Oh shaddup, woobie. I know what it means.

Sorry, I don’t believe you.  I have this niggling feeling you weren’t even out of Pampers when the OKC bombing occured.

I turned 29 that year and was working for the feds at the time.  Some of my co-workers had friends who were directly impacted by the blast (injury, death, or the same for a child).

Still don’t believe you. Neener, neener, neener.

Now you were working for the feds. LOL

Nighty, night, woobie baby.

Karen, given these past few replies it’s hard to imagine why anyone here should take anything you say seriously. You’ve crossed over to the point of trolling and that doesn’t tend to sit well with most folks regardless of how correct your ideas may or may not be.

I must have missed this completely asinine comment yesterday:

Fox is popular because it reinforces shallow, completely unsupported (by facts) beliefs among a certain segment of ignorant Americans, rather than educating them. Fox routinely spins its “news�? to play up the conservative angle. They cater to white Christian males, 18-40, who are below average intelligence.

My dad, who served in Viet Nam as a fighter pilot and flew over 100 missions, earned his masters in engineering and spent his career as a test pilot for Northrop Grumman flying such aircraft as the SR71 (being one of the pilots involved in the final flight out of Edwards AFB)  and the B2 Bomber (The Spirit of California) and ultimately retired from the airforce at the level of Colonel…watches only Fox News. He is 64 years old, does not necessarily consider himself “christian”. He breaks your Fox News “mold” completely. He is probably the most intelligent man I know. Yes, I love my dad!

They also mix opinion and “news�? such that the viewer can’t tell one from the other.

Hmmm Perhaps YOU’RE not intelligent enough to separate the opinions from the news. You have no real business speaking for the rest of Fox’s viewers.

If you doubt this, check out some stats on how Fox viewers are WAY more out of touch with news facts than viewers of any other station. Hell, most Fox viewers probably still believe that Saddam was the mastermind of 9/11.)

I don’t know one single person who watches Fox news who is out of touch with news facts. If anything they are MORE in touch.  I’d be interested in where you are pulling these so called stats from….

Karen, given these past few replies it’s hard to imagine why anyone here should take anything you say seriously

And how do you separate my posts last night from the person who compared his skin cells to embryos and stated he was going to collect them and preserve them because they might be turned into human beings one day-or some such nonsense.

You claimed you were fair, Les.  I didn’t see you stepping in to chastize that member for taking a serious debate and denegrating it.  You know I am not a troll but then you can think what you want.

To add a little seasoning to the original topic, I see nobody has yet mentioned the article in one of the UK papers the Sunday times, which brings out more points from the ‘downing street memos’.

Ministry of Defence figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that virtually none were used in March and April; but between May and August an average of 10 tons were dropped each month, with the RAF taking just as big a role in the “spikes of activity�? as their US colleagues. Then in September the figure shot up again, with allied aircraft dropping 54.6 tons.

Ok well the coalition do have a mandate to patrol the no fly zone, and to act in self defence, which does include taking out anti air defences that threaten them. This does seem like an awful spike of activity though, compared to the previous months. It does begin to look like a softening up exercise in preparation for the invasion which would have been illegal as the article goes on to show.

If this was a covert air war, both Bush and Blair may face searching questions. In America only Congress can declare war, and it did not give the US president permission to take military action against Iraq until October 11, 2002. Blair’s legal justification is said to come from UN Resolution 1441, which was not passed until November 8, 2002.

Finally a quote from one of the people who should know wether this was the start of a covert air war, or simply a response to increased threat from Iraqi air defences.

one US blogger, Larisa Alexandrovna of RawStory.com, unearthed more unsettling evidence. It was an overlooked interview with Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley, the allied air commander in Iraq, in which he appears to admit that the “spikes of activity�? were part of a covert air war.

From June 2002 until March 20, when the ground war began, the allies flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq, attacking 349 carefully selected targets. The attacks, Moseley said, “laid the foundations�? for the invasion, allowing allied commanders to begin the ground war.

Well there certainly seems to be some substance to this line of inquiry, I do hope that that they bring Blair to task along with Bush for this.

Sources:

Sunday Times Article

Raw Story Article

Need I remind you that the trial was NOT about Monica Lewinsky and the blowjob?  I know, I KNOW how much you all want to make it about that!  Funny thing is though, the trial was about his alleged sexual harrassment of Paula Jones (January 17, 1998) . He perjured himself before a grand jury during a deposition to avoid incriminating himself and making himself look like the low life, white trash, over-sexed bastard that he is. Again, I know you people HATE facts but I just can’t help but force you to at least try to accept them. YOu can call me ignorant all day but it seems YOU are the one woefully ignorant about the Clinton impeachment.

Yeah, it wasn’t about a blowjob; it was about Republicans who were desperately trying to take nuke a very popular Democratic president, any way they could.
Assuming this summary is accurate:
http://www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/e-gov/e-politicalarchive-Clintonimpeach.htm
it certainly seems to me that this was a witch hunt brought about by Ken Starr.

Lying to Congress?  Hmmmm He presented Congress with information and intelligence gathered during the Clinton Administration.  These were not his lies.  Lying to the UN?  He requested that the UN hold Saddam to the sanctions and allow un fettered inspections or we would take further action.  There were no lies there. He requested they do their fucking job. They didn’t….we did.

First part of this baloney:
Bush knew how extremely speculative the intelligence used was.  If he didn’t then he was incompetent in the extreme.  Clinton never went to congress or to the American public to argue that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States.  Bush argued that Saddam would set off a nuke in a major US city.  The White House also claimed that they KNEW where Saddam had weapons caches.  Clearly, that was a lie.  They did not know.  They then tried to blame the CIA for giving them bad information.  That might be true, but it is Bush’s job to check to make sure the intelligence is good.  The intelligence was made to fit the agenda, not the other way around, despite what the White House says.  The best you could argue here is that Bush is incompetent in the extreme.  I tend to think a mix of incompetence and balls-out lying.  Either is worthy of impeachment in my book.

Second part of this that is baloney:  You are asserting (incorrectly) that the UN did not enforce the disarmament agreement.  Iraq was disarmed.  How can you reconcile your statement with reality?  I know you would like to respond:  Iraq was supposed to account for all its weapons and prove that they were destroyed, however, in 2003, how could Iraq have possibly proved that their weapons were destroyed?  All their WMD’s were destoyed, as were their means for producing them.  How could they prove that to the United States or to the UN?
The third part of this that is baloney:  “They didn’t…we did.”  The United States was not authorized to use military force against Iraq, nor was it “our job” nor our right to do so.

This is laughable.  Correction: during Clinton’s sexcapade regime, Al Qaida was allowed to build in strength and power and go unchecked until such time as they attacked and murdered our own innocent citizens on our soil.  The Clinton administration avoided the collective threat of terrorism and the brewing hostilities in the mideast. I have news for you, child-those problems did not erupt in a matter of months.  The world was not at peace. The Clinton Administration just had a great ability for pulling the wool over our complacent societal eyes and allowed us to falsely believe things were a-ok, meanwhile Al Qaida was planning their menacing attack and working to achieve it right here in our own flight schools….while the whole of the Clintoon Administration looked askance.  I would call that an abysmal failure. I would call the deaths of thousands of Americans, who simply went to work one day, a horrendous failure.

The threats of Al Qaeda did build up during the Clinton administration and certainly he should have done something about worldwide terrorism during his terms.  You conveniently ignored, however, that Al Qaeda also built up during Bush I and II (and probably during Reagan years).  And none of them—INCLUDING GW BUSH—took any action until September 11th.  That’s because there was no public support for such a war.  You also conveniently ignored that Bush II was warned of the 9/11 attacks by Richard Clarke well ahead of time and did nothing more than anyone before him had done.  He certinly did nothing helpful on September 11th (other than helping some kids to read.)  Now, before you mentioned that Bush used Clinton-era information to sway Congress to invade Iraq:  So why was Bush unable to use that Clinton-era information about flight schools to attempt to stop September 11th?  You can’t implicate Clinton for 9/11 without simultaneously implicating Bush.

So now we have a president cleaning up the mess and he gets nothing but grief for it. 

Please explain how invading Iraq is “fighting the war on terror”.

Nothing but bitching and moaning from a bunch of arm chair liberals who would NEVER have the spine or gumption to fight in a war to prevent another attack and protect their own children

And would you tell this to the faces of our soldiers in Iraq who increasingly agree with me?

BTW, Karen, are you posting this from Fallujah or somesuch?
If not, I call thee a hypocrite.

-hell I am convinced a great majority of you would rather abort your children rather than deal with protecting them from future terrorism.

That makes you sound pretty stupid and perhaps even more out of touch with reality than GWB.

Would deal with the inconvenience of it all, wouldn’t it?  Less kids to have to fight in a future war, less kids who will turn in to adults and be subject to future attacks….now that’s REAL impressive logic.

I have no idea what you are talking about.  You need to lay off the smack.
This conversation has nothing to do with the subject of abortion.

I don’t see as Bush has all that many problems. He won a second term and quite frankly I think you all need to get over it. I have never in my life seen a worse bunch of sore losers who can’t accept the fact that they LOST-TWICE.  Stop fucking cry babying and get your own party back on track and win back the WH.  Attacking Bush and misrepresenting the war isn’t going to cut it-you’d think you would have learned that lesson in the last election! Good God!

According to polls, the president is in some serious trouble, as is the GOP in general.  My interpretation, which happens to fit all the facts (a good sign) is this:
The president and GOP managed to get the American public so focused on war and so confused about everything that they won by, frankly, manipulating the public’s natural stupidity.  This theory is testable against facts:  Most Bush voters believed—at the time of the elections—things about Bush and about reality in general which were 180 degrees off from reality.  For example, they believed that large stockpiles of weapons were found in Iraq, that Hussein was linked to 9/11, that Bush supports the Kyoto Protocols, etc.  The White House did an excellent job with their propaganda.  Since the election, however, the American public appears to have wakened (probably because the Democrats have finally launched an effective counter-propaganda campaign) and you see a steady decline in Bush’s poll numbers and the people who supported Bush’s various policies last year increasingly do not this year.  And this coincides with a more informed populace:  People tend to now understand that Iraq was not a threat and not linked to 9/11, for example.
I’ve been trying to figure this out for awhile, maybe you can answer it:  What does the White House currently have going for it that is positive?  (I’ll help you start:  It isn’t Social Security privatization, it isn’t the Terri Schiavo fiasco, it isn’t Iraq…)

And you know this how?!  Have you even read the resolution??????

IIRC (and I don’t intend to spend the entire day finding links for you, you can do your own research), many members of Congress have said that they did not actually examine the evidence; the evidence was classified and those who were keeping the information have said that only something like 2 members of Congress actually checked out the information.  There are also statements by members of Congress that the White House left out

READ IT AND CHOKE ON IT, CHRIS. I am so damn sick and tired of hearing Bush lied.  Especially from people who can’t even be bothered to read this resolution and determine for themselves wether the information came from Bush and Bush alone or from 10 years worth of documented intelligence, from the Clintoon Administration for the most part. Enough is enough already.

Several parts of that resolution were lies.  Here’s a sampling:

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq ;

Perhaps you’d like to identify which specific pieces of intelligence came from the “Clinton administration” and what came afterwards?

You have absolutely no proof, and are just running off at the mouth, when you claim Congress willfully ignored this resolution and just sat back in their seats and voted yes without examining the resolution from top to bottm and concurring that the intelligence (again-gathered mostly during the 1990’s) was substantial enough to give the president authority to go to war to overthrow Saddam.

Errr…the “intelligence” was not sufficient.  That should be clear since it was completely incorrect.  And, now that we know what we know about the intelligence, it’s impossible to conclude that it was “substantial”.  The intelligence came basically from satellite images which were interpreted to fit Bush’s agenda (i.e., they’d have a satellite photo of a truck and conclude that it was a mobile weapons lab) and from a single unreliable source code-named “Curveball.”  Curveball’s claims were never validated.  It should have been clear that he/she was not a good source of information.  But the administration had already made up its mind and wasn’t interested in facts.

As for Congress, as I said, the keeper of the intelligence said that almost no members of congress actually reviewed the evidence.  Congress did not do their damned jobs, but they took the president at his word in a time of war (not to mention voting against it would have been unpopular at that time.)

I am loathe to enter in to a debate regarding liberal bias. I think it’s a pointless debate. But since you mentioned THIS-it’s really hysterical because this is exactly what CNN did during the impeachment-talking head after talking head proclaimed the impeachment unjust and downplayed Clintoon’s atrocious conduct within the oval office. It was sickening.

And yet this negative thing about a “liberal” president was still prominently covered in the “liberal” media.  I dispute your “talking head” statement.  The media isn’t “liberal”:  They merely cover what they think will get viewers’ eyeballs to generate ad revenue. 

As for your websites, stuff them. I can provide you with triple as many that give evidence for liberal media bias, but undoubtedly you would just pull up 3 more that prove otherwise and we would go around and around for hours on the subject-which quite frankly I could care less about.

Translation:  You can’t show that there is a liberal media bias.

Most Bush voters believed—at the time of the elections—things about Bush and about reality in general which were 180 degrees off from reality.  For example, they believed that large stockpiles of weapons were found in Iraq, that Hussein was linked to 9/11, that Bush supports the Kyoto Protocols, etc.

I’m not going to jump in here too much, I don’t really feel like getting into a long discussion on the pros and cons of the war on terror / war in Iraq, but from the standpoint of a Bush voter (and my vote was based primarily on the war) I’d like to correct a couple of mistaken beliefs.

No one that I know (and I know one hell of a lot of conservatives) ever believed that Iraq was directly involved with 9/11. I know of no one who believed that Bush supported the Kyoto Protocols. I do know many who thought that Iraq had stockpiles of weapons before the war, but very few who insisted on it afterward. It is possible to support the war without believing such nonsense.

In 2001 we declared war on terrorism and terrorists. I know, that sounds abstract, and I’m not going to argue the right or wrong of it. I support the idea, many don’t. However, declaring war on terror was a much wider statement than declaring war on those that attacked us on 9/11. Iraq routinely and publicly funded terrorist attacks in Israel. That made him the enemy. I think Bush’s biggest mistake was not in attacking Iraq, but in using WMD’s to justify the attack. Personally, I would have compiled evidence of Iraq’s involvement in terrorism and used that as a justification for overthrowing Hussein.

That said, I agree with most everyone about the post-war situation being a mess. It has been mishandled from the start.

Despite my first instinct to not join in on the media bias debate….I was a moment ago innocently perusing the news and came across an article on the NYTimes website: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/politics/30enviro.html

registration takes mere moments for those of you who are too impatient to register.  But right there, next to the article, big as LIFE is an ad from Naral stating: ‘Don’t let Bush’s choice end yours.’

Now, is there an opposing ad on the same page? Is the other side represented?  Nope.

This all amuses me to no end, though.  Sandra Day O’Connor hasn’t even got her old, shriveled foot out the door and already the lib groups are panicking in the streets, organizing like the bunch of paranoid reactionaries that they are.  Yet here we have an article on the same page in which Barbara Boxer is concerned about pesticide testing on PREGNANT women.

Things that make ya go hmmmmmmmmmmm

Typically news outlets put advertising space up for sale to those who can pay.
Why would this be an example of “liberal media bias”?
If a channel sold advertising to, say Chlorox, but their competitor didn’t buy advertising space, would that, by your logic, mean that the channel is showing “Chlorox bias”?

And since you keep using the term “liberal” to describe everyone who tears your arguments to shreds, why don’t you define that term for us and demonstrate why we are, in fact, a bunch of liberals?

My dad, who served in Viet Nam as a fighter pilot and flew over 100 missions, earned his masters in engineering and spent his career as a test pilot for Northrop Grumman flying such aircraft as the SR71 (being one of the pilots involved in the final flight out of Edwards AFB) and the B2 Bomber (The Spirit of California) and ultimately retired from the airforce at the level of Colonel…watches only Fox News. He is 64 years old, does not necessarily consider himself “christian�?. He breaks your Fox News “mold�? completely. He is probably the most intelligent man I know. Yes, I love my dad!

And yet this is totally unrelated to what I actually said.

Your statement reminds me of another Bush cheerleader I debated who rather lamely claimed that “Memo-gate” “proved” that GWB served honorably and fulfilled his duty.  I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to spot the gaping canyon of a hole in that logic.

Hmmm Perhaps YOU’RE not intelligent enough to separate the opinions from the news. You have no real business speaking for the rest of Fox’s viewers.

I am, but I also prefer not to have my opinions dictated to me nor to have information carefully selected by one or a few partisan people to provide what they call “news.”  Most Americans are not, sadly, capable of discerning the difference between facts and what they want to believe.  Nor are most Americans able to think critically and realize when a nice-sounding argument doesn’t actually make sense.  You fall into both categories, Karen.

I don’t know one single person who watches Fox news who is out of touch with news facts.
If anything they are MORE in touch. 

Well, I don’t know if you watch FOX, but you are considerably out of touch with reality.

I’d be interested in where you are pulling these so called stats from….

Why should I go dig up sources for you when you’ve made plenty of unsubstantiated claims that direct contradict commonly known facts?
Fine, last time:
http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Report.pdf
pages 12 and 13

Unfortunately, it is considerably more difficult (for me) to find stats showing the breakdown of FOX news viewership, so you’ll have to either:  (a) accept what I said (b) find stats to prove me wrong or (c) go on believing that FOX news doesn’t cater to white Christian American males.

Bias!  (Shrug)  Give me honestly expressed bias any day over the fiction of objectivity.

The NYT does have some liberal bias - it’s silly to pretend otherwise.  So I turn the ideological gain correction dial from “L” towards “C” a bit when I read NYT articles.  I turn the dial a bit the other way for American Conservative magazine.

I see FOX all the time at the gym and if you can’t spot the conservative bias on FOX, you need glasses.  But so what?  It bothers me more that they pretend to be objective than that they have a bias.  It bothers me even more that if you tell some people; “Our news service is objective while the others are all biased!” they’ll believe you.

Probably the most accurate news magazine is The Economist, which makes no secret of its bias.  Economist Pocket World in Figures is incredibly helpful on the desk but unfortunately they have not updated it since 2002.

Bush’s comuppance probably won’t come until he’s safely out of office, alas.  It would probably not be practical to impeach him.

Karen asks…

And how do you separate my posts last night from the person who compared his skin cells to embryos and stated he was going to collect them and preserve them because they might be turned into human beings one day-or some such nonsense.

Nowiser’s comment was indeed hyperbole, but it was also a valid point. Every cell in the human body has the potential of forming an entirely separate human being. In particular the stem cells which are produced by all living things and are the primary makeup of the blastocyst before it develops into an embryo. In that sense if you’re going to use the argument that aborting the cells in the early stages of pregnancy is murder because they hold the potential to become a human being then it’s not that much of a stretch to claim that the destruction of any cell in a human body is murder. In reality, cells that have already specialized (such as skin cells) won’t develop into a complete human on their own, but they still hold the potential to become such through methods such as cloning.

It’s clear from your reaction that you place a lot of value on the fact that those cells have the potential to become a human and you appear to be insulted to have them compared to common skin cells, but if even common skin cells have that same potential then why should they hold any less value to you than the developing fetus holds? In other words, it’s a valid—if a bit far-fetched and sarcastic—question to ask.

Now let’s compare that to your recent statements of…

Oh shaddup, woobie. I know what it means.

Sorry, I don’t believe you.  I have this niggling feeling you weren’t even out of Pampers when the OKC bombing occured.

Still don’t believe you. Neener, neener, neener.

Now you were working for the feds. LOL

Nighty, night, woobie baby.

The above goes beyond being sarcastic hyperbole to make a point into childish name calling and ridicule. Which has it’s place, don’t get me wrong, but hardly qualifies as the honest debate you keep claiming to be interested in having here. If you just want to engage in name calling and ridicule then at least have the integrity to not claim it as informed debate.

Looking back over the thread I’m not sure I see what comments Warbi made to even provoke such a response from you. Warbi attempted to raise several points and you dismissed them with an accusation of it being a cut and paste job without refuting any of the points made. When Warbi went on to illustrate that he doesn’t fit your stereotypical viewpoint of what a liberal is you resorted to acting like a child and implying he was lying.

Granted you’ve not been welcomed warmly here and there’s been a fair amount of insults from both sides, but that’s only to be expected in a heated debate. From what I’ve seen, though, every time someone has attempted to actually engage you in a debate you’ve dodged the issues raised in favor of dismissals using a range of excuses from “biased sources” to “cut and paste jobs” to “you were still in Pampers when that happened.”

You claimed you were fair, Les.  I didn’t see you stepping in to chastize that member for taking a serious debate and denegrating it.  You know I am not a troll but then you can think what you want.

I believe I am fair in how and when I speak up here and I do my best not to get in the way of a good debate, but so far I’ve yet to see such a thing taking place. Nowiser didn’t denigrate a serious debate because his statement was a valid point to make and there wasn’t much of a debate taking place at the time. If you’re insulted by someone comparing skin cells to embryonic cells then that’s a hangup you will have to come to grips with more so than a problem with the comparison itself.

You’re right in that I don’t consider you a troll in part because we had a decent discussion via instant messenger not long ago, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t acting in a troll-like manner in your recent spate of comments. You’ve mentioned being in a bad mood and perhaps that’s the catalyst behind your tone as of late, but that doesn’t excuse the behavior so much as explain it. I’m not here to censor you and if this is the manner in which you wish to debate then by all means continue to do so, but it is disappointing compared to what we engaged in the other night. You’re capable of better based on what I’ve seen previously. It’s just a shame you don’t seem to be willing to make use of it here.

Les,

Now let’s compare that to your recent statements of…

“Fair and balanced” comes to mind?

Karen,

I participate here as an individual that believes in God, desperately hopes that more people like Scalia are appointed to the Court, and voted Bush both times. I participate in the forum to correct mistaken assumptions and correct the misuse of facts and stats that are misleading, as well as for my own personal amusement.  (There are several members who have a great sense of humor)

My experience is that Warbi is rabidly anti-Bush, to the point that he/she will sometimes post some material that can be easily attacked.  His/her second post is an example of this.  Many of the things in his/her second post in this threat should be attacked vigorously.  It would be quite easy, and amusing to discredit that post.  I encourage you to do it.

The way to approach the debate with him/her is to take it point by point and patiently and doggedly go through each point him/her.  In doing so, you make sure that you NEVER make a misstatement of fact so the debate doesn’t get turned on you. In addition, avoiding multiple posts presents the appearance that you have given some thought to the material presented and are rebutting it in a cogent manner.

Doing so is far more effective than what you are doing now.  What you are doing now is a disservice to my cause.

It would be quite easy, and amusing to discredit that post.  I encourage you to do it.

First of all, Hello, Consigliere.  I think you are actually the first person on this God foresaken blog to introduce yourself to me.  Secondly, I don’t need to be told when to debate and when not to debate. I lost the heart for debating those empty Bush insinuations simply because they ARE empty.  I did so for so long. It gets old.

In addition, avoiding multiple posts presents the appearance that you have given some thought to the material presented and are rebutting it in a cogent manner.

Once again, I am stunned at the obsession among the people on this blog with how someone posts.  Con, I prefer not to respond all in one big posts as if all the posts generated at me/to me just ran together.  I take each posts on it’s face and like to respond individually to the individual. Of course I know I could sit here in each post and address each of my response to each person all in one post. I PREFER not to. It is my preference.  I PREFER to keep them separate. This does not mean I lack attention skills, had a bad home life as a child or am unhappy with my husband who “knocked me up”. This is simply a preference and continuing the tyrrade of bitching about it isn’t going to stop it.  I don’t often do what people on the net tell me to do-simply because they think they have the market cornered on (cough) “nettiquette.”  I’m sorry but it stil cracks me up that some dude on the internet actually uses that word.

Oh and I prefer to give thought to one post at a time, not all at once. Unless this board is one single person posting under all these psuedonyms…..which isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Being that Les has all kinds of time on his hands….

What you are doing now is a disservice to my cause.

PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Oh dear, I nearly lost my lunch on that one.  Your cause?  I see, this is all about you.  I am here to support YOUR cause now?

I have no idea who you are.  At this point do I even care what your cause is?

Les get real.  Nowisers comment was meant to degrade the debate of abortion and you know it.  It was not valid in any sense of the word. To compare a developing human embryo or fetus to a skin cell is the utmost in immaturity and is said only to piss off whoever is taking the pro-life stance.  It was inflammatory and disrespectful to a woman you KNOW is pregnant and you know has strong feelings about the sanctity of LIFE-not skin cells.

In that sense if you’re going to use the argument that aborting the cells in the early stages of pregnancy is murder because they hold the potential to become a human being then it’s not that much of a stretch to claim that the destruction of any cell in a human body is murde

I think this is where you are confused, Les. I never said anything about the cells early in pregnancy. When discussing abortion I always referred to the point at which most abortions are performed, the soonest they can be performed-and that is 6 weeks of development. I even went so far as to share my own ultrasound story of my twins at 6 weeks. They were not balls of cells and could not in any way shape or form be compared to skin cells. They had beating hearts, developing brains and were moving around vigorously with little arm and leg buds. They were human beings, not skins cells. Nowiser knew where I was coming from and he proceeded to insult the very topic with his ridiculous insinuation that skin cells were comparable to embryos who are aborted daily.

If you just want to engage in name calling and ridicule then at least have the integrity to not claim it as informed debate.

I never did, when I actually was being obnoxious. I fully admitted I was being a crabby bitch and was fed up with some of your members. I take full responsibility for my bratty comments.  But when I DID intellectually debate it was YOUR members who shot insults at me from all directions.

You’re capable of better based on what I’ve seen previously. It’s just a shame you don’t seem to be willing to make use of it here.

I WAS.  At first. But the tone of this message board-at least what was directed at me has set me off-especially the incessant concern over how I post. It’s a shame you can’t see that, Les and instead are just choosing to make me the current whipping post.

Consi,

it seems you have a problem. Subsequent to the elections, the influx of posters that purport to support conservative positions appears to fit a general mold. Almost invariably, these posters slam the door shut on any possibility of reasoned discourse and only further the entrenchment of the respective positions. Even within your relatively narrow objectives, you face an uphill struggle and it must smart to get the kind of help that you do.

Les,

I can’t help wondering how you will reconcile the personal appeals from the poster known as Karen with the derisive comments about your (perceived, I hope) lack of employment made by said poster.

. Clinton never went to congress or to the American public to argue that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States.

Chris, in 1998 Clinton went to Congress to get authorization to use force to make Iraq comply with UN sanctions and to stop Saddam from trying to shoot down our planes. The media then reported that Saddam was in violation of numerous UN resolutions concerning WMD’s-and he most certainly was. The Congress agreed as well, including many of these same Democratic Senators. Did President Clinton intentionally mislead the United States Congress and the American public? Not at all. Given the evidence that we and the world had in hand, it was a no brainer. A case could be made that Clintoon was trying to deflect attention from his impeachment and sexual harassment case, but no one contested the WMD issue. Did you?

The White House also claimed that they KNEW where Saddam had weapons caches.

Based on intelligence GATHERED DURING THE CLINTOON YEARS.

That might be true, but it is Bush’s job to check to make sure the intelligence is good.

You make a valid point that perhaps Bush shouldn’t have trusted any intelligence gathered under Clinton’s inept administration. But this still doesn’t constitute a lie. You are coming up short, Chris. The incompetence obviously didn’t come from Bush.

How could they prove that to the United States or to the UN?

First of all, Saddam could have gone a long way in proving that by actually allowing inspectors in all those years he was refusing. I have no idea where you got your information that Iraq was disarmed.  We had no proof of this until we went in.  Either way, Chris, the end result has been the removal of a hostile regime, that was harboring terrorists, most likely funding terrorists, a regime that had already murdered thousands of it’s own citizens and would most likely do it again if given enough provocation. How is this in any way shape or form a bad thing? Say what you want about faulty intelligence, who said what, who did what wrong-the end result will be a more stable Iraq-which is in the heart of the Mideast. This can only benefit us-especially if we set up a military installation there as we did in Germany and Japan. It only makes sense.

The third part of this that is baloney: “They didn’t…we did.�? The United States was not authorized to use military force against Iraq, nor was it “our job�? nor our right to do so.

It was our responsibility to, as the most powerful nation within the UN, to uphold the resolutions of the UN and to protect our own nation. We would be negligent if we did not attempt to resolve the growing problems in the mideast-rather than leave them for our children and grandchildren to deal with.

You conveniently ignored, however, that Al Qaeda also built up during Bush I and II (and probably during Reagan years)

Alright, hold the phone! You are basically admitting here that something should have been done about Al Qaida and terrorism in general…but now that something IS being done you are unhappy about it because it hasn’t gone the way YOU think it should have.

That’s because there was no public support for such a war.

You’re right. Which is why Bush won a second election.

He certinly did nothing helpful on September 11th (other than helping some kids to read.)

Oh come on. He finished reading and then did what he president is supposed to do-be protected.  What would you have had him do that day-after all of the mayhem had already occured?

So why was Bush unable to use that Clinton-era information about flight schools to attempt to stop September 11th? You can’t implicate Clinton for 9/11 without simultaneously implicating Bush.

Bush had been in office a total of 9 months when 9/11 occured. Clinton had 8 years to do something about it.  That’s like blaming the guy who took over Enron for Ken Lay’s crimes.  IT simply is not reasonable.

Please explain how invading Iraq is “fighting the war on terror�?.

Gladly.  I think it’s obvious that the terrorists coming from Syria and Iran to engage our troops in Iraq would MUCH rather be causing murder and mayhem in the streets of New York. I heard it said once: New York or Baghdad.  I hate seeing our guys in uniform in danger. Every single man in my family has served in the military-my father being a retired Colonel-who would love to jump back into the cockpit of an F-16 fighter and get some terrorist blood for himself.  The terrorists our guys are facing in Iraq are the very face of terrorism. By fighting them there-my children are safer here.  I have every confidence in our military, even though too many do not, that they will defeat terrorism in the middle east and prevent another attack on our own soil.

And would you tell this to the faces of our soldiers in Iraq who increasingly agree with me?

Sure I think there are some that agree with you and it doesn’t help matters that liberal slime like Ward Churchill are actually encouraging troops to kill their own commanders. It’s outrageous and evil.  But do you ignore the many passionate men and women who believe in what we are doing there?  What of them and their courageous sacrifice?  They should be ignored or discounted simply because you don’t agree with the war?

That makes you sound pretty stupid and perhaps even more out of touch with reality than

I was injecting sarcasm in reference to the great majority of posters on this blog that think we should abort children because they MAY grow up to commit crime or do something we don’t like-like fight in, die in or start a war that some people don’t agree with.

I have no idea what you are talking about. You need to lay off the smack.

Oh that’s real nice.  I suppose you are yet another rabid liberal, frothing at the mouth, incapable of making it through a post without personally insulting the person you are debating with?

According to polls, the president is in some serious trouble, as is the GOP in general

Polls are fickle and not to be taken seriously.  Now elections?  THOSE give you final and definitive answers on how Americans feel.  The election was 7 months ago. I give the American people more credit than you do, obviously, in knowing that they don’t change their minds in 7 months over something as important as the security of our nation. Not much has changed in Iraq since the election and the president has stayed the course and has reminded us WHY we are there.  I don’t presume to know how the people are feeling now, and you shouldn’t either-based on some polls.  I do, however, know that he was elected to do a job in Iraq-but the majority of the people-and he is doing that job.

The president and GOP managed to get the American public so focused on war and so confused about everything that they won by, frankly, manipulating the public’s natural stupidity

Ha ha! I was right! You think the American public is basically stupid. How arrogant and well, typically liberal elitist thinking. We rednecks out there in the great ole US of A don’t have the collective intelligence of a dishrag.  We need YOU to inform us and tell us how to think and vote.

And this coincides with a more informed populace: People tend to now understand that Iraq was not a threat and not linked to 9/11,

Further arrogance of thought.  I took the dems whining and cry babying to convince the American people they were right. LOL!  We are more informed because the lot of the Democrat party have pissed and moaned for months and years about a war they agreed to.  Uh huh.

What does the White House currently have going for it that is positive? (I’ll help you start: It isn’t Social Security privatization, it isn’t the Terri Schiavo fiasco, it isn’t Iraq…)

Wow, if that isn’t a loaded question I don’t know what is!  Chris, I have a headache and need a hot bath. I will address this later, alright?

I apologize in advance, in case this is also upsetting some sensitive members, for how my posts get screwed up and look like one big quote.  I don’t know why that keeps happening.

It was inflammatory and disrespectful to a woman you KNOW is pregnant and you know has strong feelings about the sanctity of LIFE-not skin cells.

Oh dear, I nearly lost my lunch on that one.  Your cause?  I see, this is all about you.  I am here to support YOUR cause now?

I have no idea who you are.  At this point do I even care what your cause is?

Wooo, look who’s gone and crowned herself QUEEN OF THE WORLD!  It’s clearly not about anybody else but HER and her little skin cells.

Karen, Consi is one of the smartest people here, and could have been your most powerful source of support if you hadn’t been too busy preening in the mirror to take his advice.  He’s understandably miffed because he’s trying hard to portray conservatives as rational, intelligent people, and you’re blowing that out of the water like a big ol’ whale fart.

If you don’t want to be the whipping post, stop sticking your ass in our faces.  But I suspect you’re too enamored of yourself to be able to do anything but play the drama queen.  Go ahead, cry some more about how everyone’s being mean to you (while you’re flinging insults at the board’s owner).

At this point you’re nothing but a source of entertainment.

Consi, you say you know a lot of conservatives and not any who connect Iraq with 9/11.  I take that as very good news.  Yet our president seems to make that connection rather often.  Is there a disconnect between the president and Republicans on the street?  Or am I missing something?

(I’m referring to his 29 June Ft. Bragg speech where he said; “Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.”)

Iraq didn’t start out a battlefield in this war - it seems that Bush made it into one, while we were not done with Afghanistan and have not caught Osama.

It may be we can stamp out militant Islam by waging war but color me skeptical.  And the main thing the insurgents seem to want from us is for us to go away.

Sadly, I don’t think we can just go away right now.  We broke it, we bought it. It’s a real pickle, all right and some admission of that fact from the White House would go a long way toward reassuring me that we have a reality-based administration.

We “broke” Iraq not by invading, but by ever supporting that bastard Saddam in the first place.  Just like supporting the Shah all those years is a major reason for the current extremist theocracy in Iran.  It would just be nice if there were some indication of “lessons learned” in high places.  We need to be a lot more selective in who we support, and the Chalabi debacle is not exactly reassuring to that end.

I also have not heard from any Republican the one rationale that would support the Iraq war in my mind; that Saddam was our boy, our mess, and it’s up to us to go fix it.

BTW while I don’t agree with your “cause” I’m quite happy you are here.  You bring facts and intellectual perspective and I appreciate that.