Nice comments. Well, time to take a break and go download some nice

They’ll pick Hillary. Your Potemkin Village candidate…

And you thought the Donks were going to produce another George C. Marshall? Well, I’ll eat my hat!

So you’ll be down to one of three Republicans: Condi, Rudy, or McCain.

I voted for Kerry in 2004, but it was profoundly harder than it should have been. Not under the bondage of BDS, I rejecting the Anybody But Bush mentality. At the end of the day, after weighing all the issues including foreign policy, Kerry won a cautious vote from me. Very cautious.

As for 2008, we need a strong active choice, with a clear plan to fight terror (who is not just a Republican-lite). If they pick Hillary…no they wouldn’t be that stupid.

I guess when you consider the fact that men bet and lost their entire worldly firtunes to make this country happen, it grates when you must watch the rape.

The major issue for me is the incompetence of the the war. I don’t think that our people should be dying because “we had to settle at the polls”. I was not against going to war … I just believe that if we go to war it should be declared by congress and we should all be in it, all sacrificing.

Oh well, this too shall pass ……….. maybe?

“I don’t expect perfection from Bush, nor do I think he’s perfect. But I’m far too old and I’ve seen far too much of the world to be shocked by the revelation that politicians are crooked, or that they cater to the interests of themselves and their friends. The way I see it, I have a choice: I can live in the real world, with all its imperfections, and do my best to make my way in it as best I know how, or I can hold everyone to impossible standards of perfection and feel a sense of constant frustration when reality fails to meet my ideals. I simply choose the former over the latter.�

It’s a pretty damn incisive statement; you’re spot on. Suck it up, deal with reality and get on with living. There’s plenty of folks who need to read this.

I don’t expect perfection from Bush, nor do I think he’s perfect. But I’m far too old and I’ve seen far too much of the world to be shocked by the revelation that politicians are crooked, or that they cater to the interests of themselves and their friends. The way I see it, I have a choice: I can live in the real world, with all its imperfections, and do my best to make my way in it as best I know how, or I can hold everyone to impossible standards of perfection and feel a sense of constant frustration when reality fails to meet my ideals. I simply choose the former over the latter.

In the broad sweep of things, and given the fact that there are realistically two parties for which to vote in this country at the moment, the current crop of Republicans falls more in line for what I feel are the biggest priorities facing us today.

That doesn’t mean I don’t agonize when I go to the polls, or that I didn’t grimace and sigh when I made my mark for Bush/Cheney, but for me it’s simply a matter of choosing the better of two bad choices.

I completely agree with the Independent move. Mentioning that wonderous quote from Roosevelt as a foundation of defense for George bush is blaphemic. George Bush doesn’t have the anything like the thoughtful demeanor of Roosevelt. And Roosevelt would never have made the “cheap” moves of Bush while his countrymen were dying in the streets of another country.

George bush is not steadfast …. he is secretive, sneaky and running out of tricks (as evidenced by the video released on Katrina prep) and smiles. He inked a deal in India today that is an A La carte version of the deal everyone else has signed. He will be super conservative with others when he talks.

the real answer to Why? … because we have become a weak and spoiled citizenry, and we don’t remember how to take control of our own lives. We leave that to the marketeers.

Why?

For me, I think Theodore Roosevelt summed it up nicely:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The Democrats are exactly those ‘cold and timid souls’ in my view. Though it seems Roosevelt was wrong in one respect: the Democrats have come to know defeat very well.

This is a time of great uncertainty. Immovable objects of Western principle are meeting the irresistable force of Islamist belief. Vision, purpose and steady hands are required. The Democrats have none of these. They are beholden for their posts to a sizeable far left constituency that, to me, seems mad.

Some may argue that that’s the role of a minority party: to criticize, debate, and help to shape and refine the national discourse. And they are right, with one slight modification: responsibility.

Responsible criticism. Responsible debate. How odd to find myself nodding along to President Bush as he makes these very same points.

This is what our latter day Democrats seem incapable of. They seem to me the party of angst, fury and irrationality. They are the party of Dean, and of Markos Moulitsas Zúniga. The Democrats on the national stage have given voice to the moveon.org and dailykos crowd; it seems as though the inmates are truly running the asylum.

I’ve been a Democratic voter since 1987, and with the lone exception of 2004, have voted Democratic in every presidential election since. And yet I’ve come to revile the Democrats. When next I register to vote, I will do so as an independent. And until the Democrats come to their senses, they will never again have my vote in a national election.

“107. An infidel i.e. a person who does not believe in Allah and His Oneness, is najis. Similarly, Ghulat who believe in any of the holy twelve Imams as God, or that they are incarnations of God, and Khawarij and Nawasib who express enmity towards th e holy Imams, are also najis. And similar is the case of those who deny Prophethood, or any of the necessary laws of Islam, like, namaz and fasting, which are believed by the Muslims as a part of Islam, and which they also know as such.
As regards the people of the Book (i.e. the Jews and the Christians) who do not accept the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah (Peace be upon him and his progeny), they are commonly considered najis, but it is not improbable that they are Pak. Ho wever, it is better to avoid them.”

(sorry if I butcher the html)

The following ten things are essentially najis:

1. Urine
2. Faeces
3. Semen
4. Dead body
5. Blood
6. Dog
7. Pig
8. Kafir
9. Alcoholic liquors
10. The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat.

“I don’t support Bush. I don’t oppose him. Mostly I ignore him.”
That sums up my feelings nicely.

He’s clearly committed to winning this war, but just as clearly clueless as to how to fight it. The thing is, this Long War is so different from any war the U.S. has fought in the past that I doubt anyone else in Washington now would fare much better. It may even take two or three more presidencies before we get a commander-in-chief who’s finally able to figure it out well enough to produce a truly effective war plan. We can only hope none of our cities get blown away by a nuke in the meantime.

Why?

Because in the end, when it came to the war on Islamist terrorism, Kerry had essentially the same overall general plan that Bush, by then, had, too. If he had any radical new ideas (and “doing it right” or “getting more allies” doesn’t really count — especially when Chirac and Schroeder right off said “no way, Jack”) we never heard them. If he was less beholden to some special interests, he was more beholden to some others.

Overall, in presidential politics, a tie goes to the incumbent. No point in merely replacing one set of stumblebums with another, in the presence of the enemy, and adding the chaos of transition to the equation.

Add to that picture the whole mass of Michael Moore et al, swirling around declaring that a Kerry victory (they didn’t like him, either) would in fact be not a Kerry victory but A REPUDIATION OF EVERY SINGLE UNJUST AND ILLEGAL MILITARY ACTION UNDERTAKEN BY SHRUBBIE McCHIMPLERBURTON THE DEATH MERCHANT SINCE HE CAUSED 9/11!!!!!

So it became an easy, but still bitter, choice to pull that “R” lever.

Frankly, the best reason to have voted for Kerry was his wife. But them, I write headlines for a living, and four years of her mouth and antics might not have been as appealing to people in another trade.

“The very real fact of a very real war is not even discernable among the American population at large. No sacrifices are asked, not even doing without “American Idol.â€Â? No mobilization has been ordered. Life goes on as before, creating a severe and hurtful disorientation between those families who have lost sons and those who don’t even know there is a war on.”

Why would it be any different? A REAL war? uh-uh … A real war is a war declared by Congress! A real war is a declared operation that utilizes all resources! Anyone remember WW ll ? Anyone remember a tax break during WWll? Anyone remember WWll being administered from the back room by CEO’s?

There is a fundamental lapse of the constitution here that is being lost in contrived pissing contests to keep everyone busy. Speaking of which … like Kerry or not, and I don’t …. but does anyone remember a politician in the 40′ or 50′s debasing and challenging a war veteran for the sake of getting votes? Other vets would have hunted these folks down and beat their collective asses. Real veterans fought for the rights of any American to say anything and those guys shamed themselves for someone who had the balls to fly onto a flatop with a REAL veteran to declare a victory when others sons and daughters were dying and still continue to die to this day. He was on the TV within the last week with a smile on his face saying that we are making progress according to plan.

Make it to 2008 and put someone in that will help the situation? I think we have the chance of a snowball in hell, but there is always hope.

Republican …. Democrat …. Independent or whatever … if we continue to accept the behavior of politicians and power brokers in election bids we will deserve the failures that we acheive in the world.

If we are going to have a war, have a real war. If we are going to plod along and make people rich at the expense of our children and grandchildren then don’t complain. If the WWll soldiers and the wives who worked in factories were around in numbers they would be ashamed of us all. Just some random thoughts and trying to keep it simple :)

The man’s certainly not perfect. But I prefer him where he’s at now to the alternative of a Gore or Kerry.

Why?

Mr. Bush has been a disaster. I voted against him in 2000, and I voted against him in 2004. I thought in 2000 he was a small man with an unjustified belief in himself. In 2004 I knew that to be true, and although I had no love for Kerry I thought that he, at least, might put forward a better crop of advisers.

Mr. Bush belongs in a class with Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and James Buchanan.

My experience exactly. Glad to know I wasn’t the only one.

I supported him against the BDS lunacy. But on his own, it’s like rooting for my old college football team. You knew they were going to fumble on every possession. But they were the home team.

Haha ouch. Funny because it’s true.

In my view, the guy has had (for the most part) a more or less fairly steady hand in the war on terror. Any concerns I have regarding imperfections (or even outright apparent contradictions) in the implementation of his high-sounding rhetoric are tempered when I look forward to 2008, and wonder just who’s going to be sitting in the Oval Office, just as we’re likely to be in the thick of the ongoing Iran and (whatever it is that results from the) cartoon jihad debacles.

The man’s certainly not perfect. But I prefer him where he’s at now to the alternative of a Gore or Kerry.