Letters to the Editor
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My bonafides
I've seen Top Gun twice, three times maybe. I figure that qualifies me for at least an ambassadorship. Just wanted to throw my hat in the ring there.
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@RMP
Thanks, and I was always sure you meant nothing invidious by the reference. In fact, I would make so bold as to suggest that your "handle" is not really complete without an "&G", for "gentleman". And thus your appelation will reflect the Quartet of Admirabilities you are truly heir to!
And anyway, the guy lived, he just took a wound which stopped a 1/4 inch from his femoral artery. His gait is, at present, somewhat uneven, but time, the great healer, may do its work there, as it has done with my wife. She now admits that the garbage men, or sanitation workers (more felicitous, don't you think?) will come back and get a late can when they do the other side of the street. But that's the kind of girl she is: magnanimous, to a fault. Probably, just like you!
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Pacifism?
A larger military budget than the rest of the world combined, and the only country with bases all over the planet. Oppose the Empire and not just the Iraq war and you're a pacifist. The Iraq war has to go, but the overall foreign policy that helped to enable it is OK because it is basically Obama's foreign policy, i.e. nothing's changing. That's funny. Typical, but funny. Who could be against Spreading Freedom and Democracy? Why not just throw out the "Isolationist America Hating Terrorist Enabler" label too?
My point is that you claim the war will grind to a halt, but so what? The bases aren't going anywhere, not in Iraq or anywhere else. As it stands, there will still be thousands of troops and who knows how many mercs (er, contractors) in Iraq forever. Obombsman has even said himself that the bases are staying, although he had a minor slip at a debate in which he appeared for a split second to disagree with their funding. That was the whole idea behind PNAC and the strategy for the region, just like it always is everywhere else. Spreading Democracy means we either bomb the shit out of you or we send you tax dollars, Dictatoraid, but either way Kellog, Brown, and Root get to build a base on your soil.
Trespass on my property and let me know how much of a pacifist you think I am, and let me know when Osama Bin Laden conquers Texas, ok?
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@Casual Observer
You produce excellent dreck. However, doing as you suggest would do nothing to help me out of the complexities alluded to earlier, regarding multiple persons posting under multiple names.
Horseshit! It will show you, in fact, whether it can be done! Worth knowing, don't you think?
Of course there always remains the possibility of very expensive phone calls or perhaps, carrier pigeons. You know, they worked very well as late as WW2, but Setti and RMP are the go-to guys on Military History.
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The Rules
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_03/013394.php
March 24, 2008
McCAIN'S CRED....[...] Let's recap.
Foreign policy cred lets him get away with wild howlers on foreign policy.
Fiscal integrity cred lets him get away with outlandishly irresponsible economic plans.
Anti-lobbyist cred lets him get away with pandering to lobbyists.
Campaign finance reform cred lets him get away with gaming the campaign finance system.
Straight talking cred lets him get away with brutally slandering Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican primary.
Maverick uprightness cred allows him to get away with begging for endorsements from extremist religious leaders like John Hagee.
"Man of conviction" cred allows him to get away with transparent flip-flopping so egregious it would make any other politician a laughingstock.
Anti-torture cred allows him to get away with supporting torture as long as only the CIA does it.
- - Kevin Drum
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@ Bucky vs LWM
I don't know how many names LWM uses. I wonder how you do? Syntactical analysis? Word frequency tables? Or are you hacking the Salon servers and harvesting IP's?
It don't matter. Can we get back to the discussion? Just pretend they are all LWM or some combination thereof? Seriously, does it matter to you?
Not trying to be an asshole, but this is not what I come here for.
LWM and friends are correct. We, as in the world, are facing an existential threat, i.e. global war, not to mention an environmental catastophe. Can we all agree that McBomb is not the man to stop that? And can we further agree to work together (more or less) toward that goal?
About all I am certain of is that Timberman is not Good Celery and that Glenn Greenwald is almost certainly Glenn Greenwald. Beyond that it's all just data packets through a router.
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@Chris Sinnard
overall foreign policy that helped to enable it is OK because it is basically Obama's foreign policy
Oh, so Obama's a big Pre-emption guy? I didn't know that! Obama is totally down with the mass detentions without trial and torture which forms the bulwark of our "civil affairs" policy in Iraq. So Obama's foreign policy axiom is going to be: "Bomb and shoot them till they love us and want to be just like us"?
Whoopee! And I'll bet all the Armed Forces Personnel just can't wait to violate the Geneva Conventions and all the rest with the assurance that MC O-bam-bam hisself has got their backs? Somehow I doubt it.
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Mooser
Horseshit!
OK, OK. You produce crappy dreck. I'm just trying to be agreeable.
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A Mosaic
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/15983/original.jpg
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@Chris Sinnard
You are breaking with the partisan script that most of Salon uses in the comments.
You don't think Bucky adhering to the script? Wow, you're a tough crowd (like LWM)!
You have to give a guy a certain latitude for adlibbing and personal variations, and I think Buckyl is well within it.
That's my take, anyway.
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re: shame on you bucky!
"You are breaking with the partisan script that most of Salon uses in the comments. ... Just argue with the bad guys and play apologist until your pet issue comes up (or you bring it up) and you don't feel that nasty cognitive dissonance anymore, after a nice long argument about your favorite wedge issue, the issue that you are really passionate and get fired up about." -- Chris Sinnard
Chis, the problem with loving both truth and freedom is that they do not lend themselves to taking sides based simply on 'Red' or 'Blue' and that is the problem. I can route for Obama since I judge him to be able to clobber McCain and I think McCain would be a disaster beyond the imagination of most here.
But, as soon as he (Obama) does illegal, immoral, or just pain wrong things; I will be against whatever the item is. I am just that way; to be otherwise one would have to be completely interested only in the self and which 'team' is best for my self. I am not of that nature.