They publish an op-ed that I do think is pragmatic, Jerry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/18/opinion/18BROO.html?th
My local congressfolk (Miller, Lee, Pelosi, Boxer) voted against the $87mil package. Sort of the way I voted for McClintock. In their case, they knew it was going to pass but they would earn brownie points from the far left for their “brave” stand. In my case, I knew Arnhold was gonna win but I got to vote for someone I agreed with.
So it goes.
Morale:
Weeks is a behemoth brownie pie 
Hi, Lance.
This is a tough situation all the way around.
From Bush’s point of view, he’s taken considerable risk in making a commitment to expelling Saddam Hussein from power, even though to accomplish that, he opened himself to criticism for the methods he used to convince Congress and the public.
From his opponents’ point of view, it’s a matter of concern when a president advances his agenda using what may be dubius methods of pursuasion, particularly when the impact on the financial future of this country and on world affairs in general may be substantial.
And now, the Iraqi people are part of the package in a way they weren’t before we intervened.
There’s nothing black and white about this situation. Even though I think Bush has done something terribly wrong in the way he has prosecuted this war, I can still see his point of view, as I can see the points of view of each of the groups discussed in the editorial.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I can’t read the NYT editorial (it wants a password).
Anyway, as you said, nothing b&w about this. A situation that was already bad with Saddam Husseim + American blockade, has been made a lot worse, quickly. This country was able to achieve in a month what Israel took 50 years to achieve in Palestine. At least i guess they can be commended for their speed!
Unlike Cambodia and Afghanistan, Iraq has the second largest petrol reserves in the world, which means a lot of money that should be passing into American hands isn’t, and the situation is threatening to become a political disater instead of a free ticket into a second presidential ellection. Now it looks like the best that can be done is applying a few bandaids and leaving quickly, praising the Iraqi people for their successful transaction to democracy, good luck, don’t forget to write! Instead of cashing in big, we have to be content with cutting our losses at $80.000.000.000+
And the rest of the world tries not to look too happy when they say “i told you so!”. This may end up as one of those occasions where evil doesn’t pay in the end.
What i don’t understand is how could the American government be so dellusional as to think they could invade, replace the government with one of their choosing, hand the contracts to Halliburton and pay for the whole thing with oil money?
:roll:
Quote @ my dear friend Weeks
My local congressfolk (Miller, Lee, Pelosi, Boxer) voted against the $87mil package. Sort of the way I voted for McClintock. In their case, they knew it was going to pass but they would earn brownie points from the far left for their “brave” stand. In my case, I knew Arnhold was gonna win but I got to vote for someone I agreed with.
Um…you live in 3 Congressional Districts? You have two senators from your state and one Representative from your district. Anyway, I agree with you. I wouldn’t have voted for Arnold or Grey Davis or Bustamante, even if it looked like they were going to win. I also wouldn’t have voted for about 85 of the Senators if I were in their state or 400 or so of the Congresspeople, because I don’t agree with them enough. We need a multi-party representative system because most people’s views don’t fit neatly into “Republican” or “Democrat”, and Republicans and Democrats are afraid to vote the way they feel, they vote the way their base will re-elect them. If your party gets 50% or 5% of the vote, you should have that much representation.
As to the NYT, I don’t read newspapers (I’m allergic).
glauber, you start off saying that nothing is black and white, then end up characterizing the US government as evil and delusional? It seems like things look pretty b&w to you. The password is free, why don’t you sign up and read the editorial - it’s more about different factions within the Democrats than it is about judging the war in Iraq.
Regarding the editorial, I do have to respect the Democrats who, although they don’t care for Bush and the reasons for going to war, vote their consciences and not in the way that will garner the most votes in an election. And no, I’m not saying the GOP is any better in this regard.
oddly enough Cran, all of those politicians have, do or likely will represent me. Boxer is a Senator, at large for all California. Miller has been my congressman for most of my adult life and his father before that, I went to school with his sister and have been to their family home (we come from the same hometown of Martinez).
I couldn’t disagree with him more about most of his stands. He did try to work with Bush on education which I appreciated.
Then for about the last four years, Lee was my representative as they had re-gerrymandered the district northward, kind of putting most of the East Bay black people in it (this was Comrade Dellums’ old turf, for Boomers with memories) including Oakland, Berkeley and part of Richmond, then I moved over the district border and am back in Millerland.
Pelosi has always been a big part of SF politics and they gave her a pretty important post in the House lately. She is in line for Senator after Di-Fi or Boxer, I reckon …These Demoncats are ubiquitous if you live here. Even the other Weekender, whose cousin Gina is George Moscone’s widow, provides inadvertant linkage. I have played gigs featuring Pelosi, Willie Brown and other swells, including Jackie Speier, the one who was Leo Ryan’s aide (killed at Jonestown).. I turned down a gig for Boxer because they pulled that “exposure” bit on me. Yeah, come up to a millionaires mansion in Greenbrae and get exposed as a sap who will play for free, so others can hustle you. This was when she was still a congresswoman from Marin. When it comes to politicians, always get the money up front and keep yer pockets crazy-glued together.
So if I overstated it, that is why. You are correct.
And yeah, I signed up to read the NY Times. Its not a big deal at all. They send you the headlines everyday so you can examine how they are managing the news. Haven’t shot in the monitor yet or received spam, so we’re doing okay wi’ it. And like I said, a columnist crystallized my thoughts about the Dems and that vote today.
Brownie-pie…ouch! Transparent.
Damn, Cranberry, you’re starting to sound like some “one man, one vote” commie pinko radical. Next thing you know, you’re going to start demanding that the guy who gets the most votes be elected president. And THEN where would we be, I ask you!
I’m not sure I see the point of this whole thread, actually. “Slow Saturday, so let’s start an argument”?
Quote @ Chuck_Clark
Damn, Cranberry, you’re starting to sound like some “one man, one vote” commie pinko radical. Next thing you know, you’re going to start demanding that the guy who gets the most votes be elected president. And THEN where would we be, I ask you!
I’d hope to sound like someone whose party often gets 5%-10% of the vote but has virtually -no- representation. I’ve become really upset with the Democratic party lately (The Republicans are certainly no better), watching the debates. The two people who I think deserve the nomination and won’t waver on their beliefs for political support are Kucinich and Lieberman, both of whom won’t get it, and if Lieberman did get it I couldn’t vote for him because I disagree with him on too many things, but at least (I don’t think) he’d waver on his beliefs. There is still a strong hidden anti-Jewish sentiment in this country so he also has that going against him. It’s like the anti-black, anti-gay, anti-woman vote. In polls people NEVER say they wouldn’t vote for said minority if they were qualified, but when the votes are cast, in the private booth, it always shows.
I’m also upset with people my age who tend to be liberal to moderate, NOT VOTING. They all think it’s silly to vote. If we could get them to actually vote more we could win at least a couple seats in the house or even a Senate seat (they’d all probably be from Week’s district[s] 
).
I’m not sure I see the point of this whole thread, actually. “Slow Saturday, so let’s start an argument”?
Hey - It’s Sunday now!! 
Brooks is a conservative columnist, and his article reflects his political position. I usually like David Brooks as he is one of the more civilized talking heads that you see on the slug-fests in the evening shows. He is a true old-time conservative not like those smug, wild-eyed, evangelical, flag-wrapped yappers on FOX who think of themselves as conservatives but are somekind of unleasant-smelling hybrid of democratic foreign interventionist, and republican social/religious neo-puritanism.
In the case of Iraq, we must be responsible. We owe them more than most people realize. Since Saddam Hussein was our malevolent creature to begin with. We groomed him and used him to bleed Iran in a long war in which WMD were used against Iranian soldiers and later against Kurds.
We never complained then about WMD since we were in silent complicity.
The UN sanctions and Saddamite corruption destroyed the country, and I suppose now it is poetic justice for us to have to fix it, and make it decent.
Ditto to Afghanistan and our Osama bin Laden…jeez, you give them millions and look what they do..they bite your ass for all your troubles.
I can think of a list of foreign leaders who we have found useful to fight our wars by proxy in the past and then they turned on us. General Noriega in Panama, used to only cost us a case of Scotch whiskey when he was head of intelligence, then he cost millions is bribes for a whole clan, then he came to power and later turned on us. Corruption, corruption, corruption…and it is happening now in triple spades with the sub-contracting in Iraq. Billed amounts are already being doubled or tripled and the profit siphoned-off by local contractors. C’est la vie.
Excellent points, Jean.
Of the nine Democratic party candidates I have the most respect for Lieberman. I remember watching his debate with Cheney in 2000 - he seemed like he had more on the ball than Gore did. He did do some waffling on his earlier positions but hey that’s politics.
Personally I think he would be a strong candidate and pull a lot of moderate voters away from GWB, but the party seems to be moving to the left right now and I think his chances are very slim. I agree his religion probably works against him.
Kucinich? Yikes!
I personally believe the Democratic party has gone too far to the right. That explains why so many people have defected to the Green Party (which is the largest third party in the country). I would be a defecter, except that I never was a Democrat in the first place. If I had to vote for a Democrat though it would be Kucinich.There are very few Republicans I would vote for but there are some.
If we had more political parties people would be able to vote how they feel and not how they think they can be re-elected, and the only way that will happen is for people to start voting to get those parties in power, and very few people do it. I have more respect for a McClintock voter who stood to their conscience and voted how s/he felt than a Arnold voter who did it because s/he thought he had the better chance.
There was a good column in the Washington Post this morning about third parties.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44542-2003Oct18.html
This analyst is thinking that the climate is right for third parties to possibly decide the Presidential election. And not just the Greens, but the Libertarians and the Independence party. Cranberry is not alone in being disillusioned by the conservatism in the Dems, and there are many disillusioned by the free spending of the Republicans.
In six Presidential elections I’ve voted for a major party candidate once. I can’t imagine anything changing that in the near future. If the Libertarians or one of the other parties doesn’t field a decent candidate, I just won’t cast a vote for President, or possibly write in Cthulhu (“Never mind the LESSER of two evils”) or Click and Clack (“Unencumbered by the thought process”).
Chas: I am so used to it, that I feel like its normal to “hold your nose and vote” rather than get to vote for somebody you like. It has been terrible in California for so long. One side-effect of the recall was that, because the state party convention process was sidestepped in a quick candidate registration mode, I could vote for McClintock. He had been dismissed before for Bill Simon and Richard Riordan, a countryclub Republican and an ultra LA moderate RINO. BUt the wisdom of the people was to elect Arnold, another RINO, so I guess its reflective after all of the eliminative process.
I would reckon that McClintock might have a Senate future because everyone came out of the deal knowing he was a good guy and palpably feeling the contrast. Causes you to wonder if you would rather have someone seemingly honorable whose causes you disagree with, or a typical slimebag who tells you what you want to hear.
To my current way of thinking, the American people do not trust honorable people because it seems too good to be true. That is the corrosive effect of constant attacks on the country, the flag, the Boy Scouts, the military etc etc. There are acknowledged hero soldiers from this latest Iraq campaign but I have doubts that the American people will honor them, if one is to believe the media characterizations of us.
Presidents? Same deal. I was dismayed that the best the party could do was George Jr. While I don’t have the immediate dismissiveness of Bush that many do, I still wondered why the hell we had to have a dynasty bit going. I was told all along that Bush was a contender, but I was never sure why except that his Dad had been Prez and his mother was very well-received. When I finally accepted him sort of, I thought he got the best of both parents. I certainly like him better than his father, who I never trusted.
It’s so easy to accept the corporate power puppet-master scenario with these guys exactly because you keep asking yourself, who chose this guy to run?
I don’t know what to think about Lieberman anymore. He has sounded more moderate to me this time, though it may be that the field has more leftist contenders, which puts him there. I question whether anti-Semitism is necessarily going to keep a candidate from the Presidency but face it, Lieberman is not a handsome or charismatic fella. The other Weekender, who is a Buddhist and is into such things, remarked to me that he seemed to lack “life energy” which described my inner reaction to him as well. Nothing to do with his background to me, anyway.
That Paul Simon guy with the bowtie had a similar problem (I guess he’s Jewish, not sure). You had to ask yourself: this is somebody who makes a lot of sense but wears bow ties, fer crynoutloud, off-campus, which combined with his large ears, invoked a clown perception… The ugly face of anti-Bowtism appears…
I had a more positive feeling about Simon than Lieberman tho.
All quotes courtesy of The Weekenders
He had been dismissed before for Bill Simon and Richard Riordan, a countryclub Republican and an ultra LA moderate RINO. BUt the wisdom of the people was to elect Arnold, another RINO, so I guess its reflective after all of the eliminative process.
I would reckon that McClintock might have a Senate future because everyone came out of the deal knowing he was a good guy and palpably feeling the contrast. Causes you to wonder if you would rather have someone seemingly honorable whose causes you disagree with, or a typical slimebag who tells you what you want to hear.
What else makes a Republican a Republican (or a Democrat a Democrat) except name? The term RINO is really a misnomer. It doesn’t really mean anything. Of course he’s a RINO because all Republicans are RINOS in that sense.
To my current way of thinking, the American people do not trust honorable people because it seems too good to be true. That is the corrosive effect of constant attacks on the country, the flag, the Boy Scouts, the military etc etc. There are acknowledged hero soldiers from this latest Iraq campaign but I have doubts that the American people will honor them, if one is to believe the media characterizations of us.
I would submit that the Boy Scouts and the military (both who deny gays and use public money or public-financed buildings[and one who is responsible for MURDER]) aren’t honourable at all, but we’ve had that conversation before (or at least it seems like we have).
Presidents? Same deal. I was dismayed that the best the party could do was George Jr. While I don’t have the immediate dismissiveness of Bush that many do, I still wondered why the hell we had to have a dynasty bit going. I was told all along that Bush was a contender, but I was never sure why except that his Dad had been Prez and his mother was very well-received. When I finally accepted him sort of, I thought he got the best of both parents. I certainly like him better than his father, who I never trusted.
In my opinion, Bush isn’t the biggest problem. His cabinet and advisors are. If you left Bush alone to do his job without them all, I think he’d do a much better job than he’s currently doing.
I don’t know what to think about Lieberman anymore. He has sounded more moderate to me this time, though it may be that the field has more leftist contenders, which puts him there. I question whether anti-Semitism is necessarily going to keep a candidate from the Presidency but face it, Lieberman is not a handsome or charismatic fella. The other Weekender, who is a Buddhist and is into such things, remarked to me that he seemed to lack “life energy” which described my inner reaction to him as well. Nothing to do with his background to me, anyway.
I think Lieberman’s wife Hadassah is full of life energy.
edited to fix quote boxes
Well, then she should run for office. I don’t want another tag team like Bill and Hill, thanks.
I don’t either. She can’t run for President, though because she wasn’t born in the US.
I do think it will be monumental when Hillary becomes President, only because she will be the first woman ever to do so. But regardless of politics, I think that basically using your husband’s status to run for office isn’t the way we need to go. Women should run on their own merits, and I don’t exactly think she did that for Senate.
I’m about 99.9% sure that Paul Simon is not Jewish, though I don’t know what religion, if any, he might profess. Certainly its nothing he ever mentioned, but back in those days religion was a matter of personal conscience, not the club (weapon, not social group) that Evangelical Republicanism has turned it into.
In any case, if Paul is Jewish, he’s likely the only one in his original Southern Illinois congressional district. That area is mostly Free Methodist, Baptist, United Methodist, and Church of God, with a solid sprinkling of Catholics and a negligible smattering of “Other”. There aren’t even enough Jews for the local Klan to bother to hate.
Hillary will never be president. In fact, I think I can safely say, in the lifetime of most of us here, no woman will ever be elected president. Not meant to be chauvinistic, just looking at reality.
~Larry