Is Senator Leahy LIHOP?

[HamdenRice]

Here is an excerpt from a Democracy Now transcript of an interview that Amy Goodman had with Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont concerning the bill that stripped "terror" detainees of the right of habeas corpus. Leahy was clearly very angry about the bill and about other legal catastrophes perpetrated by the Bush administration and was especially angry at the lack of Congressional oversight.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/29/150254

"SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: For one thing, we would have been asking the questions about what’s been going on for six years. We’ve had a rubberstamp congress that automatically has given the President anything he wants, because nobody’s asked questions.

<snip>

And, of course, the two questions that the Congress would not ask, because the Republicans won’t allow it, is, why did 9/11 happen on George Bush's watch when he had clear warnings that it was going to happen? Why did they allow it to happen? And secondly, when they had Osama bin Laden cornered, why didn’t they get him? Had there been an independent congress, one that could ask questions, these questions would have been asked years ago. We’d be much better off. We would have had the answers to that. I think with those answers, we would not have the fiasco we have in Iraq today, we would have caught Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan would be a more stable place, and the world would be safer."

Let's hope that Sen. Leahy will investigate these questions now that the Democrats have subpoena power.

[Taxloss]

1. Leahy's questions are all very good.

I hope he gets some good answers.

[Kingshakabobo]

2. Do you have a link?

He doesn't appear to be LIHOP from this but a link would help. Did he say "on pourpose"??.....you have the "LIH"

[HamdenRice]

3. fixed it nt

[Kingshakabobo]

4. Thanks! nt

[Grateful for Hope]

5. Thanks for posting this

Perhaps there really is light at the end of the tunnel now that, as you mentioned, the Dems have subpoena power, and at least Senator Leahy is asking some tough questions.

[Kingshakabobo]

6. Judging by what he says here, No,

He doesn't say anything different than what I say and/or most national dems say. Specifically, I'm thinking of Kerry during the 2004 election.

These quotes don't add up to "on purpose" anymore than Kerry's do. Also, if he said "on purpose" anywhere, I'm sure the CT-o-bots(is that what we are calling each other these days :) ) would be screaming it from the rooftops.

[quickesst]

9. Would you say...

that if a person is in a position to stop an action, and does not, it is done so on purpose? Leahy asked, why they allowed it to happen, meaning they were in a position to stop it, and did not. Were there outside forces separate from our own government that halted their ability to stop 9/11? Or was it sheer incompetence, which by any reasonable standards is enough to call for a new investigation in itself, especially after all the medals, promotions, and atta-boys given all around. Thanks.
quickesst

[hack89]

7. Since Hope2006 has me blocked:

In reply to post #5, since CTrs have been saying for years that the 911 commission was in on the cover up, and since it was a bi-partisan commission full of prominent Democrats, you are delusional if you think the Democrats will go beyond asking questions that place Bush in a bad light. Aren't some Democrats complicit in 911?

[Grateful for Hope]

10. It is not delusional to hope that there are some Dems

who are not part of the coverup. I don't generalize the members of the 9/11 commission to the entire Dem faction of congress.

Sometimes it is much better to have hope than it is to cynically assume that nothing will or can be done to get at the truth.

[quickesst]

11. Perhaps not complicit...

but more serving their best interest by a whitewash?

"In November of 2003, President Bush appointed Cleland to a position on the board of the Export-Import Bank, prompting him to step down from the Commission. 4 Â He was replaced by probable war criminal Bob Kerrey. As of May, 2004, the Commission consisted of the following members:

Thomas Kean (chair) director of oil giant Amerada Hess. business ties to Saudis Khalid bin Mahfouz. co-chairman of Homeland Security Project. CFR member.
Lee H. Hamilton (vice chair) member of Homeland Security Advisory Council. former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Select Intelligence Committee. chair of committee investigating Iran/Contra. CFR member.
Richard Ben-Veniste partner in the Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw law firm which represented Westfield Corporation and Westfield America -- insurance beneficiaries of the court-ordered multi-billion dollar payout for the World Trade Center destruction. 5 Â
Bob Kerrey vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Intelligence. Kerrey said in a 1999 Washington Post column that the Vietnam war (which killed over 2 million civilians) was a "just war."
Fred F. Fielding worked for John Dean as White House counsel to Nixon -- "Deep Throat" of Watergate fame, avoided prison time.
Jamie S. Gorelick current and former partner, along with Commission General Counsel Daniel Marcus, of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, a law firm representing Prince Mohammed al Faisal against the August 2002 lawsuit by victims' families against several Saudi princes and banks, and the Sudanese government. vice-chair of mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Former deputy to Janet Reno. CFR member.
Slade Gorton served two years on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
John F. Lehman former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. disgraced in a number of scandals, including Tailhook.
Timothy J. Roemer member of the House Intelligence Committee.
James R. Thompson chairman of the large Chicago-based law firm Winston and Strawn, whose clients have included American Airlines, Boeing, and a number of WTC tenants.
Philip Zelikow member of George W. Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; member of Bush-Cheney transition team.
http://911research.wtc7.net/post911/commission/index.html

[Grateful for Hope]

12. I think you've got it right

I think the members of the commission were hand-picked precisely because of their vested interests in the outcome of the investigation.

[hack89]

14. But considering the magnitude of the 911 plot.

surely you must agree that the initial infiltration of the government and initial planning was done during the Clinton administration? So even if they weren't complicit they were negligent for letting it happen under their noses. That is why there will be no investigation - Bill (and Hillary by extension) don't want to face hard questions about why they didn't didn't detect it.

[John Q. Citizen]

30. Have you read Peter Lance's "Triple Cross?" That would put the timeline

back to Poppy.

[hack89]

35. That makes it worse for the Clintons ...

eight years that members of the US government were plotting to kill Americans. There will never be an investigation.

[John Q. Citizen]

36. It's more like 12 years, I think there will be. But it will either be an independent

prosecutor with a grand jury (ala Garrison) or it will be another managed show investigation that won't follow the evidence where it leads, but will instead hang a few scapegoats or implicate dead people of criminal wrong doing, or implicate retired people of bungling.

Members of the US government have plotted to kill American people before, and I'm sure they will again. That doesn't mean that every Intel or LEO agent on the payroll is culpable of doing that, though.

Either way, B. Clinton will deny knowledge of the close relationship of the government to the terrorists, but of course people will argue that he should have known. Same for both bush's. My feeling is that neither bush w nor Clinton were directly in that loop.

How any of them have missed the long record of Intel involvement with drugs, though, is not believable. Even if neither was directly involved, I still can't believe no one has any inkling.

So you haven't answered if you read the book, or at least the free on line access to Peter Lance's time line. It's worth reading, if you are interested in this stuff.

[mirandapriestly]

25. If you are calling her "delusional" no wonder

she has you blocked.

[hack89]

28. Except she had me blocked ..

before I had even replied to her post. She simply can't handle disagreement (mainly because she is consistently unable to coherently defend her views.)

[Grateful for Hope]

32. I am blocking based on

patterns of performance I have observed in this forum. These patterns include posting posts that tend to ridicule, that use sarcasm as means to get a point across, that personally attack other posters, or that generally offer no information and serve only to hijack threads.

On edit: Since the new ignore feature went into effect, the threads I have posted in have been consistently hijacked by OCT'ers who apparently vehemently object to the new feature, and who appear to think that it is ok to call another poster a "coward", "delusional", and "incoherent" among other things. The very reasons I have chosen to block certain posters have become more pronounced, which tells me that my reasons for blocking were quite accurate.

[Grateful for Hope]

8. Wanted to add

that this question:

"Why did they allow it to happen?" does certainly suggest that Leahy is leaning toward LIHOP. This is a quite different question than, for instance, "Why didn't they take the warnings seriously?" which would suggest to me that Leahy thought this was a screw up on the part of the administration.

[hack89]

13. Since Hope2006 still has me blocked:

Isn't somewhat cowardly to reply to my response knowing full well that you have me blocked? If you want to ignore me why don't you?

[Make7]

15. Well, you actually did reply to her first post in this thread.

I don't think it's unreasonable for her to respond to your reply to her post.

If you didn't want her to respond, perhaps you shouldn't have explicitly stated that your prior post was a reply to her.

I imagine it will take a while for all of us to get used to the new ignore features.

- Make7

[hack89]

16. I replied as I did ..

because I feel she is misusing the ignore feature. I think it is cowardly and I will challenge it every opportunity I can. I do not want this forum ruined and turned into an echo chamber.

[Grateful for Hope]

17. So you are using this thread

as a means to protest against my use of the ignore feature.

Nice.

[Grateful for Hope]

20. It is a misuse of the function

to call out a poster who is blocking you. This was done twice in this thread.

[Grateful for Hope]

22. To be clear -- from Skinner's thread

What if I block someone, but they try to work around the system by starting new threads or replying to other people when they can't reply to me?

It is our hope that the vast majority of people will understand the value of this system, and will simply avoid engaging in this behavior. But there is no doubt that some people will try their best to work around the system. If this becomes a problem, then we will certainly take steps to deal with it. But for the time being we want to take a wait-and-see approach to find out how the system is used. That means that we might all have to tolerate this type of behavior for a while until we get some idea of how pervasive it is and figure out how to deal with it.

Also, I do believe there are DU rules against personal attacks such as calling people "cowards".

[mirandapriestly]

26. I agree, for once we would like to be able to have meaningful

dialogue that isn't disrupted by knee jerk responses and personal attacks.

[SidDithers]

18. If a poster is using the block feature, they should also...

be forced into ignoring the poster that they're blocking. If Hope really didn't want to converse with hack89 (after all, that's why she's blocking him, right?), she also shouldn't be able to read any of his posts. I agree that it's cowardly to block replies from a poster, yet still maintain the ability to read that posters opinions, and even reply to them.

But let's just say that I'm not really surprised the feature is being used that way.

Sid

[G Hawes]

27. Yes, it seems rather strange

that the function is not reciprocal.

it seems odd to me that someone, let's say person A, who feels so strongly about not having any interaction with another person, let's say person B, that A would resort to such a draconian measure as to prevent B from responding to A's posts or even participating in A's threads, but that A should still be able to respond to B's posts and participate in B's threads.

the function is apparently not set up to deal with this obvious inequity but one would think that a person of integrity would not utilize the function in such a manner, as both a sense of fair play and decency dictate otherwise. and i suspect that most people at DU won't use it in that manner. still, it ought to be reciprocal to prevent the instances in which those lacking integrity would use the function for such inequitable purposes.

[HamdenRice]

31. I disagree

You are assuming that the use of the ignore function should be reciprocal because posters are basically similar or equal -- persons A and B.

But there are people in this forum in many internet forums who engage in troll-like behavior -- name-calling, thread hijacking, pointless argumentation and so on. This is especially prevalent in this forum.

So a better model is, that there is poster A and Troll. A may put Troll on ignore, but Troll will probably not put A on ignore, because Troll actually enjoys meaningless drivel arguments and might actually want A to come to Troll's thread.

Indeed, that seems to be the way things are working out.

[SidDithers]

34. But that's just the point, Hamden...

using your example, poster A is not putting Troll on ignore, they're only blocking replies from Troll (not agreeing with you that posters who've been blocked are trolls, BTW). Poster A is continuing to read posts made by Troll, and even responding to Troll in some cases. If Poster A really wanted nothing to do with Troll (which is the purpose of the nukular option, IMO), then Poster should be ignoring and blocking Troll. But that's not happening.

Whether Troll decides to ignore or block Poster A is a completely separate issue.

Sid

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dailykoff]

23. LIHOP strongly leaning to MIHOP.

I remember that interview and as I recall Leahy had to restrain himself mid-sentence as the said "Why did they allow it to happen?"

It sounded something like "Why did they {pausing to control himself} allow it to happen?" He was mad as hell.

I remember thinking well that's one senator who's figured it out. I have very high expectations that Leahy will uncover at least a few branches of this stinking sewer.

I also have concerns for his safety. :scared:

Great interview btw.

[mirandapriestly]

24. I wonder how many others know?

The problem is, as we saw with the 911 Commission, democrats are going to protect their interests on this, too.

[dailykoff]

33. Somebody but Joe in charge of the Senate Homeland Security

and Governmental Affairs Committee, so I guess that makes at least two. :mad:

At this point I'd guess that all the GOP leadership types have had it explained to them one way or another, and several Dems like Rockefeller and the NY/NJ delegation had close connections to the WTC and some even had a hand in covering it up, and the rest have probably figured it out or begun to suspect, at least I hope they have.

[HamdenRice]

29. Yes, I remember that

His emotions were very, very strong during that interview and a transcript cannot quite convey that. The way he said it made me think he had even stronger beliefs that he was conveying.