Reply to an angry comment (on the previous post)
Where to begin?
On “flip flops”. The genesis of Kerry's supposed switches come from two instances: A) he “voted for the 87 billion before he voted against it”, and B) in his supporting the war in Iraq. Let's shine some light, shall we?
In the first case, he was very consistent. He wanted the military and Iraq to have the money, but he had seen the White House and Pentagon mess things up pretty badly, and insisted that there be some measure of congressional oversight. He also wanted that the money given to the Iraqis to eventually be repaid. So he did vote for the bill, in its earlier incarnation. The White House decided they didn't like those provisions so they threatened to veto the entire bill if those elements were not removed. The final version of the bill did not include those provisions, so Kerry voted against that version of the bill. So if Kerry flip-flopped, so did Bush inversely.
On the Iraqi war issue altogether, Kerry has also been consistent. In 2002 he voted to give the President the authority to go to war as a last resort. He thought at the time that was appropriate for the President to have the authority to go to war as a leverage to force Saddam to go along with the inspections. I have not read the measure, but supposedly it also had provisions which demanded the White House fully exhaust any and all diplomatic means before war could be declared, and that the White House was required to give the leaders of both houses a specific list of reasons why these efforts failed within 48 hours of the war. To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened. Today John Kerry still says he would have voted for that authority. His reasoning is that as a matter of principal the President should have the authority, even if Bush has so badly abused it. I personally disagree, given that at this point I have far less respect for Bush, and thus I would not want the authority in his hands.
Now on to real flip flops:
Bush was against the creation of a Dept of Homeland security, then he supported it, and now he claims it as his political victory. He was against Campaign Finance Reform, then he was forced to sign it, now he wants to ban all 527s. He was against the 9/11 commission, then he was for it. He was against nation building (he said so in his debates with Al Gore in 2000), and now he's VERY much for it. I'm doing all of this from memory, and I'm not even close to the full list of what I can recall off-hand.
Don't know much about Mrs. Kerry's fundings, but that's like saying that Bill Clinton murdered Vince Foster since he did not prove beyond all of his detractors satisfaction his own innocence. But what IS clear is that President Bush did invite a lecturer from a Florida University to the White House with close ties to actual terrorist organizations. Laura Bush also invited Chalabi to the State of the Union address, when he is now implicated in dealings with Iran amongst a plethora of other issues.
As for the health care system, Kerry is not suggesting socialized medicine. (I think I'd rather it if he did) He is suggesting a smaller measure to try to insure more people through the existing system. It's been tried in a number of states, and works quite well.
As for the issues of immigration, there isn't much difference between the two. Bush was the one to propose an amnesty. As long as neither side wants to deal with the issue, then there isn't any effective difference. It's also quite clear the reason why Bush/Rove pushed the amnesty was to increase Bush's share of the Latino vote. So let's not act like its only one side that tries to curry favor.
As for Nader, honestly, I disagree with the efforts to demonize him or force him off ballots. I also disagree with the way he's trying to get onto ballots. The guy has debased his life's work in the last few years. I used to have a great deal of respect for him, but it's long gone now. He has gone off the deep end, and is only being kept alive by Republicans working to get him on ballots. (I am winging this post, but I can cite sources, or you could find them in 12 seconds via google)
As for deadlines, it was Bush who pushed for June 30 as the day to “turn over Iraq” regardless of everything else.
However, if you want to blame ethnicities for our problems, then yes, you really should vote for George W Bush. If you think though that will make you safer, then there's probably not much hope for you. We are not fighting Arabs, we are fighting TERRORISM. We are also not fighting idiots. If we target Arabs, and push that as our only defense, they will find caucasians for their cause. (remember Johnny Walker Lindh?) The reality is we cannot invade the entire world. We cannot fight every foe at once. We have to be smarter about wielding our force. Afghanistan actually started off well, but we entirely loused it up by being distracted by a country which really wasn't threatening us. We had inspectors in Iraq, and then we forced them out prematurely because the President was hell-bent on invading regardless of anything. Maybe we will need to invade Iran or Saudi Arabia, but we cannot do it now. We might have been able to if we hadn't wasted our political and military capital in Iraq and had spent the last two years routing out Al Qaeda and the Taliban along with actually rebuilding Afghanistan, making it a true Democracy, but we didn't. You can thank our President for that.
As for Clinton, he DID attack right after the embassy bombings in 1998. He came within hours of killing Bin Laden, and when Clinton did, he caught hell from the Republicans who accused Clinton of doing so to distract the public from Monica Lewinsky. Al Qaeda has done quite well under this administration. Iraq has allowed them to recruit forces like crazy as we did exactly what Bin Laden promised we would. I'm tired of playing into their hands. I'm tired of losing the war for hearts and minds. I want better than Bush, I think Kerry can deliver.
Note: I am not going after everything, especially the racially charged clap-trap. I think it can seen as ridiculous on its own.
On “flip flops”. The genesis of Kerry's supposed switches come from two instances: A) he “voted for the 87 billion before he voted against it”, and B) in his supporting the war in Iraq. Let's shine some light, shall we?
In the first case, he was very consistent. He wanted the military and Iraq to have the money, but he had seen the White House and Pentagon mess things up pretty badly, and insisted that there be some measure of congressional oversight. He also wanted that the money given to the Iraqis to eventually be repaid. So he did vote for the bill, in its earlier incarnation. The White House decided they didn't like those provisions so they threatened to veto the entire bill if those elements were not removed. The final version of the bill did not include those provisions, so Kerry voted against that version of the bill. So if Kerry flip-flopped, so did Bush inversely.
On the Iraqi war issue altogether, Kerry has also been consistent. In 2002 he voted to give the President the authority to go to war as a last resort. He thought at the time that was appropriate for the President to have the authority to go to war as a leverage to force Saddam to go along with the inspections. I have not read the measure, but supposedly it also had provisions which demanded the White House fully exhaust any and all diplomatic means before war could be declared, and that the White House was required to give the leaders of both houses a specific list of reasons why these efforts failed within 48 hours of the war. To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened. Today John Kerry still says he would have voted for that authority. His reasoning is that as a matter of principal the President should have the authority, even if Bush has so badly abused it. I personally disagree, given that at this point I have far less respect for Bush, and thus I would not want the authority in his hands.
Now on to real flip flops:
Bush was against the creation of a Dept of Homeland security, then he supported it, and now he claims it as his political victory. He was against Campaign Finance Reform, then he was forced to sign it, now he wants to ban all 527s. He was against the 9/11 commission, then he was for it. He was against nation building (he said so in his debates with Al Gore in 2000), and now he's VERY much for it. I'm doing all of this from memory, and I'm not even close to the full list of what I can recall off-hand.
Don't know much about Mrs. Kerry's fundings, but that's like saying that Bill Clinton murdered Vince Foster since he did not prove beyond all of his detractors satisfaction his own innocence. But what IS clear is that President Bush did invite a lecturer from a Florida University to the White House with close ties to actual terrorist organizations. Laura Bush also invited Chalabi to the State of the Union address, when he is now implicated in dealings with Iran amongst a plethora of other issues.
As for the health care system, Kerry is not suggesting socialized medicine. (I think I'd rather it if he did) He is suggesting a smaller measure to try to insure more people through the existing system. It's been tried in a number of states, and works quite well.
As for the issues of immigration, there isn't much difference between the two. Bush was the one to propose an amnesty. As long as neither side wants to deal with the issue, then there isn't any effective difference. It's also quite clear the reason why Bush/Rove pushed the amnesty was to increase Bush's share of the Latino vote. So let's not act like its only one side that tries to curry favor.
As for Nader, honestly, I disagree with the efforts to demonize him or force him off ballots. I also disagree with the way he's trying to get onto ballots. The guy has debased his life's work in the last few years. I used to have a great deal of respect for him, but it's long gone now. He has gone off the deep end, and is only being kept alive by Republicans working to get him on ballots. (I am winging this post, but I can cite sources, or you could find them in 12 seconds via google)
As for deadlines, it was Bush who pushed for June 30 as the day to “turn over Iraq” regardless of everything else.
However, if you want to blame ethnicities for our problems, then yes, you really should vote for George W Bush. If you think though that will make you safer, then there's probably not much hope for you. We are not fighting Arabs, we are fighting TERRORISM. We are also not fighting idiots. If we target Arabs, and push that as our only defense, they will find caucasians for their cause. (remember Johnny Walker Lindh?) The reality is we cannot invade the entire world. We cannot fight every foe at once. We have to be smarter about wielding our force. Afghanistan actually started off well, but we entirely loused it up by being distracted by a country which really wasn't threatening us. We had inspectors in Iraq, and then we forced them out prematurely because the President was hell-bent on invading regardless of anything. Maybe we will need to invade Iran or Saudi Arabia, but we cannot do it now. We might have been able to if we hadn't wasted our political and military capital in Iraq and had spent the last two years routing out Al Qaeda and the Taliban along with actually rebuilding Afghanistan, making it a true Democracy, but we didn't. You can thank our President for that.
As for Clinton, he DID attack right after the embassy bombings in 1998. He came within hours of killing Bin Laden, and when Clinton did, he caught hell from the Republicans who accused Clinton of doing so to distract the public from Monica Lewinsky. Al Qaeda has done quite well under this administration. Iraq has allowed them to recruit forces like crazy as we did exactly what Bin Laden promised we would. I'm tired of playing into their hands. I'm tired of losing the war for hearts and minds. I want better than Bush, I think Kerry can deliver.
Note: I am not going after everything, especially the racially charged clap-trap. I think it can seen as ridiculous on its own.
posted by Jim Casaburi at
10:02 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, I guess it pays to know VERY VERY little CSS so I couldn't pull off anything fancy. I thank you for your kind words.
BTW: As an American in South Korea, you are planning to vote in this election, correct? (no, I'm not trying to bludgeon anyone into voting the way I want them too, but I know how much I hated being three months too young to vote in 1996, and I can't imagine how horrible I'd feel missing the great opportunity to cast a ballot this year!)
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Jim Casaburi, at 12:12 AM
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