Bush's Speech
Posted By: Gimme A Break on 2008-12-19
In Reply to: I didn't see his speech - gourdpainter
Bush was surprisingly coherent and articulate in explaining the bailout and its reasoning. His plan, by the way, is virtually identical to the one that the White House and Senate Democrats hammered out and Senate Republicans stonewalled a couple weeks ago.
The pay cut for auto workers is nonbinding, and there are limits on executive pay.
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I saw Bush's welcome home speech.
Proud of the Texas community welcoming home Bush. If I did not like the area I lived in, I would have moved to Texas. Do not really like the seasons and climate in Texas, but sure love the people there. Just an incredible speech. He sure is family oriented. Wish him the best and cannot wait to read his book. He kept us safe. Did you hear China did not like Obama's speech yesterday?
Did Obama skip Bush's speech? sm
Looks like he did.
Did Obama Skip Bush's Speech?
Posted by Michelle Levi| Comments10
As his predecessor, President Bush, said his final goodbyes to America on national television, President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle dined at the DC restaurant, Equinox Thursday night.
CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic, who waited outside the restaurant, reports that there is no indication whether or not Mr. Obama was watching President Bush's farewell remarks.
The President-elect departed the Blair house, located right across the street from the White House podium from which the president spoke, minutes before President Bush commenced.
A host at the restaurant tells CBS News' that the President-elect stopped by the only television in the high end establishment, a small screen at the bar, and watched for "a minute or two." The source said he did not notice what Mr. Obama was watching but that "no" it was not for an extended period of time.
No one from Obama's transition team has responded to CBS News' inquiries as to whether he was watching the address.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/01/15/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4726147.shtml
Did Obama skip Bush's speech? sm
Looks like he did. Very unbecoming, disrepectful side of Pres-elect Obama we're seeing.
Did Obama Skip Bush's Speech?
Posted by Michelle Levi| Comments10
As his predecessor, President Bush, said his final goodbyes to America on national television, President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle dined at the DC restaurant, Equinox Thursday night.
CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic, who waited outside the restaurant, reports that there is no indication whether or not Mr. Obama was watching President Bush's farewell remarks.
The President-elect departed the Blair house, located right across the street from the White House podium from which the president spoke, minutes before President Bush commenced.
A host at the restaurant tells CBS News' that the President-elect stopped by the only television in the high end establishment, a small screen at the bar, and watched for "a minute or two." The source said he did not notice what Mr. Obama was watching but that "no" it was not for an extended period of time.
No one from Obama's transition team has responded to CBS News' inquiries as to whether he was watching the address.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/01/15/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4726147.shtml
Bush's Exit speech was REALLY scary
I'll take an educated, insightful, young, inexperienced president, willing and able to learn from the bottom up, over the absolute moron that Bush proved himself to be one last time during his Exit press conference. Watching it was horrific . . . this idiot was the 'head' of US government for the past 8 years, and he must have been SO protected by press secretaries and speech writers during that time, because watching his Exit speech was like watching Barney Fife bumble his way through a chat with no knowledge, no information. The only difference is Barney Fife didn't send thousands of Americans to the Middle East to their death.
With the huge pile of dung left behind by the Bush administration, ANYTHING that President Obama initiates toward digging us out financially and politically, and returning a modicum of respect to the US from the rest of the world (to whom we have been made to look like an idiotic bully by Barney Bush) will earn President Obama a spotlighted place in history, as turning this mess around would be a huge accomplishment.
"Can't teach an old dog new tricks" should have been the Bush administrations credo.
Obama is willing to learn, listen, appoint cabinet members of opposing views, and he is much more savvy than you give him credit for. I suggest reading one of his books to gain some insight; this just may allay your unwarranted fears.
Bush's Iraq Speech: Long On Assertion, Short On Facts
Bush says "progress is uneven" in Iraq, but accentuates positive evidence and mostly ignores the negative.
June 30, 2005
Standing before a crowd of uniformed soldiers, President Bush addressed the nation on June 27 to reaffirm America's commitment to the global war on terrorism. But throughout the speech Bush continually stated his opinions and conclusions as though they were facts, and he offered little specific evidence to support his assertions.
Here we provide some additional context, both facts that support Bush's case that "we have made significant progress" in Iraq, as well as some of the negative evidence he omitted.
Analysis
Bush's prime-time speech at Fort Bragg, NC coincided with the one-year anniversary of the handover of soverignty to Iraqi authorities. It was designed to lay out America's role in Iraq amid sinking public support for the war and calls by some lawmakers to withdraw troops.
The Bloodshed
Bush acknowledged the high level of violence in Iraq as he sought to reassure the public.
Bush: The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it?
What Bush did not mention is that by most measures the violence is getting worse. Both April and May were record months in Iraq for car bombings, for example, with more than 135 of them being set off each month. And the bombings are getting more deadly. May was a record month for deaths from bombings, with 381 persons killed in "multiple casualty" bombings that took two or more lives, according to figures collected by the Brookings Institution in its "Iraq Index." The Brookings index is compiled from a variety of sources including official government statistics, where those are available, and other public sources such as news accounts and statements of Iraqi government officials.
The number of Iraqi police and military who have been killed is also rising, reaching 296 so far in June, nearly triple the 109 recorded in January and 103 in Febrary, according to a tally of public information by the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a private group that documents each fatality from public statements and news reports. Estimates of the total number of Iraqi civilians killed each month as a result of "acts of war" have been rising as well, according to the Brookings index.
The trend is also evident in year-to-year figures. In the past twelve months, there have been 25% more U.S. troop fatalities and nearly double the average number of insurgent attacks per day as there were in the preceeding 12 months.
Reconstruction Progress
In talking about Iraqi reconstruction, Bush highlighted the positive and omitted the negative:
Bush: We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. . . . Our progress has been uneven but progress is being made. We are improving roads and schools and health clinics and working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens.
Indeed, the State Department's most recent Iraq Weekly Status Report shows progress is uneven. Education is a positive; official figures show 3,056 schools have been rehabilitated and millions of "student kits" have been distributed to primary and secondary schools. School enrollments are increasing. And there are also 145 new primary healthcare centers currently under construction. The official figures show 78 water treatment projects underway, nearly half of them completed, and water utility operators are regularly trained in two-week courses.
On the negative side, however, State Department figures show overall electricity production is barely above pre-war levels. Iraqis still have power only 12 hours daily on average.
Iraqis are almost universally unhappy about that. Fully 96 percent of urban Iraqis said they were dissatisfied when asked about "the availability of electricity in your neighborhood." That poll was conducted in February for the U.S. military, and results are reported in Brookings' "Iraq Index." The same poll also showed that 20 percent of Iraqi city-dwellers still report being without water to their homes.
Conclusions or Facts?
The President repeatedly stated his upbeat conclusions as though they were facts. For example, he said of "the terrorists:"
Bush: They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war.
In fact, there have been withdrawals by allies. Spain pulled out its 1,300 soldiers in April, and Honduras brought home its 370 troops at the same time. The Philippines withdrew its 51 troops last summer to save the life of a Filipino hostage held captive for eight months in Iraq. Ukraine has already begun a phased pullout of its 1,650-person contingent, which the Defense Ministry intends to complete by the end of the year. Both the Netherlands and Italy have announced plans to withdraw their troops, and the Bulgarian parliament recently granted approval to bring home its 450 soldiers. Poland, supplying the third-largest contingent in the coalition after Italy's departure, has backed off a plan for full withdrawal of troops due to the success of Iraqi elections and talks with Condoleezza Rice, but the Polish Press Agency announced in June that the next troop rotation will have 200 fewer soldiers.
Bush is of course entitled to argue that these withdrawals don't constitute a "mass" withdrawal, but an argument isn't equivalent to a fact.
The same goes for Bush's statement there's no "civil war" going on. In fact, some believe that what's commonly called the "insurgency" already is a "civil war" or something very close to it. For example, in an April 30 piece, the Times of London quotes Colonel Salem Zajay, a police commander in Southern Baghdad, as saying, "The war is not between the Iraqis and the Americans. It is between the Shia and the Sunni." Again, Bush is entitled to state his opinion to the contrary, but stating a thing doesn't make it so.
Terrorism
Similarly, Bush equated Iraqi insurgents with terrorists who would attack the US if they could.
Bush: There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. . . . Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the terrorists .
Despite a few public claims to the contrary, however, no solid evidence has surfaced linking Iraq to attacks on the United States, and Bush offered none in his speech. The 9/11 Commission issued a staff report more than a year ago saying "so far we have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." It said Osama bin Laden made a request in 1994 to establish training camps in Iraq, but "but Iraq apparently never responded." That was before bin Laden was ejected from Sudan and moved his operation to Afghanistan.
Bush laid stress on the "foreign" or non-Iraqi elements in the insurgency as evidence that fighting in Iraq might prevent future attacks on the US:
Bush: I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country . And tonight I will explain the reasons why.
Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations.
But Bush didn't mention that the large majority of insurgents are Iraqis, not foreigners. The overall strength of the insurgency has been estimated at about 16,000 persons. The number of foreign fighters in Iraq is only about 1,000, according to estimates reported by the Brookings Institution. The exact number is of course impossible to know. However, over the course of one week during the major battle for Fallujah in November of 2004, a Marine official said that only about 2% of those detained were foreigners. To be sure, Brookings notes that "U.S. military believe foreign fighters are responsible for the majority of suicide bombings in Iraq," with perhaps as many as 70 percent of bombers coming from Saudi Arabia alone. It is anyone's guess how many of those Saudi suicide bombers might have attempted attacks on US soil, but a look at the map shows that a Saudi jihadist can drive across the border to Baghdad much more easily than getting nearly halfway around the world to to the US.
Osama bin Laden
Bush quoted a recent tape-recorded message by bin Laden as evidence that the Iraq conflict is "a central front in the war on terror":
Bush: Hear the words of Osama bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq..."The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."
However, Bush passed over the fact that the relationship between bin Laden and the Iraqi insurgents – to the extent one existed at all before – grew much closer after the US invaded Iraq. Insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did not announce his formal allegiance with bin Laden until October, 2004. It was only then that Zarqawi changed the name of his group from "Unification and Holy War Group" to "al Qaeda in Iraq."
In summary, we found nothing false in what Bush said, only that his facts were few and selective.
--by Brooks Jackson & Jennifer L. Ernst
Researched by Matthew Barge, Kevin Collins & Jordan Grossman
Bush speech on terror, followed by *surprise* terror alert. Whaaaaaaaaat?
Bush took to TV cameras again to try to sell his Brooklyn Bridge of a war, this time tossing around buzz words like *communism* and *fascism.* (Yawn)
But wait!!
Within a couple hours, during a televised news conference with Mayor Bloomberg, it was announced that evidence of a bomb threat specific to place, time and method had been received and that the source was very credible. (First thought: *But I thought were were fighting them there so we don't have to fight them HERE.* Second thought: *This is bad. We've been warned in advance of this. Look what happened when we were warned in advance about Katrina?!*)
Yikes!
But wait!
Shortly following that news conference with Mayor Bloomberg, the powers that be in Washington issued a statement that the threat has doubtful credibility.
Oh.
Okay. Just another terror warning in America......or not.
"kill him" speech is not acceptable free speech - it is against the law - nm
x
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."
the speech
I heard, I am very old and I suffered greatly at the hands of the enemy. Did I ever tell you I was a POW? I suffered greatly. Please feel sorry for me and vote for me. I deserve it. I suffered greatly. No economic plan, no health insurance plan, just I suffered greatly. Sarah's speech was John suffered greatly. No one else has suffered as much as he. Joe Biden's loss of family members and Obama's struggle with identity because of being mixed race do not qualify. This is an election about the issues of the american people not a Queen for A Day episode where the person with the saddest story gets a new washing machine.
The Speech to Nowhere
http://www.truthout.org/article/palins-speech-nowhere
Anybody see O's speech about
10:30 this morning? If he can accomplish half of what he talked about, I'll have a little more faith in him.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/03/president-to-ta.html
So much for your pre-speech intelligence
He did talk about the war.... Hey, wait a minute, your intelligence was bad....You lied to us!!! You twisted the information to fit your post...Don't you want to apologize and tell us all what a terrible mistake you made!!!!  How does it feel to be called a liar without justification?
Freedom of speech, LOL
Freedom of speech? To get up there and state you believe A WHOLE SOCIETY OF PEOPLE, A WHOLE ETHNICITY OF PEOPLE OUGHT TO BE ABORTED? Yet, you people jump all over Cindy Sheehan when she rags on Bush, LOL..You jump all over anti war people when we scream..STOP THIS WAR..But NOW you are stating freedom of speech..LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL..Better to shut up now about Bennett, cause you sure are looking silly..
and this wise speech comes from a man
who admitted he's had too many wives, done too many drugs....and was happy to admit he inhaled.
Ahhh the credibility....
That's the only line you took from the speech...sm
But you think Bush who admits that he did drugs - obviously inhaled or sniffed, and was an alcoholic is a living testimony of credibility. Is there a double standard here?
Ah, yes. Freedom of speech.
I remember it well.
It was a cute joke. In case any of you missed it before it was removed from the board, one of the many places it can be found is http://www.justpetehere.com/2004/11/george_bush_pas.html.
Better do it quickly, though, because this post is sure to be removed as soon as the Cons start whining again.
freedom of speech
Check out the St. Pete Times, Sunday, 11/13/05, The Perspective, article by Robin Blummer. Sorry I don't have the link but it is easy to find. Talk about scary. By the way, I see that there are a number of comments to posts listed on the board but they are not available to see. Is this a new policy...we know people read or responded but we can't see what the response is?
the speech, annotated...
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0111-25.htm
Long but worth the read.
do you or do you not believe in freedom of speech....
and do you or do you not believe in the right of people to have opinions different from those and voice them? Is someone holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read my posts? You might be more comfortable in Russia where it is the policy of the counry to control thought that does not agree with the party line.
Do you believe in free speech?
If so, please allow me mine.
If you believe Obama's SPEECH,
nm
her speech, and debate later. I think
nm
Freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is freedom to all.
When watching TV if there is something I don't like I change the channel. I would suggest you do the same on this board instead of trying to silence those you don't agree with.
Keep on postin sam - you must be hitting home if there are those who want to silence you.
acceptance speech
was written by Bush speech writer. But there is not connection between the McCains and the Bushs. Mere coincidence. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
FYI, the prompter went out during her speech
at the convention -- but you didn't know it by watching her! I have every confidence she can handle whatever comes her way. she is a quick study, with common sense and intelligence.
Hate speech
You are a racist a__hole. Who cares what you think?
So is freedom of speech.
If the lady wants to talk about religion, so what? It's not like she's gonna get into office and make us all abide by her religion - Pa-leeeze!!!
Freedom of Speech? Think Again.
Hyscience
No, more like all the hate speech
"energizes" fanatic fervor and mobilizes race-baiting hoaxters, cyberspace skinhead assassination plots and the other more than 500 threats to Obama. See link.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6123157&page=1
What a great speech........
so handsome, with his captivating smile, terrific speaker, cool under pressure, so humble, refined and much more...CHANGE IS HERE, CONGRATULATIONS to the American people and the world.
I didn't see his speech
But I did read an article in the news. I notice that Bush's "help" is going to require union workers to get in line with non-union workers by the end of next year (can you say PAY CUT). I do agree with doing away with the job bank. Not one word did I read about his demanding deep cuts for the EXECS!!!! Of course they are his buds and they need those private jets and billions in bonuses. Makes me sick.
Maybe he should have made his speech in the 50s then.
His hate speech is not in line with today's reality. In most major cities, and for most young people, the black culture is the dominant culture. Fashion, music, media, sports - look at today's icons.
His speech was racist and makes me sick, because it is only going to spawn - guess what - MORE racism. If this is how the Obama presidency is going to be run, I predict the ranks of the KKK will be full to bursting by the time his first term is over.
freedom of speech
Hillary said that Bill always was a hard dog to keep on the porch. So what. At least we weren't embroiled in an unjustified war, we had a SURPLUS in the treasury and the whole country wasn't going to the dogs. I believe in the 1st amendment - she can say whatever she wants. Take some cojones to talk about propriety................look at dubya and turd blossom.
This man has NEVER believe in free speech
He has made no secret of his belief that our constitution is NOT a static document, which it is. He believes it should be a "living" document, so he can make up things as he goes along.
This guy is so uptight and immature that he continually makes comments about Hannity and O'Reilly and Limbaugh. What rock did he crawl out from under? Too bad when he decided to come back to this country he didn't learn that FREE SPEECH mean just that, FREE SPEECH!!
Of course, he doesn't believe in our constitution anyway, so it shouldn't be a surprise.
Anyone in his position who obsesses over a few conservative talk heads isn't mature at all but this guy is so messed up, he actually believes he has the right to censor talk show hosts just 'cause he doesn't like them...... now that is a dangerous dictator!!!
Well, in his speech last night, he sure
seemed to be trying to put fear at the retreat. He started out calm enough but before it was over, he was livid, blaming the pubs for everything. He WAS trying to put fear in the dems to the words that they HAVE to pass this bill. No way was he going to let it fail. He wants the package the way it is. He doesn't want to compromise on this package no matter what he says to the media with his smiling face.
What did you think of PM Brown's speech
Don't get me wrong. I love England a lot (many of my family came from that country, have visited it and the people of England are wonderful people), but I caught PM Brown's speech the other day and I though it was... well "lame" for lack of a better term. He was kissing the behinds of the people to get funding from America his nose was covered in feces. I see he has also been studying President Obama's speeches and it was so blatantly obvious. President Obama is probably one of the greatest in giving speeches. No doubt about that, but this was clearly an imitation of Obama's past speeches. (We are not blue states and we are not red states, we are the United States). Here Mr. Brown says "There is no old Europe, there is no new Europe, there is only your friend Europe". The way he presented his speech all I could think of was that Obama's speech writers wrote it for him. All I thought of was how lame.
Just curious what your opinions are. Mine is that America does not have the funds to be sending money over to England. Unemployment is rising, home loss is on the rise and they are trying to have us send money to them??? Maybe I'm wrong about this but I just think it's very arrogant, as was his speech to congress.
I also heard that I guess it didn't go as well as England had planned because now The Queen is having a private meeting with Mr. Obama.
Just wondered what others opinions are.
Each to his own....... that's why we have "free speech"
xx
Deplorable speech!
What was breathtakingly shocking about Obama's speech is that he proposes "oversight" of executive decisions by the other branches of government under the guise of the principle of "checks-and-balances". As a former Constitutional lawyer, even he has to know that this was never what was meant by that principle for the simple reason that it abrogates executive responsibilities to the other branches.
Never mind that he failed to say what would happen if one of these other branches says "No you can't do that". Would the third branch then resolve the question?
Never mind that such a process would mean that the executive - which must often make critical defense decisions in minutes - couldn't act for days or months.
Never mind that he fails to mention that such a misapplication of "checks-and-balances" would set a precedent so that the next President could insist on exercising "oversight" over the Congress and the courts.
We shouldn't be surprised by this, though. This administration has demonstrated a shocking disregard for Constitutional principles from the very moment it took office and continues to do so to this very day.
Anyone who understands the principles of this country will have been very, very disturbed by Obama's speech today. And the country is getting sick of the blame game, too, Mr. President. At some point you should go into the Oval Office and see if you can find out who's President now. That's where the buck stops.
I think you have the wrong speech...(sm)
the discussion is about when he was talking in Turkey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIVd7YT0oWA&feature=related
I really doubt that O's speech had such
a big impact on the voters, in Lebanon and the EU, to change the outcome of the elections.
The EU voters changed to conservative, as so many poor countries were taken into the EU, and many countries were against this.
Turkey, a foremost Muslim country, is trying to get approved into the EU, causing a big controversy.
Who's denying her freedom of speech.sm
What you guys want is for her freedom of speech to go unanswered. Since she is an army mom then we should worship her and allow her to dump on us because of our beliefs.
If she wants praise and high-fives she should be posting on the conservative board.
Its called freedom of speech
Hey, neocons, its called freedom of speech..part of our Constitution. Dont like it, dont read the posts, dont come on the liberal board to cause trouble..stay where you are safe on your own board..
The issue is not free speech....
the issue is whether this guy was doing his job. He's a geography teacher for crying out loud. His remarks had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the job he was hired to do and that's teach geography. The excuse that he was teaching *human geography* is the most hilarious pitiful excuse I've ever heard. This guy should be fired for unprofessionalism and not performing the duties he was hired to do. If he wants to be a political activist so be it, but do it in your off time or quit your public education job and do it. This goes for anybody whether your conservative, liberal, or independent.
I think a new ammendment should be made to get teachers back to teaching the basics instead of trying in indoctrinate kids to think the way they do, but I doubt that will happen any time soon.
Well about the walkout---I doubt the kids did it for political reasons, they did it to get out of class and to get some attention.
Sandra Day O'Connor speech
Apparently only NPR and Olbermann covered this.
Audio here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5255712
Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship
· Sandra Day O'Connor warns of rightwing attacks
· Lawyers 'must speak up' to protect judiciary
Julian Borger in Washington
Monday March 13, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.
In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.
Ms O'Connor, nominated by Ronald Reagan as the first woman supreme court justice, declared: We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary.
She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.
In her address to an audience of corporate lawyers on Thursday, Ms O'Connor singled out a warning to the judiciary issued last year by Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader in the House of Representatives, over a court ruling in a controversial right to die case.
After the decision last March that ordered a brain-dead woman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, removed from life support, Mr DeLay said: The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behaviour.
Mr DeLay later called for the impeachment of judges involved in the Schiavo case, and called for more scrutiny of an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president.
Such threats, Ms O'Connor said, pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedom, and she told the lawyers in her audience: I want you to tune your ears to these attacks ... You have an obligation to speak up.
Statutes and constitutions do not protect judicial independence - people do, the retired supreme court justice said.
She noted death threats against judges were on the rise and added that the situation was not helped by a senior senator's suggestion that there might be a connection between the violence against judges and the decisions they make.
The senator she was referring to was John Cornyn, a Bush loyalist from Texas, who made his remarks last April, soon after a judge was shot dead in an Atlanta courtroom and the family of a federal judge was murdered in Illinois.
Senator Cornyn said: I don't know if there is a cause and effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country ... And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence.
Although appointed by a Republican, Ms O'Connor voted with the supreme court's liberals on some divisive issues, including abortion, making her a frequent target for criticism from the right. After announcing that she intended to retire last year at the age of 75, she was replaced in February this year by Samuel Alito, who is generally regarded as being more consistently conservative.
In her speech, Ms O'Connor said that if the courts did not occasionally make politicians mad they would not be doing their jobs, and their effectiveness is premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts.
So your saying Ann's not entitled to her free speech
but you are entitled to yours? The 9/11 widows can say anything, but Ann better shut up?
The double standards rule the day here.
Ann has her opinions but at least she is not saying America is guilty of genocide.
JFK speech 10 days before his death. sm
Please take 5 minutes to listen to this. It gave me chills. He truly was a visionary and what a great loss to America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlEqtaWpKEU&search=JFK%20on%20Secret..
I distinctly remember this speech.
And it is not a new one. I remember it because it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The cards were on the table, I clearly remember thinking that.
Yes, his speech was awesome, wasn't it?
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