Kevin,
Why do you ignore the points I made in my post to you? I have to start with that question. I tried to be very specific. I said I defended Dubya and your response is to question my "motive" for doing so. As a matter of fact all you do in your reply is question other peoples motives (in other words you speculate) and base your arguments on what you feel or think may have happened. You include no truth just what you imagine. The one thing that stands out in every one of your posts is that you seem to have this magical ability to climb into the hearts and minds of other men and know exactly why they did what they did or said what they said...in other words you are specializing in bullshit. Remember what they say about making assumptions about other people Kevin.
The lack of WMD has been the biggest one of them all and continues to this day.
I'm sorry Kevin but you see here you are just plain wrong and there is a load of evidence that supports this. There are on the record, weapons inspectors, intelligence people, military people, folks from the UN and all manner of walks of life and background that said prior to the war with Iraq that Saddam did not have WMD capabilities or stockpiles. Inside our own intelligence gathering services an argument raged about how intelligence was being used and manipulated to make a case for war. That only the information that backed a case for war against Iraq was being passed up the ladder even if it was old, proven false, or unsubstantiated. I am not making this up and neither are left leaning politicians. People on the inside have come out and gone on record. The Bush administration "sold" us, using language that did not match intelligence reports, a case for war. If you look at all the statements they made about why we should attack Iraq it is more than obvious that this small group of individuals in the Bush administration were far overstating the case in an attempt to secure our support for attacking Iraq. In other words they were being misleading to create a war. In the meantime, they pulled our special forces out of the hunt for Osama to send them to secure the oil fields in Iraq. Let's just top all this off with the fact everbody under the sun knew after years of sanctions Iraq's military had been decimated and they were a minimal threat at best in their own region. Which is why Rummy and friends predicted such a swift victory and felt no need to supply a lot of troops for this mission. So, here we have on one hand the Bush administration knowing Iraq would pose little threat in an attack and predicting a swift victory and on the other promoting Saddam as a Hitler like figure that is a danger to world peace and major player in the world of Osama and friends. Mighty large jump from one to the other no? What also disturbs me is that while Iraq did not pose this sort of threat to us there were several other nations that did and that really did have big time connections to Osama and firends. AND WE KNEW IT! So all the nasty things they were saying Saddam might do to us were at best decades away...if he even lived that long...but there lurking in the bright sunlight were nations already capable of doing us great harm and fully involved with terrorism. Iraq was sort of like the little kids selling lemonade by the roadside...we knew there were already nations out there that were like Coca-Cola...big giant dangerous beasts with all they need to do serious harm to us in place.
Let's just look at Kim Jong-Il, because I have, this man is a serious menace and is on record as saying he believes terrorism is an outstanding weapon. Ol' Kim Jong is a big supporter of cutting the West down to size by what ever means is at his disposal. Just to give you a heads up Kim Jong acquired 12 nuclear submarines from the owner of the Washington Times...that would be one Reverend Moon in case you have not been reading Eric's posts...Reverend Moon felt the subs would make a nice gift. See he sort of thought Kim Jong could station a couple off the coast of California so that if he wanted to he could speed up the process of that great state sinking to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Does that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck? I guess ol' Moonie told Kim Jong that he could use his paper the Washington Times to sort of rehab his nasty reputaion...Kim Jong is known for being a bit of a maniac...and when the Times reported Kim Jong's little present in their paper they wrote that he was taking them only for "scrap" neglecting the minor fact that they were fully intact, launch tubes and stabilizing gear ready to go. See Moonie wants to build something like the Vatican City for his church and he wants to do it in North Korea, the place of his birth and he believes the Messiah will be born on the Korean peninsula. So Kimmy and Moonie are buddies. Oh the wonder of it all.
The big problem with attacking North Korea, aside from no oil being there, is that DOD estimates predict we'd lose a minimum of 100,000 troops in a battle with them. Now if we have a country that is pissed off and freaked out over losing 1000, imagine what sort of support a president would get losing 100,000.
Anyway my point is Saddam was not, in any way shape or form, real high on the list of "dangers" to our country. Many people have come out and gone on record about this...before and after attacking Iraq. To listen to the Bush administrations "hard sell" he was the next Hitler. So, you believe what you want Kevin.
There’s never been any evidence to support the claim that President Bush lied about wmd but that hasn’t slowed you guys one bit from mentioning it every chance you get.
Right! I think that you mean there's never been any evidence you've paid any attention to. You prefer to go with the smear campaigns that Bushco has run about everybody wanting to sell a book or get on tv. You need a reality check.
If anything, President Bush made the best decisions he could with the limited intelligence data he had thanks in part to Kerry’s votes to gut the intelligence departments.
One thing I will say is perhaps you are right about the decisions Bush made...the data was limited to what certain individuals wanted him to see. I don't know if he knows this, cares about this, maybe he just trusted those people...I can't say with any specific certainty what role George W. Bush played in this charade except to say he fronted for it. Perhaps he believes and trusts those who brought him the info...the fact is the info was manipulated and false and people knew it and are on record about it. Except for Clarke expressing that Bush had a serious interest in blaming Iraq for what happened on 9/11, I really can't say where he really stands on it. I wouldn't pretend to know what goes through the president's head. The way you pretend to know what's going through Kerry's head and heart...and mine.
Maybe the media should spend a bit more time talking about that if they’re really interested in understanding why the intelligence data failed us.
One thing the media should do is spend more time trying to get it right I agree to that.
Na, it’s too easy to just say that Bush lied rather than ask Kerry why he cut intelligence spending. Is it possible that had we not cut intelligence spending we would have been in a better position to make correct decisions leading up to the war?
Oh boy! Are you really gonna try and blame the Iraq war on John Kerry now? Are you going to try and narrow the whole 9/11 thing down to what Kerry did? That's a huge leap Kevin and I'd love to hear the explanation of that theory. Yeah, if one Senator had just towed the line none of this would have happened...are you alright?
Reg, you say you haven’t bought into the attacks on President Bush. Really? I’m confused because I think you’ve been front and center leading the charge about wmd. Where’s the proof? It’s time to put up or as Orielly says, ‘shut up.’
Actually Kevin, when I've made statements about why I think what I do I pepper it with facts...something you fail to do in your arguments...which read like a speech from Sean Hannity or any other talk show goon. Do you have anything other than assumptions, accusations, and mind reading tricks to offer? See above for WMD talk.
Howard Dean even went so far as to say that President Bush knew about 9/11 before it ever happened…didn’t he say that? Maybe it was a bad dream I had but I thought he said that.
I don't think he said that. Do you have a quote? What does Dean have to do with any of this anyway? I'm not a Dean supporter and Kerry does not control what Dean says.
So here we have a leading democratic presidential candidate saying that the president knew of 9/11 beforehand. Maybe I’m confused again but wasn’t that a smear and I don’t recall Kerry distancing himself from that line of bullshit, do you?
Umm...Kevin...if Dean said that (which is questionable) it was stupid to do so and Kerry was running against Dean so why the hell would he care if Dean put his foot in his mouth or say anything about it. Let Dean hang himself...which is pretty much what he did in the primary. I also don't think you could call Dean a "leading candidate" because he never was in the lead. He was a media darling and quote machine. When the voting started Dean was an after thought. Clark and Edwards were the only other "leading candidates" that won anything.
Moveon.org did there thing with the Bush/Hitler comparisons and I don’t recall Kerry coming out and saying it should stop and that it was wrong. Did I miss that too?
First, Eric has explained this already, second again why would Kerry say anything about that he's not controling Moveon.org. Moveon.org was not responsible for the content of that ad and was it on tv? We also know that Bush is not Hitler and a comparison like that is only a stupid shot...SBV ads are attacking part of Kerry's record that our government, including Bush, supports as true. Again I don't see what any of this has to do with anything but you love a weird tangent.
The left is upset because their guy is being attacked by a small, aging group of men who intend to set the record straight.
You obviously have paid no attention to who these guys are and who is behind them.
You say we should prosecute these guys…what’s to prosecute?
Karl Rove.
These are honorable veterans who also served our country or have you forgotten that? Shall we censor them too because you don’t like what they’re saying about your guy?
I want to see an end to dirty campaign tricks. I don't have an issue with the veterans themselves and I certainly don't want to squash their free speech...it's the folks behind them I'd like to see prosecuted. You like this stuff? This is how you feel this process should work? The big thing is when are these SBV's going to start providing some evidence...all we have is a bunch of statements that conflict with other peoples statements and conflict with the actual documents. We have SBV's changing their story several times. Their side of things makes no sense. So if I say Kevin G got 10 of his previous girlfriends abortions but you have documentation that shows that's not true...people should believe me anyway because I can say you faked the documents and they should believe me even if I said in the past Kevin G never took part in any abortion. They should just take my word because I'm trying to set the record straight and I'm an honorable guy? Even if they find out that I have a grudge against you because you once slept with one of my girlfriends and that someone else that hates you has provided me funding to run ads against you in the papers and on cable tv to call you a hypocrite that says he's against abortion but really paid for 10 abortions? They should believe me and doubt you based only on my word? That's where the SBV's are at...they have not produced a single shred of evidence. Why? There isn't any.
I thought liberals were all for free speech? I understand now…only when it suits you.
Hilarious!
I don’t recall anyone on the right talking about censoring or prosecuting Michael Moore for his movie with its wrong conclusions and assumptions about President Bush.
You don't recall it but they filed charges to get ads for Moore's film to be pulled from the airwaves. They also examined legal action to prevent Moore's film from coming out until after the election...oops, forgot those items huh?
Certainly President Bush didn’t call for any sort of censoring or prosecution as Kerry is attempting to do with the SBV.
Oops, see above. Plus early in 2004 the Bush campaign filed charges to prosecute the Kerry campaign for coordinating with Moveon.org...you must have missed that huh? Initial reports on this say that the Bush campaign showed a complete lack of evidence to support the charges. Didn't matter though, they were trying to distract us from the Iraq and the prison situation. Didn't have to be true, just had to make the news. You don't even pay attention to what "your guy" is doing huh? Probably because it doesn't make the right wing talk shows.
Do you think
No, Moore's film amounts to an editorial and was not funded by or involved with the Kerry campaign in any way. He did not raise money for it or file as a 527 in the way SBV has.
Speaking of Michael Moore…why hasn’t Kerry distanced himself from Fear n Hate 911?
Why should he distance himself from Moore's opinions? Moore did not consult Kerry about making his film.
Not only did he not distance himself from the guy, he had him seated next to Jimmy Carter at the dems convention. You do realize that was Kerry’s choice to embrace
Oops, wrong again. Moore was Carter's invited guest. Kerry did not know and had nothing to do with him being there. Nice try though Kevin. What did you think Kerry drew up the guest list for the convention? .
I’ve gathered that you’re very upset by the idea that Bush may be behind the SBV. So what. Even if he is, is it really any worse than Kerry being in bed with moveon.org, Michael Moore and whatever other left leaning, Bush bashing organization is out there to do Kerry’s dirty work for him.
Care to detail the ties between Kerry and these folks the way the ties between the Bush Administration and SBV can be easily detailed? Or would you prefer to live in the fantasy world that what you are saying is true? Show us the evidence Kevin...and while you're at it show us the evidence SBV is using to show Kerry is not a war hero? I mean aside from the undocumented statements of these "honorable men."
I haven’t seen you complain about the unfair treatment President Bush is getting. I thought you were all about being fair. I guess I was wrong.
Oops, wrong again...I came to Dubya's defense on the National Guard thing. I don't get credit for that though huh? Or for what I wrote about Moore's film?
It’s convenient that you went on record early on about President Bush’s military record saying that none of it should be held against him today. I’ve got a hunch that you knew sooner or later Kerry would likely be made to account for the liberties he’s taken with his war days and you wanted to be able to say that it wasn’t right to dredge that up. Am I right?
No, sorry to say you are wrong again. I thought it was terrible when they attacked Bush with that and I knew it would cause a response from Mr. Rove. One lie deserves another and when you're dealing with one of the best in the business when it comes to slime, I think, the last thing you should do is give him reason to start getting dirtier. So, that's why I was so disgusted by it because I knew Rove would say "Whatever you can do I can do bigger and better!"
I don't like to see anyone slammed with lies so I defended Bush. I'd defend him again if they did it to him again.
President Bush never ran on his military record.
He doesn't have one to run on.
Kerry, on the other hand has and that is why we’re talking about it today.
You paint a glowing analysis of Kerry’s actions from his early days to now.
Because it's true.
Why doesn’t Kerry release all of his military records so he can clear the air on much of the speculation the SBV have raised? I hate to be the one to burst your bubble of the man but it’s becoming more and more apparent that he’s not the war hero you’ve been looking up to all these years. Look up to him for his time in the senate if you like but anything other than that and you’re taking part in one man’s fantasy.
I would say that some records have not been released due to the timing. You're not gonna like it much when he does release the last of his records. I believe what they're doing is looking at where this whole thing is headed and they are waiting to deliver the final blow in this area until after the RNC as a momentum killer. Political strategists play these games and I think the bet is they wait to try to create a pro-Kerry story at the right moment. October will be the big month for both campaigns...hold on to your hat. You should remember that the Nixon adminstration already tried to trash Kerry so it's well known there is nothing on record that will damn him. You're up the creek without a paddle Kevin.
I’m not calling the Navy liars by saying that their documentation of Kerry’s records is wrong. It doesn’t take much imagination, or to use your phrase, even a person with half a brain knows that it was very possible for Kerry to overstate his actions and the situations which led to his Purple Hearts and Silver Star. Of the hundreds of thousands of men who went over there, how many do you suppose left after only 4 months with 3 Purple Hearts and a Silver Star?
It's nice to know that you know more than the Navy and that you know how easy it is to fool the Navy. It's nice to know you have no faith in their records or record keeping. So by your explanation here we should doubt all soldiers that have been awarded these medals and not see any of them as heros...it's just to easy to manipulate the system. It's nice to know you can look into the mind and heart of John Kerry and know why he did the things he did in his life. Do you have some documentation though to back up anything you think? I can imagine the outrage that would be pouring off you if Bush had these medals instead of Kerry and a group was challenging them with no documentaion just their "word" that Bush was lying. You'd be coming apart at the seems seething with hatred of the "evil liberals."
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Kerry immediately run for congress upon returning from
Did you read what I wrote? He was a returning war hero...all he had to do was play ball and say the right things and he would have been portrayed as great American...a symbol of all that's good about this country. Instead he took the hard way...he told the truth and paid dearly for it...and he's paying for it again now. Sad really, and I hear that the next wave of the Republican slander machine will be about Kerry's testimony about Viet Nam. Fantastic. They don't care about his senate record, that's why they don't talk about it. They need to find a way to make the "war president" look good next to an actual war hero. It's the Republicans that are keeping the Viet Nam stuff going not Kerry.
What better platform to launch yourself from if you’re a liberal than one where you can say you’ve been to the other side and you’ve seen the enemy and he is us and now you’re back to run against what it was you have first hand knowledge of. I mean, that’s pretty much what he did, right? Why is it so hard for you to get your head around the idea that what he did was choreographed?
You can't choreograph a war and make it a big photo op. This argument make no sense Kevin. You don't see that? If Kerry wanted just to use his military service as a way to enhance his political future he could have done hundreds of things differently. He could found a cushy job somewhere out of the action. He could have avoided the war altogether. He chose to go, chose to put himself in combat, where he could have been killed. Kerry lost friends in the war, it's just stupid to suggest that the man was putting himself in harms way just to get elected later. You might want to play down 4 months of getting shot at and risking your life on mined riverways but that's a long time to go through that. There sure as hell were a lot better ways Kerry could have chosen if he were a "coward looking only to help his political future"...that argument is nuts. You are coming to all these assumptions based on a bunch of guys that were not on Kerry's boat, that in most cases never served with him and didn't even know him, or that admit they are furious at him for his testimony after the war. They have not provided any evidence except their word...do you realize that?
Sure, he volunteered to spend time on a swift boat but he got the hell out as quick as he could. I do have a certain amount of respect for him going over there but it diminishes quickly when you begin to realize that his motives were less about serving his country and more about serving himself.
How do you get this magical ability to get inside another man's head and know what his motives are? Again you aren't making any sense...you're just telling us what you think he may have been thinking...where is the evidence that goes against all the actual evidence that says Kerry is a war hero?
Doesn’t all that video of him over there cause you to do that little thing with your head where you tilt it to the side as you bring your hand up to stoke your chin as you ponder what Kerry’s motives were?
No, how much film is there? Do you even know? I've known a lot of Viet Nam veterans and they had loads of photos and some with film canisters of their time there. Should I think they did that because they wanted a political career?
Is there a chance Kerry has been truthful all along? I suppose there’s always that chance but I very much doubt it.
I know you doubt it but what do you base that doubt on? Right now all you have to base it on that I can see is the word of a few men whose stories conflict with documents and other testimony about what happened and whose stories have been ever changing and evolving...support Kerry's story in 1996...don't support it in 2004. Let's face it the SBV's don't come across as honest men. You have some evidence you want to share or what?
