Bush/Cheney divide?

[Muffin]

@SteveG1

It isn’t partisan at all. If the case to be made is that the USA was lied to and manipulated into war for personal glory, personal profit or pure poltical expediency, then it is not partisan whining, it is good old patriotism to impeach, indict, and convict the traitors who did it. - Usint “traitor” in the most general sense, not in the legalistic sense - I clarify, to avoid semantic derailments.

Oh for the good old days, when all you had to do to get rid of a lying president was to give him a blow job. But today, of nearly three-hundred million citizens, not one can be found to go down on him. Those liberals just don’t have the patriotism to get the (blow) job done.

[SteveG1]

@Muffin

Oh for the good old days, when all you had to do to get rid of a lying president was to give him a blow job. But today, of nearly three-hundred million citizens, not one can be found to go down on him. Those liberals just don’t have the patriotism to get the (blow) job done.

It’s a shame I tell ya. There were plenty of people who wanted to ruin Willy, but nobody wants to step up and go after Georgie. I’m hoping that guy Fitzgerald still has some cards up his sleeve, or that some high placed functionary turns on George to save himself.

[Fear_Itself]

@Muffin

Those liberals just don’t have the patriotism to get the (blow) job done.

Who needs liberals when you have Jeff Gannon? I’ll bet he is dying to get him some presidential pork sword.

[rjung]

@Squink

@mswas

There are lots of Republicans coming around to seeing that Bush is an idiot.

That’s why Bush’s approval rating amongst republicans is still hanging at ~76%, right?

Hey, a 24% dissention level is high for Republicans these days…

[Measure_for_Measure]

IIRC, Capitol Hill Blue has been spinning stories of dubious merit for some time. IMO, they may very well be pure fabrication.

Ok, now let’s try for some substantiation.

1. The author does not live in Washington DC. cite. Presumably, he gets his tips by telephone.

2. According to CHB, Bush has been drooling off camera for some time. Here’s what they had to say in June 2004:

In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”

Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.

“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”

Sounds a lot like the current article, ya? http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml

3. Who are the anonymous White House aides? Why don’t these juicy tidbits reach any other reporters?

4. Don’t get me wrong though. There is some evidence of W becoming more testy. I’m just saying we need a better cite.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@mswas

I’m not right wing.
I don’t like either party. I heard really stupid shit out of liberal mouths about how much smarter they were than red states.

The red states aren’t more moral, and the blue states aren’t smarter, that’s all I’m saying. They are equally moral and intelligent.

1. The red state/blue state distinction is a vast oversimplification. For one thing, there are plenty of Bush supporters in blue states, and liberals in red states.

2. With all due respect, without a specific example I can’t evaluate what you allegedly have heard from liberal mouths.

3. Insiders have noted the dearth of policy analysis at the upper reaches of Bush’s White House. This is a marked departure from previous administrations, Democrat or Republican. The “Reality Based Community” quote comes from a NYT magazine article written by a business reporter who explored this issue.

4a. That said, 4 out of 5 Republicans surveyed approve of the job that Bush is doing. That ratio has stayed pretty constant regardless of what revelations have taken place (Katrina, etc.)

4b. To me, this rigidity in the face of new information does not imply stupidity. Instead, it indicates a delusional attachment to feel-good spin. The issue is one of character on the individual level, not technical capacity.

5. The modern Republican party is a coalition of religious and market fundamentalists: neither are especially empirical, alas. Luckily, there is evidence that the current arrangement is fraying.
   IMHO, there is a decent chance that McCain will be nominated by the Repubs in 2008. If this happens, I predict that he will win and US policy discussion will become more interesting and less tragic.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@rjung

Hey, a 24% dissention level is high for Republicans these days…

True.

“Nearly all polls, including the NBC and Pew surveys, found Bush’s approval ratings among his Republican base holding strong at more than 80 percent.”
Humanitarian | Thomson Reuters Foundation News (13 Oct 2005)

Even more disturbing than the level of approval is the way that it is maintained in the face of revelations of cronyism and deception on matters of national security and war.

[Kimstu]

@Muffin

Oh for the good old days, when all you had to do to get rid of a lying president was to give him a blow job.

Um, as near as I can remember, it didn’t even get rid of him. Hell, it didn’t even make him unpopular as a President. Sure chased everything else off the front page and out of the political agenda, though.

@M4M

I’m just saying we need a better cite.

Oh, no question: I said back when I posted those CHB quotes that it was just unverifiable political insider gossip.

It isn’t just CHB that says that kind of thing, though. For example, here’s an article from the New York Daily News along the same lines (although once again, there are no independently verifiable facts in it, just quotes from anonymous “insiders”):

Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it. Lately, however, some junior staffers have also faced the boss’ wrath.

“This is not some manager at McDonald’s chewing out the help,” said a source with close ties to the White House when told about these outbursts. “This is the President of the United States, and it’s not a pleasant sight.” […]

Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the “blame game.” They describe him as beset but unbowed, convinced that history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency even if they damage him and his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

At the same time, these sources say Bush, who has a long history of keeping staffers in their place, has lashed out at aides as his political woes have mounted.

“The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about,” said one Bush insider. “Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share.”

The vice president remains Bush’s most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics.

Bush is so dismayed that “the only person escaping blame is the President himself,” said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration “illogical.”

A second senior Bush loyalist disagreed, saying Bush knows “some of these things are self-inflicted,” like the Miers nomination, where Bush jettisoned contrary advice from his advisers and appointed his longtime personal lawyer.

“He must know that the way he did that, relying on his own judgment and instinct, was not good,” another key adviser said.

( :eek: Did he say what I think he said? Did a “loyalist” key adviser to the President of the United States casually acknowledge that he can’t be trusted to make good decisions “relying on his own judgment”? Is this worrisome, or is it just me?)

[kaylasdad99]

@Daily News articla quoted by Kimstu

The vice president remains Bush’s most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics.

Heh. George Bush seems to imply that he wasn’t quite “in the loop.”

Now what does that remind me of?

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Kimstu

Oh, no question: I said back when I posted those CHB quotes that it was just unverifiable political insider gossip.

I haven’t looked into this in depth, but I’m not convinced that CHB is really a political insider. If I’m correct, we should ignore him as a source, since we’re dealing with fabrication. If I am incorrect, then I would like to see at least some evidence of his bona fides. The fact that the guy doesn’t even live in DC tingles my spider-sense.

Thanks for linking to the Daily News article (which has been getting a fair amount of buzz). This is the sort of (weak) evidence that we should sift through, IMHO. Unlike CHB, the Daily News at least has sueable pockets.

Kimstu, you might enjoy these comments by Paul Begala about the dynamics inside a White House under siege. http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/26/23727/338

The pressure of a federal criminal investigation - especially one in the media spotlight - is bone-crushing. My guess is that the strain is taking a gruesome toll. Already we hear rumors of President Bush exploding at his aides, at the President blaming Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, and anyone else in sight for his woes.

This I know first hand: when The Boss explodes like that, there are two kinds of aides – those who fight and those who flee. When he came to Washington, Mr. Bush surrounded himself with tough-minded people who seemed not to be afraid to stand up to him. But now his team is loaded with weak-kneed toadies, and Mr. Bush is home alone.

Continuing the tangent, Charlie Cook has penned a list of A-level Republicans who could and should be called in to shore up this administration. Among their key qualifications is their ability to walk out the door should they be encouraged to unduly compromise their integrity.

[Squink]

@Measure for Measure

I haven’t looked into this in depth, but I’m not convinced that CHB is really a political insider.

Although Capitol Hill Blue used to be reliable enough that even december would use it as a source, the rag has taken some pretty serious hits in the last couple years. Treat it as porn, and you won’t find yourself backed into a corner by angry people screaming for a legitimate cite.