We should just let someone F us up, then Japan could come in and rebuild.

When did/do we ever associate fiscally responsible or conservative with any political party?

Who really gives a flying f*%k what kind of fish someone fishes for?

I guess I don't get where the "my fish is cooler than your fish attitude" comes from. Unless he came on here boasting about his wonderful avatar and they're the greatest fish on earth but it's just a damn fish. Coho are awesome, steelhead wonderful, chum.. well, to each his own.

I enjoy catching all types of fish. Some more then other's. Some people have a hang up with targeting chum and they think they are above the rest.

BJ,

It's OK for you to target chum. You just get demerits for each one hooked and 5 for each one actually landed on purpose. You can shed some of the demerits if it was a really special lure you wanted to get back, but that's at the discretion of the judges. But your goofy spiel about Saddam converting the west to Islam pretty much turns the discretion meter off. Sorry, cuz if you were a bright conservative, you wouldn't spout crap like that. That's sad. Conservatism has many admirable attributes; scraping the gutter like you have suggests you're really only entertainment.

Sg

You're right its okay to catch Chum. I landed about 8 so in the last couple days...what's that -40 points your honor? BTW I don't consider myself to be a bright shiney conservative like you think I am. I argue for the sake of entertainment, you got that straight lol. On a side note, radical islam doesn't exist and twin towers were hit by missles like Rosie O'donnell said huh?

BJ-

The point is that Sadddam (and his playboy sons) were no fans of Islamists, and the Islamists were no fans of him. It's why Donald Rumsfield (during the Reagan years) was comfortable supporting Saddam while he gassed the Iranians and the Kurds.

"On a side note, radical islam doesn't exist and twin towers were hit by missles like Rosie O'donnell said huh? "

Blue Jay, do you cut plug your red herring?

Since blue jay seems to be the only conservative arguing here and comes across as an idiot, I feel I must jump in. The truth is, we did have the right to go into Iraq if we wanted to. Sadaam was making a joke out of the sanctions and was taking pot shots at us as we patroled the no-fly zone. In my opinion, though, the reason we went was because Israelwas getting pissed off about all the suicide bombers and the fact that Sadaam was paying off their families. Think how mad we were about 911. If you look at the numbers, the percentages of Israelies affected by suicide bombers is much higher then Americans affected by 911. The numbers would indicated that most people would personally know of someone affected by a bomber.
There is no way that the US wants Israel to do anything in the Middle East. While it might be nice to say let them fight their own battles, the truth is if they do it is likely the whole middle east could go up in flames. There is no way Israel is going to lose a war without putting up a couple of nukes at some point. From an oil dependency side we could never allow this. When there were problems in Lebanon with Hezbollah last year, Israel kept coming out with statements like, unless something changes, we are going to do something. The statements kept getting stronger. I think these statements were towards Bush, but the political pressures here kept him from doing anything. Luckly the problem got solved before Israel did something.
Bush, agian this is my opinion, felt he had to come up with a different reason for attacking Iraq then defending Israel, as this reason would upset the rest of the middle east and possible cause a widescale involvement of other countries. At best it probably would mean the end of relatively good relations with the Saudi's and probably a disruption of oil to the US. If Bush had half a brain he would have planned a good reason for going into Iraq. At best he could have planted something for us to find when we got there. The whole scenario has left us looking like idiots.

In the end, we are probably going to be there for years to come. The only real solution is to split the country. Unfortunately this would leave one side in control of the oil reserves and expecting them to honor any agreement to share the wealth is a joke. The people of Iraq will never love each other and get along. That's why a person like Sadaam is the only type of leader that will ever suceed. The only hope we have of keeping peace is to separate the sides into separate sides with a central government that is kept in check by us. Hopefully we won't allow big US interests to control the wealth, but will actually allow the wealth to trickle down to the masses. I would guess the young masses would much rather sit at home and play nintendo then kill themselves or each other. It is the same everywhere though; take away hope and people will have no regard for their own future. Even in the US it is evident. During the great economy of the clinton years we saw a drop in gang violence, teen drug use and teen pregnancy. The last couple of years, as the economy has soured some, we have seen a new surge in gang violence.

In short, we had to go, we have to stay. The way we accomplish this and express it really needs to change though. Bush's way is idiotic and has caused us problems and lack of respect. Bush is not a true conservative. Rather he is a big business moderate. This mortgage fiasco is just a perfect example of executives taking huge short term gains at the expense of their stockholders. Watch now as they figure out a way to get the government to bail out the banks to their advantage. Way off topic, but my point would be that you can probably expect the same if you elect any of the mainstream candidates, from either side.

Agreed.




Not agreed.

What "right" would that be? One secured by the UN? The same body that would never have sanctioned an invasion of Baghdad? Or was it some made up "right"? Bush likes to make up new executive powers and rights that never previously existed. The US Supreme Court, the same one that sullied itself by deciding a presidential election, has also slapped down the Presidents attempts to create new powers that the Founding Fathers never intended.

Krijack, the reason BJ sounds like an idiot is because he's an apologist for an idiot president.

Krijack, I remember well (I know, its a curse) that GW said that we would not go into Iraq without the blessing of the UN. After all, he (and you) placed great stock in Sadaam's flaunting of the UN sanctions. When it became clear that the UN would not go along with GW, it was another forgetten requirement of our invasion of Iraq.

Please, if you are trying to take up the mantle of a thinking conservative, get your facts somewhat right. Otherwise, it is just straight old propoganda.

I've said before I don't agree with everything conservative. I will also state I don't agree with everything the President does including his out of control spending. It's not my fault either you still feel the 2000 & 04' elections were stolen from you lol.

It's all a conspiracy and their out to get you! They are in your computer stealing your megahurtz and hiding in your phone! The sad thing is, you probably feel that's true. BTW they can power up the mic on your phone without a battery and listen in. LOL.

What's not a conspiracy is Gregoire winning by 128 votes after losing 2 out of 3 counts in a major election. And what's not a conspiracy is the fact that the WA state Supreme Court wrapped that one up and handed it to her on a silver platter. Of course they proabably felt making sure they counted all those dead people ballots, write in's and people voting by mail in then going to write one in another precinct may be way more important then disenfranchising 5,000 or so overseas military ballots that got held in customs. Maybe in 08's she will make sure all of WA State brigades are overseas again.

Aa big 'Amen!' and a 'No Sh#t!' To that!!

I'm getting sick of the same of regurgitated tripe showing up from Dittoheads. It all comes from The News Corporation* and The Clear Channel which combined make up The largest percentage** of everything that is seen or heard on American Airwaves, Television, Print, Film, and Satellite and even Concert Tours.*** You remind me of this dumbf#ck I used to work with that hung on every word of the boss like it was the Gospel and couldn't even take a crap on his own without asking if he needed to first.

If you can't form a thought of your own for once, turn off you computer, walk outside and blow your brains out, because fer f#cksake, you aren't using them anyway.




*The term 'News' is used in an abstract sense in Fox's case. The Weekly World News also used the word 'News' in it's title and both companies are about equal in their honesty.

**Do some snooping on The Clear Channel and The News Corporation's corporate holdings and assets. The majority of their growth and aquisitions came after Bush's 2000 appointment of Michael Powell as head of the FCC, who later resigned after the attention drawn to his appointment following the Great Superbowl Nipple Scare.

***You might be shocked out to find that your favorite 'rebellious' rockstar you admired so much as a teen is simply a commercial marionnette controlled by the same puppetmaster as Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge. Redneck loudmouth Toby Keith is an obvious one, but also Led Zeppelin and The Ramones surprised me.

Eddie,
Are you trying to say that he wasn't illegally shipping oil or shooting at our planes?
I won't take a position on the sanctions, or even the first gulf war as there are questions about the postering that went on before hand. But, there is no doubt that we had a signed agreement at the end of it and he was not following it. It can be argued that part of the reason we couldn't get other countries to agree to us going that they were prospering too much under the existing sanctions. It appears that Sadaam was. At the same time most of the UN was probably secretly jumping with joy everytime another bomb went off in Israel.

If someone takes a pot shot at me, I don't really care that they missed. I am going to shoot back. If we had faked a downed plane after 911 most of the world would have looked at the whole thing differently. Yeah, Bush said he would wait for the UN, thats' one of the reasons I think he is an idiot. As I state previously, I think we went in because of Israel, so what I am talking about is a better validation. No one wants to comment on this aspect, but rather just beat up on Bush and the conservatives. Remember, congress voted to go and Hilary won't promise to withdraw. Maybe, they know something but are afraid to present it to the American people. Maybe, they are just beholden to the same big business pressures that Bush is. In any case, it doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.

If you wonder about the validation issues, look at how little is being said about Afghanistan. One could easily argue that the threat is gone and that we should leave. Bush has already said it is not about catching Bin Ladin anymore. Since they started the mess, why should we stay to clean it up?
I am not trying to take a postition here, just pointing out that it isn't happening (at least not on the scale of Iraq).

In the end, I feel we probably had to go or felt we had to go into Iraq, and were looking for a reason. How big business may have profitted from it is another story. The two issues should not be looked at as the same. I say this because I think leaving or not doing anything is not an option at this time. Rather, we should be doing our best to set up a system that profits the people of that country. I am not sure that is happening.

Blue Jay,

One big difference between the 2000 election/US Supreme Court and the 2004 election/WA State Supreme Court is that the WA State Supreme Court allowed votes to be counted, while the net effect of the US Supreme Court decision was to stop counting.

The US Customs Service (a Federal agency) is involved in the plot?

Puhleeze.

Krijack, you use the term we to imply that the US had imposed the sanctions. You know that is not the case. Gulf War I was a war sanctioned by the UN. They called the shots on that one and the sanctions in question were placed by them.

I also believe that a precipitous withdrawl from Iraq is not in the US' best interest. However, that does not mean that I ever supported our going in the first place. I will always remember the duplicity and wrong headed logic that got so many people killed.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/15/24/5423/

Published on Saturday, November 24, 2007 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
At the White House, Truth is a Casualty
by Tony Norman
At the risk of taking a Bob Dylan lyric completely out of context, the amphetamine-fueled singer articulated the perfect line about modern presidents’ relationship to truth back in 1965 when he sneered: “Obscenity, who really cares / propaganda, all is phony.”

All is phony, indeed. As usual, phoniness begins at the top. In an excerpt from “What Happened,” a tell-all that won’t be published until April 2008, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan admitted that he may have been President Bush’s accidental propagandist during his undistinguished stint in Washington’s version of the Augean stables:

“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

“There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.”

Since posting the excerpt on its Web site, the book’s publisher, PublicAffairs, has already begun its unseemly ritual backpedaling: Of course Mr. McClellan wasn’t saying that he was personally misled by Mr. Bush, no matter what the excerpt indicates. Sure, the language is blunt and declarative, but that’s books by former White House press secretaries for you. Blah, blah, blah!

When the president’s surrogates finish sliming Mr. McClellan for explaining the slippery nature of truth in the Bush White House, the actual text of “What Happened” will probably be drained of its most controversial elements when it finally hits the book skids at Wal-Mart in the spring.

“The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass false information,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino. She said it was difficult for the White House to react to the book excerpt because it wasn’t clear what the passage meant without the context of the entire book.

Who knew that assessing an unflattering comment by a former administration insider required a background in semiotics and linguistic philosophy?

Assuming this story hasn’t completely disappeared by the middle of next week, Ms. Perino will probably begin insinuating that her predecessor either misunderstood his job or has willfully misrepresented — in exchange for a large book advance — the role his former superiors played in the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Plame’s name.

So far, only lefty-oriented blogs and Keith Olbermann, the Don Quixote of broadcast journalism, are making a big deal about the teaser from the book. The mainstream media is either bored by the thought of another plunge into l’affaire Plame or numb at the prospect of cataloguing yet another series of lies by an administration that would get and deserve banner headlines if it ever bothered to tell the truth about anything.

When Mr. McClellan announced last year that he was leaving the administration, Mr. Bush rolled out his corniest bromides for his departing Texas crony whose sweaty forehead had been telegraphing the opposite of what had been coming out of his mouth for years:

“I don’t know whether or not the press corps realizes this, but his is a challenging assignment dealing with you all on a regular basis,” Mr. Bush said, laying it on thick about a guy whose conscience had obviously begun to get to him. The press snickered at being insulted by the commander in chief yet again. “And I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity. He really represents the best of his family, our state and our country. It’s going to be hard to replace Scott. But, nevertheless, he’s made the decision and I accept it.”

If Scott McClellan and his publisher intended only to indict the White House chain of command, but not the president himself, the best Mr. Bush could expect would be to look out of touch. The publisher chose the most inflammatory excerpt possible to attract media attention. Claiming that Mr. McClellan’s intention is being distorted is a little disingenuous.

When his successor Tony Snow finally writes his own account of his White House years, it will be a guaranteed blockbuster with or without unflattering verdicts about the president. Mr. Snow’s witty stonewalling was an awesome thing to behold.

But we all know that Mr. Snow, a former Fox News talking head, isn’t so blinded by loyalty to his former boss that he would be tentative about criticizing him if he felt compelled to do so. Let me be as bold as to suggest a possible title for a Mr. Snow tell-all: “I Can’t Believe I Actually Took Orders from that Guy.”

Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.

Are you crazy? lol It's a known FACT the US dept of Justice threatened to sue WA State for not mailing out overseas ballots to it's military members. WA Supreme Court a.k.a Gregoires buddies - Some may recall she was our states former head attorney that dealt with them on a daily basis.

Oh well Rossi will be our gov. in 08' so it's water under the bridge.

Do you always change the subject when you've painted yourself into a corner?

Once again, do you like to cut plug your red herring? There is no need for conspiracy when the facts about Bush's presidency are laying out in the open for people to smell.

I'm not worried about who's blowing him. I'm not worried about him or his staff stealing the presidential china. Office sex, and petty theft is of no importance when viewed in the context of 3,500 dead American soldiers, 25,000 wounded. And anyone who did not take the time to analyze the fictional rationale given to why we went to war is partially responsible. And if you did analyze those facts, that turned out to be untrue, or worse, known falsehoods, then you should be really really angry.

Quit changing the subject. If you think we had every good reason to go to Iraq then say so. It has nothing to do with the Gov's race in Wash, or conspiracy theories about cell phones.

VHAwk