Text 8831, 323 rader
Skriven 2006-09-22 13:32:00 av Robert E Starr JR (9328.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: My presidential pick
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"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:f6n6h2hs4qm1jo6gmrfp15gb3fh6ha1pke@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:36:39 -0700, "Vorlonagent"
> <nojtspam@otfresno.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:m5k3h2ln2kncl361i2e2eiv3ajodfd6cu5@4ax.com...
>>
>>> Why would they hold a grudge because someone chose to run in a
>>> primary? Particularly since if they hadn't allowed Bush to steal the
>>> primary and McCain had won the general election, the GOP would quite
>>> likely be riding high today rather than licking its wounds.
>>
>>Bush had a massive war chest and no opposition had McCain not stepped
>>forward.  Financially, he had an incredible shot at the general election.
>>McCain forced him to spend it on the primary.
>>
>>They didn't like that.
>
> A lot of people felt the opposite way -- that McCain was much the
> better man, that he was the front runner, and that Bush won because he
> was backed by the machine and played dirty.

McCain the front-runner?

No.  Not at any point to my recollection.

He was a johnny-come-lately who dove in to force Bush to earn the nomination 
as opposed to having it handed to him unopposed.  In point of fact, I 
actually liked McCain for doing that.

If you feel you must fault Bush, fault him for what he actually did.  He 
built up a large war chest in 1999 that intimidated all other candidates 
from the field before the first primary, thereby denying Repulicans any real 
choice for 2000.  Until McCain jumped in.


>>It's fashionable to allege Bush "stole" elections and perpetrated 9/11.
>>Saying it doesn't make it so.
>
> Those two statements seem to me substantially different: the latter is
> IMO outlandish, while there's some truth to the first if one counts
> below-the-belt smear tactics (e.g., using a phony push poll to
> convince voters in North Carolina that McCain had an illegitimate
> black child), winning primaries through spending, and electoral hanky
> panky as theft.

Bush played dirty, no doubt about that.  I remember that push-poll.  Nor was 
I particularly please with Bush for it.  It's worth noting that I've seen 
the same or worse from other candidates, including democrats.

That's not a "steal".  Not remotely.  That's just politics.


>>>>> For the Democrats, barring Edwards making one heck of a comeback, I
>>>>> think the nominee is going to end up being somebody we haven't heard
>>>>> much about before, someone who's going to kind of blind-side the media
>>>>> and the beltway the way Clinton kind of came out of nowhere.  I think
>>>>> we've seen the same-old-gang one time too many, and none of them have
>>>>> demonstrated any real strength in dealing with things in DC, so 
>>>>> someone
>>>>> from the outside will, I think, be very attractive.
>>>>
>>>>The nomination was Hillary Clinton's to lose.  With the successful
>>>>targeting
>>>>and destruction of Joe Leiberman democrat senate nomination, Clinton's
>>>>careful presentation of a centrist veneeer may prove to be an unexpected
>>>>liability with her base.  Then again, with the foiling of a large-scale
>>>>terror plot shortly after Leiberman's loss, she may prove be in the 
>>>>"sweet
>>>>spot" after all.
>>>
>>> I don't think it will be Clinton. Like Dubya, Sen .Clinton is a
>>> creation of the media: she's not a good campaigner and while I respect
>>> her ability, I don't think she has what it takes to be a great
>>> president and I don't think that lightning often strikes in the same
>>> place twice: marriage to a popular president doesn't make one a
>>> popular president, any more than being the son of a reasonably capable
>>> president makes one a reasonably capable president.
>>
>>They aren't the same critter, that's for sure.  And Bill's faux pas have a
>>strong collateral damage effect on those near him, as Al Gore found out.
>>
>>That said, Ms. Clinton's crucial measure is if she can rise beyond the
>>idology of her party to control terroism, which would be easier for her 
>>than
>>any republican.  There's a whol media establishment that will give her a
>>pass that would never let up on a republican.
>
> I'm not sure that that's true. Clinton, after all, was stymied in his
> attempts to control terrorism -- Trent Lott even went so far as to
> claim incorrectly that he had time the attack on Bin Laden's camps
> (think that's what it was) to distract attention from Monicagate. And
> the press seems a bit more likely to go after Democratic presidents
> and presidential candidates than Republican ones, who intimidate them.
> They trashed Carter (not that he didn't to some degree deserve it),

Carter deserved every bit of what he got.


> gave Reagan a free pass

....you're kidding right?

You don't call someone the "teflon president" for no reason.  Nothing the 
MSM threw at him stuck.  Well , very little until his second term.  Plenty 
was thrown.  Some of it legitimate, some not.  The MSM pioneered its 
"drumbeat of complaint" tactics against Reagan that we have seen against GW 
Bush over his entire time in office an then some.  (also used against Bush 
the Elder).

As evidence for this, I submit the rise of Rush Limbaugh.  The MSM presented 
only one point of view and it was leftist.  Rush shattered that hegemony.


> trashed Clinton at first, then gave him a
> free pass after Gringrich came on the scene and proved a much juicier
> target.

Clinton stumbled his first two years, that's true.  You can't tell me he 
handled gays in the military well, nor the appointment of his wife to chair 
that health-care panel.  It wasn't the media that made trouble for Clinton 
with these two issues.

The Republican Revolution, in fact, capitalized on those early missteps. 
Once in power, they effectively broke any ability to get much meaningful 
done in congress (the government shutdown that introduced Clinton to 
Lewenski being the high water mark), which made it easy to give Clinton a 
pass.  Clinton wasn't doing much of anything anymore.  Not until 1999, when 
he woke up and realized he needed a "legacy" and ran around failing to 
negotiate peace in ireland and between Isreal and the palestinians.

At one time, I faulted Clinton's legacy-hunger for his failure at Camp 
David.  I thought that Clinton was forcing the peace process before its 
time.  The second intifada quickly dispelled that notion.  Arafat did not 
want peace and never did.  Arafat was only there to gauge Israeli resolve 
and what input the Americans were likely to have on it.

> Trashed Gore and let Bush off the hook until Bush fell in the
> polls, at which point they started trashing Bush.

Gore trashed himself.  He tried to run the Clinton playbook when he didn't 
have the charisma to make it happen.  That said, I don't remember the MSM 
being particularly unfriendly to Gore.  I do remember them being unfriendly 
to Bush.  I think about half of the bad feeling that remains from the 200 
election comes from the MSM reporting everything it could find negatively 
about Bush and his actions.

It has ever been thus since, save for a 3 month lull after 9/11.

>>> I tend to agree that Sen. Clinton's centrism is a liability. The
>>> national mood now, particularly among Democrats, is one of reform
>>> rather than fence-sitting. With the right played out, the country is
>>> ripe for a liberal swing: what the Dems need now is someone who is
>>> progressive but not Deanish -- a populist or old-style liberal rather
>>> than a New Leftie.
>>
>>The democratic mood is to ideologically purify the party and themselves of
>>all centrists and other unbelievers.  While Mrs Clinton has a massively
>>liberal voting record, her public support for the Iraq invasion hits the
>>"purify!" hotbutton squarely, just as Leiberman's did.  We saw an early
>>indication of this when Cindy Sheehan took it upon herself to scold Ms.
>>Clinton about it last year.
>
> The left, yes, but Lieberman lost by a whisker, and in a very liberal
> state. I don't think one can extrapolate from campus to the party as a
> whole. If the Dean wing does gain the upper hand, the Dems are
> history, as they were with McGovern.

Leiberman did not just lose an election contest.  He was intentionally 
targeted to be purged.  By, as you say, the "Dean Wing" (though not 
necessarily by Dean himself.  I have no info that implicates Dean directly)

The "purge" element the only thing to impact the national elections that 
came out of the CT senate race.  The rest is an incumbent trying to hold 
onto his seat.


>>As for the public mood...that's harder to judge.  I don't think they're
>>particularly happy with either party.  The democrat purrists are mor
>>concerned about civil rights for terrotists and cuttin and running in Iraq
>>than confronting terrotists and the Republicans are revelling in 
>>pork-barrel
>>budgets, with corruption as an issue for both parties.
>
> I take strong exception to this. I know of few if any Democrats, even
> those on the far left, who aren't concerned about confronting
> terrorists. They simply believe, as do I, that the United States
> should not break its own and international law and ignore its highest
> principles and traditions by employing torture, denying habeas corpus,
> and running kangaroo courts.

Then you need better PR.  The focus of Democrat rhetoric is on the rights of 
bad guys and how evil the US actions are, not winning the war.  I went all 
through this with Amy.  No need to do it again.


> As to cutting and running in Iraq, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11
> and nothing to do with Al Qaeda and it is hard to see how our botched
> occupation of that country has been anything but a disaster from the
> perspective of the actual fight against terrorism, or how our current
> course will change that.

Regardless of its origins, it is the main front in the war on terror NOW. 
(I maintain that it always was, but we've done that to death)

How are you going to win in Iraq?  Exiting Iraq next week is not winning 
there, it's thowing up your hands and saying you can't win.  I belive the 
american pulic wants to know how to win there.  (as an aside, I believe a 
win *is* possible, but I'm not sure the Bush admin is going about it the 
right way)

Bush is weak here because he keeps even high level policy under wraps.  But 
without a coherent plan from the democrats, it will remain an unexploited 
weakness.  I gave additional detail talking to Amy about this also.


> Corruption is much more of a problem for the Republicans right now
> than it is for the Dems.

Agreed.


>>If the democrats dumped the lar-left anti-war stand and stepped solidly
>>behind the war on terror and on winning in Iraq, they'd have a peach of a
>>shot at the House and Senate this fall.  But it's too late for that now.
>>They're comitted.
>
> The Dems have never been anything but solidly behind the war on
> terror, and most people know that -- the polls (just saw an article
> this morning) show the public seeing the Republicans as having only a
> small lead in the war against terrorism..

That makes sense.

The republicans fare badly because of the apparent muddle that Iraq is.

The Democrats fare badly because they aren't engaged on the issue of 
"winning".


> There's no evidence that we
> can "win" in Iraq: we /did/ win, and then made a mess of things by not
> handing things over to the UN when they asked for it or to the Iraqis
> and getting the hell out.

This is a policy discussion and we're talking what hits the mind of the 
average american.

The UN image has been sorely tarnished the last few years.  I don't think 
there's much confidence abroad in the UN, especially after their non-role in 
lebanon was aired.

Personally, if you really want to see a mess in iraq, by all means hand it 
over to the UN.  I'd rather Bush's silent plodding to the circus of national 
and personal self-interests that the UN would bring to Iraq.


> To "win" at this stage we'd have to send a
> lot more troops, and people aren't going to volunteer or accept a
> draft to get in the middle of another country's civil war. Hell, it's
> questionable whether we'd win even if we lined the country with
> wall-to-wall troops at this point: look at what happened to the
> Israeli occupation of Lebanon. At best, it would take a long,
> festering conflict, as in the Phillippines. This White House managed
> to ignore history as thoroughly as we did in Vietnam, with the same
> disastrous results.

There are limited similarities.  The shiite exremists are being funded by 
Iran just as the North Vietnamese were getting money channeled to them (from 
china or the Soviet Union I forget now.  I think the soviets).  I don't know 
what effort is being made to limit this flow of money and supplies.  It's 
ticklish because there are lots of  pilgrims coming to Iran to visit holy 
sites in Iraq.

Squish the support from Iran and Syria and it's a whole new ballgame.  That 
might require more troops, perhaps a draft.  The problem is that the Bush 
admin could be anywhere from asleep at the switch to all over this issue but 
isn't telling us.  It's impossible to gauge.

If the Democrats had a coherent plan for handling these and similar issues, 
they'd be sitting pretty.  But no.  For them, cut 'n run is all they have on 
offer and all I'm getting from you.


> As I understand it, the Democratic prospects in the senate and the
> house are limited by electoral circumstance rather than public
> opinion, e.g., during the Gringrich sweep about 100 house seats were
> contested but in this election it's only about 40 thanks to
> redistricting that's given more incumbents safe seats.

There is some point to this but with the people unhappy with both parties, 
strange things are possible.


-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent


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Shaken, not stirred."


"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

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