Colin Powel’s top analyst, Greg Thielmann, appeared on 60 Minutes II this past Wednesday.
As you may recall, Powell expressed the Administration’s rationale for going to war with Iraq in a major speech to the UN on February 5th.
Thielmann tells us the address was loaded with half truths and outright lies.
This is not news?
I have been looking for someone to mention it here, but a Bush apologist, no one has. It hasn’t been picked up by the media.
Well, Chris Matthews tried to lay it out on Hardball, but a Bush apologist, using nonstop bullshit, blunted the entire exercise. (It takes a lot of skill to thwart Matthews, but this woman stopped him in his tracks.)
And Maureen Dowd gave just a brief mention of the matter in her 10/16 NYT column.
Did anyone else see this episode of 60 Minutes II?
Hell, you can hardly turn on the TV set or read the paper without seeing how that Liberal Media is all over this thing. Boy, they just can’t shut up about it. OK, so we were led to war on false pretenses. OK, so Colin Powell delivered an avalanche of horse shit on the floor of the UN. Big hairy ass deal.
I’m not surprised by the lies or the non-attention. I’ve never understood why conservatives and liberals alike rever this man. Cons I can understand, but libs? This is the man who resigned rather than serve with homosexuals, and people still love him–people who should know better.
I never did. I remember folks saying ‘oh, but Bush will have (reverant voice on) Colin Powell (reverant voice off) in his administration’ and I kept thinking ‘so what?’. I’ve not seen anything from him that has made me question that assesment. He’s a shill.
Not really. It’s not like it’s a stunning revelation, or anything. It might have been news on February 7th, when the half-truths and outright lies were only apparent to those who were paying attention.
Everything indicates that is still the case. People who pay attention, even some of the regulars here, are starting to adopt the view that the pretext for the invasion was a negligent misrepresentation if not an outright fraud. The vast silent majority, the inattentive, the followers of athlete’s criminal trials either remain comatose or just don’t care.
Of course the real problem is that even if the cabal of imperialists who drove us into Iraq are voted out of office we are still stuck with Iraq and the imperative to reconstruct the place after we so admirably deconstructed it. Just walking away is not an option. The outrage is that with our attention, treasure and blood fully committed to Iraq there is precious little of any of those commodities left for substantive efforts to guarantee national security, fix medical care for people who can’t afford medical insurance or fix pharmaceutical costs , or fix schools, or do any number of other things that will not be done because the means to do it has been and will be diverted to Iraq.
Well, Spavined, if we get a new administration, perhaps the UN will take pity and help bail us out.
Fact is, I doubt there will be a new admin.
GeeDubya will probably have 200 million bucks to tell, tell and retell the Big Lie, and I am afraid the people swallow it.
But even if they don’t, there are the electronic voting machines, made by Republican companies. These companies will not allow anyone to even sniff their proprietary software. The electorate looks like it isn’t kicking up a fuss over this, so we have another Florida in the making, but now in many states - including California.
Clinton’s policy was announced in July of 1993. Powell announced his resignation (retirement, if you will) shortly thereafter. While he denied at the time that the policy was the reason, it was widely believed that the timing was suspect (note I did NOT say universally believed).
The article cited above was published in January 2001. In Decmeber of 2000 (ten days before) Hutchins published this article in the Toronto Globe & Mail. It only touches on the issue you take umbrage with, but I include it because it does enumerate many other questionable actions and involvements with Powell.
“The JCS has been fighting with Clinton’s advisers since November - - first with Washington lawyer John Holum, representing the Clinton transition team, and more recently. with Defense Secretary Aspin. Led by Chairman Colin Powell, the chiefs in mid-December warned Clinton’s aides that they would resign as a group if the incoming administration chose an unacceptable plan for legitimizing the military status of gays.”
Very nice, presidebt. Now, will you kindly support your bullshit claim that Powell “resigned rather than serve with homosexuals”? That was, after all, the slur I challenged you to prove.
As I said earlier minty green, he denied that was the reason he was resigning, but many felt that the timing was suspect. I can’t very well provide a link to something Powell denied. If it makes your head swell any less, I’ll amend my comment to: * I believe, as do many others,* that he resigned rather than serve with homosexuals. Does that make you feel any better?
What? Amending it isn’t enough? I’m not withdrawing it because the evidence I’ve seen (and cited) suggests to me that he did resign because he wasn’t happy with Clinton’s policy re. homosexuals in the military.
Talk about needing a cite. You’ll have to demonstrate exactly how what I said is a slur.