"Rename the Candidate" Contest

[shereads]

I agree that admitting to anger tends to turn off a segment of the voting population. Even - or maybe especially - when the anger is justified.

I can't understand how anyone other than a religious zealot could not be angry about the appointment of Ashcroft. It's remarkable to me that Bush is able to re-invent himself as a man who abhors evil, when the record so clearly shows that his biggest problem with the Taliban wasn't the cruelty of religious tyranny, but their reluctance to do business.

This year has been discouraging not just for the obvious reasons, but because it's revealed a shoot-the-messenger mentality that somehow forgives all evils but one: bringing evil out in the open.

Rather than blame the people we elected, we blame the people who expose them. We blame the angry for making us feel bad. We condemn them for being vindictive, as if vengeance were less moral than the acts that inflamed it.

We look for the 10% of a movie or a book that is inaccurate or demonstrates poor judgement, and we overlook the 90% that's true, no matter how horrific the implications. I've begun to believe that the only sure way to win and retain power in America is to tell us what we want to hear.

Here's a non-partisan question provoked by my own partisan anger:

Is it possible for a totally honest person to gain and keep political power in the U.S.?

Edited to add: Is it possible in any democracy?

 

[Clare Quilty]

Powell was not a 'retired civil servant' but rather The retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...He provided both a name and 'diversity' to their Board and he was a 'local' to their HQ at the time.

What Colin Powell provided for AOL was access to the Chairman of the FCC, Michael K. Powell. The younger Powell's refusal to recuse himself from a vote that would put millions of dollars into his own pockets represents an even more direct and shameful conflict of interest and furthers my contempt for the Powell family. Your quibbling about the denotation of "civil servant" is a laughable attempt to draw attention away from this conflict. You haven't said one word that mitigates the fact that Michael K. Powell, in his capacity as the Chairman of the FCC--a servant of the public trust--voted to allow a merger that greatly enriched his family. Or, is it that you aren't dissembling and that republicans simply have no moral compass and so can't distinguish right from wrong?

Martha Stewart is NOT going to jail for insider trading...

I knew she was actually charged with obstructing justice. However, that is NOT what she's going to jail for. She is going to jail as a highly public example of a crack-down on the securies flim-flam of the super rich to tout before the public. Meanwhile, Bush, Cheney and The Powells can loot with impugnity.

I find it telling that in your anal digression into the semantic minutiae of my original comment, you never addressed this obscene appearance of collusion and gross impropriety on the parts of the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the FCC.

 

[Clare Quilty]

"selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing and chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."

Are you suggesting that any of this isn't true?

 

[OldnotDead]

What Colin Powell provided for AOL was access to the Chairman of the FCC, Michael K. Powell. The younger Powell's refusal to recuse himself from a vote that would put millions of dollars into his own pockets represents an even more direct and shameful conflict of interest and furthers my contempt for the Powell family. Your quibbling about the denotation of "civil servant" is a laughable attempt to draw attention away from this conflict. You haven't said one word that mitigates the fact that Michael K. Powell, in his capacity as the Chairman of the FCC--a servant of the public trust--voted to allow a merger that greatly enriched his family.

I had to do a little checking as my memory cannot be relied upon to get all the details right, but I think I have the facts correct on this one. The AOL-Time Warner merger was announced and reviewed by Justice, FCC and FTC all under the Clinton Administration. M. Powell was a Clinton appointee and a MEMBER of the Commission, not the Chairman.

More importantly, the vote at the the FCC was 5-zip, so we are not talking about a tie breaker here. If you read carefully the commentary and review of the merger, Powell comes out as a dissenter regarding some of the additional conditions that were included in the approval. It would appear to me from his statements and other reporters' observations, that he stayed involved in this merger in order to make some statements about the degree to which the FCC should 'handcuff' companies in the emerging internet marketplace. He certaily had no need to vote in order to assure it's passage. The Clinton administration, which had the majority of votes at the time, was supporting the merger.

It IS clear that he is a pro-deregulation person and would have placed fewer restrictions in place.

Or, is it that you aren't dissembling and that republicans simply have no moral compass and so can't distinguish right from wrong?

There was no attempt to dissemble. I do not think either party label guarantees nominees to be free of moral flaw.

I think Powell showed bad judgement in staying involved in the decision as his dissenting opinion carried no regulatory weight and now that he is Chairman, erroneous statements like yours will continue to dog him.

As to knowing right from wrong, I'm not sure what exactly you are saying is wrong here. The law did not require him to recuse himself. He had no direct financial interest, but a family member did. At the same time, IF the merger were not approved, I'm not sure that AOL stock would have cratered. While it is very easy to look at the failures of the telecomms since that time, most of the value of that merger was being accredited to AOL, not TW and there were a lot of folks that thought AOL was making a mistake.

Ironically, Collin Powell had to exit as he was heading back into government and rather than have the ownership hanging out there, he decided to make a clean break and liquidate his holdings and his board membership. It was probably THAT decision that made more money for him than the merger approval. He then missed the whole decline in telecomm/media stocks.

I knew she was actually charged with obstructing justice. However, that is NOT what she's going to jail for. She is going to jail as a highly public example of a crack-down on the securies flim-flam of the super rich to tout before the public. Meanwhile, Bush, Cheney and The Powells can loot with impugnity.

Having some fairly direct knowledge of the SRO enforcement environment, I would suggest that your second sentence is what you think, and a justifiable interpretation, but not completely accurate. Martha Stewart had ample opportunity to disgorge the profits (the REAL penalty of insider trading) and accept a consent decree that would probably contain a fine and bar her from further affiliation with the securities industry. Instead, she chose to fight, thinking she could beat the prosecutors in court. Big, Little, or in between, if you make the regulators take you to court, they fight it to the end and they rarely lose.

In Martha's case, because of who she was, the effort was just a lot more public than it normally is.

I find it telling that in your anal digression into the semantic minutiae of my original comment, you never addressed this obscene appearance of collusion and gross impropriety on the parts of the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the FCC.

I trust that the above words dissuade you of your notion that I was attempting to ignore what you suggest. I really do not think the facts support any charge of collusion. The real review of this merger was in the hands of the Clinton Justice Department and the FTC. The FCC has limited review powers, primarily in regards to ownership of media outlets and concentrations of market share. There were some new areas explored regarding ownership of access to the internet, but no real significant regulatory decisions were made that set any kind of precedent.

Personally, I prefer to use the word obscene in its more traditional definition, so am not in any position to defend the Powells or dissuade you there. As to gross imprompriety, I really don't see how the facts support that statement.

I realize that this is part of my 'anal digression', but I do remind you that neither Powell was Chairman nor a Cabinet Member at the time of the review or decision.

 

[OldnotDead]

Are you suggesting that any of this isn't true?

As I think I said to Sher, true or not, was not the point I was trying to make. The heated rhetoric was used an illustrative example of the point of view from which Julian Bond now speaks and how he has marginalized both himself and his organization.

But, in answer to your question, no, I do not think it is true. There is no 'Taliban' wing that I am aware of. I am not aware of any Cabinet member that has 'Canine devotion to the Confederacy'.

But I'm sure you will correct me.

 

[Clare Quilty]

More importantly, the vote at the the FCC was 5-zip, so we are not talking about a tie breaker here. If you read carefully the commentary and review of the merger, Powell comes out as a dissenter regarding some of the additional conditions that were included in the approval. It would appear to me from his statements and other reporters' observations, that he stayed involved in this merger in order to make some statements about the degree to which the FCC should 'handcuff' companies in the emerging internet marketplace. He certaily had no need to vote in order to assure it's passage. The Clinton administration, which had the majority of votes at the time, was supporting the merger.

Even assuming the above statements are accurate, they are completely immaterial to the point I originally made. Michael K. Powell voted to allow a merger that put millions of dollars into his father's pocket. That represents a gross conflict of interest, which you continue to skirt around with inspired but tangential nitpicking.

There was no attempt to dissemble. I do not think either party label guarantees nominees to be free of moral flaw.

Perhaps you aren't familiar with the definition of "dissemble." It means to conceal ones true motives behind a false show. Your attempts to divert attention from and excuse the Powells's collusive impropriety and the constant and pointless references to President Clinton (who had nothing to do with Powell's conflict of interest) make your true motives (as republican shill) plainly apparent.

As to moral flaws, the moral flaws exhibited by the sociopahtic Bush administration have cost thousands of people their lives and we the tax payers untold billions of dollars. I'd greatly prefer a President whose ethical gaffes were confined to his personal life, of which I could not care less.

He had no direct financial interest, but a family member did.

Millions of dollars flowing into ones father's pockets and thence into theirs absolutely represents a direct financial interest. Inheritance isn't a direct financial interest?

Martha Stewart had ample opportunity to disgorge the profits (the REAL penalty of insider trading) and accept a consent decree that would probably contain a fine and bar her from further affiliation with the securities industry...

None of this is inconsistent with what I've said. I never argued the ostensible legal pretext for Ms. Stewart's prosecution. What I've implied is that she is a sacrificial lamb served up to allay the accurate public perception that under this administration there is a tacitly approved of free-for-all of corporate thievery and governmental nepotism. Martha Stewart is an arch fiend while there is no harm no foul in Michael Powell influencing matters of public policy in order to line his own pockets and the directors of Bush/Cheney darling Halliburton having skimmed hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars.

I trust that the above words dissuade you of your notion that I was attempting to ignore what you suggest. I really do not think the facts support any charge of collusion. The real review of this merger was in the hands of the Clinton Justice Department and the FTC.

To the contrary, you've continued, in this post, to make the same dissembling feints and excuses as in the last. Along with dissembling, I'd suggest that you look up the definition of collusion. Whether or not the two Powells actively engaged in collusion, and I'm sure they did, their actions gave the appearance of it. That is what I said--" appearance of collusion and gross impropriety." People in such high positions of authority should avoid even this appearance of impropriety. But with this administration, there is a naked gall. They are secure in their control of the media, the legislature and the courts. So if they want to sell regulatory decisions to the highest bidders or hand out no-bid contracts to their friends, that's just what they are going to do regardless of who know it--that is until November.

 

[Clare Quilty]

no, I do not think it is true. There is no 'Taliban' wing that I am aware of. I am not aware of any Cabinet member that has 'Canine devotion to the Confederacy'.

But I'm sure you will correct me.

Again you are being intellectually dishonest--which seems to be your hallmark in the brief time I've been aware of you. There is absolutely a far right christian taliban to which Shrub has pledged allegiance. It is in deference to those luddite nut-bags that he has opposed stem-cell research--which in and of itself should land him back on his ass in Texas (or Connecticut or where ever he's really from) come November.

Confederacy I'm sure is a reference to the crypto-racist "state's rights" contingent within the republican party.

As to Mr. Bond having marginalized his organization. I'd say that being snubbed by Shrub is about the strongest endorsement of the correctness of their position they could have received. Why they would have suffered his presence in the first place is a mystery to me.

 

[OldnotDead]

Even assuming the above statements are accurate, they are completely immaterial to the point I originally made. Michael K. Powell voted to allow a merger that put millions of dollars into his father's pocket. That represents a gross conflict of interest, which you continue to skirt around with inspired but tangential nitpicking.

I didn't think I was tangentially nitpicking to point out the basic flaws in your argument. Powell was not required to recuse himself under current statutes. His vote to approve was not a deciding vote. He was NOT chairman at the time so he had no control over the timing of the voting process. His decision was immaterial to the outcome.

Without his votes his father would still have reaped the benefits. You really seem to want to believe that the FCC had final authority here. Justice and the FTC are the ruling bodies and the FCC has powers limited to those areas over which it regulates. Even if the FCC decided that AOL and Time Warner represented too much concentration in the ownership of media outlets, which is what they could really regulate, all it could do was require the divestiture of certain assets. Since it was not a direct combination of two companies that both owned radio and/or tv stations, there was no real ability to block the merger.

So, yes, you are correct when you say that one Powell voted to allow a merger to go forward that benefited his father. But I do believe it is wrong to represent that vote as something to be more than it was.

Perhaps you aren't familiar with the definition of "dissemble." It means to conceal ones true motives behind a false show. Your attempts to divert attention from and excuse the Powells's collusive impropriety and the constant and pointless references to President Clinton (who had nothing to do with Powell's conflict of interest) make your true motives (as republican shill) plainly apparent.

If anyone thinks that I have tried to represent myself as something I am not, I apologize. I know that Sher has no doubt about my leanings. Your representations of fact were inaccurate and what I tried to point out, but you do not seem to wish to accept, is that even if there were collusion, it would be of no point.

My references to the Clinton administration were twofold in purpose. First, and foremost, to correct any implication that the FCC decision was done under the current administration while one Powell was Chair and another Secretary of State. Your representation of the events with inaccurate titles and no timeline could leave a reader to believe that this all occurred much more recently than it did. Second, anyone that read this should try to understand that the deregulatory environment at the FCC that has allowed the increasing concentration of media outlets in single companies is not an invention of one party and has been well supported by both parties in Congress as well as the Executive Branch.

I personally believe that you are too caught up in the rightness of everything Democratic and the wrongness of everything Republican to see that there is a much bigger issue here than whether or not one person made a lot of money.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has not produced the benefits that all expected. Indeed, there are some that now look back and believe that some of the excesses of merger mania and over inflated stock values were all done in the expectations of windfall revenues that never appeared. There is no doubt that this was part of Worldcom's problems.

As to moral flaws, the moral flaws exhibited by the sociopahtic Bush administration have cost thousands of people their lives and we the tax payers untold billions of dollars. I'd greatly prefer a President whose ethical gaffes were confined to his personal life, of which I could not care less.

Millions of dollars flowing into ones father's pockets and thence into theirs absolutely represents a direct financial interest. Inheritance isn't a direct financial interest?

I'm sorry, I tried to confine my comments to the specific issue you raised and while I do not disagree that their is the potential for the son to benefit financially at some point in the future, I keep returning to the facts of the case which is that his vote did not alter the outcome.

But, again, according to statute, the possibility of inheritance is apparently not covered and is not considered a direct financial interest. Personally, I disagree with that and actually think that if M. Powell DID cast a deciding vote it would have been wrong. But by law he was not required to recuse himself and he availed himself of that option.

To the contrary, you've continued, in this post, to make the same dissembling feints and excuses as in the last. Along with dissembling, I'd suggest that you look up the definition of collusion. Whether or not the two Powells actively engaged in collusion, and I'm sure they did, their actions gave the appearance of it. That is what I said--" appearance of collusion and gross impropriety." People in such high positions of authority should avoid even this appearance of impropriety. But with this administration, there is a naked gall. They are secure in their control of the media, the legislature and the courts. So if they want to sell regulatory decisions to the highest bidders or hand out no-bid contracts to their friends, that's just what they are going to do regardless of who know it--that is until November.

I cannot completely disagree with what you say about appearance. But in a number of cases involving conflict of interest, collusion and monopoly behavior the courts have always held that there needs to be one of two kinds of evidence. First, there has to be direct evidence. This usually involves written documents or taped conversations. Secondly, in the absence of direct evidence, there needs to be some overwhelming cause and effect circumstances. Such overwhelming evidence includes that the parties to the collusion affected the outcome and without their participation the outcome would not be the same. I like to think that I've demonstrated that the parties to your collusion charge could not affect the outcome.

Finally, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by asserting my 'real motives' to be that of a Republican shill. I resemble that remark. When I do finally get up the courage to post in one of the political threads, I do not think that I have ever tried to hide my conservative views. As for the shill part, there is an assumption that I somehow, somewhere, became a member here under some kind of misrepresentation. It's been a while since I registered at LIT, but I do not recall any part of the process that required disclosure of voter registration.

 

[OldnotDead]

Again you are being intellectually dishonest--which seems to be your hallmark in the brief time I've been aware of you. There is absolutely a far right christian taliban to which Shrub has pledged allegiance. It is in deference to those luddite nut-bags that he has opposed stem-cell research--which in and of itself should land him back on his ass in Texas (or Connecticut or where ever he's really from) come November.

Confederacy I'm sure is a reference to the crypto-racist "state's rights" contingent within the republican party.

As to Mr. Bond having marginalized his organization. I'd say that being snubbed by Shrub is about the strongest endorsement of the correctness of their position they could have received. Why they would have suffered his presence in the first place is a mystery to me.

I guess you are going to have to also correct me about the definition of intellectually dishonest. But until I read Julian Bond's quote, I had never seen the Christian Right carrying the label Taliban. But since I'm not part of any group that regularly attacks them, nor do I consider myself a part of that organization, it may just be that I had never noticed the term. I had only seen it in reference to the group in Afghanistan, so I thought that it was a pretty vitriolic remark. If it is one of the labels that is regularly used by those that despise the Christian Right, then I apologize for not being better informed.

Bush' decision on stem cell research was not one I liked. I think you are right that when push came to shove, he opted for an opinion that would placate the anti-abortion crowd. Without getting into all the detail here, I would reference some of my comments about animal testing and particularly suggest you read Ogg's comments about UK regulation. I would prefer that stem cell research be less restrictive. That kind of work is going to get done somewhere and if we do not allow it, the work will be done elsewhere and we will be later beneficiaries, not the early ones. To not allow it because it MIGHT increase abortion activity is not a good argument in my opinion.

I cannot respond to your translation of the Confederacy as it seems to lead to another term with which I am not familiar. As someone with Confederate heritage, I have always been saddened by the misappropriation of it's symbols and name for those that wish to hate. It has become a lightning rod surrounding racial issues, and, in my opinion, just raises the volume on the noise that keeps any discussion from being meaningful.

I have said it before and I will say it again, there are so many good reasons to not like someone that it has always seemed silly to let something like religion, skin color or even political registration force you to change your opinion.

 

[shereads]

Without getting into the rhetorical merits or lack thereof, of condemning the Christian Right by association with the Taliban label, let's not forget that GWB courted favor with the one and original Taliban when he was governor.

He hosted Taliban "dignitaries" on a state visit. He offered no comment when they insulted a female journalist who asked a question critical of the treatment of women under their regime.

Which makes him a hypocrite, twice over, when he condemns the Taliban for imposing their religious doctrine on their country. First, because he never indicated any distaste for the Taliban until there was nothing to lose. Second, because his administration pushes the boundaries between church and state at every opportunity, as evidenced by the appointed of a zealot to the position that is least able to accommodate one without costing the rest of us dearly.

 

[shereads]

This comes back full-circle to something that's been discussed in the forum before. On 9/12, when it had sunk in that nothing would ever be quite the same, there were two things I felt sure we would all have learned:

1) The value of separating church and state. Terror by suicide, whatever else it may be is certainly an expression of faith. It wouldn't be possible to demonstrate with greater clarity, that religous absolutes are subject to human failings, and should remain a personal matter.

Instead, the people who were in power seem to have read the lesson this way: their religion is crazy and dangerous, so our religion needs to fight even harder to enforce our values on non-believers. As if the Salem witch trials hadn't happened, the Christian right blithely assumes that it is incapable of evil. And GWB encourages them to guide the country, however reluctant we might be, back to the Lord.

2) The Star Wars antiballistic missile defense system is obsolete. We can use those billions to secure our borders.

Instead, we continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into a project that if successful, will not do one thing to prevent the most likely means of delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States: a dinghy, a container, and a few men to drag it onshore, along some of the miles of unguarded coastline that might be secured with a fraction of that money.

 

[Clare Quilty]

I didn't think I was tangentially nitpicking to point out the basic flaws in your argument. Powell was not required to recuse himself under current statutes. His vote to approve was not a deciding vote. He was NOT chairman at the time so he had no control over the timing of the voting process. His decision was immaterial to the outcome.

You are continuing to skirt the issue at hand. Powell created a conflict of interest by voting on a decision from which he stood to profit financially. You have said nothing to dispute this essential fact. Whatever digressions you fly off on, I will return to argument to this issue. Did I ever state that Powell was required to recuse himself under current statutes? No I didn't. What I said, for about the fourth time, is that Powell's refusal to recuse himself from a decision that put millions of dollars in his father's pocket created the appearance of impropriety. Whether he was the chairman at that time or whether he cast the deciding vote is what is immaterial--not that I stipulate in the least to the assertion that he had no undue influence on the eventual outcome. He had, in addition to his own vote, access to all persons in policy making authority. That notwithstanding, the presence of a conflict of interest doesn't hinge on your assessment of his powers of influence. The act in and of itself was an abuse of power.

As someone with Confederate heritage, I have always been saddened by the misappropriation of it's symbols and name for those that wish to hate.

Is this a joke? You seriously have the temerity to feign indignation at an insurrection that was about nothing but hate and human bondage being likened to contemporary reactionaries?
I figured as much. We will never see eye to eye. I have neither nostalgia or respect for anything concerning that traitorous antebellum nazi scum. I'm not willing to romanticize their crimes against humanity or their attempts to destroy the union. In fact, since we're talking about regrets concerning the confederacy, I'm saddened and dissappointed that General Sherman didn't line the road from Atlanta to the sea with impaled confederate traitors.

I view the confederacy and confederates in the same way that my grandfather viewed nazi era Germans. They were all complicit in the attrocities commited by their governments. So, when the fighter planes that my grandfather maintained would, after finishing their bomber escort duty, dive down below the hard deck and kill everything that moved, he could sleep like a baby. Similarly, I have no compassion for anything to do with the confederacy.

If anyone thinks that I have tried to represent myself as something I am not, I apologize. I know that Sher has no doubt about my leanings. Your representations of fact were inaccurate and what I tried to point out, but you do not seem to wish to accept, is that even if there were collusion, it would be of no point.

As I intimated above. Your contention that Powell's actions had no bearing don't take into account the influence beyond his personal vote that he could bring to bear. Futhermore, now for the fifth time, even if Powell had no influence at all, there was still a huge conflict of interest. The conflict itself, and Powell's refusal to simply remove it and himself, represented an ethical problem. Your circumstantial excuses for why Powell insisted on voting on this issue, and why his father just happened to, shortly thereafter, cash-out on the multi-million dollar windfall it created ring hollow.

 

[OldnotDead]

Without getting into the rhetorical merits or lack thereof, of condemning the Christian Right by association with the Taliban label, let's not forget that GWB courted favor with the one and original Taliban when he was governor.

He hosted Taliban "dignitaries" on a state visit. He offered no comment when they insulted a female journalist who asked a question critical of the treatment of women under their regime.

Which makes him a hypocrite, twice over, when he condemns the Taliban for imposing their religious doctrine on their country. First, because he never indicated any distaste for the Taliban until there was nothing to lose. Second, because his administration pushes the boundaries between church and state at every opportunity, as evidenced by the appointed of a zealot to the position that is least able to accommodate one without costing the rest of us dearly.

According to all factual sources, GWB did not host Taliban 'dignitaries' when they visited Texas. It was a group from Afghanistan in Texas to meet with UNOCAL about construction of a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Kabul. GWB did not meet with them and that part of the story appears to be an embellishment. In order to travel to Texas, this group had to be approved by the State Department, but it was not considered a 'State Visit'. GWB was Governor at the time.

UNOCAL at some point declined to pursue the project so there were no more visits.

I can find no reference at all about the insulted reporter.

I do not believe that GWB want to impose his religion on me, but more on that later.

 

[OldnotDead]

This comes back full-circle to something that's been discussed in the forum before. On 9/12, when it had sunk in that nothing would ever be quite the same, there were two things I felt sure we would all have learned:

1) The value of separating church and state. Terror by suicide, whatever else it may be is certainly an expression of faith. It wouldn't be possible to demonstrate with greater clarity, that religous absolutes are subject to human failings, and should remain a personal matter.

Instead, the people who were in power seem to have read the lesson this way: their religion is crazy and dangerous, so our religion needs to fight even harder to enforce our values on non-believers. As if the Salem witch trials hadn't happened, the Christian right blithely assumes that it is incapable of evil. And GWB encourages them to guide the country, however reluctant we might be, back to the Lord.

2) The Star Wars antiballistic missile defense system is obsolete. We can use those billions to secure our borders.

Instead, we continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into a project that if successful, will not do one thing to prevent the most likely means of delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States: a dinghy, a container, and a few men to drag it onshore, along some of the miles of unguarded coastline that might be secured with a fraction of that money.

I don't read our government's actions as one of our 'religion versus theirs'. In fact, GWB has made a number of public statements that his war on terror is not a war against Islam.

But, that aside, I do not agree with your assumptions about lessons learned post 9/11.

Star Wars, the SDI of Reagan has been scrapped and I assume you are referring to what a number of people call 'Son of Star Wars', the attempt to build an anti-ballistic missile shield of surface launched missiles.

I think we need to invest in a number of types of protection as the sources of attack in the future can come in a variety of forms. Being able to thwart other surface launched missile attacks is a useful capability. That doesn't mean I disagree with your statement about protecting borders and unguarded coastline. I think we need to do both.

 

[OldnotDead]

You are continuing to skirt the issue at hand. Powell created a conflict of interest by voting on a decision from which he stood to profit financially. You have said nothing to dispute this essential fact. Whatever digressions you fly off on, I will return to argument to this issue. . . .

. . . Futhermore, now for the fifth time, even if Powell had no influence at all, there was still a huge conflict of interest. The conflict itself, and Powell's refusal to simply remove it and himself, represented an ethical problem. Your circumstantial excuses for why Powell insisted on voting on this issue, and why his father just happened to, shortly thereafter, cash-out on the multi-million dollar windfall it created ring hollow.

I don't think I skirted the issue. I told you why I disagree with you that it was not a legal or ethical conflict of interest. I also did say that I agree with you that the appearance of a conflict of interest was present and I thought he exhibited bad judgement.

So I will once again reiterate that I have said that I believe there was not a conflict of interest as the vote did not affect the outcome. Nevertheless there is an appearance of conflict of interest and Powell showed bad judgement in not recusing himself. But he did not have to under current statutes.

 

[shereads]

ALL factual sources? You must have new MegaGoogleExtreme.



And I must have confused GWB's role as UNOCAL Junior Ambassador with his elected roles. Are you certain there's no overlap? There didn't happen to be anyone from UNOCAL at the vice president's energy policy roundtable, did there?

Oops. Forgot. That's a secret.

If I'm wrong about Bush hosting the Taliban in Texas, I apologize. Perhaps he didn't even give tacit approval to the visit, although I believe I've seen a picture of a handshake...But I was making a point about his hypocrisy where the Taliban is concerned, and it stands. Did you hear any vehement opposition to tyranny as practiced by the Taliban, before they denied the building of an oil pipeline? That happened in August 2001. A month later, GWB acted as if he'd just been given secret intelligence that the Taliban were not nice people. Similarly, the need to remove Saddam from power wasn't really about WMD, it was a moral imperitive to rid the world of a tyrant that his family had been in bed with until the Kuwait invasion.

OldNot, maybe I didn't express my point about church/state separation and the lessons of 9/11 very well. The "their god, our god" bit was my personal take, which is certainly debatable. I should have said only this: George W. Bush and the Republican-led Congress do not seem to have learned from 9/11 the lesson that seemed most obvious to me - that religious faith is fallible, and that believing yourself to be a True Believer doesn't make your beliefs true. If Republicans took that lesson from the suicide terrorists, or if they've learned anything at all from seeing how theocracies abuse non-believers, they've chosen a strange way to show it. One would think that the man sworn to preserve and protect the Constitution would have taken the cue on 9/11 to stand firm against the less-than-subtle creep of Biblical moral judgements into our government. Instead, he supports changing the Constitution to impose a religious judgement on the right of gay men and women to marry. To claim that this isn't a religious imposition and an embrace of the church by the state, is to ignore the frequency with which the word "sacred," and phrases like "maintaining the sanctity of marriage" are used in the rhetoric.

When did government become responsible for keeping sacred anyone's marital union? Isn't that why people may marry in a church of their choice instead of having a Justice of the Peace pronounce them legally bound? To sanctify their union?

You can be happy that you don't feel threatened by Bush's growing proclivity to give the religious right what they want. But as I've said to friends at work who defend the patriot act by saying, "I have nothiing to hide," if you give up your right to be free from this interference, only because an administration is ini power whose beliefs happen to mirror your own, you're gambling that those barriers can be put back in place when there's a power shift.

When the day comes that the religious faithful need protection from an athiest president whose Attorney General wants to peer into their lives and keep lists of who they are - and if he says we have to give up a degree of privacy to protect us all from relgious extremists, and if the president proposes a Constitutional amendment restricting religious activities, to please the non-religious majority - I hope I won't do what moderate Republicans are doing now. "I don't feel threatened, so it's okay if they push the boundaries a bit" isn't just selfish, it's short-sighted.

At any rate, Republicans who call themselves moderate should be ashamed of themselves if they allow George W. Bush to tinker with the Constitution. According to all factual sources, he's not exactly Thomas Jefferson.

According to all factual sources, GWB did not host Taliban 'dignitaries' when they visited Texas. It was a group from Afghanistan in Texas to meet with UNOCAL about construction of a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Kabul. GWB did not meet with them and that part of the story appears to be an embellishment. In order to travel to Texas, this group had to be approved by the State Department, but it was not considered a 'State Visit'. GWB was Governor at the time.

UNOCAL at some point declined to pursue the project so there were no more visits.

I can find no reference at all about the insulted reporter.

I do not believe that GWB want to impose his religion on me, but more on that later.

 

[shereads]

A word about Star Wars II or IV, and the need to make tough choices.

Yes, it would be great if we could afford to invest in a sophisticated defense for every possible means by which someone might attack the U.S. With a military budget that already dwarves every other program, and with cuts to veterans benefits, and while there are still people living in poverty in America, it seems that the Pentagon and Bechtel and Raytheon and Halliburton, etc., are the only ones not being asked to remove certain things from their Santa wish list.

I know. I left out the top one-percent of tax payers. They've got it pretty good right now, too. But this is Raytheon's moment in the limelight. Not that I think the Pentagon makes budget choices based on infuence; it's just that you have to wonder sometimes why the priorities are what they are, and why anyone in Congress who seeks to look at the military budget from a less industry-friendly point of view is labeled anti-military.

I didn't intend to say that it's impossible for anyone to attack the U.S. via ballistic missile. Only that it's so easy to do it another way, that it seems absurd not to focus those billions where they are needed most: to secure our borders. Securing our skies still needs a lot of work, too, but most urgently down in the lower atmosphere where airplane fly. As long as an enormous sum is being hoovered up year after year by Star Wars research, we can't have it all...Well, yes, we can. If we continue to borrow money from Japan and other countries that today's children will be paying off decades from now, and if we cut just a bit more here and there from the wasteful social programs inflicted on taxpayers by us bleeding-heart, tax-and-spend liberals, we can probably have Star Wars and add a few guards to our coastlines.

It would also be nice if we could build a high-tech acrylic dome over my house, to prevent future burglaries. The alarm system doesn't keep them out, and with a reduced police presence in my community due to tax cuts at the federal level now trickling down to local law enforcement, something needs to be done. I'm with you: we need to be protected in every possible way, whatever the cost.

If I were hungry right now, and my unemployment had run out, I might disagree about the urgency of stopping a ballistic missile from falling here. But I'm okay, and you're okay, and we should demand that we be protected in any and all ways, even the ones that aren't really practical right now.

 

[OldnotDead]

ALL factual sources? You must have new MegaGoogleExtreme.

Sorry, I should have said according to the factual sources I can find.

And I must have confused GWB's role as UNOCAL Junior Ambassador with his elected roles. Are you certain there's no overlap? There didn't happen to be anyone from UNOCAL at the vice president's energy policy roundtable, did there?

Oops. Forgot. That's a secret.

Point taken. Bush 43 is not involved with Unocal, but Bush 41 was an independent oil man, not affiliated with any particular oil company, but in his 'retirement' he does make Houston his home and may be on some oil company boards. THAT I didn't check. But I will.

..But I was making a point about his hypocrisy where the Taliban is concerned, and it stands. Did you hear any vehement opposition to tyranny as practiced by the Taliban, before they denied the building of an oil pipeline? That happened in August 2001. A month later, GWB acted as if he'd just been given secret intelligence that the Taliban were not nice people.

Unocal dropped out in 1998.
http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/98news/082198.htm

I didn't find who the other six members were, but as lead it looks like the US participation was pretty much done back then. I'll have to research this one further.

Personally I think there were a lot of shortcomings in our approach to a variety of problem states. No, I do not remember any strong statements regarding the Taliban. But I'm more of a mind that ommission is not quite the same as commission, but then I'm also a lot less critical of the President.

Similarly, the need to remove Saddam from power wasn't really about WMD, it was a moral imperitive to rid the world of a tyrant that his family had been in bed with until the Kuwait invasion.

On this one I think we're in pretty much agreement. I have always felt that too much was made of the WMD both by the Administration and its detractors.

I'm sure we depart on whether war was necessary. I land on the side that there were enough other reasons to proceed.

OldNot, maybe I didn't express my point about church/state separation and the lessons of 9/11 very well. The "their god, our god" bit was my personal take, which is certainly debatable. I should have said only this: George W. Bush and the Republican-led Congress do not seem to have learned from 9/11 the lesson that seemed most obvious to me - that religious faith is fallible, and that believing yourself to be a True Believer doesn't make your beliefs true. If Republicans took that lesson from the suicide terrorists, or if they've learned anything at all from seeing how theocracies abuse non-believers, they've chosen a strange way to show it. One would think that the man sworn to preserve and protect the Constitution would have taken the cue on 9/11 to stand firm against the less-than-subtle creep of Biblical moral judgements into our government. Instead, he supports changing the Constitution to impose a religious judgement on the right of gay men and women to marry. To claim that this isn't a religious imposition and an embrace of the church by the state, is to ignore the frequency with which the word "sacred," and phrases like "maintaining the sanctity of marriage" are used in the rhetoric.

When did government become responsible for keeping sacred anyone's marital union? Isn't that why people may marry in a church of their choice instead of having a Justice of the Peace pronounce them legally bound? To sanctify their union?

You can be happy that you don't feel threatened by Bush's growing proclivity to give the religious right what they want. But as I've said to friends at work who defend the patriot act by saying, "I have nothiing to hide," if you give up your right to be free from this interference, only because an administration is ini power whose beliefs happen to mirror your own, you're gambling that those barriers can be put back in place when there's a power shift.

When the day comes that the religious faithful need protection from an athiest president whose Attorney General wants to peer into their lives and keep lists of who they are - and if he says we have to give up a degree of privacy to protect us all from relgious extremists, and if the president proposes a Constitutional amendment restricting religious activities, to please the non-religious majority - I hope I won't do what moderate Republicans are doing now. "I don't feel threatened, so it's okay if they push the boundaries a bit" isn't just selfish, it's short-sighted.

At any rate, Republicans who call themselves moderate should be ashamed of themselves if they allow George W. Bush to tinker with the Constitution. According to all factual sources, he's not exactly Thomas Jefferson.

I think you make an excellent point about encroachments, because we all should be alert to encroachments that could go the other direction as well.

But at the same time you need to look at what any administration, Democratic or Republican, lobbies and work hard for and what they say they will support. Bush said he would support a constitutional ammendment banning gay marriage if the Congress passed it. But how hard did he really work on that? He pretty much let the Senators sponsor it and fail and stayed out of the way. At the same time Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act when a veto from him would have been sustained. I don't think of either of them as hypocrites or dangerous. They both let the legislative process do the will of the people and, in essence, stayed out of the way.

As far as the Patriot Act goes, it's required to be renewed and, again, the legislative process will probably remove some items that are considered most egregious. A lot will obviously depend on the outcome of the election, so I understand your strong support for anything not Republican.

I just do not see the religious imposition in all the activity that you see. Yes, I see the Christian Right wanting Bush & Co. to do more about banning abortion and he gives a certain amount of lip service to it because he is anti-abortion, but I don't see him leading the charge on getting anything passed that will really change things. In my own opinion, abortion has become one of the silliest of 'issues'. Roe v Wade will NEVER get overturned and at this point there is such a large body of legislation post Roe v. Wade that if THAT decision were actually reversed, the net change would probably be negligible. There might be some states that could ban abortion, but I really don't think the votes are there anymore.

70% of the US voters are against gay marriage, and since Bush only has the support of around 40+% there's some others not of his party that think that way. Interestingly, that 70% starts falling into smaller fractions when the method of enforcement gets discussed, with the largest group still opting to leave it a states' issue. So again, I don't see him really trying ram something down someone's throat as much as listening to a large block of voters.

Here's the biggest problem as I see it. The US right now is a totally unchecked superpower in the sense that our economy is the strongest and we have shown a willingness to use our military to make changes in other countries. THAT is a most frightening position. Preemptive military action is NOT as some would have you believe, without historical precedent in this country.

At some point we will be done in Iraq. It may be we are 'done' like we are 'done' in South Korea with 40,000 troops still stationed there. But it will be something akin to a status quo situation.

What's next? And who leads us? It's that issue that I believe dwarfs all the others. I know we will never agree on answers to either question, but it is my fervent hope that we get beyond 9/11 and Iraq and focus on NEXT?

One example. Nixon was elected in '68 to get us OUT of Vietnam, as war that Johnson had dramatically escalated. We focused so much on that issue that no one saw how incompetent he was to handle domestic economic issues. At the same time, if he had campaigned on his desire to open China, he probably would have never made it past the RNC. The thing we voted him in for, he did terribly and the thing that we probably would not have supported he actually did well.

Finally, on another thread there are some recollections and suggestions for funny campaign slogan's or bumper stickers. I remember one from the '68 election: "They told me in '64 that if I voted for Goldwater we would be in a war. I did and we are."

 

[Edward Teach]

But at the same time you need to look at what any administration, Democratic or Republican, lobbies and work hard for and what they say they will support. Bush said he would support a constitutional ammendment banning gay marriage if the Congress passed it. But how hard did he really work on that? He pretty much let the Senators sponsor it and fail and stayed out of the way. At the same time Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act when a veto from him would have been sustained. I don't think of either of them as hypocrites or dangerous. They both let the legislative process do the will of the people and, in essence, stayed out of the way.

As far as the Patriot Act goes, it's required to be renewed and, again, the legislative process will probably remove some items that are considered most egregious. A lot will obviously depend on the outcome of the election, so I understand your strong support for anything not Republican.

I just do not see the religious imposition in all the activity that you see. Yes, I see the Christian Right wanting Bush & Co. to do more about banning abortion and he gives a certain amount of lip service to it because he is anti-abortion, but I don't see him leading the charge on getting anything passed that will really change things. In my own opinion, abortion has become one of the silliest of 'issues'. Roe v Wade will NEVER get overturned and at this point there is such a large body of legislation post Roe v. Wade that if THAT decision were actually reversed, the net change would probably be negligible. There might be some states that could ban abortion, but I really don't think the votes are there anymore.

70% of the US voters are against gay marriage, and since Bush only has the support of around 40+% there's some others not of his party that think that way. Interestingly, that 70% starts falling into smaller fractions when the method of enforcement gets discussed, with the largest group still opting to leave it a states' issue. So again, I don't see him really trying ram something down someone's throat as much as listening to a large block of voters.

Here's the biggest problem as I see it. The US right now is a totally unchecked superpower in the sense that our economy is the strongest and we have shown a willingness to use our military to make changes in other countries. THAT is a most frightening position. Preemptive military action is NOT as some would have you believe, without historical precedent in this country.

At some point we will be done in Iraq. It may be we are 'done' like we are 'done' in South Korea with 40,000 troops still stationed there. But it will be something akin to a status quo situation.

What's next? And who leads us? It's that issue that I believe dwarfs all the others. I know we will never agree on answers to either question, but it is my fervent hope that we get beyond 9/11 and Iraq and focus on NEXT?

One example. Nixon was elected in '68 to get us OUT of Vietnam, as war that Johnson had dramatically escalated. We focused so much on that issue that no one saw how incompetent he was to handle domestic economic issues. At the same time, if he had campaigned on his desire to open China, he probably would have never made it past the RNC. The thing we voted him in for, he did terribly and the thing that we probably would not have supported he actually did well.

Finally, on another thread there are some recollections and suggestions for funny campaign slogan's or bumper stickers. I remember one from the '68 election: "They told me in '64 that if I voted for Goldwater we would be in a war. I did and we are." [/B]

OND, you've got your hands full with a couple of others right now so I intended to stay out of it lest I appeared to be piling on by joining in.

But, when the best defense of this President's ideas you can offer is a rationalization that what he advocates really doesn't matter because others will never pass them, then I have to ask why you don't consider voting for someone else.

Here is his latest gaff:

In his speech at the signing ceremony for a $417 billion defense spending bill, President Bush said, "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Tucker Carlson on Crossfire just defended this misspeak by saying that what Bush says shouldn't be criticized because he has a history of misspeaking and everyone knows that he is not very eloquent whereas John Kerry is eloquent and should be held accountable for every word he speaks.

These kinds of defenses have been used so many times now that the media is even accepting them as legitimate.

The only place I see this ridiculous logic laughed at anymore is on the Comedy Channel.


Ed

 

[Clare Quilty]

So I will once again reiterate that I have said that I believe there was not a conflict of interest as the vote did not affect the outcome.

This statement cannot make sense to even you. Unlike your president, you aren't that stupid. It is wholly irrelevant whether or not Powell had the deciding vote. The conflict of interest is plainly evident. His personal financial interests (to the tune of over ten million dollars) were potentially in conflict with his duty as a public official to act in the common good. I can't imagine the ethical contortions your conscience must have to execute in order to justify that ridiculously specious argument, or to convince yourself that it is in any way valid and/or logical--of course, as a republican, I'm sure you get a lot of practice in that sort of thing.

Word I.Q. defines conflict of interest thus...

A conflict of interests is a situation in which someone, most commonly a lawyer, a politician, or a director of a corporation, has competing professional or personal interests that would make it difficult to fulfill their duties fairly.
More generally, it can be defined as any situation in which an individual is able to exploit their professional or official capacity in some way.

In cases of a conflict of interest, the conflicted individual is expected to recuse himself from the matter and not take part in, or influence in any way, the process.

No where in this definition does it say or imply that a competing personal interest is mitigated by an absence of unilateral authority. Also, note that the definition states that the conflicted individual should not only recuse herself, but should not influence the process in any way. The is the antithesis of the conduct exhibited by fat-headed Michael Powell and his father, the now Grifter of State.

 

[shereads]

So 70% of Americans are "against gay marriage."

About the same number who are against burning the flag.

Setting aside Bush's claim that he doesn't make decisions based on polls, there are two things that bother me about numbers like this.

(1) After a poll a few years ago found a majority in agreement that it's wrong to burn the flag, another polling company tried the question this way: "Are you in favor of amending the Constitution to make burning the flag illegal?" I can't remember the precise numbers, but there was enough of a drop to convey the obvious.

(2) Assume your statistic is a valid measure of more than just a distaste for homosexual marriage, but of a 70% willingness to revise the Constitution. The next quesiton is, so what? You might just as well ask whether 70% of people living in a country with an Islamic majority are against the practice of Christianity within their borders. An essential role of a democratic government is to protect the minority from abuses of power by the majority.

I'm against men with nose rings working at my book store, because they kind of creep me out. But I can live with things that I find distasteful. I'd hate to live in a country that made a law every time a majority of its citizens worked themselves into a snit over other people's lifestyles.

The two views of George W. Bush are so different, it's as if we're commenting on two different people with different histories.

I see a wastrel and a coward. A man who talks tough, but only after making sure his own precious behind is safe from harm. "Bring it on" might have been more impressive in downtown Falujah. Broadcast from the White House press room, while other Americans prayed for word that their loved ones in Iraq would come home alive, was a childish schoolyard taunt with fatal consequences.

Republicans seem to see Bush as some kind of stalwart soldier and bastion of decency. A flawed man, but well-intentioned. If he makes errors, they're dismissed as unimportant in light of the bigger picture. What picture is that, I wonder.

By any moral code I can imagine, these things are the big picture:

> Prohibiting stem cell research. For all those who suffer and die because of the delay in finding cures, this isn't a political game. It's incomprehensibly cruel.

> Iraq. Whether or not you think there were "enough other reasons" to go to war, it was a war of choice that was sold to us as necessitated by a clear and present danger. To make war palatable to us, Bush exaggerated the truth, dismissed Clarke and punished Ambassador Wilson for refusing to corroborate what he wanted to believe, and took the word of a convicted con man. ("Faith based intelligence," as Clarke has called it.)

In an ordinary court of criminal law, with Chalabi as the star witness for the defense, a jury reviewing the evidence would almost certainly convict Bush/Cheney of negligent manslaughter in the deaths of 900 Americans and 10,000 Iraqi civiians. I suspect willful manslaughter, but I'm assuming an ubiased jury, hearing witnesses from within GWB's own administration. Paul O'Neill. Clarke. Wilson. Colin Powell, forced to testify as a hostile witness. Lying to the people he sent to die was an act of utmost cowardice and arrogance.

> Recruiting new terrorists by labeling them "warriors" and challenging them to take on the U.S. Bush became Osama's personal Santa Claus when he invaded Iraq. Could he have been any more predictable?

> Dangerous ignorance. I knew we were in for a wild ride in the middle east when your boy used the word "crusade" to describe his War on Terror.

> Assuming war powers and suspending certain of our civil liberties, including the inalienable right to due process, for the duration of a "war" that is open-ended. As long as there are lunatics in the world, and a supply of things to blow up, Bush's War on Terror will never end. The Executive Branch will have powers the Constitution never intended it to have.

> Cutting funding to birth control clinics in the third world. Thanks to GWB's blindness to anything that doesn't affect him or his class, untold numbers of African women, living at the edge of starvation and living with AIDS, in male-dominated societies where these clinics were their only support, have given birth to doomed children. Hundreds of thousands of those babies haven't lived long enough for you and me to have this argument.

Do you ever wonder, when you see those bloated babies on the news, whether their brothers and sisters might have had a chance if there had been one less doomed child in the family? Your president took away the only choice their mothers had. (Btw, chastity isn't an option for a lot of women in the third world.)

> Encouraging discrimination. Consider the implications to gay men and women, whether or not they want to marry, of being the first minority group in our history to be singled out for official discrimination in the document that defines us.

> Favoring a change in the Constitution for political purposes. He swore an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. Every other duty of the president is secondary to that one. If you believe, as you indicated, that he's just paying lip-service to the gay marriage amendment but isn't fully in favor of it, his vocal support of it is even more weaselly than if he believed it necessary.

It has taken more than two centuries for America to grow into the ideal of equality that made its first appearance in the Declaration of Independence. Republicans helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, insisting that they weren't against equality for women; they were protecting the Constitution, which ought not to be altered except under the most dire circumstance. Equality under the law was a matter to be fought at the state level, or so insisted Bush I after he did a complete 180 on the ERA to win a place on Reagan's ticket. Now Republicans want it the other way: If the states won't prohibit what is distasteful to them, it's time to change the Constitution. GWB took up the guardianship of the Constitution by becoming the first president in history to favor a step backwards, towards discrimination.

So what is it we're supposed to admire about this man? His intellect? The curiosity about America's place in the wider world that compelled him to read and travel? The Harken Energy scandal and the SEC connections that stopped the investigation? The companies he drove to bankruptcy? The shrewdness with which he was able to net $11 million after Harken imploded? His dedication to the Texas Rangers? The wholesome family values that have limited his children's arrests to one each? His quick thinking and courageous behavior in the moments after he was told the country was under attack? His heroic carrier landing?

He always seems clean and well groomed, I can say that for him. Is there more? Is there enough to counter the thousands of deaths that are directly attributable to his self-serving reign?

 

[Uncle South Loop]

I saw an old "Adams Family" show (black & white) on TVland cable channel last night. Noticed how much John Kerry looks like the butler Lurch. Kinda talks like Lurch too.

 

[OldnotDead]

So 70% of Americans are "against gay marriage."

About the same number who are against burning the flag.

Setting aside Bush's claim that he doesn't make decisions based on polls, there are two things that bother me about numbers like this.
. . .
(2) Assume your statistic is a valid measure of more than just a distaste for homosexual marriage, but of a 70% willingness to revise the Constitution. The next quesiton is, so what?

I apologize, Sher, in my reply and going back and forth between phone calls, I left out the answer to your question. 70+% are opposed to gay marriage but when asked about ammending the constitution to ban it, the numbers there also slide way down. I do not remember, but think it's in the less than 40% range.

The two views of George W. Bush are so different, it's as if we're commenting on two different people with different histories.

That's pretty much par for the course, don't you think? It was certainly true of Clinton and Reagan. I think Bush 41 was a little less polarizing, but even that moderate got a lot of people seeing him in two different lights.

I see a wastrel and a coward. A man who talks tough, but only after making sure his own precious behind is safe from harm. "Bring it on" might have been more impressive in downtown Falujah. Broadcast from the White House press room, while other Americans prayed for word that their loved ones in Iraq would come home alive, was a childish schoolyard taunt with fatal consequences.

Republicans seem to see Bush as some kind of stalwart soldier and bastion of decency. A flawed man, but well-intentioned. If he makes errors, they're dismissed as unimportant in light of the bigger picture. What picture is that, I wonder.

By any moral code I can imagine, these things are the big picture:

> Prohibiting stem cell research. For all those who suffer and die because of the delay in finding cures, this isn't a political game. It's incomprehensibly cruel.

I think I said earlier that I disagree with his stance on this one. But he did not prohibit the research. He limited it to use of existing lines. I think it was a bad decision on two levels. First, I think that government oversight and regulation could keep the feared 'abortion factory' of stem cells from happening. Two, if we limit it here, the work will migrate to where it is totally unregulated taking both jobs and probably encouraging what he wants to prevent. A true 'lose-lose-lose' all the way around.

> Iraq. Whether or not you think there were "enough other reasons" to go to war, it was a war of choice that was sold to us as necessitated by a clear and present danger. To make war palatable to us, Bush exaggerated the truth, dismissed Clarke and punished Ambassador Wilson for refusing to corroborate what he wanted to believe, and took the word of a convicted con man. ("Faith based intelligence," as Clarke has called it.)

In an ordinary court of criminal law, with Chalabi as the star witness for the defense, a jury reviewing the evidence would almost certainly convict Bush/Cheney of negligent manslaughter in the deaths of 900 Americans and 10,000 Iraqi civiians. I suspect willful manslaughter, but I'm assuming an ubiased jury, hearing witnesses from within GWB's own administration. Paul O'Neill. Clarke. Wilson. Colin Powell, forced to testify as a hostile witness. Lying to the people he sent to die was an act of utmost cowardice and arrogance.

We're not going to agree on this, ever. So I'll try to keep my response short.

First - to nitpick - "Clear and Present Danger" may be a phrase that has been used, but thanks to Tom Clancy it's a little overused. Clear and Present Danger is a requirement that, if I remember correctly, came out of the War Powers Act, that allows the President to take Executive Action without the approval of Congress. Since Bush already had Congressional authorization, I don't think it was a requirement. But, as I said, that's really nitpicking and not attacking the real issue.

From my point of view the reason we went to war was that Saddam Hussein forced us to back up our words with actions. In a very real sense, he painted Bush into a corner to see what he would do. He blatantly violated 14 UN sanctions and dared anyone to make him adhere to them. Among the ones he violated were the requirements for inspections and verifications regarding WMD. But these were not the only ones.

At some point, whether it's a playground bully that disrupts a school, a criminal that disrupts a neighborhood, or a leader of a country that uses his powers outside his own borders, those in power have choices to take action or back down. I know you totally disagree with this, but I believe that Hussein thought he could play 'chicken' and push and push until eventually we would back down. It appears that he was encouraged to have that view by some of our 'allies' telling him that they would get us to back down.

Again, it's me personally, but I think the real criminals in the process were the back stabbing French, Russians, and to a lesser extent, Germans, that were saying one thing to Iraq and another to us and the UN. If they had been a little more forthcoming about whose side they were on, I think we might have had a shot at diplomatic resolution, but it still would have been only a small chance.

Further, the examples of the past years supported Hussein's position. In the past when he had ignored or violated the agreed to surrender terms, no planes, tanks or armies enforced them. In fact, when he rebuilt SAM sites and 'lit up' our planes patrolling the no fly zone, the previous administration ordered the pilots to withdraw rather than engage and destroy. Bush did reverse this policy, but somehow the message it conveyed was not received.

Again, there is no way we are going to agree on this. To me, containment was not an option. Many both before and since have espoused it, but in simple terms it had not worked for 10 years so there was no reason in my mind that containment could work. So I'll just stop there and reiterate that at some point there is a fork in the road and everyone has to choose the path they think is best. I believe Bush took the correct one for the times. You do not.

> Recruiting new terrorists by labeling them "warriors" and challenging them to take on the U.S. Bush became Osama's personal Santa Claus when he invaded Iraq. Could he have been any more predictable?

This is a specious argument often used to justify pacifism. It's full of holes and isn't supported by any verifiable numbers. But, all that aside, let's assume it to be true. You are basically saying that one of the reasons not to go to war is that the other side will increase its military recruitment. Well, DUH?! And I do not mean to be flip, but this is a cost of war.

Do you think that the Japanese were surprised when we declared war? Were they shocked that the first reaction of a lot of young Americans were to go enlist? Was Osama bin Laden surprised that our enlistment ranks swelled post September 11th? Why should we then be surprised if his do as well?

A far more important question becomes what do you do about the new recruits?

> Dangerous ignorance. I knew we were in for a wild ride in the middle east when your boy used the word "crusade" to describe his War on Terror.

Again, we view this from different sides. I believe that Clinton's approach both to Iraq and the whole Middle East was Dangerous Naivete akin to Chamberlin's. Crusade is an inciteful word when tied to relations between Islam and the Christian West. Yet, in many ways what we are embarking on is a crusade in a lot of positive ways. We're trying to show the world that democracy can work where none has been before. That people given a choice will take the responsibilities and sacrifices freedom requires. While some of the Crusades of the past carried a conquer or convert mentality, we are trying to convert the politics to democratic concepts and leave the religion alone. That's quite a task.

In everyday language in this country the word crusade is often associated with large fund raising or enrollment events. It carries no negative connotations. I reiterate and agree with you that it was a poor choice of words, but as someone that has been involved in various 'crusades' I cringed at the choice of his words, but I felt that he had nothing but the best of the meanings behind it. But again, so what, it's what you do and so far, in my opinion, he's delivered.

> Assuming war powers and suspending certain of our civil liberties, including the inalienable right to due process, for the duration of a "war" that is open-ended. As long as there are lunatics in the world, and a supply of things to blow up, Bush's War on Terror will never end. The Executive Branch will have powers the Constitution never intended it to have.

So far, the system seems to be working. No citizen's inalienable rights have been eliminated. POW's and Enemy Combatants appear to also be getting their day in court, as well. The courts and the legislature continue to review the policies and procedures and I have a little more faith than you that it will all sort out.

> Cutting funding to birth control clinics in the third world. Thanks to GWB's blindness to anything that doesn't affect him or his class, untold numbers of African women, living at the edge of starvation and living with AIDS, in male-dominated societies where these clinics were their only support, have given birth to doomed children. Hundreds of thousands of those babies haven't lived long enough for you and me to have this argument.

Do you ever wonder, when you see those bloated babies on the news, whether their brothers and sisters might have had a chance if there had been one less doomed child in the family? Your president took away the only choice their mothers had. (Btw, chastity isn't an option for a lot of women in the third world.)

The policies of the US for years in regard to birth control, prenatal care, and infant nutrition both home and abroad are so out of whack I sometimes do not know where to begin. I did not like his decision about his issue and wrote to say so. I HATE the way abortion gets equated to birth control, and I blame The Church for having connected the two. They are two different issues, and as you rightly point out, represent different situations depending upon culture. Imposing guidelines or requirements in a different culture that are not understood is unproductive at best and usually detrimental.

I could write for days how many of the best meaning groups in this country mess up things overseas because of the reference point being too different. Bush placation of a small, special interest group in doing something dramatic was stupid and not well reasoned in my opinion and I, at least, told him so.

I wrote again when he announced his commitment to add funds to combat AIDS overseas. Missionaries, Churches, and Governments should all be working together more than they do. The cross purposes of NGO's could be so much better utilized if we could get some international consistency in our approach. And it's not just abortion and aids, either.

I believe that just as we identified ten special rights that needed to be added to our first attempt at self government, that each emerging, free country needs to identify those protections that you so rightly point out above need to be provided to the weak as well as the strong. You also point out that we have more than doubled the list now to get where we are today.

It may be naive on my part, but I'm hoping that when he gets a second term, Bush will undo some of this damage.

> Encouraging discrimination. Consider the implications to gay men and women, whether or not they want to marry, of being the first minority group in our history to be singled out for official discrimination in the document that defines us.

> Favoring a change in the Constitution for political purposes. He swore an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. Every other duty of the president is secondary to that one. If you believe, as you indicated, that he's just paying lip-service to the gay marriage amendment but isn't fully in favor of it, his vocal support of it is even more weaselly than if he believed it necessary.

It has taken more than two centuries for America to grow into the ideal of equality that made its first appearance in the Declaration of Independence. Republicans helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, insisting that they weren't against equality for women; they were protecting the Constitution, which ought not to be altered except under the most dire circumstance. Equality under the law was a matter to be fought at the state level, or so insisted Bush I after he did a complete 180 on the ERA to win a place on Reagan's ticket. Now Republicans want it the other way: If the states won't prohibit what is distasteful to them, it's time to change the Constitution. GWB took up the guardianship of the Constitution by becoming the first president in history to favor a step backwards, towards discrimination.

I think your argument is well founded and it is why I wrote to my representatives to oppose ammending the constitution. It's not a solution that would satisfy all, but I believe that there have to be two components to a resolution - or maybe it's three. First, states have to decide what form will be acceptable - marriage or civil unions. Then, civil services need to be available that formalize the arrangement to eliminate any pressure on any religion to provide it. Religions then can decide for themselves if they will consecrate same sex couples unions.

The problem, as many have pointed out, is what happens when a marriage leaves one state and now falls under a different set of laws. Divorce represents one problem and inheritance another. I'm not saying these are excuses not to act, it just means we have to look at all the ramifications of family law.

As I mentioned above and forgot to include in the earlier post, the poll numbers concerning the lack of support for gay 'marriage', but the willingness to accept civil unions and lack of support for constitutional ammendment probably accurately reflects both the traditionalist side of our culture, but most people's willingness to accept differences.

Personally I do not like judicial action and would prefer to see legislative reform. But, then it's been judicial action that has opened the door to some of our better, progressive legislation, so maybe that's where we're headed.

I agree that my rationale of action or inaction does represent the less admirable aspects of american party politics. In an earlier post you asked about the possibility of any honest person succeeding in any democracy. I think the answer is yes, but as the offices get higher and require more broad based support, the weasel factor definitely rises.

So what is it we're supposed to admire about this man? His intellect? The curiosity about America's place in the wider world that compelled him to read and travel? The Harken Energy scandal and the SEC connections that stopped the investigation? The companies he drove to bankruptcy? The shrewdness with which he was able to net $11 million after Harken imploded? His dedication to the Texas Rangers? The wholesome family values that have limited his children's arrests to one each? His quick thinking and courageous behavior in the moments after he was told the country was under attack? His heroic carrier landing?

He always seems clean and well groomed, I can say that for him. Is there more? Is there enough to counter the thousands of deaths that are directly attributable to his self-serving reign?

Well, I do not expect you to admire the man at all. You don't like him and want another in charge. I expect you to focus on anything you dislike and that is what makes politics what it is.

What I admire first about both Bush and Kerry (and many others) that in a time when press scrutiny is so intense that most people choose not to get involved in politics, they did. Second, agree or disagree, they are willing to espouse a viewpoint and take a chance that they can gain enough support to get elected. In the same vein that I admire your willingness to put your thoughts out in front, I hold a lot of regard for the folks willing to put themselves in the hands of the voting public. No one I know is without fault or weakness and I, for one, would not like my personal life to be so closely examined. For that I admire most of their ilk.

I admire Bush for are his willingness to say what he means and mean what he says. Well, most of the time (I did see that gaffe from yesterday).

I draw a difference between admiration and support. I admire Jimmy Carter for the consistency of his beliefs. I never supported him. I think in terms of admiration I had more for McCain than Bush. I supported Bush. The first time around because I was so against the Clinton-Gore foreign policy of appeasement. I wanted someone in office that would take a hard line against terrorists and increase military spending. I was extremely frustrated by the inability of our military to take any action against those that were attacking us abroad. I was also hoping for some tax cuts, but that was not my priority.

This is hard to explain to anyone that prefers pacifism over confrontation, but I truly believe that we are a time in history that is going to define a lot about how commerce is conducted worldwide. The great cycles of civilization expansion and contraction have far more to do with commerce than with war, but too often war and conquest are the easily seen contributors to change and not the more subtle, but pervasive effect of commerce.

England did not acquire the Empire through it's army and navy, but by being the seat of the Industrial revolution that lead it to be the leading trading country in the world. It was its protection of the safety of its own commercial interests and, in turn, their support for its protection that created the symbiosis.

The ability to trade and travel safely are very important. As a fledgling nation we understood this when the Barbary Pirates tried to disrupt us. Later Monroe understood this and told the world that our hemisphere was within our protection. Today we are well beyond the limits created by oceans and no matter how small the business, the probability of international trade is high.

Bush ranks low on most people's assessments regarding his understand of international relations. They denigrate his connections to industry. In my opinion those are actually positives, however, in understanding the importance of free trade and safe commerce.

He has another characteristic that I consider absolutely essential to good leadership. He is very willing to surround himself with people that are knowledgeable and strongly opinionated. His detractors joke about Cheney being the smart one and really in charge. There are a lot of people that would not put themselves in that position. I happen to think it is an admirable quality of leadership to put people of great ability where such comparisons can be made.

My first priority was and remains to support the person I think best equipped to keep as many of us as safe as possible so that we can have these arguments. I believe that Bush' willingness to take the fight to the terrorists is superior to those that prefer containment or appeasement. If the kids I have left are not safe, I'm not sure a lot of the other stuff really matters.

 

[OldnotDead]

OND, you've got your hands full with a couple of others right now so I intended to stay out of it lest I appeared to be piling on by joining in.

But, when the best defense of this President's ideas you can offer is a rationalization that what he advocates really doesn't matter because others will never pass them, then I have to ask why you don't consider voting for someone else.
. . .

Ed

Hello, Ed,

Piles never stopped me at least so far.

The simple answer is that I focus on what he advocates, works hard for and tries to accomplish as evidence of his strongest commitments. In other words, where, from what we can see through reports and actions, does he spend his time and energy the most?

An example: He's ticked that the Dems are blocking some of his judicial nominees, but is he cutting deals, trading favors, working out compromises to get them all approved, so he can 'stack the courts' as some believe? I'm sure it will be a point of discussion when he's in front of a supportive audience in New York, but it's certainly not showing up on the campaign trail as a major issue.

He did work out compromises and probably traded some favors to get an education bill passed that has already had a profound effect on early childhood educaction in our community. Now I know some states are not getting the money to the students, but locally, since I have some involvement, I am happy to report that three more low income students will get free, pre-school AND for the first time in years they will be allowed to learn numbers and letters and how to cut along the lines. Federal Government support for education is 50% higher now than Clinton's last budget. This was bipartisan, I know, but it would not have gotten done without Presdiential support.

The War - see above -

Taxes - he cut them. My other choice wants to reverse this. I know, Kerry says he will only do it on the top 1%. I've been through Tax cuts and tax revisions and tax corrections and revenue enhancements and out of all the times they messed with the tax code, I can only identify two times that the amount I paid actually went down. Call me cynical, but politicians are no different than anyone else, they want more money under their control.

Education, Taxes and Defense. I think he's the better choice. That's all.

 

[OldnotDead]

sorry, Lit's dreadful double post machine