the 2006 election did NOT hinge on iraq.

the gop lost congress because of foleygate, maccaccagate, and coinrwd burns association w/abramoff - and his failure to keep his promise not to seek reelection.

foleygate and maccaccagate were manufactured by the MSM.

the other main issue was the gop's failure to reign in spendings.

iraq was not a major issue in 2006.

it will not be in 2008.

but the larger issue: ww4/ countering global jihad will be.

if the gop is going to win then the election must hinge on illegal immigration, energy exploration, and taxes.

all the best!
reliapundit | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 9:44 am | #

Juan Cole has made a career out of preaching to a very off key choir.

Considering his rather poor analytical skills, allergy to reality and a 'my way or the highway no matter what, truth be damned' attitude, it's no surprise that he's found a home with less than thorough or honest leftist intellectual types.

In the end, Cole will be remembered as a buffoon- and he knows it. Cole has never been in err, has never made a mistake. Just ask him. He has none of the humility of a real scientist or academic engaged in the pursuit of the truth. He is a leftist, partisan hack, no more, no less. He cannot and will not adjust his 'analysis' to reflect reality. He cannot and will not acknowledge changing political and military landscapes.

Like most of the deceitful leftists that are part and parcel of his congregation, he will claim that he 'meant well,' as if that alone will absolve him of his deceit and the trail of damage that he will leave in his wake. Of course, he doesn't give a damn. Why should he? It isn't as if the U of M has ever demanded any kind of minimum standard of academic responsibility, accountability or honesty from those who teach there.

At the U of M, as in most university settings, yelling 'FIRE' in a crowded theater is perfectly acceptable, because to be concerned about the well being of others would be stepping on 'academic freedom.'

To paraphrase Mel Brooks, "It's good to be a fraud."
Sigmund, Carl and Alfred | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 9:51 am | #

Happily, the idiot impostor Cole has ruined his academicide career by his senseless mindless rantings. I myself am an Arabist & recognize that Cole knows and understands a lot about the Sunni/Shi'ite divide. However, Perfesser Juan has lied & exaggerated at every turn, employing his real knowledge as a polemical tool which is a blunt sledgehammer, not a surgical instrument.

Cole was rejected by Yale for his sleazy polemics and whoremaster antics. He gets face time on MSNBC, but no one really takes him seriously except seriously silly lefties.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 10:17 am | #

Nice take down.
jim hoft | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 11:47 am | #

"Cole was rejected by Yale"

Man, that's UNDER the bottom...


!
The Machine | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 12:00 pm | #

Juan Cole's so seriously invested in his own infallibility he (and many like him) will choose a binary attitude (If it's not perfect according to my standards then it's completely irredeemable) because it's what he would rather see - than admit he could be wrong.

Sad, really. He wouldn't recognize reality if it came up, knocked him to the ground, and gave him an enema.

Which might be what it'll take...

J.
JLawson | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 12:19 pm | #

How did that guy ever get to be a professor?
Shoprat | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:08 pm | #

reliapundit:

With election results heavily Democratic and polls showing Americans heavily against the war, how to you support the comment that the 2006 election was not about Iraq?

And with the Democrats taking a beating in Congress for not having the balls to do something about the war now, after the election, (that is, voters were against it and the Congress does nothing) their rating tanks? If its just opinion, state it as such.
jake | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:12 pm | #

the republicans--and in particular, the extreme right fringe--is only concerned with the glorification of george bush and they will never, ever admit that any policy promoted by him and his administration could possibly be failing. instead, they have all hitched their political wagon to a precipitously falling star and remain, even now, heavily emotionally invested in any sort of sucess, real or imagined, in afghanistan, iraq, iran, korea, or domestically.
in reality, the biggest myth of all is why anyone intelligent would take the dr. sanity's of the world seriously?
norm | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:29 pm | #

Oh how original, normie! I notice that you provide no evidence for your statements--just the usual leftie talking points. Hooray for you. You can be blind to the bitter end, I guess and proud of it.
LLB | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:35 pm | #

"The surge is, indeed, working. But it cannot work forever and will have to be replaced by other strategies that achieve our ultimate goal--a democratic Iraq."

I am a Democrat as of August, having grown weary and wary of this kind of thinking. First of all, the operative word here is "0ur" Polls have shown that most Iraqis want the Coalition out of Iraq and the Iraqi parliament has asked us to leave(take my word on this for the sake of argument; i.e, if I prove my self right, will you agree to leave?), . Islamic countries do not separate religion from politics. Ipso facto, the democracy they you will get will resemble Hamas is Gaza then the Republicans in the US. The only viable democracy (and barely so) in a basically Islamic country is in Turkey. It was a democracy created from within, as true democracies must, it has remained secular only through force of the military, and it lacks too many basic freedoms to aware itself entry to the EU. Are you saying that the US needs to stay in Iraq 100 years? We have wasted enough of our naational treasure on the hopes and failed ideology of neocon America. I don't hate America, even though your side says all Democrats must; I just want us out to save treasure and because your description of "winning" does not work for me. As a reminder about surges, Vietnamization was "working" according to our generals before Tet 1968. We won that battle, but lost the war. Ever ask yourself why? Please do, and explain it to us American haters. I fought there two years. I hope that it does not take you as long to accept what the Iraq resistance/insurgency really is, as it took me to accept our defeat in VietNam.
jake | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:42 pm | #

is this really what passes for "a psychological spotlight"? take for instance myth # one. it gets cut and pasted in, and then the only answer is that people hate bush. no intelligent discussion of the soft partitioning that has happened, no discussion of ethnic cleansing that has happened, no discussion of the sadr cease-fire -- in short no discussion of substance.
then to wrap up the whole issue the concepts of strategies and tactics are totally confused. we have one strategy -- a democratic iraq. all other tactics, like the surge that is actually an escalation, are in service of that strategy.
what is completely missing in this "psychological spotlight" are the white houses own stated goals. those are not being accomplished. period. they may be in the future. maybe not. at least today, for whatever reason, fewer of our troops and fewer innocent civilians are dying. that is good. we are still spending $12 billion a month. that is bad. try shining your spotlight on that and explain and justify it with out simply resorting to your childish "they just hate george bush" meme.
norm | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:45 pm | #

llb...
if you go back and read the good doctors post you might recognize the language. i will assume your criticism extends to her factless post as well. or is it ok if you happen to agree with it?
norm | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:51 pm | #

reliapundit:
I might also add, they you are right in one sense; if the Republicans try to sell winning the war as part of their respective campaigns they will surely lose. I dare any of them to make it their 1st or 2nd main talking point. McCain is doing a rear guard action on that as we write. Surge, you say? The people say, "OK, if its such a good idea, why didn't you do it in 2003?" We leftists don't hate America, we hate neocons for already having lost the Iraq war of resistance/insurgency. What is the cost/effectiveness of nother Friedman unit???
jake | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 1:58 pm | #

jake...
are you really asking conservatives to discuss cost-effectiveness? the party of big government and deficit spending? that's just silly.
norm | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 2:03 pm | #

I'm sorry, Norm, but the hysterically blind cannot see psychological spotlights, even if they are directed straight at them. That's just the way it works psychologically. Someday, when you snap out of the zombie-like stupor you have imposed on yourself, it may be possible for you to obtain some insight.

But I tend to doubt it.
Dr. Sanity | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 2:10 pm | #

I once was a liberal who was mugged by reality on 9/11/2001 after watching from the rooftop of my building the WTC crumble into ash. I didn't learn the lesson from the first attack in 1993 on the WTC but I vowed I would Never Forget the second.

After the second attack and given the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act stating that indeed Saddam was a terrorist sponsor I conclude that only an idiot would have left Saddam in power.

Norm here's your cost/effective Friedman unit, the entire country of Iraq will be rebuilt sooner than Nanny Bloomberg's uber wealthy NYC will rebuild the WTC.
syn | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 2:26 pm | #

It's the fact that clowns like Cole (and hundreds like him) can have successful careers in the humanities (known in Hebrew slang by the Yiddish word "Luftgeschaeften" or "air business") that makes me grateful to G-d for never letting me enter any of these fields.
Former Belgian | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 2:31 pm | #

Syn,

More US tax dollars tax dissapeared in Iraq during the provisional authority days than it would have taken to rebuild the trade center towers. It's now been 9 Friedman units and people in Bagdahd still don't have electricity full time or drinkable water in a city bordered by two major rivers.
I'm sure Iraq will be rebuilt some day. It's been rebuilt about 100 times since the Sumerians first moved there. But the US won't be doing it, eventually the Iraqi people will get tired of killing each other and they will. And it's a pretty good bet they wont be thanking the US for the opportunity.
When we started this misadventure we were told less than $50B and less than 6 months (one Friedman).
Don't start an argument over cost effectiveness or return on investment because the invasion was a lost cause on that issue from the start. All wars are. And as it turns out, the reason this war was sold on was a pure fabrication.
And for the last time, will you wingnut invasion monkeys PLEASE stop conflating 9/11 with Saddam Hussien. That plot was Saudi Arabians from start to finish. When are you planning to invade them?
Iaintbacchus | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 2:58 pm | #

Entitlement spending budget for 2006 (not including hidden pork, earmarks plus other additional goodies):
$ 1 trillion, 630 billion per year and rising.

Military budget for 2006: $620 billion (not including the additional funds for the GWOT I'll be generous with the $1 trillion spent over a period of 6 1/2 years)

My Friedman unit tells me that my tax dollars going to Iraq is a far better investment than is the tax dollars I pay towards subsidizing America's entitlment goodies.

Like my tax dollars would be better spent on a Woodstock museum because a couple LSD-fried millionaires stuffed the campaign pockets of Schumer and Clinton.

Sure.

That said nobody including President Bush said that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. However, Bill Clinton did state that Saddam was a sponsor of terrorism as did Congress in the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act.
syn | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 3:19 pm | #

By the way the plot was not Saudia Arabian, it was Al Queda from the 1993 bombing to the 2001 bombing.

Surely you remember Bin Laden declaring war on America in 1994.
syn | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 3:22 pm | #

Last point, the only warmongers I know are the ones chanting "Death to America"

America didn't cause this war, the warmongers did.
syn | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 3:25 pm | #

"Surely you remember Bin Laden declaring war on America in 1994."

Yes, but we had a clown for POTUS back then, who was on a permanent campaign to be liked and to get re-elected. The clown imitated Jimmy Carter and became a feckless initiator of 9/11, to the extent that he did NOTHING to stop it except bomb an aspirin factory in Kharthoum! NOTHING after the Cole [no relation to the Luftesgescheaeften perfesser!!!] was bombed in 2000.

This Clinton Inc. executive is now polluting the airwaves with more of the fecal material people like norm & jake eat for breakfast, lunch & supper---and think they are dining at a five-star restaurant!!!

Dr. Sanity sadly is correct when she notes that hysterical blindness in these jokers is incurable---since they are unaware they suffer from it!!!
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 3:36 pm | #

syn:
Let me understand: "entitlement goodies" refers to what exactly? You talking about my military retirement pay? Support to Iraqi vets? Social security? Getting too close to home. Modern companies do not provide viable retirement plans. Got a better idea for a soldier who makes diddly squat for 20 years working for you, who are probably not a vet, or even a draft dodger, like your hero. Clinton did it first!! (Just to stay objective.)

I'll just ignore your paranoid remarks about attacks on the US.

OK, and I also understand that a few bucks for something in honor of Woodstock, which you imply will cost in the billions, would be abhorrent to you, the war monger that you are. Its likely to promote peace is some fashion. How hard did you have to Google to get that one?
jake | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 3:38 pm | #

daveinboca:

with the Clinton history with terrorism well known to the Bush company, and given nine months to read intel reports on the subject, why did George W. Custer go chop wood when he was told OBL was going to attack the US?
jake | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 3:41 pm | #

You'd better hope your friends just settle for your spin on Juan Cole's artical and don't actually read it. You don't even make an attempt to comprehend and refute what he actually said. Why is it that I've never seen the word ethnic cleansing in a pro-war blog?
Randy | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 6:13 pm | #

The Democrats--and in particular, their leftist base--are more concerned with their hatred of George Bush and they will never, ever admit that any policy promoted by him and his administration could possibly be working.

Delusional, simply delusional. Your reverence for the current occupant of the WH is stunning. He is our employee! We have every right to question his decisions and judgements. When his decisions and judgements are bad, we say so. Just because you want a king, doesn't mean you will get one. And certainly, you CANNOT think that Dumbya is your choice for this coronation. He gets lost in a phone booth. Surely you can aspire to honor and worship some other all hat and no cattle American, right?

Please folks, history is making fools of you. Please try harder.
Tom | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 7:19 pm | #

Tom, you're a fool all by yourself. You would choose the guy's wife? You know, the guy who let the WTC bombing sit for eight years unanswered? The guy who let the OBL escape to Afghanistan after Sudan offered him to the US on a platter? The guy who let two US embassy bombings go unanswered except for bombing an aspirin factory?

You want someone as stupid and delusional as yourself in the WH? Another Clinton, with all the denial and displacement and other psychological impediments that pair of crooks has inflicted on the country?

You must be dumber than your post makes you appear. You are the fool, and "history" is something a fool like you should not opine about.

Nor should a perennial liar like Juan Cole.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 7:33 pm | #

No fair, jake.

GWB DID do something before 9/11. He had the telecom companies assist his administration with spying on all American citizens.

The fact that this spying was illegal, and against the Constitution (which the POTUS is sworn to uphold), is reason number 1 (of many) why impeachment proceedings must begin ASAP.

Don't expect Dr. (In)Sanity's assistance. She's so nutso, she thinks the Clintons are liberals.
Robert | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 8:47 pm | #

If it wasn't for Paul Krugman, Juan Cole would be the most "famous" expert in his respective field known primarily for being wrong on almost every topic he ever writes about. Of course, Cole comes in a very close second. The both also top the list of being disingenuous if not outright liars.
Don Miguel | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 9:44 pm | #

Robert, where do you get that rubbish from? You can't be that stupid.

By the way, what have your hero Democrats ever done about Arab terrorism in the last 40-odd years that it's been a problem? I mean, other than sucking up to the Soviet Union and other communists?
snoring citizen | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 9:52 pm | #

But isn't that the way you're SUPPOSED to deal with terrorism, SC? Ignore it until you can't, then pay them off with 'aid'?

The problem is - once you pay Danegeld you never get rid of the Dane. Kipling understood it - but our oh-so-elite intelligensia can't fathom that you get more of what you pay off.

J.
JLawson | Email | Homepage | 12.26.07 - 10:40 pm | #

Now this post generated a troll launching, Doc.

Keep up the good work.


.
The Machine | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 1:28 am | #

"The Democrats--and in particular, their leftist base--are more concerned with their hatred of George Bush and they will never, ever admit that any policy promoted by him and his administration could possibly be working. Instead, they have all hitched their political wagon to a precipitously falling star and remain, even now, heavily emotionally invested in failure in Iraq." - This is comedy gold!

A few points, little Doctor:

1) Most Democrats have been complicit in allowing Bush to do whatever the hell he feels like.

2) Is the Surge working? I guess that depends on what your definition of "working" is. I'm gonna bet that the surge hasn't quelled centuries-old hatreds between Iraq's ethnic factions. An influx of troops was bound to have an immediate effect on violence, but it is by no means a solution. The Surge is not permanent, hence being called a "surge." At some point (this summer?) the participants in the Surge will start to come home, but don't be surprised if they are made to stay at least until the election. I'm not gonna hold my breath in hopes that a lasting peace will remain in their wake, despite our troops' best efforts. This is a problem that the Iraqis must solve for themselves. America cannot, and should not do it for them. Even the glorious General Petraeus acknowledged that the solution in Iraq will not be a military one, but a political one, should we all be so lucky.

3) What Bush policies are working, exactly? Immigration? NCLB? The Consumer Protection Agency? FEMA? How about abstinence-only sex education? How's that ownership society working out with the mortgage meltdown, courtesy of a lack of regulation? Bush has staked his entire presidency and his legacy on the Iraq "war" (America hasn't declared "war" since December 1941). You wanna talk about hitching wagons to falling stars... Of course, success is all about how one defines it, right? So, if the point of the Iraq war really has nothing to do with security and everything to do with redistributing Americans' wealth (via tax dollars) to politically connected contractors who overcharge for services or charge for bogus services (like billing for trips made by empty trucks) or otherwise simply losing track of the money given to them, then, yes, I suppose the Iraq war has been a smashing success.

4) Emotionally invested in failure in Iraq? Are you insane? Nobody wants to see failure in Iraq, but some of us have the intellectual maturity to realize that, aside from deposing Saddam, which was never in doubt, Iraq's problems are not going to be solved by the US Army, glorious as it is.

5) Funny thing - Bill Clinton met with his counter-terrorism experts fairly often; sometimes as often as every day, depending on the threat level. Between Bush's inauguration and 9/11, he met with counter-terrorism experts exactly twice. According to Richard Clarke, who worked in counter-terrorism for Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2, the Bush team chose to ignore terrorism in early 2001 because it was something that Clinton took seriously. The thought process was that since a Democrat was concerned about terrorism, and Democrats are wrong about everything, terrorism must not be important. Add to that the fact that most 9/11 hijackers entered the US after Bush became president and the Right's gutless claim that 9/11 was Clinton's fault goes right out the window. Perhaps if the Republicans didn't put their hatred of all things Clinton before American security, there would still be a World Trade Center.

I love this website, little Doctor. It never fails to illustrate just how intellectually bankrupt the Right has become. Your commentary is almost as stupid as Don Surber's. You provide a valuable service. You're helping to drive the Republicans right over the cliff.

By the way, when did the University of Phoenix start offering psychology degrees?
JML | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 2:52 am | #

Dr. Sanity is probably better in her field than perfesser Juan is in his. Looks like another deranged troll has infected an excellent site. To cite a double-crossing non-entity like Richard Clarke, sort of a John Dean of the NSC in his back-stabbing, demonstrates true empty-headed bigotry.

And Clinton did exactly NOTHING with his counter-terror experts and NSC chief Sandy Berg[la]r, who actually stole incriminating documents from the National Archives to keep Clinton's malfeasance from the 9/11 Commission.

Bill Clinton did NOTHING from the first attack on the WTC in '93 except little cosmetic fakery which suckers like JML probably fell for in their delusional dhimmitude.

9/11 was Clinton's fault, you cowardly little moron, and the ultra-left appeasers in the Democratic Party will probably allow another one if elected.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 3:19 am | #

Probably?

Almost certainly. They'll undo a lot of the security provisions and focus on what was done on 9/11 - which means making strip searches at airports mandatory. And they'll ignore other things, because they don't fit what they're looking for - like those two students that were caught with explosives near a SC naval base. Latest thing? The defense wants the whole thing dropped, because of a claim of 'racial profiling'. Obviously they're innnocent, then!

Someday, we're gonna wake up and realize that racially profiling isn't a bad thing when it comes to stopping terrorists, screaming of academics and legalists to the contrary.
JLawson | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 9:30 am | #

Talk about clinging to a falling star, you Iraq-hawks have been preparing your Plan B since before March of 2003, and that's the trusty old back-stab argument. "We were starting to win, we woulda won except for the surrender-monkeys who made us leave." Before a single shot was fired, anyone who opposed the war was already being accused of "surrendering," though I still don't know how you can "surrender" to a country that hasn't attacked you and poses no risk. (A great many people were never fooled by the hysteria about "weapons of mass destruction" that were suddenly so dangerous).

Since 2003, every bungled operation, every IED and every disaster has been blamed on the "liberal media," no matter how obsequiously they take stenography from the President. So now after four years of triumph after triumph we have "turned things around" (huh?) with the Surge, which is Working, even though for some reason the purpose of the surge, which was to allow the Iraqi government to get its act together and start functioning, has been conveniently forgotten.

What's happening in Iraq now, my friends, is what veteran officers from the Viet Nam era call "working the levers." American forces carry out military operations with limited tactical objectives, and at the moment are having success with them. But the bigger picture of establishing peace and democracy in Iraq is something no one seriously thinks about any more. Bush's one and only objective is to hand this war off to his successor so that he can blame it all on someone else, and you know it.
T-Rex | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 11:15 am | #

Projection. It's a wonderful (well, not really) thing. There's so much invested into turning Iraq into "VietNam, the Sequel"... but what if both the Iraqi people AND the American people don't buy tickets to that show?
JLawson | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 11:38 am | #

"Sandy Berg[la]r, who actually stole incriminating documents from the National Archives to keep Clinton's malfeasance from the 9/11 Commission."

How exactly do you know the contents of the documents Sandy Berger stole from the national archives. He may just as well have taken them because he was afraid the Bush administration was going to destroy them. Do I have any proof to back up my assertion? Of course not, nor do you.
Randy | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 12:22 pm | #

"Bill Clinton did NOTHING from the first attack on the WTC in '93 except little cosmetic fakery which suckers like JML probably fell for in their delusional dhimmitude."

The perps of the '93 bombings are in jail and Clinton didn't have to invade a country that wasn't involved to get them. When Clinton approved bombing Al Quaida training camps, the Republicans to a man claimed he was "wagging the dog". Remember?
Randy | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 12:28 pm | #

snoring citizen,

Here's where I get it from:
The spying on American citizens request before 9/11/2001 is from an interview with the President of Qwest Technologies (the only telecom company who turned down the request by the Bush Administration to abet in the Administration's illegal actions). Why do you think Harry Reid and GWB are pushing for telecom immunity in the next FISA Bill re-write?

The part about spying on American citizens without a warrant being illegal, is from the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution (illegal search and seizure).

The part about the POTUS swearing to uphold the Constitution of the US is from the official swearing-in oath (at the Inauguration) of the POTUS.

The part about the President not upholding the US Constitution being an impeachable offense, is from the Constitution itself.

Like the rest of America, you could use a strong cup of coffee so you can WTFU. I'd be happy to buy it.

My heroes are NOT Democrats. They can't even stop the money and live-wasting debacle in Iraq.

BTW, who would suck-up to the Soviet Union? They spied on their citizens (w/out warrants) and tortured people for chrissakes!
What kind of absolute piece of shit douchebag would support a country that acts like that?
snoring boy, is that you with your hand raised so high?
Robert | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 2:21 pm | #

In reality, the biggest myth of all is why anyone intelligent would take the Harry Reids or a Juan Coles seriously?

So why do they ... Take them seriously???

Is it possible for them ... to ever see the Truth?
RMR | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 2:52 pm | #

Iraqi women--indeed, any woman under the yoke of Islam in the Middle East--will hardly be free until their religion stops going backwards and decides to join the rest of modern civilization.

It seems that Dr. Sanity "forgot" to mention (hopefully it was only a glitch or a temporary lapse of sanity) that Islam is in fact incompatible with and antithetical to modern civilization (or civilization in general), and therefore cannot ever join anything remotely resembling civilization.

Given the inherently evil and unreformable nature of Islam, "Iraqi women--indeed, any woman under the yoke of Islam in the Middle East--will hardly be free" unless they are liberated from Islam.
Islam skeptic | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 3:26 pm | #

"Dr. Sanity sadly is correct when she notes that hysterical blindness in these jokers is incurable---since they are unaware they suffer from it!!!"

what makes this such a ridiculous statement is that it follows an attack on Bill Clinton... a man who has not been in office this century!

so, while i'm watching the dollar tank will one of you geniuses please enumerate the things incurious george has done right... still waiting.
ibfamous | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 3:50 pm | #

1. 9/11 happened nine months in the
Bush administrative.
2. The Iraq war started in 2003.
3. Not having a enough troops in Iraq 2003

All this is Clinton's fault?? That could only be in a pig's eye. 9/11 is the responsibility of George W Bush and not Bill Clinton’s. Is the surge working? Well not in any standard I was ever taught in school. And these are just simple facts. When one fails to meet less than one fourth of one's stated goal that is called a failure. If a ship had 16 holes in it and water was coming in and only 3 holes were plugged the ship would still sink. That is a simple fact. In the military, the present base commander is responsibility for base security and not the former commander, simple fact
.
t.l.l. | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 4:10 pm | #

Dr. Sanity attracts Kool-Aid trolls whose moonbat squeaks are amusing, and strong evidence of mental defects such as denial, displacement, and a complete ignorance of cause and effect.

Billy Jeff, in between Oval Office desk jobs, resolutely ignored AQ & ObL's death threats for eight years, including attacks on US embassies, a US warship, & previously turned down an offer by Sudan to hand over ObL because of ClyntOOn's lawyerly qualms. And Jamie Gorelick in the meantime was making sure the CIA & the FBI didn't communicate. Lots of cause & effect leading eventually to a catastrophe.

A faineant stoned slacker like Billy Jeff attracts disasters like ultra-left armpits attract flies. In the case of Billy Jeff "I didn't inhale," it's obvious he was stoned on his own delusions, fueled by his decadent dementia.

Monica understood, but Hillarious is a lawyer, so cause & effect have no meaning for Jamie's best friend.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 5:36 pm | #

daveinboca,

You forgot to mention your history lesson has been Hannitized (i.e. made-up out of whole cloth) for our protection. Pay no attention to the 1993 WTC bombers rotting in prison.

Let me also point out that Billy Jeff is a Conservative. A moderate one, he doesn't think we should outright kill the poor, but a conservative nonetheless.

Note: He is in the pockets of corporate America, his Immigration Act of 1996 lacks compassion (a hallmark of the GOP. Funny, it was totally supported by the right-wing, until they wanted to make political hay on the kid from Cuba, Elian Gonzalez), his push for welfare reform (NOT Corporate Welfare Reform, you silly goose), and all those non-violent casualties of the drug war who sat cramped in our prison system so conservatives could look tough on crime (not white-collar, of course) and get the scary minorities off our streets.

Hillary will follow in his footsteps. If you liked W, a vote for Hillary is a vote for more of the same. (Endless War, unitary executive powerplays, open checkbook for corporate America, et al).

Even though this obvious to anyone paying a modicum of attention, people like daveinboca will have a conniption because these aren't Rush's talking points. That's why it's foolhardy to listen to guys like daveyboy.
BTW, that W sure has the midas touch. (LOL to the tenth power.)

Here's a quote from John Lydon for you dave, "Have you ever felt like you've been taken?"

Because you sure write like you have.
Robert | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 6:21 pm | #

"Dr. Sanity sadly is correct when she notes that hysterical blindness in these jokers is incurable---since they are unaware they suffer from it!!!"

once again people, attacking clinton is no defense for the useless piece of flesh currently wiping his ass with the constitution
ibfamous | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 6:34 pm | #

George W. Bush's "surge" is nothing more than his latest plan to Run out the clock to January 2009. As long as the US military are present, and supplying weapons and training to the same Sunni militias who months before were killing them, the number of American's killed will decrease.

However Iraq will never become the Shining Example of Democracy that Georger W. Bush declared to be his goal (after no WMD's were found, of course).

But, becuase Conservatives are more loyal to George W. Bush than they are to the United States of America, they will pretend that President Bush's plan is brilliant and keep it going to January 2009.

At that point, Conservatives will declare "they knew it was not sustainable all along", just as they did ot Donald Rumsfeld's policies up until the day he was fired.

Death and suffering mean nothing to Conservatives, as long as they are not doing the suffering, if it means protecting the ego and incompetence of George W. Bush.
Philadelphia Steve | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 11:42 pm | #

Re: "America didn't cause this war, the warmongers did."

Which war? The one started by Osama bin laden and al Qaeda from Afghanistan, where they have rebuilt to their pre 9/11 strength?

Or the entirely different war in Iraq, launced by the invasion orders of Geroge W. Bush and his incompetent occupation plans?

Tehy are different wars, no matter what quotes FoxNews supplies and how much the Bush Administration tries to blur the distinction. Saddam Hussein was not part of the September 11 attack plots. He was the enemy of bin Laden.

Now, thanks to the incompetence of George W. Bush, bin Laden is free and the US military is bogged down in the middle of a civil war.
Philadelphia Steve | Email | Homepage | 12.27.07 - 11:46 pm | #

I notice that useful idiots like "Robert" do not have a homepage. Probably ashamed to be called out for their superficial dishonest drive-by droppings on a real thread populated by responsible professionals.

Billy Jeff may be a centrist, but he is not a "Conservative," although that gives a good indication of how FAR OUT of the mainstream narrative agitpreppies like "Robert" dwell.

I was talking about BJ's foreign policy antics, his constant avoidance of committment and his triangulating which ended up giving ObL & AQ eight years of unanswered aggression against the US, culminating in 9/11.

To put monstrosities like Jamie Gorelick, whom Ashcroft rightly said should never been on the 9/11 Commission, to a senior DoJ position where she could keep the CIA & FBI from working more closely to keep the perps off-balance.

It is ultra-left moronic females like Gorelick and clueless Swamp Thing Reno who thankfully got Florida onto Bush's victory column in the 2000 election, due to Swamp Thing's extradition of Elian Gonzalez back into BJ's hero Castro's clutches.

BJ is a chameleon on plaid with the backbone of a jellyfish on foreign policy and national security. And ditto to morons like Bill Richardson who are suddenly calling on Musharraf to resign. Funny thing about how being the head of a political party whose leadership avowedly hates America and its Constitution makes a Democratic POTUS cringe before foreign power and threats.

I was a long-time friend of BR's before he ran for president---now he's just another butt-boy for the Kossacks.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.28.07 - 12:29 am | #

Did you all just ignore Richard Clarke's book, or is he just a lying bush-hater too?

And do any of you clinton-haters know anything about Richard Mellon Scaife?

When one side evades or dismisses provable factual assertions, resorting to straw men and nonsense explainations to make their point, it becomes abundantly clear who is off their rocker.

For example, you'd probably consider me a "lefty nut". Except that I have the brains and critical thinking power to understand that Sandy Berger did something very illegal. And he should be investigated and tried for that. Because the facts can't be ignored, and I'm not blind to the problems with dems.

I'm still waiting for all you law-and-order conservatives to take a principled stand against Bush, Gonzales, Addington or Cheney. I won't be holding my breath.

It will take decades to undo the damage to conservatism that the current administration had wreaked.
ME | Email | Homepage | 12.28.07 - 11:20 am | #

When I mentioned the Republican determination to explain away failure with the "back-stab" argument, I should have known that the attacks on Clinton would start very soon. When Republicans get really desperate, they bring up Monica's blue dress again, and try to claim that every single thing that has gone wrong in the world since Bush took the oath of office in 2001 is the direct consequence of Clinton's getting a bj. I hope you guys find that excuse comforting, but absolutely no one else believes it.
T-Rex | Email | Homepage | 12.28.07 - 12:53 pm | #

Hey, numbnutsinboca,

"...eight years of unanswered aggression against the US, culminating in 9/11."

So, if Bush was unable (from the comfort of his "ranch" in Texas) to thwart 9/11 because there was no actionable intelligence, what actionable intelligence are you aware of that Clinton wantonly ingnored? Are you angry that Clinton didn't simply conduct a willie-nilly invasion the entire Middle East in the hopes of finding a handful of radicals? I bet that if Clinton had ordered such an invasion, you would have gone off of your rocker and you would have deluded yourself into thinking that Clinton took military action because he wanted our troops dead or some such bullshit. You people are Clinton-haters first, Bush-lovers second, and Americans a distant third.

Let me guess, you probably blame Bhutto's assisnation on Clinton.
JML | Email | Homepage | 12.28.07 - 3:05 pm | #

daveinboca,

Speaking of triangulation, how did St. Ronnie's arming of Osama bin Laden in the 80s work out for you?
I hated B. Clinton as a President, but I thank God the spineless jellyfish didn't stubbornly invade Iraq to the detriment of the US Treasury, the death and maiming of thousands of soldiers, and growth in recruitment for al quaeda.

Now to the exciting news: It's true. I don't have a homepage.
As we wind down the year 2007, daveinboca has finally taken notice of something that is true. Congratulations! That's one in a row.
Good luck in matching that streak at some point in 2008.


ME,
Conservatism is dead.
Shot in the head by a dry-drunk fratboy, his criminal sidekick VP, and the sycophantic-followers who feel it's better to be a good Republican than a good American.
Robert | Email | Homepage | 12.28.07 - 3:20 pm | #

"what actionable intelligence are you aware of that Clinton wantonly ingnored?"

Clinton had his crone-DoJ companion-in-crime Gorelick quarantine "actionable intelligence" from the FBI. The CIA had two AQ operatives arriving in San Diego in 1999, but they basically shelved it as Gorelick had discouraged any active cooperation between the FBI & CIA. She was [and is] a left-wing socialist who will be Hillary's attorney general. To have her on the 9/11 Commission was a travesty, as Ashcroft accurately pointed out.

Richard Clarke is undependable in his rendition of facts. To say that Bush could have turned around eight years of the Clintonian shiftless irresponsible national security lapses that Gorelick had actively promulgated & encouraged is ridiculous, Clarke was plumping for the NSC job in 2004 if Kerry had won.

Actually, Robert, St. Ronnie's arming of the mujahideen [ObL wasn't a player] worked VERY WELL for me, as it facilitated Ronnie's plan to shit-can the USSR. You may remember that happened right on schedule. GHWB & a Dem Congress let Afghanistan go to the Taliban. Read Ghost Soldiers if your vocabulary is up to it.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.29.07 - 5:19 am | #

Make that Ghost Wars by Steve Coll. It won a Pulitzer Prize and has the real story based on actual facts. Neither Repubs nor Dems come out shining in this sordid tale of betrayal & bravery---betrayal by cowardly politicians in DC & bravery by the Northern Alliance & allies who fought Al Qaeda & the Taliban tooth and nail & whose brave leader was cowardly assassinated the day before 9/11/01.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.29.07 - 7:58 am | #

1) For better or worse, there were many legal restrictions regarding CIA/FBI cooperation in those days. Neither Clinton nor Gorelick invented them. Those restrictions were intended to maintain checks and balances between the police and military functions of our government.

2) Do you suppose Gorelick's quarantine was anything like the refusal of Rumsfeld et al to heed the predictions of military analystis who warned that the invasion force was too small to maintain post-invasion law and order? How many people, Amreican and Iraqi, are dead as a direct result of the administration's inability to listen to anything but the sounds of its own voices?

3) Not that I want her anywhere near the White House, but if you honestly think Hillary or anybody in her camp is a socialist, then you have absolutely no idea who Hillary is or what socialism is. If anything, she is the most likely candidate to maintain the status quo.

4) I agree with you that to expect anything of GWB is ridiculous.

5) The USSR crumbled under its own weight. Indeed, Reagan aided the process, but he is by no means singularly responsible for it, as many Republicans would have us all believe. America, under many administrations, has a history of providing arms and assistance to various parties as was/is convenient at the time, with little thought to who we are arming and what might happen should they actually become regional powers. Sometimes, we inadvertently crate new problems that we have to deal with down the road. Acknowledgement of this fact is what people on the Right dismiss as "blaming America first." A great example of this is Reagan's decision to support Saddam throughout the 80's (and sometimes supporting Iran at the same time, depending on who looked like they were winning). The Right loves to cite Saddam's gassing (with chemicals purchased from General Electric, among other suppliers) of the Kurds (often incorrectly referred to as, "his own people," - they most certainly were not his own people, hence their being gassed) as a prime example of what an animal Saddam was. Oddly, this happened in 1988, squarely on Reagan's watch. Do you remember what Reagan did to Saddam in response? I do - he did nothing.

6) I just Googled "Ghost Wars." Actually, it looks very interesting. Thanks for the tip.
JML | Email | Homepage | 12.29.07 - 4:41 pm | #

As usual, our Dr. Insanity -- who does not know her stupid arse from her ignorant elbow -- is ranting.

She would not know a Persian from an Arab but she has an opinion on everything. So, of course, Dr. Cole, who actually knows Persians from Arabs, and also happens to be a student of both cultures, must be wrong.

Iran's president is just a puppet of the mullahs who not only run Iran but also OWN most of its resources. The guy is just a loud-mouthed idiot who happens to serve the mullahs' propaganda at this time. Dr Insanity, not knowing anything about the rest of the world, and certainly not even be willing to know anything about therest of the world except for her own crappy mid-western backyard, is as usual shouting her crassly ignorant and abysmally stupid mouth off. She is the very stuff that the rest of the world makes fun of: the ugly American -- dumb, ignorant, and proud of it.
Devil's Advocate | Email | Homepage | 12.29.07 - 5:23 pm | #

"Dr. Cole, who actually knows Persians from Arabs, and also happens to be a student of both cultures, must be wrong."

As an Arabist and as a person who has given frequent speeches to foreign policy groups on Iran & its regime, I can attest that Dr. Sanity is better in her own field, space psychiatry, than perfesser juan is in his. Yes, Ahmdodojihad is an idiot, but Dr. Sanity wasn't talking about him in this post, or are you hallucinating?

Cole consistently misleads and manipulates his gullible readers, of whom DA is evidently one, with half-truths and utterances which are his own opinions, but which he parades as truth. perfesser cole was rejectef by Yale, a step or two up from UMich, because of his nasty polemics in part, but mostly because of his dishonest statements & persistent partisanship. He is no more a scholar than George W. Bush, or he is worse, a biased agitpreppie who misleads ignorant lefties [pardon the tautology] with slanted and biased opinions which he parades as facts.

Fouad Ajami who is a Shi'ite by origin & an expert on several countries has more knowledge of Shi'ites in his pinkie finger than spurious fraud cole has in his entire impostor's copybook.

Yale is well off without him, and the UMich has to keep this dolt around because of tenure---foolishly granted before cole went haywire.

JML:
I know Hillarious isn't a socialist, strictly speaking [she's more a Fabian socialist, one step at a time], but 9/11 was much easier for ObL's team to pull off because Gorelick vigorously enforced the firewall between the two agencies, at a time when the first WTC attack would lead to increased vigilance.

Gorelick is an active political commissar of the ultra-lefties, and may well get the DoJ job of AG if Hillary is elected. Her constituency is rabid about privacy because the ACLU & outliers are constantly dancing on the edge of legality to promote their agenda.
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.29.07 - 9:50 pm | #

JML

The USSR crumbled under its own weight. Indeed, Reagan aided the process, but he is by no means singularly responsible for it, as many Republicans would have us all believe.

I didn't say he was "singularly" responsible, but he & GHWB have not been given credit by the academicide community for a great move they pulled off in the mid-'80s, when they persuaded the Saudis to lower the price of oil from $30+ to around $18/bbl. Suddenly the USSR, which was awash in Eurodollars from their blowing out oilfields to pay for their expensive war in Afghanistan & their military toys were bereft of cash---seriously out of pocket. This started the downward economic spiral that ended when the Saudis lowered the price to around $10/bbl in '88 to get GHWB elected. The USSR tanked through bankruptcy thanks to Reagan, GHWB & the Saudis.

Gosh, I wonder why you don't read that in the so-called "history" books written by the likes of Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who famously in the eighties said that the economic & social collapse of the USSR was a "myth" because he had walked around Moscow and all the stores were well-stocked!!!

That's what passes for history by the liberal "historians."






v
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 12.29.07 - 9:59 pm | #

According to no less a Bush Administration authority than Donald Rumsfeld himself, the occupation of Iraq was to last no more than six months. Therefore any "progress" that Conservatives are giving themselves High-Fives over are three years overdue.


However, by skilfully manipulating Conservative statements, and moving the goalposts, the Bush Administration is patting itself on the back because the violence level in Iraq is "only" where it was in 2005.

I bet the Loyal Bushies will give themselves another round of Medals of Freedom because of the "Heckuva Job" they're doing now.
Philadelphia Steve | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 2:09 pm | #

Re: "Clinton had his crone-DoJ companion-in-crime Gorelick quarantine "actionable intelligence" from the FBI. The CIA had two AQ operatives arriving in San Diego in 1999, but they basically shelved it as Gorelick had discouraged any active cooperation between the FBI & CIA. She was [and is] a left-wing socialist who will be Hillary's attorney general. To have her on the 9/11 Commission was a travesty, as Ashcroft accurately pointed out."

Can you document where President Bill Clinton gave such a specific order?
Philadelphia Steve | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 2:12 pm | #

Remember Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn" analogy? We've been sitting on a huge pile of broken pot shards over there for five years now. Somebody found two bits that match, and the wingnuts start screaming, "Look, we're making progress! Baghdad Bush was right all along! Hurrah!"

Any thinking person hates Baghdad Bush because he has not done one thing, NOTHING, N-O-T-H-I-N-G, nada, zippo, less than nothing, that has been of actual benefit to our nation or our beloved armed forces. Only damage. Only lies. Only corruption of the government and perversion of our Consitution.

Baghdad Bush is a terrorist: he's used the "War on Terror" as a bludgeon to attack domestic political opposition, he's made friends with dictators like Hosni Mubarak and Pervez Musharraf when he should be declaring them our enemies, he has taken us on the tragic detour of Iraq, he's sacrificed the goodwill of all nations and the leadership of the Free World, he's failed to hold America out as a special nation that doesn't torture its prisoners and that shuts down the world's Abu Ghraibs instead of running them, he's neglected to stand with those spreading democracy and prosperity to the world's darkest corners.

May all you pro-war, pro-torture, faux Christ-ies like Baghdad Bush, Falwell, Perkins, Sun Yung Moon, Ronald Reagan, burn in your imaginary hell.
tommo | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 5:39 pm | #

A new book shows Saddam did support al Qaeda and the Taliban:

'Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents'

http://www.bothinonetrench.com
Ray Robison | Email | Homepage | 01.06.08 - 11:53 am | #

Ray, I was reading some of the captured documents posted on-line in Arabic early last year [I was a State Dept Arabist] and they seemed to indicate connections between Saddam, the Taliban, and perhaps indirectly Al Qaeda.

The opponents of reality in the Middle East will predictably claim these captured docs were "forged" or "fabricated," so absent another 9/11 investigation, the debate will rage forever. My crazy old aunt in the attic still thinks Alger Hiss was a great patriot!
daveinboca | Email | Homepage | 01.07.08 - 4:39 am | #