Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

kickycan wrote:

The scary thing is that although he doesn't read the papers, he does read the bible. And I'm sure he's totally up on that whole wacky fire and brimstone revelation stuff. God help us all.

Yeah, it's so comical that the President is a Christian. Laugh it up, bigot.

His poll numbers sagging and Democratic criticism unrelenting, President Bush has responded with abrupt turnabouts over the past 10 days on Iraq war intelligence, his own military service record and cooperation with a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

The White House initially declined to open up Bush's National Guard record, saying that lingering questions about his service during the Vietnam War were asked and answered when he ran for president. Then, late Friday, a two-inch stack of his military records were released with a thud.

When it became clear that some of the prewar intelligence on Iraq was flawed, Bush steadfastly defended his decision to go after Saddam Hussein. But when the controversy didn't die, the White House last week appointed a seven-member commission to study the issue.

* * *

In a reactionary posture the past two weeks, Bush is now moving into a more aggressive phase of the fight to hold on to his job. A barrage of Bush-Cheney TV ads, threaded by the theme "Steady Leadership in Times of Change," is queued for release in key election states in coming weeks, when the Democrats settle on a nominee, campaign officials say. Meantime, the president himself is expected to be voicing a sharper contrast between his record and policies favored by Democrats.

Republicans have a lot to worry about; hence the reason Bush has been on the defense, says national pollster Mark Schulman.

"No. 1 is the credibility issue," said Schulman, who is not affiliated with any political candidate. "A lot of poll numbers from a lot of different organizations are finding that people are questioning credibility."

I was thinking, maybe, that national guardsman will be offered an "intelligence" job.

Our Friend the Autocrat

By Neil Hicks
Monday, February 16, 2004; Page A27

President Bush will have an opportunity to put his "forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East" into practice this week when he meets with Tunisian President Zine Abidine Ben Ali at the White House.

President Ben Ali is an unreconstructed autocrat who runs one of the most repressive police states in the Arab world. He was "reelected" to a third five-year term by better than 99 percent of the vote in 1999. In 2002 the ruling party called a referendum in which it claimed that more than 99 percent of the voters favored allowing the president run for a fourth term and granting him blanket immunity from prosecution, even after he leaves office -- assuming he ever does.

President Bush has pledged that "when the leaders of reform ask for our help, America will give it," and he has said that America is "expecting a higher standard from our friends" when it comes to upholding liberty.

These are fine words, but the champions of liberty in Tunisia will be expecting little from their president's visit to Washington. The Tunisian government, on the other hand, will be expecting further affirmation of its position as a U.S. ally in the war against terrorism. In short, it will be expecting business as usual, with Washington turning a blind eye to persistent violations of human rights in Tunisia and the brutal gagging of peaceful dissent.

In a speech last November, heralded by White House officials as one of the most important speeches of his presidency, Mr Bush set out his ideas for worldwide democracy - though most of it, in fact, was concerned with the Middle East. China, the world's largest non-democracy, got only a passing mention. "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution," Mr Bush said.

The point he seemed to be making was that from now on the promotion of democracy will be a pillar of US foreign policy. If true, this would signal a revolutionary change ... no more hobnobbing with dictators who happen to have oil to sell or money to spend on American weapons.

But don't hold your breath just yet. One of the Middle East's nastiest rulers, President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, arrived in Washington only yesterday for talks with President Bush.

Ben Ali, a former security chief, seized power 16 years ago (with prior approval from the US) after his predecessor, "president-for-life" Habib Bourguiba, became senile. In 1999 Ben Ali was re-elected as president with an incredible 99.5% of the votes.

Before heading off to the White House, he said he hoped to share his "experience in fighting terrorism" with Mr Bush. Though his internal repression is regularly condemned by human rights organisations, Ben Ali gets away with it by being nice to the US and doing his bit to keep the Islamists at bay.

White House quietly shelves MTBE ban