Democrats

Have you ladies and gentleman noticed that the Democratic party seems to be full of people that are hypocritic, petty, and espouse all sorts of disfunctional ideas? Last week a congresswoman from California stated that she wants to launch an investigation into whether the Bush administration had advance knowledge of 911. To even utter those words defies belief. This week that “champion” of environmental virtue, Al Gore, attacked Bush’s environmental plans. What a joke. Have you ever heard of the tenaments that he owns in Tenessee? People make out their checks to Al Gore. I have read about many people who say that he allows them to live without flushable toilets. They apparently complain and he is such a penny pincher that he won’t even see that they have basic sanitation. Some environmentalist. Finally, that paragon of virtue, Bill Clinton, offered his services for mediation of the Middle East Crisis. What qualifications does that guy have? All he has is a bunch of manufactured photo-ops. Does anyone else get the feeling that this guy is withering without the spotlight.

Stop it. You’re not giving me those things that I/we DESERVE! You must have been influenced to write this by BIG BUSINESS (that’s whay my UNION told me, and they’re always right). Did you also know that the only reason 9/11 happened was because George W. Bush wanted the Central Asian oil reserves for his own company! Also, I believe what the 85 IQ reporters and cartoonists say about George W. Bush – even though he got 89th percentile SAT scores and graduated from ivy league undergraduate and grad schools, he’s really dumb! I trust reporters – chosen for their looks and that graduated from Longwood Central State Community College with a 1.9 and consider the goings on of Robert Blake to be newsworthy – as good sources of advice. We better throw in there that Bush STOLE the election by being consistently chosen as the winner via vote counting. (Fuck those votes.) Also, I believe the captured terrorists are being treated unfairly. They should be given five star accomodations, excellent food, and all the rights of US citizens. Hell, I’ll let 'em fuck my sister (after we cure them of all their diseases and wounds, of course). Also, it is a much better idea to continue mailing checks to people who march in the street every day screaming “kill americans” than to drill on a plot of land the size of a small family farm in the middle of nowhere. Anyone with any kind of gripe about the way the U.S. does things or did things should be sent an immediate apology, a letter of open understanding, and if necessary a check with YOUR money (I don’t actually make any, since I don’t own a Big Business and that elite group are the only people that do have money, and that’s only because they’re white, rich, and part of the Big Business Club). Furthermore, if you do make any money, I have decided that it’s too much (what do you need all that money that you’ve worked so hard for anyways?) and we should give it all to anyone else who makes enough noise about deserving it. And I would like to conclude that the things that you do have no bearing on the kind of person that you are, and it’s not ok to commit felonies unless you are a democratic president.

And that’s different from the Republican “hypocritic, petty, and espouse all sorts of disfunctional ideas”?? Politicians are mostly corrks anyway, so who cares what party they are in?

Bill Clinton DID do some good with the Middle East, like it or not.

You'll remember that the government was accused of similar fore-knowledge in relation to Pearl Harbor... it may have been true, it may not have been.

Both parties, IMO, are chock full of arrogant hypocrites. When the rare politician comes along who bucks party lines (like Jesse Ventura for example), they end up paying for it. We may claim that we want honest politicians, but in reality I think we’re terrified that they might start thinking independently at any minute. The ideal way to run things would be what I call the “Douglas Adams” system, i.e. anyone who wants the job is obviously unqualified and dangerous. But, sadly, that system is unworkable outside of fantasy-land.

Clinton did a little good in Middle east??? What kind of joke is that. If he did such a great job why did he get Bin Laden in Afganinstan when we bomb his compound in the first place. And if he did any good with the middle east eveything should be fine now. Clinton was the worst president of them all he just was at the right place at the right time…

The only I give credit to Clinton though is that he hired the right personnel otherwise he himself did jack… Right personnel meaning Alan Greenspan…

The other thing that he did good was not to touch or change anything…

Hmmmm, I think the congresswoman may have her wires a bit crossed. As I understand it there has never been any intimation the Bush knew about 9/11, however, and it’s a big however, there has been a bit of talk that the intelligence community did have some sort of warning that “something” was going to happen, but they weren’t able to pin it down. Now as paranoid as the CIA are, you can only be paranoid in several places at one time shrug

Party labels don’t always mean all that much. I’d rather have a Southern Democrat like Zell Miller from GA than a Northeastern Republican any day.


I generally support any politician who wants to give me more freedom and more choices and pass fewer regulations, and, most importantly, wants to take less of my money, irrespective of the party to which he nominally belongs.

Regan hired Greenspan. That first reply up there is gold.

excuse me michelle, but you say bill clinton did do some good with the middle east? hmmm, i must’ve been asleep when that happened. maybe you can enlighten us all-cuz as far as i know, he attempted to bring arafat and barak to an agreement but unfortunately it didn’t work out (and his hope for personal legacy quashed). beyond the middle east i hear he lobbed a few missles in the general direction of afghanistan after the embassy bombings. he let bin laden fall right through american intelligence’s fingers…what else what else–not to sound like a jerk, but clinton was truly a jackass. the guy will arguably go down as one of the most self-serving presidents this country has ever seen (i dare you to name one more self-serving).

as for the democrats, i’ve noticed that lately they are losing focus in terms of their agenda. bush’s high approval rating comes at a bad time (as congresional elections are around the corner) and republican support has been increasing (for good reason). i believe the particular congresswoman pumpkin pie is referring to (cynthia mckinney of georgia) seems to say the wrong thing at every opportunity. for example, she withdrew her support from this country’s involvement in afghanistan (incidentally right after she heard the rumor that allied forces were dropping “poison packs” to afghan civillians), she challenged this country’s treatment of the prisoners at guatmo. bay, and now she pretty much is suspicious of GW’s involvement in 9-11. i actually heard a soundbyte of hers inquiring why the white house wasn’t hit but the pentagon was…interesting woman, but i wouldnt bet the farm on her re-election…

still, she doesnt speak for the whole democratic party. i think that some of the ideals the party stands for are quite important to the foundations of america. but lately they seem to be looking everywhere for support (i.e. catering to every minority group and special interest under the sun)…but the way things are going now, it seems like the republicans are gonna reclaim the majority in congress and the democratic party will continue to decline afterward…

while neither of the two parties are anywhere near perfect, the party system is a great one…it was what made post-revolution america so much better than post-revolution [insert country here: russia, france, south africa, etc]…the establishment of political parties prevented the “fire of the revolution from consuming its own children”. but as things stand right now, democrats are suckin bigtime

To even utter that there might have been fore warning for 911 defies belief? I suppose you dont think the gov’t knew there was going to be a coup in venezuela either huh? Both the israeli and british secret services have admitted that they warned the govt that something was up. You think you will see that on CNN? You dont think that congresswoman is putting her future on the line for something she pulled out of her ass do you? I know you’re feeling all patriotic right now but at least try to get your head out your ass.

Well, Lion. I hoped to lure you and your ultra-left views into this forum. However, now that you are here I wish I hadn’t. How can you compare a coup in South America to an attack that killed thousands of our citizens? Granted you are far, far left. But even you, with your many suspicions and strange thought processes have to admit that if the CIA, FBI, or anyone else had any substantial information about an attack on our homeland, they would have passed it on if for no other reason than for the prestige it would have garnered their respective agencies. I am more than certain that they would have passed it on for far less self-serving motives like patriotism. To suggest that Bush knew about this makes me a little warm under the collar. This is just some ultra-left, bitter about Gore’s loss, nut who sees what she wants to see. Don’t tell me that certain politicians in our history haven’t made things up to try to further their career. Hey McCarthy made quite a name for himself without any evidence at all. Add McKinney to the list of idiots that need to be publicly scorned, marginilized, and relegated to the trash bin of history.

The real problem is not a conspiracy to cover up “advanced knowledge” of an impending attack, rather the general attitude of the U.S. citizens and Government towards foreign and domestic threats. Sept. 11th was a wake up call. We were cozy and felt safe, even AFTER the WTC was bombed the first time (years ago), which was an incredibly stupid thing to tolerate. Our own refusal to acknowledge “what’s out there” came around and bit us in the ass. Six thousand died because, as a country, we were complacent and over-confident. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that we got serious about stopping this stuff for the long haul. Folks, it could happen again tomorrow. No, actually it’s not a “could” situation; it’s likely to happen again.

Was it predictable? You bet. Could it have been avoided? Yup. But it takes a lot more security measures than most Americans were, and are willing to tolerate. I’m not talking about giving up individual rights here (I'm the guy who still hold the anachronistic view that the 2nd Amendment exists so we can protect ourselves from our own government), but I’m sorry, American airport security was, and still is, by and large a joke. El Al has the right idea, but the thought of armed U.S. military personnel on planes, not to mention the hard-line no negotiations policy, is too distasteful to our largely gun-phobic and limp-wristed society to tolerate. But until we deal with these people in the only way they understand, it isn’t going to get better. Yes, we’ve decimated the Taliban overseas, but there are plenty of other groups out there with a similar vendetta against the U.S. who are willing to die for their causes. It’s only a matter of time before they pick up arms, and unfortunately I don’t think we’ll be ready then, either.

Incidentally, there are so many threats leveled at any one time that if the feds took them ALL seriously and went after the perpetrators, we’d need to establish a fourth governmental branch dedicated to chasing paper tigers. Better to sit back and be prepared in case one turns out to be legit. I guarantee that if there were armed Navy SEALS or Marine Recon boys on those planes, box cutters wouldn’t have been enough to wrest control from the good guys.

I love all the donkey bashing going on here. I’m not surprised at all that a politician intimated that our government had prior knowledge of the attacks. I mean, what better way to get attention. Besides, when the attacks happened I was on the campus of a major U.S. university, and the group of associate profs I was speaking to stated that the government had to have been forewarned. This conversation was accompanied by a furry of insults and accusations towards Bush(profs are usually the most liberal Dems you’ll ever meet). My point is that this is not a new thought, and reality check, most of the rest of the world is voiceing similar statements also. Doesn’t make it right, but more than a few people have had the gull to bring it up.

As far as Clinton failing in the middle east, so has every one else or they would not be fighting. This is a conflict that goes back to WWII and some would argue goes back 3,000 years.

The Democrats are not in the amount of trouble one might think, and I’ll be willing to wager that Bush has a hard time getting re-elected. If you don’t think so, just remember his daddy who had an 85% approval rating in July before the election…and in January he was getting kicked out by slick willy. ‘W’ might have better luck but dems will hit him hard on his environmental policies(which are shameful compared to our allies committments thus far) and they will shut Nader down quickly this time. Usually, voters do not like to see a change in leadership during a conflict, so if the war on terror is still heated, Democrats may push and run a patsie and wait for 2008, but I see change in the senate and house during the next 6 years to reflect a more bipartisan leadership. Just me opinion.

I don’t believe that our government had ‘enough’ knowledge of the attack in order to prevent it. There was an intercepted call from Afganistan that the Indian government caught two days before the attack which hints at planes being used in some way against the U.S. but that info was not relayed to our goverment in time. And even if it was, would we know what to do with the information? Would we have taken the threat seriously? Maybe, but we’ll never know.

Hey Lion, I bet you think that you’re a crusader for the truth. I just got done re-reading some of your previous posts to this forum. How many of Liberal Extraordinaire’s bullshit statements fit you too? Smoke a few more before you reply!

Get a life!

Pumpkin pie: Lets see first of all I’m saying that the Bush administration at the very least was an accomplice in the coup. According to the Bush administration , high ranking officials had been meeting with Venezuela’s military and business leaders for months before the coup. A bush spokesperson stated that they supposedly repeatedly warned the Venezuelan group that the US would not support a coup.(Did they warn Chavez, the Venezuelan president ? of course not. If some country knew of an impending coup in the US and did nothing to warn our leaders how long do you think it would take for them to get on the “Axis of eeeevvvvviiiiillll”?) When the coup happened though the white house blamed it on Chavez, the Venezuelan president and proclaimed the coups legitimacy. The masses obviously did not support the coup because they rioted and tore the country up until chavez was put back in power.(we was, after all democratically elected…not once, but twice!) Then our govt had to back pedal. Turns out, they were the only ones who did not condemn the coup as it happened. Why? Well its simple. …as the world’s fourth-largest petroleum producer, Venezuela’s importance to US foreign policy has grown with the spiraling crisis in the Middle East. The chavez government antagonized the US by providing low-cost oil to cuba, central American and other caribbean nations, and by supporting tighter discipline on quotas to keep up oil prices and they refused to cooperate with the US military escalation in Colombia. There seems to be a lot to suggest that our govt was more than a little involved.

But to recap for you pumpkinpie We were attacked…we responded and declared a war on terror, Sharon jumped on the bandwagon and used our rhetoric in his persecution of the Palestinians, Bush tried to not get involved so he wouldn’t look like a hypocrite but, the reports of atrocities being committed combined with Israeli soldiers shooting at journalists made it so that he had to say a little something, when he realized that even the “friendlier” arab states were now withdrawing their meager support and jeopardizing his plans to get rid of saddam he sent powell in to make his feeble attempt. Suddenly there is the strange “coup” in veneuela that is overturned a few days later and our fingerprints are all over it. but you kow what? screw the reserve lets just drill in Alaska…

You’re right. We didn’t care for Hugo Chavez. What exactly was there to like? Consider:

Hugo Chavez has declared himself “a Maoist” and befriended pro-terrorist dictators. A Caracas-based, anti-Chavez group called the National Emergency Coalition published a veritable Chavez photo album in the September 25 Washington Times. In one picture, Chavez rides in Saddam Hussein’s Mercedes with the Iraqi thug at the wheel. During an August 2000 visit, Chavez called Iraq “a model” for Venezuela.

In another snapshot, Chavez hugs Iranian President Mohammed Khatami and says, "We have sister revolutions with equal struggles and the same destiny." Elsewhere, Chavez embraces Muammar Qaddafi and calls Libya "a model of participatory democracy." Chavez greets Fidel Castro as well and says that Cuba and Venezuela are "swimming together toward the same sea of happiness."

Chavez also appears to be arming Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels. Colombian defense officials say that between January 1998 and July 2000, they captured 470 clandestine FAL rifles stamped with the insignias of Venezuela's military and its arms manufacturers.

So there's not too much to like about the guy. Does that mean we had anything to do with the coup? No. In fact, we refused to support the coup because we would not support a leader who was not democratically elected. Powell released a statement to that effect immediately after the coup and who was behind it became public knowledge. The military leaders of the coup, in their wisdom, abandoned the cause themselves because it became clear that the old aristocracy was attempting to utilize the situation to reclaim power and return Venezuala to the way it was previously, rather than to install a real republican democracy with a market-driven economy.

As to the Israeli situation, which we have discussed previously, this whole "Palestinian homeland" thing is a facade, an excuse for the Arab countries to attempt to recapture strategic land they lost to Israel when they last attempted an invasion. Isn't it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland?

I excerpted the following from an article written by an Arab-American journalist (check the facts for yourself--they're all true):

In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. I can't help but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after Israel won the war.

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury. They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that had even less staying power.

Palestine has never existed – before or since – as an autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.

There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.

What about Islam’s holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem.

I know what you’re going to say: “The Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam’s third most holy sites.”

Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem. With good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.

So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled “The Night Journey.” It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was carried by night “from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs. …” In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that’s as close as Islam’s connection with Jerusalem gets – myth, fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.

The latest round of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon tried to visit the Temple Mount, the foundation of the Temple built by Solomon. It is the holiest site for Jews. Sharon and his entourage were met with stones and threats. I know what it’s like. I’ve been there. Can you imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned and physically kept out of the holiest site in Judaism?


As to your ideas about the U.S. government knowing about the 9/11 strikes before they happened and yet failing to stop them, if you meant they knew the precise details of the plot and failed to act, that accusation is so silly and warrantless as to not deserve a response. If, however, you meant they knew of vague threats such as “airplanes will be used to attack to the U.S.” and failed to stop it, you may be correct. The whole country was in a state of denial before these attacks as to the level of our actual vulnerability and as to the brazeness of the Muslim, Saudi-funded terrorist organizations. We’re apparently still in denial about the mindset of that part of the world and about our military power – at least given Bush’s proposed defense budget, which barely reaches the percentage of GDP devoted to the military under Clinton and doesn’t even reach half the percentage of GDP devoted to the military during peacetime Cold War years (we won’t even discuss war time spending – we are supposedly at war, right?).


Clinton eviscerated the military for his own political gain. He wanted to be able to say that he “shrank government,” and so he went out and did shrink government spending overall. Except that every single entity of the federal government actually grew larger, except the military, which was shredded. He cut enough from the military to allow him to truthfully claim he “shrank government” while growing every single other aspect of the federal government. As a political move it was great in that it got him political capital and what he wanted. As a leader, he was horrible, only looking out for his own political ass and selling out our national security.


Maybe if someone can talk some sense into Bush we can get this fixed instead of getting massive cuts in our bomber programs while we are supposedly engaged in a war. People are so concerned about how we can afford more defense spending, but we’re spending the lowest percentage of GDP on defense in the modern era. Are we so addicted to growing all of these so-called “entitlements” we’ve created to hand money to the poor in exchange for Democratic votes that we are willing to sell out our national defense? I sure hope not.

Cynthia McKinny will get reelected…She represents a district that is almost all poor blacks, they even renamed a fucking road in her honor. The only way she would lose is if she said she support anything that Bush or any Repulican would do. That is the unfortunate situation of her district. She could say that she likes what happened on 9/11, that we deserved it and that the good news is then the majority of people that were killed were white and thats a good thing and Bin Laden did this country a service. Kill Whitey!!! She would get re-elected by a landslide. That is the unfortunate truth of matter is that she will hold her position in congress if safe unless the demographics of her district drastically change, which is highly unlikely.

3L I thought you believed that we should support Israel because it was the only democracy in the middle east and that it represented the values we uphold. You mean your principles don’t apply to this particular Venezuelan democracy? Chavez was a democratically elected leader (elected twice). Our govt officials knew about the coup but didn’t warn chavez(by their own admission). Immediately after the coup , when it seemed to be successful ari fliescher said “the situation will be one of tranquility and democracy” and then 2 days after that when word came out about their meetings with the leaders of the coup they tried to backtrack…in fact , the new york times published the following
“With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator,” and “Mr. Chavez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona”. Doesn’t sound like much condemnation from our media. It seems especially silly since it was a grassroots protest by the civillian population that restored chavez. So maybe your principle should be "We the US support democracy unless 1. we don’t like the elected ruler, 2. he doesn’t like us 3. he is friend with people we don’t like , 4. he doesn’t like our friends….5. whatever bullshit excuse suits the situation.

Lofty ideal don’t mean much if you apply them selectively my friend.

lion –

We do support Israel because it's the only democracy in the region. It actually has elections that aren't fraught with fraud, physical intimidation of voters, and corruption -- unlike the elections of either the Palestinians or the Venezuelans. The principle of upholding true democracies and not democracies in name only is not violated by not supporting Chavez. Chavez was about as popularly elected as are Mugabe and Castro.

Secondly, I was referring to our government, not the media, when I said "we." I generally don't think of the New York Times as the mouthpiece of America. I was referring specifically to the position of the U.S. State Department as announced by Colin Powell, Sec. of State. The New York Times can support or not support 3rd World dictators as it sees fit, and I'm glad to note that for once it did not choose to side with a left-leaning strongman. It's nice to see that even the Times can identify a true demogogue on occasion.

Thirdly, even if our government did know of a coup attempt, it was under no obligation to warn Chavez. Perhaps they hoped he would be ousted and a true democratic election would be held. Who knows what they wanted. But there was no duty to inform about any such plan -- especially not a nominally elected terrorist supporting regime like Chavez'.

The whole situation was internal to Venezuala -- started by the military in response to Chavez' orders to brutally put down protestors, and abandoned by them when it appeared that the old order was attempting to use it to re-seize power. What seems "especially silly" is that the military reacted to brutal suppression of a "grassroots protest," and yet you claim Chavez is some sort of man of the people. The protests were not against the military but against the possibility of the old aristocracy re-seizing power, which at the time looked to be a distinct possibility.

We had nothing to do with it, and did not support it -- we would have supported a new democratic government, but when it was apparent none would come of this coup, we made it clear we would not support a non-democratic regime.

Obviously, my lofty ideals are both safe and applied across the board: Support governments that are truly democratic (free and fair elections) and don't support terrorists or anti-democratic "revolutionaries," and give further economic support to those governments who fit the first two criteria and also want to practice free trade with us and develop market economies.

Or, we could pretend your apparent standard should work, and that we should support all regimes who claim to be democratic while suppressing peaceful dissent from within their own populations, supporting terrorists and pursuing virulently anti-American policies. That would make a lot of sense...