"Defeatism" is a lie: Why Mitt Romney is wrong
Posted 34 weeks 3 days ago byKevin Drum notes this bit from Mitt Romney:
"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Sens. Clinton or [Barack] Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Mr. Romney planned to say in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Ah, yes, the old “defeatist” meme. Let’s be clear, though: For the most part, the term “defeatist” doesn’t mean anything. It’s a political term full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Because what would “surrendering to terror” really involve? Given the ideology of Islamic terrorists, it means – as the Republicans like to remind us – that we’d all be living under sharia law. Do Republicans think that’s what Democrats want? Really? Don’t they think that would crimp all our latte sipping, sushi eating and New York Times reading?
Liberals aren’t interested in defeat, because we have too much at stake in our culture . We’re interested in confronting radical Islam differently -- in smart, sustainable ways that recognize that our military is strong, but so is our culture and our ideas. We should have that discussion, instead of inaccurately cariacaturing each other. What say?
Thoughts
Our country continues down the wrong path
Submitted on February 8th, 2008 by musicman48It's hard to say where we went wrong in recent times.... did it begin with Jimmy Carter's fumbling of the half-hearted attempt at rescuing our diplomats in Iran which failed miserably... or in the first Bushman who refused to go into Bagdad during Desert Storm. Or perhaps it started when our current president went into the middle east with insufficent troop strength to eliminate the threat of Islamic terrorist thugs. Or maybe when clinton decided to bomb Serbia... who knows? Who cares when it began. The point is that we are past the point of return... or as aviators say... "we are (beyond) bingo fuel" I fear that this country has gone far beyond the point where we can maitain our soverignty and our culture. We have been lax in enforcing our Constitution... we don't even have real property rights anymore thanks to our still somewhat liberal Supreme Court. Too much has to happen too soon for our country to be saved. I'm just glad that there's a chance I will be gone before the nukes begin hitting our American cities.
By all means...
Submitted on February 8th, 2008 by Joel... kill the terrorists.
But:
* Make sure the people we're killing are really terrorists.
* And let's do everything we can, in the meantime, to keep the creation of new terrorists to a minimum.
* And let's not end up undermining the legal, moral and (oh yeah) financial underpinnings of the country in doing so.
Because otherwise you're not doing yourself any favors. And recognizing that isn't defeatist. The fact is that our military recognizes this, as well. I quote here from the Army-Marine counterinsurgency manual:
This is the Army and Marines we're talking about, not a bunch of hippies. And, I think it's fair to say, not a bunch of "defeatists."
Romney was the best of a bad lot
Submitted on February 7th, 2008 by BenI don't believe that Romney was anything close to an ideal candidate, but he was good enough. Obviously he wouldn't have appealed to hard-core liberals. He had problems with many hard-core conservatives. He was wrong about a lot, and he seemed fake about a lot more. In spite of that, he was a better candidate on ideological grounds than John McCain could ever hope to be.
All of that out of the way, I would like to have a sustained discussion here about how to defeat the terrorists. And by defeat, I mean kill. Because talking with 'em won't do.
haven't seen the last of him
Submitted on February 7th, 2008 by OnShakedownafter putting $32 million in, i think it is safe to say we haven't seen the last of Mitt Romney. 2012, when either President McCain has aged a bit or they try to take the WH back from us, we'll be seeing him again.
of course
Submitted on February 7th, 2008 by alicescheshirecatI'm sure the fact that he has NO MONEY had nothing to do with the decision....
Someone did a delegate count vs. dollars spent and if you average it out it would cost something like $1.66 Billion dollars for him to win the nomination.