I think it’s hilarious that so far the messages that have been saying that I’m crazy for believing that liberals think Republicans are evil have been interspersed with messages from liberals, calling the Republicans evil.
Sure it does. It’s not a money grab by the top 1%? It doesn’t promulgate oligopoly? Sure it does.
Let’s add a data point to the Are Republicans Evil Grid:
Do you support the repeal of the estate tax or not, December?
Sam: That’s because ‘liberal’ and the group of Republicans that are being called Evil are both open to interpretation.
No surprise at all, really.
Dyslexia has nothing to do with speech.
We have debated this issue on these boards, IIRC. I think the estate tax was confiscatory. OTOH its repeal permits taxes to appreciated assets to be deferred indefinintely.
From what I’ve read, the estate tax falls most heavily on the moderately wealthy. The truly wealthy use loopholes to avoid the estate tax and pass the money from generation to generation. That’s why the Kennedy family is still so rich, even thought the last Kennedy to make a fortune was a couple of generations ago. If this is so, the estate tax isn’t that effective at holding back the truly wealthy.
ISTM that even in periods before there was an estate tax, families became wealthy and families lost their wealth. We don’t need the estate tax to prevent a permanent oligarchy. There are plenty of examples of the decendents pissing away their fortunes. A fool and his money are soon parted.
I do, as in its current proposed form the repeal is coincident with the repeal of the cost-basis step up upon death.
In this manner, the move encourages diversification and hence safety of assets, taxes growth not savings, is wealth blind, may actually increase current revenue, simplifies an unnecessarily complex and onerous system, and is generally more egalitarian.
Dewey, you claimed that Gore told a lie. You have been provided ample evidence that he did not. To continue to insist otherwise is therefore itself lying. You can drop it any time, counselor - and please tell us you don’t actually make a living that way.
Now, get the big picture here - there are quite a few debunkings Snopes requires of simple fabrications about Gore, Clinton, and other prominent Democrats. But the sheer volume of them, and of the people willing to believe them uncritically, is the real issue, ain’t it?
december, you have summarized a number of opinions commonly expressed about Bush, but not falsehoods asserted to be fact. With these exceptions, to wit: The cocaine story has been discussed multiple times here, but without it sinking into you that his own refusal to deny it is sufficient evidence for reasonable persons. The assertion that he still drinks is not one I’ve heard expressed, and certainly not posted all over Net hate sites or in e-mail glurge. Thanks for establishing the case for me, though. btw, I myself have suggested dyslexia as a possible reason for Bush’s stumbling over the big words in his scripts - but the alternative explanation is simple stupidity. Again, that’s speculation, not a fabrication from whole cloth.
Where’s the sheer volume of easily-checkable statements asserted as fact about Bush? Anybody? Bueller?
Sam, there’s something called “humor”. Look it up sometime.
Elvis:
Dyslexia doesn’t make you stumble and mispronounce big words. I have dyslexia. I can speak fine from a speech that I’ve reviewed.
Dyslexia makes it difficult to recognize written words as the letters jumble or reverse themselves. It also makes it difficult to pull words from the letters. Most people see words as individual entities, as a gestalt of letters. A dyslexic has a hard time doing this.
It’s possible to adapt yourself around dylsexia in some cases and overcome it, so that one reads at a normal pace. Not in all cases, but in some.
A dyslexic getting stuck doesn’t typically stammer, or mispronounce. They simply stop. They stare at a word for a while without recognizing it.
Bush doesn’t seem to do this. He glances at the teleprompter quickly and then speaks.
Bush doesn’t have dyslexia. He reads words fine, it just seems that he mispronounces them. Part of this is probably colloquial mannerisms, but it also seems likely that he has a slight stammer or stutter that he’s worked, mostly successfully, to overcome.
His father has some similar mannerisms, though not as pronounced.
I don’t see how these things count either for or against him. Hopefully we can do better than to criticize a man based on what is at worst a mild impediment.
How very timely!
From the Washington Post, by Dana Milbank (a person soon to be roundly despised by the Usual Suspects)
"President Bush, speaking to the nation this month about the need to challenge Saddam Hussein, warned that Iraq has a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used "for missions targeting the United States.
Last month, asked if there were new and conclusive evidence of Hussein’s nuclear weapons capabilities, Bush cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency saying the Iraqis were “six months away from developing a weapon.” And last week, the president said objections by a labor union to having customs officials wear radiation detectors has the potential to delay the policy “for a long period of time.”
All three assertions were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought. And all three statements were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States; there was no such report by the IAEA; and the customs dispute over the detectors was resolved long ago…"
"…The White House, while acknowledging that on one occasion the president was “imprecise,” said it stands by his words. “The president’s statements are well documented and supported by the facts,” Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer said. “We reject any allegation to the contrary…”
Imprecise! Yes, exactly so! It should join the hallowed halls of Presidential quotes! “Mistakes were made”. “I am not a crook.”
And my personal favorite, ringing the bell on the Eluc-o-meter…
"On Sept. 7, meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David, Bush told reporters: “I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied, finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic – the IAEA – that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need.”
The IAEA did issue a report in 1998, around the time weapons inspectors were denied access to Iraq for the final time, but the report made no such assertion. It declared: “Based on all credible information to date, the IAEA has found no indication of Iraq having achieved its program goal of producing nuclear weapons or of Iraq having retained a physical capability for the production of weapon-useable nuclear material or having clandestinely obtained such material.” The report said Iraq had been six to 24 months away from nuclear capability before the 1991 Gulf War.
The White House said that Bush “was imprecise on this” and that the source was U.S. intelligence, not the IAEA…"
And there’s more! Yes, indeed! Imprecisions by the bushel basket! Oodles of imprecision! Joe Bob Elucidator says “Check it out!”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61903-2002Oct21.html
Truth is mighty, and will always triumph. There’s nothing wrong with this, except that it just ain’t so - Mark Twain
Quite so. Thanks for the clarification about his possible (and maybe undiagnosed) impediment.
Perhaps we should ask december why he brought it up as an example of Democratic lies or character assaults. It is neither a statement asserted to be fact nor, obviously, is it a character issue.
I have never, not once, said that Gore told a lie in making his internet comment. Go back. Read my posts. Please, by all means, quote where I said this. You won’t, because you can’t, because I didn’t.
What I DID say is that Gore misspoke – that he meant to say he had helped the internet to grow, but it came out wrong. He took the initiative in making the internet grow, but he did NOT take the iniative in its creation.
Indeed, Snopes AGREES WITH ME on this score: Snopes says, basically, that while Gore presumably only meant he had helped the internet to grow when he made his comment, nothing Gore did in Congress could be accurately described as helping to “create” the internet. Don’t you bother to read your own goddamn sources?**
Well, as noted, there are quite a few debunkings Snopes requires of simple fabrications about Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Dan Quayle and other prominent Republicans. Indeed, there are quite a few debunkings Snopes requires of simple fabrications about non-political persons like Bill Gates. Urban legends do not slant one way or the other on the political spectrum – they pretty much attach to all varieties of prominent people.
Everybody knows that Gore didn’t invent the internet, and that it was a simple mistatement, and maybe a little exageration.
Gore didn’t invent the internet, just pop-up ads and spam.
I propose putting all spammers in a lock-box. 
I propose putting all spammers in a lock-box.
Well, to be fair, the report was almost certainly more than a single page, and that’s all that Koko can handle in one sitting, you know.
Without his lips getting tired? [rimshot]
Here is a website that lists a number of malicious misquotes about Gore, further down on the page it discusses who he helped to create the internet. It was entirely fair of Gore to say he helped to create the internet because it is true. I think that Dewey is perpetuating the deliberate lies and misquotes and the refusal to give Gore credit for what is a remarkable achievement. Gore did take the initiative in Congress in creating the internet.
http://www.makethemaccountable.com/articles/Gore_In_Context.htm
“Libraries, rural schools, minority institutions and vocational education programs will have access to the same national resources — databases, supercomputers, accelerators — as more affluent and better-known institutions.” – [ Gore, 1986 ]
James Traub, a prominent computer scientist also notes the importance of Gore’s political role. http://rush_awards.tripod.com/liesaboutgore.html It should also be noted that Gore’s claiming that he and Tipper were the inspiration for “Love Story” is also rearranged to make him look like a liar, when in fact he was pretty much correct. The director told a Tennesee newspaper that Al Gore was the model for the male lead, and Al repeated what he read in the newspaper in the presence of reporters. The newspaper did interview did not indicate that the model for the female lead was Tipper. This was a reasonable assumption for Gore to make however, since Tipper was his love story and he was the model for the male lead.
Personally, I am completely disgusted with people who accuse Al Gore of being either a liar or exaggerator, neither of which he is by normal people standards, and which he certainly isn’t close to by politician standards. Can you imagine the horror with which these people would recoil if they turned those same powers of skepticism on Dany Quayle or GW Bush? Gore is sneered at for having volunteered to serve in Vietnam, which he did, as a journalist. He was just a journalist, they sneer. Or Clinton managing to legally get out of the draft until he put his name back in. These same people ignore the Vietnam era records of GWBush or Quayle or Cheney, or Gingrich, or George Will, etc. etc. Now Vietnam was a stupid war that I would pretty much excuse anyone of trying to get out of, but not when they pretend that they were for it and were super patriots turned chickenhawks.
The notion that I am not giving Gore credit for his achievements is plainly false, as any reader of this thread can see. I have said several times in this thread that Gore should be applauded for sponsoring legislation that helped increase the size of and access to the internet. Those are good things, and the former vice president deserves ample credit for making them happen.
But, again, expanding an existing system is not synonymous with “creating” that system. That should not be a difficult concept to grasp.
And, again, I don’t think Gore was lying about his role; I just think he misspoke.
And like all politicians who say foolish things, even when said unintentionally, Gore’s opponents used his own words against him. That’s just good, hard campaign tactics; ain’t nothing evil about it. Hanging the internet comment around Gore’s neck was every bit as fair as hanging the “potatoe” gaffe around Quayle’s.
ROTFLMAO. This is so true. This thread proves itself very nicely.
AceofSpades statement is so telling.
Many Dems really do believe stuff like this about the Republicans. Republicans understand the democrat’s ideas. They just disagree with them. The Democrats don’t seem to understand the Republican ideas. All many of them can tell you is that they are bad.
It’s unfortunate for the Republican agenda that people often believe things that are true, Debaser.
Say, how’s’bout we discuss that Middle Class Tax cut; y’know, the one that backloaded all the goodies to the top 1% and gave the middle-class a loan of their own money?
Wow, look at those roaches scurry.