Text 8865, 353 rader
Skriven 2006-09-24 11:39:00 av Robert E Starr JR (9362.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: My presidential pick
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"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:31m8h2pio2ejiahp5gclbgak2gvgcaa1sj@4ax.com...
>>> You seem to have been reading a different Times than I was. The Times
>>> was full of nonstop scandal accusations against Clinton, who was
>>> accused by the Republicans of everything from tying up an airport to
>>> get a haircut to trashing the White House to rape -- I wish I could
>>> say I was joking, but that's the literal truth. Comparable (except
>>> insofar as they were a lot less likely to be baseless) accusations
>>> against Bush received little if any coverage -- his illegal stock sale
>>> (cf. Whitewater), for example, or his cheating during the Presidential
>>> debate.
>>
>>The MSM repoted Repulican allegations, sure. That's what it's supposed to
>>do. And the R's went after Clinton with a vengeance because of the way
>>Reagan and Bush the Elder were treated. Payback was a (mostly impotent)
>>bitch. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the continual Republican
>>attacks
>>on Clinton. As with the Democrats and Bush, any minor misstep is
>>ampliefied
>>into a -gate.
>
> The problem is, the Dems didn't go after Reagan and Bush I
> gratuitously -- they went after a wrong that had /actually been
> committed,/ viz., the in-your-face illegal Iran-Contra operation.
>
> In a nation of laws, one does not use investigations as a bludgeon --
> one investigates when there's just cause to do so. Or at least that's
> how I see it. Had the Republicans merely set out to investigate actual
> wrongdoing, I would have supported them, and I think much of the
> nation is with me on that.
Iran-Contra was a legitimate scandal. The Reagan Admin was wrong in every
respect.
Not everything the Democrats threw at Reagan was this cut and dried.
You are leaning very close to insiting on the severity of every issue raised
about a republican and dismissing or diminishing every issue reaised about a
democrat.
>>The MSM did not participate in the attacks on Clinton. They did not
>>research or question why the Clintons kept FBI files on their (the
>>Clintons') opponents for so long or why they culdn't accout for the files'
>>hereabouts until they suddenly materialized on a random table somewhere.
>
> And you know this how?
Memory. IIRC the story put out y the Clinton White House was that they
found the missing files (after several weeks of uproar) on a table
(presumably also in the white house). I use the word "random" because I
don't believe a word of such a lame explanation.
>>The exception was the Lewenski affair where the MSM did involve itself
>>directly. Ratings greed overcame politics at that point.
>
> The press (I dislike the term "media," which was a cynical Agnewism
> calculated to replace a revered term -- "press" -- with a vaguely
> sinister one) issued a constant stream of reports on the Clinton
> allegations, from rape to stolen ashtrays. When I compare
> point-for-point the coverage of the Clinton allegations vs. comparable
> Bush allegations, it becomes clear that as Amy pointed out the former
> received much more attention. Compare, for example, two roughly
> comparable allegations, Bush's illegal insider stock sale and
> Whitewater.
You're comparing individual issues. I am comparing overall treatment. With
a noted exception or two, Clinton got a pass.
But if you want to talk specifics, what investigation DID the MSM do into
whitewater? IIRC they pretty much took Ms. Clinton's word at face value.
I draw a distinction between reporting what someone else says and digging
for onr's own information. I don't remember the MSM being very interested
in digging into whitewater. It was simply something that dogged the
clintons and wouldn't go away.
>>OTOH, the MSM has spearheded and supported the drumbeat of allegations
>>agianst the GW Bush Admin. The Times demanded an investigation into who
>>leaked Valerie Plame's name.
>
> The disclosure of a deep cover CIA agent is a very serious act --
> don't let Bush Administration propaganda fool you into thinking
> otherwise, the CIA was furious -- and in some cases seriously illegal.
Not illegal in this case, as Patrick Fitgerald announced quite a while ago.
It was merely a case of Richard Armitage being a gossip and Bob Novak
connecting the dots.
I'm sure the CIA was furious. At least those who allowed a Bush Admin foe
(Joe Wilson) to go to Niger.
> A respected former ambassador claimed that the Administration had
> harmed national security and possibly broken the law to gain revenge
> against someone who had gone public with information that harmed the
> Administration's case to go to war in Iraq -- information that was
> absolutely correct. A newspaper that didn't report on that would be
> guilty of a gross dereliction of duty.
You HAVE been following the news, right?
Richard Armitage leaked Plame's name to Bob Novak and Armitage is no Bush
Admin loyalist. To repeat the tired, old--and refted by evidence--revenge
charge is pretty pointless and not worth further discussion.
> That being said, how could the /news pages/ demand an investigation?
> The editorialists possibly did, but editorials are not supposed to be
> unbiased -- they're opinion pieces.
Did I *say* the Times news page demanded anything? I don't recall being
specific.
That said, the Times' news page made a good deal out of what has turned out
to be nothing, devoting many headlines to every turn of the case. You want
a case of investigative reporting with nothing to show for it, look no
further. Rove, Cheney and Bush are in the clear because they always were.
The times though they had the goods.
>>They revealed the names of countries ading the
>>US by allowing us to hold important detainees.
>
> So?
It's a direct attempt to undermine the Bush Admin's conduct of the war on
terror. It's information nobody needs to know, except that it makes the
Bush admin appear bad.
>>CBS presented false memoes
>>pretaining to Bush's national guard service in the midst of a presidential
>>election.
>
> CBS made an error. When it was shown to be an error, they retracted it
> and their anchor resigned in disgrace. So?
They tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election by reporting
a gross falshood as fact.
>>>>This topic is about the coming election and influences on it. When
>>>>trying
>>>>to get into the mind of the electorate as a whole, nuance and diversity
>>>>are
>>>>lost and a simplified view of a group's POV is the rule of the day. If
>>>>you
>>>>think that Democrats are viewed differently than what I'm putting
>>>>forward,
>>>>please offer your pwn reasoning.
>>>>
>>>>Take an inventory of recent leftist rhetoric from the point of view of a
>>>>casual news-consumer. What I come up with is: The democrats want out of
>>>>Iraq yeaterday. The democrats are complaining about US treatment of
>>>>detainees at guantanamo, opposing coercive interrogation techniques that
>>>>don't sound a whole lot like "torture" and oppose Bush admin wiretaps of
>>>>convos between known terrorists and parties inside the US. The
>>>>alternative
>>>>to Bush's dogged and tired "stay the course" is an unappealing mishmash
>>>>of
>>>>"consultation and coordination with US allies" but no distinct plan to
>>>>consult and coordinate *around*. Individuals may have ideas but as a
>>>>group
>>>>the democrats appear vague and antagonistic
>>>>
>>>>What I take from that is much concern for the rights of the bad guys and
>>>>no
>>>>concern for actually winning the war that has been thrust on the US. I
>>>>recognize the possibility that my own opinion is biasing but it's what I
>>>>see, as should you.
>>>
>>> I guess I'd have to ask how making someone stand chained naked for 40
>>> hours in a cold cell while being doused by ice water or waterboarding
>>> don't constitute torture.
>>
>>Beause they aren't life or body threatening. The people in the cold room
>>aren't freezing fingers or toes off. Nor are the waterboarded people
>>actually suffocating. They are being made very, very uncomfortable.
>
> The definition of "torture" is not "life threatening." Indeed, it is
> not in the interest of the torturer to kill his victim if he wants
> information.
"Life-threateneing" was only part of my reply.
>>This contrasts with being whipped, beaten, red-hot pokers, pulling out
>>people's fingernails...
>
> And that is torture too.
Damage, often permant damage is being inflicted on people. There is a
difference.
>>If we caught Osma bin laden tomorrow, I'd sign the order to waterboard him
>>if I had the authority and the experts concluded it was the proper
>>technique.
>>
>>There would be a temptation to waterboard him just because he's Osama and
>>that would still be wrong.
>
> If we caught Osama Bin Laden tomorrow, I would give him a fair trial,
> confident in my belief that in doing so we would do far more good for
> our country, and achieve a far greater victory, than we would by
> obtaining questionable confessions through the utilization of morally
> repugnant techniques associated with tyrants, thugs, and dictators.
...and by asking with nothing more aggressive than "pretty please with sugar
on top" you'll get nothing actionable, and the open-court trial will ensure
that the intelligence methods used to capture him will be useless in the
future, with the alternative being releasing bin laden for lack of evidence
should your administration want to keep methods that work secret.
This is a war, not a criminal matter. Harsher rules apply. Trying bin
laden is not a tenth as important as taking his organization apart. You
place too much important on the tiral and too little on what's needed to
win.
>>> As to Iraq, there's no clear Democratic solution because there's no
>>> good solution. Bush has bequeathed the Administration a mess from
>>> which there's no nice exit, no good solution. As in Vietnam, the best
>>> we can hope to do is minimize the damage in the face of the
>>> understandable reluctance of our allies to take on directly the
>>> burdens of a mess we made for ourselves, despite their opposition in
>>> the face of Bush's bullying. (They have been helping us out, but the
>>> help has been subtler, e.g., by helping in Afghanistan and taking on
>>> the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.)
>>
>>I am unimpressed by 100 (200?) engineers France volunteered for Lebanon.
>
> So was everybody. They upped it to 2000.
2000 engineers or combat troops? If it's engineers, I'm still unimpressed.
Has anybody else signed on?
>>The Democrats have ever stuck to the simplication of Iraq = Viet Nam
>>because
>>they wanted Bush = LBJ.
>
> That sounds like a tendentious fantasy to me. To the extent that some
> Dems have made that comparison it's because it's the obvious one to
> make. In the beginning, it seemed to me overblown. Now it does not.
I admit some parallels now and still consider it overblown and convienent.
But then I knew this would be a tough slog from day 1 and wouldn't have
expected the job to be done by now anyway.
>>> For some reason, they haven't done a very good job of getting a
>>> platform out. It's there -- Pelosi for one has spoken about it -- but
>>> they do need a Democratic version of the Contract, particularly since
>>> if as seems likely they gain control of the house the GOP will attempt
>>> to blame them for the failings of the next two years -- a strategy
>>> which hasn't been working for them lately because most voters can see
>>> that the Dems currently have no power.
>>
>>When any senator can put a "hold" on legislation he doesn't like, that's
>>an
>>over simplification.
>
> In what significant way has the Bush Administration's agenda been
> blocked by the Dems? They've won victories only when the Adminstration
> proposed something so outlandish that Republicans crossed the aisle,
> e.g., the dead out of the cradle Social Security proposal, or they
> threatened a filibuster. But that's not much. The pres has gotten most
> of what he wanted, more than most presidents have. And the results
> speak for themselves.
Bush hasn't asked for much. The fact is that most of his domestic agenda
has been shot down. Up until recently he was untouchable in foreign
affairs, but all he's asked for is money to continue the War on terror.
My point isn't that the democrats have a lot of power, but to say that they
aren't completely impotent as you suggest they are. Just as the pre-1994
minority Republicans weren't completely impotent.
>>> The Gringrich strategy -- less the bellicosity, extremism, posturing,
>>> corruption, callousness, and so forth -- could serve them well: pass a
>>> laundry list of major democratic initiatives -- energy impendence,
>>> protection for the American worker, border security, health care,
>>> fiscal responsibility, defense against terror, honesty in government,
>>> what have you -- and then let the Republicans reject them as they
>>> surely would. That would show the public clearly where the Dems stand
>>> and defuse the no doubt Karl Rovian nonsense about the Dems not
>>> standing for anything (What do you do when your party has fucked
>>> things up royally? Claim that the other side can't do better.)
>>
>>And when the other side is preoccupied with hatred nstead of policy, it
>>plays in Peoria.
>
> More Roveian rubbish. There is much more bellicosity from the
> Republican side, and has been for years. Or can you show me Democratic
> legislators accusing President Bush of rape?
That's because "appetite" is Cinton's fatal flaw and isn't Bush's.
And the Republican claim that the other side can't do better IS effective.
It is effective because the democrats have limited themselves to carping and
complaining, obstructing and undermining. Now a genuine opportunity to
reverse their fortunes comes along and they can't exploit it, because
exploiting it would require substance that they haven't been putting out
there.
Most of the elements of the 1994 Contract with America were out there well
before the election. So with the democrat bile and ire against Bush and
republicans.
--
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent
"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."
"Spirituality without science has no mind.
Science without spirituality has no heart."
-Methuselah Jones
> --
> Josh
>
> [Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that
> [...]
> these to whom [...] holy generations [...]. After Jesus said this, he
> departed.
>
> - The Gospel of Judas
>
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32
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