Except that when you’re already on the extreme end (like certain posters I won’t name), the middle looks like the other end.
Hambil, that’s not quite an accurate description, for the simple reason that there are very few corresponding left wing or liberal organizations that have been coopted for conservative ends.
Actually, spectrum, I read the Straight Dope for quite some time in The New York Press, a very conservative alternative paper, before I knew about this site. Had been reading it for two years or so, as I recall.
I said drifting toward the middle, which was what the examples given, or boyscouts and WMCA supported, and what I believe to be true. This is just another ‘the press has been taken over by liberals’ argument that doesn’t hold up to even the most basic analysis by objective parties. In other words, what jayjay said. 
The AARP is one example.
If one votes against defense bills repeatedly for moral reasons, they are not entitled to characterize themselves as “strong on defense.” They may well be strong on morality, but not on defense.
That doesn’t describe Senator Kerry, of course, since he has voted more often for defense bills than not, but I thought I’d respond.
Since “strong on defense” or having a “good” record on defense is a slippery standard, far from rigorous, I’m going to withdraw it. I could easily defend “what I meant” but since I was foolish enough to post something that was utterly resistant to rigorous analysis, the better track is to withdraw it and substitute a clearer statement. As Shayna cogently argues, it’s difficult to compare nineteen years in the Senate, years in which the political world climate was different than now, with Mr. Bush’s relatively short tenure on the national political stage. Mr. Kerry started his political life with views that were different than he holds now. I don’t think it’s accurate to look at votes his freshman year in the Senate and try to extrapolate his fitness for the Presidency based on those.
But here’s the bottom line for me, and why Zell Miller’s speech still resonates strongly with me: Miller’s admitted hyperbole served to emphasize the fact that Bush made very militarily forceful moves in the wake of 9/11.
Bush’s decisions in using military force in Afghantistan and Iraq were, in my view, correct. Kerry has suggested that, had he been President, he would not have done what Bush did. Since I support what Bush did in Afghanistan and in Iraq, that suggests to me that Bush is the better choice on the issue of national defense for me. Zell Miller made a number of spurious claims about the specifics of Kerry’s voting record, but his underlying point, as I saw it, is correct: Kerry would not have acted as Bush did. Miller feels that Bush’s actions were correct and in the best interests of the country.
I agree with Miller, and I agree with Bush.
- Rick
But wouldn’t it have been better if we had, via effective diplomacy, ensured the support all or at least most of our major allies in the Iraq campaign? Wouldn’t it have been better to provide accurate, water-tight reasons for going in instead of relying spurious claims which have been proved false? Wouldn’t it have been to go in with a reasonable assessment of the problems of occupation instead of a Pollyana-ish “we’ll be greeting as liberators!” propaganda? Wouldn’t it have been better to enlist more international cooperation (and financial support) in establishing a stable, democratic government in Iraq? Bush’s gung-ho, “yer with or yer aginst us”, cowboy tactics have caused these operations to be at lot less effective than they might have been.
Not to mention, where the fuck is Osama bin Laden? He is and always was far more o a threat to the US than Saddam Ussein.
On all these points, Kerry (or Gore) probably would have done better.
Well, I applaud your clarification, and admire those who are able to incorporate new information to moderate their opinions on matters.
I do have to ask a few things, though. You are right that Kerry has said he would not have done the same thing in Afghanistan that Bush did. For one, he has said
Kerry, IIRC, was also critical early on of the failure to move aggressively with troops in Afghanistan. I couldn’t quickly find a cite for this, but I will be happy to give it more of a go if it would be useful.
Are you satisfied with Bush’s outcome in Afghanistan? Do you feel that he prosecuted the effort in a satisfactory way? If so, why did you not want Bin Laden caught?
Don’t you feel some obligation to consider what Kerry *would * have done before you reach that conclusion? Or if the Iraq invasion really had anything substantive at all to do with “national defense”? Or why the true major sponsors of terrorism and WMD’s in the area, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were made allies by the President whose actions you consider “correct”, apparently flatly and without qualification? And why Osama is still on the loose, and how Al Qaeda has been allowed to morph into something much harder to fight, and has a prime recruiting area for America-haters in Iraq now when it didn’t before, and what the hell the Iraq end-game will really consist of? Is your support of Bush at all qualified, or even nuanced?
Looks like you’re letting the “SDMB is unwelcoming to conservatives” stuff go, though. Might as well.
Sure, it would have been better if our allies had joined us.
But since they were not inclined to do so, I think a more accurate question is: would it have been better to wait until our former allies’ support could be secured, or go the distance alone? And I feel that the decision to act unilaterally was the better one. Zell Miller’s hyperbolic claim that Kerry wants Paris to decide if we use American military force has its roots in this decision. Kerry never said that, of course, but the idea being conveyed is that Kerry would not have unilaterally acted in these circumstances; he would have waited to secure support from a coalition of allies. I argue that prompt action was better, and more in line with what I want from the President.
Yes, yes, 100 times yes. I remain very disappointed by the intelligence failures that led us to rely so heavily on the weapons-of-mass-destruction idea. It would have been better to simply rely on the value of removing an unstable, brutal dictator from the region because of the threat his regime posed to the U.S. as a potential safe harbor for terrorists, and as a humanitarian concern for the people his regime was murdering. I regard the spurious claims about weapons of mass destruction as a significant faliure of the current administration. But since the result, even without those claims, should have been invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam from power, I regard the overall effect of that failure as negligble. As a blow to our credibility, it was severe; as a marker upon the path we trod, it was insignificant.
I don’t agree that the view of our attack and liberation of Iraq was Pollyana-ish. It may have been optimistic, but not unreasonably or blindly so. And since, ultimately, I think our course was correct regardless, I regard this problem as slight.
No, I don’t agree.
Agreed. But Saddam Hussein was the head of state of a country. We knew where he was, at least in general. bin Laden was an elusive fugitive from day one. I don’t regard the failure to capture him as a sign that our mission was useless.
Don’t remotely agree.
But it’s clear that you and I have different views about what the country should have done. I agree that if the right thing to do was subsume our own interests in getting international cooperation, for example, then Kerry (or Gore) would have done a better job. I believe that both of those men would have tried to secure broad international alliances before proceeding. I beliebe that would have been an error, since those alliances would not have materialized.
- Rick
I’d like to pose some quick questions, if I may.
Kerry voted against authorizing the Gulf War back in 1991. In doing so, he was in the minority in the Senate, though squarely in his party’s mainstream.
Given what we now know about Saddam Hussein’s behavior in Kuwait, and his intentions to gain a wider sphere of influence in the Arab world, was Kerry’s vote at the time misguided? And if it was, how has he changed since 1991, if at all? Can a potential Kerry voter, unsure about this vote, be confident that Kerry won’t waver again, in the face of a foreign policy challenge?
Where is the part where you consider if they just might be right? That’s what’s proven to be the case, ya know.
Pure imagination, as the people whose views Bush was ignoring because it didn’t agree with his own were screaming at him.
The first part of that is correct. The consequences have been severe as well, and will take a long time to correct. Bush’s credibility in particular is probably unsalvageable, especially if he cannot admit ever making a mistake. If we elect him this fall, the loss of credibility will be the nation’s and not just his.
Is that what you call total lack of any plans at all? Not unreasonable? “We’ll be greeted as liberators” was not blindly optimistic? You *really * think so?
Assuming your conclusion and working backward. Doesn’t fly here.
Strawman, and a disappointing one. Our own interests were and are in developing a coordinated, harmonious, united response of the industrial democracies to act in concert against threats to world peace, not in appearing to be a bullying imperialist who refuses to listen to anyone and needs to be brought into check by any means possible.
Now why do you think they didn’t “materialize”? Pure contrariness on the part of almost the entire world but us, perhaps? Or because the thing just should not have been done and everyone else knew it?
Kerry was right to vote against the 1st Gulf War.
Saddam Hussein showed no designs whatever that he was going to expand his “sphere of influence” in the Arab world, nor would it have been any of our business if he had.
Hussein was a monster created by Reagan and Bush 1. We gave him the WMDs, we propped him up, we overlooked the gassing of the Kurds (if that happened at all, which it might not have). April Glaspie gave him a tacit indication that we not stop him from invading Kuwait (which was originally part of Iraq and which was separated only by fiat. Kuwait has a hideous civil rights record of its own, btw. It was one corrupt government invading another corrupt government), he invaded, we fought a war and killed people for oil and Saddam was relatively docile after that.
I would much rather have a guy who cares about human life making decisions about war than a guy who clearly has no conscience about fabricating justifications to slaughter people.
Not so. The spurious WMD claims were the reason given for our haste to go to war. If not for those spurious claims, we could have taken our time to bring our allies along instead of rushing ahead without them. And if we ultimately did go to war without our traditional allies, we could have done so without gratuitously insulting them as Cheney and Rumsfeld did repeatedly. Our headstrong to-hell-with-Europe approach was a costly failure of diplomacy that has harmed our standing in the international community (and put us in a bad position now that we could use Europe’s help in rebuilding Iraq).
Even if you see good reasons for going to war with Iraq apart from WMD, Bush and company went about it the wrong way.
The vote was 52-47, mostly along party lines (and is a partisan war ever a truly good idea? Different subject).
Perhaps, although it may also have reflected his natural caution. The No vote, on a bill to actually *go * to war and not just give the President a bigger stick to hold over Saddam, was based on the idea that the UN sanctions could be allowed more time to work, and the war could be started later. If by “Saddam’s behavior in Kuwait” you’re referring to the babies thrown out of the incubators, that story hasn’t checked out. The spiteful torching of the oil wells was going to happen anyway, if that’s what you mean.
Since you ask, I thought that more time wouldn’t have made any difference and that war was necessary, but not that the No voters were unreasonable. I also regretted deeply that Bush 1 had squandered the opportunity to use the changed Middle East landscape, including some actual sympathy for Israel, to push for a broader peace in the region instead of placidly returning to the status quo ante.
Was it wavering at all?
It would be useful, because all I’ve seen from Kerry is criticism of the President’s failure to develop international support before moving to military action. I had assumed that critique was addressed both to the Afghan and Iraq missions. If you can show me that Kerry supported unilateral action in Iraq, with even more aggressive use of military power, I’d be interested to see it.
I am saitisfied with Bush’s outcome in Afghanistan. That doesn’t imply that I don’t want bin Laden caught; that’s a false dilemna. I do want bin Laden caught, but I feel that Bush’s plans were the best approach given what we knew at the time. I’m satisfied with the XV Corps’s plan to not advance to Falaise in World War II, even though we now know that Patton could have closed the gap safely and not had to depend on the British. In other words, hindsight is 20-20 – I believe our actions were prudent, given what we knew at the time.
Sure. I believe Kerry would have used military might later than BUsh, or not at all. Am I wrong? Kerry would have tried to build a more international consensus. I don’t agree that was the right thing to do.
It did, even though the original rationale advanced by the administration was incorrect.
I don’t agree with that characterization of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Because we haven’t caught him yet. Are you contending that if Kerry had been in charge, bin Laden would have been captured?
I don’t think any approach could have brought a complete end to al Qaeda. And if their hatred of the US before any of this happened was sufficient to sponsor 9-11, I’m not pursuaded that they can hate us MORE now.
Of course. I’ve said that the intel failures were terrible, for instance.
No, I still contend the SDMB is less friendly to conservatives than to liberals.
- Rick
Given that the purpose of this forum is fighting ignorance, this side-effect may be unavoidable. 
The Straight Dope Message Board – Boldly going where FreeRepublic.com fears to tread 
You assume that prompt action and getting support for allies are mutually eclusively. That isn’t necessarily true generally speaking, although it apparently it is in the current administration since Bush does not appreciate the importance of building real coalitions of powerful allies. This “go it alone” attitude is not tenable in the long term, and has already proven to carry a horrendous cost in the short term.
If our allies were reluctant to go along with preemptive action, perhaps it is worth considering whether such action was as necessary. Regardless, Bush did a horrible job of persuading our allies that such a course was valid or essential.
Also, I concur that prompt and decisive action in Afghanistan was necessary, but I see no evidence that such was needed in Iraq. Iraq was not posing a significant threat to even the weakest of its neighbors, it military was a shambles, and there is still no credible evidence that Al Qaida had more of a presence in Iraq under Saddam than it does in, say, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia (or for that matter Iraq now). It’s a joke to suggest that Hussein’s tyranny was somehow so extreme that it demanded an immediate military response from the U.S. There are plenty of other countries with comparably brutual regimes in power that are equally–or sometimes even more–unstable than Iraq. Why aren’t we going after them? For crying out loud, the U.S. has backed regimes that were worse than Hussein! I’m not saying this is a good thing.
There is plenty of historical precident for our allies falling rapidly in line with the U.S. when the need was dire. Assuming such was not possible in Iraq is not necessarily vaild. If the need for the Iraq invasion were as remotely great as Bush, et al. suggested, it should have been possible–and in a timely manner–to convince our allies to assist us. I still assert that Bush’s failure to accomplish this (assuming I’m wrong and the Iraq war was a dire emergency demanding an immediate response) was a major failure of diplomancy, for which he should be held accountable.
Make that “mutually exclusive.” Ugh.
By the way, I don’t think it’s fair to call Bricker a blind Bush supporter, lacking nuance in his position. His support for Bush is backed up with some fairly well considered assumptions about what he thinks is important, and he obviously keeps up on current events. I personally diagree with many of those assumptions, and his interpretation of those events, but that’s another story.
Give credit where credit is due.
Quod erat demonstrandum.