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July 1, 2003 | What a difference a few years makes for the Beltway press. Today, as the fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq continues and the White House claim that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to America seems more dubious by the day, more questions are being raised in Congress about President Bush's tendency to mislead and deceive. Many journalists, though, seem less interested in being the watchdog than in assuring Americans that Bush hasn't lied about central issues like war and peace. Instead, he's simply exaggerated. It is a curious position. During the 2000 presidential campaign, the press couldn't stop writing, investigating and carrying on about Al Gore's alleged exaggerations regarding old movies, canoe trips, and classroom seating inside a Sarasota school. As detailed at Daily Howler, journalists turned exaggerations into the pressing issue during the closing weeks of the campaign, as pundits argued that Gore's embellishments all but disqualified him from serving as president. Hooked on the story, reporters spent an extraordinary amount of time checking in with experts -- psychoanalysts, academics, political scientists -- trying desperately to figure out what all the exaggerations meant. By dwelling on, and often falsely reporting, Gore's so-called exaggerations, the press became the Bush campaign's best ally and helped drive down Gore's poll numbers, particularly when voters were asked which candidate was more trustworthy. As veteran political analyst Charlie Cook noted last year in a National Journal column, it was Gore's "exaggerations that cost him his post-Democratic convention lead." But Bush's current-day exaggerations about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, Saddam's fictional alliance with al-Qaida, or the reasons for flying in a jet fighter to a photo-op on the USS Lincoln? Or the deceptive White House spin on Bush's radical tax policy? Much of the press gives him a pass. Chattering cable pundits have no interest in chewing up TV time to examine what's behind Bush's conflicts with truth and reality, or what those say about Bush the man and how he's leading the country. In just two and a half years, the Beltway press has come to the hasty conclusion that presidential exaggerations are no longer considered deal breakers. Everybody does it, the reasoning seems to go; what really matters most are outright lies. With the Bush administration leading an ongoing war on terror, it's possible that journalists, at least subconsciously, do not want to publicly question the president's character. "There's a huge psychological need to believe and trust your president when we're being told every day we may be attacked by terrorists," says Emmy Award-winning journalist James Moore, a coauthor of "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential." "But I think there's a dangerous mentality among the press that says, Well, yeah, he needed to exaggerate to go after Saddam Hussein, but that's OK because it's for the good of the country and we shouldn't hold him accountable." "I believe the press is in awe of the Bush juggernaut," adds Jay Rosen, chairman of New York University's journalism department. "Journalists respect a winner and those they think of as savvy and effective. Besides, what's a worse crime according to journalists, shading the truth or being naive about the way the world really works? It's definitely the latter." Or maybe some journalists who covered the 2000 race don't want to concede they made a mistake. "They would have to admit they were duped by an exaggerator," says Moore. Either way, today's blatant double standard over exaggerations is not reserved for Gore's hard-luck campaign. It's part of a larger pattern in how the press treats Democratic candidates tougher than it treats Republicans. Examples from the current campaign trail abound. Bush backers in the conservative press have been out front defending the president's shaky grasp of the truth. Blogger Andrew Sullivan last week wrote that charges against Bush and his crusade against still-missing WMD "ultimately amounts to an argument that the administration exaggerated." The clear implication is that exaggerations are not serious matters that warrant serious attention. Which is odd, because during the closing days of the 2000 run, Sullivan, writing in the Sunday Times of London, listed "exaggerations" to be among Gore's most damning traits. But the it's-only-exaggeration spin has now become the mainstream mantra as well. A recent Washington Post editorial addressing the fruitless hunt for WMD noted matter-of-factly, "While the Bush administration may have publicly exaggerated or distorted parts of its case, much of what it said reflected a broad international consensus." Note how presidential exaggerations are an accepted part of today's political landscape and should not raise doubts. Is this the same Washington Post that, one month before the 2000 election, ran a Page One piece exploring Gore's exaggerations? In the article, two Post reporters combed through decades of public statements; as proof of Gore's exaggerations they pointed to a boast he had made years ago that while a journalist in the 1970s he "got a bunch of people indicted and sent to jail." The truth, harrumphed the Post, was that "two were indicted, and in fact, no one went to jail." It was an example, the Post intoned, of Gore's "casual lying." Yet Bush routinely misleading Americans on the reasons to wage war? That's just exaggerating. Or look at the June 22 New York Times Week in Review essay, "Bush May Have Exaggerated, but Did He Lie?" Again, note the assumption of the headline, that exaggerations matter less than lies. In that piece the Times assured readers: "A review of the president's public statements found little that could lead to a conclusion that the president actually lied" about WMD or his tax plan. And in a strange defensive burst on behalf of Bush, the Times announced categorically: "There is no evidence the president did not believe what he was saying." Yet a few paragraphs later, the newspaper reported that Bush had claimed his tax-cut package would mean "relief for everyone who pays income taxes." That's patently false; nearly 10 million income tax payers will get no relief. Was that a lie, something intended to create a falsehood? The Times makes no judgment but offers a generous observation instead: "If [Bush] had said 'almost all,' it would have been accurate." Is this the same New York Times that relentlessly, and often erroneously, documented Gore's trivial embellishments in 2000 and treated them with utmost seriousness? The same paper that devoted nearly 30 paragraphs to determine whether Gore was the inspiration for the main character in the 1970 novel "Love Story," as Gore had claimed in a offhand, off-the-record comment? (The facts are that Gore went to college with "Love Story" author Erich Segal, who patiently explained to the Times that the novel's main character was based on both Gore and Gore's college roommate.) What's so remarkable about the Times and Post rushing to Bush's aid over the question of exaggerations today is that during the last presidential campaign, both papers were so anxious to snare Gore in embellishment that their overeager reporters often helped concoct Gore's alleged missteps. For instance, there's the infamous Love Canal incident. When Gore spoke at Concord High School in New Hampshire on November 30, 1999, he urged students to take an active role in politics, and he recalled it was a letter written to him in the '70s from a student in Toone, Tenn., that got then-U.S. Rep. Gore interested in the topic of toxic waste. "I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing," Gore told the students. "I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. I had the first hearing on that issue -- and Toone, Tenn., that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all." The next day, both the Washington Post and the New York Times botched the quote, erroneously reporting that Gore had bragged, "I was the one that started it all." [Emphasis added.] That set off the TV talkers, with MSNBC's Chris Matthews mocking Gore for being delusional, while ABC's George Stephanopoulos lamented that the vice president had "revealed his Pinocchio problem." It took both the Times and the Post a week to publish mangled corrections, thereby ensuring that the Love Canal story would hound Gore for years. But today, if Bush lays out eye-popping "exaggerations" all by himself -- "We've found the weapons of mass destruction," Bush declared on Polish TV after the war-- the Times and Post assure their readers it's just rhetorical flair. Unfortunately for the Democrats running in 2004, it doesn't appear the press's double standard was unique to Gore's run. A more recent example was on display two Sundays ago when Vermont Gov. Howard Dean appeared on "Meet the Press." The telecast started a Beltway buzz in part because Tim Russert created a combative atmosphere from the outset: Question No. 2 was, "Can you honestly go across the country and say, "I'm going to raise your taxes 4,000 percent or 107 percent" and be elected?" (Russert was figuring Dean's tax plan based on Bush administration calculations.) Russert continued to press Dean hard, including a pop quiz question about how many men and women currently serve in the military. When Dean said he did not now the exact number, Russert shot back: "As commander in chief, you should know that." Dean estimated there were between 1 and 2 million men and women in active duty; according to the Pentagon, there are 1.4 million. The D.C. conventional wisdom was clear: Dean had failed the "Russert primary," a sort of 60-minute, on-air boot camp all candidates must go through as the NBC host puts them through rigorous paces and hits them with pointed follow-ups. Russert, the C.W. went, had cleaned Dean's clock and showed how unprepared the candidate was to go toe-to-toe with Bush. "Mr. Dean's "Meet the Press" performance was, to put it charitably, less than impressive," tsk-tsked a condescending Post editorial. But travel back in time to 1999 when Russert had a far more civil sit-down with then-candidate Bush. (Russert: "Can kids avoid sex?" Bush: "I hope so. I think so.") Russert even agreed to leave his NBC studio and to travel to Bush's home in Austin to conduct the interview, thereby giving the Texas governor a sort of home-field advantage. For nearly 60 minutes the two men talked about key issues, but Russert never tried to pin him down the way he did Dean. For instance, the host let pass candidate Bush's implausible notion that he had no opinion on the politically sensitive topic of whether South Carolina should fly the Confederate flag. Thanks to Russert, Bush came off looking strong when the host dwelled on the fact Bush had picked selective fights with right-wing Republicans, with Russert even repeating Bush's carefully crafted sound bites: "I don't think they ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor." Of course, at the time Russert must have understood those "fights" with the GOP were clearly stage-managed to give mainstream voters the impression that Bush was closer to the middle politically, a true compassionate conservative, but Russert dwelled on them just the same. By comparison, in his recent interview with Dean, Russert seemed to be trying to paint the Democrat as being too far to the left by dwelling on topics such as gay marriages. And when Russert did spring a specific question on Bush in '99 about how many missiles would still be in place if a new START II nuclear weapons treaty were signed, Bush answered: "I can't remember the exact number." But unlike his session with Dean, Russert dropped the topic without lecturing Bush that "as commander in chief, you should know that." Incredibly, two weeks ago Russert pressed Dean about the details of the medical deferment that kept him out of Vietnam. Back in 1999, though, Russert never thought to ask Bush about how he was able to finagle his way into the Texas National Guard during the height of Vietnam War and why, according to most accounts, he failed to show up for his final two years of duty. Going into the 2004 campaign, Bush already enjoys an enormous fundraising advantage over the Democrats, as well as a poll bounce from being a "wartime" president. It appears Bush will again profit from kinder, gentler press coverage, too. |
He laughed at me, and then said "Son, it's not possible to quantify that answer. All Presidents, as well as any other Government Official, when speaking on issues of National Security, may be accused of "lying" simply by omission. There are things that cannot and will not be discussed or disclosed. The public may THINK it wants to know the truth, but trust me, they do not. Anyone who beleives there is a yes or no answer to this question is a fool. Was Iraq a danger? Without a doubt. Why? for reasons stated and unstated." |
You need a tissue? |
you need a foot in the ass? you just validated that article, hypocrite. |
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You don't get it. You don't see by being sarcastic to tiggy's article how you are, in fact, toeing the hypocritical line the article complains about. |
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It has nothing to do with what happened in 96. By citing more recent examples, the article is painting a picture of whats to come, and THATS the problem. The players in 96 arent even involved trace. |
Put out a good canidate. BTW, the reason the bushies have more moolah then the dems is a dem initiated "campaign finance law". They can't find anyone who will sponsor them under the new regs. |
it's obvious now that you don't. god, you're laughable. |
Hmm? |
I DO NOT BELEIVE BUSH LIED. PERIOD. END OF STORY. He did NOT lie. To lie is to knowingly distort the truth or the facts. He did not do this. |
okay objective one. so those weapons of mass destruction and the mass of evidence linking Saddam to al Qaida that have yet to be produced are not distortions of the truth or flat out lies? Oh. Ok. the proof that Bush lied or distorted to the truth is in the fact they have yet to produce the necessry evidence to back up their claims, which were pretext for war. if you send a nation to war, you better damn well have proof. they havent produced shit. when the said evidence is produced and deemed credible we can drop this charge of lying. Until then, the fucker deserves no benefit of any doubt. he sent soldiers to their premature grave and for that, the motherfucker better step up to the plate. You build that house of cards spunk. glad naiveness and denial keep you warm. you ARE laughable because you so blindly take the hand of papa Bush rather than believe for a second he slipped a mickey in your drink and stuck you in the ass. oh you wise objective one.....spunky, you wise and unbiased objective one. |
Who is this "we" you're talking about? Aren't we all Americans? "The public may THINK it wants to know the truth, but trust me, they do not." I do want to know the truth. I always want to know the truth. Saying you'll lie to me, or the American public, "for their own good" is bullshit. Your hypocracy shows like a baboon's ass, dimlu. |
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Don't post again until there is definitive proof of the existence of WMD in Iraq. I dare you. |
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He did not do this." none of us can seriously make such a statement. however, by withholding info from us (to protect us, of course) and only offer up the more persuasive tidbits (without having to account for their veracity) to gain support for an agenda, it hardly stretches the imagination to realize that exaggeration, embellishment and omission would tempt even such edifices of virtuosity as the members of this current administration. nicht wahr? |
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I am not the accuser. The accuser should produce evidence that the President of the United States KNOWINGLY DECEIVED THE ENTIIRE WORLD. And, has been able to for 12 years. I say that there is no evidence that he did. Why is that iritating? Why should I be the one to shut up? I am not accusing him of anything. The accuser should "PUT UP". |
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Where's the al Qaida link? we've had months of unfettered access to that country. nothing but a couple of broke dick trailers that even officials within the administration can't agree on and sum up to nothing more than semantics. there. its been 'put up'. otherwise you continue to sound like a tard. Bush & his people accused Saddam of possessing buttloads of weapons that no one has found. The Bush people duped more than half the American public simply by stating "Iraq" and "al Qaida" in the same sentence repeatedly long enough though there has never been any serious fundamental connection established, EVER. The people who need to 'PUT UP' dimlu are the leaders you are so blindly asserting are right, even though you have no more specific info than the rest of us. |
Where's the al Qaida link? we've had months of unfettered access to that country. nothing but a couple of broke dick trailers that even officials within the administration can't agree on and sum up to nothing more than semantics. there. its been 'put up'. otherwise you continue to sound like a tard. Bush & his people accused Saddam of possessing buttloads of weapons that no one has found. The Bush people duped more than half the American public simply by stating "Iraq" and "al Qaida" in the same sentence repeatedly long enough though there has never been any serious fundamental connection established, EVER. The people who need to 'PUT UP' dimlu are the leaders you are so blindly asserting are right, even though you have no more specific info than the rest of us. |
Will you stop posting until just ONE MILLILITER of the 10000 LITERS of anthrax is found? Hmmmmmmm? I only require one ten millionth of Bush's claims to be verified, then I'll eat my words. Even better. I'll bet you $50. Game? |
if you do a search with that headline and attach "unconfirmed" to the search you get a handful more credible sites. spunk, that story doesnt appear to hold much water, and if it did, why is the Bush administration not using it to its advantage? And don't give me some doublespeak about security. If those 20 medium range warheads were to contain what was originially speculated back in April, the Bush people would dump the even weaker tractor trailor bio lab shit for this. so. you know. try again. |
Everything hinges on someone else's account. Why bother? I still want to know why the fact that I beleive Bush is telling the truth as far as he knows is irritating. |
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Thanks for your input, anyway |
I KNOW i didnt use the word irritating spunk. wtf. thats why i inserted "or so im guessing" you seem too thick as to why she used such a word, so SOMEBODY needs to help you. its this simple I want special prosecutors, indictments and grand juries. I want my motherfuckin Ken Lay. He lied about national security. He endangered American lives and has the blood of American soldiers on his hands. I want his ass before grand jury, live defending his assertations of the dangers of Iraq. |
*************** By spunky on Tuesday, July 1, 2003 - 05:02 pm: Like you would beleive it anyway. *************** |
All of it was sat photos. I am not an imagery analyst, all I know is what I have seen. Sites that were used before as a "dual use" facility. IE a fertalizer plant that can and had been in the past, used to make chemical weapons, and then returned to making fertalizer. Most of the same ingredients are used, and when you come to inspect, all you find is barrels of fertalizer and items used to make fertalizer, seemingly ligit. I have seen the old photos and the new ones of the same places, and major reconstruction was taking place. I have seen pictures of areas that were once used to make biological weapons and now had a man made lake covering the grounds. Why is that odd? It's not, if you live here in the States. But in Iraq, they have been in a water crisis. Israel and it's neighbours are always fighing for water, so why build a lake when you need the water for the citizens? As far as the threat of Iraq to the US and the Iraq and Al-Queda ties, I know I have posted this before and have yet to hear anything other then the usual "The US is lying and Bin Laden and Hussein are telling the truth" arguments. Lets see, training terrorists, Non-Iraqi terrorists, to highjack a plane. Why? I quote: "It has been said openly in the media and even to us, from the highest command, that the purpose of establishing Saddam's fighters is to attack American targets and American interests. This is known. There's no doubt about it. All this training is directed towards attacking American targets, and American interests. The training does not only include hijacking of planes and sabotage. ... Some other people were trained to do parachuting. Some other areas were training on how to penetrate enemy lines and get information from behind enemy lines. But it's all for the general concept of hitting and attacking American targets and American interests. " Read the rest of it. Chilling at best |
If anything spunk, that interview with a guy who admits to not knowing more than he admits to knowing (he says he was an administration type of guy...wtf?) is curious at best. and I believe most of what he says has crediability, but it doesnt make a link. Do you think the CIA are trained on how to hijack planes? Don't you think special ops receive similar training as do the Fadayeen? So what. This one man's testament doesn't conclude there was a firm and definitive organizational link between Saddam and al Qaida. |
I am not saying we should bank on this as solid fact, but there does appear to be the possibility of a link, don't you think? You do not think Hussein had interest in hitting a US target? It made perfect sense for him to train terrorists who had gloabl reach to hit a US target, and make some money off it. They were cash starved, those palaces were not cheep. As far as the Gov doctoring photo's, the ones I tranmit come from the source, to DIA for analysis. I do not see where they go after I send them to DIA, but I do see them before any "doctoring" is possible. With Ikonos and Space Imaging and Terra Server offering sat pics, what use would we get from changing the photos? |
yes Hussein had an interest in attacking the US. But did he attack the US? You only THINK you see photos before the doctoring phase. Photos can be doctored on site. Never believe what you see as absolute fact. There are many purposes to doctored photos. To explain that would be rather elementary. |
Of course it is, but to train to attack a civilian aircraft? or train? or building? And, further, there is enough of a possibility, and more of a probability then you might be willing to admit, that not just Iraqi's were trained in these facilities. There is enough of a possibility that GW was right, that there is a link between Al-Queda and Iraq, that there were chemical weapons in Iraq, that he might have sold some to a terrorist organization (logic would say he would not do such a thing, because we could trace the remaining elements of any such chem or bio that was used back to Iraq and unleash holy hell, but this guy was not exactly logically). There is still a possibility, and one that I might add was anticipated, that he destroyed any stockpiles on the way out the door, that I am not prepared to accuse the President of willfully and intentionally deceiving us, the United States. I have seen, and have linked to, the CIA reports. The reports did indeed say that they considered Iraq to be a threat against the United States. There is not enough evidence (sorry, the absence of the cbw is NOT proof that there never were any) to convince me, at this time, that he did. I state again, I think it's good that Hussein is gone. I think we face a challenge not to run, like we did in Bosnia. If it is proven that Bush was told that Iraq posed no threat to the United States, then I will be among the first to say He has got to go. To tell the truth, when Bush started talking about Iraq back in Nov 01, I cringed. I thought that now was not the time, we had bigger problems right now. He had trouble convincing me at first. |
Here. I'll up the ante. All you, or the US government, has to find is one SPORE of weaponized anthrax. Then you'll win the challenge. Willing to put your money where your mouth is? |
VX and mustard not enough? |
They're not enough for me. |
Classic! |
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when i meant to say Ken Starr....as in the special prosecutor that had Clinton by the sack. crazy me |
"They claimed that the US special forces had fired blanks to make the rescue look more hazardous. Pte Lynch has not yet commented on those details" |
2nd grade! |
spunk, you might wanna just skip over it. these aren't the droids you're looking for. the rest of ya -- crack open a fresh, cold beer and get to it. Former Vice President Al Gore Remarks to MoveOn.org New York University August 7, 2003 -AS PREPARED- Ladies and Gentlemen: Thank you for your investment of time and energy in gathering here today. I would especially like to thank Moveon.org for sponsoring this event, and the NYU College Democrats for co-sponsoring the speech and for hosting us. Some of you may remember that my last formal public address on these topics was delivered in San Francisco, a little less than a year ago, when I argued that the President's case for urgent, unilateral, pre-emptive war in Iraq was less than convincing and needed to be challenged more effectively by the Congress. In light of developments since then, you might assume that my purpose today is to revisit the manner in which we were led into war. To some extent, that will be the case - but only as part of a larger theme that I feel should now be explored on an urgent basis. The direction in which our nation is being led is deeply troubling to me -- not only in Iraq but also here at home on economic policy, social policy and environmental policy. Millions of Americans now share a feeling that something pretty basic has gone wrong in our country and that some important American values are being placed at risk. And they want to set it right. The way we went to war in Iraq illustrates this larger problem. Normally, we Americans lay the facts on the table, talk through the choices before us and make a decision. But that didn't really happen with this war -- not the way it should have. And as a result, too many of our soldiers are paying the highest price, for the strategic miscalculations, serious misjudgments, and historic mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way. I'm convinced that one of the reasons that we didn't have a better public debate before the Iraq War started is because so many of the impressions that the majority of the country had back then turn out to have been completely wrong. Leaving aside for the moment the question of how these false impressions got into the public's mind, it might be healthy to take a hard look at the ones we now know were wrong and clear the air so that we can better see exactly where we are now and what changes might need to be made. In any case, what we now know to have been false impressions include the following: (1) Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attack against us on September 11th, 2001, so a good way to respond to that attack would be to invade his country and forcibly remove him from power. (2) Saddam was working closely with Osama Bin Laden and was actively supporting members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group, giving them weapons and money and bases and training, so launching a war against Iraq would be a good way to stop Al Qaeda from attacking us again. (3) Saddam was about to give the terrorists poison gas and deadly germs that he had made into weapons which they could use to kill millions of Americans. Therefore common sense alone dictated that we should send our military into Iraq in order to protect our loved ones and ourselves against a grave threat. (4) Saddam was on the verge of building nuclear bombs and giving them to the terrorists. And since the only thing preventing Saddam from acquiring a nuclear arsenal was access to enriched uranium, once our spies found out that he had bought the enrichment technology he needed and was actively trying to buy uranium from Africa, we had very little time left. Therefore it seemed imperative during last Fall's election campaign to set aside less urgent issues like the economy and instead focus on the congressional resolution approving war against Iraq. (5) Our GI's would be welcomed with open arms by cheering Iraqis who would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and Representative Democracy, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war. (6) Even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war, they would quickly fall in line after we won and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US taxpayers would get stuck with a huge bill. Now, of course, everybody knows that every single one of these impressions was just dead wrong. For example, according to the just-released Congressional investigation, Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of Sept. 11. Therefore, whatever other goals it served -- and it did serve some other goals -- the decision to invade Iraq made no sense as a way of exacting revenge for 9/11. To the contrary, the US pulled significant intelligence resources out of Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to get ready for the rushed invasion of Iraq and that disrupted the search for Osama at a critical time. And the indifference we showed to the rest of the world's opinion in the process undermined the global cooperation we need to win the war against terrorism. In the same way, the evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama Bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction. So our invasion of Iraq had no effect on Al Qaeda, other than to boost their recruiting efforts. And on the nuclear issue of course, it turned out that those documents were actually forged by somebody -- though we don't know who. As for the cheering Iraqi crowds we anticipated, unfortunately, that didn't pan out either, so now our troops are in an ugly and dangerous situation. Moreover, the rest of the world certainly isn't jumping in to help out very much the way we expected, so US taxpayers are now having to spend a billion dollars a week. In other words, when you put it all together, it was just one mistaken impression after another. Lots of them. And it's not just in foreign policy. The same thing has been happening in economic policy, where we've also got another huge and threatening mess on our hands. I'm convinced that one reason we've had so many nasty surprises in our economy is that the country somehow got lots of false impressions about what we could expect from the big tax cuts that were enacted, including: (1) The tax cuts would unleash a lot of new investment that would create lots of new jobs. (2) We wouldn't have to worry about a return to big budget deficits -- because all the new growth in the economy caused by the tax cuts would lead to a lot of new revenue. (3) Most of the benefits would go to average middle-income families, not to the wealthy, as some partisans claimed. Unfortunately, here too, every single one of these impressions turned out to be wrong. Instead of creating jobs, for example, we are losing millions of jobs -- net losses for three years in a row. That hasn't happened since the Great Depression. As I've noted before, I was the first one laid off. And it turns out that most of the benefits actually are going to the highest income Americans, who unfortunately are the least likely group to spend money in ways that create jobs during times when the economy is weak and unemployment is rising. And of course the budget deficits are already the biggest ever - with the worst still due to hit us. As a percentage of our economy, we've had bigger ones -- but these are by far the most dangerous we've ever had for two reasons: first, they're not temporary; they're structural and long-term; second, they are going to get even bigger just at the time when the big baby-boomer retirement surge starts. Moreover, the global capital markets have begun to recognize the unprecedented size of this emerging fiscal catastrophe. In truth, the current Executive Branch of the U.S. Government is radically different from any since the McKinley Administration 100 years ago. The 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, George Akerlof, went even further last week in Germany when he told Der Spiegel, "This is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history...This is not normal government policy." In describing the impact of the Bush policies on America's future, Akerloff added, "What we have here is a form of looting." Ominously, the capital markets have just pushed U.S. long-term mortgage rates higher soon after the Federal Reserve Board once again reduced discount rates. Monetary policy loses some of its potency when fiscal policy comes unglued. And after three years of rate cuts in a row, Alan Greenspan and his colleagues simply don't have much room left for further reductions. This situation is particularly dangerous right now for several reasons: first because home-buying fueled by low rates (along with car-buying, also a rate-sensitive industry) have been just about the only reliable engines pulling the economy forward; second, because so many Americans now have Variable Rate Mortgages; and third, because average personal debt is now at an all-time high -- a lot of Americans are living on the edge. It seems obvious that big and important issues like the Bush economic policy and the first Pre-emptive War in U.S. history should have been debated more thoroughly in the Congress, covered more extensively in the news media, and better presented to the American people before our nation made such fateful choices. But that didn't happen, and in both cases, reality is turning out to be very different from the impression that was given when the votes -- and the die -- were cast. Since this curious mismatch between myth and reality has suddenly become commonplace and is causing such extreme difficulty for the nation's ability to make good choices about our future, maybe it is time to focus on how in the world we could have gotten so many false impressions in such a short period of time. At first, I thought maybe the President's advisers were a big part of the problem. Last fall, in a speech on economic policy at the Brookings Institution, I called on the President to get rid of his whole economic team and pick a new group. And a few weeks later, damned if he didn't do just that - and at least one of the new advisers had written eloquently about the very problems in the Bush economic policy that I was calling upon the President to fix. But now, a year later, we still have the same bad economic policies and the problems have, if anything, gotten worse. So obviously I was wrong: changing all the president's advisers didn't work as a way of changing the policy. I remembered all that last month when everybody was looking for who ought to be held responsible for the false statements in the President's State of the Union Address. And I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the President himself and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one. But whether you agree with that conclusion or not, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican -- or an Independent, a Libertarian, a Green or a Mugwump -- you've got a big stake in making sure that Representative Democracy works the way it is supposed to. And today, it just isn't working very well. We all need to figure out how to fix it because we simply cannot keep on making such bad decisions on the basis of false impressions and mistaken assumptions. Earlier, I mentioned the feeling many have that something basic has gone wrong. Whatever it is, I think it has a lot to do with the way we seek the truth and try in good faith to use facts as the basis for debates about our future -- allowing for the unavoidable tendency we all have to get swept up in our enthusiasms. That last point is worth highlighting. Robust debate in a democracy will almost always involve occasional rhetorical excesses and leaps of faith, and we're all used to that. I've even been guilty of it myself on occasion. But there is a big difference between that and a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty. Unfortunately, I think it is no longer possible to avoid the conclusion that what the country is dealing with in the Bush Presidency is the latter. That is really the nub of the problem -- the common source for most of the false impressions that have been frustrating the normal and healthy workings of our democracy. Americans have always believed that we the people have a right to know the truth and that the truth will set us free. The very idea of self-government depends upon honest and open debate as the preferred method for pursuing the truth -- and a shared respect for the Rule of Reason as the best way to establish the truth. The Bush Administration routinely shows disrespect for that whole basic process, and I think it's partly because they feel as if they already know the truth and aren't very curious to learn about any facts that might contradict it. They and the members of groups that belong to their ideological coalition are true believers in each other's agendas. There are at least a couple of problems with this approach: First, powerful and wealthy groups and individuals who work their way into the inner circle -- with political support or large campaign contributions -- are able to add their own narrow special interests to the list of favored goals without having them weighed against the public interest or subjected to the rule of reason. And the greater the conflict between what they want and what's good for the rest of us, the greater incentive they have to bypass the normal procedures and keep it secret. That's what happened, for example, when Vice President Cheney invited all of those oil and gas industry executives to meet in secret sessions with him and his staff to put their wish lists into the administration's legislative package in early 2001. That group wanted to get rid of the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, of course, and the Administration pulled out of it first thing. The list of people who helped write our nation's new environmental and energy policies is still secret, and the Vice President won't say whether or not his former company, Halliburton, was included. But of course, as practically everybody in the world knows, Halliburton was given a huge open-ended contract to take over and run the Iraqi oil fields-- without having to bid against any other companies. Secondly, when leaders make up their minds on a policy without ever having to answer hard questions about whether or not it's good or bad for the American people as a whole, they can pretty quickly get into situations where it's really uncomfortable for them to defend what they've done with simple and truthful explanations. That's when they're tempted to fuzz up the facts and create false impressions. And when other facts start to come out that undermine the impression they're trying to maintain, they have a big incentive to try to keep the truth bottled up if -- they can -- or distort it. For example, a couple of weeks ago, the White House ordered its own EPA to strip important scientific information about the dangers of global warming out of a public report. Instead, the White House substituted information that was partly paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. This week, analysts at the Treasury Department told a reporter that they're now being routinely ordered to change their best analysis of what the consequences of the Bush tax laws are likely to be for the average person. Here is the pattern that I see: the President's mishandling of and selective use of the best evidence available on the threat posed by Iraq is pretty much the same as the way he intentionally distorted the best available evidence on climate change, and rejected the best available evidence on the threat posed to America's economy by his tax and budget proposals. In each case, the President seems to have been pursuing policies chosen in advance of the facts -- policies designed to benefit friends and supporters -- and has used tactics that deprived the American people of any opportunity to effectively subject his arguments to the kind of informed scrutiny that is essential in our system of checks and balances. The administration has developed a highly effective propaganda machine to imbed in the public mind mythologies that grow out of the one central doctrine that all of the special interests agree on, which -- in its purest form -- is that government is very bad and should be done away with as much as possible -- except the parts of it that redirect money through big contracts to industries that have won their way into the inner circle. For the same reasons they push the impression that government is bad, they also promote the myth that there really is no such thing as the public interest. What's important to them is private interests. And what they really mean is that those who have a lot of wealth should be left alone, rather than be called upon to reinvest in society through taxes. Perhaps the biggest false impression of all lies in the hidden social objectives of this Administration that are advertised with the phrase "compassionate conservatism" -- which they claim is a new departure with substantive meaning. But in reality, to be compassionate is meaningless, if compassion is limited to the mere awareness of the suffering of others. The test of compassion is action. What the administration offers with one hand is the rhetoric of compassion; what it takes away with the other hand are the financial resources necessary to make compassion something more than an empty and fading impression. Maybe one reason that false impressions have a played a bigger role than they should is that both Congress and the news media have been less vigilant and exacting than they should have been in the way they have tried to hold the Administration accountable. Whenever both houses of Congress are controlled by the President's party, there is a danger of passivity and a temptation for the legislative branch to abdicate its constitutional role. If the party in question is unusually fierce in demanding ideological uniformity and obedience, then this problem can become even worse and prevent the Congress from properly exercising oversight. Under these circumstances, the majority party in the Congress has a special obligation to the people to permit full Congressional inquiry and oversight rather than to constantly frustrate and prevent it. Whatever the reasons for the recent failures to hold the President properly accountable, America has a compelling need to quickly breathe new life into our founders' system of checks and balances -- because some extremely important choices about our future are going to be made shortly, and it is imperative that we avoid basing them on more false impressions. One thing the President could do to facilitate the restoration of checks and balances is to stop blocking reasonable efforts from the Congress to play its rightful role. For example, he could order his appointees to cooperate fully with the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, headed by former Republican Governor Tom Kean. And he should let them examine how the White House handled the warnings that are said to have been given to the President by the intelligence community. Two years ago yesterday, for example, according to the Wall Street Journal, the President was apparently advised in specific language that Al Qaeda was going to hijack some airplanes to conduct a terrorist strike inside the U.S. I understand his concern about people knowing exactly what he read in the privacy of the Oval Office, and there is a legitimate reason for treating such memos to the President with care. But that concern has to be balanced against the national interest in improving the way America deals with such information. And the apparently chaotic procedures that were used to handle the forged nuclear documents from Niger certainly show evidence that there is room for improvement in the way the White House is dealing with intelligence memos. Along with other members of the previous administration, I certainly want the commission to have access to any and all documents sent to the White House while we were there that have any bearing on this issue. And President Bush should let the commission see the ones that he read too. After all, this President has claimed the right for his executive branch to send his assistants into every public library in America and secretly monitor what the rest of us are reading. That's been the law ever since the Patriot Act was enacted. If we have to put up with such a broad and extreme invasion of our privacy rights in the name of terrorism prevention, surely he can find a way to let this National Commission know how he and his staff handled a highly specific warning of terrorism just 36 days before 9/11. And speaking of the Patriot Act, the president ought to reign in John Ashcroft and stop the gross abuses of civil rights that twice have been documented by his own Inspector General. And while he's at it, he needs to reign in Donald Rumsfeld and get rid of that DoD "Total Information Awareness" program that's right out of George Orwell's 1984. The administration hastened from the beginning to persuade us that defending America against terror cannot be done without seriously abridging the protections of the Constitution for American citizens, up to and including an asserted right to place them in a form of limbo totally beyond the authority of our courts. And that view is both wrong and fundamentally un-American. But the most urgent need for new oversight of the Executive Branch and the restoration of checks and balances is in the realm of our security, where the Administration is asking that we accept a whole cluster of new myths: For example, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was an effort to strike a bargain between states possessing nuclear weapons and all others who had pledged to refrain from developing them. This administration has rejected it and now, incredibly, wants to embark on a new program to build a brand new generation of smaller (and it hopes, more usable) nuclear bombs. In my opinion, this would be true madness -- and the point of no return to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- even as we and our allies are trying to prevent a nuclear testing breakout by North Korea and Iran. Similarly, the Kyoto treaty is an historic effort to strike a grand bargain between free-market capitalism and the protection of the global environment, now gravely threatened by rapidly accelerating warming of the Earth's atmosphere and the consequent disruption of climate patterns that have persisted throughout the entire history of civilization as we know it. This administration has tried to protect the oil and coal industries from any restrictions at all -- though Kyoto may become legally effective for global relations even without U.S. participation. Ironically, the principal cause of global warming is our civilization's addiction to burning massive quantities carbon-based fuels, including principally oil -- the most important source of which is the Persian Gulf, where our soldiers have been sent for the second war in a dozen years -- at least partly to ensure our continued access to oil. We need to face the fact that our dangerous and unsustainable consumption of oil from a highly unstable part of the world is similar in its consequences to all other addictions. As it becomes worse, the consequences get more severe and you have to pay the dealer more. And by now, it is obvious to most Americans that we have had one too many wars in the Persian Gulf and that we need an urgent effort to develop environmentally sustainable substitutes for fossil fuels and a truly international effort to stabilize the Persian Gulf and rebuild Iraq. The removal of Saddam from power is a positive accomplishment in its own right for which the President deserves credit, just as he deserves credit for removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. But in the case of Iraq, we have suffered enormous collateral damage because of the manner in which the Administration went about the invasion. And in both cases, the aftermath has been badly mishandled. The administration is now trying to give the impression that it is in favor of NATO and UN participation in such an effort. But it is not willing to pay the necessary price, which is support of a new UN Resolution and genuine sharing of control inside Iraq. If the 21st century is to be well started, we need a national agenda that is worked out in concert with the people, a healing agenda that is built on a true national consensus. Millions of Americans got the impression that George W. Bush wanted to be a "healer, not a divider", a president devoted first and foremost to "honor and integrity." Yet far from uniting the people, the president's ideologically narrow agenda has seriously divided America. His most partisan supporters have launched a kind of 'civil cold war' against those with whom they disagree. And as for honor and integrity, let me say this: we know what that was all about, but hear me well, not as a candidate for any office, but as an American citizen who loves my country: For eight years, the Clinton-Gore Administration gave this nation honest budget numbers; an economic plan with integrity that rescued the nation from debt and stagnation; honest advocacy for the environment; real compassion for the poor; a strengthening of our military -- as recently proven -- and a foreign policy whose purposes were elevated, candidly presented and courageously pursued, in the face of scorched-earth tactics by the opposition. That is also a form of honor and integrity, and not every administration in recent memory has displayed it. So I would say to those who have found the issue of honor and integrity so useful as a political tool, that the people are also looking for these virtues in the execution of public policy on their behalf, and will judge whether they are present or absent. I am proud that my party has candidates for president committed to those values. I admire the effort and skill they are putting into their campaigns. I am not going to join them, but later in the political cycle I will endorse one of them, because I believe that we must stand for a future in which the United States will again be feared only by its enemies; in which our country will again lead the effort to create an international order based on the rule of law; a nation which upholds fundamental rights even for those it believes to be its captured enemies; a nation whose financial house is in order; a nation where the market place is kept healthy by effective government scrutiny; a country which does what is necessary to provide for the health, education, and welfare of our people; a society in which citizens of all faiths enjoy equal standing; a republic once again comfortable that its chief executive knows the limits as well as the powers of the presidency; a nation that places the highest value on facts, not ideology, as the basis for all its great debates and decisions. long-winded bastard. |
"http://www.moveon.org/ Watch the video of the speech if you can. If only he had spoken like this during the election instead of babytalking like all of America are 8 year olds. Admittedly most Americans use language at about the level of an 8 year old (sad, isn't it?) but they kind of get the drift and are totally impressed by collegiate level language. Just look at the way Middle America swooned for Tony Blair. He uses full sentences, pronounces everything precisely, doesn't spend half his time saying "uhhhhh" and uses complex sentences as easily as most "Middle Americans" can get in their SUV while holding a 64oz Big Gulp, two bags of chips (one open), and a couple of candy bars. [deep breath] I was furious with Gore during the campaign for the dumbed down language he used in the debates. It made me want to punch him straight in the face for patronizing me (and I'm not one to punch anyone straight in the face). Bush, on the other hand, could barely wrap his mouth around any word without mangling it and he couldn't debate his way out of a wet paper bag. Fucking awful. But anyway, this speech shows that Gore actually is a smart guy and a good American that sees through this charade. Too bad he doesn't appear in a Superman costume more often. www.psychicreform.com Change your mind. For example, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was an effort to strike a bargain between states possessing nuclear weapons and all others who had pledged to refrain from developing them. This administration has rejected it and now, incredibly, wants to embark on a new program to build a brand new generation of smaller (and it hopes, more usable) nuclear bombs. In my opinion, this would be true madness -- and the point of no return to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- even as we and our allies are trying to prevent a nuclear testing breakout by North Korea and Iran. --Al Gore 8-7-3 "...something pretty basic has gone wrong in our country..." --Al Gore 8-7-3 " |
That is all this equates to. Presidential wannabees, talking out of their collective asses. How many more cliche's could Al cram into that thing anyway? |
See if you can tell me who said this: "In short, the inspectors are saying that even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham. Saddam’s deception has defeated their effectiveness. Instead of the inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors. This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance. Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them." And what the fuck does old Al think he is doing even MENTIONING NK Nukes? Where did they come from? Oh, that's right. China. How did China get them? Oh, that's right, CLINTON. Jesus people. |
I just could not stand idly by and let that go without comment. |
where did iraq get wmds? oh, that's right. reagan/bush. see how they 'fess up to it! such fun! |
the a/c broke down at about 5:30, we called the maintainence guys and they have not even called back yet. so I am a little bitchy right now. |
supercool. |
meanwhile, we just got another 400 bucks back from the feds. flame on! |
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We KNOW there are problems. Bush is trying to do something about it. Gore does not agree with what he is doing. Fine, that's what democracy is all about. Please, mr gore, tell me how the United States not building small nukes is going to stop rouge states from doing the same. It seemed to work so well with PAK, and India, and NK, China, Iran. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty stopped them, right? No? What? They have bombs? So, again, please tell me how this worked out for the US? What do your propose? Stop calling bush names and get to the meat of how YOU, Mr Gore, are going to fix it. All I ever hear is how terrible Bush's ideas are, but I never hear any alternatives. |
but all you see is that gore said it and thats enough for you to discredit everything he says. he doesnt get rockin in that speech until about halfway through. for instance: "Americans have always believed that we the people have a right to know the truth and that the truth will set us free. The very idea of self-government depends upon honest and open debate as the preferred method for pursuing the truth -- and a shared respect for the Rule of Reason as the best way to establish the truth. "The Bush Administration routinely shows disrespect for that whole basic process, and I think it's partly because they feel as if they already know the truth and aren't very curious to learn about any facts that might contradict it. They and the members of groups that belong to their ideological coalition are true believers in each other's agendas." "In each case, the President seems to have been pursuing policies chosen in advance of the facts -- policies designed to benefit friends and supporters -- and has used tactics that deprived the American people of any opportunity to effectively subject his arguments to the kind of informed scrutiny that is essential in our system of checks and balances." "And speaking of the Patriot Act, the president ought to reign in John Ashcroft and stop the gross abuses of civil rights that twice have been documented by his own Inspector General. And while he's at it, he needs to reign in Donald Rumsfeld and get rid of that DoD "Total Information Awareness" program that's right out of George Orwell's 1984." |
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Gore isnt an idiot. There's some merit to the fact that well-respected intellecutual institutions ask him to speak at functions. he's identifying a problem that america needs to comes to terms with. and further, if you read it, there are plenty of suggestions in that speech spunk. they are implied and infered and some are outright direct. please. don't make me point them out to you. they're right there. |
http://www.apolloalliance.org/ |
olds." |
He is making suggestions. You just aren't listening. |
Tthe reason we didn’t have a better public debate is because the antiwar folks were too busy dressing up as clowns, or getting naked, or puking on the sidewalks to actually say anything worthwhile. A “Bush=Hitler” sign is not all that impressive a debating technique, you know. And it sure wasn’t Repugnicans carrying those things around, in case you didn’t know. "Our GI’s would be welcomed with open arms by cheering Iraqis who would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and Representative Democracy, so there wouldn’t be that much risk that US soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war. " Actually, our GI’s have been welcomed by crowds of cheering Iraqis all over the damned country. This is true despite the fact that Lyin’ Al’s coworkers in the mainstream press refuse to say much about it. The guerrilla war was inevitable once Saddam’s remaining loyalists took off their uniforms and hid themselves among the civilian population, which is a violation of the Geneva Accords. Hmm, wonder when we can expect something from the ICC on that, eh? "Now, of course, everybody knows that every single one of these impressions was just dead wrong." Got your asshat yet? You will need it around February. Unlike, say, the ideology espoused by Moveon.org, which as we all know is a paragon of honesty and virtue. Oh, by the way, does anyone remember how MoveOn got its start? Yes, Monica, you have your hand up? Oh, you always get to answer in class; why don’t we let Juanita or Paula answer one for a change? That’s right, dear, MoveOn was an organization that was started to help defend Clinton during the impeachment brouhaha. As we know, Clinton was being impeached for committing the crime of perjury, a crime for which there are many, many Americans currently rotting in jail, even though more than 200 of them are there for merely lying about sex. Of course, the honest folks at MoveOn want you to think he was being impeached simply because of a consensual act of oral sex that was none of anybody else’s business at all, but you try getting a college-age intern to hoover your joint in the office during working hours, then get caught lying about it on videotape, then lie to a judge about it, and see how long you keep your job. And now they proudly bring us Lyin’ Al - whose own party took a reeking dump all over Principle in favor of partisan political gain by defending his lying misogynist boss - lecturing us on how important it is to Be Honest like some wet-end kid trying out for his Eagle Scout badge. Sooooo…let’s see here. In sum, we’ve got a damnable liar of a politician extravagantly lying his way through a speech decrying dishonesty at an event sponsored by a group that was originally formed to whitewash lying under oath by another lying politician, a group that does its best to hide who and what its own sponsors really are. All in the name of American Values and Truth, no less. Jeez, my head hurts. What kind of morons do these people take us for, anyway? One last point to make: Before 1/21/1992 Who did not have nukes then that have them today? Hmmm India Pakistan Iran N Korea China Syria How, oh how did they get them? And did we not give a couple BILLION to at least one of the those countries PRECISELY TO PREVENT them building nukes? Not just nukes, mind you, but MIRVs. Satelited guided. NK has land in Vancouver. Did you know that? Feel Safe? Now, what was Afganistan BEFORE 1/21/2001? Terrorist Training Camp? What was Iraq before 1/21/2001? A land where the leader killed millions of his own people? A land where old men in cafes sipping coffee were afraid to speak thier minds? A WMD superstore? What are they today? Afganistan still needs work, you bet. So does Iraq. If you expect 15-30 years damage to be fixed in 90 days or even 18 months, you ARE living in the land of the fairies. We were a nation adrift for 8 years. No clear direction, no clear policy of any sort. Top Secret technology for sale to the highest campaign contributor. No national identity, sueing ourselves and punishing ourselves for trying to have any such thing. Pulling out when we first faced Bin Ladin. Nobody minding the store. Not the Commerce department, not the Dept Of Interior, not Immmigrations, not the CIA, not the NSA. FBI was too busy with Ruby Ridge, Waco and pointing guns in little boy's faces before we forced them back to Cuba to be bothered with Terrorism. We paid a horrible price. It could have been worse. The next one probably will be. I will never support having a memember of that administration, the one that sold secrets for campaign funds, the one that cut our defense to the bone, the one that tied our intilligence's hands, coming back in office. It would be a GRAVE mistake. |
ROFLMAO....repugnicans......love it! OK, that's all. Carry on. |
Did all of them do that? No. Are you only focusing on those that did? Yes. "Oh, by the way, does anyone remember how MoveOn got its start?" Yes. I was one of the first 1000 to sign up. And, when it comes to Clinton, you can't move on, obviously. You also can't accept the fact that lying about sex is different than lying about war, or about evidence of Iraq buying nuclear weapons material. "We were a nation adrift for 8 years. No clear direction, no clear policy of any sort." Man, you are blind. I guess the whole country sat around and masturbated for eight years, right? But, even if that point were valid, is having a direction, if that direction is towards the edge of a cliff, any better? "Top Secret technology for sale to the highest campaign contributor." As opposed to, say, selling it to Saddam Hussein like Reagan and the first Bush did? "I will never support having a memember of that administration, the one that sold secrets for campaign funds, the one that cut our defense to the bone, the one that tied our intilligence's hands, coming back in office." It's obvious that you can't read. Gore said outright that he wasn't running for office. |
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Plus, I don't recall that anybody ever died because of lying about adultury. Now lying about the justifications to go to war? 302 American and British soldiers to date. and as far as your characterization of war protestors, whereever you cut and pasted or paraphrased that from failed to mention that many of the repuglicans (thanks for pointing that one out eri - it's awesome)were calling anyone who disagreed with Bush a traitor, and spitting on peaceful protestors, and making death threats to them. Let's not EVEN start on the Bush admin's spectacular intelligence failures, not to mention his trashing of the economy and his gift of massive national debt to our children and their children. Sheesh. |
That is all. :P |
Any clues for us? |
Multibillionaire Soros commits $10 million to new Democratic-leaning group SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer Friday, August 8, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (08-08) 11:02 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- Making a major foray into partisan politics, multibillionaire George Soros is committing $10 million to a new Democratic-leaning group aimed at defeating President Bush next year. Soros, who in the past has donated on a smaller scale to Democratic candidates and the party, pledged the money to a political action committee called America Coming Together, spokesman Michael Vachon said Friday. The group plans a $75 million effort to defeat Bush and "elect progressive officials at every level in 2004," targeting 17 key states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. "The fate of the world depends on the United States, and President Bush is leading us in the wrong direction," Soros said in a written statement. "ACT is an effective way to mobilize civil society, to convince people to go to the polls and vote for candidates who will reassert the values of the greatest open society in the world." Soros has been better known for his philanthropy and a $1 billion effort to try to prevent the proliferation of Russian nuclear weapons after the Soviet Union's collapse. He announced earlier this summer that he was scaling back his Russian spending after finding it was subsidizing programs such as education reforms better paid for by the government. Soros helped finance an ad in The New York Times two Sundays ago accusing Bush of using intelligence "exposed as exaggerated or even false" to justify the U.S.-led war in Iraq. ACT said it plans a large-scale effort to register voters and mobilize them to go to the polls. It has $30 million in commitments so far and plans a national fund-raising drive starting next month. The group is headed by Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY's List, a group dedicated to winning the election of Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights, such as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The new PAC's co-founders include Steve Rosenthal, head of the Partnership for America's Families and former political director for the AFL-CIO; Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director; and Cecile Richards, president of America Votes, a new Democratic-leaning group that includes many of the same members as America Coming Together. Under the nation's new campaign finance law, the group must remain separate from the Democratic Party to accept contributions on the scale of what Soros has pledged. The law bans national party committees from accepting contributions of that size from any source. Nonetheless, the effort will help Democrats counter the Republican Party's fund-raising advantage. GOP committees routinely raise millions more than their Democratic counterparts, and Bush is widely expected to collect $200 million or more for next year's primaries -- exponentially more than the Democratic hopefuls -- with no Republican challenger. In addition to Soros' pledge of $10 million, the PAC has raised $8 million from labor groups and a total of $12 million from several individuals, Malcolm said. The donors include Louis and Dorothy Cullman, who helped finance the newspaper ad with Soros; Anne Bartley, former president of the Rockefeller Family Fund; Peter Lewis, founder of Progressive Insurance; Patricia Bauman, head of the Bauman Family Foundation; and Rob McKay, head of the McKay Family Foundation. Malcolm declined to say how much each committed. |
protest and debate arent the same thing. protest is often a result of the lack of debate. why are you so selective? read the quotes I quoted and tell me how far off base they are. "Actually, our GI’s have been welcomed by crowds of cheering Iraqis all over the damned country." they've also been shot at, booby trapped, bombed and protested in the 1000s. Not a couple hundred. 1000s. 1000s have protested against the American presence. "Who did not have nukes then that have them today? India Pakistan Iran N Korea China Syria How, oh how did they get them?" Oh wow. You nuke development happens in an 8 year span? Nuclear weapons development takes decades of work. How many of these countries have directly or indirectly developed nuclear weapon technology because of the USSR or Russia???? The entire list of countries are MAJOR customers of the Russia weapon flea market, not to mention nuclear energy technology. Why are you so selective and assertions trace? "FBI was too busy with Ruby Ridge, Waco" maybe you forgot who was responsible for the bombing in Oklahoma. Domestic insurgents warranted a closer look. Im not defending what transpired in those two instances, but just step out and recall what was happening at that time in America. Don't even get started on the Gonzalez fiasco. "Top Secret technology for sale to the highest campaign contributor." Like thats exclusive to the Democratic party trace? Again, selective assertation as its pretty damn evident the energy and defense sector have benefited greatly under the Bush admin and *GASP!* need i remind you who got that big ass rebuilding and oil contract in Iraq. Like. Ohhhh ma god, what a coinkydink...its Haliburton!!! Please. Try not to be too hypocritical in your selective criticism. "Now, what was Afganistan BEFORE 1/21/2001? Terrorist Training Camp? What was Iraq before 1/21/2001? " You...know...while you're getting all high and mighty and preachy about spreading the good word in Afghanistan and Iraq why don't you tell me what was American BEFORE 1/21/01? We were making progress on the national debt. We had jobs. We had civil liberties for citizens and non-citizens. We we're actually proponents of the world court and didnt seek double-standard exemptions. We had a lot more respect around the world as a country of fairness and liberty. We had one or two less blemishes on our human rights record. We actually were making progress on the environmental front as opposed to turning the clock backwards with regards to pollution and auto emission standards. This country is not better off under Bush. Its not safer under Bush. Speculate on this....you think 9/11 would have happened on Clinton or Gore's clock? |
but Rumsfeld said there was evidence of it that was "bulletproof"? And what about weeks ago when Bush said that Iraq never let weapons inspectors in Iraq? Was that not a lie? Spunky, you've got way too many elephant shaped 'get out of jail free' cards. \ "Tthe reason we didn’t have a better public debate is because the antiwar folks were too busy dressing up as clowns, or getting naked, or puking on the sidewalks to actually say anything worthwhile. A “Bush=Hitler” sign is not all that impressive a debating technique, you know. And it sure wasn’t Repugnicans carrying those things around, in case you didn’t know. " spunky, I am actually going to call this statement idiotic. Its mean I know and as Nate says is "liberal gasbag" talk, but seriously, thats retarded. The reason there was no public debate is because Bush would not and could not answer the tough questions, and the media would not give proper coverage to anti-war views unless it came from a celebrity, which they would immediately discredit because of the same reason. This frustrated us so much that many turned to "bush=nazi" type signs. Most didn't, but of course you didnt know that because the media didnt show that side. I was at these rallies, the chants were "peace now" and "no war", that was pretty simple. My placard simply read "bush lies". Wispers was "War IS terrorism"... CBC aired hours and hours of coverage of the mass New York protest. All I saw in the American media was coverage of the wackos (lots in NY) and they probably gave more coverage to the 'pro-war' rally, which was around 1/20th the size, maybe less. |
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http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15370 |
its a favorite of mine. tiggy you have to wonder where the spunkster would stand in meatspace had 9/11 happened on the Clinton/Gore dime. |
Us all. "You nuke development happens in an 8 year span? Nuclear weapons development takes decades of work." Not when you buy it. We covered that already. |
garbage in, garbage out. |
its still somewhat rumor, but its got references... this is a news story that could break soon. now spunk, ignoring everything above, hypothetically, if it was proven that the US was going to plant WMDs, what would you do? are there any circumstances we should be prepared for where you would stand up for such an action? |
I knew this kind of stuff was going to be proposed a year ago. |
"was going to be proposed" the allegation, or the act? |
Apparently planting evidence of WMD is ok, because, you know, to put it like the resident: "9/11". |
Most of these "pentagon insiders" are political appointees with political agendas. No, not a consiracy theory, but fact. It now appears that the disclosure has been moved up to September. |
Wolfowitz: Right away the focus was on what do you need to do. And how do you start shutting down flights and we had several false alarms of flights coming in. There was really frankly I’d say for the first 24 hours too much to do to think about who was behind it. Q: And when did you start to think that perhaps Iraq had something to do with it? Wolfowitz: I’m not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it." |
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Wow. It's all a vast left-wing conspiracy, ain't it? |
spunk. your cryptic predictions have never panned out. why should this one be any different. and if you say anything to the effect of "wait and see..." im gonna have your wife bitch slap your ass silly, because, you know, thats kinda pussy. and yes, it doesnt take a genius to have foreseen that allegations of weapons planting would come. |
if blix and co. aren't the ones to find weapons, i'll be vewy, vewy skeptical. i actually think they already found/planted them but they're waiting for the right time on the political clock to announce the discovery, i.e. campaign time next year. if they bring 'em out now, they risk people forgetting about it by november 04. |
Another "source" credited for this "story" is none other then ConspiracyPlanet.com , who also has this article: THE GALACTIC ORION/SIRIAN/DRACONIAN FEDERATION OF REPTILES HAVE BEEN IN CONTROL OF EARTH FOR EONS... USING THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF GENESIS SCIENCE TO INSTALL SHAPESHIFTING LIZARD HYBRIDS AS THE RULERS ON EARTH....... ONE OF THEIR MEMBERS,thousands of years ago, WHO WAS A GENESIS SCIENTIST NAMED EA (where the name EA_RTH originated) WANTED MORE CONSCIOUSNESS for HIS CREATIONS, which meant EVENTUAL FREEDOM FROM LIZARD-SNAKE-DRAGON CONTROL AND ABUSE.... THE DNA CAME AS A GIFT FROM THE BIRD TRIBES OF THE OWL.. known as one of the WIZEST and MOST INTELLIGENT OF ALL THE ANIMALS....... THE SHAPESHIFTING LIZARD HYBRIDS ON EARTH, EVENTUALLY DISCOVERED WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO THEIR WORKER SLAVES ... ... IT HAS BEEN A BATTLE FOR CONTROL EVER SINCE... KNOWING THAT THIS GIFT OF OWL DNA, WHAT TODAY IS KNOWN AS HU_MANITY.. WILL BE THE DEMISE OF THEIR LIZARD SNAKE-DRAGON CONTROL ON EARTH ........ THEREFORE, THE REPTILES ARE DESPERATELY TRYING TO REMAIN IN CONTROL, AND SYNTHESIZE A NEW HUMAN REPTILIAN MAN, CALLED THE "HRUMACHIS MAN" WITH ADVANCED OWL-HU-MAN DNA AND ABILITIES. |
But it sounds like a conspiracy clearing house type site, so of course that one will be on it. I'm sure there are some things about Clinton there you find plausible. That being said, I always take a grain of salt with indymedia's reports - they tend to overreach in their attempt to provide a counter to corporate media. |
You should like the headlines. I for one like Col Hackworth. |
Now there are some true blue leftist lunatics. |
I think he's pretty right on in his assessment of how long we will have a military presence in Iraq, or at least that we shoudl be thinking in terms of decades. After all, we never left Germany and Japan, if you think about it. |
Now that I share an office (cell, really) with someone and my back is to my cellmate, I have to be extra careful with what websites i visit. i have always liked hackworth he did not support the PLAN for Iraq. He thought it was too weak. I have also always said, and will continue to say that Bush is way too liberal. I just think when it comes to military issues, and national defense, he is doing a better job then clinton did, obviously (to me anyway). |
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"Bush is too liberal"? I nearly spewed my coffee all over the screen when I read that one. I agree with you that the whole plan for Iraq was weak. I always thought that if we are going in no matter what, do it right and don't try to to do it on the cheap. We need two more soldiers there for everyone over there right now. Of course, how to pay for that without raising taxes or slashing the budgets for environment, education, transportation and social services even more... |
I see nothing to disagree with you in that statement. |
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http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/06/17_dean.html |
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Patrick, I think you are trying to piss me off on purpose, because you cannot honestly beleive things were better in either country before we started. |
im glad Saddam and the Taliban are gone. Im just disapointed that we have to spend billions upon billions and destroy millions of lives to solve problems we created. both Iraq and Afghanistan were client states at some point in the last 20 years were used to fight proxy wars against the former USSR. |
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http://www.stripesonline.com/article.asp?section=125&article=16999 |
It is true, we helped both Afghanistan and Iran resist annexation by the USSR. rowlf, eieieieo chill buddy |
we trained locals with guerrilla tactics....(School of Americas?), armed them with American made weapons, and then abandoned them once the Russians left. We didn't aid them to establish any sort of democracy. We didnt open our markets to them. We allowed despot rulers to return or remain in power. Here's a topic id like you to do some reading up on. Nicaragua In particular " The Sandinistas took the United States to the World Court for its terrorist actions—the same Court where the US had won a judgment against Iran just a few years earlier, for the taking of American hostages. The Court ruled in favor of Nicaragua, ordering reparations estimated at $17 billion. The US refused to recognize the Court's decision." |
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http://www2.truman.edu/~marc/resources/interventions.html |
wassup wit dat spunk? |
It's amazing how many interventions were done on behalf of large US agricultural companies, though. |
I find this line the most interesting: "America seems to be heading down the path of “imperial overstretch”. Guns trump butter. Troops are scattered in different regions. The economy isn’t in great shape. To paraphrase Professor Paul Kennedy, a map of America’s overseas commitments eerily reminds you of Britain’s far-flung strongholds at the turn of the century. " |
Of course, we need to make sure that the WMD sites aren't actually pharmecuetical plants that the whole country depends on before we blow them up remotely (right, President Clinton?) |
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