There is no spin, no excuse, no reason. The govt did not do as they were supposed to do.

• Spin this one. - Zauber
  • shameful response - gt
    • They would be calling for his resignation, impeachment for sure.sm - Democrat
  • There is no spin, no excuse, no reason. The govt did not do as they were supposed to do. - oi vey

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our conscience guide us politically?

I'm sorry, that is a separation I cannot make.  My faith and religious convictions are part of the whole person that I am.  I vote my conscience.  I want political leaders who reflect my morality.  I also happen to believe there are many Christians out there like me.  There is no "separation" of church and state for me, which by the way was a concept (nowhere specifically mentioned in the constitution) meant to protect the church from the government more so than the government from the church.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that commercial.  There are condom commercials, "personal" lubricant commercials, and penis and sexual performance enhancing commercials -- why would anyone be offended by a pro-life commercial?  The fact that anyone would be offended is a testament to just how twisted society has become!

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.

And, no, I do not think she is decent.  I also do not believe she will ever be First Lady.  Her own mouth will put an end to that dream....

Change the subject.  Nice try.  Maybe you missed a very serious case and the pitiful facts surrounding that sex ring in VT a few months ago.  Are you sure you really live there?  You've got some real doozies for elected officials there.  You should be mighty proud to be the #1 most pedophile-friendly state in the union.

Any reason why you try so hard to avoid that story?  The perp was supposedly rehabilitated when he was doing all this disgusting stuff.  Of course, there's scum in every state. 

I'm glad (a) I don't have kids, and (b) I don't live in VT, where you might be someone "supervising" the playground or something.  Wow.  Where do they find people with such twisted mindsets, anyway?

A quote:

O'REILLY: Massive neglect? Let's take a look at that bit of overstatement. Halfway through President Clinton's tenure in office, the poverty rate was 13.7%. Halfway through President Bush's tenure the rate is 12.7, a full point lower.

[COMMENT According to statistics obtained from the U. S. Census site, when Bill Clinton began his term as President in 1993, the poverty rate was 15.1%. By the time Clinton left office the poverty rate was 11.7%. By 2002, under George Bush the rate began to rise again to 12.1% in 2002, 12.5% in 2003 and 12.7% in 2004.

According to the Christian Science Monitor this most recent increase was unforeseen by analysts who expected the number to drop along with unemployment and may indicate a disturbing trend. While the poverty level for Asians declined and it remained stable for Hispanics and African-Americans, the only group that saw an increase was non-Hispanic white Americans living in the midwest. In other words there are 1.1 million poorer red state residents this year than there were last year.]

O'REILLY: In 1996 the Clinton budget allotted $191 billion for poverty entitlements. That was 12.2% of the budget. ... However, the Bush 2006 budget allots a record-shattering $368 billion for poverty entitlements - 14.6% of the entire budget - a huge increase over Clinton's spending. Did the elite media mention that? Jesse Jackson mention that? Of course they didn't. Because it's much more convenient for Evan Thomas and others to imply that America under President Bush has turned its back on the poor. But it's absolute nonsense. Even in the midst of the war on terror [Note: Did he mean the war of choice in Iraq?], this country is spending a massive amount of money tryin' to help the poor. So why the lie? Because political gain can be made off the suffering of others, that's why. Those who oppose the Bush administration don't care about the truth. They only want to advance their own agenda, so once again the No-Spin zone rides to the rescue.

Hard-working Americans are providing the poor with Medicaid, food stamps, supplemental security income - that's free money - child nutrition programs, welfare payments, child daycare payments, temporary assistance to needy families, foster care, adoption assistance and health insurance for children. But, it will never be enough for the Jesse Jacksons and Howard Deans of the world. Never! If they told you the truth, they'd go out of business.

Now, I fully expect to be attacked by the far-left media for tellin' you all this. I'm sure they'll label me a racist, a shill for Bush, stuff like that. But, I don't care. The dollars don't lie. We are a generous nation. And that is the truth.

COMMENT

Most of the poor in this country WORK, many of them hold down two and three jobs. If you want to read a damning book on this topic, I suggest you get Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. Ms. Ehrenreich went underground and worked at minimum wage jobs for a year. She discovered a few unpleasant facts about life on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Self-satisfied, replete, rich men like Bill O'Reilly sit in their posh offices and scare hard-working Americans into believing that their taxes go to indigent scofflaws who sit at home guzzling beer, smoking pot, eating chips and watching TV. Those of us closer to homelessness know this is not the case.

When he mentioned that SSI (social security supplemental income) is free money, he neglected to say that it is money that goes to disabled Americans or that providing health coverage for children reduces trips to the emergency room!

Sometimes I wonder how many poor people Mr. O'Reilly actually knows or has associated with on a long-term basis? For the past 15 years I've been involved in a local program that offers music scholarship to needy families. In that time I've taught 7 different children from 7 different poverty situations and I came to know the families personally. Most of the adults in the family work really hard. Sometimes the kids worked, too, after school. Some had parents trying to break a drug habit (yes, they held down a job) or schizophrenic parents (who were incapable of working) or an abusive parent (who worked, then took it out on the family), but most were blessed with caring parents who were doing the best to provide for their children against almost impossible odds.

So when I hear guys like O'Reilly spout their simplistic tripe implying that the poor are sucking the lifeblood out of hard-working Americans, I see red.

Also, I don't trust O'Reilly's numbers on entitlement programs simply because he never once used the words inflation-adjusted dollars. If he was simply quoting raw numbers, I'd like to remind him that 15 years ago the dollar went farther. Additionally, he did not indicate through graphics or verbally whether or not there was parity between the two budgets, i.e., was he citing figures that included exactly the same programs in both figures?

Given O'Reilly's dubious track record, one cannot accept his statements without independent verification.

MT was answering a POLL, not actively saying she was going back to Iraq.  Any idiot could see that except people who have spin reality to suit their liking which goes on here all the time.

The shoe-throwing incident is a perfect example.  I saw Bush pretty nimbly dodging the thrown shoe, not ducking or "cowering" as some of the MSM talking heads described it, just whipping his torso to the side briefly, and centering up again with remarkable aplomb. 

Wondering what he was supposed to do:  Stand still and get smacked?    Execute a perfect tai kwon do block?  Catch and throw it back?   Just askin'.......

x

to distinguish you in particular as not being a pub when you use no moniker? 

pay for all the spending his administration is doing?  I hope this is the final nail in his coffin so to speak.  Remember when Bush #1 said read my lips...no new taxes and he went back on the promise and wasn't re-elected.  Well....let us hope that the 95% of Americans that he professed to not have ANY kind of taxes raised on them will get p!ssed and we can say goodbye to Mr. Obama in 2012.