What a load of crap, JD. The dems haven't stopped the war because it's so much easier to just oppose the Bush admin and point out it's failures than to actually do something and put their own necks on the line, which means they haven’t developed any kind of plan because why draw attention away from the spectacle of the Bush parade, and on some level even the dem party has to know that to end the war would bring disaster to the middle east, to Isreal and to us. All that plus the dems are just plain nuts- I think all politicians are the devil, but the dems are the crazy devil. And I’ve known a couple of reporters in my day, and one thing they never, ever think when they meet a politician is that he is a possible friend- reporters are cynics by nature, and often as stupid and lazy as everybody else, as unwilling to do their homework as any high school senior. “Sounds good, let’s roll with that” should be written over the front door of every news building in America. Honestly JD, I don’t know if the war in Iraq was the right thing to do, but it must have seemed like it at the beginning or at least seemed like something the Bush admin could sell to the public because of the WMD thing. I don’t think Bush lied about WMD because not finding any has been a problem for him and I think he would have foreseen that; I think the man was genuinely shocked when the WMD turned up missing. I also think that war in the middle east is inevitable, and has been ever since Sadat was murdered, so why not now?

The first part of your comment is a lot like what he was saying about it being easier for the Democrats to run against a war going badly than not to.


I don't know that today's reporters are just cynical. These days, the name of the game is "access". Unlike bygone days, cutting off a reporter's access is done all of the time as a way to punish them for asking tough questions. In the old days, a reporter would turn that cut off into a story. These days, the paper or the network will reassign the reporter and send in someone else. It pays to see politicians as "friends". What Rall doesn't explicitly say is that, very often, the reporters and the politicians are both products of the same class, schools, frats, beer joints and share the same hookers.


I don't think the war in Iraq can simply be de-funded (which is what Rall is referring to) and declared over. I've said the only way it will be won is with a draft and overwhelming force and decades of occupation. That will eventually ruin our economy and require genuine sacrifice on the part of each American. So that ain't going to happen. I pretty much posted this as a rant against Democrats for not doing what they said they'd do which is stop the war.


I supported the war at its inception. But as more information came out about how Cheney was on perpetual slumber party at the CIA during the build-up, how the NIE as presented to the public had all of the qualifying language excised, how the pictures that Powell used at the UN were misrepresented. etc., etc, I stopped supporting it.


I believe that the administration didn't give a single crap whether or not WMDs were or were not found. What kind of hurting did it do to Bush? The administration knew full well that America would never fail to re-elect a war president. WMDs were simply the best excuse for accomplishing the goal of establishing American dominance in the region.

I personally believe that Bush is a tool, used by the neo-Conservatives that put him in power. As his final months slip into the cesspool of history, as the architect rats abandon the good ship Bushco, I believe that we will see a swift progression of RealBush - the emperor with no clothes.

Unless some extra-Constitutional Republican coup doesn't keep him in power, that is.

Oh, and don't necessarily support the Democrats. I research all of my candidates and issues and vote how I like.


I oppose this administration.


It just so happens that a lot of Blue people do, too.

Look, if you're going to get all rational on me I'm going to pack up my neuroses and go home. That was about as much fun as my parents asking me at Thanksgiving what I plan to do with my life and would I pass the butter, please.
I don't care for Bush, either (don't start with me, L02) and haven't ever since he told me I wasn't a good American if I didn't support the Aid to Dependent Foreign Nations Act he and Ted Kennedy were trying to sneak by. It would have been as devastating to the US as the Universal Right to Watch Health Care Disappear Act Hillary will try to sneak by when she's elected.
Republicans, democrats- I hate them both. I wish we had a better choice than picking the lesser of two evils at the polls, but with 20% of Americans not able to find the US on a map I'd say it's a good chance we're doomed.
And I think we are doomed. Not because the 20% means we're all a bunch of morons that will bankrupt the nation by voting ourselves fat entitlements, even though I'm pretty sure that's how it will go down. I don't think most people are morons. I think people are getting smarter, but I think the smarts we’re picking up are in science and technology, not in the humanities like they were in the past. 20% of Americans can't find the US on the map because they never need to, while 12 year olds are programming computers, swaying financial markets through blogs and hacking, and setting everybody's digital clocks. I mean gowddammit, try to buy a TV nowadays- there is so much to learn that you have to have an above average IQ just to make a decision, and a master's degree in electrical engineering doesn't hurt. The finest minds of our time used to devote themselves to figuring out how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Now our finest minds are devoted to reading the facking miniscule print on those descriptive tags on TVs at the big box stores in our one ‘me time’ hour after work and figuring out how to keep our girlfriends from finding the digital porn collection on our computers.
So whoopty-freakin-doo, we're all geniuses together. The only thing is that government belongs with the humanities, and we're getting no training in understanding the humanities. So we've got no real idea on human nature and how to beat that nature into submission through effective and responsible government. So politicians are going to tell us anything we want to hear to keep themselves in power and we won't be able to realize that they're leading us down the primrose path because the dog ate out bullshit meter. And the one thing that all governments throughout history have been wildly successful at is ending the civilizations that spawned them. So when I’m told that 20% of Americans can’t find the US on a map I know that we’re doomed and that it’s probably already too late because these people vote and they don’t have the sense God gave a brass monkey and they feel that they have a right to be a rich American and the government should see to it.
Anyway, my point, and I do have one, is that neener neener you’re a doody haid and I’m right and you’re wrong so there.

I like you, Larry. I was going to say something about your sniffing airplane glue when it occurred to me that there isn't any airplane glue anymore because the 12-year olds who used to put model airplanes together are instead programming computers and playing Nintendo We-ee (which is how two "i" sounds are pronounced in its country of origin) and its now called "model cement" as if models would ever need to glue anything.


Sorry I got rational but it's my blog and I'll rational if I want to. [snort]

Well, that's more like it. Apology accepted.