Boston Globe speculating on if Dukakis had won - mentions Biden

[Muttocracy]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/08/03/president_duke/

biden bit
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/08/03/president_duke/?page=4

The second floor of the Dukakis Library is dominated by a multimedia presentation concerning the Persian Gulf Crisis of 1991. After President Dukakis cut off all aid to both sides of the Iran-Iraq conflict, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein felt his grip on power threatened. He appeared to be mobilizing his army to move south into Kuwait. Secretary of State Joseph Biden - who'd taken the Cabinet job after reconciling with Dukakis over the role the latter's campaign had played in hanging a plagiarism charge on Biden during the primary season - warned Hussein against such a move.

The story is now well known as to how Biden and Gary Hart, whom Dukakis had appointed a special envoy to the Middle East, enlisted the help of Republican operative James Baker to build an international coalition to resist Iraqi aggression. The United Nations passed a resolution threatening massive military action if Hussein moved into Kuwait. For two weeks, the Iraqi president fumed and dithered but, ultimately, his troops stayed in Iraq. Hussein's capitulation caused his regime to gradually become less and less stable in the face of a Kurdish independence movement in the north and a restive Shiite majority elsewhere in the country.

[gateley]

1. That's great!

When I got to "Secretary of State Joseph Biden" my face just split into a huge grin.

I often wonder what it would be like if Bush had never become President. And by thinking of affordable gas, affordable food, manageable utility bills, little fear of becoming re-employed if one were to lose one's job, not feeling a sense of being watched when on the phone, internet, e-mails, not wondering if you're on a "list" that will get you questioned and delayed at the airport, not worrying about the dollar not buying what it used to here and abroad, being ashamed of our country's actions, and on and on --

-- When I think of these things, I realize how much we've changed already, and how much this administration has destroyed all we believed we were, because it's DIFFICULT for me to imagine a life like we had just 8 years ago.

:cry:

[PatSeg]

2. 8 years ago, seems like a lifetime

I feel like I've crossed into some alternate universe and I can't quite get my bearings.

I was reading yesterday that the California Democrats wanted Gregory Peck to run for governor against incumbent Ronald Reagan. It was pretty much acknowledged that Peck would have won easily and he was a very involved liberal. So I was thinking, "what if" Reagan had lost that election, maybe HE would have never become president, and you know the rest.

[CrispyQ]

3. If ever there was an election I wish I could change, it would be 1980.

It could have truly been morning in America instead of mourning in America. :cry:

Just think where we might be if we had continued with Carter's energy policies. Instead, the American people were duped by the Iran hostage crisis & a shallow, smooth talking empty head. Shallow is an apt descriptive of today's America.

[PatSeg]

4. Well I find some comfort

in that fact that the republicans have done so much damage that they will hopefully be irrelevant for many years to come. When some day they make their comeback (if ever), hopefully they'll be more sane.

I'm more inclined to believe the Democratic party will split into two parties as the republicans self-destruct.

[CrispyQ]

5. Do tell!

That's been a fantasy of mine for sometime now -- that the dem party would split.

Here's how I see it: The genuine conservatives will splinter off from the repub party wackos. The DLC dems & bluedog dems will join with the conservatives. The progressives will then form our own party with Kucinich & Feingold dems & become a truly liberal, populist party again.

Sigh...if only wishing made it so.

What's your version?

[PatSeg]

6. That's pretty much what I see happening

The "republican brand", as they say, has been so damaged, I don't think it can be recycled. Meanwhile, the more moderate and conservative Democrats tend to resemble the old republican party. I think it would be a better balance than what we have now. Meanwhile, most of the scoundrels and crooks in office now will retire in hopes they won't get exposed or prosecuted.

[Muttocracy]

7. It does seem we're overdue for a party restructuring.

Some people talk about the big 2 parties like they've been that way since 1750 or something. I think the spread within each party is huge (Lieberman end of Dems to Kucinich end).

I remember in my senior year of high school in political science a graphic in my textbook that had liberal and conservative on two axes - fiscal and social. You see it other places, but I always keep that in mind, and there are probably more axes in reality. The whole liberal/conservative dichotomy doesn't really make sense. The current GOP includes an odd mix of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and world dominators who don't make sense together. I would think the fiscal conservatives would align with libertarians / other small government types. Small government is a position I can respect (as someone who has spent her adult life living in some of the highest taxed states) even if I usually don't vote that way. The in-your-bedroom-and-dominating-the-world stuff, nope.

[PatSeg]

8. The parties are nothing like they were when I was

young. Goldwater was rather liberal by today's standards. The republican party used to actually stand for something but today it just spouts out that crap about small government and fiscal responsibility evidently believing people are still buying it. Interference in people's personal life was not part of the republican platform. They wanted less government in their personal lives, not more.

Now the republicans just say whatever they think people want to hear and eventually that backfires. The truth is they are the party of big money and corporations - the little guy be damned.