Bush wants good news only

[housewolf]

<snip>

There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear “bad news.”

<snip>

http://www.airamericaradio.com/weblogs/alfrankenshow/index.php?/franken/bush_rejects_bad_news/

[Sandpiper]

1. Dubya doesn't understand real life or the real world

Since he's never had to deal with either one.

[bluestateguy]

2. Sounds a lot like Lyndon Johnson in about 1966-67

Not until after the Tet Offensive in early 1968 did anyone close to LBJ have the balls to tell him the war was a quagmire.

After the Tet Offensive was repudiated, at a significant cost to the US, a group of old Cold Warriors, led by Dean Acheson, sat LBJ down in the Conference Room of the West Wing and told him that he had to begin de-escalation of the war, as it was unwinnable.

What will it take for a new generation of old hands to sit this president down and tell him that the party is over in Iraq? How long will it take before it comes to this? Who will tell him? His father? Brent Scowcroft? Norman Schwartzkopf? Bob Dole? Or perhaps former Secretary of State Colin Powell, looking to at least partially redeeem his legacy.

[hatrack]

21. LBJ Listened to the Wise Men - Bush won't - too upsetting

He's already shut out Scowcroft (too close to Daddy, y'know): Powell, who enjoys occasional contact with reality, is on the way out, and there's no one else to tell the Emperor.

George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles could all return from the dead to warn Chimpy, and he'd just dismiss them as a "focus group".

[JohnnyRingo]

3. Tell him again about the "mandate of the voters"

<excerpt>
Our sources are firm in that they conclude this “good news only” directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message.

[Pam-Moby]

4. This reminds me of a

statement that his mother made about why would she waste her beautiful mind thinking about soldiers coming home body-bags. It seems that baby b*sh feels the same. :puke:

[evolvenow]

6. Exactly. If they don't want to see dead bodies...they should stop killing!

Murder is really ugly.

[Lisa]

11. SO right!

I have to admit that I burst out laughing with sheer relief, that you put your finger on it so precisely, evolvenow.

It's a safe bet that not one of Bush's gang has the guts or wit to tell him that plain truth.

[The Zanti Regent]

15. My son came home...to the VA Cemetery

How I hate that god-damned Barbara Bush. I swear she IS the living version of Angela Lansbury in the Manchurian Candidate. If there was a God, I hope she is tortured with dreams of how my only child suffered with a cut spinal cord. Let her hear his cries as her son got cheap with the fucking painkillers and when the pneumonia came, the antibiotics were too weak and too late

[MichiganVote]

24. I'm sorry for your pain Zanti...

[Danmel]

25. Oh Dear God, Zanti, I am So sorry

I cannot even begin to imagine your pain. I hate these people so much, I can't imagine how you must feel.

What a waste these people are- living their lives of privilege and distant from the pain they cause to so many. I'm not a really religious person, but these are the times that really make me hope there is a God who will mete out to them what they deserve.

I hope you find peace, Zanti- I hope Bush and his cabal never know a minute of it for eternity.

[evolvenow]

5. Border-line Personality Disorder, Narcissist, or Just Wacko?

Pretty scary.
Bet that is why Pat Robertson asked him about the casualties that would happen as a result of the #$%^*&!! illegal war,
B*shler replied "Oh there won't be any casualties".

There should be big blown up photos of the hundred and twenty thousand + persons that have been killed, maimed, injured, held up everywhere he goes in public.
If you force a war, you should at the very least, look at the f*cking photos.
It is his carnage.
:mad:

[izzie]

7. Can he really be that out of it?

I mean he is the President and can read any paper he wants. I just do not understand how he can not see the mess over their. What are these screw balls telling him and why can he not see some thing on TV or the paper. I do not think he will hear Powell. Maybe God will tell him?

[LosinIt]

8. I have to disagree

"he is the President and can read any paper he wants" nope

he is the President and MAY read any paper he wants, CAN would indicate that he had the Ability to read said papers

[Lisa]

12. "functional stupidity"

There was a good article a while back that even if Bush isn't actually dumb in terms of IQ, what he does -- ignoring sensible advice, or making the same old mistakes because he thinks it might be different this time around -- basically has the same disasterous effects as a stupid person being in charge.

He can't see because he doesn't WANT to see. If there is a mound of 10,000 US and Iraqi bodies (actually, there really is) -- and a little girl eating an ice-cream cone, Bush would point triumphantly to the little girl, and say, "everything's going great".

Having a blind spot is a natural human trait, but Bush has an enormous one.



Giving someone like Bush a job like the Presidency is really the worst thing that you could do to him. If he had a normal life, even as a rich businessman from a powerful family, there would still be people who outranked him and could criticize him. But now he has legions of employees who are determined to shield him from any hint that he might be making poor choices. Failure, public disapproval, and criticism from those whom you respect are what get many of us to wise up and change our ways. Bush doesn't have those social constraints anymore, and judging by how immature and mean-spirited he can be, it's making him worse as a human being.

[housewolf]

14. He only has eyes for....

Such a cogent statement you m ade: "Giving someone like Bush a job like the Presidency is really the worst thing that you could do to him." You are so right, it keeps him wrapped in a bubble of denial.

Imagine, if the day will ever come, when he actually is able to admit to himself and take personal responsibility for the devestation he has caused. How will he be able to live with himself?

[evolvenow]

16. So true Lisa. That is the truth. Sadly, IMHO, he must be mentally ill to

cause the deaths of over 122,000 people. The karma of that would be crushing. It is insane...

[Martin Eden]

20. I disagree

Giving someone like Bush a job like the presidency is not the worst thing that you could do to HIM -- it is the worst thing that you could do to US and to the rest of the world.

The link below is a to commentary from August 2003 that was in response to the following Bush statement:

“The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region.”

Idiot or Liar? Either Way, Bush Is Unfit For Office
http://www.arabnews.com/services/print/print.asp?artid=30536&d=19&m=8&y=2003&hl=Idiot%20or%20Liar?%20Either%20Way,%20Bush%20Is%20Unfit%20for%20Office

Here's the conclusion of the commentary:

When a single individual combines ignorance, immorality, dry-drunk syndrome, a publicly proclaimed commitment to perpetual military domination of the entire world by his country, a publicly expressed belief that God personally instructs him to make war on specific countries and a wildly irrational born-again brand of Christianity that views the Battle of Armageddon and the consequent end of life on earth as desirable developments and, at the same time, has command authority over an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction more than sufficient to achieve the end of life on earth, it is difficult to argue that this individual is not the most dangerous person who has ever lived.

When (if ever) will the American people wake up to the real threat facing America and the world?

[Lisa]

23. well, they aren't mutually exclusive

Martin, I totally agree with you (and with the author of that piece) that having Bush in there is bad for the US and the whole world. But I was referring more to Bush's own mental state.

If there was any hope for him being a reasonably-sane (though probably still obnoxious) human being -- it's vanished now, probably forever. By the time he's out of office, he's going to be showing all the symptoms of megalomania. He wasn't in great psychological shape before he got into politics, and this will only make it worse (like that "messiah" complex he seems to have acquired, thanks to all his flunkies and court Rasputins). All the natural checks that keep the rest of us from doing foolish things (fear of being disowned by our families, or of getting fired or arrested, or of what people will think, etc.) have been taken away now. Especially since the election -- he doesn't have to make nice anymore.

If Bush were just a failed drunk on a bar stool in Midland, estranged from his family -- not only would he be relatively harmless, but he wouldn't have fallen into all these delusions of grandeur, and he'd still have a toehold in the real world. More to the point, he wouldn't have signed all those death warrants as Governor, or started this war. A teacher of mine once used the phrase "morally compromised", and I like it better than "conscience" or "soul" where Bush is concerned.

The reason I was thinking about this -- a colleague of mine became temporarily famous, and let it go to his head. He began to think he really was more important than everybody else just because his publicist told him so ... and his family and longtime friends became concerned about some rather unpleasant changes in his personality. Even his sister, his greatest admirer, commented: "writing that bestseller was the worst thing that could have happened to him". I don't think Bush will ever realize this (my co-worker didn't, until it was too late). Maybe Bush, too, will be confronted by his own failure eventually.

[Botany]

9. This is news?

Bush goes to canned events where pre screened crowds cheer like trained
monkeys to lines that are either false, misleading, or code for hate. Then if
we are lucky some flunky gets to ask this misguided, sheltered, unelected, born lucky, lying, manipulative, frat boy, punk a "canned" question. I would imagine that
as his mental illness increases facts that make him uncomfortable are to be
kept from him in private too.

The man is on record from 1999 saying he would have an Iraqi war. I am sure that he does not want anybody raining on his parade.

google dubya speak and you can see that the man does not have both oars in the water.

[struggle4progress]

10. Well, the standard media is controlled by folk whose main concern ...

... is retaining advertising dollars and not appearing too far out of the mainstream.

[housewolf]

13. What makes it news

is that it came from a senior white house official, not just speculation.

[Skittles]

17. Botany nails it to the WALL

I noticed these traits in this incompetent piece of SHIT when he was my f'ing GOVERNOR

[Jack Rabbit]

18. "Reality doesn't work that way any more."

"When we move, we make our own reality."

So said a White House staffer to a offensive journalist.

Artists and writers can afford the luxury of making their own reality. Scientists and politicians cannot.

Do we have to wait four more years for reality-based leadership?

[Nimrod]

19. This could get fascinating...

Especially if something lands in OUR backyard...

"Sir, a tsunami is heading directly for New Yo..."

"I TOLD you, no bad news! Now gittoutamah office!"

[slor]

22. Yeah...

Hitler never liked to hear how the Russians were reducing the distance between the Eastern Front and Berlin either.