The most amusing thing about the reaction from the John Hinderaker supporters to my mockingly derisive (and intentionally so- the name is “John Hinderaker- Total Idiot“) post yesterday is how similar they are:
John, I disagree with much of what Paul has to say, especially on this topic, and his delivery is grating to say the least.
But if he is an idiot, all I can say is, it takes one to know one. Your idiotic rhetoric sounds exactly like his, just coming from the opposite side.
And:
John,
As someone who has enjoyed your blog on occasion in the past it is really a shame to see you go off the deep end. Obviously there have been mistakes made by the administration but only a child expects life to be perfect. No war n the history of mankind has ever been perfect or bloodless or mistake free. It is really disappointing to see people who once seemed reasonable screaming like barking moonbats that anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot or a war criminal. I guess you just want to be on the side that’s winning. I am sure you will feel right at home with your new friends at Kos and Democratic Underground. Welcome home.
And:
What an awful posting.
Full of ridicule and name-calling, but at no stage did it even attempt to address Hindraker’s points. Which point are, on the surface at least, obviously correct.
And I am sure there are more, but I think you get the point. My only reaction- you poor, delicate flowers. I am so very sorry that I have offended your delicate sensibilities.
Scratch that. My reaction is to go pound salt. I am sitting here laughing at you, because it is just absurd that you think it is perfectly ok for numerous right-wingers to claim the Democrats are in league with the terrorists, but when I call John Hinderaker a “Total idiot” for his ridiculous and offensive rhetoric and accusations, it is I who has just crossed the boundaries of reasonable discourse.
Get a clue. Calling Hinderaker an idiot for his rhetoric is not indecent- it is painfully accurate and richly deserved. Hinderaker’s faux discussion wasn’t discourse between adults, it was a tawdry series of insults masquerading as a policy discussion, aimed at damaging the Democratic party (and, unfortunately, the country- but Hindrocket cares more about party than country). It was an attempt to undermine the new Congress before they even take office, through smears and innuendo.
And one last thing- I am no Democrat or on the “other side.” I may no longer be a “conservative,” but that is only because the lunatics have stolen the name. While the extreme and reactionary right may have temporarily re-labled conservatism to mean a fetus fetish, rampant homophobia, a hatred of science, an injection of religion into all things, run-away spending (as long as it gets “us” elected), government intrusion into your bedroom, fealty to an authoritarian federal government, support for warrantless wire-tapping and torture, and so on, I am working to take the name and the party back. Maybe I am not ‘conservative’ as it is now defined. Call me the angry middle, if you will- but I am still a Republican and am sick of the bullshit from the John Hinderaker’s and the Dan Riehl’s.
They have to go, and if you think a few haymakers launched in their direction makes this site unreadable, take me off your bookmarks now. Red State or Malkin have the kool-aid you want. I am not changing my tone until the idiots and the hacks are marginalized and no longer calling the shots, and I am not like the delicate souls you have pushed around and bullied for the past six years. I don’t give a shit what you “conservatives” think about me, and I will fight back.
capelza
Yes, now you are “the other side”….there is either/or..with us or against us with these people (and any extreme group right or left).
Can we call them the “angry right” yet?
An aside, did you catch the SNL skit with “Nancy Pelosi”?
Krista
No wonder I had a hard time finding Windex the other day — the right-wing bloggers bought it all to give their glass houses a nice shine.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Testify, JC!
chopper
so angry you forgot to run the spell check!
this is funny. some people like the bubbles they’re in, apparently. let em keep believing that george bush is the greatest mind of the century and the dems==teh terrorists, it’ll give us all a constant stream of entertainment in the years to come.
Walker
I really it find it funny when they say that our discussions about Hinderaker’s intellectual dishonesty because of his logical fallacies and rhetoric constitutes ad hominem and personal attacks.
To borrow a phrase “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does.”
For those to be logical fallacies, the causality has to go the other way guys.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
What, the “toral idiot” part? I thought John was channeling his inner Kim Il Sung.
“I’m so ronrey…”
John Cole
LOL. Fixed.
I think my typos and spelling errors are part of the Ballon Juce charrm.
Or at leest that is what I keap teling myselve.
chopper
“My reaction is to go to pound salt. I am sitting her laughing at you”
heh. well, i’d be typing in a flurry too. coming to the defense of the idiotic things mr.-communist-weapon-system says is more idiotic than the former.
chopper
well, you get what i mean.
John Cole
Chopper- you are hired.
chopper
sweet! when can i expect my first check from george soros?
jake
“Now go away or I will mock you another time!”
Can we call these lackwits what they are? Radicals. Homo Radicalus, a noxious creature that closely resembles Homo Sapiens comes in two sub-species: Fringe-Left and Fringe-Right, but all can be recognized by the limited mobility of the largest orifice on their heads:
1. Maw gaping wide to emit illogical shriekings and insults at the “enemy” (anyone who doesn’t bleat along in agreement).
2. Mouth wrapped around the wee-wee of whatever headcase they’ve chosen to worship. (Ooooh Mr. President, the scope of your foreign policy is sooo huge!)
3. Lower lip covering the chin in a pout when someone lets out a heart-felt belly laugh in their general direction and/or tells them to fuck off. (That’s not very nice, I never did nuthin’ to you. Boo hoo.)
The terminal orifice of their digestive system is blocked by a large immovable object which causes a permanent scowl, reddening of the face and spewing of crap through the mouth since that is the only way Homo Radicalus can relieve itself of excreta.
Homo Sapiens should remember that keeping Homo Radicalus locked in Expression #3 provides a lot of good clean fun and on rare occasions can lead to spontaneous evolution of Homo Radicalus into something you might actually want to have a drink with.
-jake
Oh, and their mothers are hamsters and their fathers smell of elderberries.
ThymeZone
I literally couldn’t have said it better.
Pixie
“I don’t give a shit what you “conservatives” think about me, and I will fight back.”
Rawr! John — you so SEXY when you talk smack!
W.B. Reeves
Fascinating. It appears that the war for the “Conservative soul” is on in earnest. Puting aside ideological bias for the moment, the dispute seems to throw a particular division on the Right into sharp relief. It is the divide between those who, dispite the bitter partisan acrimony of the last twelve years, still conceive of themselves as being members of the same polity as their partisan opponents on the Left and those who have taken all the hyperbole about traitorous defeatocrats as being the literal truth rather than partisan boilerplate.
It seems clear that Captain Ed, who is in the former category, is viewing the current political landscape through the lens of traditional US politiking. IE, accuse your opponents of anything and everything up to and including sexually molesting pigs and chickens but come the election results, you shelve the the weapons of political mass destruction and get serious about the “people’s business.”
On the other hand, you have those who swallowed great, dripping gobs of rhetorical redmeat with an absolute belief in the veracity of same. It’s hard not to see this as the Right reaping what it has sown. Having repeatedly marketed themselves as the righteous side of an apocalyptic conflict between Rightwing virtue and Leftwing evil, political reality now demands that they lay such florid rhetoric aside. Therein lies the Right’s present difficulty. It’s a bit naive to think that, having pandered to the worst instincts and fears of their constituency, it is now possible to turn those same true believers on a dime and have them embrace as their fellow citizens and neighbors the very people that have been denounced as “anti-American” traitors and enablers of terrorists.
This is the fundamental problem with deligitimizing or demonizing your opposition in the context of a democratic Republic. Once you’ve convinced a major segment of your following that they’re engaged in the battle of armageddon, it’s hard to get them to swallow that it was all “just politics” from the get go. The climb down from such a position of political absolutism might be as, or more destructive than electoral defeat.
We may be witnessing an incipient split between those who, for all their rhetorical overkill, still adhere to the pragamatic model of traditional US politics and ideological zealots whose belief in the absolute evil of the Left borders on religious mania. lf so, there are dangerous times ahead. A political movement that views approximately half of their fellow citizens as functionally indistinguishable from the “enemy”, untethered from a leadership that knows better, if cynically willing to manipulate such attitudes, is not a good thing for any society.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Quite right. And, this intraparty conflict is only half of the war currently underway in the GOP. The other being the long-anticipated showdown between the Republicans’ moderates/true conservatives and the extremists/Christianists who have embraced big government.
demimondian
Sigh. Pardon me — or don’t — while I threadjack, John. I want to start getting past the laughing at the idiots stage, and start thinking seriously about the “what do we do next” stage. Dems and FCRINO’s (former conservative republicans in name only), the elctions over…and we won. (W00t!)
Here are some problems I see.
For national security reasons, I want us to diversify away from foreign oil — and ANWR doesn’t solve that problem, no matter what the oil exploration industry would like us to believe. I see that dependency as the single great problem facing us, upon which depend the value of the dollar, the strength of the Jihadis, and our security against terrorism. What are we going to do about that? By what means can we replace petroleum?
Do *we* have the guts to stand up to our lunatics? We’ve got them, too, and they’re already sprouting up. “Impeach first”? I disagree. “Get rid of Cheney?” Why? Do we have the guts to use the ongoing insults from Time to refocus ourselves on being the party the governs well, and hopes to be rewarded for it? Or do we turn ourselves into the anti-Roves, interested in taking power from the Republicans, and viewing it only as a horse race?
That’s what the media rewards, of course, and so there’s a system of perverse incentives — if you make it a horse race, then you’ll get more coverage, which makes it easier to win — so we need to find a solution for that. How do we provide a low cost counter balance to the “horse race” mentality the television networks want?
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Shame is, Bush may be the last man on the planet who will ask that question.
As do I. What I want is “research first,” as in, conducting a thorough, impartial accounting of the administration’s errors. You build a case, then you present it to the American people. Disaster comes when you know the outcome (impeachment) before you’ve even begun the investigation.
Pixie
“Do we have the guts to stand up to our lunatics? We’ve got them, too, and they’re already sprouting up. “Impeach first”? I disagree. “Get rid of Cheney?” Why? Do we have the guts to use the ongoing insults from Time to refocus ourselves on being the party the governs well, and hopes to be rewarded for it? Or do we turn ourselves into the anti-Roves, interested in taking power from the Republicans, and viewing it only as a horse race?”
Forgive me if I am mis-understanding you here but,
How is the thought of Impeachment of Pres. Bush a “lunatic” idea? It’s called accountability. Every one of the steps and missteps of this administration should be FULLY investigated. 9/11, Katrina, Iraq, Gas Prices, Torture, Constitutional Signing Statements, etc. it should ALL be investigated because it is the JOB of congress to do so. And if the sunlight we shine in on these issues happens to expose this administration as the corrupt, lawbreakers that they are, then by all MEANS everyone who was complicit should be REMOVED FROM OFFICE. Do I think the Dems have the courage to do this amid the corporate conservative media shrieking holy hell that we are just trying to undermine the war on terra? I dont know…I would certainly hope so. But to hear the republicans say that dems are out for revenge makes me chuckle….it’s as if they are implying that there would be a reason to seek revenge in the first place. I hope to god this Dem. congress provides the oversight we’ve been missing for 6 years….and I hope to hell they use that subpoena powa! There are lots of things I would REALLY like to find out! I bet there’s some scary shit going on that regular americans have no clue about.
Darrell
John, what you so conveniently overlook, is that Dems aren’t walking into power without a history of words and actions. They have smeared and lied about Bush and the war on terror in blatent attempts to undermine our war efforts, all in order to gain political power. You give them the benefit of the doubt as if they have demonstrated themselves to have a shred of integrity. Let’s review what Dem party leadership has said:
Former VP and Dem Presidential candidate Al Gore: “Bush betrayed the country” in an “adventure” which was “preordained and planned before 9/11”.
Sr. Senator from Mass., Ted Kennedy: Iraq was no threat. This was “made up in Texas”, a “fraud”, etc.
Former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, who praised Michael Moore and further asserted that we invaded Afghanistan so that Unocal could build a pipeline to benefit Cheney and Ken Lay. Michael Moore was given red carpet treatment at the Dem national convention, not just by McAuliffe, but by many, many Dem senators and congressmen.
Soon to be Senate majority leader Harry Reid, for pure political gain, cried that invading Iraq was a “rallying cry” for terrorists worldwide… No mention from Reid whether or not the invasion of Afghanistan generated a similar ‘rallying cry’ from the jihadists.
Hillary Clinton and Cynthia McKinney both asserted that Bush “knew” about 9/11 before the attacks
Etc, etc, etc. These aren’t left-wing blog moonbats, these are statements from the highest levels of Dem leadership… smears and lies to drag down the country, all for political power. They represent a wide swath of the Democrat party, especially those of the kind who frequent this blog.
You can decry Hindracker all you want, but given the Dems history of trying to undermine the war on terror for their own selfish gain, he has damn good reasons to question their motives and integrity.
capelza
Pixie…I agree that all the things you mentioned should be investigated. This is important.
But I do NOT want an impeachment, richly deserved as it may be. Number one, a conviction will never happen and the Dems will repeat the history of ten years ago (This will always be seen as revenge by a whole lot of people). By the time it happens Bush will almost be out of office anyway…let the slimy bastard limp out into history with a tarnished (at best) legacy.
Number two, if Bush is impeached, Birdshot Bukkake Cheney will be president. No thank you.
I look at South Africa…the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” sounds like something I think a whole lot of the American people could support. If the South Africans can find it in themselves to do that…so can we.
chopper
darrell has much to say about pie today.
maybe he should change his name to “Pieraker”.
John S.
Darrell likes pie!
As long as it is Republican pie…because Democrat pie is worse!
Gold Star for Robot Boy
With Darrell’s arrival, the thread goes to hell in three… two… one…
John S.
Only if you hate pie, because them is fighting words.
jake
It will be impossible to convince the radical christians (lower case C on purpose) that it was just politics. What the GOP’s leadership did not (would not? could not?) understand about the RCs is that they are deadly serious. They were serious before, they’re serious still and now that someone in power has at least pretended to take them seriously they will not sit down and shut up. Sorry to sound so pessimistic, the weather is crap today.
All Americans, but Republicans in particular are now in the unfortunate position of campers in an area where some other schmuck ignored the signs and fed the bears. However, I don’t see this as just a Republican problem because we’re (we = sane folks) dealing with humourless goons who think they get messages straight from God.
If we’re lucky the radicals will split off and form their own political party. Not only would this be amusing and force rational members of both parties to realize they have more in common with one another than otherwise, anything that keeps the freaks busy is a damn good thing. Otherwise they might decide that they need to take “direct action” to free the fetus or protect marriage or whatever else it is that they worry about and I don’t much care for loud noises.
jcricket
Don’t you love the goalpost moving/strawmen the Hinderaker sycophants use?
Has John ever said “I expect wars to be perfect and bloodless”? Or, “I expect the president to be infallible?” Did John “jump ship” at the first sign of trouble? He voted for Bush twice, and by his own account has been voting straight Republican ticket for almost 20 years. Even after the Terri Schiavo mess he didn’t (at least publicly) announce he would vote for Democrats this election until very recently.
In other words, John gave Republicans all the “benefit of the doubt” they could eat. He gave them all the lee-way they could need to demonstrate that Republicans stood for what John elected them to stand for. Instead, 12 years into Congressional control and 6 years into the Bush presidency, the Republicans demonstrated they stand for nearly the opposite of what they claimed, across the board. John has pointed out that the problems are with the war (4 years into it) in Iraq, expanded federal powers, runaway spending, fundamentalist religion chosen over science, and more.
You add to all that the blind fealty and intellectual dishonest displayed by people like Hindrocket, Hewitt, Limbaugh, etc. and you have where we are now.
Despite all that, John’s not a Democrat. If Republicans started running early-80s Republican-esque candidates again, I guarantee he would vote for them. I’d still think he was misguided, because I’m a Democrat and I think Republicans have never stood for what they claimed (small government/state’s rights for one), nor are their ideas good ones. But that’s me.
It’s obvious that Republicans will continue to lose elections if they lose the “John Cole”, “Radley Balkos” and “Andrew Sullivans” of the right. The remaining 30% “red meat” base, who not only with what’s going on, but can’t even stomach dissent, simply aren’t going to give Republicans a popular enough platform on which to run.
W.B. Reeves
Perhaps poor Darryl could present us with the actual quotes that prove this assertion? Not paraphrases. Not interpretations but a direct statement that bears this accusation out? I’ve yet to see anyone satisfy this requirement of honest argument. The closest I’ve seen anyone come to doing so was a fellow who snipped two separate sentence fragments from a McKinney statement and pasted them together in a fabricated “quote.”
Unfortunately for poor Darrell, it appears a majority of the US electorate holds a view of who is lying and smearing in pursuit of political power that is the a opposite his own. These aren’t just the views of a “wide swath of the Democratic party”, they’re the views of a wide swath of the US citizenry.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
It’s the treadmill/endless loop theory. Goes likes this: The GOP is losing the center, leaving only its right-wing base. The base, now in control of the party, continues to turn to the right. More centrists leave, meaning more power for the right-wingers. The turn to the right becomes even more pronounced, so even more centrists leave…
jcricket
Leaving aside the question of whether the word “conservative” has any objective meaning, let’s compare the book titles of different “conservatives”:
Danforth: “Faith and Politics”
Sullivan: “The Conservative Soul: How we lost it and how we get it back”
Hannity: “Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton.”
Goldberg: “Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism”
Coulter: “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism”
And so on. On one side you have long-time conservatives writing books about conservatism, faith and the intersection of modern politics. On the other side you have conservative talking heads with fairly large national pulpits writing that Democrats are evil, treasonous, equal to terrorists and Mussolini”.
And, judging by the reactions of the base to the long-time conservatives, the Republican “base” is winning the war for the Republican party, at least.
Funny, I just noticed that the “base” is what Al Qeuda means too. Hmm…
Louise
Hindraker’s “friends” are damning him with faint praise (and bad grammar).
jcricket
I would actually call it “adverse selection”. Or, if I had my Democratic party “hat” on, I would say “wheeee!” Someone on another thread said this type of ideological purity purge is fairly common in cults.
Personally, I don’t think the politics of these people come as a surprise when many of them are looking forward to Armageddon, because of their belief in the Rapture.
capelza
Jeezuz….Hannity is calling Hillary a Fascist? Whatever one thinks of her (I don’t care for the “triangulation BS), but I will never, for the life of me understand how the wingnuts got it in their heads that she is a screaming liberal.
Was it the healthcare thing? God, what I’d give for SOMEONE, ANYONE to deal with that…or at least actually discuss it. Last month I read that one of the big insurance companies said the average cost of insurance to employers was over 11k a year. It is insane.
Beyond that…what’s so evil about her..is it the uppity woman thing?
VidaLoca
Pixie (and GSFRB),
I think you’ve got the order of operations exactly right: do the research first, and in the process of doing so, re-establish the role of Congress as the oversight body. Use the research to build the case for impeachment. Doing it the other way makes to process appear to be completely ideologically driven (which is what it in fact would be).
I am impressed so far by the success of the Dem leadership in damping down the rhetoric — while the image of angry crowds waving torches and pitchforks and calling for Bush’s head is very romantic and all, it is not what is needed (on the other hand, rather than cheap talk, I hope if they’re serious they’re hiring on people with experience as prosecutors, forensic accountants, investigators and so on).
What is needed, while the oversight process gears up, is advancement of some legislation that will speak to the short-term economic problems that people are facing. The minimum wage increase, while essentially symbolic, is a good first step. Reducing interest rates on student loans is another good, minimal first step. I agree with demi’s point about energy independence but I don’t think much will happen on that front while Bush controls the executive.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that the window of opportunity for the impeachment discussion is limited — by this time next year we’ll be into the early phases of the next presidential election. The question will come up, why spend time and resources on impeachment of a President who’s on his way out — you liberals are just being vindictive, etc., etc. Bush can shorten the time line by resisting: vetoing popular legislation out of spite will undercut his dwindling popularity. Claiming executive privilage to short-circuit oversight will do the same thing, and faster. Never underestimate his ego and his arrogance.
I think it will be unfortunate if he escapes from office without impeachment, and without numerous criminal penalties up and down his administration. A lot got swept under the rug in the Bush I administration, and we live with the conseqences today. I’d like to see the neo-conservative brand of conservativism thoroughly broken, and investigation and impeachment of its key figures would help to do it. I’m not sure, even if the Democrats have the guts for this (and that’s not a given) that they will have the time.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Cookies. It’s all about the cookies.
Redleg
John,
Well stated. These screaming mimis have shown the same moral and intellectual honesty as Sean Hannity, who expects Democrats to apologize to Bush for calling him a liar and a failure while not calling on Bush to apologize to Democrats for saying that a win for the Democrats is a win for the terrorists.
I appreciate your position that you’re no longer one of them but not one of us (liberals). In their minds, however, you are one of us simply because you disagree with them and their emperor.
salvage
John has already posted this:
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
There can be no argument; John Hindracker is a fucking idiot. Calling him one is no more rhetoric or childish than saying the sun is hot, water wet and Michael Moore fat. These are facts, pure and simple and therefore by their nature above rancor and separate from any other issue.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I would find matters far more unfortunate if nothing got done during the next two years because of a single-minded pursuit of impeachment.
Hey, I think Bush is as big an assclown as there is, and I wouldn’t shed a tear if he were to be thrown into Camp X-Ray for the rest of his life, but this nation has many problems that need immediate attention. It’s a shame Bush may walk, but if that’s the price the nation must pay to set things right, so be it.
bonkydog
Nice. It’s high time *real* conservatives took these halfwits to the woodshed.
b-psycho
It was. Neos were arguing for invasion before W even took office.
Of course, now we all know why despite regime change being official policy Clinton didn’t go along with them: the inevitability of the clusterfuck there if he did.
ThymeZone
There is no such thing as a “war on terror.” Never has been, never will be. You can’t describe one. You can’t point to one in history. You can’t explain how to conduct one, fight one, or win one. There is no policy model for it, and no military model for it.
It’s a fucking marketing slogan, and has never been anything else.
Either produce support for your claim that the thing exists, or Shut The Fuck Up.
Terror is a tactic, you can’t fight a war against it any more than you can fight a war against gunfire.
Stop hanging around here and spouting four year old talking points that are now enjoying approval ratings in the twenties.
If you don’t have anything to say, the best thing to do is to not say anything.
jake
The E. Roosevelt Syndrome. I also think people were annoyed that HC failed to become a gibbering wreck when she learned of the B.J. in the O.O. (assuming she didn’t know before hand). Or maybe she was supposed to pull a Bobbitt. It’s impossible to say what goes on in the head of a yammering idiot without large amounts of booze and I always pass out before Insanity Hannity & Co start to make sense.
Randy
God, that’s good. I think I wrote that in someone’s yearbook when I was graduating from 6th grade.
b-psycho
jcricket: you’ve got Hannity & Goldbergs book titles transposed.
Though to be honest, with that crowd you could switch em all like that and it wouldn’t make a difference. They’re all saying the same thing.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I’m rubber, you’re glue…
Joe1347
I think that you’ve just written about the best summation of what the Republican party has turned into. And I mean the entire Republican Party – not just the so-called ‘conservative’ right wing nutjobs that have taken it over. My only suggested change would be that ‘as long as it get us elected’ applies to your entire statement. The ENTIRE Republican platform now seems to revolve around Hypocritical pandering to the religious nutjobs and homophobes combined with war mongering in a pathetic attempt to look ‘strong’ and manly – unlike those limp-wristed San Francisco sissy Democrats whinning about some ‘poor’ terrorist (thats wants to kill us) having his so-called ‘constitutional’ rights violated.
I think that EVERYTHING that the Bush Admin does now revolves around getting Republicans – principly themselves – re-elected. Unfortunately, what’s best for the USA comes in a distant second to the Bush Admin. If I was to sum up what the Republican Party used to be about it was ‘doing what’s best for America’ – while the old Democratic party was the party that pandered to narrow special interests and didn’t care about America as a whole.
Redleg
Darrell doesn’t get that in the USA, it’s permitted to disagree with and criticize the war and the president during time of war. Darrell would really like us to believe that it is the constant harping and sniping of the Democrats that has caused the war in Iraq to go so badly. Darrell has, perhaps unwittingly, simply reconfirmed what many of us have said about the willfull ignorance and blind faith shown by the angry right-wing blowhards who want to turn one half of the country against the other half.
ThymeZone
Yeah, we’re going to need to see some documentation on that.
capelza
Redleg…Darrell is the “angry right”! He suffers from DDS (Democratic Derangement Syndrome..or is it LDS (Liberal DS).
He is being obstructionist…feel free to add all the usual crap.
I want to get this out of my system before the new Congress acutally starts in January.
ThymeZone
Apparently the Republican Party Platform Committee is getting an early start on 2008.
jcricket
Part of it is displaced/overflow hate for her husband. The other part is the uppity woman thing and that she doesn’t back down from them. Like most bulliest, that’s what they hate/fear the most (people that don’t back down).
And yes, the healthcare thing and the spectre of “socialized medicine” apparently sends at least a lot of them into convulsions. This despite our own government healthcare programs (Medicare/VA) achieving higher satisfaction rates & better outcome rates with far lower overhead than private insurance. This despite countries like Germany, Canada, the UK, Japan, France, Norway, Sweden, etc. achieving universal coverage, with far higher satisfaction rates and better outcomes (as measured by many stats) for less as a percent of GDP than we spend for our current POS system. Taiwan even recently switched to nationalized healthcare and ended up spending less (not just less as a %) than their piecemeal government system.
My suspicion is that only part their hatred of Hillary, liberals, nationalized healthcare is ideologically driven (women belong at home, government is the problem, etc.). The “subconcious” part, though, is fear of a massively successful government program, like Social Security. Social Security fixed a massive crises, required no changes for almost 40 years, and with minor tweaks will continue to serve its (necessary) purpose for another 75-100 years. Universally loved, successful government programs are followed by a long era of control for the people (read: Democrats/liberals) that supports this program. That’s why they’re so desperate to stop it. It’s their last, best hope for maintaining control of this country in our lifetime.
capelza
TZ…all they need to do is adopt the TX GOP platform..it’ll save time.
I have been reading that the core GOP “base” has become a Southern party. I have felt that for a number of years, but does anyone think that that is a valid thing? Dixiephants? Will they really marginalise themselves that much?
raj
Darrell November 12th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
John, what you so conveniently overlook, is that Dems aren’t walking into power without a history of words and actions. They have smeared and lied about Bush and the war on terror in blatent attempts to undermine our war efforts, all in order to gain political power.
I’m sure that you, good Republican apologist that you are, can cite to sources that will support your thesis–the thesis in the bolded sentence.
Note that weblogs are not sources.
One of the things that I have discovered is that so-called “conservatives” are very lax on citing to sources.
EL
I think starting moves toward impeachment based on what we know now would be a big mistake. It would also disappoint not only me, a lifelong dem who went out stumping for dem candidates, but most voters who went democratic this election. I’m not saying Bush doesn’t deserve it, you understand, but that it’s not a great idea, for the party or the country.
Politics has been described as “the art of the possible,” and I’d like to see us keep things in the realm of the possible: reality-based. I predict that ordinary oversight (and damn, I want oversight!) will make things very clear to the American people. If something yet more egregious were to turn up, go ahead, but we should be focused on oversight.
Don’t worry, Bush will suffer for what he has done. His precious “legacy” will be as one of the worst, company of Grant and Harding.
grumpy realist
Nah, don’t waste time on impeachment. Much better to go after the corruption in funding to Iraq, corruption on Capitol Hill (and make sure you throw out any corrupt democrats as well, bye bye Jefferson).
Work on transparency and rule of law.
THEN go after a nice juicy problem like health care insurance. People are worried about it. Go after the insurance providers that refuse to pay due to “pre-existing conditions” that there is no evidence of, bring out the corruption and kickbacks, etc. Get everyone up and testify, testify, testify.
Then sit back and say, ok, let’s work with everyone to define a solution. By this point, if you’ve done your work well, the insurance companies won’t dare say boo. Ignore both the absolute free-marketers on the right and the absolutists on the left.
My own suggestion is a double system: copy the success of the VA health service to create a gov’t low cost national health services, paid from taxes. The sticker is that if you stay on it, the gov’t gets to nag you about your health and charge you more for anything if you don’t keep up with your check-ups. It also gets to ration health stuff. Other side: private health insurance. You can purchase this to cover anything extra you may want. You can also go off of nat’l health service (you get a rebate on taxes) but then if you ever want to go back on it, you have to show you are at least as healthy as the average person of your age on National Health.
Best of all, everybody would scream. If everyone feels his ox has been gored, you’re probably pretty reasonable.
Cy
First of all it is a real honor to have my first comments at your site make the front page. As to your response:
I too am opposed to the Christian right and their theocratic agenda. The idea that there are schools teaching “intelligent design” in Kansas makes me shudder. Having said that, your original comments I objected to had nothing to do with the religious right. They had to do with Hindraker’s contention that the terrorists welcomed a Democratic victory in the midterms. On this there is little room for debate as the Iranian mullahs, Hamas and Al Qaeda have publicly expressed their satisfaction with the result. If your don’t think that anti-American ANSWER activists in Che Guevara t-shirts are celebrating this election in smoky cafe’s from Paris to NYC to Seattle then you are seriously misguided. There is no doubt that the election of the party of Michael “Minutemen” Moore, Cindy Sheehan (best friend of Hugo Chevez), John Conyers and John Murtha brings aid and comfort to the enemies of America with their poisonous anti-American rhetoric. Their often repeated belief that America is an “evil empire” and that George Bush is the “worlds greatest terrorist” clearly is detrimental to our efforts to fight against Islamic terrorism. If you cannot see that then I cannot help you. As I said before, enjoy your new friends and readers from the Democratic Underground. You are sure to enjoy discussing how the Mossad and Dick Cheney destroyed the WTC so they could fraudulently enable Halliburton to sell Casey Sheehan’s blood to the Zionist neo-cons for oil.
demimondian
Actually, capelza, you probably know that there’s a movement in the Democratic party to “throw the South to the wolves”, and focus on becoming a majority party without assuming any Southern states. It’s one of those “numerically lovely, politically interesting, and ethically appalling” notions I like to associate with cynical political consultants of the worst stripes.
W.B. Reeves
I think impeachment, while it may be legally justified, is very problematic politically. In the final analysis, whatever G.W. Bush’s crimes, he is simply a single politician. As such his significance lies not in himself as an individual but in who and what he represents.
Focusing on Bush as the malefactor in chief and fount of all our political evils, while emotionally satisfying is at odds with a far grimmer reality. Bush did not create the current landscape of debacle and disaster all by himself. No, he had copious amounts of aid from the elite institutions of I society.
Recall if you will how, when the Iraq fiasco began to become manifest, plaintive bleatings rose up from our journalistic, political and policy elites claiming that no one could have foreseen what a flim flam the whole business was. That all the best informed folks had agreed on the faulty case for war. That the few voices of skepticism that were raised were simply not credible, even though they turned out to have gotten it far more right than elite opinion.
No, this bloody goulash of fraud, incompetence, corruption and carnage was prepared by many chefs. The reality is that every single elite institution of our democratic republic failed miserably in their role as guardians of the “public interest.”
Since the sole justification for hiearchical elites is that they insure that only the most gifted, wise and expert rise to leadership, what to do when their combined strength labors titanically only to produce the opposite?
Perhaps it’s time to impeach the elites.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
*wipes spittle off monitor*
Salty Party Snax
The thing that Hindrocket and the rest of his loon ilk will never fess up to is that Bush got us into 2 Asian land wars, and after 3 years of extraordinary incompetence and waste went on to lose both of them.
Bush’s failures are for the ages. Caligula, Mussolini, stand aside. Here comes the real all-time loser.
Pooh
Re: Impeachment – simply not going to happen. It’s just not – where is the Barry Goldwater who’s going to march into the Oval and say “Pres. and Vice, either walk out now, or we push you?”
Further, as substantively irresponsible as it was during Clinton’s term, I think it would be moreso now. Relatively speaking, there wasn’t that much to do circa ’98. Now, that’s manifestly not the case. It’s possible the President will do additional things our we will learn additional things that will change my mind, but there’ a high bar here…
Perry Como
This is why the Right can’t win elections.
jcricket
Man, I even looked those up before I wrote that. It is really hard to get them all straight. I forgot to include the following two gems, by Michael Savage:
“Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions”
“The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Schools, Faith, and Military”
If one of the Republican party’s primary driving political theses is that there is no distinction between people who vote for for the Democrats (40-60% of America, depending on the election year) and actual Al Queda terrorists – there’s no doubt that Democrats will grow in their electoral successes in years to come.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Cy, you are aware the American people voted for the Democrats by a fairly wide margin, right?
capelza
Yeah, I’m aware of that and I think it’s foolish. My point was that the more extreme GOPer’s have done this to themselves…by focusing on issues that appeal to “Southerners” (remember I am one by birth..all my family is still there) they are marginalising themselves. Somehow they have made the “values of the South” the image of their party.
Of course I am saying this from my wet, wet Pacific Northwest where about 10% of the people actually go to church and we see the world very differently (and not neccessarily liberally) than they do. It is scary out here.
Cy…you sound like Darrell.
VidaLoca
capelza,
I have to disagree here. I think there are important reasons an impeachment should happen, the biggest being that we may have (hopefully — the issue is still up in the air) barely escaped consolidating a perversely reactionary form of radicalism in our government. It’s important for the historical record to understand how this process came about, and it’s important to hold the principal people who drove the process accountable. Failing to do so is an abdication of our responsibility to refuse to condone such policies, as well as an invitation to their repetition in the next generation. Impeachment and trial is the means whereby we do this. For previous historical precendent, consider the Nuremburg trials — sometimes, it’s just not a good idea to let bygones be bygones.
I do agree, though, that getting a conviction would be difficult. If it were currently known to a certainty that it would be impossible to get, well, that would change my feelings somewhat (see under Clinton, Bill: it’s important to get results, not just make a statement). But remember, the prosecution and trial of an impeachment charge is a political process; Clinton walked because the public had no enthusiasm for driving him out of office. Can the same be said of Bush? I’m not sure. The only way to know is to begin the investigative process and see where it leads. If the process is well conducted (and nobody can claim that Ken Starr conducted his investigation well) it’s possible that support could be built for impeachment and conviction.
Point taken. It will be interesting to see if Cheney, like Rumsfeld, gets thrown under the bus. If Poppy’s team is now going to take over Junior’s administration and Cheney resists, he may indeed go under the wheels. He may go under the wheels anyhow as a scapegoat to save Junior, although Junior probably sees the same thing you do here. Cheney is Junior’s impeachment insurance, the same way that Dan Quayle was his dad’s.
Alternatively, a lot of the goals I laid out above of an impeachment could be accomplished by impeaching Cheney and letting Junior stay on as a figurehead…
If the impeachment option is completely off the table, then as a fallback option a T&RC would be better than nothing. It has its own set of pitfalls, however — under what authority would it operate, etc.
jake
Cy appears to be cranky. I suspect lingering resentment that he had a really bad crush on a girl who turned down his invitation to the Junior Prom and went with a Democrat instead. I know it was last year Cy, but you need to let it go. Trust me. When you’re all grown up and married and getting laid on a semi-regular basis, you won’t even remember her name, much less the look of scorn and disgust on her face when she said no. So wipe the spittle off your monitor, turn off the computer and go play Final Fantasy XII.
Cy
I believe we have won a few.
Tim F.
Have to admit that I’m torn between rooting for Cole & co. to take back the GOP and hoping that the Hindrakers push it even farther into unelectable margins. It would be easier for the Democrats if the GOP remained a national joke, but in the end I don’t see that as very good for the country. A governing party always needs a credible opposition or else it gets lazy, complacent and loses the incentive to do its job well.
So as much as I would enjoy seeing Republicans reduced to has-been third-party status, go Cole.
W.B. Reeves
Do you have any idea how foolish you sound? Like poor Darrell, you appear to have difficulty distinguishing between external reality and the cartoons that populate the inside of your head.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Not with that rhetoric.
capelza
Tim F…if the radical revolutionary wingnut wing marginalises it self enough, maybe it will split away (though they could just join the Constitution Party and save themsleves the trouble) and then the sane people left could rebuild the GOP.
jcricket
I like the 50 state strategy, but I also don’t think Democrats need to do any “copying” of the Republicans “southern strategy” (read: coded racism) in appealing to voters in the south or anti-immigration parts of the West. All Democrats need to do to spread their success is:
1) Increase their electoral holds on the Northeast and west coast sates. Including wider control over state legislatures, controlling all statewide offices, sending Democrats to the House and Senate nationally.
2) Win the west (see Montana, Colorado, etc.) with moderate Democrats.
It would be a huge mistake for the Democrats to make a big rightward shift to win the south right now. I’d say the Democrats southern strategy should be:
1) Win governorships or state-wide wins in Southern states (veto the worst excesses, prevents some voter suppression stuff if we win Sec. of State or AG positions, provides potential presidential candidates with Southern appeal).
2) Continue to win cities in the south and then spread to the suburbs.
3) Then worry about other parts of the South.
It’ll take a long time before the racist south votes for Democrats in large enough amounts to matter. I’m not suggesting Democrats take a “fuck the south” attitude, but a pragmatic use of resources is warranted.
CaseyL
Re: impeachment, I agree that although it’s fully justified, we have more important issues to work on.
However – and this is a big “however” – I think one thing the House should do, in the course of whatever investigations it’ll be doing anyway (e.g., Iraq), is make sure the country knows about any “high crimes and misdemeanors” Bush and/or Cheney committed. I’m pretty sure investigating the myriad misuses of the Iraq Reconstruction Fund alone will turn up some financial criminality. I’m also pretty sure that investigations into the misuse of intelligence agencies, operatives, and data will also reveal some major, huge criminal acts. I judge the likelihood of criminality to be a near certainty, considering how desperate Bush and the GOP have been to keep that stuff under wraps.
Then just make sure the information gets out, via hearings and TV appearances. The word “impeachment” doesn’t even have to be uttered, except maybe along the lines of “Well, these are arguably impeachable offenses, but we’re focused on more important issues right now. Circumstances could change, but that’s our view at this time.”
In other words, make a veiled threat in public – and an unveiled one in private. “Mr. President, we have you dead to rights on X number of impeachable offenses. If you so much as hint about unilaterally attacking Iran, or issue Executive Orders giving yourself more power than the too much power you have already, impeachment will be back on the table so fast your fake-cowboy Stetson will spin. Got that?”
Perry Como
Dems would do alot better in the south if they ran politicians like Webb and Tester. Economic populism tends to go over well there. And with stagnating wages and the crushing costs of healthcare, people will start voting with their pocket books if you give them a good option.
Cy
I can see the level of discourse on this site has already achieved full Democratic Underground levels. It certainly did not take very long. Obviously I disagree with most of the posters here and I will leave it at that. I don’t intend to hang around and trade personal insults about how many times people have been laid. I did not mean to create any unpleasant disturbances in your echo chamber. Regards.
capelza
The smartest thing the Dems can do this next two years is avoid the God, Gays and Guns thing and produce some good legislation that actually shows people that they are the party for them.
It isn’t just racism, but the appeal to the folks that let God decide wo they vote for..”justice sundays” etc.
One thing that is going to change is that Democrats will actually be able to hold a press conference that reporters will attend. That will help!
Darrell
I think that comment, and other “fuck the south” rhetoric from Dems is illustrative as to how so many Dems really think – Southerners vote for Republicans because they are racists.
I think all you enlightened and ever so insightful lefty Dems need to run with that one. Scream it from the rooftops. It is, after all, how you really feel.
What Dems were so successful at this last election, is keeping a lid on this type of rhetoric which explain what so many Dems really and truly believe.
Ralph
I’m a newbie here, but in an overall reply to Darrell’s
post @ 12:19, the war and the neocons intentions were all laid out in “THE PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY” and this was all before 9/11. Look at the endorsements and its plain to see this was their plan form the beginning when they took over the Presidency in 2000. I am surprised that people who call themselves politically savvy are still in denial.
There is a lot of negative talk about Michael Moore, and I don’t agree with all of his political views, but he coined the phrase “fictitious weapons of mass destruction.” When it’s was extremely unpopular to even have a discussion about the merits of this war, without being labeled a traitor. Well Boys and Girls ” He was right” in spades.
I suspect, now that new congress has subpoena powers to fully investigate how we were mislead, the waste, abuse and corruption that have taken place; the administrations shredders are on overload about now.
Former VP and Dem Presidential candidate Al Gore: “Bush betrayed the country” in an “adventure” which was “preordained and planned before 9/11”.
Sr. Senator from Mass., Ted Kennedy: Iraq was no threat. This was “made up in Texas”, a “fraud”, etc.
Yes it’s all true and it’s written down in black and white for all to see.
capelza
Cy when you leave will you take Darrell with you?
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I’ve always belived this topic to be a target-rich environment.
Scott Custer and Michael Battles, come on down! You’re the next witnesses before the Senate Armed Services Committee!
Tsulagi
Good to see our Purple Heart bandaid warriors have a new source of talking points to parrot. Wow, how fast they fell in behind AQ, Hamas, etc. as being an unimpeachable source of truth before even seeing where the Dems head in a new Congress. Gee, Rove goes down in flames so they immediately turn to Osama to tell them what to think.
Amen. Seems like Assrocket and mini-me clones like Cy learned as much in classrooms and out as Bush. Before Tuesday, the military took their orders from Bush. After Tuesday, the military took their orders from Bush, and unfortunately will continue to do so until the next president is sworn in.
What happens on the ground in AF and Iraq for the next two years will be at Bush’s direction. The House and Senate cannot order the military to do anything. Sure, they can call officers to testify as to what they’ve been doing and their assessment. They can call the SecDef asking if after going on four years there is now a plan. But Congress cannot order the military to change manpower, strategy, tactics, or anything else in Iraq.
As far as delivering Iraq to the jihadis, that’s already pretty much done thanks to admin incompetence beyond measure and the previous Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and Speak No Evil Congress. However, I fully expect the Assrockets to blame the Dems even though Bush will continue to direct our forces. In addition to aspiring to Bush’s “extraordinary intelligence,” they also follow his finely honed sense of personal responsibility and accountability. They’re a heckuva base.
VidaLoca
GSFRB,
I’m mostly in agreement with you here. If I had to choose between the two exclusive choices of impeachment and solving problems that need immediate attention, I would take the latter — because the problems really are immediate; it’s not like we get to talk forever while we put doing something on the back burner.
So I’m willing to give legislation and restoration of oversight authority precedence over impeachment, and I’m willing to give everything precedence over bloviating rhetoric. That said, I’m not convinced it’s an exclusive choice. I’m not willing to drop a preference for formal accountability of this administration if it can be achieved. I see bad consequences flowing from that kind of failure of due diligence.
Pb
Hey, who voted for Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore? Did Michael Moore get Michelle Malkin’s seat? Anyone know what committee assignments they have? Is Sheehan running for Speaker? Oh, right, back to the real world… Cy, you’re an idiot. And Michael Moore is fat.
tb
And it really sends me through the roof when they bark like meowing cattle. God, I hate that.
Perry Como
They’ve already started blaming the Democrats, and they haven’t even taken control yet. Hackery know no bounds.
jake
I never said he had been laid. Don’t like to think about it really. But as I already said of Homo Radicalus:
3. Lower lip covering the chin in a pout when someone lets out a heart-felt belly laugh in their general direction and/or tells them to fuck off. (That’s not very nice, I never did nuthin’ to you. Boo hoo.)
Laughter: Homo Radicalus as Raid :: Cucarachas.
jcricket
Fine with me. Sign me up for Tester & Webb -esque candidates in the south. If candidates that are pro public education, pro stem-cell research, anti-Patriot act (Tester), in favor of raising the minimum wage, believers in global warming & renewable/non-oil-based energy as a solution can win in the South, then sign me up.
I’d take them over Harold Ford any day.
demimondian
Were there impeachable offenses? Well, sure looks like it, anyway. Should we look at the run up to Iraq? Should we look at whether there was executive collusion to cover Foley up? Should we investigate Abramoff’s connections to the executive branch? Is the reconstruction scandal a new Republican carpet-bagger rage?
Yes, of course. Thing is, those things are important *whether or not impeachment is on the table*. Those things are important in and of themselves, and warrant investigation.
Right now, though, revenge, however well-seasoned, is not worth pursuing, and, don’t mistake yourself, an “impeachment first” strategy is absolutely revenge, not statecraft. The American people are angry now, and they will turn on us if we don’t try to serve them, *as they should*.
I want us to turn our eyes back to the problems we face, not spend time getting revenge on the thugs who created them. Let history judge them; we have more important things right now.
jcricket
(sorry, ignore the strikeout above, editing mistake)
I totally agree. In today’s hyper-partisan-ized Congress impeachment would be a total sideshow.
Just restore oversight and go after wins on popular legislation. If bombshells come out of additional investigations, at the least you’ll get more grist to throw out other tainted Republicans in 2008 and potentially win the Presidency in another Democratic “wave”. If the bombshells are egregious enough, you might see calls for impeachment. But I doubt it. Just not worth it.
VidaLoca
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives…
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I know what you’re saying, VL, but Clinton’s impeachment showed otherwise.
As for due diligence, I’m all for it – but it may be more constructive to do so looking forward rather than dig up mistakes of the past. If time were not an issue I’d say investigate everything, but that’s not so.
Pb
demimondian,
Regarding energy independence, this plan is a good starting point, IMO.
Perry Como
This is actually an easy one, politically. The Democratic leadership stands up and says they have no intention of impeaching the President any time they are asked. They are, however, bringing back oversight.
What goes unsaid is, if in the course of that oversight it becomes clear that the President has committed high crimes or misdemeanors, and the American people call for the impeachment of the President, well, all options are on the table.
The goal is not impeachment. The goal is to restore balance to our government and hold people accountable for their actions if they did something wrong. If impeachment is a waypoint on the road to that goal, so be it.
W.B. Reeves
Speaking as a Southerner, it would be more accurate to say that many white southerners vote for Republicans due to racism. This is attributable to the fact that so many current Southern Republicans came out of the Segregationist tradition of the old Southern Democratic Party.
For the greater part of it’s existence, from colonial times up until the 1960’s, the south as a region was typified by a virulent racism expressed in a white supremacist political and legal establishment buttressed by organized terrorism against non-whites and white dissenters. While it might seem impolite for others to point this out, given the history, it’s our cross to bear.
If the Southern GOP really felt injured by the charge of racism it’s members would cease hobnobbing with the likes of the Council of Conservative Citizens and pandering to nostalgia for the old pre-emancipation south under the guise of “Southern Heritage.”
Perry Como
The picture from that link reminds me… Maybe the new Congress should take a look into how John Bolton got the transcript of a private telephone call of a sitting Democratic governor (Bill Richardson).
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Well said, Perry.
Pb
Perry Como,
That’s why we need that wiki of all of this administration’s scandals, mistakes, and queastionable actions… because there are really too many of them out there to remember them all at once. :(
Gold Star for Robot Boy
It’s not White House-focused, but this is a good place to start.
ThymeZone
The purpose of impeachment is, if you get conviction, to replace the impeached official.
If you do that to Bush, you get President Cheney. That’s the single biggest reason why you won’t have an impeachment.
The second biggest reason is that you will spend most of two years getting rid of the president you have now, whereas if you just wait two years, you will get rid of him anyway.
Impeachment could only make sense here if it were necessary to do so in order to paralyze the government. There are much easier ways to bring the Bush administration to a stop in terms of further wrecking the country.
Revenge is not a valid motive. That is not to say that revenge wouldn’t be justified … it would be. But the country has to cut off its nose to spite its face in order to have that kind of revenge.
Bad idea. Move on.
Ted
Why does Darrel feel the need to keep telling us he likes pie?
Perry Como
Pb Says:
Republinomicon? :)
ThymeZone Says:
Agreed. Impeachment is the last resort congress has for reigning in an out of control executive. There will be plenty of deal cutting and arm twisting over the next two years, so I doubt it will ever get to the impeachment stage.
ThymeZone
He has come to the right place.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
My expectation for the first major showdown between Bush and Congress is… Bush’s propensity for signing statements, aka “I’ll sign what you passed, but we’re still gonna do it my way.” If he tries that again – and he will – I imagine the Supremes will be involved sooner rather than later.
KC
Whew, what a post.
Amen.
jake
That’s all you need to say. I think it depends on how the President We Have reacts to the last Congress he’ll ever deal with. If he tries to satisfy the Hindrakers of America we may well witness some sort of blatant assery that can only be addressed by the I word. For now I favour the Perry Cuomo solution, and of course Iraq will be FUBAR and US soldiers will still be dodging IEDs regardless of what happens to Bush. “Yeah, sorry we never approved funds for better body armor, we were busy impeaching the president!”
No thanks.
lightning_fast_draw
I haven’t given up on conservatives, I’ve just given up on Republicans. For the time being, radicals have taken over the Republican party and thrown out the conservatives so I have no choice but to leave the party.
I just finished reading Hinderaker’s rather benign interpretation on the terrorists’ view or our midterm elections. It efficiently stated the obvious, which seems to be the most powerful talking points of the Republican Party. That is, stating the obvious talking points that they want the American people to focus upon. There are many issues Republicans would rather we forget.
What he fails to mention in his article is precisely what is lacking with our Republican leadership. The alternative to a winning strategy in Iraq is simply to wallow there without an objective, spending upwards of $8 billion a month just to make the terrorist uncomfortable.
It is this non-strategy that American voters found unacceptable. So at the risk of making the terrorist temporarily happy, we chose a change of management. If you look at some of the ideas Rep. Murtha and others are prepared to implement with our military, this will surely be a temporary state of affairs for the terrorists. In fact, it should make them very uncomfortable, more so than they are right now.
However, I noticed that Hinderaker failed to mention this in his article. Could it be that he failed to analyze some of the alternative strategies being proposed and enthuastically endorsed by our military leaders? He really should. It may give him a whole new view of American policy toward the war and a new way of looking at terrorist feelings. You see Americans voted for leadership. We are looking for vision and hope and have become very tired of people like Hinderaker who keep restating the obvious.
Pb
You know, it is possible to impeach Cheney *and* Bush… (President Pelosi?!)
The Other Steve
I think what Hindrocket and his defenders are really saying is that they are cowards.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Absolutely. They’re so terrified of bogeymen – some real, others imagined – they have no qualms about destroying everything that makes America special, so they can feel safe.
Kimmitt
TOS: Well, they do wet their pants every time a guy with a tan says, “Boo!” so I think you’ve got a point there.
Richard Bottoms
(gloat)
I am crushing your head.
(/gloat)
The Other Steve
As a Northerner whose great grandfather kicked your asses in the Civil War, I think I have the right to say “fuck you”.
Perry Como
Yes, they like pie!
ThymeZone
I knew Perry was well-connected, but I had no idea ….
SeesThroughIt
Exactly.
As for impeachment…I’m against it. I’m not arguing that there isn’t reason to look into it, but somebody has to be the grown-up party here. We know Republicans can’t fulfill that role, so I would hope Democrats can rise above spite and just get down to business. Besides, the many massive failures of Bush are a big ol’ albatross around the neck of the GOP. At this point, he’s going to be very restricted in how much radical/stupid bullshit he can do, he’s a lame duck, and he’s an embarassment for the GOP. Keeping him around to remind everybody of that will be much more powerful than impeachment.
Rex
John,
I first discovered this blog a few years ago when I was reading the Misha at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler and saw that he had you listed as his “Blogfather”. I wondered to myself who could possibly have been the inspiration to such a venemous and overbearing blog and clicked through to come check it out. You weren’t pulling many comments in those days and your posts were largely thoughtful and concerned with policy and its place in government–sort of boring, not the incendiary America-first rhetoric that was so in vogue at the time. I shrugged and didn’t really think much of it–rarely checking back over the next year or so. Then there was a post someplace, maybe it was on HuffPo, highlighting one of your watershed posts that questioned party and principles. I clicked over here again and saw that you were starting to draw a lot more commenters and many of them were disaffected with the direction of their parties, both on the right and the left. I liked what I saw and made this place a regular stop. Since then, I have come to have a substantial amount of respect for your principles and opinions and find this place to represent one of the last holdouts in the blogosphere that cares more about the direction of the country than the wholesale consolidation of power.
Good on ya’, Cole. Keep fighting. Whether they like it or not, the side that you chose, perhaps even helped pioneer, is starting to gain traction and win some fights. It is the most hope that I have had for the blogosphere in years.
ThymeZone
Agree, that’s my third reason why we won’t have an impeachment. Bush is a great walking, talking Democratic Party commercial at this point. His approval rating is headed for the twenties. I predict that he will beat out Nixon for Depth of Crater in public approval numbers.
Low Twenties Or Bust!
I think we need just one more Cheney speech about how these guys are going to Keep On Keeping On no matter what the election outcome was, or what the polls say.
Come on, George, tell America “Fuck You” just one more time, I double dog fucking dare you.
Alan
I may disagree with you on a couple things but I’m as pissed as you that the label “conservative” has been hijacked by a bunch of loudmouthed loons. These people know nothing about limited government.
Pooh
Final point from me re: impeachment. Bush is the (most-visible) symptom, not the disease. We talk all the time about zombie-conservatism (I thought we killed that stupid shit, and now it’s back, etc…) But if we make this all about Bush, that’s what we’re asking for. If we focus merely on Bush, we let the insidiousness of AEI and PNAC and whoever else fester without really getting at it. The more discreditation the better I say. We don’t need to do much to discredit those at the top, they’ve handled it pretty well for us. I was the heads of the ones who are likely to come back in 20 years as Cheney Mark II.
Once-ler
Remember the bin Laden video released shortly before the 2004 election? The CIA believed that was designed to help George W. Bush get re-elected. So, Al Qaeda wanted Bush to be re-elected, and then they wanted the Democrats to be take control of Congress. Oh no, we fell right into their trap!
It’s nonsense, bin Laden is just playing mind games. Ignore it, or the terrorists win.
jcricket
Yes, this is a very good thing for Democrats. Bad for the country that Bush is still in charge, but it’s only nominal control if a Democratic Congress stands up to him.
I’m all for the drip, drip, drip of FBI, Justice department and the occasional independent investigation through the 2008 campaign season. As we’ve just scratched the surface, I expect the convictions to come in wave after wave as all the rats in the Republican party turn on each other. I’m particularly looking forward to Norquist and Reed go down, and the exposure of just how widespread Bush’s secret warrantless wiretapping was on Americans. As low as it may already seem, support for the President, the current Republican agenda and many elected Republicans will fall through the floor as their corruption & illegal activity is exposed. No need to try and “shoot the moon” on impeachment – might actually get you “less” in the long run.
At the very least, if Congress returns to it’s “normal” level of oversight and standard parliamantery rules, you will force a show-down with the Executive Branch on any number of issues: the filibuster, signing statements, warrantless wiretapping, etc. Bush & Cheney will attempt a John-Yoo-backed coup (of sorts) and we’ll have the constitutional crisis we need (sadly) to distinguish Democrats + real conservatives from Buch acolytes in the Republican party.
Perry Como
It’s obvious they were lying then.
But they aren’t lying now.
jcricket
Al Qaeda – They were for the Republicans before they were against them?
jake
“Do not just start decapitating zombies left and right!”
Pooh’s right. We need the main zombie. To ensure against further infestations Logic and Reasoning really ought to be added to the public school cirriculum starting in Kindergarten. Straw men don’t stand up to the searing heat of critical analysis.
D. Mason
To the people who say we should avoid impeachment because its unnecessary and harmful to the American psyche: I agree. Two Impeachments in two presidencies is not good even if Bush deserves it(which he does).
To the people who say we should not impeach until we have objectively looked at the evidence: What garbage. The fucker has admitted to impeachable offenses on national television. He has broken the Constitution, congresses laws and treaties and coyly admitted to it for everyone to see and hear. That’s plenty for impeachment in my book. Not for a criminal trial of course, but impeachment is not a criminal trial, it’s an employee performance review for the purposes of termination. Different standard of evidence required there folks.
Jane Finch
Amen, brother! Since the “new media” wingnuts are all so up in arms and full of fear and loathing, I’m expecting them to form the 1st Keyboarders Militia in order to defeat the pro-terrorist forces that have hijacked the US government.
VidaLoca
D. Mason —
So you’re advocating a process that would end in an impeachment vote in the House, but skip the Senate trial?
That would have the benefit of avoiding the Cheney Presidency while keeping Bush and his failures on display. Doesn’t require “Goldwater and the Wise Men” to tell Junior it’s time to leave, either.
Personally I had been more pro-impeachment up until reading GoldStar’s point that once you start down that path you can pretty much forget about accomplishing anything else in the legislative cycle. Annoys me to give the fucker a free pass though.
Jess
Exactly. Well put. All of us who care about America more than our political tribe need to work together to uproot the extremism and ideologically-driven stupidity and hatred that has taken over our system. Bush is already become largely irrelevant, increasingly jettisoned by the right as well as by the left and center. I don’t see how a massive attempt to impeach him would improve on that. A return to effective oversight is essential, but it should be aimed towards constructive, bi-partisan ends. Impeaching Bush would be a huge distraction and would further polarize the country, exacerbating rather than curing the underlying disease.
Although I have to agree with whoever made the point earlier in the thread that the threat of impeachment would make a very nice weapon to keep in reserve.
BadTux
When LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1965, he is reported to have said, “Well, there goes the Southern vote for the next two generations.” He was from Texas. He knew. He did the right thing anyhow and signed the bill. Only right thing he ever did in his Presidency.
Things are changing in the South, but only slowly. My property manager for my properties back in Louisiana called me in a panic back in May because his daughter wanted to move her boyfriend into one of my properties. “It just ain’t right, a nigger living with a white woman! I thought I raised her better than that.” That was *THIS YEAR*, people. THIS YEAR. Not 1965. Not 1865. THIS YEAR. (FWIW, I talked to the boyfriend, nice guy, a bit on the lazy and mischievous side but no harm in him, so he’s on the lease now). Also, a retired baseball player wanted to buy the local general store. The owner refused to sell it to him, and instead sold it to someone else for less money. The reason? “I ain’t selling my store to no nigger baseball player.” That was THREE YEARS AGO. Not 1965. Not 1925. Not 1875. THREE YEARS AGO.
“But that’s not everybody in the South!” I hear you say. True. True. But it’s still common enough that a black man winning a governor’s race in the South would be about as likely as a black man attending a KKK rally as a member (rather than as a victim). It ain’t happenin’. Not for a while yet, anyhow. And a national Democrat without strong Southern ties will win Southern states sometimes around… uhm… maybe in a few decades. Maybe.
And that’s how it is, in reality-land. Which is why Democrats pandering to white Southerners is kinda like Jews pandering to neo-Nazis. It’s a strategy doomed to failure, no matter how far to the right the Democrats go. Going for the Western vote with a more Libertarian-type (as vs. Christofascist) party platform is far preferable here, because the Libertarian types actually would vote for pro-liberty Democrats, while white Southern bigots (either religious or racially based bigotry) never will because pro-liberty Democrats would not vote to enforce their own pet bigotries upon other people.
-Badtux the Southern Penguin
D. Mason
VidaLoca I’m not advocating impeachment atall, I think it’s a waste of opportunity and national morale. I’m just saying that I don’t think you need to assemble a full compliment of evidence to start putting witnesses on parade when he admitted to Constitutional violations on national TV.
Perry Como
Impeachment would take down one person: the President. Investigating the administration’s actions over the last 6 years — with no presumed impeachment in the works — would have far more profound effects on the boy king and his enablers.
Not only do future Presidents need a message sent, but would be royalists need a message too. The barrier for actually convicting Bush is impossibly high. Tossing his sycophantic cronies in jail? Not nearly as high.
So the next time the Yoos and the Addingtons come around and say that the unitary executive can do whateverthefuckitwants, maybe they’ll think twice.
ChristieS
Exactly. That is it exactly.
jcricket
Thanks BadTux, for proving my point. The people who were swayed by the racist anti-Harold Ford ad aren’t going to vote for Democrats unless those Democrats are closeted Republicans. And that’s not the road to national success. There are enough votes to be had in the west (as seen by Tester, Schweitzer, Napolitano, etc.) without pandering to that group of Southern voters.
If, over the next 12 years Democrats solidify their hold in all the west coast + northeast while making solid gains in the west, then maybe you can expand to the south. But until they those are just long-shots.
Between now and then I like the idea of making sure at least state-level races are contested across the South. No reason to completely cede it, as we’ve seen with this election.
demimondian
jcricket…I worry about the Democratic voters in those states. If we make no effort to run there, we sort of hang them up to dry.
A fifty-state strategy really needs all fifty states, even the South.
skip
John, they LOST. Thus they are going to be a little chippy for a while.
That said, I agree with your reaction.
t. jasper parnell
Perhaps the best deal here would be if, following Harry’s lead, the Dems begin to examine the course of the war so far and make those facts available to the American people and should the people after knowing what went on and how corrupt the current crop are demand impeachment then they ought go for it. Like all sentient beings am I convinced that Bush et al have committed hight crimes and misdemnors of serious import; but like most here have only newspaper and other reports. Let’s get the facts of the matter on record; let’s get the facts of the matter to the public and then let’s democracy reign.
Death to secrecy and a death to tyrants once the latter have been proved to be what it is we think they are. (death in a metaphorical sense, of course.)
Darrel, by the by, is an ass and he hates America, loves pie and the pinko commie Chinese and, what is worse, loves to see baby Jesus cry.
grumpy realist
I wonder how much a good solid commonsense non-corrupt Democrat would pull down south? Especially if there was some nice corruption scandal afflicting the Republican?
I think common sense, fiscal sanity–transparency–heck, we should run on a “we gotta either raise taxes or cut services. There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” platform. I bet there are a heck of a lot of people out there in the South that are tired of it being a laughingstock.
lard lad
Much as it pains me to admit it, Darrell has about a quarter of a point here… as a former Alabama resident and fervent lefty, I get pretty steamed by all-encompassing comments like “the racist south.” This is the kind of rhetoric that generates a lot of anger among even sympathetic Southerners.
Seems unfair for liberal writers who reside in such racial utopias as New York City, Chicago and Boston to lecture the citizens of, say, Mississippi on their lack of cultural sensitivity.
The issue is not the “racism” of the South. The issue is that the Republican Party regularly exploits racial fears and tensions to win elections… and they have to be called on it, early and often.
Let’s be cautious, though, about slinging around terms like “racist” to describe an entire geographic region of America. We Democrats should be on a quest to win hearts and minds, folks…
Richard Bottoms
Not because they are racists, but because they are the asshole of the nation.
All the Democrats need to do is deliver on ending the Iraq war, reform taxes to favor the middle class, plus deal with fixing the donut hole in Medicare and the Southern Strategy as a force will be done.
Fuck the South.
Chuck Butcher
Howard Dean’s 50 state party building is a good idea, a very good idea and would seem to include the south (providing I can count) but to build a Presidential election strategy on the south – Southern VP, etc, is not a good idea. Electoral votes count, not districts and it’s unlikely for a Dem win in the southern states, strategy or otherwise.
I’d be very happy to see John Coles & Co take back the Republican Party, and I say this as a quite left Democrat. That Party was ammenable to reason and a worthy opponent and its election did not promise dire effects for the country. A Dem of my stripe could have a spirited argument without becoming “satan.” John, use Conservative – capital C and c – little c for the others or whackjobs. And by the way, the hijacking of Parties by a vocal and activist few has not been limitted soley to the Repubs, I offer – gun-control.
Oversight hearings are a very useful tool and it is important to remember who holds the Veto and how many votes it takes to overcome it, and the usefulness of ballbats when dealing with the unreasonable. Sure Kinglet George II on his way to a jail cell isn’t an image that offends me, but I’m much more in favor of the public good and a failed impeachment isn’t. As P C noted, things could come up…
I linked my Blog here for the value of intelligent Conservative analysis, I hope to see some positive stuff.
Chuck Butcher
Howard Dean’s 50 state party building is a good idea, a very good idea and would seem to include the south (providing I can count) but to build a Presidential election strategy on the south – Southern VP, etc, is not a good idea. Electoral votes count, not districts and it’s unlikely for a Dem win in the southern states, strategy or otherwise.
I’d be very happy to see John Coles & Co take back the Republican Party, and I say this as a quite left Democrat. That Party was ammenable to reason and a worthy opponent and its election did not promise dire effects for the country. A Dem of my stripe could have a spirited argument without becoming “satan.” John, use Conservative – capital C and c – little c for the others or whackjobs. And by the way, the hijacking of Parties by a vocal and activist few has not been limitted soley to the Repubs, I offer – gun-control.
Oversight hearings are a very useful tool and it is important to remember who holds the Veto and how many votes it takes to overcome it, and the usefulness of ballbats when dealing with the unreasonable. Sure Kinglet George II on his way to a jail cell isn’t an image that offends me, but I’m much more in favor of the public good and a failed impeachment isn’t. As P C noted, things could come up…
I linked my Blog here for the value of intelligent Conservative analysis, I hope to see some positive stuff.
Chuck Butcher
oh piss, I didn’t think it was so important it needed 2x.
jcricket
I think there are two versions, though, of a Democratic Southern strategy. One is to run people like Tester, and appeal to the existing Democratic voters, to get every seat you can. I support that strategy.
What I am saying is that Democrats do not need to run to the right to guarantee they win the south. To do so would be to lose their identity, plus it’s not necessary to “win the big one”. That’s my main point.
I don’t want to abandon the South, and from what I understand there are lots of places Democrats are making inroads (more the midwest than the South, but still). But we do not need to grab onto the people that are swayed by the anti-Harold Ford ad, or run veiled racist ads of our own.
For me it’s not about 100% ceding the South, but just seeing it for what it is – not vital in the short-term to winning presidential elections, but critical in the long-term (so all the state level infrastructure matters) for the good of the country (yes, I believe in spreading the ideas of the Democratic party).
ImJohnGalt
Digby’s has had a number of recent posts concerning the issue of what a Democratic southern strategy might look like. Hint: It doesn’t mean becoming Republican-lite.
A couple of relevant posts: here, and a very good post here.
rachel
If Congress exercises due oversight, for a change, not impeaching Bush doesn’t mean he gets off Scot-free; it means the death of a thousand cuts instead.
Carot
“What the GOP’s leadership did not (would not? could not?) understand about the RCs is that they are deadly serious. They were serious before, they’re serious still and now that someone in power has at least pretended to take them seriously they will not sit down and shut up.”
But they can probably be bought off by the Democrats in a long term strategy. The left should take Bush’s plan of giving money to evangelicals for helping the poor and make it part of their own policy. This is a good fit because the left is supposed to be about helping the poor anyway. Since the Right never intended to help the poor they have no real answer to the Democrats stealing Bush’s policy.
The separation of church and state is not dangerous with charity to the poor, it’s dangerous when they start trying to substitute religion for science. If at some point the Supreme Court stops the Democrats giving money to evangelicals to help the poor then the left still has the good intentions and would have bought a lot of their votes. No more cynical than what Bush did, the same policy the evangelicals like already, and helps the left’s goals for the poor which are part of their base.
And who knows, maybe they really will help the poor better than government programs.
ChristieS
ChristieS
Drat, I should know not to try to post before my first cup of coffee…
Anyway, the above post should have had Darrell’s response to another quote and then my response to Darrell.
Darrell,
I live in rural Georgia. I live with the results of racism every day. The good ole boys network is alive and well down here. If you aren’t a good ole boy or if you don’t have links to their network, you don’t get elected to office if you live too far outside Atlanta. This decade its Republicans making use of it. In prior decades it was Democrats.
Down here, racism is alive and well on both sides of the aisle. It will take another generation or two before the influx of outside ideas takes color barriers out of the equation, IMO.
But then, those of us Progressives who have deep, familial roots in the area could have told the Carpetbaggers what would happen back when The War of Northern Aggression was lost: if you isolate these people, they will breed amongst themselves. That pertains to ideals and thought patterns as well as physical heirs.
Reconstruction failed to take into account that by punitively isolating a people, you also kept new people OUT. Without an influx of new ideas that new residents could have provided, the same prejudices and hatreds would foment unimpeded for generations; and so they have.
Just because it’s the 21st century does not mean that the deep south has gotten more progressive in its thinking. On the contrary, it’s only been in the last twenty years or so that the public consciousness has made any strides towards what I’d call Progressiveness.
Progressiveness is not solely a Democratic nor Republican virtue. That title belongs to anyone who jettisons the BS of the past to work towards the common good in the future.
We here in the red states may take a little longer to get there, but then we have a bit more to overcome in those areas.
Richard Bottoms
I agree.
I see no problem with acknowleging some people in this country are more conservative than me. I am more conservative than many of my liberal freinds, though by deifinition being a Democrat I must be a liberal.
But in terms of catering to backwards-ass religious fundamentalist snake handling nitwits. Uh, no.
Fuck em.
And by the way, every single one of us in the ‘D’ party should demand these Republican assholes pronounce our party name correctly.
It’s the Democratic party. You know, the party that kicked your ass just as I predicted it would.
Tulkinghorn
The best Democratic theme/meme to be pushing is that impeachment is beneath George W. Bush. His crimes may be serious, but he is too weak and irrelevant in the long run for it to be worth Congress’ time.
Contempt for the contemptible, ridicule for the ridiculous.
And sentence fragments for everyone! (ie, get Kerry off the stage!!!)
Tulkinghorn
or Bush is beneath impeachment, not good enough for it (where did I put that cup of coffee?)
Sherard
Good Christ, John, you are denser than a ROCK.
Here is the point. I will start a new paragraph so it gives you extra time for it to sink in:
Your idiotic rhetoric is INDESTINGUISHABLE from Hinderaker’s with the exception of the point of view.
I’m not “offended” by it. I don’t really care if you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you label yourself a conservative or a liberal. I don’t care. I’m just stating that you (and Tim for that matter) sound like idiots with your WAY over the top rhetoric. Your ridiculous outrage (exemplified by Tim’s labeling voting irregularities as “atrocities”) is so stupid that it has become white noise.
Keep it up, though. As I’ve said before, I still come here for the entertainment. It’s like a hideous car wreck, I can’t look away. But if that’s what you’re going for, consider it a resounding success.
Sherard
Oh, and last but not least, I am HARDLY a Hinderaker “supporter” as you label me. I stopped reading Powerline entirely quite a while ago.
Suffice to say that your ridiculous generalization is a perfect example of your complete inability to look at any topic with even a tiny amount of objectivity. Anyone who says word one different than you is a mindless loyal supporter of your enemy.
Sherard
PS – Interesting that you linked Captain Ed’s responses in the original piece. That is how you rebut someone. You should take a lesson.
jcricket
Wow John. Congratulations! You’re now among the Jane Hamshers of the left.
Of all the charges to level at John, I think this is the lamest, especially given the particular Hinderaker posts. Anyone who seriously posits that it’s a “reasonable starting point” that the Democrats and terrorists are aligned deserves to be called an idiot. Hinderaker is either completely dense (i.e. can’t see the gaping logical holes in his argument), intellectually dishonest (i.e. can see them, believes we can’t or doesn’t care) or using the most extreme rhetoric to inflame the people he believes are the Republican base. It’s not an accident that the current Republican meme is “Democrats = terrorists” (I just saw this in a letter to the editor in the Seattle Times).
My guess is John feels it’s exactly this kind of tactic that will lead the Republican party further astray from the ideals John believes they stood for. In all cases, someone who reliably voted Republican for 20 years has the right to call Hinderaker an idiot for what he’s doing to the Republican party (and America).
John didn’t come to his current positions lightly, or with a snap judgment. It was the “death of a 1000 paper cuts” from the last 6+ years of rhetoric and tactics like we’re saying from Hinderaker now. So I think it’s completely dishonest to claim that John has no objectivity or sees everything as black and white.
jcricket
Thanks for those links. He makes the point better than I did when he said the following:
That’s basically it. Build the party infrastructure in all 50 states so you can win local and some statewide elections. Support candidates that appeal to liberals, moderates, independents and unhappy conservatives. But don’t run to the right. The “go west” strategy will pay off for the Democrats. Those same “economic populists with a libertarian streak” that play well in the west will play well in parts of the South, paving the way for more Democratic success down south in the long run.
Larry
How about a series of pragmatic ideas that a majority of Americans will support, regardless of where they live:
1. Invest a portion of the 200 billion p/yr SS overpay in VA mortgages. Better interest return and prevents it being spent.
2. Invest tax dollars in alternative energy systems. No reason we can’t lead the world in R&D and manufacturing in this high margin business. The high paying jobs created lower the trade deficit, increases the ‘size of the pie’ (pie reference!) – which starts to fix some internal financials going forward like medicare and SS. No more blood for oil (war without end) as the barrel price drops.
3. #2 has the happy side effect of defunding the Saudis and Iranians – the main financiers of fundie Islam. Forces them to diversify their economies and put their people to work. Less time, energy, and incentive for Jihad when you have a job.
There are opportunities here. People invest in their homes, educations, etc. They get the concept.
Southeners too.
ChristieS
Heh…back atcha, Mr. Cole. It’s your b-day.
Jay
Since you mention it Ace, your “writing style” is indistingishable from the other Hindscraper supporters.
Not that I am accusing anyone of posting under multiple identities in order to make it appear more than one person finds Hindscraper reasonable. Even I hesitate to suggest anyone would be that pathetic. Really. I am a compassionate conservative.
However, I suspect “SS” is unable to tell the difference between JC’s posts and JH’s maunderings because any disagreement with the “Democrats Luv bin Laden” parrot squawk makes him so angry his mind shuts down. That’s the semi-charitable view. One uncharitable view is that the many faces of SS need to work on their reading comprehension skills.
Sherard
Wow, good to know that John is the least idiotic of this bunch.
My last entry on this topic:
Maybe you will understand it this way, John – Two different people, each with opposing views, can BOTH sound like idiots. If the world will not revolve without my saying so, then yes, Hinderaker sounds like an idiot on this topic, but here’s the point, John – SO.DO.YOU. If that makes you feel good, great. It certainly has fired up the complete morons in your comments, though that is nothing new.
The saddest thing of all should be that these buffoons are the ones that were ushered into power in Congress. Wow. That is frightening.
And it is awfully funny to see some frothing moonbat accuse you of being a sockpuppet. John could attest to my complete honesty in that regard if he gave a shit.
TenguPhule
Exactly, those who spout ‘If you impeach Bush, you get President Cheney’ are spouting nonsense.
You impeach Bush *AND* Cheney. Swing two crooks on the same rope, since they’re both in it up to their necks. And there need to be impeachments followed by death sentences. To allow either of them to get away with their crimes in office is to send a message to the entire world that it’s okay to break the law as long as you’re in political power…they need to be made examples to show that NOBODY is above the law.
President Pelosi 2007 is just icing on the cake.
TenguPhule
Shorter Sherard: Words all look alike to me.
jcricket
Ah, anyone remember Powerline endlessly flogging the idea that the Terri Schiavo Memo was a Democratic “plant”?
Sherard – We know it’s possible for more than one person at a time to sound like an idiot (ex. Hewitt & Malkin & Goldberg & Hinderaker). We just all disagree that John is displaying anything like the idiocy Hinderacker displays in his logically fallacious and intentionally inflammatory blog postings.
Aaron
Tengu-
Impeachment is not a criminal offense. there is no penalty phase. If you are impeached, you are out of office.
the criminal justice system or a war crimes court would pronounce sentance, and then only after a hearing and a guilty determination.
demimondian
Actually, Aaron, that isn’t true. Impeachment by the House of Representatives is half the story; conviction (and potential removal) by the Senate is other half.
zak822
John, kudos to you for being tough enough to fight for the re-emergence of a responsible Republican party and old-school conservatism. Your party needs you.
The tenor of so many of the responses is amazing. So many of them just reject freedom and democracy; the same values they claim to venerate.