NY Gov Spitzer linked to prostitution

[sr71plt]

I don't care where or what drivel you post, just don't include me in your bullshit, and we'll get along fine.

Surely you can find some other female to bug the shit out of. There must be someone who could put up with you.

Well, maybe not.

I post to the substance, not to the poster--and will continue to do so. It's just sort of tough for you if you can't handle that, Cloudy. You seem to be the only one threatened by any of this.

On this thread, you've exhibited an ever-weaker substantive position. And I'm not saying that because I'm in the rabidly anti-Clintons camp, which I'm not. Guess it's natural for you to be wanting to try to make something else out of the thread.

Back to substantive topics.

On the "all politicians do this." Of course not, and this is one of those throwaway nonsensical perspectives. Politicians deal in power and those juggling power in any walk of life are prone to more "siren calls" and opportunites than are normal-life folks (although this activity exists to some extent at all levels of society). There isn't a greater proportion of lazy or no-good politicians than in any other high-lighted profession, I'd be willing to wager.

 

[DesertPirate]

DP, what about the fact that the Bush administration committed what I consider an act of treason by revealing the identity of a CIA operative in an effort to place political pressure on her ambassador husband?

Isn't that a far worse offense? I believe it is.

She was an analyst not an operative. Analysts are not undercover. She also used her position to influence the situation in a very wrong manor. Getting her husband sent on a mission he wasn't qualified for was grounds for termination. Her husband was not an ambassador at the time, just a State Dept. employee. I got my story from an Army Intelligence Officer.

 

[DesertPirate]

I feel the same as she does, and I've lost a family member over there.

Gonna tell me the same thing?

Not a chance!

I will say I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[cloudy]

I post to the substance, not to the poster--and will continue to do so. It's just sort of tough for you if you can't handle that, Cloudy. You seem to be the only one threatened by any of this.

On this thread, you've exhibited an ever-weaker substantive position. And I'm not saying that because I'm in the rabidly anti-Clintons camp, which I'm not. Guess it's natural for you to be wanting to try to make something else out of the thread.

Back to substantive topics.

On the "all politicians do this." Of course not, and this is one of those throwaway nonsensical perspectives. Politicians deal in power and those juggling power in any walk of life are prone to more "siren calls" and opportunites than are normal-life folks (although this activity exists to some extent at all levels of society). There isn't a greater proportion of lazy or no-good politicians than in any other high-lighted profession, I'd be willing to wager.

You started it by posting to me, so don't act all offended when I throw it back at you.

Forget my name; forget you have the hots for me (ewww!); forget I exist.

I'm not "threatened" by you; I'm disgusted by you. Don't know how much clearer I can make it. Find someone else to perv on, got it?

 

[Belegon]

She was an analyst not an operative. Analysts are not undercover. She also used her position to influence the situation in a very wrong manor. Getting her husband sent on a mission he wasn't qualified for was grounds for termination. Her husband was not an ambassador at the time, just a State Dept. employee. I got my story from an Army Intelligence Officer.

There are lots of she said-he said moments in the Plame affair, matters on which an impartial observer can only conclude that, well, both sides have a point. But this is not one of them.

Before her retirement in 2006, Wilson spent more than 20 years in the CIA, including six years, one month and 29 days of overseas service. We know this because the agency, in a bureaucratic blunder, put it in an unclassified letter about her pension eligibility that it later tried desperately to recall, and that she has included as an appendix to "Fair Game."

We also know that she worked on the operations side, the part of the CIA that runs agents and covert activities, rather than on the analytical side, which tries to make sense of all the information flowing in. From her former CIA "classmates," we know that she went through the agency's elite Career Trainee program, including paramilitary training at the classified location known as the Farm, and was one of just three in her class of 50 who were chosen to be NOCs (pronounced "knocks"), or non-official cover officers, the most clandestine in the agency.

Really? Seems to say different here, from a source that has to be able to back up its information or face prosecution.

Army Intelligence still claims the U.S. never entered Cambodia until 1969. My father was there three years earlier.

Army Intelligence also claims my brother suffered injuries in 1990 when a radio was "torn" off his back in an "accident" during a "training mission in Honduras". My brother seems to believe it was 1) not torn off, but shot off 2) Absolutely done deliberately, not by accident 3) on an actual mission with definable objectives not a training mission and 4) in Nicarauga.

Guess who I believe...

 

[sr71plt]

She was an analyst not an operative. Analysts are not undercover. She also used her position to influence the situation in a very wrong manor. Getting her husband sent on a mission he wasn't qualified for was grounds for termination. Her husband was not an ambassador at the time, just a State Dept. employee. I got my story from an Army Intelligence Officer.

Tilt. She was a NOC (nonofficial cover). She was about the most sensitive--in threatened fallout--U.S. national intelligence agent there is. She was collecting information directly from well-positioned foreigners (most of whom were not witting of who they were giving information to) who were also compromised--folks who have key positions in their countries. (The deeper cover intelligence agents operate through cutouts--they work through other foreigners in approaching their target foreigners, so there is more of a protective barrier for them and for their assets.) Compromising these well-placed foreigners turns them against us and/or knocks them out of position to be very, very, very useful to us for years to come. She was in an operative position--an extremely sensitive operative position--not an analyst position. The NOCs are assigned to the Operations Directorate exclusively, not to either of the analytical arms of the Agency (Directorate of Intelligence and Directorate of Science and Technology).

 

[Belegon]

To add to this, despite clear (if not admittable in a court of law) evidence leading to Karl Rove, Bush refused to punish his buddy and campaign mastermind or admit to any possible wrongdoing.

Then, after Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury in the case, Bush commuted his sentence.

Hey, perjury. Where did that word come up before? And Bush, when faced with a member of his own party and organization who had been convicted of the same crime as Clinton must have cleaned house and punished all those involved, right? That's what the republicans said should have been done in the Clinton case and what Bush said he would do in such a circumstance during his campaign in 2000.

Oh, commuted doesn't mean that? ooops...

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well, you did refer to sombody being "hounded out of office" and that only happened to one person, although Lying Boy Johnson wasn't too far from it.

What I said about LBJ in that post was pretty much the truth.

I wish you would concede that Clinton was impeached NOT because he got some extracurricular sex, but because he lied under oath, which is a serious felony, especially for a lawyer.

I did read a few moralizers saying he should be impeached for having extramarital sex, but nobody took them seriously.

I can hear Newt now; "Come on, Kenny! Get the bastard for something, anything at all! Whatta we payin' you all that money for?


Edited to add; About two months ago, I met with my congressman-- or at any rate, his secretary. We talked about impeachment. She told us that we needed to remember that impeachment proceedings would stop everything else.

Twenty-five people, none of whom had ever met each other, all agreed that impeachment against Bush just might be more important than anything else on the docket.

I've wondered if Newt played his impeachment charade in the way that he did-- simply to demonstrate that effect and leave GWB with a secure playing field. That's more paranoia than I've felt since 1968.

 

[sr71plt]

Tilt. She was a NOC (nonofficial cover). She was about the most sensitive--in threatened fallout--U.S. national intelligence agent there is. She was collecting information directly from well-positioned foreigners (most of whom were not witting of who they were giving information to) who were also compromised--folks who have key positions in their countries. (The deeper cover intelligence agents operate through cutouts--they work through other foreigners in approaching their target foreigners, so there is more of a protective barrier for them and for their assets.) Compromising these well-placed foreigners turns them against us and/or knocks them out of position to be very, very, very useful to us for years to come. She was in an operative position--an extremely sensitive operative position--not an analyst position. The NOCs are assigned to the Operations Directorate exclusively, not to either of the analytical arms of the Agency (Directorate of Intelligence and Directorate of Science and Technology).

Incidentally, what I didn't mention, when you are under "unofficial cover" (NOC status) and you are arrested while in a foreign country for spying, you get thrown in prison there until the U.S. government can negotiate some sort of trade. If you are under official cover (as I was), you have a diplomatic passport and just get put on a plane home.

She didn't get compromised while she was overseas, but compromising her completely destroyed her career and her usefulness in a position she had been highly trained for at great expense in a placement where a considerable effort had been taken by many people to insert her where she could produce intelligence for the U.S. government.

All done by the Bush handlers for partisan revenge against her husband--who, by the way, just happened to have been right in what he was saying.

 

[shereads]

She was an analyst not an operative. Analysts are not undercover. She also used her position to influence the situation in a very wrong manor. Getting her husband sent on a mission he wasn't qualified for was grounds for termination. Her husband was not an ambassador at the time, just a State Dept. employee. I got my story from an Army Intelligence Officer.

Your morality, as it applies to the politicians you either hate or defend, is based on hairs split so finely they aren't even hairs anymore. Amazing. And terribly sad.

I have a nephew, just turned 18, terribly sweet and naive, who has decided to join the Army because he trusts his parents' support of Bush's war. After years of relying on Fox News for facts, the Heritage Foundation for 'science,' and a conservative religious private school for his view of the larger world, he's ready to act on the beliefs that have been drummed into him.

And his parents are in a panic.

They're trying anything and everything to talk their boy out of signing up. So far, there's been a new truck for his birthday and hysterical protests from his mom when military recruiters call the house. "Leave my son alone!"

This good-natured, ingenuous boy-child doesn't have the grades for college, or much interest in anything except Fighting for Democracy. He can't understand why his parents don't support his willingness to "risk my life for my country." As if the life of one more boy in the service of Bush's dirty war would somehow benefit this country. Or any other.

I don't want him to go either. But unlike me, his parents and you other neocon hypocrites want someone else's son to go in his place.

You have no shame.

PS: The CIA agent's "unqualified" husband turned out to be right. And you turned out to be wrong. Be man enough to admit it.

 

[sr71plt]

I can hear Newt now; "Come on, Kenny! Get the bastard for something[/II've wondered if Newt played his impeachment charade in the way that he did-- simply to demonstrate that effect and leave GWB with a secure playing field. That's more paranoia than I've felt since 1968.

Don' know, but I've certainly thought the Democrats have been lily livered not to impeach Bush.

 

[Belegon]

Don' know, but I've certainly thought the Democrats have been lily livered not to impeach Bush.

Maybe they look at Chaney as the larger of the two evils?

It worked for Bush, Sr., right? Who was going to shoot H.W. with the horrible possibility of President Quayle in the wings?

 

[sr71plt]

Your morality, as it applies to the politicians you either hate or defend, is based on hairs split so finely they aren't even hairs anymore. Amazing. And terribly sad.

I have a nephew, just turned 18, terribly sweet and naive, who has decided to join the Army because he trusts his parents' support of Bush's war. After years of relying on Fox News for facts, the Heritage Foundation for 'science,' and a conservative religious private school for his view of the larger world, he's ready to act on the beliefs that have been drummed into him.

And his parents are in a panic.

They're trying anything and everything to talk their boy out of signing up. So far, there's been a new truck for his birthday and hysterical protests from his mom when military recruiters call the house. "Leave my son alone!"

This good-natured, ingenuous boy-child doesn't have the grades for college, or much interest in anything except Fighting for Democracy. He can't understand why his parents don't support his willingness to "risk my life for my country." As if the life of one more boy in the service of Bush's dirty war would somehow benefit this country. Or any other.

I don't want him to go either. But unlike me, his parents and all of you other neocons want someone else's son to go in his place.

You have no shame.

Well said. Nothing has left me so flat as the reasoning that we have to honor our sons and daughters who have died in Iraq by sending more of them over there to die in a war built on lies.

 

[sr71plt]

Maybe they look at Chaney as the larger of the two evils?

It worked for Bush, Sr., right? Who was going to shoot H.W. with the horrible possibility of President Quayle in the wings?

Oh, yeah. I forgot that. If they looked around a bit in the Haliburton records, though, I think they could get rid of him first and then move up the line. It worked for Nixon/Agnew.

But, hey, I think there's a world of difference between Bush the Greater and Bush the Lesser.

 

[Belegon]

Well said. Nothing has left me so flat as the reasoning that we have to honor our sons and daughters who have died in Iraq by sending more of them over there to die in a war built on lies.

We agree. I support the troops as strongly as anyone. And my ultimate proof of that is that I support getting them out of there.

At the very least, we should be spending appropriations by directly commissioning with the body armor and armor plate contractors who can do the most good for our sons and daughters by passing appropriations bills that are specifically and legally directed at such expenditures.

There never, ever should have been cases of the U.S. government spending money on US citizens acting as mercenaries that are better paid and equipped than the US soldiers.

If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about, you really need to do some research on Blackwater and Halliburton...

 

[shereads]

Maybe they look at Chaney as the larger of the two evils?

That can't be it. Cheney didn't need to become president to have all the power he wanted.

Speaking of Dan Quayle...In retrospect, he doesn't seem terribly stupid. The bar has been lowered a lot since his day.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

My father thinks they should impeach Bush. I'm not so sure.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I can hear Newt now; "Come on, Kenny! Get the bastard for something, anything at all! Whatta we payin' you all that money for?


Edited to add; About two months ago, I met with my congressman-- or at any rate, his secretary. We talked about impeachment. She told us that we needed to remember that impeachment proceedings would stop everything else.

Twenty-five people, none of whom had ever met each other, all agreed that impeachment against Bush just might be more important than anything else on the docket.

I've wondered if Newt played his impeachment charade in the way that he did-- simply to demonstrate that effect and leave GWB with a secure playing field. That's more paranoia than I've felt since 1968.

Out of curiosity and without defending anybody W or anybody else, who are these twenty-five persons you refer to? How do you know they haven't met each other?

If I wanted to lok hard enough - which I don't - I could probably find 25 persons who want to impeach the pope or Paris Hilton or Bill Clinton (not knowing he is no longer in office) or almost any other famous person. It might take a long time, and I might have to ask thousands of people, but I could probably do it.

 

[sr71plt]

My father thinks they should impeach Bush. I'm not so sure.

Naw, it's a tad late now for that to have any functional effect, isn't it?

 

[shereads]

To add to this, despite clear (if not admittable in a court of law) evidence leading to Karl Rove, Bush refused to punish his buddy and campaign mastermind or admit to any possible wrongdoing.

Then, after Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury in the case, Bush commuted his sentence.

Hey, perjury. Where did that word come up before? And Bush, when faced with a member of his own party and organization who had been convicted of the same crime as Clinton must have cleaned house and punished all those involved, right? That's what the republicans said should have been done in the Clinton case and what Bush said he would do in such a circumstance during his campaign in 2000.

Oh, commuted doesn't mean that? ooops...

"Mistakes were made."

 

[Stella_Omega]

Don' know, but I've certainly thought the Democrats have been lily livered not to impeach Bush.

I can't possibly agree more.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Naw, it's a tad late now for that to have any functional effect, isn't it?

Well, I'm just not sure he's done anything wrong except suck as a president, with an old Congress that didn't mind letting him suck, and a new Congress that lets him continue to suck.

When I think of impeachment, I think of "did something illegal/criminal"; I'm afraid to consider impeachment a tool of "beltway politics", y'know?

 

[Boxlicker101]

My father thinks they should impeach Bush. I'm not so sure.

It would be a colossal waste of everybody's time. Untill last year, they would not have mustered enough votes in the House. Even now, I doubt that they could. If they could, it would never survive the Senate, and would be strictly a waste of time and effort.

I don't know that it would be any worse than the try at Clinton, but it would be about as bad.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Out of curiosity and without defending anybody W or anybody else, who are these twenty-five persons you refer to? How do you know they haven't met each other?

One of them was me. The Old man was another one. So, in fact, two of us had met previously.

The others were other people, all of whom met for the first time that morning. Oh, wait-- two of them had met at an anti-war rally. They were a member of the Atwater Chamber of Commerce, and an octogenarian nun. One young man was a bike messenger. A few of them were school teachers, who brought letters-to-the-congressman on behalf of their students.

If I wanted to lok hard enough - which I don't - I could probably find 25 persons who want to impeach the pope or Paris Hilton or Bill Clinton (not knowing he is no longer in office) or almost any other famous person. It might take a long time, and I might have to ask thousands of people, but I could probably do it.

You could probably find 25 people who want to impeach Georgie in ten minutes, unless, of course, you cherry- pick for ignorance.

 

[shereads]

I can't possibly agree more.

I wish it had happened. I understand why it hasn't.

The people who led the charge to impeach Clinton had the luxury of a relatively peaceful and prosperous America in which to stage their show. To initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush while we're entangled in so many crises would almost certainly cause a voter backlash against the Democrats. The fact that the crises are largely of Bush's own making is so ironic it makes me ill.

Remember how he came into office promising to usher in "a new era of accountability?"

Personally, I think the party should have risked the backlash. By failing to impeach, we've given future presidents and vice presidents carte blanche to manipulate the planet for their own benefit and that of their business cronies, no matter the cost in lives, no matter how "shaped" the intelligence. What would a future president have to do to merit an impeachment, if this gang of thugs doesn't qualify?

I hate that they're all going to retire rich, happy and satisfied that the public was as gullible as they'd hoped. But I understand why the Democrats haven't moved to impeach. It would have meant losing not only the White House in 2008, but their Congressional majorities as well. Morally, they'd have been right. Politically, it would have been suicide.