Politics As Usual

[Tyrone Slothrop]

At least one conservative is troubled by the report that the administration decided, for political reasons, not to try to take out Zarqawi and the Ansar al-Islam camp in northern Iraq before the war started: Jacob Levy has been blogging about it at the Volokh Conspiracy. He has been unable to nail down or pull apart the story, but after much looking says that he thinks NBC's initial story is closer to the truth than a Robert Novak (!) story trying to discredit it.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
When you drink and drive, we all lose. When you drink and argue, you lose and we win.

T.S.

1,047,294 - 3

isn't it pretty to think so....

[the Spartan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
isn't it pretty to think so....

That's it, you are cut off! I'm calling you a cab.

:trout: :bye:

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
At least one conservative is troubled by the report that the administration decided, for political reasons, not to try to take out Zarqawi and the Ansar al-Islam camp in northern Iraq before the war started: Jacob Levy has been blogging about it at the Volokh Conspiracy. He has been unable to nail down or pull apart the story, but after much looking says that he thinks NBC's initial story is closer to the truth than a Robert Novak (!) story trying to discredit it.

Since I'm drunk and all, maybe this question won't make any sense, but Bush was supposed to ignore all the other CIA stuff about chemical and nuclear weapons, right? So how come he should have listened to this stuff?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by the Spartan
That's it, you are cut off! I'm calling you a cab.

:trout: :bye:

:drunk: :drunk: :fuckyou:

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I am! Hooray! Let's get rid of pork-addled Congress that gave us the prescription drug benefit, a giveaway to senior citizens and pharmaceutical concerns alike! Let's get rid of the Republican Administration that has increased spending well over the last one, and sees its foreign policy as a wonderful excuse to throw money at fat-cat corporations like Halliburton and Brown & Root, and no-good foreigners like Ahmed Chalabi and David Frum! God bless America!

Come December we'll all be posting on papa Ty's dime......

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Since I'm drunk and all, maybe this question won't make any sense, but Bush was supposed to ignore all the other CIA stuff about chemical and nuclear weapons, right? So how come he should have listened to this stuff?

(1) The CIA told him what the White House pressured them to say. The same conservatives who were complaining that the CIA just didn't get it on WMD a couple of years ago are now arguing that the CIA misled the President.* Yeah, right.

(2) It was the Pentagon which had the plan for the strike on Zarqawi, not the CIA.

(3) The President was using Zarqawi's outfit to justify an invasion, so you don't want to be arguing now that he didn't really believe they were a problem.


* To wit, Jim Hoagland.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
(2) It was the Pentagon which had the plan for the strike on Zarqawi, not the CIA.

based upon intrelligence from which organization?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
At least one conservative is troubled by the report that the administration decided, for political reasons, not to try to take out Zarqawi and the Ansar al-Islam camp in northern Iraq before the war started: Jacob Levy has been blogging about it at the Volokh Conspiracy. He has been unable to nail down or pull apart the story, but after much looking says that he thinks NBC's initial story is closer to the truth than a Robert Novak (!) story trying to discredit it.

This story has been roundly discredited of late. There was never an opportunity to take him out.

[sgtclub]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...er_1&printer=1

[Nader accuses DEMs of "dirty tricks"]

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
This story has been roundly discredited of late. There was never an opportunity to take him out.

If you read what I posted to -- written by a conservative, no less -- you will see that it hasn't been "discredited." NBC reported it one way, and Robert Novak reported ("reported") it another. The Administration has chosen to respond to it by saying that they didn't have solid evidence that Zarqawi would be at the camp at any specific time, which (1) does not contradict NBC's story, (2) is almost always true in any event, and (3) is no reason not to take out a camp where terrorists are making ricin.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...er_1&printer=1

[Nader accuses DEMs of "dirty tricks"]

In this case, "dirty tricks" apparently means taking a legal position so meritorious that Nader's attorneys had to concede it. "As a Maricopa County Superior Court judge prepared to hear arguments in the case, Nader campaign attorney Richard Mahrle conceded there were "technical errors" in the ballot petition and said Nader would not contest the lawsuit."

Somehow I'm thinking that if Nader accused Republicans of these sorts of "dirty tricks," you wouldn't just be regurgitating his charges.

[Say_hello_for_me]

From a googled Miami Herald story:

>>A different kind of bomb killed Ihsan Karim, the head of the Finance Ministry's audit board, Abdul-Rahman said. A magnetic device hidden on the underside of a car in Karim's convoy exploded after 8 a.m. in the Yarmouk neighborhood in central Baghdad, the colonel said.

Karim died of his wounds at a nearby hospital, a relative said. Two of his bodyguards were also killed; two bystanders were wounded.<<

The Iraqi in charge of the audit board was killed using a bomb that raises suspicions of an assassination (as compared to roadside IEDs). Today, we learn that this was the Iraqi in charge of looking into the Oil for Food program.

Uhm, interesting.

Hello

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
In this case, "dirty tricks" apparently means taking a legal position so meritorious that Nader's attorneys had to concede it. "As a Maricopa County Superior Court judge prepared to hear arguments in the case, Nader campaign attorney Richard Mahrle conceded there were "technical errors" in the ballot petition and said Nader would not contest the lawsuit."

Somehow I'm thinking that if Nader accused Republicans of these sorts of "dirty tricks," you wouldn't just be regurgitating his charges.

How come the Dems don't file an amicus to let him on? I thought you guys wanted there to be choice, and that was more important than some technical requirement. Remember Ty, the whole thing in New Jersey where you all had to switch real quick and late.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
How come the Dems don't file an amicus to let him on? I thought you guys wanted there to be choice, and that was more important than some technical requirement. Remember Ty, the whole thing in Minnesota where you all had to switch real quick and late.

Wanting to have a choice doesn't mean that more choices still is necessarily good. Think about the shape of the Laffer Curve. Otherwise you'd just use the telephone book as a ballot (or, if the Republicans had their way, the Yellow Pages). Though I agree that there is a certain weird parallel here to events in Minnesota and Missouri, inasmuch as Nader looks and sounds like he's dead.