Opinion
Bush’s pre-war intelligence reflects gossip magazines
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Also by Casey Hoff:
- Lawmakers twist Avery case for political, personal ends (November 29, 2005)
- Felony convictions mandate firings (September 1, 2005)
- Residents, police need to work together (December 6, 2005)
- Public bickering demeans tragedy (September 13, 2005)
- Bell ringing brings controversy (December 13, 2005)
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Whenever I’m at the grocery store, I love to glance at the array of gossip magazines while I’m waiting to check out. I feel like I’ve seen it all, from the highly intense debate about whether those really are Britney Spears’ boobs to the one about just how many deep-fried Twinkies Kirstie Alley actually swallowed in a 24-hour period.
Usually the covers of the National Enquirer, People or Seventeen Magazine are enough to keep me occupied, but this past weekend I got unusually distracted by the cover of Vanity Fair Magazine. It showcased a beautiful trio of Russian supermodels scantily clad in white bikinis. I guess I shouldn’t have gotten that excited, since Vanity Fair Magazine really is no different than Maxim, Seventeen or Vogue … all of which often feature the world’s most beautiful women on their covers.
But the coincidence that followed my trip to the grocery store was the most ironic. That evening I was reading about the just released, 700-page “Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction” report. The report found that the Bush administration was not only “dead wrong” about almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq, but it was also reported that the administration based much of its faulty intelligence and rationalization for going to war on an article in Vanity Fair Magazine.
That’s right, the magazine which features three Russian supermodels on the cover this month was partly cited in our rationalization for going to war. I thought the blame game was over, but we’ve learned a new lesson. When in doubt, blame the grocery store checkout magazines.
It gets even better. The newly released report also says that the administration relied too much on “groupthink” and the advice of an unidentified source named “Curveball.” We don’t know who this Curveball character is, but I’m assuming that he is a subscriber to Vanity Fair.
The 700-page report found that the biggest error in judgment was our “inability to collect good information about Iraq’s WMD programs, serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions rather than good evidence.”
I would guess that if the American people had known that we had no solid evidence that Iraq had WMDs, and that much of the information we did have was based on a less than credible source named Curveball and an article from a gossip-based magazine called Vanity Fair, they may have been a little more reluctant to accept George W. Bush’s you’re-either-with-us-or-you’re-with-the-terrorists lingo.
Much of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate cited by Bush and Cheney in their rationalization to go to war in Iraq had serious flaws, inaccuracies and less-than-stellar sources. We don’t expect to base our health care policy on Playboy Magazine, just as we certainly shouldn’t base our war policy on Vanity Fair Magazine.
Thousands of people have lost their lives in this war. It is becoming clearer and clearer that President Bush, who claims to be the great savior of human life, has done nothing more than knowingly used flawed information to justify his pre-emptive strike on Iraq and sacrifice thousands of innocent lives because he still holds a grudge against Saddam Hussein for trying to kill his father.
The evidence speaks for itself. The Iraq War will go down in history as one of the biggest national intelligence blunders of all time. George W. Bush keeps shirking his responsibility as a true commander in chief, as he accepts no personal blame for any of these misjudgments. He continues to insist that invading Iraq was crucial to a post-9/11 world and still has much of the United States convinced that it was Saddam who had a hand in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Maybe the president needs to be reminded of the daily briefing he virtually ignored while on vacation on August 6th, 2001. It was entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” That’s exactly what happened just over one month later. Bush always says that we must “never forget” about the events that occurred on September 11th, 2001.
We never will forget that tragic day, just like we will never forget the thousands of innocent human beings who consequently lost their lives in a war whose rationalization was based in part on someone named Curveball and a grocery store gossip magazine.
Casey Hoff (choff@badgerherald.com) is a UW student and the host of “New Ground with Casey Hoff,” live Monday through Friday, 9-11 a.m., on Talk Radio 1670 WTDY.
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Tes test
Whether or not they are real.... brittney spears' boobs look damn fine either way. I am in no way against implants.
you forgot to include the badger herald as a gossip periodical.
U.S. intelligence failures are Mayor Dave's fault too, right Casey???? Do you think he's "curveball"????
Another yanwer of a column.
This just in from the Daily Californian, the campus newspaper at UC-Berkeley:
Armed with "nearly four years of Cal experience, a good sense of humor, a genuine love of this campus and a prevailing distrust of government," SQUELCH! presidential candidate Rebecca C. Brown said she is ready to give students a different take on the ASUC.
With an eye on students' finances, Brown said she plans to increase revenue at the Cal Student Store through exclusive reader printing and better discount cards, including a "free hand job with every $50 purchase" deal, she said.
It's true! Here's the link to the page:
www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=18182
Too bad we'll never know what was on those papers that Sandy Berger stole from the National Archives and then destoyed. They must have been awful interesting if he was willing to commit a felony to get rid of them. Maybe they showed that ignorance and poor intelligence did not begin with Bush?
Martha Stewart gets jail time for lying to federal officials about something not a crime but Berger gets a wrist slap for lying about an actual felony. He can get his security clearance back in 2008, just in time to join Hillary's crew.
Vanity Fair is a magazine that deals with culture and fashion and world affairs. It's like a sexier Time or Newsweek. Though they may run foxy ladies on the cover, it is a heck of a lot more credible, historically anyway, than teen people and maxim and the one with the bat boy. Know your topic before you try to juxtapose. You are scary looking.
Personally, i dont care what is in all those magazines... not like i read them anyway. I just look at the scantily clad women in the pictures wearing next to nothing. Thank God for boobs.
Casey Hoff and Baumgardner in the same day! I must have died and gone to douche bag heaven!
"That evening I was reading about the just released, 700-page "Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" report"
After that statement I stopped reading. Sure this is a half-assed student newspaper, but really, reading what others report about reports and reporting on that is pretty bad. You could just take the vail of integrity out of your article and clearly state your shoddy opinions.
P.S. You look like a homo Casey, just a F.Y.I so you're doing well if you are or might want to change that if you're not.
Yeah, it's Sandy Berger's fault that we didn't stop Bin Laden....oh wait! A complete asshole just said that above! Who the fuck thinks that you can blame 9/11 on Clinton? Anyone? And anyway, this article was about how going to war in Iraq was unjustified, and if the shit for brains poster above knew anything about what Sandy did (take documents that there were already multiple copies of anyway, about the Clinton era intelligence gathering) then they would know why he wasn't in any more trouble than he is. Besides, with Gonzales in the Justice Department and Bush in the White House, if what he had done was such a big deal, he would have been hung in the public square. Only a complete fucking nutjob would look for something else...just like ther erst of idiotic Republicans around here.
There were not multiple copies with the Clinton officials' notations. It's the notations that Berger didn't want anybody to see - Bozo. They may have proved that indeed "Who the fuck thinks that you can blame 9/11 on Clinton?" is up for question.
Clinton's single greatest accomplishment:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&e=2&u=/nm/20050404/hl_nm/health_sex_dc
Yes,
Good piece, Casy. Please remain in the field of opinion writing and journalism.
"The evidence speaks for itself. The Iraq War will go down in history as one of the biggest national intelligence blunders of all time."
Bigger than Pearl Harbor? I don't think so.
"P.S. You look like a homo Casey, just a F.Y.I so you're doing well if you are or might want to change that if you're not."
Ummmm homo's we don't want him. He's all yours.
why didn't you just say that the world's intelligence was akin to tabloids? the whole world, even your Lurch, thought the same of iraq. besides, clinton's decision to go to war in iraq in 1998 named several other reasons besides saddam having wmds...(which he employed! i mean, it's not like we said iceland had nukes and invaded!) lastly, get over it...this is old news. talk about something interesting already. like the media ban in canada, or how john kerry really lost the state of wisconsin, but silky pony edwards, and barbra boxer don't care about it because their side cheated and won.
"Congressional leaders are scrambling to begin impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush following several unprecedented federal security measures that critics say constitute an unconscionable assault on American civil liberties."
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/kathleenparker/kp20020522.shtml
Blame Clinton? So personal responsibility, but not for Bush...okay I get it YOUR HYPOCRITES! Wait, I already knew that.
Support our troops, enlist!
I just hit this article off a google search and thought I'd drop a comment. Though it was stated once before I feel it should be reiterated that just because you feel Vanity Fair is a Maxim style magazine doesn't make it so. Vanity fair has often surprised me with intelligent and well researched/documented articles about politics and international affairs. Some of the best criticism of the Bush administration (and the fairest) in recent times has come from the pages of this "tabloid". I encourage you to check out their article on the mismanagement of government contracts by Haliburton (http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050307roco02)