Didn't say that. Just would like to see McCain camp
Posted By: try a little honesty. So sue me. nm on 2008-10-30
In Reply to: So...you are FOR anyone asking a Presidential candidate... - sam
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Now McCain camp wants to postpone VP
debate to a later time. They want to move this one on Friday to that time next week, and do the VP one "at a later date". Something smells fishy!
Incoherence must be contagious in the McCain camp.
Isn't that interesting? Just how rested would you be after 3 weeks staight of 2 or 3 plane trips a day across the country and back again during a heated primary season? Being a nonsmoker is not a qualification for the presidency. Are you seriously trying to get political traction by reminding us how Obama lost his mom to ovarian cancer in her early 50's? Just how desperate are you guys anyway? You've been watching too much Hannity. By the way, how's that economic plan coming along out of the McCain camp these days? Mum's the word, it seems. The polls tell us just how well that is working for ya.
OK, so the latest message out of the McCain camp
We recognize it by its underlying agenda of twisting a child's story into an Obama smear.
Relax. I was referring to the McCain camp.
x
Really. Did the McCain camp call you and give you that news? sm
Maybe she just wanted to show she was a good sport, since they obviously lampooon her every single week.
I could have sworn a few months back McCain camp
Was I just hallucinating or what?
Bush III: McCain camp is so desperate they have to resort to swiftboating? nm
nm
McCain Camp Buses In School Kids To Fill Crowd
Surely this information is incorrect.
The most cringe-worthy political moment of the day, so far, came when Sen. John McCain called out for his new buddy Joe the Plumber to stand up at a rally in Ohio, only to be greeted with confused silence. Joe the Plumber wasn't there.
But that rally featured another embarrassing moment, one that illustrates a far more troubling dynamic for the Republican ticket. The McCain campaign actually had to bus in school kids from the surrounding area in order to fill the event. As reported by MSNBC:
A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.
This happened -- as if a reminder were needed -- less than a week out from the election, when the heat of the campaign should be drawing record crowds.
I didn't get it from McCain...HE is not saying it...
and I wish he would. Did you watch the video posted above? Obviously not. The only truth you know is what comes out of Obama's mouth. Don't you even care to know the truth?
Looking at him didn't do it -- McCain appeared
.
Oh and you didn't engage in any McCain...
bashing did you? Not like you to be so hypocritical. Obama himself is why I will be easily voting a straight Republican ticket for the first time in my life. Not a thing any of you "dems" had to say. ALL him. Sure not going to blame it on anonymous posters on a posting board...lol.
Funny how you say good night everyone...and then bash "pubs" in your parting shot.
lol.
I didn't see McCain speak, sm
but I can imagine he was sincere and a gentleman.
I fear this country has made a serious, costly mistake.
So if McCain didn't vote 64% of the time
how can he vote with Bush 90% of the time? LOL! 
I didn't miss the point - I have been a McCain supporter
I have been on this board arguing over and over why McCain is the better choice. I used to support Obama until a few weeks ago after he beat out Hillary and then all this stuff about his life and the people he associates with (forget Rev. Wright- I could care less about that little dweeb), but his affiliations with the worst of the worst, his voting record, his lies about how he will not tax us, yet has consistently voted to raise taxes on who? The middle income (around $42,000 - if you would call that middle income anymore). His not cutting back on any of the programs he wants to fund. The list goes on and on and on about what I don't like about Obama.
As for McCain - I think he's a decent guy. I think he's way more decent than many of the politicians in Washington. I think he has always been on the side of the people and has shown that by consistently arguing against both dems and pubs if it doesn't benefit the people. I strongly supported the ticket mainly because of Palin. She is certainly one of the most qualified out of the other 3. She has consistently balanced the budget as governer, cut back pork filled bills, stopped wasteful spending, and has done nothing but good things for the people of her state and I believe that will carry over if the republicans win.
I was so expecting a really good debate and believed Gov. Palin helped him tremendously with her outstanding debate outcome, so was expecting nothing but good with McCain. There were so many issues people were talking about with what McCain would need to do to win the debate. I didn't see any of it last night and left me wondering, who does he meet with before debates and speeches and does he listent to any of them. To me his performance last night was so bad shuffling around the stage. I was sitting here typing and heard loud and clear McCain say "that one" not only saying it, but the tone of his voice just hit a raw nerve with me. DH and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. As I stated earlier I was very disappointed as I have been on this board arguing over and over and over for McCain and against Obama. But I don't know what was worse. His saying "that one" or him overusing "my friends". Why hasn't anyone told him to knock it off. He uses it in almost every single sentance he says. Like I say, I got disgusted and turned off the debate. Right now I don't care anymore who wins the election. I'm voting for the constitutional party, if I do even vote at all.
Her camp just came out and said she
xx
Looks like the McC camp is providing
Nice to see that tonge in cheeck is alive and well in the heartland. It is a welcome relief from all that cleaving gloom and doom negativity. A little humor never hurt anybody, but before long, we will be hearing how O's camp is using it to subvert the population into communist submission.
This is what happens when a political camp
ignorance as they support candidates that do not even have the sense to equip their supporters with enough ammunition to be able to defend their own party's own platform positions. Their white matter is so atrophied from lack of exercise that they are not able to come up with anything except vacuous statements such as these.
They travel in packs and set out on their hunts, in search of the slur, slander, dirt and lies, on a mission to convince themselves and each other of their social superiority and to bolster their delusions of grandeur, couched in their unfounded beliefs that they are the Ones...the pure, true, real Americans and that the opposing candidate and the "theys" that support him are the "Others," the cursed Moslem terrorists, subversive socialists, Anti-American militant camp of racial mongrels, the great unwashed underbelly of the nation, composed of factions of militant tribal warriors whose shared vision is to bring their country down.
Their eyes are glazed over after weeks and weeks of speaking with forked tongues as they get themselves all caught up in the rapture of self-righteous indigation and self assurance. The fervor of their mob mentality is reaching ever such higher proportions, whipped up into frenzies of verbal volleys, the rhetorical equivalent of suicide bombs, which they hurl without abandon across vast stretchs of cyberspace, confident their strikes are surgical and secretly hoping to take down as much collateral damage as possible. They start to mistake their bully pulpit sermons for strength in numbers, all forceful and mighty, these champions of truth and might.
This process is a natural by-product of weeks upon weeks of chanting hate-speech mantra, reinforced by spinmeisters and hammering hatred that issues forth from their fearless leaders at campaign rallies. This causes them to eventually adopt this kind of arrogance that ultimately morphs into some sort suspended, animated, twisted logic that actually allows them to believe that they are calling the faithful to arms, energizing their base, and calling forth armies of fellow true, pure Americans, marching to the polls down the road to nowhere.
Face it, Bradley, your guy is all washed up and your party's going down.
Who else got an email from the O camp?
I got one yesterday. They want help with their health "discussions" on health care.
"Over the coming weeks, thousands of Americans will be leading Health Care Community Discussions -- small local gatherings in which Americans are sharing thoughts and ideas about reforming health care. President-elect Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle are counting on Americans from every walk of life to help identify what's broken and provide ideas for how to fix it.
You can help shape that reform by leading your own Health Care Community Discussion anytime between now and December 31st. "
Do ya think I should do it? Do ya think I can get them to stop outsourcing? I'm not an O lover as you all know and I get a real kick out of this. How many of you O lovers got this email?
Camp Casey Connections
Still looking for live computer connections to Camp Casey. So far this is what I have found
If you want to hear a live broadcast of what is going on in Crawford, you can go to this link and listen live:
http://www.bradblog.com/
If you so desire, you can also use this post as a way to post any updates you hear on what is going on in Crawford.
I just sent an E-mail to the Obama camp - SM
I wonder what he will do. Or will he say one thing while doing another or completely ignore the situation.
This is a repost, as it belongs on the Politics board.
Moderator 
I did NOT imply that his camp started it....
in fact, I said the dailykos started it, and unless his camp blogs there and I don't know it, that is exactly what I meant. What I said is that when he asks his supporters not to continue and they persist, it reflects negatively on his candidacy in some people's minds...and that is all I said. I also said that I believe him and that he was sincere...and that his supporters are ignoring him. However, I have heard others suggest that he is saying that publically but behind the scenes his camp is fanning it. I did not say it, and I do not personally think it, and would not unless it was proven. All I am saying is that some perceive it that way.
Michelle's Boot Camp
http://www.publicallies.org/site/c.liKUL3PNLvF/b.2634379/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Allies
Where did I say McC camp provided this information?
the word "fodder." With Webster at your fingertips, you might try looking it up next time before you leap to unfounded conclusions.
Goes to show that McC camp will not hestitate to lie
for political gain.
The same vote that McC/W camp are trying/tried to suppress?
x
McC camp is so desperate they will even pose
Wouldn't be the first pub plant we've encountered. Role playing for the sake of argument will not win any elections. You have zero credibility.
Obama camp outraged...
by the tough questions a conservative reporter asked Joe Biden. Boycotting the station. And said, are you ready, that that same reporter gave McCain softball questions. Well hellooo....welcome to the real world, guys!! Can you believe it? Whine, whine. You asked Joe hard questions about Marxism and Obama facing a crisis during his first 6 months (Joe's own quote) and that is NOT FAIR because you did not ask McCain hard questions. And what has been the life of McCain and Sarah Palin with all mainstream media? Hard questions. Obama and Biden? Major softball questions. They got the tables turned on them and squealed like pigs stuck under a gate. They need to do what they told Sarah Palin to do...GET TOUGH. Ha! When given the choice to run with the big dogs or stay on the porch....they are whining on the porch. UNbelievable!!
O camp donations not unlawful.
Current campaign finance laws do not require records to be kept on donations less than $200. If records are not required and hence, not kept, then they cannot be produced.
Both campaigns have solicited on-line contributions, some of which have questionable sources in the sense that they are not properly identified or identifiable, including McC contributions documentation that does not reflect geographic origins.
As a matter of fact, O camp donations ARE in compliance with FEC (as are McC's), so no investigation is "warranted." Furthermore, O camp has returned contributions they deem coming from "suspicious" sources.
In terms of the Nigerian donations, no one can stop ATTEMPTS by foreign nationals to contribute to candidates they support. It is not an issue unless they are actually ACCEPTED.
I would like to see the Obama camp stand up for Joe's...
civil rights too.
That's the norm with the Obama camp
False ads and sexist ads.
Oh yeah, "class A campaign" - NOT.
That actually does look like an Obama camp leak....(sm)
but for good reason. Obama wants transparency. It would work to his favor for it to be known that he urged Bush for quick action. He's putting pressure on Bush. I think the point of the exercise is that when these things don't get done in a timely fashion or legislation cannot get passed, it puts the spotlight on the ones who would obstruct it.
If I'm not mistaken, they actually do record oval office meetings. I think it was originally started to prevent misquotes. They just don't let them out until years later.
OMG I forgot about boot camp
Your right - torture. I went through 2 months of sleep deprevation, exercising til I thought my body would fall apart, standing in lines for hours and hours while the drill sergeant stood yelling in my face with his bad breath I was a skumbag private, lower than dirt, get down and give me 20, etc, etc., Never mind if I didn't answer a question correctly. Then there was the obstacle course, repelling from an 80 foot tower, having to go into the gas chamber while they had gas going off, take off my gas mask and breath it in, then run outside to throw up. Marching 17 and 25 mile marches in the 112 degree heat, escape and evasion tactics, crawling under a barb wire fence on my stomach in mud pits while fires were being shot over our heads and keeping my weapon above the water (and lets not even mention what happened when people called it their gun and not weapon). Talk about humiliated. Or if we were caught sleeping during classes, etc, etc, etc.
Two months of that - yeah I'd sure call that torture. Am I glad I went through it? yes I am. Would I ever do it again? Heck no.
joan baez at camp casey
Video of Joan Baez at Camp Casey singing Where Have All The Flowers Gone.
Musician Joan Baez
Where Have All the Flowers Gone
08.21.05
QuickTime
DSL | 56K
Windows Media
DSL | 56K
RealMedia
DSL | 56K
Michelle's Boot Camp for Radicals
Michelle's Boot Camps For Radicals
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, September 04, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election ང: Democrats' reintroduction of militant Michelle Obama in Denver was supposed to show her softer side. But it only highlighted a radical part of her resume: Public Allies.
IBD Series: The Audacity Of Socialism
Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Obama plans to use the nonprofit group, which he features on his campaign Web site, as the model for a national service corps. He calls his Orwellian program, "Universal Voluntary Public Service."
Big Brother had nothing on the Obamas. They plan to herd American youth into government-funded reeducation camps where they'll be brainwashed into thinking America is a racist, oppressive place in need of "social change."
The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn't seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year "community leadership" positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They'll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats.
In exchange, they'll get a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care. They also get a post-service education award of $4,725 that can be used to pay off past student loans or fund future education.
But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation — the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul "The Red" Alinsky.
"Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities," Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for "justice" and "equality" in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. "I get to practice being an activist," and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent.
Public Allies promotes "diversity and inclusion," a program paper says. More than 70% of its recruits are "people of color." When they're not protesting, they're staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare.
Public Allies brags that more than 80% of graduates have continued working in nonprofit or government jobs. It's training the "next generation of nonprofit leaders" — future "social entrepreneurs."
The Obamas discourage work in the private sector. "Don't go into corporate America," Michelle has exhorted youth. "Work for the community. Be social workers." Shun the "money culture," Barack added. "Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."
"If you commit to serving your community," he pledged in his Denver acceptance speech, "we will make sure you can afford a college education." So, go through government to go to college, and then go back into government.
Many of today's youth find the pitch attractive. "I may spend the rest of my life trying to create social movement," said Brian Coovert of the Cincinnati chapter. "There is always going to be work to do. Until we have a perfect country, I'll have a job."
Not all the recruits appreciate the PC indoctrination. "It was too touchy-feely," said Nelly Nieblas, 29, of the 2005 Los Angeles class. "It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."
One of those -isms is "heterosexism," which a Public Allies training seminar in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."
The government now funds about half of Public Allies' expenses through Clinton's AmeriCorps. Obama wants to fully fund it and expand it into a national program that some see costing $500 billion. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military, he said.
The gall of it: The Obamas want to create a boot camp for radicals who hate the military — and stick American taxpayers with the bill.
Incoherence is a contagious disease in McC camp
su
Why should he dignify McC camp culture war slurs
He's no different than any other dem....off to greener pastures in search of triple digit IQs.
McC camp speaking in forked tongues and
McCain has been the chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI) since 1993. Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian activist in question, helped found the Center for Palestinian Research and Study (CPRS). You see, his day job is that of highly respected educator. He served on the board of trustees there until 1999. The IRI funded the CPRS in 1998 and 1999 to the tune of $838,873. Oh my!
To make matters worse, McCain is now raising a ruckus with the LA Times, who is refusing to violate confidentiality of a source and "hand over" a video of Obama and the suspicious Palestinian activist/educator/trustee of the CPRS which McC's IRI funded. Should we be worried that McC cannot keep his "activists" straight, can't remember funding a suspicious Palestinian educator or the just the double standard 2-ton elephant in the room?
This is an article from the UK Times about Camp Cropper....gives more details ...
From the The UK TimesSeptember 15, 2007
They have planted bombs and shot soldiers – now it is time for school
Martin Fletcher in Camp Cropper
Ammar winds up a ten-minute harangue against Saddam Hussein with questions to his students. “How many of you had relatives executed?” asks the 33-year-old history teacher. Eight put up their hands. How many lost relatives in the Iran-Iraq war? Twelve hands rise. How many think Saddam was a bad man? All 24 students assent.
Their sincerity, though, is hard to gauge. This is no normal class, despite the Harry Potter books in Arabic on the shelves.
Ammar’s pupils wear bright yellow jumpsuits with plastic sandals and white identity bracelets around their wrists. They are among the rapidly multiplying number of child fighters held in the Camp Cropper detention centre near Baghdad airport.
The children, who are aged between 11 and 17, stand accused of offences ranging from acting as lookouts for kidnappers to planting bombs and shooting soldiers. The US military is sending them to school to reeducate them, to rid them of jihadist cant, to clear their brainwashed heads of, for example, the notion that Saddam was a glorious leader who defied an evil and aggressive superpower .
Related Links
Gates: US troops in Iraq could be cut to 100,000
Iraqis vow to avenge America's murdered ally
Army interpreters told to leave Basra
“We want them to be able to think for themselves so they’ll pick up a book instead of an AK47,” says Brigadier General Mike Nevin, the centre’s commander.
Iraq’s children are among the worst victims of the war, a generation brutalised and traumatised by the constant violence.
The detention centre is a daunting place for a teenager. Dubbed Remembrance II or R2, is a maze of formidable five-metre-high (17ft) mesh fences topped by coiled razor wire, floodlights and watchtowers. From metal catwalks armed guards look down on concrete-floored pens where surly detainees in yellow jumpsuits linger outside their huts in the baking heat. Nobody has escaped yet.
There are 4,000 male detainees in R2 and, with President Bush’s troop “surge” in full swing, 60 more arrive each day. There are separate zones for Sunnis, Shias, foreign fighters, moderates, extremists, adults and juveniles. Roughly 85 per cent are Sunni. A quarter are diehard jihadists determined to continue their war against the infidel Americans even while in custody.
The hardliners hold Sharia courts, beat fellow detainees for smoking, listening to music or participating in US programmes. They start fires. They foment riots. They hurl water bottles filled with urine at the guards, and “chai rocks” made of tea and dust moulded into hard round balls. They fashion knives from fragments of razor wire or the ground-down ends of toothbrush handles. They make slingshots from soccer ball linings and whips from strips of towel. Occasionally detainees are murdered by their peers – earlier this year a 17-year-old was strangled.
The US has realised belatedly that the detainee population is a rich recruiting ground for the fanatics. It now strives to isolate the real hardliners – during riots guards fire paintballs at the ringleaders so they can be identified later – while wooing the rest with offers of paid work, “antiextremist enlightenment programmes” that include lessons from moderate imams and enhanced prospects of release.
But total segregation is impossible. The extremists do not advertise themselves. Some will shave their beards to blend in with the rest. And “rock mail” – messages wrapped round stones – permits the passing of orders and threats from one compound to another. “They are very determined. They never give up,” says General Nevin.
With the 828 juvenile inmates, however, the military is making an extra effort. It does not want them released after a year to become next year’s suicide bombers.
It judges a hundred or so to be beyond redemption, but the rest are now bussed daily to a new school outside R2 called Dar al-Hikmah, or Wisdom House.
The school is a row of prefabricated sheds ringed by blast walls. Here the inmates receive eight hours of lessons a day. They are taught to read and write, they play soccer and basketball, they have Iraqi civilian teachers and security is markedly more relaxed. “We’re trying to take them away from the environment they have at R2,” says Captain Ali Dipour, the principal.
The school has only been open a month, but General Nevin and the teachers say that it is working already. They say that the children’s hatred and anger is dissipating; that Sunnis and Shia teenagers are beginning to mix, that they no longer chant the names of Osama bin Laden or Moqtada al-Sadr at prayer or hurl abuse at their teachers. Leyla, the only woman teacher, says that the boys see her as something of a mother figure.
The claims are hard to test, but the classes certainly look orderly and the students attentive. As in a million other schools around the world, the walls are decorated with childish crayon drawings of animals, trees, houses and stick-figure humans. “They are just kids wanting to be kids,” says Captain Dipour.
Time will tell; but it is just conceivable that in this grim detention centre, some of these child fighters are enjoying a taste of normality for the first time in their lives.
— The number of American troops in Iraq could be reduced to about 100,000 by the time the next president takes over in 2009, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, indicated yesterday.
Casualties of war
2m Iraqi children displaced by fighting
800,000 children receive no schooling
28% of children are malnourished
6 children, aged 10 to 15, are treated each month by US medics after planting roadside bombs
828 juvenile detainees are in Camp Cropper, up from fewer than 100 last year
Sources: Unicef, Save the Children, Oxfam, US military
Have your say
I didn't imagine that something like what you report could be happening today. I'm horrified. The fact that children are being brainwashed in the madrassas as well,, in the course of their "quran" learning, so they may immediately be "ordered" to become sucide bombers, whenever a mullah deems so, during the rest of their lives, should also be something widely published. ´Where are the "progressist" human rights activists? The UN activists? How come nothing is said in the media about this terrible reality? I am willing to dedicate my life to help organizing an initiative towards the ending of this situation.
Simon Salosny, Santiago, Chile
I want to say that you did an excellent job on this article. I'm nearing the end of my deployment here at Camp Cropper and I spent around seven months working with these kids. It is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life, and now that I am leaving my only hope is that I have done some good here. I think I have with these kids. As a guard on the compound I've talked with a lot of them about their views, and told them mine, and told them that I am only here to help them. They use to ask me why I was here, most of them thought it was for money, but really it was for the prospect that I might be able to make a difference, and that was what I would tell them; that Maybe I could make a difference in their lives so they could live a normal life. I think it is sad that there are so many kids detained here, but while they are here maybe we can give them a chance. Thank you for showing some of the good that comes out of this war and our detention program.
SGT Bryan Scroggins
Bryan Scroggins, TROY, illinois
We knew it wouldn't take long for McC camp racism
Why do you think this line of rhetoric will attract a single person to your views? Time to move on and bring yourelf up into the 21st century.
So, pub camp does not declare war on the media, put Palin on a leash,
strays off topic or reveals her ignorance?
7 days out. What part of Marxist slurs are a waste of valuable air time do you not get...especially for the candidates who do not choose to be sucked into cultural warfare? They are perfectly free to pick and choose where, when and to whom they do or do not speak to.
Progressives harping about camp finance reform for years.
We've heard virtually nothing out of the republican party on this issue (except resistance) until how. Why is that? Could it be because they never expected democrats to beat them at their own game?
Spare us the phoney outrage. As the law stands now, those small potatoes contributions up to $200 have not been an issue until Obama received such a landslide of them and raised more money than any other candidate in history.
You want somebody to do something about this? You will have to start at the beginning...swallow the bitter pill and enact campaign finance reform. Until then, you can raise all the questions you want to raise.
PS: Ghadafi's claims that foreign national fundraising is "legitimate" is pertinent to this argument how? Have you seen the global electoral map lately? The entire world has their eyes on this election (hoping against hope we will not elect another saber-rattler) and are entitled to have an opinion.
http://www.economist.com/Vote2008/ Take a look.
Video: Kids at Jesus Camp Worship to Bush Photo
This is some pretty creepy stuff.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/09/18/video-kids-at-jesus-camp_n_29703.html
Why are you McCain people so desperate? You are just like McCain. No plan. Just criticism of the
other candidate. I guess you want the same old thing we have had for the past 8 years. God forbid McCain win with that wild woman, Palin.
I didn't miss any part and didn't say...
anything either way. I just posted a link.
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 didn't know that.
Thanks, Democrat. I wasn't aware of that point at all, and to me, that makes a huge difference. I will visit the site and check it out. Thanks again. 
I though you said you didn't
Sorry, but I didn't see anywhere
in AR's post that she was against it. Instead, she acted as if the topic has no place on this board and shouldn't be discussed... like some kind of dirty little secret. 
The *attack the messenger* technique has been used constantly in the last 5 years by the current administration (and his followers) when someone gets too close to the truth. Don't believe me? Ask Valerie Plame.
I didn't say that.nm
It is me, but I didn't get it...sm
I think there is a problem wiht the email on forumatrix because I tried to send an email to the poster ????? who posted on the conservative board today and got an error message as well.
Nevermind it though. Have a good day! I have to get ready for my mini vacation later this week, so I will be working mucho hours til Wednesday.
I didn't know it was q/yours/q.
I just made a fast post. I don't know what the rest of the stuff is you are talking about. ForuMatrix is a worldwide board. Some of us don't even live in the United States. People here might want to realise that when making responses. It is of no consequence to me one way or the other. Just asking a question.
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