Four More Years...

Hi Schraf,The information explosion means we cannot read everything out there and so must make decisions about what issues and sources we'll pursue. If Franken has made the transition from comedian to serious political commentator of the left then I missed it. If he wants to be taken seriously then he might try taking himself seriously by not using a title like Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, which just reeks of sarcasm.Perhaps one day Franken will establish some serious credentials. Perhaps he's on the cusp of doing so now and you're just out in front of the rest of us. In the meantime, as I indicated earlier, citing Franken as a source tells me the discussion is probably taking a turn that I'm not interested in following.--Percy

Uh, this is a thread about the sitting president's reelection chances. I applaud your efforts to find someone else to discuss Enron-gate with, but I'm not sure it would be on-topic unless you believe it will affect the election. Do you think this will become a significant issue? The democrats just had a debate and I hear they focused much more on Bush than on each other. Did Enron-gate come up?--Percy

I *think* I'm making a different point. There's nothing inherently wrong with citing Franken. But politics isn't one of my interests. That means only the most important political stories or issues are going to capture my interest. You and holmes are trying to convince people like me and ThingsChange that you're on to something significant and important, and even further, that you've got significant evidence supporting your position on the issue.But your issues and Holme's Enron-gate issue don't seem important enough to warrant my attention at this time. That may change. But citing books by Franken on the left (or Limbaugh on the right just to balance this out) aren't going to change my mind about the issue's importance, or the likelihood that your position is the correct position, or even that there *is* a correct position.--Percy

Hi holmes,It's almost as if we're having two different conversations. For instance: Other than thinking this hasn't become a significant enough issue to be worth paying attention to, I have no position. If in your view there's enough evidence to reach that conclusion, then fine. I don't hold the honesty of any politician in high regard, so you haven't exactly caught my interest yet. I have no idea what this means. Did the issues you raised about Bush and Enron and Ken Lay and Cheney and notes come up in the debate or not? But not as hilarious as you assigning me positions on issues on which I haven't commented. How you get this from my question "Did Enron-gate come up?" is beyond me. Perhaps, but the title he chose was Four More Years..., which broadens the scope. I thought Nader's entry was just the impetus that raised berberry's concern levels about Bush's reelection chances. You could ask berberry, I suppose.--Percy

Hi holmes,This is just the type of discussion I was hoping to avoid by keeping my replies brief and to the point. I never felt right about disengaging from you in other discussions by simply not replying to you, so I was trying to be polite and explain why I was disengaging. Instead now we're in the middle of one of these pointless blame games. Pretty childish, huh, but hey, it's Friday and I don't feel like working! Threads are a conversation between a group of people. There are no restrictions on who can talk to who.But more importantly, if you examine the Message List for this thread you'll see that you were replying to the Message 15 subthread that I started. Anyone is welcome to join any conversation with me, but I just wanted to correct your misimpression that I barged unwelcome into your conversation. You mentioned something I hadn't heard about Bush, and it seemed like a real scandal could affect the election, so I asked what you had. You told me. I replied, in effect, that it didn't seem like much, and I thought that would be it. Instead, you've hounded me and hounded me to explain why I don't find your evidence convincing. I seem to have a lot in common with the democratic candidates for president, who evidently don't find the issue sufficiently compelling to even bring it up in a nationally televised debate. Why do you think that is, holmes? Let met get this straight. You've made this big deal over something that not only isn't in my top 10, it isn't even in your top 10? Sheesh! --Percy

Oh, holmes, this is really sad. You already know I didn't watch the debate. I'm just going by what you told me just previously in Message 77 where you said they didn't: Moving on: I haven't addressed your facts because you presented a moving target. This is just one of the reasons I'm so reluctant to debate with you. You start with one claim, then make it less and less outrageous in successive posts all the while disclaiming how could someone object to something so reasonable. I just don't want to have anything to do with it. For example, in this thread you started with this: Which by the done you were done with your refinements had become this: This is one reason why, unless a topic is central to my primary interests, that I'd prefer not to debate you. It's just too much work. Oops, halftime's over, gotta go...--Percy

I suddenly wake up at 4 AM realizing I forgot to do something critical before quitting work last night, so I come down to fix it and, what a shock, a reply from you! Uh, I don't think so. Let's take a closer look, shall we? Significantly, you go from "Bush was close friends with Ken Lay" to "Bush knew Ken Lay."And you go from Bush "lying...that he really didn't know a man he had previously called 'Kenny Boy'" to no mention.That the former Governor of Texas knew the head of one of the largest companies in Texas is no surprise. In fact, what would have been surprising is if he didn't know Ken Lay. Yet you cite it as "evidence"? Even if Bush and Ken Lay were "close personal friends" I wouldn't put any stock in it because I have no way of knowing if they mean it or if it's just political-speak where everyone they know is a "close personal friend."The rest of your evidence is of a similar nature, nothing hard, just implication and inuendo. Congress is seeking evidence, Cheney won't turn over papers, Scalia hasn't recused himself, Ken Lay influenced the White House on energy policy, and the energy companies scammed CA. Now you're just making it up. I never discussed Enron, not even after you introduced the Enron-gate issue. I suggest you reexamine Message 15 from me and going forward if you think otherwise. And I had never even heard of Enron-gate until you brought it up. I have no idea what makes you think we were discussing it. In Message 24 after your initial mention of the issue I asked: You gave your "evidence" in Message 33, and in Message 35 I said: And that was that. And to you this is a discussion of Enron-gate? Sheesh! You're making it up again, holmes. I've never made any statement about my level of concern about the Enron collapse and it's aftermath, but I have been very clear all along in saying that your Enron-gate issue doesn't blip on my radar. I suggest you reread the thread. You're making it up again. I suggest you read Message 78 again. Here, I'll quote it for you: Gee, what do you know! I never said I'd never mention Enron! Why would I say that since back in Message 15 I mentioned it in my quip to Crash. We're talking about your issue, holmes, which isn't mentioning Enron in a quip, but is Enron-gate, a potential scandal involving inappropriate influence of elected officials. You're making it up yet again. If we're talking about Enron-gate (and I feel I have to keep making sure of that, because you're statements are so bizarre it's like we're having two different conversations, like we're talking uncomprehendingly past each other), then it is impossible that one of my "statements is wrong" because I haven't made any statements regarding Enron-gate. Unless you count where I say I don't believe there's enough to go on yet. On the contrary, I *do* know what I "care about and think." I think your "evidence" isn't worth much, and I don't care about the issue at this time and am not interested in discussing it. But, hey, ain't we having fun anyway? By the way, I see berberry has weighed in that he was primarily interested in the Nader impact. My stance on this hasn't changed from Message 4, which is that the Nader impact is minimal because it appears the Democrats are intent on nominating the man Bush could probably beat anyway. I thought your points about why Nader didn't lose the 2000 election for Gore were pretty much on the money, partcularly the first one about not carrying his home state. Interesting that Leiberman didn't do better this year - his widespread appeal in 2000 (TN notwithstanding) seemed to presage a more impressive showing in a shot at the ticket's top spot this year.--Percy

You know, I don't think I'm as dumb as this conversation, and I don't think you are either, though I'm assuming anyone reading our exchanges already long ago decided we're both hopeless. I hope the reality is that trying to reconstruct meaning and intent is far more difficult than it feels it should be, 'cause if not, well, it ain't pretty!I never said your facts aren't facts. I never said your facts *are* facts. I never said.All I said was that for me your evidence didn't provide much support for your conclusions. And I said that what you presented didn't arouse my interest. And I said I wasn't interested in debating this further. Of course I didn't look at your links.When you're driving and someone cuts you off, I'll bet you follow them down the highway. Were you a bulldog in a former life? --Percy

Hi holmes, I *did* say this. Calling your evidence inuendo and so forth isn't questioning your evidence. It's questioning the relationship between your evidence and your conclusions. For example, when you say that Bush is a friend of Lays and I call it inuendo, it's only inuendo in relation to your conclusion that there's some political hanky-panky going on. As I've already said, the surprise would have been had the former governor of Texas *not* known the head of one of Texas's largest companies.You continue to bewilder me with your fantasies. It's almost as if you're living in some alternative universe observing the behavior of a bizarro Percy, and then coming here to report on what he's done. I guess all I can do is continue to set the facts before you. I can't emphasize enough how wrong you are. To say this you have to ignore the facts of the thread. You made some vague assertions in Message 22, I poked around on the web, read a couple articles, and replied with a link to one of them in Message 24 asking if this was what you were talking about. You confirmed this, and then you provided a specific list of assertions and evidence in Message 33 that contained pretty much the same information as the link I provided. That was the point where I concluded it was, in my opinion, insufficient justification for further investigation or interest. I believe I said I would have felt sleazy reaching conclusions based on what you'd presented. No, shame on you. I *never* "rip on creationists" who don't read links. The guidelines encourage people to make arguments in their posts and not to debate by link, and I wrote the guidelines, so once again you are clearly making it up.No one has the power here to dump long reading assignments on other people, and then berate them when the assignments are ignored. In fact, though I have a hard time following this advice myself, short posts that are to the point are to be encouraged. If there is an apropos link or two that you can include then that's great, but firing off link blitzkriegs is not a form of debate to be encouraged.I guess if someone were a news junkie, or if some issue particularly interested them, then they might go off and read 5 or 10 articles about the same thing. But most people don't do this, and I'm certainly not going to, and certainly not about something that from the first couple articles I can already tell I'm not interested. I already said this was wrong once, but since you state it twice I'll tell you it's wrong twice.--Percy

Hi holmes,You *do* realize, I hope, that this is not the most brilliant topic for a conversation. If I had already installed the rating system we would, I think, have long ago found ourselves relegated to a remedial forum. There's a UBB code that makes it easy to link to specific messages, especially if they're in the same thread. If you feel like using it, all you have to do is say something like [msg=33] and the board software will automatically produce a link that looks like this: Message 33Here's the top half of that message. Sure looks like evidence expressed as a list of rhetorical questions to me. Plus it recapitulates the information from the article I linked you to in Message 24: I admit that ThingsChange assessment, which you actually quoted next, struck a chord with me: Moving on: I notice you don't provide any excerpts of me insulting you. At least you're describing me instead of bizarro Percy, but now you're tied up in a false analogy. I'm not avoiding homework or counterevidence, I'm attempting to disengage from the discussion. You'll never find me hounding someone to discuss something they've made clear they don't want to discuss. This has got to be about the weirdest discussion I've ever had, but it sure beats the alternative. Unfortunately, I can't put it off anymore, so back to work!--Percy

Okay, so you misexpressed yourself. This is true, but it appeared to me that you were just trying to make it seem like the issue had more layers then it really did, the trademark of the master conspiracist. And that suspicion turned out to be the case when your later summary in Message 44 said pretty the same thing, just reexpressed. No, my mistake happened earlier. No, you're not. If you don't want people to think this of you, then why churn out posts like Message 33? If that's your idea of how to come across seriously, then I can only ask how one is supposed to tell you apart from a conspiracy specialist. To me you seem too ready to leap to conclusions. To me it appeared, and still appears, that you were attempting to force interpretations on your posts which did not make sense. I'm sure you think you're balanced, but you didn't come across that way. Any argument you might make about balance is contradicted by the incredible persistence and sheer doggedness with which you pursued someone on a topic they weren't interested in discussing, and by the sensitivity you showed toward any rejection of your ideas. I had already heard enough. I thought that was clear. You just don't take no for an answer.I hope no one's reading this and that they're investing their time more wisely, like by reading the Kendemyer threads. --Percy

No, the smiley was because I mimicked you. Regardless of intent, your Message 33 reads like an enumeration of evidence phrased as rhetorical questions. I never questioned your evidence. I questioned your conclusions. They seemed premature, and they still seem premature. Ah, the trademark of the master conspiracy theorist - there's always more to delve into. I never said it was - this was your confusion. Again, I never questioned your evidence. I assumed all along that what you said was accurate that Bush knew Lay, that Cheney hadn't turned over requested papers, that Scalia hadn't recused himself, that Lay had helped define US energy policy, and so forth. I questioned your conclusions based upon this evidence that something improper was going on. I believe I said at one point that this seemed like the normal amount of harassment of a sitting president. I believe I compared it to White Water, which in the end after all the noise and attention came to very little as far as the Clintons. Yeah, right, mister conspiracy theorist. Look, maybe someday this will turn into the modern day equivalent of Irangate or something and then you can brag about how out in front you were on this issue, but right now this is a mole hill, possibly an anthill. Your tone is intemperate and immoderate, and it makes your conclusions appear ill-considered. If you don't care about that, then I guess it really isn't your problem. This is a pretty weird thing to say. People make decisions all the time that they're not interested in pursuing something further, which naturally precludes reading or learning anything more about it. Everyone else isn't interested in all the same things you are. All I did was inquire about what you were vaguely hinting at in one of your messages, and once I confirmed it was Enron-gate I wasn't interested anymore. I'm sorry you didn't like my characterization of your approach to drawing conclusions as sleazy, but that doesn't obligate me to discuss the issue further with you. Yeah, right. And what's my theory? Politics as usual. I didn't say nothing is going on, though I am screaming, "Help, I'm being pursued by a maniac!"I said there wasn't enough information to draw any conclusions. I said I hoped investigators followed the evidence wherever and to whomever it leads.--Percy[text=wheat][Fix redundant quote, rephrase a rough spot. --Percy][/text][This message has been edited by Percy, 03-06-2004]

Uh, holmes, Message 33 was the point at which I knew this wasn't an issue that interested me. Despite all your protests, your subsequent messages merely reiterated Message 33 and contained nothing additional of significance. I'm not interested in this issue. No one else here has indicated any interest. Even the democratic candidates haven't raised this issue. Even you say it's not in your top ten. You come off like a conspiracy theorist to me, and I'm not the only one who has said as much. And now you pursue me endlessly on this. You are one weird dude. Uh, holmes, White Water occurred before Clinton became president. And when it occurred isn't an issue anyway. You seem to be able to find something to get upset about in every paragraph, whether there's anything there to get upset about or not.Not that this is directly relevant but it might help you understand my position: I wasn't interested in White Water either. I felt Clinton was being hounded by a sour-grapes conservative backlash frustrated at having lost the White House in 2002 and thought they'd find little. I also wasn't interested in Jennifer Flowers, incorrectly believing at the time he hadn't cheated. I also wasn't interested in Monica Lewinski, though by this time because of the earlier Flowers affair I believed he *had* cheated, regardless of what the definition of is is. And I didn't believe his behavior under oath was an impeachable offense, and again believed he was being hounded by sour-grapes conservatives.Only the top issue or two in politics are likely to catch my interest, but most times not even those. I thought maybe you were on to something worth following, but after hearing what you had I don't think so. I don't recall disputing this, or your other evidence, and I believe I also said this in the very message you're replying to, or at least the message just before. CA was on the news, after all, we all heard about it.You should just listen to yourself sometimes: Sounds just like White Water to me, when people were saying, "How could the Clintons be so involved in White Water and be such close friends with the principals and yet not know what was really going on?" But even married people hold secrets from each other, and the ever-so-common political ploy of guilt by association is very popular. I'll wait for more information to come out if you don't mind. Wrong about what, holmes? You seem to keep forgetting I don't have an opinion. How many times do I have to tell you I don't think there's enough information to reach a conclusion. In your more rational moments you say the same thing, like when you say maybe George Bush just made a mistake, but that's just before you tear back into me for not seeing things your way. Like most political storms, it will probably blow over with little impact. I'm just giving the odds, not making a prediction.Maybe George Bush really *did* just make a mistake. But that's not why you're so interested in this, is it? If it was only a mistake in judgement, who cares. The Iraq mess was a far larger mistake in judgement. No, you care because you think it's much larger than that. And if you don't, then putting this much energy into something you don't care about means you have a big problem handling priorities. My faux disinterest? What, you think I'm secretly reading all the articles I can about this? What are you smoking?You're drawing distinctions where no one else sees any. None of your subsequent information added anything. The only one making stuff up is you, because this is fiction. I never said anyone was making stuff up, not even you. I just commented on your tendency to select a bunch of facts from which you draw your preferred conclusions, from which others aren't apparently permitted to demur. If you want a private conversation, get a room. And you've already been told, you were participating in *my* subthread, not I yours. You're more than welcome, but please don't keep misstating things because that forces me to set the facts before you again.The only thing I think I understand from you is that you're upset because I gave your conspiracy theory short shrift. You were the one who dropped the vague hint leading to my inquiry. And it isn't my fault you're super sensitive about criticism.--Percy

Once again it seems as if you're living in some alternative universe. You're welcome to your interpretations, but I see little hope of a resolution. Again, I suggest you discuss this with someone interested.--Percy