Perhaps this will be a replay of Rumsfeld. Bush was fully confident in him until he resigned and even then called him a great defence secretary. Perhaps the same scenario will develop with Gonzales if he goes!
Bush fully confident in attorney general
Published: Saturday March 31, 2007
US President George W. Bush on Saturday reiterated his support for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire for his alleged role in the dismissal of eight US prosecutors.
Gonzales is an "honorable and honest man. He has my full confidence," Bush told a news conference at his Camp David, Maryland retreat.
"There is no credible evidence that there has been any wrongdoing," Bush added.
Democrats in Congress have pressed for Gonzales's resignation after evidence from e-mails and a top former aide implicated the long-time Bush ally in the sacking late last year of eight US attorneys for what Democrats claim were political reasons.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating why the US attorneys were fired, even as several of them were in the middle of sensitive corruption investigations, and to what extent Gonzales and the White House were involved in their removal.
Gonzales has denied being deeply involved in the matter.
But last Thursday his former chief of staff Kyle Sampson told the committee that Gonzales, who leads the Department of Justice, was involved.
"I and others made staff recommendations but they were approved and signed off on by the principals," Sampson said.
Sampson resigned nearly three weeks ago after the Justice Department released e-mail records that showed him in close contact with senior White House officials over the sackings.
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Showing posts with label G W Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label G W Bush. Show all posts
Monday, April 2, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Paul Krugman: Reagan and Bush
While no fan of Reagan it seems to me that Reagan was not as bad as Bush and did not lead the US into disastrous wars but maybe my memory is going!
March 19, 2007
Paul Krugman: Don’t Cry for Reagan
Paul Krugman says there's no reason to shed any tears over Reagan's lost legacy:
Don’t Cry for Reagan, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: As the Bush administration sinks deeper into its multiple quagmires, the personality cult the G.O.P. once built around President Bush has given way to nostalgia for the good old days. The current cover of Time magazine shows a weeping Ronald Reagan, and declares that Republicans “need to reclaim the Reagan legacy.”
But Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity.
In 1993 Jonathan Cohn ... published an article in The American Prospect describing the dire state of the federal government. Changing just a few words ... makes it read as if it were written in 2007.
Thus, Mr. Cohn described how the Interior Department had been packed with opponents of environmental protection, who “presided over a massive sell-off of federal lands...” that “deprived the department of several billion dollars in annual revenue.” Oil leases, anyone?
Meanwhile, privatization had run amok, because “the ranks of public officials necessary to supervise contractors have been so thinned... Agencies have been left with the worst of both worlds — demoralized and disorganized public officials and unaccountable private contractors.” Holy Halliburton!
Not mentioned..., but equally reminiscent of current events, was the state of the Justice Department under Ed Meese, a man who gives Alberto Gonzales and John Mitchell serious competition for the title of worst attorney general ever. The politicization of Justice got so bad that in 1988 six senior officials, all Republicans, ... resigned in protest.
Why is there such a strong family resemblance...? Mr. Reagan’s administration, like Mr. Bush’s, was run by movement conservatives... And both cronyism and abuse of power are part of the movement conservative package.
In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs.
If expertise is irrelevant, who gets the jobs? No problem: the interlocking, lavishly financed institutions of movement conservatism, which range from K Street to Fox News, create a vast class of apparatchiks who can be counted on to be “loyal Bushies.” ...
Still, Mr. Reagan’s misgovernment never went as far as Mr. Bush’s. As a result, he managed to leave office with an approval rating about as high as ... Bill Clinton... But the key to Reagan’s relative success, I believe, is that he was lucky in his limitations.
Unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Reagan never controlled both houses of Congress — and the pre-Gingrich Republican Party still contained moderates who imposed limits on his ability to govern badly. Also, there was no Reagan-era equivalent of the rush, after 9/11, to give the Bush administration whatever it wanted in the name of fighting terrorism.
Mr. Reagan may even have been helped, perversely, by the fact that in the 1980s there were still two superpowers. This helped prevent the hubris, the delusions of grandeur, that led the Bush administration to believe that a splendid little war in Iraq was just the thing to secure its position.
But what this tells us is that Mr. Bush, not Mr. Reagan, is the true representative of what modern conservatism is all about. And it’s the movement, not just one man, that has failed
March 19, 2007
Paul Krugman: Don’t Cry for Reagan
Paul Krugman says there's no reason to shed any tears over Reagan's lost legacy:
Don’t Cry for Reagan, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: As the Bush administration sinks deeper into its multiple quagmires, the personality cult the G.O.P. once built around President Bush has given way to nostalgia for the good old days. The current cover of Time magazine shows a weeping Ronald Reagan, and declares that Republicans “need to reclaim the Reagan legacy.”
But Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity.
In 1993 Jonathan Cohn ... published an article in The American Prospect describing the dire state of the federal government. Changing just a few words ... makes it read as if it were written in 2007.
Thus, Mr. Cohn described how the Interior Department had been packed with opponents of environmental protection, who “presided over a massive sell-off of federal lands...” that “deprived the department of several billion dollars in annual revenue.” Oil leases, anyone?
Meanwhile, privatization had run amok, because “the ranks of public officials necessary to supervise contractors have been so thinned... Agencies have been left with the worst of both worlds — demoralized and disorganized public officials and unaccountable private contractors.” Holy Halliburton!
Not mentioned..., but equally reminiscent of current events, was the state of the Justice Department under Ed Meese, a man who gives Alberto Gonzales and John Mitchell serious competition for the title of worst attorney general ever. The politicization of Justice got so bad that in 1988 six senior officials, all Republicans, ... resigned in protest.
Why is there such a strong family resemblance...? Mr. Reagan’s administration, like Mr. Bush’s, was run by movement conservatives... And both cronyism and abuse of power are part of the movement conservative package.
In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs.
If expertise is irrelevant, who gets the jobs? No problem: the interlocking, lavishly financed institutions of movement conservatism, which range from K Street to Fox News, create a vast class of apparatchiks who can be counted on to be “loyal Bushies.” ...
Still, Mr. Reagan’s misgovernment never went as far as Mr. Bush’s. As a result, he managed to leave office with an approval rating about as high as ... Bill Clinton... But the key to Reagan’s relative success, I believe, is that he was lucky in his limitations.
Unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Reagan never controlled both houses of Congress — and the pre-Gingrich Republican Party still contained moderates who imposed limits on his ability to govern badly. Also, there was no Reagan-era equivalent of the rush, after 9/11, to give the Bush administration whatever it wanted in the name of fighting terrorism.
Mr. Reagan may even have been helped, perversely, by the fact that in the 1980s there were still two superpowers. This helped prevent the hubris, the delusions of grandeur, that led the Bush administration to believe that a splendid little war in Iraq was just the thing to secure its position.
But what this tells us is that Mr. Bush, not Mr. Reagan, is the true representative of what modern conservatism is all about. And it’s the movement, not just one man, that has failed
Monday, February 5, 2007
Bush and Hillary Two Sides of the Same Coin?
from the ICH blog. It seems that the two parties are two sides of the same coin in the US. The Democrats may be a bit more progressive on domestic programs but that is about it.
W and Hillary: Two Sides of the Same Coin
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Sunday, 04 February 2007
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention’s winter meeting, Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that once she becomes president, she would end the war in Iraq and restore the basic promise of America. Mrs. Clinton, who voted for the illegal invasion of sovereign Iraq, knows she must end the Iraq war in order to launch another – a war on sovereign Iran.
02/04/07 "ICHBlog" -- -- This clever and yet unimaginative woman has failed to come up with her own rhetoric. Borrowing from W. she shamelessly echoes him: "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table." And so she intends to restore the basic promise of America by engaging the country in a far more violent conflict. The road to the White House is no longer through Iraq, but through the ruins of Iran. What an irony that the self-acclaimed civilized Western world deems it necessary to destroy the cradle of civilization as if the reflections of the past are a threat to its bogus and fragile ‘civilization’.
American policy makers distract world opinion by misrepresenting Ahmadinejad’s remarks, exaggerating the gravity of the “myth” remark so that by contrast and through distraction, they can exonerate themselves of the responsibility of the death toll in Iraq and the ruin of a nation which was brought about as a result of their ineptness. Accusations of bigotry are all the more cynical because the very country that is pointing the finger recently witnessed a Moslem Congressman be shunned by a fellow Jewish Congressman with these words:
“Congressman Keith Ellison should not be allowed to do so - not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization,' Prager argued. “Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible.”
It is worthwhile reminding ourselves that Iran’s parliament has enjoyed a diversity of minorities including the Jews whom Mrs. Clinton would have the Americans believe the Iranian government wants to annihilate. While it is contemptible of Ahmadinejad to question the Holocaust in spite of all the evidence, the realities and horrors of what is taking place in Iraq today as a result of US actions can hardly match up to the idiotic remarks of the Iranian president. His words have only served to further isolate the Iranian nation and play into the hands of warmongers, not cost hundreds of thousands of lives - although some would like to misinterpret the words in to deeds as justification for their own barbaric behavior.
In the same vein as W. and other neo-cons, Hillary insists on repeating Ahmadinejad’s speech purposefully incorrectly translated by MEMRI and propagated to the general public by the mainstream media to arm the neo-cons. The next war she is planning in order to return to the White House as its Commander-in-Chief would cost America dearly. Who knows if there would be enough body bags to bring home our true defenders of the flag, much less mend the fabric of our morality and dignity.
If Hillary wants to restore the basic promise of America as she claims she does, she would do well to recall George Washington’s farewell address as a guide to patriotism.
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has lived and studied in Iran, the UK, France, and the US. She obtained her Bachelors Degree in International Relations from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is currently pursuing her education in Middle East studies and Public Diplomacy. Soraya has done extensive research on US foreign policy towards Iran and Iran’s nuclear program. She can be reached at sorayau@earthlink.net
W and Hillary: Two Sides of the Same Coin
User Rating: / 13
PoorBest
Sunday, 04 February 2007
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention’s winter meeting, Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that once she becomes president, she would end the war in Iraq and restore the basic promise of America. Mrs. Clinton, who voted for the illegal invasion of sovereign Iraq, knows she must end the Iraq war in order to launch another – a war on sovereign Iran.
02/04/07 "ICHBlog" -- -- This clever and yet unimaginative woman has failed to come up with her own rhetoric. Borrowing from W. she shamelessly echoes him: "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table." And so she intends to restore the basic promise of America by engaging the country in a far more violent conflict. The road to the White House is no longer through Iraq, but through the ruins of Iran. What an irony that the self-acclaimed civilized Western world deems it necessary to destroy the cradle of civilization as if the reflections of the past are a threat to its bogus and fragile ‘civilization’.
American policy makers distract world opinion by misrepresenting Ahmadinejad’s remarks, exaggerating the gravity of the “myth” remark so that by contrast and through distraction, they can exonerate themselves of the responsibility of the death toll in Iraq and the ruin of a nation which was brought about as a result of their ineptness. Accusations of bigotry are all the more cynical because the very country that is pointing the finger recently witnessed a Moslem Congressman be shunned by a fellow Jewish Congressman with these words:
“Congressman Keith Ellison should not be allowed to do so - not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization,' Prager argued. “Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible.”
It is worthwhile reminding ourselves that Iran’s parliament has enjoyed a diversity of minorities including the Jews whom Mrs. Clinton would have the Americans believe the Iranian government wants to annihilate. While it is contemptible of Ahmadinejad to question the Holocaust in spite of all the evidence, the realities and horrors of what is taking place in Iraq today as a result of US actions can hardly match up to the idiotic remarks of the Iranian president. His words have only served to further isolate the Iranian nation and play into the hands of warmongers, not cost hundreds of thousands of lives - although some would like to misinterpret the words in to deeds as justification for their own barbaric behavior.
In the same vein as W. and other neo-cons, Hillary insists on repeating Ahmadinejad’s speech purposefully incorrectly translated by MEMRI and propagated to the general public by the mainstream media to arm the neo-cons. The next war she is planning in order to return to the White House as its Commander-in-Chief would cost America dearly. Who knows if there would be enough body bags to bring home our true defenders of the flag, much less mend the fabric of our morality and dignity.
If Hillary wants to restore the basic promise of America as she claims she does, she would do well to recall George Washington’s farewell address as a guide to patriotism.
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has lived and studied in Iran, the UK, France, and the US. She obtained her Bachelors Degree in International Relations from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is currently pursuing her education in Middle East studies and Public Diplomacy. Soraya has done extensive research on US foreign policy towards Iran and Iran’s nuclear program. She can be reached at sorayau@earthlink.net
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