Perhaps Rove had a hint about numbers like these.
My, but you throw the ‘liar’ accusation around easily. Let’s see…
Sam Stone said:
“This conflict is NOT primarily just a police and intelligence matter, which is what John Kerry said and what a lot of you believe.”
John Kerry said:
"This president is actually playing to the culture of fear in our country. The war on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation. "
Cite.
Just where was I “lying”, again?
By the way, when you toss around accusations of “LIAR!” every time someone differs by a word or two from a direct quote, you simply make yourself look shrill and not worth talking to.
From the first page:
Just to remember what we are disscussing here, and now as evidence that Rove was right we get what Kerry said, the problem is that it is misleading evidence.
Not lying Sam? :dubious: Once again, in context, I see the typical “willfully ignore the timeline” maneuver the right wing is so fond of: look at the date Kerry said that in your cite.
After seeing this occurring so many times in discussions, I see it if not as a lie, then a willful effort to mislead…
Yes, Sam, lets do talk about that part of Rove’s speech that isn’t particularly offensive. Perhaps that way we can pretend that we leftys are just hysterically shrill, etc. Our point remains unchanged and unchallenged, as you have acknowledged yourself.
But nonetheless…the question of a valid strategic approach to the War on Terror is a worthy one. Kerry was right, and you are wrong. Said so from the beginning, and remain no less convinced.
We opted for a military option because we fell for the “hammer fallacy”: when you have a hammer, problems tend to be regarded as nails. We have the most powerful military force in human history, and we were eager for retribution. We wanted to hit somebody, hit them hard, and, most importantly, hit them now!
Dumb-de-dumb-dumb. Dumb-de-dumb-dumb-dumb!
We are in conflict with a shadowy, underground enemy. That enemy has no capital cities, no battallions, no armored divisions. The standard military means are no more useful than launching an artillery barrage against a fog bank. But we didn’t want to face the hard facts of this war, that it will be fought with tactics more akin to criminal investigations…intelligence, snitches, subterfuge… than akin to military action. We need eyes and ears in the marketplaces of Ankara and the slums of Hamburg. A jet bomber lifting vengefully off the deck of a carrier is an inspiring visual sound bite, but means next to nothing. Attacked by a swarm of hornets, we flail about with a sledge hammer.
The single most crucial advantage of such a shadowy war is the cooperation of friends and allies, the aforementioned eyes and ears. For a brief moment, we had that, candlelight vigils in sympathy everywhere, an outpouring of proferred cooperation from people who didn’t even like us very much, but were willing to help.
And GeeDubya pissed it all away playing tough guy. Leader of Men, War President.
Our invasion of Afghanistan is arguable, I opposed it. Frankly, I’m not convinced the Taliban could have handed over ObL had they wanted to. They didn’t want to, of course, so we had somebody we could focus our military might upon, somebody we could hit! And so we did. Beyond our splendid victory over a rag tag bunch of religious zealots who couldn’t even field an army with actual uniforms, what have we accomplished? After all that, have we ObL? No. Did we flood AlQ’s recruiting centers with eager volunteers? Very likely. Some victory.
And there is little point in even discussing Iraq in this context, since Saddam had fuck-all to do with ObL. Suffice to say that our previous effort at bolstering recruitment for AlQ has blossomed into a rich, rich harvest of new enemies. Goody.
From day one, we were impelled by our thirst for vengeance into foolish efforts. We should have taken a deep breath and begun the careful and painstaking work that tracking down and eliminating a criminal underground requires. But we didn’t, because our leaders pandered to our hunger for vengeance and took us in the wrong direction. The cost continues to mount, the results remain meager.
Kerry was right, you are wrong.
elucidator, I reluctantly approved of the war in Afghanistan, for the reason that indeed a true coalition of nations came to help the USA. Heck, even the French put their lives on the line there.
So all the world leaders saw the intelligence and agreed the Taliban had to go, the problem then was the majority of world leaders then saw the intelligence to justify the war in Iraq and they did not see it as overwhelming. Now evidence in the field showed that it is silly to deny the liberals that supported TWAT to not cry foul. It is becoming more so now that items like the OSP and now the Downing Street memos are surfacing.
For insight on the, ahem, motivation behind this latest assault of liberal treachery:
Poll from here:
http://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/
(by way of Daily Kos)
Approve Disapprove
Republicans 84 12
Independents 17 75
Democrats 18 77
And the quote from Daily Kos:
GIGO, even opposition has nuance. I saw the invasion of Afghanistan as rather foolish and pointless, and I submit that the “results” bear me out.
There is no comparison between the extent of my opposition to the Afghan war and the Iraq debacle. I didn’t think it was that good an idea, but wasn’t all that much opposed. Removing the Taliban is a positive, but was it worth the cost? I don’t think so, but the difference is close enough I’m willing to shrug it off. I didn’t much like the Taliban, but I would not have given my son to have them gone.
Nor yours.
I always knew you were black.
:raises fist in solidarity:
an honorific to Daffy Duck, actually. Scotch-Irish Cherokee mongrel, like most of us peckerwoods. And much quicker to stretch out my hand than raise a fist.
Other than that, honored.
Well, the results were really more a function of poor planning and sloppy management.
Not really. I just know your style pretty well by now.
Right there. What you did was pluck a portion of a response in a discussion about the color coding terror alert system. Why do that? If you are telling the truth, surely there will be a comprehensive statement out there to back you up. Unfortunately, for you and your “integrity,” Kerry’s position really was:
http://www.noticias.info/Archivo/2004/200402/20040228/20040228_19537.shtm
[quote]
Kerry will act militarily when necessary, build strong alliances with other nations and enhance our intelligence and law enforcement capabilities. Kerry addresses the root causes of terrorism and offers a real plan to secure our homeland by safeguarding our chemical and nuclear facilities, bolstering port and aviation security, restoring 100,000 COPS on the street and adding 100,000 new firefighters in our communities.
“We cannot win the War on Terror through military power alone,” Kerry told an audience at the University of California at Los Angeles. “As President, if necessary, I will use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests. But the fight requires us to use every tool at our disposal. Not only a strong military – but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds.”
Again, I just know you pretty well. Most things that come out of your mouth (or fingers) really just end up not bearing out to be correct.
The problem here is that Kerry is describing a more complicated response than War/No War. I know it is hard to wrap your head around.
On the other hand elucidator is entirely correct, and you are simply engaging in the old Republican standby of distract and smear. No missing women or missing Swift Boats? Any claims about NASA funding? Perhaps we should take it to another thread, and let you try to defend Rove more explicitly in this one.
Now hold on a second! While jsgoddess was quite right to point out that my remarks in no way represents liberals as a whole, I do not suck.
. . . . . . .
I lick. 
What I find mind-boggling about this poll is that 84% of Republicans still approve of the job that Monkeyboy is doing. My God! What does this incompetent boob have to do to earn your disapproval? Reveal that he is the anti-Christ?
The too are probably mutual, that is, people who no longer identify as Pubbies call themselves Indy. Recovering Republicans, so to speak.
Same same.
I’m confused. First you called the first half of Rove’s statement only ‘mildly offensive’ for suggesting that Liberals think that terrorism should be addressed as a police and intelligence matter, and now you’re saying that that’s exactly what you believe.
Seems to me that you actually agree with the first half of Rove’s statement.
What about the “therapy” part? That was silly, at best. “Mildly offensive” sounds about right.
First of all, Sam, it would be difficult to care less about that first part. It is mildly offensive in that it seeks to depict liberals as touchy-feely wussies, not like the hairy chest thumping Pubbies. Its hardly worth paying attention to, but you do seem intent on drawing our attention to it. One suspects because you are more comfortable talking about something that isn’t utterly repugnant. And, of course, you wouldn’t mind an opportunity to imply that my stance is inconsistent or hypocritical.
As if it matters. I’m not the object of discussion here, Sam. Karl Rove is.
Nice try.
Sam is a guy who’s entirely comfortable talking about “The Left” in the same lumped, caricatured, hostile terms that Rove has displayed here, so it’s no wonder that you’re having trouble reaching. “Mildly offensive” is too gentle a term for what Rove has said, “ignorant, divisive, hateful, and destructive” would be more accurate.
Oh, look - it’s one of those third-party drive-bys we were discussing in the pit recently.
Y’all have fun with the rest of this thread.
I’ll try to explain, once again, why I find Rove’s remark so much worse than Durbin’s. And if you could actually point out in my logic where you disagree, I’d appreciate, because, honestly, this seems like such a no-brainer to me that I’m really not quite sure how it is that we disagree.
First, some philosophical ruminations… what makes remarks “good” or “bad”? Well, I guess that saying things should be judged via the same metric that we judge anything else, namely, what are the results of something being said? After the person gets up and says something, is the country, overall, a better place or a worse place? And to what extent is that difference one that was intentional vs. unintentional, and predictable vs. unpredictable? And could the same positive effects of the statement have been achieved without the negative ones by phrasing it differently?
So, let’s take Durbin’s statement. What is he trying to accomplish? As far as I can tell, no one seems to disagree that he’s quite honestly trying to do what he appears to be trying to do, namely, call public attention to what he percieves as a grave misuse of US power. There’s a real problem, not one that he made up. He has real information about it. He thinks that it’s something that people aren’t aware enough of, and he wants to increase that level of public awareness. Granted, there’s an obvious political benefit for his party in that increasing, but still, he’s basically doing something legitimate. Also, note the difference between wanting to raise public awareness of atrocities at Gitmo, which are important things which could have a drastic impact on important ongoing world events, and which publicity could help to address in the future; and, for instance, wanting to raise public awareness of W’s drunk driving conviction, which, while superficially similar, is basically a purely and directly partisan action, as opposed to a basically good-intentioned and correct action, which also has partisan benefits.
So, I’m giving him a thumbs up for intention and motive. Where he fell down was on execution. It’s easy to see what his thinking was, namely, that by mentioning the worst Gitmo atrocities, and pointing out how unAmerican they seem, in fact, the awful (and far far worse) previous regimes they remind us off, he would shock people into awareness. The trouble with that, though, is that something that shocking can be counterproductive. The ideal outcome of what he said would be to, say, increase awareness of Gitmo atrocities by 2% in all Americans. Now, some Americans probably did have their awareness increased, but others just got pissed off at Durbin himself, and others (the ones I feel worst for) were probably devestated and insulted because their friends and loved ones (guards and Gitmo in particular, and in the military in general) were, as they saw it, called Nazis. While I (as I’ve said several times) am not HUGELY disturbed by Durbin’s remarks, I certainly wouldn’t want to talk to the grandmother of someone who is serving honorably at Gitmo (and I’m sure the vast majority of soldiers at Gitmo are just doing a tough job as best they can with very little chance of much public gratitude) and try to explain to her that, no no no, Durbin wasn’t calling her grandson a Nazi, he was pointing out that the worst excesses at Gitmo, which are a small number of incidents, if viewed alone, would seem blah blah blah blah.
So, for intent and motive, thumbs up. For execution, thumbs somewhat down (although it certainly could have been a lot worse). What’s the net impact on America? Some people get their consciousness raise about Gitmo, some people get really offended, lots of people get pissed of at Durbin, and a big stupid talking point takes over the airwaves. Net effect on America: minorly negative.
Oh, and also note that any ambiguity in Durbin’s remarks comes not from unclear language or veiled accusations/slurs, but from the fact that (a) he’s actually trying to make a non-trivially-simple point in a soundbite world, and (b) once you mention Nazis, that’s all people will read (not that I blame them).
Now look at Rove’s remarks. What motivated him? Did he have ANY motive other than smearing liberals? In what possible way is America going to be a better place because of what he said? Is there any possible positive result from this that can come other than that it helps get Republicans elected? And how does it do that? By extolling their virtues, using facts and figures and persuasive arguments? No, it levels barely veiled but incredibly demeaning and cruel accusations at “liberals”. All “liberals”. What is the outcome of this going to be? Well, I may be a bit pompous and grandiose here, but I think one of the biggest problems in American today is the divisiveness. It seems MUCH harder right now for a liberal and a conservative to be friends than it ever has before. (At least in my lifetime.) (Which is one reason why I so enjoy having civil, and thus presumably comaraderie-full, discussions with Sam Stone, Bricker, and their ilk). I think this is a HUGE problem, and an ongoing national tragedy. And Rove’s remarks are basically just pouring gasoline on that rift and tossing a match on. When millions of Americans are going to look at me and wonder whether I want their brothers and sons to die, or even whether I would be happy if their brothers and sons died if it scored me political points, that makes this country a worse place.
Thus, Rove’s remarks had no possible benefit to the nation as a whole, just to the Republican party, and had a large, predictable, negative effect on the country.
So, to sum up: Durbin had basically reasonable and correct motives, spoke clearly and factually, and used very poorly chosen words which obscured his message, and caused potential insult and hurt. Rove, on the other hand, was (as far as we can tell) purely motivated by partisanness, used veiled innuendo and (presumably deliberately) vague language to slander half the country and play up the already overwhelming divisiveness which is tearing our country apart.
THAT is why I am more upset by Rove than by Durbin.
Find me a quote from a prominent Democrat saying “Republicans are just glad to see big corporations getting richer, even if it means your sons are dying. That is all that needs be said about their motives” and I will be just as outraged as I am by Rove. OK, ALMOST as outraged. I’ll do my best 
Fair enough. I was just bringing up the Coulter/Franken example to show part of why I got so worked up. Your post seemed like part of an all-too-familiar and frustrating pattern.