Difference being (of course) that my "agenda" doesn't kill thousands of people for no apparent reason.
what he said was - paraphrasing - "I am responsible for all of this one way or the other and historians will write and judge it" .... what many of you want him to say is - paraphrasing - "I am completely wrong and now let the flogging begin." (which he will not say - so keep launching the insults) despite the propensity of our current pop political structure to examine our navels - GWB seems to say - paraphrasing - "there is time enough for that later - we still have a job to do" (regardless of his previous aircraft carrier speech).
Oh there was reason, the argument is whether or not it was a justified reason. I'm simply saying that everyone tends to digest information in a way that suits their worldview.
That is true. The question related to Bush is, did he JUST see the things he wanted to see, or did he ALSO see the things he didn't want to see, and purposefully ignored or buried those things?
I think the fact that Bush is saying this is only because some focus group told the Republican brain trust he might be able to push his ratings above 40% if he said he was kinda sorry. This is about as close as we'll ever get.
But if you're responsible, you don't hide information that potentially calls your argument into question. You bring it to light, explain why it doesn't undermine your argument, and explain why your conclusion is the best one. This is exactly where Bush and his administration failed to be responsible, not in relying on bad intel, but in relying only on intelligence that supported their worldview and hiding/dismissing anything else. It's similar to the administration's dismissal of policy people across the board. They won't engage with data that disagrees with their foreordained conclusions, even to explain it away, they simply pretend it doesn't exist. It reminds me of a particular brand of undergrad essay, and Bush is still a C student.
"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president I am responsible cherrypicking the wrong intelligence, disregarding voluminous information that said wrong intelligence was in fact wrong, and lying to the American people and the entire world in order to justify my transcendentally fat-headed decision to go into Iraq," the President carefully avoided saying. "Christ, I'm a big ********ing weasel, aren't I? PS, I'm drinking again, and have been for months." I assume by this you mean you are wholeheartedly behind Harry Reid's pressuring of the GOP Congress to start Phase II of the Iraq investigation, centering on how the White House used the intelligence they were given.
I have absolutely no problem with that. It would have been nice if the opposition party would have had the same vigor before entering Iraq, or at least the intellectual curiosity to read the god damn report furnished by the CIA. But que cera, I guess.
"Mistakes were made" Wrong. The non-Kool-Aid-drinkers, including the arms inspectors that Bush undermined at every turn, were busy refuting each one of Bush's war claims as he made them. We called bull$hit at the time and we were right. Meanwhile, the right-wingers here (and you know who you are) were throwing a hissy fit calling us "unpatriotic" and "Saddam-lovers" and "terrorists" and crowing about how wrong we "lefty moonbats" would be proven to be once Bush found the WMDs and Saddam's ties to the 9/11 terrorists. Anyways, Bush hasn't done anything but try to pull out the "Mistakes were made" defense to help claim that he is too dangerously incompetent to be President rather than being an outright evil liar. The truth, of course, is that he is both but since the right-wingers here have made such a tremendous personal investment in their Bush-worship, they'll never bring themselves to admit it.
I'll be happier when he comes out with "It was all BS. We made it up, and didn't figure anyone would figure out it was bogus. Then we had to say it was faulty intel--so the intelligence community as a whole could be a scapegoat,a dn we could revamp it. That of course meant turning this country into a police state. Which we did. Next question."
Seriously Matt, you're smarter than this. The people supported be policy because they believed what they were told by Bush and his merry band of liars. To say that the president is blameless because the people agreed with him is one of the most ridiculous things I've read on this board, and that's saying something.
Not at all sure what you're talking about here. I'm going to assume this is referring to the talking point that Congress and the White House received the same information. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htm#author The CIA and other intelligence agencies believed Iraq still possessed substantial stocks of chemical and biological weapons, but they were divided about whether Iraq was rebuilding its facilities and producing new weapons. The intelligence community's uncertainty was articulated in a classified report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in September 2002. "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] actions," the agency reported. "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has--or will--establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities." Had the administration accurately depicted the consensus within the intelligence community in 2002--that Iraq's ties with Al Qaeda were inconsequential; that its nuclear weapons program was minimal at best; and that its chemical and biological weapons programs, which had yielded significant stocks of dangerous weapons in the past, may or may not have been ongoing--it would have had a very difficult time convincing Congress and the American public to support a war to disarm Saddam. But the Bush administration painted a very different, and far more frightening, picture. Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who ultimately voted against the war, says of his discussions with constituents, "When someone spoke of the need to invade, [they] invariably brought up the example of what would happen if one of our cities was struck. They clearly were convinced by the administration that Saddam Hussein--either directly or through terrorist connections--could unleash massive destruction on an American city. And I presume that most of my colleagues heard the same thing back in their districts." One way the administration convinced the public was by badgering CIA Director Tenet into endorsing key elements of its case for war even when it required ignoring the classified findings of his and other intelligence agencies.
In fact, he is claiming credit for fixing the intelligence (pun intended.) He is still not claiming responsibility, unreformed alcoholic that he is. No surprise, and no value to what he is saying or doing. PS. Matt has turned into a Republican. I haven't seen a smidgeon of Libertarian thinking in his posts.
The Office of Special Plans, that's how. The production of stimuli collated into ostensible intel and provided to the POTUS in PDBs as if it were a distillation of all the known, possible facts. Treason, if you see such an Office in the best possible light. OTOH, if you conceive of the world as a place where you, Marlboro Man-style, just "do whatever it takes to get 'the job' done," you can become whatever you need to become in order to "win," whatever that ends up meaning, not only for the interlocking elite in this post-political corporate conglomeratocracy, but for the vast majority of citizens the vast majority of the time. The characteristics of Empire; we've seen it before...and without any Rapturous nuclear petulance from the infant prokaryotics running the playpen, we'll likely see it again. At least until humanity, taken seriously, grows up. In the interim, though, don't ask me to dance the dance with Bush; not only have we heard this song before; it's the only song these mothe********ers know how to sing. I, for one, am glad he reads his Bible every day; what would his "responsible" response have been without the clear guidance of his Lord and Saviour, who Himself has - apparently, if he's guiding the Presidential hand of George - been Born Again Hard... x the undoubtedly more significant civilian death toll numbers than the 30,000 murders Bush is willing to take "responsibility" for... Please. Please. Please; please murder this cabal's policies come 2006 and 2008. Please. Please put their way of being in the world six feet under the ground; incinerate it; stab it in the ********ing heart with a wooden stake wrapped in garlic... "whatever it takes..."
Maybe i'm too damn cynical (sue me), but it did cross my mind that there might be a "change of strategery" (politically/spin speaking anyway) as soon as i read Bush declare "30K people more or less" dead a few days ago.... Now this statement of "responsibility" -the thread topic- might be an attempt at taking it a bit further (albeit slowly); in pushing that strategy a bit .... I guess he knows it's hard to get much lower than he has in the polls.....but i have to agree with those who say he really is not really taking full responsibility for much.... Of course, as soon as i', typing this, one gets to see stuff like this -via google news- from Forbes: Bush Backs Rumsfeld, DeLay in Interview ..... "President Bush said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has done "a heck of a good job" and there are no plans to replace him. " ... Bush said, "Yes, I do" when asked if he believes DeLay is innocent. And he said he hopes that DeLay will return to his leadership post. "I hope that he will, cause I like him, and plus, when he's over there, we get our votes through the House," the president said. .............. Yep, Bush knows how to call them when it comes to praising people by saying he "is doing a heck of a job" And if the last statement isn't an ode to bipartisanship, i don't know what is...
The one where the army investigates the Quakers. I wonder if they investigate churches that protest soldiers' funerals?
I never said he was blameless. I'm just not sure what everyone here wants to hear from this president. I see a progression towards sanity in the man and I welcome it. I never believed the reasoning behind going into Iraq and because of that I voted for Kerry. The entire nation had the same information out there to come to the same result as I did. Those that chose to be duped were so by their own lack of intellectual curiosity. Yet, a majority of the voting nation has condoned the president's actions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101832_pf.html "The lawmakers are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But, as The Washington Post reported last year, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary." Not saying that they had the same info. But I must fault the lawmakers for failing to read a 92 page report before sending thousands off to die.
We've gone through this before. The intel report was a cooked marketing document. Congress did not have access to the same intel as the Admin. In fact, it wasn't members of Congress who were calling shenanigans on the intel (how could they have known Bush was cooking the intel? They trusted him)- it was people within the Admin and intel agencies who were screaming foul. What the whole second investigation the Dems want is to be about is how what was presented to Congress differs from what the Admin knew.
I see a progression towards trying to repair his pathetic poll numbers, nothing more. All I've seen far are words. Not vetoing McCain's torture ban would be a step towards sanity.