Foley, hypocrisy, and such

[gailkate]

Excellent point, J*, and one I should think would be obvious.

The other thing about Dems vs. Reps. is that some of us were as fiercely anti-Johnson and Vietnam as we are anti-Bush. What Gracie says is true; it shouldn't be about parties. I thought Clinton did some great things, some dumb things and one stupid thing: NAFTA. But the Reps didn't focus on his policies or actions. They wasted months of critical policy-making time on impeaching him for an affair. That's where the real hostility started in my mind.

Solid conservative thinkers are fed up with Bush. I'm kind of surprised that Joe and Eric are still defending him and his erratic, hubristic team.

[edsfam]

//They wasted months of critical policy-making time on impeaching him for an affair.//

The impeachment was for lying will under oath in the Paula Jones assault case. Why is it so hard for this easliy understood fact to get into some ones head. The affair with Monica was a side story but not the basis for the impeachment. Every time someone that seems fairly intelligent says something like Clinton was "impeached for an affair" they lose all of their credibility.

BTW: I don't defend Bush ... he doesn't need me. I do, however, watch out for outlandish and unfounded claims by the BushHate crowd and point out the illogic and .... stoopidity of their statements. Much like those that revel in pointing out every fault of the Bush Administration.

BTW2: Rove was not the leak, Plame was not outed by the White House and not one of the pompous posters to the Chatterbox Cafe thread has yet to recant the accusation and smears.
So much for "truth to power" when in the hands of the unworthy.

_E_

[joew]

Speaking of truth, j* —

juliastar said:

Thanks, dan. My follow up was going to be just that. Sure Olbermann's piece is an opinion piece but the basis for most of his opinions can be found on the ground and by opening up a newspaper and that is the difference between an opinion and an informed opinion.

I have yet to see any of Bush's defenders here pick up one of his blovated speeches and render the same criticism where we are truly talking bald opinion and blatant, shameless emotional appeal. Rush is a bag of gas, acknowledged as such by most of the planet, and who is showing up to endorse him and be endorsed? The Great Decider. Bag of Gas, II. "I never said we were going to stay the course. [Go find your own 40 exact quotes where he said just that] We're flexible, we're adapting and we're staying the course."

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, . . .

You are saying that there are at least 40 exact quotes where GWB said just that "we were going to stay the course." Indeed, the suggestion is that there are more than 40, because the reader can find his or her own. I put it to you that your implicit assertion is not truthful. I put it to you that you cannot go find your own 40 exact quotes where George Bush said that we were going to "stay the course" in Iraq. I put it to you that it was what you would call a lie to suggest that such exact quotes exist. Prove me wrong, if you can, by documenting 40 separate occasions on which George Bush used the words "stay the course" (with any form of the verb "stay") to indicate his intentions with respect to Iraq.

You also wrote, "One can't call bashing democrats speaking truth to power because, well, look around. They aren't in power", showing that you either misunderstood my point or are sidestepping it while pretending to respond. My sarcastic point was that it is hypocritical to extol Keith Olbermann's Bush-bashing while deploring the administration's democrat-bashing with an innuendo that they are neo-fascist, as dand did. More broadly, it is hypocritical to complain of Rush Limbaugh's rhetoric while extolling Olbermann's.

I don't listen to Limbaugh, so I am not in a position to point out the "basis on the ground" for his opinions. On the few occasions on which I have heard Limbaugh, I have found his rhetorical style as distasteful as Olbermann's; and I think anybody who approves of Olbermann loses all credibility when complaining about Limbaugh's style.

[gailkate]

Too unworthy to respond

[SeattleDan]

Tony Snow said that the phrase "Stay the Course" was used by the White House maybe eight or nine times. Olbermann documented, mercifully, here, at least 29 times Bush used it.

thank-you-keith-olbermann.blogspot.com/

You will need to scroll down to the thread "Stay the Course".

It's a failed policy. People are dying every day. Precious human life is lost everyday for a very dubious foreign policy agenda.

Joew, and Edsfam, I don't believe either of you are neo-fascists. And I never would.I don't believe either of you accept a neo-fascist agenda.
But you do need to look at the President and his cronies much more carefully. The trade-off of secuity for freedom doesn't work for me. "They hate us for our freedom". Really? As our freedoms erode? As a group of neo-cons set an agenda where they possess all the truth and tell me I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about what they are doing? It just doesn't work for me. And I will never believe that Cheney, Rummy and Rove know better than I do.

I don't feel safer since 9/11. I do feel that I need to love Big Brother.

[SeattleDan]

"The impeachment was for lying will under oath in the Paula Jones assault case"

Well, no, it was for lying while being deposed about Monica Lewinsky. Or for lying about being seduced by a young woman who's agenda was to seduce the President. Bad choice on his part. But vindictive on the part of the GOP leadership who never accepted his election, twice, to the Presidency.

[joew]

Thanks for the link, dand. I went to it but did not see any list of occasions on which GWB said "stay the course." I did find something that said "How do I Stay the Course ? Let me Count the Ways," but it did not work as a link, nor did the list follow it. There was a small link that said "Iraq," but when I went to it, I got a blank screen. This all may be the result of my Mac OS 9.1 being unable to keep up with all the bells and whistles of the new programs which get introduced as part of corporate America's program of planned obsolence.

So if you would do me the courtesy of copying and pasting the 29, I will count them to j*'s credit and she will only need 11 others to make an honest woman of her.

[joew]

Depends on how you mean "never accepted his election." A lot of us thought he was an awful man who never should have been elected, but I don't recall us having as an article of faith the fantasy that he was not the elected President. I believe the Republican leadership accepted as fact that the American people had made the terrible mistake of electing the smooth-talking … person. (And I hope you notice with approval that I refrained from using any of the insulting characterizations which came to mind.)

[SeattleDan]

Joew, I hope this link works:

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Friday Night Clips
Keith bids farewell to :

" Stay the Course "

You do have to scroll down a ways to the link I provided earlier.

[SeattleDan]

Appreciated, joew, and please appreciate that I make no personal remarks about the character of the present POTUS.

[SeattleDan]

And why are you still awake? It's only 10:15 here, but in your time zone, that means it's 1:15. Get some sleep man.

[joew]

Well, Dan, the second link you gave did not display as a link or act as one, so I went back to the earlier one and scrolled until I found the following (with lots of blank space in the middle):
"Saturday, October 28, 2006

Friday Night Clips

Keith bids farewell to :
" Stay the Course "
Keith & Turley on the Orwellian selling of Water Boarding :
Give the Republicans a few more weeks, and Water Boarding will be like saying " Slip and Slide " .... Nothing but some clean wet fun .
Clips from : NotWithBush
ADD YOUR " ATTA BOYS " RIGHT IN HERE :



posted by colorado bob at 5:25 PM 2"ATTA BOYS" HERE | Trackback links to this post   


Friday, October 27, 2006"

The only thing in there that worked as a link was the "Not with Bush," but it did not give the list.

So at this point I have not seen any list, and I can't get to one. Maybe j* will be able to find it and do a copy+paste so as to reduce her task by 72.5%.

It's getting late back East, so I'm going to get some shut-eye, and tomorrow I'll see what you kids can come up with "while Massachusetts sleeps."

[SeattleDan]

Should have been a Youtube link there. I'll try to find you a better link. Or maybe Julia* or someone else can. Sleep well in ol' Mass.

[ptcaffey]

//Joe: So at this point I have not seen any list, and I can't get to one. Maybe j* will be able to find it and do a copy+paste so as to reduce her task by 72.5%.//

President Bush claimed: "We've never been 'stay the course.'" On his show, Olbermann documented 29 exceptions to Bush's lie. Here they are:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WArKo6qbocw

Is Olbermann's list exhaustive? No. His are instances "caught on videotape." Since the war began, Bush has also given many interviews to both radio and print reporters. Surely, he must have repeated himself in those domains as well--thundering repetition being his preferred form of oratory.

[ptcaffey]

John Kerry is a truly awful speaker, and I hope that this incident will put to rest any thoughts he may have about running again for president. But anyone who seriously believes that it was Kerry's strategy to deliberately insult American military forces in Iraq is daft. Those conservatives who are feigning indignation, on the other hand, are not daft; they are quite clever, if also thoroughly dishonest. But it's all a game of throwing red meat to the mob, for them.

On the subject of Kerry, I won't quote Olbermann. Instead, I choose the words of Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens, as many may know, renounced the Left after 9/11 and has been ardently pro-Iraq War from the start; he remains so. He was also one of Bill Clinton's most relentless critics; indeed, Hitchens devoted an entire book to his take on Clinton's honesty, or lack thereof, entitled, "No One Left to Lie To."

Renouncing the Left, cheerleading Bush's war and despising everything Clinton--I offer these as evidence of the kind of fair and balanced "objectivity" even a Fox News viewer must love.

Hitchens: "I didn't remember anything being as shamelessly distorted as Kerry's hapless attempt to tell a feeble joke about Bush's I.Q. But it seems to me quite Nixonian what the White House and the Republican Party have been doing. It's self-evident that Kerry wouldn't have tried to equate stupidity with military service. And it's an attempt to change the subject in the crummiest way... It looks like it's talking about Iraq when it's not."

[ptcaffey]

//Edsfam: The impeachment was for lying will under oath in the Paula Jones assault case. Why is it so hard for this easliy understood fact to get into some ones head. The affair with Monica was a side story but not the basis for the impeachment. Every time someone that seems fairly intelligent says something like Clinton was "impeached for an affair" they lose all of their credibility.//


Facts? Did someone mention facts?

1. The civil complaint brought by Ms. Jones was not an "assault case." An assault is a threat of violence. The Jones case was filed as a typical sexual harrassment case, alleging job detriments.

2. In the impeachment of President Clinton, the House Judiciary Committee did indeed draft an indictment that Clinton lied under oath in the Paula Jones case. This was Article II. Article II was rejected by the full House, 229-205, and was never brought before the Senate.

3. In fact, Clinton was impeached for (a) perjury before Ken Starr's grand jury, and (b) obstruction of justice related to the Jones case (Articles I & III). The perjury charge related to Clinton's statements about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; it had nothing to do with Jones herself. The Jones case was the vehicle for getting into the Lewinsky affair.

4. Article I (perjury) and Article III (obstruction) were both rejected by the Senate at trial.

5. Those behind Clinton's impeachment--stalwart conservatives such as Henry Hyde, Robert Livingston, and Newt Gingrich--did their best to conceal their own marital infidelities. Not surprisingly, this included lying. As luck would have it, they did not lie to an independent prosecutor; they only lied to their wives. Which, I guess, makes them patriots.

6. Why it is so hard for these easliy understood facts to get into someone's head remains a total mystery.

[juliastar]

If I thought it would knock Bush off that pedestal you've put him on, I'd go cut and paste your 40 quotes, Joe. It's not like they aren't out there or that it's something you can't do yourself if you really have any doubt that Bush has been uttering the phrase "stay the course" like a parrot for years. And why does it matter what he says, it is not like there is any meaning behind it. The truth is the man doesn't have a clue as to how to get us out of Iraq. It is a quaqmire position. If there were any good strategies that would work one would think they would have been tried by now. If they have been trying them all along, why are things getting worse instead of better and so where is there any confidence that Rumsfeld and company are doing anything but squandering lives and money. Think of the competitive infrastructure we could have built for the sake of our own people in places like Ohio, Ed, with the money we have, excuse me, pissed away in the desert.

[brutus]

juliastar said:

If I thought it would knock Bush off that pedestal you've put him on, I'd go cut and paste your 40 quotes, Joe. It's not like they aren't out there or that it's something you can't do yourself if you really have any doubt that Bush has been uttering the phrase "stay the course" like a parrot for years. And why does it matter what he says, it is not like there is any meaning behind it. The truth is the man doesn't have a clue as to how to get us out of Iraq. It is a quaqmire position. If there were any good strategies that would work one would think they would have been tried by now. If they have been trying them all along, why are things getting worse instead of better and so where is there any confidence that Rumsfeld and company are doing anything but squandering lives and money. Think of the competitive infrastructure we could have built for the sake of our own people in places like Ohio, Ed, with the money we have, excuse me, pissed away in the desert.

:oI'm shocked!! J* passed up an opportunity to cut and paste not one, not two, or even her usual dozen, but FORTY quotes!! She must be feeling ill!!!

~B~

[gailkate]

I watch a lot of news, 24/7. I've seen full speeches and lengthy clips that many who have not had time were not able to see. I guess it doesn't matter whether you believe me, but for the record, "stay the course" became hackneyed some time ago. Maybe around the time of Fallujah.

Thanks for the good research on the impeachment, PT. It's all there in the record for those who want to argue, including the man (representative?) who had to resign because of his own affair he knew was about to be made public. I didn't mean to drag the impeachment into the discussion, only to point to what I felt was the definitive moment that turned bi-partisanship into enmity. Of course there were others; for me that was the last straw.

The following is something that will move us all, no matter whom we blame or what course we think needs to be followed. This is what we must keep foremost in our minds and hearts.




Large file........be patient.

www.clermontyellow.accountsupport.com/flash/UntilThen.swf

[joew]

juliastar said:

If I thought it would knock Bush off that pedestal you've put him on, I'd go cut and paste your 40 quotes, Joe. It's not like they aren't out there or that it's something you can't do yourself if you really have any doubt that Bush has been uttering the phrase "stay the course" like a parrot for years. And why does it matter what he says, it is not like there is any meaning behind it. The truth is the man doesn't have a clue as to how to get us out of Iraq. It is a quaqmire position. If there were any good strategies that would work one would think they would have been tried by now. If they have been trying them all along, why are things getting worse instead of better and so where is there any confidence that Rumsfeld and company are doing anything but squandering lives and money. Think of the competitive infrastructure we could have built for the sake of our own people in places like Ohio, Ed, with the money we have, excuse me, pissed away in the desert.

I am not going to go on a wild goose chase trying to do your research for you, j*. You should have done it for yourself before you made a statement you cannot back up. Perhaps if you had done so, you would not have written something which you would call a lie.

And now you have the something-or-other to ask, "And why does it matter what he says[?]" If you think what he says doesn't matter, why did you waste your time writing about it? You said something about what he says because you thought it did matter, and now we know that it was a fabrication on your part. I guess Kerry is your kind of politician: you thought it matters what Bush says before you thought it doesn't matter.

BTW, you may be right about the administration not knowing how to deal with the insurgency in Iraq. They certainly haven't handled it in a manner to inspire confidence. But it may also be that nothing else would have produced a better result.

[joew]

Thanks, PT, for the youtube link. Of the 162 items on the google search that it directed me to, a lot were by other people or pre-Iraq, some did not include the phrase, "stay the course," and one or two used it to refer to other things. Omitting the irrelevant items, there are 48 or 49 instances where the President used the phrase to describe his policy with regard to Iraq. If only j* had done her research, she would not have had to fabricate a number and she could have pointed to it to begin with.

Well done.

[edsfam]

Thanks for the clarification PTC ( where the hell you been? )
I knew there was more to the Impeachemnt proceedings but did not have the time to go into right then.

But my point still stands Clinton was not "impeached for having an affair" so stop saying that.

_E_

[carolion]

OK OK. Back to the quote.
Somebody else - Probably a Democrat - Probably Franklin D. Roosevelt - is the actual author of "We will stay the course." If not FDR, then try Winston Churchill. But more than likely it's FDR.
So has he ever been given the credit?

Anyway, it's not a "course" we're staying, but a curse.

That said, it's really important to note that Mr. Bush has a real gift of storytelling. I'm not being sarcastic here. I noticed it from the beginning - and I'm sure I'm not alone. He keeps his plot simple - so we know he has a plot. People like plots. Americans happen to love plots about "giving our lives for Freedom" - so that's the plot. Then there are lots of sub-plots, which may be deduced by:
1. Headlines and Soundbites
2. Comedians
3. The piano in the dark, while we watch the silent movie AND read lips.....
4. What's on the WEB

Anyway, "Stay the Course" is something that fits perfectly into the simple repetition of the plot about "Brave Americans Giving Their Lives For Freedom." What a great line! Heck, it doesn't matter who coined it - just - look how dramatic it is, how it sends people right into the movie theater watching all the great old WWII movies about "staying the course." It's Hollywood!!!!

That is a real storytelling gift. Whatever else people say, and I'm one of them who does say a lot of "else," I have to honor that gift.

Too bad it's being used as a small-g "gift" instead of a Great G-d GIFT. That's really very much too bad.
A small-g gift uses surface-y kinds of stories with lines copped from here and there, to advertise and manipulate and "sell" something.

A Great G-d GIFT uses deep mythos/high Truth to assist people in awakening their Will-To-Good.

Too bad about the abused gift, I say.

But every storyteller is, in country terms, a "liar." And every storyteller must choose - good or ill, my gift of words? Help or abuse, heal or harm? There are stopping places along the way.
I pray that this particular storyteller find a way to rest his personality from the surface "war-is-hell" sitcom for a few moments so that his Higher Self can coach him in the best way to tell the deep-running "Freedom means Being Truth" history channel documentary.

[edsfam]

"Stay the course" is as much of a Rorshach(sp) test as any phrase thrown out by any politician. "Stay" means different things, "the course" is ill-defined and undirected so the phrase is meaningless.
And to add to that, the big debate in this thread is on how many times the empty phrase was uttered, not what it meant.
Basically an empty debate about an empty phrase.

That being said, I keep hearing the Dems say "We will go in a new direction" which to me says they are not going anywhere specifically, but to trust them because they are not Bush and their undefined course is better than Bush's undefined course. ... sigh.

There are tons of empty phrases but the "sound-bite", "20 second in depth reporting" and "pretty faces behind desks in the news room" like it that way and we are getting the government we deserve.
Even if the Dems win the House and the Senate there will continue to be empty sound bites, hidden agendas, overt lying, perversion in high places and malfeasence at all levels of mass media and government.

Keep your chin up.

_E_

[Gracie]

edsfam said:

I will wait patiently for our Democratic friends to come to the support of Foley with:
1.) It is his personal life, which should not be taken into account for anything.
2.) Everybody does it so it is excusable.
3.) Nobody died so it is forgivable.

Any one of these or you can make up your own new situational moralality excuses.

Why do you assume that?

I haven't heard ANY of my Democratic friends saying that. We're all pretty much disgusted.

As I said earlier, it isn't about party lines. What Foley did was terrible, and that would be true no matter WHAT party he represents. I think his back-pedaling "I'm gay, I was molested, I'm an alcoholic" and then disappearing into rehab was pretty damn cowardly. You make the mess, you should clean it up yourself.

I think we have hypocrisy in too many places....notice Mr. "Three Strikes and You're Out" where drugs are concerned Rush Limbaugh didn't think HE should be prosecuted for his drug problems?

Or today's revelations about Ted Haggard?

I just hate the assumption that all Democrats are so loose in their morals and Republicans are the only ones who observe the straight and narrow. We ALL fail, ALL make mistakes.

And I think pigeonholing is one of the dumbest things we can do. I really wish in that respect there were no political parties at all. I never have voted based strictly on party and I never will.

[juliastar]

Actually, Ed, your post is the closest thing to a defense of Foley that I've seen. Democrats do not condone pedophilia, nor do they condone exploitation. The hypocrisy of the whole situation within the party that markets itself as being better than other people while ignoring and covering up what was obviously inappropriate for the sake of partisan politics is what is so very off-putting.

[juliastar]

maybe you don't listen to Limbaugh, Joe, but your Bush goes on his show to be interviewed and it isn't to suggest that he turn down his hateful rhethoric.

What will it change when I cut and past 40 quotes? Will you promise to vote the pure Democratic slate or will you still dutiful "stay the course" because your identity is that of being republican? Whether he has said stay the course once, forty or one hundred and forty times, what has he done in Iraq? Cheney and Rumsfeld are here to stay. I'm not staying the course but I'm staying the course. What might we have done with the money pissed away in the desert?

Bush made a mess in Iraq and he and his supporters have the gall to mock other people for not putting a solution on the table. The public knows that whatever the dems might do, it can't be any worse and it might just be a little less indifferent to how many people die.

[gailkate]

Did anyone click on the link I posted?

[joew]

j* — PT's link to the website where the quotes could be readily found takes care of my request for a citation. If I had gone on an unaided search, it is highly doubtful that I would have hit on the listing. So if I had tried it for myself I would probably not have found 48 or 49 instances of Bush saying "stay the course" with respect to Iraq, and I might have been more certain than ever that the number was inaccurate.

Now, however, thanks to PT, I must acknowledge that your number of "40 exact quotes where he said just that" was not inaccurate; and therefore I must further acknowledge that your use of the number was not, as I characterized it, "what you would call a lie." I regret my mistaken assumption that the number could not be verified.

I also must thank dand for his efforts to direct me to a site where at least 29 documented instances could have been found.

[ptcaffey]

I watched it, Gail. Where did you find it?