The President Weighs In
RECENT POSTS
I Believe in God, But I Hate Religion Part 2
The thought of eternal suffering is a significant motivator for those who are strong in their religious beliefs. It is also conducive to those who push various religious doctrines on their congregants to keep them in line.
People Are Stupid
“Democratic republics are more likely to perish through misuse of power than through lack of it.” — Tocqueville Democracy in America . It’s as if Tocqueville looked into the future.
Several good segments re this on Countdown tonight. Here’s some choice words from Olbermann and Howard Fineman about the Repug’s playing of the fear card:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#34716884
‘evenin’ everyone!
I watched the President’s statement late this afternoon with great interest. His anger was almost palpable and he had “that look” on his face. Someone used the word “smoldering”…most appropriate.
As expected, there were few if any details…just a statement that our intelligence failed to “connect the dots”. (Quite frankly, I am sick of that phrase.)
What we have yet to find out is who, and more importantly, WHY? Why did our intelligence agencies fail to communicate the information that they had? Was it “turf wars” or some sick someone’s political agenda to make someone else look bad? We may never be told the reason behind the reason that we failed.
‘Evening, Emerald (but it’s morning here, just dawn).
Yes, the President is fuming all right. And I think it’s a good measure of the kind of man he is, that he can remain so physically in control of his emotions and yet, at the same time, convey to those he is unhappy with, indeed, convey to the whole wide world, his indignation.
We do not know what his private thoughts are on this matter, how he would answer the questions that you pose in your post.
But we do know that ‘failure’ only just barely describes what the intelligence community can be charged with. Even if it was not deliberate, the failure is colossal: 300 people could so easily have been blown out of the sky.
It is true that the incident is yet another ‘might have been’ catastrophe. “It didn’t happen,” some will say, “so stop behaving as if it did.” But it is equally true that the attempt suggests that more and other terrorists will be planning the same, that they have not been cowed, and, on the law of averages, that one of them will eventually get ‘lucky’ unless the President can put the fear of God into those in charge of preventing this kind of thing.
Abby, you are spot on! My point about this is that if the attempted attack was designed to inspire terror in people, then it was a very successful attack in spite of the fact that the explosive did not go off.
Semantics? Maybe…but people are frightened and that is what they want us to feel. I can only say that I wish I had been a fly on the wall in that meeting today. I believe the President can help his image by showing a little bit of that anger.
I’ve gotta’ sleep…after 3am here now and my eyes won’t stay open much longer.
We’ll touch base tomorrow! Have a good one, sweetie! Take good care of that little bambino! 🙂
boomer: they broke this news over here early this evening, making much of it, and played part of the video. He is one unhappy President about this matter and you did well to put this video up and the news commentary too. Because it’s that important. I can’t imagine what the end of this will be. My husband says there should be sackings all ’round.
boomer, you might think about putting this on the Time Out thread. 🙂
yep, I’m confused…I completely forgot…or it’s what I thought I was doing. You can move it if you want, or delete it all together. It’s old news now.
The Time Out thread has only been around a day or so, and I’m still getting used to it. Sorry 🙁
Abby, It is not a POV. POV’s go to the front page.
I thought I had seen a couple of other video posts at the top of the home page. Guess I didn’t.
boomer: don’t you want this on the Home Page? It’s at Speaker’s Corner…or did you want it there?