Third Party & Independents: Archives

It is night two, and nothing of substance has come from the Convention. Nothing about the economy plan, nothing about the globalization threat, nothing of substance about saving SS or Medicare, nothing about fully funding No Child Left Behind.

Well, there are two more nights (I think), so we will wait and see. It was good that we established that George and his daughters have good relationship these days, and it was vitally important to establish that Laura still loves and respects George.

I was a little confused by Laura’s discussion of George wrestling over what to do after 9/11. Seems to me most folks would not have had a very difficult time with that. 1) Find out who attacked us and 2)do what is necessary to insure they don’t do it again. But, apparently George has a lot of trouble over that one, according to Laura.

Moderation? No!
Stupidity? Yes!
It seems that the RNC can only blow smoke when it comes to issues that face our nation and our leadership in the world. Telling people what they want to hear is easy. What I want to know from both Bush and Kerry is when are they going to get real about doing something other than talking. Between both of them they have raised enough money ($400+ million) to give every American (Almost 300 million) a check for a $1,000,000.00 and still have change left over. This figure doesn’t even account for the money spent by the 527’s. And yet, they still can’t figure out how to give everybody health care, solve SS and Medicare, and the hundred of other problems that face this nation. It seems to me Yale ought to recall their degrees for lack of ability to think.

hmmmm….

a million dollars would be nice…..

Its interesting to see the new Democratic positioning, and it seems to be being led in these blogs by the estimable David Remer.

The new talking point: Bush did nothing that any other president would not have done.

Interesting that so many have become Bushbashers because of what Bush has done. But now they are saying in effect , “Our guy would have done the same thing.” This flip flop is along the lines of the contrasting ideas of Bush being stupid and Bush being able to get his ideas passed by Congress.

If you go back in time, you see the Democrats shifting their position frequently. Just look at one example of the economy—-here’s a litany of the “left’s” whines:

**The economy isn’t improving.

**Tax cuts were stupid. See how they arent working (this after the voting, but prior to the implementation of the tax cuts)

**Tax cuts are driving the economy down further (again, before the implementation…lol)

**MAJOR SHIFT: Ok the economy is improving slightly but its still down from Clinton’s years.

**The economy is improving, but its a jobless recovery.

**Ok, jobs are being created (due to the fact that the press finally noticed the ELEVEN CONSECUTIVE MONTHS OF JOB CREATION, for a total of 1.5 million new jobs), but they arent good jobs.

** Then back to, Well, its still a net loss of jobs—first guy since Hoover—so it doesnt matter that the current path we are on is good.

The left has a meandering logic. They throw something out there, and hang with it until its patently disproved by incontrovertible fact. Then they toss something else out there.

There’s many other examples:

Lets not reopen old Viet Nam wounds——-John Kerry reporting for duty (along with a cheesy salute)

I wont comment on Bush’s military record——Bush was AWOL etc.

527’s are great—-527’s that are against Democrats are terrible.

The Republicans always have so much more money——look at the boatloads of money we are bringing in. Isnt it great!!!

And now the latest shift is that Bush did what anyone else would have done. Kerry has even gone so far as to say that he too would have invaded Iraq, even knowing what he knows today.

So the real question is: If Bush did only what everyone else would have done (forget that he was lambasted for being such a war hawk and a Hitler), and Kerry admits he’d have done the same things, then why would anyone vote for Kerry. He’s just a “me-too”.

I will answer this from my own personal perspective. And to address your assumption that we are ‘meandering’ - this is the same post I gave a couple months back when asked why the left was so anti-bush:

90% of my anyone-but-bush sentiment comes from his war on Iraq. I will spare all of the reasons because you’ve heard them all before on WB. But from the beginning it was obvious to me and to the millions of protestors leading up to the war(whom you label peacenik wackos, even though it turns out that they were right all along in this case) that intelligence was not half as solid as the administration made it out to be in making the case for war.

The other 10% - which I did not include in my previous post on this topic - is the administration’s general lack of ability to look at problems and ideas from multiple angles. I get the feeling that they are getting delirious with their power between the Congress majority and Bush in the big house. They seem to be taking advantage of this power by rushing to pass legislation that has not been thought out. Whether it be long term effects, short term effects, economic effects, effects on foreign relations- many of these elements seem to be overlooked in the decisions being made.

“Bush does what any President would have done” has always been obvious regarding 9/11. I believed it then as I do now. But only in regards to 9/11 and the hunt for al Queda, nothing else Bush has done fits that bill.

The economy is constantly changing so discussion is bound to change. Much of economics is theory anyways and there has always been disagreement among the varying theories. This said, Bush’s tax cuts have still failed to provide even a small portion of the jobs that they predicted would come about. Thats an undisputable fact and another example of their limited-scope decision making.

peezee said: The economy is constantly changing so discussion is bound to change. Much of economics is theory anyways and there has always been disagreement among the varying theories.

Exactly right. Dubya came into office during the first year of what could be called the Clinton/Gore recession. Clinton/Gore entered office during the first year of the cycle’s upswing that began during the last year of the senior Bush’s administration. They blamed Bush the Elder for the downturn and claimed credit for the upturn. Fair enough. Politicians are allowed to do stuff like that.

But I just realized that what both sides are missing in this campaign is a weekly mantra. Clinton was a master of this technique. Remember “The worst economy in 50 years” and “The last 12 years of Reagan/Bush?” Even Hillary tried it with her “vast right-wing conspiracy,” but that created more jokes than anything else. She’s pretty good, but not that good.

Every Monday morning, you could count on seeing everyone from Bill Clinton on down to some deputy assistant under-secretary, all using the same phrase. Within hours it was being quoted by every talking head and newspaper in the country, fortifying the Democrats and infuriating the Republicans. I don’t think there’s ever been a more effective, or divisive, political team in our history. No question about it, the man is a political genius.

Kerry probably came the closest to that technique when he and his folks started using “fear and smear” a week or so ago. It was a nice try, but just not really in the same league as the old master.

I understand there may be a major shake-up in Kerry’s staff shortly, so maybe there’s still hope for a good weekly mantra. In the meantime, they’ll just have to make do with: fear and smear…fear and smear…you’re getting drowsy…fear and smear….

jbod, it is frightening to me to see so many utterly incapable or unwilling to distinguish between our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. My point, how can you miss it?, was that any President would have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 upon learning the attacks of 9/11 emmanted from there and that Afghanistan was home base to the leadership that sponsored the 9/11 attacks.

Iraq was an entirely different situation having virtually no relationship to 9/11 or Afghanistan. Other presidents may well have acted diffently regarding our invasion into Iraq.

I really fail to see what you are railinig against. The logic and truth of the statements above are to me, inescapeable.

What about these statements scares you so much into discounting the obvious?

David:

My point is that its easy to say that now, since there is no way to disprove that statement. But judging from our past, when we knew who certain culprits were but did little or nothing, its not the slam dunk statement that you make it.

Bill Clinton knew Osama was a really bad guy, but he didnt take him when he had the chance. I know there are many legalities that stood in the way, and I’m not saying Clinton was totally wrong in his decision. But the bottom line is he had a chance to act decisively on this and didnt.

Jimmy Carter knew who had our hostages in Iran, yet they remained hostages for 444 days. There was a military attempt to free them, but no ramification for the Iranian government.

So its easy for you to now claim that anyone would have acted. But history shows us that’s just not a credible statement.

I understand the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. I fear you do not see the connection. While Iraq has not been shown to be connected to 9-11 (there are threads, but no solid proof of connection, in my opinion), Iraq HAS been shown to be connected with terrorism. Its common knowledge the Saddam paid the families of suicide bombers, that he housed Abu Nidal, and that Zarkawy was welcome in Iraq.

It is beyond me that you cannot even entertain the notion that terrorists KNEW America didnt fight back. They knew they could act with relative impunity, and so did the countries that housed them. So what did our lack of action bring us…..futher attacks. Why?? Because they could.

David, I fear we are diametrically opposed on this issue. I see the Iraq war as a warning to nations who harbor terrorists. I see it as holding a dictator accountable to the promises he made in a cease fire agreement. I see it as plainly stating that the US got tired of treating Saddam with kid gloves and with extensions upon extensions. Saddam had his opportunity to honor his promise—-he chose not to.

Unfortunately, its necessary to fight fire with fire sometimes. By not doing so, the US was taken to be weak minded and weak willed. We are not taken to be that way anymore.

According to early reports, AIDS activists just crashed the Republican convention and interrupted the proceedings by shouting, blowing whistles, assaulting delegates and all the usual Democrat “activist” demonstration crap. Apparently they managed to procure press credentials to sneak past security.

Then I look at this forum and see outrage from the left because Republicans aren’t being “moderate” enough. Good grief.

No, jbod, your argument is illogical. Given any realistic potential President, what could you possibly imagine such a President’s motivation to be to refuse to retalliate against OBL, al-Queda, and their homespace, Afghanistan, after 9/11?

Any president would have to have gone completely insane to think that 1) going after OBL and al_Queda would not be the appropriate actions, 2) that the only way to go after them was to move onto their home turf Afghanistan.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn. Any President (not completely insane) would have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 had occured on their watch.

If you disagree, please, define what motivation and logic a person with all of the saavy it would take to become President, would abide in justifying NOT invading Afghanistan in the wake of demands from the government, the people, and the survivors of the 9/11 attacks to do just that?

David:

Just as I cannot say that any President would NOT have gone to Afghanistan, neither can you say that any President WOULD have gone in.

Now you are trying to get me to prove the unprovable…a very good debate trick, I must say. Well done.

A President could look at the information and conclude the political and human fallout could be too great to consider an invasion. A President could consider that the loss of civilian life would be too great. A President could conclude that economic sanctions would harm the government enough, with no loss of American soldiers.

There are many ways to have looked at it. But these ways would be wrong. Throughout history we’ve seen examples of misplaced strategies that in hindsight look foolish and stupid. Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler now looks so obviously wrong that we cannot understand how he missed so many clues. Yet at the time, he was lauded for his statesmanship.

Your use of hindsight allows you to know that going into Afghanistan was the right move. And perhaps in the future, you will see the Iraq conflict with the viewpoint provided by historical hindsight.

Bush is a decisive man—even his detractors know that. A less decisive man might have wavered in his committment to sending young men into battle, even in Afghanistan. It took Jimmy Carter months to gather up the fortitude to try a military solution when Americans were held hostage by terrorists. How would another President have acted? As I said earlier, we will never know. Your conjecture doesnt make it so.

Yesterday Henry stated that the Bush and Kerry campaigns have raised enough money between them ($400 million) to send everyone in America (300 million people) a $1 million check. To give 300 million people $1 million, it would take $300 trillion ($300,000,000,000,000).