How dangerous is the Bush administration?

Mortkat do you have a crush on blatham or something?

McTag is not a bad guy and he is not ignorant. He is, instead, wrongfully (in my view) focused on contemporary events to the exclusion of the historical context in which they arose. I believe this has led him to misjudge the significance and meaning of the contemporary events in question. This is a common fault, shared by lots of people on both sides of this divide. I happen to believe it is particularly common among contemporary Europeans, caught up, as they are in the facts (and illusions) of the new reality they are creating in Europe. All very ordinary, and quite understandable. I (and you) commit equivalent errors on other issues.

My object is to persuade McTag (and his audience) - not to belittle or condemn him (actions for which I have no standing or right).

georgeob1 you may be a bush licking rightwing nut baby killing war monger, but you are a gentleman. I salute you sir.

Well thank you (I think) for that, Bear (you are the reincarnated Bi polar, aren't you?). I suspect the truth is that none of us is really quite the snarling asshole we work so hard to portray. And I am (sadly) not always so polite.

Oh, please don't tell me. The "blue veined throbber" is not his real name?

Contact the Gestapo headed by Joe From Chicago. Joe From Chicago thinks that this is a capital crime.

But Joe, apparently, uses his ploy only to try to quiet those he cannot master in debate.

I wonder if Joe is so hypocritical as not to "out" the Blue Viened Throbber>


I'll bet he is!!!!

Confucius said, "Can an ignoble man serve the government? No. He worries about getting somthing, and once he has got it he worries about losing it. As long as he worries about losing there's no telling what he might do."

Excellent quote, Amigo.

We have run up many pages of insults and drivel. Nobody has debated the contents of the first post.

How about it?

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n01/print/wein01_.html

I assume you would include your own posts here in that criticism. Perhaps you could begin the discussion you seek with some non-insulting, non-drivel.

Rubbed my nose in it? Rubbed my nose in what? How could you rub my nose in anything? You haven't responded to any of my posts in weeks. I was beginning to think you didn't like me any more, Mortogatto.


Wait a minute -- you want me to question your sexuality? Frankly, I find the idea that you could approach so near to some animate being to have sexual relations with it both extremely repulsive and highly improbable. Question your sexuality? I don't even want to think about it.


Are you seeking clemency?


Those? Are you using the royal "we" or are you simply referring to your multiple personalities?


I pick my battles.

Joe reveals his true motivations. Unable to defeat an opponent, he becomes personal, citing non-existent names culled from God only know what sources. But Blue Veined Throbber, who has had, according to George OB1, who never lies, another indentity, is not pilloried by Joe from Chicago. Interesting if not Hypocritical.

blueveinedthrobber was out many moons ago -- do these posters live in the Galapagos?

So was drancing.

Go play amongst the iguanas.

Are there no Iguanas in Orange County?

Only as pets or in the zoo. I'm sure you are familiar with zoos -- the Mortkat exhibits are quite entertaining. They can be such clowns.

As clownish as people who play with light bulbs?

George is a very erudite and articulate model of restraint. I only know he is cross with me when he starts addressing me in the third person. He lectures me on history and I think actually holds me personally responsible for what Cromwell did in Drogheda. But in a nice way.

If he has one fault, it is that he will not yet concede what has become plain to most: that USA interests are being very badly served, and its proud reputation sullied and its treasure squandered, its laws traduced and its Constitution subverted, by the most disreputable bunch of criminals ever to lie and cheat their way into public office in a western democracy.

Washington makes headlines here today:

The man who bought off Washington

Lobbyist's guilty plea set to expose bribery scandal at the heart of US political system

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 04 January 2006

Jack Abramoff, the disgraced former Republican super-lobbyist, has agreed a deal with US government prosecutors, opening the way for what could be the biggest political influence peddling scandal in Washington for decades.
At a brief appearance yesterday in a federal court, Mr Abramoff pleaded guilty to three sets of charges covering fraud, conspiracy to commit bribery, and tax evasion. According to his lawyers, he is also pleading guilty to two separate fraud charges connected to the purchase in 2000 of a fleet of casino gambling boats in Florida.
The convictions could send the lobbyist to jail for five years or more. But that sentence may one day prove a mere footnote to a possible corruption scandal involving as many as 20 congressmen, senators and their aides - mostly Republicans but also including some Democrats - believed to be under investigation by the Justice Department.
Under the plea bargain, Mr Abramoff is expected to tell all about his dealings with the congressmen, and the gifts lavished upon them to win their support. The favours include millions of dollars in campaign contributions, all-expenses-paid foreign trips, meals, luxury boxes at major sporting events, and generous funding of special interest groups linked to the lawmakers.
The indictment accuses Mr Abramoff of "corruptly" offering gifts and other incentives "to influence others in the performance of their official duties." Congressional ethics rules specifically bar legislators and their aides from accepting such gifts from lobbyists.
Thus far, congressmen caught up in the probe - among them the Ohio Republican Bob Ney, who went on a 2002 golfing trip to St Andrews courtesy of Mr Abramoff - have denied all wrongdoing. But the ramifications of the case extend to the heart of the ruling establishment in Washington. Mr Abramoff soared to prominence because of his ties with the younger, hard-charging generation of Republicans led by the former house speaker Newt Gingrich, who seized control of Congress in the party's stunning mid-term election victory of 1994.
One of his closest allies was Tom DeLay, who was the hugely powerful (and greatly feared) House majority leader, until he stepped down last September after being indicted for alleged illegal fundraising in his home state of Texas.
Mr DeLay, a vital congressional "enforcer" for President Bush and his legislative agenda, was himself a guest on an Abramoff-organised golf junket to Scotland in 2000. The trip was partly paid for by donations from various Indian tribes who had hired the lobbyist to protect their lucrative casino gambling operations.
Mr Abramoff also arranged at least $1m (£570,000) of financing for a conservative pressure group, the US Family Network, closely linked to Mr DeLay.
The lobbyist's downfall began with a senate committee investigation which revealed that, in conjunction with his partner Michael Scanlon, he had charged the tribes more than $80m for their services - a colossal sum even by the standards of the $4bn-a-year Washington lobbying industry. According to prosecutors, Mr Abramoff reaped roughly $20m in hidden profits from the scheme.
Pressure had mounted on Mr Abramoff when Mr Scanlon - a one-time press spokesman for Mr DeLay - agreed a plea deal of his own, admitting he conspired to bribe a member of Congress and other public officials. By his own claim, all but penniless and facing a stiff jail term, Mr Abramoff has evidently concluded that his best hope of leniency lies in testifying against those who benefited from him.
The damage - and the trepidation - however stretches far beyond Capitol Hill, into government and the White House. Last September, David Safavian, a top official in the White House budget office, resigned after being indicted for lying and obstructing the federal investigation into Mr Abramoff.
It also separately emerged that in 2003 Mr Abramoff sought $9m from President Omar Bongo of Gabon to arrange a meeting with President Bush. The two did meet the following year - though there has been no evidence it was thanks to Mr Abramoff.
Questioned by reporters yesterday, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, could not say whether the President had ever met the lobbyist. But he described Mr Abramoff's alleged misdeeds as "outrageous and unacceptable". If laws were broken he must be held accountable, Mr McClellan said.
The Florida charges appear unrelated to the corruption inquiry in Washington. Mr Abramoff was due to face trial in Miami next week on charges relating to the $150m purchase of the SunCruz casino cruise company. His co-defendant in Florida agreed last month to plead guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud and to testify against Mr Abramoff.
The pair are accused of faking a $23m wire transfer to make it seem they were committing their own money to the transaction. On that false understanding, two investment companies provided much of the rest of the financing. Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, the seller of SunCruz, was later murdered, apparently in a Mafia feud.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article336400.ece

I am glad to see that Britons have opinions about US office holders and US policies. Mc Tag says that US interests are being very badly served. I am happy that he has an opinion but I hasten to inform him that unless he has dual citizenship he cannot participate in the US election. I am also pointing out that despite the fact that US interests are being badly served, as McTag claims, George W. Bush was elected President in 2000 and 2004 and his party, the Republican Party gained seats in the House and Senate in every election year-2000, 2002, and 2004.

McTag may indeed have good reasons to make his statement about US interests being very badly served but, I am very much afraid, that the majority of the electorate in the US does not agree with him.