in response to the Kerry thread, in the interest of being fair and balanced:[quote] President Bush: Flip-Flopper-In-Chief
June 1, 2004
From the beginning, George W. Bush has made his own credibility a central issue. On 10/11/00, then Governor Bush said: "I think credibility is important. It is going to be important for the president to be credible with Congress, important for the president to be credible with foreign nations." But President Bush's serial flip-flopping raises serious questions about whether Congress and foreign leaders can rely on what he says.
[font=Verdana][font=Verdana][font=Georgia]1. OPEC[/font][/font][/font]
BUSH PROMISES TO FORCE OPEC TO LOWER PRICES..."What I think the president ought to do [when gas prices spike] is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots...And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price." [President Bush, 1/26/00]
...BUSH REFUSES TO LOBBY OPEC LEADERS With gas prices soaring in the United States at the beginning of 2004, the Miami Herald reported the president refused to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds." [Miami Herald, 4/1/04]
[font=Verdana][font=Verdana][font=Georgia]2. Iraq Funding[/font][/font][/font]
BUSH SPOKESMAN DENIES NEED FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR THE REST OF 2004..."We do not anticipate requesting supplemental funding for '04" [White House Budget Director Joshua Bolton, [color=#021c3f]2/2/04][/color]
…BUSH REQUESTS ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR IRAQ FOR 2004 “I am requesting that Congress establish a $25 billion contingency reserve fund for the coming fiscal year to meet all commitments to our troops.” [President Bush, Statement by President, 5/5/04]
[font=Verdana][font=Verdana][font=Georgia]3. Condoleeza Rice Testimony[/font][/font][/font]
BUSH SPOKESMAN SAYS RICE WON'T TESTIFY AS 'A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE'...“Again, this is not her personal preference; this goes back to a matter of principle. There is a separation of powers issue involved here. Historically, White House staffers do not testify before legislative bodies. So it's a matter of principle, not a matter of preference.” [White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 3/9/04]
…BUSH ORDERS RICE TO TESTIFY: “Today I have informed the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States that my National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, will provide public testimony.” [President Bush, 3/30/04]
[font=Verdana][font=Georgia]4. Science[/font][/font]
BUSH PLEDGES TO ISSUE REGULATIONS BASED ON SCIENCE..."I think we ought to have high standards set by agencies that rely upon science, not by what may feel good or what sounds good." [then-Governor George W. Bush, [color=#0000ff]1/15/00][/color]
...BUSH ADMINISTRATION REGULATIONS IGNORE SCIENCE "60 leading scientists—including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents—issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels." [Union of Concerned Scientists, [color=#0000ff]2/18/04][/color]
[font=Georgia]5. Ahmed Chalabi[/font]
BUSH INVITES CHALABI TO STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS...President Bush also met with Chalabi during his brief trip to Iraq last Thanksgiving [White House Documents 1/20/04, 11/27/03]
...BUSH MILITARY ASSISTS IN RAID OF CHALABI'S HOUSE"U.S. soldiers raided the home of America's one-time ally Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday and seized documents and computers." [Washington Post, 5/20/04]
6. Department of Homeland Security
BUSH OPPOSES THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY..."So, creating a Cabinet office doesn't solve the problem. You still will have agencies within the federal government that have to be coordinated. So the answer is that creating a Cabinet post doesn't solve anything." [White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, 3/19/02]
...BUSH SUPPORTS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY "So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people." [President Bush, Address to the Nation, 6/6/02]
7. Weapons of Mass Destruction
BUSH SAYS WE FOUND THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION..."We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories…for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." [President Bush, Interview in Poland, 5/29/03]
...BUSH SAYS WE HAVEN'T FOUND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION "David Kay has found the capacity to produce weapons. And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out." [President Bush, Meet the Press, 2/7/04]
8. Free Trade
BUSH SUPPORTS FREE TRADE... "I believe strongly that if we promote trade, and when we promote trade, it will help workers on both sides of this issue." [President Bush in Peru, 3/23/02]
...BUSH SUPPORTS RESTRICTIONS ON TRADE "In a decision largely driven by his political advisers, President Bush set aside his free-trade principles last year and imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel to help out struggling mills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states crucial for his reelection." [Washington Post, 9/19/03]
9. Osama Bin Laden
BUSH WANTS OSAMA DEAD OR ALIVE... "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" [President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01]
...BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT OSAMA “I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him… I truly am not that concerned about him.” [President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02][/quote]http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263
but ok, thanks hamster!Im surre the rest of the forum stands besides you a 100% as the anti american tone of this form has been rising daily!
swankaman
There you go again, Skankiboy. :rolleyes:
I can hardly wait 'til John Kerry is elected president and you start criticizing him so I can call YOU anti-American. (There is little that's more PRO-American than political dissent.)
Holy shit. 25 billion dollars. I can't even imagine how much is that.
By the other hand, compared to a few trillion dollars of deficit, it's peanuts.
danielpoeira.org
i would debate your points but sorry it was too long and I didnt read it (since I care SOOOOOOOOO much about the issues, i couldnt actually be bothered to research them)
Swankaman
I don't think questioning what the president does constitutes one being anti-american. The founding fathers specifically gave us the right to do that, and if we didn't question the people in charge, we would then be anti-american. I sure hope that the U.S. citizens, and for bigger matters the world, don't think that Bush is the embodiment of this country and it's citizens, that would just be horrible. We are allowed to hate the guy in charge. Last time I checked we were allowed to vote AGAINST the current president, right? Is that anti-american?
On other topics, yes, the people of Iraq deserve to be free. Is it our place to do it for them? What about other countries that aren't democracies? Are we going to free them next?
Okay.
Where's the animation?
This isn't CNN.com?
Is there anything here that's animation related?
It's a long time to Nov. folks!
Give it a rest!
Larry
web site
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The commentary by Doug Saunders of Toronto's Globe and Mail began in a fashion familiar to readers and viewers of the Western news media:
"Six months before, the world had cheered as the statues of the dictator came crashing down. The Americans had seemed heroic. But now things were going very badly. The occupation was chaotic, the American soldiers were hated and they were facing threats from the surviving supporters of the dictator, whose whereabouts were uncertain.
"Washington seemed unwilling to pay the enormous bill for reconstruction, and the president didn't appear to have any kind of workable plan to manage the transition to democracy. European allies, distrustful of the arrogant American outlook, were wary of cooperating."
Doug Saunders was writing not of Iraq in September, 2003. He was writing about Germany in November 1945. His article provided something rare in the news media today: perspective.
Biased, unbalanced news accounts are giving Americans a false picture of what is going on in Iraq, and are harming our prospects of creating a democracy there, said Georgia's Rep. Jim Marshall, after a visit to that country.
The news media "are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded," Mr. Marshall said. "Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with the rest of the story, the progress made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy."
Mr. Marshall's comments could be written off as just another Republican defense of the embattled president. Except Mr. Marshall is a Democrat, one of the few in the Copperhead party to put the welfare of the country ahead of short-term partisan advantage.
"Outside of Baghdad, things really aren't as bad as they look on the news," said UPI defense correspondent Pamela Hess in an interview last week with CSPAN upon her return from Iraq. "Now, naturally on the news, we're gonna focus on where the troubles are, because that's what makes news. But there are places in Iraq where things are going pretty well. You can't say 'just fine' because the power is down, there is no phone service. But things are pretty peaceful. People are patient and are slowly rebuilding things back together."
Last week, I covered the return to Pittsburgh from Iraq of a Marine reserve military police company. These Marines made the march of Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division, and spent the bulk of the postwar period escorting convoys between Basra and Najaf. Each of the seven Marines I interviewed said that more than 90 percent of the Iraqis they encountered were friendly.
The accounts of these Marines square with those of most other servicemen returned from Iraq, and with my own experiences as a reporter embedded with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in western Iraq, and with the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad. But it's a story you hardly ever hear on the evening news.
Iraq is a dangerous place. Saddam Hussein is still at large, as are thousands of his diehard supporters. They've been joined by hundreds, perhaps thousands of foreign terrorists. Though these "insurgents" cannot challenge the U.S. military for control of any part of the country, they'll be able to conduct remote ambushes and terror bombings for months to come.
But viewed in historical perspective, things in Iraq are pretty good, and getting better. The insurgents are a tiny — and dwindling — minority. Most of the country is at peace. Nobody is starving. Signs of reviving economic activity are everywhere. In no country in the Arab world are Americans as popular as they are in Iraq.
Contrast this with Germany in November 1945: "Six months after VE Day, the New York Times reported that Germany was awash in unrest and lawlessness," Saunders wrote. "More than a million displaced persons roamed the country, many of them subsisting on criminal activities."
Iraq hasn't been transformed into Switzerland in less than six months. No reasonable person ever expected that it could be. But an unrealizable ideal should not obscure the significant progress that has been made.
Jack Kelly, a syndicated columnist, is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette.
http://www.defendamerica.mil/iraq/mar2004/tni-1yr0318042.html
Nah yknow, why, because I will support the president (not blindly like the way you hate)once he's elected?!get it lamebrain?
swankaman
Larry has a point, we had agreed not to post political issues on the Animation Cafe.
By the other hand, we had also agreed that there would be a specific location for this kind of discussions on the new forum, after the crash. Seems to me that this place was not created. So where are we supposed to discuss this?
danielpoeira.org
Larry posts political and other non-animation threads (Michael Moore, Iraq, etc.) too. I think he was just pissed because there are now so many political threads at once (three). Usually they're less frequent, but - after all - there's an important election heating up.
Maybe we can talk about how Kerry is a better president for animators since he wants to "close every single loophole that gives companies incentives to move jobs abroad, including stopping ... tax breaks for companies that move jobs abroad."
http://madblast.com/view.cfm?type=FunFlash&display=3068
Here ya go... John Kerry, George Bush AND animation...