Helen Thomas(white house reporter of 57yrs) on Bush Admin

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » March 30, 2004, 7:53 am

yeah great idea; explain to midnyte how the brain forms thoughts. now for maximum blank staring action, explain to him how babies are made.

vn_Tanc · Post by **vn_Tanc** » March 30, 2004, 8:20 am

I can't help myself. Its my charitable nature ><

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » March 30, 2004, 10:05 am

vn_Tanc wrote:1) No you fucking cretin. To my knowledge (which I admit is not complete or flawless) NO US PRESIDENT OTHER THAN GWB HAS _WANTED_ TO GO TO WAR IN THE LAST 57 YEARS. This is commonly known among humans as a "fact".

Just curious, when did Bush say he wanted to go to war?

vn_Tanc · Post by **vn_Tanc** » March 30, 2004, 10:14 am

Just curious, when did Bush say he wanted to go to war?

Who says he said it?
The case is Iraq. The decision to go to war on Iraq was taken arbitrarily and the "reasons" were cooked up afterwards.
Ergo Bush wanted to go to war.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » March 30, 2004, 11:57 am

Bush isnt the only president to fabricate a public reason to go to war. There was the Gulf of Tonkin in Indochina.

Both wars were fought under the same premise really, we wanted to assert our political influence in a region that was not stable or wholly sympathetic to us.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 30, 2004, 12:00 pm

vn_Tanc wrote:
Just curious, when did Bush say he wanted to go to war?
Who says he said it?
The case is Iraq. The decision to go to war on Iraq was taken arbitrarily and the "reasons" were cooked up afterwards.
Ergo Bush wanted to go to war.

LOL, you guys have your own set of rules. You think you dissed me because you have explained to me that it is a fact that Bush is the only president who wanted to go to war?

Where did you get your l33t infoz? Are you really this fucking stupid? Or are you just acting this way based on a bet or something? Did someone promise you a coke bottle cap if you act like a fucking dolt? Who the fuck are you to make this accusation? No one. That's who. You don't know shit.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » March 30, 2004, 12:01 pm

vn_Tanc wrote:
Just curious, when did Bush say he wanted to go to war?
Who says he said it?
The case is Iraq. The decision to go to war on Iraq was taken arbitrarily and the "reasons" were cooked up afterwards.
Ergo Bush wanted to go to war.

Maybe, and maybe the presidents before him really didn't want to go to war. I don't think either statement though qualifies as a fact.

vn_Tanc · Post by **vn_Tanc** » March 30, 2004, 12:16 pm

Where did you get your l33t infoz? Are you really this fucking stupid? Or are you just acting this way based on a bet or something? Did someone promise you a coke bottle cap if you act like a fucking dolt? Who the fuck are you to make this accusation? No one. That's who. You don't know shit.

Maybe, and maybe the presidents before him really didn't want to go to war. I don't think either statement though qualifies as a fact.

Here's an example of how to and how not to make a point.
Without getting too philosophical about how much we "know":

There's evidence that the whitehouse wanted to attack Iraq in retaliation for 9/11 when there was absolutely no reason to.
There's the MUCH discussed run-up to the Iraq invasion where the position of the US administration in regard to the reason for said invasion changed two or three times over several months. Threat to freedom, breach of UN resolutions, they shot at my daddy, WMD etc.

I'm pretty certain you'll never find the pure unvarnished truth hand written by any president in regards to the reason for war. But it is my conviction that the decision to go to war was taken first and the reason that would be presented to the public was decided upon afterwards. I doubt there will ever be more than circumstancial evidence for this but IMO there is more than enough of that to come to this conclusion.
That's where I'm coming from and therefore I agree with the assertion that "Bush wanted war". And wanted it pre-emptively, which brings us back to the analogy with Pearl Harbour. This is what I think and I agree with the notion that such thinking is immoral.

I don't claim to have l33t infoz because I don't need to be spoonfed officially-scripted bullshit in order to form an opinion. I'm capable of following a complex issue and reading between the lines to infer my own conclusions (or "facts from my point of view" as the existance of "pure facts" could be debated ad infinitum). I've seen nobody here claim to have insider info other than a few Bush supporters who've subsequently been proven wrong.

I think it's particularly delicious that the person who's so far come closest to changing my mind about these "facts" is Voronwe.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 30, 2004, 12:30 pm

Dude, you are seriously fucked up.

You scare the shit of me, really.

You are equating the liberation of the Iraqi people to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor? WOW ! Really, listen to yourself. Do you really hate America that much that you would make such a fucked up comparison?

Did Japan go to the UN seeking support for the attack? Had the US broken numerous UN sanctions? Has the US been given a chance to comply, but refused to do so? Had the US president at the time been responsible for genocide and torture?

LOL, you are too funny.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » March 30, 2004, 12:33 pm

I don't have a problem with you forming an opinion about what you know, as I mentioned before you might be right. But trying to say that your opinion is a fact is not supportable. In a thread that has involved a lot of talk about reporting versus opinion I thought it worth pointing out.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » March 30, 2004, 12:55 pm

i'm not sure what the debate is really.

Maybe bush didn't "want" to go to war, that word has some implications of not only intent, but desire, which are slightly different. And instead of getting hung up on semantics, i think if you have listened to the President and his Defense Dept, they have clearly said - in no uncertain terms - that the war on Iraq was a preemptive action.

It was a preemptive action that they feel will be in the USA's strategic interests. I am not sure those points are up for any debate.

You can debate to what extent the administration really thought WMD's were a significant issue. Dep. Def. Sec. WOlfowitz did come out and say that the administration decided to agree on WMD's as "public justification" for the war (think in the Vanity Fair article last summer). Now critics of the administration might say that this implied deceit, while supporters would say that it was simply the most compelling reason to generate the political support needed.

It turns out that there have been admitted intelligence failures, by George Tenant, the head of the CIA, and many others regarding the WMD. So the question boils down to how much the administration realized that WMD was shaky justification from the outset.

The inclusion of the propaganda about the uranium purchase from Niger and the subsequent political shakeup (more in a bit) in the State of the Union last year as the public support for the war was to me particularly suggestive that the administration did not have as a priority providing true, accurate information to the US Taxpayers who would be funding this multi-billion to trillion dollar venture.

Back to Niger and the uranium. All domestic intelligence agencies knew that this was a fake story, and they also had said as much to the White House. THe White House chose to qualify the statement as a result with "British Intelligence has found....". And British Intelligence did still think it was true. So the statement is correct that British Intelligence thought Iraq tried to buy Uranium. But the Administration knew from the CIA - remember Tenant briefs Bush every morning - that the story was false.

And the diplomat who was then publically critical of the President for including this knowingly false information in the State of the Union, then has his CIA Operative wife exposed by the White House. A clear message to anybody in the government, in no uncertain terms, "do not mess with us."

I dont draw that point out to say this is the "smoking gun" or whatever, it is a piece of a complex puzzle, that has things on both sides of the scale. But i think it is a particularly illustrative example of a situation where the administration was either grossly incompetant (unlikely in this event) or intentionally deceptive with regards to the motivation for this war.

It was true that members of the adminsitration met and discussed military planning for a potential Iraqi war before 9/11. I do not honestly think that this would have been politically feasible, but it does tell you were the mindset of influential administration figures was. For example, Rumsfeld, Tenant, and Richard Clarke all agreed that going to war with the Taliban prior to 9/11 and invading Afghanistan simply was not politically practical. The escalating nuclear tension between INdia and Pakistan, the fact that the Uzbeks, Iranians, or the Pakistanis would not want us to use their airspace to wage this war (would be necessary to insert and support troops in this manner).

It does bring up an interesting hypothetical though. In the absence of 9/11 would the US have had an easier time justifying a preemptive war against Iraq than it would have against Afghanistan (the real terrorist state)? I think the US public would have had a hard time with us waging war in Afghanistan, but of course due to their complete lack of a military or defensive capability, the operational parameters would not really have been comparable. WHich reminds me of that National Review editorial which was skewered by Al Franken that praised the Taliban prior to 9/11. LOL

vn_Tanc · Post by **vn_Tanc** » March 30, 2004, 1:54 pm

I don't have a problem with you forming an opinion about what you know, as I mentioned before you might be right. But trying to say that your opinion is a fact is not supportable. In a thread that has involved a lot of talk about reporting versus opinion I thought it worth pointing out

Fair enough

My assertion that whatever-her-faces comment about Bush being "basic fact" was wrong.

You are equating the liberation of the Iraqi people to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor? WOW ! Really, listen to yourself. Do you really hate America that much that you would make such a fucked up comparison?

Keep telling yourself I hate america you fucking tard.
The attack on Iraq was a pre-emptive strike in "defense of freedom". Liberating Iraq is the line you fucks are sticking too now that no WMD have been found.
Iraq = Pre-emptive strike.
Pearl Harbour = Pre-emptive strike.
That's the comparison. If you agree one was justified you have to accept the other is too. If you think one was wrong, so was the other.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » March 30, 2004, 2:45 pm

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:Dude, you are seriously fucked up.

You scare the shit of me, really.

You are equating the liberation of the Iraqi people to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor? WOW ! Really, listen to yourself. Do you really hate America that much that you would make such a fucked up comparison?

Did Japan go to the UN seeking support for the attack? Had the US broken numerous UN sanctions? Has the US been given a chance to comply, but refused to do so? Had the US president at the time been responsible for genocide and torture?

LOL, you are too funny.

Christ, you are hopeless. Look a little deeper in the points tanc made instead of going right for the juggular when the Pearl Harbor analogy was made. T H I N K. USE TEH BRAIN!!11!!1

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 30, 2004, 3:09 pm

Using it and I don't agree.

I think the presumption by Helen Thomas and the agreement with it by people here is wrong.

It's important to believe no President WANTS to go to war and risk losing lives. But, they do it because the sacrifice is necessary for the greater good. The shallow minded, near-sighted decenters often can't understand it, but there is a greater good.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » March 30, 2004, 4:08 pm

First off, there was no UN in the early 40's ><

Second... fuck, I don't have the energy. You're a blind lemur who can't think for himself in everyday life let alone on political issues. Find a casket and get comfortable, please.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 30, 2004, 4:23 pm

Dregor Thule wrote:First off, there was no UN in the early 40's ><

Second... fuck, I don't have the energy. You're a blind lemur who can't think for himself in everyday life let alone on political issues. Find a casket and get comfortable, please.

It was a rhetorical question fucktard.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » March 30, 2004, 4:25 pm

rhetorical questions have logical answers. thus, it was not a rhetorical questions.

idiot.

christ, why do you post here?

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 30, 2004, 4:27 pm

kyoukan wrote:rhetorical questions have logical answers. thus, it was not a rhetorical questions.

idiot.

christ, why do you post here?

/shrug, why do you?

What value do you add?

Brotha · Post by **Brotha** » March 30, 2004, 4:44 pm

Voronwe wrote:You can debate to what extent the administration really thought WMD's were a significant issue. Dep. Def. Sec. WOlfowitz did come out and say that the administration decided to agree on WMD's as "public justification" for the war (think in the Vanity Fair article last summer). Now critics of the administration might say that this implied deceit, while supporters would say that it was simply the most compelling reason to generate the political support needed.

Vor, I proved this wrong quite some time ago, why are you still bringing it up?

Brotha wrote:Yeah Vor you're referring to something that was taken out of context. If he had said what you think he said there would have been a lot more talk about it than there was.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/ ... f0223.html

The relevant part:

Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that, which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into --

Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second --

(Pause)

Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to --

Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.

Kellems: By the way, it's probably the longest uninterrupted phone conversation I've witnessed, so --

Q: This is extraordinary.

Kellems: You had good timing.

Q: I'm really grateful.

Wolfowitz: To wrap it up.

The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.

Q: So this notion then that the strategic question was really a part of the equation, that you were looking at Saudi Arabia --

Wolfowitz: I was. It's one of the reasons why I took a very different view of what the argument that removing Saddam Hussein would destabilize the Middle East. I said on the record, I don't understand how people can really believe that removing this huge source of instability is going to be a cause of instability in the Middle East.

The bottom line is this: Over a period of 12 years Saddam lied and decieved every chance he was given- chances he could have used to come clean. Given the the post 9/11 atmosphere, given Saddam's history (not just lying but his brutality), and given the ridiculous logic that Saddam must have destroyed his WMDs AFTER kicking inspectors out and AFTER decieving for years, without even telling anyone he was FINALLY doing it, I don't see how you can come to any other conclusion.

One thing has been proven: Saddam never changed. A few years from now when sanctions were lifted, when we didn't have 250,000 troops on his border, when oil revenues were pouring in, he'd be back to the same games and it would be a serious problem Bush would be handing to the next administration in 2008 (much like Clinton did w/ North Korea).

Furthermore, who knows what the repercussions would have been of backing down. Do you think N Korea would have an OUNCE of respect for us? Do you think Ghaddaffi would have basically surrended to us? I almost wish I could live in a parallel universe where we never invaded IRaq and go forward in time ten years. I think I'd have plenty of "smoking guns."

This is probably the best case for the war that I've read: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/P ... 5tahyk.asp

And Vor I think you read the NRO thing about the Taliban from that debate of Lowry and Franken that I posted. Lowry's response was pretty good: http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/low ... 180833.asp

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » March 30, 2004, 4:50 pm

Brotha, i think i clarified that i wasnt saying Wolfowitz was saying there were no WMDs'

the next sentence:

Now critics of the administration might say that this implied deceit, while supporters would say that it was simply the most compelling reason to generate the political support needed.

.

wasnt the latter EXACTLY what Wolfowitz claimed?

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » March 30, 2004, 5:08 pm

Did Bush want to go to war? Well his administration sure jumped on it fast enough and tried to push support for it. Add to that the fact that Bush calls himself a "War President" and well...

Btw didn't Midnyte say he would stop posting?

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 30, 2004, 5:11 pm

Kelshara wrote:Did Bush want to go to war? Well his administration sure jumped on it fast enough and tried to push support for it. Add to that the fact that Bush calls himself a "War President" and well...

Btw didn't Midnyte say he would stop posting?

Yes I did. But, I couldn't stay away. I love the abuse I guess. I've been a VV'er for much longer than most people here. I have quit both EQ and VV numerous times, only to come back every time.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » March 30, 2004, 5:23 pm

Don't misunderstand me, I like having people of different beliefs here. Granted I consider some of the stuff you and a few others post at times for being completely moronic but hey, you have your full right to post it

Siji · Post by **Siji** » March 30, 2004, 5:28 pm

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:No one. That's who. You don't know shit.

Thanks for writing a bio for yourself.

I thought you were going away. Please do so. It was much nicer and the intelligence level of the board started to climb while you were gone.

Brotha · Post by **Brotha** » March 30, 2004, 5:37 pm

WTF WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE TRYING TO STIFLE DEBATE? ASHCROFT PATRIOT ACT OMG. WHY ARE YOU VIOLATING MIDNYTE'S GOD GIVEN CONSITUTION GUARANTEED RIGHTS TO FREE SPEECH?! OMG OMG ASHCROFT PATRIOT ACT. CAN'T YOU HANDLE ANY DIFFERENCES, AREN'T YOU TOLERANT?! ASHCROFT PATRIOT ACT! FREE SPEECH IS GOING AWAY! ASHCROFT PATRIOT OH SHIT

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » March 30, 2004, 6:23 pm

In Suskind's book, "The Price of Loyalty," pages 72 - 75 describe the first meeting about Mid-East policy of the Bush Administration - within the first 10 days and long long before 9/11.

Synopsis of the policy decisions from that meeting:

1. Pull out of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The prediction was an escalation of violence. When told by Powell of the likelihood that Sharon would escalate the violence if "turned loose" from US intervention in the peace process, Bush replied "Maybe that's the best way to get things back in balance. Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things."

2. Depose Sadam. There was a lot of discussion about WMD and Bush was presented with "evidence" of proportedly Chemical and Biological manufacting facilities. O'Niel's commonts about those facilities were that they looked like any number of factories he had seen around the world and that there was nothing to indicate they were for weapons. The evidence cited to distiquish these factories as WMD facilities was "round-the-clock rythem of shipments" and other circumstantial evidence. THe ultimate conclusion from the CIA at the time was that "there was 'no confirming intellegence' as to teh materials being produced." The lack of evidence was apparently not pursausive. The discussion proceded from there (remember - this is a mere 10 days after Bush took office) on how to depose Sadam. Some of the most interesting commentary from O'Niel about this part of the meeting, and which links directly towards the commentary about Bush "wanting to go to war":

Those present who had attended NSC meetings of the previous administration - and there were several - noticed a material shift. "In the Clinton administration, there was an enormous reluctance to use American forces on the ground; it was almost a prohibition," one of them recalled. "That prohibition was clearly gone, and that opened options, options that hadn't been opened before.

I suspect even this won't be good enough for most supporting the President here. I suspect that unless you saw footage of Bush rubbing his hands together with an evil grin over a map of Iraq, that the assumption will always be how he "deeply regretted doing what had to be done."

To me, it goes back to Brotha's Wolfowitz quote:

The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.

For me personally, I don't know that I agree with that. I might be willing to support US unilateral action in freeing a people from an oppressive government when the World (e.g. U.N) was not willing to do so. But, that was most certainly not the reason we were told we were going. It was the "immenent threat" posed by Sadam and his WMDs. Weapons we now know never existed, and it is becoming increasingly clear that Bush had no compelling reason to believe they existed either. The Wolfowitz quote does a great job of explaining why Bush trumped up the WMD evidence - he believed that going to the American people with his plan to depose Sadam in the name of what was just would not have support. So he lied to gain that support for a war he wanted since day one.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » March 30, 2004, 6:41 pm

I hope someday you people will be able to look back and see how important the removal of Saddam was. Maybe 20 years from now when 20/20 does a story on some Iraqi guy who is the CEO of a company who employs many workers, etc.. All possible because of the removal of Saddam.

Maybe when they are doing a story on the Iraqi Olympic team, etc.

Maybe when they show the current fact that because of the evil Haliburton, the Iraqi people have the most electricity they have ever had, even before the war.

Maybe when they review the change in Iran, Pakistan, India, North Korea.(Possible change as a result of this war and the years to follow.)

Maybe, just maybe you short sighted motherfuckers will give a nod. Look beyond today...goddamnit.

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » March 30, 2004, 6:44 pm

Maybe. Perhaps as well we'll all still remember a President who felt he had to lie to us to get our support. No matter what good ultimately comes of it, nothing will change that fact.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 30, 2004, 6:57 pm

Aaeamdar wrote:Maybe. Perhaps as well we'll all still remember a President who felt he had to lie to us to get our support. No matter what good ultimately comes of it, nothing will change that fact.

Oh cmon, we can say more then that
Maybe we will remember a president who caused(yet to be proved however) a national tragedy and then took advantage of it and lied to the world to start a war for oil, who got into power will a little help from his brother, who hardly passed college, who had record numbers of inmates executed (not sure if it was record) while governor, who raised such an excessive amount of money for his 2nd term campaign that will fuck up future campaigns for years to come, who spent more money then any other president for a good 20 years at least, putting us into a massive deficit, who used a certain act to fuck many people out of thier constitutional rights, who gave tax breaks to companies going overseas for jobs, who pronounced nuclear nuke kular... i could go on

Brotha · Post by **Brotha** » March 30, 2004, 7:28 pm

Sionistic wrote:Oh cmon, we can say more then that
Maybe we will remember a president who caused(yet to be proved however) a national tragedy and then took advantage of it and lied to the world to start a war for oil, who got into power will a little help from his brother, who hardly passed college, who had record numbers of inmates executed (not sure if it was record) while governor, who raised such an excessive amount of money for his 2nd term campaign that will fuck up future campaigns for years to come, who spent more money then any other president for a good 20 years at least, putting us into a massive deficit, who used a certain act to fuck many people out of thier constitutional rights, who gave tax breaks to companies going overseas for jobs, who pronounced nuclear nuke kular... i could go on

How in the world did Bush CAUSE 9/11? Wait, let me guess. Bin Laden read Bush's mind as he was coming into office, found out how much Bush really hates Muslims, went back in time to before Bush was even in office and planned 9/11. Did it go something like that?

How is the money that Bush raised for his campaign going to negatively affect campaigns in the future?

What's the point of brining up Bush's grades in college back when he was an admitted drunk? Are you really that petty?

Bush won Florida fair and square...every bit of evidence unconvered since then has backed him up. But if you want to continue to live in the past be my guest.

Edit: Something that I think has been missed by a lot of people from the 9/11 testimony.

GORTON: Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?

CLARKE: No.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 30, 2004, 8:13 pm

How in the world did Bush CAUSE 9/11? Wait, let me guess. Bin Laden read Bush's mind as he was coming into office, found out how much Bush really hates Muslims, went back in time to before Bush was even in office and planned 9/11. Did it go something like that?

This is why I said it has yet to be proved, because I dont know wether yet to believe it or not. I was reading stuff on clarke, he said how they had many policies in regards to things going on in the middle east in the clinton days. Clinton never moved in against al qaeda because thier close ties with pakistan. When bush came in, he offered many incentives to pakistan. When aq starting losing a lot of protection from pakistan, they got mad and attacked.

How is the money that Bush raised for his campaign going to negatively affect campaigns in the future?

It sets a precedent. Upcomming hopefulls are going to look at the numbers hes getting and think they are going to need that much. More money wasted that could be better used elsewhere.

What's the point of brining up Bush's grades in college back when he was an admitted drunk? Are you really that petty?

Ha, a conservative/republican/whathaveyou calling someone petty, thats funny.

Bush won Florida fair and square...every bit of evidence unconvered since then has backed him up. But if you want to continue to live in the past be my guest.

Yea, so those hundreds of cleared fellons that had thier votings rights returned but myteriously couldnt vote the day of the ellection due to faulty software selected by a company selected by cough jeb bush cough was just bad luck?

Brotha · Post by **Brotha** » March 30, 2004, 9:26 pm

Sionistic wrote:This is why I said it has yet to be proved, because I dont know wether yet to believe it or not. I was reading stuff on clarke, he said how they had many policies in regards to things going on in the middle east in the clinton days. Clinton never moved in against al qaeda because thier close ties with pakistan. When bush came in, he offered many incentives to pakistan. When aq starting losing a lot of protection from pakistan, they got mad and attacked.

9/11 was planned well before Bush came into office. It's my understanding that the Bush admin. made a new plan that would provide incentives to Pakistan, among other things, and it passed comittee on something like Sept. 6 2001. But so what if he did that earlier? Are you saying he shouldn't have? That he should have just left Al Qaeda alone? I have to say I haven't even heard this theory before. Honestly I thought you had mispoken and meant to say Bush "let" 9/11 happen or didn't do all he could. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone seriously suggest that he CAUSED it. What a joke.

Sionistic wrote:It sets a precedent. Upcomming hopefulls are going to look at the numbers hes getting and think they are going to need that much. More money wasted that could be better used elsewhere.

So what? I'm really looking for a point here...

But if we're talking precedents for the sake of precedents...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... usat_x.htm

Until Clinton, presidents were reluctant to raise money. Clinton "changed the whole dynamic," says Scott Harshbarger, president of Common Cause. "Bush is taking it to a new level."

Sionistic wrote:Ha, a conservative/republican/whathaveyou calling someone petty, thats funny.

How are Republicans more petty than democrats?

Sionistic wrote:Yea, so those hundreds of cleared fellons that had thier votings rights returned but myteriously couldnt vote the day of the ellection due to faulty software selected by a company selected by cough jeb bush cough was just bad luck?

The felon issue is just about the only thing that still holds water- pretty much everything else has been proven wrong. Sec of State Katherine Harris hired a private firm and they fucked up- the biggest thing if I remember correctly was they classified some people who had committed misdemeanors as ex-felons (Florida is one of 14 states or something that doesn't allow ex-felons to vote), which was wrong. If you want to make a conspiracy theory out of this then go for it. Here's something disagrees with the basic premise, although I've read much to the opposite.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/k ... 090858.asp

Much has been made of the "felon purge list", i.e., a list of those individuals who, under Florida law, were to be barred from voting due to felony convictions (see the "Felon Franchise). The list had been prepared to prevent the kind of fraud that had occurred in the infamous Miami mayoral election in which a number of ineligible felons voted.

The list was inaccurate; it included people who shouldn't have been on it. Thus, the myth holds that the purge list was somehow a tool to deny blacks the right to vote.

But facts are stubborn things. Whites were actually twice as likely as blacks to be erroneously placed on the list. In fact, an exhaustive study by the Miami Herald concluded that "the biggest problem with the felon list was not that it prevented eligible voters from casting ballots, but that it ended up allowing ineligible voters to cast a ballot" (This quote, as well as many of the facts contained herein, come from Commissioners Abigail Thernstrom's and Russell Redenbaugh's dissent to the Commission report.). According to the Palm Beach Post more than 6,500 ineligible felons voted.

Just a little reminder:

3. THE MYTH THAT GORE WOULD HAVE WON IF RECOUNT HAD ONLY BEEN ALLOWED
There were two news consortiums conducting massive recounts of Florida's ballots. One group was headed by USA Today and the Miami Herald. The other one was headed by eight newsgroups including the Washington Post, New York Times, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and CNN. Surprisingly, the two groups came to very similar conclusions. To quote from the USA Today group's findings (May 11, 2001) on different recounts:

Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten the manual counts he requested in four counties? Answer: George W. Bush.

Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four standards.

Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used standards; Gore, under the two least used.

Of course, Florida law provided no mechanism to ask for a statewide recount a la the last option, only county-by-county recounts. And of course neither Gore's campaign nor the Florida Supreme Court ever asked for such a recount.

Arundel Pajo · Post by **Arundel Pajo** » March 30, 2004, 9:28 pm

Brotha wrote:Bush won Florida fair and square...every bit of evidence unconvered since then has backed him up. But if you want to continue to live in the past be my guest.

True enough that it's in the past, and people should deal with the now. I wholeheartedly concur. However, "fair and square" and Diebold don't even begin to belong in the same train of thought - regardless of which political party is in power. Electronic voting *was* tampered with in 2000, that's pretty much been shown. The evidence, granted, is predominantly circumstantial, and can therefore be easily refuted, but there is a vast sea of such circumstantial evidence.

That's not to say the Dems wouldn't turn around and do the exact same thing. Damn straight, they would. The GOP just got the jump on them in this instance. The only obvious solution is to either do away with electronic voting, or make it open source, secure, and leave a paper trail. As it is, Diebold electronic voting machines are teh suck. Teh insecure, proprietary suck.

edit>> because my coffee-addled fingers can't type straight at the moment...

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 30, 2004, 10:25 pm

Are you saying he shouldn't have? That he should have just left Al Qaeda alone?

Dont you love it when people put words in your mouth? No, I do not think they should have been let alone, but I wont say I know what should have been done.

Until Clinton, presidents were reluctant to raise money. Clinton "changed the whole dynamic," says Scott Harshbarger, president of Common Cause. "Bush is taking it to a new level."

Bush is taking it to a new level, yes, and he could of stopped it.

How are Republicans more petty than democrats?

I'll give you that one, Its petty in general, but someone always does it.

The whole felon deal, I'll read a little bit more into it, but I'm pretty skeptic of national review, I'll look for some other sources for confirmation.

Brotha · Post by **Brotha** » March 30, 2004, 10:28 pm

Sionistic wrote:The whole felon deal, I'll read a little bit more into it, but I'm pretty skeptic of national review, I'll look for some other sources for confirmation.

Yeah NR is pretty biased. Like I said, I've read lots to the opposite, so I don't even buy into their argument completely- just wanted to post an opposing view on that.

Sueven · Post by **Sueven** » March 31, 2004, 2:20 pm

As as I see it:

My biggest problem with the whole fiasco was that absentee ballots of overseas servicemen were being pumped through republican officials. Republican ballots were illegally modified by these officials. They didn't change the vote, rather, they filled out fields that had been filled out incompletely or incorrectly, thus making a valid vote out of an invalid one.

The Gore campaign chose not to push the issue, mostly because Lieberman was concerned about the public relations effect of attempting to disqualify the votes of military personnel. Also, under the "intent of the voter" standard that Gore was pushing for, the votes would still be valid, as the intent of the voter was clear regardless of whether other fields had been appropriately filled out. Criminal charges would have been possible against the officials who changed the ballots, but that would not net Gore any additional votes.

The remainder of the important issues (the jurisdiction of the florida supreme court, the discretion granted to Harris, equal protection issues arising from varying voting standards, and the voting standards themselves) are clearly arbitrary political issues. I disagree with how they were resolved, but only because I am a liberal. Realistically, the rationales behind each candidates position was equally valid.

In my view, the election was turned into a game. The Bush team played the game more skillfully, and thus won the election. While I certainly don't think that this is how elections should be decided, a Gore victory would have been no different. The altering of military ballots was the only issue that I had a strong opinion on, and the Gore team chose not to pursue the matter in court.

Edit: was wrong about something.