In addition to having heard slightly different views of Gore's status in the Clinton White House, my other quibble with that logic is that the postwar version of Bob Mosbacher Jr. basically got a Presidency custom-gift-wrapped for him by being VP. I just can't imagine that political arithmetic not having run in any conservatives' heads in 2000.
Could you please explain the bolded part to me? I am really not clear about who you are referring to here.
authorization of torture plame-gate lying about wmd's no bid contracts to his former company in war he started illegal wiretapping illegal funding of propaganda and fake news stories shooting people in the face after tossing back a few at lunch and refusing to allow local police to conduct an investigation furthermore, we need to know more about what went on at those secret engery meetings that took place in may 2001. and why was it that when bush finally agreed to testify to the 9/11 commission one of the conditions was that cheney sit next to him. two others were that they only had two hours and it was to be off the record. but why would cheney have to be w/ the president when he testified? b.s. - obama has said over and over that he wants to 'look forward, not backwards' when questioned about going after the bush administration for torture. we know the bush administration committed crimes w/ regards to authorization of torture, and yet obama will not do anything. his attorney general said he would look into it a few months ago and nothing has happened. furthermore, it is the obama administration which fought tooth and nail to prevent the release of millions of bush era emails that should be public records. you bush supporters should be thanking obama for covering for junior. furthermore, he has kept programs like the patriot act in place - he has actually expanded the bush/cheney warrantless wiretapping program. shouldnt yall be in favor of that? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
"Fair Game," coming next year to a theater near you! Sean Penn & Naomi Watts as Mr. & Mrs. Wilson, teaming up to send Scooter Libby to jail. (Apparently, no one was cast to play Cheney. I'm guessing the director insisted upon archival footage, just like Clooney did with McCarthy in Good Night & Good Luck, because any actor's portrayal would seem too outlandishly malevolent, even when quoting him verbatim.)
Man that is a great album to listen to... either the soundtrack or studio albums. The answer to the oP question is.... because people, even those who don't consider themselves overly religious, are deep down inside afraid of the devil.
There is a simple reason why Cheney is not in jail and why the Obama admin doesn't want to go after old Bush cronies; what's good for the goose... Obama and his team, and every president after him, is enjoying the expanded powers they have "thanks" to the Bush admin. The episode Law & Order did on this was fantastic. People worry about the "slippery slope" when talking about socialism or communism on the economic scale, but imo, that "fear of government" is misplaced. The real fear of government belongs on the civil liberties side. Bush started us on the slippery slope and now every president is going to take it further. If you read the Obama admin's defense of the wiretapping you'll cringe. As nutty as Glenn Beck is, this is one area where he is right. He was screaming at the top of his lungs about Bush/Cheney and their policies during their presidency. One of these days a liberal president will send the black helicopters after MojoMan and while he's sitting in his cell, an enemy combatant of the United States with no access to the outside world, he can cry himself to sleep in his Dick Cheney pajamas realizing that it was Bush/Cheney that thumbed their noses at the Constitution and set that ball in motion. THAT'S real folks.
On the illegal wiretapping, if that charge was true, then perhaps Cheney and Obama can share a cell, as Obama has re-authorized this practice and continues to conduct it even as we speak. Your post is just a lot of hysterical left wing nonsense. Especially the part about Obama running interference to protect Cheney. As I am sure you are aware, the Obama Administration has re-opened an investigation into the activities of CIA officers with regards to interrogations. What is this about? Obama and his Attorney General are looking backwards, not forwards. Obama is playing politics with our country's national security. And there is no greater prize that he would enjoy taking down than Dick Cheney. The Bush Administration kept this country safe after 9/11. That was a very impressive achievement, and it will be a hard act to follow. During the last seven years of the Bush Administration, nobody believed we would be able to avoid another attack. The consensus was that another attack was probably unavoidable. President Obama should do so well. Unfortunately, President Obama has naively decided to take steps to dismantle important components of the defenses that have kept us safe. This is not very smart, and it is very dangerous. If this country suffers another terrorist attack because of Obama's naive experimentation with our national security, how criminal would that be?
I can't and won't even vote in whatever US elections there are, so in some ways my opinion doesn't really count, but I'm going to give it anyway. You must think this from the Admin perspective. The US is not in good shape right now, it may be 'recovering' but recovering doesn't equal recovered. Do you really think Obama will risk completely antagonising the Republicans just after bending over backwards to accommodate them with the health care bill? I'm sure they'd enjoy it, but in my opinion, to do such a thing would be ludicrous given it will alienate the Republicans and make Obama an even worse target than ever before. Just trying to give you a different perspective.
Why is anyone taking mojoman seriously? It's Trader Jorge, and he's wearing a new disguise. The TJ disguise worked for a while, and then maybe he was banned or something from D&D. Now we's back with the faux civility angle to try the same stuff. mojoman, probably as much or not more than any of the rest of us knows that Cheney was unAmerican in his grab for power, corrupt, and guilty of cronyism, and making the nation less safe. Those are probably the things mojoman likes most about him.
i wouldnt have a problem with that. if you break the law you should suffer the consequences for it. obama actually expanded the bush/cheney illegal wiretapping program. shouldnt you be in favor of that? what exactly did i saw that was 'nonsense'? everything i stated was fact. your posts are just a lot of neocon toolism and weak attempts to defend the indefensible. take off your partisan blinders. and yet they refuse to go after the very people who authorized the harsh interrogations/torture in the first place. as was the case w/ lyndie england, they will go after the low-level people who carried out the torture, but not the people who authorized it. you bush supporters should be thanking him for it. if people broke the law they should be held accountable for it - as for the cia officers who engaged in this stuff, nuremburg invalidated the 'we were only following orders' defense so im not for letting them off the hook, but unless the people who actually authorized torture (bush, cheney, rumsfeld, gonzales, yoo) are held accountable than it is all for naught. so far bho has shown absolutely zero inclination to go after the bush administration on anything. i love this line...as if the first 9 months of the bush presidency doesnt count? they didnt keep us very safe on 9/11 did they? they didnt do a very good job preventing the worst terrorist attack in our nations history did they? they didnt do a very good job following thru on the PDB of aug 6, 2001, did they? they didnt do a very good job following thru on the dozen or so warnings from other governments and other intel agencies about a major al-qaeda attack that was about to happen, did they? but junior did a real nice job of reading my pet goat in the midst of the worst terrorist attack in our history, didnt he? adding in katrina, more americans died on american soil under bush's watch than any president since the civil war, but you little neocon-wannabe's continue to give him a pass on it. again, 9/11 happened 9 months into juniors term - you want to give him a cookie b/c he didnt f*** up twice?
That is a terribly spurious, completely unfounded charge. Clearly, apologies are owed. Everyone knows that Jorge saw his post count one away from the milestone/millstone of 10,000. He realized that all his time wasted on a message board, portraying a characterization of an angry-to-be-aging yuppie, was now beginning to seem completely in vain. So he did the honorable thing: he did some soul-searching, and chose to move on with his life. Why, to suggest that he's now back, starting all over again under the mask of a slightly more civil moniker who uses Jorge's long-serving, identical pet phrases, would be to assume that he truly learned no lessons. I, for one, welcome MojoMan to the board. Sure, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of debate here; but that's to be expected from someone who joined in April of this year. Haven't we all lurked here for six to ten years, completely silent, then suddenly spouted forth with torrents of new found debate & discussion? I welcome MojoMan, who is in no possible way Trader_Jorge, returned under a sad new guise. "Got to keep on risin'..." <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uMVnEGcMsFs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uMVnEGcMsFs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Valid point about Obama not only re-authorizing the same measures Bush used domestically, but in fact expanding upon them. I am a civil libertarian through and through and the same reasons that made me cringe when Bush and Cheney were in office still make me cringe now with Obama showing he has absolutely no qualms about expanding and fortifying the national security state. The libertarians have been the only people that have been consistent in bashing BOTH administrations for their encroachment on our civil liberties, but I am seriously surprised at the lack of vocal opposition from the left to Obama's continuation of Bush's domestic security measures, it does validate the argument that neither side (the left or the right) have any credibility left, and that it is all in fact a partisan game. About the only good news I guess is the growing independent or non-aligned portion of the US voting population. I heard Independents are now the single largest voting bloc, and their numbers are only growing. Hopefully in the not so distant future we will have a truly independent candidate come to power and force the two parties to either reform or die. Enough of this "yes we can" crap, we have been fooled long enough.
Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group October 26, 2009 PRINCETON, NJ -- Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.
Oh I would not put too much stock into that. Most Americans do not really understand what being a conservative is, while liberals are probably clearer on the concept. I am guessing this swing to more self-identified conservatives has more to do with fiscal conservatism than anything else because of the soaring deficits and over the top spending we are experiencing now, it is more of a backlash I guess. That is why I am far more interested in the breakdown of partisanship of the American voters. I think it is a better sign of where we are headed. For instance, far less Americans identify themselves with the GOP now, yet more are saying they are conservative, right? There is no doubt self-identified liberals will always be a minority in America, at least for another couple of generations or so. BUT the trends do say America is getting less and less conservative over time. So the partisanship stats are hard facts, as opposed to the ideological self-identification polls, which presume that Americans actually know what the hell a conservative or moderate means. It is a worthless poll.
Plenty people on the left have criticized Obama on continuing some of the programs Bush expanded, like wiretapping people overseas. Some of these programs like NSA are older than people realize, and I think some of the expectations on Obama to end them are downright silly. One fight at a time. You had the ecomony coming in, Obama got the stimulus passed. Now he is working on Healthcare.
Not really plenty, that is not true, at least not what I have seen so far. The ones who have been critical of Obama are the fringe left, not the mainstream left, which is hardly surprising as the most radical member of any ideology are also the most rigid and true to their cause, they are the least willing to compromise on their agenda. The mainstream left, however, has been busy swatting away attacks on Obama from the right and initiating counterattacks on the GOP. There have not really been many voices of moderation within the left that have spoken out against some of Obama's maneuvers.
in the case of domestic wiretapping, obama has actually expanded the program - if you voted for obama, did you expect him to do that? the impression he gave me campaigning was that he would end stuff like that. before the election did you believe that obama would actually expand bush's warrantless wiretapping program? did you think he would not have closed gitmo by now? did you think he would expand the war in afghanistan? did you think he would continue to allow evidence gained under torture to be used in a court of law? did you think he would refuse to release millions of bush-era emails? did you think he would refuse to open investigations into bush's authorization of torture? i think most people who voted for him were expecting different. furthermore, he lied when he stated that he would have nobody w/ questionable ethics in his administration - his treasury secretary is a tax cheat and also was the guy who authored the first round of bail-outs under bush. didnt he also say that he would have no lobbyists in his administration, but that one went out the window too. if i had voted for obama i would be pretty pissed.
