Still paying the price of incompetence

The heated debate over whether the administration lied to take us to war in Iraq or was the victim of its own mismanaged intelligence has cooled somewhat, as worries about the economy have heated up.

[Pootentain]

I'm proud to be first to post so that the first post isn't one from a Bush apologist; posting something nasty about Ms. Kenndy and this superb column.

I challenge those who follow to comment without using any of the following words: liberal, professor, socialist, Clinton, or Gore.

[Jay]

Brilliant first post, really top notch thought.

The war has nothing to do with the housing bubble, that mess was caused by the deterioration of lending standards and the reduction of interest rates by Fed Chairman Greenspan, who will go down in history as the King of Bubbles.

Government intervention in the markets caused the housing "crisis" - first, not enforcing standards, second, running up the money supply - and now we're even stuck with a hare-brained scheme whereby Bear Stearns debt has been taken over by the US taxpayer.

Kennedy herself is widely known to be a nut. She installed a weird looking front sidewalk without permits in front of her Old Northside home, then went ape when told it had to be torn out. As a lawyer she should be aware of zoning laws and the iron hand of the IHPC.

[tired of the bs]

Your first sentence makes no sense. All the far left wing politicos said there were WMDs when the Clintons were in office. Yes that is Kennedy Kerry and the like. Stop with the same tired story...

[Daniels]

Excellent column, as usual, and right on the mark.

[Pat]

Oh, dither....some among us will continue to agitate to blame the administration for the world crises we now face. I'll bet Sheila can trace global warming to a hanging chad in Florida. Keep up the entertainment. You provide a fun supplement to the TV media goofballs.

[whippersnapper]

Pat wrote:

Oh, dither....some among us will continue to agitate to blame the administration for the world crises we now face. I'll bet Sheila can trace global warming to a hanging chad in Florida. Keep up the entertainment. You provide a fun supplement to the TV media goofballs.

So you can't deny a word she has written? Not a word! What a surprise that instead of proof to the contrary, we get words like "goofballs" with hanging chads thrown in for good measure! How typical! Don't deal in facts! Try to hide the smelling pile with silly words!

You know you would give the Bush administration credit for anything it has accomplished. Why is it impossible for the rapidly dwindling believers in the gospel according to Bush/Cheney to accept blame for what it has plainly wrought?

[DARK RAIN]

1.) As if Congress would have actually spent that $3.3 trillion on "deteriorating infrastructure and improving our public schools, public transportation and neglected parks". It didn't do it before 911. It is unlikely it would have done it after.

2.) Bush isn't running for anything. Next January he will retire to his ranch in Texas and raise a few horses. The war will still be there. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? Whether you were for or against the war, you'll still will have the war on your hands no matter who wins the White House. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?" if you are intending to withdraw, the public needs to know how each candidate plans to do it. So far I haven't heard one conrete proposal about how we will do that. The American people deserve to be able to debate these plans intelligently.

[Jags]

tired of the bs wrote:

Your first sentence makes no sense. All the far left wing politicos said there were WMDs when the Clintons were in office. Yes that is Kennedy Kerry and the like. Stop with the same tired story...

Imminent threat? Bush wanted war and cooked the intel to get it. And although even Saddam's generals thought he had WMD, 600,000 documents just released by the Pentagon show NO operational link between al-Qaida and Saddam. Talk about b.s.!

[Mike]

The trouble with people like, Sheila and others who adhere religiously and zealously to a political party, is that they are blinded by their own short-sightedness, and an unwillingness to understand that there are very little differences between the prominent parties.

To blindly be led by the diatribe from either direction, is akin to sheep being led to slaughter. Sheila Kennedy is one of the most venerable political hacks in the city and would be the first one to leap into the vat for her political party.

It is insane and ludicrous for any person to solely beleive in a political party and wholly disbeleive in another. That would be a form of government/political control over one's own mind. And the one's like, Sheila, who, like others that write on these pages, will eventually leap into the vat that slaughters common sense.

Hitler and Stalin had such control at one time over millions of common people who lacked common sense.

[Greg]

Sheila, ever hear the term “war economy?” Let’s just say it’s not a situation where people are doing poorly. As a matter of fact, it was the “hemorrhaging of green” on WWII (not the WPA) that ended the Great Depression. If you believe there was no corruption during WWII, check out Joseph P. Kennedy.

The idea that an easy credit policy in the US was in response to financing the Iraq war is absurd. Credentials from the Nobel Committee and the World Bank only undermine Joseph Stiglitz’s credibility. Nothing helps more in the Nobel pecking order than criticizing the US (one of your favorite pastimes along with Gore and Carter.) His association with the World Bank, the second most corrupt organization on the planet, is laughable.

If you really want to talk about an absence of gain for money spent, start with The Great Society and add to that the levy works in New Orleans made ineffective by crooked state Democrats. You can also add the huge percent of US public education money lavished on the least capable students. Finally, don’t omit US contributions to the UN, the world’s most corrupt organization.

Sheila, if you want us to surrender in Iraq, just say it and stop with the phony economic rationalizations.

[Little Jayjay]

Jay wrote:

I know much more about economics than Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who used to be vice president of the World Bank. Or anyone else.

I'm widely known to be a nut who sometimes goes by Jamal.

uh huh

DARK RAIN wrote:

1.) As if Congress would have actually spent that $3.3 trillion on "deteriorating infrastructure and improving our public schools, public transportation and neglected parks". It didn't do it before 911. It is unlikely it would have done it after.

2. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? if you are intending to withdraw, the public needs to know how each candidate plans to do it. So far I haven't heard one conrete proposal about how we will do that. The American people deserve to be able to debate these plans intelligently.

1. You just DON'T get it. Read the article. First, the Iraq debacle has nothing to do with 9/11. Kennedy says that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq. Otherwise, we would have saved trillions of dollars. Which may have been better spent on beneficial projects which actually BOOST versus DRAINING the economy, such as repairing and modernizing infrastructure. So, for example, we don't have more major bridge collapses. In any case, the economy would have been in much better shape - the major point, that you don't get, of the article - in which case there would be more public money available, to spend or not. Which I don't believe you can predict with your crystal ball.

2. "one conrete [sic] proposal": More than one, actually, in the report of the IRAQ STUDY GROUP. Remember that?

Mike wrote:

The trouble with people like, Sheila and others who adhere religiously and zealously to a political party, is that they are blinded by their own short-sightedness, and an unwillingness to understand that there are very little differences between the prominent parties.

I'm independent, Mike, and I agree with this column 100%. You should be more willing to understand, yourself.

[Little Jayjay]

Greg wrote:

Sheila, if you want us to surrender in Iraq, just say it and stop with the phony economic rationalizations.

"Hitler and Stalin had such control at one time over millions of common people who lacked common sense." was the comment before yours.

Greg, you're one of those he's referring to. Like Hitler's followers in the rubble of Berlin, you're a Bushie dead-ender. Part of a dwindling minority.

Rationalize, Mike. Think.

[Vinnie From Indy]

tired of the bs wrote:

Your first sentence makes no sense. All the far left wing politicos said there were WMDs when the Clintons were in office. Yes that is Kennedy Kerry and the like. Stop with the same tired story...

You know what I am tired of? Morons like you that are either mentally ill or are willfully ignorant to the extreme. There is no "grey" area or debate about what this Administration has done. The most hard-core, willfully ignorant like yourself refuse to ever be swayed by facts and you repeat the lies of AM hate radio like zombies.

Your point that before the war Democrats viewed Saddam's Iraq as dangerous and that they thought Saddam may have WMD's is completely irrelevant to the fact that NOT ONE DEMOCRAT ADVOCATED INVASION!!!! It was not UNTIL GW Bush and his Administration brought NEW INTELLIGENCE TO CONGRESS AND THE UN about Saddam being an IMMINENT THREAT did we go to war. The problem is that most, if not all, of the NEW intelligence estimate was MANIPULATED and FIXED to justify invasion. In short, the Bush people lied about new intelligence and America was stampeded into this nightmare war that is estimated to cast at LEAST 3 TRILLION DOLLARS!

Those are the facts! I pity the people in your life that must suffer a fool such as you!

[Flogger]

The Bush Administration is disgraceful. They were either profoundly ignorant of the facts about Iraq's war making capabilities, or liked the the idea of a 100 War to keep lining the pockets of the Military-Industrial Complex.
Congress is equally disgraceful. They ran away from their responsibilities to provide a check and balance on the Executive Branch.
I know I was not the only person who heard all the War Mongering in 2002-03, and thought back to methods LBJ used to "hype up" the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the cowardly Congress who simply went along with LBJ.
Like Vietnam only a very select few Americans will ever be placed in the harms way of combat(certainly not the sons and daughters of those in high places), and like Vietnam it's easier to run up the Nation's Credit Card to pay for it.
The damage to the economy is huge. The dollar is plunging. We may get a tax rebate, but when we buy goods to stimulate the economy the money will end up in China, and who also happens to be one of the major holders of our debt.

[Greg]

Little Jayjay wrote:

<quoted text>
"Hitler and Stalin had such control at one time over millions of common people who lacked common sense." was the comment before yours.
Greg, you're one of those he's referring to. Like Hitler's followers in the rubble of Berlin, you're a Bushie dead-ender. Part of a dwindling minority.
Rationalize, Mike. Think.

Actually, is was Joe Kennedy who was the big Hitler fan. The bigger question is why reference to "Hitler" so often comes from liberals when there is much of substance to debate on either side.

[JBP]

Pootentain wrote:

I'm proud to be first to post so that the first post isn't one from a Bush apologist; posting something nasty about Ms. Kenndy and this superb column.
I challenge those who follow to comment without using any of the following words: liberal, professor, socialist, Clinton, or Gore.

How about "moron," and "revisionist?"

[Dave Mac]

Geez, the liberals are alive and well today. It always amazes me how it is possible for anyone who disagrees with them is now brain dead.

You people haven't read the newspapers or picked up a history book for the past 40 years.

The Bush administration didn't invade Iraq as a result of 9/11 and Ms. Kennedy knows it. The posts I've read suggesting Bush "cooked the intel" is similar B.S. If that's the case then Bush somehow managed to "cook the intel" for every country on the U.N. security coucil. That's quite a feat. And I thought you liberals thought Bush was an idiot?

Also, I don't want to read anymore about how "only a select few will be placed in the harms way of combat"... What a load! To quote Sargeant Hulka in the movie Stripes..."There aint no draft no more" to the solider named Bugger, who replied with "There used to be one?". Which tells you all you need to know about Bugger's intelligence and the intelligence of anybody who buys this load of B.S.

Finally there are a lot of "programs" run by Washington that waste more than a few trillion over the years that liberals won't let us kill. So get over yourselves. The sky is not falling and everything will work out. All you need is a little patience.

[Gossip Girl]

Dave Mac wrote:

Geez, the liberals are alive and well today. It always amazes me how it is possible for anyone who disagrees with them is now brain dead.
You people haven't read the newspapers or picked up a history book for the past 40 years.
The Bush administration didn't invade Iraq as a result of 9/11 and Ms. Kennedy knows it. The posts I've read suggesting Bush "cooked the intel" is similar B.S. If that's the case then Bush somehow managed to "cook the intel" for every country on the U.N. security coucil. That's quite a feat. And I thought you liberals thought Bush was an idiot?
Also, I don't want to read anymore about how "only a select few will be placed in the harms way of combat"... What a load! To quote Sargeant Hulka in the movie Stripes..."There aint no draft no more" to the solider named Bugger, who replied with "There used to be one?". Which tells you all you need to know about Bugger's intelligence and the intelligence of anybody who buys this load of B.S.
Finally there are a lot of "programs" run by Washington that waste more than a few trillion over the years that liberals won't let us kill. So get over yourselves. The sky is not falling and everything will work out. All you need is a little patience.

It could be said that those who sign up to serve
don't consider the real facts. It can also be
said that from a geopolitical standpoint: grabbing
a foothold in the ME is what we need to gain economic
benefit in our future. Bush is just one cog
in the wheel of historical land grabs.

[Mohammed Akeem]

Ms Kennedy has authored another favorable and impressive article. Bush lies to you Americans about Iraq. Bush lies to you Americans about us Muslim people. I ask my fellow Muslims here in America to continue to vote Democrat. The Democrats will give us the power we seek in this country in the name of mult-culturism and diversity.

[Gossip Girl]

Mohammed Akeem wrote:

Ms Kennedy has authored another favorable and impressive article. Bush lies to you Americans about Iraq. Bush lies to you Americans about us Muslim people. I ask my fellow Muslims here in America to continue to vote Democrat. The Democrats will give us the power we seek in this country in the name of mult-culturism and diversity.

Religious power for what?