Reminder: Some of the Lies of Conservatism, McCain, Republicans

I couldn't help but post this memorable quote from a Washington Post Politics online chat discussing working class voter issues (Who is the Working Class, Anyway?):

Misconceptions: Bush before he became president had less money budgeted for the military and military families than did either Gore or, subsequently, Kerry -- both of whom actually served in a combat zone. Yet military folks voted overwhelmingly for Bush. I bring this up because more and more we see that the reality of what the candidates do flies in the face of what people believe.

Hardly a day goes by that a conservative doesn't say "I'm here to show that the liberals are wrong about there being class warfare between the rich and the poor." Yet, through each Republican administration, the gap between those with wealth and those without widens.

Republicans use every bit of evidence of wealth on the liberal side to say: "They are wealthy. We're just like you, we're not the intellectually elitist. Wouldn't you rather sit down to a beer and barbecue with us?"

Having been born and raised in the country in both the public and private school system, I have been troubled by one question: Since when did stupidity become a virtue in the U.S.?

It pairs very well with this Prescott, Ariz. chatter's reminder of John McCain's actual history of lies, flip-flopping, hypocrisy and unethical behaviors instead of his mythological persona promulgated by the mainstream and right-wing press:

• Left his ill first wife after multiple affairs; [must have given advice to Newt 'scumbag' Gingrich]
• participated in the "Keating 5" scandal;
• gotten so friendly with a young and blonde lobbyist that his staffers felt they had to intervene;
• [does] legislative favors for the clients of said lobbyist;
• voted against the "Bush tax cuts" then later supported them;
• actively courted the support, and made campaign appearances of a man who calls the Catholic Church the "great whore" [personal note: it should actually be called One More Woman-Hating Church of Child Rapists and Pedophiles];
• constantly blurred the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims even while claiming that foreign policy is his strong suit;
• admitted he didn't know much about economics.

Timothy Noah: You forgot, "Gave a speech this week about what he was going to do for the working class and then announced tax cuts that benefit almost exclusively the rich."

Here is the full transcript of chat with Timothy Noah of Slate's Chatterbox' and here's his online article .

Technorati Tags:
Church of Child Rapists and Pedophiles

The Home Fires are Burning .... Military Families, Communities are Coming Apart at the Seams

An interesting share from a military town resident during the online chat with Karen de Young of the Washington Post about The War Over The War:

Fort Stewart, Ga.: I saw the President's visit to Iraq. If I didn't know better I'd think the White House believes that public opinion on the war will change when the right image is put up on the TV screen. I just don't get any of this anymore. People ought to come to Hinesville, Ga., and see what is happening here. Drug abuse, wife abuse, problems with kids acting up -- all because parents are gone all the time, because they are never at home. It's tearing this town apart.

Drug abuse, wife abuse, problems with kids acting up -- all because parents are gone all the time, because they are never at home. It's tearing this town apart.

There are reports from all over the country of the devastating toll Bush's Illegal War of Choice is having on military and national guard families as well as the veterans themselves, which much like the Walter Reed scandal will eventually be revealed. More shock and awe.

Technorati Tags: cost of the iraq war, military families, national guard, Fort Stewart GA, effects of the war, shock & awe

Thomas Ricks: Consistently Intelligent Discussions on the War Over the Iraq War

In a democracy, politics should inform and shape the approach to war -- especially the decision to go to war.

Today's online live chat with Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, The War Over the War, included some especially thoughtful questions and informative responses, including these clips:

• The argument I heard yesterday from the former regime elements and dead-enders at the American Enterprise Institute was that the benchmarks laid down by President Bush in January when he announced the new U.S. approach are irrelevant. But, I thought, the benchmarks were the selling point for the new approach. It is as if a salesman sold you a car by telling you it would get 150 miles to the gallon and also go 150 mph--but that you need to wait six or nine months for that to start happening. When you wait that amount of time, find it doesn't happen, and go back and tell him, he says, "Well, you really don't need to go that fast, do you? And also you might start getting that mileage next year--you just need to show more patience."
  
  

  The bottom line is that security is apparently improving in parts of Baghdad, but that more U.S. troops are getting killed, and that the strategic purpose of the troop increase was to create a breathing space in which Iraqi leaders could find their way to political reconciliation--and there is little if any sign of that goal being realized.
  
  

• ..."tactics" and "strategies" are not the same thing ... [what's the difference?] "Tactics are what you do at the moment, or day to day, to achieve a larger goal. Strategy is about determining what that larger goal is, and what resources and means you will use to achieve it.
  
  
  

  Essentially, as TE Lawrence said, tactics are the steps on the stairway; strategy is the stairway itself.

  
  
  

  Keep in mind also this rule: Good strategy will fix bad (or inappropriate) tactics. But good tactics can't fix a bad strategy--which is where we were in Iraq for a few years after 2003."

  
  
  
• The right [question] may be, is the United States making more friends than enemies?
  
  
• Iraq may have solved more problems for al Qaeda than it created.
  
  
• This year I find myself thinking, Here we go again.
  
  
• ...it would be very difficult to maintain current U.S. troop levels beyond March 2008. So one way or another we are going to watch [the Iraqis] sort it out.
  
  
• it is almost certainly true that we will start to draw down troops next year. But a drawdown ain't the same as a withdrawal.
  
  

  I think the distinction between "politics" and fighting a war is a false one. In a democracy, politics should inform and shape the approach to war -- and especially the decision to go to war. As Clemenceau (I think) said, war is too important to be left to the generals.
  
  

• One of the many ironies here is that it probably would be easier for the US govt to deal with Iran if we didn't have troops in Iraq.
  
  
• I am always struck that American society doesn't seem much aware of the war as it goes about its daily business.
  
  
• ...no one in Iraq really seems to share our goals.
  
  
• The support for the war is gone and it is not coming back -- regardless if we have the best strategy and supporting tactics in place. The American public is fed-up with this mess and it is simply too late to recover. ... [Yet, that] doesn't mean the war is over.