Richard WarnickTony Snow: Congress Can’t Stop Escalation
At the White House, every day is “crazy hat day.” The Mad Hatter in Chief is going to explain his plan for Operation Choosing Victory on Wednesday night, 7 pm Utah time.
From Editor & Publisher (emphasis added):
At his briefing today, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was naturally peppered with questions about President Bush’s upcoming speech to the nation about his plans for (it seems to be an open secret) sending more U.S. troops to Iraq. Snow wouldn’t quite admit that this was indeed set in stone but sparred with reporters over why the president thinks the public will find this appealing.
Snow held out hope that the Democrats would come to their senses about opposing this but admitted it could even be a battle royal. But what about calls for the Democrats to halt the build up by denying funding? Snow admitted congress had funding control but also pointed out that the president could ultimately do what he wants. “You know, Congress has the power of the purse,” Snow said, then added: “The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way.”
I’m glad I’m not a Social Studies teacher. What are they telling kids in America’s classrooms these days? That America has a “unitary executive” form of government headed by a “Decider”? Representative democracy went out with the 20th Century?
UPDATE: Josh Marshall, stating the obvious: “[W]e have a president who has a basic contempt for our system of government and the rule of law and … the normal rules of inter-branch comity simply aren’t in effect.”
January 8th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Perhaps if Bush is denied the funding for the troop surge/escalation explicitly by Congress he can obtain it by declaring it in a Signing Order in the next available piece of legislation- something totally irrelevant to the Occupation in Iraq for good measure - something like otherwise innocuous Postal Service legislation.
Bush reminds me of the middle aged desperate man at a Las Vegas craps table who has just spent the last 5 hours blowing away every penny in his checking account. Now, out of money, he is desperate and begins to pawn off precious items in order to keep playing- hoping that by playing more and harder, that eventually his luck will turn.
An increase in intensity of behavior is not an actual change in behavior at all.
Sad and pathetic.
January 8th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Hear, hear Tom. Tony Snow represents a “smoking gun” to the case that the Bush Administration controls mass media through secret combination of forces in major US media. This is evident in the Rupert Media Monolopy Murdoch and Bush II, Great Decider of the 21st Century. Perhaps he will be remembered as Bush the Blunderer, Bush the Buffoon, or Bush the Bull Shitter. I think most Iraqis and many Muslims will remember him as Bush the Butcher and Bush the Bully. Conservatives may well remember him Bush the Backstabber.
But what exactly does President Bush mean by victory in Iraq? What does he mean by success in Iraq? Who could disagree with such broad pronouncements as these? Inserting an additional 20,000 combat troops into Iraq will accomplish one thing. Much greater and intense violence. What then is victory or success? These things are not measured in pints of blood split in Iraq. Oh no, these things are measured in barrels. And just who ends up with access to those barrels at the end of the day. That my friends defines success or failure, victory or defeat? Not for Iraq or for America but for Exxon Mobil and Chevron.
January 8th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
In this free country of ours, he’s free to throw away his money (and life) if he so chooses. Not ours, however, without our consent. So is the congress passing that ‘buck’ our way? I see the tax forms on the shelf already. George is just a guy with toooo much adulation aimed at him for all the wrong reasons. How about a change in the tax rules that allow the payers to specify where our money will be spent? That’d take the onus off the congress and allow us our agency.
January 9th, 2007 at 9:09 am
It’s a dictatorship, with congressional collusion, and undue foreign influence.
WE ARE HEADING TO WORLD WAR WILLINGLY.
Richard, as a hobby I have been asking 7th and 8th graders what they are learning in Civics,… I have not met a kid in the last ten years that knows what I’m talking about.
As hitler said when confronted by adults that opposed him, he simply said paraphrase, “what you think is meaningless, I already have your children”.
January 9th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Here is some great writing about what we in the west are really up against. In fact we struggle against ourselves, our lifestyles and requirements we have for western style existence. It is a long read, but worth it. It takes place in Nigeria, #5 nation, in our we gotta have it list.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/02/junger200702?currentPage=8
Remember the Ijaw, that tribe name will be in the news, sportin’ the Czech weaponry
January 9th, 2007 at 11:04 am
The 800 pound gorilla speaks. We now know that the obese simian is bibi natan the YAHOO,.. where is Jane Goodall when you need her!
Thanks Pat, coming from you, maybe a conservative will listen. We all know the zionists don’t like you.
January 9, 2007
Who Is Planning Our Next War?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
As George Bush reflects on his legacy, an urgent question must be pressing in upon him each day.
Will I leave here as the man who launched failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost thousands of U.S. dead, to no avail? Or can I yet enter history as the Churchillian statesman who used U.S. power to save America and Israel from the mortal threat of atomic weapons in the hands of the Iranian mullahs?
Which legacy would Bush prefer? Or Cheney?
As Americans await Bush’s address announcing a “surge” of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, we may be missing the larger picture. The War Party is turning its attention from Iraq – to Iran.
Nor is it simply an analysis of the character of George Bush that causes one to so conclude.
Tehran is now two weeks into a 60-day deadline to answer a Security Council resolution directing it to cease enriching uranium. While the sanctions are mild, the resolution passed unanimously and gives Bush the U.N. cover he used to wage war on Iraq. If Iran defies the United Nations, Bush will demand further sanctions. Up the escalator we go.
Moreover, a second U.S. carrier battle group is heading for the Gulf. More interesting, the new CentCom commander, replacing Gen. John Abizaid, is no soldier, but Adm. William J. Fallon, commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific. What Fallon does not know about securing streets, he does know about taking out targets from the air and keeping sea lanes open in a time of war.
Bush may be sending signals, but the Israelis are preparing for war. The London Sunday Times reports that Israeli pilots have been making the 2,000-mile run to Gibraltar to train for strikes with bunker-busting nuclear bombs on Iran’s heavy water plant at Arak, the uranium hexaflouride facility at Isfahan and the centrifuge cascade at Natanz.
Israel angrily denies the report. But, on Dec. 30, retired Gen. Oded Tira, who headed up all Israeli artillery units, burst into print with this admonition:
“As an American air strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help (Bush) pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and U.S. newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure.”
“Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran,” writes Tira. Thus, Israel and its U.S. lobbying arm “must turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they publicly support immediate action by Bush against Iran.”
“The Americans must act,” Tira concludes. “If they don’t, we’ll do it ourselves … (and) we must immediately start preparing for an Iranian response to an attack.”
According to UPI editor-at-large Arnaud De Borchgrave, Tira’s line tracks the New Year’s Day message of Likud superhawk “Bibi” Netanyahu, the former prime minister.
Said Netanyahu, Israel “must immediately launch an intense, international public relations front first and foremost on the U.S. The goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the (U.S.) government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel.”
Israel’s war, says Bibi, must be sold as America’s war.
We are thus forewarned. A propaganda campaign, using Israeli agents and their neocon auxiliaries and sympathizers, who stampeded us into war in Iraq, is being prepared to stampede us into war on Iran.
We are to be convinced that Iran, with no air force or navy to speak of, an economy not 2 percent of ours, which has not started a single war since the revolution, 27 years ago, is about to give to terrorists, to use on us, a nuclear bomb it may be 10 years away from even being able to build.
Will Congress be duped again into giving Bush a blank check for war? Or will this new Congress summon the courage to take the war option out of Bush’s hands, to decide itself, for the nation, when, where and whether America should ever go to war against Iran?
Every presidential candidate should be asked: Does President Bush have the authority to attack Iran without specific congressional authorization? And would you support giving him that authority?
Needed today are courageous men and women of both parties who will introduce and pass a congressional resolution stating, “In the absence of a direct Iranian attack on U.S. forces or personnel, or an imminent threat of such an attack, President Bush has no authority to launch a pre-emptive strike or a preventive war on Iran.”
If we are going to war, let us do it constitutionally, for once, and not leave it up solely to George W. Bush and Brother Cheney.
January 9th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Sorry, from page one http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/02/junger200702?currentPage=1
January 9th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Great article by Pat Buchanan. I hope he’s wrong about US and Israeli intentions, but how can we know? Bush lies about everything. If only Congress could declare peace– cut off funding for any and all offensive military actions worldwide. Look what just happened in Somalia.
January 9th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
How often has Pat been wrong?, about nafta, gatt, wto, israel, foreign entanglements, what makes America strong?
The article on Nigeria is the future, our problems won’t end with Iraq and Iran, it has to do with resource concerns, and wherever those are, we’re concerned, very concerned.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:50 am
How often has Pat been wrong? Somehow I had the impression that he was as loony as Bush. Wha’d I miss?
January 11th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Guess you don’t read him much, he has been right on about so many things. Of course he is pilloried by the left and no one listens, we are where he proposed we would be 6 years ago. He isn’t as he is portrayed in the media, review, you will find that what he says is offensive to the progressive PC mind, but allowed to resonate, not much of what Pat has said would happen,has not. We are here because progressive America basically lies to itself and believes its own BS, and will review ideology through the lens of reality.
January 11th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I meant “will never”.