A Hypothetical Duck in the White House

[Shodan]

@Zoe

How would you compare Travelgate with the awarding of contracts to Halliburton?

They aren’t very comparable.

Halliburton has been getting government contracts for decades, literally. Brown & Root, now a part of Halliburton, was attacked for getting rebuilding contracts from the government during the Viet Nam war, and in 1966 there were calls on the House floor to investigate the contributions that Brown and Root made to LBJ. By Don Rumsfeld. And the Clinton administration awarded the single-source, no-bid contract for rebuilding in the Balkans, which won praise from Al Gore’s panel on reinventing government.

The oil-fire contract awarded to Halliburton was an extension of a contract that Halliburton won thru competitive bidding in 2001. The commander of the Army Corps of Engineers referred to a suggestion of inviting other bidders on this classified project as “a wasteful duplication of effort”.

@Zoe

Did any of the lies that the Clintons told or that Nixon told compare in scope of importance to the misinformation (whether intentional or unintentional) of the current Administration?

Well, you can’t tell an “unintentional lie”. Lies are statements uttered with intent to deceive, when the maker is aware that his statement is false. Nixon clearly did that. Clinton clearly did that, as the judge found in his civil trial. Bush has not. There is no evidence, as I have stated again and again (and again), that Bush lied deliberately.

In common with Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Madeline Albright, the UN inspectors, and practically everyone else on the planet, Bush believed that Saddam had WMD. Either all of them lied, or none of them lied. And if you want me to believe that all of them lied, you need to produce evidence that shows that Saddam disarmed that was available before the invasion of Iraq.

Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq was that Saddam had not cooperated, fully, with the inspection regime. Which he did not. After 9/11, Bush gave Saddam one more chance to come clean completely. Saddam did not, and things went on from there.

I realized that it is no use explaining this to some people. The usual Bush-bashing idiots of the extreme Left, of which we have far more than we need on the SDMB, are bound and determined to insist, ever more loudly and with ever more foam flying from their lips, that BushLied!BushLied!BushLied!BushLied!BushLied!BushLied! And their only response to any suggestion that they might be overstating the case, is BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED! followed by BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!BUSHLIED!

The difference is also that Nixon and Clinton knowingly made false statements that were self-serving, and usually in pursuit of a cover-up of something damaging. It would be the equivalent of Bush faking some WMD in Iraq. Which he has not done.

So, again, most of the attacks on Bush are just partisan bullshit. The attacks on Nixon (and Clinton) were not. Nixon was really guilty. So was Clinton. Bush is not.

@Zoe

As for the Constitution, some considered the night of October 20, 1973 (when Nixon seemed fired the special prosecutor, among others) to have bordered on a Constitutional crisis. There was some fear that he might declare martial law. When I look back now, I’m not even sure why we were frightened.

Nor am I. The system worked. And, to give him what credit he deserves, Nixon did not force the issue and make the House impeach him, or the Senate remove him from office. He resigned, and did not declare martial law. (Not that anyone would have gone along with it).

Compare that, if you will, with the behavior of Clinton on the eve of his impeachment. He bombed Iraq, knowing (if you want to insist that anyone who believed Iraq had WMD is lying) that he was killing Iraqis for no other reason than to cling to office. Or if he wasn’t lying, that he was willing to use the military, and to kill Iraqis, for no better reason. And his timing for that action was, to say the least, suspicious, and his action ineffective.

@Zoe

But under the current Administration, some Constitutional rights are already suspended. How strong is the Constitution if we allow exceptions? With the future looking as if we may have to learn to live with the threat of terrorism, will we have to learn to live with these exceptions? Do you think the Patriot Act will be extended?

Your honest input is appreciated.

The Patriot Act will probably not be extended. Another bill with a different name will be.

Which Constitutional rights have been suspended?

If you are talking about Guantanamo, those people are either not citizens, or are essentially terrorists. Not exactly soldiers, and not exactly criminals under arrest. And I frankly think the notion that martial law is looming because we are holding prisoners under conditions entirely humane when the ACLU thinks they ought to be sitting in Club Fed with round-the-clock lawyers is silly. I don’t usually care for slippery slope arguments, and this instance seems particularly foolish. To hear some liberals argue, you would think we were holding nightly torture sessions, or that John Ashcroft is breaking down peoples’ doors in the dead of night. He isn’t, and suggestions that he is are just cries of “Wolf! Wolf!”

Certainly there have been un-Constitutional actions by Presidents. FDR rounded up the Japanese. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Truman did the whole loyalty oath thing. Compared with any of that, the Patriot Act is a game of “Mother, May I?”

Regards,
Shodan

[rjung]

No offense, but asking Shodan to describe Travelgate makes as much sense as asking John Travolta to review Battlefield Earth – it’s only useful if you want a self-serving, heavily slanted distortion of reality.

Try this for another view of the Travelgate mess. Pay particular attention to how the mainstream media was biased against the Clintons in the matter, because Hillary was taking away their perks and bennies.

White House press travel perks were mentioned in stories and columns in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, Time, and The Washington Monthly, all of which alluded to a more questionable travel office practice – looking the other way when reporters avoid taxes and duties on goods from around the world. Kenneth Walker, a former White House correspondent for ABC News, wrote in The Christian Science Monitor that many White House journalists “point proudly to expensive collectibles and furnishings in their homes that were collected from around the world and on which they paid not one penny of duty. . . . All this was abetted by the White House travel office.”

[dropzone]

Before we dismiss President Harding as just another duck in the thrall of his crooked buddies we must remember his painful demise and the sacrifice of one government servant as he fought to prevent a full takeover of the Federal Government by the undead.

[Skywatcher]

@Zoe

Yes, I was referring to the “if it looks like a duck” method of accessment.

Believe me, I won’t do that again!

Lame.

[elucidator]

@Shodan

…If you are talking about Guantanamo, those people are either not citizens, or are essentially terrorists…

Well, now that you bring it up…we don’t call them “citizen’s rights”, by and large, they generally go under the term “human rights”. Perhaps this is nothing more than a coy fantasy to you, but some of us take them rather seriously. Seriously enough to believe they should be extended to anyone, regardless of citizenry.

As to those dreadful terrorists at Gitmo, we know less about them than we know about the surface of Mars, specificly because we are not allowed to. What we do is that some twenty or thirty have been released without charges after a couple years of imprisonment.

Is it your contention that we have released dreadful, rabid terrorists loose upon the world? Or that it took us two years to find out these people weren’t anybody in particular?

As to the rabid repititions of “liar”…well, we can cut some slack there. When he said he was entirely certain about his basis for war, we can simply say that he was entirely certain, but entirely wrong. Not mendacious, merely incompetent. You are welcome to whatever comfort you can take from that.

Like Sam, you loyalty would be commendable if it were not squandered on such an unworthy target.

[Amok]

@Zoe

In the event that an intellectually impaired, emotionally unintelligent and/or criminally corrupt citizen became the President of the United States, what clues would we have?

Intellectually impaired, and emotionally unitelligent (whatever that might be) are not objective qualities. Criminally corrupt might be, depending on how you define it, but I’d say the only proof of it is if the person is convicted of a corruption-related crime (not too likely for a President, but I suppose not impossible). As such, we can not tell if someone posseses these qualities, and attempting to determine if they do is futile.

Duckness, on the other hand, is an objective quality, and could easily be determined.

[milroyj]

@elucidator

Well, now that you bring it up…we don’t call them “citizen’s rights”, by and large, they generally go under the term “human rights”. Perhaps this is nothing more than a coy fantasy to you, but some of us take them rather seriously. Seriously enough to believe they should be extended to anyone, regardless of citizenry.

How do you figure that, elucidator? I seriously doubt that the Framers, when contemplating a Constitution for “We, the People of the United States”, were considering the “human rights” of the British, French, or the Barbary pirates. If you have evidence to the contrary, please do share.

[Miller]

@milroyj

How do you figure that, elucidator? I seriously doubt that the Framers, when contemplating a Constitution for “We, the People of the United States”, were considering the “human rights” of the British, French, or the Barbary pirates. If you have evidence to the contrary, please do share.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And you call yourself a patriot.

[milroyj]

@Miller

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And you call yourself a patriot.

Your quote would be from the Declaration, not the Constitution.

And you call yourself an idiot.

[Amok]

Not only were all men created equal, but all ducks were created equal too. But persumably not equal to men.

[Miller]

@milroyj

Your quote would be from the Declaration, not the Constitution.

And you call yourself an idiot.

Actually, you got me there. For some reason, I had it in my head that you’d said “Fathers” not “framers.” Shoulda read more carefully. Score one for you.

[milroyj]

@Miller

Actually, you got me there. For some reason, I had it in my head that you’d said “Fathers” not “framers.” Shoulda read more carefully. Score one for you.

Fair enough, no harm, no foul.

[elucidator]

Nonetheless, Milroyj brings up a point, deserving a straight and sincere response.

No, I don’t regard the Framers/Fathers as the be-all and end-all, I think they set in motion an experiment that they only dimly understood. Any number of our beloved Forefathers would have been aghast at the very notion of a man without suitable property holdings being allowed an equal civic voice as his betters.

As well, they lacked clarity on many important points. For instance, in the 2nd Amendment, there is much wasted verbage about “well-ordered militias” when everyone knows the real purpose was to assure that my drunken redneck cousin access to the assault rifle of his dreams. Kinda guy goes deer hunting, he really needs that full-auto option.

Did the Founders/Framers intend to launch a global “human rights” movement? Some did, most didn’t. But we have improved upon that, we have gone forward. After all, isn’t the truth of “human rights” the foundation of the pretty hypocrisy of “liberating” another country, and bringing to them the benefits of a guided democracy?

[milroyj]

elucidator, just to clarify, out of (perhaps morbid) curiousity, do you really believe that the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America rises to the level of a “human right”?

That sounds terribly conceited to suppose that US’ers, in Congress Assembled, would be able to determine what “human rights” are.

So what other Amendments do you consider to be “human rights”? Surely not the 2nd, as you don’t believe that is even an American right, so we’ll leave that aside.

How about the others then? Is female suffrage a human right? 18-yr old suffrage? Hell, was Prohibition a human right? Or its repeal? Direct election of Senators? The income tax?

I submit that the Constitution, being a pact between the people of the US and their government, has precious little to do with human rights at all.

I also submit that the Taliban and Al-Queda have no rights whatsoever, as far as the Constitution is concerned.

YMMV, more likely than not.

[elucidator]

You misunderstand. I don’t feel obligated to confine my notions of human rights to a Constitutional framework, the Founding Fuckups were not and are not the beginning and end of the concept. For instance, certain rightarded jurists are adamant in thier insistence that the Constitution does not specify a right to privacy. While I consider that question still open after entire forests have been sacrificed, if there is no such specificity, there should be.

A law that needlessly infringes on the right to privacy doesn’t have to be unconstitutional to be wrong. The Bible makes no mention of telemarketing or spammers, but can anyone doubt thier destiny includes hellfire and damnation?

[milroyj]

@elucidator

You misunderstand.

Perhaps I did. If you want to make a human rights argument about the Gitmo detainees, go right ahead.

(Although I respectfully reserve the right to disagree.)

OTOH, I’m tired of hearing the claim that the very existence of said detainees is somehow unconstitutional, a claim, which at best, is undecided.

[Zoe]

From then Senator John Ashcroft, October 1997:

…We do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?
The protections of the Fourth Amendment are clear. The right to protection from unlawful searches is an indivisible American value. Two hundred years of court decisions have stood in defense of this fundamental right. **The state’s interest in effective crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens’ Bill of Rights. **(bold type added)

excerpted from this site: http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/1097/ijge/gj-7.htm

My understanding is that the Patriot Act allows for government monitoring of emails, easier access to wiretaping, access to personal and private information such as medical records, library records, bookstore purchases, student information and banking records. It is easier to search someone’s home without their knowledge or notification.

Not only are non-U.S. citizens held on U.S. territory without charges and access to legal assistance, but it has also happened to U.S. citizens too. The Supreme Court will hear two cases this month involving the rights of citizens to due process:

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld 9 http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1723/

Rumsfeld v. Padilla (an “enemy combatant” captured in Chicago and held without charges)

Shodan: Well, you can’t tell an “unintentional lie”. <snip> And if you want me to believe that all of them lied, you need to produce evidence that shows that Saddam disarmed that was available before the invasion of Iraq.

Please notice how I phrased what I actually said:

Zoe: Did any of the lies that the Clintons told or that Nixon told compare in scope of importance to the misinformation (whether intentional or unintentional) of the current Administration? (bold type added this time)

Shodan: The difference is also that Nixon and Clinton knowingly made false statements that were self-serving, and usually in pursuit of a cover-up of something damaging.

I love irony.

Shodan: Compare that, if you will, with the behavior of Clinton on the eve of his impeachment. He bombed Iraq, knowing (if you want to insist that anyone who believed Iraq had WMD is lying) that he was killing Iraqis for no other reason than to cling to office. Or if he wasn’t lying, that he was willing to use the military, and to kill Iraqis, for no better reason. And his timing for that action was, to say the least, suspicious, and his action ineffective.

Some fault Clinton for not going after bin Laden because he was afraid of being accused of wag-the-dog accusations. Damned if he did. Damned if he didn’t.

But then, I wasn’t insisting that anyone who believed Iraq had WMD was lying. What puzzles me is all of the very specific information that Sec. Colin Powell presented to the UN General Assembly. I still have some measure of confidence in his integrity. Who was responsible for seeing that that particular information was accurate? Why is it so hard to determine?

Shodan: Halliburton has been getting government contracts for decades, literally. Brown & Root, now a part of Halliburton, was attacked for getting rebuilding contracts from the government during the Viet Nam war, and in 1966 there were calls on the House floor to investigate the contributions that Brown and Root made to LBJ…

Oh, I believe you! I wouldn’t put anything past those Halliburtons. Scoundrels – every one of them.

---

“As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” Justice William O. Douglas

[Zoe]

milroyj: I submit that the Constitution, being a pact between the people of the US and their government, has precious little to do with human rights at all.

Are you including the Bill of Rights in that statement?

Shodan, I meant to comment on your list of Executive Orders. I think Lincoln’s was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Jeff Olsen, I stand in awe of your very excellent pun! It took me a while…
elucidator, I had decided to be miffed that you had joined the throng of duck jokesters. I was feeling a little down and my feathers were ruffled. But you have totally redeemed yourself on the issue of human rights. I really can’t imagine Thomas Jefferson and other signers being concerned about human rights in the Declaration of Independence and changing their minds by the time the Constitution was worked out.

Besides, isn’t that the current reason we are in Iraq – to establish human rights for all Iraqis? Well, maybe not all of them…

[elucidator]

@Zoe

… I was feeling a little down and my feathers were ruffled…

Drag him out and shoot him. I’ll swear out the warrant later.

[Desmostylus]

@elucidator

Drag him out and shoot him. I’ll swear out the warrant later.

Who? Bush? Ashcroft? milroyj?