Comments on: Staying the course.. or not

By: Dave F

Dave F — Tue, 11 May 2004 09:54:14 +0000

Just piling on: Eszter, it isn’t witty unless its wickedly accurate (oh and witty, of course). Sycophancy is never a nice thing to parade.

By: tombo

tombo — Tue, 11 May 2004 00:58:25 +0000

“In fact I was deeply suspicious of Clinton’s actions in the Balkans at the time” Brataslavyanskiiy, soyedinites!! Or perhaps you ferreted out another oilmen’s conspiracy to grab those massive Balkan reserves? At least now we’re seeing a little consistency. Milosevic and Saddam, the brave victims of yankee imperialism.

By: tombo

tombo — Tue, 11 May 2004 00:54:01 +0000

Clinton’s war on Saddam received universal support from leading Congressional Democrats. Kennedy, Daschle, Pelosi, Kerry and others all praised the carpet bombing of Baghdad in early 1999 as the right and necessary thing to do. BTW, let’s not delude ourselves that Kerry or his handlers—who increasingly seem to be drawn from the hawkish, pro-Israel traditional wing of the party—would lead the US away from an assertive and largely unilateralist foreign policy. (I especially enjoyed watching this weasel embrace Ariel Sharon after blah-blahing for months about how inportant it is to win the support of the French and Germans. Vintage Kerry.) If you hate the Clinton/Bush war, then vote for Ralphie. It would do the Democratic Party a world of good to rid itself of isolationistic, blame-America-first Michael Morons. Better to lose this election and then win back the center with a traditionally hawkish liberal in 2008. Have fun on your Nader ride.

By: HP

HP — Mon, 10 May 2004 22:55:38 +0000

1) I can’t believe you people toss around the “h-f” word so casually. Disgusting. 2) I think Mitch is onto something. What he leaves out, of course, is that the Illuminati (Arabic: al-uqman’ti, “the thing the base rests on”) were descended from the Knights Templar, anti-Christian apostates in service to the king of Jerusalem. Ergo, whether Lyndon LaRouche is a reptilian is irrelevant. Other than that, though, spot-on, Mitch. 3) The very definition of a Democrat is someone who can ignore Clinton’s moral failings while vociferously critiquing his policy decisions. Critiquing policy is what we do. If you think Democrats were highly supportive of Clinton’s foreign policy, you were probably paying more attention to how often he h*mefr*ed his intern.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 10 May 2004 20:01:35 +0000

In fact I was deeply suspicious of Clinton's actions in the Balkans at the time. I was even more critical of his Iraq policy (not that what I, a person of little significance, thought matters much). But that's pretty beside the point anyway, unless you think that they only possible reason to support one war while opposing another is "team loyalty." Is that what you think? Let's see. Could be one of those wars was a bad idea. Maybe one of those wars was badly planned and incompetently waged. Please. Give me and yourself a little credit. If not, then I can’t take you seriously. No hard feelings. I don't take you too seriously, either.

By: tombo

tombo — Mon, 10 May 2004 18:59:18 +0000

Ooo, scathing! Did you also demonize Clinton’s war against Saddam in 1999? If not, then I can’t take you seriously. I voted for Clinton twice and defended his war against Saddam, as well as his policy of regime change in Iraq, and his admin’s conclusions (based on the same evidence presented to Bush) that Saddam “was determined to get WMD and [that] if Saddam gets them he will use them.” Bush’s war continued Clinton’s war. Clinton committed us to overthrowing Saddam; Bush made good on Clinton’s promise. If you detested Clinton’s war, and spoke up in 1999 when Clinton was carpet-bombing Baghdad, then I can at least respect your consistency when you demonize Bush and his Iraq war. But if, like Teddy K, you vigorously supported Clinton’s war and now float angry and asinine conspiracy theories about Bush’s war, you forfeit all credibility. Incoherence doesn’t win elections. It helps no Democrat to play tough on Saddam when our party holds the White House and then cry foul when the other party pursues the same policy.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 10 May 2004 14:54:15 +0000

and I’m a lifelong Dem myself Sure. One of those who dislike Kerry, praise Bush, and obsess over Ralph and Hillary. Where I come from we call those Democrats Republicans.

By: tombo

tombo — Mon, 10 May 2004 04:14:53 +0000

One other huge advantage for Bush: the economy, led by a resurgent tech sector. Semiconductor sales are soaring. Corporations are increasing their capital budgets for IT spend. Every major hardware and software provider is forecasting double-digit growth this year (check out SAP’s latest results and recent statements by IBM, Dell, Intel, SAP chairmen). Paul, you don’t live in America, do you? Every Democrat I know—and I’m a lifelong Dem myself—recognizes that Kerry is a disaster as a candidate. Is he for the war or against it? Pro-war types think he’s against it. Many antiwar types think he’s for it. The man is a joke, and we Democrats have seen this farce before: Dukakis, Jimmah, Mondale. (BTW, I voted for each of those losers. But then, I can claim youthful ignorance as an excuse.) Some of my fellow Dems still pine for Dean; others consider it a shame that Lieberman never got a real hearing; and most believe that the only candidate who could deny significant defections to Nader and still capture the center is the junior senator from Mew York. But Hillary’s too smart to fight a losing battle. She’s waiting this one out.

By: matt weiner

matt weiner — Mon, 10 May 2004 01:55:54 +0000

Testy—MT-Blacklist prevents comment spam by rejecting spamworthy urls. If “h o m e f r o” is part of some porny website that spams comments, it might be on the blacklist. “Home front” should do fine on that theory.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 09 May 2004 02:39:45 +0000

Thomas—what part of “ifs” and “more ineffective than they were” contradicts your subtle analysis? I’m talking counterfactuals and tortured analogies. Ignorance of events that didn’t happen isn’t a charge I feel compelled to defend myself against. And no, I don’t think that Lincoln’s success at war in spite of his incomptence proves that Bush will win in November, either. Your Nader-Kerry blah blah blah isn’t impossible (that must be some comfort), but it does contradict Nader’s performance in 2000 and my own current experience with “Angry Left Democrats.” At best, your predictions remain a fond hope. Keep in mind that repeating your assertions won’t make them twice as likely to come true.

By: old maltese

old maltese — Sat, 08 May 2004 23:12:15 +0000

Coincidentally, Steven Den Beste has a very nice, clear essay today on the causes of the Civil War.

By: Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak — Sat, 08 May 2004 17:54:19 +0000

Hmm, well, my knowledge of US history falls off so fast pre-1932 that it may well be actually antiknowledge by the time you get to 1860. But, and with that proviso in mind, isn’t the argument that the ACW wasn’t fundamentally driven by slavery part of the same discredited pro-Southern historiography that spent nearly a century demonizing reconstruction, carpetbaggers, and the like?

By: james

james — Sat, 08 May 2004 14:54:01 +0000

As has beeen more or less pointed out, Eszter, the remark pretty much makes precisely the case for opportunistic liberal support for the Iraq war even though it was fought on a trumped up case by a reactionary power. “WMD” weren’t found, but mass graves were. (I don’t intend this as an endorsement of the liberal case for the war, just to make the point that the quote serves the exact opposite argument to the one it thinks it does).

By: MQ

MQ — Sat, 08 May 2004 11:34:26 +0000

The Civil War absolutely was fought about slavery, from the start. But it was fought about the geographic extension of slavery to the Western states, not about abolition of it in the Southern states where it was traditionally rooted. Seems hard for people to grasp this today but it is transparently clear if you read the documents leading up to the war.

By: testy;

testy; — Sat, 08 May 2004 07:55:02 +0000

What a fun new sport this is: Which words crook the timber? And does the idiot know a zero from an oh? Let us see: h0mefr0