Another Bush insider spills the beans.

[Sir Taliesin]

So you voting for Ralph?

[skywalker]

Who me? I almost did last time, but my overwhelming desire to not see Bush in office made me vote for Gore.

Mark

I don't know why you say good bye, I say hello.

[Timber Loftis]

That said I find the attempts to discredit testimony less helpful to the process than trying to point out who actually failed. Clarke himself accepted the failure himself and hoped for forgiveness in his opening statements. So far no one else has extended the same courtesy, that I know of.

Actually, I think both are useless. Neither does what needs to be done -- understand how to fix the problem. I do not care to point the finger and ruin someone's life when the events we would be hodling them accountable for not predicting are so ludicrous. I also think that Clarke's boo-hooing admission and apology is a political tactic and a waste of my frikkin time. Fix the problem, don't boo-hoo over.

Besides, most of my thoughts have proven true in what I've read so far:

Reading Tenet's testimony, he pointed to mistakes that you make when caught in the moment. Running from crisis to crisis without taking time to do systematic approach planning or re-visit and analyze the response to the past crises.

Armitage quoted Mark Twain's line that if you are on the right track but not going fast enough, you can still get run over.

Albright's main point was that prior to 9/11 the political will of the people was not present to support the overhaul of our system that we are currently doing -- nor any sort of anti-terrorism military efforts abroad.

Sandy Berger said the CIA was given free reign by Clinton to address terrorism issues.

Powell stated the Clinton admin took briefing papers from the previous admin and tried to maintain CONTINUITY in its terrorism efforts (remember -- no political will to actually CHANGE those efforts).

With Clark's conclusions ---

Crap. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img] Workus Interuptus. I'll have to get to him a bit later.

[Timber Loftis]

In his prepared testimony, all Clark said was that the Bush admin considered terrorism important, but not urgent, pre-9/11. In other words, they thought what everybody here in the US thought.

One snippet of his testimomy:

I've learned over time that if you go for the perfect solution, the best solution, you don't get very far in actually achieving things. You can write nice reports if you're at the Brookings commission or something. But if you want to get something done in the real world, you do what is doable and you try to do a little bit more. But you don't shoot for the moon. And I think some of the systemic things that are obvious to you — I know they are — were more practical after 9/11 than they were after the millennium. Remember, in the millennium [plot] we succeeded in stopping the attacks. That was good news. But it was not good news for those of us who also wanted to put pressure on the Congress and pressure on O.M.B. [Office of Management and Budget] and other places, because we were not able to point to — and I hate to say this — body bags. You know, unfortunately, this country takes body bags — it requires body bags sometimes to make really tough decisions about money and about governmental arrangements.

Commission Vice Chair Lee H. Hamilton noted: “These hearings will be a historic opportunity to inform our final report, understand how September 11 happened, and help us formulate recommendations to make America safer and more secure.”

The point if this inquiry is about preparing for the future. The press is SPIN SPIN SPINing it into a "bush at fault" thing. Well, I would too if my job was to sell newspapers, I guess. Time for everyone to hop on the book tour bus.

[Sir Taliesin]

Originally posted by skywalker: I don't know why you say good bye, I say hello.

You get! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Ronn_Bman]

Originally posted by skywalker: As I said before, let the Bush people discredit Clarke's testimony, but do it in public, before the committee, and under oath. Otherwise, I'm not giving them much credence.

Are you going to give them much credence if they do? They'll still be offering their interpretation, but you believe Clark's because it matches what you already believed. Clark makes your point, so why would testimony from anyone on the Bush team under oath, under a tree, or under the ocean matter. You don't withhold credence because they haven't testified under oath in public, you withhold it because you don't think what they say is true. You disapprove of Bush, his administration, and his policies, so the fact that Rice hasn't testified publicly is just a jabbing point. [img]smile.gif[/img]

The gentleman that spoke after Mr. Clark has just as much time in a similar government position to Mr. Clark's. How much credence did you give to what he said? He spoke publicly and under oath. His background is as impressive as Mr. Clark's.

BTW, Mr. Clark said that a an assistance to the president he was often required to make the best of a situation by highlighting the good and downplaying the bad. Isn't it just possible that now he's doing the exact opposite? Wouldn't that make his book sell better? Wouldn't the controversy be good for him personally? Are you so sure he's driving down the middle of the road on this issue?

As Dr. Phil McGraw would say, "the best indicator of future behavior, is past behavior." His job then when speaking to the public was to make the president look good and he didn't have a problem with it(he said he'd done it many times for many presidents), now his job is to sell a book. Maybe he's leaning the other way because it is what he's suppose to do?

It just amazes me when people say, Bush only heard what he wanted to hear from the Intelligence community and his advisers before deciding on a course of action, and then those same people accept the words of Richard Clark as manna from heaven because it is what they want to hear.

It's all perception and perspective.

CLARIFICATION - I'm not picking on you Mark, it's the POV I'm talking about and many share it. We all do it. We all see things the way we want to see them. It's hard, if not impossible to 'turn off' because it's human nature.

[ 03-26-2004, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

[skywalker]

I personally don't place much credence in Dr. Phil McGraw.

Look Ronn, to me under oath testimony is important, if it means nothing than what is the point of it. As I said if Rice wants to slap Clarke around under oath in public, we'll see what shakes out.

BTW Everyone is aware that Clarke is a Repulican, right?

Mark

[Ronn_Bman]

Yes, he made that very clear. It's weird that being a Republican should be a reason to trust someone though isn't it? [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[ 03-26-2004, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

[skywalker]

Originally posted by Ronn_Bman: Yes, he made that very clear. It's weird that being a Republican should be a reason to trust someone though isn't it? [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

No,that isn't my point. It does take the possibility of accusing him of partisan attacks, doesn't it?

Mark

[Ronn_Bman]

Originally posted by skywalker: Who me? I almost did last time, but my overwhelming desire to not see Bush in office made me vote for Gore.

That was a good plan, not because I didn't want Bush elected obviously, but because you didn't inadvertently vote for him through Ralph.

In '92 and '96, I accidentally voted for Clinton through Perot. Well, '92 was completely accidental, but '96 was probably a Freudian thing. [img]graemlins/moon.gif[/img]