[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Lastly, the Iowa futures market is showing a big Bush breakout as well:
[/quote]
Th latest Gallup poll seems to echo this as well - putting Bush ahead by 11 points.
[quote]Right Side Up wrote:
ZEB wrote:
“If by stiff and boring you mean intelligent and articulate, then yes, ZEB – you are correct sir!”
No, I don’t mean intelligent and articulate. I mean…um stiff…and let’s see…oh yes. Boring!
“If by folksy and down to earth you mean smug, cocky, and simple, then again, you are correct.”
Again you are wrong! This is a habit of yours. I mean folksy and down to earth. Something your candidate is not…Windsurfing? Whahaa.
“I believe you are completely off on the latter part of your statement. I think the average joe, even his typical supporter (the Bush supporters around here are anything but typical!), finds him squirmy, beady-eyed, untrustworthy, goofy, and personally unqualified.”
Yes, I’m sure that people find him squirmy, beady eyed and untrustworthy. That’s why the latest Gallup poll shows President Bush leading John Kerry by 14pts! Kerry should be so beady eyed!
"You are such a visionary. You should run for office yourself, ZEB, if this gym thing doesn’t workout for you…you could be the “40 pullup Candidate.”[/quote]
No, oh young one, I am not a visionary. I have just lived long enough to understand the dynamics of situations such as Presidential elections. Someday, twenty years, or so from now I hope that you can make the same claim. I am pulling for you!
RSU,
Please go to GeorgeBush.com and listen to Kerry explain his position on Iraq.
It’s crystal clear.
By the way, when W. wins, are you going to spend 2004-2008 sulking?
Thanks,
JeffR
I never thought there would come a day when I would see eye to eye with Pat Buchanan. I just hope you Bush guys take a good hard look at the people in the current administration and ask yourself if Treason is OK with you.
There is so much info out there to show this small group of neocons have no loyalty to the U.S. whatsoever. This is the same group who provided the phony intell to get us into Iraq.
Like Pat says, Bush should at the very least fire them. If he did that, I would probably actually vote for him. It’s just surprising to see the amount of people who don’t think it’s a big deal…spying is supposed to get you LIFE in prison.
Pollardites in the Pentagon?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
"In 1987, Jonathan Pollard, U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, was imprisoned for life for selling a roomful of U.S. secret documents to Israel. Tel Aviv refused to return them. At the Clinton-Netanyahu summit at Wye River, Pollard became a subject of contention.
“Bibi” Netanyahu wanted to fly the American traitor back to Israel where he is a hero. Clinton balked. CIA’s George Tenet would resign, Clinton told Netanyahu, if he pardoned Pollard.
This history is recalled for a reason. Washington today is rife with reports the FBI has been investigating whether or not a nest of Pollardites inside the Pentagon has been funneling secrets, through the Israeli lobby AIPAC, to the Reno Road embassy and on to Sharon.
According to The Washington Post, the FBI is now interviewing present and ex-officials from Cheney’s office and the Pentagon as to whether Feith, Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Paul Wolfowitz might have leaked U.S. security secrets to Israel, AIPAC or Ahmed Chalabi.
AIPAC and the Israelis deny any spying. Cooperation between the Bush and Sharon governments is so close, they insist, there is no need to commit espionage or thieve U.S. documents. Perhaps, but the men about whom the FBI is inquiring have old, deep and questionable ties to Israel and the Likud Party of Ariel Sharon.
In 1970, Perle was picked up on an FBI wiretap discussing NSC secrets with the Israeli embassy. In 1981, as assistant secretary of defense, Perle got a top-secret security clearance for his chosen deputy Stephen Bryen, who is said to have narrowly eluded indictment for offering top-secret documents to Mossad’s man in Washington.
In 1982, Feith was the object of an inquiry as to whether he had given secret documents to the Israeli embassy. Fired from the NSC, he was hired by Perle. Feith left the Pentagon in 1986 to form a law firm - in Israel. Hired by Rumsfeld in 2001, Feith set up the Office of Special Plans, which cherry-picked the intelligence to the White House that turned out to be false, but facilitated the war on Iraq.
In 1996, Perle, Feith and Wurmser co-authored a paper for Netanyahu calling for ditching Oslo, reoccupying the West Bank and overthrowing Saddam as “an important Israeli strategic objective.”
In 1998, Wolfowitz and Perle signed an open letter from the neoconservative front group PNAC to Clinton, urging him to ditch diplomacy and wage war on Iraq, and pledging their full support.
On Jan. 1, 2001, eight months before 9-11, Wurmser, at AEI, called for joint U.S.-Israeli air strikes on Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya.
According to White House anti-terror chief Richard Clarke, Wolfowitz, in April 2001, wanted Osama put on a back burner and for us to go after Iraq. In the first hours after 9-11, according to Bob Woodward and Clarke, Wolfowitz wanted Iraq invaded, not Afghanistan. For his role in steering us into war, Wolfowitz was named Man of the Year - by the Jerusalem Post.
“America needs a Middle East policy made in the USA, not in Tel Aviv, or at AIPAC or AEI.”
Having promised him a cakewalk to Baghdad and a rose garden thereafter, neoconservatives misled President Bush. He should have fired the lot of them. Having failed to do so, he ought now, in his own interests, as well as our nation’s, name Patrick “Bulldog” Fitzgerald, now heading up the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak, to head up the investigation of Israeli espionage, and possible treason, against the United States."
JeffR:
Don’t look now but I think he is already sulking!
[quote]ZEB wrote:
No, oh young one, I am not a visionary. I have just lived long enough to understand the dynamics of situations such as Presidential elections. Someday, twenty years, or so from now I hope that you can make the same claim. I am pulling for you!
[/quote]
ZEB, at what age will you begin to respect your children’s opinions? I’m sure they’ll appreciate that they must be in their 40s before they echo any thought that is worthy of your respect.
ZEB has children?
If so, he wants his kids to pay for his tax cut… the tax cut our government borrowed money from China to give him.
Just the Facts
Great article. Feith and Perle have been accused of spying before. Sadly, I doubt the rabid Bushies here even have a clue who these clowns are.
Don’t forget about the role that the con man Ahmed Chalabi played, in convincing Team Bush to attack Iraq, in order to try to seize power there for himself. Chalabi was one of the sources of phony WMD info, for which Team Bush paid him some 30 million dollars in taxpayer money. Chalabi took Bush and Cheney and US taxpayers for a sweet ride!
ZEB, at what age will you begin to respect your children’s opinions? I’m sure they’ll appreciate that they must be in their 40s before they echo any thought that is worthy of your respect.[/quote]
RSU:
Once again you have it all wrong! It’s not your age that bothers most of us. It’s how much arrogance is shown, and how wrong you are, at your age, that bothers most of us.
Many times I have given Lumpy, and some of the other more liberal posters credit for their insight and handle on the facts. Have you ever done the same for the more conservative posters?
You have been caught several times flat footed and out of facts. Remember your famous post about two term democrats vs two term republican Presidents? Go back and look at it if you can’t recall. Both myself and one other poster had to give you a history lesson. Did you acknowledge that you might have mispoken (mistyped)? Did you ever write “good point guys.” No! You ignored the thread. Something a “know it all” kid would do.
I respect my childrens opinions because I taught them at a very early age that they are not the center of the Universe, nor did they corner the market on knowledge. When they are wrong they admit it. When someone has a good point they acknowledge it. Most importantly they show respect for other people, even if they disagree with them. Every other word out of their mouth (or keyboard) is not a put down, or laced with sarcasm.
If you would like to conduct yourself like a man, the other posters on this forum, including myself, will treat you as such. I posted to you a while back that I think you are a bright individual. If you apply yourself I think you will someday succeed at whatever it is you want out of life, (and that’s my hope as well). However, until you show some maturity on this forum you are going to continue to be labeled as a “kid.”
Like I have posted on several occasions: I’m pulling for you!
[quote]Lumpy wrote:
ZEB has children?
If so, he wants his kids to pay for his tax cut… the tax cut our government borrowed money from China to give him.
Lumpy:
No, actually I want government waste to be reduced so that my taxes will go down even further! My hope is that President Bush will do this, and introduce a flat tax in his second term.
Also, I am not especially fond of having my kids someday pay the medical expenses for other people out of their hard earned money. Another reason to vot for President Bush.
The other Dems are getting worried about “negative coattails” from Kerry:
Democrats Reassess Prospects to Win House
As Kerry’s Momentum Lags, Hopes of Regaining Majority of Seats Dim, Analysts Say
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 19, 2004; Page A09
Democrats’ hopes of regaining the House majority this fall – never bright at best – appear increasingly dim, in part because of Sen. John F. Kerry’s lackluster campaign performance over the past six weeks, numerous analysts say.
In late July, as upbeat Democrats held their convention in Boston, party leaders said they had capable, well-financed House candidates poised in several states to exploit a nationwide trend that seemed just around the corner. “Democrats can win the House back if this breeze, this movement for a change, continues,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (Calif.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Since then, however, Republicans conducted a sharp-edged convention in New York, Kerry was slow to respond to attacks on his character and policies, and many of the Democrats’ most promising House challengers seemed frozen in place.
When the Massachusetts senator appeared to gain momentum entering and exiting the Boston convention, “the theory was it would all seep down to the House races,” said Amy Walter, who tracks House contests for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “But it hasn’t happened.” Among top Democrats, she said, “you just don’t hear that same level of enthusiasm you did a month ago.”
Democrats say there is still time for their nominees to catch fire in House campaigns, which typically start much later than presidential and Senate races. Even their biggest cheerleaders, however, acknowledge that the coveted midsummer breeze never came, and the clock is ticking down on a possible Democratic surge.
“It would be less than candid to say there was a great wind out there at this point in time. There is not,” House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters last week. But “I do expect it to develop in the next eight weeks.”
Many GOP leaders say that their House majority is safe, and that it might even expand on Nov. 2. They point to statistics suggesting that the Democratic goal is extremely difficult. Republicans control 229 House seats, while Democrats have 206 (including a friendly independent). With Democrats failing to contest a reconfigured Texas district they now hold, they will have to pick up 13 seats in November to gain a bare majority. (Two Democratic gains in special elections this year – in Kentucky and South Dakota – were offset when lawmakers elected as Democrats in Texas and Louisiana switched to the GOP.)
Analysts say there are fewer than 35 competitive House races this fall, with each party defending 15 to 17 at-risk seats. For Democrats to regain the majority they lost a decade ago, “they would have to win everything in the open seats and hold all their own,” said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the GOP’s House campaign committee. They do not need a breeze, he said, “they need a monsoon.”
The Democrats’ task is more daunting than Reynolds suggested. They could win all eight of the competitive open seats (Republicans now hold five of those), and reelect each of their endangered incumbents, and still fall well short of the majority. To control the House, Democrats must do all of that, plus topple several GOP incumbents.
Political insiders and local reporters do not see that happening – for now, at least – in part because there is no national mood remotely resembling the anti-Democratic fervor of the 1994 elections or the deeply anti-Republican sentiments that sprang from the Watergate scandal in 1974.
A prime target is first-term Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.), who won a three-way race in 2002 with less than 50 percent of the vote. Democrats crowed this year when they recruited Paul Babbitt, brother of former interior secretary Bruce Babbitt. But a new poll by the Social Research Laboratory of Northern Arizona University shows Renzi still leading Babbitt by 11 percentage points, virtually identical to an April poll’s findings. A new Babbitt campaign poll shows Renzi with a smaller lead, 41 percent to 34 percent.
Democrats are more hopeful in Kentucky, where a recent poll showed Tony Miller leading four-term Rep. Anne M. Northup (R). But GOP campaign spokesman Carl Forti said Northup is a proven political survivor, adding, “We’re not worried.”
Even if a Democratic breeze starts blowing, Republicans say they will stop in on the Texas plains.
Thanks to aggressive GOP-led redistricting there last year, five Democratic lawmakers from Texas are fighting for survival in districts redrawn to favor Republicans. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.), the plan’s chief engineer, told reporters last week that Republicans are ahead in all five of those races, an assertion Democrats dispute.
“We will gain seats in this election,” DeLay said.
Top Democrats including Hoyer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) are traveling to battleground districts to help their nominees raise money and attract voters. “We proved the pundits wrong when they said we could not win in Kentucky or South Dakota, and we’ll prove them wrong again if they say we can’t win the House,” Pelosi said last week. “We have the candidates. We have the issues. We are ready to go.”