Cynical Nation

After initially loving his early efforts (I thought Roger & Me was fun), I soon discovered that the information he dispensed was totally unreliable as he had no moral problems with presenting half-truths as truth.

I knew this through his television showx (which was sometimes filmed in Manhattan.) This was before "Farenheit 911" so by the time that movie came out I had no confidence in him.

His documentaries have long become worthless. I have stopped paying him attention.

Most documentaries come at a subject with a viewpoint, BUT that's different than distorting the truth and delivering untruths as facts, which Moore often does.

Ken Burns is a great documentarian. He has a viewpoint, but he delivers his subject with honesty and tells both sides of the story.

Moore is an amatuer by comparison and a poor one at that. Even as a propagandist, he is poor. Look at Gibson's films, Braveheart and The Patriot, THOSE are two excellent examples of propaganda pieces - htere wasn't a single decent, even non-vile Brit in either film. Gibson effectively tarred "the enemy," while Moore can't even do that.

I don't think Liberalism should be smeared by an association with Moore.

Moore's real association is as part of the George Soros-MoveOn-MediaMatters axis of Left-wing extremism.

Hey Barry,
I dont get it. You have not seen the movie yet but you have no problem criticizing it! I dont find anything wrong with what Moore said. The fact that even the ***Fox News*** review called that movie brilliant suggests that this time it is not a bias movie.

Anyway, I think Moore is a brilliant movie maker and a great American. If what we hear is true and that movie shows 911 heroes who could not receive health care here because they were denied coverage by their insurances or neglected by the Bush administration, how could anyone blame them for going anywhere else to receive it?

"I dont get it. You have not seen the movie yet but you have no problem criticizing it!" (BW)


Uhhhh, I believe Barry clealry pointed out that he was referring to THIS; "Moore was asked by journalists why he painted such a rosy picture of other countries' health systems, including Britain, France, Canada and Cuba, and the implied criticism is likely to be raised again. But he defended his methods."

"I recognize that there are flaws in your system but that's not for me to correct, that's for you to correct," he told a Canadian reporter."

What I don't get is your surprise that FoxNews noted some favorable thingsa about a Moore flick.

That's a network that's famous for having as many Liberal voices on as Conservative ones.

There are other networks that try and silence America's majority voice. Why would anyone want to do that, anyway?

Here's what FoxNews said about "Sicko;"

"Sicko," deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived. But this time around, the controversial documentarian seems to be letting the subject matter do the talking, and in the process shows a new maturity...

"...Moore smartly lets very articulate average Americans tell their personal horror stories at the hands of insurance companies. The film never talks down or baits the audience."

They commend him on his letting the subject matter speak for itself,, NOT his great film-making, as he has no history of "great," even good films.

And BW, no one who espouses socialist beliefs can be "a great American."

In fact, they can't be "great" anythings!

Socialism is a system designed to celebrate human depravity and evil.

"And BW, no one who espouses socialist beliefs can be "a great American."

And what makes you think Michael Moore does? As far as I know he is not a member of a socialist-like party like, lets say, Tony Blair in England is.

>You have not seen the movie yet but you have no problem criticizing it!

I criticized his comments as reported by Reuters.

>...how could anyone blame them for going anywhere else to receive it?

I don't see anyone blaming them.

"I criticized his comments as reported by Reuters."

You also implied that he does not present things honestly. I dont think his comments to Reuters were any sort of "presentation".

"> I don't see anyone blaming them. "

According to the New York Post, the Bush administration is now investigating some of them for traveling to Cuba.

>
You also implied that he does not present things honestly.

Yes I did.

"Yes I did."

Well, you have no real basis for that. It is what you believe, but you have no evidence.

"I don't see anyone blaming them." (BNJ)


"According to the New York Post, the Bush administration is now investigating some of them for traveling to Cuba. (BW)


Well, "blaming" (excoriating someone for doing something) is differently than "investigating" (checking to see if someone broke any existing laws) are two somewhat different things.

And actually it's the State Dept (the U.S. government) is investigating them, as federal permission is required to visit Cuba...the embargo and all.

There's no statute that allows us to break laws we disagree with.

There's little question that Moore's trip to Cuba was unauthorized, so the investigation seems justified.

And Moore has indeed espoused socialist beliefs on many occasions.

He may very well be a nice enough fellow, but he's, much like Edwards, a hypocrite, who lives a lavish lifestyle provided by Capitalist endeavors, while espousing things that would make it harder for others who would seek to acrue fortunes to do so.

That's not the mark of a "great American," at least not in my view.

>Well, you have no real basis for that. It is what you believe, but you have no evidence.

Except for all the other Michael Moore movies I've seen and Michael Moore books I've read and his other public statements, you're right, I have no evidence to believe he takes liberties with the truth.

Posted by BW:

Well, you have no real basis for that. It is what you believe, but you have no evidence.

Try these, BW, read them carefully, and then try to say the above again with a clear conscience:

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20040702.html

http://members.optushome.com.au/jimball_three/Fifty-nine-Deceits.htm

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html

The man is a fraud as a documentarian.

CORRECTION: "Well, "blaming" (excoriating someone for doing something) is differently than "investigating" (checking to see if someone broke any existing laws) are two somewhat different things."

Eeeeks!

That should read; "Well, "blaming" (excoriating someone for doing something) and "investigating" (checking to see if someone broke any existing laws) are two somewhat different things."

"Try these, BW, read them carefully, and then try to say the above again with a clear conscience"

Hmm...I am disappointed. I thought the links would be to RNC sites, but they are not. I dont need to read them anyway. I watched Farenheit 911 myself and it was a pretty accurate depiction of what happened. The only difference is that Michael Moore was a little ahead of the times. He called what a disaster the Bush administration has been at a time that most of the people still believed the lies of W and re-elected him. Michael Moore is a brilliant movie maker and a great patriot.

"Try these, BW, read them carefully, and then try to say the above again with a clear conscience"

Hmm...I am disappointed. I thought the links would be to RNC sites, but they are not. I dont need to read them anyway. I watched Farenheit 911 myself and it was a pretty accurate depiction of what happened. The only difference is that Michael Moore was a little ahead of the times. He called what a disaster the Bush administration has been at a time that most of the people still believed the lies of W and re-elected him. Michael Moore is a brilliant movie maker and a great patriot."

Then I give up with you, BW. You asked for proof that Moore had played fast and loose with the facts.

I gave them to you, not, as you point out, from conservative sites which I knew you would reject, but from other sources with no political ax to grind.

Instead, you choose not to read them but to restate your personal opinions.

This obviously explains why you never never heard of any criticism of Moore's facts - you refused to read any.

Sorry, BW, But I thought you were better than that.

Henceforth, I shall not waste my time responding to any of your comments.

I value discourse.

You value dogma.

I have more important things (and people) to deal with in my few remaining years.

You are not worth my time.

"Sorry, BW, But I thought you were better than that."

Nope. I am not. Sorry.

"Henceforth, I shall not waste my time responding to any of your comments."

No problem at all. Cheers.

>I dont need to read them anyway. I watched Farenheit 911 myself and it was a pretty accurate depiction...

Yes, this is the target audience to whom Michael Moore's movie will play well. They follow him unquestioningly because he reinforces their bias, and they don't even want to look at inconvenient facts regarding Moore's dishonesty. He is on the "right side," so they forgive him that.

As we have seen, Moore can enjoy a successful career making movies for people who already agree with him. He'll never have much influence in affecting mainstream thought, however, because his intellectual sloppiness and cavalier approach to the facts alienate anyone who's a thinker rather than a blind ideologue.

"They follow him unquestioningly because he reinforces their bias, and they don't even want to look at inconvenient facts regarding Moore's dishonesty. He is on the "right side," so they forgive him that."

Barry,
That is an amazing statement! Lets assume for a second that you are correct. Lets say I am among the ones that "blindly" follow Michael Moore and I forgive his "dishonesty". In fact, I agree that there were a couple of exaggerations in Farenheit 911. But basically the movie was simply exposing the incompetence of the Bush administration (that NOW everybody, including many conservative republicans, agree that it is a fact).

How about others who, being blind ideologues, forgive the dishonesty of the Bush administration? What is worse? A few small lies or exaggerations that Michael Moore made in a movie or lying to start a war that has resulted in tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties so far?

Of course, you will argue that there is no proof that Bush lied. My opinion is that you don't want to face reality on this issue.

"What is worse? A few small lies or exaggerations that Michael Moore made in a movie or lying to start a war that has resulted in tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties so far?" (BW)


I've seen FH 911 and Farenhype 911 too, but I've never seen anyONE anyWHERE prove that "Bush lied."

Look, at this point, I'd love to believe that, seriously. I've asked you, numerous times for some proofs, with none forthcoming.

I was thinking George Tenet might prove that.

NOPE!

Tenet has claimed that right up through March of 2003 he believed Saddam's Iraq had WMDs.

So did Brittain's France's Germany's, Russia's the Czech Republic's, Poland's, etc Intel Agencies believe that very same thing.

In FACT, so did Saddam's own Generals.

So far as I can recall (haven't seen that film in awhile) Moore never even alluded to "lies by Bush," hell, not even the NY Times backed that viewpoint...as they put out that 2005 article chronicling Saddam's elaborate strategy of "Deterrence by Doubt."

I believe that both Tenet & the NY Times have proven that the "Bush lied" charge was a false one.

I wonder what other things you believe that are not supported by any facts?

I dont need to read them anyway. I watched Farenheit 911 myself and it was a pretty accurate depiction of what happened.

Sad.

"Sad."

Oh please, dont be sad. This is just blogging :)

This is from one of Mal's links concerning Farenheit 9-11. It pretty much sums up how neither Bush or Moore comes out and lies, but how neither engages in intellectual honesty.

****
Take the first half hour of the film, in which Moore exposes the close relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud. Sure, it relies mostly on innuendo and imagery, but then again, he never really makes the case anyway. He never flat out says that the Bush family is on the Saudi payroll. Rather, he simply includes "9/11," "Bush," and "Saudi Arabia" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that George Bush is a bought and paid for subsidiary of the Saudi royal family.

Which is all remarkably similar to the tactic Bush himself used to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. He never flat out blamed Saddam, but rather made sure to include the words "9/11," "Saddam Hussein," and "al-Qaeda" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that Saddam had something to do with it.
***

I don't know why you wingnuts get upset with Moore. He is only using the Republican Party playbook: innuedo, guilt by association, exaggeration, outright lying.

Aren't these the same methods of all Repug heroes: Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Rielly, FOX News, Karl Rove ... oh wait, THAT'S why you are upset.

Moore stole your propaganda methods.

I get it now, carry on.

PE, that's a revisionist lie in two parts, (1) the Bush "deliberately sought to indirectly link Saddam Hussein to 9/11" and (2) "that had the administration not done so, Americans would never have supported the invasion of Iraq."

BOTH are untrue.

The current administration did not seek to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11....EVER and from the beginning, said what Tenet claims now, in his new book, "That there are no operational links between Saddam's Iraq and 9/11, although there were many links between Hussein and al Qaida."

The invasion was triggered by Saddam's refusla to comply with UN Resolution 1441...and over 70% of Americans at that time recognized that as a valid reason for war.

What CAUSED the invasion was Saddam Hussein's srategy of "Deterrence by Doubt," by which he had virtually every Western Intelligence Agency and his own Generals believe that Iraq had stocpiles of WMDs.

While there's a clear case that can be made against the way the post-war occupation has been mishandled, there's absolutely no rational case that can be made against the invasion.

Even Liberal Bob Kerry gets this!

"Let me restate the case for this Iraq war from the U.S. point of view. The U.S. led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Iraq was rightly seen as a threat following Sept. 11, 2001.

"For two decades we had suffered attacks by radical Islamic groups but were lulled into a false sense of complacency because all previous attacks were "over there." It was our nation and our people who had been identified by Osama bin Laden as the "head of the snake." But suddenly Middle Eastern radicals had demonstrated extraordinary capacity to reach our shores.

As for Saddam, he had refused to comply with numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions outlining specific requirements related to disclosure of his weapons programs. He could have complied with the Security Council resolutions with the greatest of ease. He chose not to because he was stealing and extorting billions of dollars from the U.N. Oil for Food program.

No matter how incompetent the Bush administration and no matter how poorly they chose their words to describe themselves and their political opponents, Iraq was a larger national security risk after Sept. 11 than it was before. And no matter how much we might want to turn the clock back and either avoid the invasion itself or the blunders that followed, we cannot. The war to overthrow Saddam Hussein is over. What remains is a war to overthrow the government of Iraq."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010107

JMK..

You left out this part of Kerry's piece.

****
Some who have been critical of this effort from the beginning have consistently based their opposition on their preference for a dictator we can control or contain at a much lower cost. From the start they said the price tag for creating an environment where democracy could take root in Iraq would be high. Those critics can go to sleep at night knowing they were right.
****

President Bush overstating of the threat that Saddam posed to the United States kept this country from having an honest discussion over whether the invasion was in the best interest of the United States. While the 16 words he stated in the SOTU address were technically true, he did not share us the many doubts that existed then regarding the true potential of the nuclear program. Similarly, the mobile labs spoken of by Powell in his UN address were based on the tales of a witness who was already determined to be unreliable by many in the intelligence community.. yet again this was not shared with us.

There are many more examples that has made it clear to me that there was not just mistakes but a pattern of deception. The Bush Administration stacked the deck, keeping information from us that might slow down the path to war.

Saddam deserved his fate. I shed no tears for that brutal man and his brutal sons. Hopefully, the Iraqi people will find better leadership. My question has always been, however, what was in the best interest of this country and whether our government was being forthright so the American people through their government can make the best decision.

By 2003 it was way too late for such a discussion PE.

1998, maybe.

Hussein had refused to comply with 12 previous UN Resolutions regarding the status of Iraq's WMDs.

He felt he needed to maintain his strategy of "Deterrence by Doubt."

That strategy was so effective, that even Iraq's Generals believed they had stockpiles of WMDs with which to repel an invasion.

Hussein was given a "last chance" with 1441, and when he refused to comply, in the wake of 9/11, the U.S., England and all other thoughtful nations could no longer tolerate that "doubt."

As Kerrey noted, "Saddam Hussein was rightly seen as a threat following Sept. 11, 2001."

It is hard to believe that JMK still believes the Iraq war was justified. He may be one of a handful of people (including Bush and maybe Cheney) in the country who still believe that. It is called complete denial and refusal to face reality. Unbelievable.

And George Tenet, Bob Kerrey and...oh yeah, Bill and Hillary too....there's actually no doubt that the invasion was indeed justified.

Those who believe otherwise cannot then also deride the bungled post-war occupation.

Those who feel the invasion was unjustified have a rightful focus to maintain on that. There's no way for them to credibly complain about the bungling of the post-war occupation.

Bob Kerrey had it about right, not only was the invasion justified, and if Iraq fails to uphold its end and it collapses, then we're in for a long, bloody and costly few decades of war with globalized Sharia-based Islam.

Take the first half hour of the film, in which Moore exposes the close relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud. Sure, it relies mostly on innuendo and imagery, but then again, he never really makes the case anyway. He never flat out says that the Bush family is on the Saudi payroll. Rather, he simply includes "9/11," "Bush," and "Saudi Arabia" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that George Bush is a bought and paid for subsidiary of the Saudi royal family.

Which is all remarkably similar to the tactic Bush himself used to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. He never flat out blamed Saddam, but rather made sure to include the words "9/11," "Saddam Hussein," and "al-Qaeda" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that Saddam had something to do with it.

Cogent point, PE.

Michael Moore is a gifted filmmaker, however that doesn't mean he is accurate portraying the subject.

JMK said..

"Those who feel the invasion was unjustified have a rightful focus to maintain on that. There's no way for them to credibly complain about the bungling of the post-war occupation."

And I ask.. why not?

Part of my objection prior to the war was how difficult it would be to maintain order and how difficult it would be to develop a nation.

When U.S. Army Chief of Staff Erik Shinseki said before Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed in Iraq following a war, Paul Wolfowitz appeared two days later saying Shinseki's estimates were "wildly off the mark."

At the time, I remember defenders of the war stating that Wolfowitz was right, that Iraqi society was an educated society, so there would not be a widespread insurgency and therefore not the need for the same troop/population ratio used in occupations such as Bosnia.

What would have happened if we had enough troops to secure Baghdad immediately after the fall of Saddam, if we had overwhelming force not only for the invasion but both for the immediate aftermath and later occupation as Shinseki and others felt was necessary for success?

We will never know. However, the notion that 2003 was too late for a discussion is a foolish one and the "bungling of the post-war occupation" occurred, in my view, because this Administration was not listening to voices of experience and caution while it marched blindly to war.

"What would have happened if we had enough troops to secure Baghdad immediately after the fall of Saddam, if we had overwhelming force not only for the invasion but both for the immediate aftermath and later occupation as Shinseki and others felt was necessary for success?"

It would still be the same mess for a simple reason: The Iraqis do not want us there. In addition, they hate each other. History has shown again and again that wars like that are not winnable. Going into Iraq was a catastrophic error.

PE, if the primary criticism of someone is "the war itself was unjustified," that's the end of it, right there.

That such a person would have a problem with any aspect of any subsequent part is a given.

Kerrey has it about right.

The invasion and toppling of Saddam was necessary.

Beyond that, the occupation has been both mishandled by both us and Iraq.

Iraq is like the former Yugoslavia, a group of disaprate and hostile ethnicities artificially bundled together (it was created in 1919 by Britain)...maybe it should've been allowed to partition along those ethnic linesafter Saddam was deposed (almost 3,000 lives ago), but Turkey reportedly balked at having an independent Kurdistan on her southern border, others worried about Iran moving in on the Shiite controlled areas and of the Sunnis, having no oil on their lands, fighting not to be cut out of those revenues.

Now, Iraq is a battlefield between al Qaida and the rest of the jihadists and the West.

My gut feeling, at this point, is that the Iraqis will fail to hold up their end and al Qaida will claim victory in Iraq and plunge the Arab/Muslim world into fifty to one hundred years of a very bloody, very costly military war.

BW.. that may be true. However, I don't think that contradicts what many Generals felt prior to the war, that the only true chance to succeed was to take control of security at the beginning and then maintain security from there.. because once control is lost then it is near to impossible to get it back. (Under this view.. allowing the extensive looting of Baghdad following Saddam's fall was the beginning of the unraveling.)

JMK.. I believe that the Iraq War had valid justifications as Saddam's overthrow was a worthy goal. However, I don't believe that the invading of Iraq was in our interest precisely because anyone who took time to think could see that building a nation there .. given how many religious sects there were and how many neighboring countries with conflicting interests there were.. would be close to impossible task and in the end almost any result would result in increasing Iran's influence in the region.

It was perhaps not totally unjustified, but it was certainly unwise, in my view. Brent Scowcroft's analysis of Saddam in his WSJ piece in the fall of 2002 turned out to be essentially correct, that Saddam was a conventional tyrant who no longer was a serious regional threat.

When is he going to do a mockumentary called,"Fatso"?

PE, I agree that the logistics were poorly accounted for and thus the occupation has been badly bungled.

The invasion/war with Saddam's Iraq ended in about three weeks!

The occupation, at least of the Sunni & Shia areas have gone badly. The Kurdish north is virtually autonomous and doing well.

I'd initially felt that just removing Saddam and re-partitioning the country would work best, but nearly everyone I know whose been there (I know many people who've worked for large energy companies in the region) and they said that would've been a disaster too.

The problem is, we weren't dealing with 1998 Iraq any longer. In a pre-9/11 scenario we could've lived with more risk.

Post 9/11 for the current administration NOT to have made 1441 a "Last Chance Resolution" and been willing to follow that up with force, would have been grossly negligent.

Hussein had to go....at lerast he did, once he refused to comply with 1441 in order to maintain his strategy of deterrence by doubt, but you're right that the post-war occupation/re-building has been poorly planned and badly bungled.

The fact that Iraq itself is not onboard with this "experiment in Western styled democracy," also bodes poorly for the ultimate success of this mission.

I believe that should Iraq fall (and it doesn't look good at this point) we will find ourselves mired in many more decades of a long, protracted and very costly military war against the forces of what we euphemistically refer to as "radicalized" or "fundamentalist" Islam.

Butch, probably because Dom DeLuise beat him to it...and it was a pretty sad movie, for a funny guy (Deluise).

For whatever it's worth, I have to agree with PE that Bush, although never technically blaming Iraq for 9/11, did enough commingling of Saddam and 9/11 to give the impression that there was a connection where, in fact, it really was not.

Yeah, we on the right can legitimately say that he never said Hussein was responsible for the attacks but there was what I perceived as a subtle wink in Bush's oratory to indicate otherwise.

"For whatever it's worth, I have to agree with PE that Bush, although never technically blaming Iraq for 9/11, did enough commingling of Saddam and 9/11 to give the impression that there was a connection where, in fact, it really was not." (Mal)


Look, the same could be said for Rice's allusion to "mushroom clouds over American cities," to demonstrate the seriousness of the WMD threat created by Saddam Hussein's Deterrence by Doubt,

That wasn't meant literally, as it was far more likely that a chemical or biological weapon would be easier to use than a nuclear one, but it made the threat understandable to people who don't follow such things.

Not that Rice's statement was a "lie," or even an exaggeration as to the potential threat. At a training session a few months ago, I ran into an Israeli security analyst who said the same thing that a recently retired Army officer said at a bomb school - that there currently 110 Soviet era suitcase nukes "missing."

When the former USSR fell, we tried to bring over as many of their scientists and weapons specialists as we could, but as both these guys acknowledge, "We didn't get them all," and there were big rewards for "going rogue."

The conventional wisdom is that (1) these suitcase nukes wouldn't be able to be kept operational by terror groups and (2) even if they were, they're so old they probably won't deliver anything close to the original "throw-weights."

Both these guys claim that conventional wisdom is wrong - that it's relatively easy to keep these things operational - batteries are the things that go down the most and there's no reaon to believe that the throw-weights of these devices would appreciably diminish in just two decades, given that their radiologicals have half-lives of many thousands of years.

Prior to the 9/11 report, the current administration DID indeed juxtapose 9/11, Saddam and al Qaida together WITHOUT overtly claiming a direct link, though one could say "cynically implying one."

But that's not even as overtly dishonest as those who've taken the 9/11 Report's statement that, "There were no operational links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida regarding 9/11," and claimed that shows, "There were no operational links between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaida."

While the first statement IS true, the second is clearly not...and Tenet's recent book makes clear that he (1) not only believed Saddam's Iraq had stockpiles of WMDs prior to the 2003 invasion, but (2) there were indeed links between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaida, though none they could pin to any terror attacks.

The fact that Abu Abbas was arrested in Iraq shortly after the coalition invasion (he'd been there a long time) proves that Iraq was a very terrorist-friendly rogue nation.

The fact that al Qaida's Ansar al Islam camp in northern Iraq fought a common enemy (the Kurds) of their's and Saddam's shows that there was some tacit cooperation between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaida.

Yeah, having our soldiers die while Halliburton rakes in billions pretending to provide services and Big Oil tries to wrap up contracts giving them 70% of all Iraqi oil profits (forever) really stuck it to Al Quaida!

I have personally talked to soldiers who were rushed by ammo dumps and suspicious building STRAIGHT TO THE OIL FIELDS! Hmmm, do you suppose the generals were more afraid of an oil field fire than nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons?

They KNEW there really weren't any WMD in Iraq, just like the U.N. inspectors always said. Remember how they used to mock Hans Blick or whatever his name was, comparing him to Mr. Magoo?

Bush is a liar, a traitor, and a common criminal scumbag.

Barely, your inane anecdoatal accounts don't really address any substantial issue.

Email me.

What's going on?

I used to work at a Crisis Intervention Center in College (really, no shit)...maybe I can help.

When all someone sees in the midst of an excellent economy is gloom & doom, something's usually wrong.

I can honestly say, I've never been happier!

And I know over two dozen guys back from Iraq and Afghanistan and to a man, they're about as optimisitic (at least long-term on the WoT....short and long-term on the economy) as I am.

LOL! You lying sack of shit. I work with the Marines. "Optimistic" is about the opposite of every utterance I've heard about Iraq.

They don't moan and complain because it is their JOB to fight where the Commander in Chimp says to fight. They fought for Clinton too, even though they didn't like it.

"Fucked up mess" is the most common phrase used in describing Iraq, and "idiot" is the most common descriptor of Chimp & Co.

Barely, there are any number of soldiers who think almost any war is unjustified, just as there are cops who fervently believe that the "wars" on drugs and prostitution are irrational and wrong.

It doesn't really matter, does it, because those decisions are not made from the ground up, they're made at much higher levels.

AND Bush didn't make the decision to invade Iraq "against other more credible views," NOT at all!

George Tenet supported the invasion, Britain's M-6 supported it...hell, even Bob Kerrey makes the case for it...EVEN NOW!

"Let me restate the case for this Iraq war from the U.S. point of view. The U.S. led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Iraq was rightly seen as a threat following Sept. 11, 2001. For two decades we had suffered attacks by radical Islamic groups but were lulled into a false sense of complacency because all previous attacks were "over there."

"It was our nation and our people who had been identified by Osama bin Laden as the "head of the snake." But suddenly Middle Eastern radicals had demonstrated extraordinary capacity to reach our shores.

"As for Saddam, he had refused to comply with numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions outlining specific requirements related to disclosure of his weapons programs. He could have complied with the Security Council resolutions with the greatest of ease. He chose not to because he was stealing and extorting billions of dollars from the U.N. Oil for Food program.

"No matter how incompetent the Bush administration and no matter how poorly they chose their words to describe themselves and their political opponents, Iraq was a larger national security risk after Sept. 11 than it was before. And no matter how much we might want to turn the clock back and either avoid the invasion itself or the blunders that followed, we cannot. The war to overthrow Saddam Hussein is over. What remains is a war to overthrow the government of Iraq."

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010107

Does that make any of this at all easier to understand for you?

Why do you quote one idiot to bolster the idiotic views of another?

Do you think I'm a Democrat or something?

Thanks for making my point, if three idiots (you are the third) agree on something, it is obviously wrong.

You know, Bailey, bandying about insults and swearing hardly gives you any credibility. At least JMK, PE, and others use outside sources to reinforce their points instead of, you know, being belligerent. As Chopper Read might say, "Calm the fuck down."

Actually both Tenet's and Kerrey's views were widely accepted, by those who understand the situation....proving that Bush did not make the decision to invade Iraq against other more credible views.

Apparently your opinion, is merely based on your own personal feelings, just as your views on gas prices are based on feelings, without facts.

I don't think reason's going tpo work "That Guy," at least it hasn't so far.

Meh, figured it was worth a shot. Win some, lose some.

Well, for what it's worth, I'm pulling for you....I hope it does work, but to date, BH seems convinced that anything bad is caused by (you know who) the current Lame Duck in the WH.

Some bad things have been...but not all of things the Rosie's, Cindy's and BH's think.

All you need is the pattern to know that Chimp is a lying psychopath and a dangerous would-be dictator who truly does hate America, the real America, the one envisioned by the founding fathers.

FDR was more of a dictator than the current president, and that didn't turn out too badly for us. Going strictly by precedence of dictatorial presidents, we really have nothing to fear.

Barely, you're dangerously close to pathological paranoia.

You've endorsed the "Truther" view of 9/11, which is based entirely on delusion (the editors at Popular Mechanics proved EVERY 9-11 Truther claim wrong) and now you mistake a plan for simple continuity of government, is some kid of blueprint for dictatorship.

Dude, you've got to get out of the cellar more often....all artificial light, without any natural light is a real bad combination.

And look it up, That Guy is right, FDR was the closest thing the U.S. has come to a "permanent President" - he took office 3/4/1933 and died in office 4/12/1945.

The current Bush will be back in Crawford by late Januaray of 2009....just as the price of oil did indeed plummet from over $60/barrell in August of 2004 to around $50/barrell from October thru learly February of 2005.

JMK, why waste your time with BH?

He's an equal opportunity hate machine who never presents facts but only his twisted views. Like with BW, you are dealing with phantoms whose views have no substance.

Save your energy! Resist their innocuous entries!

To quote the lyrics from the old Walt Disney classic about Ichabod Crane ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"):

"You can't reason with a headless man!"

You're right Mal, but I have this thing about "emotional thinking," people who seem to "think" via their feelings on things.

Increasingly that seems to cover a larger and larger segment of the Liberal population.

I don't blame people for being attracted to things that "sound nice," or "sound fair," but a lot of things simply sound or "feel," a lot better than they actually are.