[Kamen]

Originally Posted by Blake

Second:

Cynthia McKinney never said this. In fact, that's not even what the common distortion of what she actually said was held to be.

Ah, my memory was faulty and it never happened. Thank you for the correction and the link, I will read it and try to remember why I thought what I did.

In general, the rhetoric of Democratic so-called extremists cannot compare with Republican extremists. Michael Moore, Cynthia McKinney, Paul Krugman, and the folks at MoveOn have never said anything remotely close to Ann Coulter's "we should bomb all the Muslims and convert them to Christianity" or "Timothy McVeigh should have blown up the New York Times, not the Murrah Federal Building." MoveOn did *not* sponsor the Hitler ad; it was one entry out of thousands in their contest which did not so much as make the semifinals. These people only sound extreme because the reality they talk about is so remote from the fabricated rightwing consensus the Democrats and Republicans both sustain.

True, but I heard plenty of us vs them, and conspiracy theories. I suspect Republican rhetoric appears to be more strident because they have a better speaking perch. In other words, I do believe there are liberal Ann Coulters, but they are not as photogenic/powerful/likely to generate ratings. I think Bush as Hitler comparisons are too rampant to be an accident.

Finally, Lieberman is unbelievably conservative, appealing to almost no one, and McCain isn't a moderate, he's a maverick. He's an anti-establishment Republican, but he has plenty of scary rightwing positions.

I think it is a mistake to encapsule two long term careers in one sentence soundbites. Lieberman is a conservative Democrat. I do not necessarily think it is a bad thing. Many believe if Lieberman was the Democratic nominee, more moderate swing voters would vote for him than for Kerry. McCain holds a lot of right wing positions, and of course has the stain of the Keating Five. However, I have been following his career very carefully and I noticed he seems to advocate many worthwhile programs. For one, he was one of the few Republicans to speak very forcefully against Santorum during the discussion on gay marriages. He also spoke against the Swift smears. Did he do that to mess with the establishment? Perhaps. But I guess I have some fondness for someone who does not follow the party line. It is that kind of courage or hot headedness that lets people shake up their belief systems. I am also aware that he was in favor of a full scale Iraq invasion and so on and so forth. I think people who poke sticks in the party machinery are intriguing and worthy of support.

Once again, there is no perfect candidate. Given political realities, there can't be one, so we make do with what we got.



I will address Godless Dave's post a little later. I want to be thorough, but I have to run right now.