Here is an excerpt from the "Review & Outlook" section of Opinionjournal.com, posted today:
Rice on the Record
Democrats on the 9/11 Commission inadvertently underscore Bush's successes.
Friday, April 9, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
We predicted yesterday's Condoleezza Rice show would be more about the 9/11 Commissioners themselves than anything the National Security Adviser had to say. But we confess we were unprepared for Bob Kerrey's Vice Presidential audition.
We thought the former Senator had more class than to preface his remarks with a condescending allusion to the fact that Ms. Rice is a black woman. ("I'm very impressed . . . [by] the story of your life.") Or to then complain that her attempts to answer his monologue were cutting into his time. In their zeal to show all the things that went undone before 9/11, Mr. Kerrey and other Democrats on the Commission inadvertently underscored all that President Bush has done since. Think of it as one long endorsement of pre-emption.
One genuinely interesting news nugget came in Ms. Rice's opening statement. There she gave details of the Bush Administration's first major national security directive, completed September 4, 2001. It covered "not Russia, not missile defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of al-Qaeda." Obviously this didn't prevent the events of a week later. But it does suggest, contra Richard Clarke, that the Administration was attentive to the terrorist threat.
Mr. Kerrey and his fellow partisans made much of an August 6, 2001, Presidential briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside United States." But Ms. Rice properly observed that there is no obvious response to non-specific warnings that "something very big may happen." She likewise dismissed Democratic insinuations of a bureaucratic "silver bullet," such as dealing with issues at the "principals" level: Unlike his predecessor, President Bush was already conferring with his Director of Central Intelligence on a daily basis.
Article comments
1 - Doc
Spinning that fast, they have probably induced a gyroscopic like effect in their building...
2 - Hal Pawluk
Note to others: the OpinonJournal is the even-more-right-wing spin-off of the Wall Street Journal ope-eds.
It's so predictable, I find there's no need to engage the content at all.
3 - David Flanagan
It's so predictable, I find there's no need to engage the content at all.
Then why even post on this thread?
Thanks.
David
4 - Hal Pawluk
"Then why even post on this thread?"
As a public service.
The OpinionJournal is accessible only by subscription, so some here may not have had a chance to see any more of it than your excerpts.
I was feeling community-minded today, so wanted to post the warning.
5 - David Flanagan
The OpinionJournal is accessible only by subscription
Actually, you are correct in that the Wall Street Journal is a subscription only site, but Opinionjournal.com is open to all.
Thanks.
David
6 - Hal Pawluk
I'll be darned - I've only acccessed it from the WSJ Opinions section and thought it was part of my subscription.
So, folks, delete "accessible only by subscription" but keep my original PSA (Public Service Announcement):
Thanks for the correction, David.
7 - David Flanagan
Opinionjournal.com is certainly conservative, though, I would challenge you to address the content and the facts behind the content even if you disagree with their conservative worldview.
Thanks.
David
8 - Hal Pawluk
"I would challenge you to address the content and the facts behind the content"
That's not much of challenge, David. As you know, I usually do.
It's just getting so boring to see you bringing the same Stepford-neocon stuff over here to BC.
The move doesn't improve it.
PS: I was surprised not to hear from you on my post on the mythical Heritage foundation 'Jobs Myths' you posted.
9 - David Flanagan
PS: I was surprised not to hear from you on my post...
To tell you the truth, I had not seen your post. Thanks for calling it to my attention. I'll probably chime in on that debate tonight, though, at a quick glance, it looks almost as if you are just calling every point a "red herring," or saying they are unrelated.
I have to see WHY you say these things before I can answer your rebuttal, which I'll try to do later.
One thing I will say, however, is that if the economy continues to grow at the March rate, this whole debate will be dead in the water. But, of course, its election season, which means when you have a booming economy you have to talk it down as much as possible.
Kerry's Line of Attack:
1) When the economy was struggling, blame Bush.
2) When the economy began to boom, but job creation was low, blame the "jobless economy" on Bush.
3) When jobs began appearing en masse and the unemployment rate started to trend down, talk down the kinds of jobs being created.
That'll be a post all by itself.
Thanks.
David
10 - Hal Pawluk
As far as missing my post goes, I had posted a comment in your original Heritage Foundation post and assumed that you automatically got it (as I do with comments on my posts here). Doesn't matter, though.
I don't know why you brought in Kerry (Bush is the screw up), but you're right about many of the Heritage Foundation "facts" being red herrings. Or the authors can't tell when their "facts" have nothing to do with the "myths" they set up.
I can't believe it took three of their people to come up with something so lame, unless they were time-sharing a single brain.
11 - David Flanagan
I can't believe it took three of their people to come up with something so lame, unless they were time-sharing a single brain.
Obviously you did not read the full article. If you had, you would have seen that only one of the researchers was from the Heritage Foundation. Try reading the FULL article with their references before you go rebutting with comments like, "thats not true." These folks brought up many statistics to support their points. Addressing the content means addressing the statistics.
Thanks.
David
12 - Shark
RE: David's regurgitation of the official party line PDB (Paranoid Daily Blather) documents he receives each morning in an unmarked brown paper bag from the Heritage Foundation -- along with his check --
HAL: It's so predictable, I find there's no need to engage the content at all.
David:Then why even post on this thread?
Could it possibly be the same reason you pop into my threads and imply that I'm a racist or complain about some broad satire as if it were gospel facts sent to me by Satan?
Just wonderin'...
13 - Shark
Don't forget that it was OpinionJournal.com that attacked Santa Claus last December; they accused him of trying to instill liberal and socialist ideals in America's children.
Their op-ed said, and I quote:
"The fact that each child gets a present whether or not they worked for said present or not constitutes a gross contradiction of our capitalist system; they should be encouraged to work for what they want, to raise themselves up by their bootstraps and not depend upon some third philanthropic party that obviously represents a one-world, utopian, atheist/paganistic Welfare State. This Santa has got to go."
The article goes on to explain how the letters in his name can be arranged to spell "SATAN", but I don't think that's especially relevant here.
14 - David Flanagan
Shark,
I would love to see the link to the Opinionjournal.com quote. I'm thinking that, if the article was posted there, then it was either in jest or they were quoting something someone else wrote.
As for calling you a racist, I did no such thing. I did say that some of what you have have written or posted has some elements that are dangerously close. Calling Condoleezza Rice, a woman who earned her Phd at the age of 20 a "black Martha Stuart" is a perfect example of that.
Conservatives who make such comparisons are hammered for being biased, whereas, liberals seem to get a pass on a regular basis. Its a double-standard that conservatives have grown quite used to.
David
15 - Hal Pawluk
Of course I read the full article including the stats, most of which had no bearing on the points they had listed as "myths." You should read my post before commenting on it.
And the three people were clearly "their" people, no matter where they work, but the little blurb doesn't tell the whole story.
For instance, they say "Tim Kane, Ph.D., is Research Fellow in Macroeconomics in the Center for Data Analysis" but if you go to this link you'll find that it is a Heritage Foundation page and that Tim Kane is on their staff as "Research Fellow, Center for Data Analysis, The Heritage Foundation."
Here's a similar Heritage Foundation staff page for Brett Schaefer.
I don't know about you, but I hate it when I get pissy about facts then get the facts wrong. Totally destroys credibility, doesn't it?
16 - David Flanagan
Hal,
I checked the links are you are right. I stand corrected.
David
17 - Shark
David, once again...
S-A-T-I-R-E. Satire. Joke. Ha. Ha.
Nevermind.
BTW: a small correction: I called Rice "a skinny black Martha Stewart."
18 - David Flanagan
Shark,
So when does a person's skin color become an object of humor? Thats my point, why do you have to point to her skin color? You might not see the problem with this, but there are many people in the black community who do.
Never mind. Lets drop it.
David
19 - Hal Pawluk
"I checked the links are you are right.
Cool, now let's talk after you've read my post, since your comments in #11 still have no basis:
David: "These folks brought up many statistics to support their points. Addressing the content means addressing the statistics."
It seems to me that your first sentence could be parsed as: "They used numbers so they must be right."
And if you had read the post of mine you comment on you would have seen that I do address their statistics.
Later (maybe tomorrow - off to pursue a life for a while).
20 - Muriel K
WASHINGTON, April 9 " President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.
The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford.
The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders.
Much is being made about Condi Rice’s assertion that the August 6, 2001, PDB entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States” did not constitute a warning, thus there was nothing that could have or should have been done.
Here’s the real problem with Condi’s defense: that PDB was not issued in a vacuum. Warnings of some “spectacular” terrorist attack had been building since May of 2001. Those warnings reached a crescendo in late July. It was against that background that the PDB was issued.
Rice would have everyone believe that the PDB was an isolated document; that, taken alone, it indicated nothing. But reasonably intelligent people can see that the sum total of what was going on that summer pointed to the need for more vigorous action. Yet, the administration did nothing.
If Condi Rice and the rest of the administration are incapable of seeing such obvious patterns as those preceding 9/11, they are incapable of defending this country. If they did see those patterns yet chose to ignore them in favor of taking month-long vacations, they are guilty of criminal negligence.
Either way, Condi undercut her own defense
21 - Paul
CORRECTION: Martha Stewart is a CHUBBY WHITE CONDOLEEZZA RICE.