Comments Posted By Rick Moran
Displaying 861 To 870 Of 1317 Comments
AHMADINEJAD AND HIS LIBERAL TALKING POINTS
ACW:
I blame it on aliens. Scientists took a little different view:
http://www.architectureweek.com/cgi-bin/wlk?http://www.house.gov/science/hot/wtc/wtcreport.htm
Chapter 5
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 10.05.2006 @ 10:13
"THE LAST HURRAH" FOR THE EVIL ONE
It's no secret Rove had his fingers in a lot of policy pies during the first term - that is, I guess it would be a secret to someone who doesn't pay much attention, don't ya think?
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 8.05.2006 @ 12:30
HUGH HEWITT: KOOL AID DRINKER OR SAGE OF SAGES?
I was writing about most liberals talking about the "War on Terror" - that by putting it in quote marks, they think they can somehow wish it away.
People can disagree about the efficacy of pre emptive war. But to belittle or even fail to acknowledge that we are at war with Islamism, the left not only deligitimzes the war but shunts 9/11 to the background as if that date didn't happen.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 8.05.2006 @ 11:36
JUST HOW DYSFUNCTIONAL ARE OUR INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES?
PO'd Spook:
This will necessarily be a short response since 1) I don't usually feel the need to defend my expertise in certain areas and 2) some of your post is contradictory.
Suffice it to say I've been writing about US intelligence for many years and while much of what you say is true, the organic evolution of the CIA from intel aggregator to intel backwater is a little overstated in your post (although the ridiculous addition of Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence - whatever the hell that means- probably sounds the death knell of the CIA as we knew it; one more reason for Goss to bail).
And your criticism about me singling out the CIA when responsibilities are shared is also valid in that I was speaking more from an historical standpoint (as was the 9/11 Commission) and should have made clearer the distinction.
Also, "results oriented" was a poor choice of words although speaking about "the product" of intelligence - the PDB or an NIE for example - one can make a good case that consensus politics and bureaucratic myopia make those "products" as close to useless at times as can be imagined by us lay people.
As for a general criticism of the CIA's partisanship, I agree that there is only a small number of people who have taken it upon themselves for reasons of partisanship or patriotism to try and affect our policies. The number isn't important. And I think I point out in the post that Goss probably went about ferreting them out in the wrong way. What is important is that their interference in the 2004 election was not only unprecedented, it was frightening. And their continuing efforts in this regard cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.
Are we throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Are we weakening ourselves in this "partisan witch hunt?" Probably. But when people are arrogant enough to believe that it is they and not our elected leaders who are in charge of the direction of the country - even if they think that leader is taking us into disaster - the whole concept of democratic government suffers. I am not sure that revelations about renditions (a bi-partisan stupidity), or especially contrary analyses regarding war issues were necessary to save the Republic from dictatorship. They were necessary for some, however, in a partisan context and that is the point I have been trying to make for more than a year.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 7.05.2006 @ 05:09
VENGENCE IS THE LORDS: JUSTICE IS OURS IN MOUSSAOUI CASE
Tano:
First, stop trying to analyze me. You're no good at it and besides, you're laughably wrong.
Second, the ACLU used to be an organization to be admired. But they have become radicalized and politicized to the point that they have become an arm of the Democratic party.
This hasn't always been the case. It was 1986 when the Exec. Committee of the ACLU called for the impeachment of Reagan over Iran-Contra, a clear political scrape between the Congress and the Executive. Ever since then, they have demonstrated (at least at the national level - some local groups maintain a bit of sanity)a propensity for partisanship that gives the lie to their stated goals.
As for Amnesty Int...are you kidding?
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 4.05.2006 @ 10:19
STRONG WEEKDAY SHOWING FOR U-93 (UPDATED 5/4)
Sven.
Che is dead. I don't think it would do any good to ask him what he thinks about much of anything.
For a good Cuban movie (anti-Castro) Andy Garcia's "The Lost City" is supposed to be excellent.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 4.05.2006 @ 05:13
Tano:
You're right of course.
I wait until the second or third paragraph before descending into "blowhard" territory.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 1.05.2006 @ 16:24
Commissar:
I sure hope you're talking about him!
I can be rude and nasty but I try not to let someone's race or the health of their loved ones enter into my rants. That is so far beyond the pale as to make me wonder what hole this lickspittle crawled out of.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 1.05.2006 @ 16:19
I'm sorry you didn't read the post. Miss this?
"Now before you lefties have a knipshit, I have every reason to believe any investigation of Goss is probably genuine. What I question is the speculation regarding his “activities†being leaked at this time."
I was right to put that in there because idiots like you CD had a knipshit BECAUSE YOU NEVER READ WHAT YOU ARE COMMENTING ON!
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 1.05.2006 @ 10:56
WHAT'S WRONG WITH UNITED 93? JUST ASK DANA
Andy:
Great point. The article in WaPo (sort of sour grapes, I thought) brought up a similar point; how can we really know what went on during the drama in the air?
I felt most of what happened was entirely realistic and plausible. We know that many passengers made calls to loved ones in which they commented on the plan to take back the aircraft. The film made clear that the reason they were going to do so was not to heroically save Washington but to save themselves - a perfectly logical extrapolation of the facts.
We also have tantalizing tidbits of information on what the passengers were thinking in the minutes leading up to the assault. And while it was necessary to "invent" certain aspects of the attack, the fact that 1) we knew basically where the passengers were on the plane, 2) we knew where the hijackers were on the plane, and 3) we knew that in order to get to the cockpit, the passengers would have to get by 2 hijackers (the 9/11 Commission indicated that the other 2 hijackers were in the cockpit.) This represented the bare bones outline of the attack which again is reasonable and logical. Details like who led the attack, who made contact first with the hijackers would be interesting from an historians point of view but not necessary to move the narrative along in a movie.
In short, I thought the way the film portrayed that which was unknowable was logical and believable - as witnessed by the acceptance by the audience of the film's ending. If Greengrass had tried for cheap theatrics in the assault, I think the audience would have rejected it.
The difference between Greengrass extrapolating events from known facts and other "docudramas" where events are necessarily telescoped in time or feature the ubiquitous "composite character" is night and day. The effort made here to reflect what really happened is matched by only one other film I can think of; Gettysburg. And the wealth of material avaliable to Maxwell in the making of that film dwarfs anything Greengrass had to work with.
Comment Posted By Rick Moran On 30.04.2006 @ 04:43
