standard boilerplate: November 2005

[chucK]

Iraq and a host of other problems, from the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina to the indictment of a senior White House official in a CIA leak investigation, have taken a heavy toll on the president. Nearing the end of his fifth year in office, Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency and a majority of Americans say Bush is not honest and they disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism.

[TREETOAD]

After the earthquake that destroyed San Fran the first train load of half a million food packs arrived from Southern Cal that evening. The army was at work that afternoon restoring order and preventing looting and in one week there were 250,000 homeless people living in army tents. They had no warning of the disaster, no airplanes, no communications. Quite a comparison to the modern day technologies. I'll bet the people that were living in the tents weren't bitching and complaining about their living conditions either.

[Ducknut]

In other news, the Village of Crawforth, Texas reports that the continued investigation of the disappearance of their beloved idiot 5 years ago.

[TREETOAD]

Meanwhile Osama pulls off another first ascent in the Karakorum, no oxygen but he did use a dialysis machine,

[marylou]

Iraq and a host of other problems, from the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina to the indictment of a senior White House official in a CIA leak investigation, have taken a heavy toll on the president. Nearing the end of his fifth year in office, Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency and a majority of Americans say Bush is not honest and they disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism.

 

This presidency has been a nightmare from the beginning. At least now it seems like people are starting to notice.

[TREETOAD]

It only took five years and thousands of deaths.

[Dave_Schuldt]

The press is coming out of it's post 9/11 coma.

[mattp]

I think you're getting a little over optimistic there, Dave. Yes, they have been printing some information critical of the Bush administration lately but,in case you haven't noticed, that is all the rage and they are simply resurrecting old news that they buried three years ago.

 

It'd be nice to see the press "come out of its coma" but I don't think we are seeing that yet.

[chucK]

I think the press is currently doing a very good job at quoting Bush's misleading soundbites and then putting them in perspective in the next paragraph with a bit of the opposition party view.

 

One of the main reasons the press didn't do this back in the run up to war, is because there was no opposition party at the time. The most the democrats were saying was, "Hey wait! Let's give this a little more calm reflection". This was accompanied by popular protests in the street. I think these all got good coverage. Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you want the press to print the positions of two sides, you actually gotta have two discernible sides.

[chucK]

Great Op-ed by E.J. Dionne in the Wash Post today,

Another Set of Scare Tactics

 

excerpt:

"The big difference between our current president and his father is that the first President Bush put off the debate over the Persian Gulf War until after the 1990 midterm elections. The result was one of most substantive and honest foreign policy debates Congress has ever seen, and a unified nation. The first President Bush was scrupulous about keeping petty partisanship out of the discussion.

 

The current President Bush did the opposite. He pressured Congress for a vote before the 2002 election, and the war resolution passed in October.

 

Sen. Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat who is no dove, warned of rushing "pell-mell" into an endorsement of broad war powers for the president. The Los Angeles Times reported that Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, protested in September: "We're being asked to go to war, and vote on it in a matter of days. We need an intelligence estimate before we can seriously vote." And Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, put it plainly: "This will be one of the most important decisions Congress makes in a number of years; I do not believe it should be made in the frenzy of an election year." But it was.

 

Grand talk about liberating Iraq gave way to cheap partisan attacks. In New Mexico, Republican Steve Pearce ran an advertisement against Democrat John Arthur Smith declaring: "While Smith 'reflects' on the situation, the possibility of a mushroom cloud hovering over a U.S. city still remains." Note that Smith wasn't being attacked for opposing the war, only for reflecting on it. God forbid that any Democrat dare even think before going to war."

[Dechristo]

I'd have prefered remaining focused on Afghanistan and seeing that mission through without digression. Although, I imagine the element that comprises much of the "insurgency" in Iraq would have found its way there as well.

 

Hindsight is such a fertile field of play.

[sexual_chocolate]

I'd have prefered remaining focused on Afghanistan and seeing that mission through without digression. Although, I imagine the element that comprises much of the "insurgency" in Iraq would have found its way there as well.

 

I don't think the Sunnis were too concerned about Afghanistan.

[EWolfe]

In New Mexico, Republican Steve Pearce ran an advertisement against Democrat John Arthur Smith declaring: "While Smith 'reflects' on the situation, the possibility of a mushroom cloud hovering over a U.S. city still remains." Note that Smith wasn't being attacked for opposing the war, only for reflecting on it. God forbid that any Democrat dare even think before going to war."

 

We have nothing to fear but thinking itself!

 

Slick Willie.

 

Slickerer George.

[jon]

Is this all you guys think about during the day... well and the monorail?

[chucK]

Here's one for you Jon!

[sexual_chocolate]

Yes. Now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?

 

Ah yes, America sucks, soldiers are yes-men, and the US got what she deserved with GW.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Yes. Now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?

 

Ah yes, America sucks, soldiers are yes-men, and the US got what she deserved with GW.

 

"America sucks"? - gee, reading this thread, I wonder why conservatives get the idea that liberals hate America, root for us to "lose", and are unpatriotic. Oh, yeah, I forgot, it's "patriotic" to attack your president, country, and foreign policy ad nauseam with a monomaniacal obsession.

 

Edited November 15, 2005 by KaskadskyjKozak

[chucK]

I take umbrage at you unfairly stereotyping an entire thread, its posters, and liberals based on one cherry-picked and mischaracterized post!

 

Stupid pigeonholing conservatives

[sexual_chocolate]

Yes. Now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?

 

Ah yes, America sucks, soldiers are yes-men, and the US got what she deserved with GW.

 

"America sucks"? - gee, reading this thread, I wonder why conservatives get the idea that liberals hate America, root for us to "lose", and are unpatriotic. Oh, yeah, I forgot, it's "patriotic" to attack your president, country, and foreign policy ad nauseam with a monomaniacal obsession.

 

 

You are really ruining the idea that conservatives are a bunch of happy-go-luckies out to enjoy life and take a joke or two....

[Dechristo]

A perfunctory scan of politically-oriented posts on any website will confirm "pigeonholing" to be a trait common to all political persuasions, at both ends of the spectrum particularly.

 

I congratulate and thank you for this humorous irony present in your statement:

Stupid pigeonholing conservatives

[chucK]

de nada

[sexual_chocolate]

So how are those Sunnis doing in Afghanistan anyways?

[Dechristo]

I can't say. Though next door, in Pakistan where Sunnis are the majority, the Wahabis, Sunnis, and Shia are steady at each other.

[Dechristo]

de nada

[sexual_chocolate]

Although, I imagine the element that comprises much of the "insurgency" in Iraq would have found its way there as well.

 

My allusion regarded your allegation above, vs. the actual conditions on the ground.

From everything I've read, the Iraqi resistance is local Sunni in nature, not an imported brand of Muslim fascism.

Non-Iraqis make up a tiny fraction of the resistance.

Edited November 15, 2005 by sexual_chocolate