Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Timothy, you mean the Zell Miller that said in an interview last night with Chris Matthews I wish we were closer together and in another time when I could challenge you to a duel - Get out of my face he told Matthews despite the bi-location over the airwaves interview between them.

That was no gut punch, that was a huge and embarassing temper tantrum by Zell Miller and lordie how the crowd ate the hate and venom up. Made Cheney’s speech anti-climatic and boring. It was also an excellent demonstration in how to lie, distort, and twist truth and facts when you have a captive audience. It was shameful is what it was.

Timothy,

If you are really that confident, see my response to Eric Simonson about the Iowa Electronic Markets.

Timothy, even though you have alot of points your argument does not hold up to the head shots Bush’s record has given himself. Even if you count in the swift boat ads, most Americans now know that the lies they told about his service. As an Indepenent voter, let me show you a few head shots that Bush gave himeself just over the summer months.

* Failed to inform Congress and the American public on prisoner abuse in Iraq.
While CBS was nice enough to withhold the newscast of the pictures for 2-3 weeks, the administration did nothing to ease the headshot felt by most Americans. If Bush would of asked for air time before the showing of this pictures, the country would of listened but understood that the problem was being handled.

* Failure on a plan for Peace in Iraq
With incidents in Irag getting worse in April and May, the Congress and American public quickly learned that Bush had no plan on how to stablize the situtation. Even when asked by the Senate Forgien Relation Committee, the Bush adminstration had to take a week to tell the senators that they had no plan or idea on how to handle the problems. In fact the problem got so out of hand that the committee hade to tell the administration what to do.

*Failure to get Armor to our Troops
During the same time period of the Senate Hearings, the House Arms Service Committee found out that the Marines sent to Iraq in the spring only had 1/4 inch armor on the vechiles because of management of the Army. The armor promised back a year ago was on hold due to some general wanting to run test and the equipment for arming the Iraq forces was setting on a dock.

So to say Kerry has taken body shots over lies while Bush has taken real head shots just don’t add up to Kerry being on the ropes. In fact Bush might want to thank Congress for saving his bacon by not pushing or promoting their role.

Timothy,

Another tell tale sign that things aren’t going the left’s way is that Fox News viewership last night was more than any of the three networks.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Fox News cable channel made a bit of television history by drawing more viewers than any of the Big Three broadcast networks on the opening night of major coverage of the Republican convention, according to figures issued on Wednesday.

Fox News’ presentation of Tuesday’s speeches by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Laura Bush drew 5.4 million viewers, more than broadcasters ABC, CBS or NBC. reuters

Kerry’s campaign is presently in a tailspin. We’ll have to wait and see if he can pull it back together.

If you really want an indication of what kind of man Kerry is and where the buck will stop in a Kerry Administration:

Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions.

“The candidate is furious,” a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. “He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no.”

Campaign sources stressed that no one is losing a job at this point, but instead “proven winners” like former Clinton aides Joe Lockhart and Joel Johnson are being brought in to try to regain momentum for Team Kerry. nydailynews.com

Everyone around him is wrong. Better bring in some ‘proven winners’… I wonder what that does for morale in the Kerry campaign?

Tim and Eric- are you guys serious that Miller not a nut, regardless of party? I mean did not see the chris matthews thing that David talked about? the guy is off of his rocker, and I think he is losing his mind a bit. Then again, the Democrats on this board were praising Al Sharpton who is just as nutty and hate-filled as Miller. So I am not surprized.

Misha,
I understand that Miller is getting up there, but if you listen carefully you understand that Miller had seen Matthews mistreat Michelle Malkin very badly recently and did not seem to want to deal with that type of situation.

Also, Matthews is pandering to the anti-Bush crowd by being the only person to host his show amongst the protestors. Add all those things up and someone would be nuts to go on that program.
Miller was doing it as a courtesy, but wasn’t going to let it go to far.

Regards,

Tim

LIKE WAR? VOTE REPUBLICAN

It is not an enjoyable experience watching the Republican Party descend into the depths of propaganda and falsehood. Today’s disaffected Republicans once believed the GOP to be the party of principle. Any remaining claim to principle ended with Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

No informed person believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections to Al Qaeda and involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

It is not possible that the president and vice president of the United States, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the director of the CIA and the national security adviser could have believed such rubbish. Yet, each one of them told the American people, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations and our allies that they did believe it.

Did U.S. intelligence agencies actually convey totally false information to the highest government officials? If so, these agencies are the greatest threat to innocent people abroad and to the U.S. government’s credibility. Such incompetence is more dangerous than terrorism. The agencies should be immediately abolished.

Contrary to Bush administration propaganda, Saddam Hussein was precisely the type of secular Arab ruler who would feature large on Osama bin Laden’s hit list. Hussein brutally suppressed Islamic leaders, knocking off cleric after cleric, including Moqtada al-Sadr’s father, a grand ayatollah.

If Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to give terrorists, the terrorists would have used them on Israel. The United States is a derivative target because of our alliance with Israel against the Palestinians.

Bush and Rumsfeld claim that they believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it is certain that the joint chiefs and commanding generals did not believe the falsehood. No general, no matter how incompetent, would have concentrated his invasion army in a small area adjacent to an enemy armed with WMD, when one weapon could wipe out the entire U.S. invasion force.

No one has been held accountable for the unjustified invasion of Iraq that has destroyed America’s standing in the world, and cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and thousands of American dead and wounded.

Don’t expect a demand for accountability from the public. A poll released Aug. 20 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that 54 percent of Americans continue to believe Iraq had WMD; 35 percent believe that Iraq was closely linked to Al Qaeda, and 15 percent believe Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attack.

What does the persistence of such extraordinary falsehoods say about the U.S. media? How can a free people with First Amendment rights be so totally misinformed? The answer is that an independent media no longer exists in the United States.

Formerly independent media are now submerged into corporate chains where focus on advertising revenues means zero tolerance for controversy. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. media served as a propaganda arm for the Bush administration. The New York Times and Washington Post have since published mild apologies for neglecting their responsibilities, but the U.S. media has been muzzled by the “you-are-with-us-or-against-us” mantra.

Anyone who tells the truth is in the “against-us” camp.

Having gotten away with one invasion based on deception, the Bush administration is eager to repeat the offense. Last week, Undersecretary of State John Bolton used a Hudson Institute forum to repeat before a live C-SPAN TV audience the same lies — only this time it is Iran that has WMD:

“Today I’d like to speak about Iran, which has concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons program for over 18 years, and which, therefore, is one of our most fundamental proliferation challenges. All of Iran’s WMD efforts — chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles — pose grave threats to international security.”

The grave threat to international security is posed by the Bush administration’s relentless war propaganda. Does Bolton really believe that a nuclear weapons program, with all its extraordinary requirements, could be concealed for 18 years?

There is total failure of U.S. diplomacy. Is the failure intentional? Does the Bush administration desire more war in the Middle East?

Every indicator reads yes. The United States has struck an aggressive stance toward Iraq, Syria and Iran — the three Middle Eastern countries that are not ruled by American puppets on the American payroll. Now that the Soviet Union is no longer a check on U.S. intrusions in the Middle East, the Bush administration intends to complete the colonization under the cloak of bringing “democracy” to Islam.

This is the neoconservative agenda. The same neocons who control the Bush administration have put forward this plan in written and spoken form for all to read and hear. They have informed us of their war intentions, and we are paying no attention.

If you favor the return of the draft and war without end, vote Republican.

The media has been muzzled and the draft is on the way, eh? Pretty fanciful thoughts.

The only people calling to reinstate the draft are Democrats, and the media is alive and well and more
diverse than ever (with the internet being a great free-for-all for everybody).

Who is trying to use fear as a political weapon now?

Mr. Perry-
This is no time for you to get overconfident. Zell Miller’s strident rhetoric works more to our advantage than yours. It’s no body blow. The man is not well regarded in the party and hasn’t been for some time. You may think that everybody is obliged to gasp and change their votes Republican at the prospect of Zell crossing his own party, but given what he said, and how he said it, it’s just more of what will disenchant the undecideds.

When Jim Jeffords crossed over, he became an independent, showing the strength of his convictions that his party had gone astray from its ideals. He didn’t remain in his party out of political cowardice. Had the decency not to be disingenuous of where his loyalties lay.

What takes the element of smear against Zell Miller out of his record is the fact that its true. Zell is a man who has isolated himself from his party, who had much of the political attitudes of his former dixiecrat colleagues, but who chose to remain in his party rather than take to friendlier ideological waters.

I was stunned at the childish chanting of the crowd. In a dirty, negative campaign, this is one of the all-time lows. Where the Democrats can proudly claim that they stuck to challenges to Bush on the issues and on his philosophy, the Republicans have taken to one character attack after another, and one distortion of Kerry’s record after another.

Kerry may seem to contradict himself, but If you look at Kerry’s record, you can see that most of his so-called flip-flops are evidence of his consistency. He is a man willing to look as if he’s contradicting himself, in order to remain true to his values. The Republicans enjoy the fact that most people have little idea of the legislative rules and procedures. They gleefully confuse people on the meanings of certain votes, on the actual content, on the policies described and what they related to. They deprive people of context, never telling people that Kerry’s vote against the Gulf War was only a vote to extend the time sanctions would be allowed to work, a position many in his party also took. Whether his positiion was right or wrong, what is wrong is the idea that Kerry did not approve much of the military buildup, and when action came, the war itself. He has voted for nearly every war since then, in addition to voting for an alternative version of the infamous budget supplement bill, an version whose very existence refutes charges that Kerry was going to leave the troops in a lurch. You never mention it or it’s content, but you know of it, and not acknowledging it, your speakers lie every time they accuse Kerry of trying to deprive our troops of supplies.

I read Zell Miller’s book several weeks ago and watched his speech last evening. Despite the efforts by some to paint him as some sort of geriatric imbecile, I think he’s an articulate and honorable man to whom loyalty, honesty, and patriotism are more than just words to be rolled out every few years for a political campaign. I also think he’d make a pretty good next-door neighbor, and that’s pretty high praise.

Last night he simply stated again, and in no uncertain terms, what he’s been saying for a long time: His party is now controlled by liberal idealogues who too often place personal ambition and political power ahead of the interests of the nation. He also made it clear that John Kerry is not to be trusted. Neither of those assertions came as much of a shock to many of us.

For the first time in months, I’m sensing a shift in this election and I’m starting to think that Kerry may very well be on his way back to the Senate and Tom Daschle back to South Dakota. If so, Zell Miller can take at least part of the credit.

Martin, there are articles in the archives here at WatchBlog that flatly contradict your comment about the draft and Democrats. Does Rep Chuck Hagel ring any bells? It damn well should, he was the first to say that a draft may be inevitable.

You are wearing me out fact checking your statements.

“Kerry may seem to contradict himself, but If you look at Kerry’s record, you can see that most of his so-called flip-flops are evidence of his consistency. He is a man willing to look as if he’s contradicting himself, in order to remain true to his values.”

Wow. Just Wow. Can you explain this?

The only strength of Zell’s vitriolic diatribe is that the RNC can say it came from a “Democrat.” If a Republican had given that speech the base would have loved it, but swing voters would certainly have been turned off. Time will tell how it plays out, but I’d take my bets on playing the RNC & DNC Keynotes (Zell vs. Barack) back to back in front of undecided audiences and let them tell me which party is the uniter and which is the divider any day. Oh, but the major networks chose not to run Obama’s speech during primetime. Wait, I thought they had a liberal bias - what’s going on?

All of us are talking about how the Zell Miller speech will affect swing voters, but obviously none of us writing are swing voters, nor do probably actually know any. I was a swing voter in 2000, but now I can’t think of anything that would make me vote against Bush. I don’t like everything about Bush, but the more I get to know Kerry, the less I like him.

I was a swing voter in 2000 because of Bill Clinton. I liked most of what he did in his second term and could look beyond his character flaws.

I agree that Kerry’s record just looks inconsistent. He voted tactically on many issues but he obviously has values that he has held since at least 1970. His statements and votes show a consistent pattern. He opposes the use of American strength and believes in limiting U.S. power by putting at the disposal of multinational institutions. That doesn’t mean he is bad or dishonest. It doesn’t mean he is against veterans. But I think it does mean that the U.S. would be weaker. If you like the UN to control U.S. actions, vote Kerry. Multilateral institutions are fine in theory until you consider their membership. The U.S. was kicked off the UN human rights commission. Who stayed on? Sierra Leone and Sudan. Say what you want about the U.S., we are better than those guys.

The reason l liked Clinton was because he had flexible beliefs. He came into office with ideas similar to Kerry re U.S. strength, but he changed his mind when confronted by reality. He deployed the military where needed and was working up to a muscular stance on terrorism. I fear Kerry will hold to his core beliefs and not flip-flop on that important issue. That’s the danger.

He also made it clear that John Kerry is not to be trusted.

I think Zell Miller proved that Zell Miller can’t be trusted. Consider what he said about John Kerry three years ago.

My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation’s authentic heroes, one of this party’s best-known and greatest leaders—and a good friend.

Can you say “backstabber”?

Let me tell you something about Kerry- When the time came, and the popular option was clear, he took the road of principle. The Bible tells us that those who do good and pious things for the benefit of onlookers have already recieved their reward, and it isn’t the reward of most value, if you know what I mean.

In a time when any vote against Bush’s military policy was political suicide, Kerry, with an altnernative supplemental bill in hand opposed Bush’s version because it piled on more debt onto the American people, and did not gain international support for the War in Iraq beyond that few percentage points he had scraped up. Kerry supports the vets, and supports the fiscal discipline Bush obviously has forgotten. Perhaps Bush feels winning votes is more important than sticking to principles and doing what’s right, but Kerry takes such stands, even when there are not news crews to pick up his exploits.

Did Zell Miller stop taking medication against a doctor’s advice? The guy looked like his aorta was about to burst right there on stage while channeling Pat Buchanan.

Eric Simonson: Another tell tale sign that things aren’t going the left’s way is that Fox News viewership last night was more than any of the three networks.

Okay, let’s look at this… from the article you linked to:

Fox News’ presentation of Tuesday’s speeches by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Laura Bush drew 5.4 million viewers, more than broadcasters ABC, CBS or NBC.

NBC was a close second behind Fox with 5.1 million viewers, followed by CBS with 4.4 million and ABC with 4.3 million. NBC’s sister cable network, MSNBC, was fifth with 1.6 million viewers, and CNN was dead last with 1.5 million.

So - 5.4 million watched the “conservative” channel. 16.9 million watched the “liberal” media. This constitutes a win for the Right how?

GOP backs away from Miller’s blast

ceejayoz-

At least you know (and admit) which networks are “liberal.” So I guess the big media IS liberal after all. SHH! Liberals aren’t supposed to admit that! Also, CNN is not a public boradcast- it is liberal cable news, and FOX whupped it.

Stephen says above:

“Whether his position was right or wrong, what is wrong is the idea that Kerry did not approve much of the military buildup (in the Gulf War), and when action came, the war itself. He has voted for nearly every war since then…”

So Stephen, which is it??? I still dont know. Is Kerry for the Iraq war, or against it?

You seem to say he voted FOR the war this time, which of course he did. But he has also been against it, despite having voted for it, when he needed to oust Howard Dean.

Perhaps he has not so much flip-flopped as he has dutifully straddled the fence. He leans one direction to give the impression he is on that side, and then leans over the other direction when necessary.

This guy is simply not decisive enough to be President. As was said, a Senator can be wrong oftern since there are other Senators.

A President needs to be the final decision maker. Were Kerry to be elected, many decisions would end in a 1-1 tie.

At least you know (and admit) which networks are “liberal.” So I guess the big media IS liberal after all. SHH! Liberals aren’t supposed to admit that! Also, CNN is not a public boradcast- it is liberal cable news, and FOX whupped it.

CNN beat FOX for the Democratic Convention coverage, as would be expected.

Frankly, the media is whatever they want to be, as long as that means they get good ratings.

What Zell Miller did’t say was that Cheney also vote against those weapons systems.

Joe, the support of troops in the field cannot be reduced to one vote, to one yes or no. All sides are in agreement that we must leave Iraq only when it has been stabilized and fortified enough to survive on its own. You will see no president cut and run on this issue.

His position is my position- we support our troops, we support further military efforts to turn Iraq into a free, stable democracy. What we cannot tolerate is a president unwilling to own up to the errors before and after the invasion that have cost 979 Americans their lives. Bush has been inconsistent himself in explaining why we went to war. Americans at the Beginning of all this were unwilling to go after Saddam simply to depose him. The majority of Americans, to be brought into line on Iraq, had to be told that Saddam was harboring Al Quaeda, and that he was just about to give them WMDs to send our way. We invaded, found no working relationship with Al Quaeda, no rebuilt WMD infrastructure, no stockpiles of WMDs consistent with the case Bush made for war.

We went to this war to fight terrorism, and keep WMDs from hitting our shores. Can Bush claim to have destroyed a working relationship with Al Quaeda? No he cannot. Can Bush Claim to have seized large quantities of chemical biological weapons? No he cannot. Can he claim to have found a working nuclear program? No he cannot. he can say that he deposed and captured saddam, but he only managed to capture Saddam after months of time, during which his freedom likely allowed him to finance and bolster the insurgency. Can Bush claim that he ended Saddam’s atrocities? Yes. But as a result of systemic abuses caused by his policies concerning prisoners, we are not painted in the Middle East with the same brush, only worse, because we are invaders with a decadent society. Saddam may have been a bastard, but he was their bastard.

In the end, Bush has been reduced to claiming some pretty absurd things. What is heaven’s name is not absurd about our president saying that the insurgents attacks are a good sign because they’re using Iraq to draw in terrorists like a magnet from the surrounding region- never mind the questions of stability, security, and the necessities of reconstruction, we’re just going to use Iraq as a terrorist hoover! Bring it on! And of course there are the infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction Related program activities. This from a guy who was claiming stockpiles months before. Bush can brag about having killed so many Al Quaeda leaders, but apparently he doesn’t understand the concept of battlefield commissions. To simply think that he can cross names off a list, and when he gets to the last one the war will be done is naive at best. He thinks that with all the anti-American sentiment out there, he can somehow make people see the light on democracy, that there wont’ be cultural resistance, especially in the wake of his invasion and occupation of Iraq. His vision of a domino effect of Democracy is seductive, for sure, but it’s not realistic.

We cannot afford his kind of incompetence, his kind of secrecy, or his kind of naivete. things can and will get better, but not under Bush.

What this is the problem with this column? Look alive, folks! Come out swinging!

The Coach, hang in there. This is a holiday weekend and Republicans can afford to go away for the weekend, while the rest of us remain home saving our meager tax cut for the rainy days ahead when Bush is reelected. :-D

Tell it to the Marines!

Stephen:

You seem like an intelligent guy, but you sure are mixed up in your ideology. I’ve shown you before the list of reasons that Bush gave in his 2003 SOTU speech for taking on Saddam. I suggested you read it—-either you didnt do so, or you purposely left out the many issues other than WMD’s that Bush presented.

As far as admitting mistakes, the Dems are simply trying to trap Bush, and he is too smart for them, which REALLY irks them. The moment Bush admits publicly a mistake, the Dems will pounce on him. In fact, its the same trick the Reps are trying currently on Kerry—he also is too seasoned a politician to fall for it. The Reps have floated the idea that Kerry apologize to veterans for his statements in 1971—-you know as do I that the moment Kerry does so, he would be savaged by the right. So its just a game, really, played by both sides. I’m just surprised that someone of your intelligence keeps missing it. Or are you just purposely avoiding it?

Stephen, Im as disappointed as anyone that we did not find the stockpiles of WMD’s. It shows how woefully wrong our intelligence reports were. Of course you know that those on the Senate Intelligence Committee also thought the WMD’s were there, as did foreign governments and past US administrations and officials. But you want to point the finger at only one person—-Bush—rather than the multitudes who also believed the same thing.

You pointed out a number of things that Bush cannot claim, but you left out a biggie that he CAN claim: the US has not had another terrorist attack!! That’s a pretty big thing for a person of your brainpower to completely miss.

But hell, Stephen, what difference does THAT make. Bush would probably just exploit it for political purposes, or maybe he’d be the evil architect behind an attack—-y’know, the vaunted October surprise conspiracy theory.

As Foghorn Leghorn used to say, “Ya bother me, son.”

jbod, if Clinton asked for reports from the CIA, NSA, and Sec. Service, on any intel that suggests a potential coup de’tat, and asked that the reports be given to his Sec’t of State, and the Sec’t. of State filtered those reports, and handed them to Gore, who upon reading it realized there was an emergency. The emergency showed selective statements and actions by key Republicans which would support the belief that a coup de’tat in the U.S. was afoot. Gore reports this to Clinton who confers with Tenet and Reno, and they all agree. By executive order and Att’y General directions the FBI, rounds up key Republicans and charges them with treason and attempted overthrow of the U.S. government. Then Clinton, Tenet, and Reno state that National Security requires that the information which conclusively proves the treason must remain secret even from Congressional Intelligence Committees (due to leaks) and from the investigation committee.

Would you support Clinton’s actions? For that is exactly what has happened with the invasion of Iraq. Selective filtering of intelligence and then the hiding of that intelligence for national security which was used to justify to the Congress, the American people, and the international community that the invasion was necessary due to WMD and the potential for their imminent use. But so sorry, we can’t share that intel with anyone who is not in our inner circle.

Good Grief! The hypocrisy test is accomplished by putting the shoe on the other foot and see if it feels as comfortable.