Do they make rose-colored bi-focals?

Hopefully you all remember a moment back in January when Sen. McCain said; "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."

He wasn't just whistling Dixie… he REALLY doesn't understand economics, as evidenced by a quote from him this morning after the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 300 points, Lehman Brothers announced they were filing for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch was forced to sell itself.

McCain; "… the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

Really? They're strong?

It didn't take McCain long to start back-peddling as he tried to amend his words later today by redefining the word "fundamentals", saying; "The American worker and their innovation and their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they're strong."

See what he did there? He's redefined the words he used so now if you say there's something wrong with the economy, you're insulting the American worker…

Very Rovian tactic there… redefine, then offer sound bite after sound bite that you're the only one able to fix the economy.

How? I'd like to know how exactly he's going to fix it…after all, his economic policies aren't any different than Bush's policies… and it's Bush's policies that ignited this economic slowdown in the first place.

Moving the goalposts every time your rhetoric doesn't fit the facts is insulting to our intelligence.

Tell me Mr. McCain; if the fundamentals are strong, why is the dollar so low?
Why is unemployment increasing?

Why is the trade deficit increasing?

Entrepreneurs and small businesses are getting screwed with their pants on in today's economy as they're less likely to be able to afford health insurance for themselves and their workers or compete with the Big Box stores that enjoy tax breaks and the like,

Obama's campaign jumped on McCain's slip-up, issuing a statement that says; "Today of all days, John McCain's stubborn insistence that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' shows that he is disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans. Even as his own ads try to convince him that the economy is in crisis, apparently his 26 years in Washington have left him incapable of understanding that the policies he supports have created an historic economic crisis," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton."

Oh, and by the way… the Dow closed 500 points lower this afternoon, its worst point drop in seven years.

So tell us again Mr. McCain… how is the economy ‘strong’?

A-ha!

I’ve been saying it for years… the Bush(whacked) Administration looks at the Iraq war through rose-colored glasses… well, today they finally admitted it.

During a White House press briefing earlier today, deputy spokesman Tony Fratto responded to a question about the rising violence in Iraq and said;

“I think we have thrown out all of the rose-colored glasses in how we look at Iraq and try to look at it through clear lenses as to what is going on in the country.”

Ignoring for a moment the fact that this administration has no idea what the hell is going on in their own country let alone a country thousand and thousand of miles away, how is this in any way acceptable? The US government should not be looking at anything through rose-colored glasses, especially something as important and as deadly as a war…

The fact that they have not been looking at the war with any objectivity to success or failure (with the glasses Iraq was always going to be a success), is not only downright shameful on the part of Bush and his administration, but, dare I say, negligent.

I think we may finally have a wholly-impeachable offense…

It's a rose-colored hue, why do you ask?

As if you needed more proof that “President” Bush just doesn’t get it… here’s another example:

Speaking before the Republican Governors Association yesterday, Bush took a moment to predict the future, claiming Americans will ultimately be thankful for his foreign policy decisions, saying; “I believe 50 years from now, people will look back at this period of time, and say, thank God the United States of America did not lose its faith in the transformative power of liberty to bring the peace we want for our children and our grandchildren.”

And what color is the sky in your world Mr. Bush?

Spinning something that can't be spun... again

Yesterday I posted about how, in the eyes of the Bush(whacked) Administration, that an up-tick in violence in Afghanistan was a good thing… and this administration's knack of spinning bad things as good. They’re doing it again...

This time it’s healthcare.

Back in 2000, the WHO ranked the US 37th in health care out of 191 countries… not soon after, “President” Bush said; “we have fabulous health care.” All fine and good, but when millions of your citizens aren’t covered, something’s amiss… and it’s not fabulous.

Fast-forward to this week and OMB Director Jim Nussle echoing Bush’s inaccurate claim while explaining Bush’s new (historical – and not in a good way) budget... that US healthcare is the “best,” saying;

“So beneficiaries, I don’t think, will see the differences. … We have the best health care in the world. And our seniors especially get great health care. And that will not be affected by this small drop in percentage increases over the next five years.”

He apparently wants all of us to ignore the $200 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts over the next five years, which will make the dismal state of U.S. health care even worse… yes, that’s possible. Scary, but possible…

The way that Bush’s budget cuts Medicaid, by $18.2 billion over five years, essentially shifts costs to the states and thus will force the states to institute even bigger program cuts or tax increases to cover the expenses. So who gets screwed in the end? Well, it’s the Bush(whacked) Administration… so naturally it will be the little guy… and senior citizens, and in turn the people that care for them.

Nussle wasn’t done spinning as he continued by saying that Medicare “access and quality should not suffer at all.”

Uh-huh… why do I not believe that? And I’m not the only one, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) also disagrees, strongly;

“Many of the proposed cuts go well beyond the reductions that MedPAC, Congress’ expert advisory commission on Medicare payments, recommended and considers safe. […] These reductions could drive some health care providers to limit the number of Medicare patients they see or drop out of the program entirely. That, in turn, would jeopardize health care for significant numbers of people who are elderly or have serious disabilities.”

Remember that a majority of Medicare savings would be achieved by reducing the annual update in federal payments to hospitals, many of which service large numbers of the uninsured… thus creating an incredibly large lack of funds to help the uninsured…

Bush is a lame duck and it’s high time Congress starts treating him like one. They need to get it through his thick skull that he’s screwed up big time and that he needs to stop doing stupid things before he pushes the populace even further into an economic pit of darkness… the likes of which this country has not seen in a very long time.

As if his legacy is not battered enough and rife with both moral and fiscal irresponsibility, he has to pull something like this in the last act of what is a very sad presidency… and an even sadder time in the history of the United States.

Spinning something that can't be spun

Once again the unique way this administration views things is coming to the front… and by unique I mean naïve, inane, muddled…

Two reports are being released this week, one from The Atlantic Council of the United States (ACUS) and the other from Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP), and both paint starkly negative views about Afghanistan (AKA The War that George Forgot).

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones led the ACUS report which concludes that

“progress achieved after six years” in Afghanistan “is under serious threat. […] Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan,”

This is not totally suprsiring as many critics have been saying that the success of ousting the Taliban and, in turn, putting al-Qaeda on the run has been ebbed by the lack of attention this adminstration has paid to that war… now it’s getting a little more attention with the release of these reports.

Though that isn’t going to stop the Bush(whacked) Administration from donning its rose-colored glasses and spinning the violence that has befell the country.

Case in point; Defense Secretary Robert Gates…

Gates is not only downplaying the upswing in violence in Afghanistan but is trying to spin the violence the administration is acknowledging as being good…

You read that right… something that most 5-year olds can distinguish between, violence is bad, no violence is good, is being spun as good by a supposed intelligent adult.

Last week Gates attempted to claim that “NATO has had a very successful year in 2007″ and that the significant increase in suicide bombings in 2007 was the “manifestations of a group that has lost in regular military terms.”I’m sorry… what? An increase in violence is a positive? Are we living in opposite land?

And what’s more, Gates wasn’t done… while he admitted that there is a “rising security issue” there, he spun that by saying that that was because the Taliban are turning to terrorism, having failed in conventional military conflict with the NATO allies…

Huh?

Maybe reading his whole comment verbatim would clear it up…

““And so we are seeing more suicide bombings, more use of (improvised explosive devices), and so on. These are actions of people whose conventional military efforts have failed,” […] The rise in violence and attacks like we saw in Kabul are manifestations of a group that has lost in regular military terms in 2007 and is turning to terrorism as a substitute for that.”

Yeah, that didn’t work…

Granted, spinning an upward spike in violence as signs of progress is a common Bush(whacked) Administration tactic used in Iraq as well as Afghanistan… in fact, ThinkProgress even reminds us of some of them:

June 2007, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow described intense new levels of violence in Iraq as “signs of success.”

May 2005, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared “So suicide attacks, whether in Okinawa or in Baghdad today, are not a sign of strength. They’re a sign of desperation.”

March 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney brushed off the (insurgent) attacks as a sign of ‘desperation’ among U.S. foes…

What I see reek is more so a sign of desperation from this administration… trying to tie an increase of attacks and overall violence as any kind of success… it just doesn’t work that way, no matter what political ideologies you may have. So allow me to put this into words that even Bush could understand;

More violence… baaaaaaaaad.

Less violence… goooooooood.

Is there a way to ingrain this into the administration’s collective brain?I didn’t think so…

One last 'Snow' job?

In his address to the nation Thursday night, “President” Bush told us that he would endorse a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq, saying;

“At the same time, they understand that [Iraq’s] success will require U.S. political, economic and security engagement that extends beyond my Presidency. These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America. And we are ready to begin building that relationship.”

Uh-huh…

This morning, outgoing White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was interviewed on CNN;

Q: How long are we going to be in Iraq? Because the President last night was setting the stage for a long-term relationship with the Iraqis, which would include a U.S. military presence there.

SNOW: Yeah, well, the Iraqis want that.

Ummmmmmm.. not so fast there Tony… I think you may be wrong about that.

An ABC News/BBC/NHK survey of Iraqis released earlier this week showed that 79% of Iraqis oppose a U.S. presence and 57% approve of the insurgent attacks on U.S. troops…

But the Iraq people want our troops to stay…

Let me ask you a question Tony, was the lobotomy expensive or were you and the rest of the Bush-cronies able to get a group rate?

The GAO vs the gop

We know that there has been little to no progress in Iraq… we know that the Bush(whacked) Administration is ‘cooking the books’ on the amount of violence… we know that republicans are starting to get desperate… so it should come as NO surprise that a republican would attack the GAO’s Iraq report…

This time it’s Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (r-FL) claiming that the GAO isn’t qualified to pass judgement.

Earlier this week at a House International Relations Committee hearing, ranking member Ros-Lehtinen tried to claim that the GAO was unqualified to render a judgment on the situation in Iraq and described the process of accountability as “unsettling,” saying; “I just feel uncomfortable listening to a report by the Government Accountability Office about a war effort.”

The accusations drew a critical response from GAO Comptroller General David Walker, who responded by defending the agency’s experience in such matters explaining that the work the GAO does is based on “looking at hard data, interviewing qualified individuals, and appropriate parties have an opportunity to review and comment on our work.” So in other words, they do the exact opposite of the Bush White House.

Walker continued by arguing that military experience is not a necessary requirement to offer a qualified opinion; “The President and the Vice President have no military or foreign policy experience. Does that mean I don’t respect their opinion? I do. They’ve got a lot of people who work for them that do. So I think it’s a false claim to say you know we’re not qualified to do this work. We’re eminently qualified to do this work. […] For the record, It’s my understanding that Secretary of Defense Gates does not have any military experience either. So frankly, I think we need to stick with the facts.”

(Facts? Facts? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts… just give us propaganda, thank you very much…)

As it stands now, Bush is desperately trying to keep republicans behind the surge and Ros-Lehtinen has drank the kool-aid while wearing the official Bush rose-colored glasses and has fallen in line, going as far as criticizing the GAO.

It seems to me that the gop could and would be better served by sticking to their old tenets of smaller government and fiscal responsibility rather than drinking the Kool-Aid of Bush and his merry band of cronies.

After all, Bush, like Tony Soprano, is the opposite of Midas – everything he touches turns to shit...