Clinton's Watch

[mora]

Originally posted by Chairboy
I think his handling of Jocelyn Elders was shameful.   She gave an honest, insightful answer to a sensitive question, and his cowtowing to the religious right was a disgrace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Elders

Just unbelievable. I imagine things like that could have happened in the early 20th century, but it happened just 10 years ago!

[Chairboy]

Agreed.  I suspect that there are people on this board who like the fact that she was asked to resign for those comments, but don't know how to say it without accidentally looking like they agree with something that Clinton the monster did.

Truly, a conundrum.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
yup and why do you think all of that is?

Lawyers and our laws from what I can see.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by Hangtime
if i got an report penned by some twit pentagon captain named Philpott I'd probably ****-can it too.

Where is all that respect you were demanding of me for vets from the sniper thread??? This guy is active duty and you just called him a twit and made fun of his name and basically called him a liar... Figures, typical hypocritical bs.

here is your quote

"I'd like you to think about what you just posted, I'd like you to show a little respect for a vet, and I'd like very much for you to stop doing everything you can to put this guy's personal battle for his sanity and dignity in as poor a light as possible

Can you do that?"

The question really seems to be can you do that...

[Raider179]

Originally posted by Hangtime
if i got an report penned by some twit pentagon captain named Philpott I'd probably ****-can it too.

Here is some background on philpott.

The statement from Captain Phillpott , a 1983 Naval Academy graduate who has served in the Navy for 22 years"

Captain Phillpott, who managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations Command.

[Clifra Jones]

Originally posted by Fishu
No he doesn't, but I'm wondering why such a big mess was made out of Clinton's affairs, while no other president has been made to go through the same or why they aren't as interested in more serious allegations.

Because he allowed it to be. It's the same reason Nixon got screwed. It's not the act it's the coverup. If Nixon would have come out and said "yes, some in my administration broke the law and they are being punished" Watergate would have blown over. If Clinton would have said, "Yes, I got a hummer, I'm sorry to my family and to the country", he would have taken the wind out of his enemies sails.

When you give your political enemies the ammunition to shoot you they will. That's politics.

"Tell the truth, tell it early, tell it often", Lanny Davis

The Clinton admin built a culture in the government that "civil liberties/human rights" were more important than national security. If the questin was between national security and violating someones "civil liberties/human rights", national security lost. They truly believe that this is the right thing to do. They will risk lives to protect some vegue concept of civil liberties. This is why these people can never be trusted with our security again.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by Clifra Jones
Because he allowed it to be. It's the same reason Nixon got screwed. It's not the act it's the coverup. If Nixon would have come out and said "yes, some in my administration broke the law and they are being punished" Watergate would have blown over. If Clinton would have said, "Yes, I got a hummer, I'm sorry to my family and to the country", he would have taken the wind out of his enemies sails.

When you give your political enemies the ammunition to shoot you they will. That's politics.

"Tell the truth, tell it early, tell it often", Lanny Davis

The Clinton admin built a culture in the government that "civil liberties/human rights" were more important than national security. If the questin was between national security and violating someones "civil liberties/human rights", national security lost. They truly believe that this is the right thing to do. They will risk lives to protect some vegue concept of civil liberties. This is why these people can never be trusted with our security again.

I agree with your points on giving your enemies ammunition. I do disagree though that somehow Clinton blew it in regards to national security.

Here is a report from CNN about how our "Passenger Aircraft" are still vulnerable 4 years after 9/11.

"Nearly four years after 9/11, Americans flying on passenger planes remain vulnerable to another terrorist attack in the air because of lax screening of the millions of tons of cargo loaded into the belly of aircraft, a three-month CNN investigation shows."

4 years after 9/11 and we still don't have secured aircraft/cargo. How was Clinton supposed to protect us prior to 9/11 when after it we still can't say its safe to fly on passenger planes?

[Clifra Jones]

Originally posted by Raider179
3 out of my 9 were comparing to Bush granted.

still doesnt account for no response on #'s 3,4,5,8,9.

3. was really congress. This was pushed through by the Senator from NJ. The guy who had to drop out of his last election for taking bribes. I'm not sure if Clinton signed it or if it was GHW but Clinton did not seek to undo it.

4. I don't think you can say "full access" there were some serious intellegence disasters regarding China. Along with some questionable campaign contributions.

5. It is the executive branch that is tasked with National Security not Congress. There is a reason those who are granted high security clearences are advised against having extra-marrital affairs. They can be used against you. Bill should have heeded this advice. Terrorism was seen as a distraction not a priority to Clinton. It would have most likely remained so if 9/11 had not happened.

8. No, because he was not charged in a Court of Law. He could not be. The Senate failed to vote in the majority to impeach him. This is not an aquittal. He lied under oath to the question of whether he had sexual relations with Monika Lewinski. It's not about the question, it'a about the answer. Any question you are asked during a Grand Jury investigation has to be answered truthfully no matter how inappropriate you feel it might be. They can ask you if your underwear is pink and if you lie about it you are committing perjury. I'm sure if I looked I could find a case for you.

9. Again, because he allowed it to happen. The opposition will always try these tactics. They are trying it now with GW. It is up to the president to defeat these tactics and Clinton failed to do that. You seem to totally misunderstand this whole issue. It's not about the BJ it's about lieing to the Grand Jury. This whole affair show the fundimental flaw in Clinton's character. He just could not bring himself to tell the truth about something so insignificant and it got his butt in a sling. I doubt it had much affect on his decisions regarding terrirists. Can you see him telling the Am. people and the rest of the world that he is going to invade Afghanistan? That just would not have happened, Monika or no Monika. Without a 9/11 event his options were very limited.

[Clifra Jones]

Originally posted by Charon
1. He discouraged aggressive anti trust action to the point where many of our major industries are close enough to being monopolies that they might as well be. As a result, there is less need to actually serve customers or innovate.

2. He promoted NAFTA and globalization without any safeguards to insure a somewhat level playing field. Of course another country can make cheaper products if they can dump their waste directly into the rivers and air and use child labor (or even the local convicts) at a fraction of the cost of Western workers.

3. Significantly eroded our personal rights to prop up the failed and costly "War on Drugs." The reason the right hates him so much, IMO, is that he stole their agenda early on (when they shot down his initial personal reform efforts). How can we beat this guy if he has our own platform? (They found a way, turn him into a pariah though one of the the longest, most agressive smear campaign in political history.) Being tough on crime became important to his political success, and it came at the expense of our personal liberties.

4. He launched a number of foreign policy initiatives, but ultimately failed to close the deal (the Middle East, for example) even though he got close.

5. I see the whole Al Queda thing as a wash or at best a matter of degree. There was no Republican Congressional push for more action in the wake of those attacks. Bush didn't push for more action and was primarily concerned with "Star Wars" until 9/11. We/they were all asleep at the wheel until 9/11. Then it was time for the blame game. It wasn't even a campaign issue as I recall, and that says something right there especially since his other international efforts (where he was "taking action") were campaign issues. And the Republican position wasn't that he was doing too little abroad...

BTW, Human intel has been unpopular in Washington since the first Defense contractor shot a multi-million dollar satellite into orbit. It has been a serious issue ever since. Defense contractor dollars carry a lot more weight than low tech human intel where budgeting is concerned.

Charon

1. true

2. Both side are guilty of this.

3. But he gave them the means to do this. There was enough smoke to make the acusation of fire stick. The same kind of smear campaign was tried against Reagan but he was to smart for them and didn't have all that smoke. While he's a good politician he wasn't very good at this, the nastiest part of the game.

4. The key word is FAILED. You can include North Korea in that list.

5. Agreed. The culture that the Clintons established in the government did help to hinder the ability to fight global terrorists. Let's not forget though, that is was GW's father who abandoned Afghanistan to the terrorists after the Soviets left.

[Clifra Jones]

Originally posted by Raider179
How many chances did we have to stop 9/11 and our people failed? I am talking about having Zacarias Moussaoui in custody prior to 9/11 and not being able to break him. I am talking about the female FBI agent that warned of Muslims taking flying lessons and how it should be looked into. I am talking about "Able Danger". Clinton didn't fail us, our system did.

An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret defense intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The officer, Scott J. Phillpott, said in a statement today that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. "My story is consistent," said Captain Phillpott, who managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations Command. "Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."

His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters that the Defense Department had been unable to validate the assertions made by an Army intelligence veteran, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and now backed up by Captain Phillpott, about the early identification of Mr. Atta.

Colonel Shaffer went public with his assertions last week, saying that analysts in the intelligence project had been overruled by military lawyers when they tried to share the program's findings with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2000 in hope of tracking down terror suspects tied to Al Qaeda.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/politics/23cnd-intel.html?ei=5094&en=ed47ced9232725eb&hp=&ex=1124769600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

Raider, this is what I'm saying when I say they created a culture that allowed this to happen. They may not have actually created the walls between the agencies but they certainly reinforced them. The results are obvious.

[storch]

I don't think billy jeff can tell time, he has no need of a watch.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by Clifra Jones
3. was really congress. This was pushed through by the Senator from NJ. The guy who had to drop out of his last election for taking bribes. I'm not sure if Clinton signed it or if it was GHW but Clinton did not seek to undo it.

4. I don't think you can say "full access" there were some serious intellegence disasters regarding China. Along with some questionable campaign contributions.

5. It is the executive branch that is tasked with National Security not Congress. There is a reason those who are granted high security clearences are advised against having extra-marrital affairs. They can be used against you. Bill should have heeded this advice. Terrorism was seen as a distraction not a priority to Clinton. It would have most likely remained so if 9/11 had not happened.

8. No, because he was not charged in a Court of Law. He could not be. The Senate failed to vote in the majority to impeach him. This is not an aquittal. He lied under oath to the question of whether he had sexual relations with Monika Lewinski. It's not about the question, it'a about the answer. Any question you are asked during a Grand Jury investigation has to be answered truthfully no matter how inappropriate you feel it might be. They can ask you if your underwear is pink and if you lie about it you are committing perjury. I'm sure if I looked I could find a case for you.

9. Again, because he allowed it to happen. The opposition will always try these tactics. They are trying it now with GW. It is up to the president to defeat these tactics and Clinton failed to do that. You seem to totally misunderstand this whole issue. It's not about the BJ it's about lieing to the Grand Jury. This whole affair show the fundimental flaw in Clinton's character. He just could not bring himself to tell the truth about something so insignificant and it got his butt in a sling. I doubt it had much affect on his decisions regarding terrirists. Can you see him telling the Am. people and the rest of the world that he is going to invade Afghanistan? That just would not have happened, Monika or no Monika. Without a 9/11 event his options were very limited.

LoL not sure but think you agreed with most of my points and see why Gunslinger won't/can't respond to them.

5)Our entire government  is tasked with national security.

http://www.house.gov/hasc/

8)HOWEVER: The issue of criminal charges against the president and the issue of impeachment exist within two separate realms, one judicial and one political.

The criminal charges, which Kenneth Starr would be responsible for, adhere to the specifics of federal law. But impeachment proceedings, which the House of Representatives would commence, have scant historical precedent as to how they would be conducted and are political -- not judicial -- acts. Now that the House has Starr's report, they must decide how to proceed and just how serious Starr's allegations are.

It is also unclear whether criminal charges against the president could be pursued while he is in office. The U.S. Supreme Court was to decide that issue in 1974 in U.S.

http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/clintoncrisis/guide.html

lol not the best source but I think fairly reliable. So whether you can try a sitting president in a "regular" court seems to be undecided. I am not sure how the supreme court would decide, but I dont see any reason why they couldnt charge him. Just because your president doesn't mean you have "free reign" to break the law for 4 years at a time.

9) I agree with ya, he could have took the  wind out of the sails before they got filled.

[Raider179]

Originally posted by Clifra Jones
Raider, this is what I'm saying when I say they created a culture that allowed this to happen. They may not have actually created the walls between the agencies but they certainly reinforced them. The results are obvious.

To me its the same thing as why we didn't get involved in WW2 until Pearl Harbor. America wasn't ready to make that kind of full scale involvement until it really struck home(Pearl). But once they hit us hard enough, We jumped up shook the dust out of our eyes and went to kicking Nazi's and the Japenese all over the world. Maybe that is why we are not doing well now, we are not fighting this "war" all in. We are trying to do just enough to get by on and that isn't cutting it.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Raider179
To me its the same thing as why we didn't get involved in WW2 until Pearl Harbor. America wasn't ready to make that kind of full scale involvement until it really struck home(Pearl). But once they hit us hard enough, We jumped up shook the dust out of our eyes and went to kicking Nazi's and the Japenese all over the world. Maybe that is why we are not doing well now, we are not fighting this "war" all in. We are trying to do just enough to get by on and that isn't cutting it.

so what you are saying is lets say the Japs only sank ONE battleship at pearl.  That would be considered "small scale" right?  thus not requiring a full measured response.

Yup let's not deal with it until it REALLY becomes the problem AND god forbid we bug these terrorists with silly things like "investigations" while they make their plans to destroy us.

[Charon]

so what you are saying is lets say the Japs only sank ONE battleship at pearl. That would be considered "small scale" right? thus not requiring a full measured response.

Yup let's not deal with it until it REALLY becomes the problem AND god forbid we bug these terrorists with silly things like "investigations" while they make their plans to destroy us.

You're absolutely right. I was outraged at the time. But I didn't see many others who though Clinton's response was inadequate. Certainly didn't see any mainstream Republicans pushing form more international action at the time. I can clearly remember Republicans accusing him of "wagging the dog" with some of the missle strikes to deflect attention from Monica. And none of them were calling for anything approaching an invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq (except for the Neocons, and that was Iraq only and not related to OBL). Please cite some who were. You might find one or two, but it certainly wasn't a serious political or national issue at the time.

Charon