1st off,,,i commented on Rice's testimony and my view, that i have held since she was appointed long before 9/11. i went back and read my post here...which was not angry nor partisan. there was not one word in all caps or anything to suggest just anger as being a driving force. also, i am not a democrat, so partisanship is not possible. i am an independent who held elected office as a member of the GOP during the end of Reagan's tenure and Bush 41's service.

like i said before, bias does not indicate truth or a lack there of. the fact is that from a non partisan view (not every non partisan view, but mine) Condoleeza Rice never had any business being NSA. Her lack of experience overall and her only expertise in a field that is hardly "the priority" for our defense interests was and is a detriment to our national interests as Americans. She is a weak figure in a position that demands a person with much more experience and diplomatic skills than she posesses.

in her testimony i saw a person scrambling to make sense out of nonsense. She seemed to be saying overall that they were doing every thing they could to fight an enemy they hardly knew existed. she wanted to defend the actions and non actions that led to the failures that allowed 19 guys with box cutters and a few bucks to 100% defeat our entire national defense.

and when i know of George Tenet's 1st reaction of "i hope it wasn't that guy taking the flight lessons" referring to Moussoui when he learned of the 1st hit on the WTC. This vs. Bush's "that guy must be a pretty bad pilot" reaction, clueless about the intelligence that was well known. And that was FBI intelligence, not CIA intelligence. So, even tho the official organizations try to keep the "collars" in their column, someone was sharing.

But Rice wasn't sharing and that was obvious. She is the key liason between FBI and CIA and the President. And I don't see a lack of information being the problem when it comes to Condi's job performance. Yes, there were problems, but those beaurocratic problems have existed thru our history, yet we have managed to work around them. Just like every person's job has certain things that are obstacles, but emplyees find a way to work around them. in my view, her weakness and inexperience was detrimental, and still is to our national interests. i have an extremely hard time believing that she was or is the best person for this job.

when she was appointed, one could make the arguement that she was well suited, at least in her academic and limited field expertise in the area of missle defense and star wars type defenses. if you go back and look at the writings of conservative journalists and white house press releases as they set their agenda in the 1st hundred days..it is more than obvious that missle defense was the #1 priority of this administration pre 9/11. Their #2 priority was continued modernization, which is a priority of every administration in their own way (i won't get into the partisan political aspects of that as this is not what this is about.).

Funny thing is, when discussing the new administration, Rice is hardly ever mentioned as she was and is a political lightweight. She does get occasionally mentioned, but especially the conservative journalists were more about praising other heavyweights who they were more familiar with when talking about how this administration was going to do everything Clinton didn't do. They actually poo-poo his emphisis on terrorism basically stating that the terrorists aren't a big threat and what the low level people are doing is more than adequate. the big wigs needed to be concerned with missle defense.

the other thing they commonly mention before 9/11 is Iraq. Again, Bush's appointees are praised as being the guys who will finish the job. And they aren't talking about just the last couple years, like when the 1998 letter was drafted by frank gaffney and the neocons and sent to clinton. these are the guys who never wanted to pull out of iraq and have been working since the day we did in 1990 to get us back there. don't take my word for it, go to townhall.com where conservative journalists gather and look for yourself. look in their archives of columns from pre 9/11.

the people who have made this clinton vs. bush are the partisan mongers. this is not clinton vs. bush. this is a difference in policy that goes back to the 1st bush administration. rumsfeld and wolfowitz and other s were at odds with bush's father, not bill clinton on the issue of invading iraq.

bill clinton continued and with the Un, expanded the policies of bush 41. he didn't take some radical off course path as sean hannity wants you to believe. this iraq debate originated within the republican party. it is the primary reason behind the whole neoconservative movement. clinton's policies were basically compromises with senate and house republicans so he could get kids student loans and hot lunches and head start and other social policies that were closer to his heart.

the group clinton went along with were the traditional conservatives. this caused guys like wolfowitz and rumsfeld and their friends in the media like gaffney, hannity and bill kristol to begin working the system from inside the beltway. even tho their former boss was out of office, there were plenty of opportunities to lobby and solicit inside the beltway, as well as work public opinion thru the media.

if you want to know what i think of madeline albright, my opinion is mixed. she did some things well, and made mistakes in my view. but she was a political heavyweight, just as every NSA was before her, regardless of party. but the point you try to make is moot. the fact is she is not holding office currently, therefore the parallel you try to make is not appropriate.

i have said before the commission began, that i expect all to be held accountable, regardless of party. one thing that seems very clear to me tho is that the democrats seem much more willing to accept responsiblility and honestly review facts for the sake of future improvement. the white house has resisted any attempt by anyone to seek the truth. after 3 years of watching their act, it is now jjust tiresome to see their apparent fear of any truth being found by anyone who isn't a loyal crony.

as far as your charge of "unethical" treatment. that is false.

yes, 9/11 was unprecedented. and we all have been asked to make sacrifices for this "new world" we live in. what i see from the white house is every one else is supposed to tighten the belt, and be more open to scrutiny (the patriot act) except them. they hide behind flimsy "seperation of powers" acts and other legalities while they strip legalities away from the people, who by the way, own this country, not them.

then they tell us that these great patriots who happen to be the rich folk getting the big breaks won't create a job unless we give them gobs of cash 1st. it used to be that people started companies and created jobs to make money. now, companies and the rich essentially blackmail the govt. into forking over my cash or they will ship our jobs abroad or just shut down. the bush "tax policy" is nothing more than a combination of a "kickback / extortion" scheme that drains our coffers. the big lie of all of this is that in the "investor" class, there never has been a shortage of money. giving them more money does not address any issue concerning job creation. it does give the rich more to throw into the stock market or squirrel away.

think about that. most wealthy people, aside from the inheritance class, got there because they overcame adversities. those "alpha" types are the ones who thrive on challenges, excell at "thinking outside the box" and so forth. how does a handout, like you would give a bum, inspire them to create jobs? there is no logic behind it. bush has oversimplified this arguement and made it into an irrelevent one when he makes his speeches. again, don't take my word for it, think a little bit.

ask yourself why no "war bond" has been created to help finance the war? when bush collects those 2000 dollar a plate receipts as he raises his campaign chest, why not use that as a way to appeal to the richest 1% to invest in this war. not by the privatization of it thru inside, no bid contracts, but investments all could invest in.

my arguements are not partisan, nor are they sexist (i won't even address that as it is ridiculous) but they are 100% american from an american who has been involved in politics for the majority of my life and looks beyond the rhetoric.

and beyond the rhetoric, the democrats are not 100% right, but they are one whole hell of a lot closer than the GOP that has gotten drunk with power and is being controlled by way too few, even for them. if i were a republican still, i would be pissed off mad at how bush has handled his presidency overall. both on domestic issues and foreign policy ones, there is nothing conservative about them, their spending or their policies and combinations of arrogance, incompetence and deception on truly important matters should take this out of a partisan debate for you as well. approaching this with a "the admin. is 100% right and all others must unbiasedly prove their case beyond any reasonable doubt before even considering another viewpoint" is just wrong and about a 1/2 a step away from being brainwashed. the policies of infallibility didn't serve the catholic church well and will not serve you well here.

the attitude held by the right is one of if someone doesn't agree with me, they must be partisan, they must be spinning, it must be a lie...that itself is a lie. bias does not effect truth necessarily. especially if one can see beyond their personal bias. all arguements have a bias. this isn't scientific method. this is politics.

The country is just more politicaly charged now then it has been in quite a long time ever since the whole if your not with us your against us statement by Bush. It seems that the administraition is sticking with that idea and moving it into the political world from the war on terrorism. Many people from different parties or not from a party at all are critizing different aspects of this administraition including Rice and as a result are getting labeled as partisan. Some of these claims are of course true but the republicins seem a little too eager to play the partisan card. Not every critizism is partisan and they should be more willing to engage in an open debate then to attack. All people should be more interestede in debate then attacks but this is one of the most important elections in a long time and the result will determine just what the country will take and that direction will have many long lasting implications for future generations.

by the way,,,the real bias in news isn't really conservative or liberal. there are 2...laziness and pro business.

laziness---it has become far easier to simply parrot stories rather than to actually research and write your own. i see this daily in the media. everyone copying each other,,,no one doing actual fact checking or researching but assuming the "other guy did it." if you pay attention, sources are now 2 or 3 removed rather than being direct like they used to be. the editorializing isn't the fundamental problem. journalists have always done that. the difference is that people used to fact check. now, you hear a story like "the washington post reported that the london gaurdian cited an unidentified source as saying...." instead of "we interviewed someone close to the story who wished to remain unidentified who said...." there is a huge difference in the accountability of that story. in the 1st scenario, no one can be held accountable...the way it used to be, the journalist was accountable for his facts.

that is why guys like Cronkite and Murrow were so respected. Everyone knew Cronkite was a liberal, Everyone knew Murrow was conservative...but they reported truth. they didn't claim things as fact unless they or their people checked it out. today, you can just repeat someone else's wuote from another source and wash your hands clean of any liability or accountability.

Pro Business---Here, just put on CNN, MSNBC or Fox...you will get the point. Don't watch the news, watch the commercials. look who sponsors them. most of the "pproducts" being offered are either from companies that no common person would ever be in a position to do business with like big investment firms, paper shredding compaies, IP companies, defense contractors and such. Also, the big pharmacuticals and companies like that spend a lot to push us into demanding certain brand names from our doctors. those are the same companies that just raped, pillaged and plundered in the last medicare bill. watch especially the 1st ad when they take a break. that is the best position for an ad, and usually a little more expensive than the ones that run after it. kind of like the inside cover is a little more expensive than the other pages in a magazine ad.

if you pay attention, you will see why news must be pro business..it's their paycheck. advertising pays for tv, plain and simple. and although everything is not 100% pro business on any of the news services (even fox) there is a bias towards it more often than not.

there are other biases that come in with individual journalists and such, but overall, these biases are pretty much universal and more dominant than any other factor.

to all responding to Sean...

You have Been Trolled.... You Have Lost... Stop feeding it and it goes away. Goodnight Nurse.

The media is far more conservative/right wing than anything else. It's a popular myth that there is a Liberal Press. Maybe there was in the 60s and 70s, but there sure hasnt been for a while.

Coverage of most things is taken from the standpoint of Blind Patriotism (and really more so, Bling Government Following, since Patriotism should be more about the collective people than the "leaders" and mega-rich who run things here) and almost never on whether things theyre being covered is true or not.

Doubt is the origin of Wisdom. Not just a witty saying, its true. If you believe whatever youre told, or even just repeat it so you can keep coming back to the press meetings, then you are hardly objectively investigating anything. Youre just a mouthpeice for someone elses agenda.

You guys need to understand the target audience for the news. A lot of people who watch the news, like people who read the newspaper, have the attention span of a firefly, so if they can get dragged into something with a negative slant on it, like CNN's reports on the war in Iraq, and more people are drawn to it because they want to hear the dirt. The same thing happened with Clinton, and the only reason anybody cared was because the media was making a big deal out of it.

I just reread that paragraph over, what bad sentence structure.

Good point Shulamite, there is quite a bit of bias in today's media, probably due to the utter lack of objectivity in the newsroom.
It is interesting (okay, it's actually depressing) to see how the media is used to keep people fighting over issues without actually addressing THE ISSUES. Two sides constantly keeping us in turmoil with each other and letting those with the real power and poor motives continue to slide by with their agenda. Our current presidential race is a fine example. While Kerry and Bush try to distinguish themselves from each other, forum posters are going mad, but the final winner will still be the same product : A rich white male from the Skull and Bones Secret Society with policy mandates keeping the same stagnant status quo for the poor, while the top one percent continue consolidating their power. Will Kerry repeal the Patriot Act? Well, parts of it, maybe. Will Bush ever get his ban on gay marriage? Well, probably not, but enough people think he represents their beliefs to try to re-elect him.
The perception of the state of the country and the world is controlled by corporations not serving the American people's interest. A wake-up call to viewers / readers / listeners can be found in the sharp contrasts given by the reporting found in media outlets in other countries compared to what is vaunted here as "news". Mike Jackson is in trouble again? Who cares! I'd like to know why Venezuala is upset with us right now, I'd like to know why there has been no connection made by the big networks to the oil / gas problem we're facing.

The news networks of today are slick entertainment junk food for the head. They promise "in-depth" reporting then replay the same image and sound bite every quarter hour. Americans might spend more time actually finding out the truth themselves, but there is so little time for the truth when work, family, and endless distractions take center stage.

Are we Lemmings? No. We are deer, frozen in the blinding headlights of an oncoming eighteen - wheeler.