Last few months have been tough for neocoms

[Montgomery Burns]

After countless demostrations by unwashed, unkempt Saddamites and neocoms with their paper mache puppets, signs saying "we support our troops when they shoot their officers", pro-terrorism and anti-Israel signs, signs that incredibly compared President Bush (who is hardly a socialist) to the National Socialist Adolf Hitler, the neocoms were sure that the world approved of their mature displays of morality and logic.

But when Afghanistan had its first ever free election last fall, the neocoms frantically tried to discredit the success by claiming that there is now more opium being grown in Afghanistan than when the Taliban was in power. Female neocoms were furious that the first person to drop a ballot was a 19 y/o female.

After Australia's John Howard - a staunch US ally who insisted Saddam comply with international law - was reelected to a 4th term and an increased majority, the neocoms were simmering with rage.

But the neocoms were sure they could sway the American people to vote out President Bush. They knew that the MSM had dropped all pretense of being trying to be fair and was openly and blatantly cheering on Kerry while viciously trying to discredit Bush with forged memos, ignoring the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, lying about 380 tons of Weapons of Mass, er Medium Destruction that had disappeared right under the nose of the US military, gave credence to a thoroughly discredited "study" that claimed that 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed by US troops, claimed that Bush had a "plastic turkey" when he visited the troops in Baghdad on Thanksgiving, devoted entire news shows to naming off every dead US soldier in Iraq, refused to report Iraqis taking to the streets to demonstrate against terror, ignored the fact that a cable news channel had 2 Kerry advisors hosting a debate show, made Abu Ghraib the top story for 2 months straight (while Sandy Berger stuffing top secret documents down his pants disappeared from the news after 1 day), and in a moment of candor, admitted that they wanted Kerry to win and would portray Kerry/Edwards in a good light that would be good for 15 points for Kerry.

Now it was up to the neocoms to do their part. So they committed drive-by shootings at Bush/Cheney headquarters, broke into and vandalized Bush/Cheney headquarters, grabbed and tore up a Bush/Cheney sign that a 4 y/o girl was holding (making her cry), called for Bush's assassination on Air America, called for Rumsfeld to be murdered, attempted to murder Katherine Harris, made swaztikas and set them on fire on the lawns of Republican supporters, rioted outside the Republican National Convention and beat a policeman unconcious, keyed cars that had Bush/Cheney stickers, slashed the tires of Republican "get out the vote" vans, paid crack dealers to bring inner city people to vote for Kerry, bribed inner city people with $10 (cheapos!) to vote for Kerry, ran 2 ads comparing Bush to Hitler, and the owner of the #1 leftwing blog on the internet said (regarding the 4 US contractors that were burned to death and hung up on a bridge outside Fallujah), "Screw them. I feel nothing for them."

The neocoms were confident. Surely the average husband and wife with 2 kids would be impressed with such progressivism and tolerance.

But then the unthinkable happened.

An overwhelming amount of Americans came out and voted for Bush on Nov 2 - 62 million in total; the highest in history. Bush won most of the states and took 51% of the popular vote compared to 48% for the Dems.

The neocoms were stunned. What was this crap about "values" that voters said was their #1 concern? Those ignorant gun-toting bible-thumping family-values rednecks just didn't understand progressivism! They just weren't as enlightened as the neocoms!

And then depression set in. Therapists and psychiatrists were making a fortune treating the neocoms for PEST (Post Election Selection Trauma). Websites went up apologizing to the world, etc. The neocoms wallowed in their grief.

It was truly a thing of beauty.

Although thoroughly demoralized, they still had hope: The upcoming Iraqi elections.

Hopefully they would be a debacle and the turnout would be poor. Their partners-in-arms, the National Socialist Saddamites, had promised that the streets of Iraq would flow with the blood of any Iraqi that dared vote.

The neocoms were licking their chops. Finally Bush's evil enforcement of international law would be proven a failure.

But again the unthinkable happened. Like the stunning turnout in the American elections, the Iraqis turned up in droves and voted - proudly displaying their purple fingers for the cameras. Indeed, 60% of the electorate voted despite being threatened with their lives. The numbers were even more impressive when one took into account that much of the 20% of Sunnis boycotted the election. Female neocoms were furious that 1/3 of the Iraq Legislative Assembly were going to be females.

Thoroughly dejected and demoralized, the neocoms had only one hope left: The UK elections.

If they could at least take down "B'liar", then they could save some face.

But to the neocoms dismay, Blair won a historic 3rd term, the conservatives (another pro-enforcement of international law party) came in 2nd, and the anti-war party (Liberal Democrats) were a distant 3rd. Indeed, Labor and Conservatives garnered 68% of the vote.

So the necoms are 0 for 5 in the last few months. They are filled with such rage that they have taken it upon themselves to assault conservative speakers across the US, people like David Horowitz, Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan.

Two necoms even tried to assault the fun-loving best-selling author, Ann Coulter, while she was giving a speech.

We all saw the neocoms go batshit when Ann Coulter was on the front cover of the new Time Magazine (I bought it, of course).

What happens if the mayor of Baghdad does indeed erect a statue of George W. Bush (like he said he wanted to) in the same place where Saddam's statue once stood?

Will we see neocom heads exploding worldwide?

[PatM]

Afghan elections:

You conveniently forget that the majority of Afghan "politicians" are actually local warlords. Their "free election" campaigns consisted of telling towns and villages that if the warlord didn't win, he would come back and kill every last person there, man, woman and child.

As usual, the US Administration considers these people to be their very good friends, turning a blind eye to the increased opiate production in exchange for cooperation with Unocal's Karzai in getting the caspian pipeline up and running.

As for the rest, holy crap. You cannot really believe all that, can you?

Are you just pulling a Hannity? When confronted with a truth you can't handle, lie kill the other guy's mike and lie your ass off?

Lets see, The Afghan riots in which 16 people were killed were because of Newsweek's liberal bias right? Karzai refutes Whitehouse spin

Scott McClellan, white house press secretary, now says he never said the deaths were Newsweek's fault McClellan's nose gets longer

Everywhere you turn, there's a Bush administration lie being debunked. Whether its WMD, Biological lab trucks, anti-missile missile effectiveness, or the "free" elections it seems the neo-con wannabe's just eat it all up and blindly dismiss all dissent as being "commie pinko" lies.

If ya can't prove the evidence wrong - shoot the messenger!

[Montgomery Burns]

Afghan elections:

You conveniently forget that the majority of Afghan "politicians" are actually local warlords. Their "free election" campaigns consisted of telling towns and villages that if the warlord didn't win, he would come back and kill every last person there, man, woman and child.

And the world saw how well that worked in Iraq. And of course, you offer no proof for your wild-eyed claims.

Opium production is up. Bring back the Taliban!

And it didn't take very long for you to bring up the proverbial boogeyman; oil pipelines.

I'm sure that that evil Halliburton is involved somehow.

Where do you get your talking points from? Michael Moore?

[Black Dog]

Neocoms?

Most of Monty's codswollop has been dealt with elsewhere, so I don't see why he cannot curb his masturbatory impulses and use some of the pre-existing threads to spew his garbage. Perhaps because most of those threads see our resident Bush-licker so thoroughly schooled that he doesn't want to revist them.

Really, why bother? I'll stick with Ed Anger.

[Montgomery Burns]

Black Dog says: I can't rebut your facts, so I will hurl insults. That's the one thing us leftists are good at.

[Black Dog]

Like I said, why bother? Your "facts" are non existent. For instance your rehashing of the incident where Deomcrat supporters "grabbed and tore up a Bush/Cheney sign that a 4 y/o girl was holding (making her cry)", despite the fact the incident was a stunt cooked up by her father, who is a known G.O.P operative.

Or your repetition of the spurious claims made by the Swift Boaters (a group with close ties to the Republican Party appparatus), none of whom served with Kerry and who's claims were angrily refuted many of Kerry's own boat comrades.

Or how about the claim that the Kerry campaign "ran 2 ads comparing Bush to Hitler"? In fact it the ads were submitted to the PAC moveon.org by the grassroots and never actually ran.

Or your claim that "an overwhelming amount of Americans came out and voted for Bush", which ignores the basic fact that 2004 was one of the worst election performances by an incumbent president in U.S. history.

Really, I could go on, but that would require delving further into the fevered, fetid swamp that is the mind of a smug, delusional, paranoid FOX-aholic neocon puppet. And frankly, I can't be bothered.

[Hugo]

President Bush (who is hardly a socialist)

Are you sure? Right now, the US government of all branches accounts for about 35% of the US economy. "Communist" China has a government that only runs 20% of the economy. Government spending and authority has increased under Bush. The supposedly tax-and-spend Clinton actually oversaw a much smaller increase in government spending than George W, and the latter's Patriot Act is completely reprehensible to classical liberalism and the original Constitution. Bush's measures to "privatize" social security are about as free-market as the worst of FDR's crackpot schemes. The actual results of this scheme are - surprise, surprise - increased government spending and intervention in the free market! The awarding of government contracts and so forth under Bush is profoundly anticapitalist, and smacks of statist mercantilism and nepotism. It's pretty easy to make the claim that George W. is a socialist, but a biiiiiig stretch to say that he pays anything more than lip-service to capitalism and libertarianism.

[I miss Reagan]

Black Dog says:  I can't rebut your facts, so I will hurl insults.  That's the one thing us leftists are good at. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Black Dog is just upset that he can't control all of the topics in the "US Politics" section of the forum and degenerate it into Anti-American hate spewing like the rest of the topics in the section.

[Black Dog]

Black Dog says:  I can't rebut your facts, so I will hurl insults.  That's the one thing us leftists are good at.  

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Black Dog is just upset that he can't control all of the topics in the "US Politics" section of the forum and degenerate it into Anti-American hate spewing like the rest of the topics in the section.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You sure got me there. Wow, I could I ever hope to parry such a devastating and precise rhetorical thrust?

Oh yeah:

This does bring up an interesting angle, though. There tends to be a lot of talk on this board about the differences between left and right. Mostly, these differences are gross exaggerations and sweeping generalizations that serve only to denigrate the side opposite that of the individual making the observation. However, upon reading through this section, I came across an interesting phenomenon: the individuals who most vocally support the right, specifically the Republicans, the "war on terror" and the Bush Administration, are also the most prone to triumphalist displays. For instance, there's this classic: Bush Wins!, Let the weeping and wailing begin.

And of course, there's this thread, where immumerable, well-worn and trite G.O.P talking points and slogans have been recycled into one gelatinous mess of self-congratulatory pablum. The unspoken, yet self-evident, truth behind this dispaly is that "neocoms" (an abstract term created by the post's authour to represent, essentially, anyone who disagrees with his own stated positions) are losers, Republicans are winners and the authour, by virtue of his belief in and support of the Republican cause, is a winner too.

These threads highlight this facet of the Republican psyche (I use Republican to describe anyone who supports the persons and policies of the current U.S. political leadership, whether they are American or not so as to distinguish them from conservatives in general), which stems from the tendancy of Republicans to equate the success of their political party with their own personal self-worth.

You see this when Monty beats his...chest, or a Fox News anchor uses the personal pronoun "we" to refer to the Republicans, or a Rush Limbaugh listener self-applies the term "dittohead".

The enhanced sense of identity and belonging, in which the grandeur of the group

reinforces individual self-esteem, is a phenomenon not without historical antecedents. Maoists, Stalinists and other post-Marxist groups relied heavily upon such devotion to the party, as did the fascists of the 1940's.

But the blatant paradox inherent in the exhortations of the current crop of "anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-big government individualists" and the realities of the party they support (see: Hugo) is worth noting. And keeping an eye on.

[I miss Reagan]

Black Dog first you talk about the gross exagerations used to argue between left and right then you proceed to do the same thing with republicans. I would also like to point out that if anyone lacks originality it is you. All of your posts seem to be from last nights reading from counter-punch dot com or Salon magazine. Your opinions of US foreign policy are remarkably similar to those of Noam Chomsky, which is why I found it so funny when you finally posted one of his long winded quotes and tried to portray him as the final authority. This, along with the ostentatious, scholarly-journal type of postings lead me to believe that you either work as an assistant at a college or perhaps work as a beaurocrat for the government.

As for the "triumphalist displays", as you call them. I have to say that after the Bush win, I did feel like it was a major victory against some pretty hateful people. Bring in the sour grapes displays by people such as your self and others with the "we'resorry.com" etc. and I couldn't help but gloat .

And as for your little pscho-analysis of

"The enhanced sense of identity and belonging, in which the grandeur of the group reinforces individual self-esteem, is a phenomenon not without historical antecedents." Look no further than this little microcosm you and the other bitter anti-Americans have created in the "US Politics" section of Mapleleaf Web. You guys wallow in your own bitter hatred of the "US fascists", patting each other on the back for the best jab. There is no balanced discussion of actual US Politics. It's a one sided gong show of vitriolic and non-sensical tempertantrums about George Bush and US foreign policy. There is no reasonable or rational debate. I don't even no why Monty would waste his time.

[Black Dog]

Black Dog first you talk about the gross exagerations used to argue between left and right then you proceed to do the same thing with republicans.

Gross exaggerations? Hardly. I even provide examples, which is far more than you do.

I would also like to point out that if anyone lacks originality it is you. All of your posts seem to be from last nights reading from counter-punch dot com or Salon magazine. Your opinions of US foreign policy are remarkably similar to those of Noam Chomsky, which is why I found it so funny when you finally posted one of his long winded quotes and tried to portray him as the final authority. This, along with the ostentatious, scholarly-journal type of postings lead me to believe that you either work as an assistant at a college or perhaps work as a beaurocrat for the government.

Right. So rather than attack the substance, you attack the messenger.

As for the "triumphalist displays", as you call them. I have to say that after the Bush win, I did feel like it was a major victory against some pretty hateful people. Bring in the sour grapes displays by people such as your self and others with the "we'resorry.com" etc. and I couldn't help but gloat

So, not only do you fail to refute my hypothesis, you confirm it.

Look no further than this little microcosm you and the other bitter anti-Americans have created in the "US Politics" section of Mapleleaf Web. You guys wallow in your own bitter hatred of the "US fascists", patting each other on the back for the best jab. There is no balanced discussion of actual US Politics. It's a one sided gong show of vitriolic and non-sensical tempertantrums about George Bush and US foreign policy. There is no reasonable or rational debate. I don't even no why Monty would waste his time.

When it comes to balance there's some good posters from the other side (the irregular, but thoughtful, postings of TokyoTakarazuka fer instance). But he's not an idealogue. If here's a partisan agenda there, it';s not coming across. Compare that to the shrill, half-baked, straight-outta Free Republic concotions Monty is serving up.

If there's no "balanced discussion" you've only yourself to blame. It's a public forum, there's room for anyone willing to make a point and back it up. But you fellas don't do that. Don't whine to me because you're bringing a knife to a gun fight.

[Montgomery Burns]

Like I said, why bother? Your "facts" are non existent. For instance your rehashing of the incident where Deomcrat supporters "grabbed and tore up a Bush/Cheney sign that a 4 y/o girl was holding (making her cry)", despite the fact the incident was a stunt cooked up by her father, who is a known G.O.P operative.

Nonsense. There is no proof of that and you are going to have to come up with something better than a link to the notoriously radical truthout.org.

And even if he was a "known GOP operative" how did he convince that union goon to rip up that little girl's sign? Mind control rays?

Or your repetition of the spurious claims made by the Swift Boaters (a group with close ties to the Republican Party appparatus), none of whom served with Kerry and who's claims were angrily refuted many of Kerry's own boat comrades.

264 Democrat, Republican, and Independent Swifties said Kerry was unfit for command and a lying phony. Kerry had 6 on his side and he was flying them all across the country and putting them up in 5 star hotels and feeding them gourmet meals.

Kerry's campaign admitted that he was never in Cambodia on Christmas Eve under Nixon's orders (who wasn't even inagurated yet), despite Kerry claiming that that fact was seared - seared! - in his memory.

Kerry's campaign admitted that his first Purple Heart *might* have come from a self-inflicted wound.

On my scorecard, that reads:

Swifties - 2

Kerry -0

Or how about the claim that the Kerry campaign "ran 2 ads comparing Bush to Hitler"?

I never said the Kerry campaign ran those ads.

In fact it the ads were submitted to the PAC moveon.org by the grassroots and never actually ran.

Nonsense. I saw those Bush=Hitler ads.

Or your claim that "an overwhelming amount of Americans came out and voted for Bush", which ignores the basic fact that 2004 was one of the worst election performances by an incumbent president in U.S. history.

Getting 11,572,717 more votes than he received in his last win is "one of the worst election performances by an incumbent president in US history"?

That doesn't say much for Clinton who only received 2,492,468 more votes when he was reelected.

Really, I could go on, but that would require delving further into the fevered, fetid swamp that is the mind of a smug, delusional, paranoid FOX-aholic neocon puppet. And frankly, I can't be bothered.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

IOW, I have nothing else to say at this moment, but I will do a frantic search of truthout.org and get back to you.

[GostHacked]

Everywhere you turn, there's a Bush administration lie being debunked. Whether its WMD, Biological lab trucks, anti-missile missile effectiveness, or the "free" elections it seems the neo-con wannabe's just eat it all up and blindly dismiss all dissent as being "commie pinko" lies.

Indeed. The one documentary 'The Power of Nightmares but Adam Scott (Britian) showed quite a bit of that stuff. I recall one sceen where Rumsfeld was being interviewed on CNN. He had a nicely detailed diagram/picture of an Al Queada moutain bunker. It had roads in, places for accomodations, places to store weapons, intelligence center ect. Needless to say they never found these terrorist bunkers. Only small caves filled with small arms ammunition and some shoulder fired missles.

All the rhetoric now about Iran is very similar to all the propaganda that was spewed out of the Bush administration regarding Iraq.

[Black Dog]

Nonsense. There is no proof of that and you are going to have to come up with something better than a link to the notoriously radical truthout.org.

Use your fugging brain. Either he's a Republican operative or the unluckiest (and most ubiquitous) Republican in the world.

And even if he was a "known GOP operative" how did he convince that union goon to rip up that little girl's sign? Mind control rays?

It's about credibility. Why should I beleive the guy who made the unlucky mr. Parlock's little girl cry was, in fact, a "union goon" and not a fellow Republican operative?

the non-partisan Factcheck.org on the Swifties

A group funded by the biggest Republican campaign donor in Texas began running an attack ad Aug. 5 in which former Swift Boat veterans claim Kerry lied to get one of his two decorations for bravery and two of his three purple hearts.

But the veterans who accuse Kerry are contradicted by Kerry's former crewmen, and by Navy records.

One of the accusers says he was on another boat "a few yards" away during the incident which won Kerry the Bronze Star, but the former Army lieutenant whom Kerry plucked from the water that day backs Kerry's account. In an Aug. 10 opinion piece in the conservative Wall Street Journal , Rassmann (a Republican himself) wrote that the ad was "launched by people without decency" who are "lying" and "should hang their heads in shame."

And on Aug. 19, Navy records came to light also contradicting the accusers. One of the veterans who says Kerry wasn't under fire was himself awarded a Bronze Star for aiding others "in the face of enemy fire" during the same incident.

Read the rest: it's a giggle. Well, probably not for you...

I never said the Kerry campaign ran those ads.

The ads didn't run. Period.

Nonsense. I saw those Bush=Hitler ads.

MoveOn responds

During December the MoveOn.org Voter Fund invited members of the public to submit ads that purported to tell the truth about the President and his policies. More than 1,500 submissions from ordinary Americans came in and were posted on a web site, bushin30seconds.org, for the public to review.

None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund. They will not appear on TV. We do not support the sentiment expressed in the two Hitler submissions. They were voted down by our members and the public, who reviewed the ads and submitted nearly 3 million critiques in the process of choosing the 15 finalist entries.

Getting 11,572,717 more votes than he received in his last win is "one of the worst election performances by an incumbent president in US history"?

That doesn't say much for Clinton who only received 2,492,468 more votes when he was reelected.

In '96 Clinton received 9 per cent larger share of the popular vote than rival Dole. He also took 379 electoral college votes to Dole's 159.

In 2004, Kerry also received more votes than any candidate in any previous U.S. election, though not as many as Bush.

Bush's margin of victory was the narrowest for an incumbent since Hoover.

Keep 'em coming. I'm all too happy to keep taking you to school.

[Guest eureka]

How, Black Dog, can you expect "balance" from IMR? He teeters on his one leg the Right one) after seeming to have lost the left in these internet skirmishes.

[Montgomery Burns]

It's about credibility. Why should I beleive the guy who made the unlucky mr. Parlock's little girl cry was, in fact, a "union goon" and not a fellow Republican operative?

Oh, that Karl Rove is a cunning bastard.

What flavor Kool-Aid do you drink?

In the Congressional Record of March 27, 1986 (S3594) is the following from Kerry:

Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese, Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and I heard the President of the United States [Richard Nixon] telling the American people I was not there, that our troops were not in Cambodia.

I have that memory which is seared into my brain, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm’s way, we have a responsibility in the United States Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict.

First of all, on December 25, 1968, Lyndon Johnson was still President of the US and would continue to be until Nixon was sworn into office on January 20, 1969.

Next, Kerry could not have been "in" Cambodia at that stage of the war. Even his two adoring crewmates – Michael Medeiros and James Wassel - have disputed that claim.

In December 1968, no US Navy patrol craft would be ordered or authorized to penetrate Cambodian waters. It just did not happen.

And the line about being fired at by the "Khmer Rouge," that was the Cambodian Communists, led by Khieu Samphan. Unfortunately for Kerry, that fighting force wasn’t even formed yet when Kerry had his pipe dream. The Khmer Rouge came about after the American CIA engineered the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in 1970.

John Kerry’s biographer Douglas Brinkley tried to do damage control by claiming that Kerry was supposedly just mistaken about the date of his Christmas in Cambodia experience:

The biographer of John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, said yesterday there was no basis for one of the senator's favourite Vietnam War anecdotes - that he spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia, a neutral nation which US leaders vowed was off limits for American forces.

"On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There's no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia," said Douglas Brinkley, who has unique access to the candidate's wartime journals.

Kerry campaign backtracks on first Purple Heart.

Washington—In a reversal of their staunch defense of John Kerry's military service record, Kerry campaign officials were quoted by Fox News saying that it was indeed possible that John Kerry's first Purple Heart commendation was the result of an, unintentional, self-inflicted wound."

GARRETT: And questions keep coming. For example, Kerry received a Purple Heart for wounds suffered on December 2, 1968. But in Kerry's own journal written nine days later, he writes he and his crew, quote, "hadn't been shot at yet," unquote. Kerry's campaign has said it is possible this first Purple Heart was awarded for an unintentional self-inflicted wound -- Brit." (Special Report with Brit Hume Aug.23, 2004)

A recent television ad from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth featured Doctor Lewis Letson who treated Kerry for his minor injury and Grant Hibbard who served as John Kerry's direct commander on the mission where he claimed his medal. Both men say Kerry did not deserve the medal given the fact that Kerry received a very minor wound requiring no more than band-aid treatment and because the wound was not a direct result of hostile fire, a requirement for a Purple Heart commendation.

This is not the only incident in which Kerry campaign officials have changed their story concerning Kerry's prestigious war medals. The incident on the Bay Hap River in which Kerry received his third Purple Heart and Bronze Star has also been the subject of considerable waffling by Kerry officials.

 

During the Democratic National Convention, Kerry used the Bay Hap River incident to suggest that he alone returned to rescue Jim Rassmann—a Special Forces solider—who was on Kerry's boat and was tossed into the river.  Kerry described this incident to the American people as "No man left behind."

However Kerry officials were forced to acknowledge that Kerry's boat actually left the scene when another swift boat—operating on the other side of the river—was damaged by an underwater mine.  Kerry officials now admit that Kerry's boat returned after several minutes to pull Rassmann from the water while three other swift boats remained on site to render assistance to the injured crew of the one damaged boat.  Campaign officials once claimed that Kerry returned to the scene under withering hostile fire to rescue Rassmann after all the other swift boats left.  But other accounts from eyewitnesses of that day confirm that the other boats stayed on site and that Kerry returned to the scene, facing no enemy fire, only seconds before another swift boat was preparing to retrieve Mr. Rassmann from the water.

No wonder Kerry wouldn't sign Standard Form 180 - after he promised he would. And one has to wonder...what else is he hiding?

The ads didn't run. Period.

Wrong. I SAW the ads with my own eyes on the Internet.

MOVEON.ORG STILL HOME TO BUSH/HITLER AD

Bush Haters worldwide are still watching the famed 'Bush is Nazi' add on MOVEON.ORG -- despite repeated claims by the site's founders the short had been removed more than six months ago!

As of Monday morning [11 am Eastern] -- the ad was still carried on MOVEON's website -- under the curious file name "renamed.again.renamed.mov.FKbxnT3hzaHCcOR7vWvRYmZpbGUtMTM4OQ--.mpg"

The ad shows images of Bush with text saying, "God told me to strike at al-Qaida," before turning to images of Hitler with the words, "And then He instructed me to strike at Saddam." The ad ends with the words, "sound familiar?" on a black and white screen.

Last year, MOVEONE Executive Director Eli Parser claimed the ad was promptly taken off the Internet after its submission, as part of a contest, by a member of the public.

DRUDGE presents a direct current MOVEON link to the ad:

http://www.moveon.org/images/renamed.again...GUtMTM4OQ--.mpg

Unfortunately Moveon.org has moved the Bush/Hitler ad again.

You wrote:

2004 was one of the worst election performances by an incumbent president in U.S. history.

I contend that getting 11,572,717 more votes in your second term than in your first is not one of the worst election performances by an incumbent president in US history. Indeed, that is a greater increase than even the legendary Ronald Reagan (Republican) got in his second term. In recent memory, only Richard Nixon (Republican) had a larger increase in his second term than Bush did.

Bush's margin of victory was the narrowest for an incumbent since Hoover

Hoover was never an incumbent. He was only president for one term.

I am going to start charging you $$$ for constantly having to educate you.

[Hugo]

My points have gone unanswered. Only Blackdog even seemed to notice that I'd spoken. How disappointing.

The Democrats were originally conceived as a bastion of small-government, Jeffersonian ideals which its founders felt were increasingly threatened. Their great flaw was their endorsement of slavery, necessitated by their power base in the South. Ultimately, it would become a big part of their undoing in the War Between the States, when Lincoln, the first Republican president and a man with a seeming penchant for statism and destructive war, all but destroyed them. The final blow for the Democratic tradition came with FDR, who decided that the best way to oust the Republican Hoover was to copy his policies completely and blow them up to an unimaginable size. Since that time both parties have been indistinguishable.

So since the Depression, we have had two parties identical in general ideology, differing only on matters of policy. As of right now, we can see the two parties as basically a referendum on the Iraq war. One is for, one is against, but as to all the other measures they are the same. Both parties believe that America needs a big, powerful government that will interefere in social and economic aspects of its citizens lives on a daily basis. They occasionally differ on how that power should be used.

I'm curious as to how Republicans on this forum can so heartily endorse one party and so vehemently denounce the other when they are so nearly identical in policy and ideology. Of course, the most bitter political fights are between parties of common ideological heritage who view their opposition as heretics - Nazis and Communists, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Papists and Protestants, and so forth. Maybe this explains it.

[Black Dog]

I contend that getting 11,572,717 more votes in your second term than in your first is not one of the worst election performances by an incumbent president in US history. Indeed, that is a greater increase than even the legendary Ronald Reagan (Republican) got in his second term. In recent memory, only Richard Nixon (Republican) had a larger increase in his second term than Bush did.

Well, you're wrong and here's why: everyone gor more votes this time. Kerry got more than any other presidential contender before. So the number of votes is meaningless. A better indicatior is the margin of victory, which was miniscule.

Wrong. I SAW the ads with my own eyes on the Internet.

So did I. That's because they were part of a campaign where in MoveOn solicited entries via the web from the public. They winning ads were to run on TV. The Hitler ads didn't run.

My points have gone unanswered. Only Blackdog even seemed to notice that I'd spoken. How disappointing.

Your right, Hugo. I won't waste my time anymore.

So since the Depression, we have had two parties identical in general ideology, differing only on matters of policy. As of right now, we can see the two parties as basically a referendum on the Iraq war. One is for, one is against, but as to all the other measures they are the same. Both parties believe that America needs a big, powerful government that will interefere in social and economic aspects of its citizens lives on a daily basis. They occasionally differ on how that power should be used.

I would say the differences are even more slight. Both parties were/are pro war (no party in the United States can afford not to be, given the tremendous power and influence of the Pentagon/military apparatus). The only differences were if they should kill brown people, but how they should go about doing it.

This bears repeating:

I'm curious as to how Republicans on this forum can so heartily endorse one party and so vehemently denounce the other when they are so nearly identical in policy and ideology. Of course, the most bitter political fights are between parties of common ideological heritage who view their opposition as heretics - Nazis and Communists, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Papists and Protestants, and so forth. Maybe this explains it.

[Hugo]

I would say the differences are even more slight. Both parties were/are pro war (no party in the United States can afford not to be, given the tremendous power and influence of the Pentagon/military apparatus). The only differences were if they should kill brown people, but how they should go about doing it.

I think it's lamentable that elections in the US have chiefly become about popularity contests for candidates rather than about policy and ideology. The last election was a showcase of this. In Canada the situation is not quite so bad as people still generally think more in terms of Liberals vs. Conservatives and their party ideologies than of Martin vs. Harper and their individual attributes, although the latter is far from unknown. I think this is why policy has become increasingly unimportant to American parties, replaced instead to see who can recruit a popular figure to run for them, like Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, etc.

[Black Dog]

I think it's lamentable that elections in the US have chiefly become about popularity contests for candidates rather than about policy and ideology. The last election was a showcase of this. In Canada the situation is not quite so bad as people still generally think more in terms of Liberals vs. Conservatives and their party ideologies than of Martin vs. Harper and their individual attributes, although the latter is far from unknown. I think this is why policy has become increasingly unimportant to American parties, replaced instead to see who can recruit a popular figure to run for them, like Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, etc.

I would say that's largey because party leaders in the U.S. don't have much say in party policy. It's hard to argue that a lightweight like George W. Bush is setting any agendas. So real leadership qualities become secondary to how telegenic a candidate is, or how well they project a folksy image. This raises the question of who's really setting the agendas.

[I miss Reagan]

I'm curious as to how Republicans on this forum can so heartily endorse one party and so vehemently denounce the other when they are so nearly identical in policy and ideology. Of course, the most bitter political fights are between parties of common ideological heritage who view their opposition as heretics - Nazis and Communists, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Papists and Protestants, and so forth. Maybe this explains it.

I actually like a lot of Dems like Lieberman, Reid, and even many Clinton policies. What I can't stand are the liberal Dems like Feinnstien, Hilary, Kerry, and Kennedy.

The only differences were if they should kill brown people, but how they should go about doing it.

A desperate man, losing a debate.

It's hard to argue that a lightweight like George W. Bush is setting any agendas.

It's hard to argue that a lighweight like you can come up with anything other than personal attacks against George Bush.

[Black Dog]

I actually like a lot of Dems like Lieberman, Reid, and even many Clinton policies. What I can't stand are the liberal Dems like Feinnstien, Hilary, Kerry, and Kennedy.

Way to prove Hugo's point.

A desperate man, losing a debate.

Cna you please articulate for me whjat the primary diferences were between the two partie's positions on Iraq? More specifically, did the democrats oppose the war or call for its immediate end?

It's hard to argue that a lighweight like you can come up with anything other than personal attacks against George Bush. 

Ironic isn't it that you respond, not with evidence refuting my allegation the George Bush (a average to poor student, a failure in the business world etc.) is a lightweight, but with a personal attack.

[Hugo]

I actually like a lot of Dems like Lieberman, Reid, and even many Clinton policies. What I can't stand are the liberal Dems like Feinnstien, Hilary, Kerry, and Kennedy.

Can you articulate the differences between these people? Preferably in terms of their political beliefs and ideas? What policies of Clinton did you like? As far as I can tell, the only real differences between him and Bush are that Clinton is pro-choice, anti-gun-ownership and evidently pro-infidelity. They both like big government and big spending, neither worries about deficits, both believe that government can actually do something about poverty and other social ills (and then, worse, actually try to make it do something), both declared war on a country that hadn't actually done anything to them without the approval of the UN, etc.

[I miss Reagan]

I actually like a lot of Dems like Lieberman, Reid, and even many Clinton policies. What I can't stand are the liberal Dems like Feinnstien, Hilary, Kerry, and Kennedy.

Can you articulate the differences between these people? Preferably in terms of their political beliefs and ideas? What policies of Clinton did you like? As far as I can tell, the only real differences between him and Bush are that Clinton is pro-choice, anti-gun-ownership and evidently pro-infidelity. They both like big government and big spending, neither worries about deficits, both believe that government can actually do something about poverty and other social ills (and then, worse, actually try to make it do something), both declared war on a country that hadn't actually done anything to them without the approval of the UN, etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see what you're saying Hugo. Obviously it's relative to where ever you're looking at it from. If you're a Chinese communist, obviously there's little difference between the two parties. Or in your case, an anarchist right? there would be little difference. What I like about Clinton were his center-right economic policies (American perspective). What I really don't like were his policies with respect to the military ie. cutting it by 2/3's and not having a strong resolve in fighting terrorism and being weak in places like Somalia. With respect to his social policies I like his attitude on gun control and more socialized (I hate that word) medicine. He was actually pretty fair on abortion and same sex marriage. His attitude was abortions need to be available but shouldn't be common and I believe he is in favor of civil unions. I could care less about his infidelity, although I don't appreciate the straight faced, lawyer type of lieing and equivocating he would do.

With respect to Bush, I think he's dead on with respect to foreign economic policy, taxation and defence. I think he has grown the government a lot, but I see it as nessesary considering the war on terror. The one thing I do hold against Bush is the Southern border and relations with Mexico. I wish he'd sinch the borders and stand up to Fox.

And although you put a negative spin on Bush and Clinton, I'm glad you recognize the similarties in policies between Clinton and Bush. The radical left *cough* blackdog *cough* hold these two men to completely different standards.

[I miss Reagan]

Actually I should change that Chinese analogy with Clinton considering he basically sold out US military secrets to China.