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Senator Alleges White House Wrote Allawi's Speech
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "In a letter to the White House, a leading US Senate Democrat, Diane Feinstein, expressed 'profound dismay' that the White House allegedly wrote a large portion of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's speech to Congress last week. 'His speech gave me hope that reconstruction efforts were proceeding in most of the country and that elections could be held on schedule. To learn that this was not an independent view, but one that was massaged by your campaign operatives, jaundices the speech and reduces the credibility of his remarks.'"
Isn't this the Bush admininstration in a nutshell? If you disagree with us, you are un-American, disloyal, unpatriotic.
That's what America is all about: blindly following our commander-in-chief, not questioning their policies, always agreeing.
Just give me my 12 hours of TV, and my low-carb 2000 calorie retired dairy cow hamburgers, and my gas-guzzling SUVs, and I WILL BE HAPPY.
I'm glad President Bush has set upon this crusade at taking out our foes one by one, and remaking it in our image. Their dictators fall, and their citizens live in freedom, meanwhile we gain a foothold in another part of the world.
The sad thing is that America's image in the rest of the world is so bad right now, that as a foreigner, I am not entirely sure that this guy is trolling.
I just assumed it would be obvious from the fact that Allawi repeated not one, but almost every catchphrase that Bush throws into all of his speeches on the "war on terror". Anyway, read the speech for yourself and see if it sounds like chunks of it came from the same speechwriters Bush uses. Mind you, I'd expect Allawi to be thankful and congratulatory, since he needs the US's continued commitment right now, but I wouldn't expect his own speechwriters to parrot back Bush's campaign slogans word-for-word.
Anyway, this doesn't come as a surprise to me, it was just much more blatant and obvious than I would have thought possible. Another poster brought up Julius Caesar, who wrote his conquered enemies speeches for them. His long lived and immensely successful successor, Caesar Augustus, was the master of running an authoritarian regime while maintaining all the dressings of the Republic, practically the inventor of political spin and authoritarianism cloaked in democracy.
Unfortunately, the analogies don't end there. Trading freedom for security under authoritarian regimes was practically pioneered by the Romans. If our schoolchildren were forced to read some of the classics, I wonder how different things might be in America today.
Seeing how the comments so far have been moderated, it's quite clear that the moderators are either unaware, or unwilling to be aware of a serious problem in America.
-1 mod for overrated? For posting two editorials critical of the war?
This is a prime example of why America is headed for disaster.
If you're genuinely interested in knowing what's really happening in the world, I would suggest looking beyond CNN, FOX, Wall Street journal and the New York Times. All of America's big media is owned by a very small group with very strong political leanings. When you look to them, you only get one side of the story.
If you want the other side, places like www.cursor.org are a good place to start.
...allegedly wrote...
Is this the part where I get to assume it's already fact?
If you like the Daily Show, you should take a listeng to this FreshAir interview with John Stewart that was broadcast on NPR today.
For the first part of the interview he is trademark Stewart, mixing wise cracks with straight lines just about evenly, but about 15 minutes into the interview it really changes. The interviewer starts talking about the reputation that The Daily Show, the self-described "fake news show" has developed as one of the most perceptive analysts of the current state of American politics. Stewart is quite modest, but displays a marvelous level of understanding of the role of the media in America, and the way that its has abrogated its responsibility to be a skeptical filter and not simply an uncritical platform for the political spin-meister of the moment.
The great irony, of course, is that very few of the talking heads in the "non-fake news" business seem to have this level of understanding of the responsibility they bear.
What exactly does 'lost the popular vote' have to do with anything? The popular vote does not matter. IT NEVER HAS. The citizens of the United States do not vote for the President -- the states do. That is how it works now, and that is how it has always worked.
The elections of 2000 were not the first time a candidate has lost the popular vote yet won the presidency. It happened in 1824. It happened in 1876. It happened in 1888. It will happen again eventually.
I dislike Bush as much as anybody, but Jesus Christ, people need to get over that subject. The Electoral College is in place for a very specific and important reason. If America worked by direct democracy, the candidates would only have to win the huge urban areas like New York and Los Angeles in order to win the presidency. The Electoral College, at least partly, ensures that candidates have to win other places, too, like the Mid-west (e.g., Iowa, where i live and Kerry/Edwards and Bush/Cheney have passed through multiple times in the past few months).
If you want to argue that the Electoral College could be improved (for example, make it proportional instead of winner-takes-all), i might agree with you. (In fact, i do support making it proportional in all states.) Or if you wanted to argue that maybe somehow voters were disenfranchised in Florida and that caused Gore to lose Florida's electoral vote, i might agree with you. (Although i think that's kind of getting worn out too.) But pouting because Bush didn't win the popular vote is just retarded. :/
"Seeing how the comments so far have been moderated, it's quite clear that the moderators are either unaware, or unwilling to be aware of a serious problem in America."
MOD PARENT UP!!!! Exactly right.
You cannot develop an accurate opinion by listening to the innuendo from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one candidate over another. Remember, the media exists to make money. Unfortunately, we don't have directly supported media, only ad supported media, and advertisers, understandably, are careful not to alienate anyone.
Please don't be intimidated by someone with unspecified objections, or objections that merely try to draw attention away from the major issues. Consider everything in the light of your own experiences and your own extensive investigation.
If you have never read the books about the Bush family and Bush administration, I suggest you do so. If you read the books, you will see that the corruption is far worse than you are being told.
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Bush: Borrowing money to try to make his administration look good.
As if ANY politician these days (including Diane Feinstein) writes their own speeches, instead of having them "massaged by their campaign operatives"...
No one is complaining that Allawi didn't write his own speech. What they are complaining about is that it was written by Bush's campaign operatives.
Don't you see a difference between Allawi having his speech written by his own, independent speech writers and having it written by Bush campaign operatives? Allawi is supposed to be the leader of a sovereign nation, not a member of the Republican party giving stump speeches to promote Bush's reelection.
It could be filed two years before for all its importance. Not only this report is a lot of "maybe-coulda-woulda", it is also quite silly that otherwise intelligent people are so easilly fooled by all of this Iraq WMD talk. VX is known to be possessed by just about any two-bit country on the planet, including places like Serbia. Anthrax is produced from cow dung. A few nutcases were able to make it in a bathtub in England. Etc. Etc. If Saddam was truly bent on using this (rather awkward and unreliable weapon), he would have done so looong ago. Actually he did in 1980s on the Kurds and probably like every military before him, decided the thing was useless. Did you ever wonder why during WWII noone used chemical weapons on the battlefield? All sides had them. They are just extremely useless things in combat. Additionally, Iraq had no capability to produce nuclear technology in any meaningful way for a foreseeable future due to constant oversight.
Truly frightening bio-weapons are of genetic nature and at this point in time beyond reach of the terrorists. This will unforunately change in not so remote future and because of the nature of the technology they will become the primary, cheap and widely available weapon of unspeakable terror.
Isn't this the Bush admininstration in a nutshell? If you disagree with us, you are un-American, disloyal, unpatriotic.
I'm tired of linking the following quote : People don't want War by Herman Goering . That in a few sentences covers what you have saidQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I found this refreshing to Bush's repetative and very non-specific "We're going to win!" over and over with no real substance as far as a clear plan and intelligent resolve. . .
What I perceived from Bush:
1) we are right, therefore we are going to win
2) it doesn't matter if we botched the job with no planning and inadequate support because, uh, we are RIGHT!
3) if we are losing it's only because the enemy is hating us more for being right
4) my administration didn't make any mistakes because I am right
5) if you criticize anything we do, I simply mention that it's a hard job and reinforce the fact that I am doing a hard job, regardless of whether it is the right job
6) if you highlight how bad a job we are doing, you are actually perversely on the terrorists side and the public should discount you because the terrorists want to hear that we are doing a bad job
7) since I don't want them (or you) to hear that, I'll just keep repeating that we are doing the right thing
8) a decisive but WRONG course is much better than any indecisive course
9) but that doesn't matter anyway because...I'm right
On the pro side, Bush did come out I think revealing that, yes, he can remember facts and names. Since the bar is so low, this makes him seem ultra smart.
As far as Kerry he's already fucked himself because his statements have been so easy to spin, he can't dispell the myths around him, and the "debate" format doesn't allow him time to. There were many non-rational things Bush said, or foolish misinterpretations (either intentional or unintentional) by Bush of what Kerry had just said, that Kerry didn't have time to rebut. For instance, Kerry said that the test of whether to go to war is a more "global test" (or "universal test" I forget), namely that you have to be able to say to a soldier's family you did everything you could to avoid it, and Bush either intentionally or unintentionally misinterpreted this and played dumbfounded that Kerry was talking about some "global tests" as if he was talking about some world-wide exam. How can you debate somebody that can't even understand what you are saying? I get the feeling if he had said "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" Bush would have started saying: "what is this guy talking about, 'playing with birds', HEY WE'RE AT WAR!"
sigh.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?