Fitzgerald Investigation of Leak of Identity of CIA Agent

That's a potential problem. Are your organs spoken for?

No, they are not.
If I die you can have them as payment if I lose the bet.

BTW, this has nothing to do with politics, but anyone that has a son will appreciate this...
http://ebcrennie.googlepages.com/boys

That, MM, is one of the funniest collection of kid photos I have ever seen. All the warm joy of Norman Rockwell, plus some good tits.

Thank you kindly.

Advocate, your answer amply illustrates why leftists have no credibility, none, when they attempt to use the corruption angle to pursue your political aims.

Ah? Seems to be a case of "it's a bad argument if somebody else uses it."

okie, when you say something like



- do you think you have credibility? Hm?

Have you forgotten that Clinton was in fact impeached?

And was found guilty of what?

I haven't. It's not relevant, however.


- Advocate argues that, because Clinton was never convicted of a crime, he obviously never committed one.

- You argue that, because Bush has never been impeached, he obviously never disobeyed the law.


You call Advocate's line of reasoning an ample illustration of "why leftists have no credibility, none." Yet it seems you use the exact same logic when it comes to Bush.

okie doesn't seem to understand anything about justice system.

Just because somebody is charges with a crime doesn't mean they are guilty.

Just because somebody is not charged with a crime doesn't mean they are innocent of any crime.

He's trying to use inference to show guilt where none exists. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate.

As I see it, oe, the basic and distinct difference between Bush and Clinton is their basic character. Bush has some, and Clinton had virtually none. Clinton did everything in a self serving way, and all of the corruption surrounding the Clintons had to do with personal gratification and obtaining and preserving their power, to heck with the country. I could cite many examples if you missed the 90's.

It seems to me the best that the Bush haters can come up with are technicalities of supposedly breaking the law in regard to wiretapping, supposed torture, lying about WMD, outing Valerie Plame, etc. All of these issues spring out of Bush's care for the country and from the normal course of doing his job to protect and serve the country and the citizens rather than himself. The issues are political, and it has never been established that any law has ever been broken. All of the issues where Bush opponents attack Bush could be discussed one by one, as they have been on the other threads, but the Valerie Plame issue is a good example of the issue being political, not criminal.

I agree with what you say, so I agree just because the Senate let Clinton off does not mean he was innocent. He obviously was probably guilty of numerous things, we could go through the laundry list if you missed the 90s, imposter.

In the case of Valerie Plame, we have yet to learn that a crime was committed, let alone naming the suspect.

I know that that's how you see it. However, you didn't criticise Advocate for Clinton's alleged lack of character, but for the logical conclusion he drew from the fact that Clinton never got convicted. That's quite a bit funny if one uses the exact same logic to defend the candidate one sympathizes with.




The exact same argument can be (and has been) made in favour of Clinton. Yet you completely reject it and even use it as a basis to deny any credibility to those who use this argument. As long as they're on the other side.

Now, everything else aside, I'd like you to explain why your "it has never been established that any law has ever been broken" is a valid argument, while the other "it has never been established that any law has ever been broken" shows complete and utter lack of credibility on the other side.

Only your imagination is greater than you legal ability.

Your point is valid, however I have pointed out many things in the course of this thread, so the argument I presented is only one of many points in the entire issue. I base my entire opinion on everything I have observed in regard to their character and what they have done, plus the validity of any criminal proceedings. In the case of Plame, we had a prosecutor that looked into every aspect of this case and all of the evidence he could dig up, and given the reputation of Fitzgerald, I think if there was evidence of any crime by Bush, he would have found it after a few years, and I have yet to hear him directly say that any underlying crime was ever even committed. I think it was a totally political issue, thats all.

The reason I see a difference between applying the argument to Bush versus Clinton basically boils down to character. Clinton has not provided much of a basis to trust him on virtually anything, while Bush has shown us at least some decency and character in how he approaches the job of president.

I can point out a few differences. For example, I see the difference between a disagreement over what constitutes torture in Bush's policy of trying to extract information from terrorists to protect the country, as opposed to Clinton taking campaign money from the Chinese for his own political gain. I can see a difference between the legality of certain types of wiretapping to track terrorist activities, versus Clinton having the IRS audit his political opponents to intimidate and silence them. These are only two examples, but the basic difference is character and legitimate policy disagreements, versus a criminal character and real corruption.

I guess to sum it up, oe, it all comes down to how we judge character. I do not place any politician as god-like, or perfect, or even close to it, but we must somehow be able to judge some of the basic qualities in our elected leaders without resorting to a court of law making the final judgement.

The character of any individual is as good as their honesty.

How many Bush lies do you think is on record?

Today's Bush Lie
"[Castro] welcomes sex tourism," Bush told a room of law enforcement officials in Florida, according to the Los Angeles Times. "Here's how he bragged about the industry," Bush said. "This is his quote: 'Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the world.'"

"As it turns out, Bush had lifted that quotation not from an actual Castro speech but rather from a 2001 essay written by then Dartmouth University undergraduate Charles Trumbull. In the essay, Trumbull did appear to quote a Castro speech about prostitution. Sadly, the student made the quotation up.

"According to officials, the actual quotation from Castro's 1992 speech reads as follows: 'There are hookers, but prostitution is not allowed in our country. There are no women forced to sell themselves to a man, to a foreigner, to a tourist. Those who do so do it on their own, voluntarily. We can say that they are highly educated hookers and quite healthy, because we are the country with the lowest number of AIDS cases.'"

"...And this isn't the first time the Internet has baffled Bush. Back in 2003, the President cited another student's thesis when making a case to go to war. The student's [plagiarized and "sexed up"] work ended up in a government document describing Iraq's weapons capability. Not exactly the kind of hard intelligence needed to justify an attack on another country." The Register, 07.28.04



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10 Minute Rice: Three Lies And No Apology

Condi Rice, Bush's National Security Adviser, appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday evening, but, unlike Bush anti-terrorism adviser Dick Clarke at the 9/11 Probe, she did not swear on the Bible that what she would say would be the truth. While Clarke on 60 Minutes last Sunday allowed himself to be probed and turned inside and out for nearly the entire program, the edited tape of the Rice interview with Ed Bradley lasted around 10 minutes, and she said nothing new. The short episode came across as political spin to control the bleeding, and nothing more.

Rice's Lie #1 (transcript)

DICK CLARKE (video):
I said 'Mr. President, we've done this before. We - we've been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind, there's no connection.' He came back at me and said, 'Iraq, Saddam - find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean, that we should come back with that answer....

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I - I have never seen the president say an - anything to an - people in an intimidating way, to try to get a particular answer out of them. I know this president very well. And the president doesn't talk to his staff in an intimidating way to ask them to produce information - that is false.

OUR RESPONSE:
Clarke and two others were in the room with Bush. The others have gone on record as agreeing with Clarke's description of the meeting. Condi was not present.

Rice's Lie #2 (transcript)

VOICE OVER:
All week long, the White House said it had no recollection that the September 12 meeting ever took place, and that it had no record that President Bush was even in the situation room that day. But two days ago, they changed their story, saying the meeting did happen.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
"None of us recall the specific - conversation....

OUR RESPONSE:
Actually, two lies here. First, the White House said the meeting didn't happen, then they changed their story. Second, Condi misleads Bradley by saying "us" did not recall the specific conversation. Of course "us" didn't since it has already been established that "us" was not in the room at the time of the conversation.

Rice's Lie #3 (transcript)

ED BRADLEY:
Clarke has alleged that the Bush administration underestimated the threat from - from al Qaeda, didn't act as if terrorism was an imminent and urgent problem. Was it?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Of course it was an urgent - problem....

ED BRADLEY: :
But even the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton, has said that the Bush administration pushed terrorism, and I'm quoting here, farther to the back burner.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I just don't agree....

ED BRADLEY:
After 9/11, Bob Woodward wrote a book in which he had incredible access and interviewed the president of the United States. He quotes President Bush as saying that he didn't feel a sense of urgency about Osama bin Laden. Woodward wrote that bin Laden was not the president's focus or that of his nationally security team. You're saying that the administration says fighting terrorism and al-Qaeda has been a top priority since the beginning.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I'm saying that the administration took seriously the threat - let's talk about what we did....

ED BRADLEY: :
You'd listed the things that you'd done. But here is the perception. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at that time says you pushed it to the back burner. The former Secretary of the Treasury says it was not a priority. Mr. Clarke says it was not a priority. And at least, according to Bob Woodward, who talked with the president, he is saying that for the president, it wasn't urgent. He didn't have a sense of urgency about al Qaeda. That's the perception here.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Ed, I don't know what a sense of urgency - any greater than the one that we had, would have caused us to do differently.

OUR RESPONSE:
It's clear that Bradley wants to discuss the Clarke charge that the Bush administration changed terrorism from the top priority to one of secondary concern, and Rice attepts to twist the question of giving terrorism "top priority" to taking terrorism "seriously," which are two different things. Then Bush is quoted as saying terrorism was not "urgent." Rice ignores this documented quote and goes on to disagree with Bush. As such, she is attempting to mislead by changing the terms from "top priority" to "seriously," and to simply ignore the evidence presented that Bush disagrees with her. As such, she is on auto-pilot as she lies, spinning the implicit scenario she wants Bradley to accept.

Finally, Bradley repeatedly gave Rice the program's forum to apologize for 9/11 to the millions of viewers watching the show, like Clarke did on the show last week and previously to that under oath in front of the 9/11 Panel, but she refused each time. (transcript)

--Jerry Politex, 03.29.04



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Why The Public Believes Bush's Lies
"When interviewed by Tim Russert, Vice President Cheney asserted that Iraq was "the heart of the base" for the 9/11 terrorists and went on from there with a series of half-truths and outright deceptions about almost every topic broached, including his supposed lack of current "financial interest in Halliburton ." Mr. Cheney, a master of the above-reproach dead pan, just kept going, effortlessly mowing right through any objections by the host. The vice president was banking, as Dr. Dean did on "This Week," on a cultural environment in which fiction and nonfiction have become so scrambled  and can be so easily manipulated by politicians and show-biz impresarios alike  that credibility itself has become a devalued, if not archaic, news value. This is why the big national mystery of the moment  why do almost 70 percent of Americans believe in Mr. Cheney's fictional insinuation that Saddam Hussein had some hand in 9/11?  is not so hard to crack. As low as the administration's credibility may be, it is still trusted more than the media trying to correct the fictions the White House plants in the national consciousness." --Frank Rich, NMYT, 09.28.03



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Listening To Bush Lies Since 1998
Bush lies So often and in so many different ways that I've never had the patience

Trailers Of Mass Destruction, Part Two..."You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons....They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.* And we'll find more weapons as time goes on, But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." (italics ours) --WP, "Bush: 'We Found' Banned Weapons. President Cites Trailers in Iraq as Proof, " May 31, 2003


"There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist.Bush and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer went out of their way Thursday to cite a new survey by "Blue-Chip economists" that the economy would grow 3.3 percent this year if the president's tax cut proposal becomes law. That was news to the editor who assembles the economic forecast. "I don't know what he was citing," said Randell E. Moore, editor of the monthly Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a newsletter that surveys 53 of the nation's top economists each month. "I was a little upset," said Moore, who said he complained to the White House. 'It sounded like the Blue Chip Economic Forecast had endorsed the president's plan. That's simply not the case.'" 2.24.03 www.bushwatch.com

There are more out there in web-land.

So mis-quotes are now lies?

By the way, THE BIG LIE, is about WMD, right imposter? Isn't that the case built so feverishly by Bush opponents for the last 7 years? Well, now we learn that Valerie Plame herself said she was scared to death that WMD might be used on our troops when they entered Iraq. Wasn't she one of the premier WMD experts in the CIA, the same CIA that advised George Bush?

If that is any indicator of who might be the real liar here, maybe you need to rethink your opinion, imposter?

I really could care less what Plame's fears were; it's immaterial to either Bush's lies or his outing of her.

Even if we accept the best-case scenario, it's merely a colossally huge mistake, instead of criminal and heinous malfeasance. Big improvement?

Cycloptichorn

okie still hasn't figured out the difference between a lie about sex and a lie about WMDs to start a illegal war that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

His brain is calcified.

Probably right. However, you've repeated this argument quite a few times now - both to attack Clinton and to defend Bush.

And you seem to be perfectly happy with it. That's what makes me scratch my head. You see the conflict, but instead of saying "Hey, that really undermines my own argument" you just keep repeating it. Strikes me as odd.




Yeah, you've said that before, too. But a coherent argument and a logical conclusion (or not) remains one whether you like or dislike the person you're talking about.

You, on the other hand, seem to be saying that it's a valid argument for Bush because he has (in your opinion) a good character, and it's an invalid argument for Clinton because he has (in your opinion) a bad character.

Now, "character" is obviously something quite subjective. You might like somebody's character because he's a smart talker or you think he'd make a good barbecue guest. Others will judge character in a completely different way.

That's fine. But you're actually arguing that the way we perceive somebody's character should change the way we look at, well, facts.




I don't think so. I think that 'character' and ability to lead a country are two things that are not necessarily closely related. There's very likely a good number of very able politicians and heads of state that you wouldn't enjoy having dinner with. And vice versa.




Oh, sure. But that, too, cuts both ways. If you're completely able to judge somebody's guilt based on your perception of his character, you'll have to allow for people saying "Bush is guilty of all these crimes, because I don't like his character" and accept that as a valid logical concept.