Adventures in Right Wing Radio

[Justice 0]

He explained what he meant by it in the "sound byte" provided. How is what he said unreasonable?

*Laughs* He renigged, that's all. The idea of a Global test without sacrificing some of our own power to act in self defense is paradoxical: Either the global test means nothing and we aren't beheld to it, or it does, and we give up part of our power to defend ourselves to the public opinion of other countries. It's his way of double-speaking and trying to straddle an issue. Seriously, is it that hard to see through?

[Special K 0]

Having a justifiable reason for going to war would be the global test. Unprovoked agression is usually frowned upon.

 

EDIT: Don't want to get into the endless discussion over whether this war was justified or not.

[Guest Loss]

I think it's more of a case of "He said something far too open to interpretation and explained what he meant later." It happens everyday with everyday people and it certainly happens with politicians.

[Styles 0]

[NoCalMike 0]

I believe the "global test" was referring to a war like the Iraqi war, where WE STARTED THE BOMBING, as opposed to the Afgan war, where we were attacked first and acted in a form of self defense. I think Kerry made it pretty damn clear from the beginning that if we are attacked or threatened etc....of course he is not going to sit back and wait for approval, but when it comes to a war that we just want to decide to start, we need to go and recruit some type of legitamite coalition or at the least TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY WE ARE GOING TO DO IT so that the burden is not going to fall 90% on our soldiers and our citizens to fund. The whole "global test" clusterfuck was another example of the masses being swayed into arguing over a non-point.

[Styles 0]

I believe the "global test" was referring to a war like the Iraqi war, where WE STARTED THE BOMBING, as opposed to the Afgan war, where we were attacked first and acted in a form of self defense.  I think Kerry made it pretty damn clear from the beginning that if we are attacked or threatened etc....

Oh, well that's good that Kerry authorizes attacking AFTER we've been hit. Bush aptly said he will not seek a permission slip to defend America and that's why he won.

We need to get the bad guys before they get us again, that should be the lesson of 9/11.

 

Anyway, there's no point in rehashing a Bush/Kerry argument. Kerry lost because of a massive amount of reasons. I'm curious who both parties are looking at in 08. Hopefully we don't see this: http://i.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/6660/2008c.swf

[Gary Floyd 0]

Here's some suggested reading, Sek:

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/044...7005080-5170358

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/052...7005080-5170358

 

I've read them both, and both are very good, and very thorough at slicing through the bull shit of conservative talk radio and TV, particularly Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity.

Ya know, I'm a pretty liberal guy, and while I agree with Al usually, I just can't help but get annoyed by him sometimes. Personally, I don't consider him a good political satirist, because IMO, a good political satirist hits on both sides, including their own. Then again, that's just my opnion.

[Guest Loss]

Also, it was conveniently ignored that Kerry called Bush to task in the same debate for doing absolutely nothing in North Korea, calling for more action. I hardly see that as "wetting his pants" in fear. It's a political spin, and it's getting overly wrapped up in the meaning behind what was intended to be nothing more than a buzzword anyway. A dumb buzzword, but a buzzword nonetheless.

[Justice 0]

Also, it was conveniently ignored that Kerry called Bush to task in the same debate for doing absolutely nothing in North Korea, calling for more action. I hardly see that as "wetting his pants" in fear. It's a political spin, and it's getting overly wrapped up in the meaning behind what was intended to be nothing more than a buzzword anyway. A dumb buzzword, but a buzzword nonetheless.

Huh? Bush sort of pointed out we were in talks multilateral talks with NK already, didn't he? Didn't Kerry only suggest we go to bilateral talks? What the fuck are you talking about "Taking to task"?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Also, it was conveniently ignored that Kerry called Bush to task in the same debate for doing absolutely nothing in North Korea, calling for more action. I hardly see that as "wetting his pants" in fear. It's a political spin, and it's getting overly wrapped up in the meaning behind what was intended to be nothing more than a buzzword anyway. A dumb buzzword, but a buzzword nonetheless.

Huh? Bush sort of pointed out we were in talks unilateral talks with NK already, didn't he? Didn't Kerry only suggest we go to bilateral talks? What the fuck are you talking about "Taking to task"?

I think unilateral talks would mean talking to yourself.

[Guest Loss]

*dingdingding*

[Justice 0]

Damn Freudian Slip. Multilateral talks, my bad. Again, how did he take him to task?

[Guest Loss]

He pointed out that North Korea had nuclear weapons and an insane leader who had no problem using them, and that Iraq was not as big of a threat as North Korea, but that we were instead fighting a war in Iraq, a company with no weapons who had nothing to do with 9/11. He was right.

[Justice 0]

He pointed out that North Korea had nuclear weapons and an insane leader who had no problem using them, and that Iraq was not as big of a threat as North Korea, but that we were instead fighting a war in Iraq, a company with no weapons who had nothing to do with 9/11. He was right.

What hindsight bullshit. Iraq at the time was believed by everyone to have weapons, the only thing people argued about was how to deal with that fact, so saying "No weapons" doesn't constitute an argument. We didn't know that Iraq was as weak as it was.

 

Not to demean North Korea as not a threat, but different measures for different countries. Kerry didn't propose invading North Korea. He didn't plan on doing anything besides bilateral talks while we were already talking between China and North Korea. He can't take him to task if he doesn't propose to do jack shit different.

[Justice 0]

God damn internets.

[DrainYou42 0]

Air America makes me wish Bill Hicks was still alive. He ate conservatives like candy. Good thing for them he is dead.

I guess he did, I just downloaded "Rush Limbaugh", and he tore Rush apart.

[NoCalMike 0]

Iraq was perceived to have weapons by EVERYONE? Oh you mean like most of our intelligence community telling Bush that the evidence and argument for war in Iraq was not there, and then Bush conveniently ignoring anything that wouldn't support his case to drop the first bomb on Iraq ASAP. The Bush team did a great spin in duping our society into thinking A - Iraq was behind 9/11 and B - Iraq was a threat to America. Both of which are 100% false.

 

I am no Kerry fan, I didn't vote for him, however some of the reasons I see people list as why they went with Bush over Kerry is troubling and hilarious and depressing all at the same time. Of course I am mostly taking about fence-sitters as established voters are probably voting for their guy no matter what anyway.

 

I think it pretty much shows by today's AP POLL of Bush's job approval rating at 49% that Bush's team and mostly Karl Rove did an excellent job in the campaign, but at the end of the day people still don't really agree with Bush and/or think the guy is doing any kind of good, job, but they saw a weak candidate in Kerry and it drove swing voters away. All this "voting on morals" and "the youth didn't turn out" was now been officially debunked about a hundred times, more youth turned out in 2004 then 2000, and the "voting on morals" folks didn't show up in any bigger significant amount. That was just another story the media ran with post-election.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Each year, as part of security training, I have to watch footage of the 9/11 attacks, and each year, I get a little angrier while watching them.

Exactly how does this contribute to security? I could see how talking to people who conducted security at ground zero in the aftermath or something could teach you something, but how does you watching tapes of a plane slam into a wall make anything safer?

[Jobber of the Week 0]

*Laughs* He renigged, that's all. The idea of a Global test without sacrificing some of our own power to act in self defense is paradoxical: Either the global test means nothing and we aren't beheld to it, or it does, and we give up part of our power to defend ourselves to the public opinion of other countries. It's his way of double-speaking and trying to straddle an issue. Seriously, is it that hard to see through?

I'm going to make a World War II analogy here. The threat of Hitler is pretty obvious. He was taking over Europe, and the holocaust and torture of Jews is a perfect example of the disrespect of human rights. The whole Nazi society was an abomination, and there's perfectly visible reasons why it needed to go, and how it presents a threat to us.

 

While the wording was pretty awful, the concept of what he was talking about in the global test was pretty sound. We cannot simply attack anyone of our own choosing for any reason. There's certainly nothing about our position in the world that says we can't, but we can't because of who we are. We're the giant that could crush everything under our thumb, but doesn't. We should be more modest to the rest of the world, and we're currently rather controlling.

 

It's not even that Bush defied the UN when he went into Iraq. Even Kerry mushmouthed out a statement that said he'd do the same thing if it was certain the enemy presented a threat. The point is that we have absolutely nothing to show for our effort. For all this concern of a threat, there is nothing that could be considered threatening.

 

The point is that if you abandon every precedent and diplomatic standard on the way to war, you simply cannot guess that the enemy is poised to attack you. You must be certain.

 

We weren't certain on this occasion and our leaders talked a far more certain game than they really knew while they were while setting it up. We should be the shining city on the hill, but lately we've been looking a little slummy and gun-happy.