Why Does Bob Barr Hate America So Much?
Bob "Barking Moonbat" Barr thinks warrantless spying on U.S. citizens is illegal. Why doesn't this guy just go back to Russia if he thinks terrorism is so ducky? Maybe he should marry Cindy Sheehan, huh? God, these left-wing kooks will use any excuse to bash our glorious and infallible leader.
Bob "Barking Moonbat" Barr thinks warrantless spying on U.S. citizens is illegal. Why doesn't this guy just go back to Russia if he thinks terrorism is so ducky? Maybe he should marry Cindy Sheehan, huh? God, these left-wing kooks will use any excuse to bash our glorious and infallible leader.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:42 AM
18 Comments:
Why are you questioning your own patriotism when nobody else is?
As for Bob Barr, you can have him. Republicans cast him out for almost ruining the party with that stupid Clinton impeachment thing.
As for Bob Barr, you can have him. Republicans cast him out for almost ruining the party with that stupid Clinton impeachment thing.
Ha ha. Good one! That's why the Republican delegation is sooo small these days. All those fair-minded Repubs had to get rid of all the priggish dopes who blew Bill Clinton's misdeeds out of proportion.
Yeah, that's why articles of impeachment were passed by the House, Bob Barr, more powerful than New Gingrich, Tom Delay and Jesus combined.
Winston,
Digby paints the whole picture:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113978556549077026
LL, it's not that Barr and the impeachment didn't hurt the GOP, its that Clinton hurt his own party much worse.
Yet to be seen is whether DLC-style centrism went out along with him. At this moment, it appears so to me, but you can't judge reality by the Kososphere.
But make no mistake---the impeachment cost the GOP its best mind, Newt Gingrich, who crashed and burned when it came out his skeletons were pretty bad, too. He was a lot more centrist and progressive than he was made out to be, and even if you can't accept that proposition, surely we can agree that the alternative was far worse, Tom DeLay.
As for the original topic, both national security and libertarian concerns are valid on this issue. To value one over the other when push comes to shove doesn't make anyone a bad person. We're all Americans here.
Um, re: challenges to patriotism...
You're kidding, right?
Just to pin down reality about my first comment (not about the full range of WS's original post):
The Republicans did not "cast out" Bob Barr.
Barr's involvement with the Clinton impeachment did not lower his stock at all in mainstream (i.e. hard-right) Republican circles.
So, TVD, you backed your desire not to own up to Barr with a statement that could most charitably be called wishful thinking but which I would interpret as insert my favorite barnyard epithet.
Still, there are things we agree about:
- Bill Clinton's stoopid, crass sexual misbehavior did far more damage to Democrats (though, ironically, not to Clinton himself) than the VRWC's ugly and almost entirely bogus attacks did on the Republicans who engaged in concerted smears. Go figure.
- Newt Gingrich was centrist and progressive - though only in comparison to Tom DeLay (or, say, Lester Maddox).
As for the original topic, both national security and libertarian concerns are valid on this issue. To value one over the other when push comes to shove doesn't make anyone a bad person. We're all Americans here.
Duhbya and his acolytes chose their path under cover of darkness, bodyguarded by official lies (Duhbya saying that a warrant was still required; Gonzalez calling eavesdropping a hypothetical under oath when he knew it wasn't). They may be Americans, but they clearly don't believe in the Constitutional separation of powers. At this point, they are not democrats or republicans; they are radicals and I would say fascists.
Of course you would, LL.
Bob Barr is not in the mainstream of anything, even including the "hard right" world of the Pat Buchanans and Paul Weyrich(es), which are by definition, not mainstream either.
He is, however, getting into the mainstream of whatever Al Gore and MoveOn represent. Whether that's the mainstream of the Democratic Party today, I do not know. I hope not.
WS, I don't question anyone's patriotism, only their assessment of the situation.
Except Al Gore's.
Whatever good he was trying to achieve with this latest bit is lost on me. What I am sure of is that it only has the possibility of harm, not help.
But I do prefer to believe he is not unpatriotic, only insane. Unfortunately, that won't matter to the insane people who will use his words to whip up other insane people against us.
Next thing you'll be trying to fob off Cheney's shotgun on us.
Hey, look over there, it's Dick Cheney and he's got a gun. Run for your lives!
Looking back over here, your cognitive dissonance is understandable, LL; to acknowledge Al Gore's perfidy is to admit the right man lost in 2000. (Note temperate locution.)
Why Does Al Gore Hate America So Much?
Because we didn't elect him president, that's why. Good. I'd rather take my chances with Bob Barr.
Ah, yes, Al Gore hates America (as do all of those who do not acknolwedge that dubya is the bestest and most righteous leader ever). He criticizes our policies! He's a MONSTER!
Tom, this bullshit is beneath you, man. Gore is ten times the patriot that dubya is. Gore's not the one who stuck his finger in the eye of American democracy by trying to steal an election. Gore didn't lie us into a war. Gore didn't spit on the system of checks and balances.
To question Gore's patriotism is lunacy.
It figures that TVD would question Al Gore's patriotism over comments that advocate good relations with the Arabs who are or could be our friends and that decry the abandonment of the rule of law by our government. But let Duhbya hold hands with the Crown Prince of Saudi, and that's not unpatriotic.
Here's a good riff on how patriotic Gore is:
\http://www.thepoorman.net/2006/02/15/response-to-tigerhawk/
Hmmm. Buried in Mr. Poorman's screed is this:
trai·tor n.
One who betrays one’s country, a cause, or a trust, especially one who commits treason.
Then let's make no mistake. Al Gore said Bush "betrayed this country." Quote.
So Gore called our president a traitor. Apparently y'all think that's just fine. But for me to question Gore's patriotism or sanity for going into Saudi Arabia, the heart of Wahhabism, the self-declared existential enemy of the United States and the entire Western Civilization, with false charges about US treatment of Saudi nationals is lunacy.
Tell me what Gore said that isn't true. He went there and told the truth: namely, that we have not been living up to our ideals as a nation. Not only that, he said that the behavior of Bush and co. is not indicative of the true nature of the American people, something which the American people themsleves have been saying in poll after poll lately.
Furthermore, exchange programs are one of the few possibilities we have of demonstrating firsthand to Saudi individuals that we are not what their preachers have told them to believe we are (the Bush administration's idiotic policies and gross mismanagement of the response to 9/11 notwithstanding). If you really believe in the power of our principles, let them come and live under them for a while. I'm not saying to open up the floodgates, close your eyes and let obvious terrorist sympathizers in here, so don't embarrass yourself by suggesting something like that.
Soviet dissidents have said time and again that the exchange programs were the Trojan Horse of the former SU. Once they had a chance to see what life was REALLY like over here, there was no going back, so to speak, ideologically.
Bush likes to make grandiose speeches extolling the greatness of democracy, openness and respect for human rights, all the while presiding over an administration whose actions demonstrate nothing but contempt for all of these.
At least Gore is willing to tell it like it is without worrying about the consequences of not toeing the USA uber alles line.
So I ask you, who is closer to being a traitor: the one who points out the obvious fact that, due to its lack of respect for the rule of law, human rights and the opinions of others, the Bush administration is undermining American values; or the one who is eroding our system of checks and balances, creating more terrorists and enemies of America, and defacating on our moral stature in the world?
Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at U.S. universities, that Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."
Lie.
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