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Terry

I don't believe it....

"In an interview on Sunday with Charles Gibson, an anchor of "Good Morning America" on ABC, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so." ABC, which broadcast part of the interview on Monday, is to broadcast the part about civil unions on Tuesday."

Can anyone confirm this?

I thought Bush was opposed to Civil Union's?

Jim rodgers

Like you said yesterday, Tucker, "So, lesson seems to be, if you throw out your campaign playbook for the day because of one headline, better make sure it's gonna hold up."


On MSNBC today:


MSNBC, 10/26/04 (Transcript):

Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. As a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. We stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to

secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.

LLJ: Thank you.

Live & learn, eh?

Jeffraham Prestonian

Jim -- Don't forget, anyone believing that the explosives at al Qaqaa were missing prior to the invasion will have hundreds of Google links they'll need to make "go down the memory hole":

http://tinyurl.com/5366m

Cue McClellan, saying "Col. John Peabody was planted by Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson and Paul O'Neill."

Damn that memory hole -- sometimes it spits, refusing to swallow.
.

wtfwjd?

Dear Tucker and Mr. Drudge,

Here is what MSNBC is now reporting as regards your, um, bombshell that they were involved in inspections at Al Qaqaa on 4/10/03:

"MSNBC's Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. Um, as a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. Almost, we stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or was, did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was – at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it."

Sorry, Tucker, the Reality-Based Community ain't buyin' your cop-out! And no, we're not blaming the failures in Iraq on the troops. Those rest squarely on the shoulders of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rice.

Barry G.

Headlines, headlines my friend. Only the true believers read the fine print, you know that. Kerry wasted an entire day of valuable rant time to Average Joe Voter on a discredited NYT piece of which he'll gain no traction and which may boomerang negative if the Bushies spin it the right way. Iraq is like catnip to you libs but the polls keep showing W. with double digit leads on handling Iraq and the GWOT. Would've been much better off talking down the economy but as you all know...Hindsight Is 20/20.

Jeffraham Prestonian

Barry G.: "Kerry wasted an entire day of valuable rant time to Average Joe Voter on a discredited NYT piece"

Discredited? How so? Are you claiming we tested explosives that WEREN'T THERE?

http://tinyurl.com/5366m

A lot of revision to do to history, if you want to try to stick to the story about the explosives being gone before we got there, dude.
.

what???

OK,so what the hell is going on here?
Bush is NOW IN FAVOR OF GAY MARRIAGE?
THE NUMBER OF ABORTIONS HAVE GONE UP IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS?

section9

"The letter informed the IAEA that since Sept. 4, 2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation south of Baghdad had resulted in the loss of 214.67 tons of HMX, 155.68 tons of RDX and 6.39 tons of PETN explosives."

C'mon!!!

Who are you going to believe, the Pentagon, Allawi and the Iraqi interim government, or NBC News???

They were gone on April 10, 2003!!! Miklacewzki and Brokaw said so!!

Jeffraham Prestonian

section9: "They were gone on April 10, 2003!!! Miklacewzki and Brokaw said so!!"

Hmmm... I wonder what Col. John Peabody was testing, then. Probably just the sand that remained.

http://tinyurl.com/5366m
.

wtfwjd?

"Bush is NOW IN FAVOR OF GAY MARRIAGE?"

He's not in favor of gay marriage.

He said on GMA yesterday that people should have the right to enter into civil unions, if the states want to allow such unions. Civil unions such as the President supports are expressly forbidden by the Constitutional Amendment which the President has put forward.

Confused?

Good! You're supposed to be!

wtfwjd?

I'm starting to think this whole site is just a prank, like the Adam Nagourney diary page at http://www.adamnagourney.com -- what do others think? Are we being punk'd?

DAS

Don't you just love how whenver someone blames that admin for not securing things in Iraq, the admin's response is "stop blaming the military brass/troops"?

Come-on BushCO? Nobody 'cept you guys are blaming the troops. It's about time the admin is called for this little dance they do.

I tried to pull that kinda Santorum in middle school. My mom would catch me everytime.

Why does the admin act as if we are all still in middle school (the whole "it takes a bully to keep us safe" argument and everything). Why are so many Americans stuck in such a horrible time in our collective lives?

BTW - this is demonstrable proof that the war in Iraq helped to spread weapons of terrorists not to contain them (by the "you shall know them by their fruits" standard, I wonder if that was the admin's goal all along ... Saddam Hussein was, for all of his evil, a bullwork against international terrorism ... did we depose him in order to ensure that we had a steady supply of terrorists against which to fight in our new, never ending, "cold war"?). Even if the explosives did disappear before the war started (which it seems they did not) - the fact remains that, until we started our sabre rattling and drove the UN out, the explosives at "the dump" (the aptly named al-QaQaa) were under IAEA seal.

This is the real point Kerry should drive home ... even if you believe the admin's alibi, that would be a concrete example of how the admin's disdain for the organs of international cooperation has made us less safe.

wtfwjd?

The story about the Al Qa Qaa looting began to break back on Oct 14 via Reuters, albeit with a bit less detail:

Iraq Nuke Sites Were Stripped by Experts-Diplomats
Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:51 AM ET

By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - The removal of Iraq's mothballed nuclear facilities took around one year and was carried out by experts with heavy machinery and demolition equipment, diplomats close to the U.N. said on Thursday.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which monitored Saddam Hussein's nuclear sites before last year's Iraq war, informed the U.N. Security Council this week that equipment and materials that could be used to make atomic weapons have been vanishing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington had noticed.

"This process carried on at least through 2003...and probably into 2004, at least in early 2004," a Western diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told Reuters.

more here: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6503468

wwjd?

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Tuesday that carelessness by some elements of the US-led military in Iraq was to blame for the killing of 49 unarmed army recruits and three drivers on Saturday.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=11685

RocketPunch

When it comes to Gay marriage ...

Bush has been called socially liberal by his friends and carried that label as a Texas Governor. He has claimed to have several gay friends.

His VP has a gay daughter.

Bush's daughters left the campaign trail to take part in the gay marriage of a friend.

Did anyone stop to think that this was all just a tool to motivate the conservative base? Do you all think that Karl Rove just books events and makes polite phone calls?

Bush isn't a true conservative but he needs to play one on TV. He needs to appear as conservative to solidify a vote. There is no better way to do that then hit people with God, Guns and Gays. It's kinda like Hook, Line and Sinker for the Republican base.

Just a thought. Now back to work. :)

wtfwjd?

RocketPunch,

Good point. It's odd isn't it, that such a very religious man doesn't attend church?

Ronald Reagan

Tucker -- your thoughts on the following please...

From MSNBC today. Jim Miklaszewski reporting:


Following up on that story from last night, military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al QaQaa weapons facility south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, H.M.X. and R.D.X. The troops did observe stock piles of conventional weapons but no H.M.X. or R.D.X. and because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the H.M.X. and R.D.X. Three months earlier, during an inspection of the Al Qaqaa compound, the International Atomic Energy Agency secured and sealed 350 metric tons of H.M.X. and R.D.X. Then in March shortly before the war began, the I.A.E.A. conducted another inspection and found that the H.M.X. stockpile was still intact and still under seal. But inspectors were unable to inspect the R.D.X. stockpile and could not verify that the R.D.X. was still at the compound. Pentagon officials say elements of the 101st airborne did conduct a thorough search of several facilities around the Al QaQaa compound for several weeks during the month of April in search of W.M.D. They found no W.M.D. And Pentagon officials say it's not clear at that time whether those other elements of the 101st actually searched the Al QaQaa compound. Now, Pentagon officials say U.S. troops and members of the Iraq Survey Group did arrive at the Al QaQaa compound on May 27. And when they did, they found no H.M.X. or R.D.X. or any other weapons under seal at the time. Now, the Iraqi government is officially said that the high explosives were stolen by looters. Pentagon officials claim it's possible -- they're not sure, they say, but it's possible that Saddam Hussein himself ordered that these high explosives be removed and hidden before the war. What is clear is that the 350 metric tons of high explosives are still missing, and that the U.S. or Iraqi governments or international inspectors for that matter cannot say with any certainty where they are today.


Jeffraham Prestonian

Ron Reagan -- According to Fox News, of all places, the 101st was not the first unit to arrive at al Qaqaa. The 3rd Infantry Division was there on April, 4, 2003, and conducted testing on the white powder they found in "thousands of boxes" to insure they weren't chem/bio weapons or precursors.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83252,00.html

It's hard to test something that's already gone, so what seems to be really gone is another excuse for the incompetent Bush administration and their grand Iraqi misadventure.
.

RocketPunch

Yes, there are many things about W that bother me revolving around religion. The bottom line is, you never truly know what is in a man's heart so I try not to bring it up for discussion. However, you can easily realize, through shows like The Jesus Factor from PBS, that Bush's religion is far more calculated, politically, then supporters would like to believe.

I was most curious about the recent event with Pat Robertson. Robertson said.

"I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties.' 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.' replied Bush.

Then the White House pretty much called Robertson a liar. There is something really strange going on behind the scenes with these two.

Jennifer

Chris Matthews peed his pants when Clinton took the stage yesterday. Chris Matthews is an ass and his show should be called "Goofball"

Compassionate Conservative for Bush

Rocketpunch ,
You are graping at straws.
Go to your own Liberal Blog.
As far as your controversy about Pat Robertson is concerned, when that alleged comment was made there were already casualties in Afganistan. So that comment could not have been made by Bush. Secondly, noone called Robertson a liar. Karen Hughes said publicly that it was probably amisunderstanding.
President and Mrs Bush are a good Christian couple who accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. It reflects in their face, their smile, their heart. Believe me, when you bring the love of Christ in your heart and life you are blessed with the mercy and grace of God which is more powerful than any force in the world. Of course he has enemies. Jesus had enemies too. But remember :If God is for you who can be against you. With Christ comes victory.

Ronald Reagan

No you're right, Jeff. The reporting on this is improving. My point was that Miklaszewski is now backing off his rather breathless claims of last night.

Tucker was right. Its gonna leave a mark. Just not where he thought it would.

Jeffraham Prestonian

Ron Reagan: "Tucker was right. Its gonna leave a mark. Just not where he thought it would."

Yeah, it sux that the facts have such an anti-Bush agenda.
.

RocketPunch

Compassionate Conservative for Bush - As I stated, this is my opinion on the subject. Neither one of us can claim to know the truth in Bush's religion. However, unlike you, I don't pretend that I know.

Curious though, I am assuming you feel comfortable with a President who goes to war because he said God instructed him to do so. Explain this:

BUSH SAID:
"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did ..."

ROBERTSON SAID:
"God had told me that the war would be messy and a disaster."

So, who has the stronger connection with God?

Mr. Nationalist

I'll be glad when all this is over and we can get back to what's important: exporting jobs, ceding our sovereignty to the UN and WTO and transferring our wealth to third world countries because, well, they deserve it.

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