Stalin didn't just "staff the bureaucracy with loyalists to better hold onto power", he had people who didn't stand with him executed. That kind of hyperbole, no matter what it's surrounded by, is hard to argue point for point.

Who's going to bother arguing that Karl Rove is evil and only looked out for Bush's interests?

VoxOrion wrote:Stalin didn't just "staff the bureaucracy with loyalists to better hold onto power", he had people who didn't stand with him executed. That kind of hyperbole, no matter what it's surrounded by, is hard to argue point for point.

Who's going to bother arguing that Karl Rove is evil and only looked out for Bush's interests?

Which was why I kept saying "not with the executions."

The point I'd like to see you defend was what Bush and Rove did with the staffing of the government. That might be more interesting than conflating me with some Hampshire college underclassman on Daily Kos who thinks Bush = Stalin in terms of eeevil.

On the other hand, I'm kind of getting into this now. So let's keep making the exact same arguments again and again until the game ends.

dajafi wrote:Which you initially framed as something like "when oh when will Obama acknowledge the glorious greatness of our Iraq triumph rather than continue sucking up to the surrender monkeys"? Call me crazy, but that smelled to me like seeing it through the prism of domestic politics.

Yes, the glorious greatness of our Iraq triumph is the exact same thing as "Also, I don't think anyone thinks we're free and clear or that it's all peachy over there."

Drsmooth asked what the conservative columnists were saying. I responded. I also, I thought, pointed out something important in saying the US Special Forces have been instrumental in the turnaround in Iraq. But like everyone else in this thread who disagrees with me, you find it easier to impugn my motives in posting than to actually respond to anything I say. Whatever.

Maybe these conversations will be easier in an off-year.

Probably.

jerseyhoya wrote:But like everyone else in this thread who disagrees with me, you find it easier to impugn my motives in posting than to actually respond to anything I say. Whatever.

You're right. I apologize. I generally try to be better than that, and you deserve better than that if for no other reason than hanging out in a thread where you're outnumbered.

On the merits of it, I still think the "turnaround" was reasonably predictable in terms of security and hasn't yet reached the point where we're making political gains... which was the purpose, as I understood it. I did make these points in my post, in addition to the observation about the prism of domestic politics (which wasn't solely aimed at you--in this thread or in the wider world).

I don't see the point in carrying on about what Ashcroft and Gonzalez did. Bush is inept and surrounded by inept people who did inept things in the name of saving the universe (in their opinion).

I heard the breathless NPR report on the way home today, and four thoughts came to mind.

1. What's with the base assumption that there are only x number of qualified candidates to fill x number of positions? (I find this ludicrous).
2. What's with the basic assumption that choosing the candidates that most aligned with your political philosophy and ideology is wrong in and of itself assuming there aren't only x number of qualified candidates to fill x number of positions (forget the organized part, I'll get to that)?
3. What's with the base assumption that because Ashcroft and Gonzalez got busted explicitly doing this means it isn't possible that this kind of ideological based selection wasn't going on before the decision was made to do this explicitly.
4. NPR didn't mention it - but was a survey done of the candidates/rejects who were hired x number of years before 2002? What was the breakdown of their affiliations and ideology? Is it equal? What about breakdown by previous administration? I know the huff is about the explicit drawing and execution of plans - but lets call that rot and move to the big picture - what is the answer there? Doesn't that help inform the rot?

I know staffing the Justice dept isn't the same as selecting judges (for which ideological discrimination is expected except when a Republican is doing the selecting except when anyone is doing the selecting), but the idea that the consideration for ideology is suddenly new under the sun sounds implausible to me.

VoxOrion wrote:I know staffing the Justice dept isn't the same as selecting judges (for which ideological discrimination is expected except when a Republican is doing the selecting except when anyone is doing the selecting), but the idea that the consideration for ideology is suddenly new under the sun sounds implausible to me.

I didn't hear the NPR report. Guessing you're referring to a story about the IG report.

To my knowledge, nobody is arguing that ideology is new under the sun, but what I think is new is that it seemed to be the only consideration, and that people for non-political jobs were eliminated for non-political reasons.

Another way of putting it might be that when Clinton was in, the Republicans investigated the executive for anything and everything. If he'd been doing this to anything like the same extent Bush did, I'm pretty confident Dan Burton would have been on the case.

I disagree with two of your assumptions.

First - that the only consideration was ideology. Even NPR who sure as heck isn't going to give the Bush Administration a break didn't make that claim. They said that only candidates who shared the ideology (or didn't work for this justice or that, or wasn't a part of this crunchy lawyer organization or that) were hired. No comment on qualification was made, this goes back to my point that one must assume only x number of qualified candidates exist - which no one has made (but "everyone" assumes in order to make the case sound worse).

The second is the idea that Republicans were going after everything Clinton did, I suspect they went after primarily what they could nail him on and certainly what they never expected to do themselves if they were in power. Both of which qualify for not going after his justice dept for ideological selection.

VoxOrion wrote:I disagree with two of your assumptions.

First - that the only consideration was ideology. Even NPR who sure as heck isn't going to give the Bush Administration a break didn't make that claim. They said that only candidates who shared the ideology (or didn't work for this justice or that, or wasn't a part of this crunchy lawyer organization or that) were hired. No comment on qualification was made, this goes back to my point that one must assume only x number of qualified candidates exist - which no one has made (but "everyone" assumes in order to make the case sound worse).

We can only go by the performance of the Bush DoJ. This doesn't suggest they hired a whole lot of crackerjack lawyers. Whether or not they intentionally hired incompetents, who knows. Whether the only question asked was I CAN HAZ ABORSHUNZ? who knows. But the existing record isn't real good.

VoxOrion wrote:The second is the idea that Republicans were going after everything Clinton did, I suspect they went after primarily what they could nail him on and certainly what they never expected to do themselves if they were in power. Both of which qualify for not going after his justice dept for ideological selection.

"Travelgate"? The thing with the Christmas cards? Burton firing a pistol into a watermelon as part of his dauntless Vince Foster investigation?

You know I'm not particularly interested in defending the Clintons, but this is a pretty silly argument. And remember that this was the "principled" stage of the Gingrich movement--I think they absolutely would have wanted to seize the high ground on politicization if it were there to be seized.

But I doubt we're going to convince each other.

VoxOrion wrote:I disagree with two of your assumptions.

First - that the only consideration was ideology. Even NPR who sure as heck isn't going to give the Bush Administration a break didn't make that claim. They said that only candidates who shared the ideology (or didn't work for this justice or that, or wasn't a part of this crunchy lawyer organization or that) were hired. No comment on qualification was made, this goes back to my point that one must assume only x number of qualified candidates exist - which no one has made (but "everyone" assumes in order to make the case sound worse).

The second is the idea that Republicans were going after everything Clinton did, I suspect they went after primarily what they could nail him on and certainly what they never expected to do themselves if they were in power. Both of which qualify for not going after his justice dept for ideological selection.

It's not ideology, it's Bush loyalty. Again, I'd cite Harriet Miers as the the kind of thing he was doing.

The problem with Bush isn't ideology, or even partisanship, it's cronyism. That's the difference between Bush and other Presidents.

dajafi wrote: Another way of putting it might be that when Clinton was in, the Republicans investigated the executive for anything and everything. If he'd been doing this to anything like the same extent Bush did, I'm pretty confident Dan Burton would have been on the case.

Democrats justify poor behavior by saying the Republicans were worse. So what if they were? That didn't use to mean you had to sink to their level. Now it does. I used to admire the Democratic Party as being a party that was genuinely idealistic and principled. Now the Democrats are just Republicans with different stances. Like the Republicans they'll do anything to win an election. Lying and misrepresenting your opponent's positions isn't okay just because the GOP is doing it worse.

Now that the Democrats have lost their moral center it can't be up to us to bring back morality. We're the party of Richard Nixon, for heaven's sake! The words "special prosecutor" were put together just for what we do.

TenuredVulture wrote:The problem with Bush isn't ideology, or even partisanship, it's cronyism. That's the difference between Bush and other Presidents.

Which other Presidents? Kennedy hired his brother as attorney general. Johnson got his fixer on the supreme court. John Mitchell was one of Nixon's law partners. Bert Lance was Carter's banker. Michael Deaver had been a Reagan political operative from the early 60s.

Presidents are always bringing in old buddies, sometimes with questionable resumes, into important jobs. Cronyism is nothing new.

VoxOrion wrote:It's not semantics, you're still deflecting. I grant you the last "whatever", I'll go back to secretly laughing at all of the posts I read in this thread and refrain from saying so.

Who's the elitist, snickering at passerbys now?

Laexile wrote:[You're the type of person the McCain campaign can't worry about. You formed an inaccurate opinion of Senator McCain in 2000 at a time when McCain had a conservative score of 67.7 in 1999. Yet when McCain moved to the center with a 2004-2006 score of 56.0 you listened to the Democrats tell you that he moved to the right. Rather than pay attention to what Senator McCain actually said or did you chose the Democrats explanation for what he said or did. You consistently give the DNC talking points on his positions instead of actually listening to what he says.

Your fantasy version of McCain never existed. Rather than approach him now with an open mind you approach him from a Democrat's point of view. The McCain campaign had no hope of getting you and won't be able to sway anyone who listens to how the Democrats define McCain more than what he says.

No, it wasn't a fantasy and it didn't have anything to do with conservative scores or anything like that. In 1999, I saw a man who seemed principled and willing to stand up against things that weren't in the best interest of the country, even if it was politically painful. That's the thing that's changed about McCain. He never would have advocated allowing the CIA their own enhanced interrogation techniques in 1999 because, deep down, I believe he knows it's wrong. But the 2008 version not only embraces such policy, but also calls out the supreme court for forcing the military to allow fair trials for people being held indefinitely for crimes they may or may not have comitted. Would the McCain being held prisoner in Vietnam do something like that? Would the McCain of 1999? I don't think so. And that's my beef. Before 2000, I actually voted for a lot of Republicans, so I don't have a problem with many traditional conservative positions.

TenuredVulture wrote:
It's not ideology, it's Bush loyalty. Again, I'd cite Harriet Miers as the the kind of thing he was doing.

The problem with Bush isn't ideology, or even partisanship, it's cronyism. That's the difference between Bush and other Presidents.

But cronyism isn't among the accusations related to the DoJ report, I'm trying to discuss a specific here, not a vague overarching metaphysical analysis of what's wrong with Bush.

jerseyhoya wrote:But like everyone else in this thread who disagrees with me, you find it easier to impugn my motives in posting than to actually respond to anything I say. Whatever.

Why isn't everyone entitled to take the easy rhetorical path you yourself happily tread?

....Obama's reluctance to speak to the changing circumstances and perhaps reexamine his position [on the 100 yrs occupation] is coming under scrutiny.

Instead of elaborating on your insinuation that Obama ought to be expected to "prove the negative" you posited here, you followed it by posting a campaign ad that condemned the candidate's "speaking to changing circumstances" on another matter.

So presumably changing his position on campaign finance reform is bad; changing his position on Iraq, provided it happens on your timetable, would be peachy.

I suppose your lack of interest in the substance of his positions, compared with your misgivings about his motives, could be clearer; I'm not sure how.

Your posts provide other examples; there's little need for me to recount more of them.

But let's be clear: I'm in favor of examining motives at least as frequently as substance, because, let's face it, they're at least as relevant to anticipating political outcomes much of the time (happily, it's different in baseball ).

dajafi wrote:"Travelgate"? The thing with the Christmas cards? Burton firing a pistol into a watermelon as part of his dauntless Vince Foster investigation?

You know I'm not particularly interested in defending the Clintons, but this is a pretty silly argument. And remember that this was the "principled" stage of the Gingrich movement--I think they absolutely would have wanted to seize the high ground on politicization if it were there to be seized.

But I doubt we're going to convince each other.

Now see, I believe what you're describing falls under my second point that you didn't bold - things they don't have to worry about being nailed on themselves. Of course their attacks were scattershot and all over the place. There is nothing to convince each other of on this.

What did the GOP go after Clinton for that they might want to do themselves at some later date? I can't think of anything, but it's been a while (and, I'll submit, that my theory delves into the "prove a negative" territory).

If you think I'm describing some kind of nobility on the part of the GOP, I'm not expressing myself properly or something. My perception/theory of their MO is not a positive one.

I was listening to NPR this morning. They were talking about independent groups running attack campaigns.

The Left has never had anything like this — a place in cyberspace for groups to coordinate and deliver their messages to activists. And there's nothing like it on the Right.

Even though NPR couldn't find such organizations on the Right Barack Obama, not John McCain, is complaining about how he's getting attacked.

Woody wrote:You can kind of understand where he's coming from though

While the rumor mill is in full force against Obama, there isn't a coordinated organization behind it. Anyone can write a stupid email and send it to 50 friends. It's not a vast conspiracy, just a bunch of loons.

On a pretty unrelated note, has the topic of the FISA compromise came up in this thread? I came across an article that criticizes Obama's support for the bill granting retroactive immunity to telecoms (the beginning of the article is most critical).

Laexile wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:The problem with Bush isn't ideology, or even partisanship, it's cronyism. That's the difference between Bush and other Presidents.

Which other Presidents? Kennedy hired his brother as attorney general. Johnson got his fixer on the supreme court. John Mitchell was one of Nixon's law partners. Bert Lance was Carter's banker. Michael Deaver had been a Reagan political operative from the early 60s.

Presidents are always bringing in old buddies, sometimes with questionable resumes, into important jobs. Cronyism is nothing new.

Right. Bush is really the best President we've ever had since Washington, and his judgment of the competence of people is beyond reproach. So much went well during his administration that any problems we might have are surely the fault of Nancy Pelosi. I don't know what I was thinking.

Look, there has been a difference in the extent of what has been happening with the Bush administration, and there are plenty Republicans and conservatives who see this, starting with DiiUlio, the Cato institute, a few people discussed in this article