52 - Percentage of Americans living in eastern states who’d rather have Bill Cinton as their dad than George W. Bush.
28 - Percentage who would pick Bush.
45 - Percentage of Southerners who’d choose Bush over Clinton as their dad.
29 - Percentage who would want Clinton.
Source: Health, June, 2006.
Tags: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush
We come up the rise to the corner where a crowd of people has gathered, all looking up, and the towers come into view — the south tower closer to us and to the left. “Ohhh, man,” we both say, and “Jeeeesus Christ,” and “This is not good. This is not good at all. This is fuckin’ bad.” So dumb. So dull. We sound like frat boys when the keg is dry, but there’s nothing else we can say about what we’ve got in front of us. In front of us, high above us, the south tower has a huge hole torn through it, a burning, screaming maw with thick black smoke pouring out. Occasionally, flames lick up one corner of the twisted mouth of the hole and then retreat, only to reappear on the other side. It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t even seem that serious at first, actually, until I remember just how big the building is, how many stories high — and that the hole must therefore cover twelve stories, at least. “This isn’t the kind of history I want to be present at,” I say, lamely, to Bob. “Me neither,” he says.
Tags: 9/11, World Trade Center, terrorism, New York, American flag, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, Conspiracy Theories, George W. Bush, Matt Lauer, Rudy Giuliani, ABC, tragedy, patriotism, Ground Zero, We Will Never Forget, al-Qaeda, CIA, Pakistan, Taliban, Joint Special Operations Command, NSA, National Counterterrorism Center, Tora Bora, al-Zawahiri, Paul Krugman, NATO, Bill Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, Pentagon, healthcare, Iraq
5. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
10. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
11. We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
12. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
13. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
Tags: Thursday Thirteen, Crayons, terrorism, Logan Airport, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Congress, wiretapping, Osama bin Laden, Mother Jones, liberals, 9/11, religion, aetheists, women, virginity, Journal of Sex Research Western soceity, involuntary virgins, economy, America
I haven’t seen it. I can only comment on what I’ve read. There seems to be a lot of posting flurry going on. Plus, it’s been covered by the MSM.
So, I can’t really comment on the actual movie because as I said I haven’t seen it. I wasn’t one of the ones chosen to preview it. I’m apparently not right-leaning enough if what the rumors say is true. I do find it odd that ABC didn’t honor President Clinton’s office’s request for an advanced copy but handed it out to all of those right-wing bloggers. That just smacks of rudeness. I mean, he was the President and the movie is about him.
I have no problem with a movie attacking a former President, even a former living President, as long as it tells the truth and is factual. Even ABC admits that this 9/11 “docu-drama” stretches the truth and isn’t factual; however, they have packaged it as an educational tool for children as if it is in fact a truthful telling of the events as they happened.
Right-winger blogs seem to be interpreting the public outrage against the ABC 9/11 Docu-drama as a political thing, as if it’s all about Clinton, as if Democrats and liberals are all about circling the wagon because Clinton is being solely blamed in the movie for 9/11. Once again they don’t seem to be paying attention. They’re own unhealthy preoccupation with Clintion has kept them from seeing the true problem is the fact that this movie is about lying to the public, an Orwellian refabricating the facts. But then maybe they don’t care. After all, maybe the facts and the truth aren’t important to the right so much as having a President in power and being in control of the facts and the fact-telling.
Tags: ABC 9/11 Docu-Drama, lie, truth, Bill Clinton, rightwinger
Think Progress has both film and transcript of Katie Couric’s interview with Senator Bill Frist from Tuesday’s Today Show; here’s the transcript:
COURIC: Let me ask you about another aspect of your plan, because I know the $100 rebate is just one component, that it’s tied to another controversial proposal, which allows oil companies to drill for oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. That has repeatedly failed to pass Congress. Some question the Republicans’ sincerity because they know in the view of these critics that this won’t pass.
FRIST: Let’s talk about it. We passed it last month in the United States Senate. It has overwhelming — maybe you don’t support it — but it has overwhelming support. We passed it in the legislature back in 1996. President Clinton vetoed it. Unbelievable. Passed the House. Pass the Senate. And if President Clinton had not vetoed that, we would have more than a million barrels of oil coming here every single day. That’s more oil than we import from Saudi Arabia right now. It’s a matter supply and demand. Right now we would have increase supply if it had not been vetoed by President Clinton.
COURIC: I don’t have a position on it.
FRIST: Overwhelming support in this country today and we passed it in the United States Senate. [“Frist on High Gas Prices: It’s Clinton’s Fault” (Think Progress)]
O.K. So…Not only are the Republicans still blaming Clinton for everything that’s wrong in the country after six years of a Republican-controlled Congress and a Republican-controlled White House with a president who’s never vetoed anything ever, but if there’s such overwhelming support in this country for drilling in Alaska and destroying our environment, why haven’t the Republicans been able to pass that legislation in the last six years while they were passing everything else?
Tags: Bill Frist, Katie Couric, Arctic Drilling, Bill Clinton, gas prices, Republicans
Well, in case you thought that sexual perversion in government officials was isolated to Homeland Security…
A high-ranking Defense Department IT official has been arrested and indicted on child pornography charges.
Charles Lynch, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Internet Protocol version 6 transition program, was arrested March 8 and indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia the next day on one count of possessing child pornography.
According to a statement by the DOD Inspector General’s Office, court documents allege that Lynch had been operating a peer-to-peer file-sharing program on a computer in his office at DISA. Agents confiscated several computers and more than 1,000 CDs from Lynch’s office. Agents found child pornography in computer file folders, the IG’s statement said.
Lynch, 44, is on leave without pay from DISA. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
The investigation is being conducted by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the DISA OIG. Officials with those agencies, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
In apparently unrelated cases, a Homeland Security Department official was arrested earlier this week for soliciting sex over the Internet with a minor. And last week, federal agents seized computer equipment from the desk of a NASA official March 29, based on information developed during a U.S. Postal Inspection Service undercover investigation of Internet trafficking in child pornography. [“DOD IPv6 director arrested for possession of child porn” (GNC)]
Remember when the Rebublicans thought a President having a blowjob in the White House was the most immoral thing a man could do? Why aren’t we hearing as much of a fuss from the same right that launched a witch hunt for that same President about all of these government officials who are preying on innocent children on government time and government equipment and taxpayer money?
Hat Tip to Suburban Guerrilla.
Tags: Bill Clinton, NASA, Homeland Security, FBI, Defense Department, child predators, Charles Lynch
With everything going on in the blogsphere, in national politics, in women’s rights, in the Middle East, in Iraq in particular, in the world in general, I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed the last few days. Politics in particular has made me particularly restless the last three or four days. I’ve been debating a personal rebellion, a political mutiny. However, what I’ve come to realize is that it’s hard to defect from a party when you don’t belong to one. You just can’t up and flounce out of the room with a dramatic slam of the door behind you if you weren’t in there in the first place.
Tags: Congress, George W. Bush, Russ Feingold, politics, Bill Clinton, 9/11, Democrats, Republicans, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan
I’ve been thinking about Donklephant’s post by Callimachus this morning called “______ Lied”. The post itself has a liberal-biased tilt, but the original column, It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story seems to be straight reporting to me and I think it’s something that many of us die-hard anti-Iraq-War-Bill-Clinton-loving liberal try very, very hard to ignore or forget.
The truth is that the fear of Suddam Huissen’s potential to wage nuclear destruction on his neighbors and the world didn’t start in January 2001 or even after September 11, 2001.
Here are a few past headlines from The New York Times:
It’s important to note here that despite recent accusations and theories that Judith Miller single-handedly convinced the American public that an invasion of Iraq was not only necessary but the right thing to do, she shared a byline on only one of these articles, the rest were written by others. Also, The New York Times wasn’t the only paper making these Clinton-era claims; The Washington Post’s archives contains similar articles.
Clinton administration officials, intelligence officials, U.N. weapons inspectors, and international analysts at the time claimed that Iraq would be “capable within months — and possibly just weeks or days — of threatening its neighbors with an arsenal of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons;” it was believed that Iraq was “still hiding tons of nerve gas” and was “seeking to obtain uranium from a rogue nation or terrorist groups to complete as many as four nuclear warheads.” It was believed that Hussein spent $120 billion in oil revenue and “devoted his intelligence service to an endless game of cat and mouse to hide his suspected weapons caches from United Nations inspections.” He was reportedly “scouring the world for tools to build new weapons” and there were concerns that he was closer to building a nuclear weapon than he was in 1991.[“It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story”]
Heck, the Clinton administration was so worried about Iraq’s growing nuclear program, that they bombed Iraq for four days in 1998 .
From 1998 through 2000, the Times editorial page warned that “without further outside intervention, Iraq should be able to rebuild weapons and missile plants within a year” and that “future military attacks may be required to diminish the arsenal again.” Otherwise, Iraq could “restore its ability to deliver biological and chemical weapons against potential targets in the Middle East.” “The world,” it said, “cannot leave Mr. Hussein free to manufacture horrific germs and nerve gases and use them to terrorize neighboring countries.”
[…]
The Times was not alone, of course. On Jan. 29, 2001, The Post editorialized that “of all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous — or more urgent — than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade’s efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf,” including “intelligence photos that show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons.”
[…]
As we wage what the Times now calls “the continuing battle over the Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq,” we will have to grapple with the stubborn fact that the underlying rationale for the war was already in place when this administration arrived.[“It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story”]
If the danger from Hussien and Iraq was so immenent, why did we as a nation wait so long?
If the danger from Hussein and Iraq was so real, why did we struggle to find allies to back us up?
If Hussein really is the insane dictator, willing to use chemical warfare on his own people — which we know is true — why then did he not use these weapons of mass distruction on American troops marching toward Baghdad? One argument the right likes to give is that Hussein shipped them to other countries to hide them, but I question why he would make WMD and then not use them during a time of war?
If there were WMD and real proof of them, why did the Bush administration try to discredit Joseph Wilson, a retired diplomat, when he refuted their claims of evidence that Iraq had bought uranium from Nigeria? Why would they need to if the evidence was so strong?
I have a lot of questions, but somehow I don’t think we’ll ever know the whole truth.
Tags: Judy Miller, Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton, Iraq, George W. Bush, politics, WMD, Joe Wilson
I must say that in recent weeks, following the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, I have felt more and more proud of the fact that I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am an Independent and happy to be unaffiliated with any party and it’s followers that resorts to finger-pointing and name calling and brainwashing of the masses — and trust me, it’s clear to me that both parties are on those bandwagons with their lemmings.
I’m so tired of the websites and the people who think that all Democrats are evil and all Republicans are angels or vice versa.
Guess what? None of them are innocent. Guess what? There’s scandals on both sides.
And I’m tired of Republicans who think that nothing their politicians could do be worse than a former President having consensual sex in the White House and then lying about it in public like any red-blooded American male would. I’m tired of Democrats who keep whining about Bush stealing the election in 2000.
Guess what? The Republicans have had plenty of their own sex scandals and plenty of them denied and covered up. Guess what? There’s nothing we can do about the 2000 election. Bush finished those four years. They’ve gone. Past.
In fact, all of that is past.
I’m just plain tired of it all…and possibly it’s frustration about what’s going on in my childhood hometown. I’m tired of watching the mess get worse while politicians in both parties play games and try to blame each other for everything, including the Original Sin…and their lemmings are right there on the bandwagon, spouting what they are sure are truths and denying their party’s fault in anything. What I’d like to find is someone on either side who can admit that their party and their politicians are not perfect and in fact, give equal reporting to the bad things their party does as well as the bad things the other party does.
Tags: politics, Independent, Hurricane Katrina, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, 2004 election
Over the past year, I’ve been thinking a lot about this big political tug-of-war this country has gotten into. It really does seem that there are a lot of very vocal people on both sides who are shouting rhetoric and propoganda back and forth.
It seems to me that many conservatives cannot get past Clinton’s marital indiscretions that ended up splashed all over the daily news for ages thanks to Newt Gingridge and Kenneth Starr — oh, and they don’t like the fact that he lied about it either.
And many liberals are hung up on the mysteriously disappearing Weapons of Mass Destruction and Bush allegedly taking the country to war on faulty intelligence which may have been fabricated to act as a reason to do so.
Meanwhile, so many liberals act like Clinton was the best thing since the Beatles and many conservatives act as if Bush was the right hand of God. Both sides turn a blind eye to the flaws of their own political hero, putting whichever it is on a pedestal behind unbreakable glass. Many think that the other party’s hero is the anti-Christ or at least that’s what you’d think to hear or read their sentiments.
So, I’ve been wondering if there’s been nothing that either of these men did that was a good thing that can be recognized by the “opposing party” as a good thing. With that in mind, I wonder if people realize these men are human beings and not perfect and therefore, not god-like — well, maybe if we’re talking about the petty gods of ancient Greek and Roman mythology…
So, here’s my challenge to liberals and conservatives alike:
For Former President Clinton, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
For the current President Bush, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
Remember, your political champion is not perfect and there has to be at least one thing he did that you didn’t like, just as there has to be at least one thing that you liked about the other party’s champion.
And, since I can’t expect other people to think on this if I don’t, here are my answers:
For Former President Clinton, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
My one good Clinton thing is that he balanced the budget which was a campaign promise he made and kept. My one bad thing is that he didn’t secure social security which was also a campaign promise.
For the current President Bush, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
My one good Bush thing is how he handled 9-11 in 2001; I felt that he handled the situation very well publically and that invading Afghanistan after the attack was the right thing to do — pacifist that I am.
My one bad thing for Bush is the invasion of Iraq which I felt was unnecessary and uncalled for and which I felt had nothing to do with 9-11 though it was implied at the time — and I also never believed Saddaam had WMD anymore.
So now it’s your turn.
Tags: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, liberals, conservatives, politics, 9/11, Afghanistan, Federal budget, Iraq
The weird thing is that we’ve heard most of this same stuff from the Democrats the last 3 years or so and the Republicans have suddenly changed their tunes…I guess it’s kind of like how rules only apply to everyone else — you know, like how people think they can enter through the exit and block outgoing traffic but get pissed if anyone does that to them.
Quotes from when Clinton committed troops to Bosnia:
“You can support the troops but not the president.”
–Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)“Well, I just think it’s a bad idea. What’s going to happen is they’re going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years.”
–Joe Scarborough (R-FL)“Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?”
–Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99“[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy.”
–Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)“American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy.”
–Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)“If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy.”
–Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush“I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn’t think we had done enough in the diplomatic area.”
–Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)“I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today”
–Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
–Governor George W. Bush (R-TX). [“ahh, the good ole days” (The Daily Kos)]
Talk about flip-flopping!
And you know, I don’t recall any U.S. Soldiers being killed in that initiative. Hmmmm….
Tags: Quote of the Day, Bill Clinton, Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, Trent Lott, George W. Bush, politics, Bosnia
The following comes from democrats.gov’s website where they currently have a clock tallying the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds that the Republican’s have not spent investigating the CI Leak case. (Currently it is over 742 days as of this posting.)
As Earl Pitts, Redneck American, has been known to say, “Wake up, America!“
Number of days after the article outing Ambassador Wilson’s wife appeared that the White House required its staff to turn over evidence relating to the leak: 85
Approximate hours between then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez’s advance notification to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card that he would require staff to turn over evidence relating to the case and formal notification to staff of that requirement: 12
Minimum number of times an Administration official leaked classified information about the identity of Ambassador Wilson’s wife: 11
Minimum number of times after the beginning of the Justice Department’s investigation that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan claimed Karl Rove was not involved: 5
Minimum number of times since evidence linking Karl Rove to the leak was made public that Press Secretary McClellan has refused to comment on the case, citing an ongoing investigation: 7
Minimum number of hearings held by Senate Republicans to investigate accusations against President Clinton involving the “Whitewater” case: 20
Total hearings held by Senate Republicans to investigate the leak of the covert identity of Ambassador Joseph Wilson;s wife: 0
Tags: PlameGate, Democrats, Joe Wilson, Republicans, politics, Conspiracy Theories, Andrew Card, Alberto Gonzales, Scott McClellan, Karl Rove, Bill Clinton, Senate
Think Progress had an interesting pair of quotes from President G. W. Bush. What a difference being a president and 5 or 6 years makes…
In 1999, George W. Bush criticized President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo, and yet he refuses to apply the same standard to his war.
George W. Bush, 4/9/99:
“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”And on the specific need for a timetable, here’s what Bush said then and what he says now:
George W. Bush, 6/5/99
“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.”[ed. note: article originally ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 6/5/99]
VERSUS
George W. Bush, 6/24/05:
“It doesn’t make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you’re — you’re conceding too much to the enemy.”
I guess it’s always easier to play armchair President than it is to be President.
What kills me is that those blinded by the Bush Administration’s propoganda will either never see these contraditictions or they’ll just claim that it was two different things entirely and Bush is totally and unquestionably right.
Tags: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, politics, Kosovo, Iraq, flip-flopping, Quote of the Day
The Naked Truth
& Other
Discombobulated Thoughts
of a displaced Southerner in New England -- from just daily annoyances to conspiracy theories to political views.
The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Marley and Me by John Grogan
The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby
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