I find it hard to believe that you can’t see how that point is relevant to the issue that you brought up yourself. I’m saying that I am keeping an open mind until I hear whether or not each of these men gives more specifics in the days to come. Can you also say that you are keeping an open mind about both of them?

Think about it. Just to give you one example, Rush. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. He ran a training camp in Afghanistan for Al-Qaeda, then migrated after we went into Afghanistan and shut ‘em down there, he went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then of course led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He’s the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shi’a and Sunni. This is Al-Qaeda operating in Iraq, and as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.

The emphasis is mine. Then Rush says that the Democrats know all of this. In other words, the Democrats somehow know that this complete twisting of the facts that Cheney has come up with is in fact true and that they are still willing to leave Iraq even though he knows that Saddam was supporting Al-Qaeda (Or is he claiming that Al-Qaeda actually operated without Saddam’s approval?).

When you say that the Democrats know that their actions will cause us to lose and they are intent on doing so anyway then yes, you are saying that the Democrats want us to lose.

Of course another view might be that they are just recognizing that it is a lost cause and Pat’s heroes are the ones who made it one.

Its still the same old,partisan, divisive rhetoric. The lack of a post-invasion plan to avoid chaos was what cost America a victory in this war, that is if one was even possible. It was a massive screw-up on Cheney’s part to decide not to hand over the reins of government to the Iraqis instead of sending Jerry Bremer and a host of other well-connected ideologues over there to occupy the country. Any chance we had at winning hearts and minds evaporated with those decisions. It has nothing to do with the Democrats, and you know it. Thompson is just trying to pin the blame for losing the war on the wrong side, and that is striking a cord with the Republican base.

Sounds like Dick Cheney, not a centrist. He’s a flaming hypocrite to speak about bipartisanship and then go and accuse the Democrats of rooting for the enemy.

I smell the taint of someone angling for votes is all, shamless political pandering with a slick verneer.

What are you proposing? I’ll give you a Democrat if you give me a Republican?

The comparison here was between Gore and Thompson.

Comparing Thompson to Obama or Gore to Obama or Obama to Thompson has to be done in another context. Each comparison can bring up interesting points, but straying too far field can lead to forgetting the topic at hand.

That’s why Thompson fails to inspire me. After acknowledging that others disagree, what, exactly, does he inspire in the way of dealing with those others?

That’s exactly how a lot of Obama’s critics feel about him too though. And in neither case do I assume that their preludes are anything other than just that (after all, we’re still 18 months before the election and Thompson hasn’t even announced). I’ll reserve judgment on both of them as to whether or not they’ll be more specific about how we can bridge the partisan divide, but I’ll give kudos to both for expressing an interest in doing so.

To each his own inspiration, I guess.
I’m not moved by inspiration for the sake of inspiration – at all. That’s why Thompson fails to inspire me. After acknowledging that others disagree, what, exactly, does he inspire in the way of dealing with those others?

On the contrary, a negative assessment of where we are can be a powerful of inspiration for change. When there’s a hurricane coming, I don’t want to be told it’s just a little breeze or that all I need is faith in the goodness of man, to deal with it.
If I’m mortally ill, I don’t want to be told I have a cold and that I’m a wonderful patient.

The bad news, in itself, is often the inspiration for rising to the occasion.
I’ll take a wake-up alarm over a panacea every time.

Looking back, here’s where Pat brought up Dukakis:

When you understand how they can say almost the same thing, yet one come across as far more appealing than the other, you will understand why Gore lost, why Dukakis lost, why Carter lost, and why Reagan won and Clinton won, and why the two real front-runners in the race right now are probably Barack Obama and Fred Thompson.

He used Dukakis and Carter as other examples of candidates who were not inspirational in their tone. He certainly wasn’t drawing an equivalency; there was no “Gore is just like Dukakis” about that statement and that’s quite obvious if you read on because I doubt that Pat thinks that Reagan and Clinton were very much alike (other than their positive tone) nor are Thompson and Obama very much alike (again, other than this one characteristic of their communication style).

I was referring earlier to Gingrich, and a discussion about whether we ought to at least look at his claims that our society is to blame. You didn’t wholeheartedly support it, but you seemed open to his reasoning and defended him and his point-remember? Whenever someone like Gingrich, Robertson or Falwell seizes on a major crisis- 9/11, Katrina, the Cho shooting, to blame their opponents (gays, atheists, liberals,) or their effect on society I find it incredibly depressing.

Those are your words, Kim (realizing of course that you are not calling him that) not Pat’s, or mine, or anyone else’s. Why is it making him into a loser to say that we don’t think he communicated his point in a positive, constructive way?

And who’s harping? That’s my point, Pat makes what I felt were very reasonable criticisms of Gore’s style and people are reacting as though he should be protected from any criticism whatsoever. And Doma asks me if I’m grown up enough to handle bad news? What does Gore’s narrow miss of the presidency have to do with anything- is he supposed to be completely above reproach now? Are we supposed to pity him and patronize him?

I don’t think I see the need to harp on Gore- making him into a loser. He lost an election that remains highly questionable. He retreated into academia, then came back with a vengeance to tackle the issue that he cared about the most, winning an Oscar and being nominated for a Nobel Prize. He’s at the top of his game.

He goes on for about 25 paragraphs, each one building on the last in terms of some other aspect of our society that has broken down or is in peril. Even when he starts writing toward the end about the internet being a solution, he’s still warning us about how it might go astray. As I skimmed over he article again, the first sentence I came to that was even remotely positive or gave any hope for change was actually his closing sentence. Whoo hoo, how uplifting!

It’s like someone telling you you’re ugly, overweight, unhealthy, smelly, and incompetent and then at the very end they say, “but you can be the solution if you just decide to change.” People may need to hear those ‘truths’ but not in that way.