Recommended Reading

[khirkhib]

This is a really interesting article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login

Comments.  And no NYT bashing just say what you think about the ideas of faith-based leadership and the ideas put forth.  It is 10 pages long, don't just scan it like it was a security report, read it and then we can talk about it.  Esp. Mr-million-questions.

[A18]

I quit reading after the third paragraph.

A Republican party "civil war" is very likely, so it started off good. But after that, it fell apart.

Bush believes God supports freedom and liberty. That's not the same as thinking you're a prophet.

[Sam Spade]

FYI, a Democrat civil war after this election is just as likely as a Republican civil war, regardless of who wins. 

I see there being a major 3rd party challenger in 2008 (i.e. 10+% of the popular vote).  I will not predict who it is or from what part of the political spectrum it will come from.

The NYTimes is worthy of my cat's litter box, sometimes.  This is not one of those times.

It has been written many times that Democrats' greatest failing is their lack of ability to understand the values of ordinary Americans.  This has contributed to their decline of power in the last 20-30 years.

For comparison, it has also been written that the Republicans' greatest failing is their lack ability to understand the economic needs of ordinary Americans.

This article illustrates the former point magnificiently.

Next.

[CARLHAYDEN]

This is a really interesting article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login

Comments.  And no NYT bashing just say what you think about the ideas of faith-based leadership and the ideas put forth.  It is 10 pages long, don't just scan it like it was a security report, read it and then we can talk about it.  Esp. Mr-million-questions.

Please post the substance of the article, as I refuse to 'register' with the New York Times!

[khirkhib]

Your replies are about what I expected.  3 of the most avid Bush supporters on the board don't read the article. The two paragraphs that speak most directly to you are probably these.

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I have faith in God, one that I struggle with yes.  I also believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the importance of protecting the poor but I will not have faith in a president.  Faith based presidency is absurd and I can not believe in him when he so easily lies (manipulates the truth, conviniently forgets - take your pick).

Anyway attached is an interesting article from a prominent Republican family in Kentucky.  A memorium to bandit.

http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/14/oped-ballardmorton-5140.html

[khirkhib]

Another good article fromt the Conservative Editor at the Columbus Dispatch
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Facts force writer to concede error in endorsing war

"Bless me, dear reader, for I have sinned. I am a flip-flopper. I no longer believe it was necessary to invade Iraq. Alleged facts have been discredited. New information has been received. Circumstances have changed.
As a result, I have changed my mind. The Baltimore Catechism of my youth offered no guidance on the matter, but today's presidential campaign instructs that reversing one's views is a sin. So, I confess.

This is not the first time I have committed the sin of flip-flopping. As a high-school senior in the late '60s, I won an American Legion speech contest by arguing that the war in Vietnam was just and necessary. Within two years, I had changed my mind.

That lesson of history was lost on Oct. 7, 2002, when I went to Cincinnati to cover President Bush's historic prelude-to-war speech.

Iraq, Bush said, ``possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism. . . . If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?"

My answer was no. I said so in a column on Feb. 16, 2003, about a month before the U.S. invasion. ``On Iraq," I wrote, ``Bush is right, even though many Americans and much of the world disagree with him."

Last March, as I toured Iraqi villages north of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle, I continued to believe that Bush was right. In Al Rafae and Al Anwar, I saw the grateful faces of Iraqis as American soldiers distributed supplies to schoolchildren, rebuilt schools and purified contaminated water systems. It made me proud.

Over time, and through the prism of a presidential campaign, my view about the necessity and wisdom of this war has shifted. Certainly the deaths of more than 1,000 U.S. troops and 15,000 Iraqis and the expenditure of billions have influenced the flip-flop. But it goes beyond that. Betrayal is at the root of my sin.

Above all else, we must be able to trust our political leaders to tell us the truth and to do what's right. It is very probable that President Bush was misled by faulty intelligence into believing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was working with al-Qaida. But those bases for war have been disproved, and Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should cease the rhetorical ruse that Iraq posed an immediate threat to U.S. security.

Yet, even as the Iraq Survey Group confirmed that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction to use or give to terrorists, that its chemical and biological weapons had been destroyed years ago, and that its ability to develop nuclear weapons actually had diminished, Bush and Cheney continued to insist that the invasion was necessary.

``There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said on the same day the group released its report.

The president now is down to two justifications for the invasion. One is that there was a moral imperative to rid Iraq of a genocidal dictator; a noble cause if only it were also applied to North Korea, some African nations and other suffering lands without oil.

The second is to bring democracy to Iraq -- a laudable but increasingly unlikely outcome. There remain honest disagreements about the necessity of the invasion, but today's Iraq leaves little room to argue that once Bush made the fateful decision, he did the wrong thing by trying to fight the war on the cheap.

If the administration had put sufficient troops on the ground -- the 300,000-plus requested by generals -- the lawlessness and chaos that now reign could have been avoided. The school and utility construction, police protection, viable government institutions and other intended fruits of America's goodwill are of little use to Iraqis who can't receive them because terrorists block the way or blow them up.

To withdraw now is impossible; doing so would ensure a civil war that could usher in the terrorist regime the invasion was intended to prevent.

Iraq is an awful mess. I wish I had known when I wrote that column 20 months ago what I know now. I wish the president had, too. He might have waited. Containing Saddam, in retrospect, was a better option than a war with no foreseeable end.

I join Sen. John Kerry as an Iraq war flip-flopper. But his sin, I believe, was rooted in political calculation. Howard Dean was the devil who made him do it.

Please, dear reader, accept my confession.

Joe Hallett is Dispatch senior editor. "

[Gustaf]

FYI, a Democrat civil war after this election is just as likely as a Republican civil war, regardless of who wins. 

I see there being a major 3rd party challenger in 2008 (i.e. 10+% of the popular vote).  I will not predict who it is or from what part of the political spectrum it will come from.

The NYTimes is worthy of my cat's litter box, sometimes.  This is not one of those times.

It has been written many times that Democrats' greatest failing is their lack of ability to understand the values of ordinary Americans.  This has contributed to their decline of power in the last 20-30 years.

For comparison, it has also been written that the Republicans' greatest failing is their lack ability to understand the economic needs of ordinary Americans.

This article illustrates the former point magnificiently.

Next.

The key problem for Republicans in the future is probably that they have become to used to winning with a strategy that probably won't work in the long run. If it hadn't been for 9/11 the GOP would be in for some serious trouble, but the dynamics of that might keep them alive for quite some time.