mr bush

How Quick Matt Drudge Forgets

Here's Drudge's latest outrage:

A few weeks before announcing his re-election campaign, President Obama convened two dozen Wall Street executives, many of them longtime donors, in the White House’s Blue Room.

The guests were asked for their thoughts on how to speed the economic recovery, then the president opened the floor for over an hour on hot issues like hedge fund regulation and the deficit.

Mr. Obama, who enraged many financial industry executives a year and a half ago by labeling them “fat cats” and criticizing their bonuses, followed up the meeting with phone calls to those who could not attend.

The event, organized by the Democratic National Committee, kicked off an aggressive push by Mr. Obama to win back the allegiance of one of his most vital sources of campaign cash — in part by trying to convince Wall Street that his policies, far from undercutting the investor class, have helped bring banks and financial markets back to health.

But how quickly ole' Matt Drudge forgets. Remember this?

On an overcast Friday morning last month, White House aides ushered an influential group of conservative radio hosts into the Oval Office for a private audience with the president.

Society

Time To Recycle Some Outrage

Appearing on the Washington Times right now:

Obama skips Polish funeral, heads to golf course

And when you read the article, you start getting an eerie feeling of déjà vu:

Mr. Obama has played golf far more often than former President George W. Bush. In his eight years in office, Mr. Bush played just 24 times. His last time as president was Oct. 13, 2003.

He said in 2008 that he gave up golf "in solidarity" with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq.

So here we are back to the old meme of Obama golfing again.

But there’s also a very interesting mangling of the basis of the story here. The basis is that Obama didn’t go to the funeral of the Polish president. Here’s how wingnut blog Powerline describes it:

So it is interesting to see that Barack Obama went golfing today rather than attending the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria.

No. What’s interesting is how wingnuts totally mangle what actually happened. John is trying to sell it as Obama just skipping the funeral, when the fact is that President Obama was forced to cancel the trip because of the ash cloud over Europe. The news has had nonstop coverage of the volcanic eruption and the disruption in flights because of it. Does John think his readers at Powerline are really so stupid as to believe that President Obama just decided to blow off the funeral to go golfing? It would appear that way.

Rewriting Bush History

It sounds like Bush is going to come out of hiding:

Nearly 10 months after leaving office, former President George W. Bush plans to emerge from self-imposed political hibernation on Thursday as he starts a new public policy institute to promote some of the domestic and international priorities of his presidency.

You mean the very same priorities that helped make him when of the most disliked Presidents in history? Well that should be a great success.

But in this very same article there is a little quote that will certainly make you all laugh:

Former aides said Mr. Bush remained attentive to news developments, even if publicly quiet. “I get a lot of e-mails from him now,” said Michael J. Gerson, his former senior adviser. “He responds to the news. He’s very engaged.”

This must be a new development since January 20th. If they are trying to claim that he has always been this way, then please explain Katrina? How about his very failed push for his social security overhaul program?

Engaged is something Bush never was. He is a man that hid from reality, like a child with his fingers in his ears going “na na na na”. That fact doesn’t matter now because we are entering the age of “rewriting history”, and we will see the loyal Bushies make an extra hard push for that.

The “Party Of Whiners”

Paul Krugman does a hell of a job dissecting the Republican party’s failures and where it has left them. One part of his latest column that really sticks out is this:

The fault, however, lies not in Republicans’ stars but in themselves. Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.

If the Bush administration became a byword for policy bungles, for government by the unqualified, well, it was just following the advice of leading conservative think tanks: after the 2000 election the Heritage Foundation specifically urged the new team to “make appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second.”

Exuctive Privealge After The Term?

Things look like they are going to get interesting next year:

“The Bush administration overstepped in its exertion of executive privilege, and may very well try to continue to shield information from the American people after it leaves office,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, who sits on two committees, Judiciary and Intelligence, that are examining aspects of Mr. Bush’s policies.

Topics of open investigations include the harsh interrogation of detainees, the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, secret legal memorandums from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and the role of the former White House aides Karl Rove and Harriet E. Miers in the firing of federal prosecutors.

The article says that Bush might try the same thing Truman did in 1953 to get out of testifying before Congress after his term. The argument was separation of power, even after a President leaves office. In that case the Congress just backed down, but if our Congress keeps pushing on it then maybe we can get the Supreme Court to decide once and for all what separation of power really is and when does it end.

Bush Still Dnagling That Carrot

In his radio address yesterday, Bush did more of the "blaming Democrats" for the high oil prices, through their rejection of lifting the offshore drilling ban:

First, we should expand American oil production by increasing access to the Outer Continental Shelf, or OCS. Experts believe that the OCS could produce enough oil to match America's current production for almost ten years. The problem is that Congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980s. So I've called on the House and Senate to lift this legislative ban and give states the option of opening up OCS resources off their shores while protecting the environment. There's also an executive prohibition on exploration in the OCS, which I will lift when Congress lifts the legislative ban.

Here's what the right-wing Wall Street Journal said about it this past week:

Mr. Bush argued that leaving most of America’s immense offshore oil-and-gas resources off-limits was “outdated and counterproductive,” and he called on Congress to end its quarter-century ban. Fair enough. But the ban actually has two components, one of which is a 1990 executive order; like launching a warhead, both keys must be turned. Mr. Bush said he would only turn his after Congress did.

Catch that? There are actually two bans in place. The one Bush conveniently fails to mention is the 1990 Presidential ban put in place by his father. Funny how that works. Even right wing bloggers like Malkin are calling Bush's bluff on this.

Obama Leads McCain By 6 And Bush Still Sucks

First the good news:

Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama holds a six point lead over his Republican counterpart John McCain, a new CBS News poll finds. Obama leads McCain 48 percent to 42 percent among registered voters, with 6 percent of respondents undecided.

Then the good news:

President Bush's approval rating is at its lowest level to date. Just 25 percent of Americans approve of the overall job Mr. Bush is doing as President, an all-time low for him and among the lowest approval ratings ever recorded for a President.

McCain = Bush is a great campaign strategy to run on this year. I'm curious to see how much more lower he goes when it gets around that Bush did lie us into war and we now have an investigation that proves it.

Bush Wants To Condemn The Mynamar Government.

Good - now will he condemn his own party's front runner, who has hired people to run his campaign that lobbied for the military Junta in Burma that is causing this grief.

I know - how about Bush condemn himself. He refused aide during Katrina. Nation's had ships fully stocked sitting off our shores waiting to help. Instead Bush said no. So yeah - we will condemn Mynamar, but we also condemn you Mr. Bush.

Mark Your Calenders - January 28

That's the day Dennis Kucinich is planning on introducing articles of impeachment against Bush. He is also going after Pelosi:

He also fired a volley at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California who has maintained that impeaching Mr. Bush is not on the table for Congressional Democrats. “If impeachment is off the table,” Mr. Kucinich said, “truth is off the table. If truth is off the table then this body is living a lie.”

AMEN! Impeachment, or the threat of, is one of the core principals of checks and balances and by Pelosi saying "it's off the table", she is, in effect, saying that checks and balances are off the table. This shows Pelosi is not up to the job of being Speaker of the House.

What A Nice Guy!

From the NYT:

But the president did personally telephone Mr. Gore to extend the invitation, and the White House changed the date of the event so Mr. Gore could attend. Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Dana Perino, told reporters the president is willing to let bygones be bygones.

“This president does not harbor any resentments,” she said. “He never has.”

Translation: The President isn't upset Mr. Gore didn't just let him be President.

Talk about an asshole - and his little parrot, Dana Perino, for going out and saying such a thing. Bush makes Manson look sane.

This Was Priceless

Bush during his press conference, talking about Russia's diplomatic reform; "I emphasis to them that checks and balances are important".

Why yes they are Mr. Bush!

Mr. Putin - to learn about these checks and balances, just watch George Bush. Whatever he does - do the opposite. Also wipe "executive privilege" from your vocabulary.

Morbid America and the True Insult

So here we are - the 6th anniversary of 9/11. All the television stations are replaying their coverage of the attacks and we will be reminded of it all day.

I think it is an insult to Americans to constantly remind them of the attacks. There isn't any other nation that goes through this kind of dramatics to remember such a horrible day. Imagine if Iraq held on to something like this for so long? Everyday would be a day of remembrance for them.

9/11 was a horrible event and one that shouldn't be forgotten, but it should also not become a public spectacle every year. Politicians have already trampled that day by politicizing the event. Now we have a yearly reminder trying to make us feel as though it just happened. If your loved one was gunned down on video tape, would you want to constantly watch it? I didn't think so. Perhaps the same courtesy should be extended to the families of the victims.

Something I have said numerous times is that 9/11 didn't change the world. Instead we joined the world on 9/11. A lot of people understand this basic concept. It's the people in charge who refuse to.

The only person that needs the reminder of what happened on 9/11 is George Bush. He is the one that let the masterminds of this horrible attack go unpunished. Now we see possible replacements for him wanting to extend the same luxury to Osama bin Laden.

The revenge against those who attack us was quickly dismissed. Instead George Bush decided to take revenge on a man who wanted to kill his father, Saddam Hussein. He tried to tell the American people that Saddam was behind this horrible attack. That was a lie. He told us about the horrible things Saddam did to his people and that we needed to free them. That was a total insult to the people who died on 9/11. What about their vengeance Mr. Bush?

Another Bush Lie Exposed

All this man does is lie to the Congress, the American people and the World. It won't stop until he is out of office either:

A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to â€œdissolve Saddamâ€™s military and intelligence structures,â€ a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been â€œto keep the army intactâ€ but that it â€œdidnâ€™t happen.â€

The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents. In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bushâ€™s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.

This isn't some left winger, or right winger turned left. This is from Paul Bremer. Considering Congress will start debating Iraq again as early as this week, this needs to be taken into serious consideration. We are talking about the pivotal failing point in Iraq, and the President is lying about it. Congress needs to stop this war and stop this President now. We don't have the luxury of waiting until January 2009, he needs pushed out yesterday.

BREAKING: Gonzo Is Gonzo!

So long idiot!:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.

Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch near here.

Mr. Bush has not yet chosen a replacement but will not leave the position open long, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Attorney General's resignation had not yet been made public.

Now we can see who the replacement will be.

Now They Are Waking Up?

This is politics at it's worse. While the GOP has accused Democrats of playing politics with the lives of soldiers, it is evident they are the ones who were playing the games:

White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bushâ€™s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

Mr. Bush and his aides once thought they could wait to begin those discussions until after Sept. 15, when the top field commander and the new American ambassador to Baghdad are scheduled to report on the effectiveness of the troop increase that the president announced in January. But suddenly, some of Mr. Bushâ€™s aides acknowledge, it appears that forces are combining against him just as the Senate prepares this week to begin what promises to be a contentious debate on the warâ€™s future and financing.

Four more Republican senators have recently declared that they can no longer support Mr. Bushâ€™s strategy, including senior lawmakers who until now had expressed their doubts only privately. As a result, some aides are now telling Mr. Bush that if he wants to forestall more defections, it would be wiser to announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for American troops that would allow for a staged pullback, a strategy that he rejected in December as a prescription for defeat when it was proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.