Or as I like to say “the book that makes people on the subway think I am on crack.”
So after hearing Sujal throw the title of this book around, I finally started using my audible membership and downloaded Al Franken’s new book, “Lies and the lying liars who tell them.” So farso good, though at certain points during my T ride I start chuckling to myself, and people start to look at me funny, sort of like “Why is that girl laughing to her music, does she find the subliminal messages amusing?” Anyhow, for those of you who have not listened to/read it, I would highly recommend giving the book a chance.
The current part I am at, the one convering Clinton’s hand off of his anti-terrorism initiative to Bush, is particularily interesting, and perhaps a bit disheartening too. I love the title he gives to the Bush administration’s actions towards anti-terroism during the first 9 months of Bush’s presidency: “Operation Ignore.” I think I am going to start that operation here at work when people ask me questions I don’t want to deal with, or want enchancements I don’t feel like doing… Operation Ignore will take care of all this problems very nicely!
Anyhow, not that this was even an issue with me, but it also has nailed home my desire to vote Bush out of the office this year.
February 25th, 2004 at 12:23 pm
Just to follow up on this. The original source for Franken’s section on this is a Time Magazine article. CNN Inside Politics then presented the administration’s response.
The interesting part of the entire discussion is that the Clinton White House told the incoming Bush administration folks that terrorism would be the highest priority for the administration in the national security/foreign policy arena. It’s interesting to me, then, that we immediately began working on a missile defense plan in the first days of the new administration, something that required exiting a treaty and moving large gobs of money around. And it wasn’t focused on terrorism by groups like Al Qaeda… didn’t take them 8 months to review that proposal.
February 25th, 2004 at 12:36 pm
Oh, and one last thing: according to Daily Kos, Clarke is releasing his own book soon covering the events up until 9/11. We’ll see what he has to say (and what he can say without violating national security).
February 25th, 2004 at 12:39 pm
Just read the CNN article, and found this comment interesting:
Mr. Franken make a point that during that period, there were a bunch of reports comming in from intelligence warning of a possible terrist attack sometime soon, so don’t you think that they would have pushed this even more? Plus, during this period of heightened warnings coming in, Mr. Bush decided to take an extened vacation to his home in Texas (Mr. Franken has a very humerous rendition of Bush’s stay at his Texas home). Makes you think that they did not really try as hard as possible to rush this through, despite warnings of some upcomming terrist attacks..
February 25th, 2004 at 12:39 pm
One last article link from Kos (well, Paleo, but he writes at Daily Kos): http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30176-2002May16?language=printer .
Different report, different insights, saying the same thing as the Time article, sorta. Clarke, BTW, is one of Kerry’s advisors…
February 25th, 2004 at 1:54 pm
Can I just say that I used to be completely impartial to Bush until he gave his national address. Just about everything out of his mouth made me want to reach through the tv and bitch slap him. ARGH… it gets me so angry… Though it also prompted me to yet again make a donation to Planned Parenthood.. Sigh..
February 25th, 2004 at 3:57 pm
Go katharine!
Karen, you might also want to read/see “Bartleby (the scrivener)” for more tips on implementing Operation Ignore at your office.
The Week, my favoritest news source, had an excerpt from the book two issues ago. I wanna read it, too!