Orwell would be proud.

Hell, ten horses coming out of the starting gate are 10 success stories which have not occurred yet. Or as Trevor Denman at Santa Anita would say, "Ten success stories are sent on their way in the La Brea Stakes"

In that light, I'm posting this comment on the impeachment proceedings.

This is the way right-wingers think, if it can be called "thinking". Rush Limbaugh and Fox News will pick it up and repeat it, and soon every weak-minded, ignorant, gullible dittohead mental slave of right-wing extremist propanda who posts comments on this site (e.g. Jay, rdw, ex-liberal, etc) will be saying that Bush's failure to bring Bin Laden to justice is a success waiting to happen.

rdw's intelligence level is a success waiting, and waiting, and waiting to happen. And the hours dwindle down to a precious few.

Orwell would just say: "Better Newspeak please".

Sounds like they've built a worldview from Very Deep Thoughts like "A stranger's just a friend you haen't met."

We're officially being governed by third-graders.

I feel better about my spare tire now. It's just a pending weight loss success.

Do you think Townsend came up with this rationale on his own?

Failure is just the present absence of success. Bushkovics have always said - in various ways - that success is just around the corner. You just wait, you'll see. You'll see.

Lacking a strategy in the present, failed leaders like George W. Bush will simply resort to a citing a date for concocting one in the future. In a nutshell, at each point that you fail to turn the corner, just create new corners.

"Setting New Dates to Turn Corners" is #3 on:
"The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Presidents."

Executing bin Laden: A success that hasn't occurred yet.

Executing Saddam: A "success" that soon will occur. And W couldn't be prouder..."I did what Daddy wouldn't, er, couldn't!"

"success that hasn't occurred yet"

Thank god the president is being guided by non-ideologues with a firm grasp on reality.

BTW, when are we going to figure out which idiot said this:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do"

Cause I keep judiciously studying reality and I'm not sure anymore whether they have mastered the art of manipulating it. Unless of course their goals are different than I originally assumed.

Good stuff Steve...funny. Nice catch.

My sleeping with Halle Berry is also a success that hasn't occured yet.

Ah! So "Mission Accomplished" refers to the future!

They just couldn't fit "Mission will be Accomplished" on the banner. Simple, really.

Impeaching George Bush - a blowjob that hasn't occurred yet.

Bill Clinton proclaimed that he would bring the justice the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole. Clinton is not considered to have failed in that endeavor, because nobody took his promise seriously.

Apropos of what now, ex-liberal?

Morning recess is over at Schaife's Tail Start program.

um, this is perhaps the most asinine blog post of all time; none of your comparisons are analagous.

the death or capture of Bin Laden is, by definition, an event that has not occurred, and if it did occur would be, by definition, a success.

so, since the death or capture of Bin Laden has not yet occurred, it is a success that has not yet occurred.

the civil war in Iraq has already occurred, and, a civil war, by definition, is not a peace.

global warming will never be global cooling.

stagnant wages will never be wage raises

deficits will never be surpluses.

however, the death or capture of Bin Laden will be, by definition, a success and could never be, by definition, a failure.

it would be correct to say that certain particular efforts to secure the capture or death of Bin Laden have been, indeed, failures (although some such efforts aren't really failures -- if you look for Bin Laden in a certain area and he is not there -- that is not really a failure, since you know more now than you did before -- by contrast, Tora Bora really was a failure)

but that is not what Townsend said.

Bill Clinton proclaimed that he would bring the justice the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole.

True.

Clinton is not considered to have failed in that endeavor

Since when?

My sleeping with Halle Berry is also a success that hasn't occured yet.

Hmmm...me either. Apparently Nathan too, but he gives me confidence that the only failures have been my approaches to-date...a change of course and soon she will be mine.

The law offices of Bewildered, Befuddled and Bemuddled of New York have opened for inquirees.

Not to be confused to the astute legal opinions of Sacramento.

B quotes an as-yet-unidentified Bush administration official: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality ... we'll act again, creating other new realities ... We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do".

Well, it doesn't take much "study" to see what "new realities" they are creating.

They are creating bloody chaos, they are creating the murder of many tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, they are creating the pointless deaths of several thousand US troops, they are creating the maiming and impoverishment of many thousands more, they are creating the reality of a more and more powerful Iran, they are creating the reality of an overstretched and nearly broken US military, they are creating the reality of millions of people all over the world who revile the USA because of the crimes of the Bush administration, they are creating the reality of irreversible and unstoppable global warming leading to the collapse of human civilization, and so on -- all for the purpose of creating the reality of enriching and empowering their already rich and powerful cronies and financial backers in the military-industrial-petroleum complex.

The "new reality" they are creating is the transformation of the rich, diverse, wonderful life of the Earth and the human civilization that utterly depends on it, into a hell-hole of global ecological catastrophe, mass extinctions of species, never-ending war, and impoverished starving billions lorded over by a tiny, hereditary, ultra-rich neo-fascist, corporate-feudalist elite.

the civil war in Iraq has already occurred, and, a civil war, by definition, is not a peace.

The civil war is currently occurring, but just as the present state in which bin Laden is not captured could be argued to be a transitory point on a path that leads to an end point in which he is, so to the present unrest in Iraq could be argued as a transitory state leading to the accomplishment of a stable, free, and democratic Iraq: a success that has not occurred.

global warming will never be global cooling.

Actually, I'm pretty sure some models have shown global warming becoming global cooling through, among other potential mechanisms, mass sliding of Antarctic ice into the ocean producing rapid temporary cooling and other climate changes that catastrophically disrupt the processes that are putting CO2 into the air and thereby creating long-term warming.

stagnant wages will never be wage raises

But, again, a state in which wages are stagnant could be a temporary and transitory stage in a process leading to rising wages, just as a state in which ObL is not caught could be argued to be a temporary and transitory stage in a process leading to him being caught. So, wage increases that haven't occurred just as capturing ObL is a success that hasn't occurred.

deficits will never be surpluses.

But the present existence of deficits may be a temporary and transitory tage in a process leading to surpluses, just as above.

And once again cmdicely prevails in his Motion for a Summary Judgment against Befuddled and company.

cmdicely, it was a "gotcha" question, like "Have you stopped beating your wife?". Everyone knows that we haven't brought bin Laden to justice. Whether the word "failure" should be used adds nothing to our knowledge.

The question is just a way to bash Bush. Whatever answer is given, an article slamming Bush can be written.

My intended point is that the media don't hound Clinton people to ask them questions like this. So, we don't read contrived articles about Clinton's "failures."

Bill Clinton proclaimed that he would bring the justice the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole.

Yes, that's exactly true--and when the investigation into who bombed the USS Cole was completed AFTER Clinton left office, the Bush Administration did nothing.

They even ignored the subsequent report that said that Bin Laden was determined to attack the US.

Moron!

Ex-Lib: You wrote "Bill Clinton proclaimed that he would bring the justice the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole. Clinton is not considered to have failed in that endeavor, because nobody took his promise seriously."

I know facts are difficult, but: 1) the Cole bombing took place just 4 months or so before Clinton's term of office ended, and 2) the CIA was unable to identify the people behind the Cole bombing until a month or so into the Bush administration.

Clinton's assertion that those responsible would be brought to justice was a statement of U.S. policy, one restated and reaffirmed by Bush. It was Bush who was in the Oval Office when it was determined that Bin Laden was behind the Cole attack, and, so, who should we hold responsible for bringing him to justice?

The question is just a way to bash Bush.

Oh no, poor Bush, so innocent and pure, he NEVER did anything to warranty any kind of criticism of his actions or words. Gosh golly, if that evil media would just give him a chance, then Amurica would know what an amazing visionairy leader he really is, bursting with original ideas.

And then exlax also wrote

My intended point is that the media don't hound Clinton people to ask them questions like this

Newsflash to dimwit, Clinton has been out of office for 6 fucking years, okay? And when he was in office, you think the goddamn press was nice to him? The so called liberal press that chased his dick for two years, that press?

You guys are a piece of work, thank the gods you got your asses kicked at the ballot box in November. America cannot suffer any more conservative idiocy, at least not in the immediate future.

ex-liberal wrote: "The question is just a way to bash Bush. Whatever answer is given, an article slamming Bush can be written."

And whenever Bush's actual failures are discussed, you will predictably, mechanically and slavishly regurgitate Rush Limbaugh's lies to blame Bush's failures on Clinton.

TN,

Will you give the fellow a break - For the first four months, Shrub was still learning the chain of command - Towards 9/11, he finally realized that he did not have to check with the Commissioner of Baseball first.

We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do

More like "We're miserable failures and criminals . . . and you, all of you, are witnesses and will ridicule and/or prosecute us for what we do"

cmdicely, it was a "gotcha" question, like "Have you stopped beating your wife?".

Er, no, it wasn't a question that presumed a substantive point in dispute as its premise and was a disguised way to trick someone into seeming to acknowledge that point however it was answered.

Everyone knows that we haven't brought bin Laden to justice.

I would go farther and say everyone knows we have attempted and, to date, failed to do so.

Whether the word "failure" should be used adds nothing to our knowledge.

No question was asked about whether the word "failure" should be used, either. The person who decided to focus the discussion on that unenlightening, semantic, non-substantive point was Townsend, not Henry.

The question is just a way to bash Bush.

What question? The question that Henry was trying to prod Townsend into more completely answering, which was "But now as 2006 ends, Osama bin Laden is still at large. Heading into 2007, how confident are you that he can be brought to justice this coming year?" (see the full transcript Steve linked). Or some question which you imagine, that is not actually present, in the excerpt Steve posted?

Whatever answer is given, an article slamming Bush can be written.

Please explain how the "question" you are discussing (which, hopefully, you will have identified in response to my previous question) contributes to that state. Of course, a question bashing Bush can be written with or without any questioning of Bush officials, and the continued failure to catch bin Laden and disaster in Iraq, among other things, contribute to the ease with which that can be done credibly, but I'm not seeing the connection to any "question" here.

My intended point is that the media don't hound Clinton people to ask them questions like this.

The question Townsend was asked was about the administration he works in, that currently runs the executive branch, catching bin Laden in the upcoming year.

It is true that Clinton people aren't often asked questions "like this", and I should think the reason is obvious.

Soul Power wrote: "You guys are a piece of work, thank the gods you got your asses kicked at the ballot box in November."

It seems to me that since the American people overwhelmingly rejected the corruption, criminality and right-wing extremism of the Republican Party in the November elections, that the Bush-bootlicking dittoheads like ex-liberal, rdw, Jay, etc. have become even more deranged, even more detached from reality, and even more reliant on slavish regurgitation of the scripted lies that are spoon-fed to them by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the rest of the right-wing extremist propaganda machine.

They have been told for so long by the right-wing media that they are the "true Americans", that they are the majority, that when the reality that the exact opposite is true -- that they are an extremist lunatic fringe rejected by the overwhelming majority of Americans -- was shoved into their faces unavoidably, their weak, ignorant minds simply went to pieces. And all they have to cling to now is rote recitation of the tired old Rush Limbaugh bullshit.

White House did think of this sooner.

http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/002001.html

Yeah, it's that bad.

Clinton Finally Takes Responsibility For Bush Administration's Failures

I made the following comment at TPMmuckraker, but I hope it's worth repeating that administration officials have been pushing this rhetorical nonsense for a while...

This little piece of insanity actually appears to be something of a coordinated spin tactic from the White House. The President himself said a similar thing in his December 7th press conference. Dan Froomkin noted the exchange in his Washington Post column the following day.

An ITV News reporter asked this pretty harshly worded question: "Are you capable of admitting your failures in the past, and perhaps much more importantly, are you capable of changing course?"

The President replied: "I do know that we have not succeeded as fast as we wanted to succeed....You wanted frankness -- I thought we would succeed quicker than we did, and I am disappointed by the pace of success."

It seems pretty clear that the administration has decided to counter any questions/talk of "failure" with statements that redefine failure as "delayed success". In this way, the chaos in Iraq is just success in very slow motion. Which is, again, insanity.

It's a Catch-22.

Euro Supplants Dollar in World Circulation

Republican fiscal policy --success that hasn't occurred yet.

You may go in to see me now - I'm not in my office.

Ah yes, the old "Delayed Success Syndrome" - You may now very, very, very slowly start uncorking the Dom, er the Merican Bubbly stuff.

Angry One references The Seven Habits of Highly Defective Presidents which is excellent,

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000500.htm

As a 20 year technology marketing executive in firms large and small, I've seen the all the telltale signs of strategic bankruptcy before. Facing declining sales, aging products, sagging market share and growing competitive disadvantage, some business leaders reach a strategic impasse. They stop talking about their products, customers and their vision for the future. Instead, these failed managers speak of "the process," point to key dates and upcoming events, deflect blame towards other people and external factors, all while looking to others to provide strategic salvation.

The same George W. Bush who so proudly declared himself a "war president" is leading the United States to strategic bankruptcy and geopolitical disaster. As Commander-in-Chief, President Bush displays all the hallmarks of the failed executive. With a nod to Stephen Covey, call them the "Seven Habits of Highly Defective Presidents."

1. Name Names and Outsource Responsibility
2. Focus on the Process, Not the Plan
3. Set Dates to Turn Corners
4. Use New Slogans for An Old, Failed Product
5. Find New Uses for An Old, Failed Product
6. Announce Your New Product Before It's Ready
7. Don't Do The Market Research

Posted by: ex-liberal on December 29, 2006 at 12:12 PM | Bill Clinton proclaimed that he would bring the justice the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole. Clinton is not considered to have failed in that endeavor, because nobody took his promise seriously.

Rubbish. Clinton is "not considered to have failed" precisely because the Bush administration finally took his "promise" seriously.

As of today, 5 of 9 indicted conspirators are either dead or incarcerated (Gitmo).

Link url: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/uss_cole_bombing.htm

Iraq must be Schroedinger's War.

Until the President opens the box, we don't know if the cat is alive or dead.

My sleeping with Halle Berry is also a success that hasn't occured yet . -- Pennypacker

Hmmm...me either. Apparently Nathan too, but he gives me confidence that the only failures have been my approaches to-date...a change of course and soon she will be mine. -– Jimm

Ms. Barry is just waiting for that 30% surge promised for sometime after the first of the year.

cmdicely:

huh? wtf?

of course warming can be followed by cooling. but warming will never be cooling. in fact, they're mutually exclusive. etc.

wtf are you talking about?

of course warming can be followed by cooling. but warming will never be cooling.

And of course, not capturing Osama can be followed by capturing Osama, but not capturing Osama will never be capturing Osama. Your point?

Nathan,

The Court of Public Opinion granted Mr Dicely his Motion of Summary Judgment against your suit.

Now, join the other Paralegals and get back to file clerking.

My impending marriage to George Clooney is a success that hasn't happened yet, along with that $40,000,000 MegaMillions jackpot.
I'll remember to send you all invites to my nuptials, come visit me at La Maison de Loco!

the point is that capturing or killing Osama will, by definition, be a success and could never be a failure.

thus, since it has not yet been accomplished, it is indeed, factually and literally, a success that has not yet occurred.

Benen's analogies did not correspond to what Townsend said (which if anything was a simple expression of optimism that Bin Laden would be captured -- something which I think is inevitable given enough time -- someone will betray him or we'll just get lucky)

the point is that capturing or killing Osama will, by definition, be a success and could never be a failure.

No. Look, if a desperate horny teenager tries every means available to him to get laid starting the day he turns 14, and finally, at 21, gets laid, it is true that he finally succeeded, but that does not mean that he didn't fail for seven years before succeeding. The uncertain potentiality of future success does not turn present failure into anything other than failure.

Now, as Edison's famous (apocryphal? I dunno) statement about finding hundreds of different ways not make a light-bulb suggests, failures may be productive failures that move you closer to a goal: and both the question originally asked of Townsend and the statement Henry later made probing about "failure" invited Townsend to make the Administration's case for viewing the failure to date as productive failure.

thus, since it has not yet been accomplished, it is indeed, factually and literally, a success that has not yet occurred.

As it is an intended result that has not been produced, it is also factually and literally a "failure". The only way it would not be is if it were intended that Osama not yet be caught or killed.

Benen's analogies did not correspond to what Townsend said

Yes, they did. They both corresponded to current states which were not the thing that was described as not yet occurring, but which might potentially be transitory states on the road to the thing stated as not yet occurring. Just as the non-capture of Osama is not the capturing of Osama, but might be a transitory state on the road to the capturing of Osama.

um, no. you're conflating "the attempt to capture Bin Laden" with "capturing Bin Laden"

you're confusing the process with the end result. the process has indeed been a failure. it doesn't change the fact that the end result will be a sucess.

alright, lets' make it really simple.

Townsend's statement was literally true. Bin Laden's capture or death will be a success. period. It is also indisputable that it has not, as of yet, occurred. therefore, it is literally true to say that Bin Laden's capture or death is a success that has not occurred.

civil war is not the same thing as peace and never will be. the fact that a civil war will be ended by peace does not make a civil war a peace. in fact, the opposite.

Benen's statements were not literally true. Townsend's statement was literally true. therefore Benen's analogies were inapposite.

A "success" is a completed goal. Until then, it is an uncompleted goal. A "future success" cannot exist, because it has not yet reached the status of "complete".

Capturing bin Laden is a goal, until such a time that it becomes a success. Since it has been a goal for 5 years, it currently stands as a failed goal.

Townsend plays word games with our national security.

Nathan wrote: ... a simple expression of optimism that Bin Laden would be captured -- something which I think is inevitable given enough time -- someone will betray him or we'll just get lucky

Not necessarily. Bin Laden might die before he is ever captured, or the world might just stop hearing from him, and he'll disappear and his ultimate fate will never be known for certain. There are occasional rumors that he is already dead, and for all I know he is. If anything, that seems more likely to me that his capture. I certainly don't think that his capture is an "inevitability".

TN you have a point. It would have hard to capture the perps in four months.

However, Clinton did less than he might have during that period. Rather than use his bully pulpit to organize a worldwide antiterrorism efffort, Clinton appointed a study commission. In Washington that's a way to kick the issue down the road.

Clinton was still President when the Commission report came out. He did little at that time to give urgency and direction to the anti terror effort which the report called for.

In fact, until I looked it up just now, I had thought that the Commission report came out when Bush was President. My ignorance is a measure of how little Clinton did.

you're confusing the process with the end result.

No, I'm not.

You're conflating hope with fact.

the process has indeed been a failure.

Which is exactly what Henry said.

it doesn't change the fact that the end result will be a sucess.

Um, what "fact"? Unless you are counting the fact that Osama bin Laden will eventually, if nothing else, die of old age as the ultimate success of US efforts to capture or kill him, this is not a fact, but a hope.

If you are using that generous of a definition, I would just point and laugh and the tendentious, self-serving, insanely broad definition of "kill" involved.

civil war is not the same thing as peace and never will be.

Likewise, not capturing bin Laden is not the same thing as capturing bin Laden, and never will be.

the fact that a civil war will be ended by peace does not make a civil war a peace.

The hope that not capturing or killing bin Laden will eventually be followed by capturing or killing bin Laden does not making not capturing or killing bin Laden into capturing or killing bin Laden, either.

Benen's statements were not literally true. Townsend's statement was literally true.

Benen's statements were as literally true as Townsend's, in that the non-occurrences he pointed to all could be hoped to lead to the occurrences that had not yet occurred that were related, just as the non-occurrence that Townsend was discussing could be hoped to lead to the occurrence he referred to.

On the broader point, this whole thing would have been a non-issue had Townsend, instead of quibbling over the existence of a present failure, taken the invited opportunity to present more forcefully the administrations case that the American people should trust that success was forthcoming, rather than just saying that it was a success that hasn't occurred.

Well, Arthur Schlesinger wrote that the collapse of Communism vindicated FDR's Yalta strategy, and I didn't howls of laughter from the liberal Democrats of 1989. So how is the current situation different.

I know, I know, truth is determined by a priori political considerations. I just wish people would be more honest about that.

"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."
-- Moliere

"In previous eras, this was known as thievery. Now it is just the way things are done."
---anonymous comment, NY Times

"First get you facts, then you can distort them at your leisure."
----Mark Twain

"We do not know what is being done in our name. Worse, we do not ask."
--Ben Ehrenreich, writing on Guantanomo Bay prison 'Camp X-Ray.'

"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth seems utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving maniac."
---Dresden James

"Bill Clinton proclaimed that he would bring the justice the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole. "

Since his term as president ran out a week after Al Qaeda was determined to be the guilty party, it would have been difficult.

Bush and his crew, are, unfortunately, idiots who already very much occurred indeed.

Ex-Lib: You wrote “However, Clinton did less than he might have during that period. Rather than use his bully pulpit to organize a worldwide antiterrorism effort, Clinton appointed a study commission. In Washington that's a way to kick the issue down the road. Clinton was still President when the Commission report came out. He did little at that time to give urgency and direction to the anti terror effort which the report called for. In fact, until I looked it up just now, I had thought that the Commission report came out when Bush was President. My ignorance is a measure of how little Clinton did.�

The commission of which you speak was an internal DOD study to make recommendations on how to further protect U.S. ships while in transit between permanent bases. Specific recommendations were drawn up (within a couple of months, hardly an effort to “kick the issue down the road�) and presented to Don Rumsfield, the incoming Secretary of Defense. “Among the panel's main findings was that while anti-terrorist protections at fixed, permanent installations used by U.S. forces abroad are adequate, insufficient attention has been paid to such protections for U.S. forces in transit abroad. Defense Secretary William Cohen, who appointed the Cole commission… the transition team of Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld had asked for a briefing on the report, and Cohen said he had asked Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review the findings and to recommend to Rumsfeld how to act upon them.� The report was issued January 9 or 10, 2001, or about ten days before the end of the Clinton term. See: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_20010110/ai_n10680843

Note, as well, that the article on the report also points out that “Speaking at a Pentagon news conference with Gehman and Crouch, Cohen said U.S. investigators had yet to establish that the attack was orchestrated by Osama bin Laden� It’s pretty hard/unrealistic to organize a worldwide response against as yet unidentified perpetrators. Because of timing, not politics, that responsibility fell to George Bush.

When the DOD and CIA and FBI investigators walked into the Oval Office to announce they had evidence Bin Laden was responsible for the Cole attack, the president sitting at the desk was George Bush. So, rather than your “ignorance (being) a measure of how little Clinton did,� your ignorance is due to how little the Bush administration did when presented with the evidence.

Why single out Ms Townsend? She's just staying on-message. The President himself recently blamed the evildoers for making him succeed slower.

This comment of yours just cracked me up, Steve Brennen.