Tough Time For Democrats

WashingtonPost ^ | 12/18/03 | Tina Brown

[Pikamax]

The night before the announcement of Saddam's capture (round about the time that the tyrant was having a flashlight shone up his nose) I was at a media-heavy Manhattan dinner party that vividly dramatized the pre-spider hole mood. The guests -- mostly Democrats, with a smattering of moderate Republicans -- were unanimously kissing off Bush. It had been a particularly obnoxious week for a crowd that favors a more metrosexual approach to foreign relations: The Pentagon had displayed its upraised middle finger to France, Germany and Russia just as James Baker was due to leave for the Continent to romance the Euros into forgiving Iraq's debt. From appetizer to espresso, the guests bemoaned the administration's crudeness, incompetence and dangerous lack of diplomatic finesse.

[Steve_Seattle]

"He stresses that Arnold was sponsored by Republican kingmakers because he's a fantasy figure who very clearly represents the strict, punishing father people turn to in times of fear."

Pure BS. It was Arnold, not The Terminator, who was elected, and he ran as himself, a smiling, affable persona, not a "strict, punishing father." If anyone in this campaign comes across as a strict, angry father figure, it is Dean. By contrast, Bush is mild-mannered and calm.

[ImbDauwg]

Upraised middle finger. Well said!

That encapsulates the short-sightedness of conservativism, and certainly of conservative diplomacy in a nutshell.

Well done.

[Steel Eye]

Right. I'll bet you wish we had President Wandering Weenie back.

[Bob J]

More hawkish than Bush on the need to ramp up the troop numbers in Iraq...

Dems want more troops in Iraq so they can pull out the Vietnam canard and use it as evidence that Bush is losing.

[Vision Thing]

Poor Tina Brown. Even though she insults the masculinity and wild success of Republican leaders, she nonetheless reveals her view that dem males are nothing but wussicrats.

[meowmeow]

ImbDauwg Since Dec 18, 2003

Are you sure you're in the right place?

[DCPatriot]

The day after the Saddam news you could see Hillary Clinton in New York moving herself inexorably into the Democratic void in a policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations. More hawkish than Bush on the need to ramp up the troop numbers in Iraq, practical about the impending trouble next July when the possibly premature transfer of power follows troop reduction in the spring, shrewdly caring about the need to promote maternal care in Afghanistan, sure of her leonine power, she morphed her pinstripe pantsuit before our eyes into battle fatigues and flak jacket. Planted solidly behind the lectern with only intermittent reference to her notes she exuded the sense of a well-filled mind and life. Maybe not yet a credible commander-in-chief but at least a Democratic Major Barbara. Distantly one could hear the voice of Maggie Thatcher during the Gulf War in 1990, commanding Bush 41 not to "go wobbly." She will wait this one out. Self-discipline, not self-doubt.

Sycophantic b*st*rds!

They are jumping at the bit to endorse the Hildebeast.

Bush is described as a comic-book hero and Hillary is Maggie Thatcher.

</ PUKE >

[Redbob]

How can she equate Gephardt with "It's a Wonderful Life"?

Try "The Wizard of Oz"!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The Internet as a whole provides a place where all points of view may be expressed economically--it is the nation's, indeed the world's, soap box. The good news is that anyone can publish there, the bad news is that can for that very reason be quite difficult to be discovered by the audience who will pay attention to you.

For me, FR is the best solution to that problem; my opinions are generally conservative and on FR I therefore have a shot at the attention of people who are interested in opinions which are similar to my own.

If you are not conservative, however, the moderators whose actions preserve the conservative reputation of the site might very well find it necessary to undo your postings to this site in order to serve the target audience.

[wjcsux]

ZOT target? Please tell me it is so!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

we'll see if her ass is two or three ax-handles wide by 2008

[Redbob]

"Howard Dean's choleric outbursts look like Elmer Fudd spluttering..."

LOL!
How right-on can you get?

[MEG33]

Hillary in fatigues!!Har har.She isn't fit to clean Maggie Thatcher's bathroom.Her very appearance and shrill voice might scare the enemy,though!

[stands2reason]

That encapsulates the short-sightedness of conservativism, and certainly of conservative diplomacy in a nutshell.

That "short sightedness" led to "Old Europe" groveling at our feet.

"Well done", indeed!

[Redbob]

"Hillary Clinton... More hawkish than Bush on the need to ramp up the troop numbers in Iraq..."

This is where she loses her tepid claim to credibility.

[Steve_Seattle]

"comic-strip heroes don't have to be eloquent"

Two points: (1) Bush is not a comic-book hero; he's President of the United States, and has undertaken war in Iraq with the hope of reshaping the political culture of the Middle East, hardly the act of a small, inconsequential man, or a man incapable of a broad vision; and (2) as Michael Novak recently pointed out, Bush's major speeches have often been quite eloquent, surpassing anything Clinton (or Howard Dean) have ever said.

[dighton]

Well done.

I like my trolls medium-rare.

[Poohbah]

Intermittent ESM contact...

Multiple inbounds...

VAMPIRE VAMPIRE VAMPIRE! Air Warning Red, ZOTS Free!

[Constitution Day]

There's only 2 options here:

Burnt-to-a-crisp, or bloody-as-hell.