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November 03, 2005

The Reason For The Dems' Revolting?

Yes, they've always been revolting. Now they're just acting up and need a time-out.

A very interesting thing was reported by Mort Kondracke on Brit Hume yesterday. It's very interesting indeed, but I'm not sure I completely understand what the heck he was trying to say.

Apparently the Dems don't like the way "Phase II" of the intelligence investigation is going -- Intelligence staffers drew up a list of quotes from Bush Administration officials and Republican and Democratic politicians making the case for war, and evaluated each as to what intelligence they were based on.

The tricksy bit? None of the quotes carried an attribution to a particular person. So, Mort said, if you made a big deal about a quote, you might find out that it was made by a Democrat-- or even by yourself.

I'm not sure I buy that-- I imagine that anyone on the Hill can run a Lexis/Nexus search and discover who said what. I imagine the real objection is that the Democrats don't like their own "twistings of intelligence" listed right beside Bush's, and traced back to the same intelligence sources.

But... interesting, anyway, even if maybe I'm misunderstanding it, and even if Mort Kondracke is misunderstanding it too.

Here are a lot of the quotes the Dems don't really want investigated.

Including, of course:

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

And, even better:

The intelligence which the president shared with us was in line with what we saw in the White House…
-- - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2003

Thanks to JoeInDC44 for pointing out that last one.

How dare you distort the intelligence and make specious connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda, Madame Senatrix.

posted by Ace at 12:32 PM

Comments

I can't understand why Democrats are clamoring for hearings and select committees when their previous blatherings are captured on tape and can be played back to them to refute their current antipodal positions.

Posted by: tefta on November 3, 2005 01:10 PM

I don't think you are misunderstanding anything and there is probably not as big a difference between what you and Mort are saying as you think.

Without the names, Democrats really can't express any opinion or determination about whether or not any of those statements are misleading, for obvious reasons. You are saying that they don't like that it is being pointed out that they made just as many statements about Hussein and WMD. You also point out that they could just take the list and look up the quotes, then only find fault with the ones they know Bush made and that is an excellent point. I think the big problem they have, though, is that so many of the statements are almost identical. It would just make them look incredibly stupid (I know, that hasn't stopped them before) to determine one statement was fine, while another, almost identical one, was not.

So I think you and Mort are both right. In the context of a closed hearing, with the luxury of a staff with a little bit of time and computer access, they could identify the Democrat statements. If there are 50+ statements though that are from Democrats, the Senators are going to have a really hard time keeping those statements straight when they go on their chat show appearances -- especially when so many of the statements are surely almost word for word identical.

Posted by: Lorie Byrd on November 3, 2005 01:11 PM

Hi, just come back from the fetid swamps of the worst.stunt.ever comments. I bring news of the imaginary:

It seems that Phase II is the new Fitzmas Doom Scenario (FDS). Right now, its at level 2. There seems to be some confusion on the part of the looney tunes as to whats the bigger deal, the next 2 years of the Fitzgerald investigation (where Libby will "flip" and expose Cheney) or whether Phase II will be the next FDS for Bush.

I would recommend extreme incredulity once they try to infect this part of the blog. We don't want to have to listen to the rantings of a level IA FDS.

Posted by: joeindc44 on November 3, 2005 01:15 PM

Again, this is the administrations fault, as well as the
Republican leadership in congress. This crap, Bush Lied, People died, should have been put to bed two years ago. All intelligence come from two sources, the CIA and the DOD. It's not like the President and the Republicans get to see the intel and then tell the
Democrats what's what. Everyone gets to see the same intel. In fact the Senators on the Intelligence Commity probably get to see intel before the POTUS does. It's like we are living in an Orwellian world where the future is known, it's the past that changes!

Posted by: Radical Centrist on November 3, 2005 01:22 PM

Hey! I posted that list of quotations well before deepdown inTexas did. In fact, I've been posting that list at several internet sites the last few days since the Dems' stunt. However, I found them at

http://www.jrwhipple.com/war/wmd.html

If someone is going to steal the work product that I stole from someone else, I ought to at least get some credit. An added plus is that the link above provides links to the news reports including the quotations.

Pass the list on and let's make their inclusion in Phase II unnecessary.

Posted by: The Raven on November 3, 2005 01:44 PM

Also check out this link:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FF24Ag01.html

EVERYONE BELIEVED SADDAM HAD WMD DAMNIT!!!!

Posted by: Radical Centrist on November 3, 2005 01:47 PM

did i do that?

Posted by: joeindc44 on November 3, 2005 01:48 PM

What does she mean "we saw inthe White House?"

Was Bill in the habbit of sharing top secret intelligence - that he seemed to have little interest in - with the little woman? I mean his wife?

If she gets elected does she plan on sharing classified intelligence with her fillandering perjurer of a husband?

Posted by: Stephen Macklin on November 3, 2005 01:52 PM

Trackback not working.

Its funny how today they all act like recipients of retroactive infallibility. And guilty of the same crime Bush is, I'd like to see how they spin that.

Posted by: Stan on November 3, 2005 02:19 PM

Frankly what the demacrats are trying with bushes judicial nominations is revolting the whole demacratic party is revolting

Posted by: spurwing plover on November 3, 2005 03:17 PM

Posted by: tefta on November 3, 2005 04:26 PM

Thanks for the link, Ace. I was wondering why my traffic spiked. The thing I can figure out is how anyone thinks that the Dem leadership is credible on anything anymore.

Posted by: Greg on November 3, 2005 08:57 PM

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Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
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Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
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In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

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