BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 10:41 PM

A Liberal is a person that believes in Liberalisim. If you want to know what Liberalisim is, ask a Liberal.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 11:15 PM

Dickey:

That is what we call circular reasoning ; I assume you have been espousing it for a long time, as it always produces smaller and smaller circles.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 09:03 AM

A summary of Nancy Pelosi's first 100 days as Majority Leader.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 10:51 AM

"Like the House last week and the voters last November, the Senate made clear Tuesday that Americans expect to see the disaster in Iraq brought to an early and responsible end.

President Bush's reaction was instantaneous, familiar in its contempt for views that do not follow his in lockstep, and depressing in its lack of contact with reality. Mr. Bush threatened to veto the spending bill needed for this year's military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than accept language calling for most American combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq sometime next year. Nor was there any hint of his own prescription for ending this war.

Mr. Bush, his advisers and his loyalists on Capitol Hill threw up a cloud of propaganda aimed at making Americans think there is a debate going on between those who want to win the war and those who want to lose. That's nonsense, and the White House knows it. Mr. Bush's inadequate response was a cynical attempt to portray the Democrats and moderate Republicans who voted with the majority as indifferent to the political future of Iraq and to the morale of American soldiers stationed there.

In truth, it is Mr. Bush who has been defaulting on his own responsibilities in both areas, and that is why Congress needed to add the language he now objects to so vehemently.

Instead, he has handed a blank check to a government of divisive Iraqi politicians adept at paying lip service to national reconciliation while working hard to undermine it in practice. And he continues to ratchet up an already unsustainable troop escalation that will require sending exhausted units back into combat and compromise the Army's ability to maintain high-quality forces ready to respond to crises around the world.

..."

(NY Times 3-28-07)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 11:03 AM

"Our current president could certainly be described as cunning and idealistic, but he has chosen to use those traits in ways that have robbed us of our blood, treasure and international reputation.

After six years of incompetence, deceit and deception, I'd prefer a president who exudes the qualities of honesty, compassion and intelligence. "

John Esposito
Huntington, N.Y., March 25, 2007
In a letter to the NY Times

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 12:04 PM

Poll: A Surprising G.O.P. Edge for '08
Thursday, Mar. 29, 2007 By JAY CARNEY/WASHINGTON

Could things be any worse for George W. Bush and his beleaguered party? In the new TIME poll, the President's job approval rating continues to wallow near his all-time lows, at 33%, while his disapproval rating breaks the 60% barrier for the third consecutive survey. On Iraq, meanwhile, just 38% of respondents think the U.S. was right to invade, and only 37% believe "the new Iraqi government will be able to build a stable and reasonably Democratic society." Given a choice of policy options going forward, 68% endorse proposals to withdraw most combat troops, either within a year or no later than August 31, 2008, while just 28% say troops should stay in the country "as long as needed until the Iraqis can handle the situation themselves."

And then there's the burgeoning scandal stemming from the Justice Department's dismissal last year of eight U.S. attorneys. Forty-eight percent of respondents say the federal prosecutors were fired because they "refused to be pressured by politics," compared to just 22% who believe they were dismissed "for proper reasons." By a 55-33% margin, Americans believe Bush is refusing to allow top aide Karl Rove and other White House aides to testify under oath "because he's trying to cover up the reasons for the firings" , not because he "wants to preserve the Constitution's separation of powers." A slight plurality, 39-36%, believe Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign.

So it's taken almost as a given among the professional political class that the 2008 presidential election is the Democrats' to lose. Republicans are so morose in general, and conservatives so unhappy with their current field of candidates, that the assumption of a Democratic advantage has become bi-partisan. And with the public so soured on the Republican in the White House, and so many other trends working against them, including an up-tick in the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats , it's hard to find any good news for Republicans these days. So why, in poll after poll, including the new TIME poll, does that advantage seem to disappear whenever voters are asked to pick a president in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups among front-runners with solid name recognition. In our poll, Hillary Clinton loses to John McCain, 42-48%, and to Rudy Giuliani 41-50%. Even though Clinton maintains a 7% edge over Obama among Democratic respondents, Obama fares better in the general election match-ups. It's so close that it's a statistical dead-heat, but Obama still loses: 43-45% to McCain, 44-45% to Giuliani.

It's hard to know exactly why respondents who are generally unhappy towards — and in many cases fed up with — the GOP might still prefer a Republican for president over a Democrat. Much of it has to do with the individual candidates involved. In Clinton's case, as TIME pollster Mark Schulman points out, "with Hillary the Democratic front-runner, most voters have made up their minds about her, both pro and con. She may have limited upward potential against Republicans. The emerging anti-Hillaries, Obama and Edwards, suffer from low awareness at this point."

Another GOP advantage in these match-ups is the way the party's top two candidates are viewed by the public. "Giuliani and McCain are not traditional Republicans," says Schulman. "Rather they both have an independent streak that plays well in certain traditional Democratic bastions, such as the Northeast and California, the left and right coasts." As anyone following the campaign knows, the perceived "independent streak" that helps both McCain and Giuliani with the general electorate could hurt them, and possibly doom them, with GOP primary voters. Also, as Schulman points out, every Republican candidate is vulnerable because of his support for Bush's policy in Iraq and his closeness to Bush in general. "If Iraq persists as an issue, all of our polls show this will undercut Republican candidates," he says. "Being seen as 'close to Bush' is a real negative in the polls. When the campaign really heats up, the Democrats should have a lot of cards to play."

Democrats also may have a residual disadvantage going into 2008 — a long-standing disposition among voters to view Republicans as stronger on issues involving national security. Without question, Bush has done serious damage to the Republican brand in this arena. But, with the nation waging two wars and terrorism still a threat, that underlying sentiment might be one of the reasons GOP candidates appear competitive at all.

There are other interesting developments in the poll. John Edwards has surged among Democrats since he announced that his wife Elizabeth's cancer had recurred. In a three-way match-up, Clinton polls 38% among registered Democrats, vs 30% for Obama and 26% for Edwards. Edwards received just 17% in mid-March.

In the GOP race, Giuliani's post-announcement honeymoon appears to be over. The former New York City mayor's lead over erstwhile front-runner McCain has narrowed to 13 points, 35-22%, among registered Republicans, down from a 20-point lead two weeks ago.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1604469,00.html?cnn=yes

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 03:13 PM

As the old Chinese curse says, "May you live in interesting times". I'd say we do.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 10:32 PM

"News that war veterans were not getting adequate care stunned the public, outraged Capitol Hill and forced three high-level Pentagon officials to step down. Bush met with soldiers once housed in Building 18, who endured moldy walls, rodents and other problems that went unchecked until reported by the media.
"I was disturbed by their accounts of what went wrong," Bush said. "It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear our uniform and not get the best possible care. I apologize for what they went through, and we're going to fix the problem.""

Hey, he learned a new trick. Off the top of my head this is only the second time he's admitted to something having gone wrong, and the first I have ever heard him apologize for something.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 12:30 PM

"When Will Fredo Get Whacked?"

The New York Times
Frank Rich.


PRESIDENT BUSH wants to keep everything that happens in his White House secret, but when it comes to his own emotions, he's as transparent as a teenager on MySpace.

On Monday morning he observed the Iraq war's fourth anniversary with a sullen stay-the-course peroration so perfunctory he seemed to sleepwalk through its smorgasbord of recycled half-truths (Iraqi leaders are "beginning to meet the benchmarks") and boilerplate ("There will be good days, and there will be bad days"). But at a press conference the next day to defend his attorney general, the president was back in the saddle, guns blazing, Mr. Bring 'Em On reborn. He vowed to vanquish his Democratic antagonists much as he once, so very long ago, pledged to make short work of insurgents in Iraq.

The Jekyll-and-Hyde contrast between these two performances couldn't be a more dramatic indicator of Mr. Bush's priorities in his presidency's endgame. His passion for protecting his power and his courtiers far exceeds his passion for protecting the troops he's pouring into Iraq's civil war. But why go to the mat for Alberto Gonzales? Even Bush loyalists have rarely shown respect for this crony whom the president saddled with the nickname Fredo; they revolted when Mr. Bush flirted with appointing him to the Supreme Court and shun him now. The attorney general's alleged infraction — misrepresenting a Justice Department purge of eight United States attorneys, all political appointees, for political reasons — seems an easy-to-settle kerfuffle next to his infamous 2002 memo dismissing the Geneva Conventions' strictures on torture as "quaint" and "obsolete."

That's why the president's wild overreaction is revealing. So far his truculence has been largely attributed to his slavish loyalty to his White House supplicants, his ideological belief in unilateral executive-branch power and, as always, his need to shield the Machiavellian machinations of Karl Rove (who installed a protégé in place of one of the fired attorneys). But the fierceness of Mr. Bush's response — to the ludicrous extreme of forbidding transcripts of Congressional questioning of White House personnel — indicates there is far more fire to go with all the Beltway smoke.
..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 01:23 PM

See also this thread on scientific fascism.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 02:08 PM

From AP, 3-31-07:

WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman on Saturday urged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign, citing what he said were Gonzales' contradictory statements about his role in the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

"I trusted him before, but I can't now," said five-term Rep. Lee Terry, whose district includes metropolitan Omaha.

Gonzales' credibility took a blow this past week during testimony by his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sampson, who resigned March 12, said the attorney general was regularly briefed about plans to fire the prosecutors and was involved with discussions about "this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign."

Lawmakers impatient to hear Gonzales' side of the story said the embattled attorney general needed to explain himself quickly or risk more damage to his department. Gonzales is to testify on Capitol Hill on April 17.

"My views were that this was Democrat posturing and a witch hunt," Terry said. "My trust in him in that position has taken a hit because of these contradictory statements by him."

Gonzales on Friday sought to explain weeks of inconsistencies about how closely involved he had been in decisions to dismiss the U.S. attorneys. He said he had been aware his staff was drawing up plans for the firings but did not recall taking part in discussions over which people would actually be told to go.

"I believe in truth and accountability, and every step that I've taken is consistent with that principle," Gonzales said in Boston. "At the end of the day, I know what I did. And I know that the motivations for the decisions that I made were not based upon improper reasons."

Asked why he had not resigned, as some Democrats and Republicans have demanded, he said: "I am fighting for the truth."

Terry, asked whether he believed Gonzales' accounts, said: "I don't know ... I don't think so. ... I trusted him before, but I can't now."

He added, "Frankly, until these statements came out that contradicted his first statement, I was backing him, saying that he shouldn't resign. Now I think that he should."

Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is demanding a retraction from Gonzales on behalf of New Mexico's former U.S. attorney, who was among the prosecutors fired last year.

Schumer wrote Gonzales on Friday demanding that the attorney general clear David Iglesias' name. Schumer's letter came the day after Sampson testified that in hindsight, he would not have recommended Iglesias for dismissal.

Sampson orchestrated the firings for department officials as part of a plan to replace some prosecutors in President Bush's second term. He added Iglesias' name late in the process, but on Thursday said he could not remember exactly why.

Iglesias has said that he wants a written retraction from the Justice Department stating that performance had nothing to do with his dismissal.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 12:16 AM

Bush Job Approval Up To 35%
As Bush's approval numbers inch upward, satisfaction with where the country is headed is also trending higher.

National NewsPresident Bush's job approval rating has rebounded to 35%, after hitting a all-time low of 30% for the second time earlier this month, the latest Zogby International telephone poll shows.

Bush's job approval rating bump returns him to an approval level he last attained in late October 2006, when his positive marks stood at 36% during a torrid campaign to hold Republican control of both the U.S. House and Senate. Ultimately, that effort failed, and since, his positive numbers have hovered between 30% and 32%. His latest ratings boost now, as he winds up a five-country visit to Latin America, where anti-Bush sentiment runs high in many areas.

Sixty-three percent of Republicans gave Bush positive job marks, up from 61% in our early March poll. This compares to 11% of Democrats, up from 7% in early March. Among self-described independents, the President's positive job rating jumped from 20% in early March to 31% in our most recent poll.

The telephone survey of 1,028 likely voters nationwide was conducted March 7-9, and carries a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

In addition to a positive job rating boost for Bush, the same poll finds a slight increase in his ratings for handling the war in Iraq – overall, 26% give him a positive performance rating on the war, up from 23% in polling in early March. While nearly half of Republicans (47%) said they approve of how Bush is handling the war, Republican support is down slightly from the last round of polling, when it stood at 49%.

As Republican support slips slightly, gains have been made among Democrats and independents. Although there is significantly less support for Bush's handling of the war in Iraq among Democrats, 8% give positive ratings to his handling of the war, up from just 3% in the last round of polling. Among independents, 25% approve of Bush's handling of the war, a boost from 15% who said the same earlier this month.

As Bush's approval numbers inch upward, satisfaction with where the country is headed is also trending higher. Overall, 33% said the country is headed in the right direction, an increase from 31% in early March polling. But while Republicans' confidence in the country's direction grew to 57% from 54% earlier this month, Democrats remain skeptical – 16% of Democrats said the U.S. was headed in the right direction earlier this month, compared to just 10% in the most recent poll. Independent voters show the most positive swing, with nearly a third (32%) who believe the nation is headed in the right direction, up from 23% in the last poll.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 12:24 AM

Wow! 35%!!! When they reached that level last October he was viewed as a dead duck.


A

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)

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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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 - 12:43 AM

Harry Truman Nov. 1951 23% job approval rating

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 - 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 - 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.


Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
Sister Toldjah
Title Pending
Candide's Notebooks: News - Commentary - Culture - A Daily Portal to Minds Without Borders by Pierre Tristam


Full List of Blogs (10 links) »


Most Blogged About Articles
On washingtonpost.com | On the web


Save & Share Article What's This?

DiggGoogle
del.icio.usYahoo!
RedditFacebook



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: 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.


OP-ED COLUMNISTS
Columnist Biographies, Past Columns and RSS Feeds
The Editorialist

Save & Share Article What's This?

DiggGoogle
del.icio.usYahoo!
RedditFacebook



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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: Bobert
Date: 07 Apr 07 - 08:35 AM

What Barry said, plus...

300...