Gary Hart: Bush's "October Surprise"

Luke T.

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Gary Hart's claim to fame, for any of you youngsters who are asking who Gary Hart is, is that he was once a candidate for President who challenged the media to follow him around to see if he was unfaithful to his wife. So they did. And he was. On his yacht "Monkey Business". And that was that.

So what's he been up to? Well, he has a blog now. And he is saying Bush could be planning an "October Surprise" to attack Iran before the mid-term elections. Woo woo!

It should come as no surprise if the Bush Administration undertakes a preemptive war against Iran sometime before the November election.

Were these more normal times, this would be a stunning possibility, quickly dismissed by thoughtful people as dangerous, unprovoked, and out of keeping with our national character. But we do not live in normal times.
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And thanks for keeping it from being normal, Gary, with stuff like this.

And we do not have a government much concerned with our national character. If anything, our current Administration is out to remake our national character into something it has never been.
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He even lays out the battle plan.

The steps will be these: Air Force tankers will be deployed to fuel B-2 bombers, Navy cruise missile ships will be positioned at strategic points in the northern Indian Ocean and perhaps the Persian Gulf, unmanned drones will collect target data, and commando teams will refine those data. The latter two steps are already being taken.

Then the president will speak on national television. He will say this: Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons; if this happens, the entire region will go nuclear; our diplomatic efforts to prevent this have failed; Iran is offering a haven to known al Qaeda leaders; the fate of our ally Israel is at stake; Iran persists in supporting terrorism, including in Iraq; and sanctions will have no affect (and besides they are for sissies). He will not say: ...and besides, we need the oil.

Therefore, he will announce, our own national security and the security of the region requires us to act. "Tonight, I have ordered the elimination of all facilities in Iran that are dedicated to the production of weapons of mass destruction....." In the narrowest terms this includes perhaps two dozen targets.

But the authors of the war on Iraq have "regime change" in mind in Iran.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-october-surprise_b_30086.html
 
Oh. From the title, I thought Gary Hart was Bush's "October Surprise".

I was prepared to be very surprised.
 
Luke T. said:
Gary Hart's claim to fame, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-october-surprise_b_30086.html
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At least Donna Rice was a babe. :)

As to the substance of this speculation, GWB hasn't harnessed the policial emotive force he had accumulated in Spring of 2003. The momentum of Afghanistan is no longer in his favor, and his credibility has gone down the crapper.

Cheney and Rumsfeld are not Gotterdamerung style suicidal politicians. Their aim is to say in power for as long as they can. Condi's rhetoric has not been bellicose lately. The surprise Hart suggests would more likely end the hopes of most Republicans on the ballot, and kill the party, which Cheney and Rummy most definitely don't want to do.

Gary Hart ought to know better. He used to be in the business. I am guessing lack of poontang is making him crazy.

DR
 
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Upchurch said:
Oh. From the title, I thought Gary Hart was Bush's "October Surprise".

I was prepared to be very surprised.
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Me too. I thought you were gunna say that Gary Hart was servicing Bush while wearing a little page boy outfit.

:jaw-dropp
 
Bush is also going to re-institute the draft in October. That'll all but ensure that the GOP keeps control of Congress.
 
senorpogo said:
Bush is also going to re-institute the draft in October. That'll all but ensure that the GOP keeps control of Congress.
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And Bush will take Osama Bin Laden out of cryogenic suspension and announce his capture in October.
 
No, no, no. The October Surprise is going to go down in history as "Presidential Babymama Drama". Ooooh, the drama! The passion! The controversy!
 
Luke T. said:
Gary Hart's claim to fame, for any of you youngsters who are asking who Gary Hart is, is that he was once a candidate for President who challenged the media to follow him around to see if he was unfaithful to his wife. So they did. And he was. On his yacht "Monkey Business". And that was that.

So what's he been up to? Well, he has a blog now. And he is saying Bush could be planning an "October Surprise" to attack Iran before the mid-term elections. Woo woo!



And thanks for keeping it from being normal, Gary, with stuff like this.



He even lays out the battle plan.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-october-surprise_b_30086.html
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I normally stay out of political threads but:

"Troops find no sign of Iran at work in Iraq
British commandos set up camp in desert
Officer suspects `there's nothing out there'"

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...geid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1159998617363

So the thesis seems entirely credible. :D
 
Luke T. said:
Gary Hart's claim to fame, for any of you youngsters who are asking who Gary Hart is, is that he was once a candidate for President who challenged the media to follow him around to see if he was unfaithful to his wife. So they did. And he was. On his yacht "Monkey Business". And that was that.
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Monkey Business was not his yacht. He just rented it for that ill-fated weekend.
 
An October surprise at this point would be an October in which nobody claimed the US was going to invade Iran in the run up to the November elections.

By the way, did all the people that lost the bets on this issue on this board in the run up to the 2004 elections ever donate the money to the JREF as promised?
 
Luke T. said:
Gary Hart's claim to fame, for any of you youngsters who are asking who Gary Hart is, is that he was once a candidate for President who challenged the media to follow him around to see if he was unfaithful to his wife. So they did. And he was. On his yacht "Monkey Business". And that was that.

So what's he been up to? Well, he has a blog now...
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Luke, I appreciate the tone of your OP. However, Mr. Hart did enjoy a distinguished career prior to his presidential bid. And he has been quite active since, most notably with regard to the Hart-Rudman Commission and its work on the subject of terrorism.

And yes, Ms. Rice was dee-lish.
 
I read the commentary, and as much as I like Gary Hart, I have to say that he is rather out to lunch on this one.

I seriously doubt that Bush will attack Iran now, or any time in the next several months because we are so terribly bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although, I am sure that if Bush could attack Iran, he would attack Iran, but now is simply not the time to get involved in another long and protracted conflict.

Once again, George W. Bush proves to be the best friend the Iranians have ever had.
 
Several of the pundits I've listened to of late seem to think an attack would take place after the elections. The thinking is that Bush would at that point be in the "lame duck" category, and would undertake military action "because it's the right thing to do."
Howls of rage from the electorate be damned.
 
steverino said:
I have always resented our government's vulger policy of using the CIA to overthrow foreign governments and install right-wing dictators like Marcos, Noriega, and, yes, Saddam Hussein, for its twisted self-interest.

That said, is there any way we could, um, you know, get the Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi back in the saddle? ;)

http://archive.gulfnews.com/indepth/irancrisis/more_stories/10022809.html
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Sure, Pahlavi on the throne, that's the ticket. :p
your cited article said:
Instead, the former crown prince of the US-backed monarchy that was deposed more than 25 years ago urged the international community to help support and unify resistance groups inside and outside of Iran to increase pressure on the nation's ruling clerics
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But what about the US backed monarchy in Denmark? They are a monarchy, Denmark is nominally our NATO ally, should we pull our support from them? How about the US backed monarchy in the UK? We support the UK, they hae a monarchy. How about the US backed monarchy in Saudi? They have a monarchy, we are still supporting them vis a vis Iran, though on somewhat less cordial terms than before.

Stever, per the vulgar habits of cold war geopolitics, the perceived alternative to those despots was commies, nice characters like Pol Pot or Mao, which was at the time no alternative. I for one am glad that's over, and the people can move forward, and elect people like Corazon Aquino in the PI, etc.

As to Imelda's shoes, I still use that line on my wife when she gets a new pair . . . of shoes: "What is this, Imelda Marcos' ghost I am married to?"

DR
 
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