13 posts tagged “george bush”

Watching Barak Obama's climb from nameless state senator to Democratic frontrunner has been an interesting one.
Watching his gradual slide from the liberal end of the spectrum to something more moderate, though, has been thoroughly entertaining.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how someone who runs as the candidate of hope can possibly expect to run successfully through November when he appears to be nothing more than a maneuvering politician as it comes time to face the general voting population in America - a population that remains historically more conservative than all the hope in the world could change.

My good friend Greg over at the Office of the Independent Blogger linked to a piece from the Wall Street Journal focusing on the growing similarities between Obama's campaign posturing and Bush's own posturing.  Granted, these similarities are slight, but they should be troubling to the true-believers out there who might've been holding out for this guy to remain true to his roots.

Of course, the other side of the coin is John McCain's absolute inability to sell himself as anything but an angry old man.

Here's some interesting news: the student newspaper at Colorado State University is under fire because of a short editorial they printed yesterday.  The editorial is included below in it's entirety:

Taser this...FUCK BUSH (source)

According to the editorial board at the paper, this was printed only after hours of deliberation and discussion on the merits of free speech.  Since it's publication, a little more than 24 hours ago, the paper has lost about $30,000 in advertising.  Looks like they might have actually learned the same lesson that Andrew Meyer learned on Monday at the end of a taser gun - free speech is certainly a freedom, but it comes at a price.

Just like Meyer, the paper pushed head-on with their opinion without considering the format in which it was being presented.  While Meyer made the unfortunate choice to format his opinion in an aggressive and unpredictable way while in the presence of a security-ridden Senator, the editorial staff at the Rocky Mountain Collegian made the unfortunate choice of publishing their opinion in a publication that requires advertising support in order to function.
Yet, oddly, I doubt that we'll hear anyone out there complain that the editorial staff is being victimized by Advertiser Brutality.  Go figure.

What's more troubling than all of this, though, is that in the environment of intellectualism that a state university should provide, a group of young adults with the know-how to produce a student-run paper are still ignorant enough to associate George Bush with the tasering of Meyer.  Don't they know that it was a John Kerry speech?
Then again, maybe those cops were actually Secret Service...

In a world where police are now commonly armed with tasers and college students are commonly armed with tunnel-vision politics, I'd just like to point out the wonderful luck that these things both coincided with the proliferation of the digital camcorder.  The future's bright, folks.

When I woke up this morning to read the news that there was footage available of a student getting tased during a John Kerry speech, I couldn't resist clicking the link.  I guess normal people would find footage of that nature to be troubling, but I found it incredibly entertaining.  Here you have Andrew Meyer: an average college student who is very passionate about politics, right?  Wrong.  Andrew Meyer is something of an attention whore.  According to news reports, he maintains a website that includes various videos of himself pulling off obnoxious pranks in public, usually at the expense of others.  Personally, I don't have much against attention whores - I happen to be one, myself.  And I'd happily take a taser shot to the shoulder to make national news, who wouldn't?  Beyond that, I guess that the big controversy over the video is that the police used too much force in trying to detain him.

But what other force would you have preferred them to use?  They gave Meyer plenty of time to calm down and walk out of the auditorium, instead he bounced around like a clown - eventually resulting in the officers holding him to the ground.  At this point, he continues to kick and scream until they finally pull out the taser.  Now, I'd have to ask whether or not anyone would have preferred them to haul him out in a headlock?  Or how about a nice swift punch to the head?  They could always have just pulled out their real guns and threatened to use them - but then you'd be hearing the same arguments your hearing now about police brutality.

As Mr. Meyer begins to parade himself around on every news network that will take him over the next couple of weeks, please make sure that you keep in mind that he did this on purpose.  Don't believe me?  Check out the police reports where he was quoted as saying that the police 'did nothing wrong' and that he would only throw his fit while the cameras were in the same room with him - even going so far as to inquire about whether or not the cameras would be in the jail with him.

In the meantime, there's good old John Kerry in the mix, claiming that he could have handled the situation himself.  That seems doubtful, though.  How's he supposed to handle a situation like that when he can't win a presidential election against someone like George Bush?  And what do you say to someone, anyway, who would suggest that you might've conceded that presidential election because of your ties to a secret society?
No wonder we keep seeing politicians screening their audiences before giving speeches these days - you never know what kind of loonies might show up to try and force a confrontation with police.

For the time being, I'm just hoping to see more students get tased in the future.  Between that and babies playing with cobras, I can think of no better way to pass the time on YouTube.

My second exam didn't go quite as well as I had originally planned, but at least Mr and Mrs Scrambler Biggs arrived in southern California with no major troubles.

Just interrupting my brief hiatus to celebrate the fact that the Senate finally did it's job and actually listened to their constituency and blocked the Kennedy-McCain Immigration Bill this morning.  I find it interesting that the bill in the last week, and especially now that it's failed, is being referred to as the 'Kennedy-Bush' immigration bill - completely ignoring the fact that John McCain was the actual co-writer of the bill with Ted Kennedy.
Funny how McCain has managed to distance himself, if only ever so slightly, from this monstrosity.

'See you at the signing,' indeed, Mr. President.
Looks like Bush has finally managed to get even the hardiest of republican support to question his grasp on reality.

When the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform bill was pulled from the floor of the senate last week, I could almost hear the collective sighs of relief from across the country.  What was originally celebrated as a bipartisan compromise, carefully crafted by only those most egalitarian senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy behind closed doors (you can see an embarassingly glowing Washington Post review of it here), went down in flames because there just wasn't any support for it.  So it goes.

The manner in which the bill failed, though, is what's really interesting to me.  Originally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acted as a co-sponsor of the bill while he had full faith that the American people would passively sit by and watch the legislature pass the horrid thing.  However, when things had proven to be more difficult that he'd originally planned, he then attempted to distance himself from it.  As with all failures in the last six years in Washington, Reid started to push this off on President Bush on Thursday in suggesting that it's up to Bush to bring more Republicans in on the bill.
What's more, Bush seemed to be more than willing to step up to Reid's challenge and start pushing for the bill.

Ultimately, I'm curious about the motives Reid has in trying to pin this on the President.  Is it because he recognizes that the majority of the public is against it?  And what happens if Bush does gain the votes needed?  Will the Democrats be able to continue to support it if it will not provide a victory for the President?

Strange bedfellows, indeed.

First and foremost, I want to direct your attention to a recent post made by my good (internet acquaintance) friend, dox^2.

He points out, quite accurately, the troubling similarities between both the situation in Darfur and the current situation on the ground in Iraq.  Likewise, he's gone on to point out the hypocrisy of some who criticize America for not making a move to aid in Darfur while criticizing America for doing just that in Iraq.
Now, don't you just wish that my political ranting was that straightforward and understandable?

Unless you've had your head buried in the sand over the last week, you're probably wholly aware that former CIA Director, George Tenet, is soon to be releasing a book attempting to pass the responsibility for the intelligence failures leading up to Iraq over onto someone else.  He's been doing his rounds in the media, conducting interviews and apologizing like a guilty school-yard bully sitting in the principal's office.  I think that Christopher Hitchens summed it up best in his most recent piece over at Slate:

The author is almost the only man who could have known of Zacarias Moussaoui and his co-conspirators—the very man who positively knew they were among us, in flight schools, and then decided to leave them alone. In his latest effusion, he writes: "I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting." Well, we all know that much by now. But Tenet is one of the few who knew it then, and not just in his "gut" but in his small brain, and who left us all under open skies. His ridiculous agency, supposedly committed to "HUMINT" under his leadership, could not even do what John Walker Lindh had done—namely, infiltrate the Taliban and the Bin Laden circle. It's for this reason that the CIA now has to rely on torturing the few suspects it can catch, a policy, incidentally, that Tenet's book warmly defends.

Ultimately, Tenet seems to have painted himself into a corner on the issue.  Regardless of what he says about his feelings now, his book certainly suggests to the American public that he's one of two things (both?): a liar or a coward.  And to think that some people actually want a government that would hire a man like Tenet to run our intelligence operations or have people like him take over our health care?  Give me a break.

In other news, Bush issued his second veto ever on the surrender treaty that had been tied into a troop funding bill today.  And, while I find myself disagreeing with the President on almost everything he's done (or avoided doing) domestically in his second term, I'm going to have to agree with him that broadcasting a plan for a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq is ludicrous, at best.  Furthermore, I think he's been beyond civil in the matter - just the fact that there was even a suggestion that a withdrawal timeline be made official is something that should have been squashed from day one.

You don't win most fights in the first round.  And you certainly don't win most wars in the first couple of years.  The sad fact of the matter is that our presence in Iraq is something that Americans need to accept as a semi-permanent reality.  Focusing on pulling out immediately is only going to further damage that precious international reputation that all of our politicians seem so obsessed over these days.  What really should be at the forefront of our spending bills is some sort of outline regarding how we spend the remainder of our time on the ground there - whether that be 2 more years, or 20 more.

Ever since I decided to add the Power Line blog to my ever-growing list of RSS feeds, I can't say that I've been disappointed in the least.  I have come to learn that I can always expect intelligent news analysis there, whether I agree with the point of their articles or not.

To that end, as I'm trying to avoid delving into the still-developing political ramifications of the Virginia Tech shooting, I'd like to point to a Power Line article from a couple of days ago that really caught my attention.

While I openly reject the belief that the mainstream media is actively campaigning to get a Democrat into office, I don't think it's a stretch to recognize that the majority of our press is composed of left-leaning writers.  So it goes.  However, the Barack Obama quote from the cited AP article, when placed so closely to the photograph of he and Ludacris together, did raise my eyebrows.

Quintessentially, this is a prime example of why I don't think Obama is going to be able to squeak through as the Democratic nominee for President.  Most of his political power is drawn from the fact that he's relatively unknown and, thus, doesn't have the same sort of baggage that most of his opposition is going to have (i.e. Hillary).  Unfortunately, his lack of baggage will also happen to be his greatest weakness, magnifying any slight hypocrisies he may find himself stumbling into on the campaign trail.

Then again, I've been wrong before.
I did, after all, actually think that Bush was going to grow some teeth during his second term in office.  What a joke that turned out to be.

Tonight Bush is going to take his place at the podium in the capitol and deliver his State of the Union address.  And I'm still sorting out whether or not I'm going to waste my time to catch it live - it hardly seems worth it.  We're going hear all of the promises of bipartisan unity and the need to stand strong against anyone who hates freedom.
Don't get me wrong, these things all sound real nice as soundbites, but after having lived through enough of these with President Bush it's become apparent that the man either isn't able to deliver consistently on his promises or simply isn't interested.

So, instead of offering up any criticism of this otherwise useless State of the Union speech, I'd like to throw out some more information, beyond my previous post on the subject, on the numerous reasons why Schwarzenegger's health care plan in California is going to be a terrible failure.
The frightening thing is that Hillary Clinton - front runner for the Democratic Presidential candidacy in 2008 - has a strikingly similar health care plan on her agenda.  God help us all.

Here's the scene: you're a 37 year old man working as a border agent in Texas.  You have a young family - three children and a supportive wife.  One February day in 2005, you and several other agents, including 28 year old Jose Compean (who has a family of four, as well), are in hot pursuit of a van that's crossed the border illegally and is attempting to outrun you.  The driver eventually jumps from the vehicle and attempts to flee - as you approach, you find Compean, your fellow border patrol agent, bloodied and laid out on the ground as you take up the pursuit on foot.  Your target, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, turns with what appears to be something shiny in his hands and you fire your weapon at him, convinced that it's a gun he's holding.  Aldrete-Davila makes it across the border, seemingly uninjured, and you watch him jump into a vehicle that is waiting for him on the other side.

The numerous calls for backup leading to this point bring in seven other agents, two of them your superiors.  During his hand-to-hand struggle with Aldrete-Davila, Compean apparently fired off a couple of warning shots from his firearm and you find him picking up the spent shells from the ground when you return to join your fellow agents - the spent shells from your gun are left untouched on the ground.  Under the impression that your supervisors are aware of the situation and the fact that shots were fired, you decide not to make a report - particularly in light of the fact that Aldrete-Davila appeared not to be injured.
Later, 800lbs of marijuana are discovered in the abandoned van.

Weeks later, it is revealed to the Department of Homeland Security that Aldrete-Davila, the individual attempting to smuggle 800lbs of marijuana in his van, was actually hit by one of the bullets that you fired at him while he fled.  The DHS takes it upon themselves not only bring up charges against you and Compean, but to also grant immunity and free medical treatment to take care of the wound he received from the pursuit - all in exchange for his testimony in court against you.
You are Ignacio Ramos, and you are subsequently sentenced to 11 years in prison.  The agent whom you came upon injured and laid out on the ground?  He, Jose Compean, is sentenced to 12.

Sounds like it'd make a pretty shitty 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book, doesn't it?
Worse than that, it makes for a very sad reality.

Today the Bush appointed judge, Catherine Cardone, who has been making all of the decisions in this case, denied a motion that might allow Ramos and Compean to stay with their families on bail, pending an appeal.

So, thanks in part to President Bush, who might've easily pardoned Ramos and Compean and who has that very unfortunate view that the American public should embrace the idea that our southern border remain open to the Mexican public, these two border agents will be spending their first night in jail tomorrow night - all for doing their job to protect American citizens.
Meanwhile, I trust that Aldrete-Davila will be sleeping comfortably in his bed, dreaming of winning that $5 million lawsuit he's since filed against the United States claiming that his civil rights were violated.

In America, Lady Justice appears to not only be blind, but infinitely useless as well.

(Updates can be found here and here.)

If you were boarding a plane and, through some unexplained miracle, you were granted the opportunity to learn the background of any singular individual on the plane with you, wouldn't you be interested in knowing the story behind the person sitting immediately next to you?
I know I would - barring the possibility that I was assigned to sit next to Jose Padilla.  Particularly if I was sitting next to him on his connecting flight from Pakistan to Chicago on May 8, 2002.

You see, Padilla was an ex-convict who had spent some time in jail for aggravated assault.  On the bright side, he had recently converted to Islam and professed a new non-violent philosophy.  Score one for the American Justice System, right?
Unfortunately, he was studying his new theology with a gentleman by the name of Adham Hassoun, an individual who happened to have some ties to the Benevolence International Foundation - a known terrorist-funding outfit (link).  This being a case of guilt by association, I can't necessarily say that it would throw me off were I to find out that he were assigned to the seat next to me.  Nor would it concern me that he was returning to the US after having spent some time in Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
It might make me nervous, but I can't say I'd avoid the flight altogether.

I think what might make me reconsider my seating assignment would be the fact that he was thrown a bon voyage party by some top Al Qaida operatives before leaving Pakistan and was carrying nearly $11,000 in cash (link).  I don't know about anyone else, but I think that might pose a reasonable justification for having a distrust for the guy.

Now imagine that you were also granted the opportunity to look into this guy's oh-so-bright future, spending the next four years being shackled, (the following being alleged by his lawyer) exposed to sleep and sensory deprivation techniques, isolated, threatened, and, amongst other things, denied the ability to practice his religion openly (link).
I don't know about you but, frankly, I'd likely punch the bastard in his face under the pretense that he certainly deserves more than mere 'sleep deprivation' and the denial of religious practices when consorting with the genocidal maniacs that are fundamentalist Islamic terrorists.

While I doubt that there are many (sane) Americans who would argue that Padilla doesn't deserve to be dealt with so harshly, I freely admit that his imprisonment in the first place begs some very difficult questions of the Bush Administration.  For instance, Padilla is an American citizen.  This means he is protected by the Constitution.
Most of the time I like to pretend that I fall under the definition of a civil libertarian and, to that end, I'd be as likely to plant my fist in Padilla's face as I would to suggest that he is entitled to his constitutional rights as a citizen.  Bush, interestingly enough, utilized historic precedent as a means to hold Padilla for a full three years of his imprisonment without the right to trial.  And who set such a horrible precedent in the past?
None other than Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln had thousands of people imprisoned and denied their right to a trial while the Civil War was raging.  He did this to protect the American public.  He did this because they were suspected of involving themselves in the affairs of America's enemies.  Bush has done no different here.  But I digress.

All that being said, the Bush administration has recently caved and has charged Padilla for conspiring to 'murder, kidnap and maim.'  This is being handled as a criminal matter and will soon enough be seen as a civil case - not under the watchful eye of the military.  And I really don't know how I feel about that.

Ideally, I'd like to see anyone involved in terrorist activity or terrorist funding left hanging at our ports of entry - not unlike the manner in which Great Britain used to deal with captured pirates, using them as a warning to all who entered their country that piracy would not be acceptable.  However, this is one of many reasons why I'll never be President, either.  To that end, though, you'd have to try the terrorists via the military tribunal route and not this pansy civil court route.  But then you find yourself with American citizens locked up with their constitutional rights ignored and lost.

Padilla's upcoming civil/terrorist trial is setting a new precedent and it should make for an interesting news cycle.  But I certainly don't feel bad for him.