Excellent response!!  This guy is apparently one of the 30% still drinking the kool-aid.  WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!?!?!  You should have pointed out to him that's HE'S the minority here.  Notice how he could only come up with name calling to refute your positions and not back his own.  Pure sign of a troubled individual.

We're forbidden even to mention politics when my 86 year old mother is present for fear of giving her another coronary.  We started fighting about politics after the Kent State killings when I was about 12 years old and we haven't stopped since.  I'm the official family liberal (although I consider myself a progressive along Webb lines) and my brother is the official family neocon Republican (read troglodyte).  Other than that we get along swell. 

http://www.howstuffw...
According to this poll:

The national poll, conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation  shows that about a third of Americans believe in ghosts (34 percent) and an equal number in UFOs (34 percent), and about a quarter accept things like astrology (29 percent), reincarnation (25 percent) and witches (24 percent).

I think what happened at dinner, Alex, is the typical denial process.  Joe Klein tells us this amusing anecdote at Time's blog:http://time-blog.com...

At the front of the House chamber, Democrats positioned a blown-up photograph of Mr. Bush standing on the carrier deck on May 1, 2003.  Aides to the president were openly angry about the reminders, and the Democrats' unusual legislative signing ceremony.

"It's a trumped-up political stunt," Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One.

If that was a trumped up political stunt, what was the Abraham Lincoln carrier event?  Shakespeare?

and to the point!

Well, technically there are such people as Wiccans, who do practice "witchcraft". i myself am not ashamed to admit--being the big scifi/Star Wars fan that I am--that I believe in extra-terrestrials. however, I don't believe they've come by lately. Might be waiting for Chimpy to step down first.

on your ability to know what's right and wrong.  And maybe these "friends" with their Bush-loving philosophy know they are in the minority now and are lashing out where ever they can.  Good for you!!!

I have had similar experiences, unfortunately within my own family. Any attempt to discuss the situation rationally and civilly results in the same, almost desperate parroting of talking points as if they were brainwashed.  Such individuals usually employ louder and louder tones, believing that shouting and attacking the person who disagrees is going to overwhelm the opponent, and change his mind. Massive retaliation works, doesn't it!

What I have learned is that, as this scenario plays out over and over, no communication results.  Sadly, the hard core Bushies are just like their Fearless Leader: mentally impenetrable; any disagreement is regarded as being willfully unpatriotic, and the dissenter is evil. Yet, in my opinion, their vitriolic response to even mild questions shows they have a barely controlled underlying uncertainty which can only be assuaged by ostentatious verbal violence (and even physical violence sometimes). Such assaults thus prove to themselves and their associates how true, how correct they are.

I recall the strange contortions and effusive public praise of Stalin and of Hitler by their minions and functionaries, who were desperate to assure their Leader they should not be purged because they gave loud public proof of their fanatical correct belief. No doubt there were similar public shows of abject subservience during the Inquisition by frightened True Believers seeking to avoid immolation.

I have asked myself, is this the mind set of fascism, or indeed of any authoritarian system, which is eagerly embraced by what seem to me to be immaturely developed personalities? They are afraid that any disagreement undermines their safety, the safety they feel only by absolute conformity, with a paranoid certainty that everyone outside their circle is out to ge get them, and only unremitting warfare can save them and wipe out non-conformance both within and without. I never thought Americans could fall for this kind of mind rot, but apparently they can and do. 

You put your finger on the issue in your final paragraph.  My brother is a large, strong man with a loud voice and outwardly very self-confident, but his brashness is a cover for anxiety, insecurity, and a sense that the world is a very unsafe place.  I think the kind of certainty expressed by the neocons appeals particularly to people who have inflexible personalities and require certainty in all things.  This same type of personality is also attracted to anything which reduces the world to black and white terms. 

We always try to keep politics off the table at any family gathering because my 80 year old mother ends up calling me a "damn Democrat". This is usually her final response to my questioning her "logic" in supporting Bush.
1.  He is the President so he must be right
2.  Democrats are troublemakers
3.  The terrorists will be all over Richomond if we don't go along. Bush is protecting us here at home....
4.  Reagan was a nice man
5.  Bill Clinton was nothing but a womanizer (so, evidently was my father, they have only been divorced for 30 years)
6.  The news programs are all for the President(anybody know how to install a block on Fox?)

Since MY daughters have sense enough to just keep quiet and let me take the heat I guess I must have done somthing right.

to my brother and now it turns out you have been hanging around with my mother.  My dear and long-departed father was a secret Democrat who taught me to view with suspicion anyone who thinks the world is a simple place of good guys in white hats and bad guys in black.  He was secret because Mom could get a little excitable when one questioned government action.  She worked for the CIA for 36 years (knew Wild Bill Donovan), but Dad taught Latin American History and had a healthy skepticism of the forces of regime change. 

We decided my brother and I should never talk politics around Mom anymore because she would get so excited trying to back him up and getting mad at me that we worried about her health.  Not to worry, though, her sister is a lifelong Massachusetts Democrat. 

You're a better man then me. I can't even sit down at a bar or anyplace where people are listening to the Goebbels-esque Fox news channel. At my dentists office they have that channel blaring in every treatment room. When I show up I insist they change the channel or I may gag and throw up in their face, (hehe). They don't like me, but my dentist is OK, just a misguided died-in-the wool Republican. I feel sorry for some of them.

Here's Jon Stewart on Wolfowitz:

Stewart outlined the steps Wolfowitz followed to "avoid" a conflict-of-interest in working with his girlfriend, Shaha Riza.

"To comply with the bank's conflict of interest policy, Wolfowitz had Riza transferred to the State Department, given a $60,000 raise, a promotion and guaranteed positive performance reviews ... to avoid conflict of interest," Stewart said. "What's next? bombing the s--t out of a country in order to save it?

http://rawstory.com/...

Here's another one.  Remember when DOJ officials said that U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias was fired because he was absent from the office one month out of the year (for his Navy reserve duty)? They called him an "absentee landlord."

TPM Muckraker has added two and two and come out with this jewel:http://www.tpmmuckra...

One of the senior Justice Department officials involved in the firings is Bill Mercer, the U.S. Attorney for Montana who pulls double duty as the principal associate deputy attorney general in Washington, D.C. Well, I say double duty, but he really doesn't seem to spend much time as U.S. attorney: just three days per month, according to congressional testimony.

The chief judge in Mercer's district has been complaining about his absence for years, at one point berating him during a court hearing: "You have no credibility -- none.... Your office is a mess." And that judge did what he could to get Mercer thrown out, even writing to Alberto Gonzales in 2005 that Mercer was violating federal law by not living in the district of which he was supposedly U.S. attorney.

So what did Mercer do? He changed the law. From The Washington Post:

  [In November of 2005] Mercer had a GOP Senate staffer insert into a bill a provision that would change the rules so that federal prosecutors could live outside their districts to serve in other jobs, according to documents and interviews

  Congress passed the provision several months later as part of the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill, retroactively benefiting Mercer and a handful of other senior Justice officials who pull double duty as U.S. attorneys and headquarters officials....

  ...[T]he new legislation was added to the Patriot bill at the request of Mercer, who had been assigned the task of shepherding the provision through Congress, according to congressional aides and new statements from one of Mercer's colleagues.

TPM concludes: "And yet one of the officials responsible for the firings had the law changed so that he could still be the U.S. attorney while being all but completely absent from his district. Funny, huh?"

We'll keep seeing repetitions of this denial behavior right through to the end of this Administration.

Choose your lunch partners well!

More foolishness from the GOP.  Those of us who regularly read humorist Dave Barry's blog know he never gets involved in political issues.  So what led him to ask that question?
http://blogs.herald....

This Utah newspaper report is humorous from beginning to end; here are a few highlights:
http://www.heraldext...

Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's influence on illegal immigrants.

The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials.***

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.***

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

***

Joel Wright, a member of the Cedar Hills City Council, was booed as he opposed the resolution.
***
Eventually party officials counted all delegates in attendance, only to discover that, with 299, they were about 30 short of a quorum and could take no action.***

Congressman Chris Cannon and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff both received a standing ovation from some members of the audience. Cannon said Democrats have just as many corrupt party members as the Republicans but the media does not report Democratic ethics violations.

Shurtleff said that while Americans are divided on the war in Iraq, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson should not refer to President Bush as a war criminal.

i noticed in the full article that the chairwoman of the UT R's is none other than Enid Greene, congresswoman of Salt lake city 1994-96. She's best known for the fact that her then-husband Joe Waldholtz, who had served as her campaign manager, was convicted of embezzlement and had disappeared for 6 days to avoid arrest prior to this conviction. A better profile can ben found here:  <>

UT Goopers must be running out of brains and/or talent if they stooped to appointing her as chair.

Enid Greene

Some stuff from Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia....

Greene married Waldholtz in 1993. After her marriage, Greene took the name Enid Greene Waldholtz. During her 1994 rematch against Shepherd, Joe acted as her campaign manager. Her campaign spent approximately $2 million, the most expensive House race in the country that year. ***
Her term was marred with scandal*** Almost $1.8 million of the money spent in the 1994 campaign came from her husband, Joe, who had embezzled nearly $4 million from her father. Joe Waldholtz disappeared in November 1995 for six days before surrendering to police. During that time she announced that she was suing for divorce, for custody of her daughter, and to change her name back to 'Enid Greene'. Under pressure from Utah Republicans, she announced on March 5, 1996 that she would not seek re-election to Congress.

I think the problem really is with aliens, although it's not the ones the neocons are attacking. The motto for the Goofy Old Party (I love that 2007 GOP definition that was posted a day or two ago) should be adopted from the old Pogo comic strip: "We have met the (alien) enemy, and he is us". These GOPers really are aliens from outer space, from the Planet Duh. More accuratly, the very, very dark side of the Planet Duh.
Personally, I have no doubt in my mind that the dark side of the Planet Duh is where satan lives. So the logical conclusion has to be that these wingnuts and their G.W. leader really are agents of satan. Rushdie's book "Satanic Verses" does come to mind as I type this.
Back to more pleasant thoughts: Suicidal Goofy Old Party ranting is so, so helpful that it must make George "Macaccawitz" Allen feel like he didn't give Jim Webb a large enough gift last year.
 Sad for the GOP but I'm not crying, just working harder.

                       T.C.

Our Founding Fathers were radicals, not moderate enough to be called liberals.  Ben Franklin thankfully questioned the Bible and all of its methods to scare and control the masses. 

Is the drafting dodging, Fat, Dick Cheney a liberal simply because he personally must have opposed the Vietnam War?  He probably has more unkempt hair in his ears than hippies from the 60's had.

Under this crappy government, I'm jealous that you were called a "fucking liberal."  Wear it as a badge of honor, and an indication that you can actually think for yourself.
 

With these answers it is hard to believe that this guy was serious.  If this guy was serious I would rate him as delusional.  He could call me anything he wants, it would be a compliment.

--I asked him if America was better off today than when Bush took office. The answer was yes. I asked him if the military was better off today than when Bush took office. The answer was yes. Then I asked if America's reputation around the world had suffered under this administration. The answer was that it didn't matter, that we are the world's super power and leading the fight against international terrorism.

I run in alot of circles with military - hill - lobbist crowd and I say it loud and clear.  I am a Democrat - and if you want to label that a "fucking liberal" cool....

Next time - ask "what exactly is wrong with a "fucking liberal?"

Being a "fucking liberal" is one hell of lot better than being a "limp-dick neo-con". In my, feminine, opinion.

Neo-con: Mission accomplished
Fucking liberal: Emission accomplished

The "f" word is a strange one.  It should be a high compliment, i.e., that one is able to engage healthfully and joyously in intercourse.

Perhaps the appropriate response should be -- "yes, it's great fun, and I partake frequently."

I decided to google "Images" for "fucking liberal" and I came up with this: