The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Oliver:

Oh, Lord, gimme a break. When I said patronizing, I was referring to your commenter's "lad" comment.

On, of course, people we "know" to be guilty
If a US soldier is in Afghanistan, Pakistan, wherever and he and his squad bust an Al Qaeda cell - I think its safe to say that they're members of the Al Qaeda network. I'm not understanding you: would it be okay for him to shoot them dead, but not torture in the pursuit of maybe saving lives?

What we do to those ragheads is simply trivial.
Where the fuck did that idiotic (now that's namecalling) statement come from? Did I ever or have I ever said anything of the sort in my life? No. Do I advocate the killing or arrest of people based on their racial background? No. Have I ever? No. And it's pretty asinine of you to bring up such an irrelevant point.

Do you call everyone you disagree with names? Sheesh. You've done it 2-3 times now.

Yes, because in all my writing I have advocated bringing in Joe Blow off of the street and accusing him of being Al Qaeda without proof. As I said on my site, I feel that this should be an option for people we are certain are members of Al Qaeda.

I'll ignore the whole patronizing due to age thing. Golly, it never was an issue when folks agreed with me.

I'd like you to answer this point, instead of completely ignoring it, as you have so far done.
Maybe they will lie, maybe they will tell the truth. I don't care, as long as we have a chance to get closer to the truth. Is torture somehow worse than if we shot them on the battlefield? I don't think so. Either way, there are less Al Qaeda.

I thought one of the core propositions of liberalism was that we should always be open to the possibility of changing our minds. I do so frequently. I'm sorry to hear that you have a policy against it.
On this issue, I'm not really open to changing my mind. If that disqualifies me from being "liberal", so be it.

Patrick, it's not that I have a hard time hearing what people are saying - it's just that at the end of the day, I disagree with you as much as you seem to disagree with me. I believe that in the interests of protecting innocents, the torture of members of Al Qaeda and their cohorts in the Taliban is justified. If some members of a terrorist group (whose sole purpose is to kill as many innocents as possible) have to suffer discomfort or death for the lives of thousands to be protected, so be it. Why should I argue this? Nobody on either side is going to change their minds. You think I'm wrong, I think you're wrong.

I wonder if you received the "liberal bloggers should be against torture" email that's making the rounds.

I have a hard time caring about Al Qaeda.

Ron Who? And who is this "Doonesbury" you speak of (was that before Bloom County?)? The elderly are funny. :)

Ann Coulter: Behind the curve since... well... like, forever actually.

The California GOP had a chance to beat Governor Lowbeam, and it was moderate Richard Riordan. Simon's pro-life, conservative stance along with his financial shenanigans probably cedes California to the Democrats completely. The turnout will probably be tepid at best, and unless the Green candidate pulls a Nader - Governor Lowbeam gets the "hold your nose" vote.

correction to my post: "but as far as a partisan news-discussion site goes (Lucianne.com,Limbaugh, Free Republic, the usual suspects) it's par for the course."

The article says: "Most days, however, the site simply presents angry, partisan spin and quotes from articles, transcripts and reader emails that bolster its viewpoint."

What I am saying is that for the type of site MWO is, why is this a problem? Maybe Spinsanity is filtering them as a "news outlet" (like the NYTimes, Post, etc.) but as far as a partisan news-discussion site goes (Lucianne.com,Limbaugh, Free Republic, the usual suspects). As I said on my site, I usually like Spinsanity, and find them truly "fair & balanced" (something I wouldn't accuse myself of being).

And yes, the bullies usually kick your ass if at least some of you aren't willing to fight. If MWO was the vanguard of liberal thought online I would be tut-tutting them along with you all. But maybe 8yrs of the anti-Clinton machine has made me a bit bitter, and I see a place for this kind of invective.

I just don't see it that way. The tenor of the Spinsanity article comes across as: "conservative sites do this, liberal sites shouldn't". It strikes me as a double standard. But we agree to disagree...

This article from Spinsanity seems to be another in the "Liberals shouldn't fight" cannon. Puh-lease.

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