Why I Would Date Keith Olbermann…

Hello all!

I’ve decided it’s probably better not to publicly post about my real love life. It hurts feelings, engenders anger and mistrust and tends to scare away potential future dates, who fear our private lives may end up in this public forum. While I don’t think I’ve gotten that personal in my posts about the guys I’ve actually dated (as opposed to the guys who have just written stupid things to me from dating sites,) from here on out, I will be confining my dating posts to commentary on people I haven’t actually met…those are funnier anyway. In addition, I think I’ve been writing too much about my own navel…meaning, there are so many things going in the world today that are more important than whether or not some boy likes me. (Not to worry though, I’m still open to publicly mocking mean or rude idiots who send me stupid emails, without even knowing me.)

In other news, I just read a post on Miss Kitty’s blog called, “ann coulter is hate-filled.” That she is. Miss Kitty’s post reminded me that I want to share with you all a “news” segment I saw on television the other night about Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter, for those of you who don’t know of her, is a right-wing pundit. She shows up on news talk-shows whenever Bush needs defending (or spanking, like when he nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court) or when there is a chance to criticize the Democrats for something. While she has plenty to do defending Bush these daze, there are few targets for her wrath on the Left at the moment…mostly because so few of them are powerful enough to be relevant enough to bother attacking (although I certainly hope that changes in November.)

In searching for targets of her venom, she has recently published a book that spews much of it at the out-spoken widows of 9/11, who have consistently fought for improving our National Security since the day they lost their husbands to the terrorists who smashed through a chink in that security. I actually think her point is well taken that 9/11 happened to all of us, and that the fact these women have suffered more personally from it doesn’t make their positions infallible, any more than losing someone in a war means yours is the only valid point of view on the topic. However, she loses even the most conservative ideologues when she moves beyond that particular point into personally attacking the widows and their right to speak out. She suggests that these women should leave it to the journalists and the politicians, as their status as widows doesn’t make them qualified to speak on such important topics as National Security.

What Coulter fails to acknowledge is that their status as citizens of this nation does qualify them…or at least gives them the right and some may argue the responsibility to stand up for their beliefs…just as both Coulter and I have the right to disagree with them or with each other because we’re citizens too. Coulter is actually quite bright and articulate, but her political agenda, predictably, has once again led her to crash headlong into a big fat impolitic mess. Last week, when she started pushing her new book, Godless: The Church Of Liberalism, on the circuit, her nasty attacks on these women created a public outcry (and probably a spike in the sales of her book.)

Of all the people who commented on Coulter’s malevolent rants, my favorite was a brief segment about her on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last Wednesday, June 7th. I really like Olbermann. He’s funny, bright and not a partisan hack. In the article by Liz Halloran, “Making Sport Of It All,” that ran last March in the Hartford Courant, he was quoted as saying:

“No matter what your political orientation is, if you don’t stick up for freedom of all opinion,
eventually the wheel will turn, you’ll be the minority and you’ll have written the rules by which you yourself are squashed.”

You can’t really argue with that…well you could, but I wouldn’t agree with you. So, he’s pretty cool and, as cable news shows go, his is one of the more entertaining ones. That being said, it’s also one of the more informative, since he spends more time reporting the news and less time pontificating about it…and when he does throw in his two to five cents, I usually agree with him. Oh yeah, and he ends each show by telling the audience how many daze it’s been since the President announced “Mission Accomplished.” (I didn’t say he doesn’t have a point of view, I just said he isn’t a hack about it.)

Anyway, here is the transcript of his Ann Coulter segment from June 7th:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Also here, Ann Coulter, the shrill, shill of the right has evidently run her mouth one too many times.  Outrage pours in across the country.  There have been complaints from everybody except the predators they caught on “Dateline.”

(OTHER NEWS ITEMS)

KEITH OLBERMANN: Ann Coulter takes her cold condemnation of 9/11 widows to an unexpected high and low.

(OTHER HEADLINES AND A COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN:
Honestly, if you were Ann Coulter’s attorneys at a sanity hearing, where could you possibly start?  Our No. 2 story in the COUNTDOWN, eclipsing even Bill O’Reilly and Malmedy, the Connecticut screech has continued her assault on 9/11 widows.  After calling them “witches who acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.”  She’s now told Reuters News they are, quote, “professional victims,” all as part of the promotion of a book in which she claims liberals are, quote, “godless.”

(Video Clip starts in mid-interview between MATT LAUER, HOST OF THE TODAY SHOW and ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE SYNDICATED COLUMNIST…I’ve added the start of the 9/11 widows conversation for context.

LAUER: All right…on the 9/11 widows, and in particular, a group that had been outspoken and critical of the administration:

“These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process.” )

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AS SEEN ON COUNTDOWN)

MATT LAUER (CONT’): And this part is, is the part I really need to talk to you about:

“These broads are millionaires lionized on TV and in articles about them reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by “grief-arazzis.” I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”

ANN COULTER: Yes.

LAUER: Because they dare to speak out?

COULTER: …To speak out using the fact that they’re widows. This is the left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9/11 Commission—about how to fight the war on terrorism—how about sending somebody we’re allowed to respond to? No, no we always have to respond to someone who just had a family member die…

LAUER: But aren’t they the people in the middle of the story?

COULTER: …Because then if we respond, “Oh you’re questioning their authenticity.” No the story is…

LAUER: So, “grieve, but grieve quietly”…?

COULTER: …No, the story is an attack on the nation…

LAUER: And by the way…

COULTER: …That requires a foreign policy response…  That does not entail the expertise…

LAUER: …And by the way, they also criticized the Clinton administration for their failures leading up to 9/11.

COULTER:  That …oh …not, not the ones I’m talking about.

LAUER: No they have.

COULTER: No, no, no. Oh no, no, no, no.

LAUER: But is your message to them, “Just grieve” …?

COULTER: No, no they were cutting commercials for Kerry. They were using their grief in order to make a political point, while preventing anyone from responding.

LAUER: So, if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?

COULTER: No, but don’t use the fact that you lost a husband as the basis for your being able to talk about it while preventing people from responding. Let Matt Lauer make the point …let Bill Clinton make the point. Don’t put up someone I’m not allowed to respond to, without questioning the authenticity of their grief.

LAUER: Well, but apparently, you are allowed to respond to them.

COULTER: Well, yeah I did.

(END COUNTDOWN VIDEO CLIP)

(Here, again for context, I’ve included the end of the LAUER/COULTER interview, although it was not included in the clip shown on Countdown:

LAUER: Right, so in other words…

COULTER: But that is the point of liberal infallibility…of putting up Cindy Sheehan, of putting out these widows…of putting out Joe Wilson. No, no, no you can’t respond—it’s their doctrine of infallibility.

LAUER: But what I’m saying is they’ve…

COULTER: Somebody else make the argument.

LAUER: I’m saying, I don’t think they’ve ever told you, “You can’t respond.” So why can’t they make their point?

COULTER: Look you’re getting testy with me.

LAUER: No I’m not. I just…

COULTER: Ohhh.

LAUER: I think it’s, I think it’s, I think it’s your dramatic statement. “These broads,” you know are, are “millionaires stalked by grief-arazzi.”

COULTER: You think I shouldn’t be able to respond to them.

LAUER: (quoting her book again) “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands deaths so much.”

COULTER: They’re, they’re, yes. They’re all over the news.

LAUER: The book is called, Godless: The Church Of Liberalism. Ann Coulter, always fun to have you here.

COULTER: Hey where’s Katie? Did she leave or something?

LAUER: She did. 7:17am. And now here’s Ann.)

(BACK TO KEITH OLBERMANN)

KEITH OLBERMANN:
Let’s return to this planet. To recap Coulter’s argument, the wives of those who died in the worst attack in this nation’s history enjoyed their husbands’ deaths and profited off them. They have publicized 9/11 …their positions as widows immunize them from any criticism or debate over their opinions …all of this stated by a commentator, much of whose income in the last four-and-a-half years has derived from her speaking and writings about the deaths of those same men on 9/11 …all this stated by a commentator who staunchly, repeatedly, and enthusiastically defended an administration that began to politicize 9/11 within a month of the nightmare, and has never paused for a moment since …all of this stated by a commentator who has called those who have criticized her and her party “un-American” and now “godless” …all of this stated by a commentator who is bitching that these 9/11 widows can’t be criticized, while she is writing a book and going on TV and venomously criticizing them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP OF COULTER ON THE SITUATION WITH TUCKER CARLSON)

COULTER: If people are going to use a personal tragedy in their lives to inject themselves into a national debate, I’m sorry, you can’t say, “Oh, we’re off limits. Oh, now we’re going to invoke the fact that our husbands died and you can’t criticize us.” They were specifically using their husbands’ deaths and there were, gosh, hundreds…

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST OF THE SITUATION WITH TUCKER CARLSON (duh): That doesn’t mean they are enjoying it.

COULTER: …In fact thousands.

CARLSON: I mean, their husbands are gone, and kids are there. I mean, geez, it’s so depressing.

COULTER: And so are the thousands of widows who are not cutting campaign commercials for Clinton. These women got paid, they ought to take their money and shut up about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP, BACK TO KEITH OLBERMANN)

OLBERMANN:
The way Ann Coulter always does when she’s criticized. Ms. Coulter’s monthly walk on the swaying tightrope of her own emotional stability did not end there. In her book she also wrote:

“And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies. Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”

OLBERMANN (CONT’): Appearing in Playboy and getting divorced, neither of those being scenarios Ann Coulter is ever going to have to deal with in her life. Five of the most politically active of the 9/11 widows, including Kristen Breitweiser and Lorie Van Auken have responded in a written statement:

“Contrary to Ms. Coulter’s statement, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them everyday. It is in their honor and memory, that we will once again refocus the nation’s attention to the real issues at hand:  Our lack of security, leadership, and progress in the five years since 9/11.”

OLBERMANN (CONT’): And lastly back to my illusion about the nightmare of having to defend Ann Coulter at a sanity hearing… that was inappropriate, because that was insufficient. Imagine, in fact, defending her on Judgment Day…trying to find her soul.

Funny, smart, kinda cute and not a Republican…I’d date him.

Speaking of funny, I have to leave you with this picture I found while I was looking up quotes for this post. It’s the “Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure!” OMFG, it’s hilarious…gotta love it!

Just what every little girl needs—indoctrination!

She says 14 different phrases, including:

“Liberals can’t just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race.”

“At least when right-wingers rant, there’s a point.”

“Swing voters are more appropriately known as the ‘idiot voters,’ because they have no set of philosophical principles.”

“By the age of fourteen, you’re either a Conservative or a Liberal if you have an IQ above a toaster.”

“Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?”

“Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like Liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing by now.”

Are We Still In Iraq?

This is a reeeelllly long email that I wrote in October of 2002 in response to a bunch of impassioned emails that my family was writing to each other at the time about whether or not we should go to war with Iraq (it was right after Bush’s resolution, back when we still thought Iraq might have WMDs.)

The first part is my take on the pros and cons of going to war with Iraq at the time…while I cannot include all of the emails from my family’s exchange, in order to protect their privacy, with her permission, I have included an email my Aunt Jeanine wrote. It is my hope that this will provide the necessary context, as it also includes snippets from some of the emails sent by various family members on the topic, which inspired/instigated my email to them.

(FROM Noetical:)

Dear All:

I will admit that my first thought when I saw all these emails was “oh no, this side of the family is just as dysfunctional as everyone else in my crazy extended family…somehow that had escaped my notice for 36 years.  But as I began to really read, I came to realize that while my initial realization does in fact hold some truth, I am grateful to be a part of a family whose members hold strong, impassioned values and beliefs…and have the intellect and will to express them.

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry began his famous speech, which inspired Virginia to join in the American Revolution with words reflecting this tradition: “No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.”

It is the very act of engaging in such a dialogue that distinguishes us from many other societies…not just because we are “free” to (there are many over the course of the years since 1776 who could attest to the fact that “freely expressed” ideas led to their persecution, and sometimes even death)…but rather because we are a people who consider it a responsibility to stand up our ideas and ideals.

I might not always feel proud of “America” as a government, world force or world leader…but I always feel proud to be an American. Nationalism, just as most “isms” are, is a movement, sentiment I have come to distrust and even fear. I think of it as a curtain that governments draw so that we cannot see what the “wizard” is up to…as though we can not be trusted to understand or reason in the face of complex issues. I ask not for the right to decide what to do about the situation in Iraq, but rather for the freedom to know, to discuss and to participate in a national debate without being labeled as “Anti-American.”

There has been much talk of Hitler on both sides and personally I think that we should all learn more history…there must be other times, other monsters from mankind’s recorded past from whom we can learn.  Hitler was a manifestation of the particular circumstances that existed during that moment of our past.  While there are many lessons to be learned from our interactions with Germany during that time, please remember that one of the most valuable lessons we have learned from our past mistakes is that history can help us understand the present…but cannot adequately define it.

The world stage and human condition continues to increase infinitely in complexity, making many of our assumptions and responses to a given crisis obsolete each every evolving moment. We imperil ourselves both physically and morally if we try to define our leaders, villains and movements of today with analogies which only serve as limited pieces of rhetoric designed to win our respective arguments…this is made most evident by the fact that BOTH sides are using Hitler to quickly stigmatize each other.  Yes our world has been forged by our past…each war, each momentous event gives form to our thoughts, our understanding. But who we are and what we do is a new and unique entity that merely resembles the progenitors from whom we have inherited this earth. In order to move forward wisely during this crisis, we must strive to understand, to the best of our abilities, the ways in which the unique circumstances of this place in time must be addressed.

Albert Einstein once said, reflecting this very sentiment at the dawn of the atomic age, “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…”  He knew that we must begin to comprehend the incomprehensible if we were ever going to survive in a world in which we were newly capable of the incomprehensible…this was back in the 50s when all the existing plans for the Vietnam situation included the use of nuclear weapons.

That said, I think we can look to our past for better understanding of our present. At 7 p.m. on Monday, October 22, 1962, President Kennedy appeared on television to inform Americans of the Cuban missile crisis. In this speech he reveals some of the internal struggle that guided his response to the crisis:

“The 1930’s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere.”

Kennedy was not only a product of WWII, but furthermore felt personal shame from the fact that his father had been an active supporter of the early policy of appeasement toward Hitler in the ’30s.  By the time he was faced with the Cuban missile crisis, it had become conventional wisdom that Hitler could have been stopped short and WWII avoided had his aggression been checked years earlier.  No one can know whether or not this is true, but Kennedy wisely saw that whether or not it was true, the situation confronting him had unique aspects which called for a unique response. His belief in the absolute intolerability of a nuclear presence so near our boarders was countered by his fear of retaliation against the people of Berlin, should we act precipitously. There are many ways in which the Cuban missile crisis could have been resolved…but I believe that it was Kennedy’s determination to fully understand the various nuances of the situation in order to respond carefully and appropriately that led to a resolution that did not include nuclear holocaust.

In another part of that same speech by Kennedy, he speaks to concerns that many of us have about Iraq today:

“Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.”

I do think that while the situation is different, these words reflect the feelings of those who consider Saddam’s actions to similarly constitute a direct and deadly threat.  While I agree with them as well as JFK that the mere possession of weapons of mass destruction by a country like Iraq constitutes a clear and present danger, I am not convinced that Iraq does have these weapons…I’ve seen the U2 surveillance photos of 1962…as did the world when Stevenson argued our position at the UN. I find it difficult to believe that forty years later our technology cannot manage to supply us with comparable evidence if in fact there is any.  If it really is true that Iraq is a direct and active menace to our lives, where’s the evidence…More proof, less rhetoric please. One of the ways our government got the scientists of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was to convince them (many of them Jewish) that Hitler was hot on the trail of developing the same weapon…which of course turned out not to be true.  Regarding this, Einstein said in 1946: “If I had known that the Germans would not succeed in constructing the atom bomb, I would never have lifted a finger.”

Of course I think we should defend ourselves…but from whom and how?  I think we need to respect the complexity of the situation and respond with a clear understanding of what is actually going on.  Instead all I hear is rhetoric that challenges my patriotism whenever I question the government…

If there is anything I want to learn from the past, it is that we cannot react to situations because our leaders say “just cuz.”  They told us that all communists were evil…so we blacklisted them, feared them and persecuted them. One of the byproducts of the 1950s red scares was that any person with history or understanding of Asia was branded a “pinko” or a “commie” and was “purged” from the “intelligence” community and government. This is one of the reasons that the government so terribly misjudged so much of what happened during the years we fought in Vietnam. Most of the people who could have knowledgeably advised the President had been weeded out of his pool of advisors…Do we really think that Bush is including men in his circle who understand all the nuances of the situation in the middle-east? Yes, he has people who have waged war there, but does he have people who have spent the time to understand what it is to wage peace there? These are my concerns.

Ron Rosenbaum, in his New York Observer Article “Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee,” from October 14, 2002, he gets mad when people respond to Sept. 11th with the sentiment that “maybe it’s a wake-up call for us to recognize how bad we are, Why They Hate Us.”  But the truth is that we MUST wake up and endeavor to understand their legitimate grievances, because there is no other way to begin to understand why they do what they do.  How do we fight and win a war if we don’t even understand what we are fighting against…I’m not saying that theirs is a better way of life than ours…not even close.  But my way of life has taught me to question why…and I question why because I have a belief that there is power in knowledge and danger in ignorance.  If I am willing to support a war for anything it will be both of and for knowledge.

Some have quoted Jeanine as saying, “No wonder they all hate us,” and respond by saying, “what one wonders is, how much do the people who say that HATE the USA themselves.  Do you really think that Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the rest of those people who hate us have a better form of government?”  My point is that there is no point to reacting to Jeanine’s effort to see the other side with a statement you know she doesn’t agree with. Of course she doesn’t think Iraq has a better form of government…and furthermore, I’m sure she doesn’t think that anyone who died on Sept. 11th “deserved it” because of US foreign policy.  But honestly, do you actually want to call off any real investigation into what the complex dynamics of the situation are by dismissing any questions as disloyal?  That just doesn’t sound like my family…and it certainly conflicts with many of the values you’ve managed to instill in me.

So anyway, let’s have a trial…let’s put Saddam on trial for crimes against our nation…and let’s see what he’s done, what he is planning. Did he participate in the conspiracy to blow up the world trade centers? Does he have nukes? Inquiring minds want to know. Pull back the curtain of nationalism and let’s have it out like Americans…freely and openly in pursuit of the truth and a better, safer world.  If Bush can give us facts and evidence to march toward war…I’ll get in line.  But I’m not willing to blindly and “patriotically” accept that Bush knows what’s best for me or my brothers.  We’re talking about asking our sons and even daughters to kill and die for something.  To use your analogy…if we’re going to send our children out to kill the guy who is threatening us…shouldn’t we make sure that it isn’t just a rumor…started by that guy up the street who never really liked him? Our constitution gave congress the responsibility of declaring war because war is a serious thing and the congress is a slow deliberate body that requires the participation of multiple points of view…a process which we have skipped in the past with poor results.

I do believe that this is a struggle between good and evil…I just don’t think that we can say that the US is good and Islam is evil…to me it is much more complicated.  Furthermore, to the extent that any struggle against evil entails good…how can we “fight the good fight” without remaining mindful of what is good?  Surely the sanctity of life, even Muslim life, is paramount.  Cesar Chavez once said of violent action that “…If you use violence, you have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own struggle.” Don’t let us loose what is good about America in our fervor to defend it. Chavez also said of violence that it “just hurts those who are already hurt…Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.”  If we really are going to win a war against the ‘Islamo-fascists’ we must also win the war of minds.  You can say to the guy in Baghdad that you’re there to save him from the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, but ultimately it doesn’t go over as well when you’ve just bombed his house and killed his wife and children.

All that said, I guess what I’m really saying in response to the poll is that the jury is still out with me…I want to see more than just the opening and closing arguments of the prosecutor before I vote on the verdict.  The whole thing scares me and I hope we survive…sometimes I worry that we won’t…on the same days I think how lucky we were to have Kennedy on the switch in 1962.

Maybe nothing can help America and the ‘Islamo-fascists’ have a meeting of the minds. Voltaire said it well back in 1764: “What can we say to a man who tells you that he would rather obey God than men, and that therefore he is sure to go to heaven for butchering you? Even the law is impotent against these attacks of rage; it is like reading a court decree to a raving maniac.”  But the court of world opinion is populated by many who have yet to come to a verdict.  All I’m saying is that the process is important…even if the maniacs don’t get it.  It isn’t for them anyway, it’s for us.  Well, if you’ve gotten this far, you probably need a nap…I love you all and thanks for reading my rant.

Love, Noetical.

SO THAT WAS MY TAKE. FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE THINGS MY FAMILY WROTE THAT LED TO MY RANT:

on 10/10/2002 4:00 PM, Jeanine wrote: I’m taking a poll. A quick “YES” or “NO” will suffice…although a paragraph would be great, too. Thanks.

Q. Do you agree with the passage of the president’s Iraq resolution?

Answers as of 10/11/02:

Noetical’s Grandmother: “No. But I guess it is a done deed now.  We’ll just have to pray that he has sense enough to show a little restraint.”

Noetical’s Uncle: “No. I believe we need to take a strong position. However, we must build consensus and we should use the United Nations. We should do everything possible not to be viewed as an aggressor. I believe the benefit of taking out Iraq does not at this time overshadow the negative of world reaction and the possibility of setting off the entire Muslim nation against us. It will be a short-lived victory, solving little, unless we are reacting to outward aggression by Iraq. I fear that simple minded Bush either doesn’t understand the risk, or is simply using this for political gain, trying to detract from other problems at home, such as the economy. Sorry this wasn’t a short answer.”

Noetical’s Cousin: (He is busy with school and admits he hasn’t enough info to form an opinion, yet. I’ll bias him!)

Noetical’s Other Cousin: (I don’t have his email address. But I have reason to believe he would say “NO!!”)

Noetical: (No response yet.)

Noetical’s Brother, Morgan: “Nuke ‘em says I.”

Noetical’s Sister In-law, Julia: No. I do not agree. I don’t believe we should wage war on Iraq without the support of the UN or the world community. . .”

Noetical’s Sister, Mariah: “No. I’d say more, but I don’t want to convulse and foam at the mouth right before bed.”

Noetical’s Sister, Megan: (taken a bit out of context): “No. …Our government is out of control. I think a riot is long overdue.”

Noetical’s Aunt, Jeanine: “This resolution is more than the ok for Bush to bomb Iraq. It transfers the power vested in Congress (by the constitution) to the President (one man), giving him the right to declare war whenever and wherever HE sees fit—without discussion from we-the-people. It also sets an arrogant, outrageous precedent for other nations to violently aggress against their own enemies (“Well, the U.S. does it.”). If this is not ok for other countries to do, why is it ok for us to do? Have we no shame? No wonder the world hates us!

Should we bomb Iraq right now? Absolutely not. Not without UN support. Not without proof that danger from Iraq is eminent. Not for votes. Not for oil. Not to distract us from the REAL risks to homeland security: an economy, education and healthcare system in shambles.

Can you tell which is the Terrorist Nation? Personally, I think the U.S. needs a regime change.”

END OF FAMILY EMAIL SNIPPETS

OKAY, well…that’s me and part of my family…at least when it comes to politics. I hope you found this interesting.

Best, Noetical.