The largest terrorist attack on US soil happened on George Bush's watch. He has done nothing positive during the past 8 years. He has created wars that have killed and maimed thousands and thousands of innocent people in countries in which we had no business being, and he is leaving the United States in financial shambles.
Don't let the screen door hit you on the way out Georgie Porgie! Good riddance!
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Other related messages found in our database President Bush
Surely you don't mean that. I think in years to come we will be sorry we thought such thoughts. Time will tell, maybe long after he is president. Will we apologize for attacking him or will we try and justify why we thought the way we did. He is a good president. Like the rest of us, he is not perfect. He is faithful to his family, and that should speak volumes.
Bush as president, OMG
I hear ya, Lurker. When Bush first ran, I warned friends, this guy will ruin America, he is a dummy. Well, he got into office..I dont believe legally..I truly believe the vote was fixed. I have read the conclusion by the University of Chicago which did a recount and Gore would have gotten in..But,. however, we had the Supreme Court Five who decided all of our fates..Anyway, when Bush was running once again, I could not believe it..I warned my friends, family, anyone I could speak to..do not vote this guy in..He will destroy America and the world..Now, Im sitting here, three years to go with Bush and Im watching it come to reality..I fear what the next three years have to hold..God help us all.
I agree. Thank you, President Bush.
nm
thank Obama? He isn't the President.Thank Mr. Bush. NM
x
Bush is President. Obama is not (yet).
Very disrepectful to treat him like this. Like I say come 01/20/09 Obama can have at the cameras all he wants 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But to come out and act as though he is already president is very disrespectful.
Thank you President Bush for protecting and
nm
I agree. Thank you President Bush.
I'm sorry that these other people will not allow you your tribute, but I will, and agree, wholeheartedly, and without reserve, especially on this issue.
I may not agree with some of the things that have occurred over the past eight years, but it is a fact. He has kept us safe since 9/11, and has been ever vigilante on his watch, with his policies he has put in place for the safety of our country, here at home.
Thank you, Mr. President. God bless you and yours.
President Bush owes me no apology.
He has my profound gratitude for keeping us safe since 9/11. Nuff said.
No matter how you feel about President Bush, he at least
deserves respect. These crappy posts calling him all sorts of names, slurs, etc. is unbecoming of an American citizen. Is this just because you're democrats or just because you have no couth?
Bush is not running for president...nice try.
As far as JOhn McCain's birthday...is there some law or moral wrong to eating cake on your birthday? Where was Obama when katrina hit? What was he eating?
First, Ray Nagin refused to make evacuation mandatory until a full 24 hours after he was asked to do so. He is the first line of defense for his city. He dropped the ball. I don't see you ragging him here. Second, the President expected FEMA to do its job. Just like Barack Obama would have done.
However...this is a nonissue. George Bush is not running.
Again...John McCain's birthday, and yes, he was eating cake. I want to know where Obama was, and what he was eating.
Neither President Bush or the VP are attending the convention....
Laura Bush will be representing him. I think there will be some kind of satellite link thing from him. I am sure this was expected by most of us. It is in doubt whether John McCain will. He and Sarah Palin are going to Mississippi today at the request of Gov. Haley Barbour to look at their MEMA plans and procedures.
Throwing Shoes at President Bush
I just saw a story on Headline News Network about the shoe-throwing incident, and they said the people of Iraq are divided on how they feel about it, but nobody feels it was wrong, half of them think it was the right thing to do and half think it was an embarrassment but not necessarily the wrong thing to do.
so if they feel that way, let's bring our precious sons and daughters home, and never go back. Our finances are in crisis, we can't afford to be spending billions where we're not wanted. What's the point of being there and spending all this money we could be using in much better ways. Why keep risking the lives of our troops for people who don't appreciate it at all? I'm no political genius, far from it, but plain old common sense says this is just wrong!
President Bush's strength of character.....sm
was tested this weekend, when two shoes were hurled at his head in fast succession, while the owner of said shoes, (size 10, by the way, per our prez), had hoped they would hit him, not to mention embarass with the intended podiatric insult.
However, President Bush showed great strength of character in the aftermath of said attack, calling off the secret service, and making light of the matter.
Somebody has to pay for 9/11. Somebody has to pay for the USS Cole. The right people are locked up. Excuse me for not crying about their civil rights or worrying about how they are interrogated. National security is why President Bush locked those terrorists up, national security and justice.
And I do have a grip -- a firm grip on reality. I don't live in Obama-land.
Trying to rehab the terrorists who haven't killed yet and releasing them is better than just letting them all go and dropping charges against the ones who have murdered.
And obviously Bush made his point -- you can't rehab terrorists, you can't reason with them, you can't make peace with them.
I'm surprised Dubya didn't attend this since he recently told Larry King that Lay was such a *good guy.*
Friends remember Lay at memorial service
By KRISTEN HAYS, AP Business WriterWed Jul 12, 7:17 PM ET
Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay was a high-powered businessman, philanthropist and family man who didn't succumb to despair despite the scandal that destroyed his company and left him a vilified felon, friends and family members said at a memorial service Wednesday where mourners included former President George Bush.
Lay's 90-minute service drew some of the high-profile guests who were close to him before he was convicted in May of fraud and conspiracy for lying to investors and the public about the energy company's financial health. Enron collapsed in late 2001.
Neither the Bushes nor former Secretary of State James Baker III, Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr. and noted heart surgeon Denton Cooley spoke. The Bushes sat directly behind Lay's wife, Linda.
Instead, Lay's family and friends sought to show a kinder view of him than had been seen publicly since the company's collapse. Some expressed bitterness over their — and Lay's — steadfast belief that he was wrongly convicted in one of the biggest corporate frauds in history.
I am angry because of the way he was treated in the last five years of his life, and I think I'll leave it there, leave it at that, said Lay's stepson, David Herrold, who attended much of the four-month trial.
I am glad he's not in a position anymore to be whipped by his enemy, Herrold said to the hundreds in attendance at Houston's First United Methodist Church, which Lay attended for 12 years.
His mother, Linda Lay, dabbed tears with a handkerchief.
Lay died of heart disease July 5 in Aspen, Colo., where he was vacationing with his wife. About 200 friends and family, including his co-defendant, former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling, attended a small memorial service there on Sunday.
But Skilling decided not to attend Wednesday's service because of heavy media coverage, said his attorney, Daniel Petrocelli. His wife, former Enron corporate secretary Rebecca Carter, attended both services.
As guests entered the sanctuary, they passed a framed photo of a smiling Lay wearing a red Enron T-shirt, blue athletic shorts and gym shoes. Two large bouquets of sunflowers sat on either side of the pulpit, while two burning candles sat on each side of an open Bible in the center.
The Rev. Bill Lawson, prominent pastor of the African-American Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston, said the Lay he knew wasn't the target of late-night TV jokes or a pariah. Lawson called Lay a victim of a lynching and praised mourners for staying friends with him through the scandal.
The folks who don't like him have had their say. I'd like to have mine and I don't care what you think about it, he said, eliciting brief applause. Now his grandchildren won't ask, `Why is Papia in jail?' No more persecution. That is behind him, Lawson said.
Lawson evoked leaders who he said were vilified in life but vindicated by history, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Minutes before Wednesday's service began, shrieks pierced the sanctuary as Lay friend and former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, 81, collapsed in an aisle. Carter and Lawson comforted Lanier's distraught wife, Elyse, before paramedics whisked him to a hospital, where was in stable condition with an irregular heartbeat.
Lay and Skilling were the faces of Enron throughout the company's meteoric rise from a stodgy pipeline company to a powerhouse energy trader.
Their reputations shattered alongside the company as their images switched from business visionaries to perpetrators of fraud that fueled a spectacular crash that evaporated $60 billion in market value and left thousands jobless.
A jury convicted Lay of six counts of fraud and conspiracy and Skilling of 19 of 28 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors. Lay also was convicted of bank fraud and lying to banks in a separate, non-jury trial related to his personal banking.
Lay died awaiting their Oct. 23 sentencing, and his lawyers are expected to ask a judge to erase his conviction because his death left his case unfinished. Skilling still faces sentencing on that date and could be ordered to serve decades in prison.
Beau Herrold, another Lay stepson who manages the family's finances, read from a letter he had begun writing to U.S. District Judge Sim Lake that he intended to deliver before Lay's sentencing.
In the letter, he described Lay as a devoted husband, father, grandfather and brother who always found a way to make time for family. Lay is survived by his wife, children, two sisters and 12 grandchildren.
___
Associated Press photographers David Phillip and Pat Sullivan, viedographer Rich Matthews and writer Chris Duncan contributed to this report.
I would be interested in hearing that. One quote from the article:
The debate should be uncensored in order for the American people to be able to listen to what we say and they should not restrict the American people from hearing the truth.
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- As he headed for the Gulf Coast on Monday, U.S. President George Bush told an interviewer he expects the rebuilding of New Orleans to take a decade.
Bush planned to spend the anniversary of the U.S. Gulf Coast landfall of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans after a visit to Biloxi, Miss. It was his 13th visit to the devastated area.
We can rebuild buildings, the question is can we rebuild its soul, he told April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks. We can. I believe, 10 years from now April, you and I will be thinking about our time here, and trying to remember what it was like 10 years ago
Bush came under fire last year for apparently ignoring Katrina immediately after New Orleans flooded and then flying over the city in Air Force One.
Later White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said she wasn't aware of a specific time period but that the president has said all along that it would take more than a year to rebuild New Orleans.
In terms of like, 10 years, I don't know about exact time frame, but it's certainly going to take several years, Perrino said.
If customary deference to a sitting president by president elect
for the rest of us who understand such concepts as respect and traditional protocol, it would qualify as a darned good reason.
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.
And what happened to SPREADING DEMOCRACY (like margarine?) in Iraq? Chalabi just appointed the head Taliban judge to office in Iraq, the one who outlawed female education in Afghanistan and sponsored public executions for not wearing burkhas. Is that what we promised the Iraqi people? The whole thing is a huge mess. All the billions and billions Congress authorized for rebuilding Iraq went into Halliburton and other crony pockets and the job was never done. We can't train more Iraqi police units because as soon as we give them guns and tanks they use them on our soldiers. That's why Bush can't tell the truth about how that's going, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to fudge the numbers.
Sadly, Bush won't take any help even if it's offered - not in his game plan apparently.
Someone who knows what the different races are about, understands, and embraces heritages of all backgrounds.
Someone who can meet with our enemies to try and stop the violence and come to agreements.
Someone who is intelligent.
Someone who isn't married to "bad baggage" that will disgrace our white house.
Someone who isn't a war mongerer or voted for the war.
Someone who is truthful to the American people and not deceiptful (sp?) trying to hide things they have done.
Someone who doesn't think they should just be annointed to the white house but actually needs to "earn" the publics vote.
Someone who doesn't believe they should win just because they are from a certain race or gender.
Someone who is calm under fire, can think and act with a clear mind, and doesn't lash out, spew racial or ethnic slurs.
Someone who wants a better country for all people and not just themselves and their close friends and family.
Someone who is relatively "new" to Washington and not the same ol "stuff".
Someone who is working towards our future and not living or trying to live in the past.
Comment: Who cares that people Obama knows (but clearly doesn't share the same viewpoint of which he has had to say over and over and over and over) throws out biggoted or hateful things. You have them on all sides. Hillary's got her people (Ferraro and others) coming out with biggoted and hateful statements and you've got John McCain's people (Cunningham and others) coming out with their biggoted and hateful statements and they too have had to distance themselves. Unfortunately they die away quickly but Obama has to keep repeating himself on the same story. I have a good relationship with my minister, but it doesn't mean I agree with everything he says and if he said terrible things just because I have a good relationship with him doesn't mean I agree with him. - Just get tired of Obama having to repeat the same things over and over. Kind of reminds me of the line in a movie I heard once. "I don't know how many different ways I can tell you the same story." - and - "Have IQ's just dropped sharply since I've been away".
It's true we are not going to be able to change a true biggot. Some people will just not vote for him because he's part black, just like some other people will also not vote for Hillary because she's a woman. I just hope there are enough good Americans to overcome that and do the right thing (at least what I believe is the right thing). But it is getting tiring listening to the opponents stir up a bunch of hateful things trying to get the people to vote against him and time and time again I read this board and will read the same comments over and over "did you hear what Obama's minister said". It's like listening to a broken record and I always think - they're not actually bring this up again???
I believe our country needs a lot of healing. We've got a long way to go on the racial issues/hatred towards one race or another. We've got to try to make amends with the people who we fear and call our enemies, when in fact the people we should be fearing is our own government. We've put years and years into believing our government is going to be truthful with us, but when you have a VP who says "so" when he is told that 2/3 of Americans don't believe in the war and feel we should have not gone to war (DH and I sat with our mouths open), those are the people I consider terro**rists by putting fear in the American people's mind where there should be no fear.
So for that and all the reasons I listed above that is why I'm voting for Obama.
He is NOT my president ...
I didn't vote for him .. Another thing, I will NOT vote for McBush (errr ... McCain). I was a Hilary fan all the way until she couldn't get the nomination .. now I'll switch gears to Obama. Frankly, I think I would could do a better job than Bush .. at least I'd use my common sense!! This is who we want for President?
When you look at this video (link below), I promise you
> will NOT BELIEVE your eyes and ears. Take a look at the You
> Tube link below and pass it on. This is a view of John
> McCain that you probably won't see on the Network news.
Probably for the best. Once someone becomes President,
it seems like even if they are an excellent choice, they have to use far too much of their time, skill and energy just defending themselves from the other side. No one ever really wins, least of all, US.
Either way, the next president is
only in for one term. McCain will simply be too old and by then health will be a major factor. Obama, on the other hand, simply will not be able to come through with all of his promises due to the current situation with our economy. I do believe if he is elected that many who voted for him will see him for what he truly is, an inexperienced leader who has no clue. His strings are pulled by the extreme left. Either way, we are in for a rough 4 years.
next president
The question is not what the next president HAS done, the question is what he WILL do.
That's if he becomes president. He can't
veto anything as a senator. That's the prez's job.
I did nto say he should not have run for president. I said...
that all the fuel skinheads need (which I am not one of--my hair is very long) is a black man running for president. My gosh--I knew somebody would read things incorrectly. I think skin heads are horrible people. As I said, his color is not an issue for me!
He is your president too
"To those whose respect I have yet to earn." Another question might be how far to the center he will take himself. If socialism means equality and opportunity for all Americans, if it means we can now begin to heal the division that have separated us in the past and of late, if it means that American is still the place where all things are possible, if it means we rise or fall as one nation and one people, if it means this is our chance to answer our call to progress, if it means it is our time to restore prosperity and promote the call to peace, if it means we have rediscovered the fundamental truth, that out of many we are one, and if it means we have told the world we are who we say we are, then I say bring it on.
We'll just be taking this thing one step at a time. Step number one. Try a little hope in place of the fear.
He's NOT president yet
And yet here he is giving another press conference. He has no business giving any press conferences as though he is president. He is NOT president yet. Yes, he will be on January 20th but that date hasn't arrived yet. I'm sick of him sticking his face in front of the camera giving everytime he turns around. He is commenting on issues he has no business commenting on. These are for the President to talk about. Yes, I know Bush is a bumbling baboon, but he is still the president until Obama is sworn in. This guy is just plain arrogant! If this is how the next four years are going to be I hope they do go by fast.
One President.........sm
Washington, D.C. — Over the course of the last two months President-elect Barack Obama and the Presidential Transition Team (PTT) have replaced their campaign maxim, "Change We Can Believe In," with a new mantra: "We Only Have One President at a Time."
It is a slogan that has already worn out.
Obama and the PTT have used this phrase repeatedly in response to reporters' questions on the economy, federal bailouts, foreign policy, national security, the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the future of "Gitmo" and the Russian decision to shut down the delivery of natural gas to Western Europe through Ukrainian pipelines.
During this week's Oval Office photo-op with President George W. Bush and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and William Jefferson Blyth Clinton, Obama used the "one president at a time" dodge to avoid answering a reporter's hurled interrogatory about Israeli military operations in Gaza. The response from those in the lineup, and apparently most in the mainstream media, is to nod approvingly at Obama's sagacity every time they hear him say it.
The only trouble is — it simply isn't true.
While the current, former and future commanders-in-chief went off to snack and chat, Senator Joe Biden, the soon-to-be vice president of the United States, headed off to Andrews Air Force Base to commence a hastily convened, week-long "congressional fact finding mission" to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Absent from the secret itinerary divulged by Mr. Biden were other places with even more pressing problems: India — a U.S. ally still recovering from the brutal Mumbai terror attack and on the brink of attacking Pakistan. The Ukraine — a NATO applicant, threatened by interference from Moscow and this week's natural gas cutoff. And Israel — an American ally facing the threat of U.N. sanctions for acting in self defense to protect its citizens from Iranian-supplied rockets and mortars being fired from Gaza by Hamas, and which now faces attacks from Iranian-supported Hezbollah terror in Lebanon.
While the potentates of the press gush over the forthcoming "history-making inaugural," the Biden "Codel" — Washington-speak for "congressional delegation" — to select trouble-spots has made some little-noted history of its own. Unlike Obama, Biden did not surrender his Senate seat. This week, when Congress reconvened, Biden insisted on being sworn in as Delaware's senior senator and retaining his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Unlike Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Dan Quayle and AL Gore — who all ascended to vice presidency of the Unites States from the Senate and did nothing to interfere in diplomatic issues between election and inaugural — Biden is now dabbling about in the affairs of state.
Biden defends his actions by pointing to the company he is keeping on this trip: fellow Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. Earlier in the week, perhaps forgetting the post he will occupy on Jan. 20, Biden said, "I'm a still a Senate man." None of the media all-stars covering the PTT thought to ask Obama what he thought of this response. Notably, Hillary Rodham Clinton — soon to become the next secretary of state — was neither included in the CODEL nor available for comment about the propriety of such an unprecedented adventure.
None of this bodes well for the new administration or for America's interests in a very dangerous world. The situations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are certainly important. But so too are outcomes in Gaza and Lebanon, our relationship with India and the effects of an increasingly tense standoff between Russia and Ukraine. All of these places and problems matter to U.S. national security, and all are perhaps in more urgent need of attention.
Obama can't have it both ways. He cannot claim on the one hand that "we have only one president" and then dispatch his future vice president on a thinly-disguised CODEL to diddle in diplomacy without having world leaders take note of what the incoming administration considers to be important. In permitting the Biden CODEL to go forward and approving the itinerary, Obama has sent a signal — intentionally or not — to allies and adversaries alike.
From Moscow to Tehran, Caracas to Beijing, London to Delhi, in virtually every world capital, foreign leaders and their intelligence services are now making judgments about the next leader of the free world. They learned something about his wisdom, seriousness and maturity this week when he picked Leon Panetta, a man with "intelligence deficit disorder," to head the CIA. Perhaps they also had a little chuckle when he chose a TV celebrity doctor to become surgeon general to deal with bio-terrorism and possible pandemics. Hopefully the Biden CODEL trip to Southwest Asia did not lead them to conclude that Obama is not a man of his word.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478606,00.html
Maybe because THIS president knows which
He isn't trying to clean up the mess daddy left behind when he left office.
Obama is a MUCH BETTER president in 3 months than GW Bush ever was. Period.
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