...since she told him she was done with diapers after raising his four kids."

[rimshot]

(Low hanging fruit, I know. Just couldn't help myself.)

Lobbying Spouses

Here's one that Vitter got right..

Well, yeah, but only because he doesn't have a dog in the fight.

He believes that spouses (usually, in this context, wives) should stay barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Not to mention as far away from his diaper-changing hooker as possible.

He's about as far to the right on that sort of thing as one can be.

The ironing is delicious.

Spoken like someone who has no clue that the starch was taken out of his argument pages ago.

Hell, the can was empty before you even tried to spray.

primum no nocere

First, it's Primum non nocere.

Second, if that were a realistic part of our foreign policy then we likely wouldn't be the world's single largest supplier of weapons of mass destruction.

Third, it's also part of the Hippocratic Oath which your physician took on graduating from medical school.

Fourth, you should be glad your physician swore this oath, otherwise he might have to treat you like the "drug-resistant" infestation you are in these threads and use "Teh knife" on you like Glenn's done in the past.

If Lieberman isn't representing his constituents to their liking, he will be voted out...

...simple as that.

Actually, he was voted out, by his own party in the primary. He only succeeded in the general by changing party, something not allowed in many states (in my state it's called the "Sore Loser" law, and powering his campaign to a large extent with Republican contributions.

I will repeat my question:

Is Lieberman representing the will of his constituents in his votes on health care?

And are the votes of Pelosi, Sanchez, Gillibrand and McCaskill's on reproductive rights - supportive of their constituents' views or not?

Do you believe that Senators and Representatives should vote in ways that represent their constituents' views?

Can you show me how Lieberman's votes on health care are supporting the views of his constituents?

How about how the votes of Pelosi, Sanchez, Gillibrand and McCaskill's on reproductive rights - supportive of their constituents' views or not?

Aside - I believe that all lobbying money should be removed from the political process. Elections should be publicly funded.

One limits one's exposure to the balkiness and annoyance. One copes.

Laughing out loud at your description. It makes Salon sound just like my husband's cranky curmudgeon aunt.

Interesting that you left the last paragraph out:

Let us not forget that the same kind of enemies who attacked us here can be found around the world. To deal with them we must find methods that do not demand limitless numbers of troops, and seas of money.

One wonders exactly what is meant when he writes "success in Iraq". I guess anything can be defined down to fit some sort of rationale of "success" or another.

A good candidate. A shame he won't be in the runoff election. That may very well have been a result of the influence of the bureau he mentions in the article you linked. But even he agrees with the women I quoted before:

Dr Ramazan Bashardost 43, is an ethnic Hazara who spent more than 20 years in France before returning to Afghanistan to become a member of parliament and Planning Minister. A self-styled man of the people, he runs his campaign from a tent opposite parliament, accuses the Government of rampant corruption and has vowed that he would not allow foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan if elected.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6797093.ece

4. As far as quality of analysis goes, the anti-war and the pro-war are equally glib and unconvincing. The focus is always on their ideological predilections, and not on a solution. (A solution should state the desired end-result and a roadmap to achieving it.)

So, until we can offer a foolproof solution, complete with roadmap, we are disallowed from expressing opinions on what is actually happening right now and should just STFU? Is that really how you see us?

Does this also apply to you? If so, what is your foolproof solution, complete with roadmap.

The film I referenced, and the people quoted within it, acknowledged openly that the situations of women in different locales within the country can vary widely. But they also recognized that this cannot be used as a rationale for continuing efforts which have, overall, not trended in the interests of Afghani women as a whole.

My quarrel with the efforts of the US, initial and ongoing, is that it would have been more properly focussed had it been an international police action, the manner in which terrorist interdictions have been handled historically, as opposed to one more military occupation in a long history of such. The fact that the military option was the one chosen, and the corresponding results for women at large, is the resemblance. At least from what I have observed.

The real focus should be on whether the mistakes of the last five years are undoable or not; whether they will be compounded by the US staying on or by the US leaving and all the choices in between.

My last post dealt exactly with the issue you stated above. And it did so by bringing the voices of actual Afghani women into the discussion, relaying their own opinions on the matter. If that makes me a "cossetted white American" who is incapable of doing anything more than "playing with" the anti-war/pacifist movement, then I guess we can agree that we have nothing more to discuss on the subject. Though I'm sorry you see it that way.

Good proposals.

I hope you posted that there in the comments. S/he solicited comments/ideas. I think the idea is to start the conversation, refine it, get folks mentally in the frame of mind for seeking alternatives. And what you wrote is good stuff.