BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 09 - 11:19 PM

"That's pretty senseless taken out of context and trimmed to a minimum,"

'spose you put it context mr. word wizard.

And while you are at it tell us if Bush has caused America's oil supply to be cut off.

I keep asking but you don't seem to be willing to do your own legwork.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 06:12 PM

The Bush Legacy Propaganda


President Bush repeatedly argues that neither he nor his contemporaries are yet able to fully assess his legacy. Rather, he and his advisers say -- again and again and again -- that "history will judge" whether he was an effective president. Despite this oft-repeated claim, the President seems disinclined to leave any of his legacy to chance. In recent weeks, he and his advisers have offered assessments of the Bush era that are increasingly at odds with reality. Condoleezza Rice, for example, argued that Bush engaged the United Nations more than any other president. And just yesterday, Bush told a crowd that Donald Rumsfeld did an "outstanding job" as Secretary of Defense. In a similar vein, the White House recently released a report entitled, "Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the Administration of George W. Bush" that featured a list of "100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record." As Frank Rich wrote for the New York Times, "This document is the literary correlative to 'Mission Accomplished.'" As Rich notes, much of the legacy report's claims about the Bush administration's economic, social, and international accomplishments are only true under very narrow conditions, suggesting that the President hopes that Americans would blind themselves to the broader failures of his presidency.

TOLL ON ECONOMY: The Bush legacy document declares that Bush "instituted pro-growth policies" that produced "six years of uninterrupted economic growth and an unprecedented 52 consecutive months of job creation" and asks, "Did you know the President's tax relief helped fuel growth that led to the largest three year increase in revenues in 26 years?" In reality, the President's "pro-growth policies" served to weaken the economy by nearly doubling the federal debt, championing deregulation on Wall Street, and increasing the income gap. While Bush claims that his tax cuts provided needed economic stimulus and pulled the economy out of recession in 2001, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman explained simply, "None of this is true." A recent Los Angeles Times poll found that 75 percent of Americans feel that Bush economic policies were responsible for the current weakened state of the U.S. economy. Further, Americans see the error of Bush's reckless economic deregulation, with 62 percent calling for more aggressive regulation on Wall Street. Bush, however, has not learned his lesson. Yesterday, he told the conservative publication Human Events, "I will continue to argue for low taxes, less regulation."

TOLL ON SOCIETY: In his legacy document, Bush claims credit for promoting a "culture of life" by banning the use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research and instituting regulations allowing health care professionals to refuse to participate in medical procedures that violate their personal beliefs. His ban on federal funding for stem cell research "set research back five to six to seven years in this country," delaying potential treatments for a number of degenerative and life threatening diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Similarly, the President's regulatory change allowing health care providers to abstain from procedures they deem unethical allows virtually anyone in the health care sector -- including janitors, receptionists, and volunteers -- to refuse to assist patients with obtaining birth control, abortion, fertility treatments, sterilization, or even referrals to those who would provide such services. As family health insurance premiums nearly doubled, employers became less likely to offer coverage, and the total number of Americans without health insurance grew by 7 million individuals, Bush failed to meaningfully address the nation's health care crisis. In fact, he vetoed expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, denying 10 million low-income childrenaccess to health care. Thankfully, in failing to pass his unpopular Social Security privatization plan, the Bush presidency was not as damaging as it could have been. Had he been successful in the drive, retirees would have suffered massive losses as a result of the current financial crisis that he had a hand in creating.

TOLL ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: The legacy document also tells a story of how Bush "kept America safe and promoted liberty abroad." But this ignores the obvious fact that the attacks of 9/11 happened on his watch, not to mention the roughly 4,000 troops who have died in his wars. Further, while the President claims credit for expanding and strengthening the nation's counterterrorism tools, the U.S. military is weaker now than it was five years ago, the State Department is suffering from staffing shortages and low morale, and Bush's approval of illegal interrogation techniques harmed the CIA's intelligence-gathering initiatives and threatened troops abroad. The President's cowboy diplomacy and his disastrous invasion of Iraq led to unprecedented levels of U.S. unpopularity around the world. But Bush remains untroubled, saying recently, "I think I'll be remembered as a guy who was dealt some pretty tough issues and I dealt with them head-on and I didn't try to shy away."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 05:48 PM

That's pretty senseless taken out of context and trimmed to a minimum, Sawz.

But I don't have time to do your legwork for ya. At least learn to make a link to your sources.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 05:17 PM

Time Magazine Jan 2 2009:

Gilberto Coker OBREGON, MEXICO:

Once he takes office, what's the first thing Barack Obama should do regarding foreign policy?

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

I hope the next Administration will continue what the Bush Administration has been doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 09 - 11:40 AM

"Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course. But barring some huge missteps by Mr. Obama, that will not happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. And when they do, they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real "real America," a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy."

Paul Krugman, NYT

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 09 - 11:25 AM

"...Exit, Stonewalling


Published: January 3, 2009 (NYT)

True to its mania for secrecy, the Bush administration is leaving behind vast gaps in the most sensitive White House e-mail records, and with lawyers and public interest groups in hot pursuit of information that deserves to be part of the permanent historical record.

E-mail messages that have gone suspiciously missing are estimated to number in the millions. These could illuminate some of the administration's darker moments, including the lead-up to the Iraq war, when intelligence was distorted, the destruction of videotapes of C.I.A. torture interrogations, and the vindictive outing of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

The deep-sixed history also includes improper business conducted by more than 50 White House appointees via e-mail at the Republican Party headquarters. Historians and archivists are suing the administration. We should be grateful for their efforts. Entire days of e-mail records have turned up conveniently blank at the offices of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Cheney, of course, retreats from sunshine with the wariness of Alucard; he is fighting to the last the transfer of his records to the National Archives, as required by law. He recently argued in court that he "alone may determine what constitutes vice presidential records or personal records." As in: L'etat c'est Dick.

Modern administrations from Ronald Reagan's to Bill Clinton's typically tried to evade at least some disclosure obligations under the public archives law. But the Bush team, from day one, has flouted the requirement to preserve a truthful record, ignoring repeated warnings from the National Archives. In government agencies, the public's freedom-of-information rights have been maliciously hobbled.

The National Archives is further burdened by the steady and inevitable growth in digital records — a mass 50 times larger than that left eight years ago by the Clinton administration. It will take years to ingest before historians can truly get a handle on what is missing.

History is truly the poorer for the Bush administration. President-elect Barack Obama must quickly undo the damage by ordering that records be shielded from political interference, by repairing the freedom-of-information process, and by ending the abuse of the classification process to cloak the truths of the presidency."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 09 - 11:14 AM

"...But the brazenness of Bush's alternative-reality history is itself revelatory. The audacity of its hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage. So do his many print and television exit interviews.

The man who emerges is a narcissist with no self-awareness whatsoever. It's that arrogance that allowed him to tune out even the most calamitous of realities, freeing him to compound them without missing a step. The president who famously couldn't name a single mistake of his presidency at a press conference in 2004 still can't.

He can, however, blame everyone else. Asked (by Charles Gibson) if he feels any responsibility for the economic meltdown, Bush says, "People will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived." Asked if the 2008 election was a repudiation of his administration, he says "it was a repudiation of Republicans."


Forgotten but not Gone (New York Times)
"The attacks of September the 11th came out of nowhere," he said in another interview, as if he hadn't ignored frantic intelligence warnings that summer of a Qaeda attack. But it was an "intelligence failure," not his relentless invocation of patently fictitious "mushroom clouds," that sped us into Iraq. Did he take too long to change course in Iraq? "What seems like an eternity today," he says, "may seem like a moment tomorrow." Try telling that to the families of the thousands killed and maimed during that multiyear "moment" as Bush stubbornly stayed his disastrous course.

The crowning personality tic revealed by Bush's final propaganda push is his bottomless capacity for self-pity. "I was a wartime president, and war is very exhausting," he told C-Span. "The president ends up carrying a lot of people's grief in his soul," he told Gibson. And so when he visits military hospitals, "it's always been a healing experience," he told The Wall Street Journal. But, incredibly enough, it's his own healing he is concerned about, not that of the grievously wounded men and women he sent to war on false pretenses. It's "the comforter in chief" who "gets comforted," he explained, by "the character of the American people." The American people are surely relieved to hear it.

With this level of self-regard, it's no wonder that Bush could remain undeterred as he drove the country off a cliff. The smugness is reinforced not just by his history as the entitled scion of one of America's aristocratic dynasties but also by his conviction that his every action is blessed from on high. Asked last month by an interviewer what he has learned from his time in office, he replied: "I've learned that God is good. All the time."

Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 01:57 PM

He's down here in Crawford, TX, if you want a physical location. "Where he's at" in a metaphysical sense is more complex. "In deep shit" would be nice, but I doubt it will happen. :)

I haven't read this thread much, though I am reassured that it is here for occasionally dipping into, or venting.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 12:17 PM

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?




You don't hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We're still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don't think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he's done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool's gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

Exploiting the public's understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to nuke us: "We cannot wait," he said, "for the final proof — the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. (A car bomb over the weekend killed two dozen more Iraqis, many of them religious pilgrims.) The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.

A year into the war Mr. Bush was cracking jokes about it at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association. He displayed a series of photos that showed him searching the Oval Office, peering behind curtains and looking under the furniture. A mock caption had Mr. Bush saying: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."

And then there's the Bush economy, another disaster, a trapdoor through which middle-class Americans can plunge toward the bracing experiences normally reserved for the poor and the destitute.

Mr. Bush traveled the country in the early days of his presidency, promoting his tax cut plans as hugely beneficial to small-business people and families of modest means. This was more deceit. The tax cuts would go overwhelmingly to the very rich.

The president would give the wealthy and the powerful virtually everything they wanted. He would throw sand into the regulatory apparatus and help foster the most extreme income disparities since the years leading up to the Great Depression. Once again he was lighting a fire. This time the flames would engulf the economy and, as with Iraq, bring catastrophe.

If the U.S. were a product line, it would be seen now as deeply damaged goods, subject to recall.

There seemed to be no end to Mr. Bush's talent for destruction. He tried to hand the piggy bank known as Social Security over to the marauders of the financial sector, but saner heads prevailed.

In New Orleans, the president failed to intervene swiftly and decisively to aid the tens of thousands of poor people who were very publicly suffering and, in many cases, dying. He then compounded this colossal failure of leadership by traveling to New Orleans and promising, in a dramatic, floodlit appearance, to spare no effort in rebuilding the flood-torn region and the wrecked lives of the victims.

He went further, vowing to confront the issue of poverty in America "with bold action."

It was all nonsense, of course. He did nothing of the kind.

The catalog of his transgressions against the nation's interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don't hold your breath. He's hardly the contrite sort. ... (Bob Herbert, NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 09:35 AM

the way I see it...

When it comes to any prosecution of high crimes and misdemeaners of the people in the Bush administration including George himself, we will find that what can be done and what will be done are polar opposites.

What can be done within the law could shine a light on the greater good and punish our own evil doers. What will be done however, will be done behind closed doors by a commission that will expereince every delay known to goverment until every statute of limitations have past.

The sad outcome will allow very illegal act that goes unprosecuted to become a legal precedent to do it all again.

For Obama to encourage any prosecution of rich Republican Banking families, the Government officals they "hire", the mobs of criminal financial wizards and the think tanks who are their conciallari would invite certain murder.

Obama faces the same circumstances as Ceasar Augustus aka Octavian.
The wealthy Republicans of Rome were highly concerned that a populist Ceasar like Augustus, who claimed he was a man of the people, would threaten their wealth and ill gotten gains. Rome had been divided by real and virtual civil wars between the Republicans and the people. Augustus had to walk a middle road for Rome and himself to survive. So will Obama.

Augustus survived by posing a a very humble man who would not touch the Republican wealth. Augustus slowly cemented power over decades and avoided assasination until he died at 72.

DH

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 09:27 AM

"I don't have any idea."
-- Dick Cheney, on why he has such low approval ratings

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 07:27 AM

"...When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don't think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he's done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool's gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

Exploiting the public's understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to nuke us: "We cannot wait," he said, "for the final proof — the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. (A car bomb over the weekend killed two dozen more Iraqis, many of them religious pilgrims.) The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.

A year into the war Mr. Bush was cracking jokes about it at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association. He displayed a series of photos that showed him searching the Oval Office, peering behind curtains and looking under the furniture. A mock caption had Mr. Bush saying: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."

And then there's the Bush economy, another disaster, a trapdoor through which middle-class Americans can plunge toward the bracing experiences normally reserved for the poor and the destitute.

Mr. Bush traveled the country in the early days of his presidency, promoting his tax cut plans as hugely beneficial to small-business people and families of modest means. This was more deceit. The tax cuts would go overwhelmingly to the very rich.

The president would give the wealthy and the powerful virtually everything they wanted. He would throw sand into the regulatory apparatus and help foster the most extreme income disparities since the years leading up to the Great Depression. Once again he was lighting a fire. This time the flames would engulf the economy and, as with Iraq, bring catastrophe.

If the U.S. were a product line, it would be seen now as deeply damaged goods, subject to recall.

There seemed to be no end to Mr. Bush's talent for destruction. He tried to hand the piggy bank known as Social Security over to the marauders of the financial sector, but saner heads prevailed.

In New Orleans, the president failed to intervene swiftly and decisively to aid the tens of thousands of poor people who were very publicly suffering and, in many cases, dying. He then compounded this colossal failure of leadership by traveling to New Orleans and promising, in a dramatic, floodlit appearance, to spare no effort in rebuilding the flood-torn region and the wrecked lives of the victims.

He went further, vowing to confront the issue of poverty in America "with bold action."

It was all nonsense, of course. He did nothing of the kind.

The catalog of his transgressions against the nation's interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don't hold your breath. He's hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC's Charlie Gibson: "I don't spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don't worry about long-term history, either, since I'm not going to be around to read it."

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.
"

NYTs 12-30-08

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 02:48 PM

Sawz:

Yer gonna have to do better than three and a half years in the past.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 08:42 AM

Rice: People will soon thank Bush for what he's done


Story Highlights
Condoleezza Rice says Bush's policies will "stand the test of time"

Rice says she's not bothered by criticism; says she's "here to make tough choices"

Secretary of state says historians criticizing Bush "aren't very good historians"

Rice says she plans to write a book about foreign policy



   
(CNN) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that despite President Bush's low approval ratings, people will soon "start to thank this president for what he's done."


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says "there is no greater honor than to serve this country,"

"So we can sit here and talk about the long record, but what I would say to you is that this president has faced tougher circumstances than perhaps at any time since the end of World War II, and he has delivered policies that are going to stand the test of time," Rice said in an interview that aired on CBS' "Sunday Morning."

The secretary of state brushed off reports that suggest the United States' image is suffering abroad. She praised the administration's ability to change the conversation in the Middle East.

"This isn't a popularity contest. I'm sorry, it isn't. What the administration is responsible to do is to make good choices about Americans' interests and values in the long run -- not for today's headlines, but for history's judgment," she said.

"And I am quite certain that when the final chapters are written and it's clear that Saddam Hussein's Iraq is gone in favor of an Iraq that is favorable to the future of the Middle East; when the history is written of a U.S.-China relationship that is better than it's ever been; an India relationship that is deeper and better than it's ever been; a relationship with Brazil and other countries of the left of Latin America, better than it's ever been ...

"When one looks at what we've been able to do in terms of changing the conversation in the Middle East about democracy and values, this administration will be judged well, and I'll wait for history's judgment and not today's headlines."

Asked by CBS' Rita Braver why some former diplomats say Americans are disliked around the world, Rice said that's "just not true."
"I know what U.S. policy has achieved. And so I don't know what diplomats you're talking to, but look at the record," she said.

Rice said she wasn't bothered by criticism about her or the administration's polices, saying if a person in her business is not being criticized, "you're not doing something right."

"I'm here to make tough choices, and this president is here to make tough choices, and we have. And yes, I -- there are some things that I would do very differently if I had it to do over again. You don't have that luxury. You have to make the choices and take the positions that you do at the time," she said.

Asked about historians who say Bush is one of the worst presidents, Rice said those "aren't very good historians."

"If you're making historical judgments before an administration is already out -- even out of office, and if you're trying to make historical judgments when the nature of the Middle East is still to be determined, and when one cannot yet judge the effects of decisions that this President has taken on what the Middle East will become -- I mean, for goodness' sakes, good historians are still writing books about George Washington. Good historians are certainly still writing books about Harry Truman," she said.

Rice, 54, said she has enjoyed working in the Bush administration during the last eight years, first as national security adviser, then as secretary of state.

"There is no greater honor than to serve this country," she said, adding that there is also no greater challenge.

Rice said when the new administration takes over, she plans to return to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and write two books -- one on foreign policy and one about her parents.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 03:00 PM

September 15, 2005

To ABC's Surprise, Katrina Victims Praise Bush and Blame Nagin

ABC News producers probably didn't hear what they expected when they sent Dean Reynolds to the Houston Astrodome's parking lot to get reaction to President Bush's speech from black evacuees from New Orleans. Instead of denouncing Bush and blaming him for their plight, they praised Bush and blamed local officials. Reynolds asked Connie London: "Did you harbor any anger toward the President because of the slow federal response?" She rejected the premise: "No, none whatsoever, because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in." She pointed out: "They had RTA buses, Greyhound buses, school buses, that was just sitting there going under water when they could have been evacuating people."

Not one of the six people interviewed on camera had a bad word for Bush -- despite Reynolds' best efforts. Reynolds goaded: "Was there anything that you found hard to believe that he said, that you thought, well, that's nice rhetoric, but, you know, the proof is in the pudding?" Brenda Marshall answered, "No, I didn't," prompting Reynolds to marvel to anchor Ted Koppel: "Very little skepticism here."

Reynolds pressed another woman: "Did you feel that the President was sincere tonight?" She affirmed: "Yes, he was." Reynolds soon wondered who they held culpable for the levee breaks. Unlike the national media, London did not blame supposed Bush-mandated budget cuts: "They've been allocated federal funds to fix the levee system, and it never got done. I fault the mayor of our city personally. I really do."

Immediately after Bush finished his speech from Jackson Square in New Orleans, at about 8:26pm local CDT, Ted Koppel, anchor of ABC's hour-long coverage, went to Dean Reynolds who was outside in a parking lot with a group of black people from New Orleans who are living at the Reliant Center next to the Astrodome.

(No names were provided on-screen for those interviewed, so I only have first names for two, and no name for one, of the six.)

    Reynolds elicited reaction from the group sitting in chairs: "I'd like to get the reaction of Connie London who spent several horrible hours at the Superdome. You heard the President say retpeaedly that you are not alone, that the country stands beside you. Do you believe him?"

    Connie London: "Yeah, I believe him, because here in Texas, they have truly been good to us. I mean-"

    Reynolds: "Did you get a sense of hope that you could return to your home one day in New Orleans?"

    London: "Yes, I did. I did."

    Reynolds: "Did you harbor any anger toward the President because of the slow federal response?"

    London: "No, none whatsoever, because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in. They should have been on their jobs."

    http://newsbusters.org/node/1201

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 02:12 AM

Obama:

"I salute President Bush for his leadership in crafting a plan for AIDS relief in Africa and backing it up with funding dedicated to saving lives and preventing the spread of the disease and my administration will continue this critical work to address the crisis around the world."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 02:07 AM

By the use of strikes Labor Unions have bullied US industry into contracts that are no longer viable.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 01:22 PM

"...The contempt for workers over this long period has hardly been hidden. Until Mr. Bush was forced by circumstances to tap the TARP program for the auto industry loans (small potatoes compared with the gargantuan Wall Street bailouts), the administration had gone out of its way to keep the program's hundreds of billions of dollars reserved for the elites of the financial services industry and their associates.

These elites, of course, were the geniuses who ruined the most powerful economy on earth. When Citigroup went into yet another swoon last month, the rush to rescue it was breathtaking. Posses don't come more elegant: the outgoing treasury secretary, Hank Paulson; the incoming treasury secretary (and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), Timothy Geithner; and a former treasury secretary (not to mention Citigroup board member), Robert Rubin.

They materialized magnificently, armed with hundreds of billions in taxpayer bailout cash.

Leo Gerard, president of the steelworkers union, summed up the government's attitude nicely when he said: "Washington will bail out those who shower before work, but not those who shower afterwards."

Working people have been treated like enemies, a class to be preyed upon. Labor unions were ferociously attacked. Jobs were shipped overseas by the millions. People were hired as temps or consultants so benefits could be denied.

All of this may finally be changing. It remains to be seen how strong a voice Ms. Solis will have in the Obama administration, but she is pro-worker to her core, a politician who actually knows what it's like to walk a picket line.

And there have been other promising developments. More than 200 laid-off workers staged a successful six-day sit-in at a factory in Chicago this month, demanding and eventually getting severance pay and benefits that they were owed by law.

A more substantial victory occurred in Tar Heel, N.C., last week when workers, after a brutal 15-year struggle, succeeded in organizing the notorious Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse, the largest hog-killing and processing plant in the world.

These are shaky steps in the overall scheme of things, to be sure. But at long last, they are steps in the right direction.." (Herbert, NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 12:53 PM

"Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods."
-- George W. Bush

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 10:38 PM

Obama praises Bush for auto action

CHICAGO, Dec. 19 (UPI)

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama praised President George Bush's decision Friday to provide a bridge loan package to two ailing U.S. automakers.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 08 - 04:36 PM

Why we must prosecute Bush and his administration for war crimes

By Mike Ferner
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Dec 16, 2008, 00:20

" During the rush to get the Nuremberg Tribunals underway, the Soviet delegation wanted the tribunal's historic decisions to have legitimacy only for the Nazis. U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, serving as the chief prosecutor for the Allies, strong-armed the Soviets until the very beginning of the tribunal before changing their mind.

In his opening statement Jackson very purposely stipulated, " . . . Let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment."

Can there be a better reason for prosecuting George W. Bush and his administration for war crimes than those words from the chief prosecutor of the Nazis, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, with the full support of the U.S. government? Robert Jackson's words and the values this nation claims to stand for provide sufficient moral basis for putting Bush and Cheney, their underlings who implemented their policies and the perverted legal minds who justified them all in the dock. If those are not sufficient reasons, there is a long list of binding law and treaties -- written in black and white in surprisingly plain English.

Bush imagined, and his attorneys advised, that he could simply wave aside these laws with "they don't apply." Imagine how a judge would treat even a simple traffic court defendant who brazenly stated the law was only a quaint notion, just "words on paper?"

Masses of people and an embarrassingly small number of their elected representatives in this country read the law for themselves and demanded otherwise, only to be silenced by the Guardians of Reality in the corporate news media.

But it's all there, where it has been for 220 years, the Constitution's "supremacy clause," Article II, section 4, and in the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18USC §2441). They provide the authority to make additional treaties legally binding -- no matter how much former White House lawyers David Addington and John Yoo may object.

Those additional treaties include among others, the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg rulings, the Laws and Customs of War on Land and UN General Assembly Resolution 3314. To give just a snapshot of how serious these laws are, consider this portion of 18 USC 2441 which defines a war crime as " . . . a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party . . ." The guilty can be " . . . fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death."

Here, Justice Jackson answers another question about war crimes -- who bears the greater responsibility: those who committed barbaric acts in the field or those who created the conditions for barbarism?

The case as presented by the United States will be concerned with the brains and authority back of all the crimes. These defendants were men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood. They were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders without whose evil architecture the world would not have been for so long scourged with the violence and lawlessness, and wracked with the agonies and convulsions, of this terrible war.

And yet it is not just because Bush violated the Constitution and federal law that he and his lieutenants must be prosecuted.

At Nuremberg, the foremost crime identified was starting a "war of aggression," later codified by U.N. Resolution 3314, Art. 5, as "a crime against international peace." Launching a war of aggression, as Hitler did against Poland, is considered so monstrous that the nation responsible can then be charged with "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity," spelled out in detail in the Geneva Conventions. As Tom Paine said long before the U.N. formalized the definition of aggression, "He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of Hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."

A small sampling of the contagion of Hell let loose by Bush includes illegally invading a sovereign state, using banned weapons such as white phosphorous and napalm, bombing hospitals and civilian infrastructure, withholding aid and medical supplies, terrorizing and knowingly killing civilians, torturing prisoners, killing a million people and displacing 4 million more in Iraq alone.

Following World War II, humanity resolved that wars do more than spark a series of loathsome, individual crimes. Leaders responsible for a war actually commit crimes against the entirety of humanity. They inflict harm on every human being, something that must be put right before humanity can be restored.

There is a final reason why we must prosecute Bush and Co. It is not what some argue, although they point to a serious danger: that Bush trashed the law and usurped powers, encouraging future presidents to expand where he left off. Such reasons are about George W. Bush and those who hold the office after him, but in the final analysis this is about us.

We are complicit in the horrors of this administration. We can claim neither ignorance nor innocence. We are complicit by the very fact that we are citizens of the United States, more so because we paid for the war, and even more so for this reason. Listen to a village sheik I met in Iraq describe it better than I ever could.

I met this man in a small farming village one afternoon in early 2004. He described how he and a dozen others were swept up in a raid by the U.S. Army and detained on a bare patch of ground surrounded by concertina wire. They had no shelter and but six blankets. They dug a hole with their hands for a toilet. They had to beg for water until one time it rained for three days straight and they remained on that open ground. He somehow found the graciousness to say he understood there was a difference between the American people and our government. Then through his tears he added, "But you say you live in a democracy. How can this be happening to us?"

Do we? Whether or not we bring our own government officials to justice for their crimes will determine the answer".

Ferner is a writer from Ohio and author of "Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq."


(Online Journal)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 08 - 07:33 PM

When given the opportunity to be "naughty or nice" this holiday season, Bush has clearly opted to go down as one of the naughtiest, most sinister presidents in our nation's history. We've created a satirical spin on the famous poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, in order to show President Bush crafting his last-minute agenda for health care, the environment, civil liberties, and labor practices -- rules that will affect everyone and will be difficult for the next administration to overturn. We are using humor here in the hopes that it both commands people's attention and enables us to shine a light on these all-too-serious midnight regulations.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B4y5sZKdI4

After you've enjoyed this video, send it to friends and family and don't forget to digg it. Let them know the harm President Bush's midnight regulations will bring. And stress the fact that there are far too many Congressional representatives who have remained silent while Bush pushes midnight regulations that will wreak havoc on the lives of their constituents and local communities. We must call the tacit approval of these representatives into question.

Keep in mind that it's not just voters in blue states who will be affected -- these midnight regulations will hurt people in the states and districts of Bush's enablers in Congress. And remember that these last-minute policies are the outcome of Congressional Republicans' loyal support for the Bush agenda over the past eight years. We should hold them accountable for the huge lump of coal Bush is handing over to the nation this Christmas.

Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Films team

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 03:36 PM

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush ducked two shoes thrown at him by an unidentified man during a press conference in the Iraqi prime minister's office to mark the signing of a security agreement.

Bush wasn't hit by the shoes, which both sailed over his head after they were thrown one after the other. The president shrugged and said "I'm OK" after the incident in Baghdad today. "All I can report is it is a size 10," Bush said afterwards.

In Arab culture, throwing shoes is a grave show of disrespect. The man shouted an Arabic phrase, which an Iraqi present translated as "this is a farewell kiss, dog."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 10:45 AM

< ahref=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/11/21/BL2008112101582.html>Another Falsehood Exposed WaPo


When and if the curtain is fully pulled back on President Bush's "war on terror," how much of what he said will turn out to be true, and how much of it will turn out to be fantasy and lies?

The more we learn, the more it seems the appeals to fear that Bush used to rally the nation behind him were unfounded.

The latest example came yesterday in a federal courtroom in Washington, where a Bush-appointed judge ordered the release of five Algerian men who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for almost seven years.



The president showcased the men in his seminal, bellicose 2002 State of the Union speech as part of a litany of alleged threats -- some averted, some not -- facing the nation. "Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy," Bush said at the time.

But once detainees were given the right to challenge their detention, the government dropped the embassy allegation.

This was presumably because there was even less evidence to support it than the remaining charges -- which the judge yesterday disclosed consisted of one unsubstantiated allegation by an unnamed source of undetermined credibility.

The Coverage

William Glaberson writes in the New York Times: "A federal judge issued the Bush administration a sharp setback on Thursday, ruling that five Algerian men have been held unlawfully at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for nearly seven years and ordering their release.

"It was the first hearing on the government's evidence for holding detainees at Guantánamo. The judge, Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington, said the government's secret evidence in the case had been weak: what he described as 'a classified document from an unnamed source' for its central claim against the men, with little way to measure credibility.

"'To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court's obligation,' Judge Leon said."

The men were "among a group of Guantánamo inmates who won a 5-to-4 Supreme Court ruling in June that the detainees had a constitutional right to seek their release in federal court. The decision said a 2006 law unconstitutionally stripped them of their right to contest their imprisonment in habeas corpus lawsuits. . . .

"Robert C. Kirsch, one of the six detainees' lawyers from the law firm Wilmer Hale, said the case showed 'the human cost of what can happen when mistakes are made at the highest levels of our government, and no one has the courage to acknowledge those mistakes.' . . .

"'The decision by Judge Leon lays bare the scandalous basis on which Guantánamo has been based -- slim evidence of dubious quality,' said Zachary Katznelson, legal director at Reprieve, a British legal group that represents detainees."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 09:24 PM

President Bush's 'Coalition of the Willing'
— or Orwell Comes to Iraq
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Bush administration has long since lost its ability to shock. But it is still worth noting how attentively it seems to be doctoring the history of its tenure in office and the calamitous war in Iraq.

Our colleague, Thom Shanker, reported this week how administration officials have altered the record of allies who joined the United States in its "coalition of the willing."

Although American forces always made up the overwhelming number of troops in Iraq, it was strongly in the administration's interest to make the list of troop-contributing nations as long as possible. The more countries with boots on the ground, the more it seemed President Bush's adventurism in Iraq was embraced by the rest of the world.

The White House has changed the roster of troop-contributing countries featured on three official lists on its website. There were 45 coalition members on the eve of the Iraq invasion. But revisions to critical documents made it seem as if there were 49, according to researchers from the Cline Center for Democracy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The researchers give the administration the benefit of the doubt saying the changes may have been made "by design or neglect."

We're not inclined to be so charitable knowing how diligently Mr. Bush and his team has fought to keep information secret from the American people and to favorably spin their own successes and failures.

It's notable that what the Bush administration appears to have doctored is not something about the war right now, but rather about how many nations backed the United States when the war began.

George Orwell would not have been surprised by this sort of revisionism. It was, after all, Orwell, who observed: "He who controls the past controls the future."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 06:18 PM

Clearly he has always been out of his depth in the job, and left to fall back on wallowing, equivocation, or dramatization of one or another ill-conceived fixed idea.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 05:48 PM

I phrased that wrong. The popular view of the Bush Administation is actually seeing it fade away in the rear view mirror, as we leave it behind in the dust.

And "decency" and "Bush" in the same sentence?   A severe disconnect.

Anybody who started an unnecessary war by choice--with all the death, destruction and waste of resources that has resulted-- and now wants us to be happy with the situation-- is the perfect Nowhere Man--just sees what he wants to see.

And it looks like the Iraqis are not in fact happy with the situation either:
WSJ: 11 Nov 2008: "Iraq said US changes to a security pact aren't enough to win Parliament's approval".

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 04:37 PM

I resonate with your desire not to be gotten started on that particular subject!!! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 03:12 PM

Don't get me started...

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 02:43 PM

Caro:

OK!! Enough darn pussyfooting around. How do your eally feel about him???



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 02:16 PM

I'm sorry, but calling Bush a success for what has happened in Iraq is like calling someone who starts a fire in an apartment building a success if he is able to put most of the fire out when there's still a little bit if the building still standing, and some of the residents haven't been killed.

Medicare Part D is a boondogle that benefits the pharmaceutical industry more than it does seniors, and No Child Left Behind has been an unmitigated disaster. The reason fewer students are failing under that program is because the number of students dropping out has increased. And Bush withdrew badly needed funding for any African clinics that give any information about abortion to their clients.

Bush has no decency whatever. He has destroyed Iraq, and he has come very close to destroying the United States for one thing and one thing only - the enrichment of his cronies and the war profiteers, and to consolidate and strengthen his hold on power.

Bush doesn't deserve credit. He deserves to be in jail as a war criminal.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 11:49 AM

From my last post it appears the Decency posting was a bit premature.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 11:29 AM

The Most Popular View of the Bush Administration:   no mystery:   it's the rear view of the Bush administration as it fades away, never to be seen again.

Hope that's not too subtle for Bush supporters to grasp.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 10:31 PM

Bush Rolls Back Regulations


Having promised to "sprint to the finish" of his second term and "to remain focused on the goals ahead," President Bush is "working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules" aimed at protecting workers, consumers and the environment, the Washington Post reports. "The administration wants to leave a legacy," said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, "but across the board it means less protection for the public." Indeed, the Bush administration is implementing over 90 new regulations which "would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo." The wide array of new regulations includes proposals to undercut outpatient Medicaid services, weaken the Endangered Species Act, and allow increased emissions from older power plants. In some instances, the administration has allowed federal agencies to circumvent public feedback methods by limiting the period for public comment, "not allowing e-mailed or faxed comments or scheduling public hearings." Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama, meanwhile, "have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies." The kind of regulations they are looking at are those imposed by Bush for "overtly political" reasons, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget. 

CUTTING BACK MEDICAID: On Friday, the very same day that the Department of Labor announced that the U.S. unemployment rate is at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, Bush "narrowed the scope of services that can be provided to poor people under Medicaid's outpatient hospital benefit." The new regulation arrives at a time when states are considering limiting Medicaid eligibility and Americans are losing their jobs -- and by extension, employer health benefits. According to the Kaiser Foundation, a 1 percent increase in unemployment results in 1 million more people enrolling in Medicaid and the State's Children's Health Insurance Program, and another 1.1 million more people becoming uninsured. Public hospitals and state officials immediately protested Bush's proposed action, saying it would "reduce Medicaid payments to many hospitals at a time of growing need," the New York Times reports. Ann Clemency Kohler, the executive director of the National Association of State Medicaid Directors, said that "the new rule is a pretty sweeping change from longtime Medicaid policy. Since the beginning of the program, states have been allowed to define hospital outpatient services. We have to question why the rule is being issued now, three days after the election, with a new administration coming in."

GUTTING ENDANGERED SPECIES: In what would be the biggest change to Endangered Species Act since 1998, the Bush administration wants to allow federal agencies "to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants." Currently, federal agencies are required to consult with an independent agency -- the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service -- to determine whether a project would harm an endangered species. As Sharon Guynup of the Baltimore Sun points out, "[T]aking wildlife experts out of the equation eliminates the checks and balances that have kept the [Chesapeake] bay's bald eagles, shortnose sturgeon, Delmarva fox squirrels, piping plovers and other rare creatures from disappearing" and would only encourage agencies to "revert to pre-Endangered Species Act tactics of cutting big projects into a series of small ones that fall under the radar." The draft rules also would also "bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats," the AP reports. 

INCREASING POLLUTION: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working on regulations that would allow increased emissions from older power plants while also rolling back existing air quality regulations for national parks and wilderness areas. While "the Clean Air Act requires older plants that have their lives extended with new equipment to install pollution-control technology if their emissions increase," Bush's proposed rule would "allow plants to measure emissions on an hourly basis, rather than their total yearly output. This way, plants could run for more hours and increase overall emissions without exceeding the threshold that would require additional pollution controls," McClatchy reports. The industry-friendly rule -- which the administration tried to implement in 2003, before it "was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in July"-- is now being opposed by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and Robert Meyers, the assistant administrator in charge of air issues. According to McClatchy, "the EPA official said that concerns in the agency were that the analysis justifying the rule change was weak and the administration didn't plan to make the analysis public for a comment period, as is customary." Three computer models, released by the EPA, have also shown that the proposed rule "would increase carbon dioxide emissions by 74 million tons annually," "roughly equivalent to the total annual CO2 emissions of about 14 average coal-fired power plants."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 08 - 09:13 PM

It's nice to see a counterpoint in competent prose that is not manifestly antagonistic or manipulative.

Thanks, Bruce.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Nov 08 - 04:46 PM

The Decency of George W. Bush

By Michael Gerson
Friday, November 7, 2008; Page A19

Election Day 2008 must have been filled with rueful paradoxes for the sitting president. Iraq -- the issue that dominated George W. Bush's presidency for 5 1/2 bitter, controversial years -- is on the verge of a miraculous peace. And yet this accomplishment did little to revive Bush's political standing -- or to prevent his party from relegating him to a silent role.

The achievement is historic. In 2006, Iraq had descended into a sectarian killing spree that seemed likely to stop only when the supply of victims was exhausted. Showing Truman-like stubbornness, Bush pushed to escalate a war that most Americans -- and some at the Pentagon -- had already mentally abandoned.

The result? A Sunni tribal revolt against their al-Qaeda oppressors, an effective campaign against Shiite militias in Baghdad and Basra, and the flight of jihadists from Iraq to less deadly battlefields. In a more stable atmosphere, Iraq's politicians have made dramatic political progress. Iraqi military and police forces have grown in size and effectiveness and now fully control 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces. And in the month before Election Day, American combat deaths matched the lowest monthly total of the entire war.

For years, critics of the Iraq war asked the mocking question: "What would victory look like?" If progress continues, it might look something like what we've seen.

But Air Force One -- normally seen swooping into battleground states for rallies during presidential elections -- was mainly parked during this campaign. President Bush appeared with John McCain in public a total of three times -- and appeared in McCain's rhetoric as a foil far more often than that.

This seems to be Bush's current fate: Even success brings no praise. And the reasons probably concern Iraq. The absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in the aftermath of the war was a massive blow. The early conduct of the Iraq occupation was terribly ineffective. Hopes that the war had turned a corner -- repeatedly raised by Iraqis voting with purple fingers and approving a constitution -- were dashed too many times, until many Americans became unwilling to believe anymore.

Initial failures in Iraq acted like a solar eclipse, blocking the light on every other achievement. But those achievements, with the eclipse finally passing, are considerable by the measure of any presidency. Because of the passage of Medicare Part D, nearly 10 million low-income seniors are receiving prescription drugs at little or no cost. No Child Left Behind education reform has helped raise the average reading scores of fourth-graders to their highest level in 15 years and narrowed the achievement gap between white and African American children. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has helped provide treatment for more than 1.7 million people and compassionate care for at least 2.7 million orphans and vulnerable children. And the decision to pursue the surge in Iraq will be studied as a model of presidential leadership.

These achievements, it is true, have limited constituencies to praise them. Many conservatives view Medicare, education reform and foreign assistance as heresies. Many liberals refuse to concede Bush's humanity, much less his achievements.

But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a deeper decency -- a decency that is privately engaging and publicly consequential.

Before the Group of Eight summit in 2005, the White House senior staff overwhelmingly opposed a new initiative to fight malaria in Africa for reasons of cost and ideology -- a measure designed to save hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly of children under 5. In the crucial policy meeting, one person supported it: the president of the United States, shutting off debate with a moral certitude that others have criticized. I saw how this moral framework led him to an immediate identification with the dying African child, the Chinese dissident, the Sudanese former slave, the Burmese women's advocate. It is one reason I will never be cynical about government -- or about President Bush.

For some, this image of Bush is so detached from their own conception that it must be rejected. That is, perhaps, understandable. But it means little to me. Because I have seen the decency of George W. Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 08 - 02:38 AM

HEy, cool off a bit, there, Sawz--you'll set your thesaurus on fire.....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Nov 08 - 02:35 AM

The highest number of electoral votes (525) went to Ronald Reagan during his reelection in 1984

That was inarguably an intergalactic tectonic hee haw mojo mondo snedgerific trifurcated multi talented subterraneanation of the cootie laden bilge filth encrusted garbage scow piloting bungalow hopping insect rejected untermensch that had the audacity, the unmitigated gall and obstreperousness to embark on such a ubiquitous Quixotic non-denominational fwr reaching monodirectional excursion into eternal oblivion.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 03:12 PM

I will put this quote aside until after the election- and see if it still applies if Obama wins with 51-49 of the popular vote.




>>"There was always something dicey about stoking the fires of hyperpartisanship as a campaign and governing strategy, treating 51-49 victories as ideological mandates instead of an obligation to form broader and more durable coalitions. "

Let's see: Popular vote difference about 7.2 million.

Obama: 63,112,190
McCain: 55,867,094


Not sure when those figures were grabbed. OBama won 53% to 46%,

Now that N Carolina has been decided for Obama the Electoral tilt is a historic 379 to 163--an electoral and planetary landslide...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 01:21 PM

In celebration of the revitalization of the national spirit brought about as a result of the election on November 4, 2008, I am pleased to report I am removign this thread from my bookmarks, and relegating it to the sad dustbin of the scarring, bruised, malodorous years of the two W administrations. I am pleased to be able to look forward to a saner, more substantive, less treacherous period in American history.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 11:41 PM

Bush Job approval
RCP Average        10/30 - 11/02        27.8

Congress Job approval
RCP Average        10/23 - 11/02        17.3

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 05:05 PM

Very positive news, Sawz. For July of last year!! No, not last July. July of 2007.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 04:47 PM

The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that we will abandon them again. For many Iraqis, we have morphed from being invaders to occupiers to members of a tribe. I call it the "al Ameriki tribe," or "tribe America."

I've seen this kind of progression in Mosul, out in Anbar and other places, and when I ask our military leaders if they have sensed any shift, many have said, yes, they too sense that Iraqis view us differently. In the context of sectarian and tribal strife, we are the tribe that people can—more or less and with giant caveats-rely on.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/baqubah-update-05-july-2007.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 11:34 AM

Your efforts might better be spent getting your own party to face up to its past sins and reform.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 10:38 AM

I will put this quote aside until after the election- and see if it still applies if Obama wins with 51-49 of the popular vote.




"There was always something dicey about stoking the fires of hyperpartisanship as a campaign and governing strategy, treating 51-49 victories as ideological mandates instead of an obligation to form broader and more durable coalitions. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 09:54 AM

So Little Time, So Much Damage

While Americans eagerly vote for the next president, here's a sobering reminder: As of Tuesday, George W. Bush still has 77 days left in the White House — and he's not wasting a minute.

President Bush's aides have been scrambling to change rules and regulations on the environment, civil liberties and abortion rights, among others — few for the good. Most presidents put on a last-minute policy stamp, but in Mr. Bush's case it is more like a wrecking ball. We fear it could take months, or years, for the next president to identify and then undo all of the damage.

Here is a look — by no means comprehensive — at some of Mr. Bush's recent parting gifts and those we fear are yet to come.

CIVIL LIBERTIES We don't know all of the ways that the administration has violated Americans' rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed out new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use chillingly intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and lie about their identity while questioning a subject's neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends. The changes also give the F.B.I. — which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others — expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background.

The administration showed further disdain for Americans' privacy rights and for Congress's power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security. The law requires the department's privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans' privacy — and clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House.

The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law "does not prohibit" officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. George Orwell couldn't have done better.

THE ENVIRONMENT The administration has been especially busy weakening regulations that promote clean air and clean water and protect endangered species.

Mr. Bush, or more to the point, Vice President Dick Cheney, came to office determined to dismantle Bill Clinton's environmental legacy, undo decades of environmental law and keep their friends in industry happy. They have had less success than we feared, but only because of the determined opposition of environmental groups, courageous members of Congress and protests from citizens. But the White House keeps trying.

Mr. Bush's secretary of the interior, Dirk Kempthorne, has recently carved out significant exceptions to regulations requiring expert scientific review of any federal project that might harm endangered or threatened species (one consequence will be to relieve the agency of the need to assess the impact of global warming on at-risk species). The department also is rushing to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list — again. The wolves were re-listed after a federal judge ruled the government had not lived up to its own recovery plan.

In coming weeks, we expect the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a final rule that would weaken a program created by the Clean Air Act, which requires utilities to install modern pollution controls when they upgrade their plants to produce more power. The agency is also expected to issue a final rule that would make it easier for coal-fired power plants to locate near national parks in defiance of longstanding Congressional mandates to protect air quality in areas of special natural or recreational value.

Interior also is awaiting E.P.A.'s concurrence on a proposal that would make it easier for mining companies to dump toxic mine wastes in valleys and streams.

(Click on headline for full NYT article)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 08 - 10:22 AM

The repudiation of Karl Rove

By JOHN P. AVLON | 11/2/08 7:38 AM EST   

We don't know yet who will win or by what margin, but we know one thing for certain: This election represents the repudiation of Karl Rove and his play-to-the-base strategy.

There was always something dicey about stoking the fires of hyperpartisanship as a campaign and governing strategy, treating 51-49 victories as ideological mandates instead of an obligation to form broader and more durable coalitions.

Now we have the data to judge the results: a president who tried to unite his party at the expense of uniting the nation and failed to do both, repudiated by both candidates running to succeed him. Even John McCain admits to visitors at his Web site homepage, "the last eight years haven't worked very well, have they?"

It's an unprecedented condemnation of the president's politics as well as the effectiveness of his governance.

(Click on title for full text)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 08 - 12:35 PM

Harry Shearer (the voice of many Simpsons characters and a veteran of Saturday Night Live and Leave it to Beaver) has produced a charming DVD called SOngs of the Bushmen, including such all time great tunes as:

1. 935 Lies
2. Smooth Moves
3. Wolf On the Run
4. The Head of Alberto Gonzalez
5. Karen
6. Gym Buds
7. Who Is Yoo?
8. Carrot Soup
9. T**d Blossom Special
10. No Cooler for the Scooter
11. Stuff Happens

The lyrics to all the songs can be found here.

For example, the Karl Rove ditty:

HE CALLED ME THE ARCHITECT,
THEY CALLED ME BUSH'S BRAIN
TWO TIMES WE WENT CAMPAIGNING, TWO TIMES WE DRANK CHAMPAGNE.
I HELPED TO BUILD HIS LEGEND, HE HELPED TO BUILD MY MYTH,
WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY FAMILY; JUST NEED to find A FAMILY TO SPEND IT WITH....

oh, the turd blossom special is taking me home.
never more to roam.
till I got a book that i have to promote.
or a special campaign to help black people vote.
I'm free as a bird
won't be deterred...
I'm on the turd blossom special,
til I can buy me a boat...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 10:01 AM

"President [George W.] Bush will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation's history." --Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee

[The government's decision to buy shares in the nation's leading banks] "is not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it." --President George W. Bush, October 14, 2008

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights. . . . We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused." --Jimmy Carter, former American president

"After [this] war [against Iraq] has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe." --Sen. Robert Byrd, (D-W.Va), March 19, 2003

Economically, the Bush-Cheney administration is leaving behind a big financial and economic mess. In fact, this is an administration that has brought misery upon America by its misguided economic policies that have built a mountain of shaky debt and rendered dysfunctional large segments of the American banking industry and large sectors of the U.S. economy, through inappropriate deregulation to enrich greedy special interest characters, wheeler-dealers, corporate con men, professional short-sellers and other scam artists and swindlers. In so doing, it has empowered rich parasitic speculators and turned the financial sector into a giant casino, thus risking the health of the entire economy.

Indeed, and to complete the picture, the Bush-Cheney administration has emptied the public treasury, debased the U.S. currency and fueled deflation, inflation and, in the end, produced stagflation and what can turn out to be a very serious recession.

This is understandable. Over the last eight years, the Bush-Cheney administration has adopted a laissez-faire policy based on a let-them-eat-cake ideology. It has pushed for economic deregulation throughout the government, beginning with the de-fanging of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It has pursued an aggressive policy of deregulation of the large global investment banks, which were basically left to self-regulate themselves and allowed to build up the largest mountain of flimsy backed debt instruments and risky financial derivative products ever seen in history. It did the same thing to other regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, worker safety and transportation agencies.

It is thus no accident that the Bush-Cheney administration has presided over one of the worst financial collapses and credit crises in U.S. history, by packing regulatory agencies with cronies whose mission it was to let rapacious speculators and market manipulators go wild. The result has been the creation of a casino-like speculative economy that is now crashing down before our very eyes.

Under Bush-Cheney, financial markets became manipulated by unscrupulous bankers and by rapacious hedge funds, as public regulation was reduced to a minimum. Millions of Americans lost their homes through foreclosure and many more saw their working and pension incomes eroded and destroyed by inflation and plant closings. And as what could be a protracted recession proceeds, many more will lose their jobs in the coming months, while some older employees may have to postpone their retirement because of the disappearance of their pension money...."

Complete article here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Oct 08 - 06:02 PM

Inducing terror in the name of Homeland Security, part `97653-A (1) [c] 11