Two Interesting Headlines Today

[quote]tme wrote:
Congress okay’d it based primarily on the lies and misinformation they were given by the administration.

So does that make them stupid or just gullible?
[/quote]

Show me where Bush ‘lied’. Show me the ‘mis-information’.

Your criteria for judging Bush a liar seems a bit steeper than that with which you judge the past president.

The WMD argument can hardly be called a lie - we’ve found them. How is that a lie?

Nuclear Weapons? - There’s proof of those being sought by Hussein as well.
How is that a lie?

Ties to 9-11? Hardly a lie since it was never brought up by Bush.

What lies? What mis-information?

The WMD argument can hardly be called a lie - we’ve found them. How is that a lie?

Two bad the president you are trying to defend does not agree with your statement…

[b]By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - President Bush (news - web sites) defended his decision to invade Iraq (news - web sites) even as he conceded on Monday that investigators had not found the weapons of mass destruction that he had warned the country possessed.[/b]

For full details…

However, on another note, if the information was truly believed by Bush, then it wouldn’t qualify as an outright lie. Something that does trouble me is reports of coercion on the intelligence community to support the invasion.

I know this is countered by reports from the analysts themselves that they didn’t feel the pressure, but that doesn’t mean the people further up didn’t get pressured. Again, don’t know what is or is not fact for sure, but it’s troubling things.

However, that could change the presidents viewpoint to willful negligence or even abuse of authority, but of course, such things are going to be plausibly deniable. I hesitate to say it, because now I probably look like an idiot conspiracy theorist, when in fact I’m not.

As for Congress acting on ‘lies’ from the Bush administration:

Congress has access to the same intelligence that Bush does. War powers are vested in the legislature. Congress reviews the same information that the executive does.

Trying to pin it on ‘misinformation’ from Bush is dishonest politics.

This Resolution spells out the case very well - and it is the fault of the Bush administration, in my opinion, that they deviated from this in their communications.

[quote]vroom wrote:
BB, the problem is the administration sent out a press kit with information already… however, it was incomplete and ill prepared evidently.

http://www.glcq.com/

Anyway, it could be all bunk, but take a look and see for yourself.

[/quote]

Checked it out. Looks mostly like bunk, and that the rhetoric of the conclusive language is undercut by some of the sources and footnotes.

The most I can say is that perhaps there is a case to say that Bush’s superiors in the Air National Guard were not actually allowed under statutory law at the time to excuse him from certain drills, but I think that to infer an obligation on his part to review and establish the statutory authority of his commanding officers to grant his requests pursuant to his service is a bit much [I have no idea whether there would be this obligation, but I tend to doubt it]. The authors of the site, however, seem to find this information enough to declare a grand conspiracy on the part of Bush and his superiors to defraud the government [paraphrasing, but I am trying to accurately represent the claim from memory].

This is probably why this story isn’t getting more play, even in the current political climate – there’s just not much to it.

BB, I think it is trying to imply that special considerations were granted – in that he was granted leave or other special dispensations against regulations.

As to whether or not it is true, and whether or not he should have known, that is a different story and need not be anywhere near as complex as you are making it out to be.

It implies he was looked after, and the wording of the administration is “he fulfilled his duties”, which is a pretty low bar to meet.

Anyway, at this point, it is pretty far out of the mainstream. Perhaps it will become an issue with continued digging and perhaps it won’t. I certainly won’t claim to be interested enough to decipher all the issues involved myself either.

I’ll assume others are working on it and if it turns out to be real that someone will pick it up (as in real media)…

[quote]vroom wrote:
Something else, another headline, that is interesting, is that DeLay is being investigated for misues of funds used to redraw the voting boundaries in Texas.

If, note I said if, it is true (not if he is found guilty mind you) then it is an indication of something I find troubling. It shows a willingness to “do anything” to win. That is plain and simple corruption.
[/quote]

Vroom - did you have a chance to look at the district lines before DeLay & Co. redrew them?

Gerrymandering is a tried and true method the Texas Democrats have used for years for political gain, regardless of where the funds came from.

Much of this is just the democrats crying too loudly about having to sleep in the bed they themselves have made.

I suspect nothing much more will come of this other than the standard gnashing and wailing from the newly minoritized Texas Democrats.

Oh - and nice put back on the WMD statement I made.

[quote]vroom wrote:
BB, I think it is trying to imply that special considerations were granted – in that he was granted leave or other special dispensations against regulations.

As to whether or not it is true, and whether or not he should have known, that is a different story and need not be anywhere near as complex as you are making it out to be.

It implies he was looked after, and the wording of the administration is “he fulfilled his duties”, which is a pretty low bar to meet.

Anyway, at this point, it is pretty far out of the mainstream. Perhaps it will become an issue with continued digging and perhaps it won’t. I certainly won’t claim to be interested enough to decipher all the issues involved myself either.

I’ll assume others are working on it and if it turns out to be real that someone will pick it up (as in real media)…[/quote]

vroom:

That’s pretty much what I was saying: the main charge seems to be that Bush was granted leave/passes/make-ups/etc. by his commanding officers that they weren’t allowed to grant. That’s the key, although you’d never know it from how they try to frame everything on Bush.

The key is somebody told Bush he could go to Alabama/do make ups/etc., and generally inferior officers are not expected to go back and second-guess or figure out whether the commanding officer who gives an order (or grants a request – same difference) has the precise power to do so under the statute and regulation. We’re not talking about war crimes and Nuremburg here – we’re talking about granting request for leave and make-ups for missed drills.

If the commander of his guard unit - in essence the commanding officer - granted a request, it looks bad on the commander, not on the lieutenant who accepted that grant at face value.

One more thing – forgot to mention this earlier, but it was the reason I went and looked at the site in the first place: I stand by my initial post that nothing nefarious should be inferred by the absence of old records. It seems that Bush aides pulled whatever old files they could get their hands on and “document dumped” them. I can hardly fault Bush or the aides for not wanting to waste time organizing the materials for the journalists and cataloguing the materials, culled from disparate sources with varied organizing principles, for the journalists’ easy reference.

Bottom line: The site you references claimed that the files were “obviously culled” or some such thing, but provided no evidence whatsoever for that claim. The fact they were disorganized could mean that someone went through them and pulled stuff out and then through them all back together if one is given toward conspiracy scenarios. Or, it could reflect an annoyed staff who ordered up all the available materials and who didn’t have anything to hide dumping everything in the laps of the annoying journalists and saying “Here you go – happy hunting.” I tend to think it’s the latter.

Rainjack, I wasn’t complaining about the redrawing of the lines, but instead that the money was potentially raised/used illegally to fund that redrawing.

Guess where a chunk of the money reportedly came from?

BB, but that raises the really important point, were the documents accidentally destroyed after this release of materials… because obviously there was documentation available not too long ago.

As for special treatment, you can say that Bush didn’t have to second guess his superiors, but then, perhaps he knew he was getting special treatment and took advantage of this special treatment?

This isn’t something that would be easy to prove, but how many Joe’s in the military don’t know the rules with respect to never showing up and never having to actually perform any duties to get paid? As a lawyer you are free to defend his actions as you have been, but it is just another shady item in a long long list.

Given that he read magazines and didn’t have to show up or actually do anything, I also find it hypocritical that Kerry is chastised for leaving the military when he acquired three purple hearts – as well as two other medals. He faced enemy fire, killed the enemy personally, and faced life and death perils. How can Bushies criticize him for deciding to look for a safer alternative after doing all this given the cushy treatment Bush received?

Let’s at least be reasonable on the issue and concede that at least Kerry faced real risk in a real combat zone. Whether that means anything to you or anyone else is another issue.

On that same note, I am disapppointed when Bushies cry loudly for support of our troops in Iraq, and that criticizing the administration might be misinterpreted when they will not support their veterans.

Kerry is a veteran and risked his life for you as well, at the very least you can respect him as a veteran who fought for your freedom. Then, despise him as a politician on the wrong side of the political lines.

Vroom -

My point is this - Since roughly the end of the civil war, the democrats have drawn the congressional lines in this state. Now they have no say. I think all this brewhaha about the source of funding is nothing more than sour grapes from the democrats.

After all they left the state not once but twice this past year. Why? They couldn’t have their way. A bunch of spoiled brats to be sure.

Rainjack, could be. It’s harder to nail a criminal charge to a politician than it is to convince a hooker to give you a freebie… (not that I’d know anything about that).

[quote]vroom wrote:
BB, but that raises the really important point, were the documents accidentally destroyed after this release of materials… because obviously there was documentation available not too long ago.[/quote]

No, I disagree - there is nothing they looked at on the site that wasn’t what the Bush people released. There is nothing I have seen that would indicate there was more that the Bush people looked at that wasn’t released. The claim from them was the pay records and service records that were released proved Bush had completed his service.

Lot of speculation there: a perhaps based on a could have, as my hypo was the worst-case scenario. As I said, this is too far flung.

What long list? Related to Bush’s guard service? If not, the relationship should be established for this long list. I have a feeling there are many disputed items on it.

I haven’t criticized Kerry’s military service. I don’t recall Bush criticizing it either. I do know Kerry has faced criticisms from some journalists on that regard, but, just as I don’t hold Kerry responsible for Whoopi Goldberg or Michael Moore, I don’t think Bush can be held responsible for the opinions of pundits. The criticism of Kerry that is just is over his votes concerning military matters as a Senator.

Yes, he did.

I think this has been widely misinterpreted. The Bush administration HAS proposed closing veteran hospitals – that had many unused beds – and part of the proposal was to open more hospitals and expand others for a net increase in veterans served. I’m sure that if you want to highlight other criticisms there are other explanations.

That is exactly what I do, although I don’t despise him – just his politics.

[quote]tme wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Congress has to okay it. They did.

Congress okay’d it based primarily on the lies and misinformation they were given by the administration.

So does that make them stupid or just gullible?

[/quote]

It is congress’ job to verify that what the administration/president is indeed telling the truth or conveying accurate information. That is their job- checks and balances ring any bells?

Every President, from John Adams, up to President Bush. When they take office, recieves the coat tails of the previous Pres. And as we know, throughout history some Presdients centered more on the domestic agenda. WHile others concentrate due to issues in the world, foreign affairs more.

All this talk of that President CLinton, is our past Pres. and he is now out of office. And he does not amtter anymore is a bunch of complete hogwash. For the mess the intelligence community is in today, this very day, is all caused from the previous administartion. And Geroge Bush just inheirted it all.

Remember in the 90’s, the saying, “It is the economy stupid.” Well that is what President Clinton centered on. The domestic agenda. Which as we all know the economy grew by leaps and bounds, under CLinton. It was like the Roaring 20’s all over again. Which was truly wonderful. But what did suffer tremendously was our intelligence. THe best way to describe the CLinton yrs. in regards to intelligence is the following. By a quote from his frist CIA director, (whom CLinton ONLY met twice to a face-to-face meeting. And was never consulted. Never felt like a close confident of Pres. CLinton Or called upon. ), James Woolsey. Woolsely said, “The focus of the admin. was the domestic agenda; Hillary’s health care reform, the econ., taxes, NAFTA, and the budget. These were the priorities. Not foreign policy. The COld War was finally over and the Defense Dept and intelligence communities were taking budget cuts to refllect its priorities.”
And this quote by Woosely. “The problem was, the entire nation was being led to a false sense of ease when what was needed was strong leadership to meet the developing crisis of terrorism. The country wanted a beach party after the Berlin Wall fell, and so did CLinton. …” Again…Bush did NOT create this mess of the CIA and FBI, he inherited it.

Ok…let us move on till his second CIA director, John Deutsch. Deutsch goes and pushes the CIA into a pol. correct mold. Everyone had to submit to AIDS testing, and sensitivity training. And quotas were placed on psoitions, which insured a wide diversity of groups would be represent the American people.
So this now meant. People who were not qualified for positions were given them. Talented people were no longer rewarded. Competent talented people were pushed out of he agency. Dissidents who worked for so many yrs. Were now gone. Thomas Powers, form the NYT Review of Books, wrote this, “The exodus of competent agents from the Directorate of Operations caused the assignment of station chiefs to particular coun. to become even more irritational and dangerous to gathering real intelligence. In one case Nora Slatkin, Deutch’s exec. director, chose a station chief for Beijing, who was unable to speak or understand Chinese.
Or like in the CIA the National Security Agency only had 1 single Pashto speaker who intercepred transcripts and comm. from the Pak. Intelligence agency.” According to a former CIA operative, Tenet’s breifer a desk anaylyst who didn’t speak Arabic, became chief of station in Saudi Arabia.

Then in 1995, as one Defense Dept source said, “From the mid 1990’s the CLinton admin capped the decimination of the US intelligence with a human rights scrub that prevented the CIA from recruiting asests with a tainted past.” And this…The CLinton admin now gave it top priority to the intelligence comm. to collect economic threats, not national security ones."
“This now made it absolutely impossible
to have sources who maybe terorists, criminals, or other assests in a position to provide valuable verifiable info that could enhance national sec. interests.”

So now he leaves, (admist huge scandal, and whom Clinton pardoned), and we now have Tenet., in 1997 And he just tightened the screws even more to pol. correctness. He even named a special assistant for diversity plans and programs. Also a Directorate Diversity Office in every imp section of the agency, and an agency Diversity Council to oversee programs. Like one CIa operative said, “Instead of gathering intelligence, we would do bonding sessions like hiking and rapelling togehter.” At one pt in the mid to late 1990’s, there were 0 Arab press assets. No assets in the S tier of the former Soviet Union, no agents in easern Europe. During the Clinton years thhese agencies were shut down. AND the CIA to this very day, is incapable of running operations in most of these countries today."

And this is the Intelligence comm that Bush inherited. And this is why everyone is so critical of the intelligence comm. Did Bush create this mess? No he did not. THis all started under Clinton admin. This is where all the intelligence failures came about. Have everything been fixed by Bush? It has improved, but it not all has been fixed. This is why the failures have occured with the yes Iraq had WMD at the time, no they did not.
Was all from the past admin. policies and views of the intelligence comm.

Joe

So we now have the Bremer’ Nat’l Commisson on Terrorism Report comes out in 2000. ANd by Sept 11, NONE of his recommendations had been implemented by 9/11/2001. This was a 2b study, which Congress comm. after the terror attacks on the US embassies in E Africa.

As early as 1998, Tenet saw that Bin Laden was the root of all the terrorist activites of the world. BUT he moved terorism up to “0” priority . Along with everything else at the CIA. No reallocation of resources took place. Nor did he move or prioritize critical intelligence relating to terorism, Or try to disrupt terrorist activites and their private sourcs for support. Which are all things the BRemer report suggested,

He aslo failed to curtial Amer. reliance on suspect sources, or to have its counterparts cut ties with dubious sources. For eg. insteds of recruiting its own sources the CIA freq. loks to Syria. For info on Al Queda or other Islamic extremeists. And Germany has a good relationship with the Syrian intelligence SO Bush is a liar???
Where is he getitng the intelligence from on WMD??? Again…this was all created from the previous admin. Clinton’s.

And finally on this report, it recommeded removal of all the guidelines set up by Deutsch, back in 1995. Which involved the reruitment counterrism resources. And urged the CIA to recruit those with unique access to terrorists plans. Up till Sept 11, 2001 Tenet did none of the above,…

The FBI and CIA had very poor coordination under CLinton. And were not sharing valuable information each had about Al Queda. And their plans. Bill CLinton never directed the Attorney Gen to investigate suspected terrorist groups or indiv. And the FBI focused its attention within the US Borders…And each had information on some of the hijackers. But neither side combined ther information and put two and two together.

Lets move on to the FBI…In 1998 Demestic terorism was the number one priority in reagrds to the FBI. If you remeber we had several acts of domestic terorism under the CLinton Admin. And this is what Pres. CLinton wanted the FBI to center upon. And as we know he was partially successful in this line. THose that did the 1993 World Trade Bombing to jusitce. But Clinton used law enforcement as his first line in defense in the war of terror, but failed to provide them with the necessary support. Clinton did not use “outside sources” to enforce indictments the FBI was able to formiulate.

Again Bush did not create all of this CLinton did. And Bush inherited this all…

Time to go to the gym!!

Joe

BostonBarrister-
In reading your posts, for awhile now, you seem to cut Bush or anyone on the right a lot of slack. You seem to rationalize any justification for any thing that may be deemed negative on their behalf. Being that you are a lawyer I wonder if you could play devil’s advocate and put forth an opposing argument to the one you seem to hold to? I know you could do this it would just be interesting to see you actually do it.

[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
BostonBarrister-
In reading your posts, for awhile now, you seem to cut Bush or anyone on the right a lot of slack. You seem to rationalize any justification for any thing that may be deemed negative on their behalf. Being that you are a lawyer I wonder if you could play devil’s advocate and put forth an opposing argument to the one you seem to hold to? I know you could do this it would just be interesting to see you actually do it. [/quote]

Elkhntr1-
In reading your posts, for awhile now, you seem to cut Kerry or anyone on the left a lot of slack. You seem to rationalize any justification for any thing that may be deemed negative on their behalf. Being that I have no idea what you do for a living, I wonder if you could play devil’s advocate and put forth an opposing argument to the one you seem to hold to? I know you could do this it would just be interesting to see you actually do it.

Okay DaMan here goes!
Bush is a man who has a strong conviction to his religion and his decisions for leading us into war are based on his strong desire that people all over the world enjoy the Freedom and Liberty that we do! He realized that the hub of terrorist activity in the middle east was or was soon to be based out of Iraq. He had the backbone to take the fight to the terrorists and keep them from attacking here on American shores. His service to his country while in the Air National Gaurd during the Vietnam war was exemplary and without any disservice or dishonor. Due to the courageous action he has undertaken Freedom loving peoples throughout the world will enjoy that honor!

Da Man was that okay, did it suite you? Also, thank you for answering BB’s question I am sure he appreciates that.

BB-
I am staring to think I’m on your’s and Zeb’s ignore list? My feelings are hurt!

[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
Okay DaMan here goes!
Bush is a man who has a strong conviction to his religion and his decisions for leading us into war are based on his strong desire that people all over the world enjoy the Freedom and Liberty that we do! He realized that the hub of terrorist activity in the middle east was or was soon to be based out of Iraq. He had the backbone to take the fight to the terrorists and keep them from attacking here on American shores. His service to his country while in the Air National Gaurd during the Vietnam war was exemplary and without any disservice or dishonor. Due to the courageous action he has undertaken Freedom loving peoples throughout the world will enjoy that honor!

Da Man was that okay, did it suite you? Also, thank you for answering BB’s question I am sure he appreciates that.

BB-
I am staring to think I’m on your’s and Zeb’s ignore list? My feelings are hurt![/quote]

wow, a witty comeback.

I was simply posing a question to you, not answering BB’s. Im sure you have seen that he is more than capable of answering his own queries.

I was merely playing devils advocate myself, as I enjoy doing from time to time.

Elk, Why would someone that is right leaning wan’t to post something that they don’t believe in? That would be lying and wouldn’t help further any logical debate. While it may be fun for you to finally get you’re wish and hear some conservatives on this forum support your ideas and viewpoints even if they are pretending it really does nothing.

I find it frustrating at times when people are having an honest debate and ideas are being shared and then somebody starts throwing random meaningless arguments around. i.e. Have you served in the military? or Why are you so closed minded? Can’t you look at things from another point of view? I know you’re response will be that I do it all the time so I souldn’t say anything about you doing it. That Argument may have worked when you were 9 or 10 but you still haven’t shown me where I did any such thing and regardless it doesn’t make it right for you to do it.

If you wan’t to make a separate thread where everyone pretends to be the opposite of who they are then do so but please leave the game playing out of serious debate threads.

My ideal debate thread would look somehting like this:

Poster A) posts and idea or thought about something and attempts to paint his thoughts on the topic with some reasoning and or relevant facts.

Poster b) either supports or opposes poster a with logical reasoning and or facts.

Poster c) either supports poster a’s point of view or poster b’s and backs up his viewpoint with reasoning or facts or depicts another viewpoint maybe neither poster a or b shared.

Do you find any flaws in my hypothetical debate thread? I would appreciate any input you might have as to if you think it would work, how smoothly it would run etc.

Flame Away~

Vegita ~ Prince of all Sayajins