with all the seemingly corrupt practices of his administration(cheny's dodging of the GAO, rumsfeld under fire for the treatment of prisoners, and the iraq quagmire in its entirety) its going to be a joke if americans elect bush a second time...

...but he sad thing is, it IS a joke, and therefore i believe he'll be re-elected. everything just seems so currupt, and it seems he has the electoral colleges all bought out...even if not, people are still unable to see thru his facade. everytime he's in trouble he'll throw a few magick keywords--values, patriotism, ect ect--and then its OK...

does kerry really stand a chance?

If Edwards, Lieberman (or maybe even Gephardt) had won the nomination, I would strongly consider voting Democrat this time around. I think the war was basically the right thing, and Bush may eventually be credited with the vision to transform the Middle East, but my confidence in his ability to actually see it out has been seriously damaged by his ridiculous "loyalty" to everyone around him. It's like Jon Stewart has been saying, what would it take to fire Tenet or Rumsfeld?

Originally posted by tweedyburd
GephardtBlasphemer.

Eh, he's a sincere liberal who happened to vote for the war, so he doesn't bother me all that much.

hmm... my honest opinion is.... yes, i think kerry has a chance. i wouldn't have said that even a month ago maybe, but things have turned. the prisoner abuse scandal, high gas prices, people realizing that bush didn't have a good exit strategy for iraq.. i think his image is just getting worse and worse over time. by the time november comes, all will be lost for bush..... i mean don't get me wrong, it will be a close race because there's so many republicans, but more people than usual will get out to vote just to get rid of bush.

let's put it this way.. bush lost the popular vote in the last election, and he's gotta be less popular now than he was then. i think people are sick of him and he's gonna lose.

Originally posted by tweedyburd
I think the war was basically the right thing, and Bush may eventually be credited with the vision to transform the Middle East

See this is what bugs me. Most Americans were led to believe that the reason we went to war with Iraq was to find and destroy WMDs. This war wasn't about democratizing Iraq or
"transforming the Middle East" but that is what it turned into.
You should feel misled.

Yeah, I think Bush could win. This year is a little unusual. Typically, when running for re-election, the incumbent either wins big or loses big...there are no close elections. This year, though, I think we are in for another very close election. However, we are still months away from the election, so that could all change. A lot of voters, despite what they may think of Bush, have the opinion that we shouldn't change leaders in the middle of things.

Originally posted by spa ced


See this is what bugs me. Most Americans were led to believe that the reason we went to war with Iraq was to find and destroy WMDs. This war wasn't about democratizing Iraq or
"transforming the Middle East" but that is what it turned into.
You should feel misled.

agreed.

w has a chance to win if the dems keep following the media and not their own choices for a new leader. and all the junk about "so and so would have done better if they had the nomination...." is stupid. guess what, they WOULDN'T beat w - they couldn't beat opponents within their own party! obviously edwards didn't appeal to the majority, so how can it be argued he'd wipe up the floor with w? and dean? the gop didn't have to say anything about him because dems jumped down his throat first. had he won, his unbridled passion would be used against him in terrible ways by the gop, so for those still backing your caucus candidate, enough already. edwards and dean have jumped on kerry's wagon. w can win against internal bickering and second guessing. even with the lousy job he's doing he has solid support from the party. he doesn't have to say a word from this moment on and he'll have full support. the democrats are stupid sometimes, squandering good ideas on infighting. they have no team spirit.

Originally posted by homechicago
w has a chance to win if the dems keep following the media and not their own choices for a new leader. and all the junk about "so and so would have done better if they had the nomination...." is stupid. guess what, they WOULDN'T beat w - they couldn't beat opponents within their own party! obviously edwards didn't appeal to the majority, so how can it be argued he'd wipe up the floor with w? and dean? the gop didn't have to say anything about him because dems jumped down his throat first. had he won, his unbridled passion would be used against him in terrible ways by the gop, so for those still backing your caucus candidate, enough already. edwards and dean have jumped on kerry's wagon. w can win against internal bickering and second guessing. even with the lousy job he's doing he has solid support from the party. he doesn't have to say a word from this moment on and he'll have full support. the democrats are stupid sometimes, squandering good ideas on infighting. they have no team spirit.

You don't think McCain would have faired better in the general election than Bush? Guess what? The candidate that wins the party nomination is not always the best candidate for the job. Primary elections are quite different from general elections (and I don't mean in the obvious ways). If the primaries were more spread out, like they usually are, there is a chance that Kerry wouldn't be the nominee. People are saying that Edwards would wipe the floor with W because of his previous experience going up against a Repub, his performance in the debates, his charisma, his wide appeal, his unbelievably low negativity numbers in polls, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. In my opinion, and the opinion of others, Edwards would have been better to go up against Bush. Does that mean that the Dem party is not united? No. There is no "internal bickering" within the Dem party. The nominee candidates have all endorsed Kerry, Kerry has the full support of the Dem party behind him, Kerry (unlike Dean) can easily capture the standard 40% that always vote Dem. However, like I have said, Kerry has failed to make a case for himself. No one, right now, is voting for Kerry because they like him and believe in him...they are voting for him because they dislike the other guy. And Bush does not have the solid support of his party behind him. The number of Repubs voting in the Dem primary is evidence of that. Additionally, Bush is making appearances at events held by various conservative groups...if his party was fully behind him, he wouldn't be assed to do that (especially during an election year). A lot of Repubs have been turned off by Bush.

Originally posted by spa ced


You should feel misled.

I never felt the only reason for war was WMDs, so no, I don't "feel misled." It's funny, I went back and read my little op-ed I wrote for our college paper long before the invasion and saw that I never even mentioned WMDs, but instead focused on Saddam's crimes and his refusal to abide by UN resolutions. I don't want to get into another big Iraq argument, but to me, that was enough justification for war at the time. Hell, even Bush laid out a variety of reasons other than WMD, and in that one State of the Union address also said "some say we should wait til the threat is imminent." Granted, that message was exaggerated along the way by the likes of Cheney, and that's upsetting. But there seems to be a lot of amnesia on the overall picture of the reasons and circumstances leading up to war.

My point about Gephardt was that he endorsed the war because he believed it was the appropriate thing at the time. I don't understand how people forget that the pre-invasion debate did not center on intelligence credibility. It was all about when was too soon and when was too late to go in. Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards and Lieberman, whether for timely political reasons or basic resolve, stood up when they should have. And that's why I said Gephardt would have been a decent nominee.

Originally posted by tweedyburd

I never felt the only reason for war was WMDs, so no, I don't "feel misled." It's funny, I went back and read my little op-ed I wrote for our college paper long before the invasion and saw that I never even mentioned WMDs, but instead focused on Saddam's crimes and his refusal to abide by UN resolutions.

by this rationale we should have went to war against Israel too. at least we know they have WMDs.

im not sure if its Kerry's race to lose, but he does have all the potential to screw it up.

When the hawk Tom Clancy mentions "even good men made bad decisions..." it dont look good for Bush.

so, you could be right i wanna die, neither of them have a chance because Hillary is gonna take the nomination Kerry now says he wont accept and then put a headlock on Bush for the Presidency.

:rolleyes:

it could happen.

Originally posted by Irrelevant


by this rationale we should have went to war against Israel too. at least we know they have WMDs.

Good point, but I don't recall Sharon or anyone in his government over the past 25 years butchering their own people, invading other soverign nations, actually using WMD, mass graves, etc. Nor did Israel have dreams of restoring some lost empire. The two are hardly comparable. Granted, Israel have made their fair share of mistakes but to compare the two and that situation to Iraq is kind of silly when the greatest thread to the West, our allies, and our interests is fanatical Islam and Arab nationalism which embodies the region. Besides, the Palestinans have repeatedly rejected withdrawl proposals since the charade at Camp David in 2000. I doubt the Iraqi people would've rejected a proposal by Saddam to let them roam free free of his reign. Totally different situations.

Originally posted by tweedyburd


Good point, but I don't recall Sharon or anyone in his government over the past 25 years butchering their own people, invading other soverign nations, actually using WMD, mass graves, etc. Nor did Israel have dreams of restoring some lost empire. The two are hardly comparable. Granted, Israel have made their fair share of mistakes but to compare the two and that situation to Iraq is kind of silly when the greatest thread to the West, our allies, and our interests is fanatical Islam and Arab nationalism which embodies the region. Besides, the Palestinans have repeatedly rejected withdrawl proposals since the charade at Camp David in 2000. I doubt the Iraqi people would've rejected a proposal by Saddam to let them roam free free of his reign. Totally different situations.

yeah, i know the scale is way different and it's kind of a silly comparison. but i like picking on israel.

i do think that the greatest threat to the West is the West itself though.