The ability to speak articulately denotes intelligence.  Let’s face it:  speech is what distinguishes us from our closest primate relatives.  I DO demand intelligence of my leaders—all of ‘em.  What could possibly be more valuable than intelligence?  Good hair?  A quick hand with the beer keg?  I don’t think so.

I agree that we should set the highest standards for our elected officials but I believe that we as Americans have become hyper-critical of our leadership.

In this day and age, complete honesty on the part of a politician would be the equivalent of political suicide.  We have developed this innate ability to expect nothing less than perfection from those we entrust to leadership positions and allow them no room for error.  No matter how small of a degree.  We can see evidence of this all the way down to local level school boards and local business board rooms.  Many a good town or company has lost a good teacher or leader for a relatively small infraction.

The results or this mentality are evidenced in the continuing efforts of politicians and leadership to hide and bury even the most trivial of matters away from public view and when they do emerge they are immediately exploited by the media.

[Quote]But, here in America, with the advent of mass-media devices no longer just in homes, but on wrists and cars and more, it’s mostly about communication.  If you cannot properly communicate, not only can you not rally the masses (for ensuring a bill’s passage), but you won’t rally the horde operating on your behalf.

Agreed.  Unfortunately our system isn’t prepared to operate at these types of speeds and I’m not quite sure I want it to.  Having a slow, methodical government lends itself to a balanced, well thought-out system.  Versus the knee-jerk type of system that brought us the ‘Patriot Act’.

I think people might have misinterpreted what I posted earlier.  I’m not saying Bill Clinton is worse that George W. Bush, to make that claim would be silly.  Clinton is a million times a better president than Bush from what I gather.  However, I don’t think people are giving John Kerry his due.  Clinton, though he was a fine orator and a charismatic statesman was somewhat shady.  I’m not talking about his affinity for interns either.  As far as I care that doesn’t matter.  What I am talking about is his admistrations repeated bombing of Iraq, something that I don’t think most people are aware of.  He managed to bomb Iraq repeatedly throughout his two terms in office without there being much substantial out cry.  Why is this the case?  His admistration managed to suppress that information from reaching the news.  That’s almost as bad as going to war on false pretenses, it’s attacking a sovereign nation without even informing the populace.  Moreover, the sanctions that Iraq had to undergo after the first Gulf War led to a tremendous amount of suffering by the people of Iraq, who had little influence on the actions of Saddam Hussein.  Though these sanctions were enacted by the UN during George H.W. Bush’s term, Clinton did little to attempt to lift them.  I don’t think Clinton is the ideal of a liberal Democrat president that some people here seem to make him out to be.  I will grant that Kerry might sneak a few past the people, but it does seem that he might be more genuinely liberal than Clinton was, which is something that I think is something that is worth considering.

I think you were pretty clear, Stink, but it isn’t true that Clinton’s bombing of Iraq was kept from the American people.  It was in our daily newspaper, it was reported on NPR, it was discussed at length on the McNeal Lehrer Newshour, and blipverted in tiny sound/image bites on NBC, ABC, CBS.  So if the Clinton administration was trying to keep it a big secret, they were doing a lousy job.

If memory serves, the bombings were directed at radar installations, airbases, and command posts that supported violations of the no fly zone, which was instituted to 1) permit arial enforcement of UN sanctions, and 2) protect the Kurdish population in the North, which had been slaughtered in large numbers at the end of the first gulf war.  Naturally a lot of missiles missed their targets, and we got to see pictures of anguished people mourning their dead.  Saddam played these up big time.

You are absolutely right that sanctions just don’t work, and they cause suffering.  (Look at Cuba, after all.) Clinton may have been ambivalent about the sanctions, but they were widely supported.  He would have had to use up a LOT of political capital to get rid of them.

I don’t think Clinton really was all that liberal, which is fine with me. He was able to work with people who really hated him and still do some good.  Amazing.

I’ll take Kerry’s liberalism over Bush’s ... I don’t know what to call it, idiocy?  Hypocrisy? Plutocracy?

The Democrats have a couple of very, very good public speakers in Barak Obama and John Edwards. Since we are neighbors to Illinois, we have been getting coverage of Obama’s senatorial race (and of the Republican’s self destruction.) However, I hadn’t heard him speak before last night. I’m glad that I watched.

The two NPR pundits agreed that tonight’s speech wasn’t Edward’s A-game, then later relented a little--but still maintained that he stepped on some of his applause lines. I’m not a speech maven, so I wouldn’t pick up on that sort of thing.

Also… (re. US/British bombings of Iraq pre-IraqWar2)

[] The Iraqis (with German technical help) had installed a number of brand-new radar installations and command centres, all using fiber networks to communicate.  A number of these were placed under civilian institutions/buildings, like schools.  Some of the civilian casaulties were a result of this.  If a radar locks onto your craft, you’re asking for death by ignoring it and not firing back.
[] As our planes flew over Iraq not only did radar installations lock on, but their anti-aircraft installations also occassionaly fired upon us.  This, too, would result in a response by our fighters.  But, sometimes, the anti-aircraft’s ordinance would literally fall-back down onto civilian centres, causing sometimes considerable damage.  The Iraqi Ministry of Information didn’t hesitate to blame this destruction on US/Brit fighters, not their anti-aircraft gunneries.

Without such operations, enforcing the Northern and Southern no-fly zones, the Kurds would have been squashed once again, and places like Basra would have seen even greater purges, or worse, chemical reprisals.  Sure, it’s a guess what might have happened without the NoFlyZones, but a good guess given SaddamAndThugs’ past behavior.

Hey, we even dropped leaflets upon these radar installations, warning the operators to not lock onto our crafts or face probable death.  You don’t get too many warnings in battle.  I thought such warnings were quite typical, good natured American style.

[Censored?]
I watch the nightly news (all the big networks with sizeable news operations: Fox, NBC, CNN, NewsHour, BBC) almost every day.  And, i remember during this time that there was usually a mention of when (a) we were fired upon, or (b) we were locked onto and fired back.  We also tended to show Iraq’s M.of Info’s footage of said school/market being destroyed, and their claim that US/Brit fighters did the bombing, sans mention of a radar installation or ordinance fallback.

Lastly, let us remember that Iraq repeatedly threatened its neighbors during this period of time, post-Kuwaiti withdrawal.  Jordan was practically Findlandised towards Iraq, having witness countless build-up of troops on its border. Saudi Arabia, too, also witness several very large scale, sudden troop deployments on its shared border with Iraq.  We would have been silly to ignore such, no matter how militarily foolish such adventures would’ve been for Saddam’s army at the time.  But, hey, insane men rarely rely upon wisdom.

(One of Udai’s favourite hobbies was having professional maps drawn up of a “future mideast”, in various stages of Iraq’s expansion to the south and west—and post-Soviet collapse he revised these to show a northern expansion, too.  Crazy, but upon such dreams was Kuwait’s infrastructure raped ala-Borg style by Iraq.)

.rob adams

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charpter - I - The House of Bush: Born in a Bank

Who is George Bush? How did he become the 41st U.S. President?

He is said to be a man of the “old establishment,” who “chose to seek his fortune as an independent oilman....” @s1

In fact, Bush was never “independent.” Every career step in his upward climb relied on his family’s powerful associations. The Bush family joined the Eastern Establishment comparatively recently, and only as servitors. Their wealth and influence resulted from their loyalty to another, more powerful family, and their willingness to do anything to get ahead.

For what they did, Bush’s forebears should have become very famous, or infamous. They remained obscure figures, managers from behind the scenes. But their actions--including his father’s role as banker for Adolf Hitler--had tragic effects for the whole planet.

It was these services to his family’s benefactors, which propelled George Bush to the top.

Unquote.

For more wild and whacky reading check out The Draheim Report - The Bush Nazi Collection. Another eye opener:  Prescott Sheldon Bush; Available on Google.

Dave M. Isn’t there a “documentary� about FOX and their reporting? Kind of like Fahrenheit 9/11?

Spocko Here’s the flick you’re talking about…
http://www.outfoxed.org/

I want to see this.

The CD has recently been released as a movie--a first I believe. This is not an all markets event, just a modest series of screenings. It will be interesting to see if this takes off. Here is a schedule

http://www.outfoxed.org/Screenings.php

The one in my neighborhood includes a panel discussion. Wow.

(army)

Thanks VernR!

("general")