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Originally Posted by fastom
The more you discover about him and his cronies the harder it is to believe that outlandish official story of 9/11.
It makes me wonder how he ascended the ranks in politics, is it all really that corrupt ?
More importantly... is it fixable?
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We're talking about the president of the United States of America. Polling results indicate that close to a third of American adults still trust him....support him.
Surely aceventura3's defense of president Bush....a quote from a famous WWII Winston Churchill speech that was used by ace to demonstrate that wartime leaders "lie" to inspire commitment to a "great cause" (I guess that was ace's point....he didn't offer a specific Churchill "falsehood" that could be compared to all of the false or misleading Bush pronouncements....posted up to that point in this discussion...) cannot be all that Bush's supporters have to post in his defense?
On May 23, on this thread, this was posted:
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Originally Posted by powerclown
....As far as what Bush's motivations are, you can criticize the man for many things, but inconsistency isn't one of them.....
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I view "inconsistency"....in his speech, and in his actions....as one of Mr. Bush's greatest faults....greatest failings. I think that I've posted convincingly to support that view.
Particularly disturbing are the things that Mr. Bush has lied about, and the timing....right after the 9/11 attacks, in the midst of a never solved "anthrax attack"....right before the invasion of Iraq, and anytime new evidence is disclosed of how he misled us "right before" the invasion of Iraq.....right after James Comey had his "showdown" with Bush dispatched Gonzales and Card...in Ashcroft's ICU room at the hospital.......and right after the NY Times Dec., 2005 "blockbuster" disclosure of the warrantless electronic surveillance of US residents. All of these periods of lies and misleading statements have come when it matters most....when Bush has gained/taken/falsely manipulated us into granting his executive branch unprecedented or extraordinary new authority to deal with perceived threat conditions to our national security....or when it has been discovered that he has taken even more new authority from us, without our prior knowledge of permission.
This makes it, IMO, even more important for defenders of Mr. Bush to respond to the examples of his false and misleading statements and assurances. The gravity of his failure to speak credibly to us, in the context of when he was telling us what he was telling us, while he was lessening our constitutionally guaranteed authority/rights, and increasing his own....if Bush's defenders are interested in being regarded as offering "reasonable" POV's.
I would think that it is important for conservatives to be regarded as "reasonable" political thinkers. Their silence begins to make me suspect that their support for Mr. Bush....knowing what we know, because of what he has said and done, in the context of the timing of his words and deeds, with the consistent result of the increase in his presidential authority and the decrease in the constitutional checks and balances...at the expense of the rest of us,
<b>....is unreasonable.</b>
If you've read through this thread, up to this point...does it seem reasonable to be of the opinion that my quote from powerclown above, or what ace has posted <b>are reasonable opinions....conservative opinions....if they "leave it at that"</b>....leave what they've already posted, to compete...."head to head", "side by side", with the "evidence" posted....Bush's own statements and those of his closest associates, in the context of the timing of the statements and actions?
I believe that you must speak coherently to seem credible. Courts use the principles of "probable cause" and what would a "reasonable" person do, say or believe, under a given set of circumstances. Would a "reasonable person" have "probable cause" to still believe that Mr. Bush "says what he means and does what he says"?
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http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2...efense-is.html
......So, in June, 2002, the Administration refused to support elimination of the very barrier ("probable cause") which Gen. Hayden claimed yesterday necessitated the circumvention of FISA. In doing so, the Administration identified two independent reasons for opposing this amendment. One reason was that the Justice Department was not aware of any problems which the Administration was having in getting the warrants it needed under FISA:....
........So as of June, 2002 -- many months after the FISA bypass program was ordered -- the DoJ official who was responsible for overseeing the FISA warrant program was not aware (at least when he submitted this Statement) of any difficulties in obtaining warrants under the FISA "probable cause" standard, and for that reason, the Administration would not even support DeWine's amendment. If - as the Administration is now claiming - they had such significant difficulties obtaining the warrants they wanted for eavesdropping that they had to go outside of FISA, surely Baker - who was in charge of obtaining those warrants - would have been aware of them. And, if the Administration was really having the problems under FISA, they would have supported DeWine's Amendment. But they didn't.
The second concern the Administration expressed with DeWine's amendment was that it was quite possibly unconstitutional:
The Department's Office of Legal Counsel is analyzing relevant Supreme Court precedent to determine whether a "reasonable suspicion" standard for electronic surveillance and physical searches would, in the FISA context, pass constitutional muster. The issue is not clear cut, and the review process must be thorough because of what is at stake, namely, our ability to conduct investigations that are vital to protecting national security. If we err in our analysis and courts were ultimately to find a "reasonable suspicion" standard unconstitutional, we could potentially put at risk ongoing investigations and prosecutions.
By that time, the Administration had already been engaging in eavesdropping outside of the parameters of FISA, and yet the DoJ itself was expressing serious doubts about the constitutionality of that eavesdropping and even warned that engaging in it might harm national security because it would jeopardize prosecutions against terrorists. Put another way, the DoJ was concerned that it might be unconstitutional to eavesdrop with a lower standard than probable cause even as the Administration was doing exactly that.
Two other points to note about this failed DeWine Amendment that are extremely important:
(1) Congress refused to enact the DeWine Amendment and thus refused to lower the FISA standard from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion." It is the height of absurdity for the Administration to now suggest that Congress actually approved of this change and gave it authorization to do just that -- when Congress obviously had no idea it was being done and refused to pass that change into law when it had the chance.
(2) DeWine's amendment would have lowered the standard for obtaining a FISA warrant only for non-U.S. persons -- whereas for "U.S. persons," the standard would have continued to be "probable cause." And, DeWine's amendment would not have eliminated judicial oversight, since the Administration still would have needed approval of the FISA court for these warrants.
That means that, in 2 different respects, DeWine's FISA amendment was much, much less draconian than what the Administration was already secretly doing (i.e., lowering the evidentiary standard but (i) eliminating judicial oversight, and (ii) applying these changes not just to non-U.S. persons but also to U.S. persons). Thus, Congress refused to approve -- and the DoJ even refused to endorse -- a program much less extreme and draconian than the Administration's secret FISA bypass program.
This has extremely significant implications for the Administration's claims made yesterday through Gen. Hayden as to why it was necessary to bypass FISA. The Administration's claim that the "probable cause" component of FISA was preventing it from engaging in the eavesdropping it needed is the opposite of what it told Congress when refusing to support the DeWine Amendment. And its claim that Congress knew of and approved of its FISA-bypassing eavesdrop program is plainly negated by the fact that the same Congress was debating whether such changes should be effectuated and then refused to approve much less extreme changes to FISA than what the Administration secretly implemented on its own (and which it now claims Congress authorized).
The Administration is stuck with the excuse given by Gen. Hayden yesterday as to why it had to eavesdrop outside of FISA, but that excuse is plainly contradicted by these events and by the Administration's own statements at the time.
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Where do I "have it wrong"? What am I missing? How can this "stuff" be ignored...without being considered, without posting a point by point...(or ANY)...rebuttal?