SEN. MIKULSKI (D-MD): "This is a reckless plan - it is about saving the Bush presidency, not about saving Iraq."
Readers, last night the nation watched the President give a very unconvincing speech about “MOVING FORWARD” in Iraq. This was very distressing on many different levels. Is the American public (i.e. the sleeping mass) finally beginning to understand how wrong this war is? Personally, I am tired of this President’s MASSIVE EGO and attempts to validate himself on the world stage. People are dying and suffering tremendously, personally and collectively, due to this administration’s ignorance and ego needs. It’s time to move on, 2008 can’t come fast enough. See below a great article about the President’s speech:
A Crisis of Confidence
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Jan. 10, 2007 - George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup. I first interviewed the guy in 1987 and began covering his political rise in 1993, and I have never seen him, in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky. With his knitted brow and stricken features, he looked, well, scared. Not surprising since what he was doing in the White House library was announcing the escalation of an unpopular war.
The president may well be right that we cannot afford to leave or lose in Iraq . He makes profound sense when he observes that a collapse of Iraq would mean the rise of a giant version of the Taliban's Afghanistan—with a million times the oil in the ground.
But if he was trying to assure the country that he had confidence in his own plan to prevent that collapse, well, a picture is worth a thousand words. And the words themselves weren't that assuring either. Does anyone in America or Iraq , or anywhere else in the world for that matter, really think that the Sunnis and Shia will make peace? Does anyone think that embedded American soldiers won't be in danger of being fragged by their own Iraqi brethren? Does anyone really think that Iran and Syria can be prevented from playing havoc in Iraq and the rest of the region by expressions of presidential will?
George Bush had the look of a man who knew he had made a royal hash of things in reaching for what most enlightened people would say was a noble goal: a stable, antiterrorist Iraq.
In his televised address about Iraq, the president used the book-lined backdrop of the library in the White House to evoke the midwar FDR. This was supposed to be the kind of matter-of-fact, detail-filled radio address that the Old Man gave each week through the course of the last Good War.
Problem was, Bush had long since forfeited the political credibility that FDR was able to maintain through his presidency. Roosevelt made huge mistakes, and the rules of the times allowed him to hold back much information. But the public believed him in his role as a leader of the Western World. Luckily for Roosevelt, he was on the radio for the most part.
Bush's political problem is not so much that he has lied to the American people—though he may well have done so—but that he seems for years to have been lying to himself.
What the voters saw on TV just now was a man struggling to come to grips with his own unwillingness to face facts. It's still a struggle. His acknowledgement of mistakes was oblique and not as brave as it sounded at first blush. Mistakes were made, and he said. "The responsibility rests with me," he said. What he meant to convey was that others had made the mistakes, but that he was stepped up to take the hit. Hoo-aw! He said that he had "consulted" congressional leaders of both parties before he came to a decision on sending more than 20,000 additional troops. He didn't really consult with members of Congress, and certainly not with Democrats, unless you consider Sen. Joe Lieberman a Democrat.
Forty years ago, another president from Texas escalated an unpopular war. A famous Washington columnist, James Reston, described Lyndon Johnson's leadership as "war by tantrum." This Texas president doesn't operate through tantrums, and this wasn't a tantrum. This is an expression of grim determination, based on a moral vision, a worthy if perhaps unrealistic goal, and a fierce hatred of being branded a loser. I could tell you lots of stories about just how much Bush hates to lose, and always has.
The president's chances of success, such as they are, now rest with the reasonableness and details of his plan. Will it work? His says that his generals "report" that it will. Do the American people believe that it will?
I'm not sure that they are really listening, but if they were watching, they can't have been reassured by the man they saw in the basement of the White House.
By Howard Fineman, Newsweek
READERS, WHAT CAN WE DO TO VOICE OUR VIEW ON BUSH’S TROOP SURGE?
Senator Kennedy has proposed legislation to reclaim the people’s right to a full voice in the president’s plan to send more troops to Iraq. His bill will say that no additional troops can be sent and no additional dollars can be spent on such an escalation unless and until Congress approves the president’s plan.
Add your name to the petition in support of Senator Kennedy's legislation
AND LASTLY, I LEAVE YOU WITH SOME VERY FITTING LYRICS FOR THE MOOD OF THE MOMENT BY THE ARTIST BECK. REMEMBER GEORGE BUSH SENIOR’S VOICE OVER IN THE SONG "LOSER" WHEN HE TELLS THE WORLD: “I'm a driver, I’m a winner; things are going to change I can feel it?" How ironic, we seem to be hearing the same thing from his son but sooner or later he will be forced to face his failure and the consequences.
BECK- LOSER
In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey
Butane in my veins and I’m out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose
Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flaming' with a loser and the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin d
Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love-seat
Someone came in saying' I’m insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Saving' all your food stamps and burning' down the trailer park
Yo. cut it
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Forces of evil on a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
'Cuz one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey-neck and it's hanging' from a pigeon wing
You can't write if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax falling' on a termite
Who's choking' on the splinters
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(I'm a driver, I’m a winner; things are going to change I can feel it)
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