Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

That’s a fascinating little passage that you attribute to Mr. Suskind. However the actual article to which you linked contains none of it.

Bush was right about the neutrality thing. Sweden has been neutral in every conflict since the Napoleonic Wars and was a member of neither alliance in the Cold War. Same as the Swiss, by the way. Lantos should have known this too. He should also have known that the Swedish army doesn’t do well when anyone is shooting at it, and duty in a really dangerous place like the West Bank would be beyond its competence.

That spin doesn’t quite fly, jack, when the President is quoted as saying:

They don’t have an army.

It also doesn’t hold up to the next, unquoted paragraph, which has Bush finding out he’s wrong and semi-apologizing.

A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. ”You were right,” he said, with bonhomie. ”Sweden does have an army.”

NOTOTH,

You have to read more than Page 1 of the article to find the passage.

Whether true or not, it doesn’t change my opinion on George Bush. It was said about Franklin Roosevelt that he had a second-class intellect, but a first class temperament. The president’s job is to make decisions based on options given him by the officials he appoints. The decisions are the important part and iIt is the team that counts. The Bush administration is more competent in this regard than the Clinton administration. I believe Clinton was a much superior intellect, but (with the exceptions of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers) his team was much weaker. Clinton choose advisors poorly because of (not in spite of) his fluid intellect. Jimmy Carter was probably the smartest man to hold the presidency in recent times and also the worst president.

I am not a lifelong Republican and might vote for a competent Democrat if one were offered. If someone like Evan Bayh, Joe Biden or even Bob Kerrey were running I might well be on the other side. I respect John Kerry’s intellect. He did a wonderful job in the debates, but nothing in his record gives me confidence that he would be a good executive. His poor record in the Senate and his (my opinion) disgraceful behavior in the early 1970s make it impossible for me to vote for him. In our system we have a binary choice. Neither candidate is ideal, but what sells me on George Bush is his strength against terrorism, which I consider the crucial issue in this election. I don’t doubt Kerry’s patriotism or his intelligence, but I do doubt his resolution and tenacity in the fight.

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin said that people were either hedgehogs or foxes. Foxes know many things, but hedgehogs know ONE big thing. I guess at this time I think the one big thing is more important.

To me, faith is not about believing rigidly, but believing in forces and powers beyond yourself, and responding to that force and power with humility. Part of that humility is understanding the limitations of of your comprehension of events around you and striving to learn. You could call it learning as an act of piety. To simply assume that all the fact that matter are within one’s grasp is to enclose oneself in a shell, isolated from the larger world and the greater presence of whatever divine presence is out there. God is not merely in that which is obvious to us, which we are familiar with, but in all things, and the divine manifests itself in ways that confound the great.the powerful and the wise.

This is what I feel Bush has closed himself off from. He sees few friends, only enemies, adversaries, and the uninitiated. He sees few equals under God to him, and unfortunately he fails to understand the limits of his own humanity. God’s plan is ineffable, and if Bush isn’t careful, his purpose in that plan may be a warning to others about the perils of power.

Jack, if you take Iraq out of the equation (which I do) how in the world can you consider Bush “tenacious” on terrorism? He talks a lot, but he doesn’t have a heck of a lot of results. At all.

Terrorism is way up, even excluding the attacks in Iraq. Terrorist funding is way up. Al Qaeda recruitment and membership is way up. Our ports and borders are barely any more secure than they were three years ago. Funding for terrorism is way up (Zarqawi’s assets were not frozen by the US until last week).

Our own chemical and nuclear plants are not any more secure now than they were three years ago. Our borders are no more secure. No measurable results have been achieved in the INS, the FBI, or the CIA.

Bush opposed the Dept. of Homeland Security. He opposed the creation of a top level intelligence czar to help correct the problems that prevented us from detecting the 9/11 plotters before they got to us.

Bush has made no progress controlling Russia’s insecure nuclear materials. He has made no progress whatsoever with Iran and North Korea, who are getting more and more nuclear every day.

We are barely cooperating with intelligence with some of our most important longtime allies in fighting the war on terrorism. We’ve resorted to having the President’s administration openly advocating and defending torture - and mocking the Geneva Conventions - instead of fighting terrorism using strong and honorable means.

And in what might be the most negligent example of all, this Administration has made no progress with what might reasonably be called the most important focus in the war on terrorism: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We have been totally absent from that process, the first time in 30 years that the United States has not taken a central role in seeking a resolution to that conflict.

Besides attacking Iraq, what has Bush specifically done to fight terrorism since September 11th?

Even if you credulously give him credit for attacking Iraq as part of the war on terrorism, he has still failed to fight terrorism in all of the other ways listed above. Many of these lapses are, in fact, directly attributable to Bush’s decision to attack Iraq.

When confronted by John Kerry in the first debate with all of these possible ways to fight terrorism, Bush responded by saying “I don’t think we want to get to how he’s going to pay for all these promises. It’s like a huge tax gap.” So basically, to Bush, it’s more important to give tax breaks to the rich than it is to pay to fight terrorism.

Hedgehog indeed.

-Cf

At least President Bush knew better than to continue going back to the UN.
The corrupt UN.
Something Kerry said, for months, was the thing that Bush should have done.
Does he still believe this? Kerry and the Democrats seemed to have backed off on pointing out how wrong it was for President Bush to ‘go it alone’. To not go back to the UN and get the support of France, Russia … That was how they gained so much attention and continued the ‘Anybody But Bush’ Campaign.

People keep coming to conclusions based on what we know now.
I conclude Kerry and the Democrats were wrong in not supporting Bush’s decision to stop dealing with the UN. Based on what we know now.
Maybe someday relations can be repaired with those Nations that stood against President Bush in the War in Iraq but that day is not today.

We do not know all that is going on ‘behind the scenes’ in the War on Terror and we should not know.
Don’t assume Bush has backed off.

> We do not know all that is going on ‘behind
> the scenes’ in the War on Terror and we
> should not know.
> Don’t assume Bush has backed off.

So you simply have blind faith that he’s doing his job fighting terrorism, even despite the mountains of evidence that he’s absolutely not? That’s pretty sad. Perhaps you wish we would just appoint Bush as the Glorious Chairman of the People’s Republic of America and end this whole democracy thing once and for all.

-Cf

So you simply have blind faith that he’s doing his job fighting terrorism

Of course, Cf. Remember before the invasion when the inspectors were coming up with nothing in the way of WMD or WMD programs? All the Bush fans concluded he had “secret intelligence” that was too sensitive to share with the inspectors.

Remember just recently when Ridge raised the terror alert in NY? There were embedded patriots in the administration and the Pentagon who were telling us it was a four-year old threat and probably bogus, but the Bush fans assumed he had some secret intelligence proving a threat was imminent that was too sensitive to share with America.

You just have to shake your head at some people’s blind faith in our snake-oil salesman in chief.

Or maybe they just don’t read past the first page in their daily newspaper.

BTW, jack. The Swedish military has a long and excellent history. They have compulsery miilitary service for all males between 18 and 47 which includes two years of service and periodic refresher training. Kinda like Israel.

They’re also in the process of shifting their military from national defense to power projection and peacekeeping operations around the world as part of their ties with NATO and the EU.

They’re no threat to us, but they’re not the pussies you want us to believe they are, either.

There are a few families of dead jews who might not agree with thesatement that sweden or switzerland were nuetral.

Thanks Jean-Paul, for something other than Rushisms.

Jack:

Whether true or not, it doesn’t change my opinion on George Bush. It was said about Franklin Roosevelt that he had a second-class intellect, but a first class temperament. The president’s job is to make decisions based on options given him by the officials he appoints.

Jack, how on earth do you propose Bush can make good decisions if he doesn’t have a first class intellect with which to put those decisions into context? What can he even base the decisions he makes on, if he does not have accurate information about the world our country is a part of? Being able to make decisive decisions is not the only mark of a president, if what decisions he makes and sticks to are no better than decisions made using a random number generator or a dartboard. And without a first-class intellect, that’s pretty much what they amount to.

bush is a miserable failure on the WOT. A few examples:

1. Ashcroft is 0 for 5000 on terror related convictions.

2. Experts conclude that the amount of terror events have actually increased in the world during the bush term.

3. when they had a chance to capture/kill osama, they decided to hand the job to warlords who have no loyalties to the Americans, or our mission.

4. august 6th pdb

without going into hyperbole and simply stating the facts, it’s not enough to say that simply because we haven’t been hit again that we’re “winning” the war. the oft cited quote by bush that we’ve removed 75% of al-qaeda’s known leadership has been debunked as a campaign misrepresentation. the 75% represents their known leadership as of 9/11, and according to some sources, the 75% is of a group of perhaps as few as 15 people. It is idiotic to think that not only has that group grown in the THREE years since, but that they leadership has changed and that more foot soliders have joined the cause because of our reckless imperialism.

As a proud American, I want Bush to succeed on the war on terror, for all of our sakes. I don’t want this to be a partisan issue. You should never be partisan with people’s lives, but unfortunatley that’s exactly what Bush has done. He alternates from saying we’re safter to we’re in danger, and he alternates between saying we can win this war to saying we can’t. Yet, he’s done nothing substantial to protect our country’s vital interests.

And for that, I am truly sorry.

P. Diddy has this Vote or DIE! campaign going now.

Nothing is better than trying to get the youth of America to become interested in politics and voting. But I do have a few problems with this campaign.

1. It’s run by P. Diddy, a criminal. A guy who shot up a nightclub, causing several people to be injured. A guy that was apprehended with an illegal handgun in his vehicle. Vote or DIE? Maybe vote or I’LL MURDER YOU! would have been better.

2. This campaign is “non-partisan” LOL! P. Diddy is clearly a Kerry supporter, as are many of the people involved in the Vote or I’ll mur… um, DIE! campaign.

3. Again, claiming to be “non-partisan”, but this campaign is aimed at getting people ages 18-30 to vote. Why is that important? Well, we all know that people in that age group, when they vote, tend to vote Democrat much more than Republican. Don’t get me wrong on this point, I am not suggesting that they not be allowed to vote or anything like that, but what I am suggesting is that this “Vote or DIE!” campaign was thought up by democrats to help them win. Ask yourself this, do you think that if polls showed that 75% of people 18-30 ho don’t vote would vote for President Bush if they voted, that P. Diddy or any of the other Hollywood stars involved in this would be? NO! What they are looking for is uninformed young people to go out there and vote for John Kerry. That was Vote or DIE! is all about.

vote or die is a pretty extreme position to take, and frankly i don’t know of any rational person who espouses that theory. calling it “vote or die” is just a way to get headlines, something even a fading pop star like p. diddy knows well. in this case, it’s a PR stunt for himself. it’s the man, not the message.

To a young person who fears getting drafted, or to a young soldier who fears that they might be sent off to another needless war, or kept in a war zone for years longer than they ought to be, “Vote or Die” is very real.

To a poor mother with unhealthy children, or to an elderly person in poor health, facing the new Flu season, “Vote or Die” is very real.

-Cf

christopher,

i do see your point. but you don’t think it’s mostly a pr stunt by puffy?

In an act of poor netiquette, Joey posted the exact same post in the Dem column. Go over there and you’ll see my response.

Sure it’s a PR stunt, but he also genuinely wants to make sure young people and minorities vote in greater numbers, too. He’s for real about that.

Is it one or the other? No, it’s both.

Wonkette liked the slogan quite a bit.

-Cf

fair enough.

I guess the point of the story is that Lantos didn’t know that Switzerland has an army?

Jack, you are so right! I am tried and sick of the Liberal in this country. If not we are as true and as faithful in following the Christian values as our President does, I would have knocked on their doors and let them try first-hand the price they should pay for being a sympather of Saddam.

The Liberal are so intelligently challenged that they all only listen to this Moore BS. Bush must win the re-election and further secure the country by shutting down these terrorist-linked media. Shame on you, Liberal! The Lord and Bush will deliver us the final victory in Iraq!

It’s fascinating to see this debate. Although, I have to admit, it’s a kind of morbid fascination: in case Bush wins the election the danger for the whole world, not only the US, will grow even more. Kerry is, from an European perspective, rather an unknown in the equation, and therefore the natural bearer of hope. Just too bad that some person like GW, who appears to have difficulties even eating a coockie without nearly choking, has it in its hands to destroy the world. Let’s just hope that God doesn’t only bless America (something I pray for every day), but that he will bless the world by preventing Bush to be re-elected.

Have any of you considered the following:
By revealing information, more specifically who headed Iraq’s rearmament program and where any research/results of this new program disappeared to, we would be jeopardizing our ability to gather more detailed information in the future?
In other words, if Bob gave us the super-secret information concerning WMD’s and Iraq, which would be more beneficial, telling the whole darn world, or keeping your mouth shut and conducting more intelligence gathering? If Bush told us that we know Iraq had WMD’s and we know because Bob told us, Bob would be dead within days. Anyone ever heard of Georgi Markov? He was a Bulgarian defector who was killed in London by a KGB agent stabbing him in the leg with an umbrella. The umbrella has a metal pellet full of Ricin, a biotoxin, that killed him in the throes of agony three days later. Can you imagine what would happen to informants in foreign countries if we released the sources of our intelligence to the American public?? OH, and by telling the American public, you may as well send a memo to every other citizen of the world.

Further more, what would members of Watchblog.org do with such sensitive information? “Honey, I know where the WMD’s went to from Iraq!” “That’s great honey, how was work?” If telling me all of the information on a particular subject will get more troops, CIA operatives, and foreign informants killed, then I don’t want to know.
That is the reason that I will be voting for Bush on the 2nd. He could very easily reveal names, dates, places, plans, etc. concerning Iraq, but he doesn’t because it would jeopardize the sources of that information and prevent its gathering in the future. Instead he takes the political “hit” (i.e. I hate Bush I want to kill him he’s stupid blah blah blah) in order to guarantee our (the American people’s) safety in the future.
Conclusion: We, the American people, have no right to know, nor SHOULD we know, the intimate and highly sensitive intelligence of a current event if it has an immediate and lethal impact on our soldiers or information gathering abilities. I like how Bush is committing political suicide in order to more effectively combat terrorism. He has his priorities in the right place.

> By revealing information, more specifically
> who headed Iraq’s rearmament program and
> where any research/results of this new
> program disappeared to, we would be
> jeopardizing our ability to gather more
> detailed information in the future?

Semper, I most definitely DID consider that possibility. In fact, I think millions of Americans who initially supported the war, or who were ambivalent about it, were thinking those very thoughts. When the war started, I myself was hoping that Bush would turn out to be right about the WMD. I was hoping that he was bravely keeping the proof secret to keep America’s greater interests protected.

But we know now that that simply wasn’t the case. Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN wasn’t the tip of the iceberg, it was the bottom of the barrell.

Your post sounds like the hopeful words of a kid who was just told that that there is no Santa Claus, but who continues to beleive.

It defies common sense to think that today, a year and a half later, the Bush Administration wouldn’t roll out some evidence that WMD’s existed. I mean, it seems likely that at least one contact would have their cover blown, or would be dead, or would no longer be in danger. It seems likely that some documents would have been found somewhere, or some physical evidence. There must be some evidence that could be shown to the American people and to the world in order to show that the invasion wasn’t an intelligence disaster of monumental proportions.

But the fact remains that nothing, nada, zilch has been presented to us. You think it’s brave of the President to commit political suicide, but think about it: If sacrificing an informant’s life, or even a dozen informant’s lives, would allow our country to restore it’s international reputation of being an honest country, I’d pay that price. If allowing a couple of undercover agents in Iraq to be killed would allow the world to have respect for our intelligence gathering capabilities again, I’d pay that price.

During WWI and WWII, such sacrifices were made all the time. Many agents lost their lives when action was taken based on intelligence they provided. Often these actions were tactical or military, but sometimes these actions were political in nature: For example, as I recall, the US and Britain was able to thwart Mexico’s alliance with Germany - and get US domestic and international support for our war with Germany - by revealing the Secret “Zimmerman Telegram” to the American people. Wouldn’t Bush want pay such a simple price to help turn the tide of world opinion back on our side?

If there’s something Bush knows about WMDs and isn’t telling the world about, that would be incredibly bad. Bad for America.

And here’s where your mental image of the Bush Administration falls apart into a million sad little peices: While you piously believe that Bush, with martyr-like conviction, has solid proof that there were WMDs in Iraq, Bush himself has admitted that they weren’t there, that we were wrong about them. Don’t you see? Bush himself no longer stands by the story that you so religiously stand by. You are singing the praises of a political position that is no longer held by even the most loyal Bush Administration official.

It’s like Santa Claus himself pulled his own fake beard off right in front of your face, and yet you still want to sit on his lap.

-Cf

“I’d pay that price. If allowing a couple of undercover agents in Iraq to be killed would allow the world to have respect for our intelligence gathering capabilities again, I’d pay that price.”

Thank God that you will never run for public office. You tell me that I’m a kid? You would sacrifice American citizens’ lives for respect ?!?! WHAT are you talking ABOUT?! YOU’D pay that price? Like hell you would! Americans overseas would pay that price. CIA operatives, military personell, and informants would pay that price. YOU would sit at home in America and bask in your new respect!

Bush himself has admitted that they weren’t there, that we were wrong about them.

Give me a link. You expect me to believe it on your word? No, you give me a plethora of links or stop typing.

You don’t understand the scope of the issue. Do you honestly think that dozens of dead operatives can just be replaced? Do you think that these foreign nations would make the same mistakes, allow the same infiltrations, after being caught with their pants down once? By blowing someone’s cover, you close that entire avenue of information for decades. We don’t air drop these men and women into place overnight. Well placed informant and defectors aren’t born overnight.

How many more “informants” do you think we would have willing to defect to America if they see us hang others high and dry? How many people would trust America with their lives after watching their fellows defectors being tortured. Oh yes, our enemies torture spies. Have you ever met a man who had his arms tied behind his back and then hoisted into the air by a crane until they broke? Have you ever met a man who has survived the Bataan Death March? The world is a dark place, one that you have no idea about.

There are programs, operations, and policies in effect right now that won’t be declassified for 200 years at least. There are programs that, if they are mentioned in undesignated areas, would send the speaker to jail for the rest of his/her life without bail. There is no need for you to know about these programs and policies. There is no need for the world to know about these policies. What would you do with the information? Nothing. You having the above information would serve absolutely no purpose, other than to get people killed.

It takes time to discover weapons, plans, and conspiracies. One year is nothing. One year is a blink of an eye.

Mark, learn to read:

Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

semper wrote:
> Give me a link. You expect me to believe it on
> your word? No, you give me a plethora of links
> or stop typing.

LOL, you Bush supporters are hilarious. You are asking me to help you compensate for the fact that you appear to have been completely ignoring the news for months, or at least the news that contradicts your faith-based (as opposed to reality-based) perspective on the President. Okay, I’ll help you. I’ll even give you a quote from an extreme right-wing newspaper, so you can rest assured that this is not some kind of liberal spin:

“Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there,” he said on the South Lawn of the White House. “The accumulated body of 12 years of our intelligence and that of our allies was wrong.” - Washington Times, Oct 8 2004

Are you going to continue to defend a fantasy that the President himself has disavowed?

> You would sacrifice American citizens’ lives for respect ?!?!

By “respect” I am not talking about “Hey, America is such a noble country, we have such respect for them!”. No, I am talking about “Hey, when American intelligence agencies say that a dictator is plotting to use weapons of mass destruction, you can bet your ass that they are right about it.”… I’m talking about the kind of respect that tells leaders around the world, both friends and foes, that when the President of the United States takes a stand, it will be backed up by the strength of truth and justice.

Also, isn’t “respect” the reason why 1,000+ soldiers have died in Iraq? Isn’t the whole reason (at least the latest reason, Bush changes it so often) for the Iraq War supposed to be because we needed to show the world that they couldn’t mess with the USA without consequences?

The Duelfer report that Bush was referring to above says that Saddam was actually deliberately trying to create a false impression that he had at least some WMDs. He was playing a subtle and devious game: on the one hand trying to look like he didn’t have WMDs in order to avoid conflict with the US and the UN, but on the other hand trying to look like he did have WMD’s in order to fool Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraqi anti-Saddam groups that he was still a threat. What’s sadly ironic about this, is that it seems like he fooled Bush, too. He bluffed, and Bush fell for it, and the whole world knows it.

Do you really think that it isn’t worth the life of one Iraqi informant, or even one American undercover agent, to avoid having to tell the whole world that the American intelligence system is a total peice of crap, as Bush had to do above? See, that’s the cost of making mistakes like Bush did in Iraq - it tells people like Kim Jong Il that America really doesn’t know jack about what’s going on over there. It tells the world that Bush is gullible, easily bluffed, easily fooled.

Finally, as countless intelligence officials have said in the news over the past year, few if any of our undercover agents in Iraq were Americans. Most were Iraqis who were bribed or blackmailed to provide us information, although some were certainly dedicated opponents of Saddam. Many of them turned out to have lied to us, anyway. I’ll be honest, I don’t put a hell of a lot of value on the lives of these people if it means we can avoid America being humiliated around the world.

> There are programs, operations, and policies in effect
> right now that won’t be declassified for 200 years at
> least.

That’s crazy. There is nothing that remains classified from the First World War, which was less than 100 years ago. My CIA father in law helped countless KGB agents and Soviet dissidents publish books and papers here in America, many of them only months after defecting from the Soviet Union in the 60’s, 70s, and 80’s. The KGB in the 1970s is far, far more deadly than Saddam’s agents are right now.

You seem to have a kind of deep respect for insanely paranoid levels of government secrecy that would have made even the Stasi proud.

> It takes time to discover weapons, plans, and
> conspiracies. One year is nothing.

Allow me to appeal to your common sense here. If Bush knows something he hasn’t told us, something that would conclusively show that WMDs existed in Iraq, how could he possibly continue to keep it a secret to this day?

It’s been a year and a half since the invasion. The Iraqi goverment has been totally destroyed. The Iraqi military’s command structure has been dismantled. Saddam’s instruments of totalitarian fear and control have been erased. You’d think that at least one of the undercover agents we had in place in Saddam’s regime before the war would have little to be scared of now. You’d think that at least one site, one laboratory, one lousy document would have turned up that would have helped America avoid the embarassment and humiliation and weakening that Bush has had to put America through.

Moreover, there are tons of people who would also know this information who wouldn’t be as martyr-like as you imagine Bush to be. There are countless Senators and Congressmen who should have known about this imaginary information, including Bush adversaries like John Kerry and John Edwards. There are retired Generals and Administration insiders (Paul O’Neil, Wesley Clark, Richard Clarke) who probably would have known this stuff. Bill Clinton and Al Gore probably would have known this stuff. I’m guessing that you have a somewhat negative view of the moral character and patriotism of many Democrats, so don’t you think that at least one of them would be craven enough to reveal this secret to score political points? It’s insane to think that so many opponents of Bush would have kept such things secret, especially in today’s polarized political environment.

I’ll stop now because I just realized that I’m arguing against a brick wall here… No matter how much evidence from the press I show you, no matter how much common sense I implore you to use, you will continue to think that Bush secretly is doing everything perfectly correctly and that he knows truths that only he, Dick Cheney, and God himself are privy to.

-Cf

semper, you may be comforted to learn that your lack of knowledge of your own candidate’s positions is fairly common among your Republican comrades.

A recent study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks finds that Bush supporters not only are wildly ignorant of world events and news, but that they in fact are wildly ignorant of President Bush’s own positions.

Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush’s international policy positions. Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues—the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)—and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.

“The roots of the Bush supporters’ resistance to information,” according to Steven Kull, “very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters—and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters.”

Here’s a simple table that shows just how ignorant Bush supporters are, and what makes the table more interesting is that is clearly and starkly illustrates how different Kerry supporters are in how much they know about their candidate.

It’s actually quite frightening that so many of Bush’s supporters are voting for a person who exists only in their imagination.

-Cf

You’re right Fahey, I am not overly informed about my candidates positions. You’re also right that there were most likely not WMD’s in Iraq. I want to believe there was SOMETHING though. I want to believe because I need to have hope. When you think about it, 1,500 is an extremely low death count for going on two years now. Gettysburg, a battle of 3 days, had an overall casualty rate of about 50 thousand. Still, there is no price on a man’s life right? So, I guess what I’m trying to get to is that I want to believe that those 1,500, no matter how small, died for a worth while cause whether that was to make the world safer or as retribution for crimes against humanity.

The truth is, I don’t feel that I have enough choices in this election. I feel as if Bush and Kerry have divided America with their partisan politics and smear campaigns. I don’t want to vote for Nader because, from what I understand, he has violated election laws? That’s definitely not good.

It’s true that Bush has made some really silly policy decisions. It’s also true that, IMO, he doesn’t possess the very critical skill of self-criticism to be President. I also feel that Kerry is not a man of integrity. Kerry seems like the type of person who blows whichever way the wind does.

So, November 2nd will be a very difficult day for me. I will vote for one of two people who I feel have caused division and political strife. It’s not a question of who I want to take office, but who I can stomach taking office. The biggest factor in my decision will be whether I want to give Bush a chance to rectify his mistakes or not. I believe in second chances, and I believe that George W. Bush deserves one. Another large factor is that Kerry is definitely not inspiring me vote for him as leader.

Long post, sorry. Summary: You’re right, except of course about my overall lack of knowledge =P

I also feel that Kerry is not a man of integrity. Kerry seems like the type of person who blows whichever way the wind does.

There’s an interesting article in the latest New Republic about how the Bush campaign manufactured the flip-flop myth. The truth is, Kerry has been pretty consistent on everything.

semper, it’s interesting that your reasoning can be summed up as:

Bush has screwed up just about everything, but he says Kerry’s a flip-flopper. So I can’t vote for Kerry.

that’s too bad. But at least when Bush says he’s going to screw something up (pretty much every time he proposes something), you can be sure he’s going to do it.

BTW, I’m totally with you on Iraq meaning something. Now that we’re there, Bush should be putting every resource he has into securing the country, rebuilding infrastructure, promoting liberty, and bringing Iraq into the global economy ASAP. Too bad he’s not doing that.

One thing about a Kerry presidency, he - and the rest of the world - are going to be under a lot more pressure to make Iraq a success.

Right now, the devloped world is getting a free ride on helping in Iraq. They can say that they don’t like Bush, so they’re not going to pony up troops or cash. But once Bush is out of office, they’re going to have to put up or shut up on the “we don’t hate America, we just hate Bush” talk.

> Right now, the devloped world is getting a
> free ride on helping in Iraq. They can say
> that they don’t like Bush, so they’re not
> going to pony up troops or cash.

AP, that’s a good point. I don’t think that the rest of the world, even France, actually hates America at all. Bush’s supporters do think the rest of the world hates America, and thus they are comfortable with the idea that we shouldn’t look to them for help. I guess we’ll find out after Kerry wins.

-Cf

Semper, thanks for the long post. I agree that we need to believe in something in order to do right in Iraq. Your Gettysburg comparison is extremely interesting to me, and it has given me some food for thought as well:

During wars, lots of mistakes are made. During WWII, tens of thousands of American soldiers died due to mistakes, some of them due to major strategic mistakes at high levels of command. Entire battalions were devastated because of bad intelligence, poor strategy, bad luck, and gambles that didn’t pay off. But in the big picture, the mission was still correct: Defeating fascism. Did the Americans who died because of those mistakes die for nothing? Of course not. Were the people who made the mistakes held accountable? I should hope so.

At the end of the War of 1812, there was a famous and bloody battle in New Orleans. Problem is, the battle was fought two weeks after a peace treaty was signed. Does that make the soldiers who died there any less brave, does it make the battle meaningless? Does it mean that they fought for nothing? Of course not.

The Iraq War was supposed to be a battle in the war on terrorism. It was supposed to stop an evil dictator from delivering weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. But it was a mistake: not only did Saddam not have WMDs, but he wasn’t connected to Al Qaeda. 1000+ Americans have died because of those mistake. But, when compared to Gettysburg or WWII’s battles, Iraq is just one battle, one that was fought based on a pile of greivous mistakes at the highest levels of command, but one that we must finish nonetheless. When compared to other wars and the military mistakes made in the past, it’s not such a huge mistake that our soldiers should feel guilty about what they are doing, or even discouraged. They are now fighting to bring democracy to Iraq. That’s the mission, and Americans from both major parties, Democrats and Republicans, stand behind them 100%. When he’s President, Kerry will stand behind that mission 100%.

In other words, even though the invasion itself was at best an inexcusable mistake, there is still something to beleive in: A Democratic Iraq. Think of it as the silver lining to the dark cloud of Bush’s decision making.

I appreciate your candor in your post. I also beleive in second chances, but Bush hasn’t even given any indication that he thinks he’s done anything wrong with his first chance. Before one can change, one must admit error. While he’s admitted that there were no WMDs, he doesn’t take the next logical step admit that the war was a mistake. Instead, he makes excuses. He blames the military, he blames the intelligence angencies. And finally, he simply changed the reason for the war after the fact, pretending today that WMDs weren’t the reason anyway. I have no confidence that Bush won’t make more of the same types of mistakes he has made in the past. Please note that all of his businesses were failures, too. How many mistakes does he have to make before we realize that he is not a capable leader? Losing the election won’t be the end of the world for him - he’ll be fine.

Finally, as AP has pointed out, John Kerry’s “flip flopping” is a Bush campaign invention. His policy has been the same all along, and I’ve always been in agreement with it:

Saddam was an unknown threat and he was avoiding weapons inspections. Bush was right to threaten to attack him if he didn’t comply with inspections. Under the threat in late 2002 and early 2003, Saddam began to comply and reports began to appear that he did, in fact, not have WMDs. Seeing this compliance, Bush ordered the attack anyway. Kerry didn’t agree that Saddam should have been attacked at that time. He thought that we should have let the inspections continue. If they had gone further and shown Saddam to be WMD free, we’d keep the inspectors and the troops there to ensure he remained WMD free, even if this meant keeping Saddam in office. If, however, during or after this inspection process Saddam kicked the inspectors out again, or attacked them or our troops, or got out of line at all, Kerry thinks we should have attacked him. If Saddam’s belligerence were serious, for example if he attacked Israel or Kuwait, then we should attack him very hard. But invasion? As Kerry has said over and over again, Invasion should have been our last resort. It was not, and Bush knew it.

Again, thanks for the thoughful post.

-Cf