I would have loved to see the Presiden'ts face after reading this....

[momoffuzzyfaces]

The Pres can't win. If he mentions Iraq at all, the speech is all about justifying Iraq. If he doens't mention Iraq, he's avoiding the subject.

I've noticed that too. He can't win for losing.

Actually this is all Florida's fault!!! Because some of them messed up when they voted, Gore lost way back when and the Democrats have never gotten over it. Sometimes it seems like congress has been throwing a big temper tantrum for 6 years.

By the way, I am an Independent. I don't want to be affliated with either party.

[Lady's Human]

Right or wrong won't be known until 20-30 years from now, when all of the classified info has been declassified, and when people are no longer looking at the war from the standpoint of getting re-elected. Many of the analyses done immediately after WW2 are so innaccurate they are amusing when compared with later studies.

[lizbud]

Right or wrong won't be known until 20-30 years from now, when all of the classified info has been declassified, and when people are no longer looking at the war from the standpoint of getting re-elected.

Oh, I don't think it will be near that long and I don't think the majority of
Americans are worried about getting themselves elected to anything.

A few weeks ago the big 3 (Bush, Cheney,& Rumsfeld) all went out to publicly push the fear message and insist that they had the right path to peace on earth all along. This was an interesting observation of Rummy's
speechs.

Seeing through Rummy's fantasy


Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington:
McClatchy/Tribune newspapers

September 5, 2006

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack that devastated a U.S.
naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And the United States rose in
righteous fury, immediately declaring war on Thailand. Because, you know, it
was in the same part of the world as Japan and the people kind of
looked alike and besides, those Thais had been getting a little uppity and
were due for a smackdown.

Which is not the way it happened, of course, but if Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld wants to use World War II allusions to describe the
War on Terror, I submit that my fantasy comes a lot closer to the truth
than his. Rumsfeld's fantasy, if you missed it, was shared in a recent
speech before the American Legion in Salt Lake City. There, the Sec Def
said that critics of the war in Iraq--a designation that now includes
most Americans--are like those who thought they could avoid fighting by
negotiating with, or "appeasing," the Nazis in the days before World
War II.

The war's critics--again, that's the majority of us--need to crack a
history book, he thinks. "Once again, we face similar challenges in
efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. But some
seem not to have learned history's lessons."

Rumsfeld's rant was but the shrillest of several recent statements by
members of the federal regime--Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and the great and powerful President Bush
himself--in defense of the war in Iraq. Which must mean--hold on, let me
check my calendar--yep, there's an election coming.

The War on Terror has, after all, been this gang's get-out-of-jail-free
card for years. High gas prices, a hurricane fiasco, red ink, an
overall patina of ineptness overtopped by arrogance, and it's all forgotten
the moment they say Sept. 11, 2001. Small wonder they say it loudly now
with midterm elections looming and polls suggesting more Americans are
seeing through the president like Saran Wrap.

Indeed, there was an interesting exchange between Bush and a reporter
at a news conference last month. In the process of answering a question
about Iraq, Bush reflexively invoked Sept. 11, leading the reporter to
interrupt him.

"What did Iraq have to do with that?" the reporter asked.

"Nothing," Bush said irritably. The reporter somehow resisted saying,
"Then why did you bring it up?"

Or maybe that's self-evident. After Sept. 11, the nation needed some
Muslims to hit. And the Bush administration, already looking for a
pretext to attack Iraq--which once plotted the assassination of Bush's
father--gave us some.

Since then, the White House missed no opportunity to falsely conflate
Iraq with the terror war. The most recent example came last month when
anti-war candidate Ned Lamont defeated Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman
in the Democratic primary. Cheney said this rebuke of the war would
embolden "Al Qaeda types."

For the record: On Sept. 11, 2001, we were attacked by men directed
from a terrorist base in Afghanistan. We quickly knocked over Afghanistan
and just as quickly forgot about it, turning instead to the troublesome
dictatorship the president just knew in his gut was behind the carnage.
Now we find ourselves mired in a poorly defined, poorly designed
mission in a nation that, with all due respect to the presidential gut, had
no known connection to Sept. 11.

And with more than 22,000 U.S. casualties--meaning dead and
injured--and thousands more dead Iraqis, the nation finally begins to question
this pig-in-a-poke it has been sold. We're all for killing the terrorists.
Heck, after you kill them, dig them up and kill them some more. But
people are beginning to see that the only terrorism in Iraq is that which
we, by our presence, have helped create.

Rumsfeld calls that kind of talk appeasement. I call it understanding.

And the bad news for the secretary is, it's spreading.

[Lady's Human]

Most of the statements in the mass media about Iraq and Afghanistan are being made by people with an axe to grind in the elections, not unbiased observers.

It will be at a minimum 20 years before classified papers are de classified and made public, and until all the evidence is on the table, no accurate judgement can be made.

[Edwina's Secretary]

Hey Liz...how about Cheney on Meet the Press this last Sunday....even if we had known there were no WMD in Iraq, we still would have invaded..... Oh my!

signed....

an unbiased observer.....

(who could possibly be an unbaised observer...someone who didn't vote...someone in a coma?????)

[Lady's Human]

Last time I checked, journalists were supposed to adhere to professional ethics and be unbiased observers, but that's obviously been shot to hell.

[Edwina's Secretary]

Most of the statements in the mass media about Iraq and Afghanistan are being made by people with an axe to grind in the elections, not unbiased observers.

This refers to journalists? Or politicians? If journalists are reporting the statements of politicans.....who has the axe to grind and who is suppose to be unbiased?

Do those ethics books for journalist make a distinction between reporters and say....columnists? Are editorial writers required by this code of ethics to be unbiased?

[lizbud]

Hey Liz...how about Cheney on Meet the Press this last Sunday....even if we had known there were no WMD in Iraq, we still would have invaded..... Oh my!

signed....

an unbiased observer.....

(who could possibly be an unbaised observer...someone who didn't vote...someone in a coma?????)

I didn't watch Cheney on that show nor did I watch Bush's speech on
the anniversity of 9/11/01. I've actually heard the same crap that they
pass off as answers to serious questions so many times, heck I could
repeat them by heart.

[BOBS DAD]

As discussed ad nauseum in other political threads, there are things that the present administration has done that I like, and there are things that the current administration has done that I don't like. That statement holds true for the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush 41 administrations, and holds true for my historical knowledge of all administrations. There are Democrats I would support, there are Republicans I would support. No administration is perfect.

LH,

I find this statement of yours to be be disingenious at best and at worst, an insult to an intelligent person's intelligence!!!

I think you ARE A "HUGE" FAN of this President, and like many others who I am friends with (who are similarly inclined) - you most likely find it increasingly more difficult to defend him and his dreaded performance in your own mind, but cannot openly admit it!

I believe this because I feel that you find a caveat in everything he does and that your defense of this President and his administration always has a ring of "quit picking on them". Yet I suspect that when the media and the right wing commentators went after President Clinton for 8 years, you were all for it! Interestingly, when the economy was strong, the federal deficit beginning to decline, interest rates low and people were making a fortune in the stock market, pundits went after "that" President on a "Character" level. Yes... they attacked him "below the belt" so to speak.

But although I voted for him, and believe that as an administrator and leader of the country, he did a good job (and all in all - was "good" President), it was fair game to expose him for the Cad that he was. Sorry... but he exposed a weakness and a personal shortcoming with a lack of personal control regarding his sexual urges - and he paid the price for it.

I could not and would not defend him on this front and to this day I think less of him and feel sorry for him that his record, as a President, was tarnished in this way.

But "this President"!!!??? I also voted for him - once. But I am convinced by his performance that I made a mistake. I took his good ol' boy country charm for a real down to earth-i-ness - and not his being just "plain dumb". I think he has made a mess of things and I feel sorry for all Americans who will now pay the price for his ineptness and global blunders for generations.

History will undoubtedly view him as one of, if not "the worst" of all American Presidents!

[Lady's Human]

Bob's dad

I think you ARE A "HUGE" FAN of this President, and like many others who I am friends with (who are similarly inclined) - you most likely find it increasingly more difficult to defend him and his dreaded performance in your own mind, but cannot openly admit it!

You're free to think whatever you want, but it doesn't make it true.

[mugsy]

Is there a particular reason why this has become so venomous? Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion and should be respected for it, whether you agree with it or not. You know what they say about opinions.

As for the worst president of all time...I believe the history books will probably continue to rate Warren G. Harding as the worst in history...he was REALLY bad! He made Clinton look like a saint and Bush Jr. look like a genius! There are many worse, but, I'm certain there are many better. I do not defend the berating of any president the way the last 2 have been. The position itself demands at least the slightest bit of respect. I personally think Bush is a blooming idiot, but, then I wasn't all too thrilled with Clinton's performance either.

And like LH, I vote the person not the party. I lived with a dyed in the wool Democrat who voted straight ticket without regard of who was running for 37 years of my life and I swore I would never do that...and I haven't. I have never voted a straight ticket...ever...and I have voted since 1980.

[momoffuzzyfaces]

I voted for Clinton. I voted for Gore. I voted for Bush jr.
I feel my vote for Clinton was my worse mistake!!!

Now, having said that: I do believe Bush is trying to do what HE feels is best for our country to keep us safe. He is in a situation where no matter what he does is going to be wrong for someone.

Lord help us when the next 9/11 happens, and as much as we don't want to think it, it will happen.

How do I know? Well for one reason, there are at this time 50 countries that hate the USA meeting in Cuba with another nation that hates us. A country only 90 miles from our coast. Believe me, they aren't planning a surprise tea party for us.

All parties need to stop bickering and start fighting to keep our country safe and build up a stronger national defense system.

Maybe we should look to the welfare of our own country before we try to help the rest of the world because like it or not, we aren't the mother of the world.

On 9/11 our world changed forever. We can't always be politically correct any more. We need leaders who are not afraid to stand up for our country.
By the way, when did Congress stop working FOR the good of our country and start working FOR their own interests? They should be ashamed of themselves. Their money won't do them a bit of good when we get over taken by another country, and don't for one second believe it can't happen. It's being planned by those who hate us even now.

Just my own opinions. Feel free to disagree, which I'm sure lots of you will, but it won't change my mind a bit.

[LilacDragon]

I find it interesting that some seem to think that a President who's only major problem was he couldn't keep his pants on - he did manage to balance the budget and put us in the black for the first time that I can remember - is some paragon of ineptitude while praising the current administration.

And yet a President who lied to get us into a war, sent troops to war with inferior equipment, uses religion as a reason to sign laws, has put us so far into debt that I doubt my great grandchildren will find relief, and has all but handed our country over to big business is made out to be such a great guy.

I have never voted for a Bush in my life and if Jeb gets elected President then I will seriously consider becoming a Canadian citizen.

And yes, we are all entitled to our own opinions.

[momoffuzzyfaces]

I have never voted for a Bush in my life and if Jeb gets elected President then I will seriously consider becoming a Canadian citizen.

And yes, we are all entitled to our own opinions.

Yes, you are certainly entitled to your opinions.

By the way, lots of people threatened to leave if Bush were elected. He was and they didn't. I wouldn't want you to go either.

[LilacDragon]

Yes, you are certainly entitled to your opinions.

By the way, lots of people threatened to leave if Bush were elected. He was and they didn't. I wouldn't want you to go either.

LOL! I probably wouldn't but I sure would think long and hard before I dismissed the idea. Being married to a military man, and being a veteran myself, the thought of leaving one's country is pretty serious.