3rdCitizen

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TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

"You should see the elaborate orgies that wealthy Virginians stage in their mega-zeppelins that float above Richmond, powered only by truffle oil and the tears of textile workers."

Great line! But now the Republicans will probably use it in a massive ad campaign to further trigger the fear-hate reflex arc that drives their uninformed minions. posted 05/18/2008 at 12:04:05

Obama's Struggle With Typical Liberal Hypocrisy

Having grown up during the Viet Nam war era, I watched the poitical left and the political right both discredit themselves in numerous ways, and so, for most of my life, I refused to accept either label for my own pov. While I've had my share of wanting-to-pull-my-hair-out-in-frustration arguments with uninformed members of both socio-political camps, it's been my experience that hypocritical liberals comprise a sizable but still minority subset of the whole, while hypocritical "conservatives" (in the current, popular sense of the word) comprise at least 99% of their ilk. As far as I can see, hypocrisy is to a "conservative" what water is to a fish.
Since the pendulum has swung so far to the right over the past 3 decades, I now accept the term liberal simply because I oppose the insanity that has come to predominate in mainstream politics and news coverage. There are still many things that "liberals" say and do that makes me roll my eyes and shake my head, but there are so many more things that "conservatives" have been doing that makes me want them charged with crimes against humanity.
Here's hoping that we finally get some change mixed with sanity. posted 05/17/2008 at 11:54:56

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

Jason,

I'm afraid that many of the people who would be best suited for POTUS can't run for the same reasons that you listed (too young and/or too high all the time).

You're absolutely right about the '92 Oilers loss to the Bills, and about the Cigarette Smoking Man (AKA "CSM" or "Cancer Man" -- that was one of the 2 or 3 best X-Files episodes of all time!). But your clear knowledge of these topics does raise serious doubts about you're not being old enough to run for president. posted 05/11/2008 at 14:05:49

Hillary Will Drop Out by June 15

I don't pretend to know what really goes on in the mind of HRC. Trying to make sense of her actions, the ideal model is one in which, through superior political wisdom, she honestly knows that she could beat McCain but that Obama can't, and so she is fighting the good fight on behalf of her sincere love of country and to honor the hard work of her supporters. The corrupt model is that she realized that Obama could beat McCain much more assuredly than she could, but her selfish lust for power led her to do everything she could to undermine his candidacy so that either she could get the nomination or, failing that, that Obama would be so damaged that he'd lose to McCain and then she could appear as a martyr to Democratic foolishness and be in a much better position to run again in 2012. On the other hand, maybe she doesn't have either horns or a halo and is just another politician -- God knows what goes on in any of their brains! posted 05/07/2008 at 20:23:47

Clinton Challenges Obama To Debate Without A Moderator, Lincoln-Douglas Style

I am somewhat impressed by Sen. Clinton's offer. (I'd be a lot more impressed if it didn't have the stink of hypocrisy about it: she happily indulged in the cesspool of pettiness that was the last debate as if it were her own personal hot tub.) I wonder why neither of the Democratic candidates came up with this weeks or months ago!
I've been supporting Obama for some time now, but I hope he gives HRC her due and acknowledges this as a good idea ("moving past politics as usual") and takes her up on it. Then, whichever one gets the nomination should challenge McCain to the same type of debate format. Not only would that remove the advantage he gets from MSM bias, but it would strike terror into the hearts of all the media-darling moderators (the tolerable, the bad, and the ugly) as they're shown to be worse than irrelevant.
What have we got to lose? posted 04/26/2008 at 19:53:09

Hillary's New Inevitability

Unfortunately, logic has little to do with how most people vote.

HRC's primary victory in Pennsylvania has poured gasoline on the fire that's burning down the Dems chances of winning back the White House in November. posted 04/24/2008 at 09:28:40

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

Ever read Dante's Inferno? I think PA is just one more circle of Hell, and then we'll move down to the next one.

(At the bottom, we'll find Satan and the 3 last uncommitted super-delegates.) posted 04/06/2008 at 12:11:14

Letter From A Soldier: Answers You Won't Want To Hear

American optimism and self-confidence has shown itself to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has allowed us to do things that were thought to be virtually impossible (e.g, gaining independence from Great Britain, building the Panama Canal, landing human beings on the moon in the 60s, etc.), but it has also led us into overreaching disasters where we just couldn't admit to ourselves that our goals were unobtainable (e.g. Viet Nam). The situation in Iraq appears to be a case of the latter. The United States simply can't control the hearts and minds of millions of Iraqis with complex attitudes and conflicts whose historical roots reach down through centuries. As a number of analysts have pointed out (but the MSM and the public still largely ignore), all the likely outcomes left to U.S. policy in Iraq are bad ones.
The only politician I've heard who address this fact was Senator Biden. Now, it's returned to the status of a political taboo. But it's still the truth, and it's the only legitimate response the Dems have to the Repub propaganda about "victory vs. surrender." posted 04/01/2008 at 23:44:57

Why the Administration Won't Define Success in Iraq

Sorry, dabeall, but what we're seeing is the Maliki government taking sides in a battle between 2 militant Shia factions (both of which have received support from Iran) for what appear to be cynical political motivations. Here's the link to a very good analysis by Fred Kaplan:

http://www.slate.com/id/2187564/

What you stated is the Bush/Whitehouse spin on the situation (aka "a preconceived partisan perspective").
By the way, how do you envision "victory" in Iraq? And about how many years, dollars, and lives do you expect it to take? posted 03/29/2008 at 13:48:48

Five Years On: Bush, Cheney -- A Contrast in Styles

After all this time, the best summary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that I've heard is still a succinct statement by an Iraqi woman who was interviewed by the BBC during the first year of the war: "Before the Americans came, we had Saddam. Now, we have hundreds of Saddams." posted 03/22/2008 at 08:39:35

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