Could the Press Grow a Spine?

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..

you accept the fact that all of us who
fought in Vietnam were war criminals guilty of atrocity.

I dunno about anybody else but when someone tells me that he
witnessed or participated in atrocities I tend to belief them.
When someone also tells me that he did not, I tend to believe
him too. Unlike yourself, I don't have a problem with the
notion that different persons had different experiences.

What I find bizarre, is when someone argues that the atrocities
to which people admit, never occurred.


You agree that we should enthrone a Robin Hood government that takes
from the rich and bestows upon the poor.

I dunno if he agrees with you on that or not. But _I_ definately
am opposed to a government that takes from the poor and gives to the
rich, like the S&L deregulation, or allowing corporations to declare
a surplus in their pension plans based on projected cash flow from
their present workforce, then take back the 'surplus' then declare
bankruptcy and lay off the workers they said would be financing the
pension. Then claim they can't lay the pensions that could have been
payed if they had left the funds on deposit.

Or the corporate income tax, effectively a tax on all consumers, but
it has it's greatest impact on the poor.

We should turn over American
foreign policy to 220 stumbling third-world corrupt governments in the
UN.

I dunno about that. But when we feed them a pack of lies and
sabotage the UN weapons inspection program by feeding them false
information they should call us for being the liars we are.

And, we should provide universal health care to everyone in the
nation,

Yes.

regardless of cost.

It will cost us regardless. The question is mostly how will
those costs be paid.


Repetition might be satisfying and with the three of you echoing each
other, it may meet your needs for intellectual stimulation.

At this point I'll let you vote the way you wish,

No one needs you to 'let' them vote they way they wish. If that
makes you unhappy, maybe you're living in the wrong country.
Perhaps Myamar would be more to your liking.

--

FF

"Jarg" wrote in message .com...
"w.a. manning" wrote in message
om...
sounds alot like the current administration:

there are WMDs. repeat, ad inifinitum.
iraq has links to al qaeda. repeat, ad inifinitum.
the list goes on, ad infinitum.



Of course they have found WMD (or did you not catch that?),

Tell us what was found, and where it was found.

As I recall, some ineffective 15-year-old Sarin shells that appear to
have been lost in inventory and mistaken for HE were found

As you will recall, GWB claimed that WMDs were currently in
production in Iraq in 2002. We found no evidence that WMDs
were currently in production in Iraq in 2002. We found no
production facilites. We found no residues indicating
recent production.

GWB claimed that Iraw was developing nucular weapons. We found
no evidence of a nucular weapons program in Iraq. Clearly the
administration was not mistaken on this point because during the
invasion and for a few weeks after Bagdad was secured the Bush
adminstration made no effort to secure the Iraqi nuclear facilities.
Obviously if the Bush administration had thought it even slightly
probably that there were fissile materials or nuclear weapons
components in Iraq those would have been high priority targets
for search and seizure. IN fact, despite being fed with false
information in an obvious attempt to derail the UN inspection
program, the IAEA had declared Iraq to be in compliance in
regards to nuclear weapons. The Bush administration still will
not allow IAEA inspectors to revisit the Iraqi facilities to
deterine if any of the materials they inventoried had been
removed. Why not?

How about VX? Was Iraq was manufacturing and stockpiling VX in
the Fall of 2002? We found no VX. We found no facilites
for making VX. We found no residues indicationg VX had been
made in recent years.

How about anthrax? Was Iraq producing and weaponizing anthrax
spores in the Fall of 2002? We found none. We found no facilites
for producing or weaponizing anthrax spores. In 2001 we were attacked
here in the US with a strain of anthrax developed at Ft Dietrich in
Maryland there has never been any evidence of a foreign source
for any chemical or biological weapon attack in the US.

How about botulinum toxin? We found no facilites for producing
botulinum toxin. One doctor came forward with a specimin of the
botulinum baccilus that he had been keeping at home. There are
about a half dozen varieties of this bacilus. All produce highly
toxic material. The toxins they produce vary in toxicity by a
factor of about 100. The least toxic of these is used theraputically,
one supposes that he best choice for WMDs would be the most toxic
variety. The specimen the doctor had was of the least toxic
variety.

How about mustard gas? Iraq declared some mustard gas shelles that
had survived the 1991 war. The Un had cataloged them but inspectors
found a discrepency on the books amounting to about 500 shells.
While not enough to be militarily significant, it remained an ongoing
concern up until the invasion.

I do not recall anything related to WMDS being found in Iraq that
was worth killing a single person over.

they have found
links to Al Quada (guess you missed that one too)

Define link. Tells us about those links (plural).

There is a relationship between me and Al Queda. That relationship is
as follows: I want everyone in Al Quaeda to die as quickly as possible.

Saddam Hussein certainly had a relationship with Osama Bin Laden.
Bin Laden asked him for help, and Hussein turned him down. That
was the nature of their relationship, was it not?

--

FF

(WalterM140) wrote in message ...
Aha! You dodged the draft by going into the reserves just as many have
accused
Bush of doing by going into the guard.


Actually, I joined the Marine Corps the day I turned 18.

What year was that?

--

FF

(B2431) wrote in message ...


Look, whether Bush served as much or as little as he said is of no import. At
least he never stabbed us in the back as did Kerry. And he did serve in the
TANG.


Whom did Kerry ever stab in the back?

--

FF

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message hlink.net...
"Mike Dargan" wrote in message
news:qd0Dc.117009$0y.58857@attbi_s03...

The Republicans and their junior college instructor lackey's have a long
history of belittling those who served well while exaggerating the
military records of their, more prudent, candidates.

Dunno about a long history, but that was evident in 2000.

Consider also how the current administration ignores the only combat
veteran serving in the cabinet.

Powell should have made it clear to Bush that he was no longer
serving under Rumsfeld--or at least made that clear to Rumsfeld
and Cheney.


Can anyone remember the 1972 election? During WWII Richard Nixon ran a
Navy fruit drink stand at some South Pacific backwater supply base while
George McGovern was leading groups of B24s in daylight attacks on Nazi
Europe. AFter the war McGovern used the GI Bill to get a Ph.D., while
Nixon used slush funds to finance red baiting.

By election time in 1972 the Republican propaganda machine convinced the
weak minded and ignorant that Nixon was the warrior and McGovern the
dodger.

They're trying to pull the same trick in 2004.


I can remember the 1972 election, but I sure don't remember what you
described. I think you fabricated it.

As I recall it was the Democrats who portrayed Nixon as a warrior and
both portrayed McGovern as a 'peacenik'.

I don't recall anyone portraying McGovern as a dodger.

I also thought that McGovern flew B-25s.

But just look back at the Republican primaries campaign from 2000.
The Bush camp tried to make McCain out to be mentally unstable. Now
we know that Bush thinks he's on a mission from God. Who was the
real nutcase?

--

FF

Mike Dargan wrote in message news:cpFDc.124898$Sw.61008@attbi_s51...
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
...
By election time in 1972 the Republican propaganda machine convinced the
weak minded and ignorant that Nixon was the warrior and McGovern the

dodger.

They're trying to pull the same trick in 2004.



I can remember the 1972 election, but I sure don't remember what you
described. I think you fabricated it.

Well Steve, if you don't think very well, try to not think very much:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3...scheer20021029


There is no claim, let alone evidecne, presente din that article to
the effect that anyone attempted to protray McGovern as a dodger.

I also think McGovern is not being honest if he says (note, 'IF'
I don't claim that he is being accurately paraphrased in the
article.) he didn;t use his war record in his campaign for
reasons of 'unseenliness'. The fact is that in 1972 pointing
with justifiable pride to an honorable service record might have
cost him votes. That is how screwed up things were back then.

The article also says he flew B-24s agains Nazi Germany. I
recall, from 1972, that the most famous mission he flew was
an attack on a Rumanian petroleum refinery complex. I had
thought that he flew B-25s out of Italy to targets in
Eastern Europe. Maybe my memory is wrong here.

--

FF

"Brett" wrote in message ...


... McGovern the "subversive peacenik"
it was the news shots of his anti-war, anti-capitalist supporters and his
own campaign rhetoric at the Democratic convention and the many campaign
rallies leading up to the election that November.

You say that like it was a bad thing.

I don't trust anyone who is not 'anti-war' though I trust some
who feel that sometimes the alternative to war is worse than war.

--

FF

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
[recall of 1972 deleted for brevity]

I was thirty and flying my second tour at Korat in the F-4E, going to
NVN most every day. I had a vested interest in the campaign.


I turned 18 a year after the election of 1972. My number was 187,
but thanks to Nixon 'winding down' the war in Vietnam no one in
my year was drafted so I sat on my ass stateside. Notwithstanding,
what I recall is much the same as what you recall.

--

FF

(WalterM140) wrote in message ...

This dirty tricks organization went full tilt in an effort to keep Clinton
from governing. They did this with the White Water scandal -- nothing there.

Ahem. Last I heard somewhere around 20 folks went to prison in the
Whitewater cases. Jim Tucker, the sitting Governor of Arkansas
went straight from the governor's house to the big house.

"Nothing there" is an incredibly arrogant lie. I'm disappointed
that you believed it.

And Vince Foster -- nothing there. As President Clinton said, Ken Starr was
determined to drive him out of office regardless of the facts -- to -negate-
the decision of the voters.

Another lie. Ken Starr exhonerated Clinton IRT Vince Foster and also
IRT whitewater and a few other allegations that I'm too tired to
recall for now. He did prepare the best case he could for impeachment
because that is part of the job of the OIC and one factor that
distinguished it from a Special Prosecutor. IMHO, and that of a
majority of Senators that best case did not justify removing Clinton
form office but Starr would have been remiss in his duties, to
put it mildly, had he refused to make that case.

As you may recall, the OIC was tasked with the dual duties of
criminal investigatrion and investigating any basis for impeachment
to avoid the conflicts that arose in the separate Justice Department
and House of Representatives investigation of the Iran Contra
Scandal. That criminal investigation was brought to a standstill
when the House granted immunity to key witnesses who then happily
claimed to be the ringleaders and skated.

As you know (and certainly as Clinton knows) each investigation done
by every independent counsel was approved, in advance, by the Attorney
General and a panel of three Federal Judges. Wheras in the past,
the Attorney General had assigned different independent counsels to
investigated independant allegations, Reno chose to keep assigning
investigation to Starr, rather than creating new independent councils.
I'm not clear on why she did that, maybe for economy, it was probably
cheaper to have one OIC pursuing a half dozen different investigations
than to have a half dozen OICs all operating independently and often
redundantly with each other.

OTOH, it worked out well for CLinton as every time Reno assigned a
new investigation to Starr a whole bunch of lying sycophants would
start proclaiming that Starr was out of control and operating without
restraint.

Of course there were other OICs during the Clinton years, but they were
investigating persons other than the Clintons themselves.

I don't know how successful they were, but I bet that if you use some
sort of statistic like how much the government spent on prosecution
for every day someone convicted by a Special Prosecutor/Independent
Counsel spent in prison Starr would rank second only to Leon Jaworski.

--

FF

(B2431) wrote in message ...

The only ones that should be excluded from public office are Clinton and Dean
since he admitted to committing felonies: providing fraudulent medical
"evidence" to his draft board and smoking marijuana which was a felony at the
time.


I think that the right of th epeople to elect an admitted felon to
public office is far more important than your sense of propriety
calling for their disenfranchisement.

Would you argue that no one who admits to having comitted a felony
should be allowed to hold public office?

How about my friend's grandmother who was CONVICTED of a felony for
providing birth control literature to minor?

--

FF