How can GWB be leading in the Polls???

The BBQ Pit
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By the same token, it’s surprising that so many conservatives can’t seem to wrap their minds around a simple fact: There are people out there who [n]don’t** agree with their views on abortion. At least the people who hold the opinion that Bush is a major lying cluster-fuckup have facts to support their argument.

This is the BBQ Pit on a board devoted to fighting ignorance. If we can’t get indignant here, where can we get indignant?

I believe, ultimately, that everyone has the right to vote for whoever they see fit. My indignation comes from the folks who think 3 million jobs lost, a record-breaking deficit, a quagmire war in Iraq, and the ill will of the international community are good things that we want four more years of.

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Right.

Conservatives that can’t accept an opposing viewpoint are assholes.

Liberals that can’t accept an opposing viewpoint are assholes.

Noticing a trend, asshole?

203

Nice selective response there, Spoofe.

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Here’s one reason why we’re angry.

I’d ask all of you who are amused/angry/offended at the sight of pissed-off liberals to please keep this in mind: THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT. This isn’t an amped-up parlour debate; those of us who have a vision of this country as a wise, strong, leader of nations, now perceive us as having gone seriously off-track in a way that will take decades to recover from.

Oh, and WRT this:

See my link and please try to refute that in this case I’ve cited, people ARE stupid and ignorant. But before anyone puts words into my mouth, I’m not advocating the end of democracy; I’m saying that large swaths of the voting population don’t know the facts and don’t care. And that’s why I can’t sleep at night. That, and my back is killing me.

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Which is pretty much exactly what they think of liberals. Sincerity and passion don’t make your opinions count any more.

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Guess what, though.

Rule by the ignorant and uneducated, the “common man,” has given us a reasonably enlightened and tolerant society.

Societies that purport to rule by appointed experts have inevitably been horribly intolerant despotisms. These idealistic systems have given us nightmares like Ceaucescu’s Romania, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the late, unlamented Soviet Union.

Visit any college campus, and you’ll see that some very intelligent people are particularly susceptible to the thrall of ideological fanaticism. And these are the last folks we need actually running a country.

William F. Buckley Jr. once said that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. From what I’ve seen of college professors, and the basic wisdom I’ve seen in working class bars and picnics back home in Pittsburgh, I’d have to go along with this.

Anybody who sneers at the ignorant American voter is sneering at democracy itself. And that is so far out of line with the American political tradition that people who do this are, in essence, reading themselves out of real participation in our political processes. If you don’t believe me, just try running for office with some of the views expressed in this thread.

All Howard Dean had to do was insult one voter, ONE VOTER, in Iowa, plus express skepticism in the caucus system there. He went from front runner to political joke in nothing flat.

207

O, I see now, sugarpants. If only one of the several reasons for going to war is a crock o’ shit, then the majority of the reasons are legitimate. Therefore everything is more or less hunky dory. You really grade on the curve, don’t you?

But how does this square with my quote above, Colin Powell before the war saying that if Saddam came clean on his weapons, he could stay in power? Don’t you remember that simply adorable line of reasoning, that if the regime changed enough so that it was no longer a threat!!, that would be sufficient “regime change”. I submit this a pretty clear statement to the effect that the threat from Saddam was the issue. And, of course, it turns out to be horseshit.

You got that part, right? It was in all the papers. Need a cite?

Nothing unusual about it, SPOOFE. Don’t have the slightest problem admitting I would probably vote for Carrot Top before I’d vote for GeeDubya. If I had to, I would have been willing to vote for “Fightin’ Joe” Lieberman.

Is Kerry a paragon of civic virtue, a man for the ages? Does my rabbity liberal heart fairly pound with damp excitement? Not hardly, but he’ll do. he’ll turn in a workmanlike, steady job as President. Much like I thought of Gore, come to think of it. Entirely adequate will do nicely, thank you very much. I’m ready for good long stretch of dull, boring competence. Enough with the vision thing, already.

So, to sum up: I’m not “admitting” anything. I doubt very much I’ve ever said anything much different from Anybody But Bush.

208

You think Gore would have turned in a steady, workmanlike job as President? Entirely adequate? Competent?
S-N-O-R-T

I think Gore would have been much worse than Bush. (and that is very bad, Dear Hearts)

Kerry has six months to demonstrate that he might make a better President than Bush. If he does, I’ll vote for him.

Tick, tick, tick…Time’s a’ wastin’, Mister Kerry.

209

Kerry has another problem: according to latest polls, Nader is getting twice the support he got in 2000 elections.

This obviously means one thing: many people, left, moderate and right, think that the Democrats who are in positions are the “roll over” party, that they eat the sh-- that the Republicans give them, and they like it.

Osama is using his CEO-corporate skills (he owns a building company based in Sudan), to finance and organize the ghoulish war he is waging. Kerry may have military experience, but he has no experience fighting tenacious CEOs such as Osama bin Laden, militarily or judiciously. Nader made his career fighting CEOs, though not militarily. The two should work to join forces.

210

Democracy is a hard road to hoe. One of the reasons I dislike Bush is that he apparently sincerely believes that there is an entire class of people who (according to his worldview) made a choice that affects no one but themselves, and that “choice” merits their exclusion from an important symbolic and legal institution. I find that abhorrent.

But I can’t deny that there’s an entire political party, and indeed, entire religions, that agree with him. And whatever his thoughts on this issue, I certainly can’t see him advocating violence, or even “conversion therapy,” as hard-liners would love him to do. While it’s easy for me to say that it’s objectively WRONG to have this point of view, what can I do about it, on a national level? Can I say those who share Bush’s point of view are stupid, or shouldn’t be allowed to vote, or are evil? While part of me may love to, I can’t. Sure, there are some who ARE objectively stupid and evil, and those are the people that even the hard right-wingers on this board make fun of and figuratively spit at every time. But the rest, the vast majority? The 54% or so quoted in polls? The worst I can say is that, personally, I think they’re seriously misguided. And that’s hardly a personal failing or a crime.

Heck, as much as the average pundit makes my blood boil, I can’t begrudge that either, somehow. It’s the way of the world.

I hope I’m being clear here; my thoughts on this feel very complex, and I’ve had a hard time putting them into words. Heck, reading back on it, I’m not entirely sure I made my point, considering the semi-hijack back onto Iraq that’s taking place. But hopefully I made myself clear in SOME respect…

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  • sugarpants*???
212

You wanna know how pissed off I am about GeeDubya?

If the election were being held tomorrow, and the only two viable candidates were George W. Bush and Pat Buchanan, I’d vote for Buchanan.

I mean, yeah, I may disagree with him on 99% of the issues, but at least Pat’s got enough decency to say (during the Florida 2000 election fiasco) “I think all those elderly Jewish ladies who voted for me actually intended to vote for Al Gore” – which already makes him more trustworthy and more honorable than George W. Bush.

Jeebus H. Christi, that’s how fucked up George W. Bush is – he makes Pat Buchanan seem sane by comparison…

213

What a stupid post. All the evidence on Gore indicates he is an intelligent, serious, very competent man. He would have done MUCH better than Bush, if only because of this:

He wouldn’t have invaded Iraq!!!

And you’re an absolute fool for thinking otherwise.

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Gore is responsible for us having the SDMB. He did invent the internet, sort of. At least pushed it for public use. Funding while he was in Congress, etc.etc.

We need Al Fraken as a doper!!!

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Really? You think so?

I honestly don’t know. After all, he was part of an administration that enforced crushing sanctions against Iraq, patrolled a no-fly zone in Iraq with American aircraft and attacked the country using Tomahawk cruise missiles. These are not peaceable actions, here.

There was a continuous state of tension with Iraq since 1990. Al Gore was right in the thick of things here. Do you think this tension would have magically disappeared with his election? This is stupifyingly naive.

I’m actually giving Al Gore a lot of credit here, because I’d like to think that any president would have to eventually act, in the face of a nation not allowing mandated inspections of weapons facilities and continually firing on American forces. Both items, incidentally, violations of a cease-fire agreement that stopped the fighting way back in 1991.

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Not so fast there, Kemosabe. If you look deeper into the polls that do show that (some don’t), you’ll find other responses that show the “increased” Nader support coming at *Bush’s * expense, not Kerry’s. That would be people who used to support Bush but don’t anymore, but aren’t yet sold on Kerry.

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Probobly the best reson for being glad Gore didn’t win in 2000 right there, although I am not prepared to concede that he wouldn’t.

218

By Evil Captor:

“He wouldn’t have invaded Iraq!!!
And you’re an absolute fool for thinking otherwise.”

But I don’t think otherwise. I’m pretty sure Gore wouldn’t have invaded Iraq. Since I think Iraq needed a good invading, Gore loses on that point.

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Bullet in the Head, if I’m not mistaken?

220

Yes, the newest reason, because the goal line is getting moved constantly. As far as the several reasons for war go, give us all a good laugh and remind us. Let me try.

  1. SH had biological and chemical weapons that were capable of inflicting “massive destruction”. Somehow the continental US was at risk, and the implication was he could use these weapons, essentially, at a moments notice.

  2. SH had ties to AQ, and might offer them support in a multitude of ways, ranging from financial help, save haven, or by giving them WMD.

  3. He’s a real asshole and all around eviiillllllllll guy, with the rape rooms and all.

Now, let’s get #3 out of the way, I don’t think anyone is disputing that.

Now tell me if my tinfoil hat is too tight, but wouldn’t you think these guys huddled around and planned out the best way to build their case for war? And if so, like any normal person, you put forth your strongest argument, then add some secondary arguments to reinforce it…

Now it’s common knowledge that #1 was our main justification for war. This was not a matter of “looking good” this was a matter of after carefully weighing things, and this was the best argument they could come up with. After all, if they had something better (a pic of SH and OBL making sweet, tender, love, SH bent over a nuclear tipped missile, etc) they would have used that in place of the “he’s dangerous because of WMD” angle.

So we can see that this whole WMD thing was the best they could come up with. Well before the war, a lot of people, myself included weren’t convinced of their strongest case. In fact the harder they tried to convince us of his “capabilities”, the more suspicious I became. At the UN presentation it became obvious to me that were we’re trying to grasp at any tiny straw they could dig up and exaggerate it. I loved the biological agent dispensing UAV, that was fucking hysterical. Take one of our most high tech toys and add some evil James Bond touch to it, classic. In reality of course it was literally a model airplane held together with duct tape , and had probably a 10 mile range. How about those “mobile biological weapon labs”? Oohhhhhh, sounds so scary and high-tech, and in fact that’s why I called bullshit on it, from the first second I heard it… I had originally assumed they pulled the UAV stunt, so “Mobile biological and chemical agent producing labs” rally meant, an old broken down septic tank cleaning truck, or something similar. Of course it turns out now, that they don’t even exist at all. Let’s not even get into a crusty old aluminum tube buried in someone’s front yard. Am I telling you anything you don’t know? Probably not, but it’s important to remember that the people who now appear to be correct about many of these things, were not convinced from the get go.

As far as the AQ link, some basic research will show you that SH and OBL didn’t have much in common, and in fact, stood for different things. I have failed to see even the most tenuous of links proven, and that’s the crux of it all.

**You start a war on stone cold facts, not half assed assumptions. **

Which did Bush do? Look at our track record in this situation, the Bush admin has been wrong in almost every assumption they made.