I think and fear it is possible. Wouldn't surprise me if the next civil war breaks out in the United States in the form of another Christian crusade. It could happen. We don't really live in a republic any more. :-(
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Under the Bush regime, I don't think it's that much of a long shot. - Liberal
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Other related messages found in our database yes, they will, but not for a long time, thanks to Mr. Bush. NM
x
relief wouldn't have taken so long if BUSH were up for reelection!!!nm
xThe breeding ground started long before Bush
I for one have never cared for allowing Iranian and Iraqi students into this country; I went to school over 20 years ago where Iranian and Iraqi students came to study, but we were always curious as to what they were really doing here. They were not sociable, did not want to tell you why they were here, and constantly went back and forth to their country several times a semester. They never even tried to fit in with their surroundings. They were openly vulgar and critical of the United States, but we allowed their sorry butts here to study?
If they want an education, let them get it in their own country and somewhere else. I don't feel sorry for them one bit. When we asked why we never saw any female Iranian/Iraqi students, they were always quick to let us know females were not important, did not need to be educated, and that God did not make females their equal. And they were always quick to let us know they believed ALL western females to be whore-like and sluts.
They towed Bush's line for 6 long years. Ask any progressive
better still, branch out and listen to opposing media views, including progressive radio and newspapers...those guys have yet to get mainstream coverage. To get any kind of decent international coverage, one is forced to go to media source outside of our own country. You might be REALLY surpised at what you find there. Get real.
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 inIraq. 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 theNetherlands 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
is the worst sin possible if a Republican suggests it...but such a GOOD idea when Democrats suggest it....is North Korea the new Iraq?? Hil is talking regime change in North Korea...already, and they have been in power how many weeks? This is rich!!
Perhaps you should do some studying. SOS all over again, just like all the lies leading to regime change in Iraq, except this time with NUKES. Once again, Bush believes he knows the Iranian people and thinks he can predict how they will respond. Bush's messianic vision is labeled as worrisome, which is a rather kind description of this President.
You really should read the entire article, but I doubt that you will. It's likely to actually cause you to think.
http://www.newyorker.com/press
Issue of 2006-04-17 Posted 2006-04-08
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2006
THIS WEEK IN
THE NEW YORKER
PRESS CONTACTS: Perri Dorset, (212) 286-5898 Daniel Kile, (212) 286-5996 Maria Cereghino, (212) 286-7936
The Bush Administration’s Plan For Iran
“The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack,” Seymour M. Hersh reports in the April 17, 2006, issue of The New Yorker (“The Iran Plans,” p. 30). Moreover, he writes, “There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change.” One former senior intelligence official tells Hersh that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as a potential Adolf Hitler. “That’s the name they’re using,” he says. A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror says, “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war.” The danger, he adds, is that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.” The former senior intelligence official, referring to activity at three U.S. military facilities, says, “The planning is enormous.” He depicts it as hectic and operational—far beyond the contingency work that is routinely done. One former defense official tells Hersh that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He adds, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ” A government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon confirms that undercover units are working with minority groups in Iran, and that while one goal is to have “eyes on the ground,” the broader aim is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime.
Hersh reports, “In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat.” A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, tells Hersh that the Administration is “reluctant to brief the minority.” He adds, “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq.... There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”
Hersh also reveals that one of the options under consideration involves the possible use of “a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to insure the destruction of Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz.” The former senior intelligence official tells Hersh that the attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the military and that some officers have talked about resigning after an attempt to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans in Iran failed. Hersh writes, “The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option.... He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue.” The adviser explains, “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries.”
The Pentagon adviser warns, as do many others, that bombing Iran could provoke “a chain reaction” of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world: “What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?” he asks. He tells Hersh that any attack might also reignite Hezbollah. “If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle,” he says. A retired four-star general tells Hersh that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.” “If you attack,” a high-ranking diplomat in Vienna tells Hersh, “Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians.” The diplomat went on, “There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking.” He adds, “The window of opportunity is now.”
Also this week: In “A Church Asunder” (p. 44), Peter J. Boyer reports that the election of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church “posed the biggest crisis for Anglicanism since the Reformation, and brought the worldwide church to the edge of schism.” Boyer writes that while a belief in the power of compromise has always permeated the Anglican faith, to several conservative bishops the move “pushed the Anglican notion of comprehensiveness beyond its historically implied limits. What the Church had affirmed, in the view of these traditionalists, was not just a different expression of Christianity but a different religion altogether.” Bishop Robert Duncan, of Pittsburgh, led a small delegation of twenty bishops in protest the day of Robinson’s affirmation and has since reached out for support from the worldwide Anglican community, and specifically from bishops in the Global South, who tend to be far more conservative. Boyer writes, “More than half of all Anglicans live in Africa, South America, and Asia.... There are more Anglicans in Kenya (roughly three million) than there are Episcopalians in the U.S.... The balance of power has shifted dramatically.” While Anglicanism has no global hierarchy as in the Catholic Church, Duncan hopes that through an alliance with the Global South, he and like-minded bishops can convince the worldwide Anglican Communion that the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, or ecusa ... has already departed from the faith, and that an alternative body of orthodox Episcopalians should be recognized as the true church in America.” Boyer writes, “Duncan says that his battle is not with Gene Robinson, or even over the issue of homosexuality, but with what he considers a radical reinterpretation of the faith by the liberal church.” He says that the future may hold many unpleasant legal battles, “And the question that the state courts are going to have to figure out is, ‘Who are the Episcopalians.’ ” Boyer writes, “Gene Robinson watches these developments with a mixture of sadness and alarm.” He tells Boyer, “Bob Duncan wants to ally our church with the church of Kenya, where the primate there said that, when I was consecrated, Satan entered the church. What most people don’t realize is that homosexuality is something that I am, it’s not something that I do.... We’re not talking about taking a liberal or conservative stance on a particular issue; we’re talking about who I am.” Later, he adds, “I have to tell you—I felt called by God to come out. It seems to me that if God stands for anything, God stands for integrity. And to be a priest, calling other people to integrity, when you’re not exercising it yourself—it’ll kill you.”
Plus: Hendrik Hertzberg, in Comment, on the drawbacks of the Bush Administration’s health-care plan (p. 25); Adam Gopnik on “The Gospel of Judas,” a recently released translation (p. 80); Alec Wilkinson on Pete Seeger and on a new album inspired by his work by Bruce Springsteen (p. 44); Cynthia Zarin on the works of Maurice Sendak (p. 38); David Denby on the new films “The Notorious Bettie Page” and “Friends with Money” (p. 86); John Lahr on the life of playwright Clifford Odets (p.72); and fiction by Bernard MacLaverty (p. 66)
The April 17, 2006, issue of The New Yorker goes on sale at newsstands beginning Monday, April 10th.
what I am talking about regarding illegal immigration, and what I view this country to be. I do not now, nor have I ever said one word about wanting a "pure race." I have said over and over, America is a country of immigrants. A country of immigrants coming here who wanted change from their native countries. Immigrants who became UNITED under one flag, one creed, one constitution, one set of laws. The UNITED States of America. The thread that bound us all together...Americans. And the trend is away from that now. Illegal immigrants want to come here and change America to Mexican America...or Muslim America...or, or, or. To change what we are, the ideals we were founded on. In my mind, if you make a conscious decision to leave your own country and come to this one seeking to change your citizenship, then you embrace this country, her laws, her ideals, etc. That does not mean a person cannot be proud of individual heritage. I am proud of my Irish, Native American, Swedish ancestry and can some of it back to the 15th century. But I am not a Native Swedish Irish American. I am an American with a mixed heritage, and I am an American first, and I don't frankly see anything wrong with that. It is in that that we used to be UNITED and is what made us strong. If we start to separate we might as well set up borders and call part of us Native America, part of us Africa America, part of us Mexico America....because we are not united anymore. I even had the word "secession" thrown at me, which is ridiculous on the face of it. I never said such a thing nor would I sanction such a thing, because I believe in the UNITED States of America.
At any rate, to set the record straight: I do not ascribe to a "pure" race. I object vehemently to illegal immigration. I support legal immigration to the hilt. However, I do believe that immigrants are making a choice when they leave their native land and come here...a choice to become an American, and if that is not their choice, then they need to stay in their country of origin and try to make it more America-like...it seems like that is what they REALLY want.
I love my country, I love her mixed heritage and I love my own mixed heritage. I really, really don't see what the problem is with that. Black, white, red, yellow, polka-dotted or chartreuse....we are all Americans, and that should be the thread that binds us together. Therein lies our strength.
I will now officially stop beating this poor dead horse. :) Have a good day, my fellow Americans, every last one of you. :)
It could be a joke, but I do trust Huffingtonpost. It is also posted on other parts of the net. For him to do so (pardon Bin Laden), probably means nothing to anyone except "Bush" since Bin Laden has not been captured and is not a U.S. citizen. You can search it yourself and form your own opinion: "Bush Pardon's Osama Bin Laden" or you can copy and paste the link below.
I don't put anything past Bush and nothing he does surprises me. I'm embarassed that I voted for him. After stating that he gets a "briefing" every day, on Larry King when asked, if we ever came close to capturing Bin Laden, his reply was "I don't know......I really don't know." First of all, you should know, and if you don't know, you don't say I don't know. You can discuss the gallant attempts by our military to capture him, the sacrifice they gave of themselves to capture him, etc. LAME DUCK -- BYE!!
and murdered him justifies himself by saying it was not a murder; it was a justified killing....... Our liberal media has been so hush hush about the murder of this solider, maybe they think they same thing!! They sure have talked about the baby murderer's murder til I'm sick to death of hearing it!!!
Too bad Obama thought discussing the tiller murder was more important than mentioning a soldier's murder in THIS country due to a sicko islamic convert within our own country.... speaks volumes to me...
and murdered him justifies himself by saying it was not a murder; it was a justified killing....... Our liberal media has been so hush hush about the murder of this solider, maybe they think they same thing!! They sure have talked about the baby murderer's murder til I'm sick to death of hearing it!!!
Too bad Obama thought discussing the tiller murder was more important than mentioning a soldier's murder in THIS country due to a sicko islamic convert within our own country.... speaks volumes to me...
King funeral--just another money shot for politicians
and opportunity for all politicians involved to bloviate ad nauseum. The whole thing went on forever. Reminds me of the old Appalachian mountain funerals where there were five or six preachers and each one had to see who could out preach the other.
Everybody had to get their money shot (especially Clinton and Carter) and to me it was sad to see a bunch of politicans and so-called religious leaders take advantage a good woman's funeral just to make their political hay.
One was killed while going for his gun after being shot at. The gun was so high powered, it severed his hand. He was married and a father. I don't think Wounded Knee is anything to be proud of.
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.
Ireland: I wanted to slap him
George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman’s White House interview that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE journalist explains why the president made her blood boil
With just minutes to go to my interview with George W Bush, I was escorted to the White House library, where a staff member gave instructions on how to greet the president: “He’ll be coming in the door behind you, just stand up, turn around and extend your hand.”
I placed my notes on the coffee table, someone attached a microphone to my lapel, and I waited. The two chairs by the fireplace where the president and I would sit were at least six feet apart; clearly I would not be getting too close to him.
*
The room was well-lit, providing the kind of warm background conducive to a fireside chat. Several people had crowded in behind me. I counted five members of the White House film crew, there was a stenographer sitting in the corner and three or four security staff. I was still counting them when someone spoke. “He’s coming.”
I stood up, turned around to face the door and seconds later the president strode towards me. Bush appeared shorter than on camera and he looked stern and rather grey that day.
“Thanks for comin’, Mr President” I said, sticking out my hand. I had borrowed this greeting directly from him. When Bush made a speech at a rally or town hall, he always began by saying “Thanks for comin’” in his man-of-the-people manner. If he detected the humour in my greeting, he didn’t let on. He took my hand with a firm grip and, bringing his face right up close to mine, stared me straight in the eyes for several seconds, as though drinking in every detail of my face. He sat down and an aide attached a microphone to his jacket.
Nobody said a word. “We don’t address the president unless he speaks first,” a member of the film crew had told me earlier. The resulting silence seemed odd and discomforting, so I broke it. “How has your day been, Mr President?” Without looking up at me, he continued to straighten his tie and replied in a strong Texan drawl, “Very busy.”
This was followed by an even more disconcerting silence that, compounded by the six feet separating us, made it difficult to establish any rapport.
“Will Mrs Bush be seeing any of our beautiful country?” I tried again, attempting to warm things up by adding that I had heard that the taoiseach would be keeping him too busy for sightseeing on his forthcoming trip to Ireland.
“He’s putting me to work, is he? Have you not interviewed Laura?” “No, I haven’t met your wife.” I suggested that he put in a good word for me. He chuckled. By now he seemed settled and the crew looked ready, but still nobody spoke. I was beginning to worry that the clock may have already started on my 10 minutes.
“Are we all ready to go then?” I asked, looking around the room. The next voice I heard was the president’s. “I think we have a spunky one here,” he said, to nobody in particular.
MC, a White House press officer whom I’ve decided not to identify, had phoned me three days earlier to say that President Bush would do an interview with RTE. “Good news,” she had said. “It goes this Thursday at 4.20pm. You will have 10 minutes with the president and Turkish television will talk to him just before you.”
My initial excitement was dampened only by the timing, much later than I had hoped. The interview would take place just three hours before I was to fly back to Ireland to cover his arrival at the EU summit at Dromoland Castle in Clare and just 15 minutes before the start of RTE’s Prime Time programme on which the interview would be broadcast. It would be practically impossible to have the president on air in time for this.
“That’s fabulous,” I gushed, “but is there any way I could go before the Turks?” I had previously explained about the Prime Time programme, so MC knew the situation. “I’ll look into it,” she offered.
The interview sounded like quite a production. We wouldn’t be able to just saunter in there with a camera. It would be filmed by a White House crew, which would then hand over the tapes to me to be copied and returned the same day.
MC asked me for a list of questions and topics, which she said was required for policy purposes in case I should want to ask something that the president needed to be briefed on. The request did not seem odd to me then. The drill had been exactly the same for an interview I had conducted six months earlier with the then secretary of state, Colin Powell.
“What would you ask the president of the United States?” I enquired of everyone I met in the following days. Ideas had already been scribbled on scattered notepads in my bedroom, on scraps of paper in my handbag and on my desk, but once the date was confirmed, I mined suggestions from my peers in RTE and from foreign policy analysts. I grilled my friends in Washington and even pestered cab drivers. After turning everything over in my head, I settled on a list of 10 questions.
Securing a time swap with Turkish television ensured that I saw the president 10 minutes earlier, but there was still less than half an hour to bring the taped interview to the production place four blocks away in time for Prime Time.
Still, with the arrangements starting to fall into place, the sense of chaos receded and I returned to the questions, which by now were perpetually dancing around my head, even in my sleep. Reporters often begin a big interview by asking a soft question — to let the subject warm up before getting into the substance of the topic at hand. This was how I had initially intended to begin with Bush, but as I mentally rehearsed the likely scenario, I felt that too much time could be consumed by his first probable answer, praising Ireland and looking forward to his visit. We could, I had calculated, be into the third minute before even getting to the controversial topics. I decided to ditch the cordial introduction.The majority of the Irish public, as far as I could tell, was angry with Bush and did not want to hear a cosy fireside chat in the middle of the most disputed war since Vietnam. Instead of the kid-glove start, I would get down to business.
*
On Thursday June 24, Washington DC was bathed in a moist 90-degree heat, the type that makes you perspire all over after you have walked only two blocks. Stephanie and I arrived at the northwest gate of the White House that afternoon, and were directed to the Old Executive Office building, Vice President Dick Cheney’s headquarters, and were introduced to MC, whom I had spoken to only by phone. An elegant and confident woman, she was the cut of CJ, the feisty White House press secretary on The West Wing television drama.
A younger male sidekick named Colby stood close by nodding at everything she said and interjecting with a few comments of his own every now and then. Colby suggested that I ask the president about the yellow suit the taoiseach had worn the previous week at the G8 Summit on Sea Island in Georgia. I laughed loudly and then stopped to study his face for signs that he was joking — but he didn’t appear to be. “The president has a good comment on that,” he said.
The taoiseach’s suit had been a shade of cream, according to the Irish embassy. But alongside the other more conservatively dressed leaders, it had appeared as a bright yellow, leaving our Bertie looking more like the lead singer in a band than the official representative of the European Union. It was amusing at the time, but I was not about to raise a yellow suit with the president. “Really?” I asked politely. But a little red flag went up inside my head.
Then MC announced that she had some news for me. “There may be another interview in the pipeline for you,” she said.
“Me?”
“We’re not supposed to tell you this yet, but we are trying to set up an interview with the first lady.”
She indicated that the White House had already been in contact with RTE to make arrangements for the interview at Dromoland Castle, where the president and Mrs Bush would be staying. As an admirer of Laura Bush’s cool grace and sharp intellect, I had requested interviews with her several times previously without any reply. Now the first lady of the United States was being handed to me on a plate. I could not believe my luck.
“Of course, it’s not certain yet,” MC added. And then her sidekick dropped his second bombshell. “We’ll see how you get on with the president first.”
I’m sure I continued smiling, but I was stunned. What I understood from this was that if I pleased the White House with my questioning of the president, I would get to interview the first lady. Were they trying to ensure a soft ride for the president, or was I the new flavour of the month with the first family?
“I’m going to give the president his final briefing. Are there any further questions you want to pass on to him?” MC asked.
“No,” I said, “just tell him I want to chat.”
Stephanie and I locked eyes and headed for the ladies’ powder room, where we prayed.
Mr President,” I began. “You will arrive in Ireland in less than 24 hours’ time. While our political leaders will welcome you, unfortunately the majority of our people will not. They are annoyed about the war in Iraq and about Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?”
The president was reclining in his seat and had a half-smile on his face, a smile I had often seen when he had to deal with something he would rather not.
“Listen. I hope the Irish people understand the great values of our country. And if they think that a few soldiers represent the entirety of America, they don’t really understand America then . . . We are a compassionate country. We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves. But we help people. And we’ve helped the Irish and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got a good relationship with Ireland.”
“And they are angry over Iraq as well and particularly the continuing death toll there,” I added, moving him on to the war that had claimed 100 Iraqi lives that very day. He continued to smile, but just barely.
“Well, I can understand that. People don’t like war. But what they should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there that had destroyed lives and put them in mass graves and torture rooms . . . Look, Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, against the neighbourhood. He was a brutal dictator who posed a threat that the United Nations voted unanimously to say, Mr Saddam Hussein . . .”
Having noted the tone of my questions, the president had now sat forward in his chair and had become animated, gesturing with his hands for emphasis. But as I listened to the history of Saddam Hussein and the weapons inspectors and the UN resolutions, my heart was sinking. He was resorting to the type of meandering stock answer I had heard scores of times and had hoped to avoid. Going back over this old ground could take two or three minutes and allow him to keep talking without dealing with the current state of the war. It was a filibuster of sorts. If I didn’t challenge him, the interview would be a wasted opportunity.
“But, Mr President, you didn’t find any weapons,” I interjected.
“Let me finish, let me finish. May I finish?”
With his hand raised, he requested that I stop speaking. He paused and looked me straight in the eye to make sure I had got the message. He wanted to continue, so I backed off and he went on. “The United Nations said, ‘Disarm or face serious consequences’. That’s what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn’t disarm. He didn’t disclose his arms. And therefore he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons . . .”
I was now beginning to feel shut out of this event. He had the floor and he wasn’t letting me dance. My blood was boiling to such a point that I felt like slapping him. But I was dealing with the president of the United States; and he was too far away anyway. I suppose I had been naive to think that he was making himself available to me so I could spar with him or plumb the depths of his thought processes. Sitting there, I knew that I was nobody special and that this was just another opportunity for the president to repeat his mantra. He seemed irked to be faced with someone who wasn’t nodding gravely at him as he was speaking.
“But Mr President,” I interrupted again, “the world is a more dangerous place today. I don’t know whether you can see that or not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There are terrorist bombings every single day. It’s now a daily event. It wasn’t like that two years ago.”
“What was it like on September 11 2001? It was a . . . there was relative calm, we . . .”
“But it’s your response to Iraq that’s considered . . .”
“Let me finish. Let me finish. Please. You ask the questions and I’ll answer them, if you don’t mind.”
His hand was raised again as if to indicate that he was not going to tolerate this. Again, I felt I had no choice but to keep quiet.
“On September 11 2001, we were attacked in an unprovoked fashion. Everybody thought the world was calm. There have been bombings since then — not because of my response to Iraq. There were bombings in Madrid, there were bombings in Istanbul. There were bombings in Bali. There were killings in Pakistan.”
He seemed to be finished, so I took a deep breath and tried once again. So far, facial expressions were defining this interview as much as anything that was said, so I focused on looking as if I was genuinely trying to fathom him.
“Indeed, Mr President, and I think Irish people understand that. But I think there is a feeling that the world has become a more dangerous place because you have taken the focus off Al-Qaeda and diverted into Iraq. Do you not see that the world is a more dangerous place? I saw four of your soldiers lying dead on the television the other day, a picture of four soldiers just lying there without their flak jackets.”
“Listen, nobody cares more about death than I do . . .”
“Is there a point or place . . .”
“Let me finish. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind.”
By now he was getting used to the rhythm of this interview and didn’t seem quite so taken aback by my attempt to take control of it. “Nobody cares more about death than I do. I care a lot about it. But I do believe the world is a safer place and becoming a safer place. I know that a free Iraq is going to be a necessary part of changing the world.”
The president seemed to be talking more openly now and from the heart rather than from a script. The history lesson on Saddam was over. “Listen, people join terrorist organisations because there’s no hope and there’s no chance to raise their families in a peaceful world where there is not freedom. And so the idea is to promote freedom and at the same time protect our security. And I do believe the world is becoming a better place, absolutely.”
I could not tell how much time had elapsed, maybe five or six minutes, so I moved quickly on to the question I most wanted to ask George Bush in person.
“Mr President, you are a man who has a great faith in God. I’ve heard you say many times that you strive to serve somebody greater than yourself.”
“Right.”
“Do you believe that the hand of God is guiding you in this war on terror?”
This question had been on my mind ever since September 11, when Bush began to invoke God in his speeches. He spoke as if he believed that his job of stewarding America through the attacks and beyond was somehow preordained, that he had been chosen for this role. He closed his eyes as he began to answer.
“Listen, I think that God . . . that my relationship with God is a very personal relationship. And I turn to the Good Lord for strength. I turn to the Good Lord for guidance. I turn to the Good Lord for forgiveness. But the God I know is not one that . . . the God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom. But I get great sustenance from my personal relationship.”
He sat forward again. “That doesn’t make me think I’m a better person than you are, by the way. Because one of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, ‘Don’t try to take a speck out of your eye if I’ve got a log in my own’.”
I suspected that he was also telling me that I should not judge him.
I switched to Ireland again and to the controversy then raging over the Irish government’s decision to allow the use of Shannon Airport for the transport of soldiers and weapons to the Gulf.
“You are going to meet Bertie Ahern when you arrive at Shannon Airport tomorrow. I guess he went out on a limb for you, presumably because of the great friendship between our two countries. Can you look him in the eye when you get there and say, ‘It will be worth it, it will work out’?”
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be doing this, I wouldn’t have made the decision I did if I didn’t think the world would be better.”
I felt that the President had now become personally involved in this interview, even quoting a Bible passage, so I made one more stab at trying to get inside his head.
“Why is it that others don’t understand what you are about?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. History will judge what I’m about.”
I could not remember my next question. My mind had gone completely blank. The president had not removed me from his gaze since we had begun and I wanted to keep up the eye contact.
If I diverted to my notes on the table beside me, he would know he had flustered me. For what seemed like an eternity, but probably no more than two seconds, I stared at him, searching his eyes for inspiration. It finally came.
“Can I just turn to the Middle East?”
“Sure.”
He talked about his personal commitment to solving that conflict. As he did so, I could see one of the White House crew signalling for me to wrap up the interview, but the president was in full flight.
“Like Iraq, the Palestinian and the Israeli issue is going to require good security measures,” he said.
Now out of time, I was fully aware that another question was pushing it, but I would never be here again and I had spent four years covering an administration that appeared to favour Israel at every turn.
“And perhaps a bit more even-handedness from America?” I asked, though it came out more as a comment.
The president did not see the look of horror on the faces of his staff as he began to defend his stance. “I’m the first president to have called for a Palestinian state. That to me sounds like a reasonable and balanced approach. I will not allow terrorists determine the fate, as best I can, of people who want to be free.”
Hands were signalling furiously now for me to end the interview.
“Mr President, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, still half-smiling and half-frowning.
It was over. I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same colour as my suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some important issues — probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.
I was removing my microphone when he addressed me.
“Is that how you do it in Ireland — interrupting people all the time?”
I froze. He was not happy with me and was letting me know it.
“Yes,” I stuttered, determined to maintain my own half-smile.
I was aching to get out of there for a breath of air when I remembered that I had earlier discussed with staff the possibility of having my picture taken with the president. I had been told that, when the interview was over, I could stand up with him and the White House photographer would snap a picture. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I stood up and asked him to join me.
“Oh, she wants the photograph now,” he said from his still-seated position. He rose, stood beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. Taking his cue, I put an arm up around his shoulder and we both grinned for the cameras.
In my haste to leave I almost forgot the tapes and had to be reminded by the film crew to take them. I and my assistants bolted out to the street. We ran, high heels and all, across Lafayette Park. Running through rush-hour traffic, I thought that this had to be about as crazy as a journalist’s job gets.
I had just been admonished by the president of the United States and now I was turning cartwheels in order to get the interview on air. As I dashed past a waste bin, I had a fleeting urge to throw in the tapes and run home instead.
At the studio I handed over the tapes. My phone rang. It was MC, and her voice was cold.
“We just want to say how disappointed we are in the way you conducted the interview,” she said.
“How is that?” I asked.
“You talked over the president, not letting him finish his answers.”
“Oh, I was just moving him on,” I said, explaining that I wanted some new insight from him, not two-year-old answers.
“He did give you plenty of new stuff.”
She estimated that I had interrupted the president eight times and added that I had upset him. I was upset too, I told her. The line started to break up; I was in a basement with a bad phone signal. I took her number and agreed to call her back. I dialled the White House number and she was on the line again.
“I’m here with Colby,” she indicated.
“Right.”
“You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,” she began.
I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming. I had naively believed the American president was referred to as the “leader of the free world” only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by outsiders, and not among his closest staff.
“You were more vicious than any of the White House press corps or even some of them up on Capitol Hill . . .The president leads the interview,” she said.
“I don’t agree,” I replied, my initial worry now turning to frustration. “It’s the journalist’s job to lead the interview.”
It was suggested that perhaps I could edit the tapes to take out the interruptions, but I made it clear that this would not be possible.
As the conversation progressed, I learnt that I might find it difficult to secure further co-operation from the White House. A man’s voice then came on the line. Colby, I assumed. “And, it goes without saying, you can forget about the interview with Laura Bush.”
Clearly the White House had thought they would be dealing with an Irish “colleen” bowled over by the opportunity to interview the Bushes. If anyone there had done their research on RTE’s interviewing techniques, they might have known better.
MC also indicated that she would be contacting the Irish Embassy in Washington — in other words, an official complaint from Washington to Dublin.
“I don’t know how we are going to repair this relationship, but have a safe trip back to Ireland,” MC concluded. I told her I had not meant to upset her since she had been more than helpful to me. The conversation ended.
By the time I got to the control room, the Prime Time broadcast had just started. It was at the point of the first confrontation with the “leader of the free world” and those gathered around the monitors were glued to it. “Well done,” someone said. “This is great.”
I thought about the interview again as I climbed up the steps to RTE’s live camera position at Dromoland Castle to account for myself on the 6pm news next day. By now the White House had vented its anger to the Irish embassy in Washington. To make matters worse for the administration, the interview had made its way onto American television and CNN was replaying it around the world and by the end of the day it had been aired in Baghdad.
Had I been fair? Should I just have been more deferential to George Bush? I felt that I had simply done my job and shuddered at the thought of the backlash I would surely have faced in Ireland had I not challenged the president on matters that had changed the way America was viewed around the world.
Afterwards I bumped straight into the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who was waiting to go on air.
“Howya,” he said, winking.
“I hope this hasn’t caused you too much hassle, taoiseach,” I blurted.
“Arrah, don’t worry at all; you haven’t caused me one bit of hassle,” he smiled wryly.
I don’t know what he said to the president, who reportedly referred to the interview immediately upon arrival, but if the taoiseach was annoyed with me or with RTE, he didn’t show it.
When I returned to my little world on the street called M in Washington, I felt a tad more conspicuous than when I’d left for Ireland. Google was returning more than 100,000 results on the subject of the 12-minute interview. The vast majority of bloggers felt it was time a reporter had challenged Bush.
At the White House, the fact that I had been asked to submit questions prior to the interview generated enquiries from the American press corps. “Any time a reporter sits down with the president they are welcome to ask him whatever questions they want to ask,” Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told the CBS correspondent Bill Plante.
“Yes, but that’s beside the point,” replied Plante.
Under repeated questioning, McClellan conceded that other staff members might have asked for questions. “Certainly there will be staff-level discussion, talking about what issues reporters may want to bring up in some of these interviews. I mean that happens all the time.”
I had not been prevented from asking any of my questions. The only topics I had been warned away from were the Bush daughters Jenna and Barbara, regular fodder for the tabloids, and Michael Moore — neither of which was on my list.
Moore did notice RTE’s interview with the president and in the weeks that followed urged American journalists to follow the example of “that Irish woman”.
“In the end, doesn’t it always take the Irish to speak up?” he said. “She’s my hero. Where are the Carole Colemans in the US press?”
This article is extracted from the opening chapter of Alleluia America! by Carole Coleman, to be published by The Liffey Press on October 14 at €14.95.
Okay, as long as....SM
you don't mind you, your loved ones, or someone else's loved ones to be killed BEFORE we take action, we can sit around and see who attacks us next. But then of course, if Saddam had ordered an attack, or slipped the goods to someone to carry that attack out, you would have blamed Bush for not acting on all that intelligence we had before the war. You simply cannot have it both ways. In light of the fact that 3000 people perished in a couple of hours, I'm not afraid to stand behind a president brave enough to stand up to any threat.
What took them so long????
I heard the 34% was down to 29% for Bush and 18% for Cheney. It has taken this complete break down of our government for people to finally see what most of us have known all along. BUSH IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE ROTARY CLUB, LET ALONE THE U.S. The words incompetence and tin ear and arrogance are now coming out of the mouths of the staunchest of Republicans, senators, congressmen, strategists, advisors, etc. And the outright lies are finally coming to light, thanks to videotape. Of course we only have the pre Katrina tape but it shows those who absolutely refused to entertain the thought that his president was anything than honorable is, in fact, just a greedy arrogant politician like so many others. As I said before, time to storm the Bastille and throw them out, the whole sorry lot of them or we can always sell the country to the UAE. They would probably do a better job of running it than this poor excuse for an administration. As Isabel from Florida said on Lou Dobbs the other day, I could run this country better from my kitchen table. I believe her.
that is a long
string of words that is so illogical I just slap my rump and shout hallelujah. Not much more can be done other than that.
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