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Posted by tgl on 2004-10-28 15:04:52 +0000

Like I said before, we know we aren't the only country with a sleazy foreign policy. I don't think Kerry could bring France or Germany to the table. I know that Bush could not. Kick the bums out! At the White House and at the U.N.!

Posted by tgl on 2004-10-28 15:08:19 +0000

"The news there isn't that there appear to have been no large stockpiles of WMD in Iraq at the time of the March 2003 invasion. That's been clear for more than a year." Oh, yeah, our last outrage in Iraq turned out to be false, so, let's see if we can get some support for our ideas if we find a new one... Why did we invade Iraq? To take down Kofi Annan?

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-10-29 17:11:15 +0000

Wow that was a such bad article, I almost did weep, rladew. The last paragraph is such an awkward, almost random, dig at Kerry. The weapons inspections were working, as the inspectors found none coupled with the US haven't found any in the past 2 years. There were no WMD. What's the problem? I love tgl's comment about why did we go into Iraq, to take down Kofi Annan? The way the WSJ is scrambling to defend Bush's military adventurism passes my laugh test. I've said it before: WSJ has great news, awful opinion pieces. But at least they seperate the two, unlike FOX...

Posted by rladew on 2004-10-29 19:21:45 +0000

When Kerry argues we need all these other countries to agree with us before we do anything and these countries (Germany, France) dont give a rats ass about helping us no matter who is in power, it does make a loud justification for Bush's actions. You can laugh till the cows come home Dawn, but I think over $900 billion dollars of bribes is something worthy of our attention and discussion. Kerry is truely clueless with foreign diplomacy. He can call other figureheads bitches and puppets essentially (aka 'Bribed and Coerced') and it can sound good for a campaign... Also, on a side note, Kerry is a Senator, where you get to vote on things, weigh options, talk to constituients etc etc etc. Bush is a governor. Sometimes you hasve to make quick decisions without hesitation (decisions which may not be popular) for the good of the country. Kerry dealing with 9/11 truly scares me, almost as much as thinking what it would've been like with Al gore. How will it work out (when and if) Kerry is the leader of the free world when he needs to negotiate with these people? If Kerry is the favorite here, he better be careful of what he wishes for, he might get it... _______________________________ If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is whack Maybe you'll love me when I fade to black

Posted by tgl on 2004-10-29 19:53:42 +0000

Bush was such a really good governor too. Bush made quick and hasty decisions, hasn't he? That's something.

Posted by rladew on 2004-10-29 19:59:24 +0000

you're not responding to the subject matter in my post, yr just calling Bush names... bush has governing experience, Kerry does not. Bush has lowered my taxes and given me a child tax credit.. Kerry has not. _______________________________ If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is whack Maybe you'll love me when I fade to black

Posted by tgl on 2004-10-29 20:13:41 +0000

I responded to the original posting about France & Germany et al. I said kick out Annan and kick out Bush. What names did I call Bush? He's made hasty and quick decisions, and has stuck with them, I think that's a pretty fair accusation. Bush has held executive office before in Teaxs and for four years at the White House, I don't think his experience is that much of a testament. Kerry has not argued that we need other countries to agree with us. Is it the "global test" bit? It'd be nice if we could get other people to agree with us, and I'm not talking foreign leaders, just regular people. Heck, I'm an American and I've yet to be convinced Bush has made good decisions. There is a difference between making unpopular decisions and making bad decisisons. Bush 41 made the unpopular decision to raise taxes, it happened to be a good one. Bush 43 made the popular decision to invade Iraq, it happened to be the bad one. Kerry may indeed be clueless when it comes to foreign diplomacy. No worse than Bush, I'd say. I thought this was a foreign policy thread, but you brought up taxes, so hey: You may be voting for Bush b/c you perceive your wallet to be fatter, but I'm not voting for Bush b/c I believe we're approaching a national crisis were citizens need to sacrifice (and not just the military) in order to gets us out of it.

Posted by tgl on 2004-10-29 20:51:57 +0000

On Bush's management style: Sorry, not "fair accusation", but "fair description". Bush makes decisions and moves on. I think that sometimes a review of your assumptions when you notice that thinks aren't going along as planned is warranted.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-10-29 23:20:49 +0000

It was Bush's hesitation in 9/11 that is the real story. Watching Farhenheit 911 made me ill when Bush just sat there doing nothing while our country was under attack. Kerry and Gore would never have done that...

Posted by rladew on 2004-10-30 01:07:50 +0000

I never said "good" decisions. I hope you guys know that I am way far away from admiring Bush. He is, however, way easier to read than Kerry IMHO and actually makes decisions and goes in a direction. When Kerry can prove he can go in a direction that's not a circle, I will be much more respectful of him. I haven't seen this from him. Again, if he is elected, I will wish him well. Until we get to that point, though, I'm gonna stay in the Bush camp... BTW: I still haven't been convinced that stopping a mass murdering, corrupt UN bribing, terrorist encouraging dictator out of power was a bad decision. Stakes are high in Iraq, it was a risky and unpopular decision (when will anything that has claimed a human life be viewed as a popular or good decision?) but for the ultimate future and security of America, we have yet to see whether or not this was a good decision. I would definitely argue its way too early to call it a bad decision... _______________________________ If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is whack Maybe you'll love me when I fade to black

Posted by rladew on 2004-10-30 01:32:38 +0000

An entertainment film splicing pieces of news together doesnt make a valid case for the leader of the free world being hesitant. What would you guys do if you learned of a hugely devasting event in the first 7 minutes? 7 minutes of anything with a timer and a tv screen is made into an eternity for good cinematic effect... But I fail to see that this makes Bush indecisive. I love how Moore is quick to point out Bush spent 40% of his time not at the White House and gets to call it all vacation. Oops... do some of those 'vacation' shots show Tony Blair and other figureheads? I for one think Bush should be forced to sit behind a desk and a phone for 8 hours a day every day. Otherwise he isn't getting anything done... Also, the reading of the Patriot act from an ice cream truck makes for great entertainment, but do you think our already bloated Congress would become more or less efficient if they were forced to read every piece of documentation ever foisted upon them. When you apply for a loan, sign a cell phone contract, sign upo for user agreements on the net do you read every last word? In between twinkies, Michael Moore might have enough time to do this, but a lot of our Senators and congressmen are busy doing other things like trying to find ways of making it more difficult for brilliant terrorists to collude funds in complex money laundering schemes (seen often in my current job capacity) Sure, a brilliant terrorist with patience, obsession and perserverance who wants to fuck with our country probably will do so Patriot act or no. But the Patriot act does seperate the wheat from the Chaffe. If we bust people's balls on financial transactions, for example, the amateurs are going to either be discouraged with how difficult it is to fund their projects and go fishing in some other country, or if they are successful, are going to know there are consequences consequences for their actions... Moore can show a bunch of people holding hands and eating cookies and complain about how a fake member was spying on them, vicously taking away all of their liberties, but can any of you name a time in the past 2 years or so when what you've checked out at the library has put you in jeaporady with the government? Im certain the govt has bigger fish to fry than wether or not I check out Mein Kampf at the library. Farenheit 9/11 is a good and solid piece of entertainment, there were truly pieces that I enjoyed (the secret service around the Saudi embassy interested me, for example) but that's all it is. It isn't fact (maybe small pieces of several facts in and of themselves, but the sum total of all these little facts doesnt make the TRUTH.... it makes Michael Moore's biased view. _______________________________ If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is whack Maybe you'll love me when I fade to black

Posted by tgl on 2004-10-30 02:17:43 +0000

Scrolling back: "Sometimes you hasve to make quick decisions without hesitation (decisions which may not be popular) for the good of the country." I took that to mean you think Bush has made unpopular but good decisions. 60%-70% of the American public thought it was good decision at the time. The Iraq authorization resolution passed with strong majorities in the House and Senate. Seems to fit the criteria for "popular" in my book. Stopping a mass murdering, corrupt UN bribing, terrorist encouraging (but not al Qaeda connected) dictator may be a good decision. Why wasn't that the reasons given for going to war in the first place? I'll answer: Because Bush would not have gotten the political or popular support to do so. Instead, we got trumped up charges of weapons and connections to al Qaeda. I'm not supporting a president that must hedge the truth in order to get policies approved. We're all smart enough to make a decision based on the facts, I'm a biffed that this Administration consistently does not trust the public with them. Iraq could turn into a flowering oasis in the Middle East. At what cost? Tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars? These are questions that should have been pondered before the attack, it does not seem that they were. Arguing whether or not Iraq was a mistake is a moot point. We are there now, and can't afford not to have a stable country there. Kerry and Bush both agree on that.

Posted by tgl on 2004-10-30 02:27:26 +0000

Bush had already heard about the first plane crash at 8:55am, it was at 9:05am that Card came into the classroom and spoke of the second crash. How many alleged terrorists have been caught and convicted using provisions from the Patrior Act? I believe the number is zero... not sure if that's right.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-10-30 04:51:26 +0000

Most of the movie is fact; it's a documentary. There was no photoshopping of Bush shitting his pants when Card told him we were under attack. That's not just entertainment; it's simply what happened. And it scares the hell out of me that Bush is the leader of the free world, and he couldn't excuse himself from a classroom of 1st graders. You or I could have done a better job. Sad. Let's get rid if him...

Posted by tgl on 2004-10-30 13:08:24 +0000

I'm a little shocked that rladew appears to be advocating that legislators do not need to read the bills they pass. Are you assuming that their aides will do the heavy vetting and pass on the meat of the legislation to the representative or senator? It's their sole job, to pass legislation. Maybe they don't need to read every word, but they do need to understand what the hell they're voting on. I don't even know how I can go about finding if my representatives are reading the bills they pass... Maybe if I had seen "F 9/11", I'd understand the bit about the ice cream truck. I'd agree that the movie is Moore's opinion, and a bit heavy handed at that. The part about the oil pipeline in Afghanistan, for example, the facts are tenuous at best. "biased view" is a bit redundant... Everyone's view is biased. Has biased become a bad word? Back to foreign policy: Kerry's comments might have pissed off Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain & Japan. Oh, and Poland. That leaves France, Germany, Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. I'd say the countries on the second list might be more instrumental in helping us secure ourselves (R, C, and SA, is what I'm thinking).

Posted by uncle on 2004-10-31 23:54:02 +0000

Well as far as foreign relations go, Kerry has been heading the foreign relations committee for years now. His actual time spent with foreign leaders exceeds Bush by leaps and bounds. And bringing other countries to the table- at least Kerry has a shot. Among foreign leaders at least Kerry is not regarded as a baboon. It’s hard to maintain respect in the world when the leaders of Russia, Germany and France speak English better than your leader. As far as Kerry running in circles goes, it hurts me to think that we have gone so far backwards as a country that we are ready to punish people for evaluating their decisions and changing direction when they are wrong. And as a final point that I pose directly to the people that are ready to stick with Bush, I interject an ethical appeal: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/507991/ http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041028/ts_nm/iraq_deaths_dc_2 Just summarizing the above, estimates range from 10k to 100k civilian Iraqis dead as a result of this war (funny how that does not get a lot of publicity from the so called ‘liberal’ press). Now considering: -no WMDs, no Al Qauida connection, no immanent threat- thus no substantive reason to conduct the war- -no effort given to protect hospital, schools, food supplies and power plants-thus no effort to minimize the plight of the innocent caught up in this The burdens of these deaths should therefore be squarely placed on the shoulders of our leader. Can you conscionably vote for someone who has been responsible for so many needless deaths and shows not the slightest sign of remorse or acknowledgement of Iraqi civilian death, neither acknowledgement of his mistakes, nor the wherewithal to take the steps to make it better? Even if getting rid of Saddam was a good reason to go to war, a surgeon tasked with removing gangrene from your finger, who subsequently amputates your whole arm, should not be allowed to practice medicine. The conduct of this war places Bush in the category of war criminal, not world leader. If Kerry had no hope of getting other countries to buy in, if no other leader trusted him, if he had no experience in foreign affairs, I would still be forced by moral principal to place my vote with whoever was most likely to exorcise the ethically void man that sits in the White House today.

Posted by rladew on 2004-11-01 04:55:33 +0000

no suggestion that our leaders dont NEED to read bills If they cant understand the gist of the bills that is pretty bad, but my point is the oversimplification presented by Michael Moore in 9/11 is easy to get behind. If everyone everywhere read all the fine print all the time, nothing would ever get done... _______________________________ If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is whack Maybe you'll love me when I fade to black

Posted by rladew on 2004-11-01 05:02:23 +0000

as far as the point that 9/11 is a documentary, and I ma more asking for clarification and other people's opinions out here: Can something be a documentary if it has an agenda? Yes, there are individual facts and truths in 9/11... But they are framed together in a certain way to support a certain argument. I always thought documentaries were more observations than they were judgments. I'm not a documentary filmmaker, so I could be wrong here... I feel better about docs that show pros and cons and arent afraid to add in things that might not support a personal opinion held (i.e why the fervent focus in 9/11 on Cheney and no-bid contracts from Halliburton which pale in the comparison (not to mention charges of corruption being disproved on factcheck.org) to the UN's 'food for oil' debacle? _______________________________ If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is whack Maybe you'll love me when I fade to black

Posted by uncle on 2004-11-01 15:55:11 +0000

I think that objective reporting is a myth. Things are filtered in order to be summarized- and therefore a bias exists, no matter how neutral you are. In the most extreme sense, a documentary on the Nazi era would likely be viewed as slanted towards the Jewish perspective in the eyes of an anti-Semite. And let’s face it, some of the things that are being called 'slanted' simply are not. You can say that the 'My Pet Goat Scene' was done for cinematic effect, but how can you possibly justify that claim. Moore could not possibly have shown it more objectively, no music, no voice over, just the president sitting there, doing nothing, while knowing that our country was being attacked. Where is the spin? As far as comparing Bush's corruption to the food for oil deal, I don't think it is even close. The food for oil situation, even if it is shown to be true, did not result in 13k-100k deaths. And we don't choose the leaders of the European nations. We choose our leaders. Making that comparison is simply giving into what this administration has been trying to do. They have only a record of failure, so all they can do is point the finger as say "Well they are worse then us!" That's trash. When deciding whether or not CEO of Enron was corrupt, I don't look to see whether or not the head of GM was corrupt as well- it's just not relevant. Here are some points from Moore's film that are true beyond the spin. You translate them for what they mean to you: 1- For seven minutes while the country was being attacked, Bush did nothing. Many people, including Bin Laden, think it was ridiculous. 2- The Carlyle group is making a bundle off of this war. Bush Sr. and Jim Baker are two of the top 5 officers at that company. 3- Halliburton is making a bundle off of this war. 4- The guy appointed to run Afghanistan was a former executive consultant to one of Bush's companies. 5- Bush couldn't make it into U of Texas but somehow made it into Yale and Harvard. 6- Every business deal that Bush was involved in, except the Rangers deal, failed but for some reason people just kept throwing money at him. 7- The only areas protected during the invasion of Iraq were the oil ministry and the oil fields. Not a single hospital, food supply or power plant- not 1. 8- The only people allowed to fly in the US after 911 were Saudis. No medical supplies, not even rescue helicopters. If any of these things are untrue or somehow excusable, I'd like to know. Blaming any of this on his underlings or on other countries is ignoring the fact that Bush is the boss here. Let's keep the focus on the man in charge, our president, not on Boris Yeltzin or Condie Rice.

Posted by tgl on 2004-11-01 16:33:56 +0000

Documentaries are shot from a certain viewpoint and tend to support that viewpoint. They are not devoid of commentary. F 9/11 has an agenda, of course! (I haven't seen it, so , call my bluff) For instance, Moore protrays the Sauds getting a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card from the Admin. on 9/20/2004. When, in fact, that isn't the case http://www.factcheck.org/article294.html The www.factcheck.org site does not exonerate Haliburton! Are we reading the same website?

Posted by tgl on 2004-11-01 16:37:00 +0000

uncle, Can you vote in CO? On 6): Bush was part of the executive team, but spent the better part of his tenure with the Rangers in the stands shaking hands.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-11-01 16:52:03 +0000

F-911 clearly has an agenda, but it still has to be described as a documentary. It is not even a "faux" documentary, where people play characters they are not. The best documentaries are as neutral as possible, and that is F-911's weakest point. Moore even does voice over, generally regarded as bad form by the documentary set (except for things like Ken Burns' "Civil War" inwhich it would close to impossible to tie together the journal, diary, and letter readings w/o voice over.) An entertaining look at the Bush administration? Probably. A world class, unslanted slice of Bush? Probably not.

Posted by uncle on 2004-11-01 18:39:39 +0000

Already voted in CO. I was psyched.

Posted by tgl on 2005-03-29 16:59:28 +0000

news search on the UN report Is Kofi off the hook? How is the WSJ spinning the reports findings? Poor judgement to pick his son, but no evidence of Annan's colluding with Hussein.

Posted by rladew on 2005-03-29 23:04:48 +0000

Kofi has dodged the scapegoat bullet so far, but someone somehow somewhere should probably have a good answer for where the unaccounted 100 Billion in the 'Oil For Food' scandal went. To avoid more cries of hack journalism, I will refrain from any WSJ links. If yr so inclined, you can google plenty of articles, such as "Kojo's Iraq Connection".... However ive already been told by several sources that its poor judgement to pick on Kofi's son... _______________________________

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-03-30 01:57:57 +0000

Take note: It's not the WSJ in its entirety; it's the Opinion Journal that is unequivocally hack.

Posted by rladew on 2005-04-01 22:55:58 +0000

Wow! the Economist Sides W/ TGL Again! _______________________________

Posted by G lib on 2005-04-04 13:36:38 +0000

From the article . "Here's the torture. Neither of Mr Volcker's reports to date makes a clear case against Mr Annan himself. The first, in February, found that Benon Sevan, who headed the UN programme, had an “irreconcilable conflict of interest” because he helped a friend's firm acquire a lucrative oil contract from Iraq. . I just have one word to say about this: . HALIBURTON. ________________ "Hardcore Stricken Fagan at the Wad caused dance party Total Kenobi." Rory_Stark

Posted by rladew on 2005-04-06 01:19:12 +0000

I spose I left the door open for that one one, but which came first? the chicken or the egg? The Halliburton or the Oil for Food. Both sides are pretty grimy.... _______________________________