Well, the choir often needs perked up after defeats, or given a little emotionally boost to stay in the fight. I do not know how inaccurate Moore is, but Coulter as I said tends to stick to the facts and I actually view many of her comments as logical, if rather emotionally driven or slanted, takes on real facts. I refer to her books, as I said, her interviews and articles are not detailed and so like anyone else doing quick soundbites they are high on emotional short arguments. I would not be surprised if Moore did somewhat similiar, though my impression is his movies are real heart-grabbers not heavily fact based as most conservative authors tend to be in their actual books, and likely liberal authors too. Choice of medium controls level of detail and preferred method of argument. I throw no stones on that level.





No, I said left-wing takeover, not liberal or conservative, you well know that definitions of liberal and conservative and how closely tied either is to a given party vary a lot. Left and right are dem and GOP, currently lib and con are basically Dem and GOP, this has not always been the case and realistically most of the time the GOP existed it was the more liberal party. That changed after the civil rights movement, as you well know.




As I said, I thought both questions were wrong, asking someone in that way about their VP nominee was also tasteless, though not as bad, and Bush, IMHO, handled it well, by directly confronting it and syncing to the audience while doing so. I believe Dukakis could have dealt with the issue, but not as effectively, after all, most people, especially then, support capital punishment, and as he did not, they would be less likely to accept his response. But he runs on the issues, and most disagree with him there, the question merely highlighted the difference in opinion and why those who disagree on that have reason to consider it important. Voters who support capital punishment, on hearing that the man would not even permit it for his wife's rapist/murderer, could legitimately assume he would commute the sentence on their own wife's rapist and murder. The phrasing was in poor taste, but the core point was not. The phrasing evoked a strong emotional response on the issue, which is usually inappropriate in formal debates, but is of course a normal and acceptable practice in law, TV political shows, etc. He should have been better prepared to answer that question, if nothing else, it shows he'd not really prepared to give a committed, logical and passionate defense of it. Which while not a necessity in a president, is certainly a plus.




Agreed, however many these days think they shouldn't have to risk those lumps, and circus acts don't belong in court. Why was Dukakis getting that question bad because it wasn't dignified but far worse indignities perpetrated for other causes are acceptable? Simply because one you approve of and the other you don't?




I'm assuming you meant cap and trade was 'declared dead before arrival' - and the salt ban IIRC just went into effect in NYC. I never believed it would be illegal to smoke outdoors either, I seem to remember people pointing out the slippery slope on those laws when the subject first hit prominence in the 90s and them being laughed off, doesn't seem so funny now, at the time banning smoking in restaurants seemed insanely unlikely too, now most states ban it in a disgusting violation of rights.




There is no debate here on the government - and in a democracy the collective will - having the right to step in on free markets and say "No, bad dog, you can't cartel and raise the price of milk to ten bucks a gallon", however on the scale of gov't control, the right and left disagree about level and degree, as we both know. I do not think the gov't should be able to step in unless the abuse is clear, and I think there are far fewer abuses than the left leads people to believe. Mostly however, I do not believe that once justification exists, that the action the gov't takes is necessarily good action, IMHO it usually is not, or is barely more good than ill, and is politics driven as opposed to pragmatic and thus unlike the free market where most things are self-correcting actions by the government are often not really designed to address the problem but to be seen to address the problem.