The Jokes On US

Friends,
These are from Froomkin's Column from the Washington Post. The Cheney interview is unreal and W always comes through with some of his famous physdo-English and gravel headed assessments.
Peace and Love,
Rev O

Cheney Doesn't Care What You Think
"It's never exactly been a secret that Vice President Cheney operates by his own rules and thinks he knows better than the American public. But yesterday, he made it official.
Talking to ABC News's Martha Raddatz, in the piano lounge of the Shangri-La resort and spa in Oman, Cheney said he isn't the least bit concerned that the public overwhelmingly opposes the war in Iraq. In fact, it makes him identify with Abraham Lincoln."

Dream Interviews
"The leadership is in many ways very stubborn," he said. "Part of the problem is that it's very hard for people to trust the Iranian government because they haven't told the full truth, and that's why the people of Iran have got to understand there are great suspicions right now, not only in the United States, but around the world. . . .
"Once a nation hasn't told the truth, it requires a lot of work to convince people that they'll be telling the truth in the future." ~W~ with a straight face. Can you say hypocritical?

Bush's Speech
I wrote in yesterday's column, Bush's Triumphalist Amnesia, about the colossal disconnect between rhetoric and reality in Bush's big speech on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.
Dan Eggen writes in today's Washington Post: "Bush's remarks, delivered to employees at the Pentagon, signaled a revival of the bold and optimistic rhetoric the administration regularly employed during the early years of the war. The president and his aides had largely abandoned such sweeping declarations of success over the past two years, as the carnage on the ground increased and public approval of the war plummeted. . . .
"In one disputed portion of his address, Bush resurrected assertions that Osama bin Laden and his followers have played a central role in the Iraq conflict. Bush suggested that a backlash among local Sunni Muslims to the group calling itself al-Qaeda in Iraq amounted to 'the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology and his terror network.'
"Many terrorism experts say there are few operational contacts between bin Laden's group and its Iraqi namesake, and they note that the group was formed only after the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is also considered a relatively small player in the constellation of insurgent forces battling U.S. and Iraqi forces, according to military, terrorism and intelligence experts.
"Paul R. Pillar, a retired senior CIA analyst who has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's run-up to the Iraq war, said much of Bush's speech 'could have been taken out of a speech five years ago.'
"'The rhetoric we hear in this speech is remarkably similar to the rhetoric we were hearing at the start,' said Pillar, who helped prepare CIA intelligence estimates that warned of the violence that would follow the invasion. 'The same case is being made for sustaining a presence in Iraq as was made to go into Iraq in the first place.'"
Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush brought up al-Qaida 14 times Wednesday in a 26-minute speech marking the anniversary of the Iraq war. He wasn't coy about his point: If America stops fighting in Iraq, there could well be new attacks at home by Osama bin Laden's terror network. . . .
"In talking about al-Qaida in his address, Bush never used the actual name -- al-Qaida in Iraq -- of the shadowy Sunni-based extremist group that, though weakened, still operates as a major killer there. By only referring to 'al-Qaida,' he was suggesting that the Iraq group and bin Laden's al-Qaida are one and the same.
"The Iraq insurgency is believed to be foreign-led and pledges loyalty to the international terrorist network. But though the terms are often used interchangeably, particularly by military or administration officials, there is little or no evidence of coordination between the two groups. Experts question how closely they are even associated. . . .
"And Bush's assertion that Iraqi militants aim to wage attacks on American soil is questionable.
"Al-Qaida in Iraq did not exist before the U.S. invasion. It is mostly homegrown, with its rank and file almost all Iraqis, and was created afterward to fight the American presence and establish an Islamic fundamentalist state in Iraq. There has been no evidence presented that the group is plotting or intends attacks outside of Iraq."
Ewen MacAskill writes in the Guardian: "Bush's comments amounted to his most upbeat assessment of the war since his famous 'mission accomplished' speech on a US aircraft carrier in May 2003.
"Since then, Iraq has been convulsed by Sunni and Shia insurgencies against the US-led coalition and vicious sectarian killings. The Iraq Body Count group, in a survey on behalf of the Guardian that looked at the death toll province by province, yesterday put the number of civilian deaths at 89,322.
"These are based on reported deaths, as opposed to other surveys that offer estimates and put the toll at between 600,000 and 1 million. The number of US soldiers killed is 3,990, and the British military death toll 175.
"Bush did not mention the failure to find Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the stated reason for war, but returned to the theme, warning that a hasty US withdrawal could lead to an emboldened al-Qaida, with access to Iraq's oil resources, pursuing 'its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations'.
"The cost of the war is estimated at between half a trillion and 3 trillion dollars. Bush said the latter figure was exaggerated, but did not provide one of his own.
"With less than a year left in office, the president is a largely isolated figure. Most of the neo-conservatives who pressed him to go to war have gone.
"The fragile multinational coalition Bush put together has also largely disappeared, with countries having either abandoned the war or left token forces behind."