६ ऑगस्ट, २००७
"The Republican candidates for president used a nationally televised morning debate to mock Democrats..."
As if somehow all these rivals coalesced into a Democrat-destroying machine. Oh! It's so unfair!
याची सदस्यत्व घ्या:
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा (Atom)
पोस्ट्स
२९ टिप्पण्या:
Oh, the horror! Republicans mock Democrats during their debate (as if Democrats have been deferential to Republicans during their debates)? Next the Post will be telling us that the sun sets in the West and that it gets dark at night!
The democrats are a parody of themselves just waiting to be satirized and taken to task. If the dems don't like it they can come back with their standard anti-war rhetoric, hate for the military, fear of enhanced power for the NSA, pronouncements that the War on Terror is a bumper sticker war, raise taxes, increase government, pour money into the black hole of education that produces illiterates, continue using earmarks while criticizing Haliburton, suffer the effects of BDS, and other inanities such as those we read on this blogsite.
I guess it's good to know, if you're a Republican, which Candidate is the best Democrat-mocker if that's the kind of President you want to elect. But wouldn't it be better to listen to the Candidates discuss what they want to do, rather than what's wrong with the other person's plans? Sure, you can add a sentence or two to highlight the differences, but if you spend too much time mocking, then IMO you have nothing to talk about.
Yet reading the article, I see that it appears there were actual differences among the candidates. Wonder why the headline writer didn't highlight that?
Wonder why the headline writer didn't highlight that?
Maybe because the reporter was personally affronted by the mocking of Democrats?
Actually I think the lead places the dull Republican debate in a larger, more interesting context -- the Obama / Clinton death match.
The Democratic primary is simply the more interesting story at the moment. The characters are more colorful and the competition more heated.
I was amused by this exchange between Brownback and Romney, in which Romney seems to discredit himself as a reliable source:
BROWNBACK: George, if I could, there’s -- you can go up on YouTube and see the governor himself and speaking himself...
ROMNEY: Ah, that’s the -- consider the source.
For those who might suggest that primary candidates should stick to intra-party arguments, consider that the number of independent voters continues to grow, and that one can register a party affiliation fairly close to the primaries. I'm currently watching all the candidates and polls, seeing which, if any, primary I want to vote in.
Madison Man;
The democrats brought this on themselves by starting the presidential race 2 years before the actual elections.
By starting the dialogue early they are setting themselves up for studied analysis in a fluid environment. The people doing the analysis can take their sweet time dissecting what was said with perfect hindsight which puts the democrats in a defensive position.
This one of the reasons Fred Thompson is holding back his announcement. In the military we learned the risks of being point man in a firefight whether figuratively or literally.
It is a tactical error with strategic implications.
But wouldn't it be better to listen to the Candidates discuss what they want to do, rather than what's wrong with the other person's plans?
MadisonMan, you haven't been paying attention. It's fair to criticize candidates for running against someone rather than on their own plan only when you're criticizing Democrats for running against Bush. You've been around here long enough to know that. But it's always admirable of you to try to be reasonable.
Haven't candidates, of any flavor, always run against their opponents? I mean, I just don't see any "new" here.
I also don't see anything "new" about the criticism of candidates for doing that.
Maybe it's just me.
Oh Heavens!
The shining lights of the Progressive Party have been Mocked! This cannot stand! Someone save the republic!
Obama sure deserves some mocking right about now, having encouraged anti US sentiment in Pakistan with his threatening to go all cowboy and attack their nation. Which has nukes. Yea buddy, way to go. Twit.
Madison: But wouldn't it be better to listen to the Candidates discuss what they want to do, rather than what's wrong with the other person's plans?
I wish the Democrats HAD a plan to criticize. Maybe thats why they are being mocked. Six years in and I still haven't heard how they plan to deal with radical Islam or rogue states like Iran. I'm guessing they intend to pawn it off on the UN Security Council? Or submit to Sharia LAw in exchange for the promise of future negotiations?
"It's fair to criticize candidates for running against someone rather than on their own plan only when you're criticizing Democrats for running against Bush."
Can you decode this?
Beth,
When the dems come up with a plan to criticize instead of a "not what Bush did" statement, then there would be something other than platitudes to debate. Until then republicans have nothing but mocking to use against the democrats. The republican candidates all have positions to debate and do so. The democrat candidates all spend their time positioning themselves without telling us what they would do. The few times they have told us what they would do it is either raise taxes in a class war or invade an ally. Nothing else there.
We hear they have a healthcare plan. In detail what is it. We hear they have a plan to handle Iraq or Iran or Palestine. Again in detail what is it. They want to raise taxes on the rich. The last time they did that the state of Maine lost its boatbuilding business and they could not cancel the tax fast enough. They have a plan to improve education. What is it other than hand it over to the NEA and we all know how well they have done. They have a plan to handle earmarks and ethics. Not doing so well on that one are they. They have a plan that will solve all our problems in 100 hours. The 100 hours ended back in April and they have done almost nothing. They are going to get our troops out. So far that has amounted to a lot of posturing about pullling funding but if youlook at the lst time they did that we ended up with a genocide in Cambodia and Laos and boat people and gulags.
The only other way to handle them is to say when you have something to say, wake me up because you certainly haven't said anything yet of real value except to show us you should not be trusted to handle foreign relations.
wouldn't it be better to listen to the Candidates discuss what they want to do, rather than what's wrong with the other person's plans?
I think anyone who has been paying attention already knows what the candidates want to do at this point. The campaign's been going on for ages.
The campaign's been going on for ages.
Don't I know it! But is anyone listening?
Two democrats debate in the woods. If there is no one around to hear them, are they still wrong with respect to terrorism?
For you RUUUUUUDY supporters:
There's one vote that Rudy Giuliani definitely can't count on in his 2008 presidential bid: his own daughter's. According to the 17-year-old Caroline Giuliani's Facebook profile, she's supporting Barack Obama.
SGT Ted said..."Obama sure deserves some mocking right about now, having encouraged anti US sentiment in Pakistan with his threatening to go all cowboy and attack their nation."
From yesterday's newspapers (as if most here ever actually read a newspaper):
"Musharraf has been the target of intense criticism since a U.S. intelligence assessment reported last month that al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents were operating freely along Pakistan's porous, mountainous border with Afghanistan."
Now...why would we ever consider attacking a country that is obviously so supportive of our "War On Terror??"
Duh.
Hey, when all you've got is silly comments, mocking the other party, you just have to go with the flow.
(Except of course, for Ron Paul, the only one who tells it like it is.)
Hillary will wipe any of these lightweights off the map in 2008.
Lucky: Now...why would we ever consider attacking a country that is obviously so supportive of our "War On Terror??"
Duh.
Paki Nukes. Duh indeed.
And more, via Captain Ed:
"If we march across the border of a sovereign nation without their permission, that's an act of overt war. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and would be likely to use them in a last extreme. They could certainly shoot tactical nukes at our Navy ships that would have to support an invasion force. They may also be inclined to use them against our new ally, India, in the case of an invasion.
Not to demean Obama's vast military expertise, either, but has he looked at a map of Pakistan? It's shaped like a wedge, with the base on the Arabian Sea and the Waziristan region almost the farthest point from the water. How does Obama propose to create lines of communication for an invasion? Right now we rely on Pakistan for overflight to Afghanistan to supply our troops for the fight against the Taliban there. General Obama would eliminate those lines of communication overnight, leaving the invasion force critically isolated -- unless he thinks we can start resupplying Afghanistan through Iran.
Only an idiot would invade Pakistan from the north, if at all. Any war against Pakistan would have to seize the Arabian Sea ports first, and then roll through the center of Pakistan -- where all of the formerly moderate Pakistanis would have lived -- to get to a mountainous region that Pakistan itself has hesitated to engage.
And did we mention that Pakistan has a potential mobilization of 39 million troops?
Frankly, the only idea worse than invading Iran is invading Pakistan. One might expect a serious presidential candidate to avoid looking like an idiot while provoking an ally that still helps more than he hurts in that region. Obama seems determined to prove himself unserious.
UPDATE II and BUMP: To those insisting that this is nothing different than what Bush and Rumsfeld proposed -- using covert teams to infiltrate across the border -- let me quote directly from the news report that the Obama campaign chose to highlight on its website:
The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.
That's definitely not the same as what Rumsfeld considered and rejected in 2005. It's a declaration of war, pure and simple."
As a conservative, I don't care how the Republicans or the Democrats run their debates. I am not a party member.
I think the Post just wanted to be able to put "Democrat" in the headline. Notice the tension between the headline and the topic sentence. The headline focuses on only the intraparty criticism while the topic sentence also mentions the interparty discussion.
Ho hum. The point of view of the writer was clear when they put "socialized" in quotes anyway.
Trey
Fen,
Are you saying that if we know Osama is in Pakistan, and know exactly where he is...and Pakistan wouldn't do anything about it...we sit on our hands?
Because that's exactly what Obama proposed.
Who was the idiot who said this?
"You're either with us or against us?"
Sidetrack, but important:
They want to raise taxes on the rich. The last time they did that the state of Maine lost its boatbuilding business and they could not cancel the tax fast enough.
The "luxury tax" mistake was raising taxes on specific things consumed. At ruinously high tax rates. And only on new "yachts, gulfstreams". Which made the value of 10 year-old yachts and Arab sheikh jets available for sale globally to the Richest 1% of Americans double while destroying new manufacture facilities, then mainly in the USA, domestic market.
That was bad policy. But the reality exists that the rich who have the money to slip to politicans to change the tax system in their favor have succeeded. The mega-rich pay far less on each dollar earned in taxes than working proles.
Warren Buffet has led the wealthy with a conscience in declaring there is nothing wrong with being wealthy, but the American system now allows them to pay far less in taxes on each dollar they get than middle class workers. As a mega-billionaire, he notes he doesn't do the "Cayman Islands, my home is a business office, my jet is work related on vacations" dodges or dubious business deductions other wealthy dive into - yet he pays significantly less in total taxes and fees on each dollar earned than his Berkshire employees do.
Mindless Ayn Randers and Libertarians think that is great and will encourage more Americans to become mega-millionaires that can shelter all but 7-10% of their income from local, state, Fed taxes and fees, unlike the working slobs making 35-80K a year.
The Tax Code, regressive taxes on the working people is massively unfair, and attempts by Democrats to do something about it, rather than mindlessly defend what the rich bribed legislatures to get as bootlicking corporatist Republicans do- is another significant Dem advantage.
************************
The natural consequence of Democrats insisting that the "real problems" are rescuing Muslim nutballs in a country with no vital US interest, that we are not in a struggle with radical Islam - only 6-7 individuals still alive who launched a terrorist attack on us 6 years ago is that it was inevitable that Democrats would end up urging new wars if the leaders of Sudan and Pakistan do not do as we demand, much like we did with Saddam Hussein.
With Obama, his "brain" appears to be David Axelrod, another uber-consultant that has final say on what Obama does and like Obama, is naive on all matters of foreign policy and military.
No one is in Obama's camp warning him that Pakistan is not like Iraq - an easy "cakewalk" invasion if Musharaff "defies" him like Saddam "defied" Clinton and the Bushes. 90% of the supplies for the NATO invasion force in Afghanistan and 80% of Afghanistan's trade go through Pakistan. An Obama invasion would cut that off, putting all forces in Afghanistan in peril, wrecking the recvering Afghan economy. And if Pakistan was taken over by the radical Islamists following invasion, we could have loose nukes or the US using nukes to destroy nukes and nuke material to prevent the stuff from getting into terrorist hands.
All for 6-7 men that Obama wants to have civilian trials in the US, if possible, with "all civil rights Americans have"?
No thanks. The guy is the Magic Negro. But this isn't Hollywood. Obama is naive and reckless.
When 40% of the people pay no income taxes and the richest 5% pay 96% of the taxes, then for you to attempt to justify raising taxes on those who will leverage their way out or move their money to tax-free areas will ruin the economy. There is a reason that lowering the tax rates brought in more taxes than raising them and the democrats have not understood that since JFK was pres. They raise taxes, tax receipts go down. Tax rates get lowered and tax receipts go up. Now we have the idiots saing that they are going to tax you whether you like it or not. Any bets on what happens to the tax receipts? And when you see that the percent of deficit is set to be gone by 2012 if the tax rates stay lowered and by 2020 if the tax rates get raised (numbers from the Congressional Business Office), then the LLL dem to raise taxes makes no sense at all but in the name of class warfare making sense is not necessary and that is all the dems have.
The mega-rich pay far less on each dollar earned in taxes than working proles.
The average member of the richest 1% of Americans paid over twice as much in taxes, per dollar earned, as the average member of the working and middle classes last year. In other words, you're completely wrong.
The mega-rich pay far less on each dollar earned in taxes than working proles.
Every time I hear populism like that I think of payroll taxes. And then I think we should do something. We should take the money the poor proles are putting into social security and let them put it into an IRA instead.
Anyone got a problem with that?
I say we tax the middle-class and especially the poor...MORE...much, much MORE...and let the rich alone.
Rich people good...poor people bad.
Anyone got a problem with that?
The entire Democratic Party, for starters.
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा