Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Michael Ledeen is fluent in Italian, having spent many years in Italy (the Niger memos are in French). I think Mr. Giraldi has been watching too many spy movies :wink:

link

Ledeen speaks French. And even if he didn't, which he does, how hard would it have been for Ledeen, a man with years of experience in the intelligence field, to line up someone to write the documents in French?

Right, KW. The only problem with blatham's news is that it isn't really news. Ledeen has been the target of that conspiracy theory for quite a while, just because of his connections with Italy.

There really aren't many men that I respect more than Michael Ledeen and I can assure you 100% that those who accuse him are grasping at straws.

The piece above was posted for its provenance.

But that's not a surprising infatuation, JW. Ledeen is one of the key founts of the war-monger psychosis kicking about in the background of this administration.

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1261

http://www.alternet.org/story/15860/

OK, but you might have more success in enlightening your buddies if you'd put it over on the "gloat" thread. Or, maybe you already did :wink:



Gossip, speculation, rumor. Good to know you've branched out beyond salon.com, though

I wouldn't say "infatuation" so much as admiration. Mr. (Faster,please) Ledeen opined recently:

First of all, speak the unvarnished truth, often and forcefully. Help your friends, go after your enemies (sounds easy, but diplomats have a very hard time with that). Believe that most people want to be free, and support them in their struggle. And as Churchill said, never, never, ever give in to tyranny.

What's not to admire?

I admire more this:

Matthew 5:44: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Good for you, Walter.

More for my enemies, I suppose, .... and my salvation.

Shhhhhh...Walter. You're gonna give blatham a stroke with all that pious talk. :wink:

The eagle eyed Keltic Wizard caught the typo for which I am responsible and thus attempted to negate the substance of my post.

I will write my poist again, correcting the mistake( 1984 instead of 1994) and then will again challenge Keltic Wizard's thesis.



Keltic Wizard siad: "Your feeling about who is the leader of the party does affect the other candidates"

Perhaps Keltic Wizard remembers the debacle, caused by the glandularly encoumbered Bill Clinton in 1 9 9 4 in which the Democrats lost the House and Senate never to regain them again.

Keltic Wizard does not appear to be tuned to the fine points of elections and electing in the year 2006.

First of all, the election is eleven months away--a lifetime in politics.

Secondly, the group FAIRVOTE, a bi-partisan organization devoted to the reform of elections, point out that, due to the massive and intensive gerrymandering by both parties, a gerrymandering based on the 2000 census and one that exceeded in its scope all previous such remapping, the seats in the House of Representatives which can be labeled "competitive" are no more than 30 in number.

No, Kelticwizard just read what you wrote, and he assumed that when your write 1984, you mean 1984. I really don't know what else you could possibly expect.


I do remember that, of course.

A brief look at recent history shows that the popularity of the President quite often does affect House races.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the presidency by a subtantial electoral margin-near ten points, as I recall. The Democrats lost 35 seats in the House.

!n 1982, Reagan was near the bottom of his popularity, and the Democrats won 27 seats back.

In 1984, Reagan won reelection in a landslide. The Republicans picked up 16 seats. Perhaps Reagan's landslide was less a measure of his personal popularity than the fact that his opponent, Fritz Mondale, was an especially colorless candidate. At any rate, Reagan's popularity was high, and GOP gains in the House were substantial.

Moving forward to 1994, Clinton's popularity was also at the lowest point of his presidency, and the Democrats lost 54 seats in the House, along with the majority. In the following years, Clinton's popularity picked up, and the Democrats did make some gains against the Republicans.

Check out the blue chart at the bottom of this page to get the stats for each Congressional election.

I would not say that the popularity of the president is the only factor in the House voting. But an examination of the past quarter century bears out that there is a correlation between presidential popularity and House races. And right now, Bush's popularity is dropping precipitously.

True. But there is no guarantee that in that eleven months, things will get substantially better for Bush. There is a perfectly good chance that things will get worse, or stay approximately the same for him.

You are apparently unaware of the massive gerrymandering that has gone on, Keltic Wizard. But before I get to that, do you know when the last midterm election took place which overturned the "traditional" seat losses which the party in power usually suffers in an off year election?

If you guessed 2002, you were correct.

Some details for you, Keltic Wizard----Newsweek- Nov. 16th 2002-

quote:

"The GOP's vote margin in the Congressional RAces was the largest since 1994: there were 35 Million votes cast for the GOP candidates compared with 31 Million for the Democrats. BY HISTORICAL STANDARDS THE GOP SHOULD HAVE LOST SOME 22 HOUSE SEATS AND TWO SENATE SEATS- THE POST WORLD WAR II AVERAGE LOSS BY A PRESIDENT'S PARTY IN THE FIRST MIDTERM AFTER HIS ELECITON, INSTEAD THE GOP GAINED TWO SEATS IN THE SENATE AND FIVE IN THE HOUSE."


And as you may be aware, the GOP gained five Senate seats in the general election in 2004 while adding about 7 House Seats,



Now, how will the election of 2006 come out?

Tradition says the party in power loses seats BUT

Chicago Sun Times Nov.5 , 2005 - P. 18

"Fair Vote's executive director, Rob Richie, whose group advocates handling redistricting through non-partisan commissions rather than elected politicians, said that "historical patterns of Congressional Losses no long apply because there is evidence that districts are so gerrymandered that only 30 or so congressional districts out of 435 are competitive."

We shall see, but it is instructive that President Bush led the GOP to wins in 2000, 2002, 2004 and, I am sure, will do so in 2006.

I predict that things will get worse for Bush during the next eleven months following the long term trend line he's enjoyed since his highs after 9-11.

More Americans are realizing the failure of this administration to get us involved in Iraq, and the subsequent investigations of the higher-ups on breaking the laws will only prove this administration can't be trusted.

Once trust is lost, it's lost forever.

The last thing that will cause me upset would be the application of, or any real subscription to, christian ethics by this administration and the people who foment for war.

blatham, That's been my primary contention also; how can christians support this administration's illegal war in Iraq that's killed some 100,000 innocent Iraqis?

Perhaps they don't view as illegal? Perhaps when they see people using exagerrated numbers like "some 100,000 innocent Iraqis" they figure the speaker is a crackpot? Perhaps they view the safety of their country to be more important than their religious views?

Who can really say.

It's common knowledge for most folks that read or see media reports on Iraq. This was reported in November 2004. The numbers are surely much bigger today.


War has killed 100,000 Iraqis: study
Last Updated Fri, 29 Oct 2004 06:25:07 EDT
CBC News
LONDON - Nearly 100,000 more Iraqis have died during the American-led occupation than would have been expected otherwise, a study posted on The Lancet medical journal's website Thursday estimates.

One more comment: it's also disturbing that the likes of McG refuses to acknoledge the carnage we have caused in Iraq.