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| Author |
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| 25 new of 404 responses total. |
twenex
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response 55 of 404:
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Dec 29 16:15 UTC 2005 |
Well, he's a politician.
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tod
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response 56 of 404:
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Dec 29 16:28 UTC 2005 |
least it seems possible that Bush is *trying* to do something positive
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
I felt Clinton should have resigned only because he compromised his security
clearance by fraternizing with a subordinate. I did not feel it was an
impeachable offense nor did it warrant the wasted funds of investigation.
Bush is doing things through covert channels rather than operating at an
honest level against American citizens and the Constitution. I do feel this
is an impeachable offense.
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richard
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response 57 of 404:
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Dec 29 16:35 UTC 2005 |
re #56 tod said:
"I felt Clinton should have resigned only because he compromised his
security clearance by fraternizing with a subordinate."
If all the CEO's and top company officials in this country
who "fraterinized with a subordinate" at one time or another resigned,
you wouldn't have enough qualified people left to run anything. How
did he compromise his "security clearance" when there is no evidence he
told Ms. Lewinsky anything top secret? He didn't compromise his
security clearance with her anymore than he did when he slept with his
wife, or played poker with his buddies.
Unlike Clinton, Bush has blatantly broken a federal law. He has shown
contempt with the laws that were set up after the Watergate mess.
National security trumps the law?
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richard
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response 58 of 404:
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Dec 29 16:41 UTC 2005 |
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little
security will deserve neither and lose both."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
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mcnally
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response 59 of 404:
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Dec 29 16:59 UTC 2005 |
re #57:
> If all the CEO's and top company officials in this country
> who "fraterinized with a subordinate" at one time or another resigned,
> you wouldn't have enough qualified people left to run anything.
I very much doubt that the field would be so stripped of talent that
there'd be nobody left to run things, and even if it were, would
replacing the patently corrupt with a few honest people of questionable
competency necessarily be worse than the corporate leadership situation
we've got now?
Politically our problem seems to be that we may have the worst of both
worlds: dishonest *AND* incompetent.
> How did he compromise his "security clearance" when there is no
> evidence he told Ms. Lewinsky anything top secret?
Through his actions he rendered himself extremely vulnerable to extortion.
That's a legitimate security concern.
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tod
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response 60 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:06 UTC 2005 |
re #57
How
did he compromise his "security clearance" when there is no evidence he
told Ms. Lewinsky anything top secret?
A security clearance has many hard and soft flags. Criminal history is a hard
flag while credit history or fraternization may be either hard or soft flags
depending on their depth. I do not like to equate the POTUS to a CEO. It
makes more sense to compare to a Commanding General since we're talking about
the Commander in Chief. In the military, fraternization is not taken lightly
nor should it be when you are in a position of national security. Had Miss
Lewinsky been Mossad rather than just a possessive college kid, Clinton might
have compromised the integrity and confidentiality of his office.
That's one to think about further than just some graying hair white collar
dude hauling his ashes..it gets much more complicated than that.
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richard
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response 61 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:08 UTC 2005 |
You can't serve as President and not be vulnerable to extortion. Bush
was vulnerable to extortion because he was deliberately having the NSA
break laws, and anyone who knew about it and knew he wanted it kept
secret, could have extorted him. Does Tod think Bush should resign on
that basis?
Kennedy was sleeping around with women during the Cuban Missile
Crisis. Bush the Sr. had a mistress. FDR was hiding the severity of
his own illness. In short ALL presidents have secrets. There is no
way to have a fully secure country and there is no way to have
Presidents who are invulnerable to extortion because there is no way to
have Presidents who aren't human beings with weaknesses.
We can't get swallowed up in our own paranoia. We don't live in a
secure world, we will NEVER live in a secure world. We must live with
what is reality.
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richard
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response 62 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:11 UTC 2005 |
tod said:
"Had Miss Lewinsky been Mossad rather than just a possessive college
kid, Clinton might have compromised the integrity and confidentiality
of his office."
Anyone who works that closely to the President has passed an intensive
security clearance. There is no possibility she could have been
Mossad.
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tod
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response 63 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:17 UTC 2005 |
Anyone who works that closely to the President has passed an intensive
security clearance. There is no possibility she could have been
Mossad.
Keep drinking that kool-aid, richard. You yourself admitted JFK slept around.
Hell, he knocked up a CIA double agent courier that was dating Sam Giancana.
What makes you think Clinton's associates are only Ward and June Cleaver?
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richard
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response 64 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:28 UTC 2005 |
tod, answer the question I asked, based on your own criteria, did Bush
make himself vulnerable to extortion by telling the NSA to break the
law and should Bush resign?
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fitz
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response 65 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:31 UTC 2005 |
Clinton's vulnerablility to extortion is setting up a straw man so far as his
impeachment is concerned. Lewinsky was part of the White House staff and
known to the Secret Service in both her official and unofficial capacity.
This extramarital affair raised no security concerns when it happened: The
sole charges against Clinton were perjury and obstruction of justice. I doubt
that a charge of "security concerns" would pass a test of relavncy before the
Senate.
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tod
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response 66 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:34 UTC 2005 |
re #65
Did you listen to any of the Secret Service testimonies? There were several
security concerns. Where do we start? Unscheduled Dominos pizza parties in
the Oval Office?
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jep
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response 67 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:35 UTC 2005 |
re resp:54-55: I try very hard to assume that a politician probably
means well. Sometimes I can't manage to believe it about some, but I
think just about all have positive goals. They can of course have
wrong goals, or poor perspective, or make mistakes, etc.
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tod
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response 68 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:38 UTC 2005 |
Mistakes are one thing but circumventing regulatory processes to spy on
citizens thousands of times? C'mon
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marcvh
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response 69 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:47 UTC 2005 |
I don't believe that Clinton would have sold nuclear weapons to Bin Laden
in order to obscure his scandal. There's no way to prove that, of
course, but I don't buy it. I'm also not sure where that leaves other
presidents -- Reagan, of course, funneled arms to Iran in violation of
law for various reasons (to manipulate the 1980 elections, to gain the
release of hostages.) Should Reagan have resigned or been impeached?
Who was the last president who shouldn't have?
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fitz
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response 70 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:50 UTC 2005 |
I listened to none: I read the accounts in Newsweak. I have failed. Dominos
Pizza is the gravest espionage threat to the US. Does it rank before
or after floridated water on the espionage scale?
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tod
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response 71 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:52 UTC 2005 |
And really, we're talking about "hands caught in the cookie jar". Reagan was
out of office by the time anything came of Iran-Contra Hearings.
Clinton did nothing impeachable, imo.
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richard
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response 72 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:54 UTC 2005 |
tod said:
"least it seems possible that Bush is *trying* to do something positive
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
No he's not, you aren't even seeing the big picture. One day the
spying is on terrorists, the next its on people who might be
terrorists, the next its on people who know people who might be
terrorists, and finally its on anyone they feel like doing surveillance
on. Finally its soccer moms and democratic party officials at the
Watergate. If tod thinks Bush is trying to do anything positive, if he
thinks what Bush is doing isn't impeachable, then he didn't live
through Watergate.
I find it appalling that tod finds it more appalling that clinton got a
blowjob in the oval office than that bush is spying on u.s. citizens
without a judge's approval.
tod I will ask again, DO YOU THINK BUSH MADE HIMSELF VULNERABLE TO
EXTORTION AND DO YOU, AS YOU DID WITH CLINTON, THINK HE SHOULD RESIGN?
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richard
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response 73 of 404:
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Dec 29 17:57 UTC 2005 |
And by the way, just for the record, I don't think Bush should resign.
Nor did I think Clinton should have resigned. I think Bush should be
impeached. Let the people, the Congress, decide his fate. I don't
think Nixon should have resigned, he should have let himself be
impeached. Nixon should have let the people decide his fate and taken
his punishment like a man.
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tod
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response 74 of 404:
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Dec 29 18:05 UTC 2005 |
re #73
I don't think Bush should resign. I think he should go to jail.
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marcvh
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response 75 of 404:
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Dec 29 18:11 UTC 2005 |
Abu Graib or Guantanimo?
How Nixon left office (resignation vs. impeachment) isn't related to the
issue of whether he faced criminal charges (which was the result of a
pardon deal.) I'd assume Bush is smart enough that he could arrange
something similar if the need arose.
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tod
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response 76 of 404:
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Dec 29 18:13 UTC 2005 |
Guantanamo is enough for me. Bringing Alberto Gonzales into the fray pretty
much clinched it that he knows he's in hot water.
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gull
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response 77 of 404:
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Dec 29 19:54 UTC 2005 |
Re resp:40: True, but Christians don't all think the same way. Even
fundamentalist Christians have differing views on things, even if
they're not really supposed to. This is even more true of political
parties. Serious rifts have been appearing among Republicans over
issues such as fiscal policy.
Re resp:42: Majority of the money. ;)
Re resp:45: Considering only one FISA judge was told about Bush's
wiretaps, and was forbidden to tell the others, I don't think the
administration thought the FISA court would back them up on this one.
One judge who wasn't told has resigned in protest.
Re resp:53: No, I don't believe Clinton would have sold a nuke to
anyone to escape personal embarrassment. I didn't realize just how
thoroughly you had demonized Clinton until this moment. It's kind of
shocking. It's the same attitude as people who believe Bush allowed
the 9/11 attacks to happen so that he could invade Iraq. They've so
thoroughly convinced themselves the man is evil that they believe he's
capable of anything. I think both Clinton and Bush are slimy in their
ways, but I believe both of them have moral limits.
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jep
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response 78 of 404:
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Dec 29 19:59 UTC 2005 |
If Clinton had come clean about Lewinsky and said "Yes, I did it", then
that would have been the end of it. It would have shown he wasn't
intimidated by the implications of what he had done. It wouldn't be
all but inevitable to think -- as I do -- that the president *might
have been* be extorted. Remember, he did everything he could to hide
from the issue, publicly. Who knows how much more he did than what we
know about?
Bush has not come clean, either, but it is plausible (however unlikely)
to think he has legitimate public reasons for not doing so. We do not
know the security implications of what he won't say. Even so, I'm very
much disturbed by the implications of the president ordering wiretaps
and secret surveillance of Americans without court supervision. The
president has only the power given to him by the Constitution, and that
sort of thing is specifically Constitutionally prohibited.
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tod
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response 79 of 404:
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Dec 29 20:12 UTC 2005 |
Does it matter that Clinton was banging an intern? Was it worth the whole
Kenneth Starr investigation and massive report? I'm disgusted that anybody
wasted time on the investigation. To me, it says volumes that people couldn't
find anything "political" to nail him on and they had to stoop into his sex
life. Yea, there are alot of scumbag sexual deviants in politics and around
the world. Is it worth the money to find out if they wear women's underwear
or whatever, though?
Bush HAS come clean that he is breaking the law. He flat out admits it.
People should be emailing their Reps and Senators raising all hell but they
aren't. I think people are too busy buying into the "our shepherd will
protect us" mentality. Next thing you know, 2nd amendment rights will
disappear and passports will be mandatory. If that doesn't bother people,
this country is screwed.
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