Tue
Oct 31 2006
11:44 am

From the Washington Post:

SUGAR LAND, Tex., Oct. 30 -- President Bush said terrorists will win if Democrats win and impose their policies on Iraq, as he and Vice President Cheney escalated their rhetoric Monday in an effort to turn out Republican voters in next week's midterm elections...

Faced with potential GOP defeat in both chambers, Bush and Cheney aimed to avert that by convincing voters that they cannot risk giving the opposition party any power in Washington.

"However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses," Bush told a raucous crowd of about 5,000 GOP partisans packed in an arena at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, one of his stops Monday. "That's what's at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq."

You know, I think ol' Dubya has finally gone too far. Asserting that half the country is in favor of murdering innocents on American soil is nothing short of deranged.

Eleanor A's picture

I realize this is going to

I realize this is going to bring the paid Corker trolls a-running, but it needs to be said. Bush's foreign policy has badly failed, and now the reins of power are going to be taken away from him.

I gotta say, it's going to be fun to watch the temper tantrums he's going to throw publicly for the next week or so. How DARE anyone stand up to his rampant thirst for power and desire to throw out the checks and balances that have ruled this nation for hundreds of years! What GALL it takes for Americans to insist on free and fair elections!

You know, I'm starting to think those framers were onto something after all. If the guy from Diebold who swore to give the election to Bush doesn't blow it for us, that is.

SayUncle's picture

If by pretty much you mean

If by pretty much you mean not remotely even close. But, hey, potato . . .

It's a stupid thing for bush to say so why not just say 'bush said something stupid' instead of making stuff up?

---
SayUncle
Can't we all just get a long gun?

rikki's picture

the terrorists have already won

We all understood what was at stake immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. "If we let this change us, the terrorists will win" was what everyone said. George W. Bush allowed the actions of some two dozen men to radically change the United States of America. He has sacrificed lives, squandered billions, alienated our allies, eroded the Constitution and placed our national security under an uber-bureaucracy.

Everything he has done has been a losing move, and Congress and his party refuse to hold him accountable. George Bush is a coward. His area of expertise is failure and cover up. It's a family tradition. He has no idea what winning actually is because he has always won by cheating. He has no credibility from which to speak about winning.

CoachBJTBParker's picture

George Bush is a coward. His

George Bush is a coward. His area of expertise is failure and cover up. It's a family tradition."

You wanta look at family tradition look closer to home and check out Jr's daddy and his uncle to start! to the TENNESSEE WALTZ WHEN AN OLD CROOK I HAPPENED TO SEE.

Factchecker's picture

Integrity

No one can honestly argue that Harold Ford Jr. has carried on a family tradition of wrongdoing.  It hasn't been proven, so it's just a nasty smear.

With W, however, it's been proven over and over so many times, that showing he's a failure for life is easier than shooting fish in a barrel.  Only the up-equals-down apologists deny it.

rikki's picture

distraction

Why are you changing the subject?

Factchecker's picture

It's the only way the right can argue.

"They did it first."  "So and so Dem (e.g. Clinton) is/was even worse." 

I heard Bush on the radio this a.m. from this same speech made last night.  He blasted the Dems re the whole Iraq mess because "they don't have any ideas."  So he's had the fourth bloodiest month in his war that has protracted into 3-1/2 years, and he's blaming his problem on Dems who don't have any ideas. 

</olbermann rant lock on> 

Well, Mr. Prez., many of us (including the Dixie Chicks) spoke up a long time ago, starting with our urging to stay out of Iraq and our words were met with nothing but "shut-up" and accusations that we're traitors and terrorist sympathizers.  

Only now that Iraq is a complete disaster with virtually no solution do you, sir, turn and say that it is because Dems didn't do anything to stop you. 

What a sad, lonely coward you are, Mr. Bush.

</olbermann rant lock off>

Egalia Stanberry's picture

Um, no, he 'pretty much' said nothing of the sort

… but all of the statements President Bush actually made are indeed true.

“The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq."
A true statement.
Republicans largely want to win the conflict before getting out and Democrats don’t. Why? Simple, if we do win in Iraq and successfully establish a stable and safe democracy or republic in the heart of the Middle East, it may very well favorably change the course of human history and the credit will belong to George W. Bush. And the libs would rather lose at the hands of Muslim terrorists than see Bush given credit for anything, especially for something so monumentally important. Don’t believe it? Why, you’ve got the DNC chairman, Howard Dean, floating the rumor that 9/11 was an inside job…and you think he wants to give Bush credit for winning in Iraq?
Riiiight.

And Dems certainly are for cutting and running, at least if you believe their rhetoric and their legislation.
Check it out:
1. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa: "This is the immediate redeployment of American forces because they have become the target.”

2. Rep. John Murtha: “Most U.S. troops will leave Iraq within a year because the Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth."

3. This was introduced by a Democrat (Lynn Woosley) with (34) Democrat co-sponsors: OFFICIAL TITLE AS INTRODUCED: Expressing the sense of Congress that the President should develop and implement a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq.

4. Nov. 4, this was introduced by a Democrat with (14) Democrat co-sponsers. End the War in Iraq Act of 2005 (Introduced in House) / Bill # H.R.4232
SHORT TITLE(S) AS INTRODUCED: End the War in Iraq Act of 2005
OFFICIAL TITLE AS INTRODUCED: To prohibit the use of funds to deploy United States Armed Forces to Iraq.

Senators voting in favor to cut-n-run immediately from Iraq were all Democrats: Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) ) Barbara Boxer (California), Russell D. Feingold (Wisconsin), Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry (both from Massachusetts) and the doting Sen. Robert Byrd (West Virginia).
The two most notable representatives voting in favor to cut-n-run immediately from Iraq were: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (California) and John Murtha (Pennsylvania).

George W. Bush allowed the actions of some two dozen men to radically change the United States of America.

This is evidence of one of the great problems with the leftist mentality: they think once the 9/11 hijackers died, the threat to our nation and our way of life died with them.
If there are any left like them, they can simply be sent subpoenas to appear in court where we will promptly afford them their due constitutional rights and privileges.

rikki's picture

Afraid of ghosts?

I'm not afraid of ghosts, but I do recognize that the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks did not die and are more than capable of recruiting more martyrs. Bush has been a great help to them. He failed to catch bin Laden and has expanded the population of potential recruits tenfold.

He has done this by giving many more Arabs reasons to hate us than they ever had. They used to just hate us for supporting Israel. Now they hate us because we have killed or tortured their family members. That's only part of it, though. Bush also made the mistake you are making. He gave al Qaeda way too much credit, turning them from a violent, marginal group few wanted to associate with into a major figure on the world stage. He has expended thousands of lives and billions of dollars on them, making them far more powerful than they could have hoped to be.

No one with any sense of perspective would have made that mistake, but now we have sad partisan cowards like yourself panicking that America is on the verge of becoming a Muslim nation. This irrational fear has been used to justify radical changes in our laws and intelligence agencies and as an excuse to dismiss criticism of Bush's many failures and to stonewall investigations of those failures.

Since you are too terrified to think clearly on this subject, let me straighten something out for you. Only Americans have Constitutional rights, and we afford them to all Americans, even murderers, perverts and theives. It's one of the ways we express our civility and regard for freedom. Because we love freedom and equality, we have traditionally granted similar rights to foreigners and prisoners. There is no excuse for the grotesque abuses that occured in our military prisons or for the wanton violations of detainees' human rights.

The system that was in place on September 11, 2001 was adequate for defending our nation from attacks. All that was lacking was sufficient focus on the terrorist threat from the President and his cabinet. Because Republicans lack the courage to face up to Bush's failures, the party that was once the first line of defense against erosions of our freedoms has now presided over the worst breakdown of checks and balances in our history and the creation of a monolithic surveillance apparatus.

 

LissaKay's picture

Borrowing this ...

... because I am too tired to paraphrase

Throughout the 90's our foreign policy was all about being nice, even obsequious to our enemies. Yasser Arafat was the most frequent visitor to the Clinton White House, and America bestowed $100 million dollars a year to his despotic thugocracy, while we goaded Israel to give up what little land they have and stop contributing to the "cycle of violence." We responded to the '93 attempted destruction of the Twin Towers with lawsuits. We turned down an offer to hand Bin Laden over to us because that might have upset the Arab street. We intervened in a civil war in Kosovo, carpet-bombing Serbian population centers on behalf of Muslims, and because of our efforts, most churches in Kosovo have now been destroyed and replaced with mosques. (Of course no one can fight back as there is a U.N. 'peacekeeping force' there.) We fought Somalian warlords in an attempt to feed starving Muslim children. We went to the dead tyrant Assad's funeral, and lent our diplomatic prestige to that Asian Hitler Kim Jong, who was happy to show off his military toys before our fawning Secretary of State. To show how magnanimous we were, we gave him hundreds of millions of dollars to construct an underground nuclear reactor, taking him at his word it would only be used for peaceful purposes. We lent no moral support to the youth in Iran who are desperate to throw off their chains, we lent no moral support to Taiwan which is faced with extinction or enslavement, we lent no moral support to Christians in China who are being herded into prison camps. And we lent no moral support to the Iraqis wallowing under dictatorship and sanctions, and instead consigned them to a decade of torture chambers and rape rooms and acid baths while the U.N. made billions off 'Oil for Food'.

In sum, we did everything the Left would like for us to do. And in return, we got September 11.

From the Manifesto of the Protest Warrior
- we will never keep our supreme values of liberty and justice without the will to fight for them.

Now I believe Bush started down the right road ... taking the fight to the Islamofascists, standing up to them and making it plain as day we are not going to sit here and take any of their shit. But along the way, the way was lost. They fail to understand exactly what we are up against, that the threat of death to them is nothing. How do you fight an enemy that welcomes death? I have no answers for that ... but I do know that it is not "cut and run" when the going gets tough. That's what we did in Somalia, and that did nothing but embolden Bin Laden and make him more determined to strike against America. He believed that we were nothing more than a paper tiger.

Bin Laden is irrelevant now. Dead, alive ... doesn't matter. Even 5 years ago, killing him would have been nothing more than revenge. Cheap justice. As we have seen, he has deputies by the dozen, ready and willing to step in and lead the merry bands of murderous thugs. So we keep chopping away at the head of the snake, as well as striking blows to its body. And we must stay at it ... we let up, and what happened? The Taliban have already started to regroup. So we strike and strike and strike again. Same thing in Iraq, we keep fighting the terrorists.

The minute we show weakness, the minute they believe we are ready to give up, is the minute we start to lose this war.

So, the question is ... do we want America to win this, or not?

Andy Axel's picture

Wild Mushroom Risotto

3 cups homemade or low-salt chicken broth; more if needed
1 oz. dried porcini soaked for 30 minutes in 1 cup warm water; mushrooms chopped, soaking liquid strained and reserved
4 Tbs. butter
3/4 cup arborio rice
2 cups assorted fresh wild mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed, and coarsely chopped
2/3 cup dry white wine
Kosher salt to taste
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 Tbs. freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
how to make

Heat the chicken broth along with the reserved strained porcini soaking liquid; lower the heat to a simmer. In a medium, heavy-gauge saucepan over medium-high heat, melt 2 Tbs. of the butter. Stir in the rice, toasting just until it starts to sizzle and pop, about 1 minute. It should not color. Stir the porcini and the fresh mushrooms into the rice. Stir in the wine.

When almost all the liquid has disappeared, after about 2 minutes, add just enough hot broth to cover the rice. Lower the heat to maintain a vigorous simmer; stir occasionally. When the broth is almost gone, add enough to cover the rice, along with a pinch of salt. Check on the risotto every 3 or 4 minutes, giving it an occasional stir to make sure it isn't sticking to the bottom of the pan and adding just enough broth to cover the rice when the liquid has almost disappeared.

Continue this way until the rice is just al dente, about 20 minutes total cooking time. Bite into a grain; you should see a white pin-dot in the center. Take the risotto off the heat. Add the remaining 2 Tbs. butter; stir vigorously for a few seconds. Add the parsley, cheese, and more salt, if needed. The risotto should be moist and creamy, not runny. Stir in more broth to loosen the risotto, if you like. Serve immediately.

____________________________

You can live a batter life, or a butter life. Or both, if you choose.

rikki's picture

too late, baby

The minute we show weakness, the minute they believe we are ready to give up, is the minute we start to lose this war.

You are correct, and we showed weakness when we abused prisoners; when we made torture formal policy at Guantanamo Bay; when we allowed our President, after months of stalling the 9/11 investigation, to refuse sworn testimony; when we loosened our grip on Afghanistan too soon; when we fell for a blatant sales job on the Iraq invasion; when we re-elected a complete fool President of the United States. It's over. We let the attacks change us; the terrorists won.

I am no fan of Bill Clinton. It broke my heart when he beat Bruce Babbitt in the primary. When he got impeached, I was more disappointed that it was over trivial matters then that he might leave office. A year or so of President Gore might have been nice. Letting Clinton deal with Iraq and the mounting al Qaeda threat without being crippled by inane impeachment hearings might have been nice too.

We are showing weakness by not impeaching Bush and Cheney over Ahmed Chalabi. How many times do we have to lose this war before you stop pretending there is something to win? We have lost and continue to lose the war on terror. You don't win against terror any more than you win against murder or wife beating.  You minimize diseases of hatred and rage by working toward a peaceful world. You can not eradicate violence with violence. Invasions, killing and abuse fan the flames.

Bush has been through numerous definitions of victory in Iraq. As long as the pork parade of reconstruction and military privatization dollars marches on, he'll keep jerking the baton. The Republican strategy is for the pork parade to go on forever. Democrats are pretty keen on the idea too. The campaign donations are fabulous. Ask Joe Lieberman.

bizgrrl's picture

Hot dogs

Hot dogs

Turn on toaster oven. Broil hot dog for 7 minutes.
Place hot dog on bun. Add ketchup, horseradish, Vidalia onion relish.
Enjoy!

Eleanor A's picture

Tujague's Pecan

Tujague's Pecan Pie

(Introduction by Malcolm Hébert)
"When the French settled in New Orleans they discovered the pecan. And they promptly made good use of it by creating pecan brittle, pecan pralines, pecan sauce and of course pecan pie. The first pecans I ever ate came from my Grandmother's pecan tree in her backyard. Every Christmas she would send a 50 pound gunny sack of pecans to my mother. My Grandmother's pecans were not those tasteless thin shelled kind; hers had thick shells with just as much shell as meat and 10 times more taste.

"This recipe for pecan pie is from my mother's uncle whose family owned Tujague's restaurant in New Orleans for more than 70 years."

1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup dark corn syrup (e.g., Karo syrup)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons Armagnac or other brandy
1-1/2 cups pecan halves

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a glass mixing bowl beat the eggs, blending in the sugar, syrup, butter, vanilla, salt, Armagnac and pecans. Pour the mixture into the pie shell and bake 10 minutes. Lower the oven to 350 degrees and bake 30 minutes or until a wooden skewer or knife inserted into the pie comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Serves 6-8.

(Many thanks to Christopher Hébert for providing the recipe.)

Oh man. I think I just made myself seriously hungry.

redmondkr's picture

A friend from Quebec sent me

A friend from Quebec sent me this one; it's pretty good.

Galette des rois

Réalisation
         
Ingrédients Détail

    * Préchauffer le four th. 7.
    * Travailler le beurre mou avec le sucre jusqu'à ce que le mélange soit homogène et mousseux. Ajouter les amandes en poudre, les 2 oeufs et le rhum. Bien mélanger.
    * Dérouler la pâte sur la plaque du four en conservant la feuille de cuisson. Garnir le centre avec la frangipane et l'étaler jusqu'à 2 cm. du bord. Glisser la fève.
    * Humecter avec de l'eau le bord de la pâte non garnie.
    * Recouvrir avec la deuxième pâte feuilletée. Souder les 2 parties en pressant le tour

           

    * 125 grammes d'amande en poudre
    * 100 grammes de sucre
    * 125 grammes de beurre
    * 2 oeufs
    * 1 jaune d'oeuf
    * 1 cuiller à soupe de rhum

Eleanor A's picture

Traitor!

Didn't you know French speakers are un-American, too? You better watch out, or these folks will toss you into the gulag along with all the liberals who are no longer allowed to make apple pies...

redmondkr's picture

Scary isn't it?  I thought

Scary isn't it?  I thought of that but decided, "What the heck!  Give 'em a free shot."

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose; you can't pick your friend's nose, but you can have a butter knife. It's your choice.

Factchecker's picture

How 'bout this one?

Didn't you know French speakers are un-American, too?

Viva la France!

Andy Axel's picture

"This recipe for pecan pie

"This recipe for pecan pie is from my mother's uncle whose family owned Tujague's restaurant in New Orleans for more than 70 years."

Oh, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. Tujague's.

For the uninitiated, that place serves a seven course meal. You choose the entree, but other than that, it's prix fixe. It's on Decatur St. right in the Quarter. Elegant service, casual dining. They're attentive without being hovering.

The choices of entree, last time I went were stuffed cornish hen, filet mignon, and some kind of Gulf jackfish.

The filet was memorable enough. But that pie... oooh, that pie. Course 7.

(Armagnac, huh? I would have sworn it was bourbon.)

____________________________

You can live a batter life, or a butter life. Or both, if you choose.

Andy Axel's picture

Place hot dog on bun. Add

Place hot dog on bun. Add ketchup, horseradish, Vidalia onion relish.

(faints)

My kingdom for a Byron's.

____________________________

You can live a batter life, or a butter life. Or both, if you choose.

SemiPundit's picture

Fight them there or here?

According to Mr. Bush, if we leave Iraq now the terrorists will follow us home. On the other hand, if we drive them out of Iraq, where will they go?

Rachel's picture

I'm gonna hate myself when I

I'm gonna hate myself when I get good & awake, but E, pray tell, what is the exact definition of an "Islamofascist"?

Eleanor A's picture

Hm. Actually

It would send a clear message to Americans that their government was doing a competent job of protecting them should bin Laden be captured. Because right now? They look sorta like the Keystone Kops.

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