The God Gulf

[magruder]

Posted: 1/7/04 at 10:55am

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

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/7/04 at 11:47am

i liked dan savage's piece on the same op-ed page better...kerryactics, indeed.

[magruder]

Posted: 1/7/04 at 4:22pm

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."

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 7:26pm

Bubba Clinton laid out the welcome mat for the 9/11 hijackers. I guess after offering Bin Laden to Clinton 3 times & being turned down, the Sudanese said why bother anymore. Why didn't Clinton visit the WTC site after the first bombing ? Why didn't he institute airline screening after a plot was uncovered to blow up half a dozen airliners over the Pacific ? Why no extra security after the plot to blow up LAX was uncovered ? Place the blame where it belongs.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 7:31pm

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.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 7:43pm

Namo, my good buddy. You are slipping. I thought your reply would be instantaneous ( you took a whole 5 minutes - old age ?). Leave it to a die hard liberal to avoid the question & give a totally different answer but not to the question you asked. You are so predictable. See you around the campus

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 8:11pm

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

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

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 9:08pm

I don't consider myself a "liberal" Roxy. So check your assumptions.

By the way. Imagine if "Bubba" as you insist on calling Clinton, had proposed amnesty for illegal aliens the way Shrub has done. IMAGINE the hue and cry!! I wonder oh I wonder why the Shrub would propose this? I WONDER????

[Bway_Mill_Fan]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 9:14pm

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

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 9:47pm

Bubba rushed through over 1 million illegals without adequate background checks so they could be registered as democrats

As far as you not being liberal, what are you a "progressive" ? Give me a break

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 9:51pm

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.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 9:52pm

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



and Packistanis are Packies.. there is a reason he hasn't been to Nigeria. Imagine if he messed THAT one up!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 9:52pm

Well, the man thinks Africa is a country.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 10:06pm

Namo

You have your views & I have mine . We will never see eye to eye . The difference between us is while I do not agree with your views I respect your right to them. I also do not engage in name calling ( freak & psychopath come to mind from your previous posts). The problem is you do not respect my rights to my views

As far as GWB is concerned, I was going to vote for him if for no other reason than for 2 years we have not had another attack. Now he is starting to pander to everyone in creation (prescription drug bill,education bill (Ted Kennedy wrote it ) & now this immigration fiasco. I can no longer, in good conscience , vote for him

Maybe the country needs Dean. Let him jack up everyones taxes & throw us right back into a recession. Let us see Dean stop the outsourcing of jobs to other countries ( a whole other issue) that no politician has the guts to take on. Let Dean dismantle all of what GWB has done re weakening Al Queda. Maybe what we need is to get hit again . If it happens & it is just on the same scale as 9/11, maybe we will be more willing to take terrorism seriously. The American people are basically isolationist. I guess we have to be constantly hit over & over before we get the message ( like Israel)

Maybe after we get hit again under President Dean ( which we will) all those blaming GWB will blame Dean ( as they will not have GWB to trash anymore). I would not bet the farm on this happening though

This election, I will go into the booth & vote on everything else except the Presidential race. My ballot will be blank there

Nighty Night

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 10:10pm

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.

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

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 1/8/04 at 10:21pm

Roxy,

It is not a matter of respecting views. It is a matter of respecting humans and your "views" as you refer to them limit my rights. You are entitled to your views. You are not entitled to limit ME.

Recession because of Dean? We have experienced teh greatest number of jobs lost since the Depression and you can not blame terrorists. The job loss/recession started before 9/11.

We are now involved in the first preminent attack by the US since Vietnam.. and we remember who wonderful that was.

We have members of the "President's" party fighting to have images of gay and lesbian marches at the Lincoln Memorial removed froma video and replaced by images of religious marches that were no where near the Linocln Memorial and has made the national park service begin selling books detailing god's creation of the grand canyon!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 10:13am

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).

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 10:20am

Of course my sudden use of "Shrub" is in response to Roxy's use of "Bubba." I just had all I coulds stands til I couldn't stands no more. Not because I'm such a Clinton fan, because I'm not. It's just watching somebody like ROXY try to belittle somebody by using an insulting nickname reminded me that two could play at that game. I suppose Clinton is a Bubba in some respects. A big Southerner. Course he was a Rhodes Scholar too. Something our C- current president probably never heard of before. And W IS a Shrub. A mere sapling off the old Bush.

Yes, Roxy reminds me of Santorum. But santorum the juice, not Santorum the man.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 10:39am

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

[magruder]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 11:10am

An old joke, but it bears repeating...



George W. Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House bed. He awakens to see George Washington standing by him. Bush asks him, "George, what's the best thing I can do to help the country?" "Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises, then fades away.

The next night, Bush is astir again, and sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moving through the darkened bedroom. Bush calls out, "Tom, please! What is the best thing I could do to help the country?" "Respect the Constitution, like I did," Jefferson advises, and dims from sight.

The third night sleep is still not in the cards for Bush. He awake to see the ghost of F. D. R. hovering over his bed. Bush whispers, "Franklin, What is the best thing I could do to help the country?" "Help the people, just like I did," FDR replies and fades into the mists.

Bush isn't sleeping well the fourth night when he sees another figure moving in the shadows. It is Abraham Lincoln's ghost. "Abe, what is the best thing I can do right now, to help the country?" Bush pleads. Abe replies, "Go see a play."

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 5:45pm

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

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

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 5:58pm

Speaking of Bush and Saddam, I was watching the news today and Colin Powell came out and said that there is no connection between Saddam and Al Queda. Well how about that! And the Bush administration told that lie so many times that 60% of the population of this great country thought there was a connection before the war started. Impeach Bush!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 6:08pm

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?

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

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/9/04 at 9:26pm

"are you suggesting that we never take any action or make any statement until absolute proof is attained?"

Of course you mean the way Shrub does with evolution? The jury still being out and all?

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 1/10/04 at 8:44am

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