Another Un-American speak outs, those damn liberal who think they know better
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/08/14/...lark/index.html


[Thread title modified for clarity. - Outsports moderator]

[ August 17, 2003, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: m1 ]

What a commie/liberal pinko...
He should really "move to Sweden" or maybe France or Canada
How dare this 4star general not wrap himself in Bush's "merican" flag...

he's from Arkansas. Clinton is from Arkansas. You do the math.

He's probably one of Hillary love slaves

Why is it "un-American" to express a view that opposes an action taken by the President? I thought that Free Speech was pretty patriotic.

Even the administration has admitted that they were not prepared for the "peace" in Iraq, the responsibilities and duties that come from occupying a country after victory in war. Part of the problem for lack of preparation was the speed at which we attacked Iraq, and the speed of the war may or may not have been necessary. Attacking Iraq may or may not have been in the best interests of the United States. Right now, the failure to find many Al Quaeda and any WMDs show that we didn't have to hurry to war. If we had the rest of the world's support we may not have the problems that we are now having in Iraq.

People can disagree with and oppose the views of others without assuming that they are unpatriotic. Those who criticize actions the government has taken may be wrong, but they are no less American. That is democracy.

Wow, man, I've never thought of it that way. It's so heartwarming to see someone go out on a limb and take a bold and courageous stand for such controversial ideas as democracy and free speech. That's so brave of you, and so original.

So why don't you guys freak out when Democrats call President Bush and Republicans un-American? They do it all the time, but I don't hear these anguished pleas for free speech and tolerance for dissent.

And one more thing: Wesley Clark is basically running for vice-President, and therefore anything he says must be considered in terms of how saying it benefits him politically.

And another thing: Having served in the military does NOT make you perfect or more trustworthy. One of the DC snipers was in the military. Wasn't Timothy McVeigh in the military? I suppose you guys would thus give more weight to their views on white supremacy or target practice because hey, they served in the military, so they know what they're talking about. I thought it was conservatives who were supposed to have the military fetish, but when it suits your purposes, you lefties just can't get all hot and bothered enough by a man in uniform. Maybe it makes you feel better about your squishy positions, I don't know. I don't really need that sort of justification for my beliefs, but that's just me.

[ August 14, 2003, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: William1865 ]

But with Free Speech, people are free to say that dissenters of Bush are unpatriotic or "un-American." They're even free to say they should shut up, even if it sounds hypocritical. Just lots of Free Speech going on as usual.

bballrob.. you are correct
William1865 thank you again for making my point

But p2, you're the one who said Clark is un-American or what not.

Ah william1865 to quote you"By the way, my "don't question my patriotism," "personal destruction" and "uniter not divider" posts were tongue-in-cheek - I was just posting trite cliches to see how many times I could get the p2insdca guy to get all indignant and respond. I guess he caught on to the last one..."

Yes, but a) my trite cliches were funnier and more obviously sarcastic, and when ronball or whoever seemed to sort of blast you for calling dissenters un-American you said he was right, but you never told him you were joking, so I wasn't sure if you knew you were joking. Just wanted you to clarify that for everyone, and you did, so thanks! My post worked....

Thrn William1865, thanks for the assist..

In another thread, p2insdca posted:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/08/17/...ents/index.html
Two points that I really agree with are:
"When our airmen were flying over Kosovo, Tom DeLay led House Republicans to vote not to support their activities -- when American troops were in combat," Clark said. "To me, that's a real indicator of a man who's motivated not by patriotism or support for the troops but by partisan political purposes
and:
Clark, a retired Army general, said more than half of the Army's deployable strength is committed to stabilizing Iraq, where American and allied soldiers face continuing attacks four months after Saddam Hussein's government collapsed.

"We've made America more engaged, more vulnerable, more committed [and] less able to respond," he said. "We've lost a tremendous amount of goodwill around the world by our actions and our continuing refusal to bring in international institutions."

That was before Ashcrack suspended the Bill of Rights in the name of homeland security.

BTW I was kidding .... I respect General Clark.

But Ashcrackpot is now traveling around the country shilling for his Soviet Bloc-style privacy-violating laws. He's claiming they've made us safer. What a joke. We can't even prevent a utility company's failures in Ohio from shutting down the financial capital of the United States and Canada's capital AND its largest city!

And, as Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill notes, W.'s policies in Iraq very well may be breeding terrorists.

In another thread, theodoresdaddy posted:

does anyone know anything about his stand on gay issues?


p2insdca replied:

My understanding is he feels don't ask do tell has failed, time to embrace gays.
Also I thought I heard he has a gay offspring, but not sure...

thanks for adding my post to the thread

Wow. That is so sad. And the Middle East was such a peaceful region up to now.

The sarcasm level was at Code Orange in the above post -- just in case.

The "Blame America First" faction is large and in charge in the "progressive" movement. Hey ... did she also say that Franklin Roosevelt caused the Holocaust by standing up to Hitler? It's all that damn bastard Thomas Jefferson's fault, I tell ya, for his conspiracy with George Washington and the Adams Family, starting up this whole evil empire of a country that's only capable of fomenting bad.

CITT,
I think even people on the right who are loathed to speak ill of thier demi-god Bush have to admit that the situation in Iraq has the potential to become a breeding ground. Again OBL ( and NO I am not defending him) declared his war on the US because of troops stationed in the land of Mecca.
I think we must be aware of potential reactions based on how peoples brains are wired over there.

William1865 wrote, "And another thing: Having served in the military does NOT make you perfect or more trustworthy. One of the DC snipers was in the military. Wasn't Timothy McVeigh in the military?"

Let me break out my cutting shears for this one.
* DC sniper and McVeigh - enlisted men.
* Clark - rose all the way up to General. I believe that the military can do a better job that we on determining who is "trustworthy" enough to move them all the way up to General. A person's background and job performance goes under a microscope before he/she could even be considered to move that high.
Using the McVeigh/DC sniper analogy is irrelevant.

And once a military man retires, he's free to speak his mind. If Clark disagrees with the Iraq policy, he's free to do so. This is still America.

Getting back to Wesley Clark. This guy's a whack-job who's starting to veer off into tinfoil helmet territory. Check out this story: Clark Alleges White House Pushed CNN to Fire Him.

According to the article (available from more sources than just FoxNews), Clark said: CNN, no friend of the Bush administration, gets pressure to fire Clark, and yet they don't feel it's newsworthy enough to report? Yeah. Uh-huh.

This is the second time Clark's been caught red-handed playing fast and loose with facts regarding the White House. Apparently, he told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that the White House pressured him to link Saddam Hussein with 9-11. When later pressed by Sean Hannity on FoxNews, Clark then said it was "a fellow in Canada who is part of a Middle Eastern think tank who gets inside intelligence information." He declined to name "his sources." If there's some guy at a think tank ... in Canada ... who gets inside info ... wouldn't a true patriot have a duty to expose the guy? Now, Clark is just saying that it was a man at a "Middle East think tank" in Canada who told him to link Saddam and 9-11. No White House connection now. And he still declines to name his source ... as if he were a journalist instead of a presidential/vice presidential candidate. (For a full story on this fib, check out \"Drafting General Clark\" on the Weekly Standard website.)

Maybe Clark was an adequate general in a limited role. He's now actively campaigning for the Vice President slot on the Dean ticket. Now, I disagree with Howard Dean. I don't like Dean's stands on many issue and I don't think he's being honest with the public. But he's a sane rational human being, regardless of his qualifications for political office. Clark is a nutcase. He's either hearing voices from imaginary friends at a "middle Eastern think tank in Canada." Or he's a self-aggrandizing liar. I'm not comfortable with either.

[ August 26, 2003, 06:38 PM: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]

CITT, I'm not inclined to disagree with you. Clark did the job as one would expect while he served. He still couldn't have gotten there without being scutinized. Now, whether he's turned into a wingnut after the fact is open to interpretation.
I just find it ridiculous that anyone would make a comparison between McVeigh and a friggin General of the Army.
And I do agree that there are no doubt some things being stated by the man with the end-game in mind. I just happen to believe he has a right to say whatever he feels like after his military career, whether self-serving political rhetoric or genuine beliefs.

I am by no means a supporter of the Bush regime/administration and would welcome any news or developments that would reveal them for who they are (proxies for the international oil companies ... traitors, if you will) but General Clark seems to have a little of Ross Perot in him: equal parts of crazy and of intelligence.

Since Brit and Fox News (Wholly Without Merit) were pounding on the Clark/CNN thing today it would appear that perhaps word has come down that any Clark run for the presidency must be discredited before it gets started. On Brit's show today you had pundits calling him all sorts of things like megalomaniac. I personally wouldn't mind seeing a four star general vs. AWOL Texas National Guard race.

[ August 27, 2003, 01:09 AM: Message edited by: shawnq ]

You must be hearing the same voices that Clark is hearing. Brit Hume played actual recordings of Clark's looney conspiracy theories being spun publicly. It wasn't just Fox saying it happened.

Interesting that you have not addressed the merits of the argument as to whether it is presidential - or vice presidential as this case may be - for someone to be spouting off these conspiracy theories without any basis in reality or fact. ("The White House pressured me to link 9-11 and Saddam" and "The White House pressured CNN to fire because they knew I would speak out against the War") Instead, you attack the messenger, as if that's a counter-argument. You won't defend Clark on his statements because you can't, can you?

When someone points out the legitimate flaws of a political candidate - and Clark is clearly running for an office here - that's more than just a sinister campaign to "discredit" someone. Add that to the reports that Bill Clinton and his Defense Secretary apparently felt compelled to fire this guy from his position with NATO ...

And the comparisons with Ross Perot are looking dead on.

Do you get a thrill tossing off references to Hitler and the Holocaust? I notice that you've done this more than once, and it's really offensive. REALLY OFFENSIVE. Linking Hitler and Saddam may be fashionable and du jour among the far right (just as fashionable as their obliviousness about Reagan's and Bush I's coddling of Saddam and the inaction when Saddam outright decimated the Shi'ites while W's father sat by and did nothing), but really, it dishonors the millions who were slaughtered from 1933-1945. Before you throw out another snide reference to the Holocaust, just think a bit, okay?

Actually, I think the comparisons between Hitler and Saddam are completely appropriate. The Ba'athists are lineal descendants of the Nazis. The Ba'ath party of Iraq was imported from Syria, where the party was set up under the Vichy government of Nazi-occupied France. Vichy France was the occupying colonial power running Syria. Thus, the Ba'athists = Nazis. It's not an exaggeration or hyperbole or rhetorical gamesmanship. It's reality.

Second, there was a Holocaust in Iraq. Just ask the Kurds in those mass graves. Just asked the Marsh Arabs living in the drained wetlands. Just ask the Shi'a. That was mass-murder and, in terms of relative populations, perfectly appropriate to analogize to Hitler's Germany. (Just like it is appropriate to analogize the killing fields of Pol Pot's Cambodia to the Stalinist murders in the 1930s Soviet Union.)

I think you're uncomfortable with the Hitler analogy because it forces the Left to confront the whole notion of refusing to stand up to a great evil. You're afraid that the "progressive" Left is being cast into the role of Neville Chamberlain in this whole affair. And you know what? You do have something to fear. The leftwing of the Democratic party, and a great part of the E.U., were pure spineless Chamberlainesque appeasers, good people willing to let evil triumph by doing nothing.

You can argue that Reagan and Bush armed Saddam. You conveniently omit the roles of France, Germany and, to a lesser degree, Jimmy Carter, in creating, arming and supporting Saddam, but so be it. FDR did not invade Germany the day after Kristallnacht. President George W. Bush's administration recognized that a modern re-incarnation of Naziism was functioning in Iraq and was on the verge of re-unleashing its terror and evil. The Nazi equivalent: this time, we acted before there was a blitzkrieg invasion of Poland because it was unmistakably clear that it was coming.

I suppose you would argue that the "progressive" Left should not be held to account for being wrong on Iraq. I suppose you would argue that the isolationist Republicans and Neville Chamberlain should not be held to account for being on the wrong side of history either. You can argue those points. And I will argue the alternative. I will continue to argue that there was a modern incarnation of Hitler walking on this planet and that many good people failed to recognize this fact and opposed all actions aimed at removing this modern Hitler from among us.

Sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but the stakes are too high right now.

search Bush and Hitler on google and see what you get. All the left does these days is compare W to Adolf. To paraphrase Gilda Radner, it's so offensive fantomas forgot to bitch about it...

I guess my question then is if Sadam was so evil, and if the gassing of the Kurds, mass graves and WMD are such that a war was just, why did we stop last time?

And william do you feel there is no pattern of deception by this admin? Such as the EPA report after 9/11, the cost of the war, the danger Sadam posed, the link of OBL to Sadam? Anybody who is being fair and balanced would have to agree that ANY of the above would have been jumped on by the republican's in both the house and senate if it was a president Gore or Clinton.

From memory here (and I'm sure Twin58 or BillW can point you to some whacked out conspiracy theory that is far more interesting than what I'm about to say, or maybe Raze could just blame it on Ann Coulter), but Bush I didn't act unilaterally, he had a big coalition that agreed only to liberate Kuwait, not to oust Saddam. So when we liberated Kuwait, that was the end. Game over. So we stopped short when we should have kept going. If it had been up to me we would have ditched Saddam then, but alas it wasn't. Fortunately Bush II didn't hold our nation hostage to the whims of a bunch of other piddling little countries.

[ August 27, 2003, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: William1865 ]

I don't really care whether comparing Hussein to Hitler is offensive, what bothers me is that it's ludicrously inaccurate. By putting one of the world's leading industrial economies on a total war footing for several years, Hitler had built the most powerful army in the world by the late 1930's. Within a year of the outbreak of WWII, he was in control of much of Europe.

Iraq only survived the Iran-Iraq war because of massive financial support from the Gulf that allowed it to buy weapons from the U.S. & Soviet Union. Even then, all it was able to do was manage a stalemate. And that was the apex of its power. By 1997, it's economy ranked 81st in the world in GNP, ranking below such local superpowers as Lebanon and Oman. Even with over half of its budget going to the military, its military expenditures were less than those of Canada. It didn't have the military force needed to control its own country, much less threaten its neighbors. To imply (as comparing him to Hitler does) that Hussein was on the brink of blitzkrieging the Middle East is absurd. By this point, he certainly could have been crushed singlehandedly by Israel, Iran, Egypt, or Turkey, probably Syria, maybe even Saudi Arabia.

As far as the terror he was going to unleash in the world--umm...I think he threatened to do that in 1991. Nothing happened. He threatened to do it again this year. Nothing happened. It was pure bluff, probably designed to rally the morale of his army, or to try and scare off an American assault. There was no evidence then, and there is no evidence now, that Iraq was a major staging post for terrorist attacks. And given his situation, bluster aside, I suspect most of his financial resources were commit to keeping him in power and trying to control his own country. It was a very different situation from say--Libya in the early '80's which was flush with oil wealth, or from Saudi Arabia today.

Yeah, but you are not taking into account the american military protecting Sadia Arabia for all this time. During the hitler years, there was nothing like that around.

The comparison is hitler, isnt that more like the mass graves... killing your own people... ect ect ect....

Sadaam did reign down terror in the first gulf war by launching scuds from his country to Israel. This time special forces were flown in to prevent this from happening. That prevented him from his terror. It would have been a more just war if he had gotten some of those rockets off and killed innocent people in Israel?

Yet another reason why the comparison is bullshit. Hussein was being contained, not appeased.

But that's hardly a unique characteristic of Hitler's. There are dozens of leaders in the 20th century who did those things. So Hitler was just your garden variety repressive dictator?

As far as his terrorism during the 1st Gulf War, I thought that the threat we were talking about was backing groups like Al Qaeda, not using conventional military weapons...and even then, (blustering bluffing Hussein) the chemical and biological weapons weren't there.

Excuse me, CITT, but your revisionism is making my head hurt.

Before Adolf Hitler engineered his takeover of the Weimar Republic, his Nazi Party (along with other members of the German Far Right) openly attacked and assassinated numerous members of the Socialist (who were the governing), Communist and fringe-Left parties in Germany. Look up how Walter Rathenau, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht died--the roll of Leftists murdered by the Far Right up to 1933 is considerable.

Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, which landed him in jail, was an attempt to set up a right-wing government in Bavaria (which had already withstood an attempt right after World War I by workers to set up a worker's, socialistic republic). Hitler absolutely LOATHED the Left in Germany, which was the main political force against him.

Shortly after gaining control of the German government, in 1933, Hitler began his outright pursuit of the German left. Numerous leaders of the Socialist Party were jailed and or killed; the Communists met the same fate. Jewish Socialist or Communist leaders often were killed outright by the SA. When he assumed power in 1933, the Socialists were the main party voting AGAINST him and the Enabling Act; he then proceeded to ban the Socialist Party and round up its leaders, who were among the first Germans he sent to the concentration camps.

Ernst Thälmann, who was the Communist Party's candidate in the 1933 elections, was promptly imprisoned after Hitler seized control, and was later executed in a forest, in either 1944 or 1945. By the time of the war in 1939, there were no real German Left parties or political figures freely circulating to speak of.

Moreover, Neville Chamberlain, as you must know, was a prime minister from the CONSERVATIVE (Tory) party, the party of Thatcher and the analogue to the Republican Party. Look it up. That party--the Tories--led the appeasement effort with Hitler. Linking Chamberlain with the Democratic Party is tenuous at best.

Back to Saddam: the fact remains that two Republican presidents provided Saddam with considerable financial, logistical and arms support. Throw in Carter if you will, but it was under Reagan and his deputy HW that our support for Saddam occurred outright. Then, HW had the opportunity to take him out--remember, he gassed the Kurds not during Clinton's or W's terms, but during the period when he was tangling with HW--but instead HW sat by while he slaughtered his own people, the Shi'as, despite the fact that we'd given them assurances we'd assist them. Both Reagan and HW knew Saddam was a butcher; he came to power through brutal means in the 1970s. Yet the fact remains that oil, global strategy, and the need for a proxy (against Iran) trumped all this moralism the Right is now righteously bandying about concerning Saddam.

Finally, I won't engage in comparing tragedies and horrors. That over 6 million people were slaughtered by the Nazi death machine is undeniable. Stalin killed perhaps 7-10 million, or his policies led to their deaths. Pol Pot killed 3 million; the wars in Rwanda and Burundi singled out at least a million to be killed because of their ethnicity; Guatemala's dictator, with US support, tried to exterminate the Miskito Indians there; and on and on. Saddam's killing of the Kurds, and later his slaying of the Shi'ites, were both horrors that deserve the utmost condemnation. They deserved them when they happened, not just now that their perpetrator is no longer useful to our government's interests.

[ August 27, 2003, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

William1865, point taken, but if we really had the goods on Sadam we should have been able to get the same nations to join us this time. IMO we tried to bully nations into line, or used 9/11 when there was no connection ( that could be proven)
Now about the Hitler issues. I DO compare Hitler with Bush, on a political level, in the following way.
Both took advantage of laws to gain power, events propelled them into a higher standing than would have otherwise been the case. Both felt that gov't should be able to deal in private with large corps, and both felt the use of arms was acceptable to further their dreams or vision of their respective nation states.

Should have, would have, could have. We can go back in history and find billions of examples of what should have been done. If we should have gotten rid of Saddam in 1991 and didn't, does that mean we can't ever go back and correct the mistake? Of course not. You've obviously decided what you want to believe, and you're going to believe it, but I don't know why you put this as a question to begin with. You should have said, "If Saddam was so bad, we should've gotten rid of him in 1991" and let it stand at that because that's obviously what you want to believe.

Of course, if 41 had gotten rid of Saddam in 1991, the same people bitching now would be bitching then, so it wouldn't have really mattered.

Clark is moving closer to getting in the race!!!!

NY Times: General is said to want to join '04 race (subscription req'd)

George Will has a column in which he charts, over a brief two-month period, Wesley Clark's contradictory statements claiming, then denying he ever claimed, that the White House pressured him into linking Saddam and 9-11: (Link here to August 31 column) In the space of two months, Clark went from being pressured to link Saddam and 9-11 by "the White House" and "people around the White House" to being asked by the brother of the close friend who is Belgium (with a Canadian Middle East think tank?). Clark is starting to sound like he's pushing one of those "my mother's best friend's cousin's hairdresser swears it's true!!" rumors that circulate around.

Again, is this presidential (or even vice presidential) behavior? Or is it [twilight zone music] doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo [/twilight zone music] ??

[ August 31, 2003, 12:05 PM: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]

If George Will spends an entire Sunday newspaper column trying to discredit Wesley Clark, then it's pretty clear -- the Republicans are scared to death of a Wesley Clark candidacy.

Another sad attack at the source, trying to discredit an article by ridiculing its author.

In actuality, DC, Will is being quite fair. In fact, on This Week with George Stephanapolous today, Will was rather complimentary of Dean, even calling him "fun." Will wrote today just how Dean could win.

Does this now mean Will is acceptable in your eyes? If you ask me, Will is one conservative columnist who is fair, intelligent, and even-handed. Contrast this with the fire-breathing and caustic Ann Coulter.

Wasn't Will implicated in shenanigans involving the possible possession of the opposition's debating points during the Carter-Reagan presidential election?

BTW, this morning on CNN, that "liberal" bastion, I heard Dean once again described as "ultraliberal," as promoting "gay civil unions," and as being so far to the left (what extreme right-wing planet are these people living on???) that he's virtually unelectable...the smears of this man and his record just keep coming.

MIB -- I did see the program yesterday morning and I was surprised at George Will's comments -- I think he also said that Dean is putting "people" back into politics. That said, Will's credibility was shot for me some years ago by his "shenanigans" as noted in the post above by Fantomas.

With regard to the continuing attacks on Dean -- at this point they are raising his visibility and when people take a "look-see" they will discover that the man is hardly an ultra-liberal. Also, Dean is a more skillful politican than McGovern and he has a long record of success as a moderate that will serve him well in the campaign.

BTW, in the same "This Week with George S." program one of the panelists said that Clark is running for Vice President -- I agree.

Who said it on CNN? Some frothing-at-the-mouth religious conservative interviewed deep in one story after a few minutes of a Dean suck-up-a-thon? Maybe Patrick Buchanan being interviewed as an alleged representative of conservative thought? It certainly wasn't Aaron Brown or some other committed leftist anchor, that's fer shur.

So I take it that you think it's OK for a presidential candidate and/or a journalist (Clark was employed as an analyst on leftie CNN until very recently) just to wholly make up quotes that they claim the "White House" told them and spread the lie far and wide? I presume you think it's OK only if it's a Democrat doing the fabrication, because I doubt you'd be so understanding if it were Republican fabricating quotes from a high ranking Dem. I heard Clark making (and later repudiating) these claims on tape. Will just supplied the timeline.

Charlie, how do we know that Clark "wholly made up quotes?" Because George Will said so? Sheesh. Do you have an inside source or something? Give me a break. As for Republican fabrications, I think we've all gotten quite accustomed to them by now, sad to say, from a president who makes Nixon look virtuous. And MIB, for the record, I am not a supporter of Howard Dean.

My source is Wesley Clark.

On June 15, 2003, Clark told Tim Russert (hardly a member of the vast right wing conspiracy) that the White House told him to link 9-11 and Saddam. Here's the transcript from the msnbc website: Transcript of June 15 \\"Meet the Press\\" - scroll down about 40 percent of the way for the Clark interview. The quote in question: Clark's claim was widely pushed in the liberal media, by people such as the NY Times' Paul Krugman who trumpeted Clark's remarks as proof that the White House falsely linked Saddam Hussein to 9-11 ( and here's the link to Krugman).

Now Clark is admitting that the White House did not pressure him. That begs the question: was lying then, or is he lying now? Did Krugman misrepresent Clark's statement about White House pressure, and, if so, why?

This is more than just from George Will. This is from the horse's mouth (or, in Clark's case, a more southern part of the anatomy).

Whatever Clark said is not a big deal. He's not even a candidate, for crying out loud. So what are the GOP and the Gay GOP so paranoid about with Wesley Clark?? LOL !! Not a big deal when compared to Bush's lies about Iraq leading our boys to a quagmire over "Iraq could attack us within 45 minutes" and the British have reported that they "tried to get nuke-you-lure (sp error, but this is how Bush pronounces it) materials from Africa." That was quite a cut and paste job you did there, above. So let me ask you. Are you a shrill person? Most gay Republicans I've met (and I've met several), are shrill people.

CITT, I can see your point, and as I said his remarks do raise questions in my mind as well.
Now would you say that the same holds true for some of the remarks and actions of the white house? Such as the EPA report?
IMHO Mr Clark is not running for office, but I am seeing his actions pounced on as if he where elected. But at the same time when actions taken or statements made by the good folks in the white house are questioned many people on the right dismiss the concerns out of hand.
You can not have it both ways. If you think what Clark did was wrong, you must ( if you are being fair and balanced) question the EPA report, the 16 words, the time fact that we knew where the WMD were before the war, but as of yet, have no found any..

Bill Thomas, I think his name is. A hack CNN needs to retire, and soon. But he's no right-winger as far as I can tell. The "liberal" media have heard that Dean is "far left" and "ultraliberal," and they can't help themselves by not calling him that.

Among politicians, the late Paul Wellstone was pretty far left; Tom Harkin is a liberal, as are Teddy Kennedy, Pat Leahy, and Barbara Boxer. Ralph Nader would be considered FAR LEFT. We barely have a functioning Socialist party or Democratic Socialist Party, but Bernie Sanders is one of the former, and he's FAR LEFT. Howard Dean is far to the RIGHT of these folks.

(I personally would like to see an ultraliberal as president as a corrective to the extreme right wing insanity we've endured now for 3 years and the tepid conservatism of Clinton, but it's not likely.)

In terms of Clark and any lies he's told, I really don't think they rise to the level of the crap that's come out of W's mouth, either before the 2000 election or since. I mean, didn't he lie about the DUI arrest? And his military service? And the Harken conviction? Has he ever told the truth about these? And since 2000...when is he going to tell us the truth about what he knew before 9/11? Millions of Americans, including the families and friends of those lost on that tragic day, are still waiting, just as they're waiting to hear the truth about the WMDs.

Responding to a few of your points, p2insdca:

IMHO Mr Clark is not running for office, but I am seeing his actions pounced on as if he where elected.
The media is reporting that Clark is very close to getting into the race. Here's a link to the most recent Washington Post report on Clark's potential candidacy. Clark looks to me like he's running for the vice president slot, since his military background might be thought to complement a liberal firebrand lacking in national security credentials, such as, oh I don't know, Clark's good buddy Howard Dean?

But at the same time when actions taken or statements made by the good folks in the white house are questioned many people on the right dismiss the concerns out of hand. You can not have it both ways.
Why not? Isn't politics about not just having your cake and eating it too, but getting to eat the other guy's cake at the same time?

If you think what Clark did was wrong, you must ( if you are being fair and balanced) question the EPA report,
Actually, I don't have an opinion yet on the EPA issue. I don't know enough facts. I mean, everyone knows that there was some nasty pollution going into the New York atmosphere after the Towers fell. But it's not like the federal government could've ordered them to stop smoking. So I don't know what the deal with the EPA report is, and I don't what the deal is with it either.

... the 16 words ...
Where's the lie? Bush's words were completely honest. British intelligence did report that Saddam was trying to obtain uranium from Africa. Not Niger. Africa. It's a big continent with a lot of countries not named Niger (or even nee-ZHARE). Best guess-timate was Congo. The British - our closest ally among all nations - still stand behind that report.

... the time fact that we knew where the WMD were before the war, but as of yet, have no found any...
It tooks us a few months to find the G.D. Iraqi air force buried in the desert sand. Do you know how much space a full-fledged completely operational biological weapons cache would fill? One room. It's a big country. We just found a stash of Hitler's chemical weapons buried under the airport in Berlin, Germany ... after almost 60 years! Six months isn't long to wait. And the administration should be releasing its proof of the WMD programs, gathered from documents located over the last few months, sometime in mid to late September.

Even President Clinton believed and still believes that Iraq had WMD's. They used chemical weapons on their own people. The WMD was real. Even Hans Blix knew Saddam had WMD at one time. Do you really think that Clinton and Blix are in a conspiracy with President Bush to lie about Iraq's WMD programs?

Now, to the less pleasant task of responding to this snitty little personal remark made by another poster:
I can see why you'd bring that out in people. I wanted to say something like " ... and the horse you rode in on too, bucko." Unfortunately, I can't respond fully to you without violating the Board's posting guidelines. (See here) Sorry.

[ September 01, 2003, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]