Happy Thanksgiving to all my American and Canadian cousins, the closest thing in the UK is Harvest Festival celebrated in churches on a Sunday which means it tends to pass you by if you lead a secular life, so we all shuffled into work instead today!
Mel
Liar. ‘Liar?’
The Nation
November 22, 2006 (December 11, 2006 issue)
Once upon a time, only people with bad manners took note of the fact that George W. Bush was an inveterate liar. One such person, pundit Michael Kinsley, observed back in April 2002, “Bush II administration lies are often so laughably obvious that you wonder why they bother.” Back then it was undeniable but all but unsayable in the mainstream media. Even when addressing himself to the very topic of Bush’s myriad lies six months later, Washington Post scribe Dana Milbank combed his thesaurus and came up with “embroidering,” “taken some flights of fancy,” “taken some liberties,” “omitted qualifiers,” etc. But even this artful linguistic circumlocution so infuriated Karl Rove & Co. that the White House pressured the Post to reassign the reporter.
When asked to comment on an incontrovertible, unarguable, prime-time presidential lie–Bush publicly claimed that Iraq would not allow inspections, when in fact the UN inspectors had to be kicked out for his war to begin–on CNN’s Reliable Sources program, Milbank said, “I think what people basically decided was this is just the President being the President.” What, after all, is the big deal about lying about why you started a war?
Bush had been lying right from the start, of course, but just for fun, one assumes, he recently decided to double-down on his bet. On the day after the election, Bush explained to the media that the discrepancy between his insistence just a few days earlier to reporters that Donald Rumsfeld would stay in his job come hell or high water while, in fact, he had already started the process to replace Rumsfeld with Robert Gates could be explained by… well, heck, Bush just felt like lying about it. His exact words: “I didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question, and to get you on to another question, was to give you that answer.”
Bush’s bald admission proved a breathtaking break with presidential precedent. After all, presidential lying is nothing new, but on virtually every occasion I studied for my book on the topic, When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences, presidential lies were said to rest, somehow, on national security needs. (The obvious exception was Bill Clinton’s blowjob lie, which he attributed–compellingly in my view–to his constitutional right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment.)
Given Rumsfeld’s portfolio, Bush could easily have gone the “national security” route. The lefty blogosphere would have grumbled, as would a few liberal pundits, but the news pages and the Sunday shows would have swallowed hard and moved on. And on cable and talk-radio, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly would have used words like “traitor” and “pro-terrorist” for anyone who didn’t. (Presumably, the old Andrew Sullivan would have called for jailing the current one.)
But because Bush couldn’t be bothered to pretend this time, he created a conundrum for much of the media. The press claims all kinds of special privileges for itself–legal, financial and ethical–based almost exclusively on its constitutionally protected role as the watchdog of the rulers for the ruled. Democratic theory requires that citizens choose their leaders on the basis of true information about their preferences and performances, and the very raison d’ē?tre of the political press is to provide it. But if those leaders are free to lie–and the press plays along with those lies–then democracy itself is undermined. How many members of Bush’s base, one wonders, roused themselves to run to the polls on November 7 because, well, “say what you will about Bush, at least he promised to stick by that Rumsfeld fellow.” A day later their democratic decisions would seem a cruel joke.
What’s more, now that Bush has come out and all but said, “I lie because I feel like it,” nothing he says can be taken on faith. Some will no doubt resist this. Having been deprived of the “It’s not a lie if the liar believes his own lie” argument that had previously proven so popular, This Week’s George Will excused Bush on the grounds of his apparent imbecility. “The English language is not always the President’s friend,” Will explained, as if Bush had been reared speaking Sanskrit. But this dog is not likely to remain in the media’s hunting party for long. Bush’s revealed contempt–both for the truth and for the reporters whose job it is to find it–has created a kind of existential crisis for reporters and their bosses: “If the President is willing to call himself a liar, how can we go on pretending it isn’t so?” And yet, if they remain unfree to call the President a liar, well… you get the point.
So far, nobody in the MSM really has a handle on the issue. The Washington Post, to its credit, ran five separate news stories that touched on the lie–two online and three in the paper. (This was originally misreported in the liberal blogosphere, which charged the paper with changing the wording of its stories to protect the President from his lie. In fact, the Post merely printed multiple stories with differing descriptions of the lie, with no subsequent changes in any of them.) All were reasonably straightforward, deploying phrases like “appeared to mislead,” which is as close as the paper’s editors can bring themselves to calling a lie a lie. Unfortunately, the only story devoted exclusively to the lie itself was by Howard Kurtz, who could think only to ask if Bush’s lie about Rumsfeld was “on par with President Bill Clinton’s hair-splitting defense in the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation that ‘it all depends on what the definition of is is.’” The New York Times barely touched on the question–treating the decision to replace Rumsfeld as a typical Washington soap opera. Save for the occasional op-ed, the issue soon disappeared under an avalanche of stories about Nasty Nancy Pelosi (the new Wicked Witch of the West in Morton Kondracke’s phrasing) and “maverick” John McCain, the MSM’s President-in-Waiting. We were back to business as usual in George Bush’s America.
Climate: A Matter for Economists
Truth Out
Friday 17 November 2006
So now macroeconomic equations include a new variable: the climate. Or rather, several new variables, given how numerous the variables subject to effects from global warming are. This evidence has been marshaled and broadcast for several years by experts at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet it seems to have made an impact on people’s thinking since quite recently only, as attested by the considerable media coverage of the Stern report, delivered to the British government on October 30. According to this report, warming could, in the coming years, cost the world economy 5,500 billion Euros and provoke a recession comparable to the Great Depression in the 1930s.
The interest of a growing number of economists in climate change and its impact is part of a comprehensive upset that began several years ago. This turning point has seen the results of research in climate science emancipate themselves. These works were first taken up, adapted and faked by authors of militant cinematographic (Roland Emmerich’s “The Day After Tomorrow”) and literary (Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”) fictions.
Recently, but sometimes with a surprising willfulness, the political world has also tended to seize on the climate question, as the documentary film of Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore (”An Inconvenient Truth”), Tony Blair’s recent statements on the subject, the measures (Republican) Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken in California, those measures American mayors have taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions in their municipalities, and even, in France, the attempts to retrieve Nicolas Hulot’s discourse attest.
Economists’ appropriation of the climate question is salutary. It alone will allow the broader mobilization beyond Kyoto of political officials for whom the increase in average earth temperatures of 2 or 3 degrees Centigrade is frequently a pure abstraction only. To such a degree that some (including several rare scientists) don’t hesitate to assert that such a change will not ultimately involve much consequence. Nicholas Stern - whom one cannot reproach with making catastrophe-mongering a lucrative basis of trade - brings them back to the painful … economic reality.
Two degrees higher average global temperature (a very optimistic scenario for the end of the century) means the complete disappearance of the Andean glaciers, for example. And, more generally, an even more intense withdrawal of all high elevation glaciers in the middle latitudes. With, as an immediate corollary, a significant drop in water availability in numerous regions. To maintain the structure of the occupation of those territories, heavy investments will be unavoidable. High-elevation water retention facilities, establishment of desalination factories and new water transportation networks, etc.
In the absence of these investments in the construction of new infrastructure - which the Stern report evaluates at between 15 and 150 billion dollars a year in the OECD countries - the abandonment of entire regions could have a still higher economic and social cost. Another parameter must be taken into account by the economists: in addition to climate change, energy resources are becoming scarce. A fact which technological progress will not be able to completely mitigate. The response to global warming will therefore have an energy cost that, as time goes by, will become higher.
Two more degrees means agricultural yields reduced by 20-30 percent along the Mediterranean basin and in Sahelian Africa. Hence, increased migratory pressure with its cortē³ge of economic and political consequences. Two degrees more also means, according to the scientific literature cited by the Stern report, 15 to 40 percent of animal and vegetable species condemned to rapid extinction by virtue of the disappearance of their habitat. There again, the abstraction may leave you unmoved, even make you smile: could the global economy easily get by without biodiversity? No, answer the United Nations agencies and NGOs involved in environmental protection.
The Cardinal Character of the Stakes
For the last few years, these latter organizations have had ever more recourse to economists to identify and evaluate the “services rendered” by ecosystems to help measure their value. The champions of unbridled production can’t shrug their shoulders any more when the destruction of bees through the use of phytosanitary products is evoked: the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates the value of the service these pollinating insects perform for world agriculture at 200 billion dollars a year. In their absence, that’s the sum that would have to be spent annually to maintain agricultural production at its current level.
In the same spirit, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has calculated the annual economic contribution of mangroves and coral reefs at between $200,000 and $900,000 per square kilometer, depending on the region. It’s these types of considerations and calculations that, added together, allow Nicholas Stern to evaluate the future cost of warming. Some may - no doubt deservedly - question the strict accuracy of these statistics; it is nonetheless the case that their order of magnitude accurately indicates the cardinal character of the stakes involved.
Climate enters economics: it could cause a profound reconsideration of certain market dogmas. For example, the price of fossil fuels defined by supply and demand does not include the cost for the repair of the inevitable future damage their combustion will occasion. Consequently, carbon must be taxed, all carbon, Mr. Stern says in essence - to reduce emissions on the one hand and, on the other, to obtain the financial room for maneuvering necessary to develop public and private research around clean technologies.
In [free market, economically] liberal circles, people freely express the idea that protection of the environment is an illusory objective if it runs counter to the economy. Perhaps that’s true. One thing is certain; the statement may be reversed: the economy will not withstand a massive degradation of the environment. Not concerned by Kyoto, the Chinese government - which one could not easily tax with ecological fanaticism - seems finally to have understood that. It has just allocated the colossal sum of 175 billion dollars to an environmental protection program that is supposed to last five years.
Key China-Pakistan deals awaited
BBC
Thursday, 23 November 2006 , 16:34 GMT
Chinese President Hu Jintao is in Pakistan after three days of trade and political talks in India. He was given a red-carpet welcome by President Musharraf and other officials at the start of his four-day visit. The two countries are expected to cement their 55-year relationship with accords on trade, culture and energy.
The state-run Chinese news agency said unprecedented agreements were expected to be signed with Pakistan during Mr Hu’s visit, but gave no details. There has been speculation that they could involve a big expansion of Chinese assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear power industry.
The BBC’s Barbara Plett in Islamabad says Pakistan wants China to help it build more nuclear power reactors to meet growing energy demands, especially since the United States has refused to provide the kind of civil nuclear assistance it has promised to India.
Our correspondent says Pakistan and China have a long-standing agreement on nuclear co-operation and China is one of Pakistan’s main suppliers of conventional weapons - but economic considerations are now more important than obsolete cold war rivalries.
Important agreements
Correspondents say that President Hu’s visit is intended to reassure Pakistan - Beijing’s closest ally in South Asia - of its strategic and economic support despite closer ties with India.
President Hu’s four-day visit - amid tight security - is the first by a Chinese leader in a decade. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz greeted President Hu and his wife on their arrival from Mumbai ( Bombay) after a landmark three-day trip to India . Soldiers fired off a 21-gun salute and huge red banners showing Mr Hu and his Pakistani counterpart were strung up around the capital and along the route from the airport.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that several important agreements would be signed during the president’s “very significant” visit.
“China has been a consistent and a reliable friend of Pakistan for the last 55 years and we have very deep and strong cooperation in all areas,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP news agency.
“A number of agreements will be signed during this visit which will further strengthen existing cooperation in various fields, and will also expand bilateral relationship to the education, social and culture sectors,” Ms Aslam said.
She said that recent reports that the two countries may sign a nuclear deal similar to one agreed by India and the US earlier this year were “speculative”.
“However we have a long-standing cooperation in the civil nuclear field with China and a broad ranging agreement was signed in February 2006 when President Musharraf visited China.”
‘Megaport’
On Friday, President Hu will deliver a live television address to the Pakistani nation, the first foreign leader to do so since US President Bill Clinton in 2000. The BBC’s Barbara Plett in Islamabad says that people like to talk about an “all-weather relationship” with China. Our correspondent says that the friendship is seen as one of Islamabad ’s most stable alliances.
The two countries have close economic ties. China has built an atomic power plant in Pakistan while a second is under construction. Beijing is the largest arms supplier to Islamabad and the two countries are jointly developing a fighter aircraft.
China has also ploughed millions of dollars in a “megaport” in southwest Pakistan to gain access to the Arabian Sea.
India is suspicious of China ’s close support for Pakistan and its military ties with India’s historical rival.
But Mr Hu has said his country could help forge peace between the South Asian rivals and that Beijing sought no “selfish gains” in South Asia.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Shemale funkingpicks von Kostenlos Promis nacktbetrē?gen Interrassisch EhefrauenJungen Minderjē?hrige nacktPromis naked.comShannon shemale LopezFett fuck GrannyNackte Frau muskulēsAmateur-Sex trailors interrassischTawneestone Fotos gratisadderall and addiction xanaxpills viagra all genericall xr about xanaxbuy xanax 2mgbuy on about line viagra viagraprices 100 mg viagratramadol 500tramadol akyma Maploans check no unsecured personal creditloan no personal credit historyloans australia no house in depositno home established loans creditloan no overnight payday faxnorth fork loans auto bankof countrywide loans numberforgiveness student loan programs nurse Mapgi loanloans rv sam goodgovermnet eloans homgovernment house loansloans businesses for small governmentsubsidized housing government loansgraduate leverage loangrant loan writers Map
November 23rd, 2006
You may have wondered what the Bushies are up to lately — here’s the report, some of it interesting, some amusing. They will also be celebrating our uniquely American holiday … not that Fall celebrations or gratitude for harvest are less than the property of all humankind, stretching back into antiquity and presided over by the all-seeing eye of Goddess. We Americans have a tradition-bound and rather pleasantly overindulgent day to mark same … which has, unfortunately, become a 365 day-a-year drill thanks to retailers, corporations and PR firms.
Nonetheless — may your day be full of the gifts of Spirit — family, friends, food, laughter … gratitude for plenty and the promise of Peace.
Jude
Thanksgiving at Camp David
Matt Neuman
11.23.2006
GEORGE: This year, before we begin our dinner, I thought it would be a nice idea if we each took a moment to say what we’re thankful for. Think about it, the word “thanks” is part of Thanksgiving. Anyway, let’s go around the table.
LAURA: I’m thankful for my wonderful husband and our two daughters, our good friends, my loyal staff and our dogs, Barney and Mrs.
Beasley. And my in-laws. Excuse me, I’ll be right back.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH: I’m thankful for the belated recognition, by some at least, that a little pre-war advice I was trying to pass along turned out to be pretty damned spot-on prescient after all is said and done. ‘Nuff said.
BARBARA BUSH: I’m thankful that the stress of being an unpopular lame duck president hasn’t caused my eldest son to fall off the wagon, or has it? And I’m thankful for a certain daughter-in-law for promising me she was finally going to quit smoking, once and for all, especially during dinner.
JENNA AND BARBARA: We’re thankful for an all-voluntary army, made up of kids too poor to have other priorities, like Uncle Dick.
DICK (on video screen): Lynne and I are thankful for the concept of executive privilege, and the fact that it covers vice presidents, and their families, and how it can be cited when ignoring the shitload of subpoenas we can all expect.
LYNNE (on video screen): And we’re thankful for the installation of a more robust exhaust system in our secure undisclosed location so that we can have real turkey down here this year.
CONDI: I’m thankful for Rummy taking most of the heat when I could easily be eating stove top stuffing in the Stanford faculty cafeteria with visiting professors from countries that don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, a fact I was just trying to explain to the President.
KARL: I’m thankful for having two more years of access to the most sensitive files in Washington, to be used in future smear campaigns. And I’m thankful for not being thrown under the bus yet.
LAURA: I’m back. (Coughs.) George, it’s your turn.
GEORGE: I’m thankful for living in a country where you can invade another country under false pretenses and get away with it. Let’s eat! ++
Pardoning the Turkeys
Marty Kaplan
11.22.2006
What do President Bush and the national turkey have in common? They both received Thanksgiving pardons from President Bush.
As Flyboy pardoned “Flyer” at the White House, half a world away, in the United Arab Emirates, 41 pardoned 43. The bird won his freedom in the 59th annual photo op in which the media are cheerful accomplices of the poultry industry.
The incumbent President won his pardon at a “leadership conference” (is that code for “speaking fee”?) where a staged speech by George H. W. Bush unleashed the opposite of cheers from his audience.
The liberator of Kuwait must have been expecting huzzas for his this-will-not-stand stand. But instead, what he heard were derisive hoots — aimed not at him, but at his son. “We do not respect your son,” a woman said, prompting whoops and whistles from the room. “We do not respect what he’s doing all over the world.”
The AP reported that 41 “appeared stunned.” The President who refused to invade Baghdad; whose son publicly disses him and his foreign policy team; who has played Laius to son’s Oedipus, and Lear to his Goneril and Regan: Poppy was expecting what — Kennebunkport holiday gentility?
“My son is an honest man,” he responded, defining the antonym of “talking turkey.” “This son is not going to back away,” he said, “voice quivering” according to the AP, a tremolo caused perhaps by his bizarre substitution of “this” for “my.” Maybe that’s just how they talk within the dynasty. “This President would like some white meat, Bar, ” one imagines 41 saying. “Would this son like seconds of stuffing?”
Sr. defended Jr. as though someone were trying to pin the “wimp factor” on this son. “He’s not going to change his view because some poll says this or some poll says that, or some heartfelt comments from the lady who feels deeply in her heart about something,” prompting Gold Star mothers all across America to wonder which of them was “the lady” in question. “You can’t be president of the United States and conduct yourself if you’re going to cut and run,” 41 told his Abu Dhabi critics; clearly he hadn’t yet received the memo that “cut and run” was no longer the pejorative of choice in the brave new bipartisan world. “This is going to work out in Iraq,” he said, sending a subtle realpolitik signal to this son. Victory? Winning? Not gonna happen. “A National Strategy to Work Things Out in Iraq”: that’s the ticket.
Flyer’s name, as well his alternate, Fryer, were chosen via “Gobble the Vote,” an online poll conducted on the White House’s Web site, proving once and for all how hep these Bush cats are to the internets. “I am granting them a full Presidential pardon so they can live out their lives as safe as can be,” said 43 in the Rose Garden, leaving the parents of our armed forces serving courageously in Iraq to wonder whether things will work out as well for their sons and daughters.
Happy Thanksgiving. ++
Turkeys Again Refuse Ceremonial White House Pardon
Bob Geiger
Nov 22 2006
Struggling to absorb his own abysmal approval ratings and the Republican party’s landslide defeat in the midterm elections, George W. Bush took another shot to the gut today when both birds designated by Bush as the National Thanksgiving Turkeys, refused the president’s ceremonial “pardon.”
“Flyer” and “Fryer” who hail from the Lynn Nutt farm in Monett, Missouri, were formally pardoned by Bush in a ceremony today at the White House, marking the 59th anniversary of the Thanksgiving tradition.
But both white-feathered birds made it clear that they would refuse the president’s pardon, citing fundamental disagreements with Bush-administration policies and the legacy of last year’s pardon recipients, “Yam” and “Marshmallow,” who broke new ground in the turkey community by spurning Bush in 2005.
“This wasn’t an easy decision. I mean, hey, I used to be a Republican,” said a pugnacious Fryer in an interview on Tuesday evening. “But this guy Bush being both a Chickenhawk and a lame duck is an insult to all birds. Even turkeys have standards.”
The event began awkwardly when this exchange occurred between Flyer and Bush:
Bush: Flyer’s probably wondering where he’s going to wind up tomorrow. He’s probably thinking he’s going to end up on somebody’s table (Laughter.)
Flyer: Bite me.
The other turkey, Fryer, was barred from attending today’s ceremony while a clearly-drugged Flyer attempted a strong peck at Bush and was quickly restrained by alert Secret Service agents.
“This is bullshit, man,” gobbled Flyer as he was wrestled to the ground by the White House security detail. “Don’t let the world forget me!”
White House spokesman Tony Snow said that the president found the birds’ stance “disappointing” and that, like last year’s turkeys, Flyer and Fryer had a clear partisan agenda.
“This is a well-orchestrated attempt by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to distract attention from the pro-bird compassion that has characterized this administration,” said Snow. “It’s unfortunate that Flyer and Fryer have chosen to align themselves with Michael Moore and the far left-wing of the Democratic party.”
Meanwhile, “Corn” and “Copia” who received 21 percent of the vote on the White House web site to Flyer and Fryer’s 27 percent, accepted their certain death sentence, while claiming voter fraud.
“Duh, it’s the Republican party running this election,” said Copia, in a defiant, farewell press conference, after narrowly losing the eleventh-hour reprieve . “Don’t think for a minute that Diebold’s hands aren’t all over these results.”
Fryer, who was kept from the ceremony by the Secret Service and Bush’s dog, Barney, says he expects the same fate as Yam and Marshmallow, who he claims were waterboarded in the White House pool before having their necks wrung following the tumultuous 2005 ceremony.
“Everyone knows Cheney couldn’t wait to get his hands on Yam,” said the 33-pound Fryer, as White House staffers struggled to muzzle him. “And it’s common knowledge that Marshmallow spent six months at Guantanamo Bay before he became turkey nuggets.”
And Flyer, who was forced to endure the Rose-Garden ceremony for the sake of the press and the assembled Girl Scouts, expressed no regrets as he was led away.
“Bush is an enormous tool,” said Flyer. “I’m not crazy about ending up on someone’s table tomorrow, but I’m not accepting any favors from that idiot.” ++
Elder Bush takes on son’s Arab critics
JIM KRANE, AP
Tue Nov 21
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - Former President George H.W. Bush took on Arab critics of his son Tuesday during a testy exchange at a leadership conference in the capital of this U.S. ally.
“My son is an honest man,” Bush told members of the audience harshly criticized the current U.S. leader’s foreign policy.
The oil-rich Persian Gulf used to be safe territory for former President Bush, who brought Arab leaders together in a coalition that drove Saddam Hussein’s troops from Kuwait in 1991. But gratitude for the elder Bush, who served as president from 1989-93, was overshadowed at the conference by hostility toward his son, whose invasion of Iraq and support for Israel are deeply unpopular in the region.
“We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he’s doing all over the world,” a woman in the audience bluntly told Bush after his speech.
Bush, 82, appeared stunned as others in the audience whooped and whistled in approval.
A college student told Bush his belief that U.S. wars were aimed at opening markets for American companies and said globalization was contrived for America’s benefit at the expense of the rest of the world. Bush was having none of it.
“I think that’s weird and it’s nuts,” Bush said. “To suggest that everything we do is because we’re hungry for money, I think that’s crazy. I think you need to go back to school.”
The hostile comments came during a quesion-and-answer session after Bush finished a folksy address on leadership by telling the audience how deeply hurt he feels when his presidential son is criticized.
“This son is not going to back away,” Bush said, his voice quivering. “He’s not going to change his view because some poll says this or some poll says that, or some heartfelt comments from the lady who feels deeply in her heart about something. You can’t be president of the United States and conduct yourself if you’re going to cut and run. This is going to work out in Iraq. I understand the anxiety. It’s not easy.”
Bush also told the audience its derisive hoots were mild compared to the reaction he got in Germany in the 1980s, after persuading the country to deploy U.S. nuclear missiles.
He told the audience ā including dozens of women in black robes and head scarves ā he was extremely proud of his sons, President George W. Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
He said the happiest day of his life was election day in 1998 when George and Jeb were elected to the governorships of Texas and Florida, but he also described the pain he feels when his sons are attacked.
“I can’t begin to tell you the pride I feel in my two sons,” Bush said. “When your son’s under attack, it hurts. You’re determined to be at his side and help him any way you possibly can.”
One audience member asked the former president what advice he gives his son on Iraq.
Bush said the presence of reporters in the audience prevented him from revealing his advice. He also declined to comment on his expectations for the findings of the Iraq Study Group, an advisory commission led by Bush family friend and his former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton. The group is expected to issue its report soon.
“I have strong opinions on a lot of these things. But the reason I can’t voice them is, if I did what you ask me to do ā tell you what advice I give my son ā that would then be flashed all over the world,” Bush said.
“If it happened to deviate one iota, one little inch, from what the president’s doing or thinks he ought to be doing, it would be terrible. It’d bring great anxiety not only to him but to his supporters,” he added.
Bush said he’d spoken with Baker recently ā the two are neighbors in Houston ā but preferred to reminisce about old times than discuss what America ought to do in Iraq.
“In the early 1960s, Jim Baker and I were the men’s doubles champions in tennis in the city of Houston,” Bush said with a grin. “If I were to suggest what they ought to do, it just would not be constructive and certainly would not be helpful to the president. It would cause grief to him.”
Bush said he was surprised by the audience’s criticism of his son.
“He is working hard for peace. It takes a lot of guts to get up and tell a father about his son in those terms when I just told you the thing that matters in my heart is my family,” he said. “How come everybody wants to come to the United States if the United States is so bad?” ++
Rumsfeld Sacking Causes Waves
November 22, 2006
The latest Evans-Novak Political Report suggests the way President Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld caused considerable friction in the White House. “Even Vice President Dick Cheney is said to be profoundly disturbed by Rumsfeld’s treatment.”
Key points:
“On the day after the election, Rumsfeld had seemed devastated — the familiar confident grin gone and his voice breaking. According to Bush Administration officials, only three or four people knew he would be fired — and Rumsfeld was not one of them.”
Novak also suggests Bush’s “shrouded decision” came after he declared Rumsfeld would serve out the second term. “It fits a pattern of a President who is secretive and impersonal.”
“Bush had likewise sacked two other appointees, both of whom were the last to know of their demise. Economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey had been assured in 2002 that he would be retained as the President’s national economic adviser, but received word at around 5 p.m. that he would be fired the next day. Before Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill embarked on a dangerous mission to Afghanistan, he requested and received assurances that he would still have a job when he returned. Instead, he was dismissed in tandem with Lindsey.” ++
What About Dick? Cheney Shuffles Into History
Alan Bisbort
Nov 23 2006
When last we saw him, Dick Cheney, our nation’s second-in-command, was lurching toward the Dakotas, a shotgun on his shoulder and his head filled with thoughts of the varmints he was a-gonna waste. He briefly reappeared after the election in the White House, wedged uncomfortably on a sofa, looking as put-upon as Percy in my son’s Thomas the Tank Engine videos.
Cheney is not long for this administration. Rumsfeld was his closest ally; they were, you might say, in the mutual protection racket. Now that the Bush Family Empire has circled the wagons around the White House to cover the tracks after another GWB failure, Cheney will probably be shown the door. They’re just trying to figure the best way to dump Dick, the best spin they can use — the spin that no one will believe but no one will question. In case you haven’t noticed, Lil’ George is out of the loop on any of this. They told him to get out of Dodge–and I’ll wager they used language like that–while they clean up his mess. So, Bush is in Asia, playacting at being a diplomat (irony of ironies: he’s finally serving in Vietnam).
One important fact that’s rarely mentioned in regards to the VP is his health. He is a sick man. A medical professional I know, examining the known medical reports on Cheney, offered this analysis: “Cheney has stage IV congestive heart failure, and the permanent pacemaker he has is also a defibrillator. With his current degree of cardiomyopathy and congestive failure, his risk of ventricle fibrillation arrest is high. He is perennially edematous [swollen with fluids], and frequently goes into the hospital for iv diuresis. His brain is likely underperforming because of the CHF [congestive heart failure]. He is almost certainly on amiodarone for his heart (can’t imagine him not being on it), which is toxic to other organs, especially the liver. Because of the cardiomyopathy, he is probably warfarizined [warfarin is a powerful drug that prevents blood clots]. He’s somebody who needs hospitalization at any time, and no rational White House physician could conceivably have declared him medically suited to be VP. My key question is this: why wasn’t he heart-transplanted previously? His disease is severe enough.”
Rumors have swirled around Dick for weeks. A Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck was seen outside the Naval Observatory (VP’s residence) on Oct. 19. Conceivably, he is now destroying evidence. He has, since 2001, often been in “undisclosed locations” (hospitals?). Perhaps proximity to power has kept him alive these past six years, but his time is up. They’re going to pull the plug, if not subpoena him to face questions about the national energy panel, the run up to the Iraq war, and Halliburton’s war profiteering. Any of these scenarios will cause stress, which is not recommended for a heart patient.
Look for the Bush Family Empire to insert their handpicked successor to the throne sometime in the next few months, if not weeks. Though it has been rumored that Condi Rice would be picked, she’s already said she won’t run for president, so the GOP has no use for her. They will insert someone like Chuck Hagel, John McCain or Mitt Romney, all of whom have presidential ambitions. Because the GOP won’t win back Congress in 2008 (21 GOP Senate incumbents face reelection vs. only 12 Democrats), the White House is their only chance to retain any influence on the body politic. My guess is that Cheney would rather die than face questions about his record. For him to leave the VP’s office is tantamount to dying. But I want him alive and on the witness stand, facing the consequences of his acts. Whether he’s able to is anyone’s guess. ++
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
November 23rd, 2006