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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (19303)	5/21/2006 11:04:35 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541344

The country will eventually turn right because, "whatever its failings, the right at least knows that America's enemies need to be fought." If that logic were true Bush would have his 65% approval rating. He is going all-out to fight everyone he can and then some. Is there a stronger, more conservative, more combative candidate out there who could make Bush look weak? Why isn't he running? Why did Bush only get 51% of the vote and squeak by in the electoral college, because he wasn't tough enough? Or because he had alienated just under half of the swing voters in the country with his post-9/11 policies? I really don't think the right wants to admit what is going on in terms of the political cycle in the US. They may exit stage-right for another period in the wilderness soon. Positing that eventually the electorate must return to precisely what it rejected is circular logic. If Bush had run on a "fight our enemies everywhere" platform in 2000 he probably would never have been elected in the first place.

To: Lane3 who wrote (19303)	5/21/2006 2:21:13 PM
From: Metacomet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541344

Will, as always, holds himself out as an intellectual attempting to provide scholarly analysis of things that he himself creates, on the run. A master of the "straw man" method of hollow discourse. First he frames his piece, with the assistance of the title of Beinarts study on Liberals and proceeds to draw the hackneyed black and white contrasts between the pacifist liberals and the patriotic conservatives. Then it is a simple matter to throw all Americans into one of these two buckets. Ultimately he breaks down to the Bush doctrine of who are our enemies and who isn't. Are you for us or agin us? The test being being not so much whether one qualifies as an actual enemy, but merely any entity whom this incompetent administration deems to provide political advantage in attacking, physically or rhetorically. Including, in no particular order: Iraq, France, Joe Wilson, Venezuela, Iran, gays, taxes, etc.......... For Will to attempt to create a cohesive position, he strives to locate a kernel of merit in the administrations motivations. For this he resorts to the fiction that only conservatives are willing to fight for our country, and that Bush incompetence is; "creating exactly the condition the conservatives have long feared: An America without the will to fight," I submit that conclusion is patently ridiculous. It is a feature of the contemporary conservative self delusion that they alone are prepared to protect the Republic. I think the greater truth is most, if not all, Americans will fight to protect our country from all enemies, domestic and foreign. It is a further truth that these same Americans are now much more circumspect in who they listen to in terms of declaring who are the enemies. And that same selectivity in recognizing who is actually harming America is sending cold shudders thru the GOP congressional majorities.