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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neeka who wrote (367492)	3/6/2003 8:53:38 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 769667

Bush at press conference: hit hard by press questions. His answers are not very convincing. He will win new converts even though he is trying to look restrained and measured. What he keeps repeating is that HE thinks Saddam is an imminent threat (even if most people dont), that it's his job to protect us from this "threat", that his war (and it is HIS war now) is for "peace" (??), and he repeats the monotonous charges we've heard a thousand times about Saddam and WMD, even saying Saddam trained Al Qaida (which no one has seen any evidence of). Although he's probably right about WMD existing, Bush has to realize he may be the one who makes Saddam use them. Bush really looks amateurish and over his head, not able to grasp the full complexities, frozen in a loop of slogan repetition, in a pickle he wont admit, and unable to deal with the fact he is disdained by most of the world for his arrogance now. He's actually succeeded in making some people feel sorry for Saddam. Quite an accomplishment. Boy can we do better, folks. Bush without a written speech is embarassing to the US. His one hope has to be that if he pushes the trigger it is a quick war and people forget about this or give him more credit. It's certainly not working out the day it did for his Poppy. That said, I hope he gets it over with quick with the minimum of nasty surprises and repercussions. But a lot of damage to US integrity has been done. And I have to say, in the end, this has to really be about oil, regardless of Bushie denials.

To: Neeka who wrote (367492)	3/7/2003 10:04:53 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Democrat scam is unraveling Posted: March 7, 2003 WorldNetDaily.com THOMAS JIPPING With the GOP now forcing votes on breaking the Senate filibuster against appeals-court nominee Miguel Estrada, the Democrats' Estrada-gate scam is finally being exposed. Senate Democrats say they know nothing about Mr. Estrada, that he is a "blank slate," a "mystery man," an "unknown quantity." He has, they say, refused to answer any questions and "stonewalled" the Senate on disclosing materials. Repeating this lie 10,000 more times won't make it true. In a way, you have to give Democrats a break here. They are only doing what they're told. The leftist groups that control them have ordered Mr. Estrada's defeat by any means necessary. When the lefties say jump, Senate Democrats ask "How high?" But it's obvious by now that Senate Democrats are just pulling another scam. They say they might support Mr. Estrada if only they knew more about him, yet they knew everything they wanted to know about him when he was nominated 667 days ago. He was young, brilliant, Hispanic and a Bush nominee. That's enough. He had to go down. The Democrats wanted so badly to be fair to Bush nominees, their desire for Estrada info so great, that they waited 505 days just to give him a hearing. Oops, they said, too late to vote on the nomination. How convenient … almost as if someone had that little stunt planned in advance. Democrats say Mr. Estrada "refused" to answer "a single question" at that hearing. He just sat there mute. You should see the transcript from that seven-hour hearing. It weighs nearly three pounds – I weighed it myself. I know senators can be verbose, but where did all those words come from if Mr. Estrada said nothing at all? The scam is unraveling. Any respect for judicial independence, any amount of common sense and any attention to judicial ethics rules reveal that nominees may not answer questions aimed at determining how they would rule once on the bench. Judges, after all, are supposed to be impartial, put personal views aside and follow the law. So Democrats just asked questions they knew could not be answered, and then cried "foul" – or, rather, "filibuster" – when those questions were not answered. A scam. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., asked Mr. Estrada his views on Supreme Court precedents such as United States vs. Lopez, recent district court decisions on the death penalty and issues such as property rights and product liability. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Mr. Estrada about the right to privacy and whether he thought Roe vs. Wade was correctly decided. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., asked Mr. Estrada about racial profiling. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., asked him about unenumerated constitutional rights and Supreme Court precedents such as Miranda vs. Arizona and Roe vs. Wade. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked for Mr. Estrada's views on Supreme Court precedents such as Adarand vs. Pena. He also asked Mr. Estrada whether a university could use race as a factor in admissions – the very issue on which the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on April 1. Since appeals-court judges must, and Mr. Estrada repeatedly promised to, follow Supreme Court precedent, what's the point of asking Mr. Estrada for personal views he has pledged to set aside? A scam. Mr. Estrada answered more than twice as many questions as all three Clinton appointees to the same court were asked at their hearings – combined. The only questions he refused to answer were the ones searching for ill-gotten gain, the ones trying to get a reading on his decisional pulse. C'mon, Democrats said to Mr. Estrada, it'll be just between you and me (and the direct-mail company ready to send the screaming headlines to our fundraising lists). Mr. Estrada told them volumes by refusing to take the bait. He told them he prizes judicial independence. He told them a judge must put aside his personal views. He told them that judges must be impartial. He told them plenty about his view of the "judicial function." Democrats say his refusal to answer such questions is cause for opposing him. I say his refusal to answer them only strengthens the case for supporting him. Senate Democrats desiring more information have had more than five months since that hearing to ask any questions they could possibly think up. Any at all, even more illegitimate ones. After all, the Estrada slate was supposedly entirely blank! Yet not one of the 40 Democrats not on the committee asked a single question. Only one senator has asked for a meeting with the nominee. Democrats made sure they would know little about Mr. Estrada. They ignored his Judiciary Committee questionnaire. They ignored the American Bar Association's evaluation and rating. They did not hold a timely hearing. They asked him questions they knew he could not answer. They demanded material they knew could not be disclosed. They asked no follow-up questions. They requested no personal visits. And now they claim that, despite their best heroic efforts, they know so little that they must filibuster to prevent the entire Senate from voting at all. That must be what "by any means necessary" means. What a scam!