I used to get angry with his flagrant and asinine stupidity. Now I just feel sympathy for how broken and empty his spirit is.

Wonder how many waterboarding sessions it too. Likely just one.

President Martyr?

Father Chickenhawk?

Elder to the Church of Perpetual Chickens**ts?

Although in retrospect its probably just as well he didn't go. Lord knows how many of his fellows he'd have ended up killing with 'friendly fire' on his first patrol.

Or an oncoming train?

And why do I get the sense of imminent dread? A foreboding that after this, nothing will be the same again?

the Merck Vioxx settlement is a fine example of why the telecoms want immunity

If you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime.

And make no mistake, what the telecoms have been party to is a crime.

Republicans aren't as focused around labels.

This is priceless coming from a member of "With Us" alliance of "Tough Guys" who shouldn't be confused with the "Surrender Monkeys" and "Islamofascists" of their collective fears of being revealed as the "Girly Men" they really are.

What a pity there's a writers strike on, otherwise shooter242 would have a great career amongst the low-brow sit-com crowd. As it is, he'll have to subsist on his monthly stipend of food stamps like the rest of the "Welfare Queens" he and his really are.

I haven't seen any polling data lately on the GOP's slate. Anyone hear anything on this?

In any case, does this messianic nihilism actually improve his standing among the GOP's base?

Courtesy of shooter242: Gosh, American Fascism is on the march. Who knew? Heh.

Such a mindset - invulnerable to facts and argument, smug in shallow certainty, and indifferent to history - is the hallmark of the core 20+% of Bush's dead-ender supporters. They neither feel responsibility for the disasters they have cheered, nor the pain of consequences from the same. Should the latter finally reach them, they have neither the maturity nor indeed the capacity to accept or understand it; they didn't cause their problems, so it must be the fault of some other.

One would not be surprised if they actively hope for Giuliani to be defeated, if only so they can indulge their sense of thwarted entitlement and stoke their childish rage further.

Via an anonymous:

The fact is, without American INTERVENTION, nothing was certain, except the loss of Europe and possibly the containment and isolation and starvation into submission of Russia. You people act like the Japanese weren't even there and we didn't need to be. WRONG. It was a joint venture and may well have failed otherwise. Who can say what that world would have looked like?

Silenced original point was that it was the Red Army that did the majority of the fighting - suffering and inflicting tremendous casualties as a result - which broke the back of the Nazi's war machine. Yes, the Anglo-US operations in North Africa and their later invasion of Europe helped, but even these were not sure things. Its equally questionable if the German military, battered as it was by 1944, couldn't have contained and withstood Allied assaults in both the east and west.

As for the Pacific, neither Silenced nor anyone else addressed that threatre (which was a different animal entirely).

I've been studying it for a good 30 plus years, read every book (worth reading) I could get my hands on. Watching a few programs on the Hitler Channel just won't cut it.

I recommend then you look at "Disaster at D-Day" and "Third Reich Triumphant by Peter Tsouras, and the relevant portions of "What If? Strategic Alternatives of WWII" edited by Harold Deutsch and Dennis Showalter (paying particular attention to the essays by Carol D'Este on Operation Fortitude getting blown, and Deutsch and Showalter on the strategic situation following the allies being repulsed in Normandy).

I'm not even sure what the argument is here. Yes, D-Day was a mighty endeavor and critical to bringing the ETO to the conclusion we all know. There's no shame in admitting the US and UK didn't do it alone, nor in acknowledging the price both we and the Soviets ultimately paid for it.

To his face, that is.

Probably would burst into tears. How amusing.

Nor has anything been offered by contrarians that looks like a better idea.

Do you actually read what is written in these comments, or are you responding to pre-coded prompts?

Rhetorical question, btw. We all know you can't actually read.

With that said, one would have to be disingenuous fool to say that Iraq has been anything other than a disaster.

Leaving aside all your other assertions and arguments, please explain what has come from this vainglorious venture into Babylon that can even vaguely be described as a "positive" and could possibly justify the investment thus far of blood and treasure.

How many more journalists and photographers will be 'disappeared' simply for showing the rest of us the truth?

In any case, what are the chances Mr. Hussein will actually make it to trial?

I think it's safe to say you can all stop obsessing about an attack on Iran.

That of course presupposes actual reason is involved in the decision of whether or not an attack takes place. Recent history does not lend one much hope in that regard.