Krugman Shaming A Repug Man With No Shame

[boutons_deux]

http://images1.dailykos.com/i/user/1638/Ghraib-pile3.jpg

The Right Reacts to Krugman’s 9/11 Post

Conservatives pundits are falling all over themselves in response to Paul Krugman’s pithy and plainspoken blog post on the “occasion for shame” that has become the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The disgrace is the responsibility of such “fake heroes” as former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President George W. Bush, darlings of the Republican Party who “[cashed] in on the horror” for personal and political gain and drove the country apart, he writes.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/print/the_right_reacts_to_krugmans_9_11_post_20110912/

[mingus]

When's Obama going to end the war?

His policies in Iraq are just a continuation of Bush's policies.

[boutons_deux]

Barry doesn't control the wars, the MIC does, and the MIC is pocketing $10Bs in profits.

The wars and $700B/year in DoD budget (another few more $100Bs for State Dept for its "security" expenses) will continue indefinitely. There's really no way Human-Americans can stop the MIC/UCA from sucking wealth in, because the MIC/UCA own the govt, all 3 branches, aka, the corporatocracy.

About the only way to stop the wars is through conscription, a draft, which would cause, like in the 60s/70s, a huge anti-war movement that might get DC's attention.

As long as the military can keep sucking in naive, uneducated, lost kids who can't find jobs (nothing to do with "fighting for freedom and democracy and patriotism", it's all about having a job), and keep cutting taxes rather than raising taxes to pay for the wars,
the wars will continue indefinitely.

[DarrinS]

I'm just glad Krugman didn't exploit 9/11 for any cheap political reason.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I'm just glad Krugman didn't exploit 9/11 for any cheap political reason.

or use 9/11 to justify an unecessary war

[boutons_deux]

dubya, condi, dickhead, rummy, feith, wolfowitz, powell, etc are all war criminals. George Tenet an criminally incompetent CIA director.

They allowed 9/11 to happen, then exploited the country's fear and temporary solidarity to lie the country into invading Iraq-for-oil. And now they are all comfortably, wealthily retired, still lying to cover up their incompetence and crimes.

[MannyIsGod]

I fucking hate it when I agree with Darrin but Krugman's post was pretty bad. I agree with parts of it but the timing couldn't have been worse.

[boutons_deux]

The Truth Inconveniently Hurts.

[Winehole23]

I fucking hate it when I agree with Darrin but Krugman's post was pretty bad. I agree with parts of it but the timing couldn't have been worse.Came off petulant and shrill. George Will's WaPo oped from 9/9 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sept-11s-self-inflicted-wounds/2011/09/08/gIQAfjm5FK_story.html) was much more expansive and thoughtful in a similar vein, without being so sour and whiny.

[boutons_deux]

Will's article is totally different, and of course doesn't mention at all the Repugs and neo-cons that fucked up so badly and then exploited their own fuckup to fuckup more, and got away with it all.

[Winehole23]

take off the blinders and read for a change

[101A]

I'm just glad Krugman didn't exploit 9/11 for any cheap political reason.

Well played.

[Spurminator]

I'm with Greenwald.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

[boutons_deux]

More About the 9/11 Anniversary

By Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal

13 September 11

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tweeted his disapproval of Krugman's 9/11 blog and tried to turn Krugman's short meditation into a referendum on the NY Times. In response, Krugman expands on the blog in question. -- JPS/RSN



It looks as if I should say a bit more about yesterday's anniversary. So:

The fact is that the two years or so after 9/11 were a terrible time in America - a time of political exploitation and intimidation, culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq. It's probably worth pointing out that I'm not saying anything now that I wasn't saying in real time back then, when Bush had a sky-high approval rating and any criticism was denounced as treason. And there's nothing I've done in my life of which I'm more proud.

It was a time when tough talk was confused with real heroism, when people who made speeches, then feathered their own political or financial nests, were exalted along with - and sometimes above - those who put their lives on the line, both on the evil day and after.

So it was a shameful episode in our nation's history - and it's one that I can't help thinking about whenever we talk about 9/11 itself.

Now, I should have said that the American people behaved remarkably well in the weeks and months after 9/11: There was very little panic, and much more tolerance than one might have feared. Muslims weren't lynched, and neither were dissenters, and that was something of which we can all be proud.

But the memory of how the atrocity was abused is and remains a painful one. And it's a story that I, at least, can neither forget nor forgive.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/7419-focus-more-about-the-911-anniversary

[boutons_deux]

Paul Krugman’s allegation of 9/11 shame — is he right?

Here’s Karl Rove in the runup to the 2002 midterm elections (via Nexis):

President Bush’s top political adviser said today that Republicans will make the president’s handling of the war on terrorism the centerpiece of their strategy to win back the Senate and keep control of the House in this year’s midterm elections.

“We can go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America,” Karl Rove said at the Republican National Committee meeting here.

Here’s Rudy Giuliani, at the 2004 Republican National Convention (via Nexis):

I looked up and seeing the flames of hell emanating from those buildings and realizing that what I was actually seeing was a human being on the 101st, 102nd floor that was jumping out of the building, I stood there; it probably took five or six seconds. It seemed to me that it took 20 or 30 minutes. And I was stunned. And I realized in that moment and that instant, I realized we were facing something that we had never, ever faced before...At the time, we believed that we would be attacked many more times that day and in the days that followed. Without really thinking, based on just emotion, spontaneous, I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and I said to him, ‘’Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president.’’ I say it again tonight, I say it again tonight: thank God that George Bush is our president.

Here’s top McCain adviser Charlie Black, during the 2008 campaign:

A top adviser to Sen. John McCain said that a terrorist attack in the United States would be a political benefit to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a comment that was immediately disputed by the candidate and denounced by his Democratic rival.

Charles R. Black Jr., one of McCain’s most senior political advisers, said in an interview with Fortune magazine that a fresh terrorist attack “certainly would be a big advantage to him.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/about-that-paul-krugman-allegation-of-911-shame/2011/03/03/gIQAdwBMNK_blog.html

[ElNono]

I'm with Greenwald.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

ditto

I agree with mingus too. 9/11 should also be a good occasion to wonder what the hell are we still doing, at the very least, in Iraq.

[Spurminator]

I would understand the outrage if Krugman, say, organized a rally a couple of blocks from the Memorial and shouted down the presentation. But he wrote a blog post, the reading of which is a voluntary action on the part of the reader. So I don't see how it's insensitive to anyone.

The outrage over it reminds me a little too much of the years immediately following 9/11 when dissenters of American policy were accused of all but treason for daring to go against the American jingoism and groupthink.

[ElNono]

I would understand the outrage if Krugman, say, organized a rally a couple of blocks from the Memorial and shouted down the presentation. But he wrote a blog post, the reading of which is a voluntary action on the part of the reader. So I don't see how it's insensitive to anyone.

The outrage over it reminds me a little too much of the years immediately following 9/11 when dissenters of American policy were accused of all but treason for daring to go against the American jingoism and groupthink.

Plus every speech you heard this past weekend and the past 10 years had a political note to it here or there. I didn't read Krugman's piece yet, but I'm guessing he left out the condolences part.

[MannyIsGod]

To be honest I was pretty annoyed with all the "events" of this past weekend save for a few. I was particularly annoyed with the move to capitalize commercially on the event through the use of television commercials (even if I did think the State Farm one was well done). I'm glad the 10th anniversary is behind is so that we can start to put the event further behind us. I don't know how to really characterize why I'm annoyed at many of the ceremonies (every sporting event I watched this weekend couldn't just be a game - it had to be a memorial and that bothers me on a certain level even if I know why its occurring) but I know there's a huge part of me that is happy its over and that Monday, 9/12, was just another day.

I have a strong disdain for the use of the term "never forget" which I find beyond patronizing and utterly moronic. As if to think that anyone who witnessed the event could ever forget it. In that sense, I agree when Krugman says that 9/11 has been exploited. I agree with him in others too. But I agree when Darrin says that Krugman himself exploited 9/11. Maybe in our political climate its impossible to address these issues without doing so. I'm not outraged at what Krugman said I just don't really see the point either. Just seems to be a way of patting himself and other progressives on their own collective back at a time when that is wanted least..

[boutons_deux]

"don't really see the point either."

nobody was prosecuted, they have been and continue to lie about the events, rewrite history which full of their to begin with, and nobody cares. Krugman cares.

[Nbadan]

What part of 9/11 did Bush and Guliani not exploit? These bastards took the country to war on what they knew were false pretenses if not flat out lies....pretentious? ha...tell that to the families who lost loves ones in Iraq and not just the American families...the 1 million Iraqi who have been killed or displaced cause of this stupid war...

[Spurminator]

I have a strong disdain for the use of the term "never forget" which I find beyond patronizing and utterly moronic. As if to think that anyone who witnessed the event could ever forget it.

+1

"Never Forget" is code for "Stay Afraid," IMO. Fuck that.

It's time to get over 9/11.

[Nbadan]

Came off petulant and shrill. George Will's WaPo oped from 9/9 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sept-11s-self-inflicted-wounds/2011/09/08/gIQAfjm5FK_story.html) was much more expansive and thoughtful in a similar vein, without being so sour and whiny.

Both articles are directed at completely different audiences....Will's article reads like a guy who has lost nothing in this war, woooo poor us, sold a bill of goods by now nameless faces, lest Will really have to point at a few Republican...can't let that happen....wooooo the military....give the war enough time and we will be in a third generation of American troops...memories are short....this war has denied us those past celebrations of V-day or VIE day....woooo us....on to Syria and Iran!

[DarrinS]

A lot of Dems talked about Saddam's WMD and ties to terrorism. Don't make me post the video.

The REAL shame of 9/11 is that we didn't prevent it. Another shame is that it spawned the twoofer movement. Talk about cashing in.

[Nbadan]

Oh please, democrats did not manufacture misleading facts to persuade a nation into war and conceal facts which did not support their drive for war...your false equivalency is only belittled by your need to support a hypothesis that has bores no resemblance to actual fact and is no longer even supported by its own author....

[DarrinS]

Oh please, democrats did not manufacture misleading facts to persuade a nation into war and conceal facts which did not support their drive for war...your false equivalency is only belittled by your need to support a hypothesis that has bores no resemblance to actual fact and is no longer even supported by its own author....

iSwSDvgw5Uc

[Nbadan]

democrats did not manufacture misleading facts to persuade a nation into war and conceal facts which did not support their drive for war...

[DarrinS]

..

.

[ElNono]

A lot of Dems talked about Saddam's WMD and ties to terrorism. Don't make me post the video.

Those Dems were just a wrong. Not sure how that makes it a right.

[boutons_deux]

"lot of Dems talked about Saddam's WMD and ties to terrorism"

yes, they were wrong, and mislead by the false "conventional wisdom" fabricated and pushed by, and intimidated as traitors, by the neo-cons/Repugs/oilcos/VRWC. No Repug lies, no Iraq war, no 5000 US military lives WASTED.