The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator
Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice
presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but
straightforwardly and irrevocably said “no.†Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.
That’s from Al Giordano. I’m guessing he has some decent sources. I sure hope they’re right. As I’ve said before, the "unity ticket" is a terrible, terrible idea. I’d rather Obama picked this guy.
speaking of incredibly good news, the senate really stuck it to Bush. The only way they can get this two-faced American traitor to sign any legislation is to put it in his War Funding bill. I often wonder if Bush thinks he was elected president of Iraq, when you think about the amount of money he’s wasted with Iraq attached to it. The dems want to give more benefits for the American troops and bolster the GI Bill, but Bush thinks troops and America are a waste of money.
This monkey in the oval office deserves to be hanged sometime in the near future for treason, and high crimes and misdemeanors… After a fair trial of course. Maybe we can get the same guys that did Saddam since they’re cut from the same cloth.
“This monkey in the oval office deserves to be hanged sometime in the near future for treason, and high crimes and misdemeanors… After a fair trial of course. Maybe we can get the same guys that did Saddam since they’re cut from the same cloth”
This is what passes for “liberal” or “Progressive” thought these sorry days. You disgrace yourself.
On the other hand, having read your comments here, I don’t know why it bothers me. It’s akin to being upset that your donkey craps in the barnyard, or that a 4-year-old cries when she is tired.
Who says Obama “can’t work with Hillary”? Of course Obama can work with Hillary, if that’s what he needs to do. That’s not the issue. The issue is that Vice President Clinton would be a disaster, both for the ticket and for the administration.
By the way. I noticed McCain put out his medical records for 2000 to 2008. Why not his medical records from earlier, specifically his mental health records from around the time he returned from Vietnam. As I recall, Bush put out his records for the time he was in the Texas Air National Guard (as I recall, he had hemorrhoids at the time).
Since it now looks like Obama will get the nomination, and the best Hillary can get is the VP slot, then she not only expects that Obama will stay alive until the Convention, she’ll do her best to keep him alive til he has taken the Oath of Office and until she has taken the VP Oath of Office … as soon as that latter has occurred, even LLoyds of London will charge $10 for a nickle life insurance policy on Obama …
This country’s first black President is likely to be this country’s first Fosterized President … it’ll be a race between operatives (traceable only back to Bill) and Islamofascist martyrs eager to get to their 72 perpetually self-renewing virgins for killing an apostate …
Bush hasn’t done a damn thing for Americans in the 7 years he’s been president. He started a war, by first deceiving congress with half-truths, with-holding the available information that disproved Hussein still had any dangerous munitions. That, on it’s face is worthy of hanging.
Here we are 6 years after the war started, nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in tax-payers money has been wasted, half of that going to private corporations, not the military, and the only way congress can give a miniscule amount of american tax-dollars back to disabled Vets and American citizens is by attaching the spending to 80 billion dollars alotted for “Iraq” for the next 10 months.
Hussein was hanged for lesser crimes than those of George W. Bush. It’s not liberal or progressive, it’s the truth. What do you call continuing a military action that leads to Americans death and disabling when you learned 4 years ago that (at the least) your judgement was wrong on the premise of starting the military action in the first place (e.g. there were no WMD in Iraq).
It’s an outrage that more Americans don’t get off their fatasses and stand up and say what has gone on in this country for the last 6 or so years is a disgrace and an embarrassment to our nation, and attacking countries because we are afraid of what they might someday do is not what America is about, or should be about.
We are only 7 months away from curing the brain-crippling disease called “republicanism” which Joe Mama and his ilk suffer from. I can’t wait to see their change of ‘heart’ when Obama asks congress for 70 billion dollars to continue the Iraq war. The reaction, I already know, will be completely the opposite of their reaction to such disgusting waste as it has been with Bushe’s bi-annual request of such over the past 7 years.
Meh, Hillary’s backpedalling seems to miss the point. She thinks she offended the Kennedys rather than wishing Obama dead. “Bobby Kennedy was killed in June. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN!”
1.) Congress is, ostensibly, full of thinking individuals. These individuals are charged, both by the Constitution and moral responsibility, to critically assess any decision to send men and women into war. They saw the same intelligence, provided by our allies as well as our own agencies, which the President did. Like the President, they thought that Saddam Hussein was a clear and present threat. Strange, but for someone who folks of your persuasion (read, suffering from BDS) claim is an idiot on one hand, Bush seems to get Congress critters of both sides of the aisle to do really dumb sh*t pretty easy. Guess in the land of witless adherence to the almight reelection the half-wit from Crawford is king, huh?
2.) Hussein was hanged for lesser crimes than George Bush? So you’re basically saying a President who won election not once but twice has conducted genocide against ethnic minorities in his own country, launched a war against a neighbor without causes belli just because he wanted access to a better port, and tried to kill a former head of state of another country because? Really? Because if you actually typed that rather than letting a gang of chimpanzees bang away at the keyboard as part of some experiment (”Let’s see what the crazy monkeys come up with! I’ve heard we might get Shakespeare!”) then you need to do one of two things:
A. Go back and read some history
or
B. Go back to the doctor and tell him that he collected the colostomy bag to the wrong orifice, as you’re talking some sh*t.
3.) Now, before you go getting all trollish and idiotic, how about you consider just how easy you make it for people to forget just how tragic and incompetent these two terms have been. When you pull the rhetorical equivalent of running around with your underwear on your head screaming that the sky is falling, all it makes people do is look up, see that there is no debris raining from the heavens, and assume you’re just an idiot. (Note: Checking for falling debris not applicable in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, etc..)
Instead, a measured assessment of the debacle that is our government rather than rabid bleating about how Bush is worse than Hussein might be more effective? Because really Sandy, if Bush was worse than Hussein, you’d have already gotten your feet introduced to a woodchipper and every female related to you introduced to the tender mercies of the local secret police. Your caterwauling is merely drowning out the rest of us who might want to actually point out that, “No really, no more Bushes! Or Clintons, for that matter!”
Youngblai, while i agree with you that some of Sandy’s over the top rhetoric hurts his case, this particular line:
. They saw the same intelligence, provided by our allies as well as our own agencies, which the President did
from your rebutal is just not true. Congress saw the evidence that the administration presented to them, and we have since found out that they were NOT given the whole picture.
Actually, members of the intelligence committee have said that the evidence presented to them previously (i.e., during the Clinton terms) pretty much matched what the Bush Administration presented.
Now, I’m not saying that some of the intel was not, obviously, f-ed up. However, I think the mindset that President Bush willfully misled Congress is a bit stretched. Personally, I think if Congress believes that the President lied to them impeachment is in order–and the fact that Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly and pointedly taken it off the table makes me believe there is no “there,” there.
To put it another way, I don’t think the President _invented_ or _cooked_ any intel. I think Congress was just as willing to believe what they wanted to believe rather than asking any hard questions and, like the young lady who suddenly finds herself pregnant after her prom date _swore_ he’d pull out, wants to blame everyone but themselves for the debacle that ensued.
The questions the American people should be asking themselves is not “how quick can we kill Republicanism / Democratism?” but some variant of the following (depending on how you view the path to this point):
1. “How are we letting people this stupid remain in charge?” Applicable to either Congress or, for that matter, the intel folks.
2. “If our intel was that broken, what else are we missing?”
3. “Where do we go from here?”
Because I do believe there is going to be a smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud someday, and when we’ve got a couple hundred thousand dead Americans and a major city gone we will _all_ have no one to blame but ourselves for the remaining intel gaps.
I detest the Congress of 2001 (of which Hillary was a part of) for giving up their authoritative power, however the man who pulled the trigger was George Bush. Congress was in fact deceived with their presentation of “facts” as the director of the CIA, George Tenet, openly stated in his book and in interviews, that all we had is a lot of educated guessing, but no facts. Yet those guesses were organized and stated as facts at the insistence of the Bush Administration and presented to Congress and the United Nations as fact, when they weren’t facts. That sort of thing is called a lying where I come from.
Just because Congress trusted Bush with additional power does not deflect the blame that falls squarely on the president’s shoulders for what he did with that power.
Comparing Bush and Hussein: Both presided over military torture of prisoners at Abu Graib. Both attacked sovereign nations militarily. Both murdered 100,000’s of muslims. Both used WMD (chemical/radioactive) weapons on human beings (the military uses Depleted Uranium in bullets which causes lingering radioactive material for decades which the troops and Iraqi’s are walking around in as I type).
The morbidly good news is that George Bush accomplished in 6 years what took Saddam Hussein 30 years.
My question was, however, What has George W. Bush done for the benefit of American Citizens over the last 7 years? I’d really like to know, because a vocal group of people defend him like he’s the messiah, so he must have done many great things. So use the power of the internets and research and let me know what Bush has done positively for Americans. I have the list of negatives, and let me tell ya, it’s a lot to overcome.
In July 2002, A year before the Iraq war began, former UN weapons inspector (of 7 years), Scott Ritter stated that, “As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability — “we” being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn’t account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998. No one has substantiated the allegations that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction or is attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And of course that is the reason we have been given for going to war against Iraq — because of the threat posed by these weapons. It has been nothing but rhetorically laced speculation, not hard facts, that have been presented by either the United States or Great Britain to back this up, and until they provide hard facts, there is no case for war.”
The information shown to congress to cede their declaration of war power to the President excluded all information that did not substantiate the notion Hussein possessed WMD, and much of the data shown to congress and the UN were from discredited or uncredible sources and grossly out-dated (circa 1991) data. What was presented to congress was one-side of a losing debate. The problem was, no one heard the whole story.
Cheney would publicly state, on a daily basis, that “we believe Hussein has reconstituted his nuclear program”.
Rumsfeld stated that we knew where the WMD’s were.
These are baseless assertions that have since been bore out to be lies, from the mountain of lies that have ben told by the members of the Bush Administration.
Of course, Tenent claims he never said it was a “slam dunk case.” My guess is that he’s telling the truth, and that the White House sold him out, just like they sold out the American people.
Do you lack the capacity to reason? Who did Woodward get his information from? Woodward’s a reporter. He wasn’t in the meeting with Tenent and Bush. He got the quote from someone in the meeting.
According to Tenet, the “slam dunk” quote is right, but the context described by Woodward is wrong. It was said in passing, and was not the sole ground of the decision (as Vice President Cheney seemed to make it out to be on Meet the Press). In fact, it was not even a major ground, Tenet says.
And according to four others in the room, at least two of whom were CIA and thus presumably wouldn’t have a self-serving reason to say the quote was “taken out of context” long after the fact, Tenet was directly pressed on whether the intelligence on WMDs was the best available, to which he got up off the couch in the Oval Office and threw up his hands, saying “It’s a slamk dunk case!”
Woodward is an experienced beltway reporter with a history of not getting roped into parroting WH talking points (especially a Republican WH), so my “capacity to reason” (ahem) leads me to believe he sourced his story adequately, especially given that, unlike George Tenet, Woodward does not have a vested interest in this account one way or the other.
Do you ever plan to post the link which confirms that four sources corroberated that Tenet not only said “slam dunk,” but that this quote played the role as the central justification in the White House’s case for war? Or is that an irrational expectation?
First, my information comes from reading Woodward’s book, “Plan of Attack,” so in this instance I won’t be able to do your research for you online. Is reading the book yourself before commenting on it an irrational expectation?
Second, I never said that Tenet’s quote “played the role as the central justification in the White House’s case for war.” Perhaps Tenet’s quote played the central justification for the WH’s beliefs regarding the veracity of our intelligence about WMDs, but as I’ve argued on this blog numerous times, WMDs was one of many justifications for the Iraq war, including the 23 reasons set forth in the ATUMF voted on by the Senate in October 2002.
First of all, no one believes that you actually read Woodward’s book, so you can stop that game right now.
Second, my claim was that the White House sold out Tenet by insisting that his quote played the role of the central justification of the the White House’s case for war. Vice President Cheney said this on Meet the Press:
“[I]t was—when, when George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the president of the United States asked him directly, he said, “George, how good is the case against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction?†the director of the CIA said, “It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President, it’s a slam dunk.†That was the intelligence that was provided to us at the time, and based upon which we made a choice.”
You responded that the White House didn’t sell out Tenet; Bob Woodward did. So what you need to argue, and haven’t done so, is that Woodward’s description justifies Cheney’s quote. I suggest you go out right now and check out Bob Woodward’s book from a library near you. Read it, and get back to me.
copndor, I could care less what you believe — or what you want others to believe — about me and what I read. Your response was so incredibly lame, and just reminds me why trying to argue using facts and logic on a blog with someone like you is an exercise in futility. If you need to pretend that someone you don’t even know hasn’t read the book they say they have in the hopes of convincing yourself that they really don’t know more about a particular subject then you do despite all evidence to the contrary, then knock yourself out. But don’t expect me to respond to your absurd assertions about “what I need to argue, and haven’t done.” I’ve stated my argument plainly and why it makes perfect sense, and have no intention of rehashing it ad nauseum just to satisfy some dope who questions my “capacity to reason.” Again, laaaame.
Clearly you’re not interested in logic, Joe Mama, but in logic they call that kind of argument a “Reductio ad Lame-o.” That’s when an opponent is reduced to calling one’s argument, as you so elegantly put it, “laaaame.”
Mike (the Wiser) - as resident science guru - if you are willing to, could you please explain to Sandy Underpants et al what “depleted uranium” actually is … especially the significance of “depleted” when applied to uranium …
As I understand the term, the depleted uranium is the uranium isotopes (non-radioactive) left when the radioactive uranium is separated out for nuclear power purposes … and, as such, it tends to be around as radioactive as an equivalent lump of coal … (coal tends to contain some radioactive carbon - which can be used to carbon-date the coal) …
Depleted uranium makes great boat keels - and ballistic weaponry (like artillery shells) - because it is so dense as metals go …
Or you know, you could just do some research yourself and find that depleted uranium has still been linked to health conditions including birth defects and remains a controversial substance.
Clearly you’re not interested in logic, Joe Mama, but in logic they call that kind of argument a “Reductio ad Lame-o.” That’s when an opponent is reduced to calling one’s argument, as you so elegantly put it, “laaaame.”
Oh that’s rich. This coming from the douchebag with the “liar liar pants on fire” argument. Yep, you’re all about logic, Condor. Game, set, match, indeed. Crown yourself emperor of Upper Buttloaf while you’re at it.
What your wife eats in the privacy of your own home is your business, not mine, Joe Mama. Let’s agree to keep her nourishment practices, and your apologies for it, off this thread.
Funny to have this discussion the day before news of Scott McClellan’s book breaks, in which he says the Bush Adminstration lied us into an unneccessary war. Can’t get much more insider than the White House Press Secretary unless there’s anybody else with a guilty conscience… Colin? Oh that’s right, Powell already said making the argument to the UN was the low point of his career when he knew much of what he was stating as fact was not.
…and how those who thought he was a paragon of truth before will now denounce him as part and parcel of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.
Alas, hypocrisy almost always runs both ways when it comes to this sort of thing. And the truth is forever subordinated to the endless game of “gotcha.”
Speaking for myself, I certainly never thought McClellan was a “paragon of truth” before and I don’t “denounce him as part and parcel of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy” now. Nor have I heard or read of anyone who thinks those things, at least not yet. I would be surprised to find a single person who held the WH press secretary up — especially McClellan — as a “paragon of truth”. The job is to sell the WH, and McClellan was one of the worst at it besides. What I won’t be surprised at all to find, however, is a lot of critics who share Sandy’s view.
Moreover, I don’t think it’s hypocritical at all to point out that if McClellan thought what the WH was doing in making its case for war back then was so bad (which I don’t know to be true, I’m just taking Sandy’s word for it, which of course could be completely wrong), he would be much more credible if he said something at the time rather than waiting a few years after the fact to put it in a self-aggrandizing CYA book.
Not as amazing as how someone who questions another’s “capacity to reason” shows so little capacity him/herself, or how someone who is reduced to calling another a liar for no reason at all then pretends that person is “not interested in logic,” or how — and this is the best part — someone who taunts another to “stay classy” and not “stoop any lower” then insults that person’s wife. And to top it off, the same idiot rationalizes such jackassery because, well, the handle “Joe Mama” is a “schoolyard taunt.”
Ah, Mr. Mama, we come full circle as you again demonstrate your inability to reason.
1) As someone who calls himself “Joe Mama” ought to know, referencing someone’s mother or wife is not an insult to the actual mother or wife, and shouldn’t be taken literally.
2) On the other hand, if someone calls you a wimp and a baby for taking such a taunt literally, you ought to take that second taunt literally.
We have indeed, as you again demonstrate exactly those traits you project onto others. You call me a liar when you are so clearly dishonest, evidenced by you now laughably pretending that referring to my wife as a troll was “not an insult” and “shouldn’t be taken literally.” Of course, all you’ve done throughout this entire thread is make insults because you are entirely bereft of logical argument. When someone responds to your insults in kind by calling you a dipshit, feel free to take that literally as well. Dipshit.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:51:23 pm
speaking of incredibly good news, the senate really stuck it to Bush. The only way they can get this two-faced American traitor to sign any legislation is to put it in his War Funding bill. I often wonder if Bush thinks he was elected president of Iraq, when you think about the amount of money he’s wasted with Iraq attached to it. The dems want to give more benefits for the American troops and bolster the GI Bill, but Bush thinks troops and America are a waste of money.
This monkey in the oval office deserves to be hanged sometime in the near future for treason, and high crimes and misdemeanors… After a fair trial of course. Maybe we can get the same guys that did Saddam since they’re cut from the same cloth.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/congress_iraq_funding
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:34:43 pm
Wow. You are truly a tool. I don’t agree with most of what Bush has done, but calling him a “traitor … to be hanged” is quite ridiculous. Seriously.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:36:30 pm
“This monkey in the oval office deserves to be hanged sometime in the near future for treason, and high crimes and misdemeanors… After a fair trial of course. Maybe we can get the same guys that did Saddam since they’re cut from the same cloth”
This is what passes for “liberal” or “Progressive” thought these sorry days. You disgrace yourself.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:39:34 pm
On the other hand, having read your comments here, I don’t know why it bothers me. It’s akin to being upset that your donkey craps in the barnyard, or that a 4-year-old cries when she is tired.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:49:11 pm
This is what passes for “liberal” or “Progressive” thought these sorry days. You disgrace yourself.
Hooray broad sweeping labels!
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:02:29 am
Sandy Underpants is the resident douchebag of this blog. No one take him (or her) seriously.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:44:44 am
Yeah, I’m glad to hear the whole idea of “Unity Ticket” may have finally gotten the wooden stake and sharp axe treatment it deserves.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:23:38 am
If Obama can’t work with Hillary, how will he be able to work with Republicans? So much for his so-called ability to restore unity!
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:21:09 am
Apparently Michelle Obama hates Hillary and put the nix on this. I think that’s a good thing.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:44:38 am
Who says Obama “can’t work with Hillary”? Of course Obama can work with Hillary, if that’s what he needs to do. That’s not the issue. The issue is that Vice President Clinton would be a disaster, both for the ticket and for the administration.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:44:43 am
Right because “work with” and “make someone the #2 person in your organization” are absolutely the same thing.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:54:37 am
Hillary has run one of the dirtiest, nastiest campaigns anyone has against a fellow member of their own party. She doesn’t deserve to be VP.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:02:15 am
By the way. I noticed McCain put out his medical records for 2000 to 2008. Why not his medical records from earlier, specifically his mental health records from around the time he returned from Vietnam. As I recall, Bush put out his records for the time he was in the Texas Air National Guard (as I recall, he had hemorrhoids at the time).
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:06:16 pm
A&A - McCain is probably politely waiting until Kerry releases his Service records to the general public … he doesn’t want to show Kerry up …
You do raise an interesting point, however … I wonder if what meds Senator Clinton is/was on ?
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:48:37 pm
Well, it looks like Hillary was only trying to get the VP spot because she doesn’t think Obama will make it through a full term before being assassinated. She doesn’t even think he’ll make it through to the convention!
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:20:56 pm
At least Hillary had the good sense to backpedal on that RFK comment.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:47:47 pm
Julia - we are discussing Hillary !
Since it now looks like Obama will get the nomination, and the best Hillary can get is the VP slot, then she not only expects that Obama will stay alive until the Convention, she’ll do her best to keep him alive til he has taken the Oath of Office and until she has taken the VP Oath of Office … as soon as that latter has occurred, even LLoyds of London will charge $10 for a nickle life insurance policy on Obama …
This country’s first black President is likely to be this country’s first Fosterized President … it’ll be a race between operatives (traceable only back to Bill) and Islamofascist martyrs eager to get to their 72 perpetually self-renewing virgins for killing an apostate …
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:32:28 pm
Bush hasn’t done a damn thing for Americans in the 7 years he’s been president. He started a war, by first deceiving congress with half-truths, with-holding the available information that disproved Hussein still had any dangerous munitions. That, on it’s face is worthy of hanging.
Here we are 6 years after the war started, nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in tax-payers money has been wasted, half of that going to private corporations, not the military, and the only way congress can give a miniscule amount of american tax-dollars back to disabled Vets and American citizens is by attaching the spending to 80 billion dollars alotted for “Iraq” for the next 10 months.
Hussein was hanged for lesser crimes than those of George W. Bush. It’s not liberal or progressive, it’s the truth. What do you call continuing a military action that leads to Americans death and disabling when you learned 4 years ago that (at the least) your judgement was wrong on the premise of starting the military action in the first place (e.g. there were no WMD in Iraq).
It’s an outrage that more Americans don’t get off their fatasses and stand up and say what has gone on in this country for the last 6 or so years is a disgrace and an embarrassment to our nation, and attacking countries because we are afraid of what they might someday do is not what America is about, or should be about.
We are only 7 months away from curing the brain-crippling disease called “republicanism” which Joe Mama and his ilk suffer from. I can’t wait to see their change of ‘heart’ when Obama asks congress for 70 billion dollars to continue the Iraq war. The reaction, I already know, will be completely the opposite of their reaction to such disgusting waste as it has been with Bushe’s bi-annual request of such over the past 7 years.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:37:27 pm
Meh, Hillary’s backpedalling seems to miss the point. She thinks she offended the Kennedys rather than wishing Obama dead. “Bobby Kennedy was killed in June. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN!”
May 24th, 2008 at 10:07:04 pm
Sandy,
1.) Congress is, ostensibly, full of thinking individuals. These individuals are charged, both by the Constitution and moral responsibility, to critically assess any decision to send men and women into war. They saw the same intelligence, provided by our allies as well as our own agencies, which the President did. Like the President, they thought that Saddam Hussein was a clear and present threat. Strange, but for someone who folks of your persuasion (read, suffering from BDS) claim is an idiot on one hand, Bush seems to get Congress critters of both sides of the aisle to do really dumb sh*t pretty easy. Guess in the land of witless adherence to the almight reelection the half-wit from Crawford is king, huh?
2.) Hussein was hanged for lesser crimes than George Bush? So you’re basically saying a President who won election not once but twice has conducted genocide against ethnic minorities in his own country, launched a war against a neighbor without causes belli just because he wanted access to a better port, and tried to kill a former head of state of another country because? Really? Because if you actually typed that rather than letting a gang of chimpanzees bang away at the keyboard as part of some experiment (”Let’s see what the crazy monkeys come up with! I’ve heard we might get Shakespeare!”) then you need to do one of two things:
A. Go back and read some history
or
B. Go back to the doctor and tell him that he collected the colostomy bag to the wrong orifice, as you’re talking some sh*t.
3.) Now, before you go getting all trollish and idiotic, how about you consider just how easy you make it for people to forget just how tragic and incompetent these two terms have been. When you pull the rhetorical equivalent of running around with your underwear on your head screaming that the sky is falling, all it makes people do is look up, see that there is no debris raining from the heavens, and assume you’re just an idiot. (Note: Checking for falling debris not applicable in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, etc..)
Instead, a measured assessment of the debacle that is our government rather than rabid bleating about how Bush is worse than Hussein might be more effective? Because really Sandy, if Bush was worse than Hussein, you’d have already gotten your feet introduced to a woodchipper and every female related to you introduced to the tender mercies of the local secret police. Your caterwauling is merely drowning out the rest of us who might want to actually point out that, “No really, no more Bushes! Or Clintons, for that matter!”
May 24th, 2008 at 10:22:17 pm
Youngblai, while i agree with you that some of Sandy’s over the top rhetoric hurts his case, this particular line:
. They saw the same intelligence, provided by our allies as well as our own agencies, which the President did
from your rebutal is just not true. Congress saw the evidence that the administration presented to them, and we have since found out that they were NOT given the whole picture.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:49:49 am
David,
Actually, members of the intelligence committee have said that the evidence presented to them previously (i.e., during the Clinton terms) pretty much matched what the Bush Administration presented.
Now, I’m not saying that some of the intel was not, obviously, f-ed up. However, I think the mindset that President Bush willfully misled Congress is a bit stretched. Personally, I think if Congress believes that the President lied to them impeachment is in order–and the fact that Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly and pointedly taken it off the table makes me believe there is no “there,” there.
To put it another way, I don’t think the President _invented_ or _cooked_ any intel. I think Congress was just as willing to believe what they wanted to believe rather than asking any hard questions and, like the young lady who suddenly finds herself pregnant after her prom date _swore_ he’d pull out, wants to blame everyone but themselves for the debacle that ensued.
The questions the American people should be asking themselves is not “how quick can we kill Republicanism / Democratism?” but some variant of the following (depending on how you view the path to this point):
1. “How are we letting people this stupid remain in charge?” Applicable to either Congress or, for that matter, the intel folks.
2. “If our intel was that broken, what else are we missing?”
3. “Where do we go from here?”
Because I do believe there is going to be a smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud someday, and when we’ve got a couple hundred thousand dead Americans and a major city gone we will _all_ have no one to blame but ourselves for the remaining intel gaps.
But, hey, I’m just cynical that way.
May 26th, 2008 at 4:50:50 pm
I detest the Congress of 2001 (of which Hillary was a part of) for giving up their authoritative power, however the man who pulled the trigger was George Bush. Congress was in fact deceived with their presentation of “facts” as the director of the CIA, George Tenet, openly stated in his book and in interviews, that all we had is a lot of educated guessing, but no facts. Yet those guesses were organized and stated as facts at the insistence of the Bush Administration and presented to Congress and the United Nations as fact, when they weren’t facts. That sort of thing is called a lying where I come from.
Just because Congress trusted Bush with additional power does not deflect the blame that falls squarely on the president’s shoulders for what he did with that power.
Comparing Bush and Hussein: Both presided over military torture of prisoners at Abu Graib. Both attacked sovereign nations militarily. Both murdered 100,000’s of muslims. Both used WMD (chemical/radioactive) weapons on human beings (the military uses Depleted Uranium in bullets which causes lingering radioactive material for decades which the troops and Iraqi’s are walking around in as I type).
The morbidly good news is that George Bush accomplished in 6 years what took Saddam Hussein 30 years.
My question was, however, What has George W. Bush done for the benefit of American Citizens over the last 7 years? I’d really like to know, because a vocal group of people defend him like he’s the messiah, so he must have done many great things. So use the power of the internets and research and let me know what Bush has done positively for Americans. I have the list of negatives, and let me tell ya, it’s a lot to overcome.
I look forward to your response.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:51:56 pm
Youngblai is right to be skeptical of David’s claim that the White House kept key intelligence on Iraq from Congress, because David is wrong.
Andy Sandy Underpants is a clown (but everyone knew that already).
May 26th, 2008 at 11:25:13 pm
So when the former Director of the CIA says that facts were withheld and misrepresented to congress, he was lying?
May 27th, 2008 at 1:08:13 am
In July 2002, A year before the Iraq war began, former UN weapons inspector (of 7 years), Scott Ritter stated that, “As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability — “we” being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn’t account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998. No one has substantiated the allegations that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction or is attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And of course that is the reason we have been given for going to war against Iraq — because of the threat posed by these weapons. It has been nothing but rhetorically laced speculation, not hard facts, that have been presented by either the United States or Great Britain to back this up, and until they provide hard facts, there is no case for war.”
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/17/saddam.ritter.cnna/
The information shown to congress to cede their declaration of war power to the President excluded all information that did not substantiate the notion Hussein possessed WMD, and much of the data shown to congress and the UN were from discredited or uncredible sources and grossly out-dated (circa 1991) data. What was presented to congress was one-side of a losing debate. The problem was, no one heard the whole story.
Cheney would publicly state, on a daily basis, that “we believe Hussein has reconstituted his nuclear program”.
Rumsfeld stated that we knew where the WMD’s were.
These are baseless assertions that have since been bore out to be lies, from the mountain of lies that have ben told by the members of the Bush Administration.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:57:50 am
So when the former Director of the CIA says that facts were withheld and misrepresented to congress, he was lying?
Dunno, was he lying when he said WMDs in Iraq was a “slam dunk case”?
May 27th, 2008 at 3:25:38 pm
Of course, Tenent claims he never said it was a “slam dunk case.” My guess is that he’s telling the truth, and that the White House sold him out, just like they sold out the American people.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:32:32 pm
You should stop guessing then, because it would have been that right wing neocon Bob Woodward who “sold him out”.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:40:07 pm
Do you lack the capacity to reason? Who did Woodward get his information from? Woodward’s a reporter. He wasn’t in the meeting with Tenent and Bush. He got the quote from someone in the meeting.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:44:51 pm
I can reason just fine, thanks. To be precise, Woodward claimed to have gotten the quote from at least four sources in the room, two of whom were CIA.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:54:56 pm
According to Tenet, the “slam dunk” quote is right, but the context described by Woodward is wrong. It was said in passing, and was not the sole ground of the decision (as Vice President Cheney seemed to make it out to be on Meet the Press). In fact, it was not even a major ground, Tenet says.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:09:59 pm
And according to four others in the room, at least two of whom were CIA and thus presumably wouldn’t have a self-serving reason to say the quote was “taken out of context” long after the fact, Tenet was directly pressed on whether the intelligence on WMDs was the best available, to which he got up off the couch in the Oval Office and threw up his hands, saying “It’s a slamk dunk case!”
Woodward is an experienced beltway reporter with a history of not getting roped into parroting WH talking points (especially a Republican WH), so my “capacity to reason” (ahem) leads me to believe he sourced his story adequately, especially given that, unlike George Tenet, Woodward does not have a vested interest in this account one way or the other.
Or is that not enough reasoning for you?
May 27th, 2008 at 4:20:39 pm
Do you ever plan to post the link which confirms that four sources corroberated that Tenet not only said “slam dunk,” but that this quote played the role as the central justification in the White House’s case for war? Or is that an irrational expectation?
May 27th, 2008 at 4:32:46 pm
First, my information comes from reading Woodward’s book, “Plan of Attack,” so in this instance I won’t be able to do your research for you online. Is reading the book yourself before commenting on it an irrational expectation?
Second, I never said that Tenet’s quote “played the role as the central justification in the White House’s case for war.” Perhaps Tenet’s quote played the central justification for the WH’s beliefs regarding the veracity of our intelligence about WMDs, but as I’ve argued on this blog numerous times, WMDs was one of many justifications for the Iraq war, including the 23 reasons set forth in the ATUMF voted on by the Senate in October 2002.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:50:12 pm
First of all, no one believes that you actually read Woodward’s book, so you can stop that game right now.
Second, my claim was that the White House sold out Tenet by insisting that his quote played the role of the central justification of the the White House’s case for war. Vice President Cheney said this on Meet the Press:
“[I]t was—when, when George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the president of the United States asked him directly, he said, “George, how good is the case against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction?†the director of the CIA said, “It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President, it’s a slam dunk.†That was the intelligence that was provided to us at the time, and based upon which we made a choice.”
You responded that the White House didn’t sell out Tenet; Bob Woodward did. So what you need to argue, and haven’t done so, is that Woodward’s description justifies Cheney’s quote. I suggest you go out right now and check out Bob Woodward’s book from a library near you. Read it, and get back to me.
May 27th, 2008 at 5:14:22 pm
copndor, I could care less what you believe — or what you want others to believe — about me and what I read. Your response was so incredibly lame, and just reminds me why trying to argue using facts and logic on a blog with someone like you is an exercise in futility. If you need to pretend that someone you don’t even know hasn’t read the book they say they have in the hopes of convincing yourself that they really don’t know more about a particular subject then you do despite all evidence to the contrary, then knock yourself out. But don’t expect me to respond to your absurd assertions about “what I need to argue, and haven’t done.” I’ve stated my argument plainly and why it makes perfect sense, and have no intention of rehashing it ad nauseum just to satisfy some dope who questions my “capacity to reason.” Again, laaaame.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:11:41 pm
Game. Set. Match. Copndor.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:19:20 pm
Clearly you’re not interested in logic, Joe Mama, but in logic they call that kind of argument a “Reductio ad Lame-o.” That’s when an opponent is reduced to calling one’s argument, as you so elegantly put it, “laaaame.”
May 27th, 2008 at 8:20:23 pm
Mike (the Wiser) - as resident science guru - if you are willing to, could you please explain to Sandy Underpants et al what “depleted uranium” actually is … especially the significance of “depleted” when applied to uranium …
As I understand the term, the depleted uranium is the uranium isotopes (non-radioactive) left when the radioactive uranium is separated out for nuclear power purposes … and, as such, it tends to be around as radioactive as an equivalent lump of coal … (coal tends to contain some radioactive carbon - which can be used to carbon-date the coal) …
Depleted uranium makes great boat keels - and ballistic weaponry (like artillery shells) - because it is so dense as metals go …
May 27th, 2008 at 9:04:14 pm
Or you know, you could just do some research yourself and find that depleted uranium has still been linked to health conditions including birth defects and remains a controversial substance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
May 27th, 2008 at 9:27:38 pm
Clearly you’re not interested in logic, Joe Mama, but in logic they call that kind of argument a “Reductio ad Lame-o.” That’s when an opponent is reduced to calling one’s argument, as you so elegantly put it, “laaaame.”
Oh that’s rich. This coming from the douchebag with the “liar liar pants on fire” argument. Yep, you’re all about logic, Condor. Game, set, match, indeed. Crown yourself emperor of Upper Buttloaf while you’re at it.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:37:33 pm
Stay classy, Joe Mama. I mean, Reductio ad Upper Buttloaf? Can your arguments get any worse? Can you stoop any lower?
May 27th, 2008 at 9:39:04 pm
Stay classy, Joe Mama. I mean, Reductio ad Upper Buttloaf? Can your arguments get any worse? Can you stoop any lower?
May 27th, 2008 at 9:39:45 pm
(It needed to be said twice).
May 27th, 2008 at 9:51:08 pm
Sorry for feeding the troll.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:51:46 pm
Don’t tempt him copndor, he’ll take that challange and we’ll end up with TWO Alasdairs! ;-)
May 27th, 2008 at 9:58:39 pm
What your wife eats in the privacy of your own home is your business, not mine, Joe Mama. Let’s agree to keep her nourishment practices, and your apologies for it, off this thread.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:30:21 pm
Not bad, took you less than 20 minutes to discredit yourself this time.
Game. Set. Match. Joe Mama.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:38:56 am
Funny to have this discussion the day before news of Scott McClellan’s book breaks, in which he says the Bush Adminstration lied us into an unneccessary war. Can’t get much more insider than the White House Press Secretary unless there’s anybody else with a guilty conscience… Colin? Oh that’s right, Powell already said making the argument to the UN was the low point of his career when he knew much of what he was stating as fact was not.
Game. Set. Match. Pants.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:03:22 am
Funny how those who thought Scott McClellan was lying before will lap up every word of his book unquestioningly now.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:06:54 am
…and how those who thought he was a paragon of truth before will now denounce him as part and parcel of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.
Alas, hypocrisy almost always runs both ways when it comes to this sort of thing. And the truth is forever subordinated to the endless game of “gotcha.”
May 28th, 2008 at 9:22:54 am
9:03:22 AM was me.
Speaking for myself, I certainly never thought McClellan was a “paragon of truth” before and I don’t “denounce him as part and parcel of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy” now. Nor have I heard or read of anyone who thinks those things, at least not yet. I would be surprised to find a single person who held the WH press secretary up — especially McClellan — as a “paragon of truth”. The job is to sell the WH, and McClellan was one of the worst at it besides. What I won’t be surprised at all to find, however, is a lot of critics who share Sandy’s view.
Moreover, I don’t think it’s hypocritical at all to point out that if McClellan thought what the WH was doing in making its case for war back then was so bad (which I don’t know to be true, I’m just taking Sandy’s word for it, which of course could be completely wrong), he would be much more credible if he said something at the time rather than waiting a few years after the fact to put it in a self-aggrandizing CYA book.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:15:33 pm
Mr. Mama, a hypocrite? You can pretty much infer that from his/her name.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:18:46 pm
Stick to insulting wives, Mr. Classy, or you might hurt your brain. Leave the arguments to those of us who know the facts.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:20:57 pm
Mr. Mama,
It’s amazing how someone whose very screen name is a schoolyard taunt, can be so sensitive when someone delivers only one taunt in return.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:33:50 pm
Not as amazing as how someone who questions another’s “capacity to reason” shows so little capacity him/herself, or how someone who is reduced to calling another a liar for no reason at all then pretends that person is “not interested in logic,” or how — and this is the best part — someone who taunts another to “stay classy” and not “stoop any lower” then insults that person’s wife. And to top it off, the same idiot rationalizes such jackassery because, well, the handle “Joe Mama” is a “schoolyard taunt.”
That’s a special kind of stupid right there.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:57:35 pm
Ah, Mr. Mama, we come full circle as you again demonstrate your inability to reason.
1) As someone who calls himself “Joe Mama” ought to know, referencing someone’s mother or wife is not an insult to the actual mother or wife, and shouldn’t be taken literally.
2) On the other hand, if someone calls you a wimp and a baby for taking such a taunt literally, you ought to take that second taunt literally.
3) You’re a wimp and a baby.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:26:55 pm
We have indeed, as you again demonstrate exactly those traits you project onto others. You call me a liar when you are so clearly dishonest, evidenced by you now laughably pretending that referring to my wife as a troll was “not an insult” and “shouldn’t be taken literally.” Of course, all you’ve done throughout this entire thread is make insults because you are entirely bereft of logical argument. When someone responds to your insults in kind by calling you a dipshit, feel free to take that literally as well. Dipshit.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:33:48 pm
This has been one of the most entertaining threads on this blog in a while.
May 28th, 2008 at 3:12:14 pm
Last word.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:49:12 pm
Baby.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:14:46 pm
Last word.