president bush

No matter how much Tony Snow and the rest of the White House try to spin it, the fact remains - the news coming out of Iraq is not good. GOP Senators are also seeing this and not buying the typical spin:

Sen. George Voinovich said Tuesday the U.S. should begin pulling troops out of Iraq, joining Richard Lugar as the second Republican lawmaker in as many days to suggest President Bush's war strategy is failing.

He said the Iraqi people must become more involved and "I don't think they'll get it until they know we're leaving."

The Ohio senator's remarks followed similar comments by Lugar, R-Ind., the previous night. The two GOP senators previously had expressed concerns about Bush's decision to send 30,000 extra troops to Iraq in a massive U.S.-led security push in Baghdad and Anbar province. But they had stopped short of saying U.S. troops should leave and declined to back Democratic legislation setting a deadline for troop withdrawals.

"We must not abandon our mission, but we must begin a transition where the Iraqi government and its neighbors play a larger role in stabilizing Iraq," Voinovich wrote in a letter to Bush. (emphasis mine)

The last part is kind of idiotic. Hasn't this been the goal since the surge? This is what is failing right now. Saying that doesn't mean things are going to work. The mission is failed and our troops on the ground ARE NOT to blame. The ones to blame are the warhawks sitting in the White House and Pentagon who suffer such a disconnect from reality that it has lead us to this dark point in our history. Of course Bush won't admit that, because it is admitting fault on his part. His opinion of himself matters more than the lives of our soldiers and security of our nation.

All this talk of "condemning" Sudan is nothing but that, talk. The Bush administration don't care what they are doing, so long as they can "help us":

Sudan has secretly worked with the CIA to spy on the insurgency in Iraq, an example of how the U.S. has continued to cooperate with the Sudanese regime even while condemning its suspected role in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur.

President Bush has denounced the killings in Sudan's western region as genocide and has imposed sanctions on the government in Khartoum. But some critics say the administration has soft-pedaled the sanctions to preserve its extensive intelligence collaboration with Sudan.

The relationship underscores the complex realities of the post-Sept. 11 world, in which the United States has relied heavily on intelligence and military cooperation from countries, including Sudan and Uzbekistan, that are considered pariah states for their records on human rights.

A few points. First off, how can we justify taking out Saddam because of how he treated his people, when we are in fact supporting another regime guilty of the same thing?

Another, and more interesting point. What can we expect 20, 30 or 40 years down the road from this? I am talking about people who suffered at the hand of the Sudanese government? We very well could be breeding new terrorists from this action. In other words, history has taught us nothing.

Finally, I would like to know if this action is in violation of any U.N. resolutions. Numerous have been passed regarding Sudan, and I wouldn't be shocked if we were in violation of one some where. If that is the case then the Bush administration must be held accountable for this.

Think about it. Every time the Democrats do something that makes the netroots happy Republicans quickly bash them as being taken over by the "fringe" elements. They quickly blast Move On and DailyKos as "taking over the party". It always goes through me, like the sound of Coulter, when I hear this used. Are these pundits and politicians saying that the netroots don't deserve a political party? That is exactly how it appears every single time.

I bring this up because it is time do a little role switching. Yesterday's Washington Times published this story:

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee's chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations.

So now we have the RNC falling to the control of people like Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds. This also isn't the only case of the RNC being hit back by their own netroots. You also have Redstate declaring war against the House Republican Leadership:

But the commanders want until next year for the "surge" to work:

The Pentagon announced yesterday that 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades will begin deploying to Iraq in August as replacements, making it possible to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year.

U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.

While Bush and Republicans were assailing Nancy Pelosi for meeting with Syria last month, did it in fact backfire and prove that Pelosi's approach was the right thing to do? Check out these couple of key paragraphs from CNN:

The Bush administration has shunned Syria, which it considers a state supporter of terrorism, and last month President Bush assailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for making a trip to Damascus, saying it sent mixed messages to the Syrian government.

But the White House has been under pressure to talk with Syria and Iran, another U.S. opponent in the region.

[SNIP]

In Baghdad, U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Syria had tightened its borders and reduced the number of foreign insurgents crossing into Iraq -- a chief demand of the United States.

"There has been some movement by the Syrians. ... There has been a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq" for more than a month, Caldwell said.

So has this reduction been "for more than a month" or possibly in the last month, since Pelosi made her visit? I would have to go with the later. After all, the administration was going after Pelosi for meeting with Syria and talking about their support of the insurgency in Iraq just a month ago. So either they lied back then, and if you take Caldwell's word for it then that is exactly what they did, or Pelosi made some progress. There is no other answer to that.

Looks like George hit a new low! From the WSJ:

President Bush's approval rating slipped to new lows in the most recent Harris Interactive survey, but he's not alone: For the first time since the series began, all of the political figures and institutions included in the survey have negative performance ratings.

Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush's job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice garnered ...

And yet he "knows" what Americans want. Apparently not, or he would have resigned by now.

Today the number of soldiers killed in Iraq reached 3,308, including 3 soldiers killed today.

Also under the radar is the U.K.'s decision to drop the phrase "war on terror":

The British government has stopped using the phrase "war on terror" to refer to the struggle against political and religious violence, according to a Cabinet minister's prepared remarks for a Monday speech.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, a rising star of the governing Labour Party, says in a speech prepared for delivery in New York that the expression popularized by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks strengthens terrorists by making them feel part of a bigger struggle.

Ironic. When the Democrats tried to do this they were called "terrorist lovers" amongst other hateful things by the rabid right. Do they feel the same way about our number one ally? Will the Republicans in Congress, as well as the White House commence an attack against Downing Street the same way they did against the Democrats? Time will tell.

You got to love how diplomatic this White House is. Here is what they have said today about the military supplemental bill:

President Bush on Tuesday invited Democrats to discuss their standoff over a war-spending bill, but he made clear he would not change his position opposing troop withdrawals. The White House bluntly said the meeting would not be a negotiation.

"It's time for them to get the job done, so I'm inviting congressional leaders from both parties — both political parties — to meet with me at the White House next week," Bush said in a speech to an American Legion audience in Fairfax, Va.

"At this meeting, the leaders in Congress can report on progress on getting an emergency spending bill to my desk," Bush said. "We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill, a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground. I'm hopeful we'll see some results soon from the Congress."

So he is basically doing his same song and dance. He will tell them to come and talk, to make it look like he is trying to reach out, but they go there and here "it is my way or the highway". Poor Georgie - he just don't realize what country he lives in. He thinks he is the king. Can't really blame him though - the Republicans created that monster with their rubber stamping. It looks like the Democrats are ready to teach Bush a thing about how our country works also and knock him out of his imaginary throne. This is Harry Reid's response to this preposterous act of reaching out: