The Republican Pushback

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Lie, no.

See what he wanted to see, and selectively value intel that supported his predetermined course of action, while devaluing intel which contraindicated the need for that course of action, yes.

So we wrote the world's most expensive traffic ticket to a third world ******* who was about as much of a threat to us as Maurice ****in' Bishop. THAT's a real accomplishment for the "war on terror."

Bush did tamper with intelligence and buried everything which contradicted his personal attempt to get even with Saddam for trying to kill his dad. He even said that's what he wanted to do when he was governor of Texas. He also lied when he and his lackeys claimed Saddam was part of 9/11. For years that was the Republican message and a majority of Americans bought into that since that was what was repeated by the administration & by right wing media such as Fox News and National Review.

The whole thing was a campaign of lies and misinformation.

[Ted Striker]

Yep

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Lie, no.

See what he wanted to see, and selectively value intel that supported his predetermined course of action, while devaluing intel which contraindicated the need for that course of action, yes.

Sounds about right.

Oh, OK. So Bush is not a liar about intelligence, just a piss poor leader who lied about when he decided to go to war.

Good to know.

[Drake Tungsten]

The whole thing was a campaign of lies and misinformation.

Yep

Liars...

[Dinner]

Oh, so in Drake's view Saddam was part of 9/11 or the adminstration didn't keep claiming he was. Good to know you are in right wing la-la-land Drake.

[Drake Tungsten]

Well, according to this polling data, the percentage of Americans that believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks peaked at 78% on September 13th, 2001, two days after the attacks. The percentage of Americans who believed Saddam was involved dropped steadily after that.

This of course makes one wonder why Bush would have to launch a campaign of lies and deceit to convince Americans that Saddam was connected with the 9/11 attacks when three-quarters of Americans had already come to that conclusion on their own a couple day after the attacks. It also makes one wonder how effective this nefarious campaign of lies was, given that the percentage of Americans who believed Saddam was connected to the 9/11 attacks declined during the period in which you claim Bush was intentionally misleading the nation.

Of course, it couldn't be that Americans might instinctively distrust Saddam and suspect his involvement in an attack on America because of his status as America's public enemy #1 for most of the 90's. Nah, that's too simple...

[Ted Striker]

You just explained why.

Thanks

[Drake Tungsten]

Damn, Tim Russert totally pwned Ted Kennedy on Meet the Press Sunday...

http://thepoliticalteen.com/video/kennedymtpwar.wmv

[Admiral]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Well, according to this polling data, the percentage of Americans that believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks peaked at 78% on September 13th, 2001, two days after the attacks. The percentage of Americans who believed Saddam was involved dropped steadily after that.

This of course makes one wonder why Bush would have to launch a campaign of lies and deceit to convince Americans that Saddam was connected with the 9/11 attacks when three-quarters of Americans had already come to that conclusion on their own a couple day after the attacks. It also makes one wonder how effective this nefarious campaign of lies was, given that the percentage of Americans who believed Saddam was connected to the 9/11 attacks declined during the period in which you claim Bush was intentionally misleading the nation.

Of course, it couldn't be that Americans might instinctively distrust Saddam and suspect his involvement in an attack on America because of his status as America's public enemy #1 for most of the 90's. Nah, that's too simple...

You have a point. When we really did not know that much about 9/11, mistrusting Saddam was a natural reaction. He was, as you say, the highest profile enemy of the United States.

The problem with your argument, however, comes out in the months and years following 9/11. Because from our position of ignorance of 9/11 in the days following the attack, we proceded to learn what went down. Naturally, we investigated any potential ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda. And we didn't find any recent contact. Bin Laden met with a couple of Iraqi reps around '98, I believe, but nothing came of the talks, and there was no communication in the period of time leading up to 9/11. And that is why Bush had to conduct a campaign of deception. If the facts were allowed to speak for themselves, people would have recognized Saddam's lack of involvement.

And as it stands now, the facts do speak for themselves. Even after the 9/11 commission report once and for all disproved any complicity of Saddam in 9/11, Cheney was still making campaign speechs that suggested that Saddam was complicit. It is no coincidence that viewers of Fox News think Saddam was complicit by a vastly disproportionate margin compared to viewers of other networks.

As to the effectiveness of the campaign itself, you can't really blame Bush. He was trying to push something which every independent investigation showed to be not the case. The only people he could ever really convince were those who would tend to believe Bush over these independent investigations. Hence the Fox News statistic.

As a conclusion, the only way for your argument to stand is to assume that the entire Bush administration is composed of abject idiots (which, admittedly, many do assume). Bush, who has access to way more information or way more timely information than the rest of the country, would have to be monumentally dedicated to ignore every indication that Saddam was not invovled. His suspicions would have to be completely impervious to things like facts. So if you want Bush's behavior to be due to his being an incompetant fool, rather than one who would deliberately lie to the nation to convince it to do something that it normally would not, be my guest. Either works for me.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
This isn't a Plame thread, but I'll just say that this revelation from Woodward helps Libby out a great deal. Fitzgerald accused Libby of being the initial Administration source for information on Plame's identity and lying to cover up that fact by saying he heard it from others, including reporters. The fact that Woodward and who knows who else knew about Plame's identity before Libby supposedly leaked it makes Fitzgerald's case rather thin...

You've swallowed Libby's lawyer claims, but they're not true:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9665308/#051116a

There are many implications to Woodward’s belated revelations of his firsthand knowledge of the CIA Leak Case, but the exculpatory “blockbuster” portrayed by Scooter Libby’s attorney Ted Wells, is not one of them.

Wells released a beautiful hunk of “chaff” - the stuff submarine captains expel to try to throw off enemy torpedoes - in his claim about Woodward’s announcement that someone at the White House told him about Valerie Plame in June, 2003. Wells made it seem as if Woodward had just proved that Libby was not the first to leak Plame’s name and/or job to a reporter, and that in so doing, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s case had just tumbled to the ground.

But he did it only by altering the truth.

Wells issued a statement at midday, the key passage of which concludes that Woodward’s “disclosure shows that Mr. Fitzgerald’s statement at his press conference of October 28, 2005 that Mr. Libby was the first government official to tell a reporter about Mr. Wilson’s wife was totally inaccurate.”

But Fitzgerald didn’t say just that.

The transcript of Fitzgerald’s news conference is not disputed - nobody from his office has called up trying to get it altered after the fact. On October 28, in his opening statement Fitzgerald actually said: “Mr. Libby was the first government official known to have told a reporter” about Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife.

That word “known” is a significant qualifier. And although much later, in the question-and-answer portion of his news conference, Fitzgerald described Libby as “at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter,” the second statement cannot simply be used in preference to the first. Either the qualifier - expressed virtually at the outset - is considered still in force, or both versions (“first official” and “first government official known”) have to be included.

Even if the idea that somebody else in the administration might’ve beaten Libby to the leaking punch is relevant to a trial on five counts of lying, the cornerstone of the Wells statement is erroneous - at best, a serious misinterpretation. Fitzgerald was clearly and meticulously leaving his case open in case an earlier leaker later turned up - as evidently he just did.

This is no one-word parsing nonsense. Not only does that meaning of "known" change entirely the meaning of Fitzgerald's statement, but its related root words (know, knowing, knowingly etc) have been the keys to whether or not anybody was indicted for revealing Plame's covert status at the CIA.

The problem, of course, is that such subtlety can shoot right past those who either want to miss it, or are in too much of a hurry to check the transcript. I read Wells’ quote and thought ‘that doesn’t sound right.’ The producers of ABC’s World News Tonight read Wells’ quote and evidently didn’t hear any such alarm bells. The transcript is not yet out, but at 6:30 EST last night, Elizabeth Vargas stated - and I am paraphrasing - that the Woodward revelations were important because they contradicted Patrick Fitzgerald’s statement that Libby was the first to leak.

Something deeply symbolic had happened just minutes before ABC’s gaffe. Libby and Wells - a former attorney for Philip Morris in the “big tobacco” lawsuits, by the way - emerged from a district courthouse, having spent the afternoon reviewing documents in the case. Wells made a big thing of “thanking” Woodward and asking other reporters to come forward - it’s a clever, albeit transparent spin-job. He and Libby then walked a couple of blocks down the street - in pouring rain. Wells couldn’t even provide Libby the protection of an umbrella today. He is not going to be able to shield him with Woodward’s fascinating - but, from the Libby point of view, irrelevant - disclosure.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


You've swallowed Libby's lawyer claims, but they're not true:

A Republican believing everything he hears from disreputable sources!


Say it ain't so -- say it ain't so.

[Boris Godunov]

No, no--Drake is a *snicker* independent...

*Heehee*

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Admiral


You have a point. When we really did not know that much about 9/11, mistrusting Saddam was a natural reaction. He was, as you say, the highest profile enemy of the United States.

The problem with your argument, however, comes out in the months and years following 9/11. Because from our position of ignorance of 9/11 in the days following the attack, we proceded to learn what went down. Naturally, we investigated any potential ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda. And we didn't find any recent contact. Bin Laden met with a couple of Iraqi reps around '98, I believe, but nothing came of the talks, and there was no communication in the period of time leading up to 9/11. And that is why Bush had to conduct a campaign of deception. If the facts were allowed to speak for themselves, people would have recognized Saddam's lack of involvement.

And as it stands now, the facts do speak for themselves. Even after the 9/11 commission report once and for all disproved any complicity of Saddam in 9/11, Cheney was still making campaign speechs that suggested that Saddam was complicit. It is no coincidence that viewers of Fox News think Saddam was complicit by a vastly disproportionate margin compared to viewers of other networks.

As to the effectiveness of the campaign itself, you can't really blame Bush. He was trying to push something which every independent investigation showed to be not the case. The only people he could ever really convince were those who would tend to believe Bush over these independent investigations. Hence the Fox News statistic.

As a conclusion, the only way for your argument to stand is to assume that the entire Bush administration is composed of abject idiots (which, admittedly, many do assume). Bush, who has access to way more information or way more timely information than the rest of the country, would have to be monumentally dedicated to ignore every indication that Saddam was not invovled. His suspicions would have to be completely impervious to things like facts. So if you want Bush's behavior to be due to his being an incompetant fool, rather than one who would deliberately lie to the nation to convince it to do something that it normally would not, be my guest. Either works for me.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
No, no--Drake is a *snicker* independent...

*Heehee*

[Ted Striker]

Looks Like the "Pushback" Just Hit a Brick Wall

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One of the leading House Democrats on defense issues on Thursday called for a swift U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, drawing strong criticism from Republicans and escalating the debate over President Bush's war policies.

"U.S. and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq," said Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has been in Congress for 31 years. "It's time for a change in direction."

Murtha warned that other global threats "cannot be ignored."

Murtha, a retired Marine colonel who earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, said he believes all the forces could be redeployed over a six-month period.

"It is clear that [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi's top lieutenant on armed services, Rep. Murtha, and Democratic leaders have adopted a policy of cut-and-run," Hastert said in a statement. "They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans."

A man of the stature of John Murtha -- that's a pretty heavy hit, I don't mind telling you," said North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones, sponsor of the House resolution that calls for a timetable for withdrawal. "He ... gives a lot of weight to this debate."

Jones said this will make "some Republicans think about their responsibility as relates to the war in Iraq" and that "this is a week that will help further the debate -- ignite the debate."

But, Ford said, "It's a powerful statement coming from arguably the most respected voice in the Congress," and it will be hard for the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney to dismiss these comments as easily as other Democratic criticisms on the war.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/17/murtha.iraq/index.html

-----------------------


If Bush would have just shut up and not made that disgusting speech on Veteran's Day, he would have never had this happen to him. DUH.

Hastert is walking a fine line when he starts questioning Muthra, telling him it's a policy of "surrender."

In the article, Muthra does make the point that, our presense does strengthen the enemy as the unite against us.

I do think that as long as the US is there, the Iraqi Security Forces are going to defer to us on alot of the heavy missions.

But on the other hand we are holding back giving them heavy equipment because we don't trust them because they can use it against us.

It's like at my job, we have alot of new hires taking over some of my responsibility. I find that when I hold their hand, they will keep asking me to help them with the task over and over again. But when I show them how to do it once, and then throw them in the next time, forcing them to learn it for themselves, they are much more effective.

They have to learn to get out of their comfort zone and go through that period of uneasiness on their own before they can get to a confident, skilled level.

Certainly this is what must happen in Iraq, but we MUST give them the tools to finish the job, and be on hand to get their backs if they get in a touch situation.