Yeah, and if Massachusetts was a country, they would have a turd for a president.

Posted by: dickmr at October 9, 2004 09:32 AM

No way would Missouri be number three. (we can’t use tables? Criminy!)

Country; population; troop levels
USA; 293,027,571; *
UK; 60,270,708; 8,361
Italy; 58,057,477; 3,085
South Korea; 48,598,175; 2,800
Poland; 38,626,349; 2,400
Ukraine; 47,732,079; 1,576
Netherlands; 16,318,199; 1,345

Missouri; 5,704,484; 2,750

There are more countries (such as Australia) larger than Missouri that belong on this list.

Senator Kerry said Missouri would be the third largest country, not have the third largest presence. Which is plainly false. Or do we need to start considering GNP, land area, or (who knows) land volume (average elevation times land area)?

Posted by: Tomorrowist at October 9, 2004 04:43 PM

You shouldn’t hold it against Kerry if he doesn’t appreciate the sacrifice of smaller countries.

After all, he values the worth of his marriage partners by the size of their bank accounts.

Posted by: capitano at October 9, 2004 07:29 PM

Didn’t Kerry say the same thing about Ohio during the first debate? Maybe he’ll say the same thing about Arizona on Tuesday.

Posted by: Jeff M. at October 10, 2004 05:01 PM

Should we really care whether Senator Kerry and his campaign has shown they can do basic arithmetic? Largest country or largest presence (a good point even though I would chalk that up to debate pressures) aside, is this really the extent of Senator Nuance’s reasoning capabilities?

Poland fields basically the equivalant number in Iraq as, say, Missouri, despite having 1/3 the resources to support them (Parity purchasing power: Missouri - $31.8k vs Poland - $11.1k). How about El salvador: 450 in the field despite having population of 6.6M and a PPP of 4.5K (15% of Missouri’s). Regardless of the absolute numbers, I have an awful lot of respect for the efforts and sacrifices they are making (and the Bulgarians, etc.)

That Senator Nuance thought this point was worth making and, to top it all off, the’body bag’ way in which he made it, brought to mind the philosophy of those other great Commanders-in-chiefs throughout history who always arranged to be led into battle by the least armored, least capable, least integrated and least battle ready.

Kerry, unfit to serve by any calculation.

Posted by: Dusty at October 10, 2004 06:18 PM

good God, you people….I understand that this kind of mindless knit-picking allows you to duck thinking about the deliberate and malicious lies that your CiC dribbles out (with the help of that ear-piece), but it’s hardly the kind of thing useful debate is based on.

How about those magnificent election returns from Afghanistan, eh? Let’s see, the registered women aren’t allowed to vote by the Taliban gangs still rampant throughout the country, fewer than 14% of the registered voters could identify more than 2 of the 15 candidates, the voting ink smears which invalidates the vote, every candidate but the one the U.S. put in has threatened to boycott the elections because of the rampant fraud….and I bet George W will again claim on Wednesday that it’s a great step forward for democracy! Or, if forced to admit that the election is a farce, he’ll refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever for any mistakes on any level, the way he did in the debate when that woman asked him to consider any 3 mistakes he’s ever made. Yeah, ramble on about the ratios and near numbers about the Missouri analogy…it’s really relevant. Very proud of the concise and well-thought discussions here….sheesh

Posted by: Jatsby at October 11, 2004 03:39 AM

Jatsby: Time for a Fisking.

good God, you people….I understand that this kind of mindless knit-picking allows you to duck thinking about the deliberate and malicious lies that your CiC dribbles out (with the help of that ear-piece), but it’s hardly the kind of thing useful debate is based on.

In other words, Kerry lied, and was caught lying. Or, let’s be charitable, he was careless with the facts when he thought he could get away with it. As for those tin-pot little countries like Australia, Italy or Poland, they’re no ‘Murricans so they don’t matter. This is, after all, all about BUSH=HITLER and nothing else matters.
Sorry, as a citizen of one of those aforementioned tin-pot little countries, I take this personally.

How about those magnificent election returns from Afghanistan, eh? Let’s see, the registered women aren’t allowed to vote by the Taliban gangs still rampant throughout the country,

And your source is? Because that’s not what the BBC people actually there are saying -

But what has been most remarkable is the large scale participation of women. In the northern Balkh province, women came out in their bridal finery - with beads around their necks and henna on their hands - to vote.

In Kabul, at the end of the day, emotional women told the BBC that it had been the most memorable day in their lives. Some of them were in tears. One old woman said she’d woken up early in the morning and then woke up her sisters saying: “We have to get out to vote. The future of Afghanistan is at stake.”

And

Women have been turning out in especially large numbers. At one polling station, officials told us there had been more than 600 women through, and only 500 men.

The web is full of scenes showing women turning out to vote. Or are you saying theye’re all Photoshopped?

fewer than 14% of the registered voters could identify more than 2 of the 15 candidates,

And your source is? And have you never voted in an election where you didn’t recognise the names of every candidate? Not the parties - the candidate. Because in Afghanistan, and I quote the BBC again,

…Inside each receives a huge voting card with the photos and names of all 16 candidates, plus their electoral symbols.

. For myself, in the contest for the Senate seats here in the Australian Capital Territory, I only recognised about 1/2 of the (13) candidates names, and had no idea who the people were in the “Liberals for Forests” party, or the “Family First” party. Do you know the names of all electoral college candidates who are Republicans in your state? But I repeat : what’s your source?

the voting ink smears which invalidates the vote

By that logic, the US has never had a valid vote then - or are you saying that in the US, every voter in every election is marked with indelible ink after voting? Becuase that’s not the case here in Australia.

every candidate but the one the U.S. put in has threatened to boycott the elections because of the rampant fraud

Partially true - they did pull out as soon as they heard about the ink problem - but as that was less than 2 hours after voting began 9and after some of them had voted), accusations of “rampant fraud” would seem to be a bit premature. No matter, it’s a major problem that they pulled out, for whatever reason.

and I bet George W will again claim on Wednesday that it’s a great step forward for democracy!

From the BBC again:

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) - which contributed to the 230 foreign monitors for the polls - acknowledged that there were some irregularities during the poll that should be investigated.

However, OSCE Ambassador Robert Barry said on Sunday “the candidates’ demand to nullify the election is unjustified and would not do service to the people of Afghanistan who came out yesterday, at great personal risk, to vote”.

Meanwhile, the Free and Fair Election Foundations of Afghanistan (Fefa) - the single largest observer group - said that “a fairly democratic environment has generally been observed in the overall majority of the polling centres”.

But vote observers were deployed thinly around Afghanistan’s 25,000 pollings stations because of security fears, and full monitoring operation was not attempted.

The UN, which helped organise the poll, has praised the “massive” turnout in the election.

More than 10 million people were registered to vote, many of them refugees living in Pakistan and Iran.

The ousted Taleban regime has dismissed the election as foreign-sponsored and has said it will continue its armed struggle.

However, fears that militants linked to the Taleban would carry out their threat to sabotage the vote appear to have been largely unfounded.

So yes, I think he will. You, the Taliban, and possibly Senator Kerry will no doubt disagree - or at least, say so in public, no matter what you may believe in private.

Or, if forced to admit that the election is a farce, he’ll refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever for any mistakes on any level

Yes, Afghan officials using the wrong pen is all Bush’s fault, as is Global Warming, Hurricane Ivan, the War of 1812, and the pending Heat Death of the Universe.

You had a preconceived notion of what the elections would be like, and no evidence to the contrary is likely to shake your view. But I found fisking you fun, and therapeutic, as I (like most Australians) are starting to get a little cheesed-off with Kerry’s - and your - “unilateral war” lie. Along with the bogus statistics you make up to butress your case.

Hopefully I’ve stung you into giving some URLs to prove me wrong - in which case I might learn something. If not, well, as I said, it was fun.

Posted by: aebrain at October 11, 2004 07:59 AM