OK, but let’s not forego Honesty, Integrity, and the Honor of our cause.

Whether Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Eco-politicists, or other groups, there needs to be clear and frank discussion of the issues. When plain speaking is given up for the sake of being nice, the value of the debate is lost by such dissolution.

Strike out the boor and the bully, but leave alone the statement which speaks aloud the clear opinion of many people. And when a group declares its position because one other tries to pervert their meaning, this must be allowed, or anyone may pretend a thing in order to discount his opponent.

Speak plainly, and let opinions defend themselves!

Posted by: GDubya at April 24, 2004 03:27 PM

Respectability and civility would be nice and pretty, but there would be absolutely ZERO options available for Bush government defenders. If they cannot resort to silencing, demonizing, sliming, or in myriad ways dismissing opposition as anti-American, communist, Frenchloving, lunatic, effete, spawn of the devil, - there is simply no possible way to defend the Bush governments reckless and wayward misadventures, deceptions, abuses, negligence, and radical failures.

Theright complains about civility whenever the hideous truth becomes evident and the Bush government is exposed as a deceptive, abusive, failing, or negligent. Then the hollow cries come forth begging for a toning down of criticism and civility.

The Bush government is accountable, and if theright intends to defend the indefensible, and conscience the inconscionable, and excuse the inexcusable, with repect and civility - we (theleft) welcome the reversing of course and the new approach toward discourse and the critical debate. But the reality is, without sliming our fellow Americans as unpatriotic - there is no possible way to defend the monumental failures, radicals miscalculations, intentional deceptions, and grotesque abuse of power by the Bush government.

Posted by: Tony Foresta at April 24, 2004 06:33 PM

“monumental failures, radicals miscalculations, intentional decptions, and grotesque abuse of power”

You mean Bush is a stupid, lying, fascist, tyrant?

Posted by: old doggie at April 24, 2004 07:25 PM

See how it works Alan. Right away you get radical comments from the left that the world is falling apart, and George Bush is all at fault. If it wasn’t so pathethic it would be rather funny. They are the incivil baby killers, butt screwers, high tax government loving, anti-American, anti-God people. And there are lots of facts about this that they just can’t see. God out of everything..and lots of rhetoric that always ends in ….”oh yeah, but we do support our troops!’…..pretty bad. But then again they are finding that nobody is listening to them, but those few of like mind!! ha ha ha ha

Posted by: DickD at April 24, 2004 09:00 PM

Theright complains about civility whenever the hideous truth becomes evident and the Bush government is exposed as a deceptive, abusive, failing, or negligent. Then the hollow cries come forth begging for a toning down of criticism and civility.

Tony -

I am more than willing to admit that some of us on the right side of the aisle can go over the top with our rhetoric at times…just like those on the left side of the aisle.

I would like to challenge you to offer a document, snippet of a speech, or testimony of an individual that clearly lays out the “deceptive, abusive, failing, or negligent” behavior of the Bush Administration.

Before you get started with the well worn assault on this administration, let me defend those positions…just to give you something to talk about. ;)

Typically, “deception” is used in the Anti-War crowd in reference to the Intel leading up to the Iraq Invasion. Need I remind you that the Brits, Russians, French, Germans, Israeli, and virtually every other credible Intelligence community on the planet agreed with our assessment of the WMD threat of Iraq. The fact that we haven’t found anything of substance simply means one of two things. The World was mislead by Iraq and there was never WMD or they were moved to another country. Looky here, a truck load of chemicals from Syria taken in Jordan where they were apparently going to be used in a terrorist attack…wonder where they came from.

Typically, “abusive” is used in the Privacy crowd in reference to the Patriot Act. Without going into incredible detail, the Patriot Act simply allows the FBI to investigate individuals AFTER a judge has said it is allowable. In fact, the Patriot Act has done more to protect average American’s privacy than violate it. For the FBI to “invade” your privacy by looking through the local library’s records they have to show probable cause to a judge. Of course, if you buy into the Militia Movement school of thought, the FBI and CIA are out to get you anyway and the Judge has already been bought by the UN….or the Tri-Lateral Commission…or perhaps the Hapsburgs.

Typically “failing and negligent” are used in the Hate Bush crowd in the 9/11 prevention argument. I’m not sure you want to go here do you? If we are going to ask if President Bush was negligent when he didn’t stop 9/11 from happening then we can CERTAINLY ask why President Clinton didn’t stop any number of attacks against Americans including the Oklahoma Bombing and Atlanta Olympics bombing. While I consider President Clinton a scoundrel of the first order I do NOT believe that he could have stopped those events and certainly would have if he could have. There is evil in this world and sometimes we can’t stop it from acting.

Now…please continue with your defence of the accusations you make against our President.

Posted by: Wayne FIelder at April 24, 2004 10:16 PM

. . . and Wayne hits one into the right field corner for a triple! Respectful, civil, articulate, and hence highly persuasive. Geeze, if all of “our President’s” fans spoke like that some of us “scumbag lefties” might actually consider the arguments (although I think it’s “lookie”). You know, from what I know of the man, I can’t imagine Pat Tillman would have appreciated the name calling, by anyone.

Posted by: j at April 24, 2004 11:45 PM

Hey, I would be happy if the righties on this site could manage a response without dropping to name calling.

Posted by: typhonus at April 25, 2004 05:05 AM

Hey, I would be happy if the righties on this site could manage a response without dropping to name calling.

Posted by: typhonus at April 25, 2004 05:05 AM

Ty-Phool-US “Pot meet Kettle. Kettle, Pot.”

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at April 25, 2004 08:15 AM

I really don’t wanna make this post too long. I just wanna say that I really enjoy reading the Comments on various articles because I think it’s interesting that there can be so very different view points on the same event and what that event means for the rest of the world. So, I would just like to see this site continue this feature, because I think that it’d be a real shame for the people who don’t post to lose out on so many different perspectives because some of you people out there won’t get along in a Civil manner.
Not to say that there are some people out there who don’t deserve a good thrashing for some of the Filth that comes out of their mouths, but even they deserve the right to have a voice and even if it is filled with Crap.

And I would also like to mention that the best way for either side to win this would probably be to just allow the other side to continue talking. People out there who haven’t already been polarized by this election can easily pick up on Hypocrisy when they see it… everyone else is already blinded by their own opinions so they don’t even spot it unless it’s brought up by the other side.

Posted by: Lance at April 25, 2004 09:07 AM

Nice try Alan
yet hate will just hate
hate begets hate
and
spreads
still
God Bless Your Effort

Posted by: DP at April 25, 2004 01:36 PM

The list is long and festering, but briefly -

The deceptions are legend, and you only mention a few, but there is no more reverent decision a president can make than sending our daughters and sons to war, - and this presidents relied on a long list of deceptions to mis-or disinform the people and mass market the Iraq war (which we all know was on the Bush government agenda well prior to 9/11).

The Bush government has never been honest or forthcoming with the people with regard to the justifications, the costs, the timeframes, the force and long term commitments and the ultimate objective of the war in Iraq.

There is not one penny alloted for the 2004-2005 misadventure in Iraq, or continued military operations in Afghanistan.

Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 which Bush admitted, there is no evidence of any operational link between al Quaida and Iraq prior to the war, which Powell already admitted, and not one single piece of WMD has yet been unearthed in Iraq which every one has been forced to admit.

57 civil municipalities have enacted legislation prohibiting or curbing the radical rights abuses and privacy intrusions into the peoples into the peoples lives.

Percription drug laws authored by the Pharmacuetical, Healthcare, and Insurance industries, - deceptively miscalculating both the real costs, and the actual precedures and benefits of the new law.

Managment of our national forests are left to the tender mercies of the lumber industry.

Ken Lay continues living in oppulent luxury and his grand crimes go unmentioned, and un prosecuted, but thousand of dollars in fines are heaped on Janet Jackson for revealing a nipple.

Theright and Bush defenders rely on superhuman feats of mental gymnastics and the most airy and hollow single sourced, uncorroborated and cherry picked information to support this regime, - and ignore the mountains of evidence pointing to or revealing failures, deceptions, abuses, and negligence.

The reveng outing of Plame is a greivous treachery that will not be forgotten, and some high ranking official in the Bush government is accountable.

The initial annointment of Kissinger to head the 9/11 commission was the first hint of how hard the Bush government would work to stonewall, disrupt, suppress, and refuse to cooperate in good faith with the 9/11 investigation.

Poindexter creeping into various extragovernmental offices and conducting various abuses, only to be exposed, rebuked, and returned to the darkness from whence he came does not excuse the Bush government from repeatedly employing him, and adopting his criminal machinations in the first place.

The Saudi Bush government Faustian relationship is detailed by me in another post, and is wildly conflicted, and dangerous. The House of Saud’ may be “good friends” of the Bush government, but the Saudi’s are mortal enemies of America.

The spiriting around and eventually out of the country of 140 Saudi nationals, including bin Laden family members at the behest of the Bush government in the dark hours and days immediately following 9/11, when all US citizens were grounded, and before commercial air traffic had been renewed - is another grevious treachery and mysterious event that the commission only lightly touched upon (and confirmed) but failed to investigate completely.

The Bush government (the investigation has proved) was negligent prior to 9/11, and failed, or refused to heed loud and repeated alarms warning of imminent al Quaida threats.

The issue is not if 9/11 could have been prevented (we know it could and should have) - it is how exactly did 19 jihadist mass murderers with box cutters and $500,000.00 in Saudi funding defeat every office in the Bush government, our $400bn defense industry, and the entire intelligence apparatus on 9/11. The Bush government is accountable.

The sliming of our fellow Americans for asking the very questions the Bush government is only now being force to answer, and pointing out obvious problems and failures the Bush government (and tragically American soldiers and Iraqi innocents) are now confronting as a result of the stupidly simplistic, radically miscalculated, woefully misguided, and purposefully deceptive and cloaked rightwingideologue misadventure in Iraq is a telling abuse, that we on theleft will not forget, or forgive without recompense and an apology.

The Bush governments economic policies are mortgaging our childrens future, (the IMF warned of the potential the gargantuan Bush government debt has to disrupt the global economy).

The Bush government and Bush oligarchy’s endemic and systemic profiteering in Iraq and beyond is another issue that recieves little scrutiny, in the face of mountains evidence and facts, and the hard realities in the field proving outrageous abuses, nepotism, collusion, partisan favoritism, and rampant book cooking. Ask how many companies are involved, or how much of the peoples money is alloted to the private military company activities in Iraq and beyond, - and you will discover an obvious void.

The only thing more disturbing than Cheney conjuring a cabal of oil and energy cronies and cartels to draft the peoples energy policy and then cloaking the entire coven and its invidious activities and agenda - is Scalia not recusing himself from the upcoming Supreme Court trial.

I could go on, but it is far too depressing.

For there to be any reasonable discourse - both side must arrive at some foundation of facts and truth from which to base our opposing opinions.

How Bush government defenders ignore the realities in Iraq, - realities we on theleft presciently warned about months before the war - is a telling mystery.

The Bush government is environmentally irresponsible, economic policies are overtly pro super rich, and pro big business and have harmed and eroded the peoples bargaining power, and economic well being.

The diviciveness, secretive, revengefulness, and rightwingideologue delusion of the Bush government are epic.

The Bush government is accountable, and does not represent the interests or the will of the American people.

Posted by: Tony Foresta at April 25, 2004 05:29 PM

// but thousand of dollars in fines are heaped on Janet Jackson for revealing a nipple.//

ROFLMAO!!

Now that has to be the ULTIMATE “it’s all BUSH’s fault” I’ve even heard!

Posted by: TexasGal at April 25, 2004 05:32 PM

“I could go on, but it is far too depressing.”

Tony, I have to agree. As Steve Martin explained to John Candy in ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’: have a POINT. Your commentary has become tiresome.

Of course, I realize you’re trying to make a POINT, but I don’t have the time to readallyourrantings in their fairlypredictableleftist prattle.

At least drop the old “Bush secretly escorted bin Laden’s family out of the country” number. We all know now from testimony that Richard Clark okayed their departure. THAT Richard Clark. Give it a rest.

Posted by: torpedo_eight at April 25, 2004 07:50 PM

Wayne Fielder-

My money’s on the Hapsbugs. Old Europe, you know ;)

Posted by: marymcl at April 25, 2004 08:08 PM

If I may suggest a course?

In another site, this one dealing with Religion, which therefore encounters a wide range of behavioral concerns, there are posted certain expectations:

1. A poster may make no personal attacks. Profanity or clear insults are grounds for immediate deletion.

2. A poster may oppose an opinion, but must avoid inflammatory or reckless language (e.g. a candidate is compared to Hitler, or everyone in a party is like the Nazis). If a host believes a post has been made in order to attack or insult, the post may be immediately deleted.

3. Discussions exist to compare facts, opinions, and issues. It is not valid or acceptable to create a discussion for purposes not in line with the site’s stated intent.

Posts in violation of these rules would be deleted, and in severe cases, those who regularly violate the rules would be banned.

That site has operated rather effectively for 4 years now, in my opinion because of these clear and serious rules. Perhaps something like that might be established here.

Posted by: GDubya at April 25, 2004 08:11 PM

Your response is somewhat civil torpedo_eight, but you are misinformed about the spiriting out of the country of Saudi nationals issue, which Clarke OK‘d only after approval from above as he stated, and which is as usual being feverishly suppressed again - or do you believe Richard Clarke had the authority to make such a radical and mysterious decision on his own. Either way, Clarke worked for Bush, and the Saudi were spirited out of the country under our noses and with no adequate interrogation while American were grounded - so again - no matter how hard you attempt to excust the failure and abuse - the Bush government is responsible for a monumental and grievous treachery and yet another intelligence failure.

Of course, we know the truth has nothing to do with Clarke, (who was America’s foremost terrorist hunter) and that the Bush government directly is responsible for this abuse.

You miss the point TexasGal, by falsely accusing me of a message I did not send. I would hope Bush government had nothing directly to do with the Jackson spectacle and response, - but I know the Bush government is directly involved in allowing Ken Lay to slither out of the most costly and devastating instance of market and employee deception, book cooking, fraud, and thievery in the history of corporate America.

My commentary may be predictable prattle, but your hollow and vapid defense of the Bush government is based on fictions and myths which are continually proven false and evaporate before your eyes, - only to be replaced with new and more inventive and outrageous excuses, evasions, misdirects, partisan hagiography, and disinformation.

Bush government defenders are so invested in being right, - that they cannot or simply will not admit being wrong no matter how much evidence, or how many facts, and what truth is revealed.

Excusing, ignoring, and/or protecting the Saudi’s (Prince Bandars wife directly aided and abetted the minder of the San Diego cell of the 9/11 mass murderers, and we have the reciepts) - will result in more horrors for America.

Again, all the hollow, airy, single sourced, totally uncorroborated, and NOT CREDIBLE intelligence put forwad in defense of or lauding SA - conflicts with the mountains of well documented, (though underscrutinized, and never seriously talked about) evidence and hard facts proving Saudi funding and nurturing of jihadist mass murderers including al Quaida, the manipulative use of the “oil weapon”, the rampant profiteering in and from the Iraq misadventure, oil price racketeering with the Bush government, and complicit involvement in the horrors of 9/11.

Posted by: Tony Foresta at April 25, 2004 08:32 PM

Tony, your own words undermine your argument.

From the last paragraph in your most recent post, a few telling words:

“totally uncorroborated, and NOT CREDIBLE intelligence” used w/o evidence to discount a position you don’t like;

“mountains of well documented… evidence and hard facts” Used w/o evidence to claim you are right. Not at all convincing, that tactic…

“the rampant profiteering in and from the Iraq misadventure, oil price racketeering with the Bush government, and complicit involvement in the horrors of 9/11.” Again, no matter how strongly you believe such terms are true, using them w/o support, in what is clearly an emotional, and more importantly unreasonable attack attack, drives away those who would consider a more balanced opinion.

Posted by: GDubya at April 26, 2004 12:24 AM

Tony, i applaud you on atleast spelling Clarke’s name right. kudos for paying attention.

Now that being said, i’m getting the strange vibe that you think supporters of the current administration, sunch as myself, believe in some eebie jeebie magic hoopla which convinces us somehow to bow down and hang on POTUS’s every word.

Myself, and many of my right leaning friends simply find difference, i certainly would not say we manipulate any of the facts anymore than the left does (Michael Moore Anyone?). But to say there is no bias in either camp would be akin to telling you the planets are just some nefarious idea conjured up by some old bafoon.

Clearly dozens here would like to re-educate you on what we feel is right just as many on the left would like to re-educate us out of our ‘barbaric ways’ because everyone likes to be right. Arguing a point on ‘why cant you see’ is inevitably going to be fruitless. Instead continue to make your point and post/comment on the facts as you see them… “And the truth shall set you free”

Let people make up their own minds, and be civil, just be a guide for your point, its all any of us can hope to do to sway anyone else.

Posted by: matt at April 26, 2004 11:45 AM

Alan, Michele, I would like to add a thought about what you have here:

Many people don’t understand History well enough, to realize the significance of Free Speech. As recently as the “Town Crier” days of American Revolutionary times, the message spread by the crier was only the official proclamation of the government. Only when a free press began to spread, could ordinary people hope to have a voice.

Yet, as The New York Times has made abundantly clear, when someone has enough money and power to control the media to a large measure, the opinions of the ordinary fellow are again suppressed. A few “Letters to the Editor” do not make up for the spin, even propaganda, churned out by these empires of persuasion.

Enter the blogs.

Only in the Internet, can an ordinary person attract the respect and attention of thousands, perhaps millions, solely on the strength of his argument and reason. And a big part of the strength of such sites, is the freedom and ability for readers to respond directly and immediately to the site’s posts.

This is truly something new under the sun, and a thing well worth protecting, even when it becomes aggravating to clean up after some troll.

We all owe this site our respect and cooperation, as the ‘Net community of America in full voice. And I hope Alan and Michelle will not only accept our thanks, but continue to allow us our voice in this forum, which represents the American ideal in debate.

Thank you both, sincerely.

Posted by: GDubya at April 26, 2004 12:07 PM

Thanks, Alan & Michele. I think The Command Post can be the best of the blogosphere - where true debate and exchange of ideas can occur.

You’re right to keep the debate civil. If you don’t, the lack of civility will just turn off the potential commenters who wish to actually share ideas and make substantive arguments.

One point - you should probably boil your comment policy down to a few simple bullet-points and post them prominently somewhere near the top of your main page. (Blog readers have notoriously short attention spans).

Thanks again.

Posted by: nikita demosthenes at April 26, 2004 01:03 PM

Tony: “not one single piece of WMD has yet been unearthed in Iraq which every one has been forced to admit.”

Well, actually no. I don’t admit an absence of “pieces of WMD”. Per David Kay’s congressional testimony on 2 October 2003:

“Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist’s home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.”

“New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.”

“Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists’ homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).”

“A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.”

Later Israeli reports and I believe Kay’s later report at the beginning of this year indicate that the last items were equiped with dispensers to broadcast chemical or biological weapons (which the previous items documented).

The pieces of WMD were there in Iraq. As Bush said in the 2003 state of the union address, the threat was not imminent. So far we have not discovered large stockpiles of ready to use WMD, but that doesn’t mean an absence of a WMD threat.

A disassembled semi-automatic pistol and its ammunition is a pile of metal and chemicals. In a matter of minutes it can be a deadly weapon. Likewise, Saddam had the dissassembled pieces of WMD capability that could have been converted into weapons in a matter of weeks or at most months.

Posted by: lee at April 27, 2004 06:45 PM