Conservatism is as conservatism does.

In the Bush Administration we have seen actual (as opposed to theoretical)conservatism and it isn't a pretty sight. The republicans have a lot to answer for and answer they will.

The people are convinced.  Gingrich doesn't care about the war except inasmuch as it helps him posture.

Trying to tag Gingrich for his late conversion to reality on Iraq is downright ridiculous.

What about Kerry? Who had ample opportunity during the 04 campaign - when it might actually have changed events - to say exactly that.

Critical difference: Kerry is in the opposition party!

A question to ask all leading Dems: When did you admit publicly that the Iraq invasion was a mistake?

How many have a credible answer?

I'm sure Gingrich's statement springs from delusional hopes about 08.

But what about the leading Dem aspirants to the 08 prez nom?

I feel like there is a lot of good things going on these days, alot of grassroots organizing, alot success stories. But how do we get these success stories told? How do we make sure more people know the positive things that are happening.  After all I think cyncism and apathy are our real enemies.

I think independent media orgs are doing a great job, but we need to reach a larger audience, so that people know there is hope, that there is an alternative. I think we need to take advantage of video as a mass media on the internet.

Check out these online independent news videos
-http://www.coanews.org/video

And there is also a Free "Video Alert Service".
http://www.coanews.org/lists/index.php?p =subscribe Once a week, email subscribers get the latest news videos for a diverse group of independent media outlets (democracyNow!, G Channel et and FreeSpeech!..) sent to their inbox.

You can sign up for free email video alerts here:
http://www.coanews.org/lists/index.php?p =subscribe

But again; how can we reach more people with this media?

I think that independent media orgs, need to focus more on video (like Freespeech does), but beyond that we need to find a way to disseminate them to a larger audience.  

Online video is taking off right now, and we need to position ourselves so that independent media is an established and accessible part of the landscape.  Corporate media outlets, and advertising agencies, are drumping boatloads of money to ensure they are established online video distributors, while also trying to narrow the range of video available.

We need to raise funds (more people donating, and becoming members of indy media orgs)for independent media so they can compete.  Perhaps indy media orgs could have citizen coalition groups to take an active role in rallying people to raise funds.  I believe PBS and NPR have groups like this, so why can't we do the same.
-maybe a trust or fund controlled by citzens?

-but we also need a grassroot movment to help disseminate their content, and keep the internet open.  Part of this is simply using any way possible to promote the online video that is produced by indy meida orgs - use your website, blogs, email lists, classes, workers groups etc...

There is no time to waste

My favorite? Back when he was giving speeches to the AIE during the drumbeat, saying there were people in Colin Powell's State Department we were "appeasing dictators and propping up corrupt regimes."

In fairness, Newt began to have second thoughts about the stupidity of the war pretty early. Back in Dec. '03, he was saying to Newsweek that "the idea that we are going to have a corruption-free, pristine, League of Women Voters government in Iraq on Tuesday is beyond naiveté," and we damn well better get a dictator in there pronto so we could declare victory and get the hell out.

The racist Machiavellian logic Newt's using here is quite apparent, but then again, from a strictly realpolitik perspective (and in Iraq at this point, this is the only valid viewpoint remaining), declaring victory and getting hte hell out was the best possible outcome for all parties.

And finally, while I applaud your outing of a hypocrite, McCarthyite and weasel (for indeed these are things Newt is), I should point out that at least Newt's figured out what conservatives like Scott McConnell or Pat Buchanan figured out from day one - that Iraq was an immensely stupid act of aggression and fundamentally unAmerican and counter to Western interests.

This is more than I can say for Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and other Tom Friedman Democrats.

And these folks are supposedly on our side...

Except that the Gingrichs and all the other hawks were busy calling the rest of us objectively pro-Saddam and objectively pro-terror, and have never recanted any of that.  They've just changed their tune as it becomes clear that wishful thinking and lies was not a strategy.

And they'll still call us un-American traitors if we disagree on anything else.  So I see no reason to be kind or welcoming.  This is pure calculating cowardice on the part of the people who built the modern Republican Party (complete with its utter disdain for truth or accountability) and were complicit in an extraordinary crime against the American and Iraqi people.

Giving them a pass now just allows them to stuff all of their past behavior down the Memory Hole, as they move on to the next crime.  Sorry, but no -- I've had my fill of recycled Team B members and Nixon/Reagan criminals.

Jesus!

I'd missed this:

This is the same conservative movement that insists that government spending is out of control at the same time as they pass a massive corrupt prescription drug entitlement program through open bribery on the floor of the House.

Trouble is, there's no problem in finding disastrous policies and bills pushed by the Bush regime.

The problem is finding disastrous Bush policies and bills that haven't been supported by a load of Dem MCs!

... about Gingrich's conversion. This is terrible news for the Democrats IF the Republicans have any sense. The only way the Republicans can save their party is by disassociating themselves from Bush. If the GOP embraces a decisive, clear-cut Iraq withdrawal policy, the Democrats are dead.

Gingrich may be loathsome, but he is an amazing political operative. He's much smarter than Rove. Rove is a pimp. Gingrich is a strategist. Even though he blew it after 1994, don't belittle the magnitude of his accomplishment in guiding the Republican takeover of the House. That was his baby.

Forget about tarring Gingrich as a flip-flopper. He'll say what Kerry SHOULD have said in 2004: I made a mistake, I've learned from that mistake, and we need leaders (and a party) who will adjust to changing realities.

I'm telling you, this is bad news for the establishment Democrats -- and they have only themselves to blame. The good news is that those of us outside the establishment will be ready to pick up the pieces once the whole rotten structure collapses.

Gingrich understands grassroots. Never will you be able to do anything in america if you don't have consensus.

This is the final piece of the puzzle: the conservative grassroots on the net are starting to turn towards the light. The light...

Far from decrying Gingrich I would say that the Darwinistic thing to do is to enforce discipline: get these worthless jarheads that got us into this mess, swabbin' the deck and sweepin' the hangars.  

Its all about winning, folks. Gingrich is no different from any american. In the end, we just want to win over there.

Gingrich just gave you a hunting license to go after the conservative nutjobs that are trying to pretend they didn't get us into this mess.

I say - give em all a place to GO

Oh, and by the way, Newt was a cowardly right-wing asshole-baby WAY before this.

And a hypocrite.  And a liar.  And a bastard.  I guess what I'm saying is FUCK NEWT and that holds no matter what he says or does in the future. And fuck Hillary for doing anything with Newt.  Because he's evil... he's the proto-Bush.

So... that's it.  Fuck Newt.

Ever hear of Nixxon, (take off of exxon)?  Newt is trying to follow his lead and make a comeback.  Not much chance.  His famous, "Contract With America" went up in glory at the polls and down in flame later.  It had something to do with voters who got caught up in a tidal wave of hype thinking he could pull it off.  Pull what off?

Beginning with Regan the GOP learned that there is an evangelical hot button or two.  Abortion is the biggie and the mainstay of CWA.  What they are failing to notice is that conservatives are actually pro abortion and are more likely to make it mandatory rather than an option.  It has to do with issues only those over 40 can even know about outside history books, welfare.

When there was a ban on abortion, (since the beginning of the country and before) there were millions of orphans that had to be fed, clothed, sheltered, educated, the works.  Where did the money come from?  Taxes!  The old conservative issue is welfare.  The welfare receivers were the unwanted, non aborted, no one to take care of, fatherless children.  And the liberals were taxing the conservatives to take care of them.  It's as simple as noticing the conditions at the time of RvW, Republican everything and the Viet Nam war as a distraction.

Regan was actually pandering to liberals when he introduced abortion as a political issue.  That explains why no real progress has been made in banning abortion.  And the cowardly rat, Newty found out, (I'm sure he knew) that you can win on abortion but you can't and must not do anything about it.  Maybe he's out right now for trying to do something about abortion, got aborted himself.

For the open minded there is an interesting information web site: http://www.hoax-buster.org

Leading Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden  will never say that the Iraq was a mistake because they'll never risk offending their NeoCon friends/campaign contributors. Hillary is already beating the drums of war for military action against Iran. We have the best foreign policy that money can buy.

Stoller, ya got two choices:

1) if you are primarily concerned with ending the war, you can welcome any and all converts to the cause, no matter how machievellian their decision process; or

2) if you are concerned primarily with using the war for partisan gain, you can attack any and all political opponents who convert to the cause of ending the war.

What's more important to you, Stoller?

A recent stint on Hannity and Colmes (barf).

http://mediamatters.org/items/2006032400 12

March 23 of 2006

"...you would have had the New York Times editorial board calling for an American surrender."

Rats indeed and in deed.

Changing your opinion in the face of contradictory evidence is being rational, not cowardly. I am a conservative and I have changed my mind on the war. I honestly thought that Iraqis would be glad to have a chance to become a democratic nation. Although many Iraqis do feel that way, it is clear that I was wrong.

If only the Democrats would also change their opinions in the face of contradictory evidence! E.g. the famous Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan did, when his research showed that the primary cause of poverty was the breakdown of the family. But most Democrats have not learned this fundamental lesson.

New York Times (10/12/01):
On September 19-20 the Defense Policy Board met for 19 hours to discuss the ramifications of the attacks of September 11. The group agreed on the need to turn on Iraq as soon as the initial phase of the war against Afghanistan was over. The group included deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and former high-ranking officials such as William Bennett, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Newt Gingrich, and Richard Perle. Gingrich declared that the U. S. needed a major geopolitical victory in response to the attacks. "Bombing a few caves in Afghanistan" wasn't going to do it, he said, but overthrowing Iraq's government would.
"If we don't use this as the moment to replace Saddam after we replace the Taliban, we are setting the stage for disaster," Gingrich said in an interview.

Washington Post (3/9/03):
"I think history will record that a remarkably strong president happened to be in office at a juncture where weapons of mass destruction and terrorism rewrote all the rules of engagement in international relations," Gingrich said. "It will record that the president moved beyond old institutions and developed a new set of alliances."

NPR, Tavis Smiley interview (September 2004):
"If you think Saddam Hussein having killed 300,000 Iraqis is in fact a dangerous guy and it's better to have him in jail, then whether we do it brilliantly or just do it, George W. Bush essentially was right."

Man, this is the first I desperately don't want Tom DeLay in the klink.

Why?

Can you imagine the bloodbath that will ensue of DeLay is skirting around the edges of the GOP as a powerbroker while Newt tries to pimp this anti-war reform GOP shit?!

It would be the perfect distraction from a potentially successful sleeper candidacy from some like Huckabee (has anyone started working on getting a live boy or a dead into a room with Huckabee?).

And just imagine McCain and Newt snarling at each other over who gets to weild the mantle of reform.

Man.  Newt is the Dems man in 2008.  He has axes to grind and could launch the GOP into a complete meltdown on live TV during the primaries!

By the end of the 2008 primaries, Americans will be begging the Dems to become the new "Daddy Party".