The Saudis oil and the Bushes

[dex]

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Originally Posted by newguy888 Heck I must be a genius, I told all the people I knew that we should not bother with saddam back before the war and heck I am just an erd Phys ed teacher what do I know!

Wait a second - I said that "New Coke" would bomb and smokeless cigaretts wouldn't work.
I also said that the stock market bubble would burst.

[chinaco]

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Originally Posted by samclem Would this be the same George Tenet who wrote a book that went on sale last week? Imagine that--what a coincidence. He should be deeply ashamed of himself. During his tenure at CIA he failed to support the good work of analysts and allowed the end producty of the best intelligence system in the world to be bent to serve political purposes. There's plenty of published material from unbiased sources on what the intel community got right and what they got wrong, so there's no need to believe Tenet (again). His Presidential Medal of Freedom should be rescinded.

Yup... the same person (obviously). I am not sure that intel gathering is flawless or a perfect science. He admitted the they had some bad intel... But we must remember, he does not control funding, and he does not make the ultimate decisions. Condy was the filter to GW. Garbage in Garbage out. Plus, the president has to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity.

I cannot vouch for his character... but one thing is fairly evident, GW, Cheney, an Rummy all wanted to take down Saddam. At any cost. Cheney and Rummy have been around... they knew that the intel could be flawed. It is ambiguous. THey threw down an ultimatum publicly to Saddam and cornered him. The WMD search could have happened without a war if they had continued to apply more pressure. They used it as an excuse.

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Originally Posted by samclem Saddam with intelligence on Iran.The energy programs put in place under Carter were incredible wastes of taxpayer money. Ther Synfuel program is a poster child for government waste. Most governments are just not good at picking winners and losers, whereas the marketplace does a very good job of allocating resources to the place that will give hihest payout. Government research does have a place, but when that research moves to production of goods and services--watch out. Reagan's killing of these programs was a blessing.

I hate to break the news to you... but Carter had it right (when it comes to actively supporting an energy program)!

Ever look at the cost of the war in Iraq! The cost of the Middle east turmoil and disruption to our economy. Energy has turned into an economic weapon and tool to get at us.

Synfuel was a step in the right direction that made sense at the time... That was a logical target because of our abundance of coal. It is a viable technology... depending on oil prices, the economics work out. But that is a little beside the general point. What could/should have happened... if Reagan was forward thinking... would have been to replace that program with another instead of just cutting the initiative!

The Carter move was intended (at the time) to beging an initiative to help break us free of the middle east. If all of the middle east costs were accounted for... I suspect that any energy initiative will look cheap!

Economics is the cold (yet overt) war of the 21st century and energy is one of the weapons.

Saint Reagan had his moments... but he did not always get it right!

[LKH]

If I remember Carter correctly, he believed that we should be looking at alternative and domestic energy sources, to get away from foreign oil. The man made a lot of mistakes, but if we'd have stayed the course on that point, we would probably not be in the morass we're in today. I disagree with him profoundly on his views on Israel, which I think border on anti-Semitic, but on the oil issue, I think he had it right.

What a lot of people don't get is that the culture in the Middle East is so intrinsically different from the west, on so many critical points, that so long as we feel it's necessary to be engaged to any serious degree, we are bound to have these conflicts with groups like Al Qaeda.

One of Carter's mistakes was supporting the despotic Shah of Iran because he was culturally friendly to the west. We're making the same huge mistake supporting the al Saud's - there will be an overthrow, probably soon, and we're going to be up to our belt loops in the conflict.

[FinanceDude]

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Originally Posted by 2B Not showing up for his dental appointment when he was in the Air National Guard. Dan Rather has all of the documents to prove it.

[USK Coastie]

I noticed last night they did not ask why when the CIA had a shot a Bin Laden in 98/99 they didnt take it. Didn't want to embarass the Dems no doubt

One of the reasions Regan killed the syn fuels project was the cost to produce the fuel from coal was above $3.00 per gallon at the commercial scale. Real hard to sell syn fuel to Joe customer at $3.00 / per gallon when gas was $1.50/ per gallon.

We need to develop our known reserves, ( ANWAR off shore CA, FL, and deep water deposits in the Gulf) and and increase productioin capacity in order to get out of this Middle East mess. Also construct wind farms where they are most effective instead if the NIMBY attitude. The Dems are still too busy hating Bush to do anything constructive. Fer crying out loud he'll be gone 20 months. GET OVER IT and do something productive about the problem.

We could easily be energy independant but both political parties are too busy hustling their supporters to come to grips with this as well as other issues.

[bssc]

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Originally Posted by USK Coastie The Dems are still too busy hating Bush to do anything constructive. Fer crying out loud he'll be gone 20 months. GET OVER IT and do something productive about the problem.

The Democrats have to hate Bush. All the candidates have this as their central platform because it is a very popular thing to do. And any Republican candidate will have to support Bush a la Hubert Humphrey supporting LBJ.

[jefipius]

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Originally Posted by USK Coastie We need to develop our known reserves, ( ANWAR off shore CA, FL, and deep water deposits in the Gulf) and and increase productioin capacity in order to get out of this Middle East mess. Also construct wind farms where they are most effective instead if the NIMBY attitude. ...

Realistically, developing known reserves does very little to insure energy 'independence'. It would only raise the world supply (and only by a modest amount).
This oil would be brought to market by multi-nationals and sold on the open market to the highest bidder. If that be the Chinese, so be it. If this oil were somehow 'reserved' for domestic use and sold at market rate it would just be a big shell game. If sold at lower than market rate we'd hear the cry of price controls.

Energy Independence really requires that we use less oil. There's only two ways to do this - conservation and alternative sources. Both are not likely to be cheap in the short run, but really folks, what's the _true_ cost of oil? (Political, Economic, Environmental, etc.)

[jefipius]

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Originally Posted by 2B There seems to be some confusion about "impeachment." Widespread hatred of the president and/or vice president is not an impeachable offense. Since Bill Clinton was actually guilty of a felony (he later confessed pleaded no contest and lost his law license) and wasn't removed from office, I must assume the actual level of "crime" is pretty high to be removed. BC was impeached but the Senate decided they didn't want to really examine it.

He was impeached, but acquitted. As part of a deal, he later admitted to "knowingly (giving) misleading testimony" and had his license suspended for 5 years. He was never convicted of (or confessed to) a felony. The charges were dropped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeach...f_Bill_Clinton

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLI...nton.lewinsky/

[2B]

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Originally Posted by jefipius He was impeached, but acquitted. As part of a deal, he later admitted to "knowingly (giving) misleading testimony" and had his license suspended for 5 years. He was never convicted of (or confessed to) a felony. The charges were dropped. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeach...f_Bill_Clinton http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLI...nton.lewinsky/

I guess it comes down to what "it" means. The Slickmeister admitted to "knowingly misleading." That sounds like admitting to perjury to me. Anyone else would have gone to Federal prison.

[jefipius]

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Originally Posted by 2B I guess it comes down to what "it" means. The Slickmeister admitted to "knowingly misleading." That sounds like admitting to perjury to me. Anyone else would have gone to Federal prison.

I'm not trying to argue whether he should have gone to prison or not (not being a Senator, lawyer, or Judge, my opinion is moot anyway). You said he was a convicted felon, but he isn't. I was just clarifying.

[OKLibrarian]

*breaks self imposed silence on all politically-themed threads*

All this debate over whether Clinton or GWB is going to have the better legacy is like trying to determine the tallest midget in the circus. They're both corrupt truth-twisting morons. What does that say about we the people who elected them? (Yes, Bush was elected at least once. And we didn't exactly rise up en masse in 2000 to oppose the supreme court's appointment, so we got what we deserved there too). I prefer my team's truth-twisting morons because they didn't send American boys to their deaths for no good reason (this time around anyway).

I could say more, but I've already p!ssed myself off sufficiently. I think I'm going to go bang my head against the wall for a few moments, then start dinner.

*resumes self-imposed silence on all politically themed threads*

[jefipius]

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Originally Posted by OKLibrarian *breaks self imposed silence on all politically-themed threads* All this debate over whether Clinton or GWB is going to have the better legacy is like trying to determine the tallest midget in the circus. They're both corrupt truth-twisting morons. What does that say about we the people who elected them? (Yes, Bush was elected at least once. And we didn't exactly rise up en masse in 2000 to oppose the supreme court's appointment, so we got what we deserved there too). I prefer my team's truth-twisting morons because they didn't send American boys to their deaths for no good reason (this time around anyway). I could say more, but I've already p!ssed myself off sufficiently. I think I'm going to go bang my head against the wall for a few moments, then start dinner. *resumes self-imposed silence on all politically themed threads*

I'd have to disagree slightly.

I'd say that Bush is a corrupt truth-twisting moron, while Clinton was a corrupt truth-twisting letch.

The rest is 100% spot on....

[OKLibrarian]

I don't disagree with letch, but I stand behind moron as well. The freaking RHODES SCHOLAR should have known what would have happened the instant the republicans got wind of his oval office shenanigans (which they inevitably would), and kept his bloody pants zipped.

Sorry, hell hath no fury like a southern liberal feminist scorned...

Dang it! Dinner! Now!

*shuts off computer for a bit*

[jefipius]

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Originally Posted by OKLibrarian I don't disagree with letch, but I stand behind moron as well. The freaking RHODES SCHOLAR should have known what would have happened the instant the republicans got wind of his oval office shenanigans (which they inevitably would), and kept his bloody pants zipped. Sorry, hell hath no fury like a southern liberal feminist scorned... Dang it! Dinner! Now! *shuts off computer for a bit*

I'll give you that. I won't surprised if Bush gets 'Letch' as well. There's just something fishy about Bush and Rice's relationship...

[OKLibrarian]

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Originally Posted by jefipius I'll give you that. I won't surprised if Bush gets 'Letch' as well. There's just something fishy about Bush and Rice's relationship...

Nothing would surprise me at this point.