Rice to Testify

[ylexot]

Bowing to pressure, the White House will allow National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also agreed to speak with the full panel privately.

I don't really think the Bush admin did anything wrong, but all this secrecy doesn't look like innocence to me. I know that anything they say will be used against them in the court of public opinion, but it shouldn't be too difficult to state and defend your actions or inactions. The whole witch-hunt annoys me. It happened. It's over. The commission should be busy finding the failures in the system so that they can be fixed, not trying to find the most suitable scapegoat(s). Unfortunately, that's what it is/has turned into.

 

[Toxick]

Originally posted by ylexot
The commission should be busy finding the failures in the system so that they can be fixed, not trying to find the most suitable scapegoat(s). Unfortunately, that's what it is/has turned into.

During an election year.

HAH!


The problem is that so many people are distracted by this deliberate "who's to blame?" sham, and focus on the least important aspect at the expense of what really matters.

The simple fact of the matter is that a whole bunch of people, either fell asleep at the wheel, or were ignorant because there were/are to many restrictions in communication between people who are ostensibly on the same team.

Maybe if the left hand knew what the right hand was doing, and everyone was doing their friggin' job instead of playing political bullshit, things like this could be averted. That's where they should be focusing their efforts.


But all the Dems gotta make Bush look as bad as possible, and all the Reps gotta make it seem like Clinton was to blame.



What a bunch of crap.

I wanna buy a soveriegn island and watch DVD's and play XBox.

 

[ylexot]

Re: Re: Rice to Testify

Originally posted by Toxick
During an election year.

Good point, but lately, I don't think that matters.

Originally posted by Toxick I wanna buy a soveriegn island and watch DVD's and play XBox.

Can I chip in and split the island with you?

 

[donbarzini]

Hey Toxick,

Let's buy up the land on the Nevada/California border, plant TNT on the San Andreas fault, blow Cal. into the ocean and then we can declare it a country.

 

[Toxick]

Originally posted by donbarzini
Hey Toxick,

Let's buy up the land on the Nevada/California border, plant TNT on the San Andreas fault, blow Cal. into the ocean and then we can declare it a country.

Works for me.

Unforunately that country would already be populated by some really really ignorant dipshits.


They would, of course, have to be exterminated.

 

[vraiblonde]

It's my understanding that Rice has already testified in closed door hearings to the 9-11 Commission. They won't learn anything new by her testifying in public. This might be simple brilliance on the part of the Bush Administration:

They let the Dems run wild with silly accusations and get them all spun up because Rice won't testify in public, then put her on the stand, what happened isn't all that explosive, and the Dems end up looking like the rabid nutballs they are.

Brilliant.

 

[SurfaceTension]

Originally posted by vraiblonde
It's my understanding that Rice has already testified in closed door hearings to the 9-11 Commission. They won't learn anything new by her testifying in public. This might be simple brilliance on the part of the Bush Administration:

They let the Dems run wild with silly accusations and get them all spun up because Rice won't testify in public, then put her on the stand, what happened isn't all that explosive, and the Dems end up looking like the rabid nutballs they are.

Brilliant.

Maybe....Or maybe the commission already knows what she has to say, and is better prepared to chew her up during public testimony.

 

[Larry Gude]

It is impossible...

The whole witch-hunt annoys me. It happened. It's over. The commission should be busy finding the failures in the system so that they can be fixed, not trying to find the most suitable scapegoat(s).

...to remove, ever, the politics of...politics.

That's not necesarily bad though it can seem insane at times.

Like now.

The reality, sadly, about all of this is that right after 9/11 we heard all about how the FBI had this lead or that lead or a report about suspicious persons and flight schools or so and so's lap top and how, in case after case, field agents were told, in no uncertain terms, by the powers that be that they, the agents, did not have enough for a search warrant or a wire tap or to tail somebody.

This begat the.........Patriot Act.

The Act was specifically designed to give the feds more lattitude in cases were claims of national defense should supercede privacy and other personal rights.

And who started jumping up and down like organ grinder monkeys that this goes to far, citing fears of privacy and procedural rights that should never be violated, even in national emergencys?

So now, we have those same people jumping up and down like organ grinder monkeys screaming that...not enough was done to prevent 9/11!!!

And, insanely enough, those same people are DEMANDING that Condi Rice come in and make them look like blind partisans even more than they do already.

Scorecard:

Clinton: 8 years

First Trade Tower attack, result; Bad Guys 1, US 0
Mogadishu: Bad Guys 2, US 0
Simultaneous US Embassy Bombings: Bad Guys 3, US 0
USS Cole: Bad Guys 4, US 0

Bush:

Second Trade Tower Attack: Bad Guys 5, US 0...8 months.

Ever since: Al queda is under siege, on the run, attacked constantly, financially, strategically and personally.

Saddam Hussein is deposed.

The entire world terror scene, from despot dictators to high level backers of all stripes, anyone who profited from the effects of Al queda AND Saddam Husseins Iraq are all singing the same song:

Yesterday.

And the organ grinder monkeys are trying desperately to make the case that this is bad because...they've been against it from the begining and have been no help and therefore are commited so deeply so opposition that they can share no credit. They MUST stain this.

Thus the politics of terror, US style.

 

[donbarzini]

Originally posted by Toxick
Works for me.

Unforunately that country would already be populated by some really really ignorant dipshits.


They would, of course, have to be exterminated.

Well we would be in charge ......

 

[crabcake]

What burns my azz about this situation is regardless of who is sitting in the big, oval office ... the person was presented (at THAT time) with available information from which to draw a conclusion and make a decision. No one always makes the right decisions ... at that time, I believe (and still do) that the Admin was making the right choices. I don't personally need Condi to go before a panel to confirm that for me. I don't think our administration (as some would have us believe) would just "play" war to kill time.

 

[Larry Gude]

Leading a nation to war...

...is no small thing.

Republicans in 1941 tried to paint FDR with the 'what did he know and when did he know it' brush and it was for the same reason as now; partisan gain.

FDR knew that Japan was likely going to attack us and knew that it would likely be Pearl Harbor.

GW Bush knew that Al queda was going to attack us and the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, the Capitol, the White House, Times Square, the Super Bowl, Sears Tower and any number of other high visibility targets were likely.

In both cases the bottom line was, regardless of what anyone knew or says they knew, they, Japan and Bin Laden are the ones who hit us first.

The sad and indefensible part is that for 8 years we did not hit back.

The good news is FDR didn't wait and GW didn't wait after being struck.

And again, a party claims to want something to have happend, pre-emption of guys with box cutters in one case that it also says out of the other side of its mouth it doesn't want, pre-emption of a nation run by a nut ball with a bad history.

The VRWC is all powerful.

 

[crabcake]

Re: Leading a nation to war...

Originally posted by Larry Gude
The VRWC is all powerful.

:

 

[SamSpade]

Re: Leading a nation to war...

Originally posted by Larry Gude
And again, a party claims to want something to have happend, pre-emption of guys with box cutters in one case that it also says out of the other side of its mouth it doesn't want, pre-emption of a nation run by a nut ball with a bad history.

Yeah, I've thought the same thing.

We're wrong for a pre-emptive attack on Hussein - BUT ---

we SHOULD have pre-empted a response on the Taliban, or worse, guys with box-cutters at airports.

The CIA was not credible when they told us there were WMD's in Iraq, that he was re-building his nuclear program, extending the range of his already illegal missiles, making MORE chemical weapons - BUT -

we WERE supposed to believe that a bunch of guys taking flying lessons in Florida armed with box-cutters were going to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

On one hand - pre-emption is wrong; on the other, it's wrong NOT to have done it.

On one hand - the CIA's data was faulty and not credible; on the other, they SHOULD HAVE LISTENED to them.

Uhh! You can't win.

 

[Larry Gude]

Sam...

...I mean, isn't it sureal sometimes?

I keep saying this over and over but if anyone simply reads the Iraq War Resolution, in total, a vote to NOT go is indefensible by any standard, let alone the one now applied, apparently, to Al queda.

If one compares, again, side by side, the 8 years Richard Clarke served under Clinton and then his 8 months under Bush, his arguments evaporate before one even gets around to what Bush has done SINCE 9/11.

And Kerry, this Washington institution, the only man left of Kennedy still serving when it comes to Dukakis style have your cake and eat it to New England liberalism, HE is going to somehow, with his Rambo/Fonda resume and Heinz millions with mansions around the globe, is going to fight the common man, 'just tell it like it is' fight?

All of this, this whole house of cards, relys on no one pressing the questions home.

I personaly believe in the 'loyal opposition' theroy of politics wherein your opponents make you do a better job, make you be thorough and cover you details.

Hell, they should be sued for mal-practice.

 

[SurfaceTension]

Re: Re: Leading a nation to war...

Originally posted by SamSpade
Yeah, I've thought the same thing.

We're wrong for a pre-emptive attack on Hussein - BUT ---

we SHOULD have pre-empted a response on the Taliban, or worse, guys with box-cutters at airports.

Clark claims that we have made the world unsafe by invading Iraq and PO'ing the muslim extremist. Imagine if we had gone after the Taliban/AQ within the first couple months of GWB's administration....He would have been directly blamed for 9/11 because he "made them mad". Somewhere, sometime, someone in the press has GOT to throw the BS flag. I certainly don't expect it from the Commission.

 

[jlabsher]

Originally posted by vraiblonde
It's my understanding that Rice has already testified in closed door hearings to the 9-11 Commission. They won't learn anything new by her testifying in public. This might be simple brilliance on the part of the Bush Administration:

They let the Dems run wild with silly accusations and get them all spun up because Rice won't testify in public, then put her on the stand, what happened isn't all that explosive, and the Dems end up looking like the rabid nutballs they are.

Brilliant.

More republikan balderdash.
I thought Bill Frist (R) Senate Majority Leader was one of the most vocal ones calling for her to testify, must have been imagining that. Of course, when she makes the talk show circuit and has made several conflicting statments I could be wrong. Of course dumbya first said he wouldn't testify, then said he would make it only 1 hour because he was too busy. When Kerry brought up the fact that he wasn't too busy to attend a rodeo deep in the heart of TX he changed it to two hours of testifying. It is a bipartisan commission and both parties wanted her to testify, she won't be the first national security advisor to do so, and likely not the last.

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by jlabsher
More republikan balderdash.
I thought Bill Frist (R) Senate Majority Leader was one of the most vocal ones calling for her to testify, must have been imagining that. Of course, when she makes the talk show circuit and has made several conflicting statments I could be wrong. Of course dumbya first said he wouldn't testify, then said he would make it only 1 hour because he was too busy. When Kerry brought up the fact that he wasn't too busy to attend a rodeo deep in the heart of TX he changed it to two hours of testifying. It is a bipartisan commission and both parties wanted her to testify, she won't be the first national security advisor to do so, and likely not the last.

Name one sitting National Security Advisor that has testified before an open commission during a hearing on policy, not wrong doing mind you, but policy. You might have a little difficulty coming up with a single name.

In recent history Sandy Berger refused to testify about the theft of nuclear secrets by China and Anthony Lake refused to testify about the adminstration's policy on Bosnia. It's nothing new for such declination.

 

[jlabsher]

Originally posted by Ken King
Name one sitting National Security Advisor that has testified before an open commission during a hearing on policy, not wrong doing mind you, but policy. You might have a little difficulty coming up with a single name.

In recent history Sandy Berger refused to testify about the theft of nuclear secrets by China and Anthony Lake refused to testify about the adminstration's policy on Bosnia. It's nothing new for such declination.

Wow, you mean there is something you actually don't know Ken?

In 1980, President Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, answered questions before a Senate committee looking into ties between the president's brother Billy and the government of Libya.

Of course, this is different, Dumbya created this commission not in order to find fault but to prevent such lapses of intelligence from happening in the future. (Wow, I just used Dumbya and intelligence in the same sentence - now that is something that you don't see everyday!)

 

[Larry Gude]

James Brown...

Wow, you mean there is something you actually don't know Ken?

...now, if I understand this...

not wrong doing mind you, but policy. You might have a little difficulty coming up with a single name.

Reading are fundamental.


Everyone say bye bye to Richard Clarke. His vulgar, self serving 15 minutes is just about over.

 

[jlabsher]

Wow, and I suppose she'll set a precedent by being the first b!tch, female, black security advisor to testify too!? Get real. Read this (from the only news source that matters)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115275,00.html

.....excerpts of white house counsel's letter saying it isn't a precedent.

Reality, what a concept!