Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt ...
By Frank Rich
The New York Times
Sunday 27 November 2005
George W. Bush is so desperate for allies that his hapless Asian tour took him to Ulan Bator, a first for an American president, so he could mingle with the yaks and give personal thanks for Mongolia's contribution of some 160 soldiers to "the coalition of the willing." Dick Cheney, whose honest-and-ethical poll number hit 29 percent in Newsweek's latest survey, is so radioactive that he vanished into his bunker for weeks at a time during the storms Katrina and Scootergate.
The whole world can see that both men are on the run. Just how much so became clear in the brace of nasty broadsides each delivered this month about Iraq. Neither man engaged the national debate ignited by John Murtha about how our troops might be best redeployed in a recalibrated battle against Islamic radicalism. Neither offered a plan for "victory." Instead, both impugned their critics' patriotism and retreated into the past to defend the origins of the war. In a seasonally appropriate impersonation of the misanthropic Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life," the vice president went so far as to label critics of the administration's prewar smoke screen both "dishonest and reprehensible" and "corrupt and shameless." He sounded but one epithet away from a defibrillator.
The Washington line has it that the motivation for the Bush-Cheney rage is the need to push back against opponents who have bloodied the White House in the polls. But, Mr. Murtha notwithstanding, the Democrats are too feeble to merit that strong a response. There is more going on here than politics.
Much more: each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.
The cover-up is failing, however. No matter how much the president and vice president raise their decibel levels, the truth keeps roaring out. A nearly 7,000-word investigation in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times found that Mr. Bush and his aides had "issued increasingly dire warnings" about Iraq's mobile biological weapons labs long after U.S. intelligence authorities were told by Germany's Federal Intelligence Service that the principal source for these warnings, an Iraqi defector in German custody code-named Curveball, "never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so." The five senior German intelligence officials who spoke to The Times said they were aghast that such long-discredited misinformation from a suspected fabricator turned up in Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations and in the president's 2003 State of the Union address (where it shared billing with the equally bogus 16 words about Saddam's fictitious African uranium).
So what are you saying? Op/Ed=False? Get real.Originally posted by KCConservative:
Oh look, another Op/Ed hate piece.
Billo_Really said:So what are you saying? Op/Ed=False? Get real.
This is not about being good or bad. But it is wrong to think I am trying to put words in your mouth by my reaction to your curt response. The possibility exists that if I could not comprehend what your point was, maybe you were not as succinct as you could be. You see, your response did not address anything the poster was saying. You just blew it off as just another hate Bush piece. As if that was some kind of logical response. Well, it wasn't. It was very illogical. And irrational I might add. I'm sure the poster didn't say that just because of Bush hate. Maybe there are reasons for hating Bush. Maybe you should listen to them before being so reactionary.Originally posted by KCConservative:
Not at all. And leave it to you to try and put words in my mouth. No, since you weren't able to comprehend it, I'll restate it, just for you.
Oh look, Billo has copied and pasted another OPINION PIECE in hopes of running up his Bush Hate Post Count. Are Op/Ed pieces true? Are they false? It's really just the writers own opinion, isn't it?
Is that better, Williamo?
Billo_Really said:Maybe there are reasons for hating Bush. Maybe you should listen to them before being so reactionary.
Who's Frank Rich?Originally posted by KCConservative:
Yeah, because we never hear it here, do we? There isn't nearly enough Bush bashing on this forum. Thank God for Frank Rich. He finally has written a Bush Bashing piece. Gee, what took him so long?
Looks like somebody hasn't read the link.Billo_Really said:Who's Frank Rich?
No, I haven't.Originally posted by KCConservative:
Looks like somebody hasn't read the link.
Then you really don't have any room to debate it, in my opinion. To use your own words: "Maybe there are reasons for hating <Frank Rich>. Maybe you should listen to them before being so reactionary."Billo_Really said:No, I haven't.
We weren't debating the content of the link. We were discussing why you blew it off as just another hate Bush piece. However, if you would like to discuss its contents, I'm ready to go.Originally posted by KCConservative:
Then you really don't have any room to debate it, in my opinion. To use your own words: "Maybe there are reasons for hating <Frank Rich>. Maybe you should listen to them before being so reactionary."
Billo_Really said:Who's Frank Rich?
He doesn't work for truthout.org. He works for the New York Times. And it's not hard to get to the meat at all if you have an open mind and are receptive to the information being presented. Despite what Norman says or the tripe you think it is, it doesn't take away from the facts he is presenting in his Opinion Editorial.Originally posted by akyron:
Another truthout pimp/pundit trying to make a buck like all the others. Norman Solomon tore him a new one not long ago for the fun of it. He isnt any better.. It hard to wade through their tripe to get to the meat of any matter.
That has nothing to do with what he said. Care to discuss the points he is raising? What are you afraid of?Originally posted by Wrath:
Why wouldn't someone consider this Frank Rich op/ed just another hate Bush rant? Considering the fact that he's written countless other Bush bashing pieces along with some wife and kids bashing to boot. Unless you can never get enough hate Bush rhetoric in your op/eds (obviously not including rabid leftists here) then this IS Just - Another - Hate - Bush - rant!
Billo_Really said:That has nothing to do with what he said. Care to discuss the points he is raising? What are you afraid of?
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.Originally posted by Wrath:
Why would anyone fear opinion? His opinions place no more light on the truth than yours or mine...yes?
He covers the whole spectrum of Hate Bush rhetoric so I'll just pick a few.
- Bush and Cheney are on the run -
Says who? Rich? From what? The World? Pass this off as fact and I'll sell ya some great property in the Arctic Ocean.
- More Bush lied about WMDs rhetoric -
again, PROVE IT and start impeachment proceedings or STFU!
- Bush exaggerates Iraqi troop readiness -
Really? opinion or does he have some inside sources that he's not willing to name or provide us with concrete proof?
Same Ol' $hit! wrapped in another bash Bush op piece. YAWN
Ahh, a typical example of a leftist feeding off his own superiority complex. So comical and yet....so sad.Billo_Really said:When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
No spin. Just fact. Not superior. I just don't lie to myself as much as you do. Your only going to see what you want to see. You don't have an open mind on this issue. In fact, your mind is already made up and you are not receptive to anything that doesn't agree with your pre-disposition. And that is sad.Originally posted by wrath:
Ahh, a typical example of a leftist feeding off his own superiority complex. So comical and yet....so sad.
But please.....spin away!
wrath said:Why would anyone fear opinion? His opinions place no more light on the truth than yours or mine...yes?
He covers the whole spectrum of Hate Bush rhetoric so I'll just pick a few.
- Bush and Cheney are on the run -
Says who? Rich? From what? The World? Pass this off as fact and I'll sell ya some great property in the Arctic Ocean.
- More Bush lied about WMDs rhetoric -
again, PROVE IT and start impeachment proceedings or STFU!
- Bush exaggerates Iraqi troop readiness -
Really? opinion or does he have some inside sources that he's not willing to name or provide us with concrete proof?
Same Ol' $hit! wrapped in another bash Bush op piece. YAWN
aquapub said:My personal favorite of all the nauseating, mindless personal attacks was this one:
"Neither man engaged the national debate ignited by John Murtha about how our troops might be best redeployed in a recalibrated battle against Islamic radicalism. Neither offered a plan for "victory." Instead, both impugned their critics' patriotism and retreated into the past to defend the origins of the war."
President Bush has had the plan laid out numerous times. Even Democrats should be able to get it by now. We are rebuilding the schools, institutions, reconstructing a functional government and uprooting terrorists. When those jobs are done, we will leave. MURTHA'S suggestion was childish, destructive, and unreasonable. We can't just pull everything out now. Murtha knows this. Murtha was attacking the president, not "engaging in the national debate."
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