A sampling of recent brilliant Roy-isms:
"In other words: Things are going very badly, and the only solution is to step up our support of the people who made it so."
"I've read a lot of Shakespeare. I must be a monarchist."
"Well, maybe all of us who have a hitch-hiker tied up in the basement."
"...the most entertaining ones wait upon that candy-colored clown they call the sandman, and report his visitations as if they were real."
"He also thinks colloquy, being an antique device, should be written like a Gor novel"
"To them I issue a challenge: Pray this day, on one side of one sheet of paper, explain how our half-assed war in Iraq helped to foil the airliner plot."
And as if all the rest weren't enough, a Serling quip:
"Unfortunately for the Iraqis, they couldn't wish us so easily into the cornfield."
Mr. Edroso, I bow in your digital direction. A visit to the Internet is ever sweetened by the perfume of the blossoms you've sown in the dungheap of dudgeon.
Add this one: "... adds Dreher, whose Christianity apparently stops at the water's edge ..."
Although (as a Christian) I would venture to say that Dreher's Christianity stops somewhere much closer, like the end of his driveway.
Dreher's fretting. You liberal sickos probably won't stop until he's peeved.
Dreher: "my heretical thought is not, 'Maybe I should have voted for Kerry,' though that might be true."
And what good would that have done? Kerry supported the war, and promised to continue it.
Punish the idiot who started it. Don't give him the chance to claim his "mandate."
Nope the quote of the post for me is this:
"Ladies and gentlemen, your Moral Majority Redux: willing to permit the needless deaths of as many non-American non-embryos as it takes to keep women from getting abortions and gay people from getting married."
As Ron Burgundy would say, "Baxter, you really know how to cut to the core of me."
"And what good would that have done? Kerry supported the war, and promised to continue it."
Duncan, I think it's quite obvious that had Kerry been elected two years ago, despite his silly "pandering to the middle" that the Washington establishment convinced him he must do, things would be MUCH different. For one, Rumsfeld would not still be leading our armed forces, which is a HUGE deal.
Second, we'd probably have more international cooperation at this point without Bush and Cheney as the face of our country.
And third, Kerry would not STILL be sitting here talking about "staying the course" as things get worse and worse and 60% of the country wants out. Kerry would not be clinging to this war as if it were his baby, as Bush has. In fact Kerry's assertion that the war in Iraq was right was just a stupid campaign lie that he didn't even believe that ended up getting him nowhere. Thanks DLC. Thanks establishment media. Notice how Howard Dean is still considered a nut for having the common sense to be against the war to begin with?
I don't know Glenn. It's possible that we could actually take Kerry at his word about supporting the war. And yes, he is smarter, but what would that entail? A force of 300,000? Lyndon Johnson redux?
And if he was pandering, by which I guess you mean "lying," who's to say he'd be pandering to the left now? More likely he'd still be pandering to the right. Hillary, the Joes and the rest of the Doormatocrat establishment would be right there with him, steeley eyed and resolved, not just staying the course but doubling the bet, throwing even more good money after bad.
In order to look "tough" (and win a second term), Kerry might have poured more good after bad into Iraq, at least for awhile. But the other everyday functions of government would still be better, because at least Democrats see gov't as something other than a patronage dumping ground and a place to park their young'ns until they are situated well enough to suck at the tit of a think tank. Having Republicans run anything in the public sector is like having Quakers run the Pentagon. On second thought, that couldn't be much worse.
Here, pass me that pipe.
Hoo, yeah. Now then, as long as we're dreaming, we might want to recall that Kerry would have been dealing with a Republican Congress that would have done everything possible to fuck with him, even as the world crashed and burned around them. Unless the media somehow found a secret cache of integrity around that time, they'd surely be joining in on the fun as he was lambasted for failing to magically fix the mess left for him, and everyone would probably be pining for Jeb - the smart Bush! He'll fix things! - to ride in and save the day by now.
And getting back to important stuff: if someone wants to compile a book of Edrosoisms, I'd buy it, no doubt.
Well, I always hoped that Kerry was lying about a few things, at least. If you're too stupid to do that when running for President, what hope is there for you?
The 2004 Democratic Platform was mostly mush, but as observed here before, there were parts than were not mush, and I found them more appetizing than the hot broth and rotten meat offered by the Republicans.
In any case, the negative scenarios on view here never had a chance to be tested, as America went with the proven fuck-up instead.
I say we stop giving Democrats the moral advantage of impotence.
---------"Unless the media somehow found a secret cache of integrity around that time, they'd surely be joining in on the fun as he was lambasted for failing to magically fix the mess left for him"---------
If I've learned anything the past 6 years, it is that the media sucks balls big time. Fox News is just the foil for how really bad it is.
Last night I actually sat through the O'Reilly Factor and HANNITY&colmes. I get treated to Bill telling us the Dems have no plan in the war on terror, and Hannity telling us how weak the Dems are (again) on National Security while Dick Morris says in regards to the foiled plot in England, "Thank God" we have wiretaps and the PAtriot Act. Forgetting apparently that it was the fucking British who broke it up, and they used LEGAL wiretaps and still managed to save the day. Oh yes, and who exactly is agaisnt wiretaps when done legally? Meanwhile Alan COlmes gets up from his desk off camera and grabs another cup of decaf and says nothing.
Thanks, roy, for keeping us up on Rod Dreher. There's something about him that rubs me wrong -- no, I mean besides his being a witling and asshole. I think it's his sincerity.
it's interesting that dreher said a vote for kerry would be heretical. i thought heresy applied to religion, not electoral politics.
once again, it shows the bankruptcy of much of comtemporary organized christianity in the u.s. dreher for believing that shit, and the other christians for not calling him out on it.
this makes me glad i'm a deist.
A bit less eloquent than Roy: Rod Dreher is a stupid asshole. Single-minded focus on the Supreme Court? Hey asshole, Bush and you are wrong on that count too.
"Ladies and gentlemen, your Moral Majority Redux: willing to permit the needless deaths of as many non-American non-embryos as it takes to keep women from getting abortions and gay people from getting married."
Yep, that about sums it up. I love that Rod Dreher, he's a nicer version of me.
Grant at 5:42: Are you in love with Roy? EwW? There might be kids checking this!
I love that Rod Dreher, he's a nicer version of me.
Broader, too. His worldview runs all the way to the end of his driveway.
Are you in love with Roy? EwW?
As your political mentors probably told you, we only do the gay thing to upset you.
Roy, Well it does! Goodness me.
So all of a sudden you have this touching compassion for the Iraqi people? It's really very moving.
The Iraqis are dying in far fewer numbers compared with before we went in there. You just didn't read about (hear no evil, see no evil). Do you want to make a case that dictators aren't so bad after all. Isn't that the entire basis of Noam Chomsky's career lambasting U.S. policy towards the other autocrats worldwide? All of a sudden the Syrian, Egyptian, and Saudi royal family are lookin pretty good. Heck, maybe you can resurrect Castro.
You people love that we're in Iraq. If we weren't you'd have to spend time searching for some other perceived injustice to whine about. Give me credit: My worldview at least goes a city block. We don't have driveways here.
Conservative Guy:
Do you want to make a case that dictators aren't so bad after all.
No. But the Bush team looks like they're prepping one:
“Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,” said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.
“Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect,” the expert said, “but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.”
-- New York Times Aug. 17, 2006
I'd like to know how being pushed into a ruinous war for no actual reason is a perceived injustice however. Or for that matter all of the non-Iraq things that Bush has fucked up, like New Orleans.
Funny how your deep compassion toward Iraqis fails you when it comes to your countrymen.
My God -- did someone actually just say this?
The Iraqis are dying in far fewer numbers compared with before we went in there.
Um...no:
http://www.zmag.org/lancet.pdf
And the Lancet study only covers approx. a year and a half before and after the invasion; in recent months, the death toll has been over a hundred a day -- from violence alone. Yes, yes, Saddam was an authoritarian thug -- not unlike many other authoritarian thugs that the US has propped up over the years -- but unless you can provide evidence that over a hundred people a day were dying of violence under his thugdom, I'll have to conclude that you're either ignorant, confused, or lying.
Jeez -- you people used to just tut-tut about how, to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs, etc. Now that the promised omelet of democracy in Iraq has proven as tardy as Godot, y'all are, what, going to just deny that any eggs have been broken? Going to excuse them because the gibbering shadows in your head tell you that Saddam broke more of them, so there?
Help me out here -- I'd love an advance peek at the next step in the evolution of warblogger psychosis.
I am sick and FUCKING tired of these panty-waist jackasses retreating to the middle they have sought to stamp out over the past six years. Since Bush has been elected the world was binary: with us or against us; for liberty or against it; lover of freedom or hater of freedom. These blowhards were more than happy to exploit binary opposition until the whole damn thing started coming apart. Now they want to wander away from their stance but not admit they were wrong. How do they do this?
Witness the phoenix rise of the middle. We were bludgeoned with it during the Clinton years as it was obvious that American sentiment was leftward leaning given Democratic control of the Senate and White House. So Republicans hewed toward the middle with a puritanical zeal in order to not be themselves but not be what they wanted to defeat.
Now that the seams are undone and the guts of this particular Frankenstein are spilled all over the floor for good Americans to trip over, the radical right wants to move back toward a neutral center: the very thing they sought to obliterate during their 6 year stranglehold on power.
I say we turn our sights on their new rhetorical perch. This is not to say that we attack moderates (as, let's face it, most of us are in fact moderates) but instead, these pundits must be made uncomfortable in their new rhetorical sideline. Otherwise they are going to use this rhetorical space in order to snipe at failed conservatism and successful progressivism. All without having to be reminded that they denied that space to all during their reign and are responsible for the rise of the very political climate (both conservative [through support] and progressive [through response]) they allegedly now loathe.
"Are you in love with Roy? EwW? There might be kids checking this!"
Oh, and heaven forfend that children be exposed to love!
Actually, it's not quite like that... I'm smitten with Roy's wit, and stalk it electronically from the opposite coast.
But thanks for playing, and always remember, homophobia is the sincerest form of flirtery!
nashtbrutusandshort,
I applaud you for at least referencing something.
I can only assume you're not extremely familiar with the methodologies used in academic studies. I suggest that you move from the executive summary to the discussion on page 6. There are several limitations to this study mentioned there. I'm not going to get into what constitutes a viable model and the appropriate use a panel data set when you perform this type of analysis... but... the limitations identified there are not trivial. Just some examples: the authors reliance on infant mortality rates from neighboring countries as a comparison, the potential problems with the interviewees included in the sample, the way the authors described the composition of the Iraqi households, the exact cause of deaths was not very precise, the number of casualties caused by coalition forces, and more. The authors acknowledge this to some degree.
The main problem is with the baseline data in that you really have no way of knowing what the actual statistics were under Sadaam. A more viable baseline would have come from any secret files he might have kept about who killed (and he did keep them) rather than through interviews. Until you have a full reporting of violent deaths you can't really put much stock into this. The claim of 98K EXTRA deaths from the invasion in a country of that size and the risk of death being 58 times higher post-Sadaam vs. pre-Sadaam is completely absurd. It also doesn't take into account a reasonable time horizon. You would probably want to use ABSOLUTE Numbers over a longer period than moving averages with a snapshot view of just 2002 to 2003 compared with 2003 to 2004/05 data. You can't reliably extract from 30 interviews within 33 clusters that sort of data. That's a bit silly.
There are even more problems with this study than I mentioned. I know: These are details! That's not the point of this blog and I don't want to be too "earnest" in my blind support for anything and everything GW does. But you might want to be more careful when you're throwing out studies made to fit a point you want to make. The flaws are why I suspect this study isn't more popular than it is. If this were an accurate analysis, I'd obviously have to rethink my position.
Why 'obviously'?
You admit to not knowing how many people Saddam killed in his reign, yet you say more people were killed then in Iraq than now.
So why would anyone think you would obviously change your mind?
You pull an unsupported assertion out of your ass, then get granular and skeptical on a study that at least has a methodology, as opposed to yours which is "the truth is whatever Ken Melmhan claims it to be".
Which is doubly why this is precious:
But you might want to be more careful when you're throwing out studies made to fit a point you want to make.
We should merely assert things that fit our preconceived beliefs, that way we won't have to rely on studies!
Stealing outrageously from the Sadlynauts, but what the hell...
Shorter CG: The possibility of analytical errors in this study call into question the existence of objective reality.
Smarter and more eloquent people than I have already made this point, but exactly how low are we holding the bar when our greatest achievement in Iraq is "Being a little bit better than Saddam Hussein"?
Shorter conservative guy: "Lies, damned lies and statistics."
The rest of the herd has moved on from the "Iraq is less violent" meme. It's not less violent. It's coming apart at the seams because we invaded it. We spent our treasury, our prestige and, ultimately the worst, the lives and limbs of our children to depose a madman and replace him with the death of a nation.
Hussein was contained and was a known and predictable quantity (don't forget that he told us he was going to invade Kuwait). Now we've played into the hands of the fundamentalists in Iran.
Our folly in Iraq has kept us from finishing in Afghanistan and kept us from dealing effectively with North Korea and Iran. It will be a tragedy which will dog the consciousness of all truly patriotic Americans. I was going to say "Out, damned spot! out, I say!" will not assuage our guilt anymore than it did for Lady Macbeth. But I feel the following quote is more apropos: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red"
As your political mentors probably told you, we only do the gay thing to upset you.
What do you mean 'we,' White Man?
I do the gay thing because I'm gay. And I think Roy is teh hot. He's spurned my advances so far, but I've got only a couple more months before I get my Certification in Advanced Recruitment Techniques from Gay Mafia University, and when that happens, I will be UNSTOPPABLE.
But don't worry, Conservative Guy, you're safe. I already tried dating someone who'd had a frontal lobotomy and it just didn't work out, and I swore I'd never make that mistake again.
Roy, Uncle Kvetch brings up an excellent point. How about it? He seems like a great catch...
I don't want to pick on CG. By the time 4 or 5 pm rolls around and I've gotten out of bed, had my wakeup shot and a beer or two, the regular commenters have had their way with his little arguments. And I kinda like the little feller, but that's neither here not there.
But since he mentioned Professor Chomsky, I wanted to point out that he opposed Sadaam from the beginning and opposed the invasion as well. The Conservatives, on the other hand, supported Sadaam, even as he gassed the Kurds, and the idiotic war and every one of the many stupid fuck-ups before and after.
So they've both been consistent, but Chomsky has been consistently right and the Conservatives consistently wrong. As someone mentioned yesterday, it's amazing that people who are consistently wrong about everything don't just shut the fuck up. But the answer is as plain as the stupid look on Bush's face. They are incapable of admitting they are wrong, fuck a mountain range of evidence.
Anyway, back to the good professor, although nationalistic idiots at home can ignore his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and even claim that well-documented facts aren't facts, people abroad are no so indoctrinated, at least not by us. Over time, Chomsky's analysis that once seemed so radical is becoming accepted wisdom.
And no, those dictatorships don't look so good. Never did, never will. But there's a big difference between supporting them and invading their countries and killing a lot of people indiscriminately. Better to take the long view, treat others as you'd like to be treated, etc. And more practically, work diplomatically within the bounds of international law to create positive change. That's what has worked in the past and that's what will work in the future. Not perfectly, granted, but a hell of a lot better than rage, violence, revenge and mass murder.
Whoa! You go offline for a while, come back, and sheesh. Thank you, Jay B and others, for so eloquently administering those responses. For the record, I am well aware of the "limitations" of the Lancet study. I am also well aware that any such study will have "limitations." I am also painfully aware of grisly figures like these:
An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January.
And I'm still waiting for evidence that over 3,000 people a month were dying from violence before we invaded Iraq. 'cause I'm quite willing to believe that Saddam and his henchmen were mean and evil and nasty enough to rack up such figures if they were really determined. But then one of the few good things you can say about authoritarians is that, well, they keep order -- right? Trains run on time, you can walk the streets at night, and all that? I mean, they tend to disregard civil liberties, put key government offices into the hands of cronies and kleptocrats, loot the treasury, keep the media on a tight leash, rely on fear to keep power...um, which authoritarian were we talking about again?
"Fuck a mountain range of evidence" -- oh, great. Now I'm never going to hear "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" the same way again.
Oh, and I'm not gay, but I think Roy is totally hot. I wish he and Neddie Jingo could have kids.
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