Don’t you think that many of Gore’s remarks were beyond the pale and demeaning to his own status as a former VP and Senator?
I don’t mean to suggest that all of them were improper. But as one blogger pointed out earlier today, “Claiming that the Bush White House had ‘a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be ‘stressed’ and even – we must use the word – tortured – to force them to say things[.]’ Can he conceivably believe that is true? And even if he does, can someone with his brain not understand that saying something like this — i.e., that the Ghraib excesses are American policy rather than an aberration that has mobilized a decent country toward corrections — while we have troops on the battlefield makes it at least marginally more likely that American prisoners will be abused. I know they say politics ain’t beanbag, but this is really low-brow stuff.”
As to four years ago: If you like, I can cite you to several examples of Gore’s offering what I consider similarly improper, if “ballsy,” remarks in 2000 and before. *shrug*
I honestly don’t consider his remarks beyond the pale in the least bit. I am of the opinion that the Bush administration is responsible for lowering the level of discourse, no one else, and it’s well beyond time for someone of Gore’s stature to call them to task for it.
As for any concern about what Gore says endangering troops in the field – I find it hard to believe that the insurgents in Iraq give a damn what American politicians do or don’t say. The pictures speak for the themselves, and they will draw their own conclusions.
So it’s Bush’s fault for lowering the level of discourse.
As when Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) calls the Vice President a “chickenhawk.”
As when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) calls the President “incompent,” mentally “gone” and comparable to the clothesless Emperor and the Wizard of Oz (“pull the curtain back”).
As when Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) refers to Republicans as “the Taliban” in a campaign speech for a Democrat seeking the House seat in South Dakota.
When has Bush or any similarly-high-ranking official — not just some flack, but the official him or herself — said anything remotely so awful?
Inasmuch as you blame Bush for lowering the level of discourse, it should be rather easy for you to find several examples.
“Official Policy”?
I am disappointed that you are not the least put off by Gore’s saying that Bush “had a policy” of torture, given that the investigation of the abuses there is very much still ongoing and, for that reason, we just can’t reasonably say yet where the faults lie.
Do you believe that too?
*shakes head*
Re: “Official Policy”?
Here’s the deal:
I like you, Mitch. You seem a generous and generally caring kind of guy. Now, you have political beliefs that differ from mine, and I respect that. I ask that you equally respect mine.
However. Every political viewpoint that I express in my journal is not a personal invitation to debate with you. I just don’t have the time for that, and quite frankly you’ve shown a tendency to go WAY off the deep end when it comes to political matters, which you’ve amply shown with your series of posts in reply to my entry.
You have a journal of your own for your political commentary – have a great time, post away to your heart’s content. But it’s not welcome here. If you find this sad or regrettable, well, that’s a real shame. By all means, remove me from your friends list, and I wish you and yours well.
-Tom
Another sore spot
Gore trotted out this shopworn lie about alleged GOP smears against former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), whom Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) defeated in 2002:
Their [the Bush administration’s] appetite for power is astonishing. It has led them to introduce a new level of viciousness in partisan politics. It is that viciousness that led them to attack as unpatriotic, Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in combat during the Vietnam War.
As one blogger pointed out in February 2004, in response to John Kerry’s saying essentially the same thing:
This is trumped-up mythology based on the idea that Republicans “questioned Cleland’s patriotism” in 2002. Kerry captures it best: “To this day I am motivated by — and I will be throughout this campaign — the most craven moment I’ve ever seen in politics, when the Republican party challenged this man’s patriotism in the last campaign.” Democrats make it sound as though Cleland’s opponent, the four-term Republican congressman Saxby Chambliss, ran an ad something like this: “Sen. Max Cleland,” — cue the ominous music — “is he a patriot? Georgia wants to know.”
Of course, nothing remotely like this ran. The case for foul play rests on a tough anti-Cleland ad that Chambliss broadcast featuring Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The ad didn’t morph Cleland into either of these figures or say that he supported them. It noted at its beginning that the United States faced threats to its security as the screen was briefly divided into four squares, with bin Laden and Saddam in two of them and the other two filled with images of the American military.
It went on to explain that Cleland had voted 11 times against a homeland-security bill that would have given President Bush the freedom from union strictures that he wanted in order to set up the new department. The bill was co-sponsored by his Georgia colleague Sen. Zell Miller, a fellow Democrat. Bush discussed details of the bill personally with Cleland, and Chambliss wrote him a letter prior to running his ad urging him to support the Bush version. Cleland still opposed it, setting himself up for the charge that he was voting with liberals and the public-employees unions against Bush and Georgia common sense.
If you can’t criticize the Senate votes of a senator in a Senate race, what can you criticize? Throughout the race, Cleland tried to hide behind the idea that his patriotism was being questioned. A columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted in June of 2002 that “this ‘how-dare-you-attack-my-patriotism’ ploy, replete with feigned outrage…is a device to put Cleland’s voting records off-limits.” It didn’t work. Chambliss won the crucial endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which made its nod on the basis of the two candidates’ differing records on national-security and veterans issues. The VFW wouldn’t have been complicit in a gutter campaign based on smearing a Vietnam veteran.
*shrug* It seems to me Gore could have made the same points, but more strongly, by omitting such clearly false statements as these.
Re: Another sore spot
Well, it depends on what “attack as unpatriotic” means. If it means did they run ads accusing Senator Cleland of failing to affix a large enough flag decal to his car or not singing the Star Spangled Banner loudly enough at the last baseball game he attended, then it’s a bum rap.
The ads actually portrayed Cleland as being soft on homeland security, voting against the president’s preferred version of the bill creating the Department of Homeland Security (cue ominous music and pictures of OBL’s glowering puss) ELEVEN TIMES. What the ad doesn’t mention was that Cleland was an early supporter of creating the department, and the nay votes were against a version of the bill that removed the right of existing employees that were being folded into the new department to be in labor unions. We’ll have to wait for the president’s memoirs to see whether he genuinely felt that the attacks on 9/11 were caused by slothful, overpaid union workers asleep at the switch, or he just couldn’t bring himself to sign a bill to enhance our national security withoug tacking on a little union busting on general principle, or (my guess) the party saw that forcing the Democrats to either vote against something with the words “Homeland Security” in it or to alienate much of their consistency by rolling over on the union busting provision would make for great sound bites come the next election.
So the Chambliss campaign misleadingly called Cleland soft on homeland security and fighting terrorists, which considering the national mood, is almost synonymous with calling him unpatriotic, but I’ll admit it’s a hair that can be split. I’ll admit that the way the whole Cleland issue is another example of the Democrats having a bit of a tin ear when it comes to convincing the public that they would be better at keeping the country safe (though I believe at this point in history they would be), but it was certainly amusing reading all the conservative columnists howling with indignation that the Democrats were accusing the GOP of running misleading ads about patriotism when in fact that’s not precisely what they were trying to mislead people about at all!
Don’t you think that many of Gore’s remarks were beyond the pale and demeaning to his own status as a former VP and Senator?
I don’t mean to suggest that all of them were improper. But as one blogger pointed out earlier today, “Claiming that the Bush White House had ‘a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be ‘stressed’ and even – we must use the word – tortured – to force them to say things[.]’ Can he conceivably believe that is true? And even if he does, can someone with his brain not understand that saying something like this — i.e., that the Ghraib excesses are American policy rather than an aberration that has mobilized a decent country toward corrections — while we have troops on the battlefield makes it at least marginally more likely that American prisoners will be abused. I know they say politics ain’t beanbag, but this is really low-brow stuff.”
As to four years ago: If you like, I can cite you to several examples of Gore’s offering what I consider similarly improper, if “ballsy,” remarks in 2000 and before. *shrug*
I honestly don’t consider his remarks beyond the pale in the least bit. I am of the opinion that the Bush administration is responsible for lowering the level of discourse, no one else, and it’s well beyond time for someone of Gore’s stature to call them to task for it.
As for any concern about what Gore says endangering troops in the field – I find it hard to believe that the insurgents in Iraq give a damn what American politicians do or don’t say. The pictures speak for the themselves, and they will draw their own conclusions.
So it’s Bush’s fault for lowering the level of discourse.
As when Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) calls the Vice President a “chickenhawk.”
As when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) calls the President “incompent,” mentally “gone” and comparable to the clothesless Emperor and the Wizard of Oz (“pull the curtain back”).
As when Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) refers to Republicans as “the Taliban” in a campaign speech for a Democrat seeking the House seat in South Dakota.
When has Bush or any similarly-high-ranking official — not just some flack, but the official him or herself — said anything remotely so awful?
Inasmuch as you blame Bush for lowering the level of discourse, it should be rather easy for you to find several examples.
“Official Policy”?
I am disappointed that you are not the least put off by Gore’s saying that Bush “had a policy” of torture, given that the investigation of the abuses there is very much still ongoing and, for that reason, we just can’t reasonably say yet where the faults lie.
Do you believe that too?
*shakes head*
Re: “Official Policy”?
Here’s the deal:
I like you, Mitch. You seem a generous and generally caring kind of guy. Now, you have political beliefs that differ from mine, and I respect that. I ask that you equally respect mine.
However. Every political viewpoint that I express in my journal is not a personal invitation to debate with you. I just don’t have the time for that, and quite frankly you’ve shown a tendency to go WAY off the deep end when it comes to political matters, which you’ve amply shown with your series of posts in reply to my entry.
You have a journal of your own for your political commentary – have a great time, post away to your heart’s content. But it’s not welcome here. If you find this sad or regrettable, well, that’s a real shame. By all means, remove me from your friends list, and I wish you and yours well.
-Tom
Another sore spot
Gore trotted out this shopworn lie about alleged GOP smears against former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), whom Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) defeated in 2002:
As one blogger pointed out in February 2004, in response to John Kerry’s saying essentially the same thing:
*shrug* It seems to me Gore could have made the same points, but more strongly, by omitting such clearly false statements as these.
Re: Another sore spot
Well, it depends on what “attack as unpatriotic” means. If it means did they run ads accusing Senator Cleland of failing to affix a large enough flag decal to his car or not singing the Star Spangled Banner loudly enough at the last baseball game he attended, then it’s a bum rap.
The ads actually portrayed Cleland as being soft on homeland security, voting against the president’s preferred version of the bill creating the Department of Homeland Security (cue ominous music and pictures of OBL’s glowering puss) ELEVEN TIMES. What the ad doesn’t mention was that Cleland was an early supporter of creating the department, and the nay votes were against a version of the bill that removed the right of existing employees that were being folded into the new department to be in labor unions. We’ll have to wait for the president’s memoirs to see whether he genuinely felt that the attacks on 9/11 were caused by slothful, overpaid union workers asleep at the switch, or he just couldn’t bring himself to sign a bill to enhance our national security withoug tacking on a little union busting on general principle, or (my guess) the party saw that forcing the Democrats to either vote against something with the words “Homeland Security” in it or to alienate much of their consistency by rolling over on the union busting provision would make for great sound bites come the next election.
So the Chambliss campaign misleadingly called Cleland soft on homeland security and fighting terrorists, which considering the national mood, is almost synonymous with calling him unpatriotic, but I’ll admit it’s a hair that can be split. I’ll admit that the way the whole Cleland issue is another example of the Democrats having a bit of a tin ear when it comes to convincing the public that they would be better at keeping the country safe (though I believe at this point in history they would be), but it was certainly amusing reading all the conservative columnists howling with indignation that the Democrats were accusing the GOP of running misleading ads about patriotism when in fact that’s not precisely what they were trying to mislead people about at all!