George W. Bush = The "WRONG" man!

[Gimpy]

Check this out!

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Bush: 'The Wrong Man?'
By Robert Parry
July 9, 2003
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George W. Bush?s combative exhortation to Iraqi resistance fighters to "bring ?em on" by launching more attacks against U.S. troops reminded his supporters why they see him as a war-hero president, what former aide and author David Frum dubbed "The Right Man" to lead the nation through post-Sept. 11 hostilities.

But Bush?s tough-guy rhetoric may instead be leading the nation into a maze of dark alleys from which many Americans, especially young soldiers dispatched to a string of conflicts, will never emerge. There is a growing sense that Bush?s life experience of underachieving privilege might make him entirely the wrong man for addressing the complex challenges the nation now faces.

Because of his family connections, Bush has never confronted the physical dangers that come with war, nor even the consequences of personal failure as an executive who?s made bad decisions. His father?s powerful friends have always been there to help, whether keeping Bush out of Vietnam or bailing out his sinking businesses or sparing him from a full vote count in Florida.

Even as a young man, Bush could say one thing and do another. He said he was for the Vietnam War, but accepted a home-side slot in the Texas Air National Guard arranged by his father?s friends. He then appears to have shirked even that duty with still-unanswered questions about why he failed a flight physical and whether he went AWOL for a year.

According to the Boston Globe, "In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And ? for a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen." [Boston Globe, May, 23, 2000]

In his early-to-mid adulthood, Bush continued to live a kind of risk-free life, benefiting from the generosity of his fathers? friends who bankrolled his failed business ventures and then set him up with sinecure positions on corporate boards. While other businessmen faced genuine risks of failure, Bush lived the charmed life of a n?er-do-well who could only fail up.

When it came to democracy and the fundamental right of American citizens to have their votes count ? and be counted ? Bush again didn?t dare take any risks. He preferred the sure thing of a fix by his father?s friends than winning or losing based on the actual ballots cast by voters.

After Election 2000, when the Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount, Bush sent his lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court to get five Republican justices to stop the counting of votes and hand him the White House. Though the U.S. news media largely spared Bush any political damage for this unprecedented act, many world leaders now roll their eyes when Bush proclaims his commitment to democracy around the globe.

Avoiding Risk

This pattern of avoiding personal risk has carried into his presidency. On Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center in New York and another into the Pentagon outside Washington, Bush was on a political trip to northern Florida. With administration officials claiming that Air Force One might be another target, Bush and his entourage fled west, first to Louisiana and then to Nebraska.

Meanwhile, other Americans held their ground in Washington, showing almost no panic even with the knowledge that a fourth hijacked plane was headed toward the capital. That plane never reached its destination because Americans onboard battled the hijackers for control and the plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Hours after the danger had passed, Bush returned to Washington.

Bush didn?t take chances either on his victory lap through the Middle East in June. Instead of following the example of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who visited British troops in the Iraqi city of Basra, Bush didn?t make even a brief stop inside Iraq, as some political observers believed he would.

Instead Bush chose the much safer environs of a U.S. military base in Qatar, where he spoke in front of cheering U.S. soldiers far from the front lines. "I?m happy to see you and so are the long-suffering people of Iraq," Bush told the soldiers, who were about 500 miles out of eye-shot from Iraq.

After leaving Qatar on June 5, Air Force One flew over Iraq, tilting at 31,000 feet so Bush could look down on the sweltering city of Baghdad. Though far out of range of Iraqi weapons, Bush was surrounded by four F-18 fighter jets.

While Bush?s decision to stay out of Iraq may have been justified by the continuing violence, there was an unsettling contrast between Bush taking a peak at Baghdad from 31,000 feet and American soldiers stuck patrolling its baking-hot streets day and night, possibly for the next several years.

Necessary Prudence

Bush?s supporters naturally bristle at the suggestion that Bush is anything but a hero. In his defense, they argue that it makes no sense for Bush to put himself in harm?s way when he has the larger responsibility as the U.S. head of state and when his Secret Service protectors are demanding that he avoid danger.

In a somewhat contradictory vein, Bush backers also cite his derring-do jet flight in full pilot gear onto the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln on May 1, as a sign of his personal bravery. The White House has since acknowledged that the carrier was within range of the presidential helicopter, but that Bush wanted to do the jet landing and even took water survival classes in case the jet crashed in the Pacific Ocean.

When judging personal courage, it?s also true that no one knows what thoughts go through another person?s head or how a person draws that hazy line between prudence and fear. It?s clear, too, that no one serving as president is ever out of danger from assassination.

Even as conservatives mocked President Bill Clinton as a cowardly draft dodger and some right-wing extremists fantasized about killing him, Clinton dove into crowds, giving his Secret Service detail fits. Living daily with the knowledge that dangerous people ? whether the likes of Tim McVeigh or Osama bin Laden ? want you dead is not the choice of a coward.

Right Man?

The larger question is whether Bush?s life experiences do make him "the right man" for this moment in American history. Does a lifetime of avoiding consequences for one?s decisions and actions make a person better qualified for the complex judgments of war and peace?

There is an argument to be made for that position. One could say that a person who has been insulated from the everyday experiences of the common man is less burdened with second thoughts. Also, lacking a personal sense of the human costs of war may make a leader less hesitant to commit troops to battle than someone who has been in war and has seen friends die.

But the counter-argument is that an incurious individual who has had limited contact with the world may well make judgments that are artificial and dangerous, perhaps driven more by ideology or wishful thinking than by practical assessments of what power can achieve and what reality looks like.

It is increasingly clear, for example, that Bush grossly miscalculated the situation in Iraq. Not only did Bush overstate the dangers from Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction, but he underestimated the task of pacifying Iraq after the initial assault by U.S. forces.

Bush appears to have bought into his administration?s own propaganda about how easy the war would be. Initially, the thought was that the "shock and awe" bombing of some government buildings in Baghdad would lead to Saddam Hussein?s ouster followed by a rose-petal welcome for U.S. troops and a cooperative transition to a pro-U.S. government in Iraq. Next would come the neo-conservative dream of remaking the Arab world.

Looming Dangers

But the facts soon got in the way of a good story. "Shock and awe" failed to dislodge dictator Hussein. There was no popular uprising even in southern Iraq where the Shiite majority was considered hostile to Hussein?s brutal regime. As U.S. troops advanced into Iraq, they encountered no WMD but found the Iraqi resistance stiffer than expected.

Some military analysts saw these developments as warning signs that the United States was heading toward a bloody debacle in Iraq. I cited some of these analysts in an article "Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down," which observed that Bush seemed to be mixing Bay of Pigs-style wishful thinking about popular uprisings with a Black Hawk Down risk of putting U.S. forces in cultures that are both hostile and foreign.

Instead of reconsidering his course for the war, however, Bush ordered the invasion to proceed with greater ferocity and less concern about civilian casualties.

But victory supposedly cleansed all sins. When U.S. forces toppled Hussein?s statue in Baghdad on April 9, triumphant Bush supporters lashed out at the skeptics for questioning his wisdom. Some war critics were accused of treason and became the targets of blacklists aimed at denying them work. This Web site received e-mail demands for retractions and apologies for articles that had contained warnings about the looming dangers.

New Scrutiny

Yet in the weeks that have followed ? with first the failure to find any trigger-ready WMD and then the expanding Iraqi attacks on isolated U.S. forces ? Bush?s Iraq policy has come under greater scrutiny. It is now clear that the war didn?t end with the toppled statue or with Bush?s May 1 declaration of "Mission Accomplished." The war was just entering a new guerrilla phase.

Some war skeptics, such as former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, had predicted as much. Before Baghdad fell, Wilson wrote that Hussein "is preparing to go underground to fight a guerrilla campaign. ?.If our presence is seen as an occupation, rather than a liberation, it is entirely possible that Saddam thinks he can rebound."

Wilson, who served in posts in Africa and Iraq, earlier had played a role in debunking claims ? in February 2002 ? that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger to build nuclear weapons. Wilson said U.S. and British officials ignored his information as they chose to make the bogus Niger uranium claim a centerpiece in their warnings about Iraq?s WMD.

"It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war," Wilson said. "It begs the question, what else are they lying about?" [Washington Post, July 6, 2003]

But Bush continues to show no doubt about his course of action. Rather than rethink the premises of the war in Iraq, Bush says he is determined to prevail. Indeed, that was the context of his "bring ?em on" remark. He was drawing new lines in the sand for American troops to defend.

"There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely," Bush said on July 2 in Washington. "They don?t understand what they?re talking about, if that?s the case. ?There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring ?em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

To Bush?s defenders, this determination is another sign that he is "the right man" to destroy America?s enemies. He?s not someone who will cut and run.

But to his critics, and increasingly to the U.S. soldiers in Iraq calling for the Pentagon to "get our sorry asses out of here," a different conclusion is emerging. As conditions in Iraq degenerate into violent chaos, this critical view holds that Bush?s mix of arrogance about his "gut" judgments and his lack of experience with real-world conditions is elevating ? not lowering ? the danger that the United States faces.

In this view, the continuing dangers to U.S. troops in Iraq have highlighted that George W. Bush may be "the wrong man" in the wrong place at a very wrong time.

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[SuperScout]

How the liberals whine and snivel about the very "from the heart" and genuine remark of the President, when he said, "Bring 'em on!" And isn't it amazing that the retiring General Tommy Franks also used that remark in his speech at the change of command ceremony? It is not rhetoric, or boastful pomposity. Go talk to the troops, as I have, and they will second this remark. The remark shows that the President has utmost confidence in our beloved armed forces, capable, trained, and ready to accomplish their assigned missions. And the men (and women) have confidence in their Commander in Chief, that he will provide what they need, that he is a man of his word, and that he is a man of integrity. What a contrast to the sordid excuse of protoplasm that preceded GWB.

And who is this Robert Parry, somebody with a large case of hatred and envy of the President? BFD. Anybody can write this type of drivel, but it takes a real genius to simply cut and paste it.

Ain't it a shame that we didn't have a man of such integrity, such commitment, such goodness, when we were in Vietnam? Instead, we had a lying, conniving amoral piece of shIt who had the moral convictions of a squid, and whose total lack of values led to the deaths of 50,000+ goodmen and women.

[blues clues]

thats right Vietman started with a lie from LBJ and we lost over 50000 of our young men. Now this war has started with a lie you may not want to agree with it but dubby lied like a rug,fail for it hook line and sinker.but sense dubby stood on that aircraft carrier and told us all the war was over there has been 76 troops killed ,now I know that little old dubby has a way to go (49924)GOD forbid.I just hope the people of this country wakes up before we get to that number.
razz

[SuperScout]

Thank you for sharing your opinion, very much like many of the other leberals or liberals think, that no WMD ever existed, haven't been found, or were shipped off by aliens. Why is it that the Russians, the Germans, the despicable French, and many other members of the United Nations all said that Iraq had WMD? Was it a lie then? What would it take to convince you, a town of dead Americans killed with nerve gas, like he did some of the Kurds, like entire battalions of Irani troops like he killed during the Iraq-Iran war? Does the fact that parts to nuclear centrifuges, banned by the UN, were found there have any way of convincing you? It seems that the lies have been spawned by liberals in a dying and desparate attempt to discredit the President.

[blues clues]

scout,I never said that the nut of bagdad was a nice guy. and the parts of that nuclear centrifuges that was found it was in that guy's rose garden buried 12 years ago are at least thats what the guy who put those things there said, I'm not the one calling the president a lier, but if it walks like a duck well you know the rest...and being a LIBERAL dose not make me a bad american.
razz

[SuperScout]

First of all, nobody, especially me, said you were a bad American. Maybe a bit ill-informed, but not bad. If you repeat a lie, knowing it to be a lie, what does that make you, other than a tape recorder? Are we here to repeat lies, or to seek the truth, and then to spread that? And what does it matter how long the Iraqi had the sanctioned items buried in his rose garden; they were unauthorized on their face, therefore prima facie evidence that Saddam was violating the UN sanctions, and complete justification for our actions. If the UN had acted on all of its sanctions against Iraq when they were first voted, Saddam would have been toppled long ago; it was only with the US, with proper leadership, i.e., had a President who used his gonads for an honest purpose instead of servicing an intern, that the situation in Iraq changed for the better.

The author of the tripe that was originally posted is still whining that GWB won the election, makes invalid assertions that the President was "fleeing west...", trying desparately to paint GWB as running away from the scene of carnage. What vile, untrue and biased garbage. Anybody who posts such inane bilge is lower than squid manure in the Marianas Trench.

[Gimpy]

Check out the DEEP DO-DO your boy GEE-DUBYA and his buddies like Enron SuperChief Ken Lay have put California into! Just like I've said ALL ALONG---the REPUBLICANS started this $HIT ----- and NOW they're trying to blame the democrats for it.


Kinda like YOU'RE "tactics" huh, SuperSilly????
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Blame Bush for California's Budget Woes

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The other day a woman asked me to sign a petition calling for the recall of California Governor Gray Davis. Why, I asked. Because he bankrupted the state, she said. When I begged to differ that it was the Bush Administration and its buddies at companies like Enron that had put the state into an economic tailspin, she said she was being paid according to the number of petitions signed and didn't really care. But voters should care because Davis is being used as a fall guy for problems that are beyond his control.

Remember Enron and those other scandals that cost folks their jobs and their 401(k) savings? They were a result of deregulation, the mantra of the Republicans. Deregulation was most disastrous for California's energy market, in which a crisis cost jobs and threw the world's fifth-largest economy into long-term disruption. This was not the normal workings of the market but the result of market manipulation by officials of Enron and other energy companies, some of whom are on their way to trial.

Still out cruising the boulevards is our President's once close friend, Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay. A major contributor to Bush family political campaigns and former Enron chief executive, Lay invented the energy trading game. It was made possible by his successful lobbying for the 1992 Energy Policy Act, signed into law by the elder Bush. That law allowed a minor Texas company to mushroom into the world's largest energy titan before it went poof.

Daddy Bush also tended to Enron's rise by appointing Wendy L. Gramm to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which promptly exempted electricity trading from the regulatory oversight covering other commodities. Gramm went on to serve on Enron's board of directors and its so-called auditing committee. Her husband, Phil Gramm, then a GOP senator from Texas, later pushed through legislation further deregulating the industry.

When the younger Bush ran for President, he turned to Lay, who became the single biggest contributor to Bush's campaign. George W. returned the favor big-time by appointing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission members who looked the other way when Enron and its fellow swindler companies were fleecing California. These appointees insisted that California's problems were of its own making and would have to be solved without the imposition of the wholesale energy price caps that would have saved taxpayers from a crushing burden.

Vice President Dick Cheney emerged from secret meetings with Enron executives and stated that the Administration considered wholesale price caps a "mistake" because "there isn't anything that can be done short-term to produce more kilowatts this summer." Either Cheney was lying or his Enron buddies were lying to him because, at the time, Enron was routing electricity from California to sell at a higher price in Oregon. Federal price controls would have prevented Enron and the other companies from playing one state against another.

It is disingenuous for California Republicans to now blame Davis rather than their man Bush for the state's economic problems. Only last week, the Republican-dominated FERC banned Enron from selling electricity as punishment for having severely distorted Western energy markets. Enron and 60 other companies were ordered to show why they should not be forced to return their illegally gained profits.

FERC at the same time said California must honor $12 billion in long-term contracts written under duress with the same companies that were gaming the market. The contradiction was acknowledged by commission Chairman Patrick H. Wood III: "I guess people could go, 'Gosh, these are the same parties that show up in those other [market-gaming] cases.'"

Duh! No kidding. They are being rewarded for scamming the state, which contributed to the budget crisis, and schoolchildren will have to pay the price.

Californians provide much more to the federal government in taxes than they get back in services. The feds should bail out the states, which cannot indulge in the red-ink financing that has become a specialty of the Bush Administration.

It is absurd to blame current difficulties on any state's governor, Republican or Democrat. It is the Bush Administration that has mismanaged a successful economy inherited from Bill Clinton. It is the Bush Administration that should bear responsibility for the difficulties being experienced by state governments--and it should at least help California as much as it is helping our newest state, Iraq.

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Just like everything else the cheap-labor conservatives promote. Complete and utter HORSE$HIT!

[MORTARDUDE]

Gimpy...do us all a favor and list ..."all the evil things that Republicans and conservatives" ...are not responsible for...I am sure it is a very short list...it will save all of us a heap 'o reading... LOL LOL

Larry

[blues clues]

Scout,I think I'm being to understand the way you and the right think! the ecomomy in the tank blame Clinton even after being out of office almostthree years,all dubby and the other Rupblican say blame it on clinton, and now this WAR still waitting for them to find at least three cans of RAID taped together,now I'm not going to say he lied we'll just say he misspoke, he says you can't blame me it was the CIA, didn't give me all the facts.
All I'm waitting for is the son of bush to stand up and be a man about it and say I fu%ked up,but I'm not going to hold my breath.

razz

[Gimpy]

It's too SHORT to post!

PS--RAZZ--Keep give'em'um hell my friend!

I got MORE comin!