Didn't He also say judge not lest ye be judged? nm
Posted By: oldtimer on 2008-11-12
In Reply to: Obviously you don't know much about Christ - sm
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Yeah, and didn't Michelle just tell us to judge Obama on his actions? sm
They finally let her out of her box onto the Larry King show, and that's one of the things she said.
I don't like his actions, one little bit.
He's bamboozled millions of people.
I have judged no one!
Odd that you should make that remark. It seems you had someone of the Jewish persuasian here on this board, maybe two. Why did you not ask them? I see that it was because you were too busy attacking them. Not a judgement, just an observation. And again, defending Israel has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether Jews will go to heaven. I don't follow your logic at all.
Weighed, yes. Judged
We are here at witnesses, not judges.
Now, that's very noble of you and if you have never judged..sm
anything or anyone good for you. But you are coming to the defense of a woman who not only judges people, but is in a position to spread her ideals to millions. You have shown more vigor on this thread than you have on any of the other threads, and I know it was the F-word or maybe even the word devil that got your blood boiling.
You ask about Ward Churchill, and all I can say is it's too bad he feels the way he does about his country. I can't discount his feelings, but it is too bad he feel that way. He was wrong in indicating that the people in the twin towers somehow deserved what they got, dead wrong.
Now one reason why he doesn't bother me as much as Ann is because she has stereotyped *liberals* of which I fall in that category.
yep, and you SHOULD be judged by the friends that
nm
He most certainly will be judged differently -- less harshly!
It rode into the white house on the race card and for a while no one will look past the historical fact that he is the first African-American president. Who cares if he has experience -- he makes pretty speeches and he is an articulate black man. If you are not an Obama supporter and you are critical of his policitics and changes, that same race card will be thrown at you!
Jesus also said "judge not lest ye be judged and let he who is without sin.....sm
cast the first stone. I am not a liberal, I am just not so rash and harsh when it comes to picking and choosing what liberty and freedon is, sometimes you DO have to put your own personal religious beliefs second, stand back, and try to play Solomon.....I am just concerned with true equity, I do not have to carry a banner or an "agenda", only a cherished belief system in my heart and soul, which I practice not only with righteousness, if that is what you want to call it, but with love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, very Christ-like beliefs, as I remember Scripture.
That's how I feel. How dare the victims be judged.sm
while we sit cumfy in front of our PCs and eat popcorn. That kind of stuff makes me SICK!
Will Obama be judged differently because he's black?
I never gave this a thought. The previous incumbent was so poor and Palin scared the bejesus out of me and McCain isn't that much of a maverick and doesn't know squat economically that I never let race enter into my voting decision. For me it was an obvious choice. (Not my first choice but by Nov. my only choice.)
If you read through this cnn.com article, you'll read that blacks who were innovative do feel they're or were held to different standards.
The very fact that this article is worthy of being printed surprises me.
=========================================
(CNN) -- Just days before he was sworn in, President Obama was giving his daughters a tour of the Lincoln Memorial when one of them pointed to a copy of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address carved into the wall.
Obama's 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, told her father that Lincoln's speech was really long. Would he have to give a speech as long? Obama's answer was completed by his older daughter, 10-year-old Malia.
"I said, 'Actually, that one is pretty short. Mine may even be a little longer,' " Obama told CNN recently. "At which point, Malia turns to me and says, 'First African-American president, better be good.' "
The story is light-hearted, but it touches on a delicate question: Will people hold Obama to a different standard because he is the first African-American president?
Americans appear split by race on that answer. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 53 percent of blacks say the American public will hold Obama to a higher standard than past presidents because he is black. Most whites -- 61 percent -- say Obama's race will not matter in how he will be judged.
The question divided several people who were racial pioneers themselves.
Alexander Jefferson was one of the first blacks allowed to become a fighter pilot. He was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of black pilots who escorted bombers in World War II.
"We had to be twice as good to be average," he says.
Obama won't face the same pressures he did because his presidential predecessor was so inept, Jefferson says.
"No, the world is ready for him," he says. "The [George W.] Bush debacle was so depressing."
Jefferson was shot down by ground fire on his 19th mission and spent a year in German prison camps. He wrote about his POW experiences in "Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW."
Jefferson says he dealt with the pressures of being a racial pioneer by drawing on the strength of black leaders who opened doors for him.
"I sit on the backs of everyone who came before me," says Jefferson, who attended Obama's inauguration with other Tuskegee Airmen.
Jefferson says he would have emotionally imploded if he'd thought too much about the pressures of representing all blacks and dealing with the racism he encountered when he returned home to a segregated America after the war.
"I did what I had to do so I didn't go stark-raving mad," he says. "There wasn't all this self-analysis and back and forth. I was too damn busy with a wife, a child and a mortgage."
Michele Andrea Bowen couldn't avoid a bout of constant self-analysis. She was one of the first African-American students admitted to a doctorate program in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"I know Obama is going to be held to a different standard," says Bowen, author of "Up at the College" and books such as "Holy Ghost Corner," which celebrate black faith and culture.
Bowen says she faced relentless scrutiny, and so will Obama.
"You know that it was hard for you to get in it, and you know they're watching you," Bowen says. "And you know that they're judging you by a critical standard that's sometimes not fair."
Bowen says a white classmate, her partner in dissertation, once confided to her that he received the same grades as she did, even though he knew his work was inferior.
"It toughened me up," Bowen says. "It can give you headaches and stomachaches. I learned you have to be thankful that God blessed you with that opportunity. At some point, you stop worrying, and you trust God."
'Would Bush have been president if he were black?'
Perhaps Obama will avoid those stomachaches because of the massive good will his election has generated. But that could change quickly if Obama makes a controversial decision or a mistake, says Andrew Rojecki, co-author of "The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America."
Rojecki says people who say Obama isn't going to be held to a different standard because of his skin color didn't pay attention to his campaign.
He says Obama had to deal with challenges that other candidates didn't have to face. Obama's run for office was almost ended by his association with his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose incendiary sermons shocked many.
But Republican presidential nominee John McCain's relationship with the Rev. John Hagee, who was accused of anti-Semitism, never threatened to end his campaign, Rojecki says.
"Obama was held responsible for what his minister said, and McCain was associated with Hagee, but somehow that didn't stick," says Rojecki, a communication professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Even people who regard themselves as the most progressive, open-minded supporters may subconsciously hold Obama to a different standard, Rojecki says.
He says several academic studies show that it often takes people longer to associate good qualities to blacks when different faces are flashed across a screen.
"They have these stereotypes buried in their subconscious," he says. "That's why people cross the street when they see a young black man. They'd rather not take a chance."
Obama virtually had to be perfect to overcome those stereotypes, Rojecki says. He was the first black Editor of the Harvard Law Review, he has an Ivy League-educated wife and adorable daughters, and he ran a great campaign.
"He's the perfect symbol of achievement," Rojecki says.
White candidates for office don't have to have an uninterrupted life of achievement to be considered for the Oval Office, Rojecki says.
"If George W. Bush were black, do you think he would be president?" Rojecki says.
Jefferson, the Tuskegee Airman, says Obama should have at least one consolation. The problems he confronts now are so immense that anyone, even someone who was considered by many to be perfect, would not be able to escape withering judgment.
"If the president was Jesus Christ, '' Jefferson says, "they would still debate if he's qualified."
Isn't amazing that you judged, sentenced, and stereotyped someone just from one Bible verse they
posted. My, you must be clairvoyant. And immensely proud as well. You really told her, didn't you. You should never quote the Bible as though you now what you are saying. The spirit in which you quote it negates any meaning YOU might give it. You actually just proved what that poster said to you.
That really isn't for you to judge. sm
This is a chat board. You people perceive lies in the slightly statement. You must have a really really low tolerance to differing viewpoints. I would say, having kept an eye on it, Suzie is probably the only one who has escaped being called a liar, but I remember a post that named her with some others as a liar, so I guess I am even wrong on that one. Wait...maybe I am a liar!
judge not lest
ye also twitch, snort, flinch and giggle.
Who are they to judge?
I won't accept criticism from countries that refuse rights for women, have lax child labor laws, and routinely torture and kill their own people for either religious or political reasons.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone associated with a terroist group has no human rights because they aren't human, IMHO.
Let's not take it on ourselves to judge
Non-Christians are not qualified to judge whether a Christian's faith is genuine, and Christians are strictly prohibited from doing so.
Judge Roberts
Have you even bothered to take the time to notice that EVERY SINGLE POST ON THIS BOARD about Judge Roberts is a POSITIVE POST???
What planet are you from, anyway? Is your life so pathetic that the only pleasure you get is from stalking people on this board in the bizarre way you do and constantly put them down personally? Dang. You need a Happy Meal, dude. 
judge roberts
To the conservatives who just have to frequent our liberal board..I have been told, conservatives, that you attribute posts questioning your beliefs or attacking you as coming from gt..THEY DO NOT COME FROM ME. I do not go onto your board as it is too disheartening to read the way you would like America to be and your continual attack on liberal sites and liberal news articles..So, get over me, I AM NOT THE ONE POSTING ON YOUR CONSERVATIVE BOARD..
Secondly, to my democratic friends, have any of you watched the John Roberts' confirmation hearings? I have been watching for two days now..In fact, right now they are in recess, so I thought..let me check out the MTStars political board..MSN news video site on the computer has live hearings and they are fascinating..I have to tell you, so far I kind of like Judge Roberts..My only hesitation is Bush recommended him..
If you judge O by his followers....
'nuff said.
I don't know....but I don't think it is our place to judge....
I knew girls in high school who did not want to ask their parents about birth control, intended to stay celibate, had the same boyfriend through school let hormones override their better judgment and got pregnant. Not their parents' fault. And as you said, the boy could have used a condom, and we don't know that he didn't, because we know the success rate for condoms is not that great. That we are even having this discussion to me is ludicrous...if Chelsea had become pregnant while Bill was in the White House I don't think Democrats would be attacking Bill and Hillary's parenting skills. I certainly would not have.
Way too quick to judge!
I was simply passing on a story, like the OP. I'm not Republican because my dad is. I'm a conservative and if those beliefs happen to go along with the Dem candidate, then that's who I'll vote for. The story was meant to show how people's idea of "spreading the wealth" can sound like a really good idea - everyone haveing an equal share - but when you get down to it, it goes against everything our country was founded on. The American Dream - come sign up to get your welfare check! No thanks!!!
Judge not does not mean go with the crowd
nm
Just assume and judge all you want. I AM
nm
Well, that judge is right legally
I mean, really, do we all here check the little box on our tax forms that gives extra money to whatever it is they're asking for? I try to keep up with all changes in the tax law looking for things that I can deduct.
Part of the shenanigans of the big companies, however, is that they can hire alchemist accountants who can turn lead into gold, finding ways to create deductions that is far different from the original intent when the deduction was entered into the tax code.
Are 4 months enough to judge O, especially in these
so difficult times?
It is said that the economy is already in a slight upswing and the unemployment rate went down bit.
I guess we have to give O at least 1 year to be able to judge his decisions and actions.
I'm sorry but for this judge to throw
out the tests for those firerighters who studied hard and earned those promotions and didn't get them merely because they were all white with one hispanic man. To me...that is racism right there. They didn't get the promotions because of their skin color. Had they been a more motley crew of races, they would have gotten those promotions. It is truly a sad day when hard work and studying doesn't benefit you because your skin color isn't that of a minority.
I'm all for equal rights between the races and all of these firefighters were given the same studying materials and the same amount of time to study. How can you take away those promotions from the people who studied hard and scored the highest merely because most of them are white?
This doesn't present a very good opinion of this judge so far to me. She also made a comment about how with her experience and her being a latino women, she could make better decisions than a white male. Racism? Hello? If a white man had said that he could make better decisions than a black man, woman, or latino.....OMG.....the race card would have been thrown out and that would have been the end of his career. Why is it that minorities are allowed to say racist things and be racist and that is okay, but the moment a white person says something remotely racist.......that is the end of that person's career. More double standards.
Prejudice: To pre-judge
without knowledge, based upon appearances.
Can't see how this has anything to do with how I feel about Obama. He has done and said quite enough for me to base an opinion on my knowledge of his actions. Find another word to sling around. Prejudice won't work. Neither will racism.
Judge Roberts and Roe vs Wade
I, too, am pro choice and I can remember when I was still in high school, there was no right of termination of pregnancy..It was left up to each state to decide and NY state did not allow a woman to choose. I remember Congresswoman, Bella Abzug, was one of the strongest voices for women back then..That, I guess, is what got me into politics to the max, cause none of my sisters are political, nor my mother..They vote democrat and sure agree with me on issues but I am the one who marches and protests, etc, LOL. I think back in about 1973, I was astonished that a woman had no right over her body, no decisions about her body..That seared my brain, I guess. Then, thankfully the Supreme Court understood a woman has a right to decide about her body..I think if Roe vs Wade was ever overturned, we would have women in the streets, and also some men who have a higher consciousness and understand the implications of overturning Roe vs Wade. The majority of Americans want to leave the decision alone, so hopefully the Supreme Court will leave it alone..I do not believe in abortion at late stages, only in case of a woman's health, however, in the first four months, I believe a woman should decide and, if it is wrong, the woman will explain it to her maker..far be it for me to judge, ya know?
I never ever judge people by their families. sm
I hope no one ever judges me by mine! No, I don't think he meant what he said. I believe they mean he was a deputy for 17 years. It said 17-year, not year-old. :)
your opportunity to judge Clinton's
behavior by voting for/against him is officially over. Break on through to the new millenium.
Gee wilikers....but the judge won't dismiss
--
It's called prejudice, as in pre-judge.
except to say it is a real drag.
I don't know the whole situation, so won't judge his decision nm
nm
How can you already judge that he is messing things up? nm
x
Wow, why don't you post your picture so we can judge you, too?
xx
Since when are you the judge of what is more stimulating on a LIBERAL board?
I don't find anything you write to be stimulating, intelligent, educational or worthy of debate. And as far as patting people on the back, that's what you do on the Conservative board. You bash liberals, ALL liberals, EVERY LIBERAL IN THE WORLD, and then the people with the crudest, rudest insults against liberals are patted on the back and high-fived by the rest of you.
Liberals don't discuss things like Repuglicants do. We would rather be civil with people and find you incredibly distasteful human beings. They obviously call you neoCONS for a reason. Your posts are nothing but litter...trash...garbage, and I for one, can't relate to and don't want to communicate with people who do nothing but prove how ignorant, childish, hateful, nasty, untruthful and uncouth they are. Is this really the image you want to portray of your party? Because that's what you're doing.
Why can't you just be happy on your own board and stay away from people who have asked you repeatedly to stay away because we're not interested in your rhetoric and your attacks? Or, like your president, aren't you happy unless you're destroying things?
Who's to judge credibility? Certainly not you or I on a chat board.
Just seems like a lot of negativism about nothing really. But whatever. Not worth worrying about. In 100 years, who will care. You waste way too much energy on here. Get a real hobby. It will improve your outlook!
Judge spares Lewis' life.sm
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060620124809990015&ncid=NWS00010000000001
Judge Nixes warrantless surveillance
A brief respite to people who respect the law and want to see warrants utilized. Of course, All the President's Men in the Supreme Court will probably strike this down, so enjoy lawfulness while it lasts, no matter how brief it may be.
To everyone who claims liberals are on the side of the terrorists: Note the word warrantless. Liberals aren't against the use of wiretaps. They're just against any President ignoring the law and having no oversight regarding his actions. It doesn't take much time to fill out a boilerplate warrant. If Bush doesn't want to employ an American to do this, maybe he can outsource this job to another country at a cheaper rate (please note sarcasm here), as is done with the confidential medical reports of Americans.
Judge nixes warrantless surveillance
By SARAH KARUSH, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago
A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly taping conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.
The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule.
I don't judge people based on religion.
"Muslim is wrong?" "I don't judge anybody or their beliefs?"
explaining away the conflict in this statement TO YOURSELF before you take it upon yourself to explain it to others.
I have a friend who is an election judge in the next county over...... sm
And he actually had to ask people to either go home and change shirts or turn their shirts inside out so that the political statements (for one side or the other) could not be read. Isn't there something about no political statements or voter influence within 100 feet of the polling place, or is that on a state by state basis?
Quick to judge, aren't you? At least you apologized....
//
What's pathetic and "UnAmerican" is being judge and jury
THAT is what is truly pathetic.
So, you judge how much one cares by how many care packages they send??? sm
Well, I'm at a loss responding because you don't know what we do to support our troops, but if it makes you feel better to think you do more than everyone else, then do go on.
My uncle is over there and he has told me not send him anything else, he wants to come home.
Oh yeah, judge an entire party by a few bad apples.
nm
So because Snopes says so it is truth. Why not have a judge look at it and make the ruling?
xx
Judge overturns Florida ban on adoption by gays
(CNN) -- A Florida circuit judge Tuesday struck down a 31-year-old state law that prevents gays and lesbians from adopting children, allowing a North Miami man to adopt two half-brothers he and his partner have raised as foster children since 2004.
"There is no question, the blanket exclusion of gay applicants defeats Florida's goal of providing dependent children a permanent family through adoption," Judge Cindy S. Lederman wrote in her 53-page ruling.
"The best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption."
The state attorney general's office has appealed the decision.
Lederman said there is no moral or scientific reason for banning gays and lesbians from adopting, despite the state's arguments otherwise. The state argued that gays and lesbians have higher odds of suffering from depression, affective and anxiety disorders and substance abuse, and that their households are more unstable.
Lederman said the ban violated children's right to permanency provided under the Florida statute and under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. Whether the ban violated the state's equal protection clause by singling out gays and lesbians should be considered, she said.
Lederman's ruling paves the way for Martin Gill to legally adopt the two half-brothers, ages 4 and 8, whom he has cared for since December 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
The two boys, who are referred to as John and James Doe in court documents, were removed from their homes on allegations of abandonment and neglect.
On that December evening, John and James left a world of chronic neglect, emotional impoverishment and deprivation to enter a new world, foreign to them, that was nurturing, safe, structured and stimulating," Lederman wrote.
In 2006, the children's respective fathers' rights were terminated, court documents said, and they remained in the care of Gill and his partner.
"Our family just got a lot more to be thankful for this Thanksgiving," Gill said Tuesday, according to the ACLU, which represented him.
Florida is the only state that specifically bans all "homosexual" people from adopting children, although it does allow them to be foster parents.
This month, Arkansas voters approved a ballot measure to prohibit unmarried partners -- same-sex or opposite-sex couples -- from adopting children or from serving as foster parents. The measure is similar to one in Utah, which excludes same-sex couples indirectly through a statute barring all unmarried couples from adopting or taking in foster children.
Mississippi allows single gays and lesbians to adopt, but prohibits same-sex couples from adopting.
Neal Skene, spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families, said the appeal was filed so a statewide resolution on the law could be determined by an appellate court. He noted that another Florida circuit judge declared the law unconstitutional this year but that ruling had not been appealed.
"We need a statewide determination by the appellate courts," he said.
Gill's adoption petition cannot be approved until the appeal process is finished, Skene said, but the children will remain in Gill's home.
"These are wonderful foster parents," Skene said. "It's just that we have a statute, [and] the statute is very clear on the issue of adoption."
Several organizations -- including the National Adoption Center, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics -- have said that having gay and lesbian parents does not negatively affect children.
The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization that studies adoption and foster care, hailed the decision.
"This ban, which was the only one of its kind in the country, has done nothing but undermine the prospects of boys and girls in the foster care system to get permanent, loving homes," said Adam Pertman, the Adoption Institute's executive director, in a written statement.
"So this decision by Judge Lederman is a very important, hopeful ruling for children who need families."
It's a shame you feel you have to negatively judge me rather than debate intelligently.
But I agree. We have definitely reached an impasse. Have a nice day.
I didn't miss any part and didn't say...
anything either way. I just posted a link.
cyndiee obviously is the ultimate judge of any post here...all bow to cyndiee...
*****8
This is the reason we are in Iraq and it's the same reason I didn't vote for him in 2000: Didn't
his own personal reasons.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050620/why_george_went_to_war.php
The Downing Street memos have brought into focus an essential question: on what basis did President George W. Bush decide to invade Iraq? The memos are a government-level confirmation of what has been long believed by so many: that the administration was hell-bent on invading Iraq and was simply looking for justification, valid or not.
Despite such mounting evidence, Bush resolutely maintains total denial. In fact, when a British reporter asked the president recently about the Downing Street documents, Bush painted himself as a reluctant warrior. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," he said, answering for himself and British Prime Minister Blair. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."
Yet there's evidence that Bush not only deliberately relied on false intelligence to justify an attack, but that he would have willingly used any excuse at all to invade Iraq. And that he was obsessed with the notion well before 9/11—indeed, even before he became president in early 2001.
In interviews I conducted last fall, a well-known journalist, biographer and Bush family friend who worked for a time with Bush on a ghostwritten memoir said that an Iraq war was always on Bush's brain.
"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and Houston Chronicle journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He went on, 'If I have a chance to invade…, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'"
Bush apparently accepted a view that Herskowitz, with his long experience of writing books with top Republicans, says was a common sentiment: that no president could be considered truly successful without one military "win" under his belt. Leading Republicans had long been enthralled by the effect of the minuscule Falklands War on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's popularity, and ridiculed Democrats such as Jimmy Carter who were reluctant to use American force. Indeed, both Reagan and Bush's father successfully prosecuted limited invasions (Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War) without miring the United States in endless conflicts.
Herskowitz's revelations illuminate Bush's personal motivation for invading Iraq and, more importantly, his general inclination to use war to advance his domestic political ends. Furthermore, they establish that this thinking predated 9/11, predated his election to the presidency and predated his appointment of leading neoconservatives who had their own, separate, more complex geopolitical rationale for supporting an invasion.
Conversations With Bush The Candidate
Herskowitz—a longtime Houston newspaper columnist—has ghostwritten or co-authored autobiographies of a broad spectrum of famous people, including Reagan adviser Michael Deaver, Mickey Mantle, Dan Rather and Nixon cabinet secretary John B. Connally. Bush's 1999 comments to Herskowitz were made over the course of as many as 20 sessions together. Eventually, campaign staffers—expressing concern about things Bush had told the author that were included in the manuscript—pulled the project, and Bush campaign officials came to Herskowitz's house and took his original tapes and notes. Bush communications director Karen Hughes then assumed responsibility for the project, which was published in highly sanitized form as A Charge to Keep.
The revelations about Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged during two taped sessions I held with Herskowitz. These conversations covered a variety of matters, including the journalist's continued closeness with the Bush family and fondness for Bush Senior—who clearly trusted Herskowitz enough to arrange for him to pen a subsequent authorized biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published in 2003.
I conducted those interviews last fall and published an article based on them during the final heated days of the 2004 campaign. Herskowitz's taped insights were verified to the satisfaction of editors at the Houston Chronicle, yet the story failed to gain broad mainstream coverage, primarily because news organization executives expressed concern about introducing such potent news so close to the election. Editors told me they worried about a huge backlash from the White House and charges of an "October Surprise."
Debating The Timeline For War
But today, as public doubts over the Iraq invasion grow, and with the Downing Street papers adding substance to those doubts, the Herskowitz interviews assume singular importance by providing profound insight into what motivated Bush—personally—in the days and weeks following 9/11. Those interviews introduce us to a George W. Bush, who, until 9/11, had no means for becoming "a great president"—because he had no easy path to war. Once handed the national tragedy of 9/11, Bush realized that the Afghanistan campaign and the covert war against terrorist organizations would not satisfy his ambitions for greatness. Thus, Bush shifted focus from Al Qaeda, perpetrator of the attacks on New York and Washington. Instead, he concentrated on ensuring his place in American history by going after a globally reviled and easily targeted state run by a ruthless dictator.
The Herskowitz interviews add an important dimension to our understanding of this presidency, especially in combination with further evidence that Bush's focus on Iraq was motivated by something other than credible intelligence. In their published accounts of the period between 9/11 and the March 2003 invasion, former White House Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke and journalist Bob Woodward both describe a president single-mindedly obsessed with Iraq. The first anecdote takes place the day after the World Trade Center collapsed, in the Situation Room of the White House. The witness is Richard Clarke, and the situation is captured in his book, Against All Enemies.
On September 12th, I left the Video Conferencing Center and there, wandering alone around the Situation Room, was the President. He looked like he wanted something to do. He grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. "Look," he told us, "I know you have a lot to do and all…but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way…"
I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. "But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this."
"I know, I know, but…see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred…" …
"Look into Iraq, Saddam," the President said testily and left us. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty stared after him with her mouth hanging open.
Similarly, Bob Woodward, in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview about his book, Bush At War, captures a moment, on November 21, 2001, where the president expresses an acute sense of urgency that it is time to secretly plan the war with Iraq. Again, we know there was nothing in the way of credible intelligence to precipitate the president's actions.
Woodward: "President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.'"
Wallace (voiceover): Woodward says immediately after that, Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam—and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check.
Woodward: "Rumsfeld and Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the necessary preparations in Kuwait specifically to make war possible."
Bush wanted a war so that he could build the political capital necessary to achieve his domestic agenda and become, in his mind, "a great president." Blair and the members of his cabinet, unaware of the Herskowitz conversations, placed Bush's decision to mount an invasion in or about July of 2002. But for Bush, the question that summer was not whether, it was only how and when. The most important question, why, was left for later.
Eventually, there would be a succession of answers to that question: weapons of mass destruction, links to Al Qaeda, the promotion of democracy, the domino theory of the Middle East. But none of them have been as convincing as the reason George W. Bush gave way back in the summer of 1999.
I dont WANT war. Dont judge me!
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