Historybuff, I see you're desperate to draw a simple line under whatever is being discussed. Juan Cole should go and learn history. No, Juan Cole is a history professor, but you don't need to listen to him because he's one of those out-of-touch UofM types. I'm just a young whippersnapper who doesn't know anything. No, I'm 41-year-old ultra-liberal who blames America first.

All along, you're working to find a way NOT to have to address any points by writing off the source. My guess is that as you get older, you're feeling less and less relevant, and then when you get your hat handed to you in a debate, it eats away at your self-worth.

It doesn't have to be that way. Just focus on the issues we're discussing, and you may well learn something.

First, I am by no means an ultra-liberal who always blames America first. I'm very fiscally conservative and have a pretty complex understanding of cause-and-effect in history and geopolitics. However, fact is, we're both Americans, sitting in America, discussing how Bush's foreign policy has affected the Middle East. In such a discussion, the effect of America's actions historically on the Middle East will take focus. Sorry about that. If you don't want to talk about history, perhaps you should change your name to "Bowlingbuff". It might make you feel more at ease to discuss how nasty Saddam was in the Iran/Iraq war. However, we're talking about the effects of American forpol, which only relate to the Iran/Iraq war in how the Americans supported a clearly psycho Saddam over the Iranians who were somehow less than grateful to us for unburdening them of their democracy back in the 50s.

As for the rest of your post, its overriding message was that you found the points in my previous post irrefutable. Nevertheless, you couldn't quite let go of your cherished conclusion, that another attack nastier than 9/11 is imminent, and it's only Bush and his policies that stand between us and it. Like most beliefs based on faith, you cannot fathom how this would occur in the real world. I mean, nastier than 9/11 would surely involve more jetliners, or nukes. But for the life of you, you can't picture any realistic scenarios. Like most beliefs based on faith, you cling to this one because it makes you feel secure at night, knowing that despite most appearances and the opinion of the vast majority of the world's inhabitants, you did not in fact enable the most dangerous regime in US history to drastically alter the US political landscape while using the military abroad to disastrous global effect. Sleep tight.

From what I've heard, it's telecom lobbying that's driving the whole telecom amnesty movement. Each congressman's support of telecom amnesty is expressed by its critics as a measure of the telecom dollars flooding in to that congressman's campaign/project.

But according to this post, the telecoms don't have much to lose in this whole thing. On the other hand, the Administration stands to lose a lot, less directly.

So why isn't it the Administration that is providing the primary pressure? Either the telecoms are paying more in lobbying than they stand to lose. Or they're not spending that much, but Harry Reid has been bought off on the cheap. WTF?

Life is good.

If this is the most compelling issue of the day, it's time to go trick or treating. Happy Halloween.

-- shooter242

It's good because here we have Shooter, whose single raison d'etre is to come on these pages and provide a desperate, fact-free defense of All Things Bush in the face of whatever indefensible act that has arisen this time. But this time, Shooter couldn't say anything. Our military has been turned into an "enforcement arm" of the GOP, and all Shooter can do is whistle past the graveyard. Just to make himself feel better, he concludes that this is somehow good news to him. However, his message speaks volumes by omission!

So no, life isn't good because the military is run by the GOP. Life is good because the truth is finally coming out, and even the most sycophantic liars can do nothing to stop it.

Happy day! (And thanks, Shooter.)

The last time a fundraiser from the Democrats rang me up, I told her I would not give one more cent to Democrats, since they were barely better than the Republicans. She asked me for some examples, and I brought up Feinstein, saying that with her, who needs Republicans. The woman who works for the Democratic Party actually agreed with me!

How the hell does DiFi stay in there? Why does she always run unopposed (or, opposed by some fascist Republican who one would expect to be somewhat worse)?

You'll be thrilled to know that Feinstein was re-elected in 2006, so we've got her as our champion of the Constitution until 2012.