Counting Your Chickens
I had a nagging feeling last night as I typed this post that I might come to regret it. I do. It looks like Hillary Clinton is either going to win tonight or come in a very very close second. Either way, that's a huge surprise and it will have an enormous impact on the race. If you asked me yesterday what Obama's chances were of winning the nomination, I'd have guessed over 90%. If I had to guess right now, I'd say it's no better than 50% (probably less). What a difference a day makes.
I confess that I'm more than a little disappointed and surprised by tonight's results. I really don't understand why people support Clinton. I have nothing against her personally, but she strikes me as a much weaker candidate for reasons I've explained at length in prior posts. Moreover, I think she would match up particularly poorly against media darling John McCain, who looks increasingly likely to be the Republican nominee. I've always feared the Clinton-McCain matchup most of all.
Oh well, I'm too tired to offer much in the way of analysis. I hope Obama can find a way to battle back from this setback.
UPDATE: Yep, she won. I'll never trust polling again.
I confess that I'm more than a little disappointed and surprised by tonight's results. I really don't understand why people support Clinton. I have nothing against her personally, but she strikes me as a much weaker candidate for reasons I've explained at length in prior posts. Moreover, I think she would match up particularly poorly against media darling John McCain, who looks increasingly likely to be the Republican nominee. I've always feared the Clinton-McCain matchup most of all.
Oh well, I'm too tired to offer much in the way of analysis. I hope Obama can find a way to battle back from this setback.
UPDATE: Yep, she won. I'll never trust polling again.
posted by A.L. at 10:24 PM
40 Comments:
I don't get it either. My girlfriend and I couldn't get why her supporters were going so wild tonight. She doesn't inspire me one bit. I could get behind her candidacy but I could never even muster a high-5 in enthusiasm for her.
I was worried about McCain too, until his "victory" speech. That was the end of his campaign.
In so far as the campaign is a battle of expectations, this may set Obama back a little. Given where he was last week, this is not much of a setback.
As for me, much as I would like to see Obama or Edwards take the nomination, I would like to see it take longer and have the campaign be less like an avalanche. The excitement generated by the campaign, and the resulting engagement of young and independent voters, are the most positive developments I've seen in years.
You shouldn't trust the polls, but even less should you trust the media analysis of the polls. This morning one of the major networks was saying that Obama was way ahead and McCain and Romney were neck and neck. Meanwhile they were showing a poll with Obama ahead by 5% and McCain ahead by
4%. I wonder if some independents who said they would vote for Obama decided to vote for McCain believing that Obama didn't need their votes as much.
I'd like to see a bit of a postmortem reflection from the lefty blogs who have been pushing the "implosion" meme over the past week. Y'know, without passing the buck to "polls." What are any of them basing their perspectives on, and what makes them any different than any other schlub parroting their preferred news sources?
Suffice it to say I'm a little disgusted with the lefty blogosphere tonight. Not to put too fine a point on a generalization, but they piled on like many they abhor.
Yup, the polling failure is sort of breathtaking, isn't it? I'm chalking it up to them newfangled cell phone gadgets. That, and the fact that anybody who actually provides data to some yahoo that's cold-calling is clearly an idiot.
I really, really can't imagine a universe in which the GOP candidate can win the election. However, I'm now prepared to believe almost anything. As far as taking on Hillary in the general election is concerned, she's just a straight slime job, which may or may not be successful. For Obama, the GOP must do two things: 1) Puncture his aura of unity first. 2) Once he's no longer a unifying figure, he's easy to take apart with a combination of foreign policy issue attacks and good ol' fashioned opposition research.
Seems to me that the unifying narrative that Obama was hiding behind has taken a major hit tonight.
See, that's the thing: it wasn't a polling failure, it was a conventional wisdom failure. It was a national delusion, but everyone's still pointing fingers.
It is more than a little disappointing that a candidate who felt she needed to resort to calling up references to 9/11 and terrorism in attacking the 'front runner' before yesterday's election could win in NH. If this is a sign of the character of her potential national campaign, I don't want to be a witness to it.
The discrepancy between polling and voting results was a big part of RFK's Rolling Stone article about the rigged vote in Ohio '04, I believe. If polling is well done, there is no way that it should be this inaccurate. This is not just an academic concern. Accurate polling is a means of detecting vote fraud and rigging. Without it, we are much more open to corruption of the voting process. There are already very valid public concerns about the machinery of the vote itself. If we now must add polling mistrust to voting mistrust, we have nothing left to support the validity of our elections.
I'd say, looking at the results, that the apparent certainty of the results on the D side moved a lot of the independents from Obama to McCain. This is not a pattern that will occur in other states -- you haven't forgotten that NH has a very high number of independents, right?
What this result tells us, in my opinion, is that independent voters are paying attention and that they dislike both Romney and Clinton. I suspect a bunch are now kicking themselves for delivering such a large win for McCain and letting Clinton squeak by.
All you have to know about the breakdown of modern polling you can find out by comparing any three of the polls in any week. They typically disagree with each other by more than their margins of error.
They all attempt to correct for the innate problems they face (no land-line, refusal to participate, outright lying) and few of them do it all that well. There are two things they cannot correct for: 1. rapidly-changing opinions, and 2. published poll results changing the opinions of those polled.
This means, Casual Observer, that the most accurate polls (other than elections themselves) are those which are exit polls, since they are taken at the same time and place as voting, and are the only ones that can be trusted to detect problems with the election. There is no evidence, in the current situation, that the exit polls are out of line with the election. Set your mind at ease on that score. At least until we see what happens in Ohio.
I don't support Clinton for President. But the abominable treatment she's getting in the press may have tipped the balance in NH. Last night Rachel Maddow told Chris Matthews to his face that his hatred of Clinton could be responsible for her victory. Matthews laughed it off.
Like everyone else I was surprised by the outcome in NH. I'll state up front that my first choice is Edwards , but I do not understand all the negativity toward Clinton. She's the best debater of the lot and that last one probably helped propel her yesterday. She's been overly scripted and somewhat stiff, but when she shows some emotion and speaks from the heart she connects. She has less eloquence than Obama, but more substance. In my opinion Edwards has the right mix of both and he's right that it's going to take a junkyard dog tough lawyer to win the fights ahead (no offense AL, ha ha).
Like most of the posters here I think any of the D's is infinitely superior to any of the R's and can/will win handily (even against McCain, whose speech was awful). My concern is which of them will be able to help get us 60 D's in the Senate. I cannot articulate why, but I have a gut feeling that's not Obama. Maybe others will comment on that.
Even though I like Edwards the best , I think a strong team would be Clinton as Pres, Obama as VP (and Philosopher in Chief) and Edwards at Attorney General.
P.S. This is the first blog I read every day, before Huffington.
But she didn't "win." She and Obama received the same number of delegates last night, so it was a tie. That's a disappointing result to be sure for those of us who supported Barack, but it's worth keeping in mind that it's total delegates not popular vote margins that wins the nomination.
Nice spin. Worthy of the GOP.
Not spin but the reality of the process.
All I'd add to the analysis here (of how wildly wrong political punditry can be, and the fact that non-exit polling is not science but wish-fulfillment) is a word about Bill Clinton.
We should not forget, as much as the MSM hates Hillary, they hate Bill a lot, too - and by "hate" I mean take every opportunity to miscontstue, put down, accuse, blame, and so forth, mostly out of jealousy, I guess. But I would contend that there are few respects in which the political media (left-wing blogosphere included) is more out of step with most Americans than in their feelings for Bill Clinton. Agreed, a large part of last night's result can be attributed to the NH independents' last-minute migration to McCain; a large part can be attributed to Hillary's show of emotion the day before; but more than anyone is willing to countenance (even among those who voted for her), a large part can be attributed to the knowledge that with her, comes him - i.e., the real deal, politically speaking. I know it's counter-intuitive to everyone who covers politics for a living, but in the mind of those who don't obsess over poltics and political coverage, Bill Clinton (surprise suprise) is not a BAD thing, especially during a Democratic primary based on retail poltics. As the campaign goes mass market, who knows, the toxic coverage of the media will likely overwhelm the benefits he brings her campaign, and in a general election he could be trouble, too, given the hatred he inspires. I'm just saying, Democrats with lives (rhymes with hives) like Bill Clinton WAAAAAY more than Washington or the political press would allow us to believe. If Al Gore had only realized that, he'd be president today.
AL, don't sweat having been wrong right up until the votes were counted. Everybody was, including yours truly and the Clinton campaign.
Having established my credentials as a prognosticator, I now predict with the highest confidence that Hillary will be the nominee. And if forced to guess, I'd guess she'll be the president.
Obama is an extraordinarily attractive figure, but let's face it: (1) if he were white, no one would be talking about him, and he wouldn't be running; (2) he has never done anything whatsoever; and (3) being an inspirational black man is a very slender reed on which to depend in seeking to be elected president.
Not being much of a conspiracy theorist, I think the difference between the exit polls and the actual polls in 2004 is accounted for by the people seeking to interrogate the voters, and the willingness of the voters to respond to them. The questioners were very disproportionately young, "idealistic," activist types, and guys like me wouldn't give them the time of day.
But if RFK and a few others want to believe that Rove was actually clever and wicked enough to rig the outcome, that makes me happy, and I want to encourage them in that belief.
In retrospect, it looks like N.H. was the right size, the unique population to take it upon themselves to "defend" Hillary. By that I mean they had heard people like Chris Matthews bashing her day in and day out, three broadcasts a day, and they resented it. I don't think it would have happened in other settings and I am not sure the voters of N.H. are really that behind Hillary. But, when the media get on this mindless kick telling voters how they are going to vote, people tend to resent it. Sadly, with his ego, Chris Matthews and his ilk are not likely to learn from this experience.
Neutral,
1. Bullshit. Isn't it also a plausible scenario that he's what he is because he grew up as he did, and that he is running because of that? My take on the situation is that, after a dozen years of brain-dead GOP misrule (and complicity by the DLC) people are desperate for change. Say what you like, Obama is different from the pasty-faced zombies the GOP is giving us this year. I think it likely that the lack of traction most of the rest of the Dem field displayed was due to the lack of change they represented.
2. Obama's extensive resume and accomplishments have been documented. Why do you repeat falsehoods?
3. Inspiration is perhaps the single most powerful and amazing emotion there is.
Aren't you one of those people who voted for the current occupant twice, a man whose past consists of a collection of failed enterprises, and who has now run everything he ever touched into the ground with the possible exception of a baseball team where he was a figurehead -- including the country.
As for your happiness in the perception that elections might be rigged -- yes, that would sure make democracy in America stronger and more vital, if it were widely perceived that election results cannot be trusted. Are you always this perceptive?
Apparently this is all the fault of the butterfly ballots.
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Decision2008/story?id=4107883&page=1
(1) Of course it's plausible that he's what he is because of how he grew up. Many others did so, but could not possibly considered plausible presidential candidates. And thus far I have heard probably a lifetime's supply of the word "change" without knowing what it portends, other than higher taxes, larger government, and all the usual suspects. That's change?
(2) I'm well aware of his resume. It is a resume filled with admirable accomplishments of a kind achieved by hundreds, even thousands, of others, but telling us nothing of how he might act as president. It is a resume devoid of a scintilla of evidence that he has the judgment to respond to a hostile act of a foreign belligerent, or to build a congressional coalition sufficient to pass the legislation he wants--whatever that may be. Tom Brady and Jack Nicholson have wonderful resumes and many accomplishments. None of that suggests that they would be adequate presidents.
(3) Inspiration sure is a powerful emotion. I suspect emotion is not what is called for in deciding upon presidents, and in fact quite the contrary.
I suppose John McCain is rather pasty-faced, compared with Obama. Based on what he has done with his life, I would be reluctant to call him a zombie.
If it were "widely perceived" that an election had been rigged, that would be quite bad for democracy. In this case, as in 2004, that perception is shared only by marginal loonies, and is cause for mirth and ribaldry, and perhaps even some dirty dancing.
As for Mr. Bush, he had served as the chief executive of one of the largest states in the union, and was admired on both sides of the aisle in the legislature. During his presidency he has had the courage and steadfastness to use the nation's military power in necessary if unpleasant ways. As a result, he has established the front line in the war on terror in Iraq, and there has not been a single attack on US soil in six years. As a collateral benefit, he has directly caused the voluntary abolition of Libya's WMD program, and has given the US a foothold for a permanent military presence in a region that would otherwise be utterly dominated by a very erratic and fascist Iran. Not bad, not bad at all. History will judge him quite kindly.
Neutral, an off-topic question for you,
What color is the sky on that planet you live on?
I'm sure a huge majority of voters are salivating at the prospect of the American Empire's 1000-year rule in Iraq. I mean, all we had before were places in Turkey and Kuwait, where our troops weren't under constant threat of attack.
There are no doubt hundreds of young, dynamic, African American politicians who have been elected to national office or governorships and want to run for President. Please share their names with us, Neutral. I want to donate to their campaigns.
I have great respect for John McCain. It would be wise to choose a VP carefully, though, if you go with him. We already lived through one senile President, and he let Ollie North, et al, subvert the Constitution.
"There are no doubt hundreds of young, dynamic, African American politicians who have been elected to national office or governorships and want to run for President. Please share their names with us, Neutral. I want to donate to their campaigns."
I can't think of a single one. That's why I say that if Obama weren't black, no one would be paying attention to him, and he wouldn't be running. And it sounds like you're looking for someone to vote for on the basis of his race--which is, again, pretty much the point I'm making.
No one said anything about a thousand years, and nobody said anything about "rule." We've been in Japan and Germany for sixty years, and we haven't "ruled" for fifty of them. Ditto Korea for fifty years. And in all three instances it's been a damn good thing for the world.
We had no war-fighting ability with the forces we had in either Turkey or Kuwiat--not even remotely close to it. And they don't border Iran, as do both Afghanistan and Iraq. (Keep in mind that Turkey wouldn't cooperate with us at the outset of the Iraq war--not because they were opposed to the invasion, but because of their issues with the Kurds.) We have two armored divisions in Iraq, plus a lot more. A U.S. armored division is an extremely formidable force, and don't think for a minute that the Ayatollahs don't know it. So do the governments of every other nation in the mideast, and you don't hear them clamoring for us to leave Iraq. That's exclusively the preserve of the American Democratic Party, and God alone knows why they are so hot to withdraw.
I'm glad that she won. Now it will be a contest. Obama may well win the nomination, but let him fight for it. Then, if he is the nominee, he will be prepared for a battle.
It's no good anointing someone to be the candidate. And frankly, as a woman, I was appalled by the favoritism that the press is displaying toward Obama. Apparently a lot of other women noticed it too.
However, I don't think that's why so many women voted for her. I think that it did come into play, but it wasn't the only reason. She is a very knowledgeable candidate and she worked hard. It paid off.
I think that Barack Obama is a fine asset to our party, but I really believe that he is too untested to be president-now. I would happily vote for him in 4 or 8 years.
Neutral,
Imagine my surprise that you couldn't come up with any examples. In fact, I'll bet that there are no young, dynamic, liberal politicians of any ethnicity or background that you find inspiring. Your loss.
Much fun as it would be to discuss military issues with you, I doubt others find it interesting. Let's just leave it that I find your arguments unconvincing.
C2, you didn't ask for examples of "young, dynamic politcians who are inspiring," you asked for "young, dynamic, African American politicians who have been elected to national office or governorships and want to run for President." I couldn't come up with any examples in the category you requested, and neither can you.
As I have said on this board before, I find Obama a young, dynamic politician who is inspirational (I'm quite sure that was the word I used). That's quite a different matter from saying that he has demonstrated the qualities that would make him able to discharge properly his duties as president and commander-in-chief.
I'll just settle for the words of my fellow Fascist Hyena Bill Clinton: Obama is a "fairy tale."
Why do you think the US should withdraw its forces from Iraq?
Neutral,
I will only speak of those I've heard speak: Ellison and Kilpatrick. Both inspiring. I have no doubt there are others.
In the future, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't project your inadequacies onto me.
Zogby knew in advance that Hillary's numbers were rising and Obama's had leveled.
MYDD's Todd Beeton does a pretty good discussion here.
"In the future, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't project your inadequacies onto me."
At this point I suppose I should simply give up. But I'm still intrigued: why do you want to see US forces withdrawn from Iraq?
I take it that it is acceptable for us to have forces in Turkey and Kuwait--am I correct?
Let me present the issue as squarely as I can: I believe that those who want US forces withdrawn do so because they do not want to see an instance of US military success, and in particular they do not want to see it happen under George W. Bush. Diasabuse me of that notion if you can...
Neutral,
You are having such a good time flailing away at your straw man, it hardly seems necessary for me to get involved.
A.L.: Obama has received one major endorsement, that of John Kerry, and Obama has already capitalized on this by a message to Kerry's mailing list.
I would suggest to A.L. and other Obama supporters to look for another major endorsement about the 27th of January. This would allow enough time for the endorsement to resonate, but not enough for its effect to have died away by super-duper Tuesday.
That's how you make endorsements have maximum effect, by timing them right. I would expect also that there will be a lead up to that point of a bunch of other endorsements by others, but I expect the big guns to hold off until then.
Not so hot on the merits, C2.
Look, I hate to take all the suspense out of this thing, but the nominee is going to be Clinton. (My suspicion is that Carville and Begala tricked Kerry into endorsing Obama. Or maybe Rove did it...)
As Hillary said, this guy got elected to the Illinois legislature and did nothing at all except start running for the Senate. And then he got elected to the Senate and immediately started running for president (don't blame me; I'm just the messenger).
Meantime, a poll over at Daily Kos indicates that 51% of the respondents believe that the NH primary was rigged--and I encourage everyone here to get over there and vote. It was the Diebold thing. I didn't know that Diebolds could be manipulated without Karl Rove, but who knows--maybe Rove was involved?
Look out--here comes Helter Skelter:
"A series of comments from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband and her supporters are spurring a racial backlash and adding a divisive edge to the presidential primary as the candidates head south to heavily African-American South Carolina.
"The comments, which ranged from the New York senator appearing to diminish the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement — an aide later said she misspoke — to Bill Clinton dismissing Sen. Barack Obama’s image in the media as a 'fairy tale' — generated outrage on black radio, black blogs and cable television. And now they've drawn the attention of prominent African-American politicians."
From The Politico.
The war against disenfranchisement continues:
Two days after a key Nevada union of casino employees endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, allies of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, filed a lawsuit to block the special "at-large" casino precincts set up months ago for those very casino employees.
"Let me present the issue as squarely as I can: I believe that those who want US forces withdrawn do so because they do not want to see an instance of US military success, and in particular they do not want to see it happen under George W. Bush."
i am struck by your lack of empathy, your inability to even comprehend the notion that mass murder is a bad thing. certainly you will call me an extremist (after all, i ain't neutral), but it is worth noting that the only thing a military is capable of is killing people, and killing people (aside from being, y'know, WRONG) doesn't solve any problems.
you write about "success" and my jaw hits the floor. how many people need to die before you erudite, war-mongering centrists understand that, to our government, "success" isn't when wars end, but when wars are fought.
Inspiration is a powerful tool - but we also need specifics. We need hardwired specifics. It's one thing to talk about hope and change, it's one thing to inspire hope and encourage change - but until you can formulate a DO-able plan of change, all you are providing are feels-good-to-me moments for people. Feel Good doesn't change situation; it just gives you a 'happier' perspective on the status quo.
First, Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous, killing in warfare simply is not "mass murder"--that is the law in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Killing people has often solved problems--it solved the problem of European fascism, for example, and it solved the problem of American slavery. Neither problem could have been solved without the killing. Bear in mind that there are things that are worse than war, slavery among them.
A military force is capable of many things other than killing people, not least of those things being it can deter, say, a North Korean 13th-century hellhole from overrunning its free and prosperous neighbor to the south.
Sorry about your jaw hitting the floor; I can't do much about that, and it's your problem, not mine.
As you deplore the number of those killed in Iraq, it would be very well for you to ponder who has been doing the overwhelming majority of that killing. It is not the U.S. armed forces; it is largely Al Qaeda in Iraq (which is not a military), a force we are well on the way to defeating by the only possible means: killing them. You might also try to estimate the number who would have been killed by the Saddam regime had it remained in place these past five years.
After the Yugoslav police state was eliminated, violence and killing broke out in the various provinces among those who had formerly been disciplined by the jackboot of Communism. Would you prefer that the police state had remained in place, all in the name of avoiding the subsequent killing?
Was FDR a warmonger? Lincoln? Washington? Churchill?
Since A.L. is off for the moment, and since I've got some time to waste, I'll comment on the off-topic material Neutral seems to want so badly to debate.
First, Neutral, it is a lie to claim that al Qaeda is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the killing in Iraq. If it is direct killing, it was probably the death squads operated (until August) by the Shia, but no small number also by American military forces in their attempts to keep a lid on the civil war. All other causes are dwarfed by the indirect deaths due to the lack of basic services and the breakdown of society caused by our invasion. When you make such a blatant lie, how can you expect to be taken seriously?
This has been amply documented by the various studies that have been done, and which indicate that hundreds of thousands of people have died over and above the expected death rate in Iraq. You can quibble, if you like, over the magnitude of the disaster, but for those of us with a conscience, whether it was 220,000 or 650,000 is only a shading from unconscionable to horribly unconscionable. Then there's the 10 percent of Iraq's population that is displaced and living as refugees, which represents further hardship and shows no significant lessening.
That Neutral is happy to pay with other peoples' lives for his imagined security is hard to comprehend, I know. That he cannot imagine a method, other than killing, to control the psychopathic extremists we create more of every day by killing is due to a shortage of imagination which we cannot correct.
It does no good to argue with those like Neutral, because they lack the inspiration which tells the vast majority of humans that killing should be the absolute last option, used only when our backs are to the wall, and I say this here knowing full well that it will not reach Neutral's lizard-like brain.
I would suggest that education and example are better tools to change societies than explosives. Bushism has broken Iraq now beyond any hope of welding it back together without imposing an absolute dictatorial government. This means that partition is virtually certain. The pieces may someday attain some peace, after the inevitable civil war that's being held at bay for the moment by American forces, but that will take many years.
All this basically to safeguard the oil-fields of the middle-east (that was the real threat posed by Saddam Hussein). We really have to ask ourselves if it is worth it. Not for those like Neutral, though.
Oh, and the answers are: No (FDR didn't go to war until Pearl Harbor), No (Lincoln didn't go to war until after the South seceded), No (Washington fought a defensive war under invasion by an occupier), and Yes/No (the young Churchill was definitely a warmonger, but as he got older, he became a lot less so). Unlike G.W. Bush, who invaded a country with neither the capacity nor the intent to attack the US.
I'm sure this will produce more lying blather from Neutral, but I doubt I'll be inspired to respond.
C2, I believe it's probably correct that the Sunni/Baathist/Shiite conflict caused more civilian deaths than Al Qaeda in Iraq. No question that I overstated my case, while simplifying it, and I should have given due mention to all of the other causes. My point, as I think you can see from my reference to the former Yugoslavia, is that the violence attendant to the elimination of a police state is not an unusual phenomenon. And I made that point to rebut any suggestion that the deaths were caused by American servicemen.
As to the 650,000 figure (even you don't seem to stand by it now), the recent exposure of the utterly fraudulent nature of the study that gave rise to that figure has been so widely discussed in the recent press that I won't bother to elaborate on it here.
As for the displaced refugees, you seem not to want to acknowledge that at the time of the US invasion there were 4 million Iraqi refugees who had fled Saddam and were living abroad. And you make no mention of the recent flood of returnees--that would be inconvenient for you.
As for the suggestion that I am "happy" to pay with others' ives for anything at all, I'll treat it as an uninformed personal insult and make no further comment.
I think it would have been just ducky to get rid of Saddam through education and example. I also think that anyone who believes that was a possibility is nuts.
C2H, like the US Democratic party, seems to be watching the Iraq situation on a six-month tape delay. It has a constitution and a democratically elected government. Only Joe Biden, tha arch-imperialist, talks any longer of partition. (It was European-imposed partition that created Iraq in the first place, of course.)
Safeguarding the flow of oil from Iraq to the world would, indeed, have been worth it in and of itselff, but there were innumerable reasons for initiating this war: Saddam was repeatedly violating the terms of a truce (not apeace treaty) with the U.S.; he was routinely firing on U.S. warplanes lawfully entering Iraqi airspace; he had attempted to assassinate a former American president; he had invaded two of his neighbors and fired ballistic missiles into four of them; and so forth an so on. Many, many a casus belli under historical international norms. And keep in mind, that Iraqi oil serves to heat the world's schools, hospitals, homeless shelters and abortion clinics.
FDR went to war after Pearl Harbor--so why did he do so by invading the Solomon Islands, Tunisia, Italy and France? What on earth did any of them have to do with Pearl Harbor?
As for Lincoln, no one died from the South's secession--why couldn't he have used education and example to bring them back into the fold?
Washington was an Englishman, waging war against his own country--what on earth was he defending, and who was occupying what?
As for Iraq's intent and capacity, both were very much in evidence from his behavior toward American airplanes and UN inspectors. And go back and read what Bill Clinton, John Kerry et al. had to say about the threat he posed to the U.S. For guys like me, it makes for a fun read. For you, not so much.
The U.N. told us that during Saddam's reign 5,000 Shiite children died from starvation and malnutrition every month. Oh, for the status quo ante bellum, right?
Haloscan appears to have eaten my last comment. If two almost identical comments show up, forgive me.
1. No, the 650,000 figure is still quite likely correct. Only some right-wing cranks are still disputing that it was based on sound methodology and properly performed, and no other study has contradicted it. See the science blog deltoid, where this has been discussed extensively, and all detractors have been deflated. By "discussed" you mean it was the subject of a hit job by a hack in the National Review and by a hack in a Murdoch newspaper.
2. 4 million refugees before the "war?" Another lie. Most authorities agree (and a quick web search will confirm) that upwards of 2 million people have been displaced by Bush's idiocy.
3. You apparently think it's sensible to kill 650,000 people, perhaps a third children, to "save" 5000 children per month? That's insane.
4. Folks, here Neutral extends himself, using a false dichotomy (if you were opposed to the war, you must have been for Saddam Hussein) in conjunction with claiming that some Democratic politicians speaking against Saddam means that they have endorsed the entire Iraqi debacle, and finally uses another of his favorites, the strawman.
Neutral, learn to stick with the truth, learn to stop mainlining the kool-aid, and stop arguing with imaginary opponents, and maybe you'll start convincing some people.
Not that I expect that any time soon.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home