Hussein, Gerald Ford, two dead criminals!

[3121guitarist]

From my boys at Zmag.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=11748

Mickey Z has it so dead right. God Bless him.

[LittleClarkie]

1. Actually

because of this line here...

"No detail was spared in describing the holiday season execution to a hungry and receptive U.S. audience."

...he can kiss my shiny metal ass.

[3121guitarist]

2. Matters if you ate it up like most gullible Americans.

Notice the pathetic half staf flags.

[LittleClarkie]

3. What are you talking about, and how do you know how most

Americans reacted?

And what does this have to do with half staff flags. That's standard dead president stuff.

[tyne]

5. yikes

How embarassing. You guys act like a bunch of freepers. Yuk.

[LittleClarkie]

8. Why, because I'm not swallowing the OP's hyperbole? Or the linked author's

assumption about the American people and what they were hungering for? We don't know yet how the American people reacted to the spectacle of Saddam.

But I have a gay Conservative friend who thought the sight of Saddam with a noose around his neck on the front page of the newspaper meant that we'd gone back to the days of public hangings being a spectator sport. He wasn't much happy about the whole thing. I'd like to find out what people thought before assuming what they thought.

Hence, I dispute your claim that I'm acting like a freeper.

[tyne]

9. no

You weren't acting like a freeper.

Frankly, I don't know why DU allows such threads.

[LittleClarkie]

15. Oh, if it gets crispy enough on the thread, they won't allow it.

Sorry, I didn't realize you were talking about the original poster.

[uppityperson]

17. what are you talking about? Half-staff flags are flown when a pres/former pres dies.

SOP.

[Superman Returns]

40. ^you gotta be freaking kidding me

Every President gets that treatment no matter what. Seems you just love attacking your country.

[uppityperson]

18. I got the the Librul NYTimes bit and had to stop.

bunch of

[MoseyWalker]

4. One was, apparently, an amiable dumbass

who was vicariously complicit in the crimes of the repukes in the early 70s (if not earlier). The other was definitely a murderous psycho who was able to act upon his psychotic tendencies. There is a difference. Still, interesting.

[ellisonz]

6. No. Not really.

:puffpiece:

Edit: Let me elaborate: Hussein actually did kill hundreds of thousands with his hands and orders. Ford failed to check a dictatorship of an enormously large country from committing genocidal acts. Keep in mind, this is almost immediately after Vietnam. What would you have suggested Ford do? Military intervention? Humanitarian intervention? The latter cannot occur without the former. The author starts from a false assumption that Ford had the means to stop Suharto. He was smart, he didn't burn the bridge in the Indonesia.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

7. No. One Dead Psychotic Evil Criminal Ex Leader Of Iraq, And One Decent Man And Ex-President.

One in hell, and may God bless the other in heaven.

And to compare Ford to Saddam is nothing more than some mindless attempt at starting an attention seeking flamewar. Pretty pathetic, actually.

[NaturalHigh]

10. The OP is just looking for a little attention.

You're right; it's pathetic. He's the reason people on DU get labeled "moonbats" (whatever that means).

[novalib]

12. Ford Was NOT DECENT!!!!!

Are you talking about Gerald SLIMEBALL FORD??????!!!!

The SLIMEBALL the PARDONNED NIXON???

And you say that he was DECENT???!!!!!

WTF?????!!!!

No "DECENT" person would have EVER pardonned Nixon!!

Ford was a slimeball who is NOT pardonned!!!

[k_jerome]

20. do you feel that you are decent? nt.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

32. He Was A Decent Man. Please Stop Yelling. It'll All Be Ok.

[novalib]

35. Ford Loved Liberty!

So, because he loved his stupid DOG, I should consider him a decent man???!!!

I DON'T THINK SO!!!!

It was BECAUSE OF FORD that Nixon was able to parade around the world trying to be an Elder Statesman!!!!!

Nixon OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN tossed into a PRISON -- and made to ROT!!

Instead, because of Ford, Nixon walked around WITH A PENSION and SECRET SERVICE PROTECTION!!!!!!!

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

36. Dramatic Much?

[uppityperson]

37. he would've gotten those anyways.

and please, caps, my headache.

[LittleClarkie]

42. I remember Kerry saying that Nixon knew alot about foreign policy

so I would reckon he wasn't trying to be an elder statesman. He was. For all his other "issues" he knew alot about diplomacy, and that was one thing Conservatives couldn't forgive him for.

One thing I didn't like about Ford was that his listened to Rummy and Cheney re: how to pull out of Vietnam. Just like idiot junior in that regard. But that's no reason to shit on his grave.

[illinoisprogressive]

11. It is so childish to compare the 2

For one thing, Nixon was a very very bad man. However, taken in comparision with W his crimes pale. W is much much worse.
There is a such thing as a decent politican. People back then knew this. I am a die hard dem but, I don't see everything and everyone who isn't as being evil.
this is the problem I worry about. Are we, in seeking revenge for the past decade, becoming the very thing we hate: like republicans.

[tyne]

13. exactly...

We won. Now it's time to show them how honorable leaders behave and present themselves.

[Raine]

21. Yes really

and all this hate directed toward a dead man is really showing how much better we are than the other side. :sarcasm:

[novalib]

22. You THINK That W PALES Compared to NIXON???

"Nixon was a very very bad man. However, taken in comparision with W his crimes pale. W is much much worse."

WTF???!!!!!

Nixon FUCKING BOMBED Viet Nam. Relentlessly.

Nixon BOMBED CAMBODIA. AND LAOS.

Nixon lied to the American people. AFTER he had authorized a break-in of the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE's OFFICES!!!!!!!

Nixon was JUST AS BAD AS W!!!!!!!

And THAT is why so many of us -- those of us who actually lived under Nixon -- DO NOT THINK that Ford was such a "DECENT POLITICIAN"!!!!

FORD FUCKING PARDONNED NIXON!!!!!!

He OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE -- The JUSTICE that would have THROWN NIXON into PRISON, where he could ROT during the remaining years of his miserable life!!!

Can you imagine how GALLING it was for some of us to see Nixon -- pardonned by FORD -- parading around like some elder statesman??!!!

[The Straight Story]

14. Pretty damned sad really

WHO carried out the Timor stuff? Are they themselves not to blame - or are they only sub-human and not expected to do the right thing?

Blame Ford and the US all you want, and ignore those who did the acts.

That is the easy way out of course.

[Pathwalker]

16. He's probably to blame for Pinochet, too.

After all, we can't blame Pinochet for what he did, or those who actually did the killing in Timor, now can we? :sarcasm:
A few of the wildly hysterical ones seem to have energizer energy - they're very !!!!series!!!!!

[3121guitarist]

19. You all sound like right wingers!

OMG, one President dies and you all turn into propagandized robots. Do some reading; if you were on the actual left, you would know all this stuff. It is very easy to find, in the declassified record, in books by Chomsky, on DemocracyNow with Amy Goodman, Goodman was even quoted in the Christian Science Monitor about Timor.

Ford, along with Kissinger, went to Indonesia, and gave permission for Suharto to invade East Timor, there is loads of evidence on this, and you should know this.

Ford sent arms to Indonesia, knowing full well that the arms were being used for the genocide in Timor. Timor was the single greatest genocide in the last thirty years--and we funded it.

[Pathwalker]

27. Watch it! Just who the hell do you think you are

to tell me I'm a right-winger, or that I'm not on the "actual left"? You don't know any of us, do you? And you have no actual idea of what our politics are, do you? You just thought you'd hurl insults because we have the temerity to disagree with you.
Don't quit your day job - as a psychic, you're a miserable failure!

[The Straight Story]

31. One funded it - but WHO acted it out?

Are we to ignore the acts of the people actually involved day to day in it???

[uppityperson]

38. "you all"? "actual left"? Wasn't this on the list of what to not do?

what is with the "lefter than thou"?

[NNN0LHI]

23. But they both wore nice suits though. Armani I think? Thugs in suits n/t

[michaz]

24. Enough is Enough

For God's sake, could we quit with the crap? The man was President of this country. Why should he have any less than the other Presidents?

[3121guitarist]

25. Are you crazy?

Imagine if Germany decided to celebrate Hitler's birthday? What do you think the world would think of that? Germany would be toast, and rightly so. No, Ford was not hitler, but he funded genocide, but we all want to give him a party. Sad.

[michaz]

28. Actually I am not crazy bit do ya think

Ford will be back to haunt us or what? What would ya like him to do now?

[Raine]

39. A funeral

is not a party, what's sad is your comparison and your attempt to stir up crap here!

[cwydro]

26. Pathetic attempt at a flamewar

pathetic.

You can in no way compare those two men.

It is this kind of tripe that makes us look no better than those over on an (unnamed) RW board.

You should be ashamed of yourself; or perhaps that is where you normally hang out, hmmmm?

[libnnc]

29. my money's on the latter...

lots of hysteria from out of nowhere in the last few days.

[Raine]

41. I think so too

and they should go back there.

[3121guitarist]

30. So Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, Mike Malloy, they are all wrong too?

They all agree with me.

[LittleClarkie]

33. Appeal to popularity

what is that called in latin again?

I don't care who agrees with you, the dude was a president, and doing the usual presidential stuff just par for the course.

I wouldn't want the freepers saying that Clinton shouldn't get the same consideration because they think he didn't do enough to stop terrorism and let Monica suck his winkie.

This goes somewhat past partisanship.

[The Straight Story]

34. Yes they are (nt)

[Say_What]

43. K & R