AN EXCHANGE I HAD WITH A LIBERAL FRIEND--REFUTES LIB TALKING POINTS ON IRAQ, GAS PRICES, ETC.

I don't know if this will interest anyone, but I had an e-mail exchange yesterday with a former co-worker now working for a different company out in New York City. He was a major lib. when he worked for the company I'm with and he and I use to get into some heated exchanges. I'm providing this not to pat myself on the back, but to provide something you can use when you get similar boilerplate attacks from your liberal friends since they're all basically reading off the same script.

Anyway, after first e-mailing me yesterday saying he doesn't know how the Republican party has survived all this horrible P.R. of late, I told him this:

Hey, we’re surviving just fine! It’s your party you should worry about. “Bush sucks” just isn’t an agenda that’s going to inspire anyone other than those who’d just be voting Democrat anyway. In any event, the economy is growing faster than the 90s and I think most people recognize the country feels safer than after 9-11. True opinion polls aren’t necessarily reflecting that (I won’t get into what I think is wrong with these polls, i.e. over-representation of Democratic respondents relative to their actual numbers in the voting population), but 7 months is a lifetime in politics and I’m convinced Bush’s new communications team will do a better job of getting the message out. Those are some pretty strong trump cards to go into the election with, it’s just Bush has been terrible at putting forth those accomplishments. I think that’s going to begin to change.

You're funny, someone really did a job on you. You're like Rumsfeld who has an inability to assume any responsibility for, or admit to, things gone wrong--I suppose you're going to tell me the war is going well and that Fox news is neutral. Interesting choice for director of communications, however, not surprising in the least. And, please don't reiterate the Party line on that one because I've heard it enough already. You are 100% right about the Democrats (I now consider myself an Independent) when you speak about messaging--it's ridiculous, especially when there are so many opportunities to exploit the happenings in the current administration. By the way, the third rationale for invading Iraq, which was oil, has gone awry. Please educate me on why prices are ballooning when control well above 50% of the worlds oil supply because I know you'll have an answer--other than Saddam was a terrible dictator and that's why we invaded. There are too many of those around to have that be the rationale. Democrats can't stick to a message to save anyone's life, that's for sure and you'll get no argument here. That's why I'm so impressed, and disgusted, by the administration--anyone in jail yet? Oh, yes, Cheney's chief of staff, right? How many billions have been squandered in the pipeline issue by Halliburton (I can't even spell it b/c I have to turn the page when another story appears)?, any more leaks about CIA agents? Any more Republican lobbyists arrested? Where did Tom Delay go? Give me something, you're a smart man--good thing I don't have to debate you in person!

"I suppose you're going to tell me the war is going well and that Fox news is neutral"

I wouldn’t say the war is great, but it’s not the disaster the media makes it out to be either. A lot is happening that’s positive in Iraq and I talk to people who are over there as part of the reconstruction effort and they say much of Baghdad is quiet, peaceful and going about its business. They say the media just has a “if it bleeds it leads” focus on Iraq that ignores all the progress being made to focus on the negative instead. More and more Iraqis are working to root out the terrorists, and we finally seem to have a unity government forming there.

Their economy is actually booming at like something along the lines of 17% a year, higher than before the war and unemployment is dropping. We are destroying a great deal of Al Qaeda’s best troops there, keeping their focus distracted on Iraq instead of attacking the West as a 2004 FBI report indicated. Territory once held by the terrorists is now in the government’s hands, forcing Zarqawi by all accounts to have to move the bulk of his Al Qaeda force out of Western Iraq and to mountain havens along the Iranian border. Even Sunni insurgents have been turning on the Al Qaeda murderers, fed up with the mass murder and terror they’ve sown, seeing them as the bigger threats than the Americans. It has also helped bring some of the Sunni insurgents into negotiations with the government, realizing they have a common interest in expelling Al Qaeda from Iraq.

That fact also helped to create a highly successful national election in December, where Sunnis admitted to the need of participating which they did in large numbers. All of the elections in Iraq last year saw large turnout, far in excess of any typical US national election.

I have some good articles I’ve saved detailing many other aspects of the progress and positives in Iraq if you’re interested. Yes, there are still big problems to overcome, but Iraq was a nation brought to its knees under half a century of tyranny. The problems that history created will not be corrected overnight, but a lot of things people said could never happen in Iraq, have happened. We were told Iraqis were unsuited for democracy and would never participate. Yet they came out in droves. We were told Iraq would never hold together as a nation. But so far it has, remarkably, even after the Samarra mosque bombing. No civil war broke out there contrary to the media’s incessant use of boilerplate like “on the brink of civil war.” And in the end all the ethnic factions finally seem in agreement on forming a national government.

As for Fox, compared to CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS etc. they certainly appear more neutral. To me, a big part of balanced coverage isn’t so much how the news is reported but WHAT news is reported. It seems to me Fox reports all the significant goings-on, not just that which makes Republicans look bad which is all I see out of the other networks. Fox to me reports both that which is positive for Republicans and negative, ditto that on the Democrats.

"By the way, the third rationale for invading Iraq, which was oil, has gone awry. Please educate me on why prices are ballooning when control well above 50% of the worlds oil supply because I know you'll have an answer--other than Saddam was a terrible dictator and that's why we invaded. There are too many of those around to have that be the rationale"

I’m not sure when oil was given as a rational for the war other than by the far left and their boilerplate mantra of “It’s a war for oil!” If anything, the fact we’ve not absconded with Iraq’s oil to increase supplies and bring down pump prices here in the US disproves a left wing article of faith, not a Bush administration rational for the war. Anyway, if you have a statement by someone in the administration justifying the war by saying “We’ll have lots more oil,” then I’ll concede the point. But it’s nothing I ever heard and I doubt any of them would say that thus lending legitimacy to the “war for oil” charge.

As for why prices on gas have gone up, it is a “perfect storm” as it were of multiple events. First we have the onerous fuel blend regulations of the Carol Browner EPA of 1997 that created nearly 30 different fuel blends throughout the nation taxing already over-stretched refinery capacity. Those fuel blends have spiked oil prices every spring since because they come on-line every year at that time, but particularly so in the last couple years as demand in the US has risen sharply outstripping refinery capacity to keep up with it (since we’ve not built a refinery in this country since 1977 thanks to enviro regs. making them too costly to build).

Additionally, this year the MTBE additive industry has finally gone out of business having been put there by endless lawsuits against the industry due to ground water contamination issues and so forth. As a result, we’ve had to rely much more heavily on ethanol as an EPA mandated fuel additive that kicks in this time of year to replace the loss of the MTBE additive. Ethanol cannot be produced as easily, cheaply or in the same quantities as MTBE. It is also far more difficult to ship. MTBE could be shipped through pipelines. Ethanol cannot because it takes on water condensation from the pipelines, therefore it has to be trucked from Midwestern hubs. That means gasoline supplies have been terribly squeezed this spring due to the shortage of additive supplies, driving up gas prices.

Congress should have provided liability protection to keep the MTBE industry in business, but failed to. Obviously the ground water issue had to be addressed and there were ways of doing that without putting a needed additive maker out of business further constraining gasoline supplies.

Other factors of course include skyrocketing US demand that went up 8% in the 1st quarter, (which tracked with the increase in oil company profits at 7%, so this “price gouging” nonsense of the Democrats is a bunch of hot air). Additionally, India and China’s demand for oil is through the stratosphere adding to the per barrel price on the spot market too. You will be surprised to learn as a result of demand outstripping supply and refinery capacity, I have become an advocate of conservation. Time to get rid of the SUVs!

Also, add into the mix that the damage from Katrina has still not been fully repaired at Gulf Coast refinery and drilling operations and you have an even bigger squeeze on fuel supplies. So these 4 factors as I say have come together like the “perfect storm” at the wrong time to drive up pump prices.

Back to Saddam. You indicated somehow it was inconsistent of us to invade Iraq for humanitarian reasons if there are so many other tyrants in the world, which there are. But I’ve never understood this “if we can’t do everything we should do nothing” mindset. To me and what I know of Saddam’s regime, he was among the worst. I had been reading about Iraq under Saddam’s rule for years and I was for his overthrow long before I even knew who George W. Bush was or heard arguments about WMD.

If we had an all or nothing mindset or thought it hypocritical to fight one dictator while leaving others in place during WW2, we wouldn’t have fought the Third Reich because Stalin and General Franco as well as dictators throughout the world continued to exist after the overthrow of the Nazis. The fact is, just like with the Nazis we assessed Saddam as a threat to US national security. Perhaps the WMD thing proved to be wrong, though I still say they were moved out before the war as do two top officers of Saddam’s former military General Georges Sada and another guy whose name I forget who was a top officer of the Saddam Fedeyean.

And we now have reams of documents coming out of Saddam’s intelligence files showing Saddam worked was actively involved in terrorism including working with Al Qaeda (though no direct evidence so far exists that he was involved in 9-11) and recruited and trained jihadist suicide bombers. We have discovered documents that show the lone bomber who managed to escape after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, a man by the name of Abdul Rahman Yasin was an Iraqi trained by Saddam’s intelligence service, who then escaped back to Iraq and was given a monthly paycheck and a home in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit. I will provide you with copies of the translated documents with the links to the original files on the Pentagon’s website if you’re interested. An extensive list of just some of the connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda can be found here, compiled from mainstream press sources including more liberal ones like the New Yorker and London Guardian: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=092503F

I don’t think we should make any mistake that this guy was a threat to us and to security in the Middle East. After 9-11 we had to change the culture of death and chaos in the Middle East, a culture Saddam thrived on and helped instigate. Never would we be successful in the war on terror if we were just content to leave the status quo, and the forces of instability and terror, in place. Yes we’ve made mistakes in the aftermath of that effort. And contrary to what you say I think Rumsfeld has admitted to that. But that doesn’t remove the fact that Saddam had to go. Even if he didn’t have WMD, he would likely have gotten them by now or shortly. And he would have continued supporting terrorism and instability in the Middle East and throughout the world. We know from documents discovered in his files he was supporting Al Qaeda-linked terrorists even as far away as in the Phillipines! We may not know the full extent of that threat, but the picture is beginning to emerge out of Saddam’s own files and it is troubling to say the least. The US media, other than Fox, has largely ignored the story because of their anti-war bias, and the administration once again is failing to get the word out. But the facts are there.

"Oh, yes, Cheney's chief of staff, right? How many billions have been squandered in the pipeline issue by Halliburton (I can't even spell it b/c I have to turn the page when another story appears)?, any more leaks about CIA agents? Any more Republican lobbyists arrested? Where did Tom Delay go?"

I think it’s funny that Democrats, or in your case an independent, jump on Scooter Libby for being accused, (mind you he’s not been convicted of anything and probably never will be because his “lying under oath” can easily be attributed to a faulty memory), of the same things Bill Clinton was accused of and more credibly I might add, (one can easily forget which reporter out of many one talked to first 3 years ago. I doubt one forgets getting a you-know-what from an intern), and then excused of by his supporters. But I’m glad we’ve put perjury and obstruction of justice charges back on the books again after giving them the 1990s off. But hey, if they can show Libby did those things then he should pay the price. But it’s a pretty thin case and an act of desperation by a prosecutor who could find no criminal basis to convict on in the original charge. Ask any defense attorney. They’ll tell you a perjury charge is the place of last resort by desperate prosecutors in most cases. My friend’s father was indicted on that after the prosecutor couldn’t convict on dozens of other charges.

I’m not sure what the pipeline issue with Halliburton is. You’ll have to give me more information on that. Or did you just want an opportunity to apply the liberals’ favorite buzzword “Halliburton?”

And the CIA leak story is the biggest non-story of the century. Valerie Plame was a pencil pusher in Langley, nothing more. She hadn’t had covered status for 7 years and the law specifies 5 as the mandated period of secrecy. And even when she had covered status it was only the lightest of cover, NOC, which all CIA employees take when overseas, in her case in that enemy hotbed of London England. Plame’s identity has been spoken of as the poorest kept secret in DC. She was listed in Who’s Who long before her identity was “leaked.”

The fact is her husband lied about who sent him to Niger and thus in so doing he risked exposing his wife, who was actually the one who pushed for him to be sent on the CIA junket. A bipartisan and unanimous finding of the Senate Intelligence Committee proved he lied about having been sent by Dick Cheney and Colin Powell. And further they indicated he was drastically inconsistent in his report to the committee as versus his published version of his findings in the New York Times. The committee, again in a unanimous bipartisan finding, indicated his report tended to support the administration on the yellowcake story. And a full investigation of the matter by the same committee also concluded the administration was justified in claiming Saddam was searching for yellowcake in Africa because there was strong evidence he was. This was also backed up by concurrent investigations by British Intelligence and the European Intelligence Agency.

So the administration had every right and need to set the record straight on the lies Joe Wilson was telling, coincidentally while being a paid advisor to the Kerry campaign, and to expose his lie about having been on the payroll of the administration. And in so doing pointing out that his wife was a CIA bureaucrat in no way violated the law. Indeed, Fitzpatrick has not, and likely will not, brought any charges on the original supposed violation because the law will not support an indictment.

As for Delay and Abramoff, good riddance to both. I don’t know if Delay will ever be found guilty. Ronnie Earle seems partisan and feckless, even indicting Delay on something that’s not against the law that the court embarrassed him by dropping! So instead he reinvented the term “money laundering” to mean legal money being used illegally which is the opposite of money laundering. But that sounds more ominous for the sake of public consumption than what the actual charge could be, illegal diversion of campaign funds. As for Abramoff, I notice Democrats have been content to let that one drop now that their Senate Minority Leader has been shown to have been one of the biggest takers of Abramoff money in the Senate.

But Delay is small potatoes next to the breathtaking campaign violations of the Clintons during the 90s which Janet Reno as Clinton’s Justice Dept. refused to ever appoint an independent counsel to investigate. Dick Morris alleges Clinton illegally converted soft money adds through illegal campaign coordination with the DNC. And we all know about the illegal foreign monies the Clintons happily gobbled up. And that’s only scratching the surface.

And Hillary continues to be under the gun for $2 million plus in illegal use of hard campaign dollars from her 2000 Senate campaign as alleged by the guy who donated it, Peter Paul. He’s got the cancelled checks and the thank you letters to prove it. But again, why does the media ignore this to focus on flimsy allegations against Republicans instead? Then you wonder why I think Fox is neutral!!

Anyway, kudos on going independent. I have toyed with the idea myself because I am fed up with the Republican party and how they’ve become an institutionalized party in D.C. I don’t like their big spending ways, their pork barrel budgets, their refusal to fight for conservative policy principles, etc. That’s why I said “good riddance” to Delay. I was never particularly fond of him, but I lost all use for him when he laughably claimed there is nothing left in federal budgets that can be cut. We’re better off without a pol like that who just became part of the wallpaper inside the Beltway.

I continue to think Bush is doing a good job though I find his administration’s inability to get its message out frustrating, it’s unwillingness to veto spending bills galling and its lack of border enforcement inexcusable. But I think overall he’s been good for the nation. I honestly believe despite the lack of full border enforcement we’re more secure and there’s no arguing the economy is on better footing than when he took office. But this Congress is a joke, full of cowards and fools who look more to their own re-election than what’s good for the nation, and that criticism applies to BOTH parties. I think the Republicans deserve to lose the majority. Maybe some time spent in the political wilderness will do them some good and remind them of their principles.

Anyway smoke is coming from my keyboard and my fingers are beginning to bleed, so I better stop. On a more personal note, how is the social scene in New York City? Are you dating anyone? I’m still thinking of coming out there some time for a visit. We’ll have to get together for dinner if I do so I can further indoctrinate you in conservative ideals. HAHA. I just don’t know when I’ll be coming. Anyway, stay in touch. I’m sure I’ll be receiving a scorching reply to all of this.

On Scooter/Plame/McCarthy, send her this link and see if she is in for some fun speculation: http://macsmind.blogspot.com/

2 posted on 05/03/2006 10:38:22 AM PDT by eureka! (Heaven forbid the Rats get control of Congress and/or the Presidency any time soon....)

3 posted on 05/03/2006 10:41:01 AM PDT by MikeA (Not voting in November because you're pouting is a vote for Democratic Congressional control)

How many dollars did your refutation knock off the price of gas at the pump?

4 posted on 05/03/2006 10:41:18 AM PDT by AdamSelene235 (Truth has become so rare and precious she is always attended to by a bodyguard of lies.)

I wonder if his head will explode when he reads all of this? Probably not since liberal heads start off pretty empty...

5 posted on 05/03/2006 10:41:46 AM PDT by FormerLib ("...the past ten years in Kosovo will be replayed here in what some call Aztlan.")

I had a small, sweet and certainly shorter conversation the other day with a Libby...

HIM standing with a Starbucks mocha lotta kaka grandes in his hand...
"Man, these gas prices stink! They're so high, I can't afford to drive to work"!!

ME: "How much did you pay for that so-called coffee?"

Him: "About 4.75$, why does that...er, uh, ahh..er...matter?

ME: "You're paying about $38 a GALLON FOR COFFEE!!! and all it does is MAKE YOU GO...and you whine about paying $3 for gasoline???

HIM: "I gotta go..."

END OF CONVERSATION!

"co-worker now working for a different company out in New York City"

Your co-worker, being a major lib, moved to the right city anyway. The place is crawling with them.

That wasn't my objective nor do I pretend to have that power. It's just too bad both Democrats and Republicans didn't see coming the disasterous results of their actions, or inactions, in terms of oil policy including of course refusing to drill in ANWR starting with Clinton's 1996 veto.

8 posted on 05/03/2006 10:44:02 AM PDT by MikeA (Not voting in November because you're pouting is a vote for Democratic Congressional control)

10 posted on 05/03/2006 10:46:30 AM PDT by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestu s globus, inflammare animos)

The difference is, I was providing facts and information people can use as opposed to shallow and vacuous talking points. I never recommended anyone use my words verbatim, merely that if they need the information there are facts there they may not be aware of that they can share with others in their own discussions. There's a difference between sharing information and just reciting boilerplate by rote.

11 posted on 05/03/2006 10:51:14 AM PDT by MikeA (Not voting in November because you're pouting is a vote for Democratic Congressional control)

12 posted on 05/03/2006 10:52:08 AM PDT by Christian4Bush (FreeRepublic and Rush Limbaugh: kevlar protection from the Drive-By Media.)

13 posted on 05/03/2006 10:52:13 AM PDT by petercooper (Cemeteries & the ignorant - comprising 2 of the largest Democrat voting blocs for the past 75 years.)

Well pwned. Respectful and, in the end, devastating.

OMG CHIMPY McBU$HitLER-HALLIBURTON bloodforOil omgggggggggg !!!!1111one!1eleven

Excellent, excellent.

I have a vague memory of a pipeline thing mentioned in the Micheal Moore movie, about plans for a pipeline being hatched in TX so that's why we went to war. The meeting actually happened under Clinton and the pipeline never turned into anything, but you will have research to find more.

I never saw the movie, I admit, so I am not sure.

15 posted on 05/03/2006 10:55:41 AM PDT by I still care ("Remember... for it is the doom of men that they forget" - Merlin, from Excalibur)

You should expect to receive a notice of investigation from the Intl Atomic Energy Agency regarding this "nucular" stockpile of facts you've released into the air. LOL

16 posted on 05/03/2006 10:55:48 AM PDT by nhoward14 (If an illegal alien is an undocumented worker, then robbery is undocumented acquisition.)

Thats what the lefties tell me they are doing - just presenting the facts.

I hate to admit it, but quite a few of us on the starboard rail parrot the talk show loons almost verbatim. It is embarassing to me. Your arguments were good.

BTW, do you guys work or chit-chat all day??

I went thru a spell of the same thing with a dip$hit colleague until I decided to google a phrase from his response and found out that he had been lifting material from some neo-liberal website. When I suggested that he didn't have the intelligence to string that many words together into a readable format, he reiterated that it was his work. When I sent him a link to the website he plagiarized from, he went away. Good times!

Holy mother, you wasted way too much time with this robot. Drop this nut off your Address Book permanently.

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