He was suspended, not disbarred, both from the Arkansas bar and the Supreme Court bar. The Supreme Court initially suspended Clinton in reaction to his relinquishment of his licencse to practice in Arkansas (as is routine when an attorney admitted to practice before the Court is suspended or disbarred elsewhere), and Clinton appears to have eventually accepted that action. When Clinton’s Arkansas license is reinstated in three years, he can then apply for readmission to the Supreme Court.
Nonsense. I don’t even know where most of my ex-sexual partners live, and I sure as heck don’t have any kind of relationship with them at all.
Eleusis: *[…] there is evidence [Saddam Hussein] has an active program to develop nuclear weapons *
Where’s the evidence that he stands any reasonable chance of actually doing so? I could “establish an active program” of building a space shuttle in my back yard, and could devote time and money to it, but given my deficiency in materiel and manpower, I wouldn’t pose much competition to NASA. There are plenty of other bad guys out there who are trying to develop (or who already possess) weapons of mass destruction. Do we really want to send them the signal that launching a pre-emptive first strike against someone who might be dangerous is a good thing?
He is a threat to our allies, the entire region, and the entire world.
Or if he isn’t, it’s no thanks to him. But that doesn’t mean that the sort of unilateral first-strike attack on his country that Bush is proposing would decrease the threat we’re worrying about; in fact, it could well increase it. Most of the other countries in the region are very worried about the consequences of such a US attack, and are strongly opposed to it. You would think that if Hussein is such an immediate peril to the rest of the region, his neighbors would be coming to us asking for help against him (as they did after his invasion of Kuwait), not begging us to hold our horses for fear of unleashing god knows what catastrophic results.
I don’t have anything good to say about Saddam Hussein, and I never did—even back when people like Bush Sr. were treating him as a trusted ally and not worrying at all about his WMD development program (which was much stronger then than it is now). But I haven’t seen a convincing argument that taking him out in the way Bush is proposing is actually going to make any of us safer.
Does Bush actually believe that it will, or is he just “wagging the dog” for some different objective? We can speculate, but I don’t see how we can really tell. (Milking the war setup to gain political advantage—which, as D the C points out, is obviously going on, and which is standard political practice anyway—doesn’t necessarily mean that PR is the ultimate reason for setting up the war in the first place.) In any case, whatever Bush’s motive, his war plan should be judged not on his perceived sincerity, but on whether it’s a smart move. (Thumbs down, sez I.)
Let’s try that link again. As with all the Supreme Court’s orders, it is in .pdf format.
Nah, just richer.
Texas Tea.
Minty:
When it says “the rule to show cause.” what does that mean?
See, here how this works.
There’s this meeting, all the Bushista heavies. The air is a bit somber, lot of ugly news lately, still can’t nail that binLaden guy, major political allies and contributors getting caught with their hands deep in the cookie jar. Election coming. Not good.
Then somebody, lets say *caporegime[/i[ Wolfowitz, to just grab a name says “We gotta invade Iraq! Saddam is an evil, evil man”.
Now, nobody says a word about oil. No need to, everybody knows that Iraq is a cork floating on a pond of light, sweet crude. After a war, the grateful Iraqi people will need advice and guidance as they restructure their economics. Guidance from respected and experienced people, people like British Petroleum, Exxon, Chevron. Haliburton. But nobody says anything about oil.
Election? Nobody says a word, nobody has to. Everybody knows that the people rally around a war time president, everybody knows that national security is the Republican campaign issue that trumps all others. Nobody says a word about election. True, Karl Roves eyes are spinning, smoke is wafting from his ears as he spasms in the throes of orgasm (or whatever the reptilian equivalent thereof). But nobody says anything about the election. Just about how Saddam is an evil, evil man.
The elephant squats in the middle of the room, farting thunderously, great wafts of funky peanut gas…but nobody mentions his presence.
And if you ask them, accuse them they can look you right in the eye and say “The election never came up!”
And they are telling you the truth. They can swear to it in court, on a stack of Bibles. 'Cause its true. Or, at least, its factual.
That’s how it works.
It certainly didn’t stop you from mindlessly demonizing your political opponents in the least, so I consider it a failure.
My comment is an offshoot of a throwaway rebuttal I made to Sparticus, excoriciating Cheney for not lying about the economy.
**
No. There is no such admission, nor can it be reasonably concluded from that powerpoint in any way that a potential invasion is politically motivated.
Yes, I’m sure that’s the way it happened 'Luce.
We all know that Bush was in deep trouble because the was in Afghanistan went so badly and he completed dropped the ball and fumbled in the wake of 9/11.
Yes, he was in big bad political trouble. He wasn’t popular at all. He didn’t have bipartisan support.
So, clearly what was needed was a war against Iraq. Everybody would love the idea, and it would be sure to make him popular.
The reality of the situation is that going after Iraq is an inarguable proposition from a political or economic stance. It makes no sense.
The first order I reproduced shows that he was not disbarred.
Someone remind me again what Clinton has to do with Bush and the war on Iraq?
They’re a convenient hijack to our newly-converted fan of content-free partisan sniping.
Kimstu, nice post.
This hijack about Clinton is very off subject here.
The point is that the Bush Administration is expert at deception and distraction. This is also the most secretive administration in history. But, there are real questions that must be answered.
Most importantly:
- What is the progress in the war on terrorism?
- How is the economy going to be strengthened?
These are the questions that top the minds of all Americans yet the Bush Administration insists that Iraq is the top issue for us. The average high schooler can see that Osama bin Laden is the top threat to the US. He killed thousands of us and attacked us several times before September 11. He is promising yet more spectacular attacks. Yet the administration insists that Saddam Hussein is the “biggest” threat to the US.
Is it a coincidence that the administration’s answers, if they ever come, to both questions would be negative and that the administration’s progress report is unsatisfactory?
Furthermore, by the standards that Bush has asked the world to measure Saddam and Iraq, shouldn’t North Korea be dealt with inspectors or threatened with force? N Korea seems even more a threat than Saddam since they have recently announced the existence of nuclear bombs.
Two asides:
I am not a Democrat;
fishcrawford, you asked me if I lived closer to the region, would I be more sympathetic to Bush’s cause. My father’s family all live in Egypt. We are Christian’s and Ayman Zawahari’s group has specifically targeted our church. My familiy is in more danger over there from Osama than from Saddam.
OK, Scylla, so when you originally said,
you really meant “Sparticus” and accidentally typed in “Democrats” ?
Whatever. Seeya.
Yeah, but at least I don’t do it off topic. 
Mambo, when you post an accusation of “deception and distraction” it particularly behooves you to be accurate. However, you wrote
Your statement is unsupported, and there’s no reason to believe it. You wrote
I’m quite sure the Bush Administration has never said this.
You wrote
Worldwide security is not a game. North Korea cannot be safely attacked because they have nuclear weapons. They might be able to destroy Seoul, South Korea – a city of 10 million people. This example shows why it’s so urgent to topple Saddam before he gets nuclear weapons.
Doesn’t make political or economic sense, Scylla? A surprising rebuttal from someone who seems to pride himself on his hard-headed realism. It makes all the sense in the world, in the amoral realpolitick context so popular in the highest circles.
America is utterly, hopelessly and cravenly addicted to oil. Every attempt by reasonable men to break that addiction, to wean America away from its dependence has been defeated. Even the most modest of demands for more fuel enonomy has been thwarted. By whom? Trial lawyers? The dreaded NEA?
We both know the answer to that one, don’t we?
Not only did we not push toward smaller, more economical vehicles, like the fools we are we rushed to purchase larger and less economical vehicles. Our parliament of whores fell all over themselves to categorize the SUV as a “small truck”, thus exempt from sensible mileage restrictions, to the delight of our automakers, for whom the the popularity of the SUV was manna from heaven, the certain proof of a doting Providence. Good sense versus loud, shiny crap. Guess who won?
We are more addicted to foreign oil now than ever before. Hear any talk from this “sensible” administration on conservation efforts? Niether do I.
And our connection, our supplier? Saudi Arabia is a doddering kleptocracy. It is a fat cow surrounded by wolves, trying to keep them at bay by giving them each a bite, or two. They pay off everybody, anybody, hoping to buy just a bit more time. Sooner or later, it wont work. If that is clear to a dewey eyed, liberal Pollyanna such as yours truly, it is clear to the sternly realistic men in Washington who pull our leaders strings. Saudi Arabia is doomed, today, tomorrow, the day after. Not if, only when.
And Iraq floats upon a lake of oil. A friendly regime in Iraq isn’t simply a delightful prospect, its damn near a necessity.
Of course, it wouldn’t be if we had listened. If all our cars got better than 40 mpg and there were only such SUV’s as could be justified by practical necessity. That is, if you had listened to us.
But you didn’t, did you, buckaroo?
Bad analogy, since you don’t have UN-imposed sanctions against you which forbid you from attempting to build a space shuttle. The simple fact that Hussein might be trying to build WMD’s - and is disallowing weapons inspectors to snoop around (again, as per the sanctions) demands that he be punished.
There is no pre-emptive strike. Hussein violated the sanctions. The US is just responding to those violations.
Could? To hell with “could”… it also “could not”. It’s very simple: Iraq has sanctions placed against it. Iraq violates sanctions. US gives Iraq smacketh down. That’s it.
What’s so difficult to understand?
elucidator: Well, this is the same administration that said during the energy crisis that the American way of life was a “blessed” one, and that they would be doing absolutely nothing to encourage Americans to reduce energy consumption…
On the other hand, of course, this could be a mere reflection of what the amjority of the people already (sadly) believe…