Not allowed, as such, but Tony and his cronies seem to be getting away with things time and again. Much like Dubya, in fact.
If that’s the way you feel, perhaps you should move to Zimbabwe. You’d love it there. :wally
Of course it should have become public. The people have a right to know if their government is breaking the law. And no, governments NEVER need to act illegally. What the bloody fuck? That makes us no different from the Soviets we were supposed to be opposing.
Why is it okay for the US to act illegally, but not any other nation? If that were the case, we’d have no right to condemn Saddam, or whoever else is breaking the law.
Good god, you’re fucking scaring me.
You can still cast a write-in vote for Dennis Kucinich.
Revtim wrote
Very close. The wife and I ran away to Carmel for our tenth anniversary, where I promise the topics of Straight Dope, Bush and Kerry were never raised.
I’m kinda surprised to see this thing still alive. I’ll respond to some of the comments later today when work settles down. But I promise one thing:
Any hypothetical posts where the poster asserts that only an “extremist suicidal nutcase” could disagree with his position, any hypothetical posts that declares his opponents “proven liars”, with no real claim, cite or proof, any such hypothetical posts which are followed up with “seriously, I’d like a response”, will not get a response, except for perhaps “Lick my nuts, freak… seriously.”
So . . . what you’re saying is that even though the Swift Vets have been debunked into the ground, in countless and endless threads here at the Dope, and in countless major media organs, we must rehash it all here before you’ll deign to respond?
I can see THIS is going to go well. I for one ain’t bringin you any mountain, Mohammed. Report back when you’ve come out from under your bridge and have acquired the minimal knoweldge for discussing your position. Otherwise, as I said above, this thread is nothing but a dingdong ditch.
Didn´t anybody notice the big sign, said something like BRIDGE OUT BEWARE OF BADSMELLING THINGIE UNDERNEATH at the start? Howmany pro-choice people call themselves ¨pro abortion¨? Remember LibSuzie or whatever he-she called herself?
Slight hijack, but I think it would be better to say pro-abortion or anti-abortion, as that would be closer to the matter. The notion that “anti” is negative and hence doesn’t fit into the political correctness, so everybody has to be “pro” is pretty stupid. Especially when you’re coming up with 2 different things to compare - I daresay that someone who is pro-abortion might very well be pro-life, but anti-choice:
Pro-life is a misleading description, as is pro-choice: Sometimes it is necessary to save a life with an abortion when trying to carry out the fetus would result in the mother and the child dying, so how can being against the abortion be “pro”-life?
Pro-choice sugarcoats the whole process. Having an abortion should never be a choice like “Hmmm, what should I have for lunch today? So many choices!” The advantages and disadvantages of an abortion need to be carefully weighed in the sense that a decision for or against it should be made, but “yes” and “no” shouldn’t be treated as equal options. The scales for one or the other need to be tipped, imho.
What’s my point? I’m not pro-Kerry, I’m anti-Bush 
Kerry is done. Come November 3rd, the White House, Senate and House of Representatives will be in Republican hands once again. An examination of the political landscape that’s free of ideological wishful thinking will bear that out.
And while I have my fortune telling hat on, “Operation Fortunate Son” will bite the DNC in the ass.
Sorry about the delays. Some responses for serious points/questions:
mrunlucky wrote
I’m pro-gay. I support gay rights, including gay marriage. I’m public in these beliefs, and in general I vote these beliefs. But… In the scope of things, I consider the right of gay marriage to be of considerable lesser importance than a safe and strong country. It’s not a gay thing; I’d happily give up the rights to hetero marriages as fast. To me, the two are not even comparable on the priority list. And in my mind, Bush wins hands down on the safe country front.
Avenger wrote
Well, Kerry pretty much from the get-go called out “I am an awarded war-veteran; vote for me.” His Democratic acceptance speech, for example spent very little time talking about his Senate record, or his leadership in any way other than his time in Vietnam. I didn’t make his war-record the centerpiece to talk about; he chose that. Bush on the other hand is talking about what Bush did as President. And there are many things to criticize there, but I’m reasonably happy with his record there. (I know many of my left-of-center friends here will disagree with this, but that’s my perception).
As far as the exagerated war record goes, I’ve seen the so-called debunking threads here. I’ve researched enough to know the relevant people (notably veterans who were there at the time) who stand with Kerry on the issue, and the relevant people who stand against him. I know about O’Neill and his background (I saw the Cavett thing years before it returned for this election), his backing by Nixon, etc. And I know about Kerry’s backing at the time by elements that I consider far more unsavory. I don’t know everything, but I know enough to make it clear to me that the credibility on the anti-Kerry side far surpasses the credibility on the pro-Kerry side. Your milage may differ; that’s fine. But I’m a reasonably unbiased, reasonably educated guy who looked at everything I’ve had time to, and that’s my conclusion.
Bill H., your first sentence completely contradicts the second.
Jesus, no wonder it’s taking longer than we thought it would!
snerk
giggle
snort
hehe…
HEEEHEEHHAAAAW!
BWWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
falls to floor, gasping
“Medic!”
I know, I KNOW, that we’re urged to give our political opponents the benefit of the doubt, to respect their opinions as we want ours to be respected. Really, I know this.
But I still can’t fathom how half the electorate can be so hopelessly deluded as to think the words competent, honest, capable or responsible can possibly be spoken in the same breath with the phrase “Bush administration”. Are they feeding you people the red pills? DAMN…
This says it all I think. If you sincerely believe that, then this discussion doesn’t need to go any further. Physical security trumps civil rights (or whatever you’d like to call abortion/marriage/etc rights) in your book, and you feel Bush will keep you physically safer than Kerry.
choie wrote
That’s not my perception. Your implication is that he is a great leader among veterans. And though he did do some great things in the Senate on that front, I think it’s fair to say that he’s not highly popular among veterans, and certainly wasn’t at the time he was making these proclamations, proclamations that American troops were committing horrific war-crimes, proclamations that were never proven yet never retracted. He basically came back to the U.S. and won himself a powerful political position (and career) by making false claims about those that fought beside him. I’m sorry, but that’s the antithesis of a true patriot.
You aren’t implying Bush is responsible for 9/11, are you? That’s as whacky as believing Clinton was responsible for the Internet bubble (and it’s resultant incredible wealth-creation), or that Bush was responsible for the pop (and it’s resultant incredible economy and job drain).
While I see your point here, I don’t think the ball was dropped in Afghanistan. We crushed the machine that needed crushing there, and helped put in a new government that hopefully will continue to thrive, continue to be free (unlike before we went there), and continue to represent the will of the Afghan people (not necessarily the Americans). Also, I really doubt OBL was in Afghanistan at the end of the war. The fact that things aren’t perfect there (or in Iraq for that matter), I attribute to the nature of war and it’s resultant rebuilding. It takes time and money, and it’s not easy.
I do agree that we should have done a better job of building international backing. I do agree that intelligence should have been well, more intelligent. But at the time, there was little doubt in the international community that WMD were being built in Iraq. There was little doubt that Hussein flaunted international mandates again and again with no intention of changing. There was little doubt that the man ran a tyrannical country in the real sense of the word, a horrific place where people lived in fear. I think many things could’ve been done better, but I don’t agree there was no justification. And, frankly I have no confidence (or even belief) that Kerry would’ve done better.
What happened at Abu Grabh was bad and should not have happened. Not just from a humanitarian position, but also from a political position. We should be the good guys, bringing order and freedom to Iraq, and good guys don’t do that sort of thing. However, I don’t believe blame for that goes very high up the chain. Enough time has gone by now to see Abu Grabh was an anomoly. If there were others, they would’ve sprouted up left and right, and they haven’t. If the problem went very high in the military ranks, one would expect a lot more problems being exposed. Also, not to diminish what happened there, but my perception is that the evils we committed didn’t hold a candle to the horrors that occurred in that very facility during Hussein’s rule.
Not sure why you consider Bush to be underfunding things. He’s pushed for spending plenty, he’s brought about enormous changes to the organization of relevant organizations, and on top of all that, the President doesn’t fund squat; that’s the job of Congress. If you mean funding previous to 9/11, well Clinton did no better. Personally, I didn’t have a problem with his performance in investigating and making things better, and personally, I don’t have a problem with Henry Kissinger.
I’m not sure of your specific concerns, but I’m not unhappy with his performance here.
That document (one and a half pages which were part of the Presidential Daily Briefing, not the briefing itself) does not call out anything specific, nor does it refer to anything “imminent” as you describe. In fact, the closest it comes to what actually happened is the note "we have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a <blacked out> service in 1998 (3 years before) saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shaykh” ‘Umar’ Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.
I really hope you don’t seriously believe after reading that document that the President should have taken specific steps which would have averted 9/11. If you do, I’d like to know what the specific steps he should have taken would have been, how you can be certain they would’ve averted our national catastrophe, and what specific details he would have seen (certainly not in this doc) that would have led him to take those steps.
You seem to be implying very strongly that Bush is directly responsible for 9/11. If so, you’re certainly entitled to your belief, as I am to mine which is that such thinking is pretty much “crack-pot” by definition.
Note to idiots: You’re a idiot. and that’s all the response you’ll get here. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program…
Lissa wrote
Yes, thank you for bringing up an important point: Kerry never reported a single individual criminal. not one. If I’d seen a crime, no not a crime, but rampant crime by many many people that I had personally worked with, and I’d gone in front of Congress to report it, you’d think I could call out one of the actual criminals. But there was not one.
Priceguy wrote
Yes, I agree. In fact, that’s really my point. On many social issues I line up with Kerry and against Bush, but on what I consider more important issues (leadership for one) Kerry is right up there Dukakis in my book, i.e. completely unelectable.
And it looks like the electorate is pretty much with me. (Not here of course, but SD is hardly a middle of the road bunch). We’ll see.
qts wrote
Yeah, that’s my position as well.
caphis wrote
Absolutely. However, for me, I’d hardly say I agree with Bush 0% of the time. In fact, with a few exceptions (anti-stem cell research and the gay marriage ban leap to mind), he’s relatively moderate. It’s not like civil liberties have been severely rolled back or anything. Reality is that average life isn’t that much different than it was under Clinton; terrorism and the economy are about the only things I see different, and I’m not so certain either Clinton or Bush was responsible for those.
Master Control wrote
Yeah, you’re right. And frankly, for your three points, I’m on the Republican side. I do think we should double the amount of federal money we spend on education, and more money is typically a Democrat approach. But I’m big into accountablity and Parent/local control, so I’m somewhere in the middle, I suppose.
waterj2 wrote
I’m sorry to say that Kerry’s campaign is saying exactly what friend choie said. And he’s behind. The fact that choie enunciated many of the left-wingers views so precisely doesn’t mean that they resonate with middle-america, and in fact they don’t. And they don’t resonate with me.