BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Holden deMayo
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 05:46 PM

I'm so fed up with the plethora of "choices" facing me in the next election, I had a bumper sticker made that says, VOTE NO FOR PRESIDENT!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Banjiman
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 11:55 AM

Daddy's Real Proud of Me!

2nd song down!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 09:37 PM

A brief summation of the accurate analysis of what would happen in Iraq if Bush's Idiot Team went ahead with their plans is covered on this Washington Post article.

The CIA has a long history of bad intelligence. But on these projections they were spot on and were roundly ignored. I guess a pre-requisite for flaming stupidity is a commitment to bland ignoral of truth.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 08:27 PM

Said of Hillary in BB's article: "She would, it seems, rather be president than be right."


I have never yet seen ANY presidential candidate whom you could not have said that about at some point! ;-) Why feign outrage and surprise over something they are all guilty of? It goes with the job. The most important thing about a Presidential campaign is not to be "right" or to tell the truth...it is to win. To win you merely need to creat the impression that you are right, and that you are telling the truth. It's salesmanship.

If you don't know that, BB, maybe you still believe in Santa Claus too?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 07:45 PM

Remember this?

    * If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.

    *
       George H.W. Bush to journalist Sarah McClendon, December 1992, in response to the question, What will the people do if they ever find out the truth about Iraq-gate and Iran contra?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:59 PM

ase Dismissed?
The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to
know about

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek Updated: 4:00 a.m. PT Sept 20, 2007


Sept. 20, 2007 - The nation's biggest telecommunications companies,
working closely with the White House, have mounted a secretive
lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping
out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the U.S.
intelligence community's warrantless surveillance programs.

The campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent
lobbying and law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks
because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is
poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed.

If that happens, the telecom companies say, they may be forced to
terminate their cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community—or
risk potentially crippling damage awards for allegedly turning over
personal information about their customers to the government without
a judicial warrant.

"It's not an exaggeration to say the U.S. intelligence community is
in a near-panic about this," said one communications industry lawyer
familiar with the debate who asked not to be publicly identified
because of the sensitivity surrounding the issue.

But critics say the language proposed by the White House—drafted in
close cooperation with the industry officials—is so extraordinarily
broad that it would provide retroactive immunity for all past telecom
actions related to the surveillance program. Its practical effect,
they argue, would be to shut down any independent judicial or state
inquires into how the companies have assisted the government in
eavesdropping on the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents in
the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.

"It's clear the goal is to kill our case," said Cindy Cohn, legal
director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based
privacy group that filed the main lawsuit against the telecoms after
The New York Times first disclosed, in December 2005, that President
Bush had approved a secret program to monitor the phone conversations
of U.S. residents without first seeking judicial warrants. The White
House subsequently confirmed that it had authorized the National
Security Agency to conduct what it called a "terrorist surveillance
program" aimed at communications between suspected terrorists
overseas and individuals inside the United States. But the
administration has also intervened, unsuccessfully so far, to try to
block the lawsuit from proceeding and has consistently refused to
discuss any details about the extent of the program—rebuffing
repeated congressional requests for key legal memos about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 08:51 AM

Remember in the 2004 campaign when the band aids were put over purple heart medals? Cheney wore one of those as well as many of the delegates at the convention. They stood for Kerry's war record in Viet Nam as advertised by Swift Boat Veterans for truth.

Well if you don't remember, it happened.

People are being (Dan) rather selective when it comes to pointing fingers of derision at men who wear the uniform.


I see no reason to automatically bestow respect and hero worship on Petraeus.
I will remind everyone that respect is earned and not something that is bestowed by a Republican war profiteer.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 09:39 AM

I think the MoveOn ad was overheated, myself, and a wasted opportunity because it resorted to ad hominem slur tactics. I've seen others do that, notably here on Mudcat for time to time. It never brings about any good result.

That said, it is up to examination whether Petraeus' dreams of a presidential future or his loyalty to the present Administration did or did not slant his analysis of their efforts in IRaq.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 05:15 PM

. . . What She Ducked
After Petraeus Is Slimed, Spineless Silence

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, September 18, 2007; Page A19

If there is a phrase more closely associated with both Hillary and Bill Clinton than "the politics of personal destruction," it does not come to mind. All the others -- "It's the economy, stupid," for instance -- are linked to one or the other, but "the politics of personal destruction" is a phrase both Clintons have used repeatedly -- so much so, it seems, that for Hillary it has lost all meaning. When, for instance, Gen. David Petraeus was slimed as "General Betray Us," Hillary Clinton looked the other way. This was the politics of personal expediency.

The swipe at Petraeus was contained in a full-page ad the antiwar group MoveOn.org placed in the New York Times last week. It charged that Petraeus was "cooking the books" about conditions in Iraq and cited statements of his that have turned out to be either (1) not true, (2) no longer true, (3) possibly not true or (4) like everything else in Iraq, impossible to tell. Whatever the case, using "betray" -- a word associated with treason -- recalls the ugly McCarthy era, when for too many Republicans dissent corresponded with disloyalty. MoveOn.org and the late senator from Wisconsin share a certain fondness for the low blow.

Almost instantly, though, it got pretty hard to find a Democratic presidential candidate willing to dispute MoveOn.org. To his credit, Joe Biden did. "I don't buy into that," he said. "This is an honorable guy. He's telling the truth." But lonesome Joe, whose virtues have yet to come to the attention of the vast and apathetic electorate, was seconded only by Joe Lieberman, not a presidential candidate, and John Kerry, a man whose tomorrow is yesterday. When Clinton was asked about the ad, she avoided answering.

It may seem unfair to single out Clinton in this matter when the bunker in which she took shelter was crowded with her fellow quivering candidates. But Clinton is the front-runner, quite possibly the next president of the United States, so it is reasonable to focus on her and wonder if, as some allege, she does indeed have a spine. In this instance, it was nowhere to be found.

It is an odd standard Clinton has when it comes to smears. When the entertainment mogul David Geffen, once a Clinton supporter, called both Bill and Hillary liars, Hillary not only decried the remark as a particularly vivid example of the "politics of personal destruction," but she also demanded that Barack Obama do the same -- and return a $2,300 donation from Geffen. Yet when Clinton herself was asked to repudiate the abuse of Petraeus, she either saw no reason to do so or, much more likely, was afraid to alienate an important constituency, the 3.3 million members of MoveOn.org, who stand symbolically at the frontiers of New Hampshire and Iowa. She would, it seems, rather be president than be right.

Yesterday, Clinton announced her health-care plan. Good for her. But you never had any doubt, did you, that she was going to have one -- and a plan for everything else. The issue with Hillary Clinton is not whether she's smart or experienced but whether she has -- how do we say this? -- the character to be president. Behind her, after all, trails the lingering vapor of all those gates: Travel, File, Whitewater and other scandals to which she was a party only through marriage. In a hatless society, she is always wearing a question mark.

Certain Republicans, particularly Rudy Giuliani, have attempted to exploit the MoveOn.org ad for their own political purposes, even wondering whether the Times violated election law by selling the page at a (standard) discount. This is silly. But it is not silly to wonder -- yet again -- about what makes Hillary run.

The MoveOn.org ad was the moment for Clinton to rise above hackdom. It was a moment for her to insist that the business of politics, not to mention governing, is made even uglier and more difficult when people who merely differ with one another resort to insult. It was a moment for her to say that an Army general, under orders and attempting to fulfill a mission, should not be so casually trashed -- especially since she herself has been on the other side of the Iraq war issue and said things she must now regret. And it was a moment for her to trot out her favorite phrase and use it, not in her own defense for once but in defense of someone else. That moment is gone -- maybe because for Hillary Clinton it never arrived in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 07 - 09:04 AM

What ever happened to earning respect.
Why is someone now a hero for accepting cash acess and priviledge for lieing for their boss?

I don't know General Petraeus.
Why he should be an untouchable American hero beyond reproach is the same "SHUT UP" anti liberty anti democracy credo that labled people disloyal Americans for "Bashing" Bush.

General, if its too hot in kitchen, if having to answer to Congress and the American people is too much to bear, Get Out.

Since no one believes Bush now his mouthpiece Petraeus is supposed to be untouchable? Tough. You took the job. If you want to earn respect, do something truthful and deserving of heroic respect.

You are not a Hero because the Bush administration says you are.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Sep 07 - 07:42 AM

The sad thing part now is that even as it has become incresingly obvious to almost any thinking person that there were no real factual reasons for attacking Iraq (notice I used the term "thinking person") that we now are getting more of the same cherry-picked intellegence on the security situation in Iraq...

Plus a dose of the Swift Bioat liars commercials, to boot...

But the scarey thing is that 33% who still believe the first round of lies... Seems that is about the same number of folks that regharless of how bad things are still support Bush... I reckon this number is an accurate barometer of the number of people who never were taught to, ahhhhhh, think...

That's a lot of people... Ahhhhhhh, make that epsilons...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Sep 07 - 10:16 PM

I saw that...and hearing Olbermann read it aloud is compelling stuff. There are VERY few guys anywhere with a better pulpit who can make the needed points as well as Keith Olbermann.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 07 - 06:12 PM

The Promotion of Failure in Bush Administration
    By Keith Olbermann
    MSNBC Countdown

    Wednesday 12 September 2007

Transcript from Crooks and Liars.

" To this day, millions of Americans believe we invaded Iraq because of 9/11.

    33 percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam Hussein and the nightmares here and in Washington and in Pennsylvania.

    Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then. Six years later, that has changed.

    Iraq has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11.

    If another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central to that nightmare.

    How did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who brought us here?

    In our number one story tonight, no one person is to blame. And only some of those who are, recognize it.

    As we reported yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell tells G-Q magazine he is "sorry" he gave the world wrong information when he told the U-N of the threat Iraq supposedly posed.

    He was not fired for doing so.

    He paid no price we know of, other than the admitted "blot" on his record, and whatever toll his conscience exacted.

    Unrepentant, however, is former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, also talking to G-Q;

    Saying he does not lose sleep over the war… declining to apologize for it… despite pushing for it… despite using 9/11 - the day after 9/11 - for his own benefit, to pursue his goal of bombing Iraq.

    Rumsfeld, not fired for his performance, but for politics… now in private life… reportedly trying to see how much he must tell, to make for a profitable tell-all. Rumsfeld was served, and the nation ill-served, by a flock of Pentagon hawks, bent on war, seeing 9/11 not as an obligation to answer,. but an opportunity to exploit.

    Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who also tied Iraq to 9/11, who ridiculed warnings we needed more troops to invade Iraq - not fired - named head of the World Bank, until resigning in disgrace.

    Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle - not fired - forced to retire not for pushing the war, but for allegedly profiting off it.

    Undersecretary Doug Feith, who cherry-picked anti-Iraq intel - not fired - despite a Pentagon report later refuting Feith's claim that Iraq and al Qaeda were in league.

    And as you go higher in the administration, your reward for being wrong on the war grows proportionately.

    Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley - responsible for the 16-word lie about Iraqi pursuit of yellowcake from Niger - not fired - promoted to National Security Advisor.

    His boss, Condoleezza Rice, who threatened us with mushroom clouds - not fired - promoted to America's chief diplomat: Secretary of State.

    CIA Director George Tenet, who called the case for war a "slam dunk" - not fired - given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    And within the president's circle of advisors, marketing the war:

    Andy Card and Dan Bartlett - neither fired. Card retired, Bartlett promoted, then retired.

    Karen Hughes - not fired - promoted, stunningly, to the task of winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world.

    But let us go higher still.

    Vice President Dick Cheney, creator of his cherry-picking intel apparatus, gave its poisoned fruit to the media and then fed the lie to us on national television - even after truth, and shame, rendered its mendaciousness, manifest. He continues to do so to this day. Not fired.

    Cheney's aide, Lewis Libby, came closest of all to suffering genuine consequences. Convicted of covering up Mr. Cheney's role in sliming critics of the war, his consequences nullified at the last minute. When the president commuted his prison sentence -ensuring that no one in his circle, least of all him - paid any price for selling us the lie of Iraq; for failing to punish the bombing of the U-S-S Cole; for neglecting the warnings pre-9/11;. for turning back at Tora Bora; for ultimately ensuring that while the rest of the world suffers painful, deadly consequences for his actions, only he does not.

    Only he and one other. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, his reach, and recruiting, all benefiting from Mr. Bush's war, his group's strength today at a six-year high. His Afghan allies, the Taliban, as NBC reported tonight, also resurgent, planning the death of Americans, just 25 miles from Kabul.

    All while bin Laden himself operates freely, unmolested, with his own media operation, thanks to a regional Pakistani truce endorsed by Mr. Bush in a region where Mr. Bush will not go - cannot go even if he chose to.

    Because he has spent so much American blood and treasure, in the desert of a nation that had neither means nor motive to threaten us, but that tempted Mr. Bush and those around him who wished to transform the Middle East, so much so that he forswore the vow he made, standing here, literally atop New York's dead… that their killers would hear us soon.

    Six years later, we still hear them, because now, finally, Iraq and 9/11 really are connected - by him.

    And we suffer the consequences."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Sep 07 - 10:25 AM

Hey, as for Patraeous being slandered, yeah, I think MoveOn was over the top...

I also am getting purdy sick and tired of the Swift Boat Liars, with millions and millions of fat cat dollars behind them marchin' into my living room with one wounded vet or vets family telling me that their sacrifices would mean nothing if we don't "win" in Iraq...

This is the same old worn our sup0wer-patriotism crap that was shoved down our throats in Nam while another 26,000 of our troops were killed while the politicans played a hot potato... All Bush is doing is trying to run out the clock herer and pass his mess on...

I used to think that Bush was going to somehow figure out a way to impiose martial law before the '08 election and call off the election so he could hold power but Iraq has made me change my thinkin'... Jan. 20, 2009 can't come soon enough fir either Bush, the American people or the world...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 07 - 09:12 AM

From today's NY Times:

"ollowing the dastardly attacks of 9/11, it was evident that the nation had to do some careful thinking about the proper balance between national security and civil liberties. Instead of care and balance, sadly, the Bush administration immediately lunged to claim extraordinary, and largely unnecessary, new powers. Aided by a compliant Congress, the administration repeatedly tried to shield the resulting intrusions on people's rights from meaningful scrutiny, even by the courts.

Recently, however, a federal district judge in New York declared unconstitutional one notorious outgrowth of the Bush team's approach: the Federal Bureau of Investigation's overreliance on informal demands for information, called national security letters, to obtain private records from telephone and Internet companies, banks and other businesses without a court warrant.

The decision by Judge Victor Marrero struck down 2006 revisions to the Patriot Act that expanded the bureau's power to use national security letters, and a 1986 law that first authorized such letters. The recent provisions not only compelled companies to turn over customers' records without a warrant, but forbade them to tell anyone what they had done, including the customers involved. The authority of the courts to review challenges to the gag rule was extremely limited.

Judge Marrero took proper umbrage at the attempt to tightly confine the courts' authority and to silence recipients of national security letters without meaningful judicial review. He declared that the measure violated both the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers. The deference that the law required courts to give to the executive branch, he stated, could amount to "the hijacking of constitutional values."..."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 07 - 08:55 PM

"Alan Greenspan, who served as Federal Reserve chairman for 18 years and was the leading Republican economist for the past three decades, levels unusually harsh criticism at President Bush and the Republican Party in his new book, arguing that Bush abandoned the central conservative principle of fiscal restraint.

While condemning Democrats, too, for rampant federal spending, he offers Bill Clinton an exemption. The former president emerges as the political hero of "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan's 531-page memoir, which is being published Monday.

Greenspan, who had an eight-year alliance with Clinton and Democratic Treasury secretaries in the 1990s, praises Clinton's mind and his tough anti-deficit policies, calling the former president's 1993 economic plan "an act of political courage."

But he expresses deep disappointment with Bush. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending," Greenspan writes. "Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency. … To my mind, Bush's collaborate-don't-confront approach was a major mistake."

Greenspan accuses the Republicans who presided over the party's majority in the House until last year of being too eager to tolerate excessive federal spending in exchange for political opportunity. The Republicans, he says, deserved to lose control of the Senate and House in last year's elections. "The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan writes. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither."

He singles out J. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who was House speaker until January, and Tom DeLay, the Texan who was majority leader until he resigned after being indicted for violating campaign finance laws in his home state.

"House Speaker Hastert and House majority leader Tom DeLay seemed readily inclined to loosen the federal purse strings any time it might help add a few more seats to the Republican majority," he writes.

He adds three pages later: "I don't think the Democrats won. It was the Republicans who lost. The Democrats came to power in the Congress because they were the only party left standing."

Greenspan, 81, indirectly criticizes his friend and colleague from the Ford administration, Vice President Cheney. Former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill has quoted Cheney as once saying, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

Greenspan says, " 'Deficits don't matter,' to my chagrin became part of the Republicans' rhetoric."

He argues that "deficits must matter" and that uncontrolled government spending and borrowing can produce high inflation "and economic devastation."

When Bush and Cheney won the 2000 election, Greenspan writes, "I thought we had a golden opportunity to advance the ideals of effective, fiscally conservative government and free markets. … I was soon to see my old friends veer off to unexpected directions."

He says, "Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences." The large, anticipated federal budget surpluses that were the basis for Bush's initial $1.35 trillion tax cut "were gone six to nine months after George W. Bush took office." So Bush's goals "were no longer entirely appropriate. He continued to pursue his presidential campaign promises nonetheless."

Greenspan was intensely criticized for endorsing a large tax cut in 2001 in congressional testimony during the first weeks of the Bush administration. He notes that he was recommending any tax cut, even a smaller one proposed by some Democrats. He acknowledges that those who had warned him about the perception he was backing Bush's plan were right. "The tax-cut testimony proved to be politically explosive," he writes.

Yet, he adds: "While politics had not been my intent, I'd misjudged the emotions of the moment. … Yet I'd have given the same testimony if Al Gore had been president."

By the end of last year, Greenspan writes with some bitterness, Washington was "harboring a dysfunctional government. … Governance has become dangerously dysfunctional.""

Excerpted from The San Francisco Sentinel.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Rotkopf
Date: 15 Sep 07 - 09:02 AM

The genius of GWB is that he is able to get his enemies to fight each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 12:18 PM

Bruce:

You're mi-mi=mi-mimicking me again, gawdammit. Your proposition is ridiculous on the face of it. Such a notion would have a very hard time getting any traction in this country. The precedent of unilateral initiation of war is a much more dangerous one.

It is possible that you are confusing terror wwith actual threat. They are very different.

A

Subject: RUMSFELD ON THE MOVE
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 11:22 AM

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39249

He has joined the think tank 'The Hoover Institute' which has an affiliation with Stanford University.

Nixon was right about Don.
In 1971, President Nixon was recorded saying about Rumsfeld "at least Rummy is tough enough" and "He's a ruthless little bastard. You can be sure of that."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 10:14 AM

I do feel concerned that the previous negative news-spin will (a) make people feel unnecessarily pessemistic about the state of affairs in the Arab world and (b) that the "anti-war" folks will have established a precedent of unique magnitude, presenting the notion that a NO action, under any circumstances, even a direct threat to this country and its people, can be justified.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 10:11 AM

Thanks, Bruce. These sound reasonable, and I had not seen them.

I do feel concerned that this positive news-spin will (a) make people feel unnecessarily optimistic about the state of affairs in the Arab world and (b) that Mister Bush and those like him will have established an imperial precedent of unique magnitude, presenting the notion that a unilateral invasion, costing thousands in deaths and billions in treasure, framed on false rationale and clouded in intentional distortions, can be justified.

Men like Bush, and his key henchmen, energize and disseminate the idea that a good end justifies foul means. He is a paradigmatic example of the idea. And it's a shitty idea.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 09:24 AM

Or this one? (also from the Washington Post)

A 'Realistic Chance' of Success

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 14, 2007; Page A13

As always, the inadvertent slip is the most telling. Discussing the performance of British troops, Gen. David Petraeus told Sen. Joe Biden of the Foreign Relations Committee that he'd be consulting with British colleagues in London on his way back "home." He had meant to say "Iraq," where he is now on his third tour of duty. Is there any other actor in Washington's Iraq war drama -- from Harry Reid to the Joint Chiefs -- who could have made such a substitution? Anyone who not only knows Iraq the way Petraeus does but feels it in all its gravity and complexity?

When asked about Shiite militia domination of southern Iraq, Petraeus patiently went through the four provinces, one by one, displaying a degree of knowledge of the local players, terrain and balance of power that no one in Washington -- and few in Iraq -- could match.

When Biden thought he had a gotcha -- contradictions between Petraeus's report on Iraqi violence and the less favorable one by the Government Accountability Office -- Petraeus calmly pointed out that the GAO had to cut its data-gathering five weeks short to meet reporting requirements to Congress. And since those most recent five weeks had been particularly productive for the coalition, the GAO numbers were not only outdated but misleading.

For all the attempts by Democrats and the antiwar movement to discredit Petraeus, he won the congressional confrontation hands down. He demonstrated enough military progress from his new counterinsurgency strategy to conclude: "I believe we have a realistic chance of achieving our objectives in Iraq."

The American people are not antiwar. They are anti-losing. Which means they are also anti-drift. Adrift is where we were during most of 2006 -- the annus horribilis initiated by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's bringing down the Golden Mosque in Samarra -- until the new counterinsurgency strategy of 2007 (the "surge") reversed the trajectory of the war.

It was being lost both in Iraq and at home. On the home front, Petraeus deftly deflated the rush to withdrawal that appeared poised to acquire irresistible momentum this summer. First, by demonstrating real and irrefutable territorial gains on the ground. Second, by proposing minor immediate withdrawals to be followed by fully liquidating the "surge" by next summer. Those withdrawals should be enough to hold the wobbly Republican senators. And perhaps even more important, the Pentagon brass.

The service chiefs no longer fight wars. That's now left to theater commanders such as Petraeus. The chiefs' job is to raise armies -- to recruit, train, equip and manage. Petraeus's job is to use their armies to win wars. The chiefs are quite reasonably concerned about the enormous strain put on their worldwide forces by the tempo of operations in Iraq. Petraeus's withdrawal recommendations have prevented a revolt of the generals.

Petraeus's achievement is no sleight of hand. If he had not produced real, demonstrable progress -- reported by many independent observers, including liberal Democrats, even before he came back home (i.e., the United States) -- his appearance before Congress would have swayed no one.

His testimony, steady and forthright, bought him the time to achieve his "realistic chance" of success. Not the unified, democratic Iraq we had hoped for the day Saddam Hussein's statue came down, but a radically decentralized Iraq with enough regional autonomy and self-sufficiency to produce a tolerable stalemated coexistence between contending forces.

That's for the longer term and still quite problematic. In the shorter term, however, there is a realistic chance of achieving a separate success that, within the context of Iraq, is of a second order but in the global context is of the highest order -- the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Having poisoned one country and been expelled from it (Afghanistan), al-Qaeda seized upon post-Hussein instability to establish itself in the very heart of the Arab Middle East -- Sunni Iraq. Yet now, in front of all the world, Iraq's Sunnis are, to use the biblical phrase, vomiting out al-Qaeda. This is a defeat and humiliation in the extreme -- an Arab Muslim population rejecting al-Qaeda so violently that it allies itself in battle with the infidel, the foreigner, the occupier.

Just carrying this battle to its successful conclusion -- independent of its larger effect of helping stabilize Iraq -- is justification enough for the surge. The turning of Sunni Iraq against al-Qaeda is a signal event in the war on terrorism. Petraeus's plan is to be allowed to see it through.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 09:20 AM

From the Washington Post- Miss this one, Amos?


The Least Bad Plan

President Bush's long-shot strategy for Iraq is less risky than the alternatives.
Friday, September 14, 2007; Page A12


PRESIDENT BUSH'S explanation of his latest plans for Iraq last night was marred by a couple of important omissions. First, the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible. Instead he focused on the real but reversible military gains achieved in and around Baghdad and on the unexpected decision of Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaeda, a development facilitated but not caused by the surge.

Mr. Bush also failed to mention one of the principal reasons for the drawdown of troops he announced. The president said that the tactical military successes meant that American forces could be reduced in the coming year to pre-surge levels. What he didn't say is that the Pentagon has no choice other than to carry out the withdrawals, unless Mr. Bush resorts to politically explosive steps such as further extending deployments. Another way of describing Mr. Bush's plan is that it leaves every available Army and Marine unit in place in Iraq for as long as possible. If the war were going worse than it is, the deployment schedule probably couldn't have been much different.

Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker have argued this week that the maximal troop levels are necessary to prevent Iraq from returning to the downward spiral into sectarian war it suffered before the surge. They also have emphasized that political accords will be slower in coming than Washington has expected, if they are achievable at all. Yet Mr. Bush's plan for the coming year is based, once again, on the hope that Iraqis will take steps that will make the added security provided by U.S. troops sustainable -- and prevent a worsening of the situation when American brigades withdraw. Though this hope proved illusory during the past eight months, there will be no change in the U.S. mission.

It's impossible not to be skeptical that the necessary political deals and improvements in Iraqi security forces will take place. Unless there is progress that justifies withdrawals going well beyond those he announced last night, Mr. Bush is unlikely to achieve the agreement in Washington on Iraq he said he now aims for. Still, there are no easy alternatives to the present policy. In the past we have looked favorably on bipartisan proposals that would change the U.S. mission so as to focus on counterterrorism and training of the Iraqi army, while withdrawing most U.S. combat units. Mr. Bush said he would begin a transition to that reduced posture in December. But according to Gen. Petraeus, Mr. Crocker and the consensus view of U.S. intelligence agencies, if the U.S. counterinsurgency mission were abandoned in the near future, the result would be massive civilian casualties and still-greater turmoil that could spread to neighboring countries.

Mr. Bush's plan offers, at least, the prospect of extending recent gains against al-Qaeda in Iraq, preventing full-scale sectarian war and allowing Iraqis more time to begin moving toward a new political order. For that reason, it is preferable to a more rapid withdrawal. It's not necessary to believe the president's promise that U.S. troops will "return on success" in order to accept the judgment of Mr. Crocker: "Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 06:49 AM

from the Washington Post:

The Assault on Petraeus

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, September 12, 2007; Page A19

There is a long American tradition of savaging failed generals, from George McClellan to William Westmoreland. It is a more novel tactic to attack a successful one. Sen. Dick Durbin accuses Gen. David Petraeus of "carefully manipulating the statistics." Sen. Harry Reid contends, "He's made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual." A newspaper ad by MoveOn.org includes the taunt: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" -- perhaps the first time since the third grade that this distinguished commander has been subjected to this level of wit.

Gen. Andrew Jackson probably would have responded to these reflections on his honor with a series of duels. Gen. Petraeus, in the manner of the modern Army, patiently answered with a series of facts and charts showing military progress in Iraq that seemed unimaginable even six months ago.

On Petraeus's brief watch, al-Qaeda in Iraq has suffered a major setback. It has been cleared out of the main population centers of Anbar province; its cells scattered into the countryside. The resentment of Sunni tribal leaders against al-Qaeda's highhanded brutality predated the surge -- but the surge gave those leaders the confidence and ability to oppose al-Qaeda. And this approach is showing promise among other Iraqi tribal groups as well.

In Baghdad, the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy -- a kind of community policing with very serious firepower -- has reduced sectarian murders significantly. Some militia activity has been pushed outside Baghdad or gone underground -- and this is also a victory of sorts, because order in Iraq's capital has great symbolic and practical importance.

But for opponents of the war, such progress is beside the point. Anything less than perfection in reaching a series of benchmarks is evidence of failure and reason for retreat. Former senator John Edwards, bobbing like a cork on every current of the left, calls for "No timeline, no funding. No excuses" -- a sudden cutoff of resources for American combat troops. Other critics recommend that American forces withdraw into a noncombat, supportive role, with a "small footprint," while unprepared Iraqis are pushed into the lead -- exactly the strategy that led to the escalation of violence in 2006.

These are not serious options. But the administration does face a serious question: Even if this military progress continues, how does it lead to the endgame of American withdrawal instead of Iraqi dependence? In spite of recent gains, civilian casualties remain high, sectarian groups are still deeply at odds, and the central government remains corrupt and ineffective.

Administration officials answer that they are seeing a promising, bottom-up change in Iraq -- something organic, not imposed or designed. Instead of national, political agreement, Iraq is experiencing local, tribal reconciliation. Even without a national oil law, oil revenue is being shared. Even in the absence of a de-Baathification law, tens of thousands of former Baathists are getting their pensions. Grass-roots progress, the argument goes, will eventually produce more responsible, pragmatic political leaders -- Sunnis who oppose al-Qaeda and Shiites who fight Iranian influence -- as well as more capable and professional Iraqi military forces. And this would allow America to provide the same level of security with fewer and fewer troops.

Petraeus's recommendation of troop reductions beginning in December, with a return to pre-surge troop levels by summer, is a down payment on this expectation. But future reductions, he made clear, will be based on conditions in Iraq, not timelines. And those conditions are hard to predict.

At least three factors could complicate future withdrawals:

First, as the British leave, Basra and the south could descend into a chaos of battling militias -- threatening Iraqi oil fields and American supply lines. Would U.S. troops be forced to intervene?

Second, Iran may not tamely accept American progress in Iraq. Its government is already involved in the training and arming of proxies in Iraq. How would America need to respond if the Iranians escalate further and provide, for example, surface-to-air missiles to militias?

Third, even if Iranian-backed groups are isolated and undermined, the regular Shiite militias, often infiltrated into the police and Interior Ministry, are still forcing Sunnis out of mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad. What needs to be done to stop them?

Despite real military progress, the situation in Iraq remains difficult. Gen. Petraeus is a skilled leader, but we do not know if even he can win. We know, however, one thing: If he is slandered, his advice is dismissed and Congress cuts off funding for the troops he commands, defeat in Iraq will be certain.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 12:10 AM

The ruling class does not even need a plausible excuse to destory a voice of the people or even a voice of reason.

However I am starting to see how their clarion call of (HE/SHE IS DISLOYAL) no longer cuts the mustard.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 11:54 PM

Yeah, but the funny things was the documents were all they could complain about. The FACTS that the documents reported were apparently true. So the SwiftBoaters nailed Rather on document provenance.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 11:23 PM

Dan Rather got fired for pursuing that story with dubious photo records and documents.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 02:47 PM

LOL...yep, he was hard to find! I expect the same column would have been checked if they had done a brain scan on him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 10:51 PM

And another cute lil piece of paper from his lubricious timeline. The marks in the left hand column are labeled "Not observed". Hard to grade the man when he isn't around to be graded, I suppose.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 10:29 PM

Why, right here, Amos...

(actually, I found it in a roundabout way...*grin*..while doing an image search on "Pumkin head")

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 06:32 PM

Holy Moly, Bill, where'd you find that little gem??!! Just goes to show ya his history of self-serving du-plicity goes back quite a stretch.


It would seem some local commander felt he should be required to declare his intentions, honorable or dishonorable. Unless that is a form they ALL sign, I wonder what prompted such a suspicious management action on the commander's part. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 05:33 PM

A sense of purpose

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 04:40 PM

Thank God that the Petraeus report has fianlly explained why we need to delay any withdrawl from Iraq for 10 years.


I trust him as much as I trusted Colin Powell.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 12:20 PM

Heartbroken Bush Runs After Departing Rove's Car -- a touching description of the loss of one's beloved master/father-figure/nanny/brain.

Brings tears to my eyes to read it, honest...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 11:59 AM

From the Washington Post:


The Senate's Ethics Sleight of Hand

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, September 10, 2007; Page A15

The final version of the widely celebrated ethics bill, approved by overwhelming margins in both the House and Senate a month ago, finally and quietly made its way last week from Capitol Hill to the White House. It surely will soon be signed into law by President Bush. What only a handful of leaders and insiders realize is that this measure, avowedly dedicated to transparency, actually makes it easier for the Senate to pass pet projects without the public -- or many senators -- being aware of it.

Until now, one or two senators could block provisions not passed by the Senate or House from being inserted, usually at the end of a session, into the final version of a bill. Under the new rule, it will take 40 senators to block any such provisions that are protected by the majority or even the bipartisan leadership. That will make it much easier to enact any number of special-interest measures, the goal of all too many members of Congress.

This momentous change could not have slipped by without bipartisan Senate leadership connivance, but it was unknown to rank-and-file senators -- much less the general public. Deception is the watchword on Capitol Hill. Indeed, outsiders do not realize that the ethics bill was held for a month after final passage before going to the president's desk. It was delayed to prevent Bush from exercising a "pocket veto": not signing the bill during the August recess to eliminate any opportunity for a congressional override.

On Aug. 2, reform Republican Sen. Tom Coburn called the just-passed ethics bill "a landmark betrayal, not a landmark accomplishment. Congress had a historic opportunity to expose secretive pork-barrel spending but instead created new ways to hide that spending." As for the act's highly publicized restrictions on lobbyists, Coburn asserted that "the problem in Washington is not the lobbyists" but "members of Congress." He voted no as the bill passed the Senate, 83 to 14, on Aug. 2 (it had been approved in the House two days earlier, 411 to 8).

Coburn objected to the bill taking new policing of pork-barrel earmarks away from the Senate's nonpartisan parliamentarian and giving it to the majority leader. "That makes the quarterback the referee," he said.

But not even Coburn's detailed analysis of the bill's treatment of earmarks mentioned the audacious change to Senate Rule 28, which covers inclusion in a Senate-House conference report of "extraneous matter" that neither chamber has passed. For years, at the end of a session, party leaders have solicited senators for dozens of pet projects to insert into conference reports. However, it took 67 votes in the 100-member Senate to suspend the rules and enact such provisions. In practice, if a party leader learned of serious opposition by one or two senators in his caucus, he would remove a provision because the dissenters could derail the entire conference report.

But the ethics bill's revision of Rule 28 removes that safeguard. Under the change, any senator could propose that points of order on the conference report be waived for all extraneous provisions, with a mere one-hour debate permitted for the lot of them. That could mean the addition to a bill of 40 or more provisions that never really will be debated. The floodgates will be open.

Multiple earmarks will now be added to conference reports with only 60 votes after just this one hour of debate. As Coburn has complained, the final version of the ethics bill permits the newly required identification of earmarks and posting on the Internet to be waived by the majority or minority leader. The leaders can also waive the new requirement that conference reports be posted on the Internet no less than 48 hours before the Senate vote. So much for transparency.

With recourse to a pocket veto denied him, George W. Bush ought to be in a quandary. Should he consider the option of vetoing the pride and joy of the Democratic Congress and be accused, however unfairly, of pandering to lobbyists? He could at least avoid the signing ceremony for a pork-prone ethics bill and maybe even let it become law without his signature.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 07 - 09:35 AM

The Bush administration reached a deplorable, preordained verdict yesterday when it denied New York State permission to expand a valuable health insurance program to help cover middle-class children. The administration, which makes no effort to disguise its disdain for government insurance programs, imposed new, excessively stringent requirements last month that not only guaranteed New York's denial but will make it nearly impossible for any state to expand coverage.

The denial shows the White House at its most ideological and intransigent. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of children in New York — and many more nationally — will end up paying the price.

New York wanted to raise its income threshold for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or S-chip, from the current $51,000 for a family of four to more than $82,000. There is room to debate whether that level — four times the poverty level — is too high, but the administration is not basing its rejection on those grounds. Federal officials say they have no authority to reject a state's plan based on income eligibility alone.

That is apparently why the administration cooked up new requirements that allow it to block middle-class coverage on other grounds. This is a distressing change for a program that had previously given states great leeway to devise coverage to fit their own circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 12:08 PM

IRAQ -- BUSH KNEW BEFORE INVASION THAT SADDAM HAD NO WMD: Two former CIA officers have confirmed to Salon that President Bush was told in Sept. 2002 that Saddam Hussein did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. According to the officer, CIA director George Tenet provided Bush with top-secret information that "detailed that Saddam may have wished to have a program, that his engineers had told him they could build a nuclear weapon within two years if they had fissible material, which they didn't, and that they had no chemical or biological weapons." Bush reportedly dismissed the warning immediately. According to one of the officers, "Bush didn't give a f*ck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up." Tenet never brought up the information again; in fact, only a few months later he infamously referred to the case that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction as a "slam dunk." The intelligence about the lack of weapons of mass destruction was never provided to Congress before their vote to authorize military operations in March 2003, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair depended on this faulty information to make his decision to support the Iraq war. "Blair was duped," said one of the CIA officers. "He was shown the altered report." Even though Bush finally publicly admitted in 2004 that "Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," he continued to believe that they were. In his new book on Bush, Robert Draper writes that the President repeated conviction that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction "to Andy Card all the way up until Card's departure in April 2006."

JUSTICE -- SEN. WHITEHOUSE SEEKS TO RESTRICT EXCESS WHITE HOUSE INTERFERENCE IN DOJ INVESTIGATIONS: In April, during testimony by outgoing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) revealed that during the Bush administration, the number of White House officials allowed to intervene in pending criminal investigations by the Justice department increased by 10,325 percent, from four to 417. In a subsequent hearing in July, Whitehouse also revealed that Gonzales had given Vice President Cheney's office increased access. Whitehouse is now seeking to limit "the number of people in the White House who can be briefed by Justice on pending criminal matters." His bill, which is co-sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), "states that only certain 'covered officers' in both the Justice Department and White House may discuss ongoing criminal or civil investigations carried out by the Justice Department. The bill also requires the Attorney General and President to notify the Senate and House Judiciary Committees when new covered officers are designated." The Senate Judiciary Committee will discuss the bill in a business meeting today.

IRAQ -- UPSET OVER GAO'S FINDINGS ON IRAQ, CONSERVATIVES ATTACK AGENCY'S QUALIFICATIONS: Now that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported little to no progress in Iraq and the administration may be cooking the books on levels of violence, conservatives are desperately trying to attack the agency's credibility. Yesterday at a House International Relations Committee hearing, ranking member Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) complained, "I just feel uncomfortable listening to a report by the Government Accountability Office about a war effort." GAO Comptroller General David Walker explained the work his agency does is based on "looking at hard data, interviewing qualified individuals, and appropriate parties have an opportunity to review and comment on our work," he said. "It's my understanding that Secretary of Defense Gates does not have any military experience either." Ros-Lehtinen has had no problem citing the work of the GAO in a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff or enlisting the GAO's resources to pursue her agenda. Similarly, Brookings Institution analyst Michael O'Hanlon, a staunch war supporter, attacked the GAO's work as "flat-out sloppy." It's only when the right wing doesn't like the agency's conclusions that it finds fault with the work of the office.


(Excerpted from a mailing from the Center for American Progress.)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 07 - 11:27 AM

Paul Krugman looks back on the tragic responses to Katrina:


"....Today, much of the Gulf Coast remains in ruins. Less than half the federal money set aside for rebuilding, as opposed to emergency relief, has actually been spent, in part because the Bush administration refused to waive the requirement that local governments put up matching funds for recovery projects — an impossible burden for communities whose tax bases have literally been washed away.

On the other hand, generous investment tax breaks, supposedly designed to spur recovery in the disaster area, have been used to build luxury condominiums near the University of Alabama's football stadium in Tuscaloosa, 200 miles inland.

But why should we be surprised by any of this? The Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina — the mixture of neglect of those in need, obliviousness to their plight, and self-congratulation in the face of abject failure — has become standard operating procedure. These days, it's Katrina all the time.

Consider the White House reaction to new Census data on income, poverty and health insurance. By any normal standard, this week's report was a devastating indictment of the administration's policies. After all, last year the administration insisted that the economy was booming — and whined that it wasn't getting enough credit. What the data show, however, is that 2006, while a good year for the wealthy, brought only a slight decline in the poverty rate and a modest rise in median income, with most Americans still considerably worse off than they were before President Bush took office.

Most disturbing of all, the number of Americans without health insurance jumped. At this point, there are 47 million uninsured people in this country, 8.5 million more than there were in 2000. Mr. Bush may think that being uninsured is no big deal — "you just go to an emergency room" — but the reality is that if you're uninsured every illness is a catastrophe, your own private Katrina.

Yet the White House press release on the report declared that President Bush was "pleased" with the new numbers. Heckuva job, economy!

Mr. Bush's only concession that something might be amiss was to say that "challenges remain in reducing the number of uninsured Americans" — a statement reminiscent of Emperor Hirohito's famous admission, in his surrender broadcast, that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." And Mr. Bush's solution — more tax cuts, of course — has about as much relevance to the real needs of the uninsured as subsidies for luxury condos in Tuscaloosa have to the needs of New Orleans's Ninth Ward.

The question is whether any of this will change when Mr. Bush leaves office.

There's a powerful political faction in this country that's determined to draw exactly the wrong lesson from the Katrina debacle — namely, that the government always fails when it attempts to help people in need, so it shouldn't even try. "I don't want the people who ran the Katrina cleanup to manage our health care system," says Mitt Romney, as if the Bush administration's practice of appointing incompetent cronies to key positions and refusing to hold them accountable no matter how badly they perform — did I mention that Mr. Chertoff still has his job? — were the way government always works.

..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 07 - 11:04 AM

One of the key metrics by which George the Fake is judged is his hobby horse war in Iraq.

An interesting cmparison of core metrics of the operation is provided here by the Nww York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/09/03/opinion/20070904_IRAQ_GRAPHIC.html. It accompanies this article on the state of Iraq.

It provides hard numbers (a small subset of the many that coudl be gathered) in support of charges of incompetence, not to mention unnecessary deaths of thousands, as a direct result of the Bush administrations policies.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 07 - 06:59 PM

Brent Scowcraft, writing in today's NY Times:

...he United States was not previously a homeland, it was just our land, and that unhappy neologism with its Orwellian echoes, its sense of exclusion rather than inclusion, its faint fatherland-like echoes, seems to capture the closing and the menace and the terror-terror refrain with which we have all learned to live.

That refrain, for Americans, but not only them, has a pursed-lipped face called Bush-Cheney, and the braggadocio-smirk of the bring-it-on duo has come to form yet another shorthand for a certain grimness, one as relentless as the U.S. national debt clock.

For many around the world, sympathy has turned to alienation over six years, and that's something else Americans have had to learn to live with, the feeling that we owe an explanation of the inexplicable, a step-by-step guide of how we got from there to here, an accounting of who we really are and, you know, it's not us doing the fingerprinting and we still like rock 'n' roll.

You can't talk about the Belgian idea, or even the Indian idea, but the American idea is inseparable from this country's global resonance, and it's in the tarnishing of that idea — the partial replacement of a liberating notion by a threatening one — that a sea change has occurred.

As Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to the first President Bush, put it to me: "Historically, the world has always given us the benefit of the doubt because it believed we meant well. It no longer does."

He added: "It is easy to lose trust, but it takes a lot of work to gain it. Can the sense of confidence in us be restored? Sure. But not easily."

The American idea, in other words, is dimmed, but endures. On a clear day and holiday weekend, that now lopsided prow of Manhattan still stirs something noble, a sense of "the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" who stepped ashore and made their can-do American way.

Last year, 702,663 people became citizens; there are 877,039 naturalization cases pending. Countries are still divided into those people want to leave and those people want to get into. That division is also a measure of where oppression reigns and freedom resides.

I gazed past the Statue of Liberty to the tip of Manhattan the other day with my 89-year-old uncle, Bert, who first saw the city in 1947, two years after the end of a war in which, as a young South African officer, he had fought his way with the Allied army up through Italy. The Queen Mary had brought him, six to a cabin, from the English port of Southampton to New York.

"You know, when I got to London from Johannesburg, I thought it was the middle of the world," he said. "But I can't tell you what it felt like to step into the canyons of New York. I had this overwhelming feeling of promise and of being at the center of the New World, the coming world."

It is this sense of promise that the United States must restore to provide the leadership without which the big issues facing the world do not get resolved. Sometimes I imagine that a piece of the terrible white confetti of 9/11 has blown all the way around the globe to arrive, like a message in a bottle, and that I open it and read: "September is not the cruelest month."..."




A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 10:59 AM

"THE Sun, a feisty tabloid, once ran a headline asking sarcastically whether the last person to leave Britain would turn out the lights. A similar taunt could be made about the White House. One by one, the president's men are leaving: Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and now Alberto Gonzales, the hapless attorney-general. The Democrats scent more expulsions, more Bushies yearning to spend time with their families. The Republicans talk of witch hunts. The image of George Bush tottering around an empty building—empty, that is, except for mad old Uncle Dick in the cellar—is hard to resist.

Hard to resist, but also sad. This presidency still has nearly 17 more months to run. With Iraq, Iran, a global credit crunch and so much more to deal with, the world needs an engaged White House, not one peopled only by ghosts and newly hired defence lawyers. Both Mr Bush and the ruling Democrats in Congress would be wise to find a way out of this mess.

None of this is to mourn the departure of Mr Gonzales. As with Mr Rumsfeld, the tragedy lay not in his ouster, but in the length of time Mr Bush put up with an incompetent crony. At least the former defence secretary hid his uselessness under an impressive, pugnacious veneer. By contrast, Mr Gonzales was simply not up to the job—something that became depressingly obvious during the recent hearings called to discover whether he had sacked nine federal prosecutors for political reasons. Worse, his main qualification—a friendship with the president that went back to Texas—was an especially unhealthy one for the Justice Department.
..."

The Economist, London

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 10:32 AM

... A new report from Congress's investigative arm provides a powerful fresh dose of nonpartisan realism about Iraq as President Bush tries to spin people into thinking that significant — or at least sufficient — progress is being made. With a crucial debate on Iraq set for next month, the report should be read by members of Congress who may be wavering in the fight with the White House over withdrawing American troops.

The Government Accountability Office, in a draft assessment reported yesterday, determined that Iraq has failed to meet 15 out of 18 benchmarks for political and military progress mandated by Congress. Laws on constitutional reform, oil and permitting former Baathists back into the government have not been enacted. Among other failings, there has been unsatisfactory progress toward deploying three Iraqi brigades in Baghdad and reducing the level of sectarian violence.

These conclusions are in line with a recent National Intelligence Estimate that found that violence in Iraq remained high, terrorists could still mount formidable attacks and the country's leaders "remain unable to govern effectively."

Mr. Bush earlier this year ordered a massive buildup of American troops in Iraq in a desperate attempt to salvage his failed strategy and stave off Congressional moves to bring the forces home. Despite the cost of more American lives, he argued that he was buying a period of relative calm for Iraqi politicians to achieve national reconciliation.

The top American officials in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, are to present their assessments on how calm things are at eagerly awaited Congressional hearings in mid-September. Their findings, and a White House report due Sept. 15, are seen as a potential trigger for a change in Iraq strategy.

Two things, however, are already clear. Iraq's leaders have neither the intention nor the ability to take advantage of calm, relative or otherwise. And a change in strategy seems the farthest thing from Mr. Bush's mind.

...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 12:30 PM

"... When Bill Clinton was president, Mr. Tenet sent forbidding intelligence that accurately predicted the terrorist attacks to come. He apparently didn't worry too much about being seen as an alarmist.

During the Bush administration, reflecting changed priorities, the terrorism alerts faded into the background. Nor was the terrorism czar, Richard Clarke, any more successful when he tried to get Condoleezza Rice's attention. When he personally briefed George W. Bush before leaving the White House, Mr. Clinton told him that Osama bin Laden was one of the biggest threats facing the country.

Again, no one got Mr. Bush's attention, and the country paid dearly for the bureaucratic confusion and ineptitude at the top.

...Malvern, Pa., Aug. 23, 2007"

Letter to the NY Times.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 01:20 PM

An interesting study on the parallels between Bush's approach to Middle East diplomacy and that of Napoleon Bonaparte in the 18th century, entitled Bush's Napoleonic Folly, is wortth a read, even if only to refresh familiarity with history. The parallels are interesting, as well. And I don't need to mention that the verdict of history on Bonaparte was that he was a dyspeptic psycho.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 09:48 AM

LEtters on the President's defense of Gonzalez, the Attorney General who acted like a non-attorney and without any air of generalship...

"The shame of the Bush administration is that it allows cronyism and loyalty to trump integrity and competence in many of its appointments in an effort to infest all federal departments with its misguided ideology.

That the president's politics will change over the remaining 18 months of his administration as a result of the resignations of Karl Rove and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is probably too much to hope for.

Congress should not view these resignations as substitutes for accountability and should continue to pursue all legitimate charges. Patricia A. Weller

Westminster, Md., Aug. 28, 2007

•

To the Editor:

President Bush's assertion that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has been treated unfairly is wonderfully ironic. No attorney general has been more unfair to the American people and to the Constitution of this great country.

The only unfairness here is that it is highly unlikely that Mr. Gonzales will be prosecuted for subverting the Constitution and for committing human rights abuses as part of his advocacy of and support for torture at home and abroad.


Watertown, Mass., Aug. 28, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Albert R. Gonzales seemed to be a paradox: an attorney general who emphasized the limitation and restriction rather than the protection of human rights and freedoms.

It is to be hoped that the next attorney general our country has will support people's rights and freedoms rather than deny them.

Isn't that the way America is supposed to be, and what makes it so great?

Huntington Beach, Calif., Aug. 28, 2007

•

To the Editor:

That Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's "good name was dragged through the mud," as President Bush suggests, is more a result of the company he chose to keep than any amorphous political reasons.

Mr. Gonzales simply hung out with the wrong crowd and, influenced by its members, tarnished his own, perhaps once fine, name.

It's too bad our Constitution has been tarnished along with it.


Bloomington, Ind. Aug. 28, 2007"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:00 AM

from the Washington Post:

Congress's Ill-Timed Iran Bills

By Danielle Pletka
Tuesday, August 28, 2007; Page A13

This month, the Bush administration tightened the screws on Iran yet again. Its move to formally designate Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization is the latest in a wave of state, federal and international efforts to pressure the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into reconsidering its nuclear weapons program and increasingly aggressive sponsorship of terrorism throughout the Middle East.

Five bills are pending in Congress that would encourage divestment and eliminate loopholes in the Iran Sanctions Act, among other things. At the state level, bills are pending in at least 13 legislatures to compel state pension funds to divest from companies and financial institutions doing business with Iran; in Florida and Louisiana, such measures have become law. More broadly, the U.N. Security Council will consider a third resolution in September responding to Iran's failure to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

There is growing recognition that Iran's nuclear activities must be stopped, and the voluntary divestment movement is gaining ground. Yet this moment of harmonious convergence -- possible only because of the gravity of the threat from Iran -- may come to an abrupt end if Congress has its way.

Most of the bills pending in the House and Senate would, if passed, tighten the provisions of the Iran Sanctions Act (formerly known as the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act) and strip the president of authority to waive U.S. sanctions on a variety of firms, many in Europe. Currently, the act allows the president to waive sanctions on firms that invest more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector or to choose from a menu of sanctions, ranging from a slap on the wrist to major penalties.

Soon after the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act became law in 1996, the Clinton administration made clear to European governments that it had no intention of implementing its provisions. European leaders, uniformly insistent that engagement with Iran was the most effective means of moderating Iranian misbehavior, roundly rejected efforts to punish Tehran's business partners. The Clinton administration, and later the Bush administration, looked away as tens of billions of dollars flowed into Iran's energy sector. European investment in Iran skyrocketed with no pressure from London, Paris or Berlin on nuclear or terrorism issues. And with Iran earning upwards of 85 percent of its foreign currency from the sale of petroleum and related products, it was possible to draw a direct line from that investment to the funds available to the regime for nuclear weapons, missiles and funding for terrorist groups.

Congress acquiesced in this executive disregard for more than a decade. Yet, just as lawmakers have gotten riled about enforcing the law, European nations are beginning to grasp the importance of curtailing their economic ties with Tehran. Since early last year, France, Germany and Britain, among other European Union nations, have cut back export credits -- essentially taxpayer subsidies -- to companies doing business in Iran. Germany's export credit agency, Hermes, has reportedly cut guarantees 30 percent and aims to cut a further 10 percent this year. Deutsche Bank last month announced that it is ceasing to do business with Iran. Two major British banks, HSBC and Standard Chartered, have cut back significantly. The French Embassy touts hundreds of millions in French divestment from Iran in recent years.

On principle, many European foreign and finance ministries continue to resent American hectoring on trade with Iran. A senior German Foreign Ministry official recently characterized Treasury Department lobbying against business with Iran as "outrageous." Such protestations notwithstanding, word has quietly spread from Paris, London and Berlin that banks and companies now do business with Iran at their own risk.

Japan, once Iran's top trading partner, has also begun to cool its once warm relations, though not to the same extent as the Europeans. But it is a model when compared with China and Russia, which have raced to do business where the West has pulled back. Indeed, China and Russia have been facilitators not just for Iran's energy sector but also for its missile and nuclear programs.

As Congress watches the international community crawl toward a consensus, slapping down European firms that irresponsibly continue to underwrite Iran's energy sector will be tempting. To be sure, Europe could do much more. But the European Union has come a great distance since the 1990s, and with each month, Europeans are doing more to withdraw support from the Iranian economy.

A more appropriate focus of congressional action would be Russian arms and nuclear sales to Iran and growing Chinese investment in Iran's energy sector. Closing loopholes that permit U.S. firms to do business with Tehran through subsidiaries would also show admirable consistency.

For many years, a key element of Iranian strategy has been to divide Europe from the United States, leaving America with only unilateral options. It would be a cruel irony if, just as European governments finally begin doing the right thing, Congress deepens the Atlantic rift.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 09:38 AM

"You underline our government's cult-of-personality solution to every crisis. Those directing our misguided adventure in nation-building in Iraq believed that Ahmad Chalabi, an exiled secular Shiite, would automatically solve all Iraq's sectarian problems. They supported similar solutions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with eroding results.

What is even more unnerving is to see the current Republican presidential candidates presenting themselves in the same bogus heroic guise.

It is hoped that voters will avoid our foreign policy mistakes and this time around will pick a substantive candidate. Our democracy does not need another quasi Napoleon. "

(Emphasis added. From the Letters department, Ibid,.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 09:34 AM

On the recent Administration stonewall over children's health care reductions it initiated:

"Acting during a Congressional recess, and making a distinct effort to stay beneath the radar of the news media, the administration enacted insidious new rules that make it much harder for states to bring additional children under the umbrella of the program, known colloquially as CHIP.

The program is popular because it works. It's cost effective and there is wide bipartisan support for its expansion. But President Bush, locked in an ideological straitjacket, is adamant in his opposition.

In addition to the new rules drastically curtailing the ability of governors to expand local coverage by obtaining waivers from the federal government, the president has threatened a veto of Congressional efforts to fund a more robust version of the overall program.

"It's stunning," said New York's Gov. Eliot Spitzer. "He says he's going to veto health care for kids because it's too expensive at the same time that these continuing resolutions for the war, where we don't even know what the cost is, are going through unabated. This is insanity.

"Everybody agrees this is the right thing to do except the Bush administration."

---

From the NY Times, 8-28-07

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 02:36 PM

President Bush Signs Landmark Bill Investing in Science

President Bush has signed into law the America COMPETES Act, the landmark innovation and competitiveness legislation that outlines investing in basic research and promoting math and science programs to keep the U.S. globally competitive.

At a press conference held at the White House on Aug. 9. he praised Congress for working in a bipartisan fashion to get the bill passed and added that the legislation reflected priorities he outlined in his American Competitiveness Initiative.

---

While this is nice news, I cannot but think it is superficial and self-serving on his part, and intellectually hypocritical. Bush has one of the worst records vis-a-vis science of any President the country has had, not to mention other areas on incompetence such as diplomacy, foreign policy, strategy, life-sciences, etc., etc.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 11:41 AM

A top-flight Patent Attorney remarks on the impact of Bush's political favors game on the United States Patent field:

"..more troubling in this whole scenario is Mr. Dudas himself. He is a young attorney who is not a patent lawyer. He should never have been nominated by President Bush. Mr. Dudas was, at the time of this nomination (and today), totally unqualified for the position of Director of the USPTO. Nevertheless, the Senate ratified his nomination, apparently preferring to fight other Presidential nominees, such as those nominated to serve as federal judges.

Mr. Dudas has instituted a number of ill-conceived policies at the USPTO, equally destructive in nature, and wholly without proper understanding of how industry functions, patent prosecution works, and the role of patents in fueling R & D and the economy. In short, he has wreaked havoc in the USPTO and has failed at the most fundamental level to manage the USPTO by ensuring that an adequate number of patent examiners are hired, properly trained and properly supervised.

What the public ended up with during Mr. Dudas' term as Director is a largely dysfunctional USPTO, continually made worse by bad policies - many probably illegal - and with a clear failure to understand the consequences of his actions.

Anybody can see that if the new rules survive the present Tafas v. Dudas lawsuit, there will be an explosion of appeals, crippling the USPTO's ability to decide patentability on the merits and delaying the grant of a huge number patents many, many years into the future. The new rules will also result in a drastic reduction in applications, and as a consequence, inevitably result in the need for the USPTO to dramatically raise fees on the remaining patent applications and patents since Congress requires the USPTO to be self-supporting from user fees.

As a political appointee of fairly high rank (Under Secretary of Commerce), it is likely that Mr. Dudas will be gone when a new administration takes over in January, 2009, regardless of whether that administration is Democrat or Republican.

At that time, hopefully the new President will nominate one of literally hundreds of qualified patent attorneys to the post of Director of the USPTO. Almost any in-house patent counsel from a Fortune 500 company is far more qualified than Mr. Dudas, and I cannot imagine any of them doing more harm to the US patent system than Mr. Dudas has caused in a very short number of years."

Yet another aspect of ignorance made official in the interest of a low-0caliber ole boy network.


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