they’re angry (as has been evidenced on this blog, oh, a thousand times at least.) What I’m saying is that she has every right to be against the war, and to speak up against the war, and that it’s very nasty of people to say that she’s dishonoring her son.
If only extremely well-informed people were allowed to loudly offer their opinions, 98% of the blogosphere would wink out of existence, as would most punditry shows.
jumpintimmy
“I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me”.
Stupid question… I don’t think they would have charged her a dime.
ppGaz
Brings to mind a scene from my past, circa 1990.
My son and I are eating lunch in a busy restaurant. He is about a year out of the Army at that particular time. He is single, in his early twenties.
The conversation turns to Iraq, and Saddam Hussein. The youngster likes to pull my chain, so he says, “I could go back in and go over there and fight that bastard.”
I answer: “Well, over my dead body.”
He: “Are you serious?”
Me: “Absolutely. You would have to fight me first. I’m not losing a kid over that situation over there without a fight. Period.”
Now, he wouldn’t really have done it, but he knew that I would have stood in his way. He could have taken me down, of course, he’s bigger and stronger. But I don’t think he would have fought me to go over there.
My point is that I’m the parent, and I get to make a decision like that. He can go, but he is going to have to climb over me to get there. Parents have certain rights, and people who are outside of the parent-child relationship have no say in the matter. Zero.
I did not raise a kid to be cannon fodder in a stupid, worthless war, and he won’t be used that way without a fight with me. And if he went over there, and got killed, I’d continue that fight on behalf of other parents. I’d be out there raising a shitstorm that would make Sheehan’s activities look like a tea party.
Defense Guy
Mac Buckets
Don’t forget that Ma Sheehan actually called the men who killed her son ‘freedom fighters’. She is truly an inspiration to all those currently in harms way.
But hey it’s all about the oil and the jooooos.
ppGaz
Yes I do, you lying sack. I know that you are standing here pretending to know something about the intentions of a dead person you didn’t know.
You don’t know, and you need to shut the fuck up.
Krista
And I’ll ask again, with the utmost sincerity, does anybody know if any of Casey Sheehan’s friends/colleagues offered any insight as to his true sentiments about the war?
rayabacus
That was very insightful. The key word being extremely.
ppGaz
Wait a minute, you piece of crap. You aren’t changing the subject. It’s Casey Sheehan you are pretending to speak for, remember? The dead guy that you didn’t know.
Are you giving up on that approach now?
circlethewagons
Fetid Monkey Fridays, this time its personal.
ppGaz
“Personal”, when a lying piece of scum stands here and claims to speak for a dead person he did not know, and never spoke to.
Call it personal, or call it whatever you want. It is what it is.
Mac Buckets
She’s just an “Average Mom,” though — not a partisan political pawn at all! Funny isn’t it, how as soon as Katrina knocks her off the news coverage, she miraculously appears in New Orleans in the guise of an aid worker to spout anti-Bush slogans? Wonder who paid for her trip?
Defense Guy
Ah, the rallying cry of authoritarians who can’t compete verbally everywhere. You don’t know either, but don’t let that stop you.
[Cartman]You will respect my moral authoriti [/Cartman]
Free speech for thee, but not for me. Nope, not gonna play in America asshole. She gave up her right to not be questioned when she made it political, and when she started mouthing the same tired old crazy crap that all the other communist, jooo-hating and pacifist historical revisionists have been using since the start.
She has my respect for raising an honorable son, and she has my sympathy for losing that son in a war, but she does not have a right to go unquestioned.
ppGaz
We’re not talking about her going “unquestioned”, you disgusting weasel.
We’re talking about you speaking for her dead son as if you know what the hell you are talking about, as if you have license to do so.
You don’t. Shut the fuck up.
Defense Guy
Awww, poor baby. Don’t worry, since it’s 4:00 here, it must almost be your dinnertime. You can take a break then; that is if your moral indignation hasn’t trumped your ability to eat.
The politics of the personal, you really are a pathetic piece of work. You really can’t help yourself from singing from the same old songbook. I thought we had been over that sweetness.
Maybe you should have your wife help you. You know, bring you up to speed on what’s going on.
Rick
Moonbat is as Mother Sheehan does.
Cordially…
circlethewagons
Well, I guess that takes care of that then.
pmm
Isn’t speaking for the dead a moot point? Unless it was spelled out in his will, any guesses about SPC Sheehan’s support for his mother’s advocacy is just speculation. It’s akin to determining what Lincoln or Washington would’ve thought about Terry Shiavo.
Besides, even if SPC Sheehan had explicitly asked his mother to become a spokeswoman for the anti-war movement, how would that add to the merits of her arguments?
Defense Guy
ppGaz
Anyway, I’m getting tired of kicking your ass here. If you want, I can write you a program that will save you the time of actually having to write your posts. I’ll be sure to have it include the totalitarian rallying cry of…
Shut the fuck up comrade. Shut the fuck up comrade. Shut the fuck up comrade. Shut the fuck up comrade. Shut the fuck up comrade.
Another Jeff
What does the fact that the restaurant was busy have to do with the rest of the conversation?
Mike
“ppGaz Says:
Plus, she is legitmately an idiot.
As opposed to, uh, not legitimately?
What you mean is, you’ve laid the groundwork to call her an idiot and figure that it can’t be challenged.
I take her to be a ditzy middle aged woman who lost her kid in a war. I don’t think she deserves to be called any schoolyard names.
But, that’s just me. And, that’s just you.”
She’s become just one more “hero of the left” and a symbol of what it’s become. And you guys just can’t STAND it. God I love this woman…
Defense Guy
Sorry Krista, I don’t have a link offhand, but I did hear that one of them kindly asked her to shut the f**k up because her words were making their work harder. Upping the possibility of more of them getting killed. I’ll see if I can’t dig something up.
Another Jeff
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!
Rick
If you want, I can write you a program that will save you the time of actually having to write your posts.
Defense Guy,
Save yourself the trouble, and just refer the “progressive” authoritarians here.
Cordially…
kl
For one thing, it indicates that there must have been a line for the bathroom when he went to change his twentysomething son’s diaper.
DougJ
I’ve had it: let’s send her Gitmo.
Thank you, John, for shifting the conversation from the trivial — the hurricane, the slow federal response, the huge deficit reconstruction will cause, our eventual capitulation to the Chinese brought on by the deficit — to the greatest threat facing our country: slightly unhinged grieving mother’s of servicemen killed in Iraq.
My fear is this: that with the renewed emphasis on preparing for natural disasters, that we won’t have enough money in the DHS budget to keep an eye on people like Cindy Sheehan.
On the plus side, with this new guy in charge of FEMA, we can start finally getting the common sense advice that flood victims need: put duct tape over your windows, it will keep the water out.
Mac Buckets
Did anybody read that trainwreck of a Kos Diary that some 19-year-old, multiple-pierced Starbuck’s waitress (just guessing) signed Sheehan’s name to? Wow. Besides what John snipped…
1) “Sheehan” nonsensically complains that Louisianans were evacuated, even though their houses didn’t get destroyed: “The people in LA who were displaced have nice, if modest homes that are perfectly fine. I wonder why the government made them leave at great expense and uproot families who have been living in their communities for generations.” Sheehan’s handlers should fire whoever wrote this, no matter how much they need the free coffee.
2) She then complains that water and food weren’t brought directly to all the homes of people who refused to go to shelters. “People were running out of food and water and they were being forced to go to the Superdome. They didn’t want to go to the Superdome, because their homes were pretty intact: they wanted to stay and have food and water brought to them.” You know, the disaster-relief-as-Pizza-Hut model. Jeebus.
3) Then she seems to say that Bush, well, created misery in poor neighborhoods…you know, ’cause they were always so cheery before! How did Bush crush the spirits of the happy poor? Oh, who even needs to give reasons at DKos, where Bush-hate is faith-based? You know Bush is guilty…guilty…guilty! “When I think of how many other poor neighborhoods are being decimated and made so desperate and hopeless by the failed policies of the Bush administration, it makes me so angry.”
Yes, we get it. Anger in spades, hate in boatloads, brains in thimbles.
Mac Buckets
Fear not: The feds won’t have to look hard for her. DHS can just leave a TV news camera lying around, and if recent history is any indication, she and her handlers will come running.
Paul L.
I love how ppGaz says we shouldn’t call Mother Sheehan any names. But calls anyone who disagrees with him and George Bush names.
Typical Liberal double standard.
rayabacus
Damn! I wish I had thought of that! Hope you don’t mind Mac Buckets, but I’m gonna steal that. I’ll credit you the first few times I use it though.
DougJ
Since they get all their information about the weather from the newspaper, that seems reasonable enough.
DougJ
Mac, that was a good line. You’ve been impressing me lately. You took my cheap shot about “hard” quite well and came back with a good Charles Nelson Reilly reference. You might be the wittiest Bushie out there, with all due respect to Defense Guy.
DougJ
That’s just weak, though. Come on Paul L., you can do better than that.
Krista
Good point. And conversely, if he had explicitly advised his mother that he was pro-war, how would that detract from the merits of her arguments?
Frankly, I think that BOTH sides should leave Casey the hell out of it.
She has chosen to become a political figure, and yes, those who disagree with her have every right to question her, to rebut her arguments, and so on. However, even if they have the technical right to call her names, demean her, and trot out her son’s memory to use against her…that doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do, or the smart thing to do. The second you resort to personal attacks when arguing a point, you lose credibility and respect.
Geek, Esq.
Thus endeth the era of Cindy Sheehan.
DougJ
I also think that some are coming perilously close to saying that he deserved to die because he re-upped, which I find horribly offensive.
KC
Here’s another reason why we really need to watch where this money goes.
KC
Money for Katrina, that is.
Tim F
I disagree. In this conservative era we should remember and cherish the old ways. We must see whether she is able to keep herself afloat long enough to preserve her own life. If not then she is a witch and we burn her.
Tim F
That should read, ‘if so…’ But you knew that.
Stormy70
Casey Sheehan.
B. Ross
Hope that, in Casey’s memory, all you guys under forty-two are signing up at your local recruiter’s. We need all your energy if we’re going to win this thing!
Don’t let OPERATION YELLOW ELEPHANT: SIGN UP OR SHUT UP people get you down, either. It’s OK to do the right thing.
John S.
I never cease to be amazed at the intense scrutiny people pay to Cindy Sheehan, considering that she really has no power or ability to directly affect people’s lives.
Whereas the endless parade of gaffes, misstatements and misdeeds of those who actually do have power and the ability to affect people’s lives go unnoticed by comparison.
Interesting logic, there.
kl
I would, but my 60-year-old dad won’t let me.
Stormy70
Zing!
Tim F
We’re talking about The Left here. Capital ‘T,’ capital ‘L.’ These guys have powers that you can’t even begin to imagine.
Joe
With Bob Denver’s recent passing, who will they get to play her in the made-for-TV movie?
John S.
Actually, I was talking about The Right. Capital ‘T’, capital ‘R’. They seem to be the most obsessed with parsing Sheehan’s every move. Though, I don’t think they have powers that I can’t begin imagine.
Far North
Cindy Sheehan did an amazing thing. She was able to shine a spotlight on our “resolute” president while he was vacationing (again)and it truly made him look bad in a lot of people’s eyes. How can one little woman with one simple little question, “what did my son die for”, knock the president “off his horse”. Her stance just seemed to resonate with so many people.
Bush has been given the benefit of the doubt, almost without exception, since 9/11. It was simply amazing to watch Bush when the press offered a little critical coverage. And let’s face it, if anything deserves some critical coverage, it’s the Iraq debacle. Despite what a lot of Bush supporters think, a good percentage of Americans are still waiting for an answer from Bush as to why we had to invade Iraq….and not one of the constantly changing “answers of the month” that Bush and his supporters have been offering.
I think we know why Bush invaded Iraq. It’s pretty much a rhetorical question at this point. Can you blame those opposed to Bush’s policies for constantly ask it? Sheehan scored a major victory against Bush by constantly asking that rhetorical question. And that’s what angers so many Bush supporters. It’s the reason they are so venomous and bitter towards her. Bush is used to winning the image battle. One little woman, Sheehan, beat him at it this time.
DougJ
All the more reason to send her to Gitmo.
ppGaz
In 1990, I was 44, which anyone who pays attention and can add and subtract can figure out.
Second, I didn’t say I “wouldn’t let him” go. I said he would have to climb over me to get there. Quite a different thing; a distinction I wouldn’t expect you to be able to comprehend.
I’m proud to say that I raised a kid who wouldn’t have held back at trying to get past me to do what he wanted to do in that situation. In our family, we try to do what we think is right despite opposition.
And as I pointed out earlier, had that contest been held, I’d have lost. We fed the lad too well. From about 17 on, and once he had been in the Army, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him physically.
All of this, of course, is distraction from the real point, and distraction is everything that this thread is about. The real point here is that parents have a stake in these things, and how that manifests itself is between the parent and the kid … regardless of age. It was between me and him, and is nobody else’s business.
Whose “business” these things are is what the despicable Defense Guy’s remarks are all about. He thinks it is his business to prattle on about what Casey Sheehan wanted or thought, and I say, it isn’t. Judge it as you see fit. DG is a subhuman piece of shit, AFAIC.
Last, the context: You are participating in a blog that urges you to express sympathy to the vapid Stormy for the loss of her cat, and then pokes fun at Cindy Sheehan.
That’s what’s going on here. You can put funny lipstick and clown makeup on this pig, but it’s still a pig.
DougJ
Come on, ppgaz, DG is cool. If you were talking about Darrell I would agree, but cut DG some slack.
Tim F
I’m telling you, a witch trial is the only way to go here. Gitmo could close down any day, but burning is forever. If it turns out that she wasn’t influencing national opinion through the use of dark satanic powers we can always put up a nice plaque.
KC
Tim F, I completely agree with you. Except that, I think, there’s one thing you’re missing: she needs to burn not because of what she has done recently, but because of who she is, a lesbian. No reason to put up a plaque then, right?
DougJ
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. If she floats, then, yes, she burns. If she drowns, then all bets are off. Let’s let the legal system take its course, the way we are with Plame probe, before we burn her. We must respect the rule of law.
kl
I wasn’t talking about you, but good point, I would have had to follow his instructions no matter how old he was.
The Comish (sic)
Krista:
My impression is that soldiers aren’t generally free to express their opinions on the war, or to freely criticize their comanding officers (including the C in C). I went to school with a military lawyer (who ended up being the lead prosecutor for the Abu Ghraib folks) and whenever professors would ask him for his opinions on the President’s actions, he’d have to decline to answer the question. My suspicion from the military folks I know is that they think they’re doing the right thing over there. But even if they don’t support the war — and not all of them do — they’re not free to say so in front of a tv camera.
ppGaz
My mistake; my bad.
ppGaz
You are welcome to do so, DougJ. I won’t. In fact, the limits of language as the interface here prevent me from conveying my true opinion of the man.
All due respect, therefore, I must decline your suggestion.
KC
Ah, people need to love one another here. This is Balloon-Juice, John’s home of peace and serenity on the net, after all.
Krista
ppGaz – breathe, man….breathe.
Comish – Good to know. And in a way, I can kind of understand the rationale behind it. It is a bit sad, though…especially for the ones that signed up before this war began. To have made that commitment to defend your country, and then to be sent away to risk your balls for a war that you might not believe in, and then to not be able to even tell anybody how frustrated you are about the whole thing. I bet there are more troops in that precise situation than we’d know. Either way, they’re not in an enviable position, and regardless of my personal feelings about this actual war, I have nothing but respect for the people over there who are just trying to stay alive in nightmarish conditions.
ppGaz
Uh, yeah, right. And Halle Berry is a guy.
The Comish (sic)
scs
This is remarkably similiar to arguments I heard being made by conservative pundits before the war. A few points of refinement on your argument:
Nobody, and I mean nobody, seriously thinks that Saddam would not have pursued WMD if we’d lifted the sanctions against him. I mean, this is a guy who had scientists bury key pieces to constructing nuclear weapons in the scientists’s back yard. Al Gore said Iraq was the biggest threat facing America. And, as John Kerry so eloquently pointed out, Saddam was a man on whom deterrence did not appear to work.
Saddam was the biggest reason that we were in Saudi Arabia. It wasn’t so much his pursuit of WMD (although that was part of it). It was because of his history of aggression against his neighbors. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and all the countries in the UAE wanted us in Saudi Arabia to protect them against an invasion from Saddam Hussein. Taking Saddam out freed us up to get out of Saudi Arabia.
The truth is that there were tons of reasons to go to war against Iraq: Hussein’s ties with terrorism; Hussein’s history of aggression against his neighbors, Hussein’s history of aggression against the US; Hussein’s oppressions and murder of thousands of his own citizens; Hussein’s fascist government; the fact that all Western intelligence agencies thought Hussein was trying to develop WMD (as did many of Hussein’s people); the fact that Hussein was a destabilizing influence in an area in which we have strategic interests; the fact that democracies don’t tend to go to war against other democracies (and we’re a democracy); the fact that Putin’s intelligence agency reported to the US that Hussein was planning an attack on the US; the fact that the sanctions were possibly killing thousands of innocent Iraqis, and that Hussein was unwilling to do what it took to get rid of the sanctions; the fact that we were spending billions each year and putting our troops in harm’s way while patrolling the No Fly Zones in Iraq; etc., etc., etc.
And I find it terribly ironic that the lefties in this thread are chastising Bush for “appeasing” al Queda. Isn’t this the same crowd that crows about the US bringing 9/11 on ourselves? Aren’t these the same people who say we should address terrorism’s “root causes”? And when a Republican tries to do that, they have nothing but invective.
ppGaz
A strawman argument, widely used, completely misleading.
The purpose of learning and knowing about terrorism’s “causes” is to learn how to combat it and protect against it, not to appease it or try to appeal to it.
Without the relevant knowledge, trying to wage a “war on terror” is about as effective as waging a “war on insects.” Which bugs, in which places, do you intend to spray? Etc.
I’ve been asking for, and waiting for, a description of a “war on terror” for four years now, and I have yet to see one. One reason why this mythical thing is so hard to conjure up is that in order to know how to have a “war” on it, you have to know a good deal about it. There aren’t many people who appear to know squat about the subject. A good deal of the expertise that is out there is methodically impeached by people who have a particular agenda and don’t want facts to get in their way (for example, the Bush Potatohead Administration, which obfuscates and deliberately conflates facts and information about terrorism so as to prop up its absurd theories and schemes).
The Comish (sic)
Krista:
Amen, sister. Their commitment to each other and to protecting us at home makes me feel incredibly small, and incredibly grateful.
Boronx
Rice: Bill, that’s tough. It’s tough. But what — would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?
Slide, you can’t expect the same level of expertise on foreign affairs from Condi that John expects from Cindi.
DougJ
Then those guys in gym class were right, I really am gay.
W.B. Reeves
What a waste of band width, not to mention time.
jobiuspublius
Poor John Cole, can’t cope with the clusterfuck that Worst-POTUS-Ever inflicts on us. So, he picks on the powerless. Then, he wonders why the leadership of his party pursues it’s enemies relentlessly.
Defense Guy
Sadly your intellect and ability to reason beyond emotion are just as limited. But don’t worry, I am basking in the warmth of your hate and laughing at your inability to reason past your limited emotional range, you doddering old simp.
Some people, especially those who start with the personal attacks, ought to know when enough is enough. Again, sadly this is just another of your weaknesses.
You are just another in a sad line of ancient old men who still think they contain the mental acuity to argue. You don’t, all you have left is an empty seething rage based on nothing concrete.
At least you raised a son that gave a shit. Are you sure he was yours?
Lets do this again some time grandpa, as I’m sure your inability to control your emotional side will continue to allow you to ‘shine’.
DougJ – I appreciate your earlier comment. Some people seem unable to see past their entirely closed minds and our boy ppGaz here seems to be one of them.
Far North
POTUS vs Sheehan? You’d think that Bush could fight this battle with Sheehan on his own. This sniping at Sheehan by the Bush loyalists exposes the fact that the Bush doctrine, of which the Iraq policy is the centerpiece, has become virtually indefensible. Since Bush’s followers can’t defend the clusterfuck in Mess-o-potamia, they demand the noose for Sheehan because she helps expose just what a fraud the whole Bush doctine has alwayys been…which I guess is “invade any country that Bush calls evil before it’s proven that they aren’t a threat to the United States”. Or whatever the fuck the Bush doctrine is.
I do enjoy the contortions that Sheehan haters put themselves through to try discredit her. It reminds me of the late 20th century conservatives as they foamed at mouth and lathered themselves into convulsive, venoumous diatribes when Bill Clinton lied about his personal sex life.
dave
when and where can I read about Al Qaeda saying that the Iraqi sanctions were a reason for 9/11?
I don’t remember that.
ppGaz
Thanks a lot, Doug. So that you can get yourself a little feelgood, I have to put up with this kind of post from DG.
Since you obviously don’t know the history, the backstory and the modus operandi of this guy, it would be helpful in the future if you would mind your own goddamned business.
Randolph Fritz
John, it looks like she’s right.
Is that why you’re attacking her?
Veeshir
I’m siding with Defense Guy here, ppGaz has been getting more and more shrill as time goes by.
I mean, you all are actually defending Mother Sheehan for calling for the troops to be out of “Occupied” New Orleans.
I don’t feel like going back and looking, I will if you want, but I bet all of you were the ones who were frothing at Bush for not sending in the troops earlier. That’s just too funny.
Ideology trumps all with you people. ppGaz most of all.
Krista
As Stickler pointed out in another thread though…it’s kind of amazing how so many people just have this incredible hatred for a woman who doesn’t set policy, doesn’t make laws, doesn’t decide court cases…basically, a woman with no more political power than you and me. You might not like what she has to say, but is she actually affecting your life and the way that you live it, in any way, shape or form? Is your company going to downsize because of her? Are you going to lose your health insurance because of her? Is the crime rate in your city going to go up because of her decisions? Doubtful. So I can see why a lot of you don’t agree with what she says. I don’t agree with a lot of what she says. But why don’t we save that kind of ire for the people who are actually affecting whether or not we can put food on our tables and live safely?
Defense Guy
I don’t hate her. I will mock her message and her insistance on using her dead child as some sort of sick puppet, until she stops. I have said before she has my sympathy for her loss and my respect for raising an honorable child.
DougJ
Thank God the Bush administration had the decency not to this with Teri Schiavo.
Krista
Defense Guy – if that’s how you talk about someone you don’t hate…wow. Although, in all fairness, I just read back through your posts, and did not see anything that struck me as being particularly below-the-belt about her. About other people on this post, yes. About her, not so much…although I’m not really comfortable with you saying that she’s using her dead child as some sort of sick puppet. She’s doing what she feels is the right thing to do. And the fact that her son was killed in the war is a rather integral part of the rationale behind her protest…and he was her son, and she did have to endure the horror of losing her child to a war that she felt was illegal and invalid, and because of that, I just have a really hard time believing that we have any kind of right to tell her what she should or should not say about her son.
Defense Guy
DougJ
I am sure you are aware that I am not the Bush administration. I am also sure that you are aware that the similarities between the 2 cases end at the fact that casey and terri were both someones child.
Krista
It’s what her supporters have been trying to set up from the start, the perfect spokesperson who no one can question. I have every right to disagree with her message, and every right to state that it is a betrayal of her sons actions.
DougJ
Correct me if I’m wrong, Defense Guy, but we all are or were someone’s child. But not all of us are forced to lie brain dead with a feeding tube up our nose for five years while someone bats a balloon in front of our face.
Krista
I agree with you completely on the former, and respectfully disagree with you on the latter.
ppGaz
Really? About the strongest comment I’ve made about Sheehan is that she does not deserve to be called schoolyard names. In two months, I doubt that I’ve said much of anything about her public appearances or the content of her speech, other than to say that she has a right to say what she says.
That’s “ideology” to you? That’s “shrill”?
You are confusing a flame war between me and DG with the supposed issue in the thread. The flame war has nothing to do with ideology. If you are going to shoot your mouth off about something, you ought to pay enough attention to understand what is going on.
RW
Doug & Defense Guy,
Life’s too short to dwell on the meanderings of angry, unemployed (or, most likely, screwing-around-at-work) Democrats whose life is so void of substance that they troll web sites all day long. Almost every day.
Scroll past and pretend that they don’t exist for it’s a waste of time. Check the elections over the last few years….no one else cares, why should you?
Let ’em whine in their own anonymous (which makes it easier to talk tough) bile.
ppGaz
As usual, DG, completely dishonest.
I haven’t seen any “support” for Sheehan here which claims her to be a “perfect spokesperson who (sic) noone can question.”
I believe that my first, and most recent, characterization of her was that she is “ditzy.”
The closest I’ve come to commenting on her (voluminous) speech is probably a nod to the idea that it is legal, at least so far, in this country to challenge the blind and knee-jerk support of Israel represented by US policy. What’s more, I believe I did then, and I will now for the record, state that such a challenge is not to be confused with any “blame it on jews” or antisemitic speech, whether that speech comes from Sheehan or anywhere else.
As for your last sentence, which is in two parts, the first part is a gimmee. The second part is a trap. You have the legal “right” to say whatever you want, but you certainly have no moral right to make the assertion, because the thing you are talking about is none of your business. Of course, you know that already, and that’s why you do it, and that’s why I think you are scum. And of course, I’m right.
ppGaz
Well, I’ve seen your crummy blog, and for you, one out of three is not a bad score. Yes, I am angry.
However, I am neither unemployed, nor “screwing around at work.” Most recently, just so you’ll know, I’m on medical leave. Activities are restricted, and daytime tv sucks, so here I am. My loss is your gain.
Based on what I see at your blog, just making things up seems to come pretty naturally to you.
DougJ
Hope you get better ppgaz. And I hope this silly blog provides at least some amusement for you.
Defense Guy
RW
You are right. Good advice. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s time to move past it.
ppGaz
I am a walking wonder of medical science.
The missus is torn between being amazed by the technology, or wondering when the HELL she is going to get all that life insurance.
Just kidding!
Feeling pretty good, thanks. Praise Allah for good health insurance, or I’d be on the street.
ppGaz
Loser.
DougJ
Ppgaz, I hope that you’re praying regularly. That’s the only way to get better.
ppGaz
Absolutely. I am faith-based all the way.
Com Con
I’m sick to death of Mother Sheehan. I wonder if Casey even really liked her. Plenty of people die during war. It’s a sad thing, don’t get me wrong, but the war in Iraq is the only way to keep the country safe. We should have gone in their years ago. Saddam has been thumbing his nose at us for years. At a certain points, enough’s enough, WMDs or no WMDs.
ppGaz
Congratulations, John.
This is what your blog has come to.
Tim F
No no, real meat is here:
More like this please.
Krista
Why yes, of course, a world leader “thumbing his nose” at you is an excellent reason to start dropping bombs on civilians. Heaven forbid that a sovereign country not do precisely what the U.S. wants them to do.
Please.
I agree Saddam was an evil sonofabitch. No dispute there. But the U.S. has opened a huge can of worms. They declared pre-emptive war on another country, without there being a clear and imminent danger of being attacked. We all know damned well that the U.S. has nuclear weaponry…how long do you think it’ll be before another country’s leader decides to emulate George Bush’s modus operandi and start a war for no other reason than that the U.S. has nukes, and isn’t always internationally co-operative?
The war in Iraq has made your country a lot LESS safe — Bush tipped his country’s hand when it wasn’t necessary, and has shown the rest of the world VERY clearly where the U.S.’s weaknesses lie. I truly, truly hope I’m wrong on this, because I love the U.S. and its people, even if I think its president is dangerous and shortsighted.
scs
Okay, so we should have kept the sanctions in place? Is that what you all wanted?
Krista
scs – no, I don’t think the sanctions were really a good idea either. I’m not excessively well-read on this, so pardon my ignorance, but it seems that in most cases where sanctions have been imposed, it’s the regular people who suffer, not the country’s decision-makers. They somehow always manage to live high on the hog.
So what’s the alternative? I don’t know…but it seems to me that the people who have the power to make these decisions should have enough intelligence and imagination to have thought up some reasonable alternatives by this point. It just seems that nobody even tries anymore to think of any alternatives other than sanctions or war.
Com Con
Krista, the guy had a death wish plain and simple. He was laughing at the sanctions, making billions dealing with Kofi and his son. We simply had no choice. It’s that simple.
I know it’s expensive. I know that we’re suffering casualties, but sometimes you just have to say “No more, not this time.” Otherwise, other countries won’t respect us. They’ll just thumb their noses too.
Krista
I don’t agree with you. Sorry, but I think that there WAS a choice, and that the wrong one was made. At any rate, we can’t go back and undo what was done, but I just hope that lessons can be learned from this.
However, just for argument’s sake, I will ask you: why the timing? Why divert all of those forces to Iraq when the hunt for Osama was still ongoing? Why spend all that money fighting a war when security upgrades were desperately needed at home? If Saddam had been thumbing his nose at you for years, then why did the war have to take place when it did?
Com Con
First off, Osama’s not much of a threat anymore. He’s on dialsysis and he’s so afraid of getting caught, he’s hide out most of the time. Second, Saddam has it in for us for years. He tried to kill Bush senior, he was involved with that first WTC bombing, and he’s a general menace. Iraq was a time bomb. We defused it. It was harder than we thought and maybe a little blew up in our face, but the fact is, we’ll never get a Saddam nuke floating into New York harbor now.
ppGaz
So, we went to war to earn respect?
Aside from the fact that the notion is completely sociopathic, and aside from the fact that this choice was not the one offered to the American people during the runup to war, and aside from the fact that we DON’T CURRENTLY HAVE the respect you refer to ….
… are you out of your fucking mind?
Krista
The former members of the Nazi SS aren’t much of a threat anymore either, but people still seem pretty interested in bringing them to justice.
Even if you do believe that Osama is no longer a threat, which I somehow doubt you do, there’s still the matter that Osama WAS behind 9/11. Bush owed it to the American people to put 100% effort into capturing him.
Krista
Oh yeah…ppG, thanks for mentioning that, ’cause I forgot. The U.S., after 9/11, had an unprecedented amount of goodwill from other nations, and could have used that to forge new alliances, gain new respect, and get some really incredible things accomplished. That opportunity is gone…a lot of potential allies are permanently alienated…the country’s security is still no better…and your young men and women are dying in a war that a majority of your country thinks was a mistake.
Yeah…some great leader you’ve got there.
Krista
I weep for you all…I really do. This government is sending your country to hell in a handbasket, and the almost-half of the country who didn’t vote for him can only look on in horror.
scs
Do you really think that goodwill would have lasted anyway? C’mon. I have many European cousins. That place has been anti-American since I was little. The sympathy we got had a short shelf life anyway.
scs
Well Krista, I hate to break it to you, but the people in power are no more intelligent than you or I, and there is no magic wand they can wave. You basically either have the carrot and the stick in any situation. If the carrot doesn’t work, sometimes you have to go with the stick.
Krista
Maybe so, maybe not, but it certainly was not used wisely or well while it WAS there.
ppGaz
Why is the point even being argued? Are you signing on the idea that the war was necessary to earn respect?
Because that was the original context in which this point was raised.
scs
You know its funny. I chatted with a guy from Egypt the other night on Yahoo, who was kind of anti-Bush and anti-American. He just happened to be a Shia minority from that country. I asked him, okay, you hate George Bush because he got rid of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? I told him, as a Shia, you should instead be grateful to Bush. He really didn’t have much to say to that.
scs
?
No I don’t. I just think it really affected anyone’s opinion much one way or the other.
scs
Sorry, I meant to say it DIDN’T affect opinion.
RW
It’s called PITY.
The same socialistic countries that didn’t like Bush on 9/10 didn’t like Bush on 9/12. Just as when Princess Diana, most countries showed sympathy. That’s what happened with us.
Of course, had we only raised taxes on everyone else making more than the kossacks who visit this site, paid for their doctor’s visits and guaranteed them a job, the world would’ve loved us better. Instead, we went to war and the guy who chose that path was re-elected via the most votes in history.
Now might be a good time to start dealing with that.
ppGaz
What a fucking idiot. “Most votes” because the population is larger and there are more voters, not because the man is widely loved or admired. The margin was thin.
The “path” you refer to is now rejected by a pretty significant majority of voters. A poll published this weekend has 52% of them calling for a peremptory withdrawal of troops from Iraq even if the country then falls into disarray as a result.
In other words, the policy is a failure at home, after having been a failure on the world scene since the get-go. Americans don’t think the war was a good idea, don’t think it has made us safer, and don’t think continued troop support there is warranted.
That’s not Kossacks talking, that’s the majority opinion in this country.
And you know as well as I do that you only post here to pimp your crummy blog, which hasn’t had an original idea in its content since you started it.
anon
ppgaz said
What poll was that? Do you have a link?
Com Con
Good one. That’s the thing, no one is talking about, how bad Sheehan make all the war-hating leftos look. Karl Rove couldn’t have made up this good of a foil, unless of course he did. The Democrats are going to rue the day they got into bed with the fleas of Camp Casey.
ppGaz
Saw a bunch of them in the last 48 hours, that one was CBS I think.
Yep, CBS.
Com Con
Ppgaz, I’ve got to think that was an off poll. Maybe the question was phrased in a leading way, like the polls that kept showing how everyone wanted the state to help murder Teri Schiavo.
I think that most Americans want to stay the course, no matter that poll seems to show. And isn’t CBS the fake memo network. That makes me wonder…
Com Con
She’s a true wingnut, no doubt about it. The bottom line is that her son died for noble cause. It is not about Haliburton and Israel, it’s about peace and democracy. I just wish the left hadn’t done such a good job of twisting the public’s idea of what the war is all about. I saw a Fox special about the war last week that did a really good job of outlining our goals there and why we had to go in. If everybody watched that, I think they’d have a much better perspetive on the whole thing. But CBS and the rest are never going to give that kind of perspective.
anon
ppgaz said
Thanks.
ppGaz
Uh, have you read the paper in the last 6 months?
Support for the war has steadily collapsed, and you can take this to the bank: It is not coming back.
If you think I’m wrong about that, ask John Cole to explain it to you. I’ve been asking him all summer what he thinks the government can do to get back the support it needs in order to “stay the course.”
So far, silence.
Plenty-o-knee-slappin humor about Sheehan, though.
Yee haw.
ppGaz
I think your last remaining brain cell is giving you a Low Battery signal.
FOX is the ratings leader in tv news. It’s also a 24 x 7 operation, in case you don’t have cable.
CBS News does a few hours of programming a week, broadcast only, no cable.
Are you really going to stand there and argue that CBS is responsible for the fact that the majority of Americans have decided that the Iraq war isn’t worth much support these days? I’d be surprised if 5% of Americans watched any national tv news on a regular basis.
You have a
fertilefebrile imagination, sir. Or madam, whatever.anon
ppgaz said
Can you recall the sources of any of those other polls?
ppGaz
I think you’ve confused me with the Shell Answer Man. Or Google?
The “source” is the tv, which is on over there and which is displaying football or car shows if I can get the remote away from the missus.
The usual suspects are Newsweek, Gallup, Zogby, USA Today, CBS, Time-CNN …..
The Iraq numbers have been trending steadily down for months, but the “withdraw even though the country isn’t stable” thing is recent and pretty much stuck out.
The most cited numbers I’m hearing in the last 2-3 days are related to Bush approval (40-ish) and “country on wrong track” (100% …. I dunno, really, fairly high though) and Balloon-Juice-on-wrong-track (150%). I might have made up that last one.
anon
ppgaz said
No, but thanks for responding.
The reason I’m asking is that I believe the CBS poll, is the first poll I’ve seen where a majority of the respondents backed the option of withdrawing all U.S. troops, regardless of the political/security situation in Iraq.
Com Con
It’s certainly the first I’ve seen, and since it is CBS I really have to wonder. That would be great if they got caught doing fake polls as well as fake memos. But I bet it was just more of a “push poll” like a lot of the polls around the time of Schiavo.
ppGaz
You can’t invent the nonsense you see in here if it didn’t exist.
The “major” (established, with a lengthy track record) polls tend to track each other on important issues. Thus, they serve as checks and controls against each other over time.
The point here, and the context it exists in, is that support for the war, in general, has been headed down for some time, continues to head down, and now represents a minority view in this country.
That ain’t CBS, lefy media, or a moon made of green cheese. It’s part of a set of established facts, and wrt to the Iraq issue …. it’s a trend that is not going to reverse.
ppGaz
Add NBC-WSJ to the poll list, please.
Per today’s
Press the MeatMeet the Press …By a large margin, Americans think that the way to pay for Katrina remediations is to reduce Iraq expenditures, when offered various choices to pay for katrina efforts.
Another indication that public commitment to the Iraq effort is collapsing.
If you needed yet another indication (say, you were in some kind of denial-cum-crankiness and just didn’t want to talk about any of this, you know, like some blog owners we know), just look at the 2006 troop strength strategy that is being floated out there. So afraid of the Iraq issue is this government that it is making plans to get withdrawals going in time to help with the American election … so afraid that it is saying it will do something that only months ago it was saying it WOULD NOT do — namely, tell the insurgents what we are planning to do.
capelza
I haven’t seen these polls, but I have a possible reason. It is tied to the hurricane. We had a huge national disaster here at home. The war was already losing support, and perhaps Katrina was the “tipping point”. As in, enough of this, we have stuff to deal with at home…
Just a thought.
Mac Buckets
It frankly doesn’t matter whether or not opinion polls show 60% support or 30% support for the war, or whether Joe Twelvepack wants to nuke all the Ay-rabs or bring all our troops home, which is why I feel that ppg’s question about “how to get the support back” is irrelevant. The public doesn’t get to vote on whether we stay or not, and there is not one chance in a thousand that the Congress or this President is “cutting and running,” because they know that it would be the end of their political careers…and that’s what’s really important to them, after all.
Com Con
Yes, that’s the real point. The president doesn’t need the support of the public here, because he’ll stay the course whether people like it or not. He isn’t big on poll numbers anyway. He’s more of a “gut” guy. And more often than not, so far, his gut has been right. It’s been right more often than those polls, that’s for sure.
ppGaz
Right. That’s why the White House announced over the summer that it was embarking on a campaign to shore up support. Why Bush was speaking to this end in San Diego on the day Katrina hit New Orleans.
It’s why Bush did little else but stump the country early in the year for his Social Security plan, why “meetings” were held in front of cherry-picked audiences. Why Iraq speeches are staged in front of military audiences.
Why the main thrust of White House activity is not policy, not interfacing with Congress, but “communications”, constant manipulation of the news cycles and constant generation, dissemination, and repetition of talking points.
It’s all because the polls don’t matter.
The Iraq war is over, because public support for it is over. What remains now is the cleanup phase and the phase where damage to the image of the administration and the GOP are minimized. That phase began with the public exposure of planned withdrawals in 2006. That wasn’t a tipping point, it was what happens after a tipping point.
ppGaz
You’re going to need to get with DougJ if you want to learn how to write satire, comadre.
Or, maybe you are DougJ?
ppGaz
The juxtaposition of these two stories, within weeks of each other, is ….. elightening.
Also, you to admire the General’s chutzpah in making the statement shown in the last sentence of my second blockquote. It’s right there with “insurgency in its last throes.” Funny, if not so tragic.
Com Con
Ppgaz, that second story was a few months ago. Bush said those withdrawls are not going to happen. And you can’t compare the general’s statement there with the “last throes” comment. Cheney was an idiot to say that.
ppGaz
Actually, it was about 7+ weeks ago.
So far, your record of getting nothing right in this conversation is holding firm.
Ya think?
quackquack
First, I would like to state that it seems that no one who posts on this site is an idiot. The debate here is, for the most part, robust. What we see, however, is that both sides are wedded to their own form of wisdom. I see it as a multi-faceted (is there any other type?) prism from which each of us picks up one image while the light of one unknown truth passes through.
I have my own angle, my own set of colors, and my own intensity. Sometimes I have to laugh when I see people speak of “distortions” and the like as if their image is the unknown truth. I have been guilty of doing this myself because I hold dearly that “freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” Some may say that it is five and I will think them to be ill-informed and even more so when they try to explain to me that they are only wrong (that 2+2=5) in my archaic system of arithmetic.
For those who shout “scum” or “loser” or whatever it is, I have one term to describe you: yahoo.
quackquack
I am not so sure that “last throes” is not an accurate way to describe what is happening.
Then again, it depends on if you see the steady stream of violence as acts from a spirited opposition or acts of desperation. And at the root of this is whether you think (I am sure many of you can make the logical leap) that this war has increased or decreased the influence of Islamic fundamentalism.
DougJ
I’ve just been reading threads today and I may stick to that — no posting — for a little while. You all know my stock-in-trade is satire, but when I read this piece in the New York Times today, I realized that I just can’t compete. When a pro like Brooks turns his hand to satire, the results can be amazing.
Mac Buckets
You’re making a small but significant mistake. I said that polls don’t matter regarding the ongoing operation of the reconstruction of Iraq, which will continue regardless of poll numbers. You mistake that to mean that Bush doesn’t care about the public appraisal of the war. These are two entirely different matters, and should not be conflated.
Bush (and more certainly, his party apparatus) cares about the public perception of the war to the extent that it affects the 2006 elections and, I guess, Bush’s legacy. Hence, the various speeches. What he is not doing is seeking to curry favor for some upcoming referendum on our presense in Iraq.
Again, few politicians (outside Mass. and California) will want “cut and ran” on their resumes, so that simply won’t happen.
I’d say the War had already ended after Iraq’s free elections, wherupon we entered the Reconstruction phase, which deals with the terrorist “losers” and Iraq’s infrastructure. The election made it official that Saddam’s government wasn’t coming back, and made clear that Iraqis won’t give back the vote to a minority dictatorship. That electoral victory over the terrorists is what ended The War Proper against Saddam and the Ba’athists, not some newspaper opinion polls of what average Americans think (a notion which possesses the rare quality of being both naively quaint and laughably arrogant at the same time).
RW
“The War Proper against Saddam and the Ba’athists, not some newspaper opinion polls of what average Americans think (a notion which possesses the rare quality of being both naively quaint and laughably arrogant at the same time).”
Hey, throw ’em a bone. When folks cannot win at the ballot box, they have to grasp for SOMETHING to reinforce their preferences….if it’s a meaningless poll less than a year after elections went against them, let ’em grab it. Better yet, let’s see some on-line polls that have been “hacked”….they’re very good at winning those right before losing elections.
Let ’em revel in SOMETHING, at least. :)
ppGaz
Yes, I see the difference as you point it out, although I can’t say that I think it’s a distinction that matters. “Reconstruction” is too vague a term. It could mean almost anything, in practical terms, from everything, to nothing. Also it is a term which — intentionally or not — glosses over the grotesque religious and political divisions in the country which have fucked up its mojo for going on a hundred years …. and that’s just the modern context. I mean, it’s like talking about temperature records. They are only meaningful if you allow that we didn’t keep them in 35 AD, if you get my drift.
Well, hard to argue with that, since your assertion is sensical, and since we have no data with which to judge the level of his “caring.”
However, whether he cares or not, the question is, what will he do? He can’t become more aggressive in Iraq at this point. Public support won’t permit it; I see it as a constraint. He can’t control or even manage the political outcome there, the thing has taken on its own life now. He can’t make a huge strngth reduction today without seeing a collapse of order and civil war. I think he is screwed, WRT Iraq, at the moment.
And, since Iraq as it now exists continues to suck the oxygen and the money out of American politics, I don’t think he can do much of anything at home either. I don’t think he can govern. Appointing a judge here and there is not governing.
For a good measure of his ability to govern, see Katrina and New Orleans. I think his performance, going back to about August 24, is a perfect metaphor for his ability to run a country. (I think that ability was near zero when he took office in 2001, and has degraded to less than zero now).
quackquack
Wow! What an extremely partisan thing to say. I have a feeling that you are the sort of person that cannot see yourself being wrong. Though I can appreciate your wit in some posts, I get the feeling that you are dye-in-wool, unfortunately I believe that the wool is over your eyes.
ppGaz
Well, I’m not wrong about this, son.
I was wrong when I thought the little former alcoholic might actually make an acceptable president. But that was before I saw his work.
Mac Buckets
I think it’s the key distinction to keep in mind when reading these polls. Your position in those posts to John seems to be that Bush must do something to shore up his Iraq poll numbers in order to maintain the public support of the war, as if those poll numbers are somehow significant in an operational sense. My point is that public support of the war is almost entirely irrelevant in terms of what will happen in Iraq.
I’m not sure why you think public opinion polls are any restraint on this particular President w/r/t Iraq. He’d likely be more popular if they were.
I think that was always the point. I’d hate to think that they imagined they’d tell the Iraqis in a free election who the next government would be. They were always rolling the dice, to some extent. They banked on al-Sistani’s secularist influence in many ways. We shall see.
This is the most interesting question to me. If the US pulled out tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, the Sunnis set off ten more suicide/roadside bombs against the Iraqi police and Shi’ites, I wonder if the press would say, “The Civil War has started!” I think that would be likely.
What I’m saying is, if the 20% minority Sunnis want a civil war against the 80% of the Iraqi population who now have political, numerical, and weapons superiority, then the only way for them to have any impact on their own is to do just what they are doing now. So how do we not call their current bombing campaign “civil war?”
Of course, the other thing the Sunnis could do would be to enlist the aid of Saudis or other Sunni Arabs and declare jihad against the Iraqi Shi’ites, who would then enlist the aid of Iran and other Shi’ites and declare jihad against the Sunnis…and we’ve got the Big Islamic Bloodlust Main Event. And if Bush somehow masterminded that one, he is by far the most brilliant foreign policy mind in the history of the planet (although it would seem more likely that it was Wolfie or Cheney).
Back to reality, in the most recent poll I saw, more than 80% of Iraqis thought it was unlikely there’d be a civil war in Iraq, and those are people who want the US out in short order.
And yes, until the Constitution is ratified, and the next Iraqi elections are held, Bush’s legacy is clearly in limbo w/r/t Iraq. Agreed.
I don’t think that’s legitimate criticism for a number of reasons, but if you’re going to damn him personally for the first few days, you’ve got to commend him personally for the last two-and-a-half weeks.
ppGaz
Hmm, not sure whether we mostly agree or disagree on this, but I think we covered it well enough for now.
Well, I think your statement here rests on bis “behavior” during the subject period. Can’t argue that he made a recovery and appeared to land sort of on his feet, although that New Orleans speech …. not sure the verdict is in yet. And I don’t mean the speech itself or the delivery, as much as the programs he talked about. Rather a lot of “something for everybody” in there.
But … I was talking about the kind of administrating that got us here. Bush has this feckless, What Me Worry? way of doing things that I think disqualifies him from anything but severe criticism. I made a post on this subject somewhere earlier, another thread I think.
Basically, I said something like this:
Bush’s approach seems to rest on the “Who cares?” principal.
Brownie had no clue how to do this job? Who cares?
FEMA might be better outside of DHS? Who cares?
No WMDs in Iraq? Who cares now?
Chertoff a lawyer, when we need a general? Who cares?
It’s a sloppy approach, one that seems to focus on the appearances of things and ignores the details, the facts, the realities.
Bush is right, governing is “hard work.” Trouble is, he doesn’t do the hard work.
DougJ
Why? Because he put Karl Rove in charge of reconstruction? Because he had the guts to take responsibility “to the extent that something went wrong”? Because of his cowardly refusal to deal with the financial implications of “reconstruction”? Because he got the powered turned on for two hours in New Orleans before having it turned off again? Because he scape-goated Brownie while leaving the equally culpable Chertoff in power? Because of his repeated attempts to invoke 9/11? Because he allowed Cheney to nix the “reconstruction czar? idea for fear of allowing ceding power to someone who did was not in the business of fellating the White House? Because his wife doesn’t know the hurricane is called “Katrina” not “Karina”? Because of his aides’ shameless attempts to pin blame on local officials?
Which of these things should I commend him for? All of them? Were you surprised, Mac, that on Thursday night he walked to the podium on land when you know full well that he can walk on water?
DougJ
What would he know about governing? That’s like me saying that brain surgery is hard work? I think I know about as much about brain surgery as he does about governing. After all, I’ve taken aspring to relieve headaches.
ppGaz
Well, you’re right in the sense that if you don’t really care how the patient fares later, brain surgery isn’t that hard.
Does GWB care how the patient fares later? I was giving him the benefit of considerable doubt ;-)
Hey, I’m not an unreasonable asshole. I’m very reasonable.
DougJ
if you’re going to damn him personally for eating the baby you’ve got to commend him personally for the way he digested it.
Com Con
Doug, what’s so wrong with putting Rove in charge of reconstruction? What’s so wrong with getting the lights turned on for a couple hours? It helped give the people of New Orleans hope, didn’t it? I think it took a lot of guts for Bush to refuse to raise taxes and to say he’ll pay “whatever it takes”. That’s real leadership — Clinton would have hiked taxes in a second in the same boat.
ppGaz
Doug, are you parodying yourself now?
This guy sounds like you did when you were being the Uber-Karl a few weeks ago.
Cut it out.
Com Con
Ppgaz, what is wrong with putting Rove in charge, seriously? He’s a very competent guy. Better him than Chertoff, who I admit is a screw-up. Don’t you agree?
ppGaz
Seriously?
Well, I’m a very competant guy. Would you put me in charge?
I wouldn’t, because my competencies are elsewhere.
What is Karl Rove competant at, besides politics? He’s never done anything in his life except politics and political consulting, has he?
One of the biggest knocks against Bush is that he is a product of cronyism, and practices cronyism.
Would it KILL HIM to put somebody in charge who had experience managing large undertakings of a similar nature?
Would it have KILLED HIM to choose somebody who was qualified to be head of FEMA?
kl
Where?
Mac Buckets
No, Doug, it’s because if we’re talking about results (and I’m not even sure that we are, since everyone and his brother is jumping on the fed’s response to Katrina with both feet, even though no one I’ve read or watched has quantified — or even seems remotely interested in quantifying — the damages that “federal inaction” may have caused), the restoration of New Orleans seems to be proceeding faster than anyone I heard predict it would.
ppGaz
Why, where you cannot afford them, little one.
DougJ
Were Rush Limabaugh and Michael Savage really that pessimistic?
And, anyway, why doesn’t Blanco deserve some of the credit if things really are going so well as you say? Are you going to commend her actions of the last two weeks?
Personally, I’m not. I think she and Bush both disgraced themselves..
Com Con
Ppgaz, I see your point. But it seems to me that Rove is Bush’s top gun. When he need something done right, Karl Rove is the guy he turns to. And all you liberals are normally talking about what a genius he is (I think you say “evil genius”, actually). I thought you’d be happy that he is in charge now. Give me the name of someone you think would do a better job.
ppGaz
No.
If you want me to be president, you are going to have to give me the salary and the perks. And a staff who can give me a list of better names than Karl Rove.
Well, if I were president, my staff could.
Com Con
I like your style, ppgaz. I don’t agree with you, but you make a good argument.
ppGaz
Thanks. I don’t always agree with myself, either.
Stick around, the place can use your reasonable nature.
Darrell
An entity identifying itself as DougJ wrote:
Because we all know that local officials acted in such organized and competent fashion, and that any criticism of their well executed actions would be, well, “shameless”.
Darrell
Of course, they must be equally culpable since everyone should be equal. Blanco’s excellent managerial skills, especially her skillful handling of the national guard have distinguished her as a real ‘can do’ kind of lady, right Dougie?
Com Con
I don’t agree, Darrell. The locals in New Orleans deserve their fair share of blame. If anything, they are more to blame than FEMA. They were the “first responders”. If they had done their job right, FEMA wouldn’t have had to have come in at all.
Com Con
Oh, I see you’re being saracastic. My mistake.
Mac Buckets
Doug, Dougie, Doug E Fresh. The argument went that IF you choose to chide Bush for the first 3 days of Federal Foul-ups, then, to be consistent, you must applaud him for the last 2.5 weeks of FEMA successes (unless you want to run the risk of looking like a total partisan tool, that is).
We weren’t (thankfully) rehashing Blanco or who was to blame or who is to credit — we were just talking about consistency.
Com Con
The last two weeks have been a great success. Everything is way ahead of schedule in terms of recovery. You don’t seem to hearing much about it on the news. I almost feel like it’s like Iraq, where most of the news is good, but the media plays up only the bad. I don’t want to sound paranoid about the whole media, but I think that definitely CBS for example has it in for the president in a lot of ways.
They had a reporter on CBS evening news last night who was describing all the “FEMA foul-ups” of the past week or so, and that just seems like liberal piling on to me. All the evidence is that things have really turned a corner. Let’s all hope so anyway.
ppGaz
Well, we now have what is known as a “Darrell Thread.”
It’s a little like enjoying a nice meal, and suddenly finding a cockroach in your mashed potatoes.
Darrell
No, I disagree completely. It’s ALL Bush’s fault, don’t you know? All those buses underwater, all the skillful positioning of supplies by the city of New Orleans and the adroit evacuation of those most vulnerable by state and local officials. How dare you blame anyone other than George W. Bush
Darrell
I fully realize your wife must be a saint to stay married to such a bitter, crusty old blowhard like yourself ppgaz, especially now that you’re ill with a catheter rammed down your shriveled nutsack. But I doubt she lets cockroaches and flies get anywhere near her family’s food.
kl
A 60-year-old male prostitute? No wonder you’re always in such a bad mood! ;)
Darrell
NY Times
It’s safe to say that Mother Sheehan is not referring to “them” as the islamofascist terrorists or Baathist sociopaths. Human rights of millions living in tyranny and oppression in the arab world, the safety of Americans and our troops.. none of it means dogshit to this woman, who only wants to relive her adolescence protesting the Vietnam war, “us versus them” and all.. even as she desecrates the sacrifice of her own son. The left defends and embraces this kind of behavior.. it’s who they are deep down, make no mistake about that
ppGaz
My, aren’t you the bizarre conclusion-jumper!
Think of me as a consultant, in a field where you would be considered an unnecessary risk.
ppGaz
Try not to confuse a rhetorical device with actual food handling, Darrell. I realize that a childishly literal interpretation is the best you can do, but if you could refrain from living up to my expectations just once, it would be so uplifiting.
kl
Okay, so I was right the first time!
Boronx
What little of Iraq we had left after lying to them about why we were killing them, we let slip through our fingers at Abu Ghraib. Everyone here knows it even if they aren’t willing to type it out.
Despite heroic efforts by our troops, there hasn’t been any kind of leadership shown to reverse those defeats and win the country back.
Krista
Hard to say. I think that given the nature of the disaster, there would have still been a need for FEMA. But I think most of us can agree that pretty much everybody was caught with their pants down on this one. Not just George W.
Com Con
I’ve been hearing that part of the reason the National Guard was slow to get into NO was that they had been picking up chatter about terrorist plans to wait for thousands of National Guard to go in, then blow up the bridges and roads so they couldn’t get out, and then set off some kind of a bomb that would kill thousands. Heard this on the radio and also saw some people discussing it at Little Green Footballs. The thing is, the government will never say this is what happened, because it would give terrorists ideas. So it is mostly hush-hush on this. But it would explain a lot.
Tim F
That’s like saying, “I saw it written on the wall of the restroom at the bus terminal and also heard some panhandlers talking about it behind the seven-eleven.”
ppGaz
Com con, this is for you. Written this week by that well-known liberal moonbat Bush-hater, Pat Buchanan.
Which doesn’t make him right, but it sort of tarnishes the idea that only a Saddam-loving communist could make such a judgement.
DougJ
Pat Buchanan is a crazy Bush-hater. He was one of the original Bush-haters. After all, he ran third party in 2000. How much more hateful can you get?
DougJ
That’s just not fair, using Buchanan like that. Take it easy on the new guy.
I really think that Buchanan hates Bush more than you or I, ppgaz. I don’t think and I are even capable of the kind of hate Buchanan has. He probably hates his breakfast cereal more than you or I hate Bush.
ppGaz
Easy, Big Guy!
Obviously you haven’t been watching the McLaughlin Group lately! Pat is a solid righty with all the talking points down! He sounds just like Darrell and DG!
PS — How do you like the exclamation points!?
Tim F
Buchanan is a conservative before party. Bush is a Republican first, which means that he’ll serve up any liberal program that he wants as long as it benefits The Party. That pisses off Buchanan, who in addition to being an old-style conservative also happens to be a loudmouthed ass, so we all get to hear about it.
Invading Iraq was an arch-liberal move cooked up by a bunch of unreformed Trotskyites. Virtually everybody on the right accepted that Party came before ideology exept for old Pat, who howled like a scalded cat.
It’s a given that he ain’t on our side. Even so you have to respect his consistency.
ppGaz
His sister looks like a guy.
Darrell
Hilarious to read leftist half-wits tell us who is authentically “conservative”. Oh goody, do we now get to classify Ward Churchill as the true voice of liberalism?
Buchanan opposes free trade and wants to shut down immigration. Some conservative, huh? He is an isolationist who also opposed US taking action in Gulf War I for chrissakes. Buchanan, like Michael Savage, sometimes makes persuasive points. But Buchanan, like Savage, also spouts a lot of kooky babble. Obsessed with the influence of the Joooos and having written about Hitler and the ‘holocaust survivor syndrome’ as well as dabbling in holocaust minimizing, Buchanan is more kook than conservative, which is why the Repubs shunned him. If memory serves, Buchanan actually wrote that the US had no quarrel with Hitler during WWII. Buchanan holds some conservative views, a few liberal views (protectionism, isolationism), and a number of kook positions. Too funny watching you leftist morons pretend that Buchanan is some sort of ‘true’ conservative
DougJ
Obviously you haven’t been watching the McLaughlin Group lately! Pat is a solid righty with all the talking points down! He sounds just like Darrell and DG!
DougJ
Got my old blockquoting problem, sorry.
I thought I’d add: it’s not really fair to compare DG to Darrell. I know you don’t like DG, but there’s hope for him.
DougJ
“Invading Iraq was an arch-liberal move cooked up by a bunch of unreformed Trotskyites”
So true. I wish that more “conservatives” were aware of this.
ppGaz
Remember this exchange, the next time John Cole cries his crock-o-dile tears about civility around here.
Buchanan wasn’t introduced here as a “true conservative”, as if there were such a thing, anyway.
He was introduced as someone who is not a “rabid Bush-hater.” That’s all. The Rovemonkeys can’t permit any breach of their carefully constructed facade.
If you can’t carry on a simple conversation, Darrell, why do you come here?
ppGaz
I know, it’s an insult to Darrell, really.
Tim F
Darrell, do you understand what ‘conservative’ traditionally means? There’s a reason why Bob Dole, another old-guard conservative, made that strange remark about a century of “Democratic wars.” It certainly wasn’t because he wanted people to think that he’d invade Iraq and rattle sabers at Iran. Ask yourself how the Republican party reacted to FDR entering WWII. Not what you’d call eager to send American boots abroad. That is the conservative tradition, just as much as limited government and free enterprise. You, Darrell, are a Movement Conservative. Whole different animal.
Unrestricted free trade between countries is hardly a hallmark of old-guard conservatism.
That is not conservative how?
Darrell
My bad, he was introduced as “a conservative before party” who should be admired for his “consistency”… as opposed to those sellout Bushies who put party above principles
DougJ wrote:
yes of course, because DG and I, like Buchanan, have written so extensively about the influence of the eevil joooos and their “amen corner” in Congress, right? Have the jews seized control yet with their mind control rays?
ppGaz
Please try to pay attention, man. I was referring to his appearances on the McL Group recently.
Like I said, he sounds like you. A Rovemonkey.
Defense Guy
Darrell
Don’t bother responding to, or even reading the angry old man’s posts. His only intent is to fling poo.
ppGaz
Really? I didn’t see any poo being flung today until you got here, asshole.
Go away and STFU.
DougJ
Let’s stop arguing and focus on the fact that our foreign policy is being run by a bunch of “unreformed Trotskyites”. Let’s also take a moment to laugh at Com Con’s assertion about “chatter”. Well, ppgaz, Tim, and I can laugh, while Darrell and DG agree with it.
ppGaz
Is that the official Rovemonkey view around here now? I never know exactly where Tim F is coming from.
Defense Guy
DougJ
So you were against the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia and our interventions in Haiti and Somalia then?
I have never been a fan of Buchanan. However, it is remarkable that he now lines up with the anti-war crowd and is still associated with the current administration. Some dishonesty will never stop, not that I lump you in with this.
DougJ
DG, I don’t line up with Buchanan on anything! I didn’t agree with him on the war. I think in retrospect the war was a mistake but I don’t buy his arguments against it. I don’t consider myself anti-war, but I am very against attacking the anti-war movement. I’m a free speech fanatic.
Buchanan is an ideologue. I consider myself a pragmatist. So I think I disagree with Buchanan on just about every
issue.
Sorry for the excessive use of “I” there. I sounds like Chuck Schumer. Well, better him than PB.
DougJ
But to continue, it’s just a fact that the neocons are mostly former Trotskyites. That in and of itself is not a reason to oppose the war. But if I had known more about their backgrounds at the time, I would have been more suspicious. I think it is a mistake to say you’re fighting to further some noble but highly abstract cause. There have to specific, attainable goals. And I think in Iraq, there were not. Because I don’t think that for the neocons it was about getting Saddam out, it was about freedom being on the march and all that crap.
All of the wars you mentioned there began at least with some sort of reasonable goal. In Vietnam, the goal drifted around and we lost sight of what we were doing. We should never have stayed that long. Haiti was a success in my opinion as was Bosnia.
Darrell
DougJ wrote:
of course you do
behold the self proclaimed pragmatic, reality-based community..
Tim F
When modern “conservatives” fail to understand how the word ‘isolationist’ applies WRT their own party, the day has truly come when Movement Conservatism has swallowed the last tip of the old-line conservative tail and pooped out the bones.
DougJ
Darrell, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Irving Kristoll are all former communists. It’s a fact. It’s about as “reality-based” as it gets.
DougJ
Darrell, if I said that you were a former diaper-wearer, would you object as well?
Darrell
Well is it now? Tell us Doug, on what ‘pragmatic’ basis do you conclude that it is an established “fact” that Richard Perle, career hardliner against communism, was himself a communist? you seem like you really know what you’re talking about
Tim F
Darrell, I recommend setting yourself up for a bigger fall. More sarcasm please, and you could try the Krauthammer trick of diagnosing Doug with a mental condition.
DougJ
Darrell, the reason they became so anti-communist is that they became disenchanted with communism. I’ll post some links for you later — I can’t do it easily from this computer. This is something you should be aware of as a conservative.
Don’t feel too bad about not knowing this. It hasn’t been widely publicized and it is surprising.
ppGaz
DougJ
I can’t embed my links here without a lot of trouble. But try going to wikipedia and looking up neconservatism.
Here’s an excerpt
“The influence of the Trotskyists perhaps left them with strong anti-Soviet tendencies, especially considering the Great Purges targeting alleged Trotskyists in Soviet Russia. A number of neoconservatives such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were Shachtmanites in their youth while others were involved in the Social Democrats, USA, which was formed by Schachtman’s supporters in the 1970s.”
Pretty interesting, huh?
DougJ
Thanks, ppgaz. And let’s not rub Darrells nose in it. I believe that a lot of people like him don’t know about this and might look at things differently if they did.
I hope you’ve learned something from this, Darrell. I was once in a little bit the same boat as you, supportive of the neocons’ ideas and not sure of where they came from.
Darrell
Do you have a link? As I would like to see evidence that Richard Perle was ever a trotskyite. Was Michael Ledeen a trotskyite too? you know, since you say “most” neocons were trotskyites and all. And if some neocons were former trotskyites or even communists in their youth (and who hasn’t changed since then?), how would that make them “unreformed” trotskyites (your exaxt words)? And isn’t it such a coincidence that so many of the neocons are joooos? What do you make of that?
Please explain as I want everyone to get an insight into the conspiratorial kook mentality so prevalent on the left
Darrell
First of all Doug, you are miles away from demonstrating “most” or even “many” neocons were former trotskyites. You couldn’t provide even a link regarding Richard Perle or Michael Ledeen or I’m sure quite a number of other neocons. Second, by what ‘pragmatic’ logic are you linking current conservative thinking to the politics of someone’s youth? Seriously. Since you’ve “learned from this” and all, please share with us what exactly you have learned. You know, share your deep thoughts on ‘where they’re coming from’ and all
ppGaz
What is this affectation around here that makes people write “jooos” for “jews?”
Are we afraid of the word?
Or are we afraid of any real, fleshed-out issue ever actually being on the table …. so we have to talk as if we’re in high school all the fucking time?
Tim F
David Horowitz springs to mind.
As long as we’re confounding communism with Leninist-Stalinist Soviet Bolshevism, Leon Trotsky was also an anti-communist. At least he was after the first few assassination attempts.
Darrell
Any of the National Review
Jewsneocons ever been a trotskyite or commie?Tim F
More sarcasm please, Darrell. Unlike Doug I can do all the links I want, but it’s ten times more fun after somebody has set himself up on a big self-righteous pedestal.
Tell me more about my semitic anti-semitism. That always works.
Defense Guy
neo-cons and liberals are two labels that allow people to place people in a box of their own creation in order to discredit their arguments in total. It is an exercise for those who do not have the ideas to compete, much like initiating personal attacks and then claiming you are reasonable with those who are reasonable with you.
It is a fool’s game played by those to entrenched in their own ideology to be able to see the merit of, or reasons for the arguments of the other ‘side’. I do not attack the anti-war crowd based on their personal failings, I attack their arguments. A certain ancient blowhard excepted who gets what he dishes out, and then whines like a little bitchboy afterwards.
DougJ, you certainly do not fall into this category, and your mocking of the current administration is done with humor, something sorely lacking in many of the hate Bush first crowd.
What does it mean that they are former commie lovers? I should think the key word in that statement is former. In a way, it is helpful, as they are likely to be more familiar than most with the dishonest tactics used by that crowd. Assuming, of course, that they do not use those tactics themselves.
ppGaz
Wow, hard to believe in this day and age that there are people who don’t know the history of the so-called “neocon” movement. It’s grounded in radicalism (insane radicalism, by my lights) and almost entirely leftist.
History News Network
Darrell
Was Charles Krauthammer a trotskyite too? Since most neocons are ‘unreformed trotskyites’ and all. With a jew sounding last name like his, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a pro-Trotsky background. How about Michelle Malkin? She doesn’t look jewish, but you never know. Ann Coulter? Glenn Reynolds? Zell Miller? Were they ex-Trotsky supporters too?
Do you see what conspiratorial kooks you lefties truly are?
ppGaz
You know, I sure as HELL hope I get paid on time for trying to educate these goddamned numbskulls. Darrell, DG, I will need your credit card numbers and expiration dates PRONTO. I ain’t doin this work for FREE:
Wikipedia: Neconservatism
ppGaz
DougJ
Darrell, are the National Review guys neocons? I don’t think Lowry or Goldberg is.
Darrell, I guess the facts have formed a left-wing conspiracy once again. Just as they have with evolution and global warming. Damn those librul facts! If the facts weren’t out to get the president in Iraq, the war would be much more popular.
Also, I should point out where I learned so many neocons were former Trotskyites. Some friends of mine who are Jewish took great pains to explain it to me. These friends are fearful of a bit of an anti-neocon backlash aimed at Jewish Americans and they think people should understand that neoconservatism has nothing to do with Judaism and everything to do with Trotskyism. That’s why the whole idea that the war is about Israel is wrong. Yes, many neocons are Jewish but they are motivated by a nondenominational Trotskyite furor not by a desire to help Israel.
DougJ
Glenn Reynolds is not a neocon.
Ann Coulter is not a neocon.
I think Krauthammer is but I am not sure.
I’m pretty sure that Lowry and Goldberg are both regular conservatives, not neoconservatives. I don’t know for sure though.
I would think you guys would make some attempt to distinguish between different strains of conservatism.
You know, the neocons made this name up themselves (I think it was Kristoll pere who made it up). One of my closest friends is the son of an early adopter of neoconservatism. His father calls himself a neoconservative.
Darrell
Please enlighten us as to how neoconservatism has “everything” to do with Trotskyism.. explain that one, so that we can all see the deep thinking insights from the pragmatic reality based community
ppGaz
Have you ever considered a trip to your local library?
They have books there, and everything!
ppGaz
Second time this afternoon I’ve posted it, Darrell.
Are you getting any clues at all, or am I just trying to teach a dog to play Parcheesi?
DougJ
Darrell, Trotskyites believe in spreading communism everywhere. That was where Trotsky fell out with Lenin — Lenin wanted to concentrate on keeping Russia communist, while Trotsky was more interested in causing revolutions elsewhere. The neocons believe in spreading democracy the same way the Trotskyites believed in spreading communism. It’s not all that complicated to see the pattern.
I’m not saying the neocons are wrong to put such an emphasis on spreading democracy, I’m just pointing out the similarities. And believing that we’d be greeted as liberators in Iraq is not so different from believing the communists would be greeted as liberators by the “proletariat”. The two mindsets have a lot in common.
DougJ
The other thing neoconservatism has to do with Trotskyism is the fact that many founding members of neoconservatism used to be Trotskyites. Is that simple enough for you?
I’m sorry the facts keep conspiring against you, Darrell. It must be tough. But that’s what happens when you’re wrong.
ppGaz
Stylewise, you are certainly nicer than I am, DougJ. I just don’t have the patience for these potatoheads.
DougJ
That’s fair enough, DG. I happen to think they still act like communists sometimes. Not everyone agrees. I wouldn’t call that opinion of mine a fact.
I’m not all that anti-neocon. I think there is some intellectual substance to their world view. I’m not a big believer in using labels to put people down if they can argue their point of view persuasively, whether that’s someone who is liberal, or someone who is a neocon, or someone who is a paleocon, or someone who is a libertarian, same for Marxists. This country was founded on the principle that it beneficial for people to speak their minds freely.
I think you probably agree with me, DG. I don’t Darrell does though. He believes in shouting and calling names and denying the truth. That, I have no use for.
Darrell
ppgaz, how does being a former commie or former Trotsky fanclub member have anything to do with current neocon or conservative philosophy and ideas? other than kook conspiracy theorizing? As DG pointed out, all it means is that those former commies are familiar with the dishonest tactics of that crowd and have turned away from it. Yet the kook idea being advanced by you lefties is the claim that trotskyism has “everything” to do with modern neocon thinking.
BTW, I hate the term ‘neocon’. Sounds like a conservative who escaped the ‘Matrix’… I didn’t like the Matrix much either.
DougJ
Take it up with Irving Kristoll.
I explained that above. Sorry for the pot shot at you, but you have to admit that you were denying the truth earlier.
Darrell
yes, how dare me challenge your ridiculous assertion that Trotskyism has “everything” to do with neoconservatism. You clearly were standing on such solid ground with that position
Uh Doug, the entire Cold War, which pre-dated the neocons, was about ‘spreading democracy’ as a better alternative to communism. just thought you might want to know
ppGaz
AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did you read the materials I posted?
The Trotskyite and the Neocon are two sides of the same coin. They are both self-absorbed ideologies which infatuate the buzzing mind with the same basic idea: The idea that the world can be changed — in a particular way — by going out and creating what I shall euphemistacally call a “movement”.
Okay, look at it this way: You and I might agree that some of modern day liberalism is failed social engineering. Let’s say that we do agree on this, for the sake of argument.
Now extrapolate that same social-engineering idea out onto a grand, world scale! That’s the Trotskyite, and the Neocon!
It’s a Do_Good notion gone mad! And I mean that literally. To the zealot, no sacrifice is too great, no expense too great a burden, to accomplish these grand goals!
They’re crazy, man. That’s the point. They are crazy. They are obsessed with these grand ideas.
DougJ
Darrell, actually it was more about stopping the spread of communism. Did we invade any autocratic countries and force them to become democratic? Did we invade *anywhere*? We involved ourselves in civil wars where one faction was communist.
Iraq is different from that. That isn’t to say it is wrong.
You’ll admit Darrell that you mocked my assertion that Richard Perle had been a Trotsyite and that you now admit you were wrong. These other things I’m saying are mildly subjective, but that was a *fact*.
DougJ
To the pragmatist and true conservative, there is no goal so grand that it doesn’t prove the question “What’s this going to cost?”
DougJ
meant to say “provoke the question”
Darrell
Actually Doug, you’ve got your facts wrong (again). The term was originally coined by leftist Michael Harrington
It’s a term almost entirely by the left.. but nice try at deception
ppGaz
Darrell, I know I am not patient. So overlook that and just look into the history here, and see if there is not some truth to what we are tyring to tell you.
Darrell
No, I am not prepared to do that. I challenged you to provide evidence that Richard Perle was ever a Trotskyite and you have yet to provide any such evidence. Show me the post where you have evidence Perle was a Trotsky lover.
ppGaz
Darrell, cut it out, just once.
That’s a turn of speech, an exaggeration. But it doesn’t miss the truth. These guys are all subscribers to a certain class of ideas, a class of ideas with a backstory that includes Trotsky. That doesn’t mean they are “lovers” of the man. It just means that they share certain aspects of a worldview, a zealotry, as I mentioned earlier.
It’s the zealotry that is the problem, not the labels.
DougJ
Are you kidding Darrell? I said Trotskyite. That’s what the article said.
I do want to make one thing very clear: being a Trotskyite is not like being a Stalinist or a Nazi. It doesn’t make Perle a bad person. Perle is a bad person, but that’s not the reason.
DougJ
Kristoll used it in any case. He said “A neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.”
DougJ
I’m also waiting to hear about the countries we invaded during the Cold War. I’ll give you Cuba, but I dispute that we invaded to spread democracy in that case either.
Darrell
What article are you talking about? I asked for evidence that Richard Perle was a Trotskyite, which you claimed was a “fact”. I don’t believe that is the case. Again, do you have any evidence that Richard Perle was at anytime a Trotskyite? Where is it?
ppGaz
Darrell, can you describe what you think the point is, of the last two hours’ posts?
Can you not see that the point is not whether Perle carried a Trostky Fan club card in his wallett. The point is that we have here a bunch of people whose imaginations have been hijacked by a particular kind of ideas, a zealous set of assumptions.
Can you not see that that zealotry is behind current US policy? Can you not question it?
Darrell
During the cold war, without question the US promoted and encouraged democracy, but had our hands full fighting communism. You lefties seem to be under the mistaken impression that we invaded Iraq solely to spread freedom rather than an attempt to break the cycle of despotic middle eastern tyrants whose oppression was spawning terrorism, not to mention all the death and suffering inflicted on the people.
Saddam was the best logical choice to start. History of WMDs, aggression against his neighbors, countless violations of his 1991 terms of surrender (and other UN sanctions) for which we should have taken him out in the 1990’s.. he was a sociopathic nutcase who had attempted to assasinate a sitting POTUS. After 9/11, letting the status quo continue in the middle east was not an option.. not a responsible option anyway.
This wasn’t just an attempt at setting up democracy for democracy’s sake, but to establish a democracy in the heart of the arab middle east. We’ve already seen some ripple effect benefits in the voluntary disarming of Libya and the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. It will be a long haul effort. Had we done nothing to disrupt the middle eastern status quo, I think it almost certain that more deadly attacks against the US would have occurred.
ppGaz
I am under no mistaken impression, and if you want to know what impression I am under, you would have to ask me. Your assertion is false.
Incorrect. He was a huckster who leveraged very little capability into a persona that scared mostly his own people; meanhile he shrewdly went about his real business, which was putting his country’s oil wealth into his family’s bank accounts.
You have no evidence of any kind whatever to support the claim that follows that blurb, Darrell.
Clearly, what this afternoon demonstrates is that you have no respect for information or facts at all, unless they fit smoothly into your already-made-up mind.
tBone
How do you expect him to fit any new facts or information into such a tiny little space? After all, he’s so cramped for room that he’s been storing facts in his ass, where he can pull them out when needed.
ppGaz
Be prepared! The Scouts’ motto.
Com Con
As I said I’m new here, but what’s the deal with Darrell? You guys showed him an article about how Perle had been involved with some form of communism and then Darrell asked repeatedly for such an article even when you referred him back to your article two and three times. Is this some kind of a joke?
ppGaz
Darrell is a legend here. Unfortunately, he’s not a joke.
Darrell
Com con, upon re-reading the thread I see an article quoted without even so much as a link that Perle was a “Shachtmanite”, whatever that is. Further, DougJ had made the claim Perle was “communist” and “trotskyite” (his exact words if you re-read) and he repeatedly insists this is “fact”, using bold for emphasis. Wikipedia was cited as the source. Here is Perle’s bio on Wikipedia. NOTHING about communism, socialism or ‘schactamites’. Nothing but a career of anti-communism. Furthermore, this claim is flatly refuted persuasively by others, as evidence of the type I requested appears non-existent except in the deluded imaginations of kook leftists such as those posting on this thread:
What then, is so unusual to ask for evidence that Perle was either a communist or Trotskyite as was repeatedly and aggressively claimed on this thread? Most importantly, the leftist simpletons here are asserting without basis, the wild-eyed conspiracy theory that one’s misguided political beliefs as a youth (which they have dishonestly mischaracterized) would ‘explain everything’ now. Re-read the quote how DougJ claims trotskyism has “everything” to do with neoconservatism and get back to me
donald
Far North You do mean why the united states with the full support of Congress invaded Iraq. You know, to fight a fucking religious war with crazed animals. There, there it is and for you and any other very aware citizens out there.
Ted Kennedy Stole Granny's Old Douchebag
Mother Sheehan has quite simply lost her last three or four marbles. I encourage her to keep speaking because everytime she does she exposes herself for the fringe nut she is