Monthly Archives: March 2003

politics

Sucked into a quagmire…

I couldn't help myself. I was sucked in by a flame-baiting set of questions on asmallvictory.net, a right-leaning blog run by a 40-year old Long Island woman who's one of the darlings of the warblogging set. She asked (what I think were meant to be) a series of rhetorical questions…

After seeing everything happening in Iraq right now, why would you still insist we should not be using force to take that regime out?

And why would you say that George Bush is the greatest threat to the world after seeing what Saddam is capable of?

And, like a half-starved striped bass,I rose to the bait.

The result, folks was what is so far a 63-entry long discussion on the comment page for the posting, in which a number of other anti-war “trolls” also chimed in, to be rebuffed and ridiculed by some of the dittoheads that frequent the site. There were a few willing to engage in civil discussion, and I managed to keep it civil (I didn't expect to change any minds, but at least I could change some perceptions about antiwar dissidents as whining, bleeding-heart cowards, I hoped).

Of course, I spent a little too much time posting there in response to follow-up flame bait. I couldn't help myself. There were so many dittoheads, so few real ideas, so little time.

So, go check out the fun and steal a little more of Michele's bandwidth.

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General Chaos, politics

No, I won’t shut up.

Stanley Kutler noted in the Chicago Tribune a week ago that the Bush administration's efforts to quelch dissent bear similarity to the efforts of past presidents throughout history. And he presents one particular act of dissidence that is particularly relavent today:

Challenging President James Polk's dubious response to alleged Mexican aggression against the United States, Congressman Lincoln voted to censure the president in 1848–while the war against Mexico still raged. He contended that the president's justification for war was “from beginning to end the sheerest deception.” Polk would have “gone further with his proof if it had not been for the small matter that the truth would not permit him.” Lincoln threw down the gauntlet: “Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments. … Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation.” Lincoln more than suspected that the president was “deeply conscious of being in the wrong.”

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