Reply #44: Yep, Keep 'em guessing and remember the 5 Rules to avoid indictment [View All]

[Up2Late]

The 5 Rules to avoid going to Prison
(could also be called the O.J. Simpson rules, the ENRON Rules, Bush/Cheney Rules, etc.)

1) Admit Nothing.
2) Deny everything emphatically.
3) Demand Proof
4) Make Counter Accusations
5) Assault the accusers character

Here's is the most recent pre-election example reported by the BBC over several days in Oct. 2004 - The controversy over a huge cache of explosives that have vanished in Iraq has dominated the last days of campaigning in the US elections. Mr Kerry charges President Bush with "incredible incompetence" and "great blunders" over the disappearance of a the explosives. (10/25/04)

:shrug:1) Admit Nothing -- The White House plays down the issue, with spokesman Scott McClellan saying the explosives pose no danger of nuclear proliferation. It is felt that the president has no need to address the issue.(10/25) Scott McClellan countered "These are conventional high explosives that we are talking about. And the president wants to make sure that we get to the bottom of this."
Pentagon officials acknowledge that they cannot at the moment account for the material.(10/26)
Vice-President Dick Cheney raises the possibility the explosives disappeared before US soldiers could secure the site. (10/27)

:wtf:2) Deny everything emphatically -- Donald Rumsfeld said the material was probably taken before the US arrived. He released an image showing trucks at the site just before the war. (10/28) Mr Rumsfeld said in an interview with US station WABC Radio that it was "very likely" Saddam Hussein had moved the munitions to protect them from attack. (10/29) Maj Pearson told reporters: "I did not see any IAEA seals at locations we were looking into." (10/29)

:mad:3) DEMAND Proof -- The officials add that they cannot verify if the explosives have been looted, and say one possible explanation is that the facility was empty before US-led forces arrived, reports the BBC's Nick Childs at the Pentagon. (10/26)

:grr:4) Make Counter Accusations -- President Bush breaks his public silence on the issue and accuses Mr Kerry of making "wild charges"(10/27) Mr Bush broke his silence on the missing explosives - first reported on Monday - by repeating his charge that, if Mr Kerry had been president, Saddam Hussein would still control Iraq and have hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives to share with terrorists.

:evilgrin:5) Assault the accusers character -- ...in his first comments about the missing explosives, Mr Bush said in Pennsylvania that Mr Kerry had jumped to conclusions for political reasons.(10/27) "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as commander-in-chief. Unfortunately that is part of a pattern of a candidate who will say anything to get elected," Mr Bush tells a crowd in Pennsylvania.(10/27) :puke:Mr Giuliani says the troops in Iraq, not Mr Bush, bore the responsibility for searching for the explosives. "No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough - didn't they search carefully enough?" (10/28)