Eric’s comments that I am responding to are at the bottom.  My response is long but I think you will like it and give you aid if discussing this with some like-minded Bush hater.   BTW, the guy Eric that I am writing too is very smart and the published author of quite a few history books that the US Military actually use and recommend so he is not normally a knee-jerk “liberal” while he would be considered a liberal.

———————-

Eric,

I think you are allowing your hatred of Bush to seriously impair your judgement.  I think that most real analyst will condemn the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of LA for their handling of this debacle.

Could Bush have mobilized the Federal response faster?  “Maybe”.  Sorry, it is not possible for Bush (or any President) to have twitched his nose like Samantha on Bewitched and magically caused a convoy of military vehicles with the requisite support troops, medical gear, food and clothing to appear out of thin air in a Hurricane zone.  If he had decided to preposition those type of forces before the hurricane hit I can just imagine the comments (Cowboy, etc…) you and others would be making about him if Katrina had missed New Orleans like Ivan and the other near misses did.  Why didn’t the Governor preposition the State Police and the National Guard on her own?  She did not need Bush’s approval to do that?  Why didn’t she request help from the Texas Guard if she thought the 3,000 LA National Guard in Iraq had depleted her reserve below the level that was going to be needed?

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Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005

Xxxx Xxxxxxx I can just say Screw You.  Assholes like you are what give good conservatives that love this country a bad name.  Guys like you and Sean Hannity constantly use half-truths to spread an agenda.

Either something is true or it is false.  Did Storm’n Norman “say” it as reported.  No.  Therefore it is false.  Does he agree with the sentiment?  Sure.  Do I agree with the sentiment?  Absolutely!  Does that make the quote true?  Of Course not.

For the record.  I was an Air Force Air Cadet Lt. Col and spent the Summer of 1981 on exchange with the Israeli Air Force.  I was going to go to the Naval Academy with a Recommendation from my Congressman (Mack Mattingly) from Georgia (we were stationed at Hunter Army Air Field where the my Father was the Operations Officer.  Hunter is were the 1/75th Rangers are stationed along with the 160th SOAR  – the group that just had a Helo go down in Afghanistan).  I decided against the Naval Academy and hopefully flying F/A-18’s for the Marines when I decided that maybe I wanted to try something different.

I did and was an “asset” for a while with one of those three-letter outfits that are located just outside the DC area.  I happen to speak, read and write Korean.

BTW, While in College I was in Marine PLC.

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At 02:49 PM 10/19/2005, XXXXXXXXX@aol.com wrote:

Be careful what you wish for! The point is that by supporting someone because he is some kind of Christian and ignore his (or her) qualifications, you don’t know what you may get. Many Catholics and other Christians take

Certainly evaluating someone as fit for office/position/promotion strictly on their publicly espousing or public demonstrations of supposed adherence to a religious/moral code is stupid.  Just as stupid as prohibiting the office/position/promotion for the same grounds.  That particular “qualification” should be just one facet in evaluating fitness for office.  Too many of those on the “right” overlook other failings because someone is supposedly “religious” just as there are people on the “left” that want to rule someone out of consideration because they teach a Sunday School class.  Both of those points of view are absurd when taken to the extreme.

 “Thou Shalt not Kill” quite literally. It is not up to us mortals to kill a person. When a killer dies of natural causes, God is certainly capable of punishing him, or don’t you believe that?

Of course I believe that God will render his judgement on what you do or don’t do in your life.  However, your argument shows your (and those that you describe) complete misreading of scripture.   To follow the non-logic of your argument would be to say that anarchy should reign because who are we to judge and punish the shop lifter/red light runner/bank robber because in the end God will be the one to judge.

See how your argument lacks any pretense at logic.  The Ten Commandments in addition to saying “Thou Shalt Not Kill” also says “Thou Shalt not Steal” etc…  So the same logical argument MUST apply.

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Ray, I’m much more “centered” then you are.

My ranking on this test placed me at:

Economic Left/Right: -0.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.97

Which is one intersection left and down from center.

Here is another Quiz.  Just five “Personal Issues” and five “Economic Issues” qustions.

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.htmlLast year (in April) when I first took it my score was…

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 80%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 70%.

This placed me on the crossed line directly below the E in Libertarian.  Which is certainly in line with my agreement with Lynn Nofzinger when he said:

“…I am a Republican because I believe that freedom is more important than government-provided security. Sometimes I wish I were a Democrat because Democrats seem to have more fun. At other times I wish I were a Libertarian because Republicans are too much like Democrats. What I actually am is a right-wing independent who is registered Republican because there isn’t any place else to go…”

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At 08:46 PM 3/12/2007, you wrote:

Facts?  Which facts?  The ones that bush’s anti-science corps makes up, or
the facts that 99 percent of the scientific community agrees with.

Joe,  don’t believe the hype.  99% of the scientific community does NOT believe in Global Warming caused by Man.  “Maybe” 99% (and I doubt that too) of the Scientific community believes that we might be going through a natural warming trend like the world has gone through countless times before.  However the VAST majority of actual Climatologists (as opposed to Botanists, Anthropologists, etc…) are in firm agreement that we do not have anywhere near enough data to draw any conclusions whatsoever.

Here is the text of an email that my Uncle Larry (a real Climatologist – not just playing one  on TV) responded to when he was interviewed on TV about this topic last July.

—————–

When you watch this video, just keep a couple of things in mind.  The first point is that this was a 10 second sound bite taken out of a 20 minute interview.  And on a subject she was told in advance, by the Director’s Office of Communications, not to ask me about as that isn’t the research I do.  The second thing to keep in mind is that my statement was taken out of context.

I am frequently interviewed by reporters.  Some of them are really good and some aren’t.  And some of them are just down right venal.  I have a mental list of reporters who are persona non grata with me.  Until this interview, there was only one name on that list.  Now there are two.

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Dave,
I see that you have subscribed to the notion that “all is well” and we have
nothing to fear but fear itself, So we can go right ahead and be the most
wasteful economy on earth, completely uncaring about the consequences of out
actions.

How the hell did you get that from what I wrote.  There is a ground between the sky is falling camp  and the let’s party all night till we puke.  I am in neither camp.  I said “should we reduce CO2” and I answered “yes”.  Should we reduce it because it might have an affect on a possible phenomenon popularly called Global Warming that may or may not exist and if it does exists is caused more by cow farts than it is by SUV’s running wild across the plains.   That is what the UN report on Climate Change reported last month.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Facts&ContentRecord_id=8EA35336-7E9C-9AF9-7025-4B6CD20B983A

Hell, why not leave the health of out planet to future generations just like
we are leaving Bush’s deficit to them while his fat cat constituents
continue to get richer and richer.

Oh I see that your opinion is clouded with hatred for Bush and not with actual facts.  That seems to be the typical response from those that view the Climate “debate” as one between the Religion of Climate and the pagan unbelievers, disbelievers and agnostics.  I am an Agnostic in this debate.

As to the “deficit” you might want to take a minute to review the actual numbers.

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Off-list…

The word “deny” is such a loaded word in this context because it tags someone as being on par with a Holocaust denier.

Science is based on being a Sceptic.  Does “Global Warming” exists?  Maybe (and that is a HUGE maybe).  The month of February here in the US was one of the coldest on record.  Last spring the Global Warming alarmist were in an up roar that the summer of 2006 would see the destruction of the eastern seaboard do to increased Hurricane activity brought about by the supposed warming.  Did it happen?  Not hardly.  Did they apologize for their Chicken Little impersonation?  Of course not.

It would help the debate and the actual science (not that Hollywood fantasy of Al Gore’s) if Scientists were allowed to actually practice science.  You asked the question did any Oil companies contribute money to the making of that documentary?  If they did so what?  Do you hold the other side of the debate to the same standard when “Greeny” groups provide funding to their documentaries and “research”?

Are there other benefits to reducing CO2 emissions?  Sure.  Should we pursue reducing them for the other benefits?  Sure.

Those that scream the loudest for a change in human activity should lead by example.  If the idea is to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions then we should reduce them.  Not purchase indulgences from some snake-oil salesman in the name of “carbon credits”.  If doing that is ok then I should be able to buy my Brother-in-law’s unused emissions since he is driving a Honda Insight (to drive in the carpool lane in LA and NOT to reduce CO2) so that I can drive my big block 454 powered Suburban guilt-free.  Of course un-like Al “hypocrite” Gore I won’t be owning the company that I buy the carbon credits from.  Neat how his ability to claim he is “carbon neutral” is really an advertisement for the “snake-oil” saleing that his “carbon credit company is doing.  Basically Al get’s to buy his carbon credits from himself.  I did replace ALL the incandescent light-blubs in my own house with those mini florescent bulbs about three years ago but that was to get lower utility bills due to some scare about an ice sheet melting.

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You must be talking about a different book.  The book I am talking about deals primarily with his editorial cartoons about Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Mussilini’s Italy.  There were a handful of cartoons in the book, certainly not “many” – only 8 out of a couple hundred cartoons, dealing with racial and ethnic segregation related to jobs in war industries and the bias against hiring Black and Jewish workers which is why I said “national” stereotypes and not racial or ethnic stereotypes.  Besides, the cartoons dealing with that subject did not show a “minority” stereotype but rather more the stereotype of the “bigot” opposed to racial and ethnic integration. His pictures of Japanese civilians/soldiers/sailors/politicians etc… where primarily the ones that I was thinking of if placed in a modern context of “middle-east” type adversaries and what a group like CAIR would say in protest if a paper were to run a cartoon flavored like his.  Especially his cartoons saying that Japanese-Americans were waiting for word from Tojo to act against the US.
Besides the Axis powers he rips on Isolationist, Appeasers, Lindbergh, slow production of Military supplies, etc…
Very interesting book when viewed in a modern context and seeing that the more things change…
Also interesting to sees his slams on the Congress and the Media for nit-picking the war and our involvement – even well into 1942!  Might make for an interesting book exploring this topic.  Everyone looks back now and says how united the US was in fighting WWII and the willingness to pitch in and sacrifice for the “cause” but these cartoons certainly paint the outline of a very different picture from Dr. Seuss’s perspective.
At 02:37 PM 1/20/2006, you wrote:

At 08:23 AM 1/20/2006, Dave Riddle wrote:

Quite a few years ago my Dad gave me a particularly un-PC book as a gift.  “Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel”.  If an Editorial cartoonists was to even try a similar toned/drawn cartoon with it’s unflattering “national” stereotypes today I dare say he would be fired by his paper due to the condemnation that the PC crowd would heap on him.

In fairness, while the caricatures may not be very acceptable today, many of the cartoons were protesting against segregation and businesses refusing to allow Negros to work along side whites.

Not true at all. spend a little time looking at the Kyoto accordsand other political resolutions to global warming. It’s economic warfare. we sent nitwits to the bargaining table and wound up getting screwed.

We always send nitwits.
<rant on>
Another lifetime ago (17 years – hard to believe) I was doing work for one of Uncle Sam’s three-lettered Agency’s in a Country that shall remain nameless (would not be to difficult to discover).  I had been in country for just over a year this particular trip laboring away in private sector positions (magazine editor/contributor, radio show host, US company quality control inspection rep, etc…) when I managed to obtain employment within the Host country’s government.  In fact I was working within their version of a State Department.  Not only that I was employed within the office that

dealt with US 301 trade issues.  Nominally I was charged with attending trade conferences on their behalf to listen to the US side and prepare reports as to what the US position really was in general and some items in particular.
US Trade missions to these conferences/meetings are a conglomeration of Bureaucrats (State, Commerce, etc…) and representatives of US companies with a particular interest in the current round of talks (aviation, agriculture, etc…).
For the Host Country’s side I was able to obtain a significant amount of intel for them during the “Continental Breakfast” before sitting down at the conference table.  The US attendees would see me bellying up to the pastry bar with them and since I had a “white-face” they assumed I must be part of their delegation.  I overheard lots of good information for my reports to the Host.
Obviously similar reports and much more were going out the backdoor to Uncle.
For the most part US attendees at these conferences seemed to be caught up in the moment of being overseas and wanting to get away from the stale boardroom setting to get some shopping down or sample some of the local delights.  They didn’t seem particular focused.  I can assure you the other side was focused 100% on a successful outcome to these meetings.
The reason I am no longer doing this type of work is that my Agency case officer blew my position through his sloppy procedures.  We (my wife and I) hightailed it back home before I got a knock at the door to become a “guest” rather then a visitor.  She had just become pregnant with our first child so the excuse was that we were moving back to the states for the baby.  She only found out the truth this last fall when I was yelling at the TV when some no nothing reporter/reportettte was going on about Plame being “undercover” and my kids how asked me how I knew that Plame wasn’t undercover and therefore no law had been broken.  Since it had been 16/17 yars I figured what the hell and told them.  Still have an old briefcase full of documents that worked their way out the backdoor.
<rant off>

Marie wrote:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. G.H.W. Bush,
Once again, it is that time of year when we update the
parents of our students on their child’s
progress, and we regret to inform you that your son,
Georgie, IS DOING FAR BETTER then we’d hoped and
expected when he embarked on his four-year program at
our school.
As you are well aware, Georgie was installed as class
president at the start of the school year, despite the
fact that the majority of his fellow students

in some of the more populated classrooms 

 did not vote for him.

But of course this is inline with our school constitution that helps ensure that bigger classrooms cannot BULLY the smaller classrooms and thereby negate their ability to have a voice in our democratically elected Republican form of government. 

 We foresaw problems immediately, but
were assured by several school board members (who, as
we understand it, are friends of your family) that
this would not result in any real difficulty.
Fortunately, WE have been proven wrong.
In the area of scholastic achievement, despite our
best efforts, Georgie is still reading and speaking at
a grade level far below our usual standards. At this

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This posting certainly does not belong on the “Funnies” listserv since this guy, Bill McKibben, certainly exemplifies the old saying of…

“There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics.”And his ability to simplify the “Gospel of Christ” while leaving out its complexities is truly astounding.  His ranting would be more appropriate on a listserv dedicated to the spreading of falsehoods and half-truths.

See comments in context below…

At 02:21 PM 8/8/2005, you wrote:

http://www.harpers.org/ExcerptTheChristianParadox.html

The Christian Paradox
How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong
Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005. What it means to be Christian in
America. An excerpt. Originally from August 2005. By Bill McKibben.
Sources

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten
Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the
Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure
to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence
of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all
that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does

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without even a background check or American citizenship. Mr. Cipel,
however, was vastly qualified for his job compared with Michael Brown, who
didn’t know the difference between a tropical depression and an anxiety
attack when President Bush charged him with life-and-death decisions.

How simple life must be for Democrats when they don’t allow facts to get in the way of their preconceived and prejudged world view.

While Brown appears to certainly not have been very “proactive” in moving aside the Governor of Louisiana when she REFUSED to allow the Red Cross and the Salvation Army) to bring supplies to the Superdome and the Convention Center before and after the Hurricane struck and when she REFUSED to back up the ineffectual Mayor in enforcing the mandatory evac order BEFORE and AFTER.  Of course the Mayor also needs to be slapped silly for not using the 1,000 buses at his disposal to move those poor people that had to then endure those refuges of “last resort” as their disaster plan called for and where in fact used as refuges of first resort – the Superdome and the Convention Center.

Brown does have a distinction that almost no other political appointtee in the Bush Administration has enjoyed.  He was confirmed to his FIRST position in FEMA by a Democratic controlled Senate.  That confirmation by the Democrats was UNANIMOUS.

“…”Not only was Brown confirmed,” noted York. “But he was apparently confirmed by a unanimous voice vote — when the Senate was controlled by Democrats. . . .

“The whole affair, including tributes from Brown’s home-state senators, apparently lasted less then an hour, and ended with [Sen. Joe] Lieberman saying, ‘Mr. Brown, I thank you very much. I will certainly support your nomination. I will do my best to move it through the committee as soon as possible so we can have you fully and legally at work in your new position.'”

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Marie wrote:

Gee, 3 years after “Mission Accomplished”: Inactive US marines face call-up

There have been numerous missions.  That “particular” banner referred to So-Damn Insane having been removed from power.  Therefore the banner was correct.
The BBC in typical fashion are wrong in how they reported this issue.  My Dad had “hip-pocket” orders when he retired from flying for the US Army as a Major in 1981. He kept his IRR orders in a glass frame in his civilian office with a sticker on it saying “In Case of War Break Glass”.
The BBC writes “Now inactive reservists obliged only to report one day a year may be recalled – against their will if necessary.”
To say it is an “in-voluntary” recall to duty is even more dishonest than your harping on the Mission Accomplished banner by referring to everything up to an including establishing a new government in Iraq.
For your continuing education the IRR is a voluntary status that members leaving the service can choose (isn’t choice a wonderful thing?) to be part of whereby they can continue to fulfill their service obligation they voluntary entered into at the start of their service.
As the BBC story clearly states:
“Under a general contract, a marine serves four years on active duty, and then a further four years in the reserve forces. For this final four years, they can either elect to join the regular reserves – where they are paid and train regularly – or choose to join the IRR.”
Note that the IRR stands for Individual Ready Reserve.  Note that “Individual” means the Soldier/Sailor/Airmen/Marine as a person the word “Ready” means that you are able and the word “Reserve” means you are standing by if needed.
I don’t see calling up the IRR as desperate but rather as a sign that the third string team can carry some of the support load while the first (active duty) and second string (regular reserves) concentrate on the primary mission.  Note that most of the soldiers and marines recalled from the IRR is a pretty small number and the jobs they will be doing are in more of a support role rather than a combat role.

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It must be nice to live in a fantasy world of your own making (or to believe without question the pap fed to you by a basic public school education)
For the record (and for your continuing education) see below in context…

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency was created by Richard M. Nixon. You know that scary nasty Republican President.

 With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too.

Thank goodness again for Republican Presidents.  First with Lincoln for setting up the Bureau of Chemistry that evolved (1906, 1927 and 1930) into the FDA under Republican Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.
An economics lesson:  It is not an “employer’s medical plan”.  The Employer is not funding it out of the goodness of his heart but rather is paying his employee less so that he can afford the premium to the Medical plan company.

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June 2003

What am I missing? Seems to me that we may have seen a recent Federal District Court decision rendered in New Orleans that could provide a simple roadmap to the much anticipated pronouncement later this fall from the nine wise souls sitting on the Supreme Court regards McCain-Feingold.

The plaintiffs in the battle to strike down what they view to be limits on speech need to get GE, Viacom, Disney and any other companies that own large media outlets to join the battle on their side, or maybe not. The argument the big guys could make to strike that horrible law down could probably be better made just as well by a small family owed TV, Radio or Newspaper outlet too, heck even a website could join the argument.

The case in question that provides the needed illumination dealt with two business partners, Josh and Anne, who wanted to open a bookstore in New Orleans. To buildup enough capital for their business to be able to afford a store front they wanted to sell books as street vendors on the corner. The perfect American success story, I can see a movie of the week on Lifetime somewhere in there. Well the big bad bureaucracy in the Big Easy wouldn’t let them. The City, with no law against public intoxication and seemingly even against public nudity, would not let these poor partners sell books. I guess if they wanted to have a bar or open a strip club on the pavement next to the school zone crosswalk that would have been ok.

After fighting City Hall and getting nowhere in their mission to bring their books out of the shelves and into the open they filed suit in Federal Court on First and Fourteenth Amendment Grounds. In a decision of great clarity, that shows that at least this Judge had read a book or two, heck he may even have glanced over the Constitution once or twice, he found for our erstwhile street hustlers.

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July 2002 

The question playing on the news today is “SHOULD THERE BE SECURITY CHECKPOINTS AT AIRPORT ENTRANCES”? Are you kidding? Let’s use some logic and examine how the “Law of Unintended Consequences” would play out here.

I flew domestic out of LAX a few months ago and the line outside the terminal to get into the building took half and hour! A gunman in a taxicab could have driven by and opened fire and killed many people. Moving the line from the building to the street so that we wait in our cars will not help and will in fact hurt because does anyone think that the lines at the terminal will now vanish? Security screeners are missing test weapons being carried in a couple of carry-on pieces of luggage at the x-ray machines in the air conditioned terminal, do you think they will stop anymore standing around curbside under the hot sun or pouring rain? Anyone remember the gunman (a “middle-eastern” man between the age of 20 to 50) that walked down the line of cars outside of CIA headquarters while he shot and killed people in their cars as they waited for the light to change? Plus how much “road rage” will we see as the lines of cars backup at the entrance to the airport and out onto surface streets as cars are bottlenecked trying to get through.

Life is not a safe warm blanket and never has been. Will bad (and good) things happen to people? Yes. Can we take proper precautions against harm? Yes. I tell my kids to look both ways before they cross the street. In this instance my kids are “profiling” for autos not other pedestrians in determining level of danger so the sooner we as a society get over this ridiculous nonsense that profiling is bad the sooner we can begin to establish prudent security.

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May 2002 

What do the recent elections in France, our own Clean Elections regime in Arizona and the law of unintended consequences have in common? They show that our Founding Fathers were far wiser than we can ever begin to appreciate.

Reading the news reports out of Paris one can only laugh at the cheese eating surrender monkeys (as the National Review likes to refer to the French) if it were not so close to the farce that we have forced on ourselves.  In France a candidate at least needs to get 500 elected officials to sign a petition to get his name on the ballot to run for President while now through the good graces of our legislature (that teetering tower of financial restraint) it only takes a similar number of citizens to part with a measly $5 to force open the Public Purse and make our elections process a literal free for all so that that every fringe candidate on the margin with the ability to draw a like-minded mob can clear this speed bump on his way to a public feasting of spending and self laudatory publicity.

The intention of “Clean” Elections was admirable in that Candidates were now supposedly freed up to have time to meet with constituents about concerns instead of meeting with fat cats about cash. This was supposed to “even the playing field” between the entrenched incumbent and the struggling outsider. The reality is that the true outsiders on the fringe still do not have a chance (and beyond the rare “exception that proves the rule” never will) while the incumbent remains safely enthroned.The incumbent is still in a far greater position to have his party browse the Rolodex to tap 500 “contributors” for their $5 donation, as is the main opposition party’s anointed candidate. The usual suspects on the extreme left and right (like Nader and Buchanan) will also have an easier time in fractionalizing the primary process since they to will easily be able to draw on their own relatively small pool of contributors to get their campaigns off to a running start.The true “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” type of candidate was the intended beneficiary of this law but the problem with this fantasy is two-fold.  The pool of contributors that a real Mr. Smith has to draw from tend to be more pragmatic or realistic when it comes to their elected officials and while they would probably give Mr. Smith that five spot they know that this is more a gift of charity rather than an honest donation to a political cause.  They may see Mr. Smith as being a great guy with great ideas but they also realize that getting past political realities in a Primary election is considerably different than doing so in a General Election. Mr. Smith realizes this dichotomy too and since he still has to put food on the table for his family (unless he is independently wealthy in which case he does not care or need to dine at the public trough to begin with) he will ultimately decide that his time and energy is best spent taking care of his own home.To win in our political system requires each of the following: Charisma, Concepts and Cash.  Charisma so that people are willing to listen to your Concepts and Cash to get your message out.  Clean Elections only addresses one of these needs. The candidate that has Charisma and Concepts will attract the Cash required to move beyond the Primary and to the General Election, while no amount of Clean Elections Cash will overcome deficits in Charisma and Concepts.So what are we left with? Well an examination of the French election will be instructive. We get mainstream candidates vetted by the major political parties forced to duke it out with the unelectable fringe at public expense. For what purpose?  To broaden public discourse?  Please! The fringe candidate (be they from PETA or the Aryan Nation here or the Postal Socialist and the National Front in France) must know that they do not stand a chance of being elected and are only in the fight to push a single narrow agenda. If they are laboring under the delusion that they can actually win then the public purse needs to be spent providing them with a padded cell rather than a soapbox. The unintended consequence of Clean Elections is that it only cleans out the public purse and does not actually encourage Mr. Smith to run. We only need to look at the current slate of candidates to see this truth.

We can also only hope that further unintended consequences of Campaign Finance Reform coupled with Clean Elections will not allow a fringe candidate to make it to the General Election where the burgeoning intolerance of the tolerant would lead to a report like this one from by NBC: “Some voters did not go happily to the polls. A few leftists said they were so displeased with the choice offered that they planned to cast ballots for the conservative Chirac, who is plagued by corruption scandals, wearing latex gloves or with clothespins on their noses. French officials warned that such a public display could lead to fines or the annulment of a vote.”

Vive La France.  The Arizona Legislature and John McCain sure have a great roll model to follow!

David W. Riddle
Mesa, Arizona