| Author | Message | ||
     Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 1661 Registered: 03-2006 |
Scooter Libby, guilty of 4 out of 5 counts...maybe there is a vestige or two of justice in the world...that's gotta put a twist in the Dickinator's shorts! Anne Coulter - on the other hand, she's at large and free to spew her hateful bile...maybe she's finally really shown her ass this time, though. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 450 Registered: 08-2006 |
And let's not forget what I'll dub prosecutorgate. Can't wait to see the slimey ring that remains when Congress starts draining that tub. Oh, and there's the little matter of our troops receiving third-world medical care. It's almost springtime in DC, and you can just about pick up the scent from the rotten corpses of formerly functional government entities. Is it any secret why conservatives don't like government? THEY CAN'T GOVERN. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 513 Registered: 01-2005 |
Anne Coulter is pathetic. She even called conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson a f****t shortly after his wife gave birth to their fourth child. Imagine that! She'll say the most outrageous crap just to sell books to the right wing fringe. Whatever shread of crebible thought she might have is blown away by her over the top blabber. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 265 Registered: 09-2006 |
My worry of course is that things will stop with the Libby conviction...the gang of cronies might figure they've (to mix metaphors) sent in a sacrificial lamb to take one for the team, so everybody should just shut up now. | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 1665 Registered: 03-2006 |
Yeah, Dubya might just have enough low cunning left to hold off pardoning Scooter until he's on his way out of office. By that point, Scooter's appeal, and with it, his out-on-bail liberty, will have run its course. If that happens, there's not a lot anyone can do, and really, what does the chimp in charge have to lose? How much lower could his poll numbers go? And, he's already worst prez ever... | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 452 Registered: 08-2006 |
Chimp in charge. Heh, heh. I like. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 16 Registered: 02-2007 |
Do Americans know/realize what the rest of the world actually think of George W. How embarassing it is to have such a fwit as head of state. This is a serious question. I know our PM is an emabarrassment here in OZ but whats wrong with the US political system that a man of such limited insight and grasp of global politics can run a country with so much to offer the world if only its foreign policy could rely less on fear and more on engagement. I am bewildered. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 234 Registered: 04-2005 |
Likewise bewildered are all those British (former?) Labour voters who believed that Blair was a socialist and not Bush's pet European poodle. Whatever you think of Blair, you have to believe that he is more intelligent than Bush: oh, to be a fly on the wall during their private conversations! What do they have in common? Answer: a thirst for power and a belief in the same God ? Incidentally I only looked at this thread cause I thought it might be slagging off David Bowie. In the running with Jim Morrison for the most overrated person in pop history? | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 453 Registered: 08-2006 |
David, trust me, a ton of Americans know what a train wreck this presidency is, and a lot of us saw it coming long ago. I live in Chicago and I'd be hard pressed to round up a carload of people who'd vouch for W.'s performance as president. But I assume we're in the same boat here as you all in Australia: a lot of the country is not Chicago. A lot of the country voted for Bush because gays getting married seems like a bigger threat to the health of the country than a sprialing national debt; they voted for him because cutting Bill Gates's taxes is a worthier aim than functioning government agencies; they voted for him because they think Fox News is news. That part of the country is not the majority (the Chicago metro area could take Wyoming, Montana and Idaho put together in a fair fight, and we could buy them outright with money to spare), but because of the way our electoral system works, they can act like it. Believe me, more Americans than not know what's happening to our country, and a lot of other countries besides. And we're pissed as hell. And very sad, too. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1050 Registered: 03-2005 |
Like Rob, I live in one of the US's internationally-oriented cities. But my hometown is another thing altogether and it's more typical of "average" America. David, the US is almost as big as Oz geographically. It has two big oceans on each side and relatively weak neighbors north and south. Unlike Oz, which with its relatively small population must always be outward-looking in order to meet its needs, the US has a gigantic population and resource base (although that has been squandered somewhat). A huge proportion of Americans don't really look outside of their own country. They believe the silly national chauvinist tripe they've been fed since children (which everyone is fed by their own governments in every country) that theirs is the greatest, freeist country on earth. They never go anywhere else or read anything to test this storyline. This is abetted by a news media that provides very little information about other countries and the ONLY perspective given about foreign stories is how it relates to US. Another interesting contrast between Oz and the US which I think will explain a lot is the difference in population distribution. An astonishing proportion of Oz' population is located in a handful of large cities on the coastline which is likely to make the Oz populace a more urban-minded crowd and also probably always more aware of the reality that there is somewhere else. The US has large cities of course, but with 15 times as much population it has a vast number of mid-size and smaller cities located in the interior. It's easy for these smaller burgs to survive because they are still connected to a giant populous country but they are at least one layer away from any connection to the rest of the world. There is a longstanding American bias against intellect and education. This prejudice cuts across nearly every demographic sector of this country except, of course, the oligarchy who won't be sharing their true opinions in public anytime soon; they exploit this prejudice because an ignorant populace is an easily manipulated one. Back to the general public attitude: education is OK if it trains you for a job but if it is pure education for education's sake--something that teaches you how to think critically--it's highly distrusted here. I'll bet you run into the same thing in Oz on that score. That's why certifiably smart, thoughtful politicians here such as the late Paul Tsongas (who, on the Democratic side warned everybody about the accumulating national debt way back in the 1980s), John Anderson (a brilliant internationalist liberal on the Republican side, believe it or not) and currently Russell Feingold can appeal only to small boutique electorates. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the Barack Obama can actually bring that rare and essential combination of super intellect and press-the-flesh people skills. But a LOT of Americans fall for the Bubba persona crap. Hopefully the Bush administration will have cured them of that for a generation. I could go on and on about why I think the american public falls for people like Bush but you'd just go wall-eyed. I am, of course, waiting for Padraig to tell me I'm full of #$%#. | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 1669 Registered: 03-2006 |
David, trust me, many of us know what a f-wit Bush is - we only laugh about it to keep from crying. What's frustrating to me, though, is although Bush's approval ratings are at a crushing low now that the war is such an undeniable loser, a goodly chunk of those folks voted him in in 2000 (though not a majority) and 2004...what the f___ were they thinking then? Say what you will about the war and this administration's incompetence, but you couldn't call it unexpected. Randy and Rob are completely right, too. The so-called "red states", which really do seem to be mostly in the interior (snottily called the "flyover states" by some), do maintain a shocking level of intolerance and ignorance - it really is another world. Hard to believe, and it must seem particularly laughable to you, but the gay marriage thing really was an important factor in the 2004 election, too... Also, and this is hard to get across and probably says more unflattering things about the American character, but the Presidential contest here is about many things, but not really all that much about experience and ability. It's more a big high school popularity contest and is really about those "press the flesh skills": who has the most charisma, the highest wattage smile. As testament to that fact, I'd point out that the two candidates with the best CVs, the most on-point experience, Joseph Biden and Bill Richardson, don't stand a chance of a cinder in snow of winning. They're not, in a nutshell, charismatic or sexy. Yes, we're all too aware and we're not proud... ps - Ever notice how much Australia's PM looks like Dick Cheney? They look like they were twins, separated at birth. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1258 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, you're full of #$%#! We have no neighbours to the south; weak or otherwise. Unless you count the Penguns on Antarctica, but they're all living high on the hog with their Happy Feet royalties right now and ain't bothering no-one. We'll see how happy those fockers are when global warming really kicks off and the Happy Feet DVD is in the bargain bin. Who'll save them then? Al Gore? Tipper Gore (after she's done stopping us listening to decadent rock 'n' roll and hip-hop)? | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 17 Registered: 02-2007 |
Didn't mean to start a war (of words) here. Spose they're elites on the right and left that confuse the issues. The little guy gets confused. Dick Cheney is John Howards long lost brother, LK. Duelling banjos politically there! | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 516 Registered: 01-2005 |
Randy, I wrote in Paul Tsongas on my ballot for President in November of 1992 because he was the only candiate serious about the national debt! Dick Cheney would have made an ideal henchman for Hitler. He lies and destorts, believes in tourture and crushes his enemies. You can easily picture him with a Nazi uniform on, or even better yet a black SS uniform with the skull on the cap! The trademark Cheney sneer of course tops the whole picture off! | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 1679 Registered: 03-2006 |
Yep, you can easily picture the Dickinator dressed up like the leather guy from the Village People, sneering while he makes a lampshade from human skin, as "Deutschland Uber Alles" blares in the background... Did you read about that guy that was supposedly persecuted on campus for being in the military? Because he supposedly protested that treatment, he was lionized by the Repubs, had his picture taken with that man Coulter, Rush, et al...He even spoke at the very same conference that Coulter dropped the "f bomb" at...the punchline, of course, was that he turned out to be a former gay porn star. No irony there. You couldn't make this stuff up! | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 517 Registered: 01-2005 |
Great news!!! My local newspaper that I have been a subscriber of for over a dozen years got mentioned in some US national news reports yesterday! The Oakland Press became the seventh news publication to drop Ann Coulter's column in the past week. Now I don't have to go out of my way to save used coffee grounds anymore to plop down on her photo. |