Giuliani buggered out of Iraq Study Group to give $$$ speeches

[RTFirefly]

@Mr. Moto

Just don’t start these threads saying that someone is somehow disqualified for the office in your mind because of some action - especially if there was no way you’d ever consider voting for that person in the first place. That’s pretty self-serving, and you’ve been called on it.

That’s some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard. You musta cornered the market on stupid, Mr. M. How exactly do you find your way to the office in the morning, and back home at night?

Remember the post (#11) where I first brought Edwards’ name into this? I assume you do, because you haven’t stopped talking about him since.

The point I made there was that even if the candidate who did this was a candidate I supported, it would pretty much kill my support for that candidate.

That can’t be too hard to grasp: I consider this behavior to be a deal-breaker, period. (I’ve given the reasons multiple times - post #13 is the best short version - so I won’t go there again in this post.)

So: Candidate X does something that I’d regard as a deal-breaker, regardless of party. Why on earth should whether I bring it up depend on Candidate X’s party? That makes no sense at all.

Yet that is what you’re saying here.

I can only conclude from this that you’re an idiot.

And we would even welcome your comments in the Pit.

Is this the royal ‘we’?

I don’t exactly care whether you welcome my comments in the Pit.

All I ask of you is that you make some sort of coherent sense, but I fear I may be setting the bar too high.

That’s doubly so if your preferred candidate suffers from the same character flaw you seem to criticize so deeply in others. As has been pointed out, and certainly not by just me (a perusal of media sources backs up this perception) John Edwards isn’t considered a foreign policy expert by most people.

Ah, yes. I considered Giuliani’s behavior problematic for three reasons, two of which were two-part juxtapositions. With Edwards, half of one of those reasons applies.

That’s 3 v. 0.5, for those keeping score at home.

I also note that, even for that 0.5 reason, your argument is based on the “perception” of Edwards. That’s pretty pathetic. I produce detailed foreign policy speeches by Edwards, and your counter is “perception.”

If that’s all you’ve got, you ain’t got nothin’. But I’m sure you’ll keep saying it anyway.

You might also want to lay off the attacks on the character of people whose only crime is to support people whom you do not support. That gets tiresome fast.

If you go saying, “you said X in the Marcotte thread” but can’t produce a quote, or say “you said Z about Giuliani’s divorces” but don’t produce what it was I actually said, then admit like a man, not like the slime-mold you are, that you got it wrong.

But you are a chickenshit coward who doesn’t have the guts to admit he’s been peddling lies all the way through this thread.

[RTFirefly]

@Mr. Moto

Sure. And I was clear at the outset that I wasn’t considering voting for Kerry, but thought he owed clearer answers on that controversy.

Oh, noes! I wasn’t upfront about my political loyalties!! I had everybody fooled until the famous sleuth Mr. Moto came along.

Ain’t enough rolleyes. Really.

Look, it’s 2007. I’ve been here since 1999, you’ve been here since 2002. Other than gonzomax, everyone in this thread has been around since 2004 or earlier. If you regard as important my failure to provide a similar disclaimer, I can only conclude that you’re living in some alternate universe where nobody has long-term memory.

And you might recall that during the thread I showed considerable respect for Kerry’s military heroism, far more than the OP here has shown Rudy Giuliani’s rather significant professional accomplishments, from what I can see.

New rule: if you want Mr. Moto to think you’re doing the right thing, you have to balance your Pit threads with acknowledgements of unrelated good things the Pittee has done.

just that pretending to be non-partisan in these discussions when your bias is clearly showing isn’t particularly smart.

Who’s pretending to be nonpartisan? As I’ve said a really tiresome number of times, I am ‘pretending,’ IYHO, that I would have been similarly upset if a candidate I favored had done the same thing.

That’s not being nonpartisan, and I’m not claiming to be nonpartisan. But as with most people, some of my standards for judging candidates are based on factors that strongly correlate with partisan affiliation (like being for a higher minimum wage, against the Iraq war, and stuff like that), and some of my standards are based on factors that don’t correlate with partisan affiliation at all (like not calling black people ‘nigger’, not collecting child porn, and a whole bunch of other behavioral and character standards too extensive to easily summarize).

There’s nothing particularly complicated or remarkable about this. It’s true that Republicans have muddied the waters in recent years by changing their minds on what is or isn’t in the ‘doesn’t correlate with partisan affiliation’ category based on partisan affiliation, but that’s your problem, Mr. Moto, not mine.

[Mr.Moto]

But you’re not terribly upset at all.

John Edwards had a horrible attendance record on the Intelligence Committee - and that even before he began his run for the 2004 presidential nomination. Only Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond skipped out on a comparable number of meetings, and Thurmond was about 99 years old at the time.

Few Senators overall read the National Intelligence Estimate before voting on the Iraq war. Nearly everyone on the Intelligence Committee did, including almost all of the Democrats. Except for, of course, John Edwards, who at first said he did and later retracted the statement.

Cite.

Another cite.

Now, I’m going to say right off the bat that I think you were probably unaware of these things, attuned as you are to notice mostly the missteps of your political opponents. Again, fair and good. It is what opposition is for.

Just don’t come up here and say sweetly that bagging out on meetings and not doing homework would cause a candidate to lose your support - because your candidate did just that, and you support him just fine.

[RTFirefly]

@Mr. Moto

But you’re not terribly upset at all.

About what?

The fact that you sling lies around like hash browns about things you’ve imagined I said?

Not really, because nobody other than me is really paying attention to you anymore. But why should I pay attention to you? Why should I believe you about anything? Ever?

[Mr.Moto]

For crying out loud.

Why, RTFirefly do you support John Edwards for President?

[RTFirefly]

@Mr. Moto

For crying out loud.

Why, RTFirefly do you support John Edwards for President?

Look, it’s really simple:

You threw some shit at the wall, starting back on the first page of this thread, about things I supposedly said in previous threads.

I’ve been asking you ever since to back it up or retract it.

All you want to do is change the subject.

Why should I deal with new shit you bring up, if you aren’t willing to deal with the old shit you brought up to begin with?

[RTFirefly]

The question in this thread, Mr. Moto, is strictly one of your character.

You apparently have none.

I’ll check back from time to time for evidence to the contrary, but I don’t have high expectations.

[Mr.Moto]

Again, what lies? You do this quite consistently.

Right here you said:

Fred Thompson had a decidedly undistinguished record in the U.S. Senate: when someone gets overshadowed by Bill Frist, you know there ain’t much ‘there’ there.

Yet when I brought up criticisms of John Edwards and his similarly undistinguished Senate record, and ask you about your support of him, you got testy.

Double standards aren’t just a comedic device in 1950s family sitcoms, you know. They are a comedic device on our own SDMB as well.

[RTFirefly]

@Mr. Moto

Again, what lies? You do this quite consistently.

Right here you said:

Funny, that doesn’t look like the Marcotte thread. Nor does it look like anything about Giuliani’s divorces.

So you’re still refusing to own up to your falsehoods.

@Mr. Moto

Hell, I’m as partisan as they come. But at least when I was dragging Edwards over the coals about the Marcotte mess, I had the decency to state clearly that I was commenting about campaign strategy, and wasn’t considering voting for the man.

Hey, remember that thread where you fantasized about being Laura Bush’s sex slave, being forced to do her bidding while your bound, naked wife watched?

Neither do I, but at least I had the decency to state that clearly.

[John_Mace]

Wow. And the campaigns haven’t even really begun yet. I can’t wait to see what things will be like a year from now…

[RTFirefly]

It’s nice, Mr. Moto, that you can find things wrong with John Edwards, btw. Obviously my support for his candidacy is based on what I regard as his overall qualifications, but is not based on his perfection or even sainthood. It does require his not having committed any breaches that I would regard as deal-breakers. As I’ve explained to you already, there’s a big gap between what we know Giuliani did, which I regard as a dealbreaker, and what you claim (citing yourself as an authority for pieces of it, and representing other pieces in a misleading manner) Edwards has done.

As I’ve said, if everything you said was true, it would be 3 v. 0.5. And since it’s probably not, given that you’re a serial liar (why am I still talking to you? sheer cussedness, I guess), it’s 3 v. probably 0.05. That ain’t equivalency.

And there’s the Fred Thompson thread poo, which isn’t here or there. An undistinguished Senate record is of course a negative, but it’s not a dealbreaker; Lincoln’s Congressional record was pretty thin, but he was one of our greatest Presidents. And while you claim Edwards had an undistinguished Senate record, that is of course IY(worthless)O, and MMMV. It’s not a factual matter.

We’re not going to discuss that further here, either. If you want to open a “how good/bad a Senator was John Edwards?” thread, be my guest. But since I’m tired of your lies and bullshit artistry, I doubt you’ll see me there.

But suffice it to say that your “I can find bad stuff about John Edwards! Therefore how can you possibly support him, given your OP here!?!” is a crock of shit, because you aren’t in any remote sense establishing an equivalence to what Rudy did in blowing off the ISG in the manner of an irresponsible teenager.

And then (back to the main point) there are the things you claim about what I said (a) in the Marcotte thread, and (b) about Rudy’s divorces. The things you can’t or won’t back up, that you won’t retract, but you are tirelessly able to find new, meaningless distractions to throw into this thread to attempt to hide your cowardly ways, your refusal to stand behind your own words like a man.

[Liberal]

Jesus, RT. If you really think he’s a serial liar, an idiot, and all the other stuff you’ve called him in this thread, then all this makes you look quite insane. It’s like watching someone scream epithets at a mop handle, having mistakened it for a deaf man in a coma.

[Mr.Moto]

@RTFirefly

But suffice it to say that your “I can find bad stuff about John Edwards! Therefore how can you possibly support him, given your OP here!?!” is a crock of shit, because you aren’t in any remote sense establishing an equivalence to what Rudy did in blowing off the ISG in the manner of an irresponsible teenager.

And Edwards blowing off the Intelligence Committee was a model of responsible governance?

Look, you are putting words in my mouth. I am not saying that you shouldn’t support Edwards. I have said throughout this thread that doing so was reasonable if your views synched with his.

I’m just saying that if you throw crap like this at a Giuliani supporter, he’s likely to throw it right back given Edwards’ own deficiencies in this area - like I said, the guy ain’t no Joe Biden. And your claim that this implies some sort of character defect on Giuliani and his supporters, yet somehow implies none for your guy or you is baffling to me.

[John_Mace]

Maybe we can apply the “brain exploded” defense to Rudy. Once a person decides to run for president, his brain explodes and he does all kinds of rude/immature/impulsive stuff. Gotta watch out for those brain explosions.

[elucidator]

I think in Rudy’s case, he was about 2.

[RTFirefly]

A man either stands behind his words, or retracts them. You made claims about what I said in previous threads, but substantiation has been distinctly lacking.

I can understand that you might need time to decide which to do. But since you’ve time to bring up new issues - Look! Edwards! Not perfect! - that have nothing to do with any issue at play here, I can’t see that that’s a defense for you here.

Marcotte. Giuliani divorces. Previous threads.

@Mr. Moto

I’m just saying that if you throw crap like this at a Giuliani supporter, he’s likely to throw it right back given Edwards’ own deficiencies in this area - like I said, the guy ain’t no Joe Biden.

Can you give an instance where Edwards committed himself to some sort of service to his country, then blew it off without telling anyone until afterwards, so he could fatten his wallet instead?

No, you can’t.

Guess you’re making that up, too.

@Mr. Moto

And your claim that this implies some sort of character defect on Giuliani and his supporters, yet somehow implies none for your guy or you is baffling to me.

The only Giuliani supporter I see a character defect in is you. If I inadvertently implied that his supporters generally had a character defect, I of course retract that. (See? It isn’t hard.) Though of course I’m curious to see what words of mine you think suggested that in the first place; I strongly suspect no one else would find such an interpretation convincing.

When, in this thread, have you told the truth about anything? You’ve even misled about stuff you linked to in the same post.

You know what? I’m tired of your lies, your bullshit, your unwillingness to stand up like a man and back up your own words, or apologize like a man and retract them. Everyone else has left this thread but you and me. I think I will leave you in this empty room, talking to yourself.

But feel free to do as much of that as you’d like.

[RTFirefly]

Well, dayum. Missed Liberal’s post earlier (you’ve got a point, Lib), and what I get for not previewing is that John Mace and elucidator stopped by while I was saying everyone had dropped out of this discussion.

Well, never mind that. Lib is right - it’s time for me to bug out of here, regardless of whether Mr. Moto has an audience.

[Mr.Moto]

As for Amanda Marcotte, did you or did you not say this?

I’m with Chris Bowers on this: if the Edwards camp lets the wingnuts start pushing them around with every pseudo-‘scandal’ they can drum up, then Edwards is too much of a lightweight to be President. Hardly matters what one thinks of Amanda’s old posts at Pandagon.

Just for the record, here are the comments by Chris Bowers you were associating yourself with:

I have a pretty vicious rant and an important action alert lined up, but I am waiting to hear from the Edwards camp about the fate of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan before doing anything. The Salon story is not credible and cannot be verified at this time. The campaign is still involved in internal discussions.

The Edwards camp faces a series simple choices right now:

* Are you with the people who work their asses for you, or are you with right-wing extremists who hate you?
* Are you willing to point out the double standards and hypocrisy behind this story, or will you cave to even the mildest pressure from the Republican Noise Machine?
* Do you have any loyalty to the netroots, or was it all just sweet talk, where loyalty actually only flows uphill and shit actually only flows downhill?

But like I said, I am waiting before letting loose. This is a big opportunity for his campaign. Whether he stands up or backs down will be a turning point for his campaign online. Either way, he won’t be tied with Barack Obama in Dailykos straw polls anymore. It will be hard in one direction or the other.

UPDATE [by Matt]: When I was hired by the Corzine campaign, right-wing blogs dug through my past and tried to smear me with what I had written. It hurt and it sucked, but the campaign ignored it to their credit. Obviously there were differences between Corzine in 2005 and a Presidential candidate. My point is that candidates don’t have to take responsibility for what their bloggers or staffers say while not under their employ unless they make the decision to do so.

You called it a pseudo scandal. I said above you seemed offended that it was brought up. Seems I have some basis for my supposition.

And that’s hardly the only comment you made about that controversy.

[RTFirefly]

@Mr. Moto

As for Amanda Marcotte, did you or did you not say this?

Well, yeah. So?

You called it a pseudo scandal. I said above you seemed offended that it was brought up. Seems I have some basis for my supposition.

You realize that makes no sense at all?

Apparently not.

You are equating very different things, and using the false equating as the springboard for further bullshit. It seems to be your standard practice.

And that’s hardly the only comment you made about that controversy.

True. I’m sure that means something to you.

Just for the record, here are the comments by Chris Bowers you were associating yourself with:

Yep, that’s what Chris said, alright.

You’ve got random clippings scattered on the floor, and you’re convinced they not only tell you a story, but should tell a story to the rest of us. This reminds me of nothing so much as a certain scene in A Beautiful Mind where we see inside Nash’s shed.

Cheers.

[Mr.Moto]

If your comments of the Marcotte matter differ from my recollection of them in the beginning of this thread by any degree, they certainly don’t do so by such sufficient to justify the hyperactive response you have given.

As for the comments about Giuliani’s religion and his divorce, upon further reflection it seems to me you were either wondering about Catholic theology in general when the subject was raised or wondering about the way Republican voters would react to them.

I’m retracting my criticism on that point, and shouldn’t have pressed that issue quite as long as I did. That’s about all, though.