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• Gordon in SF October 29, 2004 11:58 pm

  

  Very interesting show again, Mark, thanks. I have persuaded people to vote on this one issue alone. The conversations went along this line:
  You gonna vote?
  No.
  Why not?
  Who gives a shit? It doesn’t matter.
  The next president is probably gonna nominate 2 SC justices.
  So what?
  You know how far right-wing Bush is, you wanna preserve a woman’s right to choose?
  Shit, you’re right, I guess I’ll vote.

• 464 October 29, 2004 6:20 pm

  

  Dance?–Dance-dance-dance–Nathan you posed some pretty wackoid challenges that I tried to give clever responses to–I want my retraction dammit!
  War is full of excuses–its an excuse-a-minute; but you’re not ready to berate a president(Boo-hoo) he only pulled the trigger on a war he had no comprehension of the calamitous causation he was creating–excuses don’t make war fuckups right–they don’t effect the body count–
  You hold Bush responsible, but not him and his administration, fully? Yeah–that makes a lotta nonsense–Bush let and continues to let Rumsfeld wield voodoo control over military operations with yo-yo directives that leave field commanders scratching their heads–yeah I hold Bush accountable for failing to make important changes to alleviate a corrupt reconstruction in Iraq that leave the Iraqis desperate enough to maintain a stasis of disorder in that country.
  I think George Bush will learn a lesson from not knowing what’s going on in Iraq–He will get a plane ride back to Crawford, TX in January and he will have his memoirs written by a ghostwriter (I’m available)
  George Bush might seek patsies if the Al-Qaqaa problem gets out of hand–but he won’t revolt against his puppetmasters.
  Iraq was a fully avoidable war if George Bush wasn’t president–but possibly not avoidable because Bush is president–he needed a quick scapegoat because he let Osama get away–and the long-standing family vendetta, made it personal and politically expedient. It’s Bush’s personal experiment–let’s make no mistake about that.
  The problems created in invading Iraq are spiraling out of control.
  How do you not classify John Kerry as not having military instincts? You have no respect for combat do you? I guess you have to be in combat to respect this point–this is OJT all-the-way–make no mistake Kerry is a grunt and a politician–that’s the mix I like–he’s not an AWOL pogue and a politician.
  You’re right Bush won’t correct the problems he created–it’s up to Americans to make sure he doesn’t make a myriad of more problems–keep the damage to a minimum, kick him out on his butt
  ASAP.
  And don’t you bad mouth Ike–you’re gonna claim stopping the fighting in Korea was a bad move? You better give me that retraction or be prepared to write me a novel why you think it was.
  Understand, Nathan, war is not a necessity it is a disease that threatens the existence of mankind–change your mind about that or be prepared to go the way of the dinosaur-peace is the pragmatic option of the 21st Century–the alternative is species extinction.

• Skip October 29, 2004 3:19 pm

  

  Hey Nathan,
  At least Kerry didn’t keep himself isolated in an ivory tower all his life. He put himself out there. He knows what the troups are really going through since he experienced it first hand. And his unit was no champaign (sp?) unit.
  Be sure to remember Cheney’s time estimate for the war on terrorism: “indefinately”. It’s pure Orwell.

• Nathan October 29, 2004 2:29 pm

  

  With all due respect, I think you danced around my question.
  We are specifically talking about the Al-Qaqaa incident, in which you seem to think there is never an excuse for losing 380 tons of explosives, under any circumstances. While I agree with that statement, I’m not willing to berate a president for it.
  Let’s lay it out.
  Did weapons (somewhere between 1 and 377 tons) fall into enemy hands?
  -Probably
  Do I hold George Bush responsible?
  -Yes (Buck stops at Oval Office)
  Do I hold Bush and his administration fully responsible?
  -Not at all
  George Bush does not micro-manage this war. His responsibility lies at the top only. I don’t think he would have had anything at all to do with the occupation of Al Qaqaa, and probably didn’t even know when it was happening.
  Do I think President Bush will learn a lesson from this?
  -Yes
  Do I think President Bush will (through the chain of command) hold those truly responsible (say, the commander of the 101st for example)?
  -Yes
  I’ll agree with you Gordon, if war can be avoided we should avoid it. If we are in a war we can’t win, we should get out. I don’t agree with you that either of these cases hold true in the Iraq debate.
  Bush may not have combat experience, and may very well not have your sense of “adapt and overcome” with regards to military failures. I will grant you that. However, going back to my point about how he doesn’t micro-manage this war, he doesn’t need it. That’s why he has people running the military.
  Bush may not correct the problems brought about by this incident, but the military will.
  I fail to see how you classify John Kerry as having “Military Instincts.” I do applaud his Vietnam service, and I do believe he served honourably. But a four month tour in Vietnam is supposed to classify him as having military instincts instead of 20 years in the senate classifying him as a politician. Make no mistake, John Kerry is a politician.
  With regards to Ike, sure, he stopped the fighting. But stopping the fighting isn’t always the right move. We desire peace, but we must understand the neccessity of war.
  -Nathan

• 464 October 29, 2004 12:54 pm

  

  Please Nathan, you are confused if you think I argue the perfection of war–quite the opposite–I presume its imperfection and anticipate anomalies–but I can give you the perfect war–it’s the war that never happened (The Cuban Missile Crisis?)–it’s the situation where reason superceded passion and calamity was avoided.
  When mistakes are made–they are addressed–and corrected–this is an important deficiency I see in George Bush–don’t expect him to learn a lesson from his mistakes–and this is dangerous in war–Nathan, very, very dangerous.
  A credo in survival in war is “adapt and overcome”–Bush, having avoided personal combat experience, doesn’t understand that,–he is a politician and instinctively covers up his flaws–
  In time of war(Now) we need a leader with military instincts leading the military, not politicians.
  I liked Ike–Nathan–and I liked his approach to Korea–there were many tactical mistakes in a horrendous mess he inherited–but, ya know, Nathan he stopped the fighting–he got that done–many say he didn’t win the war–but he stopped the fighting–and America assumed a period of prosperity
  I’ll expect your retraction and/or rebuttal(That was a tough question)