Which is more naive? Clapper answering honestly or the White House saying he’s wrong given the public is likely to believe the experts with the data? Assuming, taking a crackpot view, that there wasn’t a coordinated effort to get that message out while denying or disassociating the White House. Or is this just the spooks wanting to embarrass the pols?
The columnist Michael Kinsley once quipped that in Washington a “gaffe” is when a political notable accidentally tells the truth. Intelligence and national security officials are describing the latest controversial statements about Libya by National Intelligence Director James Clapper as that kind of “gaffe.”
At a Congressional hearing on Thursday, Clapper said that rebels trying to oust Muammar Gaddafi from power had lost momentum and that the Libyan leader could well survive for some time to come. “We believe that Gaddafi is in this for the long haul…He appears to be hunkering down for the duration.”
“This is kind of a stalemate back and forth,” Clapper said, but added that, “I think over the long term that the (Gaddafi) regime will prevail.”
White House officials subsequently distanced the administration somewhat from Clapper’s remarks and President Obama repeated on Friday that he wants Gaddafi to go.
Clapper was criticized for his his upbeat assessment of Gaddafi’s prospects. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Armed Services committee, called his statement “devastating” and while “some of (Clapper’s) analysis could prove to be accurate,” the intelligence czar was unwise to voice it in public.
“Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Armed Services committee, called his statement “devastating” and while “some of (Clapper’s) analysis could prove to be accurate,” the intelligence czar was unwise to voice it in public.””
Obama is not alone in not wanting to hear accurate assessments. It seems conservative South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham recognizes the truth but does not like when this man states it.
#33 War Mongering?
Who said the Afghanistan War was “The War We Need to Win” back on August 1, 2007? Oh, yeah. That was Senator Obama back when he had no skin in the game. What does the “leader of the free world” say now?
Cue the crickets.
#40 Taxed Enough
From the article “But intelligence and national security officials defended Clapper’s remarks, saying that they represented an accurate summary of current U.S. intelligence reporting and analysis on the relative military postures of Gaddafi and his opponents. They said intelligence operatives must advise their “customers” and are not supposed to be influenced by wishful thinking or political or foreign policy considerations.
They say Clapper shouldn’t be blamed for laying out professional judgements that don’t fit a party line.”
He should testify, I repeat TESTIFY, to one thing in public at a Senate hearing and say something different in private? You are calling for him to LIE? To LIE?!! Are you not constantly berating the President for LYING but now you wish this official to LIE.
#40 Taxed Enough
Senator Graham has called for his resignation, but Senator John McCain and Senator Joe Lieberman support James Clapper and thanked him for his honest opinion.
http://cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20041822-503544.html
We need more people supplying honest opinions instead of supplying the opinion they think the audience wants to hear.
@#40
When a public servant fails to remain servile to the public and seeks to deceive, lie or distort the truth and facts from said public, s/he should immediately be jailed for life or executed.
We should not be aiding the rebels.
We should not be involved over there at all.
Nation building is for neo-cons and their liberal lackies.
Now that Google has released the ability to remove certain sites from its results to eliminate spam sites, I propose the ability to filter out certain spam-like posters from the comment results.
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/11/6245784-google-users-can-now-filter-spam-out-of-search-results
The only problem would be that once I removed bobbo’s comments, half of the remaining comments would be from people wasting their time corresponding with him.
BTW, careful TEA Dude, you need to slow down and do some editing. Your number of comments are starting to become bobbo-esque. Now if you start adding random suffixes to your name every comment, I am really going to be concerned.
“as long as they are rational claims, they are unbobo like.”
LOL!!
Best quote all day!
#41–JB–I think Obama is still saying the same thing and like BushtheRetard he refuses to admit to the limits of American Military Force or our ability to throw money away.
The Afghan War would have been easy to win. In-Out as we did, THEN LEAVE which we did not. Still easy to win: declare it and leave.
Same with Iraq.
And I will suggest that if “In-Out” could become our realpolitik, I would suggest it for Libya, Somalia, Sudan. In-Out. Cheap, quick, effective, game changer. Credible.
Rinse repeat. show another full bottle to Iran.
Obama’s problem here is making declarations he can’t back up, hurting the US credibility. Why does he say Ghadafi must step down, it is unacceptable for him to stay?
Well a Politician will always lie. This guy actually has no reason to lie. I think the US has a stronger connection to the Lybian leader then they care to admit. Because I think a no fly action would have been done by now if that was not the case.
52->I support the rebels, too. But Obama is doing the right thing by keeping his (our) nose out of it. Personally, I don’t think he should even be commenting on it but it is supposed to be a free country.
Just because you hate Obama doesn’t mean you should wish the exact opposite of what he is doing. That only leads to people thinking we should do it.
55->Cuban? Not even close.
At one time, you used to preach non-intervention.
What happened?
And you should know, I don’t believe in intervening at all . . . unless a state of war exists between our two countries. And then it isn’t intervention. It is large scale bombing back to the stone age or until they unconditionally surrender. Until then, anything goes including shooting them in their tents.
I can’t believe you truly think we should intervene there! Where is the limited government Pedro at I’ve been reading?
Gaddafi has been in power for decades. He use to be a major headache for the US until his five-year-old son was killed during a Reagan-ordered bomb strike against him. Since then, he has largely toned down his anti-US rhetoric and, hence, quit being our concern — the airline bombing being the only notable exception of the last twenty-five years.
That the US could remove Gaddafi from power is a certainty. That Gaddafi’s removal from power would somehow benefit the US is a dangerous delusion. I, for one, wish that Obama make no statements, nor take any action regarding the civil war in Libya.