Hail to the Chief.
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BY: Powerful Pear
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Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The State Department’s disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don’t remember the warning.
A thinking person might ask, “gee, wasn’t that just two months before 9/11?” Why, yes, it was.
The most incompetent, expensive, dangerous zealots I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. They probably pray for the rapture, and work to see the middle east blow up every day. Why don’t we have a diplomat in Syria, for instance?
I doubt that you have spent much time working in the intelligence community. I have. The volume of information, even during my pre-internet era tenure, was staggering. It’s a big country, it has lots of targets, and we have lots of enemies, and that was true during my time under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, so I assume it remains true today.
I am not a fan of Rumsfeld, and have expressed as much here in the past, but that he received a briefing two months before doesn’t surprise me. That it failed to provide actionable intelligence also doesn’t surprise me. That the CIA has been conspicuous in its failure to develop its Human Intelligence (HUMINT) capability has been an recognized and documented problem since before Viet Nam, and I see no signs that they have addressed it. Simply put, we suck at being spies. The Valerie Plumes of the world may be able to work the embassy circuit, but our enemy lives in caves, and doesn’t dine out much.
The reason why they torture, the reason why they tap the phones, the reason why they raid the databases of other countries and organizations is that the CIA is really not very good at low-level threats. They build big expensive satellite based systems, but they have problems hiring and retaining speakers of Farsi, and Arabic, this in a country of immigrants. They get infiltrated far more often than we get reliable inside people in the enemy’s camp. During my time, even when we did, someone on our side usually sold them out.
I was defense intelligence (DIA), and have a prejudice, and in fairness we probably had an arguably easier job. We tracked ships, and units, and weapons, and commanders, and from that you can gather tremendous amounts of actionable intelligence. Seeing inside the heads of people you don’t understand is vastly more difficult.
puts a zip in your step, specailly if you have totalitarian powers given to you by various obsequious and weak legislators.
Oh, and Doug still won’t debate Fawcett. What will we tell the children?
So Zapp,
Now your having your campaign workers write letters to the editor? You couldn’t even find the time to get someone outside the campaign to write this?
A new Reuters/Zogby poll shows Ed Perlmutter with an 11 point lead over little Ricky…
Ed Perlmutter (D): 45%
Rick O’Donnell (R): 34%
Before you cry “Zogby”, this is one of his traditional polls – none of the interactive crap he pushes off on the Wall Street Journal.
ROD has to start spending more of his campaign cash NOW or he’s going to lose this race fast.
He was down 17 in that poll from last week. So he’s 6 points closer, yes? And Ed was over 50% in that poll. Now he’s just at 45%? All this is teaching me is that polling in a congressional race is damn near impossible to figure out.
I don’t recall but if it wasn’t I wouldn’t make a big deal over the differences you highlighted because different polling outfits always come up with different results. Besides, it shows a double-digit lead for Perlmutter, like the previous poll, which I think is the most significant finding.
I don’t think we have any trends from a Zogby traditional poll; this is the first. Last week’s were Rasmussen and SurveyUSA, IIRC.
You are right, this one’s closer than the other two, but my guess is it doesn’t include “leaners”, which would account for the lower numbers on both sides…
… Zogby’s traditional polls suck too.
With the other poll, it was a methodology issue (creating a statistical sample from a self-selecting internet community).
With Zogby’s regular phone polls, it’s just an issue of him being wrong a lot.
Everyone should check out http://www.realclearpolitcs.com to see all of Zogby’s polls across the country. In state after state all the other polls may have one candidate up by 15 points and Zogby has the same candidate up by half that much. Last week in California all the polls except Zogby have Arnold up by 12 to 14 points but Zogby has the democrat within 8 points. Same thing in Pennsylvania where all the polls have Casey winning the senate seat by double digits but Zogby had Santoreum within 5 points. In Ohio last week all of the polls had Strickland, the Democrat for governor, up by 18 or 19 points over Blackwell, the Republican. Zogby had Blackwell within 8 points. Even when Zogby is right about which candidate is ahead, the margin is almost always very different than other polls. I put more stock in Survey USA’s poll that had Perlmutter up by a wider margin.
He must be pretty confident of victory considering his statatements about illegal immigrants recieving state tuition. I guess he thinks that people won’t vote against him on that issue. Pretty bold!
I wish they would have spent a little more time fleshing out the options for handling education for illegal immigrants. The issue is a tricky dilemma for me. While I completely understand the arguement against providing state tax payer resources to educate individuals who are breaking the law, I also am concerned about what will happen if we don’t provide opportunities for betterment.
I’ve noticed the sudden increase of single-topic posters since Saturday, all posting about Ritter and illegals. Guess Beauprez’s incentives must include blogging time.
The comments are higher quality overall than the ones we saw during the primaries. GAWD that was bad.
You obviously have had the good fortune to have missed seeing Sybil (a/k/a Ruthie a/k/a Fright Wig). She is a Bob Caskey shill who was posting the other day in 60-point type.
I know about that strange one. She’s probably sleeping off a meth binge right now.
She even managed to piss off Moonie. You gotta give her props for that.
I don’t know if it is so much that Beauprez is shifting the discussion to immigration as much as one of the thornier (is that a word) issues on a national level is proving to be the most interesting to Colorado voters, too.
it’s “hornier” with a “t”. Ask Mark…..
I have to admit that all I know of the debate is what I read in the Post. That said, it seems that Beauprez is succeeding in shifting the battle to his chosen ground – the intersection of illegal immigration and Ritter’s record as DA. I’d be interested to hear thoughts (as distinguished from shilling) on how well its working for him.
I watched the debate, and while Ritter did spend a lot of time discussing his record as DA, he did so in very measured tones without any real attempt to shift the conversation.
Ritter apparently thinks there’s not a real issue here, and the more he talks about it that appears to be the case. As he pointed out they are picking out something less than one half of one percent of his cases and making a big deal about them. He kept mentioning the 95% conviction rate his office had. That line of discussion can only serve to paint him as effective no matter what the other side says.
Beauprez is incorrect if he thinks the immigration issue alone will win him this election. He needs something big and quick to change the course at this point.
Along those same lines, I thought Ritter did a nice job in portraying Beauprez as a fish out of water when it comes to discussing judicial and law enforcement issues. His subtle (and not so subtle) moves towards presenting himself as an experienced judicial system veteran and Beauprez as a Washington “politician” were successful last night in discounting BB’s claims. His cocktail party line was a classic.
But it’s easy for Ritter to deflect on the issue:
1. Bob has been BOTH WAYS on the issue of immigration. Previous to deciding to run for governor, he voted against all bills that would have cracked down on illegals.
2. Bob didn’t support the higher funding of INS – the agency responsible for deportation of immigrants (both illegal and legal).
3. While in congress, Bob has never been on the cusp of immigration reform, even after he announced his candidacy.
4. Bob is blurring the lines between legal and illegal for political purposes. Ritter can nab him on that…
but I read the “Who won” diary and the Denver Post’s coverage, and it doesn’t sound like Ritter has really tried to deflect it, at least not as you suggest. If he doesn’t, and soon, I think BWB’s line of attack is going to be more effective.
I won’t argue that point. He hasn’t deflected well enough… I imagine a pow-wow is taking place today among the media consultants to tweak that message.
I am suprised that he didn’t come out earlier with a tougher plan on immigration to make the issue his own. Depite the legislature and the governor’s special session, poeple are still intense on something being done. Ritter appears to just ignore the issue.
For the record I support Beauprez. I think he’d be a good governor. He’s experienced and rational. I think Ritter would be a good gov also. Ritter’s plea bargaining (his effective record) and BB’s campaign missteps don’t, in my mind, lessen the appeal of either.
Last night, however, BB was rehearsed and controlled the debate. I wish Ritter would have stepped up and taken the offensive because w/ two qualified candidates it should have been more even and entertaining.
An example: Beauprez attacks Ritter on the Post article about his pleas for illegals. Ritter gets defensive. Why didn’t he come back w/ something like “Bob if you’d read more than the first page of the paper you would’ve seen the article “Ritter best man for the job”
On the other hand Beauprez didn’t do himself any favors with his Al Gore esque arrogant grin either.
I’m a centrist. I think both of these guys are qualified. I like Beauprez’s experience especially when both legislative chambers may be Dem. I hope that the polls even out and we have a tough fight over issues rather than meaningless hot buttons.
the saviness to pull off a one line zinger like that. Ritter came off like a wide eyed college kid who means to do really good things yet has no clue about how the real world works.
He has no idea how to grow the job base in Colorado. It amamzes me the Chamber and Denver area businesses thinks Ritter is going to be thier partner because of the “REF C” alliance experience. They are so blind to the pain they have coming.
I can already see them passing the Ritter-Romanoff-Fitzgerald solution to rising healthcare costs. They will call it the:
“Guess what Colorado Business You are Paying for all Coloradans Health Care Act of 2007”
and we will promptly head into a recession and scare every business out of Colorado. GO BILL GO!! Gimme the TROIKA and my free health care so I can lose my job.
There a new reality TV show coming out: Extreme Makeover: the House GOP Leadership Edition.
The house that Newt built in 1994 is falling down. The building’s demise was the result of substandard materials used by the contractor in combination with mold, termites, and other vermin (in particular of the subspecies Randicus Cunninghamus, Bobicus Neyus, and Marcus Folius which will often crawl out of the woodwork when and where you least expect to see one of them).
Watch to see what goes up in its place. One remote possibility: Denny Hastert’s last erection. More likely: the successful bidders will be a smaller, more disciplined group of GOP contractors committed to building their new house on a strong foundation and based upon sound building principles.
Series premieres in January right after “Desperate House Members”
It was Foley’s “last erection” – thank God! only about a year too late – not Hastert’s.
I believe this was going to be his last ELECTION anyway. I remember reading last year that he originally intended this to be his last term, but after the last election W persuaded him to stay through 2008 in order to help him with his agenda.
I couldn’t tell from either the Post or Rocky whether he was anywhere near Bush when the prez landed in Aurora for a Beauprez fundraiser.
Did Beauprez have “another pressing commitment” to avoid being seen with the President?
It’s a schmoozefest.