OT: Superman and Stemcells

[Huzurdaddi]

Getting back to the original question about stem cells I just don't see why it is not a bigger issue in the current election.

It polls *very* well for one side. That side was going to lose 100% of the votes of people it does not poll well. It polls well with the undecided people.

One of the two sides should be bringing it up at every opportunity and then make their own opportunities to bring it up. It's a great issue.

As is breaking the relationship between an "evil tyrant" and 9/11. This connection is still belived by 50% of the population. Now it is impossible to get that number below 40% since that is bedrock base, but you could drive it down further perhaps to the low 40s. The canidate should see this as a key word. Whenever the subject is brought up he *must* break the relation. He started doing it, but still let it slide multiple times. A horrible display.

[Arryn]

Daddi, because that particular candidate (much as it pains me to say it) is incapable of remaining focused on one side of an issue (which his opponents enjoy pointing out), or in driving an issue home by repetition (a tactic, along with gross distortions of the truth, that his opponents are masters at).

Yes, the GOP is vulnerable on this issue. But in the eyes of voters, it's not even in the top 5 of important issues. And it's not as juicy for the media (that is, they can't provide "exciting" daily film clips) as are Iraq, pissed-off unemployed workers, or pissed-off people waiting in line at airports. The American public consumes whatever the media feed it. Blame the media for not keeping it in the forefront of American's ultra-short attention spans.

[Huzurdaddi]

Re: not important/media

IF we haev learnt anything from the Last 5 years it's the the media will repeat whatever is said by whomever it is watching. Hence it can be manufactured as an issue, just like so many, honestly pointless issues have before. I mean, really, abortion is a small issue compared to Iraq and tax cuts ( one will cost over 200 billion, the other 2 trillion over 10 years ... if you count the number of lives this could help/save you will see that it dwarves the smaller issue so completely it's crazy to talk about anything else ... full disclosure before I am attacked about the tax cut: I really benifit in the short run from the tax cut, but I think it is a horrible idea. ).

re: the canidate

He's horrible. It's painful. It is amazing to me that he is so bad. He did not win the 1st debate the other person simply showed his true colors. Again with the 2nd debate to a lesser degree.

Even his slick running mate, whom I liked, was *horrible* in his debate ( slate.com be damned! ). I mean did he simply not study or what? But OTOH his charm and boyish good looks saved the day and polling found that he won the debate. Facinating.

As a lay person I think that this election should be quite simple for one side to win. I mean there have been some pretty large errors made in the Last 4 years you would think that going on the attack and never letting up would really work. But for some reason they have not done this. Perhaps there is a reason this campaign was run in such an incompetent ( in my eyes ) fashion. Sadly we will probably never know. Perhaps a kiss and tell book will be written in the future.

[Arryn]

The President has spent the past year+ very effectively hammering on Kerry's record in the Senate; Kerry's taking more than one side on several issues in the past 20+ years. It's only in the Last month that Kerry woke up to the realization that he should have been hammering the President on the President's own lousy record of the past 4 years in which this President has consistently made horrible decisions on EVERY matter placed before him, lied to the public (what else is new for a President, any of them in the past 40 years?), and even reneged on most of his promises to the morons who voted for him Last time. Had 9/11 not happened, this election wouldn't even be close. Bush is riding the only pony he has, a pony any idiot could have ridden (wars are almost always good for incumbent Presidents) at least as well (it's hard to imagine anyone doing worse than Bush).

Paraphrasing a quote from Star Wars is appropriate: "Fear will keep them in line." Just remember, the Dark side of the Farce will be with us, always.

[Gandalf Parker]

Arryn said:
The President has spent the past year+ very effectively hammering on Kerry's record in the Senate; Kerry's taking more than one side on several issues in the past 20+ years.

Wow Arryn, did you look at those? I thought you would have. All of the ones I checked on that Bush pointed to, dont make Bush look very good. Like Kerry voting for Iraq then against Iraq. The first one had apparently sound allegations, and promises, which made it reasonable to vote for. The second one he says he didnt vote for because those things from the first never happened. Didnt sound like a flip-flop to me.

As far as I can tell every example was like that. Things included in the bill that decided it, not the subject or title it was given. If those are examples of things that Bush would have voted a certain way just because the title said it was about something then it doesnt do much for Bush's image IMHO

I see alot of that stuff but it might be my military background in propoganda. Like "Senator Kerry said it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Now, he says it's the wrong war" as if the two are still the same thing.

[Huzurdaddi]

Gandalf this is why the right is simply better at the game of politics.

To understand the Kerry's votes you have to go into the minutia of the vote which, in general, people will not do.

Further, let's be honest. Kerry voted for the authority since he was up for re-election. He was gutless. Or perhaps discretion is the better part of valor, I don't know. I hate to say it, since I want someone to beat Bush, but Kerry was gutless on this issue. No Senator should have voted for that resolution, hell I don't even know if it was constitutionally valid.

[Gandalf Parker]

Huzurdaddi said:
Further, let's be honest. Kerry voted for the authority since he was up for re-election. He was gutless. Or perhaps discretion is the better part of valor, I don't know. I hate to say it, since I want someone to beat Bush, but Kerry was gutless on this issue. No Senator should have voted for that resolution, hell I don't even know if it was constitutionally valid.

Well its all propoganda anyway. People dont realize that propoganda rarely means "lies". It means telling your Version of the truth with your choice of words. Another word for "flip flop" might be "flexible", and the other end of that scale would be "inflexible" or "pig-headed in the face of later facts". The president is at the top with supreme court, congress, senate, a ton of advisors. Having one that does what he wants and end-runs around all of those doesnt strike me as preferable.

[Arryn]

Gandalf, didn't I mention that the GOP grossly distorts the truth? You've now seen it for yourself. My mentioning that the President was hammering Kerry for his supposed "flip-flops" in no way means that I agree that Kerry has actually done so, as you point out. It's obvious once you ignore the rhetoric and actually study what really happened, but the GOP doesn't want folks to think for themselves (and by extension, do their own homework). They want people to believe whatever they tell them. Which is one lie (a truth distorted is a lie) after another after another.

Few people will argue that getting rid of Hussein was a bad idea. But doing it when we did it and how we did it was the sort of mistake that historians will be discussing for decades, much as they discuss why Hitler failed to take Moscow and Stalingrad (which I cite as similar examples of gross failures in leadership from the top of a military command).

As for what I alluded to with regards to Bush lying to his own supporters, take a look a "no child left behind" (where he's *cut* funding, rather than expand it as he promised), and his imposition of tariffs on steel (quite a no-no for a person that purports to support free trade), just to name two obvious and egregious examples.

Finally, Bush & Co. have this absurd notion that they can spend whatever they want (so long as it's for the military and not for "social" programs) and that the cost (including interest) will magically take care of itself without the need for more taxes. These same hypocrites bashing Kerry for voting *against* tax increases (as unpatriotic since the money was for the military) in the next breath call Kerry a "tax and spend liberal". So far as I can see, since 1994 the GOP has controlled the Congress and the national debt has skyrocketed. Makes you wonder about the so-called "tax and spend liberals" when the conservatives spend way more than the liberals do. The GOP is the party of "smaller government", yet since they took over, we have *more* government agencies and regulations. The GOP's attacks against our Constitutional rights and freeedoms are appalling. (The only amendment they support is the 2nd. They abhor the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 14th, just to name a few.)

[Cainehill]

Also, the dems have been making the same mistake they made in 2002, post-9/11 : thinking that they'll be construed as unpatriotic if they attack the republicans and the president. In 2002, Dems were basically forbidden to attack on any of the major grounds they could/should have; unsurprisingly, the republicans gained.

And once again, they've worried that it'll look bad to attack a "War Time President!!!" during a war (albeit the Republicans are trying to ignore that we still have several wars going on, all of which they've screwedup).

All while the media and the public ignores that the Bush Reich has been slandering and attacking genuine war heroes: McCain, Max Cleland (who lost 3 limbs in Vietnam) and, lesser war hero but at least in Vietnam and wounded there, Kerry.

Also all while they ignore that the Bushies have been screwing the current active duty military over left and right, on the large scale and the small scale. ( For instance, when Bush got his photo op by going to Iraq for Thanksgiving with the troops, a bunch of troops wound up eating cold MREs, because they were turned away from the mess facility. The only troops there when Bush was were carefully screened, hand-selected Bush fans. Or when he kept sailors away from their families an extra day, keeping the aircraft carrier paused at sea so he could get his photo op there. )