Archives for 2005

This Kos affair has gone too far, and once again we are hip deep in the stupids. Joe Trippi gives an interview, Jim Geraghty responds, and then somehow we are supposed to believe Kos is engaging in wrongdoing for not disclosing he used to work for Dean now that he endorses Dean for chairman. Geraghty’s comments:

I still think this incident leaves some egg on the face of one of the most prominent and popular lefty bloggers. Kos can state that anyone who Googles his connection to the Dean campaign would find plenty of news stories about it. Indeed

Dumbest Post on Kos YetPost + Comments (27)

Andy’s idiocies are coming so fast and so consistent I may have to make up a new category for him. At any rate, check out this whopper:

Jonah Goldberg notes that Martin Luther King Jr III (unlike his mother, Coretta) hasn’t endorsed equality in civil marriage. Jonah cracks: “I guess he’s a bigot.” What King actually said was: “I think we need to find a way to honor partnerships, but I don’t think that marriage needs to be redefined.” I don’t know anyone who would describe that position – which is John Kerry’s – as a bigot.

Umm. You would, jackass, as you have consistently called Bush a bigot since he voiced tepid support for the FMA. Let’s work through things here so we understand what happened.

Bush has always been on record stating that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman. No problem- the majority of the country agrees with that, and it has been codified into law through DOMA during the Clinton years. Bush is also not against civil unions, which would confer legal rights to homosexuals. However, this would be decided by the state.

So what happened? The great gay over-reach of 2004. Gavin Newsom happened. The Massachussetts Supreme Court happened. Bush’s position on gay marriage did not change ONE IOTA. What changed were that activist homosexuals attempted to use the courts and extra-legal measures, to do what:

REDEFINE MARRIAGE.

Bush then showed tepid support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which, depsite your rhetoric, would not have banned civil unions, but would have banned gay marriage, preserving marriage for HOW IT WAS BEFORE THE NEWSOM/MASS ASSAULT.

Bush reacted, and maintained the position he has always had, and you over-reacted and called him a bigot. And that is the way that it was.

BTW- I say this as someone who really is rather progressively oriented on this issue. I vacillate between not being able to understand why homosexuals have to have the word marriage when what is important are the legal rights and not giving two hoots in hell how marriage is defined. If you guys would quit trying to change things overnight, and quit villifying everyone who doesn’t have a pink tirangle on his Prius, you might have a little more luck.

For some reason, the hard core gay activists are under the belief that in your face tactics are the way to acceptance. This is utterly absurd, as the path to acceptance is whenpeople learn their best friend is gay, their neighbor whom they have been friends with is gay, their uncle or aunt is gay. And you know what? Most people are at that level of acceptance- even in those whacky red states.

The Daily DumpPost + Comments (10)

Andy engages in some recreational Bush bashing, swings, and hits himself in the face:

This quote might help clear up some misunderstandings about president Bush. It certainly helped me see the world as he sees it. For Bush, accountability in government is a total, once-every-four-years thing. Individual mis-steps or mistakes are not subject to accountability – whether in war-planning or fiscal matters or anything else. When someone fucks up, the most important thing is to extend loyalty, not reprimand. There’s only one moment of accountability for a president and that’s the election, which encompasses everything the president and anyone in his administration have done. So re-election logically means that the public waives its right to hold any individual in government accountable for anything for the next four years:

Well, we had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 election. And the American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me, for which I’m grateful.

So our job as people not in the administration is now to sit back and hope for the best. We had our chance. We lost. As Mel Brooks almost observed, it’s good to be the president.

First, let’s provide the context for the quote, as the President was asked the folowing:

In Iraq, there’s been a steady stream of surprises. We weren’t welcomed as liberators, as Vice President Cheney had talked about. We haven’t found the weapons of mass destruction as predicted. The postwar process hasn’t gone as well as some had hoped. Why hasn’t anyone been held accountable, either through firings or demotions, for what some people see as mistakes or misjudgments?

To which he responded with the quote provided by Coy Andy. Not satisfied, hawkish Andy wants blood. Why weren’t people fired? Why were there no demotions? And off goes our fearless pundit into some babble about loyalty. This ties in with Sullivan’s meta-narrative about the Bush presidency, with a cabal of neo-cons who have won over the President, and with the emphasis on loyalty for theprivileged few rather than performance and fairness and acountability under the law.

Except, as always, Andy truncated the damn quote, eliminating the response to the question Andy is now demagoguing. Bush’s quote continues:

Listen, in times of war, things don’t go exactly as planned. Some were saying there was no way that Saddam Hussein would be toppled as quickly as we toppled him. Some were saying there would be mass refugee flows and starvation, which didn’t happen. My only point is, is that, on a complicated matter such as removing a dictator from power and trying to help achieve democracy, sometimes the unexpected will happen, both good and bad.

Bush believed the intelligence. Kerry believed the intelligence, and we all believed the intelligence. That is why we went to war. Bush is working to fix the CIA (with, guess what- demotions and firing taking place daily, much to the horror of Mr. Sullivan). However, Bush does not believe that the people who acted with good faith deserve to be thrown overboard, and I would agree.

As far as Sullivan’s mocking Bush’s perception of the election as an ‘accountability moment,’ once again, the joke is on Andy. Incumbent Presidents do run on their record, which is why two-term Presidents are such an exclusive group. In fat, this is the entire purpose of voters guides, it is why no Senator has been elected since Kennedy- their record has served as a noose. Should the people determine that the President has not performed to their liking, they do not re-elect them, and this is not unheard of in modern times. I am sure Andrew is familiar with President’s Ford, Carter, and Bush 1.

Second, it is clear that Bush has a much firmer grasp on the concept of representative Democracy than Andy does. Has Andy ever wondered why the Senate is a 6 year term, the President is a 4 year term, and the House a 2 year term? Initially, there was a great debate over the length of the President’s term, with 4 years, 7 years, and 11 years suggested. At one point, the President was to be elected by Congress to a term of seven years.

The founders were very concerned about a tyrannical executive, and ultimately decided that one man should serve as President for four year terms, thus mking it easier for congress to keep check on his power. Once again, Bush has it right. Accountability of the President is limited to the elections and the oversight of Congress, who has the power to impeach and remove the President.

I guess they just don’t teach that in her majesty’s private schools.

The Daily DumpPost + Comments (21)