Firestarter

A more accurate two-sentence summary: Dean has contradicted himself more than once, significantly and unequivocally, and it's clearly documented. Other candidates have meaningful and pertinent criticisms to make of him in light of that.

Didn't expect you to; wasn't asking you to. Still, I would have expected that any politician would have preferred to have his balls yanked off with a rope before admitting to a reporter that he expected his party to lose, off the record or not.

Admitting it is precisely the opposite of basic politics.

That's very interesting. Not asking you to name names or anything, but I'm curious about what you do and where, and if you don't mind saying, for whom.

More columns on Howard Dean: - After Complaint, Dean Explains Himself to Party Chairman - Lieberman: Dean Will 'Melt' Under GOP Attacks - Howard Dean: The Democrats' death wish - Backsliding Dean The last one, in the Wall Street Journal, is the best of the lot. All together now, one more time:

General Powell begs to differ. "This administration's public pronouncements... reflect the personality of the president himself, a man who, with great consistency, says what he means and means what he says."

Yeah, because sitting back with a smug smile and not even trying to defeat one's opponents is a surefire winning strategy that's propelled any number of Presidents to the White House before. You idiot.

I don't agree with some of the things she says, but I liked one or two of her articles a while ago. Haven't visited it in a while, but anyway, I've changed the link now to point to a different site. Real Clear Politics - political commentary for the political junkie

I've been thinking that for a few days. He needs to start changing his password regularly or something if this isn't him AGAIN.

Well, isn't that special. What was your point again? Like peaceful, educated, prosperous, and liberated democratic allies springing up in every country we bomb? Wow, neato! I can't wait. Let's start bombing Iran, North Korea, and Cuba tonight! Most sane people understand that the President doesn't issue policy statements through a spokesman on an Internet bulletin board. This isn't the Howard Dean campaign. As for the "we" in the quoted sentence, I was speaking as an American. Should I apologise for that, since you seem to think we (shit, I did it again) should be apologising for pretty much everything we do anyway?

The President, interestingly, doesn't have to rely on cheap rhetorical tricks to win debates. He wins debates by being polite, serious, sincere, respectful, and engaging. He doesn't roll his eyes and sigh at his opponents, like Al Gore. He isn't smarmy. He isn't dishonest. He isn't careless with his words. He means what he says. He's a man of strength, conviction, integrity, wisdom, and resolve, and it comes through when people hear him speak.

Neither will work without the other. There certainly is: exactly what we're doing now. Making it self-destructive for foreign governments to support, sanction, or hide the extremists, and making it beneficial for them to cooperate with us. Are you seriously trying to claim that anti-Semitism today has WORSE effects than Auschwitz and Treblinka? However bad it is now (and it is pretty bad) it's at least 6 million times better than it was in 1945. No one is saying that killing or capturing one evil individual is the ace of trumps. I'm saying that it HELPS. Different people, different victims, different decisions. And you read this where? Some more of the "aftereffects" are that Japan is a peaceful democracy with a sound economy and an educated people, their neighbours don't have to worry about their militaristic adventures, they don't treat their women quite as badly anymore, and they willingly help us stabilise the region rather than trying to tyrannise it and butcher civilians just for fun. I'm not running for any office. If you were referring to the President ("ANYBODY else") I don't think you were too likely to vote for him in the first place, but you should read the disclaimer in my profile anyway. It's reproduced below for your convenience. "I am an employee of the United States government. However, all views I express in this forum are solely my own, and should not be construed as an official position in any context."

Nope. And there never was meant to be. This isn't about justice. This is about punishment for a terrible act which killed 3000 innocent people. Criminal justice procedures establish guilt, which is unnecessary. He's guilty. He's admitted it. He's gloried in it. Now he will suffer the ultimate punishment for his actions. Nope. It's about punishment. And how do you reach this conclusion? Leaving aside the question of which of my "suggestions" you claim are "ridiculous," the fact that you believe anything could ever justify another 9/11 is adequate proof of your moral degeneracy. I certainly do. And the right thing will be done when UBL is shot in the head, repeatedly, with high-explosive rounds. Oh good. Have a lie down right next to little Jacques over there. By killing terrorists? Laughable. Only, we're not attempting to enslave the world under the banner of Islam. We're killing evil people who want to enslave the world under the banner of Islam, we're freeing people from tyrants across the globe, and we're preventing other people from being murdered. And because we kill evil people in order to do this, you say we're the same as UBL. Lovely. Howard Dean should take lessons in moral blindness from you.

This discussion is ridiculous. 1. The Moslem fanatics cannot hate us more than they do already. No measure you can propose will pacify them. None. You are a fool if you think otherwise. 2. The hatred of evil people isn't something to be avoided. It's something to be sought out, savored, and cherished. 3. UBL dead is far, far better than UBL alive. His "war" is a religious movement but there is also a cult of personality element to it. Shoot him in the head and he'll lose a lot of mystique as well as a lot of blood. To hell with "international law," to hell with criminal justice, and to hell with all you bleating, ignorant, self-righteous Europeans. Criminal justice is for criminals. UBL is a declared enemy of the United States. We don't give such people show-trials and we don't lock them up. We kill them. Remember Pearl Harbor? When the Japanese declared war on us, FDR didn't promise to bring the Emperor to justice. He promised to crush Japan. Does that make you limp-wristed sissies feel all queasy? Are the French upset again by our unilateralisme? Are "progressives" across the continent appalled by the "barbarity" of our oh so terribly dreadful death penalties? Too goddamn bad. You don't have a say in what we do. Now shut up and piss off.

No one. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Sorry, could you remind me which court has jurisdiction over international state-sponsored terrorism, and going to war to fight it? Slipped my mind.

I hope his bike has a lot of gears for that journey. He might discover any day now that his current denomination puts dry coconut on the Christmas cookies, and then, y'know, he might have to become a Unitarian.

As an American, I'd hope that any President of mine would act first and foremost as a fellow American, and that he wouldn't see any conflict between acting as an American and acting as President. And "outrageous?" My stars, he's really going out on a limb there! But whoa, hold on. He didn't answer the $64 million question: is UBL truly outrageous, like Jem and the Holograms?! Jesus Christ. "Outrageous" is the best he could do? How about something, anything, that would give a basic idea of whether or not he understands the reality of evil? Shades of Michael Dukakis in the second presidential debate... So I'm confused, JotW, were you trying to come to Dean's rescue here or damn him even more thoroughly than he already has been?

How about switching churches over an argument about a bike path? I disagree with the Catholic Church about raping children (I'm against it), which I consider slightly more important than a petty argument about property use, but I haven't changed my faith as a result.

Honestly? Because what a flying load of loony monkey shit if he really did say that. Your nose doesn't affect your range. What complete nonsense. You don't need a psychologist to tell you that that's the silliest notion on God's green earth. What happens when he looks at photos of himself from 30 years ago and sees a good-looking BLACK man rather than a chalk-skinned grotesque? I suppose it's possible that he subconsciously disassociates his persona's imago from the image in order to avoid cognitive dissonance, in which case he could be suffering from Disconnective Compensatory Memory Loss (DCML). Does that sound good to you? Sorry, I just made it up. See, I am a psychologist, and I have no doubt whatsoever that in ten years (if it hasn't happened already, and if not sooner) one of my distinguished colleagues will be submitting to the DSM-V a detailed but utterly worthless pseudoetiology and of a new "syndrome" which will explain away Michael Jackson's amazing ability to fuck himself up in ways never seen before by any sane and healthy man. But it will be bullshit. And thank God for that, you sick, twisted, one-"man" freakshow.

Here it is.

"Libyan leader Moammar Khaddafi has decided to end his weapons of mass destruction program and allow inspectors into his country. Which is of course good news for President Bush: in one week he's disarmed Saddam, Moammar, and Howard Dean." - Jay Leno, 12/23/03 Almost right. The GOP is pretty much out of his range now, but Dean's words are still blowing up in his own face and he keeps shooting himself in the foot with one hand while hacking apart any chance the Democrats might have of winning any offices anywhere in the country with the other. It's like being a witness to a train wreck - it's loud, awful, and inevitable, yet somehow I can't look away. At this point I'm simply watching in a stunned sort of awe, waiting for his next grandly self-destructive gesture. It's not even really schadenfreude. I'm too incredulous and amazed to enjoy this. How can one man be so goddamn stupid in so many ways? Where's our inside man at the campaign, Tyler McClelland? Tyler, is your guy drinking really heavily or something? Did his dog just die? Did he hire Rush Limbaugh's maid? What the hell is going on? Can't you people at least pretend to be marginally electable so we can get some sense of satisfaction from winning?

"Over the weekend, Michael Jackson had a big party at his Neverland Ranch to thank all the people who have supported him. They said the theme of the party is 'you are not alone.' I think that was the problem, if I'm not mistaken... Michael spent much of the party chatting with a dwarf. That's what they said, chatting with a dwarf. I guess this is like Michael's version of the nicotine patch. Gets you off real kids slowly." - Jay Leno, 12/22/03

No, it isn't a myth. "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil." - General Robert Lee, 12/27/1856 As I've noted before in this thread, General Lee owned no slaves himself, and when his wife inherited her father's plantation he immediately freed every slave who worked on it.

I'm not, unfortunately, since I'm on a government salary and my wife's still in school. My parents though? Well, not quite to a Bill Gates degree or anything, but yeah, they're very comfortable. Aunt Sarah, on the other hand... she's the one who lives by herself in a sixty-three room "house" in Louisiana with more people on her domestic staff than there were in my last government department, and passes the time by throwing million-dollar "coming-out" parties for her friends' grandchildren while writing to me and my wife to "visit" for a few months. They always try to top themselves year after year, and it's been going on for over 20 years now... but hey, I'm not complaining if it gets me the kind of handgun James Bond dreams about. I'd better call someone and register this beautiful, beautiful work of art.