Politics: J'accuse!

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do any of you ever recall voting for a Candidate for President or senator that you truly supported- not just the lesser of two evils- and not in a primary.

Yep. Mondale. He said "here's what we're gonna do for social programs, and I plan on paying for them on a current basis." (Sort of.)

And Norm Coleman.

And Reagan.

And Bush I.

And Dole.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by bilmore
Yep. Mondale. He said "here's what we're gonna do for social programs, and I plan on paying for them on a current basis." (Sort of.)

And Norm Coleman.

And Reagan.

And Bush I.

And Dole.

you voted for Mondale and Reagan? Is that some special minnesota thing, or Mondale for Senate?

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do any of you ever recall voting for a Candidate for President or senator that you truly supported- not just the lesser of two evils- and not in a primary.

I really can't say I have.

Bill Clinton. Twice. (No, I am not kidding.)

Oh, and when Big Ed ran for county commissioner a few years ago, I truly supported him. But that's primarily because he promised me one of them flashing blue lights that undercover cop cars have so that I could put on the roof of my Ram was I was in a hurry.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I think it's even possible - possible - that the wholesale rounding up of swarthies or whatever you call them post-9/11 averted other attacks. But at what cost?

Well then, in your view what WAS the cost, and how do you feel about it? Why just suggest there was a "cost" and imply it was bad? What is your analysis on the balance of interests? Presuming there was in fact a "wholesale rounding up of swarthies" after 9/11 (I sure didn't see my Muslim neighbors rounded up) and that this rounding up quashed additional attacks, what WAS the "cost", in your view?

It's a short term solution to a long term problem unless we want to just seal our borders and reject the notion of a pluralistic society.

Is it your position that prohibiting non-American Muslims from receiving flight training in the U.S. could not be accomplished without "sealing our borders" and that this would necessarily mean the end of a "pluralistic society?" Does our status as a pluralistic society mean we cannot or should not take ANY steps to adopt protections based on evidence and statistics concerning where the real dangers lie?

[bold_n_brazen]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do any of you ever recall voting for a Candidate for President or senator that you truly supported- not just the lesser of two evils- and not in a primary.

I really can't say I have.

Yes. When I voted for Bush Sr., I was drinking the Kool-Aid. I even worked on the campaign and drove little old ladies to the polls.

And I once deeply believed in a candidate who was running for Governor. He lost.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do any of you ever recall voting for a Candidate for President or senator that you truly supported- not just the lesser of two evils- and not in a primary.

I really can't say I have.

No - I think the best I can do is Mayor Riordin.

eta "riordin"

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do any of you ever recall voting for a Candidate for President or senator that you truly supported- not just the lesser of two evils- and not in a primary.

I really can't say I have.

Ann Richards for Governor. Bill Clinton, twice, for President. I can't remember who has ran against Kay Bailey Hutchenson. I didn't like Kirk as much as I liked Sanchez when Gram gave up his Senate seat. The only good thing about Cronin ending up in the Senate is that it got him out of the State's AG office. Though I can't say that Abbot is much better. I miss Mad Dog Mattox.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Ann Richards for Governor. Bill Clinton, twice, for President. Etc.

I once saw a bumper sticker that read:

C[h]thlhu for President.
Tired of voting for the LESSER evil?


Note: not sure if I spelled C[h]thlhu right. Depending on a bigger geek to correct it.

edited for spelling -- the bigger geek

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you voted for Mondale and Reagan? Is that some special minnesota thing, or Mondale for Senate?

RR ran twice.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Not President or Senator. In local elections, Gavin Newsom.

Bill Weld. Senate (and Governor).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Conservatives are quick to claim that the recent deal with Libya vindicates our "get-tough" approach in Iraq. The Age of Sacred Terror, which was written before the most recent developments, suggests otherwise:

• Libya's downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 -- the culmination of a string of tit-for-tat exchanges between the United States and Libya through much of the preceding decade, including the La Belle bombing and the Tripoli raid -- was the most recent attack to register triple-digit deaths. After the Libyan role in the bombing was confirmed, a determination that took more than a year, the Bush administration decided that the existing strategy of military retaliation was futile. "We thought that we weren't likely to get anywhere with another bombing raid and that you couldn't rule out that indeed the Pan Am 103 shoot-down was a consequence of the last bombing raid," Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser, recalled. Weary of the cycle of killing, President Bush decided to seek a legal solution. The White House redirected its energies into backing UN sanctions against Tripoli in the conviction that the United States did not have an interest in waging an all-out war against Libya and that concerted international pressure provided a better way to change its behavior.
  
  When Clinton came into office, the new approach seemed to be paying off: Libyan terrorist activity had diminished substantially, if it had not entirely disappeared. The administration continued on the course set by its predecessor, remaining vigilant about Libya's behavior and working hard at the UN to keep wayward allies from undermining sanctions.

(The Age of Sacred Terror, 222-23.)

In an endnote, the authors say:

• While Clinton was in office, Libya wound down its support for terrorism, expelling groups, such as Abu Nidal's, that had been operating out of Tripoli. Eventually, Libya agreed to the a United States-United Kingdom proposal to try those indicted in the case in a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. One of the two Pan Am 103 defendants, Libyan intelligance agent Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi, was convicted on 31 January 2001. The United States continues to insist that Libya accept responsibility for its actions, cooperate with the continuing investigation, and pay compensation to the families of the victims.

(Sacred Terror at 502 n.3.)

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by bilmore
Yep. Mondale. He said "here's what we're gonna do for social programs, and I plan on paying for them on a current basis." (Sort of.)

And Norm Coleman.

And Reagan.

And Bush I.

And Dole.

Now that you mention it, I was too young but lots of people voted for RR in '84 because they believed. As most can probably tell, in our national memory, there is no greater depth of love for a politician then there is for him.

[dtb]

Originally posted by Not Me
What might have stopped 9/11 is better intelligence and better intelligence sharing between agencies. This was impeded by the Gorelick and crew. Moreover, all you PC fuckers put the fear into the FBI agents and made them too worried about investigating Arab males in flying school. They thought that would be considered racial profiling, because it fucking is racial profiling. Racial profiling Arabs in flying school (as that agent in NM noticed) could have maybe saved a few thousand lives on 9/11.

I hope you PC fuckers are proud of yourselves.

God knows I don't want to jump into this breech, but I think your bile is misaimed at "PC fuckers". From what I have read, the only people upset about racial profiling of Arabs are the targets of it (i.e., the Arab males). That may be a bit of an exaggeration (I'm sure you can find some non-Arab person displease by the whole thing, but whatever.) In fact, the NYT (although, as SS pointed out, the NYT is a for-profit newspaper, and therefore wholly untrustworthy) ran a rather interesting article about how even groups traditionally subject to racial profiling (i.e., blacks) supported racial profiling when the target was Arab males, and the purpose was anti-terrorism.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
And then, we get "Bush made the absolutely stunning claim that his administration was somehow successful in breaking up A. Q. Khan's "dangerous network," which is crazy considering that Khan's "dangerous network" is otherwise known as the government of Pakistan." Intentionally misleading, which is sort of like lying, right? Bush referred to the black market network to whom he was transferring info. Kos knows that, but it was a good cheap line. Standard for him.

I think this argument burned itself out in the wee hours of last night, so I hesitate to bring this up, but I cannot disagree more with Bush's use of the term "network" and your defense of it.

AQ Khan was not running this proliferation ring out of his garage. He had to have help, both within the Pakistani government and/or military and outside of it. Despite that fact, not one person besides AQK himself has been prosecuted, discplined, or reprimanded, to my knowledge (would love to hear otherwise if someone can point me to a link). We may have got some sort of valuable quid pro quo from the Pakistanis in return for not making them root out all the conspirators, but to say that we rolled up AQK's network is misleading at best and intentionally so at worst.

For an admin that relied so heavily on the mushroom cloud rhetoric to justify the Iraq war (and for a poster who has claimed to fear the mushroom cloud more than I do), there should be no greater priority than fighting nuclear proliferation. Just like I agree with those who say that killing OBL in the months before 9/11 would not have stopped 9/11, there is no way that the "disciplining" of AQ Khan rolled up his network.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I once saw a bumper sticker that read:

C[h]thlhu for President.
Tired of voting for the LESSER evil?

http://www.cthulhu.org/

It's running again this year. You can get the T-shirt. And it has an interesting position on the use of military force and the UN:

"Q)What would the Great Leader's position be on the U.S. Military? Would we see a shift away from cooperative multi-lateralism with the United Nations? How does the Great Leader feel about nuclear weapons?
A) Our future leader would ban a standing U.S. Military. Cthulhu does not feel that humans should have the privilege oo killing other humans, it reserves that right to itself.
The Great Cthulhu's solution to the United Nations will be to eat all current U.N. delegates. It will then build the U.U.N. (Unilateral United Nations)
Our Great Leader is greatly opposed to nuclear weapons in the possession of others, because the melting of human flesh, and mass destruction, are not mortal rights."

BR(disturbingly, its budgetary policies seem surprisingly similar to my own)C

edited, again, to partially correct my sucky spelling