BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 12:35 PM

I dunno what Ochlocracy is.

One colunist from the Times (once an Ochs-led organization, I guess) feels this way:

"The question now is how to minimize the damage before countless more Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered to serve the president's endgame of passing his defeat on to the next president. The Democrats can have all the hearings they want, but they are unlikely to take draconian action (cutting off funding) that would make them, rather than Mr. Bush, politically vulnerable to blame for losing Iraq.

I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush's own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party.

Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It's another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn't Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon's abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party's right wing.

That leader was Barry Goldwater , who had been one of Nixon's most loyal and aggressive defenders until he finally realized he'd been lied to once too often. If John McCain won't play the role his Arizona predecessor once did, we must hope that John Warner or some patriot like him will, for the good of the country, answer the call of conscience. A dangerous president must be saved from himself, so that the American kids he's about to hurl into the hell of Baghdad can be saved along with him."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:44 PM

This does have bearing on the popular views of the bus administration but Amos only wants to promote the negative and cover up anything that is contradictory.

This copupled to a past of following the drumbeat of extremist causes indicates an inability to recognize the truth.

The enitre impeach Bush / Bush lied movement is nothing but Ochlocracy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:29 PM

I guess if you cannot address the topic you can try to Shanghai it by making it about other things and glutting the thread with that. But it is -- even you will acknowledge -- a destructive impulse.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:36 AM

Amos is constantly trying to bury the past.

If history does not mean anything, why are you so anxious for people not to see it?

Wake up an learn from history dude.

Within the press, perhaps the most energetic disseminator of "inactionable intelligence" on Iraq's putative weapons has been the New York Times' Judith Miller. A veteran of the Iraqi WMD beat, Miller has accumulated a bulging clippings file over the years full of splashy, yet often maddeningly unverifiable, exposés alleging various Iraqi arms shenanigans: "Secret Arsenal: The Hunt for Germs of War" (2/26/98); "Defector Describes Iraq's Atom Bomb Push" (8/15/98); "Iraqi Tells of Renovations at Sites For Chemical and Nuclear Arms" (12/20/01); "Defectors Bolster U.S. Case Against Iraq, Officials Say" (1/24/03).

In May, an internal Times email written by Miller found its way to the Washington Post's media columnist (5/26/03). In the message, Miller casually revealed her source for many of these stories: Ahmed Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile leader (and convicted embezzler) who for over a decade had been lobbying Washington to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime: "I've been covering Chalabi for about 10 years," Miller wrote. "He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper." Chalabi, with his network of defectors and exiles, is known in Washington foreign-policy circles as a primary source for many of the weapons allegations that career CIA analysts greeted with skepticism, but that Pentagon hawks promoted eagerly (UPI, 3/12/03).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:16 AM

Old Guy, stop dragging in old news on tangential topics, wouldja? Jeeze Louise, 2003 fer cry-i.

Wake up and smell the hemlock, Dude!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:05 AM

Judith Miller argues that if she was duped by her unnamed sources, so was the Bush administration — and she's not apologizing for believing there were WMDs in Iraq until the president does. "I think I was given information by people who believed the information they were giving the president," she told Bergman. "When the president asked, you know, 'What about this WMD case? Are we sure about this?' [then-CIA director] George Tenet said to him, 'Mr. President, this is a slam dunk.' The people I talked to certainly thought that." Other WMD believers, she said, included the entire U.S. intelligence community as well as French, English, and Israeli agencies.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/18_miller.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 11:58 PM

Published on Monday, May 26, 2003 by the Washington Post
Intra-Times Battle Over Iraqi Weapons
by Howard Kurtz


A dustup between two New York Times reporters over a story on an Iraqi exile leader raises some intriguing questions about the paper's coverage of the search for dangerous weapons thought to be hidden by Saddam Hussein.


Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress and Times source. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
An internal e-mail by Judith Miller, the paper's top reporter on bioterrorism, acknowledges that her main source for such articles has been Ahmad Chalabi, a controversial exile leader who is close to top Pentagon officials. Could Chalabi have been using the Times to build a drumbeat that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction?

The Chalabi connection surfaced when John Burns, the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning Baghdad bureau chief, scolded Miller over her May 1 story on the Iraqi without clearing it with him.

"I am deeply chagrined at your reporting and filing on Chalabi after I had told you on Monday night that we were planning a major piece on him -- and without so much as telling me what you were doing," Burns wrote that day, according to e-mail correspondence obtained by The Washington Post.

"We have a bureau here; I am in charge of that bureau until I leave; I make assignments after considerable thought and discussion, and it was plain to all of us to whom the Chalabi story belonged. If you do this, what is to stop you doing it on any other story of your choosing? And what of the distress it causes the correspondent who is usurped? It is not professional, and not collegial."

Miller replied to Burns: "I've been covering Chalabi for about 10 years, and have done most of the stories about him for our paper, including the long takeout we recently did on him. He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper."

She apologized for any confusion, but noted that the Army unit she was traveling with -- Mobile Exploration Team Alpha -- "is using Chalabi's intell and document network for its own WMD work. . . . Since I'm there every day, talking to him. . . . I thought I might have been included on a decision by you" to have another reporter write about Chalabi.

Reached by phone, Miller said: "I'm not about to comment on any intra-Times communications." Andrew Rosenthal, assistant managing editor for foreign news, said it is "a pretty slippery slope" to publish reporters' private e-mail and "reveal whatever confidential sources they may or may not have."

"Of course we talk to Chalabi," he said. "If you were in Iraq and weren't talking to Chalabi, I'd wonder if you were doing your job."

According to the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was a key source of information about weapons for the Pentagon's own intelligence unit -- information sometimes disputed by the CIA. Chalabi may have been feeding the Times, and other news organizations, the same disputed information.

Miller has drawn criticism, particularly from Slate's Jack Shafer, for her reporting on the hunt for Iraqi weapons while she was embedded with the MET Alpha unit.

In an April 21 front-page story, she reported that a leading Iraqi scientist claimed Iraq had destroyed chemical and biological weapons days before the war began, according to the Alpha team. She said the scientist had "pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried."

Behind that story was an interesting arrangement. Under the terms of her accreditation, Miller wrote, "this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials. Those officials asked that details of what chemicals were uncovered be deleted."

Since then, no evidence has surfaced to support these claims and the Alpha team is preparing to leave Iraq without having found weapons of mass destruction.

Rosenthal says all embedded reporters agreed to the same restrictions. "We didn't feel this amounted to censorship," he said. "We thought the added burden of the rules was justified by the access we got to what would have been secret operations."

While Miller was not allowed to interview the unnamed scientist on her own, Rosenthal said "she never said she never met him." Army officials "made an argument that his life would be in jeopardy" if he were identified.

Whether or not the unit's initial findings pan out, Rosenthal says, he is "extremely comfortable" with Miller's reporting because "all the information was attributed to MET Alpha, not 'senior U.S. officials' or some other vague formulation."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 02:23 PM

An interesting statistic and call for assistance from Canadians:

As U.S. President Bush announced his plans to send more troops to Iraq bloodshed, a surge in the number of calls from American military during the past week has prompted a Canadian war resistance group to ask for help in housing soldiers leaving the U.S. for Canada, Toronto Star reported.

"We have noticed an uptick since the summer, but this is much more intense," said Lee Zaslofsky, who went AWOL in 1970 and, like many during that time, crossed the border into Canada. He became co-ordinator of the War Resisters Support Campaign, a Canada-wide organization that supports U.S. soldiers seeking asylum in Canada because they refuse to fight in the war in Iraq.

According the Air Force Times, the Pentagon has registered approximately 8,000 deserters since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. While many of them are living underground in the United States, the War Resisters Support Campaign estimates that there are "as many as 200 or more military personnel in Canada today."

Zaslofsky says the group has received calls from at least 24 concerned U.S. soldiers after U.S. President George W. Bush's call for more troops in Iraq.

The soldiers, he says, include both reserves and those returning from past deployment.

"If you have room where you can house a resister for a few days, a few weeks or longer, please get in touch with us," the group said. The campaign has been running since 2004 and is based in cities across Canada.

(From the Toronto Daily News)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Nameless One
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 11:07 AM

This is being cut and pasted here because these things disappear often and the link turns worthless.

N.Y. Times Cites Defects in Its Reports on Iraq

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 26, 2004; Page C01

The New York Times acknowledged today that its coverage of whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction "was not as rigorous as it should have been" and that "we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge."

More than a year after Judith Miller and some Times colleagues reported on evidence suggesting that Iraq was hiding such weapons, the paper said in an editors' note: "Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all."

One of Miller's prime sources was Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile whose organization was subsidized by the Pentagon and who "has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper," according to an e-mail she sent to a colleague. U.S.-backed forces raided Chalabi's home in Iraq last week amid allegations that members of his Iraqi National Congress may have been providing sensitive information to Iran.

Dan Okrent, the paper's ombudsman, said last night that "I'm looking into the coverage of WMD" and planned to publish his findings Sunday. Executive Editor Bill Keller said last night he was busy on deadline and could not discuss the situation.

The editors' note did say that "we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of. In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies that were themselves dependent on sketchy information."

While many news organizations reported on WMD claims before the war, few did so as aggressively as the Times. The failure to find such weapons has produced growing calls by critics, led by Slate columnist Jack Shafer, for the Times to own up to past errors.

Miller played an unusually active role while embedded last year with an Army unit searching for weapons of mass destruction, at one point writing to object to a commander's order that the unit withdraw from the field and suggesting she would write about it unfavorably in the Times. The pullback order was later rescinded. The unit "is using Chalabi's intell and document network for its own WMD work," Miller wrote her colleague.

Some of the Times's earlier reporting "depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on 'regime change' in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks," the editors said.

Among the problematic stories cited:

� In October and November 2001, front-page pieces cited Iraqi defectors who described a secret camp where terrorists were trained and biological weapons produced. "These accounts have never been independently verified."

� In December 2001, Miller cited an Iraqi defector who said he had worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. While weapons might still be found, "in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers."

� A lead article in September 2002, co-authored by Miller, was headlined "U.S. Says Hussein Intensified Quest for A-Bomb Parts." The story "should have been presented more cautiously," and "misgivings" that surfaced days later "appeared deep in an article on Page A13, under a headline that gave no inkling that we were revising our earlier view."

� In April 2003, Miller reported that an Iraqi scientist who claimed to have worked in the country's weapons program "has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began," and that the team had found "precursors" of banned toxic agents. But "The Times never followed up on the veracity of this source or the attempts to verify his claims." Miller had said on PBS that the scientist was not just a "smoking gun" but "a silver bullet."

In a New York Review of Books interview, Miller said her note about Chalabi was exaggerated as part of "an angry e-mail exchange" with colleague John Burns.

In a note to Okrent in March, Keller said he "did not see a prima facie case for recanting or repudiating the stories." He called Miller "a smart, well-sourced, industrious and fearless reporter with a keen instinct for news, and an appetite for dauntingly hard subjects."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Nameless one
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 10:49 AM

The Source of the Trouble

Pulitzer Prize winner Judith Miller's series of exclusives about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq—courtesy of the now-notorious Ahmad Chalabi—helped the New York Times keep up with the competition and the Bush administration bolster the case for war. How the very same talents that caused her to get the story also caused her to get it wrong.........

More here

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 12:01 AM

The current Post report on the unification of Senators in opposition to the Bush plan for more troops is an interesting study in fracas. It can be found here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Nameless One
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 12:28 PM

So why does this thread contain propaganda from the NYT?

It is said that the NYT publishes the opinions of its "reporters" as if it is the truth. Do opinions take precedence to facts?

As for fear mongering, do you remember all of the articles that they published about how the Bush administration was recklessly ignoring all of the danger signals about WMD's in Iraq?

That was back when Chalabi was telling Congress, not the administration, exactly what they wanted to hear about Iraq in order to get money from congress.

Some people have very conveniently forgotten those facts in favor of popular opinions.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 02:04 AM

This thread is scarcely about fear-mongering misinterpretations of NYT policies, Nameless One.

Stick to the topic.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 01:42 AM

How many consecutive quarters of declining readership and revenues will it take before NY Times investors recognize that they are just not out of step with the nation, but with the NY metroplitan region as well. It would be sad to lose a newspaper like the NY Times, but they would only have themselves to blame.

New York Times imposes selective censorship on readers

According to an AP story picked up by the Wall Street Journal today, The New York Times has blocked access to a news story to all British visitors to its Web site. The story, which talks about a recent airline terror plot in England, apparently runs afoul of a UK law that "prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial."

Once information is posted on the Internet it can't effectively be blocked. The Times Web site is also not physically located in Britain, which means it is not technically under the jurisdiction of UK laws. In addition, that same information is already available from other Web sites and has also been published in Britain's Daily Mail. But these facts seem to have escaped the Times editors, who appear anxious to play ball and perform selective censorship of UK readers after being served notice by British government authorities.

It's also interesting to note how the Times repurposed existing techonology as a mechanism for selectively repressing the news in response to government pressure. The Times already uses "geotargeting" technology to place adds on a Web page based on the requesting user's location. It does so by checking the requester's IP address and the location of the ISP that issued it. This is the first time that the Times has used that technology to selectively block access to news content to a geographic subset of its readers, according to the story. So it sets a rather dismal new predecent for selective censorship. I think it also reflects poorly on the editorial judgement of the The Times.

For more, see the WSJ story, New York Times Blocks Web Story (requires WSJ subscription).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 07 - 10:43 AM

The Times (New York) offers some thought in an editorial about "The Imperial Presidncy":

Observing President Bush in action lately, we have to wonder if he actually watched the election returns in November, or if he was just rerunning the 2002 vote on his TiVo.

That year, the White House used the fear of terrorism to scare American voters into cementing the Republican domination of Congress. Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney then embarked on an expansion of presidential power chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to the constitutional system of checks and balances.

In 2006, the voters sent Mr. Bush a powerful message that it was time to rein in his imperial ambitions. But we have yet to see any sign that Mr. Bush understands that — or even realizes that the Democrats are now in control of the Congress. Indeed, he seems to have interpreted his party's drubbing as a mandate to keep pursuing his fantasy of victory in Iraq and to press ahead undaunted with his assault on civil liberties and the judicial system. Just before the Christmas break, the Justice Department served notice to Senator Patrick Leahy — the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee — that it intended to keep stonewalling Congressional inquiries into Mr. Bush's inhumane and unconstitutional treatment of prisoners taken in anti-terrorist campaigns. It refused to hand over two documents, including one in which Mr. Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to establish secret prisons beyond the reach of American law or international treaties. The other set forth the interrogation methods authorized in these prisons — which we now know ranged from abuse to outright torture.

Also last month, Mr. Bush issued another of his infamous "presidential signing statements," which he has used scores of times to make clear he does not intend to respect the requirements of a particular law — in this case a little-noticed Postal Service bill. The statement suggested that Mr. Bush does not believe the government must obtain a court order before opening Americans' first-class mail. It said the administration had the right to "conduct searches in exigent circumstances," which include not only protecting lives, but also unspecified "foreign intelligence collection."

The law is clear on this. A warrant is required to open Americans' mail under a statute that was passed to stop just this sort of abuse using just this sort of pretext. But then again, the law is also clear on the need to obtain a warrant before intercepting Americans' telephone calls and e-mail. Mr. Bush began openly defying that law after Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on calls and e-mail between the United States and other countries.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 07 - 12:32 PM

"Bush speechwriter David Frum, who wrote a hagiography of Bush in 2003 called "The Right Man," sees the intellectual bankruptcy of proposing a line-item veto yet again. Said Frum on National Review magazine's Web site:

Never mind that the Supreme Court has found the line item veto unconstitutional.

Never mind that after six years of presidentially led overspending, it is a bit implausible for the president to try to present himself as the guardian of the public purse against rapacious congresspersons.

Consider only this: Republicans have been suggesting a federal line item veto as a talisman against big government since the middle 1980s. If twenty years later, the line item veto is the only domestic idea a Republican president has to offer — what more emphatic confession of mental exhaustion can an administration give? And if the administration confesses itself exhausted, why should not the Congress elbow it aside? Somebody has to govern after all. . . .

This president has always preferred to retire early for the night. I fear that the whole domestic policy staff seems now to be following the boss's example, settling in for bedtime two years ahead of schedule."

From a NY Times opinion piece.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 07 - 11:02 AM

From Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times, this gem:

"Despite all the talk back in the 2000 campaign about a robustly experienced foreign-policy dream team, it may have been destined that the Bush administration would be asleep in the run-up to the insurgency, just as it was asleep in the run-up to 9/11, to Katrina, to the occupation and to the refugee crisis in Iraq. Either all that was predetermined, or the administration was preternaturally negligent.

Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher who said a man can do what he wants but cannot will what he wants, would have understood W.'s nonsensical urge to Surge.

We don't know if human beings have free will. We just know that human beings in Washington appear not to."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 05 Jan 07 - 05:03 PM

Bush seems to be above the law in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 07 - 05:01 PM

"United States Codes
Title 18 – Crimes and Criminal Procedure
Part 1 – Crimes
Chapter 83 – Postal Service

Section 1702
Obstruction of Correspondence

Whoever takes any letter, postal card, or package out of any post
office or any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any
letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or
authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail
carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was
directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into
the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles,
or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more that five years, or both."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 11:41 PM

during WWII FDR gave the FBI complete authority to lntercept all transAtlantic cables and a virtual free hand when it came to domestic surveillance, wiretapping and opening mail.

A woman got a commendation and a special medal from the government for finding a bit of microfilm under the stamp of an inocuous domestic letter that sent six German spies to the gallows.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 07:54 PM

Bush quietly authorizes opening of Americans' mail

By James Gordon Meek

New York Daily News

(MCT)

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the New York Daily News has learned.

The president asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

"Despite the president's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.

"The (Bush) signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.

"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.

"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."

A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."

Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.

Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."

---

From the Bill of Rights:

Amendment IV


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 12:46 PM

From Salon on-line, an essay by Garrison Keillor:

Daddy issues

Our president is resolving unconscious Oedipal obsessions by lashing out at foreign countries -- and it's time his father stepped in.

By Garrison Keillor

Jan. 3, 2007 | As the new Congress convenes this week and Speaker Pelosi ascends to the rostrum, you have to wish them all well. These are the kids who got up in school assembly and spoke on Armistice Day and were captains of teams and organized class projects to do good works, a different breed from us wise guys who lurked in the halls and made fun of them, and in the end you want them and not us running your government. Yes, they had serious brown-nose tendencies and a knack for mouthing pieties, but you could count on them to do what needed doing. They were leaders. They weren't going to swipe the lunch money and buy a keg of suds.

You wonder, however, what this earnest bunch can do when things are so far out of whack as they are in Iraq. The gangland-style execution of Saddam Hussein was visible reality, a token of the blood lust and violence that swirls around Iraq, where our forces are mired, sitting targets, aliens, fighting a colonial war in behalf of a Shiite majority that is as despotic and cruel as what came before, except messier.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the limousines come and go, memorandums are set out on long polished tables, men in crisp white shirts sit at meetings and discuss how to rationalize a war that was conceived by a handful of men in arrogant ignorance and that has descended over the past four years into sheer madness.

Military men know there is no military solution here, and the State Department knows that the policy was driven by domestic politics, but who is going to tell the Current Occupant? He is still talking about victory, or undefeat, like some frat boy on meth who thinks he can step off a roof and not get hurt. The word "surge" keeps cropping up, as if we were fighting the war with electricity and not human beings.


Rational analysis is not the way to approach this administration. Bob Woodward found that out. The Bush who burst into convulsive sobs after winning reelection when his chief of staff Andrew Card said, "You've given your dad a great gift," is so far from the Bush of the photo ops as to invite closer inspection, and for that you don't want David Broder, you need a good novelist.

Here we have a slacker son of a powerful patrician father who resolves unconscious Oedipal issues through inappropriate acting-out in foreign countries. Hello? All the king's task forces can gather together the shards of the policy, number them, arrange them, but it never made sense when it was whole and so it makes even less sense now.

American boys in armored jackets and night scopes patrolling the streets of Baghdad are not going to pacify this country, any more than they will convert it to Methodism. They are there to die so that a man in the White House doesn't have to admit that he, George W. Bush, the decider, the one in the cowboy boots, made grievous mistakes. He approved a series of steps that he himself had not the experience or acumen or simple curiosity to question and which had been dumbed down for his benefit, and then he doggedly stuck by them until his approval ratings sank into the swamp.

He was the Great Denier of 2006, waving the flag, questioning the patriotism of anyone who dared oppose him, until he took a thumpin' and now, we are told, he is reexamining the whole matter. Except he's not. To admit that he did wrong is to admit that he is not the man his daddy is, the one who fought in a war.

Hey, we've all had issues with our dads. But do we need this many people to die so that one dude can look like a leader?

...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 10:39 AM

An interesting essay (or rant) from Capitol Hill Blue on the notion that Bush should be stopped before he does more harm.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 07:41 PM

An excerpt from this charming piece:

"December 26, 2006 at 21:06:43

2006 DISASTER OF THE YEAR / GEORGE W BUSH

by Allen L Roland


" As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron:" H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

You can arguably call George W Bush Moron in Chief or an entitled brat ~ but he has most definitely been the disaster of the year for 2006.

Everything he has touched has become a disaster starting with his illegal war and occupation of Iraq ~ continuing through his promised rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing disintegration of America's moral standing in the world community.

This has to be a reflection on the character of George W Bush himself and how he conducts himself within the oval office.
..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 04:41 PM

nane

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 02:24 PM

See too: this site.

And listen to the insights under The Unfeeling President.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 03:02 PM

From OpEd News, a liberal website:

December 29, 2006

Bush's Wonderland and through the Looking Glass of Iraq

by Frank J. Ranelli






Seduced by a powerful cocktail of intoxicating hysteria, America tumbled down the rabbit hole of Bush's Wonderland only to discover the looking glass was a window in reverse with a frightening view.



In 1865, Lewis Carroll authored the famous children's storybook, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A fairytale laden with satire and allusions, Alice in Wonderland tells the story of a little girl who follows a white rabbit down a hole into a bizarre underworld. Alice emerges into a netherworld beset with anthropomorphic characters that lead her on a series of misadventures in a chaotic society of unruliness, lunacy and utter mayhem. In a distorted and sometimes mockingly perverse way, Carroll endeavors to lampoon his childhood along with the lessons and perils of a careless adolescence in 19th century Britain.

Here in 21st century America, we too, have tumbled down an abysmal hole and materialized in an alternative dream world. For six years, we have been faltering through a mass hallucination of alarm and disbelief, apprehension and discord, addiction and disorder. Our delirium is the somber side-effect of a nation under sedation, induced by a heroin-like injected haze of obfuscation and trepid tentativeness to break free of our "pusher." Ironically, it turns out that in street slang, "white rabbit" is an urban idiom for heroin. A drug marked by paranoia, fear and anxiety.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, America begin to inhale the heavy vapors of Bush's "white rabbit" and we have been "chasing the dragon" ever since. The alleged alleviation, only by way of a Faustian Bargain, was to sell our national soul in exchange for the prevaricated promise that we would be unshackled and set free to awaken from another long, national nightmare. That was never the case. Instead, we were further seduced by a coterie of unsavory characters who suspiciously correlated two arch nemeses together – Saddam and Bin Laden – to formulate a "speedball" cocktail of intoxicating hysteria.

After a patriotic parade of propaganda and deception, the sentinels of our society – Congress – in a frenzy of panic, bequeathed their sole power to declare war to a boorish executive with a galloping case of megalomania and chest-thumping bravado. Thus began, like Alice, our own journey into madness, lawlessness and absolute chaos. We embarked on a war of aggression, under the ruse of seeding democracy and disarming dictators, while munitions manufacturers raked in the revenues and oil barons profited handsomely.

Fortunately, like most addictive drugs, a tolerance factor begins to takes hold. As we yearned and waited for our next fix of the latest formula of Bush's "white rabbit", naively accepting his next white lie, America began to sober up. We awoke from Bush's ghoulish nightmare and hellish war to find not patriots and heroes but pariahs and heretics feeding our addiction and feasting on our own national flesh and blood. "...

Rest of article here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 02:09 PM

The Times details in this report a case of rampant, heavy-handed censorship of non-classified, publically discussed material regarding the Rubbish administration's relationship with Iran.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 11:42 AM

Thoughtful remarks from Timothy Garton Ash, writing for The Guardian:

...

Bush has created a comprehensive catastrophe across the Middle East

In every vital area, from Afghanistan to Egypt, his policies have made the situation worse than it was before

Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday December 14, 2006
The Guardian


What an amazing bloody catastrophe. The Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East over the five years since 9/11 is culminating in a multiple train crash. Never in the field of human conflict was so little achieved by so great a country at such vast expense. In every vital area of the wider Middle East, American policy over the last five years has taken a bad situation and made it worse.

If the consequences were not so serious, one would have to laugh at a failure of such heroic proportions - rather in the spirit of Zorba the Greek who, contemplating the splintered ruins of his great project, memorably exclaimed: "Did you ever see a more splendiferous crash?" But the reckless incompetence of Zorba the Bush has resulted in the death, maiming, uprooting or impoverishment of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children - mainly Muslim Arabs but also Christian Lebanese, Israelis and American and British soldiers. By contributing to a broader alienation of Muslims it has also helped to make a world in which, as we walk the streets of London, Madrid, Jerusalem, New York or Sydney, we are all, each and every one of us, less safe. Laugh if you dare.

..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 05:59 PM

Analysis of Bush Admin financial record:

"The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our federal deficits alone now total more than 400% of GDP.

That is the conclusion of a recent Treasury/OMB report entitled Financial Report of the United States Government that was quietly slipped out on a Friday (12/15/06), deep in the holiday season, with little fanfare. Sometimes I wonder why the Treasury Department doesn't just pay somebody to come in at 4:30 am Christmas morning to release the report. Additionally, I've yet to read a single account of this report in any of the major news media outlets but that is another matter.

But, hey, I understand. A report this bad requires all the muffling it can get.

In his accompanying statement to the report, David Walker, Comptroller of the US, warmed up his audience by stating that the GAO had found so many significant material deficiencies in the government's accounting systems that the GAO was "unable to express an opinion" on the financial statements. Ha ha! He really knows how to play an audience!

In accounting parlance, that's the same as telling your spouse "Our checkbook is such an out of control mess I can't tell if we're broke or rich!" The next time you have an unexplained rash of checking withdrawals from that fishing trip with your buddies, just tell her that you are "unable to express an opinion" and see how that flies. Let us know how it goes!

Then Walker went on to deliver the really bad news:

Despite improvement in both the fiscal year 2006 reported net operating cost and the cash-based budget deficit, the U.S. government's total reported liabilities, net social insurance commitments, and other fiscal exposures continue to grow and now total approximately $50 trillion, representing approximately four times the Nation's total output (GDP) in fiscal year 2006, up from about $20 trillion, or two times GDP in fiscal year 2000.

As this long-term fiscal imbalance continues to grow, the retirement of the "baby boom" generation is closer to becoming a reality with the first wave of boomers eligible for early retirement under Social Security in 2008.

Given these and other factors, it seems clear that the nation's current fiscal path is unsustainable and that tough choices by the President and the Congress are necessary in order to address the nation's large and growing long-term fiscal imbalance.

Wow! I know David Walker's been vocal lately about his concern over our economic future but it seems almost impossible to ignore the implications of his statements above. From $20 trillion in fiscal exposures in 2000 to over $50 trillion in only six years? What shall we do for an encore…shoot for $100 trillion?"

More at http://financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/martenson/2006/1217.html


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 05:28 PM

Bush administration threatens writer with imprisonment for exercising basic freedom of opinion and speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfGINEWO_2I
don't like bush... go to jail.


Threatens Op Ed author with criminal prosecution...

Oy!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 04:12 PM

From the LA Times:

White House accused of censorship


WASHINGTON — A former National Security Council official said Monday that the White House tried to silence his criticism of its Middle East policies by ordering the CIA to censor an op-ed column he wrote.

Flynt Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, or NSC, and a former CIA analyst, said the White House told a CIA censor board to excise parts of a 1,000-word commentary on U.S. policy toward Iran that he had offered to the New York Times.

Leverett, who has criticized the administration for failing to deal directly with Tehran, said the board wanted to remove references to prior U.S. contacts with Iran.

Leverett said the events he wrote about were widely known.

He said the agency's action "was fabricated to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach." ...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 02:16 PM

Vt. woman is an unlikely peace activist
12/18/2006, 10:45 a.m. PT
By JOHN CURRAN
The Associated Press   

BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Meet the anti-war movement's newest folk hero: 69-year-old Rosemarie Jackowski, whose arrest during an anti-war protest has made her a cause celebre.

A prosecutor's plan to retry her for blocking traffic while protesting the Iraq war is turning the feisty 4-foot-10 inch former schoolteacher into a darling of the dove crowd.

Bloggers have rallied behind her, peace activists are deluging her with messages of support, and advocates have established a defense fund

Full story on this page.

Courage is a delight to discover, and it appears in the most unusual places. This lady is an example.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:38 PM

Ms Huffington opines:

"I have no doubt that when Bush presents his "surge" plan, or "New Way Forward," or whatever meaningless term he's going to call it, he'll present it in the most sugar-coated way possible.

Part of what has enabled this disastrous war from the beginning has been the willful delusion about who       George Bush is and how he operates. Harry Reid will go along with my plan if I tell him it's "temporary"? Fine, Harry, "the plan is temporary." But only someone with a surge of insanity would go along with this.

Which is why the public voted the way it did in November and why only 12% of Americans support this "surge." George Bush has no intention of pulling the troops out. The only thing this surge will accomplish is a surge of more death and destruction.

Harry Reid began his segment today by talking about the health of South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson. We all of course wish Senator Johnson a speedy recovery, but one of the reasons why his health has been the subject of so much attention is because of the possibility of the Senate going back into Republican hands. If Senator Reid's idea of leadership is to trust       President Bush on yet another last ditch effort --however temporary-- to "fix" Iraq, it apparently doesn't matter which party controls the Senate.

As the old saying goes, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary solution. Except President Bush's incompetence, willful denial of reality and refusal to listen to the will of the American people. We don't need a surge of those any more than we need a surge of troops in Iraq.

Here's hoping Senator Reid comes to his senses."

Hear, hear...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 11:41 PM

A bold and heartfelt essay by a young Marine can be found on this page.

A short excerpt:

"A Young Marine Speaks Out


by Philip Martin



I'm sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify 'sacrificing' your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man's power, and his ego. A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there? Democracy is not forced upon people at gunpoint. It's the result of forward thinking individuals who take the initiative and risks to give their fellow countrymen a better way of life.

When I joined I took an oath. In that oath I swore to protect the Constitution of the United States. I didn't swear to build democracies in countries on the other side of the world under the guise of "national security." I didn't join the military to be part of an Orwellian ("1984") war machine that is in an obligatory war against whoever the state deems the enemy to be so that the populace can be controlled and riled up in a pro-nationalistic frenzy to support any new and oppressive law that will be the key to destroying the enemy. Example given – the Patriot Act. So aptly named, and totally against all that the constitution stands for.

President Bush used the reactionary nature of our society to bring our country together and to infuse into the national psyche a need to give up their little-used rights in the hope to make our nation a little safer. The same scare tactics he used to win elections. He drones on and on about how America and the world would be a less safe place if we weren't killing Iraqis, and that we'd have to fight the terrorists at home if we weren't abroad. In our modern day emotive society this strategy (or strategery?) works, or had worked, up until last month's elections...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 09:35 AM

"I am the decider"
"I will not be rushed into a decision on Iraq"
GWB


"The problems in Iraq are clearly because of the media."
Laura Bush

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 09:24 AM

The Times examines more of the same regarding the Bush Administration:

A Gag on Free Speech
   /h3>         


Published: December 15, 2006

The Bush administration is trampling on the First Amendment and well-established criminal law by trying to use a subpoena to force the American Civil Liberties Union to hand over a classified document in its possession. The dispute is shrouded in secrecy, and very little has been made public about the document, but we do not need to know what's in it to know what's at stake: if the government prevails, it will have engaged in prior restraint — almost always a serious infringement on free speech — and it could start using subpoenas to block reporting on matters of vital public concern.

Justice Department lawyers have issued a grand jury subpoena to the A.C.L.U. demanding that it hand over "any and all copies" of the three-and-a-half-page government document, which was recently leaked to the group. The A.C.L.U. is asking a Federal District Court judge in Manhattan to quash the subpoena.

There are at least two serious problems with the government's action. It goes far beyond what the law recognizes as the legitimate purpose of a subpoena. Subpoenas are supposed to assist an investigation, but the government does not need access to the A.C.L.U.'s document for an investigation since it already has its own copy. It is instead trying to confiscate every available copy of the document to keep its contents secret. The A.C.L.U. says it knows of no other case in which a grand jury subpoena has been used this way.

The subpoena is also a prior restraint because the government is trying to stop the A.C.L.U. in advance from speaking about the document's contents. The Supreme Court has held that prior restraints are almost always unconstitutional. The danger is too great that the government will overreach and use them to ban protected speech or interfere with free expression by forcing the media, and other speakers, to wait for their words to be cleared in advance. The correct way to deal with speech is to evaluate its legality after it has occurred.

The Supreme Court affirmed these vital principles in the Pentagon Papers case, when it rejected the Nixon administration's attempts to stop The Times and The Washington Post from publishing government documents that reflected badly on its prosecution of the Vietnam War. If the Nixon administration had been able to use the technique that the Bush administration is trying now, it could have blocked publication simply by ordering the newspapers to hand over every copy they had of the papers.

If the A.C.L.U.'s description of its secret document is correct, there is no legitimate national defense issue. The document does not contain anything like intelligence sources or troop movements, the group says. It is merely a general statement of policy whose release "might perhaps be mildly embarrassing to the government." ...

(snip)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 05:41 PM

The Washington Post makes an analysis of why Bush may be the worst President in history.

A short excerpt:

"Nixon considered himself above the law.

"Bush has taken this disdain for law even further. He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence: trial by impartial jury, access to lawyers and knowledge of evidence against them. In dozens of statements when signing legislation, he has asserted the right to ignore the parts of laws with which he disagrees. His administration has adopted policies regarding the treatment of prisoners of war that have disgraced the nation and alienated virtually the entire world.

"Usually, during wartime, the Supreme Court has refrained from passing judgment on presidential actions related to national defense. The court's unprecedented rebukes of Bush's policies on detainees indicate how far the administration has strayed from the rule of law."

The full story is on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 10:24 PM

One of the most articulate summaries of the path to our present bogwallow of failed
diplomacy can be found in this essay at Common Dreams.

It is called "The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War". Highly recommended.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jun 05 - 09:47 AM

Iraq prewar bombings were illegal

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jun 05 - 07:52 AM

New US move to spoil climate accord; Mark Townsend in New York
Sunday June 19, 2005; The Observer

Extraordinary efforts by the White House to scupper Britain's attempts to tackle global warming have been revealed in leaked US government documents obtained by The Observer. These papers - part of the Bush administration's submission to the G8 action plan for Gleneagles next month - show how the United States, over the past two months, has been secretly undermining Tony Blair's proposals to tackle climate change.

The documents obtained by The Observer represent an attempt by the Bush administration to undermine completely the science of climate change and show that the US position has hardened during the G8 negotiations. They also reveal that the White House has withdrawn from a crucial United Nations commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

The documents show that Washington officials:

· Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';

· Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;

· Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

Among the sentences removed was the following: 'Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'

Another section erased by the White House adds: 'Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that ... mankind's activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.' The government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, has dismissed the leaking of draft communiques on the grounds that 'there is everything to play for at Gleneagles.' However, there is no doubt that many UK officials have become exasperated by the Bush administration's refusal to accept the basic principle that climate change is happening now and is due to man's activities.

more here

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 11:49 PM

Hicks adrift in US terror debate: The Age; June 18, 2005

This weekend David Hicks is meeting his American and his new Australian lawyers at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, to prepare his defence against charges by a military commission.... A decision is due at the end of the month on a Federal Court appeal by the Administration against a ruling by a Federal Court judge, who found that the military commissions [at Guantanamo Bay] were unlawful. If the appeal fails, the Administration has signalled that it will take the case to the Supreme Court, which means Hicks could spend another 12 months waiting for his commission hearing.

It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity [said] MICHAEL WIGGINS, deputy associate Attorney-General

But the Guantanamo debate is becoming more and more heated and is part of a wider debate about the war in Iraq and the US war on terror.

In the past fortnight, a number of polls have shown that not only do most Americans now think the war in Iraq was a mistake, but that the war has made America less secure.

Crucially, only 50 per cent of Americans now believe Mr Bush is doing a good job on security.

This week, about 40 Republicans in the House of Representatives joined Democrats to vote down parts of the Patriot Act, which Mr Bush said gave the FBI and other security agencies the powers needed to track and apprehend terrorists.

Michael Wiggins, deputy associate Attorney-General, was asked for how long the detainees at Guantanamo, classified as enemy combatants, but not charged with any specific crimes, could be held.

"As long as we are at war," he said.

Had the Justice Department defined when there is the end of conflict? Democrat senator Joseph Biden asked.

"No sir," Mr Wiggins said.

"If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever; forever these folks get held at Guantanamo Bay," Senator Biden said.

"It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity," Mr Wiggins said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: jaze
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 10:09 PM

Why do you read them, Doug?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 07:33 PM

Geeze, Joe, do we really need TWO of these threads?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 04:14 AM

Mudcatism:
Wishy washy ultra left wing views by old hippies with Fisher Price computers in thier retirement homes.

The French view:
Cheese eating surrender monkeys

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 08:16 PM

Bushism isn't the only one of those terms to an insult.

Blairism. Some Views...

Realists view:
Promising that you'll make everything better, doing very little, and hoping that whenever the people notice, they still hate the opposition.

The Lefts view:
Watered down Thatcherism betraying everything the Labour party has ever meant etc ad infinium

The Rights view:
Watered down Socialism taking the country back to bad old days of the 70's.

All:
Incompetently run, and full of bad ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 07:45 PM

Cheney calls the Downing St. memos the "so called Downing St. memo.

Do you think the memos will gather momentum against or for the Neo con regieme?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:47 PM

You know, Sttaw Legend, I always wondered where he got all that hot air from. Thanks for the answer.

LOLOL
Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 05:03 PM

Nice (Mr. Bush picture) as in happy and laughing?


http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/bushlaughsa.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bainbo
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 04:49 PM

I don't know. Do you think it bothers the guy that the words Reaganomics, Thatcherite and Blairism have all entered the language to refer to ideologes and economic policies, whereas Bushism is, according to my dictionary (Penguin): "A verbal slip or illogicality uttered by George W Bush, the 43rd president of the United States"?

Or hasn't it registered with him?