Article excerpt :
President Bush, on a collision course with Congress over Iraq, said Friday "I'm the decision-maker" about sending more troops to the war. He challenged skeptical lawmakers not to prematurely condemn his buildup.
"I've picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed," Bush said in an Oval Office meeting with senior military advisers.
The president had strong words for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are lining up to support resolutions opposing his decision to send 21,500 troops to Iraq. He challenged them to put up their own ideas.
"I know there is skepticism and pessimism and that some are condemning a plan before it's even had a chance to work," the president said. "They have an obligation and a serious responsibility therefore to put up their own plan as to what would work."
No sir.
We have no obligation whatsoever to offer you an alternative. In fact, we have many times over, if you were willing to do more than pretend to listen. But Bush's 'alternatives' entail strictly tactical suggestions to help him pull his chestnuts out of the fire. Things that are explicitly in the nation's interest, however, are as the very wind: here, and gone in a moment, without heed paid.
This President is fatally flawed and his poll numbers are in Nixon territory. and his Administration is peopled with criminals, ideological monsters, scam artists and thugs in Armani suits." |
