And the Sudan genocide continues under Bush's watch.
Posted By: Democrat on 2005-08-25
In Reply to: And Bill Clinton let 800,000 people die in Rwanda. So what's your point? sm - sm
We could bounce these back and forth all day.
I think he was a good president overall, but not intervening in Rawanda was Clinton's biggest failure in my book.
But if you are going to talk about blind eyes on the genocide in Africa I suggest you go back a little further through American history than Clinton and bring it on up to this current administration.
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Bush Approval Continues to Fall
Could the rest of America be getting a clue?
August 17, 2005
President Bush’s job approval has dropped to 41% nationwide, according to the results of 50 separate but concurrent, statewide public opinion polls conducted by SurveyUSA. Bush’s aproval rating ranges from a high of 59% in Idaho to a low of 29% in Rhode Island.
- Bush is above 50% in 7 states.
- Bush is at 50% in 2 states.
- Bush is below 50% in 41 states.
Compared to last month's poll, Bush's approval numbers dropped 5 or more points in 10 states. The single largest drop was in Minnesota, where it fell 10 points. Bush also fell 9 points in New Mexico.
and what about the dead in Uganda? The Sudan?
North Korea?
Oh, I forgot. THEY don't have oil.
oh please. Clinton. The Sudan offered him bin Laden...
long before 9-11 and he did not take him. Now YOU tell ME who failed to protect the American people. Good grief.
so you believe we are committing genocide?
really?
If illegal, immoral war is genocide, then yes.
be escorted to France.
When Hitler did it they called it genocide...(sm)
I guess they had a good teacher.
She loves genocide, if it's done in the *right* place and to the *right* people.
Her love and kindness for her fellow man certainly shows in her comments on Oklahoma City.
My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.
--Ann Coulter as quoted in the New York Observer, Aug. 20, 2002
RE: McVeigh quote. Of course I regret it. I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'
--Ann Coulter, from an interview with Right Wing News
Genocide? Talk about extreme. And Clinton's lies
Yes, it's not a newsflash that ALL politicians lie, Dem and Repub alike, but the guy was busted with his cigar in the ... err, his hand in the cookie jar, yet stood there and lied to everyone. Guess that's okay as long as he's DEMOCRAT. If you think Dems don't lie just as much as Repubs, then you are completely blind. It's just all in whose lies you are more willing to believe, and apparently for you it's Democrat. Please, if you can't admit one other darn thing, you all have to admit that they ALL lie to us. This country is going to hellina handbasket, but the people of the country share some of that blame. The economy is bad, but a lot of people bought houses they couldn't really afford (bad loan companies or not, they had to know), racked up credit card bills they could never pay, and the list goes on. WE share in the blame. The only way any change is going to happen, whether it's Repub or Dem on Nov. 4, is if we all pull up our sleeves and work toward it instead of lashing out at each other based on stupid party lines and making excuses and placing blame for every single thing that happens, even when it's a natural disaster like a hurricane, flood, etc. God help us all if there are a lot of other people that think like you do. You DO realize that while you're blaming Repubs for only believing what they read/see in media and not researching what they believe, a lot of what you say comes straight from the media and isn't even entirely accurate. Do yourself a favor and practice what you preach and do some truly unbiased research, not based in Dem or Repub muddle, before you reply. No hearsay, no op ed piece drivel, no blog spewing, but honest to goodness FACTS. Going to be hard to find when the media is so biased, but it's out there. Something tells me you won't bother because you've already made up your closed mind, as long as it's Republican affiliated, you hate it. That's your idea of being a broad thinker?
First, Israel is not committing genocide. History shows
that it has been the Palestinians who have been the aggressors. Israel goal is protect its people from suicide bombers and the palestinians' so-called "intifada."
But this argment is getting tired and obviously you cannot see where using Hitler to emphasize your point is a poor choice and would make a Jew view you as an anti-Semite. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...
And the pattern continues.
Another swiftboating of a hero. Anyone who dares to disapprove of Bush's actions can expect to be dragged through the mud.
I wonder how many innocent Americans who simply disagree with Bush have been spied upon and deemed terrorists for merely disagreeing with his flawed policies. We'll never know because Bush refuses to obey the law and use warrants that would spell out probable cause for such surveillance. :-(
Maybe that is why FOX continues to skyrocket.
nm
Already proven but the myth continues. nm
.
Isn't it time to watch Hannity or bowl or some other watch Nascar?
UR W T
Who is President NOW, as the economy continues to sink? Who got us here? nm
x
You will have to ask him not to call you; report to supervisors if he continues - nm
x
If Netanyahu continues to bomb Gaza,
then Obama has to do some action, words are not enough anymore regarding this conflict.
Most probably Obama, as he is a wise guy, he will curtail US' financial and weapon support to Israel.
Obama will not start the bombing and he will not torture.
Swiftboating continues; you're in good company.
Walter Cronkite may be next...
Cronkite: Time for U.S. to Leave Iraq
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television WriterSun Jan 15, 6:47 PM ET
Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose 1968 conclusion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, said Sunday he'd say the same thing today about Iraq.
It's my belief that we should get out now, Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters.
Now 89, the television journalist once known as the most trusted man in America has been off the CBS Evening News for nearly a quarter-century. He's still a CBS News employee, although he does little for them.
Cronkite said one of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.
Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that, If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.
The best time to have made a similar statement about Iraq came after Hurricane Katrina, he said.
We had an opportunity to say to the world and Iraqis after the hurricane disaster that Mother Nature has not treated us well and we find ourselves missing the amount of money it takes to help these poor people out of their homeless situation and rebuild some of our most important cities in the United States, he said. Therefore, we are going to have to bring our troops home.
Iraqis should have been told that our hearts are with you and that the United States would do all it could to rebuild their country, he said.
I think we could have been able to retire with honor, he said. In fact, I think we can retire with honor anyway.
Cronkite has spoken out against the Iraq war in the past, saying in 2004 that Americans weren't any safer because of the invasion.
Cronkite, who is hard of hearing and walks haltingly, jokingly said that I'm standing by if they want me to anchor the CBS Evening News. CBS is still searching for a permanent successor to Dan Rather, who replaced Cronkite in March 1981.
Twenty-four hours after I told CBS News that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday I was already regretting it and I've regretted it every day since, he said. It's too good a job for me to have given it up the way that I did.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
*****************************
AND MURTHA:
Web Site Attacks Critic of War
Opponents Question Murtha's Medals
By Howard Kurtz and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 14, 2006; A05
Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), the former Marine who is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, has become the latest Democrat to have his Vietnam War decorations questioned.
In a tactic reminiscent of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth assault on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004 presidential campaign, a conservative Web site yesterday quoted Murtha opponents as questioning the circumstances surrounding the awarding of his two Purple Hearts.
David Thibault, editor in chief of the Cybercast News Service, said the issue of Murtha's medals from 1967 is relevant now because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement. Thibault said: He has been placed by the Democratic Party and antiwar activists as a spokesman against the war above reproach.
Cindy Abram, a spokeswoman for Murtha, said, We certainly believe that the questions being raised are an attempt to distract attention from what's happening in Iraq. As for how Murtha won the Purple Hearts, she said: We think the congressman's record is clear. We have the documentation, the paperwork that proves that he earned them, and that he is entitled to wear them proudly.
Cybercast is part of the conservative Media Research Center, run by L. Brent Bozell III, who accused some in the media of ignoring the Swift Boat charges, but Thibault said it operates independently. He said the unit, formerly called the Conservative News Service, averages 110,000 readers, mainly conservative, and provides material for other Web sites such as GOPUSA. We won't run anything against anybody if we don't have the goods, he said.
Former representative Don Bailey (D-Pa.), who was quoted in the article, confirmed his account to The Washington Post yesterday.
In a conversation on the House floor in the early 1980s, said Bailey, who won a Silver Star and three Bronze Stars in Vietnam, Murtha told him he did not deserve his Purple Hearts. He recalled Murtha saying: Hey, I didn't do anything like you did. I got a little scratch on the cheek. Murtha's spokeswoman would not address that account.
Bailey, who lost a House race to Murtha after a 1982 redistricting, said Jack's a coward, and he's a liar for subsequently denying the conversation. That just really burned me, he said.
While saying he has only responded to reporters' questions and is not bitter toward Murtha, Bailey said the congressman's approach to Iraq is not responsible and that it just turned my stomach to see Murtha acting as a spokesman for veterans.
He said he shared the information with Republican William Choby, who ran against Murtha four times beginning in 1990 and made the Vietnam decorations an issue. Choby raised the issue again during Murtha's 2002 reelection campaign.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, citing Marine records, reported that year that Murtha was wounded during hostile actions near Da Nang, Vietnam: In the first incident, his right cheek was lacerated, and in the second, he was lacerated above his left eye. Neither injury required evacuation. The Cybercast article cites a 1994 interview in which Murtha described injuries to his arm and knee.
The article included a 1996 quote from Harry Fox, who worked for former representative John Saylor (R-Pa.), telling a local newspaper that Murtha was pretending to be a big war hero. Fox, who lost a 1974 election to Murtha, said the 38-year Marine veteran had asked Saylor for assistance in obtaining the Purple Hearts but was turned down because the office believed he lacked adequate evidence of his wounds.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, The Swift Boat-like attacks on an American hero, Congressman Jack Murtha, are despicable and have no place in politics.
In November, when Murtha called for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the congressman was endorsing Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party and called his stance a surrender to the terrorists. Days later, President Bush called Murtha a fine man and said they simply disagreed about Iraq.
The Cybercast article appeared shortly before a segment scheduled for CBS's 60 Minutes tomorrow in which Murtha predicts that the vast majority of U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by year's end.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES WHO OPPOSE THE WAR:
Bush to use speech in Kentucky to promote Republicans
January 11, 2006
LOUISVILLE (AP) -- President Bush will have an eye on the fall elections Wednesday when he heads to Louisville, Kentucky, to give a speech on Iraq.
Tuesday, the president told a veterans group that voters should punish any Democrat whose Iraq War rhetoric gives comfort to our adversaries. He said loyal opposition is one thing, but defeatism is another.
Thank you, also; I hate the polarization that continues between "right and left," Dem or Rep.,
AMERICANS. Is that too simplistic, altruistic, unrealistic? When can we get beyond LABELS and fingerpointing, US VERSUS THEM mentality, and become AMERICANS united for our own country, our own people; the divisions in this country is what has helped to bring us down. I fully support President Obama and feel very humbled and privileged indeed to have been able to witness history happening before me, but if we had an "us" and "them" division back during the revolution, we would still be paying taxes to England and flying the Union Jack! I love this COUNTRY, and pray that we can help each other crawl out of the horrific mess this country is in.
Abortion Rate Continues to Drop, at Lowest Level Since 1976
Abortion: Just the Data
With High-Court Debate Brewing, New Report Shows Procedure's Numbers Down
By Naseem Sowti
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 19, 2005; HE01
A new analysis of the most recent abortion data shows that the number of U.S. women having the procedure is continuing its decade-long drop and stands at its lowest level since 1976.
In the year 2002, about 1.29 million women in the U.S. had abortions. In 1990, that number was 1.61 million.
The data, collected by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that collects information from abortion providers and public sources, show that for every 1,000 pregnancies that did not result in miscarriage in 2002, there were 242 abortions. This figure was 245 in 2000 and 280 in 1990. The institute's mission is to protect reproductive choice, but its reports are considered accurate across the political spectrum.
With President Bush preparing to nominate at least one new Supreme Court justice whose presence on the high court could produce new rulings on abortion, the data are already being interpreted differently by abortion rights advocates and antiabortion activists. But scientists say it is difficult to determine why the number of abortions has been dropping.
"There are so many things feeding into" the decline, said Lawrence Finer, associate director of domestic research at Guttmacher. Possible factors, he said, include changes in contraceptive technologies and use, changing ideas about family size and abortion, and reduced access to abortion services. Pregnancy clinics and abstinence programs may also have contributed to the declines, he said.
Who Gets Abortions?
Women with unintended pregnancies are those most likely to get abortions. According to the Guttmacher report, 47 percent of unintended pregnancies are aborted. Teenagers, unmarried women, black and Hispanic women, and those with low incomes are more likely than the population as a whole to have unintended pregnancies.
The report shows that non-Hispanic white women get about 40 percent of all U.S. abortions, black women 32 percent and Hispanic women, who can be of any race, 20 percent. Women of other races account for the other 8 percent. Black and Hispanic women have higher rates of abortion than non-Hispanic whites, the report states.
Other facts about U.S. abortions from the Guttmacher report:
· Six in 10 women who had abortions in 2002 were mothers. "Despite the common belief, women who have abortions and those who have children are not two separate groups," said Finer.
· A quarter of abortions occur among unmarried women who live with a male partner, putting this group at elevated risk of unintended pregnancy and abortion.
· The majority -- 56 percent -- of women who terminate their pregnancies are in their twenties. Teenagers between 15 and 19 make up 19 percent of abortions, although this percentage has dropped substantially in recent years.
This drop may be due to use of longer-acting hormonal contraceptives and lower rates of sexual activity, said Joyce Abma, a social scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
She added that there has been a decline in sexual activity reported by teenage males, which could be a contributing factor to lower pregnancy and abortion rates among teens.
· The incidence of abortion spans the economic spectrum, but low-income women are overrepresented among those having the procedure. Sixty percent of women who had abortions in 2000 had incomes of less than twice the poverty level --below $28,000 per year for a family of three, for example. This is in part because "low-income women have lower access to family planning services" such as contraception and counseling provided by health departments, independent clinics or Planned Parenthood, Finer said.
· Almost 90 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester -- during the first 12 weeks after the first day of the woman's last menstrual period -- with most performed before nine weeks. Because of newer surgical and medical techniques, the proportion of abortions performed at six weeks or earlier has almost doubled in the past decade.
Less than 1 percent of abortions are done after 24 weeks.
· The number of abortion providers declined by 11 percent between 1996 and 2000, to 1,800. In 2000, one-third of women aged 15 to 44 lived in a county that lacked an abortion provider.
About the Data
There are two main sources of national data on abortion: the Guttmacher Institute and the CDC. While both are regarded as dependable by major groups on both sides of the abortion issue, their numbers are different, and less precise than some other health statistics.
Not all states require reporting of abortions. The District, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey do not mandate abortion reporting. California does not collect abortion data at all. Alaska and New Hampshire have not released statistics since 1998. This affects CDC's data, which is assembled every year from reports received from state health departments.
Due to differing reporting requirements and data-gathering procedures, abortion information for the District, Maryland and Virginia does not permit meaningful comparisons.
Guttmacher produces its reports by contacting abortion providers nationwide; its reports are considered more comprehensive than the CDC's. But the institute publishes the data only every four or five years. Neither group has published data for years beyond 2002.
Despite the inconsistencies of methods, the trends reported by CDC and Guttmacher correspond closely to each other. ·
Resources
For the complete Guttmacher report, visit http://www.agi-usa.org/sections/abortion.html , click on "An Overview of Abortions in the U.S."
For the CDC's complete report, visit http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/indss_2004.html , and click on "Abortion Surveillance -- United States 2001.
Or visit http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_23.pdf to download "Estimated Pregnancy Rates for the United States -- 1990-2000: An Update").
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
I don't watch Fox, I watch CNN and feel the
exact same was .... just sayin
I don't watch Fox, I watch CNN and feel the
exact same way .... just sayin
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Thanks, I will try to watch this.sm
Thanks for posting!
Could not watch either. Sm
I could not watch either. I don't believe a work he says and he makes me ill as well.
You said to watch...
so I did and gave my critique.
I watch so you don't have to
Bill O'Ego is SO desperate to get his "religious" viewers riled up so they will unite and vote repub. Last night, he was outraged (he and Hannity have so overused that emotion) because a Catholic church in San Fran did not respond with hatred and/or violence when two people presented to church in outlandish outfits to receive communion. The film shows them standing in line quietly and receiving the wafer and walking away. O'Ego felt it was a great ATTACK on his religion and felt that this should be BIG-BIG news. Claims the media is covering it up. He said if HE had been there . . . well . . . you know what a big he-man he is . . . It is obvious he is trying to divide people. According to my reading, jesus said turn the other cheek, and love one another. Ann Coulter then appeared and they discussed how she was so innocent and being attacked. Oh me brothers . . . .
Better watch it.....sm
The kind, loving, nonjudgmental christians on this board will roast you for being anything but what they deem is RIGHT. They'll burn in he11 before anyone else just for being what they are - living a lie.
8 & 11 PM CST watch this
Hannity's America, Foxnews.com. Investigating Obama's friendships, etc. Can you handle it?
Incidentally, Mike Huckabee has a new show on Fox, too. It's also on today, at 7 PM, CST. The first one last week was really good.
better watch it
I am sure it will make me change my vote and see the light that is McCain-Palin.
please watch
http://sendables.jibjab.com/category/politics_issues#/teaser/1191
I will watch it. Thanks
x
You need to watch this then...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH7kT4xwddg
Did you watch the one from CNN?
It looks like the same kid.
Look, I wouldn't question it, but he can't tell us to be "our brother's keeper" and then not keep his own brother!
I would just like to see some more walking the talk, ya know? If he is really big into helping the down trodden and lifting up everyone, I'd like to see him out there doing it. And not just to get ahead in politics either (so we can't really count community organizer).
Exactly. Just tax us all or watch our
trillion dollar deficit grow even worse.
Better watch out for........... sm
them thar revenuers! hehehe
Watch it,
x
Watch out....
you will probably be accused of being a racist! Next up, some witty, snarky acronym for Bush....c'mon, you can do it! BTW, your acronym sums it up.
Who said I watch
x
Better watch out............ sm
or you'll be on the cover of the Washingtonian! LOL
Did you watch...(sm)
O'Reilly and Barney Frank last night? Frank answered that question to some extent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g3qCs5xDIU
The thing you guys don't understand (or are ignoring) is that healthcare is a HUGE expense out of the federal budget as it is now. At this point it is absolutely essential to get that cost under control, which means reform. Cutting the cost of healthcare and yet making healthcare available to everyone is a win - win situation.
gonna watch it
Im gonna watch the comet explode. I think its Sunday night. Gotta check..however, whenever it is, I will be out there watching my beautiful uncluttered unsmogged desert sky.
Watch that propaganda now!
It's simply not true that Cindy Sheehan had "nothing but praise" for Bush and has now done a 360-degree turn. It's Drudge and Limbaugh nonsense with quotes taken out of context and spun to try and seem....what? It's nothing if not illogical. Aren't those intent on smearing her loudly proclaiming that she has been anti-Bush and anti-war since long before her son was killed? Then why would she fall all over herself praising him AFTER her son was killed? It makes no sense at all, but the attackers aren't really big on making sense apparently. They just throw all the garbage at the wall and see what might stick, that's how they operate.
What I really don't get is what the attackers are meaning to say. Even if it were true that Ms. Sheehan "did a 360" - point please? So what? So perhaps she was trying to make the best of a bad bad situation and least be respectful toward the president in consideration of his meeting with her and other family members - but since then, as she says herself, we have had the Downing Street proof, we have learned there were no WMDs at the time we invaded, we have learned all sorts of unbelievably horrible things - why SHOULDN'T anyone let those things change their views?
Now she just wants to know what this "noble" cause is that the President keeps referring to, and she wants to ask him to stop using the dead to justify making more unnecessary dead. But oh no, she must have an AGENDA! - well seems like that's it, isn't it? She wants to know and she wants him to look her in the eye and explain himself. And why shouldn't he? Or more precisely, why can't he seem to be able to do it? If he is sincere in his beliefs and committed to the cause, considering he's such a straight-talking nice guy, what's the problem? What is the big deal? It could all be over with in an hour. Why won't he just do it?
I don't watch O'Reilly. ?????
duh
I don't watch TV. Especially the TV news. Never have. nm
x
Another reason not to watch FOX! LOL
xx
Can watch the interview at
cnn.com/2008/politics/09/05/palintrooper./index.htm. Better to see it for yourself.
SP is not on every channel, watch
BTW, hope you and your loved ones will be safe. I am sure I would be terrified. I just saw the latest news, though, and it states the hurricane is currently aimed more south... Brownsville, Corpus Christi. When did it change direction??
Please watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/v/PdJUCU1UH2w&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1
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