Bush’s Speechwriter

Bush Press Conference re: US Attorney firings

Questions From Press

Words of the day: reasonable proposal

Tell me again why we’re still there? We know we went there on a lie. Why are we there? These people are not going to meet any benchmarks……it’s not going to happen. We’ve been “training” Iraqis for four years and gone nowhere but downhill in terms of any progress. So they voted. So they set up a government. So friggin what. That means nothing. We are training them, giving them weapons and equipment and where’s it all ending up?????

More than three years and $15 billion into the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraqi forces, “ghost soldiers” still help fill Iraq’s army ranks and no one knows how many trained policemen remain on the job, the Pentagon and U.S. government investigators report.

The Government Accountability Office says the most serious problems lie in the logistics - supplies, maintenance, transport - of Iraqi security forces. One example: The police have more than 1,000 U.S.-made trucks whose computerized systems are beyond the skills of the Iraqi mechanics who repair them.

Since soon after the 2003 U.S. invasion, the training of new military and police forces has been presented as vital to the U.S. military’s handing over the counterinsurgency fight to the Iraqis.

More at MSNBC

Stevie Ray Vaughan
Dirty Pool

One of my fav O rites

Not the first time in history children have been used, but it takes some beaucoup evil to do this.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.

The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

“Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back,” Barbero said.

The general said it was the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics in response to the tighter controls around the city.

A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.

After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

“And the two adults were seen to get out of the vehicle, and run from the vehicle, and then followed by the detonation of the vehicle,” the official said.

“It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured,” the official said.

More at YahooNews

He was downright pissy. Why did he hold this press conference to begin with? Why has he sent congress over 3,000 documents to go through? Hoping it will keep them busy for awhile?

WASHINGTON –A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.

Democrats’ response to his proposal was swift and firm: They said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.

“Testimony should be on the record and under oath. That’s the formula for true accountability,” said Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, said, “We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants. … I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse.”

He added that federal prosecutors work for him and it is natural to consider replacing them. “There is no indication that anybody did anything improper,” the president said.

Bush gave his embattled attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, a boost during an early morning call and ended the day with a public statement repeating it. “He’s got support with me,” Bush said.

More here

This one really got to me. Kind thoughts and my deepest sympathies to the Landeck family.

Eric Zorn, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune received a letter from Captain Kevin Landeck’s Dad, asking for help. From Zorn’s column:

The two-page letter is signed from the “proud father of a fallen soldier.”

A little more than six weeks ago, his soul a cauldron of grief and rage, Richard Landeck, 56, of Wheaton addressed and mailed it to President Bush.

And since he has yet to receive an acknowledgment or reply, he asked me if I’d help get his message out.

“My voice, and that of many other frustrated Americans, is not being heard,” he said.

It’s the least I can do, I replied.

Feb 4, 2007

Proud father of a fallen soldier

The U.S. Department of Education has overcharged millions of Americans with student loans during the past decade despite repeated warnings that it was breaking the law, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday.

A computer glitch apparently caused more than 3 million student loan borrowers to be billed hundreds of millions of dollars more than they owed, said lawyers who brought the class-action suit. It’s unclear how much individuals were overcharged.

“That’s a large amount of money taken from students who trust that this program is run accurately and appropriately,” said Brenda K. Pfeiffer, a 41-year-old Minnesota chiropractor who discovered the problem and is the lead plaintiff.

The Education Department’s student loan programs have been buffeted by a series of controversies and have come under increased scrutiny by Congress. Lawmakers are investigating potential mismanagement and conflicts of interest. Legislation has been proposed to revamp the way the two major federal student loan programs are run.

More at the Washington Post

I like this guy so far……
“I’m not going to have the same amounts of resources as Sen. (Hillary Rodham) Clinton and Sen. (Barack) Obama,” he said of the leading Democratic candidates. “I’m a grass-roots candidate. My fundraising will be respectable. … I’m running to get the support of the voters, not the funders. This shouldn’t be a race about money or resources or rock star status.”

From Freenewsmexican.com

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Monday that U.S. foreign policy’s concentration on the Middle East cost the country progress on other important issues and that Latin America has been virtually ignored.

“My point is that Latin America is a very important part of the world,” Richardson said, adding that he would meet with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as part of a broader Latin American policy plan.

Calling President Bush’s recent trip to the region “a little late,” Richardson, who is Hispanic, said the U.S. needs to be “associated with policies of democratic populism in Latin America.”

“We’re not,” he said. “We have to pay more attention to Latin America by being there.”

The Democratic presidential candidate also told reporters he would meet with Iran and Syria.

“If you’re going to have peace in the Middle East, if you’re going to bring some kind of resolve, result to the Iraqi crisis, you’ve got to think regionally,” Richardson said. “You should meet with Iran and Syria. You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies.”

Richardson said he wanted to create a “new alliance for progress for Latin America,” including economic assistance, loans to help the energy entrepreneurs as well as education, health care and nutrition.

“I would shift the focus of our assistance to Latin America, which I think is most important because it’s our hemisphere,” said Richardson.

Richardson acknowledged he may lag in fundraising ability.

“I’m not going to have the same amounts of resources as Sen. (Hillary Rodham) Clinton and Sen. (Barack) Obama,” he said of the leading Democratic candidates. “I’m a grass-roots candidate. My fundraising will be respectable. … I’m running to get the support of the voters, not the funders. This shouldn’t be a race about money or resources or rock star status.”

Richardson was in Austin to receive accolades from the Republican-controlled Legislature, and said he hoped his support in the state House and Senate would translate to votes in the 2008 presidential primary in Texas.

“I had two unanimous resolutions endorsed by the Texas House and Senate, and I hope that’s the same for the vote in the Texas primary for president,” Richardson said.

He said he hopes Texas moves its primary up to Feb. 5, 2008. The Legislature is considering such a measure.

“It’s, I believe, good for Texas, because issues important to Texas _ agriculture, water, immigration, issues related to transportation _ would be front and center. In the past, Texas has been a flyover for presidential candidates in both parties, a place where you raise money,” he said. “So I hope this happens.”

Richardson was due to attend a fund raiser in San Antonio Monday evening, his campaign said.

Just say no……..

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House offered on Tuesday to make President George W. Bush’s senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and other officials available to congressional investigators to give unsworn testimony in the firings of U.S. attorneys.

In a letter to relevant members of Congress, White House counsel Fred Fielding made clear he was not offering them to give sworn testimony as they have requested.

“Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas,” Fielding wrote.

Democratic lawmakers described the offer as unsatisfactory, saying they wanted the witnesses under oath. But they also said they and others would consider it before formally responding.

The White House said Bush would address the issue at 5:45 p.m./2145 GMT when he returned from Kansas City.

The fallout over the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys has triggered a Democratic investigation over whether the action was politically motivated and raised doubts about how long Attorney General Alberto Gonzales can remain in his job.

More at Reuters