Here's my response to your speech:
Posted on 01/14/2004 9:15:49 AM PST by Molly Pitcher
Here he goes!
Same old, same old....
Here's my response to your speech:
Just goes to show what the press doesn't tell us about the MA Mob, of course the same could be said of the Daley MOB in Chicago, who BTW had more people murdered in a year in that city, than has been lost by our forces in Iraq,
Doesn't matter. These missing chromosome idiots will continue to vote for the blimp. He needs to act crazier & he'll get more votes. Why do you think Teddy perform these antics. He again proves these idiot trolls will vote for him no matter what. Why can these pols continue to run up debt (both parties) & the sheeple keep voting them in? Because they know that you won't take the inititive to vote outside of the box & throw them all out so the media play dem against pub & the sheeple wallow in arguements about which faction is more evil than the other all the while the dollar crumbles, jobs go offshore your standard of living drops with your children paying the debt these pols create.
As to Cheney "intimidating" the CIA by visiting the agency, the following typed in from The CIA at War by Ronald Kessler, pg 315ff:
The Washington Post quoted unnamed analysts as saying that the face that Cheney and a senior aide visited the agency a number of time to question analysts created what they perceived as an environment of pressure for them to tailor their conclusions to the administration's policyOver the years the CIA has repeatedly come under pressure from administrations trying to marshal support for its policy positions. [examples, noting that such pressure didn't actually cause the CIA to change it's positions, and that questions could, however, cause the agency to find something overlooked -- e.g. it had believed that the Soviet Union could not get missiles into Cuba undetected]
"The job of the CIA is to speak truth to power," said David Cohen, the former associate director of the DI. "The analysts are always subject to tough questioning. They are grilled by the DCI. That should not be confused with pressure."
[...]
Given the subjective nature of analysis, some within the agency will always disagree with the final position. In the case of Iraq, some analysts were against the war, just as some State Department officials opposed it and resigned as a result. That did not mean that the CIA was trying to suppress views or had been politicized.
In reviewing CIA intelligence on Iraq and the agency's interaction with the administration, Richard Kerr [a former DCI and part of the panel retrospectively reviewing intelligence on Iraq] told me the CIA encountered the same kind of "pressure" a reporter on a hot story might apply in asking a government official for a stronger quote. The reporter may argue that the facts warrant such a quote, while the official disagrees and sticks to his position.
In the case of Iraq, Kerr said administration officials had an obligation to delve into the facts and get involved in the process. Based on their own reading of the intelligence and their own worldview, they sometimes marshaled arguments to try to persuade the agency to say Hussein posed more of a threat than the agency was willing to conclude. They also asked why the CIA emphasized one fact or another. In the same vein, in questioning Tenet on the Hill, a senator might push for a particular answer because he feels it is the right one. While some analysts might interpret that as pressure, Kerr said no one tried to "direct" the CIA to change its opinions, nor did the agency do so.
"It was part of the normal give-and-take of the intelligence process," Kerr said.
When Cheney visited the CIA, McLaughlin [head of the DI and therefore in charge of the analysts] would escort him into a conference room across the hall from the DCI's office. There, the vice president would spend three or four hours at a time with analysts. Besides the weapons of mass destruction issue, Cheney made visits to look into three or four other issues that interested him, such as North Korea and China.
"He came out here a lot," McLaughlin told me. "The characterization Colin Powell gave was exactly right: He loves to dig into things. When he comes, his is polite and respectful. Most of the people I would bring in here to talk to him were thankful he was here. We were saying, 'Thank you, God, for bringing us someone who is interested.'"
washingtonpost.com
Liberals Get A Think Tank Of Their Own
New Shop Will Develop Ideas, Fight Conservatives
By David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 23, 2003; Page A29
To most Washington think tank executives, $10 million or $12 million per year for three years would sound like a lot of money.
But then, they are not trying to do what former White House chief of staff John D. Podesta has in mind for his new Center for American Progress. Podesta's ambition is to update the liberal agenda while beating back the conservative tide. Also, to discover, train and promote a new generation of liberal spokesmen. In other words, he wants to give the left of the American political spectrum a think tank to match the Heritage Foundation on the right.
The seed money pledged by such deep-pocketed Democrats as financier George Soros and mortgage billionaires Herbert and Marion Sandler -- while serious dough -- is barely enough to make a beginning.
On the other hand, Heritage got started on less. Hatched amid the ruins of the post-Watergate Republican Party, Heritage has grown into a $30 million-a-year operation -- a hatchery of ideas, yes, but also a packager, promoter, expediter, wholesaler, matchmaker and orchestrator. It is the hub of a network of loosely aligned conservative brain barns with budgets totaling $100 million or so.
Liberals have been pining for many years for something similar on their side, Podesta said in an interview this week. "For as long as I can remember," he said, "people have talked about the rise of the Republican think tank machine with a powerful communications machinery really embedded inside it -- creating the ability not just to develop the philosophy but to sell it."
What really drove home the need was the election of 2002, when Democrats found themselves out of power at every level of government. Podesta, a man with many admirers and few enemies despite 30 years in politics, agreed to take on the project.
Already more than half the anticipated staff has been hired -- 35 of what will become a staff of about 65. The center today plans to name its first nine fellows. Next week, the center will co-sponsor a forum on liberal approaches to foreign policy and national security, guided by Clinton administration veteran Robert O. Boorstin, one of Podesta's first hires. The keynote speaker will be retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark -- an invitation Podesta said was issued long before Clark entered the race for president.
88888
NOTE: C-SPAM and the home page of this org call them a "non-partisan" think tank!
Just kidding, I started going blind the last time I saw a surprise picture of PIAPS (Pig-In-A-Pant-Suit) in a post. (ok, I'm kidding again)
STFU, you fat, alcoholic bastard.
Really? When did he say that? At least he has a brain. ;-)
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