Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Re: [POLITICS] "mistakes were made"

["Vern Green" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Didn't you once before criticize the administration for not admitting to their mistakes? No when someone does admit to making a mistake you want to criticize them for the admission?

On 3/14/07, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007, Vern Green wrote:

> Maybe my memory fails me, isn't this exactly what you wanted to hear
> once before? I don't get it, what would be wrong with someone admitting
> to a mistake. I doubt you can find any instance in history where an
> American President did not admit to making a mistake along the way,
> whether or not they used those exact words.

You don't get me?  Read what you wrote above, read what is written below,
and then tell me what the correspondence is between the two.  I find your
first sentence especially lacking in meaning.  How can I answer it?  What
does "this" mean in that question?  Please try a little harder to make
sense.

Mike


>
> On 3/14/07, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED > wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 14 Mar 2007, Mike Miller wrote:
>>
>> > I thought "mistakes were made" was an evasive Clintonism, or wasn't that
>> > what the Republicans used to claim?  Seriously, didn't "mistakes were
>> > made" become popular a few years ago under some administration?  Was it
>> > Clinton's or someone else's?  See recent sighting below.
>>
>>
>> A google search here...
>>
>> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22mistakes+were+made%22
>>
>> ...leads me to Ronald Reagan as an earlier source than Clinton.
>> Apparently Reagan used this phrase in regard to Iran-Contra on December 6,
>> 1986:
>>
>> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22mistakes+were+made%22+reagan
>>
>> Reagan used the phrase before congress on January 27, 1987:
>>
>> http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=34430
>>
>> Maybe "mistakes were made" has been associated with Clinton because his
>> political enemies wanted it that way.  Of course Clinton used the phrase
>> too, but he doesn't get credit for the invention because Reagan used it a
>> full decade earlier:
>>
>>    http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/clarity.html
>>
>>    While we are still seeking all the facts, it's obvious that the
>>    execution of these policies was flawed and mistakes were made. Let me
>>    just say it was not my intent to do business with Khomeini, to trade
>>    weapons for hostages, nor to undercut our policy of anti-terrorism.
>>       --Ronald Reagan, radio broadcast (December 6, 1986)
>>
>>    It costs so much money to pay for these campaigns that mistakes were
>>    made here by people who either did it deliberately or inadvertently.
>>    Now, others.it's up to others to decide whether those mistakes were
>>    made deliberately or inadvertently.
>>       --Bill Clinton, press conference (January 28, 1997)
>>
>> But the master Henry Kissinger beat them both by more than another decade:
>>
>>    Deng: Why is there still such a big noise being made about Watergate?
>>
>>    Kissinger: That is a series of almost incomprehensible events. . . . It
>>    has its roots in the fact that some mistakes were made, but also, when
>>    you change many policies, you make many, many enemies.
>>       --Secretary of State Henry Kissinger speaking with Chinese Vice
>>         Premier Deng Xiaoping (April 14, 1974)
>>
>> And a century before that, Ulysses S. Grant used the phrase "mistakes have
>> been made, as all can see and I admit" in a note to his final report to
>> Congress, on December 5, 1876.  So I guess it's an old standard political
>> evasion tactic.  We have to give credit to the Republicans though -- they
>> invented it and continue to use it today.  Way to go, Republicans!
>>
>> Mike
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Thanks
> F Vernon Green
>

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F Vernon Green 
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