Posted on 11/27/2005 5:10:25 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
The Talk Shows
Sunday, November 27th, 2005
Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; Whit Ayres and Doug Schoen, political pollsters.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Joe Biden, D-Del., and John Warner, R-Va.
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Authors James Reston Jr., Ellen Fitzpatrick, Joseph Ellis and Stephen Carter.
THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
LATE EDITION (CNN) : Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser; Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state; Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser; Peggy Noonan, author; Nathaniel Fick, retired Marine captain and author; Evan Wright, Rolling Stone editor and author.
IMHO it has been the Dims goal since almost day one (and the MSM dutifully helps them achieve it by printing the DNC talking points and Bush-bashing as 'reporting'). IIRC, they started spewing 'quagmire' and making comparisons to Viet Nam about 2 weeks after the war in Iraq started. Then they had to back down right after that when our brave troops took Bagdad. They had to shut up so they celebrated for a week or so, along w taking credit for giving the Pres the right to go to war (especially when there were pictures of Iraqis holding up pictures of Pres Bush and kissing them, signs with 'Thank You Americans", etc.).
When the President's poll numbers continued to be up, and there were slight turns in the war, they went back to the 'quagmire' and Viet Nam comparisons. The Dims saw that the American people supported and trusted the President and the Pubbies more than the Dims on National Security issues. One of the Dims goals has been to show that the President cannot be trusted on Nat’l Security and they can so they think they can win in the 2006 and 2008 elections. IMHO, it's very sad that they are putting politics (taking back the House, Sentate, and WH) over the safety of our troops, security of our country, America's (and the Admin's) standing in the world (e.g, FWIW view by the citizens of other countries), and freedom to millions of people. All that most of them care about is getting power back, and they don't care about the other costs. The Viet Nam War is one of the only wars in which America fought that many Americans living today can remember or remember hearing about. By hammering on Iraq is like Viet Nam, they think that the American people will turn and want to pull out of Iraq like we did in VN. Many of the Dims in Congress (especially the Senate) are also stuck in the 60’s in the enemies we have, the way wars are fought, and other domestic matters (too bad they don’t start thinking post 9/11).
While the polls (for what they're worth) are showing more Americans want to end the Iraq war, the support is totally different that in VN. Americans are more supportive of our troops and their mission. While we were fighting communism during Viet Nam, after 9/11, many people understand that we have a different enemy and need to fight the GWOT differently.
The protests on this war are primarily by a bunch of left-wing wackos (Cindy S, et al), VN peace-nik leftovers, and/or paid protestors (compared to a lot of students during VN who didn’t want to be drafted and some peace-niks who were into the ‘make love not war’ flower child, pot-smoking lifestyle of the day). There isn't the mass protesting as there was during the VN war. And, the protestors of today are primarily protesting the Admin (through the guise of protesting the war). I suspect that if Kerry was in office, there would be very few protests. And, while the polls are temporarily down, I think they would turn around quickly w the MSM and/or Admin talking about all the great things that are being done in Iraq.
We were so close to winning the war in Viet Nam, it's too bad we pulled out when we did. Had we stayed, it could have saved many lives. One comparison to Iraq is that if we pull out now or soon, Iraq could break out into a civil war and/or be overrun by Al-Q and prevent a democracy from flourishing in the area. The Dims and the MSM bashing the Admin (Pubbie) hasn’t changed. Nixon had his problems and they were trying to bring him down, so Congress didn’t vote for the $s to carry on the VN war (even though, IIRC, while we were pulling our troops out Nixon had promised the South Viet Namese that we would help them with equipment, etc.). As I understand it, the North Viet Namese were ready to surrender until they kept hearing the harping and lack of support from the Dims. Once we pulled the troops out of VN and withheld $s to help the South Viet Namese, it emboldened the North Viet Namese. The Dims and MSM continued harping today emboldens Al-Q and other terrorists. The Dims and MSM keep piling on the Pres and Admin trying to create problems thinking they can bring him down. Too bad they are again only thinking of themselves and their addiction to power and not about our country, our troops, the lives of millions of people in another country, and the possibility of a democracy which could lead to more stability in a very volatile region of the world.
maggief, this Nebraska news story link and the Boston news story are incredible!
Please ping me if/when you start the "Who are the six who read the report" thread!
As the VP amongst others frequently states in his speeches more Americans were killed on 09/11 than at Pearl Harbour. I think that makes it a first tier attack IMHO.
love your tagline.
9-11-01. Vietnam did not start with the NVA killing 3000 American Civilians. We are busy helping the Iraqis kill off the terrorists in Iraq. The same way we killed Nazis, Fascists and Japanese Samurai in WW2 to keep our Freedom, we are killing Islamic Terrorists where we find them. When we have killed enough Jihadists to make an impression on the extremists faction of Islam that fighting with US is going to get them dead, we will have peace. Bad men do bad things. It is up to us to stop them. It is NOT morally courageous to proclaim we should "run away" from those who want to kill innocents in the name of their God. Hiding from this fight will NOT make it go away. Time for the American Left to grow up. This is not 1971, these are not the North Vietnamese we are fighting.
On the November 13 edition of “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D.-W.Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told host Chris Wallace, “There were only six people in the Senate who did [read the NIE], and I was one of them.” Rockefeller said he was “sure” that Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts (R.-Kan.) had also read it.
Roberts confirmed to me that he had in fact read the report. But it turns out that Reid did not.
At a November 15 press conference, I asked Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.): “The Washington Post reported that six senators read that NIE in 2002 before the vote to authorize the war. Did both of you read it?” Reid at first said: “As indicated last week, Sen. [Carl] Levin [D.-Mich.] has worked very hard to make that public. Now, everyone has read it. Everyone has read it.”
But following up, I asked: “But before you voted for the war—“
Reid said: “We’re talking about six senators. The answer is, if you ask me, I didn’t read it. But I don’t know who did. But there’s a hundred senators, not six. And some members of the Intelligence Committee may have read it. I don’t know. But the fact of the matter is—you can’t escape this—the administration manipulated the evidence and the people who opposed them, like Amb. [Joseph] Wilson were taken to the woodshed.”
Key Democrats who have joined Reid in his campaign to charge the administration with misleading the country about the Iraq intelligence, also failed to read the prewar NIE on Iraq. When asked if he had read it, former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) said: “I got briefings. I got a personal briefing at the Pentagon.”
Asked if she had read it, likely 2008 presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.), said: “I’m not going to say anything about that. Just let the intelligence committee do their work, okay?”
To the same question, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D.-Conn.) said: “I’m not sure I did. I read a lot of intelligence information around that time, but I don’t know whether I formally read the NIE. I’d have to go back on that.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), who wrote a letter to Bush on Sept. 13, 2002, asking for his assistance in making sure that Tenet produced the requested NIE about Iraq, said she did in fact read it before casting her vote in favor of the war.
http://elmersbro.bloghi.com/2005/11/22/harry-reid-didn-t-read-prewar-intel-report.html
Carl Levin 1998
In 1998, Sen. Carl Levin And Twenty-Six Other Senators Urged President Clinton "To Take Necessary Actions" In Response To Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction Programs. LEVIN: "Mr. President, today, along with Senators McCain, Lieberman, Hutchison and twenty-three other Senators, I am sending a letter to the President to express our concern over Iraq's actions and urging the President 'after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.'" (Sen. Carl Levin, Congressional Record, 10/9/98)
Fourteen Democrats, Including Then-Senate Democrat Leader Tom Daschle And 2004 Presidential Nominee John Kerry, Signed The Letter To President Clinton: ("Letter To President Clinton," as Entered Into The Congressional Record By Sen. Carl Levin, 10/9/98) Carl Levin (D-Mich.) Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.)
Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)
Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.)
John Breaux (D-La.) Tim Johnson (D-S.D.)
Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) Mary Landrieu (D-La.)
Wendell Ford (D-Ky.) John Kerry (D-Mass.)
I've never seen it so bad... it's like watching a stupid 'reality-show'... produced by Joe Goebbels.
"To satisfy their base, now they have to come up with reasons to run away from their vote. Now they are in the position of claiming they were too dumb to read the intelligence correctly, so dim they let GWB lie us into war, or negligent in their duty by not vetting the intelligence correctly."
So true.....may I use this quote?
Certainly!
"One jerk pronounced that 09/11 was an event that wouldn't rank in the first tier of attacks from his perspective, if compared to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War or World War II."
I heard that and just about tossed a brick at the TV. He even included the Great Depression as a greater threat than 1/11. This guy, some author who wrote a book about George Washington, impressed me as being so full of himself--to the point of hubris. He posed his 9/11 remark as a question, including a remark about how all of Europe thinks the US "overreacted" to 9/11. I wish there had been enough time to hear others on the panel answer, for I can't believe that even most liberal rats would have agreed with him.
I'm sorry to say I'm a novice at starting threads.
Seattle bump
Off topic:
Two Congressmen injured after vehicle flips in Iraq
A military vehicle carrying U.S. politicians overturned on the way to the Baghdad airport on Saturday and injured two members of Congress, said U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall.
Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pennsylvania, was airlifted to a military hospital in Germany for an MRI on his neck, Marshall told the Macon Telegraph. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, was sent to a Baghdad hospital, he said.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1529289/posts
Reminded me of this:
Morton Kondracke, Roll Call magazine, 1994:
"Liberals obviously didn't intend for the abandonment of traditional values to lead to an aids epidemic, rampant teen-age pregnancy, the destruction of two-parent families, an explosion of child abuse and child poverty, increasing coarseness in popular culture and horrific street violence. But it has."
I disagree. We are in a life or death struggle and perhaps one more dangerous to us than our fight against the Soviets.
At bottom the Soviets were rational, if evil, men. They understood that we would wipe them off the map if they tried anything directly against us. Therefore the overt military might of both sides was negated. Their leaders eventually became seduced by the comparative lifestyle of our society. They lived in their German built Dachas with their western appliances and were driven to work in (inferior) knock offs of western automobiles. And they visited the west and saw how we lived. And they couldn't provide anything remotely similar for their people. And the people knew it.
Today we face a foe led by "true believers" who are viewing the world through an 8th century mindset. They believe they have a religious duty to their god to either convert us or kill us and they've been fighting that battle, in their minds, continuously for 1300 years. Now they have access to wealth comparable to the west and weapons to make them equal to us in their power to threaten. We used to talk about the threat of "the Islamic bomb," singular. We now have to accept that there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of WMD in the hands or within reach of the jihadists. And they don't believe in "peaceful coexistence" except as a tactic to buy time until they can slit our throats.
We are not dealing with rational human beings this time. We are, frankly, in more danger, not less. I think several nuclear and bio/chem exchanges with the jihadists are inevitable now. They will only happen faster if we cut and run in Iraq. If we stay the course we have a chance to change the paradigm in the middle east and undermine the mad mullah's, but only if we stay. Even then they will certainly try to use any weapons they can get their hands on against us. If we succeed in Iraq I predict that they will concentrate on Pakistan, since it already has nukes, and work to overthrow or coerce Musharraf into supporting them.
What do we do if Iran declares the Straights of Hormuz closed to western oil tankers and threatens to enforce that with nukes? How do we respond? What if they somehow sneak a nuke into the midst of one of our carrier battle groups? We know that they have subs. How hard would it be to lay one on the bottom with a nuke aboard and wait for a battle group to wander by? With an average depth of 50 meters across the Persian Gulf and a maximum of 90 a "suicide sub" would be in a position to take out the carrier and a good bit of their escorts, depending on how close they passed. And the Straits of Hormuz offer few channels for a battle group to pass through that couldn't be covered easily this way.
And they openly send their shock troops among us labeled as "imams" and traveling on legitimate visas as clergy. And we let them in to sell their hate to the vulnerable and ignorant. And they kill us here, as well.
I repeat, we are in more danger now than then.
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