Friday, May 15, 2009

The third most powerful person in our government.

Hey liberals! Take another look at this woman. Is this who you are inspired by? Is this the person you want to follow? Whose philosophies and ideas you admire? Who you have the utmost confidence and respect for? I just can't understand where your inspiration comes from. She is a pathetic excuse for a person, much less one of the leaders of the "free" world. Wake up people!

11 comments:

J Dub said...

I don't see how anyone could watch that and think that she's telling the truth.

Mike West said...

She should have asked Clinton to coach her before going into that appearance. Man...that was pathetic.

vwatt said...

Be afraid....very afraid(and continue with the paranoia):


Steele: Dems Want To Take Away Our Guns, Move Terrorists Into Our Communities
By Eric Kleefeld - May 15, 2009, 4:05PM

RNC Chairman Michael Steele addressed the National Rifle Association's "Celebration of American Values" in Phoenix today, leveling some harsh rhetoric against President Obama: That Obama could end up appointing left-wing ideological Justices to the Supreme Court -- and Dems want to away Americans' guns while moving Al Qaeda terrorists to our neighborhoods!

"It is ironic, to say the least, that at the same time Democrats in Congress are threatening to deny Americans their second amendment right to own a firearm and defend their families and homes," Steele said, "they are considering bringing terrorists like 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other Al Qaeda detainees to our communities once the President follows through on his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay."

Steele also said that liberal groups will be pressuring Obama on the Supreme Court vacancy: "They want a young, activist, left-wing justice who will leave a liberal legacy long after the Obama administration is over. Obama is considering including politicians, not judges, among his short-list of Supreme Court nominees. We don't need a justice on the Court with an ideological agenda."

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

Are not the Dems seeking to restrict Americans' access to arms? Is not the left seeking to appoint a young, left wing activist to the court? So where is the paranoia? It's what they WILL do. No doubt about it.

I'm still waiting to hear how this woman "inspires" you, Vance.

Mike West said...

What does what Michael Steele said have to do with Pelosi?

vwatt said...

She does not inspire me, I would prefer a different House leader for the Dems, but on the other hand she is not the one who ordered the torture and disgraced our country. She makes a good "fall girl" for the right and takes the light off Cheney and also off Obama so we get a two-fer!

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

There was no torture. And there is doubt about whether she approved of the interrogation techniques.

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

Keeping the country safe for 7 1/2 years after the worst attack on this country in history . . . disgrace? I don't think so.

And speaking of disgrace, there's a part of me that wants Pelosi to stay in power until the elections of 2010. She's doing wonders for the conservative movement.

vwatt said...

"Pathetic excuse for a person?" I think a chill pill is in order...you may not like her politics or public persona but she has raised five children, is a devout Catholic(and, like 52% of all Catholics does not agree with ALL of the church's teachings), has climbed the ladder of a difficult career and done what she thinks is right for her country. If she is a pathetic person, then Rushbo rates somewhere between dogdoo and a scorpion. You know, she was not the Speaker in 2002 when the Bush/Cheney trainwreck started to pick up steam. Focusing the blame on her is like beating the wife(why didn't you stop him from drinking?) of a drunk driver(Cheney) who ran over a pack of Cub Scouts.
Before taking a timeout from the blog- for the summer at least- my $100 bet still stands that Bush will be in the bottom half of all Presidents 10 years from now. I will even throw in that Obama will be in the top quarter(as a minimum, if not one of the top 5 in the last 100 years).
Before I let you fellow blogsters(the 21% of you left in America that still believe all the Bush/Cheney/Rove crap) resume patting each other on the back over your hatred of Obama(be very afraid, there is a black man in the White House, and his middle name is Hussein!), I will let you all twist in knots one more time over how much safer we were under Bush/Cheney:



"If 3,000 Americans had been killed on your watch, in an attack that could have been prevented, perhaps you'd be a little hesitant to accuse anyone else of endangering America. And if you had advocated torture, and the torture produced false information that you used to mislead America into an unwise, unjust and unwarranted war, you might be a tad sheepish about defending the use of torture.

Not Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney has stepped up his attack on Pres. Obama's security strategy, telling CBS's Bob Schieffer that Obama's refusal to use waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" (i.e., torture) endangers American lives.

The truth is the Bush-Cheney policies did not keep us safe, and Mr. Cheney is not a credible spokesman on issues of national security.

First, this awkward fact. When it came time to risk his hide to serve our country during the Vietnam War, Cheney got five draft deferments. He later told the Senate, "I had other priorities in the sixties than military service." John Kerry did not. Nor did John McCain. Nor Gen. Colin Powell, nor Gen. Jim Jones, nor Gen. Wes Clark, nor Jim Webb. These warriors - and so many others - strongly oppose the use of torture. They were willing to die to protect America. It is insulting for a doughy draft dodger like Mr. Cheney to suggest they would endanger us today.

Indeed, the public record offers evidence that torture has endangered American security. Not only by breeding more terrorists, but by producing false intelligence - which Mr. Cheney and President Bush used to mislead America into invading Iraq.

The case of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi is instructive. Al-Libi was a senior al Qaeda operative captured trying to make his way out of Afghanistan into Pakistan. In US custody, he initially said he knew of no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, and, according to Newsweek, "he had difficulty even coming up with a story about the relationship between the two." An FBI agent urged that al-Libi be read his rights and be treated with respect, "as a shining example of what we feel is right." There was a practical, as well as moral, reason not to torture al-Libi: veteran interrogators believe establishing a rapport with a prisoner is the key to obtaining actionable intelligence. There are reports that, after hours of bonding with his FBI interrogator through discussions of religion, al-Libi provided useful information about alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" who was arrested just before 9-11.

But even after the bonding experience, al-Libi continued to deny a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. He was rendered to Egypt, where he faced certain torture. "You're going to Cairo, you know," a CIA agent reportedly told al-Libi at the airport. "Before you get there I'm going to find your mother and I'm going to f*** her."

So much for building rapport.

In Egypt, al-Libi was placed in a coffin-sized box for 17 hours, then beaten. Al-Libi cracked. He gave the information Cheney and his crowd most wanted: a direct link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Al-Libi, (who reportedly died this week in Libya), said Iraq had provided al Qaeda with training in the use of chemical and biological weapons.

Bingo! Vice President Cheney and others cited the information to justify the war in Iraq. Trouble is, it turned out to be false. As early as February, 2002 - just two months after al-Libi's "confession" -- the Defense Intelligence Agency reported to the White House and the National Security Council that it had doubts about al-Libi's charge. The DIA's Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary (DITSUM) all but destroyed al-Libi's credibility. The report said, in part:

"However, he (al-Libi) lacks specific details on the Iraqis involved, the CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) materials associated with the assistance, and the location where training occurred. It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.


"Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." (Emphasis added.)

The timing here matters. In December, 2001 al-Libi, under torture, claims Iraq trained al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons. Two months later, the Pentagon's intelligence agency says he was probably lying. And yet on September 25, 2002, Condoleezza Rice continued to spread the myth, telling PBS's The News Hour, "We know too that several of the (al Qaeda) detainees, in particular, some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development." Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, President Bush and several other leading Administration officials kept banging the al-Libi drum.

In January 2003, the CIA joined the chorus of skepticism about al-Libi's claim that Iraq trained al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons, noting al-Libi "was not in a position to know if any training had taken place."

More than a year and a half after al-Libi's claim was discredited by the DIA, and nine months after it was poo-pooed by the CIA, Dick Cheney was still sighting it as Gospel, appearing on Meet the Press on the week of September 11, 2003 and telling Tim Russert, "We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW [biological weapons] and CW [chemical weapons], that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved."

It may well be that torture was used to advance the Bush-Cheney march to war in Iraq rather than to obtain intelligence about al Qaeda plots against the American homeland. A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue told McClatchy Newspapers, "Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies." Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

Next, consider this inconvenient truth: 9-11 happened on Mr. Cheney's watch. Tom Kean, the Republican co-chair of the 9-11 Commission, has said the attacks could have been prevented. He's right. That fact ought to weigh heavy on Mr. Cheney's conscience. As should these:

* Before they took office, senior Bush administration officials were briefed repeatedly about the al Qaeda threat. Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger told incoming National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, "I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism in general, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.''

* Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism chief under both Clinton and Bush, presented the new Bush-Cheney administration with a plan to roll back al Qaeda. He briefed Dr. Rice on the plan. Nothing. In February, 2001, he briefed Vice President Cheney on the plan. Nothing. Time magazine has reported, "Some counterterrorism officials think there is another reason for the Bush administration's dilatory response. Clarke's paper, says an official, "'was a Clinton proposal.'" If true, Bush and Cheney were allowing partisan politics to endanger America.

* On May 8, 2001 - three months after being briefed by Clarke - Cheney was instructed to chair a task force on terrorism. It did not meet before the 9-11 attacks.

* The FBI asked the Bush-Cheney Justice Department for58 million to beef up its domestic counterrorism capacity by hiring more translators, more field agents and more analysts. The Bush-Cheney Administration told the FBI no.

* Congressional Democrats sought to shift 800 million in the Pentagon budget from Star Wars (the Bush-Cheney faith-based missile defense system) into counterterrorism. The Bush-Cheney administration threatened to veto the entire defense budget. Congressional Republicans sided with Bush and Cheney, and blocked the Democrats from transferring the funds.

* In July, 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix reported that Middle Eastern men - possibly al Qaeda - were taking flying lessons. He suggested that al Qaeda operatives might be trying to infiltrate the US civil aviation system. His warning was not acted on.

* On August 6, 2001 Pres. Bush received a classified briefing, the President's Daily Brief. On that day, the headline blared: "Bin Laden Determined to STRIKE in U.S." According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, Bush told the briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." Dick Cheney, who has called the President's Daily Brief "the family jewels," presumably received the same briefing. Neither Bush nor Cheney acted on it. The "family jewels" were pearls before swine.


And the attack came. Over three thousand Americans were killed. In the heartache and rage that followed, Bush and Cheney instituted their "enhanced interrogation techniques." Uncovering a pending plot against the homeland was, doubtless, an important motivator. But the al-Libi case is a cautionary one. Rather than finding a ticking time bomb, the al-Libi torture may have been used to build a spurious case for war - a war that has weakened America.

Perhaps what's most galling about Mr. Cheney is how, without irony, humility or apology, he holds himself out as someone who has protected America when in fact he shirked his responsibility before 9-11 and misled us into war after. The closest Dick Cheney has ever come to fighting for America is when he shot his lawyer in the face.

vwatt said...

Forgot to credit the previous post to Paul Begala/Huffington Post(good stuff there to raise a conservative's blood pressure even more!) And one final poll-looks like "most" participants on this blog meet all the criteria except "age 65"! Hang in there, Obama can only have two terms!!

Gallup: GOP Falls With Nearly Every Group, Down To Conservative, Church-Going Base
By Eric Kleefeld - May 18, 2009, 5:00PM

A new analysis by Gallup, compiled from their national polling done all this year, shows just how extensive the Republican Party's drop in voter self-identification has been, with decreases in nearly every demographic.

Compared to 2001, when George W. Bush first took office as president, GOP self-identification has fallen by ten points among college graduates, nine points among those 18-29 years of age, nine points in the Midwest, six in the East, five in the West, and even four points in the South. Married people identifying as Republicans have decreased by five points, and the difference is eight points among the unmarried. The list goes on and on.

In 2001, voters were 33% Democratic, 32% Republican, and 34% independent, with a Republican edge of 47%-46% after leaners were pushed. But now, it's 36% Democrats, 27% Republicans and 37% independents, with a huge Democratic advantage of 52%-37% with leaners.

The only bright spots for the GOP are three base groups: Frequent churchgoers, with no decrease at all; conservatives, with only a one-point decrease; and voters 65 years of age or older, with a one-point decrease. It should also be noted that they've only gone down one point among non-whites -- but this is because they didn't have much party identification there to begin with.

Brodad Unkabuddy said...

Funny how the Clinton Administration set up the wall where the various intelligence agencies could not talk to each other. Funny how the Clinton Administration was handed OBL on a silver platter and let him get away. Funny how the Clinton Administration decimated the military and the CIA. Funny how the Clinton Administration made it virtually impossible to get intell from agents on the ground.

But what's REALLY funny is how Obama is coming around to the Bush way of doing everything - from Iraq and Afghanistan to running up the deficit (X3).

To blame Bush for 9/11 is nothing but naive and an obvious attempt to rewrite history. If Bush was the cause of 9/11, then Roosevelt caused WWII, Truman caused the Korean War, Kennedy caused Vietnam, and Lincoln caused the Civil War. It's not the events leading up the attack, but the response to the attack that shapes the legacy. NO ATTACKS ON THIS COUNTRY FOR 7 1/2 YEARS!

So if Cheney is not a credible spokesman on issues of national security, then Biden is? Puh-leeze.

But what's really funny is the attempt to defend Nancy Pelosi - the perfect example of The Peter Principle. Devout Catholic. Yeah the Vatican had a hey day with her attempt to recreate the history of the Catholic Church concerning abortion. The woman cannot even grasp the basic issues. She could not explain even page one of the stimulus bill. She has been Speaker since 2006 and that's when spending began to increase exponentially and the subprime crisis started to take off. Also, check the polls for Congress during her tenure. They were even lower than that trickster Bush, who just always seemed to be able to pull a fast one on her.

NEWSFLASH! - Rush is not an elected official.

I love how the left loves to bring the race card into the mix when things aren't going their way. I don't care if Obama is a white man with a black father, or a black man with a white mother, or how his name is spelled. What I hate is his attempt to turn this country towards socialism. It's that simple. He has changed NOTHING for the better.