WP,pg1: Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush

[DeepModem Mom]

Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 19, 2006; Page A01

....Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress....The sense of Bush abandonment accelerated during the final weeks of the campaign with the publication of a former aide's book accusing the White House of moral hypocrisy and with Vanity Fair quoting (Kenneth) Adelman, Richard N. Perle and other neoconservatives assailing White House leadership of the war....

***

Some insiders said the White House invited the backlash. "Anytime anyone holds themselves up as holy, they're judged by a different standard," said David Kuo, a former deputy White House director of faith-based initiatives who wrote "Tempting Faith," a book that accused the White House of pandering to Christian conservatives. "And at the end of the day, this was a White House that held itself up as holy."...

***

The arc of Bush's second term has shown that the most powerful criticism originates from the inside. The pragmatist crowd around Colin L. Powell began speaking out nearly two years ago after he was eased out as secretary of state. Powell lieutenants such as Haass, Richard L. Armitage, Carl W. Ford Jr. and Lawrence B. Wilkerson took public the policy debates they lost on the inside. Many who worked in Iraq returned deeply upset and wrote books such as "Squandered Victory" (Larry Diamond) and "Losing Iraq" (David L. Phillips). Military and CIA officials unloaded after leaving government, culminating in the "generals' revolt" last spring when retired flag officers called for Rumsfeld's dismissal.

On the domestic side, Bush allies in Congress, interest groups and the conservative media broke their solidarity with the White House out of irritation over a number of issues, including federal spending, illegal immigration, the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, the response to Hurricane Katrina and the Dubai port deal.

Most striking lately, though, has been the criticism from neoconservatives who provided the intellectual framework for Bush's presidency....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111801076.html

[williesgirl]

1. Rats deserting sinking ship - they all deserve each other - recommended

[Subdivisions]

2. .

[Aristus]

6. You mean: "ships deserting the sinking rat."

That's more like it. B-)

[Spiffarino]

34. Yep. And now they're trying to save their own guilty asses.

Let's not let them get away with it. The president is ultimately responsible, but they bear responsibility for plying Bush with all of the stupid plans he executed. They must be banned from ever being involved in the United States government.

[wordpix]

53. deserve each other and deserve their just desserts: jail & liquidate their assets!

[drb]

3. So, for the last year of his pResidency, the shrub is a virtual prisoner in the White House...

Pickles and Barney are back at the ranch, as she can no longer take the constant yelling and drum beats outside the gates. Sleep comes hard, and he's never seen without a bottle nearby.

All of his cabinet members refuse to attend meetings with him and have chosen to have "informal weekly chat sessions" with Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean instead. The secret service guards do their duty as loyally as ever, but refuse to utter a single word to him; they merely stare blankly until an order is given, then silently carry out the order. The white house staff have largely quit in disgust, leaving only one housekeeper who is three months away from a full-pension retirement and one cook. The cook is disgusted with him and mostly just cooks for herself and the secret service, leaving georgie to sneak into the kitchen when no one is around and scrounge through the fridge for left-over ribs.

As lonliness invades his very bones, he calls for a helicopter to take him to Camp David. It never comes.

The chants and drumbeats grow louder every night.

[comtec]

24. LOL Please stop! :)

I can't handle any more hopefulness!
I was happy enough that we swept congress, but to think that chimpinator might actually totally melt down (before impeachment/conviction and removal) is just too much to hope for... sadly as is impeachment.

What I truly despair about is that all these scum bags that caused this mess, the deaths, et al, will get away, with well.. murder. They will get away because once they leave the administration that's it. free pass etc. That's why everyone is jumping NOW, so that when the investigations (even that is impossible to stop now) begin they will be far far away and untouched, in all likelihood.

but it is a pleasant thought. The sad thing is that the country may be in a massive mess when all this happens. with literally things burning in the street.

Lets hope the truth comes out. It's obvious he's been on the juice and blow since his re-election campaign. As mark Maron pointed out he was well on the way to collapse if he lost. It seemed at times he wanted to loose, but the underground power refused to let him go. He's been much more lackluster this term than his first. in two years he's gone from mildly amusing to a total embarrassment. This from a person who would turn OFF any sound of him giving a speech since day one.

Oh well all we can do is what we've been doing. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Democracy only happens when the people demand it.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

25. I think this picture, taken the other day during his APEC jaunt, is so telling.

I used it in an OP yesterday, however, it bears reposting.



MKJ

[lonestarnot]

31. Heh heh heh!

[namvet73]

35. Heh Heh, DUH!

[KitSileya]

40. I don't know much about alcoholics

but that tell-tale red nose... isn't that a typical symptom? And is that a bruise on his cheeck?

[Bad Penny]

42. very much so

and his face has continually displayed the hashmarks of a fall down drunk since day 1

[Heywood J]

63. That, and

he looks extremely old compared to how how he used to be allowed out in public (e.g. hair dye, makeup). I think that's a sign that even his handlers are letting go. Not that they used to have much of a grip on him anyway, but...

[LuckyLib]

33. LOL! I love the part about scrounging the fridge for left-over ribs!

No doubt all that's in there is row after row of Lone Star.

[judaspriestess]

4. to the repuke congress and senate

you need to stand by your man. stupid is as stupid does!!

[Disturbed]

7. Most people don't like a loser.

Busholini is a loser. He is an arrogant, phoney, incompetent person who only got to where he is because of his family backing, money and connections. Now they can't seem to bail him out as they have done all of his life.

[Captain Hilts]

5. It could be worse. He could be in Iraq....if he's looking for 'sympathy'...

he'll find it between 'shit' and 'syphllis' in the dictionary.

[WCGreen]

8. the intellectual framework for Bush's presidency....

I didn't think there was such a thing...

[CatWoman]

9. but.....but....

the Democrats are DIVIDED!!!

Nancy Peolsi comes from SAN FRANCISCO!!!!

Jack Murtha is the Devil's brother!!!!

Hillary didn't flush the toilet after using it!!!!

Let's talk about what's important here :sarcasm:

[CatWoman]

10. oh yeah

THE DEMOCRATS DON'T HAVE A PLAN!!!!

[kentuck]

11. Yeah?? I thought it was the Democrats that were divided...

So confusing....cannot compute...blip...

[CatWoman]

12. LOLOLOLOLOL

:hi:

[kentuck]

15. You're too cool, CatWoman !

:hi:

[KharmaTrain]

61. We ARE Divided

Some of us say boooshie should be drawn and quartered...others say he should be tar and feathered. Half want to impeach him immediately, the other half wants to just ship him the the Hague and let them take care of this oxygen thief.

:hi:

Cheers...

[SquireJons]

19. "Hillary didn't flush the toilet after using it!!!!"

Plus, she left the toilet seat up again.
Opps... that's a dead givaway.

[MADem]

20. Talk about what's important? Well, if ya look at the news, it's TomKat and OJ!!! NT

[zulchzulu]

13. The real tragedy is that we have to wait for Chimpy to self-destruct

So many innocent lives, so much money, so much shame that we have this buffoon as President...I wish karma was a bit quicker...

[puebloknot]

14. I think we make our own karma.

Richard Dreyfuss said it last night on Bill Maher's show: (Paraphrasing) "It is our civic duty to impeach, and if impeachment fails, we have created a record and a protest, as a nation, against this rogue administration."

[wordpix]

57. if Dems tell their Congressmen to impeach, we now have the power so let's use it!

Is there any greater impeachable offense than going to war on false pretenses? :shrug: :puke:

[Cha]

29. Right!!~ Cause the American Corporate

Media wouldn't do their jobs right and give the world full disclosure on the bushevits. They should be indicted right along side the chimpster.

[Oilwellian]

16. What a big pile of caca

Re: Adelman

Most troubling, he said, are his shattered ideals: "The whole philosophy of using American strength for good in the world, for a foreign policy that is really value-based instead of balanced-power-based, I don't think is disproven by Iraq. But it's certainly discredited."

Yeah, right, as if...."using American strength for good in the world" is the biggest pile of horse shit there ever was. The neocons are all about power and greed ... raping countries of their natural resources and killing those who get in the way.

Thank God the SS Bush has hit an iceberg.

[wishlist]

17. These guys are still delusional and in denial, scrambling for excuses

"In an interview last week, Perle said the administration's big mistake was occupying the country rather than creating an interim Iraqi government led by a coalition of exile groups to take over after Hussein was toppled. "If I had known that the U.S. was going to essentially establish an occupation, then I'd say, 'Let's not do it,' " and instead find another way to target Hussein, Perle said. "It was a foolish thing to do."

This statement above makes no sense since we did place exiles in place including Chalabi and apparently paid big bucks to get them involved but it backfired.

"Joshua Muravchik, a neoconservative at the American Enterprise Institute, said he is distressed "to see neocons turning on Bush" but said he believes they should admit mistakes and openly discuss what went wrong. "All of us who supported the war have to share some of the blame for that," he said. "There's a question to be sorted out: whether the war was a sound idea but very badly executed. And if that's the case, it appears to me the person most responsible for the bad execution was Rumsfeld, and it means neocons should not get too angry at Bush about that."

Vision test
"It may also be, he said, that the mistake was the idea itself -- that Iraq could serve as a democratic beacon for the Middle East. "That part of our plan is down the drain," Muravchik said, "and we have to think about what we can do about keeping alive the idea of democrocy."

These guys are still delusional and shortsided to continue defending their original idea and justify the 'philosophy' behind invading Iraq, not admitting that the fundamental idea of using false pretenses to invade a country that was not a threat to U.S. was wrong, not just mismanaged.

[Amonester]

43. But... but... but... they didn't know Chalabi was, in reality, an Iranian

spy whose lifelong mission was, in fact, to 'make friends' with the stupid neo-CONservative republicans so the Iranian theocrats would finally win their previously lost war against then Raygun's ally Saddam Hussein, thus succeeding to get rid of their nemesis once and for all, using the American taxpayers's blood and money to win their Iran/Iraq war, two decades after...

Not only that, they even effectively managed to weaken the world's most powerful super-power at the same time! Pretty awesome 'chess players' if you'd ask me... Or maybe it's their idiot 'opponents' who never knew how to 'play' to start with. Yeah, that's more like it. Arrogant and greedy bullies don't know zits how to play chess, every good player knows that.

[TankLV]

51. or...foreign agents ALLOWED to infiltrate the highest level of OUR goverment under these CRIMINALS

control...

Why is noone asking THAT question...

[Felinity]

44. Just mentioning.

"That part of our plan is down the drain," Muravchik said, "and we have to think about what we can do about keeping alive the idea of democracy."

I'm just wondering what, considering the current state of "democracy" in the United States is, the gentleman might mean by the word "democracy."

[deutsey]

18. I he shoulda listened to the "focus groups" more closely

Millions of us marching in the streets were trying to point out how invading Iraq was NOT going to be "cakewalk."

Given the carnage, I wish we had been proven wrong, though...

[SquireJons]

21. I am reminded of a political cartoon about the Teapot Dome Scandal

...where a ring of corrupt politicians stand in a circle and all point the finger at the person standing next to them. These assholes are finally realizing that the country isn't buying their BS anymore and are trying to hide in the crowed to make their getaway... just like they did after Iran/Contra.

Adelman, Perle, Wolfowitz, et al are arguably more responsible for the Iraq mess than shrub. I know, he's "the decider", but who really believes that? Dumbo is in so far over his head that he never even understood what the conversations were about. He was as easy to manipulate as a five year old on the way to the candy store.

This is the problem with the republican party. They are like the Hydra, where if you cut off one head, it simply grows another. Bush will be replaced by another pretty face/empty head and the machine will keep humming as always. The neocons will settle into their new/old offices when the next republican holds the white house, and no one will even ask why. People in this country have no memories at all. We should change our name to the United States of Alzheimer's Patients.

Why is it that Murtha is suddenly an ABSCAM 'un-indited co-conspirator' while Gates gets a free ride to an important cabinet position despite his lying to congress and involvement in one of the worst government scandals in our history? It's not just the medias fault. Democrats in Congress ain't concerned, and the american people can't even be bothered to yawn. We are sheep on the way to the slaughter house.

As a friend of mine is fond of saying... "it may not be the government we want, but it's the one we deserve."

[jaysunb]

45. I know you didn't mean to be funny, but,

Adelman, Perle, Wolfowitz, et al are arguably more responsible for the Iraq mess than shrub. I know, he's "the decider", but who really believes that? Dumbo is in so far over his head that he never even understood what the conversations were about. He was as easy to manipulate as a five year old on the way to the candy store.


:rofl: Too true !

[MrTriumph]

22. "the most powerful criticism" comes from insiders? More MSM BS!

"the most powerful criticism" comes from the embittered insiders? Says who?

Powerful criticism came well before the US invasion of Iraq. The MSM ignored it.

So, if you were running a TV station or newspaper, who would you seek out for commentary about Bush & the Iraq War? Discredited fools who supported the war or those who opposed it?

[Patrick J Fitzgerald]

23. Grover Norquist and Judith Regan...HOT Date

What's That Flaming Thing...?

asked a fellow patron seated next to me and a friend about our flaming Volcano ice cream dessert in the Cleveland Park sushi hot spot Spices earlier tonight.

"That's Grover," my friend whispered.

"Grover Cleveland..?"

"No, Norquist!"

Ah, that's right Signatures has closed. I wondered to myself how he likes paying for his own meals now.

Just as we were leaving, we saw Grover's flaming Volcano arriving. I am fairly certain that I heard him say to his FOX news looking friend, "I sure wish Jack were here to share this with us."

UPDATE: While reading today's Wa. Po. I came across an article about the controversial FOX O.J. interview and lo and behold there was a picture of "envelope pushing" publisher Judith Regan...Grover's date or publisher!? Probably not a date...

Coming soon, a Jack and/or Grover tell all book or a Grover - Bernie Kerik catfight?

http://patrickjfitzgerald.blogspot.com

[The Wizard]

32. Me thinks

would more likely be Hugh Hewitt ot Jeff Gannon.;)

[Straight Shooter]

26. "bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends." Whatta buncha crap.

He never had "friends," except maybe Rove and Condi. The rest of them were merely allies in the pursuit of a common agenda.

[JackDragna]

27. All these "insiders" were interested in is maintaing power..

Fine. Let them tell their stories. Then, let them be clapped in irons and sent to the World Court for orchestrating an illegal, punitive war for the political gain of an incompetent executive branch.

[wordpix]

58. and maintaining their McMansions on the ocean front with their illegal servants

[whistle]

28. Ken Adelman doesn't exactly project accurate outcomes, does he...

...could it be that he was blind-sided when he was kissing Donald Rumsfeld's ass?

<snip>
Promotion of Iraq Invasion

Adelman is well known for a pair of editorial columns regarding the Iraq War he wrote for the Washington Post in February 2002 and April 2003 entitled respectively "Cakewalk In Iraq" <2> and "'Cakewalk' Revisited" <3>. In the first he argued that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq would be a simple matter to accomplish: "I believe that demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." In the later editorial, published just a few weeks after the invasion, he claimed his vindication and in particular praised key Bush administration players: "My confidence 14 months ago sprang from having worked for Don Rumsfeld three times -- knowing he would fashion a most creative and detailed war plan -- and from knowing Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz well for many years."

Also notable are Adelman's predictions regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Adelman said that weapons were likely to be near Tikrit and Baghdad, "because they're the most protected places with the best troops. I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."
<MORE>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_L._Adelman

[question everything]

30. Dare we say that he'd become irrelevant? (nt)

[bobbie]

36. Hell, not only did Dim Son lose congress, he lost it in spite of Diebold et al

They stole at least 3 million votes for him and he still lost. That's "Loser" with a jumbo capitol "L"

[bobbie]

37. Reminds me of the line--is it from "Wag the Dog"?

"He's ruining this war for everybody!"

>But Bush's strained relations with erstwhile friends and allies take on an extra edge of
>bitterness amid the dashed hopes of the Iraq venture.

[Hubert Flottz]

38. No honor among thieves...

Some things really are the Gospel Truth!

[aquart]

39. There was NEVER a possibility of victory. NEVER.

Had we waited for Saddam to die, let the civil war break out on its own, then entered the fray as honest brokers....THEN we would have had a chance for real reform in the Middle East. Only a chance. But arriving as invaders? Never for one second was there a chance for victory. Not even with luck and god's grace. None. Not one.

It is wrong to allow this Big Lie to become the story: that we could have succeeded, but the war's aftermath was mismanaged. No. WE COULD NOT HAVE SUCCEEDED AS THE INVADERS OF IRAQ. That was a pitiful national self-delusion. And still is.

[iamahaingttta]

41. You are so right...

...there was NEVER a chance for "victory."

So, how did a 40-something dude who fixes computers for a living and plays giutar in a band (me) know that IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS whereas a whole bunch of "highly trained professionals" who run the government, for god's sake, not have any clue as to what was gonna happen?

It really boggles the mind...

[aquart]

48. That's what keeps amazing me.

Why wasn't it obvious to them?

[wordpix]

59. to the bushies, Iraq IS victory---after all, BushCo built its military bases to protect its oil

on our backs with our tax dollars. Hahahaha, "Thousands protest US policy," in Asia, one guy says in Indonesia, "We love America but we hate Bush."

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

49. aquart, you speak the truth, which many of us saw and were forced to stand by as this country

was guided by cheerleaders into believing it could succeed.

I always saw it as putting a stick inside a giant ant hill and vigourously stirring.

MKJ

[glitch]

52. What makes you think their object was "victory"? Their object was money, and they made it.

Mission accomplished.

[crim son]

46. Who are these fools?

"And so, in what some saw as a rebuke, Senate Republicans restored Trent Lott (Miss.) to their leadership four years after the White House helped orchestrate his ouster, with some saying they could no longer place their faith entirely in Bush."

What I simply cannot grasp is what it was that made anybody believe, EVER, that it was a good idea to put their faith in Bush. It makes no sense.

[bobbie]

47. He's gone and ruined PNAC for everybody!

Helen Thomas is right...

Helen Thomas is always right.

[Lex]

50. k & r

[curiousdemo]

54. So Long Sucker!!

The Bush Titanic is sinking and rats are diving overboard with the life jackets. Bush and Cheney is left alone to fend themselves. The sharks are waiting for their feast when Bush and Cheney enter the water. I'll retort..."Bush and Cheney look to the skies with tears in their eyes, Nothing he and Cheney could say or nothing they could hear, because they knew it's the end of their lameduck and shitty career... Their lameduck shitty career...Their lameduck shitty career. :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: I guest it's back to :beer: :beer: :beer: for bush and back to shooting people for Cheney.

[Imagevision]

55. Neocons: push come to shove? - dump on the president, that's why we hired him...

[Blutodog]

56. IMPEACH them all!! NOW !!

2 more yrs. of this gang isn't an option. Nancy P. has to change her mind and put Impeachment back on the table. No sitting or is that shitting President can be allowed to get away with the massive in your face criminality this guy and his gang has displayed. if they don't Impeach him now and tie his Presidency up in knots for the next 2 yrs. What the hell good are they? Do they honestly think we voted for them to raise the friggin Min. wage ? What is wrong with these people. Don't they get it? This gang is killing our kids, gutting our economy , pissing on the Constitution daily and the D's want to forgive and forget? Let them the rest of us are about too!!

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

60. More neo-con excuses - Iraq was a good idea, but poorly executed - Perle

To Hell with all the neo-cons, especially Richard Perle. He was one of the architects of the Iraq disaster and he wants to fault our tactics in Iraq when the strategy was doomed from day one.

We invaded Iraq under false pretenses. How can any sane person expect it to turn out good? The universe doesn't seem to work that way.

These people believed it was OK to lie in order to do good. If they were interested in doing good, lying wouldn't be necessary.

[stubtoe]

62. Yes, well, it was a given that Republicans would be the first to

turn on him. What I really want to see is the MEDIA turn on him. Enough of this lapdog crap.

Hey, has anyone noticed that we're getting more soundbites of McCain these days? MSM's prepping for '08 already.