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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (5032)	10/24/2002 2:46:48 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Well, he never thinks! A few months ago, I picked up the newspaper and was surprised to read that W couldn't decide whether he should hold a news conference. I cannot imagine that the President of the US would be unable to make such a basic decision. Then, during this ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinians, all Bush ever said was that: Israel has a right to defend itself. He never mentions that the Palestinians had any rights. Also, I read recently that W won't admit he is an alcoholic, and, in the past, W would have an occasional drink. The recent rumor was that people thought W had been drinking when he made incoherent statements about Iraq and Israel. At one time, W liked to invite Republicans to the White House for coctails on Friday afternoons. I don't know if he is still doing this. And we don't know if W also drinks a cocktail. Then, there was the pretzel incident awhile back. I think he just reads the script that Karl Rove hands him. I think we had better take a second look at W's relationship with Karen Hughes. An article in the NYTimes this week says she still talks to him weekly. From what we know about their relationship when she was in Washington she was invited to attend all meetings and met with him daily. This relationship goes back for many years. Clinton had a partner who advised him as well. She was Hillary: his wife. It strikes me that the Hughes-Bush relationship is extremely personal and intimate. We weren't born yesterday, were we? W is consumed with testosterone. He can't wait for those bullets to kill Iraqis. And Hughes advised him constantly when she was in Washington. And she advises him now when she is in Texas.. Put a man and a woman together that closely year after year and there has to be a little bit of flirting going on at the very least, although, over many years, it may have developed into the affection of a brother for a sister. We will never know for sure though, will we? JMOP, PS: I also read that Hughes misses the President.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (5032)	10/26/2002 7:53:32 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Others have caught Bush lying as well. See following article by Krugman.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (5032)	10/26/2002 7:58:55 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Dead Parrot Society The New York Times October 25, 2002 By PAUL KRUGMAN A few days ago The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote an article explaining that for George W. Bush, "facts are malleable." Documenting "dubious, if not wrong" statements on a variety of subjects, from Iraq's military capability to the federal budget, the White House correspondent declared that Mr. Bush's "rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy." Also in the last few days, The Wall Street Journal reported that "senior officials have referred repeatedly to intelligence . . . that remains largely unverified." The C.I.A.'s former head of counterterrorism was blunter: "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements." USA Today reports that "pressure has been building on the intelligence agencies to deliberately slant estimates to fit a political agenda." Reading all these euphemisms, I was reminded of Monty Python's parrot: he's pushing up the daisies, his metabolic processes are history, he's joined the choir invisible. That is, he's dead. And the Bush administration lies a lot. Let me hasten to say that I don't blame reporters for not quite putting it that way. Mr. Milbank is a brave man, and is paying the usual price for his courage: he is now the target of a White House smear campaign. That standard response may help you understand how Mr. Bush retains a public image as a plain-spoken man, when in fact he is as slippery and evasive as any politician in memory. Did you notice his recent declaration that allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power wouldn't mean backing down on "regime change," because if the Iraqi despot meets U.N. conditions, "that itself will signal that the regime has changed"? The recent spate of articles about administration dishonesty mainly reflects the campaign to sell war with Iraq. But the habit itself goes all the way back to the 2000 campaign, and is manifest on a wide range of issues. High points would include the plan for partial privatization of Social Security, with its 2-1=4 arithmetic; the claim that a tax cut that delivers 40 percent or more of its benefits to the richest 1 percent was aimed at the middle class; the claim that there were 60 lines of stem cells available for research; the promise to include limits on carbon dioxide in an environmental plan. More generally, Mr. Bush ran as a moderate, a "uniter, not a divider." The Economist endorsed him back in 2000 because it saw him as the candidate better able to transcend partisanship; now the magazine describes him as the "partisan-in-chief." It's tempting to view all of this merely as a question of character, but it's more than that. There's method in this administration's mendacity. For the Bush administration is an extremely elitist clique trying to maintain a populist facade. Its domestic policies are designed to benefit a very small number of people - basically those who earn at least $300,000 a year, and really don't care about either the environment or their less fortunate compatriots. True, this base is augmented by some powerful special-interest groups, notably the Christian right and the gun lobby. But while this coalition can raise vast sums, and can mobilize operatives to stage bourgeois riots when needed, the policies themselves are inherently unpopular. Hence the need to reshape those malleable facts. What remains puzzling is the long-term strategy. Despite Mr. Bush's control of the bully pulpit, he has had little success in changing the public's fundamental views. Before Sept. 11 the nation was growing increasingly dismayed over the administration's hard right turn. Terrorism brought Mr. Bush immense personal popularity, as the public rallied around the flag; but the helium has been steadily leaking out of that balloon. Right now the administration is playing the war card, inventing facts as necessary, and trying to use the remnants of Mr. Bush's post-Sept. 11 popularity to gain control of all three branches of government. But then what? There is, after all, no indication that Mr. Bush ever intends to move to the center. So the administration's inner circle must think that full control of the government can be used to lock in a permanent political advantage, even though the more the public learns about their policies, the less it likes them. The big question is whether the press, which is beginning to find its voice, will lose it again in the face of one-party government. nytimes.com