Mark absolutely right.. when you sit back and let all the hype die away you are left with what we started with.. a Republican majority in the House and Senate. My goal is the same that it has been since the first day that I could vote in November 1984.. to see a Republican majority and that has not and will not change. Thus if you think about it it hasnt changed for 99.9% of the rest of the party. WE will sustain our majorities in the House and Senate and the democrats will have their usual nervous breakdown, claims of voting fraud and mass recriminations. And once again all will be right with the world........VICTORY ALL!

Hmm, this reminds me of this story:

"Titanic's band

One of the most famous stories of Titanic is of the band. On 15 April, Titanic's eight-member band, led by Wallace Hartley, had assembled in the first-class lounge in an effort to keep passengers calm and upbeat. Later they would move on to the forward half of the boat deck. The band continued playing music even when it became apparent the ship was going to sink.

None of the band members survived the sinking, and there has been much speculation about what their last song was. Some witnesses said the final song played was the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee." However, there are three versions of this song in existence and no one really knows which version, if any, was played. Hartley reportedly said to a friend if he was on a sinking ship "Nearer, My God, to Thee" would be one of the songs he would play. Walter Lord’s book A Night to Remember popularised wireless operator Harold Bride’s account that he heard the song "Autumn" before the ship sank. It is considered Bride either meant the hymn called "Autumn" or "Songe d'Automne," a popular ragtime song of the time. Others claimed they heard "Roll out the Barrel."

Hartley's body was one of those recovered and identified. Considered a hero, his funeral in England was attended by thousands."

Noonan has officially lost his mind

I'm happy for Mark's heart is light and he's confident, blah, blah, blah (Cheney was confidence we would be greeted as liberators, remember? Optimism and 99 cents will get you a chicken sandwich as Wendy's).

What gets me though, is...

"Don't hate, let the Democrats do that."

Again, he once again accusses democrats of hate, while he's the one who's made it his life's goal to attack, belittle liberals and eliminate liberalism. But he doesn't hate them...

The hypocracy is stunning.

Also, I've been getting a lot of hate thrown my way on this site lately, repeatedly being called shi*ley and other names for expressing my opinion.

And, Mark, if you're making some sort of reference to the Foley scandal, right now Republicans are making more noise about it than anyone. And if you're looking to attack the media, the right-leaning Drudge Report has led the charge on this story.

must be "up-is-down day"

no wait, that's everyday at B4B.

not to pee in mark's campfire, buttt....

I'm hoping for a little balance after this election. remember checks n balance is constitutional.

especially 4 "limited govt" citizens, that is, reagan republicans.

I don't trust govt nor politicans.

I don't trust one party rule, gop or dem.

my bumper sticker reads "don't trust 'em, vote cks n balance".

the govt serves at the sufferage of the people.

All you liberals are happy because you're enjoying this scandal that the right-leaning Drudge has discovered was timed by a George Soros funded group to coincide with the ABC News Leak.
It involves creating fake blogs; fake posts to other mainline blogs; using emails and IMs from actual adults and then say they were from minors.

If this scandal does take the Republican Party out of power; I can assure you there will not be a moment of peace for Democrats and "ethics."

However, I do find it interesting that all of a sudden, these liberals are attacking gay members of Congress and their staffs trying to "out" them and also equating being gay as being automatically a pedophile.

Let the Democrats keep pulling on that rope... and as always, they'll hang themselves.

HERE, HERE, Mark,

Cheers, a toast to all the losers! May ye live in uselessness and insecurity all the days of your life. J/K, lol! On a serious note, we hope you extract your heads from your arse soon, hopefully before it is too late.

As usual, oranje willy (take yellow, add a dab of red...) is making as much sense as ever.

I know there are millions and millions of good-hearted moderate Democrats out there, so it is hard for me to use the term "Dem" when the ones I am really talking about are the hard-core, hard-Left, wild-eyed, fanatical, hate-obseesed, truth-deficient, uber-Libs. Just as this group has co-opted the word "liberal" to mean the exact opposite, they have hijacked the word "Democrat" since they have tried, with some success, to hijack the entire party.

Most true Dems are not hate-driven. But the Airhead faction certainly is.

I sat up the other night till 5:00 a.m. trying to have a rational discussion with my uber-Lib, Airhead, brother. He's an otherwise great guy---smart, fair, decent. But he says that about the time Bush announced he was going to run for the presidencey he discovered that he "doesn't trust" Bush----and it's been all downhill from there. He never questioned what "information" set this death spiral in motion. That was so long ago, it is just accepted now.

He would go into a Ranty Rhodes-style dissertation that was so bizarre it was a little scary-----Rumsfeld as DOD spun into Rumsfeld as 'drug dealer' (he owns stock in Merck or something) manipulating the bird flu thing to make money, to linking DeLay to child pornography and prostitution because Abromoff supposedly has such ties, etc etc etc. Fact? Nary a bit. Hate? That's all it was. He thinks it is fact, because it was all presented to him by people he likes and trusts, but they are working on emotion, and feeding hate and distrust with total cynicism.

But the point is, this hate is carefully crafted and orchestrated and then spoon fed to the gullible. And without it, the party would be dead in the water. Deader in the water.

I never heard a fact. I never heard a strategy or a plan. His take on the Republicans forcing Foley out was that this is just more proof of their intolerance. !!!!! But when I pointed out that a failure to force him out would have been spun as just another example of the Culture of Corruption, he had the decency to not disagree.

This otherwise great guy somehow got influenced by someone who appealed to him on an emotional basis, and who has since built on that foundation. And he is certainly not alone. Look at the survey taken after the 2004 election, which learned that something like 70% of those who voted for Kerry did not really vote for Kerry, but just against Bush. Look at what would have happened if the hate campaign had not been so successful. And look at how well the party has learned this lesson.

I truly think that the decent Dems will start, if they have not already, to get tired of being emotionall manipulated. These are smart people, and those who have not been brainwashed by the Air America group can see how the October Surprise is no longer a surprise at all, how it is set up as ambush, how their own party is manipulating fact and half-fact and out-and-out lies to create hatred where none is justified. And they will, I think, start to notice, as we on the right have, that the Lefty emperor really has no clothes---and certainly no plan, no strategy, for the country.

Their whole plan can be summed up as Hate Them and All They Stand For. Wow. But for every person whose personal pathology is stroked by an official embracing of the kind of negative emotions they have been taught are bad, there are many more who are simply turned off by it.

Tom,

I'm sorry to say it, but I can feel the hatred coming from your side...its palpable; like a sickly, green fog...it bounces off me, fortuantely.

Almiranta,

The whole Democrat plan for 2006 is now laid bare for even the most obtuse Democrat to see...knowing that the GOP has a superior GOTV effort and that there are more GOPers than Democrats in the country, the key for Democrat victory is to depress GOP turnout...in Foley, what we've got is a larger replay of the Democrats attempts to use Cheney's lesbian daughter to turn allegedly bigoted and idiotic conservative Christians off. The Democrats don't give a tupenny damn for what Foley did, all they wanted was a gay Republican issue to make all those hick Republicans stay home because, ya know, we all hate gays.

Ohio,

Sorry, can't abide that - "balance" would be Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neil...insanity is Nancy Pelosi.

Willem,

We shall see - but I absolutely assure you that I will be here regardless of the result on November 8th...will you?

That's it Mark!

That's what I like to hear!...hopefully more people will take the same positive attitude perspectively as you set an example!

LET'S GET UP AND GO! LET'S GET OUT THERE AND SHOW EM WHAT WE GOT!

Like Tony the tiger! Greeeaaaat!

Jeremiah

Mark, I will not disagree that there is a lot of anger and hate coming from the left. But you, knowingly or unknowingly, are engaged in the same kind of demonization.

For one to constantly attack one party and "liberal" ideology as you do, never giving the benefit of the doubt, always stretching the truth to paint them in the worse possible light... that's hatred. That adds to the cacophony of anger that drives out political media culture.

You generalize and try and paint all liberals as hateful people that belong to an ideology that's rooted in evil. You are bad for this country.

Almiranta said:

I know there are millions and millions of good-hearted moderate Democrats out there, so it is hard for me to use the term "Dem" when the ones I am really talking about are the hard-core, hard-Left, wild-eyed, fanatical, hate-obseesed, truth-deficient, uber-Libs. Just as this group has co-opted the word "liberal" to mean the exact opposite, they have hijacked the word "Democrat" since they have tried, with some success, to hijack the entire party.

Almiranta,
That was one of the most intelligent comments I have seen come from the right on this site. I feel the same way about both parties, that is why I adopted the term "bushbot" when referring to the extreme right.

The portrayal of an entire party as being uniform to the worst elements of that party is ridiculous. This method of labeling occurs on both sides. Blind loyalists are the problem in my opinion, wingnuts come from the right and left, and if you can't agree with that, you are one of them.

Mark,
"insanity is Nancy Pelosi"
I wouldn't say insanity, I tend to give a little more importance to the definition of a word, I would label her as desperate and incompetent, with a tendency to stand for whatever she thinks will get her elected. I would put Nancy Pelosi in the same bucket as Rick Santorum, and feed them both to the fish. You on the other hand would vote Rick in as president, because he is extreme enough to feed the emotions that control your mind. But for a religious fanatic like you, "Truth" is a product of faith, based on the fact, that it can never be proven.

Being a Democrat or Republican is a black and white state of mind, for the dumbed down emotionally controlled population of America, where the separate issues of abortion, taxes, social security, gun control, health care, education, war, and, peace are all decided for you based on party lines.

*According to the Drudge Report...*

CLAIM: FILTHY FOLEY ONLINE MESSAGES WERE PAGE PRANK GONE AWRY

According to two people close to former congressional page Jordan Edmund, the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, Edmund, a conservative Republican, goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.

The primary source, an ally of Edmund, adamantly proclaims that the former page is not a homosexual. The prank scenario was confirmed by a second associate of Edmund. Both are fearful that their political careers will be affected if they are publicly brought into the matter.

The prank scenario only applies to the Edmund IM sessions and does not necessarily apply to any other exchanges between the former congressman and others.

Developing...

I just want to point out the irony in this. Mark posts his usual comment about how mean and hateful Democrats are, which leads them to believing wild conspiracies. In response, 2 separate Republicans post the latest Drudge conspiracy that the emails and instant messages were faked. (An anonymous story on Drudge? That's got to be true!!) Sadly, this piece of garbage story will quickly become gospel truth for the Right, right up there with the usual Clinton conspiracies.

Noonan: "I'm sorry to say it, but I can feel the hatred coming from your side...its palpable; like a sickly, green fog...it bounces off me, fortuantely."

Noonan: "They are doing what they do because they are losing and desperate."

A definition of Psychological Projection (from Wikipedia): "Projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one 'projects' one's own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, feelings—basically parts of oneself—onto someone else (usually another person, but psychological projection onto animals, inanimate objects - even religious constructs - also occurs). The principle of projection is well-established in psychology.

To understand the process, imagine an individual (Alice, for example) who feels dislike for another person (let's say Bob), but whose unconscious mind will not allow her to become aware of this negative emotion. Instead of admitting to herself that she feels dislike for Bob, she projects her dislike onto Bob, so that her conscious thought is not "I don't like Bob," but "Bob doesn't like me." In this way one can see that projection is related to denial, the only defense mechanism that some argue is more primitive than projection. Alice has denied a part of herself that is desperate to come to the surface. She can't flatly admit that she doesn't like Bob, so instead she will project the dislike, thinking Bob doesn't like her."

Drudge is wrong and George Soros had NOTHING to do with this - you people are morons

We'll see how "light" Noonan's heart is after Nov 7th when the republican "rubber stamp" is replaced with "checks and balance."

As far as the Foley scandal being part of that ole' moonbat "Left Wing Conspiracy," you wish. Alas, democrats aren't that clever or blood thirsty. This is blowback on a party that started to believe their own hype of moral superiority. Trips you up every time!

James, thank you for injecting a note of intelligent commentary into what so often degenerates into simple name-calling. Your civility is much appreciated.

I know there are extreme radical right-wingers out there. I am not fond of Buchanan, for example. But it is my impression that the far far right are kind of marginalized by our party. We tolerate them, we put them on a talk show every now and then, but we never act as if they speak for the party. In fact, we often go out of our way to make it clear that they do NOT speak for our party. (You may have noticed that they get far more attention from the Left, and the Left-leaning media, who present them as representative of the mainstream right, than they do from the actual mainstream right.)

What concerns me is that the Democratic radicals are, increasingly, being accepted by the party and even being handed control of the party.

Another thing that strikes me is the impression I have that so many Liberals (as opposed to liberals) really are KoolAid drinkers for the Cause. I just don't see outright disagreement with the most radical and outrageous comments and actions of the radicals. I don't know if this is because there is none, or if the media just keep it under wraps, but the lockstep mentality does seem more prevelant on the Left.

I know you feel justified in using the term "bushbots" to describe what you evidently see as the same phenomonon on the right, but an objective look at facts would show you that conservatives often take opposing points of view to those of the President. We just have to look at immigration as an example. For reasons of his own, the President felt very strongly about an approach that most conservatives did not like, and we told him so.

I can disagree strongly with the President on his immigration stance, and even admit that there might be another approach to the problem in Iraq, and still think he is an honorable man, doing the best he can in what is essentially an impossible job, under pressures none of us can even fathom, while under constant attack from within his own country, attack that is at least most of the time based on outright lies and distortions.

Unfortunately, for so many on the Left, believing that Bush is a decent and honorable man is the same as being a "bushbot" and I'm curious to know if that is your position.

Reasonable people from both sides of the aisle know that mistakes are made, all the time, by everyone. The reasons are infinite, ranging from bad judgment to bad information to simple miscalculation to things out of the control of those doing the deciding. Sometimes an action is clearly the right one, based on the facts of the moment, and then becomes a mistake as the situation changes. Sometimes there is more than one way to get to a destination. And sometimes it is just a difference of opinion, more than a mistake. It is legitimate to think someone should have done something differently, and it happens all the time, from not liking the color of your neighbor's house to preferring your own route to the market to liking Fords over Chevys.

If each of us were demonized for our every mistake, for every decision, for every difference of opinion between us and our critics, we would all be nuts in weeks. If you and the world were informed that you didn't buy a lemon because you trusted Car and Driver's review of the car, but did it because you are stupid, and corrupt, and in the pocket of the manufacturer, and so on, with a mulititude of evil and despicable motives that spin out into layer upon layer of linking and vaguely related motives, you would be pretty resentful.

This is what we see happening to the President, and by extension to all Republicans. We don't see reasoned and rational discussions of different viewpoints on issues---we see demonization.

Demanding fairness and reason is not being a "bushbot".

But I think it is time for the mainstream Democrats to step up and refuse to be neoradicals. I think it was Spiro Agnew who came up with the term "Silent Majority" and that term keeps coming to mind, as I think of the millions of fair-minded Democrats out there who have to be coming to the realization that surely not all Republicans are evil and corrupt, and that their own party has no platfrom other that "They Are Always Wrong".

And my harsh comments here on this blog are not directed at the mainstream Dems but at the vicious, mean-spirited, lockstep neorads who do feel that all is fair, who do demonize, and who constantly regurgiate AA talking points with no respect for fact.

Aarontime is actually on target in his description of projection. We have known for years why the Dems have had to demonize Bush, why they have had to ascribe only the most vile motives to everything he has ever done, and why they are so obsessed with their "Culture of Corruption" mantra.

We've known all along it was projection. Thanks for the detailed description and examples, aaron.

James says: "Being a Democrat or Republican is a black and white state of mind, for the dumbed down emotionally controlled population of America, where the separate issues of abortion, taxes, social security, gun control, health care, education, war, and, peace are all decided for you based on party lines."

As I just said on another thread, James, I think that the main difference getween conservatives and liberals is that conservatives tend to develop their philosophies first, and then look for a political party which is most likely to support them, while liberals tend to focus on a party (or personality) first and the try to create and mold a philosophy around that commitment.

I know many Republicans who feel abortion is OK, at least in some instances. Or they feel it should be legal. Yet they do not think it has Constitutional protection. I know Republicans who do not have guns, dislike guns, fear guns, but do see a Constitutional protection for them. It would be very convenient to posture that these positions are dictated by the party, when in fact the party choice is based on the existing beliefs.

I am a Republican partly because I believe in lower taxes and the economic strengths that come from allowing people to keep more of what they make. I do not take that position because I am a Republican. In much the same way, my belief that the SS system is failing is based on my understanding of economics, not on my voter registration.

War and peace are things over which we have little control. Peace is always better, but war is sometimes forced upon us, to protect life, freedom, and peace. My commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness led me to the Republican Party, the party did not force these beliefs upon me.

As a Libertarian/Conservative, I tend to look at the Constitution as the guiding principle of the country, and I seek a party which feels the same, not one which feels it can modify the Constitution to fill ever-changing social demands.

And I am a capitalist by nature, not a socialist. As a capitalist, I tend to dislike unions, except in the few cases where they were, temporarily, needed to correct a wrong. This makes me a Republican, not the other way around. And it affects my attitude toward union-controlled education and certainly toward socialized health care.

But, having said all of that, I and most of the conservatives I know are willing to indulge in rational discussions on these topics. But the Liberals I know will not. The Liberals I know tend to fall back on belief-system types of arguments, and reject any and all differing points of view.

Abortion? I can and do make excellent arguments against abortion without ever mentioning or referring to God or religion or any belief system based premise. But I can't talk to the Liberals I know about this because all I get is the Dem talking points. Dems are in favor of abortion. That's all they know about it. That, and those who are against it are religious fanatics and therefore not credible.

So in general I find the conservatives far more independent and far more free thinking than the so-called Liberals.