The only reason it ever became a political issue
Posted By: is because of Jesus-freaks like yourself. on 2008-09-16
In Reply to: Nice Try, Honey - The Church Lady
Did it ever dawn on you that if women can lose their right to have a say in what happens with their own bodies, that down the road there will be OTHER rights lost, as well? Rights that just might include something that involves you or someone else you care about? Use your imagination. The possibilities are pretty frightening.
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It is not, in my view, a political issue....
it is a moral issue. Unfortunately, politics is the only way to get anything done in this country. Last time I looked, I have exactly the same rights you do in this country...to freely express my views. And no matter how much you would like to stomp on it (and here I thought liberals were ALL FOR freedom of speech...yeah, ONLY when it supports THEIR view of things, self-serving left wing political strategists that they are...YOUR words, not mine).
Face it, this is a political issue.....NM
.
It is a valid political issue.
"We people" do not consider it a bunch of tissue. We believe, as does YOUR VP candidate, that life begins at conception.
Abortion is a political issue....
it has been since activist judges took the "choice" away from one part of the country by overturning a state law. The Constitution states only the legislative branch can enact law. That is when it became a political issue.
This also made this issue a political
.
Has Adam become a political issue?...nm
nm
Not deep, issue-based political discourse, is it?
It can be entertaining if you don't take it seriously though.
The attack on this lady is an obvious political issue....
XX
No issue is no issue. Denying that
nm
This is the reason we are in Iraq and it's the same reason I didn't vote for him in 2000: Didn'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.
political ads
First of all, I have to say I am so sick of the ads; I think they should limit TV so they can't start months and months before the election and then can't take up every single commercial break. But my question is, has anyone else noticed the ads change according to what the public is saying. The public sentiment runs one way, the ad reinforces that sentiment. The public says something else and the ad changes to what the public wants to hear. I want to tell them "get a platform and stick to it. Let us know what you really think and what your real plans are so we can make an informed decision." All this back and forth is making me dizzy and just more proof that you just can't trust them.
I never said what political persuasian I was. sm
You presume an awful lot and have attacked here more than once without provocation. As far as Chelsea, I don't see her mentioned here. However, making no presumptions, a Christian person does not post as you do. So am I to assume you post as more than one? It isn't nice to have presumptions made about oneself, is it?
The Christian right isn't political at all. sm
There are many Democrats who belong to the Christian right. I am not sure why you feel politicizing religion is so important, but I realize how important labels are to you. It's unfortunate. Jimmy Carter just recently came out and spoke against the Democratic party for abandoning God. If Christians feel they have to place to turn but the *right*, whose fault is that? Pat Robertson doesn't speak for me. However, he is a good man and a Christian man. As far as calling for an assassination that's bogus and was taken out of context and anyone who cared to do their research would know that. But it's just way more convenient and fits into the left's philosophy to damn him to hell. THERE' s the left for you.
Political civil war that really does sum it up....sm
And it really is a sad state of affairs.
You raise a good point about bin Laden, I never thought of that. He could have died of natural causes and be buried somewhere. It's not like he was the most vigorous being (healthwise). Who knows?
Catching him two years ago would have meant more politically and *antiterror* wise than it would mean today.
Next we will be checking the political....
affiliation of serial killers. Sigh. What do you think Osama bin Laden would register as if he could register to vote....ummmm....don't think it would be with the Christian right.....? Are we going to try to list the perverts and see whose list is the longest? Why even post this, when you have cigar-wielding Bill Clinton on your list? Do you honestly think this man in the bathroom did what he did because he is a Republican? If so, that means Billy must have wielded the cigar because he is a Democrat....?
I repeat...why even post this?
political comedy
You are right. It is so ABSURD that it is funny.
BS from a political watchdog?
Do you even know what that means?
But it would be political hay if it were an Obama
@
Making political hay.
These dadgone Republicans will make hay out of anything even if it makes them look like idgits.
This is what happens when a political camp
ignorance as they support candidates that do not even have the sense to equip their supporters with enough ammunition to be able to defend their own party's own platform positions. Their white matter is so atrophied from lack of exercise that they are not able to come up with anything except vacuous statements such as these.
They travel in packs and set out on their hunts, in search of the slur, slander, dirt and lies, on a mission to convince themselves and each other of their social superiority and to bolster their delusions of grandeur, couched in their unfounded beliefs that they are the Ones...the pure, true, real Americans and that the opposing candidate and the "theys" that support him are the "Others," the cursed Moslem terrorists, subversive socialists, Anti-American militant camp of racial mongrels, the great unwashed underbelly of the nation, composed of factions of militant tribal warriors whose shared vision is to bring their country down.
Their eyes are glazed over after weeks and weeks of speaking with forked tongues as they get themselves all caught up in the rapture of self-righteous indigation and self assurance. The fervor of their mob mentality is reaching ever such higher proportions, whipped up into frenzies of verbal volleys, the rhetorical equivalent of suicide bombs, which they hurl without abandon across vast stretchs of cyberspace, confident their strikes are surgical and secretly hoping to take down as much collateral damage as possible. They start to mistake their bully pulpit sermons for strength in numbers, all forceful and mighty, these champions of truth and might.
This process is a natural by-product of weeks upon weeks of chanting hate-speech mantra, reinforced by spinmeisters and hammering hatred that issues forth from their fearless leaders at campaign rallies. This causes them to eventually adopt this kind of arrogance that ultimately morphs into some sort suspended, animated, twisted logic that actually allows them to believe that they are calling the faithful to arms, energizing their base, and calling forth armies of fellow true, pure Americans, marching to the polls down the road to nowhere.
Face it, Bradley, your guy is all washed up and your party's going down.
Political nuttiness.
Who cares? I'll vote for the person I feel is the right one for the job and all of this political nattering isn't improving your line counts, is it?
Okay. use your kid to get your political opinion
nm
That is if political boards like this are
allowed to remain in existence when Obama's regime takes over.
Thank goodness, no more political ads! nm
))
Political humor
Subject: Will Obama get Osama, or will Osama get Obama? After numerous rounds of 'We don't even know if Osama is still alive', Barrack Hussein Obama has now been telling everyone he will capture Osama Bin Laden when elected.
So, Osama himself decided to send Barrack Hussein Obama a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.
Obama opened the letter and it contained a single line of coded message:
370H-SSV-0773H
Obama was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Howard Dean.
Dean and the DNC and his aides had no clue either, so they sent it to Joe Biden.
Joe Biden could not solve so it was sent to the FBI and the CIA.
Eventually they asked John McCain and his Staff to look at it.
And within minutes McCain's Staff e-mailed Obama with this reply:
'Tell Obama he's holding the message upside down'.
Top 10 political newcomers
OMG! Get ready for a big shock by one certain individual who made the list!
Top 10 political newcomers of 2008 By: Alexander Burns January 3, 2009 07:09 PM EST
Even in a year dominated by oversized political personalities — Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain chief among them — a few lesser-known newcomers helped define the electoral landscape.
These new arrivals on the national stage — relative unknowns who burst onto the scene, behind-the-scenes players who suddenly took on high-profile roles, politicians who took their act beyond their state’s borders — made 2008 a livelier, more engaging political year and seem likely to continue shaping the political environment for better or for worse.
Gov. Sarah Palin: The Alaska governor was a significant political figure in her own right before 2008, but in the span of just a few months the former Wasilla mayor exploded onto the national scene to become the first woman nominated for national office by the Republican Party and one of the most controversial political figures in the country.
Her introduction to the public wasn’t as smooth as it could have been: After a dazzling performance at the Republican National Convention, a series of campaign-trail missteps diminished Palin’s electoral appeal. But the GOP base never stopped loving Palin, and despite her ticket’s defeat, Palin remains an enormously popular conservative who’s poised to help determine the future of the party.
Caroline Kennedy: The last living child of President John F. Kennedy, the 51-year-old Manhattanite emerged from her famously private lifestyle in late January, writing a New York Times op-ed endorsing Obama for president.
A joint endorsement rally with her uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), followed a day later, vaulting Caroline into the front lines of the presidential campaign. After the end of the Democratic primaries, she headed up Obama’s vice presidential selection process with Eric Holder and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
Now she’s reportedly a leading contender for the Senate seat Clinton will vacate when she takes up her new post at the State Department. Quite a debut, even for a Kennedy.
David Plouffe: An unlikely celebrity, the Obama campaign manager usually attracts distinctly un-glitzy adjectives like “soft-spoken” and “camera-shy.” But as the operations guy behind the Obama phenomenon, Plouffe cultivated a reputation as a no-nonsense political chess master.
Plouffe won’t take a position within the administration, though he may continue to play a role shaping Obama’s movement outside the White House. He is, however, cashing in: he’s already signed on with the Washington Speakers Bureau and is penning a future best-seller, tentatively titled “The Audacity to Win.”
Sen.-elect Kay Hagan (D-N.C.): Few expected this obscure state legislator to have much of a shot against a political titan like Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Sure, Hagan was the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s anointed candidate, but most political prognosticators expected her campaign would fall short in the end.
But after winning her party’s nomination in May, Hagan proved an adept fundraiser and relentlessly attacked Dole as an out-of-touch Washington insider. By the fall, Hagan was surging, and when Dole blasted back with ads linking Hagan to an atheist group it backfired. Hagan won by 9 points.
In a non-presidential year, Hagan would likely have attracted more attention as a political giant-killer. Hagan will have to settle for a humbler title: United States senator.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.): Like Palin, Corker held high office before 2008. But it wasn’t until the Senate’s showdown over a proposed auto industry bailout that the former Chattanooga mayor distinguished himself as a serious player on the Hill.
Drawing praise from the GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, as well as from Democrats like Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Corker took the lead in shaping the Republican counterproposal to Democrats’ aid plan for Detroit.
His performance over the past month — which even a partisan like Durbin conceded was “magnificent” — makes him one of the few Republicans who looks better after Nov. 4 than he did before, standing out as a possible future leader in a party that’s been largely decapitated.
Meg Whitman: The former ebay CEO left her corporate post only about nine months ago. But thanks to her work on behalf of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s primary campaign, and the McCain-Palin ticket in the general election, Whitman is on her way to becoming a significant national political figure.
Though Palin ultimately took the prize, Whitman was buzzed about for the vice presidency after McCain listed her among the three wisest people he knew (the other two were Gen. David Petraeus and John Lewis, the Democratic congressman and civil rights hero). Whitman also delivered a solid, if unmemorable, speech at the Republican National Convention.
She’s now eyeing the 2010 California governor’s race, and with her business background and deep pockets Whitman has a real shot. If she were elected governor of the most-populous state in the nation, Whitman would immediately be find herself on the short list of Republican presidential contenders.
Beau Biden: During the Democratic convention, few speakers inspired as much on-air swooning as son of the now vice president-elect, Joe Biden. CNN’s David Gergen called Beau Biden’s address a “remarkably good speech” and “a home run.”
The 39-year-old Delaware attorney general's National Guard unit was deployed to Iraq in October. When he comes back, he’ll have the chance to put his famous name to use when his father’s Senate seat comes up for a special election in 2010. He hasn’t said that he’ll seek the job, but Joe Biden made his own preferences clear by engineering the appointment of a placeholder for the seat.
“It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden, would make a great United States senator, just as I believe he has been a great attorney general,” Biden said in a statement after his longtime aide, Ted Kaufman, was tapped for the seat in November.
Gov. David Paterson: When Paterson was elected lieutenant governor in 2006, New York’s political class viewed him to be a senator-in-waiting, ready to step up in the event Hillary Rodham Clinton won the presidency. An affable political operator with a wry sense of humor, Paterson was expected to spend a term or two in former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s shadow until the crusading former prosecutor decided to go national.
That plan didn’t quite work out. Spitzer resigned in disgrace after a personal scandal, leaving Paterson in charge. Paterson, it seems, had a few skeletons of his own in the closet. Fresh off revelations of his own personal indiscretions, Paterson was then confronted by the Wall Street crisis, which has left New York’s budget in a shambles. Now he finds himself at the center of the succession spectacle over Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck: This slot might actually be an ensemble prize given to the entire cast of ABC's “The View,” the women’s chat show which emerged this year as morning television’s most entertaining and unlikely forum for political debate.
But if there’s one member of the show’s cast who stood out, it was former “Survivor” contestant-turned-conservative pundit Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Cut from a different mold than your typical right-of-center talking head, Hasselbeck frequently clashed with her considerably more liberal co-hosts, including the venerable Barbara Walters, by defending the McCain-Palin campaign. In October, Hasselbeck went so far as to campaign with the GOP vice presidential candidate in Florida.
If there were any doubts about her stature as a rising GOP pundit, they were dispelled last week. After complaining on the air that she didn’t receive an invitation this year’s White House Christmas party, Hasselbeck promptly received a apology from the White House. It turned out she had been invited but her invitation did not arrive on time.
Rachel Maddow: Since taking over the 9 p.m. slot on MSNBC, Maddow has posted strong ratings by finally giving liberal cable-watchers the show they’ve always wanted. Less combative than Chris Matthews and less self-righteous than Keith Olbermann, the former Rhodes Scholar has defined herself as a thoughtful, sharp — and sharp-tongued — host who presents her perspective on the news without being cranky, gimmicky and repetitive.
For Maddow, as for all liberal commentators, the question is how she’ll keep her audience engaged without the Bush administration serving as a foil. Judging from her quick start, it’s a good bet she’ll figure out a way.
some political humor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzlIm_T8xjM&feature=channel
Political humor
YOU MIGHT BE AN OBOT IF…
You’ve never paid any attention to politics until Obama ran for President, and now you’ve become a political expert by reading Huffington Post and/or Daily Kos.
You feel tingles running up or down your legs when That One is orating. |