>And it isn't the white middle class (and definitely not the upper class)
>that are paying their equal share in the form of combat casualties in Bush's
>little extra-curricular excursion over there in Babylon:
Bush has almost certainly killed far fewer innocent Iraqi civilians than Clinton, who's 8 year campaign of sanctions and bombings caused misery and mass death for hundreds of thousands in Iraq. Yet it went virtually unremarked. The Democrat administration was equally cruel, amoral and inhuman, but the world didn't turn against the cruel and heartless USA while the Democrats were in office, there was no revolt in the UN Security Council. No mass demonstrations by millions of people around the world, just an endless grinding of mass murder and suffering that went on and on and on without any end in sight. At least the Bush White House had the decency to put Iraq out of its misery, as you would a dog you had tied up and tortured without end for years. The Democrats showed not the slightest sign of tiring of the cruelty. It was a price worth paying, as far as they were concerned.
As the old Irish song went, their cruelty would shame all the devils in Hell.
But, what is more important from a strategic point of view, Democrats are more clever as well as more evil. The Bush Republicans are monsters, but at least they are incompetent monsters. This may not be exactly a redeeming feature, but neither is being a smiling monster who everyone just can't help loving.
I prefer my all-powerful barbarian nations to be led by stupid incompetents who alienate potential allies and balls the whole thing up, rather than cunning murderers who seem to be able to get away with murder.
Bush is an incompetent moron. Please vote for him. The USA needs to be taken down a peg or two, Bush is just the man for the job. Sure, I suppose one of the Democrat candidates could be just as stupid and incompetent, but why take the chance. Bush has proven he is up to the job and deserves the chance to finish it.
As for the suggestion the Democrats domestic or international policy agenda would actually be be more desirable, you're dreaming.
>"The proportion of new recruits who were high school graduates dropped to 91
>percent in fiscal 2000 from a peak of 98 percent in 1992, according to the
>Pentagon's latest personnel study. That means a force that's less skilled
>and harder to train and a military skewed to lower-income groups with fewer
>career choices. [...]
This is perhaps because of the Republicans cunning secret dismantling of the universal health care system implemented by the previous Democrat administration? Or do you put it down to the Republican's instant (retrospective) rollback of the welfare safety net set up by the Clinton administration? You seem to be suggesting that the political right is so much worse than those ever so slightly to the left of them. From my perspective it appears the Republicans are simply less clever.
Why do you want a more clever enemy?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
PS: I know you were only talking about American casualties, but that seems a rather narrow measure of the relative cruelties of the Democrats and Republicans. If the Republicans are equally indifferent to the deaths of Americans as they are to the deaths of others, then I fail to see how that makes them any worse than the Democrats.