Republican Presidential Candidates Put The Boot Into Bush

President Told Not To Darken The Doorstep Of The White House

Verbally kicking ten kinds of shit out of President Bush worked so well for the Democrats during the mid-term elections, last year, that nearly all the current Republican wannabe presidents decided it was their turn to have a go.

During last night's Republican presidential candidate debate, they took turns putting the boot into Bush with venom, and enthusiasm.

Pro-war Republican media flakes used to wail from the rooftops about how progressives and liberals were always trying to "Blame Bush" for the horrors of the Iraq War. Now it's the Republicans unfurling the "Blame Bush" banner, the right wing media has gone quiet. Of course, they're all too busy right now shredding the president over his immigration reforms.

From the Associated Press :

President Bush drew sporadic, startling criticism Tuesday night from Republican White House hopefuls unhappy with his handling of the Iraq war, his diplomatic style and his approach to immigration.

"I would certainly not send him to the United Nations" to represent the United States, said Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor and one-time member of Bush's Cabinet, midway through a spirited campaign debate.

Arizona Sen. John McCain criticized the administration for its handling of the Iraq War, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said, "I think we were underprepared and underplanned for what came after we knocked down Saddam Hussein."

Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record) of California said the current administration "has the slows" when it comes to building a security fence along the border with Mexico.

Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado recalled that White House aide Karl Rove had once told him "never darken the door of the White House." The congressman said he'd tell George W. Bush the same thing.

The criticism of Bush was more in keeping of the type of rhetoric that could be expected when Democratic presidential contenders debate.

Its prominence at the GOP event — while Bush was traveling overseas — was a reflection of his poor poll ratings and the need of even members of his own party to campaign on platforms of change.

Senator John McCain joined in the spate of Bush bashing regarding the Iraq War, despite admitting that he hadn't read the National Intelligence Assessment before casting a vote that helped make the war a reality.

McCain has long criticized Bush for fumbling the aftermath of Saddam's fall, and Romney has recently begun to make some of the same criticisms.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee added his voice to those criticizing the war effort. He added that the Bush administration "lost credibility" with its response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Thompson's answer was the most startling, coming from a man who had once served in the president's Cabinet as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Bush's decision to invade Iraq caused hard feelings with longtime allies in Europe, and elsewhere around the world.

Bush's support for the pending immigration legislation is the source of Tancredo's criticism, and the issue figured prominently in the debate.

Think Progress has highlighted Tom Trancredo's remarks about Bush, which were the more hard-hitting of the debate, and includes a video that shows the audience applauded him loudly for rounding on Bush :

TANCREDO: Some time ago, in 2003 I think it was, that I got a call from Karl Rove, who told me that, because of my criticism of the president, I should never darken the doorstep of the White House.

I have been so disappointed in the president in so many ways since his — actually for the last several years, not just the immigration issue, but several other things, including the No Child Left Behind and the massive increase in government that we call prescription drug — Medicare prescription drug, that I’m afraid I would have to tell the president of the United States — I mean, as president, I would have to tell George Bush exactly the same thing Karl Rove told me.

Fox News Analyst : President Bush Has Been Kidnapped By "Space Aliens"

Replaced By "Tool"


Bush discovers he has powerful backers, during early campaigning in 1999.

Raw Story has an interesting interview chunk that examples yet more ways in which the die-hard Bush support base is dramatically peeling away.

Live on Fox News previously committed Bushians are now starting to rant like mad people.

Witness conservative Fox political analyst, Tammy Bruce, shredding the president over his missile shield-related confrontation with Russia's Vladimir Putin and, of course, changes to immigration law and policy :

Bruce (described) the situation as "another glaring example of the growing incompetency of the Bush administration and his foreign policy..."

Bruce began by defending Putin and asked how we in the US would feel if Russian missiles were sited in Cuba or Honduras. She pointed out that the US missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland are supposedly intended to guard against the threat of potential Iranian long-range missiles, even though those missiles don't yet exist and we've said we're not going to allow Iran to develop them.

She then blew up about immigration and Iraq as well, saying, "I'm waiting to find the space aliens that kidnapped the president that I grew to admire after September 11 and left this tool behind. ... I'm furious."

..."every maniac in the world has felt empowered during the last five years. That is the president's issue ... because Bush has been so ineffective."

The truly bizarre thing about Bruce's outburst was that she was debating with a Democrat at the time of her outburst. And the Democrat was backing the president!

Ouch.

The video of Tammy Bruce going off can be found here.

Bush Cracking Under The Pressure

Pounds Chest, Declares "I Am The President!" In Front Of Old Friends

The reports of President Bush and his bizarre, stressed-out behaviour are becoming too common to dismiss as merely partisan attacks or some kind of Democrat-derived psychological smear campaign.

President Bush is losing it. He's cracking under the pressure of the Iraq War, incredibly low poll numbers and a growing tide of resentment from within the ranks of the Republican Party.

From the Dallas Morning News :

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

From credible Washington insider newsletter, the Nelson Report :

Sometimes insider gossip seems to confirm what all us outsiders think we're seeing, so, for what it's worth...we're hearing that some big money players up from Texas recently paid a visit to their friend in the White House. The story goes that they got out exactly one question, and the rest of the meeting consisted of The President in an extended whine, a rant, actually, about no one understands him, the critics are all messed up, if only people would see what he's doing things would be OK...etc., etc.

This is called a "bunker mentality" and it's not attractive when a friend does it. When the friend is the President of the United States, it can be downright dangerous. Apparently the Texas friends were suitably appalled, hence the story now in circulation.

(Hat tip to Think Progress)

Conservative Fury Rages At Bush Over Immigration Reforms, As GOP Support Base Is Swept Away

"It's Not An Amnesty", Says Bush

"No," Snark The Critics, "It's A Shamnesty"
One of the more popular items of anti-immigration propaganda circulating widely on conservative websites

Will President George W. Bush destroy the Republican Party and leave it in tatters before he departs the White House in early 2009?

Yes, say a growing number of critics, the destruction of the GOP has already begun.

But it's not hope-filled liberals making these dire predictions of the Republican Party tearing itself apart, but Republicans themselves.

The GOP base is being swept away by the waves of the failing Iraq War and President Bush's ultra-controversial immigration reforms.

If the recent reaction to President Bush's "Not An Amnesty" immigration reform package is anything to go by, he has now lost the backing of his core Republican base, the vast conservative talk back radio audience and the somewhat influential right-wing blogging community.

When you hear the words "Bush" and "impeachment" now, they are as likely to be spoken by conservatives as they are by liberals.

President Bush gave a number of press briefings last week, trying to remove the word "amnesty" from the minds of Americans when they think about his immigration plans. Unfortunately for Bush they are more likely to think of the word "shamnesty", a term coined by talking heads on Fox News that swept through conservative talk radio in a matter of hours.

Bush wants the Senate to pass his "comprehensive" immigration bill, without months of wrangling and deal cutting. And GOPers want it gone as fast as possible, fearing it will drag down their 2008 election chances, as it surely will. Just don't use the word amnesty, Bush reminded his fellow GOPers. For God's sake, don't say amnesty :

"If you want to kill a bill, then you just go around America saying, this is amnesty. In other words, there are some words that illicit strong reactions from our fellow citizens. Amnesty is when a person breaks the law and is completely forgiven for having done so. This bill isn't amnesty. For those who call it amnesty, they're just trying to, in my judgment, frighten people about the bill..."

Bush is way too late on that front. Americans are clearly frightened, and they are unlikely to be won over to the idea of up to 12 million illegal immigrants gaining citizen status any time soon.

Bush continued :

"This bill is not amnesty, but it recognizes that it is impossible for this country to rout people out of our society and "send them home." It's just not going to happen."

Bush is right on one point there. It would be a logistical nightmare, a clear impossibility, to "rout" from the United States every single illegal immigrant. Not even taking into consideration the fact that such a "rout" would smash the American economy to pieces, and leave states like California with such low-paid labour shortages the entire state would grind to a halt.

Whatever Bush wants to call it, and however Karl Rove tries to frame the spin, the immigration bill acts as an amnesty, and most Americans already know it, as do the illegal immigrants who are already celebrating before the bill even hits the Senate floor, which it should do today.

From the Washington Times :

President Bush yesterday renewed his attack on Republicans who oppose his immigration bill, again charging that they are trying to "frighten people" and calling on supporters to rally around the compromise.

The president pleaded with senators to "show courage and resolve" to withstand outrage from voters in their districts.

...many Republican senators say the bill is both an amnesty and unworkable and argue that Mr. Bush's barbs are off the mark.

"I'm not going around frightening people. People are frightened, and they're trying to scare the politicians into voting the way they want them to," said Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, whose opposition to the bill has earned him standing ovations at speeches and events back home during the past week.

Mr. Bush's challenge followed a speech in Georgia on Tuesday that infuriated Republican opponents of his bill. And the renewed challenge came just a day after White House press secretary Tony Snow said the administration was trying to "lower the temperature and get people to talk about basic principles."

The fight is taking a serious toll on Republicans. The Washington Times reported yesterday that small donations to the Republican National Committee have dropped by an estimated 40 percent and that a grass-roots rebellion over immigration is part of the problem.

The immigration "grand bargain" was the product of closed-door negotiations by a small bipartisan group of senators and the Bush administration. It offers a multistep path to citizenship to illegal aliens, creates a new guest-worker program for some future workers and rewrites the definitions for future immigration to cut out extended-family immigration and give an advantage to those with needed skills.

...Mr. DeMint said the details of the legalization and guest-worker parts of the bill are almost irrelevant because the voters he has talked to don't trust the government on the security parts.

"There's just a complete lack of trust, and that's really where the anger is from," he said.

That anger has played out on talk radio and in blogs and columns in the past few weeks, with some opponents going so far as to say Mr. Bush should be impeached and some administration allies accusing the opponents of bigotry.

Many qualified and experienced operatives have left the RNC, which has drawn frowns from the White House, where such desertions are considered disloyal.

This week, the latest desertions include several RNC staff members leaving the research, finance and other departments to join the undeclared Republican presidential campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Republicans close to the RNC told The Times in separate and confidential interviews.

The following excerpts from a comprehensive New York Times article looks at how Bush's immigrations plans are tearing away his already low support base, and could give rise to even greater dissent towards his plans for the Iraq War, an absolute nightmare scenario for opinion moulders like Karl Rove, who has been forced to go to the media to counter the "amnesty" claims directly :

President Bush’s advocacy of an immigration overhaul and his attacks on critics of the plan are provoking an unusually intense backlash from conservatives who form the bulwark of his remaining support, splintering his base and laying bare divisions within a party whose unity has been the envy of Democrats.

It has pitted some of Mr. Bush’s most stalwart Congressional and grass-roots backers against him, inciting a vitriol that has at times exceeded anything seen yet between Mr. Bush and his supporters, who have generally stood with him through the toughest patches of his presidency.

Those supporters now view him as pursuing amnesty for foreign lawbreakers when he should be focusing on border security. Postings on conservative Web sites this week have gone so far as to call for Mr. Bush’s impeachment, and usually friendly radio hosts, commentators and Congressional allies are warning that he stands to lose supporters — a potentially damaging development, they say, when he needs all the backing he can get on other vital matters like the war in Iraq.

“I think President Bush hurts himself every time he says it is not amnesty,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, referring to the bill’s legalization process for immigrants. “We are not all that stupid.”

This week, after Mr. Bush’s suggestion that those opposing the Congressional plan “don’t want to do what’s right for America” inflamed conservative passions, Rush Limbaugh told listeners, “I just wish he hadn’t done it because he’s not going to lose me on Iraq, and he’s not going to lose me on national security.” He added, “But he might lose some of you.”

Such sentiments have reverberated through talk radio, conservative publications like National Review and Fox News. They have also appeared on Web sites including RedState.com and FreeRepublic.com, where postings reflect a feeling that Mr. Bush is smiting his own coalition in pursuit of a badly needed domestic accomplishment, and working in league with the likes of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a co-author of the legislation.

The tensions, which have rippled through the Republican presidential field, are intensifying just as the Senate is preparing to renew debate on the measure next week.

Opponents are seeking significant changes — or outright defeat of the legislation — and raising the specter of a filibuster. The battle has pitted the White House against a group that includes even Mr. Bush’s reliable supporters from his home state of Texas, Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both Republicans.

Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s top political adviser, said Friday he was confident that the White House would win over its critics as it explained the details of the bill and the administration’s continuing efforts to enforce existing border control laws.

Mr. Rove said he did not think that anger over immigration within the party would affect support for the president on the war and other national security issues.

“People are able to say, ‘I don’t need to agree with anyone 100 percent of the time to be with them on the most important issue facing America,’ ” he said.

But that same day, Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal opinion writer and former Reagan speechwriter who has supported Mr. Bush, said, “What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them,” in a column under the heading, “President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.”

Opposition to Mr. Bush’s immigration plan, which calls for a way to legalize illegal workers who are here now, has been stiff for years. But last year, when similar legislation was under debate, opponents were rightly confident that Republican leaders who controlled Congress would not let it progress. Mr. Bush, not wishing to intensify the fight in an election year, stayed behind the scenes and relented when the legislation died. Not so this year, when Mr. Bush’s personal involvement in brokering a bipartisan immigration deal, and his clear determination to push for its passage, has intensified criticism from grass-roots and legislative leaders of his own party to the highest levels of his presidency.

Mr. Bush’s comments to federal law enforcement trainees in Georgia on Tuesday, in which he took the rare step of going after conservative critics in terms usually reserved for Democrats, has charged the Republican ferment, specifically his suggestion that those opposed to the plan “don’t want to do what’s right for America.”

Presidential aides said later that Mr. Bush did not mean to impugn anyone’s patriotism, and that he had ad-libbed the line during a passionate address on an issue he holds dear. But days later, Mr. Cornyn still seemed rankled. “I honestly don’t know whether it was scripted or unscripted,” he said. “But I think it was uncalled for.”

A sampling of the more mild reactions from the online world :

“Bush has turned on his own people, his political supporters,” wrote a visitor to a message board on the conservative Web site FreeRepublic.com.

Another visitor wrote, “Why have I cared that liberals not attempt to impeach this man? He’s gone crazy.”

Here's a good example of the conservative talk radio base temperature hitting fever pitch over this controversy, from Town Hall :

For the past two weeks, talkers’ phone lines have been jammed with angry calls from frustrated listeners. They’re hot as blazes about the immigration bill, and their anger has emboldened grassroots conservatives to criticize President Bush like never before.

“There’s no other topic that I talk about that has the passion of this,” says Washington, D.C., talk-show host Chris Core. “Not the war in Iraq, not abortion, not gun control. Nothing.”

Core isn’t alone. From nationally syndicated hosts to local commentators, the issue of immigration has divided traditional allies and caused what could be an irreparable rift between Bush and conservatives. In my nearly six years living in Washington, all under the reign of Bush, I can’t recall a time when conservatives and the White House have clashed so virulently.

Reading through hundreds of comments on conservative and formerly pro-Bush blogs and websites, there is an overwhelming belief that President Bush simply does not care what his supporters think about immigration reforms. We supported you through the Iraq War, through everything, many say, how can you betray us now? Why are you not listening to us?

It is an emotional reaction that the hundred plus million Americans who were deeply opposed to the Iraq War, before it even began, are deeply familiar with.


Republican Donations Drop By 40% Off Back Of "Amnesty" Fury

McCain Backs Bush Plans, Pumps Need For Amnesty So US Doesn't Become Like
Rioting, Car Burning France

Peggy Noonan Shreds Bush For Attacking Concerned Conservatives

Michelle Malkin : Shamnesty And Reality

You Lost Your Son In Iraq? Here, Have One Of My Coins

But Don't You Go Sell It On eBay




Some 3500 American military personnel have been killed in the Iraq War, but President Bush has not attended even one military funeral. He does, however, occasionally visit the wounded, and also meets with the mothers of those who died in the war.

A first hand report follows from one of those mothers, Elaine Johnson, who met with President Bush after her son was killed in Iraq. Her recounting of the meeting is disturbing in the extreme.

From Chicago Tribune blog 'The Swamp' :

"And in the room that I was in it was only me and four more other families. And I asked him questions you know, on um why we were over there? He couldn’t answer that. I said, well what are we fighting for? He said to finish a mission.

"I said, why was my son and the rest of the soldiers on the Chinook helicopter, which was supposed to be only to transport cargos not humans? He said, well he didn’t know. He referred me to General Wilson, which was in the same room. General Wilson’s response was that they, you know, they was transporting them on that same helicopter and never was shot down.

"President Bush...he told me I was kind of, seemed like I was kind of hostile. I said, ‘yes I am hostile, because you sent my son over there.’ So my thing is -- all the questions that I asked him, he didn’t know nothing then, and he definitely don’t know nothing now, because the United States is in worser shape now that it was in 2003 that my son died.''

"I said what’s, what’s the mission? He couldn’t give me an answer. I says, well I’m going to tell you what: I’m on my mission now. My mission had just begun. And my mission is to fight to bring these troops home, to take care of these troops when they get home.

"Then he gave us a presidential coin,'' she said. "He gave six of us a presidential coin, tell us not to tell the rest of the people that was there, and then after that he told us don’t go sell it on eBay. Now you tell me how insensitive that can be? What kind of caring person is that?

This is only one of the numerous accounts from mothers of the war dead who have met with the president and spoken later of how bizarre and horrible their encounter turned out to be. It is another example of how President Bush likes to make jokes in such tense times, as though he wishes to wipe away the seriousness and levity.

George W. Bush : NeoLiberal, Not NeoCon


President Bush has sent shuddering waves of revulsion and horror through the pro-war, anti-immigration ranks of his die-hard supporters in the past two weeks, something we will look at it in detail here later, if only to catalogue for history some of the many blog comments that are so poisonously, and hilariously, outraged and unhinged.

The Bush Backers are feeling betrayed and confused because after supporting Bush through five years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and giving full cheer to his extremely controversial moves to detain and torture enemy combatants in Guanatanamo Bay; to allow wiretapping against innocent American citizens; to introduce the Patriot Act; to pursue the deeply unpopular 'War on Terror' and to generally act as though he was the King of All Radical Republicans, and a deeply committed conservative Christian to boot, the president's real colours are now becoming known to the True Believers and they don't like it at all.

Allow illegal immigrants to stay and become Americans. Excuse me?

Meet with the Iranians and sit down for a reasonable talk instead of blasting their nuclear facilitates into dust. WTF...Excuse me?

Let those goddamn Russkies call America 'Nazi-like' and then invite Putin to the family home in Maine for a weekend stay. Excuse me?

Harass Israel on bringing forward the Palestinian state and tell them to stop killing so many civilians. Excuse me?

And there's plenty more of these supposed radical Bush policy shifts already underway, and plenty more to come.

The Bush Backers are angry, furious, betrayed and outraged because they can now see the gut-churning Dawn Of Reality that they may have been cheer-leading a freaking Liberal In Disguise all along...

Which brings us to this interesting column from Richard Cohen writing in the Washington Post, who argues that President Bush is, after all, a NeoLiberal, or at the very least more liberal than NeoCon. And the proof is there for all to see.

Cohen's argument is mostly accurate and, disturbing as it is for us to admit, kind of convincing. But he makes the point that Bush's NeoLiberalism, such as it is, has been all but destroyed by sheer incompetency.

Decide for yourself (excerpts) :

....George W. Bush. He's more liberal than you might think.

You recoil, I know. After all, the conventional wisdom is that Bush is the most conservative of all presidents, an advocate of limited government, minimal taxes and, when it comes to the quintessentially liberal concern with civil liberties, the man who gave us the twin black eyes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It's an appalling record.

But consider this: An overriding principle of conservatism is to limit the role and influence of the federal government. Nowhere is this truer than in education

...Bush has extended the (education) department's reach in a manner that Democrats could not have envisaged. I am referring, of course, to the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, better known as No Child Left Behind. I will spare you the act's details, but it pretty much tells the states to shape up or face a loss of federal funds. It is precisely the sort of law that conservatives predicted Washington would someday seek -- and it did.

Similarly, let's take a look at the much-mocked notion of diversity. Bill Clinton was widely berated for his effort to have an administration that looked like America -- women, African Americans, Hispanics, you name it. Whether by design or not, Bush has also managed that feat. A female education secretary is one thing, but a national security adviser -- the uber-macho post -- is something else, and that went first to Condi Rice. And over at Justice, Bush chose Alberto Gonzales, the son of Hispanic migrant workers...

You only have to listen to Bush talk about the virtues of immigration -- another liberal sentiment -- or his frequent mention of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to appreciate that the president is a sentimental softie, what was once dismissively called a "mushy-headed liberal."

Allow me to make the case that this is also true when it comes to Iraq. I acknowledge that the war is a catastrophic mistake and was incompetently managed. But if you don't think it was waged on behalf of oil or empire, then one reason for our involvement was an attempt to do some good -- rid the world of a really bad guy and make life better for Iraqis and others in the region. This "liberal" intent may have left Dick Cheney cold and found Don Rumsfeld indifferent, but it appealed to Bush and it showed in his rhetoric and body language.

Bush's neoliberal instincts have come a cropper across the board. His appointees have too often been incompetent, and his well-intentioned education act is underfunded. But it is with Iraq that real and long-term damage has been done. For years to come, his war will be cited to smother any liberal impulse in American foreign policy -- to further discredit John F. Kennedy's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Read The Whole Thing Here

Sparrow Sums Up The Public Mood

Confirmed : Bush Wears An Ear Piece During Press Conferences

President Bush was in the middle of expressing his undying admiration and support for his embattled attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, when a passing sparrow took a well-aimed crap on Bush's left arm. The white drippy mess was only inches away from landing on his face.

One of the Bush media manipulators claimed : "It was his lucky day...everyone knows that's a sign of good luck."

Ahhh, in the Bush reality world, perhaps. Since when was getting shat on by anything a sign of "good luck"? That definitely takes the award for the Best Moment Of Spin in the Bush presidency, so far.

Here's the vid :




He tried to brush it quickly away. But nothing gets missed in this world of YouTube and the three second video clip blitz. Millions are hitting blogs and news posts all over the world to comment on the world's most popular sparrow. The wits are out in force.

Here's a sampling of the hundred-plus comments at America's ABC News website :

Totally hilarious... even the birds in the sky know what this president is made of. Thank you little sparrow!

Oh, if only elephants could fly.

In the words of Jackie Gleason "How sweet it is".

I want you all to take heart: The bird responsible has been identified and sent to Guantanamo.

I just wish he was looking up and yawning at that moment...

That bird deserves the medal of Freedom!!!

Sparrow Makes Subtle, Astute Political Statement

I guess they'll have to set up a "bird-free zone" in future to protect the president from signs and portents in such form.

Of course bird droppings are good luck. So is choking on a pretzel, falling off a bike(and segueway), dropping a puppy, making a baby cry, being pecked by a turkey, amd having your best bud shoot someone in the face. Everyone knows all that stuff is good luck!

The bird's managed to do what most of us wish we could do...

Watching the video again, Bush's non-reaction to getting pooped on, and then his quick moves to clear it off, confirm to me the very old rumour that President Bush wears an ear-piece for some valuable 'on air' help and coaching during press conferences is in fact not rumour, but truth.

Bush doesn't notice the mess on his arm at all. He is clearly focused on the long, detailed question he is being asked. Then Bush looks down, concentrating, like he is listening to somebody telling him something important, then he quickly wipes away at his arm, without looking first to see what's there. Then a few seconds later, without checking to see if he got it all, Bush wipes again, like someone told him he's missed a little bit.

I don't think anyone would be surprised if Bush did wear an ear piece so he could get fed facts and figures and smooth answers during the ultra-pressure of live press conferences.

After all, if you were President and you thought you could get away it, wouldn't you do the same thing?

So who's on the other end of the communication line feeding directly into Bush's brain?

Dick Cheney?

Karl Rove?

Barney?

Bush The Decider Can Now Become Bush The Dictator

All He Needs Is A "Catastrophic Emergency"

How exactly did ALL the mainstream American media miss this stunning story? Did Paris Hilton get caught drunk driving again? Did some feckless celebrity nobody say something asinine that grabbed the headlines this story demands?

Why does the mainstream media always automatically assume that Americans will not be interested to learn that their president has decreed himself the powers of a dictatorship, if or when he feels such spectacular powers need to be activated?

Incredible.

Rogue Government has the full story of how President Bush can now seize control of the entire government, and all its branches, in the event of a "catastrophic emergency". Does this mean another event of 9/11 or Katrina scale? Or is it referring to an American city being nuked by terrorists, as Bush himself recently said is now a very real threat?

You can argue that this story reaches for the hyperbole button a few times, and presses it furiously, but the facts laid out are undeniable. Here's the main points :

The Bush administration has released a directive called the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. The directive released on May 9th, 2007 has gone almost unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative media.

In this directive, Bush declares that in the event of a “Catastrophic Emergency” the President will be entrusted with leading the activities to ensure constitutional government. The language in this directive would in effect make the President a dictator in the case of such an emergency.

The directive defines a “Catastrophic Emergency” as the following.

"Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;

So what does this mean? When one of those events takes place, the President will be a dictator in charge of ensuring a working constitutional government.

The language written in the directive is disturbing because it doesn’t say that the President will work with the other branches of government equally to ensure a constitutional government is protected. It says clearly that there will be a cooperative effort among the three branches that will be coordinated by the President. If the President is coordinating these efforts it effectively puts him in charge of every branch.

The directive defines Enduring Constitutional Government as the following.

"Enduring Constitutional Government," or "ECG," means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;

Further on in the document it states the following.

The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.

This is nothing more than a power grab that centralizes power and will make the President a dictator in the case of a so called “Catastrophic Emergency”.

This directive is a clear violation of constitutional separation of powers and there should be angry protests from our legislators about this anti-American garbage that came from the President.

"Look, He's Cut Out Lines Of Sugar For His Breakfast In The Morning..."

The fat kid from Family Guy sneaks into President Bush's Texas ranch. And what does he find? See for yourself.





Or Go Here

"You Have Enormous Courage"

Of recent, you are more likely to hear foreign leaders praising President Bush, as Tony Blair did recently, than to hear a good word out of his own Republican Party colleagues. In the first live debate for presidential hopefuls, it was Ronald Reagan who was praised and idolised, not the current president. Bush's name was mentioned only once in the entire three hour debate, and even then only in passing.

Today's praise comes from the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, who has rarely faulted the president for anything, and has previously lamented Bush as being like other great war time leaders, Winston Churchill in particular, but presumably without the morning eye openers.

Downer was in LA with Condoleezza Rice yesterday, speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. He compared Bush's 'War on Terror' as being akin to Reagan's supposed "Victory" over the Soviets during the Cold War. Bush has shown, according to Downer, not only "courage" but "tremendous courage"in confronting Islamist terrorism and ideology :

"When I think about the war on terror and the decisions he has had to make, these have been tough decisions....The final judgments about his presidency in relation to some of those decisions will be made years and years off into the future.

"... Will people say of President George W Bush that he ran away when the terrorists struck?

"I don't they will say that about him either. They will say that he confronted them and showed a lot of courage in doing so."

Music to W.'s ears, no doubt. He's certainly not hearing it from any of Republicans, or even the conservative media and blogworld, who are now hammering him over his new immigration policies.

The Next Presidents "Must Prepare For War"

As we've noted here many times before, President Bush spends a lot of time in interviews musing on how historians will come to view his presidency long after he's dead.

Sometimes these comments from Bush come after questions seeking his thoughts on the subject, but more often Bush drifts away from talking about Iraq, or the 'War on Terror', to muse away on one of his favourite subjects - his own presidential legacy.

In a recent interview, the president was at it again :

"The lesson you learn with the presidency is that it takes a long time - if you're doing big things, it takes a while for history to be able to fully analyse your presidency. There's no such thing as accurate short-term history of a president."

He was asked, directly, what he believes will be his legacy.

"Whatever it is, I'm not going to be around to see it. I hope it is that George Bush fought the war, he laid out a strategy for America and her allies to ultimately defeat these ideologues; he recognised the nature of the enemy" and put in place measures to deal with the threat, he said.

In the same interview, Bush said whoever becomes the next president cannot enter the White House under any illusion that they won't be a President At War. They will be. And so will the next president, and the one after that.

"If the people who say we're not having any war on terror ever gets elected, they'll sit in the office, the Oval Office, and realise we are in a war on terror. They'll realise there are people that are out plotting and planning. They'll see the complexities of taking on this enemy."

"...the realities of sitting in the Oval Office are different from the realities of the campaign, of being on the campaign trail".

"This is a very tough world with an enemy that's determined to hit us. And a president who listens to the intelligence being gathered will realise that the main job for the president here in this part of the 21st century is to defeat the enemy by staying on the offence and, therefore, securing America," he said.

Bush remains firmly of the view that the 'War on Terror' will live to its rebranding as 'The Long War' and will rage on, for many presidents to come.

"Presidents are going to have to keep the pressure on al-Qaeda by using good intel and finding him and pressuring him. At the same time, presidents are going to have to promote ... an alternative ideology to that espoused by these extremists and radicals, and that happens to be one based on liberty."

Bush also said nothing troubles him more than the Americans who have died because he sent them to war.

"My biggest regret thus far is the loss of life, for US casualties. It's the hardest thing for a president when you commit our troops into harm's way, is to know that they have died as a result of your decision."

Impeach The President?

At Least 400,000 In Online Poll Say "Yes"

Now The American Right Demands "Impeach Bush" Over His Backing Of The New Immigration Bill



A 'Live Vote' on MSNBC, asking its internet readership if President Bush should be impeached had attracted some 430,000 votes when we visited today.

A stunning 88% of all respondents voted 'Yes', the president should be impeached.

While online vote forums, such as MSNBC's 'Live Vote', are not generally regarded as a completely accurate gauge of the mood of the nation, they can still provide a particularly vivid example of the opinions of the people who choose to participate.

MSNBC 'Live Votes' don't allow more than one vote per ISP in a 24 hour period, and we've been unable to find any web sites pushing readers to participate in the 'Live Vote', either for or against impeachment.

Compared to many other 'Live Votes' we've seen, the issue of whether or not President Bush should be impeached has attracted a huge participation rate, and as the screen capture above shows, almost 400,000 people have voted to show they believe the president should be impeached.

Clearly, the impeachment issue is important to the users of the MSNBC site, and the dramatic results would have been noticed by the Bush White House and, more importantly, by Democrat senators who have refused to follow through with their pre-midterm election allusions and promises to pursue impeachment once they had the power to do so.

A good slice of the American public, it would appear, have not forgotten about promises made last year to pursue the impeachment of President Bush.

Neither have the media. Today, through a Google News search, we found at least 90 news stories, articles and opinion columns, published in the US, discussing or urging impeachment of President Bush, or the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

From the Atlantic Free Press :

It took 13 colonies to throw out the last King George. Thirteen state Democratic parties have now passed resolutions demanding impeachment, nine of them since Nancy Pelosi ordered the Democratic Party away from impeachment.

In May 2004, the Nevada Democratic Party led the way, passing a resolution demanding Bush's impeachment. On June 12, 2005, the Wisconsin Democratic Party passed a resolution demanding the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. On January 28, 2006, the North Carolina Democratic Party Executive Committee called for the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, and Gonzales, a call echoed by the full state party in June with the focus on Bush alone. On March 21, 2006, the New Mexico Democratic Party backed impeaching Bush and removing him from office. In April 2006, the Vermont Democratic Party resolved that Bush should face impeachment immediately.

Now we're rolling. Look at this list: Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, Vermont, Colorado, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and New Hampshire. That's 10 state Democratic Parties demanding impeachment by June of last year, and seven of them after Pelosi ordered impeachment off the table, and before the elections.

And now Massachusetts has joined the list. On May 19, 2007, the Massachusetts Democratic Party passed a resolution calling on "the U.S. House of Representatives to investigate these charges and if the investigation supports the charges, vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney." The charges were as follows:

"Whereas George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have:

• Deliberately misled the nation about the threat from Iraq in order to justify a war;

• Condoned the torture of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention & US law;

• Approved illegal electronic surveillance of American citizens without a warrant."

From the Baltimore Chronicle :

The divide between Democratic leaders contemplating their re-election prospects in 2008 and rank-and-file Democrats is becoming a chasm--one so wide that Congressional Democrats may soon find it hard to straddle it.

The issue is impeachment.

So far, Democrats in Congress and at the top of the party hierarchy, out of touch with public sentiment and worried that impeachment could hurt them with "independents"--whom they mistakenly consider to stand somehow "in between" Democrats and Republicans--have been following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's vow that for the 110th Congress, "impeachment is off the table." They've been doing more than that: they have been actively working to tamp down, and even to crush, impeachment campaigns in the states.

To date, 14 state Democratic Parties have now called for impeachment.

But that's only part of the story. Vermont's state senate has overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for impeachment. Similar resolutions are being considered in the legislatures of 17 states. Over 80 cities, towns and counties have passed impeachment resolutions, as have at least that many town and county Democratic Party organizations, even in conservative areas such as Berkes and Chester County in Pennsylvania.

Polls have consistently shown that the broader public also wants the president and vice president impeached.

In October 2006, Newsweek published a scientific poll disclosing that 51 percent of Americans favored impeachment, half of them as a top priority.

That poll, of course, was taken before Democrats had gained control of the House and Senate, and also before Bush, ignoring the anti-war message of voters in November, decided to increase the number of US troops in his misbegotten and calamitous war in Iraq.

Clearly the president has authorized an illegal spying campaign, and has already been declared to have committed a felony by a Detroit federal judge who tried the issue last summer.

Equally clearly, if the president is not impeached, Congress will be telegraphing that the next president, whomever that may be, can feel free to abuse the law and the Constitution in the same manner as the current president has been doing.

How can there not be impeachment proceedings!

None of Bush's and Cheney's grave crimes and abuses of power even require anything significant in the way of hearings. They could be submitted as bills of impeachment and voted on by the House Judiciary Committee and by the full Congress tomorrow, if there was the will to do so.

Instead, the Democratic leadership continues to dither, continues to permit the president to ignore subpoenas, continues to interfere with grassroots efforts to pass impeachment resolutions, and continues to ignore even the bill of impeachment against the vice president, House Resolution 333, submitted a month ago by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), even as it has now gained three co-sponsors.

The chasm is clearly widening between the leadership of the Democratic Party and the voters.

It may end up swallowing them up, come November 2008.

Now The Hardcore Conservatives Demand Bush's Impeachment

The 'Impeach Bush' movement is no longer raising momentum in the domains of the so-called 'Bush Haters', primarily American liberals and members of the hard left. Thanks to President Bush's backing of a new immigration bill, which will provide amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, even the hard right at the notoriously pro-Bush Free Republic website are demanding impeachment of the president.

Wonkette follows this up and provides a sampling of the scathing anti-Bush comments, snarking that the "Freepers" seem surprised to realise that President Bush "doesn't give a shit" about what they think.

Prominent Senator Suggest Impeachment Threat As "One Way To Influence The President"

13 State Democrat Parties Now Demand Impeachment

It Is Way Past Time For Bush's Impeachment

Impeach Bush Before More Harm Is Done

Bush, Like Nixon, Is Unfit For Presidency

Let's Start Using The "I" Word

I think this may be a photoshopped image. I haven't seen it before. And the person who e-mailed it to me, included no link or background info. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time the president has given someone the finger, literally or figuratively.

The Newspaper Of The "New Messiah" Celebrates Its 25th Birthday

Two President Bush's & Margaret Thatcher Pay Homage

The Washington Times has been very good to the Bush Family. It's helped cover up outrageous scandals, spread rumours that tainted presidential competitors and always been there to give the current President Bush an extra heaping of praise and support when the realities of Washington get too mean and nasty.

No wonder The Washington Times' own editor claims it is the Bush's "favourite newspaper."

Established by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who branded himself the "New Messiah", back in 1982, the Washington Times is now 25 years old, and it's time for celebrations :

George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, last night told the 25th anniversary gala for The Washington Times that when the Cold War raged, he and President Reagan before him were supported by "a newspaper that would stand for free people."

Mr. Bush said that while other newspapers raised fears that the Reagan administration was leading the nation toward a nuclear holocaust, the fledgling newspaper stood firm in support of the nation's security.

"Then a funny thing happened: Freedom prevailed," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush grew philosophical as he reviewed the quarter of a century he and the newspaper shared. "This is truly a cathartic experience for me. It's been 14 years since I left Washington behind and, to be honest, when I left the White House after the 1992 campaign, I did not feel particularly charitable towards the Beltway press corps.

"For four years as president, and for eight years before that, I had been subjected to some tough treatment at the hands of the Fourth Estate.

"The editors and the editorial writers of The Washington Times understood the stakes of the Cold War and were not the least bit shy about voicing their support for national leaders in the two great political parties who were trying to end the threat posed by the Soviet Union."

The "New Messiah" was on hand to deliver a 35 minute long speech to the 2000 strong crowd.

"Please do not miss your chance to ride on the currents of heavenly fortune that will surge together during this important and sacred year," Rev. Moon said. He said the future of American security lies in the Pacific Rim.

A letter from the today's President Bush was read out. He said the Washington Times' "efforts help advance the ideals that make our nation strong."

Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, sent greetings in a video that was projected onto several large screens.

"As long as The Washington Times is alive and well, conservative voices will never be drowned out," she said.

For a supposedly deeply religious man, President Bush seems little troubled to be associated with the self-proclaimed new messiah. Nor do any number of "compassionate conservative" Christians on the Hill.

Are they not troubled by Sun Myung Moon's more bizarre pronouncements?

More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year (2004) honoring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in which Moon declared himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be "reborn as new persons."

At the March 23 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) wore white gloves and carried a pillow holding an ornate crown that was placed on Moon's head. The Korean-born businessman and religious leader then delivered a long speech saying he was "sent to Earth . . . to save the world's six billion people. . . . Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."

Moon has claimed to have spoken in "the spirit world" with all deceased U.S. presidents, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and others. At the March 23 event, he said: "The founders of five great religions and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin . . . and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons."

With his spectacular wealth and vast reach of influence deep into the power centres of the Washington elite, perhaps it should be viewed as a blessing in disguise that Sun Myung Moon promotes peace over war.

But Moon is said to be no fan of the United States as it exists today, but again, the elder President Bush seems untroubled by violent and vehement verbal attacks on the US by Moon, regularly giving paid speeches to groups and organisations affiliated with the Moonies in Asia and South America. Even when Moon was vowing, in August 2006, to :

liquidate American individuality, declaring that his movement would “swallow entire America.” Moon said Americans who insisted on “their privacy and extreme individualism … will be digested.”

Three months later Bush The Elder gave a well paid speech in Beunos Aires where he declared :

"I want to salute Reverend Moon...”

One estimate claims that the Bush The Elder has racked up some $10 million in "fees" and "donations" from Sun Myung Moon over the decades.

Perhaps Moon's wealth has won him more friends in the elite circles of American power, moreso than his desire to "swallow America whole".


Investigative journalist Robert Parry has been tracking the relationship between the Bush Family and the Washington Times for decades. The key to the relationship, says Parry, is the remarkably close friendship, and financial relationship, between the Bush Family and the Washington Times' key funder, the Reverand Sun Myung Moon, who is said to lose more than $100 million a year keeping the newspaper on the racks of Washington news stands.

In the end, perhaps it is really no surprise at all that the elder President Bush has so much praise for the Washington Times. After all, as Robert Parry points out, the newspaper has been very good to him :

After its founding in 1982, The Washington Times staunchly supported some of the Reagan-Bush administration’s most controversial policies, such as the contra war in Nicaragua.

When the contra operation was embarrassed by initial public disclosures of contra drug trafficking in 1985-86, The Washington Times led the counterattack, criticizing journalists and congressional investigators who uncovered the first evidence of the problem.

Those attacks helped cement a conventional wisdom in the Washington political community that the contra-drug allegations were bogus, a belief that persisted until 1998 when the CIA's inspector general admitted that dozens of contra units were implicated in cocaine trafficking and that the Reagan-Bush administration had hidden much of the evidence.

During national political campaigns, Moon’s Washington Times was especially influential, mounting harsh – and often inaccurate – attacks on the Bush family's adversaries.

In 1988, when George H.W. Bush was running for president, The Washington Times publicized false rumors about the mental health of Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, an important first step in raising doubts about the Massachusetts governor.

In Bush’s 1992 reelection campaign, The Washington Times was helping again, spreading new false rumors that Bill Clinton might have betrayed his country during a college trip to Moscow, possibly being recruited by the KGB as a spy.

Moon Has Declared Himself The New Messiah, Vows To Complete Jesus Christ's "Failed Mission", Wants To Unite The World's Religions

Bush's Circle Of Friends And Allies Gets Ever Smaller

Former Advisor Perle Calls Bush A "Failure" For Not Destroying America's So-Called Enemies

With the upcoming departure of British prime minister, Tony Blair, the international circle of friends that President Bush relies on for support and belief in the need to continue the War On Iraq grows smaller.

Australian prime minister, John Howard, is only months away from losing a federal election (if current polls are to be believed). Then President Bush will only be able to count on the quieter support of the leaders of Japan and...ahhh....the Marshall Islands.

From news.com.au :

With Mr Blair set to bow out next month after 10 years in power, the end is nigh for a partnership that was forged in the searing cauldron of the September 11 attacks of 2001 and the subsequent war in Iraq.

"I'm going to miss him. He's a remarkable person. And I consider him a good friend," Mr Bush said last Friday after Mr Blair announced his intention to resign on June 27.

"When Tony Blair tells you something, as we say in Texas, you can take it to the bank."

In his emotional resignation speech last week, Mr Blair stood by his decision to stick "shoulder to shoulder" to Mr Bush despite the crippling cost it inflicted on his popularity in Britain.

He reaffirmed their friendship ahead of his last visit, saying he had learned to live with "poodle" taunts as he discussed Mr Bush in an interview broadcast today by NBC News.

"I've found him immensely straightforward to deal with, someone always true to his word and someone who's a very strong leader," the British Prime Minister said.

The caricature of Mr Blair as Mr Bush's "poodle" appeared confirmed after the President's "Yo! Blair" comments at last year's G8 summit in Russia. There is certainly no other foreign leader with whom Mr Bush is on such familiar terms.

Over Iraq, only Australian Prime Minister John Howard came close to Mr Blair's levels of backing for Mr Bush - and Mr Howard now faces a fight for his job against a resurgent Labor Opposition in elections expected later this year.

However, Mr Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month put on the "Shinzo" and "George" show at a Camp David summit to send a message: New leader in Tokyo, same close ties to Washington.

The same may also prove to be true for the France's president Sarkozy, and Germany's Angela Merkel is also offering support to President Bush over the Iraq War, though in a much less public way than Tony Blair did.


Former advisor to the President, Richard Perle, says he is now cut off from wandering into the West Wing to ramp up the War On Iran rhetoric, after wandering into the West Wing to ramp up the War On Iraq rhetoric in 2002. Perhaps they don't let him in now because they think he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

Anyway, Perle is deep into a personal PR campaign to scrape as much of the blame for the Iraq War off himself as possible. Good luck with that, Richard.

Perle is also disgusted that matters regarding Iran are now being handled by the State Department, who don't go to war often enough for Perle. The State Department dealing with international affairs! Imagine that :

The Bush administration is beginning to appease rather than confront America's enemies, a former chairman of the Defense Policy Board and leading neoconservative thinker said yesterday, describing the president as "a failure" who is proving powerless to impose his views on his administration.

Richard Perle offered a withering assessment of the president's impotence at a meeting of the Hudson Institute in New York, saying American foreign policy is being applied by an out-of-control State Department.

"We have already seen a change in policy towards Iran," he said. "It is now firmly back in the hands of the Department of State."

Mr. Perle's assessment is recognized by an expert on defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute, Thomas Donnelly, who said Mr. Bush is routinely frustrated by "establishment" thinking within Washington and that the failure to respond to the president's more radical thinking has harmed American policy in Iraq.

But the characterization of a divided administration frustrating the president's wishes is inaccurate, according the director of the foreign policy program at the New America Foundation, Steven Clemons, who said he thinks Mr. Bush is allowing Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice to play good cop, bad cop with the Iranians.

Mr. Perle said the president has failed to control his administration from the start and that bad appointments have ensured that he is isolated from the rest of the government, aside from close allies such as Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney.

The president's failure to get his own way stems from his general inexperience in foreign affairs and his ignorance of the way Washington works, Mr. Perle suggested. "He came ill-equipped for the job and has failed to master it," he said. "I do not meet the president, but from the people I meet who are close to him and from his speeches, I believe the gap between the president and his administration is without precedent."

"He was only in office a short time when 9/11 took place. … This president appointed people he hardly knew. He didn't know Colin Powell," Mr. Perle added. "He delegated a great deal. He thought he would give general direction and that the machinery would do what he wanted done. But the machinery wouldn't do what he wanted done."

The State Department is "institutionally disposed to settle problems through compromise, to settle rather than to fight," Mr. Perle said. This is dangerous because many enemies of America remain who are prepared to continue fighting when offered a settlement. "You cannot settle with Al Qaeda. You cannot settle with Islamist extremists. Those who suggest we can do great damage," he said.

Mr. Bush displayed weakness in the face of Syria and failed to convincingly condemn the visit of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to Damascus "because he had authorized some Republicans to talk to Assad," he said.

Mr. Perle said the current policy toward Iraq has no more than nine months to run: It either will have achieved success by then or will have to be abandoned. "That is why I find it strange that the Democrats should take short-term political advantage. They have only to wait," he said.

The U.S. Army "is not terribly well equipped" to fight the insurgency in Iraq, he said, and the Defense Department is still planning an army to fight a Russian advance in Central Europe. "We sent over the only Army we had," he said. He added that he thinks the coalition should have handed the country over to the Iraqis in October 2003, when the insurgency began.

Nor did Mr. Perle offer any optimism that the current surge policy, which he said he believed was correct in conception, would succeed. "People have retreated behind the Iranian border, out of harm's way, biding their time," he said.

While Perle makes some interesting points, his ongoing anti-Bush campaign is more to do with saving his own name and professional reputation from sinking into the muck pit, sucking down most of those who advocated a War On Iraq at all costs.

Perle has rattled off his claim that Iraq should have been handed back to the Iraqis in October 2003 so many times in recent weeks, that people are starting to believe he is right, and that he actually held this position back then.

Of course, Perle never said a word about it at the time. Back then he was still claiming, like Cheney and the rest of the Occupy Iraq team, that the insurgency was minimal and not a long-term threat, and the occupation had to continue, for the good of the Iraqis.

The more former Iraq War cheerleaders like Perle try and rewrite history, and their role in the mess, the more President Bush looks like a man of substance.

But Perle's attack on Bush makes one thing extremely clear : the ultimate blame for what's happened in Iraq will be hung on Bush, and Bush alone. The role of people like Perle, and the lobbying power of AIPAC in the run-up to the Iraq War, will be downplayed and reduced, at least they will try to do this in a very public way.

Perle will make sure Cheney is able to deflect most of the blame for Iraq, without directly blaming the president himself. Even though Cheney has, in subtle ways, already begun to do this.

Bush Hammered Over Iraq By Key Republicans

Get The War Sorted Out Now, You're Destroying the GOP

The Conductor In Chief : Bush tries his hand at guiding a band. And no, he had no idea what he was doing.

It's surreal to see Republican presidential wannabes taking part in hours and hours of televised debate, and yet the current Republican president, George W. Bush, is rarely, if ever mentioned.

In the first the Republican debates, Bush's name was mentioned only once, while former president Ronald Reagan was praised and hailed repeatedly.

It's like President Bush is already gone from the White House. Are Republicans too scared to even mention his name, lest they be associated with him? Or, God forbid, appear to be supporting the president in any way whatsoever?

While his poll numbers are low, only 30% to 33% of Americans still give him the thumbs up (depending on which poll you view), he is not the most unpopular president in American history, and there are signs that as the Republicans descend into ugly squabbling amongst themselves over the future of the Iraq War and the meaning of true conservative values, Bush's numbers might even go up.

But the Iraq War is going to be a near insurmountable problem for Republican candidates in the 2008 presidential elections, and the presidential wannabes know it.

The Iraq War is causing Republican senators endless headaches, on the Hill, and back at home, where some have reported intense confrontations from military families, or just locals in the streets.

Despite the fact that many Democrats voted in favour of the Iraq War (however reluctantly some of those votes may have been cast), it is 'The Republicans War'. They pushed for it, they denied its reality for as long as possible, and so they must own it.

It is a rare day indeed that you see or hear any Democrat talking favourably about the continuation of the war, and most Americans agree with them that the war is militarily lost and that the troops should come home. But the Republicans, in the vast majority, are still true believers that the Iraq War will turn out for the best, or at least less worse than the predictions that detail a Middle East locked in conflict and desperate struggle for generations to come.

The Democrats will find it far easier to talk about the war they so strongly oppose when the real action of the 2008 presidential elections begin. Republicans are now becoming so desperate, so fearful, about how the Iraq War will impact on their chances of retaining the White House through to 2012, many of them are demanding the president either find a solution to lowering the American death toll, and the daily bloodshed unleashed on the Iraqis, or begin withdrawing troops.

Last week, a most remarkable meeting between the president and 11 House Republicans took place in the White House, and the Iraq War was the chief subject under discussion. So important was the meeting viewed to be for future Republican harmony that there was special guests in the room : Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Bush advisor Karl Rove and Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

The fallout from the meeting was mostly contained by the Bush media handlers, but word still got out that Bush was left stunned by some of the things that the Republicans told him, as though no-one had talked to him in such a way before, or at least for a long time.

Some commentators claimed it was the day Bush had his 'bubble' well and truly shattered, meaning that the key staff surrounding the president keep him bubbled away from the bad news, and the realities of vivid and deep dissent amongst his fellow Republicans, in Washington and across the United States.

But the message to Bush was loud and clear, and its volume has not been turned down since the meeting : Fix The War, Or You Will Destroy The Republican Party.

From the Washington Post :

Participants in Tuesday's White House meeting said frustration about the Iraqi government's efforts dominated the conversation, with one pleading with the president to stop the Iraqi parliament from going on vacation while "our sons and daughters spill their blood."

The House members pressed Bush and Gates hard for a "Plan B" if the current troop increase fails to quell the violence and push along political reconciliation. Davis said that administration officials convinced him there are contingency plans, but that the president declined to offer details, saying that if he announced his backup plan, the world would shift its focus to that contingency, leaving the current strategy no time to succeed.

Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also presented Bush dismal polling figures to dramatize just how perilous the party's position is, participants said. Davis would not disclose details, saying the exchange was private. Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone.

From the New York Times :

Moderate Republicans gave President Bush a blunt warning on his Iraq policy at a private White House meeting this week, telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war.

The White House session demonstrated the grave unease many Republicans are feeling about the war, even as they continue to stand with the president against Democratic efforts to force a withdrawal of forces through a spending measure that has been a flash point for weeks.

Participants in the Tuesday meeting between Mr. Bush, senior administration officials and 11 members of a moderate bloc of House Republicans said the lawmakers were unusually candid with the president, telling him that public support for the war was crumbling in their swing districts.

One told Mr. Bush that voters back home favored a withdrawal even if it meant the war was judged a loss. Representative Tom Davis told Mr. Bush that the president’s approval rating was at 5 percent in one section of his northern Virginia district.

“It was a tough meeting in terms of people being as frank as they possibly could about their districts and their feelings about where the American people are on the war,” said Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois, who took part in the session, which lasted more than an hour in the residential section of the White House. “It was a no-holds-barred meeting.”

Several of the Republican moderates who visited the White House have already come under political attack at home for their support of Mr. Bush and survived serious Democratic challenges in November.

Representative Charles W. Dent of Pennsylvania, a co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, an alliance of about 30 moderate Republican lawmakers, helped arrange the meeting. He said lawmakers wanted to convey the frustration and impatience with the war they are hearing from voters.

“It was very healthy,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, who attended but let the moderates do most of the talking.

“I walked away from it feeling I got a chance to make my points,” Mr. Davis said.

Mr. Gates, who also attended the White House meeting on Tuesday, told lawmakers that the Pentagon would evaluate the violence in Iraq and the progress of the administration’s troop buildup plan by early September to determine the next phase of the military strategy.

Here's an earlier report from the LA Times earlier report on the Republican dissent that led to the 'White House 11' meeting, and how Bush is now viewed as a liability by many Republicans as they fixate on the 2008 elections.

So much so that key Republicans are said to whispering to each other that they don't have a chance of retaining the White House, and should already be looking forward to taking it back in 2012. 'Blame Bush' may have been an unofficial motto for Democrats in the 2004 elections, but it is quickly being adopted by Republicans, as they try to dump responsibility for the Iraq War, high fuel prices, plunging property values, the falling American dollar and growing malaise across the country right at the door of the Bush White House.

And why not? The rest of the world Blames Bush, so it should not be unusual that desperate Republicans, trying to distance themselves from the president, would do exactly the same :

President Bush's unpopularity and a string of political setbacks have created a toxic climate for the Republican Party, making it harder to raise money and recruit candidates for its drive to retake control of Congress.

Some of the GOP's top choices to run for the House next year have declined, citing what Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) called a "poisonous" environment. And Republicans' fundraising edge, an important advantage over the last five years, has dwindled.

With GOP clout diminished after November's election losses, the Republicans' national committee and their House and Senate campaign committees together raised the same amount as the Democrats in the first quarter of the year — and Democrats ended the period with more cash in the bank. At this point four years ago, Republicans had more than twice the money Democrats did.

"The reality is the Republican brand right now is just not a good brand," said Tim Hibbitts, an independent Oregon pollster. "For Republicans, the only way things really get better … is if somehow, some way, Iraq turns around."

Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said the party was "desperately in need of some Prozac."

Though Republicans have recruited many solid candidates in their effort to retake Capitol Hill — and they have more than 18 months to improve their fortunes — the environment could get worse.

Damaged by ethics scandals in 2006, the GOP in recent weeks has seen FBI raids at businesses or homes connected to two of its congressmen. A federal agency last week began an investigation into Bush advisor Karl Rove's political operation, and congressional panels authorized a flurry of subpoenas related to White House political activities and the run-up to the Iraq war.

Broader signs of Republican distress also are turning up across the country.

When voters five years ago were asked which party they identified with, neither Democrats nor Republicans held an advantage. Now 50% of voters say they are aligned with the Democrats, and 35% with Republicans, according to a survey released last month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

And in New Hampshire, nonpartisan pollster Dick Bennett said the atmosphere was so sour that he was having a tough time getting Republicans to participate in surveys. The war, high gas prices and unhappiness with the Bush administration have dampened their interest sharing opinions, he said.

A few years ago, "they would make arguments in favor of the president, and they don't anymore," Bennett said. "They don't defend the president on anything."

The GOP's relatively weak fundraising totals for the first quarter could also complicate the party's reelection effort, wrote Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report in a recent assessment. Though it can be dangerous to read too much into these early signals, she wrote, "a weak bank account doesn't just make a bad headline, it also makes an incumbent more attractive to a potential challenger."

Democrats outnumber Republicans in the House 232 to 201, with two vacancies

In the Senate, the party breakdown is 49-49, but two independents side with the Democrats, giving them control.

Last week brought more potential bad news for Republicans:

An obscure federal agency, the Office of Special Counsel, said it would investigate several matters concerning the GOP, including whether a U.S. attorney was fired for political reasons. The office also intends to look at Bush administration officials' use of Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for government business, and political presentations by White House staff to Cabinet agencies. The office enforces the Hatch Act, which generally bars the use of taxpayer resources for campaign purposes.