A Letterman joke that's not a joke. I'm probably overreaching, but I'm thinking of that comment specifically in the context of, & from the March 6, 2003, primetime press briefing in the leadup to war. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html) Past press conferences with the president have been extremely sedate. Ask a question, listen to pat answer, sit down, repeat. While last night they didn't exactly grill him, the press corps showed a marked difference in their tone and doggedness in pursuing followups. Sharper questions. A few challenges occurred, eg the calling on the total evasion of the need for dual testimony with the VP (granted, he dodged the question again). Occasional followups. I can remember, I think from the above-cited press conference, though it's hard to tell from the transcript, when Bush seemed to complain about the reporters mixing up the order of their questioning. Again, I'm likely reading too much into it, but to me this implied that at the very least the questioners if not the questions were approved beforehand (eg attack poodle Helen Thomas has been an inexplicable no show for the past evening press conferences), and consequently there was not exactly a free exchange of ideas. From a Shafer article I just found in Slate, by googling Thomas, dealing with this topic:
An election is not a four-year blank check to do whatever you want. The other response, which is a little more valid, actually, is that the Congress is a counterbalance to the President. However, the way our government works now means that is not really the case.
Started for 'geopolitical' reasons? Check Major combat involvement based on a lie? (WMD=Tonkin Gulf Incident)Check Natural environment hostile to troops and equipment? Check Tactical environment precludes use of many weapons systems? Check Difficulty discriminating between combatants and civilians? Check Lack of exit strategy? Check Hearts and Minds, Light at the end of the tunnel rhetoric? Check Low troop morale based on being trapped in a mis-managed clusterfuk? Check Assertions that anyone who criticizes the war is a commie-hippie-pinko-unpatriotic-unamerican traitor? Check
it's the message stupid, not the messenger: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/04/14/092256.php -- Let's forget Bush for a moment. George W. Bush is a very odd vessel for what is the most important message of our time: that there are implacable forces in the world that hate us, our way of life, our vibrant culture, our personal freedom, and those forces will do all they can to kill us. This is a real war. There are various sources of this ideology, but they are quite willing to set aside their differences to act against us, "the enemy of my enemy" and all. These forces share - or in the case of Saddam, at least paid/pay lip-sevice to - a constricted, debased form of exceptionalist Islam, a demand for absolute theocracy, the predominance of the theocratic state over the individual, and a messianic requirement to convert or kill every human being on earth who does not bend to their will. The United States, representing the apex of all they hate most, including the force to hold back their aspirations to world domination - and this isn't the slightest exaggeration - is their primary target, but proxy targets are perfectly legitimate, as the president stated last night: Now is the time, and Iraq is the place, in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world. We must not waver. The violence we are seeing in Iraq is familiar. The terrorists who take hostages or plants a roadside bomb near Baghdad is serving the same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid, and murders children on buses in Jerusalem, and blows up a nightclub in Bali and cuts the throat of a young reporter for being a Jew. We've seen the same ideology of murder in the killing of 241 Marines in Beirut, the first attack on the World Trade Center, in the destruction of two embassies in Africa, in the attack on the USS Cole, and in the merciless horror inflicted upon thousands of innocent men and women and children on September the 11th, 2001. None of these acts is the work of a religion. All are the work of a fanatical political ideology. The servants of this ideology seek tyranny in the Middle East and beyond. They seek to oppress and persecute women. They seek the death of Jews and Christians and every Muslim who desires peace over theocratic terror. They seek to intimidate America into panic and retreat, and to set free nations against each other. And they seek weapons of mass destruction, to blackmail and murder on a massive scale. Over the last several decades, we've seen that any concession or retreat on our part will only embolden this enemy and invite more bloodshed. And the enemy has seen, over the last 31 months, that we will no longer live in denial or seek to appease them. For the first time, the civilized world has provided a concerted response to the ideology of terror - a series of powerful, effective blows. The terrorists have lost the shelter of the Taliban and the training camps in Afghanistan. They have lost safe havens in Pakistan. They lost an ally in Baghdad. And Libya has turned its back on terror. They've lost many leaders in an unrelenting international manhunt. And perhaps more frightening to these men and their movement, the terrorists are seeing the advance of freedom and reform in the greater Middle East. [AP] Set aside the source for a moment: every word of this is profoundly true, the importance is the song, not the singer. I honestly don't care all that much about the singer and have many differences with him in other areas. But somehow, someway, this particular man grasped on 9/11 that all of the incidents listed above ARE connected, cannot be addressed piecemeal, cannot be addressed in a defensive mode - as every Western leader and every American president, Republican and Democrat alike, had previously done - and that decisive, resolute, offensive action was the only possible way to win this war, a war we did not seek, and in fact assiduously sought to avoid prior to 9/11. The question of the moment is, is Iraq a genuine part of this war? It sure as hell is now. As Bush very keenly stated, the key to this war is to stay on the offense, to keep taking the battle to the enemy. Afghanistan was first for obvious reasons: al Qaeda perpetrated 9/11 and al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan, where it was welcomed and protected by the Taliban. But where to go next? Offense requires offensive action, and Iraq was the obvious next step: a brutally vile and oppressive regime that had proved itself a danger to its own people, its neighbors, and the world at large, and one that EVERYONE believed had weapons of mass destruction. Where are we now? At a troubling, difficult time, and one that must be taken very seriously. Again, Bush has his priorities exactly right: sovereignty will be turned over to Iraqis at the end of June, we will remain to provide security for the infant democracy, we will provide the military whatever it needs - including increasing troop strength - to do its job, we will not waver. These were the things I needed to hear last night and I heard them. The war on terror is the most important issue of our time - Bush reconvinced me he knows that, he has even staked his reelection campaign upon it, the message came through and the message counts infinitely more than the messenger.
Will from the Clutch Crew chimes in: http://slate.msn.com/id/2098810/ Trust, Don't Verify Bush's incredible definition of credibility. By William Saletan Posted Wednesday, April 14, 2004, at 3:27 AM PT One thing is for certain, though, about me, and the world has learned this: When I say something, I mean it. And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom. That's the summation President Bush delivered as he wrapped up his press conference Tuesday night. It's the message he emphasized throughout: Our commitment. Our pledge. Our word. My conviction. Given the stakes in Iraq and the war against terrorism, it would be petty to poke fun at Bush for calling credibility "incredibly important." His routine misuse of the word "incredible," while illiterate, is harmless. His misunderstanding of the word "credible," however, isn't harmless. It's catastrophic. To Bush, credibility means that you keep saying today what you said yesterday, and that you do today what you promised yesterday. "A free Iraq will confirm to a watching world that America's word, once given, can be relied upon," he argued Tuesday night. When the situation is clear and requires pure courage, this steadfastness is Bush's most useful trait. But when the situation is unclear, Bush's notion of credibility turns out to be dangerously unhinged. The only words and deeds that have to match are his. No correspondence to reality is required. Bush can say today what he said yesterday, and do today what he promised yesterday, even if nothing he believes about the rest of the world is true. Outside Bush's head, his statements keep crashing into reality. Tuesday night, ABC's Terry Moran reminded him, "Mr. President, before the war, you and members of your administration made several claims about Iraq: that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators with sweets and flowers; that Iraqi oil revenue would pay for most of the reconstruction; and that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction but, as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said, 'We know where they are.' How do you explain to Americans how you got that so wrong?" Inside Bush's head, however, all is peaceful. "The oil revenues, they're bigger than we thought they would be," Bush boasted to Moran, evidently unaware that this heightened the mystery of why the revenues weren't covering the reconstruction. As to the WMD, Bush said the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq had confirmed that Iraq was "hiding things. A country that hides something is a country that is afraid of getting caught." See the logic? A country that hides something must be afraid of getting caught, and a country afraid of getting caught must be hiding something. Each statement validates the other, sparing Bush the need to find the WMD. . . . To all of this, however, Bush is blind. He doesn't measure his version of the world against anybody else's. He measures his version against itself. He says the same thing today that he said yesterday. That's why, when he was asked Tuesday whether he felt any responsibility for failing to stop the 9/11 plot, he kept shrugging that "the country"—not the president—wasn't on the lookout. It's also why, when he was asked to name his biggest mistake since 9/11, he insisted, "Even knowing what I know today about the stockpiles of weapons [not found in Iraq], I still would've called upon the world to deal with Saddam Hussein." Bush believes now what he believed then. Incredible, but true.
And there is a mechanism to deal with presidents who treat it as such, it is called impeachment. I certainly don't recall the passage in the constitution that references press conferences. Maybe it is in an amendment that I am unfamiliar with?
Thanks basso for the cutting edge piece from blogcritics unfortunately the source is impossible to set aside even for a moment... LMAO
Published on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 by The Progressive A Scary Performance, and a Signal for Slaughter by Matthew Rothschild George Bush's press conference on April 13 was a scary performance. Not because his second sentence was ungrammatical: "This has been tough weeks in that country." Not because he pronounced "instigated" as "instikated" in his fourth sentence. Not because he said Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of State. Not because of his foolish comment that before 9/11 "we assumed oceans would protect us." (Ever since the Russians built their first ICBMs fifty years ago, the oceans haven't protected us.) Not because he said of the August 6 briefing, "Frankly, I didn't think it was anything new"! Not because he said that even if he had known beforehand that Iraq did not have WMD stockpiles, he still would have gone to war against Saddam Hussein. Not because he had no coherent answer as to why Dick Cheney must hold his hand when he testifies to the 9/11 commission. Not because he said that no one in his Administration had "any indication that bin Laden might hijack an airplane and run it into a building," when in fact, at the Genoa G-8 summit, there were precautions taken against incoming airplanes as missiles. And not because he repeatedly refused to take a shred of personal responsibility for allowing the 9/11 attacks to happen on his watch. No, his performance was scary because he plunged the United States deeper into a no-win war in Iraq. "We will finish the job of the fallen," he said. He gave only a pro forma nod toward the additional innocent Iraqis the United States may kill in the process. "We will continue taking the greatest care to prevent harm to innocent civilians; yet we will not permit the spread of chaos and violence," he said. "I have directed our military commanders to make every preparation to use decisive force, if necessary, to maintain order and to protect our troops." He reiterated this point later, saying, "Our commanders on the ground have got the authority necessary to deal with violence, and will--and will in firm fashion." Here is the President warning that U.S. troops, who have already killed more than 600 Iraqis in the last week, will have a free hand. That is a signal for slaughter. He also continued to underestimate the resistance the United States is facing in Iraq. He called it "a power grab by extremist and ruthless elements." He said, "It is not a civil war. It is not a popular uprising." And, astonishingly, he asserted, "Most of Iraq is relatively stable." That is not what many reporters have seen with their own eyes, and it is not what the TV screens are portraying. What's more, Bush's vow to unleash "decisive force" will only make things worse. He indicated that he will go after Moqtada al-Sadr, saying the cleric "must answer the charges against him and disband his illegal militia." This strongly suggests that Bush will order his troops to, as one senior commander said, "kill or capture" al-Sadr. And if that happens, all hell could break loose. In his Manichaean worldview, Bush lumped the Iraqi insurgents in with the terrorists of 9/11. They are all "enemies of civilization," he said, and they share "a fanatical political ideology." But many of those who are fighting against the U.S. occupation are not Al Qaeda members who want to destroy America and are not subscribers to the "ideology of terror." Rather, many are Iraqi nationalists who want to expel America from their own country because they have seen the brutality of the U.S. occupation. That's a huge difference, and Bush makes a terrible mistake by conflating the two. He also seems to have a static view of who the enemy is. He sees it as a finite group of innate murderers and evildoers. He thinks that all he needs to do is kill all the bad guys and victory is his. But he doesn't understand that his policy is creating new enemies by the thousands every single day. He warned that if the United States does not take "resolute action" and does not "stay the course" in Iraq, it will "recruit a new generation of killers." What he failed to grasp is that by maintaining the brutal occupation, he himself is recruiting that generation. And the more "firm" and "decisive" the U.S. military response, the more recruits Bush will be enlisting to fight against the United States. Interestingly, the first question Bush got was on the Vietnam comparison. But Bush did not want to hear anything about it. "The analogy is false," he said, without explaining why. He did, however, suggest that it was almost treasonous to raise the specter of Vietnam. "That analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and to the enemy," he said. (This is an echo of John Ashcroft's infamous statement that "those who scare peace-loving people with the phantoms of lost liberty" are giving "aid" and "ammunition" to America's enemies.) In previous remarks, Bush has made clear that he believes the lesson of Vietnam is two-fold: first, that the political leaders interfered with the generals, and second, that the United States did not use overwhelming force. If that is the lesson he applies here, the generals will run the war, and overwhelming force will be the order of the day. Expect more troops to be sent over soon, or to have their tours extended. Bush said if General Abizaid wants more troops, which he does, he'll get them. Bush also displayed again the full fervor of his messianic militarism. Several times he mentioned that the war offered a "historic opportunity to change the world." In one of his most emphatic moments, he said, "I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom." This is Bush saying that he is doing God's work in Iraq. That is a particularly inappropriate claim to make, leaving aside the obvious leaping of the church/state wall. Given that Bush has chosen to wage war in an Islamic country, it is unlikely that there are many Iraqis who are anxious to hear Bush's theological justifications. Bush's rhetoric is proof once again that the government of the United States is in the hands of a crude and deluded leader, whose war policy in Iraq promises more disasters to come. "Our work may become more difficult before it is finished," he said. With Bush's approach, that is a guarantee link
re: 40% figure http://slate.msn.com/id/2098861/ The Out-of-Towner While Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard. By Fred Kaplan Posted Wednesday, April 14, 2004, at 4:54 PM PT Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... In an otherwise dry day of hearings before the 9/11 commission, one brief bit of dialogue set off a sudden flash of clarity on the basic question of how our government let disaster happen. The revelation came this morning, when CIA Director George Tenet was on the stand. Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, asked him when he first found out about the report from the FBI's Minnesota field office that Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic jihadist, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. Tenet replied that he was briefed about the case on Aug. 23 or 24, 2001. Roemer then asked Tenet if he mentioned Moussaoui to President Bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. Tenet replied, "I was not in briefings at this time." Bush, he noted, "was on vacation." He added that he didn't see the president at all in August 2001. During the entire month, Bush was at his ranch in Texas. "You never talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied. By the way, for much of August, Tenet too was, as he put it, "on leave . . . Then again, it's easy to forget that before the terrorists struck, Bush was widely regarded as an unusually aloof president. Joe Conason has calculated that up until Sept. 11, 2001, Bush had spent 54 days at the ranch, 38 days at Camp David, and four days at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport—a total of 96 days, or about 40 percent of his presidency, outside of Washington. Yet by that inference, Bush has remained a remarkably out-of-touch—or at least out-of-town—leader, even in the two and a half years since 9/11. Dana Milbank counts that through his entire term to date, Bush has spent 500 days—again, about 40 percent of his time in office—at the ranch, the retreat, or the compound. The 9/11 commission has unveiled many critical problems in the FBI and the CIA. But the most critical problem may have been that the president was off duty.
I’m beginning to think the guy just can’t help himself when it comes to um…stretching the truth. White House: Bush Erred on Mustard Gas WASHINGTON - Once again, President Bush misspoke on a weapons issue, telling the nation that 50 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya — twice the amount actually uncovered. The White House moved quickly Wednesday to correct the record, with press secretary Scott McClellan seeking out reporters to point out the mistake. The president should have said in his Tuesday night address and press conference that 23.6 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya, instead of 50 tons, McClellan said. Bush used the 50-ton figure twice. The first time, he was making the case that his decision to go to war in Iraq has produced foreign policy successes elsewhere. The president argued that Libya's agreement last December to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs was the result of the U.S.-led war to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "Colonel Gadhafi made the decision, and rightly so, to disclose and disarm for the good of the world," Bush said, referring to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. "By the way, they found, I think, 50 tons of mustard gas, I believe it was, in a turkey farm, only because he was willing to disclose where the mustard gas was. But that made the world safer." The second time, Bush was using the example of the Libyan mustard gas disclosure to suggest that weapons of mass destruction could still turn up in Iraq. Though Bush's prewar allegations of Saddam's alleged weapons were his main rationale for going to war, none has yet been found. "They could still be there," Bush said Tuesday of the Iraq weapons. "They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=3&u=/ap/20040415/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_mistake
While of course the President, any President, should be engaged in national security, the sad fact is that Bush had nothing to bring to the table. I doubt seriously that he could make a valuable contribution to any serious discussion about a complex issue such as this.
I'm not one to totally critique everything Bush does but after the press conference one thing stood out. And it totally contradicts everything Rice; and company have been claiming for the past few weeks. Of course, they have been pleading to the public that they couldn't have even imagined jetliners being used as weapons. As Bush stated in the conference: Bush - "[H]ad I had any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth.." But later in the dialog with the media he said something that I still can't believe.. QUESTION: You've mentioned it at Fort Hood on Sunday. You pointed out that it did not warn of a hijacking of airplanes to crash into buildings, but that it warned of hijacking to obviously take hostages and to secure the release of extremists that are being held by the U.S. Did that trigger some specific actions on your part in the administration, since it dealt with potentially hundreds of lives and a blackmail attempt on the United States government? BUSH: And I asked for the briefing. And the reason I did is because there had been a lot of threat intelligence from overseas. And so, I -- part of it had to do with the Genoa G-8 conference that I was going to attend. And I asked at that point in time, let's make sure we are paying attention here at home, as well. And that's what triggered the report... Now in July 01' Bush attended the G-8 conference which the threat on his life was passed along by other countries. It wasn't soon after 9-11 that 2 world leaders claimed they warned Washington about Bin Laden and referenced "an airplane stuffed with explosives." Maybe I'm just beating a non-issue here but when Bush says "H]ad I had any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings," don't you think he's being just a little inconsistent? I'm not going to accuse him of allowing the attacks of 9-11 but I don't think he's being totally honest or straightforward as far as the intell they had.
From today's Washington Post... Bush found a way to make not one, not two, but three factual errors in a single 15-word sentence, which must be something of a world indoor record. Bush said it is still possible that inspectors will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm," he said, referring to Libya's WMD disclosures last month. The White House, according to Reuters, said the accurate figure was 23.6 metric tons or 26 tons, not 50. The stuff was found at various locations, not at a turkey farm. And there was no mustard gas on the farm at all, but unfilled chemical munitions. Other than that, the sentence was spot on.
Will, again. http://slate.msn.com/id/2098921/ Depends on What the Meaning of "Polls" Is Bush says he doesn't use polls. An adviser says he did. By William Saletan Posted Thursday, April 15, 2004, at 12:58 PM PT "And as to whether or not I make decisions based upon polls, I don't. I just don't make decisions that way." —President Bush, White House press conference, April 13 "It was no accident that President Bush passed up five chances on Tuesday night to offer regrets, contrition or an acknowledgement that he might have made mistakes in handling the Sept. 11 attacks or the war in Iraq. … One adviser said the White House had examined polling and focus group studies in determining that it would be a mistake for Mr. Bush to appear to yield." —New York Times, April 15
