(no subject)

[vicarz]

I met with the Dean by accident yesterday. If I have time I'll post about that later - note, he had bobble-head dolls of famous justices...I really think I like this guy, and he's said he'd write me a recommendation (for what?)

Political points I want to make but don't have the time to:
1) Supreme Court is considering taking out the "under god" phrase that congress put in during the 50s communism paranoia. Pray to your god that they do remove it, returning to 'indivisible' by itself.
2) Kerry said some really stupid shit, and Bush called him on it. Kerry claimed anonymous world leaders want Bush out of office, but wouldn't name them. Bush laughed at his anonymous claim as well he should have. I expect the presidential candidates to act better than GEEKS IN LJ!!! Bush won that round hands down.
3) Blaming Bush for the terrorism attacks is just as stupid as blaming Clinton. I don't want to blame him for the attacks, or give him credit for stopping any. If anything, Bush has caused more by waging a war...but even that isn't clear. Cheap political posturing, ick.

The election should be based on real issues, real records, substance - not just character and cheap shots. I don't want a FOX election!

Comments

[djvampira.livejournal.com]

Did you watch that guy Clark when he was on 60 minutes? He said that the Bush administration was warned that a terrorist attack was going to happen in a few months before '9/11' happened. Clark wanted to hold special meetings about it and Bush didn't want to. So....that would actually make the Bush administration pretty liable since they didn't take a threat of an attack seriously. When theClinton administration was warned at least they held security meetings about it and cooperated with the CIA and FBI. Clark worked under the Reagan,Bush Sr.,Clinton and Bush Jr. administrations so I don't think he is bullshitting.

[wabmart.livejournal.com]

Kerry said "leaders", which I interpret as possibly referring to domestic political and public leaders. The "foreign leaders" was a misquote by a Boston Globe journalist who has since retracted the statement.

scary...

[anarcha.livejournal.com]

I think we actually agree on these!

As for #3, I totally agree that people are simply being lazy.

Random thoughts:

Bush was in office during 9/11, so it's his fault. Clinton was in office for nearly a decade just prior to 9/11, thus it's his fault.

Both the above statements are clear evidence of intellectual sloppiness. Res ipsa loquitor simply doesn't work here, where there are so many variables, and so much subtlety.

One thing that really struck me yesterday during the testimony was some commentary by a questioner (I think it was Bob Kerrey) about how if we knew that UBL was such a threat pre-9/11, we should have been taking pro-active measures to take him out, such as invading Afghanistan.

Of course, this viewpoint ignores the fact that a Clinton invasion of Afghanistan, pre-9/11, would have provoked even more criticism than did the post 9/11 Bush invasion of Iraq. In fact, I would argue that it was politically impossible for Clinton, post Monica and "Wag the Dog."

We'll never know for certain if there would have been more or less terrorism and instability, had we not invaded Iraq. I do think, however, that our improving relationship with Libya is related to some extent to the Iraq invasion.

As for Dick Clark, I really don't give his claims much weight. I found it interesting that officials on both side of the fence have been distancing themselves from him (Bill Cohen appeared to get very uncomfortable when the subject arose during a CNN interview). I really do think that his claims are nothing more than political opportunism.

Actually, I think that the Bush administration probably incubates such tell-alls, simply because my perception is that it's somewhat of a clique-y place -- thus, those who for whatever reason aren't with the "popular group" tend to take it personally, and react somewhat childishly, by writing a tell-all.

[lilkender.livejournal.com]

1) Supreme Court is considering taking out the "under god" phrase that congress put in during the 50s communism paranoia. Pray to your god that they do remove it, returning to 'indivisible' by itself.

Excellent! Where do we find the details?