Comments on: Hands across America

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:37:07 +0000

I can see a strong argument for Logan Act violations, but as has been pointed out, there are very few presidents that doesn’t apply to. But there’s a world of difference between hindering GOVERNMENT policy and aiding and abetting the enemies of a COUNTRY.

By: kasei

kasei — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 02:29:04 +0000

I don’t get this – why shouldn’t an ex-President say what he thinks (and yes, even ‘lobby’ for it) on foreign affairs? Most countries don’t seem to have problems with former leaders making pronouncements on policies (whether anybody listens to/reads them or not is another matter…) why do some Americans see it as unacceptable, bordering on treason?

By: 2late2theparty

2late2theparty — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:56:44 +0000

I have seen it pointed out, that it has been a general principle that ex-presidents do not criticize the foreign policy of the sitting president, especially when in other countries. Criticism certainly does not mean the ex-president is playing for the other side, but negotiating with other countries’ leaders in a way that is at odds with US govt policy can reasonably be construed as such. Here is some discussion on the MCLAUGHLIN GROUP about President Carter’s criticism of US foreign policy in his Nobel Peace Prize Speech: *** FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: (From videotape.) For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventative war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Jimmy Carter took aim at the heart of Bush’s national security strategy, the preemptive strike, this week in Oslo, where he was belatedly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel nearly a quarter of a century ago. The former president described President Bush’s new strategic preemptive strike doctrine, quoting approvingly the words of Ralph Bunche, the revered U.S. government official and U.N. diplomat, the first Black to be a division head in the Department of State and a Nobel Peace Prize winner himself. FORMER PRESIDENT CARTER: (From videotape.) “To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of war mongering. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further war,” unquote. We must remember that today there are at least eight nuclear nations on earth, and three of these are threatening to their own neighbors in areas of great international tension. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You have thoughts on this? MR. ZUCKERMAN: Yes, I do. I mean, I must say to you I find his sermonizing on foreign policy to be slightly repellant to me. This is man who sent letters to every country in the Security Council in 1990 opposing the United States going to war against Saddam Hussein, back in 1990, 1991. He actually sent those letters, and sent a copy of the letter, he maintains, to the White House. That, to my mind, is not the role of an ex-president of the United States. Now, he is being a good ex-president, and a much better ex-president than he was a president. But his attitudes towards the defense of this country and the defense of our interests, in my judgment, is wrong-headed. It was— *** Because President Carter lobbied Security Council members against US policy, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft accused Carter of violating the Logan Act, the law that prohibits American citizens from conducting unofficial foreign policy. *** President Carter did not only interfere with President George H W Bush foreign policy. He interfered with President Clinton’s North Korea policy by personally visiting with Kim Il Sung and praising North Korea. Carter wrote speeches for Yassir Arafat during the time Clinton was negotiating between Israel and the PA. Carter visited Castro in Cuba during the current Bush administration, and attempted unofficial diplomacy there without consulting the White House. *** To this day the Carter Center website has no comments about the Iraq elections. *** In 1980, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) of President Carter: “Unable to distinguish between our friends and our enemies, he has essentially adopted our enemies’ view of the world.”

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 15:38:01 +0000

Where are the Dmeocrats objecting to being connected with the madness that is Err America? Democratic Underground? Etc, etc. Would you like those disavowals in the form of Congressional resolutions or a Constitutional amendments? Dude, take the red pill, really. Here’s the problem with the blogosphere (and the country)—too many people like Eric Florack (aka Bithead). One in every server room in America as far as I can tell; small men with loud voices, who can’t tell the difference between the outside world and the imaginary world on their computer screen.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 15:30:20 +0000

Now that they are in power, and now power does not bring them any of the satisfaction they imagined it would, they have nothing left to fall back on than their hatred of liberalism. Yep. That's how I've attempted to make sense of the blustering and venom. To draw on a popular bit of CT semiotics: How can it be that my side is now fully in charge, and I still haven't gotten my goddamn pony? It must be somebody's fault, and it sure as hell ain't my side's, because they're on my side.

By: mark

mark — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 14:06:00 +0000

Both my senators and my congressman are among those 72 dastardly bastards! And honestly, I’m pretty proud of that. Hooray for Massachusetts!

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 09:40:14 +0000

mw: In my family, I am the one who has the highest opinion of George Bush, since I think he’s too incompetent to completely destroy America, and since I’m less than 100% sure we’re going to war with Iraq or Syria. My family is just as typical of America as yours. John of course is right. The comment here by bithead is typical of the kind of discourse we’re seeing from movement conservatives—a meaningless list of names of today’s “enemies” (Chevy Chase?). 9/11 has empowered people who could care less about terrorism or foreign policy, who only care about their imaginary internal enemies, and not any real external ones. Now that they are in power, and now power does not bring them any of the satisfaction they imagined it would, they have nothing left to fall back on than their hatred of liberalism.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:58:46 +0000

“no longer possible” or “now impossible”. Take your pick.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:38:34 +0000

The treason talk is not new. But since Bush won, it’s spreading into more respectable conservative circles. There’s blood in the water, and the people who call themselves conservatives want it all. Now. Talk to me in a couple years, but I expect that the treason talk is going to become reality, with actual prosecutions (not necessarily specifically for treason) and physical attacks. It will start with strongly antiwar people who aren’t even Democrats, but the Democratic Party will always be in the sights. I don’t actually think at all well of Ward Churchill, but I now regret attacking him a week or so ago. He’s just the first of a long list of names that they’re going to go after. they’re smart enough to attack the least appealing individuals first, in a classic salami-slice operation. If I turn out to be wrong in this, I will be very happy and will let the whole world insult me with impunity.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:25:10 +0000

My favorite example of Gingich’s nastiness was his attempt to blame the Democrats for the fact that Susan Smith murdered who two children. Completely unjustified and loathsome, of course, but the kicker is that Smith’s had been sexually molested by her stepfather, Beverly (sic) Russell, who was a Moral Majority functionary on the South Carolina Republican Party Central Committee. Except for Robert Scheer, no one picked up the story. If the party affiliations had been the opposite, Gingrich and Smith would be linked like Mary Jo Kopechne and Ted Kennedy. I, personally, like the odious micmacattack, am willing to be an asshole. But the Democratic party to which I nominally belong is incapable of functioning in the real world of today.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:12:35 +0000

“Maybe it’s because, like Max Sawicky suggested, we dislike being assholes.” Max should speak for himself. I’ve thought for a decade that civil disussion of politics is no longer impossible in the US. Liberals pitifully look around for dialogue partners, and what they get is stubborn, incorrigible gameplayers who are willing to affirm any sophistry and deny any fact. As here. In other circumstances the odious bigmacattack will self-righteously demand fairness and civility from others, but he personally is not capable of it and doesn’t try. Mentally the guy seems to function at the level of a football fan talking trash. I date the end of civility from Newt Gingrich’s accession as Speaker of the House. newt made a large number of over-the-top, scurrilous, ludicrous, dishonest smears of the Democratic Party, and it worked very well for him. Some purported Republican moderates and rational conservatives are just stealth Republicans doing as much damage as possible in disguise. Others are pitiful lackeys who are in denial about the actual nature of their own party. Cutthroat movement conservatives run the Republican Party and the US, and the rest of them are just deluded irrelevancies.

By: aspiring libertine

aspiring libertine — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 01:08:14 +0000

It’s not as if Bush is ever introduced as “pathological liar George Bush”, is it? No, but one can always dream of that moment. I believe it will come the same day as the Queen is introduced as “that useless tourist attraction” on BBC News. On the other hand, today, clandestine euromembers of the Environmental category in The Discovered Network had the pleasure of hearing the whole of the United States – yes, all you people there, too, no matter who you voted for – introduced on the news as “the worst polluter in the world”. Very matter of fact. Preceded by the words: Kyoto protocol, take effect, except in. Someone should be outraged, I guess.

By: BeingThere

BeingThere — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:13:02 +0000

Thanks to Discover the Network!, it’s become clear to me that the person Mohammad Atta was secretly meeting with in Prague prior to 9/11 was in fact none other than than the leftist radical Pete Seeger. Oh Pete, where have all the flowers gone?

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:37:08 +0000

Soros, Khomeini, Danny Glover, Castro, Robert Scheer and Roger Ebert are working hand in glove to bring about our doom. Didn’t the South Park guys make a movie about this?

By: Ted Barlow

Ted Barlow — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:15:46 +0000

I spoke to Katrina vanden Heuvel, who says that she worked for the Moscow News. I don’t know what to tell you about that link you found, abb1.