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GOP Values…

The pattern marches on

Political consultant and ad producer Carey Lee Cramer is expected to testify today defending himself against charges he sexually molested two young girls.

Cramer, 44, took the stand shortly before court recessed at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. He will likely continue today before Visiting Judge Homer Salinas in Auxiliary Court A, where his trial began June 7.

Cramer, who gained national notoriety with an anti-Al Gore commercial in 2000, is facing several counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.

(via)

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81 Responses to “GOP Values…”

  1. DCPanic says:

    Republicans are child molesters? Is that really what you’re saying you piece of shit! This is way out of bounds even for you.

    If found guilty please throw this fucker in prison for life, but please don’t politicize this simply b/c this shithead is republican.

  2. White Whale says:

    And Clinton is the one with a perverse sex life? Man, conservatism really warps these peoples mind sexually. Sex crimes against children are the WORST crime and if he is guilty throw him in general population.

  3. scratch says:

    BD…

    Do you know any actual Republicans?

  4. Cyrus the Virus says:

    “If you couldn t have said it better, then you are a moron too.”

    Well, as the liberals would say “POTD, i spit Diet Coke all over my keyboard”.

  5. DCPanic says:

    Cyrus-
    What is POTD?

  6. scratch says:

    BD…

    I asked the question because of all my friends, family, and co-workers, past and present, most of whom are Republicans, I don’t know any of them who do, say, or think the way you describe.

    Talk about “broad strokes…” Your brush couldn’t get any fatter.

  7. DCPanic says:

    whale-

    If you couldn’t have said it better, then you are a moron too.

  8. scratch says:

    I’m not familiar with the pattern of Republicans assaulting young children. Can anyone provide some more data points?

  9. Cyrus the Virus says:

    Well, I guess we can say that former Congressman Mel Reynolds is indicative of most black Democrats.

  10. White Whale says:

    BD,
    I couldn’t have said it better.

  11. Cyrus the Virus says:

    Post Of The Day

    It’s big in the comments section at liberal blogs. The only difference, your’s was actually funny, unlike most of the times they say it.

  12. Frank_D says:

    1) The guy is not a power in the Republican Party. He may not even be a Republican (probably, but not necessarily).
    2) The case against him doesn’t look all that strong.
    3) I’ll bet any of you that of the registered voters in NAMBLA, there are mostly, if not unanimously, Democrats.

  13. BD says:

    Yes, scratch. I do. We tend to get along just fine if we avoid discussing politics.

    How about an actual response, now? I was being serious. If the Republican platform is that Republicans are beyond moral reproach, and are trying to stem the tide against the moral evils of homosexuality, etcetera–if they really want to make that sort of generalization–then any time something like this happens, they look foolish for having said it.

  14. BD says:

    Look, I’m not going to say that child molestors are by definition Republicans or vice versa, because that’s a dumb statement to make.

    However, if the Republican Party wants to continue to trumpet itself as the Only People who care about your kids, as the Only People who believe in family values, as the Only People with a monopoly on moral virtue while liberals and Democrats want hedonism and crime to run rampant through their hated America…

    …if the Republican Party wants to talk in such broad strokes about its own high-and-mighty moral purity and God-fearingness, then it’s going to wind up with egg on its face, time and again, when another criminal turns out to ride the Grand Ole Elephant.

    That’s not politicizing the issue. That’s just the way it is. Judge not, lest ye be judged. You want to be all pleased with yourself when you say “I believe that God wants this and God wants that and so do all conservatives believe,” then you be ready when one of you turns out to have sick predilections for kids.

  15. DCPanic says:

    In your ramblings, I guess the point was lost… Please enlighten me

  16. BD says:

    That’s a good opinion, scratch, but the fact is that in the past ten years, those non-defining voices have taken over the GOP. Or am I to believe that DeLay, Santorum, Frist, Brownback, Cheney, Blunt and Boehner are what passes for “moderate” voices in the Republican party?

  17. scratch says:

    BD…

    P.S. My wife and I drive a Volvo and drink lattes. I’d better double check my voter registration!

  18. White Whale says:

    DC Panic,
    I think you are making Frank jealous. He is supposed to be the angriest guy on this site. You know what they say about anger….
    Frank,
    And you know about NAMBLA how? Look, I am not a proponent of complete permissivness and sexual debachary(I think I spelled that wrong), but repressivness and not permissivness is why Republicans get caught doing all the nasty things they rail against.
    Case in point:
    Bill O’Reilly: Writes about being respectfull to women—-Sexually harrasses a woman
    Jeff Gannon—- White House Male Prostitute for hire
    Republican Governor(I think) in Oregon: Rails against gay marraige—–Solicits young men online for sex(I will look it up in a sec.)
    “Marriage is Sacred crowd”: John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Gulliani, Reagan!
    “Drug users should be prosecuted to the full extent”—Oxycotin, deal-making Rush Limbaugh

    I think I could make up a report of all the bizarre behavior that conservativism(social) can’t ignore. If your party ideology weren’t so sexually repressive maybe this sort of ill behavior wouldn’t be so hard to deal with. Frank, my point is to say that I could go all day about perverse behavior from Republicans and you could name some Dems yada yada yada, but the idealogy makes your party so rife with ironic pitfalls.

  19. scratch says:

    BD…

    Many of my conservative friends have strong marriages with bright, healthy children despite their support for pro-choice and gay rights legislation. Imagine that.

    …but don t ignore that those voices are loud and ugly and that they speak for your side.

    Both sides have loud and ugly voices. In my opinion, those voices do not define EITHER side.

  20. White Whale says:

    Frank,
     You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. I think that sums it up? I don’t care to take any bets, I was just wondering if this was a factual claim about NAMBLA. Now if you are done deflecting from the issue….
    D.C.
    Nice list, now where do you actually address my point?

  21. BD says:

    Yeah, DC, we know about them. That’s why we liberals get really cheesed off at Democrats trying to play morality cards.

    It’s not the majority of the left wing that applauds Hillary and Tipper Gore for coming out strong against violent video games and rap music, after all.

    And you forgot Gary Condit, one of Bill Clinton’s most fervent detractors…who also had an affair with his intern, the late Chandra Levy. He’s a hypocrite and a scumbag and I’m willing to admit he was also a Democrat.

    Which is why I don’t pretend that Democrats are the party of Absolute Goodness and Holy Light.

  22. Conservatives make a big case about how holier they are than anyone, when in fact they continually make moral lapses but pretend it away.

  23. DCPanic says:

    I forgot about Teddy Kennedy. He probably committed adultery, but for some reason he let the woman die instead of going for help.

    Good old Teddy

  24. Frank_D says:

    And you know about NAMBLA how?
    I don’t. I was willing to make the bet. Are you willing to take it?

    DC Panic,
    I think you are making Frank jealous. He is supposed to be the angriest guy on this site.

    Not at all. And I may be the angriest conservative on this site — maybe — but I am by no means the angriest poster on this site: flameone frameone and alexcorrigan have me beat by a mile, by profanity, obscenity, and epithet count alone.

    You know what they say about anger&

    No, I don’t. Pray tell.

  25. scratch says:

    …when their party gets stuck with their hand in the nookie jar.

    Please. This guy isn’t even a politician.

  26. Leroy Brown says:

    I’m with Whale. I’m not saying that he’s indicative of all Republicans, but there does seem to be a certain amount of people in glass houses throwing stones. An awful lot of Republicans rail against the Democrats for corrupting our family values, but then are silent when their party gets stuck with their hand in the nookie jar.

  27. DCPanic says:

    Do you want the Dim list?

    President Clinton – Sex w/ numerous subordinates, not his wife
    Sen. Gary Hart, Adultery
    Rev. Jesse Jackson – Sex w/ subordinate, not his wife
    Mel Reynolds – Sex w/ underage subordinate, not his wife

    The above mentioned men are douchebags, but I would not compare them to a child molester! ( except Reynolds b/c he is one)

  28. TomY says:

    Torture is the real GOP vice, sadly. So quick to claim the values of Western Civilization in their speeches, and so quick to abandon them in their policies.

  29. scratch says:

    BD…

    OK, selecting from your list, DeLay, Santorum, Frist, Brownback, Cheney, Blunt and Boehner, please identify which of these people has said that:

    - [We are the] only People who care about your kids.

    - [We are] the only People who believe in family values.

    - [We have] a monopoly on moral virtue.

    - Liberals and Democrats want hedonism and crime to run rampant through their hated America.

    You can interpret or stretch any actual statement however you please, but the fact is that the positions above, at least as far as these men are concerned, exist only in your fantasies.

  30. TomY says:

    Torture is not an American value. It is self-evidently immoral to give the state the power to torture; this is the signature moral issue of our times. The GOP must be repudiated on this issue if we are to have any claim to moral righteousness in the world.

  31. Frank_D says:

    WW: Which “issue” was that? That the charges against — not conviction of — a political advertising campaign developer for the Bush campaign, of child abuse, or molestation, or maybe harassment, somehow “proves” that the Republicans are hypocritical when it comes to discussing moral values?

    And I suppose the Democratic position is: At least we’re not hypocrites — we ain’t got no values!

    Yeah, OK, let’s discuss that.

  32. BD says:

    Leroy, you missed scratch’s subtle caveat–”you can interpret or stretch any actual statement however you please.” scratch is defending his contention that Republicans don’t play these higher-morality games because the exact phrases I made up in my post were never used by any of these men, and if you find something that may sound similar to my made-up phrases, that might just be your interpretation.

  33. Democrats know better than to bring politics into people’s bedrooms. We can have shared community morals, but it isn’t the job of a pol to instruct you who you should marry, how many kids you can have, etc. Bill Clinton didn’t lecture anyone on infidelity, and while what he did was wrong, he’s not the kind of hypocrite Newt Gingrich is. Gingrich lectured Clinton publicly on infidelity while leaving his sick wife for another woman. That’s the hypocrisy.

  34. scratch says:

    Leroy…

    Sorry, I fail to see how either of those points even come close to fitting the positions I asked about. Only after you have decoded the political speak (”culture of life” vs. “a woman’s right to choose”,) then made your own assumptions about the views and beliefs of the speaker, then shifted those views to their far categorical extremes, then applied those assumed views and beliefs to other categories of thought, can you apply these simple statements to the positions I described.

    By the way, which Democrats are trying to get judges to overturn Roe?

  35. Leroy Brown says:

    I can vouch for Blunt. In his governor campaign in Missouri, he openly said that if you voted for the democrats, abortions would be on demand. He said only he cared about the culture of life.

    As for Santorum and Frist, wasn’t they a couple of the ones at “justice sunday” talking about how only Republicans are trying to get judges to overturn Roe?

    That’s just off the top of my head, I imagine somebody else can pick up the rest.

  36. BD says:

    The very first thing I said in this thread was that the idea of child molestors being necessarily attached to Republicanism or vice versa was a dumb statement to make. So your complaint is already to the choir on that.

    Frankly, I never much cared for the namecalling and faux-clever bastardization of party titles, but you see it from both sides on this website. And this website is not my point. CNN and FOX don’t cover OW.com. They cover the public statements of elected officials and then let those statements run free in the American discourse.

    Your second paragraph seems sensible, yet purposely vague. Would you care to specify the broad categories of issues that each side claims to have superiority in?

  37. duros62 says:

    don’t forget about the dead kittens….

  38. scratch says:

    BD…

    If you want to see some “higher morality games” then hang around on this site and a few others and see what apparently mainstream liberals/Democrats say about “Rethuglicans” and their beliefs. Right in this thread, in fact.

    In my view, the only difference between right and left is the broad categories of issues that occupy the center of gravity of each school of thought…each claims superiority in those areas.

    By the way, let me remind you of the subject of this thread: a man–apparently a registered Republican–who is accused of molesting children. This crime (assuming the accusations are true) is said to constitute a pattern among Republicans. Who is playing “high morality games” today?

  39. Roni says:

    Frank_D Says:
    June 21st, 2006 at 2:30 pm
    DC Panic,
    I think you are making Frank jealous. He is supposed to be the angriest guy on this site.
    Not at all. And I may be the angriest conservative on this site  maybe  but I am by no means the angriest poster on this site: flameone frameone and alexcorrigan have me beat by a mile, by profanity, obscenity, and epithet count alone.

    ~~~~~~

    Why don t you stop badgering me, frame?
    Uh, Frank? Maybe if you would curb your pathological obsession with this blog, quit your deliberate bear-baiting, your ad homenim attacks, spin, outright lies and just plain bad faith antagonizing of anyone who disagrees with you, most of the people who read this blog wouldn t constantly feel the need to choke the living crap out of you and thus post responses that may sometimes hurt your feelings. But mostly, it wouldn t hurt if you would just get away from the computer and take a break from this blog for a few days. Christ on a pogo stick, Frank! I have never seen such an obsessed and obsessive blog commenter in all my life. You are EVERYWHERE on this blog, in almost every thread. Day and night. Weekend and weekday. On this thread alone you ve posted 11 messages over the course of 24 hours.
    What the hell?

    ~~~~~~

    Frank_D Says:
    I told you. So predictable, but, then, rabid pseudo – intellectuals always are. Yes, frameone, O master of all he surveys! I ll just do exactly what you say& You have never steered me wrong in the past. Our relationship has been based on mutual respect and consideration up until this point, hasn t it? I d be a fool to spoil it now, wouldn t I? How many times a day do people unfortunate enough to be in your vicinity tell you what a jerk you are? Damn, Paul, you really have more balls than brains. You re a pompous, ill – mannered gasbag, and you have the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to demand anything from me? As if anything I, a dimwit, a royal idiot (BTW, thanks for the  royal ), a moron, could ever meet the incredibly high standards of the Perfect Frameone (hallowed be his name!) One last question: Who licks the soles of your shoes dry when you walk on water?

    ~~~~~~

    Frank_D Says:
    JK, why don t you go f*ck yourself& I ve had just about all the crap out of you I can stand. Why don t you get a job tossing dwarves, so you can feel superior to somebody?

    ~~~~~~

    Frank_D Says:
    Oh, yeah& You re still an arrogant Nazi prick!

    ~~~~~~

    Bill L. Says:
    Is anybody else getting sore hands smacking Frank around? He seems to have become the whipping boy in every thread around here these days.

  40. buma says:

    frank is our kitten.

  41. scratch says:

    BD…

    Glad to:

    In my view, Democrats would tend to claim superiority in:

    - “Caring” about people, especially children, the sick, and the elderly.
    - Looking out for the poor and the “working man.”
    - Acceptance of any and all types of thinking (except conservative thinking!) in society
    - Other cuddly and comfortable issues

    Republicans would tend to claim superiority in:

    - Having standards of behavior in society
    - National defense
    - Firm, no-nonsense handling of criminals
    - Support for entrepreneurs and financially successful people
    - Othe issues relating to letting good people do good and keeping bad people from doing bad

    I think these ideals pretty much define “conservative” vs. “liberal” thought in the U.S…yet no serious, thinking person would believe that a person on the other side is devoid of concern for any of these issues in either category. Such a claim comes across as silly hyperbole, and that’s how I interpreted your post to which I originally responded.

    This is just my view on the subject…thanks for the exchange.

  42. Frank_D says:

    Well, buma, I didn’t know you put yourself in the same category as “Roni the stalker” and Frameone.
    But we live and learn.

  43. buma says:

    The ad created by Cramer and featuring the girl he molested was about how the Clinton-Gore admnistration was being influenced by communist-run China.
    Now of course with the Cheney Administration in place, deficit spending is largely subsidized by Chinese lenders. This is so much better, right?

  44. TomY says:

    Torture is the signature moral issue of our time. Do you stand with Western Civilization, or do you stand for its erosion, conservatives?

  45. scratch says:

    TomY…

    I stand for being able to do to prisoners of war what was done to me in training. That describes most of the techniques that have been thrown around in this debate on “torture.” The things that were not done to me in training, interestingly, are the things that we hear about in testimony during the criminal trials of the people who did them.

    Bush’s written, lawfully binding, and recently enforced order to the military is to not conduct torture. Any statement to the contrary is fantasy.

  46. BD says:

    I appreciate the elaboration, although your condescending need to claim some issues are “cuddly and comfortable” and different ones relate to “good people do good and bad people doing bad” kind of undercuts your credibility in terms of making this an honest debate.

    Based on the current administration’s penchant for keeping torture on the table, one could also say that the Republicans tend to claim superiority in allowing good people to do bad.

  47. scratch says:

    BD…

    I understand your interpretation, but I do not consider “cuddly and comfortable” to be condescending. Compared to electrocuting murderers and shooting terrorists in foreign lands with Predators, feeding children is indeed “cuddly and comfortable.” I’m not judging the value of the issue, merely identifying the button that it pushes in the electorate.

  48. drpedro says:

    It is funny and ironic to hear tomy speak so much of torture. As Scratch pointed out, we do worse things to our own troops during SERE school. At the same time, dead silence from Tomy about the animals that tortured (I mean REAL torture, cutting off body parts, gouging out eyes, etc) and mutilated our soldiers in Iraq. THOSE guys can run around free as far as Tomy is concerned, cause he wants us OUT of Iraq.

    So Tomy, if you are really against torture, you should be REALLY for the Iraqi occupation, and should have been for the war as well, as Saddam was a torturing fool. But, as we all know, it really isn’t torture that bothers you, it is Bush….

  49. TomY says:

    Scratch is from the party that’s defined torture down. Nothing will convince him that the “harsh interrogative techniques” are torture, so I won’t bother. Suffice to say that moral people know torture when they see it, and amoral ones make excuses for it. But it’s not just the tortures we instruct our military to carry out, it’s the renditions to places like Uzbekistan, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, where we have other governments torture suspects on our behalf.

    The word for this is evil. God help you for selling out our nation’s core principles, Scratch. This is unforgivable.

  50. BD says:

    Bush s written, lawfully binding, and recently enforced order to the military is to not conduct torture.

    Is this the order that the President also believes he could waive at any time he sees fit, according to his signing statement on the McCain amendment?

  51. TomY says:

    Were you flown to Jordan, then driven to Syria where the security apparatus beat you with electric cables? Were you flown to Uzbekistan and boiled alive?

  52. scratch says:

    TomY…

    It’s an interesting world view you have that declares that I can be subjected to “harsh interrogative techniques” for the purpose of training, but the enemy cannot be subjected to the same treatment for the purpose of gathering life-saving information, and that somehow these experiences of mine constitute selling out our nation’s core principles.

  53. scratch says:

    TomY…

    Not for a week, not from the wrists, and not to death.

    Yes, it was some training.

  54. TomY says:

    The army locked you in a file cabinet for a week? You were hung by your wrists for days in freezing temperatures and sprayed with water? Were you actually beaten to death, Scratch? That’s some training!

  55. scratch says:

    TomY…

    You are talking about torture. I was specifically NOT talking about torture, but aggressive interrogation techniques allowed under Bush’s instructions to our military.

  56. drpedro says:

    Easy scratch….Tomy is going to get a little uncaged if you start explaining to him that the demon bush never approved of people being boiled alive!

    So how about it though tomy? Are you now gung-ho to go find the REAL torturers that are walking the streets of Iraq? I mean, if it is the “signature moral issue of our time” shouldn’t you be applauding our efforts to track these thugs down? And aren’t you happy that we deposed a dictator that had prisons built specifically for torturing children in front of their parents?

    Or is it that torture only bothers you sometimes?

  57. drpedro says:

    Here you go tomy, a REAL torture story for you….Maybe THIS was good enough reason to go to Iraq eh? Do you have kids tomy?

    On April 8, the French news service AFP reported that U.S. marines had liberated a children’s prison in Northeast Baghdad. The report said that 100 to 150 children poured out of the unlocked prison gates and swarmed around their marine liberators. A marine officer told an AFP embedded reporter that the children looked undernourished and were wearing threadbare clothing.

    Ironically, these children may have been the lucky ones. Over the past decade, international organizations like Human Rights Watch, have repeatedly reported on the imprisonment, torture, and execution of children by the Saddam Hussein regime. Children have been among the nearly 300,000 persons who have “disappeared” in Iraq since the later 1970s. Children have been routinely and repeatedly arrested to force their parents to confess to crimes against the regime.

    For example, a March Boston Globe story detailed the interrogation of a former Iraqi secret police thug who had specialized in torture. The thug admitted torturing children as young as five or six to “get their mothers talking.” He claimed that Iraqi torturers never killed the children, just “beat them with steel cables.” But he was contradicted by a BBC story in which another former regime torturer said it was common to kill children if their parents wouldn’t talk

    http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A366_0_2_0_C

  58. drpedro says:

    Standby for liberal poo-pooing of the story because it was from AIM. Remember, it references a French story, as well as that hero of the revolution , Scott Ritter

    3…..2….1….Wait for it! NOW

  59. Frank_D says:

    Dr P, you just don’t get it. If we do something that even remotely resembles torture — like adjusting the A/C [as if I ever slept in A/c in 4 years in the military], that’s torture.
    But when terrorists chop off limbs, and heads, and the Hussein brothers tossed their own people into industrial shredders, well, that’s… er, um…
    It gets a little hazy there.

  60. TomY says:

    I have said two things: 1) I am against the United States torturing people; and 2) I am against the United States sending people to other nations to be tortured on our behalf. For this, I am smeared with the irrelevant lie that I am somehow in favor of other people torturing still others.

    This is how the Malkin right operates. Divert, lie, and smear. Divert, lie, and smear.

    Spin better, boys.

  61. drpedro says:

    No Tomy, that is NOT what you said.

    What you ACTUALLY SAID IS:

    Torture is the signature moral issue of our time. Do you stand with Western Civilization, or do you stand for its erosion, conservatives?

    So are you NOW saying that torture is only a moral issue if the U.S. is doing it? And moreover, not doing it very well if you think that making a dog bark at you, and being stacked naked is torture.

    I stand fully with Western Civilization. And I think that Western Civilization should knock the snot out of any tinhat dictator that has prisons promoting the torture of children.

    Now, how about you Saint Tomy? I am looking forward to seeing your unwind the rhetorical pretzel you have twisted yourself into, and fully expect a non-response that somewhere within includes the word “Malkin”

  62. factcheck says:

    Shorter Malkin and trolls: The US can’t be guilty of torture, because Saddam was guilty of torture. Why do you hate America?

  63. Roni says:

    TomY

    You know this isn’t a reasonable debate, correct? Frank and drpedro support an administration that invaded a country five years ago looking for slam dunk weapons of mass destruction and that promised to find Osama bin Laden dead or alive. Five years later … The Decider and his merry band have nothing.

    Every time the Bush Programme of Bullshit revolving door spins around with new easy to swallow, easy to catapult propoganda that can be repeated over and over and over again, F & d swallow it hook, line and sinker.

  64. drpedro says:

    yea Roni, good, change the subject.

    Why don’t you leftists just admit you can’t come up with consistent fact-based arguments to support your view of the world? Your attempts at revisionist history and avoidance of the subject at hand speaks volumes about your weak and inconsistent stances.

  65. Roni says:

    drpedro Says:
    June 22nd, 2006 at 10:54 pm
    yea Roni, good, change the subject. Why don t you leftists just admit you can t come up with consistent fact-based arguments to support your view of the world? Your attempts at revisionist history and avoidance of the subject at hand speaks volumes about your weak and inconsistent stances.

    But drpedro, the current reason(s) the US remains in Iraq are ‘black’ to the original ‘white’ bullshit spewed shortly after 9/11. Making your and The Decider’s arguments inconsistent. But good try :-)

  66. Roni says:

    drpedro

    Does it concern you that 6 years on, The President of the United States of America can barely utter a coherent sentence — that includes a noun and verb — without the aid of an earpiece?

  67. scratch says:

    TomY…

    For this, I am smeared with the irrelevant lie that I am somehow in favor of other people torturing still others.

    Actually, I don’t recall anyone accusing you of being in favor of torture. But in light of that accusation, and since you used the word smear, I’ll remind you of another thing you said:

    God help you for selling out our nation s core principles, Scratch.

    This because I said that the most of the “torture” I had heard about were either things that I had endured during military training, or things that had been prosecuted as crimes.

  68. Frank_D says:

    For those of you who have yet to read Ann Coulter’s Godless, which most likely includes all the left wing posters on this blog, and 99% of all other liberals, TomY is one of the people described in her book: believers in the liberal “religion.”

    Accepting on faith that America is a “country that tortures,” they never veer or swerve from their course.

    “Facts? Bah!” Say the liberal believers…

  69. TomY says:

    Pedro is confused again. When I said I was against the U.S. torturing detainees, and that I am against the U.S. flying detainees to be tortured in places like Syria, Egypt, and Uzbekistan, he seemed to think that that also meant I should be in favor of grand strategic blunders, like Iraq, in the hopes that such blundering would also reduce torture there. I do not believe there is less torture and suffering in Iraq today as a result of our invasion, do I believe I would have to sign on to an failed foreign invasion and occupation even if it did reduce torture.

    I am an American citizen. Given that we have an elected government that’s accountable to me and I to it, my first priority in politics, both practically and morally, is my government’s behavior. And when my government tortures and has others tortured on our behalf, those of us who still believe in morality speak out. Those of us who were raised to believe in America, and to fight those who would corrupt her values, must always speak out. God will remember those who “defined torture down” — the party of pro-drowning, the party of rendition. Making excuses for American torture or pretending it’s not what it manifestly is — that’s as unamerican as anything bin Laden could dream up.

  70. TomY says:

    I’m well aware Ann Coulter hates me and hates my values. I know that if she had her way, I would be jailed or killed. It clarifies the debate over our way of life to know that she is out there, and that people like you read her death threats to Americans and chuckle.

  71. Roni says:

    Frank_D Says:
    June 23rd, 2006 at 8:55 am
    For those of you who have yet to read Ann Coulter s Godless, which most likely includes all the left wing posters on this blog, and 99% of all other liberals, TomY is one of the people described in her book: believers in the liberal  religion. Accepting on faith that America is a  country that tortures, they never veer or swerve from their course.  Facts? Bah! Say the liberal believers&

    Several questions I know you won’t answer:

    (1) Why begin your post with an insult directed at anyone who hasn’t read Coulter’s book like it’s required reading? You wonder why people respond to you the way they do.

    (2) ‘Accepting on faith … they never veer or swerve from their course’. Isn’t that the essence of the Bush Administration’s demands of the American people since we invaded Iraq?

    (3)  Facts? Bah! … we invaded Iraq on this very basis, Frank.

  72. TomY says:

    I’ll insult you, Frank: you’re selling out American values for the great GOP power-worshipping narcissistic masturbation fantasy!

  73. Frank_D says:

    Why begin your post with an insult directed at anyone who hasn t read Coulter s book like it s required reading?
    Who said it was required reading? It certainly helpful to read a book before you comment on what it says.
    Besides which, I saw it as a safe assumption, not an insult.

    What if I told you that I consider 2) and 3) to be insulting?

    How do you feel about describing a commenter’s coming home, and finding his wife in bed with the President? What would you say about that person?

    Since there is absolutely no one on these threads who has not insulted someone else, picking me out as The Insulter, is silly, at best, mean – spirited and venal, at worst.

  74. Frank_D says:

    TomY: All Hail Marx and Lenin!
    Will you be having cheese with that whine?

  75. drpedro says:

    Tomy if you believe that there is as much torture occuring in Iraq today as under Saddam, then you don’t have an accurate grasp of reality.

    To frank’s point: I won’t try to talk someone out of their religion, no matter how irrational they are about it. You have BELIEFS Tomy, and beliefs are totally unaffected by FACT. I don’t like to argue about peoples beliefs….

  76. TomY says:

    Obviously you aren’t paying attention to the news, Pedro. Shiite and Sunni death squads assasinating and intimidating opposing populations. Kurds driving Arab families out of the north. Neighborhoods balkanizing and putting up fences. Street gangs ruling the night. Torture has not stopped simply because Saddam and his sons have been neutralized. As an American, I will do what is prudent to stop torture in the world. That begins with the actions of my governement. We cannot win the war on terror by caving on our moral principles. Stop rendition and stop torture by our government first; then fix the rest of the world as best we can.

  77. Frank_D says:

    We cannot win the war on terror by caving on our moral principles.

    As evidenced by?

    Your “crapitude” knows no bounds.

  78. Frank_D says:

    Stop rendition and stop torture by our government first; then fix the rest of the world as best we can.
    Interesting — let’s do what TomY wants.
    You’re not too friggin’ arrogant.

  79. TomY says:

    Your slavish devotion to Bush over core American values is very sad, Frank. Maybe you should consider reading the Federalist Papers sometime?

  80. drpedro says:

    Like I said up string Tomy, you don’t really care as much about torture as you do about Bush.

    You just keep moving the goalpost to suit whatever your current level of BDS is…
    Hypocritical tools such as yourself? No use for them….

  81. Frank_D says:

    TomY: From which DNC source are you getting this “core American values” nonsense. You don’t know jack about core American values.

    You’re a liberal who thinks the world began in 1933, when FDR took over.

    James Madison wouldn’t recognize the left wing America we live in now.
    I’m sure the first question he would ask would be, “If your countrymen are at war with a mindnumbingly savage enemy, why would you want them to surrender and come home?”

    How would you answer him?

    How would you look these men in their eyes?