Originally Posted By StillThePassHolder <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/Bush_Administration" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/Bu sh_Administration</a>
Originally Posted By cmpaley I don't believe a word of the President on this. It's politics, pure and simple.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Looks like they are about to raise the terror alert level to "election year".
Originally Posted By Ursula Oh please! You know what this did? It panicked a lady here at my work and now she swears to never drive near downtown again.
Originally Posted By cmpaley They're doing what they did the past two elections: playing the Terror card.
Originally Posted By cmpaley And you can bet that if any of our resident right wingers post in this thread, it will be to mock Villaraigosa, say that the "libs are "playing politics" and blame then go on to blame the "libs" for everything from their hangnail to the bird flu.
Originally Posted By DlandDug Here is the Mayor's full statement: <a href="http://www.lacity.org/mayor/indexright/mayorindexright243035473_02092006.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.lacity.org/mayor/in dexright/mayorindexright243035473_02092006.pdf</a> Nowhere does he sauggest that this was "news" to him. Furthermore, he was not Mayor at the time the plot was foiled. Reactions to this story are falling into rather predictable camps. I have long contended that if a series of arrests had been made on the east coast in August of 2001, followed by a TV appearance by John Ashcroft explaining that 20 terrorists had been planning to hijack four airplanes and fly them into buildings in New York and Washington, that administration critics would have dismissed it all as sheer political posturing. I see that my opinion has been borne out.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer The political posturing isn't in announcing the arrest - it is in the timing of it. Scott McClellan told reporters that the WH had been working on releasing this story for the past three weeks, and this was the case that they were cleared to bring public. What popped up in the news about three weeks ago? The wiretapping issue. Why is it so important to bring this up now? That's where it becomes political.
Originally Posted By DlandDug It is very clear that this news was released in order to justify the administration's stance on domestic surveilance. Personally, I would prefer that details would be kept confidential. But as long as this controversy is being exploited for partisan purposes, both sides will continue to ratchet things up.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>Why is it so important to bring this up now? That's where it becomes political.<< Exactly! This is part of "Operations Look-Over-There."
Originally Posted By bboisvert What is surprising (or maybe not so much so) is that Bush on several occasion expressed grave concerns over the fact that his NSA program was revealed. How dare someone let the terrorists know that we have the technology to listen to their phone calls. However yesterday, Bush spells out in lengthy detail how to hijack a plane.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Oliver North was on 'Hannity and Colmes' last night, and when asked if this announcement of the terror plot on Los Angeles was political posturing, North replied 'Anytime the President speaks in public, it's political.' FWIW...
Originally Posted By StillThePassHolder Yahoo has changed the link from when I first posted this. Iniatially, it was a story about the L.A. mayor saying he did not know Bush was going to be talking about this and so therefore this announcement and some of the details in it was news to him.
Originally Posted By StillThePassHolder Here's a different link. <a href="http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_3493107" target="_blank">http://www.presstelegram.com/n ews/ci_3493107</a>
