Year: 2007

After Setting World on Fire, Bush Said to Be ‘at Ease’ Because He Is Doing God’s Will

Jon Ponder

An article up today at the Washington Post catches us up on the inner life of Pres. George Bush at what it calls the nadir of his presidency.

“[The president] seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he’s +doing the right thing. And if you’ve got that set, all the criticism, it doesn’t faze you very much. You’re answering to God.”
– Theologian who recently met with Bush

What the president’s team wants us to know is that Bush is asking a lot of smart people over to the White House to ask them questions. Here’s my favorite:

After reading Andrew Roberts’s “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900,” Bush brought in the author and a dozen other scholars to talk about the lessons. “What can I learn from history?” Bush asked Roberts…

And:

“He asked me, ‘Do you think our unpopularity abroad is a result of my personality?’ And he laughed,” [Irwin M. Stelzer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute] recalled. “I said, ‘In part.’ And he laughed again.”

Oh, yeah. LOL. That’s rich. “In part.” Very funny.

Despite all this soul searching, people who have been around the president have found him surprisingly unburdened by angst. Henry Kissinger is quoted as saying Bush is “at peace with himself.” Rep. Peter King, a reliable GOP tool from Long Island, says the president is “amazingly calm.” One of the scholars who was brought in said, “My God, he looked well. He looked like he came off a cruise in the Caribbean. He looked like he hadn’t a care in the world. It was amazing.”

What explains the president’s carefree attitude in light of all the damage he has wreaked? You guessed it — he’s on a mission from God:

“His faith is very strong,” said [Michael] Novak, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Faith is not enough by itself because there are a lot of people who have faith but weak hearts. But his faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he’s doing the right thing. And if you’ve got that set, all the criticism, it doesn’t faze you very much. You’re answering to God.”

The problem is, the leader of the free world has faith, strong will and a weak mind.

Romney Says Kennel Strapped to Roof to Transport ‘Family Pet’ Was ‘Enclosed’

Jon Ponder

Everything GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney says about his practice of transporting his Irish setter in a kennel strapped to his car roof in the 1980s just makes the whole thing sound worse.

In his latest statement, he seems to have been warned by his spinners not to use the word “dog” — referring to the setter and other dogs he owned four times as “family pets”:

Romney said, “sometimes when the stories come out in the media they don’t quite get it accurate. The kennel that my family pet used to ride in is enclosed. It’s not an open aired kennel. It’s enclosed and there are air vents of course at the back. My family pet used to climb up there and lie down on his own. And we love our family pets. Have always loved our family pets. And have nothing but honor and pride in taking care of great dogs. We’ve had quite a few.”

There is also the matter of the story one of Romney’s sons told about the dog’s poop coming out of the carrier during a trip and sliding down the car window. We’ll assume the “enclosed” kennel was vented at the bottom.

What this reveals, I think, is that Romney is indeed a dumbass. Fortunately for him, being as stupid as a bag of hammers is no longer a disqualifier for the presidency.

Poll: ‘The Elephant Looks in the Mirror 10 Years Later’ Updates Republicans’ View of Themselves

Jon Ponder

In 1997, GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio released “The Elephant Looks in the Mirror,” a report on an extensive survey of the Republican Party. Now he has released results of a similar poll, “The Elephant Looks in the Mirror 10 Years Later.”

49 percent of Republicans favored ending the ban on allowing gays to serve in the military.

For Democrats, the most interesting trend is the GOP’s age demographics, which have skewed dramatically older over the decade. The percentage of Republicans age 55 and older grew from 28 percent in 1997 to 41 percent now, while the number of 18- to 37-year-olds dropped from 25 percent to 17 percent. A Republican analyst finds this to be alarming:

This is not good news [says the GOP analyst]. We already know that we are struggling with younger voters. These results … point out just how old our base is shifting. This probably represents several things including, aging of the people involved in the conservative backlash to the 60s, losing the younger generation due to the war, and the dying, frankly, of the New Dealers.

In the poll, Fabrizio identified seven interest groups within the GOP:

  • Bush hawks – This new, dangerously paranoid group, along with the Fortress America crowd below, accumulated its members from the GOPers’ anti-tax, anti-gubmint lunatic fringe
  • Moralists – More accurately referred to as “Christian nationalists,” they generate headlines on social issues that make sensible conservatives cringe
  • Government knows best Republicans – Seems like an oxymoron but Pres. Bush is, if nothing else, a big-government conservative
  • Dennis Miller Republicans – The snarks get their own category?
  • Fortress America Republicans – Like the Bush Hawks, the “nationalist” wing of the Christian nationalism gained members from the economic-focused groups, the Heartlanders and free marketeers
  • Heartland Republicans – The number of these sensible Republicans declined from 1997
  • Free marketeers – As did the number of self-identified anti-taxers

Despite their dominance in the media, moralists represent less than a quarter of the Republican Party. Their influence appears to be waning, however, perhaps because their pose of moral superiority wears thin, even among conservatives:

[By] a margin of 53 percent to 42 percent Republicans believe that “The Republican Party has spent too much time focusing on moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage and should instead be spending time focusing on economic issues such as taxes and government spending.”

Forty-nine percent of Republicans in the poll favored ending the ban on allowing gays to serve in the military.

Cable Newsers Go Ga-Ga over Undetonated Car Bombs in London

Jon Ponder

Are you scared yet? As you have undoubtedly heard by now, a pair of car bombs were discovered in London yesterday. Authorities said both cars were Mercedes and the apparatus in both was the same: Canisters of propane and gasoline and nails. “These vehicles are clearly linked,” said a London police commissioner.

The thwarted terror attacks put the lie to the ridiculous theory that by attacking the terrorists “over there” (Iraq), we’re preventing them from attacking us “over here” — if “here” is defined as any English-speaking country that invaded Iraq.

MSNBC covered it extensively yesterday, giving it nearly the whole hour during its Tucker Carlson and Chris Matthews shows and their late afternoon repeats. The story continues to lead on both CNN and MSNBC this morning.

(As I write this, MSNBC is reporting that a burning Jeep Cherokee just burst through the doors at an airport in Scotland. One source says that one of two Asian men in the car was also on fire. Another source says there was only one man in the car and he was apprehended by police. Here’s a link to the story on CNN.)

On MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Keith Olbermann was having none of it. His guest for the segment was Larry Johnson, one of the former Republican CIA agents that Bush scared straight with the Iraq war and outing of secret agent Valerie Plame Wilson.

Johnson portrayed the would-be bombers as amateurs and doubted that the bombs could have caused the sort of catastrophic damage being hyped by the newsers. He also said that whether the would-be terrorists were Al Qaeda or just wanna-bes was nearly irrelevant.

In either case, and despite the fact the attacks were bungled, the attempts in London put the lie to the ridiculous theory that by attacking the terrorists “over there” (Iraq), we’re preventing them from attacking us “over here” — if “here” is defined as any English-speaking country that invaded Iraq.

Here’s a flavor what Johnson had to say about the thwarted bombings on his website, No Quarter:

[…]

The Search for Iraq’s WMDs is Officially Over

Trish

The U.N. announced today, five years after our invasion of Iraq because we were told by our president that he knew for sure they had weapons of mass destruction, the search is over.

The resolution, approved by a vote of 14-0, terminated the mandate of the U.N. bodies responsible for overseeing the dismantling of Hussein’s programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles…

Since 2005, the United States has been trying to get the Security Council to wrap up the work of the inspectors, who were pulled out of Iraq just before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and were barred by the U.S. from returning.

So George, you can stop looking. Now can we bring our troops home?

Romney: My Dog Liked Riding on Car Roof 12 Hours from Boston to Ontario

Jon Ponder

Mitt Romney has reacted to the story that he illegally transported his large dog in a carrier on the roof of his car for 12 hour trips in the 1980s, including one from Boston to Ontario. He says the dog liked it:

“He scrambled up there every time we went on trips, got in all by himself and enjoyed it,” Romney said of the Irish Setter.

And, anyway, the entire controversy is PETA’s fault because they criticized him:

“PETA has not been my fan over the years. PETA was after me for having a rodeo at the Olympics,” he said in reference to his role as chief executive of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. “PETA was unhappy when I went quail hunting in Georgia, and they’re not happy that my dog likes fresh air.”

This dumbass is one sick puppy.

Mitt’s Dog: “Dad is Not the Sharpest Knife in the Drawer”

Trish

The Boston Globe’s Scott Lehigh penned a pointed, but under the circumstances, quite restrained analysis of the Mitt Romney dog on the roof story.

If the question of what to do with Seamus was presented as a Harvard Business School case study, the remedy Mitt arrived at would not be widely seized upon as the most intelligent choice

For the last few mornings, I’ve lingered over the breakfast table, reading all about Mitt Romney, from his Michigan boyhood to his boffo business career to his determined days as chief of the 2002 Winter Olympics.

And what do I come away thinking?

One: Poor Seamus Romney.

And: Does a vacuum periodically settle in between the ears of the Mighty Mighty Mittster, rather like one of those low-pressure areas that sometimes stalls for days on end over New England?

Good questions, especially about someone who portrays himself as a sensible — if not outright clever — guy. As it was, the dog probably had reason to believe that Mormon was out of his freaking mind.

And who, really, can blame Seamus, riding up there alone and forgotten, eyeing each approaching overpass and anxiously wondering if Mitt had calculated the clearances correctly, while the rest of the Romneys were safely ensconced in the vehicle below, no doubt whiling away the hours with joyous renditions of “This land is your land, this land is my land”?

…I suspect that if the question of what to do with Seamus was presented as a Harvard Business School case study, the remedy Mitt arrived at would not be widely seized upon as the most intelligent choice…

The story made me wonder a little about the rest of the Romneys as well…I’d like to think that at some point during the trip, Tagg or Matt would have displayed enough of that brash iconoclasm to pipe up and inquire: “Say, Dad, do you hear that howling? Have you considered that Seamus may not be enjoying himself up there on top of the car?”

Lehigh suggests that if space inside the car was at such a premium, there was still one more possibility.

If the rooftop ride really was such a smart solution, at the very least Mitt could have taken a turn up there himself. Certainly he’s proved resolute in the face of risk, at least in the business world, and I have it on good report that the hair product he uses is guaranteed to hold fast in gusts of up to 70 miles an hour.

Is Cheney Giving State Secrets to the Saudis?

Jon Ponder

Rogue government: Is the Vice President of the United States doling out the nation’s secrets to its allies, such as the Saudis or the Israelis? Or how about our enemies — the Chinese, North Korea, Iran?

Cheney has visited Saudi Arabia twice in the past seven months — at the end of November and again in May. Who can say whether his mission was to deliver state secrets to the Saudi king?

No one knows the answer to these questions because Cheney refuses to allow his own administration’s inspectors to certify his compliance with his own administration’s security directives. He has exempted himself from oversight.

Since noothing compels him to tell the truth, why in the world would anyone believe a word he says? Why should we give him the benefit of a doubt that he is not giving away national secrets?

In the 1990s, the rightwing accused Vice Pres. Al Gore of selling weapons plans to the Chinese in exchange for campaign donations. This led to a House investigation chaired by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) that eventually cost American taxpayers $7.4 million, making it the costliest congressional inquiry ever — all for nothing, of course.

Without oversight on how Dick Cheney is handling our nation’s secrets, for all we know he is packing them up in crates and shipping them to the Saudis or the Chinese or the North Koreans.

Cheney has visited Saudi Arabia twice in the past seven months — at the end of November and again in May. Who can say whether his mission was to deliver state secrets to the Saudi king? Apparently, even Pres. Bush does not know what his vice president is up to.