Funniest reason I've heard *not* to elect a Democrat.

I'm not really good at the watercooler politics discussion, but a friend of mine at work (good guy, I consider him a "recovering Republican" -- he thinks Ann Coulter is a nutjob) decided to try and get me riled up last night. He is convinced that Hillary Clinton is already the '08 nominee. He said that he was "very afraid" of what would happen if she got elected. He was "afraid of the war that Hillary Clinton would get us into."

?!

There's some projection for you.

So we discussed Iraq and he in typical fashion brought up Bill Clinton who "had us in more places than Bush did"; reasoning being that we shouldn't expend our resources on peacekeeping missions and only respond militarily when our national security is threatened. So I got to go through the whole, "Saddam didn't attack us!" "Yeah, but he gassed his people!" thing. I am unfortunately not up on the alleged plethora of microwars Bill Clinton got us into. My friend apparently is basing his Clinton grudge on the Black Hawk Down incident. My response: "How many killed in that?" "Now how many are we up to in Iraq?" with hand-scale weighing gesture.

So he doesn't think we should involve ourselves in peacekeeping missions. He insisted that there was satellite proof of WMD's being moved out of Iraq right before we struck. I laid out the whole hypothesis that Valerie Plame/Brewster Jennings was blown because they had discovered quite by accident the WMD that was to be planted there and revealed. Of course he said, "Oh you want to argue with conspiracy theories!" and we got into the NSA. He claimed that we've been wiretapped since the 70's and it was nothing new. I countered with "Sure...there's secret stuff that has to go on, but even if you disregard the Plame revenge theory, do you really trust the Administration that bungled her cover for *no reason at all* to have their own room at the major telcos?"

We discussed how if Saddam was an evil dictator that we were morally obligated to take out (since the WMD thing turned out to be wrong) then why haven't we gone after the other nine or twelve "evil dictators" who are just as bad? Oh....that would be a "peacekeeping" mission...and what makes Iraq different? What do they have that the others don't have? It's not WMD...what's under all that sand??? Think hard!

I brought up how Iraq was probably just the launch point for continued gunpoint diplomacy with Iran, how the administration expected Iraq to roll over quickly. He said that he had always predicted we'd be there three years and couldn't believe me when I told him that officials had claimed Iraq to be a "cakewalk". He had never heard those quotes. Luckily Google didn't fail me; I typed in "iraq war cakewalk" and bam-bam-bam. There were the quotes and he was flabbergasted at Rummy and Cheney stating they didn't expect to be there longer than five months.

So yeah. Hillary is a warmonger and that's why we shouldn't elect her. I said, "Well, at least our soldiers would have health coverage."

Bosnia and Haiti were surprisingly bloodless--at least for our troops.

Reagan in South America, republicans have been intervening for a long time.

It's not going to happen, the nomination that is...BUT if it does, it will be for VP, not Prez.
I smell a DE Dem as the prez nominee.

And that's coming from somebody who LIKES the guy!!! But, can Bubba RedStater who needs Cliffs Notes to follow an episode of "Magnum PI" keep up with a Biden speech?

From where we stand now, I think Gore HAS to be our candidate!!

And not only do I like Joe Biden, I signed up to volunteer to help get his son elected Attorney General

I'd expect more stabs in the back from him.

Next question?

Anyhow, I'm not some dumbass democrat who puts blinders on her eyes to a single issue, neglecting everything else being debated on in Washington DC.

Plus I've had Rick Santorum as a senator and if I had to choose - hell, I'll take Mr. Biden again and again and again and again and again and again and again...... And on an edit note, if had to choose between Santorum or Joe Lieberman as my senator I'd go with that Joe too!

I won't vote for Joe for president unless for some bizarre reason he gets the nomination (which he probably won't)

testicles.

Gore doesn't live in a red state anymore - he live sin California, which will, sadly, work against him - again.

...there may not be many places left for us to start a war unless perhaps Ms. Clinton has a raging desire to invade Canada

I thought all the RW fear-mongering about Hillary as the next Presidential candidate was just a lot of smoke and mirrors to rile up their base and raise money. But I never thought of the effect it would have on people like your friend. It sounds like he does not want to vote Republican, but he is 100% convinced that Hillary will be the '08 Dem nominee and he is more scared of that than another 4 years of being screwed by the GOP elephant.

I like to remind them of the 50 or so warnings * received about terrorist attacks prior to 911. I also add that at least Clinton got the first guys in the failed bombing of WTC. They where tried and convected and are now in jail. It's going to be hard to convict terrorist these days since we torture the shit out of them in Cuba. Sometimes I remind my Republican friends that Reagan did nothing when the terrorists blew up that Marine Barracks back in 83. Nothing. That showed em. And I never forget to add the whole Iran-Contra issue into the conversation--where Republicans sold weapons to Islamic terrorist in order to finance right wing terrorist in Latin America. It's also fun to add that when * took office in 2001, he restored relations with the Taliban--Clinton cut off all relations with the Taliban. Bush also awarded the Taliban with $$$$$ for fighting the "drug war." Then I usually follow up with the question: "So why is it that republicans are thought to be so vigilant against terrorists again?"

He's got all the RNC talking points down. He'll pull the (R) lever every time. Don't be fooled.

Sorry, I couldn't get past the part about him behing afraid of the war Hillary is going to get us into.

Pardon me while I pick myself up off the floor.

:rofl:

I got into a small (I dropped the subject because they "knew what they knew") argument with some people at work who swore up and down that Hillary has already declared her candidacy. Doesn't matter that no news sites mention this, or web sites, they swear they heard her say it on CNN. :shrug:

must be the God's honest truth. Or maybe they need their hearing checked?

They were pissing themselves worried that Dean would get the nomination.

Rightly or wrongly, they must think taking on Hillary would be a cakewalk because they can just trot out their lesbian, witch, murderder shtick from the 90s.

:popcorn:

He actually told me he went on a trip to some Young Republican thing (he's going to school for poly-sci) and spent like 20-30 minutes there before getting fed up and leaving to just do the tourist thing.