Jul 6, 2012 -- 8:03PM, Jasr wrote:

Jul 6, 2012 -- 7:53PM, aarroottoonn wrote:

Wow, liberals like liberal republicans. Huntsman makes Bush seem conservative by comparison.

What do you mean by this?

What he's saying is that Dubya is not a "real" conservative. It's an escape hatch Republicans provide for themselves, so that in their minds, they're never wrong about anything.

The way it works, if you point out there were no WMD and that the economic clusterschnazzle started in 2008, before Obama was elected, you get that "Bush was not a real conservative" talking point.

It's like during the recent primary season, when all the Rehooligans were wrangling about which one of them was the "real" conservative, as if determining that would mean that all the others are "fake" conservatives.

So the answer to your question is that it's a rhetorical position people use to cover their ideological rumps, totally unrelated to anything in the real world, and means absolutely ø.

Jul 7, 2012 -- 9:13AM, catboxer wrote:

Jul 6, 2012 -- 8:03PM, Jasr wrote:

Jul 6, 2012 -- 7:53PM, aarroottoonn wrote:

Wow, liberals like liberal republicans. Huntsman makes Bush seem conservative by comparison.

What do you mean by this?

What he's saying is that Dubya is not a "real" conservative. It's an escape hatch Republicans provide for themselves, so that in their minds, they're never wrong about anything.

The way it works, if you point out there were no WMD and that the economic clusterschnazzle started in 2008, before Obama was elected, you get that "Bush was not a real conservative" talking point.

It's like during the recent primary season, when all the Rehooligans were wrangling about which one of them was the "real" conservative, as if determining that would mean that all the others are "fake" conservatives.

So the answer to your question is that it's a rhetorical position people use to cover their ideological rumps, totally unrelated to anything in the real world, and means absolutely ø.

Well, conservatives like to esteem the importance of faith; so, here it is:

"Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ." And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it."

www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/...

The Wingo party went wingy in Iraq.  "Lights are going out" ....

Jul 7, 2012 -- 12:20PM, aarroottoonn wrote:

It's funny when someone like you talks about real and fake people, as you support booting out of the Democratic Party the "blue dog" Democrats, and ignore that Obama is the furthest left president since FDR, but because he hasn't closed Gitmo, he is really a Centrist.

Any president even remotely favoring progress and embracing the actual (as opposed to the rhetorical) need for change would never have bailed out the banks, nor mounted a drone war in the Middle East, nor signed off on the extension of D1%k Cheney'$ tax giveaway for his diamond-cuff-link pals. Obama takes progressive positions sometimes, but is putty in the hands of a heavily-bankrolled right-wing political establishment.

He's a tool, and a truly progressive, change-oriented presence is not available in politics and economics conversation, except on the internet, and sometimes in the streets, where we are making our presence known.

But no, Obama is not the left of anybody except Boehner and McConnell. He's kind of a purple dog.

Wait a minute!  Didn't Limbaugh and Hannity declare that McCain was not a conservative?  Over and over again?

Huntsman is not a conservative because he served as ambassador to China under a democratic president. And now he dares to call out the wingos? Putting one's country before party is old fashioned. That is simply unacceptable! George H. Bush served essentially the same position, but that was under president Richard Nixon.  Can you imagine a republican president reaching out to another country in friendship today? 

Haven't many of the other candidates and pundants been saying that Romney is not a conservative?  That his record as governor of Mass. proves he is not a conservative? Based on the rhetoric, I guess Romney is the nominee because he is the most electable of the candidates, not the most conservative.  And winning is more important than principle apparently.  After all, senator McConnell made it clear that the most important goal of the republicans in Congress was to make sure 'Obama is a one-term president.'

So, who exactly is a true conservative these days?  Besides Attila the Hun and Darth Vader?

Jul 7, 2012 -- 12:51PM, catboxer wrote:

Jul 7, 2012 -- 12:20PM, aarroottoonn wrote:

It's funny when someone like you talks about real and fake people, as you support booting out of the Democratic Party the "blue dog" Democrats, and ignore that Obama is the furthest left president since FDR, but because he hasn't closed Gitmo, he is really a Centrist.

Any president even remotely favoring progress and embracing the actual (as opposed to the rhetorical) need for change would never have bailed out the banks, nor mounted a drone war in the Middle East, nor signed off on the extension of D1%k Cheney'$ tax giveaway for his diamond-cuff-link pals. Obama takes progressive positions sometimes, but is putty in the hands of a heavily-bankrolled right-wing political establishment.

He's a tool, and a truly progressive, change-oriented presence is not available in politics and economics conversation, except on the internet, and sometimes in the streets, where we are making our presence known.

But no, Obama is not the left of anybody except Boehner and McConnell. He's kind of a purple dog.

Failure to bail out the banks results in the collapse of the country. I know that is what you want, but the sane side of the rest of us don't favor that.

We could debate forever his inability to do, as you would want, imperial policies, though he has certainly tried his best (see inability to get a carbon tax, so he simply declares to the EPA to take steps to regulate the problem, or the recent amnesty, which he claimed not too long ago to not have the power to simply grant amnesty to illegals, until he decided he did). He couldn't close Gitmo, because, and I know you hated this, but they are guilty, and we have to do something with them. Since no state in the country wanted them, Gitmo stays open. Same with the tax. He had already lost the battle, when he screwed himself over. He had a deal with Boehner to raise taxes 800 billion, but then demanded an additional 400 billion. The TP got ahold of Boehner's "work" and let him know that wasn't going to fly. After that Obama either had to give up, or get crushed in the public. He choose honorable defeat.

As the left loves Obamacare as the best of the possible, Lilly Ledbetter, the EPA stuff mentioned above, Dodd Frank, the consumer waste of time or whatever its official name is, his pissing off every ally we have, the abandonment of our want to be allies in Eastern Europe, his cancelling the job creation of the XL pipeline, his saving union jobs both at the state level (at least for a year) and by fooling the public by telling us that GM would have gone away without the govt purchase of it, and the subsequent saving of the union pensions, the hard left has little to complain about with Obama. Now the libertarian/green left, such as yourself, he is more problematic.