Lesley Ridge had a graduation party at the WH via gracious Laura Bush...
Posted By: Mrs. Bridger on 2009-03-12
In Reply to: Nice to see the WH being used as a party house - NOT - madmt
Think there were any kegs? Were the forefathers rolling in their graves or were the graduates rolling between the sheets? DISRESPECTFUL! WASTEFUL SPENDING!!
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Laura Bush
Actually, GT, I heard two stories about her accident: I also heard, as you did, that she was drunk. The second story I heard was that she wasn't drinking but that the person who was killed was her fiance. Don't know what the true story is, but you're right, if it were Hillary or Chelsea, they wouldn't let it drop.
Any intelligent person can read "I hope he burns in hell" to be akin to telling someone to "Go to hell," or comments of that nature. NOWHERE have you EVER said you wish anyone dead, and nowhere have you talked about any poster on this board in that vein, and anyone with enough brains to get a headache knows that.
Don't let these people get to you. The other poster above is right. They are obsessed, and they're trying to get to you. They thrive on this, and they're trying to turn the liberal board into a cesspool like the Conservative board. I know it's crap. You know it's crap.
This is a quality board with civilized, thoughtful posters, who generally seem to be respectful and just nice people. So just ignore the ones who aren't. They aren't even close to being worthy of a response by you. Don't let them wreck this board and chase people away. As hostile, idiotic and irritating as they are, if we don't respond to them, they run out of gas. Let's just ignore them and watch as they just sputter off. 
Laura Bush
1. Laura Bush is a librarian and Sarah Palin bans books.(Sort of in the way Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor!) Which brings me to the funniest thing about the story of how Sarah Palin, upon becoming mayor of Wasilla, called up the local librarian to inquire about banning books: the idea never went anywhere because she didn't seem to know what books she'd ban. Sarah Palin doesn't read! Duh. Neither, probably, does Cindy McCain. Laura Bush's favorite book is The Brothers Karamazov, a fact that I still find sort of mindblowing, but anyway, that is what makes this sort of sht so funny.
2. Laura Bush is pro-choice. When Cindy McCain found herself in that messy conundrum over whether Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned earlier this week, to whom did she turn for guidance? According to Katie Couric, Cindy's spokespeople said that she, like Laura Bush, did not want Roe overturned. Who knows why Laura Bush is pro-choice; maybe she read American Tragedy, maybe it's just because she killed someone herself and the law had gone easy on her; maybe she's just a rational person, but whatever the case, women like Laura Bush — not Northeastern Marxists like me or "I Choose Life For My Daughter And Everyone Else In America" Alaskan prophets like Sarah Palin— are ones who live in those crazy states that are always trying to add little "abortion banning" amendments to transportation bills and such, the ones who actually live in states where this stuff comes up on the ballot every November. And as such, women like Laura Bush are the only reason Roe has yet to go back before the Supreme Court.
3. Laura Bush raised Jenna Bush. Laura Bush's other vocation besides library science was being a mother, and even that Communist organ Us Weekly agrees that Jenna Bush turned out pretty good. Laura Bush raised a fun underage-drinking socially-conscious charter school teacher who spent months in the ghettos of that little country her granddaddy invaded learning about the tragic life of a teenage mom with AIDS for the purpose of writing a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't use condoms. Sarah Palin raised a fun underage-drinking cautionary tale of what happens when you don't use condoms.
4. Laura Bush is a walking living and in some ways tragic symbol of the emotional core of liberalism, which is to say, our bottomless capacity to forgive. She had a tragedy in her early life and for that reason alone most of us will forgive her unwillingness to try and make herself into some sort of internal dissident in the Cheney White House. She reads Russian lit, she knows how it goes for dissidents. She forgives her ignorant husband the way we all forgive our ignorant racist grandmas. She accepts his differences and we preach acceptance. She is from a Red State and married to a red meat Republican but she defies all the usual pithy pollster cartoonology; she has never had big hair even though she's from Texas, she has never been blonde even though that is a major rule for Republicans in DC; she has never seemed Stepfordy, she smokes cigarettes. And like with Laura, said sentimentality can lead us to be forgiving to a fault! Remember how we hated Clinton for his triangulation and his beholdenness to Wall Street and his generalized moral turpitude? Ha ha ha, yeah. Don't let's let this become the election that gets us all misty-eyed for the Bush years in a couple years time, Laura Bushes of the world! (God did you ever think that would even be a possibility? Christ.)
OH AND BONUS EXTRA THING I FORGOT: She defended Michelle Obama against those ridiculous attacks on her patriotism that both Cindy and Sarah Palin have milked well into elementary school at this point.
laura stepford bush
Nah, terrorists are not nice guys who need a hug..but, yes Bush's two daughters are ugly alcoholic freaks who need to go to daddy's war.. As far as Laura?? The one who killed a childhood friend, yeah, she is a Stepford wife, a dumming down wife..and also a murderer who killed a friend years ago..If we will not forgive and forget Ted Kennedy, we most certainly cannot forgive or forget what dumn arse Laura did who rides the coat tails of the Bush family. May Bush, Laura and the two alcoholic ugly daughters burn in Hell for eternity..
I believe it was Barbara not Laura Bush sm
In an effort to further divide America, this writer must have gotten some of that rabid drool on his keyboard.
I would like a link to the story about Laura Bush. SM
Verifiable and trustworthy. Because I think this is spurious and a horrible thing to post without validity. I personally know no one who ever mentioned Chelsea Clinton. The article about the NYT investigating Roberts' adoption is interesting in that Democrat wrote it would be blamed on the leftists. Yes, I can see how she would say that seeing things as you have posted here. Be careful what you put in writing.
Laura Bush Recalls Painful Past
There are many hits of this on the internet, but a few I found credible.
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 2, 2000; 7:15 p.m. EST
PROVIDENCE, R.I. –– Laura Bush, wife of GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush, on Thursday recalled the pain of a 1963 accident that killed her boyfriend, saying "it was crushing."
"All I can say about that (is) it was a very, very, tragic accident I was involved in when I was 17 years old, almost 40-something years ago," Bush said. "It was a terrible accident. It was terrible for everyone involved."
Bush said the grief remains.
"I know this as an adult, and even more as a parent, it was crushing ... for the family involved and for me as well," she said.
Bush would not comment further and quickly resumed talking about her husband.
The accident occurred Nov. 5, 1963, when Bush was talking to a friend while she was driving to a party in her hometown of Midland, Texas, the New York Post reported.
At an intersection, she apparently failed to see her boyfriend, Mike Douglas, driving south. The vehicles collided and Douglas was thrown from his doorless Jeep, breaking his neck. He died instantly.
Midland officials would not release the full accident report, referring Freedom of Information requests for the document to the attorney general of Texas. He has until May 15 to decide if he will make the report public.
An abbreviated version of the report concluded neither Douglas or Bush could be blamed for the accident, the Post reported.
© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
---------------------
Question from the "Ask the White House" web site.
Jay R. Fazek , from Akron, OH writes:
The legal blood alcohol limit in Ohio was officially lowered at midnight this morning to .08. What is your opinion on this, considering your extensive experience with drunk driving in your family?
Mrs. Bush:
Most of our Republican friends keep maps of the Red and Blue states that designate which stretches of desolate brush voted for my husband. Bushies' and my map, however, keeps track of which states are just tempting fate to drive in. Thanks to a call from Diana Ross and your e-mail, I am managing to keep all 50 states current. Thank you so much for your kind help in that regard!
Spoken by someone who posted about Laura Bush's accident about 40 years ago. sm
But I guess we were supposed to forget about that, too?
It is mandatory for graduation in our school
Kind and gracious?
Let's see....how many thousands of innocent people died in Iraq? If that is your definition of kind and gracious, then you are disturbed.
Another gracious winner....nm
:)
This is how I see George W. - Kind and Gracious
http://forum.mtstars.com/misc/v/11/18048.html
another gracious winner....you should be so proud....
start clawing upward right now and you should reach the bottom of the barrel in a light year or two.
He gave a wonderful and gracious concession speech, as well. nm
n
Don't you mean Laura's husband
should have been doing his job?? Lots of intel on the attacks, but nothing was done.
Did you see the look on George & Laura's face?sm
You know George bounced off the walls when he got home. There is only one look I found more hilarious, and that was the look on Mike Myer's face when Kanye West made the famous statement George Bush does not care about black people.
do you think laura read this? Probably not but great letter anyway
No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame
By Sharon Olds
The Nation
Monday 19 September 2005
For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not, takes place September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the capital. Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War (Mr. Feiffer Regrets, November 11, 2002). We suggest that invitees to this year's event consider following their example.
- Editors, The Nation
Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House
Dear Mrs. Bush,
I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.
In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents - all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.
And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students - long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.
When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit - and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person's unique story and song.
So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country - with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain - did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made at the top and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism - the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness - as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing - against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting extraordinary rendition: flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.
So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.
Sincerely,
Sharon Olds
Yes, Ronnie and Nancy, and George and Laura...
for one another.
The color was gorgeous on Michele, liked Laura's coat too nm
nm
If you go back and reread the post gt posted about Laura I responded to that. sm
And, if you were following what I was saying I was talking about the posts on the neocon board between Nan, AG and the Nameless Trolls.
Get the picture?
I am an independent....neither party is "my" party.
THis election cycle I believe the best man is a Republican. Do your research. John McCain warned about this in 2005, named Fannie and freddie by name, co-sponsored legislation to control them. Blocked by Democrats, led by Chris Dodd..same guy now trying to fix what he and the Dems broke. Chris Dodd, #1 on contributions list from fannie/freddie, followed closely by #2, your shining knight Mr. Obama. The chickens have come home to roost all right...or should I say the donkeys. :)
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Yeah right. Served under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II
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Stop bringing up Bush - this post was not about Bush
I even said we have had some good presidents and some bad ones, but this post was not about Bush. It was about Obama. Yes Bush was one of the worst presidents I'm not arguing with you on that one, but everytime anyone brings up something about our current president they are shot back with Bush this or Bush that and on things that have nothing to do with what the current topic is about. Again, this was not about Bush. It was about Obama.
Oh, more "blame Bush" - except Bush didn't send these out, now did he?
Here's a news flash for you since you apparently haven't heard: BUSH IS NOT IN OFFICE and just today Gallup did a poll showing that THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS THINK OBAMA SHOULD START TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENS ON HIS WATCH.
G E T A C L U E.
Uh oh. Looks like the party's over.
Sharpen up those cat claws.
What about the other party?
.
me and my party?
All I asked was if this was more divisive. I said nothing about any party or who I would prefer to see win. I said nothing hateful or vicious. Give it a rest, will ya?
Pub party?
Cool! Can I pick the pub, and will you bring 'nother fattie for the parking lot?
I am not of the pub party.
There are a lot of things to fault Obama for already. Just because you are too blind to see it just shows that you are so into democratic rhetoric that you can't tell the difference between the truth and a lie.
I truly feel sorry for people who are so caught up in the party lines (and this goes for both dems and pubs) that they refuse to see politicians for who they truly are.
Barrack Obama is a liar and he is so obvious about his lying it is amazing that you people can't even see it when it is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE!!!
new party
I am so disgusted with all these folks in office, I am ready to start my own party. I think I will call it the Repo Party with the main objective being to take our country back. And we will be voting on daylight savings time, just for starters.
party time..
You party for your reasons, I party for me..Fortunately, right now democrats and the like minded have many things to party for..YEEHHAAWW!! Bye bye Scooter, bye bye Rove, bye bye incompetent Bush, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Our party definitely needs to step up. sm
It's come to the point that I don't even know what our party values anymore. Just a bunch of different groups trying to elevate their cause with no clear focus. What is our agenda? I'm listening, but our elected officials are not talking.
Is Senator Kennedy the last Dem standing? At least he and Murtha speak their minds and challenge this administration. And I'm dog tired of hearing what the republicans got wrong. Though I think they have a nice stack of issues, I want to hear what our party is going to do to fix the Iraqi situation, what would they do in Louisiana and Missisippi differently if they had the ball in their court and what are they willing to fight for to effect change? What will they do to make America safer from domestic and foreign terrorists? Offer up some solutions. Maybe they have, but I haven't heard anything.
Hillary, though I'm still a fan of hers, seems to ride whichever wave she's on. Howard Dean is a live wire who says the first thing that floats to his brain, off the wall. He does not have the carisma to lead the party to victory IMHO.
As far as the republicans, I'm tired of hearing about gay marriages and abortions. I do not think these are America's main issues, not even close. I want to hear something other than rhetoric about how good Iraqi is doing too.
And I was just having a conversation earlier this week with a friend of mine who agrees with me that we have seen MORE gays and lesbians emerge since Bush took office. And before you get it wrong conservatives, I'm not saying he is creating them. It may be that the gays are rebelling and being more blatant with it to spite the anti-gay politicians, and/or all of the attention brought to gay marriage and gay this and that have only lured more young people into this culture as a reverse effect. I think the latter is more likely because rewind back to 2000, it was less likely you would see woman/woman, man/man hand in hand in the supermarket. Now, it's just as normal as man/woman and I'm in the bible belt, Alabama.
I agree with the poster who asked the question *where was THIS Al Gore 8 years ago?* Maybe, they'll wise up and make him head of the DNC. Say, *Thanks Dr. Dean for your services but we won't be needing them anymore.*
Either way, this administration NEEDS more disenting voices with SOLUTIONS-this is key-not just rhetoric because on major issues they have been allowed to runamuck basically uncontested for the last five years.
If we keep it up at this rate though I agree it's bad news for America.
*We tend to believe our party*...sm
Re-reading my postI can see how I misspoke. What I was trying to get across, and my post was not directed at you BTW, was that psychologically people tend to put more trust in and defend the party they support by default. Whether you are a registered republican or not, you support the republican party, and I glean that from your statement *I have not seen a Democrat I could vote for in good conscious.* And whether you are aware of it or not, you defend that party tooth and nails on here, and there is nothing wrong with that if they follow your belief systems.
Good for you for criticizing Foley, and any other person who is inappropriate with the pages. I have said here before I do not know why Studds didn't stepdown and more importantly why he was reelected. I'm against his having a relationship with a page as much as I am Foley.
As to Juanita, I understand you are personally connected with her in some way, so you will obviously be more sensitive to her situation than I will. I am looking at the big picture. Since she did not come forward in 1978, the statue of limitations gone, all she can do is tell her story, and Clinton has a story. Like I said her story is believable. She has proven genuine and not making claims out of spite or for money. I think it was Brunson who posted ladies that Clinton was supposed to have either raped or sexually harrassed earlier this year. Out of them all, Juanita was the only one I believe has substance.
I disagree with you again; when it was brought up that conservative presidents were accused of rape below, it was rebutted with *that was only one time...but..but..but..* That's rationalizing and minimizing.
I know your mind is made up about Vincent Foster, but this is what's on snopes.com. What I find interesting is the *suicide note.*
White House deputy counsel Vince Foster committed suicide on the night of 20 July 1993 by shooting himself once in the head, a day after he contacted his doctor about his depression. A note in the form of a draft resignation letter was found in the bottom of his briefcase a week after his death. (Note that this letter was not, as is often claimed, a suicide note. It was Foster's outline for a letter of resignation.) Foster cited negative Wall Street Journal editorials about him. He was also upset about the much-criticized role of the counsel's office in the controversial firing of seven White House travel office workers.
On 10 October 1997, special prosecutor Kenneth Starr released his report on the investigation into Foster's death, the third such investigation (after ones conducted by the coroner and Starr's predecessor, Robert B. Fiske) of the matter. The 114-page summary of a three-year investigation concluded that Foster shot himself with the pistol discovered in his right hand. There was no sign of a struggle, nor any evidence he'd been drugged or intoxicated or that his body had been moved.
If Foster had been murdered or if unanswered questions about his death remained, Starr would have been the last person to want to conclude the investigation prematurely. Or are we to believe Starr is part of the cover up, too? And if we buy into the conspiracy theory, what are we expected to believe? That a group of professional killers capable of carrying out dozens of murders all over the world shot Vince Foster, then clumsily dumped him in a park (after he had bled out), planted a gun he didn't own in his hand (without bothering to press his fingerprints onto it), amateurishly forged a suicide note (in several different handwritings), and then seriously expected the nation would believe it was suicide? Claims too crazy to believe are never discounted when they're needed to help establish a conspiracy, of course.
Oh, and did you check out the Bush body count??
Individuals, maybe. As for the party,
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Well, at least there are members in that party...
who will buck the party and put the people first. The Dems don't, won't, and that pretty much solidifies why I would not vote for a Dem...EVER again.
We can all see how much your party cares
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The peace party......
and what ultimately might get us into a nuclear confrontation.
I went to a party last week
to watch the acceptance speech by Obama. There was one individual at the party who kept talking endlessly and kept trying to re-take the floor after someone spoke about their interests. it was incredibly annoying. Ever had that happen in your life? conversation hog?
Despicable party. The WTC would probably still
Obama party
I actually posted back a couple of pages about this - this board has been busy since last night! =) I was actually kind of disappointed with the party. First off, the lady from the Democratic Headquarters didn't really give any information about any of the issues - she just brought print-outs from his website, which I had already read through before going to the party. Also, my friend that hosted the party is a HUGE Hillary she got some of the other guests going on about Hillary rather than talking about Obama. I asked a couple of questions, but no one there really seemed very informed and the response I got was to give them my email address and they would get back to me. The one nice thing was that there was no Bush-bashing and really no mention of McCain at all, but information on Obama was no more than I could get off the internet. It was good to see my friend again (this summer had been kind of crazy) and nice to meet some new people, but politically, it was really a waste of time. Everyone was really nice, even after they found out I had never listened to NPR =) I do, however, encourage people to attend a political "party" - either Republican or Democrat - perhaps the person who does your presentation will be better informed. Thanks to everyone that gave me web info earlier this week! =)
Obama can't fix what with his party either...
hard to do when you personify it.
It is JM's/SP's party's turn to be on the
the media dished out on their behalf throughout the entire primary season. Repeat. Show me one time JM has attempted to rein in his supporters when their tactics got out of control. Never mind what the media would or would not have done. I am looking for an example of JM expressing his awareness or concern that the tactics being used were inappropriate. O has done this on occasions, which makes the inquiry legitimate. The reason there is no answer is because there is no example. The hypocrisy of the remainder of this post speaks for itself and requires no rebuttal.
How can a party brainwash
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Once again, anyone not voting for your party
I haven't seen you say one thing yet that wasn't something I already heard stated on the news. If listening to the media and buying into their opinions is reasoning, then I don't wanna be a "reasoning" voter. I'm not for Barack or McCain, but I don't see the purpose of insulting someone because they DO like one or the other. Something tells me you don't need a purpose or reason to insult, though, it just makes you feel better about you.
your party and your president
Dubya are making us socialist -- this is what you have harped on for years. We even get to take over the debts of foreign banks thanks to Phil Gram, John McClain's right hand man.
What party is he, and why was he not nominated?
vote third party
Remember how we just "don't understand" how the bailout is good for us? Every politician and every single new media outlet said that we did not understand. They are protecting us from ourselves? we have to get together on this and get them out!
THis is not about the Republican party....
it is about socialism. I am a registered Independent, not a Republican. I just don't want a socialist America. What part of that do you not understand?
There is nothing positive about socialism that I can see.
Fear mongering...good grief. I am not fearful, I am angry. That man wants to highjack my country and a good many of my countrymen/women seem all to eager to help him do so. That doesn't make me afraid...it makes me angry.
However, there is nothing I can do about that, except vote for what I want, just like you are apparently going to.
If you get your way, and by the end of his term we are up to our eyeballs in socialism....one thing you can be sure of...I had nothing to do with it.
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