Wes Clark accuses Bush of "grievous misleadership"

Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:12 AM
Original message

Wes Clark accuses Bush of "grievous misleadership"

Former Democratic presidential candidate criticizes Bush

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) � Findings by the Sept. 11 commission show that President Bush did not do enough to keep Americans safe from terrorism, retired Gen. Wesley Clark asserted Saturday.

~snip~

Clark said he holds Bush responsible for taking the country into war in Iraq, saying the war has distracted the United States from its real adversary: al-Qaeda terrorists.

"We must hold this president responsible for grievous misleadership of this country," Clark told the Nebraska Democrats. "Don't be afraid to say it."

Clark is campaigning for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

~snip

"George Bush is going to lose in November because he deserves to lose," he said.

Clark, former NATO commander and four-star general, was the headliner at the gathering that raised more than $100,000 for Democratic campaigns and activities.

Source: USA Today 4/18/04

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DemLikr

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:13 AM
Response to Original message

1. A testicular Dem!!! Clark for Kerry's VP! n/t

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Skittles

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:00 AM
Response to Reply #1

19. testicular?

please stop implying male body parts are a requirement for courage.

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DemLikr

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:04 AM
Response to Reply #19

20. Oh dear god. Please stop telling me how to express myself.

Thank you.

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Name removed

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:05 AM
Response to Reply #20

21. Deleted message

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:13 AM
Response to Reply #21

23. Deleted message

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revcarol

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:09 AM
Response to Reply #20

22. Totally offended by your reply to a legitimate criticism.

Signed,

a female who has been pelted by rocks, eggs, and other disgusting things while on a peace demonstration every Tuesday since before the war.And maybe you want to tell the 80 year old lady with me that she doesn't have courage either.

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DemLikr

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:28 AM
Response to Reply #22

28. I'm glad to have helped you express your martydom complex here.

If you hope to go through your little life unoffended, it will be a sad and boring term on earth, indeed.

Didn't you find those eggs offensive? And being eggs, they were female, weren't they? Assuming they were unfertilized...right? And as such, you were "pelted" (love that word, so evocative of blameless victimization by the rabble) by rather effective, FEMALE weapons of minor destruction, no?

Yea! A politically correct pelting!

I'm proud of you.

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John_H

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:56 AM
Response to Reply #28

31. LOL! I give that a standing ovulation!

And to the thought police pelting you with balls of invective, I say...nuts!

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:22 PM
Response to Reply #28

47. Had to laugh

:D Nicely done there, DemLikr.

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homelandpunk

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Mon Apr-19-04 07:58 PM
Response to Reply #19

61. please don't impose your PC editing skills. n/t

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BootinUp

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:15 AM
Response to Original message

2. You want Bush attacked mercilessly?

Edited on Mon Apr-19-04 09:34 AM by Jim4Wes

Clark's your guy. :bounce:

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Name removed

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:16 AM
Response to Reply #2

4. Deleted message

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BootinUp

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:33 AM
Response to Reply #4

12. Yes, what a goof.

I'll have to fix that.

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bearfartinthewoods

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Mon Apr-19-04 04:46 PM
Response to Reply #2

59. yeah, except he invents words just like bush does

at least i hope he knows there is no such word as misleadership.

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Mon Apr-19-04 05:03 PM
Response to Reply #59

60. Deleted message

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wtmusic

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:16 AM
Response to Original message

3. 'Don't be afraid to say it?'

Excuse me Wes, but who was cheerleading the war on as a guest commentator on CNN less than a year ago? What a hypocrite.

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glarius

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:19 AM
Response to Reply #3

6. I never thought he was cheer leading....

I had the impression he was never FOR the attack on Iraq!

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Sparkly

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:19 AM
Response to Reply #3

7. "Cheerleading?"

He was hardly "cheerleading" -- he was a CNN military analyst and described the operation. He'd also been very vocal in warning that going in was a bad idea, including in testimony to Congress.

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wtmusic

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:27 AM
Response to Reply #7

10. He 'described the operation'

And never once on CNN (to my knowledge) gave any hint that it was a huge mistake until after it was "PC" to do so. That's you're idea of being very vocal?

Sorry, not climbing on board that fallacy.

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Spazito

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:29 AM
Response to Reply #10

11. He spoke strongly about the need to have the UN on board...

before bush invaded and his praise was always for the troops not the bush administration.

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wtmusic

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:34 AM
Response to Reply #11

13. On CNN? Got a link?

I heard him speak 3-4 times. He had a huge opportunity to influence public opinion against the war and he wasted it, assuming you believe he actually opposed the war. I don't.

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BootinUp

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:46 AM
Response to Reply #13

14. The archives are full of discussions

on this topic. Clark was being paid for military analysis not as an opponent of the Bush admin. Never the less he did raise questions all during the time with regard to the planning for the aftermath, and the lack of support from our major allies. This was one of the reasons the draft Clark movement started.

Clark went to congress in Sept 2002 and advised strongly against the war without full UN support.

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:14 AM
Response to Reply #13

24. Of course he opposed the war

For chrissakes, Clark testified against it before both congressional armed service committees back in Sept 2002. That was long before most other Dems were saying anything.

Personally, I think it took a whole lot more courage for someone like Clark to speak out than, for example a Dean or Kucinich. People expected them to be against the war--it didn't hurt their popularity with constituents or threaten their career, but only furthered both. Clark, otoh, bucked the system in which he was making a pretty lucrative living. You know, after 34 years of working for not much more than peanuts.

You may think the system is bankrupt--Clark probably wouldn't disagree. But the FACT is that he gave up millions of dollars in business prospects as a consultant, not to mention the assault on his reputation by many "old friends" in the administration and among its supporters, and was in fact fired from CNN precisely for allowing his opinions about the war infiltrate what was supposed to be impartial military analysis.

What has Kucinich sacrificed, personally, for "the cause"?

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Spazito

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:16 AM
Response to Reply #24

25. Well said!

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Tatiana

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:08 PM
Response to Reply #24

44. Amen and Hallelujah!

They tried to make Clark's testimony before Congress a sign of his lack of patriotism! Come on, now.

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PatrioticOhioLiberal

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #13

34. OMG lol

You heard him speak "3 or 4 times"?

I repeat...uninformed.

The man was commentating nearly every night on CNN...3 or 4 times is hardly constitutes a body of evidence.

:crazy:

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returnable

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:05 PM
Response to Reply #13

42. Actually, do YOU have a link?

I'd love to see a transcript of Clark "cheerleading" the war on CNN.

Let's see what ya got.

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Kahuna

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:48 AM
Response to Reply #3

15. Who was? It wasn't Wes. I don't care how much you try to..

reinvent history. :shrug:

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:18 AM
Response to Reply #3

26. I am sure he was a cheerleader for the war

And that's why Bushco tried to get him fired from CNN. Uh huh. :eyes:

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:26 AM
Response to Reply #26

27. Not only tried...

But succeeded.

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Name removed

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:02 AM
Response to Reply #3

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

LandOLincoln

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:11 PM
Response to Reply #3

45. Thank you so much for your input,

but if you had paid attention, Karl, you would have understood that he was cheering on the military and their conduct of the war, not the pResident and the administration that should never have sent them to fight this unnecessary war in the first place.

And isn't it about time for you guys to trot out your cut and paste version of Wes's HASC testimony from September 26, 2002 yet again?

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 01:17 PM
Response to Reply #45

53. Oh well, if you insist <g>

These are from the Senate ASC testimony, 9/23/02.

This first one is where Clark tells a hostile Senator Sessions of AL that the use of force should be the "ultimate last resort" and that you don't spill American blood just because you're frustrated with how slowly international institutions and the governments of allies.

http://www.videos4clark.com/vidclips/06.wmv

And just for fun, this one is where Clark talks about how important it is to have the POLITICAL plan worked out before you ever start a military operation. Gee... doesn't that sound like something so many have all been asking about recently?

http://www.videos4clark.com/vidclips/05.wmv

Don't have video of the House ASC testimony of 9/26/02, but here's what Perle had to say about Clark's testimony. After he'd left the room of course. Repubs can be gutless when it comes to facing men and women of real courage.

Clark "seems to be preoccupied�and I am quoting now�with building legitimacy, with exhausting all diplomatic remedies as though we hadn't been in diplomacy in the last decade, relegating the use of force as a last resort, to building the biggest coalition; in short, a variety of very amorphous ephemeral concerns... So, I think General Clark doesn't want to see us use military force, and he has thrown out as many reasons as he can to develop for that, but the bottom line is he just doesn't want to take action. He wants to wait."
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has269000.000/has269000_0.htm

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #45

54. D'oh!

I just realized you meant the RNC/Drudge version. How outrageous that whole smear was, and how sad so many alleged Democrats fell for it.

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LandOLincoln

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Mon Apr-19-04 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #54

55. Yep, Didn't I read that in one of Sludge's cobbled-together sentences

there were 1,500 words cut between the beginning and the end of said sentence?

All that work, and he was too frickin' stoopid to realize that Perle's testimony from the same day blew his hack job all to blazes...

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 02:15 PM
Response to Reply #55

56. I read something like that somewhere, but...

It doesn't matter that the smear was easily disproved. That's not the tactic. It was still disseminated widely--Gillespie, the RNC chair, spread it around the next day, and THAT made it into the national media. I'd be willing to wager 90+% of the people who heard the Drudge crap never heard a word of rebuttal. It wasn't newsworthy.

The Rovians will put out any wild thing they can think of, and the people who know better are those who wouldn't vote for a Repub if their life depended on it anyway. But the ones in the middle? The vast majority just swallow whatever they're fed.

It's sad when people who SHOULD know better buy into Rovian bullshit.

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Renew Deal

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:54 PM
Response to Reply #3

50. Cheerleading? Bushco wanted him fired for not being rah rah enough.

You should get your story straight. Clark actually testified to congress saying the war was a bad idea. Even your boy Dean thought the war was a good idea until he ran for office.

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Sparkly

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:17 AM
Response to Original message

5. Go, General!!

I love that man.

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maddezmom

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:19 AM
Response to Original message

8. Keep kicking bush* ass, Wes.

not bad on the fundraising :)

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kentuck

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:20 AM
Response to Original message

9. He's the best friend that Kerry has at this moment....

And, no matter what he said or did years ago, this guy is in the present and he is an ally of the Democratic Party...

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cosmicdot

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:48 AM
Response to Original message

16. grievous, yes ... but, is he a liar, thief, subversive, traitor, extorter

... a fraud?

I guess grievous is getting warmer.

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:50 AM
Response to Original message

17. I was there!

It was the annual Nebraska Democratic Party Morrison-Exon Dinner (used to be Jefferson-Jackson). Clark was there as Kerry's surrogate.

Clark gave an incredibly stirring speech that had the normally staid Nebraska Dems on their feet over and over. This article only reports a very small part of his criticisms of BushCo, and almost none of his praise for Kerry. It also dwells on the 9/11 issues, which was about one line of Clark's talk, and the rest Iraq, when he also talked about the problems of jobs, healthcare and education. Much of the speech was what Clark has been saying all along, but you could tell that he was also covering talking points provided by the Kerry campaign staff. With a little luck, the tape will be available on-line, and EVERY Democrat owes it to themselves to listen and listen closely.

The host said it was a record-breaking attendance and that they had never heard "one of these things" interrupted so often by applause and standing ovations. Clark was on fire, and had the audience there with him the whole way.

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Bill of Rights

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Mon Apr-19-04 08:37 PM
Response to Reply #17

62. Thanks for the first hand account, hf_jai!

When I was campaigning for Clark, I had the opportunity to hear him speak 3 times. He got better the further along he got in the process. I bet he rocks now!!!

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revcarol

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Mon Apr-19-04 09:55 AM
Response to Original message

18. Now he has to make up words,

like Bush?

surely he could do better.

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:29 AM
Response to Reply #18

29. What words?

is he making up? Are you comparing Wes Clark to George W. Bush? I would like to know for sure that is what you are doing. Your post is a tad obtuse, revcarol.

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Toucano

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Mon Apr-19-04 10:32 AM
Response to Reply #29

30. "Misleadership" is not a word. n/t

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BootinUp

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:15 AM
Response to Reply #30

35. It seems to be commonly used in

political rhetoric

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=misleadership

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:27 AM
Response to Reply #35

37. "Mislead" is a word

Edited on Mon Apr-19-04 12:00 PM by hf_jai

To mislead someone means to tell them a lie, purposely. One of Clark's oft-repeated statements during his own campaign was that Bush has not led America, he has MISled America.

As I said up-thread, I was there and heard the speech. I don't remember Clark's exact words leading up to the what was quoted, but there was no question as to what he meant.

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:46 AM
Response to Reply #30

38. It may not be a word in the dictionary. Yet.

And he is not inventing it. It's been in use for the past few years, at least, particularly in reference to the Bush administration. Web writers seem especially to like the use of "misleadership," as you can see by a simple search; interesting most seem to be leftist web writers.

However, the main thing is that there is a big difference between a thinking person choosing to use a variation of speech and somebody who doesn't know he is even doing it, so it is ludicrous to ever connect Clark's doing it with Bush's doing it.

In any case, strictly on "misleadership": it works.

mis�lead ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ms-ld)
tr.v. mis��led, (-ld) mis�lead�ing, mis�leads
To lead in the wrong direction.
To lead into error of thought or action, especially by intentionally deceiving. See Synonyms at deceive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mis�leader n.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mislead

lead�er�ship ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ldr-shp)
n.
The position or office of a leader: ascended to the leadership of the party.
Capacity or ability to lead: showed strong leadership during her first term in office.
A group of leaders: met with the leadership of the nation's top unions.
Guidance; direction: The business prospered under the leadership of the new president.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=leadership&r=67

mis-1
pref.
Bad; badly; wrong; wrongly: misconduct.
Failure; lack: misfire.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mis&r=67

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Toucano

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:27 PM
Response to Reply #38

48. It's certainly not on the scale of a Bushism

Of course, language is alive and continually evolving.

I do, however, hope that "suicider" doesn't officially enter the lexicon. LOL!:(

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 01:01 PM
Response to Reply #48

51. Yes, that is the beauty of it

"language is alive and continually evolving"

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PatrioticOhioLiberal

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:23 AM
Response to Reply #18

36. Good grief

Just a thought here...maybe B*&%@ invites the need for new descriptive phrases...the usual ones have been used so often (and rightfully so) that they no longer garner attention.

Surely you have a big dislike for a man who spent his adult life defending this country...why is that? An substansive answer would be preferable...not the heretofore limp critizisms.

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:53 AM
Response to Reply #36

39. It's a small segment of Kucinich supporters

A very small segment, but they follow Wes Clark posts faithfully around DU and drop little bits of poison. A time-honored tradition here. The thing to do before entering any Clark thread is to put it on :tinfoilhat:

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BootinUp

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:59 AM
Response to Reply #39

41. The tradition is slowly

dying, judging by this lackuster effort }(

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:05 PM
Response to Reply #41

43. What are all those

deleted posts about up there? I go away for a while and all the good stuff happens. :)

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BootinUp

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:13 PM
Response to Reply #43

46. I don't think

any of those had anything to do with subject of the thread.

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PatrioticOhioLiberal

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Mon Apr-19-04 12:49 PM
Response to Reply #39

49. Kuciniich supporter?

Wow...I wonder what Dennis would think of that kind of support?

Poor man...guess not even he can be immune from the ... well, I'll leave the description to your imagination.

Dennis is a good guy, and the world needs a few dreamers like him...guess not all of his followers do him credit.

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Adelante

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Mon Apr-19-04 01:06 PM
Response to Reply #49

52. I agree

Dennis Kucinich is an honest and honorable man. He would never twist the truth.

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proud patriot

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:06 AM
Response to Original message

33. Good for Wes

:thumbsup:

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tishaLA

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Mon Apr-19-04 11:57 AM
Response to Original message

40. Glad he's saying it

And I'm not surprized in the least.

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Guaranteed

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Mon Apr-19-04 02:23 PM
Response to Original message

57. Uhhh...Wes...

I believe that's "unleadership." :9

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Jai4WKC08

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Mon Apr-19-04 04:38 PM
Response to Reply #57

58. Well, I have to admit...

Sometimes Clark says things that slower-witted people don't always understand.

Sheesh.

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