Four Years Later: Mission Still Accomplished!
Uh, remind me again, what was the mission and how do we measure “accomplished?” Heckuva job, Bushie!
Tag: Worst President Ever
Murtha: It May Take Impeachment to Get Bush’s Attention
Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., is being scoffed at by the likes of Tucker Carlson on his MSNBC show today for suggesting that it might take impeachment to get through to Pres. Bush about ending the war. On “Face the Nation” yesterday, Murtha said:
[We] need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken. There’s three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is, and fourth is the purse.
Bush is impervious to popular opinion and election, and his Republican enablers in the Senate have the votes to keep money flowing to Iraq until he leaves office. Tactically, impeachment is the only viable option.
Tucker did his patented faux astonished outrage at the idea Democrats would propose impeachment now because it would shut the government down during wartime — as if Bush has anything to do with running either the government or the war.
Laura Bush on Iraq: ‘No One Suffers More Than [the] President and I’
Double standard: On the Today Show this morning, First Lady Laura Bush was asked what she thought about the damage the war in Iraq was doing to the American people. Her answer, which came without a pause, may have been revelatory:
ANN CURRY: Do you know the American people are suffering… watching [Iraq]?
LAURA BUSH: Oh, I know that very much, and, believe me, no suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly the commander-in-chief who has asked our military to go into harm’s way.
AC: What do you think the American people need to know…
LB: Well, I hope they do know the burden of worry that’s on his shoulders every single day for our troops. And I think they do. I think if they don’t, they’re not seeing what the real responsibilities of our president are.
AC: It must be hard for you to watch him in this.
LB: It’s hard. Of course, it’s absolutely hard.
The was an egregious misstatement. The Bushes do not suffer more than the families of the dead and wounded, obviously. It bespeaks an aristocratic ennui — “If only the little people knew how much we royals suffer.”
Last week, when Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid accused the president, Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice and other top Bush aides of knowing the war in Iraq is lost, just as Nixon and Sec. of State Henry Kissinger knew that Vietnam was lost but continued to send men there to die, the media and the GOP reported a much shorter version: “Sen Reid said the war is lost.”
Republicans have been having a field day with this misquote for over a week. The majority leader has demoralized our troops, they say, without providing any evidence that this is so. As late as yesterday, Vice Pres. Cheney called Sen. Reid a “defeatist.”
Compared with the treatment Reid continues to receive, the media and even the Democrats will give the first lady a pass, even though if a similar statement were made by a Democratic first lady, the media and the Republicans would tear her to shreds.
Finally, the interviewer, Ann Curry, did not ask Mrs. Bush about rumors that she and her husband were living apart because he had resumed drinking. I doubt Curry would have passed on the opportunity 10 years ago to ask First Lady Hillary Clinton if tabloid rumors were true.
Vermonters Pushing for Bush’s Impeachment
If only there were more of them: Bolstered by a recent state senate bill to impeach President George Bush, Vermont activists are heading back to the state capital of Montpelier Wednesday to ramp up pressure on the the state house of representatives to pass a similar bill. More than 130 people (a significant portion of the state’s population) showed up last week to urge lawmakers to pass the impeachment resolution. Organizers are hoping for even more people to show up at the Statehouse cafeteria Wednesday morning.
‘We will descend upon them and lobby them actively, politely and vociferously.’
— Dan DeWalt
— Dan DeWalt
The resolution calls for the impeachment of both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
You go, Vermonters!
GOP Floating Ted Olson, Head of 1990s Anti-Clinton ‘Arkansas Project,’ for AG
If Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales resigns, we have proposed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald or former Sen. Fred. Thompson as his replacement. Of course, we weren’t serious.
With all this baggage and a likely confrontation in the Senate, would Pres. Bush nominate Ted Olson for attorney general? The answer is sadly yes.
Now there is word that Republican officials in D.C. are seriously proposing Ted Olson to replace Gonzo. Digby asks, “Is this some kind of a joke?”
Knowing Ted Olson’s history, the answer is sadly no.
During the 1990s, the GOP ran a stealth disinformation campaign against the Clintons, the prototype for Swiftboating, out of the offices of the American Spectator, a rightwing magazine. Internally, the operation was called the Arkansas Project, but Hillary famously referred to it as a “vast rightwing conspiracy.” It was funded by Richard Mellon Scaife and its CEO was Ted Olson.
At the same time, Olson’s wife, Barbara, was one of a cadre of wingnut blondes — the others were Ann Coulter, Kellyann Fitzpatrick and Laura Ingraham — who were given untold hours of face time on cable news to bash the Clintons with rumors and innuendos, much of which was processed through the Arkansas Project. Barbara, the author of a bizarrely nasty screed titled “Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” died on the plane that hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Reid Got in Bush’s Face on Iraq
Harry Reid spoke truth to the boy king, and his royal highness didn’t like it:
[According] to multiple reports Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared Iraq to Vietnam at one point in a closed door meeting with Bush. Specifically, Reid suggested that Bush was pursuing a lost cause at the cost of American troops in order to protect his legacy.
Bush’s reaction: He was “visibly angered” says the New York Times; he “bristled” according to the Associated Press. And he “denied this forcefully, after which Mr. Reid touched his arm in a gesture of friendliness,” write the Wall Street Journal.
Could this have been the first time Bush has come face to face with someone willing to confront him so bluntly on the signature issue of his presidency?
Here’s how Reid characterized the contretemps today:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday said the war in Iraq is lost militarily and “can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically” after more than four years of fighting.
“Now I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows: that this war is lost, that the surge is not accomplishing anything,” Reid, D-Nev., told reporters.
Repeating remarks he made to President Bush during a meeting of congressional leaders at the White House, Reid said the president is hearing only from people who are backing up his view of the war.
“I know I was the odd guy out yesterday at the White House, but I at least told him what he needs to hear. … I told George Bush what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear, I did that and my conscience is great,” said Reid, who was one of several lawmakers who met with the president on Wednesday at the White House. Reid added that more people need to tell Bush the same.
Give him hell, Harry.
Bush Dyslogic: ‘If Dems Cut Off Iraq Funds, Troops Will Stay Longer’ – With No Money?
Remember, up is down: I didn’t catch this latest rhetorical folly from the president yesterday because I can no longer abide his histrionical declamations.Thankfully, someone at MSNBC’s Countdown who was paid to listen to the president’s address to the American Legion picked up on this beaut of a logical disconnect, which Keith Olbermann reported last night.
“The bottom line is this: Congress’s failure to fund our troops will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. Others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than anticipated…”
Pres. Bush
Pres. Bush
Here’s what the president said yesterday:
BUSH: If Congress fails to pass a bill I can sign by mid-May, the problems grow even more acute. The Army will be forced to consider slowing or even freezing funding for its depots, where the equipment our troops depend on is repaired. They will have to consider delaying or curtailing the training of some active duty forces, reducing the availability of those the force — of those forces to deploy overseas. And the Army may also have to delay the formation of new brigade combat teams, preventing us from getting those troops into the pool of forces that are available to deploy.
So what does that mean? These things happen: Some of our forces now deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq may need to be extended, because other units are not ready to take their places. In a letter to Congress, the Army Chief of Staff, Pete Shoemaker, recently warned, “Without approval of the supplemental funds in April, we will be forced to take increasingly draconian measures, which will impact Army readiness and impose hardships on our soldiers and their families.”
The bottom line is this: Congress’s failure to fund our troops will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. Others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than anticipated…
Logically, if there is no money, the war has to end pretty quickly — right? And yet the president says that if funding is cut off, the war will slow down and therefore last longer. But the House Democrats’ plan would have U.S. combat troops pulling out altogether in March 2008.
The president talks about the lack of funds “delaying,” “reducing” and “curtailing” the military. But the funding cuts are targeted specifically at fighting in Iraq. All other military programs covered in the supplemental are fully funded.
Leaving Iraq would free up 120,000 troops as well as the billions we’re flushing down the drain over there every month — resources we can redeploy against real threats to our national security.
Flunky Flying Monkeys: DOJ Has Been Katrina-ized
The incompetence that rots the Bush administration from the head down was revealed at its starkest in its abysmal response to Hurricane Katrina. It has manifested itself since then in Iraq, Walter Reed, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Pentagon, Homeland Security, the FBI and now the Dept. of Justice.
Why does Alberto Gonzales need to prep for two weeks for testimony about the policies and practices of the department he supposedly oversees?
The scenario at Justice is familiar and similar to what happened to FEMA before Katrina: At DOJ, Bush installed a trusted flying monkey, Alberto Gonzales, as the head of a huge bureaucracy. Gonzales stocked the ranks with meagerly credentialed and woefully over-matched flunkies whose only real qualification was loyalty to the Bush cabal inside the GOP.
The flunkies quickly subverted the department’s true mission, redeploying its apparatus in pursuit of Bush’s political goals. They ran roughshod over senior staffers, pushing aside anyone who was competent or non-aligned with Bush.
In this sort of system, sooner or later, corruption and chaos will ensue.
The revelation of the Katrina-ization at Justice that was exposed in the bungled firing of eight U.S. attorneys in December continued to ratchet up last week:
- Gonzales canceled his vacation in order to crib for his congressional testimony, which is scheduled for April 16. The prompted Keith Olbermann to ask why an official would need to prep for two weeks on testimony about the inner workings of the department he supposedly runs.
- Monica Goodling, a high ranking DOJ Bushie, resigned rather than becoming the first Justice official to plead the Fifth in the history of the republic. Her attorney says she is refusing to testify out of fear she might perjure herself. Goodling is one of 150 DOJ employees who graduated from a law school operated by the Christian nationalist TV preacher Pat Robertson.
- In the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney’s office, four top staff members of the new federal prosecutor, Rachel Paulose, a Gonzales flunky, voluntarily demoted themselves in protest over the incompetence of their boss. Paulose, 33, was a special assistant to Gonzales, worked as a senior counsel for deputy attorney general Paul McNulty and is reportedly best friends with Monica Goodling.
A normal president would be so humiliated that he would have cleaned house long ago.
Bush: Attorney Firings Just Need Better Press
Who’s behind the payback firings of U.S. attorneys? Do you think it’s:
a) Attorney General/Bush personal lawyer Alberto Gonzales
b) Deputy Chief of Staff/Bush Brain Karl Rove
c) Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Lying Weasel Asshat Bush
d) All of the above
Yes, students. Both answers and “c” and “d” are correct.
Which is why it rankles so to hear Bush talk about it they way he did during a press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon this week. Bush makes it sound as if the skullduggery manifested out of thin air, not unlike a plop of pigeon poo on your shoulder as you walk beneath telephone wires. Except the pigeons all have the seal of the Oval Office on their wings.
Bush somehow managed to effectively pass along complaints without naming names, and by some miracle of coincidence Gonzales correctly identified who needed to be fired and did so
On Wednesday, Bush said he passed on to Gonzales complaints that he had received about the attorneys last fall but did not name names or ask him to fire anyone.
The president said the decision to fire the attorneys was justified.
“And yet this issue was mishandled to the point now where you’re asking me questions about it in Mexico,” Bush said.
Man, that pisses me off. Here he is in frickin’ Mexico, and you want him to be accountable.
We need to be straight about what the problem is, folks. What we have here — and follow me closely now — is a failure to communicate. It’s not that anyone did anything wrong. No, Bush somehow managed to effectively pass along complaints without naming names, and by some miracle of coincidence Gonzales correctly identified who needed to be fired and did so.
So obviously, the problem is that you people just aren’t getting the right message. But we’re going to fix that.
Bush said he and Gonzales, a longtime friend from Houston, “talked about his need to go up to Capitol Hill and make it very clear to members in both political parties why the Justice Department made the decisions it made.”
…”Mistakes were made, and frankly, I’m not happy about it,” Bush said… “Al was right, mistakes were made, and he’s going to go up to Capitol Hill to correct them.”
See, this needs to be done with “members in both political parties.” Because it’s, you know, partisan criticism. So we’re going to do the right thing and lie to members of both political parties, not just one. Got it?
Evidently not.
A few hours after the president’s news conference, Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire became the first congressional Republican to call on Gonzales to step down.
Somebody call Rover. Now!
Downing Street Memo Redux: DoD Provides New Evidence of Bush ‘Fixing’ Pre-War Intel
There is a new report out from the inspector general at the Dept. of Defense that provides clear evidence that senior Bush officials at DoD “fixed” the pre-war intelligence on Iraq to suit their policy of fictitiously connecting Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, in order to motivate the public to go to war against Iraq.
A normal president would be held accountable if proof were offered from within his own government that his team deliberately falsified intelligence in order to trick the country into going to war. And yet this revelation yesterday is barely even news.
In particular, the IG’s report includes a January 2002 memo from Paul Wolfowitz, the neocon architect of the war who was then deputy defense secretary, written to Douglas Feith, DoD’s number three official:
“We don’t seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda,” Wolfowitz wrote…
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 memo marked the beginnings of what would become a controversial yearlong Pentagon project supervised by Feith to convince the most senior members of the Bush administration that Hussein and Al Qaeda were linked — a conclusion that was hotly disputed by U.S. intelligence agencies at the time and has been discredited in the years since.
What this brings to mind, of course, is a key section of the Downing Street Memo:
[Unnamed British official “C”] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
You recall that the “memo” was actually the minutes of a meeting of top officials in Tony Blair’s government in July 2002 — seven months into the “yearlong project” to link Saddam and 9/11.
When the memo was leaked in May 2005, the mainstream media ignored it for weeks. As I recall it, its release dd not make the front page of the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post or any major U.S. daily paper. When the memo finally made it into the news, the Gang of 500 dismissed it, as did rightwingers like comedian Rush Limbaugh:
I purposely haven’t talked about this Downing Street memo much because, frankly, A, it didn’t interest me. And, you know, if it doesn’t interest me I’m not going to talk about it. And the reason it didn’t interest me is because it was just another one of these ginned up things by the libs…
Wrong again, Rush. And yet, while it’s nice to (once again) get proof of Bush’s skulllduggery, this revelation (once again) amounts to little more than cold comfort.
A normal president would be held accountable if proof were offered from within his own government that his team deliberately falsified intelligence in order to trick the country into going to war. And yet this revelation yesterday is barely even news.
