Interesting article on how the Bush admin doesn't mind going against executive privilage to embarrass clinton. Shows how they aren't in it for principle:
Unlike most homes, my kids will receive the majority of their moral education at home, and not in front of a television.
OK.. so "our" (who the hell is "we") civilization is only supported by public school and public school alums. Private school kids need not apply. How very open and accepting.
From now on, I want you to send a check to the Christian Coalition in kind every time you donate to a cause you support. So you can feel how wonderful it is to pay for things you have NO use for personally.
Im not sure you understood what I meant:
I send my daughter to a Christian-based daycare . . . though it is only Christian in so far as Montessori was a Catholic and all of the people there are Christians . . . it is a precursor to private school.
I will, if I can afford it, send my daughter to private school. I know tht Public Schools are fine . . . but they can also be very mediocre.
However, I also live in this civilization, share roads and government and space with my fellow Americans . . . I am part of this civilization . . I utilize the benefits of being a part of it and I contribute to it through taxes.
I may not agree with the level of schooling at the Public School down the street (though Wisconsin has one of the best systems (because of taxes)) but I realize that its benefits are the good benefits of the civilization of which I am a part. I don't begrudge public schools my piddly contribution simply because I am a morally arrogant religious snob who thinks that because I am obsequious to an antiquated moral system that I am so much better than the plebs in Public School.
Churchs are tax exempt because of the seperation of church and state . . . you don't want to pay taxes then register to become a church; for what you really worship: your self . . . perhaps you can get status as a church: Worshipper at the Church of Self righteousness and self gimme gimme
then you'll be able to keep all your money
BTW, my daughter never watches TV.
Also BTW, and more on topic, I watched Condi on CBS online, you can tell by the way that she, who is usually never flustered, is hesitent and twitching . . . she knows that she is distorting the truth, if not lying outright . . . what do you think?
When these groups protest, they are derided as imbiciles, and told to "deal with it". The free exercise of their religion in the public school system is not permitted---it is actually against the law.
When these groups protest, with regards to the Natural Sciences, they usually ARE imbiciles!!
And yes, it is illegal to have a public institution support or promote the expression of a particular religion . . . you know what?
Deal with it!!
You can pray that the home team wins the game . . . when at home, before or after tha game . . or to your self and friends in the stands without institutional support or promotion
that way my daughter doesn't have to be coerced into becoming a muslim because the Public school promoted 5 times daily turning towards Mecca . . .
THE EDUCATION OF RICHARD CLARKE....Having finished Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies I now find myself almost afraid to comment on it. With the battle lines already drawn along the predictable lines, it almost seems pointless. If you're a liberal he's a heroic truthteller and if you're a conservative he's a bitter Bush hater. Is anyone going to change their mind at this point?
Maybe not, but let's try to sort out what Clarke actually says and why he says it anyway, because I don't think it's entirely obvious just from the snippets we've seen on TV over the past week. The story is a little more complicated than it appears.
To begin with, the bulk of the book is a fairly straightforward description of terrorism during the 90s: what happened, how we responded, how we eventually put the al-Qaeda pieces together, and what kinds of institutional problems prevented a more effective response. It is largely concerned with Clarke's efforts to get official Washington to take terrorism seriously ? he is scathing toward the FBI and the military, and only slightly less so toward the CIA ? and there's not much question that during this period Clarke was fundamentally nonpartisan, mostly just a bulldog who was obsessed with terrorism and frequently upset that the rest of the world didn't share his obsession.
So what was it that seemingly turned him into a Democratic partisan? Oddly enough, it appears that the turning point came in August 1998 and was a combination of two things: the Monica Lewinsky scandal and al-Qaeda's attacks on two American embassies. It was only a couple of years earlier that the CIA had finally connected the dots and figured out that the al-Qaeda organization even existed, and the embassy bombings were their first major attack since then. Unfortunately, Republican opportunism made it hard to fight back. Although Clarke says he was "beyond mad" at Clinton for failing to keep his zipper shut, he became flatly infuriated with the recklessness of his conservative opposition:
I was angrier, almost incredulous, that the bitterness of Clinton's enemies knew no bounds, that they intended to hurt not just Clinton but the country by turning the President's personal problem into a global, public circus for their own political ends. Now I feared that the timing of the President's interrogation about the scandal, August 17, would get in the way of our hitting the al Qaeda meeting.
....Our response to two deadly terroist attacks was an attempt to wipe out al Qaeda leadership, yet it quickly became grist for the right-wing talk radio mill and part of the Get Clinton campaign. That reaction made it more difficult to get approval for follow-up attacks on al Qaeda, such as my later attempts to persuade the Principals to forget about finding bin Laden and just bomb the training camps.
For a true believer like Clarke, the partisan posturing in response to what he thought was the most important problem facing our country must have convinced him that many Republicans simply didn't take national security seriously. And what he saw when Bush took office must have convinced him even further:
*
Although neither administration ended up hitting back as hard as Clarke wanted, he makes it clear that at least the Clinton team considered it a high priority. The Bush team was more interested in missile defense and relations with China.
*
Even though the Clinton and Bush policies ended up being largely the same prior to 9/11 ? Condi Rice's denials notwithstanding ? Clarke believes the Clinton team was better at execution. Several terrorist plots were foiled in December 1999 due to a heightened alert status approved by Clinton, and he thinks 9/11 could have been foiled too if the Bush team had adopted the same approach in the summer of 2001.
*
Finally, there was Bush's post-9/11 response. Clarke believes that the Bush team failed to understand that al-Qaeda was something fundamentally new. "You give bin Laden too much credit," Paul Wolfowitz said in an April 2000 meeting. "He could not do all these things...without a state sponsor." As a result of this belief, after 9/11 the Bush team wanted to go after Iraq while Clarke wanted to go directly after al-Qaeda.
This last point is a critical one, of course, and goes to the heart of many of the post-9/11 differences between Bush and his critics. Here's how Clarke describes what he learned when the intelligence community first discovered the existence of al-Qaeda in 1996:
The ingredients al Qaeda dreamed of for propagating its movement were a Christian government attacking a weaker Muslim region, allowing the new terrorist group to rally jihadists from many countries to come to the aid of the religious brethren. After the success of the jihad, the Muslim region would become a radical Islamic state, a breeding ground for more terrorists, a part of the eventual network of Islamic states that would make up the great new Caliphate, or Muslim empire.
From his point of view, then, Bush's post-9/11 obsession with attacking states was simply playing into al-Qaeda's hands. "It was as if Usama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq.'"
Clarke surely knows that it would have helped his credibility if he had treated the Clinton and Bush administrations more evenhandedly, but he obviously thought the differences between them ran too deep to do that. During the Clinton years the problem was one of turning a battleship, but he felt that at least everyone took it seriously and helped to push. Then in January 2001 he suddenly found himself working for an administration that didn't take terrorism seriously, didn't execute well even when they did acknowledge the problem, and then after 9/11 remained so stubbornly ignorant of al-Qaeda's aims that they played directly into its hands.
Is it any wonder he has little good to say about them?
That is a good link Giant . . . this needs to be understood:
"From his point of view, then, Bush's post-9/11 obsession with attacking states was simply playing into al-Qaeda's hands. "It was as if Usama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq.'"
.....another juicy tidbit from the unhypnotized Mr. Drudge:
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON MARCH 29, 2004 17:04:22 ET XXXXX
1999: CLARKE DID NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH; CITING PRIVILEGE
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday continued to maintain her public testimony before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks\twould represent a breach of separation between congress and the executive -- a claim once used by Bush critic Richard Clarke!
The more I learn about this guy and his deliberate incompetencies, the more it leads me to suspect he's a LLLeft over commie implant. I can just feel it in my bones. Everything from uselessly lobbing expensive cruise missiles at aspirin factories, to authorizing the leave of suspected Saudis after 9/11, to handing A-Q first Bosnia, then Kosovo, clearly points to it.
.....another juicy tidbit from the unhypnotized Mr. Drudge:
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON MARCH 29, 2004 17:04:22 ET XXXXX
1999: CLARKE DID NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH; CITING PRIVILEGE
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday continued to maintain her public testimony before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks\twould represent a breach of separation between congress and the executive -- a claim once used by Bush critic Richard Clarke!
If you'd bothered to read the transcript linked to, you'd see that it's not executive privlege being cited, it's not about terrorism and it wasn't Clarke's idea.
The legal staff of the NSA said that it was illegal for a white house staff member to testify before Congress prior to being confirmed.
The testimony at hand was in re the Y2K computer scare.
From Matt "ATT pulled its advertising from site because of my bogus Kerry had an affair" Drudge.
An atheist, by default, has made himself god. The answer for the Atheist to question of unity as the sum of all particulars remains. In politics, the atheist is as neutral as the Christian, the Buddist, the Pagan, the Muslim, etc, etc, etc.
new poll stated 50% of americans think Clarke has acted out of personal reasons and 25% don't.
Restores my faith in humans.
I give it a few more days, then it's history.
Your faith is touching but has a lousy track record.
Remember "indicted for perjury"? (Come on, it's only been 2 days).
Turns out Frist had to backtrack about Clarke's "perjury" and admit that he didn't know anything "personally" about his testimony. Turns out the people who do are mostly in agreement that they don't recall anything substantially different between his two appearences.
Turns out that by calling for not just parts of his testimony to be declassified, but all of it as well as memos, emails and Condi's testimony, Clarke has turned the table on Bush and may have caught him in an enormous political blunder.
Your faith is touching but has a lousy track record.
Remember "indicted for perjury"? (Come on, it's only been 2 days).
Turns out Frist had to backtrack about Clarke's "perjury" and admit that he didn't know anything "personally" about his testimony. Turns out the people who do are mostly in agreement that they don't recall anything substantially different between his two appearences.
Turns out that by calling for not just parts of his testimony to be declassified, but all of it as well as memos, emails and Condi's testimony, Clarke has turned the table on Bush and may have caught him in an enormous political blunder.
I clearly stated he "MAY" be indicted. You do understand the importance of that little 3 letter word?
You see, when you quote me and just "happen" to forget that little word, it really shows the tactics that are at play in AO.
The athiest by definition, is in a universe of unrelated particulars.
The only unity that can be found is an absorption into the whole of these particulars.
In a nutshell this is why the individual was essentially worthless in the PRC and USSR.
(and why spock did what he did in The Wrath of Kahn)
Yes, but if God had a blog and Richard Clarke was an unattached agent in a non-deterministic universe, what sort of faith could be constructed from the discernable effects of Condi Rice's emails vis the causality of human free will?
The athiest by definition, is in a universe of unrelated particulars.
The only unity that can be found is an absorption into the whole of these particulars.
In a nutshell this is why the individual was essentially worthless in the PRC and USSR.
(and why spock did what he did in The Wrath of Kahn)
I rarely get a chance to use this phrase...
What you said is nonsensical gobbledegook. An atheist by definition doesn't believe in a god or gods. That's it. Nothing else. There are no other implications for the atheist. The ridiculous implications you discuss only exist through your own twisted framework.
Yes, but if God had a blog and Richard Clarke was an unattached agent in a non-deterministic universe, what sort of faith could be constructed from the discernable effects of Condi Rice's emails vis the causality of human free will?
What you said is nonsensical gobbledegook. An atheist by definition doesn't believe in a god or gods. That's it. Nothing else. There are no other implications for the atheist. The ridiculous implications you discuss only exist through your own twisted framework.
BR I think I'm going to go run a beer through my twisted framework.
.....another juicy tidbit from the unhypnotized Mr. Drudge:
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON MARCH 29, 2004 17:04:22 ET XXXXX
1999: CLARKE DID NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH; CITING PRIVILEGE
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday continued to maintain her public testimony before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks\twould represent a breach of separation between congress and the executive -- a claim once used by Bush critic Richard Clarke!
The commission itself is not an arm of congress -unlike the senate finance committee.
So they are going to cut and paste his words together. It will hit front page news and most people aren't going to care how they rip, mixed and burned it:
Quote:
Declassifying the transcripts is not compatible with national security. But taking the transcripts, cutting the individual words into scraps and pasting them back together into incriminating sentences might be okay.
How far different is this ...
U.S. officials told NBC News that the full record of Clarke?s testimony two years ago would not be declassified. They said that at the request of the White House, however, the CIA was going through the transcript to see what could be declassified, with an eye toward pointing out contradictions.
That's the last graf from a late story from NBC.
You know something's wrong -- when an administration is truly out of control -- when they discuss their dirty tricks on background.
Look at what this is: using the CIA and the classification process for an explicitly and exclusively partisan purpose, at the direct behest of the White House. Call me old-fashioned but back in the good-old-days this used to be done with a bit more indirection, subterfuge and cover, no?
It's one thing to declassify the whole thing. Perhaps there's some rationale for that -- though why Clarke's testimony and no one else's should be released seems questionable.
But the whole thing won't be released -- which would be only way to really judge what he said -- only portions which can be selected to highlight apparent contradictions.
We're moving on to dangerous enough ground when the White House starts using the nation's intelligence agencies for explicitly domestic political purposes. But you know we're really in trouble when they don't even try to hide it.
Either the whole thing is desclassified, or the whole thing is for naught. If the CIA is allowed to "piece together" only the parts that suit the administration's purposes (exactly what they're doing and they admit as much), then it's useless to the public at large. We need the whole context, period. If you have to blank out names, or intelligence sources, fine... but the whole thing needs to be available for scrutiny to ascertain if Clarke is being honest.
Moving right along... Condi has agreed to testify publicly, under oath.
Quote:
From the NYT:
In a reversal, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as long as the panel seeks no further public testimony from White House officials, the administration said Tuesday.
What I don't get is, why the condition that no one else be asked to testify?? What kind of message does that send? What if we find out things that logically demand someone else testify, in order to get to the bottom of a particular issue? Just can't do it because the administration won't like it?
Screw that. I hope in this case that she is made to do an all-day session basically. Grill her ass.
Comments
http://www.salon.com/politics/featur.../bush_records/
Originally posted by Jubelum
Unlike most homes, my kids will receive the majority of their moral education at home, and not in front of a television.
OK.. so "our" (who the hell is "we") civilization is only supported by public school and public school alums. Private school kids need not apply. How very open and accepting.
From now on, I want you to send a check to the Christian Coalition in kind every time you donate to a cause you support. So you can feel how wonderful it is to pay for things you have NO use for personally.
Im not sure you understood what I meant:
I send my daughter to a Christian-based daycare . . . though it is only Christian in so far as Montessori was a Catholic and all of the people there are Christians . . . it is a precursor to private school.
I will, if I can afford it, send my daughter to private school. I know tht Public Schools are fine . . . but they can also be very mediocre.
However, I also live in this civilization, share roads and government and space with my fellow Americans . . . I am part of this civilization . . I utilize the benefits of being a part of it and I contribute to it through taxes.
I may not agree with the level of schooling at the Public School down the street (though Wisconsin has one of the best systems (because of taxes)) but I realize that its benefits are the good benefits of the civilization of which I am a part. I don't begrudge public schools my piddly contribution simply because I am a morally arrogant religious snob who thinks that because I am obsequious to an antiquated moral system that I am so much better than the plebs in Public School.
Churchs are tax exempt because of the seperation of church and state . . . you don't want to pay taxes then register to become a church; for what you really worship: your self . . . perhaps you can get status as a church: Worshipper at the Church of Self righteousness and self gimme gimme
then you'll be able to keep all your money
BTW, my daughter never watches TV.
Also BTW, and more on topic, I watched Condi on CBS online, you can tell by the way that she, who is usually never flustered, is hesitent and twitching . . . she knows that she is distorting the truth, if not lying outright . . . what do you think?
Originally posted by dmz
When these groups protest, they are derided as imbiciles, and told to "deal with it". The free exercise of their religion in the public school system is not permitted---it is actually against the law.
When these groups protest, with regards to the Natural Sciences, they usually ARE imbiciles!!
And yes, it is illegal to have a public institution support or promote the expression of a particular religion . . . you know what?
Deal with it!!
You can pray that the home team wins the game . . . when at home, before or after tha game . . or to your self and friends in the stands without institutional support or promotion
that way my daughter doesn't have to be coerced into becoming a muslim because the Public school promoted 5 times daily turning towards Mecca . . .
THE EDUCATION OF RICHARD CLARKE....Having finished Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies I now find myself almost afraid to comment on it. With the battle lines already drawn along the predictable lines, it almost seems pointless. If you're a liberal he's a heroic truthteller and if you're a conservative he's a bitter Bush hater. Is anyone going to change their mind at this point?
Maybe not, but let's try to sort out what Clarke actually says and why he says it anyway, because I don't think it's entirely obvious just from the snippets we've seen on TV over the past week. The story is a little more complicated than it appears.
To begin with, the bulk of the book is a fairly straightforward description of terrorism during the 90s: what happened, how we responded, how we eventually put the al-Qaeda pieces together, and what kinds of institutional problems prevented a more effective response. It is largely concerned with Clarke's efforts to get official Washington to take terrorism seriously ? he is scathing toward the FBI and the military, and only slightly less so toward the CIA ? and there's not much question that during this period Clarke was fundamentally nonpartisan, mostly just a bulldog who was obsessed with terrorism and frequently upset that the rest of the world didn't share his obsession.
So what was it that seemingly turned him into a Democratic partisan? Oddly enough, it appears that the turning point came in August 1998 and was a combination of two things: the Monica Lewinsky scandal and al-Qaeda's attacks on two American embassies. It was only a couple of years earlier that the CIA had finally connected the dots and figured out that the al-Qaeda organization even existed, and the embassy bombings were their first major attack since then. Unfortunately, Republican opportunism made it hard to fight back. Although Clarke says he was "beyond mad" at Clinton for failing to keep his zipper shut, he became flatly infuriated with the recklessness of his conservative opposition:
I was angrier, almost incredulous, that the bitterness of Clinton's enemies knew no bounds, that they intended to hurt not just Clinton but the country by turning the President's personal problem into a global, public circus for their own political ends. Now I feared that the timing of the President's interrogation about the scandal, August 17, would get in the way of our hitting the al Qaeda meeting.
....Our response to two deadly terroist attacks was an attempt to wipe out al Qaeda leadership, yet it quickly became grist for the right-wing talk radio mill and part of the Get Clinton campaign. That reaction made it more difficult to get approval for follow-up attacks on al Qaeda, such as my later attempts to persuade the Principals to forget about finding bin Laden and just bomb the training camps.
For a true believer like Clarke, the partisan posturing in response to what he thought was the most important problem facing our country must have convinced him that many Republicans simply didn't take national security seriously. And what he saw when Bush took office must have convinced him even further:
*
Although neither administration ended up hitting back as hard as Clarke wanted, he makes it clear that at least the Clinton team considered it a high priority. The Bush team was more interested in missile defense and relations with China.
*
Even though the Clinton and Bush policies ended up being largely the same prior to 9/11 ? Condi Rice's denials notwithstanding ? Clarke believes the Clinton team was better at execution. Several terrorist plots were foiled in December 1999 due to a heightened alert status approved by Clinton, and he thinks 9/11 could have been foiled too if the Bush team had adopted the same approach in the summer of 2001.
*
Finally, there was Bush's post-9/11 response. Clarke believes that the Bush team failed to understand that al-Qaeda was something fundamentally new. "You give bin Laden too much credit," Paul Wolfowitz said in an April 2000 meeting. "He could not do all these things...without a state sponsor." As a result of this belief, after 9/11 the Bush team wanted to go after Iraq while Clarke wanted to go directly after al-Qaeda.
This last point is a critical one, of course, and goes to the heart of many of the post-9/11 differences between Bush and his critics. Here's how Clarke describes what he learned when the intelligence community first discovered the existence of al-Qaeda in 1996:
The ingredients al Qaeda dreamed of for propagating its movement were a Christian government attacking a weaker Muslim region, allowing the new terrorist group to rally jihadists from many countries to come to the aid of the religious brethren. After the success of the jihad, the Muslim region would become a radical Islamic state, a breeding ground for more terrorists, a part of the eventual network of Islamic states that would make up the great new Caliphate, or Muslim empire.
From his point of view, then, Bush's post-9/11 obsession with attacking states was simply playing into al-Qaeda's hands. "It was as if Usama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq.'"
Clarke surely knows that it would have helped his credibility if he had treated the Clinton and Bush administrations more evenhandedly, but he obviously thought the differences between them ran too deep to do that. During the Clinton years the problem was one of turning a battleship, but he felt that at least everyone took it seriously and helped to push. Then in January 2001 he suddenly found himself working for an administration that didn't take terrorism seriously, didn't execute well even when they did acknowledge the problem, and then after 9/11 remained so stubbornly ignorant of al-Qaeda's aims that they played directly into its hands.
Is it any wonder he has little good to say about them?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._03/003570.php
That is a good link Giant . . . this needs to be understood:
"From his point of view, then, Bush's post-9/11 obsession with attacking states was simply playing into al-Qaeda's hands. "It was as if Usama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq.'"
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON MARCH 29, 2004 17:04:22 ET XXXXX
1999: CLARKE DID NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH; CITING PRIVILEGE
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday continued to maintain her public testimony before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks\twould represent a breach of separation between congress and the executive -- a claim once used by Bush critic Richard Clarke!
Restores my faith in humans.
I give it a few more days, then it's history.
Originally posted by dmz
.....another juicy tidbit from the unhypnotized Mr. Drudge:
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON MARCH 29, 2004 17:04:22 ET XXXXX
1999: CLARKE DID NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH; CITING PRIVILEGE
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday continued to maintain her public testimony before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks\twould represent a breach of separation between congress and the executive -- a claim once used by Bush critic Richard Clarke!
If you'd bothered to read the transcript linked to, you'd see that it's not executive privlege being cited, it's not about terrorism and it wasn't Clarke's idea.
The legal staff of the NSA said that it was illegal for a white house staff member to testify before Congress prior to being confirmed.
The testimony at hand was in re the Y2K computer scare.
From Matt "ATT pulled its advertising from site because of my bogus Kerry had an affair" Drudge.
Originally posted by dmz
An atheist, by default, has made himself god. The answer for the Atheist to question of unity as the sum of all particulars remains. In politics, the atheist is as neutral as the Christian, the Buddist, the Pagan, the Muslim, etc, etc, etc.
WTF?
Originally posted by NaplesX
new poll stated 50% of americans think Clarke has acted out of personal reasons and 25% don't.
Restores my faith in humans.
I give it a few more days, then it's history.
Your faith is touching but has a lousy track record.
Remember "indicted for perjury"? (Come on, it's only been 2 days).
Turns out Frist had to backtrack about Clarke's "perjury" and admit that he didn't know anything "personally" about his testimony. Turns out the people who do are mostly in agreement that they don't recall anything substantially different between his two appearences.
Turns out that by calling for not just parts of his testimony to be declassified, but all of it as well as memos, emails and Condi's testimony, Clarke has turned the table on Bush and may have caught him in an enormous political blunder.
Originally posted by BR
WTF?
The athiest by definition, is in a universe of unrelated particulars.
The only unity that can be found is an absorption into the whole of these particulars.
In a nutshell this is why the individual was essentially worthless in the PRC and USSR.
(and why spock did what he did in The Wrath of Kahn)
Originally posted by addabox
Your faith is touching but has a lousy track record.
Remember "indicted for perjury"? (Come on, it's only been 2 days).
Turns out Frist had to backtrack about Clarke's "perjury" and admit that he didn't know anything "personally" about his testimony. Turns out the people who do are mostly in agreement that they don't recall anything substantially different between his two appearences.
Turns out that by calling for not just parts of his testimony to be declassified, but all of it as well as memos, emails and Condi's testimony, Clarke has turned the table on Bush and may have caught him in an enormous political blunder.
I clearly stated he "MAY" be indicted. You do understand the importance of that little 3 letter word?
You see, when you quote me and just "happen" to forget that little word, it really shows the tactics that are at play in AO.
It is sad.
Originally posted by dmz
The athiest by definition, is in a universe of unrelated particulars.
The only unity that can be found is an absorption into the whole of these particulars.
In a nutshell this is why the individual was essentially worthless in the PRC and USSR.
(and why spock did what he did in The Wrath of Kahn)
Yes, but if God had a blog and Richard Clarke was an unattached agent in a non-deterministic universe, what sort of faith could be constructed from the discernable effects of Condi Rice's emails vis the causality of human free will?
Originally posted by dmz
The athiest by definition, is in a universe of unrelated particulars.
The only unity that can be found is an absorption into the whole of these particulars.
In a nutshell this is why the individual was essentially worthless in the PRC and USSR.
(and why spock did what he did in The Wrath of Kahn)
I rarely get a chance to use this phrase...
What you said is nonsensical gobbledegook. An atheist by definition doesn't believe in a god or gods. That's it. Nothing else. There are no other implications for the atheist. The ridiculous implications you discuss only exist through your own twisted framework.
Originally posted by addabox
Yes, but if God had a blog and Richard Clarke was an unattached agent in a non-deterministic universe, what sort of faith could be constructed from the discernable effects of Condi Rice's emails vis the causality of human free will?
Originally posted by BR
I rarely get a chance to use this phrase...
What you said is nonsensical gobbledegook. An atheist by definition doesn't believe in a god or gods. That's it. Nothing else. There are no other implications for the atheist. The ridiculous implications you discuss only exist through your own twisted framework.
BR I think I'm going to go run a beer through my twisted framework.
Behave yourself.
Originally posted by dmz
.....another juicy tidbit from the unhypnotized Mr. Drudge:
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON MARCH 29, 2004 17:04:22 ET XXXXX
1999: CLARKE DID NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH; CITING PRIVILEGE
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday continued to maintain her public testimony before the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks\twould represent a breach of separation between congress and the executive -- a claim once used by Bush critic Richard Clarke!
The commission itself is not an arm of congress -unlike the senate finance committee.
Declassifying the transcripts is not compatible with national security. But taking the transcripts, cutting the individual words into scraps and pasting them back together into incriminating sentences might be okay.
How far different is this ...
U.S. officials told NBC News that the full record of Clarke?s testimony two years ago would not be declassified. They said that at the request of the White House, however, the CIA was going through the transcript to see what could be declassified, with an eye toward pointing out contradictions.
That's the last graf from a late story from NBC.
You know something's wrong -- when an administration is truly out of control -- when they discuss their dirty tricks on background.
Look at what this is: using the CIA and the classification process for an explicitly and exclusively partisan purpose, at the direct behest of the White House. Call me old-fashioned but back in the good-old-days this used to be done with a bit more indirection, subterfuge and cover, no?
It's one thing to declassify the whole thing. Perhaps there's some rationale for that -- though why Clarke's testimony and no one else's should be released seems questionable.
But the whole thing won't be released -- which would be only way to really judge what he said -- only portions which can be selected to highlight apparent contradictions.
We're moving on to dangerous enough ground when the White House starts using the nation's intelligence agencies for explicitly domestic political purposes. But you know we're really in trouble when they don't even try to hide it.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc..._28.php#002779
Moving right along... Condi has agreed to testify publicly, under oath.
From the NYT:
In a reversal, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as long as the panel seeks no further public testimony from White House officials, the administration said Tuesday.
What I don't get is, why the condition that no one else be asked to testify?? What kind of message does that send? What if we find out things that logically demand someone else testify, in order to get to the bottom of a particular issue? Just can't do it because the administration won't like it?
Screw that. I hope in this case that she is made to do an all-day session basically. Grill her ass.