Johnny Coli

I didn't include the quote because it's a load of sh--. Shrub is always proclaiming that it's too early to judge success. We've had four years of "You have to be patient. This is the plan that will work. It's too early to judge whether it will be successfull." It's a load of crap. There has been no improvement. None.

If more than one party has lines in the water, does the fishing expedition become a tournament? Republican support for attorney general erodes; Senators question his truthfulness; firing of prosecutor in GOP case is eyed I guess there's no point in compelling them to testify under oath if they're just going to lie anyway.

At Least 50 Killed In Iraq Violence (3-24) Roundup of violence in Iraq - 23 March 2007Probably too long to quote here. Reports of Progress In Iraq Challenged There is no plan, GG. We could pull up a "violence in Iraq" round-up for every day for the past four years, and they'd all look the same. Unless you count the upsurge in chlorine tanker explosions. Those are new. EDIT: Quick Update If you blink you miss it, I guess. 5 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq bombings Calling this progress is insulting.

It's not a new plan and you are on hallucinogens if you think Patraeus was picked because he'd be anything other than another general in a long line of yes-men. Adding 21,000 (and counting) more troops is not a plan. Staying and adding more troops because you don't have a plan (and you're trying to save your own legacy) is not a solution. And, there is no guarantee (if anything you're guaranteeing the oppostite, see Iran) that a huge US military presence in Iraq is going to stabilize the region. The evidence (and bodies) to the contrary is mounting.

No government in Iraq will be consider legitimate to the Iraqis or anyone else in the region as long as the US is occupying the country. Any government endorsed by the US and backed with the power of the US military will be considered a puppet of the United States. What makes you think that anything will change in Iraq if we continue to follow the same path that Bush/Cheney and the Neocons have been following? You have got to be out of your mind if you think that this new plan (which is really just the same old plan) will work? There are four-plus years of evidence to the contrary. You may want to check up on what's happening in Afganistan then. They're not dissolving, they're splintering off into more radical groups. That's even worse and highlights even further how over-they're-heads incompetent the handling of this occupation has been. Instead of having a single group to deal with and a single leader that you know who had the backing of a good portion of the population, you now have multiple unnamed radical armed extremists. I don't see how that can be considered a positive development. Well, the Dems could lie and pretend things are looking up over there. Would that make you feel better about the Dems? Furthermore, how exactly, in your world, would you measure success in Iraq? If we're going to measure it by using Iraqi involvement in the security of their own country, then it's been a colossal failure. How long do we continue to put US military lives on the line for a supposedly sovereign nation that seems complacent to let the US deal with (and pay for) it's own Civil War? It's not unconstitutional. Bush has to ask congress for the money to fund his war. They gave him the money. They just didn't give him the money to do whatever he wants. There is nothing unconstitutional about it. If he doesn't like it, he has the power of the veto. But using that veto power means he's screwing over the troops. The House gave him his money.

Undermining the troops would be instructing your sock puppet the POTUS to veto the bill that actually sends the money and support the troops need.

bull sh--. Saying your going to start holding the people of a supposedly sovereign nation accountable for dealing with their own problems is not telegraphing anything to "Your enemies." I've got news for you, guy, the enemy (whomever that is presently) needs the US there. If we're talking Al Qaeda, then they are only too happy to have the US stuck in Iraq while Bin Laden sips coffee and laughs at The Drudge Report from Musharref's Karachi brownstone. If we're talking about any of the numerous sectarian groups fighting in Iraq, then they are only too happy to have the US there as a nice target to blame for all their problems, to train against on the US' dime, and to use as a valuble recruitment tool. The bill isn't useless, by the way, as it gives Bush all the money he asked for (and more) for the troops. The House voted to support the troops. A Bush veto (temper tantrum) will be the reason they don't see any of that money.

Which war would that be? The US-Iraq war was over within a few months, and Saddam has been tried and executed. The US isn't fighting a war in Iraq. The US is bogged down while being caught in the Iraqi's civil war. Ending the US occupation of Iraq just ends the US military involvement in the Iraq Civil War. It does not end US involvement in an advisory role in helping whatever legitimate Iraqi central govenment that emerges. It also doesn't end the US diplomatic involvement in the entire region. In fact, removing the US military from being the de facto target for any and all wrath and blame for the region could only help wrt image and diplomacy.

I think the phased withdrawl plan is the best scenario for leaving. Despite what Cheney and the GOP will have you believe, the Dem plan is giving Bush more money in this bill than he asked for. The US military isn't pulling up stakes on a friday and the country won't be empty by Sunday afternoon. There would be specific benchmarks, measurable goals, however you want to term them, for the Iraqis to achieve. It is their country afterall, is it not (at least that's what Bush/Cheney are telling them)? If the goals aren't met and the Iraqis show the same lack of urgency they've shown in getting their crap together after the past four years, then the US troops mediating (caught in, really) the Iraqi Civil War start to come home even sooner. And even after all that, there will still be a US presence advising them wrt training and setting up their own forces. As for "get[ting] us out of this situation without creating additional problems in the future", that's an incredibly unrealistic goal to think that a considerably longer (and larger) US military presence in Iraq will be a long-term benefit to that region at all. There isn't a single shred of evidence that the region is any more stable with the US bogged down over there than if the US was using diplomacy and the help of any number of the more benign countries over there. All of those countries have a vested interest in achieving some level of Mid East stability. The region is not going to descend into chaos simply because the US occupation of Iraq ends.

This is one of the biggest lies being perpetrated by the Neocon crowd. There is no new plan. There is no plan for short, or even long-term success. Bush's surge isn't a new plan and it hasn't worked the last several times it's been tried. It's more of the same crap--more of the same rhetoric and lies being spewed by this administration to cover up for the fact that they have no idea how to solve the mess they've gotten this country and the military into. If their only answer to any and all questions is "Give us more time, give us more money, give us more troops, asking why gives comfort to the enemy" then one can only come to the conclusion that they have no idea what to do. Do you think that 17 months from now, after having given them more money, resources and time, that there will be anything of significance to point to and call "success" using even the most minimal of levels? The answer is a resounding "no."

Ah yes, the new-found concern for the Iraqis. These are the same "rag-heads" that the war drum beaters and GOP enablers have been saying we should just nuke out of existence, right? These are the same Iraqis that after every story on this board about the middle east get's followed by the "Islam is the religion of peace (/sarcasm) " posts. These are the same Iraqis who, when recently polled said the US was the problem over there and overwhelmingly wish we would leave. How convenient that they all of a sudden they become the "poor left behind defenseless Iraqis." For starters, they wouldn't be killing American troops, Tom. I thinks that's a pretty significant development. I thinks that's a pretty significant and worthwhile goal.

Laughable. Like you and your party should be spouting off about pork. Classic. The most important part of this bill is getting our troops home. That's what this bill is about. So, instead of supporting our troops, you and your party would rather spin rhetoric and parrot GOP talking points. Personally, I find that pretty damn disgraceful.

A deadline for completion of a phased withdrawl is better than none at all. I would have had them out of there months ago (and I was one of the vocal few who was against this debacle based on lies to begin with). Some compromises were made, but the House delivered. The American people are overwhelmingly behind getting the troops home. You can spin. You can kvetch. You can continue to lie and trot out the delusional notion that things are geting better over there (or will if we only add a few more troops...then a few more troops, we promise...well maybe a few more but things are really looking great over there America), but you are spiralling further-and-further into the shrill minority.

Exactly how is attempting to bring them home "selling them out"? Selling them out is sending them over there without appropriate training, repeatedly, for your own hubris and to cover up your own failures. Selling them out is saying you support them, then fugging them over when they come home.

Having your pipeline go straight from discovery right into Phase I would save a ton of Yuan. You'd be passing those savings down to the consumer...well, the ones that lived, anyway.

Some days I swear I already was.

In ten years those breakthroughs will be coming from China. Funding academic science through government grants is a valuable tool in training homegrown US scientists. If you take away the money to do academic research, you will see entire graduate programs in science disappear. Our most distinguished academic scientists will be hired away by Universities in other countries (already happening, btw). Subsequently, no major pharma companies will stay in the US if there isn't anyone trained (ie, MS and PhDs and post-docs) to hire. They will continue to hire foreign born scientists from countries that are throwing money at science, and with every major pharmaceutical company opening research labs in China there will be no benefit to stay in the US if all the new, excellent, trained scientists are coming from somewhere else. Add the increased restriction on work visas here in the US and there is absolutely no benefit to companies keeping their operations here. You will see our most valuable resource, US citizens trained in science, dry up and dissappear, shortly followed by the pharmaceutical companies. Government funding of science is an investment in the long-term future of this country. Not all science is about "breakthroughs" and huge profits. Science is about answering questions and testing hypotheses. You can only learn how to do science by doing science, and you learn how to do science at a University. There has to be government funding of these programs.

It's a big deal because previous appointees were allowed to do their jobs without the threat of removal, without prejudice and without interference/influence from the White House for the duration of their terms. In this case, eight seemingly good-to-excellent attorneys were removed for not being partisan enough. It calls into question what influence partisanship plays in the cases of the ones that weren't fired for not being "loyal enough." From this morning's WaPo: Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case This is a big enough deal for the president to refuse to allow people to testify under oath, in public and without any documentation of the proceedings, and without any possibility of future subpoenas. That's not making a good faith effort to get out the truth. Add the petulant/combative position by the President with the two most-parroted WH-approved talking points of "Clinton did it, too!" and "I can do what I want with these attorneys" and it doesn't pass the smell test. There are too many conflicting stories, too many missing documents, too many questions and far too much defensive posturing by the WH to consider this a frivolous issue. Read the Iglesias piece in yesterday's NYT (Why I was Fired) and tell me that this is a non-issue. Remember, these are loyal Bushies who were forced out.

No. The "frothing" is because eight US attys were removed, six of whom were in the middle of conducting corruption investigations. Feinstein: Questions on firing of prosecutor in Cunningham case; via AP Most of the eight had high marks from Justice. Fired U.S. attorneys ranked above peers in prosecutions When asked, Dubya has nothing. Bush’s Tuesday statement and brief Q and A Except they're not going up to testify, because Bush won't allow them to testify under oath, in a public format, or with any writen record. So, no. The American people won't gleen any "truth" from that . The document dump from Monday shows that there was very little documented discussion about their performance prior to their forced resignations, and a whole lot of brainstorming as to how to sell it after the fact. Also missing from Monday's doc dump is 18 days worth of emails and memos centered around the time of the firings. GOP Braces For Testimony Fight So, eight prosecutors, some of whom were investigating republicans, all with high marks, were removed from office, the reason for that was spun after they were fired and doesn't hold up under even the weakest scruitiny. Documentation key to understanding why they might have been fired and any docs related to the WH have not been turned over (remember, this doc dump was supposed to happen last week, but the Admin refused to release them until Monday evening), nor will they be turned over. Bush won’t let any of his people testify under oath and won’t allow any transcripts, and to date no one has given a single consistent reason for why any of these persons should have lost their jobs. That is why Congress (not just the Dems...perhaps you missed the 94-2 vote in the Senate yesterday to limit the AG's power?) is “frothing” over this.

The personal attack isn't going to lend any more credibility to your argument.

You can link to any opinion piece you want. But using an opinion piece that isn't factual as the factual basis for your argument is a waste of time. In this case, it's premise has been shot down several times in the same thread. Ergo, you're wasting your time using it. Go right ahead and keep using it, though. The response from me will be to link to one of the many articles that aren't opinion to shoot it right back down.

Just throw it all out there and see if anything sticks, right? The emails don't suggest that their performances were sub-standard. In fact, the record is quite extensive (there are multiple links in this very thread) that they were more-than-adequate in their positions. The emails only show that the admin wasn't happy with them...and who would be happy if the people you put into place started investigations that could ultimately lead back to you? As for grandstanding by the Dems, the Senate just passed a bill (94-2) cancelling the provision in the Patriot Act allowing the AG to appoint USAs without Senate confirmation. (Link). So much for this being a one-party dance. Oversight and accountability is not a waste of time. I'll tell you what a waste of time really is...continuing to link to opinion pieces that erroneously claim that Clinton fired 93 and Bush only fired 8. It wasn't factual the first hundred times it was thrown out there

No. The Admin's MO over the past six years has been to take the position that they didn't have to explain themselves to anyone. Why, in this case, where on paper you have the legal right to do something, would you take great pains to give it the appearences of one thing, when you don't have to? You don't try to spin a non-story. In this instance the only recurring theme is that no story has remained straight for more than a few hours at a time, one of the chief players has resigned at the first sign of trouble, members of his own party are calling for the resignation of the AG, and the people who were so sure that Harriett Miers came up with this entire plan now have "hazy memories." There is a 2000+ page pile of documents suggesting that the only thing hazy was how they were going to spin firing eight US attorneys with excellent performance records.

Why did Sampson resign and lawyer up on the same day of the first document dump? Why was the AG/DOJ worried about the ex-US-attys testifying before congress, to the point where they were threatened not to? Why was Harriett Miers implicated, then acknowledged to have had nothing to do with it when the actual facts arose, only to have everyone's memories all-of-a-sudden become "hazy" (Fox News WH spokesman Tony Snow's phrasing)? Why insist repeatedly that these were peformance-related resignations despite mountains of evidence to the contrary? Why the extensive email trail describing the brainstorming sessions for the rationale behind their firing? Why was Gonzales "upset" with DAG McNulty's congressional testimony, admitting that Cummins was removed for Karl Rove's deputy? Why, if there was no wrongdoing whatsoever, is the Cheney Administration circling the wagons and not just saying it's the POTUS' perogative to hire/fire USAs? You don't cover up a non-crime. You don't go to these lengths to spin the rationale for why something was done if your position is that you have the legal right to do it. That is why this is a story. I doubt that Gonzales is laughing. I doubt that the White House Legal Team is laughing. I doubt that any of the remaining US attys are laughing. I doubt that the DOJ is laughing.

You might want to talk to the people of Mass who would vehemently disagree with you as to how competent Mitt Romney is. That being said, as a Democrat I would be dancing a jig if he was the GOP nominee. Under his watch our state actually became more Blue.