I hope never to assault you with pictures of any of the Bush Klan in the future, but this struck me as interesting. I never thought Jeb Bush looked like GHW's son, and never thought Dumbya and Jeb looked anything alike until I came across this mirrored image of Dumbya. Okay, that's all.
Obama has begun his "whistlestop" ride to D.C., which of course began with a speech.
"Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union.
Let's build a government that is responsible to the people, and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable.
Let's all of us do our part to rebuild this country.
Let's make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning.
Join me in this effort. Join one another in this effort. And together, mindful of our proud history, hopeful for the future, let's seek a better world in our time."
Yes, let's.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
A co-worker of mine is headed up to Houston this morning where she will meet with 18 members of her family. From there, they are taking two vans to D.C. for the inauguration. She's taking her grandson, and other members of her family are taking their kids. They're making the trip for the children.
May it all go well for everyone around the country making this trip for their children. Safe travels.
Mr. Bush enjoyed a high approval rating of 90 percent -- the highest of any president -- following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.Mr. Bush edged out his father for that highest rating. George H.W. Bush received an 88 percent approval rating in 1991 amid the success of the first Gulf War.
We do love our wars.
President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent.Seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years.
Mr. Bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.
Down from Harry Truman’s record of 32 percent approval.
Good thing he doesn’t care about polls.
Rice was greeted by thunderous applause as she appeared in the building's C Street lobby to thank the staff in optimistic oratory that echoed President George W. Bush's 2005 Inauguration speech in which he said he would fight for freedom in every nation with the "ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."Rice said her own story — the first black woman to serve as secretary of state — showed how far the United States has come in making its ethnic, religious and racial diversity a catalyst for social progress.
And she herself has been so active in her lifetime in the cause of social progress and racial diversity, so we know how important that is to her. Feeling the need to funnel some of that "first black American" - how far we've come feeling sweeping the nation toward yourself, Condi?
MR. LEHRER: The president has also said that he made some mistakes in the last eight years. Did you make any?VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, make mistakes - I can think of places where I underestimated things. For example, talking about Iraq, the extent of which the Iraqi population had been beaten down by Saddam Hussein was greater than I anticipated.
[...]
MR. LEHRER: One more general scope here, Mr. Vice President. What do you make of a current suggestion that you have been in fact the most powerful vice president in history, but in one of the most failed presidencies in history?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't buy that.
MR. LEHRER: You don't buy that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No, I think the argument that this is a failed presidency is just dead wrong. I think we'll hear that from some of our critics, but when I look back at what we've been able to do - we dealt with big issues.[...]
We ended up inheriting a situation that has been very challenging, but we've been very successful at it. And when you look at what we've been able to do, both in terms of our activities overseas as well as our operations that allowed us to block any further attack against the United States here at home, I think those are great successes and I think there aren't many administrations that can point to successes on that scale.
[...]
MR. LEHRER: So it doesn't trouble you at all to be leaving office next week with the overwhelming disapproval of the majority of the people, as measured by the polls? It doesn't bother you, personally?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't buy that.
I was expecting, “So what?”
MR. LEHRER: Some people have suggested back to the changed Dick Cheney thing was that the four heart attacks, the bypasses et cetera also had an effect on you, personally, at some level. Do you buy that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. Jim, I had my first heart attack before I ever ran for office. I was 37 years old in 1978 - a candidate for Congress, as a matter of fact - in the middle of it. My entire time in elected office, over the last, what, 30 years now, has been after the onset of coronary artery disease. Whatever effect it was going to have, it had before that first election. So I just don't buy that. I mean, people are - want to go out and analyze and you live with it.
MR. LEHRER: Oh, sure.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: You've had a very active career since the onset of coronary artery disease. The technology is amazing; the doctors are fantastic. They've stayed ahead of the disease, from my standpoint. I'm not 68 - soon to be 68 years old.
And I've been extraordinarily fortunate that I've been able to go live a very active, stressful life. And I don't believe that my heart disease changed me for the worst.
No, Dick, I don’t believe that, either. You began that way.
MR. LEHRER: Finally, did you enjoy being vice president of the United States?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I loved it. It's been a great job. It's been, obviously, a tremendous challenge. I'd spent 25 years in government when I left the Defense Department back in '93, decided I'd go spend the rest of my career in the private sector, and then the president tapped me to come be his running mate.
Well, not exactly. Dick tapped himself. But….
So what?
I think I speak for the entire nation when I say that the way this transition has been dragging on, even yesterday does not seem like yesterday. And the last time George W. Bush did not factor into our lives feels like around 1066.
It really does seem like it’s been interminable. Our long national nightmare.
We are about to enter a world in which our commander in chief speaks in full sentences, and I do not know what we’re going to do to divert ourselves on slow days.
Rest a lot easier, I’m sure.
Driftglass describes Cheney by quoting Mark Twain:
“You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat;
you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.”
-- Mark Twain
I do hope Obama's team is not censoring Rick Warren's inaugural invocation.
On April 17, 2005, at the southern California Anaheim Angels sports stadium thirty thousand Saddleback Church members, more than ever gathered in one spot, assembled to celebrate Saddleback's 25th anniversary and listened as Rick Warren announced his vision for the next 25 years of the church: the P.E.A.C.E. Plan.[...]
Though Warren's speech was in the idiom of Christianity, he did not seek to inspire his Saddleback audience with examples of great religious leaders who have changed history through persuasion or other nonviolent approaches. Rick Warren looked to 20th century exemplars of vision and dedication but not to Mohatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or any other religious leaders.
[...]
Towards the close of his nearly one hour speech, Pastor Warren asked his followers to be as committed to Jesus as the young Nazi men and women who spelled out in mass formation with their bodies the words "Hitler, we are yours," in 1939 at the Munich Stadium, were committed to the Führer of the Third Reich.
[...]
A version of the anecdote can also be found on page 357 of Rick Warren's 1995 book The Purpose Driven Church, which sold over one million copies.
Maybe he’ll bring out that analogy on Tuesday.
What do you mean now talking to himself?Fueling the media notion that President George W. Bush is now talking to himself, a report Thursday night put President-elect Barack Obama at a quiet dinner with his wife [at a restaurant] while the lame-duck Texan delivered his final televised presidential address.
Lame duck, indeed.
Why should the Obamas watch the self-aggrandising of the s.o.b. whose administration refused to let his family stay at Blair House, forcing them to go to a hotel. Had to eat out after all.
It looks like they finally got to move to Blair House last night. Maybe if they’d been permitted to go there sooner, they could have dined in and had time to catch the awesome report card Dubya gave himself.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The Gary Oldman clip on this Rising Hegemon post is so "spot on" for the post's topic. But it's also a great treat for Gary Oldman fans, of which I am sitting in that front row. But Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon? I don't get it. Heath Ledger was quite good as The Joker, but how could you think of Gary Oldman for a Batman movie and not think of him for The Joker role? Oldman is so real on the screen that there are some things I just cannot watch him play. Scares me. Anyway, after you've visited Rising Hegemon, here's a quick Oldman treat (from The Professional)...
Columbus police have arrested a man they say was responsible for a Web site where customers could post reviews of prostitutes.Robert Eric McFadden is accused of trading information about online escorts and prostitutes who worked the streets, including a 17-year-old girl. Police say he also helped organize a $10-a-ticket raffle that offered an evening with a prostitute.
[...]
McFadden formerly served as director of the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives office under [Ohio] Gov. Ted Strickland.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Barack Obama's announced intentions on ABC News this Sunday regarding Guantanamo sparked substantial objections from civil liberties and human rights advocates. The result of those objections? From today's New York Times:President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.
Not only did Obama advisers quickly leak that Obama planned to do that -- something he made no mention of on ABC or at any time before that -- but they also made known that they have all but rejected the principal plan urged by the pro-war, anti-civil-liberties Brookings Institution and like-minded comrades (such as former Bush official Jack Goldsmith) for a Congressionally-authorized scheme of preventive detention to empower the President to indefinitely detain Terrorists inside the U.S. without having to charge them with any crimes[...]
[T]hese new Guantanamo announcements are very far from a guarantee that Obama will do the right thing here. Still, these leaked responses to Sunday's criticisms are an important step forward, and they underscore the reasons why it is so vital to express criticism of Obama when he deserves it.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The word "liberal" has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last eight years. All that has been necessary to qualify is a belief in such radical, exotic and fringe-leftist concepts as search warrants before the Government can eavesdrop on our communications; due process before the state can encage people for life; adherence to decades-old Geneva Conventions restrictions which post-World-War-II America led the way in implementing; and the need for an actual, imminent threat from another country before we bomb, invade, occupy and destroy it.Now added to the pantheon of "liberal" dogma is the shrill, ideological belief that high government officials must abide by our laws and should be treated like any other citizen when they break them. To believe that now makes you not just a "liberal," but worse: a "liberal score-settler."
Almost as bad as being a “socialist”.
Apparently, one can attain the glorious status of being a moderate, a centrist, a high-minded independent only if one believes that high political officials (and our most powerful industries, such as the telecoms) should be able to break numerous laws (i.e.: commit felonies), openly admit that they've done so, and then be immunized from all consequences.
Sigh. I have no hope.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Corexit: More toxic than the oil
IVAW: Iraq Veterans Against the War
