1. President Bush was famous for lacking “intellectual curiosity”, while President Obama has been called “the smartest guy ever to become President.” Which one reads more books, Bush or Obama?

2. Bush was often considered to be in the grip of Big Oil. In contrast, Obama was a Harvard educated lawyer. Which industry contributed more than five times as much as the other to politicians: the oil & gas industry or lawyers/law firms?

3. Bush’s Christian faith was at the core of his political identity, and he was considered to be in the grip of the “religious right”, while Obama is considered more open-minded. In fact, Obama has said, “my faith is one that admits some doubt.” Which one refers to Jesus more in public speeches?

4. Bush was criticized for excessive federal spending and running up huge deficits. Bush’s deficit in 2008 was the largest in history. In fact, President Obama said,

“It’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they’ve presided over a doubling of the national debt… What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place.”

Whose deficit was more than triple the size of the other’s: Bush’s 2008 deficit or Obama’s 2009 deficit?

While Bush’s speech was mostly eloquent and free of the language gaffes he admits he is famous for, he said he regretted appearing in front of a “Mission Impossible” sign during a televised address in 2003. The controversial banner referring to the U.S. mission in Iraq, actually said “Mission Accomplished.”

Last Thursday, about 300 protesters in Montreal brought on the effigy-burning and shoe-throwing, like it was old times again:

Various unions, activist and antiwar groups supported the protest.

Joan Hadrill of the Raging Grannies said she was on the street because Bush was “an alleged war criminal for his invasion of Iraq and torturing prisoners of war.”

Immigration lawyer William Sloan blamed Bush for “cynically causing a war that is responsible for so many deaths and so much destruction.”

“He set back international law into the 1700s, violating every convention possible and seeming to revel in it,” he continued.

Among the main slogan chanters was Jaggi Singh, the Montreal activist who was part of the committee that organized the protest and asked that old shoes be brought, to emulate the Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi who tossed one at Bush during a Baghdad news conference.

Various pieces of footwear were hurled high in the direction of the hotel and the line of riot police, who did not seek to arrest the throwers.

The more these idiots wax idiotic, the more I love George W. Bush!

Inside the regal Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel, a relaxed-appearing Bush spoke with very few regrets about some of the most controversial moves of his presidency.

“I am confident that I made decisions based on principle, that I made calls as best I could, and I did not sell my soul,” Bush told an audience of about 1,000 men and women at the $400-a-seat steak luncheon.

The speech, part of a cross-country tour organized in part to promote Bush’s upcoming autobiography, was followed by a question-and-answer period.

Bush began with a series of jokes about what it is like to be a former president, recounting a story of walking into a Dallas hardware store about a month after he left office. An employee of the store asked him if anyone had ever told him he looks a lot like George W. Bush.

I said, “Happens almost every day, actually” and as I’m walking away, I hear the guy saying “Sure must make you mad!”

That’s my president!

Federal officials have said it is unlikely that Canada can supply sufficient doses of vaccine quickly enough, but that problem has nothing to do with [this administration's] refusal to allow imports of cheaper Canadian drugs, as the ad suggests.

Ahhh, the duplicity and hypocrisy of time….

Lucianne.com:

Every now and then
we like to run this picture

This is the ditherer-in-chief.

Hmmm….

So many choices…Rocky Road or pralines and cream? Do I go with more sprinkles and nuts? Or a drawdown of toppings for my sundae….?

Threw a strike and liberated 50 million….

Threw it into the dirt and did not show support for democracy in Iran and Honduras and has liberated no one…including gays.

President Obama’s foreign policy expert, Joe Biden:

…And others, more harshly, argue that Mr. Biden’s judgment on foreign policy has often been off base.

They point out that he voted against the successful Persian Gulf war of 1991, voted for the Iraq invasion of 2003, proposed dividing Iraq into three sections in 2006 and opposed the additional troops credited by many with turning Iraq around in 2007.

“When was the last time Biden was right about anything?” Thomas E. Ricks, a military writer, wrote in a blog on Sept. 24. Mr. Ricks is affiliated with the Center for a New American Security, a research organization founded by Democrats.

President Bush’s hatchet man, Darth Cheney:

“Just show me where to point and aim this…”

A show of patriotism:

Refusal to wear patriotism on his sleeve (or on his lapel):

1. If all the world hated America because of George W Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq….then why was America attacked on Sept 11, 2001; 2yrs before that invasion?
2. Why has Al Queda been trying to exterminate every American for the past 17yrs?
3. Did you want Bush to fail in Iraq, or did you want America to succeed?
4. Given that Osama left Afghanistan in 2001, and Al Queda was largely destroyed in Afghanistan in 2002, how did the Bush Administration “take its eye off the ball [Afghanistan] by invading Iraq” in 2003?
5. What caused the great recession of 2007?
6. How have Democrats ensured that we don’t have another $13 TRILLION dollar Great Recession?
7. If FOX, Hannity, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, etc are examples of right wing propaganda…then what is an example of left wing propaganda?
8. If Republicans lie, and all politicians are liars, then what are some lies told by Democrats?
9. Since President Obama’s Israel/Palestine talks have failed, and he’s been unable to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and since he’s completely clueless on what to do in Afghanistan…what is PLAN B for keeping Israel from bombing Iran and starting a regional-possibly a world war?
10. Obama’s a quarter of the way done with his presidency. What will history record as his greatest accomplishment?

btw, I could come up with more, but these were my top 10. Anyone who thinks they have one that deserves being on the list, please, please, please feel free to suggest it. I probably won’t add it out of sheer laziness, but I think we’d all love to see em.

On CNN’s State of the Union program on Sunday (transcript), White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was questioned about the Obama Administration’s indeciviseness in Afghanistan. Attempting to change the subject, Rahm fell back on the standard “blame Bush” defense suggesting that Afghanistan was just another mess that they had to clean up.

You have literally got into a situation, is there another way you can do this? And the president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side, and the strategic side. What is the impact on the region? What can the Afghan government do or not do? Where are we on the police training? Who would be better doing the police training? Could that be something the Europeans do? Should we take the military side? Those are the questions that have not been asked. And before you commit troops, which is — not irreversible, but puts you down a certain path — before you make that decision, there’s a set of questions that have to have answers that have never been asked. And it’s clear after eight years of war, that’s basically starting from the beginning, and those questions never got asked.

And what I find interesting and just intriguing from this debate in Washington, is that a lot of people who all of a sudden say, this is now the epicenter of the war on terror, you must do this now, immediately approve what the general said — where, before, it never even got on the radar screen for them. That — everything was always about Iraq.

Amazing. As if no one will realize what a pack of lies that is.

Well, Dick Cheney realized it and in an address to the Center for Security Policy on Wednesday Cheney responded (transcript) (video of entire speech):

CHENEY: Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops. This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered. The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that repeatedly went into the country, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt. The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision – a good one, I think – and sent a commander into the field to implement it.

Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.

Cheney also decried what he called a “drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan” in this speech which deserves to be read in it’s entirety. He covered the issue of Obama’s pullback from our Polish and Czech allies and missile defense as well as Iran, Iraq and terrorist interrogations.

His closing remarks offer a stinging rebuke to an inexperienced Obama from the man whose career highlights include not only Vice President, but Secretary of Defense and White House Chief of Staff:

There are policy differences, and then there are affronts that have to be answered every time without equivocation, and this is one of them. We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys.

We cannot hope to win a war by talking down our country and those who do its hardest work – the men and women of our military and intelligence services. They are, after all, the true keepers of the flame.

This speech is yet another reminder from Dick Cheney about what it was like when adults were in charge!

The Obama administration really needs to get over itself.

First, the president and his aides go to war with Fox News because the network maintains a generally anti-Obama slant.

Then, an anonymous administration aide attacks bloggers for failing to maintain a sufficiently pro-Obama slant.

These are not disconnected developments.

An administration that won the White House with an almost always on-message campaign and generally friendly coverage from old and new media is now frustrated by its inability to control the debate and get the coverage it wants.

They should listen.

But noooooo. The Mao lover, and Obama aide, gives a rundown on the administrations modus operendi:

President Obama’s presidential campaign focused on “making” the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was “controlled,” White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.

“Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control,” said Dunn.

“One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters,” said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama’s chief campaign manager.

“We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it,” Dunn said.

And when they find out they can’t control the media….they send out the hounds, like liberal writer and author of such books as The Bush Tragedy, Jacob Weisberg, here in which he describes how “unAmerican” Fox news is:

..He is also accusing Fox of forcing MSNBC and CNN to swing to the left instead of maintaining their world-renowned objectivity in news reporting. (Yes indeed, that was sarcasm.) (Via Hot Air.)

Consider Fox’s Web story on the episode. It quotes five people. Two of them work for Fox. All of them assert that administration officials are either wrong in substance or politically foolish to criticize the network. No one is cited supporting Dunn’s criticisms or saying that it could make sense for Obama to challenge the network’s power. It’s a textbook example of a biased journalism.

Meanwhile, ABC presented what was essentially an infomercial on Obamacare earlier this year. A CNN reporter went off on the people she was supposed to be objectively interviewing, and ultimately lost her job—probably because she’s not supposed to be so overt in her liberal bias. But that’s objective journalism. (Say, did ABC present the other side of the healthcare debate in its informercial? I’m thinking not.)

The funniest part of the whole article from Weisberg is the point in which he says Fox has forced the otherwise “objective” news stations like….cough MSNBC cough….to tilt to the left because of Fox’s bias.

Are they high? These stations we’re anything BUT non-biased during the Bush years and now that Obama is in office their love fest can’t be contained. But it’s all because of the all powerful, all mighty, Fox news that they became that way. Fox forced them to call the station worse then Al-Qaeda? Fox forced them to call President Bush fascist?

Puhlease.

Most Americans recognize the majority of the media is liberal, and that’s not a good thing. There is a reason why Fox is kicking all their asses.

And President Obama’s brilliant new strategy?

Freeze Fox out.

Complete idiocy.

After years of historic deficits, this new Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: pay as you go, no new deficit spending. Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.

And as the Democrats railed against Bush and his deficit they don’t utter a peep about this:

WASHINGTON – What is $1.42 trillion? It’s more than the total national debt for the first 200 years of the Republic, more than the entire economy of India, almost as much as Canada’s, and more than $4,700 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

It’s the federal budget deficit for 2009, more than three times the most red ink ever amassed in a single year.

Nope….now it just ain’t that big a deal

When and ever they do acknowledge it Obama and pals just blame Bush.

Something Obama won’t quit doing until he’s out of office….and may just keep on doing until he’s 90.

Meanwhile Obama and company fight for policies that will drive our economy into a brick wall and raise the unemployment rate skyhigh….even higher then the incredible rates we see now.

But….it’s all Bush’s fault.

How about another quote:

In short, it is a paradoxical truth that rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. The experience of a number of European countries and Japan has borne this out. This country’s own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.

Which party said that?

I’ll give you a hint….it’s not the new Democrat/Socialist party.

U.S. President Barack Obama smiles after making remarks on regulatory reform in the East Room at the White House in Washington October 9, 2009. Earlier in the day, Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES POLITICS)

Apparently, SNL’s skit was premature. Maybe President Obama hasn’t actually accomplished the following:

1. Closing Gitmo (same as Bush)
2 Outlawing torture by revoking Bush’s EO that said much the same thing
3. Withdrawal from Iraq (thanks to Bush)
4. De-escalation of war in Afghanistan (campaigned that it was the necessary war and now dithers as more American soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, than in the previous 7 years)
5. peace between Israel and Palestine
6. Olympics in Chicago
7. Supporting democratic movement in Iran
8. Supporting democracy in Honduras
9. nuclear disarmament

But, hey, so what?! At least he’s now won the Nobel Peace Prize for non-accomplishment; and delivered a presidential promise to use this award as a rallying “call to action”. It’s the thought and rhetoric that counts, right? Basically, he’s being awarded for what he may accomplish in the future (Even supporters are questioning, “Why?”). If his pretty words actually inspires us to achieve peace, enhances international relations, then some day in the future, maybe the award will have been earned. Here’s a novel idea: Why not award the prize to him THEN?!

I’m not trying to be funny, here; I wouldn’t want to be accused of siding with the terrorists.

But seriously, folks…

WASHINGTON/OSLO (Reuters) – Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision that honored the first-year U.S. president more for promise than achievement and drew both praise and skepticism around the world.

The bestowal of one of the world’s top accolades on a president less than nine months in office, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo.

Awww….they love him not for the leader he is, but for the leader he wants to be; for saying what they want to hear.

Kim Priestap writes:

“If just wanting world [peace], talking about world peace is enough to get the Nobel Peace Prize then every beauty pageant winner should have gotten one. “

Obama said he felt humbled and unworthy of being counted in the company of the “transformative figures” of history who had won the prize.

Maybe CNN and Wolf Blitzer would care to factcheck this one for actual accomplishments in the pursuit of peace? Even President Obama isn’t buying it. He doesn’t sound humbled; more like embarrassed.

“I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership,” he said, speaking in the White House Rose Garden. “I will accept this award as a call to action.”

Kanye West, at this point had to interrupt the acceptance speech with the following:

“Hey, hey Barack, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but I just want to say his teleprompter had one of the best bids of all time. OF ALL TIME.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” citing his fledgling push for nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world.

What about Reagan’s push for nuclear disarmament?

What about Bush’s “outreach to the Muslim world”?

Just 12 days into his presidency, what had President Obama done thus far to join the ranks of Carter, Gore, and Arafat in garnering such a prestigious nomination as the highly credible Nobel Peace Prize?

1. He campaigned in 2008 to escalate the “necessary” war in Afghanistan
2. He campaigned in 2008 to invade a sovereign ally, Pakistan, to go after al Qaeda and out-Bush, Bush.

153+ were killed within the first week of of his peace presidency, including the continuation of Predator drone attacks in Pakistan.

Obama has been widely credited with improving America’s global image after the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush, who alienated both friends and foes with go-it-alone policies like the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Bush alienated friends with “go-it-alone” policies? Really?!

So Bush can be credited for the Obama peace prize award.

President Obama campaigns in ‘08 against President Bush; and goes around the world on his grand Apology Tour and wins acclaim.

Niiiiiiice….

But critics called the Nobel’s committee’s decision premature, given that Obama so far has made little tangible headway as he grapples with challenges ranging from the war in Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

The White House had no idea the Nobel announcement was coming. Obama, who got the news of the prize in a pre-dawn call from his press secretary, now also has the burden of living up to its expectations.

The first African-American to hold his country’s highest office, Obama, 48, has struggled with a slew of foreign policy problems bequeathed to him by Bush, while taking a more multilateral approach than his predecessor.

Despite troubles at home including a struggling economy that have eroded his once-lofty approval ratings, the Democratic U.S. president is still widely seen around the world as an inspirational figure.

How did President Bush not exercise diplomacy and multilateralism?

Yes. Bush’s fault.

Also blogging:
The Anchoress
Bottomline Upfront
Brutally Honest
Bookworm Room
Gateway Pundit
The Radio Patriot
Michelle Malkin

Adiba, 17, of Kabul, showed her support for Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai at the bidding of her teacher as he met with women from the Malal group at his home in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 12, 2009. Although she planned to vote on Aug. 20, she had not decided which candidate would get her vote.
Nikki Kahn-THE WASHINGTON POST

This is indeed the dawning of the Age of Barack Hussein Obama….mmm…mmm….mm:

The anti-war group Code Pink, which rose to prominence with high-profile protests against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over the past seven years, is softening its stance against the war in Afghanistan over concerns that a troop withdrawal could harm women’s rights in the country.

“We would leave with the same parameters of an exit strategy but we might perhaps be more flexible about a timeline,” Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin told the Christian Science Monitor. “That’s where we have opened ourselves … to some other possibilities. We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban. So many people are saying that, ‘If the US troops left the country, would collapse. We’d go into civil war.’ A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider that.”

The apparent shift in policy comes in the wake of a week-long trip to Afghanistan by Code Pink members, where activists were surprised to find a lot of support among women’s rights activists for maintaining the US and NATO presence in the country.

They are just now awakening to this fact? Where were their brains at for the previous 8 years? Angelina Jolie “got it“, in regards to safeguarding Iraq on humanitarian grounds. Why couldn’t they?

Was opposition to the war all about political opposition to President Bush and not about promotion of peace and human rights (let alone democracy)?

Some observers have been pointing out for years that the Western troop presence in Afghanistan is the principal reason that women in the country are now able to get an education, and that there is now at least a modicum of gender equality in Afghanistan. Many observers fear that the withdrawal of troops could allow the return of severe discrepancies between women’s rights and men’s rights in Afghanistan, as well as widespread violence against women.

“In the current situation of terrorism, we cannot say troops should be withdrawn,” said Shinkai Karokhail, an Afghan member of Parliament and a women’s rights activist, at a meeting of international rights groups. “International troop presence here is a guarantee for my safety.”

Afghan girls attend a class at the Ishkashim high school for girls in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, near the border with Tajikistan, April 23, 2008.
REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

“The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON.” It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).

link to official USAF request to speed up procurement of special bunker buster bomb

Former President George W. Bush embraces President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, after Obama’s inaugural address at the inauguration ceremony in Washington, January 20, 2009.
REUTERS/Jason Reed

Suck it up, liberals…What’s been good for the goose, is good for the gander.

Democrats have been licking Obama’s Copenhagen wounds by barking at conservatives for “cheering” the political Olympic-sized debacle as a rooting against America. Republicans are now being accused of “being unpatriotic“, because they want the president’s policies to fail.

Some of the Copenhagen criticism against conservatives has merit (I’m glad Obama suffered politically for this ill-conceived trip). Much of it is just plain warped, however, as there are also honest reasons why all Americans should be happy Chicago lost the Olympic bid to play host:

the U.S., dodged a bullet:

The common rejoinder to spiraling costs is that the Olympics make money for host cities. But the record is somewhat spottier than boosters admit. Athens and Beijing lost billions. Montreal, which hosted the games in 1976, took 30 years to pay off its loans. Los Angeles and Seoul made a tidy profit. Atlanta and Sydney broke even. It also depends on how you count: Is building a stadium factored into the cost? How about improving the subway? Expanding the housing stock? All this can leave a city with new and gleaming infrastructure — or a bunch of costly new houses no one wants to buy and stadiums no one wants to use.

Also read this from WaPo.

Chicago’s lucky it lost.

Democrats have been distorting the fierce opposition to their party’s push for healthcare reform (teabaggers and townhall protesters as uninformed scaremongers, birthers, conspiracists and racists…”the mob”…).

Democrats have been lamenting about how “Hope” and “Change” are being derailed because those “mean, racist Republicans” stand in the way as the “if he’s for it, we’re against it” Party.

Isn’t this what Democrats did to President Bush for 8 years of opposition? Personal as well as policy attacks? Distortions and smears?

Democrats are crying foul over the Hitler comparisons to President Obama. Where were they on this obscenity for the previous 8 years?

I agree, though: The Obama-Hitler comparisons are currently, unfair and inaccurate…

….At least Hitler got the Olympics to come to his city. (*Baddum bump!*)

When President Bush exercised, it was deemed “obsessive” and “creepy”:

the fact that Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy.

Given the importance of his job, it is astonishing how much time Bush has to exercise.

~~~

Bush can bench press 185 pounds five times, and, before a recent knee injury, he ran three miles at a 6-minute, 45-second pace. That’s better than I could manage when I played two sports in high school. And I wasn’t holding the most powerful office on Earth. Which is sort of my point: Does the leader of the free world need to attain that level of physical achievement?

Maureen Dowd:

I like to exercise, but W. is psychopathic about it.

When President Obama exercises, it’s a source for inspiration and admiration:

the Washington Post delivered a front-page paean to Barack Obama’s workout habits. The 1,233-word ode to O’s physical fitness read more like a Harlequin romance novel than an A-1 news article.

Sighed smitten reporter Eli Zaslow, “The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.” Drool cup to the newsroom, stat.

Zaslow imparted us with vital information about buff Bam’s regimen: “Obama has gone to the gym for about 90 minutes a day, for at least 48 days in a row.” The Washington Post enlightened us with more gushing commentary from Obama friends and associates, who explain how, as the subtitle of Zaslow’s opus put it, “Gym Workouts Help Obama Carry the Weight of His Position.”

“Progressives” were fuming over the financial costs of President Bush’s inaugural:

In the days and weeks leading up to the event, the press has largely treated inauguration criticism as partisan and silly, making sure to give Bush backers lots of time and room to defend the unmatched pomp and circumstance.

Yet according to a mostly underreported Washington Post poll this week, a strong majority of Americans — 66 percent, including 46 percent of Republicans — would have preferred a “smaller, more subdued” inauguration, given the ongoing war in Iraq. In other words, Bush’s overblown celebration ranks as one of the few political issues that most Americans agree on — a phenomenon the press ignored.

Gee…give the huge financial crisis our country is in, did Salon also think to criticize President Obama’s lavish inaugural spending? No. But their side rallied around the defense of it.

President Bush was criticized for travel expenses to taxpayers. So then, what’s wrong with applying the same to President Obama?

Bush supposedly “ignored” his generals. And now that it’s Obama in office, it’s now okay to criticize the generals he may disagree with? To the point of arguing what uniform dress McChrystal should have worn in his 25 minute meeting with the president?

When will President Obama get criticized for not attending military funerals?

Prior to President Obama’s “unprecedented” address to the Muslim world, President Bush said much the same, yet received nowhere near the accolades, let alone fawning gushes and swoons. Instead, he was accused of launching a crusade against Muslims because “God told him to”.

Democrats mercilessly hammered Bush on spending and the ballooning deficit; but now that it’s “their guy” in the Oval Office, suddenly, like children in a candy store, it’s cool once again to cheerlead “runaway spending” (note to American voters: The answer to spending control is never NEVER to put more Democrats into office)? If the size of the government spending under 2 terms of Bush was bad, that okays Obama’s quadrupling of it in his first year of office? Whaaa-?! Ok, so we’ll spend our way out of recession- so long as it’s Obama and not Bush. Remember: Democrats are going to own this one (not that they won’t still blame Bush for it, of course).

So much of the opposition to President Bush was about partisan politics over patriotic opposition. And now that the shoe is on the other foot, liberals can know what it’s been like on the receiving end of their hyperbole, their hysteria, shrillness, and partisanly deranged opposition to all things Bush.

Welcome to being in political power. Enjoy it while it lasts.

It’s not a new phenomenon. Long ago it was said that the true story of a war can’t be told until the last of its veterans has passed away, and only a few months ago did the last World War One veteran go to his great reward. For decades after the Civil War (and some would argue even today) the debate raged on, and the healing of Southern Reconstruction didn’t really start culturally until the unity of the Spanish-American War turned foes into brothers-in-arms.

Conspiracy theories-often fueled by politics-still rage over the 911 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, whether or not Roosevelt deliberately allowed the Pearl Harbor attack to happen, whether or not the U.S. Navy knew the U.S.S. Maine had a boiler explosion and wasn’t sunk by a mine. People still think that the Lusitania was set on a suicide mission to get the United States into World War One. These myths will always remain, and it’s good that they do because they spark investigation and a search for understanding of these world changing events. The relationship between the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq is interesting in that both have a long list of conspiracy theories attacked to each, and yet the abstract, more indirect relationship between the two events is dismissed out of hand. To that end, even if one believes the relationship between Iraq War and 911 attacks is a conspiracy theory, it’s worthwhile to examine if for no other reason than harvesting a better understanding.

Opponents of President Bush and of the invasion of Iraq often claim, “Iraq did not attack the United States on Sept 11, 2001,” but Germany, Italy, and the rest of the Axis didn’t attack Pearl Harbor either and yet the U.S. went to war with them as well as the Japanese. Why? Because those Axis powers had an alliance, an agreement to help the Japanese. It was a paper only agreement (history shows us that there were no battles with uber-racist NAZI S.S. troops fighting alongside Japanese troops), but it was an agreement none-the-less. Additionally, the Axis nations declared war on the United States after the Pearl Harbor attacks. Similarly, we know from Clinton Administration claims, from captured documents, from pre-war and post-war intelligence that Saddam’s intelligence agencies had relationships with various groups in the Al Queda terrorist network of groups. We know from the 1998 Clinton Administration indictment of Osama Bin Laden that the two had reached an agreement to get WMD into the hands of the Al Queda network of terrorist groups.

the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement
with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that
they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons
development.

We also know from 1990-2003 Saddam’s government considered itself at war with the United States and from 1992-today Osama Bin Laden’s Al Queda network of terrorist groups has been at war with the United States.

Why?

Why did Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda go to war with the United States in 1992? According to the 911 Commission’s final report, the reason that the Al Queda network went to war with the United States, and ultimately the reason for the September 11, 2001 attacks was 4 different things (pg48-49)

He [Osama Bin Laden] inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites.
He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and
he protested U.S. support of Israel.

Why were American forces in Saudi Arabia from 1992-2001? They were there for one reason: to enforce no-fly-zones over Iraq which were there to protect Iraqis from Saddam. If the United States had removed Saddam in 1991, then the U.S. forces wouldn’t have been needed in Saudi Arabia, and Osama Bin Laden’s first casus belli wouldn’t exist.

Why was Osama concerned about the suffering of the Iraqi people? He was concerned-like many around the globe-because the U.S. led sanctions were starving tens of millions of people as a failed means of influencing Saddam. Again, had the United States removed Saddam in 1991, Osama Bin Laden’s second casus belli against the United States-his second reason for the 911 attacks-wouldn’t have existed.

Why was Osama Bin Laden so concerned about the United States support for Israel in the 1992-2001 period when Al Queda went to war with the United States? What was unique about that period in America’s support for Israel? In much of the Arab World (and in anti-Semitic circles around the world as well), America’s continued pressure on Saddam Hussein’s regime was viewed as an American shield for Israel; as the United States protecting Israel from Saddam and other aggressive Arab regimes.

The historical lesson and inescapable fact is that if the United States had chosen to remove Saddam from power in 1991, OR if the United States had simply walked away from Iraq in 1991 and washed their hands of Saddam’s regime without trying to compel compliance with United Nations resolutions, then Saddam’s regime would have remained in power, BUT the reasons for Osama Bin Laden and the Al Queda terrorist networks’ war on the United States simply would not exist; i.e. the reasons for the Sept 11, 2001 attacks wouldn’t have existed.

Would Osama Bin Laden and his network still have found other reasons to wage war on the United States? One cannot tell for certain, but it does seem that their nature and their destiny has been to fight superpowers, and with the United States as the sole superpower in the 1990’s, it seems more than likely other excuses for casus belli would have been claimed.

Would Saddam Hussein have still been a threat to the United States if he had been left in power in 1991, and if the United States didn’t pursue compliance with U.N. Resolutions? Absolutely. In 1992 U.N. inspectors found that Saddam’s regime had actually built a nuclear bomb, but lacked enriched uranium for it. From 1992-1995 U.N. inspectors found vast amounts of WMD. Saddam had invaded or attacked every single one of his neighbors during his reign, he’d used WMD in the past, had ordered them used against U.S. troops in the 1991 Gulf War (Iraq Survey Group Report, transcript of recording, vol II). Few reasonable leaders would argue that Saddam was not a threat, and no one would argue that a Saddam Hussein who still had ballistic missiles, WMD, and more in 1992 was not a regional or even global threat. Determined that he was a threat, Saddam either had to be removed in 1991 by the United States, in the 1991-2003 period by internal forces (multiple attempts at which all failed with increasing futlity), or by the United States in 2003.

The abstract, and more indirect relationship between the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq is simple: the war with Al Queda and their attacks on the United States (including the 911 attacks) were blowback, consequences, fragmentary effects of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait and Iraq.

The DIRECT relationship between the 911 attacks and Saddam’s regime is far more debated. To be clear, the hijackers were no more Iraqi than the pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor were German and Italian. However, the question of direct Iraqi ties to the 911 attacks go back to that very day when-as the attacks were happening-Iraq shot down an unarmed Predator drone over Iraq that was searching for WMD etc. On that day, after getting sparse, scattered, and chaotic information about the attacks-while they were happening, and while getting 2-3x as many false reports and rumors of attacks, members of the Bush Administration were not at all culpable or irresponsible for asking if Saddam’s regime was behind the attacks.

In fact, at the time it had become a common cultural expectation. During the 1990’s the Clinton Administration repeatedly claimed that Saddam’s regime and the Al Queda network worked together. Mass media reports of the time carried this theme fully and without question. It was even showing up in movies where characters would claim anything-even meteor showers on New York City were the result of Saddam (Armaggeddon ffwd to 1:40).

Unfortunately, on Sept 11, 2001 there was no way to tell if the attacks were directly or just indirectly related to the on-going American war against Saddam (a war that was so poorly reported that most Americans even today fail to realize it even happened, but conversely was so burned into the minds of the Arab Street at the time that it still conjures up bitter memories in the region).

The question of direct Iraqi involvement in the 911 attacks was investigated first by the Bush Administration, and they found no evidence to make a conclusion. Subsequent investigations by the CIA, FBI, the House and Senate intelligence committees, the entire intelligence community, the 911 Commission and more all ran into the same problem: there was no evidence. For political partisans opposed to President Bush and/or the invasion of Iraq that was enough to support their argument that the invasion was somehow not necessary. The conclusion they promoted-that there was “no evidence” of a direct involvement was but 1/3 of the truth. Another 1/3 was the reason that there was “no evidence’ was because almost none had been collected or analyzed, and the reason for that (almost always ignored by political opponents of the Iraq invasion) was that from December 1998-December 2002 the United States had not a single spy inside Iraq. For four years there was no evidence collected, and thus there was “no evidence.”

Most alarmingly, after 1998 and the exit of the U.N. inspectors, the CIA had no human intelligence sources inside Iraq who were collecting against the WMD target.
- Senator Pat Roberts 070904 SIC Release of WMD investigation report
Press Conference transcript

The last 1/3 is the most obvious, and the most deliberately ignored for political purposes: every single investigation that looked at the question of direct regime ties to the 911 attacks and/or the Al Queda network of terrorist groups ALWAYS pointed out that because so little evidence had been collected, the issue was to remain open-not closed or concluded.

After the invasion, innumerable direct ties between the Al Queda network of terrorist groups and Saddam’s regime have been uncovered. These ties are shown in captured and authenticated documents, in the interrogation of former regime leaders, and in the capture of Al Queda operatives. In fact, the relationship between the regime and the network was far far more involved than any relationship between Germany and Japan or Mussolini and Tojo.

Yet it remains a political issue more than a historical one today. six years after the second invasion of Iraq, eight years after the 911 attacks, 17 years after Osama and the Al Queda network declared war on the United States, and 18 years after the United States and Saddam’s regime went to war over Kuwait.

Perhaps, now that President Bush is gone, and there is no more need to use the invasion of Iraq as a draw issue for his opposition…perhaps now people can be mentally brave enough to recognize the undeniable blowback/more-indirect relationship between the Ignored War on Saddam’s regime (1991-2001) and the 911 attacks. There certainly is no more reason to deny this fact, and there’s no more reason to avoid a conclusive investigation into the depth of regime ties to the Al Queda network of terrorist groups.

The Obama administration told a judge late Monday that it will continue to withhold information regarding past detainee policies for national security reasons, a decision assailed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had been seeking Bush-era documents “including a presidential directive authorizing CIA ‘black sites,’” CIA inspector general records, Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel documents about the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

In the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York had ordered the Obama administration to either turn over various documents pertaining to detainee policies by August 31 or provide justification for withholding them.