The world awaits with breath barely bated.

Dugger

The thread calls……John Edwards…….

Does this mean you reject the whole chickenhawk argument being made by the left?

I’m not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand. You wouldn’t be trying to change the subject, would you?

“The fact that you did serve in the USAF does not necessarily make his assessment less accurate.”

Does this mean you reject the whole chickenhawk argument being made by the left? I mean, I agree with you, but the left routinely uses the derogatory chickenhawk term to describe certain republican policy makers.

Dugger

According to a Guardian story:

This erupted over the Crusader mobile artillery system, which Mr Rumsfeld has scrapped. Gen Shinseki told Congress a year ago it would have saved lives during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. By then he had already been turned into a lame duck (”castrated”, according to the same Pentagon source) by the apparently unprecedented Rumsfeld decision to announce his successor 18 months in advance.

I’ll post the link in a subsequent comment, in case it becomes stuck in “awaiting moderation” limbo.

As to your own assumption that I didn’t read what you had responded nor your response to it, you are simply wrong.

Jadegold offered his/her opinion that you did not seem to understand the military and how some civilian employers work. The fact that you did serve in the USAF does not necessarily make his assessment less accurate. In my experience of the corporate world, removing meaningful responsibility from executives is usually a first not-so-subtle nudge out the door.

Of course, this does not mean that all such actions mean the same thing, particularly in the Bush administration where incompetence is usually rewarded.

Additionally, I suppose you just quit reading, because despite my poor choice of language to address jadegold, I did address his comments in a substantive manner after that.

Sheer gall? You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.

Go fuck yourself.
Listen, you little shit. Let s just use one of your bullshit examples.

I suppose civil discussion goes out the window when you have no valid argument to make?

Considering that Jadegold did not descend to calling names and using abusive language, it’s the height of hypocrisy and sheer gall to demand an apology.

Your condescending attitude really wears on me.

Again you’re betraying your lack of understanding of the military and even most civilian jobs.

Let’s take a real life example; take the skipper of the USS GREENVILLE. He was relieved of command after the incident with the Japanese training vessel. Was he fired?

Not in the semantical sense you seem to demand; after all, he continued to draw a paycheck, he was transferred to some non-job job and his career in the Navy was effectively over. Yet, he stayed in the Navy for nearly two more years.

IOW, the way “firing” works in the military is that you’re stripped of command, responsibilities and any hope of advancement is gone.

But even in the civilian world, many jobs won’t actually kick you out the door. Instead, they create an atmosphere where you’ll leave on your own. It’s kind of telling you’d stay in a job because you got a paycheck even though all your duties are gone and there’s no hope of advancement.

Go fuck yourself. I served in the USAF as an Arabic cryptological linguist for several years.

No, I have not been fired. Might not be the greatest working environment, but I am still drawing a paycheck.

Was GEN Shinseki fired? Not in the terms that someone gave him a pink slip. But certainly–within DoD–that’s what happened. It’s difficult to explain to folks who have never served and think the military is like working at WalMart.

WRT Powell, something similar happened. Basically, his power was subsumed by DoD and he became a lame duck. You can make an argument and say that’s not being ‘fired’–but you understand it’s the same thing.

I don’t know if you have a job or not, JD–but let’s assume you do. Suppose one day, you tick the boss off. But the boss doesn’t tell you to pack your desk and get out. Instead, he takes away all your duties and responsibilities. You’re basically ignored but you’re still drawing a paycheck. You have no hope of promotion or further advancement or even a lateral transefer. Are you seriously arguing you haven’t been effectively fired?

jadegold : Keep saying it, and you might start to believe it. The simple fact is that the federal government was not in charge of the entire emergency before it even happened. I know that makes your partisan sniping more difficult, so you choose to ignore that inconvenient fact, but it does not change things.

Again, even if Nagin and Blanco had performed flawlessly (and, in fact, their performance was much better than Giuliani’s before and after 9/11)–the state and local resources would have been–and were–swiftly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster.

Of course, what is inescapable is the fact the Fed Govt had taken control and responsibility of the emergency before a single teaspoon of water came over the floodwall.

Dugger