Most in U.S. Back View Bush Was Lax on Terror –Poll

[thebaghwan]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20040401/ts_nm/security_bush_poll_dc

[Florida_Geek]

1. Very Very good news

His support is going down. Over the next 6 months things like the deaths yesterday will only lower people's view of how "safe" they are and why we are in Iraq.

[malatesta1137]

2. great news!

Kerry 49%
Bush 46%

and you know what that means, Kerry is actually 55%, Bush 38%.

[sampsonblk]

8. What about Nader?

I don't see Nader in this poll. That changes the numbers.

[damnraddem]

14. The number added to 95%.

That leaves room for Nader. He doesn't have the big Green support this year that he did in 2000 -- at least not yet. Never, I hope.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

3. Great News! The truth is coming through ever so slowly.

Bush is an idiot!

:bounce:

[David__77]

4. This is an important and tricky phase.

It's important to attack Bush on national security now so that his mantle is tarnished on this issue.

What's tricky is that to some extent when things focus on these issues, he gains an advantage insofar as domestic affairs are eclipsed.

I think later on it will be best to focus on domestic affairs more so, but it's important to lay the groundwork for destroying his advantages now.

[thebaghwan]

6. I agree and I have posted a request over the last two days for people to

contact their senators and reps and ask for all of Clarke's testimony from 2 years ago; along with emails and correspondence be declassified asap. This was a Repug idea to discredit Clarke first advanced by Sen Frist. I think we should take them up on their proposal. Then the American people will have Clarke's and Rice's testimony side by side to compare.

Who will join me in writing our senators and demanding a full declassification of all Clarke's documents and testimony??? This will keep the * campaign off balance for weeks if not months.

Here are some contact #s for Dem and Repug senators and a link where you can find the contact info for your senator.

Robert C. Byrd: (D) http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_email.html

Ted Kennedy: (D) [e-mail]

Bob Graham: (D) http://graham.senate.gov/email.html

Some Republicans: Particularly target Frist.

Bill Frist: (R) http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.Contact...

Chuck Grassley: (R) http://grassley.senate.gov/webform.htm

Chuck Hagel: (R) http://hagel.senate.gov/Email/contact.html

Find other senators addresses: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

And don't forget your reps in Congress:

www.senate.gov

http://www.house.gov/writerep /

[salin]

10. Key points to make with fence sitters

who are probably wont to try to find a forgivable scenario (we hate to think that those elected - are working against our interests... so we find rationalizations)

Rationalization... they didn't have enough information to be aware of how big and immenent a threat al qeada was...

Point one: The thwarted Millenium bomb threat happened at the onset of Bush's campaigning for president. In that case the terrorist plot was not just about US targets in other countries.. the attempt was on US soil. It was known that Al Qeada was behind the attempt.

Point two: The U.S.S. Cole bombing happened in October of 2000 - less than a month before the election. It was known that Al Qeada was behind the attack.

Point three: The briefings (Clarke, Berger, etc.) during transition stressed the critical nature of the threat and growing emboldenedness of Al Qeada.

Contrast: Terrorism demoted in the DOJ budget prepared by John Ashcroft in Sept of 2001 - it was no longer in the top 10 budget priorities.

Contrast: The choice to shelve ongoing taskforce work (Hart Rudman) and instead hand off the terrorism work (form a new taskforce) to Cheney - who did not hold a single meeting prior to 9-11 -- even after the briefings about the Minnesota flight school problem (FBI), and the Pheonix Memo (also related to flightschools) (CIA).

It is nature for folks to try to keep rationalizing - our job is to - while they are at the moment of cognitive disonance (before letting the rationalization again take sway) - put the evidence that counters the rationalization before them... Timing and framing the discussion is important.

[w4rma]

11. I am in full agreement, salin

'Al-Qaida' didn't rush to Bush's lips
Marie Cocco
March 30, 2004
…
Because Rice isn't president of the United States. George W. Bush is. And so we must read his lips.

Here is what those lips said publicly about al-Qaida between Jan. 1, 2001, just before Bush was sworn in as president, and Sept. 10, 2001: Nothing.

There were zero references to al-Qaida during these months. That's according to Federal News Service, which transcribes every presidential utterance - speeches, news conferences, impromptu musings at photo ops, off-the-cuff remarks made striding toward a helicopter, official comments with foreign dignitaries. The search was conducted including the phrase "al Q" - to capture every possible spelling or translation for al-Qaida. Still nothing.

Of course, the president did mention terrorism, terrorists and counterterrorism 24 times before 9/11. But eight of these comments referred to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another eight involved a range of terrorist threats, including ethnic terrorism in Macedonia and Basque separatists in Spain.

In the remaining eight references to terrorism, the new president offered his idea for how to combat it: the Reagan-era missile-defense system formerly known as Star Wars.
…
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpcoc303729094mar30,0,6418173,print.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=488938

How Clarke 'Outsourced' Terror Intel
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 4:08 p.m. ET March 31, 2004

March 31 - As White House counterterror czar, Richard Clarke was so frustrated by the FBI’s inability to identify Islamic radicals within the United States that he turned for help to a freelance terrorism researcher whose work was deeply resented by top bureau officials.

Clarke’s secret work with private researcher Steven Emerson is among a number of revealing disclosures in the ex-White House aide’s new book, “Against All Enemies,” that has been all but obscured by the furor over the author’s politically charged allegations against President George W. Bush.

As recounted by Clarke in his book, and confirmed by documents provided to NEWSWEEK, Emerson and his former associate Rita Katz regularly provided the White House with a stream of information about possible Al Qaeda activity inside the United States that appears to have been largely unknown to the FBI prior to the September 11 terror attacks.
…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4639986/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1325096

[skypilot]

5. Who are these dumbasses...

...who still think that Bush has made the country more secure?

[maggrwaggr]

9. here's a picture of America under Bush:

you call this safe?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. Well, what are you waiting for? Vote this story a Five! (nt)

[sam sarrha]

12. but the white wash is sticking...!!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

13. Kick it up a notch... currently only 3.19

Let's go... 5 it