Condi Rice to testify--in public and under oath. . .

[DeeGeMe]

Breaking news on CNN.com. Well, this ought to be interesting. Wonder when it suddenly became alright for her to testify?

[strandinthewind]

Polling suggested it would be a wise thing. But, W is rising in the polls according to all major news sources. Then again K has been on vacation and undergoing surgery.

[darklinensuit]

That's mighty generous of her.

- Jake

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Polling suggested it would be a wise thing. But, W is rising in the polls according to all major news sources. Then again K has been on vacation and undergoing surgery.

CNN/USA Today has Bush rising. Rasmussen and Zogby both have Kerry in front.:)
I fully expect Dr. Rice to lie her ass off. Hope they nail her.

[CarneVaca]

Evidently it doesn't seem to matter much to the American people that the Bush facists get caught in lie after lie. Dubya is gaining against Kerry as the Republican thugs continue to paint Kerry as a tax-and-spend liberal:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/30/election.main/index.html

How they could make the tax-and-spend charge stick at this point is beyond me, considering the economic mess the Bush cadre has gotten us in.

[dissention]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
I fully expect Dr. Rice to lie her ass off. Hope they nail her.

:nod: :nod: :nod:

After her public displays this last week, I have no respect for the woman. I didn't have much before this, but now? What a cold and calculating sow. :nod:

[DeeGeMe]

See, this is the thing that I just don't understand. How many times has the Bush administration flip-flopped under public pressure in just the last couple of months alone? The economy is in the toilet, and it seems like every other job in this country is being outsourced, and to top it all off, gas prices are skyrocketing. Meanwhile, we've got hundreds of innocent Americans dying in Iraq in a war which was begun under less than truthful pretexts by the Bush administration. And yet he's still this high up in the polls? WTF is that about? Are these people asleep or just stupid? I'm not that wild about Kerry either but he's got to be a damn sight better than what we've got in there now!

[sparky]

May I add cold, calculating, GAP TOOTHED sow ?
Hated it last year when Oprah was kissing Rice's sorry butt. I love me some Oprah, but that made me a little suspicious.

[Keith]

should Condi testify under oath in public? Absolulety. And so should President Clinton, President Bush, Gore, Cheney, etc. Something as horrific as 9/11 deserves complete transparancy, and I say start at the top.

Condi Rice is too bright to perjure herself, so I think she'll be honest, although she will choose her words carefully. Something that is getting lost in this whole media driven story are some of the findings of the 9/11 commission that have been released.

Instead, we focus on Clarke's credibility and Rice's public under oath testimony. I once again shake my head at the American press for not making some of the findings of the commission more relevant in their reporting.

Some of the commission's findings have not been too flattering for both the Bush and Clinton Administrations, and since there is quite a bit of evidence before the committee, Rice will not take the risk under oath. Like I said, she will choose her words wisely.

It should be interesting. I'll be watching.

[dissention]

Originally posted by Keith
Condi Rice is too bright to perjure herself, so I think she'll be honest, although she will choose her words carefully. Something that is getting lost in this whole media driven story are some of the findings of the 9/11 commission that have been released.


She's not bright enough to stop contradicting herself with every new television appearance. First she said that Clarke wasn't a part of most meetings, then she said he was involved in all of them two days later. Then, she says that he didn't do a very good job and wasn't aggressive enough in his terror plans. Three days later, she says that his plans were brilliant and he was very hands on. She's a major part of ChimpCo, of course she'll perjure herself. Do any of us actually think that she'll say *anything* that's even somewhat negative about the admin? Hell no. She's going to get up there and say that everything was done to prevent terrorism. The same old ****. Typical Republican...now begins the cover-up.

If Richard Clarke is as big a liar as they're making him out to be, why won't they declassify the emails and letters that he asked to be made public? Because they just support what he's been saying. Also, no one is even mentioning that his story is almost exactly like O'Neill's.

:wavey:

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by Keith
should Condi testify under oath in public? Absolulety. And so should President Clinton, President Bush, Gore, Cheney, etc. Something as horrific as 9/11 deserves complete transparancy, and I say start at the top.

Condi Rice is too bright to perjure herself, so I think she'll be honest, although she will choose her words carefully. Something that is getting lost in this whole media driven story are some of the findings of the 9/11 commission that have been released.

Instead, we focus on Clarke's credibility and Rice's public under oath testimony. I once again shake my head at the American press for not making some of the findings of the commission more relevant in their reporting.

Some of the commission's findings have not been too flattering for both the Bush and Clinton Administrations, and since there is quite a bit of evidence before the committee, Rice will not take the risk under oath. Like I said, she will choose her words wisely.

It should be interesting. I'll be watching.

ITA agree.

Moreover, I think Rice's 60 Minutes interview was her chance to spin it before millions of 60 minute watchers. I think she is far to bright to attempt to lie under oath, esp. when she does not have to in that everyone already knows what she is going to say because she said it Sun. night. But, we shall see.

Interestingly, everyone knows W's WH dropped the ball in that they did not connect the dots and no one seems to fault them for that. So it is sort of a tempest in a teapot unless she drops a bombshell, which I can assure you she is rehearsing right now to avoid doing.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/03/opinion/03SAT1.html?th

The Mystery Deepens

Published: April 3, 2004


The Bush administration's handling of the bipartisan commission investigating the 9/11 tragedy grows worse — and more oddly self-destructive — with each passing day. Following its earlier attempts to withhold documents from the panel and then to deny its members vital testimony, we now learn that President Bush's staff has been withholding thousands of pages of Clinton administration papers as well.

Bill Clinton authorized the release of nearly 11,000 pages of files on his administration's antiterrorism efforts for use by the commission. But aides to Mr. Clinton said the White House, which now has control of the papers, vetoed the transfer of over three-quarters of them. The White House held the documents for more than six weeks, apparently without notifying the commission, and might have kept them indefinitely if Bruce Lindsey, the general counsel of Mr. Clinton's presidential foundation, had not publicly complained this week. Yesterday the commission said the White House had agreed to allow its lawyers to review the withheld documents, but without guaranteeing any would be released.

This latest distressing episode followed the White House's pattern of resisting the commission in private and then, once the dispute becomes public, reluctantly giving up the minimum amount of ground. Earlier in the week, Mr. Bush finally agreed to allow Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to testify under oath — but only after extracting a commitment that the commission would not seek any further public testimony from any White House official. After months of foot-dragging, Mr. Bush also grudgingly agreed to let the panel question him and Vice President Dick Cheney privately. Last year the Pentagon, the Justice Department and other agencies stonewalled the commission's requests for documents until its chairman, Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, complained publicly.

Explaining the latest act of obstruction, Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman, said on Thursday that some documents were duplicative, unrelated or "highly sensitive." The White House, he said, had given the commission "all the information they need." Mr. Bush's staff should not be making that judgment. The commission's 10 members can be trusted with sensitive material.

Moreover, given the repeated criticism of this administration's obsessive secrecy on other issues, it is astonishing that it would still withhold anything that did not pose an immediate and dire threat to national security. The American people would like to know that they have a government that freely gives information to legitimate investigations on matters of grave national interest, not one that fights each reasonable request until it is exposed and forced to submit. The White House is serving no public purpose by acting less interested than the rest of us in having this commission do its vital work. Its ham-handed behavior is also gravely damaging the entire concept of executive privilege

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by Keith
.

Condi Rice is too bright to perjure herself, so I think she'll be honest, although she will choose her words carefully. Something that is getting lost in this whole media driven story are some of the findings of the 9/11 commission that have been released.



These are the same People who stole an election, lied to the American people about WMD's and uranium to lead us into an illegal war which they had been planning all along. They outed the identity of a CIA agent when they thought her husband would blow the whistle on them. Our vice president conducted secret meetings with an energy task force and won't tell the American people what they talked about. He's now being sued for it and one of the Supreme Court Justices goes on Air Force Two on a duck hunting trip with him but refuses to recuse himself from the case. The same vice president's former employer, of which he was an officer and whom he is still being paid by, is awarded lucrative no bid contracts for a variety of services here and in Iraq. They're brazen liars. I see no reason why they would conduct themselves any differently in this situation.
And yes, people have a right to know how this could have happened to us. But do you honestly think we're going to get a straight answer from this crew?
Condoleeza Rice is an expert on the Cold War. However when it comes to the Middle East, she was grossly underqualified for the role of National Security Advisor. They were told and told again, Islamic jihadists were our biggest threat, not Poland, Czechoslovokia or Russia.

[gldstwmn]

Tomorrow should be an interesting day.

[dissention]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
Tomorrow should be an interesting day.

:rolleyes:

They'll have to play fake appaulse for her like they did for Shrub at that baseball game. ;)

[gldstwmn]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&ncid=584&e=9&u=/nm ...

White House Refuses Panel Request for Rice Speech
By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has refused to provide the panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks with a speech national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was to deliver on that day touting missile defense as a priority rather than al Qaeda, sources said on Tuesday. <snip>

The White House said it was cooperating with the investigation. "The White House is working with the commission to ensure that it has access to what it needs to do its job," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. <snip>

The Washington Post, citing former U.S. officials, reported last week that the speech was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy (reflecting "the intellectual underpinnings for the administration's pre-9/11 neglect of counterterrorism") , and contained no mention of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or Islamic extremist groups. <snip>

Under pressure, the White House let commission staff review the Clinton papers at the National Archives. A commission official said on Tuesday that staff members had completed their review and that the panel may request some of the documents.

[jwd]

BRING IT ON

Go Condi!!! :)

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by jwd
BRING IT ON

Go Condi!!! :)

I agree. I think she has nothing to fear in that she will say nothing new and she did damage control so to speak by going on 60 minutes last week, which is a friendlier forum than this panel can be.

All in all, I think the WH through CR should say, look the Fed. Agencies had the info. but we never put it together. Moreover, clearly we knew Al-Q was a threat but were caught with our pants down - period. We are humbled by that and apologizeto the people we failed. BUT, we have learned from that and are doing everything we can never to let it happen again.

I think if she said that, it would all roll off her back like water on a duck. :cool:

[strandinthewind]

OMG - she is getting grilled unmercifully about the Aug. 6, 2001 PDB memo, apparently and although it clearly suggested only a general Al-Q threat, it is somewhat of a smoking gun regarding what W knew and what CR told W. This grey haired guy is just letting her have it and she is getting somewhat frazzeled. Bad move on her part.

They are not declassifying the 8/6/01 PDB in its entirety - another bad move on W's part.

Moreover, she is not being contrite - another bad move.

Finally, the audience, filled with 9/11 widows, etc., is clearly out for her blood and are applauding the unmerciful grilling.

This is not boding well for CR.

But, it is not over.

[gldstwmn]

She's dancing all over the place. I think she's told one bold faced lie already. Hope they can prove it. It's turning into a bit of a disaster. CNN is streaming it live. Sorry I don't have the link.

[gldstwmn]

Kerrey is grilling her. She should not have a limit on the time of her testimony.

[darklinensuit]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
Kerrey is grilling her. She should not have a limit on the time of her testimony.

I agree. I think she's coming off sympathetically in this part.

BTW, I keep forgetting how young she is. She looks older.

- Jake

[strandinthewind]

In one way, I feel sorry for her. She is put in the place of having to explain in hindsight the errors of many people from different agencies who never met and even if they did could they have made sense of these general threats, etc.

But, the buck stops with her.

In the end, I do not think that given the state of mind of the US, the general threats at issue, and the sheer number of general threats received everyday and never happen - there was a feasible way to prevent 9/11 no matter who was at the helm.

[dissention]

Wow, they're out for blood. This is as bad as Shrub's SOTU speech. :nod:

She's getting very frazzled and sharp, this is not going to bode well for her. She's just speaking one contradiction after another, though. Around 9:30, she said that they had no knowledge that planes would have anything to do with an attack, then she said that the air safety agencies were alerted immmediately five minutes afterwards. She's toast.

[darklinensuit]

Originally posted by dissention
Wow, they're out for blood. This is as bad as Shrub's SOTU speech. :nod:

Wow, he spoke in tongues on the Mirage Tour?:eek: :cool:

- Jake

[dissention]

Originally posted by darklinensuit
Wow, he spoke in tongues on the Mirage Tour?:eek: :cool:

- Jake

:laugh: I don't know about that, but Condi's doing a good job of bungling some of her answers to the point where they make less sense than Stevie's coked-out rambling. :nod:

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by darklinensuit
Wow, he spoke in tongues on the Mirage Tour?:eek: :cool:

- Jake

Don't forget the panty revealing and listing spin!!! :laugh:

:cool:

[dissention]

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Listen to Roemer talking to Condi right now! OMG, vicious! :laugh:

[strandinthewind]

They are just nailing her to the wall.

[dissention]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
They are just nailing her to the wall.

Hey, if you run with dogs, you're gonna get bit.

[dissention]

Holy ****.

Howard Fineman, of all people, was just on Franken and he even said that todays testimony will be poison for Bush. Fineman's one of the biggest ChimpCo apologists out there and he said her testimony calls Shrub's leadership and credibility into serious question. Namely, his month long vacation...and the Aug. 6 memo...

[strandinthewind]

Has the 8/6/06 memo. been released in full?

[dissention]

Holy ****, again.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/02/hart/index_np.html

Clarke looks more and more like an honest man, folks.

[dissention]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Has the 8/6/06 memo. been released in full?

Not to my knowledge. :laugh:

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by dissention
Holy ****, again.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/02/hart/index_np.html

Clarke looks more and more like an honest man, folks.

Clark's biggest credibility threat is that he supported W in public on more than one occasion and in writing. But, I do believe him. Moreover, I think W is taking the stupid position of deny, deny, deny and smile until it blows over. Again, W should say, they made a mistake and they are trying to make sure it never happens again. CR came close to saying that today but refused to admit she got caught in the fighting between the CIA and the FBI.

[dissention]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Clark's biggest credibility threat is that he supported W in public on more than one occasion and in writing. But, I do believe him. Moreover, I think W is taking the stupid position of deny, deny, deny and smile until it blows over. Again, W should say, they made a mistake and they are trying to make sure it never happens again. CR came close to saying that today but refused to admit she got caught in the fighting between the CIA and the FBI.

Dubya's problem is that if he's going to say that, he's going to wait until closer to the election and it's going to hurt him pretty badly. So, I hope he does. ;)

And Kerry will be on Franken tomorrow at noon.

[dissention]

This is what really bugs me about what Rice testified to:

She said that in the memo, there wasn't anything that told of who, when, where, and how the US would be attacked. Well, what the f*ck were they waiting for? Were they waiting for something to happen before they shook their "trees"? No, you shake all the "trees" that you can to find out that stuff! You don't just sit back and cry ignorance!

Then she said that she couldn't remember whether or not she told the president that there were Al-Q cells IN THE FREAKIN' UNITED STATES!!!! Then she tells Ben-Veniste that the title of the PDB was "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" and that in the memo, it said "the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking"!!!!

What blatant contradictions!!!

Then she said that they believed that responding to the USS Cole bombing would "embolden" the terrorists! Bin Laden was expecting a response to it and that they didn't want to acknowledge the bombing, is what she said! This admin was investigating it and they knew that Bin Laden was responsible, but they wanted nothing to do with it! "Tit for tat" my fat ass.

This chick was unbelievable.

[dissention]

BUMP ;)

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Has the 8/6/06 memo. been released in full?

No. It will never be released publicly.

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
No. It will never be released publicly.
I wonder if CR meant to read the title like she did? I mean the title, if not previously released, on its own certainly did not support her position.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Clark's biggest credibility threat is that he supported W in public on more than one occasion and in writing. But, I do believe him. Moreover, I think W is taking the stupid position of deny, deny, deny and smile until it blows over. Again, W should say, they made a mistake and they are trying to make sure it never happens again.

How very Dick Nixon of him. Tick tock, tick tock.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
I wonder if CR meant to read the title like she did? I mean the title, if not previously released, on its own certainly did not support her position.

I missed that part of the hearing. What I know is that the memo has been realeased only IN PART to the 9/11 Commission. The rest is classified. Only if it is leaked or stolen will it ever be seen in it's entirety.

[gldstwmn]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040408_408.html

Some 9/11 Families Angered by No Apology from Rice




April 8 — By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some relatives of Sept. 11 victims responded in anger on Thursday to what they described as the White House's failure to accept responsibility for the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Family members were among those in the crowded hearing room to listen to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice tell the 9-11 commission that bureaucratic structure was to blame for the administration's inability to counter the attacks.

"No one wants to take any responsibility. Three thousand people died, and all they want to talk about is structural problems," Bob McIlvaine of Oreland, Pennsylvania, whose son died in New York's World Trade Center.

"They should be ashamed of themselves," he said.

Many 9/11 relatives said the general public should have been warned about the potential for attack during the summer of 2001, when intelligence officials were said to have detected a surge in communications between suspicious operatives.

But during three hours of testimony before the bipartisan commission, Rice denied the Bush administration was negligent, countering testimony of former White House anti-terror czar Richard Clarke. Clarke told the commission on March 24 that the Bush White House ignored the urgent threat from al Qaeda.

"I am angry at the lack of accepting accountability -- that's what the president should have done, accepted responsibility," said Beverly Eckert of Stamford, Connecticut, whose husband Sean died at the World Trade Center.

"Instead, it's been outwardly directed, not just at the terrorists but at previous administrations."

Added New Jersey widow Patty Casazza: "I think it made her look incompetent in her position."

Clarke began his testimony by apologizing to victims and their families for government failings that allowed the attacks to occur.

Carie Lemack, whose mother also died in the attack on New York's World Trade Center towers, told CNN Rice should have admitted errors were made.

"We did not hear that today. I'm hoping we are going to hear that because it is clear that 3,000 people don't just get murdered. There were mistakes made and we need to fix them to make sure Americans are safer."

"... We're glad that she came forward and spoke. We're glad that it was in public, under oath, and we were able to get that information. But there is a lot more truth to be told," she added.

[strandinthewind]

OMG - Betty Bowers has spoken on Condie and it is hys f'in sterical :laugh:

Dis - do not drink anything while reading :cool:

http://www.bettybowers.com/condoleezza.html

[dissention]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
I wonder if CR meant to read the title like she did? I mean the title, if not previously released, on its own certainly did not support her position.

According to what Ben-Veniste just said on Faux News, she lied about it's contents being just "historical information." He said it was a combination of historical information and newly obtained information. ;)

[dissention]

Originally posted by strandinthewind
OMG - Betty Bowers has spoken on Condie and it is hys f'in sterical :laugh:

Dis - do not drink anything while reading :cool:

http://www.bettybowers.com/condoleezza.html

BWAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I? Have mucho love for Betty Bowers. :nod:

[jwd]

You guys on the 9/11 Commission? :laugh: What a joke. This is supposed to be a non partisan commission?! Tell me that that asshole Bob Kerrey doesn't have an agenda. He was too busy going on about his "swatting at flies" diatribe to even listen to Condi answer. She testifies to give answers to questions and then a few of the commissioners want to put words in her mouth. Incredible! Honestly, I thought she did real well and handled herself very professionally. I hope that the real purpose of the commision is achieved and that is to find out what went wrong and to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Please don't politicize this!!

[dissention]

Originally posted by jwd
You guys on the 9/11 Commission? :laugh: What a joke. This is supposed to be a non partisan commission?! Tell me that that asshole Bob Kerrey doesn't have an agenda. He was too busy going on about his "swatting at flies" diatribe to even listen to Condi answer. She testifies to give answers to questions and then a few of the commissioners want to put words in her mouth. Incredible! Honestly, I thought she did real well and handled herself very professionally. I hope that the real purpose of the commision is achieved and that is to find out what went wrong and to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Please don't politicize this!!

:laugh:

She didn't answer the questions that were asked, she dodged them as eloquently as she could and tried to shift the focus of the questions to the administrations re-election platform. And it's not only the Democrats on the commission with an agenda, the Repubs have one, too: to protect the administration by posing unrealistically soft questions.

[gldstwmn]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20040409/ts_nm/security_bush_dc_4

White House Works to Declassify Al Qaeda Threat Memo
Fri Apr 9, 4:21 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Steve Holland

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Under pressure from the 9/11 commission, the White House on Friday worked to declassify an intelligence memo that was used to inform President Bush (news - web sites) on Aug. 6, 2001, that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) wanted to launch attacks inside the United States.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by jwd
Please don't politicize this!!

You mean any more so than Bushco has been doing since it happened and the RNC holding their convention in New York City? That should be some interesting television.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by jwd
Please don't politicize this!!

You mean any more so than Bushco has been doing since it happened and the RNC holding their convention in New York City? That should be some interesting television.

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by jwd
You guys on the 9/11 Commission? :laugh: What a joke. This is supposed to be a non partisan commission?! Tell me that that asshole Bob Kerrey doesn't have an agenda. He was too busy going on about his "swatting at flies" diatribe to even listen to Condi answer. She testifies to give answers to questions and then a few of the commissioners want to put words in her mouth. Incredible! Honestly, I thought she did real well and handled herself very professionally. I hope that the real purpose of the commision is achieved and that is to find out what went wrong and to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Please don't politicize this!!

Well, she did her own fair share of side-stepping and talking around the anser to the yes no questions. IMO, this hearing should have had no live audience as all people concerned were playing to it. It should, however have been televised or at least the transcript made available.

Interestingly, CR did everything but admit the bucj stopped at her and she screwed up, which she did. i mean if she'd have just said that or something like it, then explained why she screwed up, and then that she was working as hard as she could never to let it happen again - all in three or four sentences, one of which included "the buck stops with ME and I am sorry to letting you down," many more people would be applauding her in and outside of that room. I mean clearly her office made a huge mistake, so why not have the nads to admit it. I think that is why alot of people are pissed at her or at least have lost respect for her even though they realize as she said "their was no silver bullet" that could have stopped the 9/11 attacks. I mean it was her job to find that silver bullet and the information was available if she, or anyone else for that matter, had been wise enough to connect the dots and with a little luck.

[strandinthewind]

from Cynthia Tucker in the AJC (www.ajc.com)

Bush speaks of truth, but doesn't tell it

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/11/2004


"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."

-- Vice President Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003


As a candidate, President Bush pledged to restore integrity to the White House. Against the backdrop of President Clinton's repeated lies about a sordid adulterous affair, Bush ran on his claims to be a man of strong character -- a politician of plain speaking and straight talk. He wouldn't lie to us.

Yet, this administration has produced more dissembling and distortion, more fabrications and pseudo-facts than any White House in recent memory -- Richard Nixon's included. The Bu****es lie brazenly and repeatedly, refusing to back down even when caught in the web of their own contradictions.

The falsehoods aren't limited to Iraq. In domestic policy Bush administration officials have shaded the truth, spread lies and even threatened underlings who believed in a moral obligation to honesty.

As just one example, the chief Medicare actuary, Richard S. Foster, has said his supervisor, Thomas Scully (who recently joined an Atlanta-based law firm that lobbies on behalf of hospitals and drug companies), threatened to fire him if Foster revealed to Congress the true costs of the proposed prescription drug benefit for Medicare. While the administration was ramming the costly benefit through Congress -- promising that its price would be no more than $400 billion over 10 years -- Foster had calculated the actual cost at between $500 billion and $600 billion, figures the White House disclosed after the bill passed.

But there is no area that better demonstrates the Orwellian quality of the Bush administration -- its insistence that black is white, up is down, war is peace -- than its deceptions about Iraq. Testimony under oath before the Sept. 11 commission and the Iraq uprising make increasingly clear that the central underpinning of the president's re-election campaign -- that he has conducted a tough-minded war on terror -- stands the truth on its head.

In fact, ousting Saddam Hussein has been a costly diversion from the war on terror. The Bu****es came into office obsessed with Saddam, and when they could find no evidence that he represented an immediate threat, they simply manufactured it.

Now, our troops are trapped in a quagmire. Osama bin Laden is still at large. And the occupation of Iraq cannot help but breed a new generation of terrorists: Every time U.S. soldiers hit a mosque with mortars or strafe a carload of civilians mistaken for insurgents, another dozen teenage boys in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Iran become America-hating jihadists.

Bush and his underlings lie when there is no reason to. In response to Richard A. Clarke's charge that his administration didn't view the al-Qaida threat as urgent, the president might simply have agreed and apologized. Few Americans would hold him responsible for failing to anticipate an attack as evil in its creation and brazen in its execution as Sept. 11.

Besides, Bush had already admitted his failure to forecast the immediacy of the al-Qaida menace. In "Bush at War," published last year, Bob Woodward quoted the president as saying he "didn't feel that sense of urgency" about bin Laden before the attacks.

Nevertheless, the administration greeted Clarke's charges with character assassination and fabrications. Vice President Dick Cheney went on Rush Limbaugh's radio show to dismiss Clarke as "out of the loop," a characterization National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was forced to refute, since Clarke was at the center of the administration's anti-terrorism efforts.

The entire premise of the Bush presidency -- that he is a man of principle, of honor, of candor -- is crumbling. The chaos engulfing Iraq is not just the result of guileless miscalculations. It is the inevitable outcome of a policy built on mendacity.

[jwd]

Here's a link to Condi's opening statement to the 9/11 Commission in case anyone wants to read it. :)


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040408.html

[dissention]

Originally posted by jwd
Here's a link to Condi's opening statement to the 9/11 Commission in case anyone wants to read it. :)


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040408.html

I watched it once and I can only vomit once a week. :laugh: :wavey:

[jwd]

dissention:

I watched it once and I can only vomit once a week.

Then by all means click on that link dammit! :D :wavey:

[jwd]

strandinthewind:

I think that is why alot of people are pissed at her or at least have lost respect for her even though they realize as she said "their was no silver bullet" that could have stopped the 9/11 attacks.


Quite the contrary, people view her more favorably now then before her testimony at the 9/11 Commission.

From dissention's thread "Polls: Rice testimony Changed Few Minds":

"Two-thirds of those who watched, 64 percent, said they have a favorable impression of Rice — slightly higher than her overall favorable rating among all those polled and higher than the 50 percent who viewed her favorably in a March Gallup poll."



:wavey:

[strandinthewind]

touche' jwd - touche' :laugh: :cool:

[strandinthewind]

Please tell me you people saw Saturday Night Live last night!!!!!!!!!

in sum and from foxnews.com

NEW YORK, New York — It was inevitable: Janet Jackson spoofing her infamous wardrobe malfunction by flashing a heavily pixillated breast on "Saturday Night Live." The one surprise was the context. Jackson portrayed national security adviser Condoleezza Rice opening her blouse at the Sept. 11 commission hearings, in an opening skit on the comedy show.

The skit showed Vice President Dick Cheney, played by Darrell Hammond, suggesting Rice should "flash a boob" to distract the public from her testimony.

"Just one headlight, real quick," he said. "It does two things. You win over the liberals, plus, it's a distraction for the press. I guarantee that's going to be the headline, not the bin Laden thing."

Jackson, as Rice, huffily refuses.

"I am not a prude, sir, but this hearing is not the forum for that kind of lewd conduct," she said. "There are other forums, like pay television or national sporting championships. That would be fine, but I am the national security adviser."

Cheney reluctantly agreed. "It was Ashcroft's idea," he said.

The scene shifted to the commission hearing. Rice, tongue-tied under questioning, opened her blouse and pretended to reveal her right breast — the same one seen by millions of Super Bowl viewers during her halftime performance.

This time, the breast was heavily blurred by the network.

Jackson was the guest host and musical guest on "Saturday Night Live."


_______________________________

[jwd]

strandinthewind:

Please tell me you people saw Saturday Night Live last night!!!!!!!!!


:cool: Yep, I saw it. :lol: My God, those facial expressions of Janet's...kind of like a beaver on X? I dunno.

[jwd]

By Clifford D. May
National Review Online
April 8, 2004
Web site: http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200404081530.asp


Condoleezza Rice testifies before the 9/11 commission
Give Condoleezza Rice credit for candor. Testifying before the 9/11 Commission today, President Bush's national-security adviser acknowledged that the United States "simply was not on a war footing" at the time the terrorist atrocities of 9/11 were committed.

When should the U.S. government have taken the threat of radical, ideological Islamism seriously? Perhaps as far back as 1979, when our embassy in Tehran was seized by Iranian theocrats; perhaps as far back as 1983 when Hezbollah suicide terrorists slaughtered hundreds of U.S. Marines and diplomats in Beirut; certainly as far back as the attacks over Lockerbie, at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the USS Cole.

But that's not what happened. Instead, one American administration after another, Democratic and Republican alike, made gestures, sent signals, and mobilized lawyers armed with subpoenas. The terrorists and their masters could only have been amused. Yes, it would have been brilliant had President Bush entered the Oval Office, looked at this pattern and quickly concluded: "From this moment on, defeating terrorism and the ideologies driving terrorism should be seen as America's top priority. I want these networks rolled up ASAP. Use whatever means necessary."

Actually, President Bush came close to saying that. He asked for a policy review and a comprehensive strategy. But even had Dr. Rice — or counterterrorism "czar" Richard Clarke — come up with such a plan within 24 hours, President Bush could not have implemented it during his first eight months in office. The U.S. government simply did not have the means at its disposal. Consider:


The FBI's mission and culture stressed solving crimes, not preventing them.


The intelligence community didn't have good enough intelligence — which led, for example, to Clinton bombing a Sudanese aspirin factory a few years earlier, thinking it was a WMD factory.


The Pentagon didn't know much about terrorists — the Defense Department's manual on fighting "small wars" was written in 1940.


The Foreign Service hadn't prepared the ground — Pakistan was still cozy with the Taliban and would not have permitted the U.S. to mount acts of war from their territory. Key foreign-service officers were still supporting what they called "moderate" Taliban elements.


The Immigration and Naturalization Service was too hopeless a muddle to distinguish between tourists eager to see the Statue of Liberty and terrorists eager to mass murder infidels.


And Congress — Democrats, for sure, but also such Republican mandarins as Senators Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar — would have been apoplectic had President Bush attempted to take any of the measures necessary to root out the long-established weeds of terrorism. Imagine the uproar had Bush begun assassinating terrorist leaders around the world or preemptively invaded Afghanistan.

Instead, of course, as Condoleezza Rice made clear today, the new Bush administration did the reasonable thing, the responsible thing, the bipartisan thing: It maintained continuity. It sailed the course set by President Clinton, and it even used key members of the Clinton crew.

George Tenet was retained as director of Central Intelligence. Dick Clarke kept his job as White House terrorism adviser. Others who might have expected to receive pink slips were instead given a pat on the back and told to keep up the good work. A Democrat — Norman Mineta — was named secretary of transportation, the Cabinet position most responsible for airline safety.

President Roosevelt waited until after World War II to put in place a commission to investigate what mistakes led to Pearl Harbor. That was a wise move, but then Roosevelt did not face the kind of hyper-partisanship that plagues America these days. (Washington Post columnist David Broder recently pointed out that when FDR ran for reelection during World War II, he emphasized his record as a war leader. Broder might have added that FDR's Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, declined to criticize the president in regard to foreign policy during a time of war. It's almost hard to believe that there was a time when Americans knew the difference between their foreign enemies and their political adversaries.)

Increasingly, it seems the 9/11 Commission is losing its way. Its mission is to learn lessons — not to lay blame. Its mission is to come up with recommendations for a more effective antiterrorism strategy.

Its mission is not to stage a reality-TV show, not to hold an inquisition, not to promote books (and, no doubt, movie deals), not to call scold Rice as though she were a student who claimed her dog had eaten her homework.

But that's what the public is seeing out here in TV-land.

— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.