Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

This has all the makings of Ollie North’s testimony—just when the Democrats thought they were getting some traction against a Republican president, an intelligent and sympathetic spokesperson arrives to completely turn the tables on them in a public forum.

I think it’s wonderful; Condi’s sharp as a scalpel, and if anybody thinks they’re going to browbeat, intimidate of befuddle her, they’re in for a rude shock.

It is not surprising that Bush has been able to buy himself better numbers. This election is far from decided, so don’t get too cozy. What’s the margin of error on those polls anyway? Oh yeah, it’s 4.

As for the issue of Rice, nothing is backfiring for the Democrats here. Reasonable people with an interest in the facts asked the administration to allow the National Security Adviser to testify publically under oath so that the public could scrutinize her statements and evaluate whether they could, in fact, disprove any of the serious statements that Richard Clarke made in his testimony. The White House tried its best to side-step this issue, but ultimately they were unable to avoid doing the right thing.

They are now doing the right thing. This is all that we wanted. You see, unlike Bill Frist, no one has called our bluff here. We really DO want to hear what Rice has to say EVEN IF it is not in line with our particular beliefs. EVEN IF she can disprove all of Clarke’s statements beyond a reasonable doubt, we would LOVE to hear what she has to say.

Nothing is backfiring. Everything is going exactly according to our master plan. Bwa ha ha! BWA HA HA!

> The furor and slander the democrats hoped to
> create by calling for Rice …

Ha, that’s funny. We want her to testify because it’s simply outrageous and disgusting for her not to testify. Period.

In fact, it’s probably politically more advantageous to Democrats if they never caved in. The administration’s uncooperativeness and secrety would almost certainly become a huge election issue. It still will be an election issue, although now that she’s testifying it won’t be so red hot. If Democrats really wanted to use this incident for political gain, they would have tried to let the scandal end with Rice’s recalcitrance being the main memory. You would not have heard major Democrats, including John Kerry himself, increasing the pressure on the administration day after day. Instead, she has become the star witness. We’ll see how well she does.

Hmm, maybe that’s what Rove wanted all along. Maybe his tactic was to initially pretend to be uncooperative, the Democrats take the bait and cry foul, and then they cooperate and lo and behold the testimony is golden. It’s pretty convoluted and machiavellian. If that’s the case, then I can only guess that Rove must be practicing some sort of powerful black magic or something.

-Cf

Indeed, I’m overjoyed that she will testify. As for her testimony backfiring on the Democrats… that just doesn’t really make sense. I just wanted her to get out there and testify - to tell the truth. She’ll have to do that now. However it plays out, the “right thing” will have occured, and that is a victory for all of us.

On that subject… how many times now has Bush, who doesn’t listen to “focus groups,” had to flip-flop his position in response to public and political outcries? How many times have we had to force the “right thing” to happen? Even once is too often.

As usual the Right would have us all believe that the left is on a witch-hunt out to get Dr. Rise. In actual fact Republicans as well as Democrats have called for her to testify before the Presidential (not Congressional) Commission; to whit:

I would like to have her testimony under the penalty of perjury…I think she should be under the same penalty as Richard Clarke…”—Mr. Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, addressing the standoff between the White House and the Commission vis-à-vis Dr. Rice’s refusal to testify before it on Monday.

And a change in the polls which places Bush ahead of Kerry despite the week long revelations calling into question the Bush Administration fitness to lead our nation, only testifies to the gullibility of the majority of the American populace, who would rather be spoon-fed crap, the feed themselves on the ambrosia of truth. It continually boggles my mind how any rational thinking person can still believe in Bush, and his simple-minded view of the world.

All of his Administrations transgressions gathered together amount to gross malfeasance boarding on unforgivable neglect of the American people. Heaven help us all if we have to suffer under his yoke another four years…

Look, Eric, information doesn’t flow perfectly, but it will flow. The damage from Clarke is only just beginning to work itself out. There are millions now who have read his book, and been confronted with the surprising history of counterterrorism under Clinton.

You want an example? Try this in USA Today:
Operation Sapphire

It seems like the Clinton administration enjoyed outing secret agents too. Only they had the good sense to stick to outing the enemy’s agents instead of their own.

On the subject of Ollie North, I think you should understand that Clarke was his successor. You should also understand that North, as intelligent and sympthetic as he looked was both a patsy for his superiors, and convicted criminal when everything was said and done, one who negotiated with terrorists, and sold arms to a terrorist sponsoring country then on the wrong side of a war we didn’t want them to win.

National Security Advisor Poindexter and Oliver North went to prison. If this is what you consider stellar performance in an National Security Council, then I’m not worried what the voters will decide.

As for Condi Rice’s performance, I watched her interview on 60 Minutes, and she did not seem comfortable at all. Not all intelligent people come across well on camera, and she doesn’t seem to be one of them.

V Edward Martin, if I for one thought it were indeed the “ambrosia of truth” instead of Democratic partisan Kool-Aid, I’d line up with my Dixie-cup as well.

Don’t make such a hullabaloo out of the fact that it took a few days (a few days!) to wrangle out the details of arranging the almost unprecedented (or at least very rare) step of having a high ranking administration official sit for this type of hearing. We all (including Bush and Condi) said they wanted this, so now we’ve got it. Is this the Democrat’s idea of a scanal now? Remember how long it took to iron out the details of Clinton’s Lewinsky testimony. These kinds of things are not—nor should they—as simple as ordering pizza.

Martin-

If there had not been any additional pressure on the Bush administration to have Rice testify, do you think they would have voluntarily come forward and put her out there? No. Of course not. If they really wanted her to testify publically so much, they would have taken a few days to work out the details of the ordeal before her FIRST testimony. Or at LEAST they would have come out days AGO and said that all they were doing was working out the details of HOW she was going to testify. But no. They continued to try to avoid doing the right thing until the pressure was simply too high. They may have said they wanted this, but if they really did, they would have handled things a lot differently.

We have a right to be outraged by the reluctance of our government to be accountable for its actions or tolerant of any sort of scrutiny.

It’s democracy, Kathryn, and it’s never been any different. Any government wrangles with various public pressures, resists at some points and eventually seeks compromises at others. Without such pressures, we have totalitarian states like Saddam;s Iraq—which our beloved hero George Bush has now heroically liberated.

Martin-

What’s your point? of course they wrangle with public pressure, and of course that’s ultimately why they decided to do something that they had no desire or intent to do (despite what they claim). Their actions speak louder than their words here. If they had truly wanted this to be the outcome, their course of action would have been different.

So I know that the pressures are good. And the fact that they ended up caving under the pressure is also good. Not just because it shows that they can compromise, but also because IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO .

I have no problem with what the White House decided today. In fact, I’m pleased with it. Because, as I have said, this is exactly what those of us who advocated her testimony wanted. We did not want to make the President look bad. We actually wanted her testimony. So this is good.

>Rice is articulate and intelligent and she will be a powerful witness.

Facts, as they say, are stubborn things. Being smart doesn’t help if you need to reveal embarrassing facts to avoid a perjury rap. (This sounds strangely familiar.) Whether she likes it or not, she may be a powerful witness against her boss.

To echo an earlier point, not all smart people look good on television (and not all dumb people look bad on television).

It is very interesting to me to see the posts from what appear to be die hard Democrats stating that Condi Rice’s testimony is the only thing they wanted out of this. It will be interesting to see their posts change radically once she does testify, as their teeth will bare and they will snarl with righteous indignation over WHAT she says. They will parse every word, review every possible angle and then declare Condi Rice and the Bush team to have been truly incompetent.

Folks, at least have the stones to admit this—dont hide behind your pleasant appearing posts by saying you just wanted Condi Rice to simply testify.

Kathryn—-two issues for you. You comment about Bush buying numbers, but ignore the fact that Kerry has plenty of buying power himself, due to the 527’s etc. Seems to me that you attribute any gain on Bush’s part to finances alone, although perhaps you agree with V. Edward that any gain on the Republican side is due to voter gullibility. A bit arrogant, dont you think.

Lastly, Kathryn, it is widely know that any post containing, and especially ending with (and I quote) Bwa ha ha! BWA HA HA!” is automatically considered ineffectual and a tad bit insipid (FYI)

joebag-

First, “bwa ha ha” is clearly a joke. Not meant to be anything other than silly (FYI). Sorry the humor was lost on you.

Second, Kerry does not have the hundreds of millions of dollars that Bush has, hence Kerry does not have the advertising buying power that Bush has, hence Bush CAN buy support. I’d like to quote from a post over in the Democratic column (“Let’s all grow up a little” thread) to illustrate this point:

Stephen Daugherty writes:

I took a class at Baylor called the Diffusion of Innovations. When you hear about “first adopters”, “early adopters” and the like, that’s the paradigm. Essentially, an idea or invention first adopted by a select few, able to absorb the results of the failures among those items, and then it diffuses through the population by means of groups of persuasive individuals who popularize the items they like, and the items that work.

So this is how campaigns work, and the more people you can get your message out to, the more effectively this strategy will work for you. Hence, the more money you have, the more people you can get your message out to, and thus, the higher your approval numbers would tend to be.

But like I said, this election is still in the very early stages. Neither party has even held a convention yet. There is plenty of time for polling numbers to swing back and forth in both directions without accurately predicting anything about what will happen in November.

The furor and slander the democrats hoped to create by calling for Rice to appear publicly before the 9/11 panel, in spite of the longstanding principle of Presidential advisor confidentiality

I love that the righties keep saying that. It creates a perfect opportunity to point out that Clinton’s national security advisor testified before Congress, under oath, during his presidency.

The poll numbers are real conclusive, by the way. After all, it’s not like Governor Dean had a 30 point lead against Kerry at any point during the primaries!

This election is far from decided, so don’t get too cozy.

If democrats continue as they are, pursueing the ‘politics of personal destruction’ with conspiracy theories designed to slander and discredit the President, I say: “Bring it on.”

Reasonable people with an interest in the facts asked the administration to allow the National Security Adviser to testify publically under oath so that the public could scrutinize her statements and evaluate whether they could… disprove …statements that Richard Clarke made…

I have watched CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and others report this story as if Rice has not testified at all. This whole issue has been a political manipulation from the beginning. Democrats have not been non-partisan with this. They have purposed to use this panel as a political weapon against the President. If it’s the facts we want, she’s given it. To demand public testimony is disengenuous on the part of democrats. Will Rice’s public testimony be any different than the testimony she’s already given?

…Rice already has spoken to the commission in private. But she says public testimony is protected by executive privilege. That principle says presidential advisors cannot be legally forced to disclose their confidential communications if that would adversely affect the operations of the executive branch.

It is rare for White House advisors to testify publicly before Congress or congressionally appointed panels like the Sept. 11 commission. But exceptions exist, and legal scholars say they poke holes in Rice’s argument. -Miamiherald

There is a reason not to have Rice testify publicly under oath. Richard Clarke himself was not allowed by the Clinton adminstration to testify to a congressional hearing in 1998. And Rice has already given hours of testimony to the commission, but not under oath! Your argument is reduced to, “She must have lied because she was not under oath.”

And a change in the polls which places Bush ahead of Kerry despite the week long revelations calling into question the Bush Administration fitness to lead our nation, only testifies to the gullibility of the majority of the American populace, who would rather be spoon-fed crap, the feed themselves on the ambrosia of truth. It continually boggles my mind how any rational thinking person can still believe in Bush, and his simple-minded view of the world.

That’s the democratic view of the common man I’ve come to know and love.

The damage from Clarke is only just beginning to work itself out. There are millions now who have read his book, and been confronted with the surprising history of counterterrorism under Clinton.

The 911 commission is just trying to get all the facts so that they can make a determination as to how our intelligence failed and how to not make the mistake again, right?

Democrats already have all the facts they need. Bush is the mistake in their minds. Electing democrats is the way to not make the same mistake again. To that end they view the 911 commission as a perfectly legitimate tool to destroy Bush. That’s fine for you to have made up your mind, but this commission should not be used as an arm of the Kerry campaign.

Re: Operation Saphire and the surprising history of counterterrorism. I think that Clinton did an adequete job. Not spectacular. However, if I were to judge this story by the standard you have set for Bush. Clinton struck the wrong target, without enough evidence!

Here’s another problem: Nuclear Iran.

The Clinton administration was unable to stop terrorist attacks. Terrorists destroyed American targets again and again. We arrested some, we tried some, we jailed some. But what kind of deterrent is it to jail someone we are told is ready to kill themselves. People who have that wide eyed fanatacism of the only true religion. One for whom the death of infidels is a duty? Which is the real enemy in your eyes? The jihadi’s, or Bush?

Facts, as they say, are stubborn things. Being smart doesn’t help if you need to reveal embarrassing facts to avoid a perjury rap. (This sounds strangely familiar.) Whether she likes it or not, she may be a powerful witness against her boss.

Perjury? Rice is a personal advisor to the President. What could she possibly commit perjury about? Bush knew? Do you think that Bush was warned by the Saudi’s about 911, and knowing that it would be a good pretext for invading Iraq he kept it quiet? And let it happen for his own political gain?

Good luck selling that one.

Rice already testified before the commission in private for four hours. Those that seek only the truth (and not looking for partisan gains) should be content that the commission already has her testimony and can analyze what to improve about our security situation.

On Bush “buying” votes from “gullible people”…he may be advertising hard, but the Dems had several months of unopposed and unabashed bashing of the Pres. So what if he has more money than Kerry, Kerry has had the media coverage over the last couple of months during the primary. How a nominee can campaign for 18 months and still not have people know much about him is telling of the candidate himself. I would wager that 75% of Dems vote for Kerry because of a passionate hatred of Bush. If that is Kerry’s hope, he will fall short.

V Edward-your bogglement will continue for another 4 years. Not only gullible, but intelligent people like and respect not only George Bush, but the direction that he is taking our foreign policy, economy, and reliance on the individual and not government to solve social problems. I have a clear understanding of the issues, and an intellectual approach to governance is not sacred ground for Democrats. To write off Republicans as not understanding the issues and being spoon fed their ideas is close minded and mean spirited, hardly the traits of an open minded and thoughtful person.

To demand public testimony is disengenuous on the part of democrats.

And what of the many Republicans asking that she testify, as well? The Commission was unanimous in their request - Republicans and Democrats.

Eric-

If democrats continue as they are, pursueing the ‘politics of personal destruction’ with conspiracy theories designed to slander and discredit the President, I say: “Bring it on.”

Huh? So you’re saying that if Democrats continue to question the policies of the current administration, the Repubicans will win easily? I hope our democracy works better than that. Just because people disagree with the way the President handles things, doesn’t mean that they are attempting to “slander and discredit” the President. “the politics of personal destruction,” “slander” and “discredit” have been tactics much more readily attributed to the Republicans in recent weeks.

Will Rice’s public testimony be any different than the testimony she’s already given?

Who knows? That’s the point. We don’t know what she has to say under oath in front of this commission, and we want to know. We feel that we deserve to know, in fact. That’s the whole point. We want to know what she has to say, and we want to evaluate it just as we have been able to with the other people who have testified (except of course for the President and the Vice President). Additionally, she has asked for this second appearance to address the things said by Clarke, so those of us who are inclined to believe Clarke would like to compare his testimony to hers so that we can decide what to believe.

Your argument is reduced to, “She must have lied because she was not under oath.”

No. Not must have lied. Certainly might have lied, but that’s not even the point. We want to know what she said. We want to watch her say it. We want to be able to evaluate her and her testimony in this important matter. Sure, she didn’t HAVE to testify, but given the circumstances, it’s the right thing to do.

Perjury? Rice is a personal advisor to the President. What could she possibly commit perjury about?

Well, let’s see…she could continue to lie about any of the things she has lied about in the past. For instance, she could say that she was never given a counter-terrorism plan by the clinton administration. I’m not saying she WILL lie. I doubt it very much. I suspect she will attempt to dodge questions rather than lying, but we’ll all have to see. However, Clarke was also a personal advisor to the President, and people have gone to great lengths to insinuate that he has lied (Rice says his statements were “scurilous”). Of course, when Kerry called their bluff and told them to prosecute him if they really believed he committed perjury, they jumped at that opportunity. Oh wait, no they didn’t.

Eric, Rice could be motivated to perjure herself for lots of other reasons besides covering up some crazy stupid conspiracy.

She might, for example, not want to reveal to the world that she had to teach Bush about who Osama bin Laden was. Such a revelation would make him look pretty dumb!

Maybe Bush spent hours on the phone with his father in the days after 9/11 - he wouldn’t want that to get out, it makes him looks like a daddy’s boy.

Maybe Bush pooped his pants on 9/11 and spent the whole day begging his staff to take him to the bunker. Nope, that would ruin his “brave warrior” image.

On a more serious note, maybe in the weeks leading up to 9/11 the Administration was working on a plan to fire all Clinton appointees in the various counterterrorism departments because they considered them obstacles to their plan to invade Iraq.

There are thousands of possible reasons for Rice to want to keep her meetings with the President under wraps. But nobody in the mainstream opposition thinks that “Bush knew” is seriously one of them.

This is starting to really annoy me.

Again and again, you conservatives accuse the Democrats (and the Republicans who agree with them) of being kooky conspiracy theorists, of trying to charge Bush with some ridiculous crime like “he knew about 9/11 and did nothing to prevent it”. Maybe you listen to too much Pacifica radio and you think they represent the mainstream left. Or maybe you listen to too much right wing radio’s propaganda about the left. In any event, I’ve never heard anyone seriously make the accusations you put in our mouths.

I’m going to boldface this just so you stop misrepresenting the opinions of the vast, vast majority of us who simply wish to see all the facts come out.

Nobody is accusing Bush of having deliberately chosen to allow 9/11 to happen.

Nobody is accusing Bush of having been able to prevent 9/11.

There. Now please stop it.

-Cf

One other thing: Was Rice’s previous private testimony under oath? I don’t think it was.

-Cf

One other thing: Was Rice’s previous private testimony under oath? I don’t think it was.

CF, so according to you any person who makes a statement about anything has to be under oath to make sure that they are telling the truth. Based on that every morning you must put yourself under the oath so that everything you will say on that day is truth in order for anyone else to believe you?

If you, the panel and others think people lie without the oath, then why bother? Save us taxpayers some money and only call on those who will testify under the oath.

Slander and discredit the president?

Well, if what is said is true, it’s not, by definition, slander. Also, if that’s the case, the President deserves to be discredited.

The thing you miss is that Condi Rice has not had to tell her story in such a way that lies could have criminal repercussions. Before, she say whatever she liked without penalty. Now, she has to stick to the truth, even if it makes things very uncomfortable for here.

That’s what we need. We need her statements made under the pressure of enforced honesty. If she makes her statement now, as she she did before, and evidence arises that she didn’t tell the truth, where before she would only suffer a drop in reputation, if it wasn’t spun properly, now she would be facing charges. That will make her consider what she tells and fails to tell the committee much more carefully.

All this business about congressional hearings would be nice if this was a congressional hearing, Martin. But this commission, although okayed by congress, was created by Bush himself. So it’s kind of weaselly.

As for Clarke he was saved from having to testify about the Y2K bug. I’m sure at the moment he had more important things to take care of. Like Embassy Bombings. I may have the chronology wrong on that but it’s not like Y2K really turned out to be that big of a deal. Unlike the Embassy attacks.

You talk halfheartedly about Operation Sapphire. You know, he struck the right target. Iranian agents were involved, and they had the evidence of that. It’s part of the reason the Saudis so quickly decapitated the culprits. They didn’t want another fracas like the Gulf War in their backyard.

Well in any case, Iranian agents have stopped targeting Americans, going back to folks who won’t send their agents crying back home to mother. Iraq never sent another terrorist attack our way either.

As for proliferation, for the past three years, it’s been Bush’s turn to deal with things. As to why Bush hasn’t sought sanctions or other means of containment and preventative action is beyond me. Perhaps he doesn’t want to have to go multilateral on the issue. In the meantime, the world’s leading terrorist sponsor is on its way to becoming a nuclear power.

Your perception of the Clinton Administrations admitted failures to prevent terrorist acts blind you to the work Clinton did in cutting off Bosnia from Al Quaeda, in breaking up Iran’s intelligence networks and sending Iraq an unambiguous message on the costs of trying to use terrorist means to strike back at America.

You also fail to understand that jailed terrorist is terrorist they can’t use to kill Americans. That terrorist, depending on our luck could also be of great help in rolling up nearby cells, and getting them in the klink and the morgue, where they won’t be committing terrorist acts. This isn’t about serving these guys with papers, this is about making it very difficult for terrorist to operate freely. this is about raising the cost and lowering the opportunities for terrorist acts. Are you against that? I thought not. So why complain?

Really, what Rice could potentially face is an unfriendly question whose answer she might otherwise have been able to avoid. And don’t kid yourself about Bush’s liabilities. It doesn’t have to be Bush ordering his staff to allow 9/11 to happen while he laughs maniacally at his own evil genius. You’re supposing the most unlikely scenario. The actual embarrassment may come from something no less banal than a simple organizational flowchart or budget memo. To paraphrase what Tom Cruise said of a mail fraud charge in The Firm, It doesn’t have to be sexy, it just has to have teeth.

Enforced honesty, Stephen? Reasonable people disagree about ALL interpretations of facts surrounding this issue, and being a Republican does not mean that you are either a born liar or someone suffering from a subhuman intellect. Actually, what continually surprises me is how much we—Dems, Republicans and Independents alike—have in common. We want a fair, open, prosperous and secure society—we just disagree profoundly about the best ways to achieve it.

How could Rice’s testimony ever lead to those “criminal repercussions” you suggest. Is George Bush himself going to accuse her of lying—who else would be in a postion to falsify her testimony? Al Franken? All testimony at the 9-11 hearings has revolved around basic facts already agreed upon—interpretation of those facts is all that’s at issue. Even Clarke’s testimony contains nothing but a new interpretation and set of opinions about those facts.

Another post to follow, because it’s just too precious not to have its own place in the sun.

“Your perception of the Clinton Administrations admitted failures to prevent terrorist acts blind you to the work Clinton did in…. sending Iraq an unambiguous message on the costs of trying to use terrorist means to strike back at America.” —-Stephen Daugherty

Stephen, in the past you’ve repeatedly denied that there was any connection whatsoever, WHATSOEVER, between Iraq and terrorism. And now you not only say that Clinton knew about such a connection, but he responded to it in unambigous terms? Either you’ve given away the farm, my friend, or you should explain. What was Clinton responding to—what “terrorist means” (in your own words), and what was his unambigous response?

This should be interesting.

Martin - I’ve only seen Stephen dispute the supposed Al Qaeda connection that gets bandied about every so often.

Not all terrorists are Al Qaeda, after all.

I’m confused. I was calling on Dr. Rice to testify publicly because it was the right thing to do considering the severity of 9/11. Now that she will, I am happy about that.

It wasn’t about politics. Now we’ll see how this “in tandem” testifying goes.

Exactly, ceejayoz!

Al Qaida weren’t and aren’t the only terrorists with the intent to attack America! So fighting Al Qaida alone won’t, wasn’t and never will be sufficient! Clinton knew, in Stephen’s own words, that Iraq sponsored terrorism against the United States, and went so far as to punish them for it.

So fighting terrorism MUST mean (again, according to points you’ve both already conceded) also fighting Iraq. Are you going to register as a Republican now—we’ll be glad to have you.

Game, set and match.

We arrested some, we tried some, we jailed some. But what kind of deterrent is it to jail someone we are told is ready to kill themselves.

Hey Eric, most of the terrorists who are arrested end up recanting, apologizing, and cooperating in the capture and conviction of their “brothers”. They also provide leads on terrorist recruitement and financing operations.

Thinking you’ll die and wake up in Paradise is one thing. Waking up in a dirty little cell every day for the rest of your life is another.

As for the poll business, the first poll shows Kerry completely creaming Bush and the second shows a virtual tie. If you see a landslide here you are kidding yourself.

It always amuses me how so many GOP partisans (and maybe Dems, but to a distinctly lesser extent) are ready to interpret every event as a good omen for their side. First of all, no one honestly knows what is going to happen in the next seven months. Barring people with special intelligence accesss, would’ve predicted in early 2001 that the US was going to be struck by a massive terrorist attack? Who would’ve predicted that this tragedy would lead to widespread public approval for Bush? Secondly, even if you (and the WSJ, Weekly Standard, etc) see a big win for Bush, what exactly is the point of trumpeting this fact? This whole business strikes me as being a bit neurotic.

As for myself, although I would very much like to see Bush lose, I see him having about a 50% chance of winning. Nothing that has happened recently makes me think otherwise.

While we are playing the poll game, Polling Report has a nice chart showing the trend in Bush’s approval rating in regard to “handling terrorism”. Last February it was 71%. Now it’s only 58%. That’s still more than half, so I’m not going to get excited and hire a polka band and throw a party. Nevertheless, I think this illustrates that you can find always find a trend to your liking.

Al Qaida weren’t and aren’t the only terrorists with the intent to attack America! So fighting Al Qaida alone won’t, wasn’t and never will be sufficient! Clinton knew, in Stephen’s own words, that Iraq sponsored terrorism against the United States, and went so far as to punish them for it.

So fighting terrorism MUST mean (again, according to points you’ve both already conceded) also fighting Iraq. Are you going to register as a Republican now—we’ll be glad to have you.

Game, set and match.

Hardly.

First off, if we’re going after every terrorist group, nothing is ever going to be “sufficient.” Not with the approach this Administration is taking to fight it.

I don’t believe we can fight every spot of terrorism, and thusly that we need to prioritize. Afghanistan was rightly a priority. Iraq was not.

If that was game, set, and match, we must be playing by different rules. Cheap “gotchas” just aren’t gonna cut it where thousands of lives are at stake.

Enforced honesty is what oathtaking and perjury laws are all about. That’s what I mean about legal repercussions. Tell the truth or else. No more evading the question. How did things go down before 9/11 and during that time? If she covers for Bush now, she’s done for.

And like I said, it doesn’t have to be something that would make Bush Criminally liable. It only has to make him look bad. This administration has a well-deserved reputation for secrecy. Now she has the legal obligation to reveal what she knows of Bush policy. If she is caught in a lie, she knows there will be consequences.

Interpretation of facts is what a great deal of the furor over Iraq’s WMDs is about. The facts were there, but the Administration chose their own “interpretation” An interpretation that went disastrously wrong.

Disastrously wrong also describes your critique of what I said. I never said that Iraq never engaged in terrorism, or that Clinton had not responded strongly to Iraq. What I’ve been saying is clear: There is no Al Quaeda/Iraq link. So far the evidence bears me out and not you. So far, Iraq has been tied to zero terrorist attacks between 1993 and 2001. Zero. So far, no documentary evidence of a working relationship with Al Quaeda. None. So far, one terrorist group was found in Iraq, and that was in the North where he did not have control. Am I wrong on any of these points? If not, the argument stands.

I can see now that you fail to see Al Quaeda for the threat it is, that you share the illusion of the Bush Administration: that terrorists need state support. In a day and age where corporations exist transnationally, and people wield great power over the lives of hundreds of millions of people in different countries without holding office, you still haven’t faced up to the new, post-cold war realities.

You still don’t understand how Al Quaeda has flipped the equation, in essence becoming a supporter of states, instead of being supported itself. The Taliban and Al Quaeda, for all intents and purposes, were part of the same game plan. Sudan, as well, before 2002.

You still don’t see how Al Quaeda takes advantage of the unrest in many muslim countries to lure large parts of the population to the Dark Side of Islam, and how Bush has essentially turned Iraq into a showcase for both American Arrogance, and American Vulnerability. Five American soldiers dead today. almost five hundred over the course of the occupation. If you think that 18 soldiers dying in Somalia was encouragement to these people, what then is twenty five times that number going to demonstrate? Regardless of whether democracy takes root in Iraq, and the nation stabilizes, the damage has been done, and the war on terror has suffered a major defeat.

> Clinton knew, in Stephen’s own words, that Iraq
> sponsored terrorism against the United States,
> and went so far as to punish them for it.

The incident in question was in 1993 when Saddam was discovered to have plotted to assassinate G.H.W. Bush in Kuwait. As far as most people know, after Clinton’s military retaliation Saddam pretty much quit the terrorism game.

Saddam’s public relations ploys, such as paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers *after the fact* and harboring Adu Nidal, hardly count as “sponsoring terrorism” insofar as he played no role in coordinating, planning, or funding any terrorist attacks, particularly not when you consider that the terrorists in question didn’t target the United States. In other words, even though Saddam, like many Arab leaders, may have had nice words to say about Palestinian terrorists, he was probably not the terrorist mastermind Bush and Chalabi wanted us to think he was.

In short, there is no hypocracy in noting that Iraq sponsored anti-US terror in the early 90’s, while still opposing Bush’s invasion a decade later.

-Cf

“That’s what I mean about legal repercussions. Tell the truth or else. No more evading the question. How did things go down before 9/11 and during that time? If she covers for Bush now, she’s done for.

And like I said, it doesn’t have to be something that would make Bush Criminally liable. It only has to make him look bad.”

Wow: So if you’d like Condi’s testimony—if she basically doesn’t attack Bush in her testimony, she must be covering from him and there are going to be “legal repercussions?” News flash: there aren’t legal repercussions for not being a Democrat. You guys keep hoping beyond hope that there’s some deep dark Republican secret about 9-11—something beyond the fact that Bush actually did something in response to a situation Clinton and Clarke let get totally out of hand. Well, keep hoping.

And here we have a chance to look at the stark difference between Republicans and Democrats on this matter. Some Americans are killed, their bodies dragged through the streets. And how do Democrats think we should respond? A full retreat: “If you think that 18 soldiers dying in Somalia was encouragement to these people, what then is twenty five times that number going to demonstrate?”

What encouraged “these people,” Stephen, as even Al Qaida propoganda demonstrates, is not that they managed to kill 18 soldiers but that even killing so few was enough to cow and scare Clinton into running away. The same thing is going on now, and Democrats are back in their default position of every man for himself and a race to the rear. Well I’m sorry, but this is a Republican administration now and what you’re gonna see is that those responsible are going to pay.

CF, so according to you any person who makes a statement about anything has to be under oath to make sure that they are telling the truth. Based on that every morning you must put yourself under the oath so that everything you will say on that day is truth in order for anyone else to believe you?

Blue, I am not the National Security Advisor testifying about what my team was doing to protect our nation in the months leading up to the murder of 3,000 Americans! My, what a tortured analogy you have wrought!

I still can’t believe I am hearing tons of conservatives defending the Administration’s right to not testify under oath about 9/11.

That’s one thing I’ve always admired about Republicans: their ability to circle the wagons and defend their grip on power, even if it means flying in the face not only of what they beleive in, but even defying common sense. For example, Blue, you are questioning the value of the whole concept of testifying under oath! Is Bush’s need for secrecy so important that you are willing to throw aside a thousand years of legal tradition?

When Clinton was being investigated by the Republican Congress for lying about his sex life, you never saw anywhere near this level of vigor and, shall we say, “ideological flexibility”, in the Democratic effort to defend him. Can you imagine if the Democrats had tried to discredit the whole idea of testifying under oath? Jeez.

-Cf

Wow: So if you’d like Condi’s testimony—if she basically doesn’t attack Bush in her testimony, she must be covering from him and there are going to be “legal repercussions?”

Martin, please go back and read Stephen’s post again. He was not describing the Democrats’ reasons for wanting Condoleeza Rice to testify. He was describing the only logically plausible reasons why the Bush Administration might wish to oppose testifying under oath. He was describing the Administration’s fears, not the opposition’s wishes. He was answering the question about why it is important for people to testify under oath (a question I am shocked to hear being asked in the first place).

Again and again, Bush’s inordinate and inexplicable paranoia is being used by his supporters to paint the opposition as witch-hunters and scandal-fishers. We’re witch hunting just because we think Rice should take an oath?

The same thing is going on now, and Democrats are back in their default position of every man for himself and a race to the rear.

What on earth are you talking about? Has Kerry advocated anything like what you describe, a retreat?

Also, as I recall, it was entirely due to Republican ridicule that we withdrew from Somalia. Democratic criticism of the Administration’s policies in Iraq pales in comparison to the pure political opportunism displayed by Republicans seeking to use those 18 soldiers to humiliate President Clinton. The primary difference between the Somalia and Iraq debates is that Republicans were almost united in their call for withdrawal from Somalia (a race to the rear), while the majority of Democrats today are saying no such thing - and many, in fact, are advocating greater engagement.

Stephen’s description of how American deaths provide encouragement to Iraqi insurgents was not the same as advocating withdrawal. It was simply a call for America to finally wake up from the fantasy of our troops being showered with flowers and kisses. Has it become unpatriotic to discuss reality? You are saying stuff about Bush’s critics — and our positions — that seem to have been made up out of thin air.

-Cf

CF, I am not discrediting the oath and the legal tradition. My point was that you seemed to imply that Rice’s testimony without the oath was all lies because she wasn’t worried about perjury.

Blue, I am not the National Security Advisor testifying about what my team was doing to protect our nation in the months leading up to the murder of 3,000 Americans! My, what a tortured analogy you have wrought!

So if you were the NSA testifying about what your team was doing to protect our nation in the months leading up to the murder of 3,000 Americans you would lie if you weren’t under the oath?

And finally, for whatever it is worth

Actually, I’m convinced Democrats still love lies, despite what they write in their books. It’s not lying itself that the left is upset about. It’s not even the fact that they are the ones being lied to. (Remember, pundits have repeatedly told us that no one expects politicians to tell the truth about fill-in-the-blank.) No, there’s another reason: The left is mad at the Bush administration and Republicans for lying to them about (fill-in-the-blank) because lying was the last unique move left in the Democratic playbook.
Yes, Democrats have finally realized that if Republicans can lie about tax cuts, the deficit, the environment, Medicare, Social Security, welfare, Area 51 – all fertile ground for Democratic lies over the years – then America doesn’t need to elect a Democrat in 2004, to be lied to!
-Craige McMillan

The left is mad at the Bush administration and Republicans for lying to them about (fill-in-the-blank) because lying was the last unique move left in the Democratic playbook.

And his credibility plummets. Seriously claiming the Republicans didn’t lie until this Administration? Good lord…

It’s even worse, Christopher, if “ridicule” instead of casualties is all it takes to make Democrats surrender. And I believe you’re off the dems talking point here regarding the many retreats and surrenders advocated by Kerry over his career: Isn’t the correct response to any question about Kerry’s record of foreign policy weakness (or the economy, or anything for that matter) that he served in Vietnam?

“He was describing the only logically plausible reasons why the Bush Administration might wish to oppose testifying under oath.” First of all, it took a few days to wrangle out the details of a high level official testifying before this panel—there were serious questions of precedent at stake. “The only logical plausible reasons” indeed! That’s only true if the only logical and plausible reason you’re ever willing to entertain is that George Bush is at fault and must, must have something to hide. You guys have a view of the man that no facts or evidence will ever touch again—whatever terrible thing you want to accuse him, if George Bush brushes his teeth or pets his dog you’ll use that as “proof.”

“Why is he petting his dog? Must be trying to avoid answering serious questions about gross incompetence and corruption while crassly pandering to dog-lovers! Why brushing his teeth?-Ah, that man is all about presenting an image instead of offering up real substance on the matters of importance to the millions of Americans for whom life is a living hell under George Bush, such as the fact that John Kerry served in Vietnam.

Blue, I really don’t understand your logic. People who testify about important things have to do it under oath. Period. It doesn’t matter how trustworthy they are, and it doesn’t matter if we suspect them of having something to hide or not.

I never said, or even implied, that “Rice’s testimony without the oath was all lies”. It was asked why oaths were important (again, a shocking question) and many of us answered - because oaths provide we the people a recourse for those occasions where that testimony is proven to be lies.

Oaths imply distrust, that’s a fact. But you know what? It’s reality. Everybody must take the oath when they testify, period. (If it’s any consolation to you: I have a problem with the fact that Bush, Cheney, Clinton, and Gore are being exempted from the oath, too.)

If you think that Rice shouldn’t take an oath, then I can only conclude that you don’t, in fact, think the oath is important. If, as you say, you do appreciate the value of legal oaths, then you have to admit that you are spending a lot of energy defending the Administration for trying to violate your personal beleifs.

-Cf

This “Oath” thing was not all that imnportant to us working class American stiffs who have a tendency to believe that once our elected officials take their “oath of office” they are obliged never to lie to us. We found out during the Clinton years that this extra oath is the one that counts, the oath of office means nothing to them. They don’t tell the truth, the don’t defend and protect the constitution, they hide behind, try to change or ignore it. Yes, both parties. It all goes back to money, it’s always money with the Republicans and sex with the Democrats, re-election and maintaining power. It was so much simpler when it was just sex. We need one term presidents and to control the bribery in the form of campaign contributions in the congress and the White House. Everything would change for the better.

> It’s even worse, Christopher, if “ridicule”
> instead of casualties is all it takes to make
> Democrats surrender.

Surrender? Surrender to the will of the Republicans in Congress counts as surrender? Are you saying that Trent Lott had some kind of secret alliance with Mohammed Aidid? What the heck are you talking about?

Think back to 1993-1994. Did you think that we should have kept our troops there, or did you, too, advocate withdrawal?

> it took a few days to wrangle out the details
> of a high level official testifying before this
> panel

Oh, please. I, for one, think that the administration was actually telling the truth when they argued (with deep conviction, I might add) that they absolutely did not want her to testify. Are you saying that their initial constitutional arguments were simply a calculated political ploy, and that, in fact, the Administration actually wanted Rice to testify from the very beginning?

It seems to me that you were probably troubled, as I was, by the Administration’s obvious reluctance to have Rice testify under oath, and that you’ve been tying yourself in knots trying to rationalize their actions.

None of the reasons the Administration had given for Rice to not testify under oath were valid. Our rejection of their lame justifications, and our insistence on Rice testifying under oath, does not at all imply that we suspect dishonesty, no matter how much you misrepresent our statements. She simply has to testify, under oath, period, no excuses. I am glad that the Administration caved on this one.

-Cf

“Our rejection of their lame justifications, and our insistence on Rice testifying under oath, does not at all imply that we suspect dishonesty, no matter how much you misrepresent our statements. She simply has to testify, under oath, period, no excuses.”

Damn right. I have no compelling reason to believe she’s lied so far… but there are definately differing stories about what exactly happened during the leadup to 9/11, and on the day itself. The Commission should get to the bottom of these, and nail anyone that is shown to be dishonest. Heck, I’d love to nail anyone that even has a conveniently empty memory.

“What did he know and when did he know it?” Exactly what is this phrase supposed to mean to democrats when they utter it about Bush and 911?

Investigate and Impeach Bush for Failing to Act on 911 Warnings - And then Lying About It -Democrats.com

Is this the barking of the loony left? Hardly. This is mainstream democratic thinking today.

The answer to that question forced the resignation of Richard Nixon as he was about to be impeached.

Now, with President Bush facing that same question, Congressional Republicans have circled the wagons to prevent a public hearing on whether intelligence was distorted by the White House to convince us of the need for war. Why? Because public hearings could lead to public demands for impeachment. Sound far-fetched? Not when you consider the gravity of the charge.

“To put it bluntly,” former Nixon White House counsel John Dean wrote on the legal Web site FindLaw on June 6, “if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be ‘a high crime’ under the Constitution’s impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony ‘to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.’” -The Nation

It’s all a bunch of Barbara Streisand of course.

However … as the brief timeline above shows, THE PRESIDENT WAS REPEATEDLY WARNED that al Qaeda was planning some sort of attack, and that the attack may involve airplanes. So these are my questions: -Barbara Streisand

Occams razor, “One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”

To ask the question, “What did Bush know and when did he know it,” is the same kind of question as, “So, Mr. Kerry, when did you stop beating your wife?” It doesn’t have an answer because the question itself is a loaded one. The simplest answer is often the correct one. Since Bush stole the election, there were more problems and friction in the transfer between administrations than there would have been had Al Gore won.

Any reasonable person would conclude that the Bush administration is guilty of nothing regarding 9/11. Many of the intelligence failures were a result of the nature of domestic versus international intelligence, the lack of commmunication (decreed by law) between the two. Systematic and beauracratic slowness perhaps, but to continue on and on with this line of conspiracy theory about the culpability of the President is slanderous.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) had been planning to offer a resolution on the Senate floor Tuesday calling for Rice’s testimony. He said the White House bowed to “public pressure” from Americans who want all the facts out in the open. “They folded not just under political pressure, but public pressure … They had to fold. It was inexorable,” Schumer said. “They knew they were playing a losing hand.” -News Day

Nevermind that there is a separation of powers, Mr. Schumer. A resolution? Why not a subpeona?

The Court recognized “the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties.” It noted that “[h]uman experience teaches that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decisionmaking process.” -FindLaw

Democrats are taking one of the greatest tregedies in American History and trying to pervert it to political ends. It is quite despicable.

I think there is an interesting discrepancy between the way Republicans insist that Richard Clarke is a lying bag of [junk], because while he was employed as an adviser to the President, he made some statements which, while true, did not paint the entire picture of his views on the Bush administration and the way Republicans refuse to admit that Rice (who is currently employed as an adviser to the President) could (and does) do the exact same thing when she’s not under oath. You guys are making it sound like someone in her position would never consider “massaging the truth,” but you jump all over Clarke for what he did. Hello? Am I the only one who finds this odd?

The bottom line is that Clarke DID do his job while he worked for the administration, and hence he made statements which were intended to convey one side of a story. Rice has done the same thing, and there is no reason to assume that she would not continue to do so if not under oath. This doesn’t even refer to lying. This is just an issue of whether she would tell “the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth.” This is the relevance of the oath, and I would think that would be MOST readily obvious to people who have condemned Clarke.

Now, before people start insinuating that I must be saying that Rice AND Clarke are both liars, let me be very clear: I don’t think it’s wrong of Clarke or Rice to emphasize the positive while they work for the administration. I expect any administration to do just that,because that’s politics. However, I think it shows why it is important for Clarke AND Rice to be placed under oath when testifying about something as important as the work of this commission, because the American people should be left with NO DOUBT about whether the things said during these hearings are political spin or sworn truth.

“What did he know and when did he know it?” Exactly what is this phrase supposed to mean to democrats when they utter it about Bush and 911?

What does that mean? Well, it means that we want to know more about the deliberative process in both Administrations that led up to 9/11. There are tons of ways in which the administrations may have genuinely screwed up. Some of these reasons might make Bush look very bad indeed, but it seems just as likely that we’ll find out just how screwed up our intelligence system is - and we’ll learn from it.

Just because we’re asking questions doesn’t mean that we have a presumption (or a hope) of what the particular answer will be. It certainly doesn’t mean that we think that Bush knew that we were going to be attacked on 9/11, as you keep insisting. If you ask me, the answers to these questions will most likely exonerate Bush but may have something critical to say about some high-ranking intelligence and possibly even policymaking officials, both Bush appointees and career officers.

As we now know, intelligence officials and even some members of the Administration knew that there were Al Qaeda operatives in the United States training to fly airplanes. Condoleeza Rice at first denied this, then when confronted with contradictory evidence from others, she finally admitted it. But somehow the knowledge was not acted upon. Why? Do you even care to find out why?

Many of the intelligence failures were a result of the nature of domestic versus international intelligence, the lack of commmunication (decreed by law) between the two.

I totally agree. But how high up did this poor communication go? From Clarke’s testimony, it would appear that intelligence and policymaking bodies were not communicating very well all the way to the top circles of power.

And how do you think we will learn the answer to these questions if we don’t ask questions like “what did he know and when did he know it”? Must we wait 30 years to learn where exactly we screwed up?

You know, it’s perfectly possible that the answer to “what did he know and when did he know it?” might be “Nobody ever told the President or any of his senior advisors about the Al Qaeda hijack threat.” Such a report would be an indictment of the CIA and FBI bureaucracies, and such insight would help make our country more safe.

The answer also might be “Many of Bush’s senior advisors told the President that Al Qaeda was not a genuine threat, that Clarke and the Clinton Administration were unduly obsessed with Al Qaeda.” They may have told the President simply not to worry about it. In this example, the President is exonerated, but the aforementioned advisors will find themselves in a lot of hot water.

Some odds and ends:

Is this the barking of the loony left? Hardly. This is mainstream democratic thinking today.

Wrong. Democrats.com is very much the barking of the loony left. I’ve never even heard of Democrats.com before, but it looks to me to be the left-wing equivalent of the Oliver North show or even your favorite, NewsMax. It certainly lacks the endorsement of any actual Democratic party officials or elected officials.

The Court recognized “the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them…

The FindLaw link you provided was interesting, but it’s not applicable in this case because, again, the 9/11 commission is not an instrument of the legislative branch. It is an executive branch institution. Plus, as Kathryn has pointed out, just because you CAN claim executive privilige doesn’t mean that you MUST or even SHOULD claim it. Rice had neither a legal or ethical reason to avoid testifying under oath.

Democrats are taking one of the greatest tregedies in American History and trying to pervert it to political ends.

At least the Democrats aren’t trying to prevent investigation into the tragedy. Anyway, I’d love to hear your views on 9/11 exploitation when the Republican Convention rolls into New York City and conducts party events at ground zero.

-Cf

I’m guessing (and it’s not really much of a guess) that most of the Republican Convention will be a sidebar to the freakshow staged in the streets of NY by the hard left—teargas, windowsmashing, effigy-burnings, the works. It will give voters from the middle-American swing states some real food for thought.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your views on 9/11 exploitation when the Republican Convention rolls into New York City and conducts party events at ground zero.

It’s funny because after 9/11 the decision was made to have the convention there so that NY would benefit from the Republican convention $$$$. Economic impact and all.

Also I listened to Clarke this evening on Chris Matthews and what he had to say was quite different from the media spin and democratic jive. If you listen to his explanation of who dropped the ball on Zacharia Moussoui taking flying lessons and other intelligence that might have possibly, in a perfect world, maybe, ‘I hope I would have been able to figure it out in time’ pieced together the plot, he says it is in the lower levels of the CIA and FBI that screwed the pooch.

When he focuses on the President he had to say that he did not really know that the President ignored the threat, only that the President said that it wasn’t as urgent an issue as it should have been in retrospect.

On the whole, Clarke really wasn’t that critical of the President on the show. Clarke’s parsing of his assertion that Rice knew nothing about Al Qaeda when he mentioned it was pitiful though. She knew of Osama Bin Laden but somehow didn’t know that Al Qaeda and Osama were together. Please.

I think democrats desperatly want this to be a smoking gun which dooms Bush. I don’t think it will. It has been politicized though, and I expect more to come.

By the way the 911 commission is under the legislative branch just like virtually every other commission.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.

It’s funny because after 9/11 the decision was made to have the convention there so that NY would benefit from the Republican convention $$$$. Economic impact and all.

Was that to make up for the money Bush promised the city for rebuilding and then tried to take back? :)

And didn’t the Republicans originally plan to have ther convention on a Norwegian cruise ship anchored in New York Harbor until the New York restaurant and hotel groups made a huge stink about the city not getting the benefit of the “economic impact”?

The members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks were handpicked by the president, and are not current members of any legislative body, Eric. Even they, even people picked by Bush are getting annoyed by the feet-dragging that’s going on.

That’s why you are getting this relentless drumbeat of democrats insisting on the truth from the administration. Too much is just not adding up.

The math on the Budget and on medicare, don’t to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in each case.

The numbers on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq don’t add up. We were told to expect quite a few more people (more than zero at least) than we found. So that doesn’t add up either. And because of a lack of any official list of dead and wounded, not even the casualty figures add up. (Though they are being relentlessly added to.)

The number of first responders are dropping, and the lionized heroes of 9/11 are finding themselves out of a job. Soldiers are being asked for longer tours of duty at substandard pay to cover for a government that has so far refused to admit that it failed to send in sufficient troops to properly occupy a nation of the size and population of Iraq.

We are being expected to believe that the administration was tough on terrorism, when it did less than the supposedly negligent administration before it.

The administration is admitting no mistakes, no screw ups, despite everything that has gone so seriously wrong during Bush’s time in office Nobody’s that good. Nobody’s that perfect. But of course, your side ignores that, and says the relentless drumbeat must be just political witch hunting, even though independent sources corroborate one source after another on this, and even this administration is forced to corroborate in the next breath what it loudly denied with the last.

The question finally becomes “Who’s telling the truth” However politicized it is, however partisan, however rancorous the battles of words are, the issue is what the facts at hand really tell us. We are not talking about Democrats claiming Bush’s dog-petting style as proof of anything, we are talking about the word of former administration officials, piled onto documentary evidence, piled onto the decisions and priorities this administration acually set. Sooner or later, the facts have to be faced.

>> It’s funny because after 9/11 the decision was
>> made to have the convention there so that NY
>> would benefit from the Republican convention
>> $$$$. Economic impact and all.
>
> Was that to make up for the money Bush promised
> the city for rebuilding and then tried to take
> back? :)

Actually, we haven’t even gotten the bulk of the money yet. The idea that they’re holding the convention here to help NYC’s economy is ridiculous. It’s spin. There were plans in place by the GOP to house the conventioneers on a cruise ship in order to avoid NYC sales taxes - when this was revealed in the local NYC press, the GOP leadership backed away from the plan.

Putting the GOP convention here in NYC is a pure exploitation move. They’ve literally already planned convention events at ground zero itself, and I can imagine how much glee the GOP planners will get having Bush stand next to the glow of the startlingly-more-competant-on-9/11 Rudy Giuliani.

Martin is right that the media will focus on the protesters and, as usual, zero in on the one little group of adolescent punk rockers and aging socialist hippies burning Bush in effigy — and ignoring the thousands of regular folks who will also be there, including, I’ll wager, hundreds or even thousands of 9/11 widows and orphans.

-Cf

Eric, lots of agencies and bodies in the Executive Branch were created by Congressional legislation. This is how they receive funding. But just because a body has been created by Congress doesn’t mean that they *are* Congress.

In short, the 9/11 Commission is not Congress. From what I understand, although it was created by Congress, it was created to become an Executive Branch body.

Also, unlike a Congressional investigative body, the 9/11 Commission only came into being after the President signed the law. The kind of Congressional investigative body that would endager the separation of powers would certainly not be one that was enacted into law by the President’s signature.

-Cf

What are the facts adding up to?

Again, I say, democrats don’t need anymore facts. They have all the facts they need to convict the President already. I predict that it’s possible that Sen. Schumer among others may invoke articles of impeachment sometime before the election.

“What did I know, and when did I know it?” I remember reading the Hart Rudman report on national security sometime before 9/11. It had enough generic information about the threats which we are facing to say that the public had enough info to surmise that another terrorist attack would take place on US soil sometime in the future. Yet, I was shocked, and didn’t actually believe my wife when she told me what was on tv that morning until I saw it with my own eyes.

Is it easier to believe that Bush is a dope who isn’t smart enough to be President, a dolt who ignored warnings of imminent attack, a warmonger who has done everything wrong, or that Clarke is voicing his OPINION about what people in the administration thought and knew about the threat, and that there may have been no way to prevent 9/11 despite what anyone says?

“I’m uncomfortable with the charge that somehow the Bush people ignored or didn’t treat in a serious way the fact that this country was under major threat from terrorist organizations,” said Coit Blacker, a former National Security Council (NSC) official who was special assistant to President Clinton.

“I just don’t think that’s right,” Mr. Blacker said. “They may not have been sufficiently attentive to what Dick thought they needed to know, but that’s not the same thing as taking a cavalier attitude toward the threat.”

Mr. Blacker, director of the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, declined to question the credibility of Mr. Clarke, a counterterrorism adviser to Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush. -WaTimes

The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century, September 15, 1999:

…over the next quarter century, we conclude that:
1. America will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland, and our military superiority will not entirely protect us.

12. U.S. intelligence will face more challenging adversaries, and even excellent intelligence will not prevent all surprises.

13. The United States will be called upon frequently to intervene militarily in a time of uncertain alliances and with the prospect of fewer forward-deployed forces. -nssg.org

I haven’t read anything anywhere from anyone that says President Bush could have prevented 9/11.

The Democrat’s problem with Bush on this is the same problem we’ve always had with him. He says things that just aren’t true.

Soon after 9/11, President Bush said, “I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him [bin Laden] to justice and would have given the order to do that. I have no hesitancy about going after him. But I didn’t feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling.”

Then, he makes counter-terrorism the cornerstone of his campaign and people start asking why he didn’t “feel that sense of urgency”, he says, “This administration made al-Qaeda a top priority from the very beginning.

Which Bush are we supposed to believe? The one with no “sense of urgency”, or the one that “made al-Qaeda a top priority”?

We must first recognize the possibility that 9/11 could have been prevented. This is a logical outgrowth of the idea that the terrorist had to overcome certain obstacles, attain certain goals in order to pull off their plan. A story in Against All Enemies tells of the Millenium attempt to attack a naval warship in same manner as the USS Cole. In a somewhat darkly humorous turn of events, the boat they used this time was so overloaded , the boat promptly sank! Point is, of course, terrorists are only human.

We did prevent a number of other attacks that night, including one on LAX, and others that would have including blowing up a Jordanian hotel and shooting up Christian tourists in the holy land. So its not inconcieveable that the attacks could have been prevented, even if they could not have been predicted by our side. It probably would have been a very difficult job to do, admittedly.

But that doesn’t excuse the Bush administration of anything. Nor does it excuse the Clinton Administration. So what does it come down to? Awareness, preparedness, and acknowledgment of fallibility.

Of course the Democrats have looked for an opportunity to politicize things. If you haven’t noticed, all political parties do that. I won’t make blanket statements of my party’s morality or opportunism. We can go case by case with individuals and debate it, but the reasons will vary. Some will politicize unfairly. Some, however, will bring into political debate issues that are deserving of public political debate.

The lack of WMDs or terrorists in Iraq is certainly worthy of discussion. Their supposed presence was certainly worth talking about beforehand. In fact Bush talked of little else in regards to Iraq. When much of the country was wondering why, those were his talking points. The idea that Saddam was a tyrant was insufficient for many before that point. terrorism and WMDs in those terrorist hands were the justification for putting troops back into Iraq, the danger that made necessary the pre-emptive use of force Bush sought.

So, if the evidence for the terrorism and WMDs is lacking, many would regard that as considerable evidence for the uneccessary nature of the war. In light of the terrible violence of that war, controversy is more than just a quibble. Both sets of problems, by the way, would testify to a significant lack of awareness of conditions on the ground in Iraq, if not flat out, then over time.

Intelligence isn’t perfect. It never is. But between ignorance and perfect knowledge there are many gradations, and with our resources we could certainly approach the latter side of that scale of things. How closely is the matter at hand, the center of the argument, and the test of the administration’s assertion that the war in Iraq was justified. If intelligence could not be further refined, then the Bush administration did the best it could. If it could have been further refined, then the Bush administration was badly mistaken, and that serious error needs to be addressed.

Hundreds of our people, more than ten thousand Iraqi’s have died because of that decision. Our intervention or nonintervention into nations have grave consequences. We are the primary military power in the world, and that carries with it significant dilemmas concerning the use of our power. Low or expedient standards for such action will compromise the morality of our society. As such, our standards for attacking, defending and intervening must be based on good evidence and sound judgment, or error will pile upon error.

My judgment on Iraq is the composition of more than a years worth of attention that I have paid to the events of the war, and a lifetime of attention paid to foreign events. Added in are recent revelations about how the administration went about getting it’s intelligence.

It seems to me that Iraq was a war of choice followed into for reasons of expedience, of political gain, and because of misguided theories concerning the operations of modern terrorist groups.

It was a war enabled by an administration’s circumvention of normal intelligence channels, which were giving some version of the story we know today: few if any WMDs to be found, a hardened, entrenched regime, and little if association with terrorists, especially Al Quaeda.

The Pentagon Office of Special Plans both gathered intelligence that fit the Bush Administration’s case, and sold that case to the American people, who still felt unavenged for 9/11. It is that vulnerability that the administration’s case appealed to, that need for revenge on the evildoers out there. Perhaps the administration was even a victim of that sensibility as well. Problem is, they were the ones whose job it was to keep a clear head about these issues, and they were too focused on the future of the war on terror, and widening it beyond Al Quaeda, in essentially setting an example to the Rogue nations out there, terrorist supporting or not.

They were not simply content to get a second opinion about going to war with Iraq- they set up this Office of Special Plans, and made it the primary opinion, the primary engine of America’s intelligence and military efforts in Iraq.

With Americans now expected to vote in terms of the War on Terror, this fact is above all else the most disheartening about the Administration’s foreign policy. It’s almost Shakespearean in it’s poetic symmetry, of advice rejected, advisors flattering to themselves found and listened to, and a fall from grace that follows on the heels of that false advice.

Thing is, America shared that fall from grace, that burning of bridges with allies, that bewildering chaos that surrounded and followed our invasion, those long hours of waiting for WMDs and regime-supported terrorists we still haven’t found to this day

I never wanted things to come to this, to have Americans die interminably in my lifetime for a mistaken foreign policy. One Vietnam was enough to make our military establishment and liberal population over-cautious. We didn’t need another useless war, another war to sap our prestige and smear our honor.

The Irony is, I wouldn’t be half so inclined to oppose a second term for Bush, if he just showed some awareness of the depth of the problems he’s created. He doesn’t, and it has made me angry time and again to hear the denials, the doubletalk and the political rationalizations, the patronizing insistence that the War on Terrorism is best fought as they’ve described it. That in the face of all that has gone wrong. Once, a person could mistake such claims as manifestations of confident leadership. Now it’s simply a club to cudgel political opponents with.

John Kerry comes to me as the better candidate because he has the kind of awareness Bush lacks, because he is willing to go to war (one only has to see his voting record to know that), and because he is willing to be diplomatic. Time may prove me wrong on Kerry later, but time has proven many Republicans and moderates wrong on Bush now, and when it comes to re-election, what the candidate has done is at least as important as what he claims he will do. In the end, then, Kerry gets my vote.