If Saddam tells us he has no weapons of mass destruction, he's lying and we must invade and occupy Iraq. If Saddam tells us he has weapons of mass destruction, he's lying and we must invade and occupy Iraq. I don't think this is a "credibility of Saddam" issue; it's a "Let's find anything to justify invading and occupying Iraq" issue.
Jorge, it is 12:35 here and I just woke up. I didn't disappear. I also think I hardly owe you an immediate response to a bogus argument when you pathologically run away from the solid arguments I've made against your positions. The various threads you disappeared from after I slapped you around like the midget you are are about a week old now. And I actually made points in those thread that directly refuted your arguments. Having nothing left to say you whimpered away into a corner to invent new, characteristically weak assaults. Like this one. I'm not sure why this latest deserves a response anyway. It's a months-old argument that is only made these days by the most stubborn of the most ridiculous pro-war crowd. You're like one of those guys hiding out in the jungles of Vietnam unaware the war's been over for decades. So your big, bad argument is that if I didn't believe the administration about WMD's I'm a Saddam backer? Is Brent Scowcroft one too? Is Eagleburger? Is the nearly 50% of the country who wanted more proof before the SOTU in which we were most extremely misled by the president? Is the 40% or so who now believe the war wasn't worth it? Is David Kay? Is John McCain? I guess half of this country, the vast majority of Democrats and a handful of respected Republicans (who favored the war based on bad or manipulated intel) just loooove Saddam. Yeah, I guess that's the only explanation. I can understand why you guys used that silly argument months ago. Using it now is positively inane though. Of course I'm not inclined to take Saddam at his word. That doesn't mean that every time Saddam says one thing and Bush says another I have to believe Bush to prove I'm not a Saddam lover. There are not only two ways here. The hilarious thing is that you raise this long since rotten argument at a time when it has never been more clear that my position was right and yours was wrong. David freaking Kay and John motherlovin McCain are both calling for investigations now to find out why the "intelligence" that inspired this war was WRONG. And you're still calling people Saddam backers for agreeing with what Kay and McCain are saying. You and Dick Cheney are the ones living in spider holes of denial. But saying something over and over, with no regard for the truth, does not make it so. After weeks of being schooled by me I remain amazed that this is the best you could come up with. It is an argument so weak that even Cheney has backed off it in recent days and not one self-respecting Republican would still float it. I have to believe this is one of those cases where you're just kidding (brilliantly convenient out). I mean, I really don't think you're r****ded and that's the only other possible explanation.
And glynch and andymoon: Shame on you guys for thinking I'd 'run away' from such an idiotic post. Where was the argument? There was nothing to run away from. I fully addressed Jorge's 'point' in my first post to him before he accused me of dodging -- an idea premised on the fact that I didn't directly explain to him why I loved Saddam. It was akin to me posting that Jorge was gay, him responding that he likes women not men and me replying, "nice dodge, you still didn't explain why you're gay." It's been about 13 hours since Jorge posted that latest why do you love Saddam thing. I spent five minutes last night laughing about it, three hours reading other stuff on the net and working and nine hours sleeping. And then I responded, though it deserved no response. The biggest coward on the board accuses me of cowardice and you say glass houses? I've never run away from a fight here and I never will. If someone bests me in an argument (and it's really not that hard to do), I'll admit it. Jorge has never come close.
I didn't think you ran away as I am a witness to the b**** slapping you regularly give to t_j. In fact, one of the only reasons that t_j hasn't made my ignore list is so that I CAN witness your regular drubbings. Actually, what I should have said was pot and kettle because I meant to tell t_j that he shouldn't accuse people of running away from an argument when he is the KING of running away once facts and logic are brought in. Sorry I wan't clearer.
I didn't think it was that obscure, but then I am sleep deprived lately. Getting a little better, though.
Philly editorial... _______________ A 9/11 COVER UP? WHY WON'T BUSH COOPERATE WITH INVESTIGATORS? THE WHITE House doesn't want to give the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the 60 more days that it says it needs to finish its report. Republicans are worried that a two-month extension would inject - shudder - politics into the Sept. 11 tragedy. The report would be released in July, in the middle of the presidential campaign. As a shocked, but unidentified Republican congressional aide told the New York Times, "The Democrats will spin and spin." Excuse us? Where is the Republican convention scheduled? Uh, New York? And when? Aug. 30-Sept. 2, later than most political conventions, but as close as possible to the third anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center. And wasn't that President Bush framing his entire State of the Union address around the warning that "It is tempting to believe that the danger [of a terrorist attack on our soil] is behind us"? Of course, the president's answer was an exhortation to not "turn back" and to re-elect him to keep us safe. It apparently is not to find out once and for all what mistakes were made that allowed Sept. 11 to happen in the first place - and what changes in policies and procedures should be made to prevent it from happening again. It was the Bush administration, remember, that resisted mightily the creation of this commission and then appointed the wildly inappropriate Henry Kissinger to be its chair. When Kissinger was forced to withdraw for a gazillion conflicts of interest, the well-respected Tom Kean, former governor of New Jersey and a Republican, took over. Then the Bush White House proceeded to stonewall, not turning over documents until subpoenaed. But why? Do they know something about the runup to Sept. 11 that we don't know? It's already clear that the commission has found evidence to suggest that the terrorist attacks were not inevitable. Members of Congress who oppose extending the deadline need to explain why they don't want the whole story. Otherwise, you won't need Democrats to spin and spin the fact that the administration has something to hide, something big.
It would be sickening if George gets a second term when he should have been impeached before 2002 came around. But maybe I should be grateful. If Bush goes, Cheney steps in. Dick Cheney, the world's only living heart donor.
Bush finally caves on this. Not without being a two faced liar, though. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040204/pl_nm/security_commission_dc_3 . . . "We are pleased to support their request for an extension and we urge Congress to act quickly to extend that timetable" by 60 days, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. Some lawmakers wanted to delay release of the commission's potentially damaging report until after the November presidential election. The White House had until now resisted calls from the commission to approve any extension, arguing it should finish its work on schedule. But pressure has been mounting on the White House to back down -- from relatives of Sept. 11 victims and the commission itself. Members of the panel have complained that the administration has been slow to provide the documents they need. . . . We would have to almost triple the funding for the 9/11 commission to equal the Starr adultery investigation. http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion...0,5878621.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines . . . Here's a fact: In the 1990s, the Republicans in Congress gave Kenneth Starr five years and more than $47 million to fish around in a vast bucket of allegations until he could catch President Bill Clinton in one of the most embarrassing sexual liaisons in all of recorded human history. The policy implications of the exercise were nil. Yet today - 2 1/2 years after thousands died at the hands of terrorists on 9/11 - the Republican White House and Congress are willing to spend just $14 million on an 18-month inquiry to find out what went wrong. And even then, the White House is slow-walking the proceedings. The independent 9/11 commission, chaired by former Gov. Thomas Kean of New Jersey, has found that it is easier to wrest meat from the jaws of a tiger than to pull pertinent records from the White House and other bailiwicks of the federal bureaucracy. The White House understands that if it can just delay things long enough, the whole pesky inquiry will evaporate by law in May. . . .
Cover up. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4437913&pageNumber=0 Hastert Tells W.House He Won't Extend 9/11 Panel Wed Feb 25, 2004 02:45 PM ET By Adam Entous WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a blow to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has told the White House and fellow Republicans that he will not bring up legislation to extend its May 27 deadline, officials said on Wednesday. President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, personally had appealed to Speaker Dennis Hastert to reconsider, and the Illinois Republican met on Wednesday with Bush at the White House. But the speaker's spokesman, John Feehery, said Hastert told the White House and members of the House Republican conference that "it's a bad idea to extend the commission and ... that we're not going to bring any legislation up." The commission wants a 60-day extension through July 26 to complete its final report on the attacks. Despite initial objections, Bush backed the extension and the Senate is moving forward with legislation. But Hastert cast serious doubt on its prospects for passage in the Republican-controlled House. "He thinks the (commission's) report is overdue and we need to get the recommendations as soon as possible. He is also concerned it will become a political football if this thing is extended and it is released in the middle of the presidential campaign," Feehery said. The commission says it needs the extra 60 days to complete hundreds of interviews and review millions of documents. It issued a public appeal on Wednesday to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to reconsider their opposition to meeting with the full panel. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice has also refused to testify publicly on the grounds she is a presidential adviser and not a Senate-confirmed Cabinet officer. Bush and Cheney have only agreed to meet privately with commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton, rather than with the full, 10-member panel. In contrast, former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore have agreed to meet privately with all members of the commission, the panel said. The panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, says it wants to question Rice and other presidential advisers about what the government knew about potential terrorist threats in the months leading up the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. . . .
