GOP spokesman: "Americans have confidence this president can protect them"

[Human Torch]

Bill Clinton questions GOP's sincerity on security issues
By Jo Mannies
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/09/2006

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/AA861E373816370E862571E4005ADFB2?OpenDocument

Clinton contended that the Republicans controlling the federal government for the past five years have talked tough but "basically ignored" the security improvements that the commission said were necessary.

"Let's check all those cargo containers at ports and airports," Clinton said. He then cited the congressional failure to allocate money for inspection equipment, because of concerns that it is too expensive. Such spending wouldn't be a problem, he said, if Republicans would stop approving tax cuts for the wealthy. "Millionaires like me get our taxes cut like clockwork," he said.

At a fundraising brunch later at the Chase Park Plaza, Clinton asserted that some Republicans use the terrorism issue to mask their chief aim of "concentrating wealth and power" into the hands of a few. "They could give their crowd shovelfuls of money, as long as they kept America scared," Clinton said. "They think government for special interests is good."

State Republican Party spokesman Paul Sloca said the tax cuts promoted by President George W. Bush have helped create millions of jobs. But the GOP's key point, the spokesman said, is that Clinton and other Democratic leaders in the 1990s failed to properly confront the terrorist threats in the 1990s. "Americans have confidence that this president (Bush) can protect them," Sloca said.

[LynnTheDem]

1. Gee, he did such a super job on Sept 11, 2001...just ask New Orleans.

rightwingnuts; the stupidest MFers ever.

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. Denial and delusion run deep, and will crumble like the house of cards

they are. Look to said freepers to rebel visciously when they finally "get it".

[whistle]

2. I suppose two or three might believe that

[Straight Shooter]

3. He really protected the rescue workers at Ground Zero.

And the inhabitants of New York who lived nearby.

Yeah, bush is all about protecting Americans. It's hard work. :eyes:

[stevietheman]

4. I wonder if the people falling off the Twin Towers were thinking that.

Also, I wonder if the masses huddled at the SuperDome in New Orleans were thinking that.

Hmmm....

[muesa]

5. Not the word on the "Security Moms and Dads" Street

The real "Security Moms and Dads" and "Security Grandmas and Grand-pops" - the ones who volunteer as community emergency disaster responders - are abandoning Bush.

The real "Security Moms and dads" - the ones who suffer through 100+ hours/year of training for the Salvation Army, or the Red Cross, or the Civil Air Patrol/Coast Guard Auxiliary, or your local pediatrician in DMAT, or Urban Search & Rescue, or Ham Radio -- have given up on Bush.


The post-9/11 and post-Katrina "Volunteers" (Salvation Army, Red Cross, Civil Air Patrol/Coast Guard Auxiliary, DMAT, Urban Search & Rescue, Radio) volunteers are staying - they are not disappearing.

Normally, the volunteers sign up when the disaster is getting a lot of play on CNN or Faux, then gradually drift away. This was the experience after the Northridge and Loma Prieta Earthquakes. (Only 15%-20% were still going to training sessions a year after the disaster).

But, post-9/11 and post-Katrina, it's over 50% still going to training sessions.

Why?

One of my neighbors is an active Red Cross volunteer -- he says that the people have lost faith in Bush, Chertoff, FEMA, and "the government" to provide any disaster assistance - it will be Katrina Redux --- too little, too late. We both agreed - this is evidence of a serious loss of confidence in Bush and Bush's "security push" (especially with Security Moms and Security Dads).

This will not be 2002 or 2004.

[Tanuki]

7. General Michael Rose wouldn't make that mistake

"For a full five minutes, Moore cruelly dwells on Bush's vacuous, tortured face in close-up immediately after he had been told about the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The message is clear. Here is no Roosevelt, Churchill or Thatcher, but a deeply inadequate man whose mind is frozen with indecision and fear. It is a look I know well - if he had been a subordinate commander in battle I would have immediately relieved him of his command."

- General Sir Michael Rose, Former Commander of the UN Protection Force in Bosnia, after seeing Fahrenheit 911

[Ignacio Upton]

8. Proof that 9/11 was Clinton's fault:

http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/

[lebkuchen]

9. Bush has destroyed FEMA

All he's got to protect America now is whipped air.

FEMA actually used to at least function. During the Sylmar earthquake of '71, the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration helped my family a great deal in the evacuation and after, with damage to our house. FEMA came in under Carter and was responsible for disasters like Three Mile Island and Love Canal. Clinton made it a cabinet position, and Bush umbrella'd it under the Dept. of Homeland Security, the dept. that terrorized the country w/phony alerts every time the Bushies needed to divert attention from their latest incompetency. (Don't take my word for it. Ask Tom Ridge.) In May 2001 (the month the Bushies gave $47 million to the Taliban) Bush appointed Cheney to head a terrorism task force within FEMA, creating a new office there especially for Cheney, at which he's failed, miserably. Four months after his appointment, the WTC was leveled, the Pentagon was all but sacked, nearly 3,000 people were dead, and then came the anthrax terrorist, killing half a dozen, injuring nearly two dozen, with no perpetrators captured. In fact, Bush has said he's lost interest in Bin Laden, and he never mentions the anthrax terrorist.

And the loonies in the country apologize for Bush's ineptness by saying, "Well, at least he's kept us safe since then!"

Then came a natural disaster, and we watch the layered network of Homeland Security overseeing FEMA turn into a calamity, with Michael Brown--a presidential appointee w/no experience in disasters except for helping to elect one (Bush)--admitting that he lied for Bush when he told the media and public that everything was going "swimmingly" (true, if taken in the literal sense) pre/post Katrina.

FEMA has been whittled down to a national disgrace, with apologists for the Bush administration explaining it away, claiming that people should be taking care of themselves rather than the govt, and besides, who needs a national disaster relief program anyway?

This is standard logic of George "W.arren Jeffs" Bush followers.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

10. He Did A Great Job Of Protecting His Administration And FEMA From

Whistle blowers And Real Investigations! :spank: :cry:

[Skittles]

11. DU Spokeswoman Skittles: "GOP FULL OF SHIT"

yes INDEED

[wisteria]

12. This is the Katrina administration. You think they have it covered?

You better think again. They don't listen and they don't react. They wait until something happens then they blame it on someone else.