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U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft Resigns
andyring writes "In a move that will undoubtedly make many /. readers jump for joy (although perhaps not myself), Attorney General John Ashcroft announced he will resign, according to multiple news sources. While many here dislike him, others have more favorable opinions of him. He became the point man on the USA Patriot Act, which typically ignites harsh opinions on both sides of the aisle."
Reader cnsc1rtr , referring to the AP's version of the story, writes "He gave Bush a five-page, handwritten letter in which he stated, 'The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.'"
He resigned because of health problems and exhaustion. Apparently he has been having various medical difficulties over the past year or so. I don't think this one was Bush's decision.
OK. Here's the article. The statement in question occurs in paragraph three. Please explain how was it taken "out of context"?
Whoa ... Stalin was an authoritarian communist. Probably the complete opposite of what is considered "conservative".
Take a look at http://www.politicalcompass.org
It's an HONORARY KNIGHTHOOD. He's not "Sir". There is no conveyance of title in the order of knighthood that he holds.
From the British Royal Family's website:
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page489.asp
"Foreign citizens occasionally receive honorary knighthoods; they are not dubbed, and they do not use the style 'Sir'. Such knighthoods are conferred by The Queen, on the advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on those who have made an important contribution to relations between their country and Britain. Foreign citizens with knighthoods include the former US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Chancellor Kohl, President Mitterrand and Mayor Giuliani of New York."
So, Doc Smartypants, I guess you need to just STFU until you know what you are talking about.
The resignation was written November 2nd. Election Day. You're right, this is a custom that's been going on for many years.
In this case, I think it to be true. I just saw it on CNN'S site. It mentions some remarks by President Bush in regards to the resignations of Ashcroft and Evans.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Now let's examine your statement: "the FBI no longer need search warrants" That is a false statement. You know perfectly well the FBI still needs to seek search warrants. So what are you here to do? Make false claims or get at the truth?
Nope, only requirement for being on the supreme court is for the President of the US to nominate you, and be confirmed by the Senate.
IIRC, if you look back at history you will find several ex-state governers were made Supreme Court Justices.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
Sheesh, I am getting so tired of hearing this "dead man" crap. It reminds me of the dirty hippie "the sky is falling - I mean, floating away - I mean, evaporating" environmentalists.
Yes, Ashcroft is a choad. Yes, it's a good thing he resigned (maybe - we'll have to wait and see if he ends up on the Supreme Court which would suck even harder). But please - there are FAR better reasons to call Ashcroft a nimwit other than this stupid whiny "but he lost to a DEAD MAN! *gasp*" nonsense.
For anyone who hasn't heard the full story - the dead man referenced above died shortly before the election. His wife said she was going to fill his seat but they couldn't replace his name on the ballot with her's because of a procedural holdup (apparently he died too close to the election). It was very well publicized that his wife was going to hold the seat and the governor went so far as to declare that he would appoint her to the seat if her recently deceased husband won the election and she was still, somehow, procedurally barred from filling his seat.
Jesus, get the story right - Ashcroft lost to a dead man's wife (w00t! Go Dead Man's Wife!).
yeah well, you know, its only like a couple of thousand people died in one moment on 9/11...along with our government having attempted to be decapitated. not that that would be any cause to panic, right?
:-)
And why did that happen?
or despite the fact that thousands of terrorist cells _have_ been operating in the USA? or that we have had biological agents (anthrax) used against us, and having been threatened several times over with worse things?
The anthrax attacks were by your own country!
does anyone really care what you guys do in new zealand, i mean seriously? you guys have nothing to worry about, not with us superpowers keeping you guys nice and safe so that you can bask in the sun.
I think it's more the fact that we don't blow up other countries and don't send troops to meddle in other country's affairs that keeps us safe.
let us folks who know what is going on handle the "big boy" stuff.
Since you're doing such a good job of it!
Do you realise how many terrorists the USA has created in the past few years? Hint: a hell of a lot more than it has killed.
The only thing I remember her doing was frying a whole bunch of fellow citizens down in Texas.
While I have no strong opinions about Janet Reno (pro or con), I think you're leaving some basic facts out of the equation here. The Branch Davidians (the "fellow citizens" you're referring to here) were in violation of several firearms laws at varying levels. Law enforcement authorities obtained a proper warrant and served it on February 28, 1993. If you're keeping score, that was almost two weeks before Janet Reno was even sworn in as Attorney General on March 12th. In the resulting raid, four federal agents were murdered by these same "fellow citizens" that you are (at least tangentially) defending. These were men with families, and they were just doing their job. I've never understood why it's not okay for the government to enforce the law, but it's all fine and dandy to kill law enforcement officers.
Janet Reno made the best of a bad situation. Even though she had only been in office for a couple of weeks when the final raid happened and had very little to do with its planning and how it was executed, she took full responsibility for it. She was, after all, the Attorney General at the time that it happened. But there's a certain amount of logical inconsistency here; we are told that we cannot blame President Bush for the intelligence failures that led to 9/11 because he had only been in office for eight months before it happened, but we can blame Waco on Reno even though it started before she became AG and she had only been in office for a couple of weeks. (For the record, I don't blame 9/11 on President Bush.)
You know that the FBI/ATF bent over backwards to bring the Waco siege to a peaceful conclusion, don't you? They repeatedly tried to negotiate with Koresh, offering food and other basic supplies if he would just release some of the children from the compound, to which he replied (literally) "kiss my ass." The way that the situation resolved itself was tragic and there will probably always be questions about it, but the basic fact of the matter is that the Branch Davidians had 51 days to end the standoff peacefully and they chose not to. And I've never understood the mindset that can dismiss the murder of law enforcement agents, particularly in the post-9/11 era.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
From Ashcroft's letter: The demands of justice are both rewarding and depleting. I take great personal satisfaction in the record which has been developed. The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved. The rule of law has been strengthened and upheld in the courts. Yet, I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration. I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons.
But none of the desire. He stated during the campaign that he doesn't want to be part of Bush's cabinet. Hence my comment regarding dreaming.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
Ashcroft may have suppored the USAPA, but he didn't enact it.
Again, HE WROTE IT.
Over 90% of the words in the act are directly from his office and most of that directly from his hand.
Yeah, he also "supported it" by scaremongering congress into enacting it without even reading it.
In any rational examination that makes him PRIMARILY responsible. All the others are just contributory infringers. They may have abrogated their power to him, but he did not turn it down and still brags of his actions today.
Everyone should be asked to read the whole act at least once in their lives. Most people would be surprised how much stuff the government *couldn't* do that just made sense before hand.
Well, according to Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the members of congress weren't even allowed to read the PATRIOT act before voting on it.
From the article:
Paul confirms rumors circulating in Washington that this sweeping new law, with serious implications for each and every American, was not made available to members of Congress for review before the vote. "It's my understanding the bill wasn't printed before the vote -- at least I couldn't get it. They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote."
We are considering the HSA. My employeer (a Fortune 500 health company who will benefit greatly from this sort of consumer-oriented healthcare) ironically won't contribute to the plan probably until 2006 or later.
The HSA seems like a good deal, especially since I can roll it out from year to year.
One big downside to the HSA: With homeowner and auto insurance, I can increase my deductable to reduce my total costs, but I basically have the same coverage. I can't do that with any of my health plans, in order to get a higher deductable, I would need to switch plans, which means switching to a plan with substandard coverage.
Another big downside is that the costs come out of my own pocket, even if I do save on taxes. And good doctors are still really expensive (Several hundred dollars for a typical visit to the Pediatrition, including labs, shots, etc), so I still need help from an insurance company to help with my baby's basic coverage (not to mention the actual birth).
But I'm at the point now where my family needs more extensive medical coverage, and HSA only helps me to save taxes on some items.
I can move to another health plan or tier in my same health plan, but that also (I can't select my own doctor, out-of-network coverage is much worse). My company also won't give us money to opt-out of insurance (They're getting rid of that option in 2005).
HSA is great for a young healty individual or young couple who don't need extensive coverage anyways. Catastrophic insurance for real emergencies, HSA to help with smaller stuff.
And I think that the consumer-oriented healthcare will hopefully help to control the costs. Once people see how much they are actually paying for healthcare, maybe that will help to push the prices down.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Since these tax cuts were accompanied by increased spending, they help the middle class in exactly the same way as a fresh rock helps a crack addict.
The so-called "cuts" are just pandering to the segment of the population that doesn't understand basic math. Government spending has been increasing, and the spending + interest will all be paid for with even more taxes and/or heavy inflation. These tax cuts have mainly been a mechanism to funnel capital from the American public to foreign bond holders.
Coincidentally, my dad's friend from work ate dinner with him today, and this came up at the conversation.
Both of the aforementioned men are in the Navy, and our guest knew someone on the Lincoln that day. The "Mission Accomplished" banner was actually meant for the crew members of the ship - they had just finished their nine month stint away from home, and had "accomplished" their mission. It wasn't meant for Bush's visit.
~stephen
Oh please yourself. Ashcroft *did* have the DOJ write the Patriot Act, and its principal author was the assistant attorney general Viet D. Dinh. Who did you think wrote it?
That's it, Mr. Giraffe, get all the marmalade.
Lets not forget that Ashcroft is the one that was telling his deputies to shut up every time they brought up a possible terrorism threat prior to 9/11. Ashcroft is the one that was seeking to slash counterterrorism funding in the DOJ prior to 9/11.
In the country we call what he did for America "closing the barn door" after the horses are already running down the road.
@de_machina
PREDICTION: Unless Bush has problems passing a law allowing Corporate America to loot social security (instead of the neo-cons looting it), the "Alert Level" thing is going to quietly fade away.
Wow, troll bait, but I have to bite. If you look at the numbers, you'll see that Social Security has seen a bigger surplus in the first 4 years under Bush than it saw under all 8 years of Clinton.
Click here to see the numbers for yourself.
You'll also see that we only saw one year of REAL surplus under Clinton - 2000. There was an 86.6 billion surplus in the budget. 1.9B the year before, but that's not anything to have a party over.
One other interesting thing you'll see is that the national debt, in terms of GDP, was higher under Clinton than under any other President in the presented data. Under Bush, the national debt has fallen from 49.5% GDP at Clinton's highest point to 36.1% in 2003.
Finally, if you look at total government spending in terms of GDP, we're spending on average less now than we did under Clinton.
Actually, Ashcroft was using the PATRIOT Act to do things like get rid of legal crops of marijuana intended for medical use (not terrorism), closing down a strip club in vegas (not terrorism), and seizing over a dozen adult film stores throughout central texas (not terrorism). The FBI also used the PATRIOT Act to compell every airline flying in/out of Vegas and every hotel in Vegas to hand over all customer information covering like 2 weeks around Christmas and New Years a couple years ago. I can see how that last one could claim to be for the War on Terror, but it bears to strong a resemblance to Fascism to me.
In spite of your willingness to give them up, I'm not willing to give up your rights, because they're my rights too. Ashcroft had the PATRIOT Act ready to go before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers. You don't write ~350 of well thought out sweeping changes in one month. At least, I hope they didn't. That is even scarier to me than my belief that Ashcroft wanted these things in place in absence of a terrorist threat.
Anyway, I love my country, I don't want to curtail my rights because a few psychopaths committed mass murder. That, to me, would be admitting they have a valid point about fundamental flaws in my society, and I strongly disagree with that assertion.
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is
tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any
country." -Hermann Goering, Nuremburg, 1947
You've been brainwashed, krimka. Brainwashed. Nobody wants terrorism here. Neither do we want our Constitutionally-mandated civil rights abrogated.
FACT: PATRIOT Act has been abused. More than once. More than twice.
If you could say that PATRIOT Act could and would ONLY be used to investigate terrorists, that would be a different story. But you can't say that: firstly, because we've already seen that it isn't true; secondly, because the more power you give to law enforcement personnel, the more those individual persons will abuse it - it's just too easy to say, "uh, yeah, it's a terrorism investigation, sure"; and thirdly, because you won't know that they're terrorists until AFTER you've violated their constitutional rights.
The fact that a group of assholes have committed horrible crimes against Americans, in the name of Islam or whatever, does not justify the abrogation of the Constitutional rights of Americans, and *I* resent your implicit belittling of the sacrifices of those thousands (millions?) of Americans who have *knowingly* and *willingly* fought and died to protect those rights.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Well, Title IV was mostly written by John Kerry. Bob Graham wrote quite a bit of changes in titles II and III, with more than a little input from the rest of the Intelligence Committee, including John Edwards.
What was passed was not AAG Dinh's original draft, not by a long shot. Title IV didn't even exist in his draft, that's all John Kerry.
As for the other changes, go read the congressional record on this. Hell, the House and Senate passed different bills and had to reconcile them in committee. If what Dinh wrote was passed as-is, why was it different between the two?
No, Clinton was the master of the nuanced evasion. Bush and his handlers are the masters of doublethink.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Does that mean he regrets congradulating those Navy guys on their 9-month trip?
Or was it just foreshadowing that they probably had to get sent back because of the depth of the quagmire we're in.
And since Bush's speach was announcing the "end of major combat operations", are you saying that Bush ended the operations before he thought the mission was accomplished!?! That's very irresponsible.
I did, or rather I tried to. It was one gigantic mess that looked mostly approximately something like this:
Really, I cannot understand how anyone could understand this. To me it was like trying to understand a huge body of source code solely by looking at diff output.
What I don't understand is why are you guys not protesting?
Have you given up?
Google for 'Miami Model'. Then mod Fleener and F8Free up.
Sorry, but this is one of those after-the-fact rationalizations that people have invented to justify the banner once it became clear just how ridiculous it was.
How so, you ask? Well, if it was a banner meant for the ship's crew, to celebrate the completion of their mission, why did the White House make up the banner and bring it to the ship? Not the sort of thing you would expect if it was just something the Navy does as a matter of course at the end of a long voyage.
The President and his people are saying that the banner was the "Navy's idea" so they don't have to take responsibility for their gaffe. But then blaming the troops for the Commander in Chief's screw-ups is something the GOP is getting pretty comfortable doing these days.
Read my blog.
Section 213, among others, doesn't sunset. The word "sunset" doesn't even appear in the VICTORY Act (Patriot II) that Bush signed on the Saturday Saddam was captured. Now that he has been re-elected, what do you think the odds of changing that are gonna be? C'ya liberty. Nice knowin' ya.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Grandparent was accusing Slashdot editors of a "liberal bias", the AP article is what the post in question quoted. Hence, parent referred to AP article and questioned how a "liberal bias" on the part of the /. editors came into play.
PLUS...even if you do reference the letter in it's entirety, there is still no "taking it out of context". Ashcroft made a stupid statement.
Sorry if that sounded vague. Section 213 of the original USA PATRIOT Act does not sunset (Black Bag searches). Several other sections of USA PATRIOT do not sunset. No provision of Patriot II sunsets either.
It's not outside the realm of possibility. The Bush administration slapped big stickers that said MADE IN USA on a big pallet of crates during a photo op. The pallets used to say MADE IN CHINA...
The justic department isn't responsibile for investigating such crimes. That task belongs to the FBI. Which is parth of.... wait for it, the Justice Department
Not that I'm trying to take anything away from your inciteful rebuttal.
I lost my copy of the green golf ball joke can anyone find it for me?
You missed my biting sarcasm.
I don't respond to AC's.
*Sigh* - where do you get this stuff? Newsmax? Washington Times? Try doing some work for yourself, will you?
0 15 10:@@@S
t em p/~r107BHdfjx:e359387:- bin/query/F?r107:1:./tem p/~r107BHdfjx:e371105:- bin/query/F?r107:1:./tem p/~r107BHdfjx:e382616:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:SN
STATUS: (color indicates Senate actions)
10/4/2001:
Introduced in the Senate. Read the first time. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under Read the First Time. (text of measure as introduced: CR S10307-10333)
10/9/2001:
Read the second time. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 187.
10/11/2001:
Measure laid before Senate. (consideration: CR S10547-10630)
10/11/2001:
S.AMDT.1899 Amendment SA 1899 proposed by Senator Feingold. (consideration: CR S10570-10575; text: CR S10570)
To make amendments to the provision relating to interception of computer trespasser communications.
10/11/2001:
S.AMDT.1899 Motion to table amendment SA 1899 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 83 - 13. Record Vote Number: 299.
10/11/2001:
S.AMDT.1900 Amendment SA 1900 proposed by Senator Feingold. (consideration: CR S10575-10577; text: CR S10575)
To limit the roving wiretap authority under FISA.
10/11/2001:
S.AMDT.1900 Motion to table amendment SA 1900 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 90 - 7. Record Vote Number: 300.
10/11/2001:
S.AMDT.1901 Amendment SA 1901 proposed by Senator Feingold. (consideration: CR S10583-10586; text: CR S10583)
To modify the provisions relating to access to business records under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
10/11/2001:
S.AMDT.1901 Motion to table amendment SA 1901 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 89 - 8. Record Vote Number: 301.
10/11/2001:
Passed Senate without amendment by Yea-Nay Vote. 96 - 1. Record Vote Number: 302. (text of bill as passed Senate: CR S10604-10630)
10/30/2001:
Senate vitiated previous passage.
10/30/2001:
Indefinitely postponed by Senate by Unanimous Consent. (consideration: CR S11247)
Note something that's missing? You guessed it - the complete addition of a new section (securing our borders). it was *already there*. Kerry voted *against* the amendments listed.
Here is section IV of the bill *AS SUBMITTED* to the senate:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r107:1:./
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi
You people are incorrigible.
That's it, Mr. Giraffe, get all the marmalade.
Well, surprise, surprise, the parent post is false. There have been a number of convictions, including the, or at least a, Disneyland video case:
There have been many other convictions, of course. (Trivial exercise left to reader.) One more freebie:
I hope people start taking the war against the terrorists seriously sometime soon.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Actually Grym is right on this one. Grym knows that I am far left of center and even I can see the mess that this was. Why didn't they arrest Koresh in town when they had the chance? Why not wait them out? Why not put a 20mm round through their water supply and wait for them to run out of water? Truth of the matter is that there are about a million things that could have been done, but the whole thing was run by a bunch of yahoos who were given too many guns and too little supervision. As one poster stated - I say that if you show up in the middle of no where and drop a poorly marked assault force with no real plan other than "rush" and no back up or contingency plan of any sort you are asking for trouble. The man that ordered that mess should be sitting in prison.Besides anyone knows why the cops who outnumber a lone gunman 20:1 dont rush in, or sniper him immedialty - it is amuch about the safty of the man on the inside as the cops on the outside.
I have actually seen the "proof" tapes that still circulate the far right about what "really" went down that day - and I got to say there are some odd bits that could use some better explaination.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
1) We're talking about BATF stormtroopers here. The folks who played fast and loose with civil liberties for over a decade. You know. Little things like going in and kicking a storeowner out of his own store for three days while they browsed his sales records... Without bothering to obtain a search warrant first. Or to observe/enforce privacy laws. Etc. Go browse the web. There are tons of really nasty stories out there.
2) Both sides claim the other fired first. I doubt we'll ever know for certain. Given the nature of both sides, there's no particular reason to believe one over the other.
3) After the shooting started, the BATF fired randomly into the building. How many people were in there? How many women? How many children? Yet they strafed the building from helicopters with fully automatic machine pistols, firing blindly through the roof into those women & children. Anyone in the vicinity was considered fair game. They murdered one kid on top of a nearby water tower. Oh, and then they denied it! Listen to the tapes. When negotiating with Koresh they denied shooting from helicopters, only to later admit it.
4) It's been well established that the forces outside the Davidian compound held the viewpoint of "we are going to kill that guy" long before the place burned down.
5) One guy did leave the Davidian compound. He surrendered. He was unarmed. He was killed by nice FBI/BATF guys after surrendering. Never even made it to jail. Died in the sands outside the house.
What a way to encourage the rest Davidians to surrender...
6) There were reports that, in the morning hours before the fire, US officials called up all the local hospitals to determine how many beds they had available for burn patients. THIS WAS BEFORE THE FIRE!
7) There were reports that two of the shells fired by government forces were incendiaries. The spent shells were reportedly found in the rubble afterwards.
8) The government forces tear-gassed the building with that tank while spraying bullets everywhere from a machine gun on the tank. All while claiming on a loudspeaker "this is not an attack".
Then they did nothing.
Quick clue check here folks: The government gases your home with tear gas, burning your eyes and month, while firing fully automatic weapons at you. What do you do? Do you run out into the line of fire to surrender? Or burrow down?
The Government didn't invade the building after gassing it. They just backed off and waited. Why? I mean, if you were in there, would you have come out?
Or was the tear gas itself only a diversion for the real attack?
9) Check the tapes again. Notice how the tank goes far further into the Davidian compound than it needs to just spray tear gas. It creates those big gaping holes.
Now check the wind patterns for Waco that day. What was it? Twenty mile-per-hour winds? Someone was using that tank to create a chimney effect. Hey, give me a 20 MPH wind tunnel, and I can get anything to burn. Ever try to light a barbecue with an electric fan?
10) It's been well established from multiple sources that the tear-gas tank was highly exothermic. Its muzzle, you know the part they kept sticking 10 feet into the house, was well beyond the temperature needed to ignite paper. And of course the exhaust system... Well it goes without saying that's exothermic. (DON'T touch the muffler of your car to verify it. You'll burn your hand off.)
11) Some months after Waco was over, several of our local police officers had occasion to meet with a couple of the FBI boys. Those FBI boys cracked a few jokes about Waco. Our local officers had to take them aside and explain that they though Waco had been handled atrociously. That such jokes were in exceptionally poor taste. And that they didn't care for them. Little weird to have the local boys reprimanding the FBI over this...
There is no doubt in my mind that, regardless of how this whole thing began, the
Wrong - aircraft carriers are giant print shops.
They didn't print the millions of psyops leaflets that they dropped on Iraq at the Bhagdad Kinkos.
Speaking of psyops leaflets, I think this one is an interesting commentary on the history between Iraq and the Bush family by the British psyops guys. Some in the military would argue that one of the most important roles of your F-18's is, in fact, to drop psyops leaflets to build up extreme levels of doubt in the troops:
The cylinders are then loaded - 20 at a time - into the empty canister of a now-defunct, Vietnam-era Rockeye cluster bomb, and loaded onto F-18 bombers, which can carry as many as 120,000 leaflets in two canisters on a single mission. Up in the air, the canister is dropped and split open with a small fuse.
And finally, yes they do have the facilities to create/print forms, intructinos sheets, manuals, orders, menus, newspapers, brouchures, signs and banners.
The federal constitution supercedes state constitutions. Many states do not carry the death penalty on their books and do not execute anyone accused for a crime that is convicted by state courts. However, cases in the federal government's jurisdiction are, by definition, not tried under state (or protectorate) law but under federal law. See separation of powers...
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Must be reassuring to the USMC presently in Fallujah that what they're doing isn't a major combat operation.
Because it looks like one to me.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Wow, how does that Kool-Aid taste?
Oh, of course. And that is why it was printed by the White House, and positioned on the carrier so that it would included right above the President's head in all the pictures of him speaking at the podium. Because it was to thank the sailors.
Yes, once it became clear that Iraq was a quagmire and not a stroll down Lollipop Lane, they did start talking about Iraq like that. Unfortunately that was after President Flight Suit made his speech.
Please acquaint yourself with what the President's image doctors were saying before it became clear the banner had backfired:
Funny how when the banner seemed like a great idea, they weren't saying anything about "we just brought it to thank the sailors", no?
Read my blog.
That's nonsense -- the record is open, and you can see which sections of the Act were not only discussed, but _rewritten_, and by which senator. Kerry himself wrote part of it (title IV, I believe).
-Billy
I have to take exception to your analysis of the data presented by the CBO. Good data link, but I think your analysis is wrong.
Under Bush, the national debt has fallen from 49.5% GDP at Clinton's highest point to 36.1% in 2003.
No, that drop occurred under CLINTON, largely between 1995 and 1999. The debt was at 49.5% GDP in 1993, just after Clinton took office. When he left office in 2000, it was at 35.1% GDP. Under Bush, the public debt as a percent of GDP has floated between 33.1 % and 36.1% - pretty much about the same as when he took office.
You will also note that the public debt value listed does include social security. When social security is excluded (see the column labeled "on budget"), you see that, as a percentage of GDP, under Clinton the yearly operating deficit of the government fell from a 1992 value of 5.5% to a 1999 value of less than 0.05%, while under Bush it has risen to 5.0% of GDP.
If you look at the numbers, you'll see that Social Security has seen a bigger surplus in the first 4 years under Bush than it saw under all 8 years of Clinton.
True - it has. This was to be expected as the Baby Boomers haven't retired yet. That money will be needed for their retirement benefits later. If you think that Social Security ought to be counted towards whether the government has a surplus or deficit, I hope you aren't expecting checks when you get older. I don't know if you remember Gore talking about a "lock box", but that is exactly what he was talking about. As you can see, the money ~is~ being spent now, and will have to be borrowed back later to pay the Baby Boomers.
Wasn't he the one who wrote the memos indicating that the US could use torture and suspend the normal course of due process when it comes to the, so-called, "enemy combatants?" Whatever this is, it's not a win for civil rights advocates. It looks like Bush found the one person who's more conservative than Ashcroft, and woo, he happens to be a person of color.