ITMFA, bitches, with ME IN IT!

[jedusor]

My week has just taken an abrupt turn to the SQUEE!

If it's not at the top when you click the link, scroll down.

Damn. I mean, damn. That's me. That's ME.

EDIT: A direct link.

Comments

Re: I may get one!

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Really? I didn't know that. I wasn't really reading him at the time, being eleven or twelve at the time.

My primary reason for wanting him out of the White House is the lying, which kind of encompasses the war to me.

Savage arguments for the war

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

Here's a snippet from one of Dan Savage's 2002 columns, "Say 'YES' to War on Iraq" (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=12237):

While the American left is content to see an Iraqi dictator terrorizing the Iraqi people, the Bushies in D.C. are not. "We do not intend to put American lives at risk to replace one dictator with another," Dick Cheney recently told reporters. For those of you who were too busy making papier-mâché puppets of George W. Bush last week to read the papers, you may have missed this page-one statement in last Friday's New York Times: "The White House is developing a detailed plan, modeled on the postwar occupation of Japan, to install an American-led military government in Iraq if the United States topples Saddam Hussein."

These developments--a Republican administration recognizing that support for dictators in Third World countries is a losing proposition; a commitment to post-WWII-style nation-building in Iraq--are terrific news for people who care about human rights, freedom, and democracy. They also represent an enormous moral victory for the American left, which has long argued that our support for "friendly" dictators around the world was immoral. (Saddam used to be one of those "friendly" dictators.) After 9/11, the left argued that our support for brutal dictatorships in the Middle East helped create anti-American hatred. Apparently the Bush administration now agrees--so why isn't the American left claiming this victory?

Because claiming this victory means backing this war, and the American left refuses to back this or any war--which makes the left completely irrelevant in any conversation about the advisability or necessity of a particular war.

As for the "lies" George Bush told: I honestly don't know what lies you have in mind. When people talk about his "lies", they usually seem to mean one of two things.

First, they may be arguing that Bush knew, beforehand, that there were no Iraqi WMDs, and yet consciously lied about it, claiming there were--and did this despite already having authorization to go to war in Iraq (he won that authorization almost entirely by arguing about Iraq's intent to get those weapons, his violation of past agreements, and his oppression of the Iraqi people--none of which are seriously in question)--and did this despite knowing that when he did invade and didn't find weapons, it would be a huge embarassment for him.

I don't find this credible. Leaving aside that no other world leader was claiming that Iraq lacked chemical weapons (and many anti-war activists talked about the thousands that would die when Saddam unleashed those weapons), and leaving aside questions of Bush's moral worth or lack of it--I think if he'd known Iraq had no chemical weapons, he would have put in more weasel words so he wouldn't be so embarassed when those weapons didn't turn up.

If you're saying "Bush said things that turned out to be untrue", I absolutely agree. But "Bush was mistaken on several important points!" is a lousy bumper-sticker, and not much of an argument for impeachment.

Or the other "Bush Lied" argument that I've seen amounts to, "Bush says X. No honest person can really mean X. Therefore, he's lying." And they usually say it about an X which I happen to believe, or about an X which he never actually said--so again, I tend not to be convinced.

If you think his policies are bad, that's reason to work to defeat him (there was an excellent opportunity a couple of years back). But we only impeach presidents for crimes. And if you can't seriously back a claim that he committed a crime, it just trivializes the word "impeach". If you use it casually, people come to understand that from your lips, "Impeach Bush" means nothing more than "I dislike Bush and would rather he weren't president".

Re: Savage arguments for the war

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Have you read this (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041108/facts)? It pretty much covers the basics of my reasons for my opposition to Bush. And this (http://www.thefourreasons.org/) seems to do a good job of consolidating the reasons for his impeachment.