zonkola, that is an interesting commentary of substance that I really wasn't well imformed on. I would add that the press has always had a tendancy to be more supportive of the liberals and negative toward the conservatives, so you have to look at anything they offer through that lense.

 

Sounds like lip service to me. what was he doing to find Bin Laden? he knew the man was a serious threat.


HOW? Liberal or Conservative, I'm not sure anyone could have stopped that attack. I mean, a determined attack that was as well planned as that was, carried out by religious fanatics- the scariest type of person is the religious zealot. How could a Gore administration stopped it?

 

As long as there are zealots (kooks) with a martyre mentality and a box cutter, I doubt we could have stopped them.

 

Bush's primary campaign plank was fixing the economy, nothing else. By the time 9/11 happened, the polls were rating his performance right about where it is now, at the 50% mark, same as the election results. After 9/11, the rhetoric about 'defending the US against terrorism' pushed him up to a 90% approval rating. He enjoyed that popularity through Afghanistan and planning for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. When reserve and national guard units were called up to began training for combat duty, the press started taking a closer look at the reasons for such a massive occupation force in a country that, according to Iraqi political exiles White house Intelligence used for the majority of their data to support the invasion, was going to be overjoyed at being liberated from Saddam's tyranny. It then became apparent to much of the press that our administration didn’t actually know beans about the country itself and occupation planning was being based on instilling Christian democracy into a population so far removed from our way of thinking that only chaos could result. TV, dependent on keeping their viewers fuzzy, happy and buying sponsor products, used White House Press releases for their primetime news content and continues to downplay the problems we face in Iraq. Achieving a 90% popularity rating required the support of a bunch of liberals and the general press. At that time you had to read Canadian and European press to get any divergent views and opinions to analyze our direction and the economic ramifications.

Ironically, 9/11 was a push over the cliff's edge for our economy, the very thing Bush promised to concentrate on as President. Like JFK with Viet Nam, he needed a new focus to re-establish his role as leader.

Maybe we're all supposed to eventually work for Bechtel and Halliburton.

 

Clinton almost took bin Laden out with a missile attack in Afghanistan in 1998, and officially authorized assassination as a method to remove him. As previously mentioned, he also tried to pass legislation that would make it illegal for Americans to invest in states that helped bin Laden financially. Part of that legislation involved using bank transaction records to determine bin Laden's contacts and location. The Republicans killed that, led by Phil Gramm.

As for how anyone could have stopped the 9/11 attacks, there have been reports that the FBI warned the Bush administration about unusual activity at Florida flight schools. If counter-terrorism was a top priority of the administration, perhaps these warnings would have held more water? You generally don't find what you're not looking for...

Willowbilly3 - I hear a lot about the "liberal media". But why would a liberal media crucify Clinton the way he was during the Lewinsky thing? If you research who actually owns the major newspapers and television stations, you come up with some pretty large, conservative corporations. Are they really liberal? Where was the "liberal media" when the "Patriot Act" was hurried through congress?

I'm just not convinced. If we truly do have a liberal media then they suck at their jobs, because they've been treating the Bush administration with kid gloves.

 

zonkola, you are better informed than I am on these issues, so I will just offer a possible scenario that might apply here. The Lewinsky ordeal was just the sort of thing that the press has a feeding frenzy on and they just go from one incident to the next and beat it to death until a new "thing" comes along.
And the press also has to pander to the emotional state of the populace. Any attemt to reveal the cracks in the wall of the Bush administration at a time when emotions are at a boiling point and every citizen is waving any thread of patriotism, may meet high disapproval. Whether liberal or not, newspapers and TV are fueled by their sponsors and will reflect some varying shade of their political views. It is a very complex machine but the general public's opinion is very easily manipulted in many cases. Our government realizes this and uses it as a tool.
I think it might even be possible that the whole Monica Lewinsky think was manufactured and orchestrated by the Clinton administration as smoke and mirrors to keep some far more serious matters from surfacing. Just about the same time that all hit the press there were some very scarey allegations being substantiated on a big conspiracy that was going on in the white house, and in Clinton's life. Not the least of which included the gangland style murders of people who had gathered the evidence to expose it all.

 

I don't know what mill you looked at but having worked at one of the plywood mills around here I know that there are plenty of workers still in these mills. My brother works at the same plant I used to. There is some automation but even the smaller mills around here employ hundreds of people each.

 

I find little to disagree with here. Personally, I think there is liberal media, conservative media, and even impartial media (although it could be argued that the last one is rare). I also agree that the government understands the media and uses it to their advantage. Whether you love or hate the Bush administration, you have to admit their PR strategy & execution is brilliant.

This scenario would certainly be Rush Limbaugh's wet dream come true, but I find it highly unlikely. Clinton creates the Lewinsky affair and gets impeached, in order to take attention away from alleged murders committed to cover up...what? An affair with Paula Jones? Whitewater? An overdue library book from 1975? I understand that a good number of people didn't like Clinton, but calling him a murderer without proof seems a bit extreme.

Frankly, it sounds a lot like a story from Hannity & Colmes or the O'Reilly Factor. (Although they are part of the media, and therefore liberal, right?)

 

OK, my memory on this is failing me a little but the conspirocy theory evolved from Vince Fosters death in a plane crash with very suspicious surroundings. He had supposedly gathered some damaging evidence against the Clintons. Hillary and her aid were the first ones to get to his office after his death and all his research files ended up missing. The whole investigation into his death reeked of a coverup. Then a reporter who had also collected some supposedly damaging and controversial evidence informs his son that he may have delved into something way big and tells him a little bit about it but just when he is about to put it all together he is shot in the head at a stop light and, you guessed it, his office is ransacked and all his research files are gone. It gets more involved and I no longer remember all the details. I didn't just hear this from one source, I heard about it from at least three different sources. One of them was a video that Jerry Falwell had out called the Circle of Power or Circle of Fear, I can't remember for sure as it was 9 years ago now. Even though I am a christian, I think Jerry Falwell is an *******, but the evidence was very compelling none the less.

Don't shoot the messanger here. I didn't say I believed the whole thing totally, I just said the evidence was compelling. And Clinton's biggest mistake may still have only been his inability to keep his dick in his pants, which was going on back when he was governor too.

 

The terrorists have won
they have disrupted our way of life
we don't need to be taking nail clippers from old ladies in airports
we need to just give everyone a pistol when they board the plane
then lets see some rag head try to hijack a plane with a boxcutter
I'll send ya to see allah personally

seriously

 

Well, O'Reilly and hannity are most assuredly NOT liberal, and Colmes is really just a set up man for Hannity. If there were any such thing as a conservative media, Rupert Murdoch has tapped in in the market with those two shows. Remember, O'reilly is the 'NO Spin Zone.'

As far as murder cover ups, didn't you know that the Bush family is tied to the ***** from WWII? Check out Bushbodycount.com. I think the same could be made for any person in power.

 

Did Indiana think? No. They got a better price in India

They had no choice, due to the massive budget problems in every state legislature.

...... On a different note, the war in middle east isn't over, despite the official announcement. Our troops are getting massacred/wounded on an almost daily basis. Even the news that we do get may not be complete and the truth might be scarier. These days they don't want reporters in there.

 

No worries--no messenger shooting will be done by me. As for compelling evidence, I don't consider Jerry Falwell an impartial, reliable information source. I found "Alien Autopsy" strangely compelling, but that doesn't mean I believe it. A good story teller can make almost anything sound compelling--the salient issue is whether the facts stated are actually true or not.

Regardless, I'd be interested in knowing the different sources that were offering this theory so I could research it myself.

 

Yep, absolutely not liberal. A subtle attempt at sarcasm on my part. As for the "No Spin Zone", the O'Reilly show is about as spin free as my washing machine.

Oops! Forgot what forum I was in. What I meant to say was, "As for the 'No Spin Zone', the O'Reilly show is about as spin free as a Cobra 289-powered '32 Ford pickup with a brick on the accelerator."

 

When I first saw the Falwell video I just kind of blew it off due to the source. I do remember later seeing an expose on TV highlighting the same "facts" I will try to do some digging for those sources. Also interviewed in the TV show I saw was a state trooper who used to watch the door while Bill took hookers inside. They even had him on the security video going into the motel room with different women. It doesn't really matter now I guess. I look at him like I did Nixon, I didn't much care for the guy but he still did some good things. Carter and GW are just the opposite, darn nice guys but p-sspoor presidents.