I don’t think Powell is a perfect human, but he does seem to be somewhat honourable. However, he was snookered by Bush & Co. and he has very carefully timed his appearance to drive in the knife.
I’m still cheesed at him for trying to bullshit the UN about the Iraq war. Ugh.
I do think he’s right about Obama being more inclusive. The McCain-Palin campaign is getting very exclusive, very us vs. them, with all the talk about the “Real America.” (According to their definition of “Real America”, the people killed in the WTC attacks aren’t Real Americans, as they live in northeastern elitesville. Don’t badmouth New Yorkers and then roll around in their dead.) I cheered when Powell said, “All villages have values. Not just small towns.” Because I’m sick of hearing about how urban dwellers are all sinners or something.
Kausik Dattasays
Already Powell’s endorsement is being castigated as that of one African American for another!! Will stupidity never cease in this country?
Folks, if you can, check out the video in NY Times The Caucus. It complements well the video given by PZ here.
Colin Powell is the first person I have heard who came out with the positive statement that an American is an American, no matter what religion he/she may belong to or not. In current times of mindless frenzies, this was a welcome voice of reason.
Peter Mogensensays
I was beginning to doubt that you could be a man of integrity and a republican. But obviously you can. Politics would be so much more interesting if all politicians had the balls to be so honest about what is facts and what is oppinions.
Powell is a good man but did you hear what he said about taxes? How did this man survive as long as he did in the nutbar Bush administration? http://brainrageblog.blogspot.com/
MHsays
Zar #5 wrote “He gave a beautiful speech on Meet the Press. It brought a tear to my eye.”
Wow, that was really something. I felt like standing up and applauding at the end of that.
Zarsays
#10:
Do you remember when McCain criticized Obama for being all about celebrity and image?
michelsays
@3: “He’s only endorsing Obama because they’re both black…is what some people will say.”
rush limbaugh already did of course.
@5: “Because I’m sick of hearing about how urban dwellers are all sinners or something.”
now is probably a good time to refer to pol pot in a discussion… that was one of his key ideas. and… as we all know from ben stein and bill o’reilly… pol pot was an atheist.
About Colin’s endorsement, I think it does make a difference and helps to diffuse some of the garbage the McCain-Palin campaign has been spewing.
PlaydoPlatosays
Back when I lived in Arizona, many people gave McCain the benefit of a doubt after the Keating 5 scandal. It was a second chance for him to prove that he wasn’t the political whore that Keating made him out to be. Unfortunately, McCain has largely failed to measure up to the hopes and expectations that were set for him back then.
I think General Powell, despite his shameful role in pimping the Iraq invasion, deserves the same opportunity to redeem himself. I hope he has learned the lesson that most of us learn one way or another — that unquestioning obedience to authority often leads to a moral and ethical dead end.
negentropyeatersays
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that voters are not likely to be impressed by high profile political endorsements. Out of a list of fifteen different public figures, publications, national associations and politicians, only one endorsement – Colin Powell’s – would have a significant net positive impact on voters.
McCain consoles himself that he has received the endorsements of other Republican Secretaries of State, such as James Baker and Henry Kissinger. But those endorsements were pre-Palin. Kissinger has spent time with Sarah Palin, giving her a tutorial in foreign affairs. He must have seen how stupid and ignorant she is. He must realised that she is a joke, completely unqualified for the huge responsibility of being ready, at a moment’s notice, to step into the presidency. As Colin Powell said, McCain has demonstrated his poor judgment in choosing her. Kissinger, and Baker and other senior Republicans, if they have an ounce of responsibility, should now withdraw their earlier endorsement of McCain, on the simple grounds that he has chosen a palpably, blatantly, embarrassingly unqualified running mate.
BrainFromAroussays
Now that Gen Powell has come over to the MSM’s side and endorsed their favored candidate, I doubt you will ever hear another word about his culpability regarding the Iraq War.
It’s funny thing, this whole business, because I’m a Conservative who loathes the McCain-youknowwho ticket (I can’t even bear to write her name) and will probably – sigh – vote for Obama.
But I have never seen the media behave as badly as it has during this election; their anointing of Obama and consequent wholesale abandonment of even the pretense of impartiality and “news reporting” makes O’Reilly & Limbaugh look like scholars.
James Webb @13 – You have some hilarious stuff on your blog, I especially cracked up over the ukulele player.
negentropyeatersays
Powell also endorsed the Iraq War. Why care about his opinion.
According to polls, Powell enjoys one of the highest favorability ratings of any politician (80%).
Just 15% have an unfavorable view of Powell, despite his high-profile presentation of U.S. intelligence findings on WMDs to the UN prior to the invasion of Iraq. Findings which proved to be wrong subsequentely, but Powell didn’t get the blame for that presentation, afterall, he was only the messenger, and he was viewed later as the moderate voice of the Bush admin, countering the hawkish Cheney and Rumsfeld and stepping down in Jan. 2005.
And Powell has a high favorability accross all party lines, including independents (81%), which will help Obama especially with undecided voters and to counter all the negative “anti-american” negative attacks comming from the McPalin campaign.
If there was ONE endorsement Obama needed to get, it’s this one.
My sweeping generalizations are as follows: Palin is a political choice, we all know it. Powell, despite THE INCIDENT, is and has, for a long time, been a very influential figure, appealing to all sides. Obama gets a lot of media attention because *SHOCK* he’s black and *SHOCK* we’ve never even had a black major party candidate, let alone one positioned to win the race for President. No one wants to get on the historical news bus after it’s a done deal- except that “News” org that gets its money elsewhere- because they’re fighting for credibility with their viewers. Oh wait, sweeping generalizations… oops
BobCsays
If there was ONE endorsement Obama needed to get, it’s this one.
Obama was going to win anyway but this strong endorsement from Powell will definitely remove any doubts from thousands of undecided voters.
NelCsays
Brain @26: Oh, come on. The US press has been toothless and spineless for eight years. Finally, they’re getting frisky again. How you can compare that light of hope in their eyes with Limbaugh’s continual outpouring of shite is quite beyond me.
RamblinDudesays
If you can stomach it, it’s worth watching the second video that you can see when this one minimizes at the end of its play: “McCain defends his campaign’s robocalls.”
The dig at Bachman was awesome. It just makes me like Colin Powell that much more.
Mister Pedanticsays
Will you Americans please note that his name is pronounced Colin, with the “o” as in “on”, not Coalin. (I know because he said so in an interview).
wagonjaksays
Colin still trips over his own tongue being an enabler and architect of an Illegal, Immoral, and indefensible war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
I have no respect for a man who will not admit his part in the Iraq occupation was a huge mistake.
Sorry General Powell, this support for Obama comes too late and too little to redeem yourself in my eyes. I suspect this is more about polishing your own reputation then helping Obama.
Patriciasays
Capitol Dan, scroll further down on his site. The ukulele player has a kazu too, it’s funny as hell.
You mean like “Cowlin?” Like “Shaolin?” Like “towlin’?” And not like “bowling, mowing or snowing?”
Fork it! I’ll call him Powell.
Gilipollas Caraculosays
Obama gets the Internet. He invented his campaign with it.
Powell does not get the Internet, not even now. If he had exploited the Internet in the runup to the Iraqi invasion, he would have seen the scams of Bush and Company and found a way to stop them. (Blackmail, for instance, the gift that keeps on giving. He’s smart enough, and well-respected enough in the military, that he could have threatened Bush with a military coup to eject Bush from office, restore the Constitution, bring home our troops, and go chasing the billions the Talibush was giving away to their sponsors.
When Powell gave into the warmongers, against his own better judgement, I lost all respect for him.
Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinkersays
Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend already took a stroll through Freepland and picked up some fine nuggets.
I will not post any of the statements here. The last time I did that, some people thought that she was the one dropping those nuggets.
JavaMansays
>>Wow that was great. I hope Obama asks Colin Powell to be in his administration.
BobC, you hit the nail right on the head. This is all about a job in the Obama administration. I guess I should be happy about anything that helps ensure an Obama win, and I am, but how any American still manages to maintain any hint of respect for Colin Powell absolutely baffles me. There is no more blatant political opportunist in this country than Powell. From the minute he resigned from the Joint Chiefs, he has gone around hitching his wagon to whatever horse was winning at any given moment. Earlier in the campaign, he gave $2300 to McCain. Now, with the election 2 weeks away and an Obama victory all but certain, he decides to hitch his wagon to Obama. Wow, who could have seen that one coming?
For obvious reasons, blacks don’t fear being called racist. They even have a cadre of sympathetic white academics who will argue that they can’t possibly be racist by definition. Therefore, they can always be expected to engage in normal human tribal behavior without fear of retribution or even criticism. I didn’t blog about this before because it never even crossed my mind that Powell wouldn’t endorse Obama.
I’m very much hoping that if Obama wins, he’ll pull a Denny Green and go with an all-black Cabinet, except for one token white woman running HHS. “Black is back, all in, we’re gonna win!” That would simply be too funny for words. Did I mention how much I’m enjoying this election?
Bubba Sixpacksays
Michele Bachmann is just preaching what the GOP has been practicing for the last 8 years (at least), with her demonizing of anyone who doesn’t tow their line. Interesting that only now is the beltway gaining the backbone to challenge them on their statements.
My guess is much of the beltway establishment is more concerned about the negative effects of GOP policy on their own pocketbook, more than anything else. The rest is superfluous.
In any event, it should be lots of fun watching the GOP turn on each other…and then implode.
Kerlyssasays
#39: Did you seriously just suggest that you’d find Colin Powell more respectable if he had blackmailed Bush with threats of a military coup to enforce his interpretation of the Constitution?
Words fail me.
negentropyeatersays
he could have threatened Bush with a military coup to eject Bush from office, restore the Constitution, bring home our troops, and go chasing the billions the Talibush was giving away to their sponsors.
Yeah, but what if you have to actually say it out loud?
mothrasays
. . .threatened with a military coup. Seems someones’ intellect has flown the coup.
Colin Powell, like John McCain, was one of Bush’s political enemies. Bush smeared McCain and McCain never had the spine to rebut the hack job. Colin was brought into the Bush admin. because of his respectability and was sorely used to sell the Iraq war. Used, with the admins’ calculation that either they win in their manufactured war (Powell does then not gain) or, they do not immediately win in Iraq (and Powell’s credibility is largely destroyed. The Bush admin. must always be interpreted in terms of deep paranoia and Machiavellian machinations. Powell is a man of integrity, has risen above the Bush calamity and his endorsement of OBama will carry weight. This we hope is the beginning of the end of McBane and Whailin.
By the way, the Freepers are going bat-shit crazy over this.
It’s like someone tapped on the glass of a fish tank. Except, the fish are really slimy and dumb. It’s embarrassing.
Feynmaniacsays
I don’t know if Powell will ever be able to redeem himself for his part in the invasion of Iraq. A truly moral person would have just resigned. It probably wouldn’t have stopped the war, but it would have certainly been a huge loss for the Bush administration.
If he is looking for redemption this is a good first step.
mothrasays
Powell was lied to and deliberately deceived. There is a good documentary on the run-up to the Iraq war as part of the PBS Frontline series.
I don’t know if Powell will ever be able to redeem himself for his part in the invasion of Iraq. A truly moral person would have just resigned. It probably wouldn’t have stopped the war, but it would have certainly been a huge loss for the Bush administration.
If he is looking for redemption this is a good first step.
I think if he wants redemption, blowing the whistle on his previous employer’s antics would be a good start.
I genuinely believe that Colin Powell regrets the hell out of his little fright show that day on the floor of the UN General Assembly. But, I really don’t know if he knew what was true or not at that point. Bush and Cheney collected only the intelligence that supported their case for war, and they made it so that there was no way anyone could question the veracity of that intel. And, Powell probably thought, like a lot of folks, that this war would be over in a week or two.
Still, that’s no excuse, but I am inclined to believe he fell victim to the same lies we all did.
Perhaps he was nothing more than an unwitting conspirator. It’s hard to say since he seems too damn smart to have been a part of that administration to begin with. He was an adult in a room full of children, and it’s hard to imagine Bush pulling a fast one on him.
Anyway, I’m with you. It is very hard for me to find a way of forgiving Colin Powell.
Patriciasays
Whew, I just opened my ballet. It looks like one of the Dead Sea scrolls. Oregon has a ton of measures to vote on, and the language is always in high lawyer. I wonder why they can’t write this stuff in hillbilly so everyone could understand them?
scootersays
Richard @ 25: Kissinger has spent time with Sarah Palin, giving her a tutorial in foreign affairs. He must have seen how stupid and ignorant she is.
Hmmmmm, you should check out Christopher Hitchens book on Kissinger, the guy has made a career as a co0mplete dumb-ass pretending to be smart.
It retrospect, he was wrong about everything, a complete disaster, an intellectual fraud.
Daniel Ellsberg expressed a similar low opinion of Kissinger as a fraud, having met with him.
If you listen to him on Charlie Rose or anywhere else, starting with the opinion that he’s a total buffoon, he makes perfect sense.
I’m not certain he is less stupid than Sarah Palin, just has more information, but he’s a much better con-artist.
____________________________________________ Jeff Tamblyn ‘Kansas vs Darwin’ on Texas radio
Jack Handysays
Powell admitted, well after the fact, that he knew there was flimsy justification for the war even as he lied through his teeth about it to the UN.
Whew, I just opened my ballet. It looks like one of the Dead Sea scrolls. Oregon has a ton of measures to vote on, and the language is always in high lawyer. I wonder why they can’t write this stuff in hillbilly so everyone could understand them?
Because! If you could understand them, you probably wouldn’t vote for them. It’s usually the real crazy things that are written with that obscure legal dialect.
I forgive Colin Powell, for the same reasons I never hated Nader. Just as with Nader, in the end you blame the people who voted for Bush. Blame the people on the floor of the congress who voted for the war. In the end, whatever you think of Powell’s speech at the UN, remember that it failed.
I think the only reason that people choose to not to forgive him is because he’s a convenient target, as all reasonable people are. Somehow blaming the cartoon feels wrong, but it really is the cartoon’s fault, whatever Powell’s role. The buck stops at a certain point, and I reserve ALL of my ire for one George W. Bush.
Jamssays
It’s unfortunate that Powell’s endorsement will be reduced to race. I don’t think that’s likely the case at all. Obama’s foreign policy strategy (what little has been said of it – I’m assuming much is in accord with Samantha Powers) is almost identical to Powell’s. For the life of me, I can’t think of a significant departure. I’m surprised most Neo-conservatives haven’t already endorsed Obama. Maybe it’s party loyalty and domestic issues that hold the others back.
Remember, the Right only liked Colin Powell as long as he was a House Negro like Condi. But he was never in the loop to begin with — in Bush 43-1, his office may as well have been a sinecure for all the attention the Dubya administration paid to the State Department’s data wonks.
Welcome to the blue side of the fence, Gen. Powell. Try the bank regulations — they’re fresh.
Pierce R. Butlersays
A (flimsy) case can be made that Powell was taken in by Bush/Cheney’s deceptions about Iraq when he faithfully parroted them to Congress, the public, and the United Nations. It’s much harder to pretend that he was so innocent when he assisted Dubya Daddy’s violations of the Geneva Convention and other international law during the first US war on Iraq, and yet more difficult to hold him harmless for his role in Reagan’s Iran/Contra crimes (including his lies during the cover-up). Go back even further and review his part in attempting to deny, then whitewash, the My Lai massacre during the war against Vietnam, and the question becomes how a 40-year career war criminal could ever have been respected anywhere.
Should we give Powell credit for stating the obvious? No.
The way he stated it and the gravtiy of his position is what he’s getting credit for.
shonnysays
Posted by: Patricia | October 19, 2008 7:43 PM
Whew, I just opened my ballet.
Which one, – Swan Lake?
Ok, ok, cheap shot, but I couldn’t resist, as I imagined your finely shaped a . . . eh, posterior.
JonathanLsays
I don’t doubt that he has regrets over what happened before but to me he seems like a man trying to make things right.
Patriciasays
My finely shaped and rounded bosom.
Ha! That is a dumbassed hillbilly spelling error. Ha!
See, during spelling class – I was out on the field twirling. But don’t tell.
Dinosays
Powell at least resigned after it became apparent that his UN speech was a willful fabrication provided by the pentagon. Rice didn’t resign when she was caught out about the extreme renditions.
foxfiresays
“Meet The Press” today was a wonderful viewing experience.
I saw the post-taping, pre-broadcast statements from Powell on YouTube (having just caught the end of the TV broadcast on CNN).
Yo, Bachmann you ignorant (not to be confused with unintelligent) bitch, kiss your RINO-hating ass good-bye. And take the rest of the wacko “base” element that completely corrupted the concepts that Abraham Lincoln introduced with you – don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Oh wait! That would require an understanding of basic Physics.
I am *so* going to love placing the “x” on the “D” side of the ballot option for president, for the second time in 36 years.
Scott from Oregonsays
“””What does it say about the health of our republic that in a year when congressional job approval is at 14%, over 90% of those in congress will be re-elected Even in this atypical election cycle, only a handful of seats are even considered to be in danger.
And yet, with the seeming inevitability of an Obama wave, most of the Democrats riding the change mantle are the same ones that are returned by voters year after year, which brings me back to the original point about false choices. The same voters enamored with Obama and his ethereal promises of change will sweep into the poles and elect the same two-bit hacks to run congress who have brought us to the brink of destruction by legislation and abdication.
I was visiting an early polling station in North Carolina this weekend and the Democrat Party was situated to stop every voter and hand them a sample ballot filled out to reflect the proper way to select the complete Democrat slate. In addition to Obama, that slate includes guys like David Price who has spent 20 years in congress and voted on every bad economic bill that came across his desk including the bailout – twice.
Anyone who is interested in change, should be interested enough not to send the authors of our destruction back to Washington, but they probably will.”””
scootersays
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler:
A (flimsy) case can be made that Powell was taken in by Bush/Cheney’s deceptions
I’m with you, Powell was a playing politics throughout his army career, not a straight shooter.
In my opinion, the parody of him in Mars Attack was right on the money.
He was pretty deep into the ‘road of death’ in the first Gulf War, as well.
I’m certainly no fan of Sadaam, but slaughtering a retreating army, who are mostly conscripts, seems a bit unAmerican, if I may borrow the term.
bluescat48says
Just what I like to see, a Republican with brains.
With the economy in the toilet like it is, FREE Halloween masks are the rage!
John
Tampa, FL
shonnysays
“We all make mistakes,” said the hedgehog as he crawled down from the clothes brush.
The only thing I still cannot understand is that with all the info available on McCain, how come some many can’t see the geriatric brat for what he is. As to the Moose Queen . . .
Is Powell’s rather measured comment on McCain a sign of respect for the brat, or just in the old tradition of not speaking ill of the dead (or brain-dead)?
Now it is just to make sure that enough Americans follow his example, and endorse AND VOTE FOR Obama!
Not only for USA’s sake, but for the rest of the world as well.
Fantastic to hear Powell speak up this way. Goes to show that this is not just another partisan election. He has a demeanor very similar to Senator Obama and it does not surprise me that this fantastic candidate resonated with him.
foxfiresays
shonny (#77) regarding:
The only thing I still cannot understand is that with all the info available on McCain, how come some many can’t see the geriatric brat for what he is. As to the Moose Queen . . .
I think it is called cognitive dissonance (CD for short). Went through it myself in 2006 after Dawkins’ TGD captured my interest and TSG re-captured the cognitive part of my brain.
Tonight I had to take a kick at the CD that was hitting my husband who was in complete despair(he had moved past denial). Now he is really pissed. This is a (note to John) *good* thing.
I don’t think Bachmann is a horrible person (just seriously deluded), I’m very sad McCain chose to take the road he did and Sarah Palin might be good to know if we (as a species) choose to sink into our barbaric past (really, does anybody posting here actually know how to bring down and carve up a moose?) instead of moving on.
If Molly awards come up in the near future, my nomination would go to Patricia who, with a simple question, disguised as a statement, quelled my panic. Thank you Patricia.
What struck me about Powell’s comments were that they displayed a genuinely intellectual and relevant reflection, on many levels, on “why” and “how” facets of how he ultimately arrived at his decision. This belays the notion, as many on the right have suggested, that his endorsement is based solely on his race and ethnically shared connection to the first of his race to seek the highest office in the land.
For supposedly intellectual members of the right to advance such ridiculous and frankly racist evaluations of Powell’s choice, especially considering the unnaturally prompt and hasty nature of the offerings of their opinions, in this election shows me that we still have a great deal further to go in our national course toward true reconciliation between racially divergent cultures in this country, especially since these opinions have been advanced by supposedly educated and – we are expected to believe, unbiased – members of the mainstream conservative political intelligentsia in this nation.
craigsays
No matter what your political beliefs are… if you use the phrase “the Democrat party” you reveal yourself as a person who has decided not to think for yourself.
You can hate the Democratic party and have come to that conclusion through rational thought, but if you hate the “Democrat party,” you’re a mindless follower who has merely been programmed.
truth machine, OMsays
A lot of egocentric loons here looking at Powell’s endorsement through their own narrow lens. It isn’t about Powell trying to make right or anything like that — as he said, he did and still does support the invasion of Iraq. As hard as it is for you self-centered twits to imagine, Powell doesn’t see himself through your eyes, he sees himself through his own — as a widely respected, influential national figure whose opinion has impact — clearly, if you take a look at how much is being written and said about it. And aside from all the ad hominem considerations, Powell’s repudiation of McCain’s smears — Ayres, socialist, Muslim, etc. — is valid on its own merits.
I think General Powell, despite his shameful role in pimping the Iraq invasion, deserves the same opportunity to redeem himself. I hope he has learned the lesson that most of us learn one way or another — that unquestioning obedience to authority often leads to a moral and ethical dead end.
Though I am by no means excusing him for the role he played in propelling our nation toward an unjust war (I am most certainly not such an individual by any means, for I am one who paid a dear and permanent price in that war), he eloquently and intelligently explained his reasoning behind his choice, while at the same time confirming that he is, in fact, still a Republican.
By the way, this illuminates the uncomfortable – in the terms of a simplistic, strictly bicameral way of thinking – fact that while Republicans are at odds with most of our inclinations, not all of them are “ReThuglicans. Even though I disagree with the Republican ideology, I consider Powell – in light of this – to be a quite intelligent and honorable human, and I sincerely wish more of the right shared his sort of thought process.
truth machine, OMsays
This belays the notion, as many on the right have suggested, that his endorsement is based solely on his race and ethnically shared connection to the first of his race to seek the highest office in the land.
Or that’s it’s to “redeem himself”, as a number of idiots here have suggested. Powell doesn’t even know these fools exist and has no need to “redeem himself”, as he has very high favorables, an unusually high approval as an American political figure. And I say this as someone who considers Powell to be war criminal (shooting Vietnamese civilians from a helicopter) who built his career on brown nosing. But, as you say, his comments “displayed a genuinely intellectual and relevant reflection, on many levels, on “why” and “how” facets of how he ultimately arrived at his decision”, and nothing about his past behavior lessens their validity — poisoning the well is a fallacy.
truth machine, OMsays
Even though I disagree with the Republican ideology
Yes, but so does Powell. It isn’t at all clear what he means when he says he’s still a Republican, beyond the fact that he’s registered as one.
truth machine, OMsays
In the end, whatever you think of Powell’s speech at the UN, remember that it failed.
Uh, say what? His speech was highly instrumental in rallying U.S. domestic support for the invasion.
truth machine, OMsays
Powell probably thought, like a lot of folks, that this war would be over in a week or two.
Doesn’t anyone pay any attention? He just said that everything was going great through the fall of Saddam’s statue, but “we” didn’t expect that there would be another phase of the war. Funny, because I expected it, but then I didn’t live in the echo chamber he did.
truth machine, OMsays
Powell is a man of integrity
Uh, no, really, he isn’t. That he isn’t doesn’t detract from the importance of his endorsement or the validity of his arguments in Obama’s favor, but your claim is pollyannish horseshit.
truth machine, OMsays
#39: Did you seriously just suggest that you’d find Colin Powell more respectable if he had blackmailed Bush with threats of a military coup to enforce his interpretation of the Constitution?
Words fail me.
Here’s one for you: consequentialist.
truth machine, OMsays
with her demonizing of anyone who doesn’t tow their line
toe — it’s a line, not a rope.
Heleensays
“Taxes are necessary for the public good”
Very right but seemingly an ignored truth in US.
Whoever is the next US president will have to raise taxes, and quite a lot – moreover, progressively too (that is, making the rich pay as they can afford it).
negentropyeatersays
It’s always been clear to me that Powell was not in line with the neocons. His resignation in Jan 2005 is the best evidence, and this endorsement another one.
McCain pretended not to be in line with the neocons, but he let them run his campaign in the general election, his nomnation of Palin and the way he has run his 100% negative Obama attack campaign since then is the best evidence.
It was pittyfull to see McCain being interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Wallace showing him that his strategy of nominating Palin and going negative had not worked, McCain only capable of whining about the fact that Obama was buying himself the election (the $150 million fundraising in Sept) and answering that he thought his strategy had worked marvelously.
The downside is now that the low morale and resignation of the republicans will cause them to get even more dirty, if at all possible, having nothing to lose they’ll throw everything in. And that’s far more downside if there is also complacency within the Democrats.
Absolutely Jack Handy. Sweet sweet retribution for the logical fallacy that was his UN Security Councial presentation. Remember…”Based on this obscure aerial photograph, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” *Que the trumpets of conservative justification*
I say it’s the least Powell can do..
Beaconsays
So, let me get this straight. Obama and his followers attacked Hillary endlessly for her vote on the Iraq resolution. Obama touted his superior judgment in speaking out against the war (remember that speech he gave in Chicago? Yea, me neither.)
Obama supporters blogged endlessly about Hillary and blamed HER for the war. They were viscous and vile. Hillary suffered in the primary for that vote. (people forgetting that Kerry and 75% of the Senate voted Yes also…)
But Obama pounded that point in the debates, over and over. She voted for the war, and he didn’t. (even managing to fool his supporters into believing he actually HAD a vote at the time)
So now Obama has the AUDACITY to accept an endorsement from a guy who was CRUCIAL TO HELPING US GET INTO WAR IN THE FIRST- a Bush apologist for years!!!!!!!!!!!!
Give me a break. what a sham obama is!!
Phaedrussays
Why do we care what this war criminal says?
Just in :
Charles Mason, Lex Luther and Ted Kuzinski support Obama.
What a bunch of pansies Liberals are… Powell put everything on the line when he went before the UN. He banked on his respectability, and a lot of people supported because of him. That’s fine, but when he turns out to be wrong on every single point he has two options – tuck his tail and never show up in public again (perhaps finding a job in clergy to try and atone), or turn around and hunt down the people who made him lose his cred. He’s done neither and he has proven himself without honor.
There are lots of smart, eloquent people to endorse Obama, we don’t need this poser.
Pablosays
There are lots of smart, eloquent people to endorse Obama, we don’t need this poser.
The Powell endorsement is not about us, it is about those people who don’t accept the endorsement from “smart, eloquent people.”
Right-wingers don’t give a crap about what smart, eloquent people think. In fact, such people are routinely spat upon as elitest and other such garbage. However, Colin Powell to them is a different game. To them, his opinion matters, regardless of whether democrats have any respect for him or not (and mostly, they do). Powell is a right-wing poster child. Obedient to all get out. The only thing they can hold against him is that he is black. Look for the looney racists to come out now. Rush has started the charge, who will follow him?
JasonTDsays
truthmachine, OM @84,
“And I say this as someone who considers Powell to be war criminal (shooting Vietnamese civilians from a helicopter) . . .”
I haven’t heard this before. I tried looking for it, but couldn’t find any other mention of him doing what you say he did. I did see something where he was quoted as saying that sometimes soldiers would shoot at “MAM”‘s (military aged males) if they acted in a “suspicious” manner (which could mean simply trying to avoid getting shot to some of them). He seemed to excuse such behavior in light of some American soldiers getting shot by snipers while observing civilians from helicopters. I’d agree that such behavior would be a war crime, but trying to excuse it and committing such acts aren’t the same thing.
By the way, what does the OM you and a few other posters use mean?
Yeah, cause liberals had grave doubts as to which candidate to back until Powell clinched it.
To all those making this same comment: do people have to explain jokes to you, too?
Bill Dauphinsays
Given the multiple quotation marks, it’s hard to know whether I’m replying to SfO himself or some unreferenced source from which he has cut-and-pasted, but with that said…
What does it say about the health of our republic that in a year when congressional job approval is at 14%, over 90% of those in congress will be re-elected
What it says is that the prophets of anti-government ideology have done a much better job of demonizing congress in the abstract than in convincing actual voters that their own congresspeople are evil.
In recent years (and for the first time in my life), I’ve actually gotten to know my own congressman (having helped, as a campaign volunteer, get him elected in 2006) and at least met and spoken briefly with three of my state’s other four representatives. What I’ve learned is that they’re all honest, committed, hardworking people… people of such quality that they almost certainly could’ve become richer and more famous (and perhaps even more powerful) doing something other than serving in the Congress, if wealth and fame and power were their primary motivations. I imagine that’s true of most (albeit no doubt not all) members of Congress… including even the ones with whom I have profound differences over policy positions.
So in the Land of Reagan, it’s easy enough to tell people that “government is the problem” as long as “government” is something abstract and remote. But when “government” means the friend and neighbor who represents them in Congress, people are less persuadable that there’s some fundamental evil lurking there.
And yet, with the seeming inevitability of an Obama wave, most of the Democrats riding the change mantle are the same ones that are returned by voters year after year, which brings me back to the original point about false choices.
I don’t know about false choices, but you’re promoting a false equivalency between changing the agenda and changing the people. With the exception of the first half of Clinton’s first term, Democrats haven’t controlled the agenda since the beginning of the 80s (and no, the current modest majority in the House and majority-in-name-only in the Senate do not constitute control of the agenda… not in the face of the most arrogantly dominant executive branch in my memory). Even Clinton (though I was a big fan) was a centrist who never presented himself as a major change agent. If you’re saying that even with an Obama administration, a real majority in the Senate, and an enhanced majority in the House, nothing much will change… well, I’m saying that’s batpuckey. Time will tell, of course (and FSM willing), but I’ll be shocked if it turns out that reelected incumbents in Congress will be able to thwart change in this case (or, for that matter, that any significant fraction of reelected Democratic incumbents would even want to).
BTW, the statistics on the power of incumbency can be deceptive: Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House. Change is in fact happening right in the face of your numbers that say it can’t. I suspect far fewer members of Congress than you think are “two-bit hacks,” and that those who are make up the majority of those incumbents who are at risk.
itzacsays
He’s shown remorse for his roll in starting the war, which is more than you can for most of the Bush administration.
JasonTDsays
Heleen@91,
‘”Taxes are necessary for the public good”
Very right but seemingly an ignored truth in US.
Whoever is the next US president will have to raise taxes, and quite a lot – moreover, progressively too (that is, making the rich pay as they can afford it).’
I don’t think anyone but the most hard-core libertarians disagrees with the statement you quoted. But you fail to mention how steeply progressive federal income taxes already are when you talk about the likely need to raise them. At my income level (just under $40k a year), being single with no dependents, I pay about 9.5% of my gross income to the IRS. This also works out to about 13.5% of my ‘taxable’ income after deductions, i.e. the actual tax rate. Even with the Bush tax cuts, the top rate is around 30%. (Just a note, but my tax rate under Clinton was 15% on about the same taxable income, and the deductions were fewer and smaller.) Conservative news sources like the Wall Street Journal frequently throw out statistics about how the top 5-10% of earners pay over half of all IRS taxes and such, and I’ve never seen anyone dispute that. Nor have I seen anyone disputing that 30% or so of all workers don’t pay any federal income tax at all.
And yet, Obama is proposing a plan that will ‘cut’ taxes for 95% of Americans? First, he has not adequately explained how his refundable tax credits for people not currently paying any tax are different from a new welfare program. Second, given his healthcare, these ‘cut’ taxes for everyone else, and other new spending proposals, just how much higher would taxes need to be on the top 5% to balance all of this out? What would that do to the amount of money being invested in creating new jobs?
Bill Dauphinsays
Just as a clarification, by this…
Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House.
…I meant this…
Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House, in just two election cycles.
Nataliesays
Beacon @ 96:
So, let me get this straight. Obama and his followers attacked Hillary endlessly for her vote on the Iraq resolution. Obama touted his superior judgment in speaking out against the war (remember that speech he gave in Chicago? Yea, me neither.)
This may have escaped you, but Hillary is a Democrat and Powell is a Republican. Generally, one has different standards for those who claim to agree oneself than those who have always been upfront about their disagreement. Hillary, unlike Powell, does not think that the war was a good idea. Thus it seems completely reasonable to question why she voted in favor of it. Powell, OTOH, is still in support of the Iraq War, so his behavior in front of the UN is completely consistent, for him.
Obama supporters blogged endlessly about Hillary and blamed HER for the war. They were viscous and vile.
So, some random Obama supporters were, in your opinion, vicious… how is that relevant to this discussion? Is Obama responsible for what every single supporter of his says? Are any of those bloggers commenting on this website? Have any of those bloggers now lauded Powell for his support of the war?
(even managing to fool his supporters into believing he actually HAD a vote at the time)
Cite?
So now Obama has the AUDACITY to accept an endorsement from a guy who was CRUCIAL TO HELPING US GET INTO WAR IN THE FIRST- a Bush apologist for years!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yep, all those exclamation points really make your case.
Nataliesays
Gah, grammar fail. “…those who claim to agree with oneself”, rather.
Ichthyicsays
What would that do to the amount of money being invested in creating new jobs?
how much of that theoretical money WAS invested in creating new jobs under Bush?
supply side economics don’t work on that scale, we’ve seen that over and over again.
Skepticatsays
I suppose it should come as no surprise to me (even though I live in the Deep South) that my good Christian friend told me today that Powell endorsed Obama because “blacks always stick together” followed by a heavy dose of “I’m not racist but…”
I wonder if she realizes that, by considering all “blacks” to be incapable of thinking through issues and making decisions based solely on race, perhaps she is the biggest racist of all.
JasonTDsays
Bill Dauphin @101,
“BTW, the statistics on the power of incumbency can be deceptive: Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House. Change is in fact happening right in the face of your numbers that say it can’t. I suspect far fewer members of Congress than you think are “two-bit hacks,” and that those who are make up the majority of those incumbents who are at risk.
I’m assuming you meant in two election cycles that the balance in congress will have changed, since they have had a majority in both houses since the 2006 election.
Regardless, I do agree that Congress’s low approval rating is more of a reflection on the public’s opinion of the overall culture and effectiveness of Congress, rather than the performance of individuals. But really, that is the problem. The people that really wield the power in Congress are only accountable to a small part of the whole country, and they might be in highly partisan ‘safe’ districts (or strongly red or blue states for Senators). If and when it comes out which representative and senators held positions which made the financial crisis happen or be worse that it should have been, the only hope of actually getting rid of them in some cases might be if there is a viable primary challenger from within their own party. Just look at Pelosi’s district for an example. She’ll never lose her seat short of some major scandal, and maybe not even then, despite holding tremendous power in the House.
LightningRosesays
I missed the Michele Bachmann dig. Can someone point it out to me, please?
my good Christian friend told me today that Powell endorsed Obama because “blacks always stick together”
Ask your friend when we can expect Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice to weigh in for Obama.
Dancabansays
“Earlier in the campaign, he gave $2300 to McCain…”
Nothing like damning with faint praise!
Scott from Oregonsays
“”Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House, in just two election cycles.””
I feel bad for you, Bill. I do. You are so into your democrat party that you can’t see the thorns covering your roses.
10.3 TRILLION in debt. 90TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.
Bad Federal government and ignorance along with a Federal Reserve that totally screwed the pooch and you are still enamored with your party and its fumbling ways.
Anybody with half a brain can see that BOTH parties totally fucked up this country, destroying the Bill of Rights and the ideals this country was founded on, enabling large corporations and banksters to reap huge profits and then covering their asses when they were about to lose money…
You are nothing short of an enabler, a well meaning sycophant who can’t even admit that the Democrats are a culpable bunch, voting for FISA, The Patriot Act, ad nauseum, spending this country into bankruptcy, precipitating and deepening a coming recession, behaving sadly comical while Bush and Co. ran around roughshodding the Constitution with the Democrats just conceding the power IF they could have more stuff to sspend money on.
You don’t have to be a Libertarian to see this. Just not stupid.
Bill Dauphinsays
‘”Taxes are necessary for the public good”
Very right but seemingly an ignored truth in US.
Whoever is the next US president will have to raise taxes, and quite a lot – moreover, progressively too (that is, making the rich pay as they can afford it).’
I don’t think anyone but the most hard-core libertarians disagrees with the statement you quoted.
If you really don’t think anyone other than “hard-core libertarians” is reflexively anti-tax, I think you haven’t been paying attention. Or perhaps there are an awful lot of folks who are, at heart, “hard-core libertarians” who are unwilling to self-identify that way. In my experience (including a municipal election last year that was effectively a referendum on property taxes), there’s a lot of automatic (and, IMHO, not well thought out) opposition to taxes in general, and it’s far from limited to people who consider themselves politically radical. Many folks may consider taxes unavoidable, but will only call them “necessary” exceedingly grudgingly, if at all… and increasingly few think of government spending in terms of “the public good,” as opposed to thinking strictly in terms of what government does for them as individuals.
At my income level (just under $40k a year), being single with no dependents, I pay about 9.5% of my gross income to the IRS. This also works out to about 13.5% of my ‘taxable’ income after deductions, i.e. the actual tax rate.
Yeah, and this strikes you as somehow confiscatory? Your level of income for a 1-person household is roughly equivalent to mine for a 3-person household. If you put any reasonable value on the benefits we get from the federal government, both directly (driven on an interstate highway lately?) and indirectly, I think the taxes we pay are an incredible bargain. It’s only by insisting — falsely, IMHO — that the government provides nothing of value that anyone can make any sort of case that our tax structure is extreme.
Conservative news sources like the Wall Street Journal frequently throw out statistics about how the top 5-10% of earners pay over half of all IRS taxes and such, and I’ve never seen anyone dispute that.
Yah, and what percentage of total earnings do those same people account for?
Nor have I seen anyone disputing that 30% or so of all workers don’t pay any federal income tax at all.
Yah, and how many of those are the working poor, or teenagers and seniors earning tiny amounts at part-time or temporary jobs? Lots of people earn enough to get a W-2 but not enough to pay taxes. That does not mean, as your formulation seems intended to imply, that they’re lazy freeloading slackers.
[Obama] has not adequately explained how his refundable tax credits for people not currently paying any tax are different from a new welfare program.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. If you think “welfare” is code for giveaways to lazy people, I suppose it is a bad thing… but this comment presumes that’s the case without any evidence or analysis to support that presumption. Refundable tax credits — effectively a negative tax rate — for the working poor strike many of us as just and reasonable in principle; absent some persuasive argument from you that Obama’s proposed credits are unfair, I can’t escape the conclusion that you’re just engaging in class warfare.
In fact, you’ve strung together a bunch of factoids as if you assume we’ll all agree that they’re troublesome. You remind me of a coworker, who once told me, during a budget fight in his town (the next town over from my own), how shocked he was to learn that 2/3 of the town’s budget was for labor… and 2/3 of that was for educators’ salaries!! He said all this as if it were obvious that spending most of the town’s budget on salaries, and most of that on teachers’ salaries, was excessive. He didn’t even bother trying to make an argument that the town had too many employees, or that they were overpaid; he took that as obvious from the numbers alone.
Of course, if you think about it for a moment, you realize that most of what the town government provides is services, and the biggest cost in providing a service is always labor, even in the private sector. Further, the largest (and arguably most important) service the town provides is public schools (here in Connecticut, public education is provided by towns; I recognize other states have different motdels). So once you get past the thoughtless incredulity, it makes perfect sense that towns’ largest expenses should be for labor in general, and labor in the schools in particular. Only if you start from a fundamentally anti-government, anti-public-education POV does it make sense for my friend to be “shocked, shocked!, to learn that we’re paying salaries with these taxes!!”
In the same way, you’ve thrown out a string of factoids that only mean what you (seem to) think they mean if you have an anti-tax, anti-government position to begin with.
Bill Dauphinsays
You are nothing short of an enabler, a well meaning sycophant who can’t even admit…
Well, gee, I guess I whould be happy that you admit I’m well meaning, eh? What you (and political radicals of all stripes) can’t admit is that this, by specific constitutional design, is a fundamentally centrist nation. Hard as it might be for extremists to realize, that’s a Feature, Not a Bug™! Those of us interested in working for change in meaningful ways, as opposed to standing at the edges and screaming impotently at the middle, understand that we have to move the center (which is to say, the people) in the direction we prefer in measured, digestible steps.
To borrow an old proverb, it’s better to light one candle than curse the darkness. The Democrats I’m supporting promise to light a good deal more than one candle, so I prefer my approach to your decision to do nothing but curse the darkness you perceive.
Bill Dauphinsays
“Earlier in the campaign, he gave $2300 to McCain…”
Nothing like damning with faint praise!
Not faint praise at all: That amount represents the maximum an individual can donate to a campaign for a single election under our election laws. (Note, however, that the nomination contest and the general election coung as separate, so from beginning to end, the most an individual can donate directly to any presidential campaign during the complete election cycle is actually $4600.)
Scott from Oregonsays
“”Well, gee, I guess I whould be happy that you admit I’m well meaning, eh? What you (and political radicals of all stripes) can’t admit is that this,””
There is nothing radical about pointing out a 10.3 TRILLION dollar deficit, or pointing out the sickness that pervades Washsington-the notion that Washington can “fix the problems that washiongton creates”- or of pointing out how supporting the status quo is enabling the status quo.
Nothing radical at all.
The Constitution was indeeed designed to hold a middle view, but that view is now ignorant and unwise.
If you think supporting the ignorant and unwise is justified because you “got involved”, you are mistaken.
You are an enabler of the highest order, and a sycophant.
The party you support has been complicit in running up the deficit AND removing your rights from underneath you, AND spending 10 billion a month on war, AND burning HUGE amounts of fuel daily running ships up and down coastlines, AND giving money to dictators, AND destroying the value of the dollar while silently allowing the Federal Reserve to print money to fund all the garbage Washington thinks is “helpful”, like farm subsidies to corporations who are in love with Washington…
It is nonsense and you know it, and yet, there you are, declaring that we need “roads” so we should all go along with all of the rest of this nonsense, because… well, you don’t want to be a “radical” and call bullshit on bullshit.
Roads are paid for by user fees (gas tax). War is paid for by borrowing money from other countries and then paying the interest on those loans by taxing common working folks.
The DOD takes 20 % of those taxes after all the interests is paid.
Another large chunk goes to paying high end prices on drugs for elderly people, because lobbyists can afford to live in Washington and pay for legislation…
Just as believing in God is considered the “centrist” view and atheism is considered radical, so too, we who call “bullshit” on all of you enablers and sycophants who want the broken federal Government to keep on shuffling money up the food chain are called “radical” and fringe, while the facts all point directly to our sanity and forebearance…
Stop shoveling power to a broken entity.
Tacksays
[#21] Powell also endorsed the Iraq War. Why care about his opinion.
So did (does) Hitchens. But we care about his opinion on other matters.
Nataliesays
You are so into your democrat party that you can’t see the thorns covering your roses.
And how is that any different from you, Scott, with your instance that every problem will be solved if we just abolish the federal government? That all problems are local, and people who don’t like their location can just up and move? That anyone who disagrees with you is a sycophant? That there are absolutely no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties?
Hope your enjoying that bed of thorns.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Bill Dauphin @ # 101: … I’ve actually gotten to know my own congressman … and at least met and spoken briefly with three of my state’s other four representatives. What I’ve learned is that they’re all honest, committed, hardworking people …
All I know about CT’s congresscritters involves your Senators, one of whom is among the most wretched and vile of that gang, the other having occasional flashes of decency and courage. It’s hard to imagine all of your House Reps being intrinsically noble, having passed through a filter made to eliminate boat-rockers & loophole-closers. Consider, however, that few or none would have made it to DC without skills at appearing “honest, committed, hardworking”.
Nick Gottssays
Bill,
Of course SfO is wrong in his constant refrain that it makes no difference whether McCain or Obama wins, whether Dems or Reps control Congress – the last 8 years would have shown anyone with more than three brain-cells that it does indeed make a big difference – but you’re equally wrong in your belief that the US political system is fundamentally sound. Polls have shown that the majority of US voters believe that their interests are not represented within that system – hence the chronically low turnouts in Presidential and Congressional elections; and they are right, because to get to or near the top in US politics you either have to be one of the very rich, or to have their support. Hence also the justified anger that the Dem/Rep duopoly has practically made itself part of the constitution, and that where you live determines whether your vote counts for anything
SfO is of course also wrong in thinking that dismantling the federal government would put things right – it would just lead either to unmediated rather than mediated corporate rule, or possibly to the rise of a new dominant capitalist power to replace the USA. Scott is such a fine example of OWHITUSAC syndrome that I’d like to have him pickled – he’s shown not the slightest sign of realising that what is happening now is a global financial crisis. Moreover, behind that crisis and its possible consequence of a 30s-style depression is the far graver global environmental and resource crisis, which his “libertarian” nostrums cannot begin to address, or even acknowledge. Getting rid of the neocons is only a first, small, but entirely necessary step away from the abyss capitalism has led us to.
Scott from Oregonsays
“And how is that any different from you, Scott, with your instance that every problem will be solved if we just abolish the federal government? That all problems are local, and people who don’t like their location can just up and move? That anyone who disagrees with you is a sycophant? That there are absolutely no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties?
Hope your enjoying that bed of thorns.”
I like how you misstate EVERY position I hold.
Yes or no–
The US is the BIGGEST debtor nation in the world?
The US killed 2 Million Vietnamese peasants.
The US military is in more than 130 countries, and routinely meddles in the affairs of other nations, often causing much bloodshed.
The US government takes taxes from hard working Americans and uses them to enrich corporations.
The US government gives US tax money to dictators.
The Federal Reserve is a non-elected, secretive agency that has more real power than the US government, and was responsible for the housing bubble by keeping interest rates artificially low, while handing out cheap printed cash…
The two-party polical system is not addressing these issues AT ALL. The corporate owned media isn’t either.
Neither is Mr. “Change”, the man y’all seem to think will be “different” because he is promising handouts from government…
Like we haven’t heard that before…
Bill Dauphinsays
SfO:
You say your position is…
Nothing radical at all.
…but follow that claim immediately with this:
The Constitution was indeeed designed to hold a middle view, but that view is now ignorant and unwise.
…which sounds distinctly more like a call to revolution than a nonradical political position.
The rest of your post amounts to personal attacks on my supposed ignorance and unwisdom, apparently because I refuse to buy into your utopian vision of a decentralized, neofeudalist land-without-a-state. Feeling “enabled” by your descent into ad hominem, I am now free to say bluntly that your vision is dumber than a sack of hair.
What’s more, even if it were a desirable future, it’s never going to happen. Railing away in support of an impossible future is a total waste of whatever energy you might have to offer the conversation. As I said before, it’s cursing the (illusory) darkness rather than lighting one candle.
Pierce:
All I know about CT’s congresscritters involves your Senators, one of whom is among the most wretched and vile of that gang, the other having occasional flashes of decency and courage.
I have a sneaking suspicion you and I disagree about which one is “wretched and vile.” I won’t try to defend Dodd’s mortgage issues (mostly because I simply don’t have enough facts to have an informed opinion), but at least he makes an honest attempt to actually represent the people who elected him. If you think there’s anything even occasionally decent or courageous about Sen. LIEberman’s recent behavior, you clearly weren’t in CT to listen to the outright lies he told the voters to get elected, nor to witness the neck-snapping speed with which he abandoned them once his seat was secure. Not only has LIEberman dishonored his own prior record and the trust of CT voters, he’s also despoiled the very concept of bipartisanship: Because of his example, now anyone who talks about bipartisanship is suspected of being the same sort of traitor to his/her party that LIEberman has proven to be.
It’s hard to imagine all of your House Reps being intrinsically noble, having passed through a filter made to eliminate boat-rockers & loophole-closers.
Circular logic: You don’t believe they’re good guys because of your a priori assumption that good guys can’t be congressmen.
Look, I’ve never claimed that everyone in Congress is One Of The Good Guys™ (witness the above rant about Holy Joe); I only claim that many of them are, and that the blanket slagging of Congress as a bunch of craven bastards is both unwarranted and unproductive.
My own congressman is, to my direct personal knowledge, a person of the utmost integrity and commitment. The three other current House Democrats from CT (whom I have only met briefly) are held in similar esteem by people whose opinions I trust. If your congressman is a lousy bastard, why don’t you do something about it, instead of making snarky comments about mine?
Bill Dauphinsays
By sheer coincidence, I happened upon this link within moments after posting my rant (@123) about Sen. LIEberman. Enjoy!
PS to Nick: Your comments (@121) demand a thoughtful response. Perhaps after dinner…
Scott from Oregonsays
…but follow that claim immediately with this:
The Constitution was indeeed designed to hold a middle view, but that view is now ignorant and unwise.
“That view” means the current “middle of the road” view, which, as I’ve said many times, has eschewed the Constitution completely. There is no more 4th or 5th Amendment. No right to privacy. The enumeration of powers has been pissed on…
What you are claiming is that holding a stricter Constitutional view is “radical”. That’s how far you’ve managed to fall.
Chris Dodd IS at the epicenter of the housing bubble. Anyone who supports that idiot deserves a bath in a bucket.
He is at the center of the bubble, AND the center of the bailout. Double whammy idiot.
And you blindly follow, a sheep with stars in your eyes…
Sad.
Now go answwer my questions and tell me how much you love giving power to a central authority who abuses it on a regular basis.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Bill D @ # 123: If your congressman is a lousy bastard, why don’t you do something about it, instead of making snarky comments about mine?
Because without knowing names or parties of yours (say, the whole CT delegation), I know I’d’ve heard of them if they were attempting to do any of the things so urgently needed today, starting with work to enforce the Constitution (that “high crimes & misdemeanors” part, f’rinstance), get the US out of Iraq & into Kyoto, or raising hell on any of a hundred issues.
It’s also a very safe bet that all are in harmony with what we fondly call the “financial community”, which puts their interests directly at odds with those of the majority of the country.
Did any of CT’s Dem delegation go all-out to help Ned Lamont – or Repubs for Alan Schlesinger?
As for my “… a priori assumption that good guys can’t be congressmen… – haven’t you noticed the bias around here against extrapolations from insufficient data, even in the sake of righteous naivete? Hey, I used to live in Pete McCloskey’s district!
Can you deny that there are systematic barriers against reformers & “outsiders” seeking public office in today’s USA, even more against those who achieve it – and that through long practice those barriers are effective?
As for my nominal Representative, she seems to have started out with respectable intentions and to have succumbed to Beltway cronyism; at any rate, I reside in a gerrymandered panhandle of her district far from the urban center of her base. Having made a small donation to an adjoining district’s Dem, I may have done more for his campaign than his so-called party, which has surrendered that district to a Bush sockpuppet since the state Repubz gerrymandered it back in the Raygun era.
Have I mentioned that I live in Florida? Please don’t try to tell me that saying the game is rigged is any kind of “a priori assumption”.
truth machine, OMsays
I wonder if she realizes that, by considering all “blacks” to be incapable of thinking through issues and making decisions based solely on race, perhaps she is the biggest racist of all.
Why don’t you tell her? Afraid of losing the friendship of “the biggest racist of them all”?
truth machine, OMsays
Conservative news sources like the Wall Street Journal frequently throw out statistics about how the top 5-10% of earners pay over half of all IRS taxes and such, and I’ve never seen anyone dispute that.
What’s to dispute? Now, how much of the society’s wealth do they possess, and how much of the benefit of federal spending do they reap? Far more than 50%.
Nor have I seen anyone disputing that 30% or so of all workers don’t pay any federal income tax at all.
Yeah, income tax. But they pay other sorts of federal tax, cherry picker.
truth machine, OMsays
He’s shown remorse for his roll (sic) in starting the war, which is more than you can for most of the Bush administration.
No he hasn’t. He just said that he was and still is in favor of the invasion.
negentropyeatersays
SfO,
There is nothing radical about pointing out a 10.3 TRILLION dollar deficit, or pointing out the sickness that pervades Washsington-the notion that Washington can “fix the problems that washiongton creates”- or of pointing out how supporting the status quo is enabling the status quo.
That’s not the deficit, but the national debt.
And if you had any real interest in these figures, you would notice that the last two democratic presidents kept both the debt and the budget deficit under control, whereas the republicans didn’t, Bush breaking all records of budget mismanagement and of letting the national debt explode.
Bill Dauphinsays
Pierce:
…without knowing names or parties of yours (say, the whole CT delegation), I know I’d’ve heard of them if they were attempting to do any of the things so urgently needed today…
So your position is that you know something about my rep specifically because you’ve never heard of him? There are 435 members of the House; you assume that any of them who hasn’t made big headlines is worthless? And then you want to lecture me about “extrapolations from insufficient data”?
For your information (should you care to have any), four of CT’s five representatives are Democrats, two of them (including my own rep, Joe Courtney [CT-2]) 2006 freshmen who defeated incumbent Republicans. The fifth, Chris Shays, is the last remaining Republican member of the House from anywhere in New England… and FSM willing, he will shortly be replaced by Jim Himes, a businessman-turned-progressive-politician very much in the mold of (and overwhelmingly supported by fans of) Ned Lamont. Assuming Himes wins, we will have turned a 3-2 Republican majority delegation into a 5-0 Democratic majority in just two election cycles.
Courtney and fellow freshman Chris Murphy (CT-5) ran strong anti-war campaigns (and yes, both strongly supported Ned Lamont); both are strongly pro-labor and both are vocal advocates for universal healthcare. They were leading voices (at least locally) during the attempt to reauthorize and expand SCHIP over Bush’s unconscionable vetoes. I’m absolutely convinced that both will be great progressive legislators for a long time to come. The fact that you haven’t heard of them probably has more to do with the fact that they’re freshmen than with their positions.
It’s also a very safe bet that all are in harmony with what we fondly call the “financial community”, which puts their interests directly at odds with those of the majority of the country.
A losing bet on your part. Courtney was one of the Democrats who voted against the bailout — both times — despite the wishes of the leadership and the fact that doing so gained him no electoral advantage (opinion in the district was roughly evenly split). I’m not actually sure I agree with that vote — I’m fairly well convinced the bailout was a necessary, albeit odious, step — but I am absolutely certain Courtney’s vote was cast based on careful study of the issue, and that it was a deeply principled act.
Did any of CT’s Dem delegation go all-out to help Ned Lamont – or Repubs for Alan Schlesinger?
As I’ve already mentioned, Courtney and Murphy were strong supporters (as a Courtney campaign volunteer, I participated in numerous canvassing and phonebanking sessions coordinated with the Lamont campaign); IIRC, all the rest of the congressional delegation and other high-level state Dems supported Lamont (who was, after all, the party’s nominee) as well… even those who had supported LIEberman in the primary and those (e.g., Dodd) for whom it was personally difficult because of longstanding prior relationships with Holy Joe. There was admittedly some schism at the local party level, particularly in towns whose Democratic Town Committees were dominated by older, more conservative Dems… but even that has had the salutary effect of motivating younger, more progressive Dems to get to work at the grassroots level, and by now some of those former “I’m Stickin’ With Joe” towns are vastly more progressive.
OTOH, nobody supported Schlesinger (except perhaps Alan himself). His own party didn’t even pretend to support him; if they had (or if they’d replaced him with a more viable Republican candidate), LIEberman would never have been reelected: It was mostly due to Republican support that he managed to win.
Can you deny that there are systematic barriers against reformers & “outsiders” seeking public office in today’s USA, even more against those who achieve it
There’s not much in this life is without barriers of some sort, but I have seen with my own eyes “reformers & ‘outsiders'” making real differences in the world, from high school students working as grass-roots volunteers right up through members of Congress. I would never argue against reasonable proposals to improve the system; I will always argue against abject despair over the system, because my own experience does not support it.
Have I mentioned that I live in Florida? Please don’t try to tell me that saying the game is rigged is any kind of “a priori assumption”.
<clinton>I feel your pain!</clinton> I lived in FL (in Palm Beach County) for 11 years before my company moved me to CT. (I got out just before the 2000 debacle.) IMHO, FL’s penchant for sending peckerheads to Congress has way more to do with the unnaturally high concentration of peckerheads in FL than it does with any “rigged” game.
Light one candle or curse the darkness… your choice. I’ve made my choice.
Bill Dauphinsays
SfO:
Against all odds, I enjoy watching poker on TV (who’d’ve thought other people playing cards could be a viable spectator sport?)… but it’s usually spoiled when the camera turns to Phil Hellmuth, who’s usually ranting semi-coherently about how everyone else at the table is an idiot who doesn’t know anything about the game. His schtick can be amusing in very tiny doses, but really it’s just boorish and unforgivably obnoxious. It dawned on me this evening, in reading your last reply to me, that you sound just like him. The only difference is, Hellmuth actually knows something about poker.
My time, I’m convinced, will be much better spent conversing with folks like Nick Gotts.
Nick:
but you’re equally wrong in your belief that the US political system is fundamentally sound.
I won’t pretend you and I don’t really disagree here, but I think my actual position is less pollyanna-ish than you imagine. I do believe that our “political system is fundamentally sound,” but by that I mean only that we have “good bones” in the form of the Constitution, not that our political culture is healthy and doesn’t need reform. IIRC, you think we’d be better off with a multiparty parliamentary system? I disagree, but the question is moot: Short of total social collapse (which I can’t, in good conscience, root for), we’re simply not going to throw out the Constitution and start from scratch. Ain’t gonna happen. So, as far as our basic political architecture is concerned, we’re bound to do the best we can with what we’ve got.
As it happens, I think there’s plenty that can be done.
Polls have shown that the majority of US voters believe that their interests are not represented within that system
Polls of how people feel about “government” in the abstract don’t reflect anything other than nearly 3 decades of insidious anti-government propaganda from the right. Ask folks how they feel about “big government programs” and the answer will be overwhelmingly negative; ask them about specific programs (and the services they provide) and you get the opposite result. Poll people about individual policy issues and the aggregate results are to the left even of leading “liberal” politicians; ask people if they are liberal and they’ll say “not only no, but Hell no!” Ask them (to your point) if “the Congress” represents their will and they’ll laugh in your face; ask them if their member of Congress represents them and they’ll generally say yes (hence the high rate of retention among incumbents).
More than any structural flaws in our political system, these dichotomies reflect careful propagation of the sainted Reagan’s “government is not the solution; government is the problem” meme. Having not lived in the U.S. (am I right about that?), I don’t think you can possibly understand how pervasive and sneaky the anti-government orthodoxy has become, even among those who are ostensibly not on the right. (And if that sounds a bit paranoid to you, I strongly recommend Thomas Frank’s The Wrecking Crew, which I’m about halfway through.)
As I say, it’s a problem with our political culture, more than with the basic structures.
and they are right, because to get to or near the top in US politics you either have to be one of the very rich, or to have their support.
Well, that’s certainly the stereotype, but I have not observed it to be true. My own congressman is a small-town lawyer of modest middle-class means, who served with distinction in the state legislature and ran once unsuccessfully for Congress before winning his seat in 2006. He has no particular corporate connections, and his campaigns have been funded largely (I want to say entirely, but I couldn’t prove it) by donations from individual supporters like myself. He is neither rich, nor the protege of rich folk; he’s successful because the people of his district know him and trust him.
Similarly, the two state representatives from my town are middle-aged, middle-class women (one a widow, the other a divorcee) who possess neither wealth nor connections to wealth, but who own the trust of their neighbors.
Ned Lamont, who nearly took Joe LIEberman’s U.S. Senate seat and even in defeat nevertheless changed the whole tenor of the 2006 national election, was wealthy (a self-made millionaire as an entrepreneur in the cable TV business), but his campaign was much more about the passions of young, grass-roots activists and bloggers than it was about money. Despite his ability to self-finance to a limited extent, he had no ties to political “old money,” nor any corporate support; you’d find few, if any, of his supporters who viewed that campaign as anything other than a righteous labor of love.
As I told Pierce, I would never argue against reasonable proposals to reform the system. But Scott’s neofeudalist vision isn’t reasonable, and though I know you’re a reasonable person, I don’t think any sort of fundamental restructuring of our system is a reasonable expectation. I also don’t think Pierce’s dark fatalism (as I perceive it) is a productive approach. So I feel bound to simply do the best I can with what we’ve got to move my society in the best direction.
My ultimate goals are radical, but my approach tends to be pragmatic (which often gets mistaken for timidity or naivete): The journey of a thousand miles not only begins with but a single step, it also includes all the other steps. Absent a TARDIS, we don’t get to skip any. And, BTW, some parts of the journey can be made over more than one path.
Robert Byerssays
He’s just picking Obama cause he couldn’t not support the black guy.
I always saw Powell as a quota up Jamaican American. He never was worthy of top position and never did anything militarily in winning battles or wars in which he was relevant.
He supported in a incompetent way the fraud of the neo conservative Jewish propaganda to help get iraq invaded. he was useless and unintelligent in the moment he should of been on the ball. His contribution to the injustice and disaster of the Iraq problem will define this otherwise small ethnic affirmitive action dude. Top jobs should not be about identity. This is why Obama is a disaster too come. Yet still better then bombs Iran neo conservative lover McCain.
What a grand mess on all sides.
From Canada with love
Waltonsays
Byers at #133: What the fuck are you talking about? “…the fraud of the neo conservative Jewish propaganda…” – You seem to have swallowed some of the bizarre anti-Semitic conspiracy theories prevalent on the Left. Try looking at the actual facts, or, better still, seek psychiatric assistance.
Colin Powell has dedicated his life to the service of his country. He is a man who deserves respect. I certainly don’t always agree with him, and being a McCain supporter myself I don’t concur with this endorsement. But your statements about him being “incompetent” and a “quota Jamaican-American” are both offensive and unsupported by any evidence. Tell me, how many years have you served in the military?
negentropyeatersays
Byers, as usual…
He’s just picking Obama cause he couldn’t not support the black guy.
strange, I don’t remember Powell supporting Jesse Jackson…
Waltonsays
Wow, it seems like for once Negentropyeater and myself are on the same side. :-)
He’s just picking Obama cause he couldn’t not support the black guy.
I always saw Powell as a quota up Jamaican American. He never was worthy of top position and never did anything militarily in winning battles or wars in which he was relevant.
Byers: A creationist, anti-semite and a racist. Who would’ve thought?
Three idiot views that go together.
Nataliesays
Scott:
I like how you misstate EVERY position I hold.
Yes or no–
[questions]
Scott, I fail to see how your questions are relevant. They don’t argue your point, nor do they counter my point. Do you just like to hear yourself talk, or are you trying to change the subject?
Which views of yours did I misrepresent or misstate, and how?
Hapsays
Walton,
If you can find anyone whose voices agree with Byers, you should recommend they receive treatment from a qualified mental health agency.
I know that Byers does have a side, since others of his way of …thinking show up on occasion, but I don’t think it’s on a planet with which most of us are familiar. People disagree with you, and sometimes impugn your argumentation, but I don’t think they believe you to be either immune to observable reality or batshit insane. Not so much with Mr. Byers.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Bill D @ # 131: Thanks for a detailed, fact-based, non-ad hominem rebuttal. Though I think we continue to disagree on numerous basic items (I still maintain that anyone really opposing the corporate agenda would be as notorious as Kucinich or Waxman), I respect somebody whose grasp of a topic exceeds a list of talking points.
Gotta say something about the Florida peckerheads, though: the reason we send so many to Congress is that we send so many to Tallahassee, where the district lines are drawn. That task was reasonably well handled by a non-partisan commission until about 30 years back, when the state legislature reclaimed and partisanized it – under the leadership of Democrats.
Multi-task: light candles and curse the damn darkness!
Soon, very soon, Cthulhu will endorse Obama …
Hey, an endorsement from the guy who sold America on the justification for the Iraq War. That’s reliability you can bank on!
He’s only endorsing Obama because they’re both black…is what some people will say.
I don’t think Powell is a perfect human, but he does seem to be somewhat honourable. However, he was snookered by Bush & Co. and he has very carefully timed his appearance to drive in the knife.
Good Job!
He gave a beautiful speech on Meet the Press. It brought a tear to my eye.
I’m still cheesed at him for trying to bullshit the UN about the Iraq war. Ugh.
I do think he’s right about Obama being more inclusive. The McCain-Palin campaign is getting very exclusive, very us vs. them, with all the talk about the “Real America.” (According to their definition of “Real America”, the people killed in the WTC attacks aren’t Real Americans, as they live in northeastern elitesville. Don’t badmouth New Yorkers and then roll around in their dead.) I cheered when Powell said, “All villages have values. Not just small towns.” Because I’m sick of hearing about how urban dwellers are all sinners or something.
Already Powell’s endorsement is being castigated as that of one African American for another!! Will stupidity never cease in this country?
Folks, if you can, check out the video in NY Times The Caucus. It complements well the video given by PZ here.
Colin Powell is the first person I have heard who came out with the positive statement that an American is an American, no matter what religion he/she may belong to or not. In current times of mindless frenzies, this was a welcome voice of reason.
I was beginning to doubt that you could be a man of integrity and a republican. But obviously you can. Politics would be so much more interesting if all politicians had the balls to be so honest about what is facts and what is oppinions.
O/t: I apologize profusely in advance
Have you seen this from WIRED?
This is SOOOOOO kewl…
“Soon, very soon, Cthulhu will endorse Obama …”
My favorite bumbersticker:
Vote Cthulu! Why settle for the LESSER evil?”
It won’t do any good. MCain has cleverly countered with an endorsement by a Mexican soap actress:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/19/mccain-counters-powell-en_n_135954.html
Rats! Foiled again!
woody @ #8
Yes, kewl, but PZ already posted about it here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/old_scientists_never_clean_out.php
Michele Bachmann is a truly execrable excuse for a human being. Watch her recent Hardball appearance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJIQm_7YAUI
Then consider donating to her worthy opponent, El Tinklenberg:
http://www.actblue.com/page/nonewmccarthy
Powell is a good man but did you hear what he said about taxes? How did this man survive as long as he did in the nutbar Bush administration? http://brainrageblog.blogspot.com/
Zar #5 wrote “He gave a beautiful speech on Meet the Press. It brought a tear to my eye.”
Wow, that was really something. I felt like standing up and applauding at the end of that.
#10:
Do you remember when McCain criticized Obama for being all about celebrity and image?
@3: “He’s only endorsing Obama because they’re both black…is what some people will say.”
rush limbaugh already did of course.
@5: “Because I’m sick of hearing about how urban dwellers are all sinners or something.”
now is probably a good time to refer to pol pot in a discussion… that was one of his key ideas. and… as we all know from ben stein and bill o’reilly… pol pot was an atheist.
Pssst…
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/our_local_horror.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/whoathis_is_better_than_crashi.php
Michele Bachmann on intelligent design
About Colin’s endorsement, I think it does make a difference and helps to diffuse some of the garbage the McCain-Palin campaign has been spewing.
Back when I lived in Arizona, many people gave McCain the benefit of a doubt after the Keating 5 scandal. It was a second chance for him to prove that he wasn’t the political whore that Keating made him out to be. Unfortunately, McCain has largely failed to measure up to the hopes and expectations that were set for him back then.
I think General Powell, despite his shameful role in pimping the Iraq invasion, deserves the same opportunity to redeem himself. I hope he has learned the lesson that most of us learn one way or another — that unquestioning obedience to authority often leads to a moral and ethical dead end.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/colin_powell_most_valuable_endorsement
Powell also endorsed the Iraq War. Why care about his opinion.
Colin Powell:
Fool me twice
ummmm
uhhhhh
…we don’t get fooled again
———————————————
Jeff Tamblyn ‘Kansas vs Darwin’ on Texas radio
Wow that was great. I hope Obama asks Colin Powell to be in his administration.
Jack Handy, #2: Hey, an endorsement from the guy who sold America on the justification for the Iraq War.
Maybe that’s why he’s endorsing Obama. If my boss made me make a fool of myself in front of the whole world, I’d probably hold a grudge, too.
McCain consoles himself that he has received the endorsements of other Republican Secretaries of State, such as James Baker and Henry Kissinger. But those endorsements were pre-Palin. Kissinger has spent time with Sarah Palin, giving her a tutorial in foreign affairs. He must have seen how stupid and ignorant she is. He must realised that she is a joke, completely unqualified for the huge responsibility of being ready, at a moment’s notice, to step into the presidency. As Colin Powell said, McCain has demonstrated his poor judgment in choosing her. Kissinger, and Baker and other senior Republicans, if they have an ounce of responsibility, should now withdraw their earlier endorsement of McCain, on the simple grounds that he has chosen a palpably, blatantly, embarrassingly unqualified running mate.
Now that Gen Powell has come over to the MSM’s side and endorsed their favored candidate, I doubt you will ever hear another word about his culpability regarding the Iraq War.
It’s funny thing, this whole business, because I’m a Conservative who loathes the McCain-youknowwho ticket (I can’t even bear to write her name) and will probably – sigh – vote for Obama.
But I have never seen the media behave as badly as it has during this election; their anointing of Obama and consequent wholesale abandonment of even the pretense of impartiality and “news reporting” makes O’Reilly & Limbaugh look like scholars.
Oh well. There’s always the sun…
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/the_sun.html
James Webb @13 – You have some hilarious stuff on your blog, I especially cracked up over the ukulele player.
According to polls, Powell enjoys one of the highest favorability ratings of any politician (80%).
Just 15% have an unfavorable view of Powell, despite his high-profile presentation of U.S. intelligence findings on WMDs to the UN prior to the invasion of Iraq. Findings which proved to be wrong subsequentely, but Powell didn’t get the blame for that presentation, afterall, he was only the messenger, and he was viewed later as the moderate voice of the Bush admin, countering the hawkish Cheney and Rumsfeld and stepping down in Jan. 2005.
And Powell has a high favorability accross all party lines, including independents (81%), which will help Obama especially with undecided voters and to counter all the negative “anti-american” negative attacks comming from the McPalin campaign.
If there was ONE endorsement Obama needed to get, it’s this one.
I didn’t see the ukulele player, dammitol™
My sweeping generalizations are as follows: Palin is a political choice, we all know it. Powell, despite THE INCIDENT, is and has, for a long time, been a very influential figure, appealing to all sides. Obama gets a lot of media attention because *SHOCK* he’s black and *SHOCK* we’ve never even had a black major party candidate, let alone one positioned to win the race for President. No one wants to get on the historical news bus after it’s a done deal- except that “News” org that gets its money elsewhere- because they’re fighting for credibility with their viewers. Oh wait, sweeping generalizations… oops
Obama was going to win anyway but this strong endorsement from Powell will definitely remove any doubts from thousands of undecided voters.
Brain @26: Oh, come on. The US press has been toothless and spineless for eight years. Finally, they’re getting frisky again. How you can compare that light of hope in their eyes with Limbaugh’s continual outpouring of shite is quite beyond me.
If you can stomach it, it’s worth watching the second video that you can see when this one minimizes at the end of its play: “McCain defends his campaign’s robocalls.”
The man has no dignity.
The dig at Bachman was awesome. It just makes me like Colin Powell that much more.
Will you Americans please note that his name is pronounced Colin, with the “o” as in “on”, not Coalin. (I know because he said so in an interview).
Colin still trips over his own tongue being an enabler and architect of an Illegal, Immoral, and indefensible war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
I have no respect for a man who will not admit his part in the Iraq occupation was a huge mistake.
Sorry General Powell, this support for Obama comes too late and too little to redeem yourself in my eyes. I suspect this is more about polishing your own reputation then helping Obama.
Capitol Dan, scroll further down on his site. The ukulele player has a kazu too, it’s funny as hell.
You mean like “Cowlin?” Like “Shaolin?” Like “towlin’?” And not like “bowling, mowing or snowing?”
Fork it! I’ll call him Powell.
Obama gets the Internet. He invented his campaign with it.
Powell does not get the Internet, not even now. If he had exploited the Internet in the runup to the Iraqi invasion, he would have seen the scams of Bush and Company and found a way to stop them. (Blackmail, for instance, the gift that keeps on giving. He’s smart enough, and well-respected enough in the military, that he could have threatened Bush with a military coup to eject Bush from office, restore the Constitution, bring home our troops, and go chasing the billions the Talibush was giving away to their sponsors.
When Powell gave into the warmongers, against his own better judgement, I lost all respect for him.
Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend already took a stroll through Freepland and picked up some fine nuggets.
I will not post any of the statements here. The last time I did that, some people thought that she was the one dropping those nuggets.
>>Wow that was great. I hope Obama asks Colin Powell to be in his administration.
BobC, you hit the nail right on the head. This is all about a job in the Obama administration. I guess I should be happy about anything that helps ensure an Obama win, and I am, but how any American still manages to maintain any hint of respect for Colin Powell absolutely baffles me. There is no more blatant political opportunist in this country than Powell. From the minute he resigned from the Joint Chiefs, he has gone around hitching his wagon to whatever horse was winning at any given moment. Earlier in the campaign, he gave $2300 to McCain. Now, with the election 2 weeks away and an Obama victory all but certain, he decides to hitch his wagon to Obama. Wow, who could have seen that one coming?
dreamstretch wrote:
Hmmm… I bet I know what kind of idiot would say something like that, hold on while I check his blog…
Yep, he did it:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2008/10/fear-of-black-cabinet.html
Michele Bachmann is just preaching what the GOP has been practicing for the last 8 years (at least), with her demonizing of anyone who doesn’t tow their line. Interesting that only now is the beltway gaining the backbone to challenge them on their statements.
My guess is much of the beltway establishment is more concerned about the negative effects of GOP policy on their own pocketbook, more than anything else. The rest is superfluous.
In any event, it should be lots of fun watching the GOP turn on each other…and then implode.
#39: Did you seriously just suggest that you’d find Colin Powell more respectable if he had blackmailed Bush with threats of a military coup to enforce his interpretation of the Constitution?
Words fail me.
seems so easy the way you write it…
“seems so easy the way you write it…”
Yeah, but what if you have to actually say it out loud?
. . .threatened with a military coup. Seems someones’ intellect has flown the coup.
Colin Powell, like John McCain, was one of Bush’s political enemies. Bush smeared McCain and McCain never had the spine to rebut the hack job. Colin was brought into the Bush admin. because of his respectability and was sorely used to sell the Iraq war. Used, with the admins’ calculation that either they win in their manufactured war (Powell does then not gain) or, they do not immediately win in Iraq (and Powell’s credibility is largely destroyed. The Bush admin. must always be interpreted in terms of deep paranoia and Machiavellian machinations. Powell is a man of integrity, has risen above the Bush calamity and his endorsement of OBama will carry weight. This we hope is the beginning of the end of McBane and Whailin.
By the way, the Freepers are going bat-shit crazy over this.
It’s like someone tapped on the glass of a fish tank. Except, the fish are really slimy and dumb. It’s embarrassing.
I don’t know if Powell will ever be able to redeem himself for his part in the invasion of Iraq. A truly moral person would have just resigned. It probably wouldn’t have stopped the war, but it would have certainly been a huge loss for the Bush administration.
If he is looking for redemption this is a good first step.
Powell was lied to and deliberately deceived. There is a good documentary on the run-up to the Iraq war as part of the PBS Frontline series.
I think if he wants redemption, blowing the whistle on his previous employer’s antics would be a good start.
I genuinely believe that Colin Powell regrets the hell out of his little fright show that day on the floor of the UN General Assembly. But, I really don’t know if he knew what was true or not at that point. Bush and Cheney collected only the intelligence that supported their case for war, and they made it so that there was no way anyone could question the veracity of that intel. And, Powell probably thought, like a lot of folks, that this war would be over in a week or two.
Still, that’s no excuse, but I am inclined to believe he fell victim to the same lies we all did.
Perhaps he was nothing more than an unwitting conspirator. It’s hard to say since he seems too damn smart to have been a part of that administration to begin with. He was an adult in a room full of children, and it’s hard to imagine Bush pulling a fast one on him.
Anyway, I’m with you. It is very hard for me to find a way of forgiving Colin Powell.
Whew, I just opened my ballet. It looks like one of the Dead Sea scrolls. Oregon has a ton of measures to vote on, and the language is always in high lawyer. I wonder why they can’t write this stuff in hillbilly so everyone could understand them?
Richard @ 25: Kissinger has spent time with Sarah Palin, giving her a tutorial in foreign affairs. He must have seen how stupid and ignorant she is.
Hmmmmm, you should check out Christopher Hitchens book on Kissinger, the guy has made a career as a co0mplete dumb-ass pretending to be smart.
It retrospect, he was wrong about everything, a complete disaster, an intellectual fraud.
Daniel Ellsberg expressed a similar low opinion of Kissinger as a fraud, having met with him.
If you listen to him on Charlie Rose or anywhere else, starting with the opinion that he’s a total buffoon, he makes perfect sense.
I’m not certain he is less stupid than Sarah Palin, just has more information, but he’s a much better con-artist.
____________________________________________
Jeff Tamblyn ‘Kansas vs Darwin’ on Texas radio
Powell admitted, well after the fact, that he knew there was flimsy justification for the war even as he lied through his teeth about it to the UN.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=1183
The hell with him and his endorsement–if it helps Obama win, then great, but it hardly makes up for what he’s done.
Because! If you could understand them, you probably wouldn’t vote for them. It’s usually the real crazy things that are written with that obscure legal dialect.
I forgive Colin Powell, for the same reasons I never hated Nader. Just as with Nader, in the end you blame the people who voted for Bush. Blame the people on the floor of the congress who voted for the war. In the end, whatever you think of Powell’s speech at the UN, remember that it failed.
I think the only reason that people choose to not to forgive him is because he’s a convenient target, as all reasonable people are. Somehow blaming the cartoon feels wrong, but it really is the cartoon’s fault, whatever Powell’s role. The buck stops at a certain point, and I reserve ALL of my ire for one George W. Bush.
It’s unfortunate that Powell’s endorsement will be reduced to race. I don’t think that’s likely the case at all. Obama’s foreign policy strategy (what little has been said of it – I’m assuming much is in accord with Samantha Powers) is almost identical to Powell’s. For the life of me, I can’t think of a significant departure. I’m surprised most Neo-conservatives haven’t already endorsed Obama. Maybe it’s party loyalty and domestic issues that hold the others back.
Remember, the Right only liked Colin Powell as long as he was a House Negro like Condi. But he was never in the loop to begin with — in Bush 43-1, his office may as well have been a sinecure for all the attention the Dubya administration paid to the State Department’s data wonks.
Welcome to the blue side of the fence, Gen. Powell. Try the bank regulations — they’re fresh.
A (flimsy) case can be made that Powell was taken in by Bush/Cheney’s deceptions about Iraq when he faithfully parroted them to Congress, the public, and the United Nations. It’s much harder to pretend that he was so innocent when he assisted Dubya Daddy’s violations of the Geneva Convention and other international law during the first US war on Iraq, and yet more difficult to hold him harmless for his role in Reagan’s Iran/Contra crimes (including his lies during the cover-up). Go back even further and review his part in attempting to deny, then whitewash, the My Lai massacre during the war against Vietnam, and the question becomes how a 40-year career war criminal could ever have been respected anywhere.
Consortium News has the besthard look at Powell’s career that I’ve found.
Should we give Powell credit for stating the obvious? No.
Compared to other republicans, the ability to state the obvious IS a major improvement.
The way he stated it and the gravtiy of his position is what he’s getting credit for.
Which one, – Swan Lake?
Ok, ok, cheap shot, but I couldn’t resist, as I imagined your finely shaped a . . . eh, posterior.
I don’t doubt that he has regrets over what happened before but to me he seems like a man trying to make things right.
My finely shaped and rounded bosom.
Ha! That is a dumbassed hillbilly spelling error. Ha!
See, during spelling class – I was out on the field twirling. But don’t tell.
Powell at least resigned after it became apparent that his UN speech was a willful fabrication provided by the pentagon. Rice didn’t resign when she was caught out about the extreme renditions.
“Meet The Press” today was a wonderful viewing experience.
I saw the post-taping, pre-broadcast statements from Powell on YouTube (having just caught the end of the TV broadcast on CNN).
Yo, Bachmann you ignorant (not to be confused with unintelligent) bitch, kiss your RINO-hating ass good-bye. And take the rest of the wacko “base” element that completely corrupted the concepts that Abraham Lincoln introduced with you – don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Oh wait! That would require an understanding of basic Physics.
I am *so* going to love placing the “x” on the “D” side of the ballot option for president, for the second time in 36 years.
“””What does it say about the health of our republic that in a year when congressional job approval is at 14%, over 90% of those in congress will be re-elected Even in this atypical election cycle, only a handful of seats are even considered to be in danger.
And yet, with the seeming inevitability of an Obama wave, most of the Democrats riding the change mantle are the same ones that are returned by voters year after year, which brings me back to the original point about false choices. The same voters enamored with Obama and his ethereal promises of change will sweep into the poles and elect the same two-bit hacks to run congress who have brought us to the brink of destruction by legislation and abdication.
I was visiting an early polling station in North Carolina this weekend and the Democrat Party was situated to stop every voter and hand them a sample ballot filled out to reflect the proper way to select the complete Democrat slate. In addition to Obama, that slate includes guys like David Price who has spent 20 years in congress and voted on every bad economic bill that came across his desk including the bailout – twice.
Anyone who is interested in change, should be interested enough not to send the authors of our destruction back to Washington, but they probably will.”””
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler:
A (flimsy) case can be made that Powell was taken in by Bush/Cheney’s deceptions
I’m with you, Powell was a playing politics throughout his army career, not a straight shooter.
In my opinion, the parody of him in Mars Attack was right on the money.
He was pretty deep into the ‘road of death’ in the first Gulf War, as well.
I’m certainly no fan of Sadaam, but slaughtering a retreating army, who are mostly conscripts, seems a bit unAmerican, if I may borrow the term.
Just what I like to see, a Republican with brains.
It seems ludicrous to define Colin Powell as black–a social construct if there ever was one.
Cool! I’m glad to see a few more Republicans endorsing Obama.
There aren’t many us us. Yes, I too saw the light.
I even have my kids in on the act…When my McCain leaning wife went shopping, I went to work.
Here’s what me and my girls recorded this weekend:
====================================================
Palin Obama McCain Skit:
“I think I saw a dinosaur”
John
Tampa, FL
^^…though a war monger none the same!
John @ 72
Those masks are great!!!
That cracked me up, John. You got the respective heights right. Obama’s the tallest and McCain’s the shortest.
Oh…I forgot.
Get Your FREE masks here: (PDF Format)
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/headcandy/
With the economy in the toilet like it is, FREE Halloween masks are the rage!
John
Tampa, FL
“We all make mistakes,” said the hedgehog as he crawled down from the clothes brush.
The only thing I still cannot understand is that with all the info available on McCain, how come some many can’t see the geriatric brat for what he is. As to the Moose Queen . . .
Is Powell’s rather measured comment on McCain a sign of respect for the brat, or just in the old tradition of not speaking ill of the dead (or brain-dead)?
Now it is just to make sure that enough Americans follow his example, and endorse AND VOTE FOR Obama!
Not only for USA’s sake, but for the rest of the world as well.
Fantastic to hear Powell speak up this way. Goes to show that this is not just another partisan election. He has a demeanor very similar to Senator Obama and it does not surprise me that this fantastic candidate resonated with him.
shonny (#77) regarding:
I think it is called cognitive dissonance (CD for short). Went through it myself in 2006 after Dawkins’ TGD captured my interest and TSG re-captured the cognitive part of my brain.
Tonight I had to take a kick at the CD that was hitting my husband who was in complete despair(he had moved past denial). Now he is really pissed. This is a (note to John) *good* thing.
I don’t think Bachmann is a horrible person (just seriously deluded), I’m very sad McCain chose to take the road he did and Sarah Palin might be good to know if we (as a species) choose to sink into our barbaric past (really, does anybody posting here actually know how to bring down and carve up a moose?) instead of moving on.
If Molly awards come up in the near future, my nomination would go to Patricia who, with a simple question, disguised as a statement, quelled my panic. Thank you Patricia.
What struck me about Powell’s comments were that they displayed a genuinely intellectual and relevant reflection, on many levels, on “why” and “how” facets of how he ultimately arrived at his decision. This belays the notion, as many on the right have suggested, that his endorsement is based solely on his race and ethnically shared connection to the first of his race to seek the highest office in the land.
For supposedly intellectual members of the right to advance such ridiculous and frankly racist evaluations of Powell’s choice, especially considering the unnaturally prompt and hasty nature of the offerings of their opinions, in this election shows me that we still have a great deal further to go in our national course toward true reconciliation between racially divergent cultures in this country, especially since these opinions have been advanced by supposedly educated and – we are expected to believe, unbiased – members of the mainstream conservative political intelligentsia in this nation.
No matter what your political beliefs are… if you use the phrase “the Democrat party” you reveal yourself as a person who has decided not to think for yourself.
You can hate the Democratic party and have come to that conclusion through rational thought, but if you hate the “Democrat party,” you’re a mindless follower who has merely been programmed.
A lot of egocentric loons here looking at Powell’s endorsement through their own narrow lens. It isn’t about Powell trying to make right or anything like that — as he said, he did and still does support the invasion of Iraq. As hard as it is for you self-centered twits to imagine, Powell doesn’t see himself through your eyes, he sees himself through his own — as a widely respected, influential national figure whose opinion has impact — clearly, if you take a look at how much is being written and said about it. And aside from all the ad hominem considerations, Powell’s repudiation of McCain’s smears — Ayres, socialist, Muslim, etc. — is valid on its own merits.
Posted by: PlaydoPlato | October 19, 2008 5:13 PM
Though I am by no means excusing him for the role he played in propelling our nation toward an unjust war (I am most certainly not such an individual by any means, for I am one who paid a dear and permanent price in that war), he eloquently and intelligently explained his reasoning behind his choice, while at the same time confirming that he is, in fact, still a Republican.
By the way, this illuminates the uncomfortable – in the terms of a simplistic, strictly bicameral way of thinking – fact that while Republicans are at odds with most of our inclinations, not all of them are “ReThuglicans. Even though I disagree with the Republican ideology, I consider Powell – in light of this – to be a quite intelligent and honorable human, and I sincerely wish more of the right shared his sort of thought process.
This belays the notion, as many on the right have suggested, that his endorsement is based solely on his race and ethnically shared connection to the first of his race to seek the highest office in the land.
Or that’s it’s to “redeem himself”, as a number of idiots here have suggested. Powell doesn’t even know these fools exist and has no need to “redeem himself”, as he has very high favorables, an unusually high approval as an American political figure. And I say this as someone who considers Powell to be war criminal (shooting Vietnamese civilians from a helicopter) who built his career on brown nosing. But, as you say, his comments “displayed a genuinely intellectual and relevant reflection, on many levels, on “why” and “how” facets of how he ultimately arrived at his decision”, and nothing about his past behavior lessens their validity — poisoning the well is a fallacy.
Even though I disagree with the Republican ideology
Yes, but so does Powell. It isn’t at all clear what he means when he says he’s still a Republican, beyond the fact that he’s registered as one.
In the end, whatever you think of Powell’s speech at the UN, remember that it failed.
Uh, say what? His speech was highly instrumental in rallying U.S. domestic support for the invasion.
Powell probably thought, like a lot of folks, that this war would be over in a week or two.
Doesn’t anyone pay any attention? He just said that everything was going great through the fall of Saddam’s statue, but “we” didn’t expect that there would be another phase of the war. Funny, because I expected it, but then I didn’t live in the echo chamber he did.
Powell is a man of integrity
Uh, no, really, he isn’t. That he isn’t doesn’t detract from the importance of his endorsement or the validity of his arguments in Obama’s favor, but your claim is pollyannish horseshit.
#39: Did you seriously just suggest that you’d find Colin Powell more respectable if he had blackmailed Bush with threats of a military coup to enforce his interpretation of the Constitution?
Words fail me.
Here’s one for you: consequentialist.
with her demonizing of anyone who doesn’t tow their line
toe — it’s a line, not a rope.
“Taxes are necessary for the public good”
Very right but seemingly an ignored truth in US.
Whoever is the next US president will have to raise taxes, and quite a lot – moreover, progressively too (that is, making the rich pay as they can afford it).
It’s always been clear to me that Powell was not in line with the neocons. His resignation in Jan 2005 is the best evidence, and this endorsement another one.
McCain pretended not to be in line with the neocons, but he let them run his campaign in the general election, his nomnation of Palin and the way he has run his 100% negative Obama attack campaign since then is the best evidence.
It was pittyfull to see McCain being interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Wallace showing him that his strategy of nominating Palin and going negative had not worked, McCain only capable of whining about the fact that Obama was buying himself the election (the $150 million fundraising in Sept) and answering that he thought his strategy had worked marvelously.
The downside is now that the low morale and resignation of the republicans will cause them to get even more dirty, if at all possible, having nothing to lose they’ll throw everything in. And that’s far more downside if there is also complacency within the Democrats.
#90 Although a line can be a rope as well.
That probably didn’t help… ;)
Although a line can be a rope as well.
But this one isn’t. Thus, “toe”, not “tow”.
Absolutely Jack Handy. Sweet sweet retribution for the logical fallacy that was his UN Security Councial presentation. Remember…”Based on this obscure aerial photograph, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” *Que the trumpets of conservative justification*
I say it’s the least Powell can do..
So, let me get this straight. Obama and his followers attacked Hillary endlessly for her vote on the Iraq resolution. Obama touted his superior judgment in speaking out against the war (remember that speech he gave in Chicago? Yea, me neither.)
Obama supporters blogged endlessly about Hillary and blamed HER for the war. They were viscous and vile. Hillary suffered in the primary for that vote. (people forgetting that Kerry and 75% of the Senate voted Yes also…)
But Obama pounded that point in the debates, over and over. She voted for the war, and he didn’t. (even managing to fool his supporters into believing he actually HAD a vote at the time)
So now Obama has the AUDACITY to accept an endorsement from a guy who was CRUCIAL TO HELPING US GET INTO WAR IN THE FIRST- a Bush apologist for years!!!!!!!!!!!!
Give me a break. what a sham obama is!!
Why do we care what this war criminal says?
Just in :
Charles Mason, Lex Luther and Ted Kuzinski support Obama.
What a bunch of pansies Liberals are… Powell put everything on the line when he went before the UN. He banked on his respectability, and a lot of people supported because of him. That’s fine, but when he turns out to be wrong on every single point he has two options – tuck his tail and never show up in public again (perhaps finding a job in clergy to try and atone), or turn around and hunt down the people who made him lose his cred. He’s done neither and he has proven himself without honor.
There are lots of smart, eloquent people to endorse Obama, we don’t need this poser.
The Powell endorsement is not about us, it is about those people who don’t accept the endorsement from “smart, eloquent people.”
Right-wingers don’t give a crap about what smart, eloquent people think. In fact, such people are routinely spat upon as elitest and other such garbage. However, Colin Powell to them is a different game. To them, his opinion matters, regardless of whether democrats have any respect for him or not (and mostly, they do). Powell is a right-wing poster child. Obedient to all get out. The only thing they can hold against him is that he is black. Look for the looney racists to come out now. Rush has started the charge, who will follow him?
truthmachine, OM @84,
“And I say this as someone who considers Powell to be war criminal (shooting Vietnamese civilians from a helicopter) . . .”
I haven’t heard this before. I tried looking for it, but couldn’t find any other mention of him doing what you say he did. I did see something where he was quoted as saying that sometimes soldiers would shoot at “MAM”‘s (military aged males) if they acted in a “suspicious” manner (which could mean simply trying to avoid getting shot to some of them). He seemed to excuse such behavior in light of some American soldiers getting shot by snipers while observing civilians from helicopters. I’d agree that such behavior would be a war crime, but trying to excuse it and committing such acts aren’t the same thing.
By the way, what does the OM you and a few other posters use mean?
Phaedrus, #97: What a bunch of pansies Liberals are…
Yeah, cause liberals had grave doubts as to which candidate to back until Powell clinched it.
To all those making this same comment: do people have to explain jokes to you, too?
Given the multiple quotation marks, it’s hard to know whether I’m replying to SfO himself or some unreferenced source from which he has cut-and-pasted, but with that said…
What it says is that the prophets of anti-government ideology have done a much better job of demonizing congress in the abstract than in convincing actual voters that their own congresspeople are evil.
In recent years (and for the first time in my life), I’ve actually gotten to know my own congressman (having helped, as a campaign volunteer, get him elected in 2006) and at least met and spoken briefly with three of my state’s other four representatives. What I’ve learned is that they’re all honest, committed, hardworking people… people of such quality that they almost certainly could’ve become richer and more famous (and perhaps even more powerful) doing something other than serving in the Congress, if wealth and fame and power were their primary motivations. I imagine that’s true of most (albeit no doubt not all) members of Congress… including even the ones with whom I have profound differences over policy positions.
So in the Land of Reagan, it’s easy enough to tell people that “government is the problem” as long as “government” is something abstract and remote. But when “government” means the friend and neighbor who represents them in Congress, people are less persuadable that there’s some fundamental evil lurking there.
I don’t know about false choices, but you’re promoting a false equivalency between changing the agenda and changing the people. With the exception of the first half of Clinton’s first term, Democrats haven’t controlled the agenda since the beginning of the 80s (and no, the current modest majority in the House and majority-in-name-only in the Senate do not constitute control of the agenda… not in the face of the most arrogantly dominant executive branch in my memory). Even Clinton (though I was a big fan) was a centrist who never presented himself as a major change agent. If you’re saying that even with an Obama administration, a real majority in the Senate, and an enhanced majority in the House, nothing much will change… well, I’m saying that’s batpuckey. Time will tell, of course (and FSM willing), but I’ll be shocked if it turns out that reelected incumbents in Congress will be able to thwart change in this case (or, for that matter, that any significant fraction of reelected Democratic incumbents would even want to).
BTW, the statistics on the power of incumbency can be deceptive: Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House. Change is in fact happening right in the face of your numbers that say it can’t. I suspect far fewer members of Congress than you think are “two-bit hacks,” and that those who are make up the majority of those incumbents who are at risk.
He’s shown remorse for his roll in starting the war, which is more than you can for most of the Bush administration.
Heleen@91,
‘”Taxes are necessary for the public good”
Very right but seemingly an ignored truth in US.
Whoever is the next US president will have to raise taxes, and quite a lot – moreover, progressively too (that is, making the rich pay as they can afford it).’
I don’t think anyone but the most hard-core libertarians disagrees with the statement you quoted. But you fail to mention how steeply progressive federal income taxes already are when you talk about the likely need to raise them. At my income level (just under $40k a year), being single with no dependents, I pay about 9.5% of my gross income to the IRS. This also works out to about 13.5% of my ‘taxable’ income after deductions, i.e. the actual tax rate. Even with the Bush tax cuts, the top rate is around 30%. (Just a note, but my tax rate under Clinton was 15% on about the same taxable income, and the deductions were fewer and smaller.) Conservative news sources like the Wall Street Journal frequently throw out statistics about how the top 5-10% of earners pay over half of all IRS taxes and such, and I’ve never seen anyone dispute that. Nor have I seen anyone disputing that 30% or so of all workers don’t pay any federal income tax at all.
And yet, Obama is proposing a plan that will ‘cut’ taxes for 95% of Americans? First, he has not adequately explained how his refundable tax credits for people not currently paying any tax are different from a new welfare program. Second, given his healthcare, these ‘cut’ taxes for everyone else, and other new spending proposals, just how much higher would taxes need to be on the top 5% to balance all of this out? What would that do to the amount of money being invested in creating new jobs?
Just as a clarification, by this…
…I meant this…
Beacon @ 96:
This may have escaped you, but Hillary is a Democrat and Powell is a Republican. Generally, one has different standards for those who claim to agree oneself than those who have always been upfront about their disagreement. Hillary, unlike Powell, does not think that the war was a good idea. Thus it seems completely reasonable to question why she voted in favor of it. Powell, OTOH, is still in support of the Iraq War, so his behavior in front of the UN is completely consistent, for him.
So, some random Obama supporters were, in your opinion, vicious… how is that relevant to this discussion? Is Obama responsible for what every single supporter of his says? Are any of those bloggers commenting on this website? Have any of those bloggers now lauded Powell for his support of the war?
Cite?
Yep, all those exclamation points really make your case.
Gah, grammar fail. “…those who claim to agree with oneself”, rather.
What would that do to the amount of money being invested in creating new jobs?
how much of that theoretical money WAS invested in creating new jobs under Bush?
supply side economics don’t work on that scale, we’ve seen that over and over again.
I suppose it should come as no surprise to me (even though I live in the Deep South) that my good Christian friend told me today that Powell endorsed Obama because “blacks always stick together” followed by a heavy dose of “I’m not racist but…”
I wonder if she realizes that, by considering all “blacks” to be incapable of thinking through issues and making decisions based solely on race, perhaps she is the biggest racist of all.
Bill Dauphin @101,
“BTW, the statistics on the power of incumbency can be deceptive: Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House. Change is in fact happening right in the face of your numbers that say it can’t. I suspect far fewer members of Congress than you think are “two-bit hacks,” and that those who are make up the majority of those incumbents who are at risk.
I’m assuming you meant in two election cycles that the balance in congress will have changed, since they have had a majority in both houses since the 2006 election.
Regardless, I do agree that Congress’s low approval rating is more of a reflection on the public’s opinion of the overall culture and effectiveness of Congress, rather than the performance of individuals. But really, that is the problem. The people that really wield the power in Congress are only accountable to a small part of the whole country, and they might be in highly partisan ‘safe’ districts (or strongly red or blue states for Senators). If and when it comes out which representative and senators held positions which made the financial crisis happen or be worse that it should have been, the only hope of actually getting rid of them in some cases might be if there is a viable primary challenger from within their own party. Just look at Pelosi’s district for an example. She’ll never lose her seat short of some major scandal, and maybe not even then, despite holding tremendous power in the House.
I missed the Michele Bachmann dig. Can someone point it out to me, please?
Here’s a transcript if that will help. TIA.
http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2008/10/19/transcript-colin-powell-on-meet-the-press-endorses-barack-obama-october-19/
my good Christian friend told me today that Powell endorsed Obama because “blacks always stick together”
Ask your friend when we can expect Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice to weigh in for Obama.
“Earlier in the campaign, he gave $2300 to McCain…”
Nothing like damning with faint praise!
“”Notwithstanding the appearance of low turnover, in fact, when the dust settles in just over two weeks, we will have gone from a Republican majority in both houses to a strong (and potentially filibuster-proof) Democratic majority in the Senate and a substantial Democratic majority in the House, in just two election cycles.””
I feel bad for you, Bill. I do. You are so into your democrat party that you can’t see the thorns covering your roses.
10.3 TRILLION in debt. 90TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.
Bad Federal government and ignorance along with a Federal Reserve that totally screwed the pooch and you are still enamored with your party and its fumbling ways.
Anybody with half a brain can see that BOTH parties totally fucked up this country, destroying the Bill of Rights and the ideals this country was founded on, enabling large corporations and banksters to reap huge profits and then covering their asses when they were about to lose money…
You are nothing short of an enabler, a well meaning sycophant who can’t even admit that the Democrats are a culpable bunch, voting for FISA, The Patriot Act, ad nauseum, spending this country into bankruptcy, precipitating and deepening a coming recession, behaving sadly comical while Bush and Co. ran around roughshodding the Constitution with the Democrats just conceding the power IF they could have more stuff to sspend money on.
You don’t have to be a Libertarian to see this. Just not stupid.
If you really don’t think anyone other than “hard-core libertarians” is reflexively anti-tax, I think you haven’t been paying attention. Or perhaps there are an awful lot of folks who are, at heart, “hard-core libertarians” who are unwilling to self-identify that way. In my experience (including a municipal election last year that was effectively a referendum on property taxes), there’s a lot of automatic (and, IMHO, not well thought out) opposition to taxes in general, and it’s far from limited to people who consider themselves politically radical. Many folks may consider taxes unavoidable, but will only call them “necessary” exceedingly grudgingly, if at all… and increasingly few think of government spending in terms of “the public good,” as opposed to thinking strictly in terms of what government does for them as individuals.
Yeah, and this strikes you as somehow confiscatory? Your level of income for a 1-person household is roughly equivalent to mine for a 3-person household. If you put any reasonable value on the benefits we get from the federal government, both directly (driven on an interstate highway lately?) and indirectly, I think the taxes we pay are an incredible bargain. It’s only by insisting — falsely, IMHO — that the government provides nothing of value that anyone can make any sort of case that our tax structure is extreme.
Yah, and what percentage of total earnings do those same people account for?
Yah, and how many of those are the working poor, or teenagers and seniors earning tiny amounts at part-time or temporary jobs? Lots of people earn enough to get a W-2 but not enough to pay taxes. That does not mean, as your formulation seems intended to imply, that they’re lazy freeloading slackers.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. If you think “welfare” is code for giveaways to lazy people, I suppose it is a bad thing… but this comment presumes that’s the case without any evidence or analysis to support that presumption. Refundable tax credits — effectively a negative tax rate — for the working poor strike many of us as just and reasonable in principle; absent some persuasive argument from you that Obama’s proposed credits are unfair, I can’t escape the conclusion that you’re just engaging in class warfare.
In fact, you’ve strung together a bunch of factoids as if you assume we’ll all agree that they’re troublesome. You remind me of a coworker, who once told me, during a budget fight in his town (the next town over from my own), how shocked he was to learn that 2/3 of the town’s budget was for labor… and 2/3 of that was for educators’ salaries!! He said all this as if it were obvious that spending most of the town’s budget on salaries, and most of that on teachers’ salaries, was excessive. He didn’t even bother trying to make an argument that the town had too many employees, or that they were overpaid; he took that as obvious from the numbers alone.
Of course, if you think about it for a moment, you realize that most of what the town government provides is services, and the biggest cost in providing a service is always labor, even in the private sector. Further, the largest (and arguably most important) service the town provides is public schools (here in Connecticut, public education is provided by towns; I recognize other states have different motdels). So once you get past the thoughtless incredulity, it makes perfect sense that towns’ largest expenses should be for labor in general, and labor in the schools in particular. Only if you start from a fundamentally anti-government, anti-public-education POV does it make sense for my friend to be “shocked, shocked!, to learn that we’re paying salaries with these taxes!!”
In the same way, you’ve thrown out a string of factoids that only mean what you (seem to) think they mean if you have an anti-tax, anti-government position to begin with.
Well, gee, I guess I whould be happy that you admit I’m well meaning, eh? What you (and political radicals of all stripes) can’t admit is that this, by specific constitutional design, is a fundamentally centrist nation. Hard as it might be for extremists to realize, that’s a Feature, Not a Bug™! Those of us interested in working for change in meaningful ways, as opposed to standing at the edges and screaming impotently at the middle, understand that we have to move the center (which is to say, the people) in the direction we prefer in measured, digestible steps.
To borrow an old proverb, it’s better to light one candle than curse the darkness. The Democrats I’m supporting promise to light a good deal more than one candle, so I prefer my approach to your decision to do nothing but curse the darkness you perceive.
Not faint praise at all: That amount represents the maximum an individual can donate to a campaign for a single election under our election laws. (Note, however, that the nomination contest and the general election coung as separate, so from beginning to end, the most an individual can donate directly to any presidential campaign during the complete election cycle is actually $4600.)
“”Well, gee, I guess I whould be happy that you admit I’m well meaning, eh? What you (and political radicals of all stripes) can’t admit is that this,””
There is nothing radical about pointing out a 10.3 TRILLION dollar deficit, or pointing out the sickness that pervades Washsington-the notion that Washington can “fix the problems that washiongton creates”- or of pointing out how supporting the status quo is enabling the status quo.
Nothing radical at all.
The Constitution was indeeed designed to hold a middle view, but that view is now ignorant and unwise.
If you think supporting the ignorant and unwise is justified because you “got involved”, you are mistaken.
You are an enabler of the highest order, and a sycophant.
The party you support has been complicit in running up the deficit AND removing your rights from underneath you, AND spending 10 billion a month on war, AND burning HUGE amounts of fuel daily running ships up and down coastlines, AND giving money to dictators, AND destroying the value of the dollar while silently allowing the Federal Reserve to print money to fund all the garbage Washington thinks is “helpful”, like farm subsidies to corporations who are in love with Washington…
It is nonsense and you know it, and yet, there you are, declaring that we need “roads” so we should all go along with all of the rest of this nonsense, because… well, you don’t want to be a “radical” and call bullshit on bullshit.
Roads are paid for by user fees (gas tax). War is paid for by borrowing money from other countries and then paying the interest on those loans by taxing common working folks.
The DOD takes 20 % of those taxes after all the interests is paid.
Another large chunk goes to paying high end prices on drugs for elderly people, because lobbyists can afford to live in Washington and pay for legislation…
Just as believing in God is considered the “centrist” view and atheism is considered radical, so too, we who call “bullshit” on all of you enablers and sycophants who want the broken federal Government to keep on shuffling money up the food chain are called “radical” and fringe, while the facts all point directly to our sanity and forebearance…
Stop shoveling power to a broken entity.
So did (does) Hitchens. But we care about his opinion on other matters.
And how is that any different from you, Scott, with your instance that every problem will be solved if we just abolish the federal government? That all problems are local, and people who don’t like their location can just up and move? That anyone who disagrees with you is a sycophant? That there are absolutely no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties?
Hope your enjoying that bed of thorns.
Bill Dauphin @ # 101: … I’ve actually gotten to know my own congressman … and at least met and spoken briefly with three of my state’s other four representatives. What I’ve learned is that they’re all honest, committed, hardworking people …
All I know about CT’s congresscritters involves your Senators, one of whom is among the most wretched and vile of that gang, the other having occasional flashes of decency and courage. It’s hard to imagine all of your House Reps being intrinsically noble, having passed through a filter made to eliminate boat-rockers & loophole-closers. Consider, however, that few or none would have made it to DC without skills at appearing “honest, committed, hardworking”.
Bill,
Of course SfO is wrong in his constant refrain that it makes no difference whether McCain or Obama wins, whether Dems or Reps control Congress – the last 8 years would have shown anyone with more than three brain-cells that it does indeed make a big difference – but you’re equally wrong in your belief that the US political system is fundamentally sound. Polls have shown that the majority of US voters believe that their interests are not represented within that system – hence the chronically low turnouts in Presidential and Congressional elections; and they are right, because to get to or near the top in US politics you either have to be one of the very rich, or to have their support. Hence also the justified anger that the Dem/Rep duopoly has practically made itself part of the constitution, and that where you live determines whether your vote counts for anything
SfO is of course also wrong in thinking that dismantling the federal government would put things right – it would just lead either to unmediated rather than mediated corporate rule, or possibly to the rise of a new dominant capitalist power to replace the USA. Scott is such a fine example of OWHITUSAC syndrome that I’d like to have him pickled – he’s shown not the slightest sign of realising that what is happening now is a global financial crisis. Moreover, behind that crisis and its possible consequence of a 30s-style depression is the far graver global environmental and resource crisis, which his “libertarian” nostrums cannot begin to address, or even acknowledge. Getting rid of the neocons is only a first, small, but entirely necessary step away from the abyss capitalism has led us to.
“And how is that any different from you, Scott, with your instance that every problem will be solved if we just abolish the federal government? That all problems are local, and people who don’t like their location can just up and move? That anyone who disagrees with you is a sycophant? That there are absolutely no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties?
Hope your enjoying that bed of thorns.”
I like how you misstate EVERY position I hold.
Yes or no–
The US is the BIGGEST debtor nation in the world?
The US killed 2 Million Vietnamese peasants.
The US military is in more than 130 countries, and routinely meddles in the affairs of other nations, often causing much bloodshed.
The US government takes taxes from hard working Americans and uses them to enrich corporations.
The US government gives US tax money to dictators.
The Federal Reserve is a non-elected, secretive agency that has more real power than the US government, and was responsible for the housing bubble by keeping interest rates artificially low, while handing out cheap printed cash…
The two-party polical system is not addressing these issues AT ALL. The corporate owned media isn’t either.
Neither is Mr. “Change”, the man y’all seem to think will be “different” because he is promising handouts from government…
Like we haven’t heard that before…
SfO:
You say your position is…
…but follow that claim immediately with this:
…which sounds distinctly more like a call to revolution than a nonradical political position.
The rest of your post amounts to personal attacks on my supposed ignorance and unwisdom, apparently because I refuse to buy into your utopian vision of a decentralized, neofeudalist land-without-a-state. Feeling “enabled” by your descent into ad hominem, I am now free to say bluntly that your vision is dumber than a sack of hair.
What’s more, even if it were a desirable future, it’s never going to happen. Railing away in support of an impossible future is a total waste of whatever energy you might have to offer the conversation. As I said before, it’s cursing the (illusory) darkness rather than lighting one candle.
Pierce:
I have a sneaking suspicion you and I disagree about which one is “wretched and vile.” I won’t try to defend Dodd’s mortgage issues (mostly because I simply don’t have enough facts to have an informed opinion), but at least he makes an honest attempt to actually represent the people who elected him. If you think there’s anything even occasionally decent or courageous about Sen. LIEberman’s recent behavior, you clearly weren’t in CT to listen to the outright lies he told the voters to get elected, nor to witness the neck-snapping speed with which he abandoned them once his seat was secure. Not only has LIEberman dishonored his own prior record and the trust of CT voters, he’s also despoiled the very concept of bipartisanship: Because of his example, now anyone who talks about bipartisanship is suspected of being the same sort of traitor to his/her party that LIEberman has proven to be.
Circular logic: You don’t believe they’re good guys because of your a priori assumption that good guys can’t be congressmen.
Look, I’ve never claimed that everyone in Congress is One Of The Good Guys™ (witness the above rant about Holy Joe); I only claim that many of them are, and that the blanket slagging of Congress as a bunch of craven bastards is both unwarranted and unproductive.
My own congressman is, to my direct personal knowledge, a person of the utmost integrity and commitment. The three other current House Democrats from CT (whom I have only met briefly) are held in similar esteem by people whose opinions I trust. If your congressman is a lousy bastard, why don’t you do something about it, instead of making snarky comments about mine?
By sheer coincidence, I happened upon this link within moments after posting my rant (@123) about Sen. LIEberman. Enjoy!
PS to Nick: Your comments (@121) demand a thoughtful response. Perhaps after dinner…
…but follow that claim immediately with this:
The Constitution was indeeed designed to hold a middle view, but that view is now ignorant and unwise.
“That view” means the current “middle of the road” view, which, as I’ve said many times, has eschewed the Constitution completely. There is no more 4th or 5th Amendment. No right to privacy. The enumeration of powers has been pissed on…
What you are claiming is that holding a stricter Constitutional view is “radical”. That’s how far you’ve managed to fall.
Chris Dodd IS at the epicenter of the housing bubble. Anyone who supports that idiot deserves a bath in a bucket.
He is at the center of the bubble, AND the center of the bailout. Double whammy idiot.
And you blindly follow, a sheep with stars in your eyes…
Sad.
Now go answwer my questions and tell me how much you love giving power to a central authority who abuses it on a regular basis.
Bill D @ # 123: If your congressman is a lousy bastard, why don’t you do something about it, instead of making snarky comments about mine?
Because without knowing names or parties of yours (say, the whole CT delegation), I know I’d’ve heard of them if they were attempting to do any of the things so urgently needed today, starting with work to enforce the Constitution (that “high crimes & misdemeanors” part, f’rinstance), get the US out of Iraq & into Kyoto, or raising hell on any of a hundred issues.
It’s also a very safe bet that all are in harmony with what we fondly call the “financial community”, which puts their interests directly at odds with those of the majority of the country.
Did any of CT’s Dem delegation go all-out to help Ned Lamont – or Repubs for Alan Schlesinger?
As for my “… a priori assumption that good guys can’t be congressmen… – haven’t you noticed the bias around here against extrapolations from insufficient data, even in the sake of righteous naivete? Hey, I used to live in Pete McCloskey’s district!
Can you deny that there are systematic barriers against reformers & “outsiders” seeking public office in today’s USA, even more against those who achieve it – and that through long practice those barriers are effective?
As for my nominal Representative, she seems to have started out with respectable intentions and to have succumbed to Beltway cronyism; at any rate, I reside in a gerrymandered panhandle of her district far from the urban center of her base. Having made a small donation to an adjoining district’s Dem, I may have done more for his campaign than his so-called party, which has surrendered that district to a Bush sockpuppet since the state Repubz gerrymandered it back in the Raygun era.
Have I mentioned that I live in Florida? Please don’t try to tell me that saying the game is rigged is any kind of “a priori assumption”.
I wonder if she realizes that, by considering all “blacks” to be incapable of thinking through issues and making decisions based solely on race, perhaps she is the biggest racist of all.
Why don’t you tell her? Afraid of losing the friendship of “the biggest racist of them all”?
Conservative news sources like the Wall Street Journal frequently throw out statistics about how the top 5-10% of earners pay over half of all IRS taxes and such, and I’ve never seen anyone dispute that.
What’s to dispute? Now, how much of the society’s wealth do they possess, and how much of the benefit of federal spending do they reap? Far more than 50%.
Nor have I seen anyone disputing that 30% or so of all workers don’t pay any federal income tax at all.
Yeah, income tax. But they pay other sorts of federal tax, cherry picker.
He’s shown remorse for his roll (sic) in starting the war, which is more than you can for most of the Bush administration.
No he hasn’t. He just said that he was and still is in favor of the invasion.
SfO,
That’s not the deficit, but the national debt.
And if you had any real interest in these figures, you would notice that the last two democratic presidents kept both the debt and the budget deficit under control, whereas the republicans didn’t, Bush breaking all records of budget mismanagement and of letting the national debt explode.
Pierce:
So your position is that you know something about my rep specifically because you’ve never heard of him? There are 435 members of the House; you assume that any of them who hasn’t made big headlines is worthless? And then you want to lecture me about “extrapolations from insufficient data”?
For your information (should you care to have any), four of CT’s five representatives are Democrats, two of them (including my own rep, Joe Courtney [CT-2]) 2006 freshmen who defeated incumbent Republicans. The fifth, Chris Shays, is the last remaining Republican member of the House from anywhere in New England… and FSM willing, he will shortly be replaced by Jim Himes, a businessman-turned-progressive-politician very much in the mold of (and overwhelmingly supported by fans of) Ned Lamont. Assuming Himes wins, we will have turned a 3-2 Republican majority delegation into a 5-0 Democratic majority in just two election cycles.
Courtney and fellow freshman Chris Murphy (CT-5) ran strong anti-war campaigns (and yes, both strongly supported Ned Lamont); both are strongly pro-labor and both are vocal advocates for universal healthcare. They were leading voices (at least locally) during the attempt to reauthorize and expand SCHIP over Bush’s unconscionable vetoes. I’m absolutely convinced that both will be great progressive legislators for a long time to come. The fact that you haven’t heard of them probably has more to do with the fact that they’re freshmen than with their positions.
A losing bet on your part. Courtney was one of the Democrats who voted against the bailout — both times — despite the wishes of the leadership and the fact that doing so gained him no electoral advantage (opinion in the district was roughly evenly split). I’m not actually sure I agree with that vote — I’m fairly well convinced the bailout was a necessary, albeit odious, step — but I am absolutely certain Courtney’s vote was cast based on careful study of the issue, and that it was a deeply principled act.
As I’ve already mentioned, Courtney and Murphy were strong supporters (as a Courtney campaign volunteer, I participated in numerous canvassing and phonebanking sessions coordinated with the Lamont campaign); IIRC, all the rest of the congressional delegation and other high-level state Dems supported Lamont (who was, after all, the party’s nominee) as well… even those who had supported LIEberman in the primary and those (e.g., Dodd) for whom it was personally difficult because of longstanding prior relationships with Holy Joe. There was admittedly some schism at the local party level, particularly in towns whose Democratic Town Committees were dominated by older, more conservative Dems… but even that has had the salutary effect of motivating younger, more progressive Dems to get to work at the grassroots level, and by now some of those former “I’m Stickin’ With Joe” towns are vastly more progressive.
OTOH, nobody supported Schlesinger (except perhaps Alan himself). His own party didn’t even pretend to support him; if they had (or if they’d replaced him with a more viable Republican candidate), LIEberman would never have been reelected: It was mostly due to Republican support that he managed to win.
There’s not much in this life is without barriers of some sort, but I have seen with my own eyes “reformers & ‘outsiders'” making real differences in the world, from high school students working as grass-roots volunteers right up through members of Congress. I would never argue against reasonable proposals to improve the system; I will always argue against abject despair over the system, because my own experience does not support it.
<clinton>I feel your pain!</clinton> I lived in FL (in Palm Beach County) for 11 years before my company moved me to CT. (I got out just before the 2000 debacle.) IMHO, FL’s penchant for sending peckerheads to Congress has way more to do with the unnaturally high concentration of peckerheads in FL than it does with any “rigged” game.
Light one candle or curse the darkness… your choice. I’ve made my choice.
SfO:
Against all odds, I enjoy watching poker on TV (who’d’ve thought other people playing cards could be a viable spectator sport?)… but it’s usually spoiled when the camera turns to Phil Hellmuth, who’s usually ranting semi-coherently about how everyone else at the table is an idiot who doesn’t know anything about the game. His schtick can be amusing in very tiny doses, but really it’s just boorish and unforgivably obnoxious. It dawned on me this evening, in reading your last reply to me, that you sound just like him. The only difference is, Hellmuth actually knows something about poker.
My time, I’m convinced, will be much better spent conversing with folks like Nick Gotts.
Nick:
I won’t pretend you and I don’t really disagree here, but I think my actual position is less pollyanna-ish than you imagine. I do believe that our “political system is fundamentally sound,” but by that I mean only that we have “good bones” in the form of the Constitution, not that our political culture is healthy and doesn’t need reform. IIRC, you think we’d be better off with a multiparty parliamentary system? I disagree, but the question is moot: Short of total social collapse (which I can’t, in good conscience, root for), we’re simply not going to throw out the Constitution and start from scratch. Ain’t gonna happen. So, as far as our basic political architecture is concerned, we’re bound to do the best we can with what we’ve got.
As it happens, I think there’s plenty that can be done.
Polls of how people feel about “government” in the abstract don’t reflect anything other than nearly 3 decades of insidious anti-government propaganda from the right. Ask folks how they feel about “big government programs” and the answer will be overwhelmingly negative; ask them about specific programs (and the services they provide) and you get the opposite result. Poll people about individual policy issues and the aggregate results are to the left even of leading “liberal” politicians; ask people if they are liberal and they’ll say “not only no, but Hell no!” Ask them (to your point) if “the Congress” represents their will and they’ll laugh in your face; ask them if their member of Congress represents them and they’ll generally say yes (hence the high rate of retention among incumbents).
More than any structural flaws in our political system, these dichotomies reflect careful propagation of the sainted Reagan’s “government is not the solution; government is the problem” meme. Having not lived in the U.S. (am I right about that?), I don’t think you can possibly understand how pervasive and sneaky the anti-government orthodoxy has become, even among those who are ostensibly not on the right. (And if that sounds a bit paranoid to you, I strongly recommend Thomas Frank’s The Wrecking Crew, which I’m about halfway through.)
As I say, it’s a problem with our political culture, more than with the basic structures.
Well, that’s certainly the stereotype, but I have not observed it to be true. My own congressman is a small-town lawyer of modest middle-class means, who served with distinction in the state legislature and ran once unsuccessfully for Congress before winning his seat in 2006. He has no particular corporate connections, and his campaigns have been funded largely (I want to say entirely, but I couldn’t prove it) by donations from individual supporters like myself. He is neither rich, nor the protege of rich folk; he’s successful because the people of his district know him and trust him.
Similarly, the two state representatives from my town are middle-aged, middle-class women (one a widow, the other a divorcee) who possess neither wealth nor connections to wealth, but who own the trust of their neighbors.
Ned Lamont, who nearly took Joe LIEberman’s U.S. Senate seat and even in defeat nevertheless changed the whole tenor of the 2006 national election, was wealthy (a self-made millionaire as an entrepreneur in the cable TV business), but his campaign was much more about the passions of young, grass-roots activists and bloggers than it was about money. Despite his ability to self-finance to a limited extent, he had no ties to political “old money,” nor any corporate support; you’d find few, if any, of his supporters who viewed that campaign as anything other than a righteous labor of love.
As I told Pierce, I would never argue against reasonable proposals to reform the system. But Scott’s neofeudalist vision isn’t reasonable, and though I know you’re a reasonable person, I don’t think any sort of fundamental restructuring of our system is a reasonable expectation. I also don’t think Pierce’s dark fatalism (as I perceive it) is a productive approach. So I feel bound to simply do the best I can with what we’ve got to move my society in the best direction.
My ultimate goals are radical, but my approach tends to be pragmatic (which often gets mistaken for timidity or naivete): The journey of a thousand miles not only begins with but a single step, it also includes all the other steps. Absent a TARDIS, we don’t get to skip any. And, BTW, some parts of the journey can be made over more than one path.
He’s just picking Obama cause he couldn’t not support the black guy.
I always saw Powell as a quota up Jamaican American. He never was worthy of top position and never did anything militarily in winning battles or wars in which he was relevant.
He supported in a incompetent way the fraud of the neo conservative Jewish propaganda to help get iraq invaded. he was useless and unintelligent in the moment he should of been on the ball. His contribution to the injustice and disaster of the Iraq problem will define this otherwise small ethnic affirmitive action dude. Top jobs should not be about identity. This is why Obama is a disaster too come. Yet still better then bombs Iran neo conservative lover McCain.
What a grand mess on all sides.
From Canada with love
Byers at #133: What the fuck are you talking about? “…the fraud of the neo conservative Jewish propaganda…” – You seem to have swallowed some of the bizarre anti-Semitic conspiracy theories prevalent on the Left. Try looking at the actual facts, or, better still, seek psychiatric assistance.
Colin Powell has dedicated his life to the service of his country. He is a man who deserves respect. I certainly don’t always agree with him, and being a McCain supporter myself I don’t concur with this endorsement. But your statements about him being “incompetent” and a “quota Jamaican-American” are both offensive and unsupported by any evidence. Tell me, how many years have you served in the military?
Byers, as usual…
strange, I don’t remember Powell supporting Jesse Jackson…
Wow, it seems like for once Negentropyeater and myself are on the same side. :-)
Byers: A creationist, anti-semite and a racist. Who would’ve thought?
Three idiot views that go together.
Scott:
Scott, I fail to see how your questions are relevant. They don’t argue your point, nor do they counter my point. Do you just like to hear yourself talk, or are you trying to change the subject?
Which views of yours did I misrepresent or misstate, and how?
Walton,
If you can find anyone whose voices agree with Byers, you should recommend they receive treatment from a qualified mental health agency.
I know that Byers does have a side, since others of his way of …thinking show up on occasion, but I don’t think it’s on a planet with which most of us are familiar. People disagree with you, and sometimes impugn your argumentation, but I don’t think they believe you to be either immune to observable reality or batshit insane. Not so much with Mr. Byers.
Bill D @ # 131: Thanks for a detailed, fact-based, non-ad hominem rebuttal. Though I think we continue to disagree on numerous basic items (I still maintain that anyone really opposing the corporate agenda would be as notorious as Kucinich or Waxman), I respect somebody whose grasp of a topic exceeds a list of talking points.
Gotta say something about the Florida peckerheads, though: the reason we send so many to Congress is that we send so many to Tallahassee, where the district lines are drawn. That task was reasonably well handled by a non-partisan commission until about 30 years back, when the state legislature reclaimed and partisanized it – under the leadership of Democrats.
Multi-task: light candles and curse the damn darkness!
@Walton
…the bizarre anti-Semitic conspiracy theories prevalent on the Left.
I can’t speak for Britain, but in America anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are a specific design feature of the Right.