<p>Excuse me? I’ll agree that the Democrats who voted for Bush’s disastrous war were a bunch of weak-kneed losers and not very bright. It really didn’t take a genius to see that launching a war in Iraq would open the gates of Hell, and that we still had important tasks to take care of elsewhere. No, the Democrats aren’t perfect, but in my opinion they are infinitely, infinitely preferable to the crooked bunch of war-mongering, hypocritical creatures we have in there. … And why on earth do you think Kerry would have been worse than Bush??? Because you believed the slime put out by the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?” Or because he was intelligent enough to evaluate his positions and change his opinion when necessary–unlike the belligerently dangerous and unbalanced man we have in the White House right now? I doubt seriously that Kerry would have invaded Iraq, although I hope he would have done a better job than Bush has in sticking to task, tracking down bin Laden, and dealing with the Taliban. Please don’t tell me you’re not a hard-core Republican. I’ve heard that tripe before from people who then proceed to bash the Democrats every which way but up.</p>
<p>LFWB, there were the same kind of rumors about Bill Clinton pre-1992. And this discussion isn’t a court of law subject to strict evidentiary rules. A hell of a lot of what passes as Gospel truth is based on far flimsier. I trust my sources, with whom I have a long track record, more than I trust a lot of other random opinions…including yours.</p>
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Well, if you are so confident in your sources surely you would be willing to let the rest of us know their names so we can properly assess their credibility rather than relying on yours.</p>
<p>Sorry, that’s not the way it goes.</p>
<p>Assessing a potential candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and lines of attack and defense, isn’t an exercise conducted fully in public. If anyone cares to discard my opinion or reservations, fine. And if you’re not okay with that, go pound sand.</p>
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Though here it may be a cagey metaphor, they often say it is like “making” or doing some such act as would involve stuffing a sausage; apparently, no one is served by seeing how it is done, nor with whom it is done; but that we are all, in the end, edified by the simple satisfaction of knowing–with some certainty–that sausage stuffing is an act common to both Dutch butcheries and Democratic hucksters.</p>
<p>Bottoms Up, Bill.</p>
<p>It would be great to have someone with true foreign policy experience, like that of George H.W. Bush. (disclaimer: I have voted Democrat since Gerald Ford ran in '76.) We keep shooting ourselves in the foot overseas.</p>
<p>Especially when that foreign policy experience represents a long list of failures.</p>
<p>FS, you are–as often–being disingenuous. A large part of politics is based on networks, some temporary, others permanent. Exchanges of hard information and soft opinion in confidence is part of the process and there’s nothing invalid about them.</p>
<p>I’m very much on the fringe of such networks. But once upon a time, in a different life, I was a staffer on the Hill. I also worked on paid staff on two [unsuccessful…but I don’t think it was my fault] presidential campaigns. I’ve kept in touch with some people and in the intervening years have made serendipitous contacts with others of the lodge, some still in politics, others working in everything from the I.B. world to the upper levels of government agencies and NGO’s. It gives me the occasional privilege of assembling some Rohrshach pictures of the political arena going beyond what makes it into the popular press. As a Democratic partisan and sometime donor, I have a more than casual interest in the strengths and vulnerabilities of various Democratic candidates. It’s possible to mimic the construction of an Impressionist painting as one gathers bits of data. It’s also possible from a single splotch of color to construct an entire coherent picture that is completely wrong. (Heh. I think Karl Rove did the latter with respect to the recent House elections…he seems to have genuinely believed that the GOP would hold. Sucker.)</p>