Who Said It, Part II
The Donk’s hope that all of this disappears down the memory hole.
Where was their anti-war attitude when President Clinton took us into Kosovo for that undeclared “...one year mission” that continues today? The air war against the Serbs had less legality than the Iraq War. Clinton intervened without any Congressional resolutions, Bush got an enabling resolution out of Congress.
We have, in my opinion, more justification for the Iraq War than the continuing action in Kosovo. The Poodle’s beloved European Allies couldn’t be bothered with ethnic cleansing in their own backyard, so rightly or wrongly, the US took the lead moved by Clinton’s conscience.
When there was ethnic cleansing and worse in Iraq, the US takes the lead but gets scorned by the Usual Suspects, both foreign and domestic.
Yhe moral is, I guess that an undeclared war by Clinton is good, but a war with legal support from Congress led by Bush is bad.
I tremble for the Republic!
Posted by MAJ Mike
07/12/2004 at 11:36 AM
So the real sad fact here is that I, as an independent, have no choice (other than Nader who, truth be told, is at least as disingenuous as your garden variety career politician) but to vote for a conscious liar, be it the Dem’s or the ones you so willing stump for and excuse.
Frankly, that’s the whole problem with partisanship; once the system becomes good and truly thoroughly fucked up the partisan are as much to blame as their politicians. Perhaps even moreso. While talking heads are swept up in the pissing contests of gamesmenship and desperate justification, people die and the ranks of the truly unrepresented grow.
In short, I don’t forgive Clinton his unnecessary military actions, and I absolutely damn him for Rwanda. Likewise, I do not forgive 43 for Iraq. And I do not forgive Kerry or Edwards for their horseshit waffling and on/off support of 43’s debacle.
When my head tells me something is wrong I can’t imagine allowing a voluntary party affiliation to override personal conviction.
But hey; that’s just me. I guess it’s easier to spend the day calling folks moonbats and freepers and insisting that one side, your side, is right, than to realize that the entire machine is in need of fixing and that perhaps you’re just not up to the task of figuring out how to do it.
Posted by jsfk
07/12/2004 at 11:50 AM
jsfk,
The only way to “fix it” as you say is to call a new Constitutional Convention and start over. That would open the door to all kinds of possibilities that neither you or I might like to see.
Is my side “right”? I honestly don’t know for sure. I do know in my heart what I think is right and I choose the political party that comes closest to my convictions. There is no perfect match. There never will be.
In an imperfect world, we make the best decisions we can under the circumstances.
Good post, Allan you’re right on target. I don’t believe our forefathers who wrote the constitution would have ever believed that the legislative branch of government would be taken over by career politicians, lawyers no less, who spend an entire lifetime feeding at the public trough. When their original intent was to serve for a short term them return to whatever their former employment was. Power corrupts and what we see today is the result of not limiting these so called servants to one term and from the rank and file of citizenry. Until that change occurs I like many other have no choice but to vote for the lesser of the two evils and try to protect this free union.
Posted by Jack
07/12/2004 at 01:45 PM
"The only way to “fix it” as you say is to call a new Constitutional Convention and start over.”
Is it? The only way to eradicate corruption (and indeed it is corruption) in the system is to scrap the system? I disagree.
The problem as I, being a realist oft labelled a pessimist, see it is that the majority of the American public is willfully uninformed and/or willfully misinformed (and thus more than willing to contribute to the spread of misinformation).
The partisan rhetoric at popular dem blogs such as Pandagon does as much to twist and blur the too-malleable minds of their readership as does the similar yet opposite rhetoric of such sites as moonbat. In the land of mass media and the internet people have become obsessed with obtaining information. Unfortunately this obsession all too often involves pursuing not facts as a whole, but only the facts that serve to bolster their own realities. The megacorps of the world, via mass media, serve to feed this practice, as (obviously) does the government.
For instance, this bullshit artists post obviously means to call foul on those dems who are attacking Dub for his war. From a repub point of view I suppose it serves as chest puffery by calling those listed for their hypocrisy. From a dem point of view it is, as the first comment says, information that they’d likely prefer to go unnoticed. The reality, however, is that it’s all politics. Regardless of personal stance on the war, the fact is that reasons that were used to sell it were, and are, horseshit, and when it comes to war the tactics employed were, are, and should always be inexcusable. Blame Bush, blame the CIA, blame Chalabi… nonetheless, politicians across the board bought it. And, for a time, the majority of the American public did too. Now a contingent of American politics is playing asses and elbows trying to distance themselves from the fact that they were snowed.
That’s what your post doesn’t say, because its agenda doesn’t allow it to. Ironically, the response (from Allan) to my comment is thoughful… far more thoughtful than the post that initiated the discussion.
Likewise there’s a recent post on pandagon about the Kerry/Edwards interview that discusses their apparently poor response to a question about their original support for the war. Pandagon goes to lengths to construct what they think is the “correct” response to the question (ie: the one the public would like to hear) without ever delving into the obvious realm of why their candidates waffle over the question.
They waffle because they want it both ways. They waffle because they don’t want to admit that they were wrong, but they don’t want to admit that the current administration was right either. Most importantly, they don’t want to commit, because their platform, at least when it comes to the war, isn’t based on personal beliefs or convictions; it’s based upon what they perceive to be the popular concensus at the time.That’s what their post doesn’t say, because it’s agenda doesn’t allow it to. Ironically, however, the entire purpose of the pandagon post is to help Kerry/Edwards hone their ability to spout off tasty yet empty sound bites. Lets teach our candidates how to be more convincing in their bullshit when trapped in a sticky situation created by their own actions!
It’s partisan games. The government as a whole loves it, and encourages it. It lets them get away with the game. Their followers are forever ready to pounce on their detractors for any inconsistency, and yet those followers forever forgive those supposedly representing them for the same. Heaven forbid the legions of bloggers came together, regardless of political slant, and simply agreed to no longer tolerate the utter disingenuousness of not only the opposing party, but their own as well. Certainly it would force their readerships to think… and it would spread.
A world where a politican is afraid to spout horseshit not because of fear of his or her opposition, but out of fear of retribution from within… that doesn’t take a new Constitutional Convention. All it takes is responsibility. And while it undoubtedly doesn’t fix everything, it does fix a lot.
Posted by jsfk
07/12/2004 at 01:57 PM
I think the main point of this post is that all the people condemning Bush at one time wholeheartly supported action against Iraq. Before Bush got into office these politicians (leaders) listed were constantly telling us Saddam had WMD’s, and was trying to go nuclear, and if he acheaved that capability would use it. Problem was the previous administration just played a waiting game with him and occasionally lobed a couple cruise missles at his CHEMICAL WEAPONS PLANTS, at least that is what they bleieved they were. To me, that’s problem with the leaders in this country is no conviction to stand behind their decisions. They made a statement and they should support it unless they got the guts to come out publicly and say they were wrong and advised the president incorrectly. Bush didn’t go to war without the support and advice of the Democrats but now were fighting against a Militia, things are more difficult, and they are claiming ignorance. Eight years of intellegence collected by the Clinton Administration went into the decision to go to war. You know though, at least Bill Clinton came out recently and said Bush made the right decision to go to war. But then he would as he believed for 8 years Saddam was a danger to this country and possessed WMD’s
Posted by Bob
07/12/2004 at 02:09 PM
"Regardless of personal stance on the war, the fact is that reasons that were used to sell it were, and are, horseshit”
I totally disagree, jsfk. They were all valid reasons: Saddam had WMD, had used them against his own people and against the Iranians, had refused to cooperate with the UN and was a direct threat to the entire region. Taking him out of the picture and installing a democratic government in Iraq removed a cancer from the Middle East and could, with a little help, provide an example to the other Arab countries of how much better off they would be in a free democracy. Bush did nothing wrong and surely nothing that everyone agreed needed to be done. The bullshit is coming from the Left who are now playing politics with the issue in order to gain power.
I also don’t think that fear of retribution from one’s own constituents should alarm any politician. Most of those “constituents” that you speak of are nothing more than “fans” and will believe anything their candidate tells them. Note: I don’t believe everything Bush or the Republicans tell me either - for instance, I’m still upset over the budget and the ballooning deficit.
As for a Constitutional Convention, I propose to heal the whole body, not just keep trying to patch up things here and there. The Constitution has served us well for over 200 years and we’ve patched, pruned and picked at it to make it adapt to the changing times. It has become almost too kludged together to serve its original purpose any more. The freedoms it originally guaranteed have been taken away from us one by one by power-hungry politicians and activist judges.
We are gradually progressing from a democracy to an oligarchy in this country with an elite class of self ordained “rulers”. Faced with that, the people of this country don’t need to be worrying about lying politicians or trying to make them stop lying. No, we need to figure out how to improve the system to make it impossible for people like our present day bureaucrats to work the system like they do.
Our politicians will stop spouting horseshit and become accountable when the American people take back control of the government. That will require an educated, informed, committed majority of the populace - something we don’t have at the present moment thanks to our poor schools, a biased media and the laziness engendered by a welfare society.
I appreciate your candor and concern but I don’t think you see the whole picture. It’s not “us against them”. It’s “us against ignorance, hyprocricy, misinformation and laziness”. We choose our battles and take victories one at a time.
JSFK: I believe that the facts on how we went to war - and their truth - will take a long time to unravel.
Perhaps this will seem a little simple to you - but - take into account these things that DID happen:
1) September 11, 2001
2) Vladimir Putin’s PERSONAL warning to POTUS that Saddam Hussein was planning to attack us.
3) Intelligence that the WORLD had on Saddam.It is VERY easy for YOU to sit back and say that the reasons were “horseshit”.
Now, let’s think for a minute. You had these three things come to a head - and you DON’T act - and then something happens? Well, you figure it out.
Posted by notthisgirl
07/12/2004 at 06:33 PM
JFSK, Somehow I got the impression you were accusing us, BMEWS, of rhetoric that twists the truth (comparing us to pandragon)
If that is the case then why is it that we advise our readers to become well-informed. To read more than one source of information, to look at sites like factcheck.org to see who is bullshitting who.
Granted, we have objectives, but to wholesale accuse us of distortions is disingenuous.
We appreciate the fact that you can at least attempt to engage in honest debate rather than most of the libs who do drive-by comments and call us names.
Stay tuned. Read us every day and I believe you will see we are nothing like you are attempting to portray us as being.
What twisting of the truth!?!
The quotes are there. Are the quotes true or not? If they’re false/twisted, then what did they say? Otherwise, the truth is there for all to see.
This Blogger Truth Squad probably makes the Gorbot wish he’d never invented the Internet.
Posted by MAJ Mike
07/12/2004 at 08:22 PM
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