Posted on 09/29/2006 6:35:08 PM PDT by Mia T
Indeed. And now he and the wife are scheming for yet another mulligan.
Good post!
Giuliani said he believed Clinton, like his successor, did everything he could with the information he was provided."Every American president I've known would have given his life to prevent an attack like that. That includes President Clinton, President Bush," the former mayor said outside a firehouse here. "They did the best they could with the information they had at the time." --September 27, 2006
Giuliani's remarks absolve Clinton from what your posts quite obviously indict him for. Is Giuliani right or is he wrong? And do you still think Giuliani the best candidate for POTUS?--jla
Giuliani's comment is, of course, absurd on its face. A man (and I use that term loosely) who wouldn't give up his office for his country certainly wouldn't give up his life for his country.
I was disappointed when I heard Giuliani say that. Politics makes fools of otherwise smart men. (Giuliani was pandering to the Ds, which is almost understandable: He needs D votes to make up for the Rs like you who won't vote for him. ;) )
I suspect you were similarly disappointed in Allen of late (irrespective of whether or not you believe all that stuff about the racial and ethnic slurs).
As for the best candidate, if I could have my way I would purge DC of all professional pols and replace them with superb citizen-politicians.
But right now we have to work with what we have. I still think Giuliani is the one who can best prosecute the WOT and the one who can win a national election, (Obviously, neither of these two criteria alone is sufficient. The GOP candidate must be able to do both.)
Thanks for the ping.
thanx :)
thx backhoe :)
Giulliani's exoneration of Clinton is another example of the delusions of elitism. Is is so transparently of the same ilk as the no Iraq - Terrorism link, including that Atta could not have met with Iraq intellegence in Prague, although multiple points of evidence show he did, and Saddam wasnt seeking yellow cake in Niger, although multiple evidence points show he did. The pompous 9/11 commission and their distorted, superficial whitewash report are a further example.
Average Americans can sense the truth. Iraq in their minds is obviously tied to terrorism. They were directly tied to the 1993 WTC attack and that attack and the 9/11 attack are not unrelated.
Our "leaders" of the American right need to wake up and begin dealing with the fact that in America today, sedition is running amok. The Democrats, the media, and the pointed headed intellectuals, would rather see us attacked again by terrorists than see George Bush or the Republican party hold political power for another two years.
The seditionists should not be coddled any longer. Its not a matter of free speech when you advocate political change that encourages further kamakazi style tactics against American forces or against Iraqi civilians. The old adage used to silence Republicans when they were in the minority for years, that politics is supposed to stop at the waters edge, needs to be shoved down the throats of some democrat critics of US war policy.
George Tenent should not have been given praise when he was finally fired. He should have been told, second only to Al Queda he was personally responsible for 9/11. A competent Director would have fought the Gorelick wall and confronted Clinton for his avoidance of terror issues.
Its clear that the minute any republican takes a tough line against the democrats, the media will apply their double standard and attack republican "devisiveness". Nonetheless, someone needs to start calling them traitors and backstabbers and blaiming them for US war dead, as they are indeed responsible for encouraging our enemies to think if they kill enough Americans our will might be broken, and Howard Dean will deliver them to Victory.
Churchill knew, even at the most hopeless, desperate and most gloomy moments, what a nation needs is not equivocation, but conviction that Victory is certain, and that there is no room for doubters, second guessers or fellow travelers.
I can appreciate that a President needs to be judicious in the fights that he picks and the timing that he choses to pick them. Mr. Giulliani's unfortunate remarks, show something less than the resolve necessary to bring about the kind of renewal of focus that America needs at all levels to obtain the Victory, which Kissinger purportedly has correctly explained, is the ONLY exit strategy worth pursuing.
Giulliani's exoneration of Clinton is another example of the delusions of elitism. Is is so transparently of the same ilk as the no Iraq - Terrorism link, including that Atta could not have met with Iraq intellegence in Prague, although multiple points of evidence show he did, and Saddam wasnt seeking yellow cake in Niger, although multiple evidence points show he did. The pompous 9/11 commission and their distorted, superficial whitewash report are a further example. |
While I was disappointed in Giuliani's remark, as I recall it wasn't entirely gratuitous. I suspect he figured that alienating half the voters... not to mention 89% of the press corps... on the eve of a presidential run... isn't the best way to go. (I hasten to add--not as a hedge but as a point of fact--that were I a presidential candidate... even one in Giuliani's position... I would nail the left... and I would begin with the clintons.) |
The Democratic Party's Problem Transcends Its Anti-War Contingent2
"Unless we convince Americans that Democrats are strong on national security," he warns his party, "Democrats will continue to lose elections." Helloooo? That the Democrats have to be spoon-fed what should be axiomatic post-9/11 is, in and of itself, incontrovertible proof that From's advice is insufficient to solve their problem. From's failure to fully lay out the nature of the Democrats' problem is not surprising: he is the guy who helped seal his party's fate. It was his Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) that institutionalized the proximate cause of the problem, clintonism, and legitimized its two eponymic provincial operators on the national stage. The "Third Way" and "triangulation" don't come from the same Latin root for no reason. That "convince" is From's operative word underscores the Democrats' dilemma. Nine-eleven was transformative. It is no longer sufficient merely to convince. One must demonstrate, demonstrate convincingly, if you will which means both in real time and historically. When it comes to national security, Americans will no longer take any chances. Turning the turn of phrase back on itself, the era of the Placebo President is over. (Incidentally, the oft-quote out-of-context sentence fragment alluded to here transformed meaningless clinton triangulation into a meaningful if deceptive soundbite.) Although From is loath to admit it -- the terror in his eyes belies his facile solution -- the Democratic party's problem transcends its anti-war contingent. With a philosophy that relinquishes our national sovereignty -- and relinquishes it reflexively and to the UN no less -- the Democratic party is, by definition, the party of national insecurity. With policy ruled by pathologic self-interest -- witness the "Lieberman Paradigm," Kerry's "regime change" bon mot (gone bad), Edwards' and the clintons' brazen echoes thereof (or, alternatively, Pelosi's less strident wartime non-putdown putdown) and, of course, the clincher -- eight years of the clintons' infantilism, grotesquerie and utter failure -- the Democratic party is, historically and in real time, the party of national insecurity.
The Democrats used to be able to wallpaper their national insecurity with dollars and demogoguery. But that was before 9/11. |
by Mia T, 4.17.04
merica's real two-front war: fundamentalist Islam on the right and a fundamentally seditious clintonoid neo-neoliberalism on the left, both anarchic, both messianically, lethally intolerant, both amorally perverse, both killing Americans, both placing America at grave risk, both undeterred by MAD, both quite insane.
If we are to prevail, the rules of engagement--on both fronts--must change.Marquis of Queensberry niceties, multicultural hypersensitivity, unipolar-power guilt, hegemony aversion (which is self-sabotage in the extreme--we must capture what we conquer--oil is the terrorist's lifeblood)... and, most important, the mutual-protection racket in Washington--pre-9/11 anachronisms all--are luxuries we can no longer afford.
Notwithstanding, the underlying premise of our hyperfastidious polity, (that we must remain in the system to save the system) is fallacious at best and tantamount to Lady Liberty lifting herself up by her own bootstraps.
To borrow from the Bard (or whomever), let's start metaphorically, or better yet, economically and politically, by killing all the seditious solicitors, which include the clintons and their left-wing agitprop-and-money-laundering machine: the Viacom-Simon & Schuster-60-Minutes vertical operation, the horizontal (as in "soporific") Cronkite-ite news readers, the (hardly upright) Ben-Veniste goons and Gorelick sleepers, and, of course, the clueless, cacophonic, disproportionately loud, left-coast Barbra-Streisand contingent.
America must not pull her punches. (Or Pinches!)
To prevail, America must defeat--thoroughly destroy--her enemies. On both fronts.
neocommunist political movement, a tipsy-topsy, infantile perversion of the Marxist-Leninist model, global in scope, beginning in the post-cold-war, unipolar 1990s, led by the '60s neoliberal baby-boomer "intelligentsia," that seeks power without responsibility, i.e., that seeks to dilute American power by concentrating power in said '60s neoliberals while yielding America's sovereignty to the United Nations, i.e., while surrendering to the terrorists, as it continues the traditional '60s neoliberal feint, namely: (1) concern for social justice, (2) disdain for bureaucracy, and (3) the championing of entrepreneurship for the great unwashed.
Mia T, 2.24.04
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006
IN A 'PINCH': RETHINKING THE FIRST AMENDMENT James Madison This was bound to happen. The premise behind the First Amendment as it applies to the press--that a vigilant watchdog is necessary, sufficient--indeed, possible--to protect against man's basest instincts--is tautologically flawed: The fox guarding the White House, if you will. Walter Lippmann, the 20th-century American columnist, wrote, "A free press is not a privilege, but an organic necessity in a great society." True in theory. True even in Lippmann's quaint mid-20th-century America, perhaps. But patently false in this postmodern era of the bubbas and the Pinches. When a free and great society is hijacked by a seditious bunch of dysfunctional, power-hungry malcontents and elitists, it will remain neither free nor great for long. When hijacked by them in the midst of asymmetric warfare, it will soon not remain at all. If President George W. Bush is serious about winning the War on Terror, he will aggressively pursue the enemy in our midst. Targeting and defeating the enemy in our midst is, by far, the more difficult task and will measure Bush's resolve and courage (and his independence from the MPRDC (mutual protection racket in DC)) more than any pretty speech, more even than 'staying the course.' Thomas Jefferson H. L. Mencken
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006
(Which came first, the 'journalist' or the traitor?)
hen the founders granted 'The Press' special dispensation, they never considered the possibility that traitors in our midst would game the system. But that is precisely what is happening today. (Hate America? Support jihad? Become a 'journalist!')
Letter, September 9, 1792, to George Washington
READ MORE
'MISBEGOTTEN' TIMES
(NARROWNESS, MR. SULZBERGER, NOT WIDTH)
PINCH'S NON-APOLOGY APOLOGY
by Mia T, July 18, 2006
by Mia T, 7.11.06
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006
fyi
fyi
"It never hurts in Washington to be fashionably wrong, but what is lethal is to be right ahead of your time."
The 9/11 attacks represent the greatest US intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor. That is not a controversial statement, but the nature of that intelligence failure certainly is, as it involves the question of who bears responsibility.
...
The central aspect of that intelligence failure is easily explained. Before the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center--one month into Clinton's first term in office--the prevailing assumption was that major terrorist attacks against the US were state-sponsored. Thus, terrorism was considered a national security issue and the key question after any attack was which terrorist state was responsible.
But starting with the attack on the World Trade Center, the Clinton administration claimed that a new kind of terrorism had come into being that did not involve states. It turned terrorism into a law enforcement issue, with the focus on arresting and convicting individual perpetrators. For Clinton, who, particularly in his first years in office, did not want to deal with any serious national security problem except by way of a "peace process," this was very convenient.
...
Incredibly, the terrorist defendants had the results of the FBI investigation into their case, but the U.S. government agencies responsible for defending the country against terrorism did not. This was corrected to some extent, although not entirely, by the post 9/11 counter-terrorism legislation.
...
I briefed Clinton personally on Iraq. It was July 1992. Tony Lake and Sandy Berger were there. They advised me that they wanted only "a little daylight" between them and Bush, because this was the campaign, and the campaign was not about foreign policy. So, I briefed accordingly. Clinton saw through the artifice. He asked, "If the problem is that bad, why are your policy recommendations so limited?" Lake and Berger replied, almost in unison, "Mr. President" (even then that is how they addressed him), explaining this was just the campaign and once he became president, he could take care of the problem.
So I was shocked, when Indyk, still formally my boss, called me one evening shortly before the inauguration. Clinton had just given an interview to Thomas Friedman in which he essentially said that he was prepared to reconcile with Saddam. Indyk wanted me to be prepared for reporters' questions the next day.In fact, Indyk sounded as stunned as I was. I thanked him for letting me know, but I also told him that Clinton had to take that back. He had to deny he had said it, otherwise he would set off shock waves throughout the region that would take a long time to repair, if they could ever be repaired at all.And the next day, Clinton denied what he had told Friedman. That was the interview in which Clinton said he believed in death-bed conversions, and if Saddam were sitting on the couch next to him, he'd tell him to pay more attention to the welfare of his own people than to his weapons. Of course, Clinton had said it, as Friedman then claimed, but it was better to do what could be done to disavow the statement, rather than let it stand.When I look back, that illustrates a significant part of a much bigger problem that developed. Clinton made decisions about the Middle East on who knows what grounds, but above the head of his Middle East advisor. And when that advisor, Indyk, learned about them, he lacked what it took to say that the decision was wrong and dangerous. In fact, I got so furious at Indyk during that time, I warned him about the consequences for his career, if more Americans died, because of the way they had handled the Trade Center bombing. But I was completely wrong. Three thousand Americans can die in the most lethal foreign assault in this country's history, because of mistakes that you were party to, and it won't harm your career one bit.
....
The role of ego in human affairs and the self-serving nature of human beings is not to be underestimated, particularly as they climb the greasy pole of ambition. It doesn't matter whether the issue at hand is fairly trivial--a football game, for example--or deadly serious, involving the national security interests of this country and the lives of large numbers of its citizens.And I'll give you an example: in the 1990s, the overwhelming majority of Iraq experts accommodated Clinton's desire not to hear that he had a very serious problem with Saddam, and that, basically, Saddam had to go. In late 1998, I pushed a colleague on the question of where responsibility would lie, if Saddam succeeded in doing something absolutely terrible because he had been left in power. What if he carried out a biological attack? What if he developed a nuclear bomb and used it?This quite well-respected fellow didn't dispute the danger, but replied, "The times are very cynical and everyone must do what he must do for his career."
- Dr. Laurie Mylroie (excerpts)
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/1058
Dr. Mylroie received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and her B.A. from Cornell. She was an Assistant Professor in Harvard's Political Science Department, before becoming an Associate Professor in the Strategy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Subsequently, she was a member of the staff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She also served as advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign and has worked as a consultant on terrorism to the Departments of Defense and Energy; ABC News, the BBC, and Newsweek; as well as several law offices. She is presently an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and publisher of Iraq News.
Comment: Mylroie confirms through personal direct knowledge a) Berger was a political stooge; b) the Clinton administration as a matter of policy devalued the terrorism issue, and isolated and disarmed those charge with monitoring and investigating terror threats; c) bureacratic interia (incompetence) was/is a major factor in sabotaging America's response to terror; and d) Clinton and Rabin and their top advisors were pre-occupied with their delusional quest for negotiated mid east peace and rejected any inconvenient truths that conflicted with their fantasies. Also, the Left, the Media and the Bureacracy continue to refuse to take this monumental failure of intelligence and state sponsored terrorism seriously. For them to do so they would have to confront their own guilt and admit that Bush had a more realistic view than they of the world situation.
"It never hurts in Washington to be fashionably wrong, but what is lethal is to be right ahead of your time."
Great statement, the truth of which depends on the reflexivity of the verb.
Important stuff here from Mylroie. Will comment later.
Indidently, the quite is properly sourced to Herb Meyer, Bill Casey's (initial CIA Director, Reagan Administration)Executive Assistant.
Anyone in your lifetime, or not in your lifetime, who meets this criterion?
There are quite a number of people I know personally who do. None of them are well-known, but I think that's the idea: Get successful people of character, intellect and wisdom from the real world to lend their talents to the country for a term or two.
Our current system appears to attract the most corrupt, mediocre, self-serving and psychopathic among us. We wouldn't have done any better populating govt with these losers had we tried.
You are exploring uncharted territory in a New Media. You are taking it to the next level. You are a pioneer. There is nobody doing what you are doing. You focus on two people. You chronicle and analyze their words. Your microscope allows us to examine the workings of the criminal mind. The anti-truth, anti-freedom, anti-life criminal mind devalues all of our lives.
Thank you Mia T.
Has there been a person(s) in a nationally elected office, in your lifetime or not, who has met that criterion?
(ASIDE: It is interesting how racial and ethnic slurs made by the clintons never seem to hurt them. To the contrary, especially with blacks and my brethern, the Jews, where the clinton vote count often varies directly with the quantity, intensity and/or frequency of the clinton slurs.)
Be careful with that "brethern" talk, Mia T. You'll be accused of being an anti-Semite.
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