To all the anti-Bushies at NU

[Mazer]

Enjoy!

Bad:
http://www.area93.com/cc-common/twis...curiousgeorge/
Worse:
http://www.area93.com/cc-common/twis...iousgeorgealt/

[albed]

Now Mazer you should be trying to educate those misguided people about the damage illegal drugs do to a mind that makes it unable to think rationally and understand the world as it truly is, not give them some silly crap to giggle over while they get high.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by albed

Now Mazer you should be trying to educate those misguided people about the damage illegal drugs do to a mind that makes it unable to think rationally and understand the world as it truly is, not give them some silly crap to giggle over while they get high.

is that what Bush's problem is? well, that explains a lot...he gave a fantasy speech last night called the State Of The Union but seems to be unable to confront the facts about his record of "accomplishments". the Washington Post corrects the record - maybe the Prez can giggle over it while he gets high?

For the Record
Assertions on Spying, Jobs And Spending Invite Debate

By Glenn Kessler
Wednesday, February 1, 2006; Page A13

In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush waded right in the middle of the debate over his warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, making a number of assertions that have been subject to intense debate.

For instance, Bush strongly suggested that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could have been prevented if the phone calls of two hijackers had been monitored under the program. This echoes an assertion made earlier this year by Vice President Cheney.

But the Sept. 11 commission and congressional investigators said the government had compiled significant information on the two suspects before the attacks and that bureaucratic problems -- not a lack of information -- were the main reasons for the security breakdown. The FBI did not even know where the two suspects lived and missed numerous opportunities to track them down in the 20 months before the attacks.

Bush also asserted that "previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have." But the most recent example cited by the administration -- involving actions by President Bill Clinton -- is hotly disputed by Democrats who say the current and past situations are not comparable.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which required the executive branch to get approval from a secret court before conducting wiretaps within the United States, was silent on warrantless physical searches of suspected spies or terrorists. So the Clinton administration asserted that it had the authority to conduct such "black bag" jobs, including searches of CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames's house, which turned up evidence of his spying for Russia.

Clinton later sought amendments to FISA that brought physical searches, as well as wiretaps, under the FISA framework. Bush has never sought such amendments, and he did not publicly acknowledge the program until it was revealed in news reports.

In other sections of his speech, Bush omitted context or made rhetorical claims that are open to question.

Referring to Iraq, he said the United States is "continuing reconstruction efforts." He did not use the word "spending" because officials say the administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request to be submitted to Congress this month. About $18 billion was previously budgeted, and $16 billion of that has been committed, but nearly a third was devoted to security and law enforcement.

At another point, Bush said the number of jobs went up by 4.6 million in the past two and half years. There was a reason he chose not to start from the beginning of his presidency -- that would have brought the net number of added jobs down to 2 million over the five-year period.

Bush also made a pair of contradictory pledges on the budget. He said the budget deficit -- which has soared during his presidency -- is on track to decline by half by 2009. But he also urged a permanent extension of his tax cuts, due to expire in five years. The Congressional Budget Office says this would send the budget deficit soaring after 2011.

The president said he has reduced "the growth" of non-security discretionary spending. This only means it did not increase as much from year to year. Moreover, overall discretionary spending has exploded during his tenure, especially when military spending is included. White House budget documents show that overall discretionary spending has climbed from $644 billion in 2001 to $840 billion this year, an increase of more than 30 percent.

Looked at another way, discretionary spending as a share of the overall economy is at its highest level in 13 years, according to the CBO.

Bush made a plea for cutting imports of oil, saying it is "often imported from unstable parts of the world." But the two biggest suppliers of oil to the United States are very stable neighbors -- Canada and Mexico. Only three of the 10 biggest suppliers are from the Middle East -- Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Algeria.

At several points in his speech, Bush made odd rhetorical leaps.

He repeatedly warned against the dangers of "isolationism," but the Democratic leadership has not called for isolationist policies, and polls show that the American public has little interest in them.

Bush ended his address with a stirring image that "every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing." But then he said, "The United States could have accepted the permanent division of Europe, and been complicit in the oppression of others."

This is historically misleading. At the end of World War II, the United States allowed the division of Europe between Soviet and Western spheres, though it drew the line at giving up West Berlin. And the United States permitted the Soviet Union's grabbing of large parts of other countries -- or even whole countries, such as the Baltic states.

Bush should know this. In May, he flew to Latvia and declared that the United States bore some blame for "the division of Europe into armed camps" -- what he called "one of the greatest wrongs of history."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020100029.html

[Mazer]

If that's all the Post has to criticize about the Prez's speech then I'm glad that Bush is our president. For myself, I thought it was one of the better SotU speeches I've heard. Rather than a collection of soundbite-sized one liners puncuated by 30 seconds of applause, it had lots of compound clauses connected together into whole paragraphs. I bet you didn't know Bush could do that. I could break down the above article point-by-point, but all it comes down to is the president exaggerated some things saying we're better off than we actually are, but on balance we're doing pretty damn good as a nation.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by Mazer

....but on balance we're doing pretty damn good as a nation.

relative to what?

[albed]

He said "on balance" not "relatively".


Try to keep your eye on the ball.

[floydian slip]

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

lol hes jus talkin'

[theknife]

Originally Posted by floydian slip

lol hes jus talkin'

exactly the point - our Bush-apologist friends like the music, but don't exactly hear the words. not for nothing are Bush's critics known as the "reality-based community".

[albed]

Who calls them that? Probably just themselves.

I have heard of Hillary's "reality-based plantation" and being a democrat-slave; forced to do all the work, call republicans "master" and getting whipped for trying to escape; but I think that's just her kinky fantasy.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by albed

Who calls them that? Probably just themselves.

actually, the phrase was generated by an aide to Bush, in a now-infamous quote. from Wikipedia:

The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

of course, the quote has now become an epitaph for a failed political philosophy, and by extension, a failed presidency.

[albed]

Kind of like the New York Times has become an epitaph for journalistic integrity. And from an unnamed source of course.

Wow, Wikipedia and the NYT. The black hole generated by the lack of integrity in that that combo could swallow even Michael Moore's fat ass .

[theknife]

Originally Posted by Hegemonic

Wow, Wikipedia and the NYT. The black hole generated by the lack of integrity in that that combo could swallow even Michael Moore's fat ass .

yay, another Bush bot - not many of you left anymore. my condolences

Originally Posted by theknife

yay, another Bush bot - not many of you left anymore. my condolences

"Bush bot"? You don't even know me.

[Drakonix]

The Washington Post just put a major hole in the (lack of) Iraq reconstruction and success story told by the liberal media:

...
Tales of loss and progress

But it was not bad in the ways they see covered in the media -- the majority also agreed on this. What they experienced was more complex than the war they saw on television and in print. It was dangerous and confused, yes, but most of the vets also recalled enemies routed, buildings built and children befriended, against long odds in a poor and demoralized country. "We feel like we're doing something, and then we look at the news and you feel like you're getting bashed." "It seems to me the media had a predetermined script." The vibe of the coverage is just "so, so, so negative."
...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11892317/

if you want to know what is going on in Iraq, maybe you should ask those who have been there instead of listening to blowhard liberal politicians whose only goal is to defeat conservatives at any cost.

[JackSpratts]

i get my news from rush and fox like all true emaricans.

and like all true emaricans (and vfw barflys) i know the war's over and we won. peace reigns in the mideast. plus they have lots of clean electricity, sparky water and fuel to cook on their shiny tvs. boy are they happy. and healthy. and they love us americans. a lot.

btw, don't listen to that nutty retired iraqi pm who says they're in a civil war and are losing 50-60 iraqis a day (20,000 a year). what the hell does that commie know? he's prolly a dembocrat.

- js.

[albed]

But Murtha got a purple heart from an minor injury in Vietnam just like Kerry, so he's a "war hero". And he cries too.

It's a liberal's patriotic duty to turn against his country when a crying phony war hero tells him too.

It's funny that before the Golden Dome was blown to hell a Sunni killing a Shiite was called "insurgency", now it's the hip new term; "sectarian!".

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by Hegemonic

It's funny that before the Golden Dome was blown to hell a Sunni killing a Shiite was called "insurgency", now it's the hip new term; "sectarian!".

Good point,we had lots of them in Ireland,and that wasn't civil war.