Did Bush brainwash America on Iraq?

It seems that Chris Matthews last night on Hardball was trying to get Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to ‘admit’ that the President brainwashed us all as to the threat from Iraq.

I believe it’s Chris Matthews who’s been brainwashed, because apparently he hasn’t seen this poll roundup (via the Washington Post) taken over the course of two years where the American people by and large – and way BEFORE the President started talking about going into Iraq – believed Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11 … and the numbers actually went *down* over the course of two years by a few points. And as far as WMD goes, well, we’ve already clearly established that it wasn’t just this President and this Congress who believed that Saddam Hussein was a WMD threat to the international community.

Chris Matthews should retitle his show “Welcome to the Spin Zone”, methinks.

62 Responses to "Did Bush brainwash America on Iraq?"

PCD says:

December 13, 2005 at 11:50 am

The name of the show should be “Odd Ball, Chris Matthews.” I’d say “Odd Job”, but that might insult James Bond fans world wide. Odd Job didn’t mess with politics, just killing. Odd Ball, just messes with politics that get US Soldiers killed.
Pam says:

December 13, 2005 at 11:53 am

Where do these commentators come up with such nonsense? He probably also believes that karl personally e-mails or calls each and everyone to give them their thought for the day. We get our scripts at 7:00 a.m. everyday
ArizonaTeach says:

December 13, 2005 at 12:14 pm

And he claims to be a Republican, which doesn’t mean that he should toe the party line, necessarily, but he also shouldn’t actively seek to invent stories to distort the party line, either.
tommy in nyc says:

December 13, 2005 at 12:23 pm

brainwashed is too harsh but i think over-hyped,exaggarated about it’s imminency of the threat that saddam was. still i wouldn’t have used the word brainwashing. it males him look like an idiot. and as youse know i’m a leftie.
Pam says:

December 13, 2005 at 12:45 pm

tommy in nyc- I was thinking of how overused that word has become. If people only realized what it actually took to brainwash a person, they might pick another word.
Baklava says:

December 13, 2005 at 12:50 pm

Tommy,

What is interesting about this whole equation is that the president actually talked conservatively (carefully) about Saddam and Iraq. There were many others including many Democrats who had since 1998 through 2003 who talked about Iraq much stronger and even used the word “imminent” (the president didn’t say Iraq was an imminent threat – others did including Democrats).

What is a reality that Democrat leadership will cloud over is that it was an intelligence failure that lead ALL of these politicians to speak so harshly about Iraq and Saddam (concening WMD’s). For over a decade or more we hadn’t had any convert agents on the ground in Arab countries as testified to by intelligence representatives but British, French, German, Russian intelligence agencies DID and they fed some of this SAME misinformation to politicians. It was a WORLD intelligence failure and the Democrat leadership and you Tommy want to talk as if Bush exaggerated. Remember these words came from Democrats since 1998 and Bush didn’t come into office until 2001.

To conservatives, via logic and common sense the Democrat leadership’s attacks and accusations just don’t add up and we have to go through this long information war of words. But the longer we go through it there are some (like Brian) who will remain convinced that Bush should be impeached for something (due to the amount of attacks and accusations – people just get convinced that someone is bad just due to the volume of accusations).
tommy in nyc says:

December 13, 2005 at 1:20 pm

Wait a minute baklava. You are trying say it was a world intel failure all right but the decision to go to war was Bush 43’s alone. So youse are saying if the war goes badly it was a world intelligence failure but when this country prevails eventually Bush 43 was a visionary right. C’mon man that’s what you are really trying to say right. Damn it just never ends from the right thank God for the blue states.
PCD says:

December 13, 2005 at 1:37 pm

tommy, it is your liars who are leading your party. Every time their OWN quotes from when Clinton needed a fig leaf with the press are shown, you lefties star spinning faster than a gyroscope.

You know we ARE NOT going to get any honesty from the left, PERIOD!
Baklava says:

December 13, 2005 at 2:03 pm

Two separate things.

1) Intelligence is the reason that 90% of politicians were for “regime change” in Iraq and talked about Saddam being a threat to national security and why Clinton bombed Iraq for a month and why there were over 14 U.N. resolutions calling for Saddam to disarm or else.

2) It wasn’t Bush 43’s decision alone. Most of the Senate authorized Bush to use force against Iraq. These are the same Senators who said the harsher things than Bush. These are the same senators who then voted (like Kerry) not to help these soldiers with armor and funding for other things like education and veterans funding increases. Bush did NOT act unilaterally as there were more countries helping than the 1st gulf war in the beginning stages. We successfully disposed of Saddam and he is out of power and the country is building it’s institutions just like Japan and Germany had to after WW2. Japan took 7 years and Germany took 10 years.

Tommy should learn new debating skills as he said, “So youse are saying if the war goes badly it was a world intelligence failure but when this country prevails eventually Bush 43 was a visionary right“.

I never said any of this so you shouldn’t attribute something not said to people you debate with. The planning and execution of every war is the responsbilility of the Pentagon’s and the military. Bush did not plan or execute the war. He was given a variety of options to choose from as commander in chief and ordered the execution of a plan that was presented to him. SECONDLY, the war has had successes and setbacks and failures. I would’ve liked to have seen the military use force for any building that terrorists hid in including in Mosques in Fallujah. There is no safe haven just because you are losing you can’t dodge into a mosque and feel safe. These people need to surrender or suffer the consequences of carrying out acts against our military. I personally thing the war was too soft footed. We should’ve had bombers in the air for the first 6 months and dropped a bomb on a building that a terrorist sniped from. There would be no snipers at that point. THIRDLY, this county WILL prevail DESPITE the attempts of liberals to bring down the commander in chief and bad mouth the actions of our military in general and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

I give credit to Bush for sticking it through and not looking at the poll numbers that have been fueled by the irresponsible rhetoric of the Democrat leadership and the cohorts in the media.

I also give credit to people like Lieberman.

Again, you can’t lump the two together as you’ve done. The intelligence failure (which preceded Bush being in office) was not just a U.S. intelligence failure. Every major intelligence agency in the world failed with respect to the capabilities of Saddam. The execution of the war is not something to lump in with the intelligence failure. The execution of the war (and EVERY WAR) could have monday morning quarterbacks. WW2 we could’ve said FDR failed after the practice run to D-Day as so many of our soldiers died on the practice. During the 4 presidents who oversaw Vietnam (which had 65,000 of our soldiers die) we could say a lot of things about those 4 presidents. But I say that Iraq has been by and large a greater success than ANY of our previous war’s that this country has taken on.

That is my opinion. You have yours. If you disagree it doesn’t mean that someone is then able to be impeaced or evil or mean.
kenwg says:

December 13, 2005 at 2:03 pm

Several points…

1) The Bush-Cheney admin started talking about invading Iraq THE DAY AFTER 9/11 (if not the same day); we know this from several sources including Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Treasury Secretary. These sources tell us that the Bush admin was in fact was obsessed with finding a link between Sadam and Al Qaida. They started a media push on this theme immediately after 9/11, and by the time more balanced reporting on the non-involvement on Sadam came out, it had already become a fixture in the minds of a large majority of Americans. My point – what the majority of Americans believed is really not relevant; they had already been subject to a convincing barrage of misinformation by the very people that now use this propagandized view that the people held as support for their own agenda, and misguided actions.

2) We keep hearing over and over again how everyone had the same intel as the Bush admin, and I can’t believe some of you still insist on repeating this, pardon my French, BS. Neither the congress nor the people were aware of any of the CIA information provided to the admin casting doubt on much (most?) of the intel the admin was relying on; the unreliability of “Curveball” (no-=one else knew who curveball’s long reputaion of being unstable and saying whatever it was the people he was talking to wanted to hear); we didn’t know about the total invention of interpretations of spy photos that showed Bio-weapons factorys that turned out to be water purification plants; we didn’t know about the many reports that the reputed attempt to gain uranium from Niger was fake (most recently we know France, who tightly controls access to Niger uranium, was among those telling the admin that this was nonsense; etc. I can continue with a much longer list and will, later – I have some things I need to tend to now. But my point is that we (congress, the media, the citizenry) DID NOT have nearly all the info the admin had, because they actively suppressed anything that did not support their pre-ordained course of action.

Oh, one more thing I’m also tired of – Bush repeatedly saying that Saddam “refused” to let inspectors do their work. The inspectors were making great headway and getting much more cooperation in the last few months before Bush attacked; he attacked before the UN weapons inspectors had time to finish their work and many nations protested the U.S.’s precipitant decsion to attack before the inspector’s work was done. In other words, Sadam DID NOT refuse – he was cooperation. Bush just didn’t want to wait.

More later.

Ken G
tommy in nyc says:

December 13, 2005 at 2:15 pm

Well i don’t think bush 43 should be impeached. He had bad intelligence and was authorized by the congress and senate to use military force you’re right about that. I just know that Bush 43’s agenda foreign and domestic is NOT GOOD for the U.S.A. That’s just my point of view.
Sister Toldjah says:

December 13, 2005 at 2:19 pm

“1) The Bush-Cheney admin started talking about invading Iraq THE DAY AFTER 9/11 (if not the same day); we know this from several sources including Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Treasury Secretary. These sources tell us that the Bush admin was in fact was obsessed with finding a link between Sadam and Al Qaida. They started a media push on this theme immediately after 9/11, and by the time more balanced reporting on the non-involvement on Sadam came out, it had already become a fixture in the minds of a large majority of Americans. My point – what the majority of Americans believed is really not relevant; they had already been subject to a convincing barrage of misinformation by the very people that now use this propagandized view that the people held as support for their own agenda, and misguided actions.”

(Emphasis added)

WHAT?? That is EXACTLY the point. The Bush administration might have thought Iraq had something to do with 9-11 but that wasn’t expressed publicly to anyone – certainly not the public in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. The admin’s initial belief that Iraq might have had a hand in it did NOT influence the public’s opinion. The public thought this two days after the attacks. In fact, even after the Bush admin push to go into Iraq, the public belief that Iraq had something to do with 9-11 actually *decreased*. So your point on this falls completely flat. The admin was no more “obsessed” with finding a tie to Iraq than you or I would have been. Iraq had been a sworn enemy of the US for quite some time and it was perfectly natural for the admin to want to explore the possiblity that they were tied to 9-11. Even Richard Clarke himself said that the Aug 1998 bombing of the aspirin factory was done, in part, due to the belief that there was collaboration between AQ and Iraq.
PCD says:

December 13, 2005 at 2:40 pm

tommy, go surrender if you want to but the rest of us are going to stand firm.

Ken, you’re the one full of bushwa. No matter what evidence is shown you, you only believe the defeatists and starved for power partisans at DU and moveon.org.
Baklava says:

December 13, 2005 at 2:41 pm

Kenwg wrote, “was obsessed

That my friend is opinion. Nice how it was passed on as a news story in many publications.

Kenwg wrote, “they had already been subject to a convincing barrage of misinformation ”

Please let us know what the barrage of misinformation was… do you mean the information that was made available by the intelligence agencies around the world? To characterize this as misinformation being given is the pattern of the left (misinforming with their accusations).

So.. Ken by your last paragraph you could just say that you disagreed with going to war. But your condescension over it is overpowering. You disagree with others who agreed and you think your opinion is better than ours.

OK.

But, Saddam would’ve still been in power and the Iraqi people would’ve still been subject to the many killings by Saddam and the abysmal conditions they lived under. They are doing BETTER now and have a much better life as evidenced by the polls coming out.

So you disagreed. I cannot for the life of me see why the condescencion. Just agree to disagree. We are there now and we can’t reverse time.
tommy in nyc says:

December 13, 2005 at 2:54 pm

Yep PCD that last comment you posted was typical of how the right operates. If you’re behind the admin all the way then we must be looking to surrender to the terrorists.sigh………. well you got to admit the right has got slicker pr people than us on the left what can you do(shrugs shoulders)
PCD says:

December 13, 2005 at 3:18 pm

tommy,

We just tell it straight. You, on the other hand, look to know-nothings like George Lackoff who tell you to lie more effectively. To you it is all slick pr and packaging because your side never tells the full truth about the craziness it wants as policy. You hate yourselves and you hate people who don’t hate themselves or even worse yet in your opinion, we are self-confident, optimistic, and self-reliant. Qualities your side lothes.
Sister Toldjah says:

December 13, 2005 at 3:20 pm

PCD, I disagree and think Tommy is actually one of the more rational liberals we’ve had post here. Ya need to cut him a little slack, methinks
tommy in nyc says:

December 13, 2005 at 3:23 pm

that hit the nail on the head we all hate ourselves that’s why we question the policies of 43. after all we all know that he talks to God every day so us heathens on the left are to H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS
PCD says:

December 13, 2005 at 3:29 pm

tommy,

with posts like that, you wonder why I have no respect for you.
Baklava says:

December 13, 2005 at 6:14 pm

Tommy,

Your post at 2:15 was appreciated. It didn’t have an inaccurate accusation that you’d typically find in a Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, John Kerry speech.

I wish they would just say they disagree with what they think the direction is and then state the direction they’d like to head…. But they don’t. .. They incessantly make inaccurate representations (accusations) about what they think the policy is of conservatives and/or Republicans. And the funny thing is that it’s English 101. We (conservatives) will tell you what we think solutions to problems should be. Then to have it mistated and misrepresented is insulting.. It ends up being that the 50% of liberals in this country actually think that Republicans/conservatives are evil because they think we want for things to be problems in this country.

Thanks for listening.
ArizonaTeach says:

December 13, 2005 at 6:39 pm

Tommy, not to add to the pile-on because you seem to be pretty sensible and I do respect that, but let’s not forget that Clinton made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States in 1998. So if Bush and Cheney started talking about going after Iraq the day after 9/11 (and why shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t they be working on all possible scenarios at that point?) then they were only following the tennants of the Clinton administration.

As for the intelligence, you’re right insofar that Congress as a whole didn’t have the exact same intelligence (and according to many Democrats, they didn’t even bother to read what was given them!), but the Security and Intelligence committees had access to what you talked about there. In any case, the other countries around the world operated on their OWN intelligence and came up with similar conclusions, as did the previous administration. Explain THAT.

Finally, how could you possibly think that inspectors were making headway? Under the UN’s own rules, the responsiblity of providing information on supposedly destroyed WMDs rests solely on the country of origin. Otherwise, again, UNDER THE UN’S OWN RULES, the country is therefore suspected of retaining the weapons. Saddam refused to turn over information on the destruction of the weapons, and he blocked the inspectors at every opportunity. He could have ended it immediately by showing proof of the WMD destruction, but he absolutely refused to, figuring that nobody would call him on it. So don’t you say headway was being made, that compromises were happening, because all that was going on was hemming, hawing, and stalling. Not progress.
ArizonaTeach says:

December 13, 2005 at 6:41 pm

Apologies, the previous should not have been addressed to Tommy, but kenwg. And I retract my Tommy is sensible compliment as well, after seeing his slander on religion there. Guess you didn’t see that Gallup poll today putting the number of Americans who believe in God at 91%, did you now?
kenwg says:

December 13, 2005 at 7:49 pm

So much…

First, to continue where I left off – Congress and others having the same intel as the Bush Admin. Here are a few links:

Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2005, By Murray Waas, special to National Journal:
“Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel”
LINK

Wednesday October 9, 2002, The Guardian: President Bush’s case against Saddam Hussein, outlined in a televised address to the nation on Monday night, relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday.” “Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there’s a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA,” said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA’s former head of counter-intelligence.

LINK

November 6, 2005, Douglas Jehl, The New York Times: “Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions”
LINK

January 2004, “War In Iraq, Evidence and Implications”, report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
“Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from
Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile programs, beyond the intelligence
failures noted above, by…Routinely dropping caveats, probabilities, and expressions of uncertainty present in intelligence assessments from public statements. (p. 53); Misrepresenting inspectors’ findings in ways that turned threats from minor to dire. (p. 53) LINK

October 3, 2004, David Barstow, William J. Broad and Jeff Gerth, The New York Times: “Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America’s leading nuclear scientists, an examination by The New York Times has found. They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of nuclear experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public.”

LINK

And so on. I could continue with pages and pages of references and different examples.
kenwg says:

December 13, 2005 at 7:50 pm

By the way, another argument used frequently to obscure honest argument on this issue is the argument that “the CIA says it wasn’t pressured…” First of all that’s not true. They DO say they were pressured (see link below). And even if they weren’t, that’s not the point. The point is that intel contradictory to the admin’s agenda was withheld by the admin.
Link: (“Multiple visits to the CIA by the United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, created an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments on Iraq fit with Bush Administration policy objectives, intelligence officials said.”)
LINK

Now, something on the Admin’s attempt to ramp up the threat posed by Saddam by implying an “imminent threat”:

September 28, 2002, Radio Address by the President to the Nation: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.” LINK

2003-10-27, Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker: Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser, addressing questions about the strength of the Administration’s case against Iraq, said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”—a formulation that was taken up by hawks in the Administration. And, in a speech on October 7th, President Bush said, “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
LINK
Sister Toldjah says:

December 13, 2005 at 7:57 pm

“And so on. I could continue with pages and pages of references and different examples. ”

And so could I. But it’s pointless. Your point that the admin “brainwashed” the people into believing Iraq was a threat has been soundly refuted by *one* link – it was all that was necessary. People ALREADY believed Iraq was a threat even before 9-11. Why? Thank the prior two admins for that. They believed it before 9-11, they believed it in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 (even believed two days afterwards that Saddam had a hand in 9-11) as well. The admin didn’t “brainwash” people into believing this unless you think they were able to reach into people’s brains in the 90’s and convince them of it.

You can post all the links in the world, Ken, but though the number of links are impressive, the content is not because they fail to refute the central point of my post – which was Chris Matthews belief that America was “brainwashed” by W into believing Iraq was a threat. They were not.

BTW, this thread isn’t an argument for or against the Iraq war. Please keep that in mind for your future comments in this thread. You might want to hold on to those links for threads you actually need them in.
kenwg says:

December 13, 2005 at 8:02 pm

Actually, ST, I am going to get to your point… I’m having problems with my browser. Give me a minute….
Sister Toldjah says:

December 13, 2005 at 8:04 pm

“Actually, ST, I am going to get to your pointâ€¦ I’m having problems with my browser. Give me a minuteâ€¦.”

Why haven’t you already instead of posting irrelevant links the last few posts?
kenwg says:

December 13, 2005 at 8:26 pm

ST, for the 2 years before the invasion the Bush Admin was linking Sadam to Al Qaida on a regular basis. What Chris Matthews said was right on the mark, except the “brainwashed” – too strong a word. Propagandized would be better. Bush created his own reality, the one he wanted the public to believe, and it worked. Here are references:

February 6, 2003, George Bush, Press Conference: “Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaida have met at least eith times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with Al Qaida. Iraq has also provided Al Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training.”
Link: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/O302/06/se.09.html

January 29, 2003, The Guardian, speaking of Mr. Bush: “He said that US intelligence had discovered extensive links between Iraq and terrorist organisations including al-Qaida…Mr. Bush revealed that the US had fresh evidence of links between iraq and al-qaida, as Washingon prpared to release its secret files on Saddam Hussein in a bid to gain global support for a war.”
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/IRAQ/Story/0,2763,884409,00.html

Sept. 27, 2002, U.S. Deparment of Defense American Forces Information Services: “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this morning the link between al Qaeda terrorists and Iraq is “accurate and not debatable”
Link:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2002/n09272002 200209272.html

and so on. I have plenty more. The point is that there is overwhelming evidence that what Chris Matthews said is true – the Bush team created the idea that Saddam and al Qaeda were linked.

Ken G.
Sister Toldjah says:

December 13, 2005 at 8:42 pm

They no more ‘created’ the idea that they were linked than I created the Toyota Corolla, Ken.

In retrospect they WERE linked (see any number of Weekly Standard columns on that front – though biased, they are almost impossible to refute). The admin has done a terrible job of backing up their assertions that AQ and Iraq were linked, but there was no ‘deliberate attempt’ to brainwash anyone. The prior admin, as well as this one, believed the two were linked and at least this admin still maintains that, even though they do a terrible job backing it up. The media, OTOH, has done a (likely deliberate) horrible disservice to the American people by continuing to confuse what the administration has asserted regarding the Iraq connection to Al Qaeda. There is a difference between being connected to Al Qaeda and being connected to the events of 9-11. If people out there thought that saying there were ties to Al Qaeda = saying Iraq was tied to 9-11, that isn’t the admin’s fault; it’s their own fault for not having the ability to read things carefully and thoroughly. Cheney kept bringing up the possibility of the Prague connection, which Prague still does not deny. But the admin did not tie in Iraq with 9-11. The American people did so long before the admin had any chance to talk to them about Iraq. That is a fact supported by my link.

Chris Matthews is simply full of it when he asserts and/or implies that the admin brainwashed the American people on the threat from Iraq. They didn’t. Because the American people have believed Iraq was a threat since the 90s, when Bush I and Clinton both repeatedly made statements and/or speeches declaring them as such.

You, and the media, and folks like Chris Matthews who are part of the opinion press, seem to want to rewrite history, but with all due respect, people like me are always going to be around to provide the full picture rather than the incomplete one people like Chris Matthews (who should know better) like to give.
kenwg says:

December 13, 2005 at 8:46 pm

ST,
Sister Toldjah says:

December 13, 2005 at 8:50 pm

Ken, the above is all I got from you … you may want to repost.
kenwg says:

December 13, 2005 at 8:54 pm

ST,

I don’t disagree that Iraq had “links” to Al Qaeda, if by links you mean “occasional contact”. But I do disagree that there was any cooperation between the two of any substance – certainly not to the extent that the admin implied.

Obviously we’re just going to have to disagree on this one. I have a few comments to make on some other responses, but they will have to wait – too much to do.

Ken G.
Lorica says:

December 13, 2005 at 10:54 pm

You know I was thinking that Iraq’s surrender in 1991 was unconditional. If that is true any agressive behavior was reason to attack and dismantle this tyrant. – Lorica
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 12:41 am

To finish up my earlier comments….

Baklava – >> Intelligence is the reason that 90% of politicians were for “regime change” in Iraq and talked about Saddam being a threat to national security and why Clinton bombed Iraq for a month and why there were over 14 U.N. resolutions calling for Saddam to disarm or else.> It wasn’t Bush 43’s decision alone. Most of the Senate authorized Bush to use force against Iraq>>Ken, you’re the one full of bushwa. No matter what evidence is shown you, you only believe the defeatists and starved for power partisans at DU and moveon.org.>>Kenwg wrote, “they had already been subject to a convincing barrage of misinformation ”
Please let us know what the barrage of misinformation wasâ€¦ do you mean the information that was made available by the intelligence agencies around the world? To characterize this as misinformation being given is the pattern of the left (misinforming with their accusations).
So.. Ken by your last paragraph you could just say that you disagreed with going to war. But your condescension over it is overpowering. You disagree with others who agreed and you think your opinion is better than ours.>>let’s not forget that Clinton made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States in 1998. So if Bush and Cheney started talking about going after Iraq the day after 9/11 (and why shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t they be working on all possible scenarios at that point?) then they were only following the tennants of the Clinton administration.
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 12:43 am

whoops – that last post was a screw-up. Still having problems with my browser. I’ll try again…

To finish up my earlier comments….

Baklava – >> Intelligence is the reason that 90% of politicians were for “regime change” in Iraq and talked about Saddam being a threat to national security and why Clinton bombed Iraq for a month and why there were over 14 U.N. resolutions calling for Saddam to disarm or else.> It wasn’t Bush 43’s decision alone. Most of the Senate authorized Bush to use force against Iraq>>Ken, you’re the one full of bushwa. No matter what evidence is shown you, you only believe the defeatists and starved for power partisans at DU and moveon.org.>>Kenwg wrote, “they had already been subject to a convincing barrage of misinformation ”
Please let us know what the barrage of misinformation wasâ€¦ do you mean the information that was made available by the intelligence agencies around the world? To characterize this as misinformation being given is the pattern of the left (misinforming with their accusations).
So.. Ken by your last paragraph you could just say that you disagreed with going to war. But your condescension over it is overpowering. You disagree with others who agreed and you think your opinion is better than ours.>>let’s not forget that Clinton made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States in 1998. So if Bush and Cheney started talking about going after Iraq the day after 9/11 (and why shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t they be working on all possible scenarios at that point?) then they were only following the tennants of the Clinton administration.
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 12:46 am

Ach! I’ll have to figure out what’s happening to my computer – what I’m typing isn’t showing up if it’s more than a few lines. Baklava’s getting lots of play though…

Ken G.
Sister Toldjah says:

December 14, 2005 at 12:48 am

This was happening earlier, Ken – for example, the post above where you wrote “ST” … that was all that came up on that post in the moderation que. I assure you I’m not deleting out anything you’ve written – I’ve shortened some links in your prior posts to prevent scrolling but that’s it.
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 1:09 am

To finish up my earlier comments….

Baklava said “Intelligence is the reason that 90% of politicians were for “regime change” in Iraq and talked about Saddam being a threat to national security and why Clinton bombed Iraq for a month and why there were over 14 U.N. resolutions calling for Saddam to disarm or else.”

No, Saddam’s known bloody history and threat to the region was the reason everyone favored regime change, not intelligence. Note also that while they favored regime change, they DID NOT favor invading Baghdad to do it. You conflate the two, with the implication that GWB just did what everyone wanted when indeed that is not the case.

Baklava also writes:
“It wasn’t Bush 43’s decision alone. Most of the Senate authorized Bush to use force against Iraq”

No, the congress authorized Bush to use force IF AND ONLY IF the U.N. weapons inspection program FOUND weapons, or if Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors. Bush waited a few weeks then just pushed ahead with the war, ignoring the protests of the UN that the weapons inspectors hadn’t finished their job, and also ignoring the Congressional resolution’s requirements that the inspections be concluded before going to war. Big difference. Unfortunately, when he did so, most in congress lacked the cajones (typical spineless Democrat leaders) to stand up and say so when they knew better, in the face of overwhelming (and misguided) public support for the war. Now it’s too late for those same spineless Dems to go back and protest that they didn’t approve it; their lack of opposition when they should have spoken up gave tacit approval to Bush’s going to war.

PCD wrote:
“Ken, you’re the one full of bushwa. No matter what evidence is shown you, you only believe the defeatists and starved for power partisans at DU and moveon.org.”

That’s very ironic coming from you, PCD. You haven’t swallowed the Bush Admin story hook, line and sinker? I may not be right, but at least I make the effort to look at and evaluate both sides, and support my postion with facts and references, or to rebut yours with same. It seems to me that whenever you, on the other hand, are presented with facts that counter your opinion, your response is usually the same sort of dissembling toss-off dismissal as the one you’ve given above. Can I reference some of the sources I’ve referenced to support my positions lately (those “defeatist and starved for power partisans…); George Bush (above); Deparment of Defense American Forces Information Services (above); Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (Valerie Plame WAS undercover); etc. Quite a wing-nut, lefty bunch, huh…

Perhaps I’m wrong though; maybe I’ve just missed some of your more well-researched and referenced commentary. If so, please accept my apologies.

Baklava further writes:
Kenwg wrote, “they had already been subject to a convincing barrage of misinformation….do you mean the information that was made available by the intelligence agencies around the world? To characterize this as misinformation being given is the pattern of the left (misinforming with their accusations). ”

No, I’m referring to the hyping of shaky and unreliable information, and the suppression of any evidence they had that discredited the assertions they were making. I’ve provided plenty of examples, and can provide many more if you’d like.

And regarding my “condescension”. Perhaps you’re right; you’re probably referring to my “I can’t believe some of you…” comment. I get a little frustrated with the constant refrain of what I consider discredited assertions, and I guess I let it show. I’ll try to refrain. In my defense, though, I have to say I see the same kind of comment directed at me and others who disagree with the prevailing view here, fairly often. I guess it’s hard to restrain…

ArizonaTeach writes: “let’s not forget that Clinton made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States in 1998. So if Bush and Cheney started talking about going after Iraq the day after 9/11 (and why shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t they be working on all possible scenarios at that point?) then they were only ”

I think I already answered this above – there’s quite a gulf between stating a policy favoring “regime change” and invading Baghdad. There are a lot of other options, which in fact were in play before the invasion.

Cordially,
Ken G

Oh, and by the way, in case I can’t get back to posting before Christmas, a sincere MERRY CHRISTMAS (and happy holidays for all you non-Christians)!
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 1:10 am

Hey, I finally got it working! Don’t know why or how…

Ken G.
tommy in nyc says:

December 14, 2005 at 8:06 am

can’t help either PCD or Arizona teach if they think i’m some f—–g moonbat.All I know is that I served in the USN did my duty and if they don’t like my point of view that’s just to bad.
PCD says:

December 14, 2005 at 8:16 am

Tommy, I have the right to disagree with your leftist bilge. You seem to forget that whilst crying about your rights.

Ken, why do you insist on posting lies? Plame is not covert. She is not covert nor overseas as the law required. The fact that you can’t accept that REALITY makes posting fact, court proceedings, etc. useless edited – ST.
Severian says:

December 14, 2005 at 9:01 am

Ken says: “I think I already answered this above – there’s quite a gulf between stating a policy favoring “regime change” and invading Baghdad.”

Therein lies a major difference between Liberals/Democrats and Conservatives/Republicans, we C/R’s prefer to say what we mean, and mean what we say, and believe that you should do what you say you are going to do. L/D’s, OTOH, are much more in favor of paying lip service to something rather than actually doing it. Witness the Dems reaction to their vote authorizing Bush to go to war. “OMG!!! We didn’t actually think he’d DO IT!!!”

This points out a markedly different approach to the world between the two sides of this “debate.” Dems are the most cynically partisan and poll driven people I’ve ever seen, and believe that talking and obsfucation are wonderful things, whereas Repubs tend to want to actually solve problems, not talk them to death while they steadily get worse. Again, witness Social Security. It’s not a crisis, no no, we can’t privitize or fix it! We’ll talk about it some more! While the Republicans, and Bush particularly, wants to fix it before it completely blows up in our faces.

But then, what can you expect from a party that wants to vacillate on all issues until they get the latest poll results. A leader is one who makes a decision, implements it, because they know it to be right, not necessarily popular.
Sister Toldjah says:

December 14, 2005 at 9:00 am

A general note to all:

Let’s please can the moonbat accusations and argue on the merits of the person’s argument itself.

Thanks.
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 11:47 am

Severaian,

I think you are right – these issues do point to a difference between Dems/Libs and conservatives, int the way they think & act. I’ve noticed it before. The way I see it, simplisticly put, Dems/libs see things in greater shades of grey, are more inclined to indirect solutions and seeking consensus, and conservatives see things more in black and white and attack the issues head-on, and let the crumbs fall where they may. I of course believe the former is usually the more productive approach in the end, and you the latter. This is an interesting topic to me (psychological/personality parallels to political points of view); I’m sure we could expand on it quite a bit on some appropriate forum.

Ken G
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 11:51 am

By the way, ST, I just realized my commnet way up the thread about my writing not getting through but Baklava getting a lot of play might have been misunderstood. It was not a suggestion that you were messing with my posts – just noting that Baklava was luckily benefitting from my computer printing out what he said whenever I tried to input my comments. The thought that you were editing my comments never entered my head.

Ken G
Severian says:

December 14, 2005 at 1:04 pm

The problem with libs and Dems is that they see such profligate shades of gray that they get paralyzed and wind up doing little or nothing, or do things that address the wrong issues (feelings rather than facts). This is a common problem in science and engineering that is referred to as “Analysis Paralysis.” One general said, of large weapon system development, “Sooner or later in the course of every project it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and enter production.” The same thing applies here, sooner or later you have to move off dead center and make a decision. That’s when you need someone, like Bush, who is willing to lead and stick to it, not wobble, waffle, and see what the polls say, and then change course if the polls change again.

Leadership is what we need, and the Democratic party is sadly lacking in people who are capable of doing this. They value their political careers and their party’s return to power more than the value solving the problems that face the country.
Baklava says:

December 14, 2005 at 1:06 pm

I’ve inserted a virus. It tries to only allow truth to be typed.

It’s a very complex virus to write though. One word in a sentence can throw things off.

For instance:
1) The intelligence was faulty
2) The intelligence was manipulated.

Well, the intelligence was faulty going on over a decade and Bush didn’t get into office until 2001. He only reported (as Colin Powell did) what was presented to him. Now liberals rightly point out that there WERE countering intelligence views but that’s the point. There was no manipulation and nearly all of the politicians believed the preponderance of evidence that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD’s (as did Clinton and Albright).

To make the charge that intelligence officers were pressured is inaccurate as ALL heck because the intelligence officers themselves all said “NO” they weren’t pressured. 100% of them said “NO”. This is in the Senate Intelligence Report and was pointed out to which page on this very blog. I will not expend the energy to find the pages of text of quotes by the 100% of intelligence officers again. You can either find it yourself or continue your “reckless charges”. Which do you prefer. If you prefer the “reckless charges” then it is pointless to debate you as it is pointless to debate Brian as he couldn’t read the text either.
Severian says:

December 14, 2005 at 1:07 pm

To add to what I said above, this is not an exclusive fault of Democrats, it unfortunately is a traditonal fault of politicians in general, it just appears that most of our current Democrats have elevated it into an art form.

Perhaps the quote should be ammended to read “Sooner or later in the course of any crisis, it becomes necessary to shoot the politicians and fix the problem.”
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 1:21 pm

PCD, you wrote: “Ken, why do you insist on posting lies? Plame is not covert. She is not covert nor overseas as the law required. The fact that you can’t accept that REALITY makes posting fact, court proceedings, etc. useless”

PCD, you’re still being a little sloppy in your allegations. I did not say she was “covert”. That is a specific legal term with specific criminal implications, and an issue that hasn’t yet been decided legally. And your assertion that she was not covert, by the way, is speculation based on a lot of unproven and uninvestigated comments in the press and on the blogs. Hmmm – perhaps I should call YOU a liar for satying that she was NOT covert when we don’t know that.

What I said was that she was “undercover” (which many on the right have denied) and also that that assertion was made by Special Prosecttor Patrick Fitzgerald:

“Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson’s friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It’s important that a CIA officer’s identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation’s security. Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003…. she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward. I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003”

Here is the link PCD, see for yourself:
http://southerncrossreview.org/43/fitzgerald.htm

And more to the point – an issue that the Bush admin defenders like to sidestep, is that whether or not she was covert is not the only issue, or even the central issue. In the same transcript linked above, Fitzgerald goes on to say ” if national defense information which is involved because her affiliation with the CIA, whether or not she was covert, was classified, if that was intentionally transmitted, that would violate the statute known as Section 793, which is the Espionage Act.”

In other words, whether she was “covert” or not, her situation WAS classified, and divulging such secret information may have been a real crime – one that many would call treason, in fact. I also, by the way, citied George Bush on this same issue, calling this “…a criminal action”. Here’s the link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031006-3.html

So, PCD, unless you can discredit the above sources, I would truly appreciate it if you would refrain from saying on this forum, as you’ve done before, that I am “posting lies”. Lies is a very strong term. I don’t use it, and I really don’t like it.

Thanks,
Ken G
PCD says:

December 14, 2005 at 1:40 pm

Ken, you may wish to shade definitions, but you are not telling the truth and you don’t intend to. To be in violation of the law, the person named has to have benn BOTH overseas and Covert with in 5 years of the naming. Plame was not. Pure and simple. To state otherwise is a lie. Whether or not that is original with you is not the point. It is a lie and you knowingly repeat it.
Severian says:

December 14, 2005 at 3:35 pm

Upon further reflection, the idea that liberals and Dems see things in more shades of gray and are more “nuanced” (with the corresponding conceit that this makes them more intelligent) is laughable. Yeah, they are so nuanced and see things in such a non-black and white way that they do things like assail the honesty and integrity of black conservatives by calling them Uncle Toms and House N*’s. When a black conservative comes to a college campus to speak, they are nuanced and gray shaded enough to uniquivocally scream that said speaker is practicing hate speech. Not terribly nuanced is it? No “Well, I can understand how some blacks have different experiences and opinions.” No, it’s “They are oreos!”

Sorry Ken, nuanced and gray scaled isn’t what it is.
kenwg says:

December 14, 2005 at 5:03 pm

Severain,

Good points. There are some on the left who are as blindered as some on the right, as you point out. So my analysis is not accurate. Point conceded.

PCD – When even Patrick Fitzgerald says he isn’t hasn’t concluded whether or not the “covert” law is an issue in the Plame case, I think it’s safe to say, as I did, that the matter is still an open question. You on the other hand continue to simply regurgitate uncritically the talking points you pick up from the right wing talking heads, without offering any references to back up your claim.

I know what the law says about being overseas, etc. Now, do you know where Ms. Plame has been every minute of the last 5 years? Are we to presume that you have inside information into her “classified” activities over the last 5 years? I’m pretty sure you don’t, and that therefore you really don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s a pretty weak position to be in when you atart calling someone else a liar.

Yes, again, I’m a liar; after all I “knowingly” am repeating lies (according to you). You seem to like calling names, as if perhaps you think that somehow you will get me upset, or that somehow you will “show me”. You’ve done neither.

Also, by the way, I thought it was funny how on a recent post you appeared to be trying to imply that somehow you are connected with the CIA (Langley), as if that should impress us all. I wasn’t impressed; rather, I was bemused at your clumsy attempt to inflate yourself.

PCD, I don’t usually like to get personal, but in your case I’ll make an exceptioin. I think you’re making it clear to all that you have some problems; your inablity to articulate an argument in an adult manner without calling names suggests problems with insecurity and/or immaturity. Take some time and think about it – maybe it will do you some good.

Oh, one more thing…

When I run into someone as truly closed to self-examination or criticism of one’s arguments, I have to wonder why that might be. I can think of 4 possiblities; you either:

1) Get all your news from Hannity, Savage and Limbaugh, and never read or listen any contrary point of view, or
2) You do have a wider range of sources for news, but you automtically assume that anyone expressing a contrary point of view is either an idiot or a liar so you don’t give them serious consideration, or
3) You do have a wider range of sources for news, but just toss out anything that doesn’t agree with your pre-conceived ideas because you have so much emotionally tied up in the your agenda you can’t let it go even in the face of overwhelming evidence, or
4) You simply don’t have the capacity for rational thought.

Which is it, PCD? And while your figuring it out, have a nice day

Cordially,
Ken G.
Baklava says:

December 14, 2005 at 6:41 pm

Kenwg wrote, “You seem to like calling names,

You seem to like making false accusations..

If you get out of that pattern and just tell us what you think is a solution to a problem (without making a false accusation in your statement of a problem) we can all debate issues and policies rather than telling you that your false accusations are just that ….false

Kenwg wrote, “ your inablity to articulate an argument in an adult manner without calling names suggests problems with insecurity and/or immaturity.

Take your own advice? (concerning your obsession with Bush) — conservatives aren’t saying Bush is perfect – by far – conservatives are saying that liberals like yourself have distorted, lied, made FALSE accusations (in a time of war even)

If you simply disagree with the decision to go to Iraq, then just state such. To go further and call names, make false accusations (repeatedly – without considering the opposing point of view) is to relegate the debate into a pointless circle.

On your items 1-4 (I’d say you fit the pattern). I read many sources and listen to many sources. I have come to the determination just like Norman Podhoretz (sp) that liberals are lying about Iraq/Bush (in a time of war) for political gain. It may be that some are sincere and believe that Bush lied/manipulated/is waging an illegal war – but after giving these sincere liberals a few facts and they decide to ignore them, I figure it’s pointless (ala Brian). Either logic, common sense and facts pursuade or they don’t.
Kenwg says:

December 15, 2005 at 4:16 am

Well, Baklava, at least you admit that perhaps some of us liberals may be sincere instead of all being liars. Maybe we’re making progress.

I have to disagree with you when you say that liberals like me have “ignored” the “few facts” that the admin supporters put forward. We have put forth a long list of facts that suggest just the opposite of what yours suggest. So who’s ignoring who? Certainly there are some who are “lying for political gain” but the same logic applies – we can both point our fingers at each other and make identical claims about the other guy (or at least some of the other guys…)

I have no doubt that there are liberals who are beating the issues just to make poitical hay, who don’t really care if some of the stuff they’re parroting may seem a bit questionable (Dan Rather for example). I also have no doubt that there are conservatives who are trying to play down and distract from the issues to limit political damage, and don’t care if some of what they’re hearing from the left really does seem to have some truth to it (you pick a name). There’s politics, agendas, and dodging the facts on both sides.

But I have to say, on the two issues that seem to be the major topics of contention (was the Valerie Plame outing a crime, and did the Bush team distort the intel), I don’t really think I’ve seen much in the way of “fact” from your side; just denial. Regarding Plame, lots of people have pointed out how Ms Toensing says there can’t have been a violation of the ” National Agents’ Identity Act” law because Ms Plame hasn’t been out of the country – the implication being that it’s all a big blow over nothing and just more politics and dishonesty from the left – all the while ignoring that Ms Plame’s identity as an agent was in fact, as stated directly by prosecutor Fitzgerald, confidential. And that outing her status was a very likely a violation of the “Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act”, a crime just as serious.

Lots of people on the left have gone off half-cocked about how the outing was a treasonous violation of the “identities” act when in fact there’s a great liklihood that it wasn’t a violation of that act at all (she probably wasn’t out of the country as required). But bring up the “Classified Information” act and the fact that it likely WAS violated just as treasonously (as well as pointing out comments by officials and offical publications in support), and the only response we get is “you guys just ignore the facts and are only playing politics in time of war!” Or we’re called liars.

Am I wrong? Don’t you see this happening?

I won’t go into great detail on the “intel distortion”, but it’s the same story. Sure, there have been some gross distortions of fact by the left (Joe Wilson), but there is also enough evidence out there that the Bush people did not in fact share all the intel, that to continue to say “they all saw the same stuff” looks just a little bit like “choosing to ignore the facts”, as you put it.

The truth is out there somewhere in the muddy middle, and in my opinion there’s at least as much mud on your side’s shoes as there is on mine. The real issue is “who’s tracking the most mud in onto the carpet” (Boy, Mom’s gonna be p….d!).

Good night.
Ken G.
PCD says:

December 15, 2005 at 8:09 am

Ken, your problems starts with your own superiority complex. You like to prevoke people to wrath, then you charge the agression is vindication of your position.

You, sir, don’t accept that you could be wrong. You don’t accept the law as written. Whereas, I do.

I don’t care what you think because you don’t think.
PCD says:

December 15, 2005 at 8:28 am

Oh, Ken, in your response you SPECULATED that Plame could have been out of the country in the last five years. You took your own speculation as fact. That’s a character flaw of yours. You take ALL your own speculation as fact and argue from there.

Plame was not COVERT AND OUT OF THE COUNTRY IN THE FIVE YEARS BEFORE THE NOVAK ARTICLE. Remember the “AND”. It doesn’t mean “OR”.

The law was not violated. You just want Rove, Bush, and his administration out of office and you don’t care what lie you have to promulgate to do it.
Severian says:

December 15, 2005 at 9:37 am

There is a psychological condition, I can’t recall it’s name at present, that is a step or two worse than “projection.” In projection, a person attributes many things that they themselves possess to another. In this other condition, not only to they project things onto others, they then act in such a way as to encourage or force the other person(s) to behave in a way that validates their belief about them. Like, say, taking a reasonable discussion, being a royal pest and obsfucating, dissembling, etc. to the point where their debate opponent gets PO’d and then using the fact that their opponent is angry as vindication of their opinion. Say, if a certain poster continued to dissemble and change the subject, irritating other posters, and when the other posters get mad, saying “See, all you conservatives can’t disuss things and resort to name calling and anger!”

I see this behavior a LOT in the leftists and Dems these days.
kenwg says:

December 15, 2005 at 12:05 pm

“Oh, Ken, in your response you SPECULATED that Plame could have been out of the country in the last five years. You took your own speculation as fact. That’s a character flaw of yours. ”

No, I didn’t take it as fact PCD. I used it to make the point that YOU did not know whether or not she has been out of the country, as you had presumed. Did you even read my post at all? The part about the “Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act”, for example which you have predictibly chosen to ignore? Nothing to do with the “Identities” act or being out of the country, as you keep harping on to the complete neglect of the other law in question?. Sure you did, and you’re again, predictibly, ignoring it – apparently so you can keep harping on about how “no law was broken”. You again missed or miscounstrued my point entirely, PCD. That is a character flaw of yours.

Hey, Severian, how about answering the points I brought up instead of attacking my personally with your amateur psyhoanalysis (trying to one up me on my amateur psycoanalysis of PCD?)? I have yet to see any, or very little, real facts in rebuttle to the arguments I’ve made. Just name calling and character assassnation, which seems to be the standard form of argument for your side. I’m going to try a nice simple test, just for my own interest, to see if I can generate a serious, supported rebuttal from you. Can you rebut the assertion that the “Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act” MIGHT have been violated? And that indeed that law may have been broken by whoever was involved in releasing Plame’s name? And that therefore I am not just making all this up when I dispute the constant refrain of “no law was broken”? When I suggest that perhaps some on your side are deliberately using this as a tactic?

I’m familiar with the concept of “projection” – otherwise known as “blaming the victim”. I see it all the time. As for the rest of your comment, it’s more of the same drivel we’ve been through before; denying any credence to anything I’ve put forth – claiming that all of you guys are offering “reasonable discussion” while all I’m doing is dissembling, obfuscating, etc. Well, let me ask the same of you as I do PCD; try addressing the point(s) I made, specifically. Tell, for example, how it is that the “Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act” cannot possibly been violated by someone involved in the Plame leak? And that that’s your proof that I’m just making all this up, lying, dissembling, whatever. Or are you going to just continue the sloganeering about how “no law was broken” and ignore what looks to me like a perfectly good and valid argument, backed up (once again) by references to statements by both prosecutor Fitzgerald and Predisdent Bush among other sources. Or is this one of the points that I’ve made that you just want to dismiss as “obfuscation”?

I will admit that I wan’t Bush, Rove and Co out of office. But I still try to make cogent, supportable arguments when I criticize their actions. I don’t see that from you guys – you think Bush et al are great, but all you do when confronted with factual criticism is slander, sloganeer, and dodge the questions, rather tha adress the facts presented. It’s as if you’ve predetermined that, because I don’t like this administration, all of my arguments are just spin and therrefore you can jsut dismiss them with another talking point.

Ken G
Baklava says:

December 15, 2005 at 1:22 pm

Kenwg wrote, “We have put forth a long list of facts that suggest just the opposite of what yours suggest. So who’s ignoring who?

I get tired sometimes. I’ve engaged people like Brian and inserted the links and facts. On other blogs as well. Then you come along with the same TIRED arguments that I’ve already refuted. If you would like the facts you can simply go to the previous posts on this website and scour for facts. Unless you want to just BELIEVE what you think is true (do you want it to be true?).

Kenwg wrote, “on the two issues that seem to be the major topics of contention (was the Valerie Plame outing a crime, and did the Bush team distort the intel)
a) Valarie Plame – nobody was charged with outing a covert agent and there are conflicting facts that have been discussed ad nasuem including Victoria Toensing’s argument and Woodward’s admission and other journalists’ admissions and the Vanity Fair photo. Additionally, Bush and company has said that if someone has broken a law they should be held responsible and he will not speak about it until the investigation has concluded as he can’t speak about an ongoing investigation. He has also asked his staff to cooperate fully with the investigation. There is no shredding of documents (like Hillary’s) or witholding of documents until 3 years later (like Hillary did – stuff magically appeared 3 years later) there is cooperation to the extent that Libby turned over any and every note that he had hand written, typed on computer, etc. At this point I’d say you want to convict someone in the court of public opinion as opposed to letting the court do it’s work. Thought I really shouldn’t speak to what you want.

b) The Bush team did NOT distort the intel. The accusations are abound but the accusations are untrue. The intel was simply reported. The intel was received and disseminated. Your acccusation that the intel was received and then changed (distorted) has NO merit whatsoever. I am not kneejerk whatsoever either. I have read and read and read and read. You will not find any evidence in any of the reports that came out from the Congress that the intel was distorted. I’ve read the dissenting opinions at the end of the Sentate Intelligence report by the Democrats and they simply have no facts to base their accusations on. The lapdog media reiterating the Democrats claim doesn’t make it true either. The intel stood at the time and there were plenty of Democrats who used that same intel to make their HARSH points about Iraq and Saddam also. You are simply INCORRECT in your accusation and I’m NOT going to go through and refute each of your points. The reports are out there for you to read. Norman Podhoretz’ and other people’s articles like Daniel Pipes articles are out there for you to read. Coming to this website and expecting people like me who have day jobs to be “experts” and refute you is illogical. You need to educate yourself and stop throwing out FALSE accusations. Just because you believe they aren’t false doesn’t make them so. And why would you want to continue that pattern anyway????? Would you like it if people did that about you? No. You’d want people to do the due diligence of finding out what is true and what isn’t. Of course life isn’t fair but why would you want to make it unfair more?

Ken asked, “Am I wrong?

Yes.

Kenwg wrote, “but there is also enough evidence out there that the Bush people did not in fact share all the intel

Incorrect. The Congress received ALL of the intel that the White House did. The White House additionally received things in “summarized” presidential breifing form. Your accusation is simply incorrect. The Demcrats in their OWN words in the Senate Intelligence report admit this is the case (what I wrote). I believe it is time for you to step up to the plate and read as opposed to writing. And read from the horses mouth instead of the other political websites you’ve been reading from.

The truth isn’t in the middle. Let’s do this little example for ya (sorry to go off topic ST – numbers make things easy):
In 1995 the Democrats (and the complicit media) claimed for 5 months straight that the republicans were cutting Medicare 270 Billion dollars. Let’s just say the budget for Medicare was going to be (over the 7 year period in question) 1 trillion. A cut of 270 billion would be leaving a budget of 730 billion. The accusation was UNTRUE. AND there was no truth to be had in the “MIDDLE”. If it were the middle the budget cut would’ve been 135 billion dollars leaving $865 billion. Simply making an accusation doesn’t make the truth to be in the middle of two people’s arguments. You must LISTEN to the two sides of the stories do discern what is the truth (not in the middle). Use common sense and logic. I can tell you do have a bunch. Republicans were saying that the budget was going to increase by 10% per year under current rules and their changed rules which added efficiency’s would have a budget increase of 7% per year (more than 49% compounded – and more than 1% per year than what Hillary herself proposed a year earlier in her Health Care Task force). BY any standard the budget was going to be INCREASED and not CUT. Medical inflation at the time was 6% and the additional influx of people in Medicare wouldn’t’ve made the additional 1% per year either. It was an increase no matter how you sliced it. I HOPE YOU SEE THE POINT.

Take it to this year and this question. Did Bush brainwash America on Iraq?

No.

Was the intelligence incorrect?

Yes.
Baklava says:

December 15, 2005 at 1:30 pm

Kenwg charged, “you think Bush et al are great

Incorrect accusation again.. you’re on a roll.

First let me (and us) speak about what we think. We (or I at least as a centrist conservative) think that Bush is to the left of center and cannot believe the perspective of leftists in this country. I don’t agree with Bush much because his positions are left of center (EXCEPT for the tax cuts for all income tax payers). I would love to see more centrist/conservative positions taken by this president.

Your sentences after that inaccurate accusation are an expectation of more from us that you have of yourself. It’s a pattern of hypocrasy by the left. I’ve read, I’ve determined. Now I must confront every one of the leftists that come on this site with a well thought out 1 hour long college type paper with links and a bibliography because you are what? too lazy to do it yourself? I apologize for that one Lord. (little Larry Cable guy humor there).
PCD says:

December 15, 2005 at 1:43 pm

Ken is projecting again. Baklava, I don’t think he read a word of what you said, nor do I think he ever will. Ken thinks he is perfect, but can’t understand why we dismiss him as a raving leftie who can’t make a point without changing the definitions of word, reinterpreting laws to his advantage, and his condescending on everyone else.
Kenwg says:

December 15, 2005 at 10:20 pm

Baklava, your wrote:

“At this point I’d say you want to convict someone in the court of public opinion as opposed to letting the court do it’s work. Thought I really shouldn’t speak to what you want.”

I asked you about the “Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act” and whether you would agree that there is at least a chance that this law was violated. You responded with a lot of off-topic verbage about “cooperation” and what Bush said about it, etc, etc, and protestations that you haven’t the time to rehash, etc.

But you did not answer my question. You sidestepped it, and buried your dancehall move under that mountain of irrelevent verborrhea that you haven’t the time for.

Hmmm. Can’t bring yourself to admit the possibility exists? I kinda think that your non-answer actually makes my point.

Then you accuse me of wanting to convict in the court of public opinion. There is some very small kernel of truth to that, insofar as I want the issue to be in the public eye and not be shoved under the rug as your side has tried so hard to do (THERE WAS NO CRIME!). But as far as “convicting” I’ll be happy to wait and see if there is even an indictment; we’re still waiting to see if prosecutor Fitzgerald’s new grand jury will produce something.

You, it seems, aren’t willing to wait that long. You apparently want to declare everyone innocent right now, and for everyone to stop talking about the the legal aspects of the outing. I would too if I were on your side.

And that actually brings me to the point of all this; what I want is for your side to stop “acquitting” in the court of public opinion before the facts are in; trying to get everyone to just forget about it.

We will all find out what the legal system says about it in time. Until then, “THERE WAS NO CRIME” strikes me as akin to whistling past the graveyard.

About the distorted intel; you refer to the senate report and that seems to be about it. There’s an awful lot more out there than what made it into the senate report. And as far as the “The Demcrats in their OWN words in the Senate Intelligence report admit this is the case”; if you’re talking about their agreeing that there ws no pressure put on the CIA to distort intel, I’m willing to concede that that is in the report (although there are a lot of anonymous CIA staff disputed this). If you’re referring to something else, please let me know.

But as I said, there is a lot more reporting out there about how the intel was cherry-picked besides what was in the senate report that you seem to be overlooking. Even the Podhoretz article (and an even better one Here (http://americanfuture.net/?p=880) leave out an awful lot. Yes, there was a lot of intel suggesting that Saddam had weapons, no arguing that. Yes, the media left out some stuff that Wilkerson said that validated some of the debated intel. I’m not disputing any of that, and that there’s a lot out there that’s slanted. But it goes both ways; there’s still a lot of reports of OTHER intel that indicated that much of the positive intel was bad (Curveball..) or that directly indicated he didn’t have weapons; all that was simply – never – mentioned. Your lasar-like focus on what Wilkerson said about the aluminum tubes, ignoring the larger picture of what Wilkerson was saying about distorted intel, is an example of this. Podheretz too doesn’t address that; he restricts himself to reiterating all the stuff we’ve already heard that suggests that Saddam has weapons. In other words, his work is just as slanted as everyone elses.

About having a life; I can appreciate the dearness of the time that you have spent on this. I’m not being sarcastic, I really am impressed with your vehemence and depth of concern; everyone should have so much interest in what’s happening in the world toady.

I just don’t agree with you.

I’m retired, so your observation, by implication, that I seem to have a lot of free time is rather perspicacious. I do have a life, however; with three kids at home (2 in college) things are never quiet. But I do get to spend a lot of time doing fun things, like skiing in the Sierras, where I was today.

Cordially,
Ken G

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