Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

I tend to like the way he thinks - a little agressive, but very passionate and good hearted.

Iraq
 

I see Clinton as the guy who's not only going to cock-block you at every turn, but also stick you with the check.

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

I always tended to like Senator Kerrey with an "E". I find it rather odd that he would intentionally disrespect Condi like that.

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

(a) I don't see his actions as anti-American. I don't think that being pissed as hell about the 9/11 attacks, and the failure of our government to stop it is anti-American. I don't think that beating up witnesses from both sides of the aisle with hard questions, or being pissed when they blatantly evade answering questions in order to give speeches, is anti-American. I also don't think that asking hard questions and really trying to figure out what happened, why, how it could be fixed, and who might be responsible for screw-ups is anti-American.

In the few excerpts that I saw from Rice's televised testimony -- she was respnding to many of the Panel's questions much the way that the candidates respond in Presidential debates, i.e. make the speech that they want to make almost without regard to the questions asked. It was blatantly political. If I were a Commission member who cared about doing my job and had a _total_ of 10 minutes for Q&A, I'd have been pissed too.

Then, in my typically moderate way, I will say that if you disagree with me on this -- you are an idiot.

(b) Is that the incident in which a number of innocent civilians died? At the risk of sounding callous, too damn bad.

S_A_M

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

I listened to a good bit of it. When I first tuned in, I had that impression, too, but then, after listening for a bit, (especially during Roemer's "questioning"), it became apparent that the hostile questions weren't really being put up as questions, but as mini-speeches, and she was being interrupted after about four words of reply. Being the rather assertive person that she is, she simply rolled over many of the interruptions and kept going with her answers until she was finished. Thus, in many of the sound-bites that have been replayed, she appears unresponsive, but it's deceiving.

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

Good use of passive voice. "Died." Hmm.

Just for balance, Kerrey apparently went in, and murdered somewhere around 20 unarmed women and kids, all by their lonesome, with no actual armed enemy even around. He wrote it up as "20 dead Cong." He was then awarded his Medal, for that killing, based on his own writeup. He kept this secret for years, through many political campaigns, and only came clean when he learned that Time was about to publish it's own story in a week. For this act, top Dems called him courageous for admitting to "old news".

(ETA - my memory is partially faulty. He was awarded a Bronze for that episode. Later, he won the MoH for a different feat.)

Classy
 

Though I'm not sure if it's calculated or not, I thought John Kerry's refusal to comment on the 9/11 hearings until they are over and the commission has reached its conclusion was a classy move.

Classy
 

FB-classy or classy-classy?

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

[edited -- Never mind. Pardon the interruption.]

Classy
 

what's the diff?

Classy
 

a keen sense of irony.

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

You probably think the strategic/tactical thing they concocted was responsive too.

Classy
 

classy-classy. I don't read the FB -

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

I thought it was nice. And nicely timed, for Kerry:

"KERREY: Why didn't we swat that fly?

RICE: I believe that there's a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense; whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and go after every -- on a kind of tit-for-tat basis.

By the way, in that memo, Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit-for-tat, doing this on the time of our choosing.

RICE: I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein.

That's a strategic view...

(APPLAUSE)

And we took a strategic view. We didn't take a tactical view. I mean, it was really -- quite frankly, I was blown away when I read the speech, because it's a brilliant speech. It talks about really...

(LAUGHTER)

... an asymmetric...

KERREY: I presume you read it in the last few days?

RICE: Oh no, I read it quite a bit before that. It's an asymmetric approach."

Bob Kerrey - What an Asshole
 

In a tactical sense, that exchange struck me as wonderful PR. In a strategic sense, it made clear that Rice was more interested in managing PR than she was in informing the commission, which of course is the larger problem that led her to be testifying.

Of course, as a substantive matter, the strategic/tactical thing is horseshit. Which is why Kerrey scored points when he asked Rice what flies Bush swatted. Bush may have been tired of swatting flies, but it's not like he came up with a plan to close the window.