The "President's" speech

[D_Raay]

President Bush's Iraq-strategy speech on Wednesday, while on the surface appearing to be a military pep-talk, was actually intended to address a domestic unrest manifested most profoundly in his plummeting approval ratings. The underlying theme of the speech – which was mainly a rehash of the same old, stay-the-course mentality -- was that Americans should forget much of what his government has done since 2001 and extend a renewed public trust going forward.

This is very much the political equivalent of the philandering husband asking his wife to trust his fidelity after getting caught with his pants down for the tenth time.

The president said this to future Naval and Marine officers on Wednesday: "Victory in Iraq will demand the continued determination and resolve of the American people.... I want you to know that while there may be a lot of heated rhetoric in Washington, D.C., one thing is not in dispute: The American people stand behind you."

Indeed we do. We support and trust the troops -- it's the president himself who people no longer trust.

President Bush's plea for patience and faith from the American people flies in the face of one major piece of reality: This administration has decidedly earned every bit of distrust and cynicism they have engendered.

We were told as a matter of fact (and not speculation) that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al-Qaeda and the events of September 11. That was not true.

We were told scores of times by every high-level person in the Executive Branch – including the president and vice president – that the U.S. had proof positive that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That was not true.

We have been told that flawed intelligence does not equal malicious intent on the White House's part to defraud the American people and then The Downing Street Memos surface from British intelligence to announced that President Bush was, in their words, "fixing the intelligence" around a pre-determined goal of invading Iraq.

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), appearing on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday reacted this way to Vice President Cheney's indignation over charges that they manipulated pre-war intelligence.

"Let me ask you, Tim, a rhetorical question. He [Cheney] sat on your program in the fall before the war and said, 'Saddam Hussein has reconstituted his nuclear weapons.' I simultaneously said, 'There is simply no evidence to sustain that. None. Zero. None.' I said it then, I said it again, I say it now. I demand anyone put forward for me, classified or in any other form, any evidence to sustain the assertion the vice president of the United States made that Saddam Hussein said to Tim Russert he, Saddam, has reconstituted his nuclear weapons. That is a flat misrepresentation of the facts."

We have been told ad nauseam lately that Congress had all the same pre-war intelligence as Team Bush and thus shares full culpability with the White House for the Iraq war. Not true.

Republican Senator John Warner refuted that on Meet the Press last weekend in this exchange with host Tim Russert:

Russert: But even back then, Senator Warner, and this is really important. This is what you said on August 27, 2002. "As I read and follow the debate, there appears to be a `gap' in the facts possessed by the Executive Branch and the facts possessed by the Legislative Branch."

The White House is now saying that you had every bit of intelligence that they had and yet, leading up to the war debate, you were saying there was a gap between what you knew and what the president knew.

Senator Warner: Well, I stand by that statement also. There are times in which I feel that we do not have the full knowledge, and as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I have done my very best to assure that members of our committee do get the full intelligence. I also serve on the Intelligence Committee. And I feel very strongly that that gap should never exist. And apparently, at that time, I was of the opinion and I stand by the statement.

Said Biden on the same show: "We did not have access to the same stuff that the president gets every morning."

So, in other words, the Bush administration is lying about that too.

Americans were told by Press Secretary Scott McClellan that nobody in the White House was leaking classified intelligence information and the president said that anyone found to be doing so would be fired. Not true and not true.

We now know from a preponderance of the evidence in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's case that Karl Rove did indeed spill CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity to the media. Why is he still there and operating with a top secret security clearance?

And most recently, we've seen the Bush administration greatly exaggerate the readiness of newly-trained Iraqi troops, despite a visit to Congress just two months ago from General George Casey, the top ground commander in Iraq, in which he told Congress that only one Iraqi battalion could operate independently of U.S. forces.

I look at all of this and wonder whatever happened to the old Republican credo of personal responsibility. It has apparently been replaced with official misleading and lying so pervasive that it barely even makes the news any longer.

And, like the cheating and contrite hubby whose wife finally changes the locks on the front door, the president shouldn't be surprised that his word no longer has any value and that his pleas for trust now fall on deaf ears.

[ericg]

Debate before (burning bush's first election) and after the FACT sabotages any observance of the definitive and conclusive reality as though the whole damn world has yet to put anything together right at all. "Hell is the impossibility of reason". Phillibustering the very truth, past, present and future is utterly inconceivable. A 13 year old could descry the all too obvious.

Giving credence to the reflection of the media's constantly impotent, convoluted journalism in limbo as though there must be an imbalance of impeding evil to have a balance is a great disservice to all of the human race. Charlie Rose once said something to the effect of isn't it just so right to have evil in the world in order for the impetus of good to manifest itself. As if it isn't hard enough... as if people are so damn confounded they need constant innoculations of macro degenerate corruption to educate them on what's good and bad. 2006 and we apparently have an inability/ ineptitude to learn anything at all. Has it come down to the world having a mass inferiority complex because people can't figure out and maintain the all too simple common denominators...?

What is that ancient oriental curse? "May you live in interesting times?" Start factoring the brass tax and see how much interest remains in these bullshit investments. Nothing but death, debt, degeneration and lost faith. Yet no one had any intelligence, intuition, insight, foresight... to know that BUllSHit makes a crappy mess? Hiddddie fucking hoe. How long until they "get wise to the demise"? Would armageddon even get anyone's attention? Why does the world revel in the creation of it's own revelations? Evolve motherfuckers. Organize. Find the point and revolutionize. It's just much harder and worse for the wear not to get it right.

[ericg]

[greedygretchen]

Evolve motherfuckers. Organize. Find the point and revolutionize.

ugh. while I agree that a lot of us Americans are far too complacent (we've got rent, kids, cars, work and other everyday shit that we've been conditioned to worry about) i think the condescending/self-righteous tone is pretty fucked-up. like there's a magazine called adbusters which is anti-consumerism/advertising (while charging $8 an issue) that-while i agree with its overall message- makes it seem like i'm evil for buying a happy meal. let's put the focus back on the perpetrators...

i mean there was a huge protest that was pretty much ignored by the media

and D_Raay...i think your post was very well written and right on point!

[ericg]

Yeah I funked it up, or did I. I don't want to rub it in, but I pitty the fool who thinks I'm talking directly to them. You have to have the sense to compute what I said right. If America was made up soley by the Bush/ Cheney families... put it this way, Bush was elected not by the people, but by his own political advocates. If the first election didn't prove that, the second one did. Never mind his track record going every wrong way possible. The Iraq war was without a doubt wrought with economically corrupt motives, not to mention the obvious criminal incompetence. Where have the people been? Spare me if you're going to say that they've all been in the chapel.

Under the false pretense of liberating a country in the middle east, which by the way you don't do by lying to your own country about it for reasons that can only be evidence of one big criminal conspiracy wagging the dog, blowing everyone and everything up in the country and then misappropriating all the resources for personal gain, the Bush family's economic ties to the Arab world (um, oil etc...) wrought this situation for nothing but personal gain for them and theirs. For these alterior motives, the cabal mentality, criminal incompetence and plain wrongdoing, they're stepping in their own shit at the expense of the world. Not to mention the shit that leaked... Plame, the Downing Memo, the askewed intelligence bullshit, come on. That's not even the tip. Who's really going to stand there and act or front on what's gone on as if shit's rosey?

Big business and media... the partners in crime with the bush admin's take on government. 39 percent of the country's most systematically incompetent and dumbed down. Russerts going to sit there week after week and assert bits and pieces of diluted circumstantial jargon never getting to the fucking point but all of which time and time again directly implicates, yet still the motif never gets too definitive per se, oh and get ready for next week's regurgitation of Q and A on a slightly different superficial angle on the same fucking bullshit. Here's your shit kickers, lets all have no choice but step in line with the brainwash propaganda, handicapped mentality one way or another like nothing counts for shit.

If I had even a small percentage of wherewithal that so many do, you can bet that by every means necessary I'd be networking/ pipelining a REAL effort to re-establish this country's constitution and mandate correctly. Right now shits getting colder and heating bills are through the roof. Hm. Take a minute. It's really very black and white at this point with no room to dwell in gray areas. It's all in between the lines, very simple and must I say, vitally depends on and means everything. How does it all happen? Without trying to spell it out, simply with faith in what's right. That makes the tables turn and then all kinds of ways come in to play. The ecological theme is, yep, benign energy of course. Everything revolves around that and it simply grows... fast. Stock it. Literally corner the market with it. The criminally plutocratical oiligarchy that's wreaked havoc on everything and everyone will crumble and the power would go right back to the good people that backed these rightfully due agendas, who in turn won't forget about the criminals who wrought the current shit course. This is international. Australia's already got a project trying to start up. This is the answer to reunite America and it's interests with the rest of the world. Technology's sole purpose really is to be ecologically efficient, conscious and sound, and it can be wonderful. Once it's established momentum, all the countries can get up to speed. The 3rd world first. With the new government that would come into play, we'd rebuild with this technology right in the heart of the middle east and NO in order to ammend what's been done. The applications are nothing short of absolutely vital and infinite. These simple things solve so many problems on this planet at once it's like fucking magic. Who's with me? We got the... so don't front with the front along another year. Check it out.

This is it people. Check your science. I'm obviously not trying to write a script here nor am I going to try and sweat over it being spelled out in a more comprehensive or digestable synopsis here, especially for yet another shit reply or for the state of remission many preclude.. Show the people a revolution instead of a revelation. As the king in Amadeus at one point said, "well just look at them", I'll in turn say, "there it is."

[Funkaloyd]

there's a magazine called adbusters which is anti-consumerism/advertising (while charging $8 an issue)
Yeah, they've started selling made-in-China sneakers. Even have a "revolutionary" advertising campaign to go with them.

[ericg]

You're either dumber than you thought or more impertinent.
You're obviously a bigger waste of time than Bush's speech.

I'll give you that for free.

[ericg]

Fuck it. Pay with your sole.

[sam i am]

So...let me get this straight...

The "President" :rolleyes: is lying about everything? Not one word that is uttered from his lips has any iota of truth? He's a walking, talking lie-propogating machine without any semblance or shadow of dignity, honor, or truthfulness about him?

Hmm....

If I were to believe that, I'd get my ass to ANY other country in the world quick....where my leaders would NEVER lie to me or do dubious things behind my back...where I could make a REAL impact and change the whole of human nature ASAP....

[ericg]

! (new.wavlist.com/tv/001/snl-buhbye!.wav)

[D_Raay]

So...let me get this straight...

The "President" :rolleyes: is lying about everything? Not one word that is uttered from his lips has any iota of truth? He's a walking, talking lie-propogating machine without any semblance or shadow of dignity, honor, or truthfulness about him?

Hmm....

If I were to believe that, I'd get my ass to ANY other country in the world quick....where my leaders would NEVER lie to me or do dubious things behind my back...where I could make a REAL impact and change the whole of human nature ASAP....
You ought to pack up your things then. I hear Switzerland is especially nice this time of year.

[weenie]

You ought to pack up your things then. I hear Switzerland is especially nice this time of year.

yeah yeah, switzerland is nice at the moment :)

[Ali]

yeah yeah, switzerland is nice at the moment :)Switzerland is boring.

[minijosh]

I'll keep my foot planted in a country where I know I'm being lied to and not go to another where you get lied to and not know it. If the president were truthful about everything I think the country would disolve itself.

[D_Raay]

I'll keep my foot planted in a country where I know I'm being lied to and not go to another where you get lied to and not know it. If the president were truthful about everything I think the country would disolve itself.
Perhaps the Justice Department could use this to speed up some investigations that are taking forever. How about that two-year investigation into who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA status? Stick Karl Rove on the water board and we can see who really leaked what in just a couple of minutes. That would be fair, wouldn't it? After all, his boss says it's not torture, right?

[sam i am]

Perhaps the Justice Department could use this to speed up some investigations that are taking forever. How about that two-year investigation into who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA status? Stick Karl Rove on the water board and we can see who really leaked what in just a couple of minutes. That would be fair, wouldn't it? After all, his boss says it's not torture, right?

First of all, I said "if" above, if you'll notice.

Second...don't they only speak French and German in Switzerland? Pah...English and Spanish is enough to learn in one lifetime...besides both of those Switzerland languages are dead languages anyhow :p

Finally...don't you realize, D_Raay that we COULD torture in this country if it weren't for that pesky Bill of Rights and such entities as the ACLU? If you work to abolish those two bulwarks of your civil rights, you can have Cheney or Rove on a water board in minutes, as you say. However....if THEY get to YOU first....well.....sayonara, sucker!

[Ali]

I'll keep my foot planted in a country where I know I'm being lied to and not go to another where you get lied to and not know it. If the president were truthful about everything I think the country would disolve itself.I'm speechless.

[sam i am]

I'm speechless.

That's a first... :p

[D_Raay]

Well, it would seem I could add to this thread as the public relation efforts are continuing oblivious to the demands by the American people as to just what the hell is going on with this war, and the very legitimacy of such a war.

Maybe it’s the newly appointed speech writer. Maybe Peter Feaver has been locked away in some windowless sub basement of the White House, without access to the outer world. Maybe he can do little more than recycle earlier speeches about the war in Iraq. Maybe he and everyone else in this administration have become trapped in a bizarre and crippling time warp. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that George Bush is hard of hearing.

It’s not as if anyone in this administration has ever listened with a discerning ear. Standard operating practice at the White House has been to listen only to those who furthered their agenda, and to absolutely no one else.

But this time, the man at the helm of a sinking nation has gone a bit too far. This time he has gone stone, cold, deaf.

It was an outrage for the President and his henchmen to totally ignore the advice and expertise of anyone who disagreed with their self-serving agenda. It was, in effect, an irresponsible surrender to special interests and supporters who would help keep George Bush in power. But, perhaps, it was politics as usual.

Perhaps it was. Domestic policies often deteriorate into partisan food fights, regardless of the toll on the people at large.

But in the wake of 9/11, George Bush’s hearing took a far more serious turn for the worse. His festering malady became a chronic affliction. In time, his condition became more and more noticeable and more and more debilitating.

Looking back, we no can see that 9/11 was the prelude to a long planned war against Iraq, When it came to the attacks or to the march to his war, George Bush found himself unable to hear a great many voices. Once again, the media were cooperative and complicit by selectively underreporting the warnings as well.

Consequently, among the voices that went unheeded by the President were:

*
Intelligence sources who warned about impending attacks on US soil, using hijacked airliners
*
CIA insiders who warned of the increased ‘chatter’ in the summer of 2001 that signaled that something was brewing among Al Qaeda operatives
*
Families of 9/11 victims who demanded an independent investigation into the attacks
*
Intelligence reports discounting any connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda
*
Weapons Inspectors in Iraq who insisted there were no WMD’s. but begged for more time to complete their mission
*
Experts who knew the Middle East and warned that a war against Iraq would foment civil war and instability in the entire region
*
The major nations of the world, with the exception of the UK and the bribed coalition of the billing, who warned about the consequences of an illegal preemptive or preventive war against a non belligerent nation.
*
Millions of people around the world who marched in protest to the impending invasion
*
A bipartisan group of US Military and Diplomatic experts who warned about the recklessness of a war against the people of Iraq
*
The Army War College experts who warned that GW Bus was “…on a course of open-ended and gratuitous conflict with states and non-state entities that pose no serious threat to the United States."
*
Experienced military men such as Generals Shinzeki and Zinni, who openly criticized the poorly laid plans for invasion and the horrific management of the occupation.
*
Any an all voices in opposition to the Bush/PNAC dream of global domination.

No matter how he tried, there was no way to conceal it. In his effort to regain public support for his invasion and occupation of Iraq, George Bush made it perfectly clear that he was incapable of hearing anything even remotely related to reality. In order to distort his failed war policy, he turned a deaf ear to the devastation and chaos that define his war of choice. He closed off any and all warnings that a military victory in Iraq is not possible.

But, in a really bad move, he also turned a deaf ear to the American people.

The American people are asking questions, and George Bush refuses to hear them. Instead, he offers public relations sound bites to a nation that is beginning to demand the truth.

So far he has refused to give the nation any explanations about what is really happening in Iraq. So far, George Bush has refused to address:

*
the failure to plan for our role as occupiers in Iraq
*
the chaos and bloodshed that intensify every day
*
the lack of water and electricity for the people
*
the failure of any significant reconstruction
*
the daily kidnappings and rampant crime
*
the mass exodus of doctors and other professionals
*
the use of torture by both Americans and the new Iraqi regime.
*
the widespread corruption and missing billions
*
the terrible effects of depleted uranium
*
the illegal and devastating use of white phosphorus
*
the fundamentalist government that is now in charge
*
the lack of body and vehicle armor for our troops
*
the tens of thousands of Iraqis who died at his hand
*
the claim by his own man, Ayad Allawi, that things are worse in Iraq now than under Saddam.
*
the five billion dollars a month being spent on the war

And George Bush refused, above all, to present a cohesive and specific strategy for ending the terrible war he began.

People all across this nation wanted to know what went wrong and why. And they wanted to know how their President planned to fix it. But George Bush has closed his ears to the growing concerns of a majority of Americans. He simply refuses to hear them.

He has chosen, instead, to revert to type. He has chosen, instead, to remain deaf to facts that had been revealed about his war. He has chosen, instead, to ignore the truth about the tragic and deadly catastrophe that was the war in Iraq. He has chosen, once again, to lie.

George Bush speaks only before courteous audiences. Assured of applause at appropriate intervals, he can comfortably hold both hands over his ears and refuse to acknowledge that he had led the nation into an endless morass.

He cannot tell the truth, we know that. So he did what he does best. He lied. But, the irony of it all is that more and more Americans are on to the lies by now. Just for starters, they know that:

*
There is no connection whatever between the invasion of Iraq and his trumped up war on terror. And yet, George Bush opted to use the word “terror” FIFTY TIMES his first strategy speech, and continued to the same harangue in the second.
*
The insurgency in Iraq is composed of dozens, possibly as many as 100 cells working independently. And yet, George Bush identified only three sources of insurgent activity – and placed much of the blame on “the brutal terrorist, Zarqawi – al Qaeda’s leading operative in Iraq.”
*
American marines, not Iraqi security forces, led the incursion into Tal Afar. And yet, to make them appear battle-ready, George Bush gave full credit to the Iraqi security forces for leading the attack.
*
Former supporters of the war, such as Vietnam veteran John Murtha, are convinced that a military victory in Iraq is not possible. And yet, George Bush repeated his old, weathered war cry, “There will be no withdrawal without victory.”
*
General William Odom has called the war in Iraq a failure. And yet, George Bush touts the “amazing progress” of the occupation.
*
More than 2130 Americans and 200 coalition troops have died for his illegal and immoral war of choice, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis are dead as well. And yet, George Bush still insists that he has “taken the fight to the terrorists,” and that his bloody war will “lay the foundation of peace for generations to come.”
*
Progress in Iraq cannot be measured by the number of buildings being rebuilt after being destroyed by US bombs. Instead, that is exactly what George Bush insists is so.
*
Progress in Iraq cannot be measured by the number of cell phones being used. And yet, that is how George Bush measures it.
*
Oil revenues are not going to the Iraqi people, but to foreign oil companies. And yet, George Bush claims that increased oil production was a sign of progress.
*
There is no definable victory possible. And yet, George Bush insists there is.

But George Bush has no clue about what the public knows. The man is as deaf as a door post. But his impairment is one of choice, not affliction. He believes he can use his hearing loss as a cover for his ineptitude and his obstinacy. In his world apart from reality, George Bush continues to believe that he can fool all of the people all of the time.

But this time, the American people are not buying it.

[Schmeltz]

Next year's elections will show whether the American people are buying it or not. Something tells me they will continue to buy it so long as it's being sold. And something tells me it will continue to be sold long after the American troops leave Iraq to self-destruct in the hands of the sadists, fascists, and extremists having such a rollicking good time over there at the moment.

[ericg]

[D_Raay]

Next year's elections will show whether the American people are buying it or not. Something tells me they will continue to buy it so long as it's being sold. And something tells me it will continue to be sold long after the American troops leave Iraq to self-destruct in the hands of the sadists, fascists, and extremists having such a rollicking good time over there at the moment.
I hope you are wrong schmeltz; I really do.

[Ali]

I hope you are wrong schmeltz; I really do.I'm afraid he's absolutely right. :(

[D_Raay]

I'm afraid he's absolutely right. :(
Well, one can hold out hope for a collective awakening can't one?

[Ali]

Well, one can hold out hope for a collective awakening can't one?You can't awaken the Faithful.

[Ace42X]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43189&rss=1

[Schmeltz]

Sorry guys. I may not always be right - but I am never wrong.

[ericg]

Well, even the most incompetent, inconceivable, diehard morons bereft of the balls to think out of the box have had to already come to some point of reasonable realization in any case. As the poles show the majority are already saying "take that shit back!" However, it will be in store until the right stuff is stocked.

Still, the Republicans could bring some troops home and show the smallest amount of competence and/ or plan and fool/ subdue many. Still, for a long time shit's been (in default of) leading up to an intervention, albeit most haven't been able to fathom just quite what and how in practical terms, but I think people will still stock things better and try to even it out at this point, but we'll see how shit goes. Let's not forget that the UN is playing a bigger and bigger role in the myriad criminal investigations as well.

Democrat's of the world unite!!! It's up to them to keep the ball in the air and slam it. Articles of impeachment are hovering and gathering more weight. They just need galvanizing. There is no ignoring the history. Tooo many bases of recognition for this realization. Can the democrats organize and handle what needs to be done when it comes down to it? That's the question. How much integrity is at hand? They're going to have to do more than close the house or senate for a day.

Still, it's up to the people to know what's up and up the ante. I hope they get the best wherewithal and comprehension of what could and ought to be and get it did!!!!

[ericg]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43189&rss=1

How many times will it be peeled before people call it what it is?!!!

[sam i am]

Sorry guys. I may not always be right - but I am never wrong.

Agreed.

I'll wager that the Republicans, in next year's elections, will maintain their Senate majority and lose 5-10 seats in the House...no more.

Districts are now so gerrymandered by both parties that losing a seat is well-nigh impossible without major scandal or major demographic shifts.

Republican majorities...get used to it.

[D_Raay]

Agreed.

I'll wager that the Republicans, in next year's elections, will maintain their Senate majority and lose 5-10 seats in the House...no more.

Districts are now so gerrymandered by both parties that losing a seat is well-nigh impossible without major scandal or major demographic shifts.

Republican majorities...get used to it.
You agree yet you are reveling in it? Just what do you have to gain by being on the wrong side of this?
Petty issues aside... I see know reason why no one will be held accountable for thousands of innocent lives, do you?

[sam i am]

You agree yet you are reveling in it? Just what do you have to gain by being on the wrong side of this?
Petty issues aside... I see know reason why no one will be held accountable for thousands of innocent lives, do you?

I was agreeing with Schmeltz's assessment of the election next year...not your premise that we are in some terrible quandry.

BTW...have you seen the latest poll numbers for Bush? His favorable rating is up to 42% from 37% at it's low. His speeches are working, at least a little, to shore up support in his base, it seems....