Captain's Quarters -

Looks like a variant of the Stockholm syndrome. Scary concept: being a hostage and not even realizing it.

"...I don't believe this represents mainstream thought among Democrats..."

Well, of course you don't! Anyone with an ounce of sense knows this is only mainstream thought among the crypto-fascist Democrats.

Pay no attention to the fanatics behind Hillary's curtain, y'all!

Can't this chick just find some serial killer on death row to adore?

Isn't that what women like her usually do? Write mash letters to one of the Menendez brothers or the Nightstalker, Richard Ramirez, and then get married and go on Larry King and talk about how mahvelous, simply mahvelous her hubby is, how he's just misunderstood and how well he treats her.

If she's this turned on by Mahmoud one has to wonder about her lesbian credentials. Maybe she can get a few moments alone with him somehow and he'll turn her into a straight woman. He's got the mojo to do it I'm sure.

He can just whisper a little of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" in her ear. Or maybe the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", maybe that'll do it.

Some of these people are like a swimmer who loves great white sharks swimming around him, because it scares the jellyfish away. "Those jellyfish stings hurt." They have no sense of proportional risk.

"Let's make clear that I don't believe this represents mainstream thought among Democrats, by any stretch of the imagination. "

Prove it. Name the Democratic Presidential candidate from the Senate who voted to condemn the MoveOn ad.

I thought you were against nutpicking, Captain...?

I think the "L Word" for Sallykohn actually stands for "Loony."

Seems to me there's potentially good material for a "Will & Grace" kind of sitcom. To wit:

"Sassy Jewish lesbian, Sally Kohn, inadvertently answers a sub-lease ad for a safe-house run by a wacky Iranian terrorist nicknamed "Dinner Jacket." Once they hook up, watch for steamy sexual chemistry and rapid-fire hilarity!"

Running quip:

Sally: So what are you anyway, Jacket?
Jacket: I'm Shia.
Sally: That's funny, I used to have a Chia Pet and you don't have anything sprouting from your head!

Coming this fall on MSNBC right after "Keith Olbermann's ST. Vitus' Dance Party!"

Pat,

This wasn't posted by a commenter. This was posted by a blogger.

Let's make clear that I don't believe this represents mainstream thought among Democrats, by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course not, that's because not all Democrats will be watching Ahmadinejad's speech and yelling "You go, girl!" when he goes after Bush. Some of them will still be too upset with Scott Pelley's unfair grilling of the poor little guy to refocus on the speech.

I'm reminded of the women that thought Ted Bundy was "cute".

Another "Useless Idiot"?

My sympathy for battered women just slipped a notch. (A "notch", not a whole bunch, but of the battered women I've known, they seem to have a tendency to make the same mistake over and over and over...).

Sallykohn is NOT a "blogger" on Kos. The way that Kos is set up is that commentators can set up idividual "diaries" that other commentators can then leave comments on. It works the same way at Redstate. It would be as if Carol Herman wrote a long post here, people replied to it and it was taken as representative of Captain's Quarters.

According to Kos, the contributers who can be said to officially represent the site are: ...

BarbinMD
Darksyde
DavidNYC
DeminCT
Devilstower
DHinMI
Hunter (fellow)
Georgia10
KagroX
Mcjoan (fellow)
Meteor Blades
MissLaura
Plutonium Page
SusanG (fellow)
Trapper John

For all we know SallyKohn is Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt or Drudge trying to stir up trouble by creating someone for the right wing to "nut pick."

Okay, so this little worm locks up disidents, executes gays,denies the holocaust, is working on developing nukes, is stifling democracy, oh, and supposedly one of the kidnappers of the Iranian hostages, but this kool-aid freak says Bush is worse. Git outa here!

Teresa: "For all we know SallyKohn is Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt or Drudge trying to stir up trouble by creating someone for the right wing to "nut pick."

That's like throwing charcoal starter on a nuclear explosion;like there's not a lot of ready ammunition between the commentators OR the "official representatives"?

"For all we know SallyKohn is Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt or Drudge trying to stir up trouble by creating someone for the right wing to "nut pick."

Trying to remember the last time a neo-con played sock puppet. Like ... never? But trust a moonbat to always always always display psychological projection and assume that everyone else will behave like the Left has done.

MarkJ, good one. Funny stuff, I don't know what you do in real life but I can see Hollywood in your future.

But there has to be some other characters, maybe Scott Beauchamp as the neighbor, a wacked out zany Iraq vet, goes into a tuck and roll and comes up firing with a broom in his hand very time Mahmoud walks into the room.

And Larry Craig as the landlord, acts straight but with a huge crush on our sexy Iranian, always tapping his feet and asking Mahmoud into the bathroom to check for leaks.

Ok, you're obviously better at this than I am. but funny stuff from you. Thanks for the laugh.

"For all we know SallyKohn is Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt or Drudge trying to stir up trouble by creating someone for the right wing to "nut pick."

Now there's a conspiracy theory for you. Because these three in particular, they'd expend a lot of time and energy on creating an alternative identity just to make the far left look silly.

This is nutpicking, as this woman is obviously a nut. I don't really understand what the point is of this post. There are people out there with wacky views? Not exactly breaking news, is it? Seriously, you could dedicate the rest of your life to posting the views of crazy people and barely make a dent in the possible material available.

This woman is clearly an idiot. Her comments remind me of the kind of nonsense you hear from Chavez apologists.

It's interesting to see so many commenters associate all Democrats with her remarks, when Mahmoud would be out of power if not for Bush's policies. In reality, Bush is Mahmoud's savior.

I think we are all familiar with the phrase, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

That many on the left see Bush as their primary enemy, not the mullahs or their puppet, or the Salafists, or the Saudis has become all to obvious.

During the cold war it wasn't unusual to see leftists puffing up and ignoring the crimes of various leftwing despots - but if you had told anyone five years ago who the left would be buddying up with now they would not believe you.

I'm sure "Screw Them" Markos is proud.

I think we are all familiar with the phrase, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

That many on the left see Bush as their primary enemy, not the mullahs or their puppet, or the Salafists, or the Saudis has become all to obvious.

During the cold war it wasn't unusual to see leftists puffing up and ignoring the crimes of various leftwing despots - but if you had told anyone five years ago who the left would be buddying up with now they would not believe you.

I'm sure "Screw Them" Markos is proud.

"...when Mahmoud would be out of power if not for Bush's policies. In reality, Bush is Mahmoud's savior."

The Power of the Bush, from whence nothing escapes.

This is of course kind of a strange statement, Bayam, seeing as how the real power in Iran lies with the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, who was elected by the Assembly of Experts. Is Bush responsible for that, too? Probably not, since it happened in 1989...oh wait, the first President Bush was in office then.

So my comment works there, too. The Power of the Bush...

Ed, you`re sweeping more than a bit too broadly with this statement:

"When someone believes that George Bush somehow has been more oppressive than Mahmoud Ahmadinefad and the Iranian Mullocracy, it`s safe to question their sanity."

First, maybe I have this wrong, but George Bush is OUR president, and even though we may regard Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullocracy as our enemies, they are NOT oppressing us. Even Miss Nutcake makes this distinction. She makes it very clear that she`s happy she`s not Iran and being oppressed or worse there; she`s using Ahmadinejad`s words as support for her own criticism of Bush and American policies.

Second, there are plenty in the mainstream Republican community who are very unhappy with this Administration`s domestic policies relating to the now never-ending war on terror, our liberties and pocketbooks, and find it very galling that we are being upbraided worldwide, including by the likes of Ahmadinejad and Chavez, and being cited as despots like Mugabe for their own very clearly oppressive policies.

I`m sure you can come up with a few names of strong conservatives who feel this way - based on facts and arguments - and not sheer "irrational hatred of Bush", such as the Cato Institute, Richard Viguerie, Bruce Fein, Bruce Bartlett, and Bob Barr.

Or do you question the sanity of these people too? Are only those who are happy with George Bush the sane ones?

This is of course kind of a strange statement, Bayam, seeing as how the real power in Iran lies with the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, who was elected by the Assembly of Experts

You're right, Khamenei holds the real power and his support of Mahmoud has tracked his performance and standing with the people.

But Mahmoud is such an accomplished moron that his policies intended to help the poor have backfired and only wrecked the Iranian economy and further impoverished the country. Experts on Iran will tell you that the only reason the entire Iranian economy hasn't collapsed under the combination of Western sanctions and Mohamoud's economic policies is the high cost of oil.

If oil was priced at $30 per barrel, Iran's economy and currency would have totally collapsed, leading to broad instability, political unrest, and potentially a revolution. Thanks to the brilliant invasion of Iraq with inadequate forces to contain an insurgency and seal the borders to prevent al Qaeda infilitration, oil would remain priced far lower, which would have lead to the demise of Mahmoud.

Try to understand that the jump of oil prices from $30 to $80 per barrel respresents pure profit. It's a massive influx of cash to American enemies at great cost to the American consumer and the trade deficient. At the same time, it gives our enemies greater latitude and capacity to wage a struggle against the US. In the case of Iran, it has enabled the country to sustain its economy under conditions that 6 years ago would have lead to collapse.

Akki is George Soros'kind of guy man.

Anyone who doubts that the man who funds MoveOn, the ACLU, Media Matters, The Tides Foundation and countless other leftist groups to the tune of millions, is on the ame page as the Holocaust denying Iranian president.

Anti-Israel, anti-US...same page folks.

Your Democratic Party for the 21st century.

The fact that this idiotic sloan is a blogger and not a commenter is amply demonstrated by the fact that her blog post is accompanied by comments. The distinction is clear and obvious, just as an "editorial" in the newspaper is often followed by "letters to the editor."

It's nobody's fault but Kos's that he set up his site so that lunati^h^h^h^h^h diarists could post their moonbat opinions unfettered.

Yep, these guys are nuts. Yep, they're entirely representative of mainstream opinion at DailyKos. Yep, it's fair to point out how barkingly insane they are.

Bush and Cheney get it.

In spite of all the smoke and political bullshyt thrown around since 9/11, the President of the US is the guy who's keeping his eye on the ball.

Nukes + terror=untraceable or, at minimum, plausible deniability.

Sucking up to clowns like Akki make everyone feel great about our open society, but they simply play into the hands of the Iranians, the single most likely country to create and deliver a workable nuke device into the wrong hands.

As long as the corrupt and slothful United Nations remains the only organization for international diplomacy, pre-emtion, in one form or another, is the only way to prevent a disaster.

The next president will find out, that they can tweek Bush's policy, but there will be no escaping it.

Gee, does this mean we can question their patriotism now?

moron does not begin to describe them.

You know, I am not surprised that some overfed, overprivileged KOS-b*tch would align herself with a man who would slit her throat simply because she's Jewish.

Why am I not surprised?

Because she's just another 'open-minded' liberal.

Stupidity has no bounds.

One of the great things about open comments is that they demonstrate time and again that there is no definitive answer to the question, "How stupid can you get???"

Teresa: For all we know SallyKohn is Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt or Drudge trying to stir up trouble by creating someone for the right wing to "nut pick."

bayam: It's interesting to see so many commenters associate all Democrats with her remarks, when Mahmoud would be out of power if not for Bush's policies. In reality, Bush is Mahmoud's savior.

TokyoTom: ... there are plenty in the mainstream Republican community who are very unhappy with this Administration`s domestic policies relating to the now never-ending war on terror, our liberties and pocketbooks, and find it very galling that we are being upbraided worldwide, including by the likes of Ahmadinejad and Chavez, and being cited as despots like Mugabe for their own very clearly oppressive policies.

I know, I know: just the other day we were discussing "name calling" and debating ideas, but my mind really boggles at these posts. I expect more like them as time goes by. Had Teresa, bayam and TokyoTom simply confined their remarks to a denial that this Sallykohn person speaks for the whole left, that would have been fine. But to defend her remarks by suggesting that she's actually a neocon sockpuppet, or blathering that Bush is actually responsible for Iran's oppressive mullocracy, or that "Republicans do it, too!" is just... What else can I call it but idiotic? At best, I must assume that the three commenters are simply deranged, so sick with hatred of Bush and "neocons" that, like Sallykohn, he / they have become the root of all evil in their minds.

docjim505: You disappoint. My criticism is from the right, and I am just as concerned about what the state of our union will be like when the reins of government get turned over to the Dems without meaningful opposition in the Congress, as looks increasingly likely. Or in your mind, are only "liberals" interested in limited government?

"At best, I must assume that the three commenters are simply deranged, so sick with hatred of Bush and "neocons" that, like Sallykohn, he / they have become the root of all evil in their minds."

Do you have any sense of irony? Try saying this out loud while you look in a mirror.

Then take a deep breathe and try actually responding to what I wrote, instead of some bogeyman in your head.

Tom

--
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."
Richard Feynman

TokyoTom,

I'm reacting to what you wrote, which struck me very strongly as a backhanded defense of Sallykohn by saying that there are Republicans / conservatives who don't like Bush. What has Bob Barr's opinion of George Bush to do with a woman who writes that she's "turned on by [Ahmadinejad's] frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding"?

Further, it's a little hard to believe that you are even remotely conservative when you write about Bush's "never-ending war on terror, our liberties and pocketbooks". This is the sort of rhetoric I've come to expect from the left; indeed, if we add a few curse words and misspellings and it might have been written by gaffo; if we throw in a swipe at Israel and it might have come from dave. It was well-written enough to have come from Tom Shipley, Teresa or filistro, though it didn't have quite enough of a patina of lunacy to come from bayam or ck.

But possibly I have misconstrued your remarks, or there's an irony in them that I missed. If so, I apologize.

For all we know SallyKohn is Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt or Drudge trying to stir up trouble by creating someone for the right wing to "nut pick."

Not a loonier comment has been seen on this blog.

"Let's make clear that I don't believe this represents mainstream thought among Democrats, by any stretch of the imagination. It does show what happens when people nurse irrational hatred of George Bush -- they "adopt" America's enemies who insult him. Thankfully, that's a minute percentage, but not nonexistent, as Sallykohn demonstrates."
-capEd

"adopting" America's enemies is smack dab on the nose my friend.

Left wing extremists have now come to embrace:
Ahmadinejad, Bin Laden, Chavez, Castro, and every other enemy of America's claim that America has been a bad country, and somehow should atone for its sins (see also Kucinich's telling Sryian TV that if elected he'd pay Iraq reparations for the damage the US has done).

The other night Bill Maher and his extremist audience went wild with support at the idea that the US should stop supporting Israel

Ron Paul, Kucinich, Kos, you name it, but millions of Americans have come to believe that a "non-interventionist" policy should be adopted, and the US should withdraw forces from around the globe

Who can deny that CODE PINK, ANSWER, and other "anti-war" groups want an immediate end to the war in Iraq?

Earlier this year, after being elected to control of Congress, Democrats put out measures to cut the funding and withdraw from Afghanistan.

What do all these policies have in common?

They are all our enemies' policies and demands towards the United States. They are specifically the demands listed by the 911 Commission (as well as innumerable books on AQ) as put forth by Bin Laden in the 5 declarations of war against the US that he published before 911.

All that remains is one demand: convert to Islam.

That's IT. If all the other policy demands are not only acquiesced to but embraced (!), then the only thing seperating those who embrace the demands and an Al Queda supporter is the lack of a conversion to Islam. What? Democrats, Ron Paul supporters, CODE PINK, ANSWER, MoveOn, Maher's audience etc are not suicide bombers so they're not Al Queda? Pardon me, but according to most sources tens of thousands of people went through Bin Laden's training camps in the 90's, and only a few hundred (at best a few thousand) became killers. 90% of Al Queda...is non-violent. They push Bin Laden's political ideology via propaganda (which is why AQ actually has a media council comprising 1/5 of all AQ Senior Leadership; AQSL).

Yep, embrace the enemies' demands, promote them as much as the enemy does (or more) via non-violent means (as the enemy primarily does), and then convert to Islam. That's all that's needed.

These people are not idiots-their frustrated, spiteful, and pissed.

"It does show what happens when people nurse irrational hatred of George Bush -- they "adopt" America's enemies who insult him."

Fight4TheRight says "For all we know SallyKohn is Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt or Drudge trying to stir up trouble by creating someone for the right wing to "nut pick."

Not a loonier comment has been seen on this blog.
------------------------------------

Obviously any sense of verbal play is lost on some of you. I was not accusing those nuts of being a sock puppet, just pointing out that SallyKohn is not an approved rep of Daily Kos and could be anyone. She certainly is not a "blogger" as the Captain claims. As the Captain sanely pointed out earlier in the day, a whole cottage industry has arisen on the right that makes a living out of going through Daily Kos posts looking for stupid ones.

But even if -- heck, probably if -- SallyKohn is exactly who she says she is, what does that prove?
Kos gets 70,000 visitors A DAY. Any of them can write about anything. If 70,000 people a day visited this blog, you would get more than a few weirdos.

Maybe Kos should police the site more, but it would be damn hard on a small budget to have the manpower to read every comment and every diary produced. I thought the Captain was acknowleding that in his earlier post, but I guess "nut picking" is just too much fun.

I'm just shaking my head at this woman's imbecility.

But I'm not surprised at all. Ol' Sally's BDS is writ so large that the letters are the size of the HOLLYWOOD sign in Los Angeles.

Them's mighty big letters. And that's mighty big BDS.

Sally is irrelevant.

She and her post are figurative

Anyone focusing on her is missing the POINT;
anyone focusing on the messenger is ignoring the message

Do "all" liberals/progressives/leftists/whatever believe XYZ? No, of course not. The left in America is bound together only by one thing: BDS. There is no commonality save any and all things based in BDS and then warped or adopted into the partyline.

What concerns me is not Sally, but her message and so many others. Each cave in to the enemy's demands, each attempt at national penance for the sins of our great great great grandfathers is an attempt at giving up our national will, pride, identity, and that which makes an American an American in exchange for a spun excuse to hate GWB.

Make no bones about it, I'm not his fan, but I am not willing to agree with those who want my daughter to wear a bhurka just so that I can come up with another excuse to hate a guy who can't even manage to eat pretzels and watch a football game at the same time. Problems in this world, in this nation, and in our history do not stem from such a man. They stem from the lack of questioning those who deliberately mislead us for their own personal political agendas. The problems come from lacking the courage to resist hate, and instead (love this word) adopting those who promote and perpetuate it.

How charming, to support an enemy, kind of like when America sided with Iraq in the Iran Iraq war.

But why are you bothering to post anything about this, since you already acknowledge she's out on the fringe? It just gives your readers the chance to ridiculously suggest that all Dems feel the same way. You know better than that. Once again, the level of dialogue in your country is in the intellectual gutter.

But I do I salute your new system of noting a person's sexual preference in your stories now. It really is an important and relevant piece of information. I encourage you to also include people's fetishes (anonymous bathroom whoopee, etc) so as to paint an accurate picture of the subjects of your posts.

For me, the point isn't that this cretin represents many or few Dems; the point is that her thought processes and morality have utterly collapsed.

She's willing to forgive Mahmoud's murdering of gays, women, and political opponents, as well as his lust for nuclear weapons, support for terrorism, and calls for the genocide of Jews like herself, because he's better than Bush, even though Bush has never done and never would do any of those things.

To rationalize their hatred of Bush, "progressives" have to make stuff up. Bush stole elections, he's a dangerous moron, he lied about WMD, he puts people in prison illegally, he wiretaps illegally, he's a religious fanatic who wants to bring about the end of the world... Literally everything they hate about him is crap they made up themselves. Lefties are so childish they hate a guy who doesn't even exist.

It's all daddy issues. Bush represents the big, masculine, clean-cut daddy that all "progressives" hate. It's as simple as that.

Zombies.

What I find amazing is that none of the commentors on the left side of the aisle just don't come out and condemn Sallykohn, they have to explain her away as a rightwing sockpuppet or else "Bush is bad."

Why not say that anyone who compares Bush unfavorably to Ahmadinejad is an idiot, and the Bush=Hitler crowd doesn't speak for them. Unless, of course, it does.

As much as I hate to allow a disease to absolve someone of their own responsibilities and behavior; it appears that the illness known as BDS may in fact be a very real and debilitating condition. We know now that it attacks the parts of the brain in charge of logic and rational thinking and causes shrillness in speech. Hopefully it will spread to other of the more autonomic functions such as blinking and breathing and shut down those systems as well. It is still early in the history of this disease to fully understand what it leads to but I suspect to hear it as a defense at trial: "Your honor, Mr Simpson suffers from BDS and as such can not be held accountable for his actions. You have the wrong man on trial here."

dave rywall,

Her sexual orientation is relevant because its another reason that Mahmoud would want her dead. As a Jew she can live as a dhimmi. But not as a lesbian.

So does that mean that Move On, International Answer, Code Pink,, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Bill Maher, Harry Belafonte, Noam Chomsky, The Truthers, the Bush=Hitler crowd, the 9/11 was carried out by the Bush administration crowd, the Chaveze adoring crowd, the communists, the socialists, the anarchists,etc ad infinitum are also conservative sock puppets?

The conservatives really do a great job of constructing deranged lefties. Obviously, none of these extreme views are shared by a majority of liberals anywhere. No Daily Kos or DU poster is in any way representative of liberal views.

Who is then?

"Let's make clear that I don't believe this represents mainstream thought among Democrats, by any stretch of the imagination"

I would like to think that. I really would. But the suicidally BDS crowd is scary big - like not all Muslims are terrorists, but a scary big number of them are and the rest don't do anything to reign them in (although with the Muslims, one can understand the reluctance a little better).

"Let's make clear that I don't believe this represents mainstream thought among Democrats, by any stretch of the imagination."

I agree.

Most Democrats aren't capable of thought.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have blindly voted for representatives who are likely the least intelligent people ever assembled, for the purpose of crafting legislation.

For all of you wailing about "BDS," I'd advise looking in the mirror. There was certainly a lot of Clinton Derangement Syndrome going on in the 90's and still. Remember Dan Burton shooting pumpkins during a congressional hearing to prove that Hillary killed Vince Foster? You tell me when any Democrat on the hill has done something that outrageous and then give us a lecture about BDS.

Read comments on right wing blogs and you'll see Hillary described as "the Hildebeast," "a lesbian," "a murderer", someone who assisted in the rape of women, etc... etc... There are partisans on every side.

And there are legitimate reasons to disagree with Bush -- at least the right seems to think so when it comes to issues like immigration or Harriet Miers. Or do you suffer from BDS as well?

NoDonkey writes: Most Democrats aren't capable of thought.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have blindly voted for representatives who are likely the least intelligent people ever assembled, for the purpose of crafting legislation.

---------------------------

Yes, unlike that brain trust of Republicans who were in charge until last year that were so busy picking up hookers or gay men in bathrooms or texting pages on the floor of the house or building bridges to nowhere that they failed to notice the huge deficits they were racking up.

Did anyone else read about Bill Clinton saying the other day that most leaders in Africa, plus the former French president Jacques Chirac, have told him how much they want Hillary to win to get a Dem back in the White House?

Weasel Chirac and unspecified African "leaders": I guess that's the moral high ground if you are a Clinton Democrat! Bill must be striving to elevate his and Hillary's image by association with such statesmen.

Democrats: a botched joke.

Teresa,

A piece of sage advice: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

You've gone from suggesting that Sallykohn is a neo-con sockpuppet to waving your hands that a lot of conservatives hate the Clintons and call them names (guilty as charged), implying that this somehow makes what Sallykohn wrote OK.

But what you DIDN'T see in the '90s and DON'T see now is conservatives embracing anti-American thugs like Ahmadenijad (or Chavez, or Castro, or Baby Assad) out of our hatred for Slick Willie and the Hilldabeast. That's the point that Cap'n Ed made in his original post and that others have echoed in the comments.

What's so bloody hard about simply writing, "Sallykohn is a deranged woman and I certainly don't agree with her" or even a simple, "Sallykohn doesn't speak for me"?

Ironically (or not), the same people who are defending Columbia's decision to invite the Holocaust denier, map whiping, Dinner Jacket to speak are the same people who would get their boxers in a bunch protesting Columbia or any university's decision to invite any Bush administration or military figure to speak on campus.

Move On/Betray Us has finally exposed these folks as partisan hacks cheering for the other team and hoping the coach gets fired.

Docjim505,

What Teresa is doing is known as "flailing about." It's actually kind of funny to witness when the victim isn't actually drowning.

Well ... maybe she is, but it's still funny.

Teresa, you ARE flailing, aren't you? Or are you just slinging crap and seeing what sticks? There may be a subtle difference; I don't know.

Teresa said:

"For all of you wailing about "BDS," I'd advise looking in the mirror. There was certainly a lot of Clinton Derangement Syndrome going on in the 90's and still."

Sorry, but I do not recall the sufferers of "Clinton Derangement Syndrome" trying to throw national elections with fake documents, or making movies depicting President Slick Willie's murder in cold blood, or them winning an Academy Award and in the acceptance speech calling Clinton evil, or making excuses for people like this guy from Iran.

As for Clinton Derangement Syndrome nowadays, Slick himself deserves at least part of the criticism he's getting. Until he came along, there was a long-standing tradition that ex-Presidents would not criticize the people who succeeded them.

By trashing this long-held American tradition, Bill Clinton is absolutely fair game. Especially when he does it while he's overseas.

Have to give a bit of thought to Mahmoud's visit to Columbia being part of a quid-pro-quo.

Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, a Columbia University alumnus, (who, it appears, works for George Soros’s Open Society Institute) was "detained" by Iran for conspiring against Iran’s national security.

Tajbakhsh was released (freed on bail) last Thursday. [Still in Iran, but on bail.]

Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad was invited to speak at about the same time.

As for this misguided, somewhat brain challenged Sallykohn...so what Mahmoud is cute and cuddly?

Lots of sociopaths are. That is what makes them effective. But, it does say a lot of what goes on in some people's minds when they choose a candidate or get involved in a political effort.

Nice face? Vote for him. Nice hair? Vote for him/her. Dresses nice? Gee, gotta vote for him/her. Policies? The effect of those policies on the populace? Track record? Associations? What's that got to do with anything? He/she's cute and cuddly.

One word? Moron.

Maybe we should institute a basic US civics test in order to be able to register to vite. Would certainly keep the morons from skewing things.

Okay, I have BDS. I display all the classic symptoms. And since it was recently revealed (by Vincente Fox, no less) that Bush is actually afraid of horses... well, my contempt is now pretty much off the scale.

Not enough to make me find Achmadinejad attractive, though. The man has an oddly feral, muddy, anilmalistic look to his eyes that physically repels me. He's more like a bear or a rodent than a human being. Speaking as a person very mush of the female heterosexual persuasion, if I shook that man's hand or were even in a room with him, I would thereafter feel an urgent need to shower.

But I digress...

What interests me is the fact that so many of you equate dislike of this big-spending, big-government, interventionist, nation-building president with "liberalism."

What's up with that, anyhow? because you know, it's really getting kind of old.

I'm as conservative as any of you, and from all my reading, I'd say... more than most of you. I cut my teeth on conservative fiscal and governing princples when many of you were still watching Sesame Street. There are othere of us here, too... paleoconss who LOATHE George W. Bush and his disastrous war in Iraq.

Steve J comes to mind. He's been around here for a long time, and he says "real conservatives never bought into the neocon drivel."

Neoconservatism is more liberal than conservative. So is George W Bush, and the cabal that took this nation haplessly into an unwinnable war.

I think many of you mistake hawkishess and aggressiveness for conservatism. But who's the true coneservative in a bar fight? Not the guy up at the front, slinging around threats and braggadocio. The conservative guy is the one sitting quietly over near the wall, watching everything that's going on, weighing his options, only fighting when he needs to... and then going in with the force and the strategy necessary to win.

You know.. (sigh)... I really, really miss the conservatives. Where have they all gone?

Further to my thoughts above...

I think conservatism began to die when Republicans became defined by what they're against rather than what they're for. Nowadays you so-called "conservatives"... and consequently blogs like this that speak for you... are devoted to negativism about ten-to-one. Judging by recent posts you're against Hillary, the NYT, the DBM, the MSM, the Democrats, Iran, Norman Hsu...

What are you FOR? What good things will Republicans do for the nation if re-elected next year? And why will the people hire you for the job if you have no answer to that question?

I'm tired of negativism and constant attacks on everyone and everything. I want morning in America and a shining city on a hill.

"I want morning in America and a shining city on a hill.'

Then work for it.

Stop waiting for everyone else to do it for you.

Which Conservative [Capital "C"] candidate or organization are you devoting your time, efforts and money to support?

That's a good question, coldwarrior.

And my answer is that I will not support any political party with my time, money or personal influence until that party totally rejects neoconservatism, which I consider a dangerous and destructive political philopsophy.

If these modern Republicans need to spend a few years (or decades) in the wilderness until they recover from their infatuation with the neocons...well, so be it.

Don't we all pay, one way or another, for our irrational infatuations?

In case you missed, this is how much the pathetic hypocrite pinheads at Columbia value free speech.

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/how-the-minutemen-were-welcomed-by-columbia

Columbia does not wish to debate the Dinner Jacket, they want him to speak their DNC talking points. Then they can start a dialog with the DNC about how the world will be a better place with Republicans (pardon me, NEOCONS) are out of office.

If the Dinner Jacket forgot the Holocaust and we don't chide him for it, who will blame the BDS crowd for forgetting 9/11.

neoconservative -- a newly conservative ex-liberal.

One doesn't have to wander far to find why liberals find neoconservatives so repulsive. It's like religion -- nobody likes the person who leaves and then denounces "the faith". Their remarks hit too close to home.

So filistro's religious revulsion of neoconservatives has a pretty sound basis.

That said, there are only two parties which do NOT embrace neoconservatives -- the Democratic Party and the Socialist Workers Party. filistro must be sending his money to one of these.

uncle, some light reading for you:

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Right-Went-Wrong-Neoconservatives/dp/0312341156

Of course, the author is a well-known "liberal"...

I love the double standard around here. Liberals are supposed to disavow the comments of some unknown commentator on a different blog, but a few days ago I asked any conservative on here to disavow Rose's comments on this blog:

"The BUSH campaign didn't do that - THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DID. And they did it because of McCain's difficulty in remaining PATRIOTIC to American interests, over the years.

And just where are HIS records, either????

Besides, who claims that McCain was TORTURED? All I've ever heard is that he buckled and spilled his guts about his home ship, after being threatened with WITHHOLDING MEDICAL TREATMENT for his PRE-EXISTING medical conditions."

Not a single one of you -- many who are on here now demanding that I say what an idiot SallyKohn is could bring themselves to say that Rose is wrong.

Well, fine, Sallykohn is an idiot. What is your response to Rose?

(Crickets chirping.)

There are idiots on every side of the partisan divide and it is not my responsibility to disavow every one -- nor do any of you seem to feel the responsibility to do the same.

I don't believe this represents mainstream thought among Democrats

I do believe this.

I looked at the link offered by filistro. The famous conservative? Pat Buchanan. This is what amazon's reviews have to say:

Publisher's Weekly: In his indictment of the current Bush administration and its "neoconservative" policies, pundit and occasional presidential candidate Buchanan likens the American condition to that of Rome before the fall, citing "ominous analogies" such as "the decline of religion and morality, corruption of the commercial class, and a debased and decadent culture." According to Buchanan, the blame for this state of affairs rests squarely in the lap of "neoconservatives," who are mere liberals in sheep’s clothing... But liberals won’t stay on board with the book’s message for long, especially when it comes to issues of culture and social policy. Buchanan is against affirmative action, abortion and gay rights, to name a few, and he believes immigration poses a serious threat to the American way of life. At times, Buchannan obscures his arguments with ill-chosen words that many will read as xenophobic, if not racist. In a discussion of illegal Mexican immigrants, for example, he calls California "Mexifornia" and adds, "Ten years after NAFTA, Mexico’s leading export to America is still—Mexicans. America is becoming Mexamerica."

Ahem.

Personally, I don't recall hearing the term "neo-con" prior to 9-11, and it's always been my impression that neo-conservatism is principally concerned with foreign policy rather than domestic policy. Lord knows, there are plenty of domestic issues on which I criticize George Bush, chiefly big spending, big government, and immigration. Are these "neo-con" issues... or a result of the fact that Bush has always billed himself as a "compassionate conservative"? I believe that I wrote on another thread here that, in my opinion, Bush would be despised by much of the right if not for his strong stand on national security and especially the GWOT. The man simply isn't an old-line conservative (though he's not a liberal, either).

It may be that Buchanan has no more understanding of "neo-conservatism" than has the average liberal. According to the amazon review, Buchanan criticizes neo-cons because the love "big government and don't mind running up dangerously huge budget deficits to support it." Yet, Bill Kristol, one of the most famous "neo-cons", was pleased when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994 because government would finally stop spending so much money. According to Time's Richard Lacayo:

"The fact that government is no longer going to be so generous with taxpayers' money may be Scrooge-like, but it strikes me as rather responsible behavior," says Republican strategist William Kristol. "For too many years, some liberals have felt they were doing good by generously spending taxpayers' money. Now Americans, want to take a much harder look at what really does good and what does harm." (1)

As much as I hate to cite wiki, it has this to say about neoconservatism and its principles:

Irving Kristol wrote: "If there is any one thing that neoconservatives are unanimous about, it is their dislike of the counterculture." Norman Podhoretz agreed: "Revulsion against the counterculture accounted for more converts to neoconservatism than any other single factor." Ira Chernus, a professor at the University of Colorado, argues that the deepest root of the neoconservative movement is its fear that the counterculture would undermine the authority of traditional values and moral norms. [emphasis mine - dj505] (2)

Hmmmm... Fear that traditional values and morality are being undermined... Isn't that exactly what Buchanan says that neo-cons are doing??? Buchanan seems to think that Bush and his coterie of neo-cons are responsible for the decline of morality in America, yet Bush is routinely pilloried on the left for wanting to establish a theocracy.

It's perhaps unfair to comment at any length on Buchanan's book without having read it (ya think???), but I've come to view Pat as a bit of a crank over the years, a sort of living charicature of everything that we nasty ol' conservatives are supposed to be: bitter, racist, intolerant, close-minded. I think in his bitterness he's blasting away at the wrong target.

---------

(1) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982006-2,00.html

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism#Distinctions_from_other_conservatives

filistro, Can we agree that Islamic fascists declared war on us (infidels) as far back as the Carter Administration with the Iranian hostage crisis; with events escalating to the tragedy of 9/11?

Think of this was the bar fight scene in your analogy above?

What steps would you have taken that were different from all prior administrations (Repub & Dem) that would have prevented any further terrorist attacks? Keep in mind, we (both parties) had tried diplomacy, appeasement, whack a mole, and law enforcement.

The only thing we hadn’t tried up to 9/11 was “going in with the force and strategy necessary to win.” This is where you come back with something like “Bush is an idiot and his lack of good strategy lost this war”. To which, I respond, that it looks like his new strategy may be working. Neither of our crystal balls tells us what Iraq will look like 50 years from now so let’s try to refrain projecting that future.

I’d like to know what you “President filistro” would have done differently from all previous administrations if you had been President on 9/11/01?

Keep in mind the saying “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”

doc:

This is from Irving Kristol (Bill's daddy) who styles himself as "the godfather" of modern neoconservatism.

"This leads to the issue of the role of the state. Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on "the road to serfdom." Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable. Because they tend to be more interested in history than economics or sociology, they know that the 19th-century idea, so neatly propounded by Herbert Spencer in his "The Man Versus the State," was a historical eccentricity. People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government. Neocons feel at home in today's America to a degree that more traditional conservatives do not. Though they find much to be critical about, they tend to seek intellectual guidance in the democratic wisdom of Tocqueville, rather than in the Tory nostalgia of, say, Russell Kirk."

Teresa,

Have you hit bedrock yet? You're certainly trying...

You're quite right: not everybody here jumps to censure or disagree with conservative posters who write what could be considered as outrageous things from time to time. That's not the point: we don't agree with them, either, or excuse what they say (by, for example, suggesting that they may be Kos's or Michael Moore's sock puppets). You and some of the other libs here were rationalizing, excusing, explaining, and otherwise defending what Sallykohn wrote. When you got called on it, you started blathering about how mean conservatives were (and are) to the Clintons. Now it's how mean some conservatives have been to John McCain.

So, please, for the sake of what tattered shreds of dignity that you have left and to spare the rest of us from having to clean spray off our monitors when we guffaw at your comments...

STOP DIGGING!

Irving Kristol's manifesto:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/000tzmlw.asp?pg=2

filistro,

Food for thought; thank you.

"I will not support any political party with my time, money or personal influence until that party totally rejects neoconservatism, which I consider a dangerous and destructive political philopsophy."

What exactly about neo-conservatism bothers you?

Is not the expansion and enabling of those fundamental Rights we hold [and take for granted most of the time] to other peoples of the world not a good idea?

Is an Indian, or Filippino, Zambian or Salvadoran, and, yes, an Iraqi, less worthy than of the same Rights we hold dear?

Has God only endowed to US alone, the U.S., the inalienable Rights of Life Liberty and the pursuit of happiness? If one beleives these other peoples are less worthy, then one is obviously not a neo-conservative. But, what then can that person be called?

Or is "neo-conservatism" as used by too many merely an anti-Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz perjorative to be tossed out at every opportunity? Neo-conservative thrown about because one is opposed to the Iraq war? Or opposed to the GWOT?

Neo-cons? I guess I can live with them.

RINO's? I find dis-palatable in the extreme.

Want to give your time, effort and money to something that favors Conservatism?

The Young Amercans for Freedom, the Young Republicans, the Log Cabin Republicans (if you are so inclined), the Federalist Society, eventhe NRA, are organizations that spearhead Conservative ideals. All need the time, efforts and money from a panoply of Americans who want to get the Nation back on track, get on the Conservative track.

Participation enables.

Teresa: "Kos gets 70,000 visitors A DAY. Any of them can write about anything. If 70,000 people a day visited this blog, you would get more than a few weirdos. "

It does get quite a few, and if you'd pull your head out of your rear end, you'd see that such weirdos get clobbereed by the other posters.

Teresa: "Maybe Kos should police the site more, but it would be damn hard on a small budget to have the manpower to read every comment and every diary produced. "

I notice that the other posters on KOS and DU don't repremand/refute the "weirdos" that post to those sites either.

There's a name for such behavior; I think it's called something like "agreement by lack of discent".

DocJim writes: You're quite right: not everybody here jumps to censure or disagree with conservative posters who write what could be considered as outrageous things from time to time. That's not the point: we don't agree with them, either, or excuse what they say (by, for example, suggesting that they may be Kos's or Michael Moore's sock puppets). You and some of the other libs here were rationalizing, excusing, explaining, and otherwise defending what Sallykohn wrote.

------------------------------

No, DocJim, what I originally wrote was in response to the Captain calling SallyKohn a Kos "blogger" -- to save himself from looking hypocritical after his last post about "nut picking."

What I pointed out in my original post was that SallyKohn is not in any way, shape or form an official "rep" of DailyKos and it is unfair to Kos to pretend that she is when in fact he has specified on numerous occasions those who "speak" on behalf of the blog. I also pointed out that it would be impossible to edit the comments of 70,000 visitors a day to a site or try to trace IP addresses to see if a troll posted the comment or not.

I have not attempted in any way to justify SallyKohn because what she wrote is indefensible.

What I object to is this is the standard right wing playbook right now. Find something, anything, to drum up faux outrage over, paint all liberals as treasonous idiots and then DEMAND that all liberals everywhere disavow what they say. We just saw this with the Move On ad and now here we go again.

Teresa, that's just crap. First off, a "diarist" is a blogger. You'll notice that a slew of comments follow Sallykohn's post, which I did not reference. I don't care who supposedly "officially" represents Daily Kos -- a diarist functionally blogs, and commenters comment. If Sallykohn can't stand criticism, then she should limit herself to commenting on the posts of others.

Second, my post did not attempt to show that Sallykohn's post represented Daily Kos' official or unofficial position. I wrote that it reflected the BDS of Sallykohn and others who hero-worship people like Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and other dictators that they deludedly think are more democratic than George Bush.

Try reading my post again, this time for comprehension.

S-Mom... sorry, I'm not ignoring you. (I never ignore you. You're one of the posters here that I genuinely like.) But I'm trying to work on a self-imposed schedule nowadays, which breaks down roughly to an hour of writing, a half hour of coffee and CQ.

Gruelling, I know, but I think I can struggle through it... :-)

Your post summarizes my complaints about Bush in a nutshell. (No pun intended.) Yes, 9/11 confirmed that we were at war with, and in grave danger from Islamic fundamentalists. Only problem... there were none of them in Iraq. Saddam ran a secular regime, and severely curtailed Muslim fundamentalism in his country.

On 9/12/01 I supported an immediate and devastating strike on Afghanistan where the attack originated. I would have liked to see that mission last long enough to succeed. Pulling out of there and going to Iraq made no sense. It was always analagous to being attacked by a thug on your way home from a party, so you go over to his cousin's place, kill the cousin and his wife and kids and burn their house down. Senseless, vengeful carnage, nothing more.

Of course we're there now and when we leave it's going to be hell. I don't pretend to know how to salvage this mess. But I do know that it was a neoconservative vision of American dominion and worldwide democracy that brought it about.

Necons are like a bunch of sophomeres in a dorm room, puffing on a hash pipe and saying, "Like man, wouldn't it be RAD if the whole world was, like, a democracy?"
"And we'd be, like, the biggest democracy of all."
"Yeah, man! and if the little countries didn't fall in line, we'd just... like, nuke 'em."
"Yeah, we'd NUKE 'EM!..."

I despise George Bush for being taken in by such juvenile pie-in-the-sky claptrap. If you aspire to be the most powerful person in the world, you'd better have the wisdom and judgement to go with the position, or stay to hell back home on the ranch.

Ed, Teresa is right on this one.

"Sallykohn" is no more a blogger than I am. From time to time I post opinions here at your site and people occasionally respond to those opinions, but I'm not a blogger.

"Blogging" as you very well know is a contraction of "web log" which implies some degree of regularity, plus putting a persoanl stamp on recorded opinion at a particular site. DailyKos, it appears, is set up so commenters can set their opinions apart from others and invite responses. I daresay I (decidely a non-blogger) could do the same thing over there if I wanted to... trouble is, I can never read more than three or four comments in a row at that site before my teeth start to hurt.

When you bring up "Sallykohn" to prove any kind of point you are nutpicking. And in a nation of 300,000,000 people, nutpicking to prove a point is...well.. pointless. ;-)

No, neither of you are correct. When Sallykohn responds to a post, she's commenting. When she starts her own thread, with her own original thoughts, she is blogging. The "diarist" label exists to absolve Markos for what is said on his site. And, you will note that I didn't blame Markos, either. Nutpicking relates to selectively choosing comments on posts to discredit the post writer -- neither of which I did. I criticized the post writer for her own rant, not for the comments which followed.

You and Teresa also want to argue that Sallykohn should not be criticized for what she writes. Why should she get a free pass? Because she's writing on someone else's site? Everyone at dKos is off limits for criticism? You have an interesting view of political debate.

On the other hand, filistro, with so many bloggers expressing so many opinions, focusing on any one in particular could be called "nutpicking." We are quickly coming to the point where the difference between blogger and commenter is purely acedemic.

Look, at far as I am concerned, when Kos himself failed to promplty remove Sally Kohn's post, he owned it. He gave it tacit acceptence.

The post, by the way, is still there. Markos is as good as the author.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood you Captain, but when you describe someone as "Kos diarist Sallykohn" that implies to the average reader that she is an official rep of the site. My original post was clarifying that she in no way was sanctioned by Daily Kos.

And the sad thing is that I agree with Filistro in that I rarely even look at Daily Kos because I get tired of hearing all the same lefty talking points over and over. I just get tired of everyone searching Kos just hoping to find something controversial. It gets old.

As someone who is pretty wise recently wrote:

"It's not easy to build a community with a free and open comment section. If it's worth anything, the blogger has to allow a wide range of views from opponents and allies alike. The blogger has to trust that more extreme views will get challenged by other commenters or address them him/herself. Deleted comments and blocking commenters to achieve a homogeneous community eventually adds nothing but an echo chamber to the blog, and the comments become boring -- just an extension of the blogger."

This is interesting. I understand Teresa's point, but what Ed is saying seems exactly backward to me. (This must be how it feels to be dyslexic!)

I never said Sallykohn "shouldn't be criticized." Hell, I think somebody who is simultaneously that dim and that self-absorbed should be excoriated. But I don't think the blogger, the other commenters, the website or the entire political party should take any blame for anything she says.

(To say nothing of those of us, both left and right, who are proud sufferers of BDS :-)

Any more than you, Cap'n, should have to take responsibility for some of the nastier posts that appear here from time to time, inciting all kinds of violence and mayhem against "the liberals."

I don't know how it could have been clearer. My post on nutpicking was to argue against holding a blogger accountable for his/her commenters, not to keep bloggers or commenters from being accountable for themselves. Sallykohn wrote the post, and I criticized Sallykohn, not Markos. I'm criticizing Teresa and Filistro for not comprehending the rather large distinction between criticizing writers for what they wrote themselves, and criticizing writers for what commenters write in response. It's about the proper application of accountability.

Is that really so difficult to understand?

And BTW, people who act violently are responsible for their own actions -- which is very similar to the point I made above and about nutpicking. What violence against "liberals" has actually occurred from a comment on a blogpost?

Captain -- Sorry I read your second comment after I posted my last one, but you wrote:

You and Teresa also want to argue that Sallykohn should not be criticized for what she writes.

-------------------------

I think we are talking at cross-purposes. My original impulse was to defend KOS, not SallyKohn. It just seems like all the major right wing blogs pick on KOS constantly for what commentators on his site say. (Your complaint here has been now picked up on by several other conservative blogs like The Corner.)

I have no problem with disagreeing with Markos or any of the other people who are front page editors on Kos, but picking out every moron who writes a diary or comment and dedicating an entire blog entry to them leads to madness -- as YOU argued just a few days ago.

I could pick out a bunch of crazy quotes on here and post them on TPM as "Captain Ed blogger X says....." People not familiar with your site will think that person represents the average person here. Would that be fair? I think you previously argued that it would not be.

And, for the record, SallyKohn is evil, stupid, dumb, should be taken out and shot and whatever else you want to do to her or want me to say about her. Is that better? Now, what say you about the idea that John McCain was never tortured in Vietnam and was a traitor? If I have to formally request the SallyKohn be taken out and stoned, do you have to respond to every stupid comment on here? I don't think we want to go down that road.

This is the problem with commenting instead of instant messaging -- responses come out of order.

I think one thing that is the basis of the misunderstanding I think Filistro and I are having with you Captain is the distinction between a "diarist" and a "commentator." I think Filistro and I see "diarist" as being pretty much egual to commentators. Sort of like someone hijacking a thread to comment on other things going on in the world, where you see them as being on a higher level than commentators. Is that right?

All I can say is, "Cap'n Ed, I feel your pain."

Ed and docjim:

The discussion over whether Sallykohn is a Kos blogger or not is silly.

The real issue is whether reflexive partisan hostility is so great is that it prevents a cool-headed and rational discussion. Judging from what I see here, I despair.

Ed, I questioned earlier whether you had a fair basis from Sallykohn's post for this conclusion:

"When someone believes that George Bush somehow has been more oppressive than Mahmoud Ahmadinefad and the Iranian Mullocracy, it`s safe to question their sanity."

You have not responded, but it is obviously a strawman and not justified. Sallyjohn very clearly condemns Ahmadinejad's own policies:

"I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have me killed."

"I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy."

"It striking when a leader with an abysmal human rights record is the one championing the rights of the poor and oppressed to the president of the United States"

"If I can get past the fact that, as a Jewish lesbian, he’d probably have me killed, I’ll try to listen for some truth."

While it is perfectly fair to express revulsion at the emotional thrill she apparently feels when Ahmandinejad states views about Bush and this administration that she shares, or to disagree with the criticisms that Ahmadinejad levels (and Sallykohn supports), it is quite another thing to jump to conclude from her agreement with Ahmadinefad's criticisms that she "believes that George Bush somehow has been more oppressive than Mahmoud Ahmadinefad and the Iranian Mullocracy", especially when she has expressly acknowledged that the situation in Iran is much worse than that in the US.

And for making that comment and pointing out that there are many stalwarts on the right who share the same critisms of Bush and his administration that Ahmadinejad has expressed, I am called "idiotic", "simply deranged" and "so sick with hatred of Bush and "neocons" that, like Sallykohn, he / they have become the root of all evil in their minds" - by a reader who a few posts later confesses similar dissatisfaction with Bush!

Excuse me for saying that it is beyond irony when those on the right accuse the left and other critics of an irrational BDS, while themselves betraying a reverse BDS that prevents them from acknowledging their own irrational and unsupported conclusions, and instead produces a reflexive conclusion that those who disagree must be insane AND "liberal", and certainly can't be "conservative".

Ed, did you note that in one of your responses you repeated the very same unsupported conclusion about Sallyjkohn?

"I wrote that it reflected the BDS of Sallykohn and others who hero-worship people like Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and other dictators that they deludedly think are more democratic than George Bush."

On what basis can you demonstrate that Sallykohn thinks Ahmadinejad is more democratic than George Bush? Just who is deluding whom here?

You might not like the fact that despots the world over are peacocking around, proclaiming that they are friends of freedom even as they further opporess their own people - it certainly disgusts and galls me. But I do not let the fact that foreign despots offer up hypocritical and self-serving criticisms of the US/Bush blind me either to the possible merits of those criticisms or to the fact that our behavior has indeed enabled grandstanding by despots.

You both are letting your emotions get the better of you. The emotional surge may feel good, but it comes at a cost to thinking and seeing clearly (and empowers those whose agendas are advanced by division and hostility).

Hmm, I wonder what our founding fathers would say about all this. But I guess that makes me quaintly irrelevant - as clearly we are best served by a powerful government that knows best but keeps as much information as possible under wraps.

Regards,

TT

TokyoTom;

Try to understand that, from my perspective (I can't speak for Cap'n Ed), Ahmadenijad is cut from the same bloody cloth as Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. Imagine writing:

"Now, I realize that Stalin would probably have me killed if he got his hands on me, but - gosh darn it! - he just plain ol' says a few things that I agree with!"

You may not agree that Ahmadenijad is anything like Hitler or Stalin; I admit that he hasn't engaged in mass murder, though he certainly talks about it often enough. However, to many of us, he is a loathesome despot. His government is inveterately hostile to the United States and apparently is colluding with terrorists in Iraq to murder our men. What sort of a sicko tries to find common ground with such a man?

And that's the point: Sallykohn, not content to simply criticize Bush, went out of her way to find points of agreement with a man whom she acknowledges that she "abhors". Why would she do this? Because she hates and fears George Bush more than she hates and fears Ahmadenijad.

There's something wrong with that.

TokyoTom: Hmm, I wonder what our founding fathers would say about all this.

Hmmm... Would that be the same Founding Fathers who wrote a huge laundry list of charges against King George (that would be the Declaration of Independence)? And who went to war with him? Somehow, I can't imagine George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Dr. Franklin writing a broadside listing all the points on which they agreed with George III... or being very patient with anybody else who did so.

TokyoTom: You both are letting your emotions get the better of you. The emotional surge may feel good, but it comes at a cost to thinking and seeing clearly (and empowers those whose agendas are advanced by division and hostility).

Oh, I see. We're supposed to calmly chat with a man who calls our country The Great Satan, who we believe supports terrorists who kill our people, who we believe is trying to build nukes to kill more of our people, who denies the Holocaust, and who has pledged the destruction of an allied nation. We're supposed to listen patiently while he harangues us and try to find places where we agree. This shows how adult and open-minded we are. Gotcha.

Sorry: haven't quite been able to force myself into engaging in that kind of doublethink.

Please, Filistro, " Yes, 9/11 confirmed that we were at war with, and in grave danger from Islamic fundamentalists. Only problem... there were none of them in Iraq. Saddam ran a secular regime, and severely curtailed Muslim fundamentalism in his country."

That's just silly. Please do some research before spouting off one-liners. If "there were none of them in Iraq" you obviously missed the point that Sadamm was providing sanctuary to escapees from Afganistan.

As to states and religion, plesase read what was added to the flag of Iraq after GW1. That old saw about Iraq being a secluar regime has been disproven so many ways its beyond silly. Hitler and the Grand Mufti are just one historic example.

Relentless msinfomation is pernicious, no. Catches even the most cynical - maybe by design.

Sadamm was more of a threat than our vauted "intelligence failures" can understand. He was playing us and preparing for the next war, playing the UN with bribes, paying N. Korea for illegal rockets, planning an assassinaton campaign in Europe.
Then training in IED production and distributing bomb catches. Who knows what else? Can you track were all the money went?

I still have my own suspicions about West Nile Virus, but all of the investigations were shut down (can't prove it was or wasn't bio-weapon and no way to stop it, so ignore it so folks don't panic, kind of like the "dust" from the towers).

We are still at great risk becuase of conceptual blinders (like the Secular/Fundamental inability to cooperate) that limit our 'intelligence' analyists.

I get so tired of people spouting off "truths". Of course, all I 'know' is also what I read, but at least do some basic work before using absolutisms, 'kay?

docjim205:

Thanks for the reply. You have fair points, but they are not at all responsive to the comments I made.

1. Of course Ahmadenijad is "a loathesome despot"; I think Sallykohn makes clear she also agrees with your assessment.

"What sort of a sicko tries to find common ground with such a man?" ... Why would she do this? Because she hates and fears George Bush more than she hates and fears Ahmadenijad. There's something wrong with that.

Her purpose is clearly not to "try to find common ground" with Ahmandinejad - her purpose is not at all to provide thoughts on US policy towards Iran, but to observe that Ahmadinejad voices the same criticisms of US foreign policy that she has.

Sorry, but what is wrong with Sallykohn - or anyone else in the US - being more concerned about what our leaders do than what despots abroad do? It's not like Ahmadinejad runs the US, or that she can do anything about him.

It certainly is galling and offensive that despots abroad are criticising our policies while masking their own oppressive ones. But is it intriguing that you and others can't seem to get to considering the substance of those criticisms, even though many of them are also voiced by our close allies and by good patriots at home, including conservatives who believe that this administration's policies have been ruinously misdirected and inept.

2. Our Founding Fathers were extremely suspicious of big government, standing armies, foreign entanglements, abuse of power by insiders to benefit special interests and the threat that these factors posed to individual liberty, and they went to a great deal of trouble to fashion a Constitutionally-based federal system that they proclaimed via the Federalist Papers would avoid these problem. I have no doubt many of them are rolling over in their graves, even as we speak. Ever read what Bruce Fein, Bob Barr and Richard Viguerie have to say on these points?

3. "We're supposed to calmly chat with a man who calls our country The Great Satan, who we believe supports terrorists who kill our people, who we believe is trying to build nukes to kill more of our people, who denies the Holocaust, and who has pledged the destruction of an allied nation. We're supposed to listen patiently while he harangues us and try to find places where we agree. This shows how adult and open-minded we are. Gotcha."

No, we don't have to do that and I'm not saying that. But the man has presented a picture of the US - shall we simply revile the presenter, as a way of avoiding looking at the portrait, even though many friends paint a very similar picture?

That sounds alot like anti-BDS syndrome to me. Eyes wide shut.