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Journal pudge's Journal: Sunday Thoughts 26

Journal by pudge

Kerry on Iraq

Kerry is trying to convince the American people that he would be better with the War in Iraq. How?

  • He would get more from our allies. Which allies, and what? Military support, maybe, despite none of our allies who have given troops having more to spare, and none who have not given troops showing any willingness to the idea of putting them in Iraq. People claim some of our allies won't because Bush pushed them aside and acted "unilaterally," but France, Germany, and Russia said they would not provide any troops long before those things happened, and they've shown no willingness to change their minds. So where is this military help coming from? And what other help?
  • He would get the troops out of Iraq in some months. I've heard "six months" and "a year" from Kerry's campaign, and Richard Holbrooke -- a Kerry advisor -- said today that a re-elected Bush would still have the troops in there four years from now, implying Kerry wouldn't. He's given no indication how this would be feasible without abandoning the mission, apart from getting help from our allies (addressed above) and increasing the effectiveness of the Iraqi military (and he's not said how he would do this differently from Bush).
  • He would save us money. Presumably, by pulling troops out. This is despite his saying last year that he would spend more money in Iraq, whatever it took to get the job done.

Or, in other words:

  1. Elect someone our allies like more.
  2. ???
  3. No more troops in Iraq!

It's one thing to criticize Bush's handling of Iraq -- many have done it, including many on the right -- but it's another to not talk about a real plan, to just handwave at the solutions.

But the worst of it all is that Kerry's main criticism of the war in Iraq is summed up thusly, in his words: It was "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time." But last year, less than two months after the war began, he said: "I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him," which to me seems that he agreed with the what, where, and when at the time.

To sum up: Kerry says he would do better than Bush in Iraq, without giving any real indication of how, choosing instead to criticize how we got into the war, which Kerry now says was wrong, but which Kerry said at the time he agreed with.

Color me unconvinced that a man such as this would do better than Bush. Maybe he would, of course, but without any specifics, it's kinda hard to trust his judgment.

I know this whole thing isn't exactly new, but Kerry keeps sending people out to say he would handle it better, including underpants gnomes with real credentials like Madeleine Albright and Holbrooke, but even they can't do better than handwaving at "our allies will like him more."

Wages

Speaking of not exactly new, Kerry was also last week slamming Bush because real wages have gone down. What he doesn't tell you is that real wages have increased under Bush, 2.1 percent from January 2001 to June 2004 (for comparison, they were up 0.4 percent under Clinton for the same relative time period in his first term).

"Real wages" are adjusted for inflation. That's not at all unreasonable to do, but the problem is that higher oil costs are directly responsible for most of the inflation, and of course wages won't immediately reflect that. Nominal wages (not adjusted for inflation) generally move gradually, and any steep changes in prices won't be reflected in wages on a month-to-month basis. And nominal wages have actually increased over the time period that real wages have decreased.

That's not to say this isn't a problem, and that there are not other numbers in the picture, both positive and negative. But the greatest cause of lower real wages is inflation, not the type of jobs people are getting, not offshoring, not the kinds of jobs people have. And this inflation -- in energy prices -- is something that Kerry probably could not do anything about, and has no plans to fix (except in the long term, lowering our dependency on foreign oil, which is precisely what Bush wants to do, too).

It's more of the same thing, blaming Bush for something that Kerry wouldn't do differently. Like when Kerry says Bush has chosen to support a tax code that rewards outsourcing without himself even proposing to change it. In the PDF on that page, he says: "They have never once considered ending these breaks."

Apparently Kerry has "considered" it, but has decided against it, because he won't end them either: his plan will merely eliminate tax deferments for overseas income -- not the tax credits for outsourcing -- and there's no evidence that this would decrease outsourcing at all. But let's assume these deferments do encourage outsourcing, and eliminating them would decrease outsourcing, just for the sake of argument. Kerry's plan calls for NEW deferments to replace the old ones, as long as the income for the company is from servicing overseas markets. If deferments encourage outsourcing, then Kerry's plan encourages outsourcing, just in one particular sector of American business: exports.

Maybe Americans who work in exports aren't good enough people to have their jobs protected. If this were Bush proposing the same thing, Edwards would be out there screaming about the two Americas: the importers, and the exporters! Bush's immoral tax code is dividing us!

Non-Forgery Forgery News

OK, CBS, I dig that you have issues about Bush's service irrespective of the forged memos. But to pretend that this distraction is the fault of the people attacking you over the forged memos is ridiculous. You messed up, and people are only attacking you because you messed up, and most of them would be attacking you regardless of the topic of the story you messed up. This was one of your biggest scoops in months, and you promoted the heck out of it, and it turned out to be largely a fraud, and you have the gall to blame everyone else. It's pathetic.

What's also pathetic, in my opinion, as I've mentioned, is all of this focus on both the right and the left over what happened in and out of the U.S. over 30 years ago. I only hope that these forgeries will only aid my aforementioned efforts toward furthering our collective amnesia.

Off-topic alert: Do not discuss here whether the documents are forgeries. I have other journal entries or discussing that, and will probably have more. Go there instead.

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Sunday Thoughts More

Sunday Thoughts

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  • Kerry was also last week slamming Bush because real wages have gone down. What he doesn't tell you is that real wages have increased under Bush, 2.1 percent from January 2001 to June 2004 (for comparison, they were up 0.4 percent under Clinton for the same relative time period in his first term).

    Well, if I want misleading propaganda I guess I come here. Fortunately, an explanation of what's really going on, with a graph and everything, was easy to find [billmon.org].

    • What the heck is billmon.org and why should I trust them?

      Sheesh - at least make an effort to post from a source people have heard of. Even CNN or the New Your Times would be (barely) better. At least then we know what sort of bias we're dealing with.
    • Yes, and that graph is not remotely in disagreement with anything I said. So ... ?
    • Also I'd like a cite on your claim that "real wages have increased under Bush, 2.1 percent from January 2001 to June 2004... 'Real wages' are adjusted for inflation." From what I've found in a few quick minutes, this doesn't seem to be true. Real wages, inflation-adjusted to May 2004 dollars, went from $15.64 in November 2001 to $15.64 in May 2004 [epinet.org], says one webpage, or adjusted to June 2004 dollars, from $15.69 in November 2001 to $15.65 in June 2004 [epinet.org], says another. Maybe real wages rose an inflation-adjuste
      • Maybe real wages rose an inflation-adjusted 2.1% between January 2001 and November 2001, but I kinda doubt it

        I was quoting NR which didn't give a source, sorry. Of course, EPI doesn't give its source, either (and BTW, the discrepancy in start values is that the first graph is based on May 2004 dollars, the second on June 2004 dollars). I cannot duplicate the statisical results of EPI on the BLS web site [bls.gov], either. My guess though is that NR is using total private hourly wages, while EPI is using blue-col
  • He's also recently been heard promising longer lunches, removing 6th period, bringing recess back, and letting everyone get an "A" on their homework. It all sounds like those high school elections to me.


    Since we are pretending that a particular war was really some sort of south-east asia thing until November. I thought It might be itneresting to point out something I learned yesterday while watching TV. Kerry is in the "Vietnamese Communist War Remnants Museum" in Ho Chi Min City. So I guess he really
  • Is Pudge a contributor to Trollback?

    And if so, where is Trollback for August anyway?

  • In reality, I imagine Kerry's plan is a variation on the George Aiken "Let's announce we won and go home!" plan for Vietnam. Some Sistani-blessed figure will be put in charge, Kerry, the EU, the Arab League and the UN will rubber-stamp him and any problems down the line will be blamed on Bush for upsetting the apple cart in the first place.

    Who knows -- maybe that is the best plan! Certainly, once the problem has been acceptably diverted off the US' blame sheet, Iraq isn't going to be any worse than a lot of

  • I'll stay away from the forbidden topic of discussing the letters themselves, and instead discuss Bush's military service in general. While I know that you keep saying that you don't care Pudge, the fact is that this race is between a Vietnam Vet with numerous awards and citations and someone who used his connections in the Texas Legislature to get into the Air National Guard where he did, erm, not particularly much. Now there were a lot of people who did just about anything they could to get out of Vietnam

  • Iraq (Score:2)

    by thing12 ( 45050 )
    People claim some of our allies won't because Bush pushed them aside and acted "unilaterally," but France, Germany, and Russia said they would not provide any troops long before those things happened, and they've shown no willingness to change their minds.

    Hard to say on this one -- they didn't want to send troops because they did not believe that Iraq had anything to do with the global war on terror. There is still no convincing evidence that it really has had any part - or that the current situation ha

    • Re:Iraq (Score:2)

      by pudge ( 3605 ) *
      Hard to say on this one

      Hard to say any of them would change their minds, yes.

      The idea is not that France, Germany or Russia in particular would join the coalition and send in troops, but that the UN could be convinced to send in peace keepers (who would probably still be mostly US soldiers).

      How would this be an improvement, US soldiers wearing blue hats? It would lose Kerry the election right now if he proposed it.

      And the UN has already granted authorization for troops to go into Iraq. It's just up
      • How would this be an improvement, US soldiers wearing blue hats? It would lose Kerry the election right now if he proposed it.

        Yup, the blue hats make all the difference! But honestly, I'm sure that's why Kerry hasn't come out and said it -- on the other hand, most people don't know how the UN works.

        And the UN has already granted authorization for troops to go into Iraq. It's just up to the individual countries to supply troops or not, which is how it would be if the UN sent in their own peacekeepers a

        • Re:Iraq (Score:2)

          by pudge ( 3605 ) *
          Yup, the blue hats make all the difference!

          I hope you are being facetious.

          I'd say that the 'rest of the world' is still not helping because when Bush asked and they said 'no', he went ahead and did it anyway.

          They are not helping because they disagree with the mission, and can't help anyway. Who do you want to help? France won't. Germany and Russia both won't, and can't. Who is left? Which allies are you talking about that might help?

          Supported does not always mean agreed with.

          Yes, it doesn't.
          • I hope you are being facetious.

            Yes, quite.

            They are not helping because they disagree with the mission, and can't help anyway. Who do you want to help? France won't. Germany and Russia both won't, and can't. Who is left? Which allies are you talking about that might help?

            They can disagree with the original mission to topple Saddam all they want - but that's a moot point now. At this point, the mission is to rebuild Iraq and get them to the point of having a stable democratic government. Nobody can d

            • Re:Iraq (Score:2)

              by pudge ( 3605 ) *
              At this point, the mission is to rebuild Iraq and get them to the point of having a stable democratic government. Nobody can disagree with that.

              Sure, but that doesn't change a few things. Again, German is unable to, because they don't have the troops, and even if they did, it would likely be politically infeasible. Russia is in a similar situation: they have their own problems. France has categorically refused to help all along the way, and I see no indication whatsoever they are open to changing their
              • I don't understand what you're asking. Kerry has many times said he voted against the $87B because he didn't like how it was funded. But there, I showed an example where he directly implied he votes against the $87B because he was against the war. Those are two very different things.

                This [dailykos.com] isn't about the 87B, but it's interesting if for no other reason than it clarifies Kerry's stance all along.

                • Re:Iraq (Score:2)

                  by pudge ( 3605 ) *
                  I fully agree Kerry did not vote to go to war. If you recall, even Hans Blix said in February 2003 that the threat of force was a very good and necessary and important part of the process, and he certainly was not in favor of the war. I have no illusions about Kerry's vote for authorization, and I also recall his own statements at the time; IIRC, he even initially supported a different resolution that would require the President to come back to the Congress before using force, which is consistent.

                  But Ker
  • What's also pathetic, in my opinion, as I've mentioned, is all of this focus on both the right and the left over what happened in and out of the U.S. over 30 years ago. I only hope that these forgeries will only aid my aforementioned efforts toward furthering our collective amnesia.

    I keep hearing you say this and find it kind of an odd argument. Let's make it personal (and of course I am going to use hyperbole to make my point... I am not suggesting anything about the candidates with this example).

    Let

    • You've narrowed it down to two places with equally good credentials, staff and facilities.

      That's just it: these are not equal candidates, and they have stark differences now. A better example would be that I have two facilities: both would do a decent job and have good credentials, but one really fits my idea of how such a facility should be run, and the other seriously does not.

      Now, I find out that the one I like has an allegation of abuse 30 years ago, but it was a relatively minor offense (an adult s

  • It's one thing to criticize Bush's handling of Iraq -- many have done it, including many on the right -- but it's another to not talk about a real plan, to just handwave at the solutions.

    But the worst of it all is that Kerry's main criticism of the war in Iraq is summed up thusly, in his words: It was "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time." But last year, less than two months after the war began, he said: "I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President

    • You've taken Kerry out of context, misleadingly, brilliantly.

      No, I did not.

      No to the timing ("I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity"), yes to the "decision to disarm."

      So? He would have preferred more time, but he still supported the decision when it was made. Those are his words, and they are not out of context.

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