Monday, April 19, 2004
The Plan! The Plan!
Josh Marshall, in his little white suit, running all the way up to the bell tower today may have actually taken leave of his common sense. The entire entry is laughably bogus "news" but it's all he seems to want to discuss.
"This plan -- pushed by Wolfowitz -- is referred to obliquely in the Saturday article on Woodward's book in the Post. But this wasn't just some idea Wolfowitz proposed prior to 9/11, as the author implies. Centcom planners began putting together the plan for it right as they were putting together the war plan for Afghanistan.
What happened in November was still important, and qualitatively different, because this earlier tasking was not explicitly aimed at regime change, simply seizing the southern oil fields. But whether it was formally aimed at regime change or no, within less than two weeks after 9/11, Centcom planners were at work putting in place a plan to make war on Iraq."
Now, why, why, a thousand times why, is such an activity anything, anything other than perfect and, in fact, requisite LOGIC for a president? We have one nation in the world shooting at us. One. Not two. Not three, one. We are attacked and 3,000 civilians killed - it would have been ludicrous to not make plans on Iraq, making plans does not mean making war - not now, not ever. Not for Clinton and not for Bush. It would greatly surprise, even disappoint me if the Pentagon didn't have hundreds of plans for all sorts of far-flung options. Any president who did NOT ask for such a plan would have been derelict in his duty.
And Guess What?
Josh Marshall agrees with me!!! But only when it suits his cause - this is the WORST aspect of partisanism. When you blind yourself to how one sided you view all information coming your way.
On the Augst 6th PDB, and all through his 9/11 commission comments, Marshall laments the lack of plans, of execution, of actions:
"I think what people would want to know -- having now seen the warnings the president received -- is that the White House snapped into action and was trying to put together every clue it had to get to the bottom of what was coming. After the attack came they could say to the public, "There were some warnings something was coming. We put all the resources we could into it. We scrambled to turn over every stone. But we were in a race against the clock. We did our best. But we didn't figure it out in time."
So the DNC talking points are as follows: "If Bush had a plan - make plan seem nefarious, and focus on negative aspects of plan. If Bush did not have a plan, make absence of plan seem nefarious, and focus on negative aspects of absence of plan.
"And yes, we Dems NEED to make this an issue or else all there is to talk about is the fact that all of our plans, on both issues, failed.
"And we have yet to offer a new one."
Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com
Josh Marshall, in his little white suit, running all the way up to the bell tower today may have actually taken leave of his common sense. The entire entry is laughably bogus "news" but it's all he seems to want to discuss.
"This plan -- pushed by Wolfowitz -- is referred to obliquely in the Saturday article on Woodward's book in the Post. But this wasn't just some idea Wolfowitz proposed prior to 9/11, as the author implies. Centcom planners began putting together the plan for it right as they were putting together the war plan for Afghanistan.
What happened in November was still important, and qualitatively different, because this earlier tasking was not explicitly aimed at regime change, simply seizing the southern oil fields. But whether it was formally aimed at regime change or no, within less than two weeks after 9/11, Centcom planners were at work putting in place a plan to make war on Iraq."
Now, why, why, a thousand times why, is such an activity anything, anything other than perfect and, in fact, requisite LOGIC for a president? We have one nation in the world shooting at us. One. Not two. Not three, one. We are attacked and 3,000 civilians killed - it would have been ludicrous to not make plans on Iraq, making plans does not mean making war - not now, not ever. Not for Clinton and not for Bush. It would greatly surprise, even disappoint me if the Pentagon didn't have hundreds of plans for all sorts of far-flung options. Any president who did NOT ask for such a plan would have been derelict in his duty.
And Guess What?
Josh Marshall agrees with me!!! But only when it suits his cause - this is the WORST aspect of partisanism. When you blind yourself to how one sided you view all information coming your way.
On the Augst 6th PDB, and all through his 9/11 commission comments, Marshall laments the lack of plans, of execution, of actions:
"I think what people would want to know -- having now seen the warnings the president received -- is that the White House snapped into action and was trying to put together every clue it had to get to the bottom of what was coming. After the attack came they could say to the public, "There were some warnings something was coming. We put all the resources we could into it. We scrambled to turn over every stone. But we were in a race against the clock. We did our best. But we didn't figure it out in time."
So the DNC talking points are as follows: "If Bush had a plan - make plan seem nefarious, and focus on negative aspects of plan. If Bush did not have a plan, make absence of plan seem nefarious, and focus on negative aspects of absence of plan.
"And yes, we Dems NEED to make this an issue or else all there is to talk about is the fact that all of our plans, on both issues, failed.
"And we have yet to offer a new one."
Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com
