reyonthehill

Bush needs nine-eleven like a three-year-old needs candy. They both like it. And if they do have it, they show it off to their friends. The Bush team is playing keep-away and applying scare tactics when it comes to the tragedy of nine-eleven. It is Bush's trump card.

When his poll numbers are in the dumps... nine-eleven. When John Kerry is pressing him on domestic policy... nine-eleven. When it is a slow-news weekend... nine-eleven. Bush shamelessy flouts his flawed record on terrorism to energize the base and to stir up emotions around the country.

And the media is allowing him to do it. They refuse to criticize and analyze his false statements. Bush is doing his part though - he avoids the media altogether and only answers questions at pre-screened campaign appearances.

What is his record on terrorism? He allowed our homeland to be attacked, and he used the raw emotions of our country to attack Iraq, and, in turn, damage our world standing. Bravo.

It is utterly amazing that the worst event in the history of our nation is the selling point to re-elect the president.

Mr. Bush, you may better know him as the buffoon who stole the Oval Office in 2000, has finally taken steps to remediate his illiteracy problem. Let's take a gander:

"And I think it's very important for the American President to mean what he says. That's why I understand that the enemy could misread what I say. That's why I try to be as clearly I can."

Source: Washington Post

On Friday, Bill O'Reilly attempted to grill Jon Stewart, and failed miserably. The host of the Daily Show outwitted the grumpy old man.

O'REILLY: Thanks for staying with us. I'm Bill O'Reilly. In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, he is the darling of the television critics, the host of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, and now has a book called "America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction" -- 'inaction,' one word. Welcome, Jon Stewart, to the no spin zone, everyone.

JON STEWART, "THE DAILY SHOW": How are you, sir?

O'REILLY: OK. You know what's really frightening?

STEWART: Uh oh.

O'REILLY: You know what's really frightening?

STEWART: You've been reading my diary.

O'REILLY: You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary.

STEWART: If that were so, that would be quite frightening.

O'REILLY: But it is. It's true. I mean, you've got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night, OK, and they can vote.

STEWART: Yeah.

O'REILLY: You can't stop them.

STEWART: Yeah, I just don't know how motivated they would be, these stoned slackers.

O'REILLY: Yeah, it just depends if they have to go out that day.

STEWART: What am I, a Cheech and Chong movie? Stoned slackers?

O'REILLY: Come on, you do the research, you know the research on your program.

STEWART: No, we don't.

O'REILLY: Eighty-seven percent are intoxicated when they watch it. You didn't see that?

STEWART: No, I didn't realize that.

O'REILLY: Yeah, we have that there.

STEWART: We come on right after, I believe, puppets that make crank calls...

O'REILLY: Yeah.

STEWART: ... so we are, I think, the appropriate follow up...

O'REILLY: Yeah, and that's a great lead-in for you.

STEWART: It's a wonderful show, by the way.

O'REILLY: Puppets can't vote, but these dopey kids who watch you can.

STEWART: They actually can -- in Florida, they can.

O'REILLY: Puppets can vote in Florida.

STEWART: As long as they vote Republican.

O'REILLY: And they haven't committed a felony.

STEWART: And they haven't committed a felony, that's exactly right.

O'REILLY: But you do have some influence. Now, how do you see that? You have influence. John Kerry bypassed me and went right over to you. You're only four blocks away. He said, "O'Reilly, I don't think so. Stewart, I'm going to go talk to you."

STEWART: Well, I have to tell you -- and again, I mean no disrespect, but the snack selection backstage, quite frankly...

O'REILLY: Yeah, it's...

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: You know, I don't want to shake Guantanamo Bay, but it's a little sparer back there.

O'REILLY: It's close, it's close. We want people to be hungry when they come out.

STEWART: I think that's wise. We have, what I like to call, snack- size Three Musketeers, some Snickers, some Milky Ways. If I were a presidential candidate and I had to choose, I think a place that had an energy pick-me-up might be the place I would go.

O'REILLY: Do you think that Kerry does himself any good talking to you? Because I think most of your audience is going to vote for him anyway, aren't they?

STEWART: If I thought...

O'REILLY: The stoned slackers.

STEWART: If I thought honestly that their strategy hinged upon his coming and talking to me, I would suggest that they were in some deep trouble. I don't know. I feel like, you know, we don't have an agenda of influence. If we have influence, it is peripheral. And I don't imagine that people who watch the show are watching it to make up their minds in terms of who they think would best prosecute the war on terror. I think they watch to see who would maybe have the best jokes on the war on terror.

O'REILLY: No, here's what I think. I've been on the show a couple of times. I mean, you obviously make fun of everybody. You know, I'm making fun of your show now. But you get everybody.

STEWART: We are, in fact, crass and immature.

O'REILLY: But you are a show that your target audience is younger, left leaning, so you have to play to the choir sometimes.

STEWART: But the real estate is younger, just because it's Comedy Central.

O'REILLY: And it's at 11 o'clock at night.

STEWART: I don't know if it's left leaning. I mean, would you suggest that -- you know that blue collar TV show that does all the -- like Foxworthy and all that? You'd consider that a red state show -- you know, Foxworthy and -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'REILLY: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

STEWART: OK. They're our lead-in on Monday nights, and there's really no difference between...

O'REILLY: But even so, younger people tend to be a little bit more, you know...

STEWART: When you say younger, are you talking 9, 10? What are you talking here?

O'REILLY: No, I'm talking 18 to 25, you know. The people who are on your intellectual level.

STEWART: Thank you.

O'REILLY: They seek that.

STEWART: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: You ask some serious questions too.

STEWART: Very rarely. Every now and again.

O'REILLY: Well, you asked me why I was such a bad person, didn't you, or something like that? Wasn't that a serious question?

STEWART: Did I ask you why you were a bad person?

O'REILLY: Yeah, I think so.

STEWART: No, I wouldn't have done that.

O'REILLY: ... "scum of the earth, O'Reilly," I think that's the way you put it.

STEWART: No, I wouldn't have put it that way. I think it would have been, why do you have such je ne sai qua?

O'REILLY: Yeah, some French. We're boycotting France, so I couldn't answer...

STEWART: By the way, I couldn't agree with you more about the French thing. They are such an important country, and I think really deserve a boycott.

O'REILLY: Yeah, they do.

STEWART: Because of the influence they wield in the world.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Well, you know, I know you don't agree with...

STEWART: They have a variety of cheeses, and...

O'REILLY: I was just going to say, you have to have your brie before you go on.

STEWART: Do you really believe France is, in any way, worthy of a boycott?

O'REILLY: I do. I think France has really hurt the USA, to be...

STEWART: Really?

O'REILLY: Yes, I do.

STEWART: More than like Saudi Arabia? You would advocate a boycott...

O'REILLY: No, I'm not going to say more than Saudi Arabia. But I'm saying we do a lot...

STEWART: So why not boycott them?

O'REILLY: France is supposed to be our friend. Saudi Arabia is...

STEWART: Since when?

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: Since the revolution they haven't been our friend.

O'REILLY: OK, when you get a guy like Kerry on...

STEWART: Yes.

O'REILLY: ... and again, he bypassed me, so I took it personally, he went over to talk to you...

STEWART: But you and I are not competitors, let's be frank about it.

O'REILLY: Well, we're on our second rerun on THE FACTOR -- is now at 11 o'clock.

STEWART: I don't mean in terms of -- we're not competitors in terms of content. You're a news show, and we are a comedy show.

O'REILLY: That's true. But what do you want the audience to get out of your discussion with Kerry? Just yucks, or anything else?

STEWART: First of all, I shall rarely refer to it as yucks, and I think you should reconsider.

O'REILLY: OK, I'm sorry about that arcane term.

STEWART: "Shnicks," we call it shnicks -- shnicks and giggles.

O'REILLY: Thank you.

STEWART: All right. I am very uncomfortable going more than a couple of minutes without a laugh, because the same weakness that drove me into comedy also informs my show. So that same, what we call, neediness, neuroses...

O'REILLY: If you're not hearing the audience laugh, you're getting a little nervous.

STEWART: That would be exactly correct, because it is, at heart, a comedy show. But it's a comedy show about things we care about. So naturally, it's informed by relevant issues and important information.

O'REILLY: What do you think Kerry wants to get out of coming on your show?

STEWART: He wants to get what any politician does: access to a new constituency. He wants to get...

O'REILLY: The stoned slackers.

STEWART: ... that's exactly right, because the stoned slackers, this election is going to rely on the undecided. Who is more undecided than...

O'REILLY: Than the stoned slacker, right.

STEWART: ... the people who are high. Right now, they're thinking to themselves, ice cream or pretzels, ice cream or pretzels.

O'REILLY: Don't you think that these guys want to be hip, when McCain was on with you -- Bush hasn't been on with you, right? You would remember that...

STEWART: George Bush?

O'REILLY: Yeah.

STEWART: I don't recall the president stopping by the program.

O'REILLY: But McCain's been on.

STEWART: Yes.

O'REILLY: OK. Kerry's been on, as we mentioned.

STEWART: Yes.

O'REILLY: I've been on. So you've had the three most powerful people beside him on.

STEWART: That's probably right.

O'REILLY: What do you think Kerry wanted to get out of it?

STEWART: A hug -- just a sweet hug. I'm sure what he wants out of it is, again, that access -- it's the same thing that Budweiser wants out of it. It's the same thing that Dell computers...

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: No, it's access to this market that may be untapped, an untapped potential, a reserve, an ANWAR, if you will. He wants to drill in an area that has previously been un-drilled. And don't make a dirty remark about that, because I see it coming.

O'REILLY: All right, your book is...

STEWART: But what do you think he wants out of it?

O'REILLY: I think he wants to be hip. I do. I think going on your show is a cache, and he's considered the hipper candidate than the square.

STEWART: So you think he's not looking for votes. This is middle- aged crisis?

O'REILLY: No...

STEWART: This is a mid-life crisis...

O'REILLY: No, he just wants to get that tag...

STEWART: ... buying a Corvette.

O'REILLY: ... that he's with it, that's all. And he probably wants to get hair tips from you. Look at that hair. It's great. All right, Jon Stewart, buy his book, here he is. And I'll see you on your show in a couple of weeks.

STEWART: You will see me on my show.

Source: Fox News

George W. Bush and his handlers, this time James Baker, former Secretary of State, successfully lobbied changes to the debate setup that will clinch his victory. The first debate, which is the most highly watched and discussed debate, will consist solely of national security and foreign policy, rather than domestic policy. (Domestic policy is the area where W. fails miserably, since he has ignored the issues the better part of four years now.)

Why would John Kerry's team accept this? Is it maybe because if Bush didn't get this concession he would have went home crying foul? Probably. So now the American people finally have an opportunity to hear what Bush has to say on... Iraq. And terrorism. I really don't know what Bush's stance is on terrorism. I think he is against it, but I am not sure. Kerry will have to allow Bush to repeat "flip-flopper," "reversed his position on Iraq eight times," "we are better off without Saddam," and "a free Iraq is good for the American people."

The American people will just never fully understand the incompetence of George W. Bush. That is, unless, they actually watch more than one debate. Most likely the vast majority won't watch any part, let alone a few minutes.

Let me reiterate a point here. I do not believe that Bush is competent on the subject of national security, foreign policy, and surely Iraq. I am just saying the subject is a lost cause for a challenger, specifically a democratic challenger. Bush has failed us with his war on terrorism. We are not safer today than before the events of nine-eleven. Iraq is a quagmire with no peaceful end in sight. Bin Laden is still a threat against our homeland. The world does not trust the U.S. anymore. If, and only if, Kerry can successfully make these points will he have a chance to make any ground on the subject.

The three of them stole the election in 2000. The three of them will try to do the same this year, although they have started a little earlier than election day (whcih they had not done in 2000, and nearly cost them). I guess they learned their lesson. They have tried to trash and tarnish John Kerry's service in Vietnam. And it has worked. They have tried to pinpoint John Kerry as a flip-flopper. And it has worked. (I too am a flip-flopper. Last night I had intended to have chicken but I ended up having a burger.) The media has even taken it as a fact that the American people feel more protected under Bush. How could that be? We were attacked with him as our leader. Even Clinton didn't allow that to happen.

CBS is not the only news organization I get my news from. I watch CBS

News daily, but I also watch CNN and MSNBC (and even Fox News when I

am in the mood for a few laughs). I read the Washington Post, the San

Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times. I also get news on-line

at CBSNews.com. I read a few blogs here and there, but never use them

as a source of truth or facts. And never will. I take time and effort

to source my material and I usually let the hysteria die down (on the

pseudo-news stories) before I post. I sometimes avoid such stories all

together. I certainly will not attempt to be a part of the rabid

blogosphere. (Whatever the blogoshphere is? I have no idea.)

Tonight at 6pm, as always, I will watch the CBS Evening News with Dan

Rather. And tomorrow evening. And the next.

Bush did cocaine. A lot of it. We knew of this as early as 1994 when the former president's "crazy wild-boy son" was trying to run for governor of Texas. Six years later, however, that coke-fiend became president. Of course he found god or god found him, and all that bullshit, and he hasn't had a drop of alcohol since he turned forty. With questions in the media concerning Bush's early departure from the Air National Guard abound, the answer is clear. Bush was coked up and couldn't pass the mandatory drug test in 1972, so he split.

The following is an excerpt from Russ Baker's recent column in The Nation:

Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet.

A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing. His failure to complete a physical exam became the official reason for his subsequent suspension from flying status.

Even more significantly, in a July interview, Linda Allison, the widow of Jimmy Allison, the Alabama campaign manager and a close friend of Bush's father, revealed to me for the first time that Bush had come to Alabama not because the job had appeal or because his presence was required but because he needed to get out of Texas. "Well, you have to know Georgie," Allison said. "He really was a totally irresponsible person. Big George [George H.W. Bush] called Jimmy, and said, he's killing us in Houston, take him down there and let him work on that campaign.... The tenor of that was, Georgie is in and out of trouble seven days a week down here, and would you take him up there with you."

Allison said that the younger Bush's drinking problem was apparent. She also said that her husband, a circumspect man who did not gossip and held his cards closely, indicated to her that some use of drugs was involved. "I had the impression that he knew that Georgie was using pot, certainly, and perhaps cocaine," she said.

Now-prominent, established Texas figures in the military, arts, business and political worlds, some of them Republicans and Bush supporters, talk about Bush's alleged use of marijuana and cocaine based on what they say they have heard from trusted friends. One middle-aged woman whose general veracity could be confirmed told me that she met Bush in 1968 at Hemisfair 68, a fair in San Antonio, at which he tried to pick her up and offered her a white powder he was inhaling. She was then a teenager; Bush would have just graduated from Yale and have been starting the National Guard then. "He was getting really aggressive with me," she said. "I told him I'd call a policeman, and he laughed, and asked who would believe me." (Although cocaine was not a widespread phenomenon until the 1970s, US authorities were struggling more than a decade earlier to stanch the flow from Latin America; in 1967 border seizures amounted to twenty-six pounds.)

Bush himself has publicly admitted to being somewhat wild in his younger years, without offering any details. He has not explicitly denied charges of drug use; generally he has hedged. He has said that he could have passed the same security screening his father underwent upon his inauguration in 1989, which certifies no illegal drug use during the fifteen preceding years. In other words, George W. Bush seemed to be saying that if he had used drugs, that was before 1974 or during the period in which he left his Guard unit.

The family that rented Bush a house in Montgomery, Alabama, during that period told me that Bush did extensive, inexplicable damage to their property, including smashing a chandelier, and that they unsuccessfully billed him twice for the damage--which amounted to approximately $900, a considerable sum in 1972. Two unconnected close friends and acquaintances of a well-known Montgomery socialite, now deceased, told me that the socialite in question told them that he and Bush had been partying that evening at the Montgomery Country Club, combining drinking with use of illicit drugs, and that Bush, complaining about the brightness, had climbed on a table and smashed the chandelier when the duo stopped at his home briefly so Bush could change clothes before they headed out again.

It is notable that in 1972, the military was in the process of introducing widespread drug testing as part of the annual physical exams that pilots would undergo.

Source: The Nation

The Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (or KGB) was the name of the main Soviet Security Agency and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. The KGB's domain was roughly comparable to that of the American Central Intelligence Agency combined with the counterintelligence and internal security divisions of the FBI.

Source: Wikipedia

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has taken a turn in running his democratic nation lately. Although Bush has "seen his soul," Putin is no pillar of democracy in any sense of the word. Putin, who spent most of his career as a KGB officer (from 1975 to 1991) and head of the FSB (the KGB's successor) from July 1998 to August 1999, has always been a prominent proponent of the old ways of Soviet Russia. And he is serving up their old tricks again.

"Putin has slowly dismantled democratic institutions, including taking over or closing all independent national television channels, establishing dominance of both houses of parliament, reasserting control over the country's huge energy industry and jailing or driving into exile business tycoons who have defied him." (Washington Post)

But what do you expect from a former intelligence officer turned politician turned president? I mean, could you imagine that happening in the United States? Oh wait, George Bush was head of the CIA under President Gerald Ford. (There is one subtle difference however: Bush was a politician turned intelligence director turned president.)

Source: Wikipedia

President Bush shirking on his National Guard duty is of great discussion recently. Bush has sternly refuted the facts that he left the Guard and did not return to fulfill his commitment while he was a young coked-up drunk more than 30 years ago.

However, without providing evidence of his presence at the base, which would prove he had fulfilled his commitment, Bush has opened the doors to criticism.

Texans for Truth, an organization bent on finding where Bush really was during those years, has offered $50,000 to anyone who can prove Bush fulfilled his duties in the Air National Guard. Garry Trudeau, creator of the comic strip Doonesbury, earlier this year "offered to donate $10,000 to the USO in the name of anyone who could provide similar evidence of Bush's service."

Source: Washington Post