October Surprise!? Hardly.

Bill Clinton fought back. The NIE said Iraq has made us less safer. Only the Media cares about Iraq. "“No, none of that,” Lott told reporters after the session when asked if the Iraq war was discussed. “You’re [the media] the only ones who obsess on that. We don’t and the real people out in the real world don’t for the most part."

And electronic voting will be implemented for 30 million people on November 7th...provided by Diebold, who has extensive connections within Congress and regrettably the GOP.

Oh god and now Sean Hannity is the spokesman for General Motors? Wow, never thought their be a less chance of me buying their crap till today.

And apparently Gay Marriage is the most important issue of our time. No matter what side you are on of this ridiculous issue, it is not the MOST IMPORTANT one out there. Seriously.

So lets get right to it.

(All of the following thanks to insanely great work by Think Progress which makes my job well almost irrevealant)

Bill Clinton did not, I repeat not, have a meltdown, or freakout, or crisis on Sunday's talk with Fox News' Chris Wallace. If retorting to a reporter with facts is called a meltdown or combative, then I would hope the Bush Administration would have a freakin nuclear war with the press from now on.

Lets see what Clinton said in his response to his Fox News friends:
-WALLACE: … but the question is, why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?
-

CLINTON:

...And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much — same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk down, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

OK, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaida was a growing concern in October of ‘93.

Exactly. Anyone remember 1997-8 and what the GOP was focused on? A blue stained dress.

CLINTON: All right. Let’s look at what Richard Clarke said. Do you think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?

WALLACE: Yes, I do.

CLINTON: You do, don’t you?

WALLACE: I think he has a variety of opinions and loyalties, but yes, he has a vigorous…

CLINTON: He has a variety of opinion and loyalties now, but let’s look at the facts: He worked for Ronald Reagan; he was loyal to him. He worked for George H. W. Bush; he was loyal to him. He worked for me, and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him.

They downgraded him and the terrorist operation.

Now, look what he said, read his book and read his factual assertions — not opinions — assertions. He said we took vigorous action after the African embassies. We probably nearly got bin Laden.

Bingo. We thought Kyoto was our biggest threat to security. Who knew? Oh wait they did.

CLINTON: No, no. I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him.

The CIA, which was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said, He did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things.

The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.

Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden.

But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11.

The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would’ve had to send a few hundred Special Forces in in helicopters and refuel at night.

Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now, the 9/11 Commission was a political document, too. All I’m asking is, anybody who wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book.

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.

...But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.

So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of.

I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?

I want to know how many you asked, Why did you fire Dick Clarke?

I want to know how many people you asked…

WALLACE: We asked — we asked…

CLINTON: I don’t…

WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday, sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you asked them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…

Actually nope thats false. Take a peak-

Since 2001, Wallace has interview the top national security officials from the Bush administration — Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Hadley — 42 times . According to a Lexis-Nexis database search, he never asked any of them why Clarke was demoted. The one time he brought up Clarke’s name with a Bush administration official — during a March 28, 2004 interview with Rumsfeld — he repeatedly attempted to smear Clarke as political motivated and untrustworthy.

CLINTON: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that?

Nope not that either:

Neither Chris Wallace, nor his predecessor, Tony Snow ever asked anyone in the Bush administration why they failed to respond to the bombing of the USS Cole, according to a Lexis-Nexis database search. Wallace and Snow have had plenty of opportunities.

WALLACE: One of the main parts of the Global Initiative this year is religion and reconciliation. President Bush says that the fight against Islamic extremism is the central conflict of this century. And his answer is promoting democracy and reform.

Do you think he has that right?

CLINTON: Sure. To advance — to advocate democracy and reform in the Muslim world? Absolutely.

I think the question is, what’s the best way to do it? I think also the question is, how do you educate people about democracy?

Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minority rights, individual rights, restraints on power. And there’s more than one way to advance democracy.

But do I think, on balance, that in the end, after several bouts with instability — look how long it took us to build a mature democracy. Do I think, on balance, it would be better if we had more freedom and democracy? Sure I do. And do I think specifically the president has a right to do it? Sure I do.

But I don’t think that’s all we can do in the Muslim world. I think they have to see us as trying to get a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. I think they have to see us as willing to talk to people who see the world differently than we do.

And look at that right there. Clinton agress that spreading democracy is key to stablizing the world. He actually agrees with President Bush's idealist notion of world peace.

But he goes on to correctly state, there is more than one way to promote democracy. And indeed there is. Why? becuase democracy is not the magic pill to cue all the world's ails. And sometimes it needs to be used in a more responsible way than only through war.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The NIE recently came out with a report that stated we are less safe thanks to the war on Iraq and the shitty-ly run War on Terror.
"The Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.”

Read the rest for yourself and some more bullet points here.


What do I think? I think...DUH! Are you kidding me, who honestly thought after what 3 plus years of this war in Iraq, Afhganistan falling back under Taliban attack and control, that the world would not be more anti-American? Didn't we warn the country of this new age of isolationism? Uni-lateralism?
I know I did, I was there on Nov. 2nd 2004 when the country decided to reward these idiots with 4 more years.

Think for yourself now readers. Think. Everytime bad news happens, glossy spin is put out. Everytime someone critizes, they are unpatriotic. And everytime a gas goes down or a security measure comes up, the GOP snears and grins.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And for good measure lets jump over to the DailyKos for our update of electronic voting.

Even Fox News is skeptical, and thats saying something.

I for one will always always demand a paper ballot. Probably till the day I die. Sure I use Debit cards, email, do internet purchases everyday. Heck everything is online or done by a computer.

But you know what, my grandparents, my forefathers, my ancestors didnt fight, die, migrate, for me to have that right. They wanted me to have the right to be counted. The right to fight and count for a cause for a better life. They wanted me to vote.

And thats why a machine such as automated voting, with no paper trail, should never touch my fingers when I want to vote.

Till the day I die. I will be demanding a paper ballot if I have a computer at my precinct. Should you?

5 years later, and what has changed?

Nothings changed. America is not safer than it was pre-911. America is not unifed under a sense of humanity. No lesssons have been learned by those in power.

Its taken me a long time to come to grips with that day, so long ago. It shattered me like a little school boy skinning his knee. For a long time I believed what we did the following years were right, just, and needed.

Yesterday is a new day. 5 years have passed since "Everything Changed". And I'm here to tell you it hasn't.

The same politicans, corrupt, lying, bags of worthlessness, have taken a day, and an opportunity, and squandered it all away.

It is time to stop hiding in the Shadows of 9/11 as a reason for everything we do. Or everything we say we should do. What have we become? A nation so fixated on the point of 9/11 that we've neglected and forgot all the lessons prior and since?

It is time to stand up and say "No more." We are a people of principles and of hope. It is time to make rational decisions and those that are about the future and not the past. We are a great people, and saying "Mr. President, you are flat wrong," does not make you one with the terrorists. That kind of thinking is deglated to kings and tyrannts who have no concern for free and open debate.

Keith Olbermann says it best and if 9 minutes to spare, watch it. You'll be better off if you do. He says everything I would want to say to our people, nation, and souls. Except well...much better.

Thanks and goodluck to us all.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TRNabyKIle0