S.J.Res.14 – A joint resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people. (voting results)
Several senators decided to take a pass on work yesterday, as the “no vote” list includes: Biden, Brownback, Obama, Coburn, Dodd, McCain. Ted Stevens understood where he was at the time, but apparently not much else, as his vote wasn’t for or against, but rather “present”.
Notable “nea” votes were cast by Graham and Kyl. Along with Coburn, these Republicans were capable of expressing how they felt about Gonzalez up until yesterday’s vote on the resolution. Here is what they had to say to the Attorney General when he testified at a judiciary committee hearing (Source):
Coburn: “I believe you (Gonzales) ought to suffer the consequences and think best way to put this behind us is with your resignation.”
Graham: “Most of this is a stretch,” Graham said after listening to Gonzales’ explanation of the dismissals. “It’s clear to me that some of these people just had personality conflicts with people in your office or the White House and (they) just made up reasons to fire them.”
Kyl: “Sadly your actions have severely shaken the confidence of the American people in you, and in your ability to fulfill your public trust. … Would you explain to the American people why it is so important that you should remain in this office?”
Who was standing up for “core principles” yesterday? Follow the public statements and subsequent votes on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and a pattern emerges. Men who honestly love our country and believe in the sanctity of our system of justice, will sell out for the sake of their party. Now they’ve done so for the likes of Alberto Gonzalez. Anyone in need of a refresher on how low this truly is to sink, take a look at these:
to get clips from the daily show to prove a point on politics does not provide substance, it is fake news. but logistically here, let me ask a question. what do the democrats have to gain here? I think they have proved their point about Alberto Gonzales but continuing to press the issue only overplays the already weak hand. Maybe 12 years the dems have lost how to govern effectively, cause right now, they still act like they are in the minority.
I disagree on both points. The Daily Show is one of the only shows on television (besides what you find on PBS) that will actually play clips from CSPAN. They’re practically the only show that will play historical clips to match up what a politician said a couple years ago and what they’re saying today. That clip I posted here, is very well put together in that it shows Gonzalez stonewalling, and then his boss pretending that he was honest in his testimony.
The bottom line is, everyone knows Gonzalez is full of shit, and now we see that Bush is happy about that. It speaks volumes to how dire the situation truly is.
As for this investigation – I don’t think you or others (particularly right-wingers) are respecting how vital the rule of law is in this country, and how the sanctity of our system of justice being compromised in such a way is unacceptable. An innocent woman in Wisconsin was convicted and put in jail, then released on appeal…it was all done for the sake of defeating a Democratic governor in an election.
That can’t be allowed to pass and then be forgotten. It’s not as trivial as people make it out to be. What if that were you who was wrongly accused and prosecuted? You’re going to work each day, for the state, and because the justice system is allowed to be corrupted, you suffer.
The reputations of these US Attorneys are wrongly smeared…but I really sympathize with the citizens who get caught up in it more than that even. Nobody mentions Georgia Thompson…
Today those emails the White House said had been lost…THEY’VE BEEN FOUND. They were always there. Low and behold, they were on a backup server, but the WH still isn’t handing them over! What does that tell you?
C’mon – – – – this is about something very important.
I understand what you mean by the rule of law and I think you would be surprised on the amount of conservatives that do not want the law to be politicized. but playing clips from cspan doesn’t mean anything in my book, the program is designed to make politicians look dumb and get a laugh (which it does). I dont believe the dems are genuine because the way they pursued the AG firings, or better, the way the have hounded the administration in the past. when you continually go after one after the other in the bush administration you lose the public because they do not see justice, they see partisanship. if we want clips from cspan, let me post this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JE48XHKG64
That is a fantastic clip. I’m going to post that in the next couple days.
The context of Gore’s speech was the fact that we did business with Iraq throughout the 80s. We essentially introduced crack to Iraq…basically what weapons and chemicals really are to someone who has no business getting them from us. Obviously, since he not only used chemicals on Iran to end the war, but then again on the two other ethnic groups within the country.
Those actions, I feel, were his version of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Teach the Kurds and Shiites that there’s no getting over on the big man, and to make them fear him. Knowing they’d never want it to happen again.
One of my first posts ever on this blog dealt with this:
Biological Backlash
i cant believe you havent seen it, it got posted by Rush a few days ago and the MSM has ducked the clip, acting like it doesnt exist. on my blog, my thoughts can be read there. i always held the belief we never finished the job in 1992 but Clinton/Gore took the exact same position that Gore vehemently attacks in that clip. Also notes that he connects Iraq to international terrorism as well as everything else the administration made a case for in 2003. Somehow, terrorism got replaced with Al Qaeda/9-11 in the talking points after the war (on the left that is). Fact is Gore said the same thing Bush said, Saddam needed to be rid off. As far as the Iran/Iraq war, we were supplying both sides and ultimately the conflict ended in the best possible scenario (a stalemate). keep in mind to keep the middle east in perspective during that time period, we were trying to counter the soviet influence in that region who was doing the same thing but on a much larger scale.
Seems kind of silly to take what someone said in 1992 and try to apply it to 2003, a lot of things changed over the years and by 2003 people should have had better information, not to mention the fact that Iraq had been under sanctions for quite some time and was no longer an ally of their biggest weapons supplier, the US.
In 1992 Reagan and Bush sr had been supplying Iraq with weapons for most of the eighties and it was likely that they still had some of these weapons in 1992. During most of the 90’s from 92 to 2000 a more responsible approach was taken to Iraq and the US stopped selling them weapons, so by 2003 it was pretty apparent to anyone who thought about it that Iraq had been disarmed, mostly because Reagan was no longer in power and thus, not able to sell weapons to Hussein. It is too bad that Newt and his pals would not let Clinton fix the other part of Reagans legacy, that would be the empowerment of Bin Laden and the Taliban.
The golden age of Christianity was known to most of the world as the “dark ages” I am starting to think think the same can be said about the “golden age of conservatism”.
I really exist in a bubble with only one quarter of it open. The internet provides me a lot of the information I consume, but mostly it comes from periodicals and the newspaper. Radio on some days, and television hardly ever.
This interpretation of that video is different than mine. I’ll have to watch it again today. My take on it was that Gore was explaining how we helped to create the monster of Saddam. I don’t think our arming the region was a morally sound policy. Even today we’ve got signs that our focus in the region is to act as Saudi Arabia’s muscle.
Arming Sunni militias to combat Al-Qaeda is another one of those “half of the story” deals. The Shiite dominated government has thumbed its nose at us. Cheney went over there thinking he’d tell those politicians to get back to work and they would…but that didn’t happen. So the retribution has taken this form.
Balancing the Soviet influence, which was strong in Egypt and Afghanistan, by equipping Saddam with chemical weapons…I view the 80s as a wild wild west period, where business trumped ethical or geopolitical concerns, and one of the byproducts of that reality was Saddam Hussein.
Is Rush questioning our policies from the 80s? Does he think that selling arms to 3rd world countries is the right thing to do? I doubt it. So aside from the 11 year difference in time between Gore’s speech and the situation in 2003, he had an entirely different opinion concerning the idea to occupy Iraq.
If Mitt Romney can change his stances on abortion and gay marriage from month to month, and that’s alright with Republican voters, then how can 11 years between saying one thing and then another for Gore be so easily interpreted as a hit on him somehow? Before the war started, he predicted it would be a disaster.
Didn’t his years as VP perhaps inform him a great deal in regards to Iraq? AND – wasn’t his speech back in 1992 part of the campaign to get George Bush out of power?
See, my overall impression of that video is that he is questioning the judgment of Bush, in pointing out that if a buck could be made, you can be sure that Bush would approve of making that buck off of Satan himself if he could.
To watch that video and then say, “SEE, Gore was in favor of taking out Saddam, so Dubya was right to do it”, is a huge stretch. Especially when Gore gave a speech to a much larger audience in 2003 saying that it would be a mistake to go to war against Iraq.
See what I mean?
thats where i differ on the interpretation, it was an attack on Bush for ignoring the threat of Saddam Hussein (which arming him during the 80s was part of it). he calls Saddam a despot and lists the atrocities that Iraq had become a part of. I would have to watch the video again ( i have seen it a couple times now) but I could see how you can get that perspective. However, to me, it appeared the case was being made that Bush did not do enough to stop him. Iraq was a thorn in the side throughout the Clinton/Gore administration. I am not sure where Karl gets his facts because they are flat out wrong and historically inaccurate (gop keeping clinton from taking out bin laden, he had two separate opportunities to do it, each time it was decline because of worries about civilian casualties). Keep in mind too, that before you get back in the habit of thinking gop=bad dems=good; it became the US national policy for the removal of Saddam; I can get you plenty of evidence and quotes from top dem pols in the runup to the war talking about the need to remove saddam, including Gore. Al, i dont want to take the time to rebut karl’s argument comparing the golden age of christianity as the dark ages (obviously it was the Great Awakening)? just call him an idiot for me, maybe he will take your word for it cause he doesnt listen to me.
also, you have to look back in perspective, if Gore was to make an honest critique of reagan and bush’s policy on iraq, he would have to throw in the Carter administrations support of the overthrow of the Iranian govt that preceded the Iran/Iraq war. which he doesnt mention, so that is another reason why to me it makes it sound like he would be more hawkish than bush sr.
Gore’s prewar speech
Note- this is my critique on gore’s speech listed above. this post is not meant to discuss whether the war was justified.
there is gores speech on iraq, forget what i said about Gore, i will have to look further at his past statements. while critical of the bush administration, he always leaves the door open to regime change. his main fear is the doctrine of pre-emption, he acts like pre-emption has never happend before in the 20th century (which would be incredibly false). his main pts in his opposition deal with the doctrine of pre-emption (Which we have already discussed briefly), need to build an international coalition (he keeps using the term unilaterally but that could be hardly further from the truth), and he is afraid we would abandon the people of iraq (apparently we have in afghanistan, im not sure how, the taliban reemerging would have to do with pakistan more than anything). he also makes the point of we prematurely ended the first gulf war. As I read the speech, I felt there was a back and forth argument between himself (one moment he sounds hawkish, another not). Similar to an intelligence report, wants to give you all the details but not give a suggested course of action that is more CYA more than anything. My honest opinion is that from that speech he was hoping that time would somehow solve the Iraq problem. time however is not neutral. I dont think he knew what the best course of action was, so he spoke out against it, because he thought doing nothing was better than something. may be true, may not. Gore also states that it can be assume Saddam will continue to pursue nuclear weapons as long as he was in power. With the Iranian situation over the past few years, retroactively it could be a nuclear arms race between the two. And by world opinion in his speech, he is referring to two nations that disagreed with us (Germany, France). France was pretty involved in the Oil for food scam and had shady business dealings, and Germany since WWII has gone pacifist as a reaction to that. Not to mention Schroeder and Chirac were anti-american and sought to influence Europe instead of the US & Britain. Look just how much things have warmed since the change of leaders in those countries.
This early portion in particular is very much on the money: