[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
We’ll have to agree to disagree, since I find “utter fabrication” to be a gross overstatement.
[/quote]
I find “gross overstatement” to be an utter fabrication 
You should report him for that. Damn moderators think they can get away with anything, power corrupts, who watches the watchmen and all that.
…or maybe it was just a mistake.
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
For you see, failure to admit error of thought and subsequently to come around to the point of view of the ‘usual suspects’
[/quote]
Oh, am I one of them? I really liked that movie.
[QUOTE=Scylla]
…or maybe it was just a mistake.
[/QUOTE]
Well, ten years from now, we’ll let Fox News sort it out.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Cheese Louise, Red! Don’t keep it all bottled up, say what you really feel! None of these people actually rise at night to feed on the living. Heck, Sam, the Canadian Eagle likes Warren Zevon, there simply has to be hope for someone like that.
Get too uptight about this shit, companero, and you end up constipating your chi. Bummer.
[/QUOTE]
Mayhaps you could help by trading an agreed upon % of blood between us. Other than a dobbie (which I haven’t done for waaay to long, being too paranoid about a true Banana Republic “laws.” Think Midnight Express here), can’t think of much else at the moment.
Truth is, I had a hell of an argument IRL with some Bush-loving multi-millionaire – from the war to gay marriage – that I’m still PO’d.
You’re a good apple, 'luc, stay that way – I’m sure I speak for many when I say that. OTOH, if I may say so myself, I’m no monster my own self. Just that Spanish temper sometimes gets in the way…but to be completly honest, this is one of those rare times that both my temper and I quite agree with each other.
Viva El Presidente Clinton! One of the smartest people I’ve ver had the pleasure to listen to. Even when I disagreed with many a facet of his FP.
Of course, it wasn’t quite criminal to do so back then…in the good old days.
Cuidate, amigo.
[QUOTE=RedFury]
Viva El Presidente Clinton! One of the smartest people I’ve ver had the pleasure to listen to.
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes:
Intelligence without character doesn’t add up to much of a man, and Clinton may have the least character of any president this country has ever had.
Character without intelligence leads to incompetence, royal screwups, and being steered by smarter folks into serving their own cynical ends.
Give me razor-sharp mind and in-depth grasp of the facts and their implications over clueless bumbling and Bible thumping any day.
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
So, after wasting countless hours and beating my head against the wall one time too many, I merely adopted the attitude that I’d just say whatever I wanted and let the chips fall where they may. And you know what has changed? Nothing! I still get called mindless and stupid and a Bushbot, simply because I don’t, you know, embrace the liberal way of thought.
[/quote]
Keep it up! We get the chips because we can point to many others the lousy logic demonstrated by the right wing BS that you swallow and then later pretend to pass as facts here.
There can be nothing better to show others the bottom of the barrel points Bush defenders have to go to on.
The last thread where I encountered you demonstrated that you have pride even in not knowing what the definition of debunking was.
Yes, you are that pitiful when you say whatever you want because it shows that you don’t base your points on facts, but on Internet or right wing radio legends that were debunked before.
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
:rolleyes:
Intelligence without character doesn’t add up to much of a man, and Clinton may have the least character of any president this country has ever had.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy]
Character without intelligence leads to incompetence, royal screwups, and being steered by smarter folks into serving their own cynical ends.
Give me razor-sharp mind and in-depth grasp of the facts and their implications over clueless bumbling and Bible thumping any day.
[/QUOTE]
It is worse than that! Bush shows no character either.
Bush recently demanded clarity on the torture rules, problem was that he never took back his declaration that his biggest philosophical influence was Jesus.
Now, who would Jesus torture? Heck, he would not even consider the relaxed rules kosher 
Back in 2000, I saw a Parade interview of Bush on the way to the presidency, he showed the interviewer a picture of Sam Houston and told the interviewer that Houston was his hero for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederate States of America and raise the confederated flag in Texas.
Sam Houston was kicked out for daring to do so.
During the election Bush made Sam Houston roll in his grave by cowardly not daring to make even a comment against the Confederated flag in South Carolina.
That was enough for me to deduce what kind of character Bush had.
BTW I never saw a lefty news source coming with that bit. One just needed to use common sense to realize Bush was and remains a being that is devoid of character as well as intelligence.
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
The last thread where I encountered you demonstrated that you have pride even in not knowing what the definition of debunking was.
[/quote]
Au contraire! If you will recall, it was you who did not understand the meaning of the word, and it’s apparent that you still don’t. You posted the following:
“'No one involved in the 1996 negotiations apart from former officials of Sudan – a country that the U.S. State Department has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism every year since 1993 – has verified the claim that Sudan offered bin Laden to the United States. In light of this lack of evidence, the 9-11 Commission “Staff Statement No. 5,” issued in March, rejected the Sudanese claim.”
As you have demonstrated to be inadecuate to read and learn, it is you who is swallowing something else from the right wing propaganda."'*
You then found it ‘adecuate’ to post the following definition to support your claim of this alleged debunking:
“debunk ( ) tr.v. , -bunked , -bunking , -bunks . To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of” [bolding yours]
Yet nowhere except in your own mind does it appear that the 9/11 Commission’s mere ‘rejection of the claim’ (based on denials by the uber-truthful Clinton administration) rises to the level of ‘exposing’, ridiculing’, and/or ‘exaggerating claims of’ the Sudanese assertions. As I pointed out with my typical clarity of thought and superior (to you) understanding of the English language: merely choosing to reject a claim is not the same as debunking it.
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
Yes, you are that pitiful when you say whatever you want because it shows that you don’t base your points on facts, but on Internet or right wing radio legends that were debunked before.
[/QUOTE]
And yes, you are pitiful because you issue proclamations about other posters and you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about…as this comment by you aptly demonstrates.
How many times am I gonna have to say around here that I don’t listen to Fox, talk-radio, or seek out talking points on the Internet? I have been a died-in-the-wool conservative ever since I became politically aware and was driven to it by the idiocy and hypocrisy I saw coming from the left at that time. To the extent that talk-radio and/or Internet blogs coincide with my beliefs, it is that they have begun to reflect opinions, perceptions and points of view that I have held for decades!
People such as you are so convinced of the correctness of their thought that they are completely unable to see that what they really believe is just opinion. You simply cannot fathom that someone can come to an opinion different from yours without it having been fed to them by someone with an agenda…and make no mistake, all anyone talks about around here are opinions. Show me a cite for this, I’ll show you a cite that contradicts it; I show you a cite for that, you show me a cite that contradicts it, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
What is really going on around here is a battle of philosophy, and when a person is of a particular political philosophy he is quite capable of coming to his own conclusions without having it come from some outside source.
It is only due to the intellectual arrogance which categorizes you and your ilk that you find it so difficult to realize that those who believe as I do come up with our points of view all on our own. Talk radio, etc., doesn’t tell us what to think; it tells you what we’ve been thinking to begin with!
Deal with it. 
[QUOTE=John Mace]
So what if Chris Wallace didn’t ask Condi the exact same question that he asked Clinton. What does that prove? Nothing.
[/QUOTE]
Didn’t ask Condi the exact same question? Now this is fucking disingenuous! Who the fuck are you and what happened to that respectable guy with your handle? This statement is one of a pure fucking coward. The point is that he has never asked anyone from the Bush administration about their lack of response to the Cole. Just as Clinton said, and just as Wallace hemmed and hawed and implied that he had.
Condi… exact same… fucking pathetic.
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
:rolleyes:
Intelligence without character doesn’t add up to much of a man, and Clinton may have the least character of any president this country has ever had.
[/QUOTE]
Except for the jackass we have in there now.
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
Au contraire!
[/quote]
Wrong! You pseudo cheese surrender monkey!
Meh.
I only have to point out that you conveniently forgot to mention the part where I mentioned that you:
a) Are choosing to side with sources that really had no good contacts in Sudan and
b) Choosing to side with Sudanese sources that saw the USA as an enemy and gave us in the end information that was late or false on the whereabouts of Osama.
Items that the 9/11 commission considered to then say in essence that there was no good evidence to show the Clinton administration dropped the ball.
You cannot polish a turd. When those points were debunked before, they are still debunked now, and they will remain so for decades to come.
You were saying? I guess you missed my post 308. I actually showed here, even before you replied, how useless you are even in assessing the intelligence of your opponents. Thank Og there is no editing of posts.
No problem, Everybody can see what a dunderhead you are.
Don’t deal with it, it helps my cause a lot!
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
…that his biggest philosophical influence was Jesus…
[/QUOTE]
Not perzackly. I was watching it (wonk! wonk!), and he was asked who his favorite political philosopher was (I was thinking Locke or maybe Hume, sure couldn’t see him as a Hegelian…) When he said “Jesus Christ” , I said “Jesus! *Fucking! *Christ!”
[QUOTE=Starkers Artist]
…merely choosing to reject a claim is not the same as debunking it…
[/QUOTE]
Uh, yeah, it pretty much is. Especially if the rejection comes in the form of a point by point rebuttal, its pretty much a “debunking”. Blowing reveille is a “debunking” as well, but that’s not strictly relevent to the matter at hand.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Didn’t ask Condi the exact same question? Now this is fucking disingenuous! Who the fuck are you and what happened to that respectable guy with your handle? This statement is one of a pure fucking coward. The point is that he has never asked anyone from the Bush administration about their lack of response to the Cole. Just as Clinton said, and just as Wallace hemmed and hawed and implied that he had.
Condi… exact same… fucking pathetic.
[/QUOTE]
So what if he didn’t ask anyone the exact same question he asked Clinton? Really, so what? I do do know that he asked Rumsfeld about the lack of action on al Qaeda by Bush pre-9/11. I think that was about the time that Richard Clarke’s book came out. Why must he ask the exact same question(s) to Bush officials that he asked to Clinton?
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
Wrong! You pseudo cheese surrender monkey!
[/quote]
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
Items that the 9/11 commission considered to then say in essence that there was no good evidence to show the Clinton administration dropped the ball.
[/QUOTE]
And I say again: A finding of no good evidence does not equate to debunking anymore than a DA dropping charges proves that a suspect is innocent. It may mean there is not enough evidence to go forward; it does not mean the charge has been proven false.
Would our highly regarded wordsmith, EddyTeddyFreddy, care to weigh in on this question? Does ‘no one has verified the claim’ = debunking? I contend that a debunking would require proof (or at least evidence) of falsity, and that the mere finding that the claim has not been verified falls short of this requirement, despite the desire of GIGObuster to view it as such.
Would you or any other qualified wordsmith around these parts care to opine?
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Uh, yeah, it pretty much is. Especially if the rejection comes in the form of a point by point rebuttal, its pretty much a “debunking”.
[/quote]
With this I would agree, but it appears to be a moving of the goalposts. GIGO, in the thread he mentioned cited only the paragraph I quoted above. There was no information on a point by point rebuttal, only a finding that the claim hadn’t been verified.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Blowing reveille is a “debunking” as well, but that’s not strictly relevent to the matter at hand.
[/QUOTE]
Stop it.
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
Would our highly regarded wordsmith, EddyTeddyFreddy, care to weigh in on this question? Does ‘no one has verified the claim’ = debunking? I contend that a debunking would require proof (or at least evidence) of falsity, and that the mere finding that the claim has not been verified falls short of this requirement, despite the desire of GIGObuster to view it as such.
Would you or any other qualified wordsmith around these parts care to opine?
[/QUOTE]
A finding of no good, reliable evidence for a proposition or accusation, combined with substantiated data pointing to an opposite conclusion, is indeed debunking. In the Cole case cited above, the assertion by a few highly suspect sources (of a credibility akin to Chalabi’s) that bin Laden was available for the picking was refuted – debunked – by the dearth of any supporting evidence. Given the wide-ranging investigations of the bipartisan commission, which uncovered nary a scrap of supporting evidence for the allegations, such as the kind of paper trails governmental bureacracies would harbor in such matters, the absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence – that is, that there was no such offer of Osama in aspic.
Very well, and thank you for answering. 
But bear in mind that this discussion centers solely around the paragraph that GIGO posted in the aforementioned thread, i.e.:
“No one involved in the 1996 negotiations apart from former officials of Sudan – a country that the U.S. State Department has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism every year since 1993 – has verified the claim that Sudan offered bin Laden to the United States. In light of this lack of evidence, the 9-11 Commission “Staff Statement No. 5,” issued in March, rejected the Sudanese claim.”
I’m not being disingenuous here as I had no foreknowledge that I was suppressing in order to act the innocent. Given that this paragraph is what GIGO chose to post to back up his claim that the Sudanese contentions regarding the offer of bin Laden to Clinton had been debunked, and given that that paragraph was all I had to go by in assessing his cliam, would you say I was in error in contending that GIGO had not shown that the claim had been debunked?
I realize that this discussion is beginning to border on the silly…but…but…he said I didn’t know what debunked means, and I do! (Wah, wah, wah!)
It especially qualifies for the term “debunked” because its rather a bit of cherished mythology, passed around in the kinds of Tighty Righty mental sinkholes that we are quite assured you have to contact with. NewsMucks, Little Green Turdballs, those sort of places. Don’t know how many times I’ve seen that particular construct delivered as though it were certified pure-D God’s Own Truth.
An assertion can be simply disproved, a contagious meme needs be debunked.
“…assured you have no contact with…”