View Single Post
Old 04-25-2005, 07:35 PM   #9 (permalink)
host
Banned
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by alansmithee
First, it's not non-partisan. Nothing is non-partisan.

And second, have you checked the respective qualifications of those who replaced the initial choices, or the credentials of the initial conference members? You must have, because you said that those Bush selected were less qualified. If not, you were just spouting a baseless opinion.

And as for my stance on affirmative action, I have made it clear in many threads that I support it in most cases. Although what affirmative action has to do with this situation I have no idea.



Couldn't have said it better myself.
Sorry alansmithee, your argument does nothing to address the damage to the perception of the Bush admin., and of Republicans. Perceptions are everything, especially when they are associated with people's pocketbooks and the economy.

The two companies mentioned in the lead article,
Quote:
<a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1053595,00.html">http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1053595,00.html</a>
The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party. Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from the White House."
<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=nok">Nokia</a> and <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=qcom">Qualcomm</a>, have combined market capitalization of $130 billion. That dollar figure represents an investor interest in the success, linked to maintaining a technical lead in a still emerging and cutting edge technology, of both of these companies.

I think that your apologist stance in the wake of poor and petty decision making of Bush admin. officials, is off the mark nearly as much as Bush and his people are on this one. The Nasdaq tech stock index has not recovered from it's 80 percent decline between March 2000, and March, 2003. This article appears in the new Time magazine. Is not the risk that Bush will be spun as unsupportive of leading tech companies and their shareholders, much greater than any future political support of a party that already owns the business lobby can hope to gain?

This is a juvenile and petty new practice on the part of this administration, and IMO, you work against your own reputation as a thoughtful participant on these threads by supporting this disenfranchisement and deliberate interference in the management decisions of these tech companies, since employees planning to attend this conference were, if not selected by their superiors, were certainly approved by them to spend the time and the money to represent the interests of the companies who they work for.

Last edited by host; 04-25-2005 at 07:46 PM..
host is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360