There has already been extensive coverage of this debate, which was taped yesterday. Here are a few links, so you know what to think before you've even seen it:
A must read from MyDD: Debate Train to Crazy Town.
Lamontblog has an extensive news round-up.
24 comments:
Lieberman: "nobody wants to end the iraq war more than i do". God this man can lie.
Schlesinger: "problem in iraq is political", not military.
Knibbs: Lieberman on short list to replace Rumsfeld.
I think Revolution analogies might be a little dated...
Schlesinger: real answer so troops can come home "naturally"
Sorry Joe-
No one is buying your bullshit anymore. Schlesinger has credibility. Lieberman doesn't.
Sorry Joe-
No one is buying your bullshit anymore. Schlesinger has credibility. Lieberman doesn't.
Wow. Sorry Mr. Thornton, but Knibbs and Ferrucci are showing why debates should be left to contenders.
Set America Free. Fire the Incumbents.
The best line is comming from schlesinger and lamont.
Scheslinger's internal polls have him at 20%. So basically he is going to get double digits. Sorry Joe You are in big trouble.
Lieberman: If I am re-elected, I will end all wars, and cure all terminal diseases.
Schlesigner: Well, why the h*ll haven't you done it yet?
Wolcottboy said...
Schlesinger's right on the politics- its Sunni vs. Shia thanks to al Queda.
I guess he's a Republican after all. Dumb as Dumbya.
What's your point, Jim?
Um....al Qaeda as an organization is about twelve years old. The rift between Shi'a and Shi'ite is more than twelve centuries old.
> That was al Queda's move, not the US's. We went in to topple Saddam.
> Al Queda saw their opportunity and moved in.
They only were able to do so because of us going into Iraq, though. We can't control Al Qaeda's behavior, you're right about that - and that's *the very reason* why instead of just blaming them for their murderousness (something we obviously already know) we instead need to focus on what we did to give them the opening, and avoid those mistakes in the future.
Can you imagine if conservatives reacted to high crime by simply blaming the criminals, not focusing on what we can do to improve the police department, and calling anyone who does so blame police firsters and anti-law and order? Can you imagine a professional fighter reviewing a tape of a fight he lost to train for a rematch, simply blaming the other boxer, and not focusing on what he did to give him the opening?
And yet, neo-cons use this jackass argument with the most important of all things, our national security, to suggest that anyone who wants to improve or alter our policies are blaming America first. You guys really need to pull your heads out of your asses before you get us all killed.
What was the deal with Lamont's hair? I kept expecting him to break into a rendition of "Ice, Ice Baby."
SWIFT BOATS ADS ACUSSING LAMONT OF RAISING TAXES IS GARBAGE!! STOP THE SWIFTBOAT ADS!!
Social Security:
Ferrucci - if there's a stock market crash, everyone loses the investment.
The value of the investments go down, but since retirement horizons can be 40 years or so away, you've got time to make the money back if you're young. As you get older, you shift more and more to bonds and less risky securities. But even at age 65, you should have some stocks, since you may live another 20 years...
If the stock market doesn't recover in 40 years, we'll have severe problems and social security won't be paying out anything either.
Also, note that state employee retirement systems (i.e., local teachers, firefighers, police, state govt employees, etc), which are run by the state governments, all invest in a wide variety of stocks, bonds, private equity, real estate, etc.
And yet, neo-cons use this jackass argument with the most important of all things, our national security, to suggest that anyone who wants to improve or alter our policies are blaming America first. You guys really need to pull your heads out of your asses before you get us all killed.
Your argument seems similar to blaming a rape victim for wearing provocative clothing.
Schlesinger is smart and direct to the point on alot of issues and his attacks on Lieberman really speak alot of truth.
I think Schlesinger is going to take back Republican in Connecticut and this will kill Liebermans chances of winning period.
Lamont now has got the train moving straight for victory November 7th.
Schlesinger should hit in the teens to 20% of the vote from Conservative Republicans .
> Your argument seems similar to blaming a rape victim for wearing provocative clothing.
No, Al Qaeda was able to get into Iraq because of our toppling a government under false pretenses, not because our troops were wearing miniskirts.
But even if you want to go with the clothing analogy, we weren't just a rape victim wearing provocative clothing, we were the naked drunk chick running up and down the road who got raped. Certainly, although the rapist was clearly the criminal, the victim would be expected to make better efforts to protect herself in the future; if she repeated the exact same behavior because 'it was all the rapist's fault', and she got raped again, would you feel the same amount of sympathy for her?
Conservatives are supposed to be tough on this stuff, and they always have been: protect yourself, don't rely on a victim mentality, and don't enable victims by showing bleeding heart sympathy for stupid behavior. The only exception to this wisdom seems to be when it comes to national security, where neo-cons take the exact opposite approach for some reason.
GMR, you're probably the smartest conservative who posts here, can you explain why that is? Because I sure as hell can't think of a reason.
Conservatives are supposed to be tough on this stuff, and they always have been: protect yourself, don't rely on a victim mentality, and don't enable victims by showing bleeding heart sympathy for stupid behavior. The only exception to this wisdom seems to be when it comes to national security, where neo-cons take the exact opposite approach for some reason.
I don't think that the US should change its policies to appease a bunch of terrorists. What exactly were the terrorists supposedly upset about? According to the 1998 fatwa issued by Osama, the three main Grievances for 9/11 were US support of Israel, US military occupation of the Arabian peninsula, and US aggression against the Iraqi people.
I still think that we should support Israel, and the governments of countries where we had troops invited our troops there (we didn't have troops in Iraq or Afghanistan yet, and they aren't on the Arabian peninsula anyway). The aggression against the Iraqi people was the enforcement of the no-fly zones etc. that were results of the first Gulf war.
Do you really think that our policy should be dictated by what a small minority of people in the Mideast want because they threaten terrorism? (It's only a small minority of the Muslims that are terrorists).
GMR is talking in circles to prove his predetermined theory and that may be why he leaves out the bit about our bases in Saudi Arabia. The military knows how to take a hill and they do it well. Stopping terrorists from committing terrible crimes against humanity isn't about taking a hill.
> I don't think that the US should change its policies to appease a bunch of terrorists.
My whole point exactly; I wrote a post about that VERY TOPIC just a few days ago on this blog:
"The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 wanted us to change our laws and democratic tradition to resemble the restrictions in the Middle East, and now they have succeeded in overturning over two centuries of Constitutional protections for American citizens, thanks to appeasers who toughen these laws completely oblivious to the fact that they're achieving Bin Laden's objectives more quickly that he could have imagined."
The only appeasement question is why have neo-cons been enacting pro-terrorist recruitment policies, and why do people like you feel the need to be apologists for that kind of enemy appeasement?
We know we're increasing terrorist recruitment levels with these policies, and yet neo-cons refuse to change them out of pride and denial. What better definition of appeasement is there than making terrorist recruitment a priority over our own security?
> I still think that we should support Israel
Israel is our ally, and we need to support them. However, but that requires a long hard look at whether our policies have really made us that good a friend to Israel.
American/Israeli foreign policy has backfired so much, particularly recently, that each country's troops and civilians have come under more and more danger. We're feeding the monster, not fighting it, and if we continue to endanger Israel by not appearing evenhanded in the region, we're not really being much of a friend to them (or ourselves).
> Do you really think that our policy should be dictated by what a small
> minority of people in the Mideast want because they threaten terrorism?
> (It's only a small minority of the Muslims that are terrorists).
I have been saying that since 2001, and once again I actually made that very point on this blog just a few days ago; however, I have no idea how you could have missed this one, seeing as I said it while debating with you:
"The real battle here is for the hearts and minds of over a billion Muslims, most of whom are reasonable people, just like anywhere else; we can win if they see this as civilization vs. anarchy, but right now we are LOSING. Every time the US is seen as supporting Israeli rogue behavior, or spends another bloody year in Iraq, the claims of American imperialism and anti-Islamic prejudice sound justified to most people, and the terrorists start looking like the lesser of two evils.
Also, just like anywhere else, the Middle East is a political spectrum; every time the US villifies itself in the eyes of the region, all the people shift one notch down that spectrum. With each time time we validate the terrorist caricature of us, those Muslims who support us strongly lose their fervor, those who support us mildly become neutral, those neutral become sympathetic to terrorists, and those sympathetic to terrorists become vulnerable to recruitment."
Our policy should NOT be dictated by a small minority of people in the Mideast, like it has been since 9/11; rather we should be focusing on convincing this majority of people that America is less of a threat to them than terrorism. After all, those who are already terrorists are clearly beyond any convincing, and must only be destroyed.
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