Lessig

The Democrats will never beat Bush by calling him a liar. It didn't work against Clinton, and it won't work against Bush. The American people just don't think it's a very nice thing to do, kind of like showing tooth decay to sell toothpaste. Better to show bright, healthy teeth.

The Democratic Party just can't seem to understand how to talk to people where they're at instead of lecturing them from on high. I realize these entries were not "done" by the party, but they beautifully illustrate party themes. There are a few dandies.

I think moveon.org hurts the left the way talk-radio often hurts the right. I subscribe to moveon's newsletter, "The Daily Mislead" and it, combined with many of their past campaigns has convinced me they would rather curse the darkness than light a candle. (Often they curse a cloudy day and call it darkness.) After each failure (impeachment, Bush, Gray Davis, etc.), they grit their teeth harder and gather more angry partisans. Too much effort is going into lies they are against instead of truths they are for. It's not good for the souls of left folks.

OK, let's call a spade a spade here. How do we know it was a few ads that crossed the line? We're just seeing the finalists. I'd say that two out of 17 finalists actually constitutes a significant percentage of offensive ads - if the finalists are representative. And if they are not representative, then what you have is the judges intentionally picking offensive Nazi ads out of 1,000 inoffensive others - which definitely reflects on the character of the people behind moveon.org - who therefore must think it is appropriate to compare Bush to Adolf Hitler. I'm sorry - there's no way to explain this away. They should apologize and then... move on.

Not only did the Right spew hate at Bill Clinton, it continues to spew it at his wife. 5% of respondants to a recent survay claimed to "hate" Hillary Clinton, while only 3% claimed to "hate" Bush. Never mind that Bush has so far lied and gotten 500 young Americans killed and gets praised by the Right as a man who "sticks to his guns", while Clinton lied and got a stain on an intern's dress and got demonized as a "lair and a disgusting, immoral sinner".

Bush has lied continuously since the start of his term. He's proceeded to butcher the economy, kill hundreds or thousands of Americans directly as a result of his decisions, and then lied about it. Heck with re-election, this man needs to be impeached!

Look, I voted for Bush without much enthusiasm in 2000 and while I'm with him on the prosecution of the war abroad (including Iraq), that's about it. Domestic spending has been completely out of control and I'm not very keen on much of his social policy. But while I might vote for Gephardt or Clark or Lieberman -- serious folks -- but I'm sure as heck not going to vote for a Democrat who aligns himself with (indeed, who does not visible distance himself from) folks who think that our President is a fascist dictator. This is (a) silly (b) unserious and (c) a losing issue. And the MoveOn people who buy into this view of the President are at least as unappealling to me as the religious right loony-tune crowd.

The President may be wrong on lots of stuff, but if you folks don't take him seriously and address him on serious issues instead from the, er, high ground of the conspiratorial left, Karl Rove's going to eat Dean for lunch.

I voted Perot 92 because the Houston Convention turned me off, but if Boston 2004 is a bunch of Chomskyite nonsense, I'll swallow my bile and vote for the President.

A little anecdotal evidence that Americans _do_ hate Bush: The other day a co-worker of mine wore a "Bush-Cheney 2004" shirt to work. Almost everyone thought it was a joke. Then we found out his father makes about $200,000 per year.

While I didn't see the Hitler entries, I think it is silly, even dangerous, to just dismiss the comparison with Hitler. That is not to say Bush is as bad as Hitler was, but we must measure the corruption of our leaders' power, using Hitler as a measuring stick, so that we don't march in step, blinded by things like 9/11, onto the Capitol Mall with one hand in the air.

Okayyyyyyyy...

If Bush is a liar, produce the evidence and impeach him. Bill Clinton, the President with tons of scandals to his name, the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the country during his tenure, LIED UNDER OATH. It coulda been about sex. It coulda been about how he loves broccoli when he really hates it. It coulda been about anything. HE LIED UNDER OATH. His lack of shame kept him in office, because it is about Power, not doing the work of the People.

Hillary CLinton? As a New Yorker who didnt vote for her I will say this - SHE WON. Lazio didnt lose, he got his ass kicked because she worked harder and her organization kicked the crap out of him. It pisses me off when my team constantly attacks her personally instead of her actions - the comment in Iraq about americans having questions about the war was an answer to a question and the right blew it out of proportion - sounding just as shrill and pointless as when the left calls Bush Hitler...

"Huh, I don’t know anyone who does not hate the guy. I must live in the wrong state or something." Thats the beauty of it. Bush haters are a minority, but think that everyone feels that way. You guys dont get it.

The more shrill the rhetoric, the more screaming rallies, the more silly pandering to the fringe they do during the primaries is wonderful. Its awesome. Its great. The left has nothing good to say. They just sound like phonies who will say anything negative (GW knew in advance about 9/11, or We already captured UBL and are waiting) or promise anything to get reelected...

The average American is tired of the doom and gloom of the press and the left. We have enough on our minds. Its never any good for you guys. Its always a quagmire. Y'all are so afraid of "pandering to the Administration" that you overcompensate and go 100 miles in the other direction to criticize and insult.

Keep tellin us how bad it is. Keep making up things that we know cant be the presidents fault (Mad Cow), and you will tune the voters out the way the Clinton Scandals slid right off Bill's back. Get some ideas or perish... Returning to Liberalism will not get y'all reelected. There is more to America than Manhattan and California.

Ask any Lefty to tell you one thing the Bush administration has done well and you will get a blank stare. It isnt a recovery, its a jobless recovery. We didnt free little girls to learn to read and go to school and play soccer in Afghanistan - we didnt catch UBL. We didnt free the Iraqi people, find mass graves, find banned weapons, release children from Prison, give them back their natural resouces - we won the war but lost the peace.

Because it isnt about issues. It isnt about a difference of opinion. Its about hatred of George. Please keep it up.

In the words of Ronald Reagan "There you go again..."

SeanB,

Bush hasn't lied under oath because he hasn't been called to testify on anything. Let's put him and Cheney on the stand and ask them why they resisted creating a Department of Homeland Security kicking and screaming until it became obvious they were losing points in the polls. Let's ask them why they've resisted the progress of a fully bipartisan 9/11 investigation committee to the point where other Republicans publically expressed their frustration. Let's ask who took part in Cheney's energy task force, and tried to hide behind the exact same rationale that Hillary Clinton tried (unsucessfully) to use with regard to her health care reform. Then we'll see whether they can claim the moral high ground.

What emotion, pray tell, am I supposed to feel towards people that are damaging this country -- the country I love -- for the benefit of a select few of their wealthy friends? What emotion am I supposed to feel for a man who orders relatives of mine into combat with no idea whatsoever on how to bring them home? Who flies to enemy territory in the middle of the night only to hold up a fake turkey for the cameras? For one brief moment I started to gain respect for the man when I saw him over there, helping to lift morale; too bad he couldn't even give the troops over there the real deal.

We went to Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda and capture Osama. "Dead or alive", remember? We didn't spend billions of dollars to rebuild failing schools thousands of miles away andohyeahmaybecaptureBinLaden. We went to Iraq because they had Weapons of Mass Destruction trained on us -- even "reconstituted nuclear weapons", according to our VP -- and no time at all for an inspection regime. If Bush wants to play nation-builder and liberator first and terrorist fighter second, fine, just tell us that's his mission in life and let the rest of the nation debate about whether or not we should spend money fixing up the rest of the world. However, if Bush wants to do the Right Thing(tm) and capture Bin Laden and bring terrorists to justice, don't point to a new school as a sign of success.

Unless, of course, Bush got his wires crossed and the eventual capture of Bin Laden proves the success of the "No Child Left Behind" act.

If wanting to see the terrorists who attacked us brought to justice makes me a left-wing pinko, maybe I need to leave North Carolina and head out to someplace like, say, Crawford, TX. I hear that's a haven for people who are Saudi apologists.

[/rant]

The creative commons comment was correct, but god forbid that creative commons licensing should be "equated" with Moveon.org or any political movement. That will cause certain and total death for the idea in Washington. If people really want to see the concept move forward, they should avoid politics or be bi-partisan if at all possible. They'll be a knee-jerk reaction destroying it if it is too closely related to one political side or the other.

I watched about 50 of the moveon 30sec spots, including one of the Hitler comparisons - the "sound familiar" piece. I rated it very low because it was clearly in bad taste. On the other hand, it was well filmed and put together professionally, so I am not surprised that others would have rated it higher. In the end, the voting was open to anyone and there was absolutely no content filtering (I saw some ludicrously bad movies). Truthfully, I think MoveOn has made the correct decision to remove the offensive pieces from the finalists.

As for specific lies...

GWB: "'The vast majority [of tax cuts] will go to the bottom end of the income spectrum".

Unfortunately, that wasn't stated under oath...

But please explain to us why it would be worse for President Bush to go under oath and claim his first name is "Lenny", or "I have never lived in Texas".

Does anyone else here think that the President should have to be held under oath while addressing the public or the Congress?

Drew,

Yes, I view anything the President says while giving the State of the Union address, or any other address before Congress to the American people, as being the same thing as being under oath. If you lie there, it's serious.

To me, Bush's lies during the State of the Union speech were far more serious than Clinton's lie under oath about his sex life. No Americans were sent into harm's way because of Clinton's lie. Hundreds of Americans didn't die because of Clinton's lie.

People don't consider Hitler and Nazism in terms of their geopolitical positions or economic theories. When you say "Hitler" or "Nazi" people immediately think of death camps, and maybe secondly about military adventurism. Maybe that's appropriate considering how horrific the Holocaust was; as civilized people we must do our utmost to never allow such a thing to happen again. Perhaps we'd get further comparing Bush to Tojo or Mussolini, if we want to press WWII analogies. I'm sure Hitler was chosen precisely because he stirs such strong emotions; but those emotions are not directed in the ways I assume the moviemakers intended, and once invoked it is almost impossible to redirect them to any other course. Just my opinion.

Comparing anyone to Hitler, with the exceptions of people like Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein, is something that simply should not be done. And as much as I disagree with his policies and politics, Bush is not anything like Hitler.

SeanB said variously:

Americans dont hate this president. Americans want a positive vision for the future.

The left has nothing good to say.

The average American is tired of the doom and gloom of the press and the left. We have enough on our minds.

Ask any Lefty to tell you one thing the Bush administration has done well and you will get a blank stare.

No, Americans don't hate this president. We hate some of the things he's done and the ways he's done them, but not the man himself. There is no movement afoot to impeach Bush or otherwise remove him from office. But simply having a positive vision for the future is not enough. I can say that my vision for the future is to lose 100 pounds, but if I then go out and buy cases of soda pop and bags of Doritos, my positive vision means doodly squat. Relaxing government pollution regulations and calling it "Clear Skies" and enabling increased logging activity on public lands and calling it "Healthy Forests" doesn't make me feel good about the positive vision there.

The left has plenty good to say, it's just that the right doesn't want to hear it. They would rather cry and whine and shake their fists at how they are unjustly criticised, or view-with-alarm how wacky those tree-hugging pinko lefties are and how obviously anything they stand for should be dismissed by all right-thinking patriotic Americans.

The average American is tired of politics in general, left or right. They stay home in droves on election day. They don't get involved in politics at all. The doom and gloom comes when you extrapolate reactionary rightist policies out to their logical conclusions. No patriotic American lefty or righty is going to sit back and watch the nation go down the tubes. I don't accept the statement that "we have enough on our minds." If the future of our nation is not worth considering, what is?

I can tell you one thing the Bush administration has done well. They have taken care of their friends. I can tell you another thing they have done well: they know who their friends are. And here's a third thing: they have chosen their friends well, in terms of maintaining their grip on power. They have consistently pandered to big business interests over the consideration of the effects on individual Americans (unless those individuals happened to be executives). One last thing they have done well: they have talked a good game. The vision sounds great, and by the time you see the results and consequences it's too late to go back. My hat's off to them. I am going to do whatever I can to work toward their not being returned to power.

That two numbers are missing from the web page of finalists proves nothing, other than that the webmaster numbers his files unusually. It might mean that two ads comparing Bush to Hitler were there, but it isn't proof of any sort. I still have yet to see any evidence that any ads comparing Bush to Hilter made it into the finals. The Republican National Committee doesn't make the claim. Rush Limbaugh isn't making the claim. According to MoveOn, "They were voted down by our members and the public." I'm unable to dig up any recent news coverage making such a claim. Maybe one or more Bush is Hitler ads made the finalist cut, but I'm just not seeing the evidence.

Perhaps piece 2 or 16 (the missing file numbers) was removed for nudity. Maybe it was removed because it was an attack on MoveOn.org.

I've heard a lot about "most people in the US are angry at Bush" and so forth. So I looked into it. According to the Gallup Poll, George W. Bush was the most admired man in 2003. To quote the Gallup release, "Bush's current 29% score rates among the best any incumbent president has received."


So, if there's so much anger, his job approval must be really low then, right? Well, right now Bush's job approval is hovering around 60% according to the latest (Jan 2-5, 2004) Gallup poll. If you don't trust Gallup then the ABC News poll shows similar numbers, as does the Associated Press poll. For comparison, Clinton spent most of his Presidency around 60% as well, suggesting that Bush is no less loved than Bill Clinton.

The point of all this is that if you are going to claim that somebody is universally hated then please have data to back it up. We all have anecdotal experiences... I lived in Boston and if I only went by what my friends and I thought then I'd believe the whole world hated the Yankees. They (unfortunately) are quite well-loved in some quarters, but I would have no way of knowing that by talking to my friends.

All the best in 2004!

Nate,

Beware the slippery slope upon which you're basing this statement:

"I view anything the President says while giving the State of the Union address, or any other address before Congress to the American people, as being the same thing as being under oath. If you lie there, it’s serious."

Should we apply your criterion to history, we would likely uncover quite a few offenses. Presidents issue statements based upon input given to them by trusted advisors. (The worth of said advisors is probably worthy of a separate discussion.)

I'm no apologist for President Bush but I do believe that your criticism is unfair. Our troops have unearthed a fighter jet that was buried in the desert. Isn't it a bit premature to accuse Bush of lying to the nation?

--Jason

"So, if there’s so much anger, his job approval must be really low then, right?"

I think that if you were to poll the people who *don't* approve of Bush, you would find intense disapproval. The problem with approval ratings is that all of these situations could be equal:

1. A majority of people barely approve of a president, and the rest feel only slightly disapproving

2. A majority of people intensely approve and love the president, and the rest disapprove only slightly.

3. A majority of people approve slightly, and the rest very much intensely disapprove.

Polarization in approval ratings can say more about how the country actually feels, then the raw number of pro and cons. It's a very very binary poll.

I thank the Three Blind Mice and Nate for their polite and educational replies.

This does seem to partially validate your claims. The administration seems to be backpedaling a bit.

(Disclaimer: I'm just playing devil's advocate here because these arguments are inevitable in this year's race for the presidency and I'm hoping that the potential Bush opponents are reading.)

TBM,

the fact remains jason that despite the pre-war administration statements that iraq was a clear and present military danger to the US, and that america couldn’t wait weeks or months for UN inspections to be completed because of this imminent threat, when invaded, iraq was demonstrably incapable of defending themselves.

--Was Iraq's inability to defend itself an indication of a lack of threat or simply another example of the technological dominance of the US military? One could argue that the Baathist strategy all along was to crumble before the might of the US military and then mount an insurgent campaign that would break the will of the American public. Any student of history will have learned the lessons of Vietnam. Interestingly enough, this very observation might in fact visit a Johnson-esque fate upon President Bush.

face it, what bush did to iraq is exactly what saddam hussein did to kuwait. both invaded a weaker country to gain control over oil and regional political advantage.

--Provocative assertion. Even as devil's advocate, I'm not sure I could go quite that far. There is evidence that we also wanted to depose a tyrant in the region (the failed Shiite revolution after the first gulf war that we might have incited but failed to support).

Nate,

I think your post exemplifies exactly what's wrong with politics today. We don't even expect politicians to be honest anymore and are therefore unsurprised when they aren't. I'd love to hear Doc's take on the state of current American politics because what needs to happen to fix it is precisely what he and his colleagues mapped out in The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Unfortunately, web-activists today remain the minority and I am unconvinced that even the Internet can surpass the social networks of the fundamental Christian religion. Information may want to be free, but it appears that the majority in America isn't interested in any information that doesn't conform to their pre-disposed worldview. Howard Dean's campaign is a hopeful start...but my parents don't read his blog because they've already decided that they don't agree with him and, therefore, he is irrelevant to them.

--Jason

Nate,

I used to think the Net would allow people to finally understand political candidates in depth, but if people refuse to even research but instead rely on mainstream media to feed them misleading pablum it’s not going to do any good.

As a fellow idealist, I haven't given up hope that Americans will once again become critical thinkers. In a transitional era of instant gratification, one can only hope that we idealists exhibit some amount of patience while fighting to retain our right to affect change in the future.

It might take a generation or two, but I don't believe that the current power-wielding structure is sustainable. When politicians have websites and blogs with easily usable mailto links, we'll be a lot closer to the republic that our Founding Fathers had in mind.

Whether or not people like my parents avail themselves of that avenue of representation is speculative. One must have an open mind to entertain opposing beliefs. I just hope that future generations learn that lesson.

Thank you for your comments.

--Jason

jason,

we always appreciate your thoughtful comments. not to avoid answering you, but to bring this thread back to a topic more germane to the FPP and the "lessig blog" audience, we offer this link for consideration.

"googlearchy: how a few heavily-linked sites dominate politics on the Web." (via metafilter)

"claims about the web and politics have commonly confounded two things: retrievability and visibility....

while the governing assumption of much previous work has been that retrievability would translate inexorably into visibility, we cast doubt on this claim...

in every community we examine, we find that a small handful of Web sites dominate. Online political communities on the Web thus seem to function as "winner takes all" networks, a fact that would seem to have widespread implications for politics in the digital age. "

misinformation wants to be free too.

Matthew Saroff said: * I’ve received some oblique comments from people who are in the loop that at least one of the “Bush-Hitler” vids likely came from a Republican. Stills seemed to have hit Freerepublic.com before the vid hit moveon.org.
=======================

Absolute nonsense. FreeRepbulic ran the story when it was seen on NewsMax and Drudge. Why is it so difficult to be accurate?

Julia,

I wish I could say this were a more interesting thread, but watching puerile films like these makes me wish I lived near a electroconvulsive therapy walk-in clinic.

--It's unfortunate that you don't find this debate interesting. I support your wish to live "near a [sic] electoconvulsive therapy walk-in clinic"...whatever that is. Believe it or not, some of us liberals aren't crackpots. :)

Three Blind Mice,

Once again, you make an elegant point:
"misinformation wants to be free too."

You will find no argument against that statement here.

--Jason

While I think that Bush and Hitler are (still) on different levels, what IS wrong more than comparing the two, is to make such a comparison either too lightly or making it a taboo.
If you had asked any German say around 1930 if they would believe that in the name of their people one of the biggest crimes in known history would be committed, they would have recoiled in horror, and reacted just like the GOP reacts now.

The thing is, Germany was at the time the pinnacle of the civilized world, the stronghold of science, to a degree where for many scientific disciplines, if you weren't able to at least read German, you had not even a chance to be at the forefront of science.

The idea that something like Hitler could never happen in this country and that any comparison between a US president and Hitler is wrong a priori is what's really wrong.

The liberals are wrong, if they think the constitution protects the right to bear arms for sporting and hunting, it protects these rights to overthrow governments. Thus, anyone opposed to someone like Hitler has to be in favor of people being able to own military grade weaponry. Only the potential of being able to kill leaders can keep them in line in the long term history. That's a point for the NRA and the GOP.

On the other hand, if we finally drop the Hitler-taboo, then we must treat a comparison as that: a comparison, not an equation. It is e.g. perfectly OK to say, like Hitler, everyone needs sleep. That doesn't mean everyone is a Hitler. It is also OK to say that certain preconditions must be met for a totalitarian government to be able, such as a population that cannot kill the leaders, or the ability of the government to hold people without trial (like Hitler did), or the ability wiretap people's phones without court order (like the Stasi in East Germany did), or to invade a country under false pretexts without approval of the international community (like Hitler did in Poland), etc.

What's worse, growing up in Europe during the cold war, all the things that we were taught that are so evil about the communists are now the things we start seeing in the so-called free world: travel restrictions, wire taps, detainment without judicial oversight, courts pressured by the executive branch, bullying of political opponents, flags and military parades instead of questions, answers and accoutability, etc.

The fact is, Bush, like Hitler, enacts a policy of right is might, that displays a disregard for the international law.
Saddam *was* a blood thirsty tyrant, and nobody in their right mind is sad to see him gone, but what he does within his own country gives no other country the right to invade. Amnesty International lists plenty of human rights violations in western countries each year, but does anyone suggest that we invade Brittain, Turkey, or Israel because of that, or that they invade the US?
If Bush doesn't like these laws, then he should work to change the laws, but not do Texan style vigilante justice.

And what's even more ironic is that the country that actually ASKED the US to come and help for humanitarian reasons, Liberia, only saw a few Marines guard the US embassy, plus a few war ships on the horizon. Now, how believable is it that the US went to Iraq to help the people there?

Meanwhile, Haliburton made profits by bypassing US embargos for decades, by detour of off-shore subsidiary companies, and all that while our patriotic and law-abiding vice president was in charge there.

If freedom and democracy are supposed to become more than just flags that are being waved in this country, one must have the ability to call things by their names, and to make whatever comparisons are fit, without treating them as taboos.

Here are two that will make everyone flip out:

The liberals are like Hitler, because like Hitler they try to enact gun control.

The GOP are like Hitler, because like Hitler they try to replace political discourse, truth and accountability with flag waving and calling anyone who disagrees unpatriotic.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest danger to freedom and democracy is patriotism. Whenver flags go up, they should be red flags in citizen's brains. Flags are called upon when politicians don't want to talk about the real reasons, when they need to rally people for a cause that they wouldn't go for, if they were told the facts. Let every flag, regardless of country, be a warning flag.

Well put Lo Zio.

just in case anyone's still hanging around this thread...

truthout has a compelling essay on the bush/hilter comparison....

"So far, I've seen nothing to eliminate the possibility that Bush is on the same course as Hitler. And I've seen far too many analogies to dismiss the possibility. The propaganda. The lies. The rhetoric. The nationalism. The flag waving. The pretext of 'preventive war'. The flaunting of international law and international standards of justice. The disappearances of 'undesirable' aliens. The threats against protesters. The invasion of a non-threatening sovereign nation. The occupation of a hostile country. The promises of prosperity and security. The spying on ordinary citizens. The incitement to spy on one's neighbors - and report them to the government. The arrogant triumphant pride in military conquest. The honoring of soldiers. The tributes to 'fallen warriors. The diversion of money to the military. The demonization of government appointed 'enemies'. The establishment of 'Homeland Security'. The dehumanization of 'foreigners'. The total lack of interest in the victims of government policy. The incarceration of the poor and mentally ill. The growing prosperity from military ventures. The illusion of 'goodness' and primacy. The new einsatzgrupen forces. Assassination teams. Closed extralegal internment camps. The militarization of domestic police. Media blackout of non-approved issues. Blacklisting of protesters - including the no-fly lists and photographing
dissenters at rallies."

with sincere apologies to the author for the long excerpt of his original work. we suspect he would not object to the infringement.

Comparing Mr. Hussein to Mr. Hitler is fair. Let's see... Both men actively gassed their civilians, and engaged in pogroms of massive, coordinated ethnic cleansing. Over the course of 20 years, mr. Hussein has killed upwards of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians whom he was mandated to protect. These atrocities did not get really bad until 1988 (which is when US support for Iraq all of a sudden disappeared) culminating in the US invasion of Iraq in 1991 -- throughout the sanctions period mr. Hussein denied his citizens the food and medical aid that he was allowed to import, thereby indirectly causing the deaths of additional uncounted civilians. Iraq went from the breadbasket of the middle east (fertile crescent, remember) to a barren desert, not the least because of his devious plans to redirect water to punish the Sunni Arabs in the south.

I am not someone who will necessarily support Mr. Bush, but I cannot help but believe how selfish we are as Americans to whine about the deaths of a few hundred of our soldiers when they have died to safeguard the lives of thousands and thousands of Iraqis. Those countries whose "trust" we have "squandered" were probably really the country motivated by oil interests (a French and German company, TotalFinalElf, had nearly exclusive contracts with Hussein pending the lifting of oil sanctions) -- how can we trust the morality of a nations who bargain with the likes of Hussein in the face of their atrocities to guide an organization like the UN which is supposed to "uphold" human rights.

And please don't respond with a symmetric argument that the "US supports regimes which don't uphold human rights" because the only countries that are as bad as Iraq are in Africa (and being dealt with) and North Korea.

Some of these ads provoked my ire because they exploited children who are too young to possibly espouse a cogent political view. It was (almost) as bad as witnessing anti-homosexual protesters wielding signs like "fags caused the shuttle to crash" foist their agenda on their placard-carrying young children at the Texas v. Johnson case that I waited to witness. Although, at least they aren't carrying a message of hate.

Finally, was anyone as bothered as I by the overt racial exploitation in the second film? You're supposed to think he's an Arab. But he's Indian.

"Both men actively gassed their civilians, and engaged in pogroms of massive, coordinated ethnic cleansing. Over the course of 20 years, mr. Hussein has killed upwards of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians whom he was mandated to protect."

Alright, enough is enough. Saddam never gassed "his own people." It is true that he gassed people. It is true that those people were in his country. There was a military uprising against his government. He reacted by gassing them because it was the most psychologically deterrent way available. Don't get me wrong, the gassing is completely, absolutely inexcusable but don't try to tell me they were "his people." For analogy, by your thinking, the US, as an occupying force, are "mandated to protect" the Iraqis who are attacking our soldiers.

"... I cannot help but believe how selfish we are as Americans to whine about the deaths of a few hundred of our soldiers when they have died to safeguard the lives of thousands and thousands of Iraqis."

I'm not so sure Saddam didn't save the lives of thousands and thousands of Iraqis by gassing the Kurds.

Typical unsubstantiated pap.