Has the tide turned?

[sweepyhead]

I haven't read this board in a while, but looking at it now I'm getting an anti-Bush whiff. Am I wrong? Have people finally come to their senses?

You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

Sweepy:sleep2:

[monroe5440]

In other words:

You can b.s. the spectators, but you can't b.s. the players.

[jaybat]

This board has looked to me to be very anti-Bush for quite some time.

[Ohtiger]

I'm from Missouri -- show me. The result of the attack on Iraq appears to be positive for its people, (not proven, since stability has not been ensured). However, the reason Shrub gave for attacking Iraq was NOT to free the Iraqi people -- it was to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction.

So, either Shrub told the truth if he comes up with the WMD's, or he lied. And if he lied, he caused many many American deaths because of it. I'm leaning to think he lied because he wouldn't have gotten the public sentiment to attack Iraq if he told Americans the only reason he was sending some of their sons & daughters to their deaths was to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I think he needed to tell Americans they were threatened.

So, Shrub, show me. (I love an Anne Richards description of George: He was born on third base, but thinks he hit a triple).

[eyowyn]

This board has been too anti-Bush for quite awhile. I thought we were here to sweep and have fun-not stand on soapboxes and shout from the rooftops.

[Rapunzel676]

I'm not anti-Bush, I just don't care for his policies. Furthermore, I don't think this board is anti-Bush at all; in fact, it looks to me like most people are pretty moderate. Finally, as long as we have an "In the News" forum, people will talk about what's in the news, and right now, at least, politics is in the news.

[luckymomx4]

Originally posted by eyowyn
This board has been too anti-Bush for quite awhile. I thought we were here to sweep and have fun-not stand on soapboxes and shout from the rooftops.

I'm for that! everyone's entitled to their opinions, but this place is to get away from all the stress of the world - or so I thought. I personally like Bush, but would rather read the posts from people who win/lose, need help, prayers or just want to have fun.


Pam

:smile2:

[Hhhyyyddd]

i think this is a fairly conservative group of people for the most part- i'm not sure i could reasonably sum it up as "anti-bush"-
i see a lot of dialouge-varying opinions-and it's a good thing-people can have differences of opinions and still be polite about it all-and, yes, while sweepstakes are the thing that drove us all to the same place to begin with, we are people with full lives apart from sweeps after all, and at times will want to discuss those other parts of our lives...anyone who only wants to talk about sweeps is welcome to keep their forum browsing to the sweepstakes related areas of the boards.
me?voted for nader to begin with- call me way out.

[iggy1I]

"I'm for that! everyone's entitled to their opinions, but this place is to get away from all the stress of the world - or so I thought. I personally like Bush, but would rather read the posts from people who win/lose, need help, prayers or just want to have fun." luckymomx4



but this is the news thread...

[Rapunzel676]

Hhhyyyddd, you aren't the only one who goes Independent. If Oklahoma would have let me vote for Nader, I would have. I think the time has come for third parties!

[Hhhyyyddd]

well, you know what nader said about the "lesser of two evils, don't-waste-your-vote-on an independent" philosophy of voting-
"when you choose the lesser of two evils, when the day is over, you are left with evil."
i'd rather"waste" my vote than hold my nose and vote.

[Rapunzel676]

Couldn't agree more, Hhhyyyddd. I don't think we should be forced to choose between "the lesser of two evils." No vote is a wasted vote! By refusing to vote for the two reigning parties, I think we're sending a pretty clear message to Washington: We want more (and presumably better) choices!

[MrDave]

I don't know about Anti-Bush.

I'm pro USA and pro-Constitution/Bill of Rights. Two things that are in trouble now due to 9/11. I'm sure it would have happened under any other president, but the fact remains that this administration is increasingly hostile to free speech, has lied to us, and is violating civil and human rights.

So far as these boards go, I enjoy learning about what is happening and seeing some diverse opinion. Just because you see an article posted that is not of your opinion doesn't mean you should suddenly become stressed. If it bothers you that much then why even listen to the news at all, and why check the "In the News" board at all.

I appreciate that this site supports good discussions on top of all the fun stuff. It is my one stop shop everyday.

I'm really curious - what has Bush done good for our country? Or at least for the common folk like you and I who come here to win a sweep once in a while.

:confused:

I am probably missing it. My one vote goes to the aid to help fight AIDS in Africa. I'm really hoping there isn't some dirt in that one at least.

[sweepyhead]

I don't know about you folks, but not a nickel of those whopping tax cuts will be coming my way. If you expect a big refund in the mail, good luck to you.



As far as the Bushies go, I feel they are evil. It was all over the news last week that Bush had no intention of ever settling the Iraq problem diplomatically; that a well placed White House insider said that Bush wanted to take Saddam out because he was mocking Bush. It was an ego thing. Blood spilled in the sand over Bush's ego.



How do the Bush supporters feel about Cheney's cronies Halliburton getting contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars *before* a shot was even fired? They were like pigs at the trough. I have never seen such unabashed duplicity and greed in my life. My .04.



Sweepy:sleep2:

[tncorgi]

Any bets when the impeachment committees start meeting???


Senate to probe Iraq weapons intelligence


- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jesse J. Holland

http://salon.com/news/wire/2003/06/01/iraqi_weapons/index.html



June 1, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Senate committees want to investigate whether U.S. intelligence accurately pointed to banned weapons in Iraq as claimed by the Bush administration in going to war, senators said Sunday.

More than 11 weeks have passed without conclusive evidence of an Iraqi program to develop weapons of mass destruction, senators said, and it's time to investigate whether intelligence reports saying so were correct.

An investigation doesn't mean senators think that something was done incorrectly, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"By the fact that we're just investigating it, should not in any way indicate that we're putting any credibility doubt against" the CIA or the Bush administration, Warner said.

He said his committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee might look jointly into the situation.

One member of the Intelligence panel, Sen. Bob Graham, running for the Democratic presidential nomination from Florida, went further than other senators in declaring on CNN that the government might have willfully distributed erroneous information on Iraq's arsenal.

"If we don't find these weapons of mass destruction, it will represent a serious intelligence failure or the manipulation of that intelligence to keep the American people in the dark," Graham said.

The Bush administration's main argument for the Iraq invasion was that deposed President Saddam Hussein held chemical and biological weapons and possibly was developing nuclear weapons. All were banned to Iraq under sanctions imposed by the United Nations after in August 1990 after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait and by subsequent U.N. resolutions.

Bush faced the question again Sunday in a news conference at St. Petersburg, Russia, as he ended an official visit. He seemed to have told a Polish television reporter Thursday that U.S. searchers had found weapons in the form of two mobile laboratories that the Americans say were to manufacture biological weapons.

"We've discovered weapons systems, biological labs, that Iraq denied she had, and labs that were prohibited under the U.N. resolutions," Bush said.

While Democrats have been bashing the White House for the military's failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, Warner and other Republican senators joined in Sunday in proposing a congressional inquiry.

"Absolutely, absolutely, there should be," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on ABC's "This Week." "And I would think that the Congress is very well suited for that, a bipartisan committee, or Intelligence Committee report."

Warner said he and Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., have talked about a joint hearing into the intelligence about Iraq that the Bush administration was given.

CIA Director George Tenet "assured me that he's going to supply the Congress first and foremost with all the statements made by the administration on weapons of mass destruction and the underlying intelligence that supported those statements," Warner said.

Warner gave no time for an investigation.

The Pentagon is sending a new group of weapons hunters to Iraq to expand the search for banned weapons, beginning Monday.

Tenet defended his agency's work. "The integrity of our process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong," he said Friday.

Intelligence mistakes might have been made, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said, but he isn't ready to say information was manipulated.

"I don't think we know enough yet to cross the line, though, and start questioning motives and saying that people were consciously manipulating the facts," Bayh said on CNN.

It's important to find out what happened, though, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"I think it cannot go uninvestigated, because big nations have two things: they have their word and they have their credibility," Biden said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"Our credibility is going to be called into question in other parts of the world" if nothing is found, he said.

[MrDave]

Thank goodness for that. I hope they eventually complete the 9/11 investigation as well. For some reason (or is it too obvious?) everyone is dragging their feet on that one as well.

[iggy1I]

I'm not holding my breath waiting for "an investigation" on anything. I don't believe the Dems have the balls to do it and it appears that most of the American public think a bj in the White House is more of a crime.
Oh and yes, I will admit to being anti-bush. I have no respect for this man or his family . I thought at least I could respect powell, but it appears he's just as corrupt as the rest of them...

[Rapunzel676]

Unfortunately, Iggy, I think you're right.

[MrDave]

Originally posted by iggy1I
I'm not holding my breath waiting for "an investigation" on anything. I don't believe the Dems have the balls to do it and it appears that most of the American public think a bj in the White House is more of a crime.
Oh and yes, I will admit to being anti-bush. I have no respect for this man or his family . I thought at least I could respect powell, but it appears he's just as corrupt as the rest of them...

Much has been made of the rift between the State Dept. and the Pentagon. The State Dept. is losing influence with the administration, and with Powell on guard I am surprised. However the information that Powell was infuriated at the first draft of his speech to the UN is enlightening. I think Bush hung Powell out to dry on that one purposfully.

[iggy1I]

Oh, no doubt bush hung powell and tony blair out to dry, but I won't put all the blame on him. Until I see photos of someone (lol "watermelon burton"?) from this administration holding a gun to these 2 heads, I hold them responsible for their own actions. Look at powell's son and the FCC ruling. The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree. Nothing but corruption all around. bush will win the next election and money and lies are what's going to win it for him again.:mad: :mad:

[tncorgi]

The drum beat grows...

I was silly to trust America
By Max Hastings
(Filed: 01/06/2003)

http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/06/01/do0108.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/01/ixnewstop.html


Even by the standards of the Bush Administration, last week was a remarkable one for diplomatic folly. Paul Wolfowitz, the Assistant Defence Secretary, disclosed that the US wilfully exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass destruction, to rally support for an Iraq war. Likewise, Wolfowitz's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, declared that he has little expectation of finding any WMDs. He then launched a new round of sabre-rattling against Iran. So much for the gleeful banner under which President Bush greeted a homebound American aircraft-carrier crew: "Mission accomplished".

The leading lights of the US Defence Department always made it plain that disarming Saddam was a pretext for regime change in Iraq. Yet that pretext was the basis of a massive American diplomatic offensive. Tony Blair explicitly told the British people that disarming Saddam justified taking Britain to war. That argument was fraudulent.

Some of us, who accepted public and private Whitehall assurances about WMDs, today feel rather silly. Robin Cook is crowing, and well he may. He said that WMDs did not exist. He appears to have been right. It is irrelevant that the Allies won the war. The Prime Minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks.

Meanwhile inside Iraq, it has become irrelevant to criticise the Americans for past failure to anticipate the problems of making the country work. The question is whether they intend to commit resources on a scale commensurate with the task, now that the requirement is plain. The example of Afghanistan, where Washington seems untroubled by post-war anarchy, is not encouraging. The Americans shrug that today's warlordism offers Afghans better lives than yesterday's Taliban, and that outcome should suffice.

The Administration has always asserted that the Iraqi people were not enemies, but hapless pawns of a tyrant. In 1945, the Germans and Japanese begged for cigarettes and scratched in the ruins of their cities without much audible protest, because they knew they were the vanquished. The Iraqis, by contrast, behave as if they had just voted the Americans into office. They are petulantly impatient to see their new government fulfil its election pledges. The world is happy to cheer them on.

George Bush seems likely to fight a khaki presidential election in 2004, on a platform of tough action abroad in the cause of homeland defence. Critics observe that he can scarcely do anything else, since his management of the US economy frightens the life out of everyone who thinks beyond polling day.

It is hard to overstate the seriousness of the damage to British trust which is inflicted almost daily by Washington's insouciance. What was the point of reluctantly joining the Iraqi adventure, people ask, if the British Government cannot curb the excesses of American policy, and if the British Army's reward for participation is a half-baked war crimes charge against one of its officers by a disgruntled American major?

American hawks would dismiss most of the above as a reflection of familiar British liberal pusillanimity, our unflagging belief that we ran the world more intelligently in our centuries than they do in theirs. Yet there are good grounds for mistrusting American judgment.

I was among those who thought the war mistaken, but reluctantly accepted the arguments for British participation, to preserve the Atlantic alliance and to maintain some marginal influence upon American policy. Today, given the behaviour of the US Administration, that case is in tatters.

Thus, some people declare that this is the moment for Britain to jump ship, plainly to assert that we will go no further alongside an ally so reckless in its diplomacy, so careless in its actions. Yet the US remains the only superpower we have got. It cannot be exchanged for a new model. Britain is now committed in Iraq, for better or worse.

It remains vital to engage with Washington. Even in the face of great difficulties, the diplomatic effort must continue, to restrain American unilateralism. But a heavy blow has been struck against our faith in American rhetoric and judgment. The struggle against terrorism, and the management of the world look harder today than they did a week ago, thanks to Washington's frightening surge of unforced errors.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



June 3, 2003
Standard Operating Procedure
By PAUL KRUGMAN


he mystery of Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction has become a lot less mysterious. Recent reports in major British newspapers and three major American news magazines, based on leaks from angry intelligence officials, back up the sources who told my colleague Nicholas Kristof that the Bush administration "grossly manipulated intelligence" about W.M.D.'s.

And anyone who talks about an "intelligence failure" is missing the point. The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence.

In Britain, the news media have not been shy about drawing the obvious implications, and the outrage has not been limited to war opponents. The Times of London was ardently pro-war; nonetheless, it ran an analysis under the headline "Lie Another Day." The paper drew parallels between the selling of the war and other misleading claims: "The government is seen as having `spun' the threat from Saddam's weapons just as it spins everything else."

Yet few have made the same argument in this country, even though "spin" is far too mild a word for what the Bush administration does, all the time. Suggestions that the public was manipulated into supporting an Iraq war gain credibility from the fact that misrepresentation and deception are standard operating procedure for this administration, which — to an extent never before seen in U.S. history — systematically and brazenly distorts the facts.

Am I exaggerating? Even as George Bush stunned reporters by declaring that we have "found the weapons of mass destruction," the Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays taxes." That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo. In total, 50 million American households — including a majority of those with members over 65 — get nothing; another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And a great majority of those left behind do pay taxes.

And the bald-faced misrepresentation of an elitist tax cut offering little or nothing to most Americans is only the latest in a long string of blatant misstatements. Misleading the public has been a consistent strategy for the Bush team on issues ranging from tax policy and Social Security reform to energy and the environment. So why should we give the administration the benefit of the doubt on foreign policy?

It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters — a group that includes a large segment of the news media — obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.

If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent — who supported Britain's participation in the war — writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."

It's no answer to say that Saddam was a murderous tyrant. I could point out that many of the neoconservatives who fomented this war were nonchalant, or worse, about mass murders by Central American death squads in the 1980's. But the important point is that this isn't about Saddam: it's about us. The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history — worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra. Indeed, the idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators so uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility.

But here's the thought that should make those commentators really uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into war. And suppose that it is not held accountable for its deceptions, so Mr. Bush can fight what Mr. Hastings calls a "khaki election" next year. In that case, our political system has become utterly, and perhaps irrevocably, corrupted.

[Mary Beth]

tncorgi -

Mmmmm. Maybe I should send the Krugman piece to the Washington Post editors and ask them for an apology?

Mary Beth