David Sirota: Are We Really Back to Debating What the Meaning of "Is" Is?

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7946

Are We Really Back to Debating What the Meaning of "Is" Is?
by David Sirota | Jun 6 2007

The New York Times has this interesting nugget today:

"The Bush administration’s efforts to thwart terrorism at home have created a fissure among the three leading Democratic presidential candidates, with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton coming under attack for saying that America is safer now than before 9/11...'I believe we are safer than we were,' Mrs. Clinton said...'I think the vast majority of Democratic primary voters, and Americans, would agree with Senator Clinton,' said a campaign spokesman."

Whether we actually ARE safer or not is not what's interesting about this particular excerpt - what's interesting is that the Clinton campaign is now asserting that the majority of Americans BELIEVE we are safer, and not really just the majority, but the VAST majority. I say this is "interesting" because it comes from what is widely known to be a very poll-driven campaign team - a campaign team that knows the actual data says precisely the opposite.

According to a CBS News poll a little less than a year ago, 84 percent of Americans say they feel less safe or only as safe as they did before 9/11. This is not a small majority - this actually IS the vast majority saying they unequivocally disagree with Clinton's assessment. That probably has something to do with the fact that by a 4-to-1 margin, Americans believe the Iraq War, which Clinton voted for, has made the country less safe.

And by the way, this data isn't buried. It's screams itself from CBS's website after a five second google search:

Look, we can have a debate about whether the country is or is not more or less safe since 9/11. But it's pretty clear we cannot have a debate about whether the country BELIEVES we are more or less safe since 9/11 - it doesn't, and trying to debate that point is vaguely reminiscent of trying to debate what the meaning of "is" is.

This actually gets to the point that bothers me most about the Clinton campaign (well, almost "the most" - her hiring a union busting corporate PR consultant to run her campaign, her seeming lack of care that she is surrounded by advisers tied to a murderous Colombian government, and her support for the Iraq War I guess qualify for that "most bothersome" slot, but I digress): I always get that feeling they think they are so smart, and that everyone is stupid to fall for the utterly predictable, utterly Clintonian tactics of basically trying to devolve every debate over real issues into another version of a meaningless and transparent debate over what the meaning of "is" is.

It's that same feeling you'd get if you met someone in a field on a crystal clear day, and they pointed up straight at the sun and said, "Of course it's overcast, can't you see that?" You'd think they thought you were either blind or a complete idiot, and that probably would piss you off - as it should.

[Totally Committed]

1. Every time I read an article like this, I feel more and more

certain that I will NEVER cast a vote for Mrs. Clinton or her ilk again. Everybody has their personal line in the sand, and this, I guess, is mine.

As a girl, I dreamed of the day we would have a woman as our President. I thought that we would govern differently. We would make wiser decisions. We would be more inclusive... surely things would be different. With Mrs. Clinton, all we have is a male thought pattern and decision-making process dressed in woman's clothes. People are not wrong when they compare her to Mrs. Thatcher, and it is not a flattering comparison. She's a war-mongering, labor-stunting, "let-them-eat-cake", aper of all the worst in our testosterone-laden government.

I will not be casting my vote for Hillary. I won't be suckered. Not this time. Not ever again.

TC

[papau]

2. Interesting that David does not make clear that Hillary did not say that which he is upset with

it was a "spokesman"

All the "Spokesman" for Hillary have names - I wonder who made the "vast majority" statement that is obviously wrong.

Meanwhile Hillary does seem to believe that Saddam gone makes us safer - I guess it does but at what cost and what result given the after the war mess that Bush created - I'm with the vast majority in thinking we are net-net less safe - in any case, I wonder what the rest of the Hillary quote said.

[marmar]

3. How does Saddam being gone make us safer?

A sociopathic madman he was indeed, but he had enough sense to leave the U.S. the hell alone, and he kept Al-Qaeda in check in Iraq. Now Al-Qaeda flourishes in Iraq thanks to its great enabler - that would be the United States - and picks off our troops at a rate of 4-5 a day, and garners more sympathizers around the world who perhaps might decide to attack us.
So again, how does Saddam's ouster make us more safe?

[papau]

7. I agree re post Saddam as disaster - but Saddam was into financing terrorists

that then attacked other countries - in effect he was financing a terrorist school.

Post Saddam things could have quieted down (in my opinion as always)- but as they turned out we are less safe than we were.

But that result is not the result of taking Saddam out - in my opinion taking Saddam out did indeed make us more safe - it was the occupation afterward as we tried to steal the oil rights that turned the place into something even worse than what was going on before.

Even taking Saddam out and then getting out would not have been worth it - as too many died and too much was spent in the effort for the modest amount of increased safety we- in my opinion - achieved.

But the question was "Did Saddam being taken out make us safer" - and in my opinion it did.

But it is only an opinion - and something that can not be proved either way (again, in my opinion)- and given the mess created by the occupation, it is an opinion that needs to be explained when stated, else folks will think you are saying we are safer now than we were in March 2003.

[DeeDeeNY]

4. Her comments have been disturbing

But compared to any Republican nominee, she is still the best choice.
I am hoping she doesn't get the Dem nomination, but if she does, then I have no choice but to vote for her.

[MasonJar]

5. It is possible that Americans feel safer today than they did a year or

so ago, simply because the Bushistas have lost their edge in instilling fear in the American public. Their terror nabs are so far a joke...the Florida crew who were clearly inept and the latest two, pizza man and the JFK FBI induced idiocy. No one believes the moran-in-chief and his sychophantic minions anymore. Do you?

[blueworld]

6. Tinkerbell will live

Dear Mrs. Clinton: Before we saw the televised pictures of the aftermath of Katrina & it's victims which went on for days, I believed that the US had a federal agency filled with experts who would rush to the scene of a disaster and rescue people and provide food & water...you know? Reality was a lot different.

Yes, we who medicate ourselves in various ways because we're too dazed to accept what the neocons have done to our country, wake up in the morning and believe we are safer. The TB flyer and the anthrax mailings which have never been sourced seem to indicate that we are full of what-makes-the-grass-grow -green.

PS - what the blue hell have YOU done to see to it that we're safer as opposed to deluded? Stop begging for my cash until you answer me. Love, Loonyliberal :beer: