TheAgitator.com
Jumping Ship
Monday, October 25th, 2004The conservative Tampa Tribune, which enthusiastically endorsed President Bush in 2000, expresses its disappointment in his first term, and opts to withhold an endorsement this year.
The paper cites Bush’s fiscal record and his poor stewardship of the war in Iraq. Self-described “pro-life libertarian” (much like your humble Agitator) Stephen Chapman goes a step further, and endorses John Kerry.
They join Bush 2000 endorsees who have switched to Kerry in Chicago Sun Times, the Albuquerque Tribune, the Portland Oregonian, the Seattle Times, and the Crawford, Texas Iconoclast.
Yeah, that Crawford, Texas.
Here is good one for you. A Stalinist rag worried about the US bill of rights. One could argue that it would take a lot of effort to make THAT paper worry about a loss of â??rightsâ??.
But I guess, as the saying goes: Mission Accomplished.
First, the Crawford paper is run by the town’s Democratic mayor. Big surprise.
Second, check out Tom Palmer’s site (or my own) to see the open letter former libertarian Presidential candidate John Hospers has written to libertarians.
As the only LP candidate to receive an electoral vote, Hospers might warrant a response.
John, Here’s a good response.
For the record, Kerry’s home town paper endorses Bush. There are just as many Democrats ‘jumping ship’ to join Bush. You’re starting to look like the major media Radster … only reporting one side of the story.
Just like this ‘missing explosives’ story which is blowing up in the face of Kerry and the press because they were missing in April of 2003. If we had been able to ‘rush to war’ faster, we might have gotten them in time. How about instead of blaming Bush for the 1100 dead in Iraq we blame the UN and people like Kerry for making us play the waiting game? I still think WMD were moved to Syria while we were ‘rushing to war’.
I don’t think you can be a conversative or a libertarian and endorse Kerry for President.
That article that John posted was ridiculous. The author is bitching about people having their freedom of speech infringed by private businesses. That’s not the samething as the FCC or some other government agency saying that you cannot express your views. That’s a marketing decision; not a violation of free speech. You don’t see any auto-makers putting little airbrushed paintings of Hitler on their vehicles do you? You don’t see the Heniz company putting Kerry/Edwards ’04 labels on their bottles do you?
And last time I checked, Michael Moore and the Dixie Chicks are still raking in cash from the (crappy) products they produce. Oh wait…the Chicks aren’t because they were too stupid to read the fine print on the contracts they signed. Maybe they should have learned how to read before learning how to play the banjo.
Does anyone care if a newspaper endorses their candidate? I surely do not. Another example of the media making itself the news.
Anon. said:
I don’t think you can be a conversative or a libertarian and endorse Kerry for President.
Personally, I don’t think you can be a conservative or a liberterian and endorse dubya for president…the gov’t hasn’t grown this much since the Great Society…
so when you vote dubya not only do you get all the huge gov’t spending, you also get to lose civil liberties, while the religious right gets to tell me what is my morality.
how could any lib actually vote for dubya…at least with kerry i’ll get gridlock, which will curb spending…and at the same time he’ll appoint a couple of justices who may be in favor of civil liberty.
if i had to…i prefer kerry…however, i don’t have to vote the lesser of two evils
vote Badnarik
(i already did)
Who cares what an editor thinks?
If liberties include keeping the money I earn, I can’t vote for Kerry…
Mike, I agree with everything you said there. Just don’t think that because I bash Kerry, Moore and the Chicks that I’m a right-wing nut job. I’ll be voting for Badnarik as well…maybe even twice. :)
James D. writes: “There are just as many Democrats ‘jumping ship’ to join Bush.”
Prove it.
For the record, Kerry’s home town paper endorses Bush. There are just as many Democrats ‘jumping ship’ to join Bush. You’re starting to look like the major media Radster … only reporting one side of the story.
Posted by: James D on October 26, 2004 02:23 PM
Come on James. Stop pushing this Faux News fallacy. Pro-Iraqi Warriors Andrew Sullivan and Chris Hitchens have come out for Kerry. Buchanan’s American Conservative magazine has come out for Kerry. Stories of conservatives and Republicans jumping ship are ALL OVER THE PLACE. If one single leading progressive politican or pundit came out for Bush, it would be ALL OVER FAUX NEWS.
But it ain’t.
When the people who drank the kool-aid change their minds, it’s over.
Please provide us with ONE SINGLE leading Democrat or Progressive or Liberal commentator, magazine or person that is supporting Bush this year. If you can’t, your argument falls flat on its face.
Oh wait, Ed Koch and Zell Miller support Bush. Wow, you must be right….
BTW – Your spin on the Al Qa Qaa is pathetic. NBC news has already stated that the Bush campaign is “misleading” in their reading of their report that an embedded reported didn’t “see” any ammo or weapons. The troops at Al Qa Qaa weren’t LOOKING for weapons…they were fighting Saddam’s forces at the time.
“The commander of the first unit into the area (al Qa Qaa) told CBS he did not search it for explosives or secure it from looters. ‘We were still in a fight,’ he said. ‘Our focus was killing bad guys.’ He added he would have needed four times more troops to search and secure all the ammo dumps he came across.”
So it’s one of TWO CHOICES –
1) The weapons were there but we didn’t have enough troops to guard them
2) The weapons were removed before the invasion but AFTER the Bush Administration gave it’s ULTIMATUM to Saddam and the UN Inspectors were pulled out of Iraq.
Either way, it’s Bush’s screw up. The UN KNEW weapons were at al Qa Qaa – why weren’t airstrikes called for on this depot PRIOR to boots being on the ground? This is a standard military tactic when invading a country…blowing up munitions factories and weapons depots before troops take to the ground invasion.
At each and every point of this war in Iraq, the Bush Administration made the wrong decision. Too few troops, bad intelligence and a naive belief that “winning the peace” would be easy. When people like Sullivan and Hitchens and others that support the creation of a “democratic Iraq” put their endorsment behind Kerry, it’s becuase even they can see that this administration has been incompetent in it’s fighting of the war they support.
Oh, also – David Kay believes the stuff was looted after the invasion. But then he’s just a Bush-hater…like everyone else who once worked for this Administration and ends up being called a traitor because they disagree with the President.
And please save us the hackneyed “Monday Morning Quaterback” analogy that the Right is spinning. Anyone who actually WATCHES football knows that Monday Morning is the PERFECT time for a coach to decide WHO TO PUT IN AS QUARTERBACK NEXT SUNDAY. You watch the tape, look at the performace and you MAKE A CHOICE. Do you go with the guy who screwed up and threw interceptions and blew the game or do you put the hungry, new guy in? It’s that simple.
When you add this all up with the fact that “conservative” Bush has ran huge deficits while increasing federal spending and has greatly expanded the power of the federal government over individuals’ lives, it’s clear that Bush does not deserve re-election.
As the American Conservative magazine puts it:
“The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.”
Damn those commies at American Conservative….
Check out what Dr. John Hospers the 1972 Libertarian Presidential Candidate has to say. Good Stuff… http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41116
Nice way to pre-spin it … why does it have to be a ‘liberal’ Democrat who switches sides? Why not ANY Democrat … not ALL Republicans are ultra-conservative.
And that’s the stupidest way to spin the Al Qaa Qa story I’ve heard all day.
Step 1: Find a story.
Step 2: Blame Bush for everything.
You’re kind of not worth arguing with anyways. You say someone who hasn’t been a soldier can’t speak on war then you turn around and say those same kind of people dont’ have the right perspective so their opinion doesn’t matter? You’re not even consistent in your own bullshit.
I do watch football and even your analogy is WRONG.
And I agree with Frank N. … screw newspaper editors, I have my own opinion thank you.
Posted by: James D on October 27, 2004 03:14 PM
Um, it has to be a “liberal” Democrat because every example cited the “other way” is an example of a very conservative person endorsing Kerry.
On al Qa Qaa – great response. Fitting, actually. Call it stupid and move on.
On your “strawman” personal argument against me – again a great response. Has nothing to do with what was said, but arguing it must make you feel good, so go ahead.
Finally on FOOTBALL. This is where you really lose it. Do you want me to quote, chapter and verse, every single time in the history of Highschool, College and Professional Football where a head coach changed Quarterbacks based on poor performance the previous Sunday? I can quote Pee-Wee football as well.
Have you ever sat in the training room on Monday morning and watched tape? Come on. You don’t watch football. Anyone who does knows this question is asked every week in the NFL “Hey coach, who’s starting next Sunday?” And when the quarterback isn’t performing, the coach says “the other guy.”
Here we go again Succer:
- it takes about 2 seconds to Google links like this:
http://www.command-post.org/oped/2_archives/015908.html
http://democrats4bush.com/demcomments.shtml (of course these aren’t ‘liberal’ enough for you)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15547
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1253028/posts
I could go on, but you’ll just turn around and say ‘these aren’t major papers’ or some crap (ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of journalists are at best closet liberals).
- you always start with the ad hominem attacks, so that was a ‘pre-emptive strike’ against you. As for Al Qa Qaa, you’ll notice that some of that missing equipment might be classified as ‘WMD-producing’ ?? Notice how the media isn’t reporting it like that? Have you also not seen/heard the military men calling up where THERE saying the stuff was gone already?!
I mean, if Kerry wins this election, it will truly empower liberals (“Wow, all we had to do was pimp a bullshit Michael Moore movie and spin the news to get our guy in the White House – we can control the election whenever we want!”).
And football … come on, decisions made on Monday are split-second ‘reactionary’ decisions and don’t always hold through until the next game. Hell, the team I follow this year has started 5 different tailbacks (and 4 times they were different players than what the coach said would start the precious Monday).
If we had the ‘spotlight’ on every military action in this nation’s past like we have it on us today, nothing would ever have been accomplished. We whine about 800 dead soldiers after the major war was over yet we lost over 700 troops in one DAY in a training exercise practicing for D-day?! Half of this country doesn’t have the backbone for war and the press exploits that (and they have since Vietnam).
Typo: “Have you also not seen/heard the military men calling up who were THERE saying the stuff was gone already?!”
Posted by: James D on October 28, 2004 11:54 AM
A loud snore on the “dems for Bush”. Again, Zell Miller is the only *name* you can come up with. Equating “Bill from Cleveland” with people like Andrew Sullivan is hardly the same thing.
Your major papers comment is a cop-out. Some conservative papers, like the Detroit News, have not ENDORSED EITHER Bush or Kerry. That’s pretty bad – for Bush that is. Oh and if you actually READ the Pew Survey of journalists and not just listen to Bill O’Loofah talk about it, you’d know that the majority of editors and publishers of newspapers are conservative. And it’s those people that write the editorials.
Methinks it would be best if you drop the whole Al Qaa Qa thing. All networks and newspapers are now reporting the tape from the Minnesota TV crew that was embeded with the 101st Airborne there.
Munitions found in April have the IAEA seal – this is about as solid a proof possible that they had not been removed before the war. On Aaron Brown last night, David Kay confirmed it, calling it “Game, set and match”.
ABC News reported “Experts who have studied the images say the barrels on the tape contain the high explosive HMX, and the universal markings on the barrels are clear that these are highly dangerous explosives.”
I’ve provided links to the video and the ABC and NYT stories on it at the bottom of this post. Sorry James, these images (unlike the ones in the phoney and dishonest Bush commerical) are REAL. Not only was Kerry correct…you now have three days of the Bush Administration spinning different stories about it. And topping it ALL OFF, the Pentagon had the temerity to produce an overhead photo of “some trucks” near Al Qaa Qa.
Wasn’t it PHOTOS FROM THE PENTAGON that started this whole entire eff-up in Iraq in the first place? Excuse me if I don’t give them the benefit of the doubt on this one…
Even if HDX and RDX were the “WMD-producting” materials (which they are not since they are simply High Secondary Explosives with a Haz Cat of 1.1 D) you seem to be claiming…doesn’t this make MORE OF A POINT that the Bush Administration screwed up by either a) not guarding Al Qaa Qa or b) not detroying the site?
Sorry James, you can quote as many military or administration guys you want who are pimping the latest story out of the Bush Administration…the tape don’t lie.
On football – a tailback is not a quarterback. ’nuff said.
So NOW the problem is that there’s TOO MUCH of a spotlight on the war? Gimmie a break – if this kind of debate had been done prior to the invasion of Iraq, we a) wouldn’t be there now
or
b) would be there with 200,000 troops and another 100,000 from a REAL COALITION.
You’re big on having friends and family in the military – why don’t you ask them what force ratio is required to fight a guerilla enemy? At the very least, it’s 10 to 1. It’s estimated that we are facing an insurgency of 20,000. That’s 200,000 pairs of boots on the ground, MINIMUM, to wage a successful war.
I’m not even going to respond to the “backbone” argument. I have a DD214. My backbone is fine.
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3741.html?cat=1
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206847&page=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/politics/29bomb.html?hp&ex=1099022400&en=3386d85551d694e2&ei=5094&partner=homepage
You’ve linked to ABC and NY Times … both discredited organizations, especially in the past year … enough said. And the KSTP link says the material was nuclear-related?! Keep spinning it and living in your liberal dreamworld. And keep quoting Kay rather than Duelfer whose findings are more up-to-date and support everything I’ve stated.
I wasn’t saying YOU don’t have a backbone, but you’re ‘bragging’ on being in the military falls on deaf ears because of the amount of military friends and family I have. I’m 99% sure their experiences give me a better view into war than what you have to say. (The fact that a huge majority of the troops over there right now support Bush says something.)
The really sad part is we are MORE likely to get a draft under Kerry than Bush because a lot of good military men/women will quit if he wins (it happened big time under Clinton).