The senior Pennsylvania senator said that while he had a great deal of respect and admiration for US President George W. Bush, (head up his ass)there were issues with which he did not agree with the president, and that it was his responsibility “to speak up, (speak up, but in the end always do what Bush wants him to do)and do so in an independent way.” (ok, I’ll make it look independent)

Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania who broke ranks with the Bush Administration and met Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier this week, said Thursday in Jerusalem that he would now like to sit down and talk with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Asked by The Jerusalem Post if he would like to meet the Iranian President, Specter - in Jerusalem for a series of meetings as part of a regional tour — replied, “You bet I would like to, and give him a piece of my mind.”

The present US policy is not to engage in high-level dialogue with either Syria or Iran, even though the recently published Baker-Hamilton report advocated actively engaging those two countries. Bush has said he would not change his policy regarding those two countries; Specter thinks he should.

“I disagree with the policy of not dealing with Iran,” he said.

Read more here

SADDAM Hussein is likely to be hanged in the jail where prisoners were tortured and killed under his regime.

The 70-year-old former tyrant will be executed within days at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad.

The grey-walled complex once held 15,000 political prisoners.

Many were used as guinea pigs in chemical weapons tests.

Saddam will probably be killed in the next few days to avoid a build-up of tension in Iraq.

He will be hanged as a common criminal rather than facing a firing squad as he would have preferred.

That final indignity comes after the court that convicted him of crimes against humanity ruled that he never completed his military training.

Iraq is in the grip of near civil war and authorities are bracing themselves for a wave of violence after the hanging.

A security source in Baghdad said: “Abu Ghraib is the place where it was always planned for Saddam to be executed.

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The ONLY news coming out of Bush’s three hours of hard work are an increase in troop levels. I’m not reading anywhere that he’s considering a reduction in troop levels, or talking to Iraq’s neighbors, or …….well…….anything else. It’s been obvious for weeks that his plan is going to involve sending more troops in……against the wishes of the American people, against the wishes of the military…..against the wishes of the study group his Daddy put together. The possibility of this maniac doing more damage in the next two years, with a Democratic controlled congress to boot, is fastly becoming a reality. Someone needs to lock this guy up and throw away the key. Send him and Cheney to go live with the Saudis. Funny, Cheney gets called to Saudi, like the good little bitch that he is, and ever since then the talk has been of increasing troop levels. Could it be the Saudis do not want Iraq’s oil production to increase because it will bring the price down?

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is considering an increase in troop levels in Iraq of 17,000 to 20,000, which would be accomplished in part by delaying the departure of two Marine regiments now deployed in Anbar Province, Pentagon officials said.

The option was among those discussed Thursday in Crawford, Texas, as President George W. Bush met with his national security team, and it has emerged as a likely course as he considers a strategy shift in Iraq, the officials said.

Most of the additional troops probably would be employed in and around Baghdad, the officials said.

With the continuing high levels of violence there, senior officials increasingly say additional U.S. forces will be needed as soon as possible to conduct combat operations to regain control of the capital, rather than primarily to train Iraqi forces.

“The mission that most people are settling on has to do with using them in a security role to quell violence in Baghdad and the surrounding area,” a senior Pentagon official said.

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Lives are on the line and this idiot is on vacation. What’s that, you say? A ‘working‘ vacation? Well, that would explain the sweat on his brow… as he emerged from a very tough, and long, three hours of hard piddling. Keep in mind, the man stated recently that he slept well at night also. I can see it.

Bush taking more time to craft Iraq plan

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush worked nearly three hours at his Texas ranch on Thursday to design a new U.S. policy in Iraq, then emerged to say that he and his advisers need more time to craft the plan he’ll announce in the new year.
…

“We’ve got more consultation to do until I talk to the country about the plan,” Bush said, appearing outside an office building at his ranch.
…

“As I think about this plan, I always have our troops in mind,” Bush said.

Source: Deb Riechmann, AP Writer - Yahoo! News

Events (such as general voting patterns, support of the war in Iraq, etc.) over the past six years has led many to believe that the intelligence level of your average American citizen was on the decline. The following appears to lend credence to this belief.

Hero or villain? Depends on your point of view

George W. Bush is the biggest villain -and the biggest hero - of the year.

A poll conducted by the Associated Press and AOL News ranked the year’s heroes and villains, based on phone calls to 1,004 adults in all 50 states. Bush came out on top in both columns.

That’s a head’scratcher.

The president was followed in the villain poll by Osama bin Laden, who took in 8 percent to Bush’s 25 percent, Saddam Hussein (6 percent) and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (5 percent).

Bush ranks ahead of Osama bin Laden, Saddam and Ahmadinejad, as well as Kim Jong Il of North Korea and various other global despots. Satan, or The Devil, garnered 1 percent of the vote - the same as Vice President Dick Cheney, Rosie O’Donnell and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In the hero poll, Bush’s 13 percent was followed by: Soldiers/troops in Iraq (6 percent), Oprah Winfrey (3 percent), Barack Obama (3 percent) and Jesus Christ (3 percent).

Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of millions of Christians around the globe, got 3 percent and shared His spot on the list with Oprah Winfrey.

Source: ChillicotheGazette.com