Ther is no other purpose for Constitutional govenment of the United States, other than the promotion of the "General Welfare" of it's populace.
That is obviously false, as there are not one, but six clearly stated purposes: to form a more perfect union; establish justice; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare; and secure the blessings of liberty (to ourselves, and our posterity).
It should be noted that you are not only in error in fact, but also therefore in argument, since these six purposes sometimes come into conflict, and your supposition maintains that the one you chose to emphasize has preeminence. Nothing in the text supports this view.
As to Section 8, it occurs in the preface to the section, and is not a granting of rights, but a broad statement of what is to follow. We only need to look to James Madison and John Marshall to show how wrong your wide-open interpretation is, and I won't restate the relatively long argument here.
If you are worried about specific intents, the Constitution was written with the specific intent of preserving a right to chattel slavery.
You are confusing original intent of the Constitution as written in 1787 with the Constitution of today. The part you're referring to has been amended, and the original intent of the 13th Amendment is clear: slavery is illegal. No one seriously thinks we should follow the original intent of something that has been modified by amendment: in those cases, we follow the original intent of the amendment itself.
So if the Constitution had not been amended since 1787, then yes, we would still have a right to own slaves. Duh. Thankfully, it has been so amended. If you wish to amend the Constitution to give the federal government powers that Madison and Marshall clearly said do not exist, then by all means, attempt to do so. Until that time, we know from the people who wrote and defended and ratified and interpreted the Constitution that your interpretation is incorrect.
Clarke is one of the most honest people in public service.
Funny that the 9/11 Commission called him out for his duplicity during their public live nationally televised hearings. I guess you weren't paying attention.
But legal or illegal, my point that Ashcroft is in the NRA's back pocket stands
Right, because when a politician agrees with a group you don't like then he is in their "back pocket." You're silly, and not in a comical way.
I could go on and on about the crimes of Bush and Ashcroft, but it's clear you're not interested in hearing other sides of an argument.
I am interested in hearing good arguments from any perspective. The operative word is "good."
Oh, you bought into Richard Clarke's lies, I see. Try the 9/11 Commission, it's a bit more honest.
And your "one example" is justifies my dismissiveness: it does not show Ashcroft refused to enforce gun laws. There is no mention of such a thing in that article. It's about legal access to firearms, not refusal to enforce laws against firearms.
You want Ashcroft to violate the law by disallowing their purchase, and you masquerade this in a lie about how he is not enforcing the law.
So now you have enough information to address the substance of what he says
Where's the transcripts for all his interviews? What other information does he have, that possibly would go against his point of view, that he didn't mention (like he has done many times before)?
A good leader should be able once elected to then be a leader to the whole country. Not just those that voted for him. Simply put considering the recent american election results a democrat should be half repiblican and a republican half democrat BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VOTED.
So, you think the Constitution is full of shit. Thanks for playing.
Bullshit. You might like Reno better than Ashcroft, but she is not nearly as competent as he is. And Elders got canned not merely for that one comment, and perhaps you think she was competent, but that cometence did not extend to knowing how to talk to people. Telling people to "get over their love affair with the fetus" is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard a public official say... and I've been listening to Kerry on the campaign trail for a year and a half. She dug her own grave by being stupid.
And while we're talking about convictions and elections in Florida, don't forget to mention that the head of the international group supposedly monitoring our elections is a Democratic congressman, and impeached judge, Alcee Hastings. That's someone you can trust!
A biased opinion can still be valid. Why don't you address the substance of what he says instead of issuing a lazy ad hominem?
The problem is that since we don't have access to all the information Palast has, the question boils down to whether we can trust him. It is not an ad homienm fallacy, because our opinions of Palast DO matter. If we cannot trust him, we cannot pay attention to what he says, unless fully corroborated.
I think 90%+ of Americans are very willing to pay for good education, security, and more or less agree (enoght to come to consensus) on social issues that should be handled by the government. Unfortunatly we're split pretty evenly on how to accomplish these issues).
Yes. Many of us believe the truth, that the Constitution forbids the federal government from paying for such things. Others choose convenience and personal preference over the law. But actually, it's not that even, since a majority of people don't give a damn about the Constitution anymore.
No, you said exactly what I quoted you to say. They are your own damned words.
You then talked about him leading others to infer it, without recanting the claim that he "inferred" it himself.
To me, that is insisting that he did nothing wrong in his Iraq policies.
Right, because you read things that are not there.
Anyone with half a independent mind would come to similar inferences, or at least understand where I could infer what I did.
Anyone with half an indepedent mind would make up shit that doesn't exist?
Your revisionist version of pre-war events
Liar.
nor did i claim that. 'When he claims no mistakes, non-supporters hear "I'm perefect".'
When you lie, you shouldn't make it so obvious, since you were talking about "Bush supporters" in the quote I was directly responding to. I even actually copied and pasted your exact words. Since it's only one comment up, I won't bother quoting it again.
Yes, but in the cases you listed
So you admit you were wrong. Next.
Any better explanation is filled with lies and distortions.
You've already proved you are entirely ignorant about world affairs, so I could explain it to you, but you wouldn't get it, or you would make up excuses to reject it.
The 9/11 commision, that the president fought against (wonder why?)
More ignorance. You talk about being critical of the party line, but you keep swallowing it whole. Bush wanted the Commission done a certain way: through existing Congressional committees. Congress wanted an outside panel. There's not a significant difference there, and anyone who says there is, is lying, or is being lied to. Which are you, I wonder?
Condi Rice, on the other hand, was a joke at the hearings, and very much discredited the adminstration.
Right. More proof you have no idea what you're talking about. The one who was the real joke at the hearing was RIchard Clarke, as the 9/11 Commission exposed him in public as a partisan fraud, out to destroy the President, since he was even-handed in private, but in public would only criticize the President. Most ignorant people -- like you -- think it was some sort of smoking gun when Rice said the name of the memo, but that's only because they are unaware of the actual contents of the memo, which had no significant new information in it.
It is obvious that you will support the president, no matter the details. Please, if he is (finally:-) ) elected, don't buy all of his crap without critically inspecting it.
I never have. I never believed that Hussein had WMD. I am against Bush's education and Medicare bills. I am against his tariffs. I am against his increased discretionary spending. I am against his amnesty for illegal aliens. In my journal, I said back in March or so that his ad saying Kerry voted to "raise taxes" 350 times was a lie.
Just like you assume Bush said something he never did, you are assuming I support President Bush blindly, when I never have.
You claim I misquote or misremember these instances, but it is not so.
You said he "insists that he did everything perfectly." That is false.
You said he "has inferred it numerous times." That is false, even if you meant "implied."
You have provided no example of him insisting or implying he did everything perfectly. To say you have is a lie.
When I hear/read these words, I infer that he is claiming that he has not made mistakes in Iraq
So? That you hear things that are never said is YOUR fault.
Infering this does not take a leap of faith, and only reflects poorly on me to Bush supporters.
That you are imagining things and blaming other people for it reflects poorly on OTHER people?
When he claims no mistakes, non-supporters hear "I'm perefect".
Bullshit. I know lots of Bush supporters, probably a lot more than you, and none of them think this.
Doesn't change the fact that as a nation, we are now credibly bankrupt. We have no way to lead with current world situations or upcoming problems. Again, an incredible lack of leadership.
What's incredible is that you are so ignorant of world events. We have been leading the world in many areas since the Iraqi invasion, including in North Korea, Haiti, Darfur, Libya, and to a somewhat lesser degree for now, Iran and Israel. People keep saying nonsense like this, but it flies in the face of the fact that we ARE leading the world, still.
Your whole post amounts to the following: "You never said something I say you did say, and you're a homophobe, and what parents think about how people use their children doesn't matter." All of it is false, and none of it worth responding to further.
Sorry, but parents aren't the only ones who get to "make rules", as you say--I'm perfectly capable of developing a sense of ethics on my own.
I didn't say "parents" in general. I said, when you are talking about THEIR children, THEY get to make the rules.
I'm certain she wasn't wounded for having been acknowledged as a gay woman by the opposition
I never said she was. I said it is wrong to use your opponent's child to score points for yourself.
What you're saying with regards to Keyes and Santorum is that it's ok to insult a politician's kid if, through doing so, you're not trying to attack the politician's ideas.
I said no such thing. I didn't excuse it. I said it was different.
I don't have kids (yes, I know, "I can't possibly understand")
I didn't say you can't understand. However, if you are a parent, you DO understand. It is possible for you to not understand without being a parent, but the fact that you didn't told me you're not.
Really, you misrepresented almost everything I said in your reply. Please think a little bit more next time.
Your arguments are logically flawed. "You can't possibly understand" and "it's slimy because I said so" don't cut it.
Again, I never said the former. As to the latter, I said that only in the sense that "it is slimy because Dick and Lynne say so," which is true, because they are the parents, and they make the rules. You don't even have to agree, it doesn't matter, because almost all parents agree, and it has nothing to do with homosexuality: it has to do with using the child of your opponent to gain points for yourself. Any parent in that position would be pissed off, which is what makes it true.
The justification given to congress implied the backing of the UN
That is absolutely false. You are just making things up. It was well understood at the time that specific authorization or backing of the UN would not be required. No words to that effect appear in the bill itself, and, in fact, amendments requiring additional action by the UN were defeated. Further, our government officials said at the time that we reserved the right to act, under the passed law, without UN approval.
This was well-understood by everyone at the time. You're attempting to rewrite history.
We unilaterally invaded Iraq
That never happened, but I already addressed this in my previous reply, so I won't belabor the obvious point.
The UN as a whole wanted the inspection process to finish, and progress was being made.
No, it wasn't. Iraq had irrevocably failed to comply with UN Resolution 1441. There was no chance whatsoever that they could ever comply with UN Resolution 1441, because it called for Iraq's immediate compliance, and we know that Iraq repeatedly refused to comply with several key issues. On some, it eventually gave in (such as on the SA-2 missiles); while on others, it never did (such as on interviews with scientists outside of Iraq). But eventual compliance still constitutes a breach, because of the initial refusal.
Beyond that obvious legal point, it is still true that even regardless of the lack of required immediate cooperation, they kept stalling, never intending to fully cooperate. We uncovered former sites after the invasion that were never disclosed, though they were required to be.
The process was a failure. You cannot make progress on a failed operation.
So yes, there were two reasons presented. 1) Iraq's WMDs, and 2) Iraq's unwillingness to follow the UN security resolution 1441 on Iraq's WMDs.
Those were the two reasons Powell focused on, yes. Of course, the administration talked about several others, including terrorist aid (which Powell also mentioned), most of which is not in dispute (direct aid to suicide bombers in Palestine; harboring terrorists, some of whom had killed Americans, like Abu Nidal; allowing terrorists to operate freely in his country; etc.). And then there's the broader reason of stability and security, which everyone in the region agreed that Hussein was a continued threat to (this was stated as a matter of fact by the unanimously adopted Resolution 1441). And the fact that Hussein tried to assassinate a US President, and regularly attacked American planes for a dozen years.
There were a whole lot of reasons.
No, but he has inferred it numerous times.
No, YOU inferred it, and he never implied it.
During the second debate, he claimed his biggest mistakes in office were appointments of people.
Again, you're making things up. He never said that. He said he made some mistakes in appointing people, but neither the question nor the answer implied those were his biggest mitakes. And saying he made some mistakes is not an implication he did not make others, so you're just wrong, again.
In a news conference in April of this year when asked what mistakes he said : "I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one"
You are attempting to prove he thinks he has done everything perfectly by showing he said he is confident he has not? Are you drunk?
So, literally, yes the president has never stated that "I did everything perfectly", but he has most defiantly implied it.
No, he did not. You're lying.
Calling such an inference, a lie, shows a ignorance of logic.
You have a lot of gall to lie about what Bush said in the second debate, and to say that being confident he has made mistakes is evidence he thinks he has not made any, and then accuse me of being ignorant.
If you read the original statement, the use of the phrase "the president insists that he did everything perfectly" was in relation to the invasion of Iraq.
And he never insisted that, nor even implied it.
They only time the president has every critically admitted a flaw about the unilateral invasion of Iraq, was when he stated we were too successful in taking Iraq, and we weren't prepared for that success. In every other case, he has defended his decisions and stated that he would make them again.
There was no unilateral invasion of Iraq. Please stop lying. Unilateral has a specific definition, understood by all, and the fact that multiple nations were involved means it was not unilateral. You only hurt any case you're trying to make when you use such blatantly deceptive language.
And Bush said he made mistakes in Iraq. You're simply wrong. Two months ago, he said he miscalculated the conditions in postwar Iraq. It was big news; it's odd you didn't know about it.
You're forgetting two things. First, Santorum and Keyes were not trying to score points AGAINST Cheney. Yes, it matters. And I am quite sure that Dick and Lynne were pissed off at Alan; so what if they didn't express it publicly?
Second, you don't get to make the rules, only the parents do. Deal with it. If you were a parent, you would agree.
The President has been asked directly (3 times, IIRC) to name any mistakes he's made. He couldn't come up with one, large OR small.
Therefore he thinks he's done everything perfectly. Perfection is the absence of mistakes.
You are incorrect. Bush said specifically he had made mistakes, he just didn't say what any of them were. That is inconsistent with the view that he said, or thinks, that he has made no mistakes. Check yourself.
True, but [the existence of WMD] was the ONLY reason presented by our government for unilateral action against the will of the UN and most of our allies.
You're quite wrong, if for no other reason that there were two reasons given in the congressional authorization for war, and one of them was merely to enforce UN resolutions. Also, enforcing UN resolutions was presented by the Bush administration many times during the buildup to war, and even a significant part of Powell's presentation to the UN in Feb 2002 was concerned more with violations of UN resolutions than actual existence of WMD. Sorry, you're just wrong.
While the president insists that he did everything perfectly
That is a lie. He never said any such thing. Kerry said Bush said that, but Kerry was lying when he did.
and would do the same again knowing what he knows now.
As far as the larger picture of going in, yes. As far as details along the way, no, he did not say this.
Slashdot Mirror
Ther is no other purpose for Constitutional govenment of the United States, other than the promotion of the "General Welfare" of it's populace.
That is obviously false, as there are not one, but six clearly stated purposes: to form a more perfect union; establish justice; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare; and secure the blessings of liberty (to ourselves, and our posterity).
It should be noted that you are not only in error in fact, but also therefore in argument, since these six purposes sometimes come into conflict, and your supposition maintains that the one you chose to emphasize has preeminence. Nothing in the text supports this view.
As to Section 8, it occurs in the preface to the section, and is not a granting of rights, but a broad statement of what is to follow. We only need to look to James Madison and John Marshall to show how wrong your wide-open interpretation is, and I won't restate the relatively long argument here.
If you are worried about specific intents, the Constitution was written with the specific intent of preserving a right to chattel slavery.
You are confusing original intent of the Constitution as written in 1787 with the Constitution of today. The part you're referring to has been amended, and the original intent of the 13th Amendment is clear: slavery is illegal. No one seriously thinks we should follow the original intent of something that has been modified by amendment: in those cases, we follow the original intent of the amendment itself.
So if the Constitution had not been amended since 1787, then yes, we would still have a right to own slaves. Duh. Thankfully, it has been so amended. If you wish to amend the Constitution to give the federal government powers that Madison and Marshall clearly said do not exist, then by all means, attempt to do so. Until that time, we know from the people who wrote and defended and ratified and interpreted the Constitution that your interpretation is incorrect.
This is a ridiculous standard
For normal journalists, yes. For those who have a clear political agenda and have repeatedly hidden and twisted the facts before, no, it is not.
Clarke is one of the most honest people in public service.
Funny that the 9/11 Commission called him out for his duplicity during their public live nationally televised hearings. I guess you weren't paying attention.
But legal or illegal, my point that Ashcroft is in the NRA's back pocket stands
Right, because when a politician agrees with a group you don't like then he is in their "back pocket." You're silly, and not in a comical way.
I could go on and on about the crimes of Bush and Ashcroft, but it's clear you're not interested in hearing other sides of an argument.
I am interested in hearing good arguments from any perspective. The operative word is "good."
Oh, you bought into Richard Clarke's lies, I see. Try the 9/11 Commission, it's a bit more honest.
And your "one example" is justifies my dismissiveness: it does not show Ashcroft refused to enforce gun laws. There is no mention of such a thing in that article. It's about legal access to firearms, not refusal to enforce laws against firearms.
You want Ashcroft to violate the law by disallowing their purchase, and you masquerade this in a lie about how he is not enforcing the law.
Cute, but stupid.
What makes Ashcroft competent?
Lots of hard work and study of the law.
His refusal to enforce laws that the NRA doesn't like even after the Bush Administration reluctantly re-started the war on terrorism?
"re-started" what? And he has not refused to enforce any laws. It's never happened. You're confused.
His refusal to go after terrorists and their ilk on the American right
Never happened.
I sense a trend here, and being bored with your lies, I am just going to stop now.
So now you have enough information to address the substance of what he says
Where's the transcripts for all his interviews? What other information does he have, that possibly would go against his point of view, that he didn't mention (like he has done many times before)?
i.e,, you're wrong.
A good leader should be able once elected to then be a leader to the whole country. Not just those that voted for him. Simply put considering the recent american election results a democrat should be half repiblican and a republican half democrat BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VOTED.
So, you think the Constitution is full of shit. Thanks for playing.
Bullshit. You might like Reno better than Ashcroft, but she is not nearly as competent as he is. And Elders got canned not merely for that one comment, and perhaps you think she was competent, but that cometence did not extend to knowing how to talk to people. Telling people to "get over their love affair with the fetus" is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard a public official say ... and I've been listening to Kerry on the campaign trail for a year and a half. She dug her own grave by being stupid.
And while we're talking about convictions and elections in Florida, don't forget to mention that the head of the international group supposedly monitoring our elections is a Democratic congressman, and impeached judge, Alcee Hastings. That's someone you can trust!
A biased opinion can still be valid. Why don't you address the substance of what he says instead of issuing a lazy ad hominem?
The problem is that since we don't have access to all the information Palast has, the question boils down to whether we can trust him. It is not an ad homienm fallacy, because our opinions of Palast DO matter. If we cannot trust him, we cannot pay attention to what he says, unless fully corroborated.
I think 90%+ of Americans are very willing to pay for good education, security, and more or less agree (enoght to come to consensus) on social issues that should be handled by the government. Unfortunatly we're split pretty evenly on how to accomplish these issues).
Yes. Many of us believe the truth, that the Constitution forbids the federal government from paying for such things. Others choose convenience and personal preference over the law. But actually, it's not that even, since a majority of people don't give a damn about the Constitution anymore.
Where "fantastic" means "full of shit," yes, Palast is a fantastic journalist. His book was filled with innuendo, half-truths, and downright lies.
You said he "has inferred it numerous times."
No, I've said he has led others to infer it
No, you said exactly what I quoted you to say. They are your own damned words.
You then talked about him leading others to infer it, without recanting the claim that he "inferred" it himself.
To me, that is insisting that he did nothing wrong in his Iraq policies.
Right, because you read things that are not there.
Anyone with half a independent mind would come to similar inferences, or at least understand where I could infer what I did.
Anyone with half an indepedent mind would make up shit that doesn't exist?
Your revisionist version of pre-war events
Liar.
nor did i claim that. 'When he claims no mistakes, non-supporters hear "I'm perefect".'
When you lie, you shouldn't make it so obvious, since you were talking about "Bush supporters" in the quote I was directly responding to. I even actually copied and pasted your exact words. Since it's only one comment up, I won't bother quoting it again.
Yes, but in the cases you listed
So you admit you were wrong. Next.
Any better explanation is filled with lies and distortions.
You've already proved you are entirely ignorant about world affairs, so I could explain it to you, but you wouldn't get it, or you would make up excuses to reject it.
The 9/11 commision, that the president fought against (wonder why?)
More ignorance. You talk about being critical of the party line, but you keep swallowing it whole. Bush wanted the Commission done a certain way: through existing Congressional committees. Congress wanted an outside panel. There's not a significant difference there, and anyone who says there is, is lying, or is being lied to. Which are you, I wonder?
Condi Rice, on the other hand, was a joke at the hearings, and very much discredited the adminstration.
Right. More proof you have no idea what you're talking about. The one who was the real joke at the hearing was RIchard Clarke, as the 9/11 Commission exposed him in public as a partisan fraud, out to destroy the President, since he was even-handed in private, but in public would only criticize the President. Most ignorant people -- like you -- think it was some sort of smoking gun when Rice said the name of the memo, but that's only because they are unaware of the actual contents of the memo, which had no significant new information in it.
WMD is a horrible word, and I shouldn't have used it, I meant NBC weaponry.
Lie seems to be your favorite word. no wonder.
Hey, don't get pissy with me just because you keep saying things, over and over again, which are patently false, even after being corrected.
It is obvious that you will support the president, no matter the details. Please, if he is (finally :-) ) elected, don't buy all of his crap without critically inspecting it.
I never have. I never believed that Hussein had WMD. I am against Bush's education and Medicare bills. I am against his tariffs. I am against his increased discretionary spending. I am against his amnesty for illegal aliens. In my journal, I said back in March or so that his ad saying Kerry voted to "raise taxes" 350 times was a lie.
Just like you assume Bush said something he never did, you are assuming I support President Bush blindly, when I never have.
You claim I misquote or misremember these instances, but it is not so.
You said he "insists that he did everything perfectly." That is false.
You said he "has inferred it numerous times." That is false, even if you meant "implied."
You have provided no example of him insisting or implying he did everything perfectly. To say you have is a lie.
When I hear/read these words, I infer that he is claiming that he has not made mistakes in Iraq
So? That you hear things that are never said is YOUR fault.
Infering this does not take a leap of faith, and only reflects poorly on me to Bush supporters.
That you are imagining things and blaming other people for it reflects poorly on OTHER people?
When he claims no mistakes, non-supporters hear "I'm perefect".
Bullshit. I know lots of Bush supporters, probably a lot more than you, and none of them think this.
Doesn't change the fact that as a nation, we are now credibly bankrupt. We have no way to lead with current world situations or upcoming problems. Again, an incredible lack of leadership.
What's incredible is that you are so ignorant of world events. We have been leading the world in many areas since the Iraqi invasion, including in North Korea, Haiti, Darfur, Libya, and to a somewhat lesser degree for now, Iran and Israel. People keep saying nonsense like this, but it flies in the face of the fact that we ARE leading the world, still.
Your whole post amounts to the following: "You never said something I say you did say, and you're a homophobe, and what parents think about how people use their children doesn't matter." All of it is false, and none of it worth responding to further.
No, but he leads people to infer it.
Sorry, but the fact that you infer something by misquoting and misremembering what he says does not reflect on him, but on you.
Sorry, but parents aren't the only ones who get to "make rules", as you say--I'm perfectly capable of developing a sense of ethics on my own.
I didn't say "parents" in general. I said, when you are talking about THEIR children, THEY get to make the rules.
I'm certain she wasn't wounded for having been acknowledged as a gay woman by the opposition
I never said she was. I said it is wrong to use your opponent's child to score points for yourself.
What you're saying with regards to Keyes and Santorum is that it's ok to insult a politician's kid if, through doing so, you're not trying to attack the politician's ideas.
I said no such thing. I didn't excuse it. I said it was different.
I don't have kids (yes, I know, "I can't possibly understand")
I didn't say you can't understand. However, if you are a parent, you DO understand. It is possible for you to not understand without being a parent, but the fact that you didn't told me you're not.
Really, you misrepresented almost everything I said in your reply. Please think a little bit more next time.
Your arguments are logically flawed. "You can't possibly understand" and "it's slimy because I said so" don't cut it.
Again, I never said the former. As to the latter, I said that only in the sense that "it is slimy because Dick and Lynne say so," which is true, because they are the parents, and they make the rules. You don't even have to agree, it doesn't matter, because almost all parents agree, and it has nothing to do with homosexuality: it has to do with using the child of your opponent to gain points for yourself. Any parent in that position would be pissed off, which is what makes it true.
The justification given to congress implied the backing of the UN
That is absolutely false. You are just making things up. It was well understood at the time that specific authorization or backing of the UN would not be required. No words to that effect appear in the bill itself, and, in fact, amendments requiring additional action by the UN were defeated. Further, our government officials said at the time that we reserved the right to act, under the passed law, without UN approval.
This was well-understood by everyone at the time. You're attempting to rewrite history.
We unilaterally invaded Iraq
That never happened, but I already addressed this in my previous reply, so I won't belabor the obvious point.
The UN as a whole wanted the inspection process to finish, and progress was being made.
No, it wasn't. Iraq had irrevocably failed to comply with UN Resolution 1441. There was no chance whatsoever that they could ever comply with UN Resolution 1441, because it called for Iraq's immediate compliance, and we know that Iraq repeatedly refused to comply with several key issues. On some, it eventually gave in (such as on the SA-2 missiles); while on others, it never did (such as on interviews with scientists outside of Iraq). But eventual compliance still constitutes a breach, because of the initial refusal.
Beyond that obvious legal point, it is still true that even regardless of the lack of required immediate cooperation, they kept stalling, never intending to fully cooperate. We uncovered former sites after the invasion that were never disclosed, though they were required to be.
The process was a failure. You cannot make progress on a failed operation.
So yes, there were two reasons presented. 1) Iraq's WMDs, and 2) Iraq's unwillingness to follow the UN security resolution 1441 on Iraq's WMDs.
Those were the two reasons Powell focused on, yes. Of course, the administration talked about several others, including terrorist aid (which Powell also mentioned), most of which is not in dispute (direct aid to suicide bombers in Palestine; harboring terrorists, some of whom had killed Americans, like Abu Nidal; allowing terrorists to operate freely in his country; etc.). And then there's the broader reason of stability and security, which everyone in the region agreed that Hussein was a continued threat to (this was stated as a matter of fact by the unanimously adopted Resolution 1441). And the fact that Hussein tried to assassinate a US President, and regularly attacked American planes for a dozen years.
There were a whole lot of reasons.
No, but he has inferred it numerous times.
No, YOU inferred it, and he never implied it.
During the second debate, he claimed his biggest mistakes in office were appointments of people.
Again, you're making things up. He never said that. He said he made some mistakes in appointing people, but neither the question nor the answer implied those were his biggest mitakes. And saying he made some mistakes is not an implication he did not make others, so you're just wrong, again.
In a news conference in April of this year when asked what mistakes he said : "I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one"
You are attempting to prove he thinks he has done everything perfectly by showing he said he is confident he has not? Are you drunk?
So, literally, yes the president has never stated that "I did everything perfectly", but he has most defiantly implied it.
No, he did not. You're lying.
Calling such an inference, a lie, shows a ignorance of logic.
You have a lot of gall to lie about what Bush said in the second debate, and to say that being confident he has made mistakes is evidence he thinks he has not made any, and then accuse me of being ignorant.
If you read the original statement, the use of the phrase "the president insists that he did everything perfectly" was in relation to the invasion of Iraq.
And he never insisted that, nor even implied it.
They only time the president has every critically admitted a flaw about the unilateral invasion of Iraq, was when he stated we were too successful in taking Iraq, and we weren't prepared for that success. In every other case, he has defended his decisions and stated that he would make them again.
There was no unilateral invasion of Iraq. Please stop lying. Unilateral has a specific definition, understood by all, and the fact that multiple nations were involved means it was not unilateral. You only hurt any case you're trying to make when you use such blatantly deceptive language.
And Bush said he made mistakes in Iraq. You're simply wrong. Two months ago, he said he miscalculated the conditions in postwar Iraq. It was big news; it's odd you didn't know about it.
Low and slimy?
Yes.
You're forgetting two things. First, Santorum and Keyes were not trying to score points AGAINST Cheney. Yes, it matters. And I am quite sure that Dick and Lynne were pissed off at Alan; so what if they didn't express it publicly?
Second, you don't get to make the rules, only the parents do. Deal with it. If you were a parent, you would agree.
Perhaps, but that is beside the point, which is that anyone who says Bush says he has done things perfectly is lying out their ass. :-)
Scores are not simple mistakes. And he has made MANY "simple mistakes" about the Red Sox, as the link to FFFT shows.
The President has been asked directly (3 times, IIRC) to name any mistakes he's made. He couldn't come up with one, large OR small.
Therefore he thinks he's done everything perfectly. Perfection is the absence of mistakes.
You are incorrect. Bush said specifically he had made mistakes, he just didn't say what any of them were. That is inconsistent with the view that he said, or thinks, that he has made no mistakes. Check yourself.
True, but [the existence of WMD] was the ONLY reason presented by our government for unilateral action against the will of the UN and most of our allies.
You're quite wrong, if for no other reason that there were two reasons given in the congressional authorization for war, and one of them was merely to enforce UN resolutions. Also, enforcing UN resolutions was presented by the Bush administration many times during the buildup to war, and even a significant part of Powell's presentation to the UN in Feb 2002 was concerned more with violations of UN resolutions than actual existence of WMD. Sorry, you're just wrong.
While the president insists that he did everything perfectly
That is a lie. He never said any such thing. Kerry said Bush said that, but Kerry was lying when he did.
and would do the same again knowing what he knows now.
As far as the larger picture of going in, yes. As far as details along the way, no, he did not say this.