Comments on: Blue America: Two Dems in NC — Larry Kissell and Heath Shuler

By: chharriett

chharriett — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:20:46 +0000

I would like to know what he thinks about our electronic voting machines, and if we can truly have an honest election.

By: darrelplant

darrelplant — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 02:54:40 +0000

citizen k, Bill Clinton also signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.

You can parse the difference between actually starting a war in Iraq and supporting “efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime” but the sad truth is that one of the reasons so many Democratic lawmakers went along with the Iraq war plan in 2002 is because they’d advocated Saddam’s overthrow just four years earlier.

By: c1byrd

c1byrd — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 02:19:03 +0000

ck: re #59
I worked for US Airways in Charlotte. Many union workers at US Airways voted Republican for the the reasons you stated. Some factors: Jimmy Carter started deregulation with the deregulation of the transportation industry, Bill Clinton pushed Nafta
and Gatt. Both actors Democrats, each act a betrayal, hard to forget.

By: citizen k

citizen k — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 01:18:54 +0000

darrelplant: Bill Clinton broke welfare in a fundamentally unfair and stupid way. George Bush drowned NOLA. There is a major difference between the parties, even if the better one is deeply flawed.

By: pseudonymous in nc

pseudonymous in nc — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 01:17:58 +0000

I’m not impressed with Shuler’s campaign, and neither are many liberals in Asheville, but if his local stardom finally rids us of Chainsaw Chuck, then I’ll deal with it. Let’s not forget that he’s chair of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which puts him in the midst of the Abramoff machine. He may not be a big player — that’s yet to be seen — but he’s abrogated his responsibility for oversight. And he’s a dirty campaigner. And let’s not forget his pathetic ‘the voting machine broke’ excuse one the CAFTA vote.

I won’t be putting in the same effort to get Shuler elected I did last time. Sorry, that’s just me. Let the DCCC run the show for its golden boy. My money’s going to the 8th district.

By: egregious

egregious — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 00:03:26 +0000

Please help us make our goal of $1200 for Howie Klein’s recommended candidate Larry Kissell in NC.

Thanks!!

By: darrelplant

darrelplant — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 23:02:30 +0000

neurophius: PNAC is not some “right wing wacko fringe group”. It never has been. Bill Kristol (who once held Scooter Libby’s old position as VP Chief of Staff) is the chairman. It’s tied to the Weekly Standard and Washington Times. Some of the people who have written position papers for it over the past decade have pretty familiar names for a bunch of fringe wackos: Bolton, Wolfowitz, Khalilzad. They seem to have a pretty good record for getting confirmed by the Senate for nutjobs.

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that PNAC pushed for in its early years reads like a laundry list of the reasons the Bush administration has given for the Iraq war and calls for the US to “support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”

The Senate’s bill (S.2525) was sponsored by Trent Lott and co-sponsored by John Ashcroft, Sam Brownback, Jesse Helms, Jon Kyl, John McCain, and Richard Shelby. Oh, and Robert Kerrey and Joe Lieberman. Passed by unanimous consent in the Senate without amendment. Signed into law by Bill Clinton. So I’m a little skeptical when people tell me there’s a major difference between the parties, particularly when it comes to looking tough for the cameras.

By: ck

ck — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:52:26 +0000

darrelplant –

My point is that almost every intelligence agency on the planet warned us about the impending attacks; at least one knew when and where. The Bush Administration ignored the warnings; the Gore Administration would have heeded them.

As for Lieberman — no VP has ever had the power of Dick Cheney; but then again, no president has ever been a dim bulb empty suit like George Bush.

What did Jim Gardner say? The vice presidency was worth a bucket of warm spit — except he didn’t say spit.

Enough of this conversation.

By: neurophius

neurophius — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:51:59 +0000

Regarding darrelplant’s final point, in retrospect it was a bad idea for Gore to select Lieberman, but I wonder how his Senate voting record during the Clinton years compares with what he has done since Bush became president. Did having Bush in the White House enable him to become what he is today?

By: darrelplant

darrelplant — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:41:08 +0000

ck: that Mossad story — about undercover Israeli agents knowing in advance of the 9/11 attack — has any relevance to whether Gore could have stopped the attack how?

It seems to me that if it’s true that there were other elements working to ensure that the attacks took place, not that it was simply a matter of connecting the dots to catch the highjackers. Because if Mossad wanted the attack to take place, then they would have done whatever needed to be done to obscure the FBI’s and CIA’s path to finding out what was going to happen. That would just be logical.

Of course, the real logical response would be: do you seriously believe that conspiracy-theory crap? It sounds a heck of a lot wackier than anything Nader espoused.

And once again, you totally ignore the Joe Lieberman issue. Six years ago, the Democrats were running a guy on the national ticket who’s just a couple steps behind Zell Miller running to the Republicans and who would have been a “heartbeat away” if he’d reached the Vice Presidency. Gore picked him.