The Hollywood Liberal

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How Low Can He Go?

Poll: Low support for Iraq buildup

USA Today
Excerpt
WASHINGTON — President Bush will outline his “new way forward” in Iraq Wednesday to a nation that overwhelmingly opposes sending more U.S. troops and is increasingly skeptical that the war can be won.

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday shows a daunting sales job ahead for the White House, which is considering a plan to deploy up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq.

Those surveyed oppose the idea of increased troop levels by 61%-36%. Approval of the job Bush is doing in Iraq has sunk to 26%, a record low.

Among key findings:

•Nearly half of those surveyed say the United States can’t achieve its goals in Iraq regardless of how many troops it sends. One in four say U.S. goals can be achieved only with an increase in troop numbers.

•Eight in 10 say the war has gone worse than the Bush administration expected. Of those people, 53% say Bush deserves “a great deal” of blame; 41% place a great deal of blame on Iraqi political leaders.

•By 72%-25%, Americans say Bush doesn’t have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq. Congressional Democrats fare only a little better: 66%-25%.

Even so, Democrats take control of Congress amid a wave of good feeling. By 2-to-1, Americans say they want congressional Democrats, not Bush, to have more influence over the direction of the nation.

H.L.s Take:
Yes, but do Congressional Democrats want to take have more influnce over the nation, or do they want to let Bush hang himself with his own rope?
Bush is truly in desperation land now. Of course everything he does makes it worse for himself in the long run, but hey no one wants to tell the emperor that he is not wearing any clothes, so he will continue to furhter drag down this once great nation.
After his troop surge kills even more of our soldiers, (and everyone else over there) his rating will be lower then then the tempeture on a winter morning at the South Pole. Is it possible to have a negative approval rating???

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Snow Falsely Claims That Bush Said ‘Just The Opposite’ Of ‘Mission Accomplished’

Think Progress.org
Excerpt

In today’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to distance President Bush from his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech, claiming that Bush said “just the opposite” of “Mission Accomplished”:

I think the public ought to just listen to what the president has to say. You know that the mission accomplished banner was put up by members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the president, on that very speech, said just the opposite, didn’t he?

For that May 1, 2003, Bush stood in front of a large banner that read, “Mission Accomplished.” In the opening of his speech, he declared, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” He called the “battle of Iraq” a “victory.” In his radio address shortly after the speech, he boasted, “I delivered good news to the men and women who fought in the cause of freedom: their mission is complete and major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

Additionally, as Bob Woodward reported in October, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had to pressure the White House to take out of the speech the actual phrase “Mission Accomplished,” but he couldn’t “get the sign down.”

In Oct. 2003, then-White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admitted that the White House — not members of USS Lincoln — had “take[n] care of the production of the banner.”

Full transcript below:

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Say Good-bye to a Future Republican Presidency

Thomas Paine’s Corner
Excerpt
President George W. Bush, contrary to the will of the American and Iraqi peoples and his own military commanders, seems ready to embark on a potentially disastrous escalation of the Iraq war, which was lost long ago. This mind-numbingly idiotic strategy is sure to needlessly cost more American and Iraqi lives and to lose the presidency for the Republicans in 2008…

20,000 more U.S. troops will be sent to Iraq to dampen the violence in Baghdad and Anbar province. This relatively small number of troops will not quell the violence, however. Although more troops are being added, they will now patrol Shi’ite areas, as well as Sunni enclaves, thus continuing to be spread too thin. And news of the arrival of more foreign occupiers most likely will increase resistance…

the president is trapped in his own psychological maladies. Deep down, he knows that Iraq is an unsalvageable mess, but he is an avoider of bad news and cannot accept it mentally. Psychologically, he just hopes to postpone defeat in any way he can. Defeat in Iraq means a failed presidency for him. The likely outcome of this mental trap is to attempt to keep the lid on Iraq’s escalating civil war until he can hand off the problem to his successor.

Escalation of the war means his successor will very likely be a Democrat. By 2008, the failed Iraq policy will make the hawkish McCain radioactive as a candidate for president. Even Republicans who were skeptical of Bush’s war policies, such as Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), probably will not be able to win the presidency. In the 2006 congressional elections, even Republicans who opposed the war—for example, Jim Leach of Iowa—were defeated. Thus, Bush’s new strategy will likely strengthen Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress in 2008.

H.L.s Take
You got that right. As I read somewhere yesterday, the Democrats have to tred a thin line, If they take away funding for the war they leave themselves open to charges of “Losing The War” from Republicans, if on the other hand they sit back and criticize what Bush is doing, but do not try to stop him, they can sit back and watch while Bush goes down in the final throes of failure and humiliation in Iraq. Of course the downside of that is that more troops have to die. Of course if they would speak up, in plain English and continue to pound home the facts Bush would be so badly exposed that they could then cut his funding without getting the “lost the war” label. But as usual Democrats, and the media, keep there mouths shut about the catastrophe that is Everything Bush, and allow it to happen

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AP
Al-Qaida suspects still alive in Somalia

AP
Excerpt
MOGADISHU, Somalia – A top U.S. official in the region said Thursday that none of the al-Qaida suspects believed to be hiding in Somalia died in a U.S. airstrike this week, but Somalis with close ties to the terrorist group were killed….
A Somali human rights group said Thursday that thousands of Somalis fleeing the fighting were now stranded on the Kenyan border, which has been closed.
“Thousands are in a bad condition and they do not have food and water. They are stranded at the border after Kenya closed it and they cannot go back to their houses for two reasons: the ongoing airstrikes and lack of transportation,” said Ali Bashi, chairman of the Fanole human rights group.
The Red Cross said more than 850 wounded people, both civilians and soldiers, have been treated at medical facilities since fighting started just over two weeks ago. The group said in a statement it was deeply concerned about the plight of civilians and those captured by Ethiopian and government forces.

H.L.s Take:
They killed the wrong 10 people, wounded 850, left thousands stranded at the border with nowhere to go, chaos everywhere, this sounds like the work of George W. Bush, the failure monkey in chief. Everything he touches turns to s**t. They call that the reverse midas touch. However since failure and chaos is the Bush families main goal, I guess you would call it the reverse reverse midas touch. Either way you look at it you can chalk up another in a still perfect record of failure. Bush is becoming the Cal Rikpen Jr. of failure, he hasn’t missed an opportunity to F**k up in at least 6 years.