Tag: George W. Bush

John 11:35

Photo: Deadspin

Thanks Philadelphia Eagles for making these two bozos happy.  Thanks a lot.

2 Comments by Rick  /  January 10, 2010  /  Posted in: Football
Tagged: , , , , ,

Who knew Obama was going to be as incompetent as Bush?

You’d think that since Barack Obama was raised in the radical Islamic jungles of Hawaii, he might know a thing or two about the people that hate us for our freedoms. Evidently he’s just as incompetent as his predecessor, George W. Bush. When al Qaeda was taking out the World Trade Center and putting a huge dent in the Pentagon, Bush was sitting in a classroom reading My Pet Goat to school kids. When al Qaeda was trying to attack us on Christmas Day with a Nigerian’s tighty-whities, Obama was vacationing in Hawaii.

That’s OK though, because Obama has a team in place that can handle crisis with or without him. For instance, the person in charge of TSA is none other than… wait… oh, that’s right. We don’t have someone in charge of TSA. Though Obama chose Errol Southers to head the Transportation Security Agency, a lone Republican Senator from South Carolina is blocking the appointment. Everyone knows that a Republican Senator is more powerful than the President of the United States, right? What’s Obama supposed to do, put pressure on this lone Republican Senator to stop blocking the appointment?

That sounds like too much work, plus that Hawaiian vacation isn’t going to take itself.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who’s only qualification for the job seems to be that she dresses like a man, spoke to CNN’s Candy Crowley two days after the Christmas Day attack and said that the one thing she wanted to point out was that the “system worked.”

Really?

The system did not work. The system failed and failed big. A Nigerian national who’s father told the U.S. State Department that his son has ties to Islamic radicals was allowed to board an airplane destined for the United States. He purchased his one-way ticket with cash. He had no luggage. He requested a seat which happened to be directly over the wings and the fuel tanks.

The only reason the attack did not take place is because Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab was evidently too stupid to light his jockey shorts correctly.

So either Secretary Janet Napolitano was lying when she said the system worked or she is just too stupid to realize that the system failed. Either reason is grounds for her immediate firing.

Maybe when Obama returns from his vacation, he will go ahead and fire her. And maybe the Baltimore Orioles will win the World Series this year.

To say I’m disappointed with Barack Obama is a huge understatement. Whether it’s health care reform or the military escalation in Afghanistan, he comes off looking like a rank amateur.

Homeland security is no different.

2 Comments by Rick  /  December 30, 2009  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Hillary Clinton: ‘We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline’

If your only problem with President Obama’s military escalation of the Afghanistan war was that you thought it included a set date for troop withdrawal, think again. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates taped an interview with David Gregory of NBC’s Meet The Press that seemed to contradict what President Obama said in his speech at West Point. From the interview:

HILLARY CLINTON: We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline. What we’re talking about is an assessment that in January 2011, we can begin a transition. A transition to hand off — responsibility to the Afghan forces.

ROBERT GATES: We’re not talking about an abrupt withdrawal. We’re talking about something that will take place over a period of time…. Our military thinks we have a real opportunity to do that. And it’s not just in the next 18 months. Because we will have a significant — we will have 100,000 forces — troops there. And they are not leaving– in July of 2011. Some handful or some small number or whatever the conditions permit, we’ll begin to withdraw at that time.

A handful? What a load of crap. And to think that I and every other American was told that a vote of John McCain was in fact a vote for George W. Bush. The idea being is that John McCain would simply continue with the Bush ideas and strategies. Well, the ironic thing is that Defense Secretary Robert Gates used to be George W. Bush’s defense secretary and he is on national TV talking about an open-ended, no deadline set war in Afghanistan.

So how is this any different?

When I voted for Barack Obama, I was looking for some Change. I thought it was time that we stopped spending so much of our money (and future money) on a massive military so that we could have the distinct privilege of waging unwindable wars in far off lands. I thought it was time to instead spend our money and resources closer to home. I thought it was time to start spending our money on things like universal health care and reusable energy.

If Barack Obama wanted to be the war president, he should have said so during the campaign.

1 Comment by Rick  /  December 6, 2009  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Dana Perino: ‘We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term’

I guess former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino has never seen one of those “Never Forget” 911 bumper stickers. Not only was there a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term, it was a fairly large one. In fact, it was the largest terror attack the world has ever seen.

I guess Fox News is trying to pin the blame for the Ft. Hood massacre on President Obama because he doesn’t understand that we are in a war on terror. If we are in fact in a war on terror, why didn’t President Bush have congress declare war on terrorism?

Terrorism is a technique. You can’t wage war against a technique.

by Rick  /  November 25, 2009  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

911 terrorists will finally stand trial

TERROR CHIEF PAKISTAN

After eight long years, some of the terrorists involved in the terror attacks of 911 will face a trial in a civilian courtroom.  From the AP (via MSNBC):

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.

I don’t understand why it took this long.  Granted, I didn’t expect Bush to do something like this, but we elected Obama over a year ago, and he was sworn into office in January.

This should have been done his first week in office.

I’ve long believed that we will never defeat terrorism militarily.  Terrorism is a technique, not a nation or a group of people.  How do you wage war against a technique?  The goal should be to hunt down and bring to justice those that engage in this awful, disgusting technique.

Ideally it should be done a lot sooner then eight years after the fact.

For the past eight years, we have fought terrorism by spending billions of dollars in invading and occupying two Muslim countries.  We’ve lost well over 5,000 service members and thousands more have been injured in this futile military pursuit.  It’s hard to say exactly if these costly military excursions and occupations have contributed to the fact that the United States has not suffered a terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, but what is quite clear is that there are more Islamic terrorists in the world today then there was on September 12.

I believe the military occupation of two Muslim countries has greatly contributed to this problem.  I believe that if you want to create more Islamic terrorists, occupy a Muslim country.

I don’t know if we will ever defeat terrorism.  It’s hard to defeat someone who engages in a technique that often results in their own death.  I do know this: terrorism will never be defeated in an epic tank battle.

Responding to terrorism with our massive military makes about as much sense as responding to North Korea invading South Korea by sending the FBI to the Korean Peninsula.  If terrorism will ever be defeated, it will be in the courtroom, not the battlefield. It will be defeated with our laws and our judicial system, not our smart bombs and our main battle tanks.

3 Comments by Rick  /  November 14, 2009  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Obama to send ‘about’ 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan

amazon_B00269QLI8Look like President Obama is going to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.  Maybe.

From CBS News:

Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.

The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.

McChrystal wanted 40,000 and the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says “that’s close to what [McChrystal] asked for.” All the president’s military advisers have recommended sending more troops.

So when does Obama become more of a “war president” than George W.  Bush?  Bush enjoyed refering to himself as the war president, but Obama already has more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than Bush did, even during the Iraq surge.

I’m not sure what the point in this is. More troops to Afghanistan isn’t going to fix anything. At the end of the day, Afghanistan will always be Afghanistan. It’s an awful place filled with awful people. Invading Afghanistan may have made sense ten years ago, back when al Qaeda used it as a training base and before the terror attacks on 9-11. Now, al Qaeda is in neighboring Pakistan.

I just don’t see the point. Military force should only be used when there is a clear, obtainable military objective to be archived. Is that possible when it comes to Afghanistan?

I think not.

1 Comment by Rick  /  November 10, 2009  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , , ,

I forgot why I stopped watching ‘Meet The Press’

When I heard that MSNBC and Air America radio host Rachel Maddow was going to make an appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press, I decided to make a point to watch it.

I stopped watching Meet The Press shortly after Tim Russert died.  It wasn’t because the host died. I just got tired of of how they allowed guests to go on the program and spew lies and half-truths without calling them on it.

I see nothing has changed.

Dick Armey repeated the old lie that MoveOn.org once ran ads that showed President George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler. It of course is not true, and Armey probably knew that. David Gregory, the show’s host, didn’t call Armey on the claim so Maddow had to.

1 Comment by Rick  /  August 17, 2009  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , , , ,

Bush considered sending U.S. troops to Buffalo

Just when I thought the Bush administration couldn’t have been worse, it turns out that it could have been worse. Much worse. According to the New York Times, Bush seriously considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo area neighborhood to apprehend the Lackawanna Six.

From the New York Times:

Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

The absurdity if all this is that there was absolutely no reason to even think of doing this. We dedicate a massive amount of our resources towards having civilian domestic law enforcement. Not only do we have civilian police at the local and state level, we have law enforcement at the federal level such as the FBI. We spend billions of dollars a year to have civilian law enforcement in this country, one of the main reasons is so that we don’t have to have our military going around the country acting as a police force.

I have to wonder, would American troops follow an order to engage in combat on U.S. soil? That’s what it would be, combat. It’s a scary prospect to think that the U.S. military could be used on American soil.

2 Comments by Rick  /  July 25, 2009  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Approved interrogation techniques

The Obama administration has released documents pertaining to the interrogation techniques methods used against suspected terrorists.  As it turns out, it looks as though the United States has in fact been torturing people.

From a May 10, 2005, Justice Department memo:

  • Dietary manipulation: Substituting liquid meal replacements for solid food.
  • Nudity: Used to cause psychological discomfort.
  • Walling: Slamming detainee into a wall.
  • Facial slap: Slapping detainee’s face with fingers slightly spread.
  • Abdominal slap: Striking the abdomen with the back of an open hand.
  • Wall standing: Forcing detainee to stand with feet spread, arms outstretched, fingers resting on the wall, not permitted to move.
  • Water dousing: Cold water is poured on detainee.
  • Sleep deprivation: Detainee is deprived of sleep for more than 48 hours.
  • Waterboarding: Pouring water over face of detainee, who is lying at an angle on his back, head lowered.

There are more memos that are just as bad, if not worse. You can read them in detail over at the ACLU.

Obama says that he has ended the use of these techniques, but our last president said that the United States does not torture people. That clearly was a lie. Personally, I’d feel a lot better about things if the Obama Justice Department went after those that approved and carried out these interrogation techniques, but Obama says he doesn’t want to do that.  He said, “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

That’s ridiculous.  Does that mean we will stop investigating all criminal acts that transpired in the past?  The last time I looked, all crime takes place in the past, even those committed by those in the CIA and the Justice Department.

Torture is wrong, even when it’s carried out against men with brown skin and funny sounding names. If our Justice Department thinks it’s acceptable to waterboard a suspected terrorist, why not just waterboard those suspected of other crimes too? Why stop at terrorism?

by Rick  /  April 18, 2009  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

That New York Post cartoon

2009-02-18-cartoon
Wednesday the New York Post ran a cartoon that featured the chimpanzee apparently dead on the ground with two police officers standing over his lifeless body. One comments to the other, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”.

This cartoon caused somewhat of an uproar in some circles. Some people evidently believed that the dead chimp was supposed to be President Barack Obama. Read the full article »

4 Comments by Rick  /  February 20, 2009  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , , ,

I am worried about Rush Limbaugh

rushI guess Rush Limbaugh sat down with Sean Hannity and the two talked about how bad things are now that we have a socialist from radical Islamic jungles of Hawaii as our president. Rush reportedly said that he hopes president Obama fails. He also made some kind of weird reference to bending over and being sodomized.

I don’t really understand the reference, but I don’t watch Fox News.

When I saw the clip on the news, I was surprised just how bad Rush Limbaugh looked. He looks unhealthy. He looks puffy and pasty. He looked much better when he was an out of control drug addict. Maybe he should go back to inhaling Oxycontin and Vicodin like it’s Pez candy. Sure, his drug addicted resulting in his loss of his hearing, but at least he looked halfway human.

He looks really bad.  This should be Rush’s golden time.  Instead of having to spend his three hours a day on the radio excusing the blunders of George W. Bush, he’s got a charasmatic black liberial president to set his sights on.

Rush needs to turn that frown upside down and maybe get a little Sun.  He lives in Florida, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his pasty face.

2 Comments by Rick  /  January 24, 2009  /  Posted in: Radio
Tagged: , , , , ,

This made me proud to be an American

Out of everything I was able to watch on TV yesterday, my favorite scene was watching George W. Bush leaving Washington D.C. for civilian life in Texas.  It’s not because of my dislike for George W. Bush.  If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’m not fan of the Bush administration.

No, what I liked about this scene was how peaceful it was.  It wasn’t just peaceful, it was actually friendly.

As president of the United States, George W. Bush was the most powerful person in the world.  Replacing him as president is a man who is about as different as him as a man can be.   Barack Obama campaigned on the promise of change.  He promised to get us out of Iraq and to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.  He promised to put an end to torture.  In other words, he’s promised to undue much of the damage George W. Bush has caused.

With all that said, George W. Bush peacefully relinquished the power of president to Barack Obama.

In some places in the world, this type of thing doesn’t always happen. I was in the Philippines when President Ferdinand Marcos refused to give up power after Cory Aquino beat him in the 1986 national elections.

It made me proud to be an American to see how smoothly the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration was carried out.

2 Comments by Rick  /  January 21, 2009  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , , ,

Alberto Gonzales claims he is a casualty of the war on terror

From the Wall Street Journal:

“What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?” he said during an interview Tuesday, offering his most extensive comments since leaving government.

During a lunch meeting two blocks from the White House, where he served under his longtime friend, President George W. Bush, Mr. Gonzales said that “for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.”

I wonder, did he wish he hadn’t said that the second after he said it? What a dork. It was only yesterday that I read that a record 151 service members were killed in the line of duty in 2008 in Afghanistan. Those people were truly casualties of the war on terror.

If he can’t find a job, its because he was an awful Attorney General. The man is lucky not to be in prison right now.

by Rick  /  January 1, 2009  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , ,

That Iraqi shoe guy

_45300796_alzeidi_ap220Evidently Muntadar al-Zaidi, the reporter that threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, is being looked upon as a hero in Iraq. Thousands of Iraqis are calling for his immediate release from Iraqi custody. His employer, Iraqi-owned TV station al-Baghdadiya, is calling for his release saying he was merely exercising his freedom of expression. By throwing his shoes at someone’s head.

I am so surprised.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I don’t have much love for George W. Bush.  I honestly think he will go down as one of the worst presidents in American history.  That doesn’t mean I like the idea of a foreign reporter throwing his shoes at Bush’s head. I think this might be the very first time that I’ve ever felt defensive for George W. Bush and for that I am quite perturbed at Mr. al-Zaidi.

How dare he do something that makes me feel for George W. Bush.

7 Comments by Rick  /  December 15, 2008  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , ,

Bush has shoes thrown at him in Iraq


President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq and he got not one, but two shoes checked at his head for his trouble. He was on stage with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki when an Iraqi reporter, Muntadar al-Zeidi, working for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Egypt took off his shoes and threw them at Bush.

I’m guessing this is not just another way of being greeted as liberators.

5 Comments by Rick  /  December 15, 2008  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , ,

Avoiding the financial apocalypse

I’ll be perfectly honest and admit that there is a lot about the federal financial bailout plan that I just don’t understand. The way I understand it is that unless Congress does everything President Bush and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson tells them to do, the financial apocalypse (OMG!) will happen and we will end up living in a world that looks and smells very much like the one featured in the Mad Max movies.

Plus, it will be really hard for businesses to get cheap loans.

Secretary Paulson wants the congress to move quickly and to not ask questions.  We all know that the congress does a bang-up job when they are told to hurry and not question what is being asked of them. They passed the Patriot Act without bothering to read it and they voted to authorize military force in Iraq without asking a whole lot of questions.

Some of the details emerging about Secretary Paulson’s bailout include the fact that not only will American financial institutions be bailed out, but foreign ones will too. Also, the CEO’s in charge of these failed financial institutions will not be prohibited from receiving lucrative bonuses or payouts for all their hard work running their companies into the ground.

After all, most if not all of them are undoubtedly Republicans.

3 Comments by Rick  /  September 22, 2008  /  Posted in: News
Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Sarah Palin jokes about Al-Qaeda terrorists?

I was reading the Washington Post this morning when I ran across something that was written yesterday. Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin evidently said something highly inappropriate in her acceptance speech:

It was in St. Paul last week that Palin drew raucous cheers when she delivered this put-down of Obama: “Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.”

Wow. She really said this? I realize that her speech was written by George W. Bush’s top speech writer and she was only reading off the teleprompter, but I’m surprised that she would actually say this. For all of her shortcomings, I don’t think that she actually believes that Barack Obama is worried about Al-Qaeda terrorists having their rights read to them. I have to believe that she was only joking.

Does she think it’s appropriate to joke about terrorism? To joke about Al-Qaeda terrorists? In my opinion, there are just some things you don’t joke about. Terrorism is one of those things.

8 Comments by Rick  /  September 9, 2008  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , ,

Sarah Palin thinks the Vice President lives in the White House

From CNN:

Palin, whose youngest child has Down syndrome, also promised that families of special needs children will have “a friend and advocate in the White House.”

Does she know that the Vice President does not live or work in the White House?  That’s were the President lives and works.  The Vice President lives on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.  The Vice President’s office is located across the street from the White House in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Does she honestly believe that if Barack Obama is elected President, he wont be a friend and advocate for families of special needs children with?  Being a friend and advocate for those that need a friend and an advocate is what Democrats do.  Giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy is what the Republicans do.  Let’s not get the two mixed up.

Remember, when George W. Bush first ran for President, the thing that supposedly separated him from other conservatives was that he was a compassionate conservative. It goes without saying that liberals are compassionate.

5 Comments by Rick  /  September 4, 2008  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Maybe it’s not Mount Olympus afterall

Over on Daily Kos is a post — they call them “diaries” — that points out that George W. Bush also accepted the 2004 Presidential nomination standing in front of a fake Mount Olympus set.  Except it’s not really Mount Olympus, but a fake White House looking set.

I’m guessing that the Obama campaign was shooting for something more like this then they were Mount Olympus.  While watching ABC News tonight, they showed the set where Obama will be making history by accepting the Democratic nomination for President.  The set looked a lot less “Mount Olympus” then it did before.  It was covered with American flags. Lots and lots of American flags.

So maybe Obama isn’t trying to emulate Zeus on Mount Olympus.  Maybe he is trying instead to emulate George W. Bush.

Isn’t that . . . .  worse?

1 Comment by Rick  /  August 28, 2008  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , , ,

Why Bush does not play golf

If you’ve been out on the links and haven’t seen George W. Bush whacking the ball, it’s not because you and him always have different tee times. It’s because he has decided to acknowledge the sacrifice made by U.S. service members in Iraq by not playing golf anymore.

From Politico:

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life,” he said. “I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It’s just not worth it anymore to do.’”

What I find interesting is that he didn’t decide to stop playing golf because of the death of an American service member, but because of the death of a United Nations official. Curious.

I wonder, has he ever thought of acknowledging their sacrifice by stop sending them to Iraq?

I stopped playing golf years ago. Not because I wanted to acknowledge anyone’s sacrifice. I quit because I realized golf really sucks.

1 Comment by Rick  /  May 13, 2008  /  Posted in: Politics
Tagged: , , , , ,