Charlie's Interview with President Bush

I woulld vote for this man again He has
did the best to keep us safe and free
President Bush has been a good President

Oh, the other question to ask (and that Charlie should have pursued) was, is Bush really saying that there was any likelihood at all that he would have invaded Iraq anyway, if he *had* known (and admitted to himself and the country)?? If the "faulty" intelligence was the justification for going to war and killing thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, if he might have done it anyway, if the intel would have come out anyway, why bother with the intel in the first place?

This is the smoking pistol. Bush invaded Iraq knowing that there was no solid evidence for WMD or any of the other supporting reasons. He did it because he immaturely had dreams of being a "great president" and believed that historically only presidents at war get to be remembered as "great".

I hope President Obama (re)signs the ICC accord, then they indict Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz for Human Rights Violations (the "extraordinary rendition" and the officially-sanctioned torture), and Obama has then arrested and quickly shipped off to The Hague where honest judges (not Bush's buddies) get to hear any pain-in-the-ass Habeas Corpus motions.

Let's look at this portion of the interview closely:

----

GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. ... And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.

----

Besides the obvious mendacity of W regarding Gibson's question forcing him to clarify "No, if you had known he didn't" (it is obvious that Bush knew exactly what Gibson meant and was trying to avoid answering it), consider what, if we take him at his (worthless) word, what the implications are. If Bush wishes that the "intelligence was different" and by "different" or "right", if you follow his contorted evasion, then Bush wishes that it was *true* that Saddam Hussein *did*, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction. Why would a U.S. President, or any responsible world leader, or any decent person at all wish that someone as evil as Saddam Hussein would have WMD?

No matter which way you interpret it, Bush is damned. He was either nakedly disingenuous about "misunderstanding" Gibson's question, or if he was truthful (cough, cough), what he really wished was that an evil megalomaniac had WMD.

I could see through this immature, dishonest, and vapid empty suit in 2000, why is/was it so hard for so many Americans to see through it?

"The fact is there have been no more attacks on US soil and there have been plenty of threats."

Yes, no more attacks on US soil but worldwide terrorism has skyrocketed.

But it does amuse me that right wingers continue to trump Bush preventing any more attacks while ignoring the attack he completely bungled protecting us from that resulted in 3000 dead.

This guy grows more pathetic daily. It's almost painful to watch this stuff. How can anyone be this out of touch with reality? Everything that went wrong was someone else's fault.

History will determine where he ranks on the list of "worst Presidents."
In the mean time, he should go back to Crawford and cut brush...the only activity he engages in where he can't possibly screw anything up.

We now have grownups in Washington who will clean up the messes that he and his incompetent hacks have left us. Good riddance.

1 more thing:
re: "Mr. Bush said, "the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq."

Not surprisingly, Bush couldn't do it, trying to couch it in the 'intelligence failure' aspect of his comments but
there's the 4200+ dead American military and maybe 30 to 40 thousand wounded,
who knows how many non-combatants in the war zone.

Bush will be remembered for:
- starting the Iraq War without cause
- Abu Ghraib, torture, Guantanamo
- not finishing and under resourcing the Afghanistan War as well as Iraq.
- closing down diplomacy with the rest of the world
- Hurricane Katrina
- "bring it on" & "mission accomplished"
- 'signing statements' to avoid comply with laws
- presiding and doing little during an economic melt-down
- beneficial HIV aid to Africa
- advocating the teaching of 'creation science' in public schools...

I could go on..... but you get the idea.....

Rick
re your post.
'Don't forget all of the cat and mouse games Saddam played in the 90's. Maybe Bush didn't want to take the chance and trust Saddam's word.'

by that kind of 'logic', North Korea, Iran, Syria, Russia, China, should be attacked in the next 2 months before 'W' leaves office.

Bush was not taking the chance on Saddam. Even the FBI agent who interviewed Saddam asked him why he didn't come out and say that he didn't have WMD's and he said it kept the illusion up for Iran, so they would fear him. Then he mentioned that he miscalculated Bush and thought he would only do air raids.
Don't forget all of the cat and mouse games Saddam played in the 90's. Maybe Bush didnt want to take the chance and trust Saddam's word.
The fact is there have been no more attacks on US soil and there have been plenty of threats.

Bush's interview, yawn..... Just more of the same kook-headed bs blather we've all endured for the past 8 years. Find another topic Jake, please, rather than to subject us to bad memories of a bad guy named Dubya!

I watched a little of the interview and as far as I'm concerned, that interview just underlined the fact that Dubya is a permanent resident in La-La land.

Saged, Thank you!

I am certainly not a Bush critic. I don't take notice of him much and if I do, I may lean more towards liking him (may). BUT, "kept people safe"?? Really? Are people serious about giving him credit for their lives? Foreign attacks in America are not an everyday thing. They are not even an every-10-years thing so it's not like he stopped something that was destined to happen. Was there a particular plot that he stopped? I happen to believe that we would have heard about it had there been one such plot that Bush managed to stop. So if he would like to be remembered for keeping people safe, should he be held accountable for the thousands who died from homicide, suicide and other preventable deaths? If his job was keeping people safe, it should apply to everyone, right? I am not even mentioning the millions in Iraq (Americans included). Anyways...

Wow, are you kidding me? After loosing thousands of soldiers, billions of dollars, lot of civilians death etc. Now you are saying intelligence were falsified. What a mess in bush's brain! Some people are just living right, they don't even know how! It's all because of Bush.

Mo

President Bush had the right intentions for the american people. He got stuck with 9/11, due to the failures of the Clinton administration pursuing Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Bush put them on the run. Bush's problem was he surrounded himself with cold war croonies. If you have ever been in the military, all the top brass said going to war with Iraq is not the option. Instead Rumsfeld fired them all and forced them to retire. Then surrounded himself with top brass that would suck up to him and follow his orders. Nope Bush was a puppet. Used to start this war, from his own staff, down to other nations intelligence, and the media. Before the UN and then to Congress. No one said no to the war. It was a personal vendetta by the world. With the world not taking into account how the Arab world would react. Bush was to lead it. He kept us safe after 9/11 for 7 years. He might be considered the worst President in US history, but only because his staff manipulated every situation, lying to him and not giving all the facts. Jimmy Carter faired no better from his staff. By the time he found out about Operation Desert Eagle, it was already in motion. Without his approval. Its not the first time staffers manipulate a President for their own personal reasons. Its been done over and over to many Presidents and world leaders. Bush should have been more alert and listened to the lesser staff members who said no. He after all was the final decision, so yes I agree he take full responsibility. But to let Rumsfeld and Cheney get away from it all is injustice. They manipulated it and should be held in contempt and conspriracy charges to the american people.

I don't know how we can evaluate the intelligence Bush received on Iraq without looking at the intelligence Clinton received.
Bush didn't create the "Hussein is a horrible man" storyline, and the media didn't believe it just because Bush said it. It was something Americans "knew" for the previous 10 years.

What I think is unfair are the criticisms of Bush's choices that assume he made them out of incompetence or for nefarious reasons.
I can't imagine what it would have been like to be President on 9/11 and to desperately want to keep it from happening again. Some choices might have been wrong, but I believe they were done for the right reasons.

Obama will be in charge of a war soon enough. He'll be in charge of CIA interrogations soon enough. He'll be tested soon enough. The Greg Sargents of this world better hope his political opponents and the media don't try to destroy him for unpopular choices like they've tried to destroy Bush.

only the criminal who think mr president Bush is a loser.

he's the best president in the 20 century.believe or not , is your choice.
but he is !!!!!!

america is save in his hands.

Thank you

Jen- You're in for an unending battle if you believe that you're in the position of arguing reality to the perceptions of reality. And battle reflexes outside actual battle conditions are internally generated and controllable. But apologies are graciously accepted.

test

My house was not broken into over the last 20 years. Should I brag about it?

A tornado has not landed in my town for 15 years. I am the protector.

Kat, first off, apologies for the snarkiness of my posts. I could have been more reasonable, but I was trying to make a point.

I'm not a Bush apologist, I'm a realist. I would no more claim that our safety over the past 7 plus years has been solely because of Bush than I would accept a claim that it is merely geography that has kept us safe.

The point I was trying to make, albeit a tad rudely, was that there is a tendency with ideologues to have Bush be the catch-all with no credit given or be (and I'll use your word here) complete apologists for all his actions. The truth lies somewhere in between. That's the reality that I'm looking for instead of blind talking points.

It's actually the reality that Dennis Miller looks for on his radio program as well. He's not a blind puppet of the right, despite the hateful depictions of him in Nazi garb on the Web that his kids have to see.

Again, I apologize for the way I put things earlier. Battle reflexes from arguing reality vs. perception of reality.