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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldworldnet who wrote (7617)	8/21/2007 3:08:06 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

Bloomberg says won't run for president By Daniel Trotta 32 minutes ago NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he cannot win the U.S. presidency and won't run, the strongest statement to date about his intentions for the 2008 presidential race. Bloomberg previously had said he had no plans to run, which failed to quiet speculation that he was planning an independent bid for the White House. In an interview with Dan Rather of HDNet television to be aired on Tuesday, Bloomberg was asked if he was running and if he was going to run for president. He answered "no" to both questions. He refused to categorically rule out any future run, then added: "The answer is 'no.' ... If somebody asks me where I stand, I tell them. And that's not a way to get elected generally. Nobody's going to elect me president of the United States." HDNet provided a partial transcript of the interview, in which the self-made billionaire also ruled out becoming a vice-presidential candidate and played down his chances of becoming Treasury secretary. Bloomberg, 65, was a longtime Democrat who switched to the Republican Party to run for New York mayor in 2001. He was re-elected in 2005, and then in June of this year announced he had left the Republican Party to become an independent. Even before leaving the Republicans, he had taken strong stands against illegal guns and in favor of liberal immigration policies that distanced him from the conservative party. He also positioned himself as environmentally friendly. Speculation that Bloomberg might run was fueled in part because he could afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fund such a campaign and also because of his extensive travel across the country to promote his agenda. The mayor has portrayed himself as above ideology who has stressed competence and accountability on his mayoral staff, to which he delegates significant authority. Bloomberg told Rather he would like to "be able to influence the dialogue" but not as vice president. "I have no interest in doing that," he said of the No. 2 job. Rather then asked him about becoming Treasury secretary. "Nobody is going to delegate a lot of power to a secretary that they can't control. And I don't think that anybody would ask me to do it. I'd be happy to provide advice if anybody asked me, no matter who the president is," Bloomberg said.

To: goldworldnet who wrote (7617)	8/22/2007 10:46:30 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

"We have all the basing rights we need for Iraq." No, we don't. We don't have long-term basing agreements and, when 'Iraq' fragments into three rump nations, we won't have basing rights except perhaps in Kurdistan (which, fortunately, should be quite sufficient). The Shia-Iraqi nation will increasingly be allied with Shia Iran (expanding upon their current mutual defense pact...), while the rump Sunni-Iraq will likely be host to much military supply from the Gulf Sunni Arab states. (Possibly 'expeditionary forces from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc., as the Saudis have promised....) There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between short-term basing agreements, and long-term basing agreements --- as we have recently seen in Central South Asia, where we have had to pull back from bases when the locals either did not extend the term agreements... or else jacked the annual fee they want up so high (HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in one case) so that the bases were not worth it to us any more.