Fristlosi!!

For a second, I was getting Fred Kaplan mixed up with Fred Kagan. Is anyone really suprised by this? The Bush admin. was never about correct intelligence, it was all about making evidence, or dumbing up evidence, fit their view. They obviously are war mongers. I wonder when Congress is gonna have the balls to put a stop to this nonsense.

The CIA provided an unclassified estimate to Congress in November 2002 that North Korea had begun constructing a plant that would produce enough "weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year . . . as soon as mid-decade."

Was this another Tenet "slam dunk"?

The Bush Administration and the word "intelligence" should never appear in the same sentence.

Over the course of this administration, I have become increasingly cynical. And I was pretty cynical to begin with, having witnessed the Nixon administration. I'm now at the point where I don't believe anything they say unless it's backed up by several truly independent sources. And yet they still surprise me and show that they are more dishonest, reckless, and evil than I had believed. Amazing. I'm starting to believe there really is an antiChrist and it is Dick Cheney. And I don't mean this just as hyperbole.

I am not surprised. I have been shouting and screaming since 1999 that Bush was an evil idiot. Jesus how on earth....never mind.

Didn't they immediately admit to the program when we accused them? Perhaps this is why we were so surprised that they did. I wonder how 'immediate' the admission was?

So I can't afford a subscription -- obligatory custody disputes will do that to you -- something you might want to cover some day, but I would click on a Salon type ad if one were to pop up, say 1 out of 5 days that I came to visit the website.

Anyway, wrong about Iraq, started a war. Wrong about Iran, rebuffed their outreach to us, started them back down a nuclear path. Wrong about North Korea, they got nukes. Allowed India to get nukes. Hasn't done too much about Pakistan's AQ Kahn, the nuke dealer.

And you guys think Bush hasn't done anything for the nuclear family. Why he's made nuclear families even larger!

JHM, you need to read the WashPost article Kevin has linked. Apparently the North Korean "admission" of guilt was "tonal". Sounds like they got pissed off when we accused them of running a secret uranium program. Per the article, the North Koreans did not say "yes, we have such a program". Instead, it was "tonal" because they were "belligerent" when accused.

There's a great poem by Stevie Smith about the early Roman Christian colonization of Britain and its practice of stealing children away for slaves, "Was it not curious?" she asked, and then the final lines, "It was not curious so much/As it was wicked of them."

The Bush Admin's practice of lying about what it knows and then proceeding on its half-baked notions, with predictable damaging effects isn't so much curious as it is wicked.

Well, isn't that amazing?

I guess invading Iraq wasn't the worst foreign policy fiasco ever.

We all misunderestimated GWB's abilities.

To f*** things up, that is.

Whether or not the North Koreans had uranium wasn't the point. What was important was whether or not they APPEARED to have uranium.

If they appeared to have uranium, and we appeared to lack resolve, that would embolden Iran.

So why would NK embark on uranium enrichment at all if they can get results cheaper/better/faster with plutonium? This creates a huge future problem because of the toxicity of plutonium.

We need an indictment of Republican ideology that details the failures in all their spectacular glory. Then we need an education program so that pundits and the American people can understand why red-meat-tough-talk is counterproductive.

Speaking of blunders, the elderly John McCain, appearing on the Dave Letterman Show, said in so many words that American troops had died in vain as a result of Bush Administration blunders in Iraq. American lives have been "wasted" he told Letterman.

Here's the quote:

"Discussing the war on the Letterman show, Mr McCain repeated his assertion that US troops must stay in Iraq rather than withdraw early, even though the war has been mismanaged.

""Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be,' Mr McCain said. 'We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives.'"

The inept media so far has given him a pass as have inattentive campaigns and blogs.

But can you imagine the uproar had, say, John Kerry made such a statement?

Here's the full story:

http://tinyurl.com/2hrm5v

Al's a hoot. Really.
The only thing emboldening anyone at this point is the fact that "we the people" haven't demanded impeachment, or better yet, overrun the WH and lynched the criminals ourselves.
This administration's penchant for prevarication and dissembling calls everything into question. Even 9/11 should be reexamined, given how much hay these criminals have made in its wake, and how much they have lied about everything else.
Catastrophic mix of incompetence and greed. I smell late Roman Empire.

There's an old maxim that one should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity (a corollary to Occam's Razor). However, when a group of people do so many seemingly stupid things, one is forced to reject sheer stupidity as being far less likely and a more complex solution than simple malice.

These people are evil, and it's all deliberate.

Al's a fake.

Oh, how I pine for those days of yore, when he merely screwed up the Texas Rangers.

Remember those old Pink Panther movies where Clouseau would send Chief Inspector Dreyfuss into paroxysms of rage as he sank lower and lower into insanity? That's how I feel with Bush. Bush is my Clouseau.

My eye hasn't stopped twitching since '02.

Yeah, that must be a phony Al...even he's not quite that stupid.

The best part of today's story in the Times about this, to me, was the suggestion at the very end that the phony intelligence was all about -- aluminum tubes! Screw the need for Arabic speakers, I think the CIA is in desperate need of some mechanical engineers.

And Harriet Myers was Kato?

"Al's a fake."

You know, it's often pretty hard to tell whether it's the real Al or a parody. Like most conservatives, he's becoming a parody of himself.

Glenn - yes, the aluminum tubes bit in today's article was unintended hilarity. Very painful, expensive hilarity.

I'm reading "State of Denial" right now. Apparently in Iraq the company which made propellant for rockets was owned by a friend of one of Saddam's sons. So it was not possible to confront the company about the low quality of their product. Instead, the Iraq military compensated by making the aluminum tubes they were using for the rockets lighter, the tolerances/specs far more stringent. They could control that part of the procurement process.

If Bush said the sun was shining... I'd get my umbrella.

I think most of the civilized world judges the credibility of the Bush regime the same way.

Snore . . .

Wake up, folks.

Kevin, thought you would like to know I just subscribed to Washington Monthly. You can tell them it is because of your blog, which I read daily. Norma

And all this is coming out while George of the Bungle is still in office.

I hope we don't all go up in clouds of radioactive dust before we get to read the memoirs that will be published over the next thirty years.

Carter and Clinton negotiated a deal whereby NK would cease nuclear activity in exchange for economic support. The North Koreans admitted they were secretly violating deal. Then they openly stopped following the deal, even though we were still fulfilling our side by providing economic support. Clearly NK never intended to obey their agreement.

Conclusion of the Bush bashers: It's Bush's fault.

I expect to read an article next month blaming Bush for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand the and the attack on Fort Sumter.

So, we are mostly back to the Clinton policy of merely paying off North Korea to pretend not to eventually be an exporter of nuclear devices. You can talk all you want about how verifiable such a program might be, but my guess is that in most of North Korea anything that is really interesting is done far underground. They are more the land of the cave than was Afghanistan.

To me the morally reprehensible part of paying off a tyrant to not do something is that doing so makes you a party to the abuses of his regime. The Food for Oil Iraq solution was such a deal.

Of course, if you go to war with the little monster, then you get into nation building and you have to have a modern, humane policy for dealing with resistance movements that hide among the people and venture out only to do extremely nasty atrocities. Israel struggles with this, and so does the U.S. since we have abandoned carpet bombing of recalcitrant populations.

Rudyard Kiping once wrote that when you pay the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane. That was the tribue the Saxons paid the Vikings so as not to be raped and pillaged every year.

What a world God has given us. Our choices are never easy, especially for nations that are becoming lazy, non-idealistic, non-romantic, and with few warlike virtues remaining.

Thats all very fair and well, but should he go slinking around as if he's disgraced himself?

Very good, Basil Seal.

Please elaborate.

For example, who he?

I keep seeing all of this great stuff from the Washington Monthyly, but unless they have some sort of charity subscription, I can't get one. Hell, I'm letting my blog die off because I can't afford it any more (there's a few other reasons, but that's the big one).

So ... unless Kevin is handing out the subscription, looks like I'll just have to rely on him for the Washington Monthly info. In the mean time, I'll do what I do every day I visit -- click on a few ads hoping it helps.

Hey ex-lib --

You know how many nukes did NK have after the Clinton deal? Zero.

How many do they have now, after six years of Bush doing nothing? Six to 12.

Unholy Moses: You know how many nukes did NK have after the Clinton deal? Zero.

How many do they have now, after six years of Bush doing nothing? Six to 12.

What do you mean "after the Clinton deal"? The Clinton deal wasn't supposed to expire in 2001. It was supposed to be in effect right now.

The Clinton deal was supposed to be keeping NK non-nuclear. Unfortunately, the Clinton deal didn't work, because NK didn't intend to fulfill their side of the bargain.

I'm not claiming that Bush has done any better. The sad reality is that nobody has figured out a way to keep NK from getting nukes.

Bushco: the gift to liberals from the American Right that keeps on giving!

* Bush's political firing of US Attorneys in order to obstruct justice and put partisan hacks in place so they can abuse their office by initiating bad faith investigations of Democrats during the 2008 campaign - EXPOSED!

* Bush's mistreatment of veterans at military medical facilities after losing the necessary funds to treat them in Iraq War fraud and waste and after hypocritically telling America that loyalty to American soldiers is required even if it means dropping crticism of Bush for a useless and incompetently run war - EXPOSED!

* Bush's lies on global warming - EXPOSED!

* Bush's failed foreign policy on North Korea that allowed the successful development of a plutonium-based nuclear weapons program after lying about the unsuccessful uranium-based nuclear weapons program - EXPOSED!

* Bush's failure to provide sufficient body and vehicle armor to our troops and then lying about it - EXPOSED!

* Bush's embrace of torture and lying about it - EXPOSED!

* Bush's outting of a CIA operative - EXPOSED!

* Bush's failed promise that we would be welcomed with open arms and parades by the Iraqis and that oil would pay for the entire war - EXPOSED!

* Bush's failed promise that we would find massive stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq - EXPOSED!

* Bush's failed promise that the Iraq war would cow al Qaeda, other terrorists, and hostile regimes in the Middle East and spread democracy throughout that region - EXPOSED!

* Bush's false claim that sufficient troops were left in Afghanistan and that diverting them to Iraq would not impair our efforts there - EXPOSED!

* Bush's lie that he would pursue the 9/11 planners and bring them to justice - EXPOSED!

* Bush's failed promise not to deal with Syria and Iran, members of the 'Axis of Evil' - EXPOSED!

* Bush's lie that the Iraq mission had been accomplished - EXPOSED!

* Bush's lie that we had sufficient troop strength in Iraq - EXPOSED!

* Bush's lie that Pakistan was helping the US in the war on terror and deserved to get American-made advanced weaponry - EXPOSED!

* Bush's lie on many, many occasions that the insurgents were on their last legs - EXPOSED!

* Bush's lie on many, many occasions that things were improving in Iraq - EXPOSED!

* Bush's attempts to hide the bodies of American soldiers cut down in Iraq due to Bush's incompetence and immorality - EXPOSED!

* Bush's attempts to cut the hazard pay of troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan - EXPOSED!

* Bush's failure to secure weapons caches in IRAQ - EXPOSED!

* REST ASSURED, WITH THIS BOZO IN OFFICE, MORE TO COME!

I know this will have no effect on a liar like faux-lib, but for the record:

1. NKor did not violate the Agreement negotiated under Clinton.

2. The US gvmt did violate the Agreement under GWB.

3. After which, NKor withdrew from the Agreement.

ex-liberal: Unfortunately, the Clinton deal didn't work, because NK didn't intend to fulfill their side of the bargain.

Let's see, your "proof" that the Clinton deal didn't work isn't any facts, but your opinion about North Korea's intent at the time?

Riiiiiiight.

ex-liberal: It was supposed to be in effect right now.

Liar. Bush repudiated and rescinded the Clinton deal and, therefore, it became ineffective.

ex-liberal: The Clinton deal was supposed to be keeping NK non-nuclear.

It did. It was only after Bush repudiated and rescinded the deal that North Korea became nuclear.

Note to ex-liberal: when one party to an agreement unilaterally violates that agreement, as Bush did, repudiates the agreement and in effect rescinds that party's acceptance of the agreement, the party not in breach is not required to perform under the agreement.

Either all parties to the agreement have to perform or none.

Such agreements require a "meeting of the minds" and Bush disturbed that meeting of the minds, rendering the agreement null and void.

The agreement was not a unilateral promise by North Korea, which would not be an enforceable agreement anyway, but one that required performance by the US, performance which Bush failed to complete.

Guys, NK told Bush that they had violated the Clinton agreement. You seem to be claiming that

1. NK was lying; they were actually conformiing to the Clinton deal, even though they said they weren't.

2. Bush should have figured out that NK was actually following the Clinton agreement despite their statement that they weren't (And, how could this be done?)

3. Bush should have continued to perform our side of the agreement in the face of NK's statement that they weren't holding to their side of it.

Give me a break.

The Clinton deal was supposed to be keeping NK non-nuclear.

And it could have worked, but Bush REFUSED TO FOLLOW THE AGREEMENT!

And after ... ahhh, why am I wasting my time? Facts mean nothing to ex-lib.

I think what we're saying is that the spent fuel (which can easily be converted to weapons-grade material) was being monitored by the UN. Therefore it was very difficult for NK to create any weapons-grade material. Then Bush upset the apple-cart and NK broke into the UN monitored stash.

Are you saying that is not true? Or are you saying that is unimportant?

My last comment is directed to ex-liberal

ex-liberal: NK told Bush that they had violated the Clinton agreement . . .

Other than the imaginary rewrite of history that plays in your own mind, do you have some link that shows that NK told Bush that they had violated the agreement prior to Bush repudiating the same?

Or are you just lying . . . again?

One more exposed for you,I heard lastnight that we the United States are funding the very same people that are killing our troops.This has got to stop.

Question for ex-lib How many detonations where performed While Clinton was in office? How many detonation since Bush has been in office?Now answer that without the spin.

Give me a break.

Leg or arm?

Well, the uproar has begun on the elderly John McCain's claim on the Letterman show that American lives in Iraq have been "wasted."

The media finally weighed in after the Democratic National Committee woke up and became angry.

But . . . you read it here FIRST (see above).

As might be expected, Old Man McCain flip flopped in an effort to stem the deluge.

Here's a late-breaking account at USA Today Online:

http://tinyurl.com/3c7dra

john john: Question for ex-lib How many detonations where performed While Clinton was in office? How many detonation since Bush has been in office?Now answer that without the spin.

There were no detonations while Clinton was in office, but there were some while Bush was in office.

I can't respect a President who thinks his job is to push problems off until he's out of office. E.g., much of the 9/11 arrangements and plotting took place while Clinton was in office, although the attack took place a few months after Bush took office. Bush deserves some blame, but Clinton would have done better to break up the conspiracy while it was in its infancy.

That's one thing I admire about Bush's Iraq invasion, even though it didn't work out as hoped. Bush was seeking a long-terms solution.

ex-liberal: Bush was seeking a long-term solution.

That's just your opinion. Subsequent events and disclosures undermine that opinion.

The Clinton administration wasn't notified of such a possible attack until the last days of the administration; they passed what little info they had on to the Bush administration which promptly ignored it in favor of tax cuts.

As for pushing things off, that's exactly what Bush is doing in Iraq and with the national debt - pushing it off on the next president.

BTW, the plotting for 9/11 was taking place while the GOP was in control of Congress and while Bush, with numerous intelligence contacts, was running for president, so Bush had plenty of opportunity, using his self-proclaimed greatness at anti-terrorism and national security, to be aware of the plot.

The attack took place at least 8 months after Bush took office, not a "few," except under the most self-serving definition of that term.

So, Bush had plenty of opportunity to do something about the matter: he was warned, he had all of the same resouces that Clinton did, he presented himself as a better manager and evaluater of intelligence and anti-terrorism activities, and he had plenty of time to intervene and prevent the attack.

Indeed, Atta didn't even attend flight school until July 2000, only 5 months before Clinton left office.

So, most of the preparation for the attack came with 5 months (now, that might be a "few") left for Clinton to prevent the attack, but 13 months for Bush to do so, including 8 after he bacame president.

Once again you lie by suggesting that Clinton had a greater opporunity to stop the attacks than Bush.

The one thing we wanted to avoid was goading North Korea into unlocking their plutonium. But we did. Why?

To re-militarize Japan and sell them missile defense systems?

I think a lot of this destabilizing stuff isn't because the Bushies have their noses buried in the neocon playbook, or want to look "strong", it's business. Money and jobs for weapon systems, defense contractors, security consulants. War, or the threat of it, is our business.

Holy crap. Did I just see a Bush ass-ki...I mean, supporter, state, "I can't respect a President who thinks his job is to push problems off until he's out of office"? Like, perhaps, dragging out our involvement in a civil war in, oh, just hypothetically speaking, a Middle-Eastern country, by patently and obviously ineffectual "new strategies", so that it's the next president who gets to clean up the mess and be blamed for "losing" the war? You mean, like that?

I agree that many of these seemingly idiotic foreign policy moves seem more "intelligent" when you consider that they may be driven by the defense contractors providing the life-blood of the administration. sometimes what is intelligent for the market is a hindrance to our general welfare. Perhaps there ought to be more of the government of the people guiding the invisible hand since the guidance of the invisible hand on diplomatic and defense policy seems to prompt/reward bad intelligence and major crises.

"ex-liberal" wrote: Conclusion of the Bush bashers: It's Bush's fault.

"ex-liberal" correctly identifies that Bush's critics have reached the correct conclusion. "ex-liberal" fails, despite all his/her/its dishonesty, to defend Bush. "ex-liberal" surprises exactly no one with his/her/its mendacity and incompetence, which only go to explain why he/she/it is so enamored of the Bush Administration: Birds of a feather.

mike cook wrote: Our choices are never easy, especially for nations that are becoming lazy, non-idealistic, non-romantic, and with few warlike virtues remaining

"Warlike virtues"?! There's an oxymoron for you.

Memo to mike cook: Grow up and stop playing PanzerBlitz or whatever.

Oh, and as for "ex-liberal"'s feeble attempt to blame Clinton for 9/11:

"ex-liberal," please name an action Bush the Feckless took in response to the August 6 PDB, in which he was warned that al Qaeda was planning to attack inside the US.

Any action.

Except, of course, telling the brifier that he'd covered his (the briefer's) ass.

Thanks in advance.

Well, ex-liberal resurrects the same ol' tired meme "It's Clinton's fault" even though Bill has been out of office for more than six years. So I guess that means Bush really isn't the Decider and really isn't the president, eh? Bush is just a Clinton stooge, doh-dee-doh-doh-doh!

Problem is, the American public doesn't buy Bush apologia BS like the drool that ex-lib peddles.

ABCNews/WaPo poll, Feb. 22-25, 2007:

"Overall, do you feel that you can or cannot trust the Bush Administration to honestly and accurately report intelligence about possible threats from other countries?"

Can 35%
Cannot 63%
Unsure 2%

"Do you think President Bush's decisions about policy in Iraq and other major areas are influenced more by the facts or more by his personal beliefs, regardless of the facts?"

Facts 22%
Personal Beliefs 67%
Unsure 11%

"At this point in time, do you personally wish that George W. Bush's presidency was over, or don't you feel this way?"

Wish It Was Over 58%
Don't Feel This Way 37%
Unsure 5%

Now let's try this multiple-choice poll. All you PA-ers weigh in with your opinion:

"Do you think ex-liberal is...."

(A) A paid neocon shill?
(B) A fact-challenged Bush sycophant?
(C) A serial liar?
(D) A College Republican out to discredit Democrats?
(E) All of the above?

One thing is for certain: ex-lib is in the minority (Waah!) compared to the rest of America.

Correction: The Jan. 24-27, 2007, ABC News/WaPo poll cited above was actually from Newsweek, Jan, 24-25, 2007.

I agree that many of these seemingly idiotic foreign policy moves seem more "intelligent" when you consider that they may be driven by the defense contractors providing the life-blood of the administration. sometimes what is intelligent for the market is a hindrance to our general welfare.

Where's the intelligent part? For that matter, where is the market part?

I don't see where smarts or markets have anything to do with it; it's power and influence calling the shots.

from the WaPo article:

When Bush took office in 2001, a number of top administration officials openly expressed grave doubts about the 1994 accord, which was negotiated by the Clinton administration, and they seized on the intelligence about the uranium facility to terminate the agreement. The CIA provided an unclassified estimate to Congress in November 2002 that North Korea had begun constructing a plant that would produce enough "weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year . . . as soon as mid-decade."

When Bush took office, the upper echelon officials in the summer of 2001 were mostly hold-overs from the previous administrations (Congress was exceptionally slow in confirming his appointees), as was the director of the CIA who presumably oversaw the unclassified estimate CIA presented to Congress in 2002. One of the lessons seems to be that Bush inherited a CIA that was a font of unreliable information about Iraq, Iran, and N. Korea, and that was too complacent regarding al Qaeda. After itself being too complacent about al Qaeda, the administration seems to have been hyperalert, some would say paranoid, about the dangers of the other threats.

The two articles cited by Kevin Drum in this post are worth reading in their entirety.

The uproar over the elderly John McCain's assertion that the the lives of troops in Iraq have been "wasted" continues apace though USA Today Online has moved it from its front page to its news page.

Here is what the old fellow said:

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said Wednesday on CBS television's "Late Show With David Letterman." "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

In short, those who have given their lives have died in vain due to mismanagement of the war by the Bush Administration.

As the uproar commenced, the old man's aides rushed a "retraction." (McCain couldn't lie as usual and say he had been "misquoted" or "taken out of context," because he made his "wasted" remark on the Letterman show in front of a live audience and a television audience more than four million viewers.)

In my initial post on the matter today, I suggested that the media and the Democratic National Committee were not as alert as could be expected. Now, though, as the story has developed through the day, seems the DNC indeed was alert and was all over the matter only four hours after the broadcast. My apologies to the DNC and my congratulations. As for the media, it continues to appear with few exceptions laggard on the story.

Let's say, just for sake of conversation, that Hell opened up, Satan came forward and John McCain was elected President of the United State.

Here is a script of what might happen:

MCCAIN (Thursday) -- Go to war!

The generals obey and the Air Force, Marines, and Navy lead a devastating assault.

MCCAIN (Friday) -- That isn't what I meant and I retract "Go to war."

HIS MILITARY AIDE -- But, sir, the attack has begun. Troops are in the field.

MCCAIN -- Oh. Well, somebody quick think up something for me to say.

AIDE -- How about "wasted?"

It's not going to happen, because the cancerous old man has about as much chance of being President as Hell opening up and Satan emerging. On second thought . . .

Question, ex-liberal. Do any of the following make any more sense, as a criticism of the hypothetical critics, than your criticism of so-called "Bush bashers?"

Conclusion of the Hitler bashers: It's Hitler's fault.

Conclusion of the Saddam bashers: It's Saddam's fault.

Conclusion of the PLO bashers: It's the PLO's fault.

Conclusion of the McVeigh bashers: It's McVeigh's fault.

Conclusion of the Hamas bashers: It's Hamas's fault.

Conclusion of the Milosovic bashers: It's Milosovic's fault.

Conclusion of the Stalin bashers: It's Stalin's fault.

Conclusion of the Lenin bashers: It's Lenin's fault.

Conclusion of the Noriega bashers: It's Noriega's fault.

Conclusion of the Castro bashers: It's Castro's fault.

Conclusion of the al Qaeda bashers: It's al Qaeda's fault.

Conclusion of the Taliban bashers: It's the Taliban's fault.

Sometimes when people or groups are bashed, they deserve it.

Bush deserves it in spades.

It is the logically, morally, and factually correct conclusion.

That you do not share that conclusion, paints you as illogical, immoral, and not amenable fact.

In other words, ex-liberal, you present, as a whole slew of conservatives tend to do, what is essentially a tautology (people who blame Bush are people who say Bush is to blame) as if it were an argument refuting Bush critics, because you can't actually come up with a real argument, much less any evidence, that proves their criticism of Bush is unjustified.

Buford,

But can you imagine the uproar had, say, John Kerry made such a statement?

Or if say...uh...Obama made such a statement? Oh wait, he did and was pilloried by the rightwingnut blogs; those same blogs of course are silent on McCain.

Apollo 13,

E.

bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the marriage made in hell:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html

How come the preivous 4 Presidents didn't have the intel. problems Bush has,Since Bush took office none of his Intel on Iraq,Iran,N Korea.ect,ect. has been correct I just can't imagine that it all went sour in 2000.Bush has huge problems,His Presidency is shot, His legacy even worse.The one thing he could do to make up for all his misdeeds is call a national television address,Fire Cheney on the spot,Come clean on all his illegal doings.And tell the truth that Iraq was all for Haliburton and friends.By the way did you know Bush has issued over 800 signing statments,Somthing not right about that at all.

Shameful! Shameful! Shameful!

ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

Gibson, you should be ashamed of yourself.

ABC, you have no shame.

What?

Just finished viewing the McCain coverage on Gibson's "report." And guess what -- nary a word on old man McCain's assertion in so many words on the Letterman show that the troops who have died in the Iraq War have died in vain because of the Bush Administration's mismanagement of the war. (see above).

Not a word from the preening, self-important Gibson.

Instead, a virtual puff pieced showing the elderly, makeup-plastered McCain announcing on the show that he would be announcing that he was running for President. Then McCain acting silly with the orchestra.

One interesting bit, though, the significance of which some may have missed. At the outset, when the cameras picked up McCain coming on the set, the old man speeded it up and even skipped a step -- obviously just to prove to all and sundry that indeed, he is not too old to be president, that indeed he can walk extra fast for a short distance and even skip a step, see? (Shades of Bob Dole.)

Gibson needs to do something to make it up to the troops for ignoring their plight in favor apparently of buttering up an old, cancerous politician whose time has long, long past.

Yes, and too bad the fatuous Gibson got the ABC evening news spot over the truly talented Bob Woodruff after Woodruff was severely wounded while covering the Iraq War.

Can we hope that Woodruff will replace the fawning Gibson any time soon?

I suppose there's always hope.

And the hapless Letterman's reaction when the elderly McCain announced he would announce for the presidency?

A rather tepid, "Oh, boy." (No exclamation mark).

......even though we were still fulfilling our side by providing economic support....ex-lax at 10:32 AM

...To me the morally reprehensible part of paying off a tyrant... mike cook at 10:34 AM

...I'm not claiming that Bush has done any better.. ex-lax at 11:41 AM

NK told Bush that they had violated the Clinton agreement...ex-lax at 12:15 PM on Oct. 21, 1994 , the United States and North Korea signed a formal accord based on those outlines, called the Agreed Framework. Under its terms, North Korea would renew its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, lock up the fuel rods, and let the IAEA inspectors back in to monitor the facility. In exchange, the United States, with financial backing from South Korea and Japan, would provide two light-water nuclear reactors for electricity (explicitly allowed under the NPT), a huge supply of fuel oil, and a pledge not to invade North Korea. The accord also specified that, upon delivery of the first light-water reactor (the target date was 2003), intrusive inspections of suspected North Korean nuclear sites would begin. After the second reactor arrived, North Korea would ship its fuel rods out of the country. It would essentially give up the ability to build nuclear weapons. Other sections of the accord--which were less publicized--pledged both sides to "move toward full normalization of political and economic relations." Within three months of its signing, the two countries were to lower trade barriers and install ambassadors in each other's capitals. The United States was also to "provide full assurances" that it would never use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against North Korea. Initially, North Korea kept to its side of the bargain. The same cannot be said of our side. Since the accord was not a formal treaty, Congress did not have to ratify the terms, but it did balk on the financial commitment. So did South Korea. The light-water reactors were never funded. Steps toward normalization were never taken....

from Fred Kaplan in Today's Slate:
In October 2002, U.S. diplomats confronted North Korean officials with CIA evidence that North Korea had secretly obtained centrifuges from Pakistan and, with them, had started a program to enrich uranium. (If enough centrifuges are assembled in a certain way, they can enrich uranium into bomb-grade material.) The North Koreans confessed—though they later backpedaled and said they were misunderstood. (Even now, there are contradictory accounts of what happened.)

It is indisputable that North Koreans had centrifuges. It is not known—and has never been known—whether they've assembled these centrifuges into a cascade that could enrich uranium or, if they have, whether they've enriched any.

Was the CIA correct in Oct 2002? The NKors first seemed to admit, and then denied, that the CIA was correct. But they definitely have the centrifuges, and the CIA said to Congress in Nov 2002 that the NKors were in fact using them to enrich uranium. Was the CIA correct in Nov 2002?

Having fired Tenet, the White House now seems to have come to the conclusion that the CIA was probably wrong in 2002. Hence the new treaty.

Is the new CIA information better than the old CIA information?

Bush doesn't care if NK gets nukes. HE WANTS it to happen. Did he cry when America lost New Orleans? No - city full of liberals and blacks.

So when (not if) NK nukes San Francisco - even when (not if) the buzillion-dollar missile defense fails to stop it - the conservatards will be like "aw gee, how tragic!"
Then they'll throw a couple hundred billion in reconstruction funds at fraudulent contractors, and nothing will be done. Then they'll send more kids to die in another stupid war. Hell, they'll probably attack Brazil if NK attacks us.

If war is profitable for the conservatives who run the Military Industrial Complex - Nuclear War is way more profitable.

Though much of the media dissed the uproar over the elderly John McCain's comments upon the Letterman show about American lives in Iraq as "wasted," get this one:

"Says U.S. lives 'wasted' in Iraq..."

That, folks, topped the story in the . . . Drudge Report.

I kid you not.

No comment yet one way or another by Matt Drudge but he did carry the story while some others were ignoring it.

Was the CIA correct in Oct 2002? The NKors first seemed to admit, and then denied, that the CIA was correct.

As I recall the media coverage at the time, the current Slate piece (and much of the current coverage) is subtly, but potentially critically, misleading: the North Koreans didn't verifiably admit to having the uranium program when confronted and then back off the admission, the US officials who were in the discussion claimed the North Koreans admitted the program to them when confronted, and when that claim was made public, the North Koreans denied it rather than "backing off" from it.

John McCain's statement that American lives lost in Iraq have been "wasted" will be effectively correct only if a policy collapse occurs which effectively hands our opponents a "walk-in" victory, such as happened in 1975 regards Vietnam.

If policy does not collapse, then al Qaida and the other forces of chaos can neither triumph nor claim the victory. I do not sense that Sen. McCain, if elected, will allow this collapse himself. Especially he will not do so if he senses (like no one seemed to do in 1975) that the enemy has gambled themselves on a risky manueber and that someone should call their hazardous "all in" bluff.

I once met Sen. McCain, but so briefly that there was no time to share Vietnam stories, although once I had been only a few miles from the prison near Hanoi where he was held while he was still in that place. My feeling is that John is a grand old fellow, as am I, and I wish the movers and shakers of our current political world were a bit more appreciative of our hard-won wisdom.