[quote] Putin Takes Bush’s Side Against Democrats on Iraq
Thu Jun 10, 8:41 PM ET
SEA ISLAND, Ga (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped into the U.S. political campaign on Thursday, saying the Democrats had “no moral right” to criticize President Bush over Iraq.
The Kremlin leader, answering a reporter’s question in Sea Island, Georgia, suggested that the Democrats were two-faced in criticizing Bush on Iraq since it had been the Clinton administration that authorized the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia by U.S. and NATO forces.
He went on: "I am deeply convinced that President Bush’s political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same.
“It suffices to recall Yugoslavia. Now look at them. They don’t like what President Bush is doing in Iraq.”
Russia was adamantly opposed to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, as it has been to the U.S.-led military operation Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.[/quote]
Since when have Putin’s views taken on such importance? Speaking of being two-faced, how many Republicans attacked Clinton’s activities with various women while engaging in the same kind of behavior
themselves? Hypocrisy is rampant among politicans.
Putin should focus his attention on making his own country a livable place. I am sure the Russian people would be much happier if he did.
[quote=“MaPoSquid”]I am not aware of any Republicans who have been accused of rape and sexual harrassment, then lied under oath to avoid a judgement against them.
Perhaps you’re getting confused on party affiliations. The Kennedys are Democrats.[/quote]
“I am deeply convinced that President Bush’s political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same.”
Vladimir Putin, colonel, Soviet KGB 1975-1990
1979, December. Soviets invade Afghanistan:
There was wide-spread use of chemical weapons behind the front lines in Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. This was accepted practice for Soviet military units as reported by Soviet military journals.
More than 20 million anti-personnel mines were dropped by the Soviet Union. In a display of really macabre ingenuity, the Soviets take to scattering brightly-colored plastic toys known as “dolly bombs”, which explode when picked up by children.
Including civilian casualities, estimates are that 10% of the total population and 13.5% of the male population was killed, 1.5 million killed overall.
There is considerable evidence that, at least in some districts, the Soviets engaged in deliberate campaigns of extermination, and make use of chemical weapons.
Putin is fascist scum who has ordered the murder of thousands of Chechens and Russian dissidents. A petty ex-KGB gangster and tin-pot dictator. Who gives a shit what this worthless piece of human excrement has to say about anything?
Since when are Republicans (or Democrats) proud of the support of brutal third-world despots?
If I recall the facts correctly, there wasn’t a single other person on staff at the EOC who heard Clarence Thomas say those things or anything like them. All the other female staffers save one who had been fired and backed out of testifying in public supported Thomas’s version of the facts.
After I heard both sides of the story, I came away convinced that Thomas was telling the truth and Anita Hill had some sort of personal problem.
Even if Thomas was lying, what was the worst he was accused of? Saying the words “pubic hair” and “Long Dong Silver” in public? If that’s harrassment of any sort then I’m Long Dong Silver.
The same can be said about Jones’ story concerning Clinton. No other person heard Clinton say anything of a sexual nature to her. So why believe Thomas but not Clinton?
Why? Is it so difficult to believe that a man would make some inappropriate comments to a women?
You are justifying Thomas’ actions, plain and simple. If you listened to the testimony at the time it was given, and you said you did, then you know Thomas just didn’t say those simple words. If a man spoke to your wife, mother or sister the way that Thomas was accused of speaking to Hill, I am sure your opinion about sexual harrassment would be different.
Spook, you don’t like Clinton but you like Thomas. That is called having a personal bias. I admit I hated Thomas and I liked Clinton. Thus, my opinion is equally biased.
I respect the truth and those who tell it and I don’t respect lies and those who tell them.
I voted for George W. Bush but I think he’s been lying egregiously. I think it’s a matter of public record that Bill Clinton lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky – lies for which he was disbarred from practicing law before the U.S. Supreme Court and barred from practicing law in his home state of Arkansas for five years. The Paula Jones affair allegedly happened only between them in a private setting. I tended to believe her side of the story because numerous other women made the same accusation against Clinton, unlike Clarence Thomas.
If I only believe Clarence Thomas’s testimony because of my political beliefs then I’m in the wrong and I’m doing the truth a disservice. That could be the case. I’m honestly willing to change my opinion on the matter. I was primarily swayed to believe Thomas though on the basis of the facts that no other woman he ever worked with accused him of sexual harrassment and a half-dozen testified that he was of the highest character. Plus, Anita Hill described events that others would have seen or heard, but there was no evidence of that.
Men are men, most of us are horndogs, and a few of us are despicably sleazy horndogs who take advantage of women. I don’t see how whether a guy is a Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or Green has anything to do with it. Yes, Squid, I am sure that there are plenty of Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the White House who have sexually harassed women and lied about it. They’re politicians. That is just what politicians do.
The facts are NOT the same. Bill Clinton (BC) was accused by several women of inappropriate sexual advances. Clarence Thomas (CT) was accused by only one woman, Anita Hill (AH).
I agree.
Its not difficult at all. But do we act simply on belief of accusations, or do we require a level of proof?
AH was a Yale Law School Graduate working for the EEOC. This is the very agency in the US federal Government that deals with sexual harrassment policy. She is an attorney, also.
However, AH testified that she followed CT from one job to another and that she didn’t bloww the whistle, so to speak, on CT because she was afraid that she might lose her job. I don’t know about you, but I find that testamony, coming from a Yale Law graduate working as a top official in the EEOC astoundingly incredulous. How could she not know her rights?
Also, as an attorney and a high level EEOC official, she knew that in cases of sexual harrassment allegations, claims are required to be made within 6 months of the incident in question (for fed employee cases). She understood the reason for this policy is that sexual harrassment can be difficult to prove. She knew that it should have been well documented with times, dates and specifics. Yet, she allowed herself to be used as a political tool and raised the allegations well after the six month period had passed. She allowed herself to be used in an attempt to stop a conservative black man from being appointed to the Supreme Court.
I find her, and that attempt, utterly disgusting.
There was absolutely NO proof that CT said any of those things.
Are you willing to judge him by the words and statements of a group of people who were obviously grinding a political axe?
I hope you are never accused falsely of such impropriety where it is your word against hers and there is no other evidence one way or the other.
It was proved that BC lied. There are numerous accusations regarding BC. It was never proved that CT lied and except for AH’s, I know of no other allegations levelled against CT.
[quote=“spook”]I respect the truth and those who tell it and I don’t respect lies and those who tell them.
I voted for George W. Bush but I think he’s been lying egregiously. I think it’s a matter of public record that Bill Clinton lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky – lies for which he was disbarred from practicing law before the U.S. Supreme Court and barred from practicing law in his home state of Arkansas for five years. The Paula Jones affair allegedly happened only between them in a private setting. I tended to believe her side of the story because numerous other women made the same accusation against Clinton, unlike Clarence Thomas.
If I only believe Clarence Thomas’s testimony because of my political beliefs then I’m in the wrong and I’m doing the truth a disservice. That could be the case. I’m honestly willing to change my opinion on the matter. I was primarily swayed to believe Thomas though on the basis of the facts that no other woman he ever worked with accused him of sexual harrassment and a half-dozen testified that he was of the highest character. Plus, Anita Hill described events that others would have seen or heard, but there was no evidence of that.[/quote]
In a brilliant analysis of media coverage of the hearings, Wahneema Lubiano (1992) shows how The New York Times in various ways tried to show the hearing process as fair and equal. She takes as one example the famous pictures run on October 12 of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas each being sworn into testify. The pictures taken at face value, Lubiano interprets, suggest equality under the law. But in point of fact Anita Hill was one lone woman, whom the Senate Judiciary Committee had tried not to call to testify, matched against the power of the White House and the fifteen male Senators who became her judges–none of whom had probably ever been sexually harassed. And further, this was not about two black people who had risen to prominence but about the ways a white power establishment could try to manipulate the politics of difference. The Times pictures were meant to reassure the public that justice was working.
Thomas’s reputation and career were at stake during those hearings.
Hill had considerably less at stake.
Assuming you had to choose and presuming nothing about guilt or innocence, whose seat would you have preferred to have been in during those hearings: accused or accuser’s, Thomas’s or Hill’s?
[quote=“spook”]Thomas’s reputation and career were at stake during those hearings.
Hill had considerably less at stake.
Assuming you had to choose and presuming nothing about guilt or innocence, whose seat would you have preferred to have been in during those hearings: accused or accuser’s, Thomas’s or Hill’s?[/quote]
I would have rather been in Hill’s seat. Thomas, irrespective of guilt or innocence, had to deal with very embarrasing allegations. However, the actions of Supreme Court justices and potential ones must be scrutinized very closely even if it means an occassional circus. Nixon and Ford went after William O. Douglas many times (about his connections with some Dominican group) and always spread malicious sexual inneundo about him. After all, he was married numerous times and often with juicy ladies 50 years younger than himself. All I am saying is that “sexual McCarthyism” is as prevelent on the right as it is on the left. People will always use malicious, dirty, and smear campaigns when power is involved. This is true in presidential politics and it is also true with the Supreme Court.
The only difference is that more than one woman may have accused Clinton. however, the fact is that both BC and CT were accused of sexual harrassment but in both cases they were only accusations. As a lawyer, you ought to know that simply because more than one person makes an accusation against another does not mean that it is true. Thus, Thomas is no more innocent or guilty than Clinton simply because more than one person made accusations against Clinton. Many of those who accused Clinton had a financial reason for doing so. Paula Jones didn’t do so bad when the dust finally settled.
C’mon, tigerman. You are making insinuations that Hill was not telling the truth but you have no level of proof at all. Why is that ok to do?
[quote=“tigerman”]AH was a Yale Law School Graduate working for the EEOC. This is the very agency in the US federal Government that deals with sexual harrassment policy. She is an attorney, also.
However, AH testified that she followed CT from one job to another and that she didn’t bloww the whistle, so to speak, on CT because she was afraid that she might lose her job. I don’t know about you, but I find that testamony, coming from a Yale Law graduate working as a top official in the EEOC astoundingly incredulous. How could she not know her rights?[/quote]
She never said, implied or pretended that she didn’t “know her rights.” She said she was afraid of losing her job. Why is that hard to believe? If she liked her job but was being harrassed by a superior, the fact that she was a graduate of Yale Law School makes no difference. Perhaps, one could argue, she was well aware of how hard it is for a woman to prove that she is being sexually harrassed so that is why she chose to ignore Thomas’ crude sexual harrassment at the time.
tigerman, why would she, as a black woman, want to stop a conservative or liberal black man from being on the Supreme Court? What would be her reason? What proof do you offer that she was being used by anyone? Where is your proof for anything you are putting forth in order to attack Hill’s character or her motives in this situation? You offer no proof so I assume that means you have no proof.
Where you there when all this may have happened between Hill and Thomas? I wasn’t either so how can you be so certain that she is not telling the truth? Hill is disgusting simply because she had the nerve to claim that she was sexually harrassed by another person? She is a Yale Law School grad who knows the law so this proves she should have acted in a prescribed way? Your logic here is perplexing to say the least.
Again, where is the proof that Clinton said or did what Paula Jones said he did? It was not there at all, yet he is guilty in your eyes. Talk about a double standard.
Clinton was judged continuously by people with a political axe to grind. Kenneth Star wasted millions of tax dollars simply for political reasons. Yet you and others who hated Clinton are willing to accept accusations as facts as long as it applies to those people you dislike. Again, talk about a double standard.
Thank you and I wish the same for you. However, where is the proof that Thomas was falsely accused of anything? Sexual harrassment, like rape, is difficult to prove, but not being able to prove it conclusively doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
You’re wrong. It was never proven that Clinton lied about sexual harrassment. Please let me know when and where it was shown that he lied about sexual harrassing anyone and I will offer you an apology.
[quote=“tigerman”]There are numerous accusations regarding BC[/quote].
Wow, as a lawyer, I would think you would demand more than “numerous accusations” to make a statement about someone’s guilt or innocence.
Again, according to you, it is the number of accusations which make someone guilty of something. Thus, if one person says someone did something but another says “I am innocent…This is nothing more than a high-class lynching,” then he is innocent in your view. Incredible.
