President Bush was on Meet The Press this morning. The full transcript is available
. I must say Tim Russert was very respectful and had quite a few good questions. I thought President Bush came across very well. Here are a few choice excerpts (and a few comments of my own):
Russert: Shouldn’t the American people have the benefit of the commission before the election?
President Bush: Well, the reason why we gave it time is because we didn’t want it to be hurried. This is a strategic look, kind of a big picture look about the intelligence gathering capacities of the United States of America, whether it be the capacity to gather intelligence in North Korea or how we’ve used our intelligence to, for example, learn more information about AQ Kahn. And it’s important that this investigation take its time.
Now, look, we are in a political season. I fully understand people He’s trying to avoid responsibility. There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made a good calls, whether or not I used good judgment, whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power, and I look forward to that debate, and I look forward to talking to the American people about why I made the decisions I made.
The commission I set up, Tim, is one that will help future presidents understand how best to fight the war on terror, and it’s an important part of the kind of lessons learned in Iraq and lessons learned in Afghanistan prior to us going in, lessons learned that we can apply to both Iran and North Korea because we still have a dangerous world.
Why are you in such a hurry, Tim? It doesn’t matter what findings the commission comes up with, the Democratic Party will find fault with it. The Donks only care about one thing: Bush is in the White House and they aren’t.
Russert: Do you have a pretty good idea where Osama is?
President Bush: You know, I’m not going to comment on that.
Tim, if Prez Bush knew where that asinine, goat-fucking murderer was there would be 5,000 Marines there right now fully locked and loaded.
Russert: But can you launch a preemptive war without iron clad, absolute intelligence that he had weapons of mass destruction?
President Bush: Let me take a step back for a second and there is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron clad absolutely solid evidence. The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon.
Tim, wake up and smell the coffee. Intelligence is guesswork at the very best unless you have agents on the inside or are able to tap the enemies communications. Western nations have had an extreme shortage of field intelligence in the Middle East for decades and with Congress and especially the Clinton administration cutting back funding for the CIA and limiting their powers our insight into the Middle East has been enormously crippled in the recent decade. Besides, what do you call “iron-clad evidence”, huh? - would a nuke dropped on New York satisfy your criteria?
Russert: And if that’s not the case, do you believe if you had gone to the Congress and said he should be removed because he’s a threat to his people but I’m not sure he has weapons of mass destruction, Congress would authorize war?
President Bush: I went to Congress with the same intelligence Congress saw the same intelligence I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at, and they made an informed judgment based upon the information that I had. The same information, by the way, that my predecessor had. And all of us, you know, made this judgment that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed.
You kill me, Tim. Why would Prez Bush go to Congress and say “Gee, I don’t know”. Listen up doofus, Bush took the information he had to Congress, showed it to them, they agreed, then he took the same evidence to the UN and they also agreed. Bush simply presented the best evidence we had at the time and let everyone in position to help him make a decision do exactly that. Everyone agreed with President Bush at the time but now that a Presidential campaign is underway they’re all saying “He lied”. What utter bullshit! And it wasn’t just evidence from the CIA - other country’s intelligence services came up with the same estimate of the situation.
Russert: You do seem to have changed your mind from the 2000 campaign. In a debate, you said, “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called ‘nation-building.’”
President Bush: Yes.
Russert: We clearly are involved in nation building.
President Bush: Right. And I also said let me put it in context. I’m not suggesting you’re pulling one of these Washington tricks where you leave half the equation out.
Translation: Tim, where the fuck were you on 9-11-2001? We’re in a different situation now. Try to keep up with current events.
Russert: Are you now willing to allow the United Nations to play a central role in the reconstruction?
President Bush: In the recon in spending our money, no. They don’t want to spend our money, the money that was appropriated by the United States Congress I think you’re talking about, but they will play a vital role in helping the Iraqis determine the proper course to democracy.
Russert: In transferring power, the U.N. will play a central role?
President Bush: Yeah. I call it a vital role because there is a lot of roles being played by different players, but the U.N. will play and this role is a very important role
Tim, what you’re missing here is that President Bush is saying the UN can go piss up a rope. They will be invited to come watch but they can keep their filthy hands off our money and stay the fuck out of the way.
Russert: And we are back in the Oval Office talking to the President of the United States. Mr. President, this campaign is fully engaged. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terence McAuliffe, said this last week: “I look forward to that debate when John Kerry, a war hero with a chest full of medals, is standing next to George Bush, a man who was AWOL in the Alabama National Guard. He didn’t show up when he should have showed up.”
President Bush: Yeah.
Russert: How do you respond?
President Bush: Political season is here. I was I served in the National Guard. I flew F 102 aircraft. I got an honorable discharge. I’ve heard this I’ve heard this ever since I started running for office. I I put in my time, proudly so.
I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It’s fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn’t denigrate service to the Guard, though, and the reason I wouldn’t, is because there are a lot of really fine people who served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq.
One fine point here: do any of you remember the Clinton years when any criticism of the Clintons was met with an almost instantaneous attack offensive from the Clintons or the Donks? Remember the “vast right-wing conspiracy” bullshit? Here, we have President Bush responding to McAuliffe’s bare lies and blatant libel with a simple “yeah”. As in “so what, it’s just politics”. See the difference between Clinton and Bush yet? There’s more - Bush goes on to say he doesn’t mind the political moonbats dumping on him but he thinks it’s not a good idea to pick on the Guard. I wholeheartedly agree.
Russert: The Bush Cheney first three years, the unemployment rate has gone up 33 percent, there has been a loss of 2.2 million jobs. We’ve gone from a $281 billion surplus to a $521 billion deficit. The debt has gone from 5.7 trillion, to $7 trillion up 23 percent. Based on that record, why should the American people rehire you as CEO?
President Bush: Sure, because I have been the President during a time of tremendous stress on our economy and made the decisions necessary to lead that would enhance recovery. We’ll review the bidding here. The stock market started to decline in March of 2000. That was the first sign that things were troubled. The recession started upon my arrival. It could have been some say February, some say March, some speculate maybe earlier it started, but nevertheless it happened as we showed up here.
The attacks on our country affected our economy. Corporate scandals affected the confidence of people and therefore affected the economy. My decision on Iraq, this kind of march to war, affected the economy, but we have been through a lot. And what those numbers show is the fact we have been through a lot.
But what the people must understand is that instead of wondering what to do, I acted, and I acted by cutting the taxes on individuals and small businesses, primarily. And that, itself, has led to this recovery.
So, you show that the numbers kind of I’m not suggesting the chart only shows the bad numbers, but how about the fact that we are now increasing jobs or the fact that unemployment is now down to 5.6 percent? There was a winter recession and unemployment went up, and now it’s heading in the right direction.
The economic stimulus plan that I passed, or I asked the Congress to pass, and I worked with Congress to pass, is making a big difference.
I guess if I were President I would have gone ballistic and chewed someone’s head off by now. I suppose that’s why you probably shouldn’t vote for me. Instead, cast your vote for President Bush in November. The recession started long before he was elected, much less in office and the steps he has taken have started to turn the economy around. It will take time. After all, the “paper economy” that was the internet/high-tech boom of the 1990’s sucked a lot of investment money out of the system and those investors never saw a dime of return.
All I can say, America is try to look at the real issues and the hard decisions that were made over the last three years. In my humble opinion, George W. Bush is the right man at the right place at the right time. The only alternative the Democratic Party is offering us is Leftist ideology, outright lies and pandering to minorities.
We report, you decide. And vote, dammit!
CLOSE IT UP ...
Sunday - February 08, 2004 
on 02/08/2004 at 01:53 PM
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