BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

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

And Paul Krugman has a few choice comments about the slime tactics that have come to typify the Rove-and-martini crowd:

"Sweet Little Lies

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 9, 2007

"Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can't picture their leaders being dishonest about such things.

But there's another political lesson I don't think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie — the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren't meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong.

For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush's credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn't believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security.

Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.

The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.

Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was no there there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal.

Even in the post-9/11 environment, little lies never went away. In particular, promoting little lies seems to have been one of the main things U.S. attorneys, as loyal Bushies, were expected to do. For example, David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, appears to have been fired because he wouldn't bring unwarranted charges of voter fraud.

There's a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney prosecuted the state's purchasing supervisor over charges that a court recently dismissed after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence "beyond thin." But by then the accusations had done their job: the unjustly accused official had served almost four months in prison, and the case figured prominently in attack ads alleging corruption in the Democratic governor's administration.

This is the context in which you need to see the wild swings Republicans have been taking at Nancy Pelosi.

First, there were claims that the speaker of the House had demanded a lavish plane for her trips back to California. One Republican leader denounced her "arrogance of extravagance" — then, when it became clear that the whole story was bogus, admitted that he had never had any evidence.

Now there's Ms. Pelosi's fact-finding trip to Syria, which Dick Cheney denounced as "bad behavior" — unlike the visit to Syria by three Republican congressmen a few days earlier, or Newt Gingrich's trip to China when he was speaker.

Ms. Pelosi has responded coolly, dismissing the administration's reaction as a "tantrum." But it's more than that: the hysterical reaction to her trip is part of a political strategy, aided and abetted by news organizations that give little lies their time in the sun.

Fox News, which is a partisan operation in all but name, plays a crucial role in the Little Lie strategy — which is why there is growing pressure on Democratic politicians not to do anything, like participating in Fox-hosted debates, that helps Fox impersonate a legitimate news organization.

But Fox has had plenty of help. Even Time's Joe Klein, a media insider if anyone is, wrote of the Pelosi trip that "the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal." For example, CNN ran a segment about Ms. Pelosi's trip titled "Talking to Terrorists."

The G.O.P.'s reversion to the Little Lie technique is a symptom of political weakness, of a party reduced to trivial smears because it has nothing else to offer. But the technique will remain effective — and the U.S. political scene will remain ugly — as long as many people in the news media keep playing along."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 09:15 AM

The Times today points to even more layers of duplicity in the scandal of the Bush administrations messing with DA's and justice for purposes of political gain.
And excerpt:


Another Layer of Scandal


Published: April 9, 2007

"As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?

Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state's Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.

The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle's opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson's "corruption" to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. "It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin," Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic's office. ..."

More to the story in this editorial.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Peter Woodruff
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 10:48 PM

"This too shall pass." That's what my friends keep telling me, but how deep in manure will we sink before his time is up? Who will lead us after Bush and Cheney leave office and how many generations will it take to correct all that they have wrought?

Hang ALL the war criminals!


Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 01:24 PM

Speaking of flu preparations, I'm thinking that the nation's getting an overdose of Bush & will possibly die from exposure to him & that he needs to take a shot for the team & for US in order for US to find a cure.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 12:28 PM

..."As if to confirm we're in the last throes, President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference in the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie, a sure sign of a leader so entombed in his bunker (he couldn't even emerge for the Washington Nationals' ceremonial first pitch last week) that he feels he has nothing left to lose.

Incredibly, he chided his adversaries on the Hill for going on vacation just as he was heading off for his own vacation in Crawford. Then he attacked Congress for taking 57 days to "pass emergency funds for our troops" even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for "pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war," though last year's war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president's own request for money for bird-flu preparation.

Mr. Bush's claim that military equipment would be shortchanged if he couldn't sign a spending bill by mid-April was contradicted by not one but two government agencies. A Government Accountability Office report faulted poor Pentagon planning for endemic existing equipment shortages in the National Guard. The Congressional Research Service found that the Pentagon could pay for the war until well into July. Since by that point we'll already be on the threshold of our own commanders' late-summer deadline for judging the surge, what's the crisis?

The president then ratcheted up his habitual exploitation of the suffering of the troops and their families — a button he had pushed five days earlier when making his six-weeks-tardy visit to pose for photos at scandal-ridden Walter Reed. "Congress's failure to fund our troops on the front lines will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines," he said. "And others could see their loved ones headed back to the war sooner than they need to."

His own failures had already foreordained exactly these grim results. Only the day before this news conference, the Pentagon said that the first unit tossed into the Baghdad surge would stay in Iraq a full year rather than the expected nine months, and that three other units had been ordered back there without the usual yearlong stay at home. By week's end, we would learn the story of the suspected friendly-fire death of 18-year-old Pvt. Matthew Zeimer, just two hours after assuming his first combat post. He had been among those who had been shipped to war with a vastly stripped-down training regimen, 10 days instead of four weeks, forced by the relentless need for new troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile the Iraqi "democracy" that Mr. Zeimer died for was given yet another free pass. Mr. Bush applauded the Iraqi government for "working on an oil law," though it languishes in Parliament, and for having named a commander for its Baghdad troops. Much of this was a replay of Mr. Bush's sunny Rose Garden news conference in June, only then he claimed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was taking charge of Baghdad security on his own. Now it's not even clear whom the newly named Iraqi commander is commanding. The number of military operations with Iraqis in the lead is falling, not rising, according to the Pentagon. Even as the administration claims that Iraqis are leading the Baghdad crackdown, American military losses were double those of the Iraqi Army in March.

Mr. Bush or anyone else who sees progress in the surge is correct only in the most literal and temporary sense. Yes, an influx of American troops is depressing some Baghdad violence. But any falloff in the capital is being offset by increased violence in the rest of the country; the civilian death toll rose 15 percent from February to March. Mosul, which was supposedly secured in 2003 by the current American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is now a safe haven for terrorists, according to an Iraqi government spokesman. The once-pacified Tal Afar, which Mr. Bush declared "a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq" in 2006, is a cauldron of bloodshed."...

From Frank Rich's column in the NY Times.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 11:51 AM

I don't see how this piece of Nazi rhetoric is relevant, ac tually. Are you presenting it as a summary of facts?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:15 PM

German Declaration of War against the U.S.

The Government of the United States having violated in the most flagrant manner and in ever-increasing measure all rules of neutrality in favor of the adversaries of Germany and having continually been guilty of the most severe provocations toward Germany ever since the outbreak of the European war, provoked by the British declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, has finally resorted to open military acts of aggression.

    On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. Acting under this order, vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German naval forces. Thus, American destroyers, as for instance the Greer, the Kearny and the Reuben James, have opened fire on German submarines according to plan. The Secretary of the American Navy, Mr. Knox, himself confirmed that American destroyers attacked German submarines.

    Furthermore, the naval forces of the United States, under order of their Government and contrary to international law have treated and seized German merchant vessels on the high seas as enemy ships.

    The German Government therefore establishes the following facts:

    Although Germany on her part has strictly adhered to the rules of international law in her relations with the United States during every period of the present war, the Government of the United States from initial violations of neutrality has finally proceeded to open acts of war against Germany. The Government of the United States has thereby virtually created a state of war.

    The German Government, consequently, discontinues diplomatic relations with the United States of America and declares that under these circumstances brought about by President Roosevelt, Germany too, as from today, considers herself as being in a state of war with the United States of America.

    Accept, Mr. Chargé d'Affaires, the expression of my high consideration.


December 11, 1941

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

"The reference is to February 1993 when Clinton fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys who had been appointed by George Bush. One of them was Stephens, who was then U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and developing a case against House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski -- a pivotal Clinton ally in the battle for health-care reform -- for diverting taxpayers' money to personal and campaign funds. Stephens charged that the mass firing was a way of derailing the Rostenkowski investigation. The RTC, however, chose Stephens precisely because he could be trusted to carry out an investigation that would not back away from information potentially embarrassing to Clinton. Stephanopoulos adds: "Once I got the facts from Josh ((Steiner)), that ended the matter, as far as I was concerned."

But that is not the story Fiske and the grand jury have been hearing from some others. As pieced together by TIME from a review of documents and interviews with many sources -- Administration officials, lawyers for some of the 12 Clinton aides subpoenaed by Fiske and sources involved with the special counsel's probe..
..Further down the road, says a White House official, "it depends on whether Fiske wants to indict some White House folks. Indictments he could get easily. Convictions are another matter." In any case, he says, the conversations are "the most damaging Whitewater-related stuff so far."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,980437-2,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:32 PM

Why Dickey? Was Rice Patty doing such a good job? NOT!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: PSzymeczek
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:15 PM

'One of President Clinton 's very first official acts upon taking office in 1993 was to fire all 93 United States attorney then serving — except one, Michael Chertoff. "

Dickey, EVERY incoming President replaces all, or practically all, of the US Attorneys appointed by the previous administration, especially if the previous administration is of the opposite party. They've been doing it for years. Reagan did it, Carter did it, and I'm reasonably certain that Nixon did it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:12 PM

Pratfall in Damascus
Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy

Washington Post Thursday, April 5, 2007; Page A16

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402306.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: PSzymeczek
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 09:03 PM

"FDR stayed out of the war until he was forced to fight Japan but how was he forced to fight in Europe?"

Germany declared war on the US immediately after we declared war on Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 11:18 AM

Did al-Qaeda cut their military budget?

How did the guys in Somalia fare with this "proper" budget cut.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 08:35 AM

What Barry said, plus...

300...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 08:10 AM

"Do remember that Clinton cut back on military spending that is hurting us now?"

Yes! Clinton was correct to cut that budget. It was Bush who was wrong to start these wars along with his hawkish crowd that were a bit too eager to reup thier budget monies.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 04:21 AM

http:/www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/07/16/weekinreview/20060716_BUDGET_GRAPHIC.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 04:20 AM

That link to the chart is messed up for some reason. Here it is again

Do you remember the irrational exuberance and increase in gas prices that precipited this crash? Do remember that Clinton cut back on military spending that is hurting us now? Bush inherited a downward trend that would have still been there if Gore was elected. The Federal budget is made the year before so Bush inherited the spending of the Clinton administration. All that Enron crap was brewing during the Clinton admistration also.

Cheney is just throwing out some raw meat for the rabid dogs and arm wavers to fight over. You make a good echo chamber.

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

heney Sticks to His Delusions
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, April 6, 2007; 1:20 PM


Faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, even President Bush has backed off his earlier inflammatory assertions about links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

But Vice President Cheney yesterday, in an interview with right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, continued to stick to his delusional guns.


Cheney told Limbaugh that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading al-Qaeda operations in Iraq before the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

"[A]fter we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney said. "And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq." (Think Progress has the audio clip.)

But Cheney's narrative is wrong from beginning to end. For instance, Zarqawi was not an al-Qaeda member until after the war. Rather, intelligence sources now agree, he was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents. And although he worked hard to inflame sectarian violence after the invasion, he certainly didn't start it.


More here...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 05:12 PM

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Pentagon report debunks prewar Iraq-Al Qaeda connection
Declassified document cites lack of 'evidence of a long-term relationship,' although No. 3 Defense staffer called contact 'mature and symbiotic.'

By Jesse Nunes | csmonitor.com
A declassified report by the Pentagon's acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble provides new insight into the circumstances behind former Pentagon official Douglas Feith's pre-Iraq war assessment of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection — an assessment that was contrary to US intelligence agency findings, and helped bolster the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.

The report, which was made public in summary form in February, was released in full on Thursday by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a statement accompanying the 121-page report, Senator Levin said: "It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon's Inspector General concluded that Secretary Feith's office 'developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,' which included 'conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community.' "

The Feith office alternative intelligence assessments concluded that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating and had a "mature, symbiotic" relationship, a view that was not supported by the available intelligence, and was contrary to the consensus view of the Intelligence Community. These alternative assessments were used by the Administration to support its public arguments in its case for war. As the DOD IG report confirms, the Intelligence Community never found an operational relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda; the report specifically states that," the CIA and DIA disavowed any 'mature, symbiotic' relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."

The Los Angeles Times reports that in excerpts of the report released in February, Mr. Gimble called Feith's alternative intelligence "improper," but that it wasn't illegal or unauthorized because then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz assigned the work. The Times also reports that a prewar memo from Mr. Wolfowitz to Feith requesting that an Al Qaeda-Iraq connection be identified was among the newly released documents.

"We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in the Jan. 22, 2002, memo to Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official.

Using Pentagon jargon for the secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, he added: "We owe SecDef some analysis of this subject. Please give me a recommendation on how best to proceed. Appreciate the short turn-around."

The Times reports that the memo "marked the beginnings of what would become a controversial yearlong Pentagon project" to convince White House officials of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, a connection "that was hotly disputed by U.S. intelligence agencies at the time and has been discredited in the years since."

Full story here.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 03:21 PM

Dick:

I was wrong about late 2000. The first sag was in Clinton's last quartter. Sorry.

So the chart about which we are speaking says that Clinton's net score was an increase of 526 billion at peak, which slipped to a positive gain of 398 billion when he left office.

ush's net score for his first term was a loss of 541 billion from that 398+. He managed to offset the negative to - 394B at the end of the chart.

No matter ow you parse the fine points, though, the graph is starkly catastrophic from the day he moved in.

The graph you now refer me to, from the NY Times, makes it clear that Conton's era was the only one in which revenues exceeded spending, and that immediately after Clinton the revnue stream fell to a forty-year low while spending increased dramatically.

If you ran your own budget that way, pal, you'd be bankrupt.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 02:25 PM

Dear Amos: If YOU read the chart you will see that the points do not come at the end of the year.

Who was on watch in late 2000?

Here is a chart from your coveted NY Times that shows federal spending taking an up turn and federal revenues taking a sharp downturn before the end of 2000.


"The US economy experienced negative growth in three non-consecutive quarters in the early 2000s (the third quarter of 2000, the first quarter of 2001, and the third quarter of 2001). Using the common definition of a recession as "as a fall of a country's real Gross Domestic Product in two or more successive quarters", then the United States was, strictly speaking, not in recession during the period...
...Using the stock market as a benchmark, the recession began in March 2000 when the NASDAQ crashed following the collapse of the Dot-com bubble."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession

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

Editorial
No Recess From Bad Appointments

(NY Times)

Published: April 6, 2007

President Bush resorted to an old political trick this week, using recess appointments to evade Senate confirmation votes that he was sure to lose. All three are extraordinarily bad appointments — and three more reminders of how Mr. Bush's claims of wanting to work with Congress's Democratic leadership are just empty words.

The most bitterly resented but least important appointment sent Sam Fox, a major Republican donor, to Belgium as ambassador. Mr. Fox contributed $50,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group whose vicious ads during the 2004 campaign lied about Senator John Kerry's war record and helped win President Bush a second term. It is common for administrations to reward big donors with ambassadorships. But this appointment is a deliberate thumb in the eye of Senator Kerry and fellow Democrats who were poised to reject the nominee.

Of more importance was the appointment of Susan E. Dudley to the Office of Management and Budget, where she will review regulations from major federal agencies before they are issued. Ms. Dudley has made no secret of her hostility toward government regulation, criticizing everything from fuel economy standards for light trucks to a national drinking water standard for arsenic, arguing that the market will almost always suffice. This makes her just right for this administration but wrong for consumers and the environment.
...
With nominees of such dubious merit, it is no wonder that Mr. Bush resorted to an end run around the Senate. The American public will almost certainly pay the price.

---

It would be refreshing to get an honest man into the White house for a change.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 01:43 PM

"appears to be in late 2000, Bush's watch."




from http://english.people.com.cn/english/200101/21/eng20010121_61048.html

Sunday, January 21, 2001, updated at 11:16(GMT+8)
World   


Bush Sworn In as 43rd U.S. President
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush became the standing residents of the White House on Saturday after braving cold, damp Washington streets to complete the last block of the presidential inaugural parade on foot.

Bush assumed the presidency from former President Clinton just after noon Saturday, and quickly moved to assert his new power: Before the inaugural parade had stepped off, he had formally nominated members of his Cabinet and ordered federal agencies to suspend implementing new regulations within an hour of taking office. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 01:37 PM

The rate of increase of the national debt went down every year Clinton was in office. The rate of increase of the national debt increased every year Bush was in office.

As for the deficit, the Internet bubble caused the positive gain in Clinton's term to settle from a net -290 billion dollars at the end of G.H. Bush's term to a positive +128 billion dollars surplus when Clinton left office. It is true that before the bubble burst, it had been as high as +236 billion surplus. Bush's first term drove it down to a -413 billion dollars, the lowest point ever graphed since 1961 when the subject graph began. He has reportedly reduced this deficit to only -260 billion dollars. It is hard to tell from this graph exactly where the decline from Clinrton's high point began, but the first drop from 236 down to 128 appears to be in late 2000, Bush's watch. This is also supported by the fact that the last number on the chart says Bush's "score" is "-496", the difference between the present deficit of -260, and Clinton's high-water mark of +236 billion.

So I would say it is pretty clear that your boy is a spendthrift.

No armwaving, just read the chart.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 12:38 PM

Amos: Your claim that "Bush then reversed Clinton's trend" is false. If you study the chart that you found so easy to shit all over a but harder you will notice a decline in revenues starting in 2000, before Bush took office. It began with the bursting of the internet bubble at the same time that gasoline prices started to rise. Remember when Yahoo and Amazon stock went from the hundreds to the 20's? But the need for government spending did not decrease.

It continued until 2003 when Bush signed the jobs and growth act which reversed the downward trend that Clinton left.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 12:29 PM

From the Los Angeles Times:

6:40 PM PDT, April 4, 2007


WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday appointed as his top regulatory official a conservative academic who has written that markets do a better job of regulating than the government does and that it is more cost-effective for people who are sensitive to pollution to stay indoors on smoggy days than for the government to order polluters to clean up their emissions.

As director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget, Susan E. Dudley will have an opportunity to change or block regulations proposed by government agencies.

Bush also named a researcher at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank in Washington, as deputy director of the Social Security Administration. Andrew G. Biggs has been an outspoken proponent of converting Social Security benefits into self-directed retirement accounts, which Bush favors but Democrats have stopped cold. Bush nominated Biggs to that post in November, but the process stalled in February when the Senate Finance Committee refused to hold confirmation hearings because of his views of privatization.

And as ambassador to Belgium, Bush installed Sam Fox, a St. Louis businessman and GOP fundraiser who contributed $50,000 to the Swift Boat veterans' campaign against John F. Kerry in the 2004 presidential race. The White House actually withdrew Fox's nomination last week in the face of opposition from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

With the Senate on its spring break, all three received "recess appointments," under which they can serve without Senate confirmation until the 110th Congress adjourns in late 2008 or early 2009. Bush has used recess appointments more than 100 times, often to get around a recalcitrant Senate.

Although Dudley's new job is more obscure than those to which Biggs and Fox were appointed, it is also potentially the most powerful. The budget office's regulatory shop acts as a funnel for all regulations emanating throughout the government.

In congressional testimony, Dudley has favored dispensing with costly air pollution controls and initiating a pollution warning system "so that sensitive individuals can take appropriate 'exposure avoidance' behavior" -- mostly by remaining inside.

She opposed stricter limits on arsenic in drinking water, in part because she argued that the Environmental Protection Agency's calculations of the costs and benefits overvalued some lives, particularly those of older people with a small life expectancy.

She has argued that air bags should not be required by government regulation but requested by automobile consumers willing to pay for them.

Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy for the watchdog group OMB Watch, called Dudley a "terrible pick." He described her as "an anti-regulatory extremist" who believes that the proper regulatory lever is the free market, "and if the market doesn't protect you, too bad."

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, called her a "radical reactionary" who favors business over public protection.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 11:55 AM

Washington Post:

Pratfall in Damascus
Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy
Thursday, April 5, 2007; Page A16


HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.


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Ms. Pelosi was criticized by President Bush for visiting Damascus at a time when the administration -- rightly or wrongly -- has frozen high-level contacts with Syria. Mr. Bush said that thanks to the speaker's freelancing Mr. Assad was getting mixed messages from the United States. Ms. Pelosi responded by pointing out that Republican congressmen had visited Syria without drawing presidential censure. That's true enough -- but those other congressmen didn't try to introduce a new U.S. diplomatic initiative in the Middle East. "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.

Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 11:53 AM

A Path to Common Ground
The Iraq Study Group Plan Could Break the Logjam

By James A. Baker III
Thursday, April 5, 2007; Page A17

I wholeheartedly agree with a point Lee Hamilton made in his March 25 op-ed, " A Partnership on Iraq," regarding the need for a unity of effort in Iraq. He is correct that the United States will probably falter unless President Bush and Congress reach a bipartisan consensus in the coming months.

Unfortunately, more than 100 days after the Iraq Study Group released its report, we are further than ever from a consensus. Recent narrow votes in the House and Senate, largely along partisan lines, illustrate our country's continuing division on this critical issue.


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The best, and perhaps only, way to build national agreement on the path forward is for the president and Congress to embrace the only set of recommendations that has generated bipartisan support: the Iraq Study Group report. The Iraq Study Group was composed of five Democrats and five Republicans. Each of us has strong wills and views. But we managed to find consensus for 79 recommendations that we suggested be carried out in concert. Our leaders could still use this report to unite the country behind a common approach to our most difficult foreign policy problem.

The report does not set timetables or deadlines for the removal of troops, as contemplated by the supplemental spending bills the House and Senate passed. In fact, the report specifically opposes that approach. As many military and political leaders told us, an arbitrary deadline would allow the enemy to wait us out and would strengthen the positions of extremists over moderates. A premature American departure from Iraq, we unanimously concluded, would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions in Iraq and possibly other countries.

The goal of the United States should be to help Iraqis achieve national political reconciliation and greater effectiveness of their security forces, the report said, so that Iraqis can assume more of the security mission. This in turn could allow for an orderly departure of U.S. troops. An important way to encourage Iraqis to work together is to hold them to the type of benchmarks that Congress, President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have all considered. If the Iraqi government does not meet those benchmarks, the United States "should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government," the report said. But we did not suggest that this be codified into legislation. The report doesn't recommend a firm deadline for troop removal unless America's military leadership believes that the situation warrants it.

Nothing has happened since the report was released that would justify changing that view. Setting a deadline for withdrawal regardless of conditions in Iraq makes even less sense today because there is evidence that the temporary surge is reducing the level of violence in Baghdad. As Baghdad goes, so goes Iraq. The Iraq Study Group said it could support a short-term surge to stabilize Baghdad or to speed up training and equipping of Iraqi soldiers if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines such steps would be effective. Gen. David Petraeus has so determined.

The president announced a " new way forward" on Jan. 10 that supports much of the approach called for by the Iraq Study Group. He has since said that he is moving to embrace our recommendations. The president's plan increases the number of American advisers embedded in Iraqi army units, with the goal that the Iraqi government will assume control of security in all provinces by November. It outlines benchmarks and indicates that the Iraqi government must act to attain them. He has approved ministerial-level meetings of all of Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran; the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council; and other countries.

The International Compact for Iraq and the Iraqi-led neighbors conference are a good start. But more can be done. The president should beef up regional diplomacy, particularly that involving Syria and Iran, by establishing an Iraq International Support Group to encourage the participation of countries that have a critical stake in preventing Iraq from falling into chaos. He should move to further engage all parties to seek a comprehensive peace between Arabs and Israelis. And he should enhance the training of Iraqi forces and push harder for national reconciliation by Iraqis as called for by the study group so as to permit the orderly reduction of U.S. forces.

But most important, the president should reiterate his intention to embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and ask congressional leaders to join him. They should do so. If they do not, the burden of rejecting a unified bipartisan approach would fall on them.

Moving forward this way, which would require compromise by both sides, would be far better than continuing a political dogfight that can only undermine U.S. foreign policy goals in Iraq and the Middle East.

The writer, a former secretary of state, was co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:44 PM

Aw, Keerist, Dickey. You don't know much about trends, in graphs, do you? Here's what your lovely graph shows. Clinton REVERSED the trend toward deficit spending into a deeper hole and Bush then reversed Clinton's trend, and dragged the nation into the depest hole yet. Talk about not alowing the glimmers of improvement to take root! Bush's record is to have taken the highest positive turn we've ever seen fiscally and turn it into the deepest pit, and then crawl half way out. But he hasn't even gotten back to the solvency left by his father, let alone Clinton's positive accomplishment. If the trend defined by the graph as shown were to continue, we would rollercoaster into complete insolvency by 2012, but fortunately, Bush wn't have his hand on the till or the tiller by then. So there's a chance someone will turn it around. But don't pretend your boy is pulling us out of a hole that he himself created.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:06 PM

Amos:

Your chart includes references to the first oil war and second oil war. Pure rhetoric.

If you download the underlying data, it says from government sources but dos not say where or what government.


For the national debt it has this set of numbers:

2000        5,628,700,209,886
2001        5,769,881,563,436
2002        6,198,401,456,847
2003        6,760,140,247,818
2004        7,354,673,867,424
2005        8,031,387,000,000
2006        8,707,627,000,000

I get this set of numbers from http://www.treasurydirect.gov :

2000         5,674,178,209,886.86
2001         5,807,463,412,200.06
2002         6,228,235,965,597.16
2003         6,783,231,062,743.62
2004         7,379,052,696,330.32
2005         7,932,709,661,723.50
2006         8,506,973,899,215.23

For the GDP It uses this set of "calcualted" numbers:


2005        12,227,400,000,000           
2006        12,907,300,000,000           
2007        13,617,200,000,000           
2008        14,349,000,000,000           
2009        15,111,400,000,000           
2010        15,905,200,000,000        

Form http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/tables.html I get these numbers

2005        12,290
2006         13,030
2007         13,761
2006         14,521
2009         15,296
2010        16,102

In other words your chart is way off from the truthful numbers but you don't care about the accuracy and validity of what you present as facts. You only care that it makes the administration "look bad".by any means possible.

But if you look at this chart it cearly shows the direction that the deficit is heading. However you agenda is to foil that trend by whatever means necessary. To viciously stomp out any glimmers of anything positive before it can take root.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:40 PM

How about a new WAR tax?

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070403/OPINION02/704030331/1068/OPINION

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 01:28 PM

Dickey:

You're blowin' smoke again, pal. 1. Your graph doesn't clarify anything at all. 2. Your links simply support that the whole yellowcake scam was as phony as a two-dollar bill and anyone with the brains of a broom-pusher -- let alone a senior executive -- saw through it or should have seen through it.

Note, also, that my arm waving was accompanied by straight mumbers of a source which you provided originally.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:47 PM

March 2000

Italian information peddler Rocco Martino agrees to pay Laura Montini, an employee at the Niger embassy in Rome, the sum of £350 per month in exchange for any documents that might shed light on rumours that “rogue statesâ€쳌 are trying to acquire uranium from Niger (see Between 1999 and 2000). Martino wants to sell the documents to the French who are investigating the rumours. France is concerned about the security of a French consortium that controls Niger’s only two uranium mines. Martino has reportedly been on French intelligence’s payroll since 1999 (see (After June 1999 or July 1999)). Martino learned of Montini through his friend Antonio Nucera, deputy chief of the SISMI center in Viale Pasteur in Rome (see Early 2000). Up until this point, Montini, age 60, has been working as an informant for Italian intelligence. She goes by the name “La Signora.â€쳌 [Sunday Times (London), 8/1/2004; Financial Times, 8/2/2004; La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005; Marshall, 11/10/2005; Sunday Times (London), 4/9/2006; Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150] One of the first documents she gives to Martino is one relating to Wissam al-Zahawie’s 1999 visit to Niger (see February 1999). Martino reportedly passes the document on to the French. [Sunday Times (London), 4/9/2006] Over the next several months, La Signora reportedly provides Martino with numerous documentsâ€"a “codebook,â€쳌 a dossier including a mixture of fake and genuine documents, and then finally, a purported agreement between Niger and Iraq on the sale of 500 tons of uranium oxide, also known as “yellowcake.â€쳌

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:40 PM

Afternoon October 7, 2002

Elisabetta Burba, a reporter for the Italian current affairs weekly Panorama, receives a phone call from Rocco Martino, an Italian information peddler and former SISMI agent. He tells her that he has some documents (see March 2000) that might interest her. Burba has obtained information from Martino before and she considers him to be a reliable source. [Talking Points Memo, 10/31/2003; Financial Times, 8/2/2004 Sources: Elisabetta Burba] They meet at a bar in Rome and he tells her he has documents proving that Iraq made a deal to purchase hundreds of tons of uranium from Niger. He tells her, "Let's make this war start. This is a megagalactica situation." [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 147] He hands over copies of the documents, totaling some 22 pages, mostly in French, and offers to give her the originals for a sum of $12,000.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:56 AM

The Naigara Falls Reporter opines:
..."Voters in Utah, the Mormon theocracy, have supported Bush with loyalty they usually reserve for the Brigham Young football team. In 2004, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's criminal enterprise got 71 percent of the vote in Utah.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a two-year compilation of Gallup polls showed staunch support among Mormons for the war in Iraq and Bush's handling of the violence: "American Mormons, more than any other religious group over that period, believed the United States was right to invade Iraq."

But a recent survey found "just 44 percent of those identifying themselves as Mormons said they backed Bush's war management." Mormon support for the war has plunged 21 percentage points in just five months.

The defection of the Mormons is a seismic political event, and you can bet Bush's political brain, Karl Rove, turns pale when he sees those numbers. The head of the Church of Latter-day Saints is expressing doubts about war, and the mayor of Salt Lake City is leading the charge to impeach Bush.

LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley may have set the stage for the precipitous plunge in Mormon support for the war. Speaking to students at Brigham Young University last fall, Hinckley spoke of "the terrible cost of war."

While not mentioning Iraq or Bush directly, the church leader said of war, "What a fruitless thing it often is," adding, "And what a terrible price it extracts." In the Mormon tradition, the words of the church president are carefully weighed.

Kirk Jowers, the director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, told the Salt Lake Tribune the church leader's remarks "may have been interpreted by the LDS community as an indictment against the world's violence."

Jowers said, "Small phrases by President Hinckley are to the LDS community as Alan Greenspan's words were to the financial community."

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, a lapsed Mormon, rejected subtle pronouncements and ambiguity. He said Bush should be impeached for committing "high crimes and misdemeanors." Anderson had the guts to say what every clear-thinking American ought to be shouting from the mountain tops.

Anderson told CNN, "If impeachment were ever justified, this is certainly the time. This president, by engaging in such incredible abuses of power, breaches of trust with both the Congress and the American people, and misleading us into this tragic and unbelievable war, the violation of treaties, other international law, our Constitution, our own domestic laws and then his role in heinous human rights abuse; I think all of that together calls for impeachment."

Whatever Democratic candidate for president will say and embrace similar words of truth has my support. That sure as hell will not be the calculating, triangulating Hillary Clinton. Such crisp honesty escapes her. Other leaders in the Democratic Party are similarity afflicted with the play-it-safe syndrome.

Anderson made his fellow Democrats cringe, saying forthrightly, "The fact that anybody would say that impeachment is off the table when we have a president who has been so egregious in his violation of our Constitution, a president who asserts unitary executive power, that is absolutely chilling."

Anderson denounced the "culture of obedience" that has so damaged our nation and weakened the Democratic Party.

Bush will now blame Congress, the Democrats and the Iraqi people for the disaster in Iraq that was doomed from its inception. Those of us who rejected the "culture of obedience" are seeing the horrible tragedy we predicted unfolding every day. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:49 AM

Perhaps this will clarify Amos's arm waving, rhetorical position on drunken spendthrifts.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 09:48 AM

Excerpt from a Times editorial on Bush's comment that those with deployable sons and daughters are, in effect, too emotionally involved to make clear decisions about the war in Iraq:

"... But by extension, Mr. Bush's comments were insulting to the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and spouses have served or will serve in Iraq.

They are perfectly capable of forming judgments about the war, pro or con, on the merits. But when Mr. Bush was asked about Mr. Dowd during a Rose Garden news conference yesterday, he said, "This is an emotional issue for Matthew, as it is for a lot of other people in our country."

Mr. Dowd's case, Mr. Bush said, "as I understand it, is obviously intensified because his son is deployable."

Over the weekend, two of Mr. Bush's chief spokesmen, Dan Bartlett and Dana Perino, claimed that Mr. Dowd's change of heart about the war was rooted in "personal" issues and "emotions," and talked of his "personal journey." In recent years, Mr. Dowd suffered the death of a premature twin daughter, and was divorced. His son is scheduled to serve in Iraq soon.

Mr. Dowd said his experiences were a backdrop to his reconsideration of his support of the war and Mr. Bush. There is nothing wrong with that, but there is something deeply wrong with the White House's dismissing his criticism as emotional, as if it has no reasoned connection to Mr. Bush's policies.

This form of attack is especially galling from a president who from the start tried to paint this war as virtually sacrifice-free: the Iraqis would welcome America with open arms, the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues — and the all-volunteer military would concentrate the sacrifice on only a portion of the nation's families.

Mr. Bush's comments about Mr. Dowd are a reflection of the otherworldliness that permeates his public appearances these days. Mr. Bush seems increasingly isolated, clinging to a fantasy version of Iraq that is more and more disconnected from reality. He gives a frightening impression that he has never heard any voice from any quarter that gave him pause, much less led him to rethink a position.

Mr. Bush's former campaign aide showed an open-mindedness and willingness to adapt to reality that is sorely lacking in the commander in chief."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 08:15 PM

How a Bogus Letter Became Grounds for a War

This article, which traces the history of the uranium letter scam, demonstrates clearly the bias-toward blindness that prevented saner minds from persuading the Bush administration that the case was bogus.

Why did they plunge ahead with the belief it was true? What was the cost of that obdurate approach?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 07:40 PM

Graph of the National Debt and accompanying analysis makes it real clear where the drunken spendthrifts are in our national history, Dickey. Clinton was fiscally responsible; Reagan and the Bushes were fiscal owlhoots.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 07:12 PM

PROVO, Utah (AP) -- Some students and faculty on one of the nation's most conservative campuses want Brigham Young University to withdraw an invitation for Vice President Dick Cheney to speak at commencement later this month.

Critics at the school question whether Cheney sets a good example for graduates, citing his promotion of faulty intelligence before the Iraq war and his role in the CIA leak scandal.

The private university, which is owned by the Mormon church, has "a heavy emphasis on personal honesty and integrity in all we do," said Warner Woodworth, a professor at BYU's business school.

"Cheney just doesn't measure up," he said.

Woodworth is helping organize an online petition asking that the school rescind its invitation to the vice president. In its first week, the petition collected more than 2,300 signatures, mostly from people describing themselves as students, alumni or members of the church.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 06:39 PM

http://www.uuforum.org/Images/deficit.gif

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 12:10 PM

Interesting study in deficit spending. Outside of WW II there a few outstanding accomplishments.

Spending more than we make -- from 2% to 6% more:

        
1980-1984        Reagan
1985-1989        Reagan
1992-3               G.H.B.
2001-2004        G.W.B.

Spending less than we make for a surplus up to 3% of GDP:

        
1955-56                 D. Eisenhower
1969                 LBJ
1997-2001         W. Clinton

It would be interesting to see the national debt also graphed alongside of the deficit spending history, as it would quickly show where the nation's fiscal health was being eroded or improved.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 12:43 AM

Harry Truman Nov. 1951 23% job approval rating

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 12:40 AM

Wow! 35%!!!

Jimmy Carter, left with a rating of 34 percent.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 12:33 AM

Here ya go Amos:

http://traxel.com/deficit/deficit-percentage.png

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 11:51 AM

On the issue of Minica Goodling invoking the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, the letter from her attorneys detailing the rationale therefore is full of obscure rationalizations which add up to "I don't want to testify because they think I am going to lie" and "I don't want to testify because they will charge me with perjury afterwards."

These, surely, are not the grounds on which the 5th Amendment can be legally invoked, but it makes for an entertaining tap-dance.

A

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

Dickey:

Not too hard, as it is the kind of simplistic argument, graphically, that claiming "WMDs" is, verbally. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc? There are a LOT of events that are left off that graph which could have a lot to do with the alleged upturn, assuming even that the graph portrays the numbers correctly. The revenue stream might be responding to the huge deficit blow-out due to the war machine, feeding back part of its illgotten and debit-based gains to the Feds.. In short, this graph has no reliable semantic content with a lot of supplementary data. If it is true that Federal revenues are up, I say, great, but let's be more analytical about the causes of it. Are they up relative to the deficit? Hmmmm.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 06:38 PM

See if you can shit all over this one Amos

http://taxprof.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/revenue20growth.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 11:01 AM

Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you'll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it's helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers' money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.

Whatever the immediate objective, Mr. Rove seems focused on one overarching goal: creating a permanent Republican majority, even if that means politicizing every aspect of the White House and subverting the governmental functions of the executive branch. This is not the Clinton administration's permanent campaign. The Clinton people had difficulty distinguishing between the spin cycle of a campaign and the tone of governing. That seems quaint compared with the Bush administration's far more menacing failure to distinguish the Republican Party from the government, or the state itself.

This was, perhaps, the inevitable result of taking the chief operative of a presidential campaign, one famous for his scorched-earth style, and ensconcing him in the White House — not in a political role, but as a key player in the formation of policy. Mr. Rove never had to submit to Senate confirmation hearings. Yet, from the very start, photographs of cabinet meetings showed him in the background, keeping an enforcer's eye on the proceedings. After his re-election in 2004, President Bush formally put Mr. Rove in charge of all domestic policy....

Ibid

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 10:31 AM

AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 — In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush's early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.
A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush's political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president's chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush's leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a "my way or the highway" mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

"I really like him, which is probably why I'm so disappointed in things," he said. He added, "I think he's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in."

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush's inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush's presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

(NY Times)