Wright & Smith — Good to Go
While the rest of us sit around arguing about the war on terror — or worse, ignoring it altogether as we 
dive into our own navels and gripe about our taxes or such — others are fighting it. Or getting ready to.
Rep. James Smith of Columbia was a JAG officer in the National Guard with the rank of captain, but he didn’t think that was doing enough. So a couple of years back, he started agitating for a transfer to the infantry. His entreaties were rebuffed. He bucked it up to Washington before someone told him fine, you can do that — as long as you give up your commission and start over as an enlisted man.
He took the dare, underwent basic, and eventually went to officer school on the way to regaining his former rank.
He has spent this summer undergoing specialized, intense infantry training for officers at Fort Benning. He graduates today. His unit is scheduled to go to Afghanistan in a few months.
In celebration, he sent a few folks pictures from his training course. I’m proud to share them with you. I’m even prouder to know James. He’s what I want to be when I grow up.
Here they are:
Waiting for the sun to go down before mission.
Related Posts
Too bad Captain Smith doesn’t have a responsible commander in chief. If we had just finished the job in Afghanastan.
This just in:
No proof of contact between Saddam, al-Qaeda, Senate report concludes
Updated 9/8/2006 1:40 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this
WASHINGTON (AP) — “There’s no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaeda, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush’s justification for invading Iraq.
Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none.”
Nothing new here but it should be yet another nail in the coffin of the discredited argument that Saddam was a threat.
I thought Bush himself had already said that. A couple of times.
In fact, I don’t ever remember anything being alleged beyond intel reports of a meeting between one of the hijackers and an Iraqi agent somewhere in Europe. But that was highly disputed even then. No one was certain it had taken place.
The political problem here is that people who are inclined to be really obtuse like to pretend that unless there was some direct connection between Saddam and the actual 9/11 hijackers, then Iraq has nothing to do with a legitimate response to 9/11. And yet it obviously has everything to do with it.
Before 9/11, we did everything we could to maintain the status quo in the Mideast, so as to keep the oil flowing. 9/11 showed us how profoundly dangerous the status quo was. We could no longer stand by and let oppressive regimes rule that part of the world. Only one such oppressive regime had spent the last 12 years violating the terms of our 1991 ceasefire, one after another. It was the logical place to start that phase of this long, long struggle.
And I sincerely doubt Rep. Smith, the former House Democratic Caucus leader, voted for the current commander in chief. His attitude is like mine, only he’s in a position to do a hell of a lot more about it: It’s about what’s right for the country, not about whether you like the current president.
We’re likely to go through several presidents before this is over. People have got to start looking far beyond the partisan politics of the moment.
James Smith certainly does.
Say it enough, and I guess you’ll even believe it, Mr. Warthen.
OF COURSE we’re in this for years to come because one irresponsible person wanted to “be remembered” and wanted to take on the easiest challenge on the block of bully nations. Oh, he’ll be remembered alright!
“I’ll get ’em back for goin’ after daddy, and I’ll do what daddy couldn’t! They’ll love me for all times!”
Most analytical people (when presented the overwhelming evidence) understand this fact.
You certainly don’t.
Physical evidence of Saddam’s ties to 9/11 hijackers
——————————————–
Those anti-war Senators can’t explain away the finance records we seized and the intelligence officer we captured, who confirm money given to Al Qaeda terrorists by Saddam.
Then there are the two hijacker training camps captured in Iraq. At Salman Pak, we captured videotape of Saddam telling the terrorists to,”Destroy Israel, but attack America first.”
Actually, Capital A, he’s doing what Daddy WOULDN’T, not couldn’t. He didn’t want to upset the applecart. But he was in a better position to secure Iraq than we have ever been in since. He had a much larger force than we have today in place and ready, with a good head of steam built up and the enemy on the run. He just lacked the will, as would almost any American president in that point in history. (“OK, Saddam, back to Baghdad where you belong, and Kuwaiti monarchy, here’s your realm back. Now everybody try to be prudent and stay put.”)
9/11 showed the foolishness of such respect for the status quo. The status quo in the Mideast and southwest Asia was producing bin Laden, Zarqawi and their like.
President George Bush built a coalition on the UN precondition that they would protect the OPEC countries, kick Iraq out of Kuwait, but not overthrow Saddam and leave the door open to Iran.
We should have gone our own way then, overthrown Saddam and bottled up Iran. Democrats were in denial and afraid to use American military might then, and now.
Brad, your arguments for continuing in Iraq become more and more convulated with each passing day. Do you actually read the nonsense you write. And I take great umbrage in your patronizing accusation that those of us who oppose the president’s policies are doing so as some sort of partisan game. Let’s set the record straight on that point once and for all.
For me, the whole Iraq business is about the safety and security of the United States and it’s citizens. The lack of a connection between Al Quaeda and Saddam is a crucial part of that security goal. If Saddam was not supporting Al Quaeda, and in fact feared them, our justification for invasion is greatly diminished.
Our invasion actually has served to enhance the capability of the terrorists. Iraq and Al-Quaeda offset each other to a certain extent. Same with Iraq and Iran. Now, we’ve upset that crucial balance. And all hell has broken loose in the middle-east. The result is a bloodbath and a breeding ground for terrorists that did not exist before.
So instead of containing the situation, and working with our various allies as Bill Clinton and Bush Sr. had done we are involved in a gigantic mess that has NOTHING to do with enhancing our security. It’s a complete disaster that Bush lied us into. Nothing partisan Brad, it’s simply a matter of security. If 9-11 taught us anything it’s that we should actually go after our real enemies and not go off on some half-baked adventure against a harmless despot. In this case Al-Queada and the Taliban who supported them are our enemies. All the Iraq invasion did was allow them to regroup and recruit. And that’s what’s happening now in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
By the way, the sum of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has now exceeded the number of persons killed on 9-11. So we’ve effectively created another 9-11 (only one that’s more expensive monetarily and in persons wounded) without suffering an actual attack.
Bill Clinton’s own advisors said he contained nothing, that he was frightened of the Muslims and ignored all pleading by Richard Holbrooke, Richard Clarke, Dick Morris and the Pentagon to pay attention and get aggressive, but Clinton, Gore, Albright and Reno kept reigning in the police, CIA and military.
Bin Laden said in a tape that this continued retreat from his attacks convinced many young Muslim men to join Al Qaeda.
Warthen’s line for the day:9/11 showed the foolishness of such respect for the status quo. The status quo in the Mideast and southwest Asia was producing bin Laden, Zarqawi and their like.
9/11 “showed” no such thing.
You’re about as stubborn and thick headed as they come about this unnecessary WAR OF CHOICE.
How many reports, commissions and exposes will it take to convince you that Iraq played no part in 9/11. Bush has admitted it. The report from the Senate Intel Committee confirmed it.
Let me repeat Iraq played no part in 9/11. IRAQ PLAYED NO PART IN 9/11.
Bush lied and misled the American people. The American people WERE NOT TOLD THAT THIS WAR WAS THE OPENING ROUND OF A BLOOD BATH TO REMAKE THE MIDDLE EAST. Instead, they were sold the war as necessary to take out a country who presented an imminent danger to the USA with weapons of mass destruction.
Only fools, blind partisans, and rabid neo-con ideologues can’t admit that the Bush Administration misused intel to deceive the Congress and the country.
Choose which category you fall into.
Warthen, if you want to live in a delusion then be my guest. Please stop using your job to continue misleading your readers, though. It’s an insult and disservice to the country.
BTW, you’re the one being obtuse, Warthen.
You’re endorsing the deliberate deception of the American people by the President about the most important decision that can be made: whether we go to war.
You’ve really drunk the kool-aid on this one. You’re even OK with having the government deceive and lie to you as to the reason for going to war.
All of this non-sense is based on the megalomaniacal neo-con pipedream that we can “remake” the entire Middle East– that we can spread democracy at the end of gun.
After YEARS of seeing the failure of that concept come in DAILY in reports from Iraq you’re absolutely in stone-cold denial.
Sad.
Interesting that some on this blog chide BW for being a liberal.
One of the few things I agree with MR on is that Mr. Warthen and those of his mind do support this “war” because it is of no direct cost to him. Sacrifice of human life is just fine to hold up some imagined honor. “It’s begun so we must finish it.”
Ridiculous.
Then Mr. Warthen goes on to argue exactly my point. Babybush was trying to outdo daddy and gain approval from his much more respectable pater. His generation is often seeking pats on the head from the “Greatest Generation.” [cue Tom Brokaw salivating]
If they keep on seeking such bonbons, there may be no generation to take power after mine has cleaned up the mess they’ve left behind!
What is it that you guys don’t get? Since A is unrelated to B, then you must destroy B to stop A. It makes perfect sense to me, so much so that I now call it Warthen’s Postulate. Heck, just the other day I had a nail in my car’s front right tire, so in response I destroyed all the trees in my backyard. If you destroy all the trees, then there won’t be any lumber, and without lumber, there is no need for nails. Simple, huh.
Way to go Brad!
Brilliant!!! (voices of the Guinness beer dandies)
What the h*** is wrong with you people??!!
Here we have a story of a guy who could have stayed home in safety like all the rest of us yet chose to defend his country. A Democrat, even, of all people!
Yet instead of appreciating what he’s doing for you all we get is the same old tired lefty bull manure that didn’t make any sense 2 or 3 years ago and still doesn’t. Like it or not, believe it or not, but we are in World War 3 or 4 (depending on how you count the Cold Wat) and this guy is putting his life on the line to defend your sorry rear ends and you can’t even say thank you.
For shame!
Lex, you’ll find a recent statement of yours concerning war victims below my comment. Considering it, you’ll excuse the rest of us if we have a hard time taking a wristslap from the likes of you in regards to a war participant.
When you realize how far removed from human decency you were when you posted it, feel free to rap your own knuckles.
For sure…
—————
5. Before believing everything the drive-by media show you on TV, anyone interested in the real truth should watch this video about Pallywood. 18 minutes with a broadband connection showing you exactly how those tearjerkers about those poor “victims” are really made. A real eye-opener. It’s a pretty safe assumption that very little showing the Hezbo side is not either staged or entirely made-up.
Posted by: LexWolf | Aug 3, 2006 6:59:20 PM
Here’s the problem I have with the right. Brad writes a story about a soldier preparing to go off to war. Fine. He’s serving his country. I get that. But basically that’s the end of the story. Don’t get your panties in a bunch every time honorable, patriotic Americans point out the failures of the Bush Administration by pointing out the sacrifice of our servicemen. It’s a cheap shot. And frankly I think it does the servicemen a diservice. They’re supposed to be fighting for our freedom. But for those going off to Iraq, they’re doing no such thing. It’s not their fault. The blame lies with our lying president.
Bud, on your original post on this thread just substitute the German Nazi regime for Iraq and your argument is no different than the reasoning of the anti-war crowd pre-WW2. After all, Hitler didnt attack us. So what if he took Poland, that gave Europe some balance, let it be. etc. etc.
Saddam Hussein gave shelter and protection to Abu Nidal. Pre-911, he was one of the AQ types who hijacked the Mediterranean cruise ship and threw the crippled Jew and his wheelchair to the bottom of the sea. Oh well, what did that have to do with us, nothing there, let’s just move on. That was the mantra of the left and still is.
And I agree with Lexwolf, the left cannot even praise a volunteer who is fighting for their protection. Instead, they look at the guy as a misguided soul who Bush brainwashed to just think that fighting in Iraq is honorable. If only Bud could go to Iraq and look our soldiers right in the face, eye to eye, and tell them how they are NOT fighting for our freedom and the freedom of all people in the world who hate terrorism. Shame on the left!!!!!!!!!!
It won’t convince anybody who doesn’t want to hear it, but this article pretty much puts the bunk on Saddam’s link to Al-Qaeda.
This might be the best place to link to this excellent piece in a recent Sports Illustrated on the life and death of Pat Tillman. It’s long, but worth reading…
Pat Tillman/a>
He was a very complex guy who gave up his NFL career to join the Army and then die as a result of friendly fire which was then covered up by the military.
Here’s a small sample:
Everybody who thought he’d enlisted purely out of patriotism, they missed reality by a half mile. Sure, he loved America and felt compelled to fight for it after more than 2,600 people at the World Trade Center were turned to dust. But his decision sprang from soil so much richer than that. The foisting of all the dirty work onto people less fortunate than an NFL safety clawed at his ethics. He had uncles and grandfathers on both sides who’d fought in World War II and the Korean War, one who’d taken a bullet in his chest, another who’d lost a finger and one who’d been the last to leap out of a plane shot from the sky. On a level deeper than almost any other American, he’d reaped the reward of those sacrifices: the chance his country afforded him to be himself, all of himself.
He yearned to have a voice one day that would carry, possibly in politics, and he was far from the sort of man who could send others into a fire that he had skirted. His relentless curiosity, his determination to live his life as if it were a book that would hold its reader to the last word, pushed him into the flames as well. The history of man is war, he told a family member, so how, without sampling it, could he ever know man or himself completely?
Hope this fixes the link problem…
Tillman
Instead, they look at the guy as a misguided soul who Bush brainwashed to just think that fighting in Iraq is honorable. …Shame on the left!!!!!!!!!! – Dave
That’s a terrible oversimplification. I also find this to be the tactic used to disparage people who question the war. The military is fighting for our right to question our government. We should question them. Just as Doug and parents should challenge schools and we should challenge Brad and his paper.
I for one disagree with Brad on the assertion that we should have gone into Iraq. How can anyone challenge the fact that the Afghanistan problem is not completed yet. That should have been “job 1”.
BUT, we are in this war and I feel we must complete the job successfully. If we give in, then the deaths of those who served are diminished.
Oh stuff it, Mary! I’ve served a number of years in the military, and a son and a daughter were just commissioned as 2LTs in the Army a couple of months ago. I’m doing my part – are you?
You and the other lefty chickendoves are the only cowards I can see here. Unfortunately your uninformed spouting doesn’t substitute for real courage and service to our country. If it weren’t for people like Smith and W, doing the defense of our country that you are too cowardly to do yourself, you’d all be speaking Arabic by now (or Russian, or German, or Japanese, or….).
Capital A,
did you actually watch that Pallywood video? If you had, you surely wouldn’t be considering those guys as victims.
Lex, throughout the history of man, it is people like you who have led to the deaths of billions of humans. You think in gross oversimplifications because it is “easier” on the brain stem.
If you did serve this country, then you didn’t rise too highly in rank. Most officers I know are highly intelligent and can think in colors other than black and white. It is only at the very highest levels that those in the military again turn off their brains to more directly serve the dreams of some constituency.
Also, every American who is being productive according to their talents is serving this country on some level. Not everyone has to pull a trigger to defend freedom.
So I guess you didn’t watch that Pallywood video and would rather continue in your self-imposed ignorance?
Lex …isn’t enough of a man to be willing to defend his position with fact-based arguments, so he simply presumes ab initio that his position is the correct one, and uses dishonest arguments to try to exclude criticism of his position. – Mary
I’d have to agree.
It’s a slippery slope to disallow dissent and opposition to the government. It seems to me the W administration has done a great deal to squash or atleast villify dissenting views.
I also think that service isn’t necessary to engage in the debate and service isn’t sufficient for credibility.
“It seems to me the W administration has done a great deal to squash or atleast villify dissenting views.”
Where? Certainly not on this blog or anywhere else in the drive-by media. In fact, vicious dissent and Bush-bashing is pretty much all you hear in the media. It’s an absolute miracle that the American people can see through all the Bush-bashing and cheap chickendove posturing and still make the right choice more often than not.
Can you name just one person who has actually suffered any adverse consequences for peacefully expressed dissent? Include a link, please.
Also look at the posts above to see the vilification and incivility coming from the lefties (just look at Capital A’s last post above – let’s not even mention the bile just pouring out of every Mary Rosh post; what an unhappy and bitter person he/she must be). It’s an appalling sight but that’s never kept them from playing the victim.
Lex, Lee, Dave or someone wrote (does it really matter, they’re all just reciting the neo-con talking points):
“Bud, on your original post on this thread just substitute the German Nazi regime for Iraq and your argument is no different than the reasoning of the anti-war crowd pre-WW2. After all, Hitler didnt attack us. So what if he took Poland, that gave Europe some balance, let it be. etc. etc.”
There you go again with the non-sequetor, nonsense, BS, Nazi Germany = Iraq comparison again. How many times does this have to be debunked. I’m not going to bother this time.
“How many times does this have to be debunked.”
I don’t know but so far I haven’t seen even one debunking.
I just “unpublished” Mary’s assault on LexWolf’s courage. That was an easy call, although it seemed a shame because I did enjoy the “Chairborne Rangers” bit.
Some others here are borderline, but I’m in the middle of reworking some things on tomorrow’s page — and trying to do it and leave before the football game lets out and ties up the roads — so I’ll have to look at them again when I have more time.
Just for starters…
Protestors shut out
Judge affirms protestor’s rights violated
Bush Administration stifles data on global warming
This is the best the troll could dredge up? Please! The troll will need to try a little harder than that. In the first 2 cases, the person did not obey the instructions of police to move to the protest area, a practice pioneered in Clinton’s presidency and which has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
I don’t see anything at all negative happening to the scientist in the troll’s 3rd link. Obviously he was able to speak or there wouldn’t have been a newspaper story. Hansen in fact is making an excellent living on the lecture circuit – some stifling, I must say. Overall, the Bushies must be doing a spectacularly bad job at stifling dissent on global warming, considering that there are dozens of stories about this every day in newspapers and magazines across the counrty. Even on this lowly blog, hardly a day goes by without somebody reciting the global warming catechism.
Lex, I noticed that after I blasted holes in your school choice “plan” you reverted to your old ploy of name calling to boost your arguments. This is the behavior to which Brad dedicated an entire thread – incivility. I guess by posting anonymously, you believe you have license to act this way.
Your link to the supreme court case doesn’t address the court ruling I posted.
Global warming catechism? I posted a story about the president stifling a dissenting view. Again, you spin to something else, a method Clinton also practiced.
Mary may be mean, but she pegged your m.o.
incivility
A Letter to My Closed-Minded Liberal Friends
“Your link to the supreme court case doesn’t address the court ruling I posted.”
Sure it does. The issue is exactly the same, as are the facts. The only difference is that this case is about a different guy in South Carolina. Since both cases were within the jurisdiction of the 4th Circuit, this is the law of the land for the states in the Circuit.
“I posted a story about the president stifling a dissenting view.”
The troll actually posted a story about a guy who claimed (no proof offered) his dissent was being stifled even while we was speechifying to environmental whackos all over the country and raking in fat fees everywhere. Hilarious in its utter cluelessness and contradictions.
LOL, speaking of contradictions:
The issue is exactly the same, as are the facts. The only difference is that this case is about a different guy – Lex
The two are EXACTLY the same, except for one minor detail, they were different cases.
The case you cited: the Secret Service only allowed people with tickets to the presidential event to stay in the restricted area. All others, including Bursey, were told to move along.
The case I cited: Trkula asked Ianachione why people with pro-Bush signs were allowed to stand along the street or walk about freely before and during the president’s appearance. Ianachione said most signs he saw were critical of Bush, and his orders were to place those people behind the fence. The area was NOT restricted to ticket holders like your case.
Lex, you might want to re-read that thread dedicated to your sophmoric name calling. Does the private school allow your daughter to call other students names? You know, young people pick up these bad habits some of us adults have.
I’m sure the other bloggers don’t want to see all this crud between Lex and I again so I’ll move on.
From the troll’s own link:
The ACLU filed a lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on behalf of four advocacy organizations that claim the Secret Service forced them into protest zones or other areas where they could not be seen by President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney or be noticed by the media covering their visits.
The seeds of the lawsuit were planted on Labor Day 2002 when William Neel, 65, of Butler, was charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to move to a designated protest area during a visit by President Bush to Neville Island.
We might also want to look at the lefties great many own efforts at stifling dissent, starting at the 2004 Dem convention and continuing right now.
The troll actually thinks he’s a blogger. Amazing. Where’s his blog? He must be a new species – a blogless blogger. Heh.
Randy, bravo to you for posting — BUT, we are in this war and I feel we must complete the job successfully. If we give in, then the deaths of those who served are diminished.
I also agree it is fine and patriotic to question the administration, Congress, the military, everyone, but I draw the line on the incessant refrain of calling Bush a “liar”, terrorist, Hitler, and other such nonsense.
Dave, I agree that Bush should NOT be called such things. BUT, this works both ways.
Look at the venom spewed towards Murtha, a freakin American hero.
Rums simplistically uses a quote out of context, Gulag of our times, to deride the critics BUT then compares Iraq war critics to Nazi appeasers using a tremendous amount of context to make his point. Subsequently this was taken out of context by some.
Ann Coulter’s hate is not only overlooked by many republicans, but she’s consider a champion of the cause. Her statements and attacks are reprehensible and disgusting.
I posted how a peaceful Bush protestor was forced out of an OPEN area (NOT restricted) because local officials were encouraged to do so by feds while others with pro Bush signs were unaccosted (if this was a security issue, someone wishing harm on the president would pose as a supporter).
There was a post on this blog which referred to the “anti-semetic left”.
Fortunately, I know Warthen as a coward and a hypocrite, so I saved a copy of my post before putting it up. Of course, the reason Warthen took it down is not because of any concern over “civility” (everyone who agrees with Warthen is considered by him to be “civil” – Look at Lex, for example, constantly calling Randy a “troll” for posting material with which Lex disagrees. The reason that Warthen took down my post is because it eviscerates one of Warthen’s favorite techniques of “argument” the idea that the valor of our soldiers in battle renders illegitimate any consideration of why they have been sent into battle. Warthen, Lex, Lee, Dave, and the other chickenhawks and Chairborne Rangers are too cowardly to put forward any justification for the Iraq war, so they instead seek to use the bodies of our soldiers as shields to protect their viewpoint from criticism.
Anyway, here is the censored post:
Lex displays in his “arguments” the same cowardice that keeps him from volunteering to go to Iraq and fight in the war he advocates. He isn’t enough of a man to be willing to defend his position with fact-based arguments, so he simply presumes ab initio that his position is the correct one, and uses dishonest arguments to try to exclude criticism of his position.
James Smith’s decision to serve in the infantry, reflects great credit on him, but it does not in any way validate or invalidate the particular uses to which his service will be put, or the policies that he will be called on to help carry out. Those uses and policies are not decided on by HIM; they are decided on by the civilian leadership, and by this time it has become clear that the policies Mr. Smith has been called on to carry out are profoundly mistaken.
That fact does not reduce to the slightest extent the credit (glory, even) to which Mr. Smith is entitled for his decision. He (unlike Warthen, Lee, Dave, Lex, and the numerous other members of the 82nd Chairborne Brigade who advocate a war that for which they do not have to bear any sacrifice of any kind) has volunteered to undergo profound hardship and risk terrible danger in the service of his country. By his action, he is doing all sorts of creditable things that have nothing to do with whether or not the war is wise or unwise. For example, he is alleviating the burden on other soldiers, reducing their risk by taking on himself a portion of it.
No matter what glory Mr. Smith is due, however, the selfnessness and courage he displays tell us nothing about whether the war is good for the United States. Mr. Smith may be willing to give his life in the service of his country, but that willingness only reflects credit on HIM; it does NOT, in and of itself, entitle ANYONE to ask, or even PERMIT, him to make the sacrifice. His live and welfare are much too valuable to the United States to toss away lightly, entirely aside from the fact that the obligation in the relationship between soldier and nation runs BOTH WAYS. Our soldiers fight for us. They fight so we don’t have to. And that gives us an obligation to them, an obligation never to send them into harm’s way unless it is absolutely necessary.
The war in Iraq has to be evaluated on its own merits. Soldiers serve with valor in every conflict in which they are asked to fight, wise or unwise, just or unjust. Their valor doesn’t excuse us from critically examining the causes in which we ask them to serve; on the contrary, their valor demands that we meet our obligation to them by applying the utmost scrutiny to any task we ask them to do in which their lives may be lost or in which they may otherwise suffer harm.
Lex, Dave, Warthen, Lee, and all the other chickenhawks and Chairborne Rangers would have us believe that Mr. Smirth’s service, by itself, validates the policies his service may assist in carrying out. It does not.
Lex’s “argument” is that Mr. Smith is serving valiantly, and that therefore we are excluded from questioning the policies Mr. Smith is being called on to carry out – policies that Mr. Smith had NO PART IN FORMING, but which he will carry out according to any orders he may be given, because that is the role he took on as a soldier.
Lex is a coward who is using Mr. Smith’s body, and the bodies of all our other soldiers, as a shield in order to protect Lex’s arguments from criticism.
Randy, one major distinction is in order here. Ann Coulter is an unelected pundit and can spout off to her heart’s (and book sales) content. Same for Al Franken(stein). But, what I am referring to is commentary from elected officials like Harry Reid, Pelosi, Durbin, Kerry, Kennedy, and others referring to the president as a liar, terrorist, etc. etc. Big difference. If you can, name a Republican who has even called Murtha a traitor, which is the truth, and I mean “elected” Republican, not Rush Limbaugh. Think about it.
Dave,
1. The president is a liar.
2. The people you mentioned have not called him a terrorist.
3. I don’t know what you mean by, etc., etc.
Your distinctions are all false ones, and you are motivated to make them by the same cowardice that keeps you from volunteering to serve in Iraq. You are not man enough to address the viewpoints of those with whom you differ, so you seek to deligitimize their arguments. Jean Schmidt, for example, called Murtha a coward, but she supports your viewpoint (namely, a willingness for others to fight and die in Iraq, so long as you are not called on to make any sacrifices in support of the effort), so you will make excuses for what she said. The legitimate criticisms made by those with whom you differ (for example, that Bush lied in order to involve the United States in Iraq, that he alloweed bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora, that he has broken the law by spying on Americans) you have no answer for, so you create a set of imaginary rules of discourse that are designed with no other motivation in mind other than to exclude viewpoints with which you disagree. When those whom you support engage in acts which violate these imaginary “rules,” you alter the rules or find some other excuse why they supposedly don’t apply to the particular action under examination.
Of course, by viewing your supporters and critics in this hypocritical way, you don’t tell us less about your supporters and critics and more about yourself – namely, that you are lazy, hypocritical coward who isn’t man enough to address the arguments of your critics and so seek to exclude them from the discourse.
Dave, Coulter contributes to the venemous tone that leads to calling the president names. Many on this blog and certainly supported her or at the very least suggested that there is nothing wrong with what she says and how she says it.
Ann Coulter is most hated when she hits the nerve with the truth.
The politically correct crowd, which talks in euphemisms rather than direct English which would expose their motives, hates to have the veneer stripped of so the world can have a good laugh at them.
Lee, I think you need a spanking then sent to your room.
And it makes you sick to know you aren’t man enough to use force on any adult.
That’s why real Americans don’t worry about a revolution from the unarmed couch potato whiners. Without their hired guns, they are nothing.
Coulter loads up her statements with inflamatory rhetoric but basically she tells the blunt truth as she sees it. I haven’t heard one lie yet from her. So for those who want to hear the truth, she is the right person to listen to. Ignore the bookselling rhetoric and hear what she is saying and writing fundamentally. Also, she has never run for office and as I said pundits are pundits and elected officials represent the people.
Mary, I forgot to mention Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean. How could I forget them?
“People sleep peacably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf” – George Orwell
“People sleep peacably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf” – George Orwell
Quoting George Orwell is always dangerous, he had a LOT to say, on everything:
“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” George Orwell
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. Also George Orwell.
George Orwell (if that is in fact your real name) actually, Lee’s reference to your work is quite apropos to the discussion. Remember, he is not expressing HIS OWN willingness to fight. He is expressing a willingness for OTHER PEOPLE to fight. So use of the quote is reasonable, I think, although tangential to the issue, which is whether or not the particular cause for which our soldiers are being asked to fight is worth the danger to them
Where Lee goes off the rails is in pretending that his willingness to risk death for other people constitutes courage on his part, and that the reluctance on the part of those who oppose the Iraq war to send others into danger constitutes weakness or cowardice.
Dave, would you deny that Coutler has influence and helps to set the tone. Look back on the exchanges on her on this blog in the summer.
As far as Coulter “telling the truth”, you label her as a pundit. These are purveyors of opinion – often biased opinion. Because you agree with her doesn’t make it the truth.
What “truth” was there in her suggestion that the widows “were enjoying their husbands death”. That was reckless and reprehensible OPINION. I am disappointed to see people, who have time to reflect on her words, support this statement.
Of course, we’re talking about your truth: called Murtha a traitor, which is the truth.
It’s a slippery slope when people start deciding among themselves who is a traitor. I looked through all the news clippings on bootmurtha.com and found NOTHING that shows he’s a traitor. Perhaps you could provide insight on this Dave; what is the threshold for being a traitor and what exactly did Murtha do to meet this threshold?
Sorry Dave, that came off a little nasty. I had just finished squashing more of Lex’s “plan” and I guess I was a little edgy replying to you.
Randy, no problem, I can understand how Coulter can grate on people. As for the Jersey girls, AC didn’t say they enjoyed the actual death of their husbands, but they are enjoying their self promotion as political anti-Bush cheerleaders while they campaigned for Kerry in 04 and continue to spout venom against everyone except the Muslim terrorists who brought the Trade Towers down.
What Murtha has said during this time of war would have gotten him brought before a firing squad in the past. Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason and traitorous and that is what he did, attacking his own Marine comrades. It’s interesting, even fascinating, how with the left Marines are guilty until proven innocent but we give the opposite rights to Michael Jackson, OJ Simpson, and even the 20th hijacker, Moussuai.
If patriots can’t decide who is a traitor, who should?
No one, according to those who want a world without definitions, where they can never be wrong, because there is no right and wrong.
TRAITOR – someone who wants our enemies to harm a single one of our soldiers, or score the tiniest victory over our nation.
Lee, if I thought half as much in black and white as you do, I’d never be angry. There’d be so much less to puzzle over. Morality wouldn’t be a consideration. The world would be all so simple.
Which leads me to my question: What’s eating you, Gilbert Grape?
we give the opposite rights to Michael Jackson, OJ Simpson, and even the 20th hijacker, Moussuai.
Posted by: Dave | Sep 11, 2006 3:34:44 AM
Your subconscious betrays your prejudices.
You couldn’t even throw in an Eric Robert Rudolph whose politics and interests more mirror your own? You know, in the interest of equal time?
Dave writes:
“As for the Jersey girls, AC didn’t say they enjoyed the actual death of their husbands.”
No Dave she didn’t say those exact words. SHE WROTE IT IN A BOOK in order to make money. Perhaps the exact words were a bit different but the sentiment was there. I read it. It was absolutely disgusting, indefensible, and completely, utterly inaccurate.
The world is simple for me because I understand it better than the average Democrat does, or want to.
Since you have that covered, you may want to work on your subject-verb agreement, comma use and dangling prepositions.
It should be hard to be arrogant when you pack more errors into one sentence than the work I’ve seen from ESL students.
Yes, without my typing errors, you would have no comebacks. I do realize that reading comprehension is a root cause of ignorance among “liberals”. The rest of the time, they play dumb.
Dave, Murtha has neither given aid nor comfort to the enemy.
You simplistically confuse dissent from Bush’s policies with treason.
Were the Republican leaders guilty of treason when they dissented about Clinton’s Bosnia policies, too?
It’s actually Bush who is giving aid and comfort to the enemy by wasting our valuable military assets in a war that is not in our interest (the Iraqi civil war).
“In fact, I don’t ever remember anything being alleged beyond intel reports of a meeting between one of the hijackers and an Iraqi agent somewhere in Europe.”
Cheney and Rice, on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2006(!), BOTH said that there were ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. The fact that you don’t know something, or pretend not to know it, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.
“The political problem here is that people who are inclined to be really obtuse like to pretend that unless there was some direct connection between Saddam and the actual 9/11 hijackers, then Iraq has nothing to do with a legitimate response to 9/11. And yet it obviously has everything to do with it.”
No it doesn’t.
“Before 9/11, we did everything we could to maintain the status quo in the Mideast, so as to keep the oil flowing. 9/11 showed us how profoundly dangerous the status quo was. We could no longer stand by and let oppressive regimes rule that part of the world. Only one such oppressive regime had spent the last 12 years violating the terms of our 1991 ceasefire, one after another. It was the logical place to start that phase of this long, long struggle.”
This is full of logical fallacies. Basically, Warthen didn’t follow this line of reasoning (such as it is) to get to his conclusion; he established the conclusion he wanted (namely, that the United States should make war, at no cost or hardship to Warthen personally), in order to achieve Warthen’s racist fantasy vision of American dominance over dark-skinned persons.
The questions he fails to answer are:
In what specific ways was the previous status quo dangerous, and what specific changes needed to be made?
What were the least costly and dangerous ways to alter the status quo?
What alterations of the status quo, and what means of altering the status quo, would increase the danger to the United States and were to be avoided for that reason?
What alterations to the status quo were unachievable, so that attempts to accomplish them should be avoided?
What means of altering the status quo carried an unacceptably high cost compared to the benefits that could be achieved by those means, and therefore were to be avoided?
What alternatives were there to “standing by and letting oppressive regimes rule that part of the world?” What were the costs of each alternative, the dangers of each, and the benefits of each, and which alternatives could achieve the best balance between costs, dangers, and benefits?
What means were available to alter the systems of government in the middle east, by changing the regimes or altering their character? Was a military invasion that was costly to thousands of American soldiers and millions of American taxpayers, but for which Warthen bore none of the costs, the best possible means?
Was invading Iraq the best means to increase the safety of America? Was attacking a regime that had tried to capture Zarqawi, that hated and feared bin Laden, and that saw Islamic extremism as a personal threat, the best way to protect America against Islamic extremism?
Warthen fails to answer any of these questions; he merely presumes that his viewpoint is correct without providing any support for it other than tossing out a few platitudes.
Mary, so many questions. If we could simply get 100 beancounting CPA’s in one room and have them figure all this out, then we would have all the answers. As long as their answers cost us less money, you are happy with that direction. How sick?
The fact that Iraq traing hijackers at its Salman Pak facility is links enough, just like the Al Matar training camp in Afghanistan.
Lee, do you really believe the stuff you write? It is simply fascinating to read the utter nonsense you continue to spout off here. The whole Salman Pak claim has long ago been debunked. It was not used to train Al Qaeda terrorists.
From the Wikepedia:
The facility was discussed in the leadup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a result of a campaign by Iraqi defectors associated with the Iraqi National Congress to assert that the facility was a terrorist training camp. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has since established that both the CIA and the DIA concluded that there was no evidence to support these claims. A DIA analyst told the Committee, “The Iraqi National Congress (INC) has been pushing information for a long time about Salman Pak and training of al-Qa’ida.” Knight Ridder reporters Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel noted in November 2005 that “After the war, U.S. officials determined that a facility in Salman Pak was used to train Iraqi anti-terrorist commandos.”[Seattle Times, 1 November 2005, p. A5].
This account has been accepted by virtually everyone, including all the senior officials in the Bush administration, as fact. So why do you continue to push this? I stand in awe of your incredible resistance to the truth.
Bud, if you really believe that Wikipedia entry, then I have not just one, but a whole slew of bridges to sell you. And some swampland down in Florida, while we’re at it. Wikipedia is halfway OK when it comes to noncontroversial subjects but totally useless and biased for any controversial events of the last 50 years, especially anything to do with Bush and the Iraq War. You might as well just go straight to the Democratic Underground.
Rules of Evidence
A new Senate report on Iraq and al Qaeda ignores everything which gets in the way of its conclusions.
ONCE AGAIN headlines from media outlets around the country declare “No Saddam, al-Qaeda link.” This time the news cycle is being fed by the release of two reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, both of which purport to investigate the uses of prewar intelligence. The first of these two reports, titled “Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments,” has pleased Democrats.
Senator Carl Levin says that the report is “a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration’s unrelenting, misleading, and deceptive attempts” to connect Saddam’s regime to bin Laden’s al Qaeda. Senator Jay Rockefeller agrees with Senator Levin’s assessment, saying the report will confirm that “the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading.”
But beyond the obvious political gamesmanship, there is little merit to this posturing because there is little serious analysis in the Senate report: Far from providing the definitive word on Saddam’s ties to al Qaeda, the report is almost worthless.
CONSIDER TWO BRIEF examples, chosen from many: (click on the headline above for the rest of the article)
Iraq’s WMD Rocket Facility at Al Qa Qaa
Al Qa Qaa is located in Yousefiya 30-38 km South of Baghdad, near Iskandariya. The actual Iraqi name for the complex is the al Qa Qaa Government Enterprise. The complex consists of at least a solid propellant facility, a suspected Scud production facility, a SSM equipment production facility, an unidentified facility under construction as of late 1990, and the Latifiyah BW facility located at the eastern end of the complex which is part of an overall complex known as the Latifiya Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa. [GulfLINK]
Entities at this facility include:
* Aqaba Ibn Nafa’a Gen. Est. — metal casings for Project 946
* Khalid factory — Production of Al Hussein class missiles (warheads)
* Project 144/7 — Production of Al Hussein class missiles (liquid propellants)
* Project 144/5 (Farooq project) — Production of Al Hussein class missiles (launchers) Facility abandoned in 1988 after destruction during an industrial accident at the site
* Saddam Gen. Est. — nuclear parts, lasers and optical equipment, Tamouz missile
* Umm Al Marik Est. — missile fuel and warheads
* Al Yarmouk Gen. Est. — missile parts, ammunition with special specifications
Al Qa Qaa was responsible for the explosive filling of long-range missile warheads.
Warhead processing facilities at the site were destroyed under UNSCOM supervision.
Iraq made significant progress in the development of the nuclear weapon implosion package, largely through efforts at the Al Qa Qaa establishment. The involvement of the Al Qa Qaa State Establishment in support of the development of the implosion package began in 1987.
RTH – GOP leaders when referring to Bosnia never called our soldiers cold blooded killers. Even when wesly the weasel clark ordered the bombing of the civilian Train and the Chinese embassy and the television station, GOPers did not refer to him as a war criminal.
Cap A – Eric Rudolph has zero identification with me. You probably support him living out his life in an air conditioned so called prison with libraries and cable tv. Left to me, I would pour sulfuric acid on his face so he could feel what the nurse he disfigured in Alabama felt like. Then I would have him stand on top of a nail bomb while his feet were blown off. That would just be my beginning. So think again if you think I have any sympathy toward Rudolph.
“Mary, so many questions.”
Yep. It would have been good if some of them had been asked before we lost 2600 soldiers.
“If we could simply get 100 beancounting CPA’s in one room and have them figure all this out, then we would have all the answers.”
Or intelligence and military analysts and planners, or various other qualified people who could estimate the various advantages and disadvantages to the United States of proposed courses of action.
As long as their answers cost us less money, you are happy with that direction. How sick?
I didn’t say that all the costs were monetary ones – of course, you don’t bear any of the costs of the Iraq war, monetary or otherwise, being a net burden on the United States. But those of us who bear the costs are acutely aware of them.
Of course, the wasted $300 billion (none contributed by you) is a cost, and a heavy one. But there are other, much more important costs.
Failing to capture bin Laden due to the diversion of resources to Iraq – that’s a cost.
Wasting time so that the Taliban was able to negotiate a peace deal with Pakistan assuring that Pakistan wouldn’t bother bin Laden – that’s a cost.
Allowing the Taliban to become resurgent in Afghanistan – that’s a cost.
Creating an Iran-Iraq alliance – that’s a cost.
Therrel Shayne Childers – that’s a cost.
Jay Thomas Aubin – that’s a cost.
Ryan Anthony Beaupre – that’s a cost.
Bryan Matthew Kennedy – that’s a cost.
Kendall Damon Waters-Bey – that’s a cost.
But you just keep sitting on your sofa, collecting handouts paid for by liberals, discounting the deaths of these men and other men and women, and pretending that a willingness to accept their deaths makes you a man.
Lex writes:
“if you really believe that Wikipedia entry, then I have not just one, but a whole slew of bridges to sell you. And some swampland down in Florida, while we’re at it. Wikipedia is halfway OK when it comes to noncontroversial subjects but totally useless and biased for any controversial events of the last 50 years, especially anything to do with Bush and the Iraq War. You might as well just go straight to the Democratic Underground.”
I guess VP Cheney belongs to the Democratic Underground. He did not dispute the findings of the Senate Report. Only the extreme right-wing groups such as the much discredited Daily Standard still believe in a connection. This is issue is settled. There just is no credible evidence of a connection.
We don’t need to have a trial and prove to a jury that any nation aided and abetted a particular hijacking.
Anyone, anywhere who trained any hijacker has no reason to do so other than to create terror.
Saddam had direct control of his hijacker training camps. His son, Qusay, ran Salman Pak, where foreign hijackers were trained for six months in how to hijack airpliners with small knives and bare hands.
Colonel Muhammed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani of the Iraqi spy service M8, met with Mohammed Atta in Prague. This was reported to the US by the Czech prime minister and his top police.
Two high-ranking Iraqi intelligence officers who defected to Turkey in October 2001 were brought to England, where they detailed the involvement of Iraq in training hijackers and supplying some of them with poison gas and anthrax.
“I guess VP Cheney belongs to the Democratic Underground. He did not dispute the findings of the Senate Report.”
Heh. You’re just too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel.
Cheney reasserts Iraq/al-Qaeda links
By Demetri Sevastopulo
Published: September 10 2006 21:01 | Last updated: September 10 2006 21:01
US Vice-President Dick Cheney repeated assertions on Sunday on links between the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda despite a recent Senate intelligence committee report that concluded otherwise.
In defending the decision to invade Iraq despite its lack of weapons of mass destruction, Mr Cheney said the fact that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in a US air strike this year, was in Baghdad before the war was evidence that Iraq had links to al-Qaeda.
Left to me, I would pour sulfuric acid on his face so he could feel what the nurse he disfigured in Alabama felt like.
Posted by: Dave | Sep 11, 2006 3:33:23 PM
Oh, but I do see something in common. You would substitute vengeance for justice.
That considered, what’s the distance between thought and action?
Lex, you’re going to have to come up with a more reputable source than the Chickenhawk Weekly.
Call it what you want, Mary, but I’d rather have a source than go your route with no source at all except a feverish imagination.
Cap A – You are showing your true liberal colors. To liberals, any punishment to a criminal is cruel and unjust, ergo, liberals really don’t believe in punishing anyone. Pedophiles included. That is why peds get a wink from liberal judges and head right back out to abuse children again. We have gotten to the point now where liberal judges rule that the prick of a needle is cruel and unusual punishment for someone who has viciously murdered innocent people. A judge in Mass. recently suspended the sentence on one criminal because he was too “short” to serve time in prison. So don’t worry, I have no need to take vengeance on any criminals, but I get a lot of satisfaction seeing our nation become increasingly conservative, including the USSC, so there is hope.
DEMOCRATS WAGE A WAR OF LIES
The anti-American crowd is so eager to accept the “conclusions” of anyone else that Saddam was innocent of aiding and abetting the terrorists.
The “conclusions” they cite were written by a sub-group of committee staffers to Jamie Gorelick, who had blocked the FBI from receiving information about the hijackers from US Army intelligence. Gorelick was also part of the team at DOJ that made the decision to not accept the extradition of Bin Laden.
Their concluders, like themselves, simply refuse to discuss the PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of Iraq’s LINKS to the Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, because they are unable to explain it away.
Democrats have been waging a propaganda war of lies to cover up their failures to stop the terrorists. Part of that effort includes the constant repetition of lies from people who sound authorative, talking about fabrications as if they were facts. The intention is to create a noise of false impressions and confusion to drown out the mountain of evidence that Saddam trained hijackers and other terrorists in Iraq, just as Bin Laden did in Afghanistan.
Dave, believing that we should follow the rule of law as opposed to our collective Id is now considered liberal? No wonder you’re seeing strange colors.
You should also notice that a lot of those “conservative” judges suddenly become more “liberal” once they are installed on the SC and have to begin interpreting law as it was set. Isn’t that why the right is always complaining it can never “win” even though they though they had it “all figgered out” with certain nominations?
Ah-Clarence Thomas-CHOO!
If we begin just creating our own arbitrary, base punishments, as you propose, we become no better than those savages that you’re always claiming we are better than. The cases you cite are exceptions to our judicial system, not the norm, just as the emotional sentences you spit forth are quite troubling coming from a purported Christian and also being not very WJWD.
From the Meet the Press Transcript:
MR. RUSSERT: Well, I asked you, I said, “is there a connection between Saddam and 9/11 on September ‘03” and you said “we don’t know.”
VICE PRES. CHENEY: (Unintelligible). That’s right.
MR. RUSSERT: So you raised that possibility.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: It was raised by the CIA who passed on the report from the Czech Intelligence Service.
MR. RUSSERT: All right. Now the president has been asked, “What did Iraq have to do with the attack on the World Trade Center?” and he said “nothing.” Do you agree with that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I do. So it’s not…
MR. RUSSERT: So it’s case, case closed.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We’ve never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Case closed indeed.
bud, you want to believe that Saddam and Bin Laden were no threat to America, just as Clinton, Albright, Reno, Berger and Gorelick were in denial from 1993 through 2000.
Now they, and you, have to cover up the stinking mess with more stinking mess.
Saddam’s mural of an airline crashing into a skyscraper
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/26/sprj.irq.mural/index.html
Lex, my source is the Senate Intelligence Committee Report. My question to you is, why do you believe the Chickenhawk Weekly over the Senate Intelligence Committee Report? Is there any reason beyond the fact that the Chickenhawk Weekly article says what you want it to say, and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report doesn’t?
That’s not a legitimate technique of evaluating sources of information.
Most of what is touted as “The 9/11 Report” is actually the sidebar report put out by Democrat staffers for Clinton mole Jamie Gorelick.
There is also a dissenting report of almost half the commission members which contains facts omitted by the majority report, which contradict assertions that “we just don’t know” about a lot of the specific links between Iraq and the hijackers.
Saddam’s Fingerprints on N.Y. Bombings
The Wall Street Journal
By Laurie Mylroie
June 28, 1993
Military retaliation from Baghdad was the main administration concern following Saturday’s strike on Iraq. Yet U.S. officials should start thinking seriously about the question of retaliation through terror. It is quite possible, for example, that there was a connection between Saddam and recent attempts to blow up Manhattan. It is quite possible that New York’s terror is Saddam’s revenge.
TERRORIST FUGITIVE ABDUL RAHMAN YASIN IN BAGHDAD
60 Minutes: The Man Who Got Away
May 31, 2002
Abdul Rahman Yasin is the only participant in the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 who was never caught. Yasin, who was indicted in the bombing but escaped, was interviewed by CBS News’ Lesley Stahl in an Iraqi installation near Baghdad last Thursday, May 23. Stahl’s report appeared on 60 Minutes, Sunday June 2nd.
The ABC miniseries that aired Monday and Tuesday depicted the Clinton’s terrorist team perfectly. Most of them were afraid to take action unless they could do a CYA after the action was taken. Or they were concerned about poll effects, or Billy’s legacy since he was near the end of his second term. The one thing that comes through is dealing with the security of the American people was way down on the list. And the American people knew Kerry would be just like that. And they wonder why they keep losing elections. I dont wonder at all.
Dave, how does the ABC piece “depict the Clinton team perfectly” by using scenes that were completely made up in order to do it? If they wanted an accurate depiction, why didn’t they use scenes that really happened?
And if Clinton wasn’t concerned with the security of the American people, why is it that after the WTC bombing, 38 days into his presidency, al Qaeda wasn’t able to carry out another successful attack on American soil (despite numerous attempts) until Clinton had left office?
If Clinton perpetrated all these disasters, how is it that NONE OF THEM came to fruition while he was in office, but had to wait for Bush to take office before they could come to pass?
The fact is that you don’t care about the facts or the security or welfare of the American people (if you did, you might, for example, pay your own share of taxes rather than living off of handouts paid for by the taxes of liberals). You simply have a formula into which everything must fit, namely, that everything bad was a result of Clinton’s actions, even when it took place while Bush was president.
The fact is, though, that it was Bush’s responsibility to respond to the threat warnings that came in all during the summer of 2001, the same way Clinton did in 1999 when he got wind of the Millenium Bomb Plot and stopped it.
Instead, Bush responded to warnings by going fishing, he responded to news of an airplane crashing into the WTC by going into a classroom for a meaningless photo-op, and he responded to the information that America was UNDER ATTACK by sitting and doing nothing for about 15 minutes, listening to a bunch of children read a story about a goat.
When he was informed that America was under attack, he didn’t give one order, didn’t ask one question, didn’t do anything to find out the nature of the attacks or to take any action to stop them.
Instead, he wet his pants for 3 days, and then finally pulled himself together enough to climb up on some rubble and shout through a bullhorn.
And this is Clinton’s fault how?
Exactly which scenes to you think were fabricated and why? To fill in the blanks about people killed on Sept 11?
With so many failures, lies and coverups by the Clinton administration, there was much more truth omitted than fiction added.
Other attacks on America soil while Clinton slept:
* TWA 800 blown out of the sky.
When the FAA found explosive residue in the cabin, Clinton removed the manager of the investigation and put Al Gore in charge. The independent forensic engineers hired by the airline and aircraft company were banned from the crash reconstruction site on Long Island.
* Oklahoma City bombing.
Reno and Clinton lied from day 1 about it being “right wing militias”, then had to shut up and rush a trial with a simple story. In fact, the bombers had flown to Manila to meet with one of the explosives experts who planned the 1993 WTC bombing.
ABC admitted in the opening credits that it made stuff up.
TWA 800 is still a mystery but was probably due to a failure in the electrical system or some other non-foul play event.
Oklahoma city was a right-wing militia terrorist attack. No amount of spin or conspiracy theory crap is going to change that fact.
Yeah, Lee. Clinton was responsible for the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake too.
Did it ever occur to you that part of the reason that South Carolina is as backward as it is might be that it contains so many people like you, who are too shiftless and lazy to solve problems, but are instead interested in blaming all their problems on people they don’t like, even if they have to give up any grip on reality to do so?
From ThinkProgress.org:
Conservatives On The Path to 9/11: ‘Unacceptable,’ ‘Defamatory,’ ‘Strewn With A Lot of Problems,’ ‘Zero Factual Basis’
[..]
John Podhoretz, conservative columnist and Fox News contributor:
The portrait of Albright is an unacceptable revision of recent history and an unfair mark on a public servant who, no matter her shortcomings, doesn’t deserve to be remembered by millions of Americans as the inadvertent (and truculent) savior of Osama bin Laden. Samuel Berger, Clinton’s national security adviser, also seems to have just cause for complaint. [NYPost, 9/8/06]
James Taranto, OpinionJournal.com editor:
The Clintonites may have a point here. A few years ago, when the shoe was on the other foot, we were happy to see CBS scotch “The Reagans.” [OpinionJournal, 9/7/06]
[…]
Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday anchor:
When you put somebody on the screen and say that’s Madeleine Albright and she said this in a specific conversation and she never did say it, I think it’s slanderous, I think it’s defamatory and I think that ABC and Disney should be held to account. [Fox, 9/8/06]
[…]
Bill Bennett, conservative author, radio host, and TV commentator:
Look, “The Path to 9/11″ is strewn with a lot of problems and I think there were problems in the Clinton administration. But that’s no reason to falsify the record, falsify conversations by either the president or his leading people and you know it just shouldn’t happen. [CNN, 9/8/06]
Seth Liebsohn, Claremont Institute fellow and produce of Bill Bennett’s radio show:
I oppose this miniseries as well if it is fiction dressed up as fact, creates caricatures of real persons and events that are inaccurate, and inserts quotes that were not uttered, especially to make a point that was not intended. [Glenn Greewald’s blog, 9/7/06]
Richard Miniter, conservative author of “Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton’s Failures Unleashed Global Terror”:
If people wanted to be critical of the Clinton years there’s things they could have said, but the idea that someone had bin Laden in his sights in 1998 or any other time and Sandy Berger refused to pull the trigger, there’s zero factual basis for that. [CNN, 9/7/06]
9/11 Commissioners Criticize ‘The Path to 9/11′
9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick:
“I do have a problem if you make claims that the program is based upon the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report when the actors, scenes and statements in the series are not found in — and, indeed, are contradicted by — our findings.”
9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste:
Some scenes in the film “complete fiction. … The mischaracterizations tended to support the notion that the president [Clinton] was not attentive to anti-terrorism concerns. That was the opposite from what the 9/11 commission found.”
9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer:
In the scene, CIA operatives have Osama bin Laden cornered and are poised to capture or kill him until National Security Adviser Samuel Berger refuses to give the go-ahead. … [M]embers of the 9/11 Commission say none of that ever happened.
ROEMER: There were plans, not an operation in place. Secondly, Osama bin Laden was never in somebody’s sights. Thirdly, on page 114 of our report we say George Tenet took responsibility for pulling the plug on that particular Tarnak Farms operation. [CNN, 9/7/06]
9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey:
“If you’re saying this is based on the 9/11 Commission report, there are substantial factual discrepancies. You need to get [them] out. … You can’t sit there as ABC and say, ‘Gee, we don’t have any responsibility. They should make a good faith effort to get this as close to the facts as possible.”
It’s a docudrama, folks. There may have been some small inaccuracies but the “The Reagans” miniseries also had problems. And Fahrenheit 9/11 which won prizes as an alleged documentary had little but inaccuracies and outright fabrications throughout. Deal with it, instead of whining about it like a bunch of little crybabies. Then again you may just be illustrating the official Dem Party seal again.
Where was the scene of Dear Leader frozen in panic in an elementary school room reading “My Pet Goat?”
Where was the scene of Bush snapping “Now you’ve covered your ass.” to his CIA briefer after he received the August 8, 2001 PDB?
Where was the scene of Bush going fishing after reading “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” in the PDB?
Where was the scenes of Cheney NOT convening the terrorism task force until 9/12/2001.
Where was the scene of Rice demoting Richard Clarke from the Principals Committee because he insisted on continually warning about terrorism?
Conservatives whined pretty effectively about the portrayal of St. Ronnie– so effectively that the movie was shifted from broadcast to cable-only.
Yeh, Lexie, why should anyone care the portrayal of the formative event of our lifetimes is riddled with partisan errors? Television is a powerful tool of propaganda– and that’s exactly what this show was.
School kids watched that show for homework. Do you think that they understand the subtleties of video slanting. Do you think that they understand that the script writer fabricated entire scenes to give a false impression of Clinton and omitted numerous potential scenes to give Bush a pass?
Heck, Dave, thinks that “Path to 9/11” is solid history. But, then, Dave probably thinks “24” is a documentary, too.
When over a third of the population still believes that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, the last thing we need is more disinformation.
Obviously the people of CT believe that supporting the military and the entire effort in Iraq takes priority over all other policy issues. Go Joe Go.. Here is the good news from Survey USA:
7% Schlesinger (R)
38% Lamont (D)
51% Lieberman (I)
1% Other
2% Undecided
Also, other than a few minor items, Path to 9-11 was a mirror of the truth. It should be shown again the last 2 nights before the election. Bravo to ABC. I can hardly believe it. ABC may be finally awakening to the fact that anti-Bush programming leads to lower ratings and this brought some balance. Fair and balanced are all the American people want.
Dave, what anti-Bush programming? Hold something with lettering up to a mirror sometime and try to read it. The image is reversed. Is that what you mean by The Path to 9-11 was a mirror of the truth. ABC included a disclaimer admitting it made stuff up. Mirror image indeed.
Anti-Bush programming is what warped your thinking.
Bud, ABC didnt need to make up anything. The Clinton’s NON-war on Terror is proof enough. Did you know that Clinton later authorized American money to pay for rebuilding the Sudan aspirin factory? After the headache Monica and the blue dress stain gave him, the poor guy probably needed some aspirin. Extra strength.
Clinton knew that Sudanese factory was benign. Clinton himself signed off on the IMF loan to build the factory, which supplied drugs under the UN Oil-for-Food program.
Sandy Berger had an inspector visit the plant every month.
Clinton bombed the plant on the weekend, when it was closed, and the German and British contractors who ran it were not there. That’s why he only killed the janitor.
The owners sued and Janet Reno settled for $8,100,000, after they hired a new lawyer: the newly-resigned Clinton counsel, Lanny Davis.
“Bud, ABC didnt need to make up anything.”
Well, they must have needed to make stuff up, because they DID make stuff up.
“The Clinton’s NON-war on Terror is proof enough.”
You mean the non-war that stopped numerous plots, including plots to crash airliners into buildings, so that al Qaeda was not able to mount a successful attack on U.S. soil between 38 days after Clinton took office until 8 months after Clinton had left office?
The fact that you see the made-up scenes in the ABC piece as reflecting reality says more about you than it does about Clinton. A word commonly used to refer to someone whose view of the world comes from made up stuff is:
crazy.
You see the phony scenes in the ABC piece, depicting events that NEVER HAPPENED, as somehow reflecting a Clinton failure to combat terrorism, because you are:
crazy.
You blame Clinton for the September 11 attacks, which occurred after he had been out of office for 8 months, because you are:
crazy.
The reality is that the ABC scenes don’t reflect a historical reality because they were:
MADE UP
You see made up scenes as reflecting a historical reality because you are:
crazy.
Nothing hurts the Seditious Left like the TRUTH about their failures.
I see MR purchased the latest Gnarls Barkley cd. Well applied (to Lee) and congrats on the new syntax structure!
Lee, was the video of Bushbaby sitting idly while NYC burned falsified? Would you respect any LOCAL leader who reacted to a SC crisis in that way?
I submit you’d write so many angry, grammatically challenged letters to The State that its editors would resign due to the effects of carpal tunnel.
Why, then, is Bushbaby immune to criticism? Honestly, I can think of no other excuse than a man-crush on your part. You’re certainly not being logical or ethical, so the drive must be emotional.
A lot of Bush haters are unaware that before he went into that classroom to read to the children, he was told that the WTC had been hit by “a small two engine airplane”. So he thought it was an accident involving a private plane, until the Secret Service was updated and passed the news to him. At that point, President Bush immediately got up, informed the press , and left to take control of the situation.
Ignorance is the basis of most hatred coming from “liberals”.
Lee, absolutely right. Most of the girly-men bashing Bush on this blog about his 9-11 reaction are the kind who if in a foxhole with you in the military, and the shooting started, would be cowering in the mud, begging the enemy to spare them. They are weaklings plain and simple. Personally and on national security.
Lee, again, someone who bases his view of the world on made up stuff is usually referred to as:
crazy.
Bush was NOT told that a small two-engine airplane had hit the WTC. Flight 11 hit at 8:46, CNN broke into their coverage and went live with the story by 8:48, and the other networks also went live by then or shortly thereafter. The tower had this giant hole in it, something that couldn’t have been made by a small plane. According to one of his numerous stories about how he first learned of the attacks, he SAW flight 11 hit the WTC before going into the classroom. According to another of his stories, Andrew Card told him, by the way, an aircraft has hit the WTC.
None of the stories that he and his staff have told say that he was told it was a small plane.
And the Secret Service did not get “updated and pass the news to him”. He was “updated” when he was informed by Andrew Card that “A second aircraft has hit the second tower. America is under attack.” At this point, he did not “immediately get up, inform the press, and leave to take control of the situation.” Instead, without knowing what to do, and with no one telling him what to do, President Bush just sat there.
I think that perhaps the best response to your ridiculous claim that Bush immediately took charge is to quote Orgon’s speech to his mother in “Tartuffe”:
Your speech has not a single grain of sense.
I saw it, harkee, saw it, with these eyes
I saw–d’ye know what saw means?–must I say it
A hundred times, and din it in your ears?
I SAW what Bush did after being informed that America was under attack.
I take it, though, that by falsely claiming that Bush immediately got up, informed the press, and took charge of the situation, that you’re admitting that Bush SHOULD have gotten up, informed the press, and taken charge of the situation, and that if he did NOT immediately get up, inform the press, and take charge of the situation, he would be derelict in his duty?
Dave, a reluctance to send others into danger isn’t weakness, and a willingness to send others into danger isn’t courage.
An overpowering fear of terrorists that leads you to urge every possible measure to be taken to provide you with a sense of total security no matter what dangers it poses to others or how small a likelihood of success it has, that isn’t courage, that’s cowardice.
Mary, have you been listening to Patsy Cline, with your obsession of Crazy? Being from Joisey, you probably never heard of Patsy, one of the best voices ever heard on the planet. But back to your virtual reality of this blog. Cowards are those who want to appease murderous terrorists, like you do. I served in the US Army, in fact, did my boot camp at memorable Ft. Dix, NJ. So save your coward talk for when you look at yourself in the mirror.
Dave, you may have had courage at one time, in the distant past. You may have courage now. I don’t know. I can only judge you by your actions now. And your actions now are not those of a brave man; they are those of a coward.
A willingness to send OTHERS into danger is not courage. A reluctance to send OTHERS into danger is now cowardice.
Sitting on your sofa accusing your detractors of wanting to appease terrorists is not courage. It is the act of a lazy, hypocritical coward. If you are a man, explain why your detractors are wrong. Explain why their opposition to the war in Iraq is mistaken.
If you continue to avoid addressing the arguments of your opponents by accusing them of treason, of disloyalty, of wanting to appease terrorists, you are simply showing cowardice, because you are trying to clear the field for your arguments by casting the arguments of your opponents as outside legitimate discourse.
You may have served in the army (in the past). You may have served in combat (in the past). You may have shown courage. But urging the sacrifice of your fellow Americans to give yourself a sense of absolute security is a cowardly act (in the present).
Andrew Card and Secret Service agents testified what President Bush was told about the planes and the exact times.
Mary Rosh’s fabrication is debunked by the fact that none of the reporters in the room knew about the plane crash until Bush told them. That is on videotape.
It is not only uncivil to lie about the President; it is sedition.
The funny thing about that school scene is that the lefties would be complaining about something else instead of those 7 minutes if Bush had immediately jumped up and left the classroom. Then he would have been terrified, flustered, out-of-control, trying to save himself, panicky, scaring the kids and nation, blah blah blah.
The key here is the concept of BDS. For the virulent Bush-bashers on this thread and elsewhere there simply is nothing Bush could have possibly done that would have gained their approval or even toleration.
I can hardly wait for Nov. 7th. That night the Bush-bashers will totally lose whatever minds they still have left and run amok in the streets after they once again get a shellacking by the voters. How sweet it will be!
Lee, it is true that Rove claimed to have told Bush that a small twin hit the first tower, although I don’t believe it. How could he know something like that, and what about the giant hole in the tower suggested a strike by a small plane?
At 8:55, Rice told Bush that a commercial twin-engine plane had hit the tower. By this time, everyone in the country could see the giant, smoking hole. Bush went into the classroom anyway.
At 9:05, he was sitting in a classroom when Andrew Card told him “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.”
By this time, the burning WTC was all over the TV, and the crash of Flight 175 was shown live. Pagers of news people in the room were going off like crazy with the information. People in the adjacent room saw the crash of Flight 175 on TV.
Not knowing what to do, and with no one telling him what to do, President Bush just sat there.
The stuff Lee says happened, NEVER HAPPENED. Bush did NOT immediately get up, tell the news people what was going on, and take charge. He just sat there.
And Lex demonstrates once again how ridiculous the idea of “Bush Derangement Syndrome” is. The same cowardice that keeps him out of Iraq keeps him from acknowledging that any criticism of Bush can be legitimate, so he adheres to this idea that any criticism (actually, any failre to make excuses for Bush) arises from some defect in the critic.
He says that if Bush had left the classroom early, the “leftists” would be all over him. Let’s look at this idea for a minute. What could Bush have done except what he did, which was to just sit doing and saying nothing.
1. He could have said, “what’s going on?”
2. He could have taken advantage of the fact that the class had just come to an end of the lesson segment, and said, children, something has come up. I have to go, and gone into the next room and taken charge. (This, in fact, is what Lee says he did).
3. He could have rushed out of the classroom, yelling, “I’ve got to go, turn on the TV, turn on the TV!” and gone into the next room to take charge.
4. Another alternative would have been to delay his entry into the classroom until he found out what was going on, or to abandon the photo-op altogether.
What would anyone have said in protest? Is Lex really suggesting that anyone would have criticized Bush for leaving the room instead of sitting silent until he came to the end of the goat story? Imagine what such protests would have been like:
Why did Bush ask what was going on?
Why did he ask NORAD to tell him how many aircraft were hijacked?
Why did Bush leave the room early?
The fact is that no one would have known that he had left the room early, because no one would have known or cared how long the scheduled visit was.
And what is this about scaring the children. The children were supposedly going to be scared to death by seeing someone walk out of a room? It’s like the August 6 PDB. We heard that Bush would have taken all this criticism if he had paid attention to the PDB instead of doign what he did, which was to go fishing. Yeah, right. Everybody was going to say, Bush shouldn’t have called a meeting and made sure he knew what was going on – he should have gone fishing!
The fact is, that Bush failed in his duty on August 6, and he failed in his duty on September 11. The same cowardice that keeps Lex out of Iraq keeps him from acknowledging or addressing any argument that doesn’t make excuses for Bush.
Mary, you live in NJ not very far from the World Trade Towers. As you watched what happened on 9-11, did you immediately jump into your vehicle (or get on your broom) and head to the scene of the emergency to help in any way, some small way. You could have given a fireman some water for example. You could have helped a crippled person get down the street. I will wait for your answer as to what you did. We all want to know.
Lee, how can you be so ignorant. Bush sat reading a child’s book for at least 5 minutes after, AFTER he was clearly informed that the SECOND plane hit the WTC. Any account to the contrary is just flat out wrong. Again, this is akin to being a holocaust denier. And is sufficient cause for me to lose all respect for the man. Defend his policies if you must but at the very least recognize that this man was not up to the job as commander in chief on 9-11. NONE of the previous 41 men who served as president would have acted the way he did. Not a single one.
Lex writes:
“For the virulent Bush-bashers on this thread and elsewhere there simply is nothing Bush could have possibly done that would have gained their approval or even toleration.”
In the immediate after-math of 9-11 the Decider enjoyed a 90% + approval rating. Yes, even I supported him. I know you’re shock by that but it’s true. I did not vote for Clinton in 96 or Gore in 00. So this claim is just hillariable. It was only after the facts began to emerge about his grossly incompetent performance on 9-11 that I began to question whether he was up to the job. In the lead-up to the Iraq invasion I bought the WMD/Al-Qaeda connection hook, line and sinker. (I still opposed the war AT THAT TIME believing the inspectors needed more time). Only after the lies came out and the bungled way we handled the aftermath (the weapons stashes were never properly secured for example) that I began to question his competence.
He continues to refuse any changes in how we conduct this quagmire of a war. The Afghan situation continues to decline. North Korea and Iran are building Nukes. Failure on top of failure is what has turned me against the man. Not irrational loathing because he’s a republican.
Let’s turn this around. We have a man who sat with a deer in the headlights look for 5+ minutes while the nation was under attack. This man lied about our reasons for going to war. He bungled the occupation. Is there anything at all this man could do that would make you question his abilities? Or will you simply blindly follow anything he does and defend any action he takes no matter how incompetent.
Bush exhibited coolness upon learning more details about the skyjacking attacks and other suspicious planes. He finished reading so as not to alarm the children, and had the press move to another area to be briefed.
But Lee, that isn’t what you said before. You said that Bush immediately got up, informed the press, and left to take control of the situation. Now you say that Bush just sat there.
And Bush wasn’t reading. Not out loud, anyway. They were reading to him, and when Card told him that a second aircraft had hit, they had finished a segment of the lesson and hadn’t started the goat story yet. Bush could have taken that opportunity to say something like, “I’m sorry, I have to go do president stuff and so will have to go into the next room to speak with my staff”.
How would that have alarmed the children? Are you suggesting that they had never seen people go into and out of rooms before?
No, by sitting and doing nothing while America was under attack and Flight 77 was racing toward the Pentagon, Bush didn’t exhibited coolness, he exhibited either immobilization due to fear, an inability to set proper priorities, or both. If not, why did you invent an imaginary scenario that was completely different from what you’re now claiming that he did?
Mary obviously never watched the videotapes of Bush, never read the testimony of the Secret Service, and never listened to Andrew Card explain what was conveyed to President Bush as the attacks transpired.
…. and she doesn’t care, because her attack is just another Democrat hate lie.
They have no real criticisms of the war on terror, because they couldn’t conduct the war themselves. They demonstrated that under Clinton.
Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding. Do we have a winner. If anyone picked Lee with his fourth post on the “Bush and My Pet Goat” discussion you’ve just won the “when will the Clinton card be played” pool!
Where was Clinton hiding on Sept 11 ?
What would Gore have done? Nothing.
Bud, today Bush commemorated and praised Ann Richards as a genuine daughter of Texas. This, after countless attacks and slanders from her to him. If ONLY the leftists and Bush haters could have 1/10th the class of our president. Think about that.
You mean the same Democrats who laughed at Reagan having Alzheimer’s disease, and made jokes about children with Downs Syndrome?
Lee, you are correct. Also, lets not forget the Wellstone “hate party” funeral circus. Hopefully there will be enough respect for Richards to NOT do that, but if they do, there goes the fall election hopes of the Dems. In a way, I hope they invite Jean Garofalo, Al Franken, and Rosie O’Donnell to speak at her funeral. That trio could get Herbert Hoover elected president.
Just this Monday, Andrew Card was on CNN, telling the timeline of when President Bush was told that “a small twin-engine plane just struck the World Trade Center”, until he was updated with the fact that it was an airliner, and the school visit was cut short.
Other Secret Service testimony to the timeline is contained in the Senate record, and was broadcast live on television.
The press in attendance didn’t know any of it until they were briefed by Andrew Card and Bush, so Bush was not exactly behind the curve, as the lying Democrat propaganda wants to paint it.
Well, Lee, which is it? Did Bush immediately get up, inform the press, and leave to take control of the situation, as you said, or did he sit in his chair so as to exhibit coolness and avoid frightening the children, as you also said?
Bush did NOT, at 9:15, give reporters their first information about an event that had started being covered on TV at 8:48, and he did NOT give reporters their first information about Flight 175, which had been on live TV at 9:03.
The ONLY information Bush got about Flight 175 was “a second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack.” At this point, his response was to do absolutely nothing. He didn’t ask any questions or give any orders. Instead, not knowing what to do, and with no one telling him what to do, President Bush just sat there.
And then when he finally DID pull himself together enough to get up, what he did was to go work on a speech, which he gave at 9:31. Another example of failure to set proper priorities, as Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:37.
Mary you said no one was telling Bush what to do. That’s not exactly true. Ari Fliecher held up a sign that said, “Don’t say anything yet”. And like the good little boy that he is, he didn’t say a word until told that it was OK.
Lee, your last post is a piece of work. What is it you’re trying to prove here?
1. There are at least 7 different stories concerning when the president first learned of the FIRST plane hitting the WTC. This “twin engine plane” version is just one. By most accounts Bush was told of a plane of “unknown type” hitting the WTC. At least one of the accounts strongly indicated a terrorist attack was possible. Bush himself (on 2 different occasions) claimed to have witnessed the first plane hitting the WTC on TV. That is of course impossible. It’s likely that Bush knew of the first attack while he was still in his limousine.
2. Several members of the press inside the classroom DID know of the second plane hitting the WTC well before Bush finished reading with the children.
3. At least one secret service agent suggested that the president be immediately escorted out of the room. He was overruled.
4. But the big issue is why did the president fail to leave the room AFTER being told that America was under attack? Are you folks on the right so completely consumed by loyalty to the right-wing agenda that you just WANT to believe the president was competent on that dark day? I cannot fathom that kind of blind loyalty. I would hope none of the left wing bloggers on this site would ever excuse a democratic president for such incompetence. This entire thread exposes the right for what it really is: A bunch of lemmings who support their cause regardless of facts.
Back to our subject — I had breakfast this morning downtown with Lt. Smith. His hair is of course still cut high and tight, but he’s back in civvies and back to taking the kids to school and paying attention to his law practice.
He’s looking forward to his brigade’s mission in Afghanistan — chasing Taliban in the Kandahar region — with great enthusiasm. And he sounds a little envious of his buddies who are still at Fort Benning, taking the Ranger course. He hopes to do that himself someday, but he figures he’s asked enough of his family and his office — for now.
I cannot believe the fixation over Bush not immediately jumping up from what he was doing and yelling out “Nuke Mecca immediately”. This from people who have no concern that the most intelligent woman in the world, Hillary, couldn’t remember how she made $100k from a $10K loan(???) or find the Rose Law firm records. Anyway, who cares if Bush reflected for a few minutes, that is a sign of intelligence.
Another Clinton sidestep. This time Hillary as regurgetated by Dave. Rush has trained you well.
It’s not a fixation over Bush by the left that’s at issue here. Rather it’s a telling episode of just how far the right goes in defending the man. Can’t one of you right wing bloggers just say the obvious: “Perhaps he should have been a bit more decisive that day. He probably should have excused himself earlier.” I would have a whole lot more respect for you if you’d just admit this was not his finest hour. (Then again, given his many stupendous blunders, maybe he was at his best).
As a sidenote: Brad, your original post doesn’t leave much wiggle room for debate. Nobody disputes the dedication and bravery of Lt. Smith. He’s an honorable man. But the tie-in with Bush is clear. He’s the commander and chief and it’s his competence that is discussed here.
Yeah, it’s because of the Iraq war, which Warthen advocated because it carried no cost to himself, that there still ARE Taliban in Kandahar in such a condition that Lieutenant Smith has to go fight them. Lieutenant Smith’s enthusiasm does him great credit, but the fact that this job is still there for him to do speaks ill of the Bush Administration, and its sycophants and enablers that allowed it to lurch to a new adventure and allow the resurgence of the Taliban.
Dave, yeah, there were only two things Bush could possibly have done when an attack of whose nature and scope he had only a cursory knowledge was going on. He could have:
1. Rushed out of the room, yelling “Nuke Mecca immediately”
2. Sat doing nothing other than learning about a goat.
It was utterly impossible for him to:
3. Turn his head and say, “what’s going on?”
or
4. Get up and go to the next room, where a whole situation room was set up, and ask about the nature of the threat and what procedures were being taken to address it.
No, the ONLY alternatives he had were to launch a nuclear strike on Mecca, or to sit doing nothing.
The actions Bush took, namely:
to sit listening to a book about a goat
to spend more time chatting with the teacher and the students
to leave the classroom and work on a speech, which he gave at 9:31
were the BEST POSSIBLE ACTIONS that could be taken while a threat of undetermined nature and scope was underway, and while Flight 77 was racing toward the Pentagon, which it hit at 9:37, six minutes after Bush’s speech.
Right. . .
For him to have gotten up, said “I have some President stuff to take care of, turn on the TV” and to go into the next room and say, “What’s going on, how many planes are in the air, what do we know about their expected targets, what measures are being taken to stop them, are there any other potential threats, what information does NORAD have”
no, he couldn’t have done any of that. He could only:
1. Order an attack on Mecca, or
2. Sit and do nothing.
And how does sitting listening to a book about a goat constitute “Reflecting for a few minutes”? And wouldn’t it be better to take a few minutes to reflect, you know, AFTER he had addressed the threat as well as he possibly could?
When your house is on fire, “reflecting for a few minutes” isn’t the best thing to do.
Mary it’s clear to you and me that the president failed in his duty as commander and chief that day. Nothing you or I or anyone else will convince them of what is obvious.
But the bigger lesson here is how adament the Bush supporters are in defending him. Dave and Lee are defending the indefensible. That speaks volumes about how far the right has sunk as a partisan bastion of greed and corruption. They simply will stop at nothing to retain power.
Bud, Lee isn’t defending the indefensible all the time; his behavior is even more bizarre than that. He lurches back and forth between defending Bush’s actions and denying Bush’s actions! One minute, he says, in contravention of the evidence of our own eyes, that Bush immediately left the classroom upon being informed that an airliner had hit the WTC, and that the reporters in the room learned, from Bush, at about 9:15, of an even that was broadcast live at 9:03!
The next minute, he says that Bush remained where he was in order to exhibit coolness!
I’m still trying to nail down which one it is!
The truth for them is whatever Squealer adds to the barn wall with a paintbrush. Just wait for him to fall from the ladder; all will become clearly unclear.
Interesting that a goat book should be of such interest to a war pig…
Cap A – speaking of pigs, I shot a 250 pound wild hog yesterday. The family will eat this winter after all. hahahhaha Now for that trophy buck.
Bud, Bush is rising in the polls so get used to the defeat-o-crats following rather than leading. More good news:
Gas prices plummeting. (Rove is timing that to hit the lowest by Nov. 1st)
Hurricanes avoiding US – Again, Rove has a direct line to the man!
Now we just need UBL served up about mid October. Can Rove do that? Yes, you can do amazing things with a freezer and then a good makeup man. heeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Yeah, Dave, the latest Pew Research Center poll has Bush’s approval shooting up from 37% to….
wait for it. . .
37%.
Mary, you mean the Peeeyuwwwwwwwwwwwww Research Center dont you? They are a liberal disgrace. BTW, you never answered what brave actions you took as you watched 9-11 unfold. Pray tell, let us hear.
So, Dave, what you’re saying is that you don’t like the poll results. But what evidence do you have that there’s anything the matter with the methodology? You’re basically presenting an argument from authority, with yourself as the authority. But in order to be accepted as an authority, you have to present some indication, at a minimum, that you’re not the stupidest person in the world. So far, you haven’t done that.
And the idea that I live in New Jersey is in your imagination. In fact, you live closer to New York than I do. What did you do to help? Let me guess. . .
Nothing?????
I’ll tell you what I didn’t do, though. I didn’t occupy a position making me directly responsible for responding to the attacks, and sit frozen in a chair instead of doing anything.
I also didn’t spend the time between 9:15 and 9:30 working on a speech about the attacks, and deliver the speech WHILE THE ATTACKS WERE STILL GOING ON, instead of trying to do something to, you know, stop the attacks. Bush finished up a speech at 9:31 with a minute of silence for the victims. Six minutes later. . .more victims.
You also live closer to New Orleans than I do. And let me guess what you did to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Hmmmm, let me try to guess. . .
Wait for it. . .
Ummmm. . .
Nothing?????
I’d Rather Be Lucky Than Good
I finally admitted to a liberal friend the obvious truth – I voted for Bush because he’s both pure evil *and* the luckiest bastard on the face of the earth. I mean, seriously, look at just a couple key events:
Bush joins the Texas ANG – Kerry joins the Navy Reserves.
Bush completes TANG training for jets, flies jets, volunteers for Vietnam only to be told that the pilot skills he has aren’t needed.
Kerry joins the Swift Boats at time they were patrolling off coast – the duty changes to river patrolling, Kerry gets shot at by people intent on killing him and his crew. Kerry leaves by choice after three months.
Advantage: Bush
Bush skates through the last two years of his TANG duty, but does so with such foresight as to bury almost all traces of his duty record leaving only notes from a dental record exam.
Kerry works as an admirals aide for the balance of his active duty stint – but manages to get caught on tape during a meeting where assassination is discussed, travels to Vietnam while on Reserve status to meet with the enemy, has his Silver Star citation ammended twice times, publishes an anti-war book that’s later debunked.
Advantage: Bush
Bush: Sat for 6.5 minutes after hearing about the 9/11 attacks in a room with a bunch of kids, a teacher, and a camera crew.
Kerry: Sat for an hour, stunned to the point of inaction, in a room full of adult elected officials with no camera present.
Advantage: Bush
Bush: Able to surround himself with a cadre of people able to engineer election fraud on a massive scale in Democratic-controlled precincts undetected, destroy two huge buildings in the middle of a major US city without any actual, you know, evidence left behind, destroy our basic Constitutional rights in pursuit of his neocon vision of a Unitary Executive and still have the energy to clear brush from his ranch while on vacation.
Kerry: Can’t get the balloons to release on cue.
Advantage: Bush
There comes a point where you just marvel at the timing of events in favor of Bush and the way the Democrats cluster**** their way through life and decide ‘**** it – Bush’
Seriously, if the Left can’t defeat the Evil that is Bush, how the h*** can they be trusted to defeat actual Evil?…..
The left has no desire to defeat evil. They want to surrender to it and cut and run. The left doesn’t believe that the Islamo fascists are evil but were the IFs ever to gain the upper hand, the first infidels they would slaughter would be the abortion practitioners, gays, Hollywood pacifists, and the godless among the left. Probably lawyers too. Including Ramsey Clark.
Mary Rosh doesn’t know what Bush did on the morning of 9/11 and doesn’t care. For haters like that, it’s all about repeating the lies.
They have no desire to confront the evil of radical Islam, and they have no ideas on how to fight it. They just want to spend all the tax money on themselves, and to hell with the next generation.
“Your speech has not a single grain of sense.
I saw it, harkee, saw it, with these eyes
I saw–d’ye know what saw means?–must I say it
A hundred times, and din it in your ears?”
–Moliere
“They just want to spend all the tax money on themselves,”
That’s rich, coming from someone who has not gone one single day since his birth living off the fruits of his own initiative and industry (such as it is), but has depended for survival on handouts taken from the federal taxes paid by liberals.
There’s a reason that South Carolina, which is one of the states which follows your vision of government most closely, is also one of the poorest, least educated, least healthy states, with one of the most shiftless and dependent populations. If your ideas had any merit, don’t you think that a state that follows them so closely would have a society that contributed something of value to the world, rather than being built nearly exclusively on racism and handouts?
Islamo fascists are evil but were the IFs ever to gain the upper hand, the first infidels they would slaughter would be the abortion practitioners, gays, Hollywood pacifists, and the godless among the left. Probably lawyers too. – Dave
Yes, they would be very cordial with the conservative Christians who want school prayer and to invoke Jesus at public events. Clearly, they have shrugged off the crusades as a distant memory.
Dave, this simplistic approach you sometimes take is almost lazy.
Mary, I am not plugged into any government handouts, which you seem to know quite a lot about, with all your griping about not getting your fair share of other people’s money.
I don’t see you calling for an end to the taxation and redistribution of wealth, just your portions.
“I don’t see you calling for an end to the taxation and redistribution of wealth”
You mean that I don’t advocate your vision of government? Well, naturally, because as I said, the states that adhere most closely to your vision of government are failures.
I don’t even advocate an immediate cutoff of South Carolina’s welfare spigot; I know just as well as you do that if South Carolinians had to depend on their own initiative and industry, famine would sweep the land.
What I object is the ingratitude. You and others like you have lived on welfare your whole lives, but you present yourselves as “rugged individualists”, talking about everyone else’s “socialism” while you do nothing but sit by the mailbox waiting for your next federal check.
All I ask is that you either:
Pay federal taxes equal to the value of the federal services and subsidies you receive,
OR
Quit complaining about the federal services going to people who pay the full cost of their own services, as well as a substantial fraction of the cost of yours.
I’m not asking you to pull your own weight. I know that a lifetime of ignorance and shiftlessness has made that impossible for you at this stage. All I’m asking for is a little gratitude.
Gratitude for what? Despite your persistent delusional allegations, we are not on the federal dole here. in fact, your constant comments about ignorance and shiftlessness suggest that you are very intimately acquainted with those conditions yourself. One could say that you’re setting the example in those departments.
Mary needs to display some gratitude toward the current administration for protecting her from terrorist attacks. And the military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are largely responsible for Mary’s safety. Yes, gratitude is truly in order. Further, SC, which bears the burden of an inordinate number of military installations and is home to a large proportion of military families, deserves even additional gratitude for protecting the US. Mary, can you say thanks just once?
Yankee Freeloaders – Bill and Hillary Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton, as a New York State Senator, now comes under the “Congressional Retirement and Staffing Plan,” which means that even if she never gets reelected, she STILL receives her Congressional salary until she dies. (Would it not be nice if all Americans were pension eligible after only 4 years?)
If Bill outlives her, he then inherits HER salary until HE dies. He is already getting his Presidential salary until he dies. If Hillary outlives Bill, she also gets HIS salary until she dies. Guess who pays for that?
WE DO!
It’s common knowledge that in order for her to establish NY residency, they purchased a million dollar-plus house in upscale Chappaqua, New York . Makes sense. They are entitled to Secret Service protection for life. Still makes sense.
Here is where it becomes interesting. Their mortgage payments hover at around $10,000 per month. BUT, an extra residence HAD to be built within the acreage to house the Secret Service agents.
The Clintons charge the Federal government $10,000 monthly rent for the use of that extra residence, which is just about equal to their mortgage payment. This means that we, the taxpayers, are paying the Clinton ‘s salary, mortgage, transportation, safety and security, as well as the salaries for their 12 man staff — and, this is all perfectly legal!
When she runs for President, will you vote for her? After all, she can say “nuclear” perfectly. And after a couple of years of HER rule, I have a feeling she’ll be saying it a lot….
Lex, the fact is that South Carolinians get $1.38 in services and subsidies for every $1.00 they pay in federal taxes.
Look at it another way. What if South Carolina suddenly vanished? Would that be a net financial detriment to the United States as a whole, or a net financial benefit? If you’re honest, you’ll admit that it would be a net financial benefit.
The only reason Yankee Democrats give any tax money back to South Carolina is to buy votes and keep a population in bondage to welfare.
Conservatives need a clear 60 vote majority in the Senate to begin the process of bringing sanity back to the chamber. And that majority cannot include McInsane, Chafee, and several others. The Clinton money grab on US tax dollars is a disgrace, but just one of many by those two.
Lee and Dave, the fact that you condemn the Clintons based on a discredited email urban legend gives us insight into your character, not theirs.
Mary, OK, you may have one a point here. I went to Snopes.com and here is what I found:
As Lloyd Grove reported in the Washington Post:
It is a standard arrangement that the Secret Service provide payment to homeowners for space used by the agency in such situations. The Clintons did not take it upon themselves to “charge the Secret Service rent.”
The amount provided is based on a government formula, not set by the homeowner, and in the Clintons’ case this amount is $1,100. (Note that this figure was not chosen by the Clintons, and it is well short of their monthly mortgage payment.)
Most important, although regulations call for the payment of this amount, the Clintons have not in fact accepted any money from the Secret Service.
The Clintons accepted enough bribes from Red China, Viacom, and foreign governments to pay for their houses in New York and Virginia.
Hillary actually lives in Virginia, in the house that Viacom bought for her with her book deal.
Lee, correct. Billy Boy has a girlfriend from Canada so he and Hillary don’t spend much time together. ONly for photo-ops. The mystery is who is Hill’s new mate?
Sure, Lee, well, which is it? Your chain email got shot down, so now you fire off a new set of charges against the Clintons, based on nothing but your own word. But your word is worthless, because you have shown yourself to be so stupid that you choose as proof of your point a chain email that has been around since 2001 and was discredited within about a day after it was first promulgated.
You accept or reject statements based on whether they support your already held beliefs, not based on whether they carry indicia of reliability. But the fact that something supports what you already believe isn’t a criterion for judging its truth or falsity; it has to be evaluated based on normal criteria for judging truth or falsity.
In addition, given the fact that you are a stupid, lazy, shiftless, dishonest, worthless, freeloading loser, agreement with your beliefs is a counterindication of reliability.
Again, the social structure and organization of South Carolina matches your ideals more closely than almost any state in the United States, and it is one of the most worthless, ignorant, uneducated, dependent backwaters in the United States. Do you think that’s just a coincidence?
“Hillary actually lives in Virginia, in the house that Viacom bought for her with her book deal.”
What you mean is that Senator Clinton wrote a book that was very popular and widely read, and she earned money for it, with Viacom being the publisher whom she chose to publish the book.
Of course, one wouldn’t expect you to understand the difference between earning money and being given money. Your life is free of the experience of earning money, given that you depend on handouts paid for by the taxes of people like Senator Clinton.
Once again, how about a little gratitude? We know that you aren’t ever going to be able to support yourself. You aren’t ever going to produce anything that benefits society. You are always going to be supported by handouts, and those handouts are always going to come from the taxes of people like Senator Clinton.
So how about a little appreciation?
How do you earn your money, Mary?
Government job?
Government teaching job?
Non-working housewife?
Inheritance?
Mary never served her country (and not because of a medical condition) but blabs on continually about sacrifice. My guess is she is a postal worker with a fairly high IQ. She feels trapped in a dead end occupation sorting mail and her outlet is to rage against Republicans (because she resents their success and happiness). Pretty close, Mary, huh? But don’t go postal on us.
Why do Republicans hate our troops? Why do they hate America? Why do they hate the world? Evidence of all of the above is in abundance. From the lack of adequate spending for veteran’s benefits, to the endless stop-loss abuse of our soldiers who are repeatidly asked to serve long stints abroad. Republicans simply hate the troops. But Why?
The Republican administration asks for so-called new tools to fight terrorists. But these tools are nothing more than Stalinist torture tactics that belong in the dustbin of history. The torture proposal by the president is disgusting and certainly unbecoming of a great nation. Thankfully a handful of brave Republicans have said ENOUGH! But for the most part, Republicans hate America.
And finally, the world. By denying the many threats to our environment and flaunting world opionion the administration shows just how much it hates the world.
Why so much hate Mr. President? Why not love the troops by providing them sensible benefits and by honoring your committment as a commander in chief to use and not abuse the awesome might of the American military? Why not love America the way the founding fathers intended. Not with constitution shredding illegal surveillance. Not with renditions and torture. Not with the continued abuse of our neediest citizens. No, Mr. President, show us the compassionate conservatism you promised in 2000. Be a real man. Stand up to the terrorists by effective, disciplined tactics, not by abuse of your fellow man.
Again, I ask, why do Republicans hate so much, why?
Bud, that was a comical rant. That rant may put you out in the loony goony left with Michael Moore. W’s ratings are rising, economy improving, Iraq turning for the better with their military taking over complete states, gas coming down, the good news is everywhere. The chances of the weakling Dems like Murtha and Pelosi and company taking over the house is lessening day by day. Even immmigration will be dealt with soon, and none too soon. The people who hate are the Muslims, you should direct your anger to them. That is the base problem of theh Dems and the left. They hate Bush so much they have no hate left for real enemies. And the American public sees that day in and day out. When the UN fatcats sat there and laughed and applauded Chavez, even Charlie Rangel defended the Prez. Can you be man enough to say what Charlie said, or are you sitting there applauding Chavez and Mockmood? Think about that.
Apparently things are even worse in Iraq than the right-wing media has been telling us:
GENEVA – Torture in Iraq may be worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein, with militias, terrorist groups and government forces disregarding rules on the humane treatment of prisoners, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Thursday.
Again, I ask, why do Republicans hate everything and everybody so much (except money)?
“W’s ratings are rising,”
Yeah, Dave, the latest CBS/NYT poll has Bush’s approval rating zooming up from 37% to. . .
wait for it. . .
get ready. . .
37%!!!!!
And yeah, sure, Republicans are going to “deal with” immigration. Right. They make noise about it in order to placate their white-sheet followers, but Republicans are never going to do anything that doesn’t involve bringing in a large number of captive workers. They want to depress wages, so it is important to have a large supply of intimidated workers. It’s important for them not only to bring in the workers, but to bring them in under conditions that makes them afraid to stand up to their employers for better wages or better working conditions. This means keeping them in illegal status, but making sure to look the other way when they come into the country, or giving them a “guest worker” status, making sure that they have to stick with one employer and aren’t able to look for employment freely.
This approach isn’t good for American workers, but it helps to depress wages, which is all the Republians want out of immigration.
Something like that won’t hurt us much in my state, which is full of highly educated, high wage, high productivity people, but it will be devastating to the uneducated, unproductive, easily replaceable, low wage workers in South Carolina.
South Carolina has long prided itself on offering a “competitive labor market,” which means an uneducated, low wage, compliant work force. The problem with that, as you’re seeing, is that basing your entire appeal on price isn’t a wise move, because you’re not offering anything that can’t be offered pretty easily by someone else.
There’s no way South Carolinians are going to be able to underbid the hordes of low wage workers from Mexico and Central and South America. South Carolina should have built an educated, high wage work force that had qualities difficult to find elsewhere. But they didn’t, and now it’s too late. So now they’re reduced to the forlorn hope that the Republicans in Congress will stop the rising tide of illegal immigration that depresses the wages that have to be paid by the contributors to Republican political campaigns.
Dream on.
The post of anti-American Democrats makes it plain how much they wish that America would fail in the war against the terrorists.
My God, would you people just stop and breathe for a moment. This post is about a guy who stepped up to the plate and knocked one out of the park…for all of us.
I have gone nuts reading all of this. We should all be proud of James Smith, who cold have spent his deployment at Fort Jackson writing wills for people, instead he picked up a rifle and went to war. Why don’t you complainers do the same.
Let’s all keep his seat warm and get him ready to run for Governor. This is the kind of representation we can and should depend on.