So, Abe - given the efficacy of a marketing department and advisors to overcome stupidity and dishonesty… what system of selection do you propose?
I find it disconcerting that the majority of posters in this thread have continued, gleefully, to demonstrate why they believe Bush is incompetent or malevolent, without addressing what I would aver is a key point of the OP: if incompetency or malevolence can produce such promising results in the race for the White House, how can you, in good conscience, continue to support the current system of selecting the resident of the White House? And what system do you recommend we use?
The answer is right there, if only you’d use a little imagination. Read Spavined Gelding’s post. The left must grasp the bloody, the down and dirty, the implements of street fighting, win at all costs electioneering.
As flawed as our system is, we’re not sure what would constitute a better system, and we admit that. Many people have made this point.
As I said above, I’d like to see an end to paid political advertising, which I think undermines democracy more than just about anything else. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to put such a measure into place.
First objection: it is not Bush’s case for war, but, as has been demonstrated, the general consensus since the end of the Gulf War.
Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, but to classify element one of your list as a lie requires the consideration of facts not in evidence before the invasion. The identical case as listed above was in force throughout the 90s, and provided the justification for the Clinton missile attacks on Iraq.
Element two of the list has not been discredited, even after the invasion. The presence of the terrorist training camp in Iraq, the presence of abu Nidal, Zarqawi, and others, the aid and comfort given by Saddam to the Palestinian terror bombers, etc., are all indications that Iraq had or “will have a co-operative relationship with terrorists”.
Element three is more a judgement call, but Putin (as described) passed along intelligence that Iraq was planning attacks against the US. And the history of Iraqi refusal to abide by the terms of the cease-fire is well documented.
Element four follows almost inescapably from the first three. And, since your statement that “we now know that the intelligence did not support elements (2), (3), and (4)” is merely false, and since a strong consensus had formed during the 90s that Iraq had or was trying to obtain WMD, your claim that Bush made up the case for the invasion of Iraq is unfounded.
Yes, you and others have addressed this. You are, in this thread, in the minority in having done so.
So let’s look at what I believe are some arguable conclusions - I don’t necessarily embrace these, but I feel they arguably flow from the facts that we have assumed arguendo above:
Dishonesty or stupidity benefit, or at least do not hinder, the candidate who has a solid team of marketeers and advisors. Thus the key element to winning an election is a solid team of marketeers and advisors.
If this is true, and if no one in this thread advocates changing the electorla system to correct this, then the inescapable conclusion is that THIS IS THE WAY TO WIN ELECTIONS. It is unclear to me why people continue to whine and moan about how stupid and/or dishonest Bush is, when it’s clear that this has nothing substantial to do with winning the Presidency. It’s as irrelevant as complaining about his accent or his middle name. The fact of the matter is, by your own admission, Bush’s victory does not depend on his honesty or brilliance, or lack thereof, because the system does not appreciably reward those traits.
I think the whining and moaning result from the fact that winning an election and actually running the country, are very, very different things.
I’m a liberal Democrat, and wouldn’t piss on Bush’s head if his hair was on fire, but I’m in awe of the Republican Party organization and its ability to win elections. For all that awe, I don’t believe their candidate is the better of the two when it comes to actual experience, ability, or intelligence.
I’m not sure I’d say it’s the key element, but it’s certainly a key element.
When I very briefly freelanced writing materials for Internet marketing, one of the most horrifying things I read was a marketer who claimed that (paraphrased), “Your marketing message will function best in an information-impoverished environment.” That is, the less people actually know about the merits and flaws of your product and that of your competitors, the more they’ll be swayed by your advertisements about your product.
I think that’s something of what we’re seeing, only twisted: although there’s a plethora of information about politics, there’s so much that it turns into white noise for most folks: they can’t figure out whom to trust, or how to evaluate information. And reading and evaluating conflicting economic reports, for example, is beyond the ken of most folks. I don’t say that to insult most folks, but simply as a statement of how things are.
So when they encounter a statement that is strong, poetically phrased, and plausible sounding, they’re often relieved. A simple message sometimes functions best in an information-overloaded environment.
I don’t follow. First off, stupidity doesn’t win you elections; I just don’t think it hurts your chances very much. Second, I’m not convinced Bush is stupid; I just don’t think he’s exceptionally smart.
Third, although dishonesty can win you elections, it doesn’t make you govern well. I mainly bitch and moan about his poor governance.
Fourth, although dishonesty can win you elections, and although I don’t have a clear alternate proposal, how does it follow that I can’t bemoan that fact? I hate war and complain about it, despite my lack of a concrete proposal for achieving world peace; I believe you do the same about abortion.
Your point is a good one – though your example is flawed. I have a concrete proposal with regard to abortion: the Supreme Court should overrule itself in the matter of Roe v. Wade, and then each state should pass legislation limiting abortion to cases in which, absent the abortion, the life of the mother is threatened.
But I agree that you can moan without having a concrete counter-proposal.
It’s just that, by moaning, there seems to be sort of an implicit assertion that you have a counter-proposal… but maybe that’s just my take on it.
Okay, then I have a concrete proposal, too: everyone should stop making political advertisements, and prospective voters should make an effort to wade through difficult and contradictory news sources in order to become better acquainted with the facts, and then people should vote based on issues, not on vague hunches.
Well, call me a bit old-fashioned but I sort of hoped that the people in charge would have a little bit of honesty, morality, and so forth that might prevent them from doing anything they possibly can to game the system. What you are basically saying is that if a system allows sociopaths (like the ones currently in power) to win elections then one would have to reform the system to prevent this. I have some sympathy for this point of view and am open to suggestions on how to do that. However, in the meantime, I don’t think that I have no right to complain. All because a system allows abuses does not mean that we have to consider these abuses to be okey-dokey! No system is perfect…And, no political system is even close to it.
At any rate, I think some of us here are trying to work our damnedest to prevent abuse of the system by fighting ignorance. The fact that we don’t win every battle, and sometimes have major setbacks, doesn’t mean we won’t eventually win the war.
Did you even read what Abe and I posted? Oh never mind; I am not expecting to convince the likes of you anyway. You are just like the Administration you are defending…completely incapable of modifying your preconceptions on the basis of new evidence.
All this would be well and good if governing was the same as campaigning. It is not. Furthermore, the consequences of mismanaging a campaign are borne by the loser. The consequences of mismanaging a country are borne by everyone and for a longer period of time.
A couple people have suggested reforms to the electoral process primarially designed to weed out politicians who use deceptive tactics to keep voters uninformed, or misinformed, about their activities/positions. I support similar reforms, although not the flat-out ban of political advertisement, as well as legislation like the FOIA which allow voters to more closely monitor the activities of politicians who represent them. I would personally try to find some way to increase direct democracy, possibly in the form of ballot initiatives and/or recall capabilities. I would also prefer to shrink the government beauracracy to the point where keeping track of who represents you at the various government levels and what they are doing is humanly possible.
As another way of looking at it, imagine that someone develops a new muscle-enhancing steroid that is, according to current scientific tests, completely undetectable in an athlete’s blood or urine (or through any other means). We suspect that some athletes are taking it, but we don’t have any practical plan for preventing their taking it. And if we figure out a test for the drug, the drug suppliers are almost certain to invent a new drug that circumvents our efforts.
Do we therefore lose our right to complain about their taking it?
That’s kind of what we’re facing now. Political ads and dirty tricks really subvert democracy, in my eyes: they use the most powerful propaganda tools humanity has invented to distract people from the issues and substitute soundbites. The winner of the race is not the person who’s most qualified to lead, but is instead the person with the best ad campaign. And the advertisers are very clever: whenever we come up with a proposal for diminishing their influence, they just repackage their efforts in a new form.
I still say that we must keep trying to diminish their influence.
A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t necessarily a square.
Sanction violations are not necessarily Weapons of Mass Destruction. That should be obvious to you without my explicitly having to point it. Similarly, all birds are not chickens.
You can be an outlaw regime, by harboring terrorists within your borders, having a history of attacking your neighbors, engaging in genocide, and all kinds of other things that are not WMDs.
Weapons of mass destruction are, of course, specifically, weapons of mass destruction. They are not harboring terrorists, engaging in genocide (although using wmds is a fun and novel way to engage in genocide and impress your friends at the same time.) Outlaw regimes are not weapons of mass destruction. They are the people running countries. If you want to cut off a dictator’s head, and then bludgeon 10,000 people to death with it, then you can make the claim that outlaw regimes are WMDS. But, until you do, I don’t want to hear it. And I’ll want pictures.
So, now that I’ve explained to you that three different things are in fact three different things, on to the next tidbit.
I read it. I just didn’t care. Saying “WMDs” and saying “WMDs which pose a clear and present threat to the US,” are, as you say, different. I suppose some people might have the confusion you attribute to them, but I think most of us just use “WMD” for shorthand knowing that “threat to the United States” is implied in the abbreviation.
Had we found some WMDS whose threat was a matter of controversy, I suppose the distinction might be important.
However, since the plain fact that every single WMD that we found so far in Iraq was an immediate threat to the US, your argument holds no water.
Indeed you didn’t, choosing to selectively quote from my post. Then arguing against that travesty of my position, using the very argument I was in fact making.
I do admit, this open admission of dishonesty is a new rhetorical stategy to me. Fine, I suppose you are dishonest.
Yes, yes you post dishonestly, no need to labour the point. In fact I’d rather you didn’t engage with me any further, seeing as you make points that are both dishonest and sillly beyond anything to meriting a response.
Utterly wrong. Threat to the US is not implied. Conflating the 2 is a cheap trick. It is done to gloss over the very point I have established, with the kind support of other people here. That Bush fabricated elements of the case for war, out and out made them up. Fabrications that cannot be mitigated by a plea of poor intelligence information.
But see I’m not a partisan, I’m bona fide, so I’d be thrilled if someone were to present a cite showing that CIA or other intelligence, not that special office Rumsfeld set up, did in fact advise Bush contrary to what I have suggested.
I’d be overjoyed to discover Bush engaged in open ended consultation with the CIA:
GWB “*What do you guys see as the security priority for the US after we rout the Taliban?”
CIA“Removing the threat posed to us by Saddam Hussein”
But I suppose either of Scylla or Shodan would have long since posted such cites if such did in fact exist. Anyone?
If quoting selectively is dishonest than by your own terms you’re a bigger liar than I am since you only selected certain portions of my previous post to respond to. Oh, the hypocrispy!
Come now.
Than don’t respond.
Well, I disagree. I think it is. I base this on the way Bush said over and over again about how these WMDs were a massive threat to us because of globalization and yadda yadda yadda, 9/11 showed us that the oceans don’t protect us any longer and how easy it would be to get these WMDs in the hands of terrorists who would use them in the US, so it wasn’t so much implied as flat out stated any number of times by any number of people in any number of speeches.
Other people agree with me. You won’t her me saying it makes me right. It doesn’t make you right either.
Long since. Long since. George Tenet. The Slam Dunk thing. Kerry saying it’s certain that Iraq has WMDs. Clinton saying the same thing. Gore. Those cites have been trotted out over and over, you know?
To me, it doesn’t really matter. Bush had many reasons for going to war of which the WMD threat was one. Bush allowed the debate to be reframed in terms of WMDs and told us it was a certainty. Whether or not he believed it is moot. At the very very least he engaged in a lie of negligence, and demonstrated incompetance. He is after all, in the final analysis, the Commander in Chief. He’s responsible for the actions he takes and for what occurs under his watch.
He said it was a sure thing. He didn’t resist the recharacterization. He encouraged it. He was flat out wrong. It wasn’t a sure thing.
This simply isn’t true, or at least, there is no real evidence it is true and no compelling reason to think it is true. The assassination story is almost certainly pure fiction. It is based entirely upon the claims of one man, Wali al-Ghazali, who was facing execution at the time and had every reason to lie and was almost certainly tortured into confessing. His story was highly implausible; there was essentially zero corroborating evidence.
Given that you are repeating as truth what is known to be fantasy, I wonder about your other claims. Once again we see that support for Bush’s administration, or at least its policies, is based at least in part on belief in things that are not true.
Well I have a couple of possible answers to explain the base and empty apologism that persists.
Back in April, The Economist ran a special report on Bush’s credibility. The entire thing is available online. Please keep in mind that this April article does not provide as complete a picture as more recent treatises, but I will just quote their take on why and how the administration can get away with all this:
My emphasis. That is the rather charitable view – charitable to the propagandaphagi, as well as the administration. The report has an apologetic tone (well, it isThe Economist), is months old, and does not take into account much of the information already expressed in this thread. It does however partially address the original question of this thread, which was demanded by Bricker:
As far as I can see there are at least two daunting tasks here, not one. The first is the argument, made easily enough, that the administration has provided too many displays of dishonesty and incompetence, packaged in a variety of manners (the argument is made easily enough, given the wealth of material, but convincing the apologists and terminal supporters is another matter). That material we can thrash out and, indeed, have done hundreds of times on these boards, in the hope that they will actually be read and not skipped selectively.
The second task is figuring out how the system is defective and what to do about it. Rather more difficult, but why not give it a bash.
Actually, I call on another issue of The Economist that kindly did the work for us. It is not available online, but I found a web site that carries the section I am interested in:
In effect, executive power is running with far fewer checks than the system requires. That’s bad enough, but exacerbating this problem is the lack of desire in the majority of mass media to dig into issues and expose the rotten portions thereof. We can’t, as The Economist goes on to explain in the next section, rely on Congressional oversight, because that has been undermined as well (I don’t have a link at the moment though).
It is at this point that the marketing department becomes especially relevant, and why the words of dead presidents are so important to the modern republic. I am typing out the following, so please forgive any typos.
What is the solution? Who knows? Certainly it should be a subject for intense study. Assuming that the political process prevents the citizens from wresting power back from the administration by re-enabling Congress as an effective watchdog, there are limited options.
Media with much sharper teeth, for a start. Media that, when they hear outrageous claims, won’t simply parrot them, but attempt to run a verification process and provide readers with substance. Media that resist alarmism, that aren’t fooled by deliberate inaccuracies spun like tops, and that don’t feel the need to toe some sick totalitarian “patriotic” line.
Unfortunately, as discussed in the thread Censored Stories of the Year, such media have difficulties finding traction where critical thinking is lacking, where information must be accompanied by bias to be acceptable, and where ratings dictate the behaviour of private media. In fact the large majority of all forms of US media – thousands of them – today is owned entirely by five or six corporate giants (used to be 50 in 1983, fell to about 20 in 1992). There are PBS and NPR available throughout the country, thankfully, but in terms of ratings they fall below the top giants (which, sadly, include FOX News, the most watched news channel in the US and also the most jingoistic and sloppy).
Regarding the dishonest and embarrassing apology that WMDs aren’t that critical, that they weren’t the focus, and similar pre-digested pap being cranked out by the administration: perhaps we should leave such statements to stand on their own merits – or, more appropriately, fall flat on their faces, since the evidence already provided indicates that such arguments are reaching and desperate attempts to excuse and reconcile deliberate falsehood and misinformation. Certainly not part of any democratic process.