My Theory of the Brontosaurus

could you ever have imagined...

That this administration could get so bad that John Ashcroft would end up looking like a hero (from his hospital bed!)?

Phase II?

I don't know enough yet to know what to think about Phase II. The Times new story hedged everything, the Times editorial hedged nothing. The Rockefeller quote seems damning: how can we hold the White House responsible for exaggerating the evidence when the lead Democrat on the intelligence committee said the (same?) intelligence led him to the same conclusion?

As much as I want to believe the worst of this crew, I find it implausible that, knowing there was no WMD they said there was in order to justify a war they wanted to some inscrutable reason. Rather, I think these chickenhawks thought not more of deploying an army than they would of a drone; they saw no incommensurabilty of means and end, no difference between American will and American capacity, nor did they have any understanding of the context and consequences of their actions, the idiotic simplification of the idea of regime change, especially in a police state with no public square or resources for one.

memories of the Bush administration

Mourning After 9/11, Outrage Ever Since

By JIM DWYER

Published: March 15, 2008

“ ‘My eldest son, Jason, was murdered on 9/11,’ ” he said, reciting from memory his letters. “ ‘I would appreciate it if you could put his name on some piece of ordnance so his name stays alive.’ ” An old friend sent more requests.

Right around this time five years ago, just before the invasion of Iraq, Mr. Sekzer started getting answers.

“They wrote, ‘God bless you, and God bless your son,’ ” he said.

Then came an e-mail message with pictures of a bomb. He was told that it was dropped on April 1, 2003, targeting elements of “the Republican National Guard and it met with 100 percent success.” On the side, it was inscribed: “In loving memory of Jason Sekzer.”

Yet another e-mail message showed an Apache helicopter, with the same message written one word at a time across six Hellfire missiles. And a third picture arrived, of a bomb inscribed, “Regards from Jason Sekzer.”

...

Six months after the invasion, President Bush answered a reporter’s question about Iraq. “No,” Mr. Bush said, “we’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with Sept. 11.”

Mr. Sekzer saw the exchange. “I heard the president saying, ‘I don’t know where people got the idea that Iraq was the culprit,’ ” Mr. Sekzer said. “I thought I would go through the roof.”

Americans had died; so had tens of thousands of Iraqis who had no hand in the attacks on America.

Mr. Sekzer says he is glad, if it is true as he has been told, that the bombs with his son’s name killed no civilians and contributed to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. His trust, though, collapsed. “Had Bush said precisely that they did 9/11?” Mr. Sekzer said. “He said everything else, everything that inferred that. Why the hell else did we go in there?

“We’re at 4,000 young men and women lost over there. What’s going on there now? You had the election. Here’s the country. Goodbye.”

memories of the Bush administration

Secretary Rice Holds a News Conference

CQ Transcripts Wire
Friday, July 21, 2006; 2:29 PM

But I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante. I think it would be a mistake.

What we're seeing here, in a sense, is the growing -- the birth pangs of a new Middle East.

RICE: And whatever we do, we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one.

memories of the Bush administration

http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html

President George W. Bush called John DiIulio "one of the most influential social entrepreneurs in America" when he appointed the University of Pennsylvania professor, author, historian, and domestic-affairs expert to head the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He was the Bush administration’s big brain, controversial but deeply respected by Republicans and Democrats, academicians and policy players. The appointment was rightfully hailed: DiIulio provided gravity to national policy debates and launched the most innovative of President Bush’s campaign ideas—the faith-based initiative, which he managed until this past February, the last four months from Philadelphia.

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," says DiIulio. "What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

In a seven-page letter sent a few weeks after our first conversation, DiIulio, who still considers himself a passionate supporter of the president, offers a detailed account and critique of the time he spent in the Bush White House.

"I heard many, many staff discussions but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions," he writes. "There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis, and they were even more overworked than the stereotypical nonstop, twenty-hour-a-day White House staff. Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking: discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue."

memories of the Bush administration

CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

memories of the Bush administration

PRESIDENT BUSH:   Well, you can keep asking the question and my answer's gonna be the same. Saddam was a danger and the world is better off cause we got rid of him.

DIANE SAWYER:   But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still —

PRESIDENT BUSH:   So what's the difference?

DIANE SAWYER:   Well —

PRESIDENT BUSH:   The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be de — dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger. And so we got rid of him and there's no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of Saddam being gone.

memories of the Bush administration

By Paul Kiel - July 11, 2007, 12:57PM

"I took an oath the president, and I take that oath very seriously," Sara Taylor said in answer to a question early in the hearing.

And right after a break, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked her if she was sure about that. "Did you mean, perhaps, you took an oath to the Constitution?" Leahy asked. It was a telling exchange.

"I know that the president refers to the government being his government -- it's not," Leahy reminded her.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003656.php