FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

Armchair_QB · May 21, 2013

3_Octave_Fart said:

If one cannot accept fact and evidence staring them square in the eyes, that person is something worse than a liar.
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I was probably too hard on Baron. It's entirely possible he's just an idiot.

Riptide · May 21, 2013

Also from foreignpolicy.com:

No, They Can’t
Why American presidents always disappoint us.

BY AARON DAVID MILLER | MAY 20, 2013

Six months after winning an impressive reelection, Barack Obama finds himself in some kind of trouble -- battered by semi-scandals and bombarded by foreign policy challenges he can't possibly manage.

Long gone are the hopes and aspirations expressed on the National Mall that historic January day when his supporters hoped -- and his detractors feared -- that he would become a truly transformational president. It turns out that restoring Americans' faith in their nation's institutions and transcending the partisan rancor of recent years is easier said than done.

Ask me to sum up Obama's presidency in mid-2013, and here's what I'd say: He has been a historic but flawed president who managed to end America's two longest wars and helped the country avoid economic collapse during some pretty scary times. Consequential, yes. Great, no.

Obama could yet recover from this bad patch. Fortunes can change quickly, particularly over the short span of one term. And judgments of a president's legacy can also change significantly over time -- though that hasn't been the case for most of Obama's 43 predecessors.

Americans are pretty slow learners when it comes to their presidents. We've long expected far too much when it comes to presidential performance. And we won't give up the search for The One -- that brave, virtuous leader of uncommon principle and political know-how -- easily. ...

You want another great president, pray for another great crisis. Only nation-encumbering calamity tames our political system, making elites and the public receptive to allowing a president to lead America the Unruly.

http://atfp.co/17VKRFz

BenPoquette · May 21, 2013

Riptide said:

Also from foreignpolicy.com:

No, They Can’t
Why American presidents always disappoint us.

BY AARON DAVID MILLER | MAY 20, 2013

Six months after winning an impressive reelection, Barack Obama finds himself in some kind of trouble -- battered by semi-scandals and bombarded by foreign policy challenges he can't possibly manage.

Long gone are the hopes and aspirations expressed on the National Mall that historic January day when his supporters hoped -- and his detractors feared -- that he would become a truly transformational president. It turns out that restoring Americans' faith in their nation's institutions and transcending the partisan rancor of recent years is easier said than done.

Ask me to sum up Obama's presidency in mid-2013, and here's what I'd say: He has been a historic but flawed president who managed to end America's two longest wars and helped the country avoid economic collapse during some pretty scary times. Consequential, yes. Great, no.

Obama could yet recover from this bad patch. Fortunes can change quickly, particularly over the short span of one term. And judgments of a president's legacy can also change significantly over time -- though that hasn't been the case for most of Obama's 43 predecessors.

Americans are pretty slow learners when it comes to their presidents. We've long expected far too much when it comes to presidential performance. And we won't give up the search for The One -- that brave, virtuous leader of uncommon principle and political know-how -- easily. ...

You want another great president, pray for another great crisis. Only nation-encumbering calamity tames our political system, making elites and the public receptive to allowing a president to lead America the Unruly.

http://atfp.co/17VKRFz
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Wait a minute, are you finally facing up to some kind of truth?

Riptide · May 21, 2013

BenPoquette said:

Wait a minute, are you finally facing up to some kind of truth?
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Fuck off, Butters. I have a much more open mind than you can ever hope to comprehend.

Baron Scicluna · May 21, 2013

Armchair_QB said:

Baron, none of those statements were lies. The liberal trash did everything in their power to make them appear to be lies but, much like their attempts to fix Florida in 2000, they failed miserably.

And, as usual, Ben has made you look like the fool you are. Only a complete left wing fuckwit like yourself would believe the Dems could have impeached Bush on what they had but only let him go out of the goodness of their hearts. L. O. L.

Now run along and leave this thread to the adults little man.
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President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell,
and National Security Advisor Rice repeatedly made misleading statements about
the threat posed by Iraq. They made these statements in 125 separate public
appearances. The total number of misleading statements made by the five
officials is 237.

The 237 misleading statements were made in a variety of forums. On 53
occasions, the five officials gave interviews in which they made claims that were
misleading. They also made misleading statements in 40 speeches, 26 press
conferences and briefings, 4 written statements and articles, and 2 appearances
before Congress.
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Vice President Cheney made perhaps the single most egregious statement about
Iraq’s nuclear capabilities, claiming: “we know he has been absolutely devoted to
trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted
nuclear weapons.”20 He made this statement just three days before the war. He
did not admit until September 14, 2003, that his statement was wrong and that he
“did misspeak.”21
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http://web.archive.org/web/20060514140012/http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108_2/pdfs_inves/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.pdf

237 misleading statements. Not just 1 or 2 or 3 about videos.

I'd say that you may commence your cursing and name-calling like the 12-year-old that you are, but you've already done so.

Riptide · May 21, 2013

So the point is this:
We haven't had a great president in decades.
But nobody was allowed to criticize Bush because PATRIOTS.
But now it's OK to attack Obama because PATRIOTS.

When the problem that never gets fixed is CONGRESS.

Riptide · May 21, 2013

3_Octave_Fart said:

I told you not to talk to him that way.
I'm not going to tell you again.
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Oooo, spank me, you dirty girl.

Baron Scicluna · May 21, 2013

doctorquant said:

The fact is that only the most slobbering of Obamaphiles would suggest that those links make a compelling case that President Bush "lied" in the run-up to the Iraq war. As Baron is our resident MObPhi*, we should not be surprised that he treats this hackery as evidence that is indisputable. Nevertheless, anyone with a modicum of intellectual maturity/honesty would note that, while President Bush's case for the Iraq war did turn out to be flawed, history is full of instances in which consequential decisions are made for the wrong reasons. Indeed, if President Bush is to be called a liar for the Iraq War, then President Roosevelt could fairly be considered a traitor for being duped by the Japanese in the days prior to Pearl Harbor.

A clearer-headed view of the run-up to the Iraq war is, I believe, presented by this author (who, I might note, served both Presidents Clinton and Bush 43) :
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/17/a_decade_later_and_the_iraq_debate_is_still_contaminated_with_myths:

I have addressed this myth before. It is a staple of the anti-Iraq/anti-Bush commentary -- and not just of the pseudonymous trolls in blog comment sections. John Mearsheimer, one of the most influential security studies academics, has written a book built around the claim that leaders regularly lie and that Bush in particular lied about Iraq. Mearsheimer claims "four key lies," each one carefully rebutted by Mel Leffler.

The first is the question of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. As I noted above, while the Iraq files contain no "smoking gun" of an active operational link, the record includes ample evidence of overtures originating from either side -- each pursuing precisely the kind of enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend alliance of convenience that Bush worried about.
The second is the Bush administration statements of certainty about Iraq's WMD programs. It turns out the Bush administration officials were wrong on many of those particulars and should have been less certain about how they were reading the intelligence, but there is no compelling evidence that they knew they were reading the intelligence incorrectly, which is what is logically required to prove the charge of "lying" rather than being "mistaken."
The third is the charge that Bush claimed Saddam was behind the attacks of 9/11. Here Mearsheimer ignores the explicit and repeated explanation by President Bush (and countless administration figures) about what they meant -- namely that the links they saw were (i) how 9/11 had changed their risk calculus and (ii) how terrorist groups and states sponsors of terror should be treated as part and parcel of the same war. Again, the Bush administration may or may not have been wrong to view things that way but these are disputes of reasoning and policy, not fact.
The fourth is the charge that Bush "lied" about sincerely pursuing a diplomatic solution short of war in 2002-2003. In fact, Bush was committed to a final resolution of WMD issue, which he believed would require either abject capitulation by Hussein or forcible regime change. Bush was not open to a wide range of face-saving and half-way diplomatic measures, but he never claimed to be. In other words, Bush was not willing to accept diplomatic solutions that others might have accepted, but he did go to great lengths to secure the diplomatic solution he was willing to accept but Saddam was not.
When one examines the historical record more fairly, as Leffler does, the "lying" myth collapses. This doesn't absolve the Bush administration of blame, but it does mean that those who allege "lying" are themselves as mistaken as are the targets of their critique.
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*Master of Obama-Philism
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The "Phase II" report states -- in terms clearer than any previous government publication -- that there was no operational relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, that Bush officials were not truthful about the difficulties the United States would face in post-war Iraq and that their public statements did not reflect intelligence they had at the time, and, specifically, that the intelligence community would not confirm any meeting between Iraqi officials and Mohamed Atta -- a claim that was nevertheless publicly repeated.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/05/divided-senate-committee_n_105374.html

Mistakes. Over, and over, and over, and over again. 237 times.

THis part also is fun:

how terrorist groups and states sponsors of terror should be treated as part and parcel of the same war.
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Typical of a guy who didn't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.

The White House, for example, ignored evidence gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors shortly before the war that disproved Curveball's account. Bush and his aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq's biological weapons before the war even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed in two years.

At the Central Intelligence Agency, officials embraced Curveball's account even though they could not confirm it or interview him until a year after the invasion. They ignored multiple warnings about his reliability before the war, punished in-house critics who provided proof that he had lied and refused to admit error until May 2004, 14 months after the invasion.

After the CIA vouched for Curveball's accounts, Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had "mobile biological weapons labs" designed to produce "germ warfare agents." Bush cited the mobile germ factories in at least four prewar speeches and statements, and other world leaders repeated the charge.

Powell also highlighted Curveball's "eyewitness" account when he warned the United Nations Security Council on the eve of war that Iraq's mobile labs could brew enough weapons-grade microbes "in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people."

The senior BND officer who supervised Curveball's case said he was aghast when he watched Powell misstate Curveball's claims as a justification for war.

"We were shocked," the official said. "Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven.... It was not hard intelligence."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-curveball20nov20,0,7743996.story

Speaking of having his fingers in his ears and chanting, "LA LA LA LA LA"

Armchair_QB · May 21, 2013

So where is the impeachable offense? For that matter, where are the lies?

Oh, and you've got some of Obama's jizz on your chin.

Baron Scicluna · May 22, 2013

Armchair_QB said:

So where is the impeachable offense? For that matter, where are the lies?

Oh, and you've got some of Obama's jizz on your chin.
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High Crimes and Misdemeanors

As can be found in[2] historical references of the period, the phrase in its original meaning is interpreted as "for whatever reason whatsoever". High indicates a type of very serious crime, and misdemeanors indicates crimes that are minor. Therefore this phrase covers all or any crime that abuses office. Benjamin Franklin asserted that the power of impeachment and removal was necessary for those times when the Executive "rendered himself obnoxious," and the Constitution should provide for the "regular punishment of the Executive when his conduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused."

The very difficult case of impeaching someone in the House of Representatives and removing that person in the Senate by a vote of two-thirds majority in the Senate was meant to be the check to balance against efforts to easily remove people from office for minor reasons that could easily be determined by the standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors". It was George Mason who offered up the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" as one of the criteria to remove public officials who abuse their office. Their original intentions can be gleaned by the phrases and words that were proposed before, such as "high misdemeanor", "maladministration", or "other crime". Edmund Randolf said impeachment should be reserved for those who "misbehave". Cotesworth Pinkney said, It should be reserved "...for those who behave amiss, or betray their public trust." As can be seen from all these references to the term "high crimes and misdemeanors", there is no concrete definition for the term, except to allow people to remove an official for office for subjective reasons entirely.

Alexander Hamilton said, "...those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanours

EDIT: My original post didn't paste in this part, which occurred after O_T posted.

old_tony · May 22, 2013

Baron Scicluna said:

Armchair_QB said:

So where is the impeachable offense? For that matter, where are the lies?

Oh, and you've got some of Obama's jizz on your chin.
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High Crimes and Misdemeanors
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None of which you've even come close to demonstrating with your opinion pieces and mis-statements from unnamed sources.

BenPoquette · May 22, 2013

old_tony said:

Baron Scicluna said:

Armchair_QB said:

So where is the impeachable offense? For that matter, where are the lies?

Oh, and you've got some of Obama's jizz on your chin.
Click to expand...

High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Click to expand...

None of which you've even come close to demonstrating with your opinion pieces and mis-statements from unnamed sources.
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He tap dances around truth like Gene Kelly...and he spouts worthless numbers like Rain Man.

Meanwhile, this decade, the head of the IRS is going to invoke the Fifth Amendment. He doesn't want to talk about that for some reason.

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