HOW BUSH SCREWED UP THE MIDDLE EAST - OR MADE IT WORSE

HIS FIVE FATAL ERRORS

President Bush will be long remembered as the American president who managed to make the Middle East into even more of a chaotic hellhole than it already was.

Bush is certainly not to blame for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq, Lebanon, Iran and Palestine - plenty of that blame can be sheeted home to the demented pre-emptive war policies of the NeoCons, but to the casual observer, Bush is the main man, he made promises to transform the Middle East into something close to a paradise of democracy and so most will see the disintegration of the Middle East as a direct result of his 'War On Iraq' and ceaseless backing of the Israelis as they continued to hammer the Palestinians and then the Lebanese, while making grand claims that the US would never tolerate a "nuclear Iran."

The catalogue of screw-ups, misjudgements and failures is long and complicated, but Time magazine has pulled together a short list of the Five Most Fatal Errors :

President Bush travels to Jordan this week amid a consensus among U.S. allies in the Middle East that the region is monumentally worse off now than it was when he took office six years ago.

In Iraq, there seems little prospect of achieving anything that could be construed as a U.S. victory — and as a result, it is unlikely to send the promised tidal wave of freedom crashing across the Arab world. Instead, Iraq has effectively disintegrated into a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war that threatens to spread instability throughout the region.

Elsewhere, Israelis and Palestinians have descended into one of the most intractable cycles of conflict in their long struggle.

In Lebanon, the national unity agreement that ended almost two decades of civil war in 1990 appears to be unraveling, as sectarian factions are again edging toward another bloodbath.

Meanwhile, Arab autocrats remain entrenched, Arab democrats are feeling abandoned, and Iran's Islamic revolution is enjoying a second wind.

The fact that Bush is holding talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not in Baghdad, but in the comparatively tranquil Jordanian capital of Amman, has not gone unnoticed.

"One hundred and fifty thousand U.S. soldiers cannot secure protection for their president," mocked a Jordanian columnist, who called the choice of venue "an open admission of gross failure for Washington and its allies' project in Iraq."

1) Bush ignored the Palestinians

When Bush became president, he ended crucial American mediation, repudiated Arafat and backed Sharon, who proceeded to expand Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. With the conflict becoming bloodier than ever, Arafat died, and Hamas, the fundamentalist party that adamantly refuses to even recognize Israel, much less negotiate with it, ousted the late Palestinian leader's party from power.

2) Bush invaded Iraq.

Iraq turned out to be more prone to civil war than democracy. It runs the risk of becoming a failed state from which terrorists run global operations, and/or breaking into ethnic mini states that inspire secessionist trouble throughout the region.

3. Bush misjudged Iran.

Just after Bush became president, Iranians re-elected moderate President Mohammed Khatami, who had reached out to the U.S. and called for a "dialogue of civilizations." Bush not only refused to extend the olive branch cautiously offered by the Clinton Administration, he declared Iran part of an "axis of evil."

Despite Bush's tough talk against Iran, the Iraq war has dramatically expanded Iran's influence in the country.

4) Bush hurt Israel.

If protecting Israel had been a key goal of the administration's policies, it is hard to see how they have helped make the Jewish State better off today. Having gotten rid of Arafat, they have instead to face Hamas.

5) Bush alienated Muslims.

It was an honest misstep, but the problem began when Bush promised to wage a "crusade" against al-Qaeda after September 11, effectively equating his war on terrorism with an earlier Christian invasion of the Middle East that remains etched in the collective memory of Muslims.

Since then, the Bush administration's involvement in or perceived support of military campaigns against Iraqis, Palestinians and Lebanese heightened Muslim anger at the U.S. and undermined the political position of moderate, pro-American Arabs, including old U.S. allies like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia — and, of course, King Abdullah II of Jordan....

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POPPY BUSH DEFENDS HIS SON DURING CONFRONTATIONAL Q & A SESSION

GEORGE W. IS "AN HONEST PERSON"

For a man who likes portrays himself as old, weak and not much of a fighter anymore, with the every ready, and extremely handy, "failing memory", former president George HW Bush managed to rouse enough of the old fire last week to loudly, vehemently defend his son, George W. from some fairly mild criticism during a Q & A session following a speech in the United Arab Emirates.

From the Washington Times :

Former President George Bush, an angry father, took on Arab critics of son President George W. Bush during a testy exchange at a leadership conference.

A woman in the audience told the former president: "We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he's doing all over the world."

Mr. Bush, 82, appeared stunned at first as the audience whooped and whistled in approval, then replied sharply: "My son is an honest man."

When a college student told Mr. Bush that U.S. wars were aimed at opening markets for American companies and that globalization was contrived for America's benefit at the expense of the rest of the world, Mr. Bush shot back: "I think that's weird, and it's nuts. To suggest that everything we do is because we're hungry for money, I think that's crazy. I think you need to go back to school."

The hostile comments came during a question-and-answer session after Mr. Bush finished a folksy address on leadership, telling how deeply hurt he feels when his presidential son is criticized.

"This son is not going to back away," Mr. Bush said, his voice quivering. "He's not going to change his view because some poll says this or some poll says that, or some heartfelt comments from the lady who feels deeply in her heart about something. You can't be president of the United States and conduct yourself if you're going to cut and run. This is going to work out in Iraq. I understand the anxiety. It's not easy."

The oil-rich Persian Gulf was once congenial territory for the 41st president, who brought Arab leaders together in a coalition that drove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's troops from Kuwait in 1991.

But gratitude was scarce at the conference held Tuesday. Hostility toward his son, whose 2003 invasion of Iraq and support for Israel are deeply unpopular in the region, bubbled quickly.

He's proud of his sons, he said. He described as the happiest day of his life Election Day in 1998, when the younger Mr. Bush and Jeb Bush were elected governors of Texas and Florida. He described as acute the pain he feels when his sons are attacked.

When one questioner asked Poppy Bush what sort of advice he gives his son on Iraq, he refused to answer, blaming the presence of the media from allowing him to speak honestly.

However, he did not deny, as he has always done previously, that he is now actually giving his son direct advice. The old line was that George W. didn't ask his dad for help, and he didn't offer, because he didn't want to interfere.

THE FAREWELL TOUR FOR THE RELUCTANT GLOBETROTTER

BUSH FINDS FEW WELCOMING NATIONS AMONGST AN EMBITTERED WORLD

There's been repeated use of the words 'last tour' 'farewell tour' in the US media to describe President Bush's trip to the APEC conference in Hanoi last week, with a six hour stopover in Indonesia on the way home.

While Bush can't stand for re-election in the 2008 presidential elections, it seems a bit early to claim that this will be the president's last big international tour when he's still got more than two years to go in office, and is expected to be the Australian prime minister's guest of honour at the APEC conference in Canberra in 2007.

An interesting take on President Bush and his recent travels (considering he is one of history's most reluctant presidential travellers), from the London Times :

It’s no exaggeration to say that President Bush is not much of a traveller. Some American leaders relish the opportunities that a big expensive aircraft and a superpower visa give them.

While Watergate curtailed his presidency, Richard Nixon may in the end be remembered more for his famous trip to China. The current President Bush’s father always seemed ill at ease with the American public, but he was in his element when communing with European prime ministers or Middle Eastern emirs about the post-Cold War world. For long periods of his presidency, the globally curious and energetic Bill Clinton was hardly ever home (though there may have been other reasons for that).

But not this Mr Bush.

It's hard not to blame him. American tourists, even the most self-effacing, are not always greeted abroad with the warmest hospitality, and Mr Bush is no ordinary American. Indeed, probably not since Alaric parked his Visigoths at the gates of Rome 1,600 years ago has there been a less welcome arrival than one of Mr Bush’s occasional landings at some deserted, security-ringed international airport. He once remarked during a foreign trip how pleased he had been to see people waving at him — “some of them with all five fingers”.

But as 2006 draws to a close, Mr Bush has his suitcase packed and is accumulating air miles faster than a UN diplomat.

This weekend he was in Vietnam for a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, mainly to discuss international trade, but inevitably inviting unwelcome comparisons between the site of America’s only great military defeat 30 years ago and the current faltering war in Iraq. On his way to Asia he stopped over for a brief chat with President Putin in Moscow and then dropped in on Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong.

Today he is in Indonesia before he heads to Hawaii and then back to Washington and Texas just in time for Thanksgiving. But he will scarcely have the chance to clear a single square foot of brush before he is off again — next week he will be in the Latvian capital, Riga, for a Nato summit.

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DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS TELL BUSH : "CHANGE COURSE NOW!"

From the Australian :

Mr Bush is being pressed to take a more pragmatic approach to threats confronting the US, as pressure continues to build on his administration to open a dialogue with Iran and Syria over their roles in Iraq.

One of the most stinging rebukes yet from his own party following (the US mid-term) electoral rout, in which the Republicans were swept from power in Congress, came yesterday from New York's Republican governor, George Pataki.

At a speech at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Mr Pataki - the US's longest-serving governor, who is stepping down at the end of the year ahead of a possible presidential run - said the Bush administration had put ideology ahead of pragmatism in its decision-making.

Mr Pataki said: "Where were the pragmatists, where was the looking at the practical problems and saying 'OK, we're going to look at an American solution to this problem'?

"Too often ideology was imposed on what should have been a practical solution to the problems we face."

Mr Pataki told the Harvard audience he felt the mid-term vote was decided not on Iraq itself but on how the Bush administration had handled the war, saying: "We do need to rethink military policy in Iraq."

Asked by The Australian after his speech if he felt the Bush administration had allowed ideology to drive US foreign policy, Mr Pataki replied: "I think we just have to continue to reach out to all the different members of the global community in an understanding way and not in a confrontational way.

"I'm a great believer, when you have intelligent dialogue and respect for both sides, that you can find common ground. It's not easy but it's what the United States needs to seek more of in the global community."

BUSH CAN'T SHAKE ENDLESS CLAIMS THAT DADDY IS HELPING SONNY SAVE PRESIDENCY, AND THE WAR

We keep saying it, too, because it clearly is the truth of what is happening now in the White House. Yet, Bush allies and some media commentators insist that the president has not spoken to his father about the events in Iraq for months.

This may well be true, but it just seems an incomprehensible reality, particularly since so many of his father's old mates are now advising the president and vice-president, and putting together a new set of plans to extricate the US from the 'War On Iraq'. That is, if Bush Co. actually want the US to leave the region within the next decade. And so far, there has been little from the president himself to say that this is something he would like to actually see happen.

The former president Bush may be losing his memory, and suffering mild-to-troubling dementia, but he reportedly still loves to gossip and at least pretend he still has influence in the way the country is being run.

And with, literally, a team of his old cronies filing in and out of the Oval Office these days, the former president is entitled to indulge this fantasy.

The Democrats now control the House of Representatives and the Senate, President Bush has officially entered the "lame duck" years of his presidency, but US troops still seem unlikely to leave Iraq in any great number, any time soon, and it seems unlikely that the cronies of the former president Bush are going to recommend withdrawal, regardless.

You don't blow half a trillion dollars and then just walk away because a few thousand Americans have been killed. There is far more at stake than simply "a free and democratic Iraq".

From the Washington Post :

A day after suffering a "thumping" in midterm elections, the president ousted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a longtime rival of his father's, and replaced him with Robert M. Gates, his father's CIA director. And the president has invested great hope in James A. Baker III, his father's friend and secretary of state, to come up with a plan to correct the course in Iraq in a blue-ribbon commission report due as soon as next month.

If the father was the patriarch of the realist school of foreign policy that aims to manage a combustible international order, the son brought to power neoconservatives who want to remake the world and spread democracy. The president has given speech after speech assailing past administrations for accepting tyranny in the Middle East in the belief that stability equaled security, a thesis that he says exploded tragically on Sept. 11, 2001.

The elder Bush was reported to have been skeptical of the way the younger Bush launched the war in Iraq in 2003 -- reports that were fueled in part by public comments before the invasion by Baker and Brent Scowcroft, the former president's national security adviser and close friend.

"I don't think anybody consciously said, 'Geez, let's bring the old team in,' " said one senior official in the Bush 41 White House. "I frankly think it's a natural default from the failure of this advice of the people they had. It was impossible to argue anymore that some of the people who got us into this mess were giving good advice."

Administration officials said Baker did not recommend Rumsfeld's ouster or Gates's appointment. But in meetings with the president, he praised Gates, who serves with Baker on the congressionally created Iraq Study Group. During private discussions, according to one person familiar with them, Gates has expressed strong reservations about the course of events in Iraq and the failure of the administration to adjust.

The bipartisan study group, co-chaired by Baker and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), probably will not replace Gates because it is so late in the process. After intense meetings in recent months, the group still has not reached any conclusions, said one person familiar with its workings.

Stacked with foreign policy centrists from both parties, (the Iraq Study Group) may recommend staying in Iraq but changing the nature of the U.S. effort there.

The revamped operation would place less emphasis on military operations, cutting the U.S. troop presence, and stress training and advising the Iraqi army. Perhaps most significantly, the Bush administration's ambition of planting a democracy in the heart of the Middle East would be set aside, at least temporarily, in favor of bolstering Iraq's stability.

That suggests Bush 41 policymaking may be back.

"It certainly looks that way," said Tom Donnelly, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Even so, he said, the question remains what the president is really thinking. "Bush's mind works differently from the normal political mind. He seems to be motivated by faith and ideals and willing to take risks politically. Maybe these Baker guys can talk him off the ledge, but nobody's done it yet."

After reading far too many books about Bush 41 and 43, and their presidencies, I found little that told me the Bush 43 is living in the shadow of his father, or he is intimidated by him, and the comparable success of his presidency.

George W. Bush is far too arrogant and egotistical to be intimidated by a mere male.

No.

It is the mother, Barbra Bush, who intimidates and cajoles and bullies both of father and son, and has vastly enjoyed doing so, for decades.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR PRESIDENT BUSH

DEMOCRATS TAKE THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE, BUSH SHOCKED, BUT IMPRESSED

President George W. Bush actually seemed impressed with the spectacular victory by Democrats in the American mid-term elections yesterday. He called it a "thumping" victory, to the great surprise of not only the White House media, but his own staff and advisors.

Bush was impressed because he truly loves politics and electioneering strategies, despite his "Washington Sux" image and talk. And he was most surely surprised ("Shows you what I know") because his master strategist Karl Rove spent the weekend talking up the 'fact' that the Republicans would keep control of all the power come election day. Rove figured the Democrats would be left a few crumbs.

It was an astoundingly bad call by Rove, and his reputation as a kingmaker has been shattered by the electoral scouring.

Selling 'The Fear' just didn't work this time. Karl Rove's bag of magic tricks was shown to be empty, if it wasn't ever actually full in the first place.

President Bush has been mostly positive in the past 48 hours about the last 800 days of his presidency. He claims he will work with the Democrats to "fix America" and "Keep America Safe" before he packs up his desk, clamps on his cowboy hat and swaggers back down to Crawford.

But there's a lot of days of fighting, negotiating, arguing and compromising ahead. In short, for Bush the party is over.

This London Times editorial takes a prescient look at what Bush is about to endure as he enters the twlight (zone) of his presidency :

George W. Bush now finds himself in precisely the same political place as Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton before him.

Each of these three men suffered a midterm election defeat that involved at least one chamber of Congress being captured by the opposition party.

Yet all of them ended their time in office as figures having recovered from their nadir at the ballot box.

They did so by shrewdly exploiting the ceremonial aspects of their post, wielding the veto whenever necessary on domestic issues and focusing on foreign policy. This President, as he appeared to be conceding in his remarks yesterday, has little option but to do the same.

It will, however, be a more complicated exercise for Mr Bush than his predecessors. While it would be an exaggeration to assert that frustration at events in Iraq is the exclusive explanation for the Democratic victory, it obviously underpinned this ballot.

The recent conduct of the conflict has eroded what should be bipartisan backing for US troops in action overseas. If Mr Bush is to recover his position he has to be able to offer more than the slogan “staying the course”.

Mr Bush should now listen sympathetically to the many recommendations that he will shortly receive from a bipartisan commission led by James Baker, the Secretary of State under his father, along with Lee Hamilton, an experienced and thoughtful Democrat specialist in international affairs.

This would allow him to adapt his position to today’s Iraq where the prospect of an endemic bloody struggle between Iraqis poses a greater threat than so-called insurgents. In all his considerations, Mr Bush should aspire to bind Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, into his decisions.

He cannot afford Iraq to be perceived as a “Republican war”.

Go Here To Read It All

"SHOWS WHAT I KNOW"

BUSH FACES THE MEDIA AFTER REPUBLICAN POLL MASSACRE

RUMSFELD RESIGNS BEFORE HE IS LYNCHED, BUSH STILL FULL OF PRAISE FOR "GOOD FRIEND"
& "TRUSTED ADVISOR"



The Democrats have taken control of the both the US Senate and Congress after Americans voted overwhelmingly against the horrorshow of sex scandals, corruption, graft and lies that infested the Republican Party.

Bush, of course, infamously said last week that if the Democrats are victorious then, "the terrorists win". He has admitted this was pure election spin. A good Karl Rove line, indeed, but yet another example of how much America has moved on from the Rove smear-and-fear tactics of 2000, 2002 and 2004.

We'll come back to what life is going to be like for Bush in the last two years of his presidency now his worst nightmare has come electrifingly true, but for now we're going to whip through a dramatic press conference President Bush gave today.

Bush began by sounding it up like he was delivering a sermon :

To our enemies : Do not be joyful...

To the people of Iraq: Do not be fearful.....

To our brave men and women in uniform : Do not be doubtful....

Then it was onto the first big announcement. Donald Rumsfeld, Defence Secretary, "good friend", "trusted advisor" was out of the Pentgaon.

...after a series of thoughtful conversations, Secretary Rumsfeld and I agreed that the timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon.

What Bush means is that they both agreed that if Rumsfeld didn't go, they were going to face something close to a mutiny from the US military, the majority of whose leadership despise Rumsfeld and his absurd plans to replace the majority of US ground forces in warzones with robots (I wish I was kidding on that, I'm not).

Our military has experienced an enormous amount of change and reform during the last five years while fighting the war on terror, one of the most consequential wars in our nation's history. Don Rumsfeld has been a superb leader during a time of change.

Yet he also appreciates the value of bringing in a fresh perspective during a critical period in this war. Don Rumsfeld is a patriot who served our country with honor and distinction.

Rumsfeld, by ignoring the advice of people who actually served in the military when it came to total force numbers needed for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and by denying soldiers the right kind of body armour and armoured Humvees, sent hundreds of American soldiers to their deaths for no other reason than he was a stubborn arsehole, who refused to take good advice when it was raining down on his head.

No doubt, Bush will hang a medal around his neck at some point.

Bush also took the opportunity to push the new, improved 'Reduced Expectations' that will determine when the United States can declare victory in the 'War On Iraq' and get the hell out.

...that is a country that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself.

The definition of when Iraq is "secure" and the US can pull out gets lowballed more and more with every passing week.

Bush was questioned today about why, when he was asked last week if he was going to do anything about Rumsfeld, he said that the defence secretary would stay on as long as he was president. As would vice president Dick Cheney.

Of course, Bush was already hunting around for a new defence secretary when he said that. So he lied to the media, he lied to America, but worst of all he lied to US soldiers.

Why did he lie? Pure politics :

I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign..

....the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer.

The answer that was a complete and utter lie.

Curiously this is the first time Bush has been this honest about being so dishonest.

Strange days, indeed.

On Americans confusion about exactly what Bush intended to do about the failed methodologies of fighting the 'War On Iraq' :

Somehow it seeped in their conscious that my attitude was just simply "stay the course."

Hilarious. Bush used the term "stay the course" more than 30 times in the past two years alone. Another Rove-ian mantra tosses aside.

What did Bush have to say about his vast and vainglorious claims that the Republicans would win the mid-term elections?

I thought we were going to do fine yesterday. Shows what I know. But I thought we were going to be fine in the election.

And then there's Karl Rove. The Evil Genius of American Electioneering. Bush's Most Trusted Advisor. He came into Bush's firing line for a good-hearted (presumably) dig at how badly he screwed up the elections :

I obviously was working harder in the campaign than he was....

Compared to numerous other press conferences, Bush was actually in fine form, cracking decent jokes, reminding people that he has been a politician for a long time and that he's used to being called the worst of the worst during the electioneering process, when the real insults fly. As Bush himself put it :

...this isn't my first rodeo.

But he also stated, categorically, what he believed was the most important work he had to do in the next two years :

...winning this war on terror is, by far, the most important priority.

Bush is going to find that the Democrats don't believe that winning the terror war is the most important priority for Americans in 2007, particularly when such a goal is so specious and vague.

How do you declare Victory in a worldwide 'War On Terror'?

Countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan, amongst the many, suffer terrorist attacks that have little to with the US, and with whom the US has little influence or involvement. They certainly aren't going to send large numbers of troops into Pakistan or Sri Lanka to fight the terrorism there, so how can worldwide victory ever be declared?

Victory can never be declared in the 'War On Terror', and that is exactly the point. The war will last as long as what remains of Bush Co. can keep it going, and that of course depends on how long Al Qaeda, and its aspirants, keep up the fight.

Security is no doubt a very important priority for the Democrats, but so is healthcare, education and making sure the dirty Republicans pay for their crimes against America.

Short of a major terrorist attack on the United States, it seems very likely that the 'War On Terror' will slip into the background for a while.

Bush has talked before about how he believes the 'War On Terror' would last for generations.

Today, talking about how he intends to work with the Democrats, he explained his belief in more detail :

I believe the Democrats want to work together to win this aspect of the war on terror (meaning the Iraq War).

I'm also looking forward to working with them to make sure that we institutionalize to the extent possible steps necessary to make sure future Presidents are capable of waging this war.

Because Iraq is a part of the war on terror, and it's -- I think back to Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Harry Truman began the Cold War, and Eisenhower, obviously, from a different party, continued it.

And I would hope that would be the spirit that we're able to work together. We may not agree with every tactic, but we should agree that this country needs to secure ourselves against an enemy that would like to strike us again. This enemy is not going away after my presidency.

What will probably surprise most Americans is just how many issues that are important to Bush are ones that he can work with the Democrats on getting right, including the immigration and border control issues.

It may be way too early to make such a prediction, but perhaps Bush's last two years in office are not going to be as grim as most of the punters, and pundits, are predicting. If Bush is willing to listen, to flex and bend and not brickwall the Democrats at every turn (as so many Republicans who've lost their seats enjoyed doing so much), Bush's last years in office may actually prove to be his most successful.

Go Here For The Full Press Conference

BUSH ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL : UNPOPULAR AND UNWELCOME

President Bush loves life on the road. He has said numerous times that he would much rather be talking to a hall full of small-town Americans than hanging in Washington with "all the ties".

Hundreds of thousands of Ameicans have stomped and cheered and hollered their approval of just about anything Bush has had to say during the hundreds of speeches he's made since he began his quest for the White House in 1999.

Through the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republican senators across the US would do just about anything to get Bush to come to their home towns and work his magic.

But that magic, whether real or illusionary, or manufactured, has well and truly faded.

The United States president is delivering a couple of speeches a day as he tours his favourite states, still selling the 'War On Iraq' and ripping into the Democrats for being "soft" on national security, but Republican senators are staying away from the Bush gatherings.

Bush is bad news now, and a remarkable number of senators, including California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, have refused the open-ended offers to have Bush come and give a speech and hang out.

If this is a sign of how the rest of the Bush presidency is going to play out at home, it's going to be extremely grim. For America, and for Bush.


From the UK Independent :

Unlike four years ago, when Mr Bush campaigned furiously for Republicans across the country, his own unpopularity as a result of the war in Iraq has led many candidates to make clear they would rather campaign without him.

Mr Bush's name will not be on the ballot on 7 November, but when the US votes next Tuesday the election will be overwhelmingly a referendum on his handling of a war which has led to the death of more than 2,800 US troops and perhaps as many as 655,000 Iraqis.

Polls suggest more than a third of voters intend to use their vote to signify their opposition to the President, whose personal approval rating stands at about 37 per cent. Other polls show only 38 per cent still believe the invasion was a good idea.

To see Mr Bush deliver a speech is not to witness a thing of beauty. He is not an elegant or well-timed speaker. His delivery is often clumsy, his jokes often strained. In unscripted situations he sometimes gets lost and struggles, lost momentarily, before finding his way back to a familiar sound-bite. But despite this, he is oddly effective, hammering home one or two key themes with a simplistic drumbeat repetition.

Yet however well Mr Bush goes down with the "base", his chief adviser Karl Rove knows Mr Bush is not the vote-winner he was in 2002. As a result, until this last week, the President had been kept to the margins of the campaign and used mainly for his fundraising abilities in front of small, select groups of well-heeled party supporters.

"He is not an asset in most places and for most seats," said Stephen Hess, professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. "Nevertheless the troops on the ground think it could be helpful. He is base hitting and it's always been Karl Rove's strategy to get out the base."

Four years ago, Mr Bush's situation could barely have been more different.

In 2002, with his ratings still high after the September 11 attacks and with the war in Iraq decided upon but not yet launched, Mr Bush was in great demand by candidates.

In the final five days of that campaign he stopped in 17 cities across the country and the Republicans' success in holding the House and capturing of the Senate was largely attributed to the President's decision to insert himself in the centre of the campaign.

How times have changed.

Disillusioned Americans Set To Turn Their Backs On Bush

THIS FAILED PRESIDENCY

Historian Niall Ferguson argues that the Bush presidency has failed in its key mission statements, and its flagship effort - the War On Iraq to transform the Middle East - is set to cost the Republican Party their control over the American Senate, and possibly Congress as well.

Worst of all, failure in Iraq is showing the world that the United States under President George W. Bush is a fading giant on the world state of political and diplomatic influence.

From the UK Telegraph :

(Selected quotes)

The president after 9/11 was deluded by the notion that he had been divinely "called", just as his father's generation had been called to fight the Second World War. Believing he was "here for a reason", Mr Bush Jr was open to the argument that invading Afghanistan was not a sufficient response to the "Islamofascist" version of Pearl Harbour.

It's not that expert advice was unavailable about how many troops would be needed to police post-war Iraq (between 300,000 and 500,000). It was simply ignored. As were the warnings of those (including the president's own father) who feared a civil war in Iraq if Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

Bad news from Baghdad was hushed up. When no WMD were found, the subject was hastily changed. As the violence escalated relentlessly in 2005, Mr Cheney went on CNN to declare: "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

"We're not leaving," Mr Bush told Republican congressmen seven months later, "[even] if Laura [his wife] and Barney [his dog] are the only ones who support me."

According to (writer Bob) Woodward, Mr Bush once complained bitterly about the difficulty of finding a reliable Iraqi to lead the new democratic government in Baghdad. "Where's George Washington?" he exclaimed to his chief of staff, Andy Card. "Where's Thomas Jefferson? Where's John Adams, for crying out loud?"

This is a question many Americans have been asking themselves about their own leadership deficit, as the debacle of Mr Bush's second term has unfolded.

Failure in Iraq has exposed the limits of American power. The knock-on consequences have made a nonsense of the president's national security strategy. Having asserted the right of the US to act pre-emptively against potential threats, Mr Bush now finds himself impotent to prevent the two remaining members of his "Axis of Evil" – North Korea and Iran – from, respectively, testing and building weapons of mass destruction.

The administration that once rode roughshod over the United Nations now has to engage in horse-trading on the Security Council because unilateral military action is no longer a credible option.

Perhaps the supreme irony is that the Islamist terrorists continue to gather strength: financed by Saudi Arabia, trained in Pakistan and, increasingly, hatching their plots in Britain.

Axis of Evil? This sounds more like the Axis of Allies.

Go Here For The Full Story

BUSH FINALLY ADMITS THE IRAQ WAR IS "ALL ABOUT THE OIL"

WAR ON TERROR? MAKE THAT THE 'WAR AGAINST EXTREMISTS'

It's taken more than four years for President Bush to come clean, but he has finally admitted that the Iraq War was fought for the control of the country's oil, and that the war needs to continue to keep the oil out of the hands of "terrorists".

Bush said the following in a radio interview yesterday :

If the United States withdraws its military forces from Iraq, or all of the Middle East, extremists and terrorists could then attempt to topple governments to "control oil resources."

He's clearly talking about Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Kuwait here.

(Bush is worried) "rival forms of extremists will battle for power...they will topple modern governments....they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West."

If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies.'"

"You couple that with a country that doesn't like us with a nuclear weapon, and people will look back at this moment and say, 'What happened to those people in 2006?' and those are the stakes in this war we face."

Israel is the only country in the Middle East confirmed to have nuclear weapons.

Bush also appears more concerned, as usual, with how people in the future will regard the choices he makes today, rather than the chaos and destruction resulting from those choices.

He is absolutely obsessed with how historians will view his presidency and its impact on the world. Bush wants to go down in history as a great wartime president, and believes this is how he will be regarded in decades to come.

"Part of the strategy (of fighting the 'War On Terror') is to help young democracies like Lebanon and Iraq be able to survive against the terrorists and the extremists who are trying to crush their hopes, and part of the democracy is for a freedom movement, which will help create the conditions so that the extremists become marginalized and unable to recruit."

In little over a week, President Bush has re-justified the need to fight the 'War On Iraq' to include stopping extremists and terrorists getting their hands on oil supplies; the need to stop extremists from becoming involved in democracy; the need to create a 'freedom movement' across the Middle East; the importance of containing Iran and stopping Shiites from totally controlling Iraq and finally to show the rest of the world that "we don't abandon young democracies".

If Bush wants to fight against "extremists" in the Middle East influencing elections, or running in elections and winning, then he might as just come out and say, "The United States Is Never Going To Leave The Middle East. Ever."

He also seems still unable to grasp the idea that terrorists and extremists use the violence metted out against Iraqis and Palestinians on a daily basis (by fellow Arabs, "international terrorists", covert state forces and private security guards and corporate militias) as one of their key recruiting tools. The 'War On Terror' supplies endless publicity and promotional material for extremists and terrorists to recruit the young and easily influenced.

Orphaned children and widowed husbands and those who have lost their entire families to the 'War On Iraq' are also prime candidates for recruitment by terrorist or extremist groups.

"Extremists" is now the key word.

Terrorists are rarely mentioned in Bush speeches and interviews these days.

It's all about "the extremists".

Which is genuinely bizarre.

Extremism is, for the most part, a personal opinion of the actions or views or beliefs of other people.

The vagarities of defining 'terrorism' at least had the concrete foundation of the use of violence as a political weapon by a non-state entity, usually targeting civilians.

But an "extremist" can be anyone whose political opinion, or platform, you personally regard as "extreme", or non-mainstream, presumably.

But turning the American battle for world energy resources, known as the 'War On Terror', into the 'War Against Extremists' has been part of the Bush Co game plan as outlined by NeoCon strategists in the late 1990s, in the Project For The New American Century papers.

Terrorism as a tactic of war and politics is unlikely to ever go away, but you still need acts of violence and bloodshed to, at least, partly justify military action against "the terrorists, and their supporters".

A 'War Against Extremists' could be fought anywhere in the world, including the homeland, the United States of America.

The 'War On Terror' may fade, but a 'War Against Extremists' could literally last generations.

And victory in a 'War Against Extremists' would be what exactly?

A world where non-mainstream or radical thought and opinion was banned?

Would holding political opinions regarded as "extremist" mean you were a 'non-combatant', the enemy, and therefore worthy of detention or imprisonment?

The irony in President Bush preparing the ground for a 'War Against Extremists' in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon and Iraq, is that he himself is now regarded as an extremist by country and regional majorities across the planet.

In the United States today, even senators who've supported Bush ceaselessy for the last three and a half years of the Iraq War are now removing photos of themselves with the president from their own websites. He is political poison for most Republican senators in the mid-term elections this week.

Why?

President Bush is regarded as something of an extremist himself now by the majority of Americans, who not only think the President lied to them and decieved them to get his Iraq War, but also remain unsure whether or not their president was somehow involved in, or allowed, the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington DC.

President Bush will most likely be regarded by historians as one of the most "extremist" presidents in American history, if only for the way his religious beliefs impacted on the private lives of Americans. And these same historians will no doubt judge his extraordinarily deceptive sprint into the 'War On Iraq' as one of the most extreme acts of any American president.

Go Here For The Full Story

BUSH IS NOW "IN DENIAL...UNHINGED....THIS MAN HAS LOST HIS MIND"

Andrew Sullivan is one of the many American conservative, former pro-Iraq war journalists and columnists now regularly shredding President Bush and the 'War On Terror' in general.

Sullivan, however, goes one step beyond virtually every other former Iraq War supporter and Bush cheerleader. Sullivan is now seriously questioning the president's mental state and publicly declared that Bush has "lost his mind".

Sullivan's remarks were spurned by Bush's declaration that both the Vice President Dick Cheney and the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had done "remarkable" and "fantastic" jobs in pursuing the Iraq War and they could keep their posiitons in his administration as long as they wished to stay.

Well, until January, 2009, anyway.

Then again, President Bush now has the legal right to declare an ongoing state of national emergency in December 2008 and remain president for the entire length of the national emergency state.

Just the kind of thing a man who has "lost his mind" might try and do.

From Editor & Publisher :

Andrew Sullivan, the conservative writer who was once a key media supporter for the Iraq war, denounced the latest Bush statement on CNN on Wednesday night, stating that the president is ....delusional....

"It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind. No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that it has been done well. It's a disaster.

"For him to say it's a fantastic job suggests the president has lost it, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it.....These people must be held accountable..."

How could anyone look at what is happening in Iraq and then acclaim two of the key men responsible for the violence and death borne from the chaos and lack of control and planning, and say they have done "fantastic" jobs?

You could be President Bush and say this, and mean it, only if your intention was to make Iraq, and the Middle East in general, a place of perpetual chaos and carnage.

Sometimes it seems to be the only explanation that makes any sense at all.

If the plan always was for Chaos In Iraq, then Cheney and Rumsfeld have indeed done "fantastic" jobs.

I NEVER READ BOOKS ABOUT MYSELF, NOT EVEN THE BAD ONES

President Bush read three books about George Washington in the past year, but he didn't even flick through one of the hundreds of books now published about himself?

Bush also now claims that he has never read any book about his presidency, including the three volumes in Bob Woodward's ultra-controversial 'Bush At War' trilogy.

As you will see when you watch this short video of a recent Bush interview, the president isn't very convincing when he tries to deny having read any of the Woodward books. He's even less convincing when he tries to deny haing read any books at all about himself.

Not one.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You said in your press conference last week, you joked about the books being written about your administration. Have you read any of them?

BUSH: No.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why not?

BUSH: You know, I don’t know. I haven’t read the bad ones. I haven’t read the good ones. I guess it makes me — It’s kinda weird to be reading books about yourself when you’re still trying to be the President. I really haven’t.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you explain, though, how Bob Woodward, who has written three books –

BUSH: I didn’t read the book.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I know. But he’s written three books about your presidency –

BUSH: I didn’t read any of them.

STEPHANOPOULOS: None of them?

BUSH: George, I have not read one book about me. I read a lot of books this year. But not one about myself. You know, I just — I feel uncomfortable reading about myself. It’s — it’s hard for you to relate, I think. But my — I’m still in the midst of my presidency. And people are writing books about my presidency. It is so myopic in many ways. The true history of my presidency won’t be reflected until way after I’m gone.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You don’t think there’s anything you could learn from these books in real-time?

BUSH: No.

It is quite remarkable, and extremely revealing, that Bush does not think there is anything that can be learned, or any value-rich insight gained, from even glancing over Bob Woodward's trilogy of the Bush presidency and Bush's 'War On Iraq'.

The three Woodward books have featured a checklist of key White House and Pentagon officials and former defense secretaries, vice-presidents, international leaders, even Bush's own key staff, all speaking openly and honestly about the mistakes they have witnessed and the things that can, or could have, been done to limit the hurricanes of violence that sweep through cities across Iraq.

Bush may claim to have never read the books, but he would have been briefed on the meat of them, so he knows exactly what the journalists know about the same subject. The White House actively promoted the first two Woodward books, openly, only clamping up when it came to the current volume. 'State Of Denial' does indeed show Bush charging through Iraq War policy, shouting 'Stay The Course' while dissent and despair consumes those around him.

This is the White House in meltodwn mode, crumbling under the weight of the war, the dead, the revolt of the generals in April this year and the appalling public spectacle of the failure of the democratically elected Iraqi government to slow, let alone stop, the daily carnage.

Woodward's trilogy reveals a shocking timeline of bad choices, ignored advice, forgotten intelligence briefings, stark warnings of growing chaos and bull-headed refusals to change overall strategy, or policy.

And Bush isn't interested enough to want to find out for himself what everyone has been too afraid to tell him? The incuriosity alone is worthy of condemnation.

The rest of Bush's presidency is going to be something of a horror show. They told him to shout "Stay The Course" and he did it, tirelessly, but now Bush has abandoned his war mantra for something fresh and more flexible.

The 'Stay The Course' policy is dead. Bush even tried to deny he had ever been 'Stay The Course' to howls of laughter from anyone with a memory.

Everything (except Bush's refusal to accept reality as it is) is about to change for the White House, and Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon.

Bush will soon find himself being told that the United States has been unnoffically negotiating, for months, with Sunni insurgents. Or the 'Sunni Resistance', which will become their common media name soon enough.

Anyone fighting the US occupation of Iraq was, once, simply a terrorist. Now the forces opposed to America have been divied up, categorised, brand-named. You've got the Sunni insurgents, the terrorists, the Ba-athists, the Saddam holdouts, the foreign fighters, plus additional new names being added by White House and Pentagon officials every week.

President Bush will actually have to front television cameras and acknowledge that while the Sunni "resistance" has been killing Americans, they are not trying to ferment civil war, and that they may be negotiated with to end some of the violence.

Then again, when Bush can turn around claim (with a smirk) "We've never been 'Stay The Course'," he could probably get away with denying comprehensively that the US is negotiating with terrorists.

President Bush is also likely to find himself without Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the new year. Rumsfeld will wait until after the November mid-term US elections are over with before he announces his departure. He will not be quitting of course, and will not be forced out. He will instead choose to leave to become an humanitarian, or something.

The Democrats are poised to seize control of most of the power in Washington in just a few weeks, and President Bush is now likely to spend the next two a bit years of his presidency backing down from many of his most powerful stands, and statements.

While Bush has been busy with Iraq, China and Russia have been busy cutting deals and firming up alliances all over the world, including the Middle East.

Russia will not allow either the US or Israel to attack Iran, and now demands the US choose diplomacy instead of aggression, every time Bush says "We will not tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons".

China, meanwhile, is saying virtually the same as Russia, but about North Korea. China will not tolerate an attack or invasion of North Korea by the United States.

Four and a half years after President Bush declared North Korea, Iran and Iraq to be "an Axis of Evil", North Korea now has some nuclear weapons, Iran will get them if Russia thinks they should, and Iraq is about to be ceded to Iran's Shiites. Rumsfeld's recent mumblings about Iraq having to take control of their own security all but sealed the handover deal.

If he had read even one or two of the books written about his presidency in the past two years, of course, Bush would already know all these things.



"The true history of my presidency won't be reflected until way after I'm gone."

What a bizarre thing to say, to even think. What is the "true history" of the Bush presidency that won't be revealed until "way after I'm gone."?

So are we not seeing the "true history" of the Bush presidency unfolding every day? Doesn't he help write that history with every choice he makes between dawn and dusk?

Perhaps he's talking about his presidency of lies, deceptions, smirking denials and the shredding of his own country's constitution. Could that be the "true presidency" he's talking about?

If Bush had bothered to read one or two of the bestselling books about himself, Bush would already know that the "true presidency" has been exposed.

STAY THE COURSE? WHAT COURSE? WHO SAID THAT? I NEVER SAID THAT

IN BUSH ALTERNATIVE REALITY, HE NEVER SAID HE WAS "STAY THE COURSE" IN IRAQ

Does President Bush even know what the internet is?

D0es he understand what search engines like Google and Lexis Nexus can actually do, in seconds?

Does he not comprehend that when he tries to deny he ever said something, the truth can be discovered and published on the internet before he even finishes his speech?

President Bush has given a series of drab, talking points infested interviews since the fifth anniversary of September 11.

Through virtually all of them, Bush managed to concede that very little was going wrong in Iraq. He refused to accept that his 'stay the course' solution to Iraq's problems was simply not working, and everyone but him and Prime Minister Blair knew that, had already accepted that as a basic fact.

But not President Bush.

Bush managed to sit through interview after interview and blindly deny reality. He failed to even acknowledgement the stream of credible, respected advice and commentary coming from within the senior ranks of his own military, along with former officials of his own administration, all sounding urgent warnings on the disaster that is Iraq today.

In the end, Bush had no choice but to admit they were wrong about Iraq. It had been an admission delayed for months. Obviously he could not deny it any longer.

"Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course.”

It is perhaps a sign of the state of utter desperation now gripping the White House and just how quickly the pressure from around the world has manifested, that President Bush seemed medicated in his interview yesterday with ABC News.

Maybe he demanded medication if he was being told to go on television and deny one of the key matras of his Iraq War policy, one that has been all but essential to the chaos and piles of corpses in Iraq.

"Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course.”

This incomprehensible denial follows the leaking of a plan to find a midway point between "stay the course and cut and run" by James Baker III, now working to help George sort out Iraq after Bush's own father lost his patience and sent in a number of his own key advisors, and trusted friends, to snap the president into line.

But the 'Stay The Course' line has also been used by two White house press spokesmen, by the Secretary of State, the Defence Secretary, the Vice President and a vast sprawl of right-wing, conservative talk back radio, newspaper columnists, headline writers and TV news producers.

'Stay The Course' was not only the Bush message, it was the Bush media message and and an endlessly recyclable headline. Too much going wrong in Iraq for your conservative publication's editorial policy to ignore? Simple, 'Bush Says 'Stay The Course".'

Bush's option to go for utter denial either proves the president will flat-out lie when backed into a corner, or he really has suffered serious brain damage from his days of alcohol and cocaine abuse.

How could he have forgotten such a powerful set of words that he himself had said and sometimes shouted literally dozens of times in the past three years, in speeches, in interviews, on his weekly radio address and on television.

Here's a few examples :

December 15, 2003 : "We will stay the course until the job is done...We're just going to stay the course."

April 13, 2004 : "...my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course."

April 16, 2004 : "And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq."

April 5, 2004 : "...we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course."

April 8, 2005 : "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq."

September 30, 2006 "We will stay the course."

And now, only a few weeks after he last said it?

"Well, hey, listen, we've never been 'Stay The Course'."

Well hey, listen, you've never been anything but Stay The Course..

(Bush quote dates sourced from ThinkProgress.com)


Bush Tells Iraqis : You Take Over

Iraqis Will Be Handed A Timetable For Turning Down The Violence So US Troops Can Leave

BUSH CLAIMS IRAQIS SLAUGHTERING EACH OTHER TO AFFECT OUTCOME OF US CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS ??!!

President Bush is not an idiot, despite the ongoing avalanche of evidence to the contrary.

We're as guilty as many others of taking the piss of Bush, who has one of the hardest jobs in the worled, but we don't believe for a minute that there is not a seriously calculating, sharp and decisive mind floating in the vast cavern inside Bush's skull.

Sometimes he says what he means to say the wrong way, sometimes he says what doesn't mean to say out loud, and sometimes, like today, he says something that is so absurd and so completely arrogant and deluded, you have to wonder if advisors like Karl Rove feed him lines like this to see if he will actually say them out loud, and perhaps to test the gullibility of the Americans who listen to him :

"There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence (in Iraq), and we’re heading into an election.”

“They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause (the) government to withdraw.”

You see, the Iraqis are not slaughtering each other by the hundreds in one of the most brutal civil wars seen in the Middle East in decades. Hell, no. They're going at each other with car bombs and electric drills and acid and machetes and axes and nooses simply to try and mess up the Republicans' plans to continue controlling the US Congress through the rest of Bush's term as president.

The war inside Iraq, amongst the Sunnis and Shiites, is not being fought so as to embarrass President Bush or to ensure the Democrats pick up 25 or so new seats in the US House Of Representatives.

What sort of dementoid would ever consider that Iraqis today could give a damn what happens back in the United States.

Okay, I take it back. Bush is an idiot. At least for today.

MASSIVE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN CONGRESS LOOMS

BUSH CLAIMS "WE WILL WIN", HAS NO BACK-UP PLAN IF THEY DON'T

MORE AMERICANS BELIEVING IN "REPUBLICAN CONSPIRACY" DIRTY TRICKS

Less than three weeks remain before Americans go to the polls to vote in the mid-term elections, to determine whether it will be the Republicans or the Democrats who control Congress for the remaining two years of the Bush presidency.

Republican senators across the United States are extremely nervous, and anger is growing at Bush Co for their outright refusal to acknowledge that not only might they lose a number of key Republican seats, but absolute control of the Congress as well.

Both President Bush and his key advisor, and "brain", Karl Rove, have been strutting in recent days, claiming "We Will Win" and "We Will Control Congress". Yes, fine, say Republican, but what happens if we lose? "We Won't," Bush and Rove continue, "We Will Win."

And so it goes on and on.

Although Republican senator Mark Foley has rattled his party with a 'sex scandal' involving teenage pages on Capitol Hill, it is Americans' growing frustration and disbelief over Bush Co's handling of the 'War On Iraq' that is set to seem the Republicans punished in the upcoming vote.

Almost three-quarters of all Americans simply do not believe the president when he says that "We Will Win" in Iraq, and less than 70% now back America's involvement in the conflict.

Republican senators fighting to hold onto their seats are pulling away from Bush, and doing everything they can to avoid talking about the 'War On Iraq'.

But it's not working. The pre-vote polling billboards a massive win for the Democrats. So how can Bush and Rove remain so confident? That's one of the biggest mysteries of all, in Washington, and across the US political media and blogosphere.

Everyone is waiting to find out what the last minute "Surprise!" will be that will turn Americans back to supporting Bush Co and the Republicans. It's long been termed the 'October Surprise' as something major seems to often happen in the last weeks of American presidential and mid-term elections.

Although there is a stunning cynicism amongst many Americans about a terrorist attack just before the elections, the most likely event to grab headlines and potentially boost the Republicans' chances will be the announcement that Saddam Hussein has been found guilty of genocide in Iraq and will be executed. This news is expected only two or three days before the November 7 elections.

But will that be enough of an 'October Surprise'?

Hardly, it seems. Americans are finding out already that Saddam will be declared guilty just before they go to the polls, and many Americans, showing more of that incredible cynicism, now think the Saddam trial verdict has been co-ordinated with the US mid-term elections to make Bush look better.

Incredible stuff.

From Reuters :

"This election has become a referendum on Bush and a referendum on his principal policy, which in the minds of voters is Iraq," said pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center.

"It is clear the public is angry with President Bush and therefore with Republicans for a war that has his name on it," he said.

Iraq has been a critical theme on the campaign trail all year, with Republicans frequently on the defensive over Democratic calls for a change of course and charges the Republicans are rubber-stamps for Bush's decisions.

Republican supporters of Bush's argument that Iraq is a central front in the broader war against terrorism now find themselves part of a national minority, according to recent polls.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 57 percent of registered voters did not believe America's safety from terrorism depended on success in Iraq -- a direct refutation of Bush's argument for staying the course.

The percentage of voters who thought the Iraq war could actually hurt U.S. efforts against terrorism jumped to 46 percent from 32 percent in one month, while 61 percent said Iraq was in the midst of a civil war, the same survey found.

Most of those polls also found the war was the top issue driving voters in the November 7 elections, when Democrats must pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate to win control of Congress.

Bush renewed his message of economic improvement and his charges Democrats are weak on terrorism during a midweek news conference, but it was soon drowned out by the drumbeat of news on the Foley scandal, Iraq and a North Korea nuclear test.

"I've never seen anything like it," independent pollster Dick Bennett of American Research Group said of the combination of anger and uncertainty among the public. The topic of Iraq dominates focus groups he conducts with voters, he said.

"What people want is some hope for the future. Who will make this better? They aren't hearing much of that," he said. "Aside from gasoline prices, nothing is getting better for Republicans."

Remarkably, even the sudden fall in gas prices is seen by millions of Americans as being another "Republican conspiracy" to con them into a positive vote.

Even comments by key Democrats that the price of fuel is almost impossible to manipulate this way (the oil price being determined by global instability, or stability, OPEC production levels and global demand for the energy resource) hasn't been enough to convince Americans the Republicans aren't up to something dodgy :

....a recent Gallup/USA Today poll found that 42 percent of people actually believe the Bush administration has “deliberately manipulated” the price of gas to effect the election.

"You don't think gas prices matter? Just ask Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter & Ronald Reagan,” say University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “They'll all tell you that their victories or defeats depended in part on the cost of gas at the pump."

In fact, there is an uncanny connection between President Bush’s popularity and the price at the pump. As gas prices rise, the president’s approval rating tends to sink.

"You see what appears to be an almost perfect correlation that the president's approval is really driven by gas prices,” says Andy LaPerriere, an analyst with ISI Group.

Rolling Stone Cover Story : 'Time To Go! Inside The Worst Congress Ever'

UNACCEPTABLE

HOW PRESIDENT BUSH VIEWS THE FURIOUSLY FAST CHANGING WORLD



From the Washington Post :

In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems "unacceptable," including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, Noth Korea's claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Bush's decision to lay down blunt new markers about the things he deems intolerable comes at an odd time, a phase of his presidency in which all manner of circumstances are not bending to his will: national security setbacks in North Korea and Iraq, a Congress that has shrugged its shoulders at his top domestic initiatives, a favorability rating mired below 40 percent.

But a survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

In the first nine months of this year, Bush declared more than twice as many events or outcomes "unacceptable" or "not acceptable" as he did in all of 2005, and nearly four times as many as he did in 2004. He is, in fact, at a presidential career high in denouncing events he considers intolerable. They number 37 so far this year, as opposed to five in 2003, 18 in 2002 and 14 in 2001.

Through a spokesman and then in a televised statement, he declared North Korea's claimed nuclear test "unacceptable" before and after it occurred Oct. 9. But he could also be heard on Jan. 9 lecturing students at an elementary school in Glen Burnie, Md., that their recent scores on math and reading proficiency tests were "unacceptable."

Having a president call something "unacceptable" is not the same as having him order U.S. troops into action. But foreign policy experts say the word is one of the strongest any leader can deploy, since it both broadcasts a national position and conveys an implicit threat to take action if his warnings are disregarded.

Bush's use of the term "reflects in some ways his frustration with a world that doesn't seem as amenable to his policies as he would like them to be," said Stanley A. Renshon, a political scientist at the City University of New York. Bush "has strong views; he believes in doing what is right. All of those things give an emotional force to his response" to events he often sees and describes without nuance.

Renshon, who wrote a mostly-favorable book in 2004 about Bush's psychology, said the president's declarations are in keeping with his apparent self-image as a Jeremiah, "railing against the tides" and saying what "people ought to be doing something about."

As such, charting the ebbs and flows of Bush's proclamations of "unacceptability" provides clues to trends in presidential irritations. It also demonstrates that Bush's most intense grievances -- like his attention -- have moved offshore, as evidenced this year by his eight declarations about "unacceptable" events in Iraq, and his 11 declarations about unacceptable behavior by Iran.

*******************

Asked at a news conference on Wednesday whether Washington risks looking feckless in making such categorical statements without taking decisive action, Bush said: "It's very important for the American people and North Korea to understand that that statement still stands. . . . I know this sounds [like] just saying it over and over again, but it's -- rhetoric and actions are all aimed at convincing others" to join Washington's effort to impede that country's weapons ambitions.

******************

Bush's proclamations are not the only rhetorical evidence of his mounting frustrations. One of his favorite verbal tics has long been to instruct audiences bluntly to "listen" to what he is about to say, as in "Listen, America is respected" (Aug. 30) or "Listen, this economy is good" (May 24). This year, he made that request more often than he did in a comparable portion of 2005, a sign that he hasn't given up hope it might work.

Go Here For The Full Story

STOP IT GEORGE, YOU'RE KILLING YOUR FATHER

"HE'S DYING INSIDE"

Former President Bush has repeated in virtually everything he has conducted since 2001 that he does not give his son, the current president of the United States, any advice on politics or world affairs.

The elder Bush made it sound like his son hadn't asked for advice, which may be true, but those statesmen of the former Bush regime are reportedly furious at what the current president has done to world harmony, the image of the United States abroad, and the reluctance of his neocon council of advisors to listen to the wise words of the old guard.

With the 'War On Iraq' rapidly becoming one of the most disastrous misadventures in generations, elder statesmen such as James Baker III and Henry Kissinger are now not only being listened to in the White House, they are helping to shape current and future international policy, particularly how the US will fight the 'War On Iraq' through 2007.

The former president Bush recently said of his son, "I am very proud of our president. I support him in every single way with every fiber in my body."

That's not a ringing endorsement from the former president. That's practically a cry for help.

From the New York Daily News :

....one of the worst-kept secrets in Bush World is the dismay, in some cases disdain, harbored by many senior aides of the former president toward the administration of his son - 41 and 43, as many call them, political shorthand that refers to their numerical places in American presidential history.

...as the war in Iraq has worsened and public support for the current administration has tanked, loyalists of the elder Bush have found it impossible to suppress their disillusionment - particularly their belief that many of 43's policies are a stick in the eye of his father.

"Forty-three has now repudiated everything 41 stands for, and still he won't say a word," a key member of the elder Bush alumni said. "Personally, I think he's dying inside."

The ultimate sticking point for the old guard is Iraq. They cite the appointment of 41's close friend and former secretary of state, James Baker, to chart a new Iraq policy as belated vindication.

The 41s remain incensed, however, that Brent Scowcroft, 41's national security adviser and once a top outside adviser to this administration, has been demonized since he wrote a 2002 article opposing an Iraq invasion.

"What Brent said is now the accepted wisdom," a senior 41 hand said, "and everyone believes 41 agrees with him, though he'll never say it."

While the 41s do most of the finger-pointing, aides to the current president reject the criticism as nitpicking from out-of-touch malcontents.

They also bash the 41s for going public, charging much of the damaging material in Bob Woodward's new book, "State of Denial," was provided by 41 partisans.

Another top former 41 loyalist confided that several ex-colleagues remarked on a perceived "stature gap" between father and son,,,

The 41s concede their broadsides are awkward for their ex-boss, but say they're motivated by a desire to protect his legacy.

In fact, the 41s suggest a singular irony: The unpopularity of the son's administration may be rehabilitating the father's.

"By comparison, the old man looks better and better," a senior 41 hand said, with undisguised satisfaction.

BUSH FAMILY BUYS 100,000 ACRES OF LAND IN....PARAGUAY?

This is the srangest George W. Bush news we've come across in a while.

The Latin American News Agency, Prensa Latina, is claiming today the George W. Bush family is intending "to settle on the "Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay)...."

An official from the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry issued a memo, where "he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842 acre farm in northern Paraguay, beween Brazil and Bolivia".

The massive purchase of land was described as being "surprising...a bad signal for the governments of the region."

The article goes on to say the official "considered this Bush step counterproductive for the regional power expressed by Presidents Nestor Kirchner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro."

The George W. Bush family buys 100,000 acres in Paraguay and there are fears this "could cause a hypothetical conflict of all the armies in the region...."

The only other current link between the Bush Family and Paraguay we've found is the fact that George W. Bush's daughter, Jenna Bush, was in Paraguay in early October on a UNICEF "program".

While in the Paraguayan capital, Asuncion, Jenna Bush found time to have dinner with the president of Paraguay and a meeting with the US Ambassador James Cason.

So was Jenna Bush there to check out the land purchase? Or to seal the deal for her dad?

Weird, if true.

And I always thought that when the Red Cross goes after Bush Co. for war crimes relating to the unprovoked, unofficially declared 'War On Iraq' that he and his vice-president and defence secretary would flee to Tasmania.

Perhaps plans have changed and now Paraguay is the place to hide out. Lots of jungle down there.


There's not a lot of current news about the Bush family and Paraguay. But The Bush Dynasty and South America share a strange and controversial history.

President Bush Okays Military Aid To Two Dozen "Banned" Countries, Including Paraguay. - All Countries Under "Ban" Refused To Sign US Troops Waiver To Protect Them From Prosecution In The International Criminal Court

1976 Washington D.C. Car Bombing Assassination Sees George W. Bush Covering For His Father, Who Was Then The Director Of The CIA - Pinochet And Shady South American Contacts Raise Serious Questions About Who The President Is Now Trying To Protect

Paraguay Region Was Considered Target For Retaliatory Attacks After 9/11

STUNNING : 83% OF AMERICANS DON'T TRUST BUSH TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE 'WAR ON IRAQ'

LESS THAN HALF BELIEVE HE CAN DELIVER ON NATIONAL SECURITY

Just how bad can poll numbers get for a world leader?

In the case of President Bush, appallingly bad. Stunningly awful.

Two-thirds of Americans no longer believe he is doing a good job, only 3% of Americans think the 'War On Iraq' is going well, and more than half believe he's not doing a good enough job on keeping Americans safe from terrorism.

And probably the most disturbing number of all?

57% believe Bush had foreknowledge about the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

From the New York Times :

The poll...found that the war in Iraq continues to take a toll on President Bush....the White House is having difficulty retaining its edge in handling terrorism.

The number of Americans who approve of Mr. Bush’s handling of....terrorism dropped to 46 percent from 54 percent over the past two weeks, suggesting that the president had failed to gain any political lift from an orchestrated set of ceremonies marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The public’s view of Iraq is as dark as it has been since the war began in 2003: two-thirds said the war was going somewhat or very badly, while only 3 percent said it was going very well. Two-thirds said they disapprove of how Mr. Bush is handling Iraq.

Mr. Bush’s job approval has slipped to 34 percent, one of the lowest levels of his presidency...

...83 percent of respondents thought that Mr. Bush was either hiding something or mostly lying when he discussed how the war in Iraq was going.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said Mr. Bush was personally aware of pre-9/11 intelligence reports that warned of possible domestic terrorist attacks using airplanes. When the same question was asked in May 2002, 41 percent said they believed Mr. Bush was aware.

W'S FURY AS WASHINGTON 'SEX SCANDAL' CONSUMES THE VITALITY OF HIS PRESIDENCY

President George W. Bush is getting desperate, as he hits the campaign trail, not for himself, but for his party. The Republicans are sinking fast under a staggering rise in the number of US soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq and the all-consuming 'Foleygate' scandal, which seems poised to explode and drag down some of the most powerful senators in the United States.

Actually, Bush's campaigning jaunt, where the rhetoric is reaching absurd levels of hysteria and fear-mongering (even for him) is essential to keep the president's last two years in office from becoming an endless head-butting competition with a revived and powerful Democrat-
dominated house.

Bush still has plenty he wants to achieve before he exits the White House in January, 2009, and he also faces the possibility of being impeached for any number of offences the Democrats are slinging at him. Worse yet, without the full power of the Republican house behind him, virtually backing his every move, Bush will find himself having to resort to more and more of the dictatorial powers he has already assigned himself.

In this way, his grip on power may be covered, but only to a point. If Bush spent most of 2007 and 2008 using his signing statements and veto power to over-ride the demands of a Democrat-dominated house, even the Murdoch media would start tagging him as dictator-in-chief.

If the Republicans lose control in early November, then the last days of President George W. Bush are going to be very, very grim indeed. Not only for the president, and the Republicans, but for all of the United States.

From the New York Daily News :

...the political winds have turned bleaker for Republicans - and President Bush's private mood has blackened accordingly.

Just two weeks ago, as gasoline prices plummeted and his tough-talking terror counterattack began moving poll numbers his way, Bush turned bullish on the November elections.

Now, however, friends, aides and close political allies tell the Daily News Bush is furious with his own side for helping create a political downdraft that has blunted his momentum and endangered GOP prospects for keeping control of Congress next month.

Some of his anger is directed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, "State of Denial."

In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.

"He's ticked off big-time," said a well-informed source, "even if what they said was the truth."

Moreover, Bush's personal disgust with the GOP sex scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley has exacerbated his already-strained relations with congressional Republicans.

"There's steam coming out of his ears over the Foley thing," someone who talks to the President regularly said. "The base is starting to get turned off again."

For all the misery, Bush remains defiantly resolute. He will campaign relentlessly in the next month and has told friends he's determined to prove his Democratic and media enemies wrong on Election Day.

"He's remarkably optimistic," a Bush insider said. "Like Ronald Reagan, he has a gift for looking beyond the morass in front of him and sticking to his goals, even if it's not popular.

This cover story in Time Magazine is one of the best summaries of how the 'Foleygate' scandal threatens to tear down the Republican Revolution that began in the early 1990s.

This feature from Newsweek examines how Bush could lose Congress over the scandal, and supplies ample background on how the 'Foleygate' drama got so far out of control.