FLASHBACK: McCain Predicted ‘Progress’ In Iraq ‘A Year From Now’ If ‘We Stay The Course’
FLASHBACK: McCain Predicted ‘Progress’ In Iraq ‘A Year From Now’ If ‘We Stay The Course’
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is trying to convince the American people that he is the person with the soundest advice about how to proceed in Iraq. On November 12, 2006 he told NBC’s Tim Russert “I believe that a lot of Americans trust my judgment on issues such as [Iraq].”
Here’s what McCain said almost exactly a year ago:
“I think the situation on the ground is going to improve. I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.” [The Hill, 12/8/05]
Now McCain wants you to believe that sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq would improve “the situation on the ground.” McCain’s recommendations were explicitly rejected by the bi-partisan Baker-Hamilton commission.
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68 Responses to “FLASHBACK: McCain Predicted ‘Progress’ In Iraq ‘A Year From Now’ If ‘We Stay The Course’”
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McCain:
“Oh just give me a hug you big cuddly bear” (while dreamin of the Presidency)
December 7th, 2006 at 11:28 amHe’ll figure a way to slither away from that comment. I meant a year from….NOW (January)…..no….NOW (March)….I meant….NOW (July)
December 7th, 2006 at 11:30 amMcCain is a Bush and COmpany flunky. He sold out to get the GOP Presidential nomination. Ignore this political hack. He lost his integrity when he embraced the neocon agenda.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:31 amMcCain is no moderate, nor a maverik, but he is a Bush ass kisser and a vile warmongering fool! John would be wise to resign from Senate today!
December 7th, 2006 at 11:32 amMore faith-based foreign policy.
Haven’t we proven beyond a reasonable doubt now that NO POLICY DECISIONS SHOULD BE BASED ON RELIGION?
Religion is counter to logic and facts.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:32 amis that some ‘tenting’ going on in dubya’s pants?
December 7th, 2006 at 11:35 ampretty small picture, but, noticable right away…
is that some ‘tenting’ going on in dubya’s pants?
pretty small picture, but, noticable right away…
Comment by katy
Another good laugh, funny. Although “tenting” might be giving him a bit too much credit.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:40 amMore food-based foreign policy.
Haven’t we proven beyond a reasonable doubt now that NO POLICY DECISIONS SHOULD BE BASED ON TASTE?
Taste is counter to logic and facts.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:41 amokay, confession time: I actually voted for McCain in the primaries here in Michigan, and had thoughts (however brief) of possibly, even voting for him in a presidential election. His flip flopping and stupid allegience to this corrupt administration has already cleared my mind of entertaing that idea again!
Secondly, the above picture, just bothers the hell out of me! Imagine a child, after being punished for not following a parental rule, giving the father a I’m really, really sorry hug. That’s what I see here!
December 7th, 2006 at 11:42 amYeeck!
Four score and two Friedmans from now……..
Thanks Abraham McCain.
-GSD
December 7th, 2006 at 11:42 amSave that photo and those quotes for the ‘08 election. If McCain becomes the nominee, a full-court press with them will guarantee a Democratic win.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:43 amOne nice thing about being a Republican: since being a Republican requires abandoning every last shred of personal responsibility, you never have to revisit the past and confront the fact that you are wrong. Why bother, when you can simply revise the past?
December 7th, 2006 at 11:44 amIt’s hard to fathom that this guy is/was a POW and a Vietnam veteran. It’s also equally disturbing to consider who believes this bullshit anymore about success in Iraq. McCain/Lieberman 2008, mark my words y’all.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:44 amThat picture is all that any of his opponents should ever need to effectively campaign against him. Put it on a billboard. No words necessary.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:44 amIt must have been “National hug-a-prick day” for McCain.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:49 amLet’s hope this warmongering suck-up will self-destruct by 2008…if he doesn’t disappear up Jerry Falwell’s ass first!
December 7th, 2006 at 12:02 pmThat’s a great picture. McCain looks like a little kid holding his daddy as he’s about to take a nap. Looks like a straight-talking maverick to me.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:02 pmThere is something eerily reminiscent of that other senator from Arizona; the one who, just for the hell of it, burned down historical buildings in Grand Canyon National Park, and wanted to use nuclear weapons in VietNam………..
December 7th, 2006 at 12:02 pmI think the time is right for the neologism: Puptenting
December 7th, 2006 at 12:11 pmCaption Contest:
All the girls are prettier after midnight…
December 7th, 2006 at 12:11 pmThe picture of McCain and Chimpy is priceless.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:16 pmSave all this Bush-hug photos and movies for ‘08. Play them over and over again. Case closed.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:17 pmde·spond·ent
Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-spon-duhnt
– Adjective
Feeling or showing profound hopelessness, dejection, discouragement, or gloom.
Yep…that’s McCain in a nutshell.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:18 pmWhy should the vast coalition of the unwilling continue to bear the burden of Iraq ?
Why should the vast coalition of the unwilling continue to be waterboarded with the oceans of blood and treasure being spilled in Iraq ?
The coaltion of the willing needs to stop whining and start acting: All those who want to stay the course should find some financial patrons and go to Iraq and bear the burden themselves.
With McCain, there are 19,000 more able people needed.
We could draft so many of the `coaltion of the willing’ from the Red States.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:19 pmMcCain is seeing his opportunity to be the front runner for the GOP. He will, unfortunately, throw aside his “Maverick” beliefs and bed down with the same group that slandered him in the 2000 primaries.
DrxJ, I also voted for him in the primaries after he had dropped out. Just to show disgust for Rove’s slander of him having an out of wedlock colored baby. Now he will embrace that side and it disgusts me.
McCain had a chance to really make a difference but he’s gone to the dark side.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:19 pmBad bird’s of a feather, stick together forever… Not to worry about 2008 and Mccane, it will not happen, even if he get’s the grand old pervert’s nomination he has lost it and the public won’t vote for him no matter how many million’s they spend…..His credability and sanety has gone down with bull shit bush’s…..Lock them all up in the nut house untill the next election….Blessings
December 7th, 2006 at 12:26 pmHey, McCain looks like an evil koala in this picture…
December 7th, 2006 at 12:28 pmMcCain does not appear to be as big of a threat to the ‘08 election as I thought.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:36 pmOK. From now on, anyone who says we are winning in Iraq is going to get the little reminder posted below:
George Bush: “We are winning in Iraq.â€
Robert Gates: “We are not winning in Iraq.â€
Tony Snow (in response to a reporter’s question): “Are we winning in Iraq? I don’t know. How do you define winning?â€
December 7th, 2006 at 12:38 pmMcCain could care less about our troops he only wants to suck up to anyone who can help him become President. Bush told him to step down from the election when McCain was winning then Bush needed his help to get elected again yes McCain caved in as a true suck up and gave Bush the bear hug with a smile. McCain will say and do anything. He had a chance to show leadership with the torture bill. But again Mr. Suck up caved in to George W. Bush’s wishes. Thereby allowing our troops to be freely tortured by others. John McCain was once a leader who fell from grace and is now a follower of anyone. We need a leader as President no another weak idiot.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:42 pmBut all the good employees in the corporate media call him a maverick! That’s the script! Don’t change the script!
December 7th, 2006 at 12:44 pmLet’s see McCain dodge this bullet.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:47 pmPhoto:
December 7th, 2006 at 12:47 pmActually, they’re dancing the ‘Last Waltz’.
Bush is calling for his next dance partner, Joe Loserman,
to come up, give him a kiss & waltz long into the night.
McCan’t, you’re as big a loser as Joe.
McCain is still looking for revenge for how he was treated in a North Vietnamese prison camp. The man is not stable. No one gets to see the real John McCain when he is in front of the media. I believe that McCain would be more of a warmonger then even Dubya.
For any man who would forget and forgive the viscious, very personal, and unneccessary attacks that were made on he and his wife in the 2000 campaign, well, he is not a man at all. He’s another typical DC politician who is not motivated by doing the right thing, but doing the thing which will bring him more power.
Will the 2008 McCain be the 1968 Nixon? Will he convince voters that there is a military solution instead of the only right thing to do which is an IMMEDIATE withdrawl of our troops?
I’d like to see the country elect a president who isn’t a sex addict, who wasn’t an alcoholic, who wasn’t tortured emotionally and physically for 7 years. Is that too much to ask? To elect a president with no skeletons in their closets?
McCain at one time had potential and he sold his soul to Bush who went over the line when his camp attacked McCain and his wife. He also is establishing ties with the likes of Falwell. In other words, he is going after the same base that elected Bush.
That’s where he is headed. Hoping to pull off another narrow victory in 2008 and govern as if he received a mandate like LBJ did in 64 or Reagan did in 1984. Both Bush and McCain are self-centered and narcissistic morons.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:48 pm[…] I once respected John McCain. That ended in 2004 when he abandoned his principled convictions for partisan politics, selling out for presidential ambition. He’s trying to convince Americans that he’s the best choice for our next president and, as Think Progress describes it, “that he is the person with the soundest advice about how to proceed in Iraq.” On November 12, 2006 he told NBC’s Tim Russert “I believe that a lot of Americans trust my judgment on issues such as [Iraq].†[…]
December 7th, 2006 at 12:52 pm#
It’s hard to fathom that this guy is/was a POW and a Vietnam veteran. It’s also equally disturbing to consider who believes this bullshit anymore about success in Iraq. McCain/Lieberman 2008, mark my words y’all.
Comment by Doktor Texas — December 7, 2006 @ 11:44 am
Today, I saw a press conference in which Lieberman was standing WITH the Republicans, commenting negatively about the Iraq Study Group report. Then I saw a photo of him sitting on the couch, next to McCain and meeting with Pres. Bush. So I think the McCain/Lieberman 2008 idea is a real possibility. My greatest fear right now is that, shortly after the start of the new congressional year, Lieberman will switch parties…throwing the majority back to the Republicans. That’s the end of any further investigations, oversight efforts, or putting the brakes on this administration in any way. And that includes a unilateral attack on Iran.
Oh, yes found this interesting paragraph about Joe’s willingness to help Republican’s maintain the majority in the Senate, due to his own personal ambition.
“Like Democratic VP candidates Lyndon Johnson in 1960, and Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Lieberman’s Senate term was due to expire during the election cycle. Like both Johnson and Bentsen, he decided to stage a run to maintain that seat. Unlike them, Lieberman’s decision would have affected control of the Senate if Lieberman had become Vice President, which would have required a swing of only 269 votes in the Florida Presidential race. Some questioned the strategy of having Lieberman run for both offices, saying that it “threatens his party’s chances of winning a Senate majority.” If Lieberman had won both races, he would have been forced to accept the vice-presidency. If he declined to take the Senate seat, the Connecticut governor at that time, John Rowland, would nominate somebody to take Lieberman’s seat. Because Rowland was a Republican, he would have most likely nominated a Republican to fill the seat, thus giving the Senate a Republican majority. If Lieberman had won the Senate seat but not Vice President, the winning Vice President would be the tie-breaking vote for the Senate. At that time, the Senate contained fifty Democrats and fifty Republicans. Dick Cheney, Republican, would have been the tie-breaking vote, thus also creating a Republican majority. So because Lieberman ran for both seats at once, he assured a Republican majority in the Senate.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lieberman
If he switches parties, he did the same thing this year, by running as an “Independent Democrat” against the winner of the Democratic primary. Backed by Republicans. If he hadn’t done that, Lamont would have won the general election, because very few Republicans would have voted for the lame Repub. candidate that was running.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:59 pmWhat is the odds Mr Russart will play this clip for McCain and ask him to explain it the next time he is on MTP? If he did, what could he answer, that we didn’t Stay The Course enough?
December 7th, 2006 at 1:06 pmWe can continually escalate our presence in Iraq or we can begin to consider our exit from this mess. Then, maybe, the US could begin to contribute to the $40 to $60 billion needed to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty in this world (according to the Borgen Project). So, we send more troops and spend more on defense or we dedicate our foreign policy to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:09 pmHow many more times do the war supporters need to be reminded of how wrong all the predictions about Iraq were?
How many times do they need to be told that “stay the course” is a slogan, not a strategy, let alone a strategy for success?
How many more people will have to die so this administration can save face?
December 7th, 2006 at 1:10 pmPhoto caption— Bush: We will get a room later
December 7th, 2006 at 1:10 pmPhil: “What is the odds Mr Russart will play this clip for McCain and ask him to explain it the next time he is on MTP?”
The odds are NOT good. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but typically Russert only plays embarassing videos when he’s interviewing Democrats. Russert knows who signs his check. And, he knows that they have a script for him. The script says McCaine is a maverick and a man of character.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:16 pm#
We can continually escalate our presence in Iraq or we can begin to consider our exit from this mess. Then, maybe, the US could begin to contribute to the $40 to $60 billion needed to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty in this world (according to the Borgen Project). So, we send more troops and spend more on defense or we dedicate our foreign policy to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Comment by Amy1022 — December 7, 2006 @ 1:09 pm
The bottom line is that money/profits aren’t made on eradicating hunger and poverty. But there’s a ton to be made in a war. As it says in the Bible, “the love of money is the root of all evil.”
December 7th, 2006 at 1:22 pmI’m sure if we get those 20,000 troops there in the next 10 hours and 20 minutes all our peoblems will be solved. If not, all deals are off.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:36 pm#38..
December 7th, 2006 at 1:45 pmVery interesting, I’ll take note of these developements.
Mine own belief is that Lieberman is the state of Israel’s point man here in the United States. Follow the matzos………….
Wait, I thought McCain committed suicide..
December 7th, 2006 at 3:16 pmSomeone oughta go check up on McCain — I mean, based on this comment he must be pretty despondent and he say something about suicide if the Dems won in November . . . .
December 7th, 2006 at 3:29 pmI wonder if the president remembered to check for his wallet after that hug.
December 7th, 2006 at 3:49 pmMcCain is ever more desperate in his campaign for presidency. He has flip-flopped so many times, he should see a chiropractor; he has been so often wrong in his assessment of Iraq, that his judgement can be held to question; he has now hired an ad man for his campaign who designed the racist ads that ran against Harold Ford.
December 7th, 2006 at 3:59 pmMcCain Hires Man Behind Racist Harold Ford Ads As His Campaign Manager…
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/ thefix/ 2006/ 12/ mccain_moves_forward.html
December 7th, 2006 at 4:03 pmWait, I thought McCain committed suicide..
Comment by InsurgentC
Only politically - and often.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:20 pmany good captions for this picture
December 7th, 2006 at 5:33 pmHere is one other reason I will NEVER vote for you yanks.Putting out swill like this.I suppose you all believe this crap too?Tha`s right jump on that bandwagon of misguided minstrels.You`re time is coming.
Hence,my name.Good day.
Let’s Ditch Dixie
The case for Northern secession.
By Mark Strauss
Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2001, at 3:00 AM ET
Call it the rebel yell heard ’round the world. Last year, under the watchful eyes of God and the rheumy stare of the last surviving, 93-year-old Confederate war widow, some 2,500 sons and daughters of Dixie gathered in Montgomery, Ala., to issue a Declaration of Southern Cultural Independence from a nation “violent and profane, coarse and rude, cynical and deviant.”
The rally was staged by the League of the South, an organization that fondly remembers the Confederacy as a golden age (with the awkward exception of slavery) and that seeks to liberate the Southern people from the yoke of “a tyrannous central government” unrestrained by the Constitution. Most people dismiss League members as either harmless eccentrics or closet white supremacists (they’re probably a little of both), but their views resonate in circles well beyond the good ol’ boys who don Confederate Gray on weekends to re-enact the Battle of Antietam and pretend-kill some Yankees. You hear echoes of Southern nationalism whenever Mississippi invokes “states’ rights” to justify flying the Confederate flag over their capitols; or when the GOP’s honorary Dixie chick Gale Norton mourns the defeat of the South saying that “we lost too much”; or when John Ashcroft praises Southern Partisan magazine for helping “set the record straight” on the War Between the States.
This re-emergence of Confederate pride is merely the symptom of a much deeper problem: The North and South can no longer claim to be one nation. If you want proof, just look at the electoral map from the last presidential election. Or consider that, although Texas Gov. George W. Bush lost the U.S. popular vote by 500,000, he won the old Confederacy by a resounding 3.1 million votes. Meanwhile, the cultural gap that pits NASCAR fans against PBS viewers continues to widen. Ted Turner all but confirmed the balkanization of America when he established a cable network exclusively for the citizens of Dixie, serving up finger-lickin’ TV fare that includes Andy Griffith reruns, the best of World Championship Wrestling, CNN South, and slapstick movies such as Dumb and Dumber (which, according to the president of “Turner South,” gets unusually high ratings regionally).
The United States doesn’t have to refight the Civil War to set matters right. Rather, North and South should simply follow the example of the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Shake hands, says it’s been real, and go their separate ways. And if the South isn’t inclined to leave anytime soon, then we should show them the door by seceding unilaterally. Because for all the hue and cry of the South being a conquered people, it is the North that increasingly finds itself under the dominion of the Confederacy. The White House has been occupied by a Southerner for 17 of the last 37 years. And the Confederacy’s foot-in-the-door of the Oval Office will become even more pronounced in the next century: The latest census allowed Dixie to pick up six additional Electoral College votes (thanks, in part, to the migration of warmth-seeking Northerners in numbers sufficient to swell the population of the South, yet insufficient to shift its political landscape). Had Al Gore won the same states in 1972 as he did in 2000, he would have trumped Bush with an electoral vote margin of 278 to 260. In 1984, he still would have won by 271 to 267. But in 2000, even with Electoral College juggernauts such as New York, Pennsylvania, and California in his corner, Gore couldn’t win the White House without the support of the old Confederacy.
As the electoral center of gravity has shifted in the United States, so too have the orientations of the two major political parties. The Democrats lost their historic claim to the “Solid South” when the party fractured over the New Deal and the civil rights movement. With Dixie up for grabs, the GOP went carpetbagging for electoral votes—Barry Goldwater paved the way when he won the loyalty of Southern delegates at the 1964 Republican convention through his championship of states’ rights and his opposition to the civil rights bill. Every victorious Republican candidate since then has dished out exactly what Southern voters want to hear: Nixon attacked busing and racial quotas; Reagan embraced the Christian Right while his attorney general, Ed Meese, charged that the 1965 Voting Rights Act discriminated against the South; and Massachusetts-born George Bush Sr. surrounded himself with country and western stars and added a Willie Horton plank to his platform. Since Republicans won the House in 1994, Southerners have dominated the congressional leadership. Today, Republicans maintain their bare voting majority in the evenly split Senate by virtue of the fact that there are four more Republicans from Dixie than Democrats.
The Dixification of the “Party of Lincoln” would be tolerable if the North had a political party of its own. But increasingly it doesn’t; hence the rise of Ralph Nader, who expressed the pent-up frustration among liberals and populists who no longer feel comfortable in a Democratic Party that speaks with a down-home drawl. In all the presidential elections between 1980 and 1992, the Democrats succeeded in winning only one Confederate state. Clinton’s path to victory was the trashing of Sister Soulja as he and other Southern Democrats weaned their party away from Northern special interests (aka “the party base”) such as environmentalists, organized labor, African-Americans, consumer advocates, Latinos, and gays. Gore lost the election (and even his home state, which he loyally represented for 16 years) because he went off message and dared to espouse progressive, populist themes on government, gun control, and the environment. Shut out of all branches of government, some party leaders are once again pushing a Southern strategy to retake the White House and Congress, all but guaranteeing that the Democratic Party will continue whistling Dixie.
Economically and socially, secession will be painless for the North. The South is a gangrenous limb that should have been lopped off decades ago. More people live below the poverty line in the old Confederacy than in the Northeast and Midwest combined. You are three times more likely to be murdered in parts of Dixie than anywhere in New England, despite a feverish devotion to “law-and-order” that has made eight Southern states home to 90 percent of all recent U.S. executions. The South has the highest infant-mortality rate and the highest incidences of sexually transmitted diseases, while it lags behind the rest of the country in terms of test scores and opportunities for women. The Confederate states rail against the tyranny of big government, yet they are the largest recipients of federal tax dollars. They steal business away from the North the same way that developing countries worldwide have always attracted foreign direct investment: through low wages and anti-union laws. The flow of guns into America’s Northern cities stems largely from Southern states. The tobacco grown by ol’ Dixie kills nearly a half-million Americans each year.
Imagine then, for just a moment, the North as its own nation. Trent Lott and Dick Armey would be foreigners. We would no longer be subjected to round-the-clock TV commercials for Dale Earnhardt commemorative plates. If you were to expel all Southerners from Congress (both parties, mind you) the new liberal majority would be able to pass tougher gun laws and legislation barring discrimination against gays and lesbians immediately. With the South banished from the Union, we could begin to correct the most objectionable aspects of Southern behavior with the same tools we use to engage countries such as China: by making trade and continued foreign aid contingent upon sincere efforts to clean up the environment and improve human rights. We could implement “Plan South Carolina” to convince tobacco growers to develop alternative crops. Northern observers could ensure democracy in Florida polling places. Peace Corps volunteers could teach the necessary skills that would allow Southerners to pull themselves out of poverty and illiteracy while simultaneously promoting a better understanding of American values.
In fact, the only obvious downside is that the South would almost certainly insist on keeping the 3,150 nuclear warheads that are scattered throughout Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, and Virginia. Maybe we could strike a deal to get those nukes back, the same way Russia did with Ukraine after the Soviet Union broke up. If not, then perhaps national missile defense might not be such a bad idea after all.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:55 pmCaption Contest:
Stay the course, freedom’s on the march, now watch this wedgie.
December 7th, 2006 at 6:02 pmHey, Nathan Bedford Forrest, how about taking your cut-and-paste somewhere else?
December 7th, 2006 at 6:04 pmOh Jebus Christ that picture makes me want to puke-and to think he may actually win. Damn ,I wish there was a god to punish these people. Crap his left hand is about to slide up and grap morons walnuts.
December 7th, 2006 at 7:23 pmMake that -hand slide down.
December 7th, 2006 at 7:24 pm#54 Come on TtT, Nathan Bedford Forrest had a talent. Unlike the scumbag you are talking to.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:01 pmMcCain is a lunatic.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:21 pmGeorge W. wouldn’t read #52
December 7th, 2006 at 10:23 pm#60 That is “couldn’t”. He sure would laugh when he came across the name “Dick” though.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:27 pmI would chooes McCain over this shyster any day of the week!
http://www.lcrga.com/archive/200010251159.shtml
December 7th, 2006 at 11:42 pmWhy Americans Hate Democrats — A Dialog
Just because it is such a damned good piece of writing, the following is an exerpt from Jane Smiley’s seminal piece in Slate Magazine:
The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey—workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now—Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don’t share those same qualities, don’t know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone?
Progressives have only one course of action now: React quickly to every outrage—red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time. We have to give them more to think about than they can handle—to always appeal to reason and common sense, and the law, even when they can’t understand it and don’t respond. They cannot be allowed to keep any secrets. Tens of millions of people didn’t vote—they are watching, too, and have to be shown that we are ready and willing to fight, and that the battle is worth fighting. And in addition, we have to remember that threats to democracy from the right always collapse. Whatever their short-term appeal, they are borne of hubris and hatred, and will destroy their purveyors in the end.
Although it originally appeared shortly after the last election, I think the article is so fundamentally honest and insightful that it bears dissemination until every American has read it. You can read the whole thing here.
http://www.slate.com/id/2109218/
December 8th, 2006 at 1:49 amAmericans voted for Democrats in ‘06 and they will vote for Democrats in ‘08, thanks in large part to George W. Bush, John McCain, and the Republican Party, which has run this country into the ground in six years, bankrupted our treasury and waged the “biggest strategic blunder in US history.” In light of the November election, Jane Smiley looks as credible as McCain–not so much!
Here is what Americans are figuring out:
“What is Conservatism and What is Wrong With It?”
“From the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the self-regarding thugs of ancient Rome to the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe, in nearly every urbanized society throughout human history, there have been people who have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy. These people and their allies are the conservatives.
The tactics of conservatism vary widely by place and time. But the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are. Modern-day liberals often theorize that conservatives use “social issues” as a way to mask economic objectives, but this is almost backward: the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats. More generally, it is crucial to conservatism that the people must literally love the order that dominates them. Of course this notion sounds bizarre to modern ears, but it is perfectly overt in the writings of leading conservative theorists such as Burke. Democracy, for them, is not about the mechanisms of voting and office-holding. In fact conservatives hold a wide variety of opinions about such secondary formal matters. For conservatives, rather, democracy is a psychological condition. People who believe that the aristocracy rightfully dominates society because of its intrinsic superiority are conservatives; democrats, by contrast, believe that they are of equal social worth. Conservatism is the antithesis of democracy. This has been true for thousands of years.”
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html
December 8th, 2006 at 12:38 pmTalk about getting a second chance. The Dems couldn’t get their act together ‘04 to defeat the last idiot, they get a second chance with McCain. Talk about throwing away one’s credibility. How can anyone erode one’s credibility to such a degree as McCain? From a highly respected POW in Vietnam to compromising the Geneva Convention to eating crow over Iraq. Didn’t he learn anything from his experience?! He was wrong about Iraq a year ago and he’s wrong now. How many years and pointless loss of our service members will it take to get the point across?
December 8th, 2006 at 10:11 pmMcCain and Schwartzneggar are both cut from the same cloth. That is to say, they’re both shameless opportunists.
Actually, you could say that Hillary Clinton is also cut from the same cloth.
All of these politicians have happily abandoned their own previous platforms to pursue whatever they feel will get them the most votes. When the public turned on them after these decisions, they would scramble for a way to wriggle out of trouble.
Slimy, spineless mercenaries do not make for good leadership, and politicians like this should not be encouraged with money or votes.
December 9th, 2006 at 11:00 amThe best-part of this nutjob got left behind in the Hanoi Hilton, what a whacko. He’s in good-company, Hillary Clinton also feels the same, she’s just being tight-lipped. Lieberman isn’t the only hack who needs to go…
December 9th, 2006 at 11:57 am[…] and the terribly smug expression, is Terry Nelson, new hatchetman for Saint McCain. UPDATE: From Think Progress comes this quote from MILWRS McCain exactly one year ago, ““I think the situation on the […]
March 15th, 2007 at 10:55 pm[…] and the terribly smug expression, is Terry Nelson, new hatchetman for Saint McCain. UPDATE: From Think Progress comes this quote from MILWRS McCain exactly one year ago, ““I think the situation on the […]
March 31st, 2007 at 7:43 pm