This from the UK's Guardian

[thebin]

nychoya- I just saw Sullivan say he has not yet decided to support Kerry just a couple of days ago. I do get the impression that he has decided against supporting Bush pretty clearly- which is why I said he MAY be considering supporting a fringe candidate. At any rate, its worth observing that even very recently he quite explicitly objected to being labled as in Kerry's corner at this time anyway.

[Joe Hoya]

I don't dislike liberals. I dislike their political views, that's all. I'm pretty sure that's what you meant, anyway. It's a dislike borne out of disagreeing with them politely, and then continuing to try and be polite while they whine and cry, and then eventually getting fed up with them. I don't mean to characterize all liberals this way, just most of them . If I had tons of disagreements with conservatives and got sick and tired of them, I'd feel the same way in the opposite direction.

Also, I may have misspoken (mistyped?) when I used the phrase "liberal rhetoric". I probably should have called it "Democratic rhetoric", because it seems to come not from a way of thinking, but from partisans of the party that tends to espouse that way of thinking. I doubt that clarifies anything, but I wanted to make sure I said that.

[DFW HOYA]

Sometimes I think the Guardian writes more for attention than anything else, but such bombast speaks to an issue that many Europeans fundamentally do not understand the U.S. political process.

These writers seek an erudite, bonhomie leader that is reflective of the gentry class of the European parlimentary system. That a peanut farmer, an actor, or anyone from that distinctly plebian portion of the continent known as Texas could somehow be selected leader of the free world baffles and frustrates them.

One wonders if Kerry hailed from El Paso instead of Cape Cod, would they feel the same way?

[nychoya3]

Thebin: Fine. He's not yet in Kerry's corner. I bet he ends up there before election day. I think DFW nailed it on the Guardian. Stuff like this is a huge Ann Coulter column. It's all about attention.

Joe Hoya: Did you just say that you hear liberals all the time condoning the assisination of the president? Seriously? Who are these friends of yours? I've been working in liberal politics (though we prefer the term progressive) and I've never heard that. Many people don't like the president. I hate his policies, I hate the incompetence with which they've been implemented, I hate nakedly political way that every decision is made, and (yes) I don't like him personally. You make it sound like there's no cogent liberal critique of the president out there. There clearly is, and if you haven't been hearing it, you need some smarter liberal friends. More than that, there's an even more convincing (IMO) centrist critique of the president. He has absolutely run roughshod over traditional conservative principles of moderation and respect for tradtion. He has chosen policies, whether you agree with them or not, that have been implemented with simply astonishing ignorance, and than refused to change course when they failed. What's wrong with winning the peace? We're occupying Iraq, last I checked, and it would be nice to get out sometime in my lifetime with a peaceful Iraq in our wake. What's our strategy for defeating the insurgency? We could send more troops, but there are none left unless we put in place a draft. We could have stabilized the situation immediately and taken seriously the work of people inside and outside the government who thought maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't assume we could cut off the head of the government and everything would keep on functioning. We could have accepted the help of other countries under a UN mandate after Sadaam fell. We could have not devolved authority away from the CPA towards various hacks in the white house and NSC. All of those might have helped. And now, we're screwed. What's the best case scenario in Iraq right now? How could the benefits possibly justify the costs?

What is the Bush plan for Iraq? Tell me please, because I'd love to know that I'm not going to be over there in a few years. As for Kerry, at least there's a chance he won't surround himself with the likes of Bush's team, which has turned Iraq into the incredible cluster**** it is with their arrogance and incompetence. There's that word again - that's what it all boils down to. Forget ideology. This is about serious people making decisions. And serious people are few and far between in the administration. Our treasury secretary is John freakin' Snow! We have deficits getting worse and nobody seems to care! Kerry has said he will reinstitute pay-as-you-go and pare down his programs to restore fiscal sanity. What's Bush promising? Social Security privatization with a trillion in transition costs for no obvious benefit?Shouldn't that bother you? I'm sorry you all seem to know so many obnoxious lefties, but I really wonder what there is to support in the administration.

Where I was going before I went off on a tangent was making up your mind to do whatever the opposite of what your crazy hippie friends or the Guardian or the Daily Worker tells you is a pretty dumb way to go about developing your political views. Who are Kerry's top advisors? Rand Beers, Dick Holbrooke, Robert Rubin, Joe Biden...these are not crazy hippies. They are people who have governed successfully in the past and who have an ideology not drawn from hatred of Bush but from genuine conviction and experience. If you want to vote against that, fine. But at least look at it in a serious fashion.

There are a lot of rhetorical questions in this rant. I apologize. I'm a bit buzzed, which tends to make me even more combative and pendantic than usual, so take anything crazy accordingly. Good night all.

[Joe Hoya]

I have no friends or acquaintances who have (outwardly) suggested assassinating the President. What I said was that the people I talk to would look at something like that and, as Jersey did in his first post in the thread, say that of course they do not condone assassinating the President and then proceed to complain about everything the administration has done over the last four years. None of them can just say "Wow, that's a horrible thing to say" and leave it at that. They always say "The author shouldn't have written that last line, but s/he is right about everything else". I'm sorry, but when someone is going to write filth like that, I feel the proper response is to call it what it is - junk - and not delve any further into dissecting whatever value some may think it has.

In this election, we are essentially given two choices, President Bush and Senator Kerry. When casting a ballot, 98% of voters will vote for one of these two men. Therefore, they should choose who they prefer out of those two. Senator Kerry has done nothing to make me say "I want him to be President". He changed his stance on the efforts in Iraq simply because an anti-war candidate was garnering all the endorsements, support, and headlines. I find that to be a huge negative, and it reeks of a lack of the integrity that the Senator claimed he had at the end of the third debate. I am also a believer, rather idealistically I suppose, in the idea that a party should select a candidate who is fit to be President, not just the candidate who wins the first couple of primaries. This is probably more of a reflection of the faulty primary/caucus system we have in the United States than it is on the 2004 Democrats, but it is a point I feel is worth making. When the primaries began, I thought about the Democratic candidates and decided who I would have voted for had I been taking part in the process. For whatever reason (I don't remember anymore), I decided that I would probably have cast my vote for Rep. Gephardt, not Howard Dean, the popular candidate at the time, and most certainly not for John Kerry. However, we are stuck with the choice between the President and the Senator. I prefer the President, as his stances on certain issues mirror mine much more closely than Kerry's. I also don't feel that Kerry would properly handle the issue of national security, which is my number one focus in this election. The American people seem to agree with me in respect to the security issue, seeing as most polls show that more people see President Bush as a better leader and as the candidate most likely to be tough on "trecord", as it's called here at HoyaTalk . Seeing as I prefer lower taxes, strong defense, and generally prefer "smaller government", John Kerry has no appeal to me whatsoever. That's why I chose to cast my ballot for President Bush (that's not to say that I agree with every idea or stance the administration has, but it's going to be hard to find a candidate short of actually running myself who I'm going to agree 100% with. Some things could have been handled better, yes, and I do think a Constitutional amendment on marriage is unnecessary, but I find myself agreeing more with the President than the Senator). You may disagree with me, and clearly you do, and so you support the Senator. But to be honest, I get the impression from your post that you are voting more against Bush than for Kerry. Am I right? If I'm not, then you're a rare breed. If I am, well, that should tell you what I think the major problem with "Kerry supporters" is.

I'm tired, so in case I didn't make it clear in whatever I wrote up there, I'll say it again (or for the first time): John Kerry was not and is not the best choice for President of the United States. The Democrats just grabbed onto the coattails of whoever got the early momentum in the primaries, and decided to ride him until the end without any regard for whether or not he was right for the job. They knew that they could throw Mickey Mouse on the ballot and that he would get plenty of votes come November just because some people hate the President. That's fine for them if they want to decide their vote that way, but to me, well, that just isn't right. That's an idealistic view on my part, but I'm gonna stick by it and not "flip-flop".

Maybe I should have just deleted the second paragraph and just gone with that explanation...oh well.

[jerseyhoya34]

DFW said:

Sometimes I think the Guardian writes more for attention than anything else, but such bombast speaks to an issue that many Europeans fundamentally do not understand the U.S. political process.

These writers seek an erudite, bonhomie leader that is reflective of the gentry class of the European parlimentary system. That a peanut farmer, an actor, or anyone from that distinctly plebian portion of the continent known as Texas could somehow be selected leader of the free world baffles and frustrates them.

One wonders if Kerry hailed from El Paso instead of Cape Cod, would they feel the same way?

You make a fair point, but I think the lack of understanding is mutual. What could we say about Americans' understanding of the European political process?

I would also suggest that their animosity toward Bush is not unfounded. He and his Administratio displayed a lack of maturiy when they went about the whole freedom fries business. There's also the problem of Bush using expletives in private in his references to Chirac. There's also a problem when Chirac could only meet with German leadership in person because his phones were tapped.

[Cambridge]

The truth of the matter is that they have no reason nor do they have any obligation to respect Bush or any of our presidents. Period. They are not part of the US nor is their press subject to the limitations of "free speech." As a brit I can tell you that the press, regardless of whether you think it a "legitimate" broadsheet is always tabloid driven and sensational. Even teh Times has been butched by Murdoch -- it is now a tabloid like all other papers in Britain.

It is obsurd to even take offense at a column in the Guardian. No matter who wins the election, columns like this would be written about the winner. End of story. The British press will never change. It is full of hypocrits and opportunists, but at least they don't censor themselves or fall on their knees and thank the leader for breadcrumbs of information. They constantly muckrake and slander, but they rarely take a politician at his word. They are a cynical lot, but they tend to get to the real story, even if they push the line and make themselves look ridiculous.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. It doesn't affect the election and quite frankly I can't imagine why Bush or any conservative would be offended. They have quite clearly stated that they don't care what the rest of the world thinks. If you don't care, don't take offense. If you do care, act to improve the situation. Otherwise keep bullying the world and learn to take your lumps from the only avenue for protest that they really have left.

The english and the euros in general are a proud lot and they have reason to be. They ran the world for thousands of years. They understand war and its costs in a way that we simply can't. For them war means their homes being bombed, their feilds become battle fields, starvation, prison camps, drafts, shortages....seriously there are villages in france and russia where 1 in 3 men died in WWI and then again in WW2. We simply can not understand what war means to Europeans. Their history is soaked in blood. War, for americans, is something that happens in someone else's back yard and other people's children are fighting it. For Europeans, it happens in their backyard with their children. That's why they are proud that for two generations they have been able to live in peace in western europe. They simply refuse to relive the trauma. The have created a system in which consensus and cooperation are the only acceptable policies.

Sure, you can argue that the US checked the soviets and allowed to live this peace, but to their credit they learned the lesson from WW1 and WW2. We have not. We still think force and unilateralism is a viable policy.

It's silly and childish to treat the world with contempt and arrogance and then expect them to like you or even speak of you respectfully. Disrespect, contempt and dishonesty...breeds disrespect, contempt and dishonesty. You reap what you sow.

[nychoya3]

Voting for Kerry and against Bush are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, I'm not really voting for or against either one - I'm voting for or against their policies and their advisors. I've had enough contact with politicians in my life to know it's foolish to lionize or hate almost any of them. People who make it to the presidential level in politics are almost always pragmatists with a bit of principle thrown in. What's particularly scary about Bush is how basically un-pragmatic he has been. There's no concen with the actual business of governing. It's all politics and ideology.

Kerry has taken stands of incredible principle. Frankly, it's hard for me to fathom how anyone can view his actions during the 1970's as anything but heroic. To both serve and honorably dissent is a combination that very few others did with such honesty. And the charge that he changed his position on the war is utterly unfounded. His emphasis may have changed during the primaries when things started to go south, but his position remained static.

More important than what I think of Kerry or Bush is what I think of how they will govern. I'm enough of a hack to care about how the candidates are percieved, because politics is incredibly personality driven nowadays, but the wonk in me realizes it matters very little. What really matters is who they surround themselves with. I'm voting for Rubin, Holbrooke, and the like more than I'm voting for Kerry. I'm voting against Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc. more than I'm voting against Bush. Group one presided over a basically peaceful, prosperous republic governed with fiscal sanity. Group two has screwed us in a way that will takes decades to fathom. It's really that simple.

The entire Bush campaign has boiled down to reasons to hate Kerry. He's liberal, he's a flip flopper, he looks french etc. That's not the campaign of an incumbent with a record to be proud of or a vision for the future. The GOP today is held together by two things: Tax "cuts" (really tax transfers - it's not a cut if you don't cut spending to pay for it) and a love of power. They look a great deal like the dems of the late 1980's and early 1990's. Drunk on their power, doling out gifts to their coaltion. That's not the basis of a healthy governing philosophy.

The Guardian is throwing bombs. Who cares? But it's ridiculous to claim that they're doing it because Bush is a Texan. A healthy majority of the globe dislikes Bush's policies for some bad reasons, but many more good ones.

[jerseyhoya34]

NYC, you bring up a good point about the flip-flop allegations re: Iraq. Kerry said from the beginning, at GU no less, that Bush must (i) build an international coalition, (ii) have a plan to "win the peace," and (iii) go to war as a last resort.

Bush did (i) in the weakest of terms. He built a coalition of plus or minus 30 countries. Great Britain being the largest of coalition partners, with Spain being the next in rank until their populace brought about a change in policy. When you strip away the lump sum of 30 countries, you find many of them to be on par (in stature) with the Vanuatus of the planet, and others who signed on as a symbolic gesture and did not commit the hard power to the effort. In other cases, some countries sent monkeys to act as landmine fodder.

On element (ii), it is fairly clear that there wasn't a plan to win the peace with most of the post-war reconstruction done on an ad hoc basis.

On element (iii), there were a few UN countries that developed a plan with teeth whereby we would have been able to ascertain the degree of the Iraqi threat beforehand, at which time, we could develop an effective policy that responded to conditions on the ground rather than whatever SIGINT or IMINT we interpreted in favor of our position.

Given that Bush didn't satisfy the criteria that Kerry set forth as conditions upon he supported the war, it should come as no surprise that he has turned against Bush's war because it does not correspond with the vision that Kerry set forth for a war in Iraq.

[jerseyhoya34]

nychoya3 said:

More important than what I think of Kerry or Bush is what I think of how they will govern. I'm enough of a hack to care about how the candidates are percieved, because politics is incredibly personality driven nowadays, but the wonk in me realizes it matters very little. What really matters is who they surround themselves with. I'm voting for Rubin, Holbrooke, and the like more than I'm voting for Kerry. I'm voting against Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc. more than I'm voting against Bush. Group one presided over a basically peaceful, prosperous republic governed with fiscal sanity. Group two has screwed us in a way that will takes decades to fathom. It's really that simple.

Interesting point about advisors, and a good topic for discussion, NYC. I am wondering why you like Holbrooke, in particular. I am quite uncomfortable with what went on in Kosovo situation, and I think Holbrooke et al. demonstrated a level of inability in their management by turning it over too much to political wrangling rather than a strategy to win the war in the best way possible.

So, I'd rather not see him as Secretary of State in a Kerry Administration. I like George Mitchell because of his role in the Ireland affair. He demonstrated a keen ability to bring about a plan to quell religious/political tensions that are quite similar in other parts of the world.

If I were Kerry in a Kerry Administration, my other nominees would look something like:
McCain-Pentagon (of course, this assumes McCain wants to be there. I suspect he may have his eyes on 2008).
Gary Hart or Warren Rudman-Homeland Security

I'm not sure what I'd do with Treasury or Justice. I don't see Bob Rubin back in Treasury, but rather as a possible replacement for Greenspan if indeed Greenspan retires.

[nychoya3]

You know, I'd have to brush up on my Kosovo history before weighing in more seriously on Holbrooke. He's a very effective bureaucratic infighter, of the Richard Clarke mold, but he's also a very smart fellow. He negotiated the Dayton Accords, which was a significant achievement, particularly in the face of a lot of hostility and disinterest at home about Bosnia. And early on in the Serb campaign he was calling for UN/US action. That's a plus in my book. Joe Biden is the other name tossed around for State. Again, he is a very serious internationalist. He's also a bit too outspoken for his own good and I suspect his confirmation hearing would get ugly, but he's probably worth it.

I don't expect Rubin at Treasury either, but it's comforting that he's in Kerry's ear on econ matters. We would get a Rubin man in the post, which is all that matters. Gene Sperling would probably be there as well, maybe as an advisor again.

As NSA, I'd put Rand Beers at the top of the list. He has been with the campaign forever and he's a guy with a lot of expertise in terrorism. That's big. Susan Rice is intruiging. She's sort of a democratic Condi Rice (ultrasmart, attractive, articulate black female). Not sure she's experienced enough.

Hart and Rudman are both very good names for Defense or DHS. Honestly, considering the impotence of DHS thus far, I'd probably prefer them at DOD. McCain drives me nuts with his insistence on simultaneously disagreeing with Bush on everything but still endorsing him. I like him, but I don't think he'd want a cabinet post and he is absolutely uncontrolable so I doubt Kerry would want him. Hagel is another interesting republican name, if we're tossing them around, but he's running in 2008 (not that he has a chance) so he'd almost certainly pass.

With the polls in the battlegrounds looking good and the GOTV operation clicking everyplace, I'm feeling as good about this election as I have in quite a while. Too early to call it, but I think it's at worst a tossup for Kerry right now. The speculation has been that Rove is keeping a bullet or two in the gun for the last couple weeks. Let's see what he's got. If he blew his wad with the "Wolf" advertisement, I feel pretty good.

[jerseyhoya34]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I'd shy away from Rand Beers just because I think there are more capable folks out there. In other words, I think Kerry's foreign policy shop had a few loose wheels during the campaign, but it has gotten better once the Clintonian folks like McCurry came in to tighten the message and reduce the sloppiness.

I agree with your assessment right now of where this thing is headed, and it should be noted that a Republican pollster grumbled in the WaPo over the weekend about how Bush isn't polling strong right now. In other words, Bush needs to head in with like a 3% lead to account for late deciders who will tend to favor Kerry, if history is any guide.

[thebin]

Cambridge- did you happen to read the last line calling for assasination? I feel like you must have only read the first 3/4 of the article. You seem to speak as both a Brit and an American- which are you? If you are a Brit- are you saying that calling for assasination is the perogative of a "cynical" press? I don't think cynical quite covers that. I see an outlandish op ed calling for murder- one that should never have been published- and you drone on about cynical press and "europeans knowing what war is." Color me less than impressed with that explanation- even if most Europeans alive today know the realities of war no better than the average American. This was never about the Guardian liking Bush, or even termpering their disgust of him, but I guess we still did have expectations that major newspapers in the civilized world would not publish op eds that call your the murder of our president. Were our expectations too high on that front? Are we just being naiive to your savvy, Old World nuance again?

[Cambridge]

As a dual citizen who has spent times on both sides of the Atlantic, born in England, I'm just pointing out that the media market in England is so competitive that all papers are tabloids in their sensationalism.

You laugh and say that cynicism didn't drive that Op-Ed and are appalled at the lack of reverence. Apparently you don't spend much time reading the British press, they are incorrigible. The Guardian is the same paper that started a letter writing campaign to undecided voters of Clark County in OH. They were getting Europeans to write letters and then forwarding them along. They were hacked so badly by political operatives that they shut down the operation. According to their editor, it was started as "something of a joke," but they received such a huge response that it overwhelmed them.

I'm not defending the British press thebin, I'm merely pointing out that this is the same institution that was publishing nude photos of Princess Diana on an illicit vacation with her boyfriend with headlines like "Di Di gone Wild" "Randy Royal Romp in the Riviera" only twelve hours before they put her on the covers of all papers and wrote "Queen of our Hearts." Do not be shocked by them, that is what they do. They are scandalmongers and muckrakers and you fell into their trap. By getting outraged you did exactly what they wanted...You increased traffic to their site and paper while brandishing their ultra-liberal credentials to the world. Now they have a larger audience than before.

BTW, the column in question has been pulled from the Guardian. Of course, not before 1000s of copies were sold and hits were registered on the website.

[thebin]

You have misunderstood my post entirely. I was appalled by the lack of reverence? the cynicism? Untrue- and more to the point an unsupportable accusation- go back and find that part please. The only line that set me off was the last one- that “cynical” assassination plea- all previous sentences were in there to provide a modicum of context.

There probably are not too many people you know who are more familiar with the British press than I am. Its not because I worked in journalism or because I am a news junkie or because my particular interest in news is foreign affairs. No- I am an anglophile- something passed down to me by my mother. I started reading the Economist in prep school and have maybe missed 3 or 4 weeks in the last decade plus of weekly editions. I read FT everyday. But I know those two are not what you are getting at so.... I have the Telegraph's opinion page bookmarked. (Although their best writer is the Canadian Mark Steyn.) I have more affection for the Sun's Page 3 Girls than you could possibly know. I used to read The Times before they went premium several years ago and even read many Guardian op eds to know what the enemy was saying for many years. I stopped when their American correspondent Mathew Engel's bigotry towards my countrymen became so acute that I found myself fantasizing about doing violence to his person. Despite the fact that Engel was removed from (or probably he just left) the American beat some years ago. ( I can't imagine even a right wing American paper sending a rabidly anti-British writer to be the London correspondent, but I digress...) I usually stay away from the Guardian these days to preserve my life expectancy, although I find the Observer a bit more fair generally- although that isn't saying much. I only know that Bruce Anderson is a voice of reason among lunatics at the Independent. I probably know more about the overall landscape of Fleet street than 90% of Brits- who as I understand it stick with one paper their whole lives for the most part. (And I don't care if Brits don't like being called Brits by us because I know that your too common "Yanks" is meant with far more derision than our affectionate "Brits" is.)

That said, I have spent probably north of a thousand hours reading UK papers over the last several years- since the mid 1990s. . And the last line of that op ed in the Guardian WAS NOTHING AT ALL LIKE ANYTHING I HAVE EVER SEEN. EVER. You? No responsible editor should have hesitated to pull that last line- you know, the call to murder. Stop confusing the issue and know that I don't have a problem per se with the publication of every other sentence in that vitriolic piece of hate. But the last sentence was unacceptable to be quite mild.