From All Angles

[Dolly Llama]

Denial! The man's living in a world of denial! It was George Bush who came into office with a promise to restore honor to the White House after the big, bad Bill Clinton days. And when the Valery Plame leak case hit the news, it was Bush who said, "I want to know the truth," and promised to fire anyone in his administration involved. He repeatedly refused to discuss the case while it was under investigation. But now that the investigation is over, and it has been proved that Carl Rove, Richard Armitage and Ari Fleicher were all involved, and Cheney's chief of staff Libby was convicted of lying about it, Bush doesn't want to talk about it any more. His comment at today's press conference: "It's run its course. Now we're going to move on."

Asked if he is at all disappointed with anyone on his staff that was involved, he said, "It's been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House,"

He didn't even acknowledge the undisputed fact that people in his administration were indeed the source of the leak that wrecked the career of the wife of the man who dared to challenge his lies about Saddam buying enriched uranium to make bombs. "Perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person." Perhaps?! They've admitted it! It was dragged out of them already, Mr. President.

Asked to comment about a new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts that says al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to regroup and restore operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001 he said, "Because of the actions we've taken, al-Qaida is weaker today than they would have been."

Asked if it was appropriate for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to say he had a "gut feeling" there might be a terror attack this summer, Bush replied, "My gut tells me that which my head tells as well, is that: When we find a credible threat, we'll share it with you". What does that mean? Was Chertoff's "gut feeling" a warning of a credible threat or not? As one Congressman asked, "What is the color code for gut feelings?".

Meanwhile his administration released its Iraq progress report. Even they couldn't come up with anything better than some spotty successes here and there, and only produced the report because Congress made them. They cited "satisfactory" progress toward achieving 8 of 18 benchmarks. Just as many (8) were "unsatisfactory", and two were mixed. This means that even when judged by the standards of the Bush administration, Iraq scores only 44%. Bush interpreted this to mean that we can succeed in Iraq.

219 House Democrats along with 4 Republicans passed a bill today that would begin troop withdrawals within 120 days and remove all combat troops by next April. But it doesn't matter because more than just a majority is required to override the Presidential veto that will most surely come. House Republicans are following the Bush line which is to wait for the next report that is due out in September. But why wait? General Pretaeus already said last May that the September report will be favorable.... which of course means we will succeed.... and the birds will sing.... and the lions will lie down with the sheep....