(e-mail I sent to Bart):

Bart:

Didn’t you start running the pink tutu picture of Kerry, Edwards, Liebermann, and Gephardt because they backed Bush on the Iraq War? You know, before we found no WMD? Given your recent back-pedaling on Hillary, can I count on you to stop running that picture?

CarbonDate

-----------
Backup forum: http://carbondate.proboards33.com

well, an excerpt...

....
Hey Bart, a question you asked one of your Hillary bashers yesterday
really brought me up short! You asked:

"IF your choices are Hillary or the BFEE stooge - how you gonna vote?"

After struggling with this dilemma, I still can't answer except to say:
"Maybe I will vote 3rd party for the 1st time in my life"

So, I got a question for you:

IF President "we had the same intelligence" Hillary decides to
"send more troops" to die for a lie like she's been advocating......
will you still support her?

hahahaha. I hate Hillary, but you are right about one thing-
she'll do anything to win.
...

~Write hard, die free.

... who are blinded by 'celebrity' is that Hillary "wont play in Peoria." She's been branded since 1992 and before as an overly ambitious, domineering female "liberal," bent on gaining personal power. I don't think any amount of campaigning will help her shed that perception. Too many people just don't like her.. For once in our lives, let's put our efforts behind someone who CAN win, not somebody we WISH would win!

if the CIA had briefed us that Saddam did indeed pose some threat....
Well, I remember those days and my words at the time pretty well. I remember I was skeptical and not just because I disliked George Dubya Boosh. I remember reading all sorts of things at the time -- there was a flash movie from England with Boosh and Blair as King Arthur and 'Tiny?' (Terry Gilliam) in 'The Holy Grail' by Monty Python, which absolutely shot down the Al tubes theory. Months and months before any such resolution.

There was Scott Ritter. There was Hans Blix. There was plenty of reason to be skeptical and moreover, oughtn't it be in the nature of senators to exercise such, shall I say, Enlightenment era scientific, skeptical reasoning routinely, especially to the claims of persons in the highest positions of power and more especially if these same folk are in opposition Parties, and even yet more especially as it has to do with the decision whether or not to go to war? A war which very conveniently seems to have been on the agenda for a long time? Even Paul O'Neill and Time magazine gave evidence of that. Is it not possible that all of DC in fact *knew* of Smirk's hardon for Saddam?

I hate to say it again, but I told you so { http://tinyurl.com/c47zx }.
Again, boys and girls: The American mainstream media must make room for those of us in the reality-based community. I'm talking about those people who realized on 9/11/01 the Bush administration had to have been asleep at the switch; those people who understood after bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora that the Afghanistan war was a catastrophic military failure; those of us who heard of Bush/Iraq in spring, 2002 and were utterly appalled anyone would take seriously an idea so plainly bonkers; and those of us who immediately grasped that a catastrophic earthquake in a land that just happened to be at the center of several overlapping nuclear confrontations was an emergency - both human and political- that those nations committed to defeating al Qaeda simply had no choice but to pay serious attention to.
I mean, why can't we hear from experts who are right on a regular basis? Where the hell are they? Does Richard Clarke have an op-ed column? Is he provided the same access to tubed eyeballs -and the same courtesy- that the Swift Boaters and the crazy generals Digby described yesterday? Anyone recently see Rand Beers in the news two days in a row?

_________________
2nu

Well, I hope that *I* would have put
my constituents' political interests
ahead of my own political interests.

(Of course, *I* knew then what *I* know now)


~Write hard, die free.

So let's say Hillary and the others voted against the war and then went to the voters and explained that they just knew for a fact that everything our govt. told them was a lie. Then she could trot out 2's flash movie and statements from Blix and Ritter and so on and cliam the media was part of a VRWC and all that.

What do you think the reaction would have been? Not from us and BC and the MINORITY of the public who also just plain *knew*, but from the entirety of the public, which by a pretty large majority supported the war. You think they'd give a flying fuck what Hans Blix said?

I guess it would be nice if she and the rest had voted they way we would have liked them to but at the end of the day it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference, and 'nice' will get you nowhere. We'd still be in this mess and everyone who's dead would be just as dead.

And you could add a few more self-inflicted political casualties to the list.


mundus vult decipi

was that 1)The Aluminium (sic brit) tubes in question were anodized, which makes them unsuitable for Uranium enrichment and prima facie an unlikely material which would have to be expensively scrubbed clean.
2) That the anthrax involved in the US attacks was categroically DoD anthrax, and unlikely to be Iraqi
3) that there were no contacts with Al Qaeda, the Prague meeting of Mohamed Atta meeting being a different Atta
4) that the letter to Niger was (this is independent of and before Wilson) known to be forged because the name of the minister was that of a man who had been minister 10 years before and was so no longer minister as of the date of the letter!
These are all salient points.
As for chemical weapons, they degrade over time. Where would Iraq have gotten the U? These things are tracked.
Where is the evidence of clandestine bioweapons factories? Did they show Hillary those trucks? Remember that at the time I thought it impossible you could operate refrigerators and centrifuges aboard a fucking truck, unless you have it parked with a good electrical supply handy, which should be observable from space. These are all points of relevant technology which someone could have been and frankly was skeptical about and if necessary, responsible independent experts in said technology could have been consulted, as some were by some of the more responsible journalists at the time as well, and brought their expertise to bear in defense of a skeptical vote, either in Congress or on the public airwaves.

wargame vetted scenarios for a post invasion Iraq, wherein it was abundantly clear that we totally lacked an exit strategy -- to whom were we going to turn over the reins of government ? Our options were already obviously limited. More so by going it alone.

Fine. I'm not disputing any of that.
Now break it down to a sound bite that Joe Average can understand while he's thinking of mushroom clouds.


mundus vult decipi

If she doesn't have the moral courage to stand up for what's right, then the right's criticisms of her as being unprincipled and power hungry are, in fact, correct.

-----------
Backup forum: http://carbondate.proboards33.com

And she wouldn't have all that blood on her hands.

If she's so tough, why couldn't she take the heat
to do "the right thing"?

F Hillary and all the other enablers.


Quote:

Really? She'd look good after years of "Hillary loves Saddam and hates our troops and our values and blah blah blah" day after day after every fucking day? Not that she doesn't get that anyway (and from both sides now, to some extent) but on a matter like this it would sink in deeper. More minds would be made up about her than already were.

And I reject the notion that she or any other Dem who voted for the war has blood on thier hands. If there had been any possibility that it could have gone the other way they would have voted the other way. That sort of vote switching goes on all the time. No smart pol throws thier career away for a lost cause. This ain't 'Mr. Smith Goes To Washington'.

Azul does have a point about her continued support, but I'd want to see the exact language she's used recently before I really even made my mind up over that. We've lost this war, which should be plain to anyone who's paying attention. Now we have to get out in a way that will cause the least overall damage. When the time comes to do that I believe virtually all the Dems who initially supported the war will know what to do.
But until Bush is gone they probably won't be able to do it alone.


mundus vult decipi

ain't that a shame.

Buy into Kissinger's realpolitic?
my tears fall like rain.


~Write hard, die free.

Aw come on. Kissinger?
Even I can be nicer than that, and I'm a real bastard.


mundus vult decipi

Forget the "doing what's right" stuff.
Forget the "blood on the hands" stuff.
Forget the "died for a lie" stuff.

Now that 56% (I think that's the number)
of Americans think the invasion Iraq was a mistake,
how does Hillary make political hay out of her position?


~Write hard, die free.

I'd imagine she's giving that a great deal of thought, and she's certain to make the attempt. I'll be interested to see how she pulls it off, and whether it'll be enough for those who've written her off over this alone.

Kerry seems to have placated a good many even though he was more than a day late and three million votes short. If he can do it she can too. Of course I have no idea exactly how she'll go about it, but I'd guess it'll be somewhat more elaborate and clever than the way Kerry and Gep did it.
And she'll pick her time carefully. Don't forget the ongoing controversy over the pre-war intel. That's finally getting some real attention and will undoubtedly have an impact on when she makes her move.


mundus vult decipi

Quote:

The fact is as I can see the Dems we see never want to take responsibility for anything either. Someone has to be responsible.
And that's what the short version is, she could have said something like this in her Newshour interview:

"I asked questions, I was not satisfied with the answers, I am skeptical by nature, and I am a skeptic of this administration's wisdom or interest in these matters. And I talked to outside experts, too, and they are skeptical.
Therefore I cannot support an ill-conceived invasion at this time, with no exit strategy in sight.
I voted no.
.....
Later on in the same interview --
..."if this were a bargaining chip for pressing for better, more stringent, sanctions I would be in favor of it, but it is more than that, I am convinced. I would like to be proven wrong, but my feeling, certainly, is that I am not.

that is clearly putting us all at more risk and not less. For political gain.. and she may cause us to lose if she is the anointed candidate in 2008 since the numbers show most people don't support this war and she doesn't give voters an alternative to "staying the course"...

Even I could see that invading Baghdad was going to be a disaster and that the administration was and still is delusional about bombing Iraq into a "democracy".

I wonder if oil companies are doners to her campaigns?

As far as the Iraq War goes, Hillary has been no different from Joe Liebermann. Dick Gephardt has actually taken a more critical position on the Iraq War than Hillary has, and yet he gives Hillary a pass while blasting Gephardt, Kerry, and Liebermann.

What's the deal?

-----------
Backup forum: http://carbondate.proboards33.com

And Kerry at least seems to 'get it' finally, a bit late.

... is coming from. Her Senate career is anything but remarkable. Name me just ONE major legislative accomplishment she's performed. !!??!!

She blew the one-payer health care opportunity in the first Clinton administration by dawdling and lawyering to death something that could have passed in a modest version causing a mojor loss of her husband's political capital and opening his administration up to Noot's Contract ON America.

Democrats have been down ever since, and she's NOT the one to unify and bring them back to prominence. Like Gore, she may find her voice occasionally, but overall, she's not effective at anything I've seen.

If you WANT the BFEE to continue to win, put up a lightning-rod, controversial, universally hated woman as your candidate and give the red-meat opposition time to organize and develop its smear machine, which they will undoubtedly do.

While I'm at it, throw Lieberman's sorry ass out of the party, along with my "Democrat" Congressman Ed Case, who consistently votes the Republican party line.

...but this is the first time I've suspected that he actually works for them. I didn't even suspect it when Carville showed up at JulieFest, but while he may have started small, his website is way too big now to not have caught the Clintons' eye.

-----------
Backup forum: http://carbondate.proboards33.com

ya know power is an aphrodisiac for men too not just women.
And I think she could really let go with the best of them, really let her hair down and take off her glasses if ya know what I mean...

He still does good things and is miles above Bush however.

First of all, I don't understand why sucking up to Bush and voting for his war is going to look like a smart political move in 2008. It's like Kerry said, explaining his war vote "who knew that they were going to screw it up this badly?" (paraphrasing). This really means "I know it's crap. Instead of speaking the truth, which might be risky, I'm going to try to use this to position myself." Kerry, however, miscalculated and so did Hillary.

Second of all, I don't think that Hillary is a skillful politician. I have never heard her give an effective speech, for instance. Remember her big speech at the 2004 convention? That was supposed to be her big chance, and it was a trite, unconvincing, not-well-delivered mess. She does not project a genuine or sympathetic persona like Bill does. She comes off as a smug insider. She has the same vibe as Lieberman that way. The perma-grin and smoothly delivered sentences carefully crafted to have enough ambiguity to maximize agreement. If Hillary runs, her popularity will go down the more she is seen.

// "Popularity" is fleeting. Her's will sink like a rock the minute she starts getting national press.

BTW, whatever happened to her campaign pledge to introduce legislation to abolish the Electoral College?

That's just ONE of her utterances that'll come back to bite her should she appear to become a serious candidate.

That was a finer moment.

Well well.
I still think he wants to do Hillary.

Barbara Boxer maybe, or Russ Feingold, as VP on the ticket headed by Wes Clark.

... with only a link. No excerpts or review.

most of the direct posts. Not altogether substantively, but directly.

.. "who else is there?"

For one, Wesley Clark, who the Democrats passed over and cut the ground from under. He brought much of the criticism on himself by playing coy instead of getting out in front with face-time on TV, like McCain is doing every chance he gets.

For two, Mark Warner. He's sniffing the wind and could bring along the South, now that the red-necks are finally waking up to the fact that they've been royally shafted.

For three, Tom Harkin. He speaks "midwest" and knows how to rally a crowd.

Those are just off the top of my head. None has the baggage Hillary would have to overcome.

Yes! I'd like to see the Democrat "leadership" pull its head out of its ass and get behind a "clean" candidate they wouldn't have to apologize for; one who wouldn't be so stupid as to say he "voted aginst it before I voted for it," and then roll over and play dead when the negative ads come out.

I really believed Dean had what it took to win, but he allowed himself to be framed by his opposition, both Democrat and Republican, instead of carrying the fight to them.

I mistakenly believed when he became chairman of the DNC he'd clean house and field a team that could and WOULD change the party outlook. Sadly, he's hung on to the losers. Our do-nothing local Dem heirachy remains unchanged. I won't be bit by the same dog twice.

Who's a better candidate than Hillary?

Just about anybody with real spine and real spunk, not one who hides their failure to accomplish anything behind the "freshman senator" status as an excuse. Chuck Schumer is only two years her senior, but even HE would be a better-accepted than Hillary, and he DOES have some Capitol Hill experience prior to the Senate. She doesn't. She swallowed the same Republican 'keys to the city' bait as her husband did, and look where it got them.

Hillary appeals only to the celebrity-blinded tail-waggers who are of no political consequence whatsoever. Barbra Streisand would stand a better chance of being ELECTED.

Did Ken Starr spend years trying to humiliate Lieberman?
Did Ken Starr send men to rifle thru Lieberman's underwear drawer?
Did the NRA spend tens of millions attacking Lieberman?
Did you see a Lieberman photo with a Hitler mustache in a thousand guns shops?

Total non sequitur. Their positions on the Iraq War are the same, and you haven't addressed that essential point.

Hillary is going to come out against this war,

Excuse me? Speaking of "assuming facts not in evidence", something you accuse us of plenty of times....

and you, too, have failed to mention a better candidate than Hillary.

Not the point; I asked if you were going to take down the pink tutu photo when Hillary has actually done less to fight Bush than Kerry has. She has not only passively voted "yes", but actively supported and defended the Iraq War. Does "we had the same evidence" sound familiar? Of course it does, because you offer it as an excuse for Hillary while refusing to cut anybody else the same break.

But just to placate you, I'll offer Clark and Feingold as superior candidates. Or perhaps we could go with a female candidate like Maria Cantwell from Washington who got where she is on her own rather than one who rode on her husband's coat-tails?

We could send up a third nice, wimpy, meek, bland, cowering, tentative candidate in 2008.
Why do you think the BFEE bastards will play nice for another nice, wimpy, meek, bland, cowering, tentative candidate?

Who the fuck is advocating that, Bart? Surely not I. Surely not pandora. You're the one who's advocating a candidate who voted for the Patriot Act and for the Iraq War. I'm advocating a Clark/Feingold ticket. Oh, but you'll point out that Feingold voted for a few of Bush's appointees. Fuck that. Feingold gives leniancy on a qualified, if ideologically distasteful Supreme Court nominee, Clinton gives leniancy on the Iraq War.

I had to really fucking swallow hard to vote for Kerry last year because I took his IWR vote as a personal fucking betrayal. Unlike most people in this discussion, the IWR wasn't an academic question; it was real-world for me. But since it was a choice between a guy who wimped out and caved to political pressure in voting in favor of the IWR and the guy who actually started the war, the choice was obvious. Never again. Bush isn't going up for re-election in 2008, so the Democrats are going to have to do better than ABB. If the choice in 2008 is between John McCain, who actually stood against the President from his own party and brought the "no torture" resolution to the floor of the Senate, and has promised to amend it to every significant piece of legislation until it passes; and Hillary Clinton, who has yet to take a risky, principled stand on anything, I can't promise I won't go for McCain out-right instead of going third-party like pandora has said.

Expect a "Thank you" from Karl Rove.

I sat by and watched them field an unprincipled candidate with Kerry; they don't get to take my vote for granted again in 2008. They have to fucking earn it. Being "notBush" isn't going to fly, anymore. Fool me once....

She's a freshman senator with an approval rating in the high 60's.

She's a former First Lady representing a politically friendly state. And I'm not sure how 63% equates to "high" sixties, but maybe that's that New Math I've heard so much about. Here's my source:

http://www.surveyusa.com/50State2005/100USSenators1005SortbyState.htm

Barack Obama is a freshman senator with a 73% approval rating. And Russ Feingold got re-elected last year by an 11% margin in a swing state running as one of the more liberal candidates in the nation. That shows he has more going on than just his politics.

Oh, and Joe Liebermann has a 69% approval rating in his state. So moving on to relevant discussion?

It's late. I'm going to bed.

-----------
Backup forum: http://carbondate.proboards33.com

Just sayin'.

Obama would also be better.
But I say NO fuggin Senators at the top of the ticket, please.
Get a governor or an ex-general pundit.

The last time a sitting Senator won the Presidency.
Bart?
"Who was John F. Kennedy"?

Correct, pick again.
The last time before that that a Senator won the Presidency.

Bart?
Ummmm.... who was Chester A Arthur?

Agreed! No Senators top of ticket!!!

What strikes me so clearly is that Bart and Throgg,
while portraying Hillary as tough and a winner, have
actually pointed out that she is a finger-in-the-wind
opportunist -

"carefully choosing the moment of her anti-war switch" (sic)

That makes her a follower, not a leader, guys.

And now that 59% (latest poll) think the invasion
of Iraq was a mistake, it makes her slow/stupid too.

As for who would make a better candidate.....

Anyone who will start dealing with the election fraud
issue YESTERDAY. I'd say Conyers, but he ain't running.


Quote:

"What strikes me so clearly is that Bart and Throgg, while portraying Hillary as tough and a winner, have actually pointed out that she is a finger-in-the-wind opportunist"

I don't recall saying anything about toughness, I was just addressing your comment about voting for a third party candidate if she got the nomination.
I think she could probably take Gen. Clark two falls out of three, though.

That was a joke.

As for whether she's an opportunist, well DUH. Care to name anyone who's been nominated by either party in the last...oh, 100 years, with all fingers and both thumbs waving in the breeze, who wasn't?

I'll wait.

(And don't say Jimmy Carter. I'm ready for that one.)

Is she a winner? Well, I don't recall Mamie Eisenhower being elected to anything.
If you know what I mean.

I'm not as convinced as Bart seems to be that she'll be the eventual nominee, but she's the undisputed frontrunner right now and she's raising an incredible amount of money at this very early stage. I don't care to handicap the race now (or in this thread) but anyone who dismisses her chances is a fool.
And as a Democrat who will vote for WHOEVER our nominee is I feel the same way about people who throw thier votes away. I personally thought Carter was a jumped up little cracker who couldn't manage a one car funeral but I voted for him anyway because the alternative was unthinkable, and it'll take someone fifty times worse than him or Clinton to make me even consider changing my mind about that.


mundus vult decipi

in fact I was never very impressed with him. But he does grow on one. I have liked him better and better over the last 25 years.

Adlai Stevenson.
And probably George McGovern.
Almost certainly Barry Goldwater, an ideologue not a *politician* particularly.

Did you ask: 'who has WON...?' Didn't think so.

Adlai crossed my mind. I do think I could knock him down, as well as McG and Goldy.
There's one other loser I thought of.
No winners, though.

This might be a good idea for a more contemplative thread sometime after this one dies down. "Could an 'idealistic' candidate win, considering past performances"?


mundus vult decipi

Non-sequitur. Strawman. Smearing the opponent. Fudging the facts. Irrelevencies.

At least he's consistent.

http://toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/oily_grail1.htm

.

CNN flat-out said so in some piece they had on Condosleezzza Rice this morning. The Busheviks are currently flooding the news with her escapades in order to paint a better picture of the misadministration. She hasn't gotten caught in any scandals as of yet, so they're doing the "lipstick on a pig" thing with her, in hopes that the people will fall for it.

The CNN story also stated that this latest PR barrage is also a means of grooming her for a run for the presidency, where they have even chosen her rival for her: Hillary Clinton.

I for one, have yet to hear Hillary say she's running. Until she does, this whole issue is rather moot. That being said, I'm with secondharmonic on this one: Clark/anybody (I prefer Bill Richardson). Hillary would probably be a good president, but now's not the time. Perhaps she's posturing just so that the Rethugs put forth someone like Sleezzzy, who might win against her, but doesn't stand a chance against a Gen. Clark?

Please recall that Edwards was so pro-invasion that
the WH used his op-ed on their website!

...
In an interview after the UNC speech, Edwards finally utters the words he'd assiduously avoided during the last campaign:

"I voted for the resolution," he says. "It was a mistake."

So far, so good. But he goes on, "The hard question is, What do you do now? Looking back, it's easy to say that it was wrong and based on false information. Anybody who doesn't admit that isn't honest, and that's the truth." So what now? "I myself feel conflicted about it," Edwards replies. "But we have to find ways--and I don't mean just yanking all the troops tomorrow--but we have to find ways to start bringing our troops home. Our presence there is clearly contributing to the problem."

So does he agree with Senator Russ Feingold that Washington should set a withdrawal deadline? "No. Even if we're going to say that internally, that we're gonna have our troops out by X date, there's no reason to announce that to the world. I think that's probably a mistake."

He doesn't agree, either, with Senator Clinton's call for more US troops to finish the job?

"No sir!" Edwards says, sitting straight up in his chair.
"Did she really say that?"
...
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051128&s=moser





~Write hard, die free.

...and I'll give you a chance. You're not quite where I'd like you to be yet, but you're moving in the right direction, at least.

No promises. But I am willing to forgive someone who admits he made a mistake.

From Bart's page:

-----------------

Quotes

"There is no greater breach of the public trust than knowingly misleading the country into war.
In a democracy, we simply cannot tolerate the abuse of this trust by the government. To the extent
this occurred in the lead up to the war in Iraq, those responsible must be held accountable."
--John Kerry, Link




...eh? ...what? Oh, sorry - I feel asleep.

John, you can even make Bush's treason boring - how do you do that?

-----------------

Look, I'm no big Kerry fan, but I think given the slack he's cutting Hillary, he could at least not actively ridicule Kerry when he's actually on the right side of the issue, you know?

If my memory serves me right.