Excommunicated
 

Agreed. I find it amazing that this is all a relatively new revelation. Pedophiles take jobs that put them in proximity to children. And they prefer the ones that give them the most authority over those children. People just don't want to believe it because these positions are supposed to the ones with whom you deposit your kids to keep them safe. It's sad, but you have to be suspect of anyone who is in that kind of position. Especially sad when there are so many people out there who really just like kids.

TM

Kerry on the war on terror
 

You cannot read. I just said that they differed on whether to borrow to pay for the war, not on whether to pay for it. News flash: Voting to spend money is not about "sending a clear message to our troops." We have fax machines and e-mail for that. It's about spending money.

I thought you were being ironic when you were complaining that Kerry wasn't acting presidential.

Suppose that the President has his appointed puppet leader of another country come to the United States to campaign for him, and has his campaign write the guy's speech. What is the appropriate way to respond to that? Any response gives aid and comfort to the country's enemies, right? Indeed, since Bush is the Commander in Chief, any criticism of him at all gives aid and comfort to our enemies, right?

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

Then I'm totally confused. Bush has been pushing this privatization thing forever, and certainly making no secret about it - heck, it was a debate point. It would make no sense to speak that way about it now, unless they were countering some perception that he was going to pursue a wider plan than he's spoken of, or pursue it faster than he let on, and I've seen no indication either that he is, or that such a thing would fly at all. So, I'm not getting what you're saying.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

Yeah, they're solidly behind Not B . . . I mean, Kerry.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

I agree with the first part, inasmuch as I think that libertarian Republicans are a noisy but numerically insignificant group who have little or no clout within their party. If they were to actually vote against Bush, they'd have to come to grips with the fact that the GOP has nothing for libertarians but lip service.*

As for the second suggestion, I can think of many, many other things I'd rather do. But thanks.


* Not necessarily a bad thing -- ask Bill Clinton.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

I didn't say Kerry was their first choice. I said they weren't lamenting the compromise.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

"Privatization" is a word the GOP wants to get distance from because it has been demonized by the DEMs. That is why they've gone with the "ownership society" theme.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

Bush has been trying to have it both ways, like a good politician should. He has signalled, opaquely, to his supporters that he intends to pursue privatization in his second term. According to Suskind's sources, he's not opaque about it at all in front of the right crowd. But swing voters and Democrats do not want to hear this, so he's sending the general public a different message -- it's not an issue. What Suskind did was share Bush's words for his supporters with the rest of us.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

Here's the deal - you guys stop using liberal and we'll stop using privatize.

Frankly, privatize used to be the R's word, we just attacked it on substance and now you want to rebrand it.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

Weird that. I like the privatization concept, myself.

But I'm jaded - I'm pretty sure that what will eventually happen, should this pass, is that the big Funds will simply establish a bunch of "approved" plans that people can invest in, with very low risk/rewards, and fees. The approval process will guard the needed governmental recordkeeping, and the fees, coupled with savings-account-rate returns, make it a dull, boring thing - private in name only.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

He spoke in the debate about it - he described it openly. I guess I don't see this opacity you speak of.

Kerry on the war on terror
 

I understand that. But once the "Kerry Bill" went down, he had a choice of (A) voting to fund based on a bill that he didn't love, but sending a message to the troops that he supports them, and (B) voting not to fund, and sending a message to the President that he disagreed with the method.* He chose (B).

*Go ahead an argue that this is the principled stand.

It does not give aid and comfort, but it does undercut Allawi's, err, the other leader's, ability to govern and our efforts in that country. What he could have said was something like "I stand firmly behind [Leader] and look forward to working with em and the other leaders when I am president." That is all that needs to be said. He also should have met with the guy and had the decency to show up when he addressed the Senate.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

Consider me in this camp. I don't know why you guys are so glad that so many people don't care who's president as long as it's not W. Too bad Sharpton didn't snag the nomination. The next four years would certainly be more entertaining.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

I'd go for that just to see his SCOTUS nomination list.

Sympathy for the Devil
 

Tell me where the substance was that I was supposed to respond to. You said, “We don't know exactly to what extent we could have leveraged other countries' ability or desire to help us because we told them all to go fuck themselves. That is our foreign (and domestic) policy.”

First of all, you didn’t answer the question about what help you feel so bad about losing from various countries. Once and for all, what the hell is it that you want so bad from foreign countries?

Second, our country sought the assistance of other countries so I don’t see how our foreign policy is “go fuck yourself”. Just because some countries declined to go the route we did in Iraq (surely for global reasons rather than self interest) doesn’t change the fact that we asked them or transform our foreign policy into “go fuck yourself.” And how is our domestic policy “Go fuck yourself?” ??? In any event, if you're against the war in Iraq, fine. So's the majority of Repubs I know. But something tells me that if we went to a war that you did AGREE with, you wouldn't give a good Goddamn what any other country thought.

Kerry on the war on terror
 

Leadership is more than a bunch of talking points about sending messages. This little episode sheds plenty of light on Karl Rove's genius in using the war on terror to marginalize opponents, but next to nothing on what Kerry will do as CIC. Except that he'll ask the rich to make sacrifices along with the soldiers, marines, National Guardsmen and Reservists serving in Iraq.

If the President is going to enlist ostensibly sovereign foreign leaders as tools of his campaign, his challenger had better have the cojones to call bullshit, or he shouldn't be leading the country. You seem to think that Kerry should have unilaterally disarmed. In any event, the Iraqis already know that the guy is a puppet. They don't need him to come over here to figure that out.

Kerry on the war on terror
 

Given the current tax reciepts source distribution, I thought the combination of these two statements in one paragraph was amusing.

Kerry on the war on terror
 

Caption Contest
 

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/ALLPOLIT....podium.ap.jpg


P.S. Ty invented this.

Kerry on the war on terror
 

Ah, yes. When in doubt blame KR, the evil genius. Please explain why a bill that was acceptable to 30 or so of the Senators that initially voted for the "Kerry Bill" is somehow KR's fault.

What is the point of calling his "puppet" view out, other than to undercut Bush and get elected? What purposes does it serve the war in Iraq/Terror or other US interests? I can only see that it serves JFK's interests, which he has shown time and time again, trump the interests of this country.*

* Do not think this goes to all DEMs, just a portion of them that are more concerned with getting elected than doing the right thing.

Caption Contest
 

"I do not have a three inch penis."

Kerry on the war on terror
 

What does Rove do, if not help frame issues like this?

What is the point of inviting Allawi to this country to give a Bush campaign speech, other to undercut Kerry and get Bush elected? What purposes does it serve the war in Iraq/Terror or other US interests? I can only see that it serves GWB's interests, which he has shown time and time again, trump the interests of the country. What's to stop Bush from doing this shit again, unless someone (Kerry, say) calls him on it?

Caption Contest
 

"Our boys were this close to him in Tora Bora, before he got away."

Kerry on the war on terror
 

The implication that Kerry is not behind our troops because he disagrees with Bush's specific budget is simply insulting. Come on, Clubby, try to focus on the real issues.

Caption Contest
 

I have no caption, but what is the guy on the left so worried about?

TM

Caption Contest
 

you keep replaying these fights you lost long ago. Bush wasn't on a horse at Tora Bora. to the extent OBL "got away" you can only blame the American soldiers, not Bush. I don't think he got away, but some did, due to the terrain, due to the fact they had dug tunnels throughtout the mountain, and apparently in your mind because of soldiers are cowards or incompetants.

What you might want to consider, instead of spewing this blather, is why your sort insisted we give rights to the killers at Gitmo, and let them go back. Do you know we have had to recapture or kill several of these guys? do you feel better about the bill of rights, or worse about your inability to understand what this war means?

Caption Contest
 

When I get my hands on Bin Laudin, I'm flushing his head down the toilet just like I did to this jackass right behind me.

Caption Contest
 

"I've seen Bill O'Reilly's vibrator, and it's really big."

Caption Contest
 

A lot of Taliban and Al Qaeda got away at Tora Bora because we hoped that Afghans could close the deal. But it's OK. Bush isn't concerned about it.

You forgot to add the bit about the activist judges who gave the terrorists these rights.

Caption Contest
 

"I can sell ya six hunnerd pieces a' wood about this big - from what they tell me, that's all we got left."

Caption Contest
 

that wasn't a rambo movie, what do you mean by this? And your disconnect between saying 1) we should have caught more and 2) it is ok we had to let go those we did catch is stunning, and telling.

Caption Contest
 

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/ALLPOLIT....podium.ap.jpg

Hey - We caught us some weapons of mass destruction -- and they were THIS BIG!

Team America
 

Dunno. Haven't seen it, don't plan to.

Though it fits nicely on a BC'04 bumper sticker, many of us here aren't Moore fans.

Caption Contest
 

I know that irony doesn't translate well on the net, but WTF? The Administration tried to get by with Afghan troops, but when push came to shove, they weren't sufficiently motivated to go after AQ at Tora Bora, and OBL got away. I don't actually think this is OK. I would like them to catch Osama bin Laden. Bush gave a "major policy speech" yesterday in New Jersey in which he mentioned John Kerry 41 times, Al Qaeda once, and Osama bin Laden not at all, so apparently he has other things on his mind just now.

Caption Contest
 

Have you seen the ass on Hillary lately?


Dissent

2 -- t.s.

Caption Contest
 

Someone earlier was explaining we had troops from everywhere, I remember even Canada had troops. Why would we "try and get by?" What possible reason Ty? the pipeline! Haliburton truck drivers? What do those synapses firing away in your brain say, don't keep it secret.

What I Forgot To Post For Ty Earlier . . .
 

No thanks. It's an enduring theme here that your consumption of the screamers on the left leads you to believe that it's representative of the Democratic Party.

Perhaps it's more revealing to see more and more mainstream conservative media* throwing up their hands in exasperation at Bush, proclaiming that he's taken the principles of conservatism, pushed them into a nice little pile, and pissed on them the last 4 years.

• The record, from published administration memoirs and in-depth reporting, is one of an administration with a very small group of six or eight real decision-makers, who were set on war from the beginning and who took great pains to shut out arguments from professionals in the CIA and State Department and the U.S. armed forces that contradicted their rosy scenarios about easy victory. Much has been written about the neoconservative hand guiding the Bush presidency—and it is peculiar that one who was fired from the National Security Council in the Reagan administration for suspicion of passing classified material to the Israeli embassy and another who has written position papers for an Israeli Likud Party leader have become key players in the making of American foreign policy.
  
  But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency—and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell’s departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the “neoconian candidate.” The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.
  
  If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past—and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.
  
  George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.

Interesting to see conservatives compare THEIR GOP CANDIDATE to Trotsky instead of the Dem du jour, no? Yes, the reference is somewhat dated, but it's good to see the old-line conservatives using that muscle memory.

Fun times.

* OK, it's a bit odd to consider a mag edited in part by Buchanan to be mainstream conservative media, but you get my point.

Caption Contest
 

Good question, Hank. Bush et al. had a chance to bag Osama bin Laden with U.S. troops, and they didn't go in strong. Why?

Obscene
 

Perhaps I should post it over on the adult board due to its obscene nature, but I just want to say:

It's a good thing to want to Protect Our Civil Liberties.*




*I'd post the original story, but it requires registration. You'll just have to take the word of a radical left wing website.

Caption Contest
 

We don't know why, but they did.

What was going on in your boy's head?