Redstate

The anti-Bush hurt, which I believe is very deep and very real, has gotten so bad that it eclipses all else.

People know that rallying around the president means that his poll numbers will go up.  They just won't have it.  They'd rather see people die than see Bush do well.

Sad.

"They'd rather see people die than Bush do well."

Congratulations, you just completed my notion that this site has no redeaming value.  What an asanine comment.  So to question the government has gone from the patriotic duty of every American, to be the actions of evil liberals?  Shame on you.  Try to take a deeper look at cause and effect before you make such ridiculous statements.

Did rally around the President after 9/11. Just about every last one of them, if fact.

The vast majority of them are still alive, and available for polls.

What's different? How'd so many people become ghouls...or vulnerable to the influences of monsters?

A month later the democrats were screaming QUAGMIRE a couple of weeks into the Afghanistan war. We couldn't beat the Taliban because the Soviets tried for 10 years and couldn't. Maybe you have filtered out all the anti-American statements coming from democrats like Zinn, Chompsky, Moore, and others but I will never forget.

The unity was a sham. In early November the NYT was labeling Afghanistan a quagmire. They were complaining about prison conditions at Mazar-i-Sharif. They were complaining about the winning alliance being less than choirboys. The dust hadn't even settled from the WTC when Sonntag and others were harvesting navel lint and pontificating about how we had brought this on ourselves. They are simply not my countrymen.

There is some truth to the statement "They'd rather see people die than Bush do well." I believe the media's coverage of Sheehan and the anti-war demonstrations justifies the fight of those few remaining terrorists in Iraq.  What should be shown is a country united!

don't let it hit you on the way out.

That one group is increasingly willing to see America fail than their opponents succeed is dangerous for us all.

While W has not been a perfect leader, I cannot recall any Prez who has. That the dems, as represented in Landrieu's second week in a row of showing herself to not only be ethically challenged but to be a snivelling liar, are moving more into the 'dems first, America later' mode is going to cost us all dearly. We are being perceived by our enemies as increasingly unable to respond. Not becuase of the response time to the storm, which was not in any way excessive, but because of the outrageous, counter factual, and counter productive response of politically.

this could be a moment in our history as frought with danger for us as the scene in the "Godfather" when Sonny openly disputed Don Corleone over the drug offer.

This deliberate strategy of non-constructive opposition by the democrats instead of constructive response is not only not winning elections for the dems, it is actively encouraging our enemies. When Landrieu refuses to even answer questions about local response, lies about the ACE funding, and balmes Republicans back to Reagan for a natural disaster, and is treated not as an hysterical nitwit but with respect she is not due, that hurts us all.

The dysfunctional response of the dems is putting people at risk. In many ways they are cynically lying about DHS, FEMA, the response time and the lying is being done for strict p[artisan gain.

We are at risk because it encourages enemies to think we will not respond if attaceked. Divided, we appear weaker than we may actually be. It puts people at risk becuase it lifts responsibility from local decision makers, because they can think they will receive cover for incompetent leadership. It puts people at risk becuase it demoralizes the vast army of hard working peole who are actually, unlike the dems, doing something to help. It puts people at risk becuase it encourages victims of the disaster to think there is no reason to obey the law.

Are there things that could be improved in the response to this disaster? Of course. Are there lessons to be learned and applied? Of course. Was the response to this largest of natural disasters a complete fiasco, as is being claimed? No way.

By any reasonable measure: death rate, response time, evacuation numbers, aid delivered, evacuees moved and cared for, this response is a huge success.

The only negatives in this has been the vicious slanderous race baiting and cynical lying of some critics.

A post asking for us to display unity is followed by comments like

"They'd rather see people die than see Bush do well.

Sad. "

"I believe the media's coverage of Sheehan and the anti-war demonstrations justifies the fight of those few remaining terrorists in Iraq"

"That one group is increasingly willing to see America fail than their opponents succeed is dangerous for us all."

I guess unity is for the other guys.  Or alternatively, "they started it."

Well, here's my shot - I believe honest, informed people can differ on most of the major political issues of the day.  I think in judging execution we can probably agree that Afghanistan went well, Katrina went badly and that Iraq could go either way.

Tom

as soon as a Democrat is in the White House.

I can imagine arguments for Kerry, Reid, Pelosi, even Dean.  I can not understand why people keep citing someone like Chomsky as though he represents someone.  The people who represent the Democrats are their elected officials.  I honestly think that the tendency to focus on the most absurd figures available is a major source of the absurd current levels of parisanship.

Is it fair for me describe conservatives with Fallwell?  He surely has many times the following Chomsky does.

Tom

I think in hindsight they think that the rallying they did after 9/11 helped Bush, so they regret it.

As in:  "We'll never make that mistake again.  We must be unified and unyielding if this evil is ever to be defeated!!"

How often has Bush been accused of using 9/11 for political gain?  Are you saying that the left doesn't fear Katrina becoming yet another net political positive for the Republicans?

I think it's kind of obvious, quite frankly.

I often wondered if America would have been better off if Kerry was elected -- if only for the reason you suggest.  With a Republican congress and the die cast on tax cuts and the course of action in Iraq, I thought to myself that President Kerry would get credit for "an economic miracle" (instead of 39% of Americans believing, right now, that we are in a recession) and an "encouraging constitutional progress" in Iraq.

Sad state of affairs.  Press lies, people die.

for instance, mention Dick Durbin's equating of US troops with Nazis. We could mention virtually anything Kennedy has said publicly in the past two or three years.

As to Falwell v. Chomsky, quite honestly it wouldn't bother me a whit if you conflate Republicans and Falwell because it happens on this site everyday. In other words, this is not a flash of intellectual insight on your part.

... that Democrats could have gone into a conference room immediately after 9/11 and looked for talking points to hammer Bush.  They chose not to.

In the aftermath of Katrina, they have also made a choice.  The choice this time was that political gain is more important than national unity.  If you don't think the bickering has caused hesitation, and therefore death, you are being hopelessly naive.

Again, they made a choice.  Frankly, it was an unforgivable choice.

leaders went into a conference room and brainstormed legislative plans to help the displaced and economically devastated survivors of Katrina.  But we wouldn't want such actions to ruin a good rant-line against the thoughtless, obstructionist Democrats.

bill numbers for those legislative plans?

Is it not possible that there are thoughtful decent people that believe that the President and his administration did a great job post 911 and a lousy job during and immediately after Katrina?

I'd concur if it were just liberals who felt that way. A breakout of the Ipsos-Reid/AP poll results reveals shocking disparities in how Democrats and Republicans feel about President Bush.

We're talking Lincoln-like disparities. No, worse; Lincoln wasn't that loved by Republicans in his day.

But independents have walked away from the president, as well. Sure, they're a fickle bunch, but if GOP support is 80%+, Democrats' is 20%+ and the average result is 40%-, that does not suggest that Independents are raising the average at the moment.

And wonderful as it might be, the country voted 50%+ GOP in 2004, but it just isn't 50%+ GOP, so that mandate's far from rock-solid. It's not possible to get a poll that reveals such a situation, unless one only polls from Red states -- the very reddest.

Republicans hold formidable institutional power at the moment, but it's still a Republic; if a large majority turns away from GOP leadership, either on grounds of divergent beliefs or loss of confidence in leadership, then that has to be remedied.

One remedy is to adjust that leadership if the platform is to be conserved. Another is adjust the platform, if the leadership team is considered effective by the base. Or some of both.

That's the basic range of options

«They are simply not my countrymen.»

I find statements like this, on both the left and the right, to be a bit puzzling.  Both parties embrace democratic (small "d") principles.  In recent years, those principles have led to a deeply divided government that reflects a deeply divided populace.

In effect, the very system that we all presumably believe in is precisely what allows for this kind of division to creep up in the first place.  So my first question might be, how do we reconcile the inherent tendency of democracy to produce divisions with a perceived need for unity?

For all the dissatisfaction over the lack of unity, etc, in this contry, it's not at all clear to me that the alternative of a one-party supermajority would really be very good for the country as a whole, even if it were even possible to achieve.  Mexico has struggled for decades trying to undo precisely this kind of "soft" authoritarianism.

In wartime, of course, the argument is that we should all support the president.  And, indeed, the president's numbers went way up after the start of the Iraq war--although not as much as after 9/11.  But the war's been going on for a long time now.  So one other question might be, is there ever a time when the war policy might be legitimately questioned?

I understand that peoples feelings about this can still be very raw.  Still, the tone of some of the postings I read here seem to beg the kinds of questions I'm trying to forumlate.

given the MSM reporting on this disaster to date, especially if those people received their news primarily from the MSM.  But I would respectfully request that those people investigate further before reaching any final conclusions regarding cause, effect, responsibility, and accountability.

I don't know if there are any bill numbers for these so far, but here's Harry Reid's plan for relief.

http://usliberals.about.com/od/liberalleadership/a/KatrinaPlan.htm

If a joke is your response to a serious comment it's O.K. by me.

Your reply implies that you don't believe that there are intelligent thinking people that consider that to be the case but...

examples of good behavior by Democrats.  Bill Frist was highly complimentary of the cooperation he has been getting from Harry Reid, for example.

It's the public behavior that's been problematic.

How so?

What is puzzling about being offended that elected officials from a major political party visit our enemy on the eve of war and mouth his propaganda (McDermott, Rahall)? What is puzzling about being offended by a US Senator equating the behavior of US troops to Nazis... or nominating for president a US Senator who compared them to Jenghis Khan?

I'm puzzled that you are puzzled.

between "legislative action" and a "press release." Your link falls in the latter category.

I have a plan, too. Better than Reid's, trust me.

If it "seems" then I failed to make my point.

if the response wasn't so immediate and so damning.

Watch Nagin on Meet the Press today.  He let's Bush off the hook to a large extent, and is merciless to Gov. Blanco.  If in the last analysis, that's how this plays out, was the immediate damning of Bush by the Democrats appropriate?

I say no.  Especially considering that the default position in a time of crisis should be to work the problems first in a unified way first, and worry about blame later.

What the hell has happened to us?

Great question.

How great would it be if September 11, 2005 became known as the day the finger-pointing stopped.

It would be extremely great.  Unfortunately, that dream died with the first reply to your diary.

Cheers -

And once again, the dems are leding the way in splitting the country and hurting it.

on MTP and his opinion of Gov Blanco's leadership was pretty damning.  No doubt where he beleives the prime responsibility for this disaster lies.  To Mr Russert's credit, he hit Mayor Nagin with some pretty tough questions as well, which the mayor was only partially able to deflect.

http://www.gunstuff.com/america-attacked.html

I'm not puzzled that people are offended.  I am puzzled that they would be surprised.  We saw similar divisions in the Vietnam war era, so this is nothing new.  I'm not familiar with Rahall, but McDermott is elected with something like an 80% majority, so somebody out there supports him.

But what really intrigues me about all this is the question of remedies.  To say someone isn't your countryman would already seem to point to a remedy, although its not completely clear what concrete form that would take.  

For example, should something like an anti-sedition law be enacted that would make it a crime to ... (and you can fill in the blank here)?

Should there be government intervention to limit bias, or reporting that undermines national unity (also perhaps under an anti-sedition clause)?

Should certain people have their political rights taken away for certain kinds of behavior? i.e. McDermott could be stripped of his right to run for office for having visited with Sadaam.

There will always be people who are going to go over the top in order to make a political point.  The question is what remedies, if any, are practically available to control the tone of discourse.

As a final remark, I would say that given this tendency for political rhetoric to get out of control, you guys do a very good job at keeping things at a higher level, which is one of the reasons why I find this site to be very illuminating and a good place for political dialogue.

Looks like another left-leaning anthropoligist has started his field work studying the wily and dangerous "Conservatives in the Mist."

On the off chance that you may actually be serious, why are legislative and penal remedies required for any of those actions. We've already established, well over 30 years ago, that "giving aid and comfort" to our enemies is noble dissent, not treason.

It is sufficient for me to know that these people are my enemies and that my contribution to the defense of my country is keeping them out of elective office and off the courts.

"Seems" is that kinda like "piers"?

'Cause it piers to me you pulled "seems" right outta  thin air... funny world.

regards

seems for implies

There is no fundamental issue at stake; it's not like people are divided along something so fundamental as slavery.

They're just divided because they've talked themselves into being divided.

And not so long ago, on a different 9/11, they were united.

This is hardly an inevitable enmity. But people have to want America to be one country, or it most certainly will fall to pieces.

Republicans simply aren't going to allow the Dem criteria to decide if they're Americans or not.

The reverse is also true.

Either the two camps find common ground...or a battelground.

There is no in-between.

That's the Democratic leadership. Not your average, apolitical Donk. He's rather similar to the average, apolitical Pubbie. But Parties are led and influenced by their activist cadres.

Reagan didn't appear out of nowhere. Once he became a Republican he became who he was because of the nature of our party's base: conservative, pro-free enterprise, pro-state's rights, internationalist, anti-communist, and libertarian.  We saw ourselves as the inheritors of the mission of Abraham Lincoln: to proclaim liberty throughout the land and, in a far larger sense, throughout the world.

Our party stands for Great Things. Great beliefs, to be defended and propagated by men who believe that those beliefs are worth defending.

At one time in its history, at about the middle of the last century, the Democratic Party believed in these things. It produced the great statesmen of mid-Century America: Franklin D. Roosevelt, George C. Marshall, Harry S. Truman, Adlai Stevenson, Dean Acheson, George F. Kennan, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey. These were men who could look Winston S. Churchill in the eye and enjoy a measure of respect from the old Prime Minister.

During this period, we Republicans had no one who could measure up the the deep bench offered by the Democratic Party, which at this time was the natural majority of the country. Eisenhower was a singular figure who was elected solely because of his command of the invasion of Europe in World War II. His coattails would not extend to Richard Nixon.

But the Democratic Party doesn't produce men like that anymore. It doesn't produce giants. Bill Clinton tried to get there, but his Administration was a study in lost opportunities. Dominated as it was by the quick and the ambitious, Bill Clinton's Administration lost its chance to be truly great by deliberately tackling small problems while riding the crest of prosperity. While bin Laden built his organization brick by brick, Clinton tackled the vital issue of school uniforms in America.

The more I look at the Democratic Party, the more I am reminded of what Abba Eban said of the Palestinians: "They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Or, in this case, Democrats "never miss an opportunity to be opportunistic." A party that can promote the likes of Howard Dean to its national head is a party that is more interested in tending to squeezing money out of its base of True Believers than it is in expanding that base. A party which will, almost instantaneously, descend into a canine round of Bush hatred in the wake of a catastrophic Hurricane is a party whose intellectual and chattering elites exist in an echo chamber. Yes, George Bush took a temporary hit in the polls after a hammering from the Running Dog media, but you'll notice that his numbers have climbed back up.

That is all to the good for Republicans, as that portends good tidings for 2006 and 2008. Especially given the fact that it will be a Republican Administration that will be taking the lead for Rebuilding.

I keep coming back to the image of an angry mob of hateful activists who believe what they hear on Air America. Every time I read a Tom Friedman column describing what "tough Democrats" would do in foreign policy, I thank God that Condi Rice is skippering foreign policy. I have no confidence in a party who activist base has gone pacifist and has develop a deep and abiding mistrust for the use of American power.

Consider Iraq. One time, when Democrats ran the White House, they all agreed that Saddam Hussein was a very bad man whose hands were dripping in blood. Indeed, they actually believed that he was in cahoots with bin Laden. They thought he should be removed. Then a Republican took power and decided to remove that mean man. Democrats changed their minds about Saddam; Hussein didn't stop being a mass murderer in real life; but in the Donkey mind, he became a choirboy who had nothing to do with Mr. Bin Laden. Now they say we should have left him alone.

Saddam Hussein didn't stop being a fascist butcher. Democrats simply got tired of fighting fascism while a Republican was President. It's that simple. They were responding to their base voters: the Democrats folded up like a cheap card table by the late summer of 2003. Howard Dean was ahead in the polls for a reason for as long as he was.

Democrats have stopped being a serious foreign policy party. A party in which not one soul will step forward and tell Cindy Sheehan to cease peddling her anti-Semitic ravings is a party that has no set of strong central beliefs (by the way, I have yet to forgive Republican Senators Hagel and Allen for not taking a more forthright stand in defense of the President AND the State of Israel against the various anti-Zionist calumnies uttered by Sheehan and her crypto-fascist allies). It fell on Susan Estrich, Susan Estrich, to tell Democrats that they were making a mistake to allow Sheehan's anti-Semitism to pass uncriticised. But no one should be surprised that in a party with no core set of beliefs, the Socialism of Fools should begin to prosper. Cindy Sheehan's friends had money; Democrats were afraid to do the right thing and upset radical lefties in Hollywood and New York with Deep Pockets.

How craven.

And so, I am left with the impression of the Democratic Base as the Third Republic: angry and bitter, confused and filled with cynicism and hate. They believe in nothing in particular except a deep and abiding suspicion of The Other (which, in this particular incarnation, is a rather mild mannered provincial politician from Midland, Texas, who is married, and has two kids....). Eventually, this hatred will move to the Next Other: it will be Condoleezza Rice, or Rudolf Giuliani, or George Allen-whoever the next candidate happens to be. But the canine, vicious anger will always be there, because these people believe that they are entitled to power, have a right to power, and have a right to tell others what to do with their lives.

In June of 1940,  von Paulus' Sixth Army marched down the Champs Elysee in good regular marching order. Field Marshal Von Rundstedt left strict orders that Sixth Army march around the Arc de Triomph  as the French Tomb of the Unknown soldier is buried there, and as a tip of the hat to the memory of Bonaparte.

The Parisians who viewed this sight were shocked, dismayed, saddened, sullen, and angry. But the fight was out of them. They were resigned to their fate. They had bitterly fought each other for so long that the Third Republic was deeply demoralized. There had been various Popular Fronts, the Communist Party had betrayed the Government, there were pro-fascist movements. No one called for national unity, save for a small group of Free French around a young armored officer named Charles DeGualle.

All that was left for them was the Vichy Government of Petain, a singular dishonor on French history. The chaos that is the Democratic Party reminds me of that period in June of 1940 in Paris. Only I don't see a DeGualle on the horizon to lead the nation on behalf of the Democrats. No, not Hillary, mind you. It takes more that positioning yourself in ways that tip off the press that you're engaged in bogus positioning and focus group research. Democrats have yet to learn that to lead the Democratic Party, a true leader must come from their ranks who will set low partisanship aside and offer to unite the nation as a whole.

And no, it is not JoeMentum.

I just don't see that from the Democrats. In a savage and ironic twist on FDR's most famous line, in the midst of a national tragedy, all the Democrats have left to offer is fear itself.

I appreciate the benefit of the doubt.  I don't see conservatives as "wily and dangerous"; I do, however, sometimes wonder at what kind of actions they envision as comensurate with some of the language that gets used.  I should add that a similar critique could be made of the left, and often has.  For example, if Bush really were Hitler, as some extremist on the left say, then just complaining about him would seem to be an insufficient response.

I might even suggest that the term "enemies" is, on its face, a problematic one, especially when it isn't modified with adjectives like "political."  An electoral response to real enemies of the state would seem a bit tepid to me.  On the other hand, it's a tribute to the strength of our institutions that such language doesn't lead to political violence, don't you think?

"Battleground" was misspelled. :(

My post simply asked the question:

Is it not possible that there are thoughtful decent people that believe that the President and his administration did a great job post 911 and a lousy job during and immediately after Katrina?

Though I'm a 'lousy' speller, it is a question we all hear over and over. It appears from the replies I've received that it's an off limits inquiry.

If you would explain what you found "immediate and so damning" in my post I'd appreciate it.

This is very well-written by the way. I want to acknowledge that up-front.

I also disagree with the mechanism of calling for unity, but shoving a full half of the country outside of the pale of decency, and blaming the burden of reconciliation on that half.

I can assure you -- that half does not feel it has anything whatsoever to prove for the last several years of increasing divisiveness.

Part of the burden of leadership, of holding power, is responsibility.

It has always been in the power of Republicans, the dominant party of the moment, to broaden its scope, to be more inclusiveness, to be that uniter-not-divider many people voted for in 2000, and cherished in the dark days following 2001.

And regarding the comparison to the Third Republic -- again, very well-written! -- a lot of the folks doing the actual fighting in the War on Terror and its cousin war Operation Iraqi Freedom are Democrats. Some are coming back and running for office.

I hardly thing the donkey has completely lost its kick, and it would be imprudent to replace prudent vigilance with partisan contempt.

The Dems learned that lesson the hard way. It does not serve the interests of the GOP nor of the country at large to repeat the error.

some are real.

A tepid response beats the heck out of a long prison term.

was responding to your post in particular with the "immediate and so daming" reference, but rather the MSM-promoted Democratic attempt to pin the tail on the Bush administration in general, as exhibited by the likes of Dean, Landrieu, et. al.

So you would be in favor of political violence against some, if it weren't for the fact that you might end up in jail?

Verb: seem  seem

http://wordwebonline.com/en/SEEM

   1. Give a certain impression or have a certain outward aspect - "She seems to be sleeping" - look, appear

   2. Seem to be true, probable, or apparent - "It seems that he is very gifted" - appear

   3. Appear to exist - "There seems no reason to go ahead with the project now"      

   4. Appear to one's own mind or opinion - "I seem to be misunderstood by everyone"; "I can't seem to learn these Chinese characters"

Type of: be

-------------------------------------

Verb: imply  im'plI

http://www.wordwebonline.com/search.pl?w=implies

   1. Express or state indirectly - connote      

   2. Suggest as a logically necessary consequence; in logic

   3. Have as a logical consequence - entail, mean

   4. Suggest that someone is guilty - incriminate, inculpate

   5. Have as a necessary feature or consequence; entail  - involve

Type of: ask, call for, demand, evince, evoke, express, involve, necessitate, need, paint a picture, postulate, require, show, suggest, take

your call for moderation, but I beleive you overlooked the opening line of Section 9's post, where he clearly establishes his belief that these are not the views of your average Democrat (i.e., "a full half of the country").  Regretfully, they are the views ascendant in the Democratic Party leadership at this time, hence their electoral failures.

What Section 9 is in effect calling for is a reconciliation between the party leadership and their true base, and not just the most vocal and extreme aspects thereof.  Good advice, for the Dems and for this nation.

I am reluctant to point this out, but somehow feel a need to point this out, because it does seem to be an important fact.

you said..

...although blessedly with a lesser loss of life.

How do you know this? I dont think there is any consensus on the total death toll yet? but from everything I have heard, it is expected to be easily greater than the number that died on september 11th.

A functioning representative democracy requires two things

1. A leadership responsible to the people
   
   
2. a people willing to hold them responsible

The second is far more important, I think.

In competitive party politics, the usual consequence is that corrupt politicians and chuckleheads are booted out of office by displeased voters.

The opposition, waiting in the wings, has the advantage of learning from observation rather than direct experience-- though this does not always happen. In any event, they get their shot at running the country, because the other guys goofed.

The party getting kicked to the curb loses power for a few election cycles, licks its wounds, and either disintegrates, forgotten (in which case a new challenger shows up to play eventually), or it comes back scarred but smarter.

This is what happens, so long as the people hold elected officials responsible, rewarding good leaders with tenure, punishing bad ones with a bus ticket home.

But what happens when the people stop taking their civic duty seriously, or find themselves voting not on the basis of self-interest but on the basis of party allegiance?

So long as it's just one party in a two-party system, the result is the same: the chuckleheads lose power, and stay out.

If the malaise is generic -- if supporters of both parties are voting more on allegiance than on performance criteria -- everything goes to pot. The selection of leaders becomes less a question of quality and more of symbology, not leads best, but who holds a standard best.

In a situation where both parties act in this fashion, the quality of governance plummets; since voters no longer hold leaders accountable, there is no incentive for leaders to hold themselves accountable to the people.

When one party keeps to form and the other fails, the result is a sudden, drastic unmistakable dominance.

When both do so, the result is a close, slow-motion race to the botttom. Few good policies are chosen. Fewer still are enacted well. It becomes not only less common but almost impossible for a series of good decisions to be made on any topic. The talent is not there. The incentive is not there. The selection criteria for good leadership is absent, when the people no longer vote their rational self-interest. It as if the republic had gone mad.

Presumably, one party will get the message first, slap the cobwebs out, straighten up and fly right.

If not, well, we've seen the consequences of what happens to republics that go mad in the past: they stop being republics.

We're not there yet, thank God. But I fear we are close, deadly close.

And I am sure it colors my perception of things.

Which is why I am here -- to remind myself that there are good people everywhere who are concerned that the Republic is falling apart, that this is a very bad thing, and it really will require people of all stripes working together to redeem her.

To do that, I am willing to swallow a lot of accumulated, largely-unsubstantiated resentments and recriminations in order to make a much greater good happen -- making sure that America remains one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Seems like a good pledge to honor to me. I'm all for it, and I'm not particular with what color hands or politics joins in the effort.

I think I was, for a while. Got a bit caught up in the mutual hate-fest. I'm not proud of that.

I'd like to make it right.

I know it was a little while ago, but has everyone forgotten the press feeding-frenzy around Clinton's blow job? C'mon - at least be fair.

I'm not playing your game. Like I said initially, your purpose is obvious, a field study of "Conservatives in the Mist."  So have fun with someone else.

your reference to people voting their "rational self-interest" (normally left-wing speak for promoting classicism/racism on the path to collectivism), I believe you can count me among your allies.  And I whole-heartedly agree with your pledge.

I've never heard it characterized as anything but orthodox free marketeer-speak.

Never would have thought of it as "collectivist" in a thousand years.

I think the socialists would take issue with that characterization too. They think of rational self-interest as an excuse to help profits, not people...or something like that.

I went to B-school and they don't teach such things, there. :)

I just visted the DNC web site and there's not a word about 9-11. I guess they didn't have time to update it. 9-11 must have come as a surprise for them again this year.

HEH!

If African-Americans believe that Bush hates them (see Kanye West's remark on the NBC Hurricane fundraiser: "George Bush doesn't care about black people"), that perception is how they will vote.  Ignoring it, or calling it race-baiting doesn't change the situation.  Perhaps the president needs to confront the underlying reasons why he isn't trusted by that community.

Unless the Republicans can do something to change the perception of New Orleans that the government is ineffective, a massive fallout shouldn't be suprising to anybody.

or listen to much leftie spin, because it's fairly common over there.  From their perspective, ratinal self-interest starts and stops at the pocket book, and if people would only vote their "rational self-interest", then the Democrats could put us on that socialist/communist utopian path of a fully-distributed economy.

However, given your unfamiliarity with this line of reasoning, you can unequivocally count me among your allies.

...between the plan of an elected U.S. Senator and.... well... you.

Last I checked, no one had elected you to anything.

Thomas Frnak wrote a whole book based on this line of thought, "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

streiff's won't amount to empty platitudes and a wishlist.

race baiting, like West, you aren't really race baiting because the president needs to prove to the race baiters that they are wrong. Got it.

because their plan should mean something and it won't mean any more than mine. And I write better press releases.

It's a sword that cuts two ways, though the author does not choose to recognize this fact.

A person could right a book called, oh, "What's the Matter with California?", apply the same arguments in reverse about how the state that gave birth to the Reagan Revolution has become what it is today.

Other parallel -- KS has a Dem gov, CA a Pub gov. :)

saying that the Democrat's "plan" is just so much ... oh, wait it is.

Based on your comment above, I assume you've seen Streiff's plan. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to it's substance.

Since I've not see Streiff's plan anywhere, forgive me if I don't take your word that it lacks  platitudes and a wishlist.

I can say with nearly one hundred percent certainty, though I haven't "seen" streiff's "plan," that anything he devised wouldn't be so mind-jarringly empty as the press release to which we was responding. I can say it with that sort of nearly ex cathedra strength because he has an IQ greater than 70, which is something we cannot say about whoever drafted that press release.

out-wishlisted or out-platituded by any elected Democrat.

from Reids Website:

http://reid.senate.gov/record2.cfm?id=245444

I have been out-wishlisted and out-platituded. They win.

"If the malaise is generic -- if supporters of both parties are voting more on allegiance than on performance criteria .."

The notion that Bush has been a "miserable failure" sems to be completely ingrained on the left. When pressed to explain the justification for this view, most cannot do so. By just about any objective measure the country has done well under his watch.

Your basic argument seems to be that both parties are behaving crazy. I just don't see it. In fact it's very likely that Bush's low approval ratings are due to his reluctance to take the actions which his supporters would approve of.

write that book, because his underlying premise is not the irony of the switch but rather that, in his mind (and most of the Democratic left) it is inconceivable (i.e., "irrational") for people to vote against income DISTRIBUTION.  He fails to realize that Kansans, and Americans in general,  1) have other, non-economic, priorities, and 2) have little faith in his communist solutions to solve what economic problems they do have.

is condensed in your comments.

By Monday night, when Katrina was still causing destruction, the Democrats were aggressively pushing the storyline of Bush the incompetent and out of touch president. For several days the conservative blogs and media tried to keep the focus on the natural disaster and off finger pointing. When people on the right finally started returning fire, that was depicted as "spin".

Now, having politicized this disaster, you seek to employ the "both sides are to blame" storyline.

For some reason there are people here who regard you as one of the "good" liberals. I have to say amos that I see you as an apologist for the worst elements of the Democratic party and a symptom of everything wrong with it.

"In fact it's very likely that Bush's low approval ratings are due to his reluctance to take the actions which his supporters would approve of."

A willingness to do such things is the very definition of representation in a free society.

Blowing off political enemies is one thing. But one's friends and supporters?

But let's explore the counter argument together

There is a political virtue in denying the mob satisfaction of its passions. Scholars in the past have noted the danger, history has documented it. Even the authors of our great Constitution were concerned about the mob running amok, and unscrupulous adventurers taking advantage of low dissensions.

Machiavelli points out that the chief flaw in republics is their 'licentiousness' -- which I take to be a tendency of the people toward self-indulgence and grabbing of other people's goods by law (I think it's Hayek that called it 'legalized theft', but I might be wrong there).

The rise of demogogues who cater to the mob's passions and prejudices, and if there is no restriction to this trend, leads to some very unfortunate circumstances -- the fall of the Roman Republic comes to mind.

The Founding Fathers were worried about this, too,

which is why they set up the three branches of government to keep the primary powers in separate hands -- the Congress to write laws, the Presidency to enforce them, the Court to rule on the (in)justice of laws and enforcements of same. They did not think that it would ever be possible for any one faction to both hold all three corners of the triangle, and have all three parts act in unison...at least not in a lasting fashion.

And where all three branches have fallen under a single coordinated agenda, unfortunate things have occurred, every time.

And given the experience of the ages, there is no reason to expect that will ever change. For what the Founding Fathers called 'the tyranny of faction', we call by a different name now -- totalitarianism.

...the Democrats stop presenting Electoral Disasters-in-the-Making like Howard Dean, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, Michael Moore, Your-Gibbering-Hollywood-Halfwit-Here as the public faces of their party.

The current Democratic leadership seem to think that if they just staging louder and more frequent Wellstone Funerals, the outcome of the next electoral cycle will be different.

They keep playing "Wile E. Coyote, Genius" to Bush's Roadrunner, the way Dan Burton played Elmer Fudd to Bill Clinton's Bugs Bunny.  And they keep riding the same ACME(tm) Rocket Sled into the same canyon wall, over and over again.

We'll see unity when an Authentic Democratic Grownup, like a Joe Lieberman, an Evan Bayh, a Bill Richardson, or -- dare I say it -- a Hillary Clinton has their Sister Souljah moment and repudiates the insanity of the

Democratic Party's McKinney/McDermott fringe.

Which may be the same thing as Limbaugh saying he'll retire when everybody in America agrees with him.  Time Will Tell.

I count four. Critical, but there are four of them. :)

Do you agree that Chomsky should not be used to show what Democrats or liberals think?

Yes, I think it is fair to talk about a Senator.  

You say you don't care a whit if I conflate Republicans and Fallwell.  That's not the issue - the issue is whether it is accurate.  The answer to me is self-evidently not. Yet this practice seems quite widespread and I think contributes to the harsh partisanship that currently envelopes us.

Tom

Republicans who criticized the government's response?  Did they also make an "unforgivable choice?"

Is criticizing local government also an "unforgivable choice"?

When would be the appropriate time for Democrats to criticize something?  Will you let us know?

Is it really "hopelessly naive" to believe that increased public pressure could accelerate relief measures?

Tom

Only one counts as a remembrance and it's not even on the recommended list.  Armando put his hit piece up after I posted.  And I'd hardly call it a remembrance, more like a rant.

We'd probably hear a much different Rep. reaction to Katrina federal response as well.  Assuming Kerry also had used the FEMA director spot as a sycophant dropping zone.

Why not play the game?  Understanding is the first step on the way to working toward a common goal.

One party controlling the White House and Congress does not equal a totaliarian state. If it did, then the US was a totalitarian state for large parts of the 20th century.

The frenzy which the Democrats are in over the Republican control of government is frankly un-American. In our system neither party has any inherent right to govern. Whatever about their behavior over Iraq, their willingness to steer the country towards civil war if they don't get their own indicates that the Democratic party puts itself above the interests of the country.

If the Republicans are half as dreadful as the Democrats make them out to be, then all the Democrats need to do is keep their heads and their wits and wait for the electorate to come to them. This, clearly, is not the course they have taken.

I was thinking of the New Deal era. The 1930s.

And using that as a cautionary tale.

Why would you mention the Bush era? :)

Do not suppose that I condemn half the country. I don't. As Jackal4444 pointed out, the political extremism and defeatisme that has infected the Democratic Party's leadership classes is not a characteristic of its rank and file. I know this. I work with these people at a Home Depot here in South Florida.

They are regular people who have the same hopes and dreams as average Republican voters. It is important that RedStaters understand this critical distinction that Jackal was trying to point out. From these ranks come some of the infantrymen in Iraq that you speak of, and perhaps, just perhaps from that crucible, may come another Kennedy or Truman (Although it should be noted that, apparently, the Expeditionary Army in Iraq went about 73% for Bush in the last election, iirc....).

But not from today's Democratic leaders.

No, today's Democratic leadership group is being born, as I pointed out above, in that echo chamber that one can find on Kos, or Democratic Underground. They are more animated, more passionate, and have greater elan than their demoralized opponents in the Democratic "center". They would just as soon Hillary Clinton lose to Rice or Giuliani rather than see the DLC and the Centrists turn their party into a clone of the Republicans. In this respect, they are Leninist (in a tactical sense, not in an ideological sense, of course). And the Democratic politicians do not want to make these people angry.

Consider the hullabaloo not too many days back about the DU poster who almost stopped to help a woman and her child by the side of the road. The woman was obviously in distress and she obviously needed to get somewhere with her child. As this DU poster, a woman, slowed down to help, she saw a "W04" sticker on the back of the stranded woman's minivan. She immediately accelerated and pulled away, leaving the woman and her child behind.

So filled with hatred and loathing for George Bush and Republicans was this woman that she could not stop to help a fellow American in distress. She posted about her experiences, expressing some regret over stranding the child, but not the woman, on the DU board and received lots of posts rationalizing her swinish conduct. This post was in the immediate wake of Katrina, when the Democratic Party's Running Dogs in the MSM were peddling the meme of "Bush Murdered Black People".

In Harry Truman's day, she would have been ridden out of town on a rail. But today, other Democratic Activists patted her on the back. What swine!

Again, call for moderation if you wish, but you ignore the extremism within your party's ranks at your peril. When a Democratic Congresswoman (Shiela Jackson Lee, iirc) calls for military recruiters to be barred from recruiting among New Orleans refugees, what are we as Republicans supposed to think? When no Democrat, save Susan Estrich, calls Cindy Sheehan on her anti-Semitism and her labeling of George Bush as a terrorist, what are we as Republicans supposed to think?

We simply conclude one thing. You Democrats say you are serious, but you are far from serious.

When elections come, the American people will vote for a party that is serious about the defense of the United States. The Democratic base is not there yet. They haven't emotionally grappled with the concept of Islamic Fascism as a mortal enemy in a decades long twilight struggle. It's still to easy to blame Chimpy McBushitler for all that is wrong in the world.

And in a world where Al Qaeda is trying to acquire tactical nuclear weapons, that is an awful waste of time.

That story makes my stomach hurt.

I don't think anyone here can help but think of the tale of The Good Samaritan, and how that woman is one of the people who passed by before the titular character arrived.

is condensed in Amos' comments, then the party is in better shape than I thought. You picked probably the least appropriate liberal here to accuse of partisan hackery. I think we're lucky to have Amos' thoughtful participation on RS, liberals and conservatives alike, and more to the point I know that opinion is widely shared.

That if amos is an apologist for the worst parts of the Democrat Party, this site's role the next few years just got a lot harder.

amos, if you're reading this: Nixon's dead. Come home.

Jackal straightened me out on your intentions. I stood corrected then.

We are regular people. We are Americans. We work, we raise families, we worship, we go on vacations, we watch the news, we hope we make the right choices in our lives and pray our leaders remember their voters first and their fundraisers second. We don't want to be in your private life and most certainly don't want you in ours. We want to defend our country but if we start to ask hard questions about where and why our blood and taxes are being consumed in war, well, sorry. That's what being a republic is all about.

The anecdote about the DU poster is symptomatic of the evil times to come, if we do not do something about it. It reflects a nasty and unfortunately growing tendency to think of persons on the other side of the aisle not as countrymen but as real live enemies, against whom it is not only acceptable but honorable to afflict.

The woman in question is a monster of the worst sort, but the times are spawning such people in vast quantities. We are in grave danger of ceasing to be one nation under God. And that part about being indivisible? It's in the intensive care unit.

You said it precisely. "So filled with hatred and loathing for George Bush and Republicans was this woman that she could not stop to help a fellow American in distress." She stopped being part of the solution and became THE problem. The cheerleaders are even worse; they didn't even have to make a moral choice -- it's just cruel sport for them. On that roadside, for a short while, America ceased to exist.

There is a similar anecdote, making the cyberleft rounds. It seems the Gretna, LA sheriff's deputies blockaded the one dry bridge leading out of New Orleans. Perhaps they read the same post and decided to settle the score. They, too, however, set aside common ground, and came to consider their fellow Americans in time of need to be not neighbors, but an invading horde to be stopped. For them, aiding the enemy was the evil. For them, warning off the walk-in evacuees by firing over their heads was not vile, but showing exceptional self-restraint. They were defending their community. But that's the point; it was theirs, not to be shared with those people. On that bridge, America for a short time ceased to exist.

The question is what we the people, we Americans, plan to do about it, we who have no intention of allowing nuts on either side to muck up a good thing in a fit of partisan madness.

I've got a brother who just got back from Iraq, and is now helping evacuees from Katrina. I take the threat of terrorism very seriously, and I take the choices made by our leaders to combat it very seriously, as well. I surrender my right to comment and critique to no one, for any reason, for there is no more patriotic and solemn a duty than to hold those who hold power in the name of the people answerable to that trust.

I certainly take national security matters seriously. No one I associate with professionally or privately doesn't. And no one I admire politically is frivolous about America's security, either.

The polls I've seen suggest that perhaps the center is all but dead; the latest Rasmussen breakout speaks volumes about support for President Bush: 80% GOP support, 39% Independents, 20% Dems. Cut in half, then cut in half again.

All the more reason to rescuscitate it, lest our country be dominated by cruel women abandoning stranded motorists, and men with guns holding a line against fellow Americans in need, and no one with common cause and common courtesy and simple human decency in between.

At the end of the day reality is reality.

The cheap comfort of playing to factless perception in lieu of reality-based perception will backfire.

The perception of the people of NO was that their Big Easy lifestyle was perfectly secure, and that the corruption that so entertained them was OK.

The reality of Katrina shattered that perception.

If some African Aemricans ahve been fooled into perceiving a racist plot by the VRWC, they ahve it because people ahve worked hard to instill it. It is not based on fact. And you know it. That someone would be satisfied with the results of lie-based perceptiions says a great deal about their lack of integrity.

its like people take joy in this

the us is more divided now than any time since the vietnam war

maybe even back to the civil war

there is too much anger

and we need to all work together to go forward into the 21st century

and we arent going to do this, if we allow the fringe of either party to control the agenda

If Bush had really played it straight after 9/11, he wouldn't be stuck at 41% now.  Instead, he used a genuine national tragedy to snooker us into a war with a country that wasn't threatening us, and he bootstrapped that into political dominance that he didn't earn at the ballot box.

History will not treat him kindly, and he will deserve it.  And so will the GOP opportunists and the Democratic cowards who enabled him.

The sad part is that it's probably not in his personal nature to act like this.  He's probably a reasonable guy in private life.  But he's taking bad advice from the wrong people, and it's costing him now.

The division between objectives for the Parties.

The Dems are simply OBSESSED with legalistic process. They have been since 1968. The same "illegal, immoral" war rhetoric against Bush was hurled against LBJ. EVERYTHING the Dems due is process oriented. Results count for nothing; merely doing things the "right" way.

Republicans can fall sway to this as well, but have within context of 9/11 briefly aroused themselves to count for results. They want Al Qaeda defeated and the threat done away with, whatever means neccessary (to use a phrase).

The Press of course is also obsessed with Process; and drives a lot of the debate.

Look at the big post-9/11 debates: profiling of Muslim men (and young women) simply WORKS. However it is forbidden due to process concerns (not doing things the "right way.") Dems simply are willing to trade as many lives of Americans as required to "do things the right way." Republicans on balance are not.

What about Iraq you ask? Dems again harp on that as illegal and being "wrong on process" because we are not loved, people don't like us, etc. and that all efforts must be law enforcement. Reps mostly concentrate on the question of "can we beat Al Qaeda in Iraq?" and proceed from there.

Heck look at the use of Lawyers in each Party. While Reps have fallen for legalistic process guys (Chertoff, Brown) it remains the Party of MBAs and business guys. Dems are thick with Lawyers who mandate every decision (Nagin with the Buses, his lawyers told him no).

It seems like you haven't.

There's an explicit acknowledgement that the argument cuts both ways--that, for example, Connecticut is not voting in its economic self-interest any more than Kansas is.

I also don't think there's a single paragraph in advocacy of any income redistribution in the entire book.

Let's do the longhand version:

It seems like the Democrats have done all of the right things privately to help in resolving the crisis.  Publicly, they have done little other than hammer the administration.

How does that tie back to the politics of 9/11?

I think the Democrats are afraid to support the president under any circumstances anymore, as they feel like they are paying for it electorally.  They think the unity after 9/11 gave Bush his issue, and that it has been costing them elections ever since.

Four years later, it's gotten so bad that even obvious things are not obvious anymore. The country should always do what it did after 9/11.  That is, it should come together unequivocally until the immediate crisis has passed, then go back and take a hard look at what went wrong and what went poorly.  Not doing things this way causes hesitation and indecision, and therefore costs lives.

Why didn't they wait, then?  Did they honestly believe that leveling their criticisms immediately would save lives?  Or did they fear waiting would have lessened the political damage?  Since there's no way that anger and confusion can help, you have to assume the latter. The head of the Department of Homeland Security should never have to stop what he's doing in a time of crisis to answer political charges -- even if those charges turn out to have merit in the long run.

Therefore, they made a calculus:  Loss of life be damned!! We must get max political damage out of this!!

So I stand by my original point:  If a moment like this doesn't cause the Democrats to take a short vacation from their Bush bashing, nothing will. That's sad, and probably politically inept as well.  The Democrats still seem to be walking around thinking that the key to their return to glory is to prove to America that Bush is incompetent.  Bush may in fact be incompetent, but if he is, Americans trust themselves to figure it out on their own.  The bashing makes them look petty to the very voters they are trying to attact..

I simply don't think Bush bashing is ever gonna work, but I also think, more importantly, that at a time like this it's incredibly irresponsible.

Its funny that you think Joe Lieberman is a grownup, but most democrats consider him to be an unprincipled oppurtunist.

Democrats view Lieberman much the way we view McCain.

is much farther off the liberal reservation than McCain is off the conservative one.

depend on how one defines the reservation.