What Durbin said doesn't make any sense. Even KO said it didn't make sense.

He knew then, but waited until May 2007 to say anything? It just makes no sense.

I don't know what Durbin knew and I don't know what Edwards knew.

What I suspect happened is that what Durbin "knew" was that the intelligence was being debated and the American public only saw one side. But that is it. That did not mean that they knew that the intelligence was wrong, just that the American people weren't getting the whole story. But we already know this is true from the information that came out soon after the war started in the newspapers. So to me, this is old news.

the halls of the Capitol in his nite-nites?

Got a link for that? I need a giggle. :grin:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Is_Senator_wandering_around_office_buildings_1204.html

Note also that the black-and-white jammies are "Christmasy."

:rofl:

Hello friend! :hi:

Hell of a long winter.

I hope you're cookin' in your part of the country.

:toast:

Even turned the swamper on last night. :toast: Gona cook at the Capital today. See you about. Have a wonderful day. :toast:

and if they didn't, they suck beyond belief.

I GWBush can't tell the difference between good advice (Scott Ritter, Wes Clark, Anthony Zinni, et al) and bad advice (neocons) that's one thing; but if John Edward and Hillary Clinton can't tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, then they should not be put in the position Bush is in.

And you didn't even have to be on any special intelligence committee to get that advice, either.

Not the IWR in general. Edwards has already apologized profusely and says "I will have to live with that decision the rest of my life."

He said "I will have to live with that decision the rest of my life."... but in the same apology he lied about his knowledge of the danger Iraq posed.

It's important. Forgiving him is fine, but for god's sake, don't elect him president!

Jesus Christ! How is he so much better than the Republican version of a good-guy-who-simply-is-not-qualified?

From what I can tell, and from what Durbin actually said, the only thing they knew was that the info being shown to the American public was not "the whole story." The info they were shown included the sides with disputes. The info was not proof that Iraq was a threat in my mind, but I can see that someone might make a bad decision and think it meant Iraq was a threat. Making a bad decision does not make them a liar. Trying to make it so is spinning.

what was known about the threat Iraq posed, was enough to make the right decision on, clearly. If he now blames his bad decision on "but, but, but...they gave me bad information!..." that may be true, but it's also a form of lying, because he knows damn well that along with that "bad information", he also had "good information".

If he's too stupid or political to choose good information over bad information on an issue this important, then how is he really that different than GW Bush?

Yes, and he weighed the "good information" and the "bad information" and decided Iraq was a threat.

Again, a VERY bad decision, but it does not make him a liar.

when he makes his excuse for his hawkishness (and that's what it was, he didn't simply cast a bad vote). It's simply not true. He doesn't talk as if he had the correct info and simply chose the wrong in his apologies.

That's a form of lying, even if only by omission. Sure, neocons were actively trying to sell the war, but the intelligence committee had plenty of information not to buy it. It just seemed like what the American people wanted at the time.

They simply do not exist. Unfortunately, the trolls, devils, and evil do exist. It is running our government.
BEFORE the Democratic majority, this country rode a patriotic wave. Bush had 80% approval rating and the country and the world seemed to be in love with our little drugstore cowboy.
IF Dick Durbin or John Edwards had broken the rules on secrecy, they would have BOTH been censured at best, recalled or impeached at worst. But make no mistake, they would have been convicted in the court of public opinion. I'm as purist as they get, but as much as I would have loved for them to do this, it wouldn't have been effective.
Nobody would have believed them because who here THINKS that the Republicans wouldn't have lied to cover it up? Have we learned nothing about what these folks are capable of doing?
I think I will let them wrestle with their own demons over their actions as I am sure they do. They would not have survived politically telling the truth during those post 9-11 days. I'm not going to hold this against them.

They knew how Bush* was manipulating every single thing.. They all knew but since '94 they were scared they were on the wrong side of the American people and their jobs were the most important thing to them all. America was seeing red and they didn't want to buck an angry populace.

I simply don't know what they knew at the time, but as I put in the OP, I suspect they only knew that the American people weren't getting the whole story.

April 28 (EIRNS)--Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) told the Senate in a floor speech on April 25, that the classified information that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he was a member of, was being given on Iraq in 2002 "was not the same information being given to the American people." At the time, he said, "Members of this administration were in active, heated debate over whether aluminum tubes really meant that the Iraqis were developing nuclear weapons. Some in the administration were saying, of course not, it's not the same kind of aluminum tube; at the same time, members of the administration were telling the American people to be fearful of mushroom-shaped clouds."

"I was angry about it," Durbin said, but he couldn't do much because "it was in the Intelligence Committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to Congress." So, instead, "I sat on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq thinking the American people are being misled, they are not being told the truth."

"was not the same information being given to the American people"

Last sentence of his quote:

So, instead, "I sat on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq thinking the American people are being misled, they are not being told the truth."

is the way I understand it

Only through willful ignorance. EXTREME willful ignorance.

Was Scott Ritter shouting it from the rooftops?

What was Wes Clark saying?

What was Anthony Zinni saying?

What was Hans Blix saying?

Why did those who voted against the IRW do so? Why should anyone else be off the hook? Did those who voted correctly have some secret knowledge they wouldn't share with the others?

What does Bob Graham have to say about it?

Some might see it as no backbone (and I fully admit to a bias as both a Democrat and an Illinoisan), but what he said made sense to me given the political atmosphere at the time. We have to remember what it was like at that point in time: anyone who gave the slightest hint of dissent was put over the coals, had their patriotism openly question, and were used as a distraction.

IIRC, it was around this time that Rockefeller wrote his 'secret' letter to Cheney. Rockefeller knew he couldn't say anything. I distinctly remember (on other boards) that Bushbots would hold up a Democratic Senator (but I can't now recall who it was specifically) accusing him of being a "traitor" for divulging "secrets" from the Intelligence Committee on the floor of the Senate. Intelligence Committee members were watched with a level of scrutiny I've never seen before. Had Durbin said anything even close to giving a hint of question, the Cons aided by the press would have as relentless to a member of the Democratic leadership team as they were when he quoted a report calling secret prisons gulags. I don't fault him. It would have been the end of his career and we'd have lost a great Senator (freely admitting bias again).

After watching yesterday's Intelligence Committee hearing on FISA, I'm again wondering why we even have an Intelligence Committee. It seems like 99.9% of the Committee's work is in 'closed session', Committee members can't talk to anyone about what they know/learn or they can be arrested, and they apparently aren't even privy to know/learn everything that's going on in the Intelligence community. Where's the sunshine with that?

Oh, and I STILL want to know the status of Phase II!!!

Although it isn't true that Durbin only now is saying this. He's made several mentions over the years even before Bob Graham's op-ed in 2005. Right now, though, I think it's all about Phase II. Since the Dems have a majority, the Repugs don't have the juice they had before to hold the information back from the public. Durbin has been fighting this for years; Levin, Rockefeller, Kerry and others, they are all pushing hard. It was Durbin himself who was called a "traitor" and accused of divulging secrets. As it happened, what he said had been declassified, but it didn't stop the witch hunt tactics against him.

And thanks for reminding me that it was Durbin who was their poster boy for treason. I hope you're right about this setting the stage for Phase II. Rockefeller hasn't said anything at all about the status of it and I was under the impression that it was going to be priority one for him as Chair.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16546019.htm


I think he's behind it, truly. It must not be easy for him, given his YES vote, but I do believe he is with us on this.

the idea that what he said recently was new, extraordinary, controversial, a "bombshell", is a GOP fiction.

The point was that this information isn't new. The reaction as if this was "new" or a "bombshell" is quite out of place. Some people have pointed out that this has been talked about before.