[Cole] said that “If George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election”
This reflects what I think is a very common misconception: that bin Laden (and Islamist extremist terrorists in general) is somehow personally opposed to Bush’s presidency. Nonsense. Bush’s administration is in many ways the best thing that ever happened to the al-Qaeda cause (e.g., his ill-judged “crusade” remark after 9/11, his invasion of Iraq, his closeness to some openly anti-Muslim Christian conservatives, etc.).
Anything that gets ordinary, non-fanatical Muslims outraged and fearful about the US is exactly what Islamist terrorists want, for the sake of furthering their goal of an all-out Islam-against-the-West battle. The last thing bin Laden and his ilk want to see in the Oval Office is a sensible, knowledgeable internationalist whom moderate Muslims feel they can trust, who wouldn’t be stoking Muslim sympathy for Islamist anti-West terrorism.
Of course, Bush is an “opponent” of bin Laden in the sense that the US government is pushing hard to capture him, but any Democratic administration would do the same.
Jeez, i thought you were a little more honest than that.
The ad that won the MoveOn competition was the one showing children working in factories and making the point that the next generation will have to pay for the current Administration’s tax cuts and other economic boondoggles. This was the one, the only, ad that MoveOn attempted to have placed on television, only to be rejected by CBS.
There were two (count 'em: 2) ads comparing Hitler to Bush among the hundreds of entries in the MoveOn competition. Neither of those ads even made the list of 15 overall finalists, or of the other twelve finalists in specific categories.
Furthermore, MoveOn pulled those two ads from their website in short order, and released a statement that said, in part:
On the whole, i thought the MoveOn people could have handled the brouhaha a but better. They should have just left those two submissions up on the website and let the membership vote them down (which is what happened anyway). But to compare MoveOn’s actions with the statements described in the OP seems rather disingenuous.
Even if you think MoveOn was stupid or irresponsible or overly partisan when it allowed those two submissions to appear on its website, the simple fact of MoveOn’s apology and rapid removal of the ads puts them far above the actions of Tom Cole. If Cole ever apologizes for his ridiculous statements, then he might have some claim to be compared with MoveOn, but probably not even then.
It’s also a little disingenuous to call the submissions that compared Bush and Hitler “the moveon.org ads about President Bush” and “ads that compare Bush to Hitler,” as if MoveOn had actualy endorsed those two submissions and placed them on television. Those “ads”:
were submissions to a contest
were never even in the final group from which the single winning ad was selected
were specifically repudiated, apologized for, and removed by MoveOn
never appeared on TV or in any other medium except the internet
I thought those two submissions sucked, and that their juxtapositions of Bush and Hitler were silly. But it’s over the top to call them “the moveon.org ads.” There was one official moveon.org ad, and that was the children-in-factories ad, which, in my opinion, is no more negative in its style than most political ads nowdays.
My bad. I did not realize that moveon.org had pulled the Hitler ads from its website. I believed, when I posted the above, that they had continued to host the ads, implicitly endorsing them.
Certainly no outrage needs to be vented on an organization that responsibly removed the ads as moveon.org did. So I was quite wrong in what I posted above.
Sorry - I should have been paying more attention to the rest of the story!
And i shouldn’t have been so quick to impugn your honesty. When determining whether someone is being dishonest or might simply have overlooked something, i think the assumption should rest with the latter until proven otherwise.
Shouldn’t we have then re-elected President Carter? Didn’t that show the Iranian fundies that our resolve was weakening?
Support the president, (when he is my guy but fuck him in the ass if he is your guy)
This thread has the potential to turn into a long running series on dishonest campaign tactics—God knows there will be enough to do that.
So, this morning I pick up the newspaper and in due course come to the comic page where I find the always amusing Mallard Filmore strip. A strip about Senator Kerry porking an intern with this language (paraphrase)—there have been allegations that Senator Kerry had an affair with an intern, but his liberal supporters say that they will vote for him even if it isn’t true.
What the Hell is that? It is hard to count the misrepresentations. It implies that the Senator did indeed have an illicit sexual relationship with an intern. It implies that there is no evidence that it didn’t happen. It implies that “liberals,” who ever they are, think it is just a dandy idea for public officials to screw around with young volunteers. It’s not even funny. It’s a dishonest cheap shot. It is even unworthy of Paul Harvey.
Now I am starting to get oblique comments about Mrs. Kerry’s “unconventional life.” We all know what that means. Brace for the President’s deniable supporters to start taking pot shots at Mrs. Kerry as a reflection on her husband. I could tell you some things about Mrs. Eisenhower that would shock you.
Let me assure all that if the Democrats and their supporters and running dogs take up this sort of back alley stuff while the candidate appears in soft focus with puppy dogs and motivational music I’ll be screaming about that too.
The basic concept of “a vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorism” was driven home to me last night and today.
I have a local station to which I listen that is all-talk radio, with all local hosts. No sydicated stuff. The night host last night is a rather right-winged looney. He can be conservative and liberal, but is just usually weird. He was the first I heard use the phrase about terrorism that I voiced above.
Today, a strange but middle of the road host voiced the exact phrase to a caller–“a vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorism.”
That scares me.
Hopefully most of the faithful listeners who hear this are a minority and already were voting for Bush.
And, I’d be just as upset if I heard the liberal talk guy in the afternoon say something about Bush that was equally as moronic. But, just like most liberals(except the extreme branch), it would never occur to him to use such comparisons. Just as it would never occur to most moderate, thinking 'Pubbies to make such a stupid comment.
Good enough, as far as that goes, Sam. But the real issue is whether or not they will tolerate such statements. Surely, somebody at the Republican meeting Mr. Cole spoke before was sane and moderate enough to know better.
For all the caterwauling and bewailing we have heard from the Bushiviks (music to my ears, truth be known…) the fact is the charges they are characterizing as “hateful” are based on facts. Mr. Cole’s repulsive rhetoric is not.
It is not our speech that damns us, but our silences.
I can’t imagine a Kerry win being that good for bin Laden. I think bin Laden and his ilk would be much happier with a candidate who favored integrating religious institutions with our federal ones, who was more sympathetic to a religious view of the world and foreign policy, and whose constituency opposed gay rights. Someone who is willing to stir up hornets’ nests in the Islamic world would also sit rather well with bin Laden, who seems to like the idea of holy war.
No, a Kerry victory would be a loss for bin Laden and all that he stands for. Luckily for Mr. Kerry, bin Laden can’t vote.
Not to mention, Chance, that Afghanistan doesn’t even have that many electoral votes. No one’s picking it as a “battleground state,” although several have called it a “battleground.”
Now, to take a detour back to the OP, why haven’t we heard ANYTHING about this since it happened?
If Bush were a man of any integrity whatsoever, he would immediately condemn this sort of “vote for Kerry and bin Laden wins” bullshit rhetoric and work through the Republican party to put a stop to it (and not in a wink-nudge way that allows it to go on while he maintains denyability, either).
Of course, I would be less surprised if he stripped naked and did a pole dance live on Fox News.
I hope the Super Storm gets here soon and ends all of this. People will be blaiming each each other’s political party as they freeze to death but at least it will end eventually.
