More rhetoric. More bulletpoints. No plan. Yet the audience at the Naval Academy carried on like the audience on Oprah's Favorite Things episode.

And how daring to give the speech at the Naval Academy! Geez! The only more receptive audience would be if a group of 20 young blond boys had a shirtless pillowfight at Neverland Ranch. Or I guess it's Bahrain now.

And Rummy had an "epiphany" this weekend deciding that the word "insurgents" gives these folks too much power. So instead they are called "enemies of the legitimate Iraqi governement" or some such idiocy. I don't give a shit if you call them Shirley (Naked Gun reference). Oooh but I'll bet they are feeling their power drain every time Rummy doesn't refer to them as "insurgents".

[ November 30, 2005, 05:23 PM: Message edited by: FireMikeTiceNow ]

I agree totally, he is afraid to go in front of an audience he cannot control. I will be so happy when 12:01 p.m on January 21, 2009 arrives.

More of the s.o.s. from Shrub. Last I heard his poll numbers are still dropping. The man hasn't got a clue on what to do next over there. But since he started the mess, he can sure as hell clean it up as far as I am concerned.

Doesn't today's release of the speech-accommodating 38-page booklet outlining this administration's plan for "Victory in Iraq" beg the question of shouldn't they have had this plan--and made it public--a long time ago?

~Adam

You seem to have Jacko on the brain today. wink

Outside of the hardliners and the ultra-whackos no one bothers to pay attention to Bush and his band of liars when it comes to Iraq. They've completely lost all credibility.

I thought we already had victory in Iraq?? Hmmm.


And yes, I think fewer and fewer people are actually paying attention to the President. They already know exactly what they are going to hear. It's not good when people stop paying attention to you.

Seen on a sign in Washington D.C.:

Would someone please give Bush a blow job so we can impeach him?

I'm stealing that. I love it!

All I got out of it his speech is that we are still in the slogan war. I think they are channeling Darren Stevens. Only there's no Samantha to bail them out.

Did ya catch W's tie today? Laura, tell me you aren't responsible for letting him out of the house and on TV with THAT thing on? Even worse, it wasn't in a decent knot. Very appropo.

He did manage to work in 9/11 within the first 45 seconds of the speech (nice work Karl). Milk it.

What a clueless, bumbling idiot. This man continues to be the biggest embarrassment this nation has ever seen. The American people want ANSWERS, not more crap. Bush is sure to go down in history as the worst president ever. Needless to say, I had low expectations for this speech, and, sure enough, this president never disappoints me when it comes to the lowest common denominator.

I tried listening to this speech yesterday morning. I got no further than the intros, when he praised Donald Rumsfeld and said he was "doing a fine job!" After a brief, audible shout of rage I flung a bagel at the TV and stormed out of the room. The depths to which this president will stoop to avoid admitting a mistake or even taking an ounce of responsibility is truly maddening. Rumsfeld is the chief architect of the nearly $300 billion disaster in Iraq. It is impossible to take anything Bush says seriously. If he weren't the 'leader of the free world' he'd have been laughed out of the room.

[ December 01, 2005, 03:55 AM: Message edited by: so fla ref ]

I don't categorically hate Bush the way a lot of you guys do, but I am beginning to think that Andrew Card and Karl Rove are running the war. The document they have produced? The speech? They think all they have to do is "market" the war...

Pre speech plan:
Stay the course.

Post speech plan:
The course; that's what me must stay.

"Mission Accomplished" were the words used, and the banner flown when President Bush delivered his speech from the USS Abraham Lincoln on 05/01/03? This week President Bush released his 35 page White House document titled "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq". If the mission was accomplished on 05/01/03 why is there a need for "Strategy for Victory in Iraq" this week? Perhaps an intelligent strategy prior to the war would have made a difference. Perhaps an intelligent President would have made a difference.

And remember, the occupation would be a matter of weeks, not months or years. American troops would be greeted with flowers and candy. The war would pay for itself. The insurgency was in its last throes (I guess that turned out true since they are no longer insurgents.)

Nice to see Donald Rumsfeld has a knack for stating the obvious:

"If the insurgency does go on for four, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen years, whatever....it is going to be a problem for the people of Iraq. They're going to have to cope with that insurgency over time."

I'd say get these people out of the hot sun but they're too far gone for any help.

~Adam

And yet, and yet...there are still people, about a third of those regularly polled, who continue to have faith in this man and his dangerous fantasies.

Look, it's about time our nation's top lawyers review the "incapacity" clause in the Constitution to see if W still passes muster, especially if the Congress refuses to impeach him. Andrew Johnson was impeached for much less, as was Clinton. And, I'd argue, Nixon's crimes didn't approach W's, though Nixon's and Kissinger's chicanery in 1969-1970 did help to prolong the Vietnam War and led to many thousands of deaths. I don't think Cheney would last more than a few months without a heart attack and then we'd have Ted Stevens, who at least is sane. Or semi-sane. And he's a Republican, so that would appease the GOPites here and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, we have a country--Iran--that is STRONGER than it was BEFORE we toppled Saddam. Its deranged president, like our own, even went so far as to claim a "special light" was focused on him as he ranted away at the UN. God apparently speaks to him too. And God (Allah) apparently has told him not only to wipe Israel off the face of the map, which is why he's racing to get those nukes, but God also told him to insult the United STates at every step. A few years ago we had some people on here, spouting the standard Republican nonsense, about a "popular" youth-led revolt in Iran. Well, that was about as viable as the WMD caches that Rumsfeld "knew" were somewhere near Baghdad. Instead, Iran, a KNOWN STATE SPONSOR OF TERRORISM, is stronger and MORE dangerous in 2005 than it was in 2003, and Iraq has become more of a terrorist haven than it EVER WAS before Saddam was toppled.

On top of this, we now have the Shiites pushing for an Islamic Republic, their security forces are abducting and killing Sunnis and even keeping them in underground torture chambers like Saddam's, AND they're attacking the British troops in the south of Iraq, while the Sunnis are the main people behind the insurgency that is killing both American troops and thousands of Shiites. Is this a civil war or what? Add to it the fact that Zarqawi has set up a Taliban-style death-training camp, and you have to ask, was it worth it? WAS IT WORTH IT?

Yet never once does our crackpot president admit how wrong he was. Never once. I bet you if he had the guts to do so his popularity would skyrocket. Immediately. He might even reach the 45% mark again. As is, he's totally out of touch, talking as the Washington Times noted only to the four power women in his life, isolated, living in his fantasy world, while Card, Rove and whomever digs an ever deeper hole for his nation.

[ December 01, 2005, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

Looks like the insurgents over there have "answered" Shrub as the news media, is reporting a whole lot of bombing going on today, even more than usual. But hey, stay the course!! No worries mate!

Werent they in their "last troes" months ago?

I guess this is what Shrub means about staying the course:

Ten U.S. Marines conducting a foot patrol outside the Iraqi city of Falluja were killed in the explosion of an insurgent bomb on Thursday, the U.S. military announced on Friday.

How many more must die for a lie??? frown

Very very sad.

Time to do some editing on that "Victory Plan."

I don't agree with a pull-out in Iraq, even though I absolutely never supported it. The thing is, pulling out may improve things for us, but it throws Iraq into absolute chaos in an obviously volatile area.

Obviously though the problem is that there may be 'progress' being made, but it's no good. We are training Iraqi policemen and security forces, but there is a huge problem with treatment, that Iraqi officials have actually said is just as bad, if not worse than when Saddam was there. The way the Consititution is written is NOT going to create a stable Iraq by any means, but the U.S. is afraid to step up and say something because they don't want the 'deadlines' to pass because then it looks bad. It's absolutely contradictory that they say that we shouldn't need a timetable because you need to do things as they come, but then they absolutely won't give in to the deadlines they set now.

Iraq has 3 major groups that we all know of that just do not really get along. And leaving one of them out in the cold as they are doing right now is not going to lead to stability (look at Africa for that).

I also do not support an immediate pull out, however I do need and want to hear a plan. Of which this administration obviously does NOT have.

Looks like Colin Powell was the ONLY member of the Bush Administration that had a clue as to what the aftermath in Iraq was to be like. In Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward quotes Colin Powell illustrating the consequences of invading Iraq with a mass-produced if tasteful metaphor: "[T]he Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it."

Looks like Bush now "owns it", however he has yet to take responsibility for it.

A retired Army general who is talking sensibly

Admiting you're were wrong is not part of the Bush lexicon. It is up to USA citizens to decide whether to continue following him.

Some decisions cannot wait for the polls every four years. What if George W. Bush chooses not to respond to public opinion when citizens disagree?

[ December 03, 2005, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]