BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:18 AM

Did al-Qaeda cut their military budget?

How did the guys in Somalia fare with this "proper" budget cut.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: PSzymeczek
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:03 PM

"FDR stayed out of the war until he was forced to fight Japan but how was he forced to fight in Europe?"

Germany declared war on the US immediately after we declared war on Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:12 PM

Pratfall in Damascus
Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy

Washington Post Thursday, April 5, 2007; Page A16

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402306.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: PSzymeczek
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:15 PM

'One of President Clinton 's very first official acts upon taking office in 1993 was to fire all 93 United States attorney then serving — except one, Michael Chertoff. "

Dickey, EVERY incoming President replaces all, or practically all, of the US Attorneys appointed by the previous administration, especially if the previous administration is of the opposite party. They've been doing it for years. Reagan did it, Carter did it, and I'm reasonably certain that Nixon did it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:32 PM

Why Dickey? Was Rice Patty doing such a good job? NOT!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:07 PM

"The reference is to February 1993 when Clinton fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys who had been appointed by George Bush. One of them was Stephens, who was then U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and developing a case against House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski -- a pivotal Clinton ally in the battle for health-care reform -- for diverting taxpayers' money to personal and campaign funds. Stephens charged that the mass firing was a way of derailing the Rostenkowski investigation. The RTC, however, chose Stephens precisely because he could be trusted to carry out an investigation that would not back away from information potentially embarrassing to Clinton. Stephanopoulos adds: "Once I got the facts from Josh ((Steiner)), that ended the matter, as far as I was concerned."

But that is not the story Fiske and the grand jury have been hearing from some others. As pieced together by TIME from a review of documents and interviews with many sources -- Administration officials, lawyers for some of the 12 Clinton aides subpoenaed by Fiske and sources involved with the special counsel's probe..
..Further down the road, says a White House official, "it depends on whether Fiske wants to indict some White House folks. Indictments he could get easily. Convictions are another matter." In any case, he says, the conversations are "the most damaging Whitewater-related stuff so far."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,980437-2,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:15 PM

German Declaration of War against the U.S.

The Government of the United States having violated in the most flagrant manner and in ever-increasing measure all rules of neutrality in favor of the adversaries of Germany and having continually been guilty of the most severe provocations toward Germany ever since the outbreak of the European war, provoked by the British declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, has finally resorted to open military acts of aggression.

    On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. Acting under this order, vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German naval forces. Thus, American destroyers, as for instance the Greer, the Kearny and the Reuben James, have opened fire on German submarines according to plan. The Secretary of the American Navy, Mr. Knox, himself confirmed that American destroyers attacked German submarines.

    Furthermore, the naval forces of the United States, under order of their Government and contrary to international law have treated and seized German merchant vessels on the high seas as enemy ships.

    The German Government therefore establishes the following facts:

    Although Germany on her part has strictly adhered to the rules of international law in her relations with the United States during every period of the present war, the Government of the United States from initial violations of neutrality has finally proceeded to open acts of war against Germany. The Government of the United States has thereby virtually created a state of war.

    The German Government, consequently, discontinues diplomatic relations with the United States of America and declares that under these circumstances brought about by President Roosevelt, Germany too, as from today, considers herself as being in a state of war with the United States of America.

    Accept, Mr. Chargé d'Affaires, the expression of my high consideration.


December 11, 1941

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 11:51 AM

I don't see how this piece of Nazi rhetoric is relevant, ac tually. Are you presenting it as a summary of facts?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 12:28 PM

..."As if to confirm we're in the last throes, President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference in the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie, a sure sign of a leader so entombed in his bunker (he couldn't even emerge for the Washington Nationals' ceremonial first pitch last week) that he feels he has nothing left to lose.

Incredibly, he chided his adversaries on the Hill for going on vacation just as he was heading off for his own vacation in Crawford. Then he attacked Congress for taking 57 days to "pass emergency funds for our troops" even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for "pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war," though last year's war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president's own request for money for bird-flu preparation.

Mr. Bush's claim that military equipment would be shortchanged if he couldn't sign a spending bill by mid-April was contradicted by not one but two government agencies. A Government Accountability Office report faulted poor Pentagon planning for endemic existing equipment shortages in the National Guard. The Congressional Research Service found that the Pentagon could pay for the war until well into July. Since by that point we'll already be on the threshold of our own commanders' late-summer deadline for judging the surge, what's the crisis?

The president then ratcheted up his habitual exploitation of the suffering of the troops and their families — a button he had pushed five days earlier when making his six-weeks-tardy visit to pose for photos at scandal-ridden Walter Reed. "Congress's failure to fund our troops on the front lines will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines," he said. "And others could see their loved ones headed back to the war sooner than they need to."

His own failures had already foreordained exactly these grim results. Only the day before this news conference, the Pentagon said that the first unit tossed into the Baghdad surge would stay in Iraq a full year rather than the expected nine months, and that three other units had been ordered back there without the usual yearlong stay at home. By week's end, we would learn the story of the suspected friendly-fire death of 18-year-old Pvt. Matthew Zeimer, just two hours after assuming his first combat post. He had been among those who had been shipped to war with a vastly stripped-down training regimen, 10 days instead of four weeks, forced by the relentless need for new troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile the Iraqi "democracy" that Mr. Zeimer died for was given yet another free pass. Mr. Bush applauded the Iraqi government for "working on an oil law," though it languishes in Parliament, and for having named a commander for its Baghdad troops. Much of this was a replay of Mr. Bush's sunny Rose Garden news conference in June, only then he claimed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was taking charge of Baghdad security on his own. Now it's not even clear whom the newly named Iraqi commander is commanding. The number of military operations with Iraqis in the lead is falling, not rising, according to the Pentagon. Even as the administration claims that Iraqis are leading the Baghdad crackdown, American military losses were double those of the Iraqi Army in March.

Mr. Bush or anyone else who sees progress in the surge is correct only in the most literal and temporary sense. Yes, an influx of American troops is depressing some Baghdad violence. But any falloff in the capital is being offset by increased violence in the rest of the country; the civilian death toll rose 15 percent from February to March. Mosul, which was supposedly secured in 2003 by the current American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is now a safe haven for terrorists, according to an Iraqi government spokesman. The once-pacified Tal Afar, which Mr. Bush declared "a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq" in 2006, is a cauldron of bloodshed."...

From Frank Rich's column in the NY Times.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:24 PM

Speaking of flu preparations, I'm thinking that the nation's getting an overdose of Bush & will possibly die from exposure to him & that he needs to take a shot for the team & for US in order for US to find a cure.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Peter Woodruff
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 10:48 PM

"This too shall pass." That's what my friends keep telling me, but how deep in manure will we sink before his time is up? Who will lead us after Bush and Cheney leave office and how many generations will it take to correct all that they have wrought?

Hang ALL the war criminals!


Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 09:15 AM

The Times today points to even more layers of duplicity in the scandal of the Bush administrations messing with DA's and justice for purposes of political gain.
And excerpt:


Another Layer of Scandal


Published: April 9, 2007

"As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?

Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state's Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.

The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle's opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson's "corruption" to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. "It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin," Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic's office. ..."

More to the story in this editorial.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 09:21 AM

And Paul Krugman has a few choice comments about the slime tactics that have come to typify the Rove-and-martini crowd:

"Sweet Little Lies

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 9, 2007

"Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can't picture their leaders being dishonest about such things.

But there's another political lesson I don't think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie — the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren't meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong.

For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush's credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn't believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security.

Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.

The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.

Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was no there there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal.

Even in the post-9/11 environment, little lies never went away. In particular, promoting little lies seems to have been one of the main things U.S. attorneys, as loyal Bushies, were expected to do. For example, David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, appears to have been fired because he wouldn't bring unwarranted charges of voter fraud.

There's a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney prosecuted the state's purchasing supervisor over charges that a court recently dismissed after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence "beyond thin." But by then the accusations had done their job: the unjustly accused official had served almost four months in prison, and the case figured prominently in attack ads alleging corruption in the Democratic governor's administration.

This is the context in which you need to see the wild swings Republicans have been taking at Nancy Pelosi.

First, there were claims that the speaker of the House had demanded a lavish plane for her trips back to California. One Republican leader denounced her "arrogance of extravagance" — then, when it became clear that the whole story was bogus, admitted that he had never had any evidence.

Now there's Ms. Pelosi's fact-finding trip to Syria, which Dick Cheney denounced as "bad behavior" — unlike the visit to Syria by three Republican congressmen a few days earlier, or Newt Gingrich's trip to China when he was speaker.

Ms. Pelosi has responded coolly, dismissing the administration's reaction as a "tantrum." But it's more than that: the hysterical reaction to her trip is part of a political strategy, aided and abetted by news organizations that give little lies their time in the sun.

Fox News, which is a partisan operation in all but name, plays a crucial role in the Little Lie strategy — which is why there is growing pressure on Democratic politicians not to do anything, like participating in Fox-hosted debates, that helps Fox impersonate a legitimate news organization.

But Fox has had plenty of help. Even Time's Joe Klein, a media insider if anyone is, wrote of the Pelosi trip that "the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal." For example, CNN ran a segment about Ms. Pelosi's trip titled "Talking to Terrorists."

The G.O.P.'s reversion to the Little Lie technique is a symptom of political weakness, of a party reduced to trivial smears because it has nothing else to offer. But the technique will remain effective — and the U.S. political scene will remain ugly — as long as many people in the news media keep playing along."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:30 AM

I understand that the ICC would like to investigate Bush and Cheney for war crimes but because the U.S. is not a member their hands are tied. Apparently, Saddam was just about to sign when the invasion hit Iraq. Iraq is actively seeking to become a signator.

If Iraq signs the agreement, will the U.S. give them Bush and Cheney?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:51 AM

The International Colour Consortium? Too much white?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 12:59 PM

"Sweet Little Lies By PAUL KRUGMAN"

I like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 01:21 PM

Well, it is understandable that Krugmans sensitivity to truth-telling and your own might be very disparate, Dick. But if you look over his article you will find he has specifics.

I suspect there is a kind of inoculation which prevents loyal followers from perceiving torque, spin, alterations in time and event, and the misassessment of importances which are mixed into the rhetoric handed out by their camp followers. I don't think you'd be able to spot Rove lying if he phoned you up and todl you you'd been elected Party Commisar for your collective.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 02:18 PM

Dear Mr Echo Chamber:

PSzymeczek claims FDR was forced to fight in europe because Germany declared war on the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: PSzymeczek - PM
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:03 PM

"FDR stayed out of the war until he was forced to fight Japan but how was he forced to fight in Europe?"

Germany declared war on the US immediately after we declared war on Japan.

"On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel."

Germany declared war on the US on December 11, 1941 becuase of FDRs public statement of September 11, 1941 as stated in their declaration of war.

Therefore FDR entered into the fighting in europe voluntarily 3 months before Germany declared war on the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 02:20 PM

"Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys in his first two years in office. President Clinton had 89 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years, and President Bush had 88 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years.

In a similar vein, the Justice Department recently supplied Congress with a district-by-district listing of U.S. attorneys who served prior to the Bush administration.

The list shows that in 1981, Reagan's first year in office, 71 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys. In 1993, Clinton's first year, 80 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys.

Nonetheless, the idea that Clinton and Reno broke with precedent and fired all U.S. attorneys upon taking office has played a key role in the public debate in recent weeks. In conservative media and on talk radio, Reno's abrupt firing of all the U.S. attorneys had been described as extreme and unprecedented.

Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania's attorney general, knows the story firsthand.

"I am the one who took the message," he said in an interview Wednesday.

In 1993, he was the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh and the liaison between the outgoing George H.W. Bush administration and the incoming Clinton administration. "We had been asking them for months: 'When do you want our resignations?' " he said.

The answer came in a meeting with Webster Hubbell, the associate attorney general, in mid-March. "He said, 'I have good news and bad news. The good news is the attorney general wants you to stay until your successor is confirmed. The bad news is she wants your resignations by the end of the week,' " Corbett said.

He said the demand for resignations by the week's end was surprising.

"We knew this was coming, but it broke with tradition to do it this way," he said. "It didn't make for a smooth transition. By the end of that week, they had backed off a bit. Over the course of the next few months, they made the changes. It was how the message was delivered more than what actually occurred."

Despite Reno's request for all of their resignations, some U.S. attorneys stayed on the job for several more months.

In Los Angeles, for example, Terree A. Bowers, a Republican, became the interim U.S. attorney in 1992, and he served through 1993, Clinton's first year in office.

Nora Manella, Clinton's choice for the post, took over in 1994.

In Pittsburgh, Corbett says he stayed in office until August, when a new Clinton appointee won confirmation.

In New Jersey, Michael Chertoff, a 1990 appointee of President George H.W. Bush, continued into the Clinton administration before leaving in 1994. He is now the Homeland Security secretary.

In western Michigan, John Smietanka, a Reagan appointee, served until the beginning of 1994. "I knew I would be resigning, but I wasn't sure of the timing. I ended up serving for one year of the Clinton administration," he said.

His predecessor, James S. Brady, served as U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., during the Carter administration.

"When Carter lost in November of 1980, I resigned," said Brady, who later became president of the National Assn. of Former U.S. Attorneys. "Nobody asked me, but that's the tradition of the office. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, and when a new administration comes in, everybody knows you will have a new U.S. attorney."

There have been local exceptions to this rule.

In New York, former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan — a Democrat who had served in Republican administrations — persuaded several presidents to allow U.S. attorneys to continue in office after a change of administrations.

In Manhattan, for example, Robert Fiske, a President Ford appointee in 1976, served throughout the Carter administration.

And a Carter appointee, John S. Martin, served during the first years of the Reagan administration.

Many former U.S. attorneys draw a sharp distinction between the political nature of the appointment and the apolitical role of law enforcement.

"The process of selection is political, but once you are there, you can't be political," said Daniel French, who was a Clinton-appointed U.S. attorney in Syracuse, N.Y.

"I don't think there is anything wrong with [former White House Counsel] Harriet Miers saying, 'We want all new people in office.' "

But he said the administration would cross the line if it interfered in a politically sensitive prosecution.

Tom Heffelfinger, a former U.S. attorney from Minnesota who served under Bush — as well as in the elder Bush's administration — said a White House move to fire a large number of U.S. attorneys was quite different from replacing the appointees of a previous administration.

"In my opinion, it is not comparable," said Heffelfinger, a Republican who resigned voluntarily from his Justice Department post last year.

"When you have a transition between presidents — especially presidents of different parties — a U.S. attorney anticipates that you will be replaced in due course. But the unwritten, No. 1 rule at [the Justice Department] is that once you become a U.S. attorney you have to leave politics at the door," he said.

Democrats in the House and Senate say they intend to press ahead with their investigation to determine whether partisan politics played a role in the dismissal of the eight U.S. attorneys.

For their part, Republican leaders counter that politics is driving the investigation.

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), the GOP party chairman, sent out a message Wednesday accusing Democrats of "feigning outrage" over the Justice Department's actions.

"There is no question that U.S. attorneys, like all political appointees, serve at the pleasure of the president," Martinez said. "That was true when Bill Clinton's Justice Department replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys, and it remains true today."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-talking23mar23,0,3342736,full.story

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 02:44 PM

Improvised? After 4 years we still call it improvised?

For the first time, the U.S. military is treating more head injuries than chest or abdominal wounds, and it is ill-equipped to do so. According to a July 2005 estimate from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, two-thirds of all soldiers wounded in Iraq who don't immediately return to duty have traumatic brain injuries.

Here's why IEDS carry such hidden danger. The detonation of any powerful explosive generates a blast wave of high pressure that spreads out at 1,600 feet per second from the point of explosion and travels hundreds of yards. The lethal blast wave is a two-part assault that rattles the brain against the skull. The initial shock wave of very high pressure is followed closely by the "secondary wind": a huge volume of displaced air flooding back into the area, again under high pressure. No helmet or armor can defend against such a massive wave front.

It is these sudden and extreme differences in pressures -- routinely 1,000 times greater than atmospheric pressure -- that lead to significant neurological injury. Blast waves cause severe concussions, resulting in loss of consciousness and obvious neurological deficits such as blindness, deafness and mental retardation. Blast waves causing TBIs can leave a 19-year-old private who could easily run a six-minute mile unable to stand or even to think.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 03:32 PM

Amos:

I see in your and Krugman's rhetoric laden writings that you then to equate rhetoric to fact and fact to lies.

"a nonexistent threat" Amos, do you believe that there is no terrorist threat in the US?

"right-wing noise machine" Does this device exist or is it a rhetorical straw man? I hear a lot of noise from you. Does it come from a left wing noise machine?

"assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies" Show me this statement. I havn't seen it yet, only the assertion that he said so.

"Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn't believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security." Up till now the drum beat has been he stole the election with evil Republican voting machines.

"At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out" ."Damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred in the White House complex during the 2001 presidential transition," said a General Accounting Office (GAO) report, which was published here on Wednesday." http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200206/13/eng20020613_97755.shtml

"a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate." Fake? How about Cattlegate, Nannygate, Helicoptergate, Gennifer Flowersgate, Vince Fostergate, I wonder where those Whitewater billing records came fromgate, Paula Jonesgate, Federal Building campaign phone callgate, Lincoln bedroomgate, White House coffeegate, Donations from convicted drug and weapons dealersgate, Buddhist Templegate, Web Hubbell hush moneygate, Lippogate, Chinese commiegate, Let's blame Kenneth Starrgate, Zippergate, Monicagate, Willeygate, Web Hubbell prison phone callgate, Selling Military Technology to the Chinese Commiesgate, Coverup for our Russian Comrades as Wellgate, Wag-the-Dog-gate, Jaunita Broaddrickgate, PBS-gate, Email-gate, Lootergate, Pardongate?

Loius Freeh:

"The problem was with Bill Clinton, the scandals and rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out."

Freeh says he was preoccupied for eight years with multiple investigations, including Whitewater, Jennifer Flowers and the Monica Lewinsky affair.

He found it deeply awkward and frustrating to be constantly investigating his boss and says it became 'theater of the absurd' when special prosecutor Ken Starr asked him to get a DNA sample from the president to compare with that notorious stain on Lewinsky's dress.

Freeh says the entire scenario of getting a blood sample from the president was like a bad movie.

"Well, we went over to the White House. We did it very carefully, very confidentially," remembers Freeh. The president was attending a scheduled dinner and pretended he had to go to the bathroom. Instead, Clinton went to a room where the FBI had people waiting to take his blood.

Freeh thought Clinton disgraced the presidency; Clinton felt Freeh was out to get him, and that Freeh was an insufferable Boy Scout.

As FBI director, Freeh operated strictly by the book and annoyed the president in his first week on the job when he returned his White House pass after learning the president was under investigation for Whitewater.

"The implications of a White House pass would mean I could go in and out of the building any time I wanted without really being recorded as a visitor," explains Freeh, adding "I wanted all my visits to be official. When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president. I found out years later that it did."

We were told that relations between the two men had deteriorated so badly, that former Chief of Staff John Podesta says Clinton always referred to the FBI director as 'Effing' Freeh.

"Well you know, I don't know how they referred to me and I really didn't care. My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations. He, unfortunately for the country and unfortunately for him, happened to be the subject of that investigation," says Freeh.

Freeh says he stayed on longer as FBI director because he didn't want to give Clinton a chance to name his successor. "I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director. I was going to stay there and make sure that he couldn't replace me."

Freeh had another reason for wanting to outlast Clinton. It was the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, where 19 U.S. servicemen died and more than 370 were wounded.

President Clinton had sent the FBI to investigate and promised Americans that those responsible would pay. "The cowards who committed this murderous act must not go unpunished. Let me say it again: we will pursue this. America takes care of our own. Those who did it must not go unpunished," the president said.

But Freeh says the President failed to keep his promise.

The FBI wanted access to the suspects the Saudis had arrested but then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar said the only way to get access to prisoners would be if the president personally asked the crown prince for access.

Freeh says Clinton did not help him. He writes in his book:

"Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudi's reluctance to cooperate, and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/06/60minutes/main923095.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 03:58 PM

Dickey:

Thanks for making my point for me.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:29 PM

Senators Press for More Files on Removing Prosecutors

By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: April 10, 2007 (NY Times)

WASHINGTON, April 9 — Four senators said Monday that they suspected that the Justice Department had failed to turn over all relevant documents related to the dismissals of eight United States attorneys.

The department has released more than 3,000 pages of e-mail messages and other files. But, the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, "We are concerned that additional documents relevant to the committee's investigations are missing or have been withheld."

The letter expressed skepticism about whether lawmakers had all the material they needed to evaluate the motives for the removals and raised questions on the scope and methods used to assemble the material. A spokesman for the department, Brian Roehrkasse, said officials would not comment until they had reviewed the letter.

Justice Department officials have previously said they turned over all relevant materials, but held back sensitive personnel information about most prosecutors other than those who were removed last year.

The signers of the letter were one Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and three Democrats, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee chairman; Dianne Feinstein of California; and Charles E. Schumer of New York.

Among the missing documents the senators mentioned was a chart cited in a Feb. 12, 2007, e-mail message from Monica Goodling, a former aide to Mr. Gonzales, to other department officials.

The senators suggested that other documents had been withheld, like biographies of each of the 93 prosecutors in briefing books provided for Mr. Gonzales in December in preparation for a meeting of United States attorneys. The meeting was held to start an initiative against child exploitation.

The documents were disclosed last week in The American Spectator. A department official said briefing documents were not turned over because they did not assess prosecutors or did not relate to the removals and were to familiarize Mr. Gonzales with prosecutors' backgrounds. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:35 PM

"In the summer of 1974, Richard Nixon bet his presidency on the doctrine of executive privilege, and lost. Nixon's lawyer, James St. Clair, argued to the Supreme Court that he did not have to give a special prosecutor the Watergate tape recordings of Nixon talking with various advisers. But in the oral argument, the justices were skeptical. Lewis Powell, the courtly Virginian, asked: "Mr. St. Clair, what public interest is there in preserving secrecy with respect to a criminal conspiracy?"

Justice Powell's question cut through Nixon's central claim: that executive privilege gives presidents an absolute right to keep their communications secret. Barely two weeks after the oral argument, the court unanimously ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes.

Three decades later, the Bush administration is threatening to invoke executive privilege to hobble Congress's investigation into the purge of United States attorneys. President Bush has said that Karl Rove, his closest adviser, and Harriet Miers, his former White House counsel, among others, do not have to comply with Congressional subpoenas because "the president relies upon his staff to give him candid advice."

This may well end up in a constitutional showdown. If it does, there is no question which side should prevail. Congress has a right, and an obligation, to examine all of the evidence that increasingly suggests that the Bush administration fired eight or more federal prosecutors either because they were investigating Republicans, or refusing to bring baseless charges against Democrats. The Supreme Court's ruling in the Watergate tapes case, and other legal and historical precedents, make it clear that executive privilege should not keep Congress from getting the testimony it needs.

It's odd to hear President Bush invoke executive privilege because it is just the sort of judge-made right he has always claimed to oppose. Executive privilege is not mentioned in the Constitution, but judges have found it in the general principle of separation of powers. Presidents like to invoke it in sweeping ways, but the courts have been less enthusiastic.

United States v. Nixon is the Supreme Court's major ruling on executive privilege. The first important principle that it established seems obvious, but it is not: that presidents cannot simply declare what information is privileged. Nixon argued, as Mr. Bush seems poised to, that presidents have an "inherent authority to refuse to disclose." But the Supreme Court made it clear that as with other legal issues, courts, not presidents, have the final say on when executive privilege applies. ..."

(NY Times Editorial, 4-9-07)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:43 PM

Bush is sorry to hear that Mr. Dowd has lost all his good sense and loyalty to the office of the President.

Besides having family problems...

Mr. Dowd also has a painful fever blister that has obviously caused him to go insane.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:46 PM

First you need a point to be made. Otherwise it looks like you are avoiding questions.

"a nonexistent threat" Amos, do you believe that there is no terrorist threat in the US?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 12:13 AM

No, I am avoiding nothing. But I am not going to engage, Dickey, with your text-twisting. You have made yourself as obvious as a case of dripping clap on a priest. Your question has no bearing on what the man was talking about, but you have tried to twist it to suit your bias. Your ability to find rumormongering does not ratify the content of the rumors you find.

And I am not going to re-do the last eight years worth of homework for you. Read this thread and the one of like title before it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 07:36 AM

"Your ability to find rumormongering does not ratify the content of the rumors you find."

Amos,

You might want to recall two points.

1. You started, and named this thread "VIEWS".

2. Almost all of what you have posted are OPINION pieces.


If you object to views such as Dickey's that you disagree with, perhaps you should have named it "Views of what Amos wants people to think about the Bush administration"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:12 AM

" The abuse of the recess appointment perhaps isn't President Bush's most egregious attack on our Founders' carefully crafted system of checks and balances, since others before him have exploited this constitutional loophole. But the implicit reasons behind each of the three significant recess appointments he made this week —installing the officials without Senate confirmation during the congressional recess—are quite egregious, and each in their own way.

The one that's gotten the most attention is Sam Fox, our new ambassador to Belgium.

It's typical, if still highly inappropriate, for cronies of the president to get cushy ambassador gigs. But Sam Fox wasn't just a big donor of Bush. He gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat liars that smeared Sen. John Kerry's war record during his 2004 presidential bid.

Of course, the Bush campaign always insisted it had nothing to do with the smear merchants, even though the group had ties to Karl Rove. But to go the extra mile after being stiff-armed by the Senate, to appoint a major backer of filthy politics to a major post, shows how politics are played in the conservative movement.

Get dirty now, get rewarded later. No consequences for your actions. No disincentive to smear again.

The second is Andrew Biggs, to become the No. 2 man at the Social Security Administration.

Biggs is not only committed to the dismantling of Social Security via privatization. As associate commissioner of SSA, he was behind an effort to use the agency to pump out misinformation and undermine support for the program.

He is one of the many examples of how the White House is trying to cripple the civil service, and prevent our government from providing us with objective, factual information.

Finally, we have Susan Dudley becoming administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, also known as the "regulatory czar" because it reviews regulations throughout the government.

OMB Watch explains her significance:

"Dudley's record is one of anti-regulatory extremism," said Rick Melberth, Director of Regulatory Policy at OMB Watch. "She has opposed some of our nation's most basic environmental, workplace safety and public health protections."

Dudley has falsely proclaimed ground-level ozone to be beneficial, opposed ergonomic standards to protect workers from repetitive stress disorders, and even suggested that airbags should never have been mandated in automobiles.

This is also a big part of the conservative game plan to cripple the civil service. When civil servants try to implement laws passed by our democratically-elected Congress, such as the Clean Air Act, folks like Dudley are installed to bring the hammer down, prevent the law's implementation, and put the special interest ahead of the public interest.
..."

From Tom Paine.com

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:20 AM

Washington Post

Candor? Call the Special Prosecutor!

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, April 10, 2007; Page A17

Monica Goodling is not my kind of gal. A graduate of two schools not known for partying (Messiah College and Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School), she would not be my ideal seatmate on a long airplane flight. But for vowing to take the Fifth in the ongoing probe of why and how eight U.S. attorneys were fired, I offer her my hearty congratulations. She knows that in Washington, free speech can cost you a fortune in legal fees.

The standard question about Goodling is: What is she hiding? After all, until her resignation last week, Goodling was the senior counselor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his liaison to the White House. She was at the center of the White House's purge of non-party party people (a pseudo-Stalinist term coined for this occasion) and so she must be hiding something. Maybe.


Misogyny in the Morning
» Eugene Robinson | Why would Don Imus think 'nappy-headed hos' was an amusing way to describe the Rutgers University women's basketball team?
Richard Cohen: Call the Special Prosecutor!
David S. Broder: Time for a Bargain On the War
E.J. Dionne Jr.: The McCain Tragedy


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More likely, Goodling's problem is probably not what she's done but what she might do. If she testifies before Congress, swears to tell the truth and all of that, she will produce a record -- a transcript -- that can be used against her. If a subsequent witness later on has a different memory of what transpired, then the bloodcurdling cry of "special prosecutor" will once again be heard in the land. Already, in fact, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has raised that possibility. In the offices of U.S. attorneys everywhere, ambitious prosecutors are probably checking The Post's real estate section.

No lawyer is going to be thrilled about letting a client testify in today's political environment. Remember, please, that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not convicted of the crime that the special prosecutor was appointed to find -- who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame -- but of lying to a grand jury. In fact, the compulsively compulsive Patrick Fitzgerald not only knew early on who the leaker was but also that no law had been violated. No matter. Fitzgerald valiantly persisted, jailing Judith Miller of the New York Times for refusing to reveal her sources and, in the end, nailing Libby. It was a magnificent victory, proving once again that there is nothing more dangerous to the republic than a special prosecutor with money to spend.

The fact remains that ordinary politics -- leaking, sniping, lying, cheating, exaggerating and other forms of PG entertainment -- have been so thoroughly criminalized that only a fool would appear before Congress without attempting to bargain for immunity by first invoking the Fifth Amendment. After all, it is a permissible exaggeration to say that in recent years more senior federal officials have had sit-downs with prosecutors than have members of the Gambino family.

Recall: A president of the United States was impeached for lying about something that was not a crime. Recall: the zealous special prosecutors wading through Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate and even gates that never became public. Recall: the many White House aides who had to hire criminal lawyers. Recall: the investigation by special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh (Iran-contra), who got convictions of several high-level officials, many of them later pardoned.

Recall, with what should be deep shame, that some of these special prosecutors were cheered on by liberals who are supposed to feel tenderly about civil liberties (even about journalists whose work they don't like) or, if you will, conservatives who are supposed to be on alert for any abuse of government power. Now, only a fool would accept a juicy federal appointment and not keep the home number of a criminal lawyer on speed dial.

May I suggest that Gonzales quit and go back to Texas where, I'm sure, the pace of executions is lagging without him. May I suggest, further, that he and Karl Rove and, of course, George W. Bush have unforgivably politicized the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys -- and Congress is not only right in looking into this but also has an absolute obligation to do so. May I suggest also that Sen. Pete Domenici go on Don Imus's radio show so that the two of them can have a contest on who is stupider -- Domenici for pressuring New Mexico's U.S. attorney or Imus for his clearly racist remarks. I might even listen.

In the end, though, some thought has to be given to why Monica Goodling feels obligated to take the Fifth rather than merely telling Congress what happened in the AG's office. She's no criminal -- but what could happen to her surely is.

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 11:22 AM

Newt Sees Spanish As Threat
Roberto Lovato
April 09, 2007


When Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education with teaching "the language of living in a ghetto" this week, it took me back to my own linguistic roots. San Francisco's Mission district was a place where the crowded housing projects overflowed with sounds of English, Spanish, Ebonics, Spanglish and other languages spoken and sung and mixed and dubbed until those moments when night and morning became one. The multilingual polyphony of this environment still makes it hard to define whether I grew up in a "ghetto" or a "barrio."

Because these multiple threads of my speech DNA inspired my love of language (while sometimes disturbing my formal studies of it as well), I respond with a mix of anger and some confusion to Gringrich's recent comments linking languages like Spanish to a "ghetto." I share neither his experience and views of ghettoes nor his understanding of language as a kind of gated community frozen in time. What he triggers most are various sorts of fear.

One kind of fear comes from having heard during a recent visit to Atlanta both the stately, sotto voce expressions of upscale, mostly white anger in Gingrich's Cobb County and the more blatant and very loud drawled racist epithets at one of the increasing numbers of anti-immigrant KKK and Neo-Nazi rallies in Georgia. All of this anger and hate was expressed in English, a language, Gingrich tells us, is "the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto."

Rather than cast off Gingrich as another backwoods racist in statesman's clothing, we should be deeply disturbed about his word choices, his deployment of and attacks on one of the primary definers of the human: language.

Reading about how the repetition of certain words and phrases that denigrated minorities in places like Rwanda and Nazi Germany helped me understand how politicians and other "leaders" can use words to facilitate, normalize, interpret and incite violence, mass jailings and other frightening actions against racial, religious and linguistic minorities.

Reading the diaries of Protestant German journalist and literature professor Victor Klemperer taught me how the slow but steady march of repression—having his license revoked, losing his job, losing his citizenship, having his home invaded by state authorities, being forced to live in a ghetto—was almost always accompanied by a slow, but steady growth of verbal, linguistic attacks on Jews and other unwanted groups.

Having lived in wartime El Salvador, when it was a de facto military dictatorship, taught me that such hatred and bigotry recognize no physical or linguistic borders. Having interviewed immigrants here in the United States who, like Klemperer, have had to stand by and watch their licenses revoked, their jobs lost, their families imprisoned and deported makes me fearful of the tepid response of too many media and community leaders who treated as "casual" Gingrich's allegedly "off-handed" statements (he has since apologized in broken Spanish for what he called "clumsy" remarks).

Calling Gingrich a "racist" does little to him or for our understanding of the workings of language in times of social distress. I learned more from my interview three weeks ago with Justeen Mancha, a 16-year-old Georgia girl who woke up to find six heavily-armed immigration agents crashing through her door asking for who was "Mexican" and had "papers." Justeen's experience makes me even more nervous about what her fellow Georgian has in mind for immigrants and non-immigrants alike (Mancha and her family are all U.S. citizens.)...(Full article here).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 03:41 PM

Pentagon report debunks prewar Iraq-Al Qaeda connection
Declassified document cites lack of 'evidence of a long-term relationship,' although No. 3 Defense staffer called contact 'mature and symbiotic.'
By Jesse Nunes | csmonitor.com
A declassified report by the Pentagon's acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble provides new insight into the circumstances behind former Pentagon official Douglas Feith's pre-Iraq war assessment of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection — an assessment that was contrary to US intelligence agency findings, and helped bolster the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.

The report, which was made public in summary form in February, was released in full on Thursday by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a statement accompanying the 121-page report, Senator Levin said: "It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon's Inspector General concluded that Secretary Feith's office 'developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,' which included 'conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community.' "

The Feith office alternative intelligence assessments concluded that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating and had a "mature, symbiotic" relationship, a view that was not supported by the available intelligence, and was contrary to the consensus view of the Intelligence Community. These alternative assessments were used by the Administration to support its public arguments in its case for war. As the DOD IG report confirms, the Intelligence Community never found an operational relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda; the report specifically states that," the CIA and DIA disavowed any 'mature, symbiotic' relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."

The Los Angeles Times reports that in excerpts of the report released in February, Mr. Gimble called Feith's alternative intelligence "improper," but that it wasn't illegal or unauthorized because then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz assigned the work. The Times also reports that a prewar memo from Mr. Wolfowitz to Feith requesting that an Al Qaeda-Iraq connection be identified was among the newly released documents.

"We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in the Jan. 22, 2002, memo to Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official.

Using Pentagon jargon for the secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, he added: "We owe SecDef some analysis of this subject. Please give me a recommendation on how best to proceed. Appreciate the short turn-around."

The Times reports that the memo "marked the beginnings of what would become a controversial yearlong Pentagon project" to convince White House officials of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, a connection "that was hotly disputed by U.S. intelligence agencies at the time and has been discredited in the years since."

The New York Times reports that presentation slides used during a Pentagon briefing at the White House were also released Thursday. The slides showed how Feith criticised US intelligence agencies that had found little or no Al Qaeda-Iraq link.

The slide used by the Pentagon analysts to brief the White House officials states the intelligence agencies assumed "that secularists and Islamists will not cooperate, even when they have common interests," and there was "consistent underestimation of importance that would be attached by Iraq and Al Qaeda to hiding a relationship."

The Pentagon, in written comments included in the report, strongly disputed that the White House briefing and the slide citing "Fundamental Problems" undercut the intelligence community.

"The intelligence community was fully aware of the work under review and commented on it several times," the Pentagon said, adding that [former CIA Diector George] Tenet, at the suggestion of the defense secretary then, Donald H. Rumsfeld, "was personally briefed."

The Times notes that the Pentagon analysts' appraisal of the CIA's approach was "in contrast" to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its 2004 report on prewar intelligence, which praised the CIA's approach as methodical, reasonable, and objective.

On a website set up to challenge Gimble's assessment in his report, Feith argues that the key issue at hand is "whether the CIA should be protected against criticism by policy officials." Feith also challenged Gimble's characterization of his intelligence assessment as "inappropriate."

The IG got this point wrong and it would be dangerous to follow his badly reasoned opinion on the issue. It would damage the quality of the government's intelligence and policy. The CIA has made important errors over the years - think of the Iraqi WMD assessments. To guard against such errors, policy officials should be praised, not slapped, for challenging CIA products.

Despite the release of Gimble's report, the Associated Press reports that Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday appeared on a conservative radio show and reiterated his stance that Al Qaeda had links to Iraq before the US invasion in 2003.

---

Above from the Christian Science Monitor for April 6, 2007.

The point is clear that the Administration went out of its way to prove a link where none was to be found.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 03:53 PM

Amos:

This is a simple question: Do you believe that there is no terrorist threat in the US?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 04:11 PM

Here's another, Dick: Do you believe Saddam Hussein had stored up chemical, nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction?

Your question has no definable meaning. What degree or kind are you asking about? The country has always lived with the threat of terrorism, even in the best of times. We've had Bolshvists, Whigs, Commies, black Panther, redneck Christians and a dozen other kinds of terrorists aside from Islamofascists.

I am glad you're not in the White House.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 04:26 PM

The biggest threat to the U.S. is its present administration and by most standards, they are terrorists.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 04:39 PM

I can understand people feeling extremely angry about an attack on US soil. I can understand the desire to lash back. Lashing back at the wrongcountry is another thing.

The American forces et alia have terrorized plenty of people, although probably fewer than the Islamic fanatics they are fighting.

It has always struck me a peculiar, though, that some folks can see very plainly why being terrorized by Islamic fanatics makes them want to strike back and kill, but they just can't see why it might work the other way around.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 06:12 PM

"Do you believe Saddam Hussein had stored up chemical, nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction?"

At one time I did but now it seems he did not. At one time he did have chemical weapons.

Now what is your answer to a much simpler question.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 06:50 PM

I already answered it, Dick. Define your terms, or withdraw the question, it's all the flaming same to me.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 08:04 PM

Yes, Dickey, there are terrorists out there in the US. Mostly they occupy the White House, though I'm sure there are a few others besides the home grown kind out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 08:59 PM

"Your question has no definable meaning." Is that the answer?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 10:14 PM

That's an even stupider question than the first one. Are you thicker than a breadbox?

You asked a question that was not answerable as written. I pointed this out to you and asked you to define your terms. You either didn't understand what I said or intentionally altered it. You say which.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 10:22 PM

Some in G.O.P. Express Worry Over '08 Hopes



By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 11, 2007

==NY Times

WASHINGTON, April 10 — Republican leaders across the country say they are growing increasingly anxious about their party's chances of holding the White House, citing public dissatisfaction with President Bush, the political fallout from the war in Iraq and the problems their leading presidential candidates are having generating enthusiasm among conservative voters.

In interviews on Tuesday, the Republicans said they were concerned about signs of despondency among party members and fund-raisers, reflected in polls and the Democratic fund-raising advantage in the first quarter of the year. Many party leaders expressed worry that the party's presidential candidates faced a tough course without some fundamental shift in the political dynamic.

"My level of concern and dismay is very, very high," said Mickey Edwards, a Republican former congressman from Oklahoma who is now a lecturer in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. "It's not that I have any particular problem with the people who are running for the Republican nomination. I just don't know how they can run hard enough or fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Bush administration."

"We don't have any candidates in the field now who are compelling," Mr. Edwards said, adding: "It's going to be a tough year for us."

The Republicans made their comments a day before Senator John McCain of Arizona, once the party's presumed front-runner, is to give a speech intended to revitalize his troubled candidacy. In the speech, focused on Iraq, Mr. McCain will warn against making policy about the war based on "the temporary favor of the latest of public opinion poll" and assert that the administration's strategy for securing Baghdad is the right one, according to excerpts released Tuesday by his campaign. The other two leading presidential contenders are Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 10:14 AM

Amos: The question could not be made any simpler. You prefer to use ad hominem attacks to avoid answering the question.

Then you use a complex counter question to avoid answering the simple question.

Call me anything you want and use all the rhetoric you want but it still does not change the question.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 11:03 AM

WASHINGTON - The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

(MSNBC, April 11 2007)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 11:08 AM

Rats don't return to a sinking ship.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 02:26 PM

Amos:

Do you believe there is a terrorist threat in America?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 02:55 PM

Define "terrorist threat", Dick. I have known some six-year-olds who would possibly qualify. In fact, there was a great story recently about a six year old girl who intimidated a classroom by throwing a tantrum, and got handcuffed and thrown into jail for it. A SIX year old. Good thing we're cracking down on these terrorists.

If that doesn't meet your definition, please enlighten me.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 12:07 AM

What Amos? Can you be more specific? You talk in such nebulous terms when asked what you believe.

Yes there are six year old girls who know what a terrorist threat is but you don't know?

The problem is you don't beleive the crap you echo from the left wing fear your government mongers. When asked if you believe it, your steel trap mind suddenly slams shut.

I don't mind saying I beleive there is a terrorist threat in America but evidently it casues you great distress when asked what you believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 12:51 AM

When you get around to saying what you think you mean, I'll be glad to tell you what I think, Dicky lad. But you are ewaving this cliche of "a terrorist threat" around without saying specifically what you mean.

And I notice you twisted my example of the sixyear old around bass-ackwards, a talent you seem to have developed.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 09:24 AM

The NY Times remarks:

"Four years ago this week, as American troops made their first, triumphant entrance into Baghdad, joyous Iraqis pulled down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein. It was powerful symbolism — a murderous dictator toppled, Baghdadis taking to the streets without fear, American soldiers hailed as liberators.

After four years of occupation, untold numbers killed by death squads and suicide bombers, and searing experiences like Abu Ghraib, few Iraqis still look on American soldiers as liberators. Instead, thousands marked this week's anniversary by burning American flags and marching through the streets of Najaf chanting, "Death to America."

Once again, tens of thousands of American troops are pouring into Baghdad. Yesterday the Pentagon announced that battle-weary Army units in Iraq would have to stay on for an additional three months past their scheduled return dates.

Mr. Bush is desperately gambling that by stretching the Army to the absolute limits of its deployable strength, he may be able to impose some relative calm in the capital. And he seems to imagine that should that gamble succeed, the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki will, without any serious pressure from Washington, take the steps toward sharing political power and economic resources it has tenaciously resisted since the day it took office a year ago.

Unless Mr. Maliki takes those steps — eliminating militia and death squad members from the Iraqi Army and police, fairly sharing oil revenues, and rolling back laws that deny political and economic opportunities to the Sunni middle class — no lasting security gains are possible. More Iraqi and American lives will be sacrificed.

Even among Shiites, who suffered so much at the hands of Saddam Hussein and who are the supposed beneficiaries of Mr. Maliki's shortsighted policies, there is a deep disillusionment and anger. This week, a Washington Post reporter interviewed Khadim al-Jubouri, who four years ago swung his sledgehammer to help knock down the dictator's statue. Mr. Jubouri said that ever since he watched that statue being built he had nourished a dream of bringing it down and ushering in much better times.

Now, with friends and relatives killed, kidnapped or driven from their homes, the prices of basic necessities soaring and electricity rationed to four hours a day, Mr. Jubouri says the change of regimes "achieved nothing" and he has come to hate the American military presence he once welcomed. "

---

I submit that in his bullheaded cronyism, Mister Bush has made losers of us all, in a sense; he has certainly eroded any confidence other nations had in the United States.

A