Today's "News" from "one side of the aisle" - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 11-04-2006, 11:52 AM

Here are some of today's "top" stories....can anyone defend them?
Please cite your sources with links....I can't seem to confirm that any of these stories are true, but they're getting a lot of "play". What's up with that?

Quote:

http://www.freedomproject.org/index....t=1&ucat=1
Where is Nancy Pelosi ?

<a href="http://movies.crooksandliars.com/nora-pelosi.wmv">Video</a>-WMP

O'DONNELL: What about Nancy Pelosi? We were just showing pictures. She would be the speaker — likely be the speaker of the House if Democrats win control. Where's she been the last week?

....and there's this "curious" "story", from the mouths of highly placed Bush administration officials:

Quote:

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...s/15925564.htm
Posted on Sat, Nov. 04, 2006

Hussein’s nuclear program files bring officials full circle on threat from Iraq.
The Associated Press

“ …There clearly were an awful lot of nuclear documents floating around Iraq, which suggest that this is someone who’d not given up on his ambitions.”
-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

http://www.fnsg.com/transcript.htm?i...1741eddc31319f
White House Counselor Dan Bartlett:
<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/03/bartlett-iraq-nuclear/">Watch It</a>

BARTLETT: Obviously, in this case, Andrea, there has been a problem because these documents went on, and they reveal what many people knew, was that Saddam Hussein had the capability and was working toward a nuclear weapon program. They had the scientists and the documents.....

.....BARTLETT: True, Andrea, but they didn’t lose that knowledge. They didn’t take down the scientific apparatus or the capabilities to develop that. And Charlie Duelfer and other weapons experts all said what Saddam Hussein was doing was waiting the international community out, to make sure they got the inspectors out, so that they can then restart their program. He had the capability and he had the know-how to do it. And I think that’s a stark reminder for people.

Quote:

http://www.freedomproject.org/index...._from=&ucat=6&
New York Times Confirms Saddam’s Iraq Was Close to Having Nuclear Weapons
Story Comes One Day After REport on Terrorist Plans to Strike U.S. Cities

Card Blames New York Times For ‘Advertising’ Nuclear Secrets ‘To The World’ 

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/03/card-blames-nyt/">Watch It</a>

This morning on NBC, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card excused the Bush administration’s role in posting nuclear weapons secrets on a public web site,

Card said “it’s important that we recognize the government is doing the right thing” and claimed the government “acted very quickly” to remove the nuclear secrets.

Transcript:

LAUER: What do you make of this? Who’s gonna get the blame for this?

CARD: Well, you know, this is one of those things that John Negroponte warned us that we don’t know what’s in these documents, so these are being put out at some risk. And that was a warning he put out right when they first released the documents. We pulled them down, and I think the government has acted very quickly, and we’ve pulled them down. I’m a little bit concerned that the New York Times has advertised them to the world, so that more people might see them…

My concern is that some people who participate on this forum may be taking the nonsense above, "in"....considering it in their opinion forming process, as "news". Does anyone else see this as "the stuff" from which misinformed voting has it's roots?

.....Or....are these "stories" true....can you defend their validity?

Seaver · 11-04-2006, 12:47 PM

Quote:

.....Or....are these "stories" true....can you defend their validity?

The nuclear program released was true enough that the New York Times, who have posted numerous classified materials in the past under the first amendment "right", were freaked out proclaiming it could give Iran hints on how to build a nuke.

dc_dux · 11-05-2006, 09:30 PM

I thought this was newsworthy...from the "right" side of the aisle - The American Conservative Magazine

Quote:

GOP Must Go

Next week Americans will vote for candidates who have spent much of their campaigns addressing state and local issues. But no future historian will linger over the ideas put forth for improving schools or directing funds to highway projects.

The meaning of this election will be interpreted in one of two ways: the American people endorsed the Bush presidency or they did what they could to repudiate it. Such an interpretation will be simplistic, even unfairly so. Nevertheless, the fact that will matter is the raw number of Republicans and Democrats elected to the House and Senate.

It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.

As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the administration’s calculation—as the record suggests it was for several of his top aides—the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran’s hand in the Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel’s northern border, and the elimination of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony.

The war will continue as long as Bush is in office, for no other reason than the feckless president can’t face the embarrassment of admitting defeat. The chain of events is not complete: Bush, having learned little from his mistakes, may yet seek to embroil America in new wars against Iran and Syria.

Meanwhile, America’s image in the world, its capacity to persuade others that its interests are common interests, is lower than it has been in memory. All over the world people look at Bush and yearn for this country—which once symbolized hope and justice—to be humbled. The professionals in the Bush administration (and there are some) realize the damage his presidency has done to American prestige and diplomacy. But there is not much they can do.

There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.

We have no illusions that a Democratic majority would be able to reverse Bush’s policies, even if they had a plan to. We are aware that on a host of issues the Democrats are further from TAC’s positions than the Republicans are. The House members who blocked the Bush amnesty initiative are overwhelmingly Republican. But immigration has not played out in an entirely partisan manner this electoral season: in many races the Democrat has been more conservative than the open-borders, Big Business Republican. A Democratic House and Senate is, in our view, a risk immigration reformers should be willing to take. We can’t conceive of a newly elected Democrat in a swing district who would immediately alienate his constituency by voting for amnesty. We simply don’t believe a Democratic majority would give the Republicans such an easy route to return to power. Indeed, we anticipate that Democratic office holders will follow the polls on immigration just as Republicans have, and all the popular momentum is towards greater border enforcement.

On Nov. 7, the world will be watching as we go to the polls, seeking to ascertain whether the American people have the wisdom to try to correct a disastrous course. Posterity will note too if their collective decision is one that captured the attention of historians—that of a people voting, again and again, to endorse a leader taking a country in a catastrophic direction. The choice is in our hands.

Now thats what I call a "right" on analysis.

filtherton · 11-05-2006, 10:03 PM

Hey, everybody knows that iraq had weapons related program activities. Or was that program related weapons activities?

It is interesting that they're trotting this "info" out right before the election, though i can't imagine it will have much of an effect on anyone.

ratbastid · 11-06-2006, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

It is interesting that they're trotting this "info" out right before the election, though i can't imagine it will have much of an effect on anyone.

Trade "interesting" for "pathetic", and you've got my sentiments exactly. The desperation is dripping from these articles.

roachboy · 11-06-2006, 09:52 AM

and of such material is built the conservative ghost-narrative about iraq--the upside-down version in which everything is justified, saddam hussein has been sentenced, the linkage of iraq to the "war on terror" is functional...the sort of narrative that is mostly a kind of affective escape-hatch for the far right set--see? the narrative you want to see is still out there somewhere, just believe in the mask and pay no attention to the man behind it, believe the Picture and pay no attention to the messy reality it conceals.

conservative ideology at its most infantile.

mixedmedia · 11-06-2006, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by President Bush - August 21, 2006 White House Press Conference

You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060821.html

Anyone still staking their support for this war on the "search" for evidence of maybe, possibly, sorta, could have been WMDs has simply got their head up their ass.

ATTENTION RIGHT-WING SYCOPHANTS!

I know it hurts real deep, but he was lying to you, too. Welcome to the politics of neo-conservatism. They knew you wouldn't accept a war for something as vaguely humanitarian sounding as a "freedom agenda" so they made one up. Funny thing is, I like this war a little better...but frankly, the only thing not conspicuously specious about this "freedom agenda" is the "agenda" part. And looking at how they've fucked this war up from day one, I'm a little doubtful about that part, too.

Sorry to break the news to you all harsh-like, but Rove really should've sent ya'll a memo. Here, have a tissue.

11-06-2006, 09:52 AM	#6 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	and of such material is built the conservative ghost-narrative about iraq--the upside-down version in which everything is justified, saddam hussein has been sentenced, the linkage of iraq to the "war on terror" is functional...the sort of narrative that is mostly a kind of affective escape-hatch for the far right set--see? the narrative you want to see is still out there somewhere, just believe in the mask and pay no attention to the man behind it, believe the Picture and pay no attention to the messy reality it conceals. conservative ideology at its most infantile. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

11-05-2006, 10:03 PM	#4 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	Hey, everybody knows that iraq had weapons related program activities. Or was that program related weapons activities? It is interesting that they're trotting this "info" out right before the election, though i can't imagine it will have much of an effect on anyone.