http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/06/bush-event-goes-off-script/ From the full transcript of Bush's Charlotte event today: HARRY TAYLOR: You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you’d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are – THE PRESIDENT: I’m not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what’s your question? Q Okay, I don’t have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and – AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo! THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec — let him speak. Q And I would hope — I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I’m saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about. THE PRESIDENT: It is, yes. (Applause.) Q And I know that this doesn’t come welcome to most of the people in this room, but I do appreciate that. THE PRESIDENT: Appreciate – Q I don’t have a question, but I just wanted to make that comment to you. THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate it, thank you. Let me – Q Can I ask a question? THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to start off with what you first said, if you don’t mind, you said that I tap your phones — I think that’s what you said. You tapped your phone — I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that’s right. Yes, no, let me finish. I’d like to describe that decision I made about protecting this country. You can come to whatever conclusion you want. The conclusion is I’m not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program, and I’ll tell you why. We were accused in Washington, D.C. of not connecting the dots, that we didn’t do everything we could to protect you or others from the attack. And so I called in the people responsible for helping to protect the American people and the homeland. I said, is there anything more we could do. And there — out of this national — NSA came the recommendation that it would make sense for us to listen to a call outside the country, inside the country from al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda in order to have real-time information from which to possibly prevent an attack. I thought that made sense, so long as it was constitutional. Now, you may not agree with the constitutional assessment given to me by lawyers — and we’ve got plenty of them in Washington — but they made this assessment that it was constitutional for me to make that decision. I then, sir, took that decision to members of the United States Congress from both political parties and briefed them on the decision that was made in order to protect the American people. And so members of both parties, both chambers, were fully aware of a program intended to know whether or not al Qaeda was calling in or calling out of the country. It seems like — to make sense, if we’re at war, we ought to be using tools necessary within the Constitution, on a very limited basis, a program that’s reviewed constantly to protect us. Now, you and I have a different — of agreement on what is needed to be protected. But you said, would I apologize for that? The answer — answer is, absolutely not. (Applause.)
Hero? Not Harry Taylor. He's simply an angry liberal who has to make a scene. Major kudos to Bush for angering him further by hearing him out. That probably really caused old Harry's blood to boil. Even bigger kudos to Bush for PWNING Harry with his response. Liberals today are an angry, unhappy lot that likes to complain and moan, yet offer no solutions.
With the exception of Alec Baldwin I'm not aware of any liberal that's gotten so angry that they compared the other side to terrorists or accused the other side of rooting for America's greatest enemies. That level of anger is the province of the right. As angry as we could ever get, we could never come close to that level of vitriol. And where did you get the idea that Bush allowing someone to make an unfiltered, unvetted comment made the commenter "angrier?" In your wishful imagination? Can you even read? He thanked him for the opportunity to speak. Was that the first time someone's been allowed to say something unvetted in over five years worth of "town hall meetings," by the way? Wow. Impressive. If you could read, you would also see that Bush didn't respond to a single thing Taylor said. He just repeated his usual talking points. That hardly counts as "pwning" him. But what do you care, right?
curious, was harry a member of al queda, or in contact with al queda members? if not, he has no reason to be concerned about the wiretapping. if he is, perhaps he's the one who should be ashamed.
Yeah, only Al Queda members should be concerned with unchecked executive power. I mean, no one has ever or would ever abuse access to more power, right? Who needs checks and balances? In case you missed it in the many months of discussion, no one cares about the wiretaps; the issue is solely the lack of warrants and oversight. I don't think I've seen a more shortsighted and naive group than this current crop of Republicans. You'd think if they had even a basic history education, they'd know better than to think unchecked power won't eventually be abused.
Says who? If he was a member of Al Qaeda or in contact with Al Qaeda then the president had no cause not to get consent to wire tap his phone. If he was a member and the President didn't go through proper channels like FISA then again it is the President who should be ashamed. There is nothing but the word of a President who has already been shown to be dishonest that they are only wiretapping Al Qaeda. There is no oversight to ensure that is the case. Looking at how incompetently this president has run the war in Iraq, I would say that he should have very close oversight of everything he does.
American public is entitled to know the closed-door deals reached by Cheney and his cronies from the Energy companies in the secret "Energy Task Force" meeting, and of course, the names of Cheney's buddies.
PWNING? If you mean the fact that Bush completely abused and trashed the Constitution went against his own words, In which he already stated that wiretapping should only be done with warrants, and all but admitted to scuttling the constitution under the very wide, and evermore widening, umbrella of "turrurism" then I guess stupid is as studid believes.
The girl sitting next to him had this "I just crapped in my pants" look. He should've asked when we'd get our civil liberties back...as if Bush's skill at making timetables would help him weasel out of that one.
lies! this isn't the fully transcript... there's not stuttering, or stammering going on anywhere in there! *edit* ok so he did repeat a couple words, but i didn't see any umms or errs in there.
it's great what this guy did....i wish the rest of the press, which claims to be so "free," would ask difficult questions of the leadership in this country have you ever seen the way the press treats officials from countries that the us govt views negatively, they ask them the hardest questions and are rude to them in the process, but when it comes to bush and co., the "free press" becomes jingoistic and gives them a free pass no matter what and actually just echoes the positions and policies of the government this country is rapidly headed towards authoritarianism what you saw in v for vendetta might not be too far away one last thing, it was so typical of bush not to directly address anything the guy brought up, but rather resort to demagoguery
hey asso, should we drown Mr Taylor to see if he is a witch? If I've just used the reference in a sentence he must be, musn't he?
I have to admit, bush handled that pretty well. He succintly stated that there are two very different points of view in this country regarding his policies. Maybe some of the conservatives on this board could learn some tips instead of calling whoever disagrees with them a 'terrorist'.
