Year: 2007

Bush Just Keeps Saying the Same Thing: “Trust Me”

Trish

“Some are condemning the plan before it even has a chance to work.”

I don’t know about you but comments like that by Bush and his henchmen Cheney, Limbaugh, and Lieberman are really getting on my nerves. Not to mention this chestnut:

President Bush…said Friday “I’m the decision-maker” about sending more troops to the war.

He still expects us to give his latest idiocy the benefit of the doubt, a chance to work. Try it out, see how it goes. What the hey?

Bush still doesn’t get it. Even after his “thumpin’,” even after congressional Republicans hulked up and started acting like people again by voting their conscience instead of their party, and even after 70 percent of the American people said they disagree with him, he still takes umbrage when his ridiculous conclusions are questioned.

Well wake up, decider, we aren’t taking your word anymore.

White House veterans and analysts say the signs suggest a bunker mentality for a White House frustrated over its efforts to govern and pursue a broader agenda when the administration seems to face criticism of the Iraq War at every turn…

White House insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity, say an intense sense of war fatigue has set in.

Some cite a sense of regret and self-recrimination among White House officials who have evolved from a sense of being unjustly persecuted to a sense that the administration itself made critical mistakes in the conduct of the war that have contributed to the media and public lament.

I would say that from Day One this president has asked us to trust him while presenting nothing but evidence that we should do the exact opposite. I would say that, except he hasn’t asked us to trust him, he’s simply ridiculed and bullied and threatened those who don’t. He’s demanded blind faith while demonstrating incompetence and duplicity and the poorest judgement of the 21st century.

And he still expects us to give his latest idiocy the benefit of the doubt, a chance to work. Try it out, see how it goes. What the hey? After all, what’s really at stake? Only 21,500 men and women with families and loved ones and jobs and futures. Come on, America, just roll those dice. W is. And the only thing bothering him about it all is having to answer to you for it.

Poll: Prez Hopefuls’ War Stance Evaluated

Buck Banks

McCain’s brain: The Pensito Review brain trust was standing around our virtual water cooler yesterday, scratching our heads over Sen. John McCain’s siding with George Bush on the surge deal in Iraq. Not to mention some of McCain’s recent appointments to his exploratory committee and his tactics on dealing with Mitt Romney’s campaign. Thank goodness every Friday the National Journal polls D.C. insiders on the hot topics of the day and then shares what movers and shakers in both parties have to say about a topics — or we’d still be scratching our heads.

On John McCain: ‘It’s hard to run as a maverick when you are supporting the status quo.’

This week’s National Journal poll of political insiders asked participants whether they thought McCain’s support of the surge would be advantageous to his presidential bid. Of the 77 Democrats tested, 82 percent said no — that it would hinder his chances.

“Once the Republican candidate that Democrats were fearful of, [he] has changed dramatically,” one Democratic insider said. Another pontificated, “It will help him in the primary, but just kill him in the general.”

GOP insiders were fairly split, 48 percent to 43 percent, in favor of McCain’s stance helping his chances. The respondents who said McCain’s support would hurt him offered sentiments similar to the Democrats’, including one who said: “It’s hard to run as a maverick when you are supporting the status quo.”

Insiders were also posed a question on a top-tier Democrat who hopes to return to the White House in 2008. Asked whether it would be a good move for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to denounce her 2002 vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq, seven in 10 Republicans said no. Like the Republicans were on McCain, Democrats were split, 56 percent to 44 percent, with the majority saying that Clinton should come forth and say her vote was a mistake.

A Democrat who might like her to do so explained, “One moment of candor, authenticity, real emotion would be a plus.” Another called the vote “the dividing line between her and the Democratic nomination.” On the other end of the calculation, one said, “She’s in a box on this one, but changing now might do more damage as it would appear just too politically expedient.”

Republicans on the “no” side agreed, saying that she’d be viewed as a flip-flopper if she changed her position, and that former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama have already earned their chits in the field as anti-war Democrats. But as one Republican voting “yes” put it, “She looks incapable of admitting mistakes if this continues.”

What do you think? Leave a comment.

With Jeb Out of the Building, Secrets Out of the Closet

Trish

Jeb Bush kept a tight lid on the problems his policies created in Florida while he was in office. But Jeb’s gone now and that famous Florida sunshine is shining in the cracks once so snuggly covered.

Take privatization for example. Even a Republican state senator is appalled at the sweet deal Jeb’s prison contractors enjoyed.

After eight years of Jeb, more people are leaving Florida than moving in

Alarmed by millions of dollars in overpayments the state made to a private prison contractor, a state senator called for a criminal investigation Thursday.

[Sen. Victor] Crist asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look at the contract between GEO Group of Boca Raton and the state Correctional Privatization Commission, which was disbanded in 2004 amid allegations of mismanagement and cronyism.

A 2005 state audit revealed that over an eight-year period GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America, another private contractor, were overpaid $4.5-million.

The Correctional Privatization Commission also gave GEO $5-million in cost-of-living salary adjustments that, auditors said, were not fully passed on to employees.

At the Quincy facility, Corrections Corp., of Nashville, got $2.9-million more for facility maintenance than it spent.

The news is even worse about Jeb’s other flagships: the “A-Plus” and later, “A-Plus-Plus” education schemes. Starving public schools by diverting taxpayer funding into vouchers for private schools and penalizing budgets based on standardized tests, as well as doing away with affirmative action in public universities were all part of Jeb’s libertarian plan to undermine state-sponsored education.

And it’s all working, though not as Jeb planned. More people are leaving Florida than moving in.

In 2006, what the industry calls “outbound” moves actually surpassed “inbounds,” according to data from United, Atlas and Allied van lines. The industry had seen a steady increase in the number of customers heading out of the state in the past five years.

…The moving company statistics seem to indicate that those who are leaving are likely to be middle- and upper-middle class individuals who can afford moving vans, [University of Florida researcher Jim] Dewey said. They also could be families with children who are unhappy with the state’s funding for K-12 education, he said.

Department of Education statistics appear to support Dewey’s hunch. While state enrollment has grown an average of 51,000 students annually since 1989, regular enrollment in 2005 grew by only about 30,000 children.

The numbers were down again at the start of the 2006 school year, even in districts with normally climbing enrollment such as Orange, Manatee and Palm Beach.

In Pinellas, the decline in student enrollment was nearly twice what the district expected.

The former real estate developer governor’s policies toward growth, or should I say, “Let the party begin!” have also taken a toll.

…the spike in house prices in the last five years in Florida has made coming here less of a bargain.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise to me that there is a temporary slow down,” Dewey said. “Real estate here has gone way up.”

…Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James Financial in St. Petersburg, said it’s no exaggeration to say Florida is at a crisis point. “You’re always going to have the weather attracting people, and it’s still a very business friendly environment,” Brown said. “But it’s a difficult issue. It’s a very serious concern for Florida.”

And yet there are those who actually miss Jeb’s trademark sneer. Check back in another year or two and I bet even they will be glad he’s gone.

2008 Is Still Al Gore’s to Lose

Jon Ponder

I am not a fan of Al Gore’s. Never have been. Could not wait to vote against him in the 1988 New York primary. But, as I said last March, he has the best chance to win the presidency in 2008 of any candidate in either party.

All things being equal, it’s hard to see how Gore couldn’t carry every state Kerry took plus Ohio (and maybe even Tennessee).

I mention this again now because my sense is, despite the recent announcements from senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Richardson and others, this dynamic has not changed. In fact, an announcement yesterday may have improved Gore’s chances:

Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry took himself out of the running for president in 2008, choosing instead to devote his energies to ending the Iraq war. Call me crazy, but Al Gore’s prospects just got even better than before. If he doesn’t announce soon I’ll eat my hat

What has Gore got that the others don’t? A record. He was right about the war in Iraq, right about global warming, right that Bush would raid the Social Security “lock box” and on and on. Unlike John Kerry in 2004, Gore won the popular vote in 2000. All things being equal, it’s hard to see how Gore couldn’t carry every state Kerry took plus Ohio (and maybe even Tennessee).

His biggest challenge is that — like me — the “liberal media” hordes don’t like him. Yet, it’s also possible to imagine that some of them may feel chastened enough by the undue respect they gave the aristocratic boor they helped elect in 2000 and 2004 to give Al Gore a second look.

Plus, Gore has beome a lot feistier in his time out of office. He’s given himself the freedom to speak more candidly — to avoid the courtly hemming and hawing he learned in the Senate and that made him appear so wooden in his appearances as vice president and as a candidate in 2000.

All that seems to be missing right now is the proverbial fire in his belly.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet and fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

— Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961), American writer, Nobel Prize 1954

More Rumors That Cheney Is Out, Condi Is in as VP

Jon Ponder

We have been suggesting for a while that Vice Pres. Cheney would step down early this year — due to “health problems” or boredom with government. Now there’s a new swirl of rumors going around.

Rice is unelectable as president. For one thing, the GOP can’t win without taking every Red state Bush won in 2004. Where there are Red states, there are racists who would never vote for a black candidate, especially a female — especially an unmarried female about whom there are gay rumors. Secondly, she’d never get votes from independents because of her deep involvement in the failure of the Iraq war.

Our prediction has been than GOP graybeards and powers-that-be would force Pres. Bush to appoint a Republican politician as vice president who would be an electable presidential candidate in 2008. The obvious choice would be St. John McCain, in spite of the fact that Bush and McCain famously loathe each other.

But the new vice president mentioned consistently in the rumor mill is Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice.

It makes sense that Bush would choose the worst possible person for the second-highest job in the land (after all, he’s done it before). Rice has proven to be a disaster in both roles she has played in the Bush Administration. She was the national security adviser who ignored an intelligence report from August 2001, titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” As secretary of state, her diplomatic efforts have had lackluster results.

With that record of incompetence, a Medal of Freedom is not sufficient. This woman deserves a promotion!

Rice would be a “Harriet Miers” sort of choice for vice president — someone Bush is “comfortable with” but who is wholly unqualified for the job.

But Condoleeza Rice is unelectable as president. For one thing, the GOP can’t win without taking every Red state Bush won in 2004. Where there are Red states, there are racists who would never vote for a black candidate, especially a female — especially an unmarried female about whom there are gay rumors. Secondly, she’d never get votes from independents because of her deep involvement in the failure of the Iraq war.

If Cheney resigns, Bush is going to face intense pressure from GOP senior election officials, strategists and big donors to replace him with the person whom they believe to be the most electable candidate out there. Despite Rudolph Giuliani’s high polling right now, in the Beltway Republican mindset, the frontrunner is John McCain, so I still believe that’s who they will push.

Of course, there’s a compromise candidate out there, waiting in the wings. Someone who’s got the experience, who left office with a high approval rating, despite his last name — someone who might appeal both to the boy king and his mininons and courtiers:

Jeb.

H/t Alice

Protests on Saturday in DC, LA

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

The Los Angeles protest is to begin at noon outside the California Democratic Party’s Los Angeles office at 888 S. Figueroa St., with participants marching past City Hall to the federal building at 300 N. Los Angeles St.

Emboldened by the Democratic takeover of Congress and shrinking public support for the Iraq war, antiwar groups are planning what they hope will be a massive protest Saturday on the National Mall.

Similar events are planned in dozens of cities around the country, with some of the largest expected in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Organizers said they aim to put pressure on both the White House and Congress to end the war.

“The message will be ‘Mr. President, bring our troops home,’ ” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), one of several politicians, activists and actors scheduled to speak in Washington.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/Push Coalition, one of the rally sponsors, is also scheduled to appear on the mall, organizers said. Others on the lineup are Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, a longshot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, and actors Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

“We’re predicting this will be one of the largest demonstrations since the war began,” said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, the umbrella group organizing the Washington protest…

In Los Angeles, about 100 groups are planning to gather downtown. Organizers expect tens of thousands of marchers, including many bused in from Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Rallies are also planned in San Francisco, San Diego, Mount Shasta and Palm Springs.

The Los Angeles protest is to begin at noon outside the California Democratic Party’s Los Angeles office at 888 S. Figueroa St., with participants marching past City Hall to the federal building at 300 N. Los Angeles St.

Speakers will include Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq and became a symbol of the antiwar movement after camping out in protest near President Bush’s Texas ranch, and Ron Kovic, the antiwar activist and Vietnam veteran who wrote “Born on the Fourth of July.”

About 300 soldiers from California have been killed in Iraq, more than from any other state.

Sen. Tim Johnson Continues to Recover

Buck Banks

Six weeks after suffering a brain hemorrhage, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is responding well to therapy, but his return to work still looks like a distant prospect. Why it matters — Johnson’s continued absence from the Senate gives the Democrats only a 50-49 voting majority over the Repugs.

“Senator Johnson is showing evidence of more functional, spontaneous speech and is indicating preferences. He is answering questions and following commands appropriately,” said Dr. Philip Marion, medical director of the hospital’s Department of Rehabilitative Medicine, where Johnson is being treated as an inpatient.

Johnson was moved from the intensive care unit Jan. 11.

According to a statement released by his office Thursday, Johnson’s has been watching movies with his family when he is not working with physical and speech therapists. He has asked that his television be tuned to CNN, and his wife Barbara said he is aware that President Bush mentioned him in the State of the Union address.

“Tim is following the news closely and was honored that the President remembered him,” she said.

Well, if he’s “answering questions and following commands appropriately,” he’s already doing better than George W. Bush.

Pelosi Says Bush Did Not Consult Her on War Escalation

Jon Ponder

George W. Bush is not the only American aristocrat in office today. But Ted Kennedy, Jay Rockefeller and others see themselves as public servants. On the other hand, Bush sees himself as a king, with all the royal entitlements thereto ascribed:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that President George W. Bush did not consult her before announcing his new strategy for the war in Iraq — a sign that, despite the cozy rhetoric, the relationship between Washington’s two powerhouses has already had its share of friction.

In an interview, Pelosi also said she was puzzled by what she considered the president’s minimalist explanation for his confidence in the new surge of 21,500 U.S. troops that he has presented as the crux of a new “way forward” for U.S. forces in Iraq.

“He’s tried this two times — it’s failed twice,” the California Democrat said. “I asked him at the White House, ‘Mr. President, why do you think this time it’s going to work?’ And he said, ‘Because I told them it had to.’ ”

Asked if the president had elaborated, she added that he simply said, ” ‘I told them that they had to.’ That was the end of it. That’s the way it is.”