President Clinton's address December 16th 1998

[happygrump]

Let’s look at Clinton’s agenda. Consider the timing. This was in the peak of the Monica Lewinsky thing and Clinton needed a diversion, so he bombed Iraq...

This tired "wag-the-dog" scenario is old hat, and not even close.

Clinton was advised by by intelligence and his inner circle - which included R's - that Osama was in the area, and it was a good opportunity to take him out.

It turns out the intelligence was wrong.

The opportunity to knock off OBL came again when he - OBL - was thought to be in a particular area in Afghanistan. However, Clinton decided not to launch cruise missiles because there were friendly operatives in the area. Tough call. I don't know if I would have done it any differently though.

So, this diversion argument is nothing but right-wing hot air, and again doesn't mesh with the facts.

 

[Mcluhan]

Bush might leave a lot to be desired for, maybe.
Look at the options:
Al Gore?? The "Lockbox guy". His own state didn't vote for him, ever wondered why?
John Kerry?? Sorry, but even more than Bush he is a spoiled rich kid, that is so far detached from real life as you can get.

I think Bush got elected by default, he was the lesser of the three evils.

let's not forget that Gore won the popular vote. Gore probably lost the election because swing voters (to some extent) compared him to Clinton, and he didn't seem to measure up. Clinton's personality is a little larger than life, and in my opinion, Gore was completeing against Clinton's popular image, a hard act to follow.


Kerry lost in my opinion, because he was wishy-washy in the extreme. Every other day he was off in some new direction. He had no clear meassage. His wife's presence also killed him. What a nutball she was, clearly out gunned by Bush's smarter, perfect, better half. Kerry also miss-read, miss-handled the anti-war vote. He came off sounding pro-war. The republican's crusified him with a smear campaign.

Finally, some large mass of American voters are overwhelmingly susceptible to a cheerleader mentality, one that rallies around the flag pole, plays the patriotism card, and blathers on about staying the course in a time of war. It was the war condition that got Bush re-elected, and Kerry took the wrong position. Kerry was weak –Cheney was strong. So, yes I would agree, Bush won by default, in spite of the fact he’s a moron.

 

[Truncador]

Cheney and Edwards should also be given their respective due. The VP debate was one of the greatest ever. On the one side, Edwards, the grinning, foppish Southern huckster. Probably gets a lot of action, but not the kind of person you'd trust with your money or your wife. On the other hand, Cheney. Grave, sober, serious, the living embodiment of the classical ideal of the Statesman, who proceeded to berate the hapless Edwards as though he were some smart-ass jabroni who'd just gotten himself into a situation he couldn't talk or charm his way out of. The best moment was when Cheney, with a look of pure contempt and disgust on his face, gruffly stated: "I've seen your service record, and frankly, it's not very impressive". That performance helped ruin Kerry-Edwards if anything did.

 

[langeweile]

let's not forget that Gore won the popular vote. Gore probably lost the election because swing voters (to some extent) compared him to Clinton, and he didn't seem to measure up. Clinton's personality is a little larger than life, and in my opinion, Gore was completeing against Clinton's popular image, a hard act to follow.


Kerry lost in my opinion, because he was wishy-washy in the extreme. Every other day he was off in some new direction. He had no clear meassage. His wife's presence also killed him. What a nutball she was, clearly out gunned by Bush's smarter, perfect, better half. Kerry also miss-read, miss-handled the anti-war vote. He came off sounding pro-war. The republican's crusified him with a smear campaign.

Finally, some large mass of American voters are overwhelmingly susceptible to a cheerleader mentality, one that rallies around the flag pole, plays the patriotism card, and blathers on about staying the course in a time of war. It was the war condition that got Bush re-elected, and Kerry took the wrong position. Kerry was weak –Cheney was strong. So, yes I would agree, Bush won by default, in spite of the fact he’s a moron.

If Al Gore would have won his own home state. Florida would have been a none issue.

 

[langeweile]

Here ya go, lange ...http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...1/ref=cm_lm_asin/103-9050108-9455809?v=glance

Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor, published in 1994.

Spolier altert: A Japanese terrorist hijacks a jumbo jet and crashes it into the House of Congress in Washington, DC.

So now we have to read fiction to get to reality?

 

[TOVisitor]

So now we have to read fiction to get to reality?

No asshat, now you get to have an imagination.

"Little people with little minds and little imagination jog through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds." -- Marie Fraser

 

[langeweile]

No asshat, now you get to have an imagination.

"Little people with little minds and little imagination jog through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds." -- Marie Fraser

I try to imagine how nice this board would be without your psycho babble...

 

[Cinema Face]

This tired "wag-the-dog" scenario is old hat, and not even close.

Tired, old AND TRUE!

I know it's hard for you to accept but your "hero" killed innocent people for his own political gain.

BTW, loved that movie. It came out just about that time. Talk about art imitating reality.

 

[cyrus]

let's not forget that Gore won the popular vote. Gore probably lost the election because swing voters (to some extent) compared him to Clinton, and he didn't seem to measure up. Clinton's personality is a little larger than life, and in my opinion, Gore was completeing against Clinton's popular image, a hard act to follow.


Kerry lost in my opinion, because he was wishy-washy in the extreme. Every other day he was off in some new direction. He had no clear meassage. His wife's presence also killed him. What a nutball she was, clearly out gunned by Bush's smarter, perfect, better half. Kerry also miss-read, miss-handled the anti-war vote. He came off sounding pro-war. The republican's crusified him with a smear campaign.

Finally, some large mass of American voters are overwhelmingly susceptible to a cheerleader mentality, one that rallies around the flag pole, plays the patriotism card, and blathers on about staying the course in a time of war. It was the war condition that got Bush re-elected, and Kerry took the wrong position. Kerry was weak –Cheney was strong. So, yes I would agree, Bush won by default, in spite of the fact he’s a moron.

I totally agree with all your points and would add that if Gore was the president he would have almost certainly concentrate all resources available to him on finding OBL & killing Al-Q terrorist members rather than going after Sadam on some goose chase even with bad intel. and that is a big difference between the two men which we must not forget!

 

[happygrump]

Tired, old AND TRUE!

I know it's hard for you to accept but your "hero" killed innocent people for his own political gain.

BTW, loved that movie. It came out just about that time. Talk about art imitating reality.

Firstly, Clinton is hardly my "hero." Secondly, I liked the movie too.

But more importantly, I guess you can consider yourself suckered in by Saddam, Milosevic and North Korea. You bought their propaganda.

...when the Lewinsky scandal was at its height: this was the moment when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein escalated his assault on the U.N. weapons inspection process, when Yugoslav President Milosevic launched his crackdown in Kosovo, and when the North Koreans lobbed missiles into the Sea of Japan and threatened the 1994 nuclear accord. These governments perceived the American government as preoccupied and therefore less likely to respond forcefully.

http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/Program%20Briefs/vol5no6weak.htm

 

[cyrus]

....you can consider yourself suckered in by Saddam, Milosevic and North Korea. You bought their propaganda.

hmmmm . . . . You are not serious with this statement, are you?!
I mean which country do you actually live in? Just curious!

 

[happygrump]

hmmmm . . . . You are not serious with this statement, are you?!
I mean which country do you actually live in? Just curious!

Well, aside from the reference I supplied, the timing could not have been more coincidental. Do you think that Saddam, Milocevic and what's-his-face from North Korea were actually unaware of Clinton's troubles at home? Hey, if I were them, I'd do exactly what they did: take advantage of the inner turmoil in the US caused by the Ken Starrs of the Republicans and play to the apparent weakness in the Administration.

Do you think Clinton didn't know he'd be accused of trying to deflect attention?

Of course he did. But in spite of the Republicans howling for his head, he did what he thought was best, knowing full well that he'd be targeted for this kind of criticism.

 

[irlandais9000]

Cinton's inaction resulted in 9-11

Huh? Bush was the one who didn't see Clinton's national security advisor's warnings about Al Qaida as a priority. While it is true in retrospect that Clinton didn't do enough about Al Qaida, that is still better than the big zero that Bush did before 9/11. And this inaction was in spite of increasingly frantic warnings from the counterterrorism experts in the months before.

Read the memo that Bush received in 8/01 (it's published in the 9/11 commission report), and then compare that to Bush's statement that he received no warning about terrorist hijackers. Bush's statement was the opposite of the truth, of course. The memo is in the chapter titled "The System Was Blinking Red".

 

[irlandais9000]

After USS Cole what was his reaction? what did he do after WTC1???

After WTC1, it took time for us even to conclude that Al Qaida existed. As far as after USS Cole, the evidence that Al Qaida was behind it did not emerge until immediately before Bush's inaugeration. Clinton did not want to start a war so close to inaugeration without his successor's consent, so he presented the Bush team with the evidence, and recommended military action that never happened. Not until 9/01, anyway.

 

[langeweile]

After WTC1, it took time for us even to conclude that Al Qaida existed. As far as after USS Cole, the evidence that Al Qaida was behind it did not emerge until immediately before Bush's inaugeration. Clinton did not want to start a war so close to inaugeration without his successor's consent, so he presented the Bush team with the evidence, and recommended military action that never happened. Not until 9/01, anyway.

Just close your eyes and follow the party line.....let me repeat in case you missed it.
9-11 is really nobodies fault other than our own arrogance. We believed that we were invincible and didn't think that anybody would have the balls to attack us.
We ALL were wrong. this includes your beloved Clinton.
But, if you wanna play the blame game..Clinton is partially to blame..sorry buddy there is no wiggling out of this...like my hero Truman said.."The buck stops here"
Clinton's line..."EHHH the buck never got here"

 

[irlandais9000]

9-11 is really nobodies fault other than our own arrogance.

I believe you were the one who said Clinton's inaction resulted in 9/11.

 

[irlandais9000]

Just close your eyes and follow the party line.....let me repeat in case you missed it.
9-11 is really nobodies fault other than our own arrogance. We believed that we were invincible and didn't think that anybody would have the balls to attack us.
We ALL were wrong. this includes your beloved Clinton.
But, if you wanna play the blame game..Clinton is partially to blame..sorry buddy there is no wiggling out of this...like my hero Truman said.."The buck stops here"
Clinton's line..."EHHH the buck never got here"

Lange, normally you read posts better than this before you respond. As I noted in my post, I believed Clinton was at fault also. Why are you implying otherwise? And if you are trying to present me as someone following the party line, give me a break. While I am admittedly on the liberal side, I have slammed both liberals and conservatives in my posts. Frankly, I would hope that you would notice something like that, given that while you are more on the conservative side, you do avoid blindly following the party line like some on this board do, and you generally avoid partisan talking points in the favor of intelligent discussion.

And by the way, you mention how Clinton avoided responsibility. That's very true, but it is just as true of George W. Everything that goes wrong is someone's fault in his case.

 

[TOVisitor]

The truth of the matter is, that even your wildest imagination nobody could have imagined 9-11.

I recently found this little article:

Report Warned Of Suicide Hijackings
WASHINGTON, May 17, 2002

(CBS) Two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, an analysis prepared for U.S. intelligence warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists could hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon.

"Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House," the September 1999 report said.

The Bush administration has asserted that no one in government had envisioned a suicide hijacking before it happened.

"Had I know that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people," Mr. Bush told U.S. Air Force Academy football team members who were visiting the White House on Friday. It was his first public comment on revelations this week that he was told Aug. 6 that bin Laden wanted to hijack planes.

From: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/18/attack/main509488.shtml