Tag Archives: Iraq War

national news, political news

Bush bungles an obvious question

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It turns out some of Jeb Bush’s allies in Washington are “flabbergasted” by his botched response to a question about the Iraq War.

The former Florida governor is likely to run for the Republican presidential nomination next year.

I believe I know the answer to why Bush’s confusing responses triggered by a single question has baffled his GOP allies.

It’s because of all the questions he should have expected from the media, this was at the top of the list. He should have been uber-prepared to answer it cleanly, crisply and without hesitation.

GOP lawmakers flabbergasted by Bush stumbles on Iraq

The question came from Fox News’s Megyn Kelly. Knowing what we now know, governor, would you have gone to war in Iraq? That’s more or less how Kelly pitched the question to Bush. His first answer? Yes, I would. Then he said he “misheard” the question. Then he said he “misinterpreted” it. Then he said, “No.”

Is he ready to become president of the United States? Some of his friends are worried. Others say he’s just “rusty,” having been out of elective office for a decade.

Whichever the cause of his early stumble, Jeb Bush had better get rid of cobwebs. In a hurry.

national news, political news

Well, that clears it up: Jeb wouldn't go to war

Jeb Bush has set the record straight … I think.

He now says he wouldn’t have gone to war in Iraq if he and the rest of the world knew then what we know now — which is that Saddam Hussein didn’t possess weapons of mass destruction.

Does that clear it up for you? The former Republican Florida governor — and likely GOP presidential candidate — surely hopes so.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/14/jeb-bush-clears-air-on-iraq-war-stance-says-would-not-have-authorized-invasion/?intcmp=latestnews

He went from “yes I would” go to war, to “mishearing” the question from Megyn Kelly of Fox News, to “misinterpreting” the question to now reversing himself completely.

MSBNC’s Rachel Maddow — and I’m acutely aware that she is no fan of any of the Republicans running, or thinking of running, for president — pointed out an important element of the botched answer to a simple question. She said Thursday night that Jeb Bush, whose brother George W. Bush, invaded Iraq in 2003, should have been aware that the question would come and he should have had his answer down pat.

He didn’t. He either hasn’t done his homework on the nuts and bolts of running for president, or doesn’t quite understand how the media work. Reporters are going to ask him repeatedly about the Iraq War and whether it was a good or bad idea for the United States to invade another country.

Jeb Bush remains one of the frontrunners for the GOP nomination, whenever he declares his candidacy.

I actually want him to do well as the nomination campaign ramps up.

But, oh man, he must stop fumbling the questions everyone in America knows he’s going to get.

national news, political news

'Mistakes were made' in Iraq … do you think?

There goes Jeb Bush, using that maddening passive-voice clichĂ© that declares “mistakes were made.”

The mistakes occurred in Iraq after his brother, former President George W. Bush, invaded that country on a bogus premise that the Iraqis possessed weapons of mass destruction.

He told Fox News’s Megyn Kelly that he’d invade Iraq also, even he knew there were no WMD.

Now he’s backing away from the statement, telling conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity that predicting what he’d do is a “hypothetical” situation.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jeb-bush-backs-off-support-of-iraq-invasion/ar-BBjH0wT

The former Florida governor is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination next year. He’s almost certain to join a growing GOP field.

He’d better get his Iraq War spiel lined out.

He told Hannity that President Bush learned from the “faulty intelligence” on which he relied to launch the March 2003 invasion. I guess that’s his view. As for the former president, he hasn’t yet revealed what precisely he “learned” from the mistaken intelligence-gathering.

I’m actually hoping Bush gets his act together. His party needs someone with a reputation for moderation running for president. The TEA party wing of the GOP has a lot of champions in the hunt already for the White House — and I expect fully that Gov. Bush will try to sound like one of them as he launches his own presidential bid.

His record, though, tells a different story.

Jeb Bush’s first major obstacle, though, is to persuade the country he is no carbon copy of his brother.

 

national news, political news

Jeb 'misheard' question about Iraq War?

Mind-reading isn’t my thing.

Therefore, I cannot pretend to know what Jeb Bush heard or “misheard” when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly asked him whether he would have gone to war in Iraq “knowing what we now know” about the absence of any weapons of mass destruction.

The former Florida governor and presumed Republican Party candidate for president said he would have gone to war.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-aide-says-jeb-bush-misheard-iraq-question/ar-BBjFW9y

Then he said, “And so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everyone. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.”

Well.

Let’s just review for a moment. Then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton did vote to authorize war in Iraq. President Bush ordered the invasion in 2003, our troops toppled Saddam Hussein’s government then looked high and low for the WMD. They didn’t find any. They captured Saddam, pulling him out of that spider hole. He was tried and convicted of crimes against humanity and was hanged.

Clinton then said while running for president in 2008 that she was wrong to vote for the war authorization, based on what we now know.

Gov. Bush said he misheard Kelly’s question. I won’t quibble with that point.

I will quibble, though, with his characterization of what Hillary Clinton would do. She’s said she made a mistake.

His bungled answer has angered those on the right, who don’t like him too much anyway.

Time to hit the reset button, Jeb.

 

political news

Sanders to fight for Democratic left

Pundits all across the land have been talking about the Republican base and the core values it seeks for its party.

Meanwhile, the Democratic base has been relatively quiet … until now.

On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, is going to announce his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/report-sen-bernie-sanders-to-announce-2016-bid-thursday/ar-BBiN6mJ

Hillary Rodham Clinton will get her first real challenger in her campaign for the same nomination.

Sanders will run from the far left wing of his party, kind of like the way Ted Cruz is running from the far right wing of his Republican Party.

Wow! Think about this: What if Sanders and Cruz win their parties’ presidential nomination next year?

Sanders is a hard-core socialist. He favors wealth distribution, wage equality, marriage equality, universal health care and massive cuts in defense spending.

He thinks Hillary Clinton is too cozy with Wall Street and likely is going to hold her Senate vote in 2003 in favor of going to war with Iraq against her.

Does the maverick independent stand a chance at winning the Democratic nomination? You have to say “no.”

Then again …

International news

Bush needs refresher on his own blunders

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George W. Bush had followed his father’s doctrine upon leaving the presidency in January 2009.

Do not criticize the man in the office now. Be quiet and go about the business of doing other pertinent activities.

Then the 43rd president spoke to a group of Republican donors over the weekend and proceeded to rip into Barack Obama’s handling of crises in the Middle East.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/27/the_swaggering_idiot_returns_george_w_bush_emerges_from_artistic_exile_to_rehab_his_disastrous_legacy/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

From what is known about President Bush’s remarks — they weren’t recorded visually or audibly — he apparently spoke without a hint of understanding about his own foreign policy blunders in the region and the mess he created and left for his successor.

Iraq? The war he started against Saddam Hussein because he was “certain” that the dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction? The former president made no mention, of course, of the fierce resistance our forces encountered in a country that his defense secretary and vice president said would greet us as “liberators.”

Instead, the ex-president chose to criticize the current president for seeking to negotiate a deal that rids Iran of its capability to develop a nuclear weapon. He talked about the chaos that has developed since the United States went to war against the Islamic State.

Think about this for a moment. The Islamic State has risen in Iraq because it wants to restore a Sunni government that U.S. forces evicted from power. Yes, ISIL is an evil organization, but the ex-president is showing no inclination for taking a shred of responsibility for what has developed because of what this country did on his watch in the White House.

Chaos? President Bush created enough chaos to go around when he launched the Iraq War in March 2003.

I much prefer the George W. Bush who once understood what his father still understands: He’s had his time in the hot seat, which now is occupied by someone who’s doing the best he can to protect the nation all presidents profess to love.

 

International news

War is far from a perfect endeavor

Two aid workers — an American and an Italian — are dead because a drone strike hit a suspected terrorist compound.

U.S. intelligence did not know the men were inside the target area. Does this mean the air campaign using unmanned drones is a failure? No. It means that intelligence at times is incorrect.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/obama-expresses-confidence-in-us-intelligence-despite-mistake-that-killed-two-aid-workers-117325.html?hp=b1_r1

President Obama expressed his support for the U.S. intelligence network during a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the melding of intelligence agencies into a single national intelligence department.

Walter Weinstein and Giovanni LoBianco were killed when a drone-launched missile hit the compound where al-Qaeda terrorists were holding them. President Obama has expressed regret and sorrow at the men’s deaths. But he stands behind the intelligence network.

Do they get everything right every single time? No. We’ve suffered through many intelligence failures over many years. Do you remember the intelligence that became the basis for launching the Iraq War in 2003? Do you remember the assurance that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was preparing to use them? It didn’t pan out that way.

Obama said: “Our first job is to make sure that we protect the American people. But there’s not a person that I talk to that’s involved in the intelligence community that also doesn’t understand that we have to do so while upholding our values and our ideals, and our laws and our constitutions, and our commitment to democracy.”

No matter the scope of the failures involved in intelligence gathering, it’s always critical to remember that human beings analyze this data and that those analysts do make mistakes. Thankfully, it’s not often.

Does that lessen the tragedy that resulted in the deaths of the aid workers? No. It does require, as the president said, that the nation “review what happened. We’re going to identify the lessons that can be learned and any improvements and changes that can be made.”

 

media news, Uncategorized

When Brokaw says it's bad … it's bad

Overstatement isn’t my thing, so I say this with great care.

Tom Brokaw has become sort of today’s version of E.F. Hutton. Whenever he speaks of things relating to broadcast journalism, people tend to listen intently.

He’s been fairly quiet about the Brian Williams matter … you know, the NBC anchor who’s been suspended from his job without pay for embellishing his wartime experience in Iraq.

Brokaw, whom Williams replaced as anchor of NBC Nightly News, has weighed in. For my money, it doesn’t look good at all for Williams’s future.

Brokaw has acknowledged “this is a really, really serious case, obviously.”

Do you think?

Brokaw and Williams aren’t the best of friends. Brokaw said the two men have had a “cordial” relationship, which is more or less a diplomatic way of saying they smile when they see each other but in reality can’t stand to be around the other guy. We’ve all relationships like that, haven’t we?

It’s been reported of late that Williams might have hated succeeding Brokaw on the anchor desk because of the very high standard of excellence Brokaw set during his lengthy tenure. It reminds me a bit of the tension that existed between Walter Cronkite and his successor at CBS, Dan Rather, when Cronkite retired from the anchor job and was succeeded by Rather — who never quite measured up to Uncle Walter’s iconic stature.

Brokaw made his remarks recently in a talk at the University of Chicago. Check it out on this You Tube link. It’s at the 54-minute mark. Quite interesting, indeed.

 

 

 

national news, political news

No, Mr. Vice President; your boss was worse

Dick Cheney possesses an utterly amazing reservoir of gall.

The latest rant from the former vice president of the United States includes his “theory” that President Obama is trying to take the United States down “from within.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dick-cheney-obama-take-america-down

He calls Barack Obama the worst president in U.S. history.

There you have it. History is written by a vice president who, along with President Obama’s immediate predecessor, led the nation into a war in search of chemical weapons, but found none. They told us we’d be greeted as “liberators, not conquerors,” and we were wrong about that, too. They fundamentally misjudged the strength of the resistance within Iraq after the capture, trial and execution of Saddam Hussein.

And it was on their watch that the nation’s financial markets collapsed, along with the housing market and the automotive industry.

And he calls Barack Obama “the worst president” in American history?

He said this on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show: “I vacillate between the various theories I’ve heard, but you know, if you had somebody as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world and reduce our capacity to influence events, turn our back on our allies and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama’s doing.”

That’s it. Barack Obama wants to weaken the nation. He wants to reduce our influence in the world. He wants to encourage our adversaries.

I’m trying to find a more cynical view of any leading American politician.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s cynicism knows no boundaries.

media news

How does Brian Williams come back?

The question keeps rolling through my noggin. I can’t stop wondering: How in the world does Brian Williams ever get back to the NBC Nightly News evening anchor desk?

The answer that keeps recurring? He doesn’t. He cannot come back. His credibility is blown to bits.

You see social media still joking about Williams. Things he has said in the past have been questioned by those who wonder if he made it up, as he did about his so-called shoot down in Iraq, when he said enemy rocket fire brought down a helicopter in which he was a passenger in 2003. It didn’t happen. Williams reported it correctly at first, then “misremembered” it in subsequent years as he kept retelling the fib about being aboard the helicopter when it was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

NBC suspended him for six months.

He has said recently that he doesn’t know how he made the story up. He talked about a “brain tumor,” or some such nonsense.

The longer he stays off the air the more difficult it becomes for him to return to it in his previous capacity. The jokesters will continue to concoct gags at his expense. Every utterance he makes will be field-tested immediately to ensure its accuracy.

I think it’s time for NBC to shop around for a permanent replacement.

Indeed, something tells me the network already is looking.