I guess a president is better off being the laziest president ever (Bush) as accounted by the fact that he's taken more time off then any other president in history. Hey, maybe if Bush wasn't paying so much attention to BBQ's in Texas and actually had a single meeting about Bin Laden they would have smelled a rat....
Glenn Greenwald writes well... Here are some of the quotes Greenwald found... GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, speech on the Senate floor October 6, 1993 I supported our original mission, which was humanitarian in nature and limited in scope. I can no longer support a continued United States presence in Somalia because the nature of the mission is now unrealistic and because the scope of our mission is now limitless. . . . Mr. President, it is no small feat for a superpower to accept setback on the world stage, but a step backward is sometimes the wisest course. I believe that withdrawal is now the more prudent option. GOP Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, speech on the Senate floor, October 6, 1993 Mr. President, the mission is accomplished in Somalia. The humanitarian aid has been delivered to those who were starving. The mission is not nation building, which is what now is being foisted upon the American people. The United States has no interest in the civil war in Somalia and as this young soldier told me, if the Somalis are now healthy enough to be fighting us, then it is absolutely time that we go home. . . It is time for the Senate of the United States to get on with the debate, to get on with the vote, and to get the American troops home. GOP Minority Leader Sen. Robert Dole, Senate speech, October 5, 1993 I think it is clear to say from the meeting we had earlier with--I do not know how many Members were there--45, 50 Senators and half the House of Representatives, that the administration is going to be under great pressure to bring the actions in Somalia to a close. . . . GOP Sen. Jesse Helms, Senate floor speech October 6, 1993: All of which means that I support the able Senator from West Virginia--who, by the way, was born in North Carolina--Senator Robert C. Byrd, and others in efforts to bring an end to this tragic situation. The United States did its best to deliver aid and assistance to the victims of chaos in Somalia as promised by George Bush last December. But now we find ourselves involved there in a brutal war, in an urban environment, with the hands of our young soldiers tied behind their backs, under the command of a cumbersome U.N. bureaucracy, and fighting Somalia because we tried to extend helping hands to the starving people of that far-off land. Mr. President, the United States has no constitutional authority, as I see it, to sacrifice U.S. soldiers to Boutros-Ghali's vision of multilateral peacemaking. Again, I share the view of Senator Byrd that the time to get out is now. President Clinton's speech, on October 8, 1993, arguing against withdrawal And make no mistake about it, if we were to leave Somalia tomorrow, other nations would leave, too. Chaos would resume, the relief effort would stop and starvation soon would return. That knowledge has led us to continue our mission. . . . If we leave them now, those embers will reignite into flames and people will die again. If we stay a short while longer and do the right things, we've got a reasonable chance of cooling off the embers and getting other firefighters to take our place. . . So, now, we face a choice. Do we leave when the job gets tough or when the job is well done? Do we invite the return of mass suffering or do we leave in a way that gives the Somalis a decent chance to survive? Recently, Gen. Colin Powell said this about our choices in Somalia: "Because things get difficult, you don't cut and run. You work the problem and try to find a correct solution." . . . So let us finish the work we set out to do. Let us demonstrate to the world, as generations of Americans have done before us, that when Americans take on a challenge, they do the job right. Sen. John Kerry, Senate floor speech, 10/7/93, supporting Clinton's anti-withdrawal position But, Mr. President, I must say I have also been jarred by the reactions of many of our colleagues in the U.S. Senate and in the Congress. I am jarred by the extraordinary sense of panic that seems to be rushing through this deliberative body, and by the strident cries for a quick exit, an immediate departure notwithstanding the fact that what we are doing in Somalia does not bear any resemblance to Grenada, to Panama, to Iraq, and most importantly, to Vietnam. . . . We must recognize that any decision that we make about Somalia is not just a decision to get our troops home. It is not just a decision about looking out for the interests of the United States. There are extraordinary ramifications attached to the choice that we make in the next days in the Congress and in this country. . . . Mr. President, we are in a situation now where withdrawal would send the wrong signal to Aidid and his supporters. It would encourage other nations to withdraw from the U.N. effort in Somalia and no doubt would result in the total breakdown of the operation and possibly the resumption of the cycle of famine and war which brought the United States and other members of the international community to Somalia in the first place. Rightly or wrongly, the Bush administration committed us to this operation. We, as a nation, have accepted this responsibility. We should not panic and flee when the going gets rough. If we are going to withdraw, we have an obligation to do so in a responsible manner, in a way that does not undermine the operation or leave the Somali people to a worse fate. I think the President's plan, as currently outlined, will allow us to step aside responsibly. New York Times article, October 6, 1993, by then-reporter Thomas Friedman As hundreds of additional United States troops with special weapons and aircraft began heading to Somalia, a wave of hostility toward the widening operation swept Congress. . . . But Mr. Aspin and Mr. Christopher were besieged by skeptical lawmakers, who scorched them with demands for a clear road map for an exit from Somalia, coupled with bitter complaints that the policy goals were unclear or unrealistic. It is not clear whether the critics can assemble sufficient votes to pass a law requiring Mr. Clinton to stop the operation. But Congressional anxiety, already high, has been fueled by a wave of constituents' telephone calls reflecting outrage over the prospect of a new hostage crisis, and television pictures of Somali crowds dragging a dead American servicemen through the streets. . . . Mr. Christopher said the United States wanted to withdraw its forces when possible, "but not before our job is done of providing some security." New York Times, October 6, 1993 A wave of hostility toward the military operation in Somalia swept Congress today, forcing the White House to send two Cabinet secretaries to Capitol Hill to try to calm critics and plead for additional time to formulate a new policy. "It's Vietnam all over again," said Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, who is in a group of conservatives calling for quick withdrawal from Somalia. . . . Mr. McCain, a prisoner of war in the Vietnam War, said of Mohammed Farah Aidid, who has been blamed for attacks on United Nations peacekeepers: "We should tell Mr. Aidid that we want the Americans back. Otherwise he will pay sooner or later. Then we should come home." All from http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/who-wanted-to-cut-and-run-from-somalia.html
Thanks for taking the time to post in this forum to declare the fact that you're above posting in this forum.
i for one have been losing sleep wondering if chase cared about us. well, i won't lose anymore sleep but my heart is broken.
By the way, it just ocurred to me... "Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard. But that doesn't matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness." --Richard Clarke "I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try." --Bill Clinton Who's missing?
Olbermann’s Special Comment: Are YOURS the actions of a true American? By: Nicole Belle on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 6:30 PM - PDT http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/...rs-the-actions-of-a-true-american/#more-10525 Keith pulled no punches and launched another smack down on Bush and FOX News… And finally tonight, a Special Comment about President Clinton’s interview. The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong. It is not essential that a past President, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back. It is not important that the current President’s "portable public chorus" has described his predecessor’s tone as "crazed." Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as Al-Qaeda; the nation’s "marketplace of ideas" is being poisoned, by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit. Nonetheless. The headline is this: Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done, in five years. He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration. "At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried." Thus in his supposed emeritus years, has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by anyone, in these last five long years. The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama Bin Laden before 9/11. The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors. The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S." The Bush Administration… did… not… try.— Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest "pass" for incompetence and malfeasance, in American history! President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs — some of them, 17 years old — before Pearl Harbor. President Hoover was correctly blamed for — if not the Great Depression itself — then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash. Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War — though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832. But not this President. To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been President on September 11th, 2001 — or the nearly eight months that preceded it. That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the Executive. But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now. Except… for this: After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts — that he was President on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s. Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly. As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy. Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News, Friday afternoon. Consider the timing: The very same weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is — not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it! The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat. It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired — but a propagandist, promoted: Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless. And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for "e-mailing" you the question. Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen. He told the great truth un-told… about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about Bin Laden. He was brave. Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I — in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist — and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail. The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon. Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company’s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush’s new and improved history. The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11. The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it — who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews — have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw. Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for Bin Laden in 1998 because of the Lewinsky nonsense — why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed Bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on August 20th of that year? For mentioning Bin Laden by name as he did so? That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog." Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment. Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri — the future Attorney General — echoed Coats. Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing. And of course, were it true Clinton had been "distracted" by the Lewinsky witch-hunt — who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt? Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years? Who corrupted the political media? Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here? Who preempted them… in order to strangle us with the trivia that was… "All Monica All The Time"? Who… distracted whom? This is, of course, where — as is inevitable — Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are. The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four. But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you. The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton… but by the same people who got you… elected President. Thus instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it… we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently redd the Orwell playbook too quickly. Thus instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since — a statement that might range anywhere from Zero, to One Hundred Percent, true. We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything. And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush — you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles… wrong. Thus was it left for the previous President to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack: You did not try. You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor. You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people. Then, you blamed your predecessor. That would be the textbook definition… Sir, of cowardice. To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past. That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair — writing as George Orwell — gave us in the novel "1984." The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me. "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power… "Power is not a means; it is an end. "One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. "The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power." Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862. "We must disenthrall ourselves." Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence. He might well have. "We must disenthrall ourselves — and then… we shall save our country." And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date… to save… our… country. — The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush… You did not act to prevent 9/11. We do not know what you have done, to prevent another 9/11. You have failed us — then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11. You have failed us anew in Afghanistan. And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor. And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture — which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.And there it is, sir: Are yours the actions of a true American? I’m K.O., good night, and good luck.
I wonder if Keith watches Good Night, and Good Luck everyday to get inspired. It's silly in a way, that he sort of channels Murrow, but after I saw that movie I wished I had that type of platform. It's cool...
Keith definitely is inspired by Murrow, and is a talented writer in his own right. That's why he ends all his shows with Murrow's sign-off of "Good Night and Good Luck." The GOP is really on the defensive now. Condi Rice came out to try and say how active they were during the 8 months before 9-11, but she didn't offer any specifics. Rice claimed that they were at least as active in terrorism as Clinton had been in the years prior. The administration really seems to be smarting from that smack down, that Clinton gave.
As a Bush supporter, you're probably just afraid to admit you and the rest of the religious right were suckered. I'd feel the same way if I were in your shoes.
Sometimes he ends with the number of days it's been since George Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished." At first I thought his attacks were harsh on Chris Wallace, but I saw an interview Wallace gave today about his own interview and I pretty much agree with Olbermann. The guy has no journalistic credibility, even as that phrase grows less and less relevant by the day.
