The God Gulf

I wanted to direct your attention to an excellent op-ed piece in today's NY Times by Nicholas Kristof, that is truly thought-provoking in exploring Democratic sanctimony and Republican hypocrisy. At least, it spoke to me on the things that keep us apart in our own country and the world at large.
The God Gulf - NY Times

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I adore Dan Savage's writing. "Savage Love" is a wonderful column, and I've enjoyed his books as well. He writes with great clarity and irony, along with that thorny sense of humor.

But he solidified his standing with me, when after a female reader told him that "tighty-whities" on a man are wrong, Savage responded with the following:

"T-w's are wrong? No, let me tell you what's wrong: Thoroughly Modern Millie getting the Tony for Best New Musical over Urinetown is wrong. George W. Bush's opposition to an independent commission to investigate the intelligence failures that laid out the welcome mat for the September 11 terrorists is wrong.

But tighty-whities on a boyish and slim and hairless man? That's righter than right."

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You mean at the feet of George Bush the First? His pal Rumsfeld was a crony of Sadaam's. The fault lies squarely at the feet of Reagan and Bush. But your memory can't go back that far.

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/08/elec04.prez.barbs/

does this mean that someone in the gephardt campaign is reading dan savage??

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Grecians?!! what the ...? i'm surprised he doesnt call Texans Texians.

He "rushed them through" what? And be careful with your answer. Because I remember Reagan and the blanket amnesty of 1986.... Please be prepared to discuss why Clinton doing it is wrong but Ketchup Is A Vegetable and Shrub is fine????? C'mon. Try.

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Well, the man thinks Africa is a country.

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HOORAH! Let's hope more of your ilk do the same thing.

And when you get up in the morning could you take a few minutes to explain how spending all these many months chasing down Sadaam "weakened Al Queda?" Because the ALERT LEVEL IS AT ORANGE and you are no safer after the capture of Sadaam than you were before.

Perhaps you meant The Taliban?

The US probably will be hit no matter who the president is. And I am sure you will never think to really examine the wasted resources expended on The Hunt For Sadaam (tm) and the man who oversaw it.

It's not you personally or your "right to have differing views" that I take exception to. It's your lack of logic, your ability to contradict yourself and your refusal to explain those contradictions and the fact that you drop baseless generalizations into threads and then refuse to back them up with facts. That's all.

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Updated On: 1/8/04 at 10:10 PM

now namo, how exactly is calling wjc "bubba" any different than calling gwb "shrub"? heck, i still have a handwritten reply from bubba from '94 to an email i sent him regarding nato expansion which started off, "hey there bubba." now, on the other hand if this a spirited defense of the southern man against the use of a stereotype, then i can understand. but i think roxy just hits that nerve in you that makes you go all robbie the robot, "cruch, kill, destroy!" is he in fact a surrogate for all those intolerant closed minded bigots (to me rick santorum falls into that category, but not john ashcroft, but then i am a proud neo-con) whose views are so alien as to sometimes (more often than not) not even qualify as human? just curious.

and broadwayguy2, to what exact limitations are you referring? and as far as pre-emptive attacks...panama, grenada, libya bombing, somalia, balkans...i don't remember any of them hitting us first.

and roxy, cheer up, pat buchanan may yet toss his hat into the ring (please insert sarcasm here).

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i don't wanna split hairs here but i think that's "road's squalor"

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This may surprise people but I think Buchanan is a flaming asshole He also has a laugh like a little schoolgirl . When he laughs, his face looks like a chipmunk

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Updated On: 1/9/04 at 05:45 PM

erik, i find one single direct quote from bush, cheney or rumsfeld that implicitly linked saddam and al qaeda. saddam was linked to terrorism. is it bush's fault that the country cannot differentiate between al qaeda and terrorism in general? but on the other hand, if the lie that bush repeatedly linked al qaeda to saddam is told enough times, people will believe it.

"[i] have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection," [p]owell said, in response to a question at a news conference [t]hursday. "[b]ut [i] think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did."

that's a ways from saying that there was absolutely positively no connection isn't it?

are you suggesting that we never take any action or make any statement until absolute proof is attained? now does that have to be beyond a reasonable doubt proof?

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Updated On: 1/9/04 at 06:08 PM

Papa....

When it comes to leading a country into war and taking over another country without international support, then damn right I say we better be able to back up our reasons without a reasonable doubt! Excuse me for using the word damn, I'm feeling very passionate today. You say you found one quote linking the two. Here's ONE WEEK of quotes I found by George W. alone.

"This [Hussein] is a person who can't stand America. This is a person WHO HAS HAD contacts with Al Qaeda."
George W. 10/28/02..Alamogordo, New Mexico

"He's a threat to America and he's a threat to our friends. He's even more of a threat now that we've learned that he's anxious to have, once again, to develop a nuclear weapon. HE'S GOT CONNECTIONS with al Qaeda."
George W. 10/28/02...Denver, Colorado

"This is a man who cannot stand what we stand for. He hates the fact, like al Qaeda does that we love freedom. See, they can't stand that. This is a guy who has had CONNECTIONS WITH THESE SHADOWY TERRORIST NETWORKS".
George W. 10/31/02.....Aberdeen, South Dakota

"That's the nature of this man (Saddam). WE KNOW HE'S GOT TIES WITH al QAEDA."
George W. 11/1/02....Portsmouth, New Hampshire

"WE KNOW THAT HE'S HAD CONNECTIONS WITH al QAEDA"
George W. 11/2/02.....Tampa, Florida

"THIS IS A MAN WHO HAS HAD CONTACT WITH al QAEDA. This is a man who poses a serious threat in many forms, but catch this form: He's the kind of guy that would love nothing more THAN TO TRAIN TERRORISTS AND PROVIDE ARMS TO TERRORISTS so they could attack his worst enemy and leave no fingerprints. This guy is a threat to the world."
George W. 11/3/02...St Paul, Minnesota

"This is a man who can't stand America and what we believe in. This is a man who hates some of our closest allies. THIS IS A MAN WHO HAS HAD al QAEDA CONNECTIONS."
George W. 11/4/02...St. Louis, Missouri

"This is the kind of guy we're dealing with. This is a man who hates America, he hates our friends, he can't stand what we believe in. HE'S HAD CONTACTS WITH al Qaeda."
George W. 11/4/02...Bentonville, Arkansas

"This is a man who cannot stand America, he cannot stand what we stand for, he can't stand some of our closest friends and allies. THIS IS A MAN WHO HAS GOT CONNECTIONS WITH al QAEDA."
George W. 11/4/02 Dallas, Texas

There's one week of quotes by George W. commenting on the connections between al Aaeda and Saddam. Now notice he never says "we have reason to believe there are/were connections to al Qaeda. He repeatedly states it as fact. And he used this, along with weapons of mass destruction, to lead us into war. And the fact is, neither of these things were true. This sounds much different than Powell saying "[b]ut [i] think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did."
Bush did not tell us he thought the possibility existed. He said it did exist. And he said it over and over and over and over and over until most of the country believed him.

Updated On: 1/10/04 at 08:44 AM