Semi-Daily Journal

Read Joh Mitchell even further and you'll see a clear account of how those 16 words ended up in the state of the union speech. The White House wanted them there, the CIA objected, and then the White House pushed back until they got their way. To blame Tenet for this is the ultimate in dishonesty. But then Condi Rice has proved that she does not know what is wrong with dishonesty.

Can I just suggest that the fact that Bush himself is perceived publicly as not very intelligent protects him personally from being held accountable by the press for the mistakes of his administration? This Niger uranium issue is an example. If anything like this happened in the Clinton administration, I am sure that Clinton himself would be blamed.

The Reagan effect - it was entirely believable that Reagan didn't know what was going on. Same is true of Bush II.

Whereas everyone knew that Clinton was smart, well read, well briefed and interested in the details.

I was never a fan of Clinton but Bush Jr. sure makes Clinton look like a wonderful president.

The only real shocking to me about all this is that the media has finally woken up to the fact that the White House has always played fast and loose with the facts to support their policies or to excuse embarassing actions.

What is probably a shock to the White house is that their lame contradictory excuses aren't working on the media. After Condi Rice got away with denying the 9/11 warnings, they must have thought they could say anything and get away with it.

Now, I hate to say this, but could it be that all of these "we-hate-affirmative-action" white guys in the white house are protecting Condi Rice? How many times will she get to screw up before people stopped being awed by her and start asking her tough questions?

Just seems interesting to me, that's all.

Just how did Condi Rice end up with her job? How did she end up with an oil tanker carrying her name? Yes she is a Russian expert, but not well versed on other foreign matters. Condi Rice got where she is by playing along and being the double minority (black female) board member. A trusted yes man, she serves the CEO and makes no waves. Is the NSA position out of her league? Most definately. Just as it is out of the league of most corporate yes men types. Bush, who could only get 10% of the black vote is only attactive to Uncle Toms. In part she is where she is because Mr. Bush will listen to her and trusts her. No wonder his oil companies all went belly up.

The White House website has some great photos of W seemingly very much in the loop during the SOTU writing process, even rewriting some of it.

Check it out before it gts yanked.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/preparation/index.html

Isn't Rice the National Security Advisor because Poppie said so? She worked for Bush Senior, Cheney knew her and liked her. Besides, having somebody around who understood Russia pretty well probably made when we thought our biggest non-state threat was somebody getting hold of some product of Russia's nuclear industry. The fact that she is not demostrably wise isn't that big a drawback. Heck, look at what we are finding out about Kennedy's advisors.

Concerning the issue of whether we need a "wise" National Security Adviser: The stakes go up considerably when we have a proactive/interventionist national security strategy and a crowd at the DoD that is determined to fix anything that seems wrong with the world. Rice seems to me to be sharp and quick witted without being notably wise. Maybe we would be better off if it were the other way around.

Concerning the President: he is not a detached dummy, even if he sometimes gives that impression. I wonder how he will adjust White House operations after 16-Words-gate. Bet he does something.

Gee, it seems everyone has forgotten that WE WON. Saddam Hussein and his sons are probably pushing up daisies, or deep undeground hiding. So how incompetent can Rice be?

As an interviewee recently summed up the phenomenon:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030714-463080,00.html?cnn=yes

"So what's the new book about?"

"The idea of the book is that liberals have a tendency to take the position most disadvantageous to their country. This isn't anything new. "

and:

"They are rooting against America."

I don't think "losing a soldier every day" is a synonym for winning.

Patrick, I find your attitude worrisome. When you can confidently summarize the outcome of a major geopolitical policy change and war as "we won" and see such an oversimplified summary of the outcome as sufficient justification for ignoring any malfeasance in engineering that outcome....well, you're a politician's ideal voter, aren't you?

Secondly, if the goal was to merely remove Hussein from power, yeah, that goal was achieved. The problem with that view is that wasn't ever the supposed rationale for this war. The supposed rationale was to remove the WMD threat to the US and others (which it's not clear there really was a threat to begin with, or, conversely, the threat may have been exported) and to use post-war Iraq as a stabilizing and democritizing force in the region. The latter goal may be accomplished, but we're making a awful start at it because of extremely poor postwar planning built on faulty assumptions. By the terms that this war was justified, "success" is not the first word that comes to mind.

Secondly, Bush and Co. utilized the national fear that resulted in the wake of 9/11 to justify a policy that he and his advisors had already long intended to implement. That in itself is cynical and dishonest. Then, they piled more dishonesty on top of that.

All the while, they're pursuing insane economic policies and lying to the American people about their rationale and benefits.

At this point, I don't see any more probity and trustworthiness in this administration than the anti-Clinton crowd did in Clinton's. Clinton lied about a blowjob. This President has lied about matters of great national interest.

Pat, you wrote "We Won". What have we won? The question before the Iraq war was never, can the US military crush the Iraqi military. That question was never in doubt. The big question was what will happen after the war. This is the very question that most Democrats and many foreign leaders were asking before the war. This is the question that our news media chose to ignore and the administration chose to ignore.

Planning for war should always take into account the worst case scenario. That did not happen and we are stuck with combat troops trying to police a hostile country and revive a delapidated infrastructure. That is not the role of combat troops. That is the role of MPs and engineers. The Bush administration should be taken to task for their lack of planning and taking us down a perilous path without allies that might result in losing the peace.

We are now being told that there were plenty of reasons to go to war with Iraq other than WMD. Unfortunately for Mr. Bush a lot fewer Americans agree that those are valid reasons for going to war than going to war to remove a nuclear threat or terrist linked regime that directly threatens the American homeland.

I believed before the war and still believe that the best course for our country would have been to work with the inspectors, gather international cooperation and ratchet up the pressure on Saddam to get a transition. There also needed to be a lot more planning for post-war. I do not believe that it is in the best interests of the US to have alienated our close allies (including Canada) to have occupied a country where we are not wanted and stuck with half our military bogged down in 110 degree heat in Baghdad, costing us $1 Billion per week and up to several hundred billion total and for what? Never mind, we won.

Tell them what they've won, Pat!

www.costofwar.com

Let's not forget to consider the war in Iraq in terms of opportunity cost. We have chosen not to reform health care (let alone universal health care), not to pay off the debt, not to provide for free universal university education (not even on the map!), etc. but instead have decided that occupying Iraq is worth sacrificing other worthy goals for.

We can certainly debate the utility of each of these things, but having just financed a competing goal we are in less of a position to tackle them.

Patrick,
It amazes me that you continue to cite the discredited, false, whining, scribblings of Ann Coulter's _Treason_. One would think that you would have learned from previous posts how unreliable this book is. And how you end up arguing with the dictionarty.

Of course you could take a tour around the internet and find ample evidence.
From that noted conservative David Horowitz.

"It is a shame that Coulter mars her case with claims that cannot be sustained."

Of course you could be classified as the "true believer" that another conservative claims will be the "only ones" who will believe this book. Your continued use of Coulter, in attempts to make credible claims, simply makes you look foolish.

Please do not encourage Patrick to stop citing Ann Coulter. That is the best thing about his comments.

" if the goal was to merely remove Hussein from power, yeah, that goal was achieved. The problem with that view is that wasn't ever the supposed rationale for this war."

Ever hear these two words: "Regime change"?

And Lawrence, shouldn't a guy who doesn't know the difference between Iran and Turkey, nor April and August, just discretely disappear?

Bit of a side bar, but I think there may be a problem with this from Marshall's post:

Here [sic] presentation was incoherent, contradictory and filled with several more extremely misleading statements.

One in particular jumped out at me. I don't have the transcript of her remarks yet. But she said, essentially, that Joseph Wilson's report was comprised of official denials from Nigerien government officials and the suggestion that a private businessman acting as an intermediary for the Iraqis had made an overture to one of those officials about possible uranium sales.

I know on what I can only call extremely good authority that that is a woeful and wilful misrepresentation of what Wilson reported back to the CIA. That's just not what he told them. (See this earlier post for more details.) Has Rice still not tried to get a hold of Wilson's CIA debriefing?

Now the problem, other than the HTML not working here, is that Jack Straw, Brit Foreign Secretary, and George Tenet, DCI, say the same thing as Ms. Rice - the Wilson report mentioned an Iraqi ATTEMPT to buy uranium. Here is a clip from Straw's statement:

But, as CNN have reported, Ambassador Wilson's report also noted that in 1999 an Iraqi delegation sought the expansion of trade links with Niger -- and that former Niger government officials believed that this was in connection with the procurement of yellowcake.

"Uranium is Niger's main export. In other words, this element of Ambassador Wilson's report supports the statement in the government's dossier.

Straw
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/07/12/sprj.irq.uk.uranium.straw/index.html

Tenet
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/international/worldspecial/12TTEX.html?pagewanted=print&position=

This does not mean Marshall is wrong on this point, but it seems like an elaborate cover-up, involving a re-write of the CIA report to buffalo Straw.

"And Lawrence, shouldn't a guy who doesn't know the difference between Iran and Turkey, nor April and August, just discretely disappear?"

There you go again Patrick..

You have been reduced to arguing with the dictionary as far as the plain meaning of apology and rebuff.

You yourself do not seem to be able to distinguish between April and other months nor between Turkey and Iran.

For example when Truman sent the Missouri to Turkewy, and it arrived on April 5. Did Stalin think "Gee whiz, Harry just invited me last night (April 4) and here is a whole naval task force come to pick me up.

Patrick its time for you to "discretely fade away."
Or is it just the fact that you depend on silence for such foolish statements.

I can't help but note that you did not even mention the source of the quote. Have youy no shame. You have been utterly discredited every time you raise Ann Coulter.