Cool Quote
Here’s Stephen Green summarizing the motivation of many Bush voters with this excellent quote in his Halloween post today:
I’m a Vader fan. Not whiny, petulant little Anakin Skywalker, either. I mean Darth frickin’ Vader. If it takes a lesser evil to beat a greater evil (think Vader throwing the Emperor down that shaft in Jedi) then you’ll understand, not only why I love Darth, but why I’ll vote Republican next month.
This comment almost perfectly sums up my feelings about the upcoming election.
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While I’m not so fond of Bush’s mistakes, and I’ll admit to my pro Kerry friends that the White House staff has made them, especially concerning Iraq, there is something bigger for me.
You see, in the past year in Iraq, we have averaged around 2 US soldier deaths per day.
During the same time period, there have been on average over 3,500 abortions in the US per day. There were over 1.2 million US abortions in 2003…and that’s by concervative reported totals. 75% of would be mothers who were questioned said the baby would conflict with their job or lifestyle. 60% said that they couldn’t afford the child. (Why not adopt?) And 2%, yes two percent were due to medical circumstance or rape. While I can understand why some would consider it their personal choice, not to be coerced by others, I can’t help but think that a little education and pro-life institutionalization could help mothers-to-be to make more reasonable desisions. I won’t go into details here, about how many democratic run institutions are pro-death(abortion), and how in California and elsewhere, these dems are crafting laws to save planned parenthood, and others from pregnant teenager’s parents, but think of how easy it would be to save at least 2 innocent lives a day through such channels.
That’s why I will vote the way I will.
Comment by cody — October 6, 2004 @ 10:27 am
It’s amazing that you can describe the Bush administration as a lesser evil when compared to a possible Kerry administration. If you’ve been paying attention recently you might have read or at least heard of the times 10,000 word investigative report printed this Sunday regarding the prewar intelligence. This report convincingly shows that in making the case for war members of the administration made statements they new to be untrue. Condi Rice said that the infamous aluminum tubes could “only” be used to produce nuclear weapons after she was told by the premier nuclear experts in the energy department that the tubes were, in fact, very unlikely to have been for nuclear weapons production. Post war investigations have born out the energy department’s theory. Cheney said there was “irrefutable evidence” that Iraq had WMDs after he was informed of the serious controversy on WMDs within the intelligence community.
Or you might have heard the report from Charles Deulfer, the top US inspector for Iraq. It shows that the Iraq’s further from producing nuclear weapons than they were in 1998 or 1991. In fact, they had completely shut these programs down and made no attempt to restart them.
The Bush administration went to war in Iraq on completely false pretense. The war has cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. It has weakened our military and left us less secure. If you don’t believe that, check out the recent article in the Atlantic titled “Bush’s Lost Year”. How could anyone have done worse?
Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised to read nonsense like this from the page that described the Iraq was as the “shining point” of this administration. It is the shining point in the same way that Vietnam was the shining point of the Johnson administration, or Watergate was the shining point for the Nixon administration. Shining as in glaringly bad. What a great shame it would be to reelect a president whose first term has been so disastrous.
Comment by john — October 7, 2004 @ 1:51 am
It doesn’t matter that it may “still be a good thing for the U.S. to be making an effort to establish a democracy in the middle east where U.S. troops will be stationed for a long time”. This was not the reason given for the war. You can’t say you are going to war for one reason if you are actually going to war for something else. Bush should have to go to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and say “I know your son died thinking he was fighting to protect the American people from a nuclear attack, but actually he died so that we could establish democracy in the middle east. Sorry.” The administration made the case for war in one way and then justified it after the fact in a different way. It is clear at this point that they did not ask the tough questions of the intelligence community that should be asked. They failed to do this even knowing that there was disagreement and controversy within the intelligence agencies. I think you are downplaying the significance of this. The administration was completely cavalier about sending our troops into combat. What could be worse than a president who is careless with the lives of our troops? In comparison your statement that Kerry is worse because “he will say anything to be elected president but no one really knows what he’s going to do if elected” seems so puny. Your bias against Kerry is so transparent.
Your statement that Kerry “will say anything to be elected president but no one really knows what he’s going to do if elected” is also amusing because it applies at least as much to Bush as to Kerry. In election season bush has begun trumpeting programs that he previously planned to cut. For example, Bush proposed cutting the budget of Community Oriented Policing Services by 87% but during the campaign he has flip-flopped for political reasons and awarded $47 million to local law enforcement. In another shameless vote grab he awarded $11.7 million in grants to help states provide health insurance after trying for three consecutive years to end the same program. He proposed cutting the budget of a program helping states to buy defibrillators from $10.9 million to $2 million but then, come election season, he provided $11.6 million for the program. To further the image of Bush as the “compassionate conservative” the administration announced a plan to give $16 million to train minorities to be doctors and dentists but at the same time was urging congress to cut the program.
Bush has criticized Kerry for his $2 trillion agenda while administration figures show that his own long term spending plans will cost $3 trillion! He has continued to cut taxes and increase spending in spite of the rising deficit. According to a Washington Post article yesterday we spend more on interest payments on the federal debt each year than we spend on education, homeland security, justice and law enforcement, veterans, international aid, and space exploration combined. Yet Bush continues to wildly cut taxes and increase spending.
Comment by john — October 10, 2004 @ 3:08 pm
Jeremy writes, “Are you really so naïve as to think that any president wouldn’t use a line of reasoning for a policy that clearly isn’t the main justification for the course he is pursuing? Come on John…you lefties are supposed to be able to understand nuance much better than this!!!”
We aren’t just talking about any old policy here. We’re talking about a decision that must be held to a higher standard. We’re talking about the decision to go to war. Your description is highly euphemistic. You are trying to let the administration of the hook by suggesting that this is normal, acceptable behavior. It clearly isn’t. This administration began warning about the potential for a nuclear attack in order to create fear. They used this fear to push their agenda past the American people. As you nicely demonstrate above you right wingers don’t even understand the word nuance. You use it incorrectly to mean deception or manipulation.
I am well aware that there are other justifications for attacking Iraq, some of which were raised publicly. The administration new that these other reasons were insufficient justification for war in the public eye. I love your statement that “WMD was the justification that resonated best with the public and was easiest to explain”. Right, “resonated”. What a hilarious way to put it. By resonated you mean scared the hell out of. Of course it resonated. Not only did they know it would resonate, they new it was highly controversial. They pretended a level of certainty unsupported by the facts.
You also state that, “Bush isn’t perfect in the war on terror either but at least he is killing radical Islamists instead of planning on ‘winning the ideological struggle’.”
In the last debate Kerry said “I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are”. I don’t think he could have said it any more plainly. Both candidates clearly endorse killing terrorists. Your statement is also misleading in that it represents a false choice. Your critique is meant to imply that Kerry would have to chose between winning the ideological struggle and killing “radical Islamists”. He doesn’t have to chose. He can do both and it seems he plans to try.
You write, “I have a legitimate and honest desire for smaller government and a smaller deficit. Why do you waste your domestic anti-Bush rhetoric on me?…You’re not that upset about Bush’s spending…just that it might help get him re-elected.”
This is outrageous Jeremy. My desire for smaller government and a smaller deficit are illegitimate and dishonest compared with yours? I’m not that upset about Bush’s irresponsible spending? You are completely unjustified in these statements. How could you claim to know what I feel? Your assumption, that because I am liberal I cannot be concerned about fiscal responsibility, is irrational. It arises from the fact that you have a simpleminded stereotyped caricature of what a liberal is and believes. Your attempt to pigeonhole me speaks poorly of your ability to understand and confront complex positions.
“Do you really think a Kerry presidency is going to cut the national debt? Honestly?”
I don’t know. As I noted in my last post, Kerry has proposed less spending and has talked about raising some taxes. As such, I think you can argue that he stands a better chance of achieving this goal than the current administration.
“You guys don’t have a plan for that and to make matters worse you intend to continue to blissfully piss away as much of the future’s money as possible on a national health insurance plan.”
Again you are parroting the Bush administrations misleading attacks on Kerry. He has no plan for a government run health care system. Check out factcheck.org.
“Your harping on Bush’s idiotic and politically motivated election year spending scheme’s rings hollow since the left has been bribing voters with niche spending since the early ‘30s.”
It certainly doesn’t ring hollow since it is true. How do you know I haven’t been critical of this type of political pandering in the past? Again, you are making assumptions based on a stereotype.
Comment by john — October 12, 2004 @ 2:34 am