BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 03:50 PM

Dear Jumping Jaysus -- Heinlein was right!! All we need is a crate of Baptist Popes asserting their unwavering righteousness on all issues from abbatoirs to abortions, with a depth of insight that covers the spectrum of intellectual accomplishment from A to A.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsermo
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 04:46 PM

Bob Herbert: "Some of the prisoners being held by the CIA are no doubt murderous individuals who, given the opportunity, would do tremendous harm. There are others, however, whose links to terrorist activities are dubious at best, and perhaps nonexistent."

Given that in the days after 9/11, they put out a list of the hijackers, and several (IIRC) of these named people popped up and said, "No, I'm right here, that wasn't me," not sure that I'd trust the CIA to get things like identities right. That, and their lousy record with the Iraq intelligence and other mistakes, means that leaving them (or worse yet, Cheney's secret cabal) with the last word on who gets locked up is outright criminal neglect.

Herbert again: "It's a secret process that almost inevitably leads to abuse."

It is abuse. Coercion and torture are not moral. People can possibly claim they're "necessary" or "useful" (but even this is a matter of quite some dispute), but that doesn't change the fact that such practises are immoral.

Bobert: " Well, George, it wouldn't be so hard if you quit diggin' in that hole yer in... Ain't rocket surgery..."

As a recovering brain scientist, I resemble that remark.

GUEST,A: "Ah yes, the most fair and truthful Mr. Herbert. He writes as if he knew about the CIA camps for years."

Ummm. nope. I think you're reading into Herbert's words what you want to hear (or you're just plain dishonest). Hell, if you're upset at the amount of stuff posted "not praising GWB", why don't you send him a letter and tell him to stop f***ing things up so badly. "Brownie, you're doing one heck of a job" -- G.Dubya (followed by Brownie still being paid by the maladministration rather than being charged with criminal neglect).

I notice silence from Old Guy....

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 07:53 PM

Well, Arne, where were you when we needed you here... That was during the run up to the invasion of Iraq... Seems 'bout half a dozen of us holed up in the Alamo and fought our barins out against the ever steady beat of war-mongers...

Wish you had been here to wrestle with Teribus... No, not thjat feeble Teribus wantabee that been 'round here lately but the real one.... Teribus would wear us out with long homework assignments... I eventually quit doing them when I figgured he was just tryin' to keep us busy so we wouldn't be rantin' against Bush's stupid thirst for war...

Anyway, glad to have you 'round... These Bushites think they have reduced Amos and me into some kind of joke... Yeah, they revel inattackin' us and it has become a little game with them so, hey, at least there's a new target fir them... Sometimes that's all it takes is a new target...

But, hey, we done fought off a lot of 'um that don't come 'round no more 'cause they have been badlyy embaressed... That's good but it's also bad... Tghe remainin' ones are the real "true believers" who are beyonf independant thought or reasonin'... If Bush said tomorrow that the only way to fight the bird flu was to immunize ones own self was havin' sex with a chicken, these folks would be sneakin' into hen houses all accross America...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 07:59 PM

Nearly six in 10 Americans, 58%, said they had doubts about the president's honesty, a 13% rise in 18 months. Only 32% believed Mr Bush was handling ethical issues well, a significantly worse score than Bill Clinton achieved in his last scandal-besmirched year in office. Mr Bush's overall popularity has plunged to 39%, a new low for the Washington Post/ABC survey.
The poll was published after Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the first White House aide for 130 years to be indicted in office. He appeared in court on Thursday to plead not guilty to five charges of lying to investigators and to a grand jury in a case involving the 2003 leak of a CIA officer's identity.

At its core, the case concerns the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction assembled by Mr Libby, at the time the vice-president's chief of staff, and other White House officials to justify the war in Iraq. The president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, is still under investigation for his role in the case, which has refocused attention on the WMD debacle.

According to yesterday's poll, 55% of Americans think the president "intentionally misled the American public" in making the case for war, and 60% now believe it was not worth fighting. Some 59% thought Mr Rove should resign...

(From the U.K. Guardian today).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:23 PM

Arne, why the name change? Doesn't connect up with the scientist link and most scientists would not, at first glance, accuse someone of being dishonest. Proof, remember, is a key ingredient in arriving at a conclusion. However, your association with bobert may be a factor in this apparent lack of lucidity.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:47 PM

Ignore A, Arne... He/she is hopelessy locked into a life of classic transference and projection... Needs a lotta of couch time,,, abnd meds. Also, does not do well with facts ot reality... Like I said, lots of couch time and meds...

Ahhhhh, interestin' that so many folks when questioned don't think too much of Bush's handlin' of much of anything??? Wonder how this has come about???

Well, arrogance, fir one... I've had Republican friends admit to me that they are gettin' just a little tired of the "smirk"... Hey, I was willin' to give the guy the benefit of the doubt that maybe it was phsiological 'er somethin' but, nah, its a cocky little drunk frat boy smirk that can't really be explained...

Ahhh, di anyone hear him on the news tonight??? Apparently, things
aren't going too well tonight fir him in Argentina 'cause the folks down there know the same things about him that some 68% of Americans either knew or have figgured out... And that does not bode well fir the poor guy... I mean, I was embarasssed by his responses to reported in Argentina... He didn't sound like a Presdient of the world super power... He sounded like drunk frat boy...

That's the problem I have with Bush... He is ***GIVEN*** every opportunity to suceed but he always comes up short... He is hopelessly mired in the drunk frat boy syndrome... Hey, I don't care if he's been sober fir two thousand years, he doesn't act like a sober person... He acts like a friggin' drunk and I know a little about drunks havin' worked a substance abuse cenetr fir many years...

Now I don't say these things to mess with his supporters but to try to get them to see the way other folks, who aren't enamored by Bush, see him... And as we have painfully seen tonight on the news, it isn't just the folks in the US that have these observations...

So to folks like Old Guy and A I'd just like you to think about how yer guy is being seen by folks that ain't you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:19 PM

Arne, to some here, truth is not an objective absolute (a fact, obvious to all, easily verified by anyone who cares to look), it is politically relative. If it does not support the Bush administration and the Right Wing agenda, it cannot be true.

When something is presented here that the Bush apologists find an unwelcome intrusion on their feelings of righteousness, they will take any of several approaches in an attempt to bury the disturbance to their tranquility. Direct denial is usually attempted first. Then quoting anything they can find on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh that can possibly be construed to indicate the contrary. When these sources are debunked (not difficult for a rational person to see the obvious extreme bias, but some cling like grim death), it may go in a couple of directions and probably over time, both. One direction is to attempt to divert the discussion to something else. Bringing up Clinton's dalliance with Monica is a favorite. Or introducing something—anything—else which is completely irrelevant to the point. Another direction (quite popular—this is the Karl Rove method) is to attack the veracity, honesty, sanity, or sexual prowess of the person presenting the unwelcome news. Or to similarly attack the source of the information. This, is the time-honored argumentum ad hominem, debunked well over two millennia ago by Aristotle. This could also be called the "kill the messenger" attempt at refutation, which, of course, in no way invalidates the message. Yet another is to attempt to bury the discussion in vast quantities of cut-and-paste material only vaguely related (if at all), often containing long recitations of statistics, or data from long before the matter under discussion in the hope that it will bog down in irrelevant minutiae. They will even go so far as to attack a person's spelling or typing abilities.

These are a few things to look out for, but it is far from an exhaustive list.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:33 PM

While you are of course correct, Don, I kinda think Arne is well beyond this.... He or she said she or he has done battle elsewhere in ciber-world so given the realities of that last 5 years I'm sure that Arne is as seasoned a veteran at this as you or me... Maybe more???

Not to split hairs but, hey, nice to have an Arne in the mix.....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 07:18 AM

Published on Friday, November 4, 2005 by Agence France Presse
White House Pressured Over Allegations of Torture, Secret Prisons

Mounting criticism of US maltreatment of hundreds of "war on terror" detainees, and new evidence that the CIA runs secret prisons around the world, have put the White House on the defensive over an alleged policy of permitting torture. On Thursday the two houses of Congress began discussions to finalize a bill that would ban any torture by US forces. President George W. Bush has threatened to veto it, even as he has denied sanctioning torture. The same day, a former top state department official told a radio program that the office of Vice President Dick Cheney was behind directives which encouraged US forces's torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That followed a Washington Post report a day earlier that the CIA has operated a network of secret prisons in eight countries where about 30 people were being held and interrogated. "Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long," the Post said.
Without conceding the prisons exist, on Wednesday Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, insisted that the government will do what is necessary to fight the war on terrorism.

However, Hadley said, "The president has been very clear we're doing that in a way that is consistent with our values and that is why he's been very clear that the United States will not torture."
But US political leaders and human rights groups say the evidence is mounting that the US has repeatedly violated human rights statutes and the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of prisoners in the war on terror, including more than 500 in the Guantanamo, Cuba US naval prison.

Katherine Newell Bierman, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch, noted that the Post's sources were CIA people themselves, rebelling against torture. "This is not something necessarily that the people in the intelligence community really want to do," she said. "This kind of policy paints the US into a corner. It's only a matter of time before this information comes out." On Thursday Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing detainee abuse directly to Cheney's staff.

"There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led directly to US soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wilkerson said. Another sign of trouble for the White House was the rejection earlier this week by UN Human Rights rapporteurs of a Pentagon invitation to observe conditions at Guatanamo. The Pentagon's invitation came in the midst of a three-month-old hunger strike that defense lawyers say has involved as many as 200 detainees in protest over their indefinite detentions. The rapporteurs refused to accept the offer because they would not be permitted to meet prisoners. Alleged US torture policies are under challenge in several suits to force the government to accord basic rights to Guantanamo detainees, most of whom have been held for nearly four years without charges or access to legal representation.

A separate challenge looms in a defense funding amendment authored by Senator John McCain which would ban "cruel, inhuman and degrading" interrogations of detainees by US forces and agents under any conditions. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, proposed the amendment after an army captain testified that US soldiers routinely abused detainees in Iraq in 2003-04, having been told Geneva Conventions did not apply. The Senate, dominated by Bush's own Republican party, passed the bill in October in a 90-9 vote. On Wednesday the House of Representatives began reviewing the amendment.

Rather than embrace the law, however, Bush has threatened to veto it. And at the same time, Cheney has said that the law should exclude the CIA. Doing so, said a human rights lawyer, would create a situation where people seized by one agency could be "rendered" to the CIA where they could disappear along with their rights.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 07:40 AM

"Needs couch time and meds", Bobert, you apparently have the same powers that Bill Frist exhibited with Terri Schiavo. Diagnosis from afar. I am not real happy with the current administration but I don't have the need to be bitching about something all the time. Life is better than that. Well, at least for some of us.

I mentioned Arnes' so called affilation he offered as the names don't match. An attempt to be someone he is not? I am simply a midwest member of society who tries to go along with the adage "I am what I am". Now, there is something for you to rip on.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 07:43 AM

Brussels to probe claims of secret CIA jails
By Demetri Sevastopulo and Guy Dinmore in Washington and Christopher Condon in Budapest Published: November 3 2005 21:53 | Last updated: November 4 2005 00:01 Financial Times

The European Commission said on Thursday it would look into allegations that Poland and Romania had allowed the US Central Intelligence Agency to run secret detention and interrogation centres on their soil. "We have to find out what is happening," said Frisco Roscam Abbing, a Commission spokesman. The Commission said it had no indication that the allegations were true. Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that Poland, a new European Union member, and Romania, which is scheduled to become an EU member in 2007, were the likely locations for secret prisons that the CIA is allegedly running in Europe. The revelation followed a report in the Washington Post that the CIA had established so-called "black sites" in eight countries, including Afghanistan, Thailand and several east European democracies. Poland and Romania yesterday denied the allegations.


"The Romanian president said there is no detention facility of the CIA [in Romania]," said Claudiu Saftoiu, an adviser to President Traian Basescu on security issues. Asked whether Romania had permitted such a facility to exist in the past, Mr Saftoiu declined to say. "All member states are bound by their relevant international legal obligations, in particular those deriving from the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the Convention against Torture," said Franco Frattini, justice commissioner. "I encourage member states and candidate countries to take the necessary steps to look into this matter where appropriate." The CIA has declined to comment on claims of secret prisons housing high-level al-Qaeda suspects captured in US counter-terrorism operations. On Wednesday, Stephen Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush, sidestepped questions about the alleged prisons, saying only that the US acted in ways "consistent with our values".

Deborah Pearlstein, director of the US law and security programme at Human Rights First, said she was not surprised to hear that east European countries might be involved, given the "disturbing reports" of European co-operation with the US over the "rendition", or handing over, of detainees to such countries as Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.   Ms Pearlstein attacked efforts by Dick Cheney, vice-president, to have the CIA exempted from legislation proposed by Senator John McCain that would reaffirm the illegality of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners held by the US. The American Civil Liberties Union recently released details of autopsy and death reports it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. It said 21 deaths were listed as homicides. Eight people appeared to have died during or after interrogation by Navy Seals, military intelligence and "OGA" – Other Governmental Agency, which is commonly used to refer to the CIA.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 01:00 PM

Lyons: Libby, lies and the casualties of war         Email this page    Print this page
Posted: November 03, 2005
by: Scott Richard Lyons

And you thought Watergate was bad. Tricky Dick's ignoble legacy should pale in comparison to the trouble that's brewing now in Washington. When Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was indicted by a federal grand jury Oct. 28, we witnessed the birth of the biggest White House scandal in American history.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, appointed by the Republicans, charged Libby with lying to the grand jury, lying to FBI agents and obstructing the federal investigation of the White House's coverup of the lies it told the public to justify the war in Iraq. Top Bush aide Karl Rove remains under investigation for similar charges, and although given a pass for the moment, a future indictment would surprise no one.

Libby and Rove are not low-level hacks of the Lynndie England and Charles Graner variety, but Cheney and President Bush's most trusted right-hand men. So let's dispense with any ''bad apple'' theories that might be peddled as insults to our intelligence. If this plays out the way it started, we're going to smell corruption and rot emanating from the very top of the Washington food chain.

This entire scandal is about lies. Which lies? The ones we suspected all along: Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Remember Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, when he made that frightening, compelling case for war? He knew the American public would never send their children to die for oil or something so vague as a ''pax Americana.'' No, he needed something more dramatic, something visual, something scary ... a mushroom cloud!

So we heard him deliver those now infamous 16 words: ''The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'' One left that speech picturing Iraqi missiles aimed right at grandma.

Problem is, the White House had known for a year that the charges were absolutely false. In February 2002, the CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate precisely those rumors. Wilson not only concluded that they were baseless, but an actual hoax using forged documents. He said so to the CIA, which passed the information up to the White House. " ...

From http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411857.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 06:08 PM

Bobert: Well, Arne, where were you when we needed you here...

Well, I've been "around" for many years now ... search my name and you'll see. I generally don't look into the Mudcat as often as I'd like if I was gainfully unemployed (not making any insinuations abotu anyone else, of course). I occasionally comment in the non-BS threads that I think I have something I can add ... and occasionally tangle with the RW folks on the BS threads. I think I've have at least one exchaneg with Terebus (the original) in the past.

I've also been meaning to become a member ... but I guess my procrastinating ways are still with me.

Guest,A: Arne, why the name change?

I just got married. ;-) Either that or I'm a klutzy typist. Unlike some folks here, I'm perfectly happy to sign my name to my work both here and on the political websites. Hey, check out my blog if you want some more of my writing. Some neat pictures there too...

Guest,A continues: Doesn't connect up with the scientist link and most scientists would not, at first glance, accuse someone of being dishonest.

You're wrong. For instance, there's many scientists that say that the creationists (and the Discovery Institute folks) are dishonest. Take a gander over to the Panda's Thumb if you want to see some scientists (and interested non-scientists) eviscerate the DI and YEC folks. In my experience, scientists are particularly sensitive to lies; while common in the political arena -- where what is "right" and what is "wrong" is often not as clear or is a matter of opinion, and where the primary aim is not necessarily finding the truth -- in the realm of science, we're supposed to be looking for objective fact whatever that may be, and deliberate deception is a far greater crime. I certainly personally feel that way. I'd note that scientists that are found to have been dishonest in their papers may lose their grants and their jobs as well as their reputation. OTOH, if you do that in politics, you might just get the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Certainly doesn't seem to get you fired, if you've been following the papers....

Guest,A: continues inexplicably: However, your association with bobert may be a factor in this apparent lack of lucidity.

Umm, what is my "association with bobert"? I was unaware of any. Did he wrote me into his will unbeknownst? (IOW, you should show some integrity and take back that insinuation).

Don Firth: These are a few things to look out for, but it is far from an exhaustive list.

Don't sweat it, I'm no newbie to such -- umm, "argumentation".

Guest (presumably, "Guest,A"): I mentioned Arnes' so called affilation he offered as the names don't match. An attempt to be someone he is not?

I won't bother with nitpicking the usage and typos here from someone who seems to have missed my typo. You ought to read the thread a bit more carefully and pay attention; having done so, you might have first seen that I used my correct name in previous posts and you might have twigged to the notion I'm doing no such thing as "attempt[ing] to be someone he is not". As for the "brain scientist" comment of mine (note I added "recovering"; haven't done it in 30 years), I was just funnin' on Bobert's "rocket surgery", not responding to the RW folks here. Too bad you don't seem to appreciate wordplay; it's a handy attribute on the 'Cat..... You might turn your Sar-Cas-O-Meter sensitivity up a notch too. But I yam what I yam. 8^P

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 08:00 PM

Well, gol danged nice fish pic... Is that a salt water fish??? Must me wid them colors....

Ahhh, no offense intended on the "Where were you..." comment... It was made to be complimentary...

Yeah, Teribus certainly had the inte3llect to challenge all of us and I owe a lot to him fir his pushin' us even further, though on occasiuon, his tactics could be qutie irritatin'...

But, overall, he sho nuff was fun wrestlin' with...

The problem with Mudcat is that no-one stepped in to replace him... Yeah, a bunch of wantabee name-caller's but nuthin' too stimulatin'

Heck, I presented a purdy well thought out and well researched question to this GUEST A and all I got was the usual namecallin' and attack response???

Hey, Teribus wouldn't have given up so easilly...

Not that GUEST A 'er Old Guy are bad folks, just kinda lazy...

Where's the real Teribus when we need him???

Last I heard he was gettin' married... See what them womenz can do to a man???

Ahhhh, nevermind that last comment...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 11:38 PM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1841396,00.html

ALLEGATIONS

Mr Galloway's wife, Dr Amineh Abi-Zayyad, received $150,000 from Oil-for-Food allocations

Mr Galloway's charity, the Mariam Appeal, received $446,000 from Oil-for-Food allocations

A Jordanian middleman and friend of Mr Galloway, Fawaz Zureikat, obtained the money

Tariq Aziz, Iraq's former deputy Prime Minister, testified that Mr Galloway asked for oil allocations

Mr Galloway "knowingly made false or misleading statements under oath" at the Senate committee in May

GEORGE GALLOWAY faces possible criminal charges after a US Senate investigation tracked $150,000 (£85,000) in Iraqi oil money to his wife's bank account in Jordan.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will refer the Respect Party MP for possible prosecution after concluding that he gave "false and misleading" testimony at his appearance before the panel in May.

The sub-committee claimed that, through intermediaries, Mr Galloway and the Mariam Appeal were granted eight allocations of Iraqi crude oil totalling 23 million barrels from 1999 to 2003.

It will also forward the new information to British authorities, saying it raised questions about Mr Galloway's financial disclosure and the payment of illegal kickbacks to Iraq. "We have what we would call the smoking gun," said Senator Norm Coleman, the sub-committee's Republican chairman.

The sub-committee's report, released today, was provoked by Mr Galloway's clash with the senators — which he turned into a book entitled Mr Galloway goes to Washington. In that encounter, the anti-war MP vehemently denied receiving oil allocations from Iraq.

But the report provides bank account details tracking payments from an oil company through a Jordanian middleman to Mr Galloway's nowestranged wife, Amineh Abu- Zayyad, and his Mariam Appeal fund.

"Galloway was anything but straight with the Congress. He was anything but straight with the American people. There was a lot of bombast. There was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing," Senator Coleman said. "We take very seriously the importance of testifying honestly before this committee . . ." he said. "We will forward matters relating to Galloway's false and misleading statements to the proper authorities here and in Great Britain."

A Senate aide said that Mr Galloway would be referred to the Justice Department for investigation of possible perjury, false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding — all "Class A" felonies carrying a sentence of up to five years and a $250,000 fine.

The report says the Jordanian middleman Fawaz Zureikat, a close friend of Mr Galloway and his representative in Baghdad, funnelled $150,000 from Iraqi oil sales to Mr Galloway's wife and at least $446,000 to the Mariam Appeal. On the same day Mr Zureikat also paid $15,666 to Ron McKay, Mr Galloway's spokesman. Mr McKay could not be contacted for comment last night.

The saga dates back to Mr Galloway's Big Ben to Baghdad tour in September 1999 when he took a red double-decker bus to Iraq. An anonymous "oil trader 1" told the Senate investigators that Mr Galloway asked him at the Rashid Hotel, during the tour, how to translate oil allocations into money.

Another individual, known as "oil trader 2", told the investigators that he learnt in summer 2000 that the Iraqi Government had granted an allocation of oil to someone represented by Mr Zureikat. Oil trader 2 said: "At that time I knew that the individual that Zureikat represented was a British official named George Galloway."

He added: "Officials of the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation confirmed to me that Mr Zureikat represented Mr Galloway in the sale of Galloway's allocations of Iraqi crude oil."

He also told investigators: "The fact that Mr Zureikat represented Mr Galloway with respect to oil allocations and other business in Iraq was common knowledge, understood by many oil traders with whom I had regular contact."

The investigators spoke to Tariq Aziz, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, who told them that Mr Galloway asked him for political funding in allocations in the name of Mr Zureikat. The Senate report shows that Mr Zureikat received $740,000 from Taurus Petroleum on July 27, 2000, as commission for its purchase of 2,645,068 barrels of oil.

The report then reproduces money-transfer documents from Citibank showing that Mr Zureikat sent Mr Galloway's wife $150,000 on August 3, 2000. They conclude that the amount was "largely" Oil-for-Food money because Mr Zureikat's account contained $848,683 at the time, only $38,000 of which did not come from the programme.

Mr Galloway accused Senator Coleman last night of using congressional privilege to attack and smear him.

He said: "I've already comprehensively dealt with these allegations — under oath in the High Court and the US Senate — to the Charity Commission and in innumerable media inquiries."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 12:01 AM

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/carson200406020845.asp

New York Times:

our spy "Agency Belittles Information Given by Iraq Exiles,"

An Unapologetic Apology
The Times is only sorry it wasn't more antiwar.

By Christopher S. Carson

Last week, the New York Times issued an unusual mea culpa about the history of its Iraq coverage. This strange self-flagellation was published in multiple newspapers around the United States, and gained wide coverage in the blogosphere. Unfortunately, America's "paper of record," in the wake of a steady accumulation of evidence of Iraqi WMD stocks and programs, and ties to al Qaeda, was not apologizing for the near-uniform negativity of its assessments of the Bush administration's pre-war intelligence. The Times is sorry it wasn't negative enough.

The "Correction" article, published on May 26, started out with a healthy dose of self-hugging. "We found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of," it read. "In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies..."

KICK THE ANTI-CHALABI COVERAGE UP A NOTCH
But "looking back," the correction stated, "we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge." The Times believes that its "problematic articles" shared a common feature: They relied on those Iraqi "anti-Saddam campaigners" hanging around Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. The Times regrets that it and certain U.S. officials "fell for misinformation" from these "exile sources." The only exile named is Chalabi.

The logical extension of this surmise, then, is that the Times should have run even more anti-Chalabi hit pieces than it has already. But how could it? Almost every anti-Chalabi claim ever spun by the unnamed desk-bound solons in the CIA and State Department, no matter how ill-founded, found an instant national audience in the Times's pages. For example, the headline of Douglas Jehl's article on September 29, 2003, screamed that our spy "Agency Belittles Information Given by Iraq Exiles," especially Ahmad Chalabi. Other Douglas Jehl stories, all pre-dating Chalabi's "fall" in May 2004, read, "Pentagon Pays Iraq Group, Supplier of Incorrect Spy Data," and, "Stung by Exiles' Role, C.I.A. Orders a Shift in Procedures." The Times, on the other hand, had no comment about General Richard Meyers's recent testimony before Congress, in which he baldly stated that Chalabi's INC had "saved American lives" time and again by its accurate intelligence about anti-coalition forces.

SALMAN PAK
The correction article enumerated a few examples of not being liberal enough: In the autumn of 2001, "page 1 articles cited Iraqi defectors who described a secret Iraqi camp where Islamic terrorists were trained and biological weapons produced." But alas! "These accounts have never independently been verified," and thus presumably should never have even been reported. Implication? The "defectors" were probably lying. The weekend correction piece tried to make the "secret Iraqi camp" even more willowy and insubstantial by not giving it a name — which, of course, was Salman Pak.

I don't accept the Times's premise here. Indeed, as a trial attorney, "verifying" the existence and true purpose of Salman Pak in, say, a court of law would be one of the easier things I could manage. The fact that the Salman Pak terrorist-training school, 25 kilometers south of Baghdad, was first brought to the attention of the world through the INC ought to boost Chalabi's credibility before any reasonable jury. How? Let's look at the evidence.

Interviewed about Salman Pak by the Times and PBS's Frontline in October of 2001, Iraqi defector and army Captain Sabah Khodada had this to say about the purpose:

    Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism.

Khodada pointed out that there was even a camp-within-the-camp devoted entirely to the training of foreign jihadists. Who were these people? His answer: "They look like they're mostly from the Gulf, sometimes from areas close to Yemen, from their dark skin..."

The airplane-hijacking courses were especially intensive, Khodada recalled. The foreign terrorists would later break into small groups and study the local language of the target nation, such as Hebrew or English. Asked about the 9/11 attacks of the previous month, Khodada was adamant:

    I assure you, this operation was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam. And I'm going to keep assuring the world this is what happened. Osama bin Laden has no such capabilities. Why? Because these kind of attacks must be, and have to be, organized by a capable state, such as Iraq; a state where they can provide high level of training, and they can provide high level of intelligence to do such training.

The camp has a "real whole 707 plane, a whole real plane, standing in the middle of the training area in this camp," Captain Khodada related. This 707 was used to teach terrorists how to take over commercial airliners and subdue and terrorize the pilots and crew with materials already available on the aircraft, such as plastic knives, pencils, and the like.

Saddam's government, of course, denied even that an airplane existed 25 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, smiled genially and told Frontline in the fall of 2001: "I am lucky that I know the area, this Salman Pak. This is a very beautiful area with gardens, with trees," Aldouri said. "It is not possible to do such a program there, because there's no place for planes." Who ultimately turned out to be more credible — Captain Khodada, or Ambassador Aldouri?

The New York Times apparently believes that Saddam's man at the U.N., Ambassador Aldouri, must have been telling the truth all along. Khodada and the other defector, although no evidence ever surfaced to discredit them, must have lied — apparently because the prince of darkness, Ahmad Chalabi, brought them out to talk to the press. But if the Times was remiss in its coverage, it was not for reporting on Khodada's story. The bias was for not reporting the corroboration of Khodada's story.

If the CIA had photos of Salman Pak at that time, it chose not to release them to the public in the wake of the Times/Frontline story, perhaps for fear of validating Ahmad Chalabi. A private U.S. satellite-photo company, Space Imaging, then searched its archives and duly found a photo showing the Boeing 707 parked in the Salman Pak compound. There was no airstrip in sight. The private Space Imaging photo, amazingly, exactly matched the personal drawing Captain Khodada had made for the 2001 Times/Frontline story — before the photo was retrieved. Evidently Captain Khodada must have had extraordinary telepathic drawing capabilities.

In reading the "Correction" lamenting the supposedly nonexistent "verification" of Salman Pak, it's obvious that the Times forgot what the UNSCOM inspectors discovered about Salman Pak during the mid-'90s. Then-deputy UNSCOM chief Charles Duelfer, who now heads the Iraq Survey Group searching the country for WMDs, personally visited the terrorism camp around 1995 and saw the Boeing. "He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors," the liberal-leaning London Observer reported. "The Iraqis, he said, told UNSCOM it was used by 'police' for counter-terrorist training." "Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter'," Duelfer explained. "I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?"

Even before Duelfer visited Salman Pak, UNSCOM had a file on it. A U.N. team that toured one of the "campus" buildings in 1994 found a decontamination shower and airlock doors, which were obvious hallmarks of a high-risk environment. Sensing something big was being concealed, the inspectors attempted to excavate a recently dug and refilled trench there, looking for something that had been quickly buried in anticipation of their arrival. The digging met with what inspectors called a "nearly hysterical" Iraqi reaction. Saddam called in compliant Sunni mullahs to declare the barren stretch of sand "sacred" and off limits. UNSCOM backed down. Salman Pak kept its secrets.

If Ahmad Chalabi, Captain Khodada, Space Imaging, Inc., and UNSCOM Deputy Chief Charles Duelfer were presumably all lying or misled about Salman Pak, the Iraq war itself would have exposed this unlikely conspiracy. For example, at the location of the mystery camp, the Marines who conquered this area during the three-week war would find no 707 jetliner parked in the sand. Unfortunately for the Times, they did.

In April 2003, advance elements of the 3rd Marine Battalion shelled the camp, and then overran it. They corroborated the defectors' reports in striking detail. "The rusted shell of an old passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken off," the Associated Press embed reported. "The passenger plane's sun-bleached fuselage lay alone in a large, barren field. A fire engine sat at one intersection. Elsewhere, the twisted metal wreck of a double-decker bus stood near three decrepit green and red train cars."

There was a lot of chatter among the captured foreign jihadists in Iraq about Salman Pak. As U.S. Army spokesman Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters that week at his regular press briefing, "The nature of the work being done by some of those people that we captured, their inferences to the type of training that they received, all of these things give us the impression that there was terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak."

To believe that Salman Pak was not a terrorism graduate school for al Qaeda members and affiliates like Abu Musab Zarqawi, you have to imagine that the Boeing 707, the double-decker bus, and the train cars found by the Marines must really have been put there for a bizarre Iraqi remake of the American movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

URANIUM AND ROCKETS SURE LOOK LIKE WMD...
The Times next "criticize[d]" itself not for reporting on a claim about Iraq's large-scale efforts at procuring high-strength aluminum tubes, but for reporting on the challenges to this claim half-way through its lengthy article. Apparently, the Times believes it was supposed to criticize the uranium-enrichment claim at the beginning of the article — before it described the basic claim itself. The key dispute was not the purchasing of the tubes; everyone acknowledged that. The dispute was that the United States asserted that these tubes were for a uranium-enrichment program, and Iraq maintained that these tubes were simply for firing conventional rockets.

Once again, the Times forgets about the U.N. resolutions prohibiting Iraq from ordering or having high-strength tubes at all. Iraq was thumbing its nose at the U.N., and enduring billions of dollars of lost oil revenue per year as a result, so it could buy tubes for small conventional rockets, as now claimed by IAEA head Mohammed al-Baradei? The New York Times apparently now believes this claim, in retrospect, to have been so self-evidently true that the Times should not even have given the Bush administration's conclusions about uranium enrichment the dignity of a discussion.

UNSCOM and the IAEA historically had a more nuanced picture of Iraq's nuclear capabilities, to say the least. When Saddam booted the U.N. inspectors in 1998, the IAEA was able to confidently conclude that although there were as yet

    "no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons," it was the case that "Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of highly enriched uranium through the EMIS process, the production and pilot cascading of single-cylinder sub-critical gas centrifuge machines, and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon (emphasis added).

In other words, it's not as if the idea hadn't occurred to Saddam. But when it became clear that America was using Saddam's tube-procurement as an argument for going to war, the current IAEA head Mohammed al-Baradei definitively switched course and told the world that he believed the tubes were for little rockets.

Finally the Times feels bad that it "never followed up on the veracity" of a certain Iraqi chemical-weapons scientist, who told the U.S. troops in the wake of the invasion last year that Saddam had "destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment" only days before the invasion, that Saddam had transported WMDs to Syria, its fellow Baathist terror regime, and that Saddam had cooperated with al Qaeda.

For once in its mea culpa, the Times got it right, though not for the reason it thinks. The paper surely should have investigated these claims. If it had done so, it might have learned that the chief of Israeli military intelligence, in addition to David Kay of the Iraq Survey Group, CentCom itself, and at least two former Iraqi intelligence officials have now reported evidence of Saddam's late pass-off of the WMDs to Syria. These recent lines of evidence include specific locations of WMD stockpiles within Syria, and, most recently, in the Bekka Valley in Syrian-occupied Lebanon as well.

If Times editors were really interested in unbiased reporting from Iraq, it might have "followed up on the veracity" of dozens of former regime officials who have made startlingly consistent and intransigent claims about the depth of the threat from Iraq, especially concerning Iraq's operational links in logistics, training, finance, and manpower support for Osama bin Laden and his murderers. A few more trips outside of the Green Zone and into Salman Pak for Times reporters would have made a world of difference in the Gray Lady's Iraq coverage.

— Christopher S. Carson is a Milwaukee attorney in private practice.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 12:24 AM

http://www.photodude.com/article/1942/the-capture-of-salman-pak

The Capture of Salman Pak

The Capture of Salman Pak – Ah, Salman Pak. I've brought it up before, as have ... others. Now it's been captured.

"Tanks with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines rolled into Salman Pak, just southeast of Baghdad [...] U.S. military officials said there is a suspected weapons of mass destruction site in the town that dates back to 1991. When Iraq was developing its biological weapons program before the first Gulf War, the main facility was a secret complex at Salman Pak. There is also an airstrip in the town that the Bush administration says Iraq used more recently to offer terrorist training to Islamic militants. Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said Marines raided the complex using information from captured foreign fighters from Egypt, Sudan and other nations. 'The nature of the work being done by some of those people we captured, their inferences about the type of training they received, all these things give us the impression that there is terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak,' Brooks said Sunday."

"In the middle of a clearing of trees, rows of plastic chairs were set up like an outdoor classroom. There was a training course of climbing ropes and wooden obstacles and a three-story tower with ropes down the side to practice rappelling. At a large intersection, on one corner there was a fire truck, and another corner was a large abandoned passenger plane, bleached by the sun, its tail broken off. The Marines inferred it was used to practice hijacking. There was also a ravaged double-decker passenger bus, speedboats and green train cars. Storehouses were filled with gas masks."

Nope, no foreign terrorists in Iraq, nosirree.

From AFP/Arab News: "Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians are fighting alongside Iraqi troops against US forces moving on Baghdad, using tactics including suicide bombings which left two Marines dead, US officers said yesterday. One officer with the 1st Marine Division told AFP US troops fought a 10-hour battle with hundreds of such fighters southeast of Baghdad on Friday. 'We were ambushed twice, and there were four suicide car bombings against tanks,' the officer said."

Southeast of Baghdad. In the direction of Salman Pak.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 05:10 PM

Guest (umm, "Guest,A", I'za gessin') [quoting the MI6 captive rag, the Murdoch-owned The London Times]: It will also forward the new information to British authorities, saying it raised questions about Mr Galloway's financial disclosure and the payment of illegal kickbacks to Iraq. "We have what we would call the smoking gun," said Senator Norm Coleman, the sub-committee's Republican chairman.

Galloway has said he'd come over and defend himself on these charges. IC that Coleman is still smarting from the evisceration that Galloway gave him when Coleman thought it would be a good thing for an incompetent senator to try a smackdown on a seasoned MP.... "Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it" is a maxim that Coleman just hasn't figured out yet. If they try to pin this charge on Galloway, we might just find out where this "intelligence" that they dug up on Galloway came from ... it may well have had Chalabi's (or his thugs') hand in it, and we know how reliable Chalabi's tips have been.

Guest continues: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/carson200406020845.asp

Ah, yes, the National Review. From June of 2004. Nice to see you're keeping up with The Times. ;-) Still won't admit there were no WoMD.

There's "Curveball" the drunk, amongst other fine Chalabi sources. And Chalabi's good buddies with the Iranians too, Guest. Must make you feel all woarm and fuzzy inside.

From Guest's defector Khodada: The camp has a "real whole 707 plane, a whole real plane, standing in the middle of the training area in this camp," Captain Khodada related. This 707 was used to teach terrorists how to take over commercial airliners and subdue and terrorize the pilots and crew with materials already available on the aircraft, such as plastic knives, pencils, and the like.

The 9/11 terrorists trained in a gym. You're just as much a bozo as the maladministration if you take single-source claims by defectors with an self-interest in the proceedings over common sense and the evidence on the ground post-bellum. Once again, think "Curveball". And think of all the wonderful "intelligence" we had of nuclear bomb programs, mobile bioweapons labs, biowarfare facilities buried underground, SCUD missiles in chicken coop, and all the other wonderful "evidence" that was proven even before the war to be (as one U.N. inspector said) "garbage, garbage, and more garbage". The "intelligence" was wrong, almost totally and completely, and proven wrong by multiple investigations. And it was mostly stuff coming from Chalabi's INC thugs.

Here's your Christopher Carson, Guest, a complete nutjob: "I assure you, this operation was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam. And I'm going to keep assuring the world this is what happened. Osama bin Laden has no such capabilities."

Guest, that's pretty think ice you're skating out on. ;-)

These recent lines of evidence include specific locations of WMD stockpiles within Syria, and, most recently, in the Bekka Valley in Syrian-occupied Lebanon as well.

Yep, we know where those weapons are. They're in the area around Suran and Damascus and east, west, south and north somewhat.

See here if you are a bit lost on the reference. ;-)

"In the middle of a clearing of trees, rows of plastic chairs were set up like an outdoor classroom. There was a training course of climbing ropes and wooden obstacles and a three-story tower with ropes down the side to practice rappelling. At a large intersection, on one corner there was a fire truck, and another corner was a large abandoned passenger plane, bleached by the sun, its tail broken off.

Guess we're running terrorism schools here in the U.S. as well, eh? Sounds like standard setup for SF and other type training, and rest assured I can find obstacle courses, towers with ropes for practising rappelling, etc. in various places around here (probably have just the ticket down the coast at Camp Pendleton). And there's a neat little shattered passenger airplane fuselage over across the bay at the Oakland airport. Guess it's for the Oakland gang members to train their next hijacking on, eh?

You know, Guest, you ought to hang it up. Even the maladministration, up to its eyeballs in criticism for its horrible intelligence performance, isn't trotting out these stale canards (instead they've switched to Plan B and "nation-building"). If there was any legs to these stories the RW whacks keep circulalting, they'd use them in a heartbeat with the biggest "I TOLD YOU SO" that an already loudmouthed party could muster.

But feel free to ignore reality ... and to cower under your bed. That will sure keep the real terrorists from winning (and speaking of, where's ol' "Dead or Alive" Osama bin Forgotten nowadays?

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 06:21 PM

C. Wallace:I want to play a clip from your statement back in October of 2002 when you voted to authorize the use of force. Here it is.

SCHUMER: It is Hussein's vigorous pursuit of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and his present and future potential support for terrorist acts and organizations that make him a danger to the people of the united states.

C. WALLACE: Senator, you read the intelligence and you came to the same conclusion the president did.

SCHUMER: Yes. The bottom line is I wasn't as sure of it as the president was but I believe in a post-9/11 world, Chris, that the president does need latitude to keep our national security strong. And you know, that is true.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174694,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:23 PM

Oh, yeah! Well, Fox News! Yup! I'm convinced! Yesiree!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:34 PM

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy

Thursday 16 October 2003

"Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seing and developing weapons of mass destruction."
    Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002. at Johns Hopkins.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/jfk/jfk038.htm

It was a Friday night 30 years ago, July 18, 1969, On that weekend in, Ted Kennedy and 11 other people gathered for a cookout at a rented cottage on Chappaquiddick.

All were Kennedy loyalists: five men employed by or friendly with the senator, and six women, "Boiler Room Girls" who had worked in Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, cut short by his assassination in Los Angeles the year before.

Participants have always said the party was innocent, even though five of the men, including Ted Kennedy, were married and the six women were all single.

All agreed in later testimony that Kennedy and Kopechne left the party shortly before midnight, saying they were tired, to return to Edgartown on the Martha's Vineyard side of a 150-yard-wide channel.

What happened next has remained in dispute, with an unexplained gap of one hour.

Kennedy said he mistakenly turned right onto a gravel road and skidded off the bridge, the car landing upside-down in eight feet of water. After escaping the car, he tried unsuccessfully to rescue Kopechne, then staggered a mile back to the party cottage, where he got his cousin Joseph Gargan and friend Paul Markham to return for a second rescue try.

Failing that, they went to the ferry landing, where, they said, Kennedy "impulsively" jumped into the water and swam across to Edgartown, by his own account "nearly drowning a second time."

Gargan and Markham, a former federal prosecutor in Boston, said they assumed that Kennedy, once at Edgartown, would contact the police, and were stunned the next morning to discover he had not done so.

In fact it was a full nine hours - and after he learned that the submerged car with a body inside had been discovered - that Kennedy reported the accident to police and said he had been the driver.

At this point the Kennedy clout in Massachusetts kicked in. The other partygoers quickly left the island, and Kopechne's body was flown by Kennedy-chartered plane to her hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. No autopsy was performed.

Kennedy attended the funeral, with a neck brace he was never seen wearing again.

After a week's silence, holed up at the family's Hyannis compound with such Kennedy "brain trust" figures as Ted Sorenson, Robert F. McNamara and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., he told Massachusetts voters in a televised speech that he had been distraught and confused, wondered if there was a "curse" on the Kennedy family, and asked them to decide whether he should continue in the Senate.

Despite widespread media criticism - The New York Times said the speech "raises more questions than it answers" and criticized Massachusetts officials for soft-pedaling the inquiry - aides to Kennedy claimed the public overwhelmingly supported his staying in office.

A week after the accident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a two-month suspended jail sentence and a year's probation.

Numerous investigations by authors and news organizations spawned a variety of theories, among them that Ms. Kopechne or Gargan was driving the car. But none of these held up under careful analysis.

In 1975, The Associated Press found numerous points of conflict between the sworn testimony of Kennedy and others at a 1970 inquest at Edgartown and a court hearing in Pennsylvania.

The partygoers, most of whom did not know at the time exactly what had happened, have remained all but silent for three decades. Kennedy himself has addressed the subject on occasion without adding new information or clarifying unanswered questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:51 PM

Ahhhh, see there's a big ol' diosconnect between Fox entertainment/mythology/news and reality... Heck, "SDurvivor" has more reality to it than Fox...

Fox is no a source to be believed... Talk about a bunch of conspiracy nuts... They never met one, if it made progressives look bad, that they wouldn't buy... Problem with Fox is they don't own up to their errors, or if they do it is in one sentence aired in the iddle of the night..

And that's why I also have problems with both the New York Times (Think Judy Miller here) and the Washington Post... Yeah, bothe gave the neo-cons daily headline's during the run-up to war but when all the stuff they ahd printed day-afetr-day in the run-up turned out to be false the retractions were well hidden... The Post did their dance-of-the-diein'-duck retarctions and apologies last August and said, "Yeah, we got caught up in a culture thing" (paraphased)... I sent them a letter and asked them if they had a problem with a culture thing what steps they had taken to be sure that it didn't happen again... I'm still awaiting their answer...

Yeah, that culture thing (also called office-speak) is very dangerous in a society that preaxches democracy... Hey, if I'm the leader of a compnay, or country, I want as many ideas as possible to mull over... No, I don't want just one option, 'cuae there is a conflict with the term "option" and "one"... No, I want to hear everything!!! Especially when takin' a country to war...

Bush didn't wanta second opinon and the New York Times and Washington Post didn't either...

...and I haven't heard or seen anything from either the Times or the Post that suggests that have done one danged thing to change anything...

Purdy scarey...

Makes them not all that different than Fox....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:03 PM

By Michael Barone US News & World report
Bush Bashing Fizzles

This summer, one big story is replaced by another--the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media--the New York Times, etc., etc.--to delegitimize yet another Republican administration.

This project has been ongoing for more than 30 years. Richard Nixon, by obstructing investigation of the Watergate burglary, unwittingly colluded in the successful attempt to besmirch his administration. Less than two years after carrying 49 states, he was compelled to resign. The attempt to delegitimize the Reagan administration seemed at the time reasonably successful. Reagan was widely dismissed as a lightweight ideologue, and the rejection of his nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 contributed to the impression that his years in office were, to take the title of a book by a first-rate journalist, "the Reagan detour." As time went on, as the Berlin Wall fell and Bill Clinton proclaimed that the era of big government was over, it became clear that Reagan was a successful transformational president--something the mainstream media grudgingly admitted when he died in 2004 after a decade out of public view.

You think they'd learn. But for the past five years, the same folks have been trying to undermine the presidency of George W. Bush. The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore was denounced as an outrage, and Democrats noted, accurately, that Bush did not win a plurality of the popular vote in 2000. The nation rallied to his support after September 11, but Democrats held up his judicial and other nominations even if they had to violate Senate tradition to do so. Coverage of Bush during the 2004 campaign was heavily negative; for months the mainstream media mostly ignored the swift boat vets' charges against John Kerry and broadcast accusations against Bush based on forged documents eight weeks before the election. News of economic recovery in 2003 and 2004 was pitched far more negatively than it had been when Bill Clinton was president in 1995 and 1996.

Now the unsupported charges that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been rekindled via criticism of Karl Rove. A key witness for the Democrats and mainstream media was former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Unfortunately for his advocates, he turned out to be a liar. A year after his famous article appeared in the New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of "twisting" intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents. The case against Rove--ballyhooed by recent Time and Newsweek cover stories that paid little heed to the discrediting of Wilson--seems likely to end not with a bang but a whimper.

Court intrigue. So, too, with the political left's determination to defeat Bush's first nominee to the Supreme Court. Democrats, with much help from the press, argued successfully in 1987 that Robert Bork was out of the mainstream and in 1991 brought up spectacular charges that cast a pall on Justice Clarence Thomas. They seem almost certain not to have such success against the obviously highly qualified John Roberts. They may try to argue that Roberts is "out of the mainstream." But the vote on Roberts's nomination to the appeals court was 14 to 3 in the judiciary committee. Who is in the mainstream now?

The bombings and attempted bombings in London have brought home to the American public that we face implacable enemies unwilling to be appeased by even the most emollient diplomacy. Yet, mainstream media coverage of Iraq has been mostly negative. But mainstream media no longer have a monopoly; Americans have other sources in talk radio, Fox News, and the blogosphere. Bush's presidency is still regarded as illegitimate by perhaps 20 percent of the electorate. But among the rest, the attempt to delegitimize him seems to be collapsing.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:11 PM

Investigate the CIA
An "outing" was the result of either incompetence or an effort to undermine the White House.

BY VICTORIA TOENSING
Sunday, November 6, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

In a surprise, closed-door debate, Senate Democrats last week demanded an investigation of pre-Iraq War intelligence. Here's an issue for them: Assess the validity of the claim that Valerie Plame's status was "covert," or even properly classified, given the wretched tradecraft by the Central Intelligence Agency throughout the entire episode. It was, after all, the CIA that requested the "leak" investigation, alleging that one of its agents had been outed in Bob Novak's July 14, 2003, column. Yet it was the CIA's bizarre conduct that led inexorably to Ms. Plame's unveiling.

When the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was being negotiated, Senate Select Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater was adamant: If the CIA desired a law making it illegal to expose one of its deep cover employees, then the agency must do a much better job of protecting their cover. That is why a criterion for any prosecution under the act is that the government was taking "affirmative measures" to conceal the protected person's relationship to the intelligence agency. Two decades later, the CIA, either purposely or with gross negligence, made a series of decisions that led to Ms. Plame becoming a household name:

• The CIA sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger on a sensitive mission regarding WMD. He was to determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake, an essential ingredient for unconventional weapons. However, it was Ms. Plame, not Mr. Wilson, who was the WMD expert. Moreover, Mr. Wilson had no intelligence background, was never a senior person in Niger when he was in the State Department, and was opposed to the administration's Iraq policy. The assignment was given, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, at Ms. Plame's suggestion.

• Mr. Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement, a mandatory act for the rest of us who either carry out any similar CIA assignment or represent CIA clients.

• When he returned from Niger, Mr. Wilson was not required to write a report, but rather merely to provide an oral briefing. That information was not sent to the White House. If this mission to Niger were so important, wouldn't a competent intelligence agency want a thoughtful written assessment from the "missionary," if for no other reason than to establish a record to refute any subsequent misrepresentation of that assessment? Because it was the vice president who initially inquired about Niger and the yellowcake (although he had nothing to do with Mr. Wilson being sent), it is curious that neither his office nor the president's were privy to the fruits of Mr. Wilson's oral report.

• Although Mr. Wilson did not have to write even one word for the agency that sent him on the mission at taxpayer's expense, over a year later he was permitted to tell all about this sensitive assignment in the New York Times. For the rest of us, writing about such an assignment would mean we'd have to bring our proposed op-ed before the CIA's Prepublication Review Board and spend countless hours arguing over every word to be published. Congressional oversight committees should want to know who at the CIA permitted the publication of the article, which, it has been reported, did not jibe with the thrust of Mr. Wilson's oral briefing. For starters, if the piece had been properly vetted at the CIA, someone should have known that the agency never briefed the vice president on the trip, as claimed by Mr. Wilson in his op-ed.

• More important than the inaccuracies is that, if the CIA truly, truly, truly had wanted Ms. Plame's identity to be secret, it never would have permitted her spouse to write the op-ed. Did no one at Langley think that her identity could be compromised if her spouse wrote a piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her expertise? The obvious question a sophisticated journalist such as Mr. Novak asked after "Why did the CIA send Wilson?" was "Who is Wilson?" After being told by a still-unnamed administration source that Mr. Wilson's "wife" suggested him for the assignment, Mr. Novak went to Who's Who, which reveals "Valerie Plame" as Mr. Wilson's spouse.

• CIA incompetence did not end there. When Mr. Novak called the agency to verify Ms. Plame's employment, it not only did so, but failed to go beyond the perfunctory request not to publish. Every experienced Washington journalist knows that when the CIA really does not want something public, there are serious requests from the top, usually the director. Only the press office talked to Mr. Novak.

• Although high-ranking Justice Department officials are prohibited from political activity, the CIA had no problem permitting its deep cover or classified employee from making political contributions under the name "Wilson, Valerie E.," information publicly available at the Federal Elections Commission.

The CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft. It is up to Congress to decide which.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007508

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:12 PM

Dance, dance, dance, GuestA. What's next, Clinton's @enis?

You seem bound and determined to avoid the fact the Dubya's maladministration has been one huge fustercluck from beginning to end, and that the most severe, most significant, and most horrifying has been the squandering of an additional 2000 American lives in the Iraqian quagmire, after blowing it on the intelligence and reading "My Pet Goat" while people jumped to their deaths from a burning building.

Why? I just want to know why you cling so stubbornly to your incompetent "hero". There's no rational reason for it, so see if you can explain what it is that you think the Preznit's done so good at, to make up for the many obvious mistakes, outright blunders, and criminal corruption and cronyism.....

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:26 PM

"If there was ever a time in history to impeach
a President of the United States, it would be now."

-Barbara Streisand 

"If there was ever a time in history to impeach a President of the United States, it would be now. In my opinion, it is two years too late … Shouldn't war be an absolute last resort? We went to war because we were misled. And we should be angry because of the 2,000 American soldiers and the 200 armed coalition forces that have died. We should be livid because of the 15,000 American soldiers that have been horribly maimed and wounded. We should be disgusted because of the 30,000 innocent Iraqi civilians that have been killed and the 20,000 that are wounded after administration officials claimed that the US was going to liberate the Iraqi people. When does it stop? It stops with the indictment and impeachment of this corrupt, power-hungry, greedy group of incompetent leaders. How many more have to die before this happens?"
- Barbara Streisand

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:37 PM

Yo GUEST, 8:03 ans 8:11,,,

Hey, di they give you a friggin' keyboard with yer pudder???

Cut-n-pastes are not only lazy but say nuthin' about what ***you*** think... And guess what, a recent Mudcat survey found that 96% of folks here pass right by a cut-n-post, irregardless of whoes side is supported...

So, ahhh, accordin' to the Wes Ginny Slide Rule, nobody will read yer posts...

Hey, come back and tell us what you think... Too much to ask???

Bobert (pushin' 10,000 posts without one cut-n-paste...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:44 PM

Susan was found, shot, lying on the bunk in Amos' cabin.

   At around this time, another young woman began causing problems for the Commodore. Susan Meister, a twenty-three-year-old from Colorado, had joined the crew of the Apollo in February 1971, having been introduced to Scientology by friends while she was working in San Francisco. When she arrived on the ship she was a typically eager and optimistic convert and wrote home frequently, urging her family to 'get into' Scientology.

Letters of Susan Meister to her family

    Dear Family,

    I just had a session an auditing session
    I feel great! Great GREAT! and my life is EXPANDING EXPANDING and it's All Hurry Up: Hurry, Hurry SCIENTOLOGY
    Be a friend to yourselves Get into this stuff Now - It's more precious than gold it's the best thing that's _ever_ever_ever_ever_ come along.

    Love, Susan


    She once more urged her mother to read Hubbard's books, and take Scientology courses. Ten days after writing the letter, Susan was dead... According to her father, Susan was "lying on a bunk, wearing the new dress her mother had made for her, her arms crossed with a long barreled revolver on her breast. A bullet hole was in the center of her forehead and blood was running out of the corners of her mouth. I began to wonder how Susan could possibly shoot herself in the center of her forehead with the long barreled revolver. She would have had to hold it with both hands at arms length. There were no powder burns on her forehead, which certainly would have been the case if the gun was against her forehead as it would have to be to shoot herself as the photograph appeared."


Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1978

    In mid-July that year, according to State Department correspondence obtained by The Times, Miss Meister's father traveled from Colorado to the Moroccan port of Safi, 125 miles south of Casablanca, where the Apollo was then moored, to inquire into his daughter's death. Meister is said to have questioned the explanation of the death proffered by the ship's officers, and indicated that he might seek an investigation of the Apollo. In turn -- according to a Nov. 11, 1971, letter from Assistant Secretary of State David M. Abshire to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- the Apollo's port captain threatened in the presence of the American vice consul from Casablanca, William J. Galbraith, that "he had enough material, including compromising photographs of Miss Meister, to smear Mr. Meister first."


Affidavit of Hana Whitfield
8 Mar 1994

    187. Susan was on board about six months. She was "PTS" - her family was upset because the ship's location was confidential and they did not know where she was.
    188. In mid 1971, in my office on A Deck, I heard a strange, sharp sound. It was traced to the aft bridge cabins where the senior Ship's Officers berthed, and specifically to that of Chief Officer Amos Jessup. Susan was found, shot, lying on the bunk in Amos' cabin. I helped Mary Sue Hubbard, who was in charge of the GO, to investigate the death. Mary Sue checked the aft bridge cabin where Susan died. I checked Susan's bunk below decks and her possessions, but found nothing amiss. Mary Sue had already removed Susan's letters, note books and other personal effects. I arranged for someone to send Susan's clothes to her family. We interviewed Amos Jessup, who was visibly upset and shaking on and off. He blamed himself, as Susan wanted a committed relationship and he didn't. Susan was in the cabin alone after he went to work. He didn't see her alive again. He had no idea she was suicidal.
    189. We interviewed a deck hand who was working on A deck port side, aft of the bridge cabin, when the shot occurred. He reported the sound and located Amos. We interviewed Susan's superior, the ship's medical officer and several other people. They all said Susan was emotionally unstable. Mary Sue wrote a report for the Moroccan police.

George Meister showing picture of his dead daughter Susan Meister - Link to www.xenutv.com
"This is a picture of my daughter, and that's all I have."

Susan's father testified about the death of his daughter and subsequent harassment and death threats he received. The transcripts of those City of Clearwater Commission Hearings held in 1982 are available here. Also on the web are the Preliminary and Final Report of the Clearwater Commission. Here's a collection of newspaper articles covering the Hearings.

This is amongs other things what Susan's father had to say:

    My name is George Meister. I'm here, not because I've ever been a member of the Church of Scientology or ever will be, but I'm here in behalf of my daughter, Susan. And I'd like to have the camera get a shot of this picture, possibly. This is a picture of my daughter, and that's all I have. Susan died aboard the ship, Apollo, June 25th, 1971, with a bullet in the middle of her forehead.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 09:55 PM

It is not me, you moron! You come across as such an intellectual but your ability to discern is about the same as Boberts'.

And Bobert, you will not read anything that may contradict your mode of thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 10:07 PM

Hey, GUEST, 8:44...

What are you tryin' to say here???

Come on... Spit it out...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 10:33 PM

Dig deep, dig long, you pissant muckraker; you will find more falsehoods, if such is possible, than even your fevered meat-brain has ever brought out. I spit. Your taste for calumny, distortion and plain ole falsehood will be the last flavor you notice on your way out; my sympathies to your sorry sad-sack little soul.

But, what did you think of Mrs. Streisand's little essay? I rather liked it -- calling for impeachment on the grounds of falsification and malicious distortion. An art with which you clearly sympathize.

Ptui on you, buddy. You desperate efforts are classical extremist phobic reactions.

Come on over here and give me a big wet kiss on the butt, won't you?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 12:05 AM

More signs of creeping fascism: criticize war on religious grounds and get harassed by the IRS:

(From the LA Times):

The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.

Rector J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena told many congregants during morning services Sunday that a guest sermon by the church's former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, on Oct. 31, 2004, had prompted a letter from the IRS.

In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster."

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 12:07 AM

The New York Times does not think highly of Bush's performance in Latin America recently:

"President Bush's Walkabout
E-Mail This
Printer-Friendly
Save Article
Published: November 8, 2005
After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long.

In Argentina, Mr. Bush, who prides himself on his ability to relate to world leaders face to face, could barely summon the energy to chat with the 33 other leaders there, almost all of whom would be considered friendly to the United States under normal circumstances. He and his delegation failed to get even a minimally face-saving outcome at the collapsed trade talks and allowed a loudmouthed opportunist like the president of Venezuela to steal the show.

It's amazing to remember that when Mr. Bush first ran for president, he bragged about his understanding of Latin America, his ability to speak Spanish and his friendship with Mexico. But he also made fun of Al Gore for believing that nation-building was a job for the United States military.

The White House is in an uproar over the future of Karl Rove, the president's political adviser, and spinning off rumors that some top cabinet members may be asked to walk the plank. Mr. Bush could certainly afford to replace some of his top advisers. But the central problem is not Karl Rove or Treasury Secretary John Snow or even Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary. It is President Bush himself.

Second terms may be difficult, but the chief executive still has the power to shape what happens. Ronald Reagan managed to turn his messy second term around and deliver - in great part through his own powers of leadership - a historic series of agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the peaceful dismantling of the Soviet empire. Mr. Bush has never demonstrated the capacity for such a comeback. Nevertheless, every American has a stake in hoping that he can surprise us.

The place to begin is with Dick Cheney, the dark force behind many of the administration's most disastrous policies, like the Iraq invasion and the stubborn resistance to energy conservation. Right now, the vice president is devoting himself to beating back Congressional legislation that would prohibit the torture of prisoners. This is truly a remarkable set of priorities: his former chief aide was indicted, Mr. Cheney's back is against the wall, and he's declared war on the Geneva Conventions.

Mr. Bush cannot fire Mr. Cheney, but he could do what other presidents have done to vice presidents: keep him too busy attending funerals and acting as the chairman of studies to do more harm."...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 04:05 AM

1499 is the new 1500.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 06:56 AM

Amos, it is not a requirement to preface any reprints from the New York Times with "does not think highly of...." when anything regarding GWB appears there. Is it not insulting the intelligence of the average viewer here?
Givens are givens.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:20 AM

1501 and Bush's policies *still* suck!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:33 AM

You are quite right, Guest. It is not a requirement. It is optional.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 03:12 PM

Guest,A quotes RW flack Michael Barone: "This summer, one big story is replaced by another--the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media--the New York Times, etc., etc.--to delegitimize yet another Republican administration."

How's 35% sound to you? Guess it's a bit better that the 19% approval rating that "Big Time" Cheney currently enjoys. As some wags have pointed out, more people believe in UFOs than think that ol' "GO F*** Yourself" is doing a good job. Sounds so much like whistling past the graveyard, Guest,A ... so what's that tune you're humming, eh?

I'll ignore more of Barone's hysterical ranting and lies, and just point out this gem: [Barone] "So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents." You see, according to maven of all that is proper and right, Micheal Barone, it just fine and dandy to out an undercover CIA agent (who was working to prevent another horrific attack by tracking down actual threats of nuclear proliferation), as long as you can claim (falsely) that that person's husband was lying when they said bad things about the maladministration, things that have since proven to be horribly true. Yep, because Wilson allegedly lied, his wife is fair game, and Rove's slash-and-burn political tactics are just well and fine.... Republican moral relativism fer ya, I say. So, Guest,A, do you agree with Barone here? C'mon, fess up.

Bobert sez: Cut-n-pastes are not only lazy but say nuthin' about what ***you*** think..

I second that, Guest,A. Cut-n-paste is the resort of the truly lazy and intellectually uncurious. The Internet is a vast place, and I can find "proof" that the Raeliasn really did take those cultists up on Comet Hale-Bopp. But if you really need to inundate us with crud you found under RW rocks, just link the URL, and give us s few short words you think relevant. Then, try and tell us, in your own words, what you're thinking. Might help to establish the fact that at least you are thinking....

BTW, Victoria Toenzig is a bought-and-paid-for "spinmeister" for the Republican party. I really don't gave a c*** about what she thinks or says (and the two are not the same).

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 03:32 PM

GUEST 07 Nov 05 - 08:44 PM, congratulations! You have just managed to add several orders of magnitude to the concept of "cowardly sleaze-ball."

Since you have nothing else, you use veiled accusations and innuendoes to attack the person who started and maintains this thread. Unable to come up with anything that can refute the messages he posts, you think you can solve your problems by killing the messenger. This give a pretty good example of the ethical level of many of the more outspoken supporters of the Bush administration, and also the ethical level on which the Bush administration itself to operates. And they talk about "moral values! It's enough to make any person with a sense of decency up-chuck!!

Well, it ain't gonna work! It's been used too often and it's become downright predictable. Obviously, you are a disciple of Karl Rove. People like you are disgusting!

Crawl back under your rock with the others of your species.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Dr. Evil
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 03:58 PM

[quoting a certain Ralph Hilton on an off topic subject]
I would add that one of the people whom I talked to who was present at the time said that he conversed with Susan's father many years later and did his best to explain what occurred to him. I personally respect him as a man of integrity and believe him.
[end quote]

... and that's all I have to say about this.

Dr Evil <- Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland der schreibt

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 04:22 PM

Bush's war role at issue

Supreme Court to review scope of president's powers

By CHARLES LANE

The Washington Post


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to rule on the legality of the Bush administration's military tribunals for accused terrorists.

The case sets up what could be one of the most significant rulings on presidential war powers since the end of World War II.

President Bush has claimed broad power to conduct the war against al-Qaida and said questions about the detention of suspected terrorists, their interrogation, trial and punishment are matters for him to decide as commander in chief.

But the court's announcement that it would hear the case of Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, shows that the justices feel the judicial branch also has a role to play. The court has focused on whether Bush has the power to set up the commissions and whether detainees facing military trials can go to court in the United States to secure the protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions.

The justices have chosen to intervene at a sensitive time for the Bush administration. The Senate is mounting its first sustained challenge to the administration's claim that it alone can determine what interrogation methods are proper for terror detainees. The United States has come under fire after disclosures that the CIA has interrogated suspects at secret "black sites" in Eastern Europe.

All of that will be in the background as the justices consider a case that will turn on their view of whether the other branches of government can and should permit the executive branch to make all the rules in the battle against al-Qaida.

(Kansas City press, this date)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 05:11 PM

Thanks for the air cover, stranger. Der Tod may have once been Meister in far Germany, but of late the pendulum seems to be swinging elsewhere. And you too, Bill, and good Bobert.

I am always open to PMs.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:59 PM

Well, gol danged, folks...

After Harry Reid forced Senate rules and closed the Senate last week to try to push forward the investigation into just how the Bush folks used faulty intellegence to get the US into QuagIraq, it looks like its back to business as usual...

Now the Repubs, with Chairman of the Senate Intellegence Comittee, Pat Roberts (R-Kan) want to further protect the American people from the truth by using a "single source" out for Bush and/or any of his flunkies...

Here's the way the Repubs want it:

Senator Jay Rockefeller to Condi Rice: "Mrs Rice, even though there were several intellegence papers that disproved your claim that Saddam had purchased aluminun tubes on September 8, 2002, you made the statement 'high-quality aliminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs'... Were you aware that these tubes could also be used, as was later found out to be true, for anti-aircraft rockets... Where did you get your information, Ms. Rice???"

Condi Rice: "I recieved it fromAh-med Chalabi."

Sen. Rockefeller: "But, Ms. Rice. Mr. Chalabi hadn't been in Iraq for the last 20 years so..."

Senator Roberts (interupting Sen. Rockefeller): "Whoa, Jay... Ms. Rice said she recieved the infomation from Mr Chalabi and according to the rules, she doesn't have to answer any more questions regarding the aluuminum tubes."

Senator Rokefeller: "Yes, Pat, but there were several cridible sources within out own intellegence circles who were sayin..."

Senator Roberts: "Rules are rules, Jay."

Now some of you may think this sounds very silly and, well, it is very silly... And stupid... Like why, if we are trying to get to the bottom of how one power hungry madman, with a bunch of power hungry yes-men can willie-friggin-nilly take our country to war and then isn't it reasonable to be able to ask real questions and get real answers???

This is nothin' more of the same bullsh*t cover-up that these crooks have continued since stealin' the 2000 election and guess what... Hey, they may think they own America buut their days are numbered...

Ya' all see what is happein' in France??? Get my drift???

Bad enough to be lied to but these crooks is rippin' off the avearge American workin' man or woman, to boot...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 03:14 PM

Bush's Minor Role in Election Outcomes

"Thinking back one year to the president's re-election triumph and his broad reading of his mandate, it's hard to believe he could be this small a factor for candidates and causes he favors. "

NPR.org, November 9, 2005 · At the risk of having to turn in my pundit's badge and gun, let me say what must be said: this week's off-year election results were not about George W. Bush.

This statement is, of course, anathema in the world of media politics -- a world in which everything must begin and end with the president. The most inevitable question in any broadcast interview is always the same: "What does this mean for the president?"

In this case the answer to that question ought to be pretty simple. But most of us in Washington find it all but impossible to admit that a round of voting anywhere was not about the president or the vice president or any of their staff. After all, that would mean it wasn't all about Washington.

This week's voting was, in fact, all about the individual races and ballot questions in the several states. And while the Bush administration has official (or at least discernible) positions bearing on many of these contests, those positions bore remarkably little weight.

Voters in Virginia and New Jersey had many motivating factors specific to their states and candidates, not the least of which were the personalities of the candidates themselves. Voters may also have been rejecting some classic examples of ham-fisted negative ads. In Virginia, Democratic nominee Tim Kaine was cast as soft on Hitler because he says his religious beliefs are opposed to capital punishment. In New Jersey, Democratic nominee Jon Corzine had to contend with nasty quotations from his divorced wife.

In Virginia, the man behind the results was not Bush but current governor Mark Warner, a term-limited Democrat whose style and success in office clearly carried Kaine -- especially in the crucial Northern Virginia suburbs.

In New Jersey, now a solid Democratic venue, the heavy financial advantage of Democrat Jon Corzine, an incumbent senator worth hundreds of millions of dollars, outweighed the troubled legacy of his party in the statehouse.

And if these two marquee races had little to do with Mr. Bush, the president was completely invisible in California, where voters rejected four ballot measures Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had begged them to pass.

Perhaps the most direct slap the president got was in St. Paul, Minn., where a Democratic mayor who broke with his party to back Bush in 2004 was turned out of office in a landslide. In the rest of the big-city mayoral contests, the president was about as important as he is to urban fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 06:43 PM

John Kerry's current letter:

"We can't depend on George W. Bush finally seeing the light. And we surely can't rely on Dick Cheney finally telling the truth. We can't even count on Karl Rove seeing big Democratic victories in the 2005 elections as a sign that Americans want a clear strategy in Iraq, not just more slash and burn Republican staged events that aim to mislead.

We've got to count on intense grassroots pressure forcing Republicans in the House and Senate to force this White House to face reality.

That pressure ratcheted up yesterday when Republican candidates who aligned themselves with Bush fell to defeat in Virginia and New Jersey. Bush's last-minute personal campaigning in Virginia sealed the Republican candidate's defeat.

The bottom line: It's becoming harder and harder for the Republican Party to defend Bush's failures.

And no Bush failure is doing more damage than the President's stubborn clinging to self defeating "stay as long as it takes" rhetoric in Iraq.

That's why, in just a few days' time, nearly 200,000 people have signed on to support our demand that the President present a clear and concrete plan for Iraq. We're starting with a call for the withdrawal of 20,000 American troops over the holidays, linked to the successful completion of December elections in Iraq -- sending a signal to Iraqis that Iraq belongs to them. And we're pressing the Bush Administration to get it right with a new strategy that will bring the vast majority of our combat troops home by the end of 2006."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,David Cresswell
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:25 PM

Any administration that is named after the female pubic region can't be all bad!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:25 PM

Yeah, I hope they do stay the course 'cause it's gonna take 'um right into the iceberg... And down they will go.... Down, down, down...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 08:19 PM

Bush is humiliated as Republicans suffer losses in local elections
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 10 November 2005
President George Bush, already suffering his lowest approval ratings, was dealt another stinging blow when voters in a crucial state ignored his last-minute campaigning on behalf of the Republican candidate.

As well as sending a warning sign to Republicans across the country, the outcome of the governor's race in Virginia has focused fresh attention on the Democrat Tim Kaine, already being tipped as a candidate for the presidency in 2008.

In the battle for the White House this time last year, President Bush secured Virginia by a 10-point margin. Twelve months later, Mr Bush made an 11th-hour intervention on behalf of the Republican candidate, Jerry Kilgore, only to see Mr Kaine win by 52 points to 46. Two per cent of the electors voted for an independent candidate.

"This has been a long and difficult campaign. We've done it. We've done it," Mr Kaine told his ebullient supporters in the state capital, Richmond, on Tuesday evening.

"Tonight, the people of Virginia have sent a message - that they like the path that we chose and they want to keep the state moving forward."

In a similar battle in New Jersey a Democrat, Jon Corzine, won a nasty and hard-fought contest for the state's governorship, securing the contest by a surprising nine-point margin. While New Jersey has traditionally been a Democratic state, Virginia has not.

With the congressional elections still a year away, the orthodox opinion is that the local elections held in so-called "off" years have little value as harbingers to the future. But this year - certainly in the case of Virginia - Mr Bush gave the contest a broader context by placing himself into the equation.

"It's certainly a bloody nose for Mr Bush," said Stephen Hess, a former speechwriter for President John F Kennedy and a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. "He did not have to campaign at the very last minute for Kilgore. It's as if he feels this is more significant."

Mr Bush and his administration were already on the back foot after months of low ratings as a result of the continuing chaos and violence in Iraq, rising petrol prices and the fallout over the indictment of the Vice-President's chief of staff, Lewis Libby.

An opinion poll published on Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre put Mr Bush's rating at just 36 points - the lowest of his presidency.

The realisation that Mr Bush's personal input was not enough to turn around the situation in Virginia will be of considerable concern to Republican candidates who are already concerned about going to the polls next year carrying the baggage of the prolonged war in Iraq.

A House representative, Rahm Emmanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said: "Our voters, going into the mid-term elections are mobilised and energised. Theirs are despondent."

The result in Virginia has also drawn fresh attention to the political future of the outgoing Democratic Governor, Mark Warner. Mr Hess said that Mr Warner was able to use his personal popularity and appeal to ensure a victory for Mr Kaine, his lieutenant-governor. In effect, Mr Warner's coat-tails were longer than Mr Bush's.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 08:33 PM

Well, since movin' back to Virginny I have been reacquaited with the unescapable fact that Virgina is one danged "red" state but...

...hey, Kaine, who was not the strongest campaigner, beat Repub Jerry Kilgore by some 5 points!!!! And this just one night after Bush stoppin' by Richmond in Air Force One fir some last minute campaignin'....

Bush has not only become America and his own worse enemy but that of Repubs everywhere thinkin' out their '06 election strategies...

Move over Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover... New dof gonna be sharin' the bench with ya' all...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 10:02 PM

Don't disregard the fact that both states went Dem 4 years ago and the following election saw an increase in Repub control in Washington. Sorry to bother you with the truth.