jpfitness has it right.
Brian I’m sure you can google to find answers to what your asking. the dem candidates did reply to what should have been done regarding foreign policy.
Maybe your reading too much Friedman and whomever else who continues the faulty argument that Dems are inherently weak on foreign policy.
kuri,
Why would anyone in their right minds think that the democrats are weak on defense? Look at how President Clinton reacted when the USS Cole was bombed, and when the United Nations was bombed. He showed those terrorists that if you were going to attack the US you better be ready to pay the price!
Oh wait a minute…he did nothing…okay never mind…I guess the democrats were sort of weak on defense there.
Some would aregue that if Clinton did not have his head up his ass, (or is it his Penis in an aids mouth?) and would have acted in the best interest of the country at the time of these two tragedies there would have been no 9/11. Of course we will never know. But, we do know he did nothing at the time commander and chief!)
“Bush may say something he regrets…”
Ya think? What are the odds? I mean, over three years in office and the man is as calculated, informed, and prepared as any politician in history. He’s never said anything remotely stupid.
I hope Kerry runs a series of ads highlighting some of the purely dumb shit GWB has done and said since in office. It would be very entertaining, and perhaps even effective.
Give back what you stole G-Dub!
Zeb,
These terrorist attacks are not as easily responded to as you may like. Terrorist groups with only blanketed ties to a country (or a bunch of countries) is a relatively new phenomenon, I think, and leaves a difficult question of who to blame.
Approaching a matter like the USS Cole bombing or 9/11 with caution and care is necessary. I think the Bush team responded by aimlessly and unsuccessfully bombing Afghanistan to show the people who had only a gut/emotional reaction to 9/11 that they were on the job, doing something about it. It got them and us no where.
While beginning to catch flack about their failure to find Osama, attention was quickly switched to Iraq. Where did this come from? Completely out of the woodwork. The Bush admin. took the cause of “rooting out evil” as an opportunity to move in on Iraq and persue special interests. WMD’s was the sales pitch, and we were had.
I’d vote Kucinich if he had a prayer, but he doesn’t. Dean was a guy who stood for what he felt, but got screwed by the media for showing too much spirit while rallying his supporters. Edwards and Kerry looked very similar, but Kerry it is and it is Kerry who I’ll support.
Kuri, Googling won’t get these answers, but here are some questions for a well-read person such as yourself:
Often a Google seach will turn up that a notable Democrat’s policy on Haiti or North Korea or Pakistan is only a SMIDGEON different from President Bush’s.
It’s not just Friedman’s recent editorial addressed to John Kerry, it was Hitchens’ piece, and especially George Packer’s recent article in the New Yorker about how the Democrats have no coherent foreign policy right now. They’re all liberals and they’re all very concerned.
One VERY REALISTIC SCENARIO that costs Bush the election:
Terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, or at the door of any number of our embassies around the world, stage a mass attack in October and cause many American casualties in order to deliberately influence the election.
Brian Smith,
Sorry that won’t do it! In a time of cisis Americans rally around their President. Keep thinking.
RightSideup,
Yes, I agree terrorist attacks are fairly new. They were new when they were happening to us in the 90’s, during Clintons watch. He could have sniffed them out just as President Bush has done!
Yes, President Bush did find a boat load of terrorists in Afghanistan. Osma himsef was the vritual leader of the country, as the Taliban would not give him up, even under the threat of US attack. Do you think the US would be better off if Binladen was still running his terrorist network out of Afghanistan? Think again!
As far as your support for Kerry goes. The democrats lost the election the day he won the nomination! I have stated this in at least three different threads. You will read these words again and again from me. Kerry will not defeat Bush. At best it is a 52% to 48% defeat for Kerry. At worst it is a 56% to 44% defeat for the horse faced Senator. (that is not my prediction. I’ll save that).
There are to many things against him. Not the least of which is that he is an eastern liberal. The second is that he is a senator! When was the last time an eastern liberal Senator was elected President? Don’t say John Kennedy, he was a moderate (cuban missle crisis-defense budget-taxes etc).
There have been no eastern liberal Senators elected to the Presidency in modern times (or perhaps ever)! Now think about how many republican presidents have won re-election. Out of the last four republican elected presidents three were re-elected! Guess what else? All were landslides!
I suggest that you do not try to hard for Kerry (keep your money in your pocket), that will only make you more depressed on election day.
C’mon dems. This is the best you have? Talk about playing to emotions.
I am reading this just laughing my ass off. Give what ya stole back G dub?!?
It’s called the electoral college, get over it already…oh wait, I know, it’s archaic and shouldn’t be a factor…heh…we all know we would be much better off right now with Sore/Loserman in office with their sidekick Madeline AlAcademic and no practical experience.
God help us…yeah, I said God!
You guys are like a bunch of little women arguing over the last piece of turtle cheese cake.
Give it a rest and join Il Spazzo in Canada. Will ya?
Don’t have time now to argue ad hominem on what Kerry might or might not do, but he does have 20 some years of experience in foreign policy matters.
Bush had ZERO experience. Furthermore he self-admittedly had little interest in policy nor knowledge of the world until 9/11 (and still shows no sign of).
link to a Kerry speech on foreign policy at GW Univ: Umbrella Page for the Democracy in Action Websites on Presidential Campaigns: Linking to P2000.us, P2004.org, P2008.org, P2012.org, P2016.org, P2020.us and Campaign Literature Archive
Kuri, I think you’ve dodged my questions and my points. (Also, Bush did not admit he had no interest in the world. That’s an inference.) The point is not that Kerry won’t give answers to certain FP questions. On some of the individual questions, I’ve mentioned, Kerry has been characteristically obscure and noncomittal. “A coherent and formidable foreign policy” in Kerry’s case means we get to see how Kerry’s general approach will compare to President Bush’s, and whether this will help put our enemies at a disadvantage.
In an upcoming thread, I’d love to hear you answer the questions I’ve posed to you. We’ll return to them.
And Kuri, you say you “don’t have time to argue ad hominem”…what is this foolishness?
Do you mean to say that my POLICY questions concerned with Kerry and Democrats were “ad hominem”? (I don’t believe you’re that stupid. Do you think we are?) Or are you saying that the argument you would like to engage in about the candidates will be
“ad hominem”? (a peculiar admission, and an insult in that you’re saying you’ll just be wasting our time)
Here’s an “ad hominem” tidbit for you to digest. Kerry voted against the '91 Gulf War and accused Bush Sr.'s coalition as being a “sham.” He voted for against the 87 Billion and accused Bush Jr.'s coalition as not being a genuine coalition as his father’s was in 1991. Of all the Senators who have been voting on foreign policy for 20 years, Kerry will have to do the most to make it clear to us what direction he would be going as President.
Kerry’s ads are helluva lot better than Bush’s. Kerry blows. I voted Kucinich on principle. I’ll vote Nader if he runs. I do live in Texas and my vote counts for nothing being a democrat and all.
Kerry is not even a real Democrat. Have any of y’all heard any of his debates? He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. How dare you call him a liberal. What an insult.
boo
Kerry’s starting to try to articulate his foreign policy.
NOW he says he would have sent troops in to back Haiti (with or without the UN is not clear; it seems without), but during the last two Democratic debates he didn’t say anything about that inclination. A strange omission for such a clear policy difference from President Bush on a matter Kerry waxes so gravitously about: war.
The rest of the article it’s harder to make out his opinions. He talks about leaving a “viable and stable” Iraq, but not about helping sew the seeds of democracy there.
Brian,
I think he should just stomp his foot on the floor and whinny. After a while we would know what he means.
ZEB, that IS ad hominem.
Zeb,
–President Bush has sniffed out terrorist attacks? Interesting, I don’t feel safe and I don’t put it past terrorists to undermine our “Homeland Defense.”
Tell me, do you feel comfortable with the Bush-Bin Laden relationship of the 80’s?
–I don’t care WHERE Bin Laden operates his terrorist network from, I care that he still is operating it. And he is…unless, our troops caught the man and we’re waiting for his October unveiling (watch THIS statement become the one everyone turns their attention to on this thread!)
–We’ll see who wins the election. Politics is nothing more than a game, so I don’t know why we’d argue over that. I do know that resources count for much in a political race, and Bush has them all beat, by far. (No, special interests don’t mean ANYTHING to your good ol’ boy.) In the ad war, I think if Kerry runs some “Bush Bloopers” and a clips of Bush/Cheney/Powell promising the American people WMD’s, he’ll be fine.
–As for your statistical predictions, I don’t get 'em.
–I don’t know why the fact that Kerry is an eastern liberal Senator is a strike against him. All candidates have different profiles. Hell, no former baseball team-owning oil tycoons won the presidency until GWB. Oh, wait, his poppa did.
–Thanks for your suggestion, but if by trying hard you mean casting a vote for him, then I’ll try my hardest.
This ain’t England, and GWB ain’t royalty.
Right Side Up
Kerry is a disaster waiting to happen. He cant attack the president on anything. His war past/foreign policy is shady at best. He can claim that the president is in corporate pockets, but he has taken more money than anyone. He can attack the president on the economy, but that will only work by pulling the sheet over the heads of citizens who dont know shit about economics etc. Added to that the fact that he has the personality of a loose shit, well, he has a slim chance of winning.
He can’t attack the president on anything? Are you kidding?
–At least Kerry has experience with domestic/foreign affairs. Tell me, what was the extent of Bush’s foreign policy experience before taking office? I believe it can be relegated to coffee table talks with his pop.
–See “The Buying of the Presidency” 2004, where the top 10 contributors to each of the nominees’ (the full Dem. list too) campaigns can be found. Kerry may be bad, Bush is far worse.
–I don’t know shit about economics, but I do know this–neither does our president. He has a staff that does the job. If ignorance is a topic for discussion, it is one that can easily be directed at GWB. He’s dumb.
–Fortune magazine has a nice little article on the surplus to deficit route GWB’s admin has taken us on. There’s a chart in there that clearly shows that Clinton–the Rhodes scholar–turned the deficit into a $200 billion surplus over the course of his eight year presidency, while the reverse has occured from the moment GWB took office. We now face the worst deficit in history–$500 billion.
–And to speak of Kerry’s personality as though GWB has one is a joke! I can’t imagine anyone appreciating his beady-eyed State of the Union addresses or press conferences in which he speaks to reporters like they’re 8 years old (because he reiterates the issues as he understands them -uh, not very well - from his briefings).
GWB has plenty to be attacked on. I just hope Kerry does it and that the media helps.
Clinton should be booted for a BJ? Davis ousted because he created a deficit and failed to create jobs? GWB lost the pop. election and still sits in office? Fuck re-election, I’m saying recall!!!
Yeah, Clinton single handedly created budget surpluses. It had nothing to do with an internet stock bubble that was turning millions of people rich and geterating jobs and tens if not hundreds of billions a year in taxes on capital gains.
The Nasdaq started its burst in March of 2000…more than six months before Bush was elected. Something like 6 trillion in wealth evaporated within the next 2 years. So yeah, that’s Bushs’ fault too. If Clinton were still here the Nasdaq would be at 20,000 and everyone would be a millionaire! Doesn’t the word “bubble” imply that it’s artificial? Is it Bushs’ fault that it burst, even though it did so before he was elected?
Co-incidentally the recesssion started in Spring of 2000…more than six months before Bush was elected and almost a year before he took office. Then there was this thing called 9/11 about 8 months after taking office.
So yeah, the surpluses to deficits via recession and 9/11 are all Bushs’ fault.
Bush, if he were a good president, would have stopped the recession from starting. Even though he wasn’t yet president.
Even moreso, Kerry will likely outlaw recessions and we will never have another. If a recession does show up, Kerry will accuse it of “questioning his patriotism” and scare it away.
Presidents micro-manage every aspect of an economy and are responsible for every job created, lost, every car made, every railcar, every book, everything. We have a command and control economy, just like the old Soviet Union, so it’s all Bush’ fault.
How about the mysterious Bush-bin Laden connection? Some companies Bush was affiliated with had dealings with bin Ladin!! Which basically means that Bush not only knew about 9/11 but it was probably his idea. This is countered by the fact that:
a) it was not Osama bin Ladin but a brother.
b) OBL has something like 30 or 40 different brothers. Polygamy is common in Saudi Arabia.
c) Saudi Arabia is big into oil production and at one time that was a business GW (as well as his father) tried to develop.
d) OBL by that time had been pretty much abandoned by his family
So I’m not sure that you could prove from the above that Bush planned 9/11 and is thus a treasonous murderer…but I’m sure that wouldn’t stop random democrats from asserting such anyway.