Failing to support (lie for) Dear Leader = you deserve everything the WH can do to you.

With such simple logic being accepted fact with the punditry elite stenographers it's easy to swallow the Kool Aid and eat the tiny cocktail weenies at the "bestest" parties.

I can't believe Hiatt actually said Joe Wilson got what he deserved for exposing a WH lie.  It sounds like it came right from the mout of whoever wrote Rumsfeld's American Legion speech.  And beyond the harm they did to Joe Wilson and his wife they put many other covert assets in jeopardy.  What an asshole Hiatt is...

But of course they are going to try to hurt anybody who dares contradict them now or in the future.  I think they have built a house of cards based on lies and possibly criminal acts.  If the dems do regain control of at least the House after November there should be invesitgations.  I can understand the dirty tricks of partisan politics...but what El Presidente and the Cabal are doing is damaging the fabric of our democratic nation.

Hey! Friday ... Labor Day weekend ... little cocktail weenies ... an irresistible combination!

gosh, it brings back memories of -- "Steve, Don't Eat It!"

that link might be broken, the site was up a couple days ago, according to Google cache, but is down right now, so try the internet archive if you really, really need to know.

happy holidays! or, welcome to the campaign season.

mp

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong

I 2nd all of that workerbee...

Any people who lie about the reasons for and take pre-emptive actions that cause deaths of other people shouldn't be considered human.  And Iraq was a pre-emptive action causing mass death...and to me there is no moral difference in Bin Laden pre-emptively killing American civilians as it is for Bush & Co. to be doing the same thing in Iraq.  I sure hope there is an afterlife for all of the above mentioned...

"He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife."

Can you imagine the editorials Fred Hiatt would have been writing during Watergate?

He would have exonerated Nixon and blamed the victims saying they brought it on themselves.

Democrats ought to have expected that the Nixon WH would break into their offices. After all they were planning on running against him.

Daniel Ellsberg ought to have expected that they would break into his psychiatrists office. WH officials would naturally ask why he leaked the Pentagon papers.

Sad thing is a lot of people treat the Washington Post as if it is still the paper of 30+ years ago. They still treat Bob Woodward as a low paid objective reporter.

Wake up and smell the coffee. Washington Post is the official mouth piece of the Plutocracy which is represented by the GOP. It is also the recipient of millions in govt contracts from the Bush regime. Bob Woodward is a multi millionaire court stenographer.

HAHAHA...that was great.  The "heavy-handed ray of ironic justice" would be the ticket since the certainty of an afterlife is up in the air. 

And I would vote for Sparkman and The Blinkster in '08.

They know types like you are not stupid but they also know that we are so few we really can't do much about it.

What did ambassador Wilson lie about?

I am curious and await your citations...

For 40 years people kept fighting the Alger Hiss case. They thought they had good reason to-- Hiss was a decent libewral diplomat, Chambers a shady extreme anti-communist, Nixon the very prince of darkness himself. Defending Hiss was defending professionalism and FDR's internationalism against the John Birch thugs in American life.

Except then the Venona transcripts proved that Hiss WAS on the Soviet payroll. Oops.

You don't need 40 years to give up on the unworthy Mr. Wilson. No, he's not a spy; he's merely an agent of bureaucratic sloth and inertia, the sclerosis inside our intelligence agencies that made them useless in stopping 9/11, in understanding today's world. He was sent to reach a predetermined conclusion and he supported that conclusion by waging war against his boss, the president of the United States, with false and misleading editorials in the New York Times. Then someone on his own side, Richard Armitage, leaked his wife's name and we had three years of a circus of fantasies about frog-marching Karl Rove out of the White House.

Finally, like all pumped-up follies, it deflated. It would be truly foolish to spend the next 40 years refighting this minor incident and investing your hopes and energies in this strutting popinjay.

Mmmmmmm...what flavor is the Kool-Aid?

So you say it is the job of every federal employee to show blind allegiance, right or wrong, to the POTUS instead of the Country.  Do I got this right?  And you dare not go against him else you will be professionally and personally destroyed?  Sounds like you have some fascist tendencies to me. 

And btw the Alger Hiss analogy is weak...

Political power to be followed by economic power.

It’s time for the blog sphere to turn to economic pressure against the reckless and irresponsible MSM propaganda machines. It is one thing to have the Weekly Standard relentlessly push their Stalinist Neocon bullshit. It is another for a purported major news outlet to become a major part of the deceit and enabler of the most corrupt and dangerous administration in the Nations history.

The blog sphere needs to mobilize and use economic influence including organized boycotts against the advertisers supporting The Washington Post.

LOL...if I wrote for a living that might hurt...but I don't so it doesn't.  I like the lame attempt to duck the question...not, LMAO!!! 

And you still didn't answer my question.  I am betting you jumped up and down screaming how Clinton undermined the "rule of law" during the Lewinsky witchhunt but you are fully in favor of allowing the current POTUS to ignore laws that might interfere with his so-called GWOT. 

That "Armitage did the outing" does not explain why Cheney/Libby  asked the State Department for the original memo that identified Wilson's wife or why they needed a memo because Cheney knew who she was even before requesting the memo.   It does not explain why that  memo was available on Air Force One to be read by political operative Karl Rove.  It does not explain why Armitage identified himself to the Justice Department when he realized Novak meant him and Rove and Libby did not do so.  And it does not explain why Armitage was not involved in the plot to show Wilson was sent on a junket by his wife" as Cheney wrote in the margins of the op-ed piece in NYTimes when he read the "lies" Joe Wilson wrote. 

In other words, Armitage's gossiping does not let Libby or Cheney or Rove off the hook.  Libby lied to protect Cheney and will undoubtedly be pardoned if found guilty.  Rove on the other thinks he dodged a bullet.  We'll have to wait and see on that.  He still has to win another election or more for the Republican'ts.

As for Cheney.  He lawyered up real heavy duty.  Why'd he do that?

Pseudo,
That is one big can of Whoop Ass you opened on that clown. Well done.

I have doubts, but cannot substantiate them until I download and parse the Senate report. It's 24mb, and my present location has a IP connection via a phone line that is connecting between 28.8 and 33. the download is about a 2.5hr marathon at that rate, and i have other net related business to complete today. If i find anything, i'll post probably tomorrow.

Was there a reason that your citation is less than substantive? "7/13/05 Wall Street Journal" as a cite is extremely weak, especially coming from someone who eariler was posting about "bureaucratic sloth and inertia" in this same thread. Is it a copy and paste from another board? Do you have it personally archived and were unable to find a live link?

Why i have doubts is that the WSJ's cites are really effing lame, nothing solid, just vague references which are difficult to verify. I've fact-checked some WSJ OP/EDs, and have found this sort of citation from them has turned out less than solid. It claims that the bipartisan report states, but i seem to recall there was a bit of controversy, and that the minority would not sign onto parts of the report.

The CIA has also challenged the veracity of the allegation that Plame reccommended her husband for the Niger trip. But my citation for this is a bit dated, so I wouldn't want to use it as authoritative without some other source too:

"Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting."

Mike Allen and Dana Milbank,"Leaks Probe Is Gathering Momentum", Washington Post, December 26, 2003

Lastly, you're one gutless arse to have modded down my response to you further down this thread without responding to it, and then back-fill a response to my query to someone else's post up here in the thread.  Did you sense of propriety end evolving when you were 12 years old?  Probably isn't the best strategy in the world to expose yourself as a weasel to me on first encounter...

They may not have fully understood what Val was doing because of her cover status. But that's the point. They don't think these things true. Their only goal is political survival.

I think this qualifies for a nomination to the Typo-of-the-Month award, Larry. Everything seems to be about the truth or untruth...or does it? I mean, moral clarity may have intervened to the degree that true/false no longer has any truck. Thus, They don't think these things true may be exactly correct. I'm glad your subconscious mind is so astute.

Neoboho

Miri11 said
"I wish liberals would come to their senses and launch a newspaper in Washington to provide an alternative to these two GOP organs."

Launching a newspaper would be extremely expensive and the WP and Washington Times would still command the bulk of readership for a long period of time.
To be honest newspapers are becoming more and more passe for many people. Most of the useful info that I get comes from
blogs such as this which allow me to use the internet to verify information supplied by TPM columnists and posters.
As long as there is a complacent populace who will not actively seek to verify MSM info independently, the guy with the loudest bullhorn will win.
Facts are becoming less important in the MSM. The only true opposition can come from outside
(blogs).
The MSM has decided to put on Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Scarborough as a response to Fox's fair and balanced coverage. That just about sums up the "truthiness" from MSM.

"Launching a newspaper would be extremely expensive and the WP and Washington Times would still command the bulk of readership for a long period of time."

Washington DC native population is overwelmingly Democratic, overwhelmingly liberal. My guess is after a few years a liberal paper would bury the WP and Moonie Times.

"To be honest newspapers are becoming more and more passe for many people. Most of the useful info that I get comes from
blogs such as this which allow me to use the internet to verify information supplied by TPM columnists and posters."

Agree but the liberal paper I had in mind would have a website much like the WP.

Blogs are for opinion. They do not report news. Talking Points Memo does occasional reporting but still it is an opinion site. There will always be need for reporting of news. Blogs cannot be substitute for that.

A liberal paper in the nation's capitol with a website would be a focal point for liberal bloggers around the country. They would be able to link stories and discuss ignored issues.

WP's power comes from being published in the nation's capitol. They set the agenda. They frame the issues. They hype or ignore scandals. Most reporters living in Washington DC take their cue from the Washington Post.

Right now there is no liberal voice in Washington DC. The choice is between the neocon WP and the nutty Washington Times.

The Right understood the importance of having a paper in Washington which is why they launched the Moonie Times. Don't kid yourself. As crazy as the Moonie Times is they still influence debate. Even with a small circulation they get talking points into the political bloodstream.

So yes, a liberal paper would be expensive but it would be worth it in terms of moving the discussion to the left. And through the Internet it would be read all over the country, not just DC.

Perhaps a Liberal should BUY the Washington Post.

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"I am betting you jumped up and down screaming how Clinton undermined the "rule of law" during the Lewinsky witchhunt"

And you would be betting wrong.

What's unhelpful? The fact that it goes off in a million different directions, most of which have nothing to do with the issue at hand, in the hopes of burying me under an avalanche of pseudo-scholarly excess? (And prompts some mindless yahoo to go "Yee-ha, Elmer, sheeit, ya'll shore done shown that city boy a plate o' fried whoopass! Git me another beer, woman!")

Well, that might be one. But actually what I find unproductive is the whole rating system, which simply enforces conformity of thought here. If you raise any questions from the other side, if you disagree with the general Bush-must-be-destroyed-al-Qaeda-is-no-threat-the-real-enemy-is-Wal-Mart orthodoxy here, you get a zero from folks who don't want their echo chamber disturbed. If you go along and drink the Kool-Aid (to borrow a recurrent cliche here), no matter how banal your thoughts, you get a bunch of 4s. So when I see that people start giving me 0s for dissenting, I give 'em back. I mean, seriously, even if you disagree with everything I say and think it's poorly said, does it really contain less substance and comprehension of the other guy's points than:

"Mmmmmmm...what flavor is the Kool-Aid?

So you say it is the job of every federal employee to show blind allegiance, right or wrong, to the POTUS instead of the Country. Do I got this right? And you dare not go against him else you will be professionally and personally destroyed? Sounds like you have some fascist tendencies to me.

And btw the Alger Hiss analogy is weak...

Totally exaggerating what I said to make a straw man to bat down, making suppositions without any argument to back them up... and it earned 4s from 3 users, yippee! Kick his ass, Elmer! Yeeha!

Or what about this, lower in the same thread. Did I ever say anything as stupid or downright scary, as this:

They don't care. There's something seriously wrong with these people. They are barely human.

"They" are Republicans. 5 people rated that little bit of fascist demonizing a 4. That's the level the rating system here encourages.

The WSJ's Editorial Pages. Whitewash, Hogwash, and NeoCon CircleJerking - Part One

As is typical for the WSJ Editorial pages, they used a quotation without the proper formatting, and failed to punctuate with triple ellipses, where they had cut and run with the quote from the report. John Fund wouldn't happen to be the author of this piece, would he?

The WSJ's citation, as offered above was:

"Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip."

The complete sentence, as written in the report is really,

"Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip."

The evidence listed in the report is rather thin, consisting of one person and a memo by Plame after a meeting which discussed acquiring intel from Niger.

Just prior to this in the report, it mentions that Cheney had on February 12, 2002 read an intelligence report, not authored by the CIA, but by those NeoCivillians at the Pentagon's DIA, which had stretched the known facts out quite a bit on the Niger yellowcake rumours, so Cheney queried his CIA morning briefer. The CIA's relevant Director had responded that the intelligence was from uncorroborated foreign intel source, and was lacking in crucial details.

The Counter Proliferation Division (CPD) staff was then brought into the issue by the same Cheney query, and were discussing how to obtain additional intel.

So from what I read, the "interviews and documents" that are offered as evidence for the Committee Report's allegation that Plame recommended Ambassador Wilson, consists of ONE CPD member's uncorroborated recollection, and a memorandum to the CPD Deputy Chief, written by Plame, after they had discussed ways to obtain quick and accurate intel in Niger, which pointed out that her husband has contacts in Niger, and had been used by the CIA there once before.

As i stated earlier, contemporary conservatives seem to believe "Evidence" is obscene. This is incredibly weak substantiation, and the WSJ Editorialist responsible for the above article with its distorted citation seemed to be well aware of this, either that, or s/he is in desperate need of some remedial editing classes, and either way, it shows the WSJ is a less than credible place for authoritarian sourcing of fact.

But there is another obvious usage of road apples for content in this piece, the citing of England's Butler inquiry into faulty intelligence, that was widely viewed in the UK as a whitewash on Blair's behalf, as proof of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report veracity. The Senate's investigation never called Douglas Feith, nor his underlings from the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, to give testimony, nor did they look into how the intelligence was spun out by the Bush Administration, nor did they invite any of the dissidents from the Pentagon (Lt Colonel Kwiatkowski immediately comes to my mind). Any former or current members of the Intelligence community who had the temerity to speak out questioning the Bush Administration's misuse of intelligence, was immediately slandered on the following Sunday's talking head news shows. In other words, the WSJ used a whitewash to legitimise a whitewash. Can you say "NeoCon CircleJerk?"

"About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: 'We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded"

Of course the "sixteen words" is propagandising smoke pouring out from the part of anatomy the WSJ's editorialists' use to compose their disinformation. There was one hell of a lot more than 'sixteen words' in GW Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, which was his trying to fix the facts and evidence around his premeditated and counterproductive War Upon Iraq. Here is but a small part of it:

Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons -- not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.

Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct -- were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them -- despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.

GW Bush, 2003 State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003 (White House document used as source)

Was any of this ever proven to be true?

Something else about Armitage, everyone seems to be missing is that he doesn't believe he used any proper name when he stupidly mentionee Wilson's wife, and he realised that he had been the source, had rfelth that he had committed a grevious error, told Powell as well as Taft, the State Department head counsel, about his egregious mistake and immediately offered up his resignation.

In short, unlike contemporary Conservatives, Armitage is a person of honour, willing to accept responsibilties for his mistakes. It is shameful there exists a very small number of present day conservatives who possess honour.

Does this mean you're taking your ball and going home?

Geez. Grow up.

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Why would I want to continue debating with someone who talks about Republicans like Der Sturmer talked about Jews, Workerbee?

The decline in the level of discourse here (to Kos/DU levels of in(s)anity) since it launched is troubling. And that includes the featured writers-- it's disgraceful (and inadvertently hilarious) that this thread started off by asking "how low can they go" and then proceeded to compare Hitchens and the WaPo to the People's Temple, slur Hitchens as drink-addled (his writing is ever precise and careful, whatever you think of his political drift these days), and call one side in the debate un-American.

When someone deals substantively with my point, such as it was, that the focus on Plamegate is (like the focus on Hiss) a waste of misplaced energy for your side, I may have more to say. However, I am not going to keep hammering the same point at greater and greater length. (Unlike... well, I'll let it go at that. I will at least give him credit, for all his logorrhea, for making an intelligent case rooted in sources rather than namecalling and proud bigotry.)

Ok, let's say the troll's right, that there were WMD, even though they haven't turned up in all these years and no one outside wingnut fantasy land believes they will. Let's say, we'd have known this sooner, had not Wilson lied, even though all sources make clear that he told the truth. Let's say that anyone who ever worked in government in any capacity and dares to criticize the Bush administration deserves anything he gets, including unrelated smears against his reputation and retaliation against his wife, as little sense as that makes outside an episode of The Sopranos. Let's say that retaliation really did come from Powell's department rather than, as so obvious, the close aids to the VP's independent operation at odds with State or even from the president. Let's even say that conservatives are so sure and proud of this that the administraiton hasn't tried for so long to cover up that it ever happened.

Still, guys, couldn't they just have broken his and Plame's kneecaps, or perhaps dumped their bodies in a landfill in northern New Jersey, rather than out an intelligence agent, compromise U.S. operations related to our security, and, sources now indicate, even contributed to the screw-up that has us late in acting against actual or potential nuclear threats from the fabled Axis of Evil? I realize that Bushies are more concerned for political benefit than any actual policy objectives, but I'd just feel a little better about my future.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Who precisely does "they're barely human" refer to, then?

Who belongs to this subspecies you've discovered?

Actually, I did read the Senate Report when it came out, and it siimply doesn't say what you claim it does.

Have you read it? You dodged my questions. Please cite the facts in the WSJ editorial.

The CIA are the bad guys? Not in this case, they aren't.

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I just answered that. I wrote I consider the actions of this administration to be inhumane and inhuman.

They have the blood of hundreds of thousands on their hands and untold years of human suffering ranging from the poor and sick in this country having to go without their pain medications because they fell into the "donut hole," to the pain and suffering of our best and bravest going without limbs, sight, and brain function, and innocent Iraqis going without all that and more.

For what?

So their "business friends" could get a lot richer then they already were? That is supposed to be perfectly "human?!" That is a crock.

That is barely human.

You can defend that? I'll question your humanity, too.

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Glad to see you recognize the ugliness of your original statement, and are backpedaling from it under pressure to an interpretation more palatable.

Damned human of you.

We could exonerate the administration of most of the charges such as attacking Wilson, and the verdict would still be guilty of arrogant idiocy and negligent endangerment of our soldiers in Iraq.

I am still convinced history will not be kind to this White House. I hope that verdict comes very soon, though, for electoral justice.

You know, I came on here to make one straightforward point which no one has engaged, yet I am apparently expected to answer each of 15 opponents throwing everything they can think of at me, around the clock. Or else, the mature thoughtful residents of TPMCafe will go "nana nana" at me.

No.

I have no inner need to convince you. You dismiss the WaPo as a rightwing stooge and Hitchens as a drunk and a cult worshipper; by that alone I see there's no point in going clip to clip with you, you will simply wish any counterargument away, no matter how well documented. (Find out what he's drinking and send it to some of my other journalists.) I have no emotional investment in the mendacious Mr. Wilson and his timeserver wife. I observe the spectacle of how partisanship results in a race to the bottom, to see who can fling the worst names at their political opponents; I marvel at those who will, no doubt, still be arguing Plame and Wilson's cause when they're as far in the distant past as Billy Carter or Walt Rostow.

Please, as many of you as possible, rate this a zero. I wear it as a badge of pride.

The post did not go off in a million different directions, it was on target. The point being that the CIA has been defamed and scapegoated by politicians who are wearing hospital gowns of responsibility, and dancing cheek to cheek in an ineffectual attempt to cover up their own fat with complicty bare butts.

Why would anybody think that a government intelligence oversight committee would honestly investigate intelligence failures?

Add to that the fact that two of the GOP members of the committee, Roberts and Bond, proved themselves to be derelict and unfit to be Senators on October 5, 2005, when they voted nay on the anti-torture ammendment proffered by Senator John McCain, which passed in a 90 - 9 Roll Call vote. Those two should be run out of DC on a rail, after being tarred and feathered for this shameful act. Then there is another odious GOP member, the draft evading slanderer of disabled vets, Saxby 'weak knees' Chambliss. That is one tight grouping. It's too bad Cheney hasn't taken them out quail hunting. At least Senators Warner, and Hagel sit on the Committee, although Hagel has of late been showing the telltale signs of being addicted, a political junkie looking to hit a mainline, and become president. It's too bad, Hagel has been a decent Senator.

In other news, NeoCommix has re-released its three part Deconstruction of Intelligence Failures...

It seems to me, that self-interest demands that we take care of our neighbors. Only when we are all adequately fed, sheltered, and productively engaged, will there be real peace and security in this country and in this world.

In a way, I see those self-serving elite to be the enemy of humanity and civilization.

It's rather terrifying to wonder how you will pay for your kids meds next month, or if the next purge at work will include you, or if the lights weill ever go on in New Orleans, when you've done all you can to scrape by.

None of these things are necessary, indeed, are the result of the few preying on the many.

What did Plato OR Socrates have to say about that?The only problem with humanity is humans?

LOL

There will always be those who are selfish and self-centered among us. The key is enacting policies and laws that make them ineffectual and powerless. Right now, it's the other way around. That must change. It starts with decent people not being afraid to call a spade a spade.

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I have no emotional investment in the mendacious Mr. Wilson and his timeserver wife.

Oh my. Apparently, you do.

Your point, was disproved sometime ago. At this point you are merely attempting to vent your spleen on posters you consider to be inferior in intellect and stamina.

Good to see you admit your post is worth a zero.

Real human of ya.

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Ah ha! These self-interested so and so's give self-interest a bad name!? LOL Seriously, there are people out there that see the need for long-term thinking.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, here. We need to elect populist leaders like Edwards, who have actual and doable plans to "change course" now, and in the long-term. As Stirling pointed out, this mess didn't start with Bush or Clinton.(Although Bush has made things much worse in a short time.) It's taken a long time to mess up and it will take a long while to fix.

We best start now.

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You're an equivocator of torture too?

Am i to understand then, that you believe that those nasty Democrats have been playing their left-sided rhetorical games, and distorting this whole non-issue of prisoner mistreatment?

That those foul and nasty terroist loving Dems have dsistorted a common practise of compassionate conservatism, which has been utilised as a warm and fuzzy interrogation methodology. How dare they claim that forceful sodomy with a chemical light stick is torture, when every Real Contemporary Conservate feels a twinge of jealousy at the very titillating thought? It is getting to have your cake and eat it too, because you can loudly proclaim, after the fact, that you aren't sadistically gay, deep down in the twisted manifestation of your soul, since it was a coercise act done by order from one of Bush's ManDates.

As the parent of three adopted children (a 20 year-old daughter, who is going to make the world a better place, and two 16 year-old boys who will do the same)---> it isn't just genes. It is truly a desire to leave this Earth better than I found it, for my children and grandchildren, and everybody else's as well. Even the Bush twins.

Jan Knaus

No, there was another answer. I wrote about it on CVille Dem's Blog -- Hot Flash!  War In Iraq Unnecessary!

Most of my information came from an article at:

http://www.commondreams.org

A former Nuremburg prosecutor says, among other things, that Bush and Saddam should both be tried for war crimes:

Ferenccz believes the most important development toward that end would be the effective implementation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands.

 The court was established in 2002 and has been ratified by more than 100 countries. It is currently being used to adjudicate cases stemming from conflict in Darfur, Sudan and civil wars in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 But our President had a different plan for Iraq, I guess, even before this "War on Terror" began:

But on May 6, 2002--less than a year before the invasion of Iraq--the Bush administration withdrew the United States' signature on the treaty and began pressuring other countries to approve bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender U.S. nationals to the ICC.

 I didn't know we could sign a treaty and then, ala George's "signing statements" which allow him to ignore laws, he can just remove the United States' signature from a previously ratified treaty.

Three months later, George W. Bush signed a new law prohibiting any U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The law went so far as to include a provision authorizing the president to "use all means necessary and appropriate," including a military invasion of the Netherlands, to free U.S. personnel detained or imprisoned by the ICC.

 What law?   What Senator or Congressman originally proposed this law?  Who sponsored it?  Who voted on it?  Why don't we know anything about it?  Did they know that far in advance that they would be torturing prisoners?  Is anyone else disturbed that George wants to be able to invade the freaking Netherlands!?

That's too bad, according to Ferenccz.

I gotta hand it to Ferenccz -- he defintely gets understatement!

But here is the zinger, and the reason for my title"

If the United States showed more of an interest in building an international justice system, they could have put Saddam Hussein on trial for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"The United Nations authorized the first Gulf War and authorized all nations to take whatever steps necessary to keep peace in the area," he said. "They could have stretched that a bit by seizing the person for causing the harm. Of course, they didn't do that and ever since then I've been bemoaning the fact that we didn't have an International Criminal Court at that time."

Just as he ignored the FISA court, the Geneva Convention, and other international laws, the Bush administration just doesn't want to do things LEGALLY!  So to all those people who say, well, we got rid of a terrible tyrant, and now Saddam is not killing his own people, get this:

There was a legal, bloodless way to do this, and the Bush administration didn't want to go that route!  Could it be they had another agenda rather than the delivery of the Iraqis from this ogre?

Jan Knaus

Obviously you did not bother to read what I said. Why not? What court relies on people turning themselves in? Idiocy? Look in the mirror, bubba.

There was an internationally legal way to handle war criminals, such as Saddam, and Bush deliberately

1. Ignored it as a way to deal with someone he describes as a war criminal, AND

2. Took measures to indemnify himself from this world court.

Although this administration is responsible for a certain amount of idiocy, I wish that were the only thing --> they in their narcissistic hunger for power and money have debased out country and made the world a more dangerous place. If you don't honestly see it that way, then you are in denial -- no, I don't accuse you of being in a UTOPIAN denial; rather a venal one.

Jan Knaus

Maybe step down, a la Charles Taylor?

What a ridiculous example of a false choice.

Try actual logic..

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