BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 12:40 PM

In Albania:

I thank the president of Albania and his fellow Albinos for the warm reception I recieved yesterday. I got hundreds of hearty hand shakes in the crowd but now it seems I am missing my watch. Thats OK because we all know what time it is. ITs time to preempt every terrorist nation that threatens democracy around the world and let freedom reign.

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

Washington - Suspected Al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh al-Marri had been held for four years in military detention – with no indication from the US government when or how his imprisonment might end.

On the surface, his treatment seemed no different than any of the hundreds of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But Mr. Marri is confined in a military brig in the United States, not Cuba.

On Monday, that difference proved decisive in prompting a federal appeals court panel to reject what had been a sweeping argument by the Justice Department. Citing the recently enacted Military Commissions Act of 2006, government lawyers last fall said the law had stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear Marri's case.

As a noncitizen who had been designated an enemy combatant, Marri had no right to test the legality of his indefinite detention through the usual habeas corpus process even though he was in the US under a valid student visa at the time of his arrest.

Legal scholars had highlighted the dire implications of the government's position. "Such a statutory construction would create an unprecedented and unconstitutional distinction between the rights of citizens and non-citizens and would permit the government to effectively 'disappear' non-citizens into legal black holes," wrote New York lawyer Paul Smith in a friend-of-the-court brief filed on behalf of the Center for National Security Studies.

In its 86-page decision released on Monday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with that basic argument, rejecting the Bush administration's broad assertion that the courts had been stripped of jurisdiction. All three judges on the panel agreed that the Military Commissions Act did not undercut Marri's constitutional right to the protections of habeas corpus. As a person present on US soil he is entitled to such protection, the court said.

But the appeals court panel split, 2-to-1, on how other constitutional protections should apply to Marri. Judges Diana Gribbon Motz and Roger Gregory concluded that President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered Marri's indefinite detention as an enemy combatant. US District Judge Henry Hudson dissented to that portion of the ruling.

Specifically the majority judges said the president's actions were not authorized under Congress's 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force against Al Qaeda. In addition, they said the indefinite detention was not authorized under the president's inherent constitutional authority as commander in chief. ...
(Christian Science Monitor)

---

Unauthorized wrongful detention? Hmmmm.... could be a crime, no?


A

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

NY Times reports:

For years, President Bush has made the grandiose claim that the Congressional authorization to attack Afghanistan after 9/11 was a declaration of a "war on terror" that gave him the power to decide who the combatants are and throw them into military prisons forever.

Yesterday, in a powerful 2-to-1 decision, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit utterly rejected the president's claims. The majority made clear how threatening the administration's policies are to the Constitution and the rule of law — and how far the administration has already gone down that treacherous road.

Mr. Bush, the majority said, does not claim these powers for dire emergencies but "maintains that the authority to order the military to seize and detain certain civilians is an inherent power of the presidency, which he and his successors may exercise as they please."

The prisoner in this case, a citizen of Qatar named Ali al-Marri, was living in the United States legally when he was arrested and charged with being an Al Qaeda terrorist. In 2003, Mr. Bush declared Mr. Marri an enemy combatant, took him from civilian authorities and threw him into a military brig where he remains today without charges being filed.

The court did not say Mr. Marri was innocent, nor that he must be set free. It said that the law does not give Mr. Bush the power to seize a civilian living in the United States and declare him to be an enemy combatant based on whatever definition he chooses to apply. If Mr. Marri is to be kept in prison, it said, he must be tried and convicted in a civilian court.

The ruling said the Constitution and numerous precedents made it clear that foreigners living legally in this country have the same right to due process as any American citizen. It found no merit in the president's claim that the Congressional approval of the use of military force in Afghanistan gave him authority to change that or that he has "the inherent authority" to do it on his own. Sanctioning that kind of authority "would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and for the country," the judges said
...This ruling is another strong argument for bringing Mr. Bush's detention camps under the rule of law. Congress can do that by repealing the odious Military Commissions Act of 2006, which endorsed Mr. Bush's twisted system of indefinite detentions, by closing Guantánamo Bay and by allowing the courts to sort out the prisoners — not according to the whims of one president with an obvious disdain for the balance of powers but by the rules of justice that have guided this nation for more than 200 years.

---

Mebbe there's hope yet!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 12:31 PM

The Huffington Post reports:

"Gingrich Forecasts GOP Losses in 2008
BEN EVANS | June 8, 2007 11:17 PM EST |


WASHINGTON — Republican Newt Gingrich, in a jab at President Bush, warned on Friday that the GOP will lose the White House and Congress in 2008 if the nominee is perceived as a continuation of the Bush presidency.

Addressing a conservative organization, the former House Speaker never mentioned the president by name, but his political point was clear.

"If the Republicans run a stand-pat presidential candidate who ends up being on defense for all of September and October and who is seen by the country as representing four more years, the fact is that Republicans are not going to" win, Gingrich told the American Enterprise Institute.

Gingrich, a former Georgia congressman, is considering a White House run, with an announcement likely in the fall.

He has roundly criticized the Bush administration in recent interviews, describing the White House as dysfunctional and saying the president has driven the party into collapse. While he refrained from direct criticism Friday, he cited failures in Iraq, border security and the response to Hurricane Katrina as signs of a broken government.

His comments come just days after a Republican presidential debate in which GOP candidates criticized Bush over his handling of the Iraq war, his diplomatic style and his approach to immigration.

The biting words surprisingly have been uttered while the president is overseas attending an economic summit with other world leaders.

In the speech, Gingrich handicapped the current GOP field _ and the prospect of Fred Thompson joining the race.

He praised Rudy Giuliani's handling of crime as New York City mayor, saying that experience and his response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have propelled his candidacy. Gingrich contended that Giuliani's image on national security would offset his more liberal positions on social issues.

"In a world where a nuclear weapon could eliminate an American city in seconds, he has a very strong case," said Gingrich. "He has certainly done better so far than people would guess."

He said Sen. John McCain of Arizona has more to overcome, including explaining his positions on immigration and campaign finance regulation.

"If you were to handicap this race, he has the greatest challenge in a Republican primary," Gingrich said.

Thompson, the former Tennessee senator, is a "very formidable" candidate, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a "very serious person who is working very hard," Gingrich said.

Gingrich, who helped shut down government over spending fights with the Clinton administration in the 1990s, said Republicans must offer a more dramatic platform for remaking government that focuses on private-sector innovation.

In a glimpse of what his candidacy might look like, he said he would shut down public schools that aren't performing and offer a $20 billion reward for the first private company that successfully completes a Mars mission.

"Somebody would be there and back about 40 percent of the way into the NASA process," he said.
..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:29 AM

This is wonderful!! Finally, a place he will be welcome. Just wjat we were looking for.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:37 AM

Bush Receives Hero's Welcome in Albania

By JENNIFER LOVEN Monday, June 11, 2007 AP

TIRANA, Albania - President Bush, enthusiastically welcomed as the first U.S. president in this former communist nation, served notice Sunday he is running out of patience with Russia's objections to independence for neighboring Kosovo.
    "Sooner rather than later you've got to say `Enough's enough _ Kosovo is independent,'" Bush said, telling Albanians what they wanted to hear. He said independence was a certainty.
    Nearing the end of an eight-day trip, Bush got a hero's reception in this desperately poor country, still struggling to recover from being cut off from the rest of the world for four decades under the harsh rule of dictator Enver Hoxha. Hoxha died in 1985, and Albania emerged from isolation in 1990 but still is one of Europe's most impoverished lands.
    Cannons boomed salutes from mountains overlooking the capital. Huge banners proclaimed "Proud to be Partners," and billboards read "President Bush in Albania Making History."
    At home, Bush's job approval rating stands at its all-time low. But here, Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Bush was Albania's "greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times."
    Throngs of people grasped Bush's hands, arms and fingers on the streets of Fushe Kruje, a small town near the airport where he stopped to chat in a cafe with business owners. Unused to such adoring crowds in America, Bush reveled in the attention. He kissed women on the cheek, posed for pictures and signed autographs. Someone reached out and rubbed his gray hair.
    "Bushie, Bushie," people shouted. Some of the business people have received small loans under U.S. government programs.
    The scene was uncharacteristically wild for a presidential crowd. Bush spokesman Dana Perino said later that the Secret Service assured Bush's safety, as always. "If they didn't think the president was safe, obviously they wouldn't have put him in that position," she said.
    While the United States supports Albania's bid for membership in NATO, Bush said this country still has to make more political and military reforms and crack down on corruption and organized crime.
    "We are determined to take any decision, pass any law and undertake any reform to make Albania appropriate to receive the invitation" to join the western military alliance, Berisha said at a news conference with Bush.
    Albania has eagerly embraced democracy and idolizes the United States. Three stamps have been issued featuring Bush's picture and the Statue of Liberty, and the street in front of parliament has been renamed in his honor.
    The president spent just eight hours here and then flew to Bulgaria, another Cold War Soviet ally turned pro-American. The two stops gave an upbeat ending to Bush's six-country trip after big protests earlier in Rome and at the summit of industrialized nations in Heiligendamm, Germany.
    Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and NATO since 1999, when Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's forces were ousted after a NATO air war ended his crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of Kosovo's population.
    The U.N. Security Council has been divided over Kosovo's independence. The United States and key European countries support Kosovo's statehood while Russia, traditionally a Serbian ally, opposes it. Moscow says it would set a dangerous precedent for other breakaway regions.
    Bush said diplomats from the United States, Russia and European Union will try to find common ground on a formula for independence.
    "But if it's apparent that that's not going to happen in a relatively quick period of time, in my judgment, we need to put forward the (U.N.) resolution," Bush said. "Hence, deadline." He did not specify a date.
    Negotiations must result in "certain independence," Bush said. "That's what's important to know."
    Bush said the summit in Heiligendamm had tried to determine whether there was a way to make Kosovo independence acceptable to Russia. French President Nicolas Sarkozy unexpectedly called for a delay on the issue, and the summit failed to reach agreement.
    Bush urged Albania to help maintain peace and calm in Kosovo as the independence talks move forward.
    Predominantly Muslim, Albania has 140 troops in Afghanistan and about 120 troops in Iraq _ a presence that President Alfred Moisiu says will not end as long as the Americans are engaged there. Bush met here with some of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    "Albanians know the horror of tyranny," the president said. "And so they're working to bring the hope of freedom to people who haven't known it. And that's a noble effort and a sacrifice."
In saluting Albania's democracy, Bush praised it as a country that has "cast off the shackles of a very oppressive society and is now showing the world what's possible." During his visit, the president had lunch with the prime ministers of Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, which hope to join NATO.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 09:44 PM

Cheney lied about Bush spy program
June 7, 2007 - 6:10am.
Blocked promotion of official who disagreed

(From Capitol Hill Blue's website)

Vice President Dick Cheney (AFP Photo)

Vice President Dick Cheney lied about his involvement in developing President George W. Bush's controversial and illegal program to use the National Security Agency to spy on Americans.

New revelations show Cheney was hip deep in developing the policy, often overruling the objections of Justice Department officials and blocking the promotion of one official who disagreed with him on the warrantless wiretapping program.

The same disclosures also show Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied about his role in trying to get approval of the program from previous Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Writes Dan Eggen of The Washington Post:

Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.

Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas.

Comey said that Cheney's office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance.

The disclosures also provide further details about the role played by then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. He visited Ashcroft in his hospital room and wrote an internal memorandum on the surveillance program shortly afterward, according to Comey's responses. Gonzales is now the attorney general. He faces possible congressional votes of no-confidence because of his handling of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 09:32 PM

Paris Hilton is not a popular view of the Bush Administration. Every time the Bush Administration starts viewing her they have to go to confession overtime and they start making serious policy mistakes. In fact she is singlehandedly responsible for our rampant inflation, our bellicose foreign policy, our anti-scientific legal clangers, our bizarre and uneducated national contortions on Constitutional matters and a wide range of other sins of omission and commission that started shortly after Monica Lewinsky left the White House.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 01:42 PM

Yes, yes...but what about Paris Hilton? We must keep our minds on what really matters, don't you see?

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

ROME -- The CIA ran secret prisons in Poland and Romania to hold terror suspects from 2003 to 2005, including some now-notorious Al Qaeda operatives, according to a critical report released Friday by the Council of Europe.

The investigation, undertaken by Sen. Dick Marty of the council's assembly, states that the one-time Eastern Bloc countries were willing participants in a U.S.-directed war on terror and "knowingly complicit" in the practice known as rendition, in which suspects were snatched and held in foreign countries for interrogation.


Officials in Poland and Romania and at the CIA called the report's conclusions baseless.

The report, for the first time, cites unnamed CIA sources as providing the names of key terror suspects sent to Poland: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a leader in the 2001 attacks in the United States; Abu Zubaydah, a suspected senior Al Qaeda operative; and Ramzi Binalshibh, another Al Qaeda suspect.

Rendition remains one of the most controversial aspects of the Bush administration's attempt to quell terrorist attacks. President Bush acknowledged the secret detention program only in September 2006, and the administration has been silent and unresponsive to questions about where the prisons were.

The report by the Council of Europe, an influential, intergovernmental body focused on democracy and human rights, is an attempt to fill in the gaps.

It identifies a remote Polish intelligence service base at Stare Kjekuty as an important CIA interrogation center. The base is a few miles from a former military airfield in Szymany in northeastern Poland. From 2002 to 2005, at least 10 flights apparently operated by CIA rendition teams were received at the airfield, and six of those came directly from Kabul, Afghanistan, the report said.

In most cases, the flights were disguised so they could not be tracked by transnational air control, the report said.

According to airport personnel who spoke to the Tribune last year, the flights apparently dropped off prisoners who were then transported in vans to Stare Kjekuty. Marty's report Friday said that "local authorities were not supposed to be aware of the exact number or the identities of the prisoners who passed through the facilities -- this was information that they did not 'need to know.' "

Marty issued a preliminary report in 2006 that relied heavily on press accounts and laid out possible scenarios of cooperation. The new report offers more details, explanations from unnamed intelligence figures about the alleged operations and some insight into what led Poland and Romania to cooperate.

"Highest state authorities" in those countries cooperated and knew of the alleged detention centers, the report said.

In Poland, Marty names then-President Aleksander Kwasniewski, among others, as a key collaborator with the U.S. In Romania, Marty names a "small circle of trust" that allegedly collaborated, including then-President Ion Iliescu, his minister of national defense and the head of military intelligence.

Both countries, democratic allies of the U.S. since the fall of communism, were eager to cooperate with the United States. Washington had been instrumental in supporting reforms, including those in the intelligence realm, the report said. Working with the U.S. on the secret program was seen as a matter of national interest, it said.

By Friday night, official denials were being broadcast in both countries. "This is all unfounded," Iliescu told Realitatea TV in Romania. The head of military intelligence, Sergiu Tudor Medar, told the same station that Marty's report was "pure speculation."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 08:46 AM

Dickey:

The economy collapsed the year Bush walked into office. While it would be nice to blame Clinton, which you seem to want to do for all ills, I would point out that Mr. Clinton is regrettably no longer President. Our national debt has never been higher; our balance of payments is skewed beyond reason; lower- and middle- class real income is declining while basic cost of living factors are staggeringingly high. If this is your idea of a healthy economy, I am glad you don't work for the White...oh, neve rmind.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 05:21 AM

As Senate Deal Sinks, So Does Bush's Power

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: June 9, 2007
The breakthrough on the "grand bargain" on immigration a few weeks ago had brought new life to a White House under siege, putting a long-sought goal suddenly within reach. After many grim months, there was almost giddiness at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But that early euphoria only made the grand bargain's grand collapse on Thursday night all the more of a blow, pointing up a stubbornly unshakable dynamic for President Bush in the final 19 months of his term: With low approval ratings and the race to succeed him well under way, his ability to push his agenda has faded to the point where he can fairly be judged to have entered his lame duck period.

In all, 38 of the 48 Senate Republicans effectively voted against the White House on the crucial procedural vote on the immigration bill, leaving the president's No. 1 domestic priority somewhere between stalled and dead.

The White House has similarly been through a sharp reversal on the domestic politics of the Iraq war. After receiving a lift last month in the defeat of Democratic efforts to link war finances to Iraq withdrawal dates, the White House acknowledged Friday that it could not renominate Mr. Bush's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, because of expected opposition on Capitol Hill.

For a president whose muscular assertions of executive authority had overshadowed Congress for years, it was a striking indicator of how the balance of power in Washington has shifted away from him. ...)

(New york Times editorial)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:30 PM

Dear Amos: The economy declined in 2000, before GWB came into office. He took steps to head off a recession and lessen the impact. Part of effort that was tax cuts.

Bill Clinton's bubble economy burst and gas prices started ro rise in the spring of 2000.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Dean
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 01:43 PM

Why are we being asked to give 30 Billion dollars to Africa ?

If they can't get their act together that is the responsibly of their governments.

Ever see the new military hardware the rebels in these countries have ?

Why must we always have lead the way in giving our money away ?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 12:34 PM

Dickey:

Surprisingly enough the economy was very much not in the shithouse when Big Bill Clinton left office. But your perception may be an attribute of yoru own viewpoint.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:30 AM

I remember getting a check in the mail from IRS once. Was it a giveaway or a give back?

Seems to me it was an effort to spur the economy that Bill Clinton left in the shithouse.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:56 AM

From an Op Ed column in the Times:
...You may not remember the presidential debate of Oct. 3, 2000, or how it was covered, but you should. It was one of the worst moments in an election marked by news media failure as serious, in its way, as the later failure to question Bush administration claims about Iraq.

Throughout that debate, George W. Bush made blatantly misleading statements, including some outright lies — for example, when he declared of his tax cut that "the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder." That should have told us, right then and there, that he was not a man to be trusted.

But few news reports pointed out the lie. Instead, many news analysts chose to critique the candidates' acting skills. Al Gore was declared the loser because he sighed and rolled his eyes — failing to conceal his justified disgust at Mr. Bush's dishonesty. And that's how Mr. Bush got within chad-and-butterfly range of the presidency.

Now fast forward to last Tuesday. Asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, Mr. Romney said that war could only have been avoided if Saddam "had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction." He dismissed this as an "unreasonable hypothetical."

Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? When those inspectors failed to find nonexistent W.M.D., Mr. Bush ordered them out so that he could invade. Mr. Romney's remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday's debate. But it wasn't.

There wasn't anything comparable to Mr. Romney's rewritten history in the Democratic debate two days earlier, which was altogether on a higher plane. Still, someone should have called Hillary Clinton on her declaration that on health care, "we're all talking pretty much about the same things." While the other two leading candidates have come out with plans for universal (John Edwards) or near-universal (Barack Obama) health coverage, Mrs. Clinton has so far evaded the issue. But again, this went unmentioned in most reports.

By the way, one reason I want health care specifics from Mrs. Clinton is that she's received large contributions from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Will that deter her from taking those industries on?

Back to the debate coverage: as far as I can tell, no major news organization did any fact-checking of either debate. And post-debate analyses tended to be horse-race stuff mingled with theater criticism: assessments not of what the candidates said, but of how they "came across."

Thus most analysts declared Mrs. Clinton the winner in her debate, because she did the best job of delivering sound bites — including her Bush-talking-point declaration that we're safer now than we were on 9/11, a claim her advisers later tried to explain away as not meaning what it seemed to mean.

Similarly, many analysts gave the G.O.P. debate to Rudy Giuliani not because he made sense — he didn't — but because he sounded tough saying things like, "It's unthinkable that you would leave Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq and be able to fight the war on terror." (Why?)

Look, debates involving 10 people are, inevitably, short on extended discussion. But news organizations should fight the shallowness of the format by providing the facts — not embrace it by reporting on a presidential race as if it were a high-school popularity contest.

For if there's one thing I hope we've learned from the calamity of the last six and a half years, it's that it matters who becomes president — and that listening to what candidates say about substantive issues offers a much better way to judge potential presidents than superficial character judgments. Mr. Bush's tax lies, not his surface amiability, were the true guide to how he would govern.

And I don't know if this country can survive another four years of Bush-quality leadership.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 04:11 PM

Bush's Fleurs Du Mal

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: May 27, 2007 (New York Times, Excerpt:

For me, the saddest spot in Washington is the inverted V of the black granite Vietnam wall, jutting up with the names of young men dying in a war that their leaders already knew could not be won.

So many died because of ego and deceit -- because L.B.J. and Robert McNamara wanted to save face or because Henry Kissinger wanted to protect Nixon's re-election chances.

Now the Bush administration finds itself at that same hour of shame. It knows the surge is not working. Iraq is in a civil war, with a gruesome bonus of terrorists mixed in. April was the worst month this year for the American military, with 104 soldiers killed, and there have been about 90 killed thus far in May. The democracy's not jelling, as Iraqi lawmakers get ready to slouch off for a two-month vacation, leaving our kids to be blown up.

The top-flight counterinsurgency team that President Bush sent in after long years of pretending that we'd ''turned the corner'' doesn't believe there's a military solution. General Petraeus is reduced to writing an open letter to the Iraqi public, pleading with them to reject sectarianism and violence, even as the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr slinks back from four months in Iran, rallying his fans by crying: ''No, no, no to Satan! No, no, no to America! No, no, no to occupation! No, no, no to Israel!''

W. thinks he can save face if he keeps taunting Democrats as the party of surrender -- just as Nixon did -- and dumps the Frankenstate he's created on his successor.

''The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland,'' he told Coast Guard Academy graduates. ''The enemy in Iraq does. Nine-eleven taught us that to protect the American people we must fight the terrorists where they live so that we don't have to fight them where we live.''

The president said an intelligence report (which turned out to be two years old) showed that Osama had been trying to send Qaeda terrorists in Iraq to attack America. So clearly, Osama is capable of multitasking: Order the killers in Iraq to go after American soldiers there and American civilians here. There AND here. Get it, W.?

The president is on a continuous loop of sophistry: We have to push on in Iraq because Al Qaeda is there, even though Al Qaeda is there because we pushed into Iraq. Our troops have to keep dying there because our troops have been dying there. We have to stay so the enemy doesn't know we're leaving. Osama hasn't been found because he's hiding.

The terrorists moved into George Bush's Iraq, not Saddam Hussein's. W.'s ranting about Al Qaeda there is like planting fleurs du mal and then complaining your garden is toxic. ...

(Original article by subscription).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 11:52 AM

Writing in Slate, Anne Applebaum recapitulates how the Bush administration's gaffes and blunders decimated American goodwill in New Europe.

Interesting rear-view mirror.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 02:01 PM

Dickey--don't you ever read--or is it against your religion? The article specifies exactly-- Bush's tax cuts, which benefit lopsidedly the richest Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 03:22 AM

"put some $100 billion into the pockets of the richest Americans."

How is this "giveaway" accomplished? Does IRS cut a check and mail it to them?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 07:34 AM

For all of Mr. Bush's talk about fiscal prudence, $23 billion is only about 2.5 percent of the discretionary spending proposed by Congress for 2008. When it comes to really big money — for wars and tax cuts — Mr. Bush wants more, not less. He is demanding an additional $40 billion for the Pentagon, bringing the national defense budget to $504 billion — over half of Congress's total discretionary budget.

As for the Bush tax cuts, in 2008 they will put some $100 billion into the pockets of the richest Americans. That giveaway will require the government to borrow to make up for the forgone revenue.

Yet, Mr. Bush calls for no restraint on tax cuts. Just the opposite. His administration's biggest criticism of Congress's budget is that it includes a "pay-go" rule requiring future tax cuts to be paid for, either by pairing them with tax increases or with cuts in entitlement spending.

Unable to brook even the possibility that taxes may someday have to go up, Mr. Bush proposes to offset future new spending on Medicare, Social Security and other big entitlements through cuts in other entitlement programs. That would guarantee deeper cuts than would otherwise be required. The Bush budget strategy boils down to never-ending tax cuts for the rich, big increases for the Pentagon and spending cuts for everything else.

When it's suggested that Mr. Bush's approach is overly harsh, the White House insists that the president has other generous impulses. Last February, they note, he recommended that Congress provide more money in 2008 for such areas as international affairs, veterans' hospital care, the National Science Foundation and NASA.

But that brings us back to his veto threat. If he means what he says, Mr. Bush will veto spending by Congress that fails to achieve $10 billion in net cuts, even if those bills include the new money he asked for. The fact remains that Mr. Bush's misguided war and his misguided tax cuts are what stand in the way of responsible, responsive budgeting.

Times editorial 2 June 2007

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 03:35 PM

Singapore leader urges US to stay the course in Iraq until war is won

AP 2007-06-01

SINGAPORE (AP) - Singapore's prime minister Friday urged the United States not to withdraw from Iraq without a clear victory, saying it would embolden extremists in other places.

http://www.pr-inside.com/singapore-leader-urges-us-to-stay-r141211.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 10:03 AM

The NY Times reflects on the robustness of Bush's new-found environmental awareness:

"...Given Mr. Bush's history of denial and obstructionism when it comes to climate change, there are good reasons to be cynical about this sudden enthusiasm, coming as it does on the eve of the meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations.

Most of these nations — and in particular the meeting's host, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — were deeply offended by the administration's rude rejection of Mrs. Merkel's proposal for deep, mandatory cuts in emissions by midcentury. Cuts of up to 80 percent by 2050 have been recommended by many of the world's top scientists as necessary to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

Mr. Bush gave no indication that he is any more sympathetic to Mrs. Merkel's ideas than he was a week ago. Indeed, his spokesmen made clear that he remains as hostile as ever to most of the mechanisms associated with the 1997 Kyoto accord, which included a firm if modest cap on emissions. Many European leaders are still bristling over Condoleezza Rice's 2001 declaration that the treaty was "dead on arrival."

As rhetoric, some of what Mr. Bush had to say was different and heartening. He acknowledged the need for real reductions in greenhouse gases, as opposed to his earlier strategy of allowing increases in emissions as long as they did not exceed the rate of economic growth. He said he found the scientific evidence of a link between climate change and human activity to be increasingly persuasive. He agreed that big developing nations like China and India absolutely had to be part of the solution.

Yet he remains convinced that technology holds most of the answers and that the regulatory restraints that many experts regard as a necessary condition of technological progress are largely unnecessary. He says further that his goal is to produce a common strategy in 18 months. This would coincide, roughly speaking, with his departure from public life, suggesting his real goal is to leave the heavy lifting to his successor. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 03:43 AM

"Following are details of U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal for addressing greenhouse gas emissions, an issue that will confront the leaders of the Group of Eight nations meeting in Germany next week.

* Bush will convene a meeting this fall of around 15 countries that produce the largest amount of greenhouse gases to discuss a long-term goal for curbing emissions.

* The countries would include the G8 major developed economies of the United States, Japan, Germany, Russia, Britain, Italy, Canada and France, as well as fast-growing economies such as China and India. The top emitters are responsible for more than 80 percent of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

* The meeting would be the first in a series. Other forums would include business leaders from various sectors such as power generation and alternative fuels.

* A long-term goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be set by the end of 2008. Individual countries would also set interim targets to reach that goal.

* The plan proposes cutting tariff barriers to spread environmental technology and promote sustainable forestry and agriculture.

* Bush also called for boosting investment in research and development for energy-efficient technologies."

---

If there' sno more to it than that, we already had all this palaver going on at Kyoto -- this just defers action another round. But it is better than nothing.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 11:58 PM

Japan Welcomes Bush Initiative for Cutting Greenhouse Gases

By Sachiko Sakamaki

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Japan welcomed U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said.

Bush yesterday proposed setting a long-term goal to reduce greenhouse gases, reversing his previous stance opposing setting such targets.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Bush share similar ideas about how to tackle global warming issue, Shiozaki said at a regular press conference in Tokyo.

Global warming will be a major topic at next week's meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Germany. Bush said the talks will establish a new framework for when the Kyoto Protocol on emissions expires in 2012.

Abe on May 24 announced a proposal for the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions in by 2050 as a new framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aILvxFVfBSZQ&refer=japan

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 07 - 08:35 AM

Short video on the impeachment of Al Gonzalez.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 07 - 10:54 AM

May 29, 2007, 6:32 pm (NY Times)
Chain Reactions
By Mark Buchanan

The political party that claimed it would restore "honor and dignity to the White House" has done nothing of the sort. Having on false pretenses led us into the disaster of Iraq, the administration and its supporters are now beginning – cravenly and shamefully – to shift blame onto the Iraqi people. The administration continues to hold hundreds of people without charges in secret prisons around the world, while arguing that torture is O.K. and that President Bush can disregard the laws he doesn't like. I haven't even mentioned illegal spying or efforts to keep scientists quiet if they're saying the wrong thing.

Where's the honor and dignity?

In her testimony last week before a House panel, Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, admitted that she had "crossed the line" in using political considerations to judge potential Justice Department employees. She may well have broken laws that forbid political influence over civil service positions. But "crossing the line" has been business as usual for the past six years. Goodling's behavior follows a pattern established across almost all federal agencies, where the administration has sought loyalty over competence at every turn.

Another word for it, of course, is corruption – and it's natural to wonder how we got so deeply mired in it. If the gathering storm of investigations forces Karl Rove and other White House officials one day to testify under oath, we may have some chance of finding out. And I suspect, if we do, that we'll discover that honor and dignity were sacrificed at the very top. It will be a familiar story – of a few power-hungry and largely amoral political operatives, the real drivers, whose actions encouraged and directed a small army of fairly ordinary people, the Monica Goodlings of this world, many of whom were hardly aware they were doing something wrong.

People who engage in corrupt acts often do not see them as such. This much has emerged from studies of corporate scandals and fraud at places like Enron or WorldCom. ...Whether embezzling money, undermining product safety regulations, or even selling completely fake products, the perpetrators rationalize away their responsibility. They deny that they actually had any choice, saying that "everyone was doing it." Or they deny that anyone really got hurt, so there really was no crime: "They're a big company, they can afford to overpay us."...Then there's the popular appeal to higher authority, a mechanism with special relevance, perhaps, to the loyalty-rewarding Bush administration: "I had to do it out of loyalty to my boss."

...People engaged in corruption, the academic researchers suggest, create a kind of psychological atmosphere in which what they're doing seems normal or even honorable. So if congressional oversight does ultimately expose the machinations behind anything from secret prisons to the United States prosecutor purge, brace yourself for a litany of the usual excuses – "We didn't know it was wrong" and "We were told to do it."

But the psychology of rationalization is only part of the story. The other element in all such cases seems to be a chain-like linking together of individual actions that can undermine social norms with surprising speed – or keep them safe, sometimes if just a single person remains strong....... Tiny differences in the group makeup, the presence or absence or a few people of the right type, might be the difference between a few renegade violators and division-wide corruption.

I can't help thinking of the bizarre attempt by then-White House officials Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales to get then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, drugged and in the hospital, to sign off on a secret National Security Agency wiretapping program. Ashcroft – who back then I would have thought would rubber-stamp anything Bush wanted – was clearly made of sterner stuff and refused, as did Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey. Again, we won't know how much effect these refusals had – and just how extreme the program was that Bush wanted to authorize – until someone manages to get past White House stonewalling and digs up the real information.

But the fragility of social outcome, its potential sensitivity to the actions of just one person, brings home the profound importance of individual responsibility. Everyone's actions count. The laws and institutional traditions we have were put in place precisely to help us avoid these social meltdowns, and to give people the incentive not to step over the line, especially when lots of others are doing so already. In particular, the laws of the civil service prevent hiring on the basis of political affiliation (at least for many positions), and the routine violation of those laws puts our democracy at risk. Many people went along with it, and so might have many more, had the creeping corruption not been exposed when it was.

Restoring honesty and dignity. One might say of it what Gandhi said when asked what he thought of Western Civilization: "I think it would be a good idea."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:02 PM

Yeah, I read that one, too, bruce...

Interesting concept...

The problem I have with Cohen's proposition isn't as much about the folks that Bush has hired to do jobs that they couldn't perform as much as a couple he appointed who are beginning to reshape America in a not so neoliberal fashion: Alito and Roberts...

These guys are going to turn back the clock...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:12 PM

from the Washington Post:

Bush the Neoliberal

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, May 29, 2007; Page A13

Years ago, someone coined the term "neoliberal." I was never sure what it meant, and it has since fallen into disuse, but whatever the case, I'd like to revive (and mangle) the term and apply it -- brace yourself -- to George W. Bush. He's more liberal than you might think.

You recoil, I know. After all, the conventional wisdom is that Bush is the most conservative of all presidents, an advocate of limited government, minimal taxes and, when it comes to the quintessentially liberal concern with civil liberties, the man who gave us the twin black eyes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It's an appalling record.

But consider this: An overriding principle of conservatism is to limit the role and influence of the federal government. Nowhere is this truer than in education. For instance, there was a time when no group of Republicans could convene without passing a resolution calling for the abolition of the Education Department and turning the building -- I am extrapolating here -- into a museum of creationism.

Now, though, not only are such calls no longer heard, but Bush has extended the department's reach in a manner that Democrats could not have envisaged. I am referring, of course, to the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, better known as No Child Left Behind. I will spare you the act's details, but it pretty much tells the states to shape up or face a loss of federal funds. It is precisely the sort of law that conservatives predicted Washington would someday seek -- and it did.

Similarly, let's take a look at the much-mocked notion of diversity. Bill Clinton was widely berated for his effort to have an administration that looked like America -- women, African Americans, Hispanics, you name it. Whether by design or not, Bush has also managed that feat. A female education secretary is one thing, but a national security adviser -- the uber-macho post -- is something else, and that went first to Condi Rice. And over at Justice, Bush chose Alberto Gonzales, the son of Hispanic migrant workers and, incidentally, a lawyer with the singular gift of forgetting meetings he attended. (In private practice, did he forget to bill?)

I am not suggesting that any of these appointees -- including Bush's former White House counsel, Harriet Miers -- are what is pejoratively known as affirmative action hires. I am suggesting, though, that Bush has not only diversified his Cabinet and staff but obviously got enormous satisfaction in doing so. You only have to listen to Bush talk about the virtues of immigration -- another liberal sentiment -- or his frequent mention of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to appreciate that the president is a sentimental softie, what was once dismissively called a "mushy-headed liberal."

Allow me to make the case that this is also true when it comes to Iraq. I acknowledge that the war is a catastrophic mistake and was incompetently managed. But if you don't think it was waged on behalf of oil or empire, then one reason for our involvement was an attempt to do some good -- rid the world of a really bad guy and make life better for Iraqis and others in the region. This "liberal" intent may have left Dick Cheney cold and found Don Rumsfeld indifferent, but it appealed to Bush and it showed in his rhetoric and body language. Contrast it to the position of the so-called foreign policy realists, exemplified by the first President Bush and his trusted foreign policy sidekick, Brent Scowcroft.

It was their decision -- cold realism at its best -- to end the Persian Gulf War with Saddam Hussein still in power and not to intervene when Hussein later decimated rebellious Shiites in the south. Realistic? Sure. But also sickening.

Bush's neoliberal instincts have come a cropper across the board. His appointees have too often been incompetent, and his well-intentioned education act is underfunded. But it is with Iraq that real and long-term damage has been done. For years to come, his war will be cited to smother any liberal impulse in American foreign policy -- to further discredit John F. Kennedy's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty." We shall revert to this thing called "realism," which is heartless and cynical, no matter what its other virtues. The debacle of Iraq has cost us -- and others -- plenty in lives. But in the end, it will cost us our soul as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:26 AM

Today's New York Times opines:

"The Bush administration's never-ending push to turn federal agencies into favor-filled partisan clubhouses has just been confirmed in red-handed detail at the General Services Administration, the government's main housekeeping agency. Investigators found that Lurita Doan, the Bush appointee running the agency, violated the Hatch Act, which forbids federal workers from politicking on the job.

Last January, Ms. Doan summoned her assistants to a campaign strategy session run by Karl Rove's White House political operation. Tax-paid employees were treated to a PowerPoint briefing and slide show identifying Democrats marked as "2008 House Targets: Top 20." Witnesses recalled Ms. Doan asking the gathering how they could "help our candidates" with G.S.A. favors.

Like so many Bush appointees lately summoned to account by Congress, Ms. Doan repeatedly said she could not recall details of the meeting. In a bit of novelty, she claimed to be engrossed in reading her BlackBerry e-mail messages. Investigators of the United States Office of Special Counsel found no forensic evidence that she was using electronic devices during the meeting. Her other defense — that her accusers were poor-performing malcontents — was also found untrue, with several holding merit citations.

Ms. Doan promises to document errors in the scathing report, which was obtained by The Washington Post. But her credibility now stands as tattered as her memory. Her fate will be in President Bush's hands, who supposedly knows a slam dunk when he sees one. Ms. Doan should be dismissed for violating one of the most hallowed laws of fairness in government service. As for Mr. Rove, who has run this partisan traveling show through other federal agencies, this is only the latest abuse for which he needs to be brought fully and finally to account. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 May 07 - 09:21 PM

Hey, let's quit pussy footing around here... It's all FDR's fault... It ain't Carter or Clinton's fault that the current administration is failing miserably... It FDR's... Dig the sumabitch up and drag his dead body thru the streets...

(But, Bobert, what about Taft???)

Well, okay, Taft made Bush attack Iraq!!! Dig him up, too, and drag his dead body thru the streets... No, no... Dig his body up and send it to the World Court...

(What World Court, Bobert??? Without the US signing on it has kinda fallen apart....)

Hmmmmmm???... Okay, here's me last idea... Dig all the sumabitchs up and put 'um on the carnival circuit... They could be propped up on them chairs above the dunking tanks and folks could pay 3 'er 5 bucks for 3 balls to throw at the target and dunk their most hated x-president... Heck, I'd prolly go broke trying to put Lincoln in the tank... But it'd be worth it...

Sho nuff would...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 07 - 02:27 PM

NEW YORK When asked which Bush-administration official should be sacked next, Doonesbury.com visitors are opting for Karl Rove.

The online poll has drawn more than 3,400 votes so far, with Rove getting 53%, Alberto Gonzales 39%, and Paul Wolfowitz 7%. (The survey began before the news that Wolfowitz would leave the World Bank. After that, few people voted for the ousting of someone who was already leaving his post.)

Voters were given these descriptions with their three choices:

-- Wolfowitz. A blackmailer ("If they f--- with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to f--- them too") running the World Bank is a bad idea. As was his earlier contribution to the World -- the rationale for invading Iraq. The hubris train stops here.

-- Gonzales. His uber-loyalty to Dubya clearly outweighs his loyalty to the law, as the sickbed strong-arming of Ashcroft on illegal surveillance only clarifies. Wrong man, wrong job, right time to go.

-- Rove. Name a scandal -- from Plamegate to Attorneygate -- his prints are all over it. Come on Dubya, finish strong: You owe yourself 18 Svengali-free months.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 07 - 11:56 AM

Accepting Bush as a monumental failure
May 23, 2007 - 7:23am.
Bush Leagues

Conservative Republicans finally realize they've been had

By MARTIN SCHRAM (Capitol Hill Blue)

Today we are news-trackers, hot on the trail of tomorrow's Page One, prime-time news.

And it appears that tomorrow's news may be a glimmer of good news at last for conservative Republicans who have been bitterly disappointed with what they concede, mostly in private, but occasionally in public, is the overwhelming failure of the Bush presidency: The misconduct of the Iraq war, a series of political and intelligence leadership blunders that has trapped America's brave, volunteer military in a combat mission that is not yet lost, but may never be won.

Evidence has surfaced, not on Page One or in prime time, but on page A15, the op-ed page of the May 22 edition of The Washington Post, that President Bush is reportedly working, belatedly but finally, to come up with a post-surge strategy, the so-called Plan B the administration hadn't gotten around to devising.

Post columnist David Ignatius, who is of the school that prefers hard reporting to soft punditry, wrote of this new development after talking with senior administration officials who now clearly want to get out the word that they have begun discussing what to do after the so-called surge of more than 20,000 combat troops. Soon the news will make its way to the 24/7 cable news. The surge was supposed to last just a few months, to see if it was possible to secure, at least, Baghdad.

Time-out: You are probably thinking that commons sense should have dictated that a Plan B had to be developed months, if not years. ago. You are of course right, but you are of course not president. The fact that Bush never ordered it has infuriated many former generals, conservative think-tank experts and members of Congress who supported Bush in two elections.

"The new policy would focus on training and advising Iraqi troops rather than the broader goal of achieving a political reconciliation in Iraq, which senior officials recognize may be unachievable within the time available," Ignatius wrote. "The revamped policy, as outlined by senior administration officials, would be premised on the idea that, as the current surge of U.S. troops succeeds in reducing sectarian violence, America's role will be increasingly to help prepare the Iraqi military to take greater responsibility for securing the country."

Time-out Again: You are probably thinking that training Iraqi troops to take over was what we've been told was already America's main effort in Iraq. You are of course right, but by now you know that Page One and prime-time news scoops are not always all that new. Journalists are just pleased to have been leaked upon.

Balance of article here

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 07 - 11:49 AM

George W. Bush to Replace Will Shortz as NYT Crossword Puzzle Editor

Posted by admin on 2007/5/16 12:16:20 (2126 reads)
By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor
New York and Washington, D.C., January 3, 2009
from Avant News

In a development that has surprised political pundits and puzzle enthusiasts alike, The New York Times announced today that President George W. Bush will be replacing retiring puzzle-master Will Shortz as the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times.

Will Shortz, who has edited the famous New York Times crossword puzzle page since 1993, announced several months ago that he is "bored unto death with squares and letters. Across, down, X, Y, Z… who the hell cares?"

Upon his retirement, Mr. Shortz said he plans to fulfil a lifelong ambition to pursue a second career in marine biology with a special focus on the elusive Bent-billed sea snail.

"I've always been fascinated by the species, but never had the time to properly explore it," Mr. Shortz said. "Now's my chance to actually 'take the plunge', if you will."

President Bush, unbeknownst to most beltway observers, has long been an avid crossword puzzle enthusiast. A White House aide who asked not to be identified said Mr. Bush "never takes a powder-room break without his copy of the Dell E-Z Puzzles for Juniors book, which he's been working through for the past eight years, and a number two pencil with a big, fat eraser on the tip."

Milt Rafferty, associate arts and entertainment editor for The New York Times, said the news organization had begun considering an attempt to enlist Mr. Bush's services following the enormously popular public reaction to an earlier crossword puzzle edited by fellow enthusiast President Bill Clinton. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 07 - 11:38 AM

May 24, 2007, 6:22 pm
Repairing the Damage Done
By Jules Witcover
WASHINGTON — More than three decades ago, Nixon White House Counsel John Dean called the Watergate cover-up "a cancer on the presidency." Another one exists today, posing a challenge for the next president to restore the office as a credible voice in foreign policy.

President Bush's detour in Iraq off the multilateral track adhered to throughout the Cold War years has caused a deep drop in American prestige abroad, requiring extensive repair by his successor regardless of which party wins in 2008.

While Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq has been the immediate trigger for the decline of American influence, just as significant was his original failure to capitalize on the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to mobilize a truly collective global response.

The outpouring of empathy for the United States in the wake of those events was quickly short-circuited by the invasion. In diverting the American military from its legitimate focus against the real perpetrators of the attacks, Bush left the primary job undone in Afghanistan, in order to chase a more ambitious dream of superpower dominance.

A decade earlier, neoconservative theorists in the Republican Party saw in the collapse of the Soviet Union an invitation for America to assume a vastly more assertive, unilateral role in imposing its power and political ideology elsewhere.

Among these theorists at the Pentagon was Paul Wolfowitz, deputy undersecretary to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who worried that with the demise of Soviet communism the strongest rationale for a muscular national defense was gone. Yet serious threats remained, from nuclear ambitions in North Korea and the determination in Iran and Iraq to assure control of their vast oil resources essential to American power. ..

---

The balance of this well-written essay can be found here.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 07 - 12:35 PM

May 22, 2007 11:51 a.m. EST


Shaveta Bansal - AHN Staff Writer
New York, NY (AHN) - The governors of California and Connecticut on Monday criticized the Bush administration for blocking their way to impose mandatory tailpipe emissions standards in their respective states and 10 other states that are poised to follow the league. The outrage comes a week after President Bush issued an executive order giving the federal agencies until 2008 to draft rules to cut fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The states have long demanded the federal government to give them permission to enact their own air pollution standards, but despite a Supreme Court ruling in April that considered carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants, President Bush sought some more time last week to deal with the demands from the states.

"Even after the Supreme Court ruled in our favor last month, the federal government continues to stand in our way," Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote in an op-ed article published in the Washington Post on Monday.

"To us, that again sounds like more of the same inaction and denial, and it is unconscionable," they wrote.

Under the Clean Air Act, the states can enact their own air pollution standards, but for that they need to be exempted from federal laws by Environment Protection Agency.

Now California is seeking a waiver to curb emission from vehicles and EPA was scheduled to hold the first of two hearings on the waiver request on Tuesday, but in the Washington Post article, the governors expressed their fears that the agency may delay an action.

"If it fails to do so, we have an obligation to take legal action and settle this issue once and for all," they wrote....

From here.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 07 - 10:55 AM

Dicky:

If you were not blinded by your fixed idea about my negativity you would have noticed that I added Carter's back-step to this thread five hours before youdid.

Sigh.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 07 - 10:25 AM

"The administration's pursuit of unilateralism abroad, Mr. Gore says, has isolated the United States in an ever more dangerous world, even as its efforts to expand executive power at home and "relegate the Congress and the courts to the sidelines" have undermined the constitutional system of checks and balances.

The former vice president contends that the fiasco in Iraq stems from President Bush's use of "a counterfeit combination of misdirected vengeance and misguided dogma to dominate the national discussion, bypass reason, silence dissent and intimidate those who questioned his logic both inside and outside the administration."

He argues that the gruesome acts of torture committed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq "were a direct consequence of the culture of impunity — encouraged, authorized and instituted" by President Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. And he writes that the violations of civil liberties committed by the Bush-Cheney administration — including its secret authorization of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on calls and e-mail messages between the United States and other countries, and its suspension of the rights of due process for "enemy combatants" — demonstrate "a disrespect for America's Constitution that has now brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of democracy."

Similar charges have been made by a growing number of historians, political analysts and even former administration insiders, and President Bush's plummeting approval ratings have further emboldened his critics. But Mr. Gore writes not just as a former vice president and the man who won the popular vote in the 2000 election, but also as a possible future candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 race for the White House, and the vehemence of his language and his arguments make statements about the Bush administration by already announced candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton seem polite and mild-mannered in contrast.

And yet for all its sharply voiced opinions, "The Assault on Reason" turns out to be less a partisan, election-cycle harangue than a fiercely argued brief about the current Bush White House that is grounded in copiously footnoted citations from newspaper articles, Congressional testimony and commission reports — a brief that is as powerful in making its points about the implications of this administration's policies as the author's 2006 book, "An Inconvenient Truth," was in making its points about the fallout of global warming."

(Book Review from the NY Times, excerpted)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 22 May 07 - 04:24 AM

Amos:

You got it backward. Hayward was not deemed the worst president and trying to claim someone else is a worse president.
Carter is and he us dumping on GWB.

If you watched the news, Carter was backing off of his criticisim of Bush already.

But then, you would repeat what three year old or Howdy Doody said if it was negative.

Carter backs off criticism of Bush's administration, policy

May 21, 2007

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTA — Former President Jimmy Carter said today that his remarks about President George W. Bush's administration being the "worst in history" because of its impact around the world were "careless or misinterpreted."

Speaking on NBC's "Today," Carter appeared to retreat from a statement he made to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that said: "I think, as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." The comment was in a story published Saturday.

Carter said today that when he made the comment, he was responding to a question comparing the Bush administration's foreign policy to that of former President Richard Nixon.

"I think this administration's foreign policy compared to president Nixon's was much worse," Carter said. But he said he did not mean to call it the worst in history.

"No, that's not what I wanted to say. I wasn't comparing this administration with other administrations back through history, but just with President Nixon."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 07 - 11:44 AM

An interesting segue:

"May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said remarks he made about Republican President George W. Bush's foreign policy were ``careless or misinterpreted.''

Carter, a Georgia Democrat, had previously called Bush's record on international relations ``the worst in history'' in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published May 19.

``My remarks were maybe careless or misinterpreted, but I wasn't comparing the overall administration and I was certainly not talking personally about any president,'' the 39th president said in an interview on NBC's ``Today Show'' this morning.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said today that Carter's explanation ``highlights the importance of being careful in choosing your words.'' Fratto spoke at a briefing in Crawford, Texas, where Bush stayed through the weekend.

Bush's policies represent an ``overt reversal of America's basic values'' as established by previous administrations, including those of his father, George H.W. Bush, and other Republican presidents, Carter had told the newspaper.

Carter, 82, said today his characterization of Bush's policies came in response to a question about former President Richard Nixon. ``This administration's foreign policy, compared to President Nixon's, was much worse,'' Carter said on NBC. ``I wasn't comparing this administration with other administrations back through history but just with President Nixon's.''

Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, also said he's ``been very careful, and still am, not to criticize any president personally.'' "

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 07 - 11:28 AM

Jaysus, Dickey, that's pretty mindless blathering, ya know. Its possible you don't notice the difference between the rhetorical invective of Hayward, and the rhetorical invective of Carter. Carter tells what he thinks and why he thinks it; Hayward resorts to innuendo and implication, using highly emotive words like treason and sweeping categorical propositions which are unprovable and histrionic.

If you really intend to lodge a charge of treason against Carter, could you find the moral courage to state your particulars? I would that make you look like an idiot?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 21 May 07 - 10:42 AM

The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry

by Steven F. Hayward

America's best ex-president? Only if you're not bothered by the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism (which started on his watch), the shamefaced foreign policy of Bill Clinton and John Kerry (ditto), and think that ex-presidents should travel the world coddling dictators and bad-mouthing America à la Jesse Jackson.

Jimmy Carter has been given a free ride from the liberal media, liberal historians, and even the American people, who excuse his political delinquencies and disasters on the grounds that he is a "good" man. But as bank robber

Willie Sutton said of Carter: "I've never seen a bigger confidence man in my life, and I've been around some of the best in the business." It's time to set the record straight. Finally, an honest historian-Steven F. Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan-demolishes the myth of "Saint" Jimmy and exposes how he created today's leftist Democratic party of John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

Jimmy Carter's laundry list of failures aren't just accidents of history: They're rooted in Carter's deeply flawed character and ideology-a smugly pious arrogance matched with a profound distrust of America. The Real Jimmy Carter reveals:

• Carter as meddling ex-president: Why a Time magazine columnist wrote that some of Carter's "Lone Ranger work has taken him dangerously close to the neighborhood of what we used to call treason"

• How Carter befriended North Korea during the Clinton administration, appeasing the communist regime and giving it cover for its nuclear weapons program

• How Carter made direct contacts with Soviet officials to try to subvert President Reagan's anti-communist policies

• The shocking extent of Carter's clandestine efforts to sabotage the first Gulf War in 1990 and how he used Gulf War II to publicly question the Christian faith of America's commander in chief

• How Carter befriended Yasir Arafat-making himself an enemy of Israel

• Carter as politician: a vicious campaigner-and even race-baiter

• The Carter White House during the disasters of the Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua, the energy crisis and stagflation, the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis, and the invasion of Afghanistan

• How Carter, the failed president, remade himself as Carter the humanitarian and freelance foreign policy critic of America

• How a Nobel official inadvertently revealed that Carter's Nobel Prize was actually meant as a slap at America The Real Jimmy Carter is a shocker, showing why the peanut president should never have left his farm.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 07 - 10:08 AM

Carter: Bush administration "worst in history"
17:07' 21/05/2007 (GMT+7)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has lashed out at George W. Bush's presidency, calling his administration "the worst in history" in international relations.


"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," said Carter in an interview with The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette released Saturday.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2002 came down hard on the Iraq war, saying Bush had taken a "radical departure from all previous administration policies."

"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said.

Carter criticized Bush for having "zero peace talks" in Israel. Carter also said the administration "abandoned or directly refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents.

The White House declined to comment on Saturday, but on Sunday fired back.

"I think it's sad that President Carter's reckless personal criticism is out there," White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters. "I think it's unfortunate. And I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments."

Carter has been an outspoken critic of Bush, but the White House has largely refrained from attacking him in return. Sunday's sharp response marks a departure from the deference that sitting presidents traditionally have shown their predecessors.

In a separate BBC interview Saturday, Carter also lashed out at British prime minister Tony Blair.

"Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient," Carter said when asked how he would characterize Blair's relationship with Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 07 - 09:40 AM

The Justice Department is no ordinary agency. Its 93 United States attorney offices, scattered across the country, prosecute federal crimes ranging from public corruption to terrorism. These prosecutors have enormous power: they can wiretap people's homes, seize property and put people in jail for life. They can destroy businesses, and affect the outcomes of elections. It has always been understood that although they are appointed by a president, usually from his own party, once in office they must operate in a nonpartisan way, and be insulated from outside pressures.

This understanding has badly broken down. It is now clear that United States attorneys were pressured to act in the interests of the Republican Party, and lost their job if they failed to do so. The firing offenses of the nine prosecutors who were purged last year were that they would not indict Democrats, they investigated important Republicans, or they would not try to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups with baseless election fraud cases.

The degree of partisanship in the department is shocking. A study by two professors, Donald Shields of the University of Missouri at St. Louis and John Cragan of Illinois State University, found that the Bush Justice DepartmeThe Justice Department is no ordinary agency. Its 93 United States attorney offices, scattered across the country, prosecute federal crimes ranging from public corruption to terrorism. These prosecutors have enormous power: they can wiretap people's homes, seize property and put people in jail for life. They can destroy businesses, and affect the outcomes of elections. It has always been understood that although they are appointed by a president, usually from his own party, once in office they must operate in a nonpartisan way, and be insulated from outside pressures.

This understanding has badly broken down. It is now clear that United States attorneys were pressured to act in the interests of the Republican Party, and lost their job if they failed to do so. The firing offenses of the nine prosecutors who were purged last year were that they would not indict Democrats, they investigated important Republicans, or they would not try to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups with baseless election fraud cases.

The degree of partisanship in the department is shocking. A study by two professors, Donald Shields of the University of Missouri at St. Louis and John Cragan of Illinois State University, found that the Bush Justice Department has investigated Democratic officeholders and office seekers about four times as often as Republican ones.

It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove. A disproportionate number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing states. The main reason for the purge — apart from hobbling a California investigation that has already put one Republican congressman in jail — appears to have been an attempt to tip states like Missouri and Washington to Republican candidates for House, Senate, governor and president.

nt has investigated Democratic officeholders and office seekers about four times as often as Republican ones.

It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove. A disproportionate number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing states. The main reason for the purge — apart from hobbling a California investigation that has already put one Republican congressman in jail — appears to have been an attempt to tip states like Missouri and Washington to Republican candidates for House, Senate, governor and president.

From a NY Times editorial

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:53 PM

First of all I do not know what to make of the link below.
IT seems too impossible to be true but as they say truth is stranger than fiction.


This historical research is presented in a rather suspenseful way

however

this is probably the most bizarre explanation of who W's grandfather really was. The claim is that the original family name was Schref.

Since I think mostly in pictures, I see this as a most entertaining spy movie in black and white with excellent science fiction political intrigue.
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20070405.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 18 May 07 - 11:02 AM

Bush as lord and president is wavering.
Like the disappearing support of Ted Haggert, George will be forgotten by many Chritians who thought they were in holy hands but now walk away mumbling they hate the sin but love the sinner.

Yet I suspect there are plans for an evangelical inquisition to avenge the suffering of George W Bush at the hands of non believers.
People of faith will root out those who tried to destroy George.


Yes an army of God will begin to target individuals with far more firepower than slander.


Sometimes I muse that Islam is undergoing their version of the Catholic Inqusition. It is horrid to remember that the Christian Inquisition lasted about 400 years. It is even more revolting to realize that an Islamic Inquisition now includes nuclear weapons.


I do not intend that the Catholic Inquistiion tortured and killed only Jews. The Inquisition morphed to include the murder of Lutherans and the growing protestants that railed against the Holy Roman Christian Church. The Holy Inquision did their wrok hand in hand with the authoirty of the State. It was a religious state with royal kings and queens who did whatever evil the church decreed but on paper the ruling family was a secular power.

Every religion creates an offshoot with a new twist that grows out of an existing religion. Usually the mother religion is villified by the new offshoot. Today the Protestants are beng absorbed by the evangelicals...just as christians grew out of Judaism.

The media and politicaly driven evangelicals as created by Jerry Falwell, and even earlier Billy Graham, differ with fundamentalists who want to recede from the corrupt media worldliness.

I am seeing how certain evangelicals are just a cunt hair away from becoming an organized violent army ready to kill for their gospel of hate.
Instead of Jews as their target it will be homosexuals, but when Jews object they too will become evangelical targets. They will not call their acts terrorism a holy war like Muslims use the word jihad, but rather a new rightiously clean term will be invented. Right now they are using "God's Soldiers" for the kids who go to Jesus Camp.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 May 07 - 10:41 AM

The New York Times, in its editorial page, has some pointed remarks about the Bush administration's lust for corporate privelege:

"Appointed Hobblers of Government

Published: May 18, 2007

Across six years, the Bush administration has mocked all standards of conflict of interest by choosing private industry zealots for high regulatory posts — where they worked to roll back hundreds of rules on transportation, workplace and mine safety, the environment and other issues. The latest in this subversive chain must surely take the fox-in-the-henhouse statuette: President Bush has nominated Michael Baroody, lobbyist for the powerful National Association of Manufacturers, to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

If approved by the Senate, Mr. Baroody would be in charge of regulating corporate members of his association that have run up millions of dollars in civil fines for violating the commission's safety rules affecting millions of consumers.

As if the White House's colossal sellout to business power was not evident enough, Mr. Baroody's executive friends at N.A.M. are sending him off with a lucrative forget-me-not — a $150,000 severance payment. Compensation experts find this extraordinary for someone supposedly volunteering for government service in behalf of taxpayers.
..."

Full article here

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 May 07 - 10:30 AM

A Letter to the Editor of the Times:

"...I, for one, have a great mistrust of the conservative movement, Republican Revolution, or whatever you want to call it. Not because I lean more independent/liberal, but because conservatives have been anything but truthful. President Bush claimed to be a compassionate conservative and a uniter; he turned out to be divisive, incompetent and uncaring.

The far right has promoted an aggressive policy of forcing democracy on other nations and using force instead of diplomacy, much to the detriment of the world. The depth of hypocrisy and corruption in the Republican Party is in stark contrast to the Republican claim of bringing honesty and integrity to government after the Clinton era.

The Republicans have acted exactly the opposite of their claims of honesty and integrity. Time has shown that those claims were just words with no substance. It's going to take more than a policy shift for me to believe that the Republican Party is acting in our country's best interests.
Portland, Ore., May 15, 2007"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 May 07 - 10:22 AM

Paul Krugman remearks:

"Mr. Bush got us into the Iraq quagmire by conflating Saddam with Al Qaeda, treating two mutually hostile groups as if they constituted a single enemy. Well, Mr. Romney offers more of that. "There is a global jihadist effort," he warned in the second debate. "And they've come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda with that intent." Aren't Sunnis and Shiites killing each other, not coming together? Nevermind.

What about the administration's state of denial over Iraq, its unwillingness to face up to reality? None of the leading G.O.P. presidential contenders seem any different — certainly not Mr. McCain, who strolled through a Baghdad marketplace wearing a bulletproof vest, accompanied by more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees while attack helicopters flew overhead, then declared that his experience proved there are parts of Baghdad where you can "walk freely."

Finally, what about the Bush administration's trademark incompetence? In appointing unqualified loyalists to key positions, Mr. Bush was just following the advice of the Heritage Foundation, which urged him back in 2001 to "make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second." And the base doesn't mind: the Bernie Kerik affair — Mr. Giuliani's attempt to get his corrupt, possibly mob-connected business partner appointed to head the department of homeland security — hasn't kept Mr. Giuliani from becoming the apparent front-runner for the Republican nomination.

What we need to realize is that the infamous "Bush bubble," the administration's no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there's a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job — and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias."