As The Angry Bear Points out:
You can’t play Three-Card Monte without a mark, a patsy, a sucker. Guess who’s playing the sucker in Greenspan’s shell game?
And, it is you and me folks who are playing that roll. Read the rest here and here.
Shouldn’t we be getting just a little bit angry about getting robbed every day? If our government will not protect us perhaps it is time for a change…and not just presidents.
This just in from Doug at georgemustgo:
Shorter Richard Perle*: “I just wrote a book that says we should invade Syria, Iran, and Libya, and given that the unadulterated 100-percent bat-shit-craziness of these ideas may hurt the President’s re-election campaign by association, it’s probably best if I hang back for a while.”
Richard Perle, stepping into the strike zone and taking one for the team. A prince among men.
Hmmm, is perle more dangerous inside or outside the administration?
Via Sadly, No!.
Eric Muller is looking for a little clarity:
In December of 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft equated criticism of the administration’s policies with “aiding terrorists.”
Last week Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the nation’s largest teacher’s union a “terrorist organization” because the union opposes parts of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
And now private citizens are joining the rhetorical war. A Wyoming rancher is accusing agents of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service of “terrorism” for going onto his land to collar a tranquilized wolf.
Ah, for the good old days when terrorism was, like, blowing up buildings and stuff.
And this rhetorical softness serves the needs of an administration that wants to fight a never ending war against something called terrorism.
Go to Eric’s original post for links to the examples.
James Joyner considered the performance and found that:
Overall, it was largely uneventful, but the president acquitted himself well enough. He came across as thoughtful and considered. And, while he was almost certainly prepared for hours by staff members, he didn�t appear to be giving the memorized speeches that one is accustomed to from politicians on these programs. Bush actually seemed to pause and consider his answers.
Brad DeLong thought Russert could have done a better job with his followup questions
Tim Russert didn’t seem to me to do a very good job. He didn’t ask what seemed to me the natural follow-up questions…Here are three examples
Go read’m.
Now, Kevin Drum appears to disagree a bit with James:
It’s hardly surprising that I thought Bush’s performance on Meet the Press was weak (“labored and uninteresting….like he was addressing a class of sixth graders”),
and expresses some surprise at the responses from NRO:
…but the fine conservatives over at NRO are piling on in a fashion normally reserved for Jimmy Carter op-eds…For once, I find myself in full agreement with National Review….
(Kevin quotes a number of the responses he refers to.)
I’ve watched part of it and at this point find it unlikely I’ll invest the time to watch the last half hour unless it is to reconsider what James described as pausing to consider his answers. My reaction after a few of these pauses was that bush was faking them in order to pretend the answers were considered. My secondary thought was that he was pausing in order to assure himself that he was dredging up the correct practiced answer for the question.
And, as Dave Ehhrenstein notes, these are frightening words:
I’m a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind.
Why would the folks putting together bush’s budget propose eliminating funds for building decontamination research?
an Environmental Protection Agency acknowledgment that his proposed cut “represents complete elimination of homeland security building decontamination research.”
The agency said in the documents that Bush’s proposal will “force it to disband the technical and engineering expertise that will be needed to address known and emerging biological and chemical threats in the future.”
This certainly seems inconsistent with the image the bushies seem to be trying to project. A mistake perhaps? Or simple blundering?