Amongst other things. It was imperative that their Manchurian Candidate, GWB, had eight years to allow them to implement the policies. However, certain things occured which have put a major snarl in them, things that they did not anticipate. I will detail those later as I must leve for work now.

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Man, this guy is OUT there.

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I see you can't handle the truth, right?

Try this one on for size...but, of course, you blindly follow Bush, dont you?

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"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right.

Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

" Theodore Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star"
May 7, 1918

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Well, I certainly don't. I don't like him. I think he's been a bad President.

But don't; not for a second, believe that my dislike of Bush will, somehow, translate to my believing every little bit of bullshit written about him...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

You leave out motive, while you describe a plausible course of events, I can't see the force driving people to create a conspiracy of this size, considering that many of the key individuals in the proposed conspiracy seem to lack the motive for participation.


My own view is that the individual participants were chasing different things, there was no grand conspiracy.
Feith, Wolfowitz and the neocons were trying to implement their theory that the middle east could be remade by simply exerting a small amount of pressure on Iraq, which would topple the already shaky Saddam Hussein, and remake Iraq as a Democracy, and as a Democracy it would be a natural Ally of the only other Democracy in the region, Israel, and as the people of Syria and Jordan and Kuwait, etc. saw the blessings of Liberty and Democracy take root in Iraq, they would demand that their nations also become Democracies and also befriend Israel.
In 20-20 hindsight, this theory is completely ludicrous, and even before the invasion of Iraq, the theory was accepted only in a small circle of neocons.

Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and the people who put the big money behind the GOP wanted the Estate tax gone, they wanted the middle class to shoulder a much greater portion of the tax burden, and they wanted an environment where the rich stay rich without much effort. To get this they needed to get the GOP into a position where it controlled congress and the White House.
There was a long term strategy, to focus on statehouses, to win statehouses and governorships, and gerrymander a GOP majority, to come up with wedge issues that could swing enough voters away from the Democrats to create a GOP majority that could pass the core GOP agenda, which is that the rich should pay far less in taxes, so they can stay rich, and that the government should favor old established industries like oil and coal, which the wealthy controlled over new technology like the internet, which threatened the old established wealth.

The GOP managed to take control of the House in 1994 by a small margin, they took the Senate by a small margin and in 2000, they squeaked into the White House, they could begin to implement their core strategy, but as easy as it was to cut taxes for the rich and shift the burden onto the middle class , it could all be undone by a Democratic congress and White House.

Then 911 came along, Karl Rove saw the invasion of Afghanistan as poorly timed, the huge bump in the Presidents numbers would evaporate after the war was over, just like the huge numbers Bush I had enjoyed during and after the Gulf War had disappeared by November 1992, and he lost to Clinton.
Rove needed a war that began in 2003 and ended in victory in 2004, so that the election in 2004 would be set amidst victory parades and lots of red white and blue bunting, and long after the last flag draped coffin had been planted. He knew that Bushes numbers would suffer in the lead up to the war, so the timing was crucial.

When people need a war, the case for any war looks good, so the Iraq invasion being promoted by the neocons looked like genius, adding in the possibility of stabilizing the Middle East had huge potential political benefits, If Bush could remake the middle east in a way that benefited Israel, the GOP could switch some of the jewish vote and the jewish contributions that heavily favored the Democrats over to the GOP, further strengthening the GOP while weakening their rival, and Saddam Hussein was the perfect bad guy.
All they needed was a reason for the war, and the rest is history.

But what I see is different people focused on different goals, all buying into the apparent serendipity of the situation, and not doing the due diligence, that would have shown that the whole scheme was doomed to failure from the start.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

Sure you can do that Meridious - it will be interesting to see how the discussions pans out on each and every example.

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

Wait a minute. You call this propaganda? Have you seen Tony Snow in operation lately?

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

Perhaps anyone, including any software experts here, can explain why ANY voting software would allow for negative votes?

Given that there are no negative/anti-matter voters, why would voting software count a negative vote .. unless it is used for fraud?

The reasons why Bush was selected are obvious. One of the methods was electronic voting.

Interesting points goober. But one thing, isn't there a common denominator in there somewhere? I mean the whole loopy PNAC thing is underpinned by the commonality of the key figures in their adherence to the neocon theories of Strauss. While Rove and some of the others who are less doctrinal and really just interested in power for its own sake, can be counted out of cabal central it seems to me that the protection of Israel could be the central idea, that and the Straussian anti-democratic, elitist philosophy these people share.

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

I take each point mentioned in the OP with grains of salt, but there are kernels of what seem to be truth in there.

I think all you need to understand about PNAC is that they represent the NEO-CON ideology. To read some of their publications is very enlightening.

For example, just read this article from one of PNAC's founders keeping in mind that it was written BEFORE 9/11 and BEFORE Bush was even inagurated for his first term:

A World of Problems . . .

Scary what he says about Sadam... Bush seemed to echo these same talking points later as part of the War on Terror.

Kagan (the guy who wrote the article) lays out their ideology pretty clearly. Basically that we need to "Spread Freedom", go on the offensive against dangerous dictators, and that it's America's imperative to dictate world policy. All this comes from a guy who's hasn't been involved in government since the late 80's and who lives in Belgium.

He spews theories that are based on conjecture instead of intelligence... Sound familiar?

I think Cheney was an avid reader of all this PNAC stuff and he was the one that drank the Kool-Aid on this one. Bush was definitely the front man for it and as the mouthpiece for their policy you can recount many many times when his speeches involved phrasing and terminology from the PNAC literature.
It's just not a coincidence.

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Congratulations President-Elect Obama

How does another Bush bash thread by a bunch of rabid liberals qualify as breaking news again?

Varus

I think there is an implicit motive there.

Not that I buy all the points of the OP at face value, but I do believe that Cheney / Bush took actions that they geniunely thought were in the best interests of our country (and their buddies' pocketbooks too... couldn't hurt, right?). I mean PNAC's philosophy is pretty clear. If you drink their Kool-Aid then you believe that America is threatened and so you act.

Their motive can clearly be patriotism if they bought into the philosophy.

It's not necessarily a sinister motive, but certainly it was a misguided one.

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Congratulations President-Elect Obama

Well one thing is obviously true about your theory. George Bush is simple minded. I also happen to think the children who wrote the PNAC report asre simple minded as well.

Looks like we have the dumb leading the dumb.

Which would certainly explain that massive incompetence on display in Washington.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

Highly simplistic. The false dichotomies abound throughout their policy statements. "You're with us or you're with the terrorists!" Yes, very sophisticated thinking there.

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

W. became president because Al Gore was/is dull. If he'd gotten a few more votes, then we wouldn't have to have all these theories.

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Bush. McCain. - The result will be the same.
http://johnmcbush.com/