wow your name says it all so this is as far as I go to responding to your post

Mason, that is true, but Sheridan argues that "it is not legitimate to say he lied his way into war, as Bush critics have to acknowledge that the WMD beliefs were nearly universally held". That's the thing. It is legitimate to argue he took us to war on a lie because Bush critics tend to believe that Bush and Powell never believed there were WMDs. We could go round and round debating the evidence, but it is not the neutral, apolitical, uncontroversial issue that Sheridan is trying to claim it is. There is a legitimate point of debate over whether he took us to war on a lie.

Wow watertown what stunning debating skills you must have where you can't even mount an argument against someone, they are just dismissed based on their political leanings. I suppose to you there is no point in political debate at all. We may as well just ask people "Are you left wing or right wing?" and then agree with them or disagree with them based on their answer.

Gore did not submit the protocol, but clearly supports it. The EPA's Climate Action Report arguably supports it. A number of polls suggest that a large number of non-politicians in America support it.

Hardly takes away the point that these areas are major failures.

No they do not.  The treaty was created under clinton and did nothing during his tenure.  Why is that Bush's fault?  Only a hater would see it that way.  Clearly it was CLinton's fault (or actually his failure which is our benefit).

Clearly Sheridan is being analytical in his analysis, and you still have only your burning hate.  IN 4 years, after the failure of Obama, I am sure you will still be debating it was Bush's fault.  There was no history before 2001, and apparently there will be none after 2008. 

I am certainly no fan of Bush but history will be much kinder to him than the current media is.  Afterall Ford was villified for pardoning Nixon when he did it, but today it is seen as an action that was necessary for the betterment of the nation.

For one thing in 10-20 years the intelligence that Bush had access to during his administration will become declassified and that will shed lot of light on his decisions.  Perhaps it will vindicate him, perhaps it will vilify him, we will have to wait to find out but that intelligence is key to whether Iraq was based on lies or on what was thought to be solid verifiable intelligence.

Katrina was certainly a major failure.  Blame the state if you want but you have to admit that there were major failures all around for Katrina.  The idea that the federal government can't act until asked in a state where communication was all but shut down is a bit ridiculous.  The news reports alone that came within hours of the hurricane passing should have been more than enough for Bush to start sending people in.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that.  But when Bush, or anyone in the administration, turned on the TV after Katrina and saw the situation there they should have initiated phone calls to the state and offered help.  If they couldn't get thru they should have found a way to communicate with the state. 

That being said the state should have asked for help before the hurricane hit so that help was on the way before things got really bad.  I think there was more that could have been done by all parties involved.

Some saw it at the time as that as well.

They did.  The governor and Mayor dropped the ball.  The feds cannot do anything until the governor asks for it, and she did not, until it was too late.  After it was asked, it was a comedy of errors, but then every response can be seen that way due to just the ineptness of a monstrous government like the feds.  Foreigners do not understand that, and so like willing dupes, all they want to hear is what the willing liberals feed them.  But the fault with Katrina was the states intially, not the feds.

leauki, put sarcasm tags around your sarcasm, some people will take it seriously, and quote it as fact later on ("i heard the zionist war criminals killed 1000 every 3 weeks).

They already say that.

And if they say and compare it to the numbers they made up for the Iraq war, Israel will look very good indeed.

The thing is Powell never fooled many of us from the beginning. I saw Powell's presentation to the UN and I thought he was lying then. So did everyone I've ever spoken to about it and the I recall the media informing us that people with far more clout than me also thinking the same way. This is not a view I have come to simply because Iraq was a failure, but because I was never convinced in the first place and I never had the impression that Colin Powell's heart was in it. We could go round in circles debating the reasons for other people voting with him, but I don't think we'd get anywhere. Bush was the Commander in Chief. If he'd have succeeded I'd have given him full credit, not the Congress. Same goes for failure in finding WMDs and in accompishing the original mission.

The point is these are contentious issues. Agreeing with you Dr Guy does not make Sheridan analytical. My mother knows the guy personally and "analytical" is far from the word tat occurs to mind. He regularly goes in half cocked on foreign issues that he simply hasn't read up on and now is making a living out of being right wing. YOU have usually struck me as being more intelligent than that. That said, I never agree with you. I just think you're more honest and less full of yourself.

Being partisan does not preclude one from being analytical.  But then being partisan can make you blind to facts, figures and truths if you automatically dismiss anything said by anyone that ever once disagreed with you.  I can agree or at least recognize an analysis, and may not agree with any or everything the writer has to offer.  But that does not invalidate the work at hand.  You on the other hand dismiss it out of hand because you dont like the man's politics.  No one is stopping you from doing so, but then you do tend to look the fool when proof shows you that in one instance, he was right (hypothetically speaking).

I am so glad you are omniscience.  I can see Bush indeed failed in his pick of Powell, and it should have been you instead since you do know it all.  Sadly, you are in a very small minority as most (with present company of the author of this blog excepted) of humanity are mere mortals taht do not know it all, and the vast majority of them do not even claim to.

Lie is to say something you think to be false... All the intelligence agencies were sure of their existance, thus it was not a lie, it was at most a mistake (it wasn't). For powell and bush to lie they had to be privvy to information which others in congress did not have, and willfully hid it.