Bill Whittle has returned with a new essay. As always, haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but, if history is any evidence, it is well worth your time. Here’s the first paragraph:
Watching the Presidential debates of October 1st, and the subsequent reactions to them, has left me once again with the sad realization that there are many millions of people who prefer a man who says the wrong things well over one who says the right things badly — and in the case of the first debates we are talking about saying very, very stupid things well and intelligent things very, very badly.
I’ll get to reading it soon; you should make some time yourself.
Bills essay is awsome.
First
Whittle is the man. …and it’s nice to see Frank J. calling him Whittle instead of Whittler for a change.
Oh, and FIRST.
Tacberry, you’re full of crap. NO WAY you read Whittle already and still got to be first.
He posted it an hour ago. I happened to be looking for something to kill time.
The carrot and the stick analogy is one of the best ever.
“…make some time yourself” — about 45 minutes or so.
Posted by Frank J. at 02:12 PM
Posted by: tacberry on October 6, 2004 02:15 PM
Sure pal. I hate this “First” trend that’s going on.
Bill’s essay posted at 03:15 – already had 51 comments when I read it.
Last.
Bills essay is right on.
Pro-bush type might also want to check out this essay here:
Kerry Ignores the Big-Picture in the War on Terror
There some more recent stuff there about the cheney debate, some of it is funny, some serious, but this essay in particular is pretty good. KErry is polished but dangerous.
That. Was. Amazing. I want every single person in America to read that. It was perfect.
Christ on rollerblades, what an essay! Doubleplusgood!
Found you folks from a list of recommended blogs. To quote the redhead in The Breakfast Club – “You seem so full of yourself.” Nonetheless, you’re bookmarked and I’ll check in with you regularly.
I have just read the essay referred to. It is fair to say that the essay writer had plenty to say and said it well. I had the same notion as an earlier poster of copying it and sending it around. It’s lengthy but excellent.
I think Bill Whittle and Ann Coulter should have kids … start a whole new race of genius conservative writers.
Thanks, Frank. A truly fantastic, more than well-worth it read. I shall pass it along myself.
I was reading Whittle’s latest when you posted and for those who have not read it, you simply must.
Indeed! Turn off the TV and radio and get a cup of coffee, or whatever you drink in the afternoon, and READ IT!
That’s one hell of a essay. I doubt I could write anything so good.
Reading those segments from Bush’s speach three years ago … I’m reminded all over again of the dire emotion and change of pace of the weeks after 9/11. I can only compare it with the mudslinging going on now. We HAVE sunk into a quagmire … The myriad political “issues” and finger-pointing going on has only served to DETRACT from the real reason anything started in the first place. Thank God for Whittle, and for him reclarifying in my mind the REAL issue of what’s at stake. I only hope we all here spread the word far and fast. Lord knows this misled country needs it fast, before it’s too late.
A wonderful piece.
Quick rant on this Democratic track record…
Shouted abusive names at an Iraq purple heart winner in Wash. State.
Beat a US soldier home on leave at a concert.
1000+ arrested at the RNC vs. what? 4 at the DNC?
Shots fired into the GOP office in Knoxville.
Storming the GOP office in Orlando, injuring 2.
Storming the GOP office in Miami.
Storming the GOP office in Milwaukee.
It goes on and on. Note to the Libs. At this point I don’t care what Bush may have lied about. I don’t care if he really went AWOL. I don’t care about Halliburton. I will never, never, put myself on the same side as you violent A-holes. There is nobody more violent than the Liberals. And your “leaders” do not come out and separate your party from these acts by condemning them. These criminals represent you, and you let them. It is not difficult to portray your party as the party that is soft on terror. You advocate terror. You participate in it. Not in the more well rounded, mature style of terror that your mentors in Al Qaida do, YET, but terror none the less.
I refuse to be on your side, even if it were right, because your methods are perverse and disgusting. I don’t want friends like you. I am a better person for not being like you.
Chris, you are so right. The anti-war party is awfully violent isn’t it? Do these people revel in their hypocrisy? Bill Whittle’s piece was more than excellent and worth every minute it took to read it. I love my President.
Folks, I hate to point this out–but not even Bush believes in the “sticks, not carrots” point of view. Oh sure, he pretends he does with his war metaphors and talk about killing the terrorists before they kill us. But deep down he knows better. He’s offering the giant Carrots of a reconstructed Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush and his advisors know that while tough talk motivates the base that the real job isn’t killing the terrorists, but making sure non-terrorists don’t become terrorists. Bush knows that his goal is to make sure that people can achieve their goals through constructive means–economic and democratic–rather than destructive. If Bush would just be honest about that and cut out the macho-man-flight-suit routine, maybe we could have an honest debate.
Libya was REWARDED, not deterred, with new trade agreements and investments when they agreed not to produce weapons. If you want to measure how well deterrence alone works, I suggest you look to North Korea and Iran. Sorry, Mutually Assured Destruction is a Two-Player game. It works against Soviets, it doesn’t work against Terrorists.
And Chris, you complain about abusive names against an Iraq purple heart winner, but do you have a problem with abusive television ads against a Vietnam Purple Heart holder? Or the vicious campaign against a triple-amputee Georgia senator?
You want to hold all Dems responsible for a few violent crazies across the country. Shall we then blame the Republicans for violence against Arab Americans and gays?
Shall we then blame all of America for what happened at Abu Gharib? Stop and think what would happen if the Iraqi people started to think with the same logic that you use.
And while you’re thinking, you may want to look up the term “agent provocateur”.
Hey GI – Read the damn essay. Again if need-be ’cause you didn’t get it the first time.
NoK and Libya were cited in the essay.
You mentioning NoK is funny. That’s the perfect example of offering a carrot to preserve peace. Clinton Admin: We’ll give you technology, you be nice to us. Results in NoK-nukes that will be used against us.
Iraq – stick example – they wanted nukes… now they’re going to have free elections.
Libya – didn’t just sign agreements. They physically turned over their programs to the U.S. – there are real inspectors on the ground with access (unlike in Iraq) confirming the threat is gone. Now a carrot will ensure future peace.
BTW: I do hold the current Democrat “machine” responsible for the attacks. Joe-blow the democrat next door may not be breaking arms, but the propaganda Joe is paying for with his donations to MoveOn drives the hate and disrespect for those that don’t agree. If Bush = Hitler then any means to defeat Hitler are appropriate.
I can’t stand Kerry. I do my best to convert people that disagree – not try to silence them. But, then again, I don’t belong to a party that stages massive protests with anarchists and communists. Republicans don’t do that (we’re too busy bilking the poor and polluting the Earth ).
When was the last time you saw the Young Republicans have riots and looting at a G-8 summit? Hell, we don’t even sponser toga parties and wet t-shirt contests!
“Macho-man in flight suit” – sick of hearing this one-liner. Only one way onto an aircraft carrier that’s out of helecopter range. Only one type of approved safety gear issued to flyers in the Navy. It allows you to survive a water landing. BTW those were GWB’s wings on his flighsuit.
The President is everything that is dispised by the educated elite. He’s unable to define neuance, IS a cowboy, IS a hotshot pilot, openly religious, and doesn’t give a damn about the polls. (Kerry also doesn’t give a damn about the Poles)
Yeah, what tacberry said! 🙂
Maryland is suffering from its own liberal Bush haters. Two arrested for chopping down a highway sign supporting Bush IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. Proving that only idiots can swallow Kerry’s Kool-Aid. Shots were also fired at a headquarter site. I guess they are angry that Bush actually has better than average support here which is soooo not in Maryland’s liberal charter!
I don’t deny Clinton messed up seriously in North Korea. But Bush has had four years of speaking loudly and carrying a big stick to fix it. No results. The same goes for Iran to a lesser extent.
Libya is an example carrots, not deterance. I read the essay, I know it mentioned Libya, what do you think I walk around talking about Libya all day to everyone I meet randomly? I agree that Libya is a Bush success–a Bush CARROT success. Look up the trade links and investments in Libya that result from them giving up their weapons. I’m not attacking Bush’s policies in Libya here–just his disingenuously simple arguments for those policies.
Taking out Saddam was Stick. Rebuilding Iraq is Carrot.
Bush’s sin in the flight suit incident was not that he wore a flight suit, but that he landed on the aircraft carrier to declare mission accomplished, at great expense, delaying the ships return home, for his photo op. The only justice is that the photo op went so terribly wrong–its now a part of Democratic propaganda.
The president is pretending to be way dumber than he is to appeal to people’s baser instincts. He’s no cowboy– he went to Yale just like Kerry (losing his first election in Texas because he hadn’t managed to intentionally acquire a Texas accent yet). Does George even have a herd of cattle? Because that is the minimum requirement for being a cowboy–not just a goofy hat. Apparently he was too much of a hotshot pilot to do his duty. He MAY believe in God, but whether he did or not he still do his Pharisee gimmicks because his true Lord, Karl Rove, knows that the polls really like God.
George Bush IS an educated elite. What we despise about him is not that he is an ignorant country bumpkin–but that he’s made a cynical calculation to pretend to be one. Your entire last paragraph has “sucker” written all over it. Vote for Bush policies if you must–there’s a reasonable argument to be made for them, though I disagree with them. But view the man himself with both eyes open. Even if he is not a liar, he is an actor.
Bush is not a cowboy–he is a frat boy.
Does Move On encourage people to hate Bush? Surely no more than this administration’s comments on the Geneva convention with regards to Guantanamo encouraged the events at Abu Gharib.
And here in my small PA town both Bush and Kerry signs have been torn down. That fellow who was going to at an Edwards rally and holding Republican signs, then having one of his sons pretend to be a union member tearing them down comes to mind. Hey, this site claims that guy was at a GOP headquarters when it got shot at. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091804X.shtml What a coincidence.
Stop expecting things to be simple, and you won’t be so easily manipulated. If you REALLY want to piss off the elites in this country, you can do no better than taking that message to heart.
That’s 3yrs and one month of speaking loudly in monosylabic words and SWINGING a big stick .
Libya was not offered a carrot to get them to change their ways.
Libya saw that the U.S. had a president willing to use a stick, then decided to duck before it was their turn.
Or do you think it was Libya’s cleaver ploy to get Halliburton’s winter castles and ensuing tourist $$?
You sure dropped the North Korea argument fast.
The mission was to remove Sadam from power. Or, do you think the mission of World War Two was to rebuild Japan? Rebuild Germany?
Did we celebrate the defeat of our enemies or the decade of reconstruction?
Side Note: Did the Republicans try and undermine FDR’s war in Germany because it “Lost focus on the real enemy, Japan.”
I have yet to see Kerry signs defaced in my neck of the woods. My yard sign has been uprooted and defaced twice. My “W in ’04” bumper sticker/car has been keyed (at the mall), as has my friend at work’s (separate incidents at different locations). I’ve had drivers w/ “Kerry” stickers shout at me. All this in my little Pennsylvania town. Gimme a break.
You will not find many people who dispise Kerry (and the cool-aid drinkers that give him a pass on everything) more than I do. Yet, I would never damage their property.
I will, however, beat them w/in inches of their life if I catch them in my yard or keying my car. (I’m going to put up a “Very well armed Conservative” sign some day.)
Where were the Republican protesters and arrests at the DNC convention? You people are trolls, or at least in the same camp as the trolls.
Bush is an educated elite? Damn, I must have fallen for all the MoveOn/DNC talking points. I thought he was too stupid a country bumpkin to be president.
You people amaze me. This is like a Kerry speech. If in Detroit talk about all of your Chevy SUV’s. If in San Francisco deny any ownership of SUV. As flags are flying everywhere post-911 vote for the war. If Dean is winning as anti-war candidate vote against the war. Wen you see Bush winning on his pro-war record, talk tough at the debate on how you will win the war.
You are a genious. Bush is responsible for a handfull of guards humiliating prisoners during the night shift at a prison in Iraq. We’ve never seen prisoner abuse in America before Bush became president. Shawshank Redemption was the first docummentary exposing Bush’s role in prisoner treatment.
What is more intersting, and worthy of research, is how Donald Rumsfeld is directly responsible for the 50+ yr old lady prison guard escaping with her 37 year old prisoner in Tennasee.
I guess the Orlando union guys fell for that story too. They followed the leader and broke into the Bush/Cheney headquarters injuring two of the volunteers inside. More Republican lies most likely.
In summation: My small PA town can kick your small PA town’s ass.
Upon review of the above, never hit “post” without hitting “preview”. What can I say, SDK (speln dont kount).