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CIVIL WAR PREDICTION RE-ENACTED
As usual, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul McGeough predicts civil war in Iraq:
The debate among analysts is not so much about when the Iraq civil war will start, as much as whether it has started. I have always thought that with 20-plus per cent of the world’s oil, Iraqis are destined to have a great and prosperous future - but sadly, I don’t see it eventuating this side of a full-blown civil war.
Oh, well. At least he sees something good resulting from it. Also from McGeough:
The Americans should have stopped in Afghanistan. Toppling the Taliban and putting Osama bin Laden on the run was a low-cost, high-yield intervention unchallenged anywhere in the world as a perfectly legitimate response to ferocious and unforgivable attacks on New York and Washington.
Unchallenged? Anywhere? Actually, the routing of the Taliban was challenged by McGeough’s fellow staffers at the SMH. Speaking of things that didn’t happen, here’s Mark Steyn on Bush’s God chat:
Of all the total non-stories reported by the British media since 9/11 - the brutal Afghan winter, the non-existent Jenin massacre - has there ever been a bigger waste of space than the column inches devoted to “Bush: God Told Me to Invade Iraq”?
And for other “didn’t happen” news, check Andrew West:
In the United States during the 1990s, “soccer moms” became the crucial demographic. They were politically centrist, family types who put Bill Clinton over the line in 1992. (They probably also voted for Al Gore in 2000, given that he, not George W. Bush, actually won the presidential election.)
UPDATE. Andrew West turns out to have exactly the same daring “contrarian” beliefs as the woman he replaced:
I am very well aware of how the U.S. president is elected. Bush only won the electoral college by winning Florida and he only won Florida when the U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by justices appointed by Nixon, Reagan and Papa Bush, ordered an end to the recount—a recount that would have given Al Gore the state and the presidency.
A study of the votes cast in Florida, commissioned by a very mainstream media consortium, found that had there been a statewide recount, Vice President Gore would have won Florida. Sorry, David, but you can’t get around the fact that a Supreme Court dominated by justices appointed by Republican presidents ruled in favour of Bush in a state run by his brother. How very neat.
West doesn’t supply any supporting links—how very neat! Maybe he can use this.
Does Andrew West believe Andrew Peacock won the 1990 Australian federal election as well?
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 10 13 at 09:10 AM • permalinkAs you can see <a >here/a>
1990 Two Party Preferred
49.90 - ALP
50.10 - CoalitionPosted by Quentin George on 2005 10 13 at 09:12 AM • permalink> challenge Mr. McGeough’s assumption that the war in Afghanistan was unchallenged. As soon as U.S. forces geared to move into Afghanistan, the old hippies at my university struggled mightily to get up an anti-war movement. It was like watching old people try to crank a Model T.
I am a native New Yorker and within 2 or three days after 9/11, the trust fund supported progency of Ohio dentists living as “artists” around Union Square were already protesting “Bush’s War.”One day, on the subway, after the liberation of Kabul, some hippy was trying to give me anti-war literature, noting the terrible thing the US did in Afghanistan. I kept telling him politely no. He insisted. Finally, I told him to “GO F%^# YOURSELF!” (my Italian temper sometimes comes out). He then accused me of being a Jew, “NO, a FAG JEW!”
I live in NYC and also remember protests, agitation and editorials against the Afgahn invasion (in my school newspaper, the father of a 9/11 victim got a whole page to explain why it was wrong for GWB to use his son as an excuse for war).
There should be a list compiled of journalists making claims that are so at absurd or so at odds with the facts that we are actually giving them the benefit of the doubt by calling them liars.
Posted by tim maguire on 2005 10 13 at 10:36 AM • permalinkI live in NYC and also remember protests, agitation and editorials against the Afgahn invasion
Absolutely, I was on the Indiana University campus visiting a lady friend at the time, I thought I’d woken up in Tehran the morning of 9/12. Flag burnings, angry mobs, I was nearly physically assaulted during an argument. I was on the first train back to Illinois.
I later learned that the mobs had permanantly settled in the student union courtyard in a tent city called “the peace camp” led by a homeless guy called “Steps to Freedom”. Students would take the long way around the building to avoid being accosted by their brochure-hurling minions. They stayed there til March, when the University asked them to get off the lawn.
Posted by Aaron - Freewill on 2005 10 13 at 10:46 AM • permalinkWhat an idiot. He must be using Paul (Korrection) Krugman’s data, which has been discredited. If he would take a moment to visit the NYTimes Public Editor he would have seen the error and the correction. Sheesh.
Posted by Kathy from Austin on 2005 10 13 at 11:14 AM • permalinkHere’s the comment I left. Think it will make it past the approval stage?
“You’re a liar, West. Media recounts - by very pro-Democrat media outlets - showed Bush winning.
You also fail to mention that the case reached the US Supreme Court only because the Florida Supreme Court, composed 9-0 of Democrats, let the recount go on past the certification date of the election, in direct contravention of Florida state law.
The only thread of truth you can cling to is that, indeed, Bush should not have won. The reason he did wasn’t because of a nefarious US Supreme Court, or because he really got fewer votes in Florida than Gore. The reason is that a sufficient number of dumb Democrat voters got confused by a ballot designed by a Democrat and approved by a Democrat-controlled election board, and mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore.
But keep repating your lies. Do it often enough and people will believe it, especially when they’re predisposed to. Hell, you probably believe it yourself.”
There should be a list compiled of journalists making claims that are so at absurd or so at odds with the facts that we are actually giving them the benefit of the doubt by calling them liars.
I believe you can find such a list by looking at the phone directory of any given publication and/or network.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 10 13 at 11:49 AM • permalinkDave S., you are right but you did not go far enough. The “confusing ballot” claim was entirely cooked up by democrat operatives in an attempt to stir things up the day after the election. And we are always told that the US Supreme Court handed the election to Bush in a 5-4 vote. Also a myth. The Supreme Court voted 9-0 to send the case back to the FL Supreme Court, telling them to follow their own laws and constitution. They later voted 7-2 that the FL recount was unconstitutional, and finally voted 5-4 to stop the recount because the certification time limit had passed. But the democrats and media (I repeat myself) cherish their myths (see, plastic turkey).
US history and civics lesson/
It amazes me how misunderstood the US Electoral College is, and what a blessing it is for our Presidential elections. You win a state majority, you get the Electoral College votes - pure and simple.
This cancels out the skewed demographic impact of “blue” states such as California, New York, Massachusetts, etc.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/
You’ll notice that the blue states, while liberal and populous, are on the literally and figuratively on the periphery of the US.
If you REALLY want a giggle, though, you need to delve deeper to the county level, where you see that blue states are only blue in the major population centers - where liberal and progressive thinkers congregate of course.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm
So let the unwashed whine and kvetch over the elections in 2000 and 2004 - we COUNTED every frigging vote in 2000, even the Democratic ones that were dead or who voted twice. We even counted the military votes in Florida, the ballots that the Democrats tried so hard to invalidate.
In 2004 - a clear victory both popular AND in the Electoral College. Game over.
Of course, we could be Germany, Israel, or Italy, all of which have shown us, ahem, such stable governements and smooth transitions of power…
/US history and civics lesson
Cheers - DC
Gracias for the comprehensive info, Latino. I’ve never been real good at the details, but I guess my broad brushstrokes weren’t too far off the mark.
They later voted 7-2 that the FL recount was unconstitutional, and finally voted 5-4 to stop the recount because the certification time limit had passed.
So, two liberals on the Court basically said, “You’re violating the supreme law of the land, but keep going.” Nice.
Bill Sammon’s book on the 2000 election (At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election) is invaluable. And post #14 reminds me that Bush lost some 10,000 to 30,000 votes in the FL Panhandle - a Republican stronghold - when people either left or did not go to the polls after the networks called FL for Gore, while the polls were still open in the panhandle, (a different time zone from the rest of the state), and after they were reminded by the state that the polls would still be open and that they should refrain from calling it for anyone.
This is an interesting spin on the red state / bleu state election results. Kind of like a political Rohrshach test.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
I guess the gist of this is “we may be hunkered down in big city anthills on the left and un-left coasts, but dammit there’s a lot of us and ChimpyMcHitlerBurton stole the election and he lied he lied he lied”
Ah well, what do you expect from poli-sci analysis from the Worker’s State University in the People’s Republic of Michigan?
I enjoyed that Dave, you did a great job of rebutting the ideological poppycock and myths. Particularly enjoyed West’s feeble ad hominen response.(Or he clearly thinks it is an insult and attack on your credibility)
“Great to see some passion from such a committed George Bush supporter.”
Hence proving your argument that he is essentially a numbskull. Any fact re the Bush election offered is proof of partisanship. Interesting intellectual approach from a paper with such a high opinion of itself and the intellectual capacity of its readership.
If the SMH has concerns about its circulation and the narrowness of its market as has been expressed they are hiding it well by putting this guy in the interactive element of their business. Like they are incapable of learning.
From the amazing Andrew West, in the linked post:
P.S. I will have more about Dr Jensen’s brilliant critique of the barrenness of materialism in the days to come.
I didn’t know there are still people outside of the ivory tower who actually talk like that. Put West into the “overeducated morons” category I referenced one thread down.
And gee, I wonder what “more” he’s going to have about whatever that Jensen guy wrote. (Can’t be uncritical fawning adulation and other assorted claptrap designed to mitigate Andrew West’s obvious inferiority complex, can it?) Personally, the phrase “brilliant critique of the barrenness of materialism” is already more than anyone should care to read about it.
@dc981924
I work almost entirely with liberals every day. What you describe as a mutual intolerance of each other’s views turns out in reality to be one side’s intolerance alone.
But keep telling yourself you’re the voice of moderation and reason.
Yeah, yeah, I’m irritable and rude. I’m just tired of replying to the same arguments for a decade.
Posted by Assistant Village Idiot on 2005 10 13 at 07:44 PM • permalinkDon’t these obsessive arseholes ever give up?
I just roll my eyes in disbelief when these idiots typically condemn the American media for being self-obsessed. Americans, it seems, are far less obsessed with themselves than the Australian media seems to be. As far as the SMH, The Age, the ABC and SBS are concerned, there is only one world leader…BUSH!People like McGeough seem to think that if Iraq goes pear-shaped, they can expect awards for prescient journalism and order more brie for the next dinner party. If Iraq goes bust, shit is gonna fly in all directions.
When Vietnam fell to communism - and is still behind many of the other countries in the region because of it - there were no repercussions for the hippies who shut it down, quite the contrary. The new enemy makes Commie totalitarians look like Mother Teresa and they have global reach - as 9/11 demonstrated.
McGeough would also be happy to screw ordinary Iraqis left in the grip jihadist goons just as the hippies abandoned South Vietnamese democrats.
Iraq will not go bust because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
Well, Dr Phillip Jensen is the Anglican archbishop of Sydney. Unlike many (most) other senior clergy in australia, he in fact has quite sensible views, particularly on how christians should relate to muslims and to other non-christians. He is definitely not left-wing, but rather a classical liberal. Can’t say the same about West though…
Bush won in Florida because of a plastic turkey!
Posted by Steven Den Beste on 2005 10 14 at 08:16 AM • permalink#23, #27 -
Amen to that. What’s sad is there isn’t room for a rational discussion anymore - even with friends and family members.
I have friends that consider themselves “liberal” who like to butt heads with me because I try to listen more than I try to push my agenda onto them. We both know there’s not much chance of either of us turning the other to “the dark side”...
Once you cut past the moonbat / wingnut kerfluffle, I’ve found that there are a lot of things my liberal friends and I can agree on - - where we disagree are the ways and means of getting things done.
I’ve found that there are a lot of things my liberal friends and I can agree on - - where we disagree are the ways and means of getting things done.
Same experience here. The difference between liberals and conservatives/libertarians can be summed up in what my liberal friend prefaces all of his “here’s how it should be” polemics:
“If people would just”...
Non-lefties are sophisticated enough about life to know that people WILL NOT “just” do anything, and any political system predicated upon everyone behaving nicely and unselfishly is utterly impossible and must devolve into repression and tyranny. We know that enlightened self-interest is the best that can be hoped for, and that the impersonal hand of the free market is far more just than any man. We know that the best political and economic system is the one that accounts for the less desirable qualities of human nature, not ignores them because they interfere with our utopian desires.
Dave S:
Bringing up that ‘if they would all just do it’ point is exactly where my lefty friends scramble to change the subject. That is if they are smart enough to realize that coercion is the real ‘final solution’ they have been advocating.
It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
Then I burn them a copy of Firefly…
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It’s a shame Bill Clinton never actually made it over the line, not getting 50% of the vote in either election.
If it weren’t for that meddling Perot!