He should shut up and not push policy or influence until he gets into office.

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"Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air Monday, Aug. 22, 2005, that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

Maybe Sam is in between jobs. Maybe she works 2 hours a day. Maybe she is on vacation. Maybe she types twice as fast as the rest of us. Maybe she is the world's fastest Transcriptionist EVER.

No matter. She can post all she likes and you can argue all you like. Back and forth until the cows come home. It doesn't mean she never gets any work done. I would venture to say with her drive and energy and passion, she gets a lot more done than most of us. I would also bet that she does it really well.

while you and your kind try to undo the hard work of civil rights workers who sacrificed so much to end overt racism in my country.

September 8th, 2005 11:18 am
Bush family Katrina comments draw scrutiny

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush is not the only member of his prominent political family to be drawing criticism for public utterances about Hurricane Katrina: His mother has raised eyebrows too.

In widely reported comments after visting evacuees at a Texas sports arena, former first lady Barbara Bush on Monday seemed to suggest a silver lining for the underprivileged forced from their flooded homes in New Orleans.

What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, she said in a radio interview from the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them, she said.

I think that the observation is based on someone or some people that were talking to her that were in need of a lot of assistance, people that have gone through a lot of trauma and been through a very difficult and trying time, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday.

And all of a sudden, they are now getting great help in the state of Texas from some of the shelters, he said.

Her son, the president, has faced criticism for saying on September 1 that no one anticipated that New Orleans' levees would break -- even though various federal and state agencies had warned of that scenario.

In his first tour of the devastated region, Bush also praised Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Michael Brown, saying: Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.

Brown has become a lightning rod for criticism over Washington's sluggish response to Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters to hit the United States, and opposition Democrats have stepped up calls for Bush to fire him.

The president has also come under fire for paying tribute to ravaged New Orleans as a place he used to visit years ago to enjoy myself -- occasionally too much, an apparent reference to the days before he quit drinking.

In an effort to raise the spirits of the hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes, Bush promised to rebuild devastated areas better than they were before, but at one point focused on the home of a powerful lawmaker.

Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch, he said on a tour of the region Friday, drawing nervous laughter.

Some Republicans winced, including one disbelieving congressional aide who told AFP: Lott? He's focusing on Lott? Surrounded by poor people, he talks about a sitting senator?

There have also been echoes of the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when Bush urged Americans to go shopping and live their lives as normally as possible.

In some of her first remarks after the hurricane, First Lady Laura Bush told Gulf Coast evacuees: It's very important to get your children in school. It gives children a sense of normalcy.

The White House later put together a plan to help students and school districts affected by the hurricane.

Barbara Bush had raised eyebrows two days before US troops invaded Iraq, when she told ABC television that she was not interested in media commentators' concerns about the war's potential human toll.

Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? she said. It's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

because for some people....they just cannot seem to post anything worthwhile. All they do is repeat the same stuff and call people names. If you have nothing of value to bring to the table....please feel free to shut your trap as well. I know what our country is facing and I stand by my decision of picking John McCain. I believe him, what he stands for, and what he says. I do not believe Obama. If you differ in that opinion....that is your God given right. But bring something to the table other than insults.

Cheney 'cabal' hijacked foreign policy
By Edward Alden in Washington
Published: October 20 2005 00:00 | Last updated: October 20 2005 00:19

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.

In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: �What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

�Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.�

Transcript: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
Click here http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c925a686-4...000e2511c8.html

Mr Wilkerson said such secret decision-making was responsible for mistakes such as the long refusal to engage with North Korea or to back European efforts on Iran.

It also resulted in bitter battles in the administration among those excluded from the decisions.

�If you're not prepared to stop the feuding elements in the bureaucracy as they carry out your decisions, you are courting disaster. And I would say that we have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran.�

The comments, made at the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, were the harshest attack on the administration by a former senior official since criticisms by Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism czar, and Paul O'Neill, former Treasury secretary, early last year.

Mr Wilkerson said his decision to go public had led to a personal falling out with Mr Powell, whom he served for 16 years at the Pentagon and the State Department.

�He's not happy with my speaking out because, and I admire this in him, he is the world's most loyal soldier.

Among his other charges:

■ The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was �a concrete example� of the decision-making problem, with the president and other top officials in effect giving the green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. �You don't have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you've condoned it.�

■ Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser and now secretary of state, was �part of the problem�. Instead of ensuring that Mr Bush received the best possible advice, �she would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president�.

■ The military, particularly the army and marine corps, is overstretched and demoralised. Officers, Mr Wilkerson claimed, �start voting with their feet, as they did in Vietnam. . . and all of a sudden your military begins to unravel�.

Mr Wilkerson said former president George H.W. Bush �one of the finest presidents we have ever had� understood how to make foreign policy work. In contrast, he said, his son was �not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either�.

�There's a vast difference between the way George H.W. Bush dealt with major challenges, some of the greatest challenges at the end of the 20th century, and effected positive results in my view, and the way we conduct diplomacy today.�

www.newamerica.net

Here is yet another expert criticizing Bush's policies. How can ALL of these people be wrong?

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-06-21T064029Z_01_N21187502_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage3

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former U.S. diplomat who was deeply involved in North Korea policy said the Bush administration's approach toward the isolated communist state has been a failure that left Pyongyang to pursue its nuclear and missile programs.

In a rare public attack on the administration by a foreign service officer, retired head of the State Department's office of Korean affairs David Straub also questioned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's decision-making on the issue. A spokesman for Rice was not immediately available for comment.

One fundamental failure of Bush's approach was the tendency to raise tensions and make South Korea nervous by stating that all options were the table, a phrase underscoring U.S. intentions to use force against North Korea if necessary, he said.

Of course all options are on the table. No government ever takes any option off the table but you don't have to talk about it all the time, Straub said.

Every time we said 'all options are on the table' gratuitously, we made the situation with our South Korean ally worse and made the prospect of coordination with South Korea to resolve the North Korean problem diplomatically that much more remote, he said.

Straub was head of the Korean office from 2002-2004 and was part of a team that negotiated with the North during former Secretary of State Colin Powell's tenure.

Several former administration political appointees have faulted President George W. Bush's policies after leaving office but it is rare for a foreign service officer to do so.

Straub spoke in Washington at a meeting of the Korea Club, which groups former officials, scholars and journalists interested in the Korean peninsula.

His remarks came as six-country negotiations on ending North Korea's nuclear program are at a stalemate and as Pyongyang fans tensions again with preparations for a possible long-range missile test.

Straub said Washington was not primarily responsible for the failure to stop the North's pursuit of nuclear weapons and expressed skepticism Pyongyang would abandon its growing capability even if the United States made major concessions.

But he said the only viable U.S. approach is serious negotiations, the appointment of a high-level envoy and a willingness to engage in bilateral as well as multilateral talks, something the Bush administration has eschewed.

Straub said North Korea never seemed a priority for Bush and he could not understand why the National Security Council under Rice, who is often credited with energizing diplomacy at the State Department, repeatedly rejected Powell's diplomatic proposals.

Powell was desperate to try to have some real diplomatic effort going (with Pyongyang). Maybe she did something (to assist that) for four years while he was in office, but if she did no one ever told me, Straub said.

As for Bush, Straub wondered how much attention is he able to pay to it (North Korea). How much does he know?

Straub noted that opinion polls show many South Koreans consider America a bigger problem than North Korea. I can't think of a better definition of diplomatic failure, he said

He expressed confidence Powell would have pursued bilateral talks with Pyongyang in 2002-2003 during a crisis created by U.S. discovery of the North's clandestine program for enriching weapons-grade uranium.

But he said the administration did not want real give and take so the stalemate in six-country talks between the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia was predictable, he said.

Straub also questioned why, after six-party talks reached an important but preliminary agreement on the nuclear issue last September, Rice would allow release of a statement clarifying U.S. views on issues papered over in the agreement.

Obama started off saying he was confident in his FOREIGN POLICY experience ("Foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain"). He then proceeded to talk about his visit to Pakistan.

SO WHAT? I visited and lived in several foreign countries, too. Does that mean I understand foreign policy better than someone who may have spent less time but has had actual interaction and policy discussions with those countries' leaders? And with the leaders of 80 countries?

If 3 weeks in Pakistan is the extent of Obama's foreign policy credentials, then I am way more qualified on the "foreign policy" front.

My point is that Obama's claim is ridiculous. Better that he stick to his "better judgement" mantra, since the "3 weeks abroad = foreign policy experience" is just pathetically weak.