Not being ugly, just talking about advisors and consultants that people expect to be able to trust. They apparently could not be trusted about Iraq information. I think our Democrats mostly were sincere about wanting the truth, and they turned to those they trusted.
I think these guys may be in large part the Dems for Joe, who supported Joe Lieberman over Lamont. Just think how much more power we would have in the Senate if not for Joe's pro-war fervor.
I wonder if many of those are the ones who advised these three about Itaq. It's possible.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/vegetarians-between-meals_b_10889.htmlWhat is DNC Chair Howard Dean's excuse? He wasn't in Congress and didn't
have any access to Senate intelligence. Still, on March 9, 2003, just days
before the invasion began, Dean told Tim Russert, on NBC's Meet the Press,
"I don't want Saddam staying in power with control over those weapons of
mass destruction. I want him to be disarmed."
During the New Hampshire primary in January 2004, which I covered for
Democracy Now!, I confronted Dean about that statement.
I asked him on what
intelligence he based that allegation. "Talks with people who were
knowledgeable," Dean told me. "Including a series of folks that work in the
Clinton administration.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MR. RUSSERT: Why were you so wrong?
SEN. EDWARDS: For the same reason a lot of people were wrong. You know,
we—the intelligence information that we got was wrong. I mean, tragically
wrong.
On top of that I’d—beyond that, I went back to former Clinton
administration officials who gave me sort of independent information about
what they believed about what was happening with Saddam’s weapon—weapons
programs. They were also wrong. And, based on that, I made the wrong
judgment. I, I, I want to go another step, though, because I think this is
more than just weapons of mass destruction. I mean, I—at the—I remember
vividly what I was thinking about at the time. It was, first, I was
convinced he had weapons of mass destruction. That’s turned out to be
completely wrong and false. I had internal conflict because I was worried
about what George Bush would do. I didn’t have—I didn’t have confidence
about him doing the work that needed to be done with the international
community, the lead-up to a potential invasion in Iraq. I didn’t know, in
fairness, that he would be as incompetent as he’s been in the administration
of the war. But I had—there were at least two things going on. It wasn’t
just the weapons of mass destruction I was wrong about. It’s become
absolutely clear—and I’m very critical of myself for this—become absolutely
clear, looking back, that I should not have given this president this
authority.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16903253 /
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Feingold
http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2007/02/05/feingold-its-us-vs-the-washington-consultant-class-on-iraqFollowing Republican shenanigans on the floor of the Senate tonight whereby
the GOP filibustered Sen. John Warner’s (R-VA) non-binding Iraq resolution,
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) held a conference call to discuss exactly what the
hell is going on. You can listen to a three-minute audio excerpt in Windows
Media format here and MP3 format here - it is an exchange I had with
Feingold about the power equation at work behind all the rhetoric coming out
Washington.
After the election we had on November 7th and after polls have registered
the public’s deep anger at the President for trying to escalate the war, you
would think Democrats would be pushing legislation with real teeth and not
just non-binding nothingness, especially if the GOP was going to filibuster
anyway. Well, you’d be wrong. In the audio excerpt, I asked Feingold if this
is because of Ben Nelson-ism - that is, because of conservative Democrats
who are willing to use a brinkmanship progressive senators rarely use. As
you can hear, Feingold says it’s even deeper - he says this is a battle
between Democrats’ Washington consultant class and the rest of the country -
and
he specifically targets the D.C. elites from the Clinton administration,
who he accurately notes largely supported the war from the get-go.
Oh, and BTW, I really do have a bone to pick with Mr. Scahill about his 05 post at Huffpost. He only picked a little of it and left out the most important part of that interview.....but so did everyone else at the time. Here is that paragraph from the transcript.
Markos and Jerome's book called Crashing the Gate had a lot about consultants like these. They said they were on the Gravy Train.