A Dysfunctional Democracy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16815916/site/newsweek/
Jan. 25, 2007 - Why are Washington policymakers so skeptical that George W. Bush’s surge plan for Iraq can work? In large part because they don’t trust Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The consensus in town: Maliki must get his act together, fix Iraqi governance and quell the out-of-control sectarian hatred in his country if America is to have any hope of success.
What’s missing here is that Maliki and the rest of the world have every reason to be skeptical themselves about America’s own governance, not to mention our out-of-control sectarian divisions. And if they don’t think we can get our act together and speak with a common voice, they may cut separate deals (in Maliki’s case, with Tehran).
All these problems were on display in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday as it debated a resolution opposing the president’s decision to send another 21,000 troops into what Sen. Chuck Hagel called "the grinder” of Iraq. “Don't hide anymore; none of us!” Hagel barked to his fellow Republicans, lecturing them from the moral high ground he occupies as a plain-speaking Vietnam vet who said publicly, earlier than most, that the Iraq invasion was wrongheaded. Hagel was simply asking his colleagues that if they opposed Bush’s plan, they have the courage to say so, rather than continue to act as a rubber stamp. “I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think,” Hagel said. “If we don’t debate this, we are not worthy of our country.” Although several Republicans expressed misgivings, only Hagel voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution in the end.
The Democrats, meanwhile, were caught up in their own internecine fight. “This is our moment!” said Sen. John Kerry, who had failed to seize the moment during his 2004 presidential run by refusing to attack the president over Iraq until the last six weeks of his campaign. As it turned out, this wasn’t really Kerry’s moment either—he announced later that day he would not run for president again. And he was promptly contradicted by his fellow Democrat, Russ Feingold, who remarked: “I’ve heard many of my colleagues today say this is the moment. I guess what I would say is: it should be the moment, but because we are not taking strong enough action, we will not rise to the moment.” Feingold, who wanted a resolution with teeth that use “our authorities under the Constitution” to cut off funding after a set date, went on to implicitly chastise his committee chairman, Sen. Joe Biden, for timidity. “Let me remind my colleagues on this side of the aisle—I’m so pleased we’re in the majority again—but we were in the majority when this war was approved,” said Feingold. “I see this committee and this Senate once again allowing itself to be intimidated into not talking about our real powers and our responsibility.” That prompted Biden to protest loudly—and perhaps a bit too much. “I may have a reputation in a number of things, but I don’t think it’s one of being intimidated by anybody, let alone a president,” a glowering Biden said. “If you find a person who’s spoken more frankly to seven presidents in the past, tell me who it was. So there is no intimidation here.”
continued...
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is just another reason I hate america.
Define 'America'.
I am rather unfond of America's government; I love the American people and the American land. Although the American people are capable of rather monumental stupidity (see: America's government).
Gee...you mean that "Bush sucks" doesn't actually rise to the level of either a viable policy or a political philosophy? Quelle surprise!
The problem with not actually having an agreed upon set of values is that when a new situation presents, there may be no agreement on what to do.
Although the American people are capable of rather monumental stupidity...
Jay: Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.
Very, very true, both of you. But my point remains, no?
The point, I think, is pretty fucking eroded and now resembles a beach.
Nothing personal, just sandy.
The Democratic Party is trying as hard as it can to lose the war as soon as it can -- failing to plan being planning to fail, and they've never dared to envision winning, the donkeys -- that we may be condemned to fight another war in the region, some years down the line, that will be greater and more ruinous. Ibram, you're of an age to get caught up in that war. Better to get the change we want finished up here and now.
"Let’s face it: when you have to insist so hard that you’re not intimidated, you probably are. All this huffing and puffing about who’s got the guts to challenge a president who’s stuck at 28 percent in the polls! Here’s what was really going on: a group of Democrats supposedly enjoying their newfound majority on Capitol Hill were having a frank discussion, in full view of the world, about whether American government can function properly at all any longer."
For those of you who didn't read the whole article. He actually makes a good point here before going on his Bush bashing rant.
I thought that was fascinating. I really did. I don't see what about it would make you hate America. Representative democracy is not perfect; it's a fairly blunt instrument. If the mechanisms of state are balanced between different parties and different estates, then there will be times when one or the other in each, has ascendancy.
All that's happening now is a shifting of that balance. The people speaking strongly are a part of those shifts. But it's still early in that process.
Or have I misunderstood what it was that had caught your attention about that?
I don't see what about it would make you hate America. Or have I misunderstood what it was that had caught your attention about that?
When did I ever say I hated America????? I thought that quote was much more telling and, as you put it, "fascinating"l - that was my point.
Originally Posted by Winston Churchill
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” (Winston Churchill)
yesman, my post was directed at Ibram:P
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” (Winston Churchill)
"When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home."
Sir Winston Churchill
And this one, especially for Hip.
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
Sir Winston Churchill
And this one, especially for Hip.
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
Sir Winston Churchill
?? Can't t see the relevance, but since we're here, this one's for you:
"Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."
?? Can't t see the relevance, but since we're here, this one's for you:
"Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."
I HOPE you're not referring to Brianna! You would lose ALL credibility.
"Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."
Well, I hardly see what is relevant about what your father said to your mother on the night of your conception. Try to stay on track, will you?
Well, I hardly see what is relevant about what your father said to your mother on the night of your conception. Try to stay on track, will you?
Looking at your response, I'm right on target...
I HOPE you're not referring to Brianna! You would lose ALL credibility.
One can be ugly in many ways....
One can be ugly in many ways....
Yes. And you are ugly in
all ways.
Yes. And you are ugly in all ways.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder and God Bless America.
If you two come to blows, I could use one, please and thank you. :blush:
So tawdry when two people resort to personal insults to try and make a point.
If you two come to blows, I could use one, please and thank you. :blush:
Long time, no blow, xxxBruce?
The Democratic Party is trying as hard as it can to lose the war as soon as it can -- failing to plan being planning to fail, and they've never dared to envision winning, the donkeys -- that we may be condemned to fight another war in the region, some years down the line, that will be greater and more ruinous.
Sorry to be a stickler for typos, but surely you meant to say
Republicans, right? The party that was in power at the time that any
planning or
failure to plan was actually taking place: the
Republicans, you knew that, right? I mean, the Democrats have gained a few seats and now everything can be "their fault" again? Wow. I'm sure you'll correct this oversight and set me straight on this confusing issue of chronological order.
Winnie said that to Bessie Braddock.
Flint, I stand by my argument and by my blasting of the Democrats: they have done even less than the Republicans, and their deliberate dereliction is so beyond belief one suspects that everything Ann Coulter says about them is true.
It's history, Flint. Read it.
*speachless* (but not for long)
everything Ann Coulter says about them is true.
Rod... where are you Rod?
It's history, Flint. Read it.
The Democrats were in power, and are responsible for the lack of planning in Iraq? Which history book are you reading?
everything Ann Coulter says about them is true.
.
Geez dude, don't drink the Kool-aid. :worried:
Edited to change the typo 'kook-aid' to 'kool-aid' but I wonder if I should have left it alone.
Long time, no blow, xxxBruce?
Unfortunately, yes...... weeks. :(
Geez dude, don't drink the Kool-aid. :worried:
Edited to change the typo 'kook-aid' to 'kool-aid' but I wonder if I should have left it alone.
:mad: Quote the entire sentence, Shawnee, or you're lying by selective editing. You don't want to be a liar, do you?
This is what I really said and what you didn't:
Flint, I stand by my argument and by my blasting of the Democrats: they have done even less than the Republicans, and their deliberate dereliction is so beyond belief one suspects that everything Ann Coulter says about them is true.
Good thing we are a Republic and not a Democracy.
UG, so you protest having
everything Ann Coulter says about them is true
attributed to you? Really the only possible omission would be the three words preceeding the quote, thus:
one suspects that everything Ann Coulter says about them is true
and their addition hardly lets you off the hook. You believe Ann Coulter's remarks are true or you suspect Ann Coulter's remarks are true. A difference of degree, not kind.
Calling her a liar because she didn't quote you entirely is completely off base. The rest of your sentence was justification for your position, which she captured succinctly. Methinks the nutjob doth protest too much. There are countless examples where quotes of less than a whole sentence do not constitute lying. This is just another one of them. Quit whining.
I object to the shaving of the context, V. How was that unclear?
Well I think you've cleared it up now UG. It's all semantics anyway, so why not move along?
I mean really, does anyone here care whether you 'suspect' or 'believe' everything Anny Coulter says is true?
Come to that, reckon I would.
It wouldn't be of much moment to anyone outside our borders, though.
How looooooong can we spin this thread out, like so many cyber-Norns? :D
It'll probably die a natural death now that you've reached the limits of banality in this one UG. :)
"It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 - except Goldwater in '64 - the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted." (A.Coulter 05/17/2003)
You agree with that, Professor UG?
:mad: Quote the entire sentence, Shawnee, or you're lying by selective editing. You don't want to be a liar, do you?
On second thought, please drink the kool-aid.
I hardly ever quote entire posts. I quote the part I'm responding to. Posts can contain more than one point, and I'm keeping the ideas linear by quoting and responding to something specific. It's a courtesy to the reader, preventing them from having to sort through many extraneous lines of text to find the point that is being addressed. It also cleans up the visual appearance of the thread; how many times do we need to read the same post? The excerpt that I quote is sometimes just a cue as to which post I am responding to, maybe a slight reminder of what the content was, a representative part of a larger section. To me, it's all about keeping the thread clean, clear, and no longer than necessary. And, after all, the interested reader need only scroll up to read the whole post, if they are interested. In fact, now our quotes contain a link, so the complete text is only one click away!
My rules for quoting:
Any complete sentence can be quoted as is. Want more? See the original post.
..."snipped" sections are indicated by ellipsis... This prevents unnecessarily long re-posts.
The quote can contain bold text, to help indicate what is specifiaclly being responding to.
The goal should be clear and concise quotes, to facilitate the exchange of ideas. For any ethical questions that may arise, we are on the honor system.
It'll probably die a natural death now that you've reached the limits of banality in this one UG. :)
But it's not working! :p
"It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 - except Goldwater in '64 - the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted." (A.Coulter 05/17/2003)
You agree with that, Professor UG?
Bear in mind Ann Coulter's style and method is very much that of the AM radio talk show host: devise a thesis phrased to rouse any rousable rabble. This does not of itself determine if the thesis is right or wrong; the point is to be provocative.
Your frustration count, Hipp, will go down dramatically once you quit trying to find evil in a place where there isn't any -- in the heart of Urbane Guerrilla. I know you desperately want to, but you'll have to get in line behind tw and maybe one or two more loonies, and I don't think they'd be disposed to leave any for you.
Nnnnno!
[Oh fuck, I don't need any smiley!]
No frustration here, Professor, I leave that to you and Coulter. And I'm glad we identified her as a rabble rousing agent provocateur.
What bothers me the most about Ann is that she is an idiot that constantly contradicts herself from one interview to another... that anyone listens to her is a joke.
Nothing really bothers me about Coulter- she's just an attention-seeking nut. What bothers me is that "news" organizations give her the time of day.
I read her anyway -- the people who cite her style as a reason to dismiss her are merely being defensive at being intellectually caught out.
That and she has the annoying habit of being right at least as often as any other columnist.
She has never caught anybody out intellectually. As you put it, she just says provocative stuff without any regard for whether it's right or wrong.
One day someone's going to have to explain who Anny really is.
Here she is on
the site that casts her in as good a light as any site can.
Now if somebody wants to show where Ann Coulter is factually mistaken anywhere in that column, I invite them to try it.
Practically every Ann Coulter detractor can't address what she's asserted as a matter of fact, but instead thinks it's a telling rebuttal to inform us all that the detractor finds her abrasive or perhaps unattractive. You get these vague disparagements, unsupported by anything like proof, that she's not a historian, or she's this, or she's not that... mere third-graders in the bodies of men.
:dunce: :rotflol: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:
One day someone's going to have to explain who Anny really is.
Some cross dressing guy with a chip on his shoulder. Ignore him.
Now if somebody wants to show where Ann Coulter is factually mistaken anywhere in that column, I invite them to try it.
Goddamnit, I already took that assignment once. Someone else do the next one.
We thought what you said, stayed said.
Now if somebody wants to show where Ann Coulter is factually mistaken anywhere in that column, I invite them to try it.
Goddamnit, I already took that assignment once. Someone else do the next one.
I'm not up to a UT-quality debunking, but here's a biggie:
But in fact, the British were right and Wilson was wrong. By now, everyone believes Saddam was seeking yellowcake from Niger — the CIA, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler's report in Britain, even the French believe it.
ISG has not found evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991 or renewed indigenous production of such material—activities that we believe would have constituted an Iraqi effort to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.
...
Regarding specific allegations of uranium pursuits from Niger, Ja’far claims that after 1998 Iraq had only two contacts with Niamey—neither of which involved uranium.
...
So far, ISG has found only one offer of uranium to Baghdad since 1991—an approach Iraq appears to have turned down.
....that the detractor finds her abrasive or perhaps unattractive.
I don't necessarily find her unattractive. After all, who can argue with a decent looking blonde woman who will swallow anything?
"Ann honey, that woman you saw me with naked in bed - the president himself is sending me over to look for WMD's and she was just giving me the required physical.";)
I don't necessarily find her unattractive. After all, who can argue with a decent looking blonde woman who will swallow anything?
Do you think if I wore that diaper, then she would do me? With looks like that and a promise, I could consider it.
Now if somebody wants to show where Ann Coulter is factually mistaken anywhere in that column, I invite them to try it.
Practically every Ann Coulter detractor can't address what she's asserted as a matter of fact, but instead thinks it's a telling rebuttal to inform us all that the detractor finds her abrasive or perhaps unattractive. You get these vague disparagements, unsupported by anything like proof, that she's not a historian, or she's this, or she's not that... mere third-graders in the bodies of men.
:dunce: :rotflol: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:
I think they prefer to get their political agenda from people like Al Franken (Stuart Smalley anyone?) or ex-sports announcers like that Keith Oberman dude....
We'll be hearing less from Al Franken -- Air America, a heavily-subsidized attempt at launching a nationwide left-liberal AM talk radio network, is not only in Chapter 11 bankruptcy but is auctioning off its equipment to cover debts, the New York Times reports on a back page (p. 26, iirc) and O'Reilly reports in mid-show.
Americans aren't buying shoddy goods even if George Soros wants them to.
From Coulters website: 3 Conservative books from Oh Really, Coulter and Gingrich for $1, doesn't that say enough? If you got a $1 intellect, buy a $1 book*
As for the Niger Yellow Cake, seems that the grapes are sour for Ms Coulter. All Coulter is doing is throwing up more smoke screens.
The Niger case has been debunked many times. Even Tenet asked to remove the Niger case from the Bush 2002 Cincinatti speech. In January 2006, the New York Times revealed the existence of a memo which stated that the suggestion of uranium being sold was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles. The memo, dated March 4, 2002, was distributed at senior levels by the office of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and by the Defense Intelligence Agency. There's plenty more info on that, if you're interested other than Coulters screeches.
Coulter and Urbane Guerrilla; Love Makes You Blind.
[SIZE="1"](*borrowed from the old Bell helmets add "if you got a $10 head, buy a $10 dollar helmet)
[/SIZE]
We'll be hearing less from Al Franken --
Al Franken doesn't work for Air America anymore.
At least he showed both sides in his reports.
Al Franken doesn't work for Air America anymore.
Is anyone?
I don't think I'll comment on his Senatorial candidacy except to say I wouldn't vote for him. More like I'd contribute to his opponents.
Hipp, that's much more like value for dollar than one-dollar intellect. The Left doesn't have much recognizable brains -- they try and make do on loudly noised self-righteousness, which does not serve. Bear in mind, too, that the United States really doesn't have anything much like the European Left in its political makeup. The American Left is its own species, and the interactions of the American Left and Right can yield very un-European results which may leave European observers astonished.
It is very difficult to imagine what business an Iraqi official might have in Niger except making possible deals in Niger's best source of foreign exchange: processed uranium ore. It's not like Niger dominates world markets in pistachios, ready-to-assemble furniture, and stuffed animals, you know.
We'll be hearing less from Al Franken -- Air America, a heavily-subsidized attempt at launching a nationwide left-liberal AM talk radio network, is not only in Chapter 11 bankruptcy but is auctioning off its equipment to cover debts, the New York Times reports on a back page (p. 26, iirc) and O'Reilly reports in mid-show.
Americans aren't buying shoddy goods even if George Soros wants them to.
Rational people don't need the same old propaganda forced down their throats every day like irrational people do. If O'reilly, Hannity, and Limbaugh went off the air, you won't know what to think and believe in.
Rational people don't need the same old propaganda forced down their throats every day like irrational people do. If O'reilly, Hannity, and Limbaugh went off the air, you won't know what to think and believe in.
Now dont be so hard on him, spexx - remember, he's had his entire worldview stable and secure in his mind since he was ten.