--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > All I am arguing for is the proposition that both > Democrats and Republicans > have been irresponsible in overstating how evil > their rivals are. You seem > to be arguing that only Democrats have been. > > Dan M.
No, I'm arguing that Democrats have been _more_ irresponsible, based on who says it. I'm further arguing that the Democrats have used the claim of "questioning patriotism" or dirty campaigning to deflect any legitimate queries into their record on foreign policy - we just say Doug do exactly that. Kerry has _explicitly_ done exactly that on multiple occasions. There's a big difference - whether it's authorised by the top person or not - between what Al Gore says and what junior staffer Jim Bob says. When you further use the claim "the other side is playing dirty" constantly in order to protect yourself from legitimate criticism, then you lose _all_ standing when your guys are actually doing more and worse. Let's not kid around here. Wes Clark said that Bush was unpatriotic - he _used that word_ - and that all good Christians were Democrats. Al Gore claimed that the President betrayed his country. John Kerry claimed that all Republicans - and from the context it's clear that he was talking about Republicans in general - were crooks. You _don't see_ Republicans of equal stature doing anything like that, and the stature of the person saying it matters a lot. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
