Well, at least he started by thanking us.

DJ, you forgot about the FannyMae scandal - growing by the week and hosted by Democrats.

I kind of feel sorry for the guy. I use to argue all those points with my conservative dad during my "progressive" youth. My dad knew me better than I knew myself and was pretty gentle in combat.

Hey feel free to tell people who I am. And if you are going to attack me for my attitude, you did a great job picking the one and only angry rant I have made here out of more than a dozen posts, which I even apologized for in a later post. It's like putting that Bush poll at 44% on the front page---you take the outlier and use that as your example.

I don't expect this rant, of all my posts, to be the most cogent or difficult to dissect. Anytime anyone speaks in simplistic terms or succumbs to anger, their argument suffers. The reason the rant appeared is that some of the people here, instead of responding intelligently to my comments, deride my intellect, make assumptions, twist my arguments into obvious strawmen to cut down, and otherwise anger me. This, sadly, is where i failed to stay above the fray.

As for all of your arguments against my statements, congratulations.

Bankruptcy: the new goal is to cut the deficit? What happened to sustaining the surplus? the national debt is out of control because the GOP only pays lip service to fiscal conservatism.

The war: OK, well both of those democracies look likely to be under fundamentalist Islamic law, with fewer rights for women. Both are more dangerous and harbor more terrorists. And EVEN if things were hunky dory (which they are not), the price tag is pretty high for flipping country to democracy.

I meant you would rather win elections than do the country right. Again, a rant, so not totally clear, but clearly I don't think winning the Iraq war (whatever that would look like) would be bad.

Fascism is, as I understand it, government and corporations working together under fierce nationalism and control. Republicans and corporations seem to find lots of ways to shirk responsibility and pad the pockets of the wealthy, and the GOP is very interested in your phone calls, your bank accounts and your sex lives. If you don't seem concerned, imagine if Hillary had the same wiretapping. Would you trust it?

Republicans talk about the unbridled free market while subsidizing everything market that pays to the right PAC to get their earmarks and tax breaks and welfare. And the last time markets were totally free was the 19th century, when the worker was a fourth class citizen and we looked as disparate as third world countries do today.

Hey, if you think majorities make right, history will prove you wrong. Especially since the GOP does a great job of not quite explaining their policies and how they would work. When people get wind of what the GOP actually concocts in these backroom negotiations and midnight votes, they are usually less pleased than with the rhetoric they hear about it.

as for corruption, the facts speak for themselves. while the Dems corrupted congress after 40 years, it only took the GOP 10 years to reach those same levels of bribery, pay for play, corruption, secrecy and mendacious deceit.

There are lots of great ideas in the Democratic party, but with the overwhelming influence of conservative pundits, news outlets and the other infrastructure built since the Goldwater smackdown, the GOP has an edge in messaging that will narrow over time. I will admit freely that the Democratic party got lazy and corrupt in the late 80s and early 90s, and it is partly because most of their big ideas succeeded in becoming reality.

A fence along the border with Mexico
--will this address the 6-8 million people who came here on legal visas and then just stayed? how do we pay for it? and is a wall without guards that much better than a desert without guards? Also, why is not going into action?

reforming Social Security with privatized accounts
--this one was really popular with Americans as I recall. I think it also required about 2 trillion dollars of borrowing to set up, which is quite a big risk, eh?

replacing Medicare with a more personal and effective plan,
--people with Medicare love it. check the polls. and it very cost effective compared to private care

replacing the Internal Revenue Service with a consumption-based or flat tax
--if you can prove that it will fund our way of life, it would be easy, but so far no one can find a way to make it work

thus simplifying the process, encouraging savings and eliminating loopholes for the super wealthy.
--these are all things that could quite easily still not occur with said tax system, and all of them could be done within the current framework. tax reform is necessary, but it looks like its too much work for the GOP

A decentralized, smaller yet more effective military which is unstoppable by any known counterforce, yet which can and does inspire respect and appreciation through its interaction with civilians

--this is not a new idea, and this is the military we should be using to fight terrorism, rather than the big, slow, monster we brought to Iraq for 2 billion a week. it also begs the question of why we are still pouring billions into outdated weapons systems and why no one has gone after the defense budget for years. it just keeps growing, and it takes a military man to pare it back. where is that defender of fiscal sanity and military supremacy?

There are tons of ideas on the left, from cleaner campaigns and elections to reduced lobbyist influece to open government to universal health care to better prevention of abortion to increasing our medical and scientific research to paying in to help the global fight of AIDS to protecting people from medical bankruptcy. The list goes on and on. All of these "new" GOP ideas are really just old ideas---social security is expensive; you're on your own---too many foreigners; build a wall----taxes, social programs, etc. are bad; get rid of them somehow. It all smacks of 19th century idealism wrapped in 21st century platitudes.

In the future, if you want to attack liberals, pick one of my intelligent posts, not my worst. And if you want to compare vitriole, try comparing LGF to the DailyKos.

I have yet to read someone at the DKos describe someone from the opposing party in the same colorful and belligerent terms I have seen there. Don't even try to pretend that conservatives have some high ground on decorum and proper language and sound, reasoned arguments. As long as O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter and Malkin are your mouthpieces, hatred is going to be a lynchpin of the right.

Shame on you, D.J., for giving this moron the attention he so craves.

It's summer vacation for the kiddies, ya know.

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The liberals do serve a purpose, it's just not a purpose to help the people of the United States. Their sole purpose seems to be getting as many killed as possible, in Iraq and in the United States itself. You only need look as far as the recent leaks by democratic liberal to the NYT to have all the proof you need. The lives of americans comes in second to their quest to obtain power without coming up with any ideas other than to be against the idea's of others. Is being against everything an idea, or just simple obstruction for political purposes?

Ha, that was good. Yeah, so many people are dying because of these leaks, and no one is dying in the war we are fighting in Iraq. Clear logic there.

I cannot wait for these right wingers who are willing to trade away all of their rights to a warrant and to know what their government is doing when it's not Supreme Leader Bush at the helm. Do you trust your government that much, or is it just blinding party loyalty?

Yeah, I'm still a kid I guess, barely able to drive. I can't wait to grow old, lose my ideals, and get stuck in the same dogmatic thought coma for 50 years! Let me know how to fast track that process! I'd give my age if I couldn't already see the ad hominem attacks brewing behind the scenes. If I say I'm young--ha! you were right...and if older than you think---ha! so sad he is not one of us yet!

Linos?

Kimyl Oh - Let's pretend for a moment that Gore won in 2000 and 8 months after taking office, 9/11 occured. How do you think that Gore and his cabinet would have handled the attacks and the aftermath? What kind of policies would he have put into place to prevent another attack?

When everyone from the CIA down was talking about WMD's in Iraq and Clinton had been on record many times regarding the dangers of Saddam, would Gore have turned his back?

And let's talk about health care. You have one of the lousiest policies I've ever heard of, we have a good one, albeit expensive. My preference would be to be able to purchase health insurance from any carrier in the country, but I can't because NY state law doesn't allow it due to all of the mandates placed on EVERYONE'S policies. My family lives a very healthy lifestyle - shouldn't our personal choices affect the cost of our policy, much like our driving history affects our car insurance and our choices affect my husband's life insurance?

I'm sorry but saying that Democrats have ideas does not actually create ideas. Specifics would be helpful. Schumer went on record just the other day saying that Democrats aren't the party in power - they don't have to offer ideas. Howard Dean is looking back to the '60's (his words, not mine) for inspiration.

My biggest pet peeve with all politicians is their complete inability to do something about public education, which is a complete disaster. Talk about a lack of equal opportunity. If Democrats would embrace an overhaul of public education and not sound like total idiots on national security, soccer moms, Walmart dads and the people getting the worst of the education deals would sit up and take note. But an agenda that says nothing about the travesty that is public education in the 21st century, but complains bitterly about minimum wage is beyond hope.

Please share specifics - I'd like to hear them.

As for your comments regarding Iraq - having been there during OIF (as well as the first Gulf War) it is painfully apparent that you (and so many of the current administration's wanna-be war heros) have absolutely no concept of either the war or our impact there.

You said: "Iraq and Afghanistan have evicted vicious regimes, elected representative governments and held a series of free elections, including women for the first time. Neither stupid nor fruitless."

Yes, we have evicted two totalitarian regimes responsible for the deaths of thousands. No we have two completely unworkable governments, unable to provide even basic services, and we have killed thousands of civilians in the process. In both cases the administration has completely failed at providing basic infrastructure and economic development. In Iraq the government's administration and civil rights abuses are arguably worse than before we arrived.

Thanks to us (or US) sectarian violence is now rampant and Iraqis lack the basic freedoms that were present even under Saddam. many Iraqis tod me they were not only safer under Saddam, but the Imams did not have the power they do now. Sunni versus Shia violence is out of control and all that the Iraq war did was to increase the number of military aged males traveling to Iraq for Jihad and increase hatred of the US and its policies in the Muslim world.

In Afghanistan we have a puppet government who's rule does not extend beyond Kabul and religious and tribal leaders still hold sway over much of the country. Afghanistan is no more tolerant of women's and minority's rights now than it was under the Taliban (but at least kids can fly kites legally - right?). The drug trade has increased a thousand fold under the current leadership and Afghanistan is once again a leader in the export of heroin.

All in all we have spent billions on a two front war who's successes are dubious at best and has resulted in the death and maiming of thousands of US servicemen and civilians. The reasons for invading Iraq were created by the current leadership despite intelligence in the possession of analysts at DIA, CIA, and State to the contrary.

You said: "This is patently absurd on its face. Every time America wins a war, thing improve. Walking backwards, winning the Gulf War in 1991 helped convince the Soviet Union they could never win a war against us, and led to dramatic improvements in strategic stability for all major nations. Winning even so minor a conflict as Grenada sent a message that the U.S. would protect its interests, and began a rollback of Cuban military interventionism. Winning in World War 2 made the USA the dominant nation of the world in several key respect. Winning World War 1 forced the world to admit the United States was a "Great Power", and so on."

How you can possibly compare the first Gulf War, the current conflict and World War II is beyond me. Nevermind the fact that you conveniently ignore Vietnam and Korea. Your understanding of world conflict and the resulting economic, socio-political dynamics of regional versus world conflicts are obviously lacking.

First, the only reason the USSR was taken aback by the first Gulf War was due to the speed that US and British forces (I was with VII Corps in that one) sped through Iraqi defenses and destroyed their occupying troops in Kuwait. Of course, the USSR was already imploding by then so there was no credible htreat except for the concern that their nukes might fall into rogue-nation hands.

Of course, thanks to Bush Senior, we not only failed to complete that mission and eliminate Saddam as a future credible threat, we also abandoned the nascent insurgency we helped to create to overthrow the government later that year, thus destroying what little credibility we had gained during the conflict. And oh by the way, it was also Bush senior who hollowed out our military and destroyed our intelligence capabilities by drawing down forces during and after Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Desert Fox.

I would also argue that the Gulf War did help to let the Middle Eastern nations know that the US would not stand by and allow them to ignore unstable and rogue nations to operate. Unfortunately, by invading Iraq and conducting OIF we have completely destablized the region and thrown away any respect and support garnered during the Desert campaigns and 9/11.

I could argue as well that World War I and the Treaty of Versailles created the environment that allowed Hitler to rise to power and led to WWII. One could also counter that because the US failed to contain the USSR after WWII and establish economic programs in Eastern Europe, the Cold War grew and Eastern Europe suffered decades of slavery and suffering as a result - so much for stability.

Using your logic - "...Every time America wins a war, thing [sic] improve..." because we failed in Korea and Vietnam, those countries became less stable and the world came crashing around our ears - not true. Only North Korea has continued to devolve due to its resistance to democracy and economic reform - whereas South Korea and Vietnam have prospsered and our relations with them have improved markedly. Moreover, the anticipated domino theory never occurred and the only thing our losses in Korea and Vietnam did was to show that the US public doesn't have the stomach for political adventurism where it sacrifices its best and brightest for old men in Washington.

Your comparison of the World Wars made up of coalitions of united countries fighting for freedom with the current adventurist OIF is totally out of whack and demonstrates your lack of world political understanding.

Your response to the "Liberal Rant" is nothing short of uninformed and lacking any real merit or factual basis, especially your myopic view of US involvement in the Middle East - but then - you haven't actually been to any of those countries during a conflict, been shot at, or had people lobbing mortars at you every day have you?

As with the politicians, you sit comfortably at home, safe from harm, while others do their duty so you have the freedom to criticize....

Well, if you want to believe that the left has no ideas or policies, go right ahead. I have read about ideas, I have seen their attempts to modify GOP legislation ignored (no matter what the merits), and their policy suggestions ignored by the press and the GOP.

As for universal health care, don't make up a policy I don't espouse and ask me to defend it. This is the typical scare-mongering that happened in the early 90s. They will tell you what doctors you will see! You will pay more even if you are healthier! You will wait months for care!

These are possible problems that we can control, but we don't have the debate because the insurance industry and the right wing cut off debate and insert a catch phrase.