Holy crap. Take a look at this. When Bush paints his rosy picture about how great Iraq is going, Lieberman is the first one out of his seat cheering Bush on.
My goodness. It's like the spry old bastard is spring-loaded.
Not the first Democrat, mind you, but the first person in the entire building period. Faster than the fastest, most enthusiastic Republican acolyte.
That's him at the bottom of the screen:
That screen shot will make the perfect campaign poster for Lamont. Jumpin' Joe loves his presdint. If anyone hasn't watched it, the clip is really quite funny. Lieberman
leaps up out of his seat like he's got a firecracker up his ass. Bush
must have given him the script beforehand.
CNN's Chief Int'l Corresp. Amanpour has
been taking some heat from the Bush apologists because she interjected
some truth into her reporting on Larry King during a segment on the danger to journalists in Iraq. (Transcript)
Amanpour: And, it's really
tough when you go out and do that and for sure every time I go out with
either the U.S. or the Iraqi Army I am very conscious that this is a
potentially life-threatening exercise and, you know, you basically pray
from the minute you go out to the minute you come back and you thank
God when you've come back.... The war in Iraq has
basically turned out to be a disaster and journalists have paid for it,
paid for the privilege of witnessing and reporting that and so have
many, many other people who have been there....
"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show,"
"when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart,
who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda,"
and therefore can't be reported.
How's this for quick? Jack Murtha responds to the sotu. In December 2005, an ABC News poll in Iraq produced some noteworthy
results. 57% of Iraqis identified national security as the country's
top priority. When asked to rate the confidence in public institutions,
they gave Iraqi police a 68% confidence level, the Iraqi army 67%,
religious leaders 67%. But the U.S./U.K. forces scored the lowest, a
mere 18%.
Over 80% of Iraqis want U.S. forces to leave Iraq and
47% think it is justified to attack Americans. 70% of Iraqis favor a
timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces, with half favoring a
withdrawal in the next six months. In fact, 67% of Iraqis expect
day-to-day security for Iraqi citizens will improve if U.S. forces
withdraw in six months and over 60% believe violent attacks, including
those that are ethnically motivated, will decrease. Our military
presence is the single most important reason why the Iraqis have
tolerated the foreign terrorists, who account for less than 7 percent
of the insurgency. 93% of the insurgency is made up of Iraqis. Once our
troops are re-deployed, the Iraqis will reject the terrorists and deny
them a safe haven in Iraq. The Iraqis are against a foreign presence in
Iraq of any kind.
Some of our troops have been deployed four
times over the last three years. Enlistment for the regular forces as
well as the guard and reserves are well below recruitment goals. In
2005, the Army missed its recruitment goal for the first time since
1999, even after offering enlistment bonuses and incentives, lowering
its monthly goals, and lowering its recruitment standards. As Retired
Army officer Andrew Krepinevich recently warned in a report to the
Pentagon, the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands
of war "or risk 'breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic
decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.
The harsh
environment in which we are operating our equipment in Iraq, combined
with the equipment usage rate (ten times greater than peacetime levels)
is taking a heavy toll on our ground equipment. It is currently
estimated that $50 billion will be required to refurbish this equipment.
Further,
in its response to Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard realized that
it had over $1.3 billion in equipment shortfalls. This has created a
tremendous burden on non-deployed guard units, on whom this country
depends so heavily to respond to domestic disasters and possible
terrorist attacks. Without relief, Army Guard units will face growing
equipment shortages and challenges in regaining operational readiness
for future missions at home and overseas.
First a soldier in Iraq had to worry about improvised explosive
devices, land mines, being shot by a sniper, being blow up by a suicide
bomber at a check point, or just when he was on patrol, being shot in
the back by the Iraqi soldiers he is training, or having kids and young
men screaming with joy if he was wounded and dying in the street; or
walking into the cafeteria to have lunch and being blown up there, and
having Halliburton supply him or her with polluted filthy water. How much sacrifice can we ask of the soldiers? It is time to bring our troops home. This is insanity.
Never Mind What Bush Said About 'Oil Addiction' Bush was never much on ending addictions . Maybe he could have proposed a twelve-step program. They backed off that so fast they're leaving a wake. Maybe the White House press corps can ask Scotty which other parts of the speech Bush meant literally, and which parts were, um, not literal. Even for Bush, this is absolutely unbelievable.
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 thatthe president didn't mean it literally....
The
president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines
nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted
to oil" and his call to "break this addiction."
Bush vowed to
fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more
production of the alternative fuel ethanol, settinga lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."
He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."
Not exactly, though, it turns out.
"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.
What the president meant, they said in a conference call with
reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil
imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from
the Middle East in 2025.
"Could" is not a policy, Just as "second guessing" is not. I could theoretically learn how to harness the energy latent in the cat litter box, but I'm not betting the farm on it.
Bush and Rove know that, but they have figured out that
they can pick up points by saying things that sound good at the moment.
Trip to Mars? Rebuilding New Orleans? Become independent of Middle East
oil? Surely no Democrat is ever going to call them on any of this on
TV. So why not say it.