What did you think re Bob Woodward 60 Minutes interview?

Re: PDiddie

While I would like to believe this will happen, remember that the most powerful in the legislative branch are all in Bush's pocket, ideologically and politically. Hastert, DeLay, Frist, etc...all share the Shrub's apocalyptic worldview, and I'm sure $700 million is small change if it means they can get Jaaayyyzusss to come back, and make corporate profits while they wait.

welcome to able2know diamond but Fox News, balanced!!, really!!!

Loyalty to Bush is obviously crumbling
"Beyond not asking his father about going to war, Woodward was startled to learn that the president did not ask key cabinet members either.

"The president, in making the decision to go to war, did not ask his secretary of defense for an overall recommendation, did not ask his secretary of state, Colin Powell, for his recommendation," says Woodward.

But the president did ask Condi Rice, his national security adviser, and Karen Hughes, his political communications adviser. Woodward says both supported going to war."

"It's an insider's account written after Woodward spoke with 75 of the key decision makers, including President Bush himself.

The president permitted Woodward to quote him directly. Others spoke on the condition that Woodward not identify them as sources.

Woodward discusses the secret details of the White House's plans to attack Iraq for the first time on television with Correspondent Mike Wallace. Woodward permitted 60 Minutes to listen to tapes he recorded of his most important interviews, to read the transcripts, and to verify that the quotes he uses are based on recollections from participants in the key meetings. Both CBS News and Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Woodward's book, are units of Viacom."

It is obviously that the legendary loyalty and white house secrecy demanded by Bush is crumbling. How else could Woodward persuade 75 people to reveal what they knew as long as they would not be identified for fear of retaliation?

BBB

Airing of Powell's Misgivings Tests Ties in the Cabinet
April 19, 2004 - New York Times
Airing of Powell's Misgivings Tests Ties in the Cabinet
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, April 18 ?- For more than a year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his aides have tacitly acknowledged that he was concerned before the war about what could go wrong once American forces captured Iraq.

But Mr. Powell's apparent decision to lay out his misgivings even more explicitly to the journalist Bob Woodward for a book has jolted the White House and aggravated long-festering tensions in the Bush cabinet. Moreover, some officials said, the book has created problems for the secretary inside the administration just as the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and President Bush is plunging into his re-election drive.

Mr. Powell has not acknowledged that he cooperated with Mr. Woodward, but the book presents the secretary's reservations in such detail that it leaves little doubt. A spokesman for Mr. Powell said again Sunday that he would not comment on the book, "Plan of Attack."

Critics of Mr. Powell in the hawkish wing of the administration said they were startled by what they saw as his self-serving decision to help fill out a portrait that enhances his reputation as a farsighted analyst, perhaps at the expense of Mr. Bush. Several said the book guaranteed what they expected anyway, that Mr. Powell will not stay as secretary if Mr. Bush is re-elected.

The view expressed Sunday by people in the administration that Mr. Bush comes across as sober-minded and resolute in the book, asking for contingency plans for a war early on but not deciding to wage one until the last minute, saves Mr. Powell from any immediate difficulties that might grow from seeming to betray his confidential relationship to a president who prizes loyalty, several officials said.

"Look, a lot of people have been struck by the degree to which Secretary Powell is using this book as an opportunity ?- to be fair ?- to clarify his position on the issues," said an official. "But what this book does is muddy the water internally, which is very unfortunate and unhelpful."

Another official, who like others declined to be identified because of the political sensitivity of their criticism, accused Mr. Powell of having a habit of distancing himself from policies when they go wrong. "It's such a soap opera with him," this official said.

Democrats seized on Mr. Powell's portrayal, saying it would give them ammunition to criticize the administration for going to war without broad international backing or adequate planning for an occupation.

Throughout the day Sunday, Senator John Kerry brought up the Woodward book, mentioning it twice in his interview on "Meet the Press" on NBC and once at an outdoor rally at the University of Miami.

"Here we have a book by a reputable writer," Mr. Kerry told several thousand students at the afternoon campus rally. "We learn that the president even misled members of his own administration."

Asked if material in Mr. Woodward's book would be grist for his party, Jano Cabrera, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview: "Absolutely. It's one thing for us to assert it. It's another thing for it to be stated as fact by his secretary of state."

And Steve Murphy, who managed the presidential campaign of Representative Richard A. Gephardt, said: "The strongest criticism of Bush is that he did not have a plan for the aftermath of the war. And that was exactly what Powell was pointing out to him. He is a credible source. This intensifies the backdrop between Bush and Kerry."

People close to Mr. Powell said Sunday that they had no doubt he would weather any criticism from within over his apparent cooperation with Mr. Woodward, an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post. Polls show that he is one of the most popular and best-known figures in government. The people close to him note that most people following the situation closely knew that he had misgivings about the war.

"Is the secretary going to be undercut for having been right?" asked an official close to Mr. Powell. "I don't think so. Undercut compared to who? Donald Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney? These are people who have some real problems right now. They're not reading Bob Woodward's book. They're reading the dispatches from the field."

Other officials close to Mr. Powell say his strained relations with Mr. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, and Vice President Cheney are common currency among Washington insiders, though they say the suggestion that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Powell are barely on speaking terms is highly exaggerated.

"I don't think there will be much change in his dealings with Cheney and Rumsfeld," said one person close to Mr. Powell. "People already thought it was this bad. It doesn't change things for them to find out that it really was. They know how to deal with each other, and they've been through quite a bit together."

When asked on "Fox News Sunday" about Mr. Woodward's contention that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Powell are so distant on policy matters that they do not talk, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, described the men's relationship as "friendly."

"I can tell you," she said, "I've had lunch on a number of occasions with Vice President Cheney and with Colin Powell, and they are more than on speaking terms. They're friendly."

But another official said Mr. Powell's dealings internally with Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld especially had made life difficult for people inside the administration.

"The day-to-day nattering of the Defense Department trying to take over the business of diplomacy at every level, it's just difficult to be on the inside," said an administration official who defends Mr. Powell's actions. "Every day is difficult. The byplay at the meetings is difficult."

Mr. Powell's standing around the world was less easy to measure this weekend. But a European diplomat said he thought the secretary's standing in Europe especially would only be enhanced because he would be seen as sharing the view of many there that the administration had been overly optimistic about subduing dissidents in Iraq.

For the people long familiar with Mr. Powell's thinking, his misgivings about an American occupation of Iraq, and his insistence on getting full international backing for American actions, goes back many years. So, they note, does his fighting with Mr. Cheney.

For example, Mr. Powell's memoir, "My American Journey," published in 1995 after he retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that he had opposed a final push to oust Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf war on the ground that an occupation would provoke a counterinsurgency and criticism among Americans.

In addition, many accounts of the planning for the first gulf war say that Mr. Cheney, then secretary of defense, opposed going to the United Nations or Congress for backing to remove Iraq from Kuwait, fearing that failure would weaken the first President Bush's administration's ability to go to war.

In 2002, Mr. Cheney was openly disdainful of Mr. Powell's insistence on getting approval of the United Nations Security Council before going to war, spreading consternation at the State Department. Mr. Powell won that argument, and President Bush authorized a bid to get a Security Council resolution supporting war.

Mr. Powell's memoir also recalls an exchange in the early 1990's, in which Mr. Powell accused Mr. Cheney ?- jokingly, he insisted ?- of being surrounded by "right-wing nuts like you." In the last year, the Woodward book says, Mr. Powell referred privately to the civilian conservatives in the Pentagon loyal to Mr. Cheney as the Gestapo.

The Woodward book also attributes to Mr. Powell the belief that although he had misgivings about going to war, it was his obligation to support the president once Mr. Bush decided to do so.

Mr. Bush told Mr. Woodward that he did not ask the secretary's opinion on whether to go to war because he thought he knew what that opinion would be: "no."

But a senior aide to Mr. Powell asserted this weekend that the secretary was not as opposed to war as some people presume, no matter what the implications in the book.

"The portrait of Powell in the Woodward book is pretty consistent with what everybody knows," the official said. "We were with the president if we had to do this. We set up an exit ramp for Saddam, and he didn't take it. Powell in the end was very comfortable knowing that."
---------------------------------------

Adam Nagourney contributed reporting from Washington for this article and Jodi Wilgoren from Miami.

Hi, Blatham

I'm not denying his background and accomplishments. The man is highly intelligent. But regardless of his decorated credentials, that still doesn't mean that his personal views don't get in the way of objective journalism. Most of what you hear and see today is subjective and has a political agenda behind it. My gut instinct has never failed me, and that instinct advises me cautiously on whom to give my attention.

I don't claim to be the most formally educated person, here, but this does not serve as a litmus test of one's intelligence quotient. I am, however, an individual who has a keen sense of what's right and wrong, and can detect those with good intentions and a pure heart and those without. One could call it wisdom, or rightly dividing the essence of sincerity. From my observation, there seems to be more of the former, and less of the latter, although I do take kindly to your tactful question. Others could learn from you.

Actually, I didn't come here to fight willy-nilly with people, because that goes against my core beliefs and good sense. It's just that I love God, and I love this country with all my heart, and I've never been more proud of it and grateful than now, for standing up to what's right, taking the bull by the horns and proving to the terrorists that we mean business.

I keep up almost daily, on the main current affairs of our country. I don't make it my life's obsession, though, as do some of the others here, because there are other things in life, other than politics, that are just as important, or even more so.

Whatever contributions a person such as myself can offer, have the potential to be meaningful and sometimes even refreshing. I search to bring to the fore a simple, bottom-line, big-picture spiritual perspective, which is not muddled with scads of brain-altering, Ivy League mish-mash.

I am testing the waters, because I've never done this before, so it's taking a certain amount of forthright courage to do it. I'm wondering now, if I haven't stepped into a den of ruthless lions (I wouldn't consider that a compliment). If so, then I do not wish to be here, because a person eventually becomes whatever he's around. Life is meant to be enjoyed, not debased.

If I'm not welcome here, then I'll gladly keep to the Christian section, but I'm hoping that won't be necessary. If that were to happen, I think it would be a shame for all concerned. But I'm not going to fight with people all the time on issues that are based on hypocrisy, hatred, and partisan propaganda. I want to make a positive difference in whatever way I can, in the lives of others, but I have a life to live, which doesn't include fighting all the time. It's one thing to fight for one's faith, protection, and freedom, but it's another to spit and spew on a daily basis, over issues that could otherwise be resolved, if people would just stop trying to surgically change this country into a vomiting, hemorrhaging, socialist, dog-eat-dog Anti-Christ utopia.

Anyway, thanks for asking. After looking over all the emoticons, I noticed that there were none with hearts.

Welcome to able2know Diamond.

I like to think that I reach all my beliefs rationally based on facts and evidence.

As a result, I often find myself siding with John McCain. I guess I would qualify as a compassionate libertarian.

I supported the intent of the war, though not the rush to it.

Rationally speaking, there is much evidence that Fox News is biased toward the conservative end. Rupert Murdock, the founder and owner of Fox openly stated that he supports republicans and that his news network will have a conservative tilt to them. And his network has proved this to me again and again.

Diamond Cat
Diamond Cat, I'm disappointed that you continue to post comments that are not in the least germane to the topic of this thread. The topic is not about you. It is to solicit people's opinions about the 60 Minutes interview of Bob Woodward re his new book.

If you have opinions about the content of the interview, we would be glad to have you share them with us.

BBB

Thanks, Centroles

I'm aware of the owner's position, but I've watched all the shows at one time or another, and to me, there are plenty that lean to the left. I don't know the ratio of Democrat editorials to Republican, but in my view, it seems relatively balanced, but then again you might be right. But it didn't appear that way to me. I guess it probably boils down to perception, doesn't it. Honestly, I wouldn't care to which party the journalists of a news program belonged, just as long as they purposefully strived for accuracy. Editorial opinions are a different matter.

ABC, NBC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, and PBS all lean heavily toward the Left, but unfortunately they've gotten too comfortable and allowed that tendency to override open, non-prejudicial reporting. That's why Fox has the highest ratings of them all, because of their vast amount viewers from both sides of the political spectrum. Think about it - the numbers speak for themselves. It wouldn't be the highest, if they expressed only Right ideology.

"The O'Reilly Factor" dominates the television news ratings. According to Nielson Media Research, it has become the highest rated cable news show, 100 consecutive weeks and counting. It is also seen in dozens of foreign countries. The numbers don't lie. They offer what the people want and so desperately desire...objective reporting.

We are comparison shoppers. When we find that for years we've been served imitation retextured soy protein instead of lobster, someone eventually answers that need with a new restaurant.

People can only be duped for so long. When something genuine finally comes along, well, the numbers speak for themselves. In my estimation, and apparently that of the majority, Fox News shoots the hard-line news straight from the hip. I do, however, understand that others may have a different perspective, and I won't discount yours.

I shall now end this on a pleasant note. This was definitely a learning experience. I've replied to the topics at hand, which naturally led to the fundamental question of credibility, pertaining to Bob Woodward's 60 min. interview. I made a contrasting comparison to support my views, which invited new (kind, interested, & considerate) questions. Those new questions and replies may not have contained every single solitary word devoted to the initial topic at hand, but any thinking person would have been able to connect the dots.

It's time to get back to the good life, now, with a renewed appreciation for it.

Bye, all

Thank you for the lesson. I send you blessings.

"Every person is a golden link in the chain of my good."
- Florence Scovel Shinn

Facts
Bob Woodward would not have written any false info in this book or he would be sued. End of that little debate.

"In the last year, the Woodward book says, Mr. Powell referred privately to the civilian conservatives in the Pentagon loyal to Mr. Cheney as the Gestapo.

Cheney's Gestapo aka The Office of Special Plans.

Seems that Woodward gained the trust of all of the 75 people interviewed and now some of them may feel that they may have said too much truth.

BIG DEAL OVER BOB WOODWARD'S BOOK

Plan of Attack. It's out today ... the story of the Bush's administration's plans to rid the world of mass-murderer Saddam Hussein and the threat he posed. Woodward was on CBS's 60 Minutes last night pushing the book, which, by the way, is published by the same company that owns CBS. In the book Woodward delivers an almost verbatim narrative of the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The problem is that, with the exception of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, none of those quotes are attributed. In other words ... you make a choice on whether to believe Bob Woodward, or not to believe him.

That brings us to Woodward's revelation that George Bush ordered plans to attack Iraq drawn up three months after the 9/11 attacks. This would have been three months earlier than the date the Bush administration previously cited. Condoleezza Rice quickly issued a statement stating that Woodward's account was not accurate .. that it was "simply not, not right." Well, I guess that's what happens when you write a book containing accounts of hundreds of conversations without naming sources for your information.

One point should be remembered when considering Woodward's charges. It was under the Clinton administration, not the Bush administration, when the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq was made; in 1998, to be more precise. That's when the United States adopted the official position that regime change in Iraq was our national goal. What, then, is so surprising about a president developing a plan to achieve a national goal?

Woodward also has much to say about Bush's reliance on Vice President Cheney and other senior advisors. The crime here seems to be that George Bush surrounded himself with bright, intelligent and capable people; people who's advice he actually considered and followed. I guess Bush should have know that he was supposed to surround himself with pathetic yes-men with no compelling ideas of independent thought processes.

Boortz

Ignoring the laughably unreliable source it came from, does it surprise anyone what certain people managed to inject Clinton again?

I'm confused here.

Didn't Woodward say on 60 Minutes that he had taped transcripts of his conversations with Bush, Rumsfled and Powell? The only one missing was Cheney (he's always in his secret rabbit warren.)

Taped transcripts are pretty darned accurate. I mean, they can be used as evidence in a court.

What then, is so suspect about Woodward's intentions then?

Bush corruption & hypocrisy re oil prices & the elec
Bush corruption and hypocrisy re oil prices and the election.

Quote from Bob Woodward interview: "But this wasn't enough for Prince Bandar, who Woodward says wanted confirmation from the president. "Then, two days later, Bandar is called to meet with the president and the president says, ?'Their message is my message,'" says Woodward.

Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election -- to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.

Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: "They're [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."

Do you remember when Bush and the Republications were having hissy fits because a few foreign leaders publicly stated they hoped John Kerry would win the presidential election? They whined that foreigners should not determine who becomes president.

Do you hear any of this crowd showing any concern that not only does the Saudi royal family want Bush to win, they are willing to finance his election by lowering their profits from oil revenue in order to lower gas prices at the pump just before the election?

Oh, the hypocritic shame of it! How I long for the days when the worse thing a president did was to get a blow job from an intern.

BBB

Saudi Envoy Promised Lower Oil Price, Woodward Says
Saudi Envoy Promised Lower Oil Price, Woodward Says
April 19 (Bloomberg)

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. has promised President George W. Bush the Saudis will reduce oil prices before this November's election to help the U.S. economy, according to Bob Woodward, author of a new book about the Iraq war.

Oil prices are ``high, and they could go down very quickly,'' Woodward said last night in an interview on CBS's ``60 Minutes.''

``That's the Saudi pledge,'' said Woodward. ``Certainly over the summer or as we get closer to the election they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.''

In his book, titled ``Plan of Attack,'' Woodward also says that the ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, was given advance information about plans to invade Iraq by Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The Saudis trimmed their output by 1 million barrels a day in the first quarter, according to Bloomberg data.

Crude oil has risen 15 percent to more than $37 a barrel this year. The rise in crude has helped send gasoline prices to a record average of $1.79 a gallon in the U.S., according to the AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association.

The record gasoline prices may blunt the economic benefits of President Bush's tax cuts and become an issue in the presidential election. Democratic candidate John Kerry, 60, a four-term Democratic senator from Massachusetts, cited higher gasoline prices as one reason for a rising `misery index'' he released last week that he said shows Bush's economic policies have hurt working families.

Bandar Briefed Before Powell

Bandar learned of the attack plans on Jan. 11, 2003, two days before U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was told of the decision, according to Woodward.

In a meeting on Jan. 11 with Cheney, Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Bandar was shown a map laying out plans for attacking Iraq, Woodward writes in the book. The map was marked TOP SECRET NOFORN, meaning the classified material wasn't to be shown to non-U.S. officials, according to Woodward.

At the meeting Bandar asked for assurances that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein wouldn't survive the war as he did the 1991 Persian Gulf War led by Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush. Cheney responded, ``Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast,'' according to Woodward.

Bandar said he would take the message to the Saudi leadership if he got the same information he had just received directly from Bush. On Jan. 13 Bandar was called to meet with Bush, who said: ``Their message is my message,'' said Woodward. Powell was told of Bush's decision the same day.

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter and the most influential member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps a third of the world's oil.

OPEC on March 31 agreed to reduce its production quotas to keep prices from dropping.

Before the March 31 meeting in Vienna at which OPEC announced it was cutting its quotas, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al- Naimi, said that the kingdom was already implementing its share of production cuts for April.

That's a sub-heading from the Boortz column McG has linked. So, should we compare the journalistic integrity of Boortz and Woodward?



For rather a long time, some of us have been wondering just what it might take for the folks here who have been supporting this administration though thick and thicker to maybe get some sliver of an epiphany that they've been sold a bill of goods and, perhaps more importantly, that they have set to the task of shopping with such curiously happy gusto - "Give me that one right there! (WOMD) and that one over there! (imminent threats) and I'll take three of those! (Iraqis freed from oppression) - and that they have actually seen fit to BELIEVE that saleslady with the varnish in her hair and the pushup bra.

Some of us have even tossed out the hypothetical...what if someone high up, say, someone like Colin Powell, were to blow the whistle? Would even THAT give these supporters a second's pause?

But hypotheticals are just that...curious wonderings with an unknown answer. Sometimes, when we are lucky and the circumstances prove emollient, a hypothetical is resolved, and the answer sits plainly before us. Such is the case at hand. No, even someone like Colin Powell blowing the whistle ain't gonna give pause to such 'Let me at those wonderful certainties!' shoppers.

Suzy's post
Suzy has posted another example of Bush/Republican corruption:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23141&highlight=

It surprises me to be labeled "jaded" because I'm in the habit of doing extensive research. It is becoming less surprising to see that all one has to do is profess deep love of God and suddenly the followers line up completely unable and unwilling to ask any questions. I have to agree, however, it is easier to make a decision when you don't know all the facts nor do you know all the possible consequences. It also appears that although desire for higher education was once a goal, now we regard folks who have acquired such as (In the words of George Bush) fancy pants elitists. I was very young the day that Nixon resigned the office of the Presidency, and even though I didn't agree with his supporters, it was a gut-wrenching moment to realize I was watching the first ever collapse and humiliation of America's chief executive. I have to admire DimondCat's insightful (I'm serious) admonishment that "People can only be duped for so long". I believe Lincoln said something along the same line. Lest there be a question about my faith, lets just say I was educated in parochial schools, I do believe in God and I respect the various religions that have sprung up over the last 4,000 years. Still, however, theocracies have never been the utopia the believers hoped they would be, which is why this country at it's inception decided to keep Church and State separate.

Not to belabor the topic, but if you need a spiritual advisor, go to your house of worship. If you can't find it there, look harder. George Bush needs his own spiritual advisor to keep on track, he is not the nation's spiritual leader.

Bush's dismissive remark to Bob Woodward that he "travels in elite circles" made me laugh out loud when I heard it retold to Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes.

After all, Bush was born into the upper tier of the elites. The "aw shucks" schtick may make him seen like a man of "Joe Public" but nothing could be further from reality.

Bush is a New England blue blood and a graduate of Yale. He's about as elite as you can get in this country.