I don't think Bush is the culprit in the SOTU speech OR the CIA

Seriously and in fact, I saw someone post something like this someone and I can't find the person I can reference this to.

But how can we claim that Bush lied in the SOTU speech when seriously, Bush is nothing more than the puppet who's told what to say, where to go to, what to support and how to do his job.

After 3 years, I truly believe that Bush is handed a speech and told to read it. He is NOT asked:

"What do you think about the Speech?"
"Do you like what's in the Speech?"
"Do you have any problems with the content of the Speech?"
"Is there anything in the Speech you'd like us to change?"

Bush is a monkey who they have to train well to be even able to say the Speech without blubbering it up (and he still says the words "UM" about a million times).

But the CIA and George Tenet is not to blame either.

Real Culprits: The PNAC gang of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolowitz, and Perle. That gang looking for any reason to get into Iraq and have been using Bush to get them in the highest office of the country so they have the power to create the war.

Bush may be damaged enough to be voted out in 2004, but I agree that he is too stupid to take down on this issue.

Everyone would believe in a second that he had no idea what was going on, believed what he was told, and read the words while focusing on whether he looked fat.

I think Rumsfeld has a lot to do with it too.
Cheney may be the highest ranking person to be removed, if it comes to that. Then Bush can feign shock and put in Frist for 2004.

eom

He said the words, so ultimately it is his responsibility. If he's too stupid/inept to be certain that what he is saying is factully correct (if he really didn't know it was false,) he is unfit to be President.

I may be stating the obvious here, but either way- If he KNEW and put it in anyway, he should be impeached. If he DIDN'T know, he still should be removed along with the rest of the radicals and PNACers squatting in the White House.

If not stupidity, then lack of curiousity... Does this man ever ask questions? Consider the consequences of his actions? Think about what damage his macho bluster may inflict?

Sort of like a mean-spirited Reagan...

It is precisely this sort of construct that has allowed this evil son of a bitch to skate away without a bit of responsibility his entire life. He was the one selected to be President and he is going to have to take responsibility for the lies, the aggressions, the meglamania, and the crimes.

I mean, first, I would never allow myself to be a puppet.

He allows those people to tell him how to run the job and does everything they tell him to do and say everything they tell him to say.

I'd be embarassed if I lived and worked like that.

Obviously he probably thinks it's amusing ("Look at me!!! I live in a big house now and people think I'm important")

That;s why they loved him so much also. He was the perfect pitchman.. Bush doesn't have the same communication skills but he is willing to be the puppet for the powerful...

...the fact is the buck does not stop over there somewhere. It stops in the oval office. Period.

Don

Time To Pay Up For Once!

Bush does understand the words he is using even if he can't pronounce them. He KNEW he was lying. Clinton was IMPEACHED for far less!

.....Bush is the President of The United States.
As Harry Truman said....."The buck stops here".

Yes, he may not have known of the lies but, that does not make him any less guilty.

He is the President and he must take full responsibility for the failings of his government and not pass them off onto others.

His lack of intellect and curiosity is no excuse in this case.

The buck stops with George......and I'm not talking about Tenet.

Look what happened at the NY Times with publisher Howell Raines resigning... or at any of the recent corporate scandals... with responsibility comes accountability... (even in America 2003)


yet, like the Pope, this prez never admits a mistake (maybe because God talks to him - i don't know)... I predict this hubris will be his undoing...

for letting Bush lie, then Bush should take responsibility for being a lying puppet.

...the short and simple of this is that dick boy is the WH resident right now, and whether he likes it or not the buck stops at that Oval Office Desk he sets at. OMFG, our Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves at thw sight of that. Anyway, on top of that, idiot boy picked Cheney and Rumsfeld and so again he is responsible for what they do or don't do.

First of all, Bush has no excuse. He occupies the office of the President. He does so illegally or illegitimately in the view many here, but nevertheless he is the one who presumes to exercise the powers of the office and enjoys its privileges. He delivered the speech. He is responsible for what he said, whether he likes it or not. Also, whether he likes it or not, he is responsible for the decisions he makes. If he sent combat troops into a war zone based on misinformation, he must take the heat for it, whether he knew the information was false or not.

However, we should not lose track of the point you make. The invasion of Iraq was a conspiracy. Like any elaborate conspiracy, it has come unraveled very quickly. Bush is not the only one culpable here. If he was misled, he should be requesting the resignations of all those who misled him. If he was actively involved in the plot to deceive the nation and the world about the real nature of the invasion of Iraq, then he, too, should be removed from office.

Let the heads roll.

This is the time that he must learn the lesson that with power comes responsibility. This is the time that his daddy's buddies can't bail him out of the current troubles.

Maybe this is the time that all the past evations of responsibility will all gang up on him.

Hey, George. Your karma will get you if you don't watch out.

I keep saying this, but where's the personal accountability that King George and his accolades are always lecturing us about... I mean what would Bill Bennet say?

.....

"Never hit on 17!"

Bush has an attention span of 15 minutes and the life experience of a 20-something (he was stone drunk for 30 of his 57 years and pampered playboy much of the rest of the time).

Hence, decision processes are non-existent or erratic and nobody is accountable for mistakes. Simplistic neocon strategies win, because they can be condensed to 3 short sentences.

You can bet they never give him a speech without passing it by Rove.

In any case, I want to see HIS head roll on this.

But I've been thinking about Cheney more and more. Remember how he was not even being considered for VP, but managed (how exactly?) to get the job of vetting others for the job? Then, declaring that none on the list was worthy, he crowned himself. THAT was a sort of mini coup d'etat--because after that, he was the one to choose the whole cabinet, including Rummy (I think). They installed themselves, and started immediately to figure out how to execute the PNAC agenda. Foreign policy started being scary to watch almost immediately--dumping treaties, sneering at international orgs, playing chicken with China. On and on.

I know Rove was with Bush* for years, but I'd love to know what his relationship is with Cheney. Anybody know?

Another point--this week on NOW, Moyers had that Judicial Watch guy on. They finally have Cheney in the position where he is going to have to release at least some of his Energy policy papers--and the guy (damn--I can't remember his name) said that one thing they may reveal is a link to the terrorism problem. He already knew that Chevron had come to Cheney asking for Libya to be taken off the terrorist-nation-list. Not so shocking in itself--we all know that sort of thing goes on, and Cheney himself was trying to get Iraq taken off the list earlier, wasn't he? So that Halliburton could do business? (I wonder if I have this wrong...? I'm not sure about this, but remember something...). Lots of people think the energy policy secrecy is to hide domestic corruption, but it might be international oil politics that links directly to foreign policy in the Middle East that they're trying to hide--like the negotiations with the Taliban.

Sorry this is muddled, but I'd like to see more threads investigating Cheney himself (as well as the whole PNAC thing). Cheney seems to have signed off on all the PNAC agenda, but I want to know what put him in that camp. Is he intellectually committed to a Straussian world view? Or did it just fit in with his own evil plans? Unanswerable? Beside the point?

I think he is to blame...he was a right wing thug for his dad's campaigns and he is a shifty "all about me" kind of guy.

I believe we need to flush the whole PNAC group down the drain.

He's smart in that Texas state house, back-slapping-pol sort of way... great for getting money for farm-to-market road projects and school funds... (or baseball stadiums, or investors money)...

But intelectually curious, capable of dealing with complexity? No.

this office was created with 4 people to start...to create intel to suppport an Iraq attack and bush*s lies in his SOTU, UN presentation and to Congress to influnce their vote on Iraq resolution...googled it and read for yourselves...a real evil and unethical bunch

New York City - CIA Probing If Officials Were Misled On Iraq... a statement. But he won't be able to review the reports from the
Pentagon's special plans office. Warner's committee could. His ...
www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ ny-wocia043315966jun04,0,3888552.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print

theage.com.au - The Age... Mr Powell reportedly said he had come away from briefings by the Pentagon's office of special plans, set up by Mr Wolfowitz, "apprehensive" about what he called ...
www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/ 05/31/1054177767278.html

english.daralhayat.com/column/26-05-2003/Article-20030526-646f2b20-c0a8-01fc-0014-d18fab530033/ story.html

Defense Department spokesmen acknowledge that a small, four-member team is working on Iran policy within the Pentagon's so-called Office of Special Plans. ...
www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.06.06/news6.html


More Missing Intelligence... According to current and former US intelligence analysts and government officials,the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans funneled information, unchallenged ...
www.commondreams.org/views03/0622-05.htm


http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.06.06/news6.html
Pentagon Team on Iran Comes Under Fire
By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF

(snip)
"They are running their own intelligence operation, including covert action, and are using contractors outside the government to do some of the leg work," said a former top CIA official. "Their area of work has been concentrated on Iraq, which is why the intelligence on WMD was so bad, but they have a much broader portfolio. The office is undergoing some scrutiny from inside the government given its poor track record and the lack of 'sanity checking' their products with the intelligence community. A lot of material they produce is not shared with CIA, not coordinated, and finds its way into public policy statements by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney."
(snip)

Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, was interviewed by National Public Radio -- All Things Considered -- on Friday, May 30th. In that interview, it was mentioned that a group calling itself "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity" was being formed. Larry Johnson believes that intelligence was misused. He indicated that there are analysts currently on active duty who are distraught at the "cooking of the books." He believed because the evidence did not exist, that this is outrageous. Moreover, he thought that the "Office of Special Plans" in the Department of Defense presents a clear and present danger, and that the Congress should investigate this. To illustrate his non-partisan position, he made certain to say that he votes Republican.

discover.npr.org

source...
http://www.payvand.com/news/03/jun/1051.html

http://www.payvand.com/news/03/jun/1051.html
Bogus Intelligence, Foreign Policy and Crying Wolf-owitz

By: Fareed Marjaee
Meezan_2@yahoo.ca

"The first draft of Powell's speech was written by Cheney's staff… At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bulls- - -." (1) "Powell reportedly told Straw he hoped that when the facts came out they wouldn't 'explode in their faces'." (2)
(snip)
Down to this paragraph you can see why your tax dollars are hard at work (at an Idle) financing a multibillion dollar intelligence network. So a team of four guys in a basement office can do it by themselves ignoring any kind of resources that would be needed
(snip)
They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal -- a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon’s "Office of Special Plans." In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community.
According to the Pentagon adviser, "Special Plans" was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true"
(snip)

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

... pulling the manipulating hands out of the Sockpuppet's ass will leave him as a mere pile of fiber. Removing his narcissistic 'supply' is sufficient. The real targets in this madministration are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft (isn't a SOTU fraud illegal?) and Perle. Remove them and the Narcotized Narcissist will only find refuge in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.

Quote:
" National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice echoed the President in more direct language, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that any deletions requested by the CIA would have been made before the speech was given.Though Tenet did not acknowledge personally reviewing the speech himself, he wrote in his statement of the uranium charge, "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president."

So how can he be held responsible if he didn't even read it...according to Condi Rice...?

Now...if he doesn't pre-read his speeches...then that shows he's a puppet and incompitent...it shows clearly that he doesn't...if he did then he would have known that the statement was bogus and would have asked for it to be removed...but he didn't...so he is just as guilty...

Sorry...but this is getting messy...I can't trust a pResident who reads speeches blindly...

He is allegedly the President and therefore the blame lies with him.

One must remember that bush has huge mental problems and reading a speach for him is likely extremely difficult. My guess is that what he sees on the prompter is a sentence to read outloud and the instructions to look left,look right, pause, lick you lips, smerk, smile, on and on. Being a single subject brain at best he likely has no understanding of the words he utters at all. If the speach said "I ate my dog for breakfast", he would read it outloud with no hesitation.

The real culprit in all this is the American people. We let something like 25% of us put this moron in office. It's our fault collectively, and we are in deep dog doo. Bob

By Monday, Rove's control of the media will have it pounded in that the CIA wrote the damn speech. And that Bush forgives them and still has confidence in them. Chain of command goes like this:
Karl Rove. Thats it.
Everyone else just sits in the damn chair and does even says what he wants- yes even Cheney.

He's responsible. Bottom line.

Well of course he lied, he was told by the CIA that the information was not true. Powell refused to use the info in UN presentation. The Gopers will spin it and say he didn't lie. It would be worse had he not lied, it would mean that he could be fooled very easily and is a danger to America and incompetenet to serve as Commander in Chief.

This an impeachable offense!
Where are the house manglers?
Where is the outrage?
It's not like lives were lost and still are, or that it cost the US tax payer $4 billion every month.

When we found out that LBJ lied and got us involved in Vietam Democrats turned on him. Why? Because we have honor, we put our country before our party! Don't expect Gopers to do the same.