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The light at the end of the tunnel

Posted By: is a freight train coming our way. on 2009-02-14
In Reply to: down but not out - mk

"We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion, 2 trillion …we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do."

So says Lueo Ping, China Regulatory Commission (02/11/09)


I will gladly eat crow if I'm wrong because our country needs help, but I still don't think it will work.  We have too many in Washington who are crooks and until we get our government to actually work FOR us instead of working for themselves......maybe we will get there.  Who knows.  Right now I don't like the road we are on.  I don't like spending so much money and borrowing from China or just printing money.  I don't like the idea of all these government programs providing welfare, etc.  This package isn't even going to help for a year or two, if it does at all, so regardless more people are going to lose jobs, homes, etc. 




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Let us hope that the light at the end of the tunnel

isn't a freight train getting ready to run us over.  That is just how I feel about our economy and government right now.  I'm tired of the finger pointing.  I'm tired of republican versus democrat.  I'm tired of politicians and CEOs lining their pockets with money while the rest of us struggle to survive because of what they have done to our economy. 


After the debate my husband and I flipped back and forth between CNN and Fox.  All CNN talked about was how Barry won the debate and most people on Fox said McCain did.  LOL.  Personally, I think they both could have done better.  I think that time has come that we want more answers and we want specifics.  We are tired of being pacified just so these politicians can get elected and not do anything they promised us during their campaign. 


I listened to Bush speak last night. No light at the end of this tunnel. nm
nm
Tunnel vision
don't think a little thing like a massive natural diaster will stop gt from her hate Bush vendetta.

BTW, to them Bush caused the hurricane anyway. Just more fuel for their fire.
Oh please, Rep - your tunnel vision is really getting tiresome.
It really seems YOU are the one so consumed with hate that you can't get past that schtick to really listen to what anyone else is saying. You see liberal, you think hate. It's a totally childish and lazy way to process information. When are you actually going to THINK about the issues and take some resposiblity for forming more three-dimensional and realistic opinions that are actually your own?

I mean truly,is that the best you Bush cheerleaders have got? Either you're posting under 10 names here or else you all sound like precanned recordings - you're so filled with hate! Blah blah blah! You're so hateful! Blah blah! What a crock. Do we ever have to wonder what interesting insights you might have? I guess! You can't get off the Limbaugh talking points long enough to actually express one.

Just eat it and get over it - Tillman was a huge fan of Chomsky, he was killed by not so friendly fire (there's a little HATE for you) and Rove's propagandists tried to make it all pretty and nice-smelling up to and including lying to the parents, but it's the same old tired smelly garbage they tried during Viet Nam. What, they think it'd work better now?

So if you have some defense to make of the Pentagon for that, why don't you just go ahead and DO IT if you can? Nobody's interested in hearing about your hate theories about liberals around here - big YAWN. What else DO you have?
Can you get anymore tunnel vision and one-sided?

You tried. Some of us do see the light.

A lot of us (family, neighbors, friends) could not believe how Obama spoke about the (SECRET MEETING).  Obama should not have discussed to anyone about the talk in the meeting.  As for Obama's so called aides he picked, should have fired them on the spot for a leak like that.  What if Obama was to talk with the President of Iran?  Look out.  Do not want to mention what I think of all this because I WILL GET BLASTED.  I guess some have to learn the hard way in life.  I see a lot of government me, me, me and LOOK AT ME approach.  Totally into one-self. 


You explained it completely clear and totally made sense.  Writing totally on the wall and so many others could not believe today's secret meeting.


Thanks, this does shed a different light.sm
I do admit, I have not been following this.
Here's another one that sheds even more light.

This also is pretty long and contains much of the same as the other link I provided, but this one also addresses how he should start a *small war* in order to be sucessful.  It also addresses how the George W. Bush camp tried to denigrate Mr. Herskowitz's character after he was pulled from the book (one of the classic trademarks of this administration), and that even after all that, former President George Herbert Walker Bush requested that Mr. Herskowitz write a book about his father, and he agreed.


 


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm


 















Published on Thursday, October 28, 2004 by GNN.tv

Two Years Before 9/11, Candidate Bush was Already Talking Privately About Attacking Iraq, According to His Former Ghost Writer

by Russ Baker
 

HOUSTON -- Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999, said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade·.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency. Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker.

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work - and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war - has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush's unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters - well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush's ghostwriter after Bush's handlers concluded that the candidate's views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published last year with the assistance and blessing of the Bush family.

Herskowitz also revealed the following:



  • In 2003, Bush's father indicated to him that he disagreed with his son's invasion of Iraq.

  • Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been excused.

  • Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in pilot's garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 to celebrate Mission Accomplished in Iraq. The image, instantly telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

  • Bush described his own business ventures as floundering before campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing information provided by a family with which he has longtime connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the interviews-in which he expressed consternation that Bush's true views, experience and basic essence had eluded the American people -Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and the veracity of his recollections. I don't know anybody that's ever said a bad word about Mickey, said Barry Silverman, a well-known Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform confidence that Herskowitz's account as contained in this article could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in 1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the state. I can't go near this, he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush's beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House - ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.

Bush's circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter's political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush's father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents - Grenada and Panama - and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye.

I know [Bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. He said, 'No I haven't, and I won't, but Brent [Scowcroft] has.' Brent would not have talked to him without the old man's okaying it. Scowcroft, national security adviser in the elder Bush's administration, penned a highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an invasion.

Herskowitz's revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush's pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political chroniclers, including the Boston Globe 's David Nyhan, with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event that got little notice: It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam's weapons stash, wrote Nyhan. 'I'd take 'em out,' [Bush] grinned cavalierly, 'take out the weapons of mass destruction·I'm surprised he's still there, said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.'s father·It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush's first big clinker.

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or naïve views about the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late 1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist designated President Bush's father, then-Congressman George HW Bush, to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep, Bush's staff expressed displeasure -often over Herskowitz's use of language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business, Herskowitz included Bush's own words to describe the Texan's unprofitable business ventures, writing: the companies were floundering. I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was kind of angry, and he said, 'You've got some wrong information.' I didn't bother to say, 'Well you know where it came from.' [The lawyer] said, 'We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up at least two new businesses.'

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz's account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. The lawyer called me and said, 'Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.'

They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote it, he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However, Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the Texas Air National Guard - and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was excused. This directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard. Bush's claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for monthly drills in Alabama - though commanding officers say they never saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial rewards for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 - which was two years prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He said Bush told him he never flew any plane - military or civilian - again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush's father to write a book about the current president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. Former President Bush just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was visiting him there in his office·He said, 'I wish somebody would do a book about my dad.'

He said to me, 'I know this has been a disappointing time for you, but it's amazing how many times something good will come out of it.' I passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [Bush senior], 'Would you support it and would you give me access to the rest of family?' He said yes.

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush , was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family's perspective and rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the ultimate as-told-to author, lending credibility to his account of what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz's other books run the gamut of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver, former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally, newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure. I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially, saying 'Watch your back.'

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing - a claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes subsequently finished the book herself - it received largely critical reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room floor, including Bush's true feelings.

He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake, Herskowitz said. That was one of the keys to being a leader.

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute .

Russ Baker is an award-winning independent journalist who has been published in The New York Times ,The Nation ,Washington Post ,The Telegraph (UK), Sydney Morning-Herald , and Der Spiegel , among many others.

© Copyright 2004 gnn.tv


Why thank you....Ms sweetness and light....
Well, obviously your faith makes cursing a personal choice too. Try reading the post next time and do not, please, put words into my mouth. I was not comparing Hitler to a Jew. What a ridiculous statement. I was not comparing Hitler to abortion, even a more ridiculous statement. I was talking about moral relativity, and that the people in Germany during the rise of Hitler were probably defending his stand on Jews, just like you are defending abortion, because when people are led to believe that any life, at any stage, means nothing, or in your case state it does not even exist, it is a breeding ground for people like Hitler. I meant that people in Germany were probably rationalizing the killing of Jews like you are rationalizing the killing of babies, therefore making it easier to accept what Hitler was doing. You twist words and when you don't get your way you result to base name calling. Calm down, get a grip and a cup of coffee. I am not your enemy.
i am making light of the

attempts to discredit Barack by calling him a celebrity.  You will see the same issue repeated over and over on this board, only by those who seriously consider that a valid issues.


 


Perhaps because the book has only now come to light....
I didn't know about the book until now. The point being...it is known about now, she knew it then, she should not have taken the job. What if they had chosen Michelle Malkin or Ann Coulter? Would that be okay with you? Geez.
Glad you see the light.......
xx
Thanks for shedding that light sm
I had not considered what it would do to the lower income people. I had only considered that a straight-across-the board system would work better than our tiered/progressive/whatever you want to call it works now. I do like the flat-rate system, much more equitable.
I think the light will come back on again.

Obama is a very wise man. He has come up with an excellent plan to get distressed homeowners back on their feet. He is going to take away their vehicles. 


 


Anybody got a light? 


So shines a light in a dim world. sm
Loved the scene from Armageddon.  Great time to tie it in. Thanks!
Valles and these parents see the light....nm
x
Glad you can make light.
Put your political silliness aside and think of someone other than yourself, and yes, they can use body armor.  If you want to send them some, please do.  Let me tell you one thing, you don't intimidate me at all.  You can laugh and act like a fool all you want, but the truth is, you care about your political perversions and not a bit about the troops or you would be doing something to make their lives easier.  Like I said, I never ever met a soldier who didn't want a package from home.  Never.
I think you already have someone to light candles and pray to...
ahem.
Mrs. Bridger, you need to chill and light
yourself up another fattie.
I kinda like the puff, light, etc.

Saves some money and if I put them down, they go out instead of burning away. I had my first carton of 'em last week. Took 7 days for that carton. Sunday I started my second carton. I'm almost through that one today because it's not a "puff and light."


Some day....


Ggive me a break...now that the story has seen the light of day maybe.
What was wrong with the GOVERNOR wardrobe. Why did it need the RNC boost into the ELITE label league of NM and Saks? What part of HYPOCRISY do you not get? It's not so much about the money (though that aspect of it is an eye-opener), but rather the conflicting image/message of NM, Saks and Joe the Plumber.
Saved by the test. Undecided has seen the light.
with sense of clarity and purpose. What a relief. Lord, what a glorious day.
Thanks for the article, puts O in a good light really.
Told me how he is trying to rein in the lobbyists and get spending under better control and not things as usual in DC. I am Obama girl, thanks for posting!
If you mean John Edwards....the affair and a child that has just come to light. nm
nm
Does shed some light on how things work in Alaska. sm
It is interesting that she is against more taxes on the oil companies overall but has a 75% tax on oil profits in Alaska.
light-hearted politics topic: In your state, whose TV

This board has become quite ugly to come and visit.  Most folks know who they want to win and the arguments are becoming redundant.  So, on the lighter side, I'm wondering what's happening in other states.  Here in Michigan, McCain has pretty much stopped trying to advertise, and nearly all ads are Obama.  I think Michigan has been such a forgotten state, our own one-state recession has been going on for decades, and the majority of us are democrats.  Just wondering if other states are being overwhelmed with predominantly one candidate over the other...


Well...if it puts Obama in a good light, it is probably owned by George Soros. nm
nm