Do you really believe a traitor like Hanoi Kerry should be Commander in Chief?
I'm John Kerry and I approve
the desecration of the American Flag.
Posted on 08/03/2004 12:09:31 PM PDT by dead
Opening Statement
Dear FRiends:
I once suffered two great frustrations in being a freelance political writer. First, the loneliness: you put an article out there, and you might as well have thrown it down a black hole for all the response you get. Second, the ghettoization: when you do get response, it would be from folks you agree with. Not fun for folks like me who reliish--no, crave and need--political argument.
Then came the Internet, the blogs--and: problem solved.
I have especially enjoyed having my articles in the Village Voice posted on Free Republic by "dead," and arguing about them here. The only frustration is that I never have enough time--and sometimes no time--to respond as the threads are going on. That is why I arranged for an entire afternoon--this afternoon--to argue on Free Republic. Check out my articles and have at me.
A little background: I am a proud leftist who specializes in writing about conservatives. I have always admired conservatives for their political idealism, acumen, stalwartness, and devotion. I have also admired some of their ideas--especially the commitment to distrusting grand social schemes, and the deep sense of the inherent flaws in human nature. (To my mind the best minds in the liberal tradition have encompassed these ideals, while still maintaining that robust social reform is still possible and desirable. My favorite example is the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, author of the Serenity Prayer and a great liberal Democrat.)
Lately, however, I've become mad at the right, and have written about it with an anger not been present in my previous writings. It began with the ascension of George Bush, when I detected many conservatives beginning to care more about power than principles. The right began to seem less interesting to me--more whiny, more shallow--and, what's more, in what I saw as an uncritical devotion to President Bush, often in retreat from its best insights about human nature.
I made my strongest such claim in a Village Voice article two weeks ago in which I, after much thought, chose to say conservatism was "verging on becoming an un-American creed" for the widespread way conservatives are ignoring the lessons of James Madison's great insights in Federalist 51 that in America we are supposed to place our ultimate trust in laws, not men.
Finally, in what I see as the errors of the Iraq campaign, I recognize the worst aspects of arrogant left-wing utopianism: the idea that you can remake a whole society and region through sheer force of will. I think Iraq is a tragic disaster (though for the time being the country is probably better off than it was when Saddam was around--but only, I fear, for the time being).
I am also, by the way, a pretty strong critic of my own side, as can be seen in my latest Village Voice piece.
So: I'm yours for the day--until 7:10 pm CST, when I'm off to compete in my weekly trivia contest at the University of Chicago Pub. Until then: Are you ready to rumble?
Respectfully,
Rick Perlstein
I just read your "Wal-Mart Voter" article. Have a question. You wrote...
John and Scott are dead wrong, of course: Clinton knew there was danger to Americans from a terrorist group called Al Qaeda and did do something about it, if perhaps not all the right things, whatever those might have been
What specifically did Clinton do about Al Qaeda in response to their greater than half dozen attacks on American interests while he was President? (Bombing an aspirin factory while Monica is testifying, which the owner of later won in court millions of dollars from US taxpayers to rebuild doesn't count.)
And, if Clinton knew Al Qaeda was such danger to the US, and clearly the most pressing threat facing us, why did his Administration not discuss Bin Laden or AQ a single time in any of the security briefings given to the incoming Bush admin?
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Well, there was the New Year's arrests, the Sudan missile attacks-- Newt Gingrich was effusive in his praise about the latter, though Senator Ashcroft called it wag-the-dog.
bump!
My apologies for posting large quantities of pasted text just as you posted your admonishment. I'm a tad on the goofy side as well. ;-)
That's cuz he posted it to dead.
there is some truth to what you say.
the best lies and strongest delusions are those based most firmly on truth.
in other words, Mr. Perlman: I believe you have some basic grasp of some real issues, but the picture you spin from the truths you grasp is one I do not agree with or recognise as reflecting reality.
though we do have some rather idolatrous bushbots here, the majority of those with whom I deal approve of GW Bush with some reservations and disagreements in detail.
Most of us hold these disagreements quietly, especially now during both war and an election cycle.
The reason? Simple: we believe Dubya is significantly better than the creature your team is fielding, and we shall do what we must to make certain your boy does not win.
If it seems to you that we have grown too fond of power, look to the antics of your side of the aisle - the corruption they have spread throughout government and society has gone on too long, and grown too strong, for us to be able to afford to take a high road in this struggle.
We MUST have the reins of power for at least one more term of office in order to undo as much of the damage leftists have done to this republic as is within our abilities.
One side note, son: Everything is "only for the time being".
Ok, now I AM Laughing. Isn't that the one designed to make us forget about Monica??
Self note # 2:
No uranium ore taken from Niger (Salon article, by Joe Wilson).
Regarding voting practices, Mr. Perlstein:
Two words:
Jack Ryan.
Do not even try to suggest that getting him out of the way was not a campaign strategy. Why WERE his divorce proceedings made public, then, when Kerry's aren't? Yes, the financial ones?
I was merely giving you the benefit of the doubt. Simply by mentioning the mainstream media's overall perception and lack of the big picture, I was in no way meaning to say that one could *only* arrive at an "Iraq in chaos" (not your words) sort of view through that one outlet. There are others, Brookings being one.
But then again, using Brookings as a source simply reinforces my broader claim because Brookings doesn't mention word one about how Iraq compares to those paradise vacation nations at "peace" such as Brazil, where 110 citizens are shot dead on average every day.
Yet when one contrasts the "peace" of Utopian Rio to the "chaos" of 1 or 2 murdered Americans per day in wartime Baghdad, an entirely different picture emerges.
Compared to Brazil, Iraq is calm and peaceful. Yet the media portrays Brazil as calm and peaceful, not Iraq. Rio is paradise; Baghdad is anarchy...so sayeth the mainstream news media.
Yet *vastly* more civilians are being shot dead every day in Brazil than in Iraq.
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
I sent you a link by FReepmail.
Seconding Southack's request for a response to his questions posed in #94.
Then would I be right in assuming that you scorched the skin off of the Democratic Party for selling the last shreds of its soul to keep Bill Clinton in power?
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Dan, yours it eh easiest of all. the answer is yes. See my (apologies: very long) article at BostonReview.net.
A relevent exceprt:
Bill Clinton hired Dick Morris to prevent what was seen, in the context of a single career, as an unacceptable horror: a looming reelection loss. Morris persuaded him that the modern Democratic Party’s founding principle—long-term investment in programs to create more economic equality—was unacceptably inflexible. For Clinton and Morris, the solution was plain. The Democratic Party had to shed everything that was slow-moving and lumbering in its ideological presentation. They had to turn a dinosaur into a lean, mean short-term vote-producing machine.
The Congressional losses of 1994 touched Clinton’s deepest anxieties, and made him willing to weaken the institution that made him, for personal survival. Dick Morris did it the way a CEO would. By showing indifference to any stakeholder but the swing voter, he gladly risked the loyalty of those who had been willing to stick with the institution through thick and thin. “The fact that it would anger Democrats was not a drawback but a bonus,” Stephanopoulos recalls of Morris’s strategy—just as angering long-term stakeholders is a bonus for a corporate manager looking to prove to Wall Street his macho bona fides. It gives the stock a goose. The only risk being, of course, the long-term health of the institution.22
Political scientists, having established that party identification is the best predictor of voting behavior, need to study how many party identifiers the Democrats lost specifically as a result of this kind of thinking. They need to measure the opportunity cost of doing what Dick Morris said needed to be done to win the 1996 election and the opportunity cost of the Morris-like habits that currently saturate Bill Clinton’s party. Now that Dick Morris has been disgraced, it’s easy to laugh at him. But we all know what happens to those who laugh imperiously in parables. He lost the battle. But did his legacy of stock-ticker thinking also lose Democrats the war?
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As for fighting to keep Bill in power regarding Monica, what can I say: I think the Democrats who fought against Clinton's conviction were defending the spirit of the Constitution against a constittutional coup. None of you are going to agree with me on that.
I think it would have been better to impeach him based on the informal vote-buying Clinton did to get NAFTA through, but that's just me.
Do you support the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, that legalized abortion in the US? Why or why not?
There's 1 or 2 Americans murdered in Atlanta everyday.
An honest mistake. Chalabi passed on info to the Iranians only "inadvertantly". Could have happened to anybody. It's not like he stole classified documents or anything.
Please see post #412. It was meant for you. :-)
Wow! Intruiging. Well... next time you step into our ring, do give advanced warning, so I too can plan the day off to take part in an afternoon of semantic 'Quake!'
Gosh that sounds really fun. Especially the part where you get to define my character in advance.
Atos
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Atos, dead and I gave several days' advance morning!
Explain what you mean by "define my character in advance."
http://www.house.gov/budget/fy05fd032504chart32.pdf
Which documents rapidly increasing spending per veteran. Your "cut" notwithstanding.
The Washington Post found a disgruntled leaker who was asked to provide an idea of how to make large cuts. Welcome to the world of budgeting. Every good budget effort everywhere requires departments to look at what they would cut. Sometimes the cuts are implemented, sometimes not.
Leaking budget process documents is not a proposed public policy or an implemented budget cut.
You stated: "the administration's proposed budget cuts for veterans", and now you cite a leaker, not a proposal.
Clean up your language, or quit lying (your choice).
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