Deja Vu in D.C.

[Perinquus]

July 16, 2003 -- THE liberation of millions goes ignored.
Democrats attack the Republican president over a continuing conflict, insisting it cannot be won, as they position themselves for upcoming elections.

The president acts vigorously in response to a threat to our national survival - exacerbated by the fecklessness and timidity of his predecessor in office. His critics are outraged and unforgiving.

A retired general is one of the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, although the Army realizes it's winning and continues to support the president.

Continental European powers, especially France, tacitly back Washington's enemies, jockeying for financial advantage - even approaching open support for the enemy's leader.

Domestically, subversives and traitors are arrested. Some are handed over to military tribunals. Civil libertarians argue that the U.S. Constitution is being destroyed.

The nation's intellectual elite cannot bear the president's Western simplicity, rustic mannerisms and lack of polish.

The media attack the president savagely, making fun of his lack of sophistication and even his appearance. Cartoonists lampoon the man even more fiercely than his policies. Leading newspapers and journals insist that his policies are disastrous and that he is unfit to lead the nation.

Even the British media portray the president as a dangerous lunatic, out of control.

On Capitol Hill, self-interested members of Congress establish a committee to investigate the president's handling of the war, as well as alleged distortions and corruption in his administration.

The president's secretary of state is accused of failure and ineptitude, while the cabinet member responsible for the Army has a knack for angering everybody.

The verdict of the intelligentsia is unanimous: This president is leading the nation into disaster.

Yet, the people continue to support the man, admiring the very qualities the intellectual elite despises. The president continues to do what he believes is necessary for the nation's security and survival, ignoring his exasperated critics.

President Bush? No.

Abraham Lincoln.

And the approaching elections were those of 1864, not 2004.

While history will decide whether our current president truly is another Lincoln or merely a revved-up Ford, many of the political parallels are striking - right down to the disputed, three-faction campaign that put him in office (one of the consistent failures of the post-modern left is its inattention to history - perhaps because history rarely supports its views).

Excerpted from an article in the NY Post:

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedc ... ts/645.htm


"While history will decide whether our current president truly is another Lincoln or merely a revved-up Ford..."

I love the double meaning in that!

[Iceberg]

Did anybody know anything at all, though? That's the real question being asked, as well it should be. At the present moment, it appears that the president went to war with Iraq more in blind hope that he'd find some WMDs to justify the war after the fact (while attempting to shift the focus of the war from WMDs to liberation) than with any justification beforehand.

Before the war, the Administration claimed that they knew - naming several discrete locations - the location of Iraqi WMDs. Those locations have been thoroughly checked and the Bush line has mysteriously changed from "We know where they are" to "We know he had 'em, and we'll find 'em, even if a neighboring country has 'em." Interesting veiled threat, that. The chances that SOME middle-eastern country is secretly developing NBC weapons is pretty good, so if we keep invading country after country, we'll eventually find SOMETHING that may or may not have been funded by Saddam at some point in the past. Is it worth sacrificing what little pride, honor and respect we have left in the eyes of the world to accomplish?

The more carefully I watch George W. Bush, the more I'm put not in mind of his illustrious predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, but of his distinctly LESS illustrious predecessor, Richard Nixon.

[Iceberg]

Incidentally, while bashing the intelligentia sells newspapers, it doesn't seem to have any basis in real, verifiable fact from where I stand, seeming more to be a convenient excuse to dismiss anything spoken by a "liberal" as the random ramblings of an ivory-tower intellectual who's never had to do any hard work in his life (anybody who's been through college has done PLENTY of menial labor on his way up - the nature of college means that if you're going full-time, the only jobs you can get hired for are menial part-timers that pay shit).

[MKSheppard]

Those locations have been thoroughly checked and the Bush line has mysteriously changed from "We know where they are" to "We know he had 'em, and we'll find 'em, even if a neighboring country has 'em." Interesting veiled threat, that. The chances that SOME middle-eastern country is secretly developing NBC weapons is pretty good, so if we keep invading country after country, we'll eventually find SOMETHING that may or may not have been funded by Saddam at some point in the past. Is it worth sacrificing what little pride, honor and respect we have left in the eyes of the world to accomplish?

Well, considering that Iran beat to death a Canadian journalist recently,
I'd say that liberating some of the more oppressive police states in the
Region would do some good (stares at Iran and Syria)

[Colonel Olrik]

Well, considering that Iran beat to death a Canadian journalist recently,
I'd say that liberating some of the more oppressive police states in the
Region would do some good (stares at Iran and Syria)

She had double nationality, and dying at the hands of the police is not that rare of an event in most countries of the world. You'll have your hands full trying to liberate them all.

[Iceberg]

Well, considering that Iran beat to death a Canadian journalist recently,
I'd say that liberating some of the more oppressive police states in the
Region would do some good (stares at Iran and Syria)

She had double nationality, and dying at the hands of the police is not that rare of an event in most countries of the world. You'll have your hands full trying to liberate them all.

Indeed. We are a Sea Power, not a Continental Power; it would be futile for America to attempt to liberate every nation in the region, especially if we must go it alone, as we undoubtedly would.

[Perinquus]

Incidentally, while bashing the intelligentia sells newspapers, it doesn't seem to have any basis in real, verifiable fact from where I stand, seeming more to be a convenient excuse to dismiss anything spoken by a "liberal" as the random ramblings of an ivory-tower intellectual who's never had to do any hard work in his life (anybody who's been through college has done PLENTY of menial labor on his way up - the nature of college means that if you're going full-time, the only jobs you can get hired for are menial part-timers that pay shit).

Bullshit, I knew plenty of rich kids in college whose parents paid their tuition and they didn't work.

And bashing the intelligentsia has plenty of basis in reality. People like Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer and their disciples have such a firm grip on unreality, and are so blatantly anti-American in their views there is plenty of reason for the American public to bash them. Take the following quotes for example:

How we dare even prate about democracy is beyond me. Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale. It's far worse than anything that occurred in the Roman empire, until the praetorian guard started to sell the principate. We're not a democracy, and we have absolutely nothing to give the world in the way of political ideas or political arrangements. God knows, the mention of justice is like aclove of garlic to Count Dracula.

Italics added. I suppose the Declaration of Independence and the world's oldest written constitution, and all the writings and ideals of Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and others are nothing.

George W. Bush’s underlying dream--Empire! Behind the whole push to go to war with Iraq is the desire to have a huge military presence in the Near East as a stepping stone to taking over the rest of the world.

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

With their dominance in sport, at work and at home eroded, Bush thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something. That's where Iraq came in..."

And lets not forget the term "useful idiots" was coined by Lenin to describe Western intellectuals like Geo. Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Henry Agard Wallace, and others - people who would apologize and justify virtually anything the Soviets did because of their commitment to socialist ideology, who were absolutely determined to believe the best of the communists, and would blithely dismiss any facts which got in the way of their idealized vision. People like this are alive and well today. There's a whole raft of them apologizing for Fidel Castro today. Just listen to Oliver Stone, Eleanor Clift of Newsweek, Peter Jennings, Jesse Jackson, Anthony Lewis, Ted Kennedy, Ted Turner and a long list of others.

Oh yes, the Ivory Tower Intellectual (TM), is alive and well, and makes an excellent target for denigration.

[Iceberg]

I want to see Zombie Paul Wellstone duke it out with Zombie Strom Thurmond for Zombie King of America.

If that doesn't tell you how warped I am, nothing will.

[Andrew J.]

What's the name of the former general who's contending for the Democratic candidacy today?

Oh, and Lincoln barely got reelected, so I'd hardly say it's a situation where all the common people liked him and only the elite didn't.

[Iceberg]

What's the name of the former general who's contending for the Democratic candidacy today?

Wesley Clark.

Oh, and Lincoln barely got reelected, so I'd hardly say it's a situation where all the common people liked him and only the elite didn't.

Indeed.

[Gil Hamilton]

Hrm... I'm not sure that comparing Bush to Lincoln is favorable, since Lincoln really did stomp on alot of civil rights and did stuff like suspend Habeus Corpus. Lincoln may have done quite a few things right, but today he'd have been impeached, and rightfully so.

[Joe]

To my knowledge, Clark will not be seeking the Democratic nomination. There is just a grassroots movement that's trying to get him to do so. Which scares me, of course, this is a guy who thinks one of the founding principles of America was progressive taxation.

[Perinquus]

Hrm... I'm not sure that comparing Bush to Lincoln is favorable, since Lincoln really did stomp on alot of civil rights and did stuff like suspend Habeus Corpus. Lincoln may have done quite a few things right, but today he'd have been impeached, and rightfully so.

Lesser measures may not have sufficed to preserve the Union. Before you conclude that he would rightfully have been impeached, think about what might have happened if he had taken lesser measures and they had failed.

Not every emergency measure is a slippery slope toward tyranny. The measures Lincoln took were specific to the emergency the government was facing, and they did not continue after the war. While it is true that governments tend to acquire ever more power over time, good leaders who genuinely believe in democratic institutions combined with an educated, responsible electorate have worked well in this country so far to prevent tyrants from taking power.

[Joe]

I think the benefits that ultimately resulted from the civil liberties violations under Lincoln outweighed the costs; the cost being a divided America becoming a new stomping ground for Imperial Europe. It's ironic, but by violating a few parts of the Constitution he actually saved the whole thing.

[RedImperator]

I want to see Zombie Paul Wellstone duke it out with Zombie Strom Thurmond for Zombie King of America.

If that doesn't tell you how warped I am, nothing will.

Zombie Strom would kick Zombie Wellstone's ass.

On the intelligensia: the problem is, of course, that the dumbest members have the biggest mouths. Noam Chomsky is nothing but the left's Jerry Falwell. I've known (and studied under) plenty of leftist intellectuals whose criticism of Bush was honest, well-reasoned, and in some cases, convincing (especially when the critic was arguing about a matter within his or her specific expertise--a Russia expert criticizing Bush's Russian policies, for example). The left is plagued with useful idiots who are complely out of touch with the common man they claim to champion, and when anybody points that out to them, they respond with snobbish assertions that the common man is a brainwashed idiot, and these fools hurt their own cause by drowning out legitimate criticism of the right.