White House Puts Limits on Queries From Democrats

do you think dean can win florida?

 

I just don't see it that way. These candidates are so far cocked to the leftward side of the dial that it is nearly impossible for them to take the center. And as history as shown in recent years, those Dems who run as liberals will get stomped. It will be Mondale, Dukakis, McGovern all over again. For the Dems, it's a shame they aren't smart enough to listen to the warning words of Zell Miller, because he has a point. They've become a party of the fringe, a crazy quilt of different single-minded interest groups thrown together under a joint banner.

 

This is also a good description of the Republican party.

 

I think it would make for a very fun game to come up with something that Bush could do that some of his supporters in here wouldn't either ignore or excuse. Seriously, I doubt that it would be an easy task.

 

I hope they get tired of giving stupid answers and start giving intelligent ones soon. Goodness knows we've waited long enough.

 

do you think dean can win florida?

I think it's too early to say, but I think it would be harder for him than Kerry.

I just don't see it that way. These candidates are so far cocked to the leftward side of the dial that it is nearly impossible for them to take the center. And as history as shown in recent years, those Dems who run as liberals will get stomped. It will be Mondale, Dukakis, McGovern all over again.

Because people don't pay attention to the race this early, its pretty easy to go from left in the primaries to moderate for the general election. Bush went from centrist in Texas to the right in the primaries back to centrist in the election back to the right after getting elected.

 

i think the far harder task would be to get some of his detractors (glynch, gvegan, pgabriel, etc.) to say they agreed with him on anything.

my contribution- he shouldn't have run up the deficit, and he sold out on his education plan.

 

It's about time the whitehouse stopped being accountable. Nobody should be able to question them, I don't care which party tries it. In the grand scheme of things the move from this whitehouse towards totalianism has been slight. But it has been more than any administration in at least four decades. There are records not being turned over to congress, experts fired from committees when the administration didn't like their scientific findings, and replaced by those with political bias similar to the presidents. There has been the Patriot acts and statements by Ashcroft that he'd like to do away the process of getting approval from a judge before acting. There has been the propoganda in order to build support for the war. There was the refusal to turn over minutes from the meetings Cheney had with the energy people, there was the no-bid contracts for Iraq, I'm sure there are other things that I can't remember off the top of my head, and now they are refusing to take questions from the democratic party?

 

I know. It still baffles me that few of Bush's supporters if any are alarmed that there is a criminal who has committed a felony loose in the whitehouse. This felon leaked calssified information, possibly detrimental to our national security, and they did so during a time of war when our troops are in the field. The felon still has security access to more sensitive intel information, and very high security clearance. Even our military or ex-military posters haven't seemed to be at all bothered by this.

We know that a crime has committed and there are a finite amount of possible suspects. The Whiteshouse should do more to find that person, and see that justice is carried out. Perhaps Ashcroft should use the Patriot act to put all the suspects in custody until we can find out who the felon, responsible for breeching the laws in regard to our country's national defense.

 

In fairness, there are a couple here who are more disturbed by that as yet unsolved incident then anything else that has come up.

(although I can't understand why more Republicans on this board aren't very disturbed by the distinct trend of this Administration, which has been discussed here at length... I know several Republicans who are going to vote against Bush if the Democrats run a moderate who comes across as a reasonable alternative. they may not vote at all if that doesn't happen... they are that upset with Bush for a variety of reasons)

 

I think it was Mad Max who admitted that this disturbed him. I guess I was most shocked, and simultaneously most not shocked by Treeman or Bamma not being disturbed by the occurance. I'm not really asking for any kind of head count on who exactly is or isn't disturbed by it. I'm just surprised that more people arnen't.

 

that's fair of you, basso. And for what it's worth, greenvegan and pgabriel et al. have (I believe) agree with Bush on certain items. Many of us applaud his initiative vs. AIDS in Africa, and many of us supported deposing the Taliban.

To Macbeth's credit, however, I think he has a point. *Some* (not you) on this board would, for instance, spin the following scenario.

Imaginary fact: Bush is seen by hundreds of bystanders near a Crawford parade as he runs over a jeering pedestrian and then backs over the detractor slowly and repeatedly.

big_texxx (or whomever): "Obviously, the presidential transmission is having significant trouble, and the fringe fanatical Bush-haters will stop at nothing to make the incredible leap to a conclusion that he intentionally killed this pedestrian, who was, by the way, an obviously useless waste of flesh and deserved to die anyway."

 

C'mon guys, they're not Nazis. Afterall, Hitler said "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer!" Here's the current version...

"Ein Partei, Ein Fuhrer, Ayn Rand!"

Please note the obvious differences and flog yourselves for misusing historical analogies.

 

Hey, someone spiked Time magazine's archives, guess it didn't fit the New Truth. Just so this doesn't disappear because Big Brother made it so here's a copy:


http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/bushsr-iraq.htm



"Why We Didn't Remove Saddam"

George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft
Time (2 March 1998)

The end of effective Iraqi resistance came with a rapidity which surprised us all, and we were perhaps psychologically unprepared for the sudden transition from fighting to peacemaking. True to the guidelines we had established, when we had achieved our strategic objectives (ejecting Iraqi forces from Kuwait and eroding Saddam's threat to the region) we stopped the fighting. But the necessary limitations placed on our objectives, the fog of war, and the lack of "battleship Missouri" surrender unfortunately left unresolved problems, and new ones arose.

We were disappointed that Saddam's defeat did not break his hold on power, as many of our Arab allies had predicted and we had come to expect. President Bush repeatedly declared that the fate of Saddam Hussein was up to the Iraqi people. Occasionally, he indicated that removal of Saddam would be welcome, but for very practical reasons there was never a promise to aid an uprising. While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

We discussed at length forcing Saddam himself to accept the terms of Iraqi defeat at Safwan--just north of the Kuwait-Iraq border--and thus the responsibility and political consequences for the humiliation of such a devastating defeat. In the end, we asked ourselves what we would do if he refused. We concluded that we would be left with two options: continue the conflict until he backed down, or retreat from our demands. The latter would have sent a disastrous signal. The former would have split our Arab colleagues from the coalition and, de facto, forced us to change our objectives. Given those unpalatable choices, we allowed Saddam to avoid personal surrender and permitted him to send one of his generals. Perhaps we could have devised a system of selected punishment, such as air strikes on different military units, which would have proved a viable third option, but we had fulfilled our well-defined mission; Safwan was waiting.

As the conflict wound down, we felt a sense of urgency on the part of the coalition Arabs to get it over with and return to normal. This meant quickly withdrawing U.S. forces to an absolute minimum. Earlier there had been some concern in Arab ranks that once they allowed U.S. forces into the Middle East, we would be there to stay. Saddam's propaganda machine fanned these worries. Our prompt withdrawal helped cement our position with our Arab allies, who now trusted us far more than they ever had. We had come to their assistance in their time of need, asked nothing for ourselves, and left again when the job was done. Despite some criticism of our conduct of the war, the Israelis too had their faith in us solidified. We had shown our ability--and willingness--to intervene in the Middle East in a decisive way when our interests were challenged. We had also crippled the military capability of one of their most bitter enemies in the region. Our new credibility (coupled with Yasser Arafat's need to redeem his image after backing the wrong side in the war) had a quick and substantial payoff in the form of a Middle East peace conference in Madrid.

The Gulf War had far greater significance to the emerging post-cold war world than simply reversing Iraqi aggression and restoring Kuwait. Its magnitude and significance impelled us from the outset to extend our strategic vision beyond the crisis to the kind of precedent we should lay down for the future. From an American foreign-policymaking perspective, we sought to respond in a manner which would win broad domestic support and which could be applied universally to other crises. In international terms, we tried to establish a model for the use of force. First and foremost was the principle that aggression cannot pay. If we dealt properly with Iraq, that should go a long way toward dissuading future would-be aggressors. We also believed that the U.S. should not go it alone, that a multilateral approach was better. This was, in part, a practical matter. Mounting an effective military counter to Iraq's invasion required the backing and bases of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.

 

Looks like Congress is fighting back a bit...
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White House clampdown termed ‘stupid’
By Geoff Earle
The Hill

A White House effort to reduce inquiries from the appropriations committees has fallen flat with the appropriators.

“The word stupid comes to mind,” said Jim Dyer, the House Appropriations Committee’s Republican staff director, referring to the White House plan.

Dyer was responding to a recent Washington Post report about an e-mail from the director of the White House Office of Administration to the House and Senate Appropriations committees. The e-mail focused on the number of requests for information how money is spent.

“I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in writing from the committee,” wrote Timothy A. Campen, the director of the office.

Democrats on the committee viewed that as an effort to stifle inquiries such as one asking how much the White House spent to make a “Mission Accomplished” banner for President Bush’s speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. But appropriators long have used such queries as a way to ensure that the administration spends money as Congress intended.

“During the day, I hear a lot of dumb stuff,” Dyer added. “You’ve got to put that to the top of the line.” He indicated that it would be a good idea for the White House to drop an idea that he termed “stupid beyond belief.”

“We can play this game with them, and we can make them put every request in writing. It will [be] to their benefit” to drop it, he said.

But the White House said the e-mail is part of “back and forth” communications with Capitol Hill to improve the procedure for congressional inquiries. Whoever leaked it made it appear that the White House was issuing an “edict” to the Hill, which was not the case, the White House spokesman said.

A GOP aide said yesterday that appropriations staffers had talked to the administration about the issue, saying, “We can work something out.

Democrats — who rely on customary minority rights to put pressure on the administration — jumped on the issue last Friday. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) proposed an amendment to an Internet bill Friday stating that the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse.

Her resolution expressed the sense of the Senate that the White House should respond to requests by members of Congress from both parties about public expenditures.

Minority Whip Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the amendment might be accepted by unanimous consent.