RoguePlanet

LAUER: How do you think historians will view your actions in Iraq, Mr. President?

BUSH: I'm not the historian. I'm the guy making history, see? I make decisions affecting the lives and deaths, lives all over the world and other people study it and write about the history I make.

LAUER: What do you say to those people who would say that America is in danger of becoming an imperial power . . .?

BUSH: I'm the guy who leads the world, see? America is the world's only power left and it chose me as leader. I choose to lead through liberation, a policy shift, liberating all people from evil-doers regardless of the darkness of their skin.

LAUER: Well now, some people say that your repeated references to brown-skinned and dark-skinned people are a way of playing the race card, using the race card against the Democrats. Can you explain -

BUSH: Hold it. Let me finish. Let me finish, OK? See, I'm the commander. And I don't have to explain myself. Things get explained to me, see? Not the other way around. Maybe someone needs to explain to me why they think I need to explain myself.

“There was no real planning for postwar Iraq,” said a former senior U.S. official who left government recently.

The story of the flawed postwar planning process was gathered in interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior government officials.
One senior defense official told Knight Ridder that the failure of Pentagon civilians to set specific objectives – short-, medium- and long-term – for Iraq’s stabilization and reconstruction after Saddam Hussein’s regime fell even left U.S. military commanders uncertain about how many and what kinds of troops would be needed after the war.

In contrast, years before World War II ended, American planners plotted extraordinarily detailed blueprints for administering postwar Germany and Japan, designing everything from rebuilt economies to law enforcement and democratic governments.

The disenchanted U.S. officials today think the failure of the Pentagon civilians to develop such detailed plans contributed to the chaos in post-Saddam Iraq.
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As one example, the Pentagon planners ignored an eight-month-long effort led by the State Department to prepare for the day when Saddam’s dictatorship was gone.

The “Future of Iraq” project, which involved dozens of exiled Iraqi professionals and 17 U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon, prepared strategies for everything from drawing up a new Iraqi judicial code to restoring the unique ecosystem of Iraq’s southern marshes, which Saddam’s regime had drained.

Virtually none of the “Future of Iraq” project’s work was used once Saddam fell.

The first U.S. administrator in Iraq, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, wanted the Future of Iraq project director, Tom Warrick, to join his staff in Baghdad. Warrick had begun packing his bags, but Pentagon civilians vetoed his appointment, said one current and one former official.

Meanwhile, postwar planning documents from the State Department, CIA and elsewhere were “simply disappearing down the black hole” at the Pentagon, said a former U.S. official with long Middle East experience who recently returned from Iraq.
Archaeological experts who were worried about protecting Iraq’s immense cultural treasures were rebuffed in their requests for meetings before the war. After the war, Iraq’s museum treasures were looted.

When Charles Farmer severed his leg in a Ladson motorcycle crash last month, his former girlfriend hurried to his side as he lay bleeding on the pavement.
Her idea of giving aid, however, was helping herself to the injured man's wallet, according to Charleston County investigators.

Sheriff's deputies say Glenda Fay Mizzel snatched Farmer's billfold as he lay unconscious and then used his bank card to siphon $1,040 from his account while he was hospitalized. She used the money to buy crack cocaine, according to an arrest affidavit.

Standing with the help of a walker, Farmer told a judge Thursday that Mizzel had stolen about $1,500 from him on a previous occasion, but he didn't press charges because he "still had feelings for her."

"If a construction worker has got more money in his pocket, he's going to demand an additional good or a service. And when they demand that additional good or a service, somebody has to produce the good or a service. And when somebody produces a good or a service, somebody is more likely to keep a job or find work." -- George W. Bush, Las Vegas, Nevada, Aug. 12, 2004

A shadowy group is . . . it's in the shadows. In the shadows, and you can't see it. And it's a, it's a, it's a group. And it's in the shadows, shadowy. A shadowy group. See?

I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment.

I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election.

We've called on Senator Kerry to join us and call for an end to all of this unregulated soft money activity.

The president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, surveyed the devastation by helicopter. Visiting relief workers in Punta Gorda, he defended scientists and local officials from criticism that they had miscalculated the path of the hurricane, which had been expected to hit the more heavily populated Tampa Bay region almost 100 miles to the north.

"God doesn't follow the linear projections of computer models," Bush said outside the emergency management center, whose roof caved in during the hurricane. "This is God's way of telling us that he's almighty and we're mortal."

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - With Hurricane Charley zeroing in on Florida's west coast Friday, the presidential candidates flew into Tampa to personally help the citizens evacuate their homes. "Watch your step, Mrs. Campbell," said John Kerry politely as he helped an elderly voter into his private helicopter. "I'm scared that we're going to go home and nothing is going to be there," 20-year-old Amanda Kellogg said as she packed up her belongings. "Don't worry Mandy," a reassuring President Bush offered, "If your home is damaged or destroyed I'll make sure that federal relief money will pay to build you a new home twice as better as this one." The candidates planned to spend about 10 hours criss-crossing the projected path of the category 3 hurricane. "It's a tight race and people don't forget this type of personal kindness," political analyst Bob Nelson said, "It could all come down to a handfull of votes in Florida once again -- every vote counts." About 6.5 million of Florida's 17 million voters are in Charley's projected path.

http://www.tampanews.com/

GIBSON: President Bush, tell us how the prayers of the people give you strength as you go about your duties.

BUSH: Well, I - I - I - I'm very humbled and gracious by the many prayers and all the well wishers from the American people. It - it gives me strength and peace, Charlie, as I work to protect our nation from the turrorists.

GIBSON: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Kerry - do you ever say to yourself, "Just who the hell do I think I am, running for President?"

CHENEY: And, in conclusion, Bill, the American people want an honest, capable businessman like me for Vice President, and not a greedy trial lawyer who has driven countless small businesses into the ground.

O'REILLY: All right, sir. I appreciate your honesty and the American people appreciate your honesty. Mr. Edwards, what do you say to these charges?

EDWARDS: Bill, that is just totally inaccurate and I -

O'REILLY: HEY, you! Shut up! SHUT UP! [aside] cut off his mic.

Bruce, let me put it very bluntly ... Who the hell is Bruce Springsteen to tell anybody how to vote?

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And to put it bluntly — it's a late night broadcast — you're going to piss a lot of people off.

From the start, Koppel made no secret of his distaste for Stewart's show: "A lot of television viewers—more, quite frankly, than I am comfortable with—get their news from […] The Daily Show."

On October 4, 2000—one day after Bush-Gore Debate I—Ted Koppel appeared on Larry King Live. King asked Koppel about the factual disputes which drove the previous night’s session:

KING: Okay. Were you impressed with this "fuzzy [math]," top 1 percent, 1.3 trillion, 1.9 trillion bit?

King was referring to the "bit" about the size and distribution of the Bush tax cuts—the campaign’s largest budget proposal. Bush and Gore had battled about the shape of the plan—and in his charges of "phony numbers" and "fuzzy math," Bush had called Gore a Big Liar. The issues involved were stunningly basic. So try to believe that Ted said it:

KOPPEL: You know, honestly, it turns my brains to mush. I can't pretend for a minute that I'm really able to follow the argument of the debates. Parts of it, yes. Parts of it, I haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Koppel is paid millions of dollars a year. The facts about the Bush tax cuts had been clear for five months as he spoke (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/24/02). But it "turned his brains to mush," he said, to try to follow the Bush-Gore debate. In this moment, we saw the stunning insouciance of our insider press corps. In any other professional sector, a practitioner making such a startling admission would be subject to suits for misfeasance.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The warning that key U.S. financial centers may be attacked by al Qaeda was based largely on three-year-old information, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on Tuesday, but he insisted the threat was still real.

Ridge's appearance in New York at the Citigroup building named on Sunday as a potential al Qaeda target came as U.S. terrorism intelligence has come under fire again, this time for forcing police in New York, Washington and New Jersey to massively increase security based on old information.

"I don't want anyone to disabuse themselves of the seriousness of this information simply because there are some reports that much of it is dated, it might be two or three years old," Ridge said.

But he insisted al Qaeda had updated its surveillance of financial buildings "as recently as January this year."

Thu Jul 29, 2004 01:50 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better.

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt. The comment was apparently directed to a colleague who was transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about job quality, and who overheard the remark.

When told the Prozac comment had been overheard, Sheybani said: "Oh, I was just kidding."