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Bush Is Fun Again!
Paul J. Richards, AFP / Getty Images
When he left office in January, George W. Bush's popularity plunged. But with Cheney and Rummy back in the headlines, Michael Schaffer says that opinion is shifting once again: The loveable, bumbling Bush of old is back.
Dick Cheney, as everyone now knows, is back. Famously reticent during his eight years in office, the former vice president has been on a media tear, denouncing Barack Obama as soft on terrorism. The reunion tour peaked Thursday with a speech that cable networks carried live—an appearance that the new president was forced to counter with a hastily scheduled terrorism address of his own.
But all the hype about the surly figure who once wielded so much power has distracted attention from another remarkable comeback: the reappearance of the affable, bumbling Texas frat boy in whose White House Cheney once served.
Four months ago, Bush was booed lustily at Obama’s inauguration. Now, he seems kind of harmless again.
George W. Bush, of course, has stayed well out of view since January 20. But as recent news cycles have dragged Cheney and despised former colleagues like Donald Rumsfeld and Douglas Feith back into the spotlight, Bush’s public image has undergone a subtle but important transformation. The arrogant, insecure, entirely unsympathetic second-term Bush—Bush 2.0—has been retired. Instead, the comedians, columnists, and talking heads who shape the discourse have revived an older, more respectful caricature—Bush 1.0, the amiable dunce.
That’s not a depiction most retired statesmen would crave, but for a man who left office with approval ratings nearly as low as Cheney’s, it represents a massive improvement. Four months ago, Bush was booed lustily at Obama’s inauguration; a psychologist’s bestselling book portrayed him as a deeply troubled sadist. Another bestseller cast his administration as a Shakespearean tragedy. No one was joking about “strategery.” Now, Bush seems kind of harmless again.
Just as it was when Bush first ambled onto the national stage, the revived image of the doofus pol owes a great deal to Will Ferrell and Saturday Night Live. Earlier this year, in his one-man show You’re Welcome, America, Ferrell brought back the goofy Bush he’d perfected on SNL back in the 43rd president’s glory days. When Ferrell returned as guest host for the program’s season finale last weekend, the Cheney media blitz provided an opportunity to resurrect that essentially likeable lunkhead once more.
In the show’s cold opening, a casually dressed Bush sneaks into the studio as Cheney prepares for yet another TV appearance. The sketch was poignant and essentially sad. “I spent eight years with my face out there saying things I barely understood while you were nowhere to be found,” Ferrell’s Bush laments, telling Cheney that he was “the one guy who scares me more than my dad.”
Later, after saying he wishes their relationship had been more like the one between Obama and Joe Biden, the broken Bush is still begging Cheney to be his friend. “If you ever want to Biden it up and get a burger with me, I’m game,” he says. Watching the sketch, it’s hard to remember what motivated so many people to extend middle fingers as Bush’s helicopter departed Obama’s inauguration.
Bush 1.0 wasn’t just limited to SNL. Last Sunday, GQ posted Robert Draper’s blockbuster report that Rumsfeld’s Defense Department regularly put biblical quotations on the cover sheets of daily intelligence memos to the president. The furious reaction to Draper’s story seemed like a trip back to Bush’s charmed early years in the White House, when even his critics portrayed him as a decent but limited man manipulated by venal aides.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Bring On the First Dog Controversies!
Michael Schaffer is a writer in Philadelphia. One Nation Under Dog, his book about petmania, the pet industry, and what modern petkeeping says about modern America, is available from Henry Holt. For more visit www.michaelschaffer.net.
Man's Only Friend
Michael Schaffer is a writer in Philadelphia. One Nation Under Dog, his book about petmania, the pet industry, and what modern petkeeping says about modern America, is available from Henry Holt. For more visit www.michaelschaffer.net.
Dogs—So Like Us
Michael Schaffer is a writer in Philadelphia. One Nation Under Dog, his book about petmania, the pet industry, and what modern petkeeping says about modern America, is available from Henry Holt. For more visit www.michaelschaffer.net.
Here in Texas we consider Bush much like the fire art, harmless if he's 20 feet away and even industrious. But get him close and involved in anything and harm ensues. The fire art then must die. And so it is with with W(rong). Unless this country finds the political will to prosecute (and thus know the truth) we will find his ghost will haunt us in perpetuem as Nixon did.
Makes sense, Bamos. But what about those Texas turd-blossoms?
I heard they are dangerous, even when they aren't seen, kind of like
nasty farts.
hockeydoggie-
You have such
A way with words.
excellent comment
prosecute him for which crime? Keeping America safe for 8 years? Freeing a country of oppression and turning it into a democosy? Keeping our economy balanced? Killing terrorists and making it hard for them to regroup? You are a big ungrateful imbecile. Look what that mother in office is doing now. Raised our debt by over 9 trill just in two months, committed bribery and extortion twice, interfering in States' rights and enterprise, and taking liberties from the American People, all of which are Constitutional NO-NOs. Let's not forget the TREASON Obama and Biden committed when they disclosed top secret, classified info to our enemies, terrorists. Obama and the rest of the lib clan are all criminals. And you have a nerve to talk down about Bush? You are out of reality, you moron. Start researching before you vomit your lies. To suggest Bush must die, you're an idiot. Are you saying u r going to do it? Come on, punk. Tell the rest of us what you want to happen. Imbecile punk with your head in the clouds, lost without reality.
@denalaurens: You know, if TDB had a contest for "Dumbest Commenter of all Time," you'd be a finalist.
It would be too grueling to take down each of your regurgitated, can't-think-for-yourself Hannity talking points, but let's address the most egregious ones, shall we?
"Keeping America safe for 8 years" Well, except for the murder of 3,000 innocents on 9/11/01, and of course the murderous anthrax attacks that followed, sure, OK.
"Freeing a country of oppression and turning it into a democosy" Spelling and grammatical errors aside, if Iraq is going so well, why don't you go there on vacation? Do you even read the news? Do you even, uhh, read?
"Killing terrorists and making it hard for them to regroup" The Taliban is essentially back in charge in Afghanistan, and they're creeping into Pakistan. President Obama had to call for a surge of troops in Afghanistan because Bush couldn't get the job done.
"Raised our debt by over 9 trill just in two months" Can't wait to see your graph! I'll bet the one you got from Bill O'Reilly doesn't include the years 2011 and 2012. And don't forget, your boy Bush is the one who signed TARP.
Sadly, you're the one who needs to be educated, and you're the one who needs to turn off talk radio and do some independent thinking and research. Run along now, little wingnut, run along.
Denalaurens:
"Keeping America safe for 8 years?"
Here's the reason why there wasn't another 9/11 on American soil: Because Bush and Cheney didn't NEED another 9/11.
And Denalaurens, you forgot the made-in-Fort Detrick anthrax attacks that targeted the two senators who were then the two most outspoken opponents of the Patriot Act (who quickly changed their tune) and the photo editor at a tabloid in Florida that had just beforehand run embarrassing photos of Jenna Bush falling down drunk. Put it together.
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Oh, look!!! Computer!!!! OH, lookkk!!!! I can write whatever silly, revisionist nonsense I want! Poke, poke, type, i'm afraid, key poke, never discovered how to live like a thinking, reasoning, reasonable adult even when faced with actual terror eight years ago type poke afraid type!
I watched those buildings fall, with my own eyes, on people I know. The reaction from every politician in the days after were complete failures. Please grow up and conduct yourself as adult now that this is 2009 and the world has significantly changed. There are many questions to be considered in the modern world that transcend your politics or your fear.
KaveSF:
I presume you must have been talking to Denalaurens.
denalaurens-
You are Venusmuse's
New punked-out avatar.
You're not fooling me.
Venus is back
With tattoos.
This article is really reaching for nothing. The fact that Cheney is on his fear mongering media blitz, does not make Bush look better. What kind of logic is that? Just because Will Ferrel did a funny impression of hm on SNL (as he did in his earlier years; the exact same way, so how does that now make Bush different?) It was funny. It is supposed to be funny. It doesn't erase Bush's record as a war mongering, fiscally irresponsible, culturally inept President. Everyone knows Rove and Cheney were Bush's brain, so the fact that Cheney is now more public because he chooses to be, changes nothing about Bush. Whether Bush was an evil genius or a doofus, either way, it's inexcusable.
Thanks for stating so well what I was about to write myself. Saying, "he may have caused irreparable harm but now projects harmlessness" is a totally insignificant statement.
The problem is there's not just one Bush. He is both the bumbling fool and the antichrist. He knew very well how much evil was being done in his name, but he wasn't smart enough to see the danger and destruction he caused. We are cursed to live through decades of deconstruction of the man, but the truth is simple . . . he is both Ferrell and Forte.
Good job for him picking up dog shit...he may actually be competent to do that....maybe...
...now we have the bumbling bamster...the problem with this idiot is that he's not funny. Where Bush had the wisdom to leave things alone and let Americans work the economy out themselves, bamster boi has us plunged into 10 % unemployment, about to bail out California, taking over and screwing up every industry he gets his hands on...
When is SNL going to start showing us skits of New York fly- overs, and the bamster sticking his foot in his mouth when he isn't parroting his teleprompter?
Bush had no wisdom about anything..and screwed up everything he touched..the midas touch of shit. Like I said perfect job for him.
Revise history much?
After a last minute raid on the Treasury that will go down as the largest swindle in history, Bush & Cheney et al left the economy in shambles, two "broken" war-torn countries we now have to own, a legal mess in Cuba and so on and so on and so on.
So far, I'm not enthralled with Obama's administration, but it's not because of his teleprompter, Mr. Petty, or a PR gaffe in NYC. He's not going nearly far enough to correct the mistakes and missteps of the previous administration, blame for which conservatives want to shirk and shift to the present.
Conservatives must be like geese - it's a new world every day.
You don't get it do you. You far right wingnuts seem to think Bush things alone. Well guess what! Had he done things right and listened to the Clinton admin, he would have been more aware of Bin Laden and their plan for 9/11. But he ignored it because it came from Clinton. Real smart. Now we're in a mess economically because he decided to lower taxes when he put us into a phoney war. A war that has cost the American people trillions. Get real. I'm a Republican who is totally disgusted with the party and idiots that are running it. And yes, I'm one of millions of Repubs who voted for Obama. He's doing a great job.
"bamster boi" is a slave name for the President... Not only stupid, as it refers to Dominatrix culture but really immature as it shows pitiful jealousy of an educated man who has to clean up the Republicans ignorant slash and burn the citizens mess.
The Bush/ Cheney administration never gave a damn about you, da7ve. You aren't part of their club and never will be so why the anger at the guy stuck with the ruination they left? As far as Bush is concerned you only exist as slave labor to feed credit card companies and Big Oil. The fact that you're computer literate enough to get online shows you aren't Chosen Of The Boys Club To Bathe In The River Of Cash. You're expendable to those people- quit defending them because a black man is in office and starting off well.
Every one of you defending criminal behavior by the Bush White House needs to remember that they only care about you when cameras are around. You are expendable and only exist to work hard and be ripped off for it.
Look at Katrina. Many, close to ten, thousand dead and I think we all saw the "So what?" White House tape. Think it was any different other weeks?
@missbike: Damn, that is some good stuff. Every wingnut Bush-Cheney defender (including the author) in this thread should read what you wrote. Over, and over, and over, until it sinks in. Barack Obama won the Presidency by 10 million votes in part because a lot of Americans figured this out, but judging from the responses herein, there are still some hold-outs who will continue to vote against their very own interests, in part because they still live in some fantasy-world where they actually believe they will one day be wealthy, and get invited to the country club.
Hear, hear, missbike!
Are you a complete tool? "... the wisdom to leave things alone and let Americans work the economy out for themselves..." ...!!! Can you REALLY be that STUPID? This country almost faced complete COLLAPSE because of what you are now LAUDING?
If you can't hear the difference between the crap that came out of Bush's mouth and the gems Obama presents, you're living proof of the old saw, "A fool will always find a greater fool to admire him."
Every single great speech in the history of politics has been written down. Just because Lincoln used an envelope for the Gettysburg Address and Obama uses a teleprompter, you pinheads with your talking points get all exercised and think this is significant.
There really should be some minimum standard of logic and intelligence demonstrated in order to qualify for the privilege of voting. Ninety-nine percent of our troubles as a nation are a result of that lack.
Lets not forget that 9/11 would have never happened had Bill Clinton taken Obama Bin Laden out when he had the chance. As for TavernWench, Spasticula, MissBike, Betsym, DixieChik, SlaveRevolt, & especially Debbieqd & Redhead5050 All of your mothers should have had Abortions, but with your saviour boys polocies it's not too late.
Since Osama was not actually at the controls of the plane(s), there is no guarantee that "taking him out" would have done anything to prevent the mission being carried out anymore than the crucifixion stopped you religious zealots from killing abortion doctors. Duh.
That abortion crack reminds me of the famous line "right-to-lifers apparently agree that your right to life begins when you agree with them."
Nice ad hominem attack. (But then, if you can't spell "policies", you're probably going to have to google that term.)
But I bet he occasionally licks his fingers absentmindedly.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Amen, Spasticula.
Thank you. Can't say it better.
Even a PR army
Can't take on this job.
No no no.
George Bush used to be the President. I guess I don't hold grudges very well. Now, he's out of the way. Whatever mistakes he made, the new President will have to try to fix. I'm not mad at Bush et al. They're the past. Forward march.
You may be the reason history seems to repeat its self.
who the hell is going to fix the shit uh-blah-muh is making out of this country? You people are clueless. get your eyes and ears out of his ass and you can see what that criminal is doing to our country. Course, you mayt be too stupid to figure it out. The man has committed TREASON, idiot.
I do believe we have reached Peak Wingnut, America!!
You're a complete tool, who only parrots talking points. Not one bit of logical sense is contained in that crap-blurt.
What you're really saying is, dang it, wingnuts are no longer controlling the discourse by being loudest and lyingest and craziest... the mass of the population has finally had enough of being controlled by crazies!!
Thankfully. At last.
And now we ALL HAVE TO KEEP ON OUR TOES TO MAKE SURE THEY NEVER GET THAT DEATH GRIP ON THE BODY POLITIC AGAIN. Don't assume they're harmless because they're down now. Be vigilant. Take part in the process, even when you're happy, because these barely-sentient crap-flingers are so chronically unhappy that they will ALWAYS be pushing their agenda, and if we relax, they'll grab the steering wheel again.
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Um, a little over the top.
More like the McCarthy followers that enabled the erosion of our freedoms. Bush didn't murder millions. (Only many thousands.) ; ) But he (and/or his controllers and enablers) did manage to put a serious dent in our freedoms. (By doing what Jefferson specifically warned against, by the way... man, that guy could give Nostradamus a run for his money. I mean, if Nostradamus were for real.)
Maybe Bush is more spiritual than I thought. I've always considered picking up my dogs' poop a form of walking meditation. By god, there's hope for this guy.
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any person who thinks dubya is harmless is living under a rock. the man singlehandedly brought down our economy by being asleep at the wheel, in fact he KNEW we were in a recession but didn't want that inconvenient fact to ruin the remaining year he had left of ego trips and handshaking as the decider. pathetic psychology this man operates with and any law abiding american should be calling obama and protesting that no investigation has begun yet to put the crook in jail, where he belongs. but then, he will probably fly to his ranch in paraguay (google bush ranch paraguay) on some corporate G5 when the heat turns up.
as far as obama making a mess out of things, he's working to FIX the mess 8 yrs of republican reckless rule left us with. if you think differently, get out from under the rock from which you live and do some reading!
"W" was always funny. It's just that the joke turned out to be on America.
W was only funny in the sense of giving someone with an IQ of fifty a calculus problem, or feeding your dog peanut butter to watch his distress. Or putting a sock over your cat's head and watching him back around the room at top speed trying to get it off. (Watch, all the Bush lovers will now try this.)
The biggest joke is the one "H" is playing on America now - giving bureaucrats who've never run a thing free rein to socialize and further eviscerate American enterprise with the Waxman-Markey Bullshit act. The punchline is that we're out of money but he's still spending like a drunken sailor.
There was never anything lovable about Bush, who partied through life as a privileged, irresponsible and self-centered incompetent--none of which changed a great deal when he gave up on trying to make his way in business and turned to politics. He had eight years to play with the country as if it were some sort of personal toy--and now look at it!
I see the attacks of vitriol continue over a fine American who actually grew up in America and had pure American parents. Wake up! Obama is running auto companies for pete's sake. This is the dumbest and most socialistic thing any president has ever done. Obama is telling executives what they can and can not do. Obama is using taxpayer dollars to butcher babies at home and abroad. Obama is catering and pandering to Muslim countries. Obama is replacing fine historical art in the White House in public areas with blue and yellow abstracts from African-Americans mainly, some Asians and Hispanics. Wake up and open your eyes!!!! WE ARE NOT KENYA AND WE DON'T WANT TO BE KENYA!!!!
*rolls eyes*
Poppycock.
What about Kenya? What's that got to do with anything?
I was hoping we'd be Sweden, with free education to make sure the talented go into fields like medicine and teaching without horrible amounts of debt on graduation- not Wall Street. A spectacularly successful National Health, practically no unemployment, and an extremely well educated population in general. Swedes are no slouches, they're awesome engineers.
But Kenyans are a noble people who believe strongly in education and don't spend their lives on the couch, so I could go with Kenya. Sounds exactly like the African Americans in my home state of Louisiana.
So, maybe we'll just get an America under a rule of Law instead of being terrorized by our own Federal Government as Mr Obama has read and actually understands the Constitution.
You hysterical people just hate Mr. Obama because he's black and smarter than you. Get over the race thing already!
"I see the attacks of vitriol continue over a fine American who actually grew up in America and had pure American parents."
I smell a skinhead.
I was going to reply, but your post is so stupid there is no point. Grow up and turn off Fox.
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"Pure American parents"
"Pure Aryan stock"
Sounds like your reasoning is straight out of every ethnic-cleansing debacle in history.
You, sir, need to change your screen name, because Democracy For All seems to be short for "Democracy for whoever I agree with and everybody else can go suck it."
Socialism: fire department, police department, post office, highway system, social security, medicare, public libraries, national parks. Oh yeah, that's a big boogeyman right there!
You right-wing talking-point parrots are on the verge of finally being marginalized, where you belong. But keep it up, because that kind of crap is what finally woke up the slumbering mass of centrist Americans and got them to toss your poster boy out on his ass. Yee-haw!!!
wow, racist much??
What is loveable about old, stale, bumbling, stupid and dangerous? Sure you jest. He should "be gone" and stay that way.
So there were those rude, uncouth, nasty cretins who flipped President Bush off as his helicopter took flight. The Amateur Hour Oracle who took his place will be lucky if there are ONLY fingers in the air when he takes off. Millions of Americans are seeing this fool for what he is and don't like his Marxist agenda.
Go and find out what Marxism actually is; Then review the gigantic TARP swindle signed into law by George Bush on the way out the door. Who's a Marxist?
Yeah, totally ignore the overwhelming voice of the people and keep listening to the spiders in your own tiny little skull.
Kegan974,
Please call your nearest FBI office and repeat what you wrote. I'm sure they'd be very happy to speak with you. Or I can just put in a call to President Obama and share this with him. Since he's got everything bugged, being a Marxist tyrant, he undoubtedly already KNOWS WHO YOU ARE. I suggest you pack a suitcase; you'll need it, either for a nice long stay in jail or at the nuthouse, whichever THEY DECIDE. If you're lucky, you'll get to bunk with one of your pals, Dick or George. Also, pack plenty of cigarettes, American brands only.
Um, you can't smoke in most prisons any more. (But I'm sure other inmates will cluster around his fuming hatred and, well, pass him around like a pack of Swisher Sweets, LOL.)
Narratives. The author's comments tell us much about narratives and little about Bush. With hindsight, we see that various people were really just creating narratives--searching for something that would stick in a way that diminished Bush. Bush never engaged in the narrative war so the terrain was ceded to the narrators who were bound to find something that stuck.
Precious little has been devoted to the power of narratives set loose into the population. It's worth a look. Narratives are just stories...a point of view dropped into the slipstream of information channels. Narratives have no requirements to be factual. They need only somehow stick to be successful. Half-truths work the best. They're an art form. "Bush lied, people died" is the example par excellence. Like Pelosi said, it was the CIA who who lied but the half-truth about Bush is what actually stuck. Nobody remembers or ever really understood the intelligence failures that led to 911 or the Iraq war and which continue today in Afghanistan. Everybody thinks Bush lied and people died. Narratives rule in the information age.
The same attempts at diminishing Obama are in play today. It'll be interesting to what sticks. If the Obamaistas are as skilled as the Clintonistas, then he will be fine. After all, it was Clinton's willingness to engage the narrative war relentlessly and shamelessly to avoid conviction by the Senate and being thrown out of office. Only Clinton would have risked so much to save his lyin' self. And he won. Incredibly, he was actually acquitted by the Senate for a crime to which he had already confessed...! You can beat narratives but you have to be willing to fight long, hard, and often dirty.
In the information age, narratives rule.
"Intelligence failures" that led to the war in Iraq?? You seriously are naive enough to believe that? Come check out this wonderful bridge I want to sell you, no paperwork needed, cash up front.
From what idiot did you buy your bridge?
You really need to condense your long, long comments - they're just not readable for this type of forum.
Carole65, the thing is, I don't own a bridge at all. I was just saying that if someone was so gullible as to think the obvious oil war in Iraq was launched because of intelligence failures then they might be interested in buying it, NOT on the installment plan but cash up front.
As for condensing, oh come on, you can read it if you try can't you? I mean is something really UNreadable if it's written in the same language? Aren't you really just saying that you (and others like you) can't keep your attention focused on any given subject for the amount of time it would take to read something that is more than a few sentences strung together? Or just looking for some excuse to avoid reading it? I think if you put your mind to it you could muddle through somehow and actually finish reading it even if you just read a little bit of it each day for several days. Where there's a will there's a way right?
Slave Revolt -- I think Carole's lips just get tired from all those big words. Like "Intelligence."
Carole -- couldn't you have condensed "long, long" to just, "long?"
Hee hee.
What led to the war in Iraq was the Cheney Energy Task Force and the desire of the Bush (Cheney) administration to make sure the U.S. was in the driver's seat regarding what looked like Iraq's soon-to-be-privatized oil industry rather than being left out of it.
"Two and a half years and $202 billion into the war in Iraq, the United States has at least one significant new asset to show for it: effective membership, through our control of Iraq's energy policy, in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Arab-dominated oil cartel.
Just what to do with this proxy power has been, almost since President Bush's first inaugural, the cause of a pitched battle between neoconservatives at the Pentagon, on the one hand, and the State Department and the oil industry, on the other. At issue is whether Iraq will remain a member in good standing of OPEC, upholding production limits and thereby high prices, or a mutinous spoiler that could topple the Arab oligopoly.
According to insiders and to documents obtained from the State Department, the neocons, once in command, are now in full retreat. Iraq's system of oil production, after a year of failed free-market experimentation, is being re-created almost entirely on the lines originally laid out by Saddam Hussein...
And in fact the original scheme for reconstruction, at least the one favored by neoconservatives, was to privatize Iraq's oil entirely and thereby undermine the oil cartel...
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq adhered to the OPEC quota limit (historically set to equal Iran's, now 3.96 million barrels a day) via state ownership of all fields. Cohen reasoned that if Iraq's fields were broken up and sold off, a dozen competing operators would quickly crank up production from their individual patches to the maximum possible, swiftly raising Iraq's total output to 6 million barrels a day. This extra crude would flood world petroleum markets, OPEC would devolve into mass cheating and overproduction, oil prices would fall over a cliff, and Saudi Arabia-both economically and politically - would fall to its knees.
By February 2003, Cohen's position had been enshrined as official policy, in the form of a hundred-page blueprint for the occupied nation titled, "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth"-a plan that generally embodied the principles for postwar Iraq favored by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and the Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams, now Deputy National Security Adviser. Nominally written by a committee of Defense, State, and Treasury officials, the blueprint was in fact the brainchild of a platoon of corporate lobbyists, chief among them the flattax fanatic Grover Norquist. From overhauling tax rates to rewriting copyright law, the document mapped out a radical makeover of Iraq as a free-market Xanadu-a sort of Chile on the Tigris-including, on page 73, the sell-off of the nation's crown jewels: "privatization... [of] the oil and supporting industries."...
Roughly six months before the invasion, the Bush Administration designated Philip Carroll to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry once U.S. tanks entered Baghdad. Carroll had been CEO of both Fluor Corporation, now a major contractor in Iraq, and, earlier, of Royal Dutch/Shell's U.S. division. In May 2003, a month after his arrival in Iraq, Carroll made headlines when he told the Washington Post that Iraq might break with OPEC: "[Iraqis] have from time to time, because of compelling national interest, elected to opt out of the quota system and pursue their own path. . . . They may elect to do that same thing. To me, it's a very important national question." Carroll later told me, though, that he personally would not have been supportive of privatizing oil fields. "Nobody in their right mind would have thought of doing that," he said.
Soon after Carroll resigned his post in September 2003, the new provisional government appointed an oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum. Uloum (who had been maneuvered into the job by then-neocon favorite Ahmad Chalabi) quickly fired Muhammad al-Jiburi, chief of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, and Thamer Ghadhban, the expert in charge of the southern oil fields, both of whom had been trusted by the Western oil industry. Production faltered from a combination of incompetence, wholesale theft (Iraq's oil was unmetered), sabotage, and corruption that one oilman told me was "rampant," with "direct payoffs to government officials by commercial operators."
With pipelines exploding daily, the fantasy of remaking Iraq's oil industry also went up in flames."
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12726
Regarding the machinations of what is usually called the Cheney Energy Task Force, why it's shrouded in secrecy and its role in the motivation to invade and occupy Iraq, here's an excerpt from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:
"The case Cheney vs. U.S. District Court is scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court next month and could end up revealing more about the Bush administration's motives for the 2003 Iraq war than any conceivable investigation of U.S. intelligence concerning Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction.
The plaintiffs, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, the conservative legal group based in Washington, argue that Vice President Cheney and his staff violated the open-government Federal Advisory Committee Act by meeting behind closed doors with energy industry executives, analysts and lobbyists.
The plaintiffs allege these discussions occurred during the formulation of the Bush administration's May 2001 "National Energy Policy."
For close to three years, Cheney and the administration have resisted demands that they reveal with whom they met and what they discussed.
Last year, a lower court ruled against Cheney and instructed him to turn over documents providing these details.
On Dec. 15, the Supreme Court announced it would hear Cheney's appeal. Three weeks later, Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent a weekend together duck hunting at a private resort in southern Louisiana, giving rise to calls for Scalia to recuse himself. So far, he has refused.
Why has the administration gone to such lengths to avoid disclosing how it developed its new energy policy?
Significant evidence points to the possibility that much more could be revealed than mere corporate cronyism: The national energy policy proceedings could open a window onto the Bush administration's decision-making process and motives for going to war on Iraq.
In July 2003, after two years of legal action through the Freedom of Information Act (and after the end of the war), Judicial Watch was finally able to obtain some documents from the Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development Group.
They included maps of Middle East and Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," detailing the status of their efforts. The documents are available www.judicialwatch.org.
These documents are significant because during the 1990s, U.S. policy- makers were alarmed about oil deals potentially worth billions of dollars being signed between the Iraqi government and foreign competitors of the United States including France's Total and Russia's LukOil.
The New York Times reported the LukOil contracts alone could amount to more than 70 billion barrels of oil, more than half of Iraq's reserves. One oil executive said the volume of these deals was huge -- a "colossal amount."
As early as April 17, 1995, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. petroleum giants realized that "Iraq is the biggie" in terms of future oil production, that the U.S. oil companies were "worried about being left out" of Iraq's oil dealings due to the antagonism between Washington and Baghdad, and that they feared that "the companies that win the rights to develop Iraqi fields could be on the road to becoming the most powerful multinationals of the next century."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/0 3/21/ING0H5LTDA1.DTL
Surely you've heard of the Cheney Energy Task Force. Put it all together yet? It isn't difficult.
Aw, s%$#! We coulda gotten the President of the Boston Club to shoot him in the face "by accident" because there's always some Old Line Society guy in any duck blind down here... Cheney, I think. Justice Scalia is not inherently evil, just a strict Constructionist. There's a reason the Darth Vader theme music accompanies Cheney on TV.
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Probably the single most edifying comment I have read in any forum anywhere. Thanks, SR -- if your writing was a little zippier, you should be *writing* for these guys rather than commenting in their forums. (Fora?)
Thanks for a much-needed fact-download.
Great entry - but you forgot to supply a first name for Cohen...?
Thanks for the kind words. Oh and Cohen's name is Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation.
Wow, Nicco, nicely said. Although, Bush did lie and people did die as a result. You're just cherry-picking what you believed that to mean.
But you're right that what sticks is the story... again, coming back to the idea that the ability to REASON should be TESTED before we LICENSE people to vote. (Except then of course we could be screwed because whoever writes the test could control the electorate.)
Bush is "fun again"?? Ask the Iraqis how much fun they think he is after launching a war that killed them by the hundred thousand and made their country a wasteland where breathing the dust can give you cancer and give your children birth defects thanks to America's depleted uranium munitions. Bush is a warmongering, dyslexic, drunk effing piece of s**t war criminal. Not "fun".
I think you would be the perfect person to conduct that poll in Iraq. I'll bet you wouldn't skew the poll to get your desired result. Go for it...........
Hey Carole65, want to see how your good old U.S. of A. "liberates" Iraqi children?
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=depleted uranium babies&btnG=Search Images&gbv=2
Now THERE is a truly deluded piece of "thinking" -- that anyone would *need* to skew a poll of Iraqis over that issue. LOL.
Michael Stephen Levinson was a candidate for president, running against George H.W. Bush, in New Hampshire, in 1988. Lev gave a live speech on New Hampshire public Television, the only candidate for president in our mss media political history to have given a live televised speech on a PBS station.
The station put off Levinson's request for a month, charged him (illegal but backed by FCC) $515 for the studio time, hired college kids who had never operated a television camera before to do the studio work, and listed "Motor Week" in the newspapers instead of "Michael S. Levinson, candidate for president."
Levinson and Secretary of State William Gardner estimated 500 people actually saw all or part of the speech, flipping the dial via remote. Of those they figured 240-250 were registered voters, perhaps 80 demos, 80 reps, and 80 independent. On election day 42 people voted Levinson.
Four years later Lev reappeared in New Hampshire. The PBS station NHP-TV would not let him in the door, the FCC backed them up, and the voting records will show that people in the same neighborhoods that voted for him in 1988, voted for him again. More in 1992.
You can see his New Hampshire speech on youtube.com/poetprophet
It is divided into three parts. You should watch all three. Why this digression? All of the major political candidates were advised about the speech. It was only the general public kept in the dark. The Doles watched the poet prophet explain his Vehicle for World Peace and recite passages.
They saw him from their suite in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Bushes, "in clue ding" son George also watched the poet prophet perform from his Television Scripture.
In 1992 Bush went to New Hampshire, Lev was on the ballot again and applied to make a speech on New Hampshire Public Television, WGBH, whose attorney Eric Brass was vicious, and NBC television, where Lev is blackballed from any appearance (in clue ding MSNBC) to this day, and PBS network.
A poet, inspired with a prophetic work of art written in design to perform on world wide television, from dusk until dawn, for all the world's peoples to participate in all at once, black balled from any live appearance in USA.
Maureen Dowd reported on Bush's trip to New Hampshire. She wrote, "He lashed out at 'mournful pundits, egg head academicians, smart aleck columnists, jacklegs jumping up demanding equal time with some screwy scheme . . . "
Enter "jacklegs jumping up" in The New York Times archive slot and see what comes up: Schmaltzy M.Dowd's report.
Speech, jerks! We are talking about the First Amendment. Lev was within his rights, and he still is.
When George 'Little Bush" was elected president Levinson's life in the country of his birth went haywire. Any job he applied for on the telephone was gone before he got there. Usually he ws treated like a pice of garbage and thrown out. The only work he could get were jobs that he made a cold call application, and being the likable fellow that he is, he would be hired, and then a month or two down the road, someone would begin out of a clear blue sky to start pushing him out.
These were sales jobs, and regardless how well he did after a couple months they were pushing him out.
He was working on an Order To Show cause v. NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and PBS for the court to have the networks appear and show cause why the court should not Order the FCC to revoke their licenses.
If he would only file the Order!!!!!
In the mean time 8 police cars descended on his apartment parking lot, supposedly looking for a criminal, and had our happy happy Lev not been outside on his way to the mail box just as they arrived - the police would have smashed down his door and the Alpha cop - with the police informant would have killed him. All beneath the radar J. Edgarina's fascist Bush supported domestic counter intelligence at work.
So he suspended work on his Order to Show cause and cannot safely return to the law library until he gets mace in his pocket for the walk to his car.
Bush and Cheney violated our constitution. The issue is how much money did Cheney's stock in Halliburton earn for Cheney while he was vice - president. When you read "New World Hors D'oeuvres" you will find out the treason committed by Bill Clintstone, stuff about the Bush's that will be noose, and also a Supreme Court case altered by some one FBI connected after the judges approved their galleys.
When you shoot your poets, as the police attempted to create a reason for doing, seven weeks ago, you aren't any better than the fascists who ran Germany into the ground, or the Stalinists of 'Darkness At Noon.'
Free book for you: Let the poet prophet's narrative rule:
http://www.michaelslevinson.com/newworld.pdf
To see the cover and lovely drawing of the poet prophet by Pulitzer prize winning cartoonist Tom Toles:
http://www.alphabet-learning.com/phonicsbox.html
Now THERE is a truly deluded piece of "thinking" -- that anyone would *need* to skew a poll of Iraqis over that issue. LOL.
I really would encourage everyone to go to this youtube offering and see just what a whack job this guy is talking about. The guy is smart but completely off his rocker. Watch one video and you'll realize *why* he got fired from his sales jobs. He just doesn't draw much of a line between his good ideas and his silly non-sequiturs. (For instance: if he gained the presidency, he wanted to have a live talk show every night, and proposed sitting down former President Nixon and Andy Kaufman with a cream pie on a chair between them.)
Some smart ideas, probably more of a realist on many things than most politicos, but with the social sense and decorum of a carnival barker.
The speech was in 1988.
The concept of an after dinner united family talk show with the president as host, starting out with the day's events in his / her monologue, then interviewing a movie star, or an author, having a new and original performing artist, followed by spontaneous (aka Milton Berle / Jack benny) slapstick humor, then a bed time story acted out for the little ones, then the show is over, could easily own the 7:30 - 9:00 PM slot four nights a week!
You write, 'I really would encourage' it to talk like a politician. They are always in an "I would say" mode instead of saying! Send your frieends and while you are at it visit michaelslevinson.com
troublemonkey
I agree with your observations here. And, it's my guess that, given the sign-on name oliverckerr (a lover/seeker?), he and mr. levinson are one and the same. Exhibit A: Mr. Levinson's book title--New World Hors D'Oeuvre (Get it? New World Order).
Hockey Doggy! Where you been? we should hats off to Slave Revolt!
This amiable doofus was the president. Fun again, you say! It's a sorry day in hell when the media begins to refurbish this guy's 8 years of deliquency in the Oval Office. Venal pals undermining him! What a bunch of rubbish! As if that were enough to excuse Bush's unitary shenanigans and New World Order megalomania. If anything, it isn't even an explanation that scratches the surface of Bush's pugnacious, loose cannon persona. Why so quick to excuse this man's imperial ineptness, surreal gloating and dynamic inanity? Like Reagan, Bush will be remembered as the result of a national dementia which infected the electorate.
And how is Clinton remembered?
Well, for starters, he's remembered as the President who presided over the longest period of economic expansion in American history. He also waged and prevailed in The Bosnian War. In addition, President Clinton left office with a budget surplus, and an approval rating of 63%.
How do you remember him, Carole?
TavernWench,
All that you said about Clinton, I agree with wholeheartedly. He was a good President. He also, unfortunately, has that pesky little impeachment item associated with him for lying to federal authorities. What I don't know, nor pretend to know, is if there might have more that he could have done to thwart the attack on 9/11.
President Bush had to deal with that issue, and at the time, the majority in the country was in full support. If the United Nations had done its job in dealing with the resolutions for weapon inspections in Iraq, we would have probably been part of UN forces going into Iraq. The fact that no weapons were found means nothing. Saddam killed thousands of people with chemical weapons, so I suspect that Syria may know more of their whereabouts. It also kept the terrorists busy there.
Having said that, if Bush's tactics kept us safe on our soil from massive attacks, I really don't need to know how that happened. I just can't bring myself to lay awake nights emmoting over some thug getting water up his nose for information. All this self rightous indignation from people, with all the language skills and thoughts of a 4 year old who just discovered potty talk for their means of attention, doesn't change my mind. President Bush won't go down in history as the best orator, but I also think his tenure in office will be better than it would seem now. It seems as though Obama has had to back track on what he would do differently, and is keeping some Bush policies for now. Just hope he, too, will keep this country safe and his critics can keep their mouths shut as to how it's accomplished.
Carole65:
"If the United Nations had done its job in dealing with the resolutions for weapon inspections in Iraq, we would have probably been part of UN forces going into Iraq."
Oh you made me almost fall over laughing. Is your memory that bad Carole? You don't remember that Saddam Hussein DID let the U.N. weapons inspectors back in? And that they roamed all around for five weeks and found exactly nothing? And that Bush is the one who ordered them back out, not Saddam?
Maybe you recall the four hoops Iraq's government jumped through to try to avoid a war with the warmongering Cheney administration? Hoop one was "If you don't let the U.N. weapons inspectors back in then we'll invade". Iraq complied.
Then it was "Well if you don't let them visit whatever sites they want to then we'll invade". Iraq complied.
Then it was "Well if you don't let us interview your scientists then we'll invade". Iraq complied.
Then an increasingly frustrated Bush stated "If you don't let us have spyplane overflight rights over all of Iraq then we will invade". And Iraq again complied.
Then Bush made a demand that no national leader anywhere in the world would agree to, that being "Leave the country with your family within 48 hours or we'll invade". So of course Saddam Hussein didn't agree to THAT. Nobody would have. Then the neo-con turds fold their arms smugly and declare "See?? Saddam's being defiant!!" When anybody with more than sawdust in their head would be able to see which party was the aggressor in this situation and which party was bending over backwards to avoid a war. You must have that affliction where you feel compelled to rewrite history to suit your needs regardless of how it actually happened and was widely reported in every mainstream news outlet from wherever you are to Bangladesh. Face it: The U.S. launched a war of aggression against Iraq. The U.S. is the aggressor nation. Being in denial about it isn't going to make it go away.
Carole65:
"The fact that no weapons were found means nothing. Saddam killed thousands of people with chemical weapons, so I suspect that Syria may know more of their whereabouts. It also kept the terrorists busy there."
Two facts that are missing from your myopic and ignorant assessment:
1.If Saddam actually had even chemical weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion then don't you think he would have actually, oh I dunno, maybe USED THEM???? When his country is being invaded by an aggressor? By the fact that the U.S. was able to invade Iraq, occupy it and depose its government all without a droplet of chemical weapons being used (by a madman who has no interest in the well-being of his subjects as we are endlessly told) shows you that they didn't have them. If they did they would have used them. It still wouldn't have made the Cheneyite invasion legitimate and Iraq would have had every right to use whatever weapons at its disposal to repel a country launching a war of aggression against it. By the fact that guys were grabbing small arms and jumping in minivans instead of launching Scud missiles full of chemical death shows you pretty plainly that they didn't have them to use.
2.Something else worth noting is that, yes, back in the 1980s Saddam DID use chemical weapons against Kurds. And guess what? Your wonderful government of the U.S. of A. (complete with good old Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand in a mightly long, warm handshake) continued its military aid to the Iraqi government afterwards and increased it. The U.S. also encouraged Saddam's government to carpet bomb Iranian cities. The "he gassed his own peeeeeople!!" line always leaves out the fact that the U.S. knew about it and continued to help Saddam afterwards as if nothing had happened.
Carole65:
If you want to talk about WMDs and Iraq something much more realistic than your childish fantasies about chemical weapons being spirited away to Syria would be to open your eyes and take a look at Iraqi babies that have been born with horrible grotesque deformaties thanks to American depleted uranium munitions. The only weapons of mass destruction the U.S. found in Iraq in 2003 were the ones it brought with it that will be causing cancer and birth defects for thousands of years to come. So congratulations! We've found your weapons of mass destruction! Just not remotely in the way you had hoped.
@Carole65, 11:06 pm: Ahhh, the old GOP canard: "9/11 was Clinton's fault and the Iraq War was the UN's fault!" Please. All of the usual talking points from "The Party of Personal Responsibility."
"The fact that no weapons were found means nothing." You'd best be speaking only for yourself, because you're dead wrong.
America has had enough of this crap, you know. Cling to your fear all you like, but most of us are not on-board. It's un-American to be afraid.
As a conservative who relied on the Republican Party to represent my views I have nothing but deep abiding disgust for Bush. He did irreparable damage to the Conservative movement and paved the way for a big government Democrat to use a Republican created slush fund (TARP) to further ruin our economy. A class clown as President is never a funny or lovable thing.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Bravo for not toeing the company line despite it betraying your ideals!!
If more people (and I'm talking to liberals here, too) had your kind of discriminating sense, public discourse would be a *lot* more meaningful.
Thank you.
war criminals are not lovable nor funny
Enough with the war criminal crap - you guys are like a screeching blackboard. Innocent people are getting stoned to death by these islamist fascist, and all you liberals can talk about is three heinous criminals who have been water-boarded. I don't like it. I don't know what I would have done in GWB's position in 2002, but I sure would not be loosing any sleep right now - Maybe you should view the video of one of these guys beheading someone - give you a sense of proportionality
Maybe you should look at photos of Iraqi children that were born deformed because of American depleted uranium munitions.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=depleted uranium babies&btnG=Search Images&gbv=2
What part of launching a war of aggression do you not understand to be a vast crime against humanity? Iraq was doing nothing to provoke the U.S. and the Cheney regime started a war with it. Their country is a wasteland where accidentally breathing the dust can give you cancer and give your kids congenital abnormalities like those in the photos. They have a foreign occupier's boot on their country's neck.
Countless Iraqis are dead including the several thousand the U.S. vaporized in an instant when it dropped four J.D.A.M.s on downtown Baghdad in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein a few hours before the invasion started, all based on the word of an Iraqi janitor who told the C.I.A. he thought Saddam Hussein was going to be in a particular restaurant at a particular time. Not for imaginary WMDs, not for imaginary "ties to Al Qaeda", sure as hell not to "free" the Iraqi people but for oil, because Iraq is sitting on a lake of it and the U.S. wanted to have the decisive hand in what looked to be the world's biggest oil privatization bonanza, instead of being left out of it.
The torture, atrocious as it is, pales in comparison to having caused this disaster of immense proportions to be visited upon the Iraqi people. In the eyes of any objective observer they are war criminals.
If you torture, if you violate the Geneva Convention, you're a war criminal. Doesn't matter that Churchill was on board with it in WWII (some controversy over that, but say it was true), it erodes the whole basis of our nation.
You don't *become* the boogeyman to *beat* the boogeyman. You don't justify the morally reprehensible as a means to *defeat* the morally reprehensible. You don't sink to their level. This is basic. It's why we arrest serial killers rather than slice them up like they do their victims. "Proportionality" is NEVER an argument to subvert morality.
Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
Was this supposed to make sense in English?
Because it doesn't.
I too was wondering about that comment. Is it a veiled threat (directed at whom?) as in "Don't ever tell anybody anything or else you start missing everybody" meaning your friends start disappearing in the middle of the night to be put on a Gulfstream jet to Gitmo if you "tell anybody anything"?
Or maybe it's an old cliche like "You can never go home again (because everything's changed)" but one I've never heard of? It's very puzzling. Not unsettling but strange.
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Bush is fun again? Yeah, right! So are Hitler, Osama, Torquemada, Gengis Khan...
Let's not forget that the lovable bumbling Bush slaughtered thousands of innocent people and deceived this country into war. His psychopathic, murderous and treasonous actions merit the full measure that the law allows.
SlaveRevolt:
You definitely live in your own anti American world where dictators and terrorist thugs deserve an exhalted place in the world. You're engaged in your own little jihad against America, and it's quite obvious that this makes you one happy soul. Hamas, Hezbollah, AlQuada, etc are looking for a few good men........
Daily Beast?
Could I get a way to never see the comments of certain commenters, like this one? Ideally the fact there name was there, and that they had made a comment, would be visible, but I'd have to click a button to expand their "contribution."
I guess I just don't need anyone who puts loyalty to America at such a high level that anyone who isn't as loyal automatically becomes a sworn enemy of America. It's ludicrous. I'm sure this is a nice person who just doesn't know what actually happened in Iraq. I don't need their ignorance.
kthxbye
And, of course, you do have all the facts because you have been privy to all the information. I, unlike you, will just have to wallow in my ignorance because I didn't get the daily briefings like you did. How did you manage that??
Carole65:
It's called reading and keeping abreast of things going on around oneself. You wallow in your ignorance because you seem to prefer it that way rather than turning off your Fox "News" propaganda and actually (gasp!) having the courage to look into things for yourself. It's called being observant and having brains instead of feces in ones head. You are someone who obviously doesn't care about the facts, rearranges details in their mind (if I may stretch the meaning of "mind") until they suit your needs like you did with your complete reversal of the facts regarding the run-up to your country's war of aggression against Iraq and discount anything unconvenient as being too long a comment for your pitiful attention span to deal with.
You are an immature little cuss (and I certainly hope the "65" in your name isn't either meaning you were born in 1965 or that you are 65 years old because you "debate" like you're hardly even a teenager) who can't refute anything that I say, rarely ever even makes an attempt to and normally makes herself content being patronizing and making very childish suggestions like if someone doesn't like the policies of a fascist police state s**tpile like your beloved America then they should join Hamas or something. Hey you ignorant little child, just because someone doesn't think that invading a country doing nothing to provoke them, causing them to get cancer and their children to have birth defects all for the oil wealth, and endorsing torture are anything to be proud of or defend doesn't automatically make someone a terrorist you effing simpleton. You'd fit right in if you lived in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, as they just loved people who didn't have brains or guts enough to see the truth and instead followed like brainwashed lemmings off a cliff. Enjoy your country's long slide to third-world status.
Typo: inconvenient
You know, it's funny, I was just thinking the EXACT SAME THING!!! This was like the straw that broke the camel's back... as many people as there are in this forum that I don't agree with, I will still read their comments... but Carole65 is a complete and utter waste of space, with zero content to her posts. Zero actual significance. It's all "screeech-screech-screeeeech!!".
As much as I disagree with most of the rabid conservative-talking-point-spouters here, I'll at least do them the courtesy of reading their posts. But Carole? There's nothing there! Words are strung together in something resembling a sentence, but with all the meaning sucked out, and such an obvious lack of actual thought that I could easily be reading a venomous chatbot's output.
I would *love* to get this content-less screeching crap-flinger off my screen. And "ignore this poster" is a button I've only hit ONCE previously in my decades of online intercourse.
@Carole65: This is a paragraph from the 2000 Democratic Party Platform, adopted at the DNC where Al Gore was nominated; thought you may find it interesting:
"Battling Terrorism. Whether terrorism is sponsored bya foreign nation or inspired by a singlefanatic individual, such as Osama Bin Laden, Forward Engagement requires trying to disruptterrorist networks, even before they are ready to attack. We must improve coordination internationally and domestically to share intelligence and develop operational plans. We must continue the comprehensive approach that has resulted in the development of a national counter-terrorism strategy involving all arms and levels of our government. We must continue to target terrorist finances, break up support cells, and disrupt training. And we must close avenues of cyber-attack by improving the security of the Internet and the computers upon which our digital economy exists."
I invite you now to read the 2000 GOP Platform adopted at the RNC which nominated George W. Bush. It's right here:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25849
How many times to you see the word "terrorist" or "Bin Laden"? Now, compare that to how many times you see the word "Iraq."
It is my fervent hope that you have learned something today.
She never learns anything any day apparently or else she wouldn't persist in holding the asinine "America can do no wrong" positions she holds. She's a hopeless cause. I only argue with her to help her embarrass herself further like she did yesterday with the Geneva Conventions comments and the one about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
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Battling terrorism is properly a *police* action, not a *military* action. It's essentially "organized crime" and should be dealt with as such.
It's on the scale of crime. We're not talking standing armies here. We're talking groups that see nothing wrong with destroying innocent lives, but aren't doing it with tanks and armies. If they *are* doing it with tanks, planes and masses of troops, they're not terrorists, they're enemy armies. If they're *not*, they're *criminals*, and need to be punished not for their ideology but for their actions.
charles116 -- another content-less post. Make that TWO "ignores".
@charles116: So, apparently you, too, have a reading-comprehension problem! According to you, although 9/11 and the Anthrax Attacks that followed occurred 9 months into the Bush Presidency, it cannot possibly be his responsibility. Does that make any sense to anyone who isn't a complete nutbar?? How is that laughable? What in the hell is wrong with you?
Read the links. Learn something. Turn off the radio. Set down your talking points. Educate yourself. Start with the 9/11 Report and work your way on back to the reality-based community. And you're damned right I spend a lot of time inside my three small businesses, which happen to be restaurant-taverns. I could've sworn you wingnuts were all about small business owners, right?
Carole, you really should use your brain once in awhile, just so atrophy doesn't set in.
Chimps flinging feces are more articulate and logical than you. WE WANT TO MAKE AMERICA BETTER... while what you're saying is, "My country right or wrong," (MEANING, a little clique of power-mad petro-barons), which is like saying, "My mother, serial killer or not!"
If your mom's a serial killer, you can still love her and try to get her help without joining in on the kidnapping and killing.
Dolt.
Thank you.
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