Bush Supporters' Aftermath Thread V

blatham wrote:

Is it "the ususual Bush-bashing rhetoric" when the Deputy Attorney General to Ronald Reagan (and who is also an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a resident scholar at the Heritage Foundation and was a contributing author to the articles of impeachment for Bill Clinton) calls for the impeachment of the President and the Vice-President? http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/profile.html

Yes actually. You could very well start a separate thread about it.

HokieBird wrote:

Fein voted for Bush in 2000. He voted for Bush in 2004. Now he's whining.

This comment rests upon a well-established logical and democratic truism:

Where one has previously voted for (or thought well of, or spoken out in favor of) a particular candidate (or party) then one is henceforth obligated, as a logical matter and as a matter of personal character within a democracy, to refrain from any and all critical speech (or criical thought) regarding said candidate or party.

Do we have it right here, HokieBird?

blatham wrote:

HokieBird wrote:

Fein voted for Bush in 2000. He voted for Bush in 2004. Now he's whining.

This comment rests upon a well-established logical and democratic truism:

Where one has previously voted for (or thought well of, or spoken out in favor of) a particular candidate (or party) then one is henceforth obligated, as a logical matter and as a matter of personal character within a democracy, to refrain from any and all critical speech (or criical thought) regarding said candidate or party.

Do we have it right here, HokieBird?

No. You'd have it right if Fein had not voted for Bush in 2004. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....whines Fein.

How is it that you know how Fein voted in either case, by the by?

Regardless, your "argument" is illogical whether he voted X or Y once or twice or thrice. You haven't really made an "argument", of course. You are doing something else here. You might, I suppose, prefer individuals who never alter their perspective (never learn, that is) but I doubt you'd agree to that in any broad or axiomatic way.

What you are trying to do, for either some assumed audience here(assumed attending and assumed rather stupid) or for your own cognitive equanimity, is evident in your repetition of "whine". Whining is unmanly. You, in contrast, are much too alpha-dog and jam-packed with character to fall to such femininity and ineffectualness.

Now, shall we begin to catalogue and compare Fein's education and knowledge, his actual contributions to civic betterment through high-level service in the Reagan administration (and elsewhere), his ability through the above and through his proximity to the levers of real power to actually do things for his community and country...compare all of this with yourself and your own life?

You know, just to see where the term "whining" might actually fit most appropriately?

Fein was explaining why he couldn't vote for Kerry,

but the 'whining' comes in when he tries to make us believe that he didn't know then what he purports to know now

But back to impeachment - Russell Feingold doesn't support it. And the 'Kids' are very angry with him (almost 2,000 responses when I last checked). Interesting. Maybe he knows something they don't.
Which is, of course, why the Republicans are practically begging for them to bring it on. Put up or shut up, so to speak.

None of us here are anti-President Bush. I voted for President Bush twice. I served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But on matters of this importance, we're all Americans. We're all devoted to the Constitution above any partisan advantage.

Webpage

It seems we're in agreement that impeachment is highly doubtful (entertaining as it would be to watch Mr. Cheney presiding over his own impeachment trial).

Fein continues to declare he's not 'anti-Bush' (I'm skeptical, but could be he really is just an ideological purist) so he points out his voting record in almost every interview.

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None of us here are anti-President Bush. I voted for President Bush twice. I served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But on matters of this importance, we're all Americans. We're all devoted to the Constitution above any partisan advantage.

Webpage

As fortunate as it would be for the Republicans to reap the benefits of an attempt to impeach Cheney, the Democrats know a trial would cover the entire Senate in mud. With so many of their own campaigning for the presidency, it's obvious they'll want to avoid that.

Open-Minded Bush to Announce Plan B Surge for Iraq
by Scott Ott

...It's because politics in your country now has been turned into kabuki theatre and dumbed down so far that it has all the grace and soul and intelligence of a bastard child borne from the drugged coupling of Paris Hilton and Tucker Carlson.

"And on this issue of the Shi'a in Iraq, I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, you know, somehow the Shi'a can't get along with the Sunni and the Shi'a in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular." Bill Kristol, NPR, Apr 2003

"We talk here about Shiites and Sunnis as if they've never lived together. Most Arab countries have Shiites and Sunnis, and a lot of them live perfectly well together...Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." Bill Kristol, May 2003

"We can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy." Bill Kristol, Nov 2002

"He's got weapons of mass destruction. At some point he will use them or give them to a terrorist group to use... Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world. ... And I think we will be respected around the world for helping the people of Iraq to be liberated." Bill Kristol, Feb 2003

"I suppose I'll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one." Bill Kristol, Jul 15, 2007

Thanks for the link to Fein's statement on voting.

Impeachment does seem unlikely at present. But that isn't because there's some lack of constitutional, legal or moral grounds for impeachment. It isn't even that prudent consideration of the matter must lead one to the conclusion that it would hurt the country more than aid it. It's because politics in your country now has been turned into kabuki theatre and dumbed down so far that it has all the grace and soul and intelligence of a bastard child borne from the drugged coupling of Paris Hilton and Tucker Carlson.

But why buy the assumption that impeachment, on the grounds and for the reasons explicated by Fein, would work a negative electoral consequence for the democrats? Clearly, you and Pelosi and others who assume it are taking the Clinton/Gingrich precedent as informative...get the impeachment but then lose power because Americans don't come on side and, instead and in sufficient numbers, perceive the "remedy" as worse than (more destructive, no less dishonest) the affliction. Clinton's popularity remained high through that impeachment, much higher than Bush has been for two years or more now. And Americans, for all their contemporary stupidhood, were bright enough to understand that a sneaky extra-marital blowjob posed no threat to constitutional governance or to a functioning democracy. Nor did it result in 3000 dead American soldiers and hundreds of thousand of dead Iraqis. Nor did it threaten to multiply and expand the numbers of serious enemies to the US.

If Fein's arguments are sound, the present dilemma and adminiistration pose threats to an American democracy - a democracy that is transparent, with real checks and balances against abuses of power, and with unrestrained and welcomed citizen involvement of the sort that the founders or Lincoln imagined - which make impeachment quite the opposite of frivolous or partisan.

Is there any question in your mind that Cheney and Addington and others in the movement wish a unitary executive only so far as that executive holds the same ideological stance as their own?

It would have been interesting to get a real response to the mystery of why the Democrats are shying away from the impeachment issue, by the way, and not just another avalanche of name-calling. You're in danger of becoming that which you despise.

I'd only discuss the soundness of Fein's arguments in the event impeachment becomes reality.

As to your last question, it seems to be Fein's fear that Bush's successor (Hillary?) will enter office with far more power over our lives than her predecessors had on inauguration day. Nonsense. Bush hasn't used this power against political enemies,

so Fein should't think Hillary will use it against him. The days when presidents could get away with that sort of thing ended decades ago.

We can dredge up all this when and if there's an impeachment trial but until then it's just a fishing expedition.

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It would have been interesting to get a real response to the mystery of why the Democrats are shying away from the impeachment issue, by the way, and not just another avalanche of name-calling. You're in danger of becoming that which you despise.

I, like you, can only make a surmise. And I did that on the previous page...I surmised that they are not moving in that direction based on assumptions about electoral consequences.

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I'd only discuss the soundness of Fein's arguments in the event impeachment becomes reality.

An odd criterion for considering or discussing a possibility.

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As to your last question, it seems to be Fein's fear that Bush's successor (Hillary?) will enter office with far more power over our lives than her predecessors had on inauguration day. Nonsense. Bush hasn't used this power against political enemies,

That's not Fein's argument.

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so Fein should't think Hillary will use it against him. The days when presidents could get away with that sort of thing ended decades ago.

Did it? What marks the end you speak of?

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We can dredge up all this when and if there's an impeachment trial but until then it's just a fishing expedition.

Perhaps you ought to read Fein more carefully though he's by no means the only individual of his stature to argue for impeachment.

I would amplify as follows. Both conservatives and liberals master only the art of destroying or crippling their political enemies, but learn and care little about bedrock principles that have enabled the nation to grow and prosper with an enlightened balance between order and liberty. They neither recognize nor care about the legal precedents Bush is creating that lie around like loaded weapons for use in the aftermath of any future 9/11 or comparable calamity. They are fixated on the moment and winning political battles by fair means or foul. They would rather the country be convulsed than that their political opponents gain. I have asked Republicans in Congress to worry about ballooning presidential prerogatives since Hillary Clinton may soon be occupying the White House.
[...]
Also, in 2004, my concerns about Bush had been awakened, but not sufficiently to vote for Kerry. I had assailed Bush's claim of power to detain indefinitely illegal combatants on his say-so alone, and his utopian and calamitous policy in post-Saddam Iraq pivoting on the premise that democracy would emerge spontaneously from the Tigris and Euphrates after 4,000 years of dormancy. Bush's flagrant contempt for the Constitution through the NSA's warrantless surveillance program and sister spying that has yet to be revealed was unknown in 2004. I would not vote for Bush now, nor Kerry either, but would write-in a candidate worthy of the office who would pledge to subordinate partisanship to both the written and unwritten rules of the Constitution. In 2008, that latter test will be decisive in casting my vote for president.

http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=237