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Afternoon GOP Hypocrisy Roundup
Why is it that only Republicans or right-wing demagogues who suck up to Republicans get caught with their pants down these days?
At least he wasn’t having sex with underage boys.
John McCain in 1994:
“The right course of action is to make preparations as quickly as possible to bring our people home. It does not mean as soon as order is restored to Haiti. It doesn’t mean as soon as democracy is flourishing in Haiti. It doesn’t mean as soon as we’ve established a viable nation in Haiti. As soon as possible means as soon as we can get out of Haiti without losing American lives.â€
Video here.
23 Responses to “Afternoon GOP Hypocrisy Roundup”
Here’s a h/t to the folks at Newshog, seems Vitter was a co-sponsor of the “Defense of Marriage” amendment in the House.
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/07/welcome-david-vitter-to-publically.html
It takes Vitter to put Larry Flynt back into a positive light – LOL.
People who try to make the world into black and white are eventually shown for the fools that they are.
It’s worse than that:
Vitter replaced the disgraced leader of the GOP’s Blow Job Faction, one Rep. Bob Livingston, who was President Clinton’s chief accuser but got caught with his pants down over his own marital infidelities and decided to spend more time with his family.
So what are you saying Shaun, that politicians are required to be consistent no matter the circumstances? I don’t agree with McCain on Iraq, but from a strategic perspective, don’t you think the situations are vastly different?
No, it is unrealistic for politicians to always be consistent. As a matter of fact, I see the ability to change with the times and circumstances to be a signal (if rare) asset.
That noted, I fail to see where the humanitarian crisis in Haiti is any different than in Iraq, only on an infinitely more manageable scale.
If there’s a difference, the U.S. had a big reason for helping in Haiti — the influx of many illegal Haitian immigrants which continues to this day.
Who exactly was “having sex” with underage boys?
As bad as Foley’s behavior was (and it was truly reprehensible….he shouldn’t have been “trawling for ‘talent’” amongst the pages) do we know he had sex with anyone?
Just curious. MAybe there was other info I missed.
Shaun,
The difference is that we can ignore Haiti and the worst that will happen is a refuge crisis. IOW, Haiti is not particularly important strategically. Iraq and the Persian Gulf Region is. Now, that doesn’t mean we have to continue this stupid war as we have, but it also doesn’t mean walking away a’la Haiti will be a consequence-free enterprise.
Actually, Entropy, the biggest difference is that the Republican base was AGAINST nation-building when Clinton was in the White House and are FOR nation-building now that Bush is in the White House.
It’s flip-flopping plain and simple.
Bush, McCain, and their Republican colleagues were against nation-building before they were for it.
Bush’s stance on promoting a humble foreign policy free of nation-building: I was for it before I was against it.
Nick,
So what? Yeah, Bush flip-flopped. Pointing that out does nothing to further the discussion except to score cheap political points. The fact remains that Iraq is a strategically important country in a strategically important region whereas Haiti is not.
BTW, this is a good read.
So now calling someone out their flip-flopping is just to “score cheap political points”? But in 2004 it was OK to do so, right? The Republicans coined the term and Sean Hannity seemed to get a boner every time he said it, but now it’s a bad thing say.
Entrophy, “Haiti is not particularly important strategically. Iraq and the Persian Gulf Region is.”
Is this the new rationale behind the Iraq War? At least this Administration has meandered near the truth for once.
From Entrophy’s linked article:
Yes, he does deserve credit for that. However, from that logic it should have been a cake walk for W to create a coalition.
Overall a good idea. However, we’ve already poured massive amounts of money into Iraq and where did Billions of it go? NO ONE KNOWS, the money just vanished. How can we trust it wouldn’t just happen again? I also don’t trust this Administration not to just give Halliburton, or it’s subsidiaries, the “Economic Aid” contracts.
I give the author credit for being a realist, it’s this Administration and Congress I don’t trust.
“Yes, he does deserve credit for that. However, from that logic it should have been a cake walk for W to create a coalition.”
Yea, except in ’91 it was a response to an aggressive Iraqi invasion that destabilized the region. In ’03 we were the invasion that destabliized the region. Plus Bush Jr. is half a retard where as his father knew a thing or two about statemanship.
Uh, no. Please don’t put words into my mouth – it is most definitely not appreciated.
Ah, the classic, “he did it first!” argument any elementary school teacher knows so well.
Unless I’m Bush in disguise, then that statement was mine alone and not the administration’s. However, I would think that pretty much everyone would agree that Iraq is more strategically important to the US than Haiti is, which has consistently been my point through this thread.
The question is what to do now?
Entropy:
Then, in fact, it was all about oil. That is the main reason that the Middle East is strategically important to us. All the rest of the reasons are just a cover up for the
real reason.
All wars are about some resource, oil is as good an excuse as any other. However this one might be different. The stabliity of oil prices was completely upset by the Iraq war. Oil companies around the world are charging 3x what they were for each barrel they pump out of the ground.
A Presidents job is to secure and safeguard our resources such as oil in the middle east, not throw a monkeywrench into them. Unless of course $70/barrel was the goal all along.
Well, Shaun chose the low road again — Democrats have often been worse than Republicans, and this isn’t the first wrongful GOP-bashing (and conservative-bashing) “work” of Shaun’s. (At least this time it wasn’t another example of all-too-predictable, tiresome Bush-is-bad, Bush-is-bad, Bush-is-bad garbage). But it is of course amusing to see this guy get caught.
Incidentally, it’s commonplace knowledge in DC that a lot of “family values,” often [verbal] gay-bashing Republicans by day are gays cruising the metro area by night. Vitter didn’t surprise me at all.
Just wait until more names are released from the DC Madam’s list. Who is going to bash them, those who otherwise would be neurotic about defending prostitution, and outright sexual misconduct like Clinton’s? (Yes, if they are Republican. The family-values-hypocrisy argument is superficial and even transparent.)
The Iraq war was mainly about oil. That’s our #1 vital interest in the region (Israel is #2, often a distant, mistreated #2). Hussein was a proven threat already to others in the region, and to security of oil supplies. Even Carter was ready to take us to war with the USSR if the USSR seized the oil fields in Iran or elsewhere or threatened them to an unacceptable degree.
We have no vital interests in Haiti any more than in Darfur. Planning to attack Haiti was truly insane. And why, to restore, of all dictators, a Marxist? (That’s as if wanted to attack Haiti twice!)
McCain’s an idiot and deserves no further comment.
DLS- How did Hussein threaten our access to oil in the region before we invaded Iraq? By the time we went in, he was mostly blowing hot air. It was about oil- but it was about how to get cheap access to plentiful oil. Cheney met with the oil execs to divvy up Iraq’s oil fields. Why do you think the rest of the world views us as imperialists?
The British claimed their occupation of the 20′s and 30′s was about liberating Iraq from the Ottoman Empire, yet when they left they had negotiated favorable oil contracts with the monarchy they installed and had built some permanent bases.
In addition to concern about WMDs, he continued to threaten his neighbors with conventional forces. Wasn’t it not only once, but at least twice, he lobbed mortar rounds into Kuwait just to remind those nice neighbors of that fact?
First and foremost, about protecting all the oil in the region. Was the Cheney crowd avaricious? Yes. But do you really believe we could arrange, truly, whatever we would want (or Cheney would want)? We’ve not done that even in Saudi Arabia.
More than anything else, whatever extra greed you see should be combined in my opinion with Bush’s desire for revenge against the guy who tried to kill his father after his father lost re-election in 1992 most of all for not going “all the way to Baghdad” before that election.