I wish this wasn't so true.

[madbaker]

"More than any other election in recent memory, this one reminds me of Henry Adams' observation that politics is the systematic organization of hatreds.

"The left-wing political road rage directed at George W. Bush for being dumb and lying about the war reminds me of nothing so much as the right-wing obsessive invective directed at Bill Clinton for being smart and lying about sex. Rush Limbaugh versus Michael Moore, and let the man nursing the most unrequited rage win. The DRAMA and spectacle of the election will be fascinating to watch, but novelists, even more than actors, should be political agnostics."
-Richard Dooling

What I'm reading: Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning... Was the Command Line

Comments

[scendan.livejournal.com]

1. Yes, he did lie under oath, and that is perjury and illegal. Yup, yup, yup. All true, all bad. I think you and I have discussed this before and agreed we agreed on that aspect. Obviously, my stand is that it was a witch hunt, in spite of the fact he made a grievous error in personal judgement and should not have been impeached and certainly not removed from office. But that's my stand...doesn't have to be yours. :)

2. We can agree to disagree. I think there is a lot of evidence that he lied deliberately--or, barring that, high-up members of his administration lied and he was too stupid to notice or stop it. That's pretty damned bad. It's certainly true that they continuously and continually keep attempting to inform the public that there was a link between 9/11 and Iraq, in spite of all findings to the contrary, and also initially blocked nearly all (if not ALL, I'd have to check my sources) attempts to get to the facts behind the 9/11 attacks.

To me, I find mucking with the facts in the case of 9/11 or a war an extremely upsetting prospect--and certainly within the realm of criminal.

Again and again, for me, what it comes down to is this: One president lied, under oath, about what he did with his penis. One president REFUSED to speak under oath about 9/11, tried to block an investigation into the handling of it, and his administration has consistently, for over a year, misrepresented the situation in Iraq to the American people including at times in which it has been shown the administration knew that what they were saying didn't jibe with the information they had.

World of difference. Vast world of difference.

You say judging by hindsight is invalid. Yes, it is. Except that there's a fair amount of evidence these days that what is hindsight for us wasn't for the administration--that they knew, going in, that what they were spinning for us and the rest of the world was not representative of what they actually knew or suspected at the time was the true situation in Iraq.

Anyway...I'm going to back up and cool off. This is, after all, your LJ and not mine. I don't want to offend on your turf and hope I haven't come off offensively.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I'm not offended, and I wasn't actually trying to wind you up. I've been known to thrust a stick into a hornet's nest on occasion to watch the furious buzzing, but I wasn't flame-baiting here.

The original point of the post was to point out that the furious arm-waving on the Left against Bush is virtually identical to the Right's four years ago vs. Clinton. I thought that the author said it far better than I could. And no, I don't think "hate" is too strong a word for what is (and was) expressed on each side.

The fact that we detoured so far from the intent of the post may validate the thesis!

[scendan.livejournal.com]

It could. *grin* I agree that there's a lot of arm-waving on both sides...the thing I stuck on is that, frankly, I think that the arm-waving is more justified on the Left, this time around.

Not always. Just...this time around.

There have been ample times I can think of when that's not the case.

But with this President...yeah. I think Bush is far more of a bad deal than Clinton at his willy-wagging lying worst.

So...that's why I reacted as I did. But by the same token, your point is valid. We'll get further, all of us together, if we can actually try to listen to each other and not just scream and yell. And there's a lot of that on both sides right now.