Mr Green
Although I nave no means of verifying your critiques of the candidates, your thought provoking comments should provide insight for many.

If you aren't outraged, you not paying attention. Thought provoking article,Mr Green. However you miss the focal point orf these unprecedent presidentil abuses.

Blame for the devastating misadventures of this administration falls first on the moron voters who helped his team steal the elections, the five Supreme Court Justices who betrayed their oath and this nation by placing politics above principal and planting this unfit person in office, and our legislators who have defaulted their duties by allowing such unprecedented abuses and sellouts from the this administration.

We have never experienced such outrageous in our history. Unless we seize control of our destiny from this administration and their controlling special interests, our future is in jeopardy and we are to blame.
It's very comforting to know that this zealot in the White House is standing by to guard our morals against the evils of family planning, stem cell research., and the dangers of measures to mitigate global warming & related pollution. He understands from his divine guidance that the need for environmental preservation is a myth generated by the international scientific community, even though he has now been forced to retract this in a minimal way due to political pressures.

I for one, would like to hear the candidates questions for us who vote.
It is said...
"you can tell how clever a person is by the answers they give, and how wise they are by the questions they ask."

Mr. Green displays some wisdom here for us... now let the candidates provide their best offers of wisdom. That would be very revealing.

Mr. Green,

Your question for Kucinich demonstrates your lack of history. The capitalists, bankers, and Wall Street are the reason we're in this mess. I suggest you step out of your box sealed with MSMs latest spin and read the following article on the following site:

GlobalResearch.ca "The Financial Tsunami: The Financial Foundations of the American Century"
- by F. William Engdahl - 2008-01-16

After you've read the entire article, see if you still have any question as to where the capitalists will go when Kucinich pushes for economic justice. They've already left, Mr. Green. They hijacked the US dollar long ago and now they could care less about the American people or any other people for that matter.

seriousprofessor,

As a licensed professional engineer and geologist, I deeply respect the academic profession in the sciences, philosophy, and literature. But as far as "professor of political science" there are a lot of unqualified hacks out there. Aside from the former Prof. Finkelstein of De Paul U., most good political analysis cones from other disciplines - Professor of Linguistics, Professor of History, a couple professors of physics.

DAVID M. GREEN ___"YOU THINK", Edwards voted for something BECAUSE YOU THINK it is because of Blah, Blah, Blah. I think you are a soplist and write like one.

PJD, there is a difference between disagreeing with an argument and attacking the profession of the arguer, which you do when you put "professor" in quotes. You put me in the position of having to defend a colleague against a cheap shot when in fact his argument is a poor one.

To David Michael Green:
Sounds like you lack information about the career of politician, Al Gore (I can't imagine what else it would be). So here I am to your rescue - again. (You need to enroll in my class sometime.)
Al Gore:

1) Sabotaged the Kyoto Protocol. World leaders then walked out on climate change talks and the whole thing was set back years. I remember this, do you?

2) Said very little about global warming when he had the power to do something about it or at least bring it to our attention.

3) Was (maybe is still) founding member of the DLC - corporate dominated, freetrade politicians.

4) Received a 64% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters. You're a professor. What's that, a D grade? Kerry got over 95%, just for comparison.

5) Spoke to a large crowd in Richland, Washington praising nuclear energy and promising to do all he can. He got a standing ovation, of course. They liked him a lot. Hundreds of new plants are in line for permits right now - applications way up. Read about it. You can thank Al. He's always been there for 'em.

6) At the signing, Gore said the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was "good for our country."

7) Promoted NAFTA. Was more outspoken than Clinton on this. Twisted arms (Republican's) to get it passed.

8) Helped Clinton kill all those people with sanctions and illegal bombings.

9) Ran a sold out election in 2004 when he could have nailed it easily.

10) Did not adequately challenge the 2004 elections.

11) Has not acknowledged or apologized for any of the above.

Here's the future: We are not going to settle for less, we are going to keep the bar raised, and we are going to hold these sold out politicians - and their sold out cheering sections - accountable.

tommy_slothrop: good question that we do not hear addressed about the militarization of our foreign relations. Why do we need over 750 military bases thruout the world, and now recent talk of a "Military Command" in Africa? Why does Dept of Defence request billions for weapon systems that the military does not even want, especially when our military budget is more that the rest of the world combined? What are we afraid of, like you ask, defending against who or what? The lessons of history, and now common knowledge, that "War is not the answer", yet the only way that our current Imperium Amerikana seems to view foreign relations it to bludgeon everyone else with threats, invasions, etc.

hobbs asks what are the candidates' 10-year vision that might be an alternative to big stick military control of the world? Kucinich's proposed Department of Peace would put in place a forum that would address these issues, and might explore solutions based on fair trade sharing of the world's resources and address global warming, diplomacy based not solely on "our national interests", but a recognition of others' interests as well. This will involve changes in our attitude, sacrifice to move away from our greed, which in a 10-year vision program of peace can eliminate the catastrophic and obscene suffering of war and militarization.

Conservatives like royalty and dynasty. They are for traditional values like feudalism.

Someone mentioned intellectual honesty -- you can't have an honest discussion in the mainstream political arena. The fascist press will light your pants on fire and accuse you of carelessly playing with matches. We ARE effed unless we pull the plug on these clowns -- seems a Declaration of Independence II is in order.

why do they always put dennis at the bottom of the list?

Terrific article. Another question for each candidate: How do you envision the U.S.A. 10 years from now? What vision of America do you want to work toward and what are your priorities?

Nancy Pace - Just what is Obama's "agenda in '08?"

New nuclear power plants, first-strike nuclear weapons use against Iran, increasing the size of the military, tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry, unlimited credit card interest rates (1000%/year is OK).

To the contrary, "the American people are realizing" that Obama has both the rhetoric and the agenda of Ronald Reagan.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/17/6445/

The American people are realizing that only an Obama presidency can change America's bleak future into one that is genuinely hopeful and positive. Barack Obama's unique combination of strengths and abilities make him the only candidate:

1. Who can take the Democratic nomination from insider/"incumbent" Hillary Clinton and her political machine;
2. Who can appeal to Democrats, independents, and centrists of all stripes sufficiently to win a general election;
3. Who can pack Congress with Democratic legislators supportive of his agenda in '08 and in following elections;
4. Who can inspire competing interests to find workable legislative solutions to our huge problems;
5. Who can inspire grassroots citizens to get behind and pass such legislation; and
6. Who has the honesty, integrity, courage, intellectual bandwidth, global perspective, vision, character, judgment, and Presidential leadership skills necessary to simultaneously and successfully handle breaking crises as they arise, while healing and transforming national and international relations and shepherding huge domestic policy changes through Congress.

It's impossible to summarize all these crucial "qualifications" in a soundbite, a speech, a website, a campaign ad, and certainly not a button or bumper sticker. But they are what the public feels when they listen to and learn more about Barack Obama, and they are why Obama's popularity will continue to grow exponentially.

(Nancy Pace blogs at the intersection of peace, politics, culture and spirituality at www.epharmony.com.)

And a question for imotomar: How exactly was Hillary supposed to "manage" Bill? Follow him every minute? Would that make her more "likeable"? Or would it make people call Bill whipped?

But I think it's the word "hillbilly" that sums up the national attitude towards the Clintons. The self-made man is actually pretty despised here in the US. A loser like Bush who received many good things that he did not at all earn isn't threatening to anyone. But someone like Bill Clinton who rose from nothing to attend great schools, become governor, then president, can make some folks apparently feel quite inadequate.

thank-you Gorsegrower for a hearty laugh of the day. I so needed that.

Peace,
Ken

By Ogen Nash:

There was a young man from Calcutta
Who coated his tonsils with butta,
Thus converting his snore from a thunderous roar
To a soft oleaginous mutta.

Another question for Hillary:

1) If you can't manage your loose-zippered, bimbo-loving, hillbilly husband - whose sex scandals helped pave the way for George Bush, how can you manage a country?

My question for all of them except for Kucinich and Paul: Are you running for president or are you running for emperor? If you're running for president, why have you said nothing about closing all overseas military installations and limiting the military to DEFENDING THIS COUNTRY?

JOHN EDWARDS: "Maybe I'm wrong, and you're not just a sleazy personal injury trial attorney . . . "

Sleazy? Edwards is the same type of attorney as Ralph Nader and his Nader's Raiders. Smearing him as "sleazy" because he represents injured individuals in their fight with greedy, amoral corporations shows the author's prejudice.

Try this on for size, David Michael Green: Maybe I'm wrong, and you're not just a sleazy college professor.

Going down that list of names is about enough to make a person ill. Kucinich is the best man and would actually gladly answer his question honestly. If the candidates were made to continually answer the types of questions we would ask I think they would soon quit their campaigns.

So the main criticism of Obama is that "If you become the nominee, the GOP smear machine is going to attack you mercilessly"?

Yes, and that moment could be the "definer" when voters finally reject the GOP smear machine and become the people of national character that we would like to think of ourselves as being.

Other than party affiliation, Barack has little in common with John Kerry, Bill Clinton and Harry Reid.
Why is this author trying to attach that baggage to a fresh candidate? To call for Al Gore? Good grief.
Al Gore has found his calling, and even he knows it isn't the White House. Why does the author not know this?

I second the proposal. Plus the probability of the possibility tends to increase when it is out there for all to view clear as day.

I propose that we borrow once again from the French a symbolic monument, comparable to Lady Liberty in the harbor, embodiment of the freedom and compassion that America strives to maintain. This one would be an early 19th century icon, the guillotine, symbol of accountability. We could build a great big one, at one end of the reflecting pool, clearly visible from the White House. Not that I would suggest actually using the thing on anybody, but just having it there as a reminder that accountability, like compassion and liberty, exists as a possibility in a nation with lofty ideals.

dponcy,

So true - good point! This crticism of Kucinich, from a purported "professor", comes from an all to commmon position of US-centric ignorance.

Look at how the right-wing, pro corporate extremist (for France) Sarkozy has proposed a ban on all GMU crops throughout France. And anything but the slightest tampering with France's generous social programs - especially it's full-blown "socialist" health care system -the best in the world, is utterly beyond consideraton by Sarkozy or anyone else.

Here's the answers if they spoke the truth:

HILLARY CLINTON: Your vote on both the Iraq and Iran resolutions are inexcusable. You claim to be tested, experienced and ready to go, but your rationalization for the Iraq vote is that you were essentially duped by the president, and that you were not voting to authorize war, just the threat of war. If you have such wisdom and experience, why were you fooled when so many other people throughout the world - including half the Democrats in Congress - were not? Why were you voting to give license to attack a country which had neither threatened nor attacked the United States? Why was Iraq an urgent threat that required military action when the Soviet Union was not throughout the entire Cold War?

"I wasn't fooled, David. I did it for political expediency. I'm a human weather vane. So what if there's a million dead Iraqis? At least I get to be president. Let's bomb Iran!"

JOHN McCAIN: Of all the candidates running, you are the greatest enthusiast for the Iraq war. You also claim to be riding the Straight-Talk Express. So, how about a little straight talk on Iraq? If Saddam Hussein was such a menace to his neighborhood, why did the United States, under Ronald Reagan, encourage him to attack Iran, and supply him with weapons and intelligence and satellite reconnaissance when he was doing so? If he was such a monster when he was using chemical weapons against both Iranians and Iraqis, why did Republican administrations in the US turn a blind eye to that and even protect the Iraqis from condemnation at the UN?

"Come on, David, we love monsters. How else would we get to test our weapons on real, live people? Oh that's right, let's bomb bomb bomb Iran!"

BARACK OBAMA: If you become the Democratic nominee, the GOP smear machine is going to attack you mercilessly. If you win the presidency, they are going to do everything imaginable to cripple your presidency, from the use of bogus allegations and investigations to relentless filibustering. How are you going to avoid being John Kerry? And if you manage that trick, how are you going to avoid being Bill Clinton or Harry Reid? (Hint: Saying nice things about 'hope' will be, ahem, somewhat less than sufficient to achieve that goal.)

"Those fools pandered to the right and look what happened. Hurray for Reagan!"

MITT ROMNEY: Is it possible you could be any more oleaginous than you are? Oops, er, how'd that get in there? Never mind. Here's the real question: Like every other Republican running for president, you bow to the true god of your party, and the true reason for its existence: tax cuts for the wealthy. All of these cuts, going back to Reagan, have been financed by borrowing, meaning that we are flat-out simply stealing from our children. Will you apologize for sticking them with the bill for the Republican Party's party? For your reckless fiscal irresponsibility, your bacchanalia of greed and selfishness? And if you refuse to do that (and - call me a wild man out on a limb if you must - but something tells me you won't be making this apology), will you at least tell us exactly which federal government programs you will cut in order to balance the budget against your tax cuts, so that we don't increase the already monstrous $9 trillion that we now owe, the current (and rising) equivalent of $60,000 for every taxpayer in America?

"David, I'm filthy rich. I'll balance the budget by cutting everything that that those peasants need like public education and welfare, and line my own pockets with taxpayer money using corporate subsidies!"

JOHN EDWARDS: I know you say that you voted for the Iraq war because you were duped by the president. I don't believe you (or Hillary or Kerry) - I think you were actually running for president when you cast that most cynical and therefore most reprehensible of votes ever in American history. I could never forgive the war vote if it was for the wrong reasons, but I can't say definitively what your motivation was, and god knows that the administration did lie endlessly about the need for war. Maybe I'm wrong, and you're not just a sleazy personal injury trial attorney trying to win the Democratic nomination by playing the economic populist role. But here's the one that really troubles me, especially with my suspicions about the war vote as background. You say that you are the son of a mill-worker and all that rap you always do, and that this battle for the people's economic welfare is something that's "personal" to you, that you feel in your bones. So then my question is why did you vote with Republicans in favor of draconian bankruptcy legislation in 2000 and 2001 that would have hammered working people while enriching special interests like the financial industry? And why did you vote against Paul Wellstone's amendment that would have at least exempted people who were forced into bankruptcy due to medical bills? You say that your whole life history has led you to this moment as an anti-poverty advocate for the little people, like your dad the mill-worker. But where was your life history just seven years ago?

"David, I'm really a corporate shill like Hillary, but since I won't win the Democratic nomination, I'll pretent to be a populist. That way I get to run for vice-president again!"

RUDY GIULIANI: You seek the nomination of a party which believes government should control women's reproductive choices, gays' marriage rights, individuals' choices to save their own lives by using medicinal marijuana while undergoing chemotherapy, people's right to take their own lives rather than undergoing a painful and protracted death, not to mention Terri Schiavo's family medical crisis, and was so obsessed with Bill Clinton's personal sex life that they impeached him. And yet when there are questions raised about your very public extramarital affairs, your divorces, your marriage to your cousin and your children who aren't speaking to you and are supporting other candidates, you responded by saying "Leave my family alone". Yeah, you actually said that. My question is whether you'd care to apologize to the rest of the country for your party's relentless interventions into the private lives of our families? Or are you satisfied instead to be the hypocrite of the millennium?

"David, we're the elite, we get to tell the masses how to behave while we live a life of debauchery. Haven't you read any history books?"

MIKE HUCKABEE: According to your Wikipedia entry, Mike, "On December 26, 2007 the conservative organization Judicial Watch announced that Mike Huckabee was named to its list of Washington's 'Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians' for 2007. They state that Huckabee, as governor, was the subject of '14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor's office'. Judicial Watch further accused Huckabee of attempting to block the state ethics commission's investigations of the allegations." My question is what would Jesus do about this? Is that in the bible? I seem to have missed the part where JC extolled politicians to engage in personal enrichment at the public's expense and destroy evidence of the crime.

"I'm just a golden-throated evangelist, David. I don't believe in Jesus, or even God. I just say that to line my pockets with stolen cash! Jim Bakker, he's my hero."

FRED THOMPSON: You've been a Washington lobbyist and your kids are now Washington lobbyists. During Watergate, while you were supposedly serving as counsel to the congressional committee investigating the crime, Nixon's White House lawyer reported that you were "willing to go, you know, pretty much the distance now" in protecting the president from the Congress you were hired to serve. We all know that Republicans are supposed to lie in order to cover up for their cheating and stealing, but isn't this a bit much? Is this your idea of good governance?

"I'm an actor David, I'm the best liar of all the candidates!"

DUNCAN HUNTER: Your party keeps telling us that y'all are the small government people who want to get Washington off our backs. If that's so, how come you favor every imaginable restriction on abortion, gay marriage, stem-cell research, 'obscenity' and gambling? And how come such a big law-and-order guy like you has a problem with the concept of hate crimes?

"Hate crimes are crimes committed against all the people I hate. Comprende?

MIKE GRAVEL: I salute your very real courage and prior contributions to American democracy. I love a lot of what you have to say these days, as well, but for your sake and the sake of our common values, could you leave off the tin-foil hat parts?

"You hate me don't you, why do you hate me?"

ALAN KEYES: Have you had your meds today?

"David, you are one selfish hedonist."

DENNIS KUCINICH: Thank you for saying so many of the things that sorely need to be said in American politics today, especially with regard to economic justice. But here's a problem: When Francois Mitterrand tried to implement a left-leaning economic agenda in France a quarter-century ago, it crashed because of the threat of capital flight. Today, dollars are far more mobile than francs were even then. When Wall Street greets your economic program with threats of abandoning the country for cheaper places to do business (even more than they have been already), and destroying the American economy, what will you do? What do you know that Mitterrand did not?

"By the time I get into power, David, the dollar will be so weak, WE will be the cheapest place to do business."

RON PAUL: What the hell are you doing in the Republican Party?

"I'm a fake, David. Underneath my anti-war exterior, is a welfare-loathing, selfish pro-life zealot, just like all my Republican friends."

AL GORE: History is screaming your name (see above list of lame candidates). What the hell are you doing on the sidelines?

"I've already shot off my left foot, David. If I run again, I'll have no feet at all!"

This was a pretty good article with regard to politicians sleazynesness and lack of principle, although I found the soft-red-baiting of Kucinich and tin-foil hatting of Gravel to be pretty goddamn annoyong, but then this:

"History is screaming your [Al Gore's] name (see above list of lame candidates). What the hell are you doing on the sidelines?"

SURELY, Mr. Green, you could have found plenty of lame opportunismm, huypocracy, and outright lying in Gores long career. For starters, you could have pointed out Gore's good efforts for Big Business at the Kyoto Summit - delibarately sabotaging and rendering the resulting treaty utterly worthless at addressing global warming.

Then you could have taken a look at Gore's record of support for the quiet and sometimes not so quiet slaughter if Iraqis through the 1990's.

It appears, Prof. Green, that you may be guilty of the same intellectual dishonesty that you are acusing these politicians of.

Re: Dennis Kucinich - DK is proposing things that conservatives in most of the rest of the world take for granted. His programs are only left wing in context of the U.S., otherwise they are pretty centrist. So where is capital going to go? I think this is a bogus fear.

Excellent questions. Plus I must say that that word "oleaginous" is one that needs to be added to the vocabularly.

oleaginous - covered with oil; oily or greasy.

Hell, all of DC is oleaginous.