Marinegunrock,
Thanks for serving, the compliments end there. I got my CAR in Desert Storm, you marines hate seeing those on a sailor. The Army and Marines do not have an exclusive on Iraq. There are plenty of sailors getting thrown in the mix without the training you guys get. Yes the Air Force too, but we won't talk about their amenities. I stuck it out to retirement. I hate you guys that do one enlistment and run your mouth as an armchair patriot. I wonder if you were in the unit that threw those dogs off a cliff over ther and filmed it for your sick humor. Nice recruiting video for the Marines, I bet you are proud.
I really love how your republicans took care of the economy. I like how Exxon decorated Prince William sound, but hey it was just wildlife not human. W had way more intelligence than Roosevelt did and Roosevelt knew a lot about upcoming events. Don't make me explain it, go back to school. I am not a democrat so drop that but I will never ever be a republican, they are just too sleezy for me. For the rest of you: Yes Stephens did his job, yes Gonzales broke the law. Give the ticket or arrest him and be done. The comments were not in any way required by Stephens to do his job. The ticket was given but dropped by the watch commander on duty(or whatever that department calls it). Stephens was in Iraq maybe he helped with the dog torture. You know there are more criminals in on waivers than actual patriots, no wonder this kind of stuff happens over there.

^same here when i found out about stalingrad, i was like, russia was our... ally? what? i thought they were evil? what? how many million of them died keeping the germans away from the western front? wow...

that picture of Yalta with Churchil, Roosevelt and Stalin all sitting together really freaks me out.

You speak as someone who bathes his mind in right-wing conservative circles, and just won't listen. It also sounds like you're against McCain because he's too liberal.

I never said candidates don't reverse themselves on campaign promises, just that they usually don't flip from left to right, or right to left, or from centrist to extremist. Teddy Roosevelt was the last President who really "flipped", and he didn't flip so much as he just defied classification within the party platforms.

This one just campaigned as a moderate, and had a moderate record in Texas, then came to Washington and went nuts on us.

Any chance I got through on oil drilling? On health care? No?

I hear you on disagreement, but if you're only getting your information from Republican advocacy groups, you're really not getting the full picture.

I can understand an ideological difference of opinion, but you've repeated a lot of easily debunked right-wing talking points, and I have to say you're just not getting a well-rounded diet of information if you believe in stuff like the environmentally protected offshore oil drilling scam.

^ I answer your quote with another:

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Recommendations to the Congress to Curb Monopolies and the Concentration of Economic Power" April 29, 1938

The biggest reason, Farhad, that I think Bush will be remembered better is because he presided over a crisis. Roosevelt made some pretty bad blunders in his presidency. But he's associated with the Rough Riders and their 'heroic' deeds. Abe Lincoln was a failing politician, yet we associate him with the Emancipation Proclamation. JFK was around during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and people remember him fondly even though he made some terrible decisions in office.

George W. Bush was president during the September 11th Terrorist attacks. And he'll be remembers for how it was handled. History has a way of minimalizing the flaws of it's leaders, and the former presidents of the United States are no exception.

BTW, not EVERYTHING I mentioned was him or his administrations fault. He didn't send us to war, congress did. Despite the popular conspiracy theories he was not behind September 11th. He also didn't start or set into motion the Sub-prime mortgage crisis. Nor the subsequent fuel crisis or world wide economic recession. I'm sorry he's just not that powerful.

Easy to blame, sure. But come on if you seriously think he could have foreseen or planned what the consequences of his actions mixed with world events would have been, fine. I for one don't give him that much credit.

The spirits of Jefferson, Adams, Roosevelt, et al are all dead. Nobody does the right thing anymore. The only time someone does the right thing over money interests is in the movies.

Whoa, simmer down there boiling water. Fiscal irresponsibility and nation-building are Democratic "things", too. Democrats have proven to be interventionists. Have we forgotten about Wilsonian interventionism? Woodrow Wilson believed every man had the right to self-determination and further believed it was America's duty to protect democracy throughout the world. Wilson sent troops to Mexico to proclaim martial law during a revolution. He was quoted saying his efforts were to "teach Latin Americans to elect good men." And, let us not forget his interventionist role in Europe which aided in the Versailles Treaty. We know how that ended for us.

What about Franklin Roosevelt? Hey, tell me which right-wing mouthpiece publication is responsible for this quote: "Franklin Roosevelt relished his nation-building" Fox News? Nope. The New York Times did in regards to his interventionist policies in Haiti. FDR even said "I wrote Haiti's Constitution myself, and if I do say it, it was a pretty good little Constitution."

What about Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam? The Vietnam War has been categorized as LBJ's war. But, our involvement with Vietnam started during the cold war, which started to be realized when Harry S. Truman tried to contain communism in Southeast Asia in the 50s. And, hell, JFK was guilty of increasing financial aid and advisory assistance in South Vietnam. He fully adopted the National Security Action Memorandum 52 which was left over from the Eisenhower Administration that read in regards to South Vietnam: "The U.S. objective and concept of operations stated in the report are approved: to prevent communist domination of South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological and covert character designed to achieve this objective."

Will that do or should I continue?

OK guys, shes been embedded with the Navy Seals, this is a no joke, no asking questions no shit taking organization (Although slacking in their requirements).

I can guarantee what she saw out there in that hell hole with those boys was not fake nor was it the bullshit that the every day joe sees around the house, only a select few have the privilege of witnessing a violent crime. But then again some of us are unluck. I hope she knew what she was getting into.

Check out the book called "Generation Kill" in that book, the reporter was embedded with marine force recon spearheading the marine expeditionary force during the invasion. On one occasion he had hide below the gunner of an M249 saw because they were taking so much fire. He had to wear the same biowarfare gear they did, and go through the same drills they did.

Whether the lady above saw combat or not does not matter I can bet she saw some things that weren't nice things that would make the average righteous pro war wanker think twice about sending, "our boys" - Teddy Roosevelt, to war.

Whats it going to take to get people to wake the hell up around here, the draft?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Logan

I suggest you read the studies you cite before you propose that conservatism is a form of 'mental illness', the study itself was carried out to link a hypotheses to the idea that conservatism shares common treads as a whole or independently with regards to rigidity, inequality and unwillingness to be open to new ideas.

"Our first assumption, too, is that conservative ideologies – like virtually all other belief systems – are adopted in part because they satisfy some psychological needs. This does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled."

Never does it claim conservatism is a form of mental illness, the study states itself that it is not judgmental with regards to political spectrums. Was Theodore Roosevelt mentally ill? Margaret Thatcher? Dwight D. Eisenhower?

Furthermore different political stands are psychologically more comfortable depending on the situation, post 9-11 it was psychologically more comfortable to become politically conservative due to the psychological motivators of fear and threat kicking in becoming more rigid and reactionary against threats that appeared and an effort to return to the 'good old days'. Claiming Bush is a conservative is laughable, since he is not a conservative, he is a religious right wing authoritarian.

I think saying one political sphere is better then another is rather silly, each persons political stance is highly nuanced beyond simply labels such as democrat, republican, liberal or conservative. Andrew Sullivan can be called a religious conservative, but he is pro-gay rights, and is supportive of Barack Obama. Where is his mental illness then?

Let's count the lies:

#1: "Lincoln founded the republican party" -- No he didn't. He wasn't even its first nominee to run for president. Free soil, free land, Frémont.

#2: "Rev Wright is a problem for Obama" -- Only to people who take the out-of-context soundbites at face value.

#3: "a very humbling experience" -- no, a humbling experience is being downtrodden. Having power, wealth, and accolades thrust upon you is exactly the opposite of humbling.

#4: Being in the same party that imperialist Teddy Roosevelt and crook Reagan were in isn't exactly something to be proud of, even if the current GOP platform resembled its platform back then. It's also the party of Nixon, Hoover, and Bush. Oh wait--- maybe that's what he means by humbling

>> ^jwray:
When did he say that? Maybe he was just saying that there wasn't any good evidence for it and people should move on.

It's actually been sifted, but I couldn't find it with a quick search. But I think, Patriot, that you missed his point. What I took away from that were two things. One, the notion that it was an inside job would require a conspiracy of absurd proportions, including thousands of people who were not "members of the elite". Second, and perhaps more importantly, even if we assume that it's true, and could be proven, then what? It would not be a simple matter of impeaching a few administration officials. The obscene amount of time and effort involved in proving the conspiracy would be dwarfed by the amount of time and money it would take to "make things right". In other words, for better or worse, this is the system we have, and we can choose to rail against it to little effect, or we can work within it to bring about good changes. Compare it to the possibly valid notion that Roosevelt had foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Again, even if it were true, what would have been the point of proving it? A bit of mostly ineffectual legislation enacted once the horse has left the barn?

We have bigger things on our plate, like, um, the degrading healthcare system.

...well at least one guy knew enough to make an Roosevelt joke about term length.

Maybe if they had cut together speeches as if Hitler was singing the words. Otherwise its just two really played out memes in juxtaposition.

Meh.

Oh and HollywoodBob, the Third Reich was hated for military aggression and ethnic cleansing. I don't think Churchill and Roosevelt were cool with Hitler until they got wind of his fantastic parades.

In the book, Goldberg attempts to convince readers that six decades of conventional wisdom that have placed Italy's Benito Mussolini, Germany's Adolf Hitler and fascism on the right side of the ideological spectrum are wrong, and that fascism is really a phenomenon of the left. Goldberg also attributes fascist rhetoric and tactics to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and describes the New Deal's descendants, modern American liberals, as carriers of this liberal-fascist DNA. In a sense, "We're All Fascists Now," as Goldberg puts it in one of his chapter titles.

The vapid stupidity of this argument is profound, Jonah cites what Mussolini said as fact, as if the usurpation of power in Germany and Italy were political campaigns run in democracies not simply two men saying and doing whatever would garner them power. The whole argument reads like an excuse to call liberals Nazis.

John Cole put it very well in saying that Goldberg basically twists words to make them mean whatever he wants them to mean.

The Salon.com interview from which I pulled the gist of the book is a hilarious read, and filled with miles of bullshit and quotable lines.

"I would argue that Nixon was not a particularly conservative guy. Measured by today's standards and today's issues, Nixon would be in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

[On Mussolini but could be self referential] "And he said a lot of stuff. He was sort of a buffoon in that sense; he was constantly changing his definitions of fascism and talking out of one side of the mouth, then out of the other side of his mouth, largely because of the sort of pragmatic idea he had about politics. But in terms of the policies he implemented and where he came to, once again, at the end of his life, he always clung to the policies that were associated with the left side of the political spectrum."

"But there's another dystopian understanding of the future, which we get from [Aldous] Huxley's "Brave New World." That was a fundamentally American vision ... [T]he vision of the Huxleyian "Brave New World" future is one where everyone's happy. No one's being oppressed, people are walking around chewing hormonal gum, they're having everything done for them, they're being nannied almost into nonexistence. That's the fascism in Hillary Clinton's vision. It's not the Orwellian stamping on a human face thing, it's hugs and kisses and taking care of boo-boos. It is the nanny state. That is a much more benign dystopia than "1984," but for me at least, it's still a dystopia. An unwanted hug is still as tyrannical or as oppressive -- not as oppressive, but an unwanted hug is still oppressive if you can't escape from it ... [O]ne of the biggest distinctions between what I'm calling liberal fascism ... and classical fascism, is that classical fascism was masculine and violently oppressive and today's liberalism is feminine and not oppressive but smothering with kindness."

The full interview is here at Salon.com.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” -Theodore Roosevelt, 1918