T or F: If Dems Attack Bush's Mendacity, They Will All Go "Off the Cliff"?

[BurtWorm]

I'm just back from vacation, during which I didn't give a shit about the news. Now I'm catching up, so pardon me, if this has been discussed to death. But I'm finding that the idiots did not just go away when I ignored them.

My feeling about the question heading this thread: Bush is vulnerable on the truth issue, and Dems would be fools not to slash his throat over it. But I would be interested to see if anyone on DU could make a plausible case for why the Post might have a point. It seems to me that the Post, having been caught with its pants down, is insensed that anyone would point out what fools they were for buying the Bushist line. They identify with the alleged American public that would reject anyone telling them they were bamboozled by the bamboozler in chief, which is actually why they reacted with such a profound piece of stupidity as this editorial.

Does anyone remember a time when the Post or any other paper advised the Republicans to stop racing to the right?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39381-2003Aug9?language=printer


Mr. Gore's Blurred View




Sunday, August 10, 2003; Page B06


THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL race seems to be carrying the Democratic Party in a dangerous direction on the issues of the Iraq war and national security -- dangerous for the nation and risky for the party too. Some of the candidates are more off course than others. If they listen to former vice president Al Gore, who took it upon himself last week to suggest a theme of attack for the nine candidates, they will all go off the cliff.

Mr. Gore, who not so long ago was describing Iraq as a "virulent threat in a class by itself," validated just about every conspiratorial theory of the antiwar left. President Bush, in distorting evidence about the Iraqi threat, was pursuing policies "designed to benefit friends and supporters." The war was waged "at least partly in order to ensure our continued access to oil." And it occurred because "false impressions" precluded the nation from conducting a serious debate before the war.

This notion -- that we were all somehow bamboozled into war -- is part of Mr. Gore's larger conviction that Mr. Bush has put one over on the nation, and not just with regard to Iraq.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. I wonder which whore..

did not get the byline on that. Straight out of The American Spectator, that one.

[BurtWorm]

2. It sounds Broder-esque

But does he write unsigned Post editorials?

[Cocoa]

9. I thought of Broder when I read this:

But then why do so many other people support those policies? Mr. Gore has an umbrella explanation, albeit one that many Americans might find a tad insulting: "The administration has developed a highly effective propaganda machine to embed in the public mind mythologies. . . . "


Whoever wrote this knows perfectly well that this administration has taken propaganda to new levels, and that it has been successful. I'm sure they carried the poll that showed how many people thought Saddam was involved in Sept. 11, or that we found the WMD.

I guess the WP also knows that they are part of it.

[BurtWorm]

14. It's eery how disingenuous the whole thing seems

but they must have meant it. Editorialists aren't great at irony.

[sangha]

3. False

.

[tom_paine]

4. False.

Though Uncle Karl and the DNC are certainly trying to convince us that is the "truth" (insofar as this term has any real meaning left in Imperial Amerika).

Of course, go along to get along certainly worked well for the German Social Democrats in 1933, didn't it?

[sandnsea]

5. The people really aren't ready to hear it

They just aren't. Don't worry, be happy.

Deeee de de diddlee diddlee de diddlee

[rock]

6. All broad statements are false

he said narrowly

[wryter2000]

7. False

Someone at the Washington Post must know a helluva lot more about this than I do because here's the way it looks to me.

We have documented proof that some of Bush's biggest "evidence" against S. Hussein was bogus. The White House and the Washington Post are some of our sources for that. If that's so, how can it be reckless to point it out?

In fact, *not* going after the White House is the kiss of death. It's like saying, "You know, they're right. And we're kind of right, too. We're just like them, only not quite." Whose vote is that going to win? Feh. :P

[sandnsea]

11. Oh it's all politics

Bush said Britain had evidence of uranium instead of the CIA, what's the big deal? It's a petty little thing and some of these left wing Democrats are using it to gain attention and making us real Democrats look bad.

That's all they know about anything wrong with Iraq intelligence, they've dismissed it, and are embarrassed that anybody would try to use it against the President that everybody loves.

That's where these people are at right now and there's not much these candidates can do about it.

[BurtWorm]

12. The funny thing is, it's the Post that's seeming fuzzy-headed over Iraq

Did you read the whole numb-skulled editorial? Try on this idiotic "reasoning":

You can see why he might want to think so. Mr. Gore believes, for example, that the Patriot Act represents "a broad and extreme invasion of our privacy rights in the name of terrorism." But then how to explain that 98 senators -- including all four Democratic senators now running for president -- voted for it? The president's economic and environmental policies represent an "ideologically narrow agenda" serving only "powerful and wealthy groups and individuals who manage to work their way into the inner circle."

But then why do so many other people support those policies? Mr. Gore has an umbrella explanation, albeit one that many Americans might find a tad insulting: "The administration has developed a highly effective propaganda machine to embed in the public mind mythologies. . . . "

Does the Post really believe that the number of Senators who vote for something or support a policy really correlate with the wisdom or Constitutionality of a policy? What kind of dope writes this shit? As the centerpiece of the Sunday Op-ed pages, no less. On the same day Walter Pincus's story about the bogus argument over Iraqs "suspicious" metal tubes was published? What happened to the Post's brain?

[VolcanoJen]

8. "The Idiots Did Not Just *Go Away* When I Ignored Them."

I know, BurtWorm! Didn't work for me on my vacation, either!

;-)
Jennifer

[BurtWorm]

13. Well, they did go away when I stopped paying attention

But, goddamit, they're right there back again when I start paying attention again!

:mad:

[Fovea]

10. Not off the cliff

But through the roof!

Further, this is the last chance for the Democratic party to do more than play a cardboard cutout opposition to the NeoCon insurrection.

Blow this one, and we will see a big shift to the Greens.
So I think the best thing we could do is jettison the DLC, and allow them to go join their natural allies, the RNC. Leiberman getting hissed shows how electable the Pug lite approach is, even in Oklahoma, not exactly a hotbed of progressivism.

[BurtWorm]

15. Lieberman's boos were a good sign

Of course the Broder-esque Post editorialist would say they were a sign of how far off the deep-end the Dems are as a whole. If only they'd just stop being so gaddamned uppity and be nice little Republicans, like the Post has become.

[PurityOfEssence]

16. Ridiculously false. Republicans are terrified we'll do this

The ONLY thing they have going for them is the zero-worship of their great warrior king. If it's amply pointed out what a liar, criminal and hate-filled bully of a gangster he is, they have NOTHING.

You can't apologize with people like these; they will not back down. They have to be completely humiliated and taken so far down that they can't even steal it.

Listen to your instincts: doesn't it sound silly every time some right-winger in the media proclaims how much it'd hurt Junior? Aren't you feeling a groundswell of acceptance of the idea that he's a liar? That's just form the disorganized counterattacks of the left of the last few weeks. There's rich ground to plow there.

Why dick around nipping at his heels or peeling off subordinates; go for his throat in public and insult him repeatedly in the process. Stop only short of making yourself look rabid in the process; looking offended is just fine.

[never cry wolf]

20. very nice, purity

i agree with everything you said. and FALSE!!

[robbedvoter]

17. False. WP is contradicting their own news division - who published

Powell's lies to UN . The very same day, another whorish editorial was calling Gore a liar (W never said it was an imminent danger!) I guess, by now, the editorial guys got to read it, so they say: "it may be true, but it's baaad!" Why would you lend any credence to this is beyond me. Any special hatred for Gore or love for war?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

18. F

[RichM]

19. False. (Remember Brer Rabbit & the Briar Patch?) The WP is vile &

shameless. It's only worth paying attention to, as a gauge of how the ruling elite are trying to direct public opinion. This editorial is vicious, stupid, & utterly dishonest. I pity anyone who reads this stuff without realizing in advance how poisonous it is.