reyonthehill

In a speech today... "This war [the Iraq war] distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe." Hear, hear.

7:44am
Bush: "We understood what was coming." We just didn't do anything about it.

7:47am
Bush: "Is this a war? Or is this like law enforcement?"

7:48am
Bush: "One front is going better than the other, and that is Iraq. Afghanistan is a tough fight. Afghanistan is reminiscent of what was going on in Iraq a couple years ago."

7:50am
Bush: "I hope that whoever follows me realizes that we are at war. This is an ideological struggle that we are in. These people kill for a reason."

7:54am
Bush: "The people will decide whether to drive more or less. If people are not in their home, they will not leave the air conditioning running."

7:54am
Bush: "I bet, on the whole, people will use less gasoline. I bet that will happen."

7:58am
Bush disregard the effects of speculators jin the energy market, although he admits "there is volatility in the market."

7:59am
Bush: "The [energy/oil] industry has changed."

8:02am
Bush: "I am an optimist and I see things that are good with the economy."

8:03am
Bush: "We need to send a signal that we are willing to explore for oil here at home." A signal.

Barack Obama penned an op-ed for the New York Times...

We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

[...]

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.

Chuck Hagel would be my choice for Obama's VP, and he will be traveling with the Illinois senator on a trip to Iraq, so hopefully that conversation will continue on the plane.

Will Bush face trial at the Hague after his term ends?

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," [Maj. Gen. Antonio] Taguba [the Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, who's now retired] wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote.

A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.

I'm utterly amazed that an administration that has insisted it was "listening to the generals on the ground" has no comment when one said general says that the president is a war criminal.

This was too boring, although, I guess, the content was so real, it should not have been boring. Either way, I fell asleep. Here is the weird thing. The narrator speaks French. It does not say that anywhere in the description of the DVD. There are English subtitles for the French narration (which stopped after the very beginning, or so I assume, since I fell asleep), but there are French subtitles for the Iraqi voices. So I have no idea what the Iraqis were saying, not because the moviemaker wanted to convey the confusion of an American soldier in Iraq, but because he decided to subtitle the Iraqi speech in French. None of this, I will reiterate, was explained on the DVD. And in the DVD options, I had two choices for subtitles -- none or Spanish.

(Returned 06/02/08.)

Rent with Netflix.

- I live in a new urbanist neighborhood in the bay area, so I am biased on the subject, but it seems that my hometown (and the surrounding Buffalo region) is having a difficult time accepting the concept of walkable communities, which is a shame.

- Hillary Clinton won California -- somewhat handily -- in the February primary, but Barack Obama "is now preferred as the party nominee by a landslide 51 to 38 percent," undercutting the New York senator's argument that she is more electable in the general election.

- The press should stop covering the stupid things that stupid pastors say. Pastors are inconsequential. (And god doesn't exist. There, I said it.)

- And aside from moderating the worst debate in modern history just last month, ABC News' Charlie Gibson claims that the press did nothing wrong in the run-up to the Iraq war. "I think the questions were asked [before the war began]. It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions." You're right, it is not your job to debate them. But it is your job to question their answers. And that is where the media failed.

- Listening to Bush, McCain and the republican talk machine, the surge is "working," however April has been "the deadliest month [for U.S. forces] since September."

- The president has received a stay-of-execution (of sorts) with the report that the economy grew at 0.6% in the first quarter, and did not contract.

- And the inventor of LSD, or "acid," has died at age 102. "I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it."

Just another notch in Bush's belt... A new poll finds "63% of Americans saying the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq... surpassing by two points the 61% who said the Vietnam War was a mistake in May 1971." (via Dan Froomkin)

Worrying about his tainted legacy, the president wonders if he should have campaigned differently...