Comments on: Schieffer: Can We Handle the Truth?

Why Does The Government Hide The Facts About The Iraq War From Us?

[mluce2]

Mr. Schieffer, How could you allow Senator McConnell to claim that we have prevented attacks on the United States since 9/11 by attacking Iraq? Your comment was that America can handle the truth, but you permitted a spokesman for the Republican Party and President Bush to assert a complete fiction. Once again the administration is able to link Al Queda and Saddam Hussien on national TV. By merely sitting by as this Machiavellian machanation was foisted again on the public, you failed as a journaist to keep truth at the center of the debate.

[mlsbas]

Can We Handle The Truth - an interesting question. As long as the Bush/Cheney Regime exists, the question is moot.

George Bush and *** Cheney have destroyed our republic - where we expect our elected officials to serve the people who elected them. Their arrogance and elitism have created a self-empowerment the likes of which I have not seen in my 57 year on the Earth.

Messrs. Bush and Cheney have established a legacy of corruption and egregious criminal behavior. This is why we do not hear the truth.

[tomar0317]

Bob, by far you have the best program on what's happening with our congress. I think though, despite your effort to this point to bring us your viewers up to date, please force these political morons to speak the truth. If they don't, tell them to stop the reteric and give us a yes or no. That's whatthey demand, why shouldn't we, the people who put them there. We are a very mature, and smart people we Americans. If our representives continue to think we don't have a clue then they have already forgotten last November's election. Trust me though, we won't forget come the 2008 elections!

[nativewoman]

It might have been nice if journalists asked this question years ago and actually did some investigation instead of just accepting the *** spoon fed to them by this government.

The mainstream media has been a seemingly willing accomplice in helping this government to continually lie to us.

Comment to: Posted by desertrat200 at 03:47 PM : Jan 28, 2007
Are you saying you would rather not know the ugly truth of the war? Why would you not want to know the truth? So you can continue to pretend, all evidence to the contrary, that we are the good guys? The rest of the world knows the truth of what we have done. Perhaps, as alluded to in the title of this piece, you cannot handle the truth of war.

[j-whitman]

Desertrat,,, Good News ?? Like all the "Purple Fingers" that left Iraq or is burried under the rubble ??

[brandonsmail]

This and future administrations must respect the repeated requests of the people they serve in this country.

I don't remember anyone ever saying, "Please tell us a bunch of lies about all your doings, because we're just a bunch of ignorant tax payers who get off on being lied to."

If the men and women of this country want to know the truth they deserve nothing but. And for their own government to sugar coat and minipulate the reports to us, is worth an action by the people that I don't think this administration is ready for. They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers! They owe us, one more time, THEY OWE US!!!

[tibu987]

Too many have died, and for what?
Americans and innocent Iraqi's.
Iraq in such destruction.
The U.S. should exit with a few exceptions.
Leave, say, 10,000 troops in the green zone to protect the U.S. Embassy, and another 10,000 to defend the airport and to train Iraqi police and soldiers.
I believe that history will record this situation the most preventable and horrendous atrocity perpetrated on Iraq. Rumsfeld bailed out, I expect that Cheny and Rice will depart before the last disastrous two years of this administration is over.

[desertrat200]

Nice comment Mr. Schieffer.
How about all the reporting of the good news that YOU are NOT reporting?
Why is it important exactly how the the soldiers died? Is it to push the ugly mess of war in our face so we turn against it and abandon the mission? You guys suck.

[feelfree1]

I-tack,

I don't think that you represented my position very well.

I am not advocating to stop reporting on the Middle East. I am instead advocating in favor of accurate, fact-based reporting from this region.

I am also not advocating that we blame the Iraqi and Afghan people, for the disaster and misery that we have delivered to them. We owe them an apology and a tremendous debt, in my opinion.

As far as "adopt(ing) any and all other sources of energy", I don't think that it has to be all or nothing. We can go a very long way towards enrgy independence by concentrating on conservation alone, and alternative sources of power are on the rise.

The Bush regime wants to solve our energy problems by subsidizing the nuclear industry. Not only is this method very dangerous, with no reliable method for handling the deadly waste, but it also presents a major security threat, and it is one of the most expensive methods of generating electricity.

[hmpierson]

Speaking of "handling the truth"...

I heard "Face the Nation" this morning. When you asked Mitch McConnell whether he was planning a filibuster, he said no, but that he would have 41 votes to prevent a non-binding motion from passing.

You got into a discussion about the "arcane methods of the Senate," and you allowed McConnell to say, and then acknowledged, that passing with 60 votes or more was the required norm in the Senate.

You know better than that. What proportion of measures were passed by 60 votes or more in the last Senate?

The only relevance of having 41 votes is to be able to threaten a filibuster. You helped McConnell with his obfuscation.

Can you handle the truth?

[hmpierson]

Speaking of "handling the truth"...

I heard "Face the Nation" this morning. When you asked Mitch McConnell whether he was planning a filibuster, he said no, but that he would have 41 votes to prevent a non-binding motion from passing.

You got into a discussion about the "arcane methods of the Senate," and you allowed McConnell to say, and then acknowledged, that passing with 60 votes or more was the required norm in the Senate.

You know better than that. What proportion of measures were passed by 60 votes or more in the last Senate?

The only relevance of having 41 votes is to be able to threaten a filibuster. You helped McConnell with his obfuscation.

Can you handle the truth?

[jn122736]

Mr Schieffer.

Your well-worded article accurately presents facts everyone should be well aware of by now.

The failure to accurately and honestly present all the facts is a pattern deeply engrained in this administration.
It is this type of manipulation-misrepresentation of the truth that has cost President Bush all respect and trust of any fair-minded person.

Geoshark

%u201COfficial%u201D reports are too often altered after initial presentation and presented long after the subject incident.

[i-tack]

As for Bob's article, the American people don't like to hear that we CAN'T do something. Why does much of the world dislike Americans? Because they view us as demanding and impatient.

Sad to say, the Euro's are right. I don't even try to debate the issue anymore.

But don't think it is exclusive to Iraq; we don't face the truth about ALL of the major issues that our country faces. We elect people who give us good news. We get carried away with phrases "Compassionate Conservatism", "Social Security Lockbox" "Peace Dividend" etc.

We no longer elect people based on strong principles of improving the state of our country.

[i-tack]

feelfree1 and bluestardad,

Combine your two posts, namely stop covering the middle east (bsd) and the purported eagerness to continue the warfare.

The energy resources present in the region provide wealth and resources to those in the middle east so that they can no longer be avoided (no matter how much I might like that). So the solution is to sincerely adopt any and all other sources of energy.

Admittedly, this solution only provides for ourselves and doesn't help Europe at all, but take the first step and then see how to proceed.

[feelfree1]

Re: "Why Does The Government Hide The Facts About The Iraq War From Us?"

Because they want to keep it going, Mr. Schieffer. If the U.S. corporate media would have done their job ahead of the illegal invasion of Iraq, we would not be in this position, now would we?

CBS and other Western mainstream media sources, are deeply complicit in stampeding the American public into this illegal and disgraceful war, and in propagating its continuance.

Mr. Schieffer, as a supposed investigative journalist, it seems to me that it is your responsibility to set the record straight.

[freedomchil1]

When a gov. attempts to stop freedom of speech it is expressing its desire to instill fear and the next step is to control the people. When that happens we lose our feedoms completely. Thank you Bob Schieffer for stepping up to the plate and being a person of courage, integrity and responsibility. It did my heart good to finally hear someone in the media tell it like it is. The questions is, not if the people can handle the truth, but if they want to know the truth, even if it is something they do not want to hear and makes them look bad. I remember Joe McCarthy. Keep the truth comming Bob, Thank you! I also remember Ed Murrow. Good first step Bob Keep it up.

[migrainegram]

The Genius of Impeachment:
The Founder's Cure for Royalism
by John Nichols

ISBN-10: 1595581405
ISBN-13: 978-1595581402

[eyedrive1]

It is not the American people that can't handle the truth, It is the the American government. Don't get me wrong, I was originally committed to the Iraq war and voted for Bush the FIRST time, not the second.

The corrupt government on both sides of the aisle will say anything to get elected. these are not the people that drafted the constitution. The poorest among us, the weak, the sick, the disabled get no attention because it will cost the politicians votes from the richest and strongest of us.

This is why we do not have universal health care, and why the minimum wage is the lowest in real dollars for 50 years. Simply politically too dangerous, so let the poor be damned.

I was not always poor, In fact up until I was hit by a drunk driver in 2003 I was upper middle class. I am now severely disabled and unable to work because my own government abandoned me and my family.

My own niece (who is a highly respected lawyer) told me years ago, there is no such thing as equal justice under the law, that it is a farce, that we have two sets of justice in this country, one for the rich, one for the poor.

Shame on us--compassionate conservatives my rear end.

[getcentered]

Schieffer: Can We Handle the Truth?
Why Does The Government Hide The Facts About The Iraq War From Us?

The reason is that our Executive Branch is made up of self-righteous fools who prefer the public believe in fairytales then actually understand the depth of their incompetence and/or the level at which "CURSORY" describes their leadership.

[rharrin1]

Maybe Schieffer should ask tougher questions instead of being so dammm polite.