The O'Neill "backtrack" - irrelevant -- "Genie is out of the bottle"

[cthrumatrix]

Because there is documentation:
--------------------------------

* a 60 Minutes piece for people to see the truth

* a Book ..based on 19,000 documents, 100's of interviews and more.

The "genie is out of the bottle". In fact, I think it's worse, because it shows "how evil and threatening" this corporate "cabal" is when truth rears it's head -- remember the 911 Kean outing on CBS news and he "recanted".

This is where "we as Americans" DO NOT sit still and accept this BS. Contact your reprepsentatives.

People lie -- but the facts are out on paper. Bush lied ...and 1000's of people died as a result.

[cthrumatrix]

1. IF I forgot to mention --- contact your represntatives -- demand truth

[Hubert Flottz]

3. Send the reps this link!

"The Project for the New American Century"

Enter Saddam Hussein

<SNIP>

A little background is necessary: In June of 1997 a group of former republican administration officials launched The Project for the New American Century, a think tank offering research and analysis on a “revolution” in modern military methods and military objectives. Like the energy task force, the passionate neo-conservative authors endowed their Principles with hard-hitting force, calling for the necessity of “preserving and extending an international order friendly” to America’s “security, prosperity and principles.” The founders wrote: “The history of the 20th Century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge and to meet threats before they become dire.” In fact, on pages 51 and 67 of the institution’s intellectual centerpiece, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, the authors lament that the process of transforming the military would most likely be a long one, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” (How unfortunate for Americans, they got their needed event on September 11, 2001.)

The signers to the “principles” read like a who’s who of the Bush administration plus a chorus line of supporters: Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Elliott Abrams, plus world famous: William Bennett, Jeb Bush, and Dan Quayle, among others.

The signers endorsed two other dynamic enabling policies: increased military spending, and the necessity of challenging “regimes hostile to America’s interests and values.”

The seventy-six-page Rebuilding America’s Defenses was published in 2000. With a lot of expositional swagger, the authors created not only the ideal military preparedness level for their goal of global domination, but they identified a new kind of warfare that requires far less “force” than the military was accustomed to accept. What’s more, they identified the “hostile regimes” mentioned in the “Principles” to be none other than Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Syria.

http://www.yuricareport.com/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm

The Bushites are guilty as hell!

[DrBB]

2. Sure it matters

The number one strategy for dealing with blow-ups like this has never been refutation; it has always been "muddying the waters."

It's simple, really. The assumption is that Americans are simple-minded boobs, and only clear-cut, black-and-white arguments and evidence can penetrate their video-game-and-junk-food-addled brains. Therefore, whenever there is a nice, clear-cut issue like this that the other side can use against you, all you have to do is spin the props and kick up enough sand to make things complicated. "Yeah, well Wilson's wife was CIA," being the classic example. Nothing to do with the substance of the charges, just a way of introducing noise into the system. Even the outing of his wife just draws the discussion into back lanes and biways. Outing her was itself a bit of a misstep, perhaps, but handled the same way: just muddy the waters: Maybe it wasn't a crime, maybe maybe maybe.....

So the only hope for making something stick is for it to stay as clear-cut and focused as possible, over against the sludge they'll kick up to complicate things. They were trying to do it with the nonsense about O'Neill having used secret documents, but this is a thousand times better.

It puts you in the position of making precisely the arguments you made above, instead of being able to simply point to O'Neill for this stuff.

The information is still out there, and it still adds some weight to our side, but this blunts its impact considerably.

edit: a little Plame clarification

[cthrumatrix]

4. it's like O'Neill wrote a History Book and a day later wants to "revise"

This won't fly with Americans who have "one brain cell".

The media and our reps will get hammered all year for this....the facts are out.

It makes it worse....for O'Neill...becuase now he will be asked the questions about his "flip flop"

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Yes, it does.

Another possible voice has been silenced, and there is no organized opposition.

Daschle and other leading Congressional Democrats have getting re-elected as their primary job. Daschle comes from a heavily Republican state and has enough trouble running without trashing the beloved Shrub. The rest of them, including moderate Republicans, have similar problems.

No matter how much the primary candidates try to attack Shrub, it just doesn't stick. Everything they say is looked at through a political filter. It is assumed they will attack anyone and everyone and no one really pays attention.

Which leaves us with, what? Eight years of well-financed and highly organized Clinton bashing didn't manage to stick, so how can this disorganized, under-financed Bush bashing ever think it will take hold?

Several things can happen.

A disaster as simple as the gas lines and 18% mortgages that wiped out Carter can happen. Nothing necessarily big like a terrorist attack, but something that touches everyone and they want someone to blame.

Or, perhaps during the actual campaign we come up with something that sticks, like Willy Horton did to Dukakis. No point talking about it now and giving them time to plan an organized rebuttal, but there are plenty of things out there that can strike a nerve.

Any sitting President enjoys a natural advantage in re-election, Carter and Bush I notwithstanding. The public lost trust in both of them, and the question is just how do we make the public lose trust in this one.

[DrBB]

7. Excellent analysis. How did Reagan beat Carter?

...By portraying Carter as the president of "malaise" and himself as the guy with a bright positive image of America. And of course the double-digit inflation didn't hurt.

I think the jobless recovery is actually the vulnerability here--not on the level that it gets talked about, during the campaign, though that needs to be done, but simply because it is there, like d-d inflation, causing anxiety and insecurity and desire for a better direction. Eternal War Against Terror and all the orange alerts and shit also play into the sense of this having been a dark time for the US. That's why the Chimp is trotting out all these Great Society kinds of things--space program, immigrants. Trying to paint smiling lips on this pig.

The candidate who can really project (not just talk about, but somehow embody and make people FEEL) the vision of the positive alternative to this has a good chance of nailing Bush. I've heard lots of things that I like from most of the candidates, but there's only one who really carries this effect off for me--I'll leave it there, lest this turn into a candidate thread.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. Remember...

"Are you better off now than four years ago?"

Seems appropriate now.

[TomNickell]

6. "Blind man in room full of deaf people"

That phrase won't go away. Sometimes it's the clever line that captures the truth that finally wins the argument. This line is getting close to that.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

8. irrelevant, certainly

But only because the Republicans that I know aren't even considering an alternative to Bush. They are pig-headed, and the lies of Faux and all the other outlets have now become part of their DNA. They have been programmed to view opposition to Bush as hatred of the American way of life. O'Neil is no different, he will be viewed simply as a traitor to neo-Conservatism - and the machine will roll on.

[cthrumatrix]

9. i politely disagree.... people have died becuase of lies and deception

ask america if they want that type of leader...and there is a heck of alot more "baggage" on shrub than the "O'Neill Papers"

[DrBB]

10. I'm afraid that IS how it looks

...outside the DU/Leftist-internet bubble. I do know some GOP people who dislike the Chimp, and some who even say they'd vote against him.

But what O'Neill said? Why he'll probably vote for W again? "I don't like him but I don't see much of an alternative"? That's the predominant attitude even among the more rational GOPers.

[cthrumatrix]

11. the O'Neill comments on voting for shrub are based on "fear"

he has "been reached" and I'm sure this all the media will share.

Do you honestly think he will vote for shrub now? It's all show AFTER the horses have left the barn.