An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.--Victor Hugo

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Fred_Thompson.htm

Bush is seeking Putin's help in putting Iran under economic sanctions at a brief summit in Kennebunkport.  If the Iranians are buying weapons and trying to get uranium from Russia, what's wrong with this picture?  More importantly, I'd like to see the taxpayer tab for whatever we are going to offer Putin to stop doing business with Iran.


    --Quint

The conspiracy theorists

 

There is a reason that the proponents of conspiracy are rarely taken very seriously.  They would have you believe that it is the fact that you are ill-informed that causes you to find their rampaging rants idiotic.  I submit to you that that is not the case.  It is not the case at all. 

 

One could argue (I am not sure if I am or not) that there are three classes of people:  the uninformed, the informed and the over informed.  I agree with the conspiracy theorists that the “uniformed” simply do not matter in the arena of debate and that the great masses fall into that category.  Those that carry the winning side of the debate fall into the “informed” caste and I am proud to fall into that category.  The “over informed”, as I coin it, are a product of four things:  too much free time, too much imagination,  too much bias and too much access to the internet.  These four aspects can also be coupled with a childlike gullibility.

 

“Childlike gullibility”?  Wow! That is kind of harsh.  I had better at least attempt to back that up.  The conspiracy serious would have all who read them believe that they, the theorists, have a straight line to the real poop and that those, like me, who think they are loopy are somehow gullible tools of the administration.  I would submit to them that my being a “tool of the administration” would not logically mean that the conspiracy rats are not loopy.  That is, if it were true.  One quality is not causal of the other.

 

No.  It is more likely, in my mind, that “gullibility” arises from choosing to apply automatic credibility to an internet site that says something that you want and need to believe is true.  Personally, I do not hold any particular stock in a government press release.  But, let’s be logical here, does the fact that I do not trust the government’s press releases mean that I should trust every article that disagrees with the government.  It just doesn’t make sense.  It is devoid of thought.  And it requires a certain amount of gullibility.

 

A lot of times the conspiracy theorists will use some void of information as proof that there was a conspiracy.  There is not enough info on building 7, therefore there must be a conspiracy.  Something untoward must have taken place.  Let me search the internet for something that says the government had something to do with building 7.  And from there, things just loop da loop out of control.  Every contrary opinion becomes viable.  Everyone with a new contrary opinion has automatic credibility.

 

In order to believe them, one has to believe that the federal government was able to keep a secret.  When has that happened?  We would have to excuse from the argument that the three planes that actually struck buildings were witnessed by people in liberal areas of the country.  I don’t know.  It seems strange that an incident like this under Bush is a conspiracy.  Does anyone think that when the towers were attacked in 1993, it was a conspiracy?  No. Why? Because it would be silly.

 

Could it be that the conspiracy theorists are driven by politics and anger and politics and anger alone. I guess reasonable people need to debate these things.  And, no, I do not at all view angry conspiracy theorists as “reasonable”.

 

--  Quint

I write something about Hillary's hypocrisy, and it just keeps on coming.  Now she's slamming Fred "I'm not sure if I'm running yet" Thompson, and she's trying to drive a wedge between him and the Hispanic leaders to whom she was speaking:

Taking a swipe at a potential GOP presidential rival, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday criticized Fred Thompson for suggesting illegal Cuban immigrants pose a terrorist threat.

"I was appalled when one of the people running for or about to run for the Republican nomination talked about Cuban refugees as potential terrorists," Clinton told Hispanic elected officials. "Apparently he doesn't have a lot of experience in Florida or anywhere else, and doesn't know a lot of Cuban-Americans."

Two words, Hillary.  ELIAN GONZALEZ.  Are these things the experience in Florida and Cuban-Americans that Hillary can flaunt: A personal favor to Fidel Castro, an FBI home invasion to do the favor, and returning a small boy to Cuba against the wishes of his dead mother who died getting him here?

This campaign's going to be a regular riot.


-- quint

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton today made some amazing prognostications today:

"A clean sweep" is needed at the White House because President Bush has fostered "a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence," Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday.
************
"After eight years of the Bush administration, we are going to be shocked by what we find," the New York senator and former first lady said. "Somebody said to me the other day if there was ever a time for a woman president it's now because we're going to have to do a lot of cleaning."
************
"Grab your buckets, grab your brooms," Clinton said. "We're going to have to do a clean sweep because there has been a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence."

While I have no illusions about the state of the current administration, I'm also a bit too well-informed to let this slip by without comment.  How can the woman who presided over the administration that set the bar for post-Watergate corruption preach about corruption and cronyism as if she knows nothing of such evil? 

I would recommend two books on the subject Bitter Legacy and Absolute Power.  Unfortunately for the Clintons, their crimes and misdeeds have been hushed up, but they are legion and they have been cataloged in the public record.  Obama could have pulled off that rhetoric, but it comes off as a cheap joke coming from Hillary.