George W. Bush: Not Ready for Prime Time!

If we want an apology from al Qaida, what the hell are we doing in Iraq?

Al Qaeda is thanking us for what we are doing in Iraq.

This article pretty much sums it up.
*****************************
Mr. Bush's Press Conference
April 14, 2004

Happily, President Bush finally held a prime-time news
conference last night. Unhappily, he failed to address
either of the questions uppermost in Americans' minds: how
to move Iraq from its current chaos, and what he has
learned from the 9/11 investigations.

Mr. Bush was grave and impressive while reading his opening
remarks, which focused on the horrors of terrorism and the
great good that could come from establishing a free and
democratic Iraq. No one in the country could disagree with
either thought. But his responses to questions were
distressingly rambling and unfocused. He promised that Iraq
would move from the violence and disarray of today to full
democracy by the end of 2005, but the description of how to
get there was mainly a list of dates when good things are
supposed to happen.

There was still no clear description of exactly who will
accept the sovereignty of Iraq from the coalition on June
30. "We'll find out that soon," the president said, adding
that U.N. officials are "figuring out the nature of the
entity we'll be handing sovereignty over" to. In Mr. Bush's
mind, whatever happens next now appears to be the
responsibility of the United Nations. That must have come
as a surprise to the U.N. negotiators and their bosses, who
have not agreed to accept that responsibility and do not
believe that they have been given the authority to make
those decisions.

Mr. Bush did concede that the Iraqi security forces had not
performed well during the violence and that more American
troops would probably be needed. But his rhetoric,
including the repetition of the phrase "stay the course,"
did not seem to indicate any fresh or clear thinking about
Iraq, despite the many disturbing events of recent weeks.

The second issue that has overwhelmed the nation in recent
days is the 9/11 investigating commission. While repeatedly
expressing his grief over the deaths related to the
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Mr. Bush
seemed to entertain no doubts about the rightness of his
own behavior, no questions about whether he should have
done something in response to the domestic terrorism report
he received on Aug. 6, 2001.

The United States has experienced so many crises since Mr.
Bush took office that it sometimes feels as if the nation
has embarked on one very long and painful learning curve in
which every accepted truism becomes a doubt, every
expectation a question mark. Only Mr. Bush somehow seems to
have avoided any doubt, any change.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/opinion/14WED1.html?ex=1082943612&ei=1&en=33a76cc5cfbcb1eb

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

To me it only sums up my opinion of the leftwing press who write what they want to believe rather than what is.

Foxfyre's quote, "..... to believe rather than what is." Exactly when are we going to hear about "what is?" Another question that follows is, "what can we anticipate in the short-term and long-term future of our involvement in Iraq? Finally, at "what cost to the American People?"

The president answered that C.I. with "We still stay as long as it takes and not one day longer." Interpretation, he will not be nailed down to a specific date with which he will be hung if circumstances require that it be changed.

He was clear that if we will get behind the effort and make it clear to the terrorists that America has the guts, will, and resolve to finish what we started, the time will be much shorter.

Respectfully foxfrye, the only filter I see has your name on it.

You devote an inordinate amount of energy here to blaming the left for Bush's problems. You remind this gal of a mother who looks for fault everywhere but in her own child.

Why does Bush bring out this behavior in his supporters?

Many of us think we got involved in Iraq for ALL THE WRONG REASONS. We will stay as long as it takes for what? For hell to freeze over?

damn, and he had the reasons for going to war nailed down pat, I guess we expect too much. so I guess we will "stay the course" until we find the WoMD. meanwhile terrorism continues to be the method our governments use to control us. If it were't for the liberal press and the anyone but Bush crowd we could win this war in a decade or two using very few of our own WoMD. I do have to wonder if Al Sad'r knows in his heart what is best to the same degree as GWB does?

Condi and the president wants details when terrorists plan an attack on our soil.
************************************
Our New No-Can-Do Nation
April 11, 2004
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Young Americans are bravely fighting and dying in Iraq,
trying to fulfill the audacious vision of George W. Bush
and Dick Cheney to remold Iraq in the image of America.

But while we try to turn them into us, who have we become?


The president presents himself as an avatar of American
values, plain-spoken cowboy and tough flyboy.

But Condi Rice's testimony on Thursday raises the
depressing possibility that we've lost the essence of our
frontier spirit: the ingenious individualist who gets
around the system and faces down the drones.

From Abigail Adams to Tom Sawyer to Bugs Bunny to Jimmy
Stewart's Jefferson Smith to Indiana Jones, the best
American character is plucky, nimble, clever, inventive.

So it's disturbing to see our government reacting to crises
with a jaded shrug and lumbering gait, especially since we
are up against such a creative, chameleonlike enemy.

Consider the pathetic performance of NASA, which inverted
its motto to "Failure is an option" by shrugging off
warnings about the safety of the seven Columbia astronauts
who burned up coming back to earth, and not trying to send
up a rescue shuttle.

This no-can-do spirit marked George Tenet's lame excuses to
senators in February who wanted to know why the C.I.A.
never picked up the trail of Marwan al-Shehhi, the pilot
who crashed Flight 175 into the south tower on 9/11, even
though the Germans gave the agency his name and phone
number. "They didn't give us a first and a last name until
after 9/11," Mr. Tenet said.

And what would Eliot Ness say about an F.B.I. that is less
computer savvy than American preschoolers and Islamic
terrorists? The F.B.I. is only halfway through modernizing
its computers, which could not, before 9/11, do two
searches at once, such as "Al Qaeda" and "flight schools."
Can't we draft Bill Gates for duty?

This ominous passivity was threaded through the testimony
of Ms. Rice, a brainy and accomplished woman who should
represent the best of America. She blamed "systemic" and
"structural" impediments that prevented the C.I.A. and the
F.B.I. from sharing. She complained that other people
hadn't recommended what she should do; even the terrorists
were faulted for not giving specifics.

The screeching chatter in the spring and summer of 2001 -
"There will be attacks in the near future" - did not yank
Mr. Bush and his team from their Iraq fixation. "But they
don't tell us when," Ms. Rice protested. "They don't tell
us where, they don't tell us who, and they don't tell us
how." Paging Nancy Drew.

Inconclusive intelligence did not bother the Bush team when
it wanted to be "actionable" on Iraq, or engage in "tit for
tat" with Saddam.

The Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing - remarkably
headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United
States" - mentioned Al Qaeda's wanting to hijack planes and
the 70 F.B.I. field investigations into suspected Al Qaeda
sleeper cells in the U.S.

The briefing had three-month-old information that Al Qaeda
was trying to sneak into the country for an explosives
attack. No wonder the C.I.A. chief and counterterrorism
czar were running around with their hair on fire.

What should have made Condi hysterical, she deemed
"historical."

W. kept fishing and denouncing Saddam, while Condi sat for
a glam Vogue photo shoot and interview.

On Iraq, they ran roughshod over the system. On Al Qaeda,
Condi blamed the system, saying she couldn't act on Richard
Clarke's plan until there was a strategy, a policy,
"tasking," meetings, etc.

The F.B.I. officials who ignored Coleen Rowley as she tried
to break through the obtuse leadership of Louis Freeh's
F.B.I. to get evidence on Zacarias Moussaoui, and Kenneth
Williams, the Phoenix agent who outlined the Al Qaeda plot
to train Arab terrorists in our flight schools, have not
been held accountable. Why aren't the heroic Ms. Rowley and
Mr. Williams running something?

Dick Clarke has struck a chord because his passionate
efforts reflected those great American virtues of ingenuity
and brashness. Even if he was a bit of a cowboy, loading up
his .357 sidearm to return to the West Wing the night after
9/11, at least he was not dozing through High Noon.
.
My last column should have identified Iraqis fighting
inside a Falluja mosque as Sunnis, and the Iraq turnover
date as June.

E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/opinion/11DOWD.html?ex=1082687707&ei=1&en=c7b8f05b3e662823

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Foxfyre said:


You're kidding right? To think that the President of the US had not been coached or scripted prior to making a live TV appearance is ludicrous.

I thought he was joking.

And Deecups, can you refresh my memory where I have blamed the left for Bush's problems? I don't recall blaming anybody but terrorists and a few ill advised policies re Medicare and undocumented workers for Bush's problems.

Do I criticize anybody whether media or message board writer who distorts and misrepresents the facts purely to demonize a president they don't like? I do that and will no doubt continue to do so.

It's interesting that the first New York Times article was deemed to be so important that it had to be quoted twice in the same thread. I didn't think it was all that great.


New York Daily News

Here is a link to a transcript of the news conference.

As for the 9/11 families:


NewsMax

Did President Clinton ever apologize for the first World Trade Center attack, or Oklahoma City? And did the press ever demand an apology from him? The answer is no, and no. Which brings up the question, why is the press now after President Bush for something he had as much warning about as President Clinton had about the other attacks? I know the answer I would give to that question. Let's see what answers others can come up with.

After listening to the hyenas circling around, yapping and trying to spot a weakness, I imagined the following question: "Mr. President, it has been said that you look funny, your feet smell, and your sphincter is square. How do you respond to those charges?" It appeared that the majority of the reporters were looking for a way to embarrass the President. But since he has nothing to be embarrassed about, his responses were right on the mark. A few of the questions were worthwhile, but many just rehashed old issues that have already been satisfactorily resolved.

Too bad one of the reporters didn't ask "How do you feel about the vicious attacks against you?" Instead, they asked him what his biggest mistake was. Maybe he could have handled that question better. I think a good response would have been "My biggest recent mistake is letting you ask a question."

Quote from Tar's post, "It appeared that the majority of the reporters were looking for a way to embarrass the President." The president doesn't need any help in embarrassing himself. He does a yeoman's job all by himself. Maybe, you haven't been reading media reports from around the world - it's been common knowledge since he made his first speech. I bet a Google search will bring up over several thousand of his misspeaks.

I typed "Bush's grammar" in Google, and got 19,100 hits. From Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 19,100 for Bush's grammar.

I agree foxfyre that Bush should have said "Hell no" or similar. I believe he was asked that question several times because he did not answer the question directly. The biggest issue I had with the entire Press Conference was that Bush did not answer the questions posed to him. He gave a response in such a way that it did not answer the question asked of him. By the way this is not different than the majority of politicians. I just wish one time a politician would have the guts to just answer the question. I know they are intelligent enough to know the answer. Even if answer is not what I would like, I would have greater respect for some one that can own up and answer questions posed of them. Otherwise these press conferences are just a waste of my time.

I also agree that the Press does not always ask the best questions. They ask questions that they feel will give them the most media attention. They want shocking news, not necessarily the most important news. That being said wouldn't make more sense to include some every day people in the audience to ask questions? Perhaps hold a conference at a college and have college students pose questions.

Well I've said before and I'm saying again, I would rather have a president who is not scripted and coached and slick even if he does mangle the English language than one who is scripted and coached and slick who says whatever is politically expedient whether or not he believes a word of it and whether or not it contradicts what he said a short time before.

I've often criticized liberals for favoring style over substance. You guys keep making my point.

From Foxfyre's earlier post, "You were seeing a president speak who had not been coached or scripted but who was speaking from the heart." And you call this "substance?"

Well it certainly wasn't stylish, was it?

FYI, if you just click on the "Quote" button inside Foxfyre's post, you wouldn't have to type out "From Foxfyre's earlier post" every time.