Michael not Mike

Earlier this week on the floor of the Senate, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, (D-Ill.) said,”The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn’t believe it.” Unfortunately for Sen. Durbin, his other intelligence committee members saw it differently. The guys at Powerline have a roundup of what other members were saying at the time:

But here’s what Democratic Intelligence Committee members were saying about the intelligence they saw…

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) September, 2002): “[Saddam] has ignored the mandates of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”

Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV), October, 2002: “There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons. And will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years.”

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), March, 2003: “Bill, I support the president’s efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein. I think he was right on in his speech tonight. The lessons we learned following September 11 were that we can’t wait to be attacked again, particularly when it involves weapons of mass destruction. So regrettably, Saddam has not done the right thing, which is to disarm, and we’re left with no alternative but to take action.”

And Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid…

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), September, 2002: “Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the President’s approaching this in the right fashion.”

In addition to the links to the sources, Powerline also provides video of these and other quotes from Democrats, reaching back to 1998. It’s must see YouTube!

(Additional h/t to Gateway Pundit.)

Sen. Harry Reid says “Mission Accomplished” or actually: “The military mission has long since been accomplished.”  Sen. Hillary Clinton says there was no such accomplishment.

The Dems don’t actually need or even want a workable strategy or plan.  They just want to find different ways to say that everything the Bush administration has done, is doing or ever will do is bad.  Pretty simple plan, until they actually have to govern.

Everyone of the Democratic candidates what to withdraw from Iraq by a date certain, either immediately or in less than a year.  Then, they propose to rely upon negotiation and diplomacy to achieve victory through political means.  Military withdrawal before Iraq is stabilized, however long that takes, shows all the thugs, terrorists and Islamofacists in the Middle East that the U.S. is weak and cannot maintain resolve during tough times.  Setting a date certain for withdrawal adds to that knowledge exactly how long they have to wait before resistance to their violence disappears.  These folks also forget that if we leave, the different warring groups and will have no incentive to negotiate.  We will no longer be a threat to them.

If we leave early, Iran, Syria, Al Queda and others will fill the void.  It’s funny how people who think Pres. Bush went to war for oil never consider that perhaps it might be Iraq’s oil wealth that causes others to want to dominate the country. Saddam used his available oil wealth to enrich himself, fund weapons programs and support terrorism.  Others could do the same thing.

It’s embarrassing, sad and scary to have political leaders such as these who would undermine American security in order to achieve short term political gains for themselves or their party.

A while back I came across this really cool site for a company in the U.K. that sells bizarre, unusual and humorous items for your home and office. On their site, they have a mirror with a schematic map of the London Tube (subway) screen printed on it. It measures 75 x 52 x 0.6cm and costs £59.99. Unfortunately, they won’t ship it to the U.S., undoubtedly due to breakage issues. But I really want it. For now, I’ll just have to pine away for my unattainable desire and stare at the place on the wall where I would put it. If anyone figures out a way for me to get one of these over here, let me know.

Late yesterday afternoon, Randal Tobias resigned from his positions with the State Department where he was responsible for both running USAID and coordinating all foreign aid so that the delivery of aid would more closely follow the administration’s policy goals. In July of 2003, President Bush s nominated Mr. Tobias to serve as the first United States Global AIDS Coordinator with the rank of Ambassador, reporting directly to the Secretary of State. In his role as AIDS Czar, Amb. Tobias oversaw a program that stressed (inappropriately in my opinion) the role of abstinence in HIV/AIDS prevention.

Now, it turns out, he was a client of a Washington, D.C. madam. He claims that he only had the call girls over for massages and not for sex. That doesn’t even come close to passing the straight face test. Washington, D.C., like every other major city, has a wide selection of professional, reputable masseuses. If he needed help relieving the stress of a job of trying to talk people out of having sex, he could hire one of them or he could hire a call girl. It’s pretty clear what his choice was.

The madam’s list is said to contain thousands of names from around Washington. If ABC News decides to publish that list (it and the court are supposedly the only two that have it) many people on both sides of the aisle will be embarrassed. Those who want to use the Tobias resignation as a symbol with what is wrong with the Bush administration should be cautious. Both sexual desire and hypocrisy know nothing of political allegiance.

Yeah! Brittney over at Nashville is Talking (a blog brought to us by WKRN) has added me to her blog roll. NiT collects posts from blogs around Nashville and adds Brittney’s comments on them and on relevant issues. The widely varying viewpoints make it a really cool blog. It was super nice of Brittney to add me so soon. Thanks Brittney!

Now, if you haven’t already, go check out Nashville is Talking!

Over at Jockstrapcentral.com, you can vote for your favorite jockstrap. Click on over and give a guy some support. Right now, I torn between 15 and 68. H/T Nathan.

In an interview on 60 Minutes, former CIA Director George Tenet reponded to the White House leaking his “slam dunk” comment and placing it, according to him, in the wrong context. However, the most important thing in that interview was when he said he called then Chief of Staff Andy Card and said, “You know, I believed that he [Saddam Hussein] had weapons of mass destruction.”

Whoa!!! The former CIA Director, originally appointed by President Clinton, just said that it was his personal belief that prior to the invasion, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I thought President Bush lied about WMD. Lying is when you know the facts to be one way but you assert that they are another way. For Pres. Bush to have been lying, he must have had better intelligence than his Director of the CIA.

Somehow I doubt this will be the focus of very many reports.  Here’s the video.

Poland’s Prime Minister is quoted by the AP as having said, “It’s not in the interest of any society to increase the number of homosexuals—that’s obvious.” I was just thinking that we needed to ramp up our recruitment efforts.