Make that the Nixon/Clinton/GWB parallel. Throw in the Gulf of Tonkin incident and we can bring LBJ to the party. Throw in the Iran/Contra affair and make way for Reagan and Bush Sr.. Pitiful as it seems, this leaves Carter as the last President standing in recent memory.
yeah well no one died when Clinton and Nixon lied. hey basso I like the sig! Did you see the show recently?
Didn't Nixon operatives have a hit list? I vaguely recall some such, even though it was not a likely avenue Nixon would have pursued domestically.
From today's WaPo Downing Street Memo Watch A potpourri of Downing Street Memo items: Philippe Naughton writes from London in the Times Online: "It is not that often, we have to admit, that an item posted one night on Times Online is still getting hundreds of thousands of hits six weeks later, especially when what bloggers like to call 'the mainstream media' have largely ignored its existence. "But that is what happened to the now infamous secret Downing Street memo, posted on the site on May 1 alongside a story by Michael Smith of The Sunday Times. And if the document has taken on a life of its own it is largely because of the bloggers and their web-savvy allies on the US Left." A red-state paper that endorsed Bush comes out for disclosure. Here's today's Houston Chronicle editorial : "Intelligence agents' observations can be inaccurate. The head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, erroneously thought the case for Iraqi WMD was a slam dunk. But the Downing Street memo accurately foresees the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the administration's attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction -- links that were found after the invasion not to exist. The memo's observation that U.S. intelligence would be shaped to policy might be mistaken, but the administration did wind up using flawed analysis to justify its war policy to the American people. . . . "In the interest of the nation and the administration, the source and content of the Downing Street Memo need to be fully explained." Former New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent tells Terrence Smith on PBS that he is convinced that the American media is pursuing other stories on the memo. "My . . . thought is that something is coming, that it is a story that calls for a great deal of reporting, and sometimes the absence of something in the newspaper doesn't mean that it's not being reported, but they're waiting until they have it right. I hope that's the case. "TERENCE SMITH: Do you have any evidence that it is? "DANIEL OKRENT: No." Allegre , who keeps a diary on the liberal Daily Kos blog, reprints the e-mail she got in reply to her note about the Downing Street memo from John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for Knight Ridder newspapers: Writes Walcott: "Knight Ridder was, in fact, the first American news organization (more than a week before our local paper here in Washington) to write about the Downing Street memo and the light it shed on the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. "And almost six months before the memo was written, in early February 2002, we reported that the President had decided to oust Saddam Hussein and ordered his advisors to begin preparing plans for doing so. To read this and all our other Iraq coverage (we were the only news organization to consistently challenge the administration's assertions about Iraq's WMD programs and ties to al Qaida, go to http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/ and click on the Iraq intelligence and preparations for war buttons. Please feel free to share that link with anyone else you think might be interested." Also on the Daily Kos blog, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), author of this petition , writes: "[O]n Thursday, a week from today, I will be holding a hearing with my Democratic colleagues to begin to hear evidence about the [Downing Street Memo]. We will have a number of witnesses, including Joe Wilson, who frequent readers here already know is a WMD expert and former Ambassador; Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA analyst; Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq; and John Bonifaz, a renowned Constitutional attorney. At the conclusion of the hearing, we will go to Lafayette Park and I will personally deliver your signatures to the White House. "This hearing is just one step in an investigation that I am commencing that will literally span the Atlantic. I am in touch with British officials and former U.S. intelligence officials and I am determined to get to the truth." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/10/BL2005061001224_4.html
From today's Houston Chronicle editorial page MEMORANDUM OF INTENT The Bush administration should explain why Americans should not be disturbed by a secret British memo on the runup to the Iraq War Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Weeks after it dominated front pages in Europe, the so-called Downing Street Memo finally has bored its way into the U.S. press. The 2002 document describes comments by Britain's intelligence chief, Richard Dearlove, concerning talks with U.S. officials eight months before the invasion of Iraq. Identifying Dearlove as "C," the leaked memo summarizes his report: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Intelligence agents' observations can be inaccurate. The head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, erroneously thought the case for Iraqi WMD was a slam dunk. But the Downing Street memo accurately foresees the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the administration's attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction — links that were found after the invasion not to exist. The memo's observation that U.S. intelligence would be shaped to policy might be mistaken, but the administration did wind up using flawed analysis to justify its war policy to the American people. An independent panel investigated the use of U.S. intelligence before the Iraq War. It concluded that President Bush and his administration did not manipulate the intelligence. The panel supported the administration's claim that it relied on faulty intelligence. In a Tuesday press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush responded directly to the Downing Street Memo's content for the first time, saying, "there's nothing further than the truth." He added that his administration had worked hard to avoid sending troops to war. "Nobody," Bush said, "wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option." Like Blair, Bush reasonably points out that Saddam would never have changed his spots and, left to his own devices, would have endangered his neighbors and U.S. interests. But that argument, absent WMD and terrorist ties, was not what moved Congress to authorize military action. In the interest of the nation and the administration, the source and content of the Downing Street Memo need to be fully explained. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/3219162
Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’ Michael Smith MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal. This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action. “US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”. The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times. The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult. “It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed. The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003. The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it. There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media. The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington. The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”. John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to “manufacture” the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war. He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme. Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have set up a website — www.downingstreetmemo.com — to collect signatures on a petition demanding the same answers. Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000 signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the White House on Thursday. AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether Bush’s actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for impeachment. It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have attracted more than 1m hits a day. Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550) to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo’s contents, although the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware of the reward and has no intention of claiming it. The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes have received from their organisations. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html
Of course that was based on the evidence they had at the time. Now that reliable evidence has come out that says otherwise who knows what they would have found.
If the aboved named Presidents turn out in the end to be the bad guys who helped bring about the globalization and destruction of this republic (The United States of America) we are one group of blind-sheep, lazy, complacent, materialistic, self centered, me-first citizens. Why do we harp about one party or the other while the nation goes down the drain? The way Republicans and Democrats have been solving all our problems for the last 75 yrs. we shouldn't have any problems left to solve. But we are about 26 trillion dollars in debt as a nation and the paper currency is under increased pressure to inflate like a wild fire, and most households need more than two wage earners now days to even survive and personal debt is the highest it has ever been. Being neck deep in Iraq and blustering about Iran and North Korea just make me glad the politicians have everything under control.
Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’ Michael Smith http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal. This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action. “US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”. The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times. The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult. “It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed. The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003. The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it. There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media. The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington. The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”. John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to “manufacture” the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war. He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme. Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have set up a website — www.downingstreetmemo.com — to collect signatures on a petition demanding the same answers. Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000 signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the White House on Thursday. AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether Bush’s actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for impeachment. It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have attracted more than 1m hits a day. Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550) to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo’s contents, although the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware of the reward and has no intention of claiming it. The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes have received from their organisations.
more and more British internal memos are poping up They clearly show Bush was commited to war with Iraq at the same time he was publicly saying he wasn't. They also show that Bush was using the UN to go to war, not using the UN to avoid war like he and Blair have claimed. If lying about a blow job is impeachable, what is lying about war? Read them for yourself and decide http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Iraq_options_paper_Full__0613.html http://rawstory.com/news/2005/A_mon...ary_Straw_says_case_for_Iraq_is_wea_0613.html http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Iraq_The_British_legal_backg_0613.html http://rawstory.com/news/2005/The_t..._is_not_the_pace_of_Saddams_WMD_pro_0613.html http://rawstory.com/news/2005/The_need_to_wrongfoot_Saddam_on_the_inspect_0613.html
If lying about a blow job is impeachable, what is lying about war? Aw shucks. He wasn't lying-- just spinning like all politicians do. Besides, how do you really know the liberal media was quoting him corectly when he said he was still making up his mind? Besides it is always possible that President Bush misspoke as he sometimes does. Also it is always possible that he later corrected this statement and you and the liberal media didn't report this either. Also, you can't be sure that he hadn't absolutely totally made up his mind under all circumstances. It was always possible that, and the President could not have absolutely been sure that: Sadam would not have renounced his position so that Chalabi could be President and Prime Minister of Iraq; and that Chalbi would then recognize Israel and build an oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel as he promised the neocons, and they could get rid of oil the contracts with Russia, France, Germany etc give them to American and British companies; and they could ban all cell phones not on US controlled networks; and they could use their oil money to build permanent US military bases in Iraq as the neocons hinted etc. Then Bush would not have started a war with Iraq; so therefore he wasn't necessarily sure he would invade Iraq and therefore was not telling a lie, Y'all are just a bunch of partisan Democrats, so that is why you think President Bush was lying, and you can't actually prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had absoutely made up his mind under all circumstances. Fair minded, neutral people like us can see that it might have just been an innocent mistake or a failure to provide sufficient detail about how the President as a man of peace was still hoping to avoid war.
