That is one ugly ass picture.

Great post. And should be read by all the douchebag brainless "swing" voters that pulled the lever for GWB.

It's sad really.

Excellent point, Ezra. But in reality it's just that Bush is really frigging stupid and his administration full of the insane, the incompetent, and the incompetent insane.

It's just like Colbert said: wherever Bush stood on Tuesday, that's where he'll be standing on Thursday, no matter *what* happened on Wednesday.

Even his dictatorship tendencies aren't really a reaction to 9/11 - they're just packaged that way. He would have tried a lot of the same things anyway.

Excluded middle, Ezra. There's a lot of room between responding to every fluctuation of the polls, and regarding yourself as having been elected to a four-year term as dictator.

I agree that a President shouldn't change his position like a weathervane. But there are some things it makes no sense for a nation to do without the support of its people, and being in a major war is one of them.

Once a nontrivial majority of people firmly settle in to opposing the war, it's time to figure out what the exit plan is, or we're not a democracy anymore.

Going a bit further, I really think this illustrates the need for partisan media outlets. Seeing reporters kinda sorta try to make that point in their questioning of Dana Perino the other day reminded me that many of the most pointed questions are sharpened by advocacy of a position, and understanding its underlying arguments. The right questions weren't the ones one could expect a 'neutral' reporter to think of.

Ezra, maybe you misunderstand what the public voted for. They did not vote for "a president who will [not] follow the whims and will of the people." They voted for "a president who will [not] follow the whims and will" . . . of other people.

Difference.

low-tech cyclist,

How much value should we place in the opinion of uninformed individuals? I have debated the war with 100s of people for and against it. By and large the majority didn't have the slightest clue what they where talking about. I had a brother, sister, brother in law, extended family, and friends all serve there so I have a good idea what the soliders think and what is happening there. If the soliders fighting the war, and the majority of the people who take the time to learn what's going on support being there, who cares what some half wit who gets his information form Jon Stewart thinks? Freedom ain't free, if someone can't take the time to learn the facts and them base their opposition on those facts F them I don't really care what they have to say.

Democracy isn't subragrating your vote to national media whims.

"""and your children may be dying in his failed war,"""

The only children who have died in this war, died on Sept 11th 2001, and those were undeniably Clintons fault.

If you can't recognize that modern American-led freedom is at war with radical islam ACROSS THE GLOBE..then you are the child.

Even Osama Bin Laden recognizes that Iraq is the main front on the war on Islamic terror - why can't the hard left?

Osama bin Laden declares "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine."

So why is the hard left so committed to giving it to him??

Bravo Ezra. I think people vote for the person that best reflects themselves, and in Bush, they saw the same incompetancy, the same smugness, the same idiocy, the same stubborn, thickheaded smallness, and they voted for him. That and the whole "don't change ships midstream" meme. I hated Kerry, but at least we would have had some frontal lobe in charge of the god damn country, and not same reptillian brained bullshit we had for the first 4 years. If we elect McCain, I'm leaving the country. I can finish school online, and there's plenty of budding game developers over in Europe.

And to the anon. guy, who won't be back on this thread to even check up on his trolling: contrary to popular belief, a liberal isn't above calling something what it is, and you sir, are a duech bag. Lol.

How much value should we place in the opinion of uninformed individuals?

Very little. Which is why Bush and Cheney should defer to the judgment of the American public.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week!

Anonymous, we're not the ones whining that nobody likes us on a web page. Perhaps you need to rethink which of us is acting like a child here?

If this is such a vast and important struggle, shouldn't you be out fighting it? Because you're not doing that here, no matter how much you may try to delude yourself into thinking you are.

Anything to take your mind off of what a cowardly little nothing you are, though.

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? -- John Maynard Keynes.

What's that smell?

Oh, its this assertion straight from Nate's ass:

...the majority of the people who take the time to learn what's going on support being there...

Keep clinging to your "No True Scotsman" fallacy. I look forward to your upcoming explanation of how communism failed because it was never really implemented.

Then again, what do I know? I don't even know what "subragrating" my vote means...

The hilarity of Anonymous's repeated rants is, of course, the fact that the more informed you are about Iraq, the more likely you are to want to pull out. Those who believe that saddam attacked up on september 11th and that we found all the WMDs that weren't hidden in Syria while we were fighting the Iran-trained Al-Qaeda groups are the ones who keep arguing that we should stay in Iraq.

I, of course, meant Nate, not Anonymous.

Since Nate works in insurance, it seems pretty natural that he would frequently show up taking Ezra to task regarding his opinions on health coverage. However, why is it that these sorts of people (like an HSA-promoting troll who use to come here) also tend to buy into all the rest of the Republican talking points, as well?

Since when was Kerry an anti-war candidate? His line on the war was, "Bush tried to win the war on the cheap and sold out the troops -- I'll give them the equipment and troop numbers they need to win."

And it's nice to know from Anon that all the bombs we've dropped on Iraq, and the rounds that we've shot (to say nothing of the basic infrastructure that we've destroyed, or the civil war we enabled) haven't killed a single Iraqi child. Nope. Not even one.

Bing is a really overlord!! support Bing~~