People are ignoring Sally, and for good reason.

• Sally, they can dish it out but can't take it! - Go Sally
  • Bullies don't win elections. - Keep up the good work. sm
  • People are ignoring Sally, and for good reason. - Waste of time to argue with hatred, move on. nm
    • Looks like the sam lemmings are lost without her! - Go Sally
      • So you noticed that too. Sam somtimes - shows up on weekend in p.m. sm
    • I'm not ignoring Sally. She can hold her own, - were not achieved indepently. sm
      • Need to change name line to read "while the rest of us" - "while the rest of us fact check, research and

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It works, Lilly.  Its a breath of fresh air to ignore the neocons that frequent the liberal board just to vent their anger, LOL.  After ignoring them a few times, you dont even realize they are here anymore.  Now when I read posts, I totally zone in on liberal posts.

Condi Rice, OMG.  I cant stand that woman!

We're constantly visited by the *compassionate conservative* trolls from the other board who come here only to be spew hatred, personally attack posters and to generally cause trouble, despite constant requests from the monitor that they not do that. 

I've always been in favor of stem cell research.  I believe in science progressing and helping people live longer.  I don't believe in forcing the personal religious beliefs of some down the throats of every American. 

In all honesty, though, here lately it's hard for me to get excited if I see America making progress in any area because it doesn't matter what bill Congress introduces, votes in favor of and presents to the President.  Bush will dismiss what he doesn't like and issue yet another of hundreds of his famous *signing statements.*  I don't know why we even bother to have a Congress any more.  They've been rendered impotent by King George.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/14976584.htm

I apologize if you feel you were being treated negatively.  If you're someone who is legitimate and sincere about debate, then welcome to our board. 

But if you're only here to start trouble, like most of the elephants in donkeys' clothing invading this board lately, then I'd prefer that you just go away.  I won't feed any more hatred because I'm just tired of it all.  I've climbed down to their level too many times in the last few months, the stench way down there is just terrible, and I no longer wish to engage in their kind of communication.

What are your thoughts on the issues I've mentioned?  Please respond.  Thoughtful, intelligent debate, without the use of degrading personal insults, is very welcome here.

Barrack Hussein Obama.....nuff said.

They're back, and they're back with a vengeance.  Their pitiful little lives must be going very badly for them, poor babies.  Maybe winter has arrived, and they realize they can't afford to heat their homes, and they're upset and angry.  Or maybe they're just basically hateful, vengeful people who have to evict all the old built-up hatred in their tiny hearts to make room for new anger and hatred to reside.

Either way, they just can't seem to leave us alone.  I suggest we ignore every single post -- don't even read it and don't respond to it.

There are some people for whom reason is beyond reach, and all we do is feed their hatred.

I say we ignore them until their current hate *wave* passes.

show up under a certain word search.  Do you actually think that this happened by pure chance, or because the google search engine defaults the word failure to immediately pull this POS site by happenstance?  It was paid for.  What's even more hilarious is how much this poor schlump parted with for that privilege.  You all seriously need to find some adult topics to talk about instead of thinking that google has a liberal's brain.

They are not trying to "teach our children that homosexuality is an accepted lifestyle."  They are trying to teach our children how not to beat the crap out of someone who is different, including homosexuals.  How hard is that to understand?  If people were teaching this at home, they wouldn't have to teach it at school.

Its called TOLERANCE, not acceptance. 

self-righteous, superior, ignorant, totally irrelevant and insignificant DISDAIN.

Have a happy day.

had a tax cut but a tax increase in the last 8 years.  Wonder how many people know that they did not get a tax cut, but an increase?  The taxcuts that JM is talking about are for the rich, not middle class. JM lies about Obama going to tax the middle class. The lying liars and the lies they tell.  Amazing people don't or won't see through it all.  Seems all the pub followers know is what they hear, instead of finding out for themselves where the country is headed, straight into another depression and may be a great depression as in the 1920s.  Not to increase taxes on the rich?  How are JM and pubs going to pay for their wars?  On the backs of middle class? I think not as there will be no middle class to exploit.

post regarding Mccain's lack of support for troops up the top.  It is highly relevant and I think it is buried in the muck and name-calling below.

tuckus, but can you bring up the post regarding mcCain's votes regarding vet's issues?  I tried to find it - really - but I can't.

his own personal reasons.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050620/why_george_went_to_war.php

The Downing Street memos have brought into focus an essential question: on what basis did President George W. Bush decide to invade Iraq? The memos are a government-level confirmation of what has been long believed by so many: that the administration was hell-bent on invading Iraq and was simply looking for justification, valid or not.

Despite such mounting evidence, Bush resolutely maintains total denial. In fact, when a British reporter asked the president recently about the Downing Street documents, Bush painted himself as a reluctant warrior. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," he said, answering for himself and British Prime Minister Blair. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Yet there's evidence that Bush not only deliberately relied on false intelligence to justify an attack, but that he would have willingly used any excuse at all to invade Iraq. And that he was obsessed with the notion well before 9/11—indeed, even before he became president in early 2001.

In interviews I conducted last fall, a well-known journalist, biographer and Bush family friend who worked for a time with Bush on a ghostwritten memoir said that an Iraq war was always on Bush's brain.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and Houston Chronicle journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He went on, 'If I have a chance to invade…, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'"

Bush apparently accepted a view that Herskowitz, with his long experience of writing books with top Republicans, says was a common sentiment: that no president could be considered truly successful without one military "win" under his belt. Leading Republicans had long been enthralled by the effect of the minuscule Falklands War on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's popularity, and ridiculed Democrats such as Jimmy Carter who were reluctant to use American force. Indeed, both Reagan and Bush's father successfully prosecuted limited invasions (Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War) without miring the United States in endless conflicts.

Herskowitz's revelations illuminate Bush's personal motivation for invading Iraq and, more importantly, his general inclination to use war to advance his domestic political ends. Furthermore, they establish that this thinking predated 9/11, predated his election to the presidency and predated his appointment of leading neoconservatives who had their own, separate, more complex geopolitical rationale for supporting an invasion.

Conversations With Bush The Candidate

Herskowitz—a longtime Houston newspaper columnist—has ghostwritten or co-authored autobiographies of a broad spectrum of famous people, including Reagan adviser Michael Deaver, Mickey Mantle, Dan Rather and Nixon cabinet secretary John B. Connally. Bush's 1999 comments to Herskowitz were made over the course of as many as 20 sessions together. Eventually, campaign staffers—expressing concern about things Bush had told the author that were included in the manuscript—pulled the project, and Bush campaign officials came to Herskowitz's house and took his original tapes and notes. Bush communications director Karen Hughes then assumed responsibility for the project, which was published in highly sanitized form as A Charge to Keep.

The revelations about Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged during two taped sessions I held with Herskowitz. These conversations covered a variety of matters, including the journalist's continued closeness with the Bush family and fondness for Bush Senior—who clearly trusted Herskowitz enough to arrange for him to pen a subsequent authorized biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published in 2003.

I conducted those interviews last fall and published an article based on them during the final heated days of the 2004 campaign. Herskowitz's taped insights were verified to the satisfaction of editors at the Houston Chronicle, yet the story failed to gain broad mainstream coverage, primarily because news organization executives expressed concern about introducing such potent news so close to the election. Editors told me they worried about a huge backlash from the White House and charges of an "October Surprise."

Debating The Timeline For War

But today, as public doubts over the Iraq invasion grow, and with the Downing Street papers adding substance to those doubts, the Herskowitz interviews assume singular importance by providing profound insight into what motivated Bush—personally—in the days and weeks following 9/11. Those interviews introduce us to a George W. Bush, who, until 9/11, had no means for becoming "a great president"—because he had no easy path to war. Once handed the national tragedy of 9/11, Bush realized that the Afghanistan campaign and the covert war against terrorist organizations would not satisfy his ambitions for greatness. Thus, Bush shifted focus from Al Qaeda, perpetrator of the attacks on New York and Washington. Instead, he concentrated on ensuring his place in American history by going after a globally reviled and easily targeted state run by a ruthless dictator.

The Herskowitz interviews add an important dimension to our understanding of this presidency, especially in combination with further evidence that Bush's focus on Iraq was motivated by something other than credible intelligence. In their published accounts of the period between 9/11 and the March 2003 invasion, former White House Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke and journalist Bob Woodward both describe a president single-mindedly obsessed with Iraq. The first anecdote takes place the day after the World Trade Center collapsed, in the Situation Room of the White House. The witness is Richard Clarke, and the situation is captured in his book, Against All Enemies.

On September 12th, I left the Video Conferencing Center and there, wandering alone around the Situation Room, was the President. He looked like he wanted something to do. He grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. "Look," he told us, "I know you have a lot to do and all…but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way…"

I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. "But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this."

"I know, I know, but…see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred…" …

"Look into Iraq, Saddam," the President said testily and left us. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty stared after him with her mouth hanging open.

Similarly, Bob Woodward, in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview about his book, Bush At War, captures a moment, on November 21, 2001, where the president expresses an acute sense of urgency that it is time to secretly plan the war with Iraq. Again, we know there was nothing in the way of credible intelligence to precipitate the president's actions.

Woodward: "President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.'"

Wallace (voiceover): Woodward says immediately after that, Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam—and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check.

Woodward: "Rumsfeld and Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the necessary preparations in Kuwait specifically to make war possible."

Bush wanted a war so that he could build the political capital necessary to achieve his domestic agenda and become, in his mind, "a great president." Blair and the members of his cabinet, unaware of the Herskowitz conversations, placed Bush's decision to mount an invasion in or about July of 2002. But for Bush, the question that summer was not whether, it was only how and when. The most important question, why, was left for later.

Eventually, there would be a succession of answers to that question: weapons of mass destruction, links to Al Qaeda, the promotion of democracy, the domino theory of the Middle East. But none of them have been as convincing as the reason George W. Bush gave way back in the summer of 1999.