The egg-face dance of the Dems begins
With so many liberals in the MSM it takes a bit of time for the truth to sneak past this "filter" they throw up that attempts to keep facts from the public as long as possible. As the truth begins to ooze around the filter and between its cracks, it is obvious that the Dems are yet again going to do their famous "egg-face dance". There is a poster on Catptains Quarters blog that says similar things I have said:
"Anyone else here think the Dems overplayed their hands....AGAIN, and played it too early to boot?...This is a fight the Dems can't win if the GOP engage them. If they had played this closer to the midterms they'd have had a shot. But like overeager kids on Christmas morning..."
The following is an exchange between Fox's Chris Wallace and Senator Jay Rockefeller. One of the first things it shows is that the Dems criticizing Bush on his intellect is quite humorous. Reid shows he may have been punched one to many times in his boxing career, Kennedy continually shows that the brain goes before the liver, Pelosi's facelifts and botox must make it just too hard to think, and Rockefeller shows who needs intellect when you have a lot of money. I must say when Mike's son Chris Wallace came to Fox, I was skeptical that Fox would remain fair and balanced for long. Now that I have seen Chris in action asking the really tough questions and tough follow up of Dem and GOP alike, I really like him. As I have said before, while some truth may hurt the GOP here and there; the more truth that comes out the better conservatives look and the worst liberals look. Here is the exchange between Rockefeller and Wallace, transcript courtesy of Captains Quarters:
WALLACE: Senator Rockefeller, the President says that Democratic critics, like you, looked at pre-war intelligence and came to the same conclusion that he did. In fact, looking back at the speech that you gave in October of 2002 in which you authorized the use of force, you went further than the President ever did. Let's watch. SEN. ROCKEFELLER (October 10, 2002): "I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th, that question is increasingly outdated."The three biggest take aways from Rockefeller, is that he claims not to be responsible for his vote, he tries to rewrite history concerning his vote to authorize, and when backed into a corner accuses Wallace of not being serious. You would think if he had answered this same question a thousand times he could do a better job of it. Sometimes I have to stop myself for feeling sorry for the Dems. They just can't buy a break that sticks. But when I see how they are playing games with national security to attempt to score political points it angers me and continues to be obvious that they can never be trusted with the White House again.WALLACE: Now, the President never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?
SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The – I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq – that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11. Now, the intelligence that they had and the intelligence that we had were probably different. We didn't get the Presidential Daily Briefs. We got only a finished product, a finished product, a consensual view of the intelligence community, which does not allow for agencies like in the case of the aluminum tubes, the Department of Energy said these aren't thick enough to handle nuclear power. They left that out and went ahead with they have aluminum tubes and they're going to develop nuclear power.
WALLACE: Senator, you're quite right. You didn't get the Presidential Daily Brief or the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. You got the National Intelligence Estimate. But the Silberman Commission, a Presidential commission that looked into this, did get copies of those briefs, and they say that they were, if anything, even more alarmist, even less nuanced than the intelligence you saw, and yet you, not the President, said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. ...
SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Chris, there's always the same conversation. You know it was not the Congress that sent 135,000 or 150,000 troops.
WALLACE: But you voted, sir, and aren't you responsible for your vote?
SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No.
WALLACE: You're not?
SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. I'm responsible for my vote, but I'd appreciate it if you'd get serious about this subject, with all due respect. We authorized him to continue working with the United Nations, and then if that failed, authorized him to use force to enforce the sanctions. We did not send 150,000 troops or 135,000 troops. It was his decision made probably two days after 9/11 that he was going to invade Iraq. That we did not have a part of, and, yes, we had bad intelligence, and when we learned about it, I went down to the floor and said I would never have voted for this thing.
WALLACE: My only point sir, and I am trying to be serious about it, is as I understand Phase Two, the question is based on the intelligence you had, what were the statements you made? You had the National Intelligence Estimate which expressed doubts about Saddam's nuclear program, and yet you said he had a nuclear program. The President did the same thing.
posted by All_I_Can_Stands @ 7:50 AM
20 Comments:
At 9:01 AM,
jayeye said…
If you read the Intelligence Committee report they also said the intelligence was cherry picked. It does also say that none of the Bush administration pushed the spies into saying something that was not true. They simply changed the wording or made the wording in such a way that it made it seem to everyone that Saddam Hussein had weapons that could threaten the USA immediately.
I am not Democrat nor Republican so I am not as passionate about what the Republicans said vs what the Democrats said or did. What I see is both sides trying to be "winners" again. It seems to both sides, including yourself, that all of this is a game. The Dems try to one up the Reps and vise versa.
The facts are very plain in the Intelligence Committee report, which is over 500 pages long and very dry to read but it is very plain when it says the intellegence was exaggerated in some cases to make the case for going into Iraq sooner rather than later.
No one will know the real reason why we had to go in so soon but there is much speculation. Many believe that it was because Israel was in danger of the new rockets that Iraq had developed. Iraq had been told that their rockets could only go a certain amount of miles in order to be a defensive weapon as opposed to an offensive weapon. Our intel. determined that those rockets were capable of going further than they were supposed to. Since the USA is Israel's army, we had to respond quickly. We were not sure about Saddam's chemical or biological caches because we destroyed a bunch during the first Gulf War and we did not know if any still survived that effort. We could not take the chance of allowing a biological or chemical agent to be launched into Israel. To me, that makes more sense than any of the other explanations being given by either side of the political spectrum.
Regardless of the reasons, the intelligence was enhanced to support the invasion of Iraq immediately.
There was no nuclear threat to the USA. There was no clear connection to Al Qaieda. There was no connection to the attack on the USA in New York on Sept. 11. This is all fact contained in the IC report.
Even though it says that the Bush admin. did not try to influence the intelligence reports it also says the case for war was greatly exaggerated.
Since I spent six years in the military intelligence I can understand exactly what the IC report says. Firstly, we have less than adequate intel. personnel and the reports coming from that source are weak. These are the reports that the Bush admin. took and enhanced.
The Congress did not get these raw reports, they received enhanced versions. It would not have mattered anyway, because those Congress members that did not want to vote for the resolution went ahead and did so anyway because they did not want to be "weak on defense".
Many members have said privately that they would not have voted for the power to go to war immediately except they were worried politically. Is that a good enough reason to send our citizens into a war? Better still is that any reason to keep them there?
Both Reps and Dems have said this privately to me and others but you will never hear them admit it publicly. In the meantime, the "booster clubs" of each party are out doing as much as they can to cause their "team" to win no matter what. That is the problem today, "win no matter what".
Why? Because there is a lot of money riding on "winning" and not "losing". Money is at the root of everything. Enough money to "win". Enough money to "make things happen".
"We are a material world"
jayeye
At 1:02 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
Jayeye, I'm not sure which Intelligence Committee report you are referring to, so I can't comment on that. The problem with any reports is that you have people from both sides trying to use the process itself to score political points. We saw that with the 9/11 commission where the Dems were trying to stick it to the GOP every chance they got and the GOP was shamelessly trying to get along with them instead of getting to the truth. So such 'bipartisan' reports tend not to reflect reality.
I think what you say underlines that basically we don't know things. The only two sources to get such knowledge is from politicians and the media. Doesn't exactly fill me with hope. Regardless, we are in Iraq now and the games being played here undermine the efforts there and put their lives in danger.
While the GOP plays games too, from my perspective the Dem's games are far more dangerous and deterimental ot the country.
Thanks for posting and I hope you come back.
At 8:48 PM,
Anonymous said…
"Bipartisan reports tend not to reflect reality." Partisan reports do?
I'm assuming this references and describes the IC Report jayeye refers to.
At 9:41 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
anon, ok I left myself open for that one. Although, there may be some subtle truth that partisan reports can reflect reality.
When the report is partisan, the authors know their work can be picked apart more easily from the other side. Perhaps at times there might be greater care in what is then written.
In a bi-partisan report it is all about who plays the game best at getting what they want into the report. Then the final report carries this false aura of truth because it is 'bi-partisan'. Instead it is a report full of compromise as to how much falsehood will be allowed into the report.
At 11:40 PM,
Anonymous said…
Or perhaps in a partisan report they throw care to the wind, roll the dice and hope no one calls them on it. Both are arguable positions, though your scenario is less likely the case in an administration that controls all branches of government and thus all oversight review committees.
Bipartisanship is something to aspire to in this country of many views. Compromise is the spirit necessary to the success of all relationships. Only dictators and tyrants shun compromise, they are nothing to hold in high esteem, and history shows these types to not last long.
At 12:36 AM,
LA Sunset said…
AICS,
The bottom line on this is:
They can tap dance all they want, they can smoke screen all they want, and they can strain at a gnat and yet swallow a camel all they want, they do not have any conclusive evidence, period. And the American people (except the hacks that continually repeat the same old stale allegations) are sick of it. They take a new angle each time and each time, they fail to prove anything.
The time to have had this debate was back before the vote ever took place. They voted and now some are trying to rationalize their yea vote. As a result, it has been debated for the last two-plus years and we even had an election with this very thing as a mantra of the Democrats' platform, and they lost.
You are right, the truth is oozing out more and more, each time they revisit this same argument. Each time they make the same old accusation, they alienate more and more people. And they are looking more and more foolish, in the process.
At 6:55 AM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
Anon, we need to aspire to do the right thing in this country. to aspire for compromise is to aspire for mediocrity. Compromise may be a necessary evil as a last resort.
There is one thing I admire in the Dems is their shunning of compromise. They want it their way and they play rough to have it their way. I loath the GOP rush to compromise when they are in the majority. When a compromise happens, I usually get the short end of the stick.
LA is right, they have nothing conclusive, nor do they have anything that passes the smell test. They see one wall between them and Bush's juggular vein - their vote to authorize force. They are looking for any way to sabotage their own vote.
They are even willing to claim the were willingly being spoon fed by the president as they lapped it up without thinking for themselves. That does not make them look very responsible. I know they'll say "we should be able to trust the president" with a condescending look. The fact is that they have an oversight responsibility. I think they did it and they want to claim they did not and somehow look ok?
At 11:19 AM,
Anonymous said…
"To aspire for compromise is to aspire for mediocrity. Compromise may be a necessary evil as a last resort."
All I can say to that is "Heil Hitler."
Do you even realize that you are suggesting that tyranny is the preferred way to go?
There's a reason this country is called the Melting Pot. It's because there is white, black, brown, red, rich, poor, Christian, Muslim, Jew, capitalist, environmentalist, hunter, surgeon, soldier, and on and on. This country cannot survive without compromise.
The only reason Bush is in office is because of Democrats' compromise. They had the presidency in 2000 and instead of ordering a country-wide re-vote, they let it go to the Supreme Court and let Bush assume the office despite losing the popular vote. Democrats are called spineless because the compromise too much and too often, unwilling to put up a fight.
You and LA could be given every last document in Washington DC and all the worlds's governments and you would still sit in your mirrored room with your eyes closed and fingers in your ears. Do you even believe Dick Cheney when he said there was no tie between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Probably not. You probably think some Democrat got him to compromise on that one.
Bush, you, LA and the rest of Bush's yes-men cartel are destroying America. Your incuriosity and intellectual dishonesty is corrosive to the fabric of democracy. But you cannot see it because you consider yourselves the ultimate patriots. You'll laugh this off. You sit there looking at Abu Ghraib and the WH push for torture, the $6 trillion and growing national debt, the disappearing middle class and crumbling moral clarity of the American government and smile at one another approvingly. Is this how Jesus wanted things?
At 12:38 PM,
Anonymous said…
And actually, the Iraq War was shamefully absent from the 2004 election. Kerry utterly failed to bring that to the forefront as was necessary. Kerry was too afraid to answer the challenge of being called soft on terror or unfit for command despite the fact that he was the only one on that debate stage who had ever been in combat. It was a pathetic showing. Kerry ran intellectual circles around Bush, but was afraid to really take him to the mat. In part due to his prior vote authorizing force, despite having only one day to read the redacted NIE before the vote. Democrats in Congress did not see the same intelligence as Bush and the WHIG team. They did not see PDBs. They did not see the full reports which contained caveats on intelligence. They did not know then of daily visits by Cheney to CIA or the extent of reliance on Office of Special Projects reports.
Unfortunately for America, Iraq was woefully absent from the 2004 race. The pink elephant sitting in the room that noone wanted to talk about.
At 4:10 PM,
LA Sunset said…
"Do you even realize that you are suggesting that tyranny is the preferred way to go?"
Just where did he say that?
"Do you even believe Dick Cheney when he said there was no tie between Iraq and Al Qaeda?"
How about a link?
"Bush, you, LA and the rest of Bush's yes-men cartel are destroying America. Your incuriosity and intellectual dishonesty is corrosive to the fabric of democracy."
Your opinion.
In fact, in just these three points highlighted that you have stated are, as follows, and in order:
Allegation
Allegation
Opinion
None of which are supported.
You are not a very persuasive.
At 6:18 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
'All I can say to that is "Heil Hitler."
Do you even realize that you are suggesting that tyranny is the preferred way to go?'
Are your arguments so weak you need to twist my words into a straw man and then argue with it?
It is not just the tyrant who looks to avoid compromise. A man can determine that X is the right course to go, and meet resistance. According to your statement he should leap to find a compromise. My statement is that he should meet resistance with counter-resistance until either he gets fully what he knows to be right or until he realizes that compromise is the only way anything will get done.
Compromise should be a last resort if what you want to do is the right thing. It should not be the first response to resistance.
At 6:20 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
"The only reason Bush is in office is because of Democrats' compromise. They had the presidency in 2000 and instead of ordering a country-wide re-vote, they let it go to the Supreme Court and let Bush assume the office despite losing the popular vote."
The real history of your example has nothing to do with compromise. Gore from day 1 only asked for a recount of 3 democrat counties, not the entire state. If he had demanded a recount of the entire state 1) it would have been granted and 2) Bush would still be president because subsequent recounts according to state standards showed Bush ahead.
Nice attempt as a historical re-write, but it does not fly.
At 6:42 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
"And actually, the Iraq War was shamefully absent from the 2004 election. Kerry utterly failed to bring that to the forefront as was necessary."
Please don't attempt any history rewrites here. Most of what Kerry talked about was Iraq. After he would not keep his mouth shut about it, Kerry was finally reminded that he voted to authorize it. Then he was reminded he voted against funding for the troops which lef to his famous claim that he voted for it before he voted against it.
Iraq, Iraq, Iraq was fully discussed in 2004 and the people still voted for Bush.
At 10:33 PM,
LA Sunset said…
"Compromise should be a last resort if what you want to do is the right thing. It should not be the first response to resistance."
Outstanding point.
At 1:35 AM,
Anonymous said…
"Compromise should be a last resort if what you want to do is the right thing. It should not be the first response to resistance."
The only problem with this statement is that it assumes that the hypothetical "you" has all the absolute undeniable perfect answers for everything and everyone. That is an impossible scenario. For calling this blog the Logic Lifeline, you seem unable to follow a clear discussion line that is based on the multi-ethnic, multi-class democratic society that is the USA. Compromise is the essence of cooperation, which is the only way to move such a large and diverse society forward so that it maintains any reasonable tether with the current century. I am willing to bet that both you and I want to do the right thing, but your right thing is likely to seem wrong to me and vice versa. You're completely oversimplifying reality in DC if you think that the first response to resistance is compromise. Congress spends countless hours negotiating and arguing their points. You and I may say they cave easily but you and I would be intellectually dishonest to say they don't spend a lot of time fighting for their points of view. "To aspire to compromise is to aspire to mediocrity" and a "necessary evil as a last resort" are statements that attack the basic premise of government by and for the people, the bedrock principle of the US. My arguments are not weak, but perhaps I was overly inflammatory with the Hitler remark. Your statement had the hallmarks of tyranny in its open hostility to the notion of compromise.
I agree that compromise should not be the first response to resistance, but I do not agree that compromise should be relegated to the position of last resort. Stubbornness is not a virtue.
At 6:34 AM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
'The only problem with this statement is that it assumes that the hypothetical "you" has all the absolute undeniable perfect answers for everything and everyone.'
There are such absolutes, and these are the ones that should not be compromised.
At 11:23 AM,
Anonymous said…
Really? Please share what you think some of those absolutes are here. I'm extremely curious.
At 5:11 PM,
All_I_Can_Stands said…
Sorry, I thought faster than I typed. The statement should have read "There are such things as absolutes..."
I'm guessing you are a relativist who does not believe in absolutes. If that is the case, then we will have to agree to disagree on the whole matter.
At 2:29 PM,
Anonymous said…
Don't dodge. I am asking you to list some of these absolutes.
At 10:20 AM,
Anonymous said…
As I thought. Unwilling to commit yourself to any of your so-called absolutes.
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