Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold is calling for President George “Dubya” Bush to be censured with regards to the illegal wiretapping issue.
Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, says that censuring the President “is just wrong. [Feingold]is flat wrong…he is dead wrong,” adding that “attacking our commander in chief … doesn’t make sense.”
“We are right now at an unprecedented war where they really want to take us down,” he said. "A censure resolution … is wrong. It sends a signal around the world.
“The American people are solidly behind this president in conducting the war on terror.”
Emphasis mine.
And I’m sure that there is a healthy percentage of the population that support Dubya, and his war.
I’m sure, however, that the majority of informed citizens diagree with Frist.
A December, 2004 Washington Post poll shows that 56% of those polled show that the war was “not worth fighting.” And 70% of Americans thought that any gains made in this war have come at an “unacceptable” cost in military casualties.
USAToday reports (on May 5, 2005) that support for the decision to go to war in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since the campaign began in March 2003, with only 41% of people polled agreeing with the President’s decision.
A poll taken in November of 2005 shows the level of support dropping to 35%.
And yet, Bizarro-Frist seems to think that diminishing numbers showing support somehow translates into “the American people are solidly behind this president in conducting the war on terror.”
The mind boggles. And wonders what they’re pumping into the water in Tennessee.
Scientologists think the majority of “informed” people believe in what they espouse.
I’m not here to defend or attack anyone. But outside message boards like this and blogs cited here often, the intellectuals that know best are often supported by their own.
It’s cute to state whatever is in the news as proof of a grand new understanding of the bigger picture, but doing it in a forum where you post it knowing the majority will be on your side instinctivly and will shout down dissenting points of view doesn’t make it the thoughtful insight you may want it to.
If we’re going to snip a few paragraphs from either side, the hamsters will be exterminated.
And if we’re going to cite statistics from a politician’s team, we’re going to get nowhere.
Why is it we keep hearing about how dumb American’s are for electing Bush in 2004, but when the poll numbers are advantageous suddenly American’s are the most attune to world events?
Not that Americans are the most attuned to world events, but that even the most torpidly oblivious of the citizenry are beginning to grasp what we America-hating dissenters said friom the git-go, and that the rhetoric of the right is becoming ever more divorced from the political realities.
I was all ready to start this thread, just find out Superdude was way ahead of me. sigh
Nevertheless, this is the part that burned me:
This seemed to me to be pretty blatant fear-mongering. Honestly, I thought we were past that stage. I thought we were to the all-is-well, Iraq-is-almost-ready-to-defend-itself stage (the truthfulness of that is about on par with the fear mongering, but that’s for another day). And, honestly, it’s a censure. It really doesn’t do anything. Impeachment would be pretty major, and there is a debate about how much good or harm that would do, but that isn’t what’s being discussed here. Just a simple censure. A slap on the wrist that says “Don’t do that again.” It’s almost too petty to worry about.
Also, I want to completely agree with ETF and her wisdom. It’s getting rediculous enough even the average thick-headed Americans are latching onto what’s going on. . .if only it took three years instead of almost five. . .
And the reality is that it is all about power and $$$$
So those that are not getting what they think is their fair share of some part of the pig trough are pissed. Happens every time.
When the parents are getting their kids educated on the military dime and there is no danger, they sing one tune, when they are not getting that, they sing another.
When the tax cuts and spending are in area’s I want, I don’t care what political party did it, they are good guys and if I’m not getting what I want they are scum …
We hear not about those who give up their own to make up for the wrongs of the party. Who files bankruptcy to help feed the poor or who goes to jail to defend or correct the response to the crimes of the party?
No one on this message board…
What is good for the world takes a back seat to what’s good for me.
What is good for the country takes a back seat to what is good for me.
What is good for you takes a back seat to what is good for me or what will give me the power to make you do what I want, be it about crime, abortion, school, emigration what ever.
Who here will step up, put their family, their $$$ their personal lives and power on the line to demand that the (______ ) do it their way because it is so much a moral and obviously correct thing to do?
You all are pissed because it isn’t about you, for you, or giving you power over someone else.
Sorry, I’m not going to argue the point. I’ve already stated elsewhere that I have major issues with the administration.
What I’m curious about, and it’s not a direct challenge to you, are the years of posts proclaiming Americans as idiots for electing Republicans and Bush, but now that polls show a lack of support for Bush, American sentiment is cited as proof that Republicans and Bush are outright wrong.
Would my claim that Americans are dimwits based on polls make that claim any less credible?
Polls shift, always. When conservatives on this board cited high poll numbers for the GOP, we were told it was because Americans were sluggish, uneducated, ignorant dullards. Now that the numbers have shifted, Americans are enlightened, intelligent and righteous.
What a major shift the country made in 2 years.
As far as the Iraq war goes? I’m giving it more than a few years. I remember reading in Newsweek the administration said it could be a 20 year commitment. That was shortly after the war started. It took over 50 years to liberate East Berlin. I’m not expecting Iraq to follow any timeline to get it’s shit together. We aren’t fighting a war on a PlayStation console. “War is Hell” isn’t just a cute phrase.
If it were up to me, I’d bring every soldier home tomorrow. Let them foment the civil war that isn’t happening yet. Yet. Saddam, in my view, was the same as Tito.
Tito supressed civil war through brutal rule. Saddam did the same. No civil war, but was it really what was right?
Get rid of Tito, and what did we see? Milosevic. We made a stand and what did we get? Civil war in the former Yugoslav states. But we see it now as right to enter into a civil war.
Iraq may revert to civil war. It would be terrible and many innocents will die. But it wouldn’t be caused by the US. It’s something that has been fermenting for decades. The US will try to avoid it, but if it is to be, it will happen. Sometimes people have to figure it out for themselves,
In the mid 1860’s there were a lot of people that thought slavery was right and Northerner’s just didn’t “get it”. Some can’t abide by state-sponsored mass executions.
If the Shiites and Sunnis insist on killing each other through cowardly acts, well nobody can stop it. They’ll do it as long as they can. We never heard of it 4 years ago because it was never reported.
But it’s been happening for centuries. The small faction on each side have been been killing each other since they decided which Imam they’d follow.
The war in Iraq has nothing to do with the religion. It’s to try to get a base of a democracy planted to bring stability to the area. If there can be a beginning of a government that is based on equality, it’s worlds ahead of what was the reality for the last 30 years.
Get a stable government in Baghdad, and watch the money flow in. America, and most other countries, love a good trading partner. Look at Japan. Or Germany.
No, no, no! Dammit, duffer, pay attention! Not that they’re smarter, it’s that even the dumbest, most blindly credulous ones are beginning slowly, painfully, tracing each big block capital letter with their Cheetos-stained fingers, to puzzle it out.
There, now. Is that a sufficiently condescending liberal elitist sneer?
It’s just the same old business as usual. Everything is going great, except when someone rocks the boat. Then it becomes a desparate struggle again. Once again, anything that threatens the status quo is Helping The Enemy, or The Terrorists have Already Won. In short, it’s bullshit. I wonder, if censure starts to pick up steam, will be seeing more mauve, lavender, puce, and polka dot terror alerts??? Place yer bets!
It’s instructive to compare this sort of reality-bitten defensive pessimism—“It’s not our fault, and we always knew it was going to be a bloody and difficult and prolonged conflict because Muslims are mired in barbaric sectarian violence, but we had to start it anyway because it was the right thing to do”—with what many conservatives were actually predicting back before the invasion.
We said the same damn thing about Bush in 2000 AND 2004. Given the way the electorate’s run the last two times, 2008 is going to have my nails chewed down to nubs no matter who’s running on either side…
