Apparently this is the line we’re going to hear about Biden’s vote for Iraq:
Former Secretary of State John Kerry defended former Vice President Biden over the Iraq War, saying that the George W. Bush administration “broke their word with respect to how they would proceed” in Iraq.
“The fact is that we were promised by a president, by an administration, that they were going to do it as a last resort after exhausting diplomacy, that if they have to go to war it would be with a coalition that they built broadly, and that they would do it only in conjunction with our allies,” Kerry said Friday. “It didn’t have to happen; it was a war of choice.”
“It was a mistake to have trusted them, I guess, and we paid a high price for it,” Kerry added. “But that was not voting for the war.”
This is such a projection of weakness and, frankly, political cowardice – we trusted Bush and he let us down. A mistake “I guess”. Is that really where Biden wants to go with this? To say he’s a victim of Bush? Two thoughts:
First, if we’re supposed to trust your judgment as the biggest, baddest, smartest foreign policy guy, isn’t trusting Cheney/Bush on foreign policy a refutation of learning from your experience? We all know people who have worked in a job for a long time (“experienced”) and absolutely suck at it. It’s not the experiences you have, but how you’ve grown and learned from them. If you hadn’t learned that you can’t trust someone like Cheney/Bush not to go to war, and you haven’t learned that Iraq was the biggest foreign policy fuckup in the last two decades of this country’s existence–and that any role you played in it deserves apology rather than weak excuses like this– you’ve learned nothing.
Second, Iraq is such heavy baggage. If I had to point to one factor that sunk Clinton’s ’08 campaign, other than her advisors’ inability to count delegates, it was her Iraq vote in contrast to Obama’s position on the war. I also think it was a factor in Kerry’s ’04 loss, since he had to dance around his vote rather than have a simple, forthright position opposing the war. Instead of trotting out excuse makers, the Biden campaign needs to be working to dump that baggage with a short, sweet acknowledgement of error and failure.
All that said, there are some things about Iraq I don’t understand at a very fundamental level. I was never, ever for a war in Iraq after 9/11. I certainly supported the Afghanistan war, but Iraq was clearly an war of choice. It had nothing to do with the perpetrators of 9/11. It seemed just like the kind of overreaction that they were trying to bait us into, we fell for it, and any honest history will show that it was a waste of some of our best people and immense amounts of money.
So when the excuse making begins, I have no interest in or patience for it, because I thought it was an obvious mistake from the start. The fact that it was a popular mistake at the time, and that Cheney/Bush lied about it, holds absolutely no water. I don’t think I’m alone in that view, but I guess Biden wants to go to Kerrytown in a bucket. I’m afraid I’m not enjoying the ride.
(via LGM, worth a read)
Splitting Image
Donald Trump didn’t vote for the Iraq War. If Biden is the nominee, leftists’ duties are clear.
Shalimar
Biden was reportedly one of the biggest proponents in the Obama administration for getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq. His judgment seems to have recovered from one bad, most likely politically-calculated vote in 2002. Foreign policy is the only area I actually trust his judgment. That said, there is no reason for anyone remotely connected to the Biden campaign to ever bring up that 2002 vote. There is no way to spin it that reflects well on him.
Shalimar
@Splitting Image: Donald Trump touched the Iraq War inappropriately and tried to fuck it, even though he denies it now. He’s no innocent.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Splitting Image:
Every other candidate on the most recent debate stage was against the war. Klobuchar, for example, was against it (she wasn’t in the Senate at the time). We’re spoiled for choice on anti-Iraq candidates, left and center.
zhena gogolia
Oh, please go to hell. Are you going to be doing this right up until Nov. 2020?
zhena gogolia
@Splitting Image:
Right. We all should make sure Dove Donald wins again.
ETA: I’m agreeing with the sentiment of your comment.
debbie
I remember anyone less than fervently pro-war was immediately branded as a traitor. That, plus Colin Powell was trusted to tell the truth. I don’t hold that vote against someone, especially if they’ve since shown regret.
dnfree
James Fallows was one of the journalists sounding the alarm loudly and clearly. (I’m so old I still use adverbs.) There was no reason to go to war and no planning for the aftermath. I still remember the title of one of his articles in The Atlantic, “Blind into Baghdad”.
I went back and looked at the vote recently, and more Democrats voted against the resolution than I had thought. The ones voting FOR it in some cases, like Hillary and Joe, had aspirations for higher office. Their votes were calculated and this “We trusted Bush” was an excuse. Everyone knew the score or should have.
Remember when it was only going to take a few months and not cost anything because of their oil? Remember “Mission Accomplished”? Remember it was emergency funding not budgeted for, for the entire remainder of Bush’s presidency? I was as livid over that whole episode as I have been in my lifetime since Vietnam.
Baud
This WaPo fact check seems fair and comprehensive regarding this issue.
dnfree
@zhena gogolia: I thought the comment about leftists’ duty sounded sarcastic?
zhena gogolia
Obama had the luxury of not having to vote. And her Iraq vote was such heavy baggage that she handily won the nomination in 2016 and still won the popular vote, despite Bernie’s ratfucking and Comey and Putin.
zhena gogolia
@dnfree:
Yes I believe I was agreeing with the commenter. If that wasn’t clear, I’ll clarify.
MomSense
Wasn’t the war in Afghanistan just as big a mistake?
zhena gogolia
God, I may have to take a break from this place if we’re going to repeat 2016 and slag our own DEMOCRATIC candidates all the time.
Only the SOCIALIST is okay. Всё понятно.
OzarkHillbilly
The invasion of the graveyard of empires was an obvious mistake too, at least it was obvious to me. I got into numerous arguments before the invasion stating unequivocally that we would end up exactly where we are (truth, not in my wildest cynicism did I think we’d still be there in 2020, but I did not yet understand the depth of our ability to spend good money/lives after bad) Yeah yeah, I know, “they attacked us.” So the fuck what? If somebody punches you in the face are you going to blow a hole in their leg, making you responsible for their care for the next 20 years? There were any number of ways to respond to 9/11, invasion should have been the 2nd to last choice.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@MomSense:
I think the way it ended up being waged, the long occupation, etc. is a mistake. Since the attackers came from that region, going in there and rooting them out was fine with me at the time, and we had a broad coalition of countries supporting us. We’ll never know how it would have turned out if resources weren’t taken away from Afghanistan to attack Iraq.
RepubAnon
The real problem is that Republicans have convinced the pundits that any admission of an error is conclusive evidence of weakness. We’re in an age which worships macho posturing over problem solving.
joel hanes
It is hard to remember just how unpopular resistance to the W misadministration was at the time. Democratic voters absolutely did not have the backs of those who stood up against Bush/Cheney.
W’s approval ratings at the time were … well, just look :
https://web.archive.org/web/20090722234412/http://pollkatz.homestead.com/files/approval-data_files/zzzmaingraphics_14808_image001.gif
Princess
I think this defense is both true — I do think there was an unspoken old boys agreement in DC about how foreign policy is conducted (which is a whole ‘nother can of worms) which Bush broke by going to war — and also incredibly weak. It is weak because once Bush actually did go to war, there was a notable lack of Democrats who had voted for it, protesting it once it had begun.
That being said, I’m still not voting for Wilmer.
joel hanes
@MomSense:
Not defining an achievable goal or endpoint for Afghanistan was a terrible mistake.
After OBL escaped at Tora Bora, there was no longer any reason for our continued presence other than the political “don’t admit defeat”. Just like the debacle in Viet Nam.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@dnfree:
It’s interesting to me how Fallows constantly has the level headed (truly) reasonable take on things. I remember reading him then, and his anti-Trump stuff was good, too.
chris
@dnfree:
On a daily basis?
Grrrrr!
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Princess:
Me neither. I’m picking another candidate that was against Iraq, there are a great plenty of them.
chopper
if iraq is such heavy baggage, why did hilz win by 3 million votes? why did she soundly beat bernie’s ass in the primary?
joel hanes
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
If Fallows would occasionally do short pieces with tenth-grade short-word vocabulary, he’d be a lot more influential.
PsiFighter37
There is no reason for Kerry to talk about this kind of stuff unless asked. That said, beating the horse senseless on a vote from 17(!) years ago (hard to believe it’s been that long)…getting a bit old. Berniebros need to come up with something better – the only reason their candidate is so ‘pure’ is because he’s done jack shit when he’s been in Congress. Facts.
Ohio Mom
I’m always going to put the blame on Bush, Cheney, Powell and the rest of that administration. There wouldn’t have been anything to vote on without them.
It was easy for journalists like Fallows and outliers like Bernie to be against the war, they had nothing to lose, but as someone above points out, high-profile Democrats were in something of a no-win situation, politically. Whatever they did, it could/would be used against them.
Did anyone expect these wars to be never-ending? I thought they’d be replays of Grenada and the first Gulf War. We’d throw our weight around, declare victory, cut out and rest on our laurels.
Biden should emphasize that in the Obama administration, he was a voice for withdrawing, and also, whatever plan he has for extricating us once he’s in the Oval Office.
If Biden is our best bet, let’s look forward, not backwards.
Azhrie139
@PsiFighter37: Well considering the attitude about the Bush administration appears to be the same delusional “good old boys” attitude about working with Republicans, it is just a little bit relevant now in more ways than just being pro-war.
Catherine D.
@joel hanes: I remember yelling “never fight a land war in Asia” at the first TV reports of the Afghanistan invasion, followed by “ask Alexander, the Brits, the Russians how that worked for them.”
Josie
@zhena gogolia:
Come sit by me.
karensky
I am voting and volunteering for Elizabeth Warren in the primary and I agree with mister mix 100%. I will vote and volunteer for the Democrat who wins the primary.
O. Felix Culpa
@Splitting Image: Heh. Unfortunately I
suspectknow at least some self-anointed progressives follow that “logic.”karensky
I am voting for and volunteering for Elizabeth Warren in the primary and I agree with mistermix 100%. I will vote for and volunteer for the Democrat who wins the primary in the general election.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Blood on their hands.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
One of the earlier commenters over at LGM encapsulated my take:
Amir Khalid
@mistermix:
Going into Afghanistan and staying was the original mistake from which all the other US mistakes in Afghanistan arose. Afghanistan has been a tremendous sink for US military resources, and I believe it would still be one even if those resources had not been diverted into invading and occupying Iraq. There is not some “right” level of resource commitment that would have saved the US from its political and military missteps there.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Just scroll past them.
Baud
@karensky:
That’s the correct attitude.
MomSense
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
The way it ended up being waged was always going to end up in failure because it was waged by the W Bush administration. It was the same mistake in judgment to trust that the W administration could root out the terrorists in Afghanistan successfully as it was to trust that the W administration would use the AUMF as a last resort and as some sort of “stick” with which to force a diplomatic solution.
Emma from FL
AAAAAAnd here we go again. We’re going to destroy our own candidate, aren’t we? We’re going to rewrite history to attack them (Hillary Clinton’s Iraq vote cost her during the election? Susy Hollywood on the courtesy phone!), and we’re going to do our best to find a candidate who is not supported by the strongest branch of the party (only a candidate with the perfect liberal credentials will do!).
I’ve said this before and I’m saying it again. I am going to watch black women and vote for whom they are voting. They understand reality better than 10,000 pundits and leftists. They don’t have the luxury of playing pseudo-intellectual political games.
MagdaInBlack
@Josie:
May I join you two?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq can be solved militarily. That has been obvious since the day after 9/11.
joel hanes
@Catherine D.:
yes, some people were ultimately proved to be correct.
You were a very small fraction of the electorate; much of the nation was consumed with lust for blood revenge.
rikyrah
@Princess:
Neither am I.
just say no to Wilmer
OzarkHillbilly
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
The way it ended up being waged??? It was a joke from the beginning. War on the cheap, sending in CIA agents with bags of cash with which to bribe the leaders of the northern alliance. You know the saying, “You can’t buy an Afghan but you can rent one.” And these were the people we were depending on to capture Bin Laden? If you recall, we sent the 10th Mountain into Tora Bora and were using Northern Alliance forces to close the border. I wonder how big was the bribe OBL needed to get out?
First off, the attackers came from KSA. They had been given refuge in Afghanistan but were funded by Arabs largely by people from KSA. As far as the broad coalition of countries supporting us, we had invoked Article 5, they had treaty obligations to support us. That does not justify the stupidity of the invasion.
Yeah we do. Exactly as it has. We never put all that much into Afghanistan to begin with and we never would have. They always wanted to invade Iraq. The Bush Admin wanted to invade Iraq immediately after 9/11 but they decided they couldn’t justify it. (to paraphrase Rumsfeld “You can’t always fight the wars you want, but you fight the wars that you have)(also, “Afghanistan just doesn’t have enough targets to bomb.”) They spent the next 2 years drumming up the invasion of Iraq.
Afghanistan was an inconveniencet for them and has been ever since.
Baud
@Emma from FL:
Nah, that’s why we’re ignoring Bernie’s 2016 conspiracy mongering and the racial and sex discrimination issues that infected his 2016 campaign.
WaterGirl
This feels kind of a brutal Sunday morning for Balloon Juice. We must have been very bad – bees are dying and let’s re-litigate decisions about the Iraq war, nearly 15 years later. No calming Garden Chat for us!
In all fairness, we probably have been very bad. And surely deserve this. I think I might prefer to be grounded.
BruceFromOhio
@MagdaInBlack: Table for four, please?
Also, what baud and karensky said.
Three-nineteen
Let’s see what Biden said about it at the time, on the Senate floor, during the vote:
“President Bush brought the resolution into sharper focus this week in his speech to the Nation. He said: ‘War is neither imminent nor inevitable.’ He also said his objective was to disarm Iraq, that his rationale to enforce United Nations resolutions was not based upon preemption, and that he desired to lead the world, and if war was necessary, it would be with allies at our side. ”
(snip)
“Similarly, the President, in going to the United Nations over the strong objection of half his administration, made clear his desire to work with others, not around them… I am convinced he will follow through on this commitment. In short, the combination of this resolution and the President’s own words in recent speeches, both publicly and privately, give me confidence that most of our core concerns have been addressed. I also take confidence from how far this administration has come on Iraq over the past year. Many in this Chamber predicted, and many who oppose this resolution predicted, that the administration would use the terrible events of September 11 as an excuse to strike back at Iraq. This, despite any credible evidence that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks on America.”
(Then there’s a lot of stuff about people saying Bush wants to invade Iraq no matter what and he won’t ask permission from Congress to do it.)
“My colleague from New York may remember my getting a little bit of a sarcastic response in the Democratic Caucus when I suggested there was no possibility there would be a war before November; there was no possibility of an October surprise; there was no possibility that he would go and seek power to go to war, if need be, absent congressional authorization. There was no possibility he would fail to go to the U.N. It is not just because that is the only thing I believe a rational President could do, but because he told me–and I suspect many others– that that is what he would do. Mr. President, President Bush did not lash out precipitously after 9/ 11. He did not snub the U.N. or our allies. He did not dismiss a new inspection regime. He did not ignore the Congress. At each pivotal moment, he has chosen a course of moderation and deliberation. I believe he will continue to do so–at least that is my fervent hope. I wish he would turn down the rhetorical excess in some cases because I think it undercuts the decision he ends up making. But in each case, in my view, he has made the right rational and calm, deliberate decision.”
His explanation now is the same as his stated reasoning at the time.
Omnes Omnibus
Is there any contemporaneous evidence of Warren’s position on the issue?
A Ghost To Most
Whining about about a national fuckup 20 years ago is SO much more productive than dealing with the disaster right in our face. Damn.
OzarkHillbilly
@joel hanes:
Yep, and I had endless arguments about it then. And you know what? Not one of those folks has ever come to me and said, “You were right, Tom.” They don’t even bring it up. I suspect it is because they still want to defend their position with the “But we were attacked.” line of reasoning but they already know it won’t hold up now that we can look back at what has happened since.
oatler.
Back in the 80s and 90s I thought Biden was a closet Republican. Now in 2020…”Pot is a gateway drug”.
Splitting Image
@Azhrie139:
The problem is that for all the complaints about Biden talking about “working across the aisle” (and centrists in general doing this), leftists who threaten to stay home, vote third-party, or otherwise help the Republicans win are actually doing the exact same thing.
They are making the political calculation that electing Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 or over whoever wins the Democratic nomination this year won’t be as bad as the Democrat party elites pretend it will be because the Republicans are in fact reasonable people and will be restrained by conventions, laws, customs, and common sense. Both parties are the same, so the Republicans will be no worse than the worst Democrat.
The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that Biden is claiming he can work with Murkowski and Collins. Leftists are willing to work with Trump. Both groups may be delusional, but one is less delusional than the other.
rikyrah
OzarkHillbilly
Just for the record, I have no interest in beating up on anybody for how they felt or voted back then, but I do want them to take an honest look at what was going on then and what has transpired since to bring us to where we are today. That is Mistermix’s point re Biden and his vote and my point about Afghanistan.
Nicole
Wilmer stan: BIDEN VOTED FOR THE IRAQ WAR
Biden: I did vote for the AUMF, it’s true. This was early in Bush’s presidency, and we were assured that he was not planning on unilaterally invading Iraq, and, up until his Administration, I believed that both Democrats and Republicans, though we differed on many things, ultimately all wanted what’s best for the country. Unfortunately, I learned that President Bush and Vice President Cheney and the rest of his gang did not want what was best, or safest for our country, and almost 20 years later, here we still are. And what I learned is that, at this point in our nation’s history, we cannot rely on a Republican President to do what is best for the country. Bush proved it in 2003 and Trump has proved it every single day since January 20, 2017. The office of the President is not about paying back personal grudges, or filling one’s own pockets; it’s about serving the nation. The President is not a king, they are a servant of the American people.
(And I mean, Biden is not even my top choice- obligatory yes I’ll vote for him insert here- but man, the Dems just need to take any argument a fellow Dem throws and turn it right back on the GOP. That said, they can feel free to follow up with Wilmer was so opposed to Iraq that he voted to fund it).
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I Googled around for something on her position in 2003 and came up empty. There’s even a Wiki page for her policy positions on just about everything, but Iraq isn’t listed at all.
zhena gogolia
@Josie:
Yes, come on over, and tell me all the great things about your favored candidate. I’m happy to hear all those positive features of any DEMOCRATIC candidate.
zhena gogolia
@MagdaInBlack:
Come on over!
zhena gogolia
Maybe some day we’ll get a front-page post on this topic.
zhena gogolia
@Splitting Image:
Spot on.
Chyron HR
It takes some real fucking gall to pull this “Donald the Dove” shit after the last couple of weeks, Mistermix. But I guess Bernie’s worshipers are nothing if not completely shameless.
glory b
@BruceFromOhio: I’m going to join too.
Just now, on Joy Reid, ipsos/Washington Post poll shows Biden at 48% with black voters, Bernie next at 20%. Most likely to beat Trump is our most important factor at 58%. 72% said it’s not important to have a black VP.
Azhrie139
@OzarkHillbilly:
I fully support this response. Nothing in this thread has reassured me that all that is needed is the right propaganda campaign and someone in office that doesn’t rhyme with Drumpf and at least 25% of the posters would be right on board for another war.
Villago Delenda Est
The deserting coward to all those Dems: “You fucked up. You trusted us!”
japa21
Why the hell are we even participating with this blog. Cole was all in on Iraq as well. Obviously, what happened then is far more important than anything that has happened since.
Disclaimer. Biden is my first choice right now, although I didn’t really want him to run. Some day I’ll write a lengthy comment that no one will read as to why.
Also, parental pride moment. My younger son, now 42, ran his first marathon ever today at Disney World. When he was born he was in NICU due to underdeveloped lungs. Now he is running 26.2 miles. I can’t run 26.2 feet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BruceFromOhio: I would like to also too join this party of pragmatists against trolly front-pagers
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Azhrie139: well, you have been posting for almost a week ever since Mixie brought you over from Eschaton
OzarkHillbilly
Congrats.
George
I agree with zhena and other sensible commenters. I am a long-time lurker and very infrequent commenter, but when halfwit alleged progressives go back 17 years to find a vote they disagree with, and then use that vote as a club to beat our frontrunner, they can go to hell.
Twenty-nine Democrats in the Senate voted in favor of the AUMF. If Biden and Clinton had voted against it, it still would have passed overwhelmingly. Republicans still would have led us into a crappy war. History would not have been changed at all. We would be exactly where we are now.
If Hillary and Joe had voted against the AUMF, I seriously doubt that the purity posse would have said, “You know, I may not agree with everything Clinton/Biden believe in, but at least s/he voted against AUMF, so I am fully in support!”
Not at all–the purity posse would simply search for some other nits to pick, and if there were no more nits, the posse would start inventing them.
Omnes Omnibus
Oh yeah, I forgot to do my virtue signaling: I was opposed to the Iraq invasion at the time and, living in central Ohio, I got called names and had my patriotism questioned.
sab
@rikyrah: Very good point.
Butter Emails
Is Biden named Hillary Clinton? If the answer to that question is no, then his vote for the Iraq War isn’t really going to matter.
wvng
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: There was plenty of evidence that, for the first time in history, large majority of Afghans welcomed an invasion. They were sick.and tired of all the horror that started with the Russian invasion that ultimately led to Taliban control. America, at least initially, was seen as a force that could help rebuild their country and restore vibrant culture that the Taliban had crushed. My brother was there in the Peace Corps just prior to the Russian invasion, and finally regained contact with Afghan friends after 30 years. They had been refugees in Iran and returned after our invasion. That W utterly failed to “win the peace” does not mean it was not possible to win it.
Azhrie139
@Splitting Image: Well good, we are in agreement that the leftists you describe are delusional and I disagree with them.
That said, all I am hearing in this response is that Biden gets to be a delusional idiot because the supporters of another candidate is delusional. I mean really?
My point is, is that Biden while a “nice guy” has historically and continues to have incredibly poor judgement and the fact that Biden supports want to ignore or downplay that risk for election. Yes he is better than Trump in that regard, but that is meaty area for propaganda and negative campaigning to knock off voters across the political spectrum.
To be clear about my own biases, I would rather vote for any other Democratic candidate in this primary, but Biden. Give me Steyer even, bless his corrupt billionaire heart.
zhena gogolia
@Azhrie139:
Are you a sentient being who can read the news? Are you at all aware of what’s been going on since Jan. 2, 2020?
zhena gogolia
@Azhrie139:
Well, alrighty then, we know just how seriously to take you.
glory b
@zhena gogolia: We’re going to need a bigger table.
Azhrie139
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thanks, but I have been a long time lurker here since Mr. Cole had just switched over to being a Democrat. Around 2005 or so (I’m 32), I think. Like is cleek’s pie filter still a thing old?
Anyway, I have generally liked the discussion here over the years, but it (commenters not the blog posts) has recently taken a turn to being smug, back-patty, less substance orientated, and generally more insufferable so I feel the need to insert other perspectives, if only for other lurkers. I wish I could be on more, but I will be posting semi-regularly going forward.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
As well as a question in the next debate.
The Thin Black Duke
Jesus fucking Christ. Vote for the Democrat this November, it’s not that goddamned complicated. Fuck this bullshit.
Azhrie139
@zhena gogolia: Do you actual ever posit any arguments or do you just like to make smug postings?
jeffreyw
Thread needs more garden chat, dammit!
Emma from FL
@glory b:
Let’s just rent the small banquet room with an option to use the large one.
Gvg
Afghanistan was inevitable. They harbored an organization that murdered a bunch of us and refused to kick them out or turn them over to us. The war was run by Bush though so that made its actual failure inevitable. If a President at the time, had a competent staff and advisors and had taken the time to learn about Afghanistan and make a plan and strategy, I think it could have been won, and done long ago. That didn’t happen.
iraq was nonsense and still is. The minute Bush started switching to Iraq, Congress should have revoked authorization. That didn’t happen because of a Republican Congress that also was a incompetent as Bush and jingoistic. They wanted that war with Iraq before and actual facts couldn’t really get through their heads.
the only reason not to have withdrawn when Obama got elected was we broke it, we owe them some time to help them put themselves back together. Yes we even owe them IMO some of our blood. The problem is that we have screwed up so badly in both places, that I don’t see how we are helping, and as soon as we leave, they are going to be over run by brutal warring factions. I still think we need to get out, but we need to do it with a plan not a fuckit, walk away.
we also owe a lot of people who worked for us and will be murdered when we leave. They must be allowed to immigrate and have citizenship or we will never get help again. Some of them will come to hate us and in the future cause problems here and our most cowardly voters will whine and predict this. We still have to do it. No course is risk free.
Obama was also very constrained by how obviously the GOP was freaking out about the black president. He tried not to make the backlash worse by not doing anything too radical, which meant he IMO could not be the one to pull out of AFgjanistan or Iraq. I think Hillary would have been in the same bind.
All Democrats will have some issues with this but it has been so many years and people are sick of it. It may be possible if our next President can do it with a smart plan. No helicopters from the embassy roof video if possible. Trump is so incompetent he can’t actually do this even though I think he would like to.
Biden has actually made hard choices and voted for many things for years. He hasn’t picked symbolic purity vote positions but instead worked with his party and sometimes republicans to get things done. Unlike Bernie which we mostly say we dislike for these reasons. An inevitable consequence of Bidens real world work is some choices turned out to be wrong. This is true of all the candidates. In some cases Biden actually showed awareness of mistakes by other Bills and voted after, example violence against women act and pushing to get us out of the wars. Flat out saying I made a mistakes though just doesn’t work out well for a politician at this time, so he has to use kinda weaseling words.
we should pay attention to newer votes and bills and who seems to be likely to be advisors and administrators. Bidens most notable to me mistake has to do with credit companies and banks. If he said he was going to give the consumer protection agency to Warren or somebody with that kind of record, it would reassure me a lot. It’s too early for him to say those kind of things though.
johnnybuck
Dude, either you’ve been given orders to increase clicks here, or you haven’t figured out that your act is getting stale. This was bullshit 12 years ago and it’s even MORE bullshit today.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
misternix’s shtick of “anybody but Biden” is getting old quick.
johnnybuck
@The Thin Black Duke: seconded
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Azhrie139:
(I’m 32)
bit long in the tooth for the “I want to be inspired” bleat, aren’t you?
WaterGirl
@japa21:
I just wanted to see that again. Parental pride, indeed! Well deserved.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Azhrie139: Go fuck yourself.
debbie
@jeffreyw:
Boy, I wish I had that kind of space. What is the benefit of the purple light?
Jinchi
I like Kerry, but I get exasperated at this spin, because he knows better. The Iraq war was a brazen and successful attempt by the Republicans to win the Senate majority and solidify power. Any Democrat who actually trusted them was a fool.
The AUMF was brought to a vote in the Senate on October 16, 2002. Less than 3 weeks before the midterm election. Republicans had spent the whole year attacking Democrats as terrorist sympathizers, and insisted that Iraq was a real and urgent danger to the country. Just as Trump pretended that assassinating Soleimani was an attempt to “de-escalate”, Bush pretended that the AUMF as an attempt to avoid the war he was pushing. But I don’t think Kerry was ever stupid enough to believe him.
29 Senate Democrats decided it was politically smart to vote for it. Jean Carnahan and Max Cleland lost their Senate seats, a few weeks later.
Senate leader Daschle lost his majority and went on to lose his own seat in 2004. Hollings, Breaux, Edwards and Miller all retired in 2004 and their seats were lost to Republicans, as well. Clinton and Kerry, who didn’t have the excuse of being “red-state” Democrats, lost their presidential elections in large part because they supported it.
Oddly after the vote, the urgency for war faded. Bush waited 5 more months to take action.
Baud
@Butter Emails: This.
debbie
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
I admit, in light of all the potential at the beginning of this slog, that I would be disappointed if Biden turns out to be the candidate, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t vote for anyone else. Period.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke:
Thank you. I would pay good money to put that up on a billboard somewhere.
Frankensteinbeck
So, we get a post about how Democrat ‘centrists’ are Republican-lite, and now an AUMF vote post. Hell of a trend you’re building, Mistermix. These aren’t even posts that raise serious negatives to be weighed, they’re straight-on Democrat bashing.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw:
Maybe your photo will help brighten up the thread.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Azhrie139:
We’re so “smug” that you’ve deigned to humbly offer your enlightened perspective. Not for us, though. For the lurkers who would otherwise be denied your golden nuggets of wisdom.
But we’re “smug”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Frankensteinbeck: DougJ barely even posts anymore, but he left us Mix
Dorothy A. Winsor
@The Thin Black Duke: Yes, yes, yes.
Baud
@debbie:
Yeah, I haven’t been a Biden fan either, but we were too silent when shit was being thrown at Hillary and it cost us. Never again.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
There is a lot of accurate truth in what Amir says here. Also, the total support of the Taliban by the Pakistani military, their ability to flee into Pakistani territory and to receive aid and support from Pakistan, makes defeating them militarily nearly impossible.
Unless we were to attack and defeat Pakistan, which is clearly impossible to contemplate as they have nuclear arms and are apparently ready to use them if necessary. It is possible to fuck up the middle east beyond what has already been done, and Trump may just be the guy willing to do that. Scary, but there he is!
Another Scott
I see that, yet again, we’re going to have lots of “discussions” about things that happened going on 20 years ago and how our people voted and talked about it. I admit I’ve done the same in the past and the recent past.
But I’m done doing so now (at leas until I back-slide).
The world has changed. Out and proud Fascists are in power and we have to do everything we can to vote them out. Arguing, yet again, about stuff from decades ago isn’t going to help us win in November. It will divide us and make them stronger.
Eyes on the prize. Lives depend on it.
Cheers,
Scott.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
I had to step away for a bit, but I did look at the vote on the Iran authorization, here it is for others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Iraq_Resolution_of_2002#United_States_Senate
Also, to address the issues constantly raised when I post something like this: Posts on topics like this from me will continue. If you don’t like it, I’m sorry to hear that, but name calling won’t change the things I’m interested in.
I would also direct you to the comments at LGM, which I think are far more balanced. I also encourage you to look at the comments on this Wonkette post, which dared to say a few things about Warren and Sanders. Neither of those blogs have a group of commenters who can’t even bear a discussion about legitimate issues where Sanders plays a role, that bully out everyone else. They are far more diverse and, frankly, far more interesting than what a few of you hammer away on.
If you are still nursing whatever butthurt you have about how Clinton was treated, or what some anonymous BernieBro said on twitter, or you can’t even bear to discuss the Democrat who is currently at the top of the polls in Iowa, what decent political blog should you frequent? Isn’t it just the bare minimum of a decent political blog to discuss all of the issues in a primary?
I will look at these comments later but I need to start prep for entertaining this afternoon.
Azhrie139
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
That is fair, but it is a shtick representing the majority (most?) of the under 40 set. The lack of substantive affirmative arguments for Biden rather than relativist arguments (I hate Sanders and what other candidates?) is pretty revealing from some commenter on the site lately.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I am not sure what your point is here? My first presidential vote was for Obama in 2008 and I voted for him in my state caucuses, so wouldn’t the insulting phrasing be I am young enough for that empty phrasing?
Omnes Omnibus
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: To be fair, I’ve been smug in the past on occasion. And Baud is frequently smug – that is, if one can be both smug and pantsless.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Frankensteinbeck: Who needs trolls in the comments when mistermuck gets to troll us from the front page, amirite?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Let’s remember to fight the real enemy:
Baud
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
Huh? That person is Bemrie . Biden is currently fourth in Iowa.
Azhrie139
@WaterGirl: No disagreement from me.
debbie
@Baud:
I wasn’t real thrilled to vote for either Mondale or Dukakis, but I was more than willing, considering the alternative.
I know your proclivity when it comes to pants, but sometimes we all just have to pull up our big boy pants and do the right thing.
johnnybuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: According to Mix that’s either Biden or us!
jeffreyw
@debbie: mumble mumble growing spectrum plants like it it’s got electrolytes (or is it electro-lights?)
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Justifiably so.
Citizen Alan
@joel hanes:
You left out the words “was allowed to.”
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
Huh?
johnnybuck
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Sh Y’all! We getting a lecture from our betters!
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shouldn’t Trump be GETTING his intelligence FROM Esper?
What, do they think the intelligence fairy left double-secret intelligence for Trump in his bedroom overnight, and then magically disappeared before he could show it to anyone?
We are well past the point of absurdity.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I believe he gets his intelligence from Jared.
Omnes Omnibus
Fair enough. But don’t pretend to be surprised when you get the reaction you get.
Azhrie139
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Look, I recognize you are angry and scared. Believe me I can relate, but behaving like the typical Sanders supporter on twitter is not helping anyone.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh, that is fucking maddening! ?
MJS
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Nope, it was a mistake from the get-go. No invasion was needed to address what was in actuality a crime. A crime on a massive scale, but a crime nonetheless. Wars are waged against and between countries, but no one ever says, “Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11.” Invading and occupying Afghanistan never made any sense.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl: Thank you! Mrs J loves to putter about down there.
WaterGirl
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I’m sure that was a typo.
Azhrie139
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Fair enough, looking back that comes off as smug. Apologies, that was not my intent.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Azhrie139:
Do you have any data to back that assertion up, or are you personally aquatinted with everyone under 40?
debbie
@jeffreyw:
Huh. I’ve got one small bulb shining on a new Christmas cactus while it’s in quarantine, but it’s the entire spectrum.
You’ve got some beautiful succulents.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The idea that there’s no diversity of opinion here is stupid. Yes Sanders is generally unpopular, but almost every other candidate, and a couple of ex-candidates, has passionate supporters. But most people are committed to voting for the Democrat and don’t want to see possible or probable candidates getting slagged by our own side.
I wish we had a single candidate who ticked all the important boxes: A good progressive record, support in the most important constituencies, the judgment not to blunder into unpopular positions because we think they should be popular, the harder-to-quantify qualities like charisma and retail politics… We don’t. So why troll a possible/probable nominee?
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: I love amaryllis but can’t have them because of my kitties.
We still need our happy place Garden Threads even though it’s winter.
But I’m not really complaining – sometimes it feels like Anne Laurie is the front pager who keeps the blog going, so I’m sure she has a good reason for not giving us our weekly fix today. Even if it’s just that she didn’t f-ing feel like it this morning, that’s good enough for me.
gene108
It’s the truth. Some liberals don’t want to hear because they never trusted Bush, Jr., and feel they were wrongly ignored.
But Bush, Jr. said, if Saddam didn’t comply with demands, then he would invade.
Saddam complied. Inspectors were let back in, which is something everyone agreed was a good thing. The IAEA inspectors were going to finish their report on Iraq’s WMD capacity in the summer of 2003.
Bush & Co. won the point. They got what they said they wanted
The decision to invade in March is 100% on Bush, Jr. and no one else.
Shalimar
@Azhrie139: So you preferred here 10 years ago when we were consistently being assholes to each other over how much the Obama administration could/should accomplish? Ok, then.
Nicole
@zhena gogolia: in the comments after that tweet there’s a link to a pretty good article in doing a deep dive into Bernie. I didn’t see anything in it to disagree with.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus:
He loves the reaction he gets. He’s a bold truth-teller, standing up to people who are both “butthurt” and bullies.
rikyrah
Josie
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
So, maybe, if you think that those other places are so far superior in their presentations and commenters, you should spend more time there. I’m really sorry that you find us so uninspiring, but I refuse to change my outlook to please someone who is probably half as old as I am and even less aware of the realities of this political situation.
debbie
@gene108:
As I recall, Bush Cheney were very insistently discounting the IAEA inspectors’ expertise and findings.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah:
I don’t know who this person is. Is she a person of influence in the black community?
jeffreyw
@debbie: That is all Mrs J’s work. I did hang the lights for her.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: +1
Also too, we should remember that OBL intentionally chose team members to be from KSA to put more pressure on the US to go after them/stop supporting them/etc. That part of the plan didn’t seem to work, but just about all the rest (the worldwide over-reaction in turning al Qaeda from a band of 19 people who attacked an easily fixed weakness (locking cockpit doors) into a band of 70,000 hardened ubermenchen with “Global Reach™” (when anyone who buys a plane ticket has “Global Reach™” and turning the whole planet into “the Battlefield™” and, and, and, …) did.
All this dangerous nonsense is on [klaxon][blink]W and the GOP[/blink][/klaxon]. Not the Democrats. We need to stop slagging our team.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We did have one in Kamala Harris, but unfortunately that ship has sailed. We have to choose the best of the candidates currently in the race, and, like I said last night, I seem to have sort of backed into supporting Biden. So here I stand, I can do no other.
Calouste
I think I’m going to take a time out from this blog until this troll is no longer a front pager.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I thought christmas cactus prefer indirect light.
Why is yours in quarantine?
Felanius Kootea
I didn’t want Biden to be the Dem candidate (and he may well not be) but if he is, I will vote for him unenthusiastically and get everyone I know to hold their noses and vote for him. It’s something I learned from my French friends who were Melenchon (French Bernie) supporters. They despised Macron but clearly saw the danger of Marine Le Pen. They are wise people.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Quarantine to make sure the plant doesn’t have any insect invaders that will infect my other plants. I won’t make that mistake twice.
Barbara
Dear mistermix, the way to lose the current war is to keep fighting the one before. I feel like we fought the AUMF to conclusion in the 2008 election, and now, we have to vote at a minimum to claim the present and with luck the future, but not 2003 all over again. Your post was tedious in the extreme.
rikyrah
WaterGirl
@Calouste: If that’s how you feel, maybe just take a time out from his posts? Rather than the whole blog?
You’ve been here a long time; I would hate to see you go.
debbie
@Calouste:
Why not just not read the posts?
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl: Mrs J tells me that that amaryllis was bought cheap at one of the big parking lot plant spreads, it was nearly dry and needed some TLC.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I would have never thought of that. I do that when I bring my plants in from outside in the fall, though.
Josie
@Josie:
And, just for the record, I wrote many letters and protested during the run up to the war in Iraq.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Azhrie139:
And you’re not?
I deeply care about my fellow humans. My family has young LGBTQ+ members. Further Republican control of the USA justifiably scares the shit out of me.
However, data tells me that Joe Biden is more likely to win states we need for the electoral college, and in states where we have critical Senate races. The more Democrats we send to the Senate, the wider the window for achieving liberal and progressive goals.
So while Biden has never been my favorite, that doesn’t really matter. He’s a means to a more progressive end. An when I see folks on our side going after him and tearing him down in 2020… to me, it’s like you’re shooting us in the foot. So stop it.
Yes, I’m scared. But I’m not stupid. My position is perfectly rational.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: Well, it seems happy enough now!
I have an area on one side of my house that gets the perfect dappled sun, and every plant that needs TLC gets to move there for awhile while it recuperates.
The Thin Black Duke
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Thank you.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I love that Nancy Pelosi says stuff like that out loud.
Is she the only Democrat who is telling the truth so boldly?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah:
Finding her living quarters in donald trump’s head a bit cramped, the Speaker decided to take up some room in Mitch McConnell’s head at the same time.
McConnell is mostly indifferent to public opinion, I suspect he thrives on being hated, but he’s said to really hate the “Moscow Mitch” nickname.
zhena gogolia
@Nicole:
There haven’t been too many deep dives into Bernie anywhere, have there?
His job is to lose to Trump. Full stop. That’s what he plans to do unless we stop him.
Another Scott
@Jinchi: W “waited” because he couldn’t get permission to use Turkey to start the attack, etc., etc. He still wanted to go NOW, NOW, NOW, but was unable to get sensible other leaders to go along.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Calouste:
Unfortunately the more interesting and palatable posts for me seem to happen at 2 in the morning.
Felanius Kootea
@rikyrah: I’m glad Pelosi went there about Mitch McConnell’s role in enabling Russia. I hope more people bring this up to his face.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I don’t know. I wish she would have said Trump was a willing accomplice, not in complete denial. That would have only been the truth.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Because there is an agenda which requires tearing down certain candidates rather than promoting one. It is a gendered response. So many managers have to be the highest mountain in a space, even if it means blowing the tops off of other mountains. Other managers revel in the mountain range they helped create and nurture, without concern about who is the “highest.” My experience is that the first type are most exclusively men. There is a good mix among the second version.
I should add, the first version — tearing down and constant in-fighting — is another impediment to diversifying spaces.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: his supporters whine about the so-called “Bernie blackout”, and they”ll whine even louder if he ever gets the scrutiny he deserves. This was the target of their spittle yesterday:
I think it’s because the press still see him as a novelty act, not to be taken completely seriously. I think trump is still benefiting from the same idea that he’s not a real president, he’s a cartoon who’s accidentally in the Oval Office. There’s a lot of truth to that, except that the cartoon has all the powers of a real president, and he is more than willing to abuse them.
pamelabrown53
@Immanentize:
Top Comment! Thank you.
Just One More Canuck
@zhena gogolia: this – a thousand times this
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Interesting observation. Based on other recent posts, MM seems to fit your description of the insufferable (white) male ego. I’m not going GBCW on this blog, which I love, but his particular posts have been meanspirited and unhelpful lately. I’ll pass on by.
Jinchi
We’re having discussions about it, because we were just on the verge of war with Iran, last week, and that 20 year old vote is central to it. As long as Biden is running on his 40 years of experience he should be able to withstand an honest critique. That 20 year old vote was a screw up. I’d like to know that he’s learned something from it.
Once, the primaries are over, I’m all for falling in behind the nominee against Trump. If any candidate is going to collapse under fire, I’d rather they did it, now, before they become the nominee.
Cameron
@Baud: I thought it was from Fox And Friends.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He and Trump just happen to be the two candidates that the troll farm created by Russian military intelligence was instructed to keep their hands off. See Mueller Report, vol. 1.
CaseyL
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
IIRC, this front pager was also the one who told us how tired he was of old white women like Pelosi being in charge of things, and how we needed young blood in the Speaker’s chair.
Which, if nothing else, tells us his powers of prognostication are no better than the pols who believed Bush’s claim that an AUMF was only going to be a bargaining tool.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: And after.
artem1s
This is such a projection of weakness and, frankly, political cowardice – we trusted Bush and he let us down. A mistake “I guess”. Is that really where Biden wants to go with this? To say he’s a victim of Bush? Two thoughts:
Context Berner! It’s not weakness to point out that the GOP has been bad actors going back to Poppy’s good old boys. There actually was a responsible way to make decisions about how to proceed in using diplomacy and military threat at the same time. The GOP broke that irrevocably – telling the truth about that isn’t weak. The Bush administration’s practice of lying about military actions to enhance their poll standings started a while ago. Poppy’s administration did it with Gulf War I; his cronies did it again with both deflecting blame for 9/11 and the run up for the Gulf War II. Dolt is continuing his criminal operations via the support of the same gang of thieves that has brought us endless military conflict, torture, deficits and income inequality. They are also trying to play their usual greatest hits from the 80’s and 90’s that the Dems are weak on foreign policy and the military. Don’t vote for Dems because they are soft on the enemy and don’t for them because they are warmongers. Sounds a lot like the Paul’s and the Berger’s both don’t it? Kerry is pointing out the shell game and rightly so. It’s time to remind the WWC voters that their kids are going to pay for this war, if they let Donnie, the glibertarians, and Berger’s pull the same tough guy/great negotiator shell game Cheney pulled on them.
Oh and yea, I’m not voting for Wilmer either. Not in the primary or in the general.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl:
I’m not a big McCaffrey fan, but I’m glad he’s saying this
Barbara
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Wouldn’t want to interfere with your party or anything. At any rate, I made it a project sometime in the last decade to read a lot of books on the fall of Rome, and I concluded that the issue at the highest level can be summed up as follows: They kept fighting about the same things over and over without any shared understanding that the fundamental challenges to their social order had changed. Leaving Iraq might very well be an important step for us in moving forward but going Groundhog Day on the AUMF is just a complete waste of time. That is, if your goal is to win the future.
And double fuck you to your condescending BS wherein it’s totes cool for you to keep mentally masturbating over 2003 but just a bunch of whining butt hurt for the rest of us to bring up Bernie Bro sabotage of Clinton not even five years ago.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@CaseyL: True. Though MM is not running for President. Biden, Sanders, etc. should be able to withstand scrutiny.
But today’s post from MM was not exactly offered in “good faith”.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know who McCaffrey is, but i’ll take it.
delk
So, did anyone inhale?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@artem1s:
Why not in the general? Who would you vote for instead?
If Bernie Sanders is the Dem nominee, then I certainly expect that I’ll be campaigning for and voting for him. He’ll have no trouble winning Oregon…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is kinda funny
That’s the Sirota I remember from the Obama years, the guy who was always looking for the great white hope– Schweitzer, O’Malley– who would be a corrective to Obama. Also (admittedly one of my personal hobbyhorses) the kind of thinking reflected in uber-BernieBro Jon Fugelsang’s frequent assertion that Joe Biden was the only real liberal in the neo-liberal Obama’s administration
ETA: having trouble posting the link to that tweet.
patroclus
The issue right now is not the 2002 AUMF vote; it’s where the candidates stand on the possible war with Iran. Thankfully, all of them seem to be opposing it and instead favor a diplomatic reduction of tensions. This is far different than the 2002 situation when only a small majority of Senate Dems voted against the AUMF. Now, only Manchin and Jones (and maybe Sinema) seem possible no votes on the Kaine resolution. This is a massive improvement. And we might get Lee and Paul with us (and maybe more Republicans).
As I said yesterday, Biden was cowardly and craven in 2002 – trying to avoid the Claude Kitchen/Joe Kennedy historical examples on what was essentially a free vote that was not decisive. But he learned from that as demonstrated by not only his subsequent words but also by his actions as part of the Obama administration which ended that (phase of the) war. Like ex-smokers, sometimes a convert to a position is more trustworthy than an initial holder of that position. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld told baldfaced whoppers and started that war – not Democrats. They deserve the criticism. And Trump deserves the criticism now.
I am not a Biden supporter currently (although I may have to become one) and feel uncomfortable defending him. But I don’t mind mistermix bringing up the subject – it’s relevant and policy-oriented. It’s a drawback for Biden but if he really has foreign policy chops, he should be able to explain himself appropriately.
Nelle
Way off topic, but is anyone here (Ozark, Josie, Imman?) Still having repercussions from the coughing virus that won’t go away? We’ve thought we were better several times and are down again. We had to pass up going to Warren and Castro today. A d I had my Adios Trump from Castro button all ready. How long does this last?
Kathleen
@MagdaInBlack: Please make room for me. And I’ll have whatever Emma From Florida is having.
Immanentize
@Nelle: Ugh. I am really bummed you missed the W+C = WIN! rally.
A month for me. Longer for the Immp (six weeks) who started before me and ended just after. But it does finally let go of your throat. We found that the night-time humidifier in the bedroom was really helpful. Or, it was just coincidentally timed with the final gasp (see what I did there?) of the virus and its aftermath.
I wish you the best, friend in need.
Cacti
MM…you should probably stop front paging here.
John Cole was an Iraq War supporting Republican. We wouldn’t want your progressive purity tainted by association.
Nelle
@Immanentize: Thanks. Today, I’m going to try to drown it. On my second pot of tea!
We landed in such a kind neighborhood. Yesterday, one neighbor had our sidewalk shoveled by 6 am. Another did our driveway by 7 am with his snowblower. I need to be baking some goodies for them soon.
debbie
@pamelabrown53:
Seconded!
Cacti
MM was also chief among the “Snowden and Greenwald are patriotic heroes!” cheerleaders.
BruceFromOhio
@The Thin Black Duke: THIS a million times, thank you.
Kathleen
@japa21: Congratulations to your son!!!! The rest of your comment made me LOL. Thanks!
debbie
@Nelle:
Mine lasted 13 weeks. I’m still coughing up gunk in the morning, but I don’t have the endless coughing fits anymore and it feels like my brain cells have regenerated back to pre-cold levels.
Kathleen
@Omnes Omnibus: That was a scary ugly time. Too many people in Cincinnati reacted the same way.
Nicole
@zhena gogolia: you’re right, there haven’t been very many deep dives into Sanders. As, I think it was Kay, pointed out in another thread, the fact that Clinton was attacked over and over in 2016 for a speech she made about the ‘94 crime bill, and Bernie skated completely by having actually voted for the damn thing… aaaauuuugggghhhhh!!!
CaseyL
@Cacti: Huh. I didn’t remember that.
This is where Diversity of FPers runs into some shoals. I’m not sure the Woke Folk, with their consistent bad faith, is a useful kind of diversity.
BTW Do non-humans get that persistent coughing virus? One of my kitties has a chronic sneezing thing that keeps coming and going. I keep thinking I should take him to the doctor, and then he doesn’t sneeze or a day or two… then the next day, he starts up again. (No, he’s not mouth-breathing: I’d have him to the vet in a snap if he was.)
sdhays
@zhena gogolia: Her Iraq vote cost her the 2008 nomination. I consider that to be a simple fact. That vote is what gave Obama his opening. Without that vote, I don’t think Obama would have even run in 2008. The outrage many Democrats felt of being let down by the party elite (Kerry, Clinton, Biden, etc.) on the most important foreign policy question in decades is what weakened Clinton to the point that 2008 was a real contest. Without it, I think 2008 would have been a lot more like 2016 with top-tier potential candidates taking a pass.
But, for me, Obama cleansed that all away (well, mostly). I think the elites in the party received the message that trotting off to vote for a war you know is doomed could really cost you as much as voting against it. I don’t discount the vote, but I’m done holding it against a candidate. I had no problem with supporting Hillary in 2016.
I would be more interested in where Biden came down on Libya and Syria, but I’m becoming more and more resigned to the idea that he’s actually going to be our nominee, so I’m not that interested in hashing over this stuff anymore either.
Mnemosyne
You know, I was pretty pissed off about the Iraq War myself, but maybe we could all agree that continually punishing Democratic politicians for their votes EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO by giving Republicans unlimited power is a fucking childish thing to do and perhaps not in the country’s best interest?
sdhays
@Nicole: How much of that is the same policy that allowed Dump to skate through the Republican primaries in 2016 – no one in the press thought he would come even close to the nomination so they didn’t need to actually vet him for real?
trollhattan
@Nelle:
Have you been checked for bronchitis? There’s a chance the virus is gone and an opportunistic bacteria has moved in.
Hope it’s over, soon!
Barbara
@CaseyL:
Yes, they get coughs and they can also develop allergies or sensitivities to things like pollen and dust. We used to give my beagle a low dose of OTC allergy medicine in the fall because she was so itchy she was constantly rubbing to the point of broken skin.
Kathleen
@rikyrah: I’ve been saying that for months. ETA On Twitter. Not here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I want to vote for Joyce Vance for something.
dnfree
@Ohio Mom:
“Did anyone expect these wars to be never-ending? I thought they’d be replays of Grenada and the first Gulf War. We’d throw our weight around, declare victory, cut out and rest on our laurels.”
Yes. Many people expected iraq to be more like Vietnam, and we were right. There was no way iraq could have been like Grenada, and the first Gulf War was purposely limited in scope. The Iraq War was complicated by failure to plan for any result other than being greeted with cheers, and letting unprepared officials make snap decisions about what did happen. I never thought I’d see another clusterf*** in my lifetime like Vietnam, but I have.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
To be fair, Hillary Clinton is innocent.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I see “Hoax” has replaced “Witch”. New stratigery?
Mnemosyne
@Emma from FL:
Yes, yes we are. And then people like Mistermix will stand around going, “Wha happen?” like they had nothing to do with it. Again. ?
We fall for this Republican ratfucking again and again and again and no one on the left seems interested in understanding how they were manipulated. It’s infuriating.
Cameron
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Progressive Joe? I’m not feeling it. Must confess, though, that even if he sucked as much as Trump (and he most certainly doesn’t), I’d still happily vote for him in the knowledge that he wouldn’t staff the Executive branch with morons, pirates and toads.
CaseyL
Biden’s support for the Iraq war will be the Woke Folk’s basis for not supporting him if he’s the nominee, and thereby letting well-known “dove” Trump win in 2020 .
Just looked on Twitter, and saw that this latest attack started with Sirota’s tweet about Joe supporting the war. Sirota is a lying, cheating, ratfucking POS. Anyone taking their cues from him can FOAD.
trollhattan
@dnfree:
Iraq War remains the bestest gift ever bestowed to Iran. It’s paid off in so very many ways for us. Glad to see so many of the Bush era alums in their cushy jobs, and still appearing on our televisions giving sage advice.
In 2030, Stephen Miller will be a Meet the Press regular.
mrmoshpotato
@joel hanes:
Shut up libtard! George W Bush is a wartime president! Why do you hate the troops?!
And also
Fuck you Frenchy! We gone rename French fries to FREEDOM FRIES! Woo America! And buy a bunch of champagne and mustard to destroy!
CaseyL
@Barbara: Yeah, Oscar is a middle-aged cat, which I think is around the time allergies can manifest. Finding out exactly what he’s allergic to would be a challenge, though: my house probably has every allergen known to science lurking within its walls, except (hopefully) mold.
trollhattan
@CaseyL:
Not to worry, there’s a basketfull of similar complaints against Warren being test-marketed right now. Never mind she did not hold office before entering the senate, details shmetails.
Mnemosyne
@Jinchi:
The Republicans knew that people on the “left” would be more interested in punishing Democrats than in preventing Republicans from gaining even more power, and they were right. Over and over again.
It sure would be nice if we would stop falling for Republican ratfucking operations, but based on this evidence I guess I’d better start bracing myself for 4 more years of Trump since NOTHING will be more important than punishing Biden for a vote he made 2 decades ago.
Kathleen
@Nicole: I found this document via Twitter. Citations are included for each claim.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3157291-151101-Sanders-Top-Hits-Thematics.html?fbclid=IwAR0_rgydfjyVMPj_ZaBE9kT4ot0hIJcYJIBUcVjK_r2DcDS8XAKHUYMJG_g#document/p1
mrmoshpotato
Amen. It’s easy to never stumble on uneven sidewalk if you always drive everywhere.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
Amen
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ella in New Mexico
@delk:
This. Goddamn it.
Democrats in the WH, Senate and House in 2020 or WE AL.L DIE
Jinchi
You keep saying that, but repetition doesn’t make it true.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@mrmoshpotato:
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
It’s a virtual “amen” chorus in here!
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: Completely agree.
That said, one of the ways we fall for that in engaging with people who are here to stir the pot. I am now calling them shit-stirrers, rather than trolls, and we would do well to learn to ignore them.
I know some people think it’s fun to engage with them, maybe even you think that sometimes, but I think it helps destroy the threads. So they win either way.
Just my two cents.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@WaterGirl: So Sirota has always been a bullshitter. I mean we all loved Jared Bernstein, but the Senator from MBNA representing the “progressive” wing of the party on economic issues is a little much.
Mnemosyne
@Jinchi:
And if 20-year-old grudges weren’t still distorting the Democratic vote, we wouldn’t be in our current situation because Hillary Clinton would be president and would not have ended relations with Iran.
We can play the “what if” game all day, but it won’t make you guys look any more rational for continuing to hold onto this grudge despite the increasing costs.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@WaterGirl: As we’ve pointed out a few times now, MM trolls from the front page. You can’t pie that shit. (At least I don’t think you can. I am woefully ignorant when in comes to the pie filter.)
debbie
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Like it or not, there should be a diversity of opinion here. Just scroll past.
CaseyL
@Mnemosyne:
It goes back longer than you may know: Humphrey in ’68 wasn’t sufficiently anti-war, so the Gene McCarthy/RFK voters stayed home. Then in ’80, Carter wasn’t liberal enough (to my eternal shame I was one of those who voted for Anderson – a lesson I have never forgotten). In 2000, 2004 and 2016 – well, we all know what happened in those years.
“Progressives” (as opposed to liberals) increasingly seem to have been invented purely for the purpose of ratfucking, many many decades ago.
O. Felix Culpa
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: We can just stop responding to it, even (especially) if it’s a front-pager who is shit-stirring. Which doesn’t mean stuff I don’t agree with. It means bad-faith posts, which MM seems to specialize in.
Nicole
@sdhays: judging from the way various members of the very crowded primary field for the democratic nomination have been deep dive into by the press, especially when they are not white and male, I’m inclined to think not very much actually. See also the press’s kid glove treatment of Trump when he became the actual nominee. Especially the New York Times.
Jinchi
It’s not a grudge. We’re deciding on a primary candidate right now. I feel no obligation to support a candidate who showed bad judgement on an issue we’re still living with the repurcussions of today.
Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency in 2008 if she hadn’t voted for the Iraq war. Obama won the primary because he showed courage where so many Democratic leaders failed. I don’t regret voting for him for a second.
Ella in New Mexico
@WaterGirl:
Absolutely. This whole thread should be required reading for how NOT to get sucked into this kind of in-group shit-talking. Jesus, the insults being hurled back and forth alone are evidence of that.
None of us is any better today because we rehashed 2002-2003’s AUMF here in this thread BECAUSE UNLESS YOU’RE LIKE 12 YEARS OLD WE FUCKING WORKED THAT OUT AGES AGO.
Some people just have too much time on their hands, apparently–and imagine the country does too if they think we can risk any Republican winning in 2020 in some kind of quest for an imaginary purity in our candidate.
Reboot
@Azhrie139: Also a lurker, from before John Cole’s change of party, disagreeing with your premise re: the blog’s substance “orientatedness,” as well as the 2020 primary.
ETA: In other words, please don’t feel like you have to post on my behalf as another lurker.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@debbie:
@O. Felix Culpa:
This.
Mnemosyne
@Jinchi:
No?
People on the left refused to vote for Kerry in 2004 because of his Iraq vote.
People on the left refused to vote for Hillary in 2016 because of her Iraq vote.
People on the left are CURRENTLY IN THIS VERY THREAD gearing up to refuse to vote for Biden because of his Iraq vote.
I’m sorry, but I have to believe the evidence of my own eyes and ears over your glib reassurances that I’m just imagining it all. Go gaslight someone else.
jk
Even if someone wants to give Biden the benefit of the doubt for his Iraq war vote this quote should serve as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he simply has shit for brains:
Biden: “With Donald Trump out of the way, you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words”
h/t https://www.vox.com/2019/11/8/20953290/biden-republicans-epiphany-impeachment
If Biden beats Trump will a magically transformed Mitch McConnell say to him “Come now, and let us reason together.”?
Was Uncle Joe ever awake during Obama’s presidency when Republican senators led by McConnell fought and obstructed him each day on every issue or was he simply asleep during those 8 years? The stakes in 2020 are too high to nominate an over the hill, feeble-minded, gaffe-gushering moron like Biden.
Fuck Biden and Sanders and go with Warren, Klobuchar, Booker, or Pete.
Fair Economist
Attacking Biden for his AUMF vote is disingenuous. Biden was one of the most dovish people in Obama’s administration and he’s not going to start any wars. He was even opposed to Libya.
CaseyL
@Jinchi:
And you’re not necessarily wrong – as long as you vote for the Dem in November, no matter how bad their judgment was 20+ years ago.
Because – and this is the part that Wokes either don’t get, or get just fine and are fine with it – whoever the GOP candidate is will be far far worse, maybe worse than you can even imagine, on the exact, precise issues that you care most about. Or claim to care most about.
Joe Biden voted for the AUMF in 2003. Yeah, we got that. How much better has the GOP been since then on matters of war and peace?
Ella in New Mexico
@Jinchi:
OK, here’s the thing: we already sacrificed Hillary Clinton (and Biden, for that matter) to the Democratic Self-flagellation Gods for their AUMF votes. They were allowed to explain, ad nauseam what their thinking was and if you lived back then you’d understand just what the pressures were in the country that pushed them that way. We reaccepted them into the fold and obviously took their words for it because Biden became VP and Clinton won the Presidency even if she was cheated out of it. The world then is not the world now, mostly because we ALREADY HASHED THAT SHIT OUT.
Stop talking like you have the luxury of refusing to vote for whoever Dems nominate or you’ll get more of what we have right now in the White House, only energized and thinking their even more omnipotent than they do how..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Looks like somebody didn’t get the memo that we’ve all de-escalated and moved on
Mnemosyne
@Ella in New Mexico:
All of this. Thank you for saying it so clearly.
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne:
Yep, that’s a no-brainer. Whoever the Democratic nominee is, they aren’t going to go to war with Iran, while Trump probably is (he certainly tried this week). In 2020, if you don’t vote for the Democrat, you’re supporting war with Iran.
NoraLenderbee
@zhena gogolia: +100
Chyron HR
@jk:
Does Bernie have “shit for brains” for literally saying that he would convince Mitch McConnell to support Medicare-for-All?
No, “A bird landed on his podium so he is the one true god” is not an actual answer. Try harder.
Cathie from Canada
Oh please, please, don’t rehash the Iraq War vote again.
In 2002, Americans thought that if they changed the players in the Middle East and inserted American troops, it would somehow make Americans safer in the future. It was a terrible mistake, of course, based on hubris and anger – I knew it at the time, as did millions around the world. But a hundred million scared Americans couldn’t see it — one of whom was Joe Biden.
I don’t think this vote disqualifies him forever from any position of trust. YMMV
Another Scott
@jk: Meh, he’s trying to win an election.
TheAtlantic from this month:
A steady hand at the wheel who will listen to and work with others is a compelling political narrative, especially these days.
Jimmy Carter had to run for Governor of Georgia as being more racist than the other Democrat. Once he won, he was much, much less so in office.
Don’t mistake election tactics for what the candidate “really believes”. Unless they win, they can’t implement their policies, and election tactics can be ugly and seemingly stupid at times.
I’m not saying Biden is a genius at strategery. But he’s not an idiot.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
oh god… Florida… how do you do it, Betty?
satby
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: agreed.
@Ohio Mom: and all of this:
I’m always going to put the blame on Bush, Cheney, Powell and the rest of that administration. There wouldn’t have been anything to vote on without them.
But it looks like we’re going to be stuck litigating 20 year old votes forever. So let’s talk about Bernie Sanders’ votes against the Brady bill then.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mnemosyne: Is this not one of the most frustrating 30 minutes you’ve spent on BJ? Seriously I have absolutely NO patience for this crap anymore.
One of these day’s I’m gonna find a really good audio clip of that Sister Mary Elephant skit that where she screams “Shuuuuuut Upppp!” at the top of her lungs and use it Rick Roll the fuck out of these kinds of threads lololol
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott:
I’m not convinced Biden doesn’t harbor some nostalgic– and frankly, arrogant– belief in the power of his personal relationships with Rs, he’s a big believer in the Cult of the Senate, and the Cult of Biden. But as much as all the bipartisan stuff sets people’s teeth on edge among heavily engaged political junkies, I think Normals like it.
The only way around McConnell is to take the Senate. We should all be asking who Mark Kelly and Doug Jones and Barbara Bollier want to have at the topic of the ticket? Who do they want to get on a stage with?
Cheryl Rofer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is the question we all should be asking ourselves.
One reason I don’t say a lot in the politics threads is that I don’t want to mess with my own head. Do I prefer some candidates to others? You bet!
But a psychologist friend of mine once said to me “Attitude follows behavior.” So if I do a lot of hating on Bernie (something that never happens here), then if he becomes the nominee, it’s going to be a lot harder for me to support him.
But I do think we need to sort out the candidates’ pluses and minuses, and I think that’s mostly what Mistermix is doing in his posts. In any case, I don’t find them near as offensive as some of you do, and I disagree with a fair bit of what he says.
Engage with the substantive points he makes. How important is it that someone voted (or didn’t vote) for the Iraq War? We’re relitigating that war the way we did Vietnam for a while. Is that healthy? But can the Republicans use that against him? How valid is the correlation that the candidates who voted for the war lost and those against won?
I have no simple answers to any of that, much less how it goes together, but we all will be better advocates for any candidate in the general election if we’ve thought that through.
We’re all working for the same thing here – remove Trump. Keep that in mind and be kind to your colleagues.
debbie
@Ella in New Mexico:
Here you go.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Jinchi: Then stay far away from Sanders and the 2-foot-think stack of oppo research that the Republicans have on him that for some reason the Dems aren’t bothering to use. Because you know the Dems have a lot of the same material.
Cam-WA
@RepubAnon: I wish we could only blame the Republicans for this, but I don’t see any evidence to justify doing so. Democrats are no better at accepting at face value an admission of error. We absolutely eviscerate candidates who say, “My vote on XXX was a big mistake; I didn’t think so at the time, but I do now. I’m sorry.” We want our candidates not only to be right in the present but to have always been right in the past.
CaseyL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Normals far outnumber heavily engaged political junkies.
A trip down memory lane:
Adlai Stevenson supporter to Adlai Stevenson: “Governor Stevenson, all thinking people are for you!”
Adlai Stevenson: “That’s not enough. I need a majority.”
…he lost, BTW. Twice. To Eisenhower.
Jinchi
Kerry and Clinton did not lose because of “people on the left”. They lost the center. Your “Sanders-curious” niece is much more likely to have voted for Clinton in 2016 than your “Trump-curious” uncle, despite all the grief you give leftwingers.
“People on this very blog” will tell you that Biden is the best choice because he is “the most electable”, aka not offensive to Claire McCaskill’s constituents. Let’s hope his gamble doesn’t end up like hers did.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed McConnell needs to go for there to be a decent shot at progress soon.
But McConnell isn’t going to be there forever. Maybe Biden’s thinking that new blood in the Senate will be more respectful of norms. I dunno.
But talking about working with Republicans now is a nothingburger if he gets elected. He’ll sign whatever semi-decent legislation makes it through Congress, whether he holds hands with them or not.
And I do know that Biden has been in enough campaigns that he knows what it takes to win if he’s strong enough to be the nominee.
I don’t care about his votes 20+ years ago when it comes to deciding what to do about him in the primary. I’m more concerned about his relatively anemic fundraising numbers, even while he hasn’t sworn off funding groups the way Warren has. I’m more concerned about his stamina going forward. I’m more concerned about him finding his voice and not trying to talk about a zillion things at once and sounding like a confused old man (the way he did in the very early debates – he’s been much better recently). Etc.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chyron HR
@Jinchi:
Friendly reminder that 12% of Sander’s alleged true progressive followers voted for trump.
Felanius Kootea
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think Biden clearly sees that his former Republican Senate colleagues are willing to destroy him and his son to help Trump.
He’s not a fool. He knows that certain voters like to hear what he is saying because they’re sick of the immoral freak in the a White House and want to hear fairytales about a return to “normal.”
If Biden gets elected I bet he’ll have fewer Republicans in his administration than Obama did.
Mnemosyne
@Jinchi:
[citation needed]
Keep in mind that the ACTUAL center of the Democratic Party is African American voters when you go looking for that citation.
No Democrat has gotten a majority of the white vote since I think Kennedy, so claiming that white voters are at the “center” is outdated by a good 50 years. White voters have been voting Republican since Nixon decided that playing into racial fears was his path to victory.
Mnemosyne
@Chyron HR:
Not only that, those Sanders-to-Trump voters flipped the elections in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to Trump and gave him his electoral college victory. Whoops!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/24/did-enough-bernie-sanders-supporters-vote-for-trump-to-cost-clinton-the-election/
Jinchi
Keep in mind that “the center” in the general election is not the same as “the center of the Democratic Party”.
joel hanes
@mrmoshpotato:
Frenchy
If I recall correctly, the appropriate epithet was felt to be “cheese-eating surrender monkey”.
SFAW
@Jinchi:
He must have used that time machine of his, because the AUMF vote was done before he became a Senator.
Bill Arnold
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Went to read the LGM post and that comment caught my eye too. It’s how I remember it; it was pretty lonely being against the Iraq War (II) buildup (lots of hostility and “you’re naive” style comments) and I was interacting with otherwise very smart people, who were being manipulated by the war propaganda.
I also recall estimating about 20% that the GWBush administration would end up telling the truth, i.e. not invading.
It’s a different era, with higher resistance to government propaganda including notably in the press, and our focus needs to be on defeating the POTUS incumbent and his party. There’s a lot at stake, including the leviathan in the room, global heating, and winning the US presidency back from the insane is a key short term battle.
What do people think of this?
Israeli intel helped the US assassinate Soleimani – report – Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman said that the report was based on Israeli sources, which was a poor judgement. (AARON REICH, YONAH JEREMY BOB, JANUARY 12, 2020)
Airport informants, overhead drones: How the U.S. killed Soleimani – The operation demonstrated how adept the U.S. has become at hunting and killing its enemies, experts say. (Jan. 10, 2020, Ken Dilanian and Courtney Kube)
Mnemosyne
@Jinchi:
Then it sounds like you need to start with a definition. Given that a majority of white voters are Republicans or Republican-aligned (minimum 53 percent of white women and 60 percent of white men), where is the center, exactly?
Jinchi
He was publicly opposed to it at a time when it was considered suicidal for an ambitious Democrat to speak out against it.
This was pretty well known and became a key part of his campaign for Senate.
sab
@Cheryl Rofer: Thank you.
J R in WV
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Finally, a fellow-commenter after mine own heart!
I used to say that pretty often, and have been trying to hold back, to be polite and use reasoned commentary, but some folks just won’t let us go there. Three words, done!
Azhrie, where is that from, what does it mean, who cares?
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Majik gold pages that only Trump can see, and that he translates using a majik fedora hat, which makes the gold pages readable by Trump, somehow!
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
No kidding. It was a shitty time for everyone, well except the republican hierarchy who got exactly what they wanted and then had no fucking idea what to do with it. And so, we are still there. President Obama was right, as bad as we made the entire mess we couldn’t just pack up and leave. By then we’d fucked it up so badly that we had to wind it down and leave it at least no worse than we found it. And that would take years in an area where life is about which entity has power today, how they keep it and how little they desire to share it. Sort of like republicans.
joel hanes
@Azhrie139:
at least 25% of the posters would be right on board for another war.
Well, that’s a striking claim, and what a delightful approach: discounting the opinions of others on the basis of opinions that you [falsely] impute to them.
WaterGirl
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: You’re right. You can pie commenters, but you can’t pie an entire thread, or a front pager.
I don’t think mistermix is intentionally trolling, but if you think any front pager is trolling, including me, you can always follow the suggestion I made up thread in response to Mnem.
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
If only you think a front pager is trolling, and you stay out of a thread that makes you crazy, that’s still a win for you.
If you want to make a statement, then pop in only long enough to say your version of “Tired of the trolling, I’m out of here” before you leave the thread.
If there are 5 of you who think that, you may be mocked. If it’s 25 of you, or 55 of you, maybe not.
If a bunch of people stay out of a thread for that reason, then none of those people are feeding the thing they see as trolling. You’re still making a stand for what you believe in if you add the comment before you head out.
That’s my take on it, and of course I’m speaking only for myself.
WaterGirl
@jk: Your very first post here was anti-Biden, I believe, and I noticed because I was the person who approved your first comment. So it’s been no surprise to me that most of your comments, at least the ones i see, are anti-Biden.
But I do give less weight to comments that seem to pushing an agenda, no matter what the agenda is.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: Of course they would be gold!
Jinchi
Yeah, I didn’t exactly invent the term and I think the electability argument is BS. But it’s pretty clear who the political class is talking about when they talk about the political center.
Ruckus
That “war vote” in 2001 had one vote against in the house – Barbara Lee (D), 13th district CA. Every other rep and 98 senators voted for the AUMF. Granted most of them are not running for president but that is a pretty damning thing for most of our politicians. Or maybe not. And what did the AUMF say and what did the bush maladministration act like it said? It was not a declaration of war. It was supposedly allowing limited use of the military to protect the security of the US. Does that look anything like what we saw out of the bush maladministration? Why are we now using an 18 yr old vote that was wildly misused by bush and his warlord chaney to fuck over our candidates for president. And even the independent running as a democrat voted for the AUMF. The only D. candidates that didn’t were not in federal office at the time.
We keep hacking away at our candidates, looking for purity, we will have no one left to run as a democrat. Exactly what the republicans want. They are stuck with trump, they want us to suffer at least as much as they are, but you and I know, a lot more.
I’d like to say I’m about done with this shit but isn’t that exactly what the people doing this want?
J R in WV
@Azhrie139:
Did you know it only takes two clicks to convert your comment:
into a very attractive picture of a small pastry?
I am so grateful to major major major major and Watergirl and cleek for inventing and improving and refining the pie filter to the point where it is painless to use!
As for Azhrie139, I won’t ever accidently see those malformed statements again…
janesays
@zhena gogolia: Fair point that Obama had the luxury of not having to vote for that war, but… he was very publicly opposed to it from the outset – at a time when 70% of the country held the opposite opinion. He took the very unpopular but morally correct stance on the issue. He didn’t retcon his opposition to invading Iraq – it was genuine from the get-go.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Shouldn’t that be 7 words?
Go Fuck Yourself With A Rusty Chainsaw.
Ella in New Mexico
@debbie: OMG I LOVE YOU!!!!!
Maybe a Front Pager needs to post this in any new threads where we devolve into shit-stir.
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: Hard when the troll is a front pager Bernie Bro…
Mnemosyne
@Jinchi:
Sure — they’re talking about white voters, despite the fact that white voters have been voting Republican for decades now. To the MSM, white voters will always represent the “middle” even when they support a white supremacist candidate like Trump. If we listened to them, we would have to conclude that fascism and open white supremacy is now the “middle ground” for American politics.
This is why most Democrats know that a program to win those white voters back is stupid as hell, and we should instead make sure that as many members of the Obama coalition as possible are allowed to vote this November. Because “centrist” Democrats like the members of the Congressional Black Caucus are the actual center of our polity, not a bunch of racist white assholes.
And that’s why Biden was so smart in doing the work to sew up Black voters early on. There just aren’t enough non-white-supremacist white votes floating around out there waiting to be picked up.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Barry McCaffrey is a retired 4-star general in the US Army, who led the “left hook” attack on the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard in the first Gulf War, one of the most aggressive military attacks in history. From Wikipedia: “During the course of his service, he was twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart three times for wounds sustained in combat, and the Silver Star twice.”
Perhaps more famous for his “leadership” of the effort to end drug use in America…
Ruckus
Also a question that always comes to mind when we discuss such issues.
What would you have done if you were a member of congress on that date? You have no hindsight, the country had just been attacked and people wanted blood, you represent those people, how would you have voted? You can claim you are always against war and some are.
A personal note, I once drove 300 miles to go to the nearest American Friends Service Center (Quaker) to inquire about being a conscientious objector. I listened, I read and I figured out that I didn’t agree that one can never fight a war. The concept is great, I celebrate those who can hold this concept but way too many humans do not to have an entire country at their mercy. That does not justify most wars or military conflicts. It says that there will be some that are rationally justifiable, because not everyone sees this from the same direction – there are bad people who do bad things to others. I am a veteran because of this.
So back to the original question, what would you have done? Take your time, it’s not an easy question to answer, nor should it be. You have to consider the people you work for/represent. You have to consider the lives that will be lost on both sides. You have to consider why the question was necessary in the first place. You have to consider your oath of office. You have to consider your own conscience. You have to consider how this will affect the lives involved but not lost – survivors of both the original act(s) and what might happen in the future. It’s not an easy question to answer, unless you are a total asshole. And it is part of the job you ran for, you have to answer one way or the other.
TEL
@zhena gogolia: Come sit by me! It looks like we’ll have a lot of company. I had to stop reading mister mix posts and threads in the run up to the last election. Looks like I’ll have to do the same now. And it isn’t because he’s some sort of “truth-teller” just telling it like it is because he’s so superior to the commenters. It’s just the opposite – I find mister mix’s choice of words to describe the positions of candidates he doesn’t like to be fairly simplistic and one-sided right to the edge of dishonesty. He then tends to defends himself when challenged by painting those commenters who challenge him with a very broad brush instead of answering what they’ve said seriously.
You know what might make an actually interesting mister mix post? A post critical of Bernie, where he looks for himself critically at what Bernie is currently doing instead of lobbing bombs at the rest of us to prove we’re not just anti-Bernie. Or a post on some of Biden’s strengths. Hell, Ann-Laurie has been running positive posts on candidates other than Warren, who I know is her first choice.
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami: I did update a bit at #272, related to entire threads you see as un-helpful.
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/01/12/victims/#comment-7542509
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: Ah! That would explain the mixed reactions here. thank you!
taumaturgo
@Jinchi: She ran as a moderate and lost because she was butt-kissing mega voters instead of standing proud as a progressive democrat.
“Along the campaign trail, Hawley portrayed McCaskill as a liberal elite who, he recently said, is “just like Hillary.” But as the campaign came to a close, McCaskill drew criticism for distancing herself from her Democratic colleagues in an aggressive attempt to appeal to Missouri’s Trump supporters. In a recent Fox News interview, she condemned “crazy Democrats” who confront Trump administration figures in public and talked about her history of clashing with Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Asked about the migrant caravan in the same interview, she said, “Stop it at the border. I think the president has to use every tool he has at his disposal and I’ll 100 percent back him up on that.” Mother Jones, Nov/2018. The election results speak for itself.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
No rust on my chainsaw; although I will admit I have used that expression several times here on the blog, many severals, in fact.
But I am trying to calm down and work hard to not upset other commenters now. But I’m sure I’ll use that expression again in the next few months.
J R in WV
I will point out that you can pie MisterMix, or any of his multiple names, which doesn’t affect his front page posts, but wlll change all of his comments in the threads attached to his posts into cute little pastry images or slogans. I’m trying it out, it removes quite a bit of the most objectionable things he says in comment space.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: Curious – do you use the images, the quotes, or the “nothing shows up except the gym and comment number” option?
I am partial to the images, especially CatCake (!) but I’m curious about whether anyone uses the other options I asked the developers to add.
Zinsky
Very very late to this shitshow of a thread, but allow me one comment about the Iraq war – Anyone who thought invading and occupying a Muslim country that had no role in the September 11, 2001 attacks was a good idea, is not a critical thinker. Period. Afghanistan is different in the sense that it can be logically argued that the 9-11 attacks originated there (although that isn’t even fully true).
Kay (not the front-pager)
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: Completely OT, I just wanted to stop by and thank you for the Mercy Dogs recommendation. I’ve read and enjoyed Tyler Dilts before, but this one is particularly enjoyable because not only is it set in Long Beach, it’s set in my old neighborhood of Bixby Knolls. I haven’t lived there in almost 40 years, but I can still picture where the Ralph’s is, and find I can orient myself to a lot of the locations.
But mostly, it’s a really good story. I recommend his Long Beach homicide series if you haven’t read them. I don’t think Ben is the same cop as in that series (it’s been awhile) but Jennifer Tanaka was his partner so maybe, and he is just so changed that I don’t recognize him in this book. Anyway, thanks for the recommendation. I’m about 2/3 through it and will finish tonight.
Don K
@debbie:
Consider, neither Senator from Michigan (Levin and Stabenow) was (or is) considered to be a raving leftist hippie, but both had the good sense to vote against the Authorization of Military Force against Iraq. Levin was re-elected in that year (2002), and again in 2008, and Stabenow has been re-elected in 2006, 2012, and 2018, so far. Maybe other Senators were afraid of being called traitors, but some showed courage and good sense when it mattered. So no, I give no passes to anyone on that vote. That said, it just means I won’t vote for Biden (or anyone who supported the Iraq misadventure initially) in the MI primary. My general-election vote of course will go to whomever is the Democratic nominee against the orange shitgibbon.
SFAW
@Jinchi:
One of the reasons I voted for Obama in the 2008 primaries was because of Hillary’s vote, not Obama’s “courage.” Opining before being in office is worth the paper it’s printed on, so please GMAFB on drawing huge lessons (or whatever it is you think you’re doing) from Obama’s opining.