Well the TIME article quotes government sources as referring to its contents so it seems they admit it exists - why do you think it doesn't?jasonrh said:
The whole Bush admin is in hot water!
- Thread starter ooeat0meoo
- Start date
Because numerous other people have claimed there was just an oral briefing, and because TIME is not exactly a bastion of truth.Feedingseagulls said:
I wouldn't wipe my arse with TIME.
That's very true. They blew 9/11. They started the Iraq war a say early because they supposedly knew where Saddam was hiding. And CIA chief Tenet told Bush that it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq had WMDs.Grinner said:
Plame got the CIA to send Wilson. She testified that she thought the report about the yellow cake was "crazy" before her husband went. Wilson's report did nothing to resolve whether Iraq was or wasn't seeking uranium, and some CIA analysts even thought the report supported the yellow cake story.
Wilson didn't say anything about the report until May 2003 when he joined Kerry's campaign. Then he started blasting Bush, through anonymous leaks, a NY Times piece, and then during his bizarre TV and magazine tour (when he and his covert wife appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair). And the CIA did nothing to stop his leaking of a supposedly secret report. But maybe that's because Wilson's Times op-ed was dramatically different than his CIA report.
Or maybe it was because what Wilson was saying shifted blame from the CIA to Bush, because the CIA had said (like every other intelligence agency around the world) that Saddam had WMDs.
Meanwhile, there's been no charges regarding the outing of Wilson's wife because she probably does not qualify as a covert agent under the statute - she hasn't been overseas in over 5 years, and the CIA was not actively protecting her identity. If Plame wasn't a covert agent, she couldn't be outed, as the CIA knows. I'm not sure what the CIA had in mind, but most people are saying that Bush "twisted" the intelligence reports and neglecting to mention that the CIA had it all totally wrong. I don't know if the CIA lucked into this or played its hand incredibly well, but it's settled some old scores and got itself off the hook at the same time with this Plame business.
You're a card-carrying Rebublican, aren't you?jasonrh said:
Isn't it obvious?Slabber said:
Anyway, done reading Joe Wilson's book.
The first few chapters are best skipped - unless you like Wilson trying his best to portray himself as a blue collar working everyman, and failing spectacularly.
On to the juicy bits - which is, none exactly. Basically Wilson tells us his wife had nothing, nothing at all to do with the trip and expects us to believe him. He makes no reference to the senatorial 9/11 committee findings, which found that his report submitted to the CIA was very very different from what he tells the media his report said.
Also, on CNN Late Night, Wilson claims, "I think we'll find chemical weapons (in Iraq). I think we'll find biological precursors that may or may not have been weaponized. And I think we will find a continuing interest of -- on nuclear weapons."
Again, no comment at all on the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Report which found his story was pure fantasy. Oh yes, throw in some vitriol at Robert Novak (who actually was the first to report on the Plame-Wilson link). The irony is that the Senate Intelligence Report again, concluded it was Plame who suggested Wilson for the trip.
Rather than spending good money on the book, donate it to charity - it's rubbish and has about zero evidence in it.
The first few chapters are best skipped - unless you like Wilson trying his best to portray himself as a blue collar working everyman, and failing spectacularly.
On to the juicy bits - which is, none exactly. Basically Wilson tells us his wife had nothing, nothing at all to do with the trip and expects us to believe him. He makes no reference to the senatorial 9/11 committee findings, which found that his report submitted to the CIA was very very different from what he tells the media his report said.
Also, on CNN Late Night, Wilson claims, "I think we'll find chemical weapons (in Iraq). I think we'll find biological precursors that may or may not have been weaponized. And I think we will find a continuing interest of -- on nuclear weapons."
Again, no comment at all on the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Report which found his story was pure fantasy. Oh yes, throw in some vitriol at Robert Novak (who actually was the first to report on the Plame-Wilson link). The irony is that the Senate Intelligence Report again, concluded it was Plame who suggested Wilson for the trip.
Rather than spending good money on the book, donate it to charity - it's rubbish and has about zero evidence in it.
He's rabid.mathiaslg said:
So if you're not a Republican, you're free to make up your own reality and just exist in it? Because that's what you're doing if you believe all that 'selected not e-lected' crap.Slabber said:
You've got strong views on this.jasonrh said:
Still, Gore got more votes overall anyway.
And it took a Republican judge in the Supreme Court to declare victory.
Hardly a mandate for a hardline neo-con agenda.
No, actually the decision that the new standards were illegal was 7-2, including two liberals.Slabber said:
The decision that therefore the result originally certified was the result, and no rererererererererererere-count of the ballots in Democratic counties using the old standards, again, would occur was the 5-4 part of the ruling.
And no count ever gave Gore a lead. He used Democratic "judges" on our Supreme Court in Florida to try to stop the victory that had already been declared and certified, so each county could create their own new ad hoc standards for counting votes. And all that after the Democratic trial judge found no reason why the vote shouldn't be certifiedm and found that the recounting would be illegal.
He had feck all of a mandate, but the Democrats gave it to him over time with their "selected" crap, their essentially bribery of a Senator to swich sides and shut down the Senate, and their repeated incomprehensibly stupid stunts post-9/11.
This country needs a healthy policy-oriented debate between two parties.
What it has is one party proposing solutions, and the other party trying to figure out their next big PR stunt and their next big lie.
Yes, but the solution is to feck the poor.
Is that a well-balanced, non-partisan view?jasonrh said:
And since the Democrats are diametrically opposed to anything Bush supports, that makes their solution "feck the rich and the middle class".Grinner said:
What exactly fecked the poor, by the way? The tax cuts, which gave more money back to the rich, because for some whacky reason they happened to have paid more taxes?
The medicare bill that now helps poor seniors get prescription drugs?
Oh, I know...Clinton's 1993 tax increase on social security benefits. That's the kind of 'screw the rich' thing the Democrats support!
The non partisan version of that is that the Democratic Party is fulfilling their function as the Loyal Opposition, a needed part of a democracy.Slabber said:
I'd just damned well rather have debates involving a multitude of solutions, and eventual agreement on the best one than clogging up legislation for political reasons and refusing to propose your own solutions.
The Republicans tried this same stunt after 1994, when they won back Congress on a platform of specific ideas. Starting in 1996, they lost seats in every election until after Bush was president.
This is because instead of proposing alternate solutions when Clinton painted his vision of America, they just bitched constantly about him being a crook. And this long before the perjury issue occurred.
The Republicans managed to hold onto control in Congress during that period, which made it easier to recover from their political dipshittery. The Democrats are rapidly marginalising themselves as, instead of coming up with policies after several elections of failure, they just go even further in their conspiracy theories.
People used to say the Conservatives in Britain were the natural party of government.
They're still in government but with a different party.
They're still in government but with a different party.
The Democrats will be fine in the long-run--bear in mind the American political scene is fairly cyclical.jasonrh said:
mathiaslg said:
We nearly made it.
we nearly found the perfect combination. . .
Slabber said:
You have to love the way Blair completely metamorphosied into a different person circa 1997.
Brilliant politician, especially in your system where it is much harder to hold on, and where mistakes can result in things like votes of no confidence from within.
I say we blame Singapore/
I leave for a few days and this thread turns into the Bush fan club meet up.
Question:
Have any of the governments, that supported and went to war, let their public know as to which intelligence reports (that led them to their actions) were wrong? Can anyone provide links to such admissions?
I seem to remember that the CIA director resigned after the fact, but nothing beyond that. Maybe the govts excuse detailed info on account of national security, but my question is more concerning the information that was made public prior to the war (like satellite photographs). Has any of that been admitted was wrong or explanation given? Much appreciated.
Have any of the governments, that supported and went to war, let their public know as to which intelligence reports (that led them to their actions) were wrong? Can anyone provide links to such admissions?
I seem to remember that the CIA director resigned after the fact, but nothing beyond that. Maybe the govts excuse detailed info on account of national security, but my question is more concerning the information that was made public prior to the war (like satellite photographs). Has any of that been admitted was wrong or explanation given? Much appreciated.
vikram10 said:
The issues go way beyond admittance of it's wrongs in going to war, It is a question of democracy we are supposed be living in. The case presented by the governments to justify the war was deliberately doctored which is now proven. The very manner in which the governments of both countries presented its case for war was the intimidation of officials, half-truths, emotional blackmail, fear mongering... these are not the qualities of a democratically elected government.
If a government is prepared to act in this way to falsely justify war, it lacks any semblence of morality. Their own parties should have brought them task, They didn't. Not only that we elected the very governments for a second time who deliberately lied to us on these matters. Maybe we're not as democratic as we'd like to think...admission of guilt! your having a laugh Vikram.
It's very disappointing that since the aftermath has shown how wrong they were, I haven't seen any substantial reasons given as to why they were so far off the mark. The only persistent "justfication" has been that, well, all intelligence agencies and not just the CIA got it wrong.
If it is clear now that Iraq was not trying to get nuclear material from Niger, whats the point in harping about whether Wilson did his job properly or not (aside from the technicalities of whether his wife was outed).
The bigger question to me is whether the US govt still insist they right about those claims and can prove it, or whether they admit they were wrong. Anyone know what the official govt stance is on this? Thanks.
If it is clear now that Iraq was not trying to get nuclear material from Niger, whats the point in harping about whether Wilson did his job properly or not (aside from the technicalities of whether his wife was outed).
The bigger question to me is whether the US govt still insist they right about those claims and can prove it, or whether they admit they were wrong. Anyone know what the official govt stance is on this? Thanks.
Democrats have been whining about how they didn't know Bush and his admin lied...Bush has been saying since Fri that everyone in congress and the senate knew everything. Hmmmmmm somebody is a liar.
It's a wonder why fewer and fewer people vote.
A country goes to war and drags a few other countries along for the fight and noboby wants to explain how and why the war started. Duh.
It's a wonder why fewer and fewer people vote.
A country goes to war and drags a few other countries along for the fight and noboby wants to explain how and why the war started. Duh.
They're not in government in Britain, except at local government level. We have currently a typical left-wing government in at the moment.Slabber said:
If Bush won't admit, have any democratic senators who voted for the war (after seeing the intel), said which parts of the intelligence was wrong?LABOB said:
My curiosity isn't about the politics, but more so about which claims for going to war have been admitted were wrong. I dont care if it's released by Bush or the opposition.
This is true, it was apparent at the time, and it's one reason why I could not support the war. If the facts are clear enough and the interests being served are apparent, spin and intimidation is never necessary.Sultan said:
Ultimately, was the popular vote in Florida for Gore or wasn't it?jasonrh said:
Now's the technical question. Why do you keep this regulation that allows only state legislatures to pick their electorals and no citizen has the right to vote his/her candidate for electoral college?
This might help - it's sourced from the Mercury News in the USA via Knight-Ridder:vikram10 said:
ASSERTION: In a Veterans Day speech last Friday, Bush said that Iraq war "critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs."
CONTEXT: Bush is correct in saying that a commission he appointed, chaired by Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., found no evidence of "politicization" of the intelligence community's assessments concerning Iraq's reported weapons of mass destruction programs.
But neither that report nor others looked at how the White House characterized the intelligence it had when selling its plan for war to the world and whether administration officials exaggerated the threat. That's supposed to be the topic of a second phase of study by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
"Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that was not part of our inquiry," Silberman said when he released the panel's findings in March.
The Senate committee concluded that none of the intelligence analysts it interviewed said they were pressured to change their conclusions on weapons of mass destruction or on Iraq's links to terrorism.
But the committee's findings were hardly bipartisan. Committee Democrats said in additional comments to the panel's July 2004 report that U.S. intelligence agencies produced analyses and the key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit weapons in "a highly pressurized climate."
And the committee found that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, analysts were under pressure to avoid missing credible threats, and as a result they were "bold and assertive" in making terrorist links.
In a July 2003 report, a CIA review panel found that agency analysts were subjected to "steady and heavy" requests from administration officials for evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaida, which created "significant pressure on the Intelligence Community to find evidence that supported a connection."
ASSERTION: In his speech, Bush noted that "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate - who had access to the same intelligence - voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power."
CONTEXT: This isn't true.
The Congress didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief, a top-secret compendium of intelligence on the most pressing national security issues that was sent to the president every morning by former CIA Director George Tenet.
As for prewar intelligence on Iraq, senior administration officials had access to other information and sources that weren't available to lawmakers.
Cheney and his aides visited the CIA and other intelligence agencies to view raw intelligence reports, received briefings and engaged in highly unusual give-and-take sessions with analysts.
Moreover, officials in the White House and the Pentagon received information directly from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group, circumventing U.S. intelligence agencies, which greatly distrusted the organization.
The INC's information came from Iraqi defectors who claimed that Iraq was hiding chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, had mobile biological-warfare facilities and was training Islamic radicals in assassinations, bombings and hijackings.
The White House emphasized these claims in making its case for war, even though the defectors had shown fabrication or deception in lie-detector tests or had been rejected as unreliable by U.S. intelligence professionals.
All of the exiles' claims turned out to be bogus or remain unproven.
War hawks at the Pentagon also created a special unit that produced a prewar report - one not shared with Congress - that alleged that Iraq was in league with al-Qaida. A version of the report, briefed to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and top White House officials, disparaged the CIA for finding there was no cooperation between Iraq and the terrorist group, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence disclosed.
After the report was leaked in November 2003 to a conservative magazine, the Pentagon disowned it.
In fact, a series of secret U.S. intelligence assessments discounted the administration's assertion that Saddam could give banned weapons to al-Qaida.
In other cases, Bush and his top lieutenants relied on partial or uncorroborated intelligence.
For example, Cheney contended in an August 2002 speech that Iraq would develop a nuclear weapon "fairly soon," even though U.S. intelligence agencies and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency had no evidence to support such a claim.
The following month, Bush, Cheney and then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice asserted that Iraq had sought aluminum tubes for a nuclear-weapons program. At the time, however, U.S. intelligence agencies were deeply divided over the question. The IAEA later determined that the tubes were for ground-to-ground rockets.
A recently declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report from February 2002 said that an al-Qaida detainee was probably lying to U.S. interrogators when he claimed that Iraq had been teaching members of the terrorist network to use chemical and biological weapons.
Yet eight months after the report was published, Bush told the nation that "we've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gases."
Meanwhile, lawmakers didn't have access to intelligence products that may have been more temperate than what they got, even after they investigated the prewar intelligence assessment. For instance, the Director of Central Intelligence refused to give the Senate committee a copy of a paper drafted by the CIA's Near East and Southeast Asia Office examining Iraq's links to terrorism.
Lawmakers didn't see the main document concerning Iraq and WMD - the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate - until three days before their vote authorizing war. The White House ordered the NIE compiled only after lawmakers, including the then-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., demanded it.
The resolution that authorized use of force against Iraq didn't specifically address removing Saddam. It gave Bush the power to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."
ASSERTION: In his Veterans Day address, Bush said that "intelligence agencies around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein."
CONTEXT: Bush is correct in saying that many intelligence agencies, particularly in Europe, believed that Saddam was hiding some weapons of mass destruction capabilities - not necessarily weapons. But they didn't agree with other U.S. assessments about Saddam. Few, with the exception of Great Britain, argued that Iraq was an imminent threat, or that it had any link to Islamic terrorism, much less the Sept. 11 attacks.
France, backed by several other nations, argued that much more time and effort should have been given to weapons inspections in Iraq before war was launched.
ASSERTION: Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, told reporters last Thursday that the Clinton administration and Congress perceived Saddam as a threat based on some of the same intelligence used by the Bush administration.
"Congress, in 1998 authorized, in fact, the use of force based on that intelligence," Hadley said.
And Rumsfeld, in briefing reporters Tuesday, seemed to link President Clinton's signing of the act to his decision to order four days of U.S. bombing of suspected weapons sites and military facilities in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.
CONTEXT: Congress did pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which stated U.S. support for regime change in Iraq and provided up to $97 million in overt military and humanitarian aid to opposition groups in Iraq.
But it didn't authorize the use of U.S. force against Iraq.
Clinton said his bombing order was based on Iraq's refusal to comply with weapons inspections, a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
vikram10 said:
Across the board Dems and Republicans admitt the intel on WMD's had been misleading. To what extent did they went along with it or they really didn't know how deep the lies were, nobody is saying. More and more the politicians on both sides of the isle are feeling public pressure to explain things in more detail.
This has led to the hot water in the Bush camp to accelerate....was sorta funny seeing Dick(head) Cheney yesterday express his outrage as far as the splintering factions over this issue. The water's so hot, he just don't know it.
Do you think the United States should:
Stay the course in Iraq.......................................3% 373 votes
Withdraw U.S. troops within six months.................85% 12000 votes
Commit to do whatever it takes to win the war.......13% 1771 votes
Total: 14144 votes
*CNN poll from the Lou Dobbs show
------------------------------------------------
Shocking, yet not so shocking.
I think they should pull out...more like a year. 6 months is too soon.
Commit to do whatever it takes suggests that the people are ok with doing whatever with Bush at the steering wheel. No...not likely to be popular.
Stay the course in Iraq.......................................3% 373 votes
Withdraw U.S. troops within six months.................85% 12000 votes
Commit to do whatever it takes to win the war.......13% 1771 votes
Total: 14144 votes
*CNN poll from the Lou Dobbs show
------------------------------------------------
Shocking, yet not so shocking.
I think they should pull out...more like a year. 6 months is too soon.
Commit to do whatever it takes suggests that the people are ok with doing whatever with Bush at the steering wheel. No...not likely to be popular.
Although going to Iraq was a mistake, it would be lunacy to pull out now.
They are not ready yet, al queda will make it their hub just to prove a point against US.
They are not ready yet, al queda will make it their hub just to prove a point against US.
Either way they're getting fecked and it's their own fault.crappycraperson said:
Doesn't look like any has reported the latest on the prosecutor Mr. Fitzgerald.
Heard this past weekend that due to the Bob Woodward developments, he'll be reopening an investigation into the CIA leaks. Bob Woodword's spokesperson had said, '...the leak could have been someone presently with the Bush admin. or someone who is no longer with the admin....'
Sounds to me he could be suggesting Powell.
Anyhow, after getting little more than indicting Cheney's advisor Libby in the closing minutes of a two year investigation....I don't see much of anything coming from this Bush lackey Fitzgerald.
There have been whispers in the press about how Bob Novak escaped being indicted or at the very least questioned for his part in breaking the story.
All this just thrashes the concept of justice and free press. The saddest part of all this is that all the media sees the Bush admin. stained with corruption and ineptitude beyond repair. Without a doubt, this has got to be the worst presidency in US history.
Heard this past weekend that due to the Bob Woodward developments, he'll be reopening an investigation into the CIA leaks. Bob Woodword's spokesperson had said, '...the leak could have been someone presently with the Bush admin. or someone who is no longer with the admin....'
Sounds to me he could be suggesting Powell.
Anyhow, after getting little more than indicting Cheney's advisor Libby in the closing minutes of a two year investigation....I don't see much of anything coming from this Bush lackey Fitzgerald.
There have been whispers in the press about how Bob Novak escaped being indicted or at the very least questioned for his part in breaking the story.
All this just thrashes the concept of justice and free press. The saddest part of all this is that all the media sees the Bush admin. stained with corruption and ineptitude beyond repair. Without a doubt, this has got to be the worst presidency in US history.
It seems to me this is important for 2 reasons:vikram10 said:
1 - Because this bears upon whether the US administration knew that the claim was either bogus or unreliable. If the report and intelligence surrounding it provided to the Bush camp raised serious questions about the legitimacy of the yellow-cake claim why did they include it in Bush's speech (war-mongering without justification is the obvious answer). It's important, not only that the claim was wrong, but that the Bush camp knew it was likely to be so.
2 - Because the strategies adopted by the Bush camp in seeking to discredit Wilson and the information he claimed to give tell us very nasty things about that administration - as do the lengths to which they were prepared to go. The extent to which positions have been misrepresented by Bu-shites also teaches us to have little faith in their conclusions and to look closely at the actual quotes and data. As an example...
There is still the canard doing the rounds that Wilson 'lied' that Cheney sent him on the mission - the problem is that WILSON NEVER MADE ANY SUCH CLAIM. Wilson's words are as follows:
"In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. ... The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story..."
As another commentator elsewhere pointed out 'Wilson clearly wrote that it was "agency officials" who requested that Wilson be sent to Niger -- not Cheney. You'd have to be borderline illiterate to honestly think that Wilson was implying that it was Cheney who sent him on the mission. Either that or a desperate liar.'
So all the Bu-shites' remarks that Cheney had never met the guy and never asked him to go (etc.) are beside the point. WILSON NEVER CLAIMED HE DID! This is an unfortunately common strategy in debates - if you can't beat the guy fair and square, invent a position similar to your opponent's that you CAN defeat, then pretend that THAT is what s/he claimed and defeat that. It's called intellectual dishonesty - but in this case it's been very effective - people are still churning out the crap that this constitutes a 'lie' on Wilson's part - they hope if they hurl enough mud it'll stick and certain people are only too happy to buy into the image produced.
Also haven't seen this in here about whether Rove would be entitled to see or disclose relevant confidential info...
Two weeks after Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) revealed that White House senior adviser Karl Rove's conversations about CIA operative Valerie Plame with columnist Robert D. Novak and journalist Matthew Cooper likely violated a nondisclosure agreement Rove had to sign to gain access to classified information, The Washington Post still hasn't mentioned the nondisclosure agreement. Nor has USA Today. Other papers have been similarly silent, and The New York Times has made only passing mention of the agreement.
As we explained last week, either Rove signed the nondisclosure agreement, or he didn't. If he signed it, his conversations about Plame almost certainly violated that agreement, the consequences of which include "the likely loss of the security clearance." If Rove didn't sign the agreement, he should not have had access to classified information -- in which case his participation in the White House Iraq Group, which "sift[ed] through classified evidence" in a "secure National Security Council conference room" surely merits investigation.
Why, then, are the Post and the Times and USA Today and virtually all of the nation's news outlets ignoring Rove's nondisclosure agreement? One way or another, reporters should have a great story on their hands -- either President Bush's top political aide violated his nondisclosure agreement, or he had access to classified information he should not have been privy to.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200507300001
Two weeks after Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) revealed that White House senior adviser Karl Rove's conversations about CIA operative Valerie Plame with columnist Robert D. Novak and journalist Matthew Cooper likely violated a nondisclosure agreement Rove had to sign to gain access to classified information, The Washington Post still hasn't mentioned the nondisclosure agreement. Nor has USA Today. Other papers have been similarly silent, and The New York Times has made only passing mention of the agreement.
As we explained last week, either Rove signed the nondisclosure agreement, or he didn't. If he signed it, his conversations about Plame almost certainly violated that agreement, the consequences of which include "the likely loss of the security clearance." If Rove didn't sign the agreement, he should not have had access to classified information -- in which case his participation in the White House Iraq Group, which "sift[ed] through classified evidence" in a "secure National Security Council conference room" surely merits investigation.
Why, then, are the Post and the Times and USA Today and virtually all of the nation's news outlets ignoring Rove's nondisclosure agreement? One way or another, reporters should have a great story on their hands -- either President Bush's top political aide violated his nondisclosure agreement, or he had access to classified information he should not have been privy to.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200507300001
I came across the quote in the last post when searching for the 'senatorial committee' report on Wilson to which SB referred - for those interested you can get the (security censored) text via a link from this site:
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/related.html
'Senate select committee Wilson' in google gets some relevant articles.
... including Wilson's rebuttal to some specific accusations:
http://www.hellblazer.com/archives/2005/11/joseph_wilsons.html
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/related.html
'Senate select committee Wilson' in google gets some relevant articles.
... including Wilson's rebuttal to some specific accusations:
http://www.hellblazer.com/archives/2005/11/joseph_wilsons.html
The popular vote IN FLORIDA was for Bush, hence why he won the electoral votes for Florida.thewelshconjurer said:
The electoral college is elected in each state in a manner determined by each state. But the states have almost all gone for making the winner of the popular vote in that state the state's overall winner. The people are voting for electors.
Some have flirted with the idea of proportional representation, but since this would mean in a close election losing at most one electoral vote, it would actually make those states less important. If you had State A with 10 electoral votes, and the winner takes all 10, and state B where there are 10 electoral votes, and the winner only gets his share (say 6 at most, but more likely 5), where are you going to campagin? State A, where you can get all 10 with a 1% victory, since you could win by 10% in State B would just mean a 6-4 split.
But the people are voting directly for electors in all states. Those electors then cast that vote.
We're not a parliamentary system. The president is elected in such a weird way specifically to give greater power to some of the smaller states. It's part of the compromise that set up the federal system.
Sometimes, this leads to a winner of the overall national popular vote losing the presidency. This happened with Gore, and it happened to Grover Cleveland in 1888 (when he was actually a sitting president).
But this is the way the system is set up, and Gore knew it going in (hell, he was elected as Vice President twice on a ticket that never achieved a majority of the popular vote - Clinton won on pluralities). You can't change the rules after the race is run, and this is what complainers about the electoral college wanted to do in 2000, and also what Democrats were trying to do in changing the vote counting standards ad hoc in Democratic counties.
Yanks