’)If you wanted even more proof that the GOP is desperate and that their rhetorical well is as dry as the Sahara, look no further.
President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign
intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the
opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for
troops on the battlefield, charges that many Democrats say distort
their stated positions.With an appearance before the American
Legion in Salt Lake City today, Bush will begin a series of speeches
over 20 days centered on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks. But he and his top lieutenants have foreshadowed in recent
days the thrust of the effort to put Democrats on the defensive with
rhetoric that has further inflamed an already emotional debate.
The only way the line of attack works is for Democrats to use the same idiotic responses they’ve used since 2001 – either not responding at all or just parroting the right. Neither works. Americans are looking for backbone, and while the Republicans stand only for disaster, death and continued mayhem and insecurity – they’re standing for something.
Democrats, at long last must stand firm. They must not allow Republicans to continue the appeasement of terrorists and the unnecessary unwarranted killings of our troops in a flawed, failed, and ill-fated Iraqi engagement. Democrats must at long last fully engage the Republican party on the central issue of national security and educate America that the party that led us through the greatest war man has ever known is the party that is more interested in killing, capturing and punishing America’s true enemies than in conducting a all-hat and no cattle photo op policy that is getting people murdered.
Terror is the central issue of our time. Five years ago Al Qaeda attacked us in New York City, Washington D.C, and Pennsylvania. To this day, that mass murder remains unavenged thanks to Republican dithering and appeasement of Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. The Republican party fought John Kerry with more vigor and vitality than they attack Al Qaeda.
They use rhetoric and win elections but do nothing to lead and govern. Democrats wish to defend, secure and unite Americans. The clear choice must be made or we are doomed to continued Republican led "heck of a job", "bring ‘em on" failures.
Salt Lake City Mayor Organizes Protest Near Bush Speech
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson causes a stir during the ongoing American Legion conference by a
Sorry Oliver, but to Kosputin variety Democrats, “killing, capturing and punishing America’s true enemies” means impeaching Bush and then sending him, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to the Hague to be tried by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
You attempt at resurrecting “bear any burden, pay any price” total war rhetoric is also going to fall flat with most sensible people, since the last Democrat administration committed to fighting and winning a total war was Lyndon B. Johnson.
Why don’t you just tell the truth — Democrats believe that the world “hates” America because it is being governed by a group of incompetent religious nuts. And once we can convince the world that incompetent religious nuts are no longer in charge, then all the world will love America again.
Then we can be “leaders” by continually apologizing to everyone for the idiocy of the McBu$hCoHitlerBurton religious nuts who wrecked the world,
while occasionally blowing up a few aspirin factories with cruise missiles just to show that we’re still “tough.”
Cons have been caricaturing Democrats for so long, they’ve totally bought into it. The only thing they’re in touch with is their delusions. Hilarious, Mike! Keep driving that GOP train off a cliff, buddy!
Those three talking points at the end of this post are great. The line about fighting John Kerry is so biting, I’m gonna start using that one. Good work.
Hey Mike, read any good Ipsos polls lately? By all means, keep on preaching hatred for Democrats — it’s literally all you know how to do, isn’t it?
“If you had to choose, who would you say you trust to do a better job of protecting the
country?”
Democrats: 47%
Republicans: 40%
“Do you think there will be more or less terrorism in the United States because the U.S. went to war in Iraq?”
More: 60%
Less: 31%
Hey mike, the oath I swore in the military addressed all enemies to America, “foreign and domestic.” So maybe your first thought isn’t such a bad idea. Then we can go get Osama – remember him? Cause Bush and Rummie seem to have forgotten who hit the twin towers five years ago.
Mike, I don’t know what kind of wierd parallel universe you are living in. In the real world, the true enemies of America are free in Afghanistan, where we started a military campaign that had almost universal support in Congress and throughout the world. That mission has never been completed and is vastly underfunded and underappreciated by the group of people now running our country. Maybe you thought that the correct response to the Cole or African embassy bombings was WWIII, but you sure wouldn’t have convinced Republicans of that back in 2000.
The problem being?
Mike:
6 August 2001
“Bin Laden determined to strike in US”
Everything follows from that. Heck of a job, Mikey.
“killing, capturing and punishing America’s true enemies” means impeaching Bush and then sending him, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to the Hague to be tried by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Hey, that’s a start. Democracy’s hard work, y’know.
“since the last Democrat (sic) administration committed to fighting and winning a total war was Lyndon B. Johnson.”
That turned out well, didn’t it Mike?
I’m still reeling over rhetoric like “kill,” “capture,” “punish,” and “avenge” coming from a supposed spokesman for the Party of Peace.
Or is it that Democrats really don’t want peace, they just want wars where no Americans die, like Bill Clinton’s great “victory” in Serbia?
Maybe someone can explain to me how bombing/nuking/invading Pakistan and southern Afghanistan is going to have a chilling effect on world terrorism.
Unfortunately Al Qaeda shoots back. If we are going to fight terrorists, then we no longer have the luxury of bombing nations like Serbia that never had any intention of engaging us in battle and weren’t capable of shooting back at our planes.
Sorry, I’m not the one living in the weird parallel universe.
Sounds like mike is talking about Iraq, but mistakenly typed Serbia.
Love the progression of posts here. Mike starts with a rather cogent comment about Democrats and their idea of fighting T. Then some progressives respond with outrage. How dare you insult us! ‘We too are strong on fighting terroism.’ And then, whoops. A bunch of other progressives chime in that “yeah, the main thing is to get Bush and Rummy. Thats the ticket!”
I have yet to see the progressive plan for fighting the war on terrorism. So far the only specific I’ve seen is surrender in Iraq.
Now, if you were a soldier and you saw what the Democrats did vis a vis Iraq, would you feel very good about responding to a Democratic CinC’s order to go into combat?
Still pretending that getting out while the getting is good constitutes surrender?
We’ve lost, Dugger. Admitting it is not weakness.
And how’s about this for a progressive plan for fighting the war on terrorism: start by finding out where the Christ Osama bin Laden might be now.
And yes, that was quite a cogent comment from Mike at the top of the thread, I just don’t see what the criticism is. Seems about right to me.
Goddammit, I posted that without typing “apart from the last two lines” and I don’t know how.
“…charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions.”
First, when are Democrats going to get the rhetoric side of political competition. Saying “you distorted my postion” is so weak it makes me puke. Call the other side “con artists”. Use strong language; the GOP did not reach its current position using weak language like “distorted my position”. Weak words equals loser. All they need is signs saying “they let bin Laden get away.”
Second, please don’t feed the trolls. They lose their ability to forage for their natural food, other trolls.
Zak and/or Nimrod,
Are you saying the military could have efinitely captured BIn Lane and let him get away?
Or are you even saying that they could have and Bush would not give them the go ahead?
Good post, zak. Don’t say the president mislead us in to war, say he LIED. Which is what anyone with two firing brain cells now knows (that leaves out dugger, obviously).
Who, in apositon to knowm says we could have captured Bin laden and chose not to?
Here you go, Dugger, since you asked. From that timeline you refuse to look at.
How bin Laden got away
A day-by-day account of how Osama bin Laden eluded the world’s most powerful military machine.
By Philip Smucker | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
“The border with Pakistan was the key, but no one paid any attention to it,” he said, leaning back in his swivel chair with a short list of the Al Qaeda fighters who were later taken prisoner. “And there were plenty of landing areas for helicopters, had the Americans acted decisively. Al Qaeda escaped right out from under their feet.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0304/p01s03-wosc.html
Well Dugger, what would the Democrats do? Increase airport and port security, screen cargo, update first responder equipment, work with other countries instead of alienate them, not invade countries that have nothing to do with the war on terror, secure Afghanistan, destroy nuclear materials abroad such as in the old USSR, update military equipment, follow the 9-11 commission’s recomendations…
Remember, Department of Homeland Security as an actual agent to securing and protecting the country is the Democrat’s idea. The cronyism is Republican. Basic accounting, fllowing the geneva conventions…
What are the Republican ideas they have enacted? Ferret out those not fanatically devoted to them, stealing the democrat’s ideas, talk big, expose covert agents, reveal turned Al Qaeda personel, spy on everyone, torture, violate civil rights in various ways, cronyism, corporate welfare, throw cash away with no accounting, invading countries that have nothing to do with terrorism, fail to provide security in the countries they do invade, and generally fuck up. Nice record there.
Oh yeah and $40 billion for a color coded terror alert system that seems most attuned to political alarms.
duros,
Must I even do the thinking for progressives here. That says AQ not OBL. Give me a real lead and I’ll be happy to read it. Or did you do a crappy job on the lead in? Get it right, correct your error or forget it.
But I must warn you, the adults think it is BS that we could have actually captured OBL and didn’t (and I’m not talking about Bubba either way)
Midder,
You listed 10 things. Being generous, two of them were something other than post attack response measures and/or pre attack prevetitive measures. Those two: first- you would destroy nukes in the USSR. Exactly how? You do understand that Russia might have some sayso over their own sovereign territory? Right? Would you go to war with Russia, Midder ol’ foreign policy expert. If the casualties in iraq upset you, what do you think they would be in Russia – Mr Foreign Policy? Secure Afghanistan. Again how? We won major combat ops in Afghan too. Long time ago. How many soldiers do you think it would take to guarantee an incident free Afghan, Midder? You have a clue? You think we could do it with the soldiers from Iraq?
You well illustrate why progressives stick with Bush hate. When they actually try to articulate a policy, its ridiculous.
All right, Mr. Righteous, here you go. Perhaps that wasn’t the money quote earlier, but this might be.
On Dec. 11, in the village of Upper Pachir – located a few miles northeast of the main complex of caves where Al Qaeda fighters were holed up – a Saudi financier and Al Qaeda operative, Abu Jaffar, was interviewed by the Monitor. Fleeing the Tora Bora redoubt, Mr. Jaffar said that bin Laden had left the cave complexes roughly 10 days earlier, heading for the Parachinar area of Pakistan.
“No one told us to surround Tora Bora,” Mr. Zahir complained. “The only ones left inside for us were the stupid ones, the foolish and the weak.”
And no one thinks going to war with Russia is a good idea, and no one said that. That part of Midder’s suggestion would work in concert with that which we have lost; diplomacy with the russians and improved international relations.
When they actually try to articulate a policy, its ridiculous.
Well, yeah, it is when you’ve finished parsing it.
Dugger
How do you feel about Midder’s less incendiary proposals? i.e., port security, tighter airport security, implementing 9/11 commission recommendations?
You know, simple shit (by comparison) that we can do today, instead of picking fights with countries that have done nothing to us yet?
Or are you not talking to me?
duros,
We are doing all of those things. When we Bush-cultists say ‘fight the war on terror’, we don’t actually mean ‘respond after the fact to a successful’ terrorist attack on US soil.
Are you saying our airports and ports aren’t secure? I know of no major problems. And which 9/11 recos are you talking about?
Dugger apparently is now conditioned to think the only way to deal with other countries is with a gun. We could try diplomacy and money to take care of unsecured Nuclear and WMD materials in Russia and other former Soviet Republics. Difficult concept huh?
Democrats:
-Port security
-Airport security
-Alternative Energies
-Rebuild military
-Rebuild National Guard
-Upgrade military equipment and training
-Upgrade training and equipment of 1st responders nationwide
-Finish the job in Afghanistan
-Capture ObL
-Make sure intelligence is free from political pressure
-Secure loose Nuclear mateials
Republicans:
-Stay the failing course
-Focus efforts on weeding out liberals and non-KoolAid drinkers in government.
-Blame critics for problems
-Increase energy dependence
-Ignore Afghanistan
-Encourage contracting abuse
-Ignore New Orleans
-Degrade military capabilities
-Torture
-Racial profiling
-Secure the border from illegal immigrants, oops, that would shut down the low-paid employment pool, nevermind.
-Photo Ops
-Spy on Americans without warrants.
But midder, you said we shoudl invade Russia. Oh wait. No, you didn’t.