BUSH: SORRY AND SORRIER

THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Somebody Should Tell Bush He’s Done.  Stick A Fork in Him.  It’s Over.
It is just a matter of time.  The man behind the curtain we were not supposed to pay any attention to has been found out.  The fraud is revealed.  What an inspiring a sorry performance by the President in front of the troops at Fort Bragg and the entire nation Tuesday night.  The only thing more inspiring sorrier was Scott McClellan’s bold new insights even sorrier regurgitations at Wednesday’s White House Press Briefing Court Stenography Session.  Somebody should tell Scott McClellan it is time for a raise new job. 

McClellan opened with a PR announcement on the President’s website dedicated to supporting the troops Bush himself does not support.  Then McClellan turned thing over to Frances Townsend.  Fran Townsend continued what was supposed to be another White House Press Briefing Court Stenography Session with a brilliantly an oddly timed appearance to talk about the Silberman Robb Commission Report on Terror, WMD and whatever else can distract us from the president’s sinking performance the night before on national television.  McClellan made the mistake of then taking questions. HIGHLIGHTS are mine, the lowlights are all Scott.

Q Q So what do you make of all of the Democratic criticism of the President's speech last night, particularly the very harsh words that Senator Rockefeller had --

MR. McCLELLAN: I didn't see exactly what he said. You might want to refresh me on what he said.

Q -- perpetrating a fraud on the American people.

MR. McCLELLAN: I would just say that I don't think politics and pessimism help us complete the mission. The President is focused on completing the mission. And last night he outlined a very clear strategy for the way forward that the American people heard. That strategy is to stand up Iraqi security forces, and as we do that, to stand down American forces. And that's the way forward in Iraq. And it's important that we all focus on completing the mission so that our troops can return home as soon as possible.
 [WHITE HOUSE]

Mission, mission, strategy, strategy, mission.  If the strategy now is to remind people of a mission yet unaccomplished, these geniuses in the White House are making a big mistake.  Somebody should tell Scott reminding people about the mission that isn’t a accomplished only reminds them that the mission is . . . not accomplished.  

Q Can I follow on that? Part of what Senator Rockefeller said was that by using the references to 9/11, that the President was trying to click a patriotic button that would make people more patient. He called it "amazing." He further said that there was no connection between Osama bin Laden, Iraq and 9/11, and effectively was saying the President was using that national tragedy. How do you respond to that?

MR. McCLELLAN: And who made any suggestion of a link to the attacks? What the President was talking about was that September 11th taught us important lessons. It taught us that we must confront threats before they full materialize, before they reach our shores. That's why the President decided we were going to take the fight to the enemy. We are taking the fight to the enemy abroad so that we don't have to fight them here at home. We are on the offense, not defense. And that's the way you fight and wage and win the war on terrorism.
 [WHITE HOUSE]

September 11th, threats, enemy, home, terrorism.  And who made any suggestion of a link to the attacks?  Here we have the beginning of the beginning of the end. People will only play the fool for so long. Soon people will say they are not fools.  In time they will say they never were fooled.  Then they will say there is only one fool.  The fool in the White House.  Who does that fool think he is fooling?  Stick  a fork in him.  He’s dead.  Bush just doesn’t know it yet.

 

Q I guess the question Democrats have is, is the enemy in Iraq the same enemy that struck the United States on September 11th, 2001?

MR. McCLELLAN: Actually, the President talked about it last night. He said the terrorists have chosen to make Iraq a central front in the war on terrorism. They are the same -- they have the same hatred and -- let me back up -- they have the same ideology of hatred and oppression that the terrorists who attacked us on September 11th held. These are the same kind of people. They are terrorists who seek to dominate the Middle East. The Middle East is a dangerous region of the world, and the President made the decision that we could no longer ignore these emerging threat that were building in the Middle East. The Middle East was a breeding ground for terrorism for decades; we looked the other way or tolerated dictators for the sake of peace and stability in the Middle East. We got neither. Threats were emerging and the terrorists thought that history was on their side. They attacked us at the World Trade Center in 1993; they -- you saw the attacks on our troops in Somalia and the attack on our Marines in Lebanon. They launched attacks in other civilized countries, as well.

Then September 11th came. War was brought to our shores. And the President made a decision that the terrorists were going to be the ones that were going to be on the defensive. We were going to take the fight to them. And when you engage the enemy abroad, this is what happens. The enemy recognizes that a free Iraq is going to go right to the heart of their survival because it will help send a powerful message to the rest of the Middle East and help transform that region to bring about freedom and democracy, which is the way to defeat the ideology that they espouse.
[WHITE HOUSE]

Danger, enemy, threats, attacks, September 11, Iraq. The President made a decision. We were going to take the fight to  . . .Iraq.  Every word the President say, everything McClellan says in support of his illegal war . . .  supports the truth in the Downing Street Memos.  Bush sticks the fork in himself.  He just doesn’t know it.

Q So while the President isn't arguing that Saddam Hussein and his regime were behind 9/11, he's saying that essentially they're the same kind of people?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, remember, we talked about how his regime was a sworn enemy of the United States. And what the terrorists did was choose to make Iraq a central front in the war on terrorism. No matter where you stood on the decision to go into Iraq -- we talked about the decision about why we went into Iraq -- I think all of us can recognize that the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. The President quoted Osama bin Laden last night. The President has heard from his commanders, General Abizaid, who oversees that theater. And General Abizaid has talked about the importance of succeeding in Iraq and Afghanistan, and talked to the President about how when we succeed in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will be the beginning of the end for the terrorists and their ideology.

If we were to lose in Iraq, it would simply be the beginning of the beginning.
[WHITE HOUSE]

Paranoia strikes three.  Sworn enemy, terrorists , we all recognize. We do all recognize something now.  The White House is repeating things that worked in the past that will work against them now and in the future.  You can only wave a bloody flag so long and then people see the blood has dripped down to where it always belonged. On Bush.  Stick a fork in him. He's done.  Bush just doesn’t know it..

WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING ABOUT BUSH

BLURRING THE LINE BETWEEN FACT AND PROPAGANDA
Critics were quick to point out that several of those links were more a consequence of the Iraq invasion than a justification for it.
The connections described by Mr Bush at Fort Bragg were more conceptual than the close relationship described by the White House before the war.
The prewar rhetoric portrayed that relationship as long and deep. Dick Cheney, the vice-president, who took the lead in making the claims described evidence of the relationship as "overwhelming".
Mr Cheney said in late 2001 it had been "pretty well confirmed" that the lead September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2000.
Mr Bush said in October 2002: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gases."
He also pointed to the alleged presence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian Islamist militant in Baghdad, and of a radical Sunni group, Ansar al-Islam, in Kurdistan as further proof of the connection.
Those alleged connections crumbled under postwar scrutiny.
--snip--
Despite the dearth of evidence of a solid link since the war, the picture of the relationship remains muddy in the US.
Mr Cheney, in particular, has refused to retract his war claims and has continued to hint at hidden connections between Saddam and Bin Laden.
Robin Hayes, a Republican congressman from North Carolina, appeared on television yesterday claiming to have seen secret evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks which he could not share.
Such cryptic claims were widely rejected as groundless yesterday, but Mr Bush's more subtle rendering of the alleged Iraq-Bin Laden axis will serve to blur the hard lines between fact and propaganda.
[GUARDIAN UK]

The New York Times says Bush couldn't resist temptation.

President Bush told the nation last night that the war in Iraq was difficult but winnable. Only the first is clearly true. Despite buoyant cheerleading by administration officials, the military situation is at best unimproved. The Iraqi Army, despite Mr. Bush's optimistic descriptions, shows no signs of being able to control the country without American help for years to come.
--snip--
We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks.
 [NY TIMES]

MORE OF WHAT THE PRESS HAD TO SAY ABOUT BUSH, GOOD AND BAD
 

USA Today
Editorial, June 29

"Two years ago, an ebullient George Bush flew to an aircraft carrier ... to celebrate the supposed end of major combat in Iraq ... Mr Bush on Tuesday again appeared before hundreds of US troops, this time to respond to questions and growing concerns about the mission ...

"Mr Bush's half-hour speech outlined a sound, steadfast approach to dealing with the mess that Iraq has become. But whether it can stem erosion in support for the war remains to be seen. There was no acknowledgment of the misjudgments that many Americans now see plainly, but Mr Bush seems unable or unwilling to recognise. The administration is reaping the backlash from its rosy predictions that invading Iraq - and getting out - would be quick and relatively painless."

Cragg Hines
Houston Chronicle, June 29

"Mr Bush's setting may have been Fort Bragg, the big, war-ready base in North Carolina, and his audience may have been assembled troops, but the president's target, however, as it has been throughout much of his tenure, was his political base, which he needs to rally ...

"The [latest] Washington Post-ABC survey could point to increased trouble ahead for Mr Bush. For the first time in this survey, a majority (52%-48%) believe the administration intentionally misled the American public in the run-up to the war ... This is a dangerous shift in public perception for a 'values' politician such as Mr Bush. Hence, the speech."

John Podhoretz
New York Post, June 29

"Mr Bush was compelled to ... make the case yet again for the war in Iraq at a time of mounting insurgent attacks on Americans and Iraqis - something he might not have needed to do if he had maintained a laser-like focus on the war on terror at the outset of his second term ...

"The speech marked ... a return to the war presidency ... It was a strong speech ... because it took the criticisms of the war and the war effort seriously and sought to advance better arguments than those offered by the critics ... Thus, the president made clear, the story of Iraq isn't just the daily use of ... car bombs. It's a story of political progress that is threatened only by a loss of resolve on our part - a loss of resolve that will result in a major victory for terrorism."

Washington Post
Editorial, June 29

"Clearly Iraq is now a prime battlefield for Islamic extremists ... But Mr Bush didn't explain how a war meant to remove a tyrant believed to wield weapons of mass destruction turned into a fight against Muslim militants, a transformation caused in part by his administration's many errors since Saddam Hussein's defeat more than two years ago.

"The president also didn't speak candidly enough about the primary mission the US now has in Iraq, which is ... constructing a stable government in spite of Iraq's sectarian divisions and violent resistance from the former ruling elite. It's harder to explain why Americans should die in such a complex and ambitious enterprise than in a fight with international terrorists, but that is the case Mr Bush most needs to make."

Los Angeles Times
Editorial, June 29

"Mr Bush's pep talk to the nation ... was a major disappointment. He again rewrote history by lumping together the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 and the need for war in Iraq, when, in fact, Saddam's Iraq had no connection to al-Qaida ... Mr Bush might be right to now put Iraq at< the centre of the 'global war on terror', but it didn't have that status before the invasion ...

"Americans are understandably upset at spending $200bn [£111bn] and so many lives in Iraq, while hearing only rhetoric about staying the course. If more months pass with Iraqi forces leaning on the safety net of US troops, politicians putting tribe and religious community ahead of nation, and the daily havoc of suicide bombers, presidential scrutiny through rose-coloured glasses will fall on ever deafer ears."

New York Times
Editorial, June 29

"If Mr Bush is intent on staying the course, it will take years before the Iraqi government and its military are able to stand on their own. Most important of all - despite his lofty assurance [on Tuesday] that in the end the insurgents 'cannot stop the advance of freedom' - all those years of effort and suffering could still end with the Iraqis turning on each other, or deciding that the American troops were the ultimate enemy after all ...

"No one wants a disaster in Iraq, and Mr Bush's critics can put aside, at least temporarily, their anger at the administration for its hubris, its terrible planning and its inept conduct of the war in return for a frank discussion of where to go from here."

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Editorial, June 29

"Despite their growing unease and even distrust, most Americans do understand the potentially dire consequences of failure in Iraq. They don't like how we got into this mess, they don't believe it's being handled well, but they accept - at least for now - the necessity of sticking it out. All in all, they appreciate the seriousness of the situation, and are ready to act accordingly. They deserve an equal seriousness of purpose from the Bush administration." 
ROUNDUP FROM [THE GUARDIAN]

MORE ON THIS LATER TODAY

Comments

[Jeri]

I'd like to add an Analysis piece the Baltimore Sun ran yesterday. Yes, folks, that's analysis, not opinion, run on the same page as the article about the speech itself. The analysis breaks down his speech, comparing it to actual facts. I wish I didn't have to be stunned at this rare case of a journalist doing real work.

[Jeri]

Whoops, bad code on my part. I was trying to link to an Analysis piece by the Baltimore Sun, in which they pick apart his speech and compare it to actual facts. It ran on the same page as the speech itself, NOT on the opinion page. I wish I wasn't so stunned at this rare case of real journalism.

[Shakespeare's Sister]

I think Bush is what they call a done tom turkey.

[Kate]

I hope he's done. That's assuming we have a critical population who want to ask questions instead of blindly being led, which right now seems like quite an assumption.

The evidence is there, that's for sure, but I don't think the republican congress will do anything about it all. They won't investigate his misdeeds or even hold hearings on them. It's nuts. The midterm elections next year are vitally important -- if we can shift the balance even a little we'll be getting somewhere.

This is an excellent post, Heretik.

[Agitprop]

Shakes--It is a fake plastic turkey, the same one he hand-delivered to feed our hungry troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving. Bush is a fake plastic president with a fake plastic wife.

[Mimus Pauly]

Let me see if I have this straight:

Bush decided to go after Saddam Hussein because al-Qaida, operating under the aegis of Osama bin Laden, attacked the United States. Saddam was overthrown and his military and police forces disbanded in order to make it easier for foreign terrorists to enter Iraq and ambush and kill American soldiers. Bush won't increase troop levels in Iraq because that would further piss off Iraqi insurgents who want American soldiers out of their country, nor will he decrease them because that would encourage foreign terrorists to ratchet up their level of attacks a notch or more. In other words, the troops can't stay there, and they can't leave, either -- but it's worth it, because at least the terrorists aren't attacking America directly.

Did I leave anything out?

[lorraine]

Don't the adrenal glands eventually become exhausted from the constant triggering of the fight-or-flight response? Bush can only push that button so many times, and I agree wholeheartedly with you. He's done it way too many times. Here's hoping that he is truly cooked.

[The Fixer]

Excellent!

[Night Bird]

Patty:

Of course you left nothing out of that part of the story. But now it seems that the propaganda machine is spinning to get us into another part of the world.

[mandt]

"Somebody should tell Scott McClellan it is time for a new job." Yea, like giving Gannon another job! --that suck up blow hard M

[grannyinsanity]

Impeach
Chimpeach
Pimpeach
Creepeach

I don't care, just get him out of there and in a small cell where he belongs!

[paradoctor]

Careful folks... you mustn't "misunderestimate" W. That is, you must work hard to ensure that your opinion of him is low enough. He's blindsided us on the downside before; and as he goes down, he's just the sort who will take as much possible down with him.

Nonetheless, I welcome the beginning of the end.

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I think Bush is what they call a done tom turkey.

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