It sure is a shame that Kerry likes to base his decisions on information, unlike Bush, who bases his on blind ideology. Information keeps changing, while Bush's adopted ideology hasn't changed in thousands of years. Who knows what Kerry might do to fight a versatile and adaptable enemy? You can count on Bush to simply use brute force and trust that God is on his side, whether it works or not.

Jeez, Simon, we all know what Kerry would do to fight a versatile and adaptive enemy.

Nothing. In accordance with his history of appeasement and moral cowardice. But what do you care, so long as he isn't Bush, right?

Don't even poretend that Kerry is a deep thinker. Just come out and say you hate Bush and that's fine. You sound like an old school southern bigot trying to justify his racism without using the "n-word."

Which means don't try bullshitting us into thinking you're serious about our security and safety if you supporot Kerry.

i see, steve, that facts don't matter to you as well. since bush has taken office, security and safety have decreased, not increased. but again, facts don't matter. rhetoric/theatre are all that operates to inform bush supporters.

were are the facts which support your arguments. keep the rhetoric for yourself.

Dinesh, that's fucking it. No bullshit about "facts" from leftie liars who have spent the past four years sliming Bush, sliming America, wanting to slime the troops but instead mumbling insincere "support the troops" mantras, and who immediately meet any disagreement with claims of corruption, stupidity, and evil.

Don't come here citing "facts" when every single one of your talking points has been blown out of the water by them. If you had the facts you wouldn't need to invent them, parroting falsehood from Joe Wilson and Richard Clark, forging documents, spreading scare stories based on internet hoaxes, gleefully repeatring sneering inuendo from the likes of Terry MacAuliffe and Joe Lockhart and chanting endlessly that your opponents are stupid and evil just because you can't argue an issue on merits.

No more of your made up, alluded-to-but-never presented "facts." You and your ilk are morally and intelectually naked, and I'm done listening politely to your abuse. Stop bothering the adults, we don't have time for your silliness.

Way to go, Steve! I have not seen an argument so well supported by evidence, logic, and reason since, well, I don't know when. It is the power of arguments such as yours that defines the Bush campaign.

For the record, I do not hate George W. Bush. I believe that Bush is doing the best he can to support America. I believe that Bush believes in God to such an extent that he believes that he (George), as God's designated president, does not need to bother with analyzing the world of facts, evidence, and reality. Instead, he believes that he is channeling the power of the Almighty to create reality through his actions, and thus has no need to inquire into facts and evidence. From this perspective, George is doing the Lord's work, bringing about the biblical prophesy of Armageddon and leading to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Since I have not accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior, I do not want to bring the world closer to Armageddon. I believe, instead, in making rational decisions based on evidence that will lead to the people of the world sharing more evenly in the fruits of the Earth and growing more tolerant of the other people in the world.

In other words, I'd like to see the world move toward peace by reducing the animosity among people, rather than move the world to peace through increasing the animosity to such a pitch that they all fight to the death until there is peace only because there is no one left to fight. I believe America will be strongest when the rest of the world is on our side and weakest when we go it alone.

Thus I am diammetrically opposed to George W. Bush and reasonably well-aligned with John Kerry.

Mr. Shark has show signs that he, too, prefers action based on evidence, fact, reason, and logic, so I was surprised to see him support criticism of Kerry for doing the same. Of course, Mr. Shark has shown signs of perfering a course of action based purely on personal dogma, too, but until this post I'd thought that was simply an occasional, unconscious lapse.

The fact is, Simon, that your side is morally bankrupt, having committed to doing or saying anything it took to take and hold power. Snarking about "reason" and evidence" while buttressing your argument, for the past four years, on lies and personal attacks, is nothing but hypicritical smoke and mirrors.

After all this time of gritting my teeth I'm done with just ignoring it, so I call bullshit on the entire rotten edifice.

American liberalism has been subverted by cowards and traitor (perhaps not in the traditional sense, but traitors to Constitutional values and ideal). I care not a whit for your cynical agnosticsm or atheism or whatever it is, and I have nowhere injected any spiritual or religious opinions I may hold into debate (quick question: what's my religious preference?). So your sneering remarks about faith ring hollow, unless taken to be your major objection to Bush. Armageddon? Yeah, right. You claim not to use religious arguments, expressing a desire to use reason and logic, from which no doubt springs your brilliantly constructed predictions of Armageddon.

Well, tough shit. My days of being civil to those who accuse me of heartlessness, evil, and stupidity because I disagree with them is at an end. Continue to peddle the crap about how stupid everyone is, and be prepared to be lonely in that echo chamber where everyone agrees with you. Keep yourself directed down the Paulien Kael road - you know, the one that ends with "But Nixon couldn't have won! Nobody I know voted for him!"

After the election, whomever wins, are you prepared to live side by side with all the stupid and venal people in this country? Or do you intend to smugly congratulate yourself that at least you aren't like them?

Personally, I don't give a hoot. I'm going back to my job, where nobody cares who you vote for and everybody knows you by your professional reputation. These interludes in America the Censurious are simply brief periods of leave for me. You have to live with your sanctimoniousness forever.

steve:

FACTS: NO WMD. NO ACCOUNTABLITY. INADEQUTE TROOPS IN IRAQ. HIGHER DEFICITS. GROWTH IN SIZE AND SPENDING IN FEDERAL GOVT. DIVISIVE, UNNECESSARY EXPANSTIONIST VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION.

Where are the WMD? What other facts have "blown this talking point out of the water"? What part of Bremer's 'private' speech can be misunderstood regarding inadequacy of troop levels? What part of "no spending plan vetoed" is contravened by other facts? What part of the FMA is consistent with an "original intent"/strict constructionist view of the Constitution?

You believe b/c you want to believe. Quit your posturing. Go read your like-minded thinkers and surround yourself in the comfort of your own thoughts. Suggesting that people who disagree with you are morally bankrupt demonstrates the compromised nature of your judgement and critical thinking skills. Clearly you use words and phrases, the full meaning of which you don't understand. Not unlike your chosen candidate. Suggesting that you are and an adult who should be left alone leads me to say: CHANGE THE CHANNEL. You are overconfident in your (mis) estimation of world around you.

Shark's constant sniping at the Kerry is fun reading, b/c it reminds me that Bush supporters, after 4 years of the Executive, Legislative (and increasing the Judiciary) have nothing other than half-baked, first draft-type criticisms to make against Kerry, but precious little to hold up from the Bush experiement.

Finally, your paranoia has become self evident, or statements like "sliming america" and "not serious about safety and security" are clearly another example of your inability to effectively articulate your thoughts. To suggest that a person's support of Kerry is akin to voting for the destruction of the U.S. is childish demagoguery or just a facile argument lifted from some bush stump speech. Of all people to invoke a segregationists attempts, you are one of few people who have resorted to name calling and character judgments on this blog comment.

Are you able to consider for a moment that standing up in front of the world, declaring that saddam's wmd pose a 'grave and gathering danger', launching a war, occupying a country, losing 1000+ lives and counting ONLY TO FIND NO WMD DOES NOT MAKE US SAFER OR MORE SECURE AND IMPAIRS OUR HARD EARNED RIGHT TO BE THE MORAL AND POLITICAL LEADER OF THIS WORLD?

I doubt it. And, please don't swear. If swearing is allowed, then I'll quote the DICK and say "Go ...." No, on second thought, I'd rather not.

Well, I don't really have time to rebut every single factual inaccuracy in that last post by Dinesh, but I'll pick one or two just to make the point.

What he tends to do, I have noticed, is throw out a generalization that is based upon a piece of data, but a piece of data that is so far removed from its context as to be meaningless. Well not meaningless, actually, but meaning exactly the opposite of actual reality, which is worse.

Two examples:

First, no WMD. While it is true that we have not found large stockpiles of WMD, several additional pieces of information are required to put that in context. First, that during the delayed runup to the war, large shipments of...stuff were tracked going into Syria. Since one of the major points of Secretary Powell's presentation to the U.N. was that many of the biological weapons labs were mobile, it is extremely likely that they were in fact shipped to Syria. Even then, we FOUND one of the labs in Iraq (must have run out of gas). It matched Powell's description to a tee. However, it had been scrubbed with a caustic chemical inside and out so that no traces of bioweapons material could be found. And can you think of any other reason why a perfectly innocent truck should be scrubbed inside and out with a caustic chemical? Of all the trucks in all of Iraq, this was the only one that had been so treated.

But that's only the first part of the context. It gets better. The fact is that most of the Duelfer report actually dealt with the fact that Saddam did maintain WMD programs and capabilities, and was only waiting for the inspections and sanctions to end in order to rebuild his WMD stockpiles to former (and better) levels. And he had every reason to believe that he would live to see that day, since the OTHER major conclusion of the Duelfer report is that the oil-for-food program was being used as a gigantic slush fund to bribe France and Russia (among others) to block U.S. action in the U.N. and undermine the sanctions regime.

So even though the mini-fact (no WMD) is almost true, the meta-context is that the programs were intact (i.e. 12 years of inspections had failed), plans were in place to resume production, and the containment regime was collapsing due to corruption. Thus even on this point, Bush was right to intervene IF YOU CONSIDER ALL THE FACTS.

Even there, however, that's not the whole story. There were other reasons advanced for intervention in Iraq, all of which proved to be true. Saddam was not cooperating with inspectors (true, and a violation of the 1991 cease-fire). Saddam was diverting oil-for food money to palaces and other programs, allowing his people to starve (true). Saddam was a long-term threat to the region (from the evidence regarding his weapons programs, definitely true). Saddam was collaborating with terrorists (true..al Zarqawi was in-country, Abu Nidal was there, there were al-Qaeda camps in NE Iraq, there were links to Palestinian terrorists, etc. etc.).

Okay, enough for point number one.

Now, for example number two. The "factlet" is tossed out that Paul Bremer said we do not have enough troops in Iraq. Again, this is an out-of-context citation used to make exactly the opposite point from what he has actually been saying. The proof? He himself said so. The line you quote references the specific period immediately after the fall of Baghdad, and is mostly concerned with the fact that the 4th Infantry Division, which was supposed to be there (coming down from Turkey) had to be re-routed through Kuwait at the last minute and thus wasn't available in Baghdad at the time. The very next day Bremer noted the misquote, and commented again that he feels we DO have enough troops in Iraq at the present time. He also noted that the issue of troop levels (need for additional security vs. too heavy a hand in Iraq) was something on which honest people could disagree, trying to take it off the table as a "gotcha!" political shot by certain partisans (and you know who you are).

Whew. I really don't have time to do this every day, but I think the point has been made. I will just note the basic injustice that it only takes twenty words or so to mouth a slogan and misrepresent the truth, but it takes a lot of work to clarify the situation again.

The sad thing, of course, is that like a game of whack-a-mole, the distortion will pop up again the next time an opportunity presents itself, just as if this thorough de-bunking had never been made.

Oh, well.

ht. please provide the context for this quote from colin powell, spoken in February, 2001:

"We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue."

Look, you guys want to blame the intelligence community for the failure to find wmd. fine. but your "context" starts to sound like excuses pretty quick.

bush is a man of few words. he said "grave and gathering danger". he (or condi) invoked the "mushroom cloud". tony blair, who used similar rhetoric, offered a qualified apology for the situation.

of course, in all of this, no single high-ranking individual seems to have suffered any consequences. condi? nope. fbi director? nope. cia? nope, he retired with 'honor' or some such statement. there is a pattern here. its called LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY.

and while i agree that i presented these facts rather simply and starkly, and that additional explantion could be provided (as you attempted to do), usually that explantation comes with some bias. but there is no getting around the fact that the president led this nation to war on a pretext that proved not to be accurate.

for that single fact alone, i believe he should be held accountable in this next election.

ht: you write that "Saddam did maintain WMD programs and capabilities, and was only waiting for the inspections and sanctions to end in order to rebuild his WMD stockpiles to former (and better) levels".

this is a half truth. the summary of the dulfer report (i've not read, nor do i intend to read, the whole thing) states that:

"Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities."

This report states flatly, similar to powell's statment in Feb, 2001 that saddam's wmd capability was essentially destroyed in 1991.

Thus you conflate ability/capability with intent, as did the president (as reflect in the quotes below). Perhaps intent was sufficient to justify the military action, but that was not what was presented to us. Instead we were told of saddam's ability/capability, not his intent.

Here are bush's statements prior to the war:

Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

United Nations address, September 12, 2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

Radio address, October 5, 2002

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."

"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."

"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

Cincinnati, Ohio speech, October 7, 2002

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

Address to the nation, March 17, 2003

Hmmmm, HT, an argument based on carefully connected data, which matches observable conditions. Where do you come off, bringing that stuff in here?

There's an old legal saw, "If you don't have the law, argue the facts, if you don't have the facts, argue the law." I've always suspected there was a third part which the lawyers kept from the general populace: "... and if you have neither, lie your ass off."

What does it say about your position, dinesh, when you have to support it by taking some facts out of context, misrepresenting others, and finally inventing others? The left is not arguing in god faith, and hasn't for years to the point where they now believe they are bulletproof. They have essentially said, on many occasions, that they hew to some higher truth not dependent on factual verification. Or, to paraphrash Dan Rather, "Just because we're lying is no reason to disbelieve us."

My hat's off to HT for taking the time to address you as if you were a resonable adult. My own level of patience is obviously much lower. I no longer have any tolerance for the dishonesty of your side. So if I speak out of frustration I am sure others (if not you) will understand where it comes from.

dinesh: please. I am not going to get drawn into a long discussion with you, because you have proven over and over again that you don't listen, distort reality to serve your preconceived notions, and pop right up again with the same mis-statements regardless of how many facts are presented to disprove your point. I have been reading you for a while, and I can certainly understand why others (specifically Steve in this thread) are driven to distraction by your obtuseness (or intellectual dishonesty, take your pick).

Having said that, here are two quick rebuttals to your most recent "versions of reality":

First, the Powell quote is from FEBRUARY 2001. He had only been Secretary of State for what, a month, and more importantly 9/11 HADN'T HAPPENED YET. That puts that quote in context quite sufficiently, I think.

But wait, there's more!!!

Even though this is clearly just polite diplomat-speak (the technical term is mumbo-jumbo) following some meeting, at the very end you can see from Powell's own words that Powell is setting up the conditions under which sanctions and containment would no longer be an acceptable policy.

ALL OF WHICH HAVE NOW BEEN PROVEN TO BE CORRECT BY THE DUELFER REPORT.

So much for #1.

Now, for your imitation of a whack-a-mole, that being your repeat of the line about "led this nation to war on a pretext that proved not to be accurate."

First, if you even read my darned post, you would see that according to the Duelfer report the pretexts cited by Bush proved to be pretty darned accurate. Including meeting the conditions outlined by Powell in YOUR OWN CHOSEN QUOTE.

Second, I note that you continue to repeat your false charges about Bush (in 20 words or less, of course) and even slip in the canard that I am biased, without ever responding to the fact that I am citing the actual definitive report which proves that Bush was correct in the vast, overwhelming substance of the case he made about Iraq prior to intervention.

But this is absolutely my last whack at the mole. I now officially relinquish the rubber mallet, and hope that someone else has time for a few rounds.

fine pass your so called mallet but i wished you would have addressed the distinction between capability/ability and intent. that seems to be the basis of the distortion of intelligence. no one doubts saddam was a bad man with evil intent. hanging so much on 9/11 is an ineffective argument.

you guys seem unable to accept one of the most important conclusions of the report: saddam's ability/capacity was destroyed in 1991 (consistent with powell's statement).

your statement that powell was on secty of state for 6 months is perhaps the most vapid argument ever. what does it mean...that you are not responsible for your comments until some date certain in your tenure? please.

i, too, am tired of this discussion. up is down. there is no right and wrong anymore, just spin.

ht writes:
So even though the mini-fact (no WMD) is almost true, the meta-context is that the programs were intact (i.e. 12 years of inspections had failed), plans were in place to resume production, and the containment regime was collapsing due to corruption. Thus even on this point, Bush was right to intervene IF YOU CONSIDER ALL THE FACTS.

If the programs were intact yet hadn't produced any WMDs in 12 years, I would say inspections and sanctions had worked. Knowledge (which most of what a "program" is) is very difficult to destroy. Inspections and sanctions were not designed to keep Saddam from knowing how to produce biological weapons, the were designed to keep Saddam from HAVING weapons. Bush said over and over that "either Saddam must disarm or the US wil disarm him." Well, Saddam had disarmed.

I believe the reason Bush didn't allow the inspectors to finish their job is that they would have said that Saddam had disarmed (i.e. did not possess actual WMDs, as every report since the invasion has stated) and Bush's people knew that. They also knew that with that report on the table, it would have been even tougher to rally support for invading Iraq. Bush thought it was more important to do what he thought was right than to do to will of the people of the Unites States of America, so he misled the people to gather their support.

There is a BIG distinction between "being right to intervene" and "being right about why we should intervene." If we lived in some sort of benign dictatorship, the difference would be unimportant. But we (supposedly) live in a democracy where a fully-informed populous is empowered to make the decisions, with our leaders chosed for the practical purpose of managing the myriad decisions that cannot each individually be put to the people. So the question of whether or not Bush led the country into war on false pretenses is the question of whether we can trust Bush to represent the will of the people. That matters to me.

Frankly, a lot of your arguments are of the "ends justify the means" variety. If a cop kills a criminal in a confrontation because he thinks the criminal is about to shoot him, only it turns out the criminal doesn't have a gun, I'm concerned about having that cop on the street even if the criminal was so evil he deserved to die. The founding vision of the USA is of a democracy where the power is held by the people, not the president. So it very much matters to me that Bush worked to give the US citizens and the world a false understanding of the facts on which to base a decision to go to war, even if (for the sake of argument) the decision to go to war was ultimately right.

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that Bush was right to invade Iraq, Bush didn't lie or mislead, and we were all gung ho to go into Iraq and get the job done. If that were all true, do you think Bush did a good job of waging the war?

He chastised, derided, and disavowed people who ultimately proved to be right about: the cost of the war, the necessary troop levels, the need to plan for security and reconstruction in post-war Iraq, and on and on. Compare the number of senior retired military leaders who said that Bush did a good job preparing and waging the war to the number who say he didn't. Compare the results on the ground with the results predicted and projected by Bush and his senior team.

Bush has completely bungled the war in Iraq by ignoring evidence and failing to plan for reasonably the foreseen posibilities that have turned into realities. Nothing of significance has happend in Iraq that wasn't predicted before the war, so Bush has no excuse for why he wasn't ready for it.

For this reason alone, Bush deserves to be replaced as commander in chief. I am fully confident that Kerry would have done a better job leading our troops into battle and will do a better job in finishing the job Bush has bungled.

I'm reminded of a magic trick. I ask you to tell me a number between one and ten. I then tell you where I've put a card with your number on it. You look where I said, and there's your number.

That's the problem with "predictions that came true". Every possible scenario was predicted.

The fact that one of them did does NOT mean that the nay-sayers were correct. The vast majority were wrong, and there's no reason to believe that Kerry would have picked the exception.

Note that Kerry talks a lot about plans, but doesn't actually have many (apart from his legal strategy wrt disputing election results).

Disagree? Feel free to point to Kerry's answers to the following questions wrt his "get the international community involved" rant.

(1) How many troops can the uninvolved provide? (The US currently has 125k troops in Iraq. The willing have 20-25k. Apart from China and maybe Russia, who can make a significant contribution?)

(2) What will Kerry give them to get them involved? (Note - they've said that they won't get involved, but the French can probably be bought.)

(3) What won't Kerry give them to get them involved?

(4) If they won't get involved, what will Kerry do?