Bush

Earlier this week the Senate passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that will greatly expand the government's ability to spy on Americans and giving full undisclosed immunity to the telecommunications companies that help out. A handful of Senators (mostly Democrats) protested this bill and affirmed their roles as protectors of the constitution.

The FISA bill of course is not being mentioned on  the main stream media. Correction . . . the main stream media does not bother to spell out the implications that this bill will bring. They treat is as a regular bill that does not warrant any attention since it does not drive up the ratings. Remember, the media is a business enterprise with "money" as their motivator. It is not in the interest of the media to hold the government accountable . . . to be the fourth branch of our government, in order to protect the people. Although, that may have been the benevolent reasons why Thomas Jefferson foresaw as the media's role in society . . . he did not anticipate the influence that capitalism would have on the industry.

Nonetheless, that has not stopped The Nation and the ACLU from filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of New York. The Nation claims that, "Communications critical to their reporting could and would be monitored under the FISA Amendments Act." The issue at hand that I had with FISA was that the Bush administration would not support a bill that did not provide immunity to the big telecommunications companies. This is a major problem! What is that the Bush administration up to that granting immunity to the telecommunication companies overrides "protecting us from terrorist"? Why can't they help the government without breaking the current laws? Actions speak louder than words and if there is anything I have noticed . . . the fight for immunity by the Bush administration foreshadows the nonsense that they are up to.

The buzz around Capitol Hill has been about former President Bush’s press secretary, Scott McClellan's upcoming book “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.” Many liberals have embraced the courage that it took McClellan to speak out. Conservatives on the other side, view him a mediocre press secretary that has to sell out and become a traitor to his old boss in order to make a quick buck.

But what is the real story? This book is not the first one to be critical of Bush. George Tenet, William Clark, Alan Greenspan and Paul O'Neil have all released books offering their opinions about Bush's shortcomings.

The book will not offer any evidence that directly implicates Bush and Company of any wrong doing. It only legitimizes those claims because it comes from a former loyalist of Bush. White House reporters are not surprised by the books reaction. Newsweeks's White House correspondent Richard Wolfe claims, "He promised when he first started writing this book that he’d engage in some truth-telling.”

I do not find the actual book intresting as much as I find the reactions from the Bush camp. The memo has been sent out and the talking point was established. They would treat McClellan as a naive person that should have stood up and spoken out if he felt at odds.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino claims, “Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew.”

President Bush's reaction according to Perino was that, "He is puzzled, and he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years; and disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts he never came to him or anyone else on the staff that we know of."

Karl Rove chimes in, “This doesn’t sound like Scott; it really doesn’t.”

The book will not be available until the first Tuesday in June. It is already #1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list. I find it intresting how the Right chose to defend Bush by attacking McClellan's character. Will this do anything to change some American's opinions about Bush? I find it unlikely, those individuals that still romanticize this President are part of the crowd that perhaps do not engage in book reading. But, what do I know?

It may seem that Obama is invincible or that his charm may just be enough to carry him through the general election but if one reviews the lead that either Democratic candidate has, one would think that nothing has really changed since 2004, let alone 2000.

Recent polls put McCain behind both Democratic hopefuls but by not a large margin. In fact, McCain is only a handful of percentage points behind which translates to not much of advantage for the Democrats. The last eight years under the GOP have been dismal. Americans are concerned about every aspect of American life. The mortgage crisis, national security risks, economy, weak dollar, ill-managed war efforts, dubious justification for the war in Iraq and gasoline prices increases have devastated Americans trust in the competency of our government. The GOP has made a great case to literally hand over this election on a silver platter to Democrats. So, why is that McCain even has a viable chance. Logic would indicate that Americans are ready for change, yet half of the country seems to think otherwise as they support McCain. That means that half the voting population have not been sold on the concept that four more years of Republicans rule will result in negative ramifications for everyone.

I would surmise that the longer than usual primary has hurt Democrats from hitting home with the message that Republicans are incompetent to be trusted with another 4 years. If Obama were to win the nomination, he would have to initiate a campaign that illustrates how McCain is not different from Bush.

McCain has actually made it easy for Democrats to portray him as a continuation of Bush’s dismal policies. McCain makes it no secret about his  fondness of the Bush doctrine and Democrats need to explain how this means bad news for Americans. Polls indicate that McCain's biggest issue are his ties to President Bush. If you thought the last 4 years got pretty bad, well entertain the possibility of another 4 years of the same.

This election has landslide written all over it only if the Democrats can capitalize and are successful in branding McCain as a continuation of Bush. This election should not be hard for Obama or Clinton to win but if they are not able to logically illustrate how the last 8 years have been detrimental to Americans then we risk another 4 years of GOP ineptitude and we have Democrats only to blame for.

The Public Broadcasting Service in cooperation with Frontline have developed a two part documentary that outlines the Iraq War called Bush's War. There were over 400 hours of footage shot to produce the account of fabrication, escalation, invasion and subsequent aftermath of the United States occupation of Iraq. The best thing is that you do not have to set your DVR or take time out of your schedule to view this masterpiece. It will provided online for free via the Frontline webpage on the PBS website. It is a media rich content that is dynamic and is controlled by the end user. As you watch the film, you are given option to explore more in-depth analysis of particular clips and additional information that may not have fit into the original film but did not deserved to be cut. I recommend spending a lazy Sunday tomorrow checking out the film. Plan on spending anywhere from 2 hours to 5, depending on how much you wish to learn.

In Economic Drama, Bush Is Largely Offstage - For a man who came into office as the nation’s first M.B.A. president, Mr. Bush has sometimes seemed invisible during the housing and credit crunch. As the economy eclipses Iraq as the top issue on voters’ minds, even some Republican allies of the president say Mr. Bush is being eclipsed and is in danger of looking out of touch.

Jobless claims shoot up to 2-year high - The number of new people signing up for unemployment benefits last week shot up to the highest level in more than two years, fresh evidence of the damage to a national economy clobbered by housing, credit and financial crises. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance jumped by a seasonally adjusted 38,000 to 407,000 for the week ending March 29.

Nato denies Georgia and Ukraine - Nato has confirmed it will not yet offer membership to Georgia or Ukraine after the 26-member alliance was split amid strong objections from Russia. Moscow said Nato's promise that the ex-Soviet republics would join one day was a "huge strategic mistake". At a summit in Romania, Macedonia was also denied Nato entry but Albania and Croatia were given the green light.

Al Qaeda No. 2: We don't kill innocents - The second-in-command of al Qaeda has said the terrorist group does not kill innocents and that its leader Osama bin Laden is healthy, according to a transcript of an audio tape released by radical Islamist Web sites. Al-Zawahiri, who led an Egyptian Islamic militant group that joined forces with bin Laden in the 1990s, said innocents who have been killed in attacks by al Qaeda or affiliated groups died as a result of "unintentional error" or because they were used as "human shields" by "the enemy."

Mugabe 'ready to face fresh vote' - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is ready to contest a second round of the presidential election, a spokesman for his ruling Zanu-PF party says. Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said if results from Saturday's election showed a second round was necessary, Mr. Mugabe would stand. Official results from the presidential poll have yet to be issued, but the opposition says it won the vote.

I have to give credit to President Bush and Company on how well they have branded and marketed this war to the American public. Perhaps, they learned a few lessons from the past few wars that did not sell to well. Nonetheless, 5 years later and 4,000+ deaths due to a War in Iraq we are no where closer to our goal. As I pointed out earlier, the trouble is that there is no clear defintion of "win" so the administration can tout to chase after a goal that is not forseable.

But . . . just because we are in a war that can not be won . . . Bush has to present it as something that can be and will be if we only do the things he recommends. Any other strategy is doomed for failure. Steve Benen does a great job of pointing out how it becomes a catch 22 for the public when Bush states that there is progress and success in Iraq.

Benen notes, "When conditions in Iraq deteriorate, the Bush administration says, “We can’t withdraw U.S. troops now; this is when they’re needed most.” When violence wanes, those same officials say, “We can’t withdraw U.S. troops now; their presence is helping bring some stability to Iraq.” We should stay the course if Iraq improves, and stay the course if Iraq worsens. Either way, we have to stay the course."

I agree! This is a splendid marketing strategy that most have not caught onto. Success is thus not achievable because like I said . . . how can we win something that can not be won? After all . . . if we leave and Iraq goes to hell, Bush wins, and if we stay to quell the unrest before hell breaks . . . Bush wins. 

According to the presumptive GOP nominee and the current President, we should remain in Iraq until we "win" or "achieve victory." I never entertained the notion nor the semantics of such argument but Steve Benen articulates the point well. If we are to make the Iraq War an issue of debate should we not define the terms used when arguing for a position.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan attempted to grapple the issue and concluded that, "[B]y the Bush administration’s own standards of success, laid out in the president’s speech and the NSC’s strategy review, we are no closer to victory now than we were when those documents were drafted."  It's no surprise then that McCain would boast about numbers like 100 or even 1000 years.

Benen adds, "the president has defined “victory” in such a way as to make it practically impossible," which make sense since it would be foolish for him to define a standard to be judged upon. One can not fairly assess what is going on in Iraq nor the War on Terror if there is no way to grade it. And that's the magic that Bush and Company have been able to create. McCain is not far behind on the agenda which begs the question: How do we win something that can not be won?

Steve Benen enlightened me today of the fight at capitol hill to do away with abstinence only education. In fact, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, a religious right organization, claims that, "“Liberals Want Federal Abstinence Education Cut."

It's true! Their report states, "President Bush’s 2009 budget proposal includes $204 million to support Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE), but dozens of liberals in Congress want all abstinence money axed from the budget." Their concern to "defend" the mis-education of sex to our teens comes at time that the CDC reports 1 in 4 teen girls has a sexually transmitted infection (STI). 

I have always been an advocate for quality education in our publics schools and that is not limited to sex. Benen adds, "It’s quite simple: the evidence that abstinence-only is more effective doesn’t exist." It doesn't take a genius to figure that our either. One only needs to do research for about a day to gather evidence to counter the administrations claims.

ABC News reports, "the Journal of Adolescent Health found that those who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received abstinence-only education. The study also found that those who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received no sex education at all." It's quite evident that Bush Administration has fudged everything the past 8 years and his approach to "abstinence-only" education is one of them. The reason why the CDC found such alarming ratings of STI's among teen girls should be a wake up call to all Americans but in particular parents that the last 8 years of abstinence only education has not been cutting it. 

Iraq forces battle Basra militias - Heavy fighting has been raging in Basra as thousands of Iraqi troops battle Shia militias in the southern city. At least 30 people have died in the operation, which is being overseen in Basra by Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki, a day after he vowed to "re-impose law".

Supreme Court backs Texas in Houston murder case - President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to reopen the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder in Houston, the Supreme Court said today. In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas 6-3.

Hope and Fear for Zimbabwe Vote - Voters will go to the polls Saturday, with President Robert Mugabe, the iconic leader of a nation enduring catastrophic hardship, trying to retain the power he has held for 28 years. Here in Harare, there is the usual speculation about the political winds. In what provinces is the president’s party strong? Where is it weak? But the more frequent conjecture involves the mechanics of an outcome that is presumed to be rigged.

Appeals court overturns passenger rights law - A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down a state law requiring airlines to give food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers stuck in delayed planes, saying the measure was well-intentioned but stepped on federal authority.

McCain Warns Against Hasty Mortgage Bailout - Drawing a sharp distinction with the Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain, warned Tuesday against hasty government action to solve the mortgage crisis, saying “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”