To: nolimitz who wrote (137338 ) 6/21/2004 6:46:31 PM From: epicure Read Replies (3) | Respond to First, let me say I agree with you. I think the conflation of 9/11 with the issue of Iraq borders on criminal, and that the Bush administration made it obvious by their actions that we (the Us populace)should all think the threat was imminent- and if we questioned them (the government) about the hurried nature of their actions, or the appropriateness of those actions we were less than patriotic- but people who do not see it the way we do are not going to be convinced by the language you quote. They are not going to be convinced by people ACTING as if the threat was imminent, they want the exact language- and that is hard to find- even though it is clear that everyone understood things to be exactly as you claim. People who disagree with you are not going to be convinced even though it is apparent that most of the country thought the threat was imminent (as well as thinking Iraq was involved in 9/11). They are not going to be convinced even though many of them said the threat was urgent, right here on SI, and that we would find those darn old pesky WMD's all over the place. To be fair, Bush conflated, but the media rolled over and turned tummy up on this one- if the media had been much more aggressive from the git go, we wouldn't be in this mess, and we could be focusing on Al Qaeda. And Congress rolled over as well- everyone was in way too much of a hurry to roll up in the flag and dance like a patriot to whatever tune the administration said was the patriot march. Sometimes being a patriot means you have to protect your country from the administration, as well as from external threats. Alas, we were let down by many people who are supposed to be checks and balances to our executive government.
