Condi

[km gresham]

http://nypost.com/news/nationalnews/18308.htm

"Dems consider her a runaway slave". Saw that quote in an article this morning. She's definately off the democrat plantation. They don't appreciate black Americans doing well - extraordinarily well- without the democrat's prescription.
I like the story of why her father became a Republican..He went to register as a democrat and was required to take a test. He was highly educated and highly insulted and went to the Republican office and they signed him right up. They've been Republican ever since. smile.gif

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Women at the top of politics are usually pretty tough, and I dare say the National Security Adviser is not too bothered about being used as a sort of talisman ("Lookee here, see what we got ourselves!") of PC by the party that inherited the Dixiecrat vote after LBJ's reforms.

[Ian McColgin]

OK, we have some unattributed charactor (given the quote maybe a republican operative) claiming that Dems consider Ms Rice a runaway slave.

This is an incredibly hateful accusation. It would be interesting to know who said it and to what s/he might be referring.

Both parties have been known to 'play the race card' but this sort of viscious falsehood is way over the top.

[LeeG]

Karen, what are you discovering from postings these articles and the responses you are getting?

[ljb5]

Originally posted by km gresham:
I like the story of why her father became a Republican..He went to register as a democrat and was required to take a test. He was highly educated and highly insulted and went to the Republican office and they signed him right up. They've been Republican ever since. smile.gif That's the least believable story I've ever heard!

I've never heard of anyone being required to take a test to register with a party. The Democrats have gone out of their way to register blacks, often facing threats from the KKK.

[Ian McColgin]

Depending on where and when, it can be all too true. In this state, Sen Brooke went in as a Republican because the Democtratic party refused him.

Both parties have at times and places been tained by racism.

[ahp]

I don't care for Bush, and I may not agree with Ms. Rice, BUT she certainly does have ability and she certainly is a valuable role model.

[Gresham CA]

ljb5, I was too young to vote but I can remember a time when you had to take a test to register to vote.

edited to add link (http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-wfsection+article+articleid-70.html) .

[ 04-07-2004, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: Gresham CA ]

[km gresham]

I imagine US history is not being taught well if some are not aware that right after blacks were given the right to vote the response by (in Condi's area) the democratic party was to require blacks to pass a test in order to vote.

Most blacks were not well educated and were intimidated by this, so the effect was to keep them from trying to vote. Her father was a professor, I believe, and was insulted by the effort to intimidate and he went to the party that wasn't attempting to demean black citizens.

It's my personal opinion that every citizen should have to pass a test on government in order to vote. Every voter should be educated on the way our government operates before they vote. But an educated electorate is not desired by most politicians. Every voter should know at least the basics, that there are 3 branches, what they do etc.

[ 04-07-2004, 10:57 AM: Message edited by: km gresham ]

[Dan McCosh]

Voter registration tests, usually disguised as literacy tests, were common in the Jim Crow south at that time, where the southern faction of the Democratic party prevailed. The story rings true, sort of. The registration drives were led mainly by radical groups such as SNCC and SDS, not a mainstream political party. George Wallace split from the Dems to form his own segregationist party, which actually won in Michigan. That faction was taken over by Republicans, and the head of the Republican party in Michigan until recently was a guy who successfully fought local efforts to integrate the schools. (He stayed as party chairman for decades, but recently was kicked out of his party office for being too liberal.) There is a lot of confusion as to who stood where and when on civil rights issues.

[htom]

ljb5 -- you're awfully young, or awfully ignorant of this country's history (or both.) I can remember the fuss about those tests (and sometimes think that the country might be well served if they were re-instated -- if you can't pass the current citizenship test you can't vote this time, sorry.)

[Keith Wilson]

ljb5 - the business about the test is quite believable. From after Reconstruction until the 1960s, the states of the Confederacy voted almost completely Democratic. Lincoln was a Republican, and reconstruction was orchestrated by a group in Congress known as the "Radical Republicans" (believe it or not); radical because they wanted to dismantle white dominance in the South essentially by force. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are the work of these folks. Most white southerners were violently opposed to this, and the solid Democratic South was the result.

Now, the old Southern Democratic party was by no means the Democratic party of today - it was segregationist, quite conservative on other social issues, and bitterly opposed to inclusion of African-Americans in any way. Read up on Strom Thurmond's "states' rights" (segregationist) presidential bid in 1948. A quote from the late Senator Thurmond: "all the laws of Washington, and all the bayonets of the Army, cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches and our places of recreation."

The Democratic primary WAS the election for most state offices in a lot of southern states. In fact, because the party was not officially a part of government, courts ruled for a long time that it was legal for them to exclude blacks from the primary. Many Southern blacks were Republicans, althogh they generally couldn't vote, for the same reason most whites were Democrats. The left-right ideological division between the parties was not always as pronounced as it is today. Ms. Rice's story is, alas, probably all too true.

[ 04-07-2004, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Keith Wilson ]

[Dan McCosh]

Might add that it is a bit naive to think that the "test" was actually a test you could pass if you were black. It was merely a part of a series of semi-legal blocks intended keep the white minority in power.

[Gresham CA]

It was merely a part of a series of semi-legal blocks intended keep the white minority in power. Actually the test was for keeping a paranoid white MAJORITY in power. And it was sanctioned by both parties.

[Dan McCosh]

Actually, the voter registration issue was particularly significant in areas where blacks were a majority, not a minority. Some southern states had an actual black majority, but more significantly most had many rural counties where whites were in a minority--this is where the notion of integration was seen as a complete loss of control by whites. A couple of states were on their way to having a black legislature shortly after the civil war, which was one thing that led to the rise of the KKK. Disenfranchising blacks was essential to maintaining the power of the minority.

[Memphis Mike]

"and the Klan was totally, proudly made up of Democrats."

The key word here being "was."

[Dan McCosh]

As for Ms. Rice, I think she has led a life as an elitist academic far removed from the turmoil that engaged most of her generation. At the least, I don't know why she isn't Secretary of State, where her background could be put to some use, and Powell, who has lived through combat, given her job. She seems to have been a major factor, among others, that lead us stumbling into the mess we are now in the midst of in Iraq.

[km gresham]

The history of this country and government is sadly neglected in government schools. Our son said they spent exactly 2 days on the civil war.
A bit of a complex period of history to cover in 2 days.

[ 04-07-2004, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: km gresham ]

[Meerkat]

I don't need history to tell me that Miz Rice is a fluff-brained academic with no real previous national security experience who's blown it badly.

[Dan McCosh]

As I remember it, any study of contemporary or recent politics was pretty much avoided in high school in the late 1950s. We were a couple of blocks down the street from Father Caughlin's church, and he was never even mentioned in school, let alone anyting as controversial as the holocaust, contemporary civil rights, labor unions, etc. The civil war? They barely mentioned WWII. We tended to rebel, and smuggled copies of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich into school. If you were caught reading, you were punished. History as we knew it ended with George Washington chopping down that cherry tree.

[ljb5]

I know all about the Dixiecrats and how they split from the Democrats because they were insufficiently racist. It's amazing how the Republicans still love to bring that up sixty years later. The racists left the party - Strom Thurmond became a Republican. Jeb Bush ain't no Abraham Lincoln. Trent Lott sits at Jefferson Davis's desk.

I wonder if Dr. Rice's father is still alive? In his day, the Democrats may have asked him to take a test, but in the modern age, the Republicans just set up road blocks (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2000/11/20/storm.html) in front of the polls in black precints.

[Alan D. Hyde]

Ask Thomas Sowell ( www.tsowell.com) (http://www.tsowell.com)) or Walter Williams ( http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/ ) or Clarence Thomas or Shelby Steele ( http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/steele.html ) how despicably the vast liberal establishment often treats African-Americans who leave the "liberal" plantation.

***

Alan

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

When my family moved to Florida in 57, there were seperate white and "colored" drinking fountains everywhere, the Klan was very active in keeping blacks frightened away from politics, This is very well said. Now tell me again how the United States is the beacon of freedom, democracy and human rights around the world. I love a good story. :rolleyes:

[ljb5]

Jeff, the roadblocks were widely reported. Pull your head out of your ass.

CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/11/fla.hearings/)

CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/05/gore.transcript/)

CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/05/recount.wrap/)

CNN (http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0101/11/ip.00.html)

Hmm, let's see... governor Bush, Secretary Harris, rural Florida, blacks voting upwards of 90% for Gore.......Nah, there couldn't be any partisanship there.

Forest for the trees, buddy.

[Alan D. Hyde]

Oh.

Clinton News Network.

Now THAT'S credible. :D

Alan

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

The point I want to make, is that the bad times in our history are more recent than many of us want to admit. The point I want to make is how does a country with so many human rights issues of it's own stand upright on it's self righteous legs long enough to unilaterally invade another country for reasons it can not even prove later?

[Memphis Mike]

The proof is there alright. The Dubya will always be America's Illegitimate {for lack of a better word} Son.

[ljb5]

Originally posted by Ironmule:
I guess you're determined not to show any evidence of politeness :( As much as you deserve.

Gee, a couple of cops through up a 'spur of the moment' roadblock, and you don't find that suspicious?

Jeff, these were hardly the only reported incidents - what about the 100,000 blacks who were denied the right to vote because Katherine Harris removed their names from the voters rolls because they happened to sound like felons' names?

A county judge, even an election supervisor were removed prevented from voting because someone with a similar name may have been a felon.

Florida was the only state in the country that contracted a private company to purge their rolls - a private company owned by Republicans which drew database from Texas?

Do none of these points add up to anything in your mind?

[ljb5]

Jeff, explain to me again about the Democrats asking blacks to take a test before voting...

In Florida, in 2000, there were hundreds, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of 'voting irregularities' - concentrated in black communities.

How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?

[ 04-07-2004, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: ljb5 ]

[Meerkat]

Originally posted by Alan D. Hyde:
Oh.

Clinton News Network.

Now THAT'S credible. :D

AlanDarned Hyde-bound reactionaries! :D

[WoodenJoe]

I think people in the south registered Democrats because of their views on race. The water fountain incidents happened before the Civil Rights Amendment. Does the forum talk about traditional skipjacks at all?

[ljb5]

A couple of points:

Dixiecrats were not Democrats. They were a separate party (officially: State's Rights Democratic Party)

They left the Democratic party and formed their own party. Strom Thurmond ran for President on the Dixiecrat ticket against Truman, who ran as a Democrat.

Later, Thurmond became a Republican as did most of the Dixiecrats.

That was 60 years ago. Since then, the Republicans have adopted the racist elements in the South and the Democrats have purged themselves. How come you want to talk about 1948, but not about 2000?

Why are you so willing to believe that Democrats (or Dixiecrats) were so racist as to use voter tests, but you can't believe that the Republicans were so racist as to use impediments to vote?

[ 04-07-2004, 08:04 PM: Message edited by: ljb5 ]

[ljb5]

So you admit there were white racists in the South. You admit that the police framed blacks. You admit that white racists stopped blacks from voting. You admit that the white racists left the Democrats, formed the Dixiecrates and later became Republicans.

Yet you deny that white, Southern, racist, Republicans could possibly have stopped blacks from voting.

At what point do the lights go out and you just stop seeing?

[huisjen]

Nobody's brought up Harry Belefonte and Colin Powell yet.

Dan

[John Bell]

There weren't many Republicans in the South 40-50 years ago. Heck, there weren't that many 15 years ago. I'm not saying there is no such thing as a racist Republican either. But by and large, the political process in the South prior to and during the civil rights era was controlled by Dems. The literacy tests and poll taxes were real. Otherwise, why would there be a need for the Voting Rights Act of 196?

Perhaps if you came south and lived for a time you might be able to see that we're not what you think we are. And the change that's occured in the last 40 years is immeasurable. Even today, the change keeps on coming.

White southerners today, democrat, republican and independent, are by an overwhelming majority not racists. It may come as surprise to you, but we're not.

[Jack Heinlen]

Risking more ire, I was accused of racism rather stridently just a month ago, because I backed Fred Reed in decrying affirmative action based on race. I still stand by him. The only institutional racism which still lives in this country is affirmative action.

And let me reiterate, I'm all for affirmative action based on need. People who have a few counts against them because of circumstance need and deserve a hand up. Low interest loans for college if they wish, or for a trade school etc. But what has developed is a quota system, in hiring, in admission to college, based solely on the color of one's skin. Such is bound to effect a backlash, and also lower the bar so that mediocrity is the rule.

It's bound to make people hate themselves and others more not less...themself because it will always niggle that I got something for nothing; others because it will always niggle that they got something for nothing. It's not right. It ought to end, but it won't.

[Dan McCosh]

Regionalism and racism became a non issue when blacks began to migrate north, starting in the 1940s and accelerating in the late 1950s. Strom Thurman himself predicted that the north would change their attitude when enough blacks migrated to the northern cities. I still remember the shock when I saw presumably liberal jews in New York City stoning school buses when they attempted to integrate NYC schools. The KKK dynamited school buses in Pontiac, MI, when the same thing was attempted there. I don't think it's a big surprise that the new Republican party gained much of its strength by embracing the racists that were formerly Democrats. Or that the Democratic party lost much of its national influence when it was divided over issues of race.

[Memphis Mike]

Geeeeez! You guys still at it? Go to your rooms. Right now! :D

[formerlyknownasprince]

Geez, you guys know how to get off topic.

How far divorced from the Rwandan situation are you over there. When are you going to go at it with machetes?

I gotta say, I like the Aussie approach to politics better than what you guys display - but that's a whole different topic too.

Besides, I think Condi is kinda sexy - not in the photos I've seen lately though.

Is it true, as reported over here that four of her classmates were burnt? Are we talking KKK here?

Ian

[ljb5]

Jeff, I believe you. I hear you say that there were white, racist Southerners who controlled politics, controlled the police and abused their power to frame blacks and keep them from voting. I don't doubt for one single minute that that happened.

I didn't know about the voter test, but a lot of people here informed me about.

Here's the problem: You keep telling me all about white Southern racism in the 50s and 60s and how they kept the black man down... but when anyone suggests that white racist southerners may have done the same thing in 2000, you insist that it's impossible.

Explain that to me, troll.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Well, let's see what she has to say today.

Although, in truth, people won't pay much attention to what she has to say; the "show" will be on lunchtime TV in place of a soap opera and people will judge the Administration on how she behaves as much as on what she actually says.

[formerlyknownasprince]

She's still sexy!

[Chris Coose]

Sexy!!
Stippped down like in one of those MM images, I'd bet she'd turn up bonier that any of em.

There is someting thrilling about taking these conservative women out of their woolies though.

Imagine Jean Kirpatrick, Maggie Thatcher or Phyllis Schlafly nekid!!!

[Donn]

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20040407/capt.sge.fbh52.070404063856.photo00.default-256x384.jpg

[Mrleft8]

There's a reason they call her "Condasleaza"...

[stan v]

Had to post to this one. I've seen a couple of you....the ones that bothered to post your 'portraits'....and the only thing uglier than the inside of a liberal, is the outside...*****hounds you ain't. No wonder the left is depressed.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Hello, Stan. Nice to hear from you.

The real problem with your National Security Adiser's appearance before the committee today, as I understand it, is not her televisual quality, described variously as "attractive" and as "schooolmarmish", but the fact that she changed her mind about testifying, which, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, was not awfully clever.

[High C]

Originally posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett:
The real problem with your National Security Adiser's appearance before the committee today, as I understand it, is not her televisual quality, described variously as "attractive" and as "schooolmarmish", but the fact that she changed her mind about testifying, which, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, was not awfully clever.I gather that the decision was not hers to make. Remember the story of Briar Rabbit?

We shall see......

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

That might explain why it was not awfully clever, since she is indeed reputed to be awfully clever!

[LeeG]

Andrew, the problem I'm seeing is that when someone stretches reality to fit the plans at hand,,and are called on it the consequences of defending or attempting to re-interpret what happened simply digs them further into a hole.
Clinton defining "is" for example.
The incoming administration started with a particular agenda and analyzed nearly everything from the previous administration through a lense that filtered out what didn't fit. My reading is that this mistrust/ideological rejection of everything Clinton slowed up the learning curve for the new administration.
This is factual, it can be good or bad but to DENY it is dangerous. It's also factual that there was more expertise in Cold-war politics than middle east politics.
There shouldn't be any problem with saying "Missle defense was more important than counterterrorism when we came into office, we shifted priorities after 9/11 to reflect that reality"
Of courese the reality in Iraq is something else altogether and as Rumsfield says "we know about the known unknowns",,,
Maybe I'm being simplistic but it seems odd that two military men are at the head of the State Dept. and they implemented a plan for occupation. The Defense Dept. is run by two non-military men and they disregarded the plan developed by the State Dept.

[LeeG]

HighC,,at this rate you might imply that someone is responsible for something.

[Memphis Mike]

Well, she will be on in a few minutes. It's going to be interesting to hear the lies the Dubya has instructed her to tell.

"but the fact that she changed her mind about testifying, which, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, was not awfully clever."

That's right. It just goes to show that the Rips are only interested in one thing. The re-installment of the current dictator in chief.

[ 04-08-2004, 08:55 AM: Message edited by: Memphis Mike ]

[stan v]

Originally posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett:
That might explain why it was not awfully clever, since she is indeed reputed to be awfully clever!Have you prepared yourself for the possibility of an attack in London? If and when (likely) this occurs, who's fault will it be? Blair's? If so, what are you doing now to insure the safety of the citizens? Or, like Germany did yesterday, release a few more terrorists because you think their cases are much to weak for conviction? Ugly, ain't it?

[LeeG]

if folks could look at this like taking the car in for repairs and not that the mechanics are out to screw you it would help the dialog a bit. So if the mechanic says, "the rotors were shot" and you ask to see them and explain what that means it's not a condemnation of the mechanic or his integrity,,it means you are interested enough to know what "shot rotors" look like.

Given that most of what goes on in DC is out of the public eye books like Suskinds "The Price of Loyalty" are valuable,,kind of like self-help auto repair manuals.

If you're curious read through readers reviews of the book then look at the position the white house is in with the hearings, and the position the administration is with some folks who buy books.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743255453/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-5701729-9877557?v=glance&s=books&vi=custom er-reviews

[LeeG]

Stan, London,,like a lot of other cities in Europe have experienced bombs and terrorist attacks. It's not something that started on 9/11.

[Ian McColgin]

Karen started the thread referring to the hateful slur that liberals might consider Ms Rice a runaway slave. Alan raised the same thought with his remarks about prominent blacks who are conservitive but have left the 'liberal plantation.'

As it happens, the first colums by Sowell and by Steele that I stumbled across had no pictures of those authors. I just thought they were conservatives of embarrasingly limited ability to muster an arguement. I knew that Judge Thomas was black, but that did not make him any brighter.

Point being: These men and other black conservatives are not subject to special liberal criticism for being black. They are subject to liberal criticism in the measure of their prominence as conservatives. Just as liberal commentators are subject to conservative criticism in measure of their prominence. While some wimpy debators preferr to fight a straw opponent, people who care for the truth prefer to close with the real arguments of real people.

Sowell is carried in my local paper so I read him the most. Neither Sowell nor our local brilliant columnist and reporter Sean Gonsalves is attacked as black. Sowell is regularly roasted as an embarrasment to thinking conservatives and the Cape Cod Times Editor is occasionally bashed as left leaning because Gonsalves has a colum.

One can argue, as some on the left do, that Sowell and Thomas have been promoted far beyond their competance because conservatives so desperatly need to wave some minority folk about. One may argue that they have gained greater prominence because they are black than their erudition would merit. Perhaps, but for whatever reason they are prominent and it's prominence, not skin hue, that makes the target. Anyone expressing such is subject to liberal attack just as anyone expressing ideas such as I hold is subject to conservative attack.

So why, when someone dares attack the stands these conservatives take, do the the conservatives defend not with reason but with a hateful race card reference to runaway slaves and liberal plantations?

I'll admit that Sowell is pretty hard to defend. But Ms Rice, for all I disagree with her, can at least articulate a position without crib notes.

(Edited to correct grammatical error in penultimate paragraph.)

[ 04-08-2004, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: Ian McColgin ]

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Originally posted by stan v:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett:
That might explain why it was not awfully clever, since she is indeed reputed to be awfully clever!Have you prepared yourself for the possibility of an attack in London? If and when (likely) this occurs, who's fault will it be? Blair's? If so, what are you doing now to insure the safety of the citizens? Or, like Germany did yesterday, release a few more terrorists because you think their cases are much to weak for conviction? Ugly, ain't it?</font>[/QUOTE]Stan, you will not be surprised to learn that

(A) our security and medical services do carry out excercises based on various possible attacks by terrorists or rogue states.

(B) the result of each such exercise is always that we were found to be woefully unprepared.

For example, I remember an exercise which took place before September 2001 which posited an aircraft crashing into the reactor containment vessel of our local nuclear power station. This threw up the interesting fact that supplies of iodide tablets for distribution to the affected population did exist, but could not be distributed anything like fast enough, so arrangements were altered accordingly.

However, (B) is what one would expect any thinking politician or paid government official to say, in any event, and anyone can see that effective civil preparation is always impossible.

[stan v]

(B) the result of each such exercise is always that we were found to be woefully unprepared.

That's my point......and our country is how many times larger than yours? About a thousand times?

The difference now however, is you KNOW the attacks are coming. Who do you blame? Blair for not pulling your troops? The USA for kicking terrorists a**? The bible?

[High C]

Originally posted by Ian McColgin:
These men and other black conservatives are not subject to special liberal criticism for being black.Ian, you are terribly wrong about this. Black conservatives are brutalized, expecially by black liberals, for their views. There was a classic example in New Orleans this week. A group of black, liberal ministers sought a meeting with our not so liberal, black, Democrat mayor, Ray Nagan. (Ray is great in my book) In this meeting they called him an Uncle Tom (which I've heard many, many times in reference to Sowell, Thomas, etc.), and ripped him up one side and down the other for "not being black enough". He had disappointed them because he doesn't behave like a typical black liberal activist. You see, being black means being liberal, to them. And anyone who dares stray is pounced upon.

White liberals don't endure racial abuse for their views, but black conservatives most certainly do. It is very common.

[Paul Pless]

Stan,

Its good to hear from you!

Paul

[Ian McColgin]

High C, you're right about the divisions between black 'liberals' and black 'conservatives,' but that issue is not even close to the point.

It's not odd for a community that has suffered great and lasting repression to reject people who appear to seperate themselves from that community experience. One used to see a similar scorn in South Boston for 'lace curtain Irish.'

It's also not odd to hear on the street one black person call another black person 'nigger.' It remains wrong for me to call any person 'nigger.'

The 'establishment,' whether liberal or conservative, is a mostly white operation anyway. The greatest 'black' voices are important to liberal causes but at the same time are very critical of the 'liberal establishment.'

Whatever the arguements and name calling between black liberals and black conservatives, those issues are not in the slightest comperable to the hateful totally invented race card of claiming that liberals view Ms Rice as a runaway slave or conservative blacks as somehow going off the liberal plantation.

Those hateful words were not uttered by black people about other black people.

Those hateful words were not uttered by liberal white people about anybody.

[John Bell]

Diversity is celebrated in the liberal camp, except for diversity of opinion. And to say 'escaped from the liberal plantation' is just a non-PC way of saying it.

People getting all bent out of shape for the phrase doesn't cover for the fact that non-liberal outlooks are not tolerated by so-called black leadership. Straying from their liberal orthodoxy usually winds up with the dissenting party as the recipeint of a litany of personal attacks such "Uncle Tom", "Oreo", "Sell-out", and what-have-you.

I ain't PC and I ain't planning to try to be. People are much too sensitive these days. They need to get over themselves. It ain't that big a deal in my estimation. Sticks and stones, you know the rest...

(But hey! I'm a white European male oppressor, so what do I know? ;) )

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Originally posted by stan v:
(B) the result of each such exercise is always that we were found to be woefully unprepared.

That's my point......and our country is how many times larger than yours? About a thousand times?

The difference now however, is you KNOW the attacks are coming. Who do you blame? Blair for not pulling your troops? The USA for kicking terrorists a**? The bible?Land area: UK - 244,920 sq km, USA - 9,166,600 sq.km

Population: UK 58,489,975, USA 263,168,100

GDP: UK US$ 1,138,400 Bn, USA US$ 7,247,700 Bn

1/37th of the land area, 2/9 of the population.

I'm rather inclined to blame the terrorists.

[Alan D. Hyde]

Ian, the following, by Shelby Steele, is courtesy of the Hoover Institution web site:

HOOVER DIGEST
1999 No. 1

Shelby Steele

The Loneliness of the “Black Conservative”

Shelby Steele on the price of his convictions.

I realized that I was a black conservative when I found myself standing on stages being shamed in public. I had written a book that said, among many other things, that black American leaders were practicing a politics that drew the group into a victim-focused racial identity that, in turn, stifled black advancement more than racism itself did. For reasons that I will discuss shortly, this was heresy in many quarters. And, as I traveled around from one little Puritan village (read “university”) to another, a common scene would unfold.

Whenever my talk was finished, though sometimes before, a virtual militia of angry black students would rush to the microphones and begin to scream. At first I thought of them as Mau Maus but decided this was unfair to the real Mau Maus, who, though ruthless terrorists, had helped bring independence to Kenya in the 1950s. My confronters were not freedom fighters; they were Carrie Nation–like enforcers, racial bluenoses who lived in terror of certain words. Repression was their game, not liberation, and they said as much. “You can’t say that in front of the white man.” “Your words will be used against us.” “Why did you write this book?” “You should only print that in a black magazine.” Their outrage brought to light an ironic and unnoticed transformation in the nature of black American anger from the sixties to the nineties: a shift in focus from protest to suppression, from blowing the lid off to tightening it down. And, short of terrorism, shame is the best instrument of repression.

Of course, most black students did not behave in this way. But the very decency of the majority, black and white, often made the shaming of the minority more effective. So I learned what it was like to stand before a crowd in which a coterie of one’s enemies had the license to shame, while a mixture of decorum and fear silenced the decent people who might have come to one’s aid. I was as vulnerable to the decency as to the shaming since together they amounted to shame. And it is never fun to be called “an opportunist,” “a house slave,” and so on while university presidents sit in the front row and avert their eyes. But this really is the point: The goal of shaming was never to win an argument with me; it was to make a display of shame that would make others afraid for themselves, that would cause eyes to avert. I was more the vehicle than the object, and what I did was almost irrelevant. Shame’s victory was in the averted eyes, the cowering of decency.

After the sixties, victimization became so rich a vein of black power that it was allowed not only to explain black fate but to explain it totally.

Today a public “black conservative” will surely meet a stunning amount of animus, demonization, misunderstanding, and flat-out, undifferentiated contempt. And there is a kind of licensing process involved here in which the black leadership—normally protective even of people like Marion Barry and O. J. Simpson—licenses blacks and whites to have contempt for the black conservative. It is a part of the group’s manipulation of shame to let certain of its members languish outside the perimeter of group protection where even politically correct whites (who normally repress criticism of blacks) can show contempt for them.

Not long ago I heard a white female professional at a racially mixed dinner table call Clarence Thomas an incompetent beneficiary of affirmative action—the same woman whom I had heard on another occasion sneer at the idea that affirmative action stigmatized women and minorities as incompetent. Feminists who happily vote for Bill Clinton are free to loathe Clarence Thomas. In a sense Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ward Connerly, Stanley Crouch, myself, and many, many others represent a new class of “unprotected” blacks. By my lights there is something a little avant-garde in this. But, as with any avant-garde, the greater freedom is paid for in a greater exposure to contempt and shame.

The Czech writer Milan Kundera—a man whose experience under the hegemony of the Communist Party taught him much about the shaming power of groups over the individual—says that shame transforms a person “from a subject to an object,” causes shamed persons to lose their “status as individuals.” And to suffer this fate means that the group—at least symbolically—has determined to annihilate you. Of course we have no gulags in black America, but black group authority—like any group authority—defines itself as much by whom it annihilates as by whom it celebrates. Thus it not only defines group, it also defines grouplessness. And here, on this negative terrain, where his or her exclusion sharpens the group identity, the black conservative lingers as a kind of antithesis.

But is this loneliness? I’m not sure.

The problem for the black conservative is more his separation from the authority of his racial group than from the actual group. He stands outside a group authority so sharply defined and monolithic that it routinely delivers more than 90 percent of the black vote to whatever Democrat runs for president. The black conservative may console himself with the idea that he is on the side of truth, but even truth is cold comfort against group authority (which very often has no special regard for truth). White supremacy focused white America’s group authority for three centuries before truth could even begin to catch up. Group authority is just as likely to be an expression of collective ignorance as of truth; but it is always, in a given era, more powerful than truth.

All of this is made worse by the fact that black Americans have been a despised minority surrounded by indifference and open hatred. An individual’s failure of group love is a far greater infraction among blacks because it virtually allies that individual with the enemy all around. An Uncle Tom is someone whose failure to love his own people makes him an accessory to their oppression. So group love (in one form or another) is a preoccupation in black life because of the protective function it serves, because we want to use the matter of love as a weapon of shame and thus as an enforcer of conformity. Love adds the seriousness and risk to nonconformity.

If this gives black America the means to enforce its group authority—and its explanation of its fate—it also plagues us with a repressive, one-party politics. Because of historic vulnerability and the resulting insistence on conformity around a single strategic explanation of group fate, black America has not yet achieved a two-party politics. Thus black conservatives do not yet constitute a loyal opposition; they are, instead, classic dissenters. This differentiates them from white conservatives, who work out of a two-party group. In his dissent from a one-party–one-explanation group politics, the black conservative lives the life of a dissenter, a life too conspicuously gambled on belief, a life openly subversive to his own group and often impractical for himself—a life at odds.

What, in fact, is a black conservative?

Well, he is not necessarily a Republican or free-market libertarian or religious fundamentalist, pro-lifer, trickle-down economist, or neocon. I have met blacks in all these categories who are not considered conservatives.

The liberal-conservative axis is a bit different for blacks than for Americans generally. Under his American identity a black Republican is conservative, but under his racial identity he may be quite liberal. Many black Republicans, for example, are intense supporters of preferential affirmative action and thus liberal in terms of their group identity. (Colin Powell is a case in point, as is Arthur Fletcher, a black Republican who helped President Nixon introduce America’s first racial preference in the famous “Philadelphia Plan.”) But the “new” black conservatives—the ones who have recently become so controversial—may even be liberal by their American identity but are definitely conservative by the terms of their group identity. It is their dissent from the explanation of black group authority that brings them the “black conservative” imprimatur. Without this dissent we may have a black Republican but not a “black conservative,” as the term has come to be used.

And what is this explanation of black group authority? In a word it is victimization. Not only is victimization made to explain the hard fate of blacks in American history, but it is also asked to explain the current inequalities between blacks and whites and the difficulties blacks have in overcoming them. Certainly no explanation of black difficulties would be remotely accurate were it to ignore racial victimization. On the other hand, victimization does not in fact explain the entire fate of blacks in America, nor does it entirely explain their difficulties today. It was also imagination, courage, the exercise of free will, and a very definite genius that enabled blacks not only to survive victimization but also to create a great literature, utterly transform Western music, help shape the American language, expand and deepen the world’s concept of democracy, influence popular culture around the globe, and so on. No people with this kind of talent, ingenuity, and self-inventiveness would allow victimization so singularly to explain their fate unless it had become a primary source of power. And this is precisely what happened after the sixties. Victimization became so rich a vein of black power—even if it was only the power to “extract” reforms (with their illusion of deliverance) from the larger society—that it was allowed not only to explain black fate but to explain it totally.

The black woman journalist sitting across from me was young and Ivy League educated, and she might have been an advertisement for any number of blessings, including good fortune. “I don’t think we can tell the story of our victimization enough,” she said.

A black woman journalist I met recently for lunch said, “I don’t think we can tell the story of our victimization enough.” We were talking about an article she was writing. She was young, Ivy League educated, and, sitting across from me in the patio restaurant, she might have been an advertisement for any number of blessings—good health, good upbringing, good fortune. Politely we argued about how much victimization blacks were still subjected to. I said it was number three or four on the list of things that held blacks back. She said it was number one. And here we had arrived at one of the most telling impasses two black Americans can reach. Her number-one ranking aligned her with the explanation of black fate on which black group authority rests. For her, victimization was not a fact of black life, it was the fact. It was a totalism—an ultratruth that not only supersedes but that makes a taboo of all other truths. My lower ranking of racism as a barrier violated this taboo, put me at odds with black group authority, and made me, alas, a “black conservative.”

Very simply, then, a black conservative is a black who dissents from the victimization explanation of black fate when it is offered as a totalism—when it is made the main theme of group identity and the raison d’être of a group politics.

The young journalist was a liberal and in harmony with black group authority because of a predetermined willingness, even commitment, to seeing two things: that black difficulty in America was the result of ongoing racial victimization and that white America was responsible for bringing change. The only time she transgressed her natural politeness was when she smugly said, “Well, obviously we have a different time schedule as to when white people ought to be let off the hook.” Certainly even a black conservative would not want to let white people off the hook. And yet, as time marches on, I can’t help but feel that a far greater danger for blacks is the belief that doing so makes a difference. What is clear is that a group politics devoted to keeping whites on the hook also requires that victimization be a totalism in black life—that it define group identity, become a part of the self-image of individual blacks, and keep in play a permanently contentious relationship with whites.

I said to her that when victimization is treated as a totalism, it keeps us from understanding the true nature of our suffering. It leads us to believe that all suffering is victimization and that all relief comes from the guilty good-heartedness of others. But people can suffer from bad ideas, from ignorance, fear, a poor assessment of reality, and from a politics that commits them to the idea of themselves as victims, among other things. When black group authority covers up these other causes of suffering just so whites will feel more responsible—and stay on the hook—then that authority actually encourages helplessness in its own people so that they might be helped by whites. It tries to make black weakness profitable by selling it as the white man’s burden.

“But isn’t it really about power? And if victimization brings power, it’s the power that counts.” She surprised me. I hadn’t realized she was even listening. “I mean, you could say that whites got power by killing the Indians and enslaving the blacks. That’s worse than using your history of victimization to get power. People get power all sorts of ways.”

We were outside the restaurant now, and she was hurrying to cover the few blocks to her rented car to make her next appointment. Working to keep pace, I suddenly felt a familiar doubt. Let’s call it the black conservative doubt—the feeling that one is talking into a void, that one might be right, might even have a compelling piece of truth, but that it is a truth unattached to any necessity, a truth with no means of enforcing itself. Often people don’t listen as much for the truth as for the necessity that will hold them accountable to the truth. Failing to hear any such necessity, they can conclude that the truth itself has no relevance.

The great problem for the black conservative is that the necessity of his or her truth is hidden so that it seems irrelevant, academic. What keeps it hidden is the symbiosis between whites and blacks by which they agree to let victimization totally explain black difficulty. Whites agree to stay on this hook for an illusion of redemption, and blacks agree to keep them there for an illusion of power. I can say that these investments are illusions, that whites have no real redemption, and that blacks have no real power, but then what do I have? That’s really what the young journalist was saying to me as we walked to her car. Government, corporate America, universities, foundations—they were all in the business of seeing blacks as victims, of trading an illusion of power for an illusion of redemption. Everybody was practiced in these negotiations, so the fact that they encouraged helplessness in blacks, kept them mired in a victim-focused identity, gave them a disinvestment in success and an investment in failure . . . well. The black conservative is at odds with a very cozy and very functional symbiosis, and there is always something to be said for function. He may believe that there are bodies under the floorboards, but until that truth is more widely understood, there is not much necessity in what he says.

I was not surprised when we turned a corner and came upon the journalist’s rental car. It was a huge, white Lincoln Towncar with plush leather upholstery, and it sat so regally on the street that the smaller cars around it seemed to compose its court. I thought she might apologize for it, as people often do with their ostentations, but she said only that she had a “good” expense account. After quickly shaking my hand good-bye, she swung open the driver’s door and all but plunged in. In a moment the white boat was floating down the street.

***

Excerpted from A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America, by Shelby Steele, published by HarperCollins. Used with permission.

A Dream Deferred, by Shelby Steele, was recently published by HarperCollins. For ordering information, visit the HarperCollins web site at www.harpercollins.com. (http://www.harpercollins.com.) Available from the Hoover Press is the Hoover Essay Race, Culture, and Equality, by Thomas Sowell. To order, call 800-935-2882.

***

Is this not at least a little bit thought-provoking, Ian???

***
Alan

[ 04-08-2004, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Alan D. Hyde ]

[Wild Wassa]

Runaway slave ... or just a counter jumper? She is a good scape goat never-the-less, for the middle aged white boys.

What flies did Georgie swat? Why didn't he swat that fly? Very funny questioning, the applause made it seem like a typical sitcom.

She said that, "she was blown away." :D . Did she inhale?

Warren.

ps, Is sexy the positive reframe for but-ugly?

[Ian McColgin]

Uhhhhh. There's huge diversity of opinion among liberals. It's open-mindedness to truth, not fear of diversity, that drives stuff like Shockley's claims to the genetic inferiority of blacks, the protocols of zion, creationism and other hate driven forms of pseudo-science from the liberal camp..

[John Bell]

Originally posted by Ian McColgin:
Uhhhhh. There's huge diversity of opinion among liberals. It's open-mindedness to truth, not fear of diversity, that drives stuff like Shockley's claims to the genetic inferiority of blacks, the protocols of zion, creationism and other hate driven forms of pseudo-science from the liberal camp..Those things aren't part of the mainstream conservative camp either. Nor is conservatism driven by hate.

There are more than enough whackos on either side, would'nt you agree?

Alan's article better illustrates my point, I think.

[ 04-08-2004, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: John Bell ]

[Memphis Mike]

Well, I should have known. When in doubt, blame Clinton. I'm surprised she hasn't said it was the BJ's fault altogether.

[LeeG]

Alan, imagine the loneliness of the gay conservative.

[ 04-08-2004, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: LeeG ]

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

That article was an eye opener for me.

I think I might observe that this debate has no parallel with us; we don't seem to have a racial divide matching a political divide. Fortunately.

I was just discussing Ms Rice's performance with a colleague, who was mainly interested in the fact that she might have chosen to be a concert pianist. My colleague is a (very) middle class West Indian.

[ 04-08-2004, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Andrew Craig-Bennett ]

[Alan D. Hyde]

Lee, one may or may not be a choice (the science isn't yet conclusive), the other is decidedly not a choice, except for a few who may be able to "pass."

Alan

[LeeG]

I'm speaking of identity and isolation. Not aspects of homosexuality. Jack may chose to be isolated, but the feelings are real just the same. The conservative wing of the Republican Party is hostile to homosexuality but one might identify with the conservative values in the Republican party and be a homosexual. I'm just bringing up another group who might clain special status of being lonely.

[Bruce G]

Great to hear from you Stan V=== welcome back!!!!

I think she did an outstanding job today! I loved that she had the ability to show the neolibs on the committee that she was not going to be talked over or talked at! Her ability to answer each question thoroughly was outstanding, for she had the knowledge and stamina to not faulter when the dim's tried to goad her. Great job!!!!

[LeeG]

Bruce, although the term "neolib" is cute it really doesn't identify an ideology as specific as neo-con, Democrat doesn't signify liberal anymore than Republican sidnifies neo-con.

[LeeG]

Bruce, this naming game can be confusing,, here's an activist neo-con (self-identified) who reflects in a peculiar way the arrogance of the neo-con movement. Religion building,,cocky fellow.

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=23221

[Bruce G]

So what's your point Lee? Do you want me to start calling all the liberals idiots instead? I thought neolib was a little kinder ;)

[High C]

Lee, I suspect Bruce is making fun of some on this board who call pretty much any Republican a "Neocon", even those who were conservatives and/or Republicans long before the term Neocon was coined.

I know you're a Paleolib. ;)

[Bruce G]

Originally posted by High C:
Lee, I suspect Bruce is making fun of some on this board who call pretty much any Republican a "Neocon", even those who were conservatives and/or Republicans long before the term Neocon was coined.

I know you're a Paleolib. ;) :D You hit the nail right on the head :D

[Donn]

I hope the press reports on her reactions to Kerrey, when he asked her why the administration didn't respond militarily to the Cole bombing. Paraphrasing here...she answered something like this; "As I said, we didn't feel that a tit for tat reaction to every incident would serve any purpose. I also recall, Senator Kerrey, a speech you gave at the time, suggesting that we shouldn't react to every incident, and should concentrate on threats like Saddam Hussein." The crowd applauded her, and Kerrey turned bright red and grinned.

Edited to correct spelling of "Kerrey."

[ 04-08-2004, 04:02 PM: Message edited by: Donn ]

[LeeG]

BruceG, trash talking is fun but if one sticks with the names people are willing to describe themselves with then one is likely to get closer to the heart of the argument and not the verbal equivalent of pissing in the wind.

[Alan D. Hyde]

"I hope the press reports on her reactions to Kerry, when he asked her why the administration didn't respond militarily to the Cole bombing. Paraphrasing here...she answered something like this; 'As I said, we didn't feel that a tit for tat reaction to every incident would serve any purpose. I also recall, Senator Kerry, in a speech you gave at the time, your suggesting that we shouldn't react to every incident, and should concentrate on threats like Saddam Hussein.' The crowd applauded her, and Kerry turned bright red and grinned."

Well posted, Donn. :D :D :D

And well said, Ms. Rice. :D :D :D

Alan

[ 04-08-2004, 03:56 PM: Message edited by: Alan D. Hyde ]

[High C]

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/lorejj20/ToyRoom/100_Brer_Rabbit.jpg

[JimD]

Originally posted by Alan D. Hyde:
"I hope the press reports on her reactions to Kerry, when he asked her why the administration didn't respond militarily to the Cole bombing. Paraphrasing here...she answered something like this; 'As I said, we didn't feel that a tit for tat reaction to every incident would serve any purpose. I also recall, Senator Kerry, in a speech you gave at the time, your suggesting that we shouldn't react to every incident, and should concentrate on threats like Saddam Hussein.' The crowd applauded her, and Kerry turned bright red and grinned."

Well posted, Donn. :D :D :D

And well said, Ms. Rice. :D :D :D

Alan:D I haven't been watching but I hope that one makes the evening CNN report. Too funny :D

[Greg H]

Aside from her selective memory, her inability to accept any hint of responsability and deftness at passing on blame to everyone except those in the current acting administration, she did ok. By speaking alone she did show that she has bigger gronicals than the w, he's got to have Dick along to hold his hand. Might get confused ya know.

[Donn]

Here's that part of the transcript:

"KERREY: You've used the phrase a number of times, and I'm hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future.

You said the president was tired of swatting flies.

Can you tell me one example where the president swatted a fly when it came to al-Qaida prior to 9-11?

RICE: I think what the president was speaking to was ...

KERREY: No, no. What fly had he swatted?

RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on ...

KERREY: No, no ...

RICE: ... when the CIA would go after Abu Zubaydah ...

KERREY: He hadn't swatted ...

RICE: ... or go after this guy ...

KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn't ...

RICE: That was what was meant.

KERREY: We only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August 1998. We didn't swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?

RICE: We swatted at - I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that's what he meant by swatting flies. It was simply a figure of speech.

KERREY: Well, I think it's an unfortunate figure of speech because I think, especially after the attack on the Cole on the 12th of October, 2000, it would not have been swatting a fly. It would not have been - we did not need to wait to get a strategic plan.

Dick Clarke had in his memo on the 20th of January overt military operations. He turned that memo around in 24 hours, Dr. Clarke. There were a lot of plans in place in the Clinton administration - military plans in the Clinton administration.

In fact, since we're in the mood to declassify stuff, there was - he included in his January 25th memo two appendices - Appendix A: Strategy for the elimination of the jihadist threat of al-Qaida; Appendix B: Political military plan for al-Qaida.

So I just - why didn't we respond to the Cole?

RICE: Well, we ...

KERREY: Why didn't we swat that fly?

RICE: I believe that there's a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense; whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and go after every - on a kind of tit-for-tat basis.

By the way, in that memo, Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit-for-tat, doing this on the time of our choosing.

I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein.

That's a strategic view ...

(APPLAUSE)

And we took a strategic view. We didn't take a tactical view. I mean, it was really - quite frankly, I was blown away when I read the speech, because it's a brilliant speech. It talks about really ...

(LAUGHTER)

... an asymmetric ...

KERREY: I presume you read it in the last few days?

RICE: Oh no, I read it quite a bit before that. It's an asymmetric approach.

Now, you can decide that every time al-Qaida ...

KERREY: So you're saying that you didn't have a military response against the Cole because of my speech?

RICE: I'm saying, I'm saying ...

(LAUGHTER)

RICE: No.

KERREY: That had I not given that speech you would have attacked them?

RICE: No, I'm just saying that I think it was a brilliant way to think about it.

KERREY: I think it's ...

RICE: It was a way of thinking about it strategically, not tactically. But if I may answer the question that you've asked me.

The issue of whether to respond - or how to respond to the Cole - I think Don Rumsfeld has also talked about this.

Yes, the Cole had happened. We received, I think on January 25th, the same assessment - or roughly the same assessment - of who was responsible for the Cole that Sandy Berger talked to you about.

It was preliminary. It was not clear. But that was not the reason that we felt that we did not want to, quote, respond to the Cole.

We knew that the options that had been employed by the Clinton administration had been standoff options. The president had - meaning missile strikes or perhaps bombers would have been possible, long-range bombers. Although getting in place the apparatus to use long-range bombers is even a matter of whether you have basing in the region."

(Emphasis added)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1151&slug=Sept.%2011%20Commission%20Text%2020

[Ian McColgin]

I've been out fooling about on the boat and not seen Ms Rice's testimoney so at this point I can only respond to Alan's moving C&P.

I have friends who are conservative and black, a few conservative and gay, and one black gay old-rite Roman Catholic. Their's indeed is a lonely road. As the reminisence shows, such folk take a great deal of racially toned heat from black liberals. They also take a good deal of issue oriented heat from white liberals.

The remark attributed to an unnamed white woman at a dinner party about Judge Thomas and affirmative action is disgraceful. If anyone said such a thing in my presnece or in the presence of any of my liberal friends, censure would be immediate.

My point has to do with white people, apparantly conservative republicans, saying that other white people, liberal democrats, view black conservatives as runaway slaves from the liberal plantation. This is a racist, hateful and false thing to say.

[Bruce G]

Originally posted by LeeG:
pissing in the wind.So what is that like? I was always smart enough not to do that ;)

[Donn]

Originally posted by Ian McColgin:
I've been out fooling about on the boat ..One hopes that this is a sign that you will soon be sailing, and not regaling us with your political dogma. tongue.gif

[Meerkat]

Originally posted by Donn:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ian McColgin:
I've been out fooling about on the boat ..One hopes that this is a sign that you will soon be sailing, and not regaling us with your political dogma. tongue.gif </font>[/QUOTE]Don't go too far or for too long Ian - I'd rather hear from you that from Donn.

[Meerkat]

We knew that the options that had been employed by the Clinton administration had been standoff options. The president had - meaning missile strikes or perhaps bombers would have been possible, long-range bombers. Although getting in place the apparatus to use long-range bombers is even a matter of whether you have basing in the region. There was a provision for long range bombing of targets in Afghanistan. The Clinton administration had a tomahawk equipped submarine on permanent station off the coast of Pakistan in the event there was sufficient intellgence to support a successful attack against bin Ladin. The sub was taken off station immediately after the Shrubbery came to power.

[ljb5]

We knew that the options that had been employed by the Clinton administration had been standoff options. The president had - meaning missile strikes or perhaps bombers would have been possible, long-range bombers. Although getting in place the apparatus to use long-range bombers is even a matter of whether you have basing in the region.I once heard that long-range bombers can take off from Missouri, refuel in midair, drop bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan and land in Diego Garcia.

Anyone else ever hear that?

[ljb5]

She said, "basing in the region" not "overflight permission." It may be a semantic difference, but I think it is significant.

[imported_Conrad]

Newsmax/Washington Post: 1995!!!

"What's more, by the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. intelligence had known for years that al Qaeda wanted to train kamikaze pilots to carry out 9/11-style attacks against buildings like the World Trade Center.

Reports published just two months after 9/11 explained that the blueprint for 9/11 attacks was uncovered during 1995 interrogations of Abdul Hakim Murad, partner of convicted 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef.

According to the Washington Post, Yousef's plot to plant bombs on 12 commercial U.S. airliners and blow them up over the Pacific "called for a second, perhaps even more ambitious phase, as interrogators discovered when they pressed Murad about his pilot's license.

"All those years in flight school, he confessed, had been in preparation for a suicide mission. He was to buy, rent, or steal -- that part of the plan had not yet been worked out -- a small plane, preferably a Cessna, fill it with explosives and crash it into CIA headquarters."

The Post continued:

"There were secondary targets the terrorist cell wanted hit: Congress, the White House, the Pentagon and possibly some skyscrapers. The only problem, Murad complained, was that they needed more trained pilots to carry out the plot."

What's clear is that under Osama bin Laden's direction, the two plots were merged, and Murad's Cessna suicide mission evolved into the hijacking of four commercial U.S. airliners. In fact, the 1997 Daily News report says that while Murad attended U.S. flight schools, he "studied 747s."

The above information is far more specific than anything reportedly revealed in the Aug. 6, 2001 briefing given to President Bush - and was available to President Clinton via published reports [if not through the intelligence briefings he routinely avoided] for most of his second term in office.

As the media point fingers at Bush, however, no one seems particularly interested in asking Mr. Clinton why he ignored for years relatively clear warnings that 9/11 was coming.

[ljb5]

So much for Condi's "I don't think anyone could have imagined that terrorists would crash planes into buildings...."

[brad9798]

The flight pattern has been over my house for over one year now, lbj ...

As matter of fact, sister's boyfriend is an airforce capt. --- They take off in the morning and return the next evening ... been doing it for 18 months months now ...

They are RATHER tired upon their return ... then do it again in about 3-4 days ...