Were the complaints merely about politics being discussed or about forum members being insulted? As far as I can tell, this has been a very civil discussion where no forum members have been insulted or put down.
Like Paul, I have very strong feelings about this election and to me, it's obvious who the better candidate is. These are important and dangerous times and a full vetting is always useful before such an important election.
There have been minor points discussed such as the lipstick issue. On that no one took a stand one way or the other as to whether it was an insult directed at Sarah Palin but was merely discussed as one of the topics of the day, so I'm not sure why Paul was upset about that.
Most of the more heated issues have been over foreign policy. In that respect, the candidates are diametrically apart on the issues as will happen when their philosophies are different.
Paul, what was so offensive about my statement that you quoted? He was campaigning for a pullout without securing the country. Not once did he ever say he was going to win first before pulling out. Is that not campaigning for defeat? Would the country not descend into chaos, at the mercy of al Qaeda? I didn't find any of your statements to be offensive. Why would this one be? If you did find it offensive, I'm sorry you took it that way but it's an absolutely fair statement to make.
There are several other points that do scream out for a correction.
And don't talk to me about left-wing smear campaigns. Not when the right invented swift boating and most of the tools of the trade.
Did you know John O'Neill, the chief spokesman of the Swift Boat Veterans was a registered Independent who supported John Edwards for president and had never before supported a Republican for president? Before 2004, O'Neill was a big supporter of Ross Perot. The members formed on their own, with the members encompassing both political parties. Blaming that on the right is simply wrong.
Look at the vitriol directed at President Bush over the last eight years. That was a true smear campaign that has destroyed the reputation of a good and honest man who did what he thought was right no matter the cost. I would think you'd want more of those types of politicians in government. I could easily say the same that the left invented smear tactics. And with a media to carry their water for them, it can be very effective. And before you dispute media bias, just about every poll you see will show that the people believe the media is overwhelmingly biased towards the left. And the fact that they vote 93-7 Democrat might have something to do with that.
As an example of a smear tactic, Hurricane Katrina was what finally broke Bush's popularity sending it spiraling downward. Did you know that almost no one in New Orleans blamed President Bush? ABC tried to drum up blame by interviewing as many refugees as they could find, asking them, "Do you blame President Bush for this disaster?" They were surprised that almost nobody blamed President Bush, but almost universally blamed Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco and Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin. Blanco was easily defeated and replaced with Bobby Jindal in the next election. Why was Bush not blamed locally? Because he had no power to act. People down there knew that the president had insisted on an evacuation many days before the storm hit. Nagin ignored him until it was too late. Bush asked for control of the situation and the ability to send in the Coast Guard and Marines three times to Governor Blanco. She said no each and every time. With Posse Comitatus as law, the president was powerless to act. The Louisiana National Guard sat outside the city for three days with tons of food and water before Blanco gave them permission to go in.
Now people blamed FEMA. What people don't know is that FEMA is a coordination agency. It has almost no staff, almost no equipment to do anything. It's job is to talk with local agencies to help coordinate action. Also the organization had just been relocated into the new Department of Homeland Security, a department opposed by the president but insisted upon by Democrats.
As for being a smear, Democrats and their allies in the media successfully teamed up to blame Bush 100% for everything that went wrong when in fact he had little to do with it. Once Blanco finally agreed to let the president act five days after the storm, things cleaned up almost immediately as the Coast Guard went into emergency search and rescue and the Marines delivered supplies to people who needed it. Democrats and the media effectively destroyed the remainder of his presidency on a smear and he never recovered, politically, from Hurricane Katrina. They even tried hard to make people believe that the president knew the levees would break. When video appeared showing that not to be the case, they were forced to back off.
The ultimate smear job was that "Bush lied" when multiple bipartisan commissions could find not a shred of evidence that anyone lied or was pressured to manufacture evidence. So Paul, your accusations are totally unjustified.
The Democrats are experts at hatchet jobs. They did the same to Mark Foley, Tom DeLay (three grand juries before the Democratic DA could find someone willing to indict when it's well known prosecutors can indict a ham sandwich?), Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, and a number of other prominent Republicans. Before you say "Bill Clinton" when it comes to Foley, Gingrich and Livingston, all of them resigned and none had the support of the Republican Party nor did anyone even try to defend them. Lott was forced to resign his Majority Leader post when he was accused of being a racist only because he toasted Strom Thurmond at a party for Thurmond.
They are trying to do the same with Sarah Palin as Obama sent in 30 lawyers and investigators to Alaska to dig up any dirt they could find on her.
Mark Foley, in particular, was portrayed as a predator when in fact he only propositioned people who never worked for him. Plus with the age of consent at 16 in Washington D.C., he broke no laws. How many people knew that? Yet, Foley was the notorious October surprise which Democrats spring like clockwork before every election. Republicans have never sprung an October surprise.
Anybody remember Bush's DUI report three days before the 2000 election that probably tipped Florida into a virtual tie when Bush was leading by 3% just the day before? Or Dan Rather's disgusting attempt to destroy Bush with forged documents three weeks before the 2004 election? Rather's problem was that he jumped the gun, giving people time to debunk his smear job, or Kerry would be president. Now tell me that Democrats are innocent victims.
I await the next Democratic October Surprise. It should come within the next five or six weeks.
Isn't it funny how the good times come under Democratic leadership, while the deficit goes up under the leadership of the tax-cut-and-spend Republicans?
Two words: Jimmy Carter.
We need a leader who can see that offshore drilling will do little to help us. That it'll be years before we see any returns, that those returns will likely be a drop in the bucket compared to our ever-increasing demand,
Didn't Democrats say the same thing five years ago? Ten years ago? Fifteen years ago? Twenty? They say exactly the same thing every time it's proposed. If Democrats had listened five, ten, fifteen years ago, those offshore oil platforms would be producing today. The ANWR battle has been fought for decades, a source the size of LAX that could produce billions of barrels of oil.
How many years will alternative fuels take before they're practical? I'll bet it's a lot longer than five years, which is what Democrats say it'll take to produce more oil. The tide is moving against the Democrats on this. The American people don't understand the resistance to drilling and don't support the Democrats on this. Even Nancy Pelosi is feeling the pressure from Democrats who are fearful for their seats if they don't authorize drilling.
McCain is gaining on this because he supports both and the American people agree with him. While investing in long term alternative fuels, he also supports drilling for more oil to tide us over until those alternatives become practical.
As for the current economic situation, you didn't read my synopsis about economic bubbles? How would you blame the president for the real estate bubble? Is he supposed to tell people not to buy houses? And do you blame him for 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina for the hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage caused by those two events and the resulting job losses from both. And as far as downturns go, this one's still rather mild. Unemployment is still historically low. Even the last jump to 6.1% had more to do with more people entering the workforce than people losing their jobs. If no jobs had been lost at all last month, the unemployment rate would still have gone from 5.7% to 6.0% as 500,000 more people entered the work force for the first time. I'll bet the hike in the minimum wage to $6.55 accounted for most of the rest.
The dollar is rising now like gangbusters having gained 13% against most major currencies in just the last month. I know because I was in Europe during almost all of August as I watched the dollar skyrocket. Gold and oil prices are falling like stones. The Euro is at $1.399 today, only about 10-12% above where it was when the dollar first started sliding.
Bill Clinton sailed through the 90's because of the rise of the Internet and got out right after the bubble burst. Anyone could have been president through that era and had a good economy. He did his very best to torpedo it with his tax hikes but even he couldn't hold down the dot com bubble. If you blame Bush for the real estate bubble, then you'd have to blame Clinton for the dot com bubble. I don't blame either one for something completely out of their control. Clinton was handed a growing economy and had nothing significant happen on his watch. Bush was handed a declining economy and two disasters. Which one had a tougher job? Be impartial about it. I even gave Clinton credit for a capital gains tax cut. Would you give Bush credit for anything on his watch?
I'll surprise you by praising Bill Clinton again. He passed welfare reform and it was wildly successful. Other Democrats predicted doom and gloom yet even they had to admit their predictions didn't come true. I even supported him when he sent troops into Bosnia. While I didn't support sending them in in the first place because we had absolutely no national interest there, I supported him when the soldiers went in. Once our forces were in harm's way, I supported both the president and the mission, rather than taking the easy way out by saying I supported the troops but not the president like so many have done with President Bush.
I'll praise Bill Clinton a fourth time. I supported him and Al Gore when they campaigned for and passed NAFTA even against their own party. There's evidence that Obama was promising people in Ohio that he would overturn NAFTA while at the same time promising the Canadian government he didn't mean it.
PM denies top aide leaked Obama NAFTA memo Canadian memo suggests Obama\'s NAFTA comments \'political positioning\' I praised Bill Clinton several times. And Al Gore, too, when they do something that's right. Would you do the same for George Bush?
Democrats have accused Bush for not listening to anyone as you, yourself have just claimed. Interesting that he's also criticized for listening to his commanders who almost universally got their way for several years until the president finally got fed up with his top generals and replaced both Abizaid and Casey with generals who knew how to win. Now the president is responsible for who he chooses as commander and has to take the blame for their failures, but he can't win for losing. When he listens, he's criticized, and when he doesn't, he's criticized.
You're attacking Palin's experience as governor when you've got Obama at the top of your ticket, the man with the empty resume who had only been in the US Senate for 143 days before he started campaigning for president? How about Joe Biden from Delaware, which has an similarly small population. Are you worried that because he represents a small state with almost no population that he shouldn't be VP?
As for whether we're safer today, I'll point you to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll at:
Terrorism Fears at Low Ebb Seven Years After 9/11 To sum it up, 62% say the War on Terror is going well, up from 54% last year. 62% think we're safer now than before 9/11. It seems the American people disagree with you.
