Great, go party while it lasts. It wont last long.
Posted By: REALITY of O will eventually hit people.nm on 2008-12-06
In Reply to: What a bunch of prudes. - Secuirty will be tighter than a drum, and....sm
nm
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
I lost respect for the replican party a long time ago
When they ended up putting McCain in there that did it for me. I've lost all respect for both parties. Guess that's why I'm more into the Constitution party/Independent (depending on their viewpoints).
I can take an insult from people, and I can dish them out too, but sometimes I get just a little irrated.
I wish all parties would go away and people would vote on issues because of the issues and not because of which party suggested them. I wish people would accept blame when they are at fault and not blame it all on the other parties (both sides).
But one thing I am glad for is that if Obama is elected (in January after we hear how the electoral college voted), if he does become our next president then when he does give speeches he will have a nice strong voice and will not be saying "my friends" every 5 minutes.
Think I will take another sabatical from this board for awhile and focus on other things and get my mind off this nonsense.
This is great and long overdue! (nm)
Great post, great insight, great analysis, thanks!..nm
nm
You'll be waiting a long, long time, then, cuz she's going to do
I am an independent....neither party is "my" party.
THis election cycle I believe the best man is a Republican. Do your research. John McCain warned about this in 2005, named Fannie and freddie by name, co-sponsored legislation to control them. Blocked by Democrats, led by Chris Dodd..same guy now trying to fix what he and the Dems broke. Chris Dodd, #1 on contributions list from fannie/freddie, followed closely by #2, your shining knight Mr. Obama. The chickens have come home to roost all right...or should I say the donkeys. :)
He died a long, long time ago! (If he was ever
Don't force your beliefs on others. It further devalues your faith in the eyes of others.
Great, great post. Thank you, Marmann! nm
x
Uh oh. Looks like the party's over.
Sharpen up those cat claws.
What about the other party?
.
me and my party?
All I asked was if this was more divisive. I said nothing about any party or who I would prefer to see win. I said nothing hateful or vicious. Give it a rest, will ya?
Pub party?
Cool! Can I pick the pub, and will you bring 'nother fattie for the parking lot?
I am not of the pub party.
There are a lot of things to fault Obama for already. Just because you are too blind to see it just shows that you are so into democratic rhetoric that you can't tell the difference between the truth and a lie.
I truly feel sorry for people who are so caught up in the party lines (and this goes for both dems and pubs) that they refuse to see politicians for who they truly are.
Barrack Obama is a liar and he is so obvious about his lying it is amazing that you people can't even see it when it is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE!!!
new party
I am so disgusted with all these folks in office, I am ready to start my own party. I think I will call it the Repo Party with the main objective being to take our country back. And we will be voting on daylight savings time, just for starters.
how long
back and forth through my working day about 20 minutes or less.
Very long and quite sad
At least she got to go home to Ireland.
The Sunday Times October 09, 2005
Ireland: I wanted to slap him
George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman’s White House interview that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE journalist explains why the president made her blood boil
With just minutes to go to my interview with George W Bush, I was escorted to the White House library, where a staff member gave instructions on how to greet the president: “He’ll be coming in the door behind you, just stand up, turn around and extend your hand.”
I placed my notes on the coffee table, someone attached a microphone to my lapel, and I waited. The two chairs by the fireplace where the president and I would sit were at least six feet apart; clearly I would not be getting too close to him.
*
The room was well-lit, providing the kind of warm background conducive to a fireside chat. Several people had crowded in behind me. I counted five members of the White House film crew, there was a stenographer sitting in the corner and three or four security staff. I was still counting them when someone spoke. “He’s coming.”
I stood up, turned around to face the door and seconds later the president strode towards me. Bush appeared shorter than on camera and he looked stern and rather grey that day.
“Thanks for comin’, Mr President” I said, sticking out my hand. I had borrowed this greeting directly from him. When Bush made a speech at a rally or town hall, he always began by saying “Thanks for comin’” in his man-of-the-people manner. If he detected the humour in my greeting, he didn’t let on. He took my hand with a firm grip and, bringing his face right up close to mine, stared me straight in the eyes for several seconds, as though drinking in every detail of my face. He sat down and an aide attached a microphone to his jacket.
Nobody said a word. “We don’t address the president unless he speaks first,” a member of the film crew had told me earlier. The resulting silence seemed odd and discomforting, so I broke it. “How has your day been, Mr President?” Without looking up at me, he continued to straighten his tie and replied in a strong Texan drawl, “Very busy.”
This was followed by an even more disconcerting silence that, compounded by the six feet separating us, made it difficult to establish any rapport.
“Will Mrs Bush be seeing any of our beautiful country?” I tried again, attempting to warm things up by adding that I had heard that the taoiseach would be keeping him too busy for sightseeing on his forthcoming trip to Ireland.
“He’s putting me to work, is he? Have you not interviewed Laura?” “No, I haven’t met your wife.” I suggested that he put in a good word for me. He chuckled. By now he seemed settled and the crew looked ready, but still nobody spoke. I was beginning to worry that the clock may have already started on my 10 minutes.
“Are we all ready to go then?” I asked, looking around the room. The next voice I heard was the president’s. “I think we have a spunky one here,” he said, to nobody in particular.
MC, a White House press officer whom I’ve decided not to identify, had phoned me three days earlier to say that President Bush would do an interview with RTE. “Good news,” she had said. “It goes this Thursday at 4.20pm. You will have 10 minutes with the president and Turkish television will talk to him just before you.”
My initial excitement was dampened only by the timing, much later than I had hoped. The interview would take place just three hours before I was to fly back to Ireland to cover his arrival at the EU summit at Dromoland Castle in Clare and just 15 minutes before the start of RTE’s Prime Time programme on which the interview would be broadcast. It would be practically impossible to have the president on air in time for this.
“That’s fabulous,” I gushed, “but is there any way I could go before the Turks?” I had previously explained about the Prime Time programme, so MC knew the situation. “I’ll look into it,” she offered.
The interview sounded like quite a production. We wouldn’t be able to just saunter in there with a camera. It would be filmed by a White House crew, which would then hand over the tapes to me to be copied and returned the same day.
MC asked me for a list of questions and topics, which she said was required for policy purposes in case I should want to ask something that the president needed to be briefed on. The request did not seem odd to me then. The drill had been exactly the same for an interview I had conducted six months earlier with the then secretary of state, Colin Powell.
“What would you ask the president of the United States?” I enquired of everyone I met in the following days. Ideas had already been scribbled on scattered notepads in my bedroom, on scraps of paper in my handbag and on my desk, but once the date was confirmed, I mined suggestions from my peers in RTE and from foreign policy analysts. I grilled my friends in Washington and even pestered cab drivers. After turning everything over in my head, I settled on a list of 10 questions.
Securing a time swap with Turkish television ensured that I saw the president 10 minutes earlier, but there was still less than half an hour to bring the taped interview to the production place four blocks away in time for Prime Time.
Still, with the arrangements starting to fall into place, the sense of chaos receded and I returned to the questions, which by now were perpetually dancing around my head, even in my sleep. Reporters often begin a big interview by asking a soft question — to let the subject warm up before getting into the substance of the topic at hand. This was how I had initially intended to begin with Bush, but as I mentally rehearsed the likely scenario, I felt that too much time could be consumed by his first probable answer, praising Ireland and looking forward to his visit. We could, I had calculated, be into the third minute before even getting to the controversial topics. I decided to ditch the cordial introduction.The majority of the Irish public, as far as I could tell, was angry with Bush and did not want to hear a cosy fireside chat in the middle of the most disputed war since Vietnam. Instead of the kid-glove start, I would get down to business.
*
On Thursday June 24, Washington DC was bathed in a moist 90-degree heat, the type that makes you perspire all over after you have walked only two blocks. Stephanie and I arrived at the northwest gate of the White House that afternoon, and were directed to the Old Executive Office building, Vice President Dick Cheney’s headquarters, and were introduced to MC, whom I had spoken to only by phone. An elegant and confident woman, she was the cut of CJ, the feisty White House press secretary on The West Wing television drama.
A younger male sidekick named Colby stood close by nodding at everything she said and interjecting with a few comments of his own every now and then. Colby suggested that I ask the president about the yellow suit the taoiseach had worn the previous week at the G8 Summit on Sea Island in Georgia. I laughed loudly and then stopped to study his face for signs that he was joking — but he didn’t appear to be. “The president has a good comment on that,” he said.
The taoiseach’s suit had been a shade of cream, according to the Irish embassy. But alongside the other more conservatively dressed leaders, it had appeared as a bright yellow, leaving our Bertie looking more like the lead singer in a band than the official representative of the European Union. It was amusing at the time, but I was not about to raise a yellow suit with the president. “Really?” I asked politely. But a little red flag went up inside my head.
Then MC announced that she had some news for me. “There may be another interview in the pipeline for you,” she said.
“Me?”
“We’re not supposed to tell you this yet, but we are trying to set up an interview with the first lady.”
She indicated that the White House had already been in contact with RTE to make arrangements for the interview at Dromoland Castle, where the president and Mrs Bush would be staying. As an admirer of Laura Bush’s cool grace and sharp intellect, I had requested interviews with her several times previously without any reply. Now the first lady of the United States was being handed to me on a plate. I could not believe my luck.
“Of course, it’s not certain yet,” MC added. And then her sidekick dropped his second bombshell. “We’ll see how you get on with the president first.”
I’m sure I continued smiling, but I was stunned. What I understood from this was that if I pleased the White House with my questioning of the president, I would get to interview the first lady. Were they trying to ensure a soft ride for the president, or was I the new flavour of the month with the first family?
“I’m going to give the president his final briefing. Are there any further questions you want to pass on to him?” MC asked.
“No,” I said, “just tell him I want to chat.”
Stephanie and I locked eyes and headed for the ladies’ powder room, where we prayed.
Mr President,” I began. “You will arrive in Ireland in less than 24 hours’ time. While our political leaders will welcome you, unfortunately the majority of our people will not. They are annoyed about the war in Iraq and about Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?”
The president was reclining in his seat and had a half-smile on his face, a smile I had often seen when he had to deal with something he would rather not.
“Listen. I hope the Irish people understand the great values of our country. And if they think that a few soldiers represent the entirety of America, they don’t really understand America then . . . We are a compassionate country. We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves. But we help people. And we’ve helped the Irish and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got a good relationship with Ireland.”
“And they are angry over Iraq as well and particularly the continuing death toll there,” I added, moving him on to the war that had claimed 100 Iraqi lives that very day. He continued to smile, but just barely.
“Well, I can understand that. People don’t like war. But what they should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there that had destroyed lives and put them in mass graves and torture rooms . . . Look, Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, against the neighbourhood. He was a brutal dictator who posed a threat that the United Nations voted unanimously to say, Mr Saddam Hussein . . .”
Having noted the tone of my questions, the president had now sat forward in his chair and had become animated, gesturing with his hands for emphasis. But as I listened to the history of Saddam Hussein and the weapons inspectors and the UN resolutions, my heart was sinking. He was resorting to the type of meandering stock answer I had heard scores of times and had hoped to avoid. Going back over this old ground could take two or three minutes and allow him to keep talking without dealing with the current state of the war. It was a filibuster of sorts. If I didn’t challenge him, the interview would be a wasted opportunity.
“But, Mr President, you didn’t find any weapons,” I interjected.
“Let me finish, let me finish. May I finish?”
With his hand raised, he requested that I stop speaking. He paused and looked me straight in the eye to make sure I had got the message. He wanted to continue, so I backed off and he went on. “The United Nations said, ‘Disarm or face serious consequences’. That’s what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn’t disarm. He didn’t disclose his arms. And therefore he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons . . .”
I was now beginning to feel shut out of this event. He had the floor and he wasn’t letting me dance. My blood was boiling to such a point that I felt like slapping him. But I was dealing with the president of the United States; and he was too far away anyway. I suppose I had been naive to think that he was making himself available to me so I could spar with him or plumb the depths of his thought processes. Sitting there, I knew that I was nobody special and that this was just another opportunity for the president to repeat his mantra. He seemed irked to be faced with someone who wasn’t nodding gravely at him as he was speaking.
“But Mr President,” I interrupted again, “the world is a more dangerous place today. I don’t know whether you can see that or not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There are terrorist bombings every single day. It’s now a daily event. It wasn’t like that two years ago.”
“What was it like on September 11 2001? It was a . . . there was relative calm, we . . .”
“But it’s your response to Iraq that’s considered . . .”
“Let me finish. Let me finish. Please. You ask the questions and I’ll answer them, if you don’t mind.”
His hand was raised again as if to indicate that he was not going to tolerate this. Again, I felt I had no choice but to keep quiet.
“On September 11 2001, we were attacked in an unprovoked fashion. Everybody thought the world was calm. There have been bombings since then — not because of my response to Iraq. There were bombings in Madrid, there were bombings in Istanbul. There were bombings in Bali. There were killings in Pakistan.”
He seemed to be finished, so I took a deep breath and tried once again. So far, facial expressions were defining this interview as much as anything that was said, so I focused on looking as if I was genuinely trying to fathom him.
“Indeed, Mr President, and I think Irish people understand that. But I think there is a feeling that the world has become a more dangerous place because you have taken the focus off Al-Qaeda and diverted into Iraq. Do you not see that the world is a more dangerous place? I saw four of your soldiers lying dead on the television the other day, a picture of four soldiers just lying there without their flak jackets.”
“Listen, nobody cares more about death than I do . . .”
“Is there a point or place . . .”
“Let me finish. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind.”
By now he was getting used to the rhythm of this interview and didn’t seem quite so taken aback by my attempt to take control of it. “Nobody cares more about death than I do. I care a lot about it. But I do believe the world is a safer place and becoming a safer place. I know that a free Iraq is going to be a necessary part of changing the world.”
The president seemed to be talking more openly now and from the heart rather than from a script. The history lesson on Saddam was over. “Listen, people join terrorist organisations because there’s no hope and there’s no chance to raise their families in a peaceful world where there is not freedom. And so the idea is to promote freedom and at the same time protect our security. And I do believe the world is becoming a better place, absolutely.”
I could not tell how much time had elapsed, maybe five or six minutes, so I moved quickly on to the question I most wanted to ask George Bush in person.
“Mr President, you are a man who has a great faith in God. I’ve heard you say many times that you strive to serve somebody greater than yourself.”
“Right.”
“Do you believe that the hand of God is guiding you in this war on terror?”
This question had been on my mind ever since September 11, when Bush began to invoke God in his speeches. He spoke as if he believed that his job of stewarding America through the attacks and beyond was somehow preordained, that he had been chosen for this role. He closed his eyes as he began to answer.
“Listen, I think that God . . . that my relationship with God is a very personal relationship. And I turn to the Good Lord for strength. I turn to the Good Lord for guidance. I turn to the Good Lord for forgiveness. But the God I know is not one that . . . the God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom. But I get great sustenance from my personal relationship.”
He sat forward again. “That doesn’t make me think I’m a better person than you are, by the way. Because one of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, ‘Don’t try to take a speck out of your eye if I’ve got a log in my own’.”
I suspected that he was also telling me that I should not judge him.
I switched to Ireland again and to the controversy then raging over the Irish government’s decision to allow the use of Shannon Airport for the transport of soldiers and weapons to the Gulf.
“You are going to meet Bertie Ahern when you arrive at Shannon Airport tomorrow. I guess he went out on a limb for you, presumably because of the great friendship between our two countries. Can you look him in the eye when you get there and say, ‘It will be worth it, it will work out’?”
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be doing this, I wouldn’t have made the decision I did if I didn’t think the world would be better.”
I felt that the President had now become personally involved in this interview, even quoting a Bible passage, so I made one more stab at trying to get inside his head.
“Why is it that others don’t understand what you are about?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. History will judge what I’m about.”
I could not remember my next question. My mind had gone completely blank. The president had not removed me from his gaze since we had begun and I wanted to keep up the eye contact.
If I diverted to my notes on the table beside me, he would know he had flustered me. For what seemed like an eternity, but probably no more than two seconds, I stared at him, searching his eyes for inspiration. It finally came.
“Can I just turn to the Middle East?”
“Sure.”
He talked about his personal commitment to solving that conflict. As he did so, I could see one of the White House crew signalling for me to wrap up the interview, but the president was in full flight.
“Like Iraq, the Palestinian and the Israeli issue is going to require good security measures,” he said.
Now out of time, I was fully aware that another question was pushing it, but I would never be here again and I had spent four years covering an administration that appeared to favour Israel at every turn.
“And perhaps a bit more even-handedness from America?” I asked, though it came out more as a comment.
The president did not see the look of horror on the faces of his staff as he began to defend his stance. “I’m the first president to have called for a Palestinian state. That to me sounds like a reasonable and balanced approach. I will not allow terrorists determine the fate, as best I can, of people who want to be free.”
Hands were signalling furiously now for me to end the interview.
“Mr President, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, still half-smiling and half-frowning.
It was over. I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same colour as my suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some important issues — probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.
I was removing my microphone when he addressed me.
“Is that how you do it in Ireland — interrupting people all the time?”
I froze. He was not happy with me and was letting me know it.
“Yes,” I stuttered, determined to maintain my own half-smile.
I was aching to get out of there for a breath of air when I remembered that I had earlier discussed with staff the possibility of having my picture taken with the president. I had been told that, when the interview was over, I could stand up with him and the White House photographer would snap a picture. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I stood up and asked him to join me.
“Oh, she wants the photograph now,” he said from his still-seated position. He rose, stood beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. Taking his cue, I put an arm up around his shoulder and we both grinned for the cameras.
In my haste to leave I almost forgot the tapes and had to be reminded by the film crew to take them. I and my assistants bolted out to the street. We ran, high heels and all, across Lafayette Park. Running through rush-hour traffic, I thought that this had to be about as crazy as a journalist’s job gets.
I had just been admonished by the president of the United States and now I was turning cartwheels in order to get the interview on air. As I dashed past a waste bin, I had a fleeting urge to throw in the tapes and run home instead.
At the studio I handed over the tapes. My phone rang. It was MC, and her voice was cold.
“We just want to say how disappointed we are in the way you conducted the interview,” she said.
“How is that?” I asked.
“You talked over the president, not letting him finish his answers.”
“Oh, I was just moving him on,” I said, explaining that I wanted some new insight from him, not two-year-old answers.
“He did give you plenty of new stuff.”
She estimated that I had interrupted the president eight times and added that I had upset him. I was upset too, I told her. The line started to break up; I was in a basement with a bad phone signal. I took her number and agreed to call her back. I dialled the White House number and she was on the line again.
“I’m here with Colby,” she indicated.
“Right.”
“You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,” she began.
I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming. I had naively believed the American president was referred to as the “leader of the free world” only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by outsiders, and not among his closest staff.
“You were more vicious than any of the White House press corps or even some of them up on Capitol Hill . . .The president leads the interview,” she said.
“I don’t agree,” I replied, my initial worry now turning to frustration. “It’s the journalist’s job to lead the interview.”
It was suggested that perhaps I could edit the tapes to take out the interruptions, but I made it clear that this would not be possible.
As the conversation progressed, I learnt that I might find it difficult to secure further co-operation from the White House. A man’s voice then came on the line. Colby, I assumed. “And, it goes without saying, you can forget about the interview with Laura Bush.”
Clearly the White House had thought they would be dealing with an Irish “colleen” bowled over by the opportunity to interview the Bushes. If anyone there had done their research on RTE’s interviewing techniques, they might have known better.
MC also indicated that she would be contacting the Irish Embassy in Washington — in other words, an official complaint from Washington to Dublin.
“I don’t know how we are going to repair this relationship, but have a safe trip back to Ireland,” MC concluded. I told her I had not meant to upset her since she had been more than helpful to me. The conversation ended.
By the time I got to the control room, the Prime Time broadcast had just started. It was at the point of the first confrontation with the “leader of the free world” and those gathered around the monitors were glued to it. “Well done,” someone said. “This is great.”
I thought about the interview again as I climbed up the steps to RTE’s live camera position at Dromoland Castle to account for myself on the 6pm news next day. By now the White House had vented its anger to the Irish embassy in Washington. To make matters worse for the administration, the interview had made its way onto American television and CNN was replaying it around the world and by the end of the day it had been aired in Baghdad.
Had I been fair? Should I just have been more deferential to George Bush? I felt that I had simply done my job and shuddered at the thought of the backlash I would surely have faced in Ireland had I not challenged the president on matters that had changed the way America was viewed around the world.
Afterwards I bumped straight into the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who was waiting to go on air.
“Howya,” he said, winking.
“I hope this hasn’t caused you too much hassle, taoiseach,” I blurted.
“Arrah, don’t worry at all; you haven’t caused me one bit of hassle,” he smiled wryly.
I don’t know what he said to the president, who reportedly referred to the interview immediately upon arrival, but if the taoiseach was annoyed with me or with RTE, he didn’t show it.
When I returned to my little world on the street called M in Washington, I felt a tad more conspicuous than when I’d left for Ireland. Google was returning more than 100,000 results on the subject of the 12-minute interview. The vast majority of bloggers felt it was time a reporter had challenged Bush.
At the White House, the fact that I had been asked to submit questions prior to the interview generated enquiries from the American press corps. “Any time a reporter sits down with the president they are welcome to ask him whatever questions they want to ask,” Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told the CBS correspondent Bill Plante.
“Yes, but that’s beside the point,” replied Plante.
Under repeated questioning, McClellan conceded that other staff members might have asked for questions. “Certainly there will be staff-level discussion, talking about what issues reporters may want to bring up in some of these interviews. I mean that happens all the time.”
I had not been prevented from asking any of my questions. The only topics I had been warned away from were the Bush daughters Jenna and Barbara, regular fodder for the tabloids, and Michael Moore — neither of which was on my list.
Moore did notice RTE’s interview with the president and in the weeks that followed urged American journalists to follow the example of “that Irish woman”.
“In the end, doesn’t it always take the Irish to speak up?” he said. “She’s my hero. Where are the Carole Colemans in the US press?”
© Carole Coleman 2005
BOOK OFFER
This article is extracted from the opening chapter of Alleluia America! by Carole Coleman, to be published by The Liffey Press on October 14 at €14.95.
Okay, as long as....SM
you don't mind you, your loved ones, or someone else's loved ones to be killed BEFORE we take action, we can sit around and see who attacks us next. But then of course, if Saddam had ordered an attack, or slipped the goods to someone to carry that attack out, you would have blamed Bush for not acting on all that intelligence we had before the war. You simply cannot have it both ways. In light of the fact that 3000 people perished in a couple of hours, I'm not afraid to stand behind a president brave enough to stand up to any threat.
What took them so long????
I heard the 34% was down to 29% for Bush and 18% for Cheney. It has taken this complete break down of our government for people to finally see what most of us have known all along. BUSH IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE ROTARY CLUB, LET ALONE THE U.S. The words incompetence and tin ear and arrogance are now coming out of the mouths of the staunchest of Republicans, senators, congressmen, strategists, advisors, etc. And the outright lies are finally coming to light, thanks to videotape. Of course we only have the pre Katrina tape but it shows those who absolutely refused to entertain the thought that his president was anything than honorable is, in fact, just a greedy arrogant politician like so many others. As I said before, time to storm the Bastille and throw them out, the whole sorry lot of them or we can always sell the country to the UAE. They would probably do a better job of running it than this poor excuse for an administration. As Isabel from Florida said on Lou Dobbs the other day, I could run this country better from my kitchen table. I believe her.
that is a long
string of words that is so illogical I just slap my rump and shout hallelujah. Not much more can be done other than that.
so as long as you don;t have to
pay for other people's children . . . you're okay with teenagers raising babies.
I come from a long
line of Twaddles, and we are a prominent family in our community.
Wow - how long did it take you to think of that one?
You should be one of Obama's political advisors. You know, you bein' so SMART an' all.
And your message was posted by: "?"
Does that stand for clueless or just 'can't spell my own name?'
I love Obama supporters. They're like children. Or really, really slow-learning monkeys. :)
Oh yes....and how long
did people scream and shout about how we were losing the surge in Iraq while we were successful? Obama didn't even want to admit we were successful when there was no way to dispute the fact. Just once, I would like to see you post something that isn't totally one-sided liberal, kool-aid drinking BS.
I think as long as there is anything
other than Islam, they will always perceive a threat to Islam. The threat is our very existence. Whether radical Muslims kill others outright - or breed, recruit/convert and infiltrate us out of existence, we are not to be tolerated as we are. They are not content to live side-by-side and allow everyone to worship whatever god (or no god) we wish in whatever way we please. The American ideal off Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religious living as neighbors along the same street is horrifying to these people. There is only one right choice!
They do not wish a settlement of the Palestinian issue, because this is the catalyst to stir up old conflicts when things seem to be settling down. I do not believe you can achieve peace through any amount of niceness and talking, or anything other than victory - and neither do they.
The best we can hope for is a temporary detente from time to time. This is not to be perceived as the end of the show, but intermission while they think of some other way to achieve their goals, (as we should be.) But instead, we get a Palestiniann and an Israeli to shake hands at Camp David, then start singing Ding-Dong The Witch is Dead. I have to wonder if it naivete or arrogance on our part.
party time..
You party for your reasons, I party for me..Fortunately, right now democrats and the like minded have many things to party for..YEEHHAAWW!! Bye bye Scooter, bye bye Rove, bye bye incompetent Bush, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Our party definitely needs to step up. sm
It's come to the point that I don't even know what our party values anymore. Just a bunch of different groups trying to elevate their cause with no clear focus. What is our agenda? I'm listening, but our elected officials are not talking.
Is Senator Kennedy the last Dem standing? At least he and Murtha speak their minds and challenge this administration. And I'm dog tired of hearing what the republicans got wrong. Though I think they have a nice stack of issues, I want to hear what our party is going to do to fix the Iraqi situation, what would they do in Louisiana and Missisippi differently if they had the ball in their court and what are they willing to fight for to effect change? What will they do to make America safer from domestic and foreign terrorists? Offer up some solutions. Maybe they have, but I haven't heard anything.
Hillary, though I'm still a fan of hers, seems to ride whichever wave she's on. Howard Dean is a live wire who says the first thing that floats to his brain, off the wall. He does not have the carisma to lead the party to victory IMHO.
As far as the republicans, I'm tired of hearing about gay marriages and abortions. I do not think these are America's main issues, not even close. I want to hear something other than rhetoric about how good Iraqi is doing too.
And I was just having a conversation earlier this week with a friend of mine who agrees with me that we have seen MORE gays and lesbians emerge since Bush took office. And before you get it wrong conservatives, I'm not saying he is creating them. It may be that the gays are rebelling and being more blatant with it to spite the anti-gay politicians, and/or all of the attention brought to gay marriage and gay this and that have only lured more young people into this culture as a reverse effect. I think the latter is more likely because rewind back to 2000, it was less likely you would see woman/woman, man/man hand in hand in the supermarket. Now, it's just as normal as man/woman and I'm in the bible belt, Alabama.
I agree with the poster who asked the question *where was THIS Al Gore 8 years ago?* Maybe, they'll wise up and make him head of the DNC. Say, *Thanks Dr. Dean for your services but we won't be needing them anymore.*
Either way, this administration NEEDS more disenting voices with SOLUTIONS-this is key-not just rhetoric because on major issues they have been allowed to runamuck basically uncontested for the last five years.
If we keep it up at this rate though I agree it's bad news for America.
*We tend to believe our party*...sm
Re-reading my postI can see how I misspoke. What I was trying to get across, and my post was not directed at you BTW, was that psychologically people tend to put more trust in and defend the party they support by default. Whether you are a registered republican or not, you support the republican party, and I glean that from your statement *I have not seen a Democrat I could vote for in good conscious.* And whether you are aware of it or not, you defend that party tooth and nails on here, and there is nothing wrong with that if they follow your belief systems.
Good for you for criticizing Foley, and any other person who is inappropriate with the pages. I have said here before I do not know why Studds didn't stepdown and more importantly why he was reelected. I'm against his having a relationship with a page as much as I am Foley.
As to Juanita, I understand you are personally connected with her in some way, so you will obviously be more sensitive to her situation than I will. I am looking at the big picture. Since she did not come forward in 1978, the statue of limitations gone, all she can do is tell her story, and Clinton has a story. Like I said her story is believable. She has proven genuine and not making claims out of spite or for money. I think it was Brunson who posted ladies that Clinton was supposed to have either raped or sexually harrassed earlier this year. Out of them all, Juanita was the only one I believe has substance.
I disagree with you again; when it was brought up that conservative presidents were accused of rape below, it was rebutted with *that was only one time...but..but..but..* That's rationalizing and minimizing.
I know your mind is made up about Vincent Foster, but this is what's on snopes.com. What I find interesting is the *suicide note.*
White House deputy counsel Vince Foster committed suicide on the night of 20 July 1993 by shooting himself once in the head, a day after he contacted his doctor about his depression. A note in the form of a draft resignation letter was found in the bottom of his briefcase a week after his death. (Note that this letter was not, as is often claimed, a suicide note. It was Foster's outline for a letter of resignation.) Foster cited negative Wall Street Journal editorials about him. He was also upset about the much-criticized role of the counsel's office in the controversial firing of seven White House travel office workers.
On 10 October 1997, special prosecutor Kenneth Starr released his report on the investigation into Foster's death, the third such investigation (after ones conducted by the coroner and Starr's predecessor, Robert B. Fiske) of the matter. The 114-page summary of a three-year investigation concluded that Foster shot himself with the pistol discovered in his right hand. There was no sign of a struggle, nor any evidence he'd been drugged or intoxicated or that his body had been moved.
If Foster had been murdered or if unanswered questions about his death remained, Starr would have been the last person to want to conclude the investigation prematurely. Or are we to believe Starr is part of the cover up, too? And if we buy into the conspiracy theory, what are we expected to believe? That a group of professional killers capable of carrying out dozens of murders all over the world shot Vince Foster, then clumsily dumped him in a park (after he had bled out), planted a gun he didn't own in his hand (without bothering to press his fingerprints onto it), amateurishly forged a suicide note (in several different handwritings), and then seriously expected the nation would believe it was suicide? Claims too crazy to believe are never discounted when they're needed to help establish a conspiracy, of course.
Oh, and did you check out the Bush body count??
Individuals, maybe. As for the party,
nm
Well, at least there are members in that party...
who will buck the party and put the people first. The Dems don't, won't, and that pretty much solidifies why I would not vote for a Dem...EVER again.
We can all see how much your party cares
nm
The peace party......
and what ultimately might get us into a nuclear confrontation.
I went to a party last week
to watch the acceptance speech by Obama. There was one individual at the party who kept talking endlessly and kept trying to re-take the floor after someone spoke about their interests. it was incredibly annoying. Ever had that happen in your life? conversation hog?
Despicable party. The WTC would probably still
Obama party
I actually posted back a couple of pages about this - this board has been busy since last night! =) I was actually kind of disappointed with the party. First off, the lady from the Democratic Headquarters didn't really give any information about any of the issues - she just brought print-outs from his website, which I had already read through before going to the party. Also, my friend that hosted the party is a HUGE Hillary she got some of the other guests going on about Hillary rather than talking about Obama. I asked a couple of questions, but no one there really seemed very informed and the response I got was to give them my email address and they would get back to me. The one nice thing was that there was no Bush-bashing and really no mention of McCain at all, but information on Obama was no more than I could get off the internet. It was good to see my friend again (this summer had been kind of crazy) and nice to meet some new people, but politically, it was really a waste of time. Everyone was really nice, even after they found out I had never listened to NPR =) I do, however, encourage people to attend a political "party" - either Republican or Democrat - perhaps the person who does your presentation will be better informed. Thanks to everyone that gave me web info earlier this week! =)
Obama can't fix what with his party either...
hard to do when you personify it.
It is JM's/SP's party's turn to be on the
the media dished out on their behalf throughout the entire primary season. Repeat. Show me one time JM has attempted to rein in his supporters when their tactics got out of control. Never mind what the media would or would not have done. I am looking for an example of JM expressing his awareness or concern that the tactics being used were inappropriate. O has done this on occasions, which makes the inquiry legitimate. The reason there is no answer is because there is no example. The hypocrisy of the remainder of this post speaks for itself and requires no rebuttal.
How can a party brainwash
nm
Once again, anyone not voting for your party
I haven't seen you say one thing yet that wasn't something I already heard stated on the news. If listening to the media and buying into their opinions is reasoning, then I don't wanna be a "reasoning" voter. I'm not for Barack or McCain, but I don't see the purpose of insulting someone because they DO like one or the other. Something tells me you don't need a purpose or reason to insult, though, it just makes you feel better about you.
your party and your president
Dubya are making us socialist -- this is what you have harped on for years. We even get to take over the debts of foreign banks thanks to Phil Gram, John McClain's right hand man.
What party is he, and why was he not nominated?
vote third party
Remember how we just "don't understand" how the bailout is good for us? Every politician and every single new media outlet said that we did not understand. They are protecting us from ourselves? we have to get together on this and get them out!
THis is not about the Republican party....
it is about socialism. I am a registered Independent, not a Republican. I just don't want a socialist America. What part of that do you not understand?
There is nothing positive about socialism that I can see.
Fear mongering...good grief. I am not fearful, I am angry. That man wants to highjack my country and a good many of my countrymen/women seem all to eager to help him do so. That doesn't make me afraid...it makes me angry.
However, there is nothing I can do about that, except vote for what I want, just like you are apparently going to.
If you get your way, and by the end of his term we are up to our eyeballs in socialism....one thing you can be sure of...I had nothing to do with it.
Well said. I don't belong to either party.
I just hope that the country can survive the 4 years. If Obama doesn't tax and spend us into a real depression or turn us into Venezuela north, perhaps it will.
But at least I will have the small comfort in knowing I had nothing to do with putting him in the White House.
You would probably know more about the Nazi party
xx
INDEPENDENT PARTY
 The independent party has voted that they will back McCain. They have NO votes to back Obama whatsoever!!!!
which independent party?
Which one? There are a couple, at least:
The American Independent Party
The Independent American Party
Independence Party of America
I thought being an "independent" meant you didn't belong to any party...
Okay, but for the Independent Party, do
xx
That is a pity party going on there...
I've been poor, woe is me, nobody knows my plight. Well, poster may find this hard to believe but there are others who were also poor while young, went through horrific things in their life, and still don't use that as an excuse to whine their entire life and live in the past until their dying day.
And what is my party and who is my guy? Frankly,
I think Alan Keyes or Chuck Baldwin would be the far greater choices of president than any of the 2 that have been purposely foisted upon us, but in the end, I will vote for what is best for my country, a concept you obviously do not share.
Come back 6 months from now, commie, and tell me how you are faring.
If he is already planning a 2M party
he's pretty much announced that he is going to win too...
and during the last debate he said a bunch of times "when I am president"
Goes both ways.
There's always the Constitution Party....sm
Chuck Baldwin is their candidate. I really like his platform as he is very conservative and has some really good ideas. Unfortunately, I doubt there is much chance he will win, but if feeling good about your vote is important to you, then check him out.
http://www.baldwin08.com/
This sheeple will party on down!
 Hey guess what....the term *tribe* was used as a reference to survivor...not a racial slur unless you're looking for it...
|
