« Kerry to troops: Your life is worthless unless UN blesses the fight | Main | Thanks and apologies »
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
How thin is the fringe on the Left?
In the comments to my post yesterday — entitled "Beldar asks his non-moonbat Democratic friends: Can John Kerry do what LBJ couldn't?" — most of those who disagreed argued, basically, that there's not really a split in the Democratic Party, and that the Michael Moore/DU Democrats really are a marginal fringe, and that the Dean Democrats will all stay in line with the Lieberman Democrats behind John Kerry as he fights a smarter, more effective war on terrorists and skillfully extracts America from Iraq (even if that takes many, many months or even years). Basically, they pooh-poohed my suggestion that a President Kerry, if elected, would immediately face the same conflict within his own party and supporters that LBJ didn't face until 1968 or so.
I almost bought that argument. Maybe they're right, I thought.
Then today, I learned (hat-tip Such Little Things) of Blogpac.org, which includes on its advisory board "Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, Duncan Black of Atrios, Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left, John Aravosis of AmericaBlog, Matt Stoller of BOP News, [and] Anna of Annatopia." Among Blogpac's first projects is a website called Enjoy the Draft.com. Here's its banner headline graphic:
Among the (I presume mock) comments featured from readers of "Enjoy the Draft.com" are these:
"Michael Moore might feature my grieving mother in his next movie!"
-Joe in Flint"I thought I'd miss my boyfriend when he went to Iraq. How ironic that I got drafted and killed!"
-Missie in Miami"I look hot in a black body bag, and I don't even work out."
-John in Madison
The site includes lots of other neat graphics for you to download to your own blogs and websites, friends and neighbors, including this one:
When her post about the new website and its advertisements drew some critical comments, TalkLeft's host, attorney Jeralyn E. Merritt, responded:
No one said it [referring to the "ads" on the "Enjoy the Draft.com" website] was meant to be funny. So don't bother going there. Those who say things like "I don't see the humor" or who attack the ad's creators as if the creators intended them to be "funny" are falsely depicting both the ads and their purpose.
Such reckless and deliberately false accusations have no place here.
And in a subsequent comment:
Tunesmith, the ad was not meant to be funny, nor was it making fun of soldiers. It is meant to get attention from those who would be most affected by the draft, the young.
Humor and satire are not the same thing. I didn't mean to offend you, but the posters on the right were picking up your "humor" ball and running with it.
The ad is clever and provacative [sic], but funny? I don't think so. I think it drives the point home.
Meanwhile, today's Village Voice promotes its lead article with this graphic (hat-tip Roger L. Simon, and his commenter ras, who pointed me to the Such Little Things link above):
My hope is that the center-Left Democrats — those whom I referred to by shorthand as "non-moonbats" — see these kinds of things and manage a kind of chuckling frown. "Sure, that's over the top," they'd say, I guess, "But nobody really believes this stuff."
I'm sorry, but I'm not buying that. I don't know how deep the moonbat fringe goes; I don't know how Kerry's core breaks down between, say, Michael Moore/DU extremists, Deaniacs, and those closer to the center. But I adhere to my premise: If he's elected, John Kerry's supporters will begin to fracture, badly, by November 3. By next July, there will be a metaphorical, but very active and very serious, war going on within the Democratic Party. There will be folks marching outside the White House chanting "Hey, hey, JFK, how many kids did you kill today?" (Note: It's not that I think that Iraq is comparable to Vietnam, it's that they do.)
Anyone who thinks a President Kerry could ignore these folks is dreaming. Anyone who thinks it won't adversely affect his prosecution (yes, I know that's a term with mixed and unfortunate meanings) of the fight against the terrorists is delusional. Anyone who thinks he'll be able to fight the terrorists effectively anyway is ... well, more optimistic than I am.
Posted by Beldar at 10:52 PM in Global War on Terror, Politics (2006 & earlier) | Permalink
TrackBacks
Other weblog posts, if any, whose authors have linked to How thin is the fringe on the Left? and sent a trackback ping are listed here:
» JOHN KERRY'S from PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"
Tracked on Oct 20, 2004 11:46:59 PM
» The real fear-mongerers from The Counterpoint
Tracked on Oct 21, 2004 12:59:02 AM
» The Future? from Dean's World
Tracked on Oct 21, 2004 7:18:57 AM
» They're not the fringe, they're the mainstream from Solomonia
Tracked on Oct 21, 2004 9:45:11 AM
Comments
(1) TANSTAAFL made the following comment | Oct 20, 2004 11:34:12 PM | Permalink
I think your analysis is spot on. If Kerry were to win, the Anybody But Bush rationale would go away the day after the election.
Kerry has not established a vision of his own, so he will respond to the most strident voices in his party. These favor preemptive surrender and dhimmitude.
(2) Ron made the following comment | Oct 20, 2004 11:43:56 PM | Permalink
From all I've observed, while being around college age kids as I work, there is no common ground between the extreme left and party central. I don't even see a central dim from any I talk to. If Kerry does, in fact, try to play to a centrist government he's in for a rude awakening should he win.
(3) Birkel made the following comment | Oct 20, 2004 11:58:29 PM | Permalink
I've asked some of my Dem friends the following question:
If a Dem saw a gay man fighting a black man while each was yelling epithets at the other, for whom would the Dem root?
This question only stumps Dems. Republicans say "both are breaking the law so they should both go to jail." They're not stumped at all. Dems get caught up in their identity politics. Here's another good one:
If a group of children with a disease can only be cured by cutting down part of the rain forest, what would a Democrat do?
The fractious nature of the Dem party is obvious to anyone who looks. Identity politics naturally pits one group against the other and the problems with it are inescapable. If Kerry wins the process of disintegration will come faster because the prize for 'winning' over elected officials will be greater. But it's not going to be pretty.
(4) Mumblix Grumph made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 12:15:08 AM | Permalink
When I see "artwork" like the ones pictured above I realize that there really ISN'T any middle ground I can find when dealing with these people. I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.
The Lefties had a conflict of PC-ness out here in Washington. The Makah Indian tribe resumed whale-hunting. The tribe only wanted to catch one whale with a spear and a paddled canoe. The Lefties showed up not knowing who to fight for, the whales or the down-trodden native-Americans.
In the end, they chose the whales and tried to block the hunters with inflatible boats, one dope in a boat got run over by a Coast Guard patrol craft. The absence of sobs was deafening at my house.
(5) Ubiquitor made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 12:28:11 AM | Permalink
The largest problem I see in your analysis, Beldar, is that you assume an important fact not in evidence, viz.: that Mr. Kerry has any actual interest in governing. I think not. He is clearly interested in acquiring status and glory, but his career in the Senate suggests his interest in actually, you know, doing things, is quite limited.
Indeed, you could draw that conclusion even from the fact that he used his oratorical skills, ties to the Kennedys, war experience, and money -- all powerful tools -- simply to join the Senate, the world's most exclusive debating society. He has never tried to govern, for example by running for governor of Mass, a position which has been somewhat up for grabs recently, as evidenced by the weird Swift/Romney thing.
Let's face it, John Kerry is in love with debate, with speechifying, with being clever and informed and nuanced, with blowing the other guy away with his erudition. This is clear in everything he says, in his strengths (good debater) and in his weaknesses (inability to comprehend the human reality behind abstract phrases).
But I do not think he has much interest in governing. Hence a Kerry Administration would be just one long Oprah episode, with summits and conferences and blue-ribbon commissions holding hearings as far as the eye can see, but very little in the way of actual action. (It would be a feast for the MSM, by the way, who thrive on analysis of seas of words and their theoretical implications, but are a little lost when it comes to dealing with concrete action, about which there is little more to do than report. Hard to justify that journalism degree when any clod with a camera phone and a blog can do as well.)
For this reason alone I think your conclusions are incorrect. Kerry would not rive the Democratic Party, simply because he would not ever need to come to a sufficient consensus for action, because there wouldn't be any action.
And in the meantime, he would actually be quite good about giving every conceivable tiny faction plenty of opportunity to kvetch, to "participate" in the "process", to turn U.S. government into a shadow of the metastasized student council meeting which is the UN.
(6) M. Simon made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 2:22:46 AM | Permalink
Uh. The identity politics of the Republicans are going to cause problems for it as well.
How do you fit Santorum and the Log Cabin Republicans in the same party?
Answer:
Not very well.
The whole political structure of America will be up for grabs post 2 Nov.
(7) C. Owen Johnson made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 3:11:58 AM | Permalink
First, let me agree strongly with this article and express all appreciation to you for writing and posting it. I will add that I think we already saw this fracture an it's effects during the Dean boom and the Dem primaries, and thus I think dismissing this fringe element as minor is already contradicted. Also to be noted narrowing of the party due to the behavior of the fringe elements, that increases their relative proportion. At a guess I'd put them at around 15-25% [higher where I am], but they are very vocal and carry the weight of a small majority, or close to it [consider the amount of support Lieberman got].
And a note to M. Simon: The single most striking difference between Rebulicans and Democrats is how they handle internal conflict. Rebulicans are OK at this, while Dave Berry summed up the Dem's approach more accurately that anyone else ever has when he described the '68 Dem conventions as: "87 ideological factions giving each other the finger through clouds of tear gas."
(8) perfectsense made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 3:45:15 AM | Permalink
Ubiquitor makes a good point that Kerry runs for office to obtain prestige, once elected, he does virtually nothing. If elected, adding to Kerry’s inertia, he will have to work with a Republican house and senate that will not cut Kerry any slack after lying about Republican plans to cut SS, start the draft and disenfranchise blacks. Consequently, within a few months after his election, Kerry will have no allies and four longs years of flip flopping nuance.
(9) Lisa K. made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 3:46:57 AM | Permalink
Simon, you wanker, you missed the entire point of Beldar's post. If George Bush is re-elected, it will be by the solid mainstream of his party and the conservative wing of the independents. It will be after taking a clear position on all the important issues and sticking to it for years.
George Bush is not going to be put back in the White House by a coalition of splinter groups allied only by their hate of his opponent, and willing to delude themselves that under his nuance and strategic blather the candidate really sees things their way.
That's Kerry's problem. He's like a guy juggling three girls, telling each some vague promise of commitment, light on the details, racing from date to date, trying to keep straight what he told Alice the gun-owning small-business owner and what he told Cheryl the peace-marching lifestyle reporter for the gay-pride magazine. You can see the train-wreck coming, and if succeeds in getting all three girls in bed with him on November 2, you can bet they'll wake up with one hell of a hangover the next day, pretty horrified by who besides the playboy they've gone to bed with.
(10) Jonathan Sadow made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 3:54:43 AM | Permalink
Those Democrats who claim that the Michael Moore/DailyKos/Democratic Underground types in their party have little influence within their party are simply victims of cocooning. There are very few Democrats who would actually consider themselves to be "barking moonbats" but whom nevertheless buy into the ads that Blogpac is producing, not understanding how extreme they appear to reasonable observers. They've been so indurated with liberal politics for so long that they don't realize how extreme their views have become. For example, one of the liberal correspondents who identified himself with the constituency Beldar was speaking to earlier this year spent a lot of energy on the group weblog to which he contributes speculating on whether Texas Governor Rick Perry was having a homosexual affair. This, apparently, is what passes for moderate liberal thought these days....
I'm not nearly as sanguine as Ubiquitor in the prospect of a Kerry presidency. Ubiquitor is right in pointing out that Kerry seems to have little interest in actually governing. The problem, however, is that power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If Kerry won't govern, then someone else will, and that someone will be most likely the most grasping members of the Democratic Party coalition, i.e., the party's moonbat activist fringe. It's that danger that Beldar is asking us to contemplate - it'll be people like the ones making those contemptible ads who'll be calling the shots at our highest level of government.
(11) lyle made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 4:48:07 AM | Permalink
The America-hating fringe of the Democratic Party is not a fringe at all. It is the Party's intellectual and activist hardcore. They are the ones with utter fanatical certitude. They are the ones who are willing to destroy the Party if they can't lead it. The rest of the Party will acquiesce, and blind themselves to the consequences.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
(12) Dean Esmay made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 5:31:26 AM | Permalink
It's easy to exaggerate some of this. The Democratic party has always been fractious internally. And I do mean always, going all the way back to Andrew Jackson. At one point, a rather odd point basically around the election of Franklin Roosevelt, they managed to cohere around a recognizable ideology. That's been slowly coming apart at the seams for decades, so now they're back to being as fractious as is their normal state.
In other words, in the 1930s and 1940s, they were ideologically coherent, and it helped. As they became less ideologically coherent, they became more reactionary. Today they are basically the personification of the reactionary wing of our politics. They don't really stand for much of anything except what they're against.
That doesn't mean such people cannot govern, however, since what it will mean is that, regardless of what's going on the party will tend to wind up fighting to keep the status quo on most issues. There'll be an effort to raise taxes on the upper income earners, which may or may not pass. There'll be an effort to nationalize health care which may fail unless Kerry can give Republicans some of what they want. And they'll either keep us in Iraq or try to get us to bug out as quickly as possible.
That's about it. I doubt there'll be any other major changes. Lots of commissions and such though.
The Republicans may pick up seats as a result of all this in 2006. And in 2008 Kerry will likely face a challenge within the ranks of his own party for the nomination and a lot of people threatening to walk out. It seems unlikely he'll be able to unite Democrats behind him, unless Republicans nominate someone very far to the right who scares the willies out of them.
(13) Ubiquitor made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 6:25:09 AM | Permalink
Sadow, to the degree I'm sanguine ("not panicked" would be far more accurate) about a Kerry Administration, it's only because I think the Republic can survive another four years of some weird combination of Carter and Clinton, so long as monetary policy remains of no interest to him, and Congress remains firmly opposed to raising taxes. I worry a lot more about the judges he'd appoint, but take comfort in the fact that judges once appointed for life turn surprisingly independent. Clinton unfortunately was shrewd about people -- his judges will extend his malignant influence for a painfully long time. Kerry is terrible at judging people, so there is more hope there.
No, the fringe is not going to rule. They haven't the discipline. Things will just coast along rudderless like they did while Clinton felt people's pain and felt his interns up.
It will be a sadly missed opportunity, however. A resounding win for Bush would greatly dismay our enemies and give the President four more years to really pound a stake through the heart of post-modernist girly-man national policy, changing the debate from "whether" and "why" to "how" and "when".
I mean, just imagine if you will how pleasant to the ears will be what we hear out of Tehran on November 3 if W coasts to a 55-45 blowout. Such anxious desire to please -- Dear me we didn't mean to be provocative or give offense, Mr. President, is there anything we can do to convince you of our sincerity, Mr. President. . .? Imagine the deafening silence in Pyongyang, the intense desire to seem small and harmless. Imagine the stiffening of spines in Afghanistan, Baghdad and Islamabad, or the thoughtful recalculations in Riyadh and Damascus.
(14) Al made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 11:02:54 AM | Permalink
Ubiquitor, at the very least we'll stop hearing whining about 'let's switch to a popular vote' if it was 55-45.
(15) Joshua Chamberlain made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 11:14:31 AM | Permalink
Put is this way: I am sure that 25% of the electorate believes at least one lie from Fahrenheit 9/11.
(16) slarrow made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 11:32:25 AM | Permalink
I was a little irritated by those who just waved away the problem in Beldar's previous post as a hypothetical that would never come to pass. So why don't we play with something that's plausible and ask a few questions?
Suppose for a moment it's March 2006. President Kerry has seen international support materialize in aiding the new Iraqi government (elected a year ago) get on its feet. All 16 or so districts in Iraq have been pacified, the insurgents have dwindled, and the U.S. is in the middle of a phased troop drawdown that will eventually leave in place about 40,000 U.S. troops and another 40,000 international troops. Bilateral negotiations with North Korea seem to be going well, the economy is moving along all right, and in January President Kerry's signed into law his premier bill that eliminates tax breaks for the rich and spends some of it on homeland defense.
So we begin by granting the peaches-and-cream scenario Kerry supporters insist will come to pass. Fine. Now, suppose our intelligence assets in the region indicate that Osama bin Laden has survived under Iran's sponsorship. While playing footsie with international bodies, Iran is one step away from developing nuclear material for a variety of weapons. Reports indicate that Iran plans to use this new power and prestige to help stifle internal dissent, destabilize the new Iraq, threaten the Saudis, and proceed with the plan to wipe Israel from the face of the map. In addition, intelligence sources indicate that Iran plans to supply bin Laden's networks with nuclear weapons to attack the U.S. and keep it busy while it's busy making itself a hyperpower in the region.
Suppose Kerry learns of all this. But the intelligence is not certain (no intelligence is), the national mood is not for war, the timing of the threat cannot be pinpointed (thus imminence can't be established), Russia and China are in Iran's back pocket (promised discount rates on the oil Iran will control if its plans succeed), and the chain of terrorist cutouts will virtually guarantee Iran the plausible deniability from the U.S. attack it needs to buy itself time to cement its status.
What would a President Kerry do? How would a Blogpac.org respond?
I submit that for Kerry to act, he would have to do so without a case that would pass the "global test" of evidence. He would have to act in the face of U.N. opposition in the Security Council. Strategically, he would have to reverse the logistical flow of men and materials. If he does that publically, why wouldn't he lose tactical surprise and win the hatred of the Left? Could Kerry wait for a plan to "win the peace" to materialize before he would have to act?
In other words, I've outlined a situation where Kerry, if he were to act to defend America, would make himself vulnerable to the selfsame criticisms he's leveled against President Bush. Given his track record, does this man have the courage to essentially do what Bush did, and will the raving Left who created the Bushitler theme let him get away with it? (Take another look at those banner ads before you answer that last question.) Or will Kerry succumb to the Leftist money and influence that threaten his power, especially in the November mid-term elections?
There's your question for your non-moonbat guys, Beldar.
(By the way, I can't take credit for my scenario. Other fans will notice the strong resemblance to the plot of Tom Clancy's Executive Orders. Published 1996.)
(17) max made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 12:55:54 PM | Permalink
1. Every dem I've talked to is crazy - including many business people and academics, not just under-employed losers. They are filled with paranoia and hatred and are long on name-calling and snide remarks, but they are unwilling/unable to engage in a debate on the merits on any issue. There is no moderate wing to the dems - see how Lieberman and Gephardt did in the primaries.
2. jk will cut and run from Iraq very quickly. Why? Because (i) in his heart he wants to, (ii)the international 'community', the msm (our real enemy) and the dems all want/expect him to, and (iii) because of (i) and (ii) the level of violence in Iraq will intensify to the point that he won't be able to stand the pressure. My guess is that we won't be there for more than 6 months if he is elected.
3. The knock-on consequences of the retreat from Iraq will be terrible, because no one will ever expect the US to have the resolve to see anything through again.
That is why we have to re-elect President Bush.
(18) antimedia made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 1:05:49 PM | Permalink
You have me wondering about one thing. Why does Kerry have to be elected for this to happen? I believe the Dems will disintegrate whether Kerry is elected or not. You simply can't keep up appearances forever. You see some of that now in the incredibly tasteless ads you've featured in this article.
I give them until Christmas. Then the party implodes and all hell breaks loose.
(19) ubu made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 2:00:16 PM | Permalink
You know, it would almost be worth electing Kerry to savor the delicious irony of seeing anti-war protestors marching on his White House, as he comes to a realization that he can't back out of Iraq.
Almost. The problem with that scenario is I don't think he'd come to such a realization....He'd cave and run.
(20) Milton made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 3:24:19 PM | Permalink
Beldar,
Respectfully, I think it takes some added preconceptions to jump from the premise that a bunch of "moonbat" bloggers unveiled some "satire" that reveals their membership in the "fringe" to the conclusion that the Democratic party is dominated or even profoundly influenced by such people. As Republicans are fond of saying, it's a big tent.
Bear in mind, I'm no fan of either party, I know very little about who comprises the Democratic party, I loathe politics, and I think Kerry's a schmuck. But I think your perspective on this one reveals more of your own political predilections than an accurate assessment of the prominent ideologies of the Democratic party.
(21) slarrow made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 3:48:20 PM | Permalink
Milton: for what it's worth, I wish Beldar were wrong on the impact these guys have on the party. But here's the thing: in 1968 the protestors were basically amateurs. They grew up, developed their techniques, and became giddy when they had a new medium to explore. What these people have become are professional agitators, and they've been training for the past year and a half. (That's the likes of MoveOn.org, ACT, George Soros, Michael Moore, Kos, Atrios, etc.)
The point of professional agitation is to wield disproportionate influence because the adherents can devote the kind of time, resources, and money to that kind of thing that ordinary folks can't. Having tasted success, is it reasonable to think that these people will shut down their newfound careers just because Kerry is president and Bush is not?
Some folks (longtime Democratic activists and the like) apparently think so, or at least think they'll be ineffective. Ye gods, I hope so. If not, those longtime Democratic activists are going to be sitting in the dust watching the truck drive off, wondering what the hell happened.
(22) David Morrison made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 4:27:58 PM | Permalink
The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., reports that Sen. Joe Biden said of President Bush on Tuesday: "He is brain dead." That's a moonbat's bark from a U.S. senator. Al Gore is even worse, and he was nearly elected President. Think of Jimmy Carter's recent remark on Hardball that the American Revolution was "unnecessary." Kerry himself has made more than his fair share of irresponsible remarks about Vietnam and Iraq, and he stands by all of them. Put all these "grownups" of the Democratic Party in a small room together, and it would sound like an SDS meeting circa 1968. I'd say the "moonbat fringe" goes right to the heart of the party. We might wish they weren't what they appear to be, but there's no evidence to support it.
(23) Narniaman made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 8:42:33 PM | Permalink
As usual, Beldar has nailed it down.
John Kerry: the candidate with the competence of Jimmy Carter, the character of Bill Clinton, and unfortunately, the convictions of John Kerry.
If it wasn't for the havoc that Kerry could/would bring about, it would be very interesting to see Senator nuance actually try to govern something.
(24) Casey Tompkins made the following comment | Oct 21, 2004 9:19:21 PM | Permalink
Why are you guys even responding to someone who "loathes" politics? Why even listen to him? Does he even vote?
I think Beldar is close, but not in the gold. He's got the wrong adminstration.
Kerry would be Carter II, not LBJ Jr.
(25) Ubiquitor made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 2:30:26 AM | Permalink
Damn straight, Al.
Slarrow, I think you've overlooked a more alarming probability. You know as well as I that when people are faced with ugly problems all the solutions to which threaten to violate what they hold dear, they don't sit down and agonize over what to do -- they just fail to see the problem at all.
That's what would happen, I think. President Kerry -- man, I just shudder just typing that -- would simply not even see the situation you describe. The overall picture would never congeal. The narrative you recount would never be assembled in one place, written on a single sheet of paper. It would just remain a scattering of bewildering events, with no rhyme or reason, filed in a dozen different file folders in half a dozen agencies.
So there's no need to ask what President Kerry would do, because he would simply never become aware that there was, in fact, a situation about which he needed to do something.
Do I think there are non-moonbat donkeys who realize this? Of course. I'm one of them: a registered California Democrat who's going to pull the lever for W once again, with pleasure.
It's my theory that rational Democratic leaders are secretly glad that Kerry, who has always been an unusually worthless pretty-boy member of the party, good only for charming the ladies, is collecting so much support from the crazies. He's basically an emetic for the party. When he goes down the toilet in two weeks he will take all those angry fruitcakes down with him, and then the Democratic Party can start to rebuild itself for 2008 into a respectable option, having vomited up a big glob of poison and gotten rid of it.
(26) Birkel made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 5:34:39 AM | Permalink
I got this from Tom Maguire at Just One Minute
quoting George Soros from a New Yorker article:
"I'm not looking for a job," he said, then joked, "I don't believe in working." But, he added, "I would be very happy to advise Kerry, if he's willing to listen to me, and to criticize him, if he isn't. I've been trying to exert some influence over our policies, and I hope I'll get a better hearing under Kerry."
So that sounds a lot like the Michael Moore/George Soros faction not planning to settle in and let Kerry govern, doesn't it? Kinda supports ole Beldar's point.
(27) slarrow made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 8:32:32 AM | Permalink
Ubiquitor: I was trying to make the situation as close to parallel to Iraq as I could and give President Kerry the benefit of the doubt in assembling all the information so that it becomes a problem of decision or political will. This is really my best-case scenario.
As to how it would actually play out, I think you're absolutely right. That is, of course, the more dangerous situation.
I hope you're right that Kerry will soon be flushed with the moonbat fringe. I'd love to have a Democratic party where I could oppose them because of taxes and social issues instead of worrying that they could get me killed. (And who knows? With the increasing Republican love of incumbency spending, I could see a sea change in the next 20 years where the parties switch positions on a lot of issues. It's happened before.)
(28) Geek, Esq. made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 9:54:53 AM | Permalink
Hate to break this to you guys, but the Village Voice is way far left of the Democratic mainstream.
As far as the draft site is concerned--it's election politics--designed to scare young voters into voting for Kerry by shocking them out of complacency.
Remember, folks: The Internet is a very flawed map of the real world.
And, if this is the standard by which one can determine the influence of a fringe, then this flyer:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/atrios/rightwing1.jpg
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/atrios/rightwing2.jpg
should be proof postive in your minds that the Republican party has been taken over by mouth-breathing fundie Neanderthals.
The difference, of course, is that Blogpac is a bunch of guys with computers, while they "Libruls wil take away yur Bi-buls" pamphlet was approved by the National Republican party.
Wishful thinking on the part of our friends on the right. Nothing more.
(29) rvman made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 10:28:30 AM | Permalink
Slightly off topic, but it was mentioned in comments:
I dislike Carter as much as the next guy, but citing Carter's "unnecessary" comment vis a vis the Revolution is unfair. What Carter was saying was that had THE CROWN treated the colonies with respect, the revolution could have been avoided. He isn't saying the colonists erred, he's saying the British government did. I think this is a fairly true statement - had the British crown recognized colonial rights and granted them representation in Parliament, the Revolution would never have happened, or at least happened later, and under different circumstances. (An uprising at the time of British emancipation would have been a plausible trigger, at least in the south.) It may be a trivial statement, but it is a true one.
(30) Harry made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 11:44:41 AM | Permalink
What Carter was saying was that had THE CROWN treated the colonies with respect, the revolution could have been avoided.
Well, sure. And if Hitler had gotten into art school, we could have avoided World War II. And if we had had flying cars in 2001, we could have used them to get everyone out of the World Trade Center before it fell. What does any of this have to do with reality?
(31) Geek, Esq. made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 12:51:31 PM | Permalink
Nothing--it was a hypothetical question that inevitably comes up in historical discussions.
(32) David Morrison made the following comment | Oct 22, 2004 6:41:03 PM | Permalink
Here's the Carter quote:
"Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we've fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.
"Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonials' really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.
"I think in many ways the British were very misled in going to war against America and in trying to enforce their will on people who were quite different from them at the time."
He was responding to Chris Matthews's question whether Carter, as "an historian," saw any parallels between the American Revolution and the liberation of Iraq. It would take a feature-length article to give that bit of nonsense a proper fisking.
My point, though, was that Carter the historian doesn't seem to understand that America led the way to popular sovereignty throughout the world. Or that governments are created to secure people's inalienable rights, and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The Founders held it to be a self-evident truth, but Carter doesn't get it.
(33) Andrew jackson made the following comment | Nov 17, 2004 12:05:59 PM | Permalink
A Visit With President Andrew Jackson Http://home.comcast.net/~olehickory
(34) andrew jackson made the following comment | Nov 29, 2004 6:19:01 PM | Permalink
Andrew Jackson hmmmm strangly i belonged to the democratic republican party !I loved my country,and i loved the people .Truely the country got the best of both parties in one
(35) Dave McArdle made the following comment | Dec 16, 2004 4:10:18 PM | Permalink
Visit The President At his site! He may very well visit your school or historic Event http://home.comcast.net/~olehickry
The comments to this entry are closed.
