Bush to lecture Iraq vet candidate about war today in Kentucky speech

[bigtree]

Bush and bin-Laden will be running mates this fall:

Bush to use speech in Kentucky to promote Republicans

January 11, 2006
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=4347782

LOUISVILLE (AP) -- President Bush will have an eye on the fall elections Wednesday when he heads to Louisville, Kentucky, to give a speech on Iraq.

Tuesday, the president told a veterans group that voters should punish any Democrat whose Iraq War rhetoric gives "comfort to our adversaries." He said "loyal opposition" is one thing, but defeatism is another.

The president's handling of the war is a big issue in Kentucky's 3rd Congressional District. Incumbent Republican Anne Northup is being challenged by a Democrat who served seven months in Iraq. Andrew Horne is in the Marine Reserves and calls the invasion a mistake. He says it's made America less secure.

Why does Congress tolerate this? Bush's whoring of the Iraq occupation for votes is the most despicable act he could perform. This sedition against Americans who happen to disagree with Bush on Iraq is supposed to take place against the backdrop of a race that features one of our brave vets who knows the burdens of war, unlike Bush who, along with his partner Cheney, declined to serve when they were faced with the opportunity. Bush and Cheney think that donning fake military jackets makes them qualified to preach to the rest of us, soldiers included, about giving comfort to the enemy.

There has been no one more inept and reckless than Bush in our nation's history who has led our soldiers into battle. This was not only an unnecessary war, it rivals Vietnam in its futility. We lost the support of Iraqis when we first started killing masses with our cluster bombs. We gave "comfort to our adversaries" when Bush first decided to invade the sovereign Muslim-dominated nation of Iraq. We increased the animosity toward us with our occupation. We fuel the violence with our refusal to leave Iraq to the Iraqis, and with our military assaults on those who oppose the propped-up authority.

While Bush keeps his eye on the fall elections, soldiers are needlessly dying in Iraq. Bush is content to use their sacrifices as his personal political fodder. It's clear from his arrogant dismissal of anyone who would disagree with his militarism ('you're either with him or against him') that Bush doesn't feel any more need to seek common ground on Iraq. From this point on, with every traitorous slap at dissenting Americans and our elected representatives who happen to have different views about the war, Bush is cementing his place in American history as a petty dictator, unconcerned with the democracy he claims to be spreading elsewhere. The only thing he lacks, and reportedly craves, is the authority to set our military against U.S. citizens to cow us into voting his way. Just like he did the Iraqis. Just like Hitler did his country folk.

Here's hoping that free-minded Americans will be repulsed by the politicization of our military in the face of the daily sacrifices and lives lost for Bush's imperialism. I know I am.

[Crazy Dave]

1. No proof but...

There sure are a lot of credible talking points that say we can catch Bin Laden anytime we want but if we do, the pres. can't use his "war on terror" as a free pass anymore. Having Bin Laden out there is a useful tool to the administration, to keep scaring Americans and keep the war going. Even if we're not actually at war with Bin Laden.

[bigtree]

2. good observation

Bush's fear campaign is alive and well.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. I suspect you are right. This would fall in line with their use of

gay marraige and abortion as ammunition to promote their agenda with no plans to do anything about them.

[tdcc]

5. Ditto with Zarqawi

How is it we found Saddam hiding in a hole in Iraq, yet can't find Zarqawi running around with his supposedly existant, but limited terror network?

How do we even know the true power of his network? Isn't it a little too convenient that his network is small enough to not cause any problem with the democracy building in Iraq, yet big enough that we can't just pull out leaving him at large? Gotta take the terrorists to innocent Iraq and fight them there, rather than fight them here! But don't you dare question US foreign policy! We have always been in the moral right.

Wooo.. living on Animal Farm!

[bigtree]

6. got some good responses yesterday to his nonsense about aiding terror

"Patriotic Americans will continue to ask the tough questions because our brave men and women in Iraq, their families and the American people deserve to know that their leaders are being held accountable," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said loyalty demands that Democrats differ with Bush on the lack of sufficient body armor for troops and other issues. "From its inception and continuing to this moment, the absence of open and honest debate has been one of the hallmarks of this war," the California Democrat said.

And Democratic National Committee communications director Karen Finney said: "The Bush administration's attack, distract and distort tactics reflect a Nixonian paranoia that is un-American. It's shameful that once again the Bush administration resorted to attacking the patriotism of fellow Americans rather than answering legitimate questions surrounding the president's failures in Iraq."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who met with Bush recently at the White House, praised the president's recent efforts to gather differing viewpoints and welcomed the call for a more civil dialogue. But Schiff said the process must begin at the White House, which he said "brought the debate down a significant notch" when it attacked Murtha, a respected veteran and longtime hawk.

"Some of the worst culprits in worsening the dialogue on Iraq have come from the White House," said Schiff, who attended Bush's speech. "It's got to be a two-way street."

http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=122798


Welcome to DU tdcc. :hi:

[Arkana]

34. Karen Finney's my new hero.

And Democratic National Committee communications director Karen Finney said: "The Bush administration's attack, distract and distort tactics reflect a Nixonian paranoia that is un-American. It's shameful that once again the Bush administration resorted to attacking the patriotism of fellow Americans rather than answering legitimate questions surrounding the president's failures in Iraq."

Nixonian paranoia. If ever there was a phrase that would ring a few bells in the heads of Joe and Jane Sixpacks, that's it.

We're finally beginning to call this shameful display exactly what it is--a paranoid attack on the patriotism of fellow Americans.

[Skittles]

9. excellent post tdcc!

Welcome to the DU! :hi:

[txindy]

12. At least Zarqawi isn't on dialysis like OBL.

How can they not find someone with a dialysis machine in the desert caves in Afghanistan? Of course they can find him. They either choose not to or he's already dead.

[VolcanoJen]

26. Isn't he also, like, ridiculously tall?

So, he's strikingly tall, hooked up to dialysis and running around with the one-eyed cleric, Mullah Omar. But we can't find him...

[txindy]

31. Amazing, isn't it?

They stand out like spotlights, yet we can't find them. :eyes:

[newyawker99]

19. Hi tdcc!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[FreedomAngel82]

22. I remember hearing an interview

sometime either in 2004 or early last year with this guy who was in the military apart of all the hunt with Hussein and they really found him at someone's house eating dinner and they had him do the hole thing for Bush. I heard this interview at bushflash.com

[arcane1]

30. Zarqawi is the new Goldstein

his actual corporeal existence isn't even necessary, just our belief in it

[rpannier]

35. Not only that but...

for some reason we can't find a 6 1/2 foot Arab who needs special medical care every few days either. I guess when scrub said there's no place to hide, he convienently left out medical clinics and any other heavily trafficked areas.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. He has ties to the BinLadin family

through the Carlyle group.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Well, I'm repulsed by just about everything this so-called administration

has done.

[zbdent]

7. Every Dem (esp. the Iraq II vets) should be pushing

the fact that, for 10+ years, we kept hearing about how terrible it was that Clinton avoided serving in Vietnam - and now it's mostly Dems who served IN BUSH'S WAR - and are being accused of being unpatriotic because they signed up to run for office as a Dem . . .

[rkc3]

8. Just another instance of:

Support the Troops, Unless they're running against us in an election.

Fuckers.

[Roland99]

10. Wish there were some overpasses along I-65 between the airport & downtown

Would have loved to have done some freeway blogging for the Propagandist's drive up I-65.

[sui generis]

11. Well, he IS going to use it. Complaining about it won't change

that fact.

What WE need to do is use it too.

In judo, when your opponent commits to pushing you, you do not push back. You let them feed their inertia into you and deflect it - it takes a lot less strength, and they end up out of control and throwing themselves with little effort on your part.

Politically speaking, if he wants to beat the war drum, let's give him all the rope he needs. Then we need to pull out the shameless whoring ourselves.

Here's one: If we wanted to depose, say, the Prince of Monaco, to bring democracy to Monaco and make him pay for his crimes to humanity, would we agree as a nation to murder 2200 soldiers as a justifiable price?

Why not? If so, why the incompetence to pick the right war, and to run the war successfully?

We need to quote Cheney and Rumfilled on their positions on the war, using their quotes on the vietnam war, and ask why we think these guys should be running this war? After all, their initial information was wrong, their ongoing information was wrong, and the information they're basing their planning on today is wrong. Why should we let incompetent people making incompetent decisions based on incompetent information continue to execute this "war". What other fatal mistakes are they going to have to make before they can claim they have the necessary experience?

We need to create every possible negative association to the war, to bogeyman terrorists, to the government being OUT OF CONTROL and unstable because of the war, and let them own the war, completely, themselves.

[bigtree]

13. We need more outright rejections of the occupation

Troops home now! That's the message. We don't need to revisit the beginning of the war. Bush lied, men and women died!

We can fight Bush on our own terms. This veteran candidate has more credibility on issues of war and peace from his months in Iraq than Bush has from his entire presidency.

As far as political Judo goes . . . uh, we had a similar debate here during the election . . . bottom line, Judo :thumbsdown: kick in the groin :thumbsup:

[sui generis]

14. the problem is they don't have any balls to kick

there is no bottom line. I gently mock you.

Plus remember their voting audience are playground bullies. Just as soon as you successfully "kick 'em in the balls" they turn around and SUCCESSFULLY tell their base (the underinformed playground monitor) how mean and unprofessional we are, and it works. You and I will get sent to detention, balls, judo and every damn thing.

If I were to posit a bottom line it would be that whatever we do cannot involve pulling punches. What will work is a non-stop assault and listing of their failures and corruption and gross incompetence in every possible public venue.

They've been buttraping middle and lower income America and hanging themselves quite handily since Y2K, now all we have to do is point it out, over and over.

[bigtree]

18. doesn't sound like we disagree. I would accept anything that works

to unseat the Bushocracy. There are all sorts of different ways to oppose Bush. I won't disparage any of them. Who the heck knows what will work in the end. In the years I've fought for the issues and concerns that were important to me, I've found the Democratic Party to be an effective vehicle for change and action. Within our party there is a divergence of views that flow from the myriad of individual concerns. I like that. Who knows what approach or effort will spark the voters? I believe we should exercise every instigation of democracy in our efforts. That's much more important than nuance or tone. Full and diligent participation.

[FreedomAngel82]

23. Remember what happened in Virginia

with the governor race. He came out to support the republican canidate and Kaine won a lot more than Warner did. According to all the opinion polls I've seen recently Bush is only hanging himself and the other republicans.

[wysiwyg]

15. The Coalition Provisional Authority = Michael Brown's FEMA X 100

I really wish the Democrats could successfully get across the fact that the Bush administration set up the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq even worse than they did FEMA. It was stocked with incompetent cronies and idealogues from top to bottom and they totally botched the rebuilding of Iraq in the first year after the invasion. They had a year when Iraq was reasonably manageable to work on putting things back together and they blew it. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for and the work didn't get done.

If the Democrats could equate the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, currently a symbol of incompetence and cronyism, with the disaster in Iraq then perhaps Bush wouldn't be able to get as much traction from the disaster his administration created.

[gratuitous]

16. Oh no! Bush is politicizing the war

And he promised he wouldn't do that! What, oh what, will we tell our children when the commander in chief of the military doesn't tell the truth? How can we expect our children to tell us the truth when the President of the United States doesn't tell the truth?

See how dumb that sounds, Freepi?

Back on a legitimate political countertactic, how does an open and honest discussion of the mishandling of this elective invasion hurt our country? The administration has pointed to the ongoing terror and bloodshed in Iraq as evidence of democracy on the march; how does a fair debate in the United States morph into comfort for our adversaries, when the administration is voicing approval of their very actions in Iraq?

Andrew Horne will surely receive the vote of every thinking person in Kentucky, but he needs a majority. We need to make sure more Kentuckians are thinking.

[wysiwyg]

17. I'm more worried about torture corrupting our youth than lying

What happens when all of those people given the green light and even the training for abuse and torture come back from the war? Talk about "corrupting our youth"! Encouraging young men and women to commit evil acts isn't exactly setting the moral example that Republicans promised this country.

[bigtree]

20. WarPig One has landed

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x108549

[bigtree]

24. the posse

Senior White House staff members (from L to R) Press Secretary Scott McClellan, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Senior Adviser Karl Rove, walk up the ramp to Air Force One to join U.S. President George W. Bush before departing Andrews Air Force Base for Kentucky January 11, 2006.

[PurpleChez]

25. I am too.

I was driving to Atlanta yesterday morning and had to drive once again past a large billboard that reads

"Rep. Murtha: Democrats cut and run. Marines don't."

The pigheadedness of the war fetishists (chickenhawks or not -- I don't know the source of this billboard) continues to amaze and repulse me. The notion that ANYONE would feel qualified to lecture Rep. Murtha on what Marines do and don't do is astounding. And the message is always implicit in such statements that we should all just sit down, shut up, and do whatever Herr bush tells us to; no matter how incompetent or criminal his actions show him to be we must never, EVER question him. The hypocrisy of these cretins is galling.

[carnie_sf]

27. Another way we can fan these flames this year

is by hammering on the Jan 30 trial of Jeff Skilling and Ken (Kenny boy) Lay. This is a perfect example of the Republican culture of corruption that has flourished in the atmosphere of the "Reagan revolution".

[Number9Dream]

28. AP deliberately failed to mention Lt. Colonel Horne's rank

...Just Andrew Horne... another "defeatist".
The AP = Repuke shills.

[bigtree]

29. thanks

"The 44-year-old lieutenant colonel was in Iraq from August 2004 to March 2005, serving as a civil affairs detachment commander in Anbar province, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled the insurgency for months."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/11/bush.kentucky/index.html

[President Kerry]

32. the nerve!

I don't just want * impeached. I want him and the whole cabal in jail, by any means necessary. Another stolen election, and this country is ready for an uprising. I'm fed up!

[gibbyman]

33. Well said

Well said in deed

[Old and In the Way]

36. The dysfunctional odd couple.

Mutually co-enabling and interdependent. One couldn't exist without the other.

[CarolNYC]

37. Gen Clark and Lt Col Horne conference call

From the DNC site:

Posted by Tim Tagaris on January 11, 2006 at 10:21 AM

The DNC hosted a conference call with General Wesley Clark and Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Horne, a candidate for U.S. Congress in KY-3 against Republican incumbent Anne Northup. The call starts with a discussion of the NY Times revelation that 80% of Marines who have died in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have been saved with the proper body armor; it concludes with a brief Q&A from local and national reporters.

LISTEN TO THE CONFERENCE CALL

http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/01/general_wes_cla.php

Also, this, from CNN:
President Bush is scheduled to visit Louisiana and Mississippi tomorrow, where he will speak about the Gulf Coast Reconstruction efforts. Today, Bush signs the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement into law at 10:55 a.m. and then travels to Louisville to deliver his second speech in as many days on the "Global War on terror" at 1:10 p.m.

Former Army General Wesley Clark and Lt. Colonel Andrew Horne, a Marine reservist running against Rep. Anne Northup (R-Kentucky), will offer the Democratic National Committee's pre-buttal at 9:45 a.m. Clark and Horne will call on "Bush to explain his Administration's failure to provide the brave men and women serving in Iraq with the life-saving body armor their commanders in the field requested," the DNC said.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/11/sr.weds/index.html?section=cnn_latest

And some excerpts in this usnewswire piece:

http://tinyurl.com/7tnm2

[bigtree]

38. kick

separate post?

[and-justice-for-all]

39. Piss Off Dubya...

I cant stand this fuck job, no brains repiglican much longer...He is, along with his supporters, are the dumbest bunch of dipshits I have ever had the unfortunate pleasure of knowing...
IMPEACH NOW!!!! Fuck BigPharma and Fuck BigBusiness!!

"We had on President who lied to congress to start a war..we drove him from office. We had a President whos campaign committed crimes to reelect him and we drove him from office..Now we have President WHO DID BOTH, we all know what to do....IMPEACH!!!!"

[Voltaire99]

40. No more repulsed than by the Democrats' imperialism, frankly.

There is no such thing as "Bush's imperialism." There is an American imperialism that long predates Bush, the same ideology that drove Clinton to bomb and starve Iraq throughout the 90s, sent Reagan into Central America in the 80s, Nixon across the borders of Southeast Asia in the 70s, Kennedy into Vietnam in the 60s, and so on.

Iraq is a screenplay written by a committee. Without the eager assent of such as Kerry and Hillary and Biden, the invasion couldn't have occurred and the occupation couldn't be sustained. But they promoted it, a tragic error compounded today by their desire to continue it. Where have you been? Kerry, in fact, "politicized our military," to use your curious phrase, when he ran on the platform of fighting the war better. You're doing the same when you lionize "brave vets," equating military service with political qualification. There is nothing but politicization of the US military, since it is constitutionally under the control of politicians. No politically neutral use of it is possible.

There has been no one more inept and reckless than Bush in our nation's history who has led our soldiers into battle. You have to quantify such claims. Kennedy and Johnson cost many more American and innocent foreign lives in their sordid misadventure; go count the names on the Vietnam Memorial some time.

If you oppose imperialism, I'm with you. If you think it's a GOP thing and Democrats are clean of such impure desires, then, brother, you're on your own.

[bigtree]

41. I've been a critic of Democratic hawks as well

I would take their actions separately and oppose whatever I feel they are responsible for. But, I don't have any interest here in denouncing Democrats for what was Bush's ultimate responsibility, the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the fanning of the flames of fear that flashed from the attacks on the WTC, the sly justifications for his attacks on our civil liberties, demagogic appeals to patriotism and to our nationalism . . . those are actions that the majority of Democrats opposed, and in fact, didn't initiate. To suggest that Kerry, Biden, or Clinton would have taken any of the actions that Bush took after 9-11 is to ignore their own words and actions opposing what Bush has done in these areas.

It's not enough to say that, for instance, that Kerry supported the war because of his IWR vote. Bush ignored the IWR in his rush to invade and occupy Iraq. He ignored the provisions that Kerry fought to include in the initial document that Congress is allowed in directing or influencing the perogative of the Executive to deploy forces for a period of time before he is required to seek congressional approval and further funding. The provisions that mandated restraint were ignored by Bush, provisions that mandated that Bush exhaust all peaceful means before proceeding and to return to the UN security council for further approval before halting the inspections Bush asked for. Kerry later would vote against the first funding bill.

It's not correct to foist the blame on those, including Sen. Kennedy and Paul Wellstone, who voted for the Patriot Act just because Bush ignored the restraints within in his zeal to spy on Americans. Nor is it correct to accuse Hillary Clinton of supporting the invasion and occupation because she (mistakenly) believes it can be managed to some 'victory or 'win'. They do not, in my opinion, help those of us who want an immediate withdrawal, but they are not in any position to adequately influence events to the extent that I can hold them ultimately responsible. I don't agree with their approaches, but I don't think their actions or words directed toward managing a withdrawal amount to support for anything Bush has done in Iraq or anything he intends to do. They just don't mesh.

I do think their actions and words about victory and winning allow Bush to compare his waffling with their prescriptions for exit, no matter how opposed their views are to his own intentions. Politically unfortunate, needlessly militaristic, but they are in no way determinate or influential of anything Bush actually intends to do. In the face of Bush's determination to ignore Congress and the majority of the American people to continue his imperialism, their efforts still amount to active opposition.