Yellow dogs and the Iraqi Prime Minister

by Cliopatria

Many years ago my mother once called me a “yellow dog Democrat.” (For those who do not know the phrase, she had basically said that I would vote for anyone on the Democratic ticket, down to and including a yellow dog.) This would have been sometime in the 1970s. Perhaps that was why she was happy to hear that I wasn’t voting for Carter in 1980. (No, I didn’t vote for Reagan either, but she still considered it progress.)

Since then I have voted for the occasional third or fourth party candidate and twice even for Republicans, but mostly I have stuck to the Democrats for what I believe are good reasons, despite more than occasional disappointments.

But there are times when I sure hear that yellow dog yapping. In this case the Democratic canines are Howard Dean and a group of leading Senate Democrats. Their noble goal is to try to make hay out of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not denouncing Hezbollah. By ignoring what must be for the PM a profoundly difficult balancing act the Senate Democrats are suggesting that they lack competence. Dean’s statement that the absence of denunciation equal anti-Semitism will simply confirm the opinions of those who think that Howard is loco.

For the record, I am not saying that Hezbollah does not deserve denunciation. They provoked this war, and even if Israel was being more focused in its defense, there would still be horrible damage done in southern Lebanon, damage Hezbollah’s leadership was willing to see inflicted.

But if the new Iraqi government has a prayer of succeeding, it has to show that it is not simply a puppet of the U.S., and this is—from the American standpoint--a comparatively harmless way to do this. (And if Bush is angry, then he’s loco. These sort of contradictions are a natural outcome of this sort of intervention.) And while I am not sure whether we can do enough now to ensure that the Iraqi government survives, I want no part of actively trying to pull it down, and I don’t want my party to be doing that either.

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Jonathan Dresner - 7/31/2006

Good thing you have this venue...

ahem...

Ralph E. Luker - 7/27/2006

I have met the enemy and it is you.

Oscar Chamberlain - 7/27/2006

Actually, I voted for Barry Commoner and an early attempt at a Green Party.

I liked Anderson, and would have voted for him if he had been at all close. But he wasn't, and because he had not attempted to form an alternative party, a vote for him would have had no long term potential. There was a slim chance that a vote for a new party would have a long-term impact. So I chose that slim chance over none.

Ralph E. Luker - 7/27/2006

Good thing you have this venue to get all that off your chest, Chris. I find your pontificating about Judaism, Christianity and Islam amusing because you obviously know little to nothing about them.

chris l pettit - 7/27/2006

...the Israeli government and the criminals that support it...

CP

chris l pettit - 7/27/2006

...Israel

...Hizbullah and terrorism

...the US government

...the UK government

...the Chinese and Russian governments

...the scourge that is nationalism and patriotism (read Einstein's "The World as I see It"...I would rather side with him than anyone defending this disgraceful new religion)

...the scourge that is organised religion

...those too ignorant to understand the historical and sociological contexts of their own religion ot faith(such as the fact that most Christians don't realise that Paul was a radical cast off of sorts from the Jerusalem church and just happened to have the money and power to spread his version of Christianity that happens to dominate today and be nothing close to the teachings of the Jerusalem Church of Jesus and James the brother of Jesus...or the idiocy of Islamic scholars who actually think the Shari'a permits a male dominance in society...or Buddhists in Sri Lanka that think texts support the eradication of the Tamils from the island...etc)...Arthur C Clarke had it right when he stated that the greatest tragedy perpetrated in humanity was the hijacking of morality by religion (religion including the religion of nationalism)

...the 98% of humanity incapable of critical thought, human reason, and simple logic

...KC, Klinghoffer, and their disgraceful ilk

...anyone who thinks politics in this country are worth anything

...anyone who thinks the legal system in this country has anything to do with law and not imposition of ideological rules

...anyone who doesn't denounce the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides in any world conflicts

...anyone who tries to justify US (or any for that matter) war crimes and crimes against humanity

...anyone based in ideological idiocy (this is you KC and many others) who are either ignorant or depraved enough to dare claim that anything they speak of or complain about has anything to do with law, morality, ethics...or anything other than the offending of the sick ideology of that individual and others of their ilk

...anyone who does not recognize that law and rights exist on their own authority on the basis of us being human and do not depend on enforcement by a power based political group seeking to impose its ideology on the rest of us

...pseudo-scholars who think that blogs give them the right to pontificate pure horse^^^t and pass it off as worthwhile scholarship or anything other than pure bile

...anyone not willing to stand up for ALL human rights, peace, the interdependence of humankind and the environment, or anything other than their own selfish interests

It is so sad that there are so many wastes of the air we breathe...and that talking to them is like bouncing a ball off a brick wall due to their disgraceful inability to utilize their abilities to think critically...

CP

Ralph E. Luker - 7/27/2006

I assume from what you say, Oscar, that you had the wisdom to vote for John Anderson in 1980. I was on his state campaign committee in Delaware and represented him in a debate at the University of Delaware. In subsequent years, I've found Anderson supporters widely scattered all over the current ideological spectrum. You're fairly well to my left and Jim Lindgren, who blogs at The Volokh Conspiracy, is fairly well to my right. Had we represented the difference in Reagan's winning or losing, I'd have some guilt feeling about my third party deviationism, but it didn't and I don't. I do still have trouble forgiving the Ralph Nader supporters, because they did make a difference in 2000.