Us presidential election 2004

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]You can:

1)See the logic of the Iraqi's being able to defend their homeland from what they perceive as an occupation (and not just the insuregents think that....look at the "man on the street" interviews.)

2)And recognize the wrong not of what the soldiers are doing, but of the man that sent them there to die under false pretenses.

God. This is turning in to a loss cause. I'm taking one simple quote he said about the insurgents and then looking at what he said about the dead american troops talking about may they forgive us. There is no need to expand it. He went past the line by saying they win aka defeat the US military.

[denoir 0]

He went past the line by saying they win aka defeat the US military.

Have you been watching the news these past two years? As it looks now, they are winning. It's a statement of fact, not a desire or wish on his part. He's not saying that he wants US troops to die - on the contrary, he opposed to sending them there in the first place.

He's saying that the Iraqi rebels can't be just written off as "terrorists", because they have a broad popular support and they are indeed fighting off an external invasion. They didn't attack you - you attacked them.

Both the Iraqis and the American soldiers are victims of Bush's decision.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Have you been watching the news these past two years? As it looks now, they are winning. It's a statement of fact, not a desire or wish on his part. He's not saying that he wants US troops to die - on the contrary, he opposed to sending them there in the first place.

He's saying that the Iraqi rebels can't be just written off as "terrorists", because they have a broad popular support and they are indeed fighting off an external invasion. They didn't attack you - you attacked them.

Both the Iraqis and the American soldiers are victims of Bush's decision

How are the insurgents going to win? My only question.

Edit: He calls them not the Enemy or insurgents.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Hmmm....

Laura Bush=Midland TX

Tex=Midland TX

She went to the other high school, though.

[denoir 0]

How are the insurgents going to win? My only question.

Edit: He calls them not the Enemy or insurgents.

You are still not getting it. There is no simple dichotomy here. There is no simple good guy/bad guy interpretation.

If they are going to win, they will win by killing US troops. Does that make them "bad guys"? From a simplistic point of view, if you are an American, then yes.

What about the US troops that started a war of agression and invaded a country that never did anything to them? Does that make the US troops "bad guys"? From a simplistic point of view, from a general perspective, then yes.

Or you could put it in another way. The Iraqis are fighting for their country. They are acting in self-defense against an external enemy. The US troops are just following orders, it's not their fault. They didn't choose to invade Iraq, they were ordered to.

Get it?

Moore never said that he wants the rebels to win. I agree with his statements fully that they are fighting for their country, that they are not (for the most part) terrorsists - and at the same time I don't want them to win. I don't share their vision of what Iraq should be - but I am also careful to recognize my bias in the question. I cannot claim that my wish is universal.

Moore says don't call them "terrorists" or "the Enemy" because it trivializes the actual situation. The world isn't black and white. They are fighting for their country against a foreign invasion and domestic collaborators. They did not want this fight and they did not start it: Bush did.

The US casualties are Bush's fault. He made the choice to go to war. The Iraqis are only acting in self-defence.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Moore says don't call them "terrorists" or "the Enemy" because it trivializes the actual situation.

Oh... I guess calling them the REVOLUTION and Minutemen actually points to the truth.

Quote[/b] ]Moore never said that he wants the rebels to win.

They will win? Defeatism...

[Blake 0]

Quote[/b] ]And while we're at it, Happy Birthday Laura Bush

Well great, congrats for her.

Please do remind us when 'the first twins' celebrate their birthday and bring along some nice photos

Quote[/b] ]They will win? Defeatism...

Hopefully not. And I believe they will not win in a way like taking over the entire country. But then again nobody would expect US to pull out of Vietnam in 1965.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]The US casualties are Bush's fault. He made the choice to go to war. The Iraqis are only acting in self-defence.

Not according to Moore... Another Moore quote....

Quote[/b] ]

There is a lot of talk amongst Bush's opponents that we should turn this war over to the United Nations. Why should the other countries of this world, countries who tried to talk us out of this folly, now have to clean up our mess? I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.

oops... He has no damn right posting their names because of this. They have a duty, according to Moore, to die to a certain point. So, if you are a american soldier who supported the war or your parents did (et al), you should DIE. Anyway, you probably find another excuse.

[shinRaiden 0]

And just how, might I ask, is Bush (or Kerry were he to have been elected) to 'unite' the country and 'unify' the divided peoples - who refuse on grounds of non-negotiatable principals to be united?

[shinRaiden 0]

Hmm, the Bush thought-police are already at work in Norway cracking down on dissent...

Quote[/b] ]

OSLO, Norway, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Norwegian police have shut down a satirical web site that called for the assassination of U.S. President George Bush, newspaper Aftenposten reported Thursday.

The U.S. embassy in Oslo filed charges against Norwegian rap trio Gatas Parlament because a website they ran urged people to finance the assassination of the president. The group has said the content was meant as satire.

"I think it is fairly obvious to everyone not working at the American embassy or in the police that this was not about killing anyone. The web site is a political campaign," said Aslak Borgersrud, of Gatas Parlament.

Police have removed the site's content and replaced it with a copy of the police fax explaining and authorizing the shutdown.

"The implicated will be called in for questioning in the near future," police lawyer Pal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said. He said the site was removed because it violated harassment laws. Convictions could carry fines or jail sentences of up to two years.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Hmm, the Bush thought-police are already at work in Norway cracking down on dissent...

WOOT.... I can some of the people on this forum questioned!!

[turms 0]

Spreading the freedom and democrasy to Norway

[shinRaiden 0]

So you want to know what you might had gotten if Kerry were elected? scoop on next Newsweek issue

Quote[/b] ]

# NEW YORK, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- When President Bush's poll numbers surged in April after a press conference where his performance was derided by the press and the chattering classes, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry was baffled, writes Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in an exclusive report in Newsweek's special election issue. "He said with a sigh to one top staffer, 'I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot.'"(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20041104/NYTH186 )

The November 15 issue "How He Did It" (on newsstands Thursday, November 4) includes an exclusive behind-the-scenes account of the entire presidential campaign reported by a separate Newsweek Special Project team that worked for more than a year on the extraordinary campaign. Highlights from the report:

The Clintonista "Coups." At several critical junctures Kerry's campaign (and the candidate himself), struggled to find sure footing. Following the missteps of August, Clinton veteran James Carville confronted Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, telling her she had to step aside and let newly arrived Joe Lockhart run the campaign. So worked up, Carville began to cry, imploring Cahill: "You've got to let him do it." Carville continued, "Nobody can gain power without someone losing power." Carville threatened to go on "Meet the Press" the next day "and tell the truth about how bad it is" if Cahill didn't give effective control to Lockhart.

The "Outlandish" McCain Offer. Kerry's courtship of Senator John McCain to be his running mate was longer-standing and more intense than previously reported. As far back as August 2003, Kerry had taken McCain to breakfast to sound him out to run on a unity ticket. McCain batted away the idea as not serious, but Kerry, after he wrapped up the nomination in March, went back after McCain a half-dozen more times. "To show just how sincere he was, he made an outlandish offer," Newsweek's Thomas reports. "If McCain said yes he would expand the role of vice president to include secretary of Defense and the overall control of foreign policy. McCain exclaimed, 'You're out of your mind. I don't even know if it's constitutional, and it certainly wouldn't sell.'" Kerry was thwarted and furious. "Why the f--- didn't he take it? After what the Bush people did to him...'"

"A Marathon Man." Kerry's intensity on the trail rarely, if ever, faded. Moments after delivering his victory speech after wrapping up his party's nomination on March 2, Kerry was back in his motorcade and on his cell phone. "Dad," asked his daughter Alexandra. "Will you please appreciate this moment for 10 seconds?" Newsweek reports, "He mumbled yes, yes, he was happy, it was good, and then went back to working the cell phone." It occurred to his daughter Vanessa that her father did not match the media's clichi of him being a fourth-quarter player, he was a marathon man. Writes Thomas, "Kerry liked to say that 'every day is extra' after Vietnam, but actually every day was like the day before, a relentless march toward his goal."

Kerry's drive to self-perfection was boundless-sometimes to a fault. In early spring he sought counsel from Washington speech coach Michael Sheehan. With aides he would sometimes say, "Tell me everything you think I'm doing wrong." When John Sasso arrived on the campaign in September he found a candidate who had turned himself into a pincushion. "Kerry had been inviting personal criticism from pretty much anyone who had an opinion...Kerry was drowning in negative energy from all around," Thomas writes. Sasso wanted it to stop. There was to be no more direct criticism of the candidate, period. And Teresa and the daughters were not exempt, Newsweek reports.

Additional exclusive news reported in Newsweek's Special Election Issue:

Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that."

Kerry Anger Over Swift Boat Ads. By August, the attack of the Swift Boat veterans was getting to Kerry. He called adviser Tad Devine, who was prepping to appear on "Meet The Press" the next day: "It's a pack of f---ing lies, what they're saying about me," he fairly shouted over the phone. Kerry blamed his advisers for his predicament. (Cahill and Shrum argued responding to the ads would only dignify them.) He had wanted to fight back; they had counseled caution. Even Kerry's ex-wife, Julia Thorne, was very upset about the ads, she told daughter Vanessa. She could remember how Kerry had suffered in Vietnam; she had seen the scars on his body, heard him cry out at night in his nightmares. She was so agitated about the unfairness of the Swift Boat assault that she told Vanessa she was ready to break her silence, to speak out and personally answer the Swift Boat charges. She changed her mind only when she was reassured that the campaign was about to start fighting back hard.

Managing Teresa. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, presented a host of behind-the-scenes drama for Kerry. Early on, the campaign staff regarded Teresa as something of a hypochondriac, and she canceled three trips in October at the last minute, usually for what was described to aides as a "nonspecific malady." Kerry's first campaign manager, James Jordan, had little patience for her strong opinions, sending emails trashing the candidate's wife...which inevitably reached his rivals within the campaign, including Bob Shrum (an old Teresa friend) and helped seal Jordan's eventual dismissal.

Later came Kerry campaign's post-convention "Sea to Shining Sea" tour: a 3,500-mile bus and train trek that was not a happy trip for Teresa. With each passing day she made less effort to hide her displeasure. Audiences were mystified when Teresa turned her back to them at daylight rallies and wore dark sunglasses and a hat at night (backstage, the candidate's wife complained of migraines and sore eyes). As they reached the climax of the tour, an hourlong "family vacation" hike in the Grand Canyon, the planned happy-family- vacation was disintegrating in plain view. Daughter Vanessa didn't enjoy being a prop, Teresa was complaining of migraines and telling her husband she couldn't walk anymore. The candidate tried to bravely soldier on, pulling his sullen wife and children to show them the magnificent condors flying overhead.

Edwards Campaigns for Veep. Hours after bowing out of the presidential nomination race on March 3, the senator from North Carolina convened a small circle of his closest advisers at his house on P Street in Georgetown. He wanted the veep nomination, Edwards told his aides, he wanted it badly, and from that moment was going to wage "a full-fledged campaign" to ensure that he got it.

Shades of Dukakis. In early August, when the Swift Boat story started to pick up steam on the talk shows, Susan Estrich, a California law professor, well-known liberal talking head and onetime campaign manager for Michael Dukakis, had called the Kerry campaign for marching orders. She had been booked on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" to talk about the Swift Boat ads. What are the talking points? Estrich asked the Kerry campaign. There are none, she was told. Estrich was startled. She had seen this bad movie before.

Newsweek's 2004 Special Election Issue marks the magazine's sixth consecutive installment of providing a behind-the-scenes account of the entire presidential campaign. The 50,000-word inside story was written by Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and edited by Special Projects Director Alexis Gelber. The project's correspondents are: Jonathan Darman (with Kerry), Kevin Peraino (with Bush) and Contributing Editors Eleanor Clift and Peter Goldman.

Report through MSNBC

Quote[/b] ]

Bush had the advantage of being a better natural campaigner than Kerry, who never did learn how to deliver a speech. Campaigning ground Kerry down; he seemed to labor under the weight of expectation. But Bush was worn by war and burdened by the terrible weight of the terrorist threat—and that was before he began stumping for re-election. Both men had deep reserves of grit and ambition. The ugly race did not necessarily reflect the character of the candidates. Both have a sense of honor, even if their better sides were sometimes hidden. In the end it was Kerry who had to find the moral fortitude to accept reality—and abandon a dream he had begun nurturing in high school.

Campaigning for the presidency is grueling beyond all imagining. It takes an extraordinary person to withstand the grind, the abuse or the pressure. Kerry and Bush, for all their human flaws and foibles, are not ordinary men. They are driven—by patriotism, duty, vanity, vision and, in this election, a lifelong disdain for each other. Each man saw in the other a world view he utterly rejected. Their personal differences, writ large, became the choice on Election Day, 2004.

And so with the populace. Each camp sees in the other a world view each utterly rejects on non-negoiatable points.

[denoir 0]

Immigration web site flooded with queries from U.S. anti-Bush visitors [Canada East]

Quote[/b] ]

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's immigration website is being flooded with a record-smashing number of visits from U.S. Democrats dismayed by the prospect of four more years living under President George W. Bush. His re-election has some long-faced U.S. liberals apparently musing that perhaps Canada's cold winters, high taxes and strained health system are more easily endured than their commander-in-chief. A new record was set within hours of Bush's acceptance speech as six times more Americans than usual surfed the site Wednesday. The overall number of 179,000 visitors was almost twice the previous one-day record set last year and a whopping 64 per cent of visitors - 115,016 - were from the United States.

Many were doing more than just casual surfing, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration suggested Thursday.

"The most-visited pages . . . were the skilled worker online self-assessment pages (to check if) they'd meet the selection criteria," said Maria Iadinardi.

....

[shinRaiden 0]

Quote[/b] ]Posted: Nov. 04 2004,07:12 - placebo -

Well the election is now over, I can't really see much point in a thread about the election continuing, so unless something significant happens this thread will be closed at 9am CET tomorrow (just under 17 hours time)

Well, this thread will probably be getting locked any moment now. It's been a long four years, and it's anybody's guess what the next four years will bring. It's been really interesting to see the motivation and determination from both sides, as well as disheartening to see the severity of the disconnect between the two camps.

We could continue to debate cause and effect, but I think that the arguments from both sides have been made clearly and resolutely. What is certain is that the world is facing a new and rising generation, and new challenges to old problems.

Thank you especially to the mods for their frazzled nerves in trying to keep this ruckus in order. As Hellfish6 said so well,

Quote[/b] ]If you guys don't take a serious dose of intellectual Valium right now, this thread is getting locked until further notice and I'm gonna start handing out PRs. ( - pg. 268)

Despite wild accusations of mod bias, both sides were still able to pimp the the most partisan schtick to the other's delight. Thanks.

Anyway, I hope each side was better able to understand where the other was coming from. I still may not agree with the anti-Bush crowd any more than I previously did, but I think I better understand where you guys are coming from. I hope that in turn you guys were better able to understand the values and principles and vision of America that we conservatives base our words and actions on.

So for now, God bless the whole world (including America and the Swedes and the French and the Germans and the Dutch and the Belgian and all those other nations glorified and vilified in the campaigns), God bless George Bush, and good night.

[whisperFFW06 0]

Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the less I understand it.

The guy who lied to his people, made a huge campaign based on wrong facts to put fear into hearts of Americans and members of UN for his own agenda, never listened to people trying to show what was happening (remember Hans Blix and the huge denial campaign against him?), the guy that can't admit he did even a slightest thing wrong, this guy is elected for is moral values? If this is america moral values, it makes me puke.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Bush got voted in on making America Safe is all.

Kind Regards Walker

[CounterForce 0]

Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the less I understand it.

The guy who lied to his people, made a huge campaign based on wrong facts to put fear into hearts of Americans and members of UN for his own agenda, never listened to people trying to show what was happening (remember Hans Blix and the huge denial campaign against him?), the guy that can't admit he did even a slightest thing wrong, this guy is elected for is moral values? If this is america moral values, it makes me puke.

first: A lot of people, even the German BND (intelligence service) did say that Saddam may have weapons of mass destruction and if not he was surely trying to get some. It was said that Saddam has mobile labs etc.

Still today it is not sure if he really had none.

So I don't think Bush was liying. I think he believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. And a lot of others did think so.

I think Bush did not the slightest thing wrong (perhaps the plan for after war Iraq was too optimistic, but who was really able to say what would happen after the war?) so what should he admit?

Furthermore he was elected not only for moral values.

And those who elected im for moral values did so because of his faith and his position on homosexual marriage, abortion etc.

And because they had reasons to believe he was better for the USA.

puke if you want

But remember that those who voted Bush had their reasons

Even if you don't know this reasons, or can#t understand these.

[Placebo 29]

Well you got two hours extra, once I've caught up if there is need I'll post further comment, if not see you all back here in four years