The Democrats are pussies...

Man, I have a million ideas the Dems could be using for ads, any of them would be more effective (and more closely resemblel their competition).

Where's the ad with Bush sitting in the classroom, being told, "the country is under attack" and continuing to read My Pet Goat with that deer in the headlights look on his face for 7 minutes. Hell, Michael Moore practically handed you that one.

The RNC is trying to push Bush as tough guy, but the reality is that he is a big pussy. Not only did he get dad to sign him up for the national guard to avoid a trip to Vietnam (aka, the place where the bullets are flying), he couldn't even get through his tour in the Guard without ing that up.

Where's the commercial telling the american public about that?

The Dems are playing by different rules and it just might cost them the election.

Yes, the dems really do need to stoop to their level to win this. I thought they would've learned their lesson from the 2002 elections for congress.

The dems don't have to stoop to thier level, just have some balls and be forceful with the truth. The sad fact is a lot of dem politiciians have no balls. There are some, and the rest need to support the ones that do, especially when they are right.

Well a lot of dems don't have balls because they are women. Unlike the Reps in which if you want to be a part of it you have to be a white old guy.

Actually, this is a problem that I've spent a lot of time thinking about (well, not this issue specifically, but it relates...) The problem isn't specifically one between Republicans and Democrats, but between liberals and conservatives (though since party lines tend to be divided between the two, there's some corollation.)

Liberals inherently have a rather major 'flaw', which is that they tend to care about other people and want to respect the feelings of others. This leads to a whole host of subissues, such as a respect for honesty and truth, a desire to be fair to everyone and let everone have their say, wanting to not hurt the feelings of others, and so on.

Conservatives don't have these issues: they know THE truth, or more accurately, The Truth. Once you know The Truth, you don't have to screw around with minor earthly concerns. Its perfectly fine to lie to people because you believe that doing so will ultimately lead them to The Truth too, and that will more than justify the minor lies you've told along the way. You don't have to worry about letting the other side have their say because, after all, they're wrong. Period.

A lot of people accuse the media of being liberal, and they're actually right: that's why the media spends so much time and effort trying to be completely fair and unbiased. They don't want to hurt people, or exclude people, or even risk treating people unfairly, which is why the media so often completely fails to reveal how completely ed up Bush's policies are, despite the fact that doing so would probably help in their ultimate desire of a fair, balanced and open world.

Getting back to the specific issue, the Democrats have a hard time pushing pure attack ads because doing so risks hurting people and tends to be divisive, things that liberals have a hard time doing. The Republicans have no difficulty running blatently false ads, though, because, again, in their mind, those are minor evils compared to the ultimate good that they think Bush will accomplish.

Actually, this is a problem that I've spent a lot of time thinking about (well, not this issue specifically, but it relates...) The problem isn't specifically one between Republicans and Democrats, but between liberals and conservatives (though since party lines tend to be divided between the two, there's some corollation.)

Liberals inherently have a rather major 'flaw', which is that they tend to care about other people and want to respect the feelings of others. This leads to a whole host of subissues, such as a respect for honesty and truth, a desire to be fair to everyone and let everone have their say, wanting to not hurt the feelings of others, and so on.

Conservatives don't have these issues: they know THE truth, or more accurately, The Truth. Once you know The Truth, you don't have to screw around with minor earthly concerns. Its perfectly fine to lie to people because you believe that doing so will ultimately lead them to The Truth too, and that will more than justify the minor lies you've told along the way. You don't have to worry about letting the other side have their say because, after all, they're wrong. Period.

A lot of people accuse the media of being liberal, and they're actually right: that's why the media spends so much time and effort trying to be completely fair and unbiased. They don't want to hurt people, or exclude people, or even risk treating people unfairly, which is why the media so often completely fails to reveal how completely shaq-fued up Bush's policies are, despite the fact that doing so would probably help in their ultimate desire of a fair, balanced and open world.

Getting back to the specific issue, the Democrats have a hard time pushing pure attack ads because doing so risks hurting people and tends to be divisive, things that liberals have a hard time doing. The Republicans have no difficulty running blatently false ads, though, because, again, in their mind, those are minor evils compared to the ultimate good that they think Bush will accomplish.

Click to expand...

ummm. . . . no. either you have spent entirely too much time thinking about this or you are so blinded by your own partisan mindset that YOU in fact cannot see the truth, or should i say The Truth.

Your theory is flawed in that you believe that Liberals have some other wordly ability to not lie and make themselves not human. Democrats have run just as many attack ads as conservatives. that is the nature of the game, or really, the nature of politics.

As much as the media says John Kerry has to prove himself, the debates have shown that proving yourself is not as hard as having to defend your record. CheapyD is right in saying that there is a lot of fodder out there for the Dems to use against Bush. (I, however, disagree with using Bush in the school) Attack ads are only beneficial when you are on the defensive, and clearly Bush is on the defensive right now.

Also, THE major flaw with the Democratic Party is not that they care about each other, it is the problem of motivation. Democrats are a clear majority in this country, yet they always struggle in election. The difference between Dems and Repubs is that when Dems have a grievances they bitch to each other about it; when Repubs have a grievance, they take it to the polls. Republicans are more motivated to vote than Dems, and if Dems would take their grievances to the polls you would see drastic change in this country.

sorry so long.

Ya know... I think the difference is that the Dmeocratic party is less hateful...

I've started to develop a theory, and mind you I am a republican, that we're seeing a resurgence of fascist element in the republican party. I'm not calling anyone a fascist. But there seems to be a lot of elements within my own party that are frankly scary and would qualify certain fascist definitions. I think part of this is reflected in the venemous hate that certain major republican have.

I find that democrats may disagree but their major non-political public figures, say Al Fraken or Michael Moore, use humor and dialog. I find within the Republican party, bolstered by individuals like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson, there's an essence of viciousness, hate, and bigotry.

It's funny, I remember when Moore was on Oriley factor. Now, I don't remember the exact phrasing of the question, but Oriley basically asked him if he "hated" him. Which Moore replied, "I don't hate anybody." But why would he even ask that question, if not he himself had some sense of hatred within him? I thought it was very telling.

You hear about Republicans going RINO hunting, basically destroying their own political participants if they disagree slightly on a certain issue. I'm not a Democrat but I don't hear about things like that in the Democratic party. Rmemeber, it was Bill Clinton that moved the Democratic party to a more moderate position. I don't know if someone of that temperment could come out of the Republican party.

Anyway, it occured to me this weekend that we may be seeing the emergence of a new fascist tone in the US and I've been thinking it through since then.

Click to expand...

this is one of the funniest things i have ever seen. LMAO!

I think so too. What do you think Lil' John?



Go to ComedeyCentral.com. You can make these your IM Icons.

[quote name='Admiral Ackbar']I think so too. What do you think Lil' John?



Go to ComedeyCentral.com. You can make these your IM Icons.[/quote]

that is some funny, funny shit. i'm glad i saw those.

NO I CAN'T STOP YELLIN' CAUSE THAT'S HOW I TALK!

[quote name='munch']Your theory is flawed in that you believe that Liberals have some other wordly ability to not lie and make themselves not human. Democrats have run just as many attack ads as conservatives. that is the nature of the game, or really, the nature of politics. [/quote]

I'm not claiming that liberals don't lie. I'm not even going to claim that the liberal side the 'correct' or 'better' one (a whole lotta crap comes out of the liberal side.) Its just that the two sides approach things differently.

Conservatives/Republicans have absolutely no problem with trashing an opponent, and if they actually have a basis for doing so, so much the better. When a conservative goes out for blood, they try to absolutely destroy their opponent in any way they can. They don't do this because they're evil, they do it because they believe they're the better canidate and the end justifies the means.

Liberals/Democrats run attack ads, but lets face it - they're (virtually) never as purely brutal as they could be. Just look at the current election: Kerry could run BLASTING ads accusing the president of lying about the state of Iraq to protect his position, lying about WMDs to justify an unpopular war, of throwing away American lives to accomplish his own goals, and much more. Most of them would even be somewhat true. Instead, they use a semi-joking 'rose colored glasses' gag, and even go so far as to hand out cute sunglasses to audiences. Meanwhile, the Republicans take a line completely out of context and accuse Kerry of handing control of national security over to foreign governments.

There's a HUGE difference between these two positions. The Democrats _are_ running attack ads, but they're so weak compared to what they COULD be attacking the president for that they barely qualify as such. We have a shithole of a situation in Iraq that's getting worse on a daily basis, and the most offensive thing that they're willing to say about Bush is that he's overly optimistic.

[quote name='CheapyD']Man, I have a million ideas the Dems could be using for ads, any of them would be more effective (and more closely resemblel their competition).

Where's the ad with Bush sitting in the classroom, being told, "the country is under attack" and continuing to read My Pet Goat with that deer in the headlights look on his face for 7 minutes. Hell, Michael Moore practically handed you that one.

The RNC is trying to push Bush as tough guy, but the reality is that he is a big pussy. Not only did he get dad to sign him up for the national guard to avoid a trip to Vietnam (aka, the place where the bullets are flying), he couldn't even get through his tour in the Guard without shaq-fuing that up.

Where's the commercial telling the american public about that?

The Dems are playing by different rules and it just might cost them the election.[/quote]

I love cheapy's new political invigoration, is it just me or did you used to not post much about this kind of stuff? Good thing your on the right side though

Republicans are better at playing politics, thats all it is.

There's also been a recent flap from aleaked memo at ABC News. Their political Directpr has concluded that while both sides distort the truth at some opoint, the bush administration is much more agregious. That the administration should be called out for it's much greater falsification of the facts. Here's from the washington post...

'Some conservatives are having a grand old time beating up on Mark Halperin.

The reason: ABC's political director wrote a now-leaked memo saying there is no need for artificial balance in truth-squadding the claims and charges of the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

He didn't say the press should be tougher on Bush, as some are suggesting. He said there were more distortions on the Bush side, and that the coverage should reflect this. In other words, if one side is using a howitzer and the other a popgun, you don't have to portray them as both firing ammunition, without making distinctions.

The New York Times and Washington Post, by the way, have written pieces saying the Bush team is pushing the factual limits with its rhetoric against Kerry. Bush/Cheney put out an e-mail slamming Friday's NYT story.

But the Halperin memo is being slammed in some quarters as a call for unbalanced coverage. As Fox anchor (and former ABCer) Chris Wallace put it: "An ABC News memo has been leaked that suggests the network is holding President Bush and Senator Kerry to different standards."

Actually, it doesn't say that at all. And the irony here is that Halperin is one of the few major media types willing to criticize his profession for sometimes displaying a leftward tilt--prompting hosannas from the right wing crowd. Now that he's saying the Bush camp engages in more distortions and should be called on it, the right is suddenly whacking him as unfair and unbalanced.

As someone who does the "ad watch" feature, I've found exaggerations and distortions on both sides. For months there were more in the Bush ads because the president's team was going negative while the Kerry camp was staying positive. Now they're both pretty negative.

I try to report every bit of truth-stretching I can from the Kerry side. (He keeps saying the war has cost $200 billion when, so far, it's $120 billion. He's said that Bush believes the outsourcing of American jobs is good; the reality is that some of his aides say it has larger economic benefits.) But the president says every day that Kerry is pushing a "government-run" health care plan. Simply not true. It might be a bad health care plan, or a ridiculously expensive plan, but it relies on the current system of private health insurance. Is that a bigger deal? Yes. Should reporters keep pointing that out? You bet.

The Halperin memo was leaked to Drudge, who reported it thusly:

"Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win. We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that. I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage.

"This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions. It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right."

Josh Marshall says Halperin is right:

"Various right-wing barkers are trying to make it out as though Halperin has been caught in some impolitic or embarrassing remark. But quite the contrary is the case.

"This is simply a news organization trying to grapple with the same reality that every respectable news outlet is now dealing with -- how to report on the fusillade of lies the Bush campaign has decided to use against John Kerry in the final weeks of the campaign.

"The plain intent of the memo is to tell ABC reporters that they should feel neither obligated nor permitted to equate the level of deceptiveness of the Kerry and Bush campaign's if and when they are in fact not equal.

"Everyone can see that they are not equal. Halperin is just saying it. And in doing so he has run smack into the epistemological relativism that now defines the Republican party.

"The most noteworthy thing I've seen in the right-wing response is that there seems to be little effort to deny or engage the question of whether the Bush campaign is being qualitatively more dishonest than the Kerry campaign. All the whining is focused on the fact that any news organization would have the temerity to try to distinguish between them."

Columbia Journalism Review compares two fact-checking efforts and favors the Posties:

"Both the New York Times and the Washington Post on Saturday offered readers versions of long-overdue pieces truth-squadding candidates' claims. The Times once again assigned the task to David E. Rosenbaum alone, who weighed in with a piece cautiously headlined, 'Different Interpretations on War, Jobs and Health.' The Post saw fit to assign three reporters (Glenn Kessler and Ceci Connolly shared the byline, with reporting help from Thomas E. Ricks) to tackle its truth-squadding piece, headlined 'Plenty of Flaws Among the Facts.'"

The question of distortion figures prominently in the latest campaign back-and-forth, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

"At events in New Mexico and Colorado, President Bush seized on a quote from Kerry in a published article in which the Massachusetts senator said he believes the threat of terror can be reduced to the level of a 'nuisance' that doesn't affect most Americans' daily lives.

"'I couldn't disagree more,' Bush told a rally in Hobbs, N.M. 'Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance, our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying terrorist networks, and spreading freedom and liberty around the world.'

"Kerry campaign aides immediately protested that the president was taking Kerry's words out of context and urged voters to read the entire article. 'Considering that George Bush doesn't think we can win the war on terror, let Osama bin Laden escape and rushed into Iraq with no plan to win the peace, it's no surprise that his campaign is distorting every word John Kerry has ever said,' Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement."'