Why is the President Lying ... again?

quote:

---

I'm not a politician, but either were a soveign nation or were not, you all didn't seem outraged at the communist butchering millions of south vietnamese after we left them defenseless, truly you democrats should read up on Chamberlain, don't realize the terrorists made a house call on the pentagon, killed hundreds of our leaders, and you all sit back and say we should look to the United Nations who believe Israel shouldn't build a wall to protect the palestian children from blowing themselves up because with a wall they would not be able to cross over to blow up Israelies, etc...Globalisms, asking the UN to intercede, to make our decisions, is just not the answer, we need to be a soverign nation, not bound by International courts, so we can make our own decisions(the senate, Congress agreed as did Mr. Kerry that going to war with Sadamn based on the intelligence was the right thing to do), etc...If you don't want us to be a soverign nation, then whats the reason your an american, the problem with Kerry is that he flips positions, begging the question of his ability to lead, the world needs stability, and an unstable president that flips positions constantly, as political winds dictate, is not in our best interest, etc...

---

I'm not a politician, but either we want the Nazi-supporting Bush family to take us for a ride or not. Prescott Bush was a really big supporter of the Nazis during WW2 and then got in trouble for it. So, we now know that the Bush family likes to support evil regimes. Look at the ties with Saudi Arabia. There's a portrait of GHW Bush in the big Saudi palace, were friends with them even though they are an oppressive Islamic state. They even cut off peoples heads in public. If Bush gets 4 more years he will sell even more of our government to the Saudis, and its very likely that we willstart to see public beheadings here in the US because look at the Patriot act.

---

To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero ... assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability.-George Bush Sr.

quote:

---

I'm talking about everything. This administration has denied the most Freedom of Information Act requests since the act was, uh, enacted. There's been a stupendous restriction of government openness, ostensibly for security, but generally in regards to things that have nothing to do with terrorism or likely terror targets.

​

Again, I'm not saying that the government needs to tell us literally everything, but keeping government accountable is the only way to keep government responsible.

---

Yeah, like when was the last time Bush gave a press conference?They really don't let him do that because he's seems to become Bumblebush when the questions become, well, questions.Also, when has anybody in the administration given a press conference or answered any questions at all about the specifics of the civil rights-stripping Patriot Act?Hell, we didn't even see Cheney's face for the first two years or so of Bush's term.Too busy running the shadow government, I suppose.

This is a great article regarding the debate, and this reporter's take on why he did so poorly. Very insightful.http://www.richardreeves.com/columns/latest.htmlTHE PRESIDENT HAS "OVALITIS"BY RICHARD REEVESNEW YORK -- Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, did a focus group with 18 "swing" voters during the first Bush-Kerry debate last week at the University of Miami. The count before the debate was 12 undecided, two for President Bush and four for Senator John Kerry. After the debate, the Luntz scorecard read: seven undecided, two for Bush, nine for Kerry.Pretty dramatic stuff, though winning the debate -- which Kerry obviously did -- does not necessarily mean winning the election. But it beats losing the debate, as Bush did. Asked why, Luntz said: "The split-screen worked to Bush’s disadvantage. The group thought he looked angry, negative and upset."What the President looked like was a teenager getting a lecture from his parents.Peter Canellos, evaluating the performances for the Boston Globe also cited the cutaways of Bush listening (and squirming) as Kerry spoke, wrote this last Friday: "Bush’s repetition seemed insistent rather than firm and his body language -- sighing, clenching his teeth, rolling his eyes -- suggested a man on the defensive."Jay Nordlinger of the National Review, the secular scripture of American conservatism, began his evaluation by saying to his pro-Bush readership, "Don’t shoot the messenger!" Then he gave them his unhappy message: "If I was a normal guy ... I would vote for Kerry. On the basis of that debate, I would."What happened to Bush? What’s wrong with him? I would say he has bad case of Ovalitis -- an ear infection endemic to the Oval Office. Sit there long enough and you don’t hear anything you don’t want to hear.The people who come into the President’s office know all about shooting messengers, so they bring only tidings of great joy. Anyone who doesn’t do that gets fired. That’s what happened to both his chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey and the Army chief of staff, General Eric Shinsheki, when they said, correctly,that occupying and stabilizing Iraq would take more money and men than Bush had imagined. The President once knew all about the bowing and scraping, but gradually it became his due; he is the boy in the bubble. And the bubble moves with him around the country as his staff and the Secret Service protect him from any unpleasant words or people. Tickets to his rallies are given only to the loyal. He holds no press conferences. He hides away out there in the Crawford sagebrush. He’s alone.Bush is a man who does not hear, or does not listen. That, rather than Kerry’s confident professionalism, was what was important Thursday night.Thursday night visibly shocked Bush. He was shocked by what Kerry was saying, particularly about the poisoned chaos that is Iraq. Why the Democrat even raised questions about Ayad Allawi, the Iraqi tough guy Bush picked as prime minister -- and seemed on the verge of comparing to Winston Churchill. How could Kerry say such things about such a man? How could Kerry say things are going badly in Iraq? No one told the President that -- or he didn’t hear it. Why, that could demoralize our troops -- as if those soldier’s in harm’s way did not know what was going on long before Kerry spoke out.Bush is a man who does not hear, or does not listen. That, rather than Kerry’s confident professionalism, was what was important Thursday night. The challenger, we know, has had problems because he hears too many voices, listens to everyone. The only people we know the President listens to are members of his small court, led by Vice President Cheney, who has been pushing the preposterous for the past three years.This is not new. Bush gave away part of the game when he talked about never dreaming when he debated in 2000 that he would have to send troops into harm’s way. What did he think presidents do? He seemed ignorant then. But as Commander-in-Chief he quickly became imperious. Answering a question from Bob Woodward in 2002 about whether he was listening to staff and advisers as he prepared for war, Bush said: "Of course not. I’m the commander. See, I don’t have to explain why I say things ... I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation."Apparently he meant that. He certainly did not make much of an attempt to explain anything in this first debate -- and that’s why he lost it.

This is an interesting take upon the notion of if Bush is a liar, stupid, or just a really lazy thinker.Is He a Dope?The Los Angeles Times | EditorialAlthough neither group likes to say so, some Americans who support President Bush and many who don't support him have concluded over four years that he may not be very bright. This suspicion was not allayed by Bush's answers in the first presidential debate a week ago.Even Bush's most engaged critics shy away from publicly challenging his intelligence for many reasons, most of them good. To raise the issue seems snooty and elitist. This is an image no American wants because seeming snooty is even worse than seeming stupid. Just ask Bush's opponent, Sen. John Kerry. Furthermore, the concept of brainpower or IQ as a single, measurable trait is generally, though not universally, rejected by scientists. And the obsession with IQ has been responsible for all sorts of political mischief.Then there is Ronald Reagan. We know now that he had incipient Alzheimer's for at least part of his presidency. Many of his supporters at the time and even more of his retrospective admirers acknowledge that he was a few jelly beans short of a jar. But he was a spectacularly successful politician anyway, and many believe he was more than that: one of America's greatest leaders.The smartest candidate is not necessarily the best candidate. The candidate's belief system and character matter more. Similarly, the smartest surgeon is not necessarily the best surgeon. But if all you knew about two surgeons was that one was smarter than the other, there's not much question which one you'd pick for your operation.Actually, we would not frame the question as one of abstract brainpower, a dubious concept. You don't go through America's top schools, serve as governor of a major state and occupy the presidency with even mixed results if you're not reasonably smart, no matter how thoroughly your way is eased by others.The issue might better be described as one of mental laziness.Does this man think through his beliefs before they harden into unwavering principles? Is he open to countervailing evidence? Does he test his beliefs against new evidence and outside argument? Does his understanding of a subject go any deeper than the minimum amount needed for public display? Is he intellectually curious? Does he try to reconcile his beliefs on one subject with his beliefs on another?It's bad if a president is incapable of the abstract thought necessary for these mental exercises. If he is capable and isn't even trying, that's worse. It becomes a question of character. When a president sends thousands of young Americans to kill and die halfway around the world, thinking about it as hard and as honestly as possible is the least he can do.Bush's Iraq policy is full of contradictions, often rehearsed on this page and elsewhere. But so is Kerry's. It isn't routine political mendacity that makes many people - many more than will admit it - wonder about Bush's mental engagement. It is a combination of things: his stumbling inarticulateness, the efforts his advisors make to protect him from unscripted exposure, his extreme reluctance to rethink anything.Does it matter? Yes, it matters. There are those who say that Reagan's mental laziness was actually a plus. It prevented a lot of competing signals from causing static on the lines, and kept his principles clear. We do not buy that. We state boldly that thinking hard is a good thing, not a bad thing, even in a president. If that sounds snooty, so be it. And maybe George W. Bush will reassure us by his performance Friday night that he is thinking as hard as he should about the issues the president will face in the next four years. Especially the issues resulting from his own failure to think hard during the last four.