Methodist Bishops Repent Iraq War 'Complicity'

WASHINGTON — Ninety-five bishops from President Bush's church said Thursday they repent their "complicity" in the "unjust and immoral" invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"In the face of the United States administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent," said a statement of conscience signed by more than half of the 164 retired and active United Methodist bishops worldwide.

President Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church, according to various published biographies. The White House did not return a request for comment on the bishops' statement.

Although United Methodist leadership has opposed the Iraq war in the past, this is the first time that individual bishops have confessed to a personal failure to publicly challenge the buildup to the war.

I guess Bush will charge them with treason, undermining our troops, and being pro-Saddam. How sad.

The "Same Intelligence" Lie

The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did.

The President is misleading the American people every time he says it.

He's lying.

The Dubya Dilemma

One might speculate as to what Dubya might be going through now that the Bicycle Chief is belatedly trying to manage the tricky limbo of simultaneously 1) asserting some authority over stronger men (who have always seen him as something between a joke and a codpiece), while at the same time 2) trying to duck any actual responsibility for any of the decisions he has made for the last five years.



Poor George. He doesn't even know what he's gotten himself - and us - into.

Iraq Vets Against the War

Kelly Dougherty has a lot of guts. She joined the Guard after High School to help pay for college. She went to Bosnia in 1999, Iraq in 2003. While in Iraq she started to realize the lies were blatant, our mission was compromised:

"I wasn't protecting America. I was protecting Halliburton trucks going to military bases." she said. (Wow, I'm absolutely shocked! - Z)

After being honorably discharged in 2004, she co-founded Iraq Veterans Against the War.

She'll take a lot of heat. I know she can handle it. It's easier when the truth is on your side.

Read her story here.

Fallback Postition

Josh Marshall states the obvious, hilariously:

It just occurred to me that even if Democrats manage to totally blow this coming election cycle and don't make substantial pick-ups in November, we're still virtually guaranteed twelve months of watching Republicans furiously working to find ways to stab each other in back.

So, really, even the fall-back is pretty decent.

Just a thought.

Know-Nothing Caldara

Ha ha!

Colorado voters, unlike Caldara, showed sense

The News hedged its bets in determining winners and losers after the election on Referendums C and D. The most important winners overlooked by the News are the citizens and students here in beautiful Colorado. Let's never forget them again. But the effort to paint Jon Caldara as both a winner and a loser was a little too transparent.

In a black-and-white world the likes of Caldara prefer to live in, you can't be both a winner and a loser. He was a big loser - and I'm sure he feels it. Despite the backing of major money and resources, 50,000 watts of radio to speak on night after night, and being the point man for the Grover Norquist faction of the Kno-Nothing party - he lost.

"Formidable"? Yes, in how he could lie blatantly, repeatedly and without conscience. That's about it; and there's nothing formidable about it. I was not impressed by Caldara's arguments and was disappointed in his efforts to cloud the issues. The citizens of Colorado showed there is a well of common sense in all communities across America. We saw it on Election Day and I thank my fellow citizens for using it.

A Concerned Citizen
Colorado Springs

Too Funny

Clownhall.com having a bad day. I wonder why?

Nose the the Grindstone

We must never let up and never become complacent again.

(AP) Democrats clean up big
Posted by rodeodance
Added to homepage Wed Nov 09th 2005, 08:10 AM ET

Democrats Win Elections in NJ, Va., Calif.

Democrats cleaned up big in off-year elections from New Jersey to California, sinking the candidate who embraced President Bush in the final days of the Virginia governor's campaign. They also turned back all four of GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to reshape state government.

Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine (news, bio, voting record) easily won the New Jersey governor's seat after an expensive, mudslinging campaign, trouncing Republican Doug Forrester by 10 percentage points. Polls in the last week had forecast a much closer race.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine won a solid victory in GOP-leaning Virginia, beating Republican Jerry Kilgore by more than 5 percentage points. Democrats crowed that Bush's election-eve rally for the former state attorney general only spurred more Kaine supporters to the polls.

In California, Schwarzenegger failed in his push to rein in the Democrat-controlled Assembly. All four of his ballot measures flopped: Capping spending, removing legislators' redistricting powers, making teachers work five years instead of two to pass probation, and restricting political spending by public employee unions.

LINK

Yeah, But

Yeah, right, Clinton did think Saddam was a threat. But he didn't think Saddam was an imminent threat, progenitor of a grave and gathering danger, and had the ability to plant a mushroom cloud on American soil. The dark mind of Dick Cheney is behind those foolish lies.

1) President Clinton didn’t say: That Saddam could have a nuke within six months. That was the statement of Vice President Cheney—and it contradicted the state of the intelligence.

2) President Clinton didn’t say: That there was only one use for those aluminum tubes—that the tubes could only be used in nukes. That statement was made by Condoleezza Rice. It contradicted the state of the intelligence.

3) President Clinton didn’t say: That Iraq had unmanned aerial vehicles which it “could use...to deliver biological weapons to its neighbors or, if transported, to other countries including the United States.” That clownish claim was made by Colin Powell in his presentation before the UN—the presentation which ended debate about the war. (In Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward drew a devastating picture of the way Powell assembled this report. Liberal elites ignored it, though. Reading books is just too gosh-darn hard.)

4) President Clinton didn’t say: That Iraq could fire up its chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes. That was President Bush, in September 2002—making the statement which George Tenet derided as “the 45-minute shit.” President Clinton wasn’t talking this “shit;” it was Bush who was talking it. (In Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward describes Tenet ridiculing Bush’s statement this way. Liberal elites ignored it.)

5) President Clinton didn’t say: That Saddam was seeking uranium from Africa. Whatever you’ve decided about this claim—we’d say it played an extremely small role in the run-up to war—it wasn’t Bill Clinton who made it.

6) And, of course, President Clinton didn’t say: That Iraq was involved in September 11. That was the Bush team, over and over. The claim was made to build the impression that Saddam was inclined to attack us. With those UAVs, for example. In as little as forty-five minutes.

Clinton was right. He was responsible in his actions, and thoughtful in his strategies. And he didn't get our guys killed 4, 5, and 10 at a time!

Daily Howler does the work.

Political War = Pointless Death

Who can say they're suprised?

He reveals that Karl Rove, the political adviser to the president, told him there would have been no problem for Mr Bush in waiting until the end of 2003 or even early 2004 and this would not have risked entanglement in the US presidential campaign.

It's all fun and games for Karl. Thank God his vicious scheme is coming down around him. How long will it take for our Democracy to heal itself.