Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I'm not sure about that, but I'm sure he could stay inside the lines and possibly even use all 64 colors.

While I've been gone, you guys didn't talk about the "Bush's IQ is higher than Kerry's" article?

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
Over the summer, University of Maryland researchers asked citizens of 35 countries how they would vote between Bush and Kerry. The result? 30 of the 35 voted for Kerry.

Kerry won all but one European country polled.

If you asked me, I would vote against the current administration in - off the top of my head - France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands.

I'm not sure that the people there care either.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Looks like the Axis of Evil is falling in line with world opinion, which overwhelmingly favors Kerry.

Let's just put them all in the Axis of Evil and be done with it. (Except Poland.*)

TM

*Thought I would forget, didn't you?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
While I've been gone, you guys didn't talk about the "Bush's IQ is higher than Kerry's" article?

Didn't see it. Sounds like some of that Warshington fuzzy math to me. I suppose next you'll say that Quayle was actually a pretty smart guy?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
See, even though this comprised the bulk of Kerry's speeches yesterday, it should now be carefully thought through, and sources should be vetted, and the ultimate truth should be found.

Next Wednesday.

I'll give it to you if you concede that the announcement of Rehnquist's thyroid cancer was a Dred Scott-style signal to the base.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
Seven days before our election? You don't see it?

Nope. In fact, the idea is absurd and I'm surprised that you would sign onto it.

As to the timing -- do you have blog cites to refute the reports that the Administration leaned on both the Iraqi government (for months) and the IAEA to delay reporting the loss and/or not do so at all?

Again, has the Interim Iraqi government said that it DID NOT send that report letter to the IAEA? Simple question, and you know Allawi would say it for Bush if it were so. What has McClellan said about this? Has anyone from the Adminsitration gone on record to say its a fake? it would not be hard for them to find out.

Plus, to make what you're proposing even remotely plausible, and even asuming El Baradei would ever do such a thing, the election would have to be far more heavily tilted in Kerry's favor and this "lie" would have to be far more important than 350 tons of high explosives.**

The reason that the IAEA functions reasonably well, and provides a reasonably effective framework for monitoring and/or disarming states of nuclear weapons is that its staff is composed of well-regarded neutral professionals. it is also a cooperative effort by its members. Credibility is its stock in trade.

I have never seen any reason to justify the antipathy of many of those on the right towards el Baradei or the IAEA. While they did not parrot the U.S. line on Iraq, it turns out they were right. We're working with them on Iran and North Korea, as well as the multitude of less prominent disarmament issues. Come on!

Not all foreign officials who fail to suck our collective dick are enemies of the Nation.


S_A_M

**After all, on the scale of alleged administration incompetencies in Iraq this is pretty minor, and everyone has known for a long time that the U.S. did not secure even key nuclear facilities promptly during the invasion.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
This is rich. The NYT rushes with a false story a week before the election, which is then picked up by the rest of the left leaning liberal media, and the right wing bloggers are getting ahead of themselves?

I'm sorry to be late to the party, but how do we know the NYT story is false? Because someone on NRO said so?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
This is rich. The NYT rushes with a false story a week before the election, which is then picked up by the rest of the left leaning liberal media, and the right wing bloggers are getting ahead of themselves?

Listen up, you motherfucking jackass.

I'm talking about the assertion/claim that the IAEA made up the report about the loss from the Iraqi Interim government in order to embarrass the U.S. and influence the elections. Nonsense.

Don't you pay attention?

S_A_M

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I'll give it to you if you concede that the announcement of Rehnquist's thyroid cancer was a Dred Scott-style signal to the base.

I think that would only work had it been O'Connor making the announcement.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
The Axis of Evil Endorsement
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 22, 2004

“You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.” – Joseph Conrad in the novel Lord Jim.

Months after John Kerry boasted of having received secret endorsements from anonymous foreign leaders around the world, many of the gaps have been filled in. The leaders of the world have weighed in on the 2004 presidential election. Let’s run down the list of nations supporting each candidate:

John Kerry
...

Iran: A June editorial in the Tehran Times stated, “Kerry is exactly what the U.S. needs right now.” It is undisputed that Kerry has promised to give Iran exactly what it needs right now: nuclear fuel. Kerry pledged to supply Iran with nuclear fuel, just as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did to North Korea as it revved up its nuclear program during the 1990s.

Uh huh. Yet Iran has provided its endorsement to George W. Bush. Weird, dat.

• Associated Press
  October 20, 2004
  
  
  TEHRAN, Iran -- The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's "axis of evil" label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions for the country's nuclear ambitions.
  
  Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.
  
  "We haven't seen anything good from Democrats," Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.

link

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
See, even though this comprised the bulk of Kerry's speeches yesterday, it should now be carefully thought through, and sources should be vetted, and the ultimate truth should be found.

Next Wednesday.

Pathetic.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Listen up, you motherfucking jackass.

I've been gone. Is this now "civil"?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm sorry to be late to the party, but how do we know the NYT story is false? Because someone on NRO said so?

This question can only be answered by saying "go read the news sites."

(The alternate answer, of course, is "it's in the NYT", but that would be snarky.)

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Oddly enough, and as I said earlier, contrary to the bogus NYT claims, this material was already "missing" when the boots arrived on the ground:

• Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today.
  
  quote:
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing. The U.S. troops did find large stockpiles of more conventional weapons, but no HMX or RDX, so powerful less than a pound brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988, and can be used to trigger a nuclear weapon. In a letter this month, the Iraqi interim government told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security. Critics claim there were simply not enough U.S. troops to guard hundreds of weapons stockpiles, weapons now being used by insurgents and terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in Iraq.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  (NBC’s “Nightly News,” 10/25/04)

Whoops. They didn't find anything because they didn't look. Here's what the embedded NBC producer said about the "search" (emphasis added):

Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. Um, as a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. Almost, we stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or was, did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Pathetic.

You know better. You know that, at this stage of the election process, a shrill screaming lie that might connect with many ill-informed and poorly-read voters is priceless. Look how fast Kerry glommed onto this report yesterday - he understands its value. And, unless those same poorly-informed voters get the real news now, it will have worked.

So, yes, pathetic, but not in the way I think you meant.