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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (41981)	4/9/2004 3:21:43 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

No, no sympathy. I'm just saying that things which either didn't matter much in the long range scheme of things or were not pertinent to the actual running of the country were ignored for a long period of our history. Reporters saw things, but they didn't see things because it was the PRESIDENT. They were censoring certain facts, such as FDR's wheelchair. I don't know why it was, but that was how it was. Somewhere along the way it changed. Things that were sacrosanct no longer were. Are we better off knowing this stuff? Would it have mattered if we all knew JFK was getting it on with Norma Jean? Well, most of us my age would get upset, because we all wanted her for ourselves, but that's another story, one of teenage testosterone. (OTH, would the Russians have been better off if we knew JFK and MM were an item? I think, looking thru my retrospectoscope, they would have put the pedal to the metal, and might have been able to keep their missiles in Cuba because we were distracting ourselves with Marilyn.) Were we better off knowing Carter "was fallible because I lust in my heart"? I'm not defending anybody. I'm bemoaning how much we have dumbed down this whole thing. I wish I knew how we got there, and I wish I knew how to get back to the old days. The hell with making these guys out as role models for our kids. I don't want them to be my kids' role models, anymore than Joe Montana, Barry Bonds, or Charlie Barkley. I want them to have me for a role model. We need to raise the bar above character assassination. Rat

To: jlallen who wrote (41981)	4/9/2004 9:00:04 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

OK, ex-jester., L squared just won your job, but I'm rooting for you, 'cuz you are most funny. While I've got him distracted over in the corner, practicing his spinning, I'm gonna set you up for a really good punch line. Gopher it, lad; get yer jester hat back... Clinton's credibility bounces back As Bush looks bad in Sept. 11 hearings, his predecessor's stock is soaring By DOUG SAUNDERS Thursday, April 8, 2004 Bill Clinton will not be sitting in the congressional hearing room today as National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice faces a barrage of questions about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. But his presence will very much be felt. After years of disgrace and self-imposed silence, this is the former president's moment of resurrection. Just as Mr. Bush's Republican administration faces its most awkward and unpopular moment, Mr. Clinton's public image is suddenly soaring, both in Washington and abroad. On terrorism, Mr. Bush is looking bad, and Mr. Clinton is looking good. On the African AIDS crisis, Mr. Bush's policies appear to have failed, while Mr. Clinton's charitable efforts have helped. On the campaign trail, Mr. Clinton is threatening to overshadow Senator John Kerry, the official Democratic candidate. "I would say that Clinton is no longer the lightning rod he once was; memories have faded and feelings about him aren't as strong, so he's begun to appear all over the place," said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. Today's long-awaited testimony will mark the culmination of a month when Mr. Clinton's terrorism policies have been contrasted favourably with those of Mr. Bush. The toughest questions to be fired at Ms. Rice, who is Mr. Bush's top aide responsible for security, will involve her failure to adopt the comparatively tough stance toward Islamic terrorism that Mr. Clinton's administration took. Earlier testimony, and the recent book Against All Enemies by former White House terrorism chief Richard Clarke, have suggested Ms. Rice and Mr. Bush dismissed terrorism as a secondary issue redolent of the Clinton years. But Mr. Clinton established a commission on national security and ordered it to report to Mr. Bush's incoming administration that Americans would "become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland [and] likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." The report also suggested a homeland security agency, a recommendation that the new cabinet ignored until after Sept. 11. Ms. Rice is likely to rebut those contentions forcefully today, arguing that she was busily preparing an even more aggressive plan to fight al-Qaeda in the days before Sept. 11. But she will have to spend a good part of her time comparing her failures against terrorism to the policies of Mr. Clinton, who took military action against Osama bin Laden and made frequent speeches about the terrorist threat. Indeed, Mr. Clinton is emerging from the shadows to take a number of initiatives that make him look surprisingly successful compared to Mr. Bush's failures. This week, Mr. Clinton's charitable organization negotiated a deal for AIDS drugs to be provided to poor African and Caribbean countries at half their usual cost, a significant victory that was achieved while Mr. Bush's $15-billion (U.S.) African AIDS-fighting initiative is stalled in Congress with little of its promised money spent. "The historic Clinton Foundation drug-pricing and distribution deal is a powerful slap to President Bush's arrogant attempts to limit the use of generic AIDS medicines to suit the whims of his pharmaceutical backers," Paul Davis of the advocacy group Health GAP declared yesterday. Mr. Clinton's newfound credibility is becoming a factor on the campaign trail, where he has become a chief campaigner for Mr. Kerry. Yesterday, during a major speech at Washington's Georgetown University, Mr. Kerry mentioned Mr. Clinton favourably four times, an act that would have been unthinkable four years ago, when Al Gore went out of his way to avoid mentioning his former running mate. Suddenly, the Clinton era has become the shining city on the hill for Democrats. Now that the name Clinton is associated with better policies and economics instead of being synonymous with sex scandal, Mr. Kerry plans to use the former president aggressively against Mr. Bush. In fact, campaign workers say their main worry is that Mr. Clinton's celebrity will overshadow Mr. Kerry's own presence. theglobeandmail.com

To: jlallen who wrote (41981)	4/9/2004 11:38:30 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Oh, I just had another thought to help you get more laughs. Nobody thinks pinhead and bush hating moron is funny anymore, because you have overused them. Get creative, man. Ya gotta get the laughs. Try these... repeat after me.. "typical loculated festering gobutwit tripe." "Decerebrated cretin logic". "Boryborygimus bag of flatus" " That's just constipated priapism" "Whazzup wif dat; dyschesia"? Go work with them a bit, and see what ya can come up with. Yer fren and faithful advisor, Rat