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

To: PROLIFE who wrote (768381)	1/9/2009 12:12:45 PM
From: pompsander	Respond to of 769670

Somehow, I didn't think you would agree with that analysis...

To: PROLIFE who wrote (768381)	1/11/2009 3:41:16 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

U.S. Thwarted Israeli Plan to Bomb Iranian Nuclear Facility By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 11, 2009; A10 washingtonpost.com President Bush last year rejected an Israeli request to provide sophisticated, deep-penetration bombs to attack Iran's underground nuclear enrichment facilities, Pentagon officials said yesterday. The administration also rebuffed Israel's plan to fly through U.S.-controlled Iraqi airspace to reach the Iranian site, officials said. The Israelis had not proposed a specific date for an attack, and it was not clear how far along the planning was when the requests were made, officials said. The Israeli requests were first reported on the New York Times Web site yesterday. The Times also said that President Bush, seeking to deflect the Israelis and to soften his refusal, told the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he had authorized a new covert action program to sabotage Iran's uranium enrichment program. The report quoted U.S. officials as saying that some actions had been taken as part of what it described as an ongoing covert program, but that they had not seriously affected Iranian operations. Israel and the United States and principal European allies have charged that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program, a charge Tehran has denied. Officials with the Israeli Embassy and the CIA declined to comment last night. A White House spokesman could not be reached for comment. Some factions within the Bush administration have long advocated a U.S. military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but military leaders and others have argued against it on the grounds that it could endanger U.S. troops in the region and spark a broader war in the Middle East, and that it would probably only temporarily set back Iran's efforts. The Natanz complex in central Iran houses several underground structures containing gas centrifuges to enrich uranium. The Iranian government has said it is interested in peaceful nuclear energy only, but its failure to cooperate fully with international verification efforts has led to increasingly strict Western economic sanctions. Israel has long considered Iran the main threat to its long-term security and has pressed a series of U.S. administrations to take stronger action against it. The Times said its information was developed during reporting for an upcoming book by reporter David E. Sanger on global challenges awaiting the administration of President-elect Barack Obama. Pentagon officials said that they were disturbed when Israeli air and naval exercises in the Mediterranean last summer appeared designed to test-fly distances equal to those between Israel and Iranian sites. The exercises briefly reawakened U.S. concerns that Israel was moving ahead with its attack plan. It could not be determined yesterday whether the Israeli plan had been abandoned or postponed. Staff writer Joby Warrick contributed to this report.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (768381)	1/13/2009 6:12:38 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Commentary: Bush still doesn't get it * Story Highlights * Ed Rollins: Bush ends his second term with a tarnished presidency * He says Bush wasn't incompetent or dishonest but he showed arrogance * Rollins says the four former presidents who met with Obama all had great failures * He says lesson for Obama is that things often don't go as planned Editor's Note: Ed Rollins, who served as political director for President Ronald Reagan, is a Republican strategist who was national chairman of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign. By Ed Rollins CNN Contributor cnn.com Ed Rollins says failing to find the WMDs in Iraq was far more than a disappointment. NEW YORK (CNN) -- One week from today, a historic presidency begins and a tarnished presidency ends. The inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African-American president, cannot come quickly enough for the vast majority of Americans. This young man with the keen disciplined mind and the buffed body begins a presidency with high hopes, goodwill and a never-ending list of problems left on the Oval Office desk by George Walker Bush, the ever-confident occupant of that high office who seems like the dinner guest who will not leave. In all my years around Washington as an observer and as a member of several administrations, I have rarely witnessed an event as bizarre as President Bush's farewell press conference yesterday. It reminded me of Richard Nixon's November 17, 1973, question and answer session before 400 Associated Press managing editors at the height of the Watergate scandal, in which he declared: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook." Well, to the best of my knowledge, Nixon wasn't a crook (in the technical sense). He was dishonest, he abused the office of the presidency, and telling the truth wasn't his strong suit. And he resigned in disgrace and would have been impeached if he hadn't. But there were also periods in his presidency that were very good for this country and the world. President Bush is not a crook either. And even more importantly, I don't believe he is dishonest or an incompetent. The mistakes of his presidency were caused by overconfidence, bad information or a certain arrogance that was still fully on display yesterday. How can you reflect on going to war, a war of choice, and argue that "not finding weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment," as President Bush did yesterday? And putting the "not finding the weapons" in the same breath as "We shouldn't have hung the sign, 'Mission Accomplished' "! A disappointment is when you're a football fan and your team lost in the playoffs or in the national championship game. Eliminating weapons of mass destruction was the rationale for sending hundreds of thousands of men and women to Iraq to risk their lives and spending billions of dollars of American taxpayers' money. Find out how some readers are angry over Bush's legacy The rationale for the war wasn't that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy -- which he was -- and that he violated every sanction and agreement that the United Nations put on him. President Bush went on to say: "One thing about the presidency is that you can only make decisions based on the information at hand. You don't get to have information after you make the decision -- that's not the way it works." That is correct and that may be the most important lesson our new president can learn from the failures of the last. Make sure you get the information to make the right decisions. President Bush, referring to the Abu Ghraib scandal and the missing weapons of mass destruction, said, "I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but things didn't go as planned, let's put it that way." The lesson for President-elect Obama is often things don't go as planned. Last week four men who have been president had lunch in the White House with the newly elected president. As I looked at the picture of the five members of the most exclusive club in the world standing in the Oval Office, I felt sad. Two of the men, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, now in their 80s, had been overwhelmingly defeated in their bids for re-election. President Clinton and President Bush, both in their 60s, had periods of great failure. President Clinton was impeached. The present president leaves office with the lowest approval ratings in modern history. None of these were bad men -- just the opposite. Why did their presidencies not live up to those high expectations that we all have for our new leaders on Inauguration Day? In some cases, they fought their natural allies. President Carter was particularly inept at dealing with Congress; so was the current President Bush. Carter and the two Bushes failed at communicating with the public and were unable to articulate what their programs were and build support for them in Congress. Clinton, a good communicator, was terribly undisciplined. President Obama will need to set his priorities early. He can't do all he's promised in the first term. He needs to build strong relationships with the Congress and let them play a big role in setting his agenda. He needs to use his tremendous communication skills and continually explain to the country what he wants to do and why. Then he needs to take his campaign machine and motivate the grassroots organization he built to get Congress to support his programs. He must be patient but persistent in making his case. As we hope for the change which is coming next week, I just want to pause and reflect and say to President Bush, "Thank you, for serving your country." To our new president: Best of luck and you have our prayers. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ed Rollins.