No, Webb wrote about what he witnessed in Vietna, which included a religious ritual that people mistook for pedophilia.

No, he wrote about something he witnessed in Thailand, and it wasn’t a religious ritual.

Christ, you’re an ill informed, ill mannered waste of time. You wouldn’t know a fact if it bit you on the ass.

Christ, conservatives are ignorant. You have to beat them over the head with facts for hours before they even notice.

Gerrymandering saved your party from a 60 seat loss.

You haven’t forgot about all the elcetions we stole, did you????

haha

Wow, you really are a moron. Actually, not only was Clinton popular, he left office with a 63% approval rating, the highest ever recorded for a retiring president.

By the way, historically the Democrats made history in the margin of the popular vote they won, and the only reason the House wasn’t a full landslide was because of gerrymandering, which did not exist in the 1940′s, 50′s, 60′s, 70′s or 80′s.

Gerrymandering saved your party from a 60 seat loss. This wasn’t a normal six-year itch. In 1994 you defeated the Dems 52-44% in the popular vote. We crushed you this year by more than 10 points.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of ignorance, though. That’s always a bummer.

Now that the libbies have control of the Congress, does this mean they are gonna stop whining about the 2000 election?

I hope not, all that screaming and crying has always amused me.

JackM on November 9, 2006 at 12:00 PM

Yes.

I hope not, all that screaming and crying has always amused me.

Thanks Ann… I needed that.

Maxx on November 8, 2006 at 9:20 PM

Oh Ann, Ann, Ann. Take a look at the history of gerrymandering, especially note that this practice yielding the vast majority of seats effectively non-competitive, really hit its stride in the 80′s (interesting story and a great example of the law of unintended consequences but I digress) So FDR, Ike, JFK, Nixon–interesting but not especially germane.

Now here’s a question: do you think Ann really isn’t aware of this, in which case she’s just dumb; or do you think she is aware of this, in which case she’s disingenuous? Frankly either way works for me.

What has to happen is that the Republicans have to *be there* and *catch them* when they step on their collective penii while pursuing this agenda…which they don’t seem either capable of or willing to do. They’re all drunk on the drug of “bipartisanship”…Bush on “being presidential”….

We can’t count on the MSM catching them…a lapdog makes a poor watchdog….

Puritan1648 on November 8, 2006 at 9:46 PM

Puritan, I wouldn’t worry too much – they can keep stuffing the dirty laundry in the hamper but sooner or later the smell gets out anyway. Between 1992 and 1994, they had a compliant media running cover for them, there were no blogs yet, and Rush was about the only alternative media the conservatives had on their side (which was tiny compared to the dems’s MSM).

People still figured out what was going on and we still ended up with the wave of 1994.

While dems still have a compliant and supportive MSM, we have a LOT more alternative media outlets now, and if they f up, they will get caught.

A final point:

Ann gives us the four examples above. But of her two most recent examples, she cites “partnership” terms, like Kennedy/Johnson, and Nixon/Ford. Again, these are more likely outliers than anything else. Kennedy was a hugely popular president who was slain; his successor LBJ never measured up to him as an equal in the eyes of the public. (He also had a Vietnam problem.) So throw that away this stat as an outlier, it isn’t a indicator of anything.

Same thing with Nixon/Ford. As I already mentioned, this was the “impeachment” and “pardon” partnership. THe president the public voted was out of office in disgrace and replaced by a guy that was never elected even as a VP by the American public, let alone as president. So throw that one away as well, since there was no real precedent for voters.

To say Bush 43 is just the same as those examples is to pretend that Bush came into the 2nd term of somebody elses’ office. It doesn’t wash.

So, the two examples Ann shows that are actually sort-of plausible are Roosevelt in 1938 (when we were picking ourselves up from the Depression and facing a global war that makes the GWOT puny by comparison — again, another outlier), and Eisenhower.

I can accept her number of Eisenhower losses in 1958 as a potential indicator. But I need more. Much more. One election cycle used as an example does not a pattern make. That is absurdity, especially (there’s Ann’s special word) — especially since our two most recent examples prior to Bush 43 was Reagan (5 seat loss) and Clinton (5 seat gain.)

I am more than ready to deal in some straight facts, get a dialogue going and get some trust back with the public. We need to rebuild the conservative movement and Republican Party, and I for one will not shed a tear if the MSM stops throwing Ann on air. If I didn’t know any better, I would guess she is a Dem agent out to make our positions look cruel and dishonest. I know many people that consider themselves to be conservative think she is a hero, but I don’t see it, she causes more harm than good and makes conversations with independents very difficult, they think we’re all clones of her.

I’m depressed. But Ann Coulter managed to lift a bit of the gloom with this article. Here’s a small sample.

Simply put, the party controlling the White House nearly always loses House seats in midterm elections” — especially in the sixth year.

In Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sixth year in 1938, Democrats lost 71 seats in the House and six in the Senate.

In Dwight Eisenhower’s sixth year in 1958, Republicans lost 47 House seats, 13 in the Senate.

In John F. Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson’s sixth year, Democrats lost 47 seats in the House and three in the Senate.

In Richard Nixon/Gerald Ford’s sixth year in office in 1974, Republicans lost 43 House seats and three Senate seats.

Thanks Ann… I needed that.

Maxx on November 8, 2006 at 9:20 PM

Maxx, it seems a red flag to me that Ann stops her statistical analyses at 1974, because:

One: that administration was coming off the Watergate scandal and the impeachment/resignation of the president, so that factor has to be looked at as an outlier, not an indicator, of HOuse casualties in the 6th year. We also saw President Ford pardon Nixon, which was incredibly unpopular, if you lived through that time you would remember the disdain.

And;

Two: between the Nixon admin and Bush #43 there have been a pair of two-term presidents (Reagan, Clinton) and Ann omits statistics from either of those administrations.

I might have thought since those administrations are are much more recent to our history that Ann might find them relevant.

A quick check on House elections in the 6th year of a presidential administration, here are the numbers.

1986: Reagan. Republicans lost 5 seats.

1998: Clinton. Democrats gained 5 seats.

Bill Clinton was a deservedly unpopular president. He lost 5 congressional seats in the 6th year of his presidency — no different from President Reagan. To say that Bush 43′s heavy losses of seats on Tuesday is just more of the same is simply not true.

The two most recent examples preceeding the Congressional vote for the 6th year of Bush 43′s administration don’t square with Ann’s point. Sometimes I really think Ann deals from a stacked deck and doesn’t like telling the whole story.

Old conservatives like myself are getting tired of the rhetoric and tactics. We need to regain trust in this party and trust in this nation, and working in half-truths simply is not going to get us there.

Dude, they are in the best of all possibly situations – power without responsibility. They know very well that any failures in the next two years will be laid at the hairy feet of Dubya. We still didn’t catch Osama? Oh darn, that’s Dubya’s fault, not ours.

I really, really wanted Allen to say: “Hey Chuckie, I may ask for a recount, but don’t worry, I won’t pull a Gore.”

The Schumer Gang does not play fair and we know this from the credit information stolen about Steele.

We should not forget that the Dems were the ones that orchestrated the Foley Follies.
This helped them win the election and we still do not know who was involved.

The State of Washington’s Governors race in 2004 was decide by around 400 votes as I recall and there were charges that in King County which is Washington State’s most populated county (Seattle) of convicted felons(1000+?) voting. We should take a page out of the Dems Play Book and demand recalls as was done in Washington State. In fact, we should have had a second recount because it was such a mess and maybe we would have prevailed.

Chuckie Schumer asking Allen not to ask for a recount, just accept the defeat.

Just tune it out for the next two years, my brother. We have real work to do.

They never did explain HOW they’d do that, no word on invading Pakistan, what they’d do about Pakistan’s nukes, the islamic overthrow of Musharraf, what to do about Kashmir and relations with India once Pakistan becomes Pakitalibanistan, etc etc etc

STFU Chuck! Mind your own f***ing business punk!

Grebrook: Go play with the rest of your DUmmies, or have they had to block you for your gross stupidity (THAT would truly take a LOT of stupidity) And furthermore, sir, you are a true jackass. Unapologetically yours,

Yeah, it’s cause you weren’t conservative ENOUGH. Right. That’s what it was.

Grebrook

That’s the reason I didn’t vote Republican. They aren’t conservatives anymore. Those other reasons you gave?

Illegal immigration – Dems are going to give the amnesty that Bush has wanted the whole time

Iraq body count – Newsflash for Dems “People die in war”. Tragic but true.

Shiavo case – Now here you are correct in saying that memo ticked off the christian right. This was just another confirmation that they tell the christian right what they think we want to hear and then ignore us.

Libby – I trade you one Libby for one Sandy “pants” Berger

Tom Delay – still not proven guilty of anything btw

Cunningham – I’ll trade you for Grey Davis

Katrina – equal failure from both parties at all levels of government. If anything this proves the true conservative viewpoint that the government can’t do anything right so why involve it in everything?

Miers – yeah it was dumb but do you think anyone thought, “Man I’d really like to vote Republican this time but…that whole Harriet Miers thing”

Wiretaps – see Clinton, Bill (Echelon)

Dubai – yep, that was idiotic and conservatives didn’t like it

Abramoff – still pretending all those Democrats didn’t take money from him?

Ney – I’ll trade you all those felons that Clinton pardoned at the end of his second term

Senate – the Senate was more moderate than the House. The Republican leadership in it were pansies and yes, they didn’t get much of anything done. Not conservative enough.

Foley – Foley scandal hit and Foley is out of office immediately. Ted Kennedy KILLED A WOMAN and is still in office decades later.

So yes, the conservative base did in fact turn on the moderate Republican party for not being conservative enough.