Did you notice it was your own net?
Sure he did. He claimed to be on his post in Alabama when nobody there ever heard of him.
The thing is, this sort of thing shouldn’t matter. We’re supposed to be voting for people who will carry out our will, by proposing, supporting, and ultimately voting for the policies we want to see enacted. It shouldn’t be a popularity contest.
It is, of course, which is why you get people like Blumenthal doing contemptible things like lying about their service records to try to make themselves more popular. Sadly, the voting public as a whole is woefully uneducated about policy, and either unable or unwilling to vote on that basis, so we get loud-mouthed, lying, show-over-substance politicians. It’s hardly limited to Democrats, or even to both major parties. We, the voting public, bear a measure of responsibility for crap like this–as long as we reward whoever spins us the prettiest story with power, the power-hungry will keep spinning them, lying and cheating along the way.
None of which excuses Blumenthal, of course. The lion’s share of the responsibility still falls on his head, no matter what carrots the voters dangled in front of him. He chose to mislead, then to outright lie, for his own gain. He’s a liar, a jerk , and a fool, with the last being, perhaps, the worst in terms of qualifications. Maybe Alpert will get the nomination instead; as far as I know, he hasn’t been foolish enough to publicly disgrace himself. If he does, then maybe there will actually be a little policy mixed with the popularity in the election.
Or maybe we get the politicians we deserve.
Maybe he’d like to buy mine. I’ll even sell him all those unit plaques that are sitting in a box somewhere in the basement.
Vietnam veterans were awarded either the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal or the Vietnam Service Medal. So it does apply.
I hate GWB as much as anyone, but I do think Bush was joking that “war = raising twins.”
I have twins. Actually we had three kids within two years.
:smack:
:smack::smack:
No it doesn’t, unless he has claimed to have those particular medals or(even worse) shown off those medals to others.
I’m fine with the way I look, thanks.
Boy, people really do leave their judgment behind when something like this comes down the pike.
Weasel word “apparently” notwithstanding, the charge in Jack Batty’s post was that Blumenthal “lied about being on the Harvard swim team.”
Damn me all to hell for pointing out that the only news story that has been linked to in this thread so far does not say any such thing. Perhaps the distinction between “is described” and “Blumenthal says” is too subtle for some folks to grasp?
This was my only statement on this entire affair. How one gets from this to I am “defending” Blumenthal is beyond me.
There is plenty in the story that was factually reported that would appear to be indefensible, and I made no comment on those aspects of this business whatsoever.
As for the swim team issue, I don’t know what happened after the stories were published in 2004. And neither do you, Really Not All That Bright – do you?
From personal experience, I have seen reporters write things based on interviews at which I was present that do not in any way reflect the conversations in those interviews, and subsequent retractions by the newspaper in question.
I’ve also seen interview subjects complain loudly about stories, only to have the newspaper say “We stand by our reporting.”
In the case of these two articles, the outcome has yet to be shared in this thread.
I have a very weird approach to issue like this. I like to see both sides lay all their cards on the table. After carefully comparing the two, I decide which side’s case is more credible.
As far as the main issue of this guy’s service in Viet Nam, given the evidence from many different sources in the linked article, he will have to make one hell of a case to make his side look good.
I don’t know if he has responded specifically to this article or not. Assuming his efforts fall short, I will certainly join the chorus of those condemning him.
Meanwhile, I have this goofy idea that what we say ought to be as accurate as possible.
You’re a smart enough guy to know that that’s pretty weak sauce.
It’s entirely possible to have a self-consistent and ethically reasonable position which is something like this:
-In congressional elections, there are various criteria that go into deciding who to vote for
-Some of them relate directly to individual candidates… their specific ideas, their level of knowledge, their character, etc.
-Others relate to the balance of power in the congress. Particularly in a very partisan atmosphere (as it is right now), a clear result of who gets elected is which party’s agenda will be more likely to be enacted
-It’s entirely possible, when comparing two candidates individually, that candidate A is way ahead in terms of ideas, level of knowledge, etc., while candidate B is ahead in terms of character. In that case, one might vote for character A while honestly caring about issues of character, because issues of character can be important and weighed without being the overriding determinant.
-It’s also possible that candidate A is behind candidate B in terms of ALL the individual qualifications, but the differences between the party agendas are so large and important, and the balance of power so tight, that one might believe that the direction of the country (influencing which is, after all, what elections are all about) will be influenced more in a direction one considers positive by electing a mildly corrupt douchebag who will vote the party line that you generally agree with than an intelligent principled person who will vote close to the opposite party line
I’m not saying that this kind of internal ethical horse trading is something I’m happy with. Goodness knows I’d much rather it be the case that every democratic candidate was clearly head and shoulders better in all ways than their republican opponent. But that’s not how the world works. And if someone wants to weigh party affiliation very strongly in this sort of election, I in no way find that to be an unethical, immoral, or irrational thing to do.
As a real-world example, the only time I’ve ever not voted for the democrat in a major election was the special election for CA governor that was won by Arnold. Various people whose opinions I respect told me that the democrat (Cruz Bustamante) was a corrupt douchebag. So I voted for the Green Party candidate. But if that had been a senatorial election, I would have strongly considered voting for the democrat, and so doing would not make me either ethically challenged or a hypocrite (unless I condemned others for the same behavior or something).
He’s syin it was an obvious JOKE. One that could have been delivered by someone who never even served in the military at all.
“Three golfers die and are at The Gates of Heaven talking to St. Gabriel. The first golfer says…”
“A horse walks into a bar and asks for a martini…”
Get it now. A joke.
so, BOTH you assholes can’t see that Bush’s comment was a joke, despite several people explaining several times that it was a JOKE, yet when some fellow (and not the first for that matter) self described Bush hater goes “fellows, I think it was a joke” your all “oh, my bad, it musta been a joke”
fucking stupid and politically blinded by hate assholes :mad:
You mean sort of like when an anti-gay rights homosexual Republican gets outed and the left crows that it proves all conservatives are hypocrites? 
Oh, good grief. You’re just screwing with me now, aren’t you? You honestly have no idea what I’m saying? I wasn’t criticizing the original joke in any way. I haven’t offered any opinion about whether or not the joke is at all relevant to Bush’s war record, whatever that may be. I was pointing out that Mr. Moto was going a long way to twist the meaning of the joke into something it wasn’t. In the joke, war =/= raising twins. War is easier than raising twins. In the joke, war =/= the havoc created by twins. War is nicer and neater than a house with twins. In the joke, Bush may be speaking hyperbolically about raising twins, but he is not speaking metaphorically about war. I found it interesting that Mr. Moto had to take his defense of the joke one step further than anyone else - that not only was Bush talking about raising twins in a hyperbolic way, but that he wasn’t talking about war AT ALL.
My original point wasn’t even that large of a point, but you seem to be so tightly wound that you launch into all sorts of insults and exaggerations in response to it and drag this out into this long debate in which you can’t even manage to READ THE WORDS THAT ARE IN FRONT OF YOU ON THE SCREEN before you spew your venom. You are so invested in defending your own little obsession that you’ve become completely detached from the actual discussion.
Once again, settle down.
If Bush made the comment in 2002, then I don’t see how it is inaccurate. The US was at war in Afghanistan in 2002, and Bush is the CIC of the armed forces - indeed he was the one who ordered the country into war. So yes, Bush has, in fact, “been to war” in 2002. He didn’t say “I literally just bayoneted someone in a trench”.
You are an idiot, an imbecile and an imbecilic idiot if you think that is what C3 and I are neutrally commenting on, and it must be your blind, partisan hate (as well as low IQ) leading you to the conclusion that you’ve reached. The above proves it.
Where do you get partisanship from in either of our posts?
I said:
And they predicted that Dems would weigh party affiliation over character:
*“Character ? that don’t mean ****.” *
(As I explained, I view ‘****’ as meaning ‘shit, when compared to party affiliation.’ In other words, they believe that Dems will weigh party affiliation above character; I believe it’s unfortunate that RTFirefly does that.)
Now you come along and say that you don’t find it unethical, immoral, or irrational. Good for you. I find it unfortunate, however, and I stand by that statement.
Speaking with respect, I feel that you’re being disingenuous. Everyone knows that “that don’t mean ****” is short for “that don’t mean shit”. Which is an absolute. It means that whoever is saying it doesn’t care at all, one lick, one fig, for whatever is under discussion. Saying that to dems, character doesn’t mean **** means that dems do not care about character at all. It’s irrelevant to them. It’s a nonissue.
Your interpretation of it as “shit, when compared to party affiliation” is both bizarre (where on earth did you ever come up with that idea?) and unjustified. There’s a huge difference (which you just leapt across with no justification) from “doesn’t mean ****” to “doesn’t mean ***, compared to party affiliation”. And another huge gap from “doesn’t mean ****, compared to party affiliation” to “is less important when it comes down to who to vote for than party affiliation”. (It’s entirely possible, need I point out, to honestly care about something without that thing being the sole or decisive issue on which one bases voting decisions.)
Well, that explains it. All those Toys for Tots flashbacks could confuse anybody! :eek: