Welcome aboard the dissident Republican ship, Ace:
I don’t need the goddamned Republican Party in power to sign “peace” deals with terrorists. I can get that easily enough from the Democratic Party. I’ve supported these vacuous, cowardly, inept, corrupt motherfuckers for one fucking reason– to fight terrorists.
if they want to sign peace deals with them, that’s their decision. I and others can make another decision. The country may move in this direction, but we hardly have to endorse the decision by voting in favor of Quislings.
At least the Democrats talk tough about sending more troops to Afghanistan and killing Taliban fighters and capturing bin Ladin.
If that really is no longer a GOP prirority, then I am no longer a member of the GOP.
You stupid assholes. You’ve done just about everything possible to lose this election; it’s only the base — ever hopeful and ever self-deluding — that’s kept you from your goal.
Was governing too much a chore for you? Was it too distracting, taking you away from fundraisers and fucking Congressional pages?
I am under no illusion that Ace and I share the same ideas about the large number of the issues that have pushed me away from the GOP- go through his archives and mine and you will notice some pretty clear and non-negotiable differences of opinions regarding any number of topics. I will go so far as to say that Ace probably thinks I am a total asshole for some of the things I support that he disagrees with. But where we do agree is that this current Republican party is corrupt, without values, without a clear agenda other than the naked pursuit of power, without consicence, and wholly unworthy of our support. They have betrayed everything they claimed to stand for, and they have betrayed me, Ace, and hundreds of thousands of other supporters.
The time has come. I am fully in favor of someone elses party fucking up the country for a few years. At least then I won’t have to contort myself into a pretzel defending the indefensible. And let’s be fair to the Democrats- can they really be any worse than the GOP?
John S.
Honestly – no.
At this point, the GOP has lowered the expectation for good government SO much that it would literally take a miracle for the Dems to be worse. And to think, only a few years ago lying about a blowjob was enough to impeach the president and cause an uproar from the other side of the aisle. I bet Republicans wish that was the worst of their problems right about now.
Sirkowski
“Another patriot lost to the Jihad.”
Steve
I noticed this among the comments on Ace’s post:
BarneyG2000
If the Bush administration was planning on normalizing relationships with the Taliban, Bush could have done so 5 ½ years ago and saved us the 3K that died in the 9/11 attacks and 3K+ dead in the Iraq/Afgan war. See the proof from an early ’01 WH Press Briefing:
2/27/01
Q Ari, according to India Globe, the Taliban in Afghanistan, they have offered that they are ready to hand over Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia if the United States would drop its sanctions, and they have a kind of deal that they want to make with the United States. Do you have any comments?
MR. FLEISCHER: Let me take that and get back to you on that.
canuckistani
Hey! Does Stormy know that we Canadians are a bunch of dope-smoking baby-aborting gay-marrying habeus-corpus-loving moonbat liberals? And she’s saying good things about us? I feel like the world is turning upside down. I can’t wait for Michelle Malkin to tell us the Clinton wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
John S.
Steve-
Stormy pulled the kool-aid trifecta by invoking:
1. Frist is a RINO
2. It’s the media’s fault
3. Dems/Europe are worse
Also, I love Stormy’s characterization of the 1,000 or so Canadian troops. I’m sure Krista will appreciate the hat tip.
capelza
canuckistani…you forget your commie medical system, too.
Is that where Stormy shashayed off to? Wherever will she go now?
Punchy
But we love ya anyways. It appears you’re seeing the light more and more everyday.
Tsulagi
Well, I see Frist made a pit stop at Jiffy Lobes. If he thought he had a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting the Republican nomination in 08, he just melted it. Like his timing too, maybe he thought this would get Foley off the front page for the party. No hyperbole, these guys really are brain dead.
Steve
I’m sure it was right about the time the Conservatives won in Canada that Stormy decided their soldiers were an awesome bunch of steely-eyed terrorist-slayers.
capelza
Sad thing is..she never bothered to notice it before. Canadian troops have been by our side from the start in Afghanistan, even as we have treated their country like a red-headed step child.
JWeidner
Hmmmm…hat tip, or hat trick?
;)
Pb
Being a total asshole really has more to do with attitude. Can John Cole be a total asshole sometimes? Sure–and so can the rest of the people on that list. But it’s definitely more fun when we’re on the same side, making fun of the total assholes on the other side (who are not just total assholes, but are also *wrong* :))
capelza
If any of the newly Shrill would like a mentor..they can get ahold of me. We have guns and stuff…it might make the transition easier. Will introduce them to guys like Schweitzer, a real cowboy. I don’t even know the addy to DU!
canuckistani
How many scandals can one party cope with at once? If I were a senior Republican right now, I’d be looking wistfully at the empty bottle of whisky and the revolver on my desk.
Pb
canuckistani,
Fortunately for them, the media taps out at around 1.5 scandals.
DougJ
You left out “what about all the times Clinton invited the Taliban to join the Afghani government”. Also “how is this different from what Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky”.
The Other Steve
Republicans simply aren’t serious about fighting following 9/11. They pick the wrong targets, they use the wrong tactics.
The only thing they are interested in is political gain.
It’s amazing to me. After we invaded Afghanistan I saw some figures thrown about that it’d cost 10-20 billion to rebuild the country. At the time I thought “wow that’s a lot of money”, but hopefully we can get the world community to help and it shouldn’t be too hard.
Instead we sent nothing to the country. Then we blew about a trillion in Iraq with no strategic purpose or gain.
Well the reason that Afghanistan is falling apart today is because of heroin. No, they’re not all on drugs. It’s their only cash crop, and we started burning their fields instead of helping get them another cash crop.
Pure capitalism, and we tried to oppress it instead of working against it within the market.
From now on I’m referring to Republicans as mule fuckers, cause that’s what they are.
Punchy
I’m pretty sure the NSA has “senior Republican” and “revolver” on some search algorithm. Welcome….you’ve just been added to the NSA snoop list.
Pb
I guess you were already there? Well if you weren’t before, you are now!
Punchy
This shit SLAYS me. All these Admin officials and Repub congressmen on these talking shows, spewing shit about poppy cultivation, how necessary it is to eliminate it, how urgent it is that we destroy it, etc.
Yes, let’s destroy what provides for 92% of their income/wealth. Let’s eliminate ALL methods for them to make a living. I’m sure the camel repair and tent construction markets are BOOMING, and can accomodate another 5 million workers…
PeterJ
The war in Afghanistan is supported by people on both sides. The war in Iraq not so much.
You need a war to divide and then you can point finger towards the other side. “They don’t support the troops” “They don’t care about terrorism”.
The war in Afghanistan doesn’t work as a divider, so it has to go.
Steve
Well, I’m not a big fan of the international drug trade, to tell you the truth. But sometimes you have to make political choices. And the question is, is it more important to stem the drug trade, or to wipe out the fundamentalist terrorist-sponsoring Taliban?
The Taliban helped out these starving poppy farmers when no one else would, and now they have a base of support again. It’s similar to how Hezbollah spent millions on rebuilding homes in Lebanon after the war and now their popularity is up again. If we ever want to have a shot at winning hearts and minds, we have to make humanitarian efforts in the right places before the bad guys do it for us.
Krista
Well, I must be a national emblem then, as I’m a Canadian red-headed step child.
I don’t know that I’d say that we’re killing the “effers left and right.” We’re holding our own, I’d say. But it sure would be a lot easier if so many of your guys (and gals) hadn’t been hauled out of there in order to go chasing after Saddam. It’s kind of like when your buddy gets sucker-punched by some huge-ass biker in a seedy bar, you leap in to help, and next thing you know, your buddy’s off at the other end of the bar, picking a fight with someone else. Loyalty is one thing, but you can’t help thinking, “WTF are you doing!?!? Get your arse back here and help me finish this!”
p.lukasiak
The absolute worst part, of course, is that Frist is right….
The Taliban (or its equivalent as a “political party”) would have to be included as a part of any comprehensive peace settlement in Afghanistan. Frist didn’t say “turn Afghanistan back over to Mullah Omar, he just made the reasonable observation that the Taliban is quite popular in parts of that country, and simply cannot be ignored.
Krista
Well, we might have steely-eyed terrorist-killers overseas, but looks like everybody wants them back home, please and thank you.
Pb
The saddest thing about this poppy cultivation / crop replacement issue… The Republicans are hopeless on this, but at least Bill Clinton is on the job:
JWeidner
The irony is that when the Taliban held control over the majority of Afghanistan, they ruthlessly suppressed the poppy cultivation/heroin trade.
If true that the Taliban and poppy farmers are providing support to each other, then it means that it took US intervention to drive the Taliban to seek the support of the same poppy farmers and heroin smugglers they would have happily and viciously prosecuted only 5 years earlier.
Hard times makes strange bedfellows I guess. You’d think that the poppy farmers would be glad to have the Taliban out of control, as it allows them to conduct business as usual. If they’re willing to jump into bed with each other, perhaps we’re not so loved in Afghanistan either.
I guess the long and short of it is that if it’s the drug trade we’re after, we would have been better off leaving the Taliban in charge. If it’s the terrorists and Taliban we’re after, we’re going to have to put up with increased heroin production.
capelza
Krista, this is perfect:
I wouldn’t blame Canada for leaving. We apparantly never took it that seriously, and by we, I mean the Bush admin. I am ashamed of my country over this, in more ways that I can begin to explain.
Steve
Let’s assume you’re right. My question is, why is it politically acceptable for Frist to say we have no options in Afghanistan other than letting the Taliban back into government, but anyone who says we should accept less than absolute victory over the insurgency in Iraq is a cut-and-run traitor?
Obviously, Ace of Spades doesn’t think it’s acceptable for Frist to say that – but what about, you know, the actual Republican Party? Why do they consider it a national humiliation if we have to compromise in Iraq, but they don’t give a shit how things end up in Afghanistan?
For my part, I’m not convinced that Frist is right. I think it’s pretty clear that we have no viable options to achieve a happy ending in Iraq, that much is true. But if we rededicated our priorities to fixing Afghanistan, could we undo our mistakes and put an end to the Taliban? I’m not persuaded otherwise until I see the case made.
John S.
Krista-
Conservatives seem to love hyping Canadian military involvement – for whatever reason. I recall seeing an interview where Ann Coulter proclaims that Canada was our staunch ally in Vietnam and Bob McKeown is like “Uh, no they weren’t.”
The look on Ann’s face is priceless, I tell you. Check it out if you want a good laugh.
p.lukasiak
Let’s assume you’re right. My question is, why is it politically acceptable for Frist to say we have no options in Afghanistan other than letting the Taliban back into government, but anyone who says we should accept less than absolute victory over the insurgency in Iraq is a cut-and-run traitor?
hey, I’m a cut and runner myself. :)
Krista
I don’t like to laugh at Ann Coulter — it’s not nice to make fun of the clinically insane.
The Other Steve
I’m not in favor of promoting cultivating drugs in Afghanistan.
I’m simply saying, if you want to eliminate the drugs, you have to give them an alternative.
And considering Afghanistan has a hard time feeding it’s own people, you would think that it wouldn’t be hard to find an alternative.
Tsulagi
Another thing that makes Frist’s position stupid is that the Taliban are now supporting opium production. As with many religious fundamentalists, if it’s really beneficial, sometimes your faith can be adjusted. So now opium production is estimated to be exceeding world demand by 30%.
I remember seeing a Congressional hearing over a year and a half ago with members coming down on the USAID director as to why more hadn’t been accomplished in reconstruction. He said the problem was that outside Kabul, warlords controlled three-quarters of the country and the Taliban had the rest. No security.
AF is sliding into a Columbia model. Warlords and Taliban are growing on the opium production and drug trade. They are the greatest threat to a strong central government. We should have increased our mission in AF to disarm the warlords and keep the Taliban from reappearing until an Afghan government could do the job.
That had the support of the AF people. That could have been the huge oil spot in the region. Instead, we go off to Iraq to indulge retardocon fantasy and so a preppy cheerleader can play wartime president longer.
tBone
And every time someone mentions her name, God kills a kitten. So stop it.
Perry Como
Coulter is at the opposite end of the kitten killing spectrum. Unless you’re Hindrocket.
Dennis
I didn’t leave thr Republicans, they left me 5 years ago.
Tsulagi
There’s probably an urgent top-secret cable now crossing the Atlantic…
Dude, we need your video NOW! The five-year-old one we ran of your boys this weekend blew away faster than one of my farts.
Love,
George
P.S. Do I make you a little horny?
Kimmitt
Man, that guy is stupid.
Six years, one failed security policy after another, thousands of lies, billions of dollars siphoned into corrupt accounts, a full-frontal assault on American civil liberties, and now, because Frist finally says what they’ve been doing all along, he’s off the reservation?
Here’s something it may be difficult for him to grasp: as it turns out, they don’t give you Truth Collars if you put an R after your name. The world isn’t whatever the Republican leadership says it is.
I hate stupid people, so very very much.
JoeTx
EXACTLY!!!
I gave Bush 3 years, and I just couldn’t take it anymore!
Sine.Qua.Non
I gave Bush 2 seconds, as Governor, and immediately ran straight in the other direction. His first law as Gov? Legalize concealed handguns. It’s gone downhill ever since.
(PS- John, good to see you back posting more often. I missed it.)
Sirkowski
And some of us speak french too!
craigie
I say we find out!
carpeicthus
The Democratic party isn’t signing peace deals with terrorists. We wanted to take the people WHO ACTUALLY ATTACKED US the fuck out, and commit the resources to fix Afghanistan so that history wouldn’t repeat itself. The GOP wants to play in its sandbox and enact the terrorists’ agenda for them, quite literally now.
Nat Echols
I rarely visit dKos, but after Tim linked to it I browsed through some of the other posts. I came across the comments thread on Frist’s suggestion that we give up and include the Taliban, and the reaction appeared to be universally furious. The commenters all oppose the Iraq war, the torture bill, and nearly everything else Bush has done. They all think we should be killing al Qaeda, and they all think the Taliban are medieval savages, and they’re furious that Afghanistan is still a mess and we still haven’t finished what we came there to do. They also mostly think we should be putting more troops and effort there (and, of course, withdrawing from Iraq).
This is the fabled Democratic “netroots” that conservatives are so convinced are a bunch of freakish socialist peaceniks. I’m inclined to agree, but it’s obvious that on an issue like this that really matters, there’s really not much of a difference of opinion. Almost the entire goddamn country thinks we should be chasing the thugs behind 9/11, and much as the GOP would like to pretend otherwise, the only disagreement is in the details. There’s no inconsistency in opposing torture, domestic spying, indefinite detentions, and the Iraq war, while still wanting to drop daisy cutters on terrorist guerillas.
Jess
That was my first thought as well, but not so clearly articulated as this. But this would be a bit weird, that they would rather have a 51% stake in a civil war (by this I mean the on-going culture wars in this country) than have the country united behind them. Has the paranoid fantasy of the evil left so completely addled their brains? Maybe so.
capelza
Thank you! This is the thing that has been lost in all the hullaballo over the “treasonous peacenik dems” b.s. It has been so offensive to be told, over and over again that I am a terrorist loving commie something or other because I HATED the fact that Bush led this country into a disasterous vanity war in Iraq and forgot who we were actually “at war” with.
Jess
Nat,
I suggest you continue your education. There are groups on the left that are pretty marxist in their outlook, and you can find some wacky quotes from them if you go on a cherry-picking mission. Generally those are the ones that vote Green Party rather than Dem. But I think you’ll find that the bulk of the Democratic netroots is made up of regular folks who are firmly committed to the Enlightenment principles that this country was founded on. Many of them are pragmatic centrists (like yours truly) who are concerned about the balance of power and want to maintain a reasonably level playing field. Many also share James Madison’s concerns about the tyranny of the majority, and for this reason are so persistent in fighting for the underdog and supporting civil liberties. Most are pro-democracy rather than “big government,” whatever that last bit of jargon means. There’s a politician from (I believe) South Carolina who is arguing that we should sterilize “bad” parents–that seems like a better example of big government than anything the Dems have supported lately, and that’s coming from a Republican.
matt
This might be inconsequential, but do you think people on the right (little green footballs, powerline, red state, ect) honestly, genuinely don’t get that, or do they just pretend not to get it because it’s politically (and probably emotionally) convenient?
I tend to think they’re (mostly) true believes. It’s pretty easy if you’re immersed, heart, body and soul into your particular world frame, to see only the worst in your “opponents”.
It’s pretty frustrating though that some professor at a community college in Colorado comes unhinged, and how that translates into not being able to trust (insert democratic senator) with national security.
I try to be evenhanded with the “both sides do it” mantra when it comes to mudslinging politics, but this particular feature does seem rather prominent on the right side of the blogosphere.
Richard 23
I think they believe or want to believe they believe. I had always thought that “doublethink” was just a literary device. Now I’m not so sure.
The mind can do some crazy things when properly trained (or medicated).
Pb
It’s important to note as well how far to the right this country has gone, and the demonization from the right of ‘communists’, ‘socialists’, and now ‘liberals’. There was a time when we actually had viable Communist and Socialist parties in the United States. Move the center back to where it used to be, and the ‘far left’ wouldn’t be far left at all–and of course we’re committed to the founding principles of this country. The Republicans, however, are far right by almost any measure, and historically speaking, doubly so. And lately, it seems that their principles have been more closely aligned with those of King George III than those of our Founding Fathers.
Cyrus
I think it’s the logic of gerrymandering. No doubt they’d like to have an overwhelming of majority of the country supporting them, but they’ve calculated (correctly or not) that a slim majority gets the same results with fewer concessions. At least, that applies to Rove’s class of political operatives, but as for the true believers, who knows.
Jess
Well put–that would make a nice media soundbite!
Nat Echols
Move the center back to where it used to be, and the ‘far left’ wouldn’t be far left at all—and of course we’re committed to the founding principles of this country.
I find a persistent strain of utopianism inherent in much of modern leftism, but that impression may be the result of being shouted at by the wrong people (i.e. reading liberal blogs, spending the last eight years at universities). There’s also a dearth of real debate; many of these people have already decided the correct policies and if you disagree with them you’re a right-wing fascist, etc. I get the same crap from conservatives; it’s tiring no matter what.
I read Kos’s essay on “libertarian Democrats” last night and found that it was a surprisingly accurate description of what I believe, although I’m still more skeptical about government intervention than he is. On the other hand, I also read a review of George Lakoff’s new book yesterday, and if Lakoff is at all indicative of a core Democratic constituency, the party still has a problem. I think Kos’s philosophy will be hard to sell to the more statist Democrats like Lakoff who want the government to save their jobs and protect their children from drugs and censor TV, and don’t care about other people’s rights. Far fewer Democrats than I’d like *really* care about civil liberties.
Basically, I don’t think a welfare state like some of the western European nations is entirely compatible with our founding principles. On the other hand, it’s hardly worse than what the GOP seems to be heading towards, and unlike Europe, America has a strong tradition of individual liberty that the GOP hasn’t managed to destroy yet.
This might be inconsequential, but do you think people on the right honestly, genuinely don’t get that, or do they just pretend not to get it because it’s politically (and probably emotionally) convenient?
I think they do believe it, and my impression is that the only people they’ve been exposed to with left-wing views are the hysterical, authoritarian kind like I run into in Berkeley. On the other hand, the Democrats’ leadership has repeatedly stated that they support a) killing terrorists and b) the free market, albeit in regulated form, so the continuing claim that the Dems are socialist pussies is just stupid.
Jess
I think those are the views that help them define their own position of opposition. The far left and the far right, in my opinion, have more in common with each other than either do with the center. I think one of the biggest problems with our political culture is our insistence on dividing everything into left and right. This is not at all an accurate map of the dynamic, but it’s more exciting and dramatic to view everything in terms of binary oppositions.
As for the European system, I think we could learn some useful things from it. I’m not saying that I think we should adopt it–we’re in a very different situation than the Europeans–but there are some very good things about it that are worth considering. When I was living in the Netherlands and Belgium, I was struck by how serene and well-balanced most people’s lives were. Their system actually makes it possible for people to spend quality time with their families and communities–something we give lip service to but can’t seem to make happen.
The big problem that no one except the far left seems to be willing to discuss is the rise of corporate power. Our political system is of course predicated on the balance of power, but now we have the rise of powerful institutions that are for the most part above the law and above democratic controls. This is something that the political center needs to take more seriously. The main reason why I am on the left side of the center is because the right will never, ever address this issue, except to dismiss anyone who raises the question as a communist.
Kimmitt
Well, in a country run by right-wing fascists . . .