"I did not have Sexual Relations with that Country"

[Nbadan]

Old Clenis is trying to rewrite his own history regarding the Iraq invasion...


Well, this line from Bill Clinton probably won't do a lot to help Hillary on the Iraq issue. Speaking to an Iowa crowd today, the former president criticized the Bush Administration for continuing to cut taxes even as they pursued wars — and went on to say that he opposed the Iraq War from the start.

"Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq — from the beginning — I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those Soldiers," Bill told the crowd.

Remember folks, his wife the candidate voted for the war in 2002, and has been working hard ever since to assuage the doubts of Democratic activists. Furthermore, Bill voiced his support for it at the time.

Link (http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/11/bill_clinton_i_opposed_iraq_war_from_the_beginning .php#more)


Before the invasion, Mr. Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war. A week before military action began, however, he did say that he preferred to give weapons inspections more time and that an invasion was not yet necessary to topple Saddam Hussein. At the same time, he also spoke very much in support of the 2002 Senate resolution that authorized military action against Iraq.....

[Nbadan]

...but I did have sexual relations with that woman...

The Big Clinton Story
Posted November 27, 2007 |


Look, I am concerned. I've just spent two weeks travelling and speaking with media elites in L.A., Chicago, NYC, and D.C. and among other things, I was repeatedly told that The New York Times and The L.A. Times are "sitting on a BIG Clinton story." What concerns me is that this story has nothing to do with Hillary, her policy positions, her record, or her presidential potential. The "big story" everyone is sitting on apparently has to do with the many current affairs of Bill Clinton, whom, they will allege, has a gal in every port. I know, I know, you roll your eyes, you yawn, you wonder how anyone could possibly care about such things, true or not, when there is so much at stake in this upcoming election. But then you see what is going on with today's Trent Lott/gay hustler rumors, this week's Hillary /lesbian aide rumors, and you remember that the ghost of Karl Rove still haunts us.

I am concerned not for the welfare of Senator Clinton's campaign, but for our election cycles, which have turned into the same bipolar gossip cycles of the newsstand tabloids. I worry that these news organizations are sitting on the story for the wrong reasons, waiting for the moment of maximum impact for such drivel. For some reason, hearing about this dusty-sounding rumor-story raised a red flag for me that we may not have come as far as I'd hoped since 2004. I see the same gay-baiting, underhanded political tricks, the Obama/Osama slurs, and it reminds me that like many of the online communities I surf, I live in a media-elite bubble where we forget that the vast majority of people get their political news from network television, which in turn culls it from the ever diminishing journalistic resources of the ever consolidating, ever partisan print media, which most definitely has skin in the game this time around... which is terrifying.

Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-robinson/the-big-clinton-story_b_74391.html)

I hope the Times don't sit on this till after the Demos decide on their nominee....

[Mr. Peabody]

I stole this from a political blog. Just looking at these votes, you would think Hillary is a supporter of Bush & Co.



Compare these votes from Ron Paul compared to Hillary Clinton..
The way one votes while holding office, still matters to the people, right?


MILITARY COMMISSIONS. RP NO.....HC YES
PATRIOT ACT 1.. RP NO ..........HC YES
PATRIOT ACT 2. .RP NO ..........HC YES.
IRAQ WAR.. .RP NO.........HC YES
WAR WITH IRAN. .RP NO.........HC YES.
WIRETAPPING. .RP NO.........HC YES
INCREASED AID TO ISRAEL. RP NO.....HC. YES
EMINENT DOMAIN..RP..NO.........HC.. NV
NAFTA.........RP..NO...........HC..YES
CAFTA.........RP..NO...........HC..YES
IMF...........RP..NO...........HC..YES
WORLD BANK....RP..NO...........HC..YES
WTO...........RP..NO...........HC..YES
NORTH AMERICAN UNION..RP..NO...HC..?
NATIONAL ID....RP..NO..........HC..YES
IMMIGRANT DRIVERS LICENSE..RP..NO..HC..YES

[George Gervin's Afro]

slick willy stated in the same speech ,that everyone is selectively taking his quotes out of context, that he agreed with the authorization given the president by Congress. That is what he has said all along.. In every soundbite you hear from the 90's all of them go back to giving bush the right to attack. Mr Clinton has stated from the begining that he DID NOT AGREE WITH TIMING and PLANNING of thr Iraq war. He has always said he would have done things differently.

this is what sickens me the most about politics is the soundbite attack. It's weak, dishonest, and intellectually lazy. there are many people here who are guilty of this but they seem to have no problem being disingenious and dishonest.

I refuse to lower myself to do this.


He was opposed to the Iraq war..

What the right likes to do is lump the authorization to go to war and the decision to go to war together. that way people like xray can say Congress should be at fault not bush. there were many people who trusted bush to do the right thing with this authority but bush waited abnout 3 weeks after the vote to decide to go to war. i wonder what would have happened if bush would have stated prior to the vote that he intended to declare war in less than a month . would that have caused some to consider their support?

[Oh, Gee!!]

gives the phrase "countrymen, lend me your ears" a whole new, sick meaning

[boutons_]

"bush waited about 3 weeks after the vote to decide to go to war."

total fucking absolute bullshit

The decision to attack Iraq and Iran was made by the neo-cunt cabal PRIOR to the 2000 election, in the 1990s.

In first cabinet meeting after 20 Jan 2001, dubya spilled the beans and put invading Iraq on the table.

The abuse of 9/11 to justify the invasion and all the WMD/WTC/AQ/terra bullshit from dickhead and his right-wing media accomplice were smokescreen and pretext for the oil grab, decided long before dubya took office, and perhaps even before dubya was the Repug choice for WH candidate.

[Nbadan]

Bill Clinton Pretends He Opposed Bush's Iraq Invasion, Media Go Along for the Ride
FAIR. Posted December 1, 2007.

The New York Times and the Washington Post let Bill Clinton's dishonesty about his support for the Iraq war slide.

The following is an action item from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.


The New York Times and Washington Post (11/28/07) both failed to adequately challenge the dishonesty of former President Bill Clinton's declaration that he had been opposed to the Iraq War "from the beginning." Clinton, in fact, was a supporter of the war, both before the invasion and in the first year or so of the fighting.

In the Times' words, though, Clinton's new stance was just "more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003." The Times went on to claim that around the time of the invasion, "Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war," though he "has said several times since the war began that he would not have attacked Iraq in the manner that President Bush had done."

The Post's account was similarly muddled, with the paper noting that Clinton was "glossing over the more nuanced views of the war he has expressed over time," though "past remarks made by the former president do leave open a question about how fervently Clinton opposed the war at the outset." The Post returned to the story the next day (11/29/07), repeating that Clinton "went far beyond more nuanced remarks he made about the conflict in 2003." The Post did try to challenge Clinton's position by noting that he had participated in briefings with key Bush administration officials, and had allegedly expressed support for the invasion plan.

But Clinton's public support for the war is a matter of record. Just before George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair invaded Iraq, Clinton published an op-ed in the London Guardian (3/18/03) urging Britons to "Trust Tony's Judgment":

As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties. ... But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.

Clinton's column included the less-than-prescient prediction that "military action probably will require only a few days."

Soon after the invasion (3/30/03), Clinton appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes with former Senator Robert Dole and endorsed the war, saying, "Senator, unlike some of your Republican friends during Kosovo, I support our troops in Iraq and the president." (Note that while one can support the troops but not the war, supporting the president in Iraq means supporting the war.)

In a 2004 interview with Time magazine (6/28/04), Clinton reiterated this before-the-fact support for the invasion: "You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over."

Clinton went on to claim that Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were of concern, especially after the September 11 attacks:

So, you're sitting there as president, you're reeling in the aftermath of this, so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I've got to do that. That's why I supported the Iraq thing.


Clinton added: "So that's why I thought Bush did the right thing to go back. When you're the president, and your country has just been through what we had, you want everything to be accounted for."

Remarks like these should be referenced when a political figure attempts to dramatically recast his record. But establishment media go out of their way to avoid questioning powerful politicians, especially presidents: "You can't say the president is lying," as New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller once proclaimed (Extra!, 1-2/05).

The papers of record have given George W. Bush license to eliminate well-known events from the recent history of Iraq, claiming of Saddam Hussein (7/14/03): "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." As FAIR pointed out (7/18/03), in fact, after a Security Council resolution was passed demanding that Iraq allow inspectors in, they were given complete access to the country; their well-publicized search for the non-existent WMDs was ongoing until four months before Bush's claim. The Washington Post (7/15/03), describing Bush's remarkable statement, could only say that his assertion "appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring."

Bush has repeatedly made the same claim (1/27/04, 3/21/06, 5/24/07, 11/7/07; see Consortium News, 11/9/07), with little or no note taken by the news outlets that chronicle his every move. "Historians will wonder someday how a free press permitted the world's most important official to say such things without contradiction," Salon's Joe Conason reported (3/31/06).

When politicians are allowed to get away with making such bold misstatements, it can only serve to embolden others to do the same, since there would seem to be no downside to lying. Indeed, at a Republican candidates' debate in June, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney offered his own version of the weapons inspector lie, to little media note (FAIR Action Alert, 6/8/07). Perhaps the press was just treating him as they would if he actually were president.

ACTION: Ask the Washington Post and New York Times why their reports on Clinton's misstatement did not more forcefully challenge his record on the Iraq War.

Alternet (http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/69420)