NPR has a story on a head-scratching quote from then-Gov. George W. Bush that almost ran in a San Antonio Express News article. Bush reflected on why his father did not “take out” Saddam Hussein.
In the interview with the paper in 1997, Bush said that the consequences of killing Hussein — losing U.S. soldiers as the result of sniper fire — would “turn the tide of public opinion very quickly.”
The quote was published for the first time this week; it was not used in the original San Antonio Express News story because the reporter also interviewed former President George H.W. Bush, and he added the elder Bush’s remarks in the story at the expense of his son’s — seemingly innocuous — quote.
Category: Politics
Chuck Norris approved
I know my cousins are going to hate this… (found out today they’re not fans of my political blogging) but I had to share Mike Huckabee’s first TV ad. It’s Chuck Norris approved.
From the campaign: Continue reading Chuck Norris approved
You think your gas tank is expensive?
We’re paying $2.85 to $2.95 in the Dallas area for a gallon of gas right now. But in Bethel, Alaska, folks are paying from $5 to $7. Ouch! The only saving grace is that the prices are locked in until a new supply can be shipped in next June.
Obama at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner
I keep hearing more and more about how Sen. Barack Obama wowed the crowd in Iowa Saturday night.
I’ve heard bits and pieces and finally heard the entire speech this afternoon. The video’s received over 84,000 views on YouTube.
Michelle Obama said her husband was truly in his element Saturday night in an e-mail sent to supporters today.
I’ve known Barack a long time, and it’s clear to me when he’s in his element.
Years ago, after we first met, he took me to an organizing meeting in a small church basement in Chicago. He was so comfortable and genuine speaking to folks in the community about the issues they faced that it moved me.
He moved me again last Saturday in Iowa.
This is exactly what he should be doing — talking to ordinary people about the kind of change America needs, and encouraging everyone to come to the table to make it happen.
From Obama’s speech:
“We were promised compassionate conservativism and all we got was Katrina and wiretaps. We were promised a uniter and we got a president who could not even lead the half of the country that voted for him. We were promised a more ethical and efficient government and instead we have a town called Washington that is more corrupt and more wasteful than it was before. And the only mission that was ever accomplished was to use fear falsehoods to take this country into a war that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged.”
“This party… has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we led not by polls but by principal. Not by calculations but by conviction. When we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose, a higher purpose. And I run for the presidency… because that is the party that America needs us to be right now.”
“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbiest that their days in setting the agenda in Washington are over… they have not funded my campaign, they will not work in my white house and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”
“I am in this race… to protect the American worker. To fight for the American worker.”
“I want to stop talking about the outrage of 47 million American’s without health care and start actually doing something about it… I will make certain that every single American in this country has health care they can count on… and I will do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States of America.”
“You will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is OK for America to torture because it is never OK!”
“I don’t want to pit red America against blue America, I want to be the president of the United States of America.”
“I am running in this race because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now. Because I believe there is such a thing as being too late and that hour is almost upon us. I don’t want to wake up four years from now and find out that millions of Americans still lack health care because we couldn’t take on the insurance industry. I don’t want to see that the oceans have risen a few more inches… because we couldn’t find a way to stop buying oil from dictators. I don’t want to see more American lives put at risk because no one has the judgment or courage to stand up against a mis-guided war before we send our troops in to fight. I don’t want to see homeless veterans on the streets. I don’t want to send another generation of American children to failing schools.”
“The only reason I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky, stood up when it was hard, stood up when it wasn’t popular and because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up and then a few thousands stood up and then a few million stood up. And standing up with courage and clear conscious they some how managed to change the world. That’s why I’m running. To give our children and our grandchildren the same chances that somebody gave me.”
Rudy and Pat
Gail Collins, editorial columnist for The New York Times, has an interesting look at Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudolph Giuliani.
Back in mid-2001, when Mayor Rudy Giuliani was busy committing adultery, lurching into his divorce and third marriage and rooming with a gay couple he promised to marry as soon as the law allowed, who among us would have imagined that one day he would be endorsed for president by Pat Robertson?
Truly, Sept. 11 changed everything.
Actually, Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, has had peculiar positions on the terror attack. He once said it was nowhere near as big a deal as the problem of judicial activism, and on another occasion he explained that the destruction of the World Trade Center was God’s punishment for abortion and “rampant secularism†on television. It’s hard to understand what drew the two men together. Rudy has hedged his positions on quite a few issues lately — but he has yet to suggest that New York had it coming.
Janet Huckabee on NPR
Janet Huckabee, wife of GOP candidate Mike Huckabee and the former first lady of Arkansas, sits down with Michele Norris. It’s part of a series of conversations with spouses of the presidential hopefuls. Fighting to get her husband the attention she thinks he deserves, Janet says she’s learned her husband is quite the fighter, too.