The Bosque Boys

If Bill lives long enough, he may give Jimmy a run for "Worst Ex-President Ever." I wish he would just avoid the limelight and go back to chasing women.

Talk about disappointing!

Come on... after all of the lies, you guys are still willing to simply believe that Petraeus is not letting the White House write his talking-points?

And don't we have more important things to do than worry about Move-on.org? Typical Republican sham... just trying to demonize the other guy, after all of the disgraceful ads they've run.

The Max Cleland ad you say is true... despicable! Ads like that are almost always totally misleading. It lists a bunch of amendment numbers that Cleland supposedly voted against without telling us anything about them. Why don't you try to track those down before you say the ad is true... see if you would have voted differently in his place?

The way I see it GW Bush is responsible for the deaths of as many as a million Iraqis, and how many others? He has humiliated this country...starting a war to "disarm" Saddam, when Saddam didn't have weapons to begin with. Turns out they had plenty of intelligence supporting the truth, but instead all we heard about were bits of dummied-up evidence, and mushroom clouds.

Abu Ghraib, Katrina, Anthrax, and on and on...

Just WHO, exactly, should be ASHAMED???

Thanks, JC. Long time no hear. Always glad to have you weigh in.

The Chambliss "ad was crude--but accurate." Here's why:

Max Cleland voted against the national security legislation that eventually became DHS. He did so because of a provision that prevented certain civil service protections for DHS employees.

Here is what I have written previously about that vote and Cleland in general:

"An aside: Robert Byrd criticized Cleland for voting for the Iraq war resolution in 2002 even as Cleland, according to Byrd, knew it was the wrong thing to do. If Byrd is right, then for no other reason, we are well rid of Cleland. Moreover, the resistance to the Homeland Security came mostly from the Labor lobby, a traditionally powerful interest group for Democrats. What was so courageous about bowing to the will of labor unions?

"Republicans and Democrats need to stand up and speak from the heart and vote their consciences. If Cleland voted for the war when he thought it was wrong, he was wrong and deserved defeat. If he voted against the Homeland Security bill because he thought it was the right thing to do (not because he was gaining credibility with a group that could potentially further his national ambitions), then he went down to political defeat as a hero. That brand of personal sacrifice makes the system work."

As for your other suggestions:

Petraeus. Why would Petraeus suddenly start lying to benefit George Bush? Do you realize that Petraeus was in the dog house for years because he would not kow-tow to the administration? The Bushies had to go to him with hat in hand to beg him to take one more shot at saving their backsides. Petraeus only said yes on his own terms. The "General Betray Us" line is as ill-informed as it is destructive to a reasonable dialogue among Americans looking for non-partisan solutions and consensus.

Shame on Democrats for playing politics at a moment so crucial in the history of the USA.

As for the rest of those talking points, Lies, Torture, Katrina and Anthrax, I simply don't have the time to respond to them again at this time--but here are some former thoughts:

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I feel like we Americans have just about sold our souls at this point... having to make money off of every little thing.

The airwaves supposedly belong to the public, yet access to our candidates is restricted by news channels to sound bites, leaving us to rely on misleading political ads which they charge the candidates millions for. As a result, our politicians spend much of their time raising money to pay for the misleading ads, and the voters (who bother) vote for the wrong guy.

If Georgia wants Chambliss, that is up to them, but the ad is just one hair from an outright lie.

The proposal for a Homeland Security Dept. originated with Democrats as I recall, even before 9/11. President Bush continued to oppose the idea for many months after 9/11, and one of the proposal authors and early supporters was Max Cleland. He opposed a particular version of the legislation later on.

The ad says that Cleland opposed Bush's vital Homeland Security efforts (or something like that). This is fundamentally dishonest in my opinion. Also, Cleland had supported the president on other issues (tax cuts, Iraq, etc..).

Then there is the ad's sleaze factor. Showing us Bin Laden and Saddam in order to play on our fears of terrorism... to imply that Cleland isn't willing to protect us, and that he is in some way on the wrong side. If you don't see the ad in the same way... I'm not sure what that says about each of us, but surely it reflects a totally different mindset.

We also have the fact that Cleland volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and later lost 3 limbs there. Chambliss has never seen war close up. He didn't have to serve in Vietnam because of a bad knee, I read somewhere. There is no question that our different experiences during the Vietnam era, color how we think about war.

As for Petraeus... I think the "betray-us" business was sleazy too. I'm sure General Petraeus believes in what he is doing. But he has long been overly optimistic, for example, in regards to "standing up" the Iraqi forces. I see Petraeus as a sort of Bush enabler. Our military is doing the best job it can, but Bush is not doing his... he is trying to kick the can down the road.

Still, Clinton was right. The R's have run more than their share of sleazy ads over the years. They've attacked men who have served this country, too, plenty of times. It makes 'em mad only when its a guy they agree with... a guy that's willing to "sell" their war.

Thanks, JC. I agree with much of what you say:

1. I too am horrified that a 30-second ad makes a difference for some American voters.

2. And I think you make an important point when you say under-handed tactics seem much more under-handed when they are used against our side (no matter which side you are on).

However, I think you let Bill Clinton off the hook too easily. If he is really against the "politics of personal destruction," he ought to be more conciliatory and rational.

As for Cleland, I actually met him at a dinner in Salado, Texas, about twelve years ago. He had just announced his candidacy for senate. And it looked like he didn't have much of a chance against the GOP field in GA in 1996--but I was thoroughly impressed with him as a person of character. I told all my friends to watch out for him in the upcoming contest. And he won it.

Having said that, I was a bit disappointed in some of his maneuvering in DC. He was not as courageous a politician as I had hoped. His six years in the Senate proved fairly similar to his colleagues. He blended in with all the others.

Politics is a tough game. Sometimes you calculate right. Sometimes you calculate wrong. Cleland miscalculated.