Gore's endorsement: (centrist Democrat) politics as usual (Counterpunch)

MIB, re Kucinich, one issue is not "an ideology."

MIB - How do you know this? I could understand if this were your opinion but you state it here like its the gospel.

By the way, I wont be holding my breath waiting for your response, Im sure you'll pass.

A good friend of mine is convinced, like MIB, that Gore's endorsement is tit-for-tat with the Clintons, and that the next gambit will be Hillary's because, as this friend says, "Many Americans just can't get enough of Bill Clinton!" I love her, but seriously, I think he ought to move to Britain and spend more time with Chelsea.

But back to Dean-O: W is coming for him hard. Rove and company are drawing up firmer plans to tear him apart:

NY Times: Bush advisors focus on Dean as likely opponent



[ December 10, 2003, 09:13 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

WHAT A HOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Daily Howler takes apart the lazy punditocracy and puts the boot in to Ted Koppel for good measure. Ted Koppel jumped the shark on Nightline during the Balkans war when he and his crew tried to get a guy released from jail for the cameras--see the American *cough* journalist *cough* free the opressed!--only to find out that the guy really WAS a criminal. Twat. I'm glad Ted's getting mocked for his pathetic performance the other night. Maybe other moderators will learn from it and actually start asking questions that people who aren't Beltway insiders care about.

[ December 11, 2003, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

MIB -

Come out, come out wherever you are!!

Busy lunching with a "big wig" today?

But do you really think tons of people who aren't Beltway insiders are actually watching these debates? With I'm sure a handful of exceptions, the only people paying attention are Washington politicos and hard-core Dems in states like New Hampshire and Iowa where primary season actually matters. And those people can go to about fifty billion other places besides a one-shot-only televised debate to find out where candidates stand on what. This is a nice opportunity for whackjobs like DK to get all self-righteous about how much better they are than the whole sordid process of electoral politics, but other than that I think these debates are quite irrelevant.

[ December 11, 2003, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: William1865 ]

May I remind you that unlike yourself, Razor, I DO have things to do in life and don't spend all my time on this board acting like an impatient 6-year-old wanting to know why someone didn't respond within seconds to a post I made. Furthermore, I do not peruse every thread here every single day.

Having said that, I have no problem responding to your question, since it was a simple, fair, and honest one. So, to answer your query: I freely admit it is my opinion to a certain extent, but this opinion is an informed opinion, and not just some whims of mine. My career keeps me involved with a lot of people in politics, of both major parties, though because of Cook County and the Northern District of Illinois in general, I interact with a lot more Democrats than Republicans.

The Democrats in northern Illinois are true party folks, and much more liberal than their downstate counterparts. Many, and I do mean MANY, of them happened to say almost the exact same thing I said above about Gore. Could they and I be wrong? Of course. However, I am confident my analysis of the Gore situation is on the money.

BTW, no big lunch today. Interesting steak dinner tomorrow night, though. wink

[ December 11, 2003, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: MIB ]

No deep dish Chicago pizza?

MIB:
BTW, no big lunch today. Interesting steak dinner tomorrow night, though.


Make Novack pay this time.

Not this time. A nice, thick, juicy, medium rare steak. Yummy.

Oh come on, I thought you were going to say you were having deep-dish pretzel smoothie, followed by a Dutch-oven baked barbecue streudel-pizza, followed by filet of fried, stuffed latkes, followed by Schlitz-battered popsicles for dessert. A nice healthy Chi-town meal, and the whole thing on the Cook County Forest Ranger's Bureau's administrator's assistant's fixer's tab!

[ December 11, 2003, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

This just in... Dean would lose to W by 27 points LOL... carry on guys! GO DEAN-O!

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/13258.htm

Ive said it before, Ill say it again...

I like Howard Dean but he doesnt have a snowballs chance in hell of beating George Bush.

Do you think any of the Democrats have a chance of beating W?

Washed down with a few extra dry Sapphire Martinis with the fellas at the Club? Or -- are you guys still Beefeaters types??

What Phillyfan and anyone else who is anti-Dean tends to forget is that the election is still a long ways off, and alot can happen between now and then. Dems. are only just now starting to pay attention.

[ December 12, 2003, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: puckman1 ]

mdphl:
Do you think any of the Democrats have a chance of beating W?


Yes.

I think potty mouth has a chance against W especially if he had the general as his runnin mate...

Dean-O's hatred is going to backfire, the casual voters aint into that.

I still think Dean can win although I recognize it is a longshot. There are just too many variables at this point. Iraq could become a seminal issue. There could be another terrorist attack here in the US although I think that is unlikely until after the election.

Another key variable is whether Howard Dean can mature as a campaigner. The stridency which he has shown has been necessary for him to obtain front runner status and probably the nomination (which I think is still far from a lock ath this point). At some juncture, he will need to become more "presidential". The danger is that he will be scripted by handlers rather than listen to his own instincts which have served him well thus far.

Raze -- short answer to my question -- who do you think can beat Bush? -- PF says Kerry/Clark could do it.

Really? The election's a long way off? Gee, I had forgotten all about that. Thought it was tomorrow.

Actually, in political terms, the NH primary is a long way off. Anything can happen between now and then. Dean hasn't sealed it up yet. He's close, but not quite yet. And the other candidates aren't going to fold too easily.

[ December 12, 2003, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: William1865 ]

He doesn't need the "casual voters" or Bubba's who drive trucks with gunracks and You-Lost-The-War-You-Losers Confederate flags on it. He just needs to hold the states that Gore did and as long as there's no Diebold shenanigans, he'll win.

There was another boring "Dean is who the GOP want to run cuz Shrub will kick his ass" article on the front page of the Los Angeles Times today but I'm not even going to bother to dredge up the link because it's the same old boring shit that the lazy corporate media has spun out for the last month. The corporate media really is The Borg. They get their talking points from the RNC and just photocopy them in to articles. "Dean is too angry". Well he should be, this country sucks right now. "Dean is unelectable". How do you know? "Dean has no foreign policy experience". And Shrub did? And so on. It's so predictable.

Of course, things have changed slightly since 2000. Voters in the states Gore won will most certainly have different concerns, different priorities at this point. And Al Gore won these states by appealing to "casual voters" who don't follow politics too closely, but for whatever reason liked what he had to say.

What's more, state demographics tend to change over the course of four years. Michigan has been trending increasingly Republican since 2000, and in '04 it won't have a hotly contested Senate seat up for grabs. Florida has grown even more Republican since Bush won the state (insert hysterical protest here, foam at mouth, etc.) in 2000. Minnesota has been trending Republican, and now has a new Republican Senator and Governor. Iowa is becoming increasingly Republican.

[ December 12, 2003, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: William1865 ]

The ludicrous thing about labeling Dean's weakness as "anger" and "hatred" -- John (Hair) Edwards is even doing it -- is that Reagan was elected to a large degree by people who passionately despised all things mildly progressive, and Dubya was staunchly supported by those who hated Clinton for 8 years (for what he represented, not his 'centrist' track record). So it can be a winning strategy.

Gore handled Bush with velvet gloves, and even he knows it was a mistake now. If those who hate what W stands for could all be registered and motivated to vote, he'd get crushed.

Actually i disagree, W was "proclaimed" the repug nominee LONG LONG before and money was poured into his coffer. Then McCain burst onto the scene and it took the entire establishment to hold him down because the GOP had already given all their money to their man.

Actually if you look back, the signs were there that McCain woulda crushed Gore in the election, due to his indep appeal. But hey, believe what you want.

Dean's only shot is a bad economy, cause there is NO WAY that he's gonna run on the foreign policy of "I can fix Iraq". Everyone will laugh at him.

Jim, you brought up some great points. I recall a gentleman named Shrub who was running for office back in 2000, and I think we all know how good he was in geography, as well as the names of the poeple running the countries, remember that? I do........

W1865, good points. I'm a bit hung over and sort of running on fumes today.

That's it. Clampdown by The Clash should be Dean's campaign song.
Yep, that'll do for me.

I saw this attempt to get beyond the Red State/Blue State thing. I haven't read it all and it's working on some VERY broad assumptions about some things, but it's an interesting take on it. Red/Blue State is so 2000. Viva le El Norte!

[ December 12, 2003, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

Jimbo man... never be hung over on a friday morning, it ruins friday night!

I think we should all remember that Michael Dukakis had a double digit point lead on George Bush in 1988 just after the Democratic Conventions - elections can turn fast and I, for one, am excited to see if Howard Dean can make it - I have hope, but that's all at this point.

What seems to be scaring most Republicans is the possibility Dean may pull in substantial numbers of new voters, and then all bets are off.

If geography is to be the deciding factor, I'm sure the fact that as recently as two weeks ago Dean was talking about relations with the "USSR" (a country that ceased to exist quite some time ago) on national television has turned you against him. I think his first act as President will be to normalize relations with Mesopotamia.

That's a perfect example of the "state a lie often enough and it becomes the conventional wisdom" technique (see: Gore and the totally bogus claim that he said he "invented the Internet"). And if you're going to snark about someone misstating something, don't you think you should get YOUR facts straight first? He never said "U.S.S.R." or "USSR" or however you want to punctuate it, at all.

You can read the transcript here. He mentions the "Soviet Union" five times. Here's the relevant bits: and
It's clear that he knows it's the FORMER Soviet Union. Anybody with a working brain would know he referred to it as the FORMER Soviet Union previously and make the connection in their head that in the subsequent references that he meant it that way. Should he have said "Former Soviet Union" each time for clarity? Yes, of course. But I have no doubt, none whatsoever, that this would have been spun as "Dean is a patronizing, elitist WASP who doesn't give his audience credit for being able to know what he meant".

Does the fact he didn't say "former Soviet Union" mean that he was unclear about the demise of the Soviet Union or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or whatever you want to call it? No. And "former Soviet Union" was the correct term to use because states other than Russia have the stuff he was talking about. I mean, when Philly Fan calls someone a "commie" I know he really means "commie pinko liberal". So Dean wasn't absolutely, crystal clear with his language in the middle of an interview. Somehow the lazy-ass media whores in the corporate media have spun this in to "Howard Dean doesn't know the Soviet Union doesn't exist any more".

Jaysus H. Ker-rist. Another year of this?

[ December 12, 2003, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

Oh, ba-rother. More like another year of self-righteous indignation by the Dean apologistas. The fact is he consistently refers to it as the Soviet Union (or USSR) in your own transcripts. It's clear only in the version that you would like to see accepted that what he meant was different from what he said. Looks like Dean really is the frontrunner; the usual suspects on the left are out with their brooms trying to clean up the usual mess from the not-ready-for-prime-time-candidate - the only comparable job is the guy cleaning up behind the elephants in the circus parade. I do agree with one thing: your "another year of this" comment, although I think our definitions of "this" are very dissimilar.

Are you being wilfully obtuse or just disengenuous? \"Former Soviet Union\" is the correct term in the context. Unless you expected him to do a list of those states every time he said \"Soviet Union\". What's so difficult about understanding that unless you don't give a damn about doing so?

And here's the latest smear from the RNC-led media: Since I loathe religion, I don't care one iota about Dean's or Bush's faith; I wish that Dean was an atheist or nonbeliever, actually. It's just that I've already seen this smear elsewhere, "Dean not serious about his religion" being the gist of it, without any follow-up or context. And what's really teeth-grinding is that Bush doesn't get called on his religious flip-flop of being brought up Episcopalian, declaring himself a Baptist, all the while going to a Methodist church.

LMAO at that last sentence, fantomas. You've been reading the papers here or something?

A rather upscale, elegant steak house we went to tonight. It was a toss-up between the 12-oz. filet mignon or the 24-oz. porterhouse. Since I haven't had the porterhouse in such a long time, I opted for that, medium rare. It was cooked to perfection, succulent and juicy. The baked potato must've been a mutated Idaho spud, for it was the size of a regulation football. Good God! How's a man supposed to eat that thing?!? eek!

No dessert, though, as the meal was enough. I did have some fine Chardonnay, however. The place has quite a selection of wines, and I have had many types lately, but I haven't had Chardonnay in a while, so the waitress brought me her favorite, a rather palatable Kendall Jackson 1998. Not bad at all for 9 bucks a glass.

The only bad part of the whole dinner was that my friend who accompanied me was a straight friend who just got engaged. Figures. Too bad, since the guy's freakingly similar to me in all respects, and 13 years younger, to boot!

(Of course, I knew this anyway. That wasn't the purpose of our dinner. I owed him a big thank-you for some work-related assistance.) Anyway, dummy me digresses once again.

Now stuffed pizza...I'll have to grab me one of those again soon!

Actually, Michigan elected a moderate-to-progressive Democratic female governor, the Lacey-esque Jennifer Granholm, in 2002, and remains in the Demo column. Iowa also has been trending Democratic, and is moving even more left than other nearby midwestern states. Florida is even more divided than 2000, and is up for grabs. You're right about Minnesota, though. But a Democrat could win all four in 2004.

Here's where I got my numbers, where did you get yours?

GOP Gains in Key States

Every now and then a really good piece pops up on the Yahoo message board and what follows is one of the best I've ever seen. I thought twice about posting it, not wanting to educate the opposition and all, but then I realized no harm would be done since these know-it-alls never listen to anyone, least of all the former base of their party. So read it and learn what lessons you may.


"Big city, Catholic, Irish, Working Class. Historically Democrat.

Why did I and millions like me flee the Democratic party? Listen up Democrats, because you are doomed if you keep down your road.

I was born with a wrench in my hand, not a silver spoon in my mouth. Yet MY kids will be discriminated against for scholarships, jobs and other opportunities. It has happened to me, but the pace is accellerating.

If I point out that a 70% illigitimate birth rate may be a bigger problem for Blacks than any racism from me, I'm a racist.

If I point out that AIDS is 100% preventable by behaviour, and that AIDS deserves no more funding than, say, juvenile leukemia, I'm a homophobe.

If I believe in having enforced borders and reasonable levels of immigration, I'm racist.

If I believe men and women are different and that some jobs are better done by men (such as combat infantryman or fireman.) If I believe the market should set wages and not politically correct "comparable jobs/comparable wages"; If I believe most of the pay gap tends to result from the type of education and type of jobs women choose (men get into engineering and manufacturing, higher paying work.) I'm a sexist.

If I believe in my Catholic faith and having SOME societal standards of behaviour, the circle is completed: I'm a racist, sexist, homophobe.

I got tired of being labeled as such by an increasingly socialist, racist, sex baiting Democrat party.

You will not see leaders like Zell Miller or rank and file like me ever again."

la la la...

huh? did someone hear something from gmg?

Nope, must have been my imagination.

RZB,

" # runnin' away with you, yeah ... % * "

Oh, boo-f**king-hoo. Just by the accident of birth called being born white, you are already MILES ahead of any person of color in terms of college admissions, jobs and whatever the hell \"other opportunities\" are. Just by virtue of your kid being named John McCourt, he's ahead of someone named Tariq Johnson in terms of people in HR departments even looking at his resume (I've seen this \"name profiling\" in action), let alone getting called in a for an interview. And when I see people like you agitating for the elimination of legacy admissions (poster boy: GW Bush) to colleges, then I'll take your call for a \"level playing field\" in college admissions seriously .

Well, [Church Lady voice] how convenient! You get absolved from any charges of racism while not even bothering to dig in to WHY that 70% rate exists, like say, corporations valuing profits over people by moving manufacturing jobs oversees, thus removing a way in to the middle-class for high school only educated black people. Or that The War on Drugs has racist components to it (the powder v. crack cocaine sentencing laws), leading to disproportinately high rates of incarceration for black men for drugs offenses. And a thousand other complex, nuanced reasons. No, it just makes you a man who will resort to strawmen arguments to make a point. Because it IS 100% preventable, funding should go to it but without religious-based \"abstinence only\" provisos and with culturally-senstive advertising and awareness programs developed by the communities that are affected. If gay men respond to pictures of two hot guys f**king, then so be it; conservative objections of \"it promotes homosexuality\" or whatever shouldn't matter in the slightest. What about cigarette smoking leading to lung cancer and emphysema? Excessive alcohol consumption leading to traffic deaths and alcoholism? They are \"preventable by behavior\" but eat up billions of dollars in funding for prevention and after care. So, are you proposing that those things be levelled with child lekuemia research too? I believe that too and so does every Democrat I know. What's your point? Do you also believe that men should do a vastly better job of contributing to child care and sharing the burden of work around the home (which is still done by women in a majority of cases)? If so, I agree. If not, I don't. Says the man who just by virtue of having a dick will, in most jobs, get a 10-20% bump just for existence of said man pole. Again, not asking the tough questions. Why do women not choose those fields? Because their brains would explode from doing calculus? No, because men ASSUME they don't want to do it, women are not made to feel welcome in that field. I sat in a meeting the other day and the freakin' alpha males acted as if the women weren't even there; they didn't ask for their opinions, didn't include them in conversations etc. As this one woman said afterwards \"Whew, that meeting had too much testosterone in it!\". Women rightly feel that their opinions aren't valued or taken seriously in a lot of cases. Who sets the standards? How are they enforced? What makes you think that apart from \"Do unto others etc\" that I have anything in common with your Catholic values or what you think is important? What if I say that religion should be totally removed from public life, would you agree? No, you're just a straight white man for which the game in this country is loaded but who whines because his previously exalted position is under attack. Wow, victim much? Look Mr. McMullen or whatever your name is, I sympathize to a certain degree. I'm a white man and I sometimes freak about my inborn advantages being chipped away, but the instead of whining about "socialist, racist sex-baiting" Democrats, why don't you actually think a little deeper than "My kid won't get in to Yale because some black kid with only 900 on the SAT's will" and get at the root causes of issues instead offering simplistic reasons for switching to the Republican party? After 20 or more years of racist, sexist and homophobic policies being gussied up with code-words ("Welfare reform" "traditional family" "family values"), you'll have to pardon me if your rant seems to traffic in those code-word concepts a little too much for my comfort.

I'll make you a deal: I won't tar the Republicans with the "racist, facist, religious nutjob" tag because the radical fringes of that party is a home for people with those views if you'll lay off the "Socialist feminazi" sub-Rushian rhetoric.

Deal?

[ December 15, 2003, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

Your heart's the right place, but...race-based affirmative action when it comes to school admissions is a ridiculous, racist and needs to be done away with asap. And I say this as a black (law) student. I've been in private schools since kindergarten. My family is not poor. There's no reason to factor my race into anything.

I can understand the need for affirmative action in certain industries. There is overwhelming evidence that white men in certain lines of work only hire white men unless forced to do otherwise. Women sure benefitted from affirmative action in the workplace. So can minorities.

But school admissions are, for the most part, based on admissions exams. No race should be given a break when comparing test scores. It makes no sense. It's horribly, horribly unfair. And it sends the wrong message to people on both sides of the divide: to one, it says, you can only compete if we lower the bar; and to the other it says, well, pretty much the same (that they can only compete if we lower the bar, so try another school darling because your place was taken by someone who scored lower than you did). Ridiculous. A nice idea, sure, but a dumb one in the long run. Should we consider affirmative action in the NFL? It's 70% black. Isn't that too much?

Want to get into a certain school? Study really hard, and take your education seriously early in life. That's the message the NAACP and other groups ought to be preaching (instead of complaining about the lack of black characters on Friends).

That said, that yahoo message is rather ridiiculous. There aren't hordes of black people hogging up places at colleges and prime jobs around the country, preventing poor white people from getting ahead. It must suck to be born a white guy and then not be successful. After all, what's your excuse....really? "It's them blacks!" Uh, no, it isn't. They're not exactly on top either.

Does this mean if I join the Republicans I can be the racist, sexist homophobic elitist I've always wanted to be. That I can wallow in self-pity about how blacks, jews, gays and immigrants are ruining my life and I’ll have sympathetic ears. Why I learned something from your post. An option I never thought I had! Just find a scapegoat and I’ll be happy!! Join the Republicans and everything will be great!!!!

But wait does it also mean I have to trade my mixed race Venezuelan boyfriend for a nice Irish girl? Forget it! The deals off!

Honestly, I'm not sure why you feel that posting would make anyone want to switch parties. I'd rather hang out with socialists though quite honestly the democrats are well to the right of socialists. We just appear close to them by the serious right wingers.

[ December 15, 2003, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: Thom ]

Jim, thanks for debunking that claptrap.

TomFord, I agree with your second message. BTW, the overwhelming majority of blacks and Latinos are not enrolled at private schools from kindergarten on. Most are in public schools, most unfortunately mediocre. But the the overwhelming majority of white students also are in public schools. Look at Vermont. South Dakota. Wyoming. Kentucky. Mostly white, most of the children are in public schools. Most of those schools ain't great. Affirmative action and programs to benefit poor students of any background are worthwhile, at least at this point in our history.

One other point--some schools need to do something just based on their history. Black slave trade and labor helped to fund and build the University of Virginia and Brown University, to name two leading institutions. Both appear to have taken their histories into account. I don't see a problem with that.

Thom, yours made me smile. Thanks for sending it!

Fantomas, thanks. If anyone else wants to put the boot in to Mr. Yahoo, please do so, I don't think I argued some of my points (i.e. the one about AIDS) very well. The Angry Straight White Man: most boring thing, like, ever?

Frankly, if I was going to translate his rant, it'd be something like:

I left the Democratic party because they refused to pander to me and my fears and insecurities in a manner I deemed sufficient.

Here's Dean's response to Mr. Yahoo:

It's funny how gmginsfo writes: " I thought twice about posting it, not wanting to educate the opposition and all, but then I realized no harm would be done since these know-it-alls never listen to anyone, least of all the former base of their party."

The opposition, and a large number of Republicans, can see right through that crap. And would rather not stoop so low to pander to the bogus reasons Mr. Yahoo tells himself to feel better about his station in life. That women CHOOSE lower paying jobs? That affirmative action prevents white kids from going to college? That the issue of white kids being prevented from going to certain schools because of affirmative action is more pressing and demands national outrage than the age-old problem of kids in general not being able to go to certain schools because 'their' place was taken by someone else as a result of legacy, sports, etc.? That AIDS research is what's responsible for the expense that is health care today? That, as Jim Allen points out, we should apply the exact same Mr. Yahoo logic to all 100% preventable-by-behavior diseases (and not just the one that Mr. Yahoo thinks is rightfully plaguing sex-crazed gays)? That gays wanting to live their lives as others do is an impermissible violation of his Catholic faith and its "societal standards of behavior"? What a moron.

Jim Allen nails it: Mr. Yahoo basically wants a party that will cater to him and his fears and insecurities. Whatever will he make of the new GOP?

The GOP has since tried to distance itself from appealing to racist whites as the party that keeps the black menace at bay. And the Democrats can certainly not claim that they haven't pandered to white racist fears in the past.

But Mr. Yahoo and others, well, what can you do? They may need to tell themselves certain things to feel better about their lot in life.

Now the challenge for the GOP is to keep itself from being the party that keeps the gay menace at bay...which is the subject of another thread. So back to Dean, the homo lover.

[ December 16, 2003, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: TomFord ]

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Here's another argument - that most of the diseases that kill people in this country are largely preventable, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and most cancers. We still fund research into their treatment because we value people.

As for AIDS - yes, it is tied to our most intimate behavior, but that does not make it any less lethal, any more infectious or any less of a concern for our entire species. AIDS is here and we have to face facts that like all viruses it uses human behavior to adapt and survive. We (all of us-human beings) share responsibility for this disease and for ridding the species of it.

This is the price we pay for living in a free society, where we exercise free will, for the most part.

I say for the most part because there are, CPT, too many of the do-gooders (unfortunately most are busybody liberals) who purport to know what's best for the rest of us.

Ban cigarette smoking everywhere. Sue McDonald's. You name it. Enough already!

I know that incessant cigarette smoking causes a host of diseases, which is why I do not smoke. In fact, I have NEVER taken a puff of a cigarette in my life, but if I choose to do so, then I should not blame the government or the tobacco companies for making me ill over a legal product.

If I eat Big Macs and Quarter Pounders 5 times a week, I have no one to blame but myself if my arteries get clogged.

We can either prevent all of this by banning everything and blaming the government and corporations, and thus giving up many of our freedoms, or we can try to minimize it all by employing a bit of common sense.

Oh yes, there's a real equivalence between stupid lawsuits for burning yourself with hot coffee and policies that actually dictate who is able to be arrested simply due to the gender of the person they're bonking.

Or not.

Howard Dean as Aragon? That makes Bush Sauron. No, that's not true: Bush is Saruman, the puppet in thrall to the all-powerful force, known as Cheney, who is Sauron. Karl Rove is Wormtongue, the slimy advisor.

[ December 16, 2003, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]