An American hero

[fedfem]

Quote by: The Analog Kid It wasn't the crimes that got them in trouble, it was the coverups. Don't be so obtuse. You are proving my point. One was in regards to a petty break in, the other was in regards to a sexual harrassment lawsuit, both serious matters. If he had lied about it in a court of law, yes. Who is the one that doesn't understand that it's not the crime itself that was the issue in either Nixon or Clinton? It was the coverups. Um. Clinton also attempted to thwart an investigation by perjering himself on the witness stand, in a court of law, and under oath. He also obstructed justice by hiding and removing evidence, not to mention attempted to coach witnesses. He also got his operatives to release the confidential files of Linda Tripp. Those are all crimes. I am being very real. Both men should've lost their jobs. Had Clinton had 1/2 the character of Nixon he would've resigned. Had Democrats had 1/2 the character of Republicans they would've called for his resignation as many Republicans did of Nixon. Instead, Clinton hid in the White House for over a year, lied to everyone, focused his attention on his legal defense rather than important things like say, terrorism. He put himself before the country. Typical of him. His defenders reduced themselves to excusing perjery and obstruction of justice under the guise of "its' just about sex". Keep talking, you just proved my point. Thanks. You made it easy.

Well the fact is Clinton did not resign and not only did his party not call for his resignation, many republicans didn't as well. Using your method Reagan and/or Bush 41 should have resigned over Iran/Contra. Not only were the people lied to, so was Congress.

Nixon resigned because moderates agreed he should. The only reason the middle is not freaking YET is because of the effective fear mongering of this admin.

[Sonart]

Quote by: Zeebadee So you think it's ok for a president to commit perjury because others lied too?? Shall the degree of "national import" become the yardstick that we measure right and wrong from?

But it's not about right or wrong is it, no matter how simplistic you try to make it for political advantage. Would you rather have a President who looked us in the eye and said "We do not negotiate with terrorists", then went behind our backs to do just that -- with the result, exactly as he'd told us would happen, that more hostages were taken -- all so that he could break American law in order to arm his own terrorists, then covered it up and lied about it under oath, or have a President who, after 6 years of non-stop, witch-hunting investigations that basically found no wrong-doing, was found to have lied about "having sexual relations with that woman"?

Obviously you'd prefer the former because every February 6th conservatives will toast Saint Ronald's birthday and his trusty sidekick, Ollie North. Where's the condemnation of these men? Where's the finger-pointing concern for right and wrong?

Do I give a rip that Clarence Thomas lied under oath about whether he talked dirty to Anita Hill? No, not really. (Which does not mean Hill was lying... she was simply a pawn caught in the middle of a political food fight) It was a calculated political defense against a cheap shot 'gotcha'. At least the Democrats had the grace to realize it and drop it after 3 days of investigation. I cared vastly more about the fact that Thomas was a singularly unqualified candidate for the Court, nominated in a cynical act of political affirmative action by a President who claimed to oppose affirmative action for others.

That conservatives feel compelled to destroy people for failures to adhere to strict definitions of right and wrong on issues of debatable consequence, yet ignore equal or vast failures by their own only shows that their constant harping on issues of "Character" is simply cheap hypocricy.

Is it ok that Clinton lied just because others did too? No, but neither is it ok to judge him any differently than you judge your own for the sake of political gamemanship. Mark Felt broke the law a little so in the end we could catch a President who broke the law a lot and illegally ran roughshod over the rights of Americans

As to whether Mark Felt is a hero, I guess that depends on whether he broke the law for altruism or petty retribution. I suspect it's both, but I also suspect we'll never know. But the end result was to bring down a President who's character flaws were bigger and more dangerous to America than Bill Clinton's could possibly be, so for that reason Felt's actions were indeed heroic. Maybe he's not a hero personally, but he certainly isn't a villain.

.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Sonart As to whether Mark Felt is a hero, I guess that depends on whether he broke the law for altruism or petty retribution. I suspect it's both, but I also suspect we'll never know. But the end result was to bring down a President who's character flaws were bigger and more dangerous to America than Bill Clinton's could possibly be, so for that reason Felt's actions were indeed heroic. Maybe he's not a hero personally, but he certainly isn't a villain. .

I notice that you didn't answer my questions....

What other, possibly classified, information did he leak because of what he personally believed? Who did he leak it to? Should everybody in such a job be allowed the option of leaking information when they think it's the right thing to do?

Felt stayed hiding away for more than 30 years because he knew he was wrong. He himself knows he's no hero. The only reason he's come out now is that his daughter is trying to use the senile old fool to make a few easy bucks.

[The Analog Kid]

Quote by: fedfem Well the fact is Clinton did not resign and not only did his party not call for his resignation, many republicans didn't as well. Using your method Reagan and/or Bush 41 should have resigned over Iran/Contra. Not only were the people lied to, so was Congress. Nixon resigned because moderates agreed he should. The only reason the middle is not freaking YET is because of the effective fear mongering of this admin.

Well the fact is Clinton did not resign and not only did his party not call for his resignation, many republicans didn't as well. Using your method Reagan and/or Bush 41 should have resigned over Iran/Contra. Not only were the people lied to, so was Congress.

Actually, neither were found guilty of any crime.

Nixon resigned because moderates agreed he should.

No. He resigned because some principled people told him he was going to be impeached. The principled man then decided against dragging the nation through any more garbage so he did the right thing and resigned. He then spent his later years atoning for what he did and did some very good and noble things.

The only reason the middle is not freaking YET is because of the effective fear mongering of this admin.

Oh Please. Give me a break.

[lsbskins1]

"No. He resigned because some principled people told him he was going to be impeached. The principled man then decided against dragging the nation through any more garbage so he did the right thing and resigned. He then spent his later years atoning for what he did and did some very good and noble things."

Analog-
If you actually believe this then you are beyond reason. He resigned because he was advised that not only would he be impeached, but he was most likely going to be convicted. His position was completely untenable and he knew it. If he was such a man of "principle", why did he tell his men he wanted results not excuses in the search for dirt on his political opponents. Why did he continue to keep Charles Colson around when he suggested they firebomb The Brookings Institute as a cover for getting documents. Nixon's only "principle" was that only he could run the country properly and therefore, any dirty trick, any subversion he chose to employ was justified. The evidence in the record supports my contention and only the revisionist fantasies of a select few, employing selective memory support your contention.

[Sonart]

Quote by: The Analog Kid Instead, Clinton hid in the White House for over a year, lied to everyone, focused his attention on his legal defense rather than important things like say, terrorism. He put himself before the country. Typical of him. His defenders reduced themselves to excusing perjery and obstruction of justice under the guise of "its' just about sex".

Who put who before their country? You think Monicagate came out of a vacuum? It was one year that followed 6 years of non-stop witch-hunts by the right trying to find something to pin on Clinton. Whitewater: 2.. count 'em... 2 special prosecutors. When Robert Fisk found nothing, they Republicans brought in Starr. 4... count 'em... 4 seperate congressional investigations, none of which found a damn thing. Fostergate. 3... count 'em... 3 seperate congressional investigations, none of which found a thing. Congressional investigations for filegate, travelgate, Hillarygate, troopergate, Chinagate... what, was the Republican House so tired of Clinton passing his budgets over Newt's dead body that they had nothing better to do but launch fruitless investigations? Who was interested in the country? Clinton, with the best economy and job growth in U.S. history... ever... or the GOP and the VRWC who were trying to sabotage him every inch of the way.

As to important things like, say, terrorism, here's what Clinton was doing... WITHOUT the benefit of 9/11 hindsight.

He had to get busy right away, with the first attack on the World Trade Center occuring about a month after Clinton took office. So the first order of business was to capture, try and convict the perpetrators, Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim and Wali Amin Shah, all now behind bars. You can visit them.

Clinton's administration went on to stop terrorist plots to: kill the Pope, blow up 12 U.S. airliners, the UN headquarters, the FBI building, the Israeli embassy in Washington, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington bridge and an attack on the U.S. embassy in Tanzania.

Clinton was able to do this after he tripled the counter-terrorism budget for the FBI and doubling counter-terrorism funding overall, along with creating a national security office to coordinate counter-terrorism efforts.

Now of course you'd think the Republicans in Congress would be right there, helping our president fight the evils of terrorism. Well, not exactly. When Clinton proposed increasing our intellegence agencies wiretap authority, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shot it down. His reasoning? ''When you have an agency that turns nine hundred personal files over to people like Craig Livingstone... it's very hard to justify giving that agency more power.'' That would be a reference to 'Filegate', remember? Yet another Clinton 'Scandal' that congressional investigation proved groundless. We can see where the Republican priorities were.

When Clinton asked Congress for more funds for anti-terrorism efforts, Orrin Hatch said, ''The administration would be wise to utilize the resources Congress has already provided before it requests additional funding.''

When Clinton backed legislation to expand access to banking records, in order to follow illegal money trails, it was killed, on behalf of big banks, by Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. George Bush will later call for identical legislation.

When Clinton appointed the Gore Commission to review and make recommendations regarding terrorist threats to our airlines, the airline industry vigorously lobbied against it through the GOP run committees as 'too expense'.

And when Clinton supported legislation to make it easier to trace Internet traffic and fight cyber-terrorism, the Republican congress howled. To be fair, so did the far left, who saw the bill as a "plan to strengthen the repressive powers of the federal government".

(Kindly note that since 9/11, Bush and John Ashcroft have pushed legislation for each of these issues.)

Gingrich, however, was more supportive when Clinton hit Sudan and Afghanistan with Tomahawks in 1998. ''The President did exactly the right thing,'' he said. ''By doing this we're sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists.''

After the embassy bombings in Africa, Clinton issued a directive authorizing the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Alas, the Republicans didn't like that. Seems it conflicted with Saint Ronald's executive order 12333 prohibiting the assassination of heads of state. The fact that Osama bin Laden was not a head of state apparently went right past them.

Then, after the Cole bombing, instead of funding the terrorists like Reagan or ignoring them like Dubya (pre-9/11, of course) Clinton appointed Richard Clarke as the first national anti-terrorism coordinator, tasked with creating a plan to take out al-Queda. He came up with a plan to break up al-Queda cells, arrest their personnel, attack their financial support, freeze their assests, give aid to countries fighting terrorists, and increase covert activity in Afghanistan to wipe out training camps and capture bin Laden. As a Bush official said, Clarke's plan amounted to ''everything we've done since 9/11.''

Then a horrible thing happened. George Dubya Bush took office. From the moment he took office, his administration completely ignored efforts to combat terrorism, prefering to focus on... here it comes... missile defense. Star Wars.

During the transition, NSA Sandy Berger arranged 10 briefings with Bush's new NSA, Condoleeza Rice, assuming they'd realize the threat of terrorist attacks and want to continue Clinton's work.

Nope. In fact, when TIME magazine asked Rice, she ''declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present''. Unfortunately, the New York Times did a story at the time. Quote: ''As he prepared to leave office last January, Mr. Berger met with his successor, Condoleeza Rice, and gave her a warning. ACCORDING TO BOTH OF THEM, he said that terrorism -- and particularly Mr. bin Laden's brand of it--would consumme for more of her time than she had ever imagined.''

The final ingominy came in February of 2001, when the Hart-Rudman commission issued their final report. In it, they warned that ''mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern.'' Their advice? Create a new federal agency, ''A National Homeland Security Agency with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security.''

Bush's response? Zip! Zilch! Nada! Nicht!

Nope, Bush was busy spending 42% of his first seven months in office either at Camp David, Kennebunkport or Crawford, Texas, spending important quality time with his wife and his dog. Not until after 9/11 did Bush decide to put into action everything that Clinton's team had tried so hard to get the Republican Congress to support. They were apparently way too busy investigating Clinton 'scandals'.

Ironical, huh!"


.

[Sonart]

Quote by: The Analog Kid Actually, neither were found guilty of any crime.

Do you, personally, believe Reagan was telling the truth under oath? Considering that Reagan's Secretary of State, Secretary of Denfense and National Security advisor, among many others, were convicted in Iran/Contra, one would have to suspect that for Reagan to say he didn't know what was going on, he'd have to have been lying repeatedly or blindingly incompetent. Take your pick.

.

[The Analog Kid]

Who put who before their country? You think Monicagate came out of a vacuum? It was one year that followed 6 years of non-stop witch-hunts by the right trying to find something to pin on Clinton.

This game of "gotcha" has been played out long before the Clinton admin. Forgetting Nixon?

Whitewater: 2.. count 'em... 2 special prosecutors. When Robert Fisk found nothing, they Republicans brought in Starr. 4... count 'em... 4 seperate congressional investigations, none of which found a damn thing. Fostergate. 3... count 'em... 3 seperate congressional investigations, none of which found a thing. Congressional investigations for filegate, travelgate, Hillarygate, troopergate, Chinagate

Actually, you are wrong on several levels.
1) Janet Reno hired Starr, not the Republicans
2) Whitewater led to a crapload of convicted crimes. Those convicted fell on the sword for Bill and Hillary.
3) Chinagate, and Clintons incompetence and willingness to accept foreign money for campaign donations resulted in the largest transfer of American weaponry intelligence in our history. And you argue that it was nothing. LOL. How pathetic.

what, was the Republican House so tired of Clinton passing his budgets over Newt's dead body that they had nothing better to do but launch fruitless investigations?

Oh, so you are of the opinion that a balanced budget was a bad thing.

Who was interested in the country?

Certainly not Clinton.

Clinton, with the best economy and job growth in U.S. history... ever... or the GOP and the VRWC who were trying to sabotage him every inch of the way.

Oh, thats precious. Prove Clinton was responsible for creating this great economy.
Show us all of his proposed and enacted legislation that created this.

As to important things like, say, terrorism, here's what Clinton was doing... WITHOUT the benefit of 9/11 hindsight......

Thats pretty good however it does not address his unwillingness to deal with terrorism in a pro-active manner, meaning defeating terrorism from the source.
He was criminally negligent on the matter, the facts don't lie. He passed on on opportunity to take OBL.
He cared more about blowjobs and chasing interns than dismantling AQ.

Now of course you'd think the Republicans in Congress would be right there, helping our president fight the evils of terrorism. ......

Obviously it wasn't groundless as 900 files of Clinton "enemies" turned up in the White House.
Or are you arguing that the files just magically appeared in the White House, all on their own?

When Clinton asked Congress for more funds for anti-terrorism efforts, Orrin Hatch said, ''The administration would be wise to utilize the resources Congress has already provided before it requests additional funding.''

Maybe Hatch was right.

When Clinton backed legislation to expand access to banking records, in order to follow illegal money trails, it was killed, on behalf of big banks, by Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. George Bush will later call for identical legislation.

Isn't this the stuff liberals are against and are attacking Bush over?
Why are you arguing that the measure was OK under Clinton and yet your fellow travelers argue it's not OK under Bush?

When Clinton appointed the Gore Commission to review and make recommendations regarding terrorist threats to our airlines, the airline industry vigorously lobbied against it through the GOP run committees as 'too expense'.

LOL. CAPPS could've possibly prevented the 9/11 attacks. The Gore Commission, because of liberal sensitivities, refused to enact it.
This is where liberalism becomes dangerous to American survival. They are more concerned with not offending people than they are saving lives.

Gingrich, however, was more supportive when Clinton hit Sudan and Afghanistan with Tomahawks in 1998. ''The President did exactly the right thing,'' he said. ''By doing this we're sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists.''

I wasn't aware you were an admirer of Newt Gingrich. You must be in order for you to be quoting him.
Typical Clinton "response", weak, paltry, and ineffective.

After the embassy bombings in Africa, Clinton issued a directive authorizing the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Alas, the Republicans didn't like that. Seems it conflicted with Saint Ronald's executive order 12333 prohibiting the assassination of heads of state. The fact that Osama bin Laden was not a head of state apparently went right past them.

More "response". Nothing proactive.

Then, after the Cole bombing, instead of funding the terrorists like Reagan

LOL. So we can conclude that you believe fighting the spread of Soviet communism was a bad thing.

or ignoring them like Dubya (pre-9/11, of course)

Howling laughter. Dubya accomplished more in 8 months than Clinton did in 8 years.

Clinton appointed Richard Clarke as the first national anti-terrorism coordinator, tasked with creating a plan to take out al-Queda. He came up with a plan to break up al-Queda cells, arrest their personnel, attack their financial support, freeze their assests, give aid to countries fighting terrorists, and increase covert activity in Afghanistan to wipe out training camps and capture bin Laden. As a Bush official said, Clarke's plan amounted to ''everything we've done since 9/11.''

Unfortunately nobody in the Clinton admin acted on Clarkes plan until Bush came into office. Shortly thereafter they began implimenting some of his reccomendations.

Then a horrible thing happened. George Dubya Bush took office. From the moment he took office, his administration completely ignored efforts to combat terrorism, prefering to focus on... here it comes... missile defense. Star Wars.

This is just devoid of facts.
After assuming office the Bush administration began a new direction in combatting terrorism. Bush was tired of the approach of "swatting at flies" and in those first several months developed an entirely new comprehensive strategy to address terrorism coming from the ME.
But hey, why let the facts get in the way, right?

During the transition, NSA Sandy Berger arranged 10 briefings with Bush's new NSA, Condoleeza Rice, assuming they'd realize the threat of terrorist attacks and want to continue Clinton's work. Nope. In fact, when TIME magazine asked Rice, she ''declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present''. Unfortunately, the New York Times did a story at the time. Quote: ''As he prepared to leave office last January, Mr. Berger met with his successor, Condoleeza Rice, and gave her a warning. ACCORDING TO BOTH OF THEM, he said that terrorism -- and particularly Mr. bin Laden's brand of it--would consumme for more of her time than she had ever imagined.''

You mean Sandly Bergler? What top secret documents you think he stuffed in his underwear and socks?
What was he hiding?

The final ingominy came in February of 2001, when the Hart-Rudman commission issued their final report. In it, they warned that ''mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern.'' Their advice? Create a new federal agency, ''A National Homeland Security Agency with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security.'' Bush's response? Zip! Zilch! Nada! Nicht!

Well, we've already addressed the fact that you are either ignorant or just lying about Bush doing nothing. The Bush admin immediately enacted some of Clarkes reccomendations while formulating an entirely new policy on combatting terrorism.

Nope, Bush was busy spending 42% of his first seven months in office either at Camp David, Kennebunkport or Crawford, Texas, spending important quality time with his wife and his dog.

Oh Classic. You must be a Michael Moore fan. LMAO.
It's just so weak that you would have to use something as pathetic as this.
Didn't Bush have daily meetings while away from the WH?

Not until after 9/11 did Bush decide to put into action everything that Clinton's team had tried so hard to get the Republican Congress to support. They were apparently way too busy investigating Clinton 'scandals'.

We've already addressed this. Bush had acted and received the new strategy on combatting terrorism the day before or day of 9/11. That is a fact you cannot refute.

Ironical, huh!"

What is hilarious is that you are attempting to convince people that Clinton was strong on addressing terrorism.

[Sonart]

Your posts have a habit of expanding exponentially, Kid, and I have X amount of time to post here, so eventually at some point I just have to say screw it and move on... however...

Quote by: The Analog Kid This game of "gotcha" has been played out long before the Clinton admin. Forgetting Nixon?

Beg pardon? You think Nixon was simply a harmless teddy bear caught up in a witch hunt? Nixon was involved with break-ins, illegal wiretaps, conspiracy to obstruct justice, attempts to use the Internal Revenue Service to punish political opponents and liberal critics in the press, and corruption of the FBI and CIA. His problems were vastly more insidious than lying under oath about an affair.

1) Janet Reno hired Starr, not the Republicans

Reno appointed Robert Fiske as special prosecutor. A three-judge panel appointed Starr, which Reno had no choice but to approve. Now why, pray tell, did Fiske need to be replaced by Starr after he'd already found no wrong doing in Whitewater?

2) Whitewater led to a crapload of convicted crimes.

Besides Susan McDougal's refusal to perjure herself, name one who was convicted on anything having to do with Clinton and Whitewater? Just one.

3) Chinagate, and Clintons incompetence and willingness to accept foreign money for campaign donations resulted in the largest transfer of American weaponry intelligence in our history. And you argue that it was nothing. LOL. How pathetic.

That's your opinion. The crime here was...?

Oh, so you are of the opinion that a balanced budget was a bad thing.

Not at all. That's the point. Those were Clinton budgets that were passed which eliminated the deficit, not the GOPs. Recall how Newt caved after the government shut down? Do you really believe that Newt was canned as Speaker because of an affair? It was for his complete failure to achieve the GOP agenda.

Oh, thats precious. Prove Clinton was responsible for creating this great economy.

His budgets that eliminated the deficit and created a surplus, and passing GATT and NAFTA, to name a few.

But here's the really fun part Detractors will say that it wasn't Clinton, but the dot.com boom that was really responsible for the 90's economy. I'll accept that. Dot.com... that refers to businesses based on the Internet, right? The Internet that existed because Al Gore took the initiative in Congress to pass legislation that led to the creation of the Internet as we now know it, starting in 1986 with the Supercomputer Network Study Act, legislation that created defensenet which later grew into the worldwide web. In 1991, Gore sponsored the High Performance Computing Act, reluctantly signed into law by President Bush, who favored a more gradual approach.

So I guess you're right. It wasn't the Clinton boom, it was the Al Gore boom.

Thats pretty good however it does not address his unwillingness to deal with terrorism in a pro-active manner, meaning defeating terrorism from the source.

What? You mean like invading Iraq or Afghanistan? Do you honestly believe that the American people, or more importantly, Congress, would have supported such a thing? Like I said, 9/11 hindsight. Actually, Clinton did propose invading Afghanistan, but the Joint Chiefs convinced him it was a bad idea.

He cared more about blowjobs and chasing interns than dismantling AQ.

YAAAWN!!

LOL. So we can conclude that you believe fighting the spread of Soviet communism was a bad thing.

So terrorism is ok if they're our terrorists. Got it. Especially if you have to break U.S. law to fund them.

You mean Sandly Bergler? What top secret documents you think he stuffed in his underwear and socks?

What does that have to do with anything?

Howling laughter. Dubya accomplished more in 8 months than Clinton did in 8 years.

Prior to 9/11? Name something.

Oh Classic. You must be a Michael Moore fan. LMAO.

Actually I can't stand Micheal Moore, and I've posted it often on this board. I walked out of his second movie. His trash is based on nothing but rumors, innuendos, half-truths and nonsense, which makes him no better than Rush, Bill and the rest.

Didn't Bush have daily meetings while away from the WH?

How nifty. Accomplishing what? Oh yeah, right, Bush had a spanking new plan ready on September 10. Who's plan, do you suppose?

.

[The Analog Kid]

1)

Your posts have a habit of expanding exponentially, Kid, and I have X amount of time to post here, so eventually at some point I just have to say screw it and move on... however...

Just being thorough. I get a warning for not being thorough, now people are complaining that Im too thorough.
Can't win.

Beg pardon? You think Nixon was simply a harmless teddy bear caught up in a witch hunt? Nixon was involved with break-ins, illegal wiretaps, conspiracy to obstruct justice, attempts to use the Internal Revenue Service to punish political opponents and liberal critics in the press, and corruption of the FBI and CIA. His problems were vastly more insidious than lying under oath about an affair.

I don't think Nixon was a harmless teddy bear. He dishonored the office and should've went. At least he had some integrity to resign rather than drag a nation through impeachment proceedings.

Either way, it does not change the validity of my statement. The opposite party has been going after the President for a long, long, long time starting with Jefferson going after John Adams.

[quote]Reno appointed Robert Fiske as special prosecutor. A three-judge panel appointed Starr, which Reno had no choice but to approve. Now why, pray tell, did Fiske need to be replaced by Starr after he'd already found no wrong doing in Whitewater?

Your right. He was appointed by a 3 judge panel. You initially claimed that he was appointed by the Republicans so we both erred.

Anyways, Fiske was replaced because Congress, at Clintons urging, re-enacted the IC statute.

It should also be noted that it was Clinton who called for an IC investigation in 94.
He was appointed in that manner becuase the IC statute stated so.
He was appointed because he was known to be fair and not an ideologue.
He was also the investigator of Bob Packwood, a Republican.
Even some nut from the ACLU thought he was a great choice.

HEre is what the NY Times, hardly a conservative outlet, had to say about Starr August 6, 1994 Entitled "A Prosecutor Overnight":

Few Democrats or Republicans who have worked with Kenneth W. Starr expressed any doubt today that he would be a fair and thoughtful prosecutor in the Whitewater case. But several voiced surprise at his selection because his new role is a decided departure in a distinguished career: his first time ever as a prosecutor at any level.

A respected Washington insider and several times a contender for a nomination to the Supreme Court under Republican Presidents, Mr. Starr carries a reputation as a soft-spoken, even-tempered professional whose work is marked by thoroughness.

The only cautionary notes sounded after the announcement by legal experts and former colleagues were that he was being asked to develop instincts almost instantly that some lawyers take years to refine and that his own political aspirations, though they never landed him in elected office, were bound to lend a partisan air to the investigation that was largely absent with his predecessor, Robert B. Fiske Jr. . . .

Consistently described as judicious, balanced and fair-minded, Mr. Starr won accolades today from those who have worked both with and against him. "If I was going to be a subject of an investigation, I would rather have him investigate me than almost anyone I can think of," said Arthur B. Spitzer, the legal director of the American Civil Liberty Union's Washington office. "I don't have the feeling that he is a fervid prosecutor in the sense that he thinks that anyone accused of something must be guilty." . . .

Though he has won a reputation as concertedly conservative, he wins the kind of praise rarely accorded those of pronounced ideology.

"There's a really small cast of people who have accumulated the kind of credentials he has," said Lincoln Caplan, author of "The 10th Justice," (Knopf, 1987) a book focusing on the office of Solicitor General. "Such people prove their reliability to the culture by transcending rank partisanship. He managed to be consistently conservative without being sharp-edged."
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nytimes/...utor+Overnight


Neat huh?

I also must add that because neither Clinton was not indicted does not mean they did no wrongdoing. As Ray noted in his conclusion: "determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt"
That means they didn't have enough evidence, not any evidence suggesting the Clintons were involved.

Besides Susan McDougal's refusal to perjure herself, name one who was convicted on anything having to do with Clinton and Whitewater? Just one.

Didn't I do this thread already?

On March 4, 1996, the trial of United States v. James B. McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Jim Guy Tucker commenced before Judge George Howard, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. On May 28, 1996, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants. James B. McDougal was convicted on 18 felony counts: one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy); two felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud); one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344 (bank fraud); three felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud); one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1006 (false bank entries); three felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1014 and § 2 (false loan applications); four felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 657 and § 2 (misapplication of bank funds); and three felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1006 and § 2. Susan McDougal was convicted on four felony counts: one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341; one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 657 and § 2; one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1006 and § 2; and one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014 and § 2. Jim Guy Tucker was convicted on two felony counts: one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 and one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341.

That's your opinion. The crime here was...?

No it's the Opinion of the Cox Report, a bi-partisan panel. Read it.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/resou...rview/pg1.html

Its clear. Bernard Schwartz was the single largest Clinton Contributor. Bernard Schwartz owns the Loral Corp. Pre Clinton- passes given to export technology went throught the State Dept. Since the State dept objected to these transfers Clinton changed it to the Commerce Dept (Remember Ron Brown? Any lightbulbs going off yet?).
The transfer of techology has resulted in China advancing 30 years in the span of a few years.

http://www.fas.org/news/china/1998/h980618-prc8.htm

You can't refute any of this. These are all conclusions.

I'll be happy to give you more if you still don't believe anything bad happened.

Not at all. That's the point. Those were Clinton budgets that were passed which eliminated the deficit, not the GOPs. Recall how Newt caved after the government shut down? Do you really believe that Newt was canned as Speaker because of an affair? It was for his complete failure to achieve the GOP agenda.

You are re-writing history. It was Newt that called for a balanced budget, they campaigned on it. He held to his guns. He caved because the liberal media chose to side with Clinton.
Clintons proposed budgets were not balanced by any means during that time. It was the Republicans that kept his spending in check, and it worked. Unfortunately the Republicans have not kept Bush's spending in check.

His budgets that eliminated the deficit and created a surplus, and passing GATT and NAFTA, to name a few.

They were not "his budgets". The House created the budgets, Clinton sent his reccomendations on spending levels to which the House adjusts and modifys. Thats how it works.
No. Something caused a surplus to happen because it means the government started taking in much more money. That something was a growing economy that started under the last 7 quarters of the Bush Sr admin and sputtered after Clinton raised taxes, and then began to grow again. Clinton's policies only slowed down the recovery that was already happening when he took office.

Im not really a big fan of Gatt and Nafta. Are you? Most leftists are not.

[The Analog Kid]

Your posts have a habit of expanding exponentially, Kid, and I have X amount of time to post here, so eventually at some point I just have to say screw it and move on... however...

Just being thorough. I get a warning for not being thorough, now people are complaining that Im too thorough.
Can't win.

Beg pardon? You think Nixon was simply a harmless teddy bear caught up in a witch hunt? Nixon was involved with break-ins, illegal wiretaps, conspiracy to obstruct justice, attempts to use the Internal Revenue Service to punish political opponents and liberal critics in the press, and corruption of the FBI and CIA. His problems were vastly more insidious than lying under oath about an affair.

I don't think Nixon was a harmless teddy bear. He dishonored the office and should've went. At least he had some integrity to resign rather than drag a nation through impeachment proceedings.

Either way, it does not change the validity of my statement. The opposite party has been going after the President for a long, long, long time starting with Jefferson going after John Adams.

Reno appointed Robert Fiske as special prosecutor. A three-judge panel appointed Starr, which Reno had no choice but to approve. Now why, pray tell, did Fiske need to be replaced by Starr after he'd already found no wrong doing in Whitewater?

Your right. He was appointed by a 3 judge panel. You initially claimed that he was appointed by the Republicans so we both erred.

Anyways, Fiske was replaced because Congress, at Clintons urging, re-enacted the IC statute.

It should also be noted that it was Clinton who called for an IC investigation in 94.
He was appointed in that manner becuase the IC statute stated so.
He was appointed because he was known to be fair and not an ideologue.
He was also the investigator of Bob Packwood, a Republican.
Even some nut from the ACLU thought he was a great choice.

HEre is what the NY Times, hardly a conservative outlet, had to say about Starr August 6, 1994 Entitled "A Prosecutor Overnight":

Few Democrats or Republicans who have worked with Kenneth W. Starr expressed any doubt today that he would be a fair and thoughtful prosecutor in the Whitewater case. But several voiced surprise at his selection because his new role is a decided departure in a distinguished career: his first time ever as a prosecutor at any level.

A respected Washington insider and several times a contender for a nomination to the Supreme Court under Republican Presidents, Mr. Starr carries a reputation as a soft-spoken, even-tempered professional whose work is marked by thoroughness.

The only cautionary notes sounded after the announcement by legal experts and former colleagues were that he was being asked to develop instincts almost instantly that some lawyers take years to refine and that his own political aspirations, though they never landed him in elected office, were bound to lend a partisan air to the investigation that was largely absent with his predecessor, Robert B. Fiske Jr. . . .

Consistently described as judicious, balanced and fair-minded, Mr. Starr won accolades today from those who have worked both with and against him. "If I was going to be a subject of an investigation, I would rather have him investigate me than almost anyone I can think of," said Arthur B. Spitzer, the legal director of the American Civil Liberty Union's Washington office. "I don't have the feeling that he is a fervid prosecutor in the sense that he thinks that anyone accused of something must be guilty." . . .

Though he has won a reputation as concertedly conservative, he wins the kind of praise rarely accorded those of pronounced ideology.

"There's a really small cast of people who have accumulated the kind of credentials he has," said Lincoln Caplan, author of "The 10th Justice," (Knopf, 1987) a book focusing on the office of Solicitor General. "Such people prove their reliability to the culture by transcending rank partisanship. He managed to be consistently conservative without being sharp-edged."
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nytimes/...utor+Overnight


Neat huh?

I also must add that because neither Clinton was not indicted does not mean they did no wrongdoing. As Ray noted in his conclusion: "determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt"
That means they didn't have enough evidence, not any evidence suggesting the Clintons were involved.

Besides Susan McDougal's refusal to perjure herself, name one who was convicted on anything having to do with Clinton and Whitewater? Just one.

Didn't I do this thread already?

On March 4, 1996, the trial of United States v. James B. McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Jim Guy Tucker commenced before Judge George Howard, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. On May 28, 1996, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants. James B. McDougal was convicted on 18 felony counts: one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy); two felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud); one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344 (bank fraud); three felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud); one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1006 (false bank entries); three felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1014 and § 2 (false loan applications); four felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 657 and § 2 (misapplication of bank funds); and three felony violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1006 and § 2. Susan McDougal was convicted on four felony counts: one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341; one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 657 and § 2; one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1006 and § 2; and one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014 and § 2. Jim Guy Tucker was convicted on two felony counts: one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 and one felony violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341.

That's your opinion. The crime here was...?

No it's the Opinion of the Cox Report, a bi-partisan panel. Read it.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/resou...rview/pg1.html

Its clear. Bernard Schwartz was the single largest Democrat Contributor. Bernard Schwartz owns the Loral Corp. Pre Clinton- passes given to export technology went throught the State Dept. Since the State dept objected to these transfers Clinton changed it to the Commerce Dept (Remember Ron Brown? Any lightbulbs going off yet?).
The transfer of techology has resulted in China advancing 30 years in the span of a few years.

http://www.fas.org/news/china/1998/h980618-prc8.htm

You can't refute any of this. These are all conclusions.

I'll be happy to give you more if you still don't believe anything bad happened.

Not at all. That's the point. Those were Clinton budgets that were passed which eliminated the deficit, not the GOPs. Recall how Newt caved after the government shut down? Do you really believe that Newt was canned as Speaker because of an affair? It was for his complete failure to achieve the GOP agenda.

You are re-writing history. It was Newt that called for a balanced budget, they campaigned on it. He held to his guns. He caved because the liberal media chose to side with Clinton.
Clintons proposed budgets were not balanced by any means during that time. It was the Republicans that kept his spending in check, and it worked. Unfortunately the Republicans have not kept Bush's spending in check.

His budgets that eliminated the deficit and created a surplus, and passing GATT and NAFTA, to name a few.

They were not "his budgets". The House created the budgets, Clinton sent his reccomendations on spending levels to which the House adjusts and modifys. Thats how it works.
No. Something caused a surplus to happen because it means the government started taking in much more money. That something was a growing economy that started under the last 7 quarters of the Bush Sr admin and sputtered after Clinton raised taxes, and then began to grow again. Clinton's policies only slowed down the recovery that was already happening when he took office.

Im not really a big fan of Gatt and Nafta. Are you? Most leftists are not.

[The Analog Kid]

2)

But here's the really fun part Detractors will say that it wasn't Clinton, but the dot.com boom that was really responsible for the 90's economy. I'll accept that.

The rise of the internet did help the growing economy.

Dot.com... that refers to businesses based on the Internet, right? The Internet that existed because Al Gore took the initiative in Congress to pass legislation that led to the creation of the Internet as we now know it, starting in 1986 with the Supercomputer Network Study Act, legislation that created defensenet which later grew into the worldwide web. In 1991, Gore sponsored the High Performance Computing Act, reluctantly signed into law by President Bush, who favored a more gradual approach. So I guess you're right. It wasn't the Clinton boom, it was the Al Gore boom.

Oh yeah, thats right. Al Gore invented the internet. LOL. Do you think Al Gore invented the idea of the internet? No. He helped pass funding for the internet and he gets credit for that. Who else believed in and signed onto this funding?

What? You mean like invading Iraq or Afghanistan? Do you honestly believe that the American people, or more importantly, Congress, would have supported such a thing?

Thats what being a leader is all about. You lead. You convince. You persuade. Had Clinton outlined the proof of who the a-holes were that were attacking us, where they lived, and how we were going to get rid of their sanctuary's, the American people would've supported it.

Like I said, 9/11 hindsight. Actually, Clinton did propose invading Afghanistan, but the Joint Chiefs convinced him it was a bad idea.

Indeed. 9/11 hindsight. Obviously, even as you claim using Berglers quotes that they felt is was important, yet they did so little proactively. They did little that really went towards the goal of eliminating these people.

I also need to add that measures taken by the Clinton admin hindered the investigation and capture of terrorists.
A couple come to mind;
The Gorelick Wall. Hindered intelligence sharing. Caused authorities not to be able to get on Moussaui's computer.
The provision that stated that airlines could not question more than two arab males per airline flight.

I should also note that Richard Clarke is on the record of saying that there was no plan in the Clinton admin.

QUESTION: Were all of those issues part of alleged plan that was late December [1998] and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to ...

CLARKE: There was never a plan, Andrea. What there was was these two things: One, a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat. And two, those things which had been looked at over the course of two years, and which were still on the table. . .

[T]here was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html

YAAAWN!!

The truth is a difficult thing.

So terrorism is ok if they're our terrorists. Got it. Especially if you have to break U.S. law to fund them.

We broke the law in funding the Pakistani ISI to train the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan?
Do you believe that stopping the spread of Soviet Communism is a noble goal or not?

What does that have to do with anything?

He was obviously hiding somehting that was potentially embarrassing to the administration.

More on Mr Bergler:

Publication:The New York Sun; Date:Jul 23, 2004; Section:Editorial & Opinion; Page:10


The Boldness of the President

The report cites a 1998 meeting between Mr. Berger and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, at which Mr. Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
"In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused most, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured. He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted,” the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, Central Intelligence Agency memo summarizing the weekly meeting between Messrs. Berger and Tenet.

In June of 1999, another plan for action against Mr. bin Laden was on the table. The potential target was a Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. The commission report released yesterday cites Mr. Berger’s “handwritten notes on the meeting paper” referring to “the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties.”According to the Berger notes, “if he responds, we’re blamed.”

On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council’s counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: “In the margin next to Clarke’s suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, ‘no.’ ”

In August of 2000, Mr. Berger was presented with another possible plan for attacking Mr. bin Laden.This time, the plan would be based on aerial surveillance from a “Predator” drone. Reports the commission: “In the memo’s margin,Berger wrote that before considering action, ‘I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.’ ”

In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times — Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action.
http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/ge.../23&ID=Ar01000

Prior to 9/11? Name something.

I did. they completely re-did their entire strategy on dealing with terrorism.
They ran out of time.

Dicky Clarke again:
[i]n January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html

Actually I can't stand Micheal Moore, and I've posted it often on this board. I walked out of his second movie. His trash is based on nothing but rumors, innuendos, half-truths and nonsense, which makes him no better than Rush, Bill and the rest.

Then why use such a silly, meaningless talking point of his?

How nifty. Accomplishing what? Oh yeah, right, Bush had a spanking new plan ready on September 10. Who's plan, do you suppose?

Enrons. Rolls eyes.
The BA plan.
Bush in April 01 told Rice to draft a plan that dealt with AQ and killed OBL
In the meantime they went ahead with some of Clarkes reccomendations that Clinton never bothered enacting.