I agree 100%. President Bush was presented with an opportunity to unite the entire country in a way that hadn't been done since Pearl Harbor. Hell, 90% of the world was with us.

Instead he and his advisors saw it as an opportunity for the GOP and pissed away every last bit of goodwill within the country and through-out the rest of th world. And every other Republican in the country jumped right on board thinking that it would give them a permanent majority.

Fuck them all.

Click. The. Link!!

So there!

GOP '06: MAJORITY RULES...BUT DON'T BLAME US

Ditto.

It the GOP who should be pissed at Bush/Cheney/Rove. Shortly after 911, I thought, "Good Gawd, if Bush does the right thing now, we'll have GOP Presidents for the next couple decades." But true to form, Bush/Cheney/Roves uses 911 for short term partisan gains and the ridiculous Iraq Invasion and piss away all the good that could have come out of 911. You're doing a heckuva job, W.

And Bush? Within a few months of 9/11 Karl Rove was telling party members what a great issue terrorism would be for Republicans.

This sounds like a 6-year old, but, it's true, so... Democrats started it. I remember vividly the Democrats' partisan sniping as soon as Afghanistan began. And it hasn't stopped to this day.

Imagine what would have happened if Democrats had tried to get along with the Bush Administration. We genuinely could have fought the war on a bipartisan basis. But you people on the left ruined that.

I'm disgusted by how commemoration of 9/11 has become another feather in the cap of Osama Bin Laden. When Clinton was fighting OBL, including attempting to kill him, I didn't know OBL's name. Now, he's known the world wide and lionized in a lot of places, and that's for three main reasons: the successful attack on the US in 2001, Bush's bungled attempt to capture or kill him (so he's still alive to be lionized) and Bush and his enablers talking about the fucker all the time! Osama Bin Laden - as big as Hitler! Hitler threw half the world into war with a country behind to use as a war machine. According to the Repugs, OBL can do the same thing from a cave somewhere, a cave that the most powerful country in the world can't find (although maybe we could if we actually tried.)

OBL was successful beyond his wildest dreams because of Bush and his cronies, and that's the real tragedy of 9/11.

Days after Pearl Harbor that Japan surrendered: 1,365

Days since 9-11, that Bin Laden has remained ALIVE: 1800+

The very idea that chasing down Al Qaeda is a national ‘war’ is itself a PR concoction to keep Republicans in power. They are not exploiting the “War on Terror” for partisan purposes; they invented it for partisan purposes. They mixed and confounded various Middle Eastern regimes, political struggles, resistance forces and the North Koreans with the gang of Saudis that perpetrated 9/11 to take care of pre-existing agendas. At the top of that list is winning elections, so the “War on Terror” exists to give power to Republicans. If Mr. Cheney’s sentiments are properly understood, they intend to have absolute power.

GOP '06: SWALLOW HARDER

Just dropping by to hear what Al has to say.

EVER NOTICE:

BUSH NEVER SAYS AMERICA WON'T BE AFRAID...

BUSH NEVER SAYS AMERICA WON'T BE TERRORIZED...

Al:Errr. No it's not. At the time, Democrats, at least the precursors to the blogosphere, (you're talking to us. So talk to us). were pretty solid on support of the Afghanistan operation, at least until the disaster that was Tora Bora.

Once again Al proves that Republicans are lying sacks of shit.

They didn't used to be that way. Not until team Nixonand the college Republicans of that era decided that winning was more important than anything else.

Al is just one more bastard child of tha era.

gop: no terror attacks inside the usa in the 5-years since 9-11

fact: no terror attacks inside the usa in the 5-years before 9-11...either...

Tora Bora wasn't a disaster. It went exactly as planned.

James Joyner has demonstrated many times that he is a partisan, clueless, fucktard.

One further thing. The feeling about Bush was that after 9/11, everything changed. We were a bit tepid, but we were more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

We were entering serious times, and we were expecting the Bush administratiion to kind of reinvent itself for those times.

We were wrong.

Osama's living in a rented ranch house in Utah in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

His new American name is Al Kida.

Bob

When the Republicans use 9/11 and religion as partisan weapons, when they take possession of them, they become theirs.

To me 9/11 and Christianity are no better than flag burning and Willie Horton. From now on I'm going to ignore 9/11. To get all worked up about it every year only helps OBL and the Republicans. I ain't playing their game.

Disputo:To me it was a disaster.

The very idea that chasing down Al Qaeda is a national ‘war’ is itself a PR concoction to keep Republicans in power.

BINGO!

According to an editorial by that conservative/libertarian guy that rights for the NYT occassionally, more Americans have drowned in their bathtubs than the number of people worldwide killed by Al Quaeda or aligned groups since 9/11.

Relentless attacks on critics and even skeptics for five straight years. Their foreign policy is "shoot first, ask questions never." Their domestic policy is "ask questions, get shot."

It's been years in the making, but our political process has been completely reduced to "tastes great vs. less filling, with Republicans on both sides of that trivial choice". The Democrats are dead, they just don't know it yet. The Republicans have the manly man brand sewn up, and as long as white males worried about losing their erections and entitlements are more likely to vote (or donate, or control voting), the GOP will dominate elections.

It's time for the rise of the Libertarian Liberal. You'll know it's too late to organie when the GOP starts talking about their version of gun control, which will undoubtably require various tests that prevent non-sheep from owning firearms.

Paranoid? Hell yes. But being paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you.

Sorry, Mr. Perspective, but that isn't true. Terrorists tried to take down the WTC in 1993, but their bomb didn't work very well and they're all in jail now. Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, but he was executed. 'Course, those both happened on Bill Clinton's watch so the fact that the perpetrators were captured and prosecuted in courts of law (without the use of torture) doesn't really count.

Look, Bill Clinton had oral sex!!!

You are much, much too kind to these animals.

I don't really see the country EVER recovering from the bush presidency. Our children are going to be living in a very different nation that we were born in. In terms of the history of the United states, 911 will represent a more significant divide than any other event in our nations history, even greater than the Civil War. Not because of the event itself, as significant as it was, but because of Bush's reaction to it.

Bipartisanship is (thankfully) dead for the next two generations.

Bush did exactly what a narrow minded, thoughtless person would do.

9/11 was about Bush and the GOP; Not America.

It never has dawn on Bush that he's President of a nation. As far as Bush can preceive he's the president of a country club called GOP which just happens to be in a nation called America.

Anything else is just background noise to him.

The real question in November is how much damage the GOP did to itself as a national party.

November could signal the beginning of a long decline for the GOP in national politics. Just like in the 1960's.

BTW- Where IS Bin Laden?

In concept, GWB has two roles...that of president (and de facto leader of his party) and as commander in chief (leader of the military and unifying leader of us all). He often confuses the two, and in my view this is why the country suffers. I did not vote for him, but I would support him if he had the ethical courage to approach these issues above the fray. Our times have called for leadership, someone to stand as commander in chief in actions as well as name. But even now Bush has not risen to the challenge, and this is why there is such dissension.

Kevin,

You nailed it for me. Of all the reasons I am ticked, the betrayal of my trust and the use of a day that was the most horrible I have ever witnessed for cynical, political purposes is the worst of all.

It's like a punch in the gut since I, as did the majority of Americans, trusted Bush to do it right, we should have known better.

Say Kevin, if you or Spencer think you're going to win over anyone who voted for W with this stuff you're sorely mistaken.

"Bush prevented you from healing."

From healing? Are you serious? Is this a parody of the CodePink site? Am I reading ScrappleFace? I can see the adverts now:

Vote Republican if you want to win the war against terror.

Vote Democrat if you think it's time to stop and let the 'healing' begin.

My reaction: what took so-called "centrists" so long to notice?

Parisians watch complaints tonight, then cite the one President's speech. It's a reminder of childhood, like a an early evening in summer, when even the ice cream sellers pause and take notice of the beauty and aroma, not the gas fumes and sticky fingers.

Vote Republican if you want to win the war against terror.

Because they have done such a bang up job so far, right? It's time to have a resurgence of Cult Deprogramming groups. The Current GOP cultists make the Moonies look rational.

Funny you should mention this. I blogged today from a quantum universe in which the President of the United States made good decisions after 9/11. It's a tough thing to contemplate.

karmakin: We were entering serious times, and we were expecting the Bush administratiion to kind of reinvent itself for those times.

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound perch in my lake."

- G.W. Bush 5/7/06

Kevin wrote: "My biggest disappointment of the past five years ..."

There is no reason to be disappointed since there was never any reason to expect anything better from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, both of whom are career corporate criminals and war profiteers, both of whom came to power through the blatant theft of a presidential election, and who, once having gained that power, immediately set about abusing it for corrupt purposes of private financial gain for themselves, their cronies and their financial backers.

There were many people who said, immediately after the 9/11/2001 attacks -- and indeed some expressed this view on that very day -- that the Bush administration would make much the same use of it that Hitler's administration made of the 1933 Reichstag fire, and they were quite right.

The Bush Administration's Policy For Just About Everything: (sticks hand in pocket, pulls out keys, jingles them,) "Look! Shiny!"

Let Osama get away? No problem!
"We'll begin marketing the war in the fall."
Andy Card (jingle!)

Political cronies completely expose your incompetence at FEMA? No problem!
"The threat is real." (jingle!)

And so on, ad nauseum. Works great on sheep like Al and SunBeltJerry. Me, I'd like results.

Osama Bin Laden killed a freind of mine five years ago today. I want his head on a fucking stick. This administration has utterly failed to deliver.

That's what makes me mad.

GOP '06: IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...

...VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN!

GOP '06: MORE DEBT AND DEATH SINCE 2001

thomas1,

Watch the President's speech tonight and then cite ONE partisan complaint.

Is the challenge to limit our examples of partisanship to only one citation? Or do you truly believe that it will be nigh impossible to even cite one example?

By the way, Thomas1;
Pi is still 3.0. Bible's still wrong.

Bin Laden still alive, Bush's still incompetent.

Don't watch the hand that is waving to get your attention - watch the hand that is hiding the cards. The whole point of the GOP campaigns since the 60s has been to take all power and to hold it. That has always been the goal of Atwater, Gingrich, Delay and Rove. The story about James Baker in this issue of the Monthly is just another illustration of that (setting up the Party to survive GWB's disaster).

Why is anybody surpised that they would use the GWOT also as a tool to gain more power for themselves and reduce the power and effectiveness of their political opponent?

Former Speaker of the House is credited as having said "all politics is local", and the GOP is simply using this - the GWOT - as an avenue to generate more local political gains, where local is defined as anywhere the Republican Party operates.

GOP - HOME OF THE WHOPPER

GOP '06: SURE IT HURTS...YOU'RE GETTING SCREWED BY AN ELEPHANT

Don't watch the hand that is waving to get your attention - watch the hand that is hiding the cards.

I would like to thank the Bush Family and the American Press for glorifying our warrior status and keeping you infidels terrorized.

Thanks, GOP. We couldn't have done it without you.

There is no reason to be disappointed since there was never any reason to expect anything better from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, both of whom are career corporate criminals and war profiteers, both of whom came to power through the blatant theft of a presidential election, and who, once having gained that power, immediately set about abusing it for corrupt purposes of private financial gain for themselves, their cronies and their financial backers.

SA - sometimes, it's good to know that there's at least one other person out there who "gets it".

thomas1: I think you are going to be surprised.

so he's gotten that desperate?

These fuckers aren't incompetent.

They have emptied the fucking treasury into their own fucking pockets haven't they?

They have succeeded brilliantly.

I believe I've given you possible explanations already of how the Bible's not wrong in that regard.
Posted by: Thomas1 on September 11, 2006 at 7:26 PM | PERMALINK

Yes. Possible. And quite possibly lame.

Same "explanations" I got in confirmation class. That and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee.

The bigger difference is that, if a Dem had been President on 9/11, Republicans wouldn't have rallied around him/her, but would have torn this country apart in the days following.

Kevin and the other Sensible Liberals are finally coming around to what many of us realized about Bush et al. even as far back as 2001:

Worst. Presidency. Ever.

Glad you could join us - maybe now you'll stop enabling them?

I really don't understand how people take this administration seriously about the GWOT when, after 5 years, I'm still reading headlines like this:

"Senior U.S. official says Taliban stronger than expected"

Why am I still reading about the Taliban in Afghanistan ??? Didn't George Bush rid the world of this evil after 9/11? -- Christ - if the Democrats are weak on terror what are these guys ? Can't they at least do one thing right and rid the world of this scourage ? Apparently not !
This time around I'm voting Democrat - How could it be worse !

Bush lost me after the "Axis of Evil" speech. Not being politically aware before 9/11, I was willing to give him a chance. I just remember the knot in my stomach when it became clear that our foreign policy was being directed by morons with a mandate.

I confess I thought the whole return-to-normal bit was electoral suicide, and judging from the 2002 and 2004 election results (in which Democrats ran on half-a-war-on-terror, much as Republicans ran on half-a-New-Deal in the 1930s) it was at least half-electoral suicide.

But - you know - apart from the preverse third of the country who still approves of this president's performance is there anyone out there who wouldn't prefer it to be 1999 again? It takes a certain kind of demented morbidity to prefer these times to peace, prosperity (Christ: even liberal arts college graduates were being offered living wage jobs in the Clinton economy), and frivolity.

Vote Republican if you want to win the war against terror.

Sounds great! When are they gonna start?

Hmmmm,

Morons with a mandate.

What the fuck ever happend to that male prostitute dude posing as a reporter?

About a week after 9/11 I became very depressed. I knew the US was going to begin killing and my outlook became black.

"...he prevented us from healing."

this is missing a word: together as in "...he prevented us from healing together."

As a proud liberal 9/11 only strentghened my beliefs in liberalism and I healed plenty. But the bush regime and lapdog republican congress crystalized my views of republicans and conservative republicans in particular as craven opportunists out only for their own selfish intersts, and who will put their own power pursuits above the needs and interests of the country and the American people everytime.
.

It would not have bothered me if the Bush administration had tried to score some political points if they had only addressed the threat with some better analysis than a kindergarten class could have come up with.

They really had a 66% chance of success. One possibility would have been to blame the entire threat on a combination of the slimy Jews and Clintonian "nation building" -- and announce a "fortress America" campaign of isolationism not seen in decades. Obviously not finely tuned, but if I would have gotten us the hell out quite a few places where we insist upon sticking our big, Bud Light swollen nose, it might have been a good thing. Americans are not colonialists at heart, we don't really have the attention span or the maciavellian will that a really good European colonial power had, so we always do it half assed. All of the costs and none of the benefits.

The second option would have been if Bush turned out to be a closet "Star Trek" fan -- similar result to option, one, but adopt a "prime directive" in which the official United States policy is to not meddle in the internal affairs of other countries. Slowly carve back our ridiculous military spending, and rely on economic leverage when needed. Admittedly, this requires a subtlety not present in this administration.

Yet, we went with option three -- break something - and declare it a "victory" in the "war" on "terror."

Ahh.... its just too depressing to think of the last five years of fe'd up foreign policy.

And all this painfully forced sentimenality about Where You Were on 9/11: please.

Can we just stop pretending that apart from a flickering moment of national unity the last five years haven't been the most polarized since those leading up to the Civil War.

America was a country when Lincoln was shot, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, when JFK had his brain blown out on the streets of Dallas, when that first shuttle blew up. It isn't anymore, at least not in the same way.

A generation from now it will be finally clear that America is no longer a republic, but simply the world capital of an emerging global, multicultural civilization. There is another word for it: empire.

The news media can feign sentiment all it wants, but sentiment is a republican virtue.

Worst. Presidency. Ever.

The week before 9/11/2001 I gave my father's wife a biography of Reagan, she is a California Republican, and wrote in it "the second worst president."

The great opportunity that was offered to us by 9/11 was totally missed by these fucking brain-dead dipshits.

Imagine, if you can, a brilliant president calling for a Manhattan Project for energy independence. The country would have eaten it up, and we would have spent these wasted billions creating millions of jobs, generating goodwill, and setting an example of decency for the world thereby promoting peace. The world was appalled by 9/11 and would have totally isolated the crazy terrorists that pulled of that crime and they probably would be behind bars today.

Instead of honestly answering the question of why do they hate us the idiot motherfucker told us to go fucking shopping. GO FUCKING SHOPPING!

What a scumsucking asshole.

The great opportunity that was offered to us by 9/11 was totally missed by these fucking brain-dead dipshits.

Imagine, if you can, a brilliant president calling for a Manhattan Project for energy independence. The country would have eaten it up, and we would have spent these wasted billions creating millions of jobs, generating goodwill, and setting an example of decency for the world thereby promoting peace. The world was appalled by 9/11 and would have totally isolated the crazy terrorists that pulled of that crime and they probably would be behind bars today.

Instead of honestly answering the question of why do they hate us the idiot motherfucker told us to go fucking shopping. GO FUCKING SHOPPING!

What a scumsucking asshole.

Typo in 4th paragraph: "The UN resolution on WMD inspections in Iraq was kept on fire" -- presumably should be "on file."

How is it that the perfectly reasonable explanations offered by Thomas1 were simply dismissed by you

There's perfectly reasonable; then there's "this is the perfect unerring word-for-word capital W-word of God, for ever and ever amen." Perfectly reasonable is questioning something. Is the argument of someone using an inner diameter measurement for diameter, and outer diameter measurement reasonable? Sure! But not for "perfect" God.

Scripture is either perfect or it's not.
The Pi=3.0 example is simple one of the most accessible ways to prove that it's not - among the many numerous other discrepencies, contradictions, and unprovable assertions.

If it's not perfect, then it's PERFECTLY REASONABLE to question other assertions that sheep herders wrote about God 2500 years ago.

If you take the position of scriptural inerrancy - then your mind is closed to the possibility that it could be wrong.

Trying to accuse someone who accepts the proposition of scriptural errancy of being "closed minded" is rolling-on-the-floor-laughing-hilarious.

Scripturalists are basically idolotors anyway.

Excerpts from Bush's speech tonight can be found here and here (same excerpts in both locations).

I can hardly wait to see how Bush is planning to "unify" this country, particularly in light of the fact that the Republicans have already admitted they will be engaging in a bitter, negative, nasty, and divisive campaign.

Damnit, sorry for the double post.

Oh, the irony in this statement from Bush: "We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations."

... by destroying that way of life?

Irony?

How about fucking hypocrisy?

What the fuck ever happend to that male prostitute dude posing as a reporter?
Posted by: angryspittle on September 11, 2006 at 7:38 PM | PERMALINK

Apparently, since he hasn't died of AIDS yet, we can conclude that Bush has at least one advisor who can show him the proper use of a condom.

Virtually everything these assholes accuse their opponents of doing they themselves are guilty of.

They are masters of projection.

"The great opportunity that was offered to us by 9/11 was totally missed by these fucking brain-dead dipshits."

they're not brain-dead, they're sinister. every craven, loathesome, divisive thing they do is on purpose.

"World War II was largely a bipartisan war and FDR largely governed as a bipartisan commander-in-chief."

What the hell does this mean? Was there partisan disagreement about whether or how we should fight WWII? Did the Republicans publicly critize FDR's handling of the war or for his failure to "connect the dots" that led to Pearl Harbor? Or worry about his use of executive authority as Commander-in-Chief to protect the nation from enemy attack? My guess is no.

"Bush never engaged with Democrats in any way. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were both hawkish Dems who could have been co-opted early if Bush had had any intention of treating the war seriously. He didn't even try. He continued pushing divisive domestic issues like tax cuts and culture war amendments."

Apart from the fact that neither Clinton or Gore were elected, who were these "hawkish Dems" that you speak of Kevin? The only hawkish Dem that I can think of is Lieberman and he was just run out of the Party. All the other Dems Senators, at least the ones considering an 08 run, who voted for the war have disowned their vote.

When the ranking Dem on the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, says that America would be safer with Saddam in power, Bush can probably be forgiven from failing to "engage" them.

By the way, do you agree with Rockefeller's statement?

Bush:

And we are fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom, and tolerance, and personal dignity. . . .

. . . by torturing, setting up kangaroo courts, and spying on our own people.

Shorter Al: Thomas stole my Enzyte.

James Jpoyner pretends to be all calm and thoughtful annd moderate but he's just another rationalizier for the Rethuglicans. There are no intellectually honest Republicanns. The good people are leaving the party.

pluege,

Yeah, I guess I did contradict myself there.

These fuckers have been successful in acheiving their goals.

When the ranking Dem on the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, says that America would be safer with Saddam in power, ....
By the way, do you agree with Rockefeller's statement?
Posted by: Chicounsel on September 11, 2006 at 7:59 PM | PERMALINK

Absolutely.

Dangerous Iran was kept occupied with fighting Saddam for 20 years. Now they don't have Saddam to kick around anymore. Who do you think they're going to focus on next, numbnuts?

bellumregio wrote: The very idea that chasing down Al Qaeda is a national ‘war’ is itself a PR concoction to keep Republicans in power. They are not exploiting the “War on Terror” for partisan purposes; they invented it for partisan purposes.

Lysander Spooner's Ghost agreed, writing,

BINGO! According to an editorial by that conservative/libertarian guy that rights for the NYT occassionally, more Americans have drowned in their bathtubs than the number of people worldwide killed by Al Quaeda or aligned groups since 9/11.

You can't have it both ways. Those who don't think the GWOT is a real war surely don't want their representatives to give wholehearted support to a phony war.

I don't agree with Kevin that FDR governed bilaterally after Pearl Harbor. He didn't stop expanding government in order to placate conservatives. What actually happened was that Republicans simply got behind FDR's war effort. (Of course, he was so popular, it would have been political suicide not to.)

The person I admire was Eisenhower. After the botched Bay of Pigs, Ike could have blasted JFK. Given Ike's war hero status vs. JFK's youth and inexperience, criticism from Ike would ahve been devestating. However, Ike kept his mouth shut for the good of the country. As a result, JFK and the the Dems gained in popularity, but the country gained a more unified foreign policy.

I wish Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had followwed Eisenhower's example and put their country's interest before their party's interest.

What actually happened was that Republicans simply got behind FDR's war effort. (Of course, he was so popular, it would have been political suicide not to.)

Hm. Politicians being political - now who would have accused Democrats of being like that?

I wish Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had followwed Eisenhower's example and put their country's interest before their party's interest.
Posted by: ex-liberal on September 11, 2006 at 8:13 PM | PERMALINK

Oh, that's right. You did.

I've just read 75 comments here, many with the f word or something like it, filled with hate for George W. Bush. The tenor of this says to me you are still very much the minority party with little hope of commanding the Congress or the White House any time soon. In fact, it sounds like you are probably falling back. You have nothing positive to offer.

Your biggest disappointment? How about:
1. The needless destruction of human life.
2. The illicit invasion of a non-threatening nation.
3. The use of torture.
4. Arbitrary detention without due process.
5. Secret prisons.
6. The loathsome waste of our economic resources.
7. The enrichment of Bush/Cheney's corporate cronies. There's so many other worthy nominees for biggest disappointment. Add your own.

What the hell does this mean? Was there partisan disagreement about whether or how we should fight WWII? Did the Republicans publicly critize FDR's handling of the war or for his failure to "connect the dots" that led to Pearl Harbor? Or worry about his use of executive authority as Commander-in-Chief to protect the nation from enemy attack? My guess is no.

Your guess is dead wrong. Republicans criticzed Roosevelt's handling of the war from the get-go. Here's from a speech Senator Robert A. Taft, the leading conservative of his day and known as "Mr. Republican", gave two weeks after Pearl Harbor:

"As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government ... too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur."

Taft also claimed that "the duties imposed by the Constitution on Senators and Congressmen certainly require that they exercise their own judgment on questions relating to the war."

Salon.com notes that:

There was more, a lot more. Debates were raging in Congress at the time -- and, remember, American territory had just been attacked, bodies and wreckage still lay in the harbor, and U.S. soldiers were already in harm's way -- over questions like the conversion of industry to support the war and the best way to expand the draft. Taft weighed in on each, specifically opposing plans the Roosevelt administration had floated ("I see no use in sending boys of nineteen or twenty to war").

At great length Taft argued that the higher defense appropriations Roosevelt was seeking should lead to the end of both Keynesianism (New Deal economists "are confident that a people can spend itself into prosperity") and New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration. Thus Taft was tying the war to domestic politics in a way that today's Republicans have also carped at Democrats for sometimes doing. Finally, there were shades of renegade Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. (who, angered at the administration's secrecy, has threatened the Bush White House with "war"), when Taft called for a congressional investigation into whether Cordell Hull, FDR's secretary of state, had informed Secretary of the Navy Franklin Knox of the contents of his famous Nov. 26 note to the Japanese. The note contained conditions that Hull knew the Japanese would never accept, and the suspicion was rife among Republicans that Hull, and Roosevelt, actually wanted the Navy to be ambushed at Pearl Harbor to stoke war fever among the populace. "Perhaps the fault at Hawaii," Taft said, "was not entirely on the admirals and generals." Mr. Republican, that Dec. 19, minced few words.

And his fellow Republicans got the message. According to historian Richard Darilek in "A Loyal Opposition in Time of War" (1976), Republicans entered 1942 ready to fight the administration head-on. Wendell Wilkie, the party's nominal leader, was an interventionist, but in a bid to placate the GOP's isolationist wing he appointed an America Firster named Clarence Boddington Kelland head of public relations for the Republican National Committee. On Jan. 8, Kelland delivered a speech in Salt Lake City on the importance of robust partisanship. Democratic National Committee chairman Ed Flynn countered by cautioning against the election of a hostile Congress. New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, who would run against FDR in 1944, warned of the existence within the administration of "an American Cliveden set ... scheming to end the war short of military victory" ("Cliveden set," a reference to the Astor estate in Britain that served as a salon for government ministers, was synonymous with "appeasers"). By the time of the Republican Lincoln Day dinners -- mid-February, just two months after Pearl Harbor -- politics in Washington, Darilek writes, were more or less back to normal.

....Taft's speech hardly caused a ripple. If the New York Times covered it at all, it did so in a small enough way to escape my notice as I looked through newspapers from that time. The Washington Post did mention the speech, but only at the tail end of a larger story that was mostly about Hull. In the American political system that existed then, Taft's right to speak his mind on policy was a given, and no high-ranking Roosevelt official launched a major public attack.

http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2002/03/19/dissent/index.html?pn=2

Right now I am watching Max Cleland on MSNBC.

What more needs be said, other than what they did to him?

You can not appeal for unity and bipartisanship for a cause, and then use the same club to hit the other side on the groin.

Despicable I must say.

What actually happened was that Republicans simply got behind FDR's war effort. (Of course, he was so popular, it would have been political suicide not to.)

No they didn't. See above.

Did FDR call those he opposed him treasonous?

Did he swiftboat his vocal opponents in the elections?

Did he have a known thug and dirty trickster as his Chief Political and Domestic Policy advisor?

When the ranking Dem on the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, says that America would be safer with Saddam in power, Bush can probably be forgiven from failing to "engage" them.

Number of Americans dead in Iraq when Saddam was in power under Clinton: zero.

Number of Americans dead in Iraq with Saddam out of power under Bush: 2,600 and counting.

Who's safer now?

Yeah. The most depressing thing was the way President Bush acted.

Not the way Markos Moulitsas acted when Americans were brutalized. Or when Nick Berg's head was sawed off. Or when our soldiers have died. Not the anthrax attacks. Not the DC snipers. Not the LAX shooting. Not the SUVs used to attack people in Chapel Hill, NC and San Francisco. Not the attack on the Jewish community center in Seattle. Not the London Tube bombings. Not the Madrid bombings. Or Bali. Or the attempted bombings in Germany.

I get it.

The lying sack of shit who posts scripted Republican right-wing extremist talking as "ex-liberal" wrote: "I wish Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had followwed Eisenhower's example and put their country's interest before their party's interest."

Nothing that Bush has done since he stole the 2000 election has been in the country's interest. It has all been in the interest of enriching himself, the other members of his criminal gang, the other members of his criminal family, and their various cronies and financial backers.

Bush is a crook. Cheney is a gangster. Anyone who opposes them, Pelosi and Reid included to the extent that they have done so (and they have not opposed Bush as consistently or as aggressively as they should have done), is acting in the best interests of the USA.

Tell your owners to get you some better talking points, dumbass.

And while you are at it, tell them that your fake, phony, dumbass pretense of being a former "liberal" is making you the laughingstock of this blog and they need to give you a better pose if they want your scripted talking points to go over as anything other than the bad joke they are.

I understand and support Kevin for posting them, but I've found a number of his recent threads entirely demoralizing and difficult to comment in.

Mainly because I agree so much it hurts, and all the stuff posted in comments is just more of the all-too-well-known story of how Bush and his merry band serially gangraped everything good about this country.

Sigh. It's just flashback city.

Bob

Birkel

How dare you?

The U.S. military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday.

The decision to include only victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution, usually at the hands of death squads, allowed U.S. officials to argue that a security crackdown that began in the capital August 7 had more than halved the city's murder rate.

More Bush lies about Iraq.

To go with his lies about 9/11.

To go with GOP lies about the Democrats.

To go with Cheney's daily lies about everything.

And we also find that Bush hid an additional report, that undermined his case for war, from Congress and the Democrats.

And yet conservatives continue to lie about the Democrats seeing the same intelligence that Bush did.

Shameful.

Treasonous.

Putting national security and historical truth behind partisan interest.

Typical, typical conservatives.

Typical, typical GOP.

Typical, typical Bush.

Thomas1 - right you are.

Birkel:

If we had a true moral leadership, we could've mourned those personal tragedies and moved on.

Oh, and you forgot the victims of Katrina, and the tsunami, and the Pakistani and Iranian earthquakes, and the African AIDS epidemic, and the genocide in Darfur and Congo, and the Afghanis backsliding into Taliban-terrorized anarchy, and over a hundred thousand dead Iraqis ...

But who, after all, is counting.

White people *are* so much more photogenic as victims, aren't they ...

Bob

gregor,

Sorry for bringing some truth to the truthers. Reality based community....

Feh!

Birkel: I get it.

We get it.

As long as Bush is a microscopic speck better than the terrorists, he isn't evil, even if he embraces torture, commits crimes against humanity, violates international law, lies to Congress and the American people about matters important to our national security and which lies result in the needless deaths of thousands of Americans . . .

Yeah, we get it.

Hail der furher.

No, Bob. The things you mentioned aren't related to America's war against Islamofascist terrorism.

Now, if you want to engage in Darfur because it's the Islamofascist Mulsims there who are killing their African (and darker skinned) brethren, I agree. We should be more involved. So should every country intent on stopping the march toward Islamic totalitarianism. What? That's not what you meant? Oh...

BTW, That 100K number was bull shit on the day the Lancet published it and it still is today. Never you mind that, though.

ex-liberal: I wish Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had followwed Eisenhower's example and put their country's interest before their party's interest.

Neither is a former president, asshole.

They are elected officials of the US government whose duty it is to act as a check on the president.

Yes, you truly are a intellectually dishonest asshole.

Birkel

No truth can ever come out of a delusional mind such as yours.

Advocate for God,

I just burped. It made a better argument than I've ever seen you make.

I'll bet you're the type of person who has bumper stickers on your car. I mock you in a way that causes me no stress whatsoever. You're a laughingstock. NTTAWWT.

I hit the snooze bar with more intellectual rigor than you can muster on a good day. I find you sad. I pity you. You are not worthy of my scorn.

Off with you.

Shorter Kevin Drum post:

Bush would have had our support if he would have fought the war like France would have.

With white flags.

Birkel: I just burped.

It's because you are drinking again between lies and jerking off at each death of an American soldier (which you pray for so you can add another notch to your main argument for 'staying the course' in Iraq - so their efforts won't have been in vain), just like your hero GWB.

gregor,

Wipe your lip. There's some spittle. No. You missed it. There you go.

PPS I was watching public access the other day. There was one of those community college history classes on. The professor (who you sensed had slept with every third dumb 19 year old girl who crossed his path) showed two pictures of Abraham Lincoln, one in 1860 and one in 1864 or 5. He looked youthful in the first, and ancient in the second.

I'm watching Bush now. What does the fact that he looks like the same f'ing moron he did five years ago tell us about him class?

Birkel:

I was talking about the death toll *today*, not three years ago when the study was published -- you who trumpets the estimates of Iraqi deaths allegedly from the sanctions in order to justify the invasion. You use statistical methods there -- then accept them over here.

Umm, Brainiac ... the anthrax attacks are unsolved, but all evidence points to an American right-wing extremist perpetrator. Malvo and Muhammad were NOI looney tunes who killed out of racism and a half-baked extortion plot, totally unconnected to Islamism. Most of the other incidents you cite were the result of disgruntled individuals not tied to terrorist plots of any sort. Even the London and Madrid bombings haven't been definitively linked to al Qaeda. So much for the unitary global march towards *cough* Islamofascism.

And you're going to throw a comment of a *blogger* in with events like these? Nice moral compass *you've* got there, pal.

Michael Moore is fat and slovenly, too !!!

Bob

The clever art of the truncation.

Gotta love a truther.

Yes, Bob.

They were all just odd ball nuts. If only we could find something that connected all those events.

Something they all had in common...

Birkel: The clever art of the truncation.

You know much more about the clever art of "drunkation".

Stick with that, it's what you know best.

Today I ate a fanny plopper and told Mommy about it.

She wasn't very pleased with me.

There you have it.

Although Iraq and its government were specifically mentioned, I didn't hear any "as they stand up we'll stand down".

Now it's all about we're staying in there until it's won. But I still don't hear a plan.

I don't think you can say that was a uniting, non-political speech as it was all about what he's brought on line in way of changes and nothing about anything he might have done wrong, or that there is any allowable dispute to his actions.

Remember, put aside your differences. Especially when you differ from the fearless leader.

And, by the way, the 11th September attacks were NOT intended "to bring us to our knees". This administration has done exactly what the terrorists wanted: alienate as many Muslims as possible.

Well done George. Goodnight to you, too!

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Kevin points out a sea change in the discourse from civil to kamikaze. Al and Birkel are the proof of it, each time they post making Kevin's point a little more airtight.

"But believe me: on the Democratic side of the aisle, Bush's intensely and gratuitously partisan approach to 9/11 and the war on terror is keenly felt" - Kevin

I just feel so bad about that I don't know what to say. Have you tried therapy?

Cheney:

There's that ; ) emoticon again. The one with the space between the semicolon and the close paren that I've never seen *anyone else* use in my decade of posting on message fora.

Except, of course, Thomas1.

What in heaven could that ever possibly mean? :)

Bob

Jay: I just feel so bad about that I don't know what to say.

If only that were true, but like all things you post, even this is a lie.

You do have a firm grasp for the obvious advocate.

I can't believe there's a dumbass here who actually thinks we are safer today because Sodom is out of power. Puhleeze, any freaking moron except Dumbya knows that the best way to keep your power is two keep your two enemies fighting against each other. Instead we have Osama playing the role the Americans should be playing. Gawd, how much are these GOopbers paid to post on this board.

Jay: You do have a firm grasp for the obvious advocate.

Obviously, you have a firm grasp on nothing, including reality.

Thomas:

In a track record of doozies, that is without question the lamest thing I've ever seen you say.

I used the ; ) emoticon to *identify it*.

You and Cheney use it *as* an emoticon.

You're busted, pal. Cheney, too :)

Bob

"Obviously, you have a firm grasp on nothing, including reality." - advocate

oooh, skewered by the rapier wit of a liberal.

Again, have you tried therapy?

Good post, Kevin.

One might add that the majority of those directly harmed by 9/11 were LIBERALS and DEMOCRATS. This is just a matter of demographics -- Manhattan . . .