Oh yeah, it's just not fair that some people would be bringing petty accusations at Mr. Bush and his "administration." Unfortunately for Bush supporters, this is the United States of America and we are right in the middle of an election year glamour contest. Any and all relevant information is fair game, and it would be my position that the "R's" do not have a corner on the integrity market. They proved that President Clinton had an inappropriate experience in the Oval Office. If that's fair, then the current bullfight will just need to run its course too. Based on what I've heard, I think the record is eventually going to reflect that Mr. Bush received urgent and pointed warnings from some of his most trusted (in some cases even trustworthy), and that this information just was not convenient to his Attack Iraq agenda so he dismissed it. Hey, I can hardly imagine information that would be more relevant to the decision our nation will make in November. Mr. Bush is in the big leagues now, and since terrorism is an urgent national issue, and since the "R's" have taught everyone what great heights mudslinging can be taken to, and since Mr. Bush's campaign seems to be focused almost entirely on calling Senator Kerry names....hey, that's racing, folks.

I've seen quite a number of congressional, and especially local legislative hearings to know that it's like a bullfight. Eventually, the smoke will be blown away and dirty laundry will be viewed. Mr. Bush's supporters had better hope he has a great deal more integrity than I personally think he has.

It really bothers me how everyone here picks out soundbites and excerpts and then acts as if they know the whole story.

Dems, Reps, it's ALL spin. Spin for mindshare and votes. And you know what? None of them have your best interests at heart. Nobody in our government is doing their job because they want to make the world a better place.

This year, the stakes are higher than a "glamour contest" . . .who soiled the prettiest blue dress, and all.

We are not in a time where mudslinging about national security approaches ought to be aired. (btw, this statement brought to you by a guy who likes to watch a good fight)

The pickering about waffling, or studdd d dd ering, or whining, or WMD are all fine. . .but the dem's are so damn desparate, that if they (dem's) knew a major attack was coming to the US, they would look the other way. . .just on the chance it would take Bush down a notch.

The Dem's are, for sure, in an "end justifies the means" game. . .and their end is POWER.

Hey, it worked for bush. Now instead of dealing with his own impeachment hearings he gets to dodge a superficial 9/11 hearing and try to blame a tragedy that happened on his watch on the democratic president that came before him.

One thing that is consistant from the bush adminstration is its propaganda that all things bad are clinton's fault, and all things good are bush's doings.

Who is Condi? I saw some lady named Ms. Clarke testify yesterday. At least that is what Richard Ben-Veniste kept calling her.

What you are missing is, Bush is NOT trying to lay blame. He is pulling a rope-a-dope on the Dem's. He just absorbs, and deflects, as the Dem's wear themselves low, throwing negative-punch after negative-punch. . . .They've got nothing possitive. The Dems have no plan, no team. They are like a bunch of spoiled free-agents, each looking for their slice of power-pie.

OTOH, the Bush team has been proactive; as they should be. . ."doing nothing" is not an reasonable option.

Wow island, you are fast. I edited my post a couple minutes after I made it cause I thought it gave clinton more credit than he deserved.

Now I'm glad you quoted me before I had a chance to change it since it reads better than my more generic 2nd edition.

According to CNN (paraphrased):

"Rice herself snagged a 41 percent favorable rating in the poll, but another 43 percent said they weren't familiar enough with her to have an opinion -- and a rather sizable 32 percent had heard nothing at all about her testimony to the commission.
...
Rice won the credibility race against former counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke -- who testified that the White House had ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization. Forty-three percent of the poll's participants said they were more likely to believe Rice, as opposed to 36 percent naming Clarke.
...
Fifty-three percent of Democrats believed Clarke over Rice."

It doesn't matter to anyone, even Dick Clarke if Dick Clarke goes down for the count. The issue here is Rice. It's always been Rice and Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and their utter lack of preparation when a threat was building; ignoring perceived known threats while fogged over by vendetta. Regardless of what can be gleaned from this through placing blame here or there, like everyone has said so far - it was on the Bush Administration's watch and no one else's that this happened.

It's time to stop playing hot potato with the facts and take on some responsibility.

My god, man, are you really saying Bush ought to step-up and take all the blame for 9/11?

If you ask me, Bush has 'taken on some responsibility' by taking out some garbage. (much more responsibility than I ever expected out of the guy)

The 'blame-game' is nothing more than the dem's trying to knock Bush down a few notches, in a play for power.

9/11 was abundantly obvious we were all caght with our pants down. The 'blame-game' is nothing helpful.

That Kaplan article sure is sad. I don't know how you guys find them. I guess they assume people will believe anything they read and are too lazy to read the transcripts themselves. I wonder if the author even watched the questioning. The author seems to not understand the role of NSA and apparently assumes that everything Clarke had said was true, even though much had already been disproved and actually ignores parts of the questioning that do not fit his hypothesis. For example, take this quote from the article:
Now read the testimony that was ignored. The fact was that the Principle meetings actually had not effect. The threat was only caught because a customs agent was lucky or observant…even though Customs had received no alert or warning.

I found it interesting when Rice said that the damning piece of evidence, a PDB in August of '01 entitled "Bin Laden planning attack inside of the U.S.", (or something similar), did not contain "information about a specific attack, time and place, etc...":confused: :eek:

Was she saying that only if the flight #s were in the report would it have been actionable?? She claimed that there was "no actionable info in it". WTF??!

Did Bush do anything or tell anyone to do anything after being given this report? Or did he simply go back to clearing brush on his ranch? (He was on vacation on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, the entire month of August, 2001).

The concept of negligence seems to escape some here. You do not have to intentionally cause the death of another in order to be guilty of negligent homicide.

But I am getting ahead of myself here. The important factor, and what we are discussing, is "how did Condi do" yesterday. :rolleyes:

The concept of appropriateness seems to escape the dems.

This 'Let's dig up some blame'-game is not helping our country. . .it only plays into binladens et al, plans. THose guys want nothing more than to have (as the dem's spin it) regime change.

Who really thinks Kerry will solve all our problems?

edit; Bush team may have been completly negligent. . .but how does all this "blame-game" help us NOW?. . . I only see it hurting us.

Please tell me that you are not actually implying that Bush is guilty of negligent homicide.

Ugh! His responsibility to al Queada was obvious, which is what Clinton did (and probably what Gore would never do - but he's a loser for another thread entirely). When I say "responsibility" in lieu of Iraq, I mean toward a continuing miscalculation of:

1) Iraq and its role in our security.
2) The transcendental hazing over of his thought process toward the war on terror with his obsession with Iraq.
3) The fact that al Queda was refused to be regarded as a higher priority threat than Iraq at the time.

dd, Ah.

Though I don't think you can pin "a continuing miscalculation" (re Iraq) on Bush . . since he never had any calculations to miss. He just said (paraphrase) "we're going to kick Saddams ass, no matter what the cost"

which I am okay with.

Could you imagine if a major terrorist strike against the US happened with "made in Iraq" WMD? . . . everybody, including myself and the dem's would be sreaming; WHY DIDN'T BUSH CONNECT THE DOTS . . .THE DOTS WHERE SO FREAKING OBVIOUS!

Glenn, I agree with you there. But to take that action, one needs some sort of proof. After 9/11, Al Queda sat back, laughed (according to a Bin Laden tape) bragged that he didn't believe so much damage would be caused by two jetliners flying into the WTC, and we took appropriate action. But there was proof.

In Iraq's case, there is no proof. There WAS no proof. This is where Bush miscalculated. He started the war based on emotion and not tangible evidence. Inductive theory vs. deductive theory.

GW simply blind-sided the wrong block bully.

I appreciate what you are saying here, but I think that Bush and Co. are the ones playing into Bin Ladin's hands, he must be in 7th heaven as U.S. bombs fall on Mosques. (I am not blaming the military here, they are unfortunate "message carriers" in this case). A few gearheads on an internet board exercising our 1st amendment rights ain't gonna make or break this deal. :cool:

So, dd, you're saying youre glad we waited for those two jetliners flying into the WTC, before we took "appropriate action" ?

No. I'm not glad. But then I had no reason either to use 9/11 as a reason to invade Iraq.