Sorry, I don’t follow. The OP has not attempted to argue that Mr. Cheney’s performance on Meet the Press was only worth objecting to because Nixon once did something similar. You, on the other hand, apparently are seriously arguing that no one can legitimately object to Mr. Cheney’s behavior if someone from another political party has employed similar tactics at any time in the past, for any reason. You likewise have attempted to turn this discussion from one of Mr. Cheney’s possible malfeasance to one of Mrs. Clinton’s proven non-malfeasance. That is what I meant by irrelevance.
Anyway, I thought that calling out elucidator, or perhaps anyone you perceive as “loony lefties”, was your entire objective in posting to this thread. What, you need help?
It’s worse than that. We could have whacked Zarqawi before we invaded Iraq, but didn’t, even though he was running a terrorist training camp in Iraq. Why didn’t we off him then? Well, despite the fact that Zarqawi was seeking bio and chem weapons, we (and by “we” i mean the drooling idiots who’ve gotten us into this mess) thought that whacking him would undermine our case for invasion! :smack:
By the time our forces made it to where Zarqawi’s camps were, he’d already packed up and relocated. (my source for this is Harry Shearer’s Le Show.)
I haven’t read the book, so I can’t comment much. But, the reviews indicate that the authors posit that there will be a Democrat Majority by 2008. Now, that didn’t happen in 2004. Shouldn’t we wait until the election in 2006 (and possibly '08) before citing that book as a fact in re: a Democrat Majority?
If facts are what you’re interested in, shouldn’t you revise your assertion that “nobody in the real world gives a rat’s ass about the loony [sic] lefty ideas that are regularly posted here”?
Whether there are slightly more American Democrats than American Republicans, or slightly fewer, your statement is still wrong. In either case, there are in fact a lot of people in the real world who care about the sort of “lefty” ideas that are regularly discussed on these boards.
Yes, the Electorate is about equally divided. But nowhere near 1/2 of Americans, Democrat or Republican, believe in, or support, a lot of the “ideas” that are regularly discussed here.
To wit:
That President Bush is Evil Incarnate
That Jesus is a cunt
That American soldiers in Iraq should die
That Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “I’ll take money away from you, and give it to others” is a good plan
That the availability of abortion on demand is the best option
That plural marriage is “just another lifestyle choice”
That woman sperm exists
So who are these “a lot of people in the real world” that believe this stuff?
An opinion posited by precisely one poster on this board.
An opinion I’ve only seen from two posters here. One was the same guy as above, the other isn’t an American.
Enough people agree with it that she holds political office, and is spoken of as a potential presidential contender.
Actually, it’s ever-so-slightly more than one half in favor of that one, last I heard.
Did you bother to read any of the threads we had recently on polyamory? While I’ll grant that we’ve got a disproportionate number of polyamorists, the reaction to the idea was contentious, to say the least.
Figurative language, used by precisely one poster in the history of this board.
Congratulations, Mrs. Zogby, you’ve demonstrated that the SDMB holds a number of mainstream opinions, and has a small handful of kooks and extremists in a roughly equal proportion to the population at large.
Her words, IIRC, were, “We’re going to take things away from you for the common good,” which is called taxation, which almost every national and local government in the world practices regardless of ideology. (Exceptions being governments like Saudi Arabia’s, which owns enough oilfields to make taxation unnecessary; and North Korea’s, which owns and operates the whole national economy anyway.)
And yes, I’m sure far, far more than 50% of Americans support the system of taxation in principle, however resentful they might feel about paying their own.
If HRC’s idea of taxation is more progressive and redistributive and soaking-the-rich than what we’ve got now, so much the better, and – well, I know of no polls but I’m guessing you would be surprised at how many Americans support that.
I think you’ve confused badchad (First quote) and** Der Thris**(Second Quote), in those 2 quotes.
Note that more than just those 2 people hold that second opinion on the board, but I can only recall badchad as having the first as stated. Weird, to me.
The teeming hordes of evil godless liburals who are festering in Bill O’Reilly’s imagination? Primus knows there aren’t folks like that in the real world.
Your recollection of HRC’s quote sounds correct; I couldn’t find a link.
The idea that taxation should be more redistributive and soaking the rich, though, I take exception to. I don’t know of any polls either, and likely I would be surprised at how many Americans support that, but I still doubt it’s a majority of them.
After all, if a majority of Americans did support more redistribution, wouldn’t we have enacted it by now? In fact, we’ve been moving away from the “more progressive taxation” gambit for almost 25 years now.
I’m sure you understand things are never that simple in a representative republican system. I’ve seen several polls showing a majority of Americans support universal health care, but . . .
My memory isn’t clear on this, Carol. In which election did the voters pointedly reject progressive taxation? Was it the “Willie Horton’s Gonna Get Yo’ Mamma!” election, or the “George McGovern Is a Whining Weenie” election?
Well, you can claim that a majority of Americans agree with you on the issues, whether it be more progressive taxation, or UHC, or “GWB is a weenie”, but if none of it has been enacted, (taxes are lower and flatter, there is no UHC, and GWB was elected twice), that seems a rather hollow victory, does it not?
I don’t recall claiming victory on any of those issues. The point is that it is either mistaken or dishonest for you to dismiss this or any “left-wing circle-jerk” as marginal or irrelevant to America’s Teeming Millions. Communists are marginal and irrelevant, but you, like most Pubs nowadays, seem to be using the term “left-wing” to encompass anyone and anything to the left of the Democratic Leadership Council. In fact, you seem to regard HRC, of all people, as a leftist, so maybe you’re including the DLC. :rolleyes: Let me clue you in: Leftism, so defined, is not irrelevant or marginal.