Clinton 65% - Bush 28% and falling!
Posted By: Bushwacked on 2008-12-21
In Reply to: Clinton...talk about a rewrite on history...sheesh.... - Clinton was an embarrassment. period.
Bill Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating. George W. Bush has an approval rating of 28% and still falling.
Period! 
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Clinton/Bush
Again, GT brought the whole subject up about presidential integrity. I just wanted to see GT's feeling about what Clinton did, but of course, GT justified Clinton's lies which was what I fully expected. Again, Bush hasn't been proven to lie. Like I have said several times before on this board I will be the first to cry uncle if Bush is proven to have lied by investigation and that doesn't include accusations and conjecture by liberal politicians, grieving mothers, or leftist bloggers.
Clinton/Bush
Again, GT brought the whole subject up about presidential integrity. I just wanted to see GT's feeling about what Clinton did, but of course, GT justified Clinton's lies which was what I fully expected. Again, Bush hasn't been proven to lie. Like I have said several times before on this board I will be the first to cry uncle if Bush is proven to have lied by investigation and that doesn't include accusations and conjecture by liberal politicians, grieving mothers, or leftist bloggers.
Clinton vs Bush
Clinton gave us 8 years of peace and prosperity DESPITE the opposition of the neocons throughout his administration. Bush failed over and over again DESPITE having party control of both houses. The leadership ability simply speaks for itself. Looking forward to Hill and Bill in charge again. The neocon fanatics have destroyed themselves by their own hand. So be it.
I'm not going to get into the Clinton vs Bush lies because
I don't know if Bush has lied intentionally or not, but it is pretty clear to me that the case made to go to war in Iraq was fabricated. If you ever get a chance watch Dead Wrong on CNN. This is not a politically motivated show just facts.
Is Clinton your only defence for Bush?
x
This is about Katrina/Bush, not Clinton.
nm
Uh oh.......Bill Clinton, not BUSH
xx
You mean 16 years - Both Bush AND Clinton
Disastrous!
Interview with Clinton RE: Bush's deficit
Tax cuts are always popular, Clinton said. But about half of these tax cuts since 2001 have gone to people in my income group, the top 1 percent. I've gotten four tax cuts.
Now, what Americans need to understand is that that means every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina and our tax cuts, Clinton added. We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense. I think it's wrong.
Clinton also discussed bringing world leaders together to combat the world's chronic problems including extreme poverty, global warming and religious conflicts as well as the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort and Hillary Clinton's political future.
The interview follows:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, good to see you again.
FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We're here on your initiative, and I want to talk about that, but let's begin with Katrina. President Bush has brought you into the recovery effort, but he's not taking all of your advice. You say roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy. He says no tax increase of any kind. We're spending $5 billion a month in Iraq, probably $200 billion on Katrina. Something's got to give.
CLINTON: Well, that's what I think. I think this idea I think it's very important that Americans understand, you know, tax cuts are always popular, but about half of these tax cuts since 2001 have gone to people in my income group, the top 1 percent. I've gotten four tax cuts.
They're responsible for this big structural deficit, and they're not going away, the deficits aren't. Now, what Americans need to understand is that that means every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina and our tax cuts. We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The president is not going to move. What do Democrats do?
CLINTON: They should continue to oppose it, and they should make it an issue in the 2006 election, and they should make it an issue in the 2008 election. And they should hope, to goodness, for the sake of our country, that the cows don't come home before we have time to rectify it.
I mean, sooner or later, just think what would happen if the Chinese We're pressing the Chinese now, a country not nearly rich as America per capita, to keep loaning us money with low interest to cover my tax cut, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Katrina and at the same time to raise the value of their currency so their imports into our country will become more expensive, and our exports to them will become less expensive. And by the way, we don't want to let them buy any oil companies or anything like that.
So what if they just got tired of buying our debt? What if the Japanese got tired of doing it? Japan's economy is beginning to grow again. Suppose they decided they wanted to keep some of their money at home and invest it in Japan, because they're starting to grow?
We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense. I think it's wrong.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is there anything coming out of this initiative here that you can apply directly to Katrina and the poverty we saw revealed there?
CLINTON: Oh, yes, we have raised quite a bit of money for Katrina here. And former President Bush and I, you know, we were asked to raise money. We already have $90 million to $100 million. And what we're trying to do is make sure that our money goes directly to the poorest people who have been dislodged by working with church groups and others. We're working on some mechanisms now to do that, and we'll have some announcements in the next week or so.
But I think there will be a lot of money coming forward from the federal government. A lot of it will be necessary, you know, to build the infrastructure, rebuild the fabric of life and not simply in New Orleans but along the Gulf Coast.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Gulf Coast.
CLINTON: Yes; you know, keep in mind, Mississippi was devastated. Everything from a mile in Mississippi was blown down, and Alabama, but we've got to do that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Excuse me; the problems of race that were tied to poverty here, and I know you don't think there's any conscious racism at play in the response, but we saw one more time blacks and whites looked at this event through very different eyes. What can President Bush do about that, and looking back, do you think there was anything more you could have done as president?
CLINTON: Well, I think we did a good job of disaster management.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But the racial divide.
CLINTON: Well, I think we did a good job of that. For example, we had the lowest African-American unemployment, the lowest African-American poverty rate ever recorded. We had the highest homeownership, highest business ownership, and we moved 100 times as many people out of poverty in eight years as had been moved out in the previous 12 years.
This is a matter of public policy, and whether it's race-based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up, and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made. That's what they did in the '80s; that's what they've done in this decade.
I did not post to start a Clinton/Bush war
Obviously there is a fundamental difference between those who support Bush and those who don't. We don't think the same way. Arguing about it gets us no where. I WILL be voting for a Democrat and I wanted some other opinions about the Democratic candidates. I did not want to bash anyone. I feel that all of the candidates are very good in their own ways. I just thought maybe someone would bring up good points that I may not have thought of.
i was actually trying to remember if this happened with Clinton and Bush...
Did Bush give speeches before he became president? I of course cannot remember last month let alone eight years ago.... After the election I noticed how often I saw him speaking out and i thoght it was a little weird since he's not president yet. I understand he is getting a head start and saying what he is going to do etc. etc. but i still find it a bit odd. but again, i can't remember if this is "normal" for the president elect to come in and kind of take over before the actual inauguration date...
you got Bush mixed up with Bill Clinton...it was....(sm)
all Clinton's cronies who ended up on Wall Street, FM/FM, etc., in charge, who were still there when everything tanked.....Clinton's cronies have profited, not Bush's
The original post was about Bush not Clinton.
Bush is the one who is trying to claim that he has kept the United States safe from terrorist attacks, not Bill Clinton. You are right about one thing. I cannot stand George W. Bush. He he has been an embarrassment to the United States, destroyed our economy, and sullied our reputation throughout the world.
And Bush inherited a lot of crap from Clinton
And Clinton inherited a lot from Bush Sr., etc, etc.
It's like the Sunny & Cher song....and the beat goes on.
What a president does while in office will determine if they become a good president or not. Right now Obama is not off to a good start. As his slogan goes one can only "hope" that it will get better.
Bush Sr and Clinton to Share Liberty Medal
Former Presidents Bush, Clinton to Share Liberty Medal
Friday, June 30, 2006
PHILADELPHIA Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who put politics aside to help raise more than $1 billion for disaster relief efforts, will share the 2006 Liberty Medal, officials said Thursday.
The award annually honors an individual or organization that has demonstrated leadership and vision in the pursuit of liberty of conscience or freedom from oppression, ignorance, or deprivation.
Bush, a Republican, and Clinton, a Democrat, joined forces last year to aid Gulf Coast victims of Hurricane Katrina through the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. Earlier, they formed the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Partnership to help survivors of the December 2004 tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in southeast Asia.
The former leaders will accept the medal and its accompanying $100,000 prize on Oct. 5 at the National Constitution Center, in what will be the first Liberty Medal given under the center's management.
First awarded in 1989, the Liberty Medal was previously administered by regional civic groups including the Philadelphia Foundation and Greater Philadelphia First.
Click here for the Natural Disaster Content Center
Past Liberty Medal recipients include Polish union leader Lech Walesa, former President Jimmy Carter, former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, South African leaders F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and, most recently, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
Six recipients of the medal have subsequently won the Nobel Peace Prize
If it Clinton screwed something up - why didn't Bush fix it? He had 8 years!
As much as you want to blame Bill Clinton......don't forget who held the reins for the last 8 years......who let them run amuck? Why was nothing done?
Check out the mortgage failures.
Tell me which failed more, prime or subprime
Tell me what is the rate of failures under the CRA or even Bush's ADDI (which i attack alll the time)
Once again, REALITY AND THE DATA doesn't fit ya'lls claims.
Basically what happened was.. we reformed bankruptcy laws.. so that people who ran into dire straights could not restructure.
We packaged the loans into commodity derivatives. These are sorta mirror bets on the loans. Sorta..as the same loan will be sold many times in many derivative packages.. that's why the housing derivatives are worth more than all the real estate in the US. Derivatives are actually not that bad.. when a market is stable and only has to deal with natural forces. The housing market was bubbled.. partially due to low interest rates that encouraged everyone to buy, even the rich, and partially due to the CRA and the ADDI.. which did add customers to the market (helping form the bubble was the extent the CRA and the ADDI had in this mess)
All it took was a few failures to pop the bubble..and make real estate prices drop,. and mind you, it was mainly prime loans (READ not loans given to poor people and not loans under the CRA) that failed. The derivative market.,.which like I said, is really mirrors of the same loans.. cause the defaults to explode with ten times the ferocity, because one loan could effect the price of dozens of derivatives.
Really the poor and even irresponsible people .. simply did not have the economic ability to cause this mess. Pool all their money together and waste it on hookers.. it would have zero effect without help from the rich elites and their magnifying packaged derivatives.
THE CRA and ADDI both had stricter requirements than loans you got from normal banks.. both required income data.. where many prime loans did not.. they also greatly limited you on how much home you could purchase..whereas private banks did not care if you tried to buy something you could not afford.
Don't believe me?.. Look in the phone book.. call your own housing authority - you can get a loan for 106% the purchase price of a home even today.. if you're poor enough.
Ask to hear the red tape and hoops you must go through.. Heck, it is probably easier to just get a real job and earn real money than go through the FHA.
I'd say Bush paid closer attention than did the Clinton administration!
Bin Laden was on the radar during the Clinton administration and yet the potential threat he posed was virtually ignored!
Bush inherited Powell from Clinton who inherited him from Reagan.
Bush wouldn't have had the sense to pick Powell all by himself. Have you heard the latest on Condi? She's been palling around with senior Hamas leaders, sending them thank you notes and such.
Here's how that other thing works. When the fringers stop lying, dems stop denying. It's not that complicated.
The Sky is Falling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
The collapse of the economy has been coming for longer than 2 years, it is just convenient to blame it all on the republicans.
Also, last I checked, we live in a Republic (lots of folks think we live in a democracy, but we do not) and one person isn't going to change our entire government, although it really does need some major changing.
Go out and talk to "Joe sixpack", the lower middle-class, the poor, etc. A socialist country doesn't seem like such a bad thing to them right now. At least they would have healthcare, lol!
The closer we get to the election, the more scare tactics we see. Relax, its just an acorn, lol.
THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING
OMG. How did you deduce that from what he said? So you think medical transcriptionists are UNSKILLED? Not only do you insult an intelligent method of handling the companies that ship our work overseas, but you also insult yourself and everyone else on this board. MT is NOT unskilled labor.
THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING...
Why don't you give the guy a chance before you start deciding if things could get worse or better? He has already stated that the mess is so huge that he inherited, it isn't going to be an overnight solution.
Why do you feel free to judge his entire presidency based on 60+ days so far?...days of putting out MAJOR fires left by the last administration, I might add. Why don't you wait until Obama actually can get to his own agenda before you decide that things are going to be worse under him.
Typical right wing over reactionism and drama queenism!
THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING...
Why don't you give the guy a chance before you start deciding if things could get worse or better? He has already stated that the mess is so huge that he inherited, it isn't going to be an overnight solution.
Why do you feel free to judge his entire presidency based on 60+ days so far?...days of putting out MAJOR fires left by the last administration, I might add. Why don't you wait until Obama actually can get to his own agenda before you decide that things are going to be worse under him.
This kind of right wing over reactionism and drama queenism really undermines any valid points you might make.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling! (nm)
:o
The sky is falling, the sky is falling
I am amazed how many rightwingers are scared out of their pants. Why not find some other country to hide in? Your posting is laughable.
The ends is near, the sky is falling.
If you look throughout history, many people thought that their century would have been the end of the world. What do I think? As a believer, I truly do believe that there are signs out there that do lead toward Christ's return. Please no flaming me as this is my personal opinion.
As to when this might happen....no one knows. As a believer in God, it is written that no one knows.....not even the angels in Heaven know. Is the end getting closer.....yes....I think it is. Will it happen in my lifetime? I don't know.
As to your thoughts about McCain and Obama. I really do not think that either of them have the appropriate plan for our country and I really do feel sorry for the next president because he will have A LOT on his table. However, I truly feel that Obama's plan will hurt our economy more than help it. I believe that our country is in a recession and the blames goes to government....PERIOD. I'm not even going into the dems vs pubs. They are all to blame. They all had their greedy little hands in on this. After being screwed over by the government, do I want them to have more control over things? HECK NO! Government spending has gotten WAY out of hand and, IMO, that is the key to this whole crisis. Cut government spending. You can't raise taxes during a recession. It will weaken the economy and head us straight for a depression.
An interesting thing I heard on TV last night. China noticed their economy take a little dip, nothing like ours, and guess what they are doing......they are lowering taxes. Not raising them.
The people that say 95% won't be taxed....I'm sorry but even putting the whole welfare allegations aside....it isn't possible. There aren't enough rich people to take from to come up with the money Obama wants to spend. He will have to increase taxes on the rest of us as well and that includes the middle class that he professes to be looking after.
Increasing taxes on companies will result in a higher job loss than a job creation. People say that the companies make enough and can absorb that.....you obviously don't run a business and let me tell you....my husband does and he is sweating this BIG time. It ain't pretty ladies and gentlemen. The companies who can afford to "absorb" this tax increase will pass it along to us by jacking up the prices of their products. So who pays for that increase....WE DO PEOPLE!
I don't have anything personal against Obama. I will admit that his judgment in associations are a bit concerning, but putting that all aside.....Obama's plans for this country will fail. Is it change? Yes it is.....but it will be a change for the worse.
Can't come out of the Fox hole.....THE SKY IS FALLING.....nm
x
Falling all over the place.
What is happening with those repubs?
Was one of the songs free falling? If so...
I think I have seen it.
Maybe they're falling because Coke is better.
nm
This is not about race whatsoever. You are falling
nm
A "fool" would be Americans falling for O
nm
You forgot Paulsen the-sky-is-falling
no-time-to-read, eve-of-destruction, just-sign-here, no-questions-asked, just-trust-your savior arm-twisting at the helm.
I dont fall into the sky is falling category
nm
Falling for O's promises, just like Jimmy Carter
nm
Yeah, why yell...'the sky is NOT falling'?
x
Yeah. We'll be falling right into the leadership shortly
nm
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."
Yeah right. Served under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II
x
Stop bringing up Bush - this post was not about Bush
I even said we have had some good presidents and some bad ones, but this post was not about Bush. It was about Obama. Yes Bush was one of the worst presidents I'm not arguing with you on that one, but everytime anyone brings up something about our current president they are shot back with Bush this or Bush that and on things that have nothing to do with what the current topic is about. Again, this was not about Bush. It was about Obama.
Oh, more "blame Bush" - except Bush didn't send these out, now did he?
Here's a news flash for you since you apparently haven't heard: BUSH IS NOT IN OFFICE and just today Gallup did a poll showing that THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS THINK OBAMA SHOULD START TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENS ON HIS WATCH.
G E T A C L U E.
clinton
You mean wonderful super intelligent President Bill Clinton and his lovely super intelligent lawyer wife, Hiliary? So much better than the dufus warmonger and Stepford wife in the WH right now..Jerks, both of them, backward thinking monsters, Bush and Stepford.
clinton
I think Clinton should have been impeached. He is to be a role model? Please, what kind of a role model is that cheating on his wife.
No on Clinton as VP
No way can Obama offer VP to Queen Hillary. He should remember what happened to JFK (with Johnson being involved). What a better way for the Queen to annoint herself to the presidency by getting rid of him. Don't put it past her either - just remember Ron Brown, Vince Foster, Eric Fox, Sandy Hume, Danny Casolaro, Ronald Rogers, John Wilson, Gandy Baugh, Mary Mahoney, Suzanne Coleman, Judy Gibbs, Gary Johnson, Kathy Ferguson, Bell Shelton, Sally Perdue (didn't mysteriously die but was told if she didn't keep her mouth shut they would break her legs), Jon Walker, Johnny Franklin, Ed Willey, Barbara Alice Wise, Jerry Parks, C. Victor Raiser, L.J. Davis, Herschel Friday, Ron Brown, and the list goes on and on an on....
So no, I would not put it past either of them that something would happen and she would swear herself in as the anointed queen. Lets just hope Obama has more sense - which I believe he does.
Clinton
Where do I start? I love Bill Clinton. Hs is very intelligent, he can talk about anything and knows what he is talking about. He did what the first person posted. He was impeached but he could not be removed from office because he was impeached for was not govenment and it has to pertain to the government to be removed from office. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he earned everything he got. He has worked very hard. Funny, but I get the same sick feeling in my stomach whenever I see George Bush's face on TV and the man cannot even speak so how he can do anything else. The trillion dollar debt, people with no jobs, and the list goes on and on. Put us in a war we had no business being in. He has never done anything on his own that turned out good. Whatever he did was with the help of his father or someone else doing it for him. He will not return to Crawford, they are going to build a house, but I forgot the location, and he will not be traveling around the world working to get meds for AIDS patients, starving children, etc. Maybe he can help bring back other countries to like us again like they used to until Bush told just about everyone of them he did not need their help and made them angry with us. I could go on and on but I am tired and going to bed.
This has been going on even when Clinton
was in office. This has been going on for years. Shoot, I lived in Arizona for 25 years and illegals were everywhere. Finally, Arizona will NOT hire anyone that is illegal. The companies have to hire people who show BC and if the employees do not, they are not hired. So most illegals moved to other states. Also the companies are audited and have to show proof that each employee is legal or the company will be fined. Arizona has border patrol that runs along Mexico and Arizona and that should have been up years ago. Even tried putting up border control when Clinton was in office, but everyone ignored her plea until a few years ago. Also work for a company that outsources to India. This has been going on for years and years. When the O takes over, he will probably sell our country out and will be worse. He says he will help the the middle class yet cause electricity rates to skyrocket and so on. I do not trust O with ANYTHING. He is a smooth talker, the ones I do not trust. If McCain wins, at least I know he will try to make our country safe from nukes of Iran.
Again I will say it. Clinton and his
cronies cooked the books. There was no surplus. It came out after an audit after Bush got in office.
I really do wonder how Clinton will
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480126,00.html
U.S. Obtains New Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Intrigue
Friday, January 16, 2009
Iran Presidency Office
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inspects the Natanz nuclear plant in central Iran.
WASHINGTON U.S. security and law-enforcement officials say they have fresh evidence of recent efforts by Iran to evade sanctions and acquire metals from China used in high-tech weaponry, including long-range nuclear missiles, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Iran's efforts are detailed in a series of recent emails and letters between Iranian companies and foreign suppliers seen by The Wall Street Journal. Business records show one Iranian company, ABAN Commercial & Industrial Ltd., has contracted through an intermediary for more than 30,000 kilograms (about 66,000 pounds) of tungsten copper which can be used in missile guidance systems from Advanced Technology & Materials Co. Ltd. of Beijing. One March 2008 email between the firms mentions shipping 215 ingots, with more planned.
The United Arab Emirates has informed the U.S. that in September it intercepted a Chinese shipment headed to Iran of specialized aluminum sheets that can be used to make ballistic missiles. A month earlier, UAE officials also intercepted an Iran-bound shipment of titanium sheets that can be used in long-range missiles, according to a recent letter to the U.S. Commerce Department from the UAE's Washington ambassador.
Evidence of Iran's efforts to acquire sensitive materials also is emerging from investigations by state and federal prosecutors in New York into whether a number of major Western banks illegally handled funds for Iran and deliberately hid Iranian transactions routed through the U.S. One focus of the inquiries is the role of Italy, including the Rome branch of Iran's Bank Sepah and Italy's Banca Intesa Sanpaolo Spa. Banca Intesa said it is cooperating in the inquiries.
Iran Produces Enough Uranium to Build Nuclear Weapon
The developments could present President-elect Barack Obama with an early test in responding to what many Washington security officials now say is a rapidly growing threat to the region, including U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia.
All of the high-performance metals Iran has been acquiring also have industrial uses such as commercial aviation and manufacturing, making it difficult for intelligence agencies to be absolutely certain how the materials are being used.
"We can't say we know it would, or would not, be used for military purposes," said proliferation expert Gary Milholland of the nonprofit Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, noting that broad economic sanctions on Tehran led by the U.S. mean Iran has to go to unusual lengths to find high-grade materials for industrial use as well as weapons.
Still, he added, "There doesn't seem to be any real doubt or debate whether Iran is going for the bomb or whether Iran is using front companies to import things. Everyone agrees on that around the world."
Officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency said they believe Iran could have enough fissile material for an atomic weapon sometime this year, though it would need to be further processed into weapons-grade uranium. That assessment was echoed Thursday by Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael V. Hayden. U.S. and European governments have grown increasingly alarmed in recent months at the speed they believe Iran is developing ballistic-missile and nuclear capabilities. Last year the United Nations Security Council, which includes China, formally imposed sanctions on Iran's military and most of its banks for nuclear proliferation activities.
A spokesman for Iran at its U.N. mission in New York declined to comment. China "has been strictly implementing" U.N. proliferation sanctions on Iran, said a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing. The export of restricted items such as high-grade metals, which include specialized aluminum and titanium, is prohibited, he added.
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