OT: An intersting quandry from the French Quarter

Jim, This is Gummers hero in action.

ftp.machiningsolution.com/Bush_Dementia.zip

Reply to
John R. Carroll
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This is Johns and the rest of the Lefts hero in action:

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"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

The Washington Post - Sep 13, 2005

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End of the Bush Era

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

The Bush Era is over. The sooner politicians in both parties realize that, the better for them -- and the country.

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush's government doesn't work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this.

The Bush Era did not begin when he took office, or even with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It began on Sept. 14, 2001, when Bush declared at the World Trade Center site: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Bush was, indeed, skilled in identifying enemies and rallying a nation already disposed to action. He failed to realize after Sept. 11 that it was not we who were lucky to have him as a leader, but he who was lucky to be president of a great country that understood the importance of standing together in the face of a grave foreign threat. Very nearly all of us rallied behind him.

If Bush had understood that his central task was to forge national unity, as he seemed to shortly after Sept. 11, the country would never have become so polarized. Instead, Bush put patriotism to the service of narrowly ideological policies and an extreme partisanship. He pushed for more tax cuts for his wealthiest supporters and shamelessly used relatively modest details in the bill creating a Department of Homeland Security as partisan cudgels in the 2002 elections.

He invoked our national anger over terrorism to win support for a war in Iraq. But he failed to pay heed to those who warned that the United States would need many more troops and careful planning to see the job through. The president assumed things would turn out fine, on the basis of wildly optimistic assumptions. Careful policymaking and thinking through potential flaws in your approach are not his administration's strong suits.

And so the Bush Era ended definitively on Sept. 2, the day Bush first toured the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina. There was no magic moment with a bullhorn. The utter failure of federal relief efforts had by then penetrated the country's consciousness. Yesterday's resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown put an exclamation point on the failure.

The source of Bush's political success was his claim that he could protect Americans. Leadership, strength and security were Bush's calling cards. Over the past two weeks, they were lost in the surging waters of New Orleans.

But the first intimations of the end of the Bush Era came months ago. The president's post-election fixation on privatizing part of Social Security showed how out of touch he was. The more Bush discussed this boutique idea cooked up in conservative think tanks and Wall Street imaginations, the less the public liked it. The situation in Iraq deteriorated. The glorious economy Bush kept touting turned out not to be glorious for many Americans. The Census Bureau's annual economic report, released in the midst of the Gulf disaster, found that an additional 4.1 million Americans had slipped into poverty between 2001 and 2004.

The breaking of the Bush spell opens the way for leaders of both parties to declare their independence from the recent past. It gives forces outside the White House the opportunity to shape a more appropriate national agenda -- for competence and innovation in rebuilding the Katrina region and for new approaches to the problems created over the past 4 1/2 years.

The federal budget, already a mess before Katrina, is now a laughable document. Those who call for yet more tax cuts risk sounding like robots droning automated talking points programmed inside them long ago. Katrina has forced the issue of deep poverty back onto the national agenda after a long absence. Finding a way forward in -- and eventually out of -- Iraq will require creativity from those not implicated in the administration's mistakes. And if ever the phrase "reinventing government" had relevance, it is now that we have observed the performance of a government that allows political hacks to push aside the professionals.

And what of Bush, who has more than three years left in his term? Paradoxically, his best hope lies in recognizing that the Bush Era, as he and we have known it, really is gone. He can decide to help us in the transition to what comes next. Or he can cling stubbornly to his past and thereby doom himself to frustrating irrelevance.

Reply to
John R. Carroll

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July 16, 2004

Washington Post Columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. Tells Democrats to Stand Up And Fight Back!

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

If you check out the upcoming July 18 New York Times Book Review, don't miss E. J. Dionne's newest book on the cover, paired with titles by Mario Cuomo, George McGovern, Gary Hart and Robert Reich. In this rarified company, Dionne offers a distinctive perspective on what has ailed the Democrats and what they can do about it. Stand Up, Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge presents compelling analysis together with an inspirational call to arms.

Chapter Six, titled "Why Democrats and Liberals Should Stop Being Afraid," is reason enough why BuzzFlash fans should read the book. In fact, Dionne nails the problem of a Democratic Party identity -- which has recently been defined by its lack of focus and clarity -- with his preface quotation from Corinthians: "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"

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E. J. DIONNE, JR. University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture (Ph.D., Sociology, Oxford University)

E.J. Dionne, Jr. grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts and spent fourteen years with the New York Times, reporting on state and local government, national politics, and from around the world, including stints in Paris, Rome, and Beirut. The Los Angeles Times praised his coverage of the Vatican as the best in two decades.

In 1990, Dionne joined the Washington Post as a reporter, covering national politics. His best-selling book, Why Americans Hate Politics (Simon & Schuster), was published in 1991. The book, which Newsday called "a classic in American political history," won the Los Angeles Times book prize, and was a National Book Award nominee.

Dionne began his op-ed column for the Post in 1993, and it is syndicated to more than ninety other newspapers. He has been a regular commentator on politics on television and radio. His second book, They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (Simon & Schuster), was published in February 1996. He is the editor of Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America (Brookings Press, 1998), and What's God Got to Do with the American Experiment (Brookings Press, 2000), co-edited with John DiIulio, Jr. Dionne co-edited Bush v. Gore (Brookings Press, 2000) with William Kristol, Sacred Places, Civic Purposes: Should Government Help Faith-Based Charity? with Ming Hsu Chen (Brookings Press, 2001), and, most recently, United We Serve: National Service and the Future of Citizenship with Kayla Meltzer Drogosz and Robert E. Litan (Brookings Press 2003). He is a regular political analyst on National Public Radio.

In 1980, he founded the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life with Jean Bethke Elshtain. He and Elshtain serve as co-chairs.

Dionne graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Harvard University in 1973 and received his doctorate from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 1994-95, he was a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. In May 1996, Dionne joined the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow in the Governance Studies Program, then known as Governmental Studies. His work at Brookings includes chairing, with Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Mary and their three children, James, Julia and Margot.

"His second book, They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era"

I think we can safely discount any of his writings as having any non-partisan basis.

So John, got any more articles from other Marxists we should look at?

Snicker

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

Again with the personal attacks, John? You _do_ know that that's an outright admission that your points don't have facts to back them up, when you resort to insinuating that someone who disagrees with you is mentally ill, right?

Reply to
Dave Hinz

It isn't an admission of anything Dave, just a personal attack and something I generally reserve for Gunner. He and I have had the "WE" conversation before.

Reply to
John R. Carroll

Oh, it is, you just don't know it.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

It isn't any different than selectively editing prior posts and means very little. I know that much Dave :>)

Reply to
John R. Carroll

Couldnt fault the content? When its blatent partisanship and opinion? Why bother? I provided cites to other bits of his work to demonstrate that he is hardly a solid source of any belivable data.

Or are you claiming that before claiming Marx and Ingles promoted political systems foredoomed to failure...go over their data points bit by bit in refutation? Simply pointing out the failure of every country that implimented their systems is not enough?

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

Of course you did. You couldn't fault the quoted statements or the underlying facts so you dinged the source. Your comments aren't even germain.

I am not claiming anything beyong the fact that in my opinion you would rather deny truths that are obvious.

Reply to
John R. Carroll

Can't even get that one right, can you.

Abrasha

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Reply to
Abrasha

When you provide "truths" that are obvious to anyone besides a leftwing extremist ideolog, we shall discuss them.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

Like this bit you mean? Or are you saying W is a "leftwing extremist ideolog"? You might think so from the spending side of the equation.

"The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive. He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." Our own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious.""

These are facts Gunner and there isn't a great deal of controversy at this point about there validity. The controversial part revolves around presidents intent. Was it a case of deliberately misleading the public or simple incompetence?

Reply to
John R. Carroll

There is a C-O-N-N-E-C-T-I-O-N between everything if you look hard enough. The operative word is meaningful and in this case all of the relevant investigations have concluded that there was no meaningful one here. Statements to the contrary or statements insinuating that a real connection did exist simply aren't correct. That is what all of the evidence shows. Your polemic responses do nothing to change that. Like I said, you can argue the intent of the administrations statements but not the facts. At this point THEY aren't even making your case and agree that the conclusions they came to were incorrect. Bush has said exactly that more than once. You don't like what that might imply. I don't either.

Reply to
John R. Carroll

Ah, it's his detractors' fault, eh? How come he's holding the brush?

The image is too true to life: the shrubbie in the corner, paint pot nearby, brush in hand. "Look what they did to me!"

He's also got his nose firmly jammed up the Saudi's butts.

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

His detractors increasingly include his republican brothers.

" Cracks You expect to hear Democratic criticism of the Karl Rove-George W. Bush production in Louisiana, and it came quickly last night: A few minutes after the president's speech ended, John Kerry said that Americans need "leadership that keeps them safe, not speeches in the aftermath to explain away the inexcusable."

What you don't expect to hear -- or at least you didn't until Bush's poll numbers began to make him look like a political liability -- is Republicans speaking out critically about the president's response to Katrina and his plan for rebuilding the Gulf Coast. But open your newspaper this morning, and that's exactly what you're going to see.

In the New York Times, Mickey Edwards, a former GOP congressman from Oklahoma, said Bush's speech missed the mark: "He was giving a speech as if the nation were disheartened and worried and had lost its spirit, but that's not what people were thinking. They were thinking, 'Why did the government screw up?'"

Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn -- last seen working a crossword puzzle during the confirmation hearings for John G. Roberts -- bristled at Bush's plan for a $200 billion reconstruction effort. "I don't believe that everything that should happen in Louisiana should be paid for by the rest of the country," Coburn told the Times. "I believe there are certain responsibilities that are due the people of Louisiana." South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint chimed in that "throwing more and more money without accountability . . . is not going to solve the problem."

As Jonathan Chait notes in the Los Angeles Times, Tom DeLay is complaining that there's no way to pay for a massive rebuilding effort along the Gulf Coast because there's not enough pork to be cut to cover the cost. "After 11 years of Republican majority," DeLay says, "we've pared [the budget] down pretty good." That doesn't sit well with Republicans who are still dreaming of a federal government so small that it could be drowned in a bathtub, and the intra-party fighting has begun.

Why are Republicans, who have spent the better part of five years marching in lockstep with their president, suddenly going sideways on him? Part of it is the president's unpopularity, and part of it is that Bush is -- relatively speaking -- a short-timer. He needs to put on a big show of helping the Gulf Coast to recover from his stumbling performance in the early days of the disaster, but he'll be enjoying his retirement on Trent Lott's new porch by the time the bill comes due. Members of Congress will have to deal with the financial ramifications down the line -- especially if they ignore them now -- and they aren't necessarily happy about picking up the tab then to get Bush out of a jam now. As one senior House Republican official tells the Times, "We are not sure he knows what he is getting into." "

Reply to
John R. Carroll

They got the bathtub thing - seen the poster?

Delay's gonna have his own troubles soon enough.

Awful fast from mandate, to lame duck, eh?

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

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