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Wow. A discussion about Susan Rice's possible appointment has devolved into the predictable Bush did it too or did it worse or just did it. Who woulda thunk.
Wow. A discussion about Susan Rice's possible appointment has devolved into the predictable Bush did it too or did it worse or just did it. Who woulda thunk.
Are you suggesting that Jim in CT in order to discuss what he feels are reasons that Rice should not be made Secretary of State, has also to point out that Bush had supposedly done something similar or else he's being hypocritical? This would lead to over-lengthy awkward conversations where every speaker back and forth had to inject other previous examples to whatever he says everytime he says something. The discussion might dwell a long time on each speaker going back to point out other examples of previous Presidents and their SecStates before getting to the discussion at hand. Anyway, in most cases, those previous "problems" were already discussed at the time they occurred. Must they be rehashed over and over every time a new case is discussed or else it shows hypocrisy? Not to mention that Jim doesn't even equate the two circumstances so to him it is not hypocrisy. That would be you labeling him, as you do everytime you want to point out his supposed hypocrisy and labeling. Was it hypocritical of you to point out what you think Bush did to get us to invade Iraq, but did not point out how other presidents, including Democrats, manipulated us into war?
It shows the hypocrisy of criticizing the actions of a president while ignoring the actions of the only person(s) you can compare those actions to - previous presidents.
If someone doesn't want to discuss previous examples, they don't have to. If you want to bring up other pres, go right ahead. John will allow it. I didn't see any rules against it. I never realized you didn't like "over-lenghly awkward conversations".
It shows the hypocrisy of criticizing the actions of a president while ignoring the actions of the only person(s) you can compare those actions to - previous presidents.
So, were you being hypocritical when you pointed out what you thought Bush did to get us to invade Iraq, but you didn't point out how previous presidents, including Democrats manipulated us into war?
If someone doesn't want to discuss previous examples, they don't have to.
Nor is it necessarily hypocritical if you don't.
If you want to bring up other pres, go right ahead. John will allow it. I didn't see any rules against it.
Why would I want to discuss other presidents when they are not the topic of this thread?
I never realized you didn't like "over-lenghly awkward conversations".
Did I say I didn't like them? Hey, nice going though. In your own judgmental way you've managed to steer the conversation off of Rice. EEEK--I've let myself get caught up in another PaulS poo-poo. I apologize to all for extending this non-sense.
Then do me a favor and ignore me and I'll ignore you. And I apologize to all for leading us to have to ignore another Debutch post (see I can insult you too).
you should read his posts...ignore(ance) is bliss, you might learn something...I read yours, can't say I've learned much from them because most of them are just rehashed talking points and insults, you do seem very cranky and you just say the same things over and over.... you never have anything nice to say either, try being nice
Thanks ScottW for the original thought (at least it wasn't the usual unattributed cut and paste). I'll have to go back and reread all your posts to see how someone who so frequently argues w/people and makes prob. more snarky and snide comments than anyone else here thinks others are cranky.
"Rehashed talking points" - from the king of the cut and paste?? That is funny
Thanks ScottW for the original thought (at least it wasn't the usual unattributed cut and paste). I'll have to go back and reread all your posts to see how someone who so frequently argues w/people and makes prob. more snarky and snide comments than anyone else here thinks others are cranky.
"Rehashed talking points" - from the king of the cut and paste?? That is funny
"While there was a popular support for impeaching him I believe that the reason the Dems. didn't was that they saw how the backlash against the Clinton impeachment hurt the Rep"
OK. So the very best you could do, was to speculate that Bush wasn't impeached because the Democrats didn't want to deal with the fallout. Even if that's true (which it's not), you're admitting that the Democrats cared more about getting re-elected than they cared about seeking justice for getting suckered into war. Is that what you think of your Democratic elected officials?
I think most of the threads that get shut down are when people return the anger and hate that you post.
Here are 2 easily found posts that shows he mislead the American public. (The one about curveball is from wikipedia)
In October of 2002, a National Security Estimate summary called a President's Summary, was written specifically for George W. Bush. In that document, Bush was told that despite the buzz that Iraq's procurement of aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
This memo, however, did not stop Bush from announcing, three months later, in the State of the Union speech, that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes in order to build a nuclear weapon. Later that year, when then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley did a review of documents, and discovered the President's Summary, Karl Rove gathered White House aides together and explained that it would look bad if the American people knew that Bush had been advised that the aluminum tubes were probably harmless.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi (Arabic: رافد أحمد علوان, Rāfid Aḥmad Alwān; born 1968), known by the Central Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball", is an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program.[1] Alwan's allegations were subsequently shown to be false by the Iraq Survey Group's final report published in 2004.[2][3]
Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service and the British Secret Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.[1][4] On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity.[5] Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth."[1]
And an interview with Lawrence Wilkerson about curveball
Colin Powell was lied to and ‘manipulated’ into supporting the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed last night.
The former Secretary of State was deliberately not told that information he used to make his famous speech justifying the war was bogus, a former colleague claimed.
Instead the George W Bush White House abused his good reputation to give the push for war much-needed credibility.
The claims were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell’s former chief of staff, in an angry and revealing interview.
He spoke out after the main source for Powell’s report justifying the Iraq invasion which he presented to the UN Security Council in February 2003 admitted he made the whole thing up.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, or ‘Curveball’ as he was known by the CIA, said he let his imagination run wild with claims about Saddam Hussein and that he was doing it just to overthrow the regime.
When he saw Powell relaying the fabricated information to the UN he was stunned.
Speaking to America’s NBC, Wilkerson said he did not believe that when Powell gave his speech - which came just a month before the invasion - he knew the truth.
‘I never heard a single word of doubt expressed about what we were told were four separate sources which proved the existence of mobile biological labs,’ he said.
‘What I’ve found out since makes me very angry.
An Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, left, says he lied about Saddam Hussein's bioweapons programme in order to encourage the United States to declare war and topple the dictator.
‘I cannot come to any other conclusion that we were flat out lied to, especially when I have discovered that no U.S. people were present when Curveball was interrogated.
‘I have some serious doubts, I think there was some manipulation of this material and some outright lying.’ Asked if the office of former Vice President #^&#^&#^&#^& Cheney manipulated Powell into giving a speech, he replied: ‘Absolutely. Absolutely.’ He added that Colin Powell had the credibility that none of the others had because he was a war sceptic surrounded by hawks.
‘The were using him,’ Wilkerson said.
Powell has said that he wants to know why the doubts about Curveball were not raised before he gave his speech, which was seen as a crucial factor in persuading other countries to support the invasion.
But Wilkerson said that in the end even if Powell did know it would have made little difference.
‘Had Curveball not even existed we still would have gone to war because George W Bush and #^&#^&#^&#^& Cheney were determined to do so,’ he said.
And I dont (I'll leave that misspelled for Scott) think the Dems. are any better than the Repubs. at "politicing".
Paul, some guy saying that things were made up, is not proof. Again. I can find guys who say Obama was born in Kenya, I can find guys who say 09/11 was an inside job.
Paul, for every report you cite saying the tubes were for conventional weapons, I can cite one that says they were likely for nukes.
"The C.I.A agents said the tubes were destined to become the rotors in a gas centrifuge program to create enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. The CIA agents acknowledged there was another possible use for the tubes "
"
Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke on Fox News Sunday, saying "And as we saw in reporting just this morning, he is still trying to acquire, for example, some of the specialized aluminum tubing one needs to develop centrifuges that would give you an enrichment capability"
"
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer that the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs" and "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."[8] "
Again, I have zero doubt you can make a case (especially with the benefit of hindsight) that Bush was wrong. Being wrong, i snot th esame as lying. To prove Bush lied, you need to show me that he knew the tubes could not have been used for nukes, but he claimed that they were. That's lying.
And one last time, if Bush wanted to go to war so bad that he was willing to lie, why did he give Saddam dozens of chances to avoid war by complying with the UN Sanctions? It doesn't pass the common sense smell test Paul, it just doesn't. If you can take off your tin foil hat for a moment, you'll see it makes no sense whatsoever, to give Saddam literally dozens on chances to avoid war, if your desire is to launch war.
Paul, analyzing intelligence is almost always an inexact science. The fact is this...back before the invasion, very few people were denying the claims of Bush (and Bill Clinton) that Saddam had WMDs.
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction..."...Nancy Pelosi, 1998
"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on weapons of mass destruction..." Clinton SecState Madeline Albright, 1999
So Paul, how do you explain the fact that Nancy Pelosi and Maedline Albright made these statements BEFORE Bush became president? Wait, I know...Bush kidnapped them, and replaced them with exact replicas, which were actually #^&#^&#^&#^& Cheney in disguise?
"he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons"...Al Gore, 2002
read the quotes in that thread...Bill Clinton, Terd Kennedy, John Kerry, Robert Byrd...all stating with no ambiguity, that they believed Saddam either had, or was developing, WMDs.
Paul, sometimes the evidence leads rational people to the wrong conclusion.
At least Bush admitted he was wrong. That's more than Obama will do regarding Benghazi, where 4 Americans died, in large part due to the administration's refusal to grant Stevens' obviously legitimate request for extra security. Rather than admit he made a mistake, Obama concocts a cockamamie fantasy abouta youtube video. God forbid Obama admit that he got caught with his pants around his ankles, when there was a ton of evidence suggesting that terrorists were increasing activity in that area. That's precisely why they are bending over backwards to convince us that it wasn't terrorists. If it wasn't a terrorist plot that Stevens was afraid of when asking for extra security, then this administration didn't put Stevens at risk by rejecting his claim.
Bush admits he was wrong when he concluded that there were no WMDs. Obama admits no culpability for the fact that on his watch, an ambassador was murdered for the first time since Carter (coincidence?) was president.
Obama can't be responsible for random, unforseeable acts of violence. In this case, everyone on the ground in Libya thought imminent terrorist activity warranted extra security. The Obama administration figured they knew better. We all know how that worked out.
Last edited by Jim in CT; 11-26-2012 at 07:29 PM..
I'd note that much of PaulS' most recent posts are "unattributed cut and paste"....albeit..."easily found"? unattributed cut and paste..yes.....located from MOTHERJONES and in an interview with Ed Schultz on MSNBC...just sayin', great sources .....we can figure out which is from Wiki by the little numbers Paul but thanks for mentioning it
Lawrence Wilkerson is great...Google him...talk about hate and anger and painting a group of people with a broad brush....he went on MSNBC with Ed Schultz and stated quite vociferously that the Republican party is mostly racists...
"In the real world, portraying the smart, tough, and strong-willed Susan Rice as an “easy” target would be humorous -- except for what the president was implying: If Rice’s critics were not going after her on the merits, why were they doing so?
This was the dog whistle part, and it was both heard and heeded by Obama’s supporters in the Democratic Party and the media.
“It is a shame that anytime anything goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge, an Ohio Democrat recently installed as the head of the Congressional Black Caucus. “There is a clear sexism and racism that goes with these comments being made by Sen. McCain and others.”
In USA Today, the headline over a column by DeWayne Wickham proclaimed, “McCain uses Susan Rice to re-launch war on women.”
Seizing on McCain’s contention that “this administration has either been guilty of colossal incompetence or engaged in a cover-up,” South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn maintained, “These are code words.”
“This is really down in the gutter,” MSNBC’s Ed Shultz added in a show stoking the “code words” angle. Richard Wolffe, another MSNBC commentator, called it a “witch hunt” against “people of color.” When asked point-blank if McCain was driven by racial prejudice, he replied that there “is no other way to look at it.”
There is, of course, another way to look at it: Republicans believe that Susan Rice’s excellent foreign policy qualifications were undermined by her hyper-partisanship. There was even a bit of presidential sleight of hand involved in singling out Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Those two men were joined in expressing reservations by two Republican senators whose names went unmentioned by Democrats: Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine."
They say when a person falls in love there is are chemical reactions within their brain that alters the thought process. That is why people stay in abusive relationships. These chemical reactions of attraction block signals that would normally give the person reason to pause. They ignore the advice of others including family and friends who can see the person as they are without chemicals altering the thoughts.
I have a feeling it works the same for hate. How else can you explain the filters people have about Bush and the war.
I have defended Bush so I guess that makes me a guy who loves Bush.
this Curveball dude is pretty interesting...after locating the easily found wiki attribution I was reading about him....
apparently as late as June 26, 2006, The Washington Post reported that "the CIA acknowledged that Curveball was a con artist who drove a taxi in Iraq and spun his engineering knowledge into a fantastic but plausible tale about secret bioweapons factories on wheels."
and initially...Germany's intelligence service (BND) classified him as a "blue" source, meaning the Germans would not permit U.S. access to him (red sources were allowed American contact).[8] Later evidence indicated that he was in fact pro-American, and that the Germans were guarding their source.[9] The Germans, however, did pass on information to the American intelligence agencies and the informant was given the codename "Curveball".
The Germans listened to his claims and debriefed him starting in December 1999,[12] continuing to September 2001. Although the Americans did not have "direct access" to Curveball,[13][14] information collected by the BND debriefing team was later passed on in part to the Defense Intelligence Agency in the United States.[15
the defector had shown up for medical tests with a "blistering hangover",[19] and he "might be an alcoholic".[20]
finally ...In February 2011, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi admitted for the first time that he lied about his story regarding Iraq's secret biological weapons program.[6
Curveball is still living in Germany under strong protection of the German police. Danish TV filmed Rafid on the streets and recorded clips of conversation with him, before he surreptitiously called the police and had the TV-crew banned from his neighbourhood.
so this lying, sketchy, probably alcoholic, extortionist, manipualtive to the point that some of the largest intelligence agencies can't decipher truth from fiction taxi driver who caused a major conflict pretending to be someone that he couldn't possibly have been smart enough to have been is still living under the "strong protection of the German police" and apparently on the public dole and can simply make a call to the police and have inquiring minds banned from his neighborhood as recently as 2011.....very strange, he's practically a Kennedy but with a better driving record
I think Paul Pillar said he best when he remarked that the intelligence community "bent in the wind" to provide the Iraqi intel, or perhaps better said directly by the Brits, the "facts were being fit around the policy".
I've never said Bush lied about Iraq and still believe he felt he was doing what was necessary to protect the American people...that's why he wasn't impeached...Bush's failure was to surround himself by ideologues hell bent on exploiting 9/11 to execute an agenda that politics had to date prevented.
We've discussed the opinions of Congress at length, there's no need to go into great detail there, but it's safe to say that Democratic members didn't support unilateral action and were heavily influenced by a "marketing" effort to support the policy.
The problem here is that the war machine is so big once it gets going there really is no stopping it...
It's interesting that as more info about Benghazi has been revealed the primary attack dogs are backing away. Let the investigation help determine a better security policy so we can prevent another tragedy, but now that the election is over there doesn't seem to be as much need for a scandal as there was a month ago
it's safe to say that Democratic members didn't support unilateral action and were heavily influenced by a "marketing" effort to support the policy.
-spence
I'm curious as to why you feel that is 'safe to say', since none of the Democrats who voted for the war, were saying that, at the time. So you must have a deep, unique insight into what happened. Senators Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, Diana Feinstein all voted for the war. To my knowledge, none of them claimed they were coerced, not until the war became politically popular.
When the public supported the war, those Democrats voted in favor of it. When the war became unpopular, those same folks, all of a sudden, claimed that they were never "really" in favor of the war.
Spence, if what you say is true, those senators are in gross deriliction of their duty, as they are supposed to lead. If they thought the war was wrong, they are supposed to vote that way, like Ted Kennedy did.
If what I say is true, they are a bunch of lying flip-flopers, who wuill say whatever happens to be opopular at the moment.
I think you are being very fair to Bush. As to the Democrats in the senate who voted for the war...how can you respect them, if they only voted for the war (sending kids to a horrible death) because of 'marketing pressure'? If what you say is true, how can you respect those folks? After all, there were plenty of Democrats who had sufficient conviction of their beliefs to oppose the war. Sounds to me like yuo are claiming that all of those folks I mentioned, showed a total lack of conviction and leadership.
I happen to agree with you. I'm just surprised to hear you say it.
I'm curious as to why you feel that is 'safe to say', since none of the Democrats who voted for the war, were saying that, at the time. So you must have a deep, unique insight into what happened. Senators Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, Diana Feinstein all voted for the war. To my knowledge, none of them claimed they were coerced, not until the war became politically popular.
Well, I simply read what they actually said...not the out of context snippets virally circling the web in people's inboxes.
Everybody thought Iraq was a problem but there certainly wasn't a Dem position favoring the near unilateral action that resulted. Clinton especially made this point very clear.
Bush had to show the threat as well as immediacy. When you have the Vice President on TV claiming al Qaeda connections, Rice talking about mushroom clouds and stories about nuke development being planted in the New York Times you're going to scare a lot of people.
Remember back then a vast majority of American's though Saddam was in on 9/11.
We now have access to pretty much everything Congress had and it's the same BS intel that a bias towards war produced. The facts were indeed being fit around the policy. I'm not aware of specific people and specific lies, but when you're looking to justify something it's a lot easier to lean a little one way vs the other.
Congress as well voted before the UN resolution which Bush abandoned after it was looking like the inspections wouldn't turn up sufficient evidence.
If anything, the position of prominent Dems like Clinton or Kerry is in alignment with the UN Security Council.
Well, I simply read what they actually said...not the out of context snippets virally circling the web in people's inboxes.
Everybody thought Iraq was a problem but there certainly wasn't a Dem position favoring the near unilateral action that resulted. Clinton especially made this point very clear.
Bush had to show the threat as well as immediacy. When you have the Vice President on TV claiming al Qaeda connections, Rice talking about mushroom clouds and stories about nuke development being planted in the New York Times you're going to scare a lot of people.
Remember back then a vast majority of American's though Saddam was in on 9/11.
We now have access to pretty much everything Congress had and it's the same BS intel that a bias towards war produced. The facts were indeed being fit around the policy. I'm not aware of specific people and specific lies, but when you're looking to justify something it's a lot easier to lean a little one way vs the other.
Congress as well voted before the UN resolution which Bush abandoned after it was looking like the inspections wouldn't turn up sufficient evidence.
If anything, the position of prominent Dems like Clinton or Kerry is in alignment with the UN Security Council.
Lie? Not so much...
-spence
"the position of prominent Dems like Clinton or Kerry is in alignment with the UN Security Council."
When the public supported Bush, I didn't hear those senators speaking out against the war. When public opinion turned against the war - BINGO - all of a sudden, those folks never really supoprted the war, rather they were duped by Bush's lies. What a coincidence!
Maybe those folks didn't like the near-unilateral approach. Neither did Bush. That's why Bush sent Colin Powell to the UN.
Bush admits he was wrong. Most of the Democrats who voted for the war will never admit that...rather, they were misled by Bush's lies.
Again, I feel you're being 100% fair to Bush. I just think you're bending over backwards to paint the Democrats who supported the war, in a favorable light.
I can't say it any simpler than this...those Democrats I mentioned supported the war when it was popular. When public opinion turned against the war, all of a sudden those Senators changed their tune. Either the timing is a coincidence, or they are being less than honest about not originally supporting the war.
Spence, you keep harping on the fact that they didn't like the near-unilateral way we did it. Maybe they didn't like it, but they voted for it. And two of them (Biden and Hilary) got significant promotions after that, while Bush is demonized. Seems a wee bit inconsistent. Bush was president, and the responsibility lies with him, so he deserves much criticism. But if the war was fundamentally immoral (as many liberals claim), I don't see why the senators who authorized it, get a pass.
Hybrid Mode
