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How Character Corrodes
The New York Times Opinion ^ | 5/2/09 | Maureen Dowd

Posted on 05/04/2009 6:06:07 AM PDT by gridlock

How quaint.

The Republicans are concerned about checks and balances.

The specter of Specter helping the president have his way with Congress...

(snip)

Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, tried to put the best face on it, noting, “This will make it easier for G.O.P. candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balances in Washington.”

This is quite touching, given that the start of the 21st century will be remembered as the harrowing era when an arrogant Republican administration did its best to undermine checks and balances. (Maybe when your reign begins with Bush v. Gore, a Supreme heist that kissed off checks and balances, you feel no need to follow the founding fathers’ lead.)

(snip)

As Mr. Obama said in his news conference, it is in moments of crisis that a country must cleave to its principles. Asserting that “waterboarding violates our ideals,” he said he had been struck by an article describing how Churchill would not torture prisoners even when “London was being bombed to smithereens.”

“And the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts and over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people,” he said. “It corrodes the character of a country.”

Class dismissed.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: czj; modo
Dowd is back at her snarky, scatterebrained best. Honestly, I don't know why I bother...

(Actually, I do. And so do you!)

She inserts the obligatory Bush Stole Florida reference. That one is getting a little long in the tooth, MoDo.

She also repeats BO's assertion that the British did not torture prisoners under Churchill, even though it is demonstrably true the the Brits tortured people willy-nilly, with Churchill's encouragement.

1 posted on 05/04/2009 6:06:08 AM PDT by gridlock
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To: gridlock

FORE!!!

2 posted on 05/04/2009 6:08:55 AM PDT by gridlock (L'Etat, c'est Barack...)
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To: gridlock

“Bush Stole Florida ...”

How quaint.

Even if he did, if al-Gore had carried his “home” state of Tennessee, he would have won the election.


3 posted on 05/04/2009 6:09:41 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: gridlock

Heck, the British invented and perfected a lot of the torture we read about in history.
As regards Mo Dowd, no, there is no reason to read her. If it wasn’t for Imus, I never would have even known who she was. Too bad I ever heard of either one of them, come to think of it.


4 posted on 05/04/2009 6:12:08 AM PDT by Past Your Eyes (When the going gets tough, Democrats switch sides.)
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To: gridlock


5 posted on 05/04/2009 6:14:01 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: gridlock

Dowd better vent fast and furious for the few more weeks till the NY Time goes belly up.


6 posted on 05/04/2009 6:17:42 AM PDT by rod1
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To: gridlock

This needs a special barf alert. You may have an affinity for Dowd, I have no such desire.


7 posted on 05/04/2009 6:23:14 AM PDT by bvw
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To: bvw

It’s kind of like slowing down for a car-wreck. A guilty pleasure, at best...


8 posted on 05/04/2009 6:26:57 AM PDT by gridlock (L'Etat, c'est Barack...)
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To: gridlock
The Republicans are concerned about checks and balances.

MoDo doesn't know checks and balances. We have a hard-left president with control of both houses of Congress and a sycophantic media. Yes you're damn right I'm concerned about checks and balances - in just over three months the man has spent more than any other Admin in history.

9 posted on 05/04/2009 6:31:47 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: gridlock

I have those. Just not Dowd. If they come out in public, that’s my mistake, too. Not avoid being embarrassed, but to avoid setting a bad example.


10 posted on 05/04/2009 6:32:19 AM PDT by bvw
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To: gridlock

I have a 2 word cure for either side that will make it much less likely they will lose their character (which IMHO is virtually impossible because one with good character doesn’t generally lose it, and one with bad character can’t get it, they just fake it til they make it)

TERM LIMITS


11 posted on 05/04/2009 6:52:34 AM PDT by wombtotomb ( ITS NOT ABOUT RIGHT VERSUS LEFT, ITS ABOUT RIGHT VERSES WRONG!)
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To: gridlock

Over an hour, and 11 posts in, and only one CZJ pic. What is this forum coming to?


12 posted on 05/04/2009 7:18:46 AM PDT by VRWCmember
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To: Past Your Eyes
As regards Mo Dowd, no, there is no reason to read her.

No, but the CZJ pics make it worth posting the link to her column and scanning the excerpt.

13 posted on 05/04/2009 7:25:20 AM PDT by VRWCmember
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To: VRWCmember

There ya' go...

14 posted on 05/04/2009 7:34:56 AM PDT by gridlock (L'Etat, c'est Barack...)
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To: gridlock

"You beast, you savage. C'mon, bark like a dog for me. Bark like a dog! I will teach you the meaning of the word respect."

15 posted on 05/04/2009 7:38:51 AM PDT by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: gridlock

You are a patriot and a scholar, sir.


16 posted on 05/04/2009 10:37:06 AM PDT by VRWCmember
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To: DuncanWaring

“Even if he did, if al-Gore had carried his “home” state of Tennessee, he would have won the election.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

That’s what I tell the clowns who claim that Bush stole the election! The people who know Gore best and elected him to the Senate in a STATEWIDE election refused to compound that error by electing him president. If you cannot carry your home state you probably should not be elected.


17 posted on 05/04/2009 1:03:28 PM PDT by RipSawyer (Change has come to America and all hope is gone.)
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