athletics

You can tell that liberals do not like Kerry because the motivation behind his campaign is passive. The motivation is what ever Bush doesnt do...thats what we will do. There is a lot of second guessing by Kerry. Leaders don't second guess in this way. If Clinton (love him or hate him) were in this race, he would spin any news in to his favor...without actually saying so. The Bush campaign has its weak spots, but mostly because of Iraq. Everything else is going pretty well. It will be very hard for a boring unqualified liberal Senator to beat a war time president. Especially when no one really is in love with Kerry in the first place.

Rekna

I'd rather have a passive boring unqualified senator then a irresponsible, stuborn, unintelligent, violent, hypocritical, war-mongering war-time president.

I don't want a president that counters in debates with insults and lies because he can't think of anything else. "I own a timber company? Thats news to me! Want some wood?"

I don't want a president that can't admit he is human and makes mistakes. I don't want a president that views himself as infallable. I don't want a president that views himself the hand of God. I don't want a president that thinks he knows what God wants and then uses that to justify things that are clearly not biblical. I don't want a president that protects his rich friends before protecting the nation. I don't want a president that uses fear and lies to brainwash people. I don't want a president that will call one of the greatest war heros of all time unpatriotic (talking Mc'cain here).

So you can say what you want about Kerry but the fact that he is not Bush is probably his strongest reason to vote for him as president. This isn't because he is a horrible canidate that can't stand on anything else. No this is because Bush is just that bad of a canidate.

Rekna

ps. sorry for feeding the trolls

Dingo2879

It seems democrats are so frusturated with the current admistration that they overlooked the fact that Kerry isnt the right canidate. I would have to think that if there was a Clinton like canidate running against Bush in this election he would have a substantal lead in the polls at this point.

Rekna

Unfortunatly Clinton can't run again. I'd vote for him

athletics

rekna, you missed my point. Kerry is not a good candidate. but he might of been the best out of the 9 choices. 2008 will be a better year for libs. it will be Hillary vs. Edwards for the nomination. and then...you will see some passion. there is no passion for Kerry.

put it this way,,,,could you imagine marrying a girl because she wasnt like your ex-girlfiend? ive seen people do that and it never works. you gotta choose someone for what they offer. not what they dont offer.

Rekna

You seem to be assuming that Bush will win

Rekna

you have given no evidence that Bush is better than Kerry. In the debates Kerry looked very presidential. Bush on the other hand looked like a whiny little brat. Bush is a criminal who is hell bent on power. He uses his power to cause fear in order to get what he wants (which is more power).

daswig

Had the Democrats chosen a moderate for their candidate, this election would have been over by now, with Bush polling in the low to mid 30%s. They chose a guy as far left as Bush is right, so it's gonna be a figurative bloodbath.

I hope Bush wins. Kerry'd be a complete disaster, and would make Carter look good.

MSD

If Kerry wins, it will be more damaging to the Democratic Party than a landslide defeat. They need a candidate who supports some Democratic Party stances and some beliefs that are common to most Americans. Additionally, (s)he needs to support these positions because (s)he actually believes in them, not because it looks good at the podium and gets poll numbers up.

The only thing the Democrats could have done that is worse than running Kerry is to run Clinton.

docbungle

This whole thread is full of assumptions and hyperbole. Although he's not the best candidate ever, I feel he is miles ahead of Bush in smarts, integrity and diplomacy.

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pedro padilla

I really can´t work up a lot of enthusiasm for Kerry but Bush and co. gotta go. The man has true contempt for his constituents and a delusioned arrogant belief in his god appointed superiority.
Kerry isn´t the ideal candidate by any stretch but he beats the hell out the lying manipulative sack of shit we got now. 4 more years of W might be the last 4 years of our lives.

host

This link to
<a href="http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=269">http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=269</a>
Reinforces my point that Kerry has had a consistant position on the Iraq war.
Understand that Karl Rove has influenced you and many Americans by using,
with great success, the strategy of attacking the strengths of Bush's opponents in order to <br>distract attention from Bush's shortcomings by having Bush, Cheney, and cooperative media
(Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Fox News)
repeat the same distortions, half truths, and untruths over and over, in a highly coordinated presentation.
Did you know that Nixon met with Swift Boat officer O'Neill for an hour in
June, 1971, in an effort to blunt the impact that he perceived Kerry to
have on his Viet Nam policy?
Did you Know that Kerry initiated the Iran Contra investigation and exposed
the illegal support for the Nicaraguan Contras, the Reagan administration selling arms to Iran, as a freshman senator in 1985, gaining the support
of republican Jesse Helms by exposing the details of CIA operatives raising
money for the Contras by smuggling cocaine into the U.S.?
<a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/">Memos on
the Kerry Report, Contras and Drugs</a>

<a href="http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/062003.shtml">Kerry: With probes, making his mark</a>

Discern what elements of your opinions of Bush and Kerry have
been influenced by Karl Roves "psych ops", and what the facts
are about the candidate's resumes. IMO, Kerry's life experience involves
bringing the details of how two past republican presidents were
actually conducting wars, to the attention
of the American people. Kerry knows from experience what and who
he is up against. He has never waivered in 30 years of taking Nixon, then
Reagan, and now.....Bush on. The most important factor in all three of
these historic struggles is that Kerry was armed with the truth, and the
agendas of the 3 presidents could not stand up to public scutiny.

Instead of four more years of an administration that shrinks from it's obligation to demonstrate a dialogue with the press and the people, (14 Bush press conferences in 40 months, Cheney's secret energy task force, repetetive talking points instead of detailed answers to questions from the press and the people, carefully pre-screened audiences at campaign stops, illegal, well orchestrated effort to bottle up peaceful protestors in out of view, offsite, secure locations.....), I look forward to a new regime, led by
a head of state who has pursued and exposed past leaders who refused to
govern openly, or who even thought that they were not accountable to the
citizens who they took an oath to represent !

Halx

By the way.. Democrats are not liberals. No way in hell they are liberals. They are quite middle of the road. The Green party... now that's liberal.

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smooth

btw, kerry is leading bush, but maybe that's a footnote to the diatribe.

oh yeah, and Halx, quite true.

people always sweep me in their 'democrat' rug when they speak to me

I have to politely remind them, no, I'm a commie

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athletics

and an incorrect footnote to boot. (lame pun noted)

athletics

Liberals hate to be called liberal. I have never figured that out. Kerry is not middle of the road....at least not in America.

athletics

I am assuming Kerry will probably loose.

Ustwo

Or communist.

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The_wall

yes and hitler was a compasionate conservative

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daswig

Host, Kerry has a long history of appeasement of America's enemies. You've got the whole Paris thing, the "Dear Commandante" letters, where Kerry encouraged Ortega to "lay low" with the Soviets while Kerry worked to kill the Contra's budget and after the budget was killed, THEN go to the Soviet Union seeking aid, et cetera. On top of that, you've got Kerry's consistent attempts to destroy the US military, by cutting needed programs.

Benedict Arnold was a real, live U.S. military hero. There's no doubt about that, no irregularities in his heroism, et cetera. Yet, despite this record of heroism, he became a traitor when he entered into talks with the British to surrender West Point. That's how he's remembered...as America's first real traitor. Kerry's treasonous actions FAR surpass Arnold's betrayal, and that's how he'll be seen in the future.

BTW, you suggest that I've bought into Rovian psyops. You're wrong. My loathing for Kerry far predates Rove's sojourn in the White House. In my book, I've considered Kerry to be a traitor for decades.

summerkc

I'd like to disspell this new myth that the democrats have started saying.

Bush had a small ownership in a oil and gas company that later branched out into a timber business. This misunderstanding came out as a result as an error on factcheck.org and they have retracted that statement and corrected the error.

This is along the same lines as dems saying that Bush banned stem cell research. The only thing that Bush did was to not give any political funds to any new embyonic stem cells. There is still government funding for the original line of embryonic stem cells and there is full funding for adult stem cells which have shown more promise for cures than embryonic stem cells. Also, there is no ban on private funding to embryonic stem cells so if you believe in this, donate!

This type of stuff happens all the time on both sides and it drives me crazy.

host

Thank you for the links to mainstream news sources or archives to
facilitate fact checking that will allow me to agree with you or to attempt to
refute your insinuation that Kerry is less worthy than Benedict Arnold. The
way you worded your unsubstantiated post is Rovian, IMO.

Stompy

Why are people assuming Hillary will run?

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summerkc

Hillary and Bill have been almost absent from this campaign season, not ever even giving their support for Kerry. They want him to lose so Hillary can run in 2008 and not have to wait until 2012. Of course they couldn't say anything about Kerry that could be contributed to his loss so they don't anger thier base that could come back in 2008 and bite them in the ass.

I think it is obvious that Hillary is a power hungry person and will run in '08 if Bush get re-elect.

Then again, maybe this is too much of a conspiracy theory.

smooth

*cough* do you need a civics lesson, or a link to an updated portrayal of how the electoral votes are currently splitting?

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"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

smooth

Are you a kerry supporter?

Because I find it odd that you would speak about things you don't really know--unless you actually have been watching kerry's campaign closely for some odd reason.

President Clinton has been extensively campaigning for Senator Kerry all over the country--showing up with him, going to churches and various functions speaking on his behalf, and etc. He only stopped once he went into heart surgery, and even now Senator Clinton didn't rule out the fact that President Clinton might come back on the campaign trail if "his doctors let him."

They give their full support for this candidate, even to the point of giving him constant campaign advice. There were a few large stories explaining how President Clinton gave Senator Kerry advice from the hospital, and we saw a shift in the Senator's techniques (a shift that was positive).

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

smooth

Rekna didn't seem to care whether President Bush had a timber company or not; I understood his comments to be more focused on how Bush handled himself and his reply. Nitpicking on whether he received money from this or that company is pretty irrelevant to me. In fact, I supposed when I heard the exchange during the debate, that the President probably didn't even know his assets. His money is in a larger portfolia that is managed by a group of people--he likely doesn't know the extent of his own ownership any more than I know the extent of my IRA's ownership.

While I may know that I have a slice of a stock in IBM and Microsoft, I wouldn't know anything about an obscure entitiy.

In any case, we shouldn't be surprised to find that the larger company 'diversified' into smaller, unrelated entities. That was the Senator's point--that larger companies split into smaller ones and gain substantial tax savings/dodges by doing so. So your comments would tend to support the Senator's point moreso than refuting them.

But no democrats that I know of care whether the President actually owned a company--we are marveling at his stupidity: the comment was just as effective even if it was a hypothetical. But he turned the comment away from the reality of tax evasion into a stupid personal joke.

Bush is incapable or unwilling to engage in abstract thought. He had a similarly confused expression when the Senator was explaining that he didn't vote for the *partial birth abortion ban due to a 17 year old girl who would be forced to report to her parents (one of which abused her).

Did this happen? Did the Senator really know a 17 year old girl in such a situation?
Does it matter for the point to be valid or should he have taken 30 seconds from his reply time to explain to the denser community that he could very well be speaking hypothetically?

*s/b abortion bill, I conflated his points on accident

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

daswig

Host, do you really doubt that Kerry went to Paris and met with the NVA and Viet Cong? (he admitted as much under oath) Do you really doubt that he was a signatory of the "Dear Commandante" letters? (easy to FOIA, after all, IIRC Harkin wrote them, he signed them). Do you really doubt what his voting record on defense systems was?

This is all stuff in the public domain.

"Treason is Patriotic" is a pretty crappy campaign strategy...

summerkc

We could talk hypotheticals to no end, but anyone who supports partial birth abortions is out of touch with the majority of the American people if you ask me. You could give hypotheticals allowing any horrible crime if you wanted to.

Anyways, he disagreed with requiring notification of parents because of the 17 year old, not partial birth abortions. You have to have parental support for any medical procedure, why should abortions be differnt? Of course it is a horrible situation that the girl would be in, but this is such a limited example that it would have to be taken on a case to case basis. Wouldn't you like to know if your daughter was going to get an abortion, and not thinking she was going to be gone for a few days? Abortion is something that teens should not be going through alone.

On his disagreement of partial birth abortions he says there is not a clause that lets it happen if the "health" of the mother is in questions. Well, there is a "life" of the mother clause which is important. The problem is that the health of the mother could be said to be anything, mental health, etc. She could say that it would cause her undue stress to have the baby and she would be qualified for a partial birth abortion.

Lebell

I agree.

If the dems had actually chosen a moderate I might very well vote for him.

I also agree that a Kerry presidency will be a disaster as far as the war on terror goes.

I guess the latest is that he would work to reduce terrorism to "acceptable" levels.

Acceptable???

What the hell is that???

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smooth

No one here that I'm aware of, nor is Senator Kerry, a supporter of the procedure, though, so that was just a preposterous assertion. Before passing a law, legislatures are ethically required to step through various hypotheticals in order to determine whether the law they are about to pass is going to adversely affect the population. It's not some mental exercise that you seem to attach to everyday discussions.

Obviously I'd want my daughter to tell me if she was considering an abortion. I wouldn't want to legally require your daughter to tell you if you were the one who raped her. The Senator explained this very clearly during the debate. If you didn't see him speak, I don't see much point in discussing his position.

You haven't demonstrated that you know what you're talking about in regards to the partial birth abortion bill, and I'm not going to argue about it.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

daswig

Lebell, are you familiar with Ted Rall? He wrote an interesting article on why the Democrats need to ditch gun control as part of their platform.

I guess if either the Democrats or Republicans defended ALL of the Bill of Rights, they'd be libertarians...

We need to merge the NRA and the ACLU. That'd be fun!!!

scout

There are laws against raping your own daughter. So I'm guessing that if you rape your daughter and cause her to become pregnant with your own grandchild you won't have to worry about her telling you or she won't have any fear to tell you she is getting an abortion because you will be in jail for a very long time. That argument is a pretty piss poor one.

Rekna

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@docID=275.html
Doesn't look like they retracted it to me. Not to mention Kerry's point is still valid reguardless of what time of buisness it is. His point was that Bush uses such a broad term to define small buisnesses that it inflates his stats (factcheck.org talks about this) Someone making $84 off a LLC should not be counted in the presidents stats of small buisness owners that will suffer and thus fire it's employees.

kutulu

That is exactly the point Kerry made. Bush had no defense. He's so inept that all he could say was "want some wood?"

summerkc

Thanks for just putting me down saying I don't know what I'm talking about, its a good way to get across your point.

The senator explained the very clearly doring the debate? Kerry NEVER explains anything clearly, he is always on both sides of the issues. If he is not a supporter of the procedure why in the hell did he vote against it?

athletics

Rekna

athletics i'd watch it. Mod's don't put up with comments like that.

athletics

no offense intended to my man smooth, but since i know my civics and bush is ahead in the every electoral college projection ive seen (the nature of a poll brings suspect)...his comments do not make sense. it was just a quick turn of phrase regurgitated