George W. Bush

According to the Politico, the McCain Campaign will announce McCain’s Vice Presidential choice on August 29th.  It’s an interesting day to pick, since it’s the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, as slinkerwink pointed out over at DailyKos.  Why does this matter?  Well, on August 29th, 2005 John McCain and George W. Bush were together in Arizona, happily celebrating John’s Birthday.  They joked, and laughed, and had a wonderful time; and they ate lots of cake.  In New Orleans people were dying.

John McCain was complicit in the tragic lack of response to the worst natural disaster in our nation’s history.  He was too busy eating cake with his pal George W. Bush to care about the people of New Orleans.

Looks like the conflict between Russia and Georgia has just escalated.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin declared that “war has started” and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia accused Russia of a “well-planned invasion,” saying he had mobilized Georgia’s military reserves.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

The White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said the Bush administration had been talking to both sides to resolve the crisis.

“We urge restraint on all sides — that violence would be curtailed and that direct dialogue could ensue in order to help resolve their differences,” she said.

The European Union and NATO also called Friday for Russia and Georgia to end the hostilities.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a statement calling on both sides to use “the greatest prudence and restraint” and “to halt the use of force immediately.”

We’re worse off then we were four years ago.

Yes, we are.  And that’s a direct result of the Bush Administration and Republican Congress.  McCain campaign vigorously for Bush in 2004 and has been a supporter of Bush’s policies in Congress.  Yes, we are worse off than four years ago; it’s McCain’s fault.

Only McCain has taken on Big Tabacco, Drug Companies, fought corruption in both parties, he’ll reform Wall Street, battle Big Oil.

Well that list is full of more lies than I can count.  McCain supported the Medicare “reform” that forced Medicare to not negotiate for drug prices, costing taxpayers and seniors billions of extra dollars to pay for medicine.  As for corruption, John McCain sure knows about that: I’ll refer you to The Keating Five.

He’s the original maverick.  One is ready to lead.

No, he’s been a party line guy who has taken a few different positions here and there to cultivate the maverick image.  He’s no maverick though.  He rubber-stamped Bush policies for eight years and drove this country into ruin.  John McCain is not offering change.  He’s offering more of the same.

This is what Obama needs to keep doing: tie McCain to Bush and our economic problems.

President Bush authorized the execution of Army Private Ronald A. Grayyesterday.  Gray was convicted of committing numerous rapes and murders in the 1980’s and has been in prison (Fort Leavenworth) on death row.  In military cases, a death sentence must be authorized by the Commander in Chief before it is carried out.  The last time this occurred was when President Eisenhower authorized an execution in 1957.

I oppose the death penalty, and I wish we could move past it as a nation.  I think it’s a violation of our constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.  Further, since the punishment is so permanent, it requires that we know for certain in each case that the convicted person is actually guilty.  We certainly don’t know with 100% certainty in every case.

That being said, I can’t necessarily fault the President for this.  Gray committed some horrible acts, and surely deserves what’s coming to him.  I think it would have been a better decision if President Bush had commuted Gray’s death sentence to life in prison instead.

Posted By: Nick

 
Bruce Ackerman writes in Slate about the possibility of a constitution crisis should both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency become vacant at the same time.  Apparently Bush (like Reagan did) issued an executive order defining the presidential succession.  Why would this be needed considering we already have a succession laid out in the Consitution?  That is unclear, but it sure seems like a power grab in the event of another major terrorist attack.

[W]hen [President Bush] issued a public directive on the matter on continuity in government in 2007, he explicitly pledged to act “consistent[ly]” with the Presidential Succession Act. At the same time, however, his directive refers to a secret appendix. And as Ron Rosenbaum pointed out in Slate, even members of the House Committee on Homeland Security have been denied access to the document.

That is pretty frightening.  That Members of Congress aren’t allowed to see what changes the President might have ordered to the Presidential Succession is surely a major consitutional violation.  In fact, simply changing it at all is a constitutional violation.

I’m not sure how this can be resolved, but clearly this needs to be looked into.  If Ackerman is right, and something were to happen to Bush and Cheney… we could be facing a crisis like none we’ve seen before.

Posted By: Nick

 
OK, maybe not everyone.  But President Bush held a press conference about the economy and Barack Obama gave a speech about Iraq to follow up on his Op-Ed from yesterday.

The President said the economy really isn’t that bad and any problems we do have are the Democrats fault.  Thanks for informing us George.  And then he offered up this wonderful insight:

Bush acknowledged it could take years before opening the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling would result in increased U.S. production. But, he said, at least it would put the nation on the right track toward reducing its reliance on imported oil.

Brilliant.  What is it?  6 more months of this guy?  Ugh….

Obama is still talking as I write this, but since the campaign releases advanced copies of the speech (and it’s basically just saying what his NYTimes Op-Ed said) we already know what it’s all about.

“This 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,” Obama will say, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks.

I’m sure the McCain campaign has an opinion on some (all?) of these issues, but who really cares, right?