BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 11:13 PM

DECEMBER 7, 2007, 12:27 PM
Bush's Alternative Energy Flip-Flop
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The White House has raised several objections to the breakthrough energy bill recently negotiated by House leaders. But there's an interesting and ironic backstory to one of these complaints.

In a dyspeptic letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Allan Hubbard, the director of the White House national economic council, states that Mr. Bush is particularly unhappy with the bill's Renewable Electricity Standard — a provision that would require states to produce 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2020. The provision, Mr. Hubbard says, is "overly prescriptive" and would hurt consumers.

What the letter does not say, and what the White House would rather we not remember, is that as governor of Texas, Mr. Bush enthusiastically signed into law a renewable electricity mandate that was part of a broader bill encouraging deregulation and greater competition in the utility industry.

This 1999 mandate was extraordinarily forward-looking for its time (22 states have such mandates now) and the results were immediate. Texas now produces more wind power than any other state, to the great benefit of consumers of electricity and farmers who rent out their land for the giant turbines that create the power. Texas actually accounted for more than half the new wind energy installed nationwide this year.

One of the White House's objections is that the bill's "one size fits all" formula would create compliance problems for states with only modest amounts of renewable energy. It's certainly true that few states are as reliably windy as Texas. But the bill has other ways states can satisfy their obligations, including a creative trading scheme that allows states that cannot meet their quota to buy allowances from states that can.

Mr. Hubbard's letter doesn't mention Mr. Bush's real problem with the plan. It is this: the bill would force the power companies, who tend to like things the way they are, and who are among the President's most ardent supporters, to make bigger and faster investments in cleaner sources of energy than they want to. Mr. Bush is not opposed to technological advances. But he is definitely opposed to mandates, especially those that discomfit his friends in the coal, gas, oil and power industries.

There is a historical pattern here. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Bush pledged to impose mandatory limits on emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. But somebody got to him — industry, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, probably all three.

In fairly short order, Mr. Bush renounced not only his campaign pledge but the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change. That angered America's closest allies and humiliated Christine Todd Whitman, the administrator of the Environmental Protection. She joined the administration in the misplaced hope that President Bush would turn out to be as adventurous on issues she cared about as Governor Bush appeared to be."

New York Times editorial board Blog

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 09:53 PM

Thanks.

I have been told the editorials in the WSJ are no good, since they are editorials and not news...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 11:18 AM

Here it is, BB. Sorry.. The awful-pink liberal-fog-promoting commie-faggot-pinko-homo-bastard New York Times, of course! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 10:51 AM

Amos,

You forgot to tell us which liberal editorial that was. Please give us the source.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 10:01 AM

"President Bush's lame-duck attempt to repair the Republican Party's threadbare fiscal reputation is an increasingly reckless game. In the latest exercise of irresponsibility for political gain, Mr. Bush reportedly wants to slash counterterrorism funding for front-line police and firefighters.

"Apparently, Bush finds it easier to deny health care for children, or even gamble with the security of New Yorkers for his last year in office than to cut the funding for his misbegotten war or tax cuts for the wealthy."

The administration's own Homeland Security agency requested $3.2 billion for this first responder aid to high-risk cities and states in the 2009 budget — the one that Mr. Bush's successor will inherit. The White House is considering cutting that request by more than half to $1.4 billion by eliminating grants for port and public transit security, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

While Mr. Bush wrestles with more responsible members of his own administration, his larger and more immediate game is to portray the narrow Democratic majority in Congress as feckless overspenders.

In October, he vetoed a sensible bill that would have provided health insurance for millions of uninsured children. In the name of faux fiscal discipline, he is threatening to veto budget measures that the nation needs for effective government.

Mr. Bush is clearly hoping that the public will somehow forget that he is the one who spent the last seven years running up huge deficits and debt with his off-the-books war in Iraq and serial tax cuts customized for his affluent political base. Mr. Bush's Republican allies on Capitol Hill are also hoping that the voters will forget how they abetted the president through all those years. Those fiscal turncoats are now scrambling to pose once more as budget hawks to survive in next year's watershed election."

---

Sigh. The plus ca change, the older it gets.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 04:18 PM

During W's sub prime bail out announcement (oops I mean sub prime safety plan) W gave out an 800 number for information and relief.

Too bad it was the wrong number. the actual number was an 888 number.

There will be enough relief for a few people who know the right people to get new interest rates and the like. Maybe 2% of buyers will find this safety plan helpful. It is the banks who need the safety plan of tax breaks ET CETERA ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 03:24 PM

Some interesting points from a Washington Post blog...


Dear Stumped,
Conventional wisdom is that Iraq was a debacle, fiasco, really bad, etc., etc. So, what would have happened if we hadn't invaded and deposed Saddam?
Cheers,
John Birkhold
P.S. Why do we feel the need to say, "etc., etc." vs. just "etc."?

Dear John,
Your p.s. is most illuminating. I think we say "et cetera" only once when we are saying something original, but we say "et cetera, et cetera" when we are saying something familiar, maybe even too familiar, to the listener or reader. "Etc., etc.," brings to mind a rolling of the eyes, the tiresome, garbled speech of adults in the "Peanuts" series, the "yadda, yadda" of the famous Seinfeld episode, etc. (Or should that be etc., etc.?)

So your use of the double "et cetera" is revealing, as it suggests that all right-minded people have digested the same cant of what Iraq is supposed to have become -- fiasco, quagmire and so on, to a point where it is no longer necessary to spell it out.

On to your first question. The short answer is, I don't know what would have happened if we had stayed out of Iraq. To examine just one plank of the conventional wisdom, Iran is usually cited as a clear winner in Iraq. But it's worth speculating: Would Tehran have stopped working on its nuclear weapons program, as we now know it has, if Saddam were still in power? Conversely, if it was the fall of Saddam that emboldened Iran to be a bigger regional player, do we owe recent hopeful developments, like the Annapolis conference, to a broadening concern over Iran's growing influence?

All I'm saying is that there are plenty of unintended consequences out there. I suspect it will take history a long time to sort them all out, and the picture will be a lot more mixed than the antiwar conventional wisdom suggests.

Look at the transatlantic alliance, for instance. The arrogance of the Bush administration in pursuing this war was supposed to have forever weakened transatlantic solidarity. Yet we now have leaders in both France and Germany who were elected in part to reverse policy and improve ties with Washington.

In terms of domestic politics, it is impossible to divine what might have happened without the Iraq war, in part because it is impossible to divine what would have instead soaked up this administration's energies. Because of where things now stand, I don't think the Iraq war will be the decisive issue in 2008. And in 2004, perhaps, it was too early for it to have been enough of an issue to dislodge Bush (unlike in 2006, when it dislodged the GOP's congressional majority). This leaves me with the unsatisfying conclusion that Iraq may not be the defining issue in any presidential election. That can't be right. Can it? (I'm happy to elucidate this point -- ask me about it!)

P.S. (Which, as we know, are often revealing.) Critics of the war are quick to mock the "groupthink" in Washington that got us involved in this conflict. But today's antiwar "groupthink" can be equally dangerous. Even former President Bill Clinton, who sounded very much like he supported the war at the time we invaded Iraq, is trying to retroactively embrace the antiwar script, preposterously saying he opposed the war all along.

Such a distorting caricature of the underlying issues could make it all the more difficult for a future president to engage in necessary, justifiable military engagements. Certainly, the liberal impulse to engage in humanitarian interventionism, the notion embraced by Tony Blair and Kofi Annan in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and genocide in Rwanda, must be counted among the most prominent victims of the Iraq war.

Don't get me wrong. An incompetent Bush administration (including Condoleezza Rice, who too often gets a pass in the apportioning of blame) is to blame for mishandling the war. But we shouldn't allow that to cloud the context in which the decision to go to war was made. There is a reason Hillary Clinton voted to allow George Bush to go to war. Staying out was not the no-brainer today's antiwar groupthink would have you believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 10:08 AM

http://www.livevideo.com/video/092AB89E4B8E4560B2A1D6AB6F59A4AB/bush-doesn-t-recall-if-he-ment.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 10:05 AM

Bush loses ground with military families


A majority disapprove of the president's handling of the war in Iraq and are more in line with the views of the general public.
By Faye Fiore, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 7, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war's fifth year.

Nearly six out of every 10 military families disapprove of Bush's job performance and the way he has run the war, rating him only slightly better than the general population does.

And among those families with soldiers, sailors and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60% say that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost, the same result as all adults surveyed.

"I don't see gains for the people of Iraq . . . and, oh, my God, so many wonderful young people, and these are the ones who felt they were really doing something, that's why they signed up," said poll respondent Sue Datta, 61, whose youngest son, an Army staff sergeant, was seriously wounded in Iraq last year and is scheduled to redeploy in 2009. "I pray to God that they did not die in vain, but I don't think our president is even sensitive at all to what it's like to have a child serving over there."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 12:26 AM

executive order 1951 makes Homeland security command cental for all the other goverment agencies.

They are currently building the biggest goverment facility since the Pentagon for new HS offices and armories.

HS can do more than make $ disappear. They can end run CIA NSA courts by presidential order.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 07:59 PM

Well, yeah, Amos...

The profiteering is rampant... Billions of dollars just evaporate... No trail... No idea of where they went??? "Oh, well" seems to be the usual response... I mean, like "Bill Clinton did this or that" is the o9nly response we get from the Bushites... They are not conservative Republicans... They are radical brownshirt true believers... I mean, do they go to work and work 6 days a week, play by the rules and pay taxes??? No, a lot of them don't... They are rich... They have their investments... They have their CPA's... They have priveldge and wealth... Yeah, it doesn't mean a rat's ass to them if Bush spills a few billion here and spills a few billion there...

This is way the Bush administration will be remembered: wreckless in everything it did!!!

But underneath all of this is the "starve then beast" Republicanism that Bush has, in his own way, has furthered thru his wreckless spending... Yeah, if you can't starve the beast then feed it so much that it just collapses from it... This is what Bush has tried to do... It remains to be seen if it worked but either way it's gonna take a long, long time to pay for all of Bush's spending and wrecklessness...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 02:11 PM

Subject: RE: BS: WMDs, Iran and Bush
From: Amos - PM
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 12:28 PM

Bush's remark was typically inept and obtuse; but if he was making the point T says he was making, it is a fair point -- that the spirit of independence had been heavily suppressed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and the culture was not likely to be generating heroic leaders.



Got to give credit where credit is due...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 06:29 PM

We all saw what happened with FEMA's response to Katrina. What many don't know is that rampant corporate cronyism is pervasive throughout the entire Department of Homeland Security, not just FEMA.

Our good friends at CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) have done critically important work in exposing corruption. They just released a report on the first five years of DHS showing how taxpayers are being looted by profit-greedy corporations.

Based on the report, we created this video: http://homelandsecurityforsale.org/

You can read the full report on the website as well.

Corporate profiteers are raiding systems put in place for the nation's security. It's yet another example of reckless privatization. This is homeland security, not a homeowner's association!

The first step is making people aware of the problem. Check out the video and report and spread the word. Blog it, email it, call local radio, write a letter to the editor.

Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Foundation team

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 09:49 AM

The inimitable Maureen Dowd writes:

"...After getting Iraq wrong and Iran wrong in 2005 and almost every other big thing wrong since the nation began spending billions every year on intelligence, the burned spooks may not have wanted to play the patsy again while W., Cheney and the neocons beat the drums for an Iran invasion.

Now the apple-polishing George Tenet is gone. The man who oversaw the new estimate is Tom Fingar, a former State Department intelligence officer who was smart and brave enough to object to the cooked-up intelligence on Iraqi W.M.D.

"The way they used to do business was to write estimates in a way that couched things so they said, 'We may not always be right, but we're never wrong,' " said Tim Weiner, the reporter for The Times who wrote the award-winning history of the C.I.A., "Legacy of Ashes." "This is a slam-dunk reversal, admitting error. Now, when they play poker, they show their hands to each other, so they don't get another curveball."

The president, who has shut out reality for seven years, justified continuing in his world of ideological illusion by saying that he would not be "blinded" to the realities of the world. You can't get more Orwellian than that.

"And so," W. concluded triumphantly, and nonsensically, "kind of Psychology 101 ain't working."

W. loves to act as though psychology is voodoo even though his whole misbegotten foreign policy has been conducted from his gut, by checking the body language of his inner circle and looking into the hearts and souls of dictatorial leaders.

If I were looking at the latest fiasco from a Psych 101 point of view, I'd say it was another daddy issue for W.

Poppy Bush, who was once C.I.A. director, loved the agency and liked to sign notes: "Head Spook." The C.I.A. headquarters bear his name.

W., by contrast, has voiced contempt for the intelligence community. In 2004, he dismissed a pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate that didn't match his sunny vision of the Iraq occupation, saying that the analysts were "just guessing as to what the conditions might be like."

When W.'s history is written, he will be seen as the rebellious teenager crashing the family station wagon into his father's three most cherished spots — diplomacy, intelligence and the Gulf. ..."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 09:42 AM

A Key Moment for Justice
      


Published: December 5, 2007

The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case that offers a chance to redress an enormous wrong done by President Bush and Congress when they denied justice to a group of prisoners. It is the latest phase of a battle over whether detainees held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to bring a habeas corpus challenge to their confinement. The narrow legal issues have changed since the court considered the question last year, but the principle remains the same: The detainees have a right to have a court determine whether the government has a valid basis for imprisoning them. ...

Habeas corpus is an important bulwark against authoritarianism, so vital that the Constitution expressly protects it. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration has fought to weaken it both for foreigners held by the United States and for American citizens.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 10:46 PM

while this post http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20071202&articleId=7525
is guaranteed uncheckable, you know I would vouch for every point made.

The seven things probably need to be expanded to include a few more families.

(in case the link is bad)
It is sort of like the Readers Digest version of "I was an economic hitman"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 03:52 PM

CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ACTION FUND
The Progress Report
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick
December 3, 2007

IRAQ
Rove's Revisionist History

A little over a week ago on PBS's The Charlie Rose Show, President Bush's former political adviser Karl Rove attempted to re-write the history of the lead-up to the Iraq war by claiming the Bush administration did not push war in the fall of 2002 for political purposes. It is widely believed that "the vote's timing" was part of an effort to increase pressure on the party's wavering senators to back the president. Yet Rove told Rose, "The administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002." "We didn't think it belonged in the confines of the election." Rove's version of events was disputed last Friday by former White House chief of staff Andrew Card, who told MSNBC, "that's not the way it worked." Direct contradiction by a senior member of the administration, however, did not deter Rove. He reiterated his claim in an interview with the Washington Post, saying that it is "disingenuous" for "Democrats to suggest they didn't want to vote on it before the election." Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also discredited Rove's claims, flatly saying that "it was definitely the Bush administration that set it in motion and determined the timing, not the Congress." "Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong," added Fleischer. While multiple people have contradicted Rove in the days since he first made his comments, not a single individual has stepped forward to support his "far-fetched" claims.

THE WHITE HOUSE'S POLITICAL PUSH: Nine months before the war began, Rove and then-White House Political Director Ken Mehlman delivered a power-point presentation to California Republicans "about the outlook for the GOP in House and Senate races in November," in which they counseled that a "focus on war" should be the top priority of the party's electoral strategy. A top White House aide who was involved in pre-war discussions told Newsweek's Michael Isikoff that "the president's advisers wanted to use the upcoming election to pressure skeptical Democrats to back the president -- or face being portrayed as soft on national security." "The election was the anvil and the president was the hammer," the aide told Isikoff. Bush pollster Matthew Dowd told a group of Republicans that "the No.1 driver for our base motivationally is this war." "Weeks before the vote, Republican candidates across the country began running ads attacking their Democratic opponents on issues of war and national security, with some even using imagery of Saddam Hussein. When Bush was asked on Sept. 13, 2002, about Democrats who wanted to delay the vote until after the U.N. Security Council acted, he replied with political pressure. "If I were running for office," said Bush, "I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people -- say, 'Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I'm going to wait for somebody else to act." In a press conference days later, Bush exclaimed "we've got to move before the elections."

CONGRESS'S HESITATIONS: During a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting, Bush "made it clear" to congressional leaders that "he wanted Congress to vote before it adjourned." Then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), said he tried to put the brakes on Bush's plans, asking "directly" if they "could delay" the vote until after the election" in order to "depoliticize it." Daschle later recounted that Bush just "looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: 'We just have to do this now.'" Daschle conceded that he would go along with the President if Bush insisted on a vote before the election, saying on Sept. 10, "I don't think we have much choice but to respect the decision." But Daschle spoke ardently in public on multiple occasions against politicizing the vote. "We've got to be very careful about politicizing a war in Iraq or military efforts," Daschle told reporters. A vote too close to the election "could jeopardize a thoughtful and deliberative debate," he added. Daschle wasn't the only member of Congress speaking out against a rushed vote. "I do not believe the decision should be made in the frenzy of an election year," said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA). "I know of no information that the threat is so imminent from Iraq" that Congress cannot wait until January to vote on a resolution, said then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

ROVE'S DISINGENUOUS ARGUMENTS: On Fox News Sunday yesterday, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) confronted Rove on his revisionist history, challenging him to "retract" his "outrageous comments." But Rove refused while changing his story in the process. On The Charlie Rose Show, Rove had said definitively that "the administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002." But after being confronted about this statement, Rove backtracked, claiming that he was just saying that it's "simply not true" that Bush "was the only person pushing the Congress to vote on the war resolution before the November election." Rove then cherry-picked old Daschle quotes that he claimed supported his point. In particular, Rove pointed to a Sept. 16, 2002 quote from Daschle, in which he said, "I think there will be a vote well before the election, and I think it's important that we work together to achieve it." Rove doesn't mention that at the time Daschle made his comment, he had already tried to stop Bush from pushing for an early vote, but had been rebuffed by the President.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 08:44 AM

"resident Bush's veto of Congress's main social spending bill has Democratic leaders looking for places to make trims to satisfy the president's sudden zeal for fiscal discipline. A small, but sensible, place to begin would be to eliminate the bill's $28 million increase for one of Mr. Bush's signature boondoggles — abstinence-only sex education.

Federal government spending on highly restrictive abstinence-only sex education has ballooned under President Bush, while evidence of the program's danger as a public health strategy has continued to mount.

Last April, a Congressionally mandated evaluation found that students who received abstinence instruction in elementary and middle school were just as likely to have sex in the following years as students who did not get such instruction.

States are catching on. Last month, Virginia became the 14th state to reject federal grant money for abstinence-only sex education to pursue the comprehensive approach supported by science and most Americans. That approach encourages abstinence but also arms young people with information about sexually transmitted diseases, contraceptives and pregnancy...."

(From Science, Sex and Savings, a Times editorial.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 08:25 AM

Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year's elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

Hoping to lock in policies backed by a pro-business administration, poultry farmers are seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure. Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. And electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements.

"There's a growing sense, a growing probability, that the next administration could be Democratic," said Craig L. Fuller, executive vice president of Apco Worldwide, a lobbying and public relations firm, who was a White House official in the Reagan administration. "Corporate executives, trade associations and lobbying firms have begun to recalibrate their strategies." ... (NY Times for 12-2-07)

The Federal Register typically grows fat with regulations churned out in the final weeks of any administration. But the push for such rules has become unusually intense because of the possibility that Democrats in 2009 may consolidate control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time in 14 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 06:08 PM

Dr. Fink suggests that the lack of breast feeding may be the cause.

By the way I have a great photo of Mrs Cheney and Dan Foley

and the video of the singing Republicans doing Elvira including Lott, Foley and Ashcroft.

My most treasured video of all time is of then Vice President GHW Bush kissing Sadddam on both cheeks as part of the vice president's duties to diplomatically celebrate Saddam Hussein's birthday in Baghdad.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 04:10 PM

There aren't any.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 03:55 PM

Cheney's Doctors Detect Signs of Heart

Sudden Appearance of Major Organ Confounds Experts
((From the Borowitz Report)

In a stunning development that has confounded medical experts around the world, doctors examining Vice President Dick Cheney said today that they have detected signs of a heart.

The vice president was rushed to the hospital over the weekend after complaining of chest pains, but no one in Mr. Cheney's inner circle suspected that a human heart was the cause.

"We had been operating under the assumption that he didn't have one," said chief of staff David Addington, who said that Mr. Cheney also has not had a soul since 1995, when it was purchased by the Halliburton Company.

At George Washington University Hospital, doctors struggled to contain their excitement about what appeared to be the medical anomaly of the century: the sudden appearance of a human heart in a 66-year-old man.

"It is too early to say conclusively," said Dr. Carol Foyler, head of the team of doctors who examined the vice president. "But so far the beating and pumping sounds we are hearing in the vice president's chest cavity are very much consistent with his having a heart." ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:34 PM

Amos, this is not unusual or new, this is what's been happening in all departments. Look at the Health, Education & Energy Departments for blantant examples. These bastards have been fucking with every facet of our well being. To them we are pawns in their play for power, money & politics. We the people are the next species to expire.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 11:41 AM

After concluding that a Bush administration appointee "may have improperly influenced" several rulings on whether to protect imperiled species under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service has revised seven decisions on protecting species across the country.

The policy reversal, sparked by inquiries by the Interior Department's inspector general and by the House Natural Resources Committee, underscores the extent to which the administration is still dealing with the fallout from the tenure of Julie MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks who repeatedly overruled agency scientists' recommendations on endangered-species decisions. MacDonald resigned from the department in May after she was criticized in a report by the inspector general and as she was facing congressional scrutiny.

In a letter dated Nov. 23 to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.), acting Director Kenneth Stansell of the Fish and Wildlife Service said that the agency spent four months reviewing eight Endangered Species Act decisions made under MacDonald and is revising seven of them. Those rulings affected 17 species, including 12 species of Hawaiian picture-wing flies.

In the course of those reviews, for example, Mitch King, then the agency's Region 6 director, said in a June memo to headquarters that while the field and regional office's scientific review concluded there is "substantial" evidence that the white-tailed prairie dog faces a risk of extinction, "the change to 'not substantial' only occurred at Ms. MacDonald's suggestion."

Stansell wrote to Rahall that Fish and Wildlife will launch a one-year investigation into whether to protect the white-tailed prairie dog. Agency officials have also decided not to de-list the Preble's meadow jumping mouse, a threatened mammal that lives in Wyoming and Colorado.

"The Service believes that revising the seven identified decisions is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards," Stansell wrote. "As resources allow, these revisions will be completed as expeditiously as possible."


Rahall, who released the letter yesterday, said in a statement that the agency's move highlights the extent to which political ideology had influenced the administration's approach to protecting plants and animals.

"Julie MacDonald's dubious leadership and waste of taxpayer dollars will now force the agency to divert precious time, attention, and resources to go back and see that the work is done in a reliable and untainted manner," Rahall said. "The agency turned a blind eye to her actions -- the repercussions of which will not only hurt American taxpayers, but could also imperil the future of the very creatures that the endangered species program intends to protect."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 08:33 PM

The Mistresses of George W. Bush is a stunning pinup calendar of secret relationships maintained by the Resident.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:50 PM

''(a) IN GENERAL.—In carrying out this subtitle,
Secretary shall ensure that the efforts of the Department
prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown
rorism as described in this subtitle do not violate
stitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties
States citizens and lawful permanent residents."

Donuel, I have read this act all the way through. It establishes a commission to study the root causes of radicalism in individuals, which is to produce a report on its findings, and then disband.

While I think it is misguided in many ways, and makes unwarranted assumptions, it does not make acts of speech illegal, as far as I can see, that are legal. It does provide wiggleroom for abuse under the notion that threatening violence is comparable to acts of violence, granted, but it provides no penalties or enforcement actions against them.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:26 PM

NEW ILLEGAL BELIEFS http://www.rense.com/general79/rduh.htm


this is the worst news I have seen this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:23 PM

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE DECREE

We have a new colony/protectorate

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071126-11.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Homey
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 08:50 AM

As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts
New York Times November 25, 2007

As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq:

acknowledging that success,

trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there,

highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy.

Former Senator John Edwards regularly brings up Iraq, but focuses on his opponents' judgment.

Advisers to Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama say that the candidates have watched security conditions improve after the troop escalation in Iraq and concluded that it would be folly not to acknowledge those gains. At the same time, they are arguing that American casualties are still too high, that a quick withdrawal is the only way to end the war and that the so-called surge in additional troops has not paid off in political progress in Iraq.

But the changing situation suggests for the first time that the politics of the war could shift in the general election next year, particularly if the gains continue. While the Democratic candidates are continuing to assail the war — a popular position with many of the party's primary voters — they run the risk that Republicans will use those critiques to attack the party's nominee in the election as defeatist and lacking faith in the American military.

If security continues to improve, President Bush could become less of a drag on his party, too, and Republicans may have an easier time zeroing in on other issues, such as how the Democrats have proposed raising taxes in difficult economic times.

"The politics of Iraq are going to change dramatically in the general election, assuming Iraq continues to show some hopefulness," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is a supporter of Mrs. Clinton's and a proponent of the military buildup. "If Iraq looks at least partly salvageable, it will be important to explain as a candidate how you would salvage it — how you would get our troops out and not lose the war. The Democrats need to be very careful with what they say and not hem themselves in."

At the same time, there is no assurance that the ebbing of violence is more than a respite or represents a real trend that could lead to lasting political stability or coax those who have fled the capital to return to their homes. Past military successes have faded with new rounds of car bombings and kidnappings, like the market bombing that killed at least eight on Friday in Baghdad.

Neither Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama nor the other Democratic candidates have backed away from their original opposition to the troop escalation, and they all still favor a quick withdrawal from Iraq. But Mrs. Clinton, for one, has not said how quickly she would remove most combat forces from Iraq or how many she would leave there as president. Former Senator John Edwards, by contrast, has emphasized that he would remove all combat troops from the country, while Mr. Obama favors withdrawal at a rate of one to two brigades a month. Those plans stand in contrast to the latest American strategy of keeping most American combat brigades in Iraq but giving them an expanded role in training and supporting Iraqi forces....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/us/politics/25dems.html?hp

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 02:34 PM

TWO BOOBS FINALLY SEE EYE TO EYE...

"It was, let's face it, inevitable. And so, on Wednesday, at the swearing-in of Attorney General Michael Mukasey at the Justice Department, former attorney general John D. Ashcroft was reunited with "The Spirit of Justice," the 12-foot Art Deco-era sculpture his aides once famously covered with giant blue drapes at a cost of more than $8,000.

The statue, also known as "Minnie Lou," was ordered uncovered in 2005 in one of the signal achievements of the Alberto R. Gonzales attorney generalship. The decision was made by Paul Corts, assistant attorney general for administration, who is now president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities.

Blame, or credit, for the coverup fell to advance aide Lani Miller, who reportedly acted after Ashcroft expressed unhappiness about appearing in news photos with the bare-breasted statue over his head.

Meanwhile, a report by the department's inspector general yesterday listed "Restoring Confidence in the Department of Justice" as the No. 2 priority (after terrorism) in the Top Management and Performance Challenges for 2007.

"An immediate challenge facing Department of Justice leadership is the need to restore confidence in the department," the report said, "both with department employees and with the public. ..."

See picture of Ashcroft and the left other right boob at the Washington Post.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 04:19 PM

can anyone here help me pay back about $9 Trillion that I borrowed?
http://stb.msn.com/i/D0/A2D5F7163097D3E91EBCC4879A16D1.gif

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 01:56 PM

RESUME
GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington , DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
Law Enforcement

I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

Military

I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College

I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS
- I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.
- I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
- I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
- With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT
- I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
- I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.
- I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
- I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
- I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
- I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
- I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
- I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
- I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.
- I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
- My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.
- My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
- I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history. I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to
intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
- I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
- I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
- I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any President in U.S. history.
- I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.
- I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.
- I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
- I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
- I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
- I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
- I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.
- I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
- I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
- I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.
- I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
- I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.
- In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.
- I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
- I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD.
- I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES
-All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
- All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
- All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 10:00 AM

...President Bush recently vetoed Congress's main social spending bill, for the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services. He said it — along with Congress's other planned spending bills — would recklessly overshoot his spending target by a total of $205 billion over five years. By Mr. Bush's own earlier reasoning, that figure is bogus. Adjusted for inflation and population, Congress's proposed increases amount to zero.

Mr. Bush's sudden passion for fiscal discipline is hypocritical in other ways. The bill he vetoed would pay for programs like college financial aid, Head Start, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cancer research, rural health programs, mine safety and job training. Mr. Bush wanted to cut $7 billion in 2008, while Congress wanted a $5 billion increase. But even as he was vetoing the bill, his aides were proposing to add another $51 billion to the deficit to shield the nation's wealthiest money managers from having to pay their fair share of taxes. The House had passed a bill to raise taxes on hedge fund managers and buyout partners, and to use the revenue to offset tax relief for less affluent taxpayers. The White House rejects the tax increase, but is happy to borrow the $51 billion, thus sparing today's titans from taxes while passing on the cost to future taxpayers.

It is clear that Mr. Bush's threat to veto Congress's proposed spending bills has nothing to do with fiscal discipline. It's all about appealing to his base and distracting attention from his failings, like Iraq. Mr. Bush will no doubt persist in that mode as long as his Republican allies allow him to.

There are signs, however, that Congressional Republicans are becoming uneasy. The House upheld Mr. Bush's veto of the social spending bill, but narrowly. With polls showing Americans increasingly anxious about the economy, ever fewer Republicans can risk linking their fates to Mr. Bush's obstinacy.

...

(NY Times)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 09:34 AM

Former press secretary accuses Bush, Cheney of deceiving public about CIA leak case




Associated Press - November 20, 2007 5:43 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is accusing President Bush and Vice President Cheney of deceit in the CIA leak case.

In an excerpt from his upcoming book, McClellan describes the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby were not involved in the leak.

He writes, "There was one problem. It was not true." McClellan says he had unknowingly passed along false information. He says 5 of the highest-ranking White House officials were involved, including Rove, Libby, Cheney, Bush and his chief of staff Andrew Card.

...(AP)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 07:56 PM

Putin puts Russia on nuclear alert and aligns with China and middle east.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2910112.ece


It looks like they are going to let us have one more Christmas.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 07:47 PM

What is popular now is manufacturing support for WW 3

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BAR20071122&articleId=7411

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 12:50 PM

Politics undercut species act, suits say

In a twist, an Interior Department investigation provides much of the grist for the legal action.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the November 20, 2007 edition
.

...
Wiped out across most of its range in the American Southwest, the Mexican garter snake was considered a shoo-in for listing under the Endangered Species Act. It got nothing.

Neither did the Mississippi gopher frog. Though listed as endangered in 2001, the now-rare amphibian got not a single acre of habitat set aside on its behalf. The loach minnow, once common in Arizona and New Mexico rivers, saw 143,680 acres of proposed critical habitat chopped by more than half.

In each case, Bush administration political appointees overrode federal scientists' recommendations, with little or no justification, according to six lawsuits filed Thursday by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an endangered species advocacy group.

The Bush administration is no stranger to being sued under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). But in a tack that could signal a major new legal challenge, last week's suits mark one of the few times Interior Department officials have been sued not merely for bureaucratic foot-dragging, but because of deliberate political interference with the ESA, observers say.

"This wave of lawsuits is different – and what makes them so different is that the agency itself and its inspector general have provided a lot of compelling evidence of political interference with the proper functioning of the act," says J.B. Ruhl, a law professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee and an expert on the ESA.

A big factor in the CBD's legal fusillade hinges on the April release of a scathing report by the Interior Department's inspector general on the actions of Julie MacDonald, the department's former deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks. The report found numerous questionable actions on endangered species and criticized her release of internal documents to outside groups opposed to the ESA.

After Ms. MacDonald resigned in May, agency officials reviewing her work identified at least eight species cases that may have been affected. But the CBD claims documents show a pattern of ESA interference affecting many more cases – and by other officials besides MacDonald.

Though declining to comment on the lawsuits, an Interior Department spokesman says they are part of an ongoing wave of litigation by activists that dates back more than a decade. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Homey
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 01:07 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/15/AR2007111502032.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

...Nicolas Sarkozy's trip last week to the United States was marked by a highly successful White House visit and a rousing speech to Congress in which he not only called America "the greatest nation in the world" (how many leaders of any country say that about another?) but also pledged solidarity with the United States on Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation. This just a few months after he sent his foreign minister to Iraq to signal an openness to cooperation and an end to Chirac's reflexive obstructionism.

That's France. In Germany, Gerhard Schroeder is long gone, voted out of office and into a cozy retirement as Putin's concubine at Gazprom. His successor is the decidedly pro-American Angela Merkel, who concluded an unusually warm visit with Bush this week.
ad_icon

All this, beyond the ken of Democrats, is duly noted by new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who in an interview with Sky News on Sunday remarked on "the great change that is taking place," namely "that France and Germany and the European Union are also moving more closely with America." ....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 09:41 AM

Another story from the madness imposed on the nation by merchants of war. This one is a study of a man who carries the horror in his head, and wants his life back. Multiply by hundreds of thousands to get the impression of W's contribution to the American mind.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 12:10 PM

From the UK Independent:

US power company linked to Bush is named in database as a top polluter
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 16 November 2007
An American power company with close financial links to President George Bush has been named as one of the world's top producers of global warming pollution.

The first-ever worldwide database of such pollution also reveals the rapid growth in global-warming emissions by power plants in China, South Africa and India. Power plants already produce 40 per cent of US greenhouse gas and 25 per cent of the world's.

But it is the enormous carbon footprint of Southern Company – among the largest financiers of Republican Party politicians – which has raised eyebrows. Southern's employees handed George Bush $217,047 to help him get elected twice, and they and the company have contributed an extraordinary $6.2m to Republican campaigns since 1990 according to the Centre for Responsive Politics.

A single Southern Company plant in Juliette, Georgia already emits more carbon dioxide annually that Brazil's entire power sector. The company is in the top two of America's dirtiest utility polluters and sixth worst in the world.

Apart from vague promises by the Democratic presidential hopefuls, there is no pressure on this or any other power company to clean up their act and cut back on CO2 emissions.

Politicians from both parties fear the influence of Southern, which spends huge sums both on lobbying and on political campaigns and is among the biggest power players in Washington. It has seen off numerous attempts to impose controls on the amounts of pollution it pumps out.

The link between massive cash contributions by America's power companies and political arm-twisting in Washington has rarely been put into such sharp relief. Environmentalists have long suspected that President Bush's dogged refusal to sign up to international agreements to control global warming was linked to campaign contributions.

Yesterday's report has finally identified the impact these power companies are having on global warming. Southern, which earned $14.4bn in revenues in 2006, is using its influence to block the introduction of wind, solar, biomass and other renewable energy sources on the grounds that it would eat into its profits. ..."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 10:11 AM

An interesting point, BB. ALthough, I grump because it is in no wise related to the thread topic.

I dunno though. I wouldn't mind having Bill Clinton OR ELizabeth Kucinich or Michele Obama coaching from the sidelines. I think any one of them would provide much-needed balance, energy, and a resonant sounding board.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 07:05 AM

From the Washington Post:

The Icebergs Ahead For the Democrats

By David S. Broder
Thursday, November 15, 2007; Page A25

As the Democratic presidential race finally gets down to brass tacks, two issues are becoming paramount. But only one of them is clearly on the table.

That is the issue of illegal immigration. A very smart Democrat, a veteran of the Clinton administration, told me that he expects it to be a key part of any Republican campaign and that he is worried about his party's ability to respond.

I think he has good reason to worry. The failure of the Democratic Congress, like its Republican predecessor, to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including improved border security, has left individual states and local communities to struggle with the problem. Some are showing a high degree of tolerance and flexibility. Others are being more punitive. But all of them are running into controversy.

I noticed a new Siena College Research Institute poll of registered voters in New York. It found heavy opposition to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to permit undocumented aliens to obtain driver's licenses; nearly two-thirds opposed the latest version.

Moreover, the issue is part of a weakening of support for Spitzer, who now has an almost 2-to-1 negative job rating and, for the first time, an unfavorable image overall. Asked if they are inclined to support him for reelection in 2010, only 25 percent said yes, while 49 percent said they would prefer an anonymous "someone else." It was just last year that Spitzer was elected in a landslide. Spitzer announced yesterday that he was abandoning the driver's license idea.

That is New York, home state of both Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani. And the driver's license question is the one that tripped up Clinton when she was asked about it at the Philadelphia debate last month and gave answers that were indecisive -- and nearly indecipherable.


The other candidates had more time to compose an answer, so they were spared the embarrassment. It was the pummeling she received from Barack Obama and John Edwards during and after that debate (and from moderator Tim Russert) that brought her husband, former president Bill Clinton, into the campaign, with the charge, as he put it, that "those boys have been getting tough on her lately."

The former president's intervention -- volunteered during a campaign appearance on her behalf in South Carolina -- raised the second, and largely unspoken, issue identified by my friend from the Clinton administration: the two-headed campaign and the prospect of a dual presidency.

In his view, which I share, this is a prospect that will test the tolerance of the American people far more severely than the possibility of the first female president -- or, for that matter, the first black president.

As my friend says, "there is nothing in American constitutional or political theory to account for the role of a former president, still energetic and active and full of ideas, occupying the White House with the current president."

No precedent exists for such an arrangement, and no ground rules have been -- or probably can be -- written. When Bill Clinton was president, the large policy enterprise that was entrusted to the first lady -- health-care reform -- crashed in ruins.

The causes were complex, and some of the burden falls on other people -- Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the interest groups and, yes, the press. But as one who reported and wrote in great detail and length about that whole enterprise, I can also tell you that the awkwardness of having an unelected but uniquely influential partner of the president in charge affected every step of the process, from the gestation of the plan to its final demise. She was never again asked to take on such a project.

And this was simply the confusion sown by having the first lady in charge. Put the former president into the picture -- however "sanitized" or insulated his role is supposed to be -- and the dimensions of the problem become even larger.

No one who has read or studied the large literature of memoirs and biographies of the Clintons and their circle can doubt the intimacy and the mutual dependence of their political and personal partnership.

No one can reasonably expect that partnership to end should Hillary Clinton be elected president. But the country must decide whether it is comfortable with such a sharing of the power and authority of the highest office in the land.

It is a difficult question for any of the Democratic rivals to raise. But it lingers, even if unasked.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 02:09 PM

WIMBERLY, TEXAS -- Los Angeles Times

Matthew Dowd knows sorrow and loss. ... And then there is the added heartbreak -- a word he uses -- of his split with President Bush.

Dowd, 46, is one of the nation's leading political strategists, a onetime Democrat who switched sides to help put Bush in the White House, then win a second term. He spent years shaping and promoting Bush's policies -- policies that Dowd now views with a mixture of anguish and contempt.

He began expressing his disillusionment, tentatively at first, at a UC Berkeley conference in January. Since then, he has grown more forceful.

On the administration's response to the Sept. 11 attacks: "I asked, 'Why aren't we doing bonds, war bonds? Why aren't we asking the country to do something instead of just . . . go shopping and get back on airplanes?' "

On the White House stand against same-sex marriage: "Why are we having the federal government get involved? . . . Does a thing limiting someone's rights and aimed at a particular constituency belong in the U.S. Constitution?"

On the war in Iraq: "I guess somebody would make the argument, well, the Iraq war was about defending ourselves. But it seems an awfully huge stretch these days to say that."

With a rueful laugh and, at one point, a catch in his throat, Dowd offered a lengthy account of his break with Bush during hours of conversation at his 18-acre ranch in the green Hill Country outside Austin. He puffed a cigar, and then another, as the fading sun glinted off the Blanco River. A CD player cycled through sacred music and country songs.

Dowd is not the first Bush ally to part with the administration. Former Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill contributed to a book that likened the president at Cabinet meetings to a "blind man in a roomful of deaf people." John J. Dilulio Jr., who led the White House office of faith-based initiatives, left with a shot at "Mayberry Machiavellis." Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who once led U.S. forces in Iraq, accused the administration of going to war with a "catastrophically flawed" plan.

But Dowd was a part of Bush's political inner circle, enjoying a degree of power and intimacy that made his criticism all the more unexpected -- and hurtful to those still close to the president, many of whom are Dowd's friends.

"I care about him as a human being," said Mark McKinnon, a former Dowd business partner who produced Bush's campaign ads and sometimes bicycles with the president. "The problem was not just what he said, but that he never voiced any of those concerns directly to people he was supposed to be advising."

Dowd responded that he shared his feelings with McKinnon and others close to Bush more than once before going public.

In speaking out, Dowd has not only strained personal relationships but raised larger questions about loyalty in the political realm. Is he obliged to stand by his old boss, whose success made Dowd one of the most sought-after consultants in the campaign business? Or does he owe it to the country to openly dissent, even if he didn't do so from the start?

The answer, for Dowd, is simple, even if his life these days is less so. "When you're a public advocate of something in the high-profile way that I was, and all of a sudden it doesn't turn out the way you thought, the counterweight is not to just sit quietly and let it go," Dowd said. "I had to say something in a high-profile way."

His disenchantment with the president built over several years. Dowd went public at a Berkeley seminar on the 2006 California governor's race; Dowd was both a senior advisor to the Republican National Committee, where he landed after Bush took office, and a top strategist for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection effort. It was a question about the president that set Dowd off and, looking back, liberated him.

"Do you lose sleep at night knowing that you gave this country probably the worst administration we've ever had?" asked a young man. "I mean, have you thought about maybe trying to save your soul by calling for impeachment?"

Dowd tensed and leaned forward. Rather than defend Bush, he spoke of the oldest of his three sons, an Army language specialist then facing deployment to Iraq. "Now, am I a person who stays up at night thinking about that? Yeah. . . . Do we have hopes and dreams and disappointments? . . . Yes," Dowd said.

But when things don't turn out as hoped "it does not mean that you somehow have to walk down the street in a hair shirt with a sign that says, 'Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me,' " he said. "We move on."

Dowd now sees the confrontation as "a gift [that] gave me the opportunity to start expressing things more and more publicly."

In March, he wrote a piece for Texas Monthly magazine suggesting Bush had undercut his "gut-level bond with the American public." Finally, applying torch to bridge in spectacular fashion, Dowd detailed his break with Bush in a front-page interview in the New York Times. No one in the White House was alerted. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 09:34 AM

Washington Post:

The Can't-Win Democratic Congress

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; Page A19

Democrats in Congress are discovering what it's like to live in the worst of all possible worlds. They are condemned for selling out to President Bush and condemned for failing to make compromises aimed at getting things done.

Democrats complain that this is unfair, and, in some sense, it is. But who said that politics was fair?

Over the short run, Democratic congressional leaders can count on little support from their party's presidential candidates, particularly Barack Obama and John Edwards. Both have decided their best way of going after front-runner Hillary Clinton-- who has been in Washington since her husband's election as president in 1992 -- is to criticize politics as usual.

At this weekend's Democratic fundraising dinner in Des Moines, Obama and Edwards not only attacked Bush fiercely but also issued broadsides against the larger status quo.

When Obama assailed "the same old Washington textbook campaigns" and declared that he was "sick and tired of Democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is by talking and acting and voting like George Bush Republicans," he was aiming at Clinton. But Obama was echoing what many in his party have been saying about their congressional leadership.

And when Edwards said that "Washington is awash with corporate money, with lobbyists who pass it out, with politicians who ask for it," he was criticizing a system in which his own party is implicated.

It makes sense for Democratic presidential candidates to distance themselves from the party's Washington wing. A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center found that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of the performance of Democratic congressional leaders, an increase in dissatisfaction of 18 points since February. Among Democrats, disapproval of their own leaders rose from 16 percent in February to 35 percent now; in the same period, disapproval among independents rose from 41 percent to 56 percent.


Democrats in Congress say that their achievements of a minimum-wage increase, lobbying reform, improvements in the student loan program and last week's override of Bush's veto of a $23 billion water-projects bill are being overlooked -- and that Bush and his congressional allies have systematically blocked even bipartisan efforts to produce further results.

For example: The increases in financing for the State Children's Health Insurance Program passed after Democrats made a slew of concessions to Republicans to win broad GOP support. But in the House, Democrats were short of the votes needed to override the president's veto, so the proposal languishes.

Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, notes that he has bargained productively with Republicans and that his budget bills have secured dozens of their votes. But the president seems intent on a budget confrontation.

In a letter to Bush on Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to underscore the president's role in the stalemate by calling for a "dialogue" to settle budget differences that "have never been so great that we cannot reach agreement on a spending plan that meets the needs of the American people."

They went on: "Key to this dialogue, however, is some willingness on your part to actually find common ground. Thus far, we have seen only a hard line drawn and a demand that we send only legislation that reflects your cuts to critical priorities of the American people."

Pelosi and Reid have a point, and they want Bush to get the blame for a budget impasse. But Bush seems to have decided that if he can't raise his own dismal approval ratings, he will drag the Democrats down with him. So far, that is what's happening.

Yet the budget is just one of the Democrats' problems. Their own partisans are furious that they have not been able to force a change in Bush's Iraq policy. In the Pew survey, 47 percent said the Democrats had not gone "far enough" in challenging Bush on Iraq. Many in the rank and file are also angry that the Democratic-led Senate let through the nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general even though he declined to classify waterboarding as a form of torture.

Congressional Democrats are caught between two contradictory desires. One part of the electorate wants them to be practical dealmakers, another wants them to live up to the standard Obama set in the peroration of his Iowa speech when he praised those who "stood up . . . when it was risky, stood up when it was hard, stood up when it wasn't popular." Is there a handbook somewhere on how to be a courageous dealmaker? Pelosi and Reid would love to read it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 09:21 AM

Washington Post:

An Opening For Mr. Competent

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; Page A19

Karl Rove is the not the genius he used to be. Partially responsible for the mismanagement of two wars, the collapse of American prestige around the world, the failure to get Osama bin Laden dead or alive, the loss of Republican control of Congress, the passage of nothing much in terms of legislation, the almost-certain defeat of a Republican presidential candidate next time out, and the virtual evisceration of the GOP, he is easy to dismiss if only on account of his record. But when he (gleefully) lambastes the Democratic Congress as a failure, he is certainly on to something. This is a man who knows ineptness when he sees it.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, Rove enumerated the negatives: "No energy bill. No action on health care. No action on the mortgage crisis. No immigration reform." The noes roll on and on, and aside from a partisan dig here or there, no one can quarrel with this. The Democratic Congress, like the pudding that Churchill rejected, lacks theme. To the left, it is a failure; in the middle, it is immaterial; and to the right, it presents an opportunity for restoration.

The equilibrium of ineptitude -- fools at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue -- is not lost on the American people. They award Congress even lower approval ratings than they do the president, about 20 percent in the case of the Hill, about 30 percent in the case of George W. Bush. What they think of the crop of presidential candidates is not yet clear, but I, for one, pick up the paper in the morning and read that the economy is sinking, that oil could top $100 a barrel and that a pandemic of house foreclosures is sweeping our nation of sweet cul-de-sacs -- and the people who want to be president have precious little to say about any of these issues.

Enter Mike Bloomberg. He is the mayor of New York, endowed with near-universal support in his city and about $13 billion in the bank. Intimations of his presidential ambitions are getting stronger. He cooperated with a Newsweek cover story that, whether he intended it or not, left the clear impression that he can hardly be restrained from running. More to the point, his associates and friends do not, as you might expect, caution me against believing that a presidential run is under consideration. On the contrary, they fairly drool like Pavlov's famous mutts when the words "White House" are mentioned.

How such a feat can be accomplished -- how the electoral college can be won and how an independent can govern with a Congress composed of Democrats and Republicans -- is not the issue for the moment. Instead, what animates and energizes the hope of a Bloomberg candidacy is the utter failure of the current political establishment to deal with, not to mention solve, the immense problems facing us.


Michael Dukakis ran for the presidency partially on a platform of competence. The American people took one look at him in a battle tank and concluded that someone else should be commander in chief. Yet things may be different for a different Mike from, of all places, Massachusetts (Bloomberg grew up in Medford).

A glance at the sky shows more than winter's coming -- maybe a recession, too. All sorts of things are going wrong and some of them, like the crisis on Wall Street, cannot even be gauged. Just who will be stuck owning worthless paper based on worthless mortgages secured by nearly worthless houses is still unknown. Not even the financial institutions -- Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, etc. -- knew what was happening or know, will you believe, what is now happening. Bad times -- probably very bad times -- are coming.

So competence will have a certain charm. (And Bloomberg is not short on actual charm, either.) These circumstances, not to mention an ability -- if not a determination -- to spend maybe $1 billion on a campaign, could radically change American politics. The chances of this happening are not great, I know, but Ross Perot did get 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992 (nary a vote in the electoral college, though) and he was perceived as a bit weird and totally unsuited for the presidency. Bloomberg is a different story altogether.

Will Mayor Mike run? He might. Can he win? I still doubt it. But my doubts are nothing compared with my chagrin when I read an op-ed by Karl Rove with which I keep nodding in agreement. It takes a pretty broken system for Rove to be right. Maybe it will take a Bloomberg billion to fix it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 10:31 PM

The Los Angeles Times reports on new estimates for the overall cost of Bush's adventures in the Middle East:

"WASHINGTON -- The total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could balloon to $3.5 trillion over the next decade because of such "hidden" costs as oil market disruptions, foregone investments, long-term health care for veterans and interest payments on borrowed war funding, according to a report released by congressional Democrats on Tuesday.

The projection, by the Democratic majority on the Joint Economic Committee, is more than $1 trillion higher than a recent forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which accounted only for direct spending and interest payments and assumed a moderate withdrawal of troops between now and 2017.
...
"The full costs of this war to our economy are manifested in ways that have never been accounted for by this administration: We are funding this war with borrowed money, Americans are paying more at the gas pump, and it will take years for our military to recover from the damage of the president's failed war strategy," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told a news conference Tuesday.

For the Iraq and Afghanistan wars so far, those costs total about $1.6 trillion, the report found -- almost double the direct appropriations of $804 billion in the 2003-2008 fiscal years. Of that, $1.3 trillion, or more than twice the $607 billion appropriated, is for Iraq alone.

The report by the Joint Economic Committee Democrats -- Republicans on the panel did not participate -- comes as the House and the Senate prepare to vote, probably this week, on a $50-billion spending bill for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would provide the funding on the condition that the Bush administration begins immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, with a goal of complete withdrawal by Dec. 15, 2008.

If Bush does not agree to the conditions and vetoes the bill, then he "won't get his $50 billion," Reid said, and the Pentagon would have to use its own budget to cover the costs of the conflicts. President Bush recently signed a $470-billion Defense Department appropriations bill that covers mainly costs unrelated to the wars.

Press Secretary Dana Perino defended the administration's Iraq policies, pointing to reduced violence and improvements in the Iraqi economy. She said the Joint Economic Committee report has "obvious motivations" behind it.

"This committee is known for being partisan and political," Perino said. "They did not consult or cooperate with the Republicans on the committee. And so I think it is an attempt to muddy the waters on what has been some positive developments being reported out of Iraq."

Aside from the obvious costs of direct appropriations and the interest on borrowed funds, the report said the war takes money from such "productive investments" as education, law enforcement and health care.

The report noted that more than 30,000 troops had been wounded so far in Iraq and Afghanistan, and although it does not specify how many have been significantly disabled, it found that costs related to their inability to return to productive work and to their need for care, thus requiring family members to quit their jobs, could total more than $30 billion.

The price of oil also has been affected by the war, the report said, with the cost of a barrel almost tripling from $37 a barrel the week before the U.S. invasion to more than $98 a barrel last week. Although it is difficult to quantify the size of the war's effect on prices, the report said, it has "been one factor contributing to a generally unsettled state of oil markets over the past several years."

---

The notion that this war has directly driven the rising cost of gas is one which I had not thought of; I have often mentioned the huge hidden costs to the country in human agony of neurosis and psychosis derived directly from mind-wrenching battle in a nebulous cause. I can't think of any more dissonant, mind-breaking position for a young man to be in than to destroy other humans and find his justification wanting.

A
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 10:02 PM

The late Norman Mailer had an interesting dialogue with his son, John Buffalo Mailer, in a 2006 interview. An excerpt:

"NM: Come on, man, save time. These administration honchos are very, very intelligent with what they are intelligent at, but they're stupid as sludge when they are stupid. I will say this characterizes almost all political regimes. Take Camelot. As open and bright and quick as the Kennedy administration proved to be, look at how wrong they were on the Bay of Pigs. Why? Because they didn't know a lot about Cuba when they came into office, so they listened to Allen Dulles and the CIA. It was a very painful lesson, but they learned that the CIA wasn't always right.

OK, all I'm getting at is the Bushies in the wake of the 2000 election had a host of problems for which war could be a pro-tem solution. The novelist in me would even warrant that the cynics among the Bush honchos loved the idea of selling America on bringing democracy to Iraq. They may even have known they were not going to succeed on any real level. But they did have great faith in the stupidity of the American people. So, they assumed they could carry it off one way or another. With our mighty military, how could they not find something they could paint as a positive?

JBM: I was twenty-four years old at the time, a writer/actor in LA, and I saw what was going to happen if we invaded. How could they not have seen it? It's hard for me to believe that they didn't know Iraq would turn into a quagmire.

NM: Listen, these are men who have been successful all their lives. They've gone through many crises. Their feeling is, "Yes, there's going to be trouble. A lot of shit will hit the fan, a good deal is probably going to go wrong. But we will handle it." Not Bush, but Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld. Take a guy like Cheney. His whole attitude is: "Can do. Will do." I would say their honcho feeling goes like this: "We'll take the sludge that comes our way, but it will be a lot better than chasing bin Laden all over Afghanistan and Pakistan. That won't do it. The Democrats will be too ready to carp about everything that's going wrong in America. So let's shift the war to Iraq. This country is so patriotic. 9/11 brought us back again to operating speed and now we can coast on that patriotism." You have to understand the depth and breadth of the cynical optimism these guys possess. They are able to live with very bad odors, spiritual stinks most of us can't endure. Their strength is in their ability to avoid bad conscience. Immoral is not even a word to apply to these guys. Amoral is no better. They have a God-given or diabolically driven capacity to live with bad conscience. They really don't give a damn. "Hey," goes their credo, "I'm tough. So I can live with this. Others couldn't, but I can take it. I will endure. And even if it doesn't work, it will work anyway, because we will always be able to find a new slew of spokesmen, even intelligent people, who will claim that democracy is beginning to work in Iraq. All those neocons. They keep saying that the Middle East is ready for democracy. Well, I think they are a bunch of Israel-serving, self-serving sons of bitches myself, but if they are right, then we get the oil, and if they're wrong, we'll yet be able to blame them for the consequences." So, yes, John, to speak for myself again, I take them seriously. As they saw it in 2001, the country was in bad shape and they needed a tool big-time to clear it up, especially when they were bound and determined to send all that tax money upstairs to the rich.

JBM: So, instead, they send the poor to die in Iraq.

NM: Don't you think that is one of the themes of history, which repeats itself over and over?

JBM: My question is, Why is the chain never broken?

NM: The reason may be that there are too many strong and skilled people who spend their lives working to keep the chain intact. They labor at it reverently. So they succeed in keeping the majority stupid, even if in a democracy it's just fifty-two percent of the voting populace. They know so well that stupidity is their greatest asset, their political mojo. They work, systematically, to enhance it. They take pride in generating more and more stupidity even as advertising men take pride in selling a piece of crap. After all, anyone can market a Rolls Royce. But try palming off sleaze on a big scale. Hell, yeah! "Bring 'em on.""

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 09:27 PM

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

(From Vanity Fair magazine. Link below.)

The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy
of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz,
sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.
by Joseph E. Stiglitz December 2007

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712?printable=true¤tPage=all

The American economy can take a lot of abuse, but no economy is
invincible. Illustration by Edward Sorel.

When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush
administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq
war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil
liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-
page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond
the lifetime of anyone reading this page.

I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not
driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven
years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent.
Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a
tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a
national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time
this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage
defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that
are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an
American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—
becomes a venture in high finance.

And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the
United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have
not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the
skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been
investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the
technological powerhouse of the late 20th century. And although the
president now understands—or so he says—that we must begin to wean
ourselves from oil and coal, we have on his watch become more deeply
dependent on both.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 12:45 PM

"n the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we've propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We've become inured to democracy-lite. That's why a Mukasey can be elevated to power with bipartisan support and we barely shrug.

This is a signal difference from the Vietnam era, and not necessarily for the better. During that unpopular war, disaffected Americans took to the streets and sometimes broke laws in an angry assault on American governmental institutions. The Bush years have brought an even more effective assault on those institutions from within. While the public has not erupted in riots, the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup, ultimately more insidious than a blatant putsch like General Musharraf's.

More Machiavellian still, Mr. Bush has constantly told the world he's championing democracy even as he strangles it. Mr. Bush repeated the word "freedom" 27 times in roughly 20 minutes at his 2005 inauguration, and even presided over a "Celebration of Freedom" concert on the Ellipse hosted by Ryan Seacrest. It was an Orwellian exercise in branding, nothing more. The sole point was to give cover to our habitual practice of cozying up to despots (especially those who control the oil spigots) and to our own government's embrace of warrantless wiretapping and torture, among other policies that invert our values.

Even if Mr. Bush had the guts to condemn General Musharraf, there is no longer any moral high ground left for him to stand on. Quite the contrary. Rather than set a democratic example, our president has instead served as a model of unconstitutional behavior, eagerly emulated by his Pakistani acolyte.

Take the Musharraf assault on human-rights lawyers. Our president would not be so unsubtle as to jail them en masse. But earlier this year a senior Pentagon official, since departed, threatened America's major white-shoe law firms by implying that corporate clients should fire any firm whose partners volunteer to defend detainees in Guantánamo and elsewhere. For its part, Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department did not round up independent-minded United States attorneys and toss them in prison. It merely purged them without cause to serve Karl Rove's political agenda.

Tipping his hat in appreciation of Mr. Bush's example, General Musharraf justified his dismantling of Pakistan's Supreme Court with language mimicking the president's diatribes against activist judges. The Pakistani leader further echoed Mr. Bush by expressing a kinship with Abraham Lincoln, citing Lincoln's Civil War suspension of a prisoner's fundamental legal right to a hearing in court, habeas corpus, as a precedent for his own excesses. (That's like praising F.D.R. for setting up internment camps.) Actually, the Bush administration has outdone both Lincoln and Musharraf on this score: Last January, Mr. Gonzales testified before Congress that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution."

To believe that this corruption will simply evaporate when the Bush presidency is done is to underestimate the permanent erosion inflicted over the past six years. What was once shocking and unacceptable in America has now been internalized as the new normal...."

New York Times editorial, 11-11-07

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 10:35 AM

"Most important, Venezuela's leader not only dislikes the American president -- after all, many other heads of state do, too -- but refers to him as "the devil," a "dictator," a "madman" and a "killer." Who cares what Chávez actually does when Sean Penn isn't looking? "


All depends on what public you want the opinion of...