George McGovern to Cheney: Resign

George McGovern has a word for Vice President Dick Cheney: "Resign."

Responding to Tuesday's conviction of Cheney's former chief-of-staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI -- after a trial that revealed Cheney's intimate involvement with a scheme to discredit a critic of the administration's war policies -- the former congressman, senator and presidential candidate said it was time for the vice president to go.

"What we have learned about how he has conducted himself leaves no doubt that he should be out of office," McGovern says of Cheney. "If he had any respect for the Constitution or the country, he would resign."

And if Cheney does not take the liberal Democrat's counsel?

"There is no question in my mind that Cheney has committed impeachable offenses. So has George Bush," argues McGovern. "Bush is much more impeachable than Richard Nixon was. That's been clear for some time. There does not seem to be much sentiment for impeachment in Congress now, but around the country people are fed up with this administration."

At age 84, McGovern has attained the elder statesman status that is afforded politicians who have held or sought the presidency. He enjoys the respect of fellow Democrats and more than a few Republicans for being, like former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, a straight-talking man of deep commitment who may have lost one presidential election but won the battle for a place of honor in the nation's history texts.

McGovern testifies before congressional caucuses about how to end the war in Iraq, delivers distinguished lectures, travels widely to discuss his well-received books, contributes articles to magazines such as The Nation and Harper's and regularly defends anti-hunger programs with a former Republican colleague in the Senate, Bob Dole.

What distinguishes McGovern from most other political elders, however, is his refusal to mince words about the current occupants of the White House.

"I think this is the most lawless administration we've ever had," he says of the Bush-Cheney team. That's a strong statement coming from a man who tangled in 1972 with Nixon, and then saw Nixon's presidency destroyed by the Watergate scandals. But McGovern says there is no comparison.

"I'd far rather have Nixon in the White House than these two fellows that we've got now," said the former three-term senator from South Dakota. "Nixon did some horrible things, which led to the effort to impeach him. But he simply was not as bad as Bush. On just about every level I can think of, Bush's actions are more impeachable than were those of Nixon."

Of particular concern to McGovern is the war in Iraq, which he has steadfastly opposed.

"The war was begun in clear violation of the Constitution," McGovern says. "There was no declaration of war by the Congress. Secondly, it's a flagrant violation of international law: Iraq was not threatening the United States in any way. Yet, the United States went after Iraq. The president and vice president got away with it, at least initially, because they were willing to exploit the emotional power of the 9/11 attack to achieve their goal of getting us into a war in the Middle East."

McGovern, a decorated World War II veteran, approves of U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold's suggestion that Congress should look into employing the power of the purse to force the administration to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. "Frankly," the former senator says, "I would support anything that would get our troops out of there."

During his tenure in the Senate, McGovern worked with a Republican, Oregon Sen. Mark Hatfield, to try and pass legislation to force the end of the Vietnam War. He also supported efforts to "chain the dogs of war," which were spearheaded by his liberal Democratic colleague, Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton, a leading proponent of the 1973 War Powers Act.

Eagleton, who died this week at age 77, was briefly McGovern's running mate in the 1972 race. But the revelation that Eagleton had checked himself into the hospital three times for physical and nervous exhaustion led, after some internal turmoil, to a decision by McGovern to drop the Missouri senator from the ticket.

That decision, McGovern now says, was "absolutely a mistake." He now believes that the controversy would have quickly blown over. He also says that dropping Eagleton from the ticket did more harm than good.

McGovern is not afraid to delve into the historical record, even when it involves incidents related to his own career in public life. "We ought to learn from history," says the former senator, who notes that he earned a Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University "thanks to the G.I. Bill."

"I think that the greatest deficiency in our politics these days is the fact that our leaders fail, by and large, to remember our history," says McGovern.

A close second is the caution of the current political class. McGovern calls the Congress "lily-livered" for failing to check and balance Bush and Cheney on the war.

McGovern does not suffer from the condition. He's as bold now as ever, and there is a sense of urgency about the man who could easily relax and accept the honors accorded an senior statesman of his own party and the country.

"I feel an obligation to speak up when I see these flagrant things happen," says McGovern. "I can't be silent when President Bush and Vice President Cheney choose to disregard the Constitution. Maybe if there were other people in the White House, I could slow down a little. But I can't do that as long as this administration is in charge."

Speaking of which: Is there a Democratic contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination that McGovern likes? He's making no endorsements at this stage. But, like a lot of Democrats, McGovern says, "Right now, (Illinois Sen.) Barack Obama looks awfully good."

Then again, a typically frank McGovern admits, "I've gotten to the point where I think just about anyone would be better than Bush."

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John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"

Comments (176)

1. Strictly Guest appearance only!

   The name GM caught my eyes and brought back memories of my first General Election at the tender age of 18! It was sweet to help tag George McG as the big Loser he is.

   What's with fossilized Dem `senior statesman'? Clinton gets rich w/Arab money that also funds our most dangerous enemies, Gore with his globe-trotting, fossil-fueled "do as I say, not as I do" hypocracy.....then Carter calls Israel an apartheid state, now McG! Who's next?

   Don't you have enough junior `statesman' with true leadership qualities with anything remotely inspirational?

   Posted by Happy at 03/10/2007 @ 12:13am

2. .....to say?

   Posted by Happy at 03/10/2007 @ 12:15am

3. I didn't know McGovern was a "big Loser." That is news to me.

   Posted by hhemwm at 03/10/2007 @ 12:30am

4. "Don't you have enough junior `statesman' with true leadership qualities with anything remotely inspirational?"

   There sure as heck is a real void when it comes to inspirational and responsible things coming out of this administration. . .

   Apparently being a Democrat makes what you have to say somehow less valuable even if it is true? Isn't that right, Happy?

   Posted by hhemwm at 03/10/2007 @ 12:33am

5. Apparently being a Democrat makes what you have to say somehow less valuable even if it is true? Isn't that right, Happy?

   Where's the "truth" in McGovern's statement? We had legal authority to go into Iraq. Start with that, and the rest is emotional prattle. (Did he EVER mention the legal status of going into Kosovo?)

   Clinton gets rich w/Arab money that also funds our most dangerous enemies, Gore with his globe-trotting, fossil-fueled "do as I say, not as I do" hypocracy.....then Carter calls Israel an apartheid state, now McG! Who's next?

   But apparently this is ok if you happen to be a Democrat.

   Posted by Sliver at 03/10/2007 @ 02:02am

6. Hey Happy McSliver

   In case you two nimrods hadn't noticed, the 90's are over and BJ Clinton isn't the Prez anymore.

   You had your chance to impeach and convict and you shot your wad (as it were) on a hum job.

   Get a life.

   Posted by skeletonman at 03/10/2007 @ 02:39am

7. Posted by SKELETONMAN 03/10/2007 @ 02:39am

   Ever consider the irony of the "Law 'n Order" crowd continuing to crow that a disgraced felon who had to get the hell outa Dodge one step ahead of an impending impeachment conviction was a superior choice "for all his faults" to a "big government," anti Viet Nam war, plain spoken liberal populist whose campaign platform was validated after the fact?

   Discrediting the liberal through thuggish, pre-meditated criminal activity certainly held big-government in check through the Reagan, Bush and Bush administrations.

   That noise machine got a crank handle or has it been coverted over to gas operation? I'm betting on the gas.

   Posted by canaar at 03/10/2007 @ 04:23am

8. Posted by CANAAR 03/10/2007 @ 04:23am

   Ever consider the irony of the "Law 'n Order" crowd continuing to crow that a disgraced felon who had to get the hell outa Dodge one step ahead of an impending impeachment conviction was a superior choice "for all his faults" to a "big government," anti Viet Nam war, plain spoken liberal populist whose campaign platform was validated after the fact?

   True. I am more taken by the irony of all the chickenhawk neocon zipperheads who never had the courage to even suit up in the uniform of their country daring to say to those of us on the left who did step up that we hate America.

   There are notable exceptions on the Right, to be sure (Bob Dole probably being the elder statesman of the group), but when shitheads like Rush Limpsack (who was 4F for a 'pilonidal cyst' - essentially a big zit in one's ass crack) have the audacity to challenge anyone's patriotism, it makes you wish you had a big ol' can of whup ass and a lot of spare time.

   The wheels are coming off this here wagon, and the crash, when it comes, ain't gonna be pretty.

   Poppy shoulda pulled outta Babs and spooged on her nether regions when he had the chance.

   Posted by skeletonman at 03/10/2007 @ 04:55am

9. Why did Richard Armitage receive the high honor of knighthood from her Majesty, The Queen? Why was John McCain the recent recipient of JINSA's highest honor - the annual Scoop Jackson Award? Answer these questions, and other things start to make more sense.

   McCain is merely a puppet on a string. That thing growing out of the side of his face is his conscience, trying to escape his body. McCain is being BLACKMAILED. THEY ALL ARE.

   So who is the puppeteer and what is the evidence being used against EVERY member of this administration and EVERY member of Congress?

   Stop looking at individual comments, individual personalities and individual headlines. Pull all the way back to 50,000 feet and take the entire picture into account, in context. When you add up the entire list of things that "just don't make logical sense," you're left with only one choice. That is to change your own mind about right and wrong and fairness and morality - and then look again with fresh eyes.

   Assuming that virtually everything you've read or heard since 9/11 from the mainstream Department Of Propaganda is exactly the opposite of the truth brings you one hell of a lot closer to comprehending the entire GAME, in context.

   The puppet master in this country is David Rockefeller. There are others, but focus on him.

   All of this talk about warantless wiretapping and the misuse of it. What would you be able to do if you could wiretap EVERY conversation in America, and use it however you chose to? Remember that it was revealed that AT&T had illegally wiretapped on the Administration's behalf in the months prior to 9/11? Remember that the Government's ABLE DANGER project (our best source of Bin Laden intelligence) was shut down in the months prior to 9/11? Is it really more of a stretch to believe that illegal wiretaps led to this result, in order to protect the government's own planned 9/11 operation? Notice the resurgence of AT&T since 9/11?

   Notice how they are buying up every other communications company? Is it now GOVERNMENT OWNED? Is this the government's vehicle for control of ALL FORMS of communication?

   The entire agenda is set from above, and only those of low moral character, susceptible to blackmail, are allowed into the political charade. AIPAC is the filter through which they must pass, and all must pay homage to AIPAC to retain their positions of power and influence, to which they are addicted. The Abramoffs, Lewinskys, Gannons and others serve the useful function of assuring that every politician is subject to blackmail, to do the bidding of the puppet master.

   It makes no sense that law makers don't read the laws they pass, right? OK then, what DOES make sense? What does make sense is that these new laws are written by those on the payroll of the puppet master (from outside of the government structure), and that those who would otherwise be in a position to prevent their implementation are not only powerless to do so, but have the clear understanding that they are there specifically turn a blind eye and allow their passage. Bush's subsequent signing statements are merely the fine tuning at the end of the entire process - WHICH THEY ARE ALL IN ON.

   THE BIG LIE is that we still have a Representative Republic. We don't. We have the illusion of one. Why do you think that the "election cycle" has been broadened such that it NEVER STOPS? As soon as the most recent elections were decided, the Presidential yammering began (the very next day) - and the media's only job is to make you think that any of it matters. It doesn't. It's all an illusion to keep you occupied, your gaze focused on the illusionist's distraction (politics), while the real trick (divide and conquer) is played out by the other hand.

   It's time view the world through new eyes. Remove your moral compass and assume you are a power-hungry mad man who seeks to control every one and every thing. You have EVERY RESOURCE IN THE WORLD at your disposal. What methods would you use to control the entire game board, and most importantly, control the masses?

   As long as the topic remains "Politics," the puppet master win. Rise above it people. You're being GAMED. You want to view the entire landscape in CONTEXT?

   Read through this: http://plungerspeaks.blogspot.com

   See with new eyes.

   David Rockefeller runs the show from his office atop the "Tower Of Power" building in Manhattan. Remember when Hillary spoke of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy? Of course she was right. But once they had she and her husband dead to rights, they cut a deal, and brought them on-side. What else explains the fact that GHW Bush and Clinton are now cooperating?

   It was GHW Bush, in concert with Israel, that entrapped Clinton in the first place, using Mossad "Swallow" Lewinsky as the bait. This alliance led to the installation of the Bush Cabal under the direction of GHW Bush - all with the complicity of AIPAC/Israel, and all at the behest of the puppet master, David Rockefeller.

   Lay, Cheney, Rumsfeld and GHW Bush conspired to create the California energy crisis to set the stage for the resulting energy wars. 9/11 was a REQUIREMENT for the implementation of the PNAC plan.

   But now, there's a serious problem. Israel has double crossed the administration, and is blackmailing all of the co-conspirators in the Administration. Israel has the nuclear lanch and targeting codes for the US Nuclear Missile arsenal. They are calling ALL the shots - and it's all the result of blackmail.

   Google "Sexpionage"

   It's the oldest game in warfare.

   The Bombing of Iran is next.

   The story of the "Dancing Israelis" is well documented by mainstream media sources worldwide, and reconfirmed by the television interview these Mossad agents conducted upon their release and return to Israel. The story of the "Israeli Art Students Spy Ring" depicts the LARGEST CASE OF FOREIGN ESPIONAGE IN US HISTORY. The Official DEA Report names every single person involved, and documents their activities in detail - all this in the months and weeks prior to 9/11. The case of Larry Franklin's espionage, in concert with AIPAC - is not only well documented, he's already pled guilty to conspiracy and providing top secret information (regarding IRAN) to agents of a foreign government (Israel), the trial for which is forthcoming.

   All of these matters are well documented FACTS - which point DIRECTLY to Israel's role in the FALSE FLAG ATTACK ON AMERICA which served as the pretext for war, as proscibed by the PNAC.

   Not one single person on this message board can refute these FACTS, because they are FACTS.

   Karl Rove INVENTED the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) for one purpose. TOTAL MESSAGE CONTROL.

   Rove is a genious...an evil genious.

   He can only be effective when he knows literally everything. He is the REALITY CREATION ARCHITECT.

   At any given time he can take a set of actual facts and use each of them to stitch together a totally false reality.

   Rove knew that the truth was the enemy of their conspiracy to conquer the Middle East (the PNAC plan). His job, every single day, is to convince you, me and the rest of the world that you didn't just see and hear what you just saw and heard...or if you did, it doesn't mean what your logical mind is attempting to tell you - because "we're in a post-9/11 world now" and black is white.

   Karl Rove is the single most destructive force in the US Government...the enabler of the entire evil scheme...THE ARCHITECT.

   The scheme includes 9/11 as the essential pretext. "9/11" ... how clever, Karl! Only someone with American sensibilities would select the number we have all memorized to call in the event of life threatening emergency as the date for this evil....

   KARL ROVE.

   The war plan to invade Iraq was written BEFORE 9/11. The Secret Energy Task Force meetings that Cheney had with Ken Lay and the other OIL HOGS during which they all decided how to divide up the oil fields of the Middle East...all of that was BEFORE 9/11.

   Now you see why Cheney insisted the substance of those talks remain SECRET.

   All of their schemes and conspiracies REQUIRED 9/11 as the essential trigger.

   Cheney outsourced the implementation of the FALSE FLAG OPERATION to Mossad...the FALSE FLAG experts. This explains why over 200 Mossad agents were operating in the United States prior to 9/11. This explains why five of them were arrested, having been observed filming the planes hitting the towers and their subsequent collapse - celebrating our worst nightmare.

   9/11 was not a bad day for those involved in the Conspiracy. It was their shining moment...their PRETEXT.

   One of them washed out...couldn't cope with the guilt. Ari Fleisher had to be replaced, and disappeared. Not dead, but out of sight.

   The outing of Plame was designed to destroy the best WMD intelligence the US had at its disposal regarding Iraq. Plame knew for a FACT that Iraq had no WMD. It was HER JOB to know. Therefore Rove perceived Plame (the truth) as his WORST ENEMY, and conceived of a plan to silence her. Rove is the individual who insisted that Wilson be sent to Niger.

   GUARANTEED.

   This was the only way to launch a smear program which appeared to be aimed at Wilson, but was intended solely to shut down the entire Brewster Jennings operation and bury their WMD evidence.

   THAT IS ALL ROVE.

   He invented WHIG:

   The group's members included Rove, Bush advisor Karen Hughes, Senior Advisor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

   Every single one of these individuals is a co-conspirator in a concerted effort to defraud America into committing its troops and its treasure to invade a foreign country to the sole benefit of BIG OIL AND ISRAEL.

   The pending invasion of Iran is the next phase of the very same conspiracy. Karen Kwiatkowski let us know that Larry Franklin had set up an IRAN desk in the midst of the Pentagon's IRAQ planners. Larry Franklin has pled guilty for passing Top Secret Iranian Intelligence to AIPAC (Israel). Israeli Generals were free to come and go from the Cheney/Rumsfeld Office Of Middle East Invasion whenever they pleased, without need to sign the guest register.

   IT'S ALL THE SAME CONSPIRACY.

   9/11 - Afghanistan - Iraq - Iran - Syria.

   READ THE PNAC.

   A "New Pearl Harbor" was a REQUIREMENT for its implementation.

   Rove is running the entire PsyOps Machine to enable it.

   Hang them for TREASON.

   http://dailydocket.blogspot.com/2006/01/propaganda.html...

   But whereas Hitler was a true master of propaganda, and his minister a far less talented functionary, today the situation is reversed: our propaganda minister is the master, and our leader his functionary. Karl Rove is so confident of his strategy that he now announces it to the public! In January of this year,

   Rove noted that we face "a ruthless enemy" and "need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in."

   Here's more:

   "[T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

   -- Karl Rove (oops!) Hermann Goering

   Martin Bright Sunday September 12, 2004 The Observer:

   "A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq."

   Powell meant exactly what he said - but he was powerless to stop them. Such is the power of blackmail.

   Posted by plunger at 03/10/2007 @ 06:44am

10. Canaar-ivorous Skeletonman ROCKS!! Thanks for sputtering on the idiot worms of warmongering who besmirched Nichols' honoring of GM with their initial, fast on the trigger, as they invariably are, blatherings.

    Posted by lewwelge at 03/10/2007 @ 06:52am

11. And Plunger, you are the proverbial "pearl of great price," sir!

    Posted by lewwelge at 03/10/2007 @ 06:57am

12. Israeli Spying and 9/11

    Israel and 9/11: The disappearing story that's too hot to handle

    Part One

    "They may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11th"

    http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/61.html

    Posted by plunger at 03/10/2007 @ 07:30am

13. Again....

    Why is John Nichols (who "coincidentially" has a book on impeachment) practically the ONLY writer here at "The Nation" who covers the impeachment debate?

    Not Ms vanden Heuvel, not Ari Berman, not Peter Rothberg, not Liza Featherstone, not Christopher Hayes, not Helena Cobban, not Max Blumenthal....and DEFINITELY not David Corn and Sanford Levinson.

    JUST John Nichols...author of the new book "THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism."

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 07:40am

14. As spoken by Patrick Fitzgerald - in a dream:

    "Mr. Cheney, are you actually in the employ of Mr. David Rockefeller, directly under George HW Bush?"

    "Was 9/11 and all that has followed just part of Mr. Rockefeller's Globalist agenda?"

    "Since our invasion of Afghanistan, which was clearly planned well in advance of 9/11, the oil barrons have managed to secure their pipeline, and George HW Bush and his CIA are enjoying record opium production. Are we to believe that these are all just happy coincidences?"

    "The day prior to 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference to announce that his Comptroller, Dov Zakheim, had somehow lost track of some $2.3 TRILLION in DOD funds. Can you tell us whether those funds have been utilized to implement a military coup, the pretext for which occured the very next day, on 9/11 2001?"

    "Mr. Cheney, what can you tell us about the SWIFT LUCK GREENS CONCENTRATION CAMP which was built by your former company, Halliburton, in your home state, Wyoming, adjacent to the Seminoe Reservoir south of Casper at these coordinates -

    Latitude: 41.92 Longitude: -106.521944

    Isn't this part of the civilian inmate labor program, in concert with DHS and the Army - in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act?"

    Posted by plunger at 03/10/2007 @ 07:48am

15. And Plunger, you are the proverbial "pearl of great price," sir!

    Posted by LEWWELGE 03/10/2007 @ 06:57am

    Has he gotten to the part where 92 year old David Rockefeller runs the world yet?

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 07:54am

16. not only are impeachment hearings necessary and justified, but those two should be sent to the hague for trial as war criminals. and if there is any justice in this world, they will be.

    if anyone has any ideas about how to get that ball rolling, let me know.

    Posted by katamantulo at 03/10/2007 @ 09:24am

17. If Cheney had even the slightest amount of moral courage he would resign. His Chief of Staff is going to jail, most of his pre-war prognostication has proven out dead wrong, most of his during war epithets have done nothing to bring about consensus, he is linked at the hips to corrupt companies that are involved in war profiteering.

    SLIVER- here is the relevant laws. They are the law of the land because the const says so, "all treaties shall be the supreme law of the land", or something along those lines. The UN charter is a treaty ratified by the congress.

    3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

    All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

    No country may use force against another unless under attack or imminent threat of attack.

    Please explain to me how Iraq met that criteria. Fearful sheep.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 09:29am

18. if anyone has any ideas about how to get that ball rolling, let me know.

    Posted by KATAMANTULO 03/10/2007 @ 09:24am | ignore this person

    according to the constitution any native born US citizen can start impeachment proceedings against the sitting pres. if however the pres stands up, all bets are off.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 09:30am

19. Cheney's approval rating is 16%. What kind of company would keep a CEO that only had the support of 16% of the board? Remember, this is the CEO presidency. The admin that was going to bring credibility back to the White House. And for you arch neo-cons, he has failed to raise his daughter to be a "traditional family" wife and wed mother. I can live with that, but from listening to the arch-cons for the last ten years I know that gay mothers are the very seed of the liberal disease pervading the country. Are you going to allow that?

    I thought the conservatives believed in law and order, swearing to tell the truth on Bibles, defending the constitution, family values, personal responsibility and accepting consequences. Either that is so much bull sh*t or cheney should quit to "spend more time with his family".

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 09:40am

20. Full Throttle to Armageddon:

    It's Wild Cornered Animal Stage in this Grand Conspiracy, and there's no turning back for the co-conspirators. Remember, "their roots connect them" - and if one turns, they may all turn, at the same time. Libby sure did cement Judith Miller's status as a Globalist Tool with that not-so-subtle encoded message.

    Bush is ramping up a full blown war escalation before your very eyes, and he thinks there's not a damn thing you or anyone else can do about it. This is no "surge," this is the beginning of an entirely new phase of warfare, the starter pistol for which will the the NEXT FALSE FLAG ATTACK (learn about the Gulf Of Tonkin and USS Liberty incidents)- JUST LIKE 9/11.

    Cheney has ALREADY TOLD YOU that there WILL BE ANOTHER 9/11-TYPE ATACK, and that WHEN it comes, the immediate response will be to NUKE IRAN, regardless of any lack of evidence that they may or may not have been involved.

    So there you have it. The planned "Retaliatory Response" is already scripted, ready to launch. All that is missing is the essential pretext, the tripwire.

    Here's what's coming:

    An Israeli submarine will launch a nuclear-tipped missile and sink a US aircraft carrier (which it has been proven might otherwise require 25 days to sink - absent the nuclear vaporization of 5,000 souls). No shooting up the life rafts this time, and no evidence either.

    This misile will be said to have come from Iran, and the immediate response will be for Bush to declare this to be the equivalent of an attack on US soil. The nuclear response will be over before Congress knows what happened.

    Ariel Joseph Weinmann, a US Submariner, was arrested last spring on charges of espionage for turning over our top naval secrets to a foreign country - a case rivaling that of the Jonathan Pollard case. Care to guess which country he was spying for? Here's a hint...you've never seen this story in the mainstream media.

    Who will stop Cheney and Rockefeller?

    Posted by plunger at 03/10/2007 @ 09:41am

21. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/10/2007 @ 09:30am

    How about if the sitting president pukes on the Japanese prime minister?

    Oops, that was the first Royal Father. Remember when conservatives didn't believe in inherited power?

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 09:43am

22. Remember when conservatives didn't believe in inherited power?

    Posted by CRABWALK 03/10/2007 @ 09:43am

    Hehe....I'll remember that when "The Nation" has to "reluctantly" endorse Hillary Clinton!

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 09:47am

23. Do you law and order conservatives realize the the Justice Dept of the Chimpy admin was just found to have broken the very laws they demanded?

    Chimpy has broken laws across the books, using paid shills, corrupting the CPB, invading a country that was no threat, kidnapping Canadian, German, Pakistani and Afghani citizens that were guilty of nothing, illegal wiretapping of US citizens. Where is the accountability?

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 09:49am

24. Posted by MASK 03/10/2007 @ 09:47am

    You do that mask. thats nice.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 09:50am

25. Posted by CRABWALK 03/10/2007 @ 09:50am

    Yeah, think I will.

    Let's see, what's more likely at this point?

    A. Pelosi reverses her "off the table" statment (backed up by FORMER Impeachment Fan John Conyers) and works to get herself made President by simo impeaching Dubya and Darth...and then per KATA ships them off to The Hague for war crimes trials.

    B. You vote for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Nov. 2008 and endorse "inherited power"?

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 09:54am

26. The Republican Party is a DOOM MACHINE, Dick Cheney hates America because we are free.

    Dick Cheney is a disgrace - remember when he was supposedly this big, smart guy? George Bush is an idiot - doesnt matter. Because he has Cheney by his side. Cheney can be the brains for him. Plus he has Colon Pile. Plus he has Candi Rice. And John Asscraft soon to be replaced by Alberto "the torturer" Gonzales.

    Right, dont worry about how stupid and incompetent George Bush is, because he is going to have competent people advising him. Do you Remember that particular lie?

    Posted by conshame at 03/10/2007 @ 09:57am

27. Crabwalk:

    Cheney doesn't work for the voters. He was installed by his direct boss, George HW Bush (the owner of the CIA - a private company) - on behaf of Poppy's ultimate boss, David Rockefeller. Cheney and bush laugh at the polls, and the threats to "cut off funding for the war."

    The war was PRE-FUNDED in advance of 9/11 through the theft of $7 trillion by Pentagon Comptroller (and Mossad Mole) Dov Zakheim. The money was sent to Israel, and is paying for all of Rockefeller's global military schemes. When you own big oil, big banks, and big military suppliers, the eternal war machine becomes self-funding.

    Netanyahu and Olmert are ultimately more powerful than Bush or Cheney, as the Likud party is an extension of the rockefeller enterprise, and his vision is the creation of Eretz Israel AT THE EXPENSE of the people of the United States.

    When your ultimate goal is to compel all Jews to move to the ever-expanding territory of Israel, one must ultimately make other lands less desireable to inhabit by comparison. Just think about how bad things would need to get in America in order for America's Jews to flee to Israel. What does Rockefeller have in mind to insight the level of "anti-semitism" necessary to force America's Jews into exile in Greater Israel? The revelations of the truth of 9/11 perhaps?

    Think like a globalist criminal. The enemies of America's Jews are the rabid Zionists, who will not rest until all of the middle east, its water and its oil are under Israeli control. Those implementing the PNAC plan are the enemies of ALL AMERICANS.

    Posted by plunger at 03/10/2007 @ 09:57am

28. The Supreme Court ruled that Chimpies military commissions at his Gulag in Cuba violated US LAw as well as the Geneva Conventions.

    How many times does this crowd have to break laws before the law and order types will wake up?

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 09:59am

29. I didn't know McGovern was a "big Loser." That is news to me.

    Posted by HHEMWM 03/10/2007 @ 12:30am

    I am not surprised. But it was in all the papers...he was a winner like Mondale,Carter,Kerry, and thank God..ALGORE..

    Saw him speak in college and then went out and voted for Nixon's second term. With hind sight I don't regret the vote even tho Watergate and Nixon being a socialistic right winger,,,he passed all the programs John son dreamed up...

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:01am

30. Posted by MASK 03/10/2007 @ 09:54am

    Neither. You are engaged in a neo-con game of "False Choice". Classic MASK. Why don't you invent some words I never said and put them in quotes?

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:02am

31. Each of them, scowling. They cant talk about freedom without a scowl. They cant talk about American values without hatred visibly washing over them. Doesnt matter who they are talking to, veterans, seniors, their own idiots, intelligent people, you name it. They talk about raking in the big bucks and they smile, they talk about how they are being investigated and they smile, they talk about being caught in their lies and they smile.

    But George Bushs appointees talk about whats wonderful about America - talk about freedom, and they scowl and curse - and that hatred has to be directed somewhere else. At those who do not support their right to pilfer and torture and wage war against our strategic interest.

    Posted by conshame at 03/10/2007 @ 10:02am

32. Iraq owns The Republican Party and The Republican Party owns the Conservative ideology. If you are Conservative then Iraq is your fault.

    Posted by conshame at 03/10/2007 @ 10:04am

33. Right, dont worry about how stupid and incompetent George Bush is, because he is going to have competent people advising him. Do you Remember that particular lie?

    Posted by CONSHAME 03/10/2007 @ 09:57am | ignore this person

    I and the country re,ember all too well. we had peace and prosperity, what could be the harm, give the intellectually challenged guy a chance, over the wonk who had spent 20 years in honorable service to his country. even then they had to steal the election. I believe the right wing coup d'etat began with Reagan, and Clinton was a kind of interregnum.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 10:05am

34. Posted by CONSHAME 03/10/2007 @ 09:57am

    You and many others need to get help on your obsession with CHENEY..he isn't going any where and hasn't broken any law or committed any crime. Never been charged or prosecuted and the fact that you believe he should means nothing.

    Endless hearings and "investigations by unbiased Waxmans " of the world create even more of a circus atmosphere...

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:05am

35. As can be seen here daily, the neo-cons only support the troops when they are engaged in warfare. After? Nope. Will they pay the taxes necessary to support medical care forever for the wounded? No. Will they listen to war heroes and take their words under advisement? No, they will mock them while offering blind, 100% support to two draft dodgers.

    Gingrich, having an affair WHILE calling for Clintons impeachment for having an affair!!!!!!!!!

    Buwahahahaha. These are your heroes? Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, Scooter Libby, Newt Gingrich, Mary Cheney, Duke Cunningham, John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams, and Dick , oops wrong again, Cheney

    HA!

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:07am

36. from Wiki

    August 1969: Enlisted at the Newark, New Jersey recruiting office. August to October 1969: Eight weeks of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Late October 1969 to December 1970: writer for the Army Flier newspaper at Fort Rucker, Alabama. January 2, 1971 to May 22, 1971: field reporter in Vietnam, part of the 20th Engineer Brigade, stationed primarily at Bien Hoa Air Base northeast of Saigon. May 24, 1971: Given an honorable discharge, after his early discharge request was granted. Gore opposed the Vietnam War, but chose to volunteer anyway though he could have avoided serving in Vietnam in a number of ways. A friend of the Gore family reserved a spot for him in the National Guard, which he turned down. Gore has stated that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve.[11]

    Gore said in 1988 that his experience in Vietnam:

    didn't change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for.[12] After returning from Vietnam, Gore spent five years as a reporter for The Tennessean, a newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee.

    that was no election, that was a coup d'etat.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 10:08am

37. JR,

    Jesus...49 state victory and Reagan was a coup?

    It was rejection of the lib program pure and simple and through and through...a pardigm shift...it happens in history....and will happoen again...even Clintoin was a little "right sided" of the spectrum, if you know what I mean..

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:09am

38. Endless hearings and "investigations by unbiased Waxmans " of the world create even more of a circus atmosphere...

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 03/10/2007 @ 10:05am

    they have just begun. They should have been started by the republican law and order congressmen, instead of being lapdogs for the imperial president. Why are you afraid of hearings, John? As I have said before, it keeps the congress from passing new onerous laws. If Cheney has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:10am

39. Iraq owns The Republican Party and The Republican Party owns the Conservative ideology. If you are Conservative then Iraq is your fault.

    Posted by CONSHAME 03/10/2007 @ 10:04am

    You propeller is spinning wildly when intellectual statements like this vibrate the molecules in the atmosphere...

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:12am

40. What was the line 30 years ago? Something like "just a little burglary"? Surley you old timers remember that.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:13am

41. Last Aug. 17, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit issued her ruling in the A.C.L.U. case. The president, she wrote, had "undisputedly violated" not only the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, but also statutory law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Enacted by a bipartisan Congress in 1978, the FISA statute was a response to revelations that the National Security Agency had conducted warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. To deter future administrations from similar actions, the law made a violation a felony punishable by a $10,000 fine and five years in prison.

    Yet despite this ruling, the Bush Justice Department never opened an F.B.I. investigation, no special prosecutor was named, and there was no talk of impeachment in the Republican-controlled Congress.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:15am

42. JR,

    Jesus...49 state victory and Reagan was a coup?

    was there not a "negotiation" on Reagan's part with the Iranians?

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 10:15am

43. Iraq owns The Republican Party

    and the repubs own Iraq. the war will drown the repubs in a bathtub of blood.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 10:16am

44. How about this...If you supported the invasion of Iraq, then the mess in Iraq is your fault. Dem or repub.

    UNITY08

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:24am

45. "Why are you afraid of hearings, John"

    Because they are political bullshit and thats it. You should know that.

    I am afraid of the circus and the endless statements not based on any fact...there will be no charges brought, arrests made or indictments handed down..but there will a kangaroo court and wild accusations thrown around like vote money in Chicago on election day,...this is just political a battle...there no truth seeking...

    ..this is not the vehicle to find truth and the world knows it...real investigations go on behind the scenes with partcipants stating they can not discuss anything until conlusions are made...do you see this happening in the "hearings"?

    These hearings are for YOU...the far left want the admin out at any cost, go get them repubs for everything they have done to the world...my GOD..

    This is your reward for putting them in office...and you don't even know it!!!!!!!!!!!This is all you will get!!

    This is all that is going to happen on TV with the MSM lapping it up.....and Cheney and anyone with any sense will never even show up at the "hearings"....

    and there will be a price to be paid for these circus events and you are the group who will not like the cost..

    AGAIN,.....these hearings are for YOU...the far left, and nothing of substance will come from them except dragging the names through the streets and no charges...kinda like the DEM statement..."the seriousness of the charges warrent further investigations",

    ..despite the evidence to the contrary. This is the death by 1000 cuts and that is the goal of the "chairman"...of these witch, er, commitees..

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:28am

46. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/10/2007 @ 10:15am

    Are you referring to back channel doings that resulted in the hostages being held till after the election. These doings involved drugs and weapons that were sold to the Axis of Evil. This program resulted in several republicans being prosecuted for lying under oath and violating US law in various ways. These guys are now the "elder statesmen" for the neo-cons.

    History repeats.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:28am

47. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 03/10/2007 @ 10:28am

    why do you hate the American system so much?

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:30am

48. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ;

    Political hack..she .should be on TV with Judge Judy,...ACLU does incalculable damage to us and to US.

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:30am

49. No country may use force against another unless under attack or imminent threat of attack.

    Please explain to me how Iraq met that criteria. Fearful sheep.

    Posted by CRABWALK 03/10/2007 @ 09:29am | ignore this person

    UN rules?? You mean the same UN that was running the Oil for Food program? And the 18 previous UN resolutions and a cease-fire agreement don't count for anything?

    Sounds to me like your statement would violate our Declaration of Independence and sovereignty as a nation.

    Buwahahahaha. These are your heroes? Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, Scooter Libby, Newt Gingrich, Mary Cheney, Duke Cunningham, John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams, and Dick , oops wrong again, Cheney

    Seek help, dude. You've come unglued. You have enough strawmen to start a hockey league.

    Posted by Sliver at 03/10/2007 @ 10:31am

50. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 03/10/2007 @ 10:28am

    why do you hate the American system so much?

    Posted by CRABWALK 03/10/2007 @ 10:30am

    I love it,,,it is alwys guys like you who want to "save it" from enemies...you are just as one sided as the others..only you don't see it..

    We will survive at any rate...this circus will go on and ...the next few years should be fun to watch...got your Hillary 08 button yet?

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:32am

51. John, Many congressmen and senators have sent letters to Cheney and Bush asking them to appear in closed door sessions, under oath. They have refused to do so. The next step is to call open hearings. That is the way it works. If Cheney had the guts to go take an oath and answer questions then we would not need a show for the MSM. If repub Senators had released Phase II like they said they would maybe we would know more. But he refused to do so.

    I am laughing hysterically at the law and order America First nationalists that cannot stand it when laws are applied to their heroes. But then you are a self admitted scofflaw (speeding, hiding hookers) so I guess I should expect an above the law attitude from you.

    gotta go work. Finally have the time to make my own driveway gate. the cobblers wife will have some new shoes.

    Gingrich!! HA!

    when you get some time google "republicans convicted". It is a long list.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:38am

52. Sounds to me like your statement would violate our Declaration of Independence and sovereignty as a nation.-SLIVER

    You don't have a clue what you are talking about. The UN charter is a signed treaty with the US guvt. It is the LAW, that's what the const says.

    --Buwahahahaha. These are your heroes? Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, Scooter Libby, Newt Gingrich, Mary Cheney, Duke Cunningham, John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams, and Dick , oops wrong again, Cheney

    Seek help, dude. You've come unglued. You have enough strawmen to start a hockey league.

    Posted by SLIVER 03/10/2007 @ 10:31am

    strawmen? Sorry, bub, these are conservative icons. Most are felons, one was having an affair during the Clinton scandal, the last has been wrong about just about anything related to Iraq.

    sheep.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:42am

53. Posted by CRABWALK 03/10/2007 @ 10:38am | ignore this person

    feel free to post that list, we need a good chuckle, between tears of rage.

    some day ALL the crimes of the Bush gang will become public. that's when you'll see lotsa repubs switching parties in order to save their jobs.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 10:43am

54. Joohn I do have to run, I will read your response later, are you still sticking to your assertion that AL Gore started the Willie Horton thingy?

    Do you still believe that Gore said he invented the internet?

    are you prepared to buy me a beer when Hillary does not get the dem nomination? We can both celebrate.

    How was the Clapton show?

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:48am

55. CRAB<

    1. Yes, to a point

    2.No, I never believed it as he is know where near the intelligence level needed...this may be cruel, but I think Al is , well, stupid..which is different than dumb....in way over his head..under water, so to speak..:),..that Global thing you know

    3.yes, if she loses it..indeed...

    4. It is on March 28 here.

    Posted by john maasch at 03/10/2007 @ 10:51am

56. ok, twist my arm... and this is mostly just the sex stuff.

    Adelphia Communications Corp.: Donated large sums of money to some of the most conservative members of Congress. They are also the first cable company to offer hard-core adult movies to subscribers. Daily Kos article Edison Misla Aldarondo, Republican legislator from Puerto Rico, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for molestation of his daughter and her friend for eight-year period starting when they were 9. Full Article Randal David Ankeney, Republican activist from Colorado, arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He faces 6 charges related to getting a 13-year-old girl stoned on pot and then having sex with her. Source Also accused of sexually assaulting another girl. Denver ABC Article Dick Armey (R-Texas), former professor, has been accused by The Dallas Observer of sexually harassing female students. Jim Bakker, televangelist with Pat Robertson at Robertson's Christian Broadcasting network. Committed adultery with Jessica Hahn [1] and then used charitable donations to pay her hush money[2]. Fellow televangelists say he's gay. [3][4]Indicted on 23 federal charges of fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering [5]. Merrill Robert Barter, Republican County Commissioner from Maine, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy. Booth Bay Register Article Bob Barr, Republican Congressman from Georgia. Sponsored the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, saying "The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit." Was married three times. Paid for his second wife's abortion. Failed to pay child support to the children of his first two wives and while married to his third and present wife was photographed licking whipped cream off of strippers at his inaugural party. Merrill Robert Barter, Republican County Commissioner, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy. Booth Bay Register Article Robert Bauman, Republican congressman and anti-gay activist from Maryland, was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar. Source: Washington Blade Parker J. Bena, Republican activist and Bush Elector from Virginia, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography (including children as young as 3 years old) on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. Conservative Babylon William Bennett, Drug Czar under George H. W. Bush, compulsive gambler who has had to wire as much as $1.4 million to cover gambling losses in a 2 month period. NY Press Article | Washington Monthly Article Louis Beres, chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. 3 of his family members accuse him of molesting them when they were pre-teens. Editor and Publisher article Howard L. Brooks, Republican legislative aide and advisor to a California assemblyman, was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography. Sacramento Bee article John Bolton: George W. Bush's latest Ambassador to United Nations. Corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton's first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department. Raw Story Article Mike Bowers Former State Attorney General of Georgia, prosecuted the famous "Bowers vs. Hardwick" case, based on Georgia anti-sodomy laws. Admitted to a 10-year adulterous affair Slate article Andrew Buhr, Republican politician, former committeeman for Hadley Township Missouri, was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy. Source Jeffrey Buley (http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/36931.htm), New York Republican Party's top lawyer, and senior political adviser to Gov. Pataki (R), arrested for assaulting his wife in a drunken rage. They have two young children. Ted Bundy campaigned for the Republican Party. Infamous serial rapist who murdered 16 women. Source: BBC Jim Bunn Congressman of Oregon: With his success due in great part to support from the Christian Coalition, Bunn won his congressional seat, then immediately ditched his wife (and mother of his five children), married a staffer, and put his new wife on the state payroll for the unheard-of salary of $97,500. Conservative Babylon John Allen Burt, Republican anti-abortion activist from Pensacola, Florida, convicted of sexually molesting a 15 year old girl at the home for troubled girls that he ran. Source: Pensacola News Journal Dan Burton, Republican Congressman from Indiana who, while married, fathered a child by another woman. Salon.com Article George W. Bush, Republican president, accused in a criminal complaint and lawsuit of raping Margie Schoedinger, who was later suicided. Accused by Tammy Phillips, a former stripper quoted in the National Enquirer in 2000 saying she had an affair with Bush that had ended in 1999. Neil Bush, brother or G. W. Bush, in a March 2003 divorce deposition, admitted repeatedly having sex with strange women who just showed up at his room while on an Asian business trip. (Overshadowing the sex scandal; the business scandal--see link.) Washington Post article. John Butler, Republican activist, was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl. Ken Calvert, Congressman (R-Ca), champion of the Christian Coalition and its "family values." Sued as an alimony deadbeat by his ex-wife. Said "We can't forgive what occurred between the President and Lewinsky." In 1993 he was caught by police receiving oral sex from a prostitute and attempted to flee the scene. Charles Canady, Congressman (R-Florida), Judiciary Committee member. Lied to his constituents about his adulterous affair with Sharon Becker, which caused her divorce. Helen Chenoweth, Congresswoman (R-Id.). Admitted to a six-year adulterous affair with a married associate. In 1995, Chenoweth had denied the affair when asked about it by The Spokane Spokesman-Review, but now she claims a pardon from a higher authority: "I've asked for God's forgiveness, and I've received it," she revealed. Keola Childs, Republican County Councilman from Hawaii, pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the first degree for molesting a male child.Honolulu Star-Bulletin Article Kevin Coan, Republican St. Louis Election Board official, arrested and charged with trying to buy sex from a 14-year-old girl whom he met on the Internet. Source: Newmax Roy Cohn, continually condemned gays and gay rights. Was a closet gay who died of AIDS. Wikipedia Article Carey Lee Cramer Political consultant and anti-Kerry ad producer, tried for molesting two young girls, one of whom lived with him, and was 8 yrs old; the other starred in an anti-Kerry commercial. Diary Diary. The Monitor. Dan Crane, Republican Congressman from Illinois, married, father of six. Had sex with a minor working as a congressional page. Salon.com article --Bkmeyers 08:36, 3 October 2006 (PDT)On July 14, 1983 the House Ethics Committee concluded that Rep. Dan Crane (R-Ill.) had engaged in sexual relationships with minors, specifically 17-year-old congressional pages. In Crane's case, it was a 1980 relationship with a female page. wikipedia.org article Paul Crouch Televangelist, Former President of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Paid $425,000 in hush money in an attempt to cover up a gay affair. Christianity Today article Randy Cunningham: Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that Congressman and confessed-felon 'Duke' Cunningham was periodically supplied with prositutes.[6] Cunningham pled guilty to corruption charges, and is currently serving jail-time. Richard A. Dasen Sr., Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, convicted of sexual abuse of children, promotion of prostitution and several counts of solicitation, enough to add up to a sentence of 126 years in prison. Investigators estimated that he spent up to $5,000,000 on prostitutes. Missoulian Article on the trial | Missoulian Article Richard A. Delgaudio, Republican fundraiser and Bush pioneer, was found guilty of child porn charges. WBAL Channel article Peter Dibble, Republican legislator from Connecticut pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl. News Channel 8 Article Brian J. Doyle, Deputy Press Secretary for U.S. Department of Homeland Security. On March 12, 2006, Doyle contacted a 14-year-old girl whose profile was posted on the Internet, and initiated a sexually explicit conversation with her. The girl was actually an undercover Polk County Sheriff s Computer Crimes detective. Doyle knew that the girl was 14 years old, and he told her who he was and that he worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. During future online chats, Doyle gave the undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl his office phone number and his government-issued cell phone number, so that they could have telephone conversations, in addition to their online chatting. Doyle used the Internet to send hard-core pornographic movie clips to the girl and used the AOL Instant Messenger chat service to have explicit sexual conversations with her. [7] Nicholas Elizondo, Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison. Halfway down this Bakersfield Californian article Larry Dale Floyd, Republican Constable in Denton County, Texas Precinct Two. Arrested for allegedly crossing state lines to have sex with an 8-year old child and was charged with 7 related offenses. Age 62 at time of arrest. Dallas News Article | Atrios Article Mark Foley, US Representative from Florida, engaged in sexually-explicit SMS text-messaging with 17-yo males, former pages. He had been chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. details He was protected by US House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:53am

57. Good thing these God fearing people don't have the librool disease, then we would really be in trouble.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:55am

58. GUILTY

    GUILTY

    GUILTY

    GUILTY

    giddy.

    Posted by crabwalk at 03/10/2007 @ 10:57am

59. You don't have a clue what you are talking about. The UN charter is a signed treaty with the US guvt. It is the LAW, that's what the const says.

    And Iraq hadn't signed on to the 18 resolutions AND the cease-fire? Was it not up to Iraq to abide by UN laws?

    Heros Schmeros...I only voted for one of those people. Once.

    Posted by Sliver at 03/10/2007 @ 11:03am

60. ACLU does incalculable damage to us and to US.

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 03/10/2007 @ 10:30am | ignore this person

    and how do they do that pray tell? are you opposed to civil liberties?

    if you wish to engage in discussion you will have to actually post something, instead of scattershot assertions and insults.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 11:13am

61. Posted by CRABWALK 03/10/2007 @ 10:02am

    Neither?!??!?

    You mean it's just as unlikely that Hillary will be the Dem nominee as Bush and Cheney impeached?

    Well...either or neither or one will be the case in less than 11 months. By February the primaries will be over and the TIME needed for impeachment will be up.

    11 months.

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 11:14am

62. BTW, what "law" is incorporated in the United Nations Charter?!?!?

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 11:16am

63. And Iraq hadn't signed on to the 18 resolutions AND the cease-fire? Was it not up to Iraq to abide by UN laws?

    Heros Schmeros...I only voted for one of those people. Once.

    Posted by SLIVER 03/10/2007 @ 11:03am | ignore this person

    so what you are saying is that because others disobey the law we don't have to either, an absurd position, but definitely the m.o. of the Tories.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 11:17am

64. Sliver, incidentally, Israel has been in violation of UN resolutions for decades, with US approval and absent any sanctions. the arabs we are courting, (well not really, to send Karen Hughes to do that job is risible), are well aware of this disparity.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 11:19am

65. "Why are you afraid of hearings, John"

    Because they are political bullshit and thats it. You should know that.

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 03/10/2007 @ 10:28am

    Mask (tm), your first name wouldn't happen to be JOHN, now would it? HAHAHAHAh. Makes perfect sense, John Maaa Maaa, Maasck. Sheeples.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 11:58am

66. Israel is a separate issue and not relevant to the thread. We can beat that horse when it gets in the gate.

    Posted by Sliver at 03/10/2007 @ 11:58am

67. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 03/10/2007 @ 11:58am

    Geez, how long I been posting here....almost a year and a half...

    and you JUST NOW come up with that joke?!??!!?

    LOL!

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 12:04pm

68. Hey Mask (tm),

    It's just now that I couldn't tell you apart there for a sec. It just crossed me as funny in my Saturday morning waking stuper.

    But really isn't your first name John?

    And your last name, Maasck?

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 12:11pm

69. Posted by SLIVER 03/10/2007 @ 11:58am | ignore this person

    OK, then how about responding to this one?

    so what you are saying is that because others disobey the law we don't have to either, an absurd position,

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 12:15pm

70. Israel is not beside the point when the UN resolutions are discussed.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 12:16pm

71. Richardson?

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 12:16pm

72. http://www.governor.state.nm.us/index2.php

    http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Richardson

    After college, he worked on congressional relations for the State Department. He was later a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 1978, he moved to Santa Fe and ran for Congress in 1980, losing narrowly to longtime 1st District congressman and future United States Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan (R). Two years later, Richardson was elected to New Mexico's newly created third district, taking in most of the northern part of the state.

    As a congressman, he kept his interest in foreign relations. He visited Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, India, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Sudan to represent U.S. interests.

    Richardson also took up the cause of Native Americans while serving in the House of Representatives. Richardson served one term as Chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Native American Affairs in the 103rd Congress (1993-1994). While in the House, Richardson sponsored some of the most prominent Native American bills that were signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Those bills include the Indian Tribal Justice Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments, the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act, the American Indian Agricultural Resource Management Act, the Indian Dams Safety Act, the Tribal Self-Governance Act, the Indian Tribal Jurisdiction Bill (commonly known as the "Duro Fix") and the Jicarilla Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act.

    In 1995, he traveled to Baghdad with Peter Bourne and engaged in lengthy one-on-one negotiations with Saddam Hussein to secure the release of two American aerospace workers who had been captured by the Iraqis after wandering over the Kuwaiti border. He became a member of the Democratic leadership, where he worked closely with Bill Clinton on several issues.

    The Senate confirmed Richardson to be President Clinton's Energy Secretary on July 31, 1998. His tenure at Energy was marred by the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage scandal.

    Richardson continued to devote his attention to Native Americans while at the Department, creating the first ever Director for Native American Affairs position in the Department in 1998 and overseeing the largest return of federal lands (84,000 acres) to an Indian Tribe (the Northern Ute Tribe of Utah) in more than 100 years in January of 2000. Richardson also directed the overhaul of the Department's consultation policy with Native American tribes and he established the Tribal Energy Program.

    With the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001, Richardson commenced teaching at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He also joined Kissinger McLarty Associates, a "strategic advisory firm" headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty, as Senior Managing Director.[6]

    Also from 2001 to 2002, he was a lecturer at the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West, a residential high school with students from 90 countries.

    Richardson was elected governor of New Mexico in November 2002, having defeated the Republican candidate, John Sanchez, 56-39 percent. He took office in January 2003 as the only Hispanic Governor in the United States.

    In early 2005, Richardson made New Mexico the first state in the nation to provide $400,000 in life insurance coverage for New Mexico National Guardsmen who serve on active duty. Thirty-five states have since followed suit.

    Richardson has been lauded by traditionally right-leaning publications and organizations such as Forbes Magazine and the Cato Institute for reforming New Mexico's economy. In 2006, Forbes credited Richardson's reforms in naming Albuquerque, New Mexico the best city in the U.S. for business and careers. Cato has consistently rated Richardson as one of the most fiscally responsible Democratic governors in the nation.

    Richardson has remained very interested in foreign policy. During the summer of 2003, he met with a delegation from North Korea at their request to discuss concerns over that country's use of nuclear energy. At the request of the White House, he also flew to North Korea in 2005, and met with another North Korean delegation in 2006.

    He was named Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and announced a desire to increase the role of Democratic governors in deciding the future of their party.

    In March 2006, Richardson vetoed eminent domain legislation in response to a surge of interest created by the Supreme Court's 2005 decision to increase local governments' eminent domain power.[7]

    On September 7, 2006 Richardson flew to Sudan to meet Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and successfully negotiated the release of imprisoned journalist Paul Salopek. Salopek had been charged by the Sudanese with espionage on August 26th, 2006 while on a National Geographic assignment.

    Richardson won his second term as Governor of New Mexico on November 7, 2006, 68-32 percent ... The outcome made Richardson the most successful governor at the ballot in New Mexico's history.[8]

    In January 2007, at the request of the Save Darfur Coalition, he brokered an 60-day cease fire between President al-Bashir and leaders of several rebel factions in Darfur, the western Sudanese region. The cease-fire never became effective, however, with allegations of breaches on all sides.[11]

    Bill Richardson has been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1995, 1997, 2000, and 2001)[12] for negotiating the release of hostages, American servicemen, and political prisoners in North Korea, Iraq, and Cuba.[13] [edit]Future political career

    Presidential candidate and "short list" VP candidate

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 12:45pm

73. Standby HSUB....

    I like Bill Richardson too. Best qualified guy running.

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 12:48pm

74. OK what's the catch? I'm still for impeachment... So there's no way Richardson has a chance if hsuB/heney is impeached is Mask's (tm) argument, right?

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 12:52pm

75. What's Richardson's stand on hsuB/heney impeachment with verifiable substantiation via congressional oversight? I would think he'd be for it. And it would save fuel shooting them out to space. Just have them pave roads on a chain gang... in Iraq... after we pull out our troops.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 1:12pm

76. Thinking Richardson could be Obama's 'pre-election Cheney to hsuB's inexperience' - card. Or a Pres. Richardson could mentor/groom an Obama VP.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 1:20pm

77. Coming soon to thenation.com... the return of Wood Yee!

    Posted by Announcement at 03/10/2007 @ 1:22pm

78. Obama is a phenomenon, he may be difficult to beat. do not underestimate popularity. Richardson is a wooden speaker, which is a considerable handicap.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 1:42pm

79. Now wouldn't a Richardson/Obama ticket be scarier than hell to a new con repub! Especially as they're witnessing hsuB/heney being impeached. Like what would their world look like to a new con repub at that point-- could we see them literally living in alternative reality, being all fuzzy and transparent like an untuned tv station? Then pop. Gone, raptured, finding themselves on the same cloud as terrorist suicide bombers. Only the new con repubs seeing themselves in the cloud reflections as young again! Pure once again!! And female!!!!

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 1:46pm

80. Obama would blow Richardson away. I don't see a Richardson/Obama ticket. Obama is a rock star, when he appears it's sold out, with thousands more gathering outside. this is a very unpredictable situation, we have not seen the likes of since RFK. no other candidate can match him in charisma, certainly not Hillary or Edwards.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 1:51pm

81. JR, we'll see in the debates but if it is Obama-- why wouldn't he want someone like Richardson as a VP?

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 2:00pm

82. the only reason cheney has not been indicted, and won't be indicted, for any crimes is because he has operated, and continues to operate, under an unprecedented veil of intense secrecy. he is so extraordinarily powerful as to be immune from prosecution or even mild inquiry. even his responses to interview questions are either so transparently false or so logically flimsy as to be perfectly caricaturized.

    having said that, there is no one person who has done more damage to this country than dick cheney and his entourage.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/10/2007 @ 2:08pm

83. Gore was wooden compared to Edwards style also and it wasn't considered too much of a hindrance as he won the popular vote.

    Not saying that Richardson has any kind of a leg up like Gore had. And it would be hard for him to get Clinton's endorsement early on unless Hillary drops out for some reason, soon. But if that were to occur, he'd probably get both and Gore's too. Gigantic 'if's'. But then... We will see.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 2:09pm

84. i really wish cheney would either exit the stage or find a new profession.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/10/2007 @ 2:09pm

85. Perhaps it is easier to impeach both hsuB/heney than just one as Cheney is so isolated. Getting to hsuB will lead to Cheney's criminality too.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 2:13pm

86. O.K. My brain is on drugs today, back problems. I'll try to keep it simple and to the point.

    "The highest patriotism is not the blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard" George McGovern

    "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." December 18, 2000 George W. Bush

    Which George would you follow?

    Which George show leadership?

    Which George shows love for his country?

    Which George should be impeached for even thinking of what he said?

    Recent history:

    1990's - Peace and Prosperity - Clinton - Democrat

    2000's - War, Terror and Fear - Bush - NeoCon

    Posted by COProgressive at 03/10/2007 @ 2:14pm

87. So there's no way Richardson has a chance if hsuB/heney is impeached is Mask's (tm) argument, right?

    Posted by HSUBFOOLS 03/10/2007 @ 12:52pm

    No...my argument is..

    "there's no way hsuB/heney is impeached"

    Just cut a few words.

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 2:16pm

88. She's back. Darla that is.

    JR, we'll see in the debates but if it is Obama-- why wouldn't he want someone like Richardson as a VP?

    Posted by HSUBFOOLS 03/10/2007 @ 2:00pm | ignore this person

    I did not and would not rule that out. Gore's lack of charisma was a handicap for him. if he could have loosened up it would have been a landslide and much more difficult to steal.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 2:17pm

89. i really wish cheney would either exit the stage or find a new profession.

    Posted by DARLADOON 03/10/2007 @ 2:09pm | ignore this person

    undertaker?

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 2:17pm

90. O.K. My brain is on drugs today, back problems.

    I hope it's those most pleasant vicodin. I had a vasectomy recently, are you listening girls?, and the doctor was kind enough to proscribe those.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 2:20pm

91. Posted by MASK 03/10/2007 @ 2:16pm

    So whether or not hsuB/heney get impeached, Richardson is a good choice.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 2:21pm

92. We need to impeach them both. Will they be removed? Probability not. We just don't have the 67 votes in the Senate. Was Clinton removed from office after his impeachment? No, but the repugs keep bringing it up and Clinton will go down in history as having been impeached. I want the same for Bush and Cheney.

    I want to, at the very least, hang toe tags on both Bush and Cheney that say "Impeached for High Crimes and Misdemeanors"and running the country into a ditch. I want for our kids and grandkids and for all history to see in the future that these two were miserable leaders of our country and "We the People" didn't let them get off scott free, we didn't let them Get Away With It.

    "Don't Let Them Get Away With It!" Impeach them.

    "Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles." Abbie Hoffman

    Posted by COProgressive at 03/10/2007 @ 2:40pm

93. So whether or not hsuB/heney get impeached, Richardson is a good choice.

    Posted by HSUBFOOLS 03/10/2007 @ 2:21pm |

    Yep. Congress, UN, Energy Dept, state governor. He cut taxes and can talk authoritatively on both domestic and foreign affairs. Latino, but takes a moderate path on illegal immigration....so wins both sides (except the nativists, who would NEVER vote for him).

    Mind you, his Lt. Governor claims he's "touchy-feely" with the ladies. But hell so was the LAST GOOD President we had, so go for it Bill.

    Of course if he won and didnt gut funding to Israel...FRB would hate him, and RESE would discover a website saying Richardson was "mind-melded by Jesuits and David Rockefeller"....but that'll apply to anybody who can actually win.

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 2:41pm

94. Posted by COPROGRESSIVE 03/10/2007 @ 2:40pm

    Here's the problem with THAT theory, COPRO....Clinton (rightfully I think) that he was exonerated by the failure of the Senate trial to remove him.

    Bush and Cheney come out of an impeachment trial without removal...and the Dems look as silly, partisan, and wasteful of time as the Repubs did in 1999.

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 2:43pm

95. Clinton will go down in history as having been impeached. I want the same for Bush and Cheney.

    regardless what happens in Wash. there are 3,000+ tombstones that will impeach the bastards forever.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 2:54pm

96. Bush and Cheney come out of an impeachment trial without removal...and the Dems look as silly, partisan, and wasteful of time as the Repubs did in 1999.

    Posted by MASK (TM) 03/10/2007 @ 2:43pm

    But that's not how it's going to happen (Maasck) per lots of reasons-- biggest one is just the poll numbers on Pres. Clinton are almost the complete opposite to hsuB .serP, all the circumstances are dif. , again the hsuB/heney criminality is more in keeping with Nixon's and worse even. Majority of the people will oust hsuB/heney by hand if the congress do not once the oversight 'secret' crime come to light. And then take the congress out by hand. Of course congress will impeach hsuB/heney just to save their own necks.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 2:54pm

97. I hope it's those most pleasant vicodin. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/10/2007 @ 2:20pm

    No, JR, just muscle relaxer. Seems to relax my brain too. It give me the thinking ability of another great Repug neonut PNAC founder VP.

    "What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." Dan Quayle (1947 - )

    Posted by COProgressive at 03/10/2007 @ 2:56pm

98. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 03/10/2007 @ 2:54pm

    Seven months from now, we'll know.

    You'll laugh and laugh and tell me how wrong I was...

    or....hmmm? "Still time left" posts until March/April 2008, maybe? And after that, posts on how a "retroactive impeachment is Constitutionally possible"...until the 2030s when Cheney is dead and Bush has Alzheimers and nobody but you a few others care anymore.

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2007 @ 2:57pm

99. Bush and Cheney come out of an impeachment trial without removal...and the Dems look as silly, partisan, and wasteful of time as the Repubs did in 1999.

    tell it to Al Gore.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 3:02pm

100. regardless what happens in Wash. there are 3,000+ tombstones that will impeach the bastards forever.

     Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/10/2007 @ 2:54pm

     Add on all the Iraqi death and maiming, plus Katrina's numbers of neglect, plus slouth leading to 9/11, plus military health carelessness, plus mental maiming per all the repub perv's,... We may be talking millions.

     Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 3:04pm

101. You'll laugh and laugh and tell me how wrong I was...

     Posted by MASK (TM) 03/10/2007 @ 2:57pm

     Maasck (tm),

     I do think I'll be laughing but not just because you are once again wrong, it'll be more that the routing of evil has begun to take hold an our great nation is boncing back from a bout with a bug.

     Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 3:10pm

102. liverty:

     Nixon- McGovern who was the biggest loser?

     the american people were even bigger losers. that you would trot out that criminal Nixon speaks volumes about your respect for law, which is obviously zilch.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 3:20pm

103. Nixon's electoral victory was a defeat for the country. the responsibility was also the press' who did not sufficiently connect the dots of a "second rate burglary" and missed the cover up, except of course for the WaPO.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 03/10/2007 @ 3:26pm

104. Bush and Cheney come out of an impeachment trial without removal...and the Dems look as silly, partisan, and wasteful of time as the Repubs did in 1999. Posted by MASK 03/10/2007 @ 2:43pm the Nattering Nabob of Negativity

     I don't care.

     The American people want action on this. Get the troops out or Bush get a toe tag for history. He thinks he's above the will of the people and it's up to us to show him how things work at the grassroots level. This is not a Kingdom and George is not a King.

     If pressure is kept on congress, and hearings go on into the myriad of wrong-doing by this administration, the congress will come around and put together and pass Articles of Impeachment and then throw the articles over the wall for the Senate to deal with.

     This can be done fairly quickly and congress can move on to other work.

     The Dems won't look "silly" for holding Bush and Cheney accountable, but there are those who will call them partisan, they call them partisan now, and with the thin majority in the Senate and Joe Liberman, and the repugs willing to filibuster everything, to the president vetoing anything from the Dems agenda, everything for these last two years will be a waste of time. Except Articles of Impeachment and the hanging of the "Impeachment" toe tag on Bush.

     So, I don't care. Hang the toe tag. He's earn it.

     "The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that `if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.' it is a very serious consideration...that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event."

     – Samuel Adams Boston, 1771

     Posted by COProgressive at 03/10/2007 @ 3:28pm

105. LVLiberty People who use terms like islamofascism have no credibility.Islamists are theocrats and not fascists.These are two different things.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/10/2007 @ 3:31pm

106. Anyone want to see a clear and distinct dif in hsuB and Cheney as far as PR and agenda, simply do a Google search:

     Results 1 - 10 of about 921,000 for cheney vows. (0.09 seconds)

     ________VS_______

     Results 1 - 10 of about 1,330,000 for bush vows. (0.05 seconds)

     Notice hsuB vows everything including the kitchen sink, like 50-60. Mostly lies pretty much as few are fulfilled. Whereas Cheney is very specific vows, 3 or 4. Mostly staying in Iraq and free speach for corporations...

     Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 5:06pm

107. CNN.com - Bush vows to rid the world of 'evil-doers' - archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.bush.terrorism/

     Bush Vows to Speed Up Aid for Gulf Coast - New York Times www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/us/01cnd-bush.html?ex=1330405200& en= 0e3940886aecef82&ei=5088&partn...

     BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Bush vows action after scandals news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2117016.stm

     BBC NEWS | Middle East | Bush vows to 'complete Iraq job' news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6158119.stm

     Bush Vows To Eliminate U.S. Dependence On Oil By 4920 www.theonion.com/content/node/37464

     Bush vows to fight Democrats on war funds washingtontimes.com/national/20070226-115013-9957r.htm

     Senate Passes Stem Cell Bill; Bush Vows Veto www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071800182.html

     The Raw Story | Bush vows to 60 Minutes that 'no matter what ... www.rawstory.com/news/2007/ Bush_tells_60_Minutes_no_matter_0113.html

     Bush Vows to Speed Gulf Coast Recovery www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/03/01/ap3476916.html

     Bush vows millions for Latin American programs rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_latest/~3/99523729/index.html

     Bush Vows To Mend Military Medical Mess, President Says Panel ... feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsPolitics/ ~3/100063496/main2543702.shtml

     NPR : Bush Vows 'Firm' Response to Iran Military Action www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7061134

     Bush vows to step up efforts in Afghanistan www.boston.com/news/world/articles/ 2007/02/16/bush_vows_to_step_up_efforts_in_afghanistan/

     Bush vows to speed up Katrina recovery www.washingtontimes.com/ national/20070301-113623-7779r.htm

     US war wounded scandal grows as Bush vows review news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070303/ ts_afp/usiraqmilitaryhealth

     Despite pressure, Bush vows 'no women in combat' www.washtimes.com/national/20050111-101005-5277r.htm

     Bush vows push on immigration www.washtimes.com/national/20050111-110235-2065r.htm

     Bush Vows Continued Aid To Gulf Hurricane Victims www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500781.html?nav=rss_world/asia

     President Bush Vows to Bring Terrorists to Justice www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases/2003/05/20030516-15.html

     t r u t h o u t - Bush Vows to Continue Spying on Americans www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121705Y.shtml - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

     Bush vows to keep forces in Iraq - Europe - MSNBC.com www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15910652/

     Victorious Bush vows to reach out - Politics - MSNBC.com www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6363692/

     SPACE.com -- Bush Vows to Expand 'Human Presence Across Our Solar ... www.space.com/news/bush_speech_040114.html

     FOXNews.com - Bush Vows to Try to Unite Country www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137486,00.html

     Bush vows help as he tours tornado-hit southern states - Yahoo! News news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070303/ pl_afp/uscanadaweather_070303223623

     Bush vows help as he tours tornado-hit southern states www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=165178

     Bush Vows Cooperation on Health Care www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/ n/a/2007/02/17/national/w070735S33.DTL&type=politics

     Bush vows to 'respond firmly' if Iran expands acts in Iraq ... www.usatoday.com/news/ washington/2007-01-29-us-iran_x.htm

     USATODAY.com - Bush vows retaliation for 'evil acts' Bush vows retaliation for 'evil acts' www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/attack-usat.htm

     Bush Vows To Pay Closer Attention To Needs Of Non-Presidents www.theonion.com/content/node/30561

     DefenseLink News Article: Bush Vows Troops Will Not Have Died in Vain www.defenselink.mil/news/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=59

     Bush vows to veto bill letting airport screeners unionize www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/171314.php

     Bush vows force, diplomacy with Iran | Chicago Tribune www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ chi-0701300029jan30,1,7561869.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

     Bush Vows Broad, Sweeping, Sustained Campaign commondreams.org/headlines01/0915-01.htm

     Bush Vows To Overcome Hurricane Katrina Disaster usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english& y=2005&m=September&x=2005090313475...

     Bush vows to ‘unstick' Katrina aid | LJWorld.com www2.ljworld.com/r/303/420055/

     DefenseLINK News: Bush Vows Space Program to Continue; DoD Aids Search www.defenselink.mil/news/ Feb2003/n02042003_200302043.html

     Bush vows to attack Iranian agents in Iraq | Breaking News | News ... www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ news/2007/01/26/wiran126.xml

     Bush vows action on Iran, Syria - Breaking News - World - Breaking ... www.smh.com.au/news/World/ Bush-vows-action-on-Iran-Syria/2007/01/11/1168105106819.html

     Wired News: Bush Vows 'Justice Will Be Done' www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47018,00.html - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

     Bush Vows Stem Cell Veto - CBS News www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2005/05/20/politics/main696810.shtml

     Bush vows to put the elections behind him - Americas ... www.iht.com/articles/2006/ 11/09/america/web.1109bush.php

     Bush vows to eliminate torture worldwide. 27/06/2005. ABC News Online www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1400972.htm

     Bush Vows To Fire Leak Criminals - CBS News www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2005/07/18/politics/main709678.shtml

     Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 5:36pm

108. Cheney Vows To Attack U.S. If Kerry Elected www.theonion.com/content/node/30742

     Cheney Vows 'Full Speed Ahead' on Iraq War - washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301619.html

     Cheney Vows Action on Walter Reed. March 05, 2007 blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/ 2007/03/cheney_vows_act.html

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq | The Daily Telegraph www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/ 0,22049,21269380-5001028,00.html?from=public_rss

     Cheney vows to keep backing Afghanistan - Breaking News - World ... www.theage.com.au/news/World/ Cheney-vows-to-keep-backing-Afghanistan/2007/02/27/1172338624591.html

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=163757

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq, backs Japan on NKorea ... www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ afp_asiapacific/view/259839/1/.html

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for ... newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/ world/view_article.php?article_id=50981

     KRT Wire | 02/22/2007 | Cheney vows America will not `retreat' www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/16755290.htm

     JTW News - Cheney Vows no Retreat in Iraq www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=42845

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq, backs Japan on NKorea www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=163702

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq » Netscape.com news.netscape.com/story/2007/ 02/22/cheney-vows-no-retreat-in-iraq

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq, backs Japan on NKorea - Yahoo! News news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070221/ts_afp/usjapancheney

     24.com - News top story Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq Cheney vows ... www.24.com/news/?p=tsa&i=428688

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq - Yahoo! News UK uk.news.yahoo.com/22022007/ 323/cheney-vows-retreat-iraq.html

     NAM - Cheney Vows to Defeat Anti-Democracy Bill in Speech to NAM www.nam.org/s_nam/doc1.asp?CID=202600&DID=238285

     cheney vows no retreat in iraq www.afp.com/english/news/ stories/070222053207.ja6y3z9d.html

     Ming the Mechanic: Cheney vows to attack U.S. if Kerry elected ming.tv/flemming2.php/ __show_article/_a000010-001397.htm

     Cheney Vows 'Full Speed Ahead' on Iraq War www-gatago.com/soc/veterans/37585836.html

     DefenseLINK News: Cheney Vows to Destroy Terrorists www.defenselink.mil/news/ Aug2002/n08072002_200208071.html

     DefenseLINK News: Cheney Vows: Terrorism Will be Overcome www.defenselink.mil/news/ Jul2003/n07242003_200307245.html

     Cheney vows to keep backing Afghanistan optuszoo.news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64924

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq - Yahoo! News news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070222/ pl_afp/uscheneyiraqmilitary

     Cheney vows to keep backing Afghanistan - Yahoo!7 News news.yahoo.com.au/060518/2/z0hh.html

     Feed24: Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq, backs Japan on NKorea (AFP) www.feed24.com/go/43758939

     Cheney vows to throw critics' words back at them. Is he crazy or ... americablog.blogspot.com/2005/ 11/cheney-vows-to-throw-critics-words.html

     WORLD BRIEFS -- Cheney vows to fight to the end in Iraq www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/20070223/NEWS/702230393/-1/HELP0530

     Sunlit Heights :: Iran will be stopped, Cheney vows to Israeli ... www.sunlitheights.com/?p=93

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread268865/pg1

     Cheney Vows To Attack US If Kerry Elected www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/ brin-l/Week-of-Mon-20041011/023873.html

     KRT Wire | 02/22/2007 | Cheney vows America will not `retreat' www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/ 16755290.htm?template=contentModules/emailstory.jsp

     Cheney vows no retreat in Iraq. News www.netscape.com/search?s=no+retreat+in+iraq

     Posted by hsuBfools at 03/10/2007 @ 5:57pm

109. LVLiberty Bienart,who you gave quotes from, did use the term islamofascists which made what he had to say pointless since he doesn't possess basic knowledge.I see you quoted Agnew.Do you have any moral,decent,and positive people to quote?

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/10/2007 @ 6:41pm

110. LVLiberty Bienart,who you gave quotes from, did use the term islamofascists which made what he had to say pointless since he doesn't possess basic knowledge.I see you quoted Agnew.Do you have any moral,decent,and positive people to quote?

     Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/10/2007 @ 6:41pm

     Nobody you do not know enough to give an opinion on what fascism is. You really need to read more widely. Liberty is on the ball on this one:

     THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM

     BENITO MUSSOLINI (1932)

     (ONLY COMPLETE OFFICIAL TEXT ON THE INTERNET)

     (This article, co-written by Giovanni Gentile, is considered to be the most complete articulation of Mussolini's political views. This is the only complete official translation we know of on the web, copied directly from an official Fascist government publication of 1935, Fascism Doctrine and Institutions, by Benito Mussolini, Ardita Publishers, Rome, pages 7-42. This translation includes all the footnotes from the original.)

     Suggest you find out how fascism is defined. Here is a relevant excerpt to show how ignorant you are on this subject. The charming feature, that most of you leftwing experts display is your propensity to creativity when it comes to such trivial things as facts:

     ..."In order to understand the Fascist movement one must first appreciate the underlying spiritual phenomenon in all its vastness and depth. The manifestations of the movement have been of a powerful and decisive nature, but one should go further. In point of fact Italian Fascism has not only been a political revolt against weak and incapable governments who had allowed State authority to decay and were threatening to arrest the progress of the country, but also a spiritual revolt against old ideas which had corrupted the sacred principles of religion, of faith, of country. Fascism, therefore, has been a revolt of the people. (Message to the British people; January 5, 1924, in Messaggi e Proclami, Milano, Libreria d' Italia, 1929, p. 107"...

     (Note. This is precisely the position of the contemporary Islamic organisations such Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned it and other radical groups. It shows itself within Islam as the "faithful" in opposition to the apostates. Those who use the term Islamofascist, in reference to these groups, have read enough historical documents to know that religion and fascism are inextricably linked).

     .."(12) Let no one think of denying the moral character of Fascism. For I should be ashamed to speak from this tribune if I did not feel that I represent the moral and spiritual powers of the state. What would the state be if it did not possess a spirit of its own, and a morality of its own, which lend power to the laws in virtue of which the state is obeyed by its citizens? The Fascist state claims its ethical character: it is Catholic but above all it is Fascist, in fact it is exclusively and essentially Fascist. Catholicism completes Fascism, and this we openly declare, but let no one think they can turn the tables on us, under cover of metaphysics or philosophy. (To the Chamber of Deputies, May 13, 1929, in Discorsi del 1929, Milano, Alpes, 1930, p. 182)"....

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/10/2007 @ 7:58pm

111. "People have to believe in what we say," Gonzales said. "And so I think this was very upsetting to me. And it's frustrating."

     Alberto "the torturer" Gonzales

     NO THEY DONT. PEOPLE DONT HAVE TO BELIEVE, IN WHAT LIARS, SAY. OH NO. PEOPLE HAVE TO DIS-BEIEVE EVERY WORD THE TORTURER SAYS, BECAUSE HE IS A KNOWN AND PROVEN LIAR.

     Posted by conshame at 03/10/2007 @ 9:07pm

112. Posted by LRJONES4 03/10/2007 @ 7:58pm | ignore this person

     Larry (or do you prefer Lawrence?),

     Yes, another fatuous, condescending lecture that probably looked very clever isolated inside your squirrel brain. Trouble is, once you hit that submit button all your self-deluded brilliance disappears in the manner of early morning mouth germs to the cleansing rinse of antiseptic mouthwash. So, big deal L; you managed to paste an excerpt on Mussolini that draws greater comparison to the neo-con fantasy of Pox Americana, PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, Manifest Destiny, Bush Unilateralism-no more appeasement, etc., than a band of Islamic militia-men who were good enough for our suppport a couple of decades ago. Strong state, strong religious society: Bush all the way! Good luck with your theory that the rag-tag al-Qaeda guys, who didn't even control the poorest nation in the region of the impovershed and damned (Afghanistan)--just a sliver for macho-man training- but will "take over the world" if we don't win the new Orwell War against a method of violence. Yes, fascism usually comes via the nation state, and yes, the US looks more and more like that model.

     Posted by Oustbush at 03/10/2007 @ 9:35pm

113. It is sad...George McGovern is the scholar, war hero, honest man from middle America speaking out against a war that was so unequivocally wrong and unwinnable, and the candidate who was later vindicated by the historical events yet, still smeared by these dark, cynical losers. McGovern was slashed by the press for attempting to address the Nixon abuses on the Constitution; and so once again, the truth means nothing to you right wing idealogues who would slit your neighbor's throat for a nickle (nothing personal, you just wanted the nickle).

     Posted by Oustbush at 03/10/2007 @ 9:53pm

114. LRJONES Just because different ideologies have similarities doesn't make them the same.The Islamists are theocrats.Fascism is not based on religious principles, whereas,the beliefs of theocrats like the jihadists are.Fascism can exist separately from religious beliefs,but the beliefs of the jihadists exist within their religion.The islamists do not study fascism nor do they base their beliefs on fascist ideology or beliefs.They're beliefs are entirely based on their religious beliefs.Such people are,by definition,theocrats.Islamofascists don't exist and people who use incorrect terminology can't expect to have their opinions taken seriously.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/10/2007 @ 10:18pm

115. Ouster you are obviously not the brightest button on the left. You might see some similarities between some entities in the US political spectrum and fascism but that is only because you, like Nobody, are totally ignorant of the doctrines of fascism (which at its roots was an Italian nationalistic movement) and those of radical Islam. In other words the only place to go for understanding what fascism is, in the context of persons like you making up their own definition of fascism, is back to the founders of that movement.

     I have pointed up fascism's embrace of religion, which parallels that of the phenomena we are now observing within Islam. The other fascist ideas of The State and Corporatism and its slant on individualism and democracy and what, if any, relationship they bear to present radical Islam should be a good little exercise for you on your journey to personal self improvement.

     Even the brighter lefties here seem to be degenerating into a rag tag bunch. Makes one wonder if you are all getting the jitters about Bush's winning ways over Congress, in Latin America and of course not forgetting the steady improvements we are all witnessing in Bush's Iraq. Lets hope for all your sakes the Dems can pull the plug on him before he solves all the world's problems.

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/10/2007 @ 10:29pm

116. LRJONES The reason terms like theocrat and fascist have different definitions is because they're different.Embracing religion isn't the same thing as basing your beliefs on your religion.Fascist sometimes embrace religion,but the jihadists beliefs are based on their religion.One is a fascist and the other is a theocrat.Do you go by MASK,also?

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/10/2007 @ 10:37pm

117. LRJONES Your claim that bush will solve all the worlds problems explains,at least in part, why you don't know what the various terms mean.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/10/2007 @ 10:39pm

118. DON'T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR MCGOVERN...

     Not only that, I played an active role in his '72 campaign for president, including canvassing, fund-raising, the works -- the only candidate I've ever cared enough about to make this kind of effort and commitment. Reading John Nichols' description of McGovern's current views, I feel all vindicated.

     Posted by w_m_bear at 03/10/2007 @ 10:45pm

119. Obama would blow Richardson away. I don't see a Richardson/Obama ticket. Obama is a rock star, when he appears it's sold out, with thousands more gathering outside. this is a very unpredictable situation, we have not seen the likes of since RFK. no other candidate can match him in charisma, certainly not Hillary or Edwards.

     Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/10/2007 @ 1:51pm | ignore this person

     JR -- Please, PLEASE do not, repeat, do NOT draw parallels between RFK's candidacy and Obama's. The CHARACTER assassins (FOX & Co.) are already starting to take aim....

     Posted by w_m_bear at 03/10/2007 @ 11:01pm

120. Where's the "truth" in McGovern's statement? We had legal authority to go into Iraq. Start with that, and the rest is emotional prattle. (Did he EVER mention the legal status of going into Kosovo?)

     Posted by SLIVER 03/10/2007

     Where is the truth in your statement? What "legal authority" did we have, exactly?

     But since you are a Nixon fan you might remember him saying something to the effect of "if the president does it then it can't be illegal." Is that what you are saying?

     Posted by hhemwm at 03/11/2007 @ 12:09am

121. Saw him speak in college and then went out and voted for Nixon's second term. With hind sight I don't regret the vote even tho Watergate and Nixon being a socialistic right winger,,,he passed all the programs John son dreamed up...

     Posted by JOHN MAASCH 03/10/2007

     Careful there, John. You are starting to sound a lot lik LvLiberty who said he supports Dick Cheney specifically because he makes liberals angry (last I checked he is making a lot of other people angry too, but no matter). Glad to know that Watergate and the War in Iraq are fine by you. . .

     Hey! At least they are Republican mistakes, right? Better then letting those Dems into office. . . .

     Posted by hhemwm at 03/11/2007 @ 12:12am

122. It is sad...George McGovern is the scholar, war hero, honest man from middle America speaking out against a war that was so unequivocally wrong and unwinnable, and the candidate who was later vindicated by the historical events yet, still smeared by these dark, cynical losers. McGovern was slashed by the press for attempting to address the Nixon abuses on the Constitution; and so once again, the truth means nothing to you right wing idealogues who would slit your neighbor's throat for a nickle (nothing personal, you just wanted the nickle).

     Posted by OUSTBUSH 03/10/2007

     Apparently McGovern will always be a "loser." I guess we just can't listen to what it is that he has to say. I suppose the same thing goes for everyone who ever lost a presidential election. You lose once and no one should ever listen to you again.

     Sometimes I feel like I am back on the playground in elementary school. If Barry Goldwater were still alive, I'd ask him how it felt to be ignored for all those years after he lost in 64'. I mean, he probably could have used a friend to play with.

     Posted by hhemwm at 03/11/2007 @ 12:18am

123. John Maasch,

     Maybe you need a friend. Can I be your friend? It might make you feel better.

     Posted by hhemwm at 03/11/2007 @ 12:19am

124. LRJONES The reason terms like theocrat and fascist have different definitions is because they're different.Embracing religion isn't the same thing as basing your beliefs on your religion.Fascist sometimes embrace religion,but the jihadists beliefs are based on their religion.One is a fascist and the other is a theocrat.Do you go by MASK,also?

     Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/10/2007 @ 10:37pm |

     If those opponents of Islamofacism considered all Muslims were fascists they also would not have had to invent the word because they know they are different things.

     I suggest that your confusion is of your own making. No one is suggesting that theocracies are intrinsically fascist but that some have been sympathetic to that form of government. The universal Caliphate theocracy of the radical Islamic extremists certainly is classic fascism in terms of their embrace of violence toward their opponents both within and outside Islam. This along with their broader fascist-like principles and religious ideology for that future Caliphate leads to the truism that "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck". i.e. a fascist theocracy (which should indicate to you a proper use of adjectival forms).

     If we were to ask is it possible for a functioning democracy to also be a fascist state the answer is obvious but if we were to ask is it possible for a fascist state to co-exist with a theocracy the answer of history is a resounding yes. That happened in Italy where Mussolini obviously (if you took the time to read his speeches) took from the Christian theocracy of those times his understanding of religion and, in turn, that theocracy supported the fascist state right up to the level of God's representative on earth. Perhaps till the axis defeat in WW2.

     What is missing in your theocracy distinction is what you mean by theocracy. Unlike Christianity, Islam will never postulate an incarnate rule of God on earth. Thus like Mussolini's Catholicism, Islam's theocracy will be a mediated rule of God by his (very human and often fallible) representative on earth.

     So though fascism has a different meaning to theocracy, the history of theocratic Christianity and the acts and religious ideology of the radical Islamists, shout at us that fascism and theocracy have no trouble in accommodating each other.

     That's why your distinction between fascism and theocracy misses the point and is irrelevant.

     Many Muslims and I know that is true in my country, are committed to a democratic form of government and they regard the universal Caliphate idea with great suspicion. If you were to say that using the term Islamofascist is hurtful to much of non-radical Islam that may be so but that is a different argument.

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/11/2007 @ 12:42am

125. But he already said he supports wars and is already

     a negative

     I'm color blind.....................

     Unless this rock star changes his tune...................

     He's only a juicy prune.

     Posted by RESE 03/10/2007 @ 11:16pm | ignore this person

     ***I*** would support a war if Canada, Mexico, or even (gasp!) Russia invaded the U.S. Also if Russia (under the confluence of one too many Stolies) invaded Western Europe or even if (possibly a lot less unlikely) North Korea invaded South Korea. It's not war per se, but WHAT war that's the key. I also think Obama is WAY too PR-intensive. Somebody described him as a "rock star," which I think is not inaccurate. I'll admit I'm conflicted though. I may, in the end, carry through on my threat to treat my vote as a form of self-expression and just check whomeve I LIKE. (Not sure who that would be at this point, though.)

     Posted by w_m_bear at 03/11/2007 @ 01:10am

126. www.impeachbushcheney.net [impeachbushcheney.net]

     Posted by cstalberg at 03/11/2007 @ 05:27am

127. Look, a few points (and some book recommendations)...

     1. George McGovern was a war hero and exemplary one. Read Stephen Ambrose's "While Blue" for details.

     2. He was a bad Presidential candidate. The main problem was what happened with Thomas Eagleton (who recently died) and how McGovern handled that affair. But, he was also facing several other problems that (even without the Eagleton problem) probably would have kept Nixon in the White House by a comfortable margin, mostly due to his "hippie supporters". For a LEFT-wing perspective, read HS Thompson's "Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail".

     3. Senator McGovern's opinion on Dick Cheney holds NO MORE meaning than any other Democrat out of office (and much less than any Democrat IN office). If Brent Scowcroft, Alexander Haig, etc., some formerly high-ranking REPUBLICAN had called for Cheney's resignation...THAT would be "big news".

     But this sounds like Mr Nichols trying to do some nostalgic "Oh, if only..." praise of Senator McGovern...when he really doesn't count much in this debate.

     Posted by Mask at 03/11/2007 @ 07:22am

128. 16%

     What board would keep this guy around? Enron? Worldcom?

     Is that what you neo's want your country to be like?

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/11/2007 @ 08:52am

129. Posted by MASK 03/11/2007 @ 07:22am

     No matter who is quoted around here there is always an excuse to not listen. The big question is why does anybody still listen to and give credence to anybody in the ChmpCO regime? they have been proven to be liars and completely detached from reality. Especially Cheney. He has zero credibility around the world, just slightly more outside True Believer haunts.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/11/2007 @ 08:59am

130. Hey wingnuts!!!

     By Alan Cooperman Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 11, 2007; Page A05

     Rebuffing Christian radio commentator James C. Dobson, the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals reaffirmed its position that environmental protection, which it calls "creation care," is an important moral issue.

     ---Looks like "the lefts" influence has extended into the NAE. WOW. Now we control the CIA, Hollyweird (except for Awhnold, Heston and Thompson) the whole of corporate media, the State Dept, and the NAE.

     Counting coup...

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/11/2007 @ 09:10am

131. Even though it might be fun to be a cog in MAASCH's kook squad, maybe this will keep me on the fringe for a while. I agree with the latest appeals court decision in DC lifting the ban on handguns in homes. This statute clearly goes against #2. Now, if DC makes people register those guns, fine. "well regulated" is right there in black and white. Technically people should be willing to join a militia if they want to own guns.

     Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote the opinion.

     Saras Old Man?

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/11/2007 @ 09:18am

132. Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/11/2007 @ 09:22am

133. LRJONES/MASK If you had gone online first you'd have learned that islamofascist is not an accepted term and is viewed more as slang than proper terminology.Right wing propagandists know that you folks live in fear of everything and there is nothing like the word fascist to scare people.But let's pretend islamofascists exist.What do they want.They want all states to be islamic states which is what iraq is.That means that iraq war supporters embrace,support,and want our troops to die for islamofascism.I'm trying to sound melodramatic like you.Since conservatives make up their own definitions of terms I think I'm going to define conservative as the inability to grasp simple concepts.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 09:32am

134. LRJONES If you re read what you wrote you'll see that you agreed that these are two different terms.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 09:34am

135. I guess the right wing evangelical's with the Bush administration. It's all clear to me now. Thanks.

     Posted by FRANKGRITS 03/11/2007 @ 01:08am

     Thats OK Frank. No sweat. Just wish all my customers were so easily satisfied.

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/11/2007 @ 09:35am

136. Lindsey Graham is the most dangerous "Conservative" in America. Anyone who watched the testimoy of AG Gonzales nearly a year ago and witnessed the wink & nod exchange between these two knows what the real deal is. They are preparing to implement Martial Law.

     Graham stated that he was concerned about the need to track "Fifth Column Movements" here in the US, and Gonzales smiled and said: "Weve said that we'd be happy to listen to your ideas."

     What was that exchange about, really?

     Lindsey Graham perceives the "enemy within" to be you and me - and he wants to "track our movements." For what purpose Mr. Graham? Who in the hell are you to decide who is an enemy of the US Constitution? It's not about that, is it Mr. Graham? After all, that document is just a "Goddamn Piece Of Paper" in the immortal words of your faux-leader.

     No wonder you are in favor of warantless wiretaps and all of the extra-Constitutional provisions of the Orweillianly named Patriot Act.

     Who is this "Fifth Column" that you are so afraid of, Mr. Graham, and what prey tell might they reveal if they are allowed to seek and reveal the ENTIRE TRUTH if left to their own devices?

     You have attempted to Hijack America, and paint issues in black and white, to meet the ends you seek. but it is YOUR ACTIONS, and those of this administration, that are illegal. That fifth column that you so fear, we call them PATRIOTIC AMERICANS DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION FROM THOSE WHO WOULD SEE IT DESTROYED. That means YOU, Mr. Graham. YOU are the enemy of this Republic and this Constitution - and when the truth is fully revealed, it will be YOU who the NEW AG will be investigating for your efforts to destroy FREE SPEECH in the United States Of America.

     You and your co-consirators should be concerned - because the TRUTH is hot on your trail.

     Posted by plunger at 03/11/2007 @ 09:53am

137. LRJONES If you re read your quote from Benito he said fascists were Catholics first and fascists second.Islamists aren't Catholics.Suicide bombers are not blowing themselves up in the name of fascist ideology.They do it for religious reasons only.Many on the right don't want it known that these people are theocrats because they,too, are theocrats.If you're going to argue that fascists can embrace any religion then their beliefs cannot be considered to be based on religion since it doesn't matter to them which religion.Benito never made Biblical law state law.Jihadists want Koranic law to be state law.Huge difference there.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 10:03am

138. LRJONES If you re read what you wrote you'll see that you agreed that these are two different terms. Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/11/2007 @ 09:34am

     Your problem, which I previously suggested was ignorance, appears to be a little more basic than that. No one, except you, would fail to see that the two words could readily be connected as I did and I even went to the trouble to give you an illustration of how fascism and a theocracy can work together.

     Your problem is that you do not see the obviously simple connection that can be made between the two words. A connection that is completely valid because of what we know from history and what we know about the ideology of radical Islam.

     As for what your soldiers are told it's very unlikely you would have a clue and I'm pretty sure that Islamofascist, which is a scholar's word, would be pretty meaningless to soldiers, as it seems to be to you. I think it is more likely that they would be told go get those Al Qaeda bastards who killed three thousand in NY and destroyed a good piece of our real estate.

     ps you're not also Will C by an chance? He has off standard wiring like yours.

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/11/2007 @ 10:11am

139. Sometimes it is not the "winners" in political elections that have the most impact on history. It was not Nixon who extricated us from Vietnam. It was George McGovern. Without his strong, courageous and persistent anti-war stance, who knows, we might still be there! Thanks, Senator.

     Posted by billheasf at 03/11/2007 @ 11:08am

140. LRJONES The political science community did not coin the term islamofascist nor is it accepted by the political science community.If you pay attention you'll discover that the term is used almost exclusively by the extreme right.These are the same people who use terms like femnazi and claim that all leftists are socialists.I never said that beliefs can never overlap.In fact,I said that these beliefs do have similarities and do overlap just as many beliefs systems have things in common with other belief systems,but they also have significant differences which is why they're defined differently.Your use of childish put downs makes you less credible.Please be mature.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 11:13am

141. So Cheney resigns, Con di steps-in maybe even confirmed, heat makes hsuB resign as articles are drafted and his poll numbers are in the teens, who do you suppose will say yes to Con di... You know only MacKane would've said yes to hsuB, but to Con di-- not so much. Thus hsuB/Rove keep Cheney on life support to take the heat so hsuB's numbers don't dip too low... Looks like both will have to go simultaniously or instead of Con di, hsuB asks the Baker, the Butcher or the Candlestick-Maker?

     Posted by hsuBfools at 03/11/2007 @ 11:22am

142. LRJONES The reason political scientists label different beliefs as left wing or right wing is because these beliefs have things in common with each other and have beliefs that overlap,but they, also, define the terms within that group differently because there are differences that are quite important.Taking the different terms and sticking them together to describe a particular group is pointless because the similarities and differences already exist in the definitions of the terms.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 11:30am

143. LRJONES If you re read your quote from Benito he said fascists were Catholics first and fascists second.Islamists aren't Look you are Catholics.Suicide bombers are not blowing themselves up in the name of fascist ideology.They do it for religious reasons only.Many on the right don't want it known that these people are theocrats because they,too, are theocrats.If you're going to argue that fascists can embrace any religion then their beliefs cannot be considered to be based on religion since it doesn't matter to them which religion.Benito never made Biblical law state law.Jihadists want Koranic law to be state law.Huge difference there.

     Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/11/2007 @ 10:03am

     The point is not that radical Islamists might use fascism but rather that radical Islam is in itself a form of fascism that parallels Italian fascism. Those who use the term Islamofascism do so on those legitimate grounds.

     As far as the connection between fascism and biblical law is concerned one would hope that the Church, which co-operated with Mussolini, incorporated that into its own law but that is not at all germane to the argument. (We can be certain that the law radical Islamists would derive from the Koran, which would apply in a potential Caliphate, would be their own idiosyncratic, fascist interpretation of that book).

     If you were a little more informed you would know that Islam makes no distinction between what is political and what is religious. That is, there is no distinction between what is religious and what is political and secular. So the bombers are not only blowing up innocent people for religious reasons, as you claim but also for political ends. This is used in a perverse way by the Al Qaeda type radical Muslims to justify killing fellow Muslims.

     The Christians on the right, to whom you refer, I take it are the evangelicals. These are not "theocrats" in any sense of the word, at least not at this time. Again if you were better informed you would know that they more or less believe that in this "present age" (their expression) this world is under the rule of the devil, who rules in the hearts of the ungodly (unbelievers). So there goes your little conspiracy theory.

     That's why Bush's activism for democracy, in other countries, is really not derived from evangelicalism at all but is more consistent with the liberal Christian idea of the world getting progressively better, through Christian influences (obviously with no devil to mess things up).

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/11/2007 @ 11:32am

144. LRJONES I already said that islamists don't separate religion from politics.You're simply repeating what I have already stated.You must be MASK.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 11:34am

145. .."Suicide bombers are not blowing themselves up in the name of fascist ideology.They do it for religious reasons only..."

     LRJONES I already said that islamists don't separate religion from politics.You're simply repeating what I have already stated.You must be MASK.

     Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/11/2007 @ 11:34am

     Nobody, no I've decided you are not Willie his memory is OK.

     "..I already said that islamists don't separate religion from politics.You're simply repeating what I have already stated..." That was at 11.34am today but you said at 10.03am today.."Suicide bombers are not blowing themselves up in the name of fascist ideology.They do it for religious reasons only..."

     I get it, you are a comedian with a good memory?

     You have been getting stuck into the piss a bit early in the morning?

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/11/2007 @ 12:12pm

146. LRJONES I'm hoping that you're just being argumentative.The reason that theocracy and fascism have exact and clear definitions is because those are accepted beliefs with actual definitions.No clear and accepted definition exists for the term islamofascists.Saying that suicide bombers blow themselves up for religious reasons is compatible with the statement that islamists don't separate their political and religious beliefs because their religious beliefs are their political beliefs.This is not the case with fascists.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 12:30pm

147. LRJONES Your need to include a childish put down in every response you make gives your statements less credibility.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 12:31pm

148. this morning, fox news' beltway boys bemoaned the nevada democratic leadership's decision to boycott the fox news' sponsored debate and called them 'junior high stalinists'. this is the same network which regularly lends sean hannity a platform to say things like, "i can't believe we're having a debate about wiretapping in this country given the nature of the threat that we face," and then adds, "democrats are opposed to spying on terrorists."

     nobody, in either party, is opposed to spying on terrorists. nobody. but it is wholly apparent that some members of the republican party ARE opposed to debate (sean hannity and the beltway boys demonstrate this on a daily basis).

     last, kagan and kristol continue to be given multiple platforms (fox news and the WaPo included) to make not only false and misleading claims about the iraq misadventure, but also bloodythirsty diatribes against iran, venezuela, claiming we need to be MORE aggressive than we already are, endlessly referring to reagan's approach to foreign policy (which pretty much got us into this entire mess), and talking about how democrats are 'feminized', etc, etc.

     the neoconservative movement is the single most disastrous "intellectual" phenomenon that has ever existed in the united states.

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 12:47pm

149. frank, republicans continue to use fox news to channel misinformation and to buttress their disastrous ideology and failed policies. therefore, it is important to continually criticize them.

     CNN and MSNBC are not that far behind. they advance all manner of misinformation. michael ware, the so-called 'straight shooting' baghdad correspondent, just advanced the white house line that the democrats are emboldening our Enemies by setting "artificial" benchmarks and a firm deadline for withdrawal (despite overwhelming support for both by americans and even a majority of congressional figures).

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 1:11pm

150. LRJONES If you get online you'll discover that scholars agree that fascists use the dominate religion to advance their cause,but do not base their beliefs on that religion.You'll,also,discover that scholars define fascism as a nationalistic or racial belief,but exclude religion because that's covered under the definition of theocracy.Yes,islamists beliefs overlap fascist beliefs in that they're both oppressive in nature,but the religion thing separates the two belief systems.Fascists use religion, whereas,jihadists are their religion.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 1:18pm

151. I'm pretty sure that Islamofascist, which is a scholar's word, Posted by LRJONES4 03/11/2007 @ 10:11am | ignore this person

     A scholar's word? A scholar in some NeoNut think tank I would imagine. Fascist used in conjunction with Islam is meant to be a pejorative much like LoathLiberty uses Leftist as a prejorative when speaking of Liberals or Progressives, or anyone who disagrees with him.

     Using Islam, a religion, with fascism, a form of authoritarian State first political ideology is nothing more than an oxymoron. Islamofascism, Jumbo Shrimp, Military Intelligence, Great Depression, Industrial Park, Peacekeeper Missile, etc, get the pattern there?

     So, what would one call someone who goes on and on and on, becoming mildly abrasive, in a friendly argument, defending the definition of an oxymoron? An idiot savant, or a perfect idiot, or just simply a moron!

     "The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

     BTW LR, braccae tuae aperiuntur.

     Posted by COProgressive at 03/11/2007 @ 1:37pm

152. COPROGESSIVE What's funny about the term islamofascist and the fact that the extreme right are the ones who use it is that a left wing French writer is the first person who is known to have used it back in 1978.He was one of those who described all right wingers as some sort of fascist.Now we have people who hate the French and left wing using it.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 1:56pm

153. lvliberty seems to forget that "leftists" don't parade around as the "values party", so it matters very little to us whether clinton had an affair. we do, however, need to point out when people like gingrich (a "values" man) betray the very centerpiece of conservative ideology, and then criticize someone else for doing the same thing.

     but, you know what, know of this even matters. what does matter is that gingrich is, in large part, responsible for the mess this country is in. his "republican revolution" got us in the shit we in which we are currently mired.

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 2:04pm

154. Halliburton Will Move HQ to Dubai JIM KRANE | AP | March 11, 2007 12:13 PM EST Posted by FRANKGRITS 03/11/2007 @ 1:43pm

     Let's see.... a more favorable tax structure, that way they can get no-bid contracts from the Bush administration sucking taxpayer money from our Treasury and keeping it with their friends in the UAE. Or, another way to avoid paying US taxes making their dealings with the Bush administration and the US a strictly one way affair, from the Treasury to the banks in Dubai. Kinda like stealing, ya think?

     Or, how about non-extradition to the US of those charged with fraud by the US government. Or, a safe haven for future or past CEO's of Halliburton should war crimes ever come into play.

     Or, and I think this is the reason, the beautiful beaches and wonderful resorts and five star hotels to put up their friends and Repug congressmen and former presidents when they visit.

     "....just in general -- let's put it this way, money trumps peace, sometimes." George W. Bush - Feb. 14th 2007

     Posted by COProgressive at 03/11/2007 @ 2:05pm

155. republican thought process:

     yes, none of the rationale we provided for invading and occupying iraq turned out to be factual, but we are currently in iraq nonetheless, and must remain there indefinitely because pulling out would be far worse, and anyone who suggests we pull out are emboldening those we are trying to "defeat" (even though those same people are our "friends" as well---does any republican dare point this out?)

     this demented thought process is really the result of a sort of pathology.

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 2:09pm

156. I pen this lesson for those who may be in the process of considering the impeachment of the President and the Vice President of the United States.

     Domestic violence towards women and children occurs worldwide. Sometimes women and children can escape it, other times not. In more affluent societies, in therapy or spiritual counseling, women can be helped to prepare themselves to reject someone they once loved and trusted. If they are co-dependent emotionally, economically, and in other ways, the collapse of self-confidence, along with the meltdown of home and family -- as well as the loss of artistic, business, and spiritual relationships -- may be at issue.

     In my experience, when women learn to separate from abusive men, they often go through a process of coming out of denial. Facing that one's "protector" is actually a perpetrator -- doing that emotional calculus -- is devastating. Inconceivable in love, common in reality, breaking up with an abuser in power is hard to do. How do you rid yourself of an abuser when the family/group relies on him (and, yes, her)? How do you remove a diseased portion of an organ, without killing the patient?

     There is heightened danger during breakup. A woman is most vulnerable to a perpetrator who has become accustomed to unchallenged control when she announces that she will no longer put up with abuse. Following such a broadcast, women become vulnerable to stalking, violence, even murder -- to say little of the social abuses, like the sabotage of their time, treasure, and talents -- and any helpful friendships they may hold dear.

     A perpetrator, accustomed to unchallenged control, becomes dangerous, and will do anything, including changing the rules of the game, at whim, to place an affective barrier between himself and the truth. And what is that truth? He is not a good man. He is not a brave man. He is not a godly man. He is not a hero. He is a vile coward, a liar, and a scum, unworthy to be called a man.

     Breaking free of abusers in power takes guts. It takes faith and vision. It takes hope, too. Hope that things can become better. Faith that we deserve better and that we can take greater responsibility for improving our lives and those of our children. We cannot do it alone. We need support from people to help us, as we move from entrapment towards freedom. From legal advice to safe places to stay, women have been helped by myriads of people, as they have learned to say, first to self, then to trusted others, then to him: "NO and no more! It stops here, it stops now. It stops with me. I will not allow this legacy to continue. I do not accept abuse as the price tag of being loved and having a family. A loving and fair god does not sanction the abuse of power in my life, or in any other life."

     Here's the analogy I draw today:

     Whistleblowers and advocates for impeachment are consciousness raisers. Exposing the complicity of Congress in the crimes of the executives now in power is somewhat akin to exposing a degree of complicity of wives and mothers in the abuses of men against their families. I have spoken with hundreds of women who have successfully rid their lives of power abuse. One of the key lessons commonly learned has been this: If we don't stop him, the kids will learn that this is okay. What kind of parent would I be if I allowed my sons and daughters to learn that abuse is acceptable?

     Fellow citizens, if we do not stop the current administration through impeachment, I ask you: Will it matter which party wins the 2008 presidential election? Having become accustomed to abuse, as a nation, we will have lowered the bar of the presidency itself to such a degree that we, ourselves, will have become complicit. We will be the ones to have invited into our history a pattern of serial abusers -- dictators -- who will operate entirely outside the parameters of our Constitution and of international law. Hence, we will become lawless.

     But America is a nation governed by laws, not men.

     The situation in which we find ourselves is like that described by sixteenth-century French writer Étienne de la Boétie, speaking of the power of tyrants:

     "He who abuses you so has only two eyes, has but two hands, one body, and has naught but what has the least man of the great and infinite number of your cities, except for the advantage you give him to destroy you ..."

     A power relationship can only exist when it is completed by subordinates. Let us impeach, not ratify, the abuse of power. If America is anything, she is still in our hands. We can still help her to break free of those who would unconscionably abuse her.

     Posted by Ticia at 03/11/2007 @ 2:21pm

157. Ever the dishonest reporter, FG fails to include in those remarks that Koppel said that we cannot pull out of Iraq because the danger of a regional civil war if we do is too great. Even a honest liberal like Koppel understands this basic fact.

     let's take a closer look at liberty's reasoning:

     first, since koppel is an "honest liberal", his comments are therefore......reasonable?

     koppel claims that the united states is embroiled in a national civil war within iraq, and that if we left iraq (prematurely, i assume), this national civil war would expand beyond iraq's borders and into a "regional" civil war. so, according to this "honest liberal," we need to say in iraq until the civil war is over and security within iraq has been stabilized. furthermore, the main reason why we need to stabilize the country is because we heavily depend on it for our energy oil and natural gas.

     according to this "honest liberal," we need to remain in iraq indefinitely and primarly, despite the clearly escalating death and destruction, in order to ensure our continual access to oil and natural gas.

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 3:32pm

158. succesful company

     = a rich and powerful economy (ethics and morals notwithstanding)

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 3:35pm

159. LVLIBERTY Leftists are hardly the only ones who smear Halliburton.Are you an oil company spokesperson?You repeat alot of their propaganda on here.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/11/2007 @ 3:46pm

160. a regional civil war between Sunni's and Shia is dangerous for not only the region but the world including the US.

     this is a "fact", despite the fact that this not only has yet to occur, but that it will have yet to be determined whether it would be dangerous to the united states. koppel very clearly states both:

     1. civil war is bad for us

     2. not having access to oil is bad for us

     the two are inextricable, as my analysis points out. if you want to argue this, than it is you who is smoking too much (bad) herb, not me. mine is clean, organic, outdoor.

     and is there anything wrong or improper about "smearing" a company that has clearly (clearly!) abused its proximity to the administration to score big (HUGE) contracts in iraq and afghanistan?

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 6:37pm

161. I say no to impeachment! Let the people who voted for this shitbag administration get the full 8 years. I hope it is true, I hope there are many people in this country who voted for Bush, even twice, that are now fed up. But even the ones that only voted for him once and realized their mistake in '04 ought to have to suffer the full 8 years for their stupididy.

     I can tough it out, I don't mind now. Just want to see the morons get what they deserve.

     Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS at 03/11/2007 @ 6:41pm

162. imagine the mind of someone willing and able to expend energy attempting to intellectually support the bush administration's atrocious misadventure in iraq. people like kagan and kristol have been so wrong, for so long, about so many different things, that i'm beginning to wonder whether those who offer them a platform to continue supporting the bush administration are sane, or even conscious.

     just look at these quotes from kagan over the last 3-4 years (liberty, pay close notice, because you are very much in their camp). these comments are absolutely stomach churning.

     YEAR HAS PASSED since the invasion of Iraq, and while no sensible person would claim that Iraqis are safely and irrevocably on a course to liberal democracy, the honest and rather remarkable truth is that they have made enormous strides in that direction. The signing on March 8 of the Iraqi interim constitution--containing the strongest guarantees of individual, minority, and women's rights and liberties to be found anywhere in the Arab world--is the most obvious success. But there are other measures of progress, as well. Electricity and oil production in Iraq have returned to prewar levels. The capture of Saddam Hussein has damaged the Baathist-led insurgency, although jihadists continue to launch horrific attacks on Iraqi civilians. But by most accounts those vicious attacks have spurred more Iraqis to get more involved in building a better Iraq. We may have turned a corner in terms of security. What's more, there are hopeful signs that Iraqis of differing religious, ethnic, and political persuasions can work together. This is a far cry from the predictions made before the war by many, both here and in Europe, that a liberated Iraq would fracture into feuding clans and unleash a bloodbath. The perpetually sour American media focus on the tensions between Shiites and Kurds that delayed the signing by three whole days. But the difficult negotiations leading up to the signing, and the continuing debates over the terms of a final constitution, have in fact demonstrated something remarkable in Iraq: a willingness on the part of the diverse ethnic and religious groups to disagree--peacefully--and then to compromise. . . . Fortunately, President Bush moved to squelch all talk of an exit strategy, and the number of American troops in Iraq has actually risen slightly. This has not only increased security but, just as importantly, has sent a powerful signal of U.S. determination to remain in Iraq as long as needed. . . . But the mere fact that the White House has not sought an early exit timed to our presidential election has made it possible to recover from these mistakes--many of which, to be fair, are unavoidable in a complex undertaking like nation-building. Also to its credit, the administration has shown enough flexibility to abandon favored plans when they have proved unworkable. . . .Real and important progress has been made in this momentous, and at times trying, year. There should be no debating the need to persevere.

     Kagan & Kristol, February, 2004 -- The Weekly Standard -- proclaiming that we already won the war in Iraq and cataloging all the great benefits we are reaping from our Triumph: It is also becoming clear that the battle of Iraq has been an important victory in the broader war in which we are engaged, a war against terror, against weapons proliferation, and for a new Middle East. Already, other terror-implicated regimes in the region that were developing weapons of mass destruction are feeling pressure, and some are beginning to move in the right direction. Libya has given up its weapons of mass destruction program. Iran has at least gestured toward opening its nuclear program to inspection. The clandestine international network organized by Pakistan's A.Q. Khan that has been so central to nuclear proliferation to rogue states has been exposed. From Iran to Saudi Arabia, liberal forces seem to have been encouraged. We are paying a real price in blood and treasure in Iraq. But we believe that it is already clear--as clear as such things get in the real world--that the price of the liberation of Iraq has been worth it.

     Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, June 3, 2003 -- assuring us that there are WMDs in Iraq and we just haven't found them yet: As Blix reported to the UN Security Council, "in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for." Today they are unaccounted for. But the answer to the continuing conundrum is not that Bush and Blair are lying. The weapons were there. Someday we'll find them or we'll find out what happened to them. Unless, of course, you like your conspiracies to be as broad and all-pervasive as possible.

     Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, April 13, 2003 -- headline: "Avoiding Temptation After Winning the War" -- declaring the war in Iraq over and the U.S. victorious: Can the Bush administration follow its brilliant military campaign in Iraq with a smart political and diplomatic campaign after the war? It can if it avoids some dangerous temptations. . . . There is a strong impulse in the administration right now to punish erstwhile allies in Europe who opposed the war. A certain righteous triumphalism in Washington is to be expected, and payback is a normal human desire. . . . The United States can win hearts and minds in Europe, and maybe even in the Arab world, by convincing people, in retrospect, that the war was more just than they thought. Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty. All in all, America's ability to lead effectively in the future will depend a lot on how this war is understood and remembered by the world. This battle is just beginning, and if the administration can be as clever in diplomacy as it is in war, it can win that one, too.

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 7:00pm

163. that there are those who continue to believe, and even insist, that there are WMDs in iraq are so off-the-charts-stupid, it goes without saying. i mean, seriously, these guys are DUMB, and not only that, they are ARROGANT. bill kristol is........perhaps, an alien? i dunno. maybe he's an agent of al qaeda?

     Posted by darladoon at 03/11/2007 @ 7:02pm

164. Trolls may attempt to diss GM, but he is respectable and known for his honesty; unlike the Tom Delays, Foleys, and sitting presidents of their party.

     When even former U.S. Army Generals criticize this President AND George W. Bush, you know you've got a problem; lol - GM is only the most recent high-profile to say what many have already said.

     Former Nixon legal counsel, John Dean wrote "Worse Than Watergate - The Secret Presidency of GWB", exposing the unprecedented degree of secrecy in the current administration, and while there are those who claim GWB is "intellectually impaired", Mr. Bush has written the book on crooked politicians abusing public office. Ok, Cheney helped.

     Posted by fireball88 at 03/11/2007 @ 8:18pm

165. But even the ones that only voted for him once and realized their mistake in '04 ought to have to suffer the full 8 years for their stupididy.

     I can tough it out, I don't mind now. Just want to see the morons get what they deserve.

     Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS 03/11/2007 @ 6:41pm

     Gee, ILP...ready to be called a "neo-con stooge" by HSUB and the Impeachment Gang for that?!??!!!?

     Posted by Mask at 03/11/2007 @ 9:16pm

166. Posted by I'M NOBODY 03/11/2007 @ 12:31pm

     Nobody you really are over the top. I'm merely trying to shock you into realising that logically "A" can never be "notA". Some persons respond to this sort of " shock" therapy with red faced embarrassment, mend their ways and begin to think more logically. Others are immune to it. To show I care, I won't send you a bill for my therapeutic services.

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/11/2007 @ 10:08pm

167. LarryJones,

     Hey bro, have you been punched in the head too many times by one of those boxing kangaroos? That's a very scholarly contribution: to study the mentality of Al Qaeda one must become educated with the spiritual dimensions of Mussollini/Italian-Catholic Fascism. That's deep, man.

     Look, Jonesybaby, the only reason fascism is relevant as a state sponsored boogeyman in current society is due to Nazi Germany; fascism in the driver's seat of the most technologically advanced nation at the time is far more dangerous than when it's confined to a band of Middle East orphans. Mussolini was a joke, but any useful model his form of fascism serves is via the nation state, and this is where Germany gave fascism juice as a threat to mid-century western democracy. Your theories linking Al Qaeda and Italio-Catholic Fascism in a substantive real-world context is threadbare. Evidence of some parallels between the two movements do not change the fact that Al Qaeda is only given credibility and respectability to survive and even expand by the Godzilla-like rampaging of W. Bush and his Anglo poodles.

     Al Qaeda's strategy By Robert A. Pape The New York Times

     TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2005 CHICAGO While we don't yet know who organized the terrorist attacks in London last Thursday, it seems likely that they were the latest in a series of bombings, most of them suicide attacks, over the past several years by Al Qaeda and its supporters.

     Although many Americans had hoped that Al Qaeda had been badly weakened by American counterterrorism efforts since Sept. 11, 2001, the facts indicate otherwise. Since 2002, Al Qaeda has been involved in at least 17 bombings that killed more than 700 people - more attacks and victims than in all the years before 9/11 combined.

     To make sense of this campaign, I compiled data on the 71 terrorists who killed themselves between 1995 and 2004 in carrying out attacks sponsored by Osama bin Laden's network. I was able to collect the names, nationalities and detailed demographic information on 67 of these bombers, data that provides insight into the underlying causes of Al Qaeda's suicide terrorism and how the group's strategy has evolved since 2001.

     Most important, the figures show that Al Qaeda is today less a product of Islamic fundamentalism than of a simple strategic goal: to compel the United States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries.

     The overwhelming majority of attackers are citizens of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries in which the United States has stationed combat troops since 1990. Of the other suicide terrorists, most came from America's closest allies in the Muslim world - Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco - rather than from those the State Department considers "state sponsors of terrorism" like Iran, Libya, Sudan and Iraq.

     Afghanistan produced Al Qaeda suicide terrorists only after the American-led invasion of the country in 2001. The clear implication is that if Al Qaeda was no longer able to draw recruits from the Muslim countries where there is a heavy American combat presence, it might well collapse.

     What is common among the attacks is not their location but the identity of the victims killed. Since 2002, the group has killed citizens from 18 of the 20 countries that Osama bin Laden has cited as supporting the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

     There is good evidence that this shift in Al Qaeda's scheme was the product of deliberate choice. In December 2003, the Norwegian intelligence service found a lengthy Al Qaeda planning document on a radical Islamic Web site that described a coherent strategy for compelling the United States and its allies to leave Iraq.

     It made clear that more spectacular attacks against the United States like those of 9/11 would be insufficient, and that it would be more effective to attack America's European allies, thus coercing them to withdraw their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and increasing the economic and military burdens that the United States would have to bear.

     In particular, the document weighed the advantages of attacking Britain, Poland and Spain, and concluded that Spain in particular, because of the high level of domestic opposition to the Iraq war, was the most vulnerable.

     "It is necessary to make utmost use of the upcoming general election in Spain in March next year," the document stated. "We think that the Spanish government could not tolerate more than two, maximum three, blows, after which it will have to withdraw as a result of popular pressure. If its troops still remain in Iraq after these blows, then the victory of the Socialist Party is almost secured, and the withdrawal of the Spanish forces will be on its electoral program."

     That prediction, of course, proved murderously prescient. Yet it was only one step in the plan: "Lastly, we emphasize that a withdrawal of the Spanish or Italian forces from Iraq would put huge pressure on the British presence, a pressure that Tony Blair might not be able to withstand, and hence the domino tiles would fall quickly."

     No matter who took the bombs onto those buses and subways in London, the attacks are clearly of a piece with Al Qaeda's post-9/11 strategy. And while we don't know if the claim of responsibility from a group calling itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe was legitimate, an understanding of Al Qaeda's strategic logic may help explain why that message included a threat of further attacks against Italy and Denmark, both of which contributed troops in Iraq.

     The bottom line, then, is that the terrorists have not been fundamentally weakened but have changed course and achieved significant success. The London attacks will only encourage Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders in the belief that they will succeed in their ultimate aim: causing America and its allies to withdraw forces from the Muslim world.

     (Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is the author of ''Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.'')

     Posted by Oustbush at 03/11/2007 @ 11:19pm

168. "Can we all agree that this war or police action or what ever one whats to call it is about OIL and nothing but OIL?"

     No, we can't, but thanks for asking.

     Posted by john maasch at 03/12/2007 @ 12:04am

169. Posted by OUSTBUSH 03/11/2007 @ 11:19pm

     Hey Bro to you too, Comrade ouster. Looks like you've done your homework.

     I'm glad you liked my "scholarly" contribution but was really just suggesting to Nobody that it doesn't hurt to read a little more widely and make some attempt to understand what one is reading.

     Nobody's contention was that Islamofascist (the use of which may not impress one's Muslim friends but that was not the issue) could not possibly be applied to those radicals within Islam of the Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden, Muslim brotherhood types because they are after a theocracy on earth. And because fascist and theocracy are not synonyms it is incorrect to describe those mad buggers and their followers as Islamofascists. Here is a relevant quote about where the Nazis went after WW2:

     …".but there are two other places that the fascists went, where a warm reception was to be had. One of these, of course, was Egypt, where Qutb grafted fascism to Islam to create the Islamist ideology (which, by the way, is why some call the enemy Islamofascists)"…

     Like you, I am well aware that those aforementioned gentlemen, with many other Arabs, embraced Nazism and fascism generally and incorporated into their Islamist ideology. There is little dispute about that connection. It is interesting to speculate that the strong anti-Semitism, amongst Arabs generally but particularly amongst those extremists who are correctly described as Islamofascist, most likely had it's ideological origins in German Nazism.

     I wanted to indicate to Nobody that fascism and theocracy are not antithetical. Now we could have gone to the Baltic and looked at say Croatia and shown how the Church and fascism produced the Ustashi. Or we could have gone to Germany and observed how the Catholic and Protestant Church embraced Nazism and Hitler. Knowing that Nobody is a hard man to please and that he would have protested that these were not theocracies, I thought who in Christendom is like the Grand Caliph of the maddies proposed Caliphate.

     Well the closest thing of course was the Pope of Rome who was, in Mussolini's time, the official representative of God on earth, not only to the faithful but also to the earth's political leaders, at least those who were willing, who came to pay him homage.

     That of course is the only sort of theocracy that Islam can envisage.ie. A mediate rule of God on earth. So the Pope fitted the bill admirably.

     The fact that we had a "theocracy" that had no trouble accommodating a fascist state in Italy, seems to me to put paid to Nobody's objection to the use of the term Islamofascism as a valid description of that group whose goal is a theocracy but whose ideology and acts are an expression of fascism.

     As you say and as noted above that name really gets most of its sting from The Muslim Brotherhood's connection with Nazi fascism.

     Here's a more recent foot note on the expression Islamofascist, from the British histrorian and philosopher. Roger Scruton:

     BY ROGER SCRUTON Sunday, August 20, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT "The term "Islamofascism" was introduced by the French writer Maxine Rodinson (1915-2004) to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978. Rodinson was a Marxist, who described as "fascist" any movement of which he disapproved. But we should be grateful to him for coining a word that enables people on the left to denounce our common enemy. After all, other French leftists--Michel Foucault, for example--had welcomed the revolution as an amusing threat to Western interests. It is only now that people on the left can acknowledge that they are just as much a target as the rest of us, in a war that has global chaos as its goal."

     Not so keen on your article. Pape was doing the interview rounds over here a year or so back. I have a different view about the effectiveness of Afghanistan and Iraq wrt the dreams and the goals of the Islamofascists.

     ps I have a few Muslim work associates who are not happy with the term Islamofascist but are equally unhappy with terrorists being described as fundamentalists. All true Muslims, they tell me, are fundamentalists. So you can't win either,if you take that tack.

     Posted by lrjones4 at 03/12/2007 @ 03:26am

170. LRJONES I see you still haven't figured out the difference between using the dominate religion for your own benefit and actually believing in the religion.This type of thing is quite common amongst those who love the bush.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 03/12/2007 @ 07:17am

171. Fine, but can the country survive a full eight years of these leaches.

     Posted by FRANKGRITS 03/11/2007 @ 6:55pm

     the country will do fine

     I'm not so sure that hamster conservatism can survive eight years of these leaches.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/12/2007 @ 08:07am

172. not that I'm going to lose any sleep over the demise of all thing hamster.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/12/2007 @ 08:08am

173. Ever the dishonest reporter, FG fails to include in those remarks that Koppel said that we cannot pull out of Iraq because the danger of a regional civil war if we do is too great. Even a honest liberal like Koppel understands this basic fact.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/11/2007 @ 2:47pm

     as did you luvvy

     Posted by Will C. at 03/12/2007 @ 08:11am

174. now we'll wait to see which sentence you lock in on

     Posted by Will C. at 03/12/2007 @ 08:12am

175. and luvyy isn't a fact something that has already happened? The possibilty of a regional civil war hasn't reached fact status yet.

     which is why we still refer to it as a possibility

     Posted by Will C. at 03/12/2007 @ 08:14am

176. Hey, John:

     To the Editor 3/13/07

     The single most outragious thing I have ever seen out of the US Congress, occurred yesterday: "Dems Drop Effort to Limit Bush Iran Options". This President intends to attack Iran.

     And lets be very clear in a way we have not been for some time in Vermont---- this will be done with Democratic votes and approval. Approval of the Democratic Party was given yesterday "behind closed doors".

     This Congress needs to be told by the people of this country that aggressive warfare is not only unAmerican, morally wrong and stupid in today's world; it is a "war crime", the very biggest war crime there is under international law, which is binding on the United States.

     We now face the clear possibility that our entire Congress will be directly guilty of this most heinous crime and we will be left with no way to cure that wrong short of physically removing all of them from office, which must now be considered.

     Dennis Morrisseau Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion Running AT Congress (across the country) dmorso@netzero.net www.2LTMorrisseau.com P.O. Box 177, W. Pawlet, VT 05775 (802) 645-9727

     Posted by dmorso at 03/14/2007 @ 7:41pm