OT: Superman and Stemcells

[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.

[Zen]

My guess is Arryn is writing in Ross Perot at election time.

[Arryn]

Wrong, Zen. Perot is a demagogue of the worst sort. Plus I don't believe in throwing away my vote.

I favored McCain in the Last election before Bush's lies buried him in the primaries. That left me with no choice but to support Gore. I supported Wesley Clarke. Kerry was 3rd or 4th down on my list of viable Democratic opponents to Bush.

[Huzurdaddi]

I supported Wesley Clarke.

I found that his positions were too complicated to connect. Dean and Edwards both had very simple, powerful, campaigns that I think would have translated well in a national forum. Further he was not really quick in the debates and I happen to like quickness ( no idea if it polls well ).

Perot is a demagogue of the worst sort.

Who cares? he probably gave two elections to Clinton! The ends justify the means!

Well its all propoganda anyway.

Well that seems a little like a cop-out. There were real concequences to that decision, expensive and deadly concequences. There has been OTOH no accountability. None, zero, zip. That's wrong, IMO.

[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.)