Dem anti-Clark activities in an AOL political chat room

[grasswire]

I just visited a political chat room on AOL to check it out -- haven't been in a chat room in years. This one is called From the Left. There were a lot of wingnuts hollering, but there were also Dems spewing a lot of trash about Clark. One of the spewers is someone I knew years ago, so I know he's not a repug. I asked who he supports, and he said Kerry.

So I guess Clark supporters ought to know that Kerry supporters are out in chat rooms talking about Clark being a stalking horse for Bush, and Clark making "millions off PNAC membership" and so on. It went on and on and on. Talking points over and over.

I really dislike this kind of thing.

[Loyal]

1. Well...

I don't support Clark because he praised Bush and this Administration.

I don't support Dean because he conned his way out of Vietnam, AND advocated cutting Medicare, AND advocated raising the SS retirement age.

I don't support Kucinich because he flip-flopped on abortion and medical marijuana, and his flag burning vote pisses me off. I can't believe someone who calls himself a progressive candidate could be so disrespectful of women like he was for almost 6 years, as evidenced by his anti-choice record.

I don't support Gephardt because he has no charisma.

I don't support Lieberman because he is f****** boring as hell.

I don't support Edwards because he's too young, and too green. I don't like his anti-medical marijuana stance either.

I don't support Moseley-Braun because she's too nice to run for President. It's not a jab at her, I just think she's too nice and would get creamed. Come on, she's just a sweet lady, is all. :)

I don't support Sharpton because of Tawana Brawley and the fact that he is a racial polarizer.

I DO support Kerry because he has ALWAYS stood up for Democratic issues and he is a true American patriot.

[CoffeePlease1947]

3. And you cannot Support Kerry because He voted for the War in Iraq and

for the Patriot act. OH Wait, you support those more than an non-partisan that says Bush had a good Foreign Policy team 3 year ago. That is far far worse. Best you go with Bush.

Mike

[Renew Deal]

4. Kerry did ALWAYS stand up for democratic issues...

His positions on those issues is what changes frequently.

[izzie]

8. I like how you put this. Makes it nice and clear but....

I fear I will vote Dem if it is any of those.I have rached the point that it is anyone but Bush.

[maha]

24. Patriot Act Vote? Iraq War Resolution Vote?

You aren't makin' any sense.

[FrenchieCat]

2. you need to read the post " who do GOP fear the most"....

copy the link and take it back the AOL chat room....

They have been programmed by the Rove PR machine and don't even realize it.

ROVE IS A GENIOUS, UNDOUBTEBLY!

[roguevalley]

5. I dislike it too. I find it lowers the candidates these posters

do count in my estimation. If a candidate is a
good candidate, that should be enough. Knocking
down everyone else does not elevate others.

[MrPrax]

6. Not a Kerry supporter...

But did Clark say this
"The United States is a 225-year rolling revolution. We are the embodiment of the Enlightenment. If we're true to those principles, then it's a foreign policy of generosity, humility, engagement, and force where needed." - Wesley Clark

Interesting debate...very academic of course as most wouldn;t know about the Enlightenment or a concept? of a 'permanent' or 'rolling' revolution...

Maybe I should make this a thread?

Is Clark a Trotskyists?

[Julien Sorel]

7. A better question might be, was Trotsky

a Jeffersonian? ;-)

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Bingo

in the old sense of the term.

:toast: :toast:

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. AOL is a strange place

I stay out of chat rooms, I do mostly one board and this is
the way it is right now...

The ones i can identify as left are all over the place... candidate
wise

The right well they are true believers...

There is no discusion, no debate just a bunch of yelling and
cow towing mostly from the righties

Of course when they get back down into a corner BUT CLINTON! comes out.

Right now Boyken is a hot potato, the righties do not see a
problem the lefties are having a cow over what he said, me...
well as a Navy Wife I see the problem wiht what he did... I know
small but important distinction.

[Demobrat]

11. Kerry supporters are not the only ones.

Lots of people don't like or trust Clark. Little white boys who like to play with toy soldiers love him, and will vote for him just like they voted for the Terminator, but many, many others are not impressed.

[FrenchieCat]

12. Take that to AOL....and see what they have to say about it.

PUSH UP BY Jonathan Chait - the New Republic, October 27 Issue.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=bjq57awwJ36hUmhMuLKmgm%3D%3D

Yesterday, PoliticsNH.com reported that "push-polling" has been used to sway New Hampshire voters away from Wesley Clark and toward Howard Dean. Push-polling is a disreputable practice by which callers, posing as pollsters, ask leading questions with slanted information. The purpose is not to measure public opinion but to influence it.

Dean's campaign denies having anything to do with these push-polls. I believe their denial. Push-polling isn't Dean's style. The question, then, is: Who is doing the push-polling? My leading suspect--and let me confess at the outset that this pure, unsubstantiated speculation--is somebody connected with the Republican Party.

Meddling in the other party's primary is nothing new. Last year, California Governor Gray Davis ran ads attacking moderate Republican candidate Richard Riordan, helping to ensure that he would face the more conservative (and more easily-defeated) Bill Simon instead. In 1972, GOP operatives acting at the behest of Richard Nixon planted fake letters and performed other dirty tricks to sabotage Ed Muskie, hoping (quite reasonably, in hindsight) that George McGovern would make a weaker general election foe. Unless they step into outright illegality, there's no reason Republicans shouldn't try to influence the Democratic primary. If I were in Karl Rove's shoes I sure would.
---------------------
President Bush's reelection campaign, as Newsweek reported last month, will "accuse Democratic opponents of being too wimpy by nature to handle the bad guys."
--------------------
I think it's pretty clear that an aggressively antiwar Vermont liberal without any foreign policy experience would make a pretty good foil for that sort of campaign. On the other hand, a war hero and retired general would be (from Bush's perspective) about the worst possible opponent.
--------------------
EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[Demobrat]

13. I will. I'm sure they'll like it.

Patriot Act?
Wesley Clark says he knew the Iraq War was wrong. So why didn't he say something -- before it was too late?

Earlier this month, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark gave the keynote address at the second annual convention of Military Reporters and Editors (MRE), the professional organization for journalists who cover the military. In his speech, Clark threw in his lot with those who believe that President Bush misled the nation in order to lay the groundwork for the Iraq War. Clark insisted, in his most striking formulation, that the war was "fundamentally elective, fundamentally our choice," and a distraction from the work of fighting terrorism at home.

The timing of these sentiments didn't sit well with some reporters. In his new book, Winning Modern Wars, Clark wrote how as early as November 2001, a senior military staff officer confirmed to him that an Iraq invasion would go forward on the pretext, in the wake of September 11, that Saddam Hussein's regime was a dangerous state sponsor of terrorism. What's more, his source told him -- "with reproach" and "with disbelief, almost" -- that the administration did not plan to stop at the borders of Iraq. "I heard people say there was a list of states," he recalled at his speech to the military reporters. In Winning Modern Wars Clark relates how "deeply concerned" he was at the time by this strategy. He writes how he became even more worried when "the policy was locked in concrete" in President Bush's 2002 "axis of evil" speech. Unlike the rest of us, Clark had evidence in hand to believe what few others even imagined: that what was being locked in concrete, as he writes in his book, were plans for five years of preemptive warfare against not just Iraq but also Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.

Snip

So ears pricked up when Clark was asked, "When you were on CNN, why did you choose not to help inform the debate on whether to go into Iraq by revealing what ?"

He did not acquit himself well with his answer.

"I tried several times to tell this story," he began, then coughed, perhaps in pause to collect his thoughts. "And I'm -- I was hired by CNN as a military commentator. That's" -- another pause -- "I commented on military plans and operations. There were other people who worked the policy piece. And, um, that may sound like not much of a distinction to you, but for CNN it was significant."

This raised more questions than it answered, at least by the terms of Clark's own rhetoric. It is CNN's prerogative, of course, to tell its commentators which subjects to speak on. But what was keeping Clark himself from blundering forth with what he knew, even at the risk of his job? Would that not have been the patriotic thing to do?

His answer continued on a different tack. "Also," he said next, "I kept hoping that what I heard wasn't true."

snip

That, however, is if we grant Clark the benefit of the doubt. If we do not, the question now becomes one about Clark's character -- whether he puts the whistle-blower on a pedestal even as he refused to become one himself. Maybe far from being concerned about becoming a Chicken Little, Clark just chickened out. Did Wesley Clark hold back while broadcasting on CNN in order to keep his lucrative and high-profile job? And if Clark doesn't have the patriotic courage to take on Time Warner, it's worth asking: Does he have the courage to take on George W. Bush?



http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/10/perlstein-r-10-15.html

[FrenchieCat]

14. Makes sure you take the letter I had written back on 10/1/03 as well

I also first read the article when it first came out in the Village Voice, where it was first published on 10/01/03

This was the letter I sent to the radio talk show host that was going to interview the author....sent the letter prior to the author getting on the air....at 3:36 a.m. that morning.

In reference to the article "The Secrets Clark Kept" by Sydney H. Schanberg - Village Voice 10/01/03

In my humble opinion, the article does not make a good case in questioning why General Clark didn't "speak up" leading to the Iraq war.

First, I would imagine that General Clark felt he would be no more effective than Scott Ritter had been in speaking. Ritter, we recall, was sent into the land of the banished at the time of the "let's get our Bush war on" fever was going on. General Clark had not real proof....was not even a weapon inspector! His word that some people had told him things was not going to quite do it...for goodness sake!

Since the war resolution had passed, and the Media was singing it's war songs....Wesley Clark would have only gotten fired and retired to the looney bin ASAP (he'd already gone through both of those doors the last time he stood up). If Sydney H. Schanberg think that Clark, singlehandedly could have stopped the war....he is dreaming.

General Clark did testify to congress and he did make a case to the need to take it slow, deal with the problem with via the UN and not rush to war. However, I believe that if he would have said...."some of my sources told me".....they would have said...so you want to discuss some heresay then? Are you deranged?

The author of the article then writes....Why didn’t he share these opinions with us then, when an informed public might have raised its voice and demanded more answers from the White House?

Is this fantasy land or what?...I remember marching in two peace marches. The Village voice's Sydney H. Schanberg must have been on a different planet to think that anything that Wesley Clark would have said prior to the war about what he heard or thought would have made one bit of difference.

If one can recall what happened when Clark attempted to talk about the phone call he said he received on 9/11 by a Canadian Middle East think tank.....urging Clark to go on Television and try to pin the the blame on Iraq? he was laughted at, ridiculed, and called crazy.....I remember the reporters saying "there are no middle east think tanks in canada"...hahhahah

I think that General Clark did what he felt was the most effective attack against what he knew...he wrote a book as the war was ocurring (in which one is allowed to ones own opinions and can share heresay) and decided to run for President.....to get the American EVILDOERS out of power, hopefully for good! I think that speaks volumes.

Regards.

[FrenchieCat]

15. And make sure they remember their history

Wesley Clark would have been ridiculed....no less...but
no more than being a weapons inspector as Ritter was saying there were not weapons.
No more that it did being France, Germany, Russia and all of the others and saying that we shouln't go to war.
No more that having millions march against the war.
No more than being Carter and saying don't go to war.
No more than being Mandela and saying Bush you are crazy, don't go to war.
No more than the Pope being ignored as he said don't go to war.
No more than the group of ministers that said don't go to war.
No more than the U.N. saying don't go to war.

Every single one on this list....which is so much longer that what is listed.....only got ridiculed and sidedlined. No, nothing would have made a difference.

Try to keep in mind the times that we were leaving in. Is the memory of some no further back than yesterday's lunch??? sheech....

[ThirdWheelLegend]

23. "No, nothing would have made a difference."

I am having a hard time figuring if you are for Clark or against.
The sentiments you express in this post make me like Clark less and less.

So because it MIGHT not have made a difference, how would you know before trying, he doesn't voice concerns? Or is it that he never really was that concerned with this whole Iraq mess until it became advantageous. I tend to lean towards the second.


TWL

[Demobrat]

25. Well,now, we couldn't have the poor boy ridiculed could we?

Wah. Wah. Wah. A coward is a coward.

[FrenchieCat]

16. and Finally, I presume that you will be having

Freedom Fries with your short memory lunch???:crazy:

[JI7]

17. makes no sense

you saw one guy who said he was a kerry supporter on aol and therefore claim kerry "supporters" are going around doing the same thing. there are people who supporter other candidates on du that are saying the same thing about clark and repeating talking points. and they don't support kerry.

[jumptheshadow]

18. I doubt they were Kerry supporters

I'm highly skeptical. The Repugs play dirty pool and they know Clark can beat Bush. I automatically dismiss any Internet poster on any venue who does nothing but methodically repeat negative talking points about a Democratic contender who can hurt the Repug stranglehold on this government.

They may even use graphics stating that they are Kerry or Dean supporters. But I assume that's a lie.

[JI7]

19. there are dem anti clark activities on du

and most are not by those who do not support kerry.

[Le Taz Hot]

20. Ah, FTL, my old stomping grounds

I was actually on that board for 11 years (Before it was "From the Left" is was "In the News") because there was really nowhere else I could talk politics. In the end, I got to talk politics about 1% of the time. The other 99% of the time it was freepers (droolers) posting inanities and so-called Democrats offering up Pavlovian responses. I can assure you that almost all the posters there (Democrat and Republican) are just as ill-informed as anyone on FR. Though DU can annoy the hell out of me sometimes there's no comparison, quality-wise, between these two sites.

[wyldwolf]

21. unproven conspiratorial crap...

I'd like to see unequivocal proof of this "stalking horse" charge.

A "put up or shut up" proposition.

Proof will not be your opinion, theories, or unnamed sources from far left (or far right!) tabloid style websites.

Proof will not be the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon name-game association in google" routine.

Documents.

Records

quotes from known and credible people.

See, I've heard two versions of the "stalking horse" scenario from rightwing sources and sources from the left. Both the left and the right have proclaimed BOTH of these:

1. Clark is a stalking horse for Hillary.
2. Clark is a stalking horse for Bush.

So which is it? And where is the unequivocal proof.

Put up or shut up.

[eileen_d]

22. OMG - you hit the nail on the head

"six degrees of Kevin Bacon name-game association in google"

Counts for at least 50% of the anti-Clark theories I've seen. Nice one!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=ass+%22hole+in+ground%22