Politics Critical thinking about the public good I believe that at every level of society - familial, tribal, national and international - the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities. His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso   political clicks Regular reads Prometheus 6 Alas The Left Coaster The Daily Outrage Peevish Mark Fiore Cal Pundit Notes on the Atrocities Occasional Subversion Bohemian Mama Tacitus   prologue July 2003 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat     1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31     Jun   Aug Talk to me

Monday, July 14, 2003 Notes on the Atrocities is a blog I started reading a week or so ago.  I was intrigued by the author's alias (Emma Goldman) and her tagline ("one person's bid to get her own FBI file.")  She also has this wonderful project where she is creating "dossiers" on the central rogues in the current admin. In a post today, Emma lays out two possible scenarios.  In one, the by now infamous claim in the SOTU was an honest mistake and once discovered Bush steps forward, forthrightly takes responsibility and still stands by his assertion that the war was necessary and justified. In the second scenario, the admin knew the evidence was suspect all along, and once called to account for it dissolves into a mess of finger-pointing and double talk..   Then Emma asks:  ... if these examples seem unreasonable, try this: invert the lying/not lying scenarios and their narratives. Does it seem possible that all this obfuscation, parsing, and general shiftiness is arising from the embarrassment over an honest mistake? In the comments section of her website, I wrote: The inversion just doesn't fly. What has me the most spooked is how carefully worded the claim in the SOTUS was. The fact that Bush deliberately attributed the uranium claim to the British seems like a CYA move in advance. To me this seem like someone knew it was kind of bogus and ensured the wording allowed Bush to be considered "technically accurate." I remember, in the months leading up to the war, being mystified at the fact that no other country [except the UK] seemed as concerned as Bush did. I remember thinking the same thing about Congress. I kept hoping that the Bush Admin had some truly devastating piece of evidence that they were sitting on that was motivating the need to start a war with Iraq now. And I was mystified as to (1) why, if they had the evidence, weren't they sharing it with high level officials in the US and other countries and/or (2) why, if they were sharing it, weren't Congress and the other countries jumping up and down demanding a pre-emptive strike on behalf of everyone's safety? And now the answer is clear. Because the evidence was crap. Update: Bohemian Mama said it better than I did: It's not just the lie, Mr. President, it's the malice and aforethought that went into framing that lie in just such a way that the plausible deniability could be claimed  [...] Shame on you. Shame on Congress that blindly followed and sent our troops into this sham of a venture without questioning or taking the time to deliberate on the consequences of their actions. Shame on the media for not caring enough to actually investigate the situation. Shame on us if we let you keep your office after next year. 6:05:32 PM     © 2003 ibyx Last Update: 8/3/2003; 12:10:38 AM