What can I say, it was a warm day here when I wrote that and all the ice cream shops were doing big business.

I actually think Dale's posts show he is using critical thinking but even if we are all using critical thinking it does not mean we will all draw the same conclusions. In this case there is no absolute correct answer is basically what I was getting at. This is also part of what makes the information Dale posted effective.

Maybe the argument is about what we choose to believe based on certain pieces of evidence.

Let's go in a different direction for a second. In the scenario Dale has set up he has three people who there are questions about that have in some way either shown support for or at one point in time interacted with Obama. He has shown nothing specifically about Obama just presented information about these three people and leaves open a door to conclusions you can jump to based on this information. Using Pat as our guinea pig (let's try to keep the smart ass comments to a minimum here), only because Pat was the only one to jump in and indicate he drew a certain conclusion from what Dale presented, we'll look at some other facts.

Let's look at facts that have been presented here many times that have also caused different people to draw different conclusions.

Fact: A group called Project for the New American Century was formed in 1997.

Fact: This group included several future members of the Bush Administration including our Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and all of the key players that worked to plunge us into a war in Iraq.

Fact: This group wrote position papers that called for war with Iraq, our need to become actively involved in the Middle East in a military capacity, specifically called for fighting simultaneous major theater wars, dropping diplomacy and circumventing interference from the United Nations, increasing defense spending by at least 15 to 20 billion dollars annually, and to create and maintain permanent military constabulary activities with an eye toward the development of large scale wars. Part of the stated goal was securing oil reserves in Iraq and the Middle East.

Fact: They stated that not achieving these goals would be "strategic retreat" and that no cost to achieve them was too high because "The true cost of not meeting our defense requirements will be a lessened capacity for American global leadership and, ultimately, the loss of a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity."

Fact: They wrote that there was concern that the American public would not support the military action required to achieve these goals and that it may take decades to accomplish them unless there was an event on the scale of a "new Pearl Harbor."

Fact: 8 months after the Bush Administration took office on September 11, 2001, with multiple members of PNAC now in positions of power and influence in the United States government, we experienced what the media quickly deemed a "new Pearl Harbor."

Fact: Shortly after the events of 9/11/01 the President of the United States told the American people, the United Nations, and the world we should not pursue conspiracy theories related to who may have committed the atrocities of September 11, 2001.

Fact: On March 19, 2003 although no evidence showed Iraq or its government had played a part in what took place on 9/11/2001 the President of the United States declared war on Iraq with the primary reason for doing so being "global security."

Fact: The United States has been at war ever since, defense spending has skyrocketed, Americans now live under "the constant threat of terror", and one presidential candidate has stated we may need to fight this war and police the world for the next 100 years.

These are all simple facts as Dale would say, what conclusion has Pat drawn from these as they have been presented over time? I would say these facts could cause people to draw some interesting conclusions. I think Pat, at least as far as I know, has ignored them. Other people here have expressed they don't really like these facts and because of this they don't really like George W. Bush.

In all honesty though, these facts don't show that Dubya knew about or played a part in what took place on 9/11/2001. All they show is that members of his administration wrote about and supported an event like 9/11 and its aftermath before it took place and that it all took place after these same people took control of our government.

It does not prove that they did it, just that they thought about it and how beneficial it would be and then when that "Pearl Harbor" type event took place they felt they had hit the trifecta and went ahead did the other things they had wrote about.

It's interesting what conclusions we all choose to draw from any given set of facts...isn't it?

I mean it's enough to scare a guy into thinking that our current administration might want to start a "large scale war" with Iran or something...ya know?