You really can’t bring yourself to face the substance, can you? The idea that there’s an equivalent posion on the left to the poison you see on the right? An irrational rage that manifests itself in dishonest reactions to almost every issue that comes along, and which has captured so many of the mainstream leaders?

There are responsibilities for people playing the dissent role just as much as there is for power. That’s the idea. It’s not that complex. Evidently it’s just too tough for you.

Oh, my ! 29% !

I voted for W and helped fuck up the country…but it’s all Michael Moore’s fault.

Paul…you’re a wack-job. Is this what sputtering defeat sounds like from the “vote-for-Bush-and-feeling-stupid” crowd ????

You are right about Lieberman’s Iraq views; mainly he doesn’t seem to have criticized W on the WMD fiasco. I guess I would assume as a candidate he would have had to address it somehow; did he talk about it at all in Iowa?

(On substantive grounds, I’m sure he honestly believes that the lack of WMDs doesn’t change the basic rationale for the war very much. But you can beleive that and still be stern with W on the way the case for the war was mangled.)

Lieberman actually hasn’t provided much centrist nuance on Iraq; he’s basically endorsed Bush wholeheartedly, unwilling to question the war’s execution. He also seems to go out of his way to side with Repubs on many domestic issues (tho I suppose there must be some he disagrees on). My question is — why would you prefer him to Bush. Overall intelligence/presumed competence? Slightly less draconian attitude to the social safety net?

In other words, left-side non-nuanced uncompromising rage gave us 4 more years of W.

No, there was also not that nuance from the Republicans. At least not the politicians. W should have - as early as 2003 - made a major speech explaining the WMD failure, accepting responsibility, putting the war in context, and so on. His failure to do that is one of the reasons he may be impeachable.

The only nuance that existed and basically still does on these issues is in the non-left analysis and pundit world.

Is this what spluttering defeat looks like?

This thread is full of idiotic statements, but I think that one sets some sort of record…the right wing really has gone completely nuts.

No abortion, no euthanasia. And he wasn’t so hot on the Iraq war; other Cardinals were strongly against. Mixed signals, but anti-abortion is steadily stronger than total pacifism, opposition to all wars.

PC thought control has long been seen as similar to the Nazis — what do you think the censorship of Larry Summers, and his leaving Harvard, was all about? PC Dems acting out totalitarian impulses.

The “hysteria, blind hatred and crackpot ideology” is still more on the Left.

Of course, the Reps do seem to be loudly calling for response to WTC attacks; I guess I don’t think of it as hysteria when some 3000 Americans are murdered; when bombs go off in Madrid and London; when terrorists are cutting the heads off of people who disagree with them. I think loud response is not always hysterical.

When Bush orders terrorist surveillance of international calls, and this protective measure makes Bush-haters scream as loudly or more so that Bush is creating a police state, that seems more hysterical to me.

When 2500 American soldiers dying to replace Saddam with genuine Iraq democracy get far far more press than 2 years of slo-mo genocide in Darfur, with prolly over 200 000 being killed — yet almost all the protests are against Bush, not against Sudan’s genocide, that seems more hysterical to me.

But my absentee Rep primary ballot came; time to vote for Arnie again, and against those new bond issues (should reduce funding in other areas, shouldn’t punish the successful for success).

Wack jobs…literally at the playground level of one of the more vociferous, if analytically challenged, commenters who perenially turns up here to make wild and crazy charges against Democrats (no…I don’t mean Marc…I’m pretty sure he’s just engaging in hyperbole when he calls us zombies.)

Some last words from me on this whole “The Trouble with Nancy” and then I am through. She probably pulled off one of the gutsiest political moves of the last ten years by uniting a sizable number of house Democrats against the House Minority Leader during the leadup to the Iraq debacle. She is such an improvement over Dick Gephardt… And I won’t even start on Tom Foley, Tip O’Neil, Gingerich, and Hastert. As for her supposed weaknesses (like the wavering) - I’m going to give her a chance instead of writing her off. I didn’t much care for Barbara Boxer when she came into the Senate in 1992, but she eventually matured into one of the few gems in the Democratic Party.