I'm not a fan of Bush, but....

I don't expect my leaders & people of responsibility (presidents,
congressmen, CEOs, my doctor, etc.) to
take all the problems of the world on their sholders. I would *want* my
doctor to relax and recoop, even if I was in critical condition somewhere.
Sure, I would want them to give me the best care and be working hard to stay
up to date on both my condition and his skills. But I'd also want him (or
her) to be rested and peaceful - not some sleep deprived ball of stress.
How long could *any* person last as president if they took evey wrong in
America and the world directly on their sholders? A Year? A Day? A
Minute? People need to be able to relax.

AND, even when a president takes vacation, I'm sure they are getting
updates, getting breifings, making decisions. It's not like when I go on
vacation for a week and maybe don't think of any work at all.

Agreed, paying golf after something serious happens may not be in the best
of taste. But that is the individual's decisions. If he let every serious
problem interrupt every enjoyable thing he did, he'd never relax.

Look, there are PLENTY or real issues to be critical of Bush about. (Unjust
war, huge errors and miscalculations about how we would be received by the
Iraqi people, huge erros in how much Iraq war would cost, serious
environmental concerns where the EPA gives away the store to business, tax
cuts that I think are wrong, and the big one HUGE DEFICITS and DEBT in our
budget.) Focusing on the petty issues, I believe, make you look petty and
your arguments and mind look week.




"MadDogDave" wrote in message
news:c3dhc2g=.8512cfbdae3f263e7cf722ca68036d7d@106 3023548.cotse.net...

The Blackout and The Bombing and Death Could Not Interrupt the
Well-Deserved Vacation of Our Fearless Leader."


"Roll out those crazy crazy crazy days of summer," Martin Luther King
Cole once sang and who does not have that old song ringing through his
head day and night this August, even when he is trying to sleep and the
cats are yowling and the savage watchdog Cujo is yapping and kids are
throwing rocks at the trailer that is hot as hell even at night??

It makes you glad to know that Our Great President George W. Bush is off
on his 35-day vacation, that not even the blackout or the bombing and
killing was worth interrupting. Instead he looks relaxed and played golf
even when he knew the UN building was blown up, which was not his fault
in any way even though he was warned ahead of time.

Nor was the blackout the fault of Our Great President. Yes, he said the
blackout was a wake-up call, but that does mean he was asleep. Instead
it means that Dick Cheney was right to hold those secret meetings behind
closed doors with people who cannot be identified, and not because they
had anything to hide. Do not LIEberals and moderates see that we must
drill for oil in the Artic Natural Wildlife Reserve so that caribou can
never again cause a blackout?

George W. said, "Of course, we will have time to look at it and
determine whether or not our grid needs to be modernized. I happen to
think it does, and have said so all along." And I am sure he is not
lying even though no one can remember him saying that before.

And yes, it began with FirstEnergy in Ohio, which gave millions to Our
Great President, and yes, FirstEnergy also lied about how much money it
had made and ignored a hole in its nuclear reactor. But gee wiz! Nobody
is perfect. Are you so sure you do not have a hole in your nuclear
reactor? Next you will tell us that the president and CEO of First
Energy who made $7 million last year did not need a big tax cut for his
family to buy back to school supplies and the like.

And while no one knows the exact cause of the blackout (which was
certainly not mismanagement and deregulation) we do know that it was not
terrorists, even if they say it was. Our Homely Secretary of Security
Tom Ridge (who is not an incompetent buffoon) has been busy all these
months drawing up the important color alert chart and warning us all to
buy duck tape. He cannot be expected to take care of every measly little
thing like electricity. There is no reason to panic and ask what he has
done with the money he spent.

Meanwile, what a triumph in Iraq (if you do not count all the soldiers
getting killed and wounded). We have captured Chemical Alley, who we
only had killed in April. But that does not mean Our Secretary of
Defensive Donald Rumfilled was lying when he said back then that
Chemical Alley was dead. I am sure it was British intelligence or
something.

Which speaking of which, it is absolutely true that that British
scientist said that if Iraq was invaded he would be found dead in the
woods and then he was found dead in the woods, but I am sure that is
just a coincidence or something. Still, it is not like they have
mentioned Our Great President even once yet at the trial, so do not
think about it.

I could go on and on about all the other Republican triumphs like the
successful roadmap for peace in Israel, or all the forest fires out
west, or the great job Our Great Attorney General John Ashcroft is doing
keeping the Bill of Rights uncollected.

But I wish I could report that the crazy crazy crazy days of summer were
as triumphy for me as they are for George W. Some of us have to work
with fishguts in the heat while some go on vacation for 35 days, and
there is no use crying about it. One of the windows in my trailer is
rusted shut, and the other has no screen and so the cats will get in.
The tin is generally too hot to touch after sitting in the sun all day
anyway, so I sit on the cinder block out front when I get home. Some
times Mrs. Brown Rosenfeld turns the garden hose on me which I ought to
complain about but it feels good.

Sadly, the other day I was recreating the Mission Accomplished aircraft
carrier landing with My Great Little George W. Bush Action Figure and
thinking about how we did not have to worry about Iraq or terrorism
anymore since then, when Mrs. Brown Rosenfeld came out. "Are you not
ashamed of yourself, a grown man playing with dollies?" she said.

"It is not a dolly but an action figure," I explained.

"Yeah. The George W. Bush action figure-put a nickel up its ass and
watch it dance," she said.

Well, I was going to explain to her that she was a Saddam appeaser who
ought to be beaten up for saying that in public if her son who drives a
truck was not right there but her vicious watchdog Cujo seized Our Great
Toy President in his savage jaws and ran off. I could not find it until
the next day, and then his little head was even more chewed up than last
time and there was some kind of horrible stain that smelled funny on his
flightsuit.

Which does not help me sleep, as if I could with kids throwing rocks and
all this noise. But I have faith in Our Great President and I know that
he will prevail (and you will not be able to prove Jeb was involved
again). Amen.

Well, according to FOX News, Bush did manage to make some fiscally responsible
decisions while golfing in Crawford.

The Bush Administration
intervened to prevent veterans from Gulf War I getting access to frozen Iraqi
funds in the US. Seems the group of soldiers in question had been captured
during the war in the 90's and tortured by Saddan Hussein's lackies in Iraq.
After many years, and no doubt huge numbers of dollars spent on attorney fees,
this group of veterans actually won a lawsuit against Iraq for pain and
suffering endured while in captivity. The judge ordered that the damages should
be paid from Iraqi funds froozen in the US. Sounds like a realtively happy, or
at least fair, ending.

Oh, but wait! Fiscal George steps in and
says, "Blocked by presidential order! You can't touch that money! We need it to
protect the rest of America from weapons of mass destruction and to support our
troops presently in Iraq!"

But then again, there may be no substance at all to this story. It was reported
by Fox News, and everybody knows Fix is part of the liberal media with an
anti-Bush agenda.

FOXNews.com


American POWs Blocked From Iraqi Assets
Friday, August 15, 2003
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

WASHINGTON — Americans who were POWs in the Persian Gulf War (search) are
struggling to understand why the Bush administration is trying to block them
from receiving a $1 billion settlement they won against Saddam Hussein's regime
in July.


Despite a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress last year that would allow
victims of state-sponsored terrorism to sue for frozen Iraqi assets, Bush is
issuing a waiver to block compensation for POWs like Col. David Eberley
(search), who was beaten, tortured and held captive by Iraqi forces for 46 days
in 1991.

"It is unfortunate that they are now fighting the people they sent into
combat," Eberley told Foxnews.com. "It would be nice if the executive branch
stopped trying to fight this thing."

According to officials and outside experts, no matter who is in office, the
U.S. government has always considered private lawsuits against foreign nations
– even those on the State Department's list of states that sponsor terrorism
– a nuisance to diplomacy.

"The basic principle is, that the executive branch does not want any
interference in its ability to conduct foreign affairs," said Larry Rothenberg,
international law expert for the Center for International and Strategic Studies
(search).

Attorney Thomas Fortune Fay, who has won judgments and successfully pursued
assets in at least four cases, said he did so against the "objections, shouting
and screaming," of both the Clinton and the current Bush administrations, which
"fought like hell to avoid payments."

Fay, along with attorney Steven Perles, won a judgment on May 30 against Iran
on behalf of the families of the 241 American troops who were killed in a 1983
suicide bombing at the Marine barracks in Lebanon. Iran was found liable in the
case after being implicated as a sponsor of terrorist group Hezbollah (search),
which was blamed for the bombing. The plaintiffs have moved forward with
collecting damages, Fay said.

In a rare departure, the Libyan and U.S. governments did sign an agreement this
week to set up a $2.7 billion fund for families of the 270 victims of the 1988
Pan Am bombing (search) — a key step to lifting U.N. sanctions against Libya.

Fay said over the last decade, the U.S. government has stepped in to block
payments in cases involving states deemed terrorist sponsors, including Cuba
and Iran, but hasn't always won.

Even so, plaintiffs in other pending cases involving American victims of Iraq
could lose out if the administration maintains its current position.

In the case of the POWs and their families, the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia ordered Iraq to pay $1 billion in compensatory and
punitive damages for beatings that included being struck with cattle prods and
having eardrums burst, starvation, disease and long-term psychological trauma.
The money was to come from assets that had been frozen in U.S. banks since
1990.

But the Bush administration stepped in after the judgment with heavy hitters
like L. Paul Bremer (search), head of the coalition provisional authority of
Iraq, to argue against freeing up the assets for the POWs. The administration
said the frozen funds of the now-toppled Iraqi regime must be used for the
reconstruction of Iraq. If not, U.S. interests and Iraqi civilians could be
placed at risk.

"While the United States … regrets the injuries that they suffered at the
hands of the former tyrannical regime in Iraq, these plaintiffs' interests in
collecting on their private judgment do not outweigh the interest in using
these funds to protect the safety and lives of U.S. personnel in Iraq and Iraqi
civilians," Justice Department lawyers argued.

In a July 30 ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts accepted the
administration's argument that it had authority under the supplemental war
budget passed earlier this year to waive Iraq from any liability under the 2002
Terrorism Risk Assurance Act (search), which allows victims of terrorism to
access frozen assets to satisfy their claims.

But the judge did express surprise about the government's stance.

"The [administration's] position that the POWs are unable to recover any
portion of their judgment as requested, despite their sacrifice in the service
of their country, seems extreme," Roberts wrote.

On Aug. 6, Roberts also refused administration requests to have the entire
judgment thrown out of court.

The situation has drawn fire from members of Congress, some of whom are
incredulous that Bush was able to receive a waiver for the Iraqi government
when it was the intent of Congress to make Iraq pay for its brutality against
Americans.

The administration's actions "undercut the vital, long-term objectives of
deterring terrorist acts against American citizens, and achieving
accountability against terrorist states which target Americans and which have
tortured American POWs in war after war," wrote Sen. George Allen (search),
R-Va., in a letter to the Treasury secretary.

Rothenberg said that with few exceptions, Congress and the courts have
historically deferred to the executive branch in regard to international
lawsuits, and any attempt to legislate on behalf of victims in recent years has
turned out to be largely symbolic.

"Everybody wins politically, except for the people who it is supposed to
benefit," he said.

Tony Onorato, an attorney for the 17 POWs, said his clients are willing to wait
for their settlement, realizing the government's priorities in stabilizing
post-war Iraq. However, "it's time that this moves up on the priority list," he
said.

"Our POWs have been mistreated and killed – this is a way to finally say this
is enough, you cannot have a free pass on torturing our guys."

"Gary Warner" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

Am I the only one who remembers watching Daddy Bush talking to reporters
from a golf cart in Maine, in the first 48 hours of the Persian Gulf
war?
Talk about bad taste....like playing golf while your toddler's getting
her
first chemotherapy treatment.


Yep, bad taste, bad publicity, bad politics. Personally, I think it's
ugly stuff and not *right*. But why not pick on issues that are *really*
meaningful and *really serious* problems ??

Because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The repub scum loves to
rant about family values. What a display of family values, sending peoples'
kids to war from a golf cart.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Gary Warner wrote:

I'm not a fan of Bush, but....

I don't expect my leaders & people of responsibility (presidents,
congressmen, CEOs, my doctor, etc.) to
take all the problems of the world on their sholders. I would *want* my
doctor to relax and recoop, even if I was in critical condition
somewhere.


What would Bush relax "from?" From all accounts, he doesn't do much
while at the office.

Video games can be tiring; you can develop serious carpel tunnel injuries! I
try to send my kids out for some real life out in the sun and fresh air from
time to time. Certainly you would want the same thing for the leader of the
free world?

Mark Browne

Mark Browne wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Gary Warner wrote:

I'm not a fan of Bush, but....

I don't expect my leaders & people of responsibility (presidents,
congressmen, CEOs, my doctor, etc.) to
take all the problems of the world on their sholders. I would *want* my
doctor to relax and recoop, even if I was in critical condition
somewhere.


What would Bush relax "from?" From all accounts, he doesn't do much
while at the office.

Video games can be tiring; you can develop serious carpel tunnel injuries! I
try to send my kids out for some real life out in the sun and fresh air from
time to time. Certainly you would want the same thing for the leader of the
free world?

Mark Browne



Of course, and I think he should drink all the beer and eat all the
pretzels he wants...

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