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BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Bobert Date: 08 Mar 07 - 09:33 PM Well, there is universal American guilt for what FDR did to the Japanese Americans... You won't find anyone who says "Yeah, them Japs was out to get us... That's why they immigrated here and set up all these small businesses so they would be in a position to invade us from our rear flank..." How friggin' stupid... Yeah, we all know that was a bad time for American history... I don't think there is anyone with an I.Q. greater than that of a box of animal crakers who would think different... But here we are going on 6 years since 9/11 and we have folks locked up who we don't have a clue if they were bad guys 'er not-so-bad guys and we have had opportunities to take a deep breath and say, "Hey, maybe these folks deserve judical review to see if they are bad guys" but we haven't done that... A chickensh*t Republican Congress sent a bill to a Chickenhawk president that says, "Hey, screw them folks. We don't care if they are guilty or not..." and the chickenhawk president signed it into law, thus violatin' some, ahhhhh, is it 600 years of accepted legal principle that an imprisoned individual had the right to know why he was being held??? Exactly what am I missing here??? Yeah, the US has made ammends foer the internment of Japanese Americans but here we are in a much less engaged situations with folks of Isalmic Faith and we still have our feet on the throats of folks who may or maynot have been America's enemies yet we don't allow judical review... And the way it is with the so-called War on Terrorism having no end-game in a position to keep these folks until they die, regardless of innocence or guilt??? This is not my grandaddies America and I, for one, will be glad when we have real men, not chickenhawk/chickensh*t punks running out great country and where international law means something... Oh, Jan. '09 can't come fast enough... These autocrat/nazis are stinkin' up the joint... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Dickey Date: 08 Mar 07 - 08:38 PM Amos You are right about one of those lines not being yours but "Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos - PM Date: 24 Dec 06 - 02:09 PM The Times details in this report a case of rampant, heavy-handed censorship of non-classified, publically discussed material regarding the Rubbish administration's relationship with Iran." Yes Amos, there are always minute details that you can weasel out with. How about this fact: during WWII FDR gave the FBI complete authority to lntercept all transAtlantic cables and a virtual free hand when it came to domestic surveillance, wiretapping and opening mail. A woman got a commendation and a special medal from the government for finding a bit of microfilm under the stamp of an inocuous domestic letter that sent six German spies to the gallows. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 08 Mar 07 - 08:30 PM I don't think those are my lines, Dickey. And if you don't like my point of view, feel free to ignore it. Having one act in common with prior Presidents, in a very different context, does not make W comparable, or his situation comparable to them. Bush started a war. Lincoln and FDR had a war thrust upon them. For Bush;s situation to have been comparable he would have had to invade Saudi Arabia, which would have been even stupider, I guess. If he had even bothered to manage the war in Afghanistan competently, with some resultant measurable impact on bin Laden's Al Qeda, it might have been, at least, conscionable after the 9-11 catastrophe. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Dickey Date: 08 Mar 07 - 08:16 PM Amos: You are big on assertions but small on defending those assertions. So you are admitting that Lincoln FDR and GWB all suspended Habeas Corpus in defiance of the constitution? You accuse others of using rhetoric but What do you call this? "At its heart there is extortion which suits John Bolton for the UN job" "discussed material regarding the Rubbish administration's relationship with Iran." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:44 PM You can do your own homework, amigo. You're still ignoring the differences and using them to create impassioned but inaccurate rhetoric. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Dickey Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:27 PM Amos: The fact that FDR did defy the constitution by rounding up 110,000 people Nazi style and the fact that GWB didn't is a striking difference. Just who did GWB round up? Now explain how FDR protected and defended the Constitution as per your requirements for a "good" president please. You might want to explain away Abe Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:02 PM He actually did implement some roundups. Who knows exactly why. The differences escape you? Why would I assert there should be parallels when I am making the point that there were differences in response to your assertion they were "doing the same things", which I find quite ...um... undiscriminating as a statement. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Dickey Date: 08 Mar 07 - 01:28 PM Amos: FDR signed Executive Order 9066 which incarcerated 110,000 Japanese Americans, 68,000 of the ctizens, solely on a racial basis. They had no writ of habeas corpus as described in the constitution. What were the charges? Where were thier lawyers? How many of them had a trial or hearing? I think this is outside of your discription of a desirable president: "forthright President who lived within and under the law, lead by example rather than by decree, protected and defended the Constitution rather than an elite base" But you are right that Bush did not round up 110,000 people living in the US based on their race and put them in detention camps. Do you think he should have? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 08 Mar 07 - 10:07 AM And on a lighter note, from another column in the same paper, by David Brooks: "...Today, the White House staff is less disciplined but more attractive. There is no party line in private conversations. The trick now is to figure out what administration policy really is, because you can now talk to three different people and get three different versions on any topic. There's more conversation and more modesty. The vice president has less gravitational pull, and there has been a talent upgrade in post after post: Josh Bolten as chief of staff, Henry Paulson at Treasury. If Bob Gates had been the first defense secretary, the world would be a much better place today. The administration has also lost its transformational mind-set. After cruel experience, there's a greater tendency to match ends to means, and to actually think about executing a policy before you embark upon it. There's much more tolerance for serious freethinkers — the Johns Hopkins scholar Eliot Cohen was just hired at State. In short, this administration's capacities have waxed as its power has waned. And you can't help but feel that today's White House would have been much better at handling the first stages of the war on terror. But that's the perpetual tragedy of life: the owl of Minerva flies at dusk. Wisdom comes from suffering and error, and when the passions die down and observation begins. " A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 08 Mar 07 - 09:24 AM Neglect, incompetence, indifference, lies. (Fron the NY Times columns of MArch 8, 2007) Why in the world is anyone surprised that the Bush administration has not been taking good care of wounded and disabled American troops? Real-life human needs have never been a priority of this administration. The evidence is everywhere — from the mind-bending encounter with the apocalypse in Baghdad, to the ruined residential neighborhoods in New Orleans, to the anxious families in homes across America who are offering tearful goodbyes to loved ones heading off to yet another pointless tour in Iraq. The trial and conviction of Scooter Libby opened the window wide on the twisted values and priorities of the hawkish operation in the vice president's office. No worry about the troops there. And President Bush has always given the impression that he is more interested in riding his bicycle at the ranch in Texas than in taking care of his life and death responsibilities around the world. That whistling sound you hear is the wind blowing across the emptiness of the administration's moral landscape. ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:00 AM I have different standards for different situations. Bush and FDR did not "do the same things", by a long shot. The differences are so obvious, clear and crucial it would be next to moronic to think of them as "just the same". A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Dickey Date: 07 Mar 07 - 11:07 PM Amos: You approve of FDR but when Bush does those same things you call him names. How come you have a double standard? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 07 - 12:38 PM And that was 100. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 07 - 12:31 PM We've had a few who came closer than the rest. Despite all the hatred stirred up about him, Clinton seemed to hold to those values, and he was literate, although he played political smokescreens on occasion. I think Ike was a representative despite his soft-spoken undramatic ways. FDR had some of those virtues, as did Washington and Lincoln, despite their shortcomings. Even GHB had many, or at least the ability to camouflage those he lacked. W, in my opinion, does not even do that much, and he is mushy at the very core. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Dickey Date: 07 Mar 07 - 11:26 AM So Amos, my idealsitic, bristly friend, who would that president be? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 07 - 10:39 AM "I haven't kept count, but it seems to me that the number of times I've seen President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney give speeches about the Iraq war using smiling soldiers as their backdrops have been, well, countless. You'd think that an administration that has been so quick to exploit soldiers as props — whether it was to declare "Mission Accomplished" on an naval vessel or to silence critics by saying their words might endanger soldiers in battle — would have been equally quick to spare no expense in caring for those injured in the fight. ..." Thomas Friedman, commenting on the abysmal care of veterans under Bush's war Presidency. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 07 Mar 07 - 09:57 AM One could ask, my feather-headed friend, for an honest, forthright President who lived within and under the law, sought prosperity, avoided violence except as a last resort, lead by example rather than by decree, protected and defended the Constitution rather than an elite base, and considered truth to be senior to political slickness. One could ask for a leader who did well in some field of endeavour more elevated that cocktails and backslapping. One could ask for a leader who knew something about the culture in which he lead and knew what its true potential for greatness was, and why. One could ask for a leader who understood the corrosive influence of massive debit-spending on the morale and economy of the nation. One could ask for a man who knew the English language better than the average long-haul trucker. One who knew how to negotiate from strength of wisdom, rather than bullying by force of arms and who used courage instead of beetle-browed obstinacy to accomplish things. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Dickey Date: 07 Mar 07 - 02:31 AM A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and a hatred for George W Bush. What else could one ask for? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 06 Mar 07 - 09:54 AM "From the perspective of history, when people look back, they will wonder how the country could have gone so wrong in its struggle against an inimical ideology. And they will conclude that the wrong leaders were in power to understand and defeat this ideology; instead, those leaders advanced their own power in the guise of safeguarding the country's security while curtailing citizens' liberties. At that future time, the people will still be struggling to undo what has been done to those liberties and their reputation. Your list of what needs to be corrected outlines what they will understand has happened and what they know will be needed to restore their liberties and their reputation. Unfortunately, unlike liberties, reputation, once compromised, is never really restored. " (correspondent to the NY Times) Yonkers, March 4, 2007 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: fumblefingers Date: 05 Mar 07 - 11:57 PM Amos "Not a word I would apply to the man, personally." In view of your previous 51 entries, I don't expect you would. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 05 Mar 07 - 06:21 PM Gee, you're scraping that ole barrel pretty hard. Wish someone would make me a little 10 million dollar prezzie before I got elected Governor. If some kind Elf could put a /a at the end of the word "discusses" in the previous reference to Krugman's column, I'd be grateful. Your definition of decency is interesting fumblefingers. Not a word I would apply to the man, personally. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: fumblefingers Date: 05 Mar 07 - 05:52 PM Comparative Advantage How economist Paul Krugman became the most important political columnist in America. By Nicholas Confessore Krugman has also discovered that when you're the center of attention and you make a mistake, people notice. The most serious error was in a column written last July about Bush's dealings with the Texas Rangers, of which he became a part-owner in 1989. It's well known that Bush put $606,000 into the syndicate that bought the Rangers in 1989, about 2 percent of the total cost. When the deal was initialized that same year and Bush became the team's general manager, the syndicate awarded their well-connected partner an additional 10 percent stake, gratis. When the team was sold in 1998, Bush earned $14.9 million on his original investment. But Krugman went further, charging that Bush's extra return was "a 12-million dollar gift" to "a sitting governor," when in fact the gift had been awarded years before Bush's election as governor in 1994. Krugman later admitted the error--on his Web site, but not in the Times. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 05 Mar 07 - 09:55 AM < a href=http://select.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/opinion/05krugman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists>Paul Krugman discusses the Bush administrations complicity in the abysmal decline of health care for veterans, such as at Walter Reed hospital. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: fumblefingers Date: 05 Mar 07 - 12:37 AM I take it that Amos doesn't like George Bush and reads a lot of stuff by other lefties who hate him as well? Well, I like George Bush. He's a decent man who has been unfairly maligned by the media and the Clintonized Democrat party. I also liked him as Governor of Texas. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 04 Mar 07 - 11:26 AM The Times offers a list of things that must be done to repair the chaos if the Bush administration: "Editorial The Must-Do List Single Page Save Share Published: March 4, 2007 The Bush administration's assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough. Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America's global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices. It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law. Today we're offering a list — which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive — of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many will require a rewrite of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an atrocious measure pushed through Congress with the help of three Republican senators, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham and John McCain; Senator McCain lent his moral authority to improving one part of the bill and thus obscured its many other problems.".. The list includes: Restore Habeas Corpus Stop Illegal Spying Ban Torture, Really Close the C.I.A. Prisons Account for 'Ghost Prisoners' Ban Extraordinary Rendition Tighten the Definition of Combatant Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively Ban Tainted Evidence Ban Secret Evidence Better Define 'Classified' Evidence Respect the Right to Counsel I find it execrable that the reform of our economic whirlwind of addiction to fiat-funding, unstable currency, and insane debt-management policies are not included. See the full article here. It may be restricted to TimesSelect viewers. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 03 Mar 07 - 10:17 AM The Times discusses more old-boy slime from the Bush Attorneys General -- the firing of state US Atty's who don't trumpet at the right spots in the script. "...United States attorneys, the highest federal prosecutors at the state level, must be insulated from politics. Their decisions about whether to indict can ruin lives, and change the outcome of elections. To ensure their independence, United States attorneys are almost never removed during the term of the president who appointed them. The Bush administration ignored this tradition, and trampled on prosecutorial independence, by firing eight United States attorneys in rapid succession, including one, Carol Lam of San Diego, who had put a powerful Republican congressman in jail. Mr. Iglesias, who was the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, says two members of Congress called him last October and urged him to pursue corruption charges against a prominent Democrat before the November election. He did not. He was dismissed. Most of the fired United States attorneys' performance evaluations praise them for the quality of their work, and for following the priorities set in Washington. These do not appear to be the evaluations of people who were fired for poor performance. A House subcommittee has subpoenaed several of the fired United States attorneys to testify next week. The Senate is doing its own investigation. They should question the fired prosecutors, as well as top members of the Justice Department, to find out how these dismissals came about. They should also investigate Mr. Iglesias's allegations about the two members of Congress, who may have violated Congressional rules, and even criminal law. Mr. Gonzales should also begin his own inquiry. Mr. Iglesias has raised a serious question about politicization of the Justice Department. That, and not public relations, should be the attorney general's primary concern." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 02 Mar 07 - 10:05 AM Thanks to Lincoln D. Chafee, the former Republican senator from Rhode Island, for reminding us that fault for the catastrophe in Iraq is shared by a complaisant Senate, which, far from performing its constitutional duty, abdicated that responsibility at one of the most crucial moments in our nation's history. As the 2008 election approaches, we must also not forget that many of the senators voting in favor of the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq harbored presidential ambitions (John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain) and were plainly influenced by a fear that such ambitions might be thwarted if they voted against the resolution and the war later turned out to be a success. Now that the war is revealed for the unmitigated disaster that should have been predicted, these same senators perform all manner of linguistic contortions to justify their vote. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to those senators who, courageously and eloquently, spoke in opposition to this illegal and immoral war. Conversely, history will not be kind to those 77 senators who voted "yea" that fateful evening. Joseph J. Saltarelli New York, March 1, 2007 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 27 Feb 07 - 04:18 PM John B. Taylor, former Under Secretary of the Treasury, argues that in currency management, at least, the Bush administration did something very right. He argues the case well. Full article here. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 27 Feb 07 - 12:31 PM I spoke to a financial expert yesterday who remarked that the DAILY burden of servicing the United States' debt was FIVE BILLION dollars a day; and that this figure was up from two billion/day at the start of the first Bush administration. That includes no principal reduction, just service on the debt. That means if we were to get OUT of that debt, we could spend a billion dollars a day on resolving national energy resources, another billion a day on caring for and educating our young, another on supporting healthcare for individuals in need, and still put two billion a day in the bank as savings against future need. Every day. Wouldn't we like to see the nation out of debt to the world? We might even become the Land of the Free. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 27 Feb 07 - 10:27 AM The NY Times wonders why so many stellar US Attorneys are being fired without genuine grounds: In many Justice Departments, her record would have won her awards, and perhaps a promotion to a top post in Washington. In the Bush Justice Department, it got her fired. Ms. Lam is one of at least seven United States attorneys fired recently under questionable circumstances. The Justice Department is claiming that Ms. Lam and other well-regarded prosecutors like John McKay of Seattle, David Iglesias of New Mexico, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and Paul Charlton of Arizona — who all received strong job evaluations — performed inadequately. It is hard to call what's happening anything other than a political purge. And it's another shameful example of how in the Bush administration, everything — from rebuilding a hurricane-ravaged city to allocating homeland security dollars to invading Iraq — is sacrificed to partisan politics and winning elections. THis looks like pure smelly political manuvering. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 22 Feb 07 - 10:37 AM Todays Times opines: ..."In another low moment for American justice, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that detainees held at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to be heard in court. The ruling relied on a shameful law that President Bush stampeded through Congress last fall that gives dangerously short shrift to the Constitution. The right of prisoners to challenge their confinement — habeas corpus — is enshrined in the Constitution and is central to American liberty. Congress and the Supreme Court should act quickly and forcefully to undo the grievous damage that last fall's law — and this week's ruling — have done to this basic freedom. The Supreme Court ruled last year on the jerry-built system of military tribunals that the Bush Administration established to try the Guantánamo detainees, finding it illegal. Mr. Bush responded by driving through Congress the Military Commissions Act, which presumed to deny the right of habeas corpus to any noncitizen designated as an "enemy combatant." This frightening law raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. And it gives the government the power to take away habeas rights from any noncitizen living in the United States who is unfortunate enough to be labeled an enemy combatant. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which rejected the detainees' claims by a vote of 2 to 1, should have permitted the detainees to be heard in court — and it should have ruled that the law is unconstitutional. As Judge Judith Rogers argued in a strong dissent, the Supreme Court has already rejected the argument that detainees do not have habeas rights because Guantánamo is located outside the United States. Judge Rogers also rightly noted that the Constitution limits the circumstances under which Congress can suspend habeas to "cases of Rebellion or invasion," which is hardly the situation today. Moreover, she said, the act's alternative provisions for review of cases are constitutionally inadequate. The Supreme Court should add this case to its docket right away and reverse it before this term ends. Congress should not wait for the Supreme Court to act. With the Democrats now in charge, it is in a good position to pass a new law that fixes the dangerous mess it has made. Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, have introduced a bill that would repeal the provision in the Military Commissions Act that purports to obliterate the habeas corpus rights of detainees. The Bush administration's assault on civil liberties does not end with habeas corpus. Congress should also move quickly to pass another crucial bill, introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, that, among other steps, would once and for all outlaw the use of evidence obtained through torture. .." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 18 Feb 07 - 12:33 AM David Swanson writes: "Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged." http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/#48101 That was close. You can see how Young could have made the mistake. Here's what Lincoln actually said: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you 'be silent; I see it, if you don't.' The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Lincoln wrote these words while America was at war with Mexico, under the presidency of James Polk, and while Lincoln was a member of Congress. But Lincoln did more than talk about the fraud that had been used to launch that illegal and imperialistic war. He introduced a resolution demanding that Polk provide proof. Polk claimed to have launched that war only after American blood had been shed on American soil. Lincoln's resolution required Polk to identify the spot where that blood had been shed. "Let him answer fully, fairly, and candidly," Lincoln said of the wartime President. "Let him answer with facts and not with arguments. Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation." When President Polk did not answer, Lincoln and John Quincy Adams sought a formal investigation of the president's pre-war intelligence claims, and of his use of secret funds to launch his fraudulent and illegal war. Under this pressure, Polk announced that he would not seek reelection. Lincoln, Adams, and their allies in Congress then passed a resolution honoring the service of Major General Zachary Taylor "in a war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." President Polk's descendant William Polk has, by the way, authored a book with former Senator George McGovern outlining a plan to end the Iraq War. There's improvement of a sort that some prominent families can't compare to! ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Donuel Date: 15 Feb 07 - 12:48 PM HE knows perfectly well who he serves. The haves and the have mores. He is not certifiable. He lives in an age where much of the Constitution has been rendered non binding. He lives in an age where the Congress tries to pass non binding resoutions. He lives in an age where he calls himself the decider and the voice of the people he calls noise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 15 Feb 07 - 12:42 PM Co-Dependent Congress Must Wake Up: The President Needs a Straight-Jacket and a Padded Cell by DAVE LINDORFF Full article here from the Baltimore Chronicle. Co-dependency is a condition where people associated with a sick person enable that person to ruin not only their own lives, but the lives of others, because of an inability to confront the sick person. It happens in families, and it is happening today to the American nation. It's time to simply admit the obvious: The president of the United States is crazy as a loon, and the Congress and the media are functioning as co-dependents as he runs the country off a cliff. Bush says in his latest press conference that he is "certain" that Iran is providing "technically sophisticated" roadside bomb weapons to Iraqi insurgent forces to help them to kill Americans. He probably is "certain." But nobody else of consequence in the government is, and the evidence to support his claim is simply not there. Shaped charges are not sophisticated. They can be made in a garage. The technology was invented in 1888 by a Navy engineer. It was widely used in World War I and II, as well as in Vietnam, and was even provided by the British to the IRA in a botched sting operation that led to its being disseminated around the world to every conceivable resistance and terror organization. Instructions on how to make these weapons are available on the web. A high school student could do it in shop if the teacher wasn't looking. On top of that, the people who are primarily responsible for killing Americans in Iraq are Sunnis, who are certainly not the beneficiaries of Iranian government assistance, since Sunnis are killing Shias, who are the ones that Iran is close to. None of this matters to Bush. Why? Because he's crazy. Reality and Bush's psyche are wholly different worlds, people. When you have a person who's off his nut in a position of authority, whether it is in your house, in your office, driving a car or running your country, you need to do something to prevent them from causing harm. It won't do to say, "It's too much trouble to confront him," or "He'll get angry if I challenge him." This seems to be the attitude in Congress and the media. The Democrats, who could put the president in a richly deserved straightjacket, are afraid to take that step. The media are afraid the president and his crazy backers would howl if they pointed out how nutty he has become...." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Cruiser Date: 04 Feb 07 - 06:05 PM The Worst President in History? One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush Rolling Stone Article |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: GUEST,282RA Date: 04 Feb 07 - 11:50 AM Bush going to squeeze $70 billion out of Medicare saying entitlement program spending is growing faster then the economy and therefore cannot be sustained. But he can spend $270 billion on this war until late 2008. Now which spending produces less results, entitlements or the war? Hmmmmm...tough one...let's see...spending money so elderly folks can get the medicines and treatments they need OR pouring more money down the Iraq sieve with absolutely nothing to show for it except massive fraud and corruption, upswings in violence, more dead soldiers, more destroyed equipment, far weaker military, deteriorating security. I give, dammit!! I just can't decide which spending needs to be desperately revamped before disaster occurs. Help me out, folks. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070204/pl_nm/bush_budget_dc_7 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 03 Feb 07 - 09:27 PM Four steps towards calming the chaos in Iraq By Zbigniew Brzezinsky Published: February 1 2007 21:16 | Last updated: February 1 2007 21:16 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/03dd3a7a-b230-11db-a79f-0000779e2340.html> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/03dd3a7a-b230-11db-a79f-0000779e2340.html It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities: the war in Iraq is a historic, strategic and moral calamity; and only a strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war and intensifying regional tensions. If the US stays bogged down in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be head-on conflict with Iran and with the broader world of Islam. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet US benchmarks; followed by US accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran. This could culminate in "defensive" US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a deepening quagmire eventually encompassing Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the "decisive ideological struggle" of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the most industrially advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilise not only the resources of the Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicentre, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is obvious by now that the US national interest calls for a significant change of direction. There is a consensus in favour of change: US public opinion now holds that the war was a mistake; that a regional political process should be explored; and that an Israeli- Palestinian accommodation is essential to the needed policy alteration. It is noteworthy that a number of leading Republicans have voiced profound reservations regarding the administration's policy. One need only invoke here the expressed views of the late President Gerald Ford, former secretary of state James Baker, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and several leading Republican senators: John Warner, Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith among others. The quest for a political solution to the growing chaos in Iraq should involve four steps. First, the US should reaffirm unambiguously its determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time. Such a declaration is needed to allay fears in the Middle East of a new and enduring American imperial hegemony. That perception should be discredited at the highest level, perhaps by a joint resolution in the Congress. Second, the US should announce it is undertaking talks with all Iraqi leaders – including those who do not reside in the fortress area in Baghdad known as the "Green Zone" – jointly to set and announce a deadline for full US military disengagement. In the meantime, the US should avoid escalation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:08 AM A few remarks from Americans on the Vice issue: "To the Editor: Regarding Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney said the biggest threat is that Americans may not "have the stomach for the fight." One has to wonder if he feels that the failure in Vietnam was merely a result of the American people's not having "the stomach" for 10 years of combat and 58,000 American dead. In classic Republicanspeak, Mr. Cheney obfuscates the premise of why we are at war and narrows the argument to a misplaced matter of courage. The nauseating irony of someone who did not have the "stomach" to go to war himself accusing the rest of the country of the same failing serves to reveal the extent to which this conflict is without true rationale. Pier Giacalone Ridgewood, Queens, Jan. 27, 2007 • To the Editor: Your editorial asks a good question: "Does the vice president simply feel free to cut the ground out from under Mr. Bush?" It helps to remember that in 2000, after heading up the search for a running mate, Dick Cheney looked in the mirror and picked himself. Why would a self-selected vice president on a ticket that lost the popular vote defer to the popular will or even the judgment of his president? Robert Stein Weston, Conn., Jan. 27, 2007 • To the Editor: Vice President Dick Cheney defends a war that he started without Iraqi provocation and that continues without the possibility of American victory not because he is "delusional," as Maureen Dowd says ("Daffy Does Doom," column, Jan. 27), but because the war itself serves his interests and the interests of his constituents. Dick Cheney has spent his life working for military suppliers, American energy corporations and the Republican Party. The war has earned billions of dollars for his former employer, Halliburton, disrupted the supplies of foreign oil and allowed his party to rise to unprecedented power. During this time the power of the executive branch of government grew, and Mr. Cheney, at the center, exercised more influence over the nation than any vice president in United States history. This is not "perversity." It is the work of a mercilessly effective politician. Gabriel Brownstein Brooklyn, Jan. 27, 2007 " |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:06 AM From today's Op Ed in the NY Times, James Bedford writes: "LAST August, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. Had the president been an ordinary citizen — someone charged with bank robbery or income tax evasion — the wheels of justice would have immediately begun to turn. The F.B.I. would have conducted an investigation, a United States attorney's office would have impaneled a grand jury and charges would have been brought. But under the Bush Justice Department, no F.B.I. agents were ever dispatched to padlock White House files or knock on doors and no federal prosecutors ever opened a case. The ruling was the result of a suit, in which I am one of the plaintiffs, brought against the National Security Agency by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was a response to revelations by this newspaper in December 2005 that the agency had been monitoring the phone calls and e-mail messages of Americans for more than four years without first obtaining warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act...." A friend remarked recently that some senior executives get to their high positions by creating a mess so hard to confront that they themselves become indispensable as the only ones who can be stuck in front of it. Even though they created it in the first place. This rings a faint bell, somehow... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 28 Jan 07 - 12:38 PM The Australian "theage.com.au" opines: " Bush's popularity hits new low |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:31 AM From today's Times, on the Bush economic impact: "n the State of the Union speech, President Bush said that the budget deficit had been cut in half from 2004 to 2006. Not quite. The deficit declined, but not by half, from $412 billion to $248 billion. If you measure it as a percentage of the economy, Mr. Bush was off by an amount equal to about $15 billion. Then, Mr. Bush greatly compounded his otherwise modest exaggeration by taking credit for the reduction, when the deficit really fell despite his policies, not because of them. The distinction is crucial, to understand both the current mess — in which debt is mounting just as huge obligations are coming due for Medicare and Social Security — and how best to get out of it. The drop in the deficit over the past few years was due largely to the cyclical recovery from the earlier recession, and to a boost in revenue when temporary business tax cuts expired after 2004. Mr. Bush, meanwhile, has pursued a single-minded strategy of spending more while slashing taxes. That is the opposite of deficit reduction; it has made the budget hole deeper than it would have been. Still, Mr. Bush wants you to believe that tax cuts caused the economic recovery, and thus the budget improvement. If you follow that logic, the key to continued improvement would be continued tax cuts, and that is just what Mr. Bush called for last week. He conjured a bright future in which the deficit disappears after he leaves office, without anyone ever having to raise taxes. That was the speech, and then there is reality, which came knocking within days when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its annual 10-year budget outlook. The outlook is for a cumulative deficit of $2.9 trillion to $3.4 trillion — about $300 billion a year — if, as Mr. Bush wishes, the tax cuts are extended beyond their scheduled expiration in 2010 and tax relief continues for Americans wrongly afflicted by the alternative minimum tax. In arriving at its estimate, the budget agency also assumed that costs for the war in Iraq would start going down next year, an assumption that, if proved wrong, would result in even higher deficits." ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 27 Jan 07 - 09:12 PM The Administration continues to double back on itself like a snake biting its own tongue. In "The Bait-and-Switch White House" the Times shines some light on the endless, shuffle-footed tap dancing mealymouthed Janus-faced snake-bellied double-tonguing hypocrisy that seems to be endemic in the W universe. Well, that may be unfair. Maybe its just Cheney's part. With Rove and Rumsfield gone, there's hardly any other explanation left! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 27 Jan 07 - 09:07 PM A brilliant insight into the militarization of the Presidency can be found in this article by Garry Wills, a professor emeritus of history at Northwestern. It speaks to a deep and important memory we should all have on tap of what it is ike to live in a "normal" era when the nation is not militarized. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 15 Jan 07 - 08:14 PM Keith Olberman, never a fan either, offers a scathing counterpoint to Bush's address and surge plan. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 15 Jan 07 - 11:09 AM Frank Rich of the NY Times, never a great fan of the Bush Admin, offers a scathing survey of the Resident team's history of PR and gesture, and current bunker mentality, in this piece. This is part of the Times Select subscriber material. aN EXCERPT: ..."The question now is how to minimize the damage before countless more Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered to serve the president's endgame of passing his defeat on to the next president. The Democrats can have all the hearings they want, but they are unlikely to take draconian action (cutting off funding) that would make them, rather than Mr. Bush, politically vulnerable to blame for losing Iraq. I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush's own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party. Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It's another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn't Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon's abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party's right wing. That leader was Barry Goldwater , who had been one of Nixon's most loyal and aggressive defenders until he finally realized he'd been lied to once too often. If John McCain won't play the role his Arizona predecessor once did, we must hope that John Warner or some patriot like him will, for the good of the country, answer the call of conscience. A dangerous president must be saved from himself, so that the American kids he's about to hurl into the hell of Baghdad can be saved along with him. " A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 15 Jan 07 - 09:48 AM In the New Zealand Scoop, Martin LeFevre explains why the Bush administration is evil. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 14 Jan 07 - 01:29 PM The Post also ccomments, inter alia: " THE POLITICAL tempest that has greeted President Bush's latest plan for Iraq is largely of the president's making. Mr. Bush could have forged a bipartisan consensus if he had embraced the military strategy laid out by the Iraq Study Group, which was in keeping with proposals by the Iraqi government, U.S. military commanders and leading members of Congress. Instead, he chose to embrace an option -- the dispatch of additional American soldiers to Baghdad and Anbar province -- that has the support of less than 20 percent of Americans and maybe even fewer Iraqis. It's not even clear that the Iraqi government is entirely on board. We don't think Mr. Bush went out of his way to pick the battle he now has with the new Democratic-controlled Congress. No doubt he has been convinced that the deployment of more troops is the only way to turn the situation in Iraq around. The White House, however, seems to have undervalued the importance of having broad public support before sending more troops into combat, with the inevitable spike in casualties that will cause. The intense criticism that has come from both houses and both parties in Congress is understandable, and justified." A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 14 Jan 07 - 12:56 PM An interesting analysis of the Bush Admin's too-little-too-late efforts to reverse the fatal bad judgments of Bremer et al., by trying to now hire those who said at the time they were bad ideas, can be found here in the Post. This is just multiplying one piece of brazen stupidity by another. If Bush and Rumsfeld had put a tenth of the importance on intel and wise application of force that they put on false ideas of loyalty and bizarre visions of the world, they would have been much, much better off. Sadly they were too stupid to know what was important. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 14 Jan 07 - 12:49 PM Peter Baker, Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Sunday, January 14, 2007 Printable Version Email This Article (01-14) 04:00 PST Washington -- The bipartisan opposition to President Bush's troop-increase plan has proved more intense than his advisers had expected and has left them scrambling to find support, but the White House is banking on the assumption that it can execute its "new way forward" in Iraq before Congress can derail it. The plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq was virtually guaranteed to provoke a furor in Washington, Bush advisers said, but the storm was exacerbated by the slow, leaky way that the White House reached its decision. Aides now harbor no hope of winning over Democrats. Instead, they aim mainly to keep Republicans from abandoning him further. Bush invited GOP leaders to Camp David this weekend and will argue his case tonight on CBS' "60 Minutes." Vice President Dick Cheney and national security adviser Stephen Hadley will also hit the airwaves today. "We recognize that many members of Congress are skeptical," Bush said in his radio address Saturday, adding, "Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully. But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible." Many Democrats, in fact, have proposed alternatives centered around pulling out troops, an idea Bush flatly rejects. Hopes for a bipartisan consensus after Democrats captured Congress in the November midterm elections have evaporated, and Bush appears more isolated than ever." (Washington Post/SFO Chronicle) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration From: Amos Date: 14 Jan 07 - 12:40 PM Meanwhile, back in Baghdad: BAGHDAD, Jan. 11 — Iraq's Shiite-led government offered only a grudging endorsement on Thursday of President Bush's proposal to deploy more than 20,000 additional troops in an effort to curb sectarian violence and regain control of Baghdad. The tepid response immediately raised questions about whether the government would make a good-faith effort to prosecute the new war plan. Iraq's prime minister sent a spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, to address President Bush's latest policy. The Iraqi leader, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, failed to appear at a news conference and avoided any public comment. He left the government's response to an official spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, who gave what amounted to a backhanded approval of the troop increase and emphasized that Iraqis, not Americans, would set the future course in the war. Mr. Dabbagh said that the government's objective was to secure the eventual withdrawal of American troops, and that for that to be possible there had to be security for Iraqis. "If this can be achieved by increasing either Iraqi or multinational forces," he added, "the government, for sure, will not stand against it." Mr. Dabbagh suggested that much about the Bush plan depended on how circumstances in Iraq would evolve over the coming months — an echo, in its way, of senior Bush administration officials. They have implied that they might halt the month-by-month inflow of additional troops if they think Mr. Maliki is failing to meet the political and military benchmarks Mr. Bush identified as the Iraqi government's part in making the new war plan work. "The plan can be developed according to the needs," Mr. Dabbagh said. Then he added tartly, "What is suitable for our conditions in Iraq is what we decide, not what others decide for us." The spokesman's remarks, and a similarly dyspeptic tone that was adopted by Shiite politicians with close ties to Mr. Maliki, pointed to the double-bind Mr. Bush finds himself in. Faced with low levels of public support for his new military push and a Democratic leadership in Congress that has said it will fight him over it, he also confronts the uncomfortable prospect of foot-dragging in Baghdad over the troop increases and the benchmarks he has set for the Iraqis. (From the Times) |
