Oh for the love of LOL..."Bush Throws Down The Gauntlet"

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/07/politics/main647941.shtml

Bush Throws Down The Gauntlet

(CBS/AP) President Bush has drawn a line in the sand.

Mr. Bush's hard-hitting speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. on Wednesday made his strategy for the remainder of the campaign crystal clear: a rousing, no-retreat defense of the Iraq war and a harsh critique of John Kerry that focuses on his Democratic rival's perceived weaknesses on both foreign and domestic issues.

"You can't win a war you don't believe in fighting," Mr. Bush said. "In Iraq, Senator Kerry has a strategy of retreat."

Kerry has pressed the president to acknowledge that errors were made in Iraq, but Mr. Bush's speech signaled that he will mount an uncompromising defense of the administration's Iraq policy in the closing days of the campaign.

The speech bristled with new zingers that laid out in harsh and personal terms why Mr. Bush thinks Kerry is unfit to be commander in chief. On the domestic front, the president relied on a classic conservative rhetoric to paint Kerry as a tax-and-spend liberal.

...more...

I LOL. This guy is cheesed and he knows it.

Oh, PS: Cheney Says Black is White, Up is Down:

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20041007_583.html

[ComerPerro]

1. This must be why we aren't doing so well in Iraq

Because, as Bush said, you can't win a war that you don't believe in fighting.

And, we are really hurting for troops right now.

Why?

Because cowardly motherfuckers like the jerkoffs at protestwarrior and the college republicans don't believe in fighting this war, even though they support it and contend that is protecting our very freedoms.

[Trajan]

2. Bush sounded like a mean, vindictive ogre yesterday ....

It was more like 'breaking the beer bottle on the bar and running crazily through the room lunging with the shards while screaming incoherantly' than 'throwing down the gaunlet' ...

George Bush represents his party well ... Its all about being vicious and selfish ...

[soleft]

10. Excellent, let him bring this tude into the debate tomorrow AND....

If Bush wants to go back to statements Kerry made 30 YEARS AGO - Puhleese let's go back and examine the state of Bush 30 years ago.

[Cocoa]

3. Bush should say it to Kerry's face

I bet Bush talked tough about the Vietcong when he was in the National Guard.

[molly]

4. I thought it was his "Checkers Speech" - maybe that's

why he's not practicing for tomorrow's debate.

[fishnfla]

8. tomorrow night could be ugly

pass the popcorn

[Inland]

5. Oh, Bush knows how to win in Iraq? When will he start?

Bush has the gall to pretend to know how to fix the mess he made in the first place? And that has gotten worse and worse every month he is in office? What a dick.

[tjdee]

6. Say it to his face, then, Punk Ass.

Throwing down the gauntlet--

As long as nobody is there to counter him.

Or ask him a question.

Or reply in any way.

He's TOUGH!!

:eyes:

[paulk]

7. Bush mounts an uncomprimising defense of his Iraq policy

a policy which events of the past week, (Bremer, 9/11 commission final WMD report, etc.) show to be a complete failure.

That's pretty much the last four years in a nutshell, isn't it?

Hopefully Kerry can really point this up Friday.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. This is sloganeering 101

It's all he's got and he has to run with it.
It will work for all the people voting for him no matter what, and may work for some swingers, but it's pretty transparent for most of the rest of us.

[tishaLA]

11. If he does that tomorrow

A warrior will smoke his punk ass out and make him look shameful in front of millions of his "fellow Muricans"

[JETS]

12. I work near Wilkes-Barre, PA

You can still smell the devil's mixture of Texas horsesh*t and the foul hotair left behind by W.

[paulk]

25. If my memory serves me

Scranton/Wilkes Barre already smells pretty foul, with all those underground fires.

Bush just added insult to injury...

:-)

[lancdem]

13. Wow, "new zingers"!

I'll bet Kerry is quaking in his boots. :eyes:

BYW, notice how the Bush people conned the media by saying it would be a "major policy speech" and it turned out to be nothing more than an anti-Kerry stump speech.

[Beetwasher]

17. I Have NOT Seen This Mentioned In The Articles About It Either

Damn liberal media...

[SidDithers]

14. When do people get tired of "zingers"?...

I know it's all he's got, but I think Bush needs to do more than just come up with a few new turns of phrase in order to stop the train wreck that has become his campaign.

I hope that at some point, the American public will come to realize the seriousness of the situation - in Iraq and at home - and demand more than just quips from their semi-literate President.

That's why I like the "serious man for a serious time" description of Kerry. What's needed is a substantive discussion about the planned policy and ideological differences between the D's and the R's.

But, then again, we know that only one of the two individuals on stage Friday night is cabable of engaging in that kind of discussion.

Sid

[liberal_in_GA]

15. Did ANYONE in the whoremedia

label this for what it really was? A shameless do-over to save his ass from his pathetic performance last week? Or are they mostly calling it "hard-hitting", etc.?

[wryter2000]

21. Saw it covered on CBS last night

They did characterize it as a stump speech that was an attempt to make up for his bad performance in the debates. They may have sounded a bit more neutral than that, but they didn't act as though it was a "major" speech or had any new information in it.

I'm wondering if the repugs aren't crippling themselves by playing only to sycophants. This sort of crap plays well with their "base" but turns other people off. IMHO, that's why they were so surprised that his debate performance went over like a lead balloon. Of course, it's fine with me if they keep making that mistake. :evilgrin:

[liberal_in_GA]

31. Well, it's good CBS said it...

even though they're the "librul" media. But EVERYONE should have been screaming this; it should have been the implication in every newspaper headline. Bushie and Co. show just as much contempt for the media as they do the American people when they pull shit like this, but we're STILL waiting for it to backfire in a major public way. :wtf:

[Sparkly]

16. Has he called Kerry a "Doodyhead with cooties" yet?

I thought he was quoted as saying, "You can't win a war if you don't believe in fighting," making it less about that particular war and more a personal distinction between them (Chimp being a fighter, Kerry not, which is funny).

"In Iraq, Senator Kerry has a strategy of retreat" is funny since Rummy said we could retreat before there's even peace in the streets.

And I'd love to hear Chimp use Cheney's defense in the debate, trying to explain why we had to invade not because there were WMD, or because he could make them, or because he was getting materials to make them, but because sanctions might have been lifted some day.

[Forkboy]

18. Bush Throws Down The Gauntlet...Then Procedes To Trip Over It

[MatrixEscape]

26. I am glad he threw it down ...

before he hurt himself with it.

[bloom]

28. that's what...

:argh:

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. Um...no one believes in the Iraq war. We're voting for a president

who is smart enough to realize that he needed an exit strategy BEFORE he dropped the first bomb. And that president is not Bush.

[Javaman]

20. Bush will loose tomorrow night...

He keeps repeating the same punchlines over and over. What Kerry should say tomorrow is, "doesn't anyone write you new material?"

[Carni]

22. "You can't win a war you don't believe in fighting" Well DUH -- dumb ass!

And you can't invade a country based on lies or forgeries by some Italian dude connected with organized crime either...but that didn't stop Bush.

If the public buys this swill I am just going to hang it all the hell up!

[skygazer]

23. Apparently, he managed to hoodwink the media as well

http://slate.msn.com/id/2107847/

You Call That a Major Policy Address?

By Fred Kaplan


Did CNN and MSNBC get hoodwinked this morning? Yesterday, the White House announced that President Bush would be delivering a "major policy address" on terrorism today. The cable news networks broadcast it live and in full. Yet the "address" turned out to be a standard campaign stump speech before a Pennsylvania crowd that seemed pumped on peyote, cheering, screaming, or whooping at every sentence.

The president announced no new policy, uttered not one new word about terrorism, foreign policy, or anything else. He did all the things he wanted to do in last Thursday's debate—accuse his opponent of weakness, bad judgment, vacillation, and other forms of flip-floppery—though this time without a moderator to hush the audience, much less an opponent to bite back. And Bush loved it, smiling, smirking, raising his eyebrows, as if to say, "How 'bout that zinger?"

In short, the cable networks were lured into airing an hourlong free campaign ad for George W. Bush. (CNN's spokeswoman did not return my calls inquiring if the producers felt used. The secretary to MSNBC President Rick Kaplan—no relation—connected me to a "viewer relations" line, where I could leave a message if I wished. I called again to clarify that I had a press question, not a consumer complaint. She connected me to the same line again. When I tried a third, fourth, and fifth time, she didn't even pick up the phone; no doubt seeing my number pop up on the Caller ID screen, she routed my call to the prerecorded announcement.)

It's hard to blame either network for taking the White House's bait. Most presidents would want to deliver, right about now, a major address on the war against terror and the war in Iraq. In the last few days, one blow after another has struck the very foundations of Bush's policies. The fact that, under the circumstances, Bush didn't deliver a major policy address after all, despite his advance word, should embarrass not only CNN and MSNBC but, still more, President Bush.

<snip>

[Hobarticus]

24. "Zingers" isn't foreign policy...

We're not buying it anymore.

[underpants]

27. Can we get a "window into HIS thinking'' from 30 years ago?

Snoooooooooooooooooort

[ParanoidPat]

29. Bush* Throws Down The Gauntlet - And Trips Over It!

Bush* Throws Down The Gauntlet And Trips Over It

:kick:(DUNS) President Bush* snorts a 'line' in the sand.:kick:
By ParanoidPat for Democratic Underground News Service

Mr. Bush's pitiful speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. on Wednesday made his lack of strategy for the remainder of the campaign 'crystal' clear: a rousing, no-retreat defense of his indefensible Iraq war and a harsh critique of John Kerry that focuses on his Democratic rival's perceived weaknesses on both foreign and domestic issues.

"You can't win a war you don't believe in fighting," Mr. Bush said. "In Iraq, Senator Kerry has a strategy of retreat."

Mr. Kerry countered that he agreed 100% with Mr. Bush*s statements and questioned the pResident's ability to get the Iraqi people to stop believing in their insurgency against invading US forces and his reasoning for staying in Iraq now that it has been well established that they were never a credible threat requiring pre-emption.

Kerry has pressed the president to acknowledge the lies that were told and massive mistakes that were made in Iraq, but Mr. Bush's speech signaled that he will mount an uncompromising defense of the administration's Iraq policy in the closing days of the campaign.

The speech bristled with new unsupported accusations that laid out in harsh and personal terms why Mr. Bush thinks Kerry is unfit to be commander in chief. On the domestic front, the president relied on a classic conservative rhetoric to paint Kerry as a tax-and-spend liberal.

[gardenista]

30. President DO-OVER!!!! nt

[Ksec]

32. Throwin down ??? what a drama queen.

[kodi]

33. WHAT WAR DID YOU SERVE IN, GEORGE?

.

[Hot Water]

34. Only a President this slimy & repugnant

could pull inspectors out of a country who were in the country looking for, and finding weapons, so he could send in troops to look for and find weapons.

If it wasn't so pathetic, it would be funnier than an Abbot and Costello routine.

[Lorien]

35. Silver spoon AWOL sez:

"You can't win a war you don't believe in fighting," to honored Vietnam Vet.

Oh man, that's rich!

[LittleClarkie]

36. Deluded: LOUD AND PROUD

Greeeat. Just as wrong, but cranked up to 11. Yeah, that's the ticket. Volume always helps.

Sounds like more of the same really.

[Vincardog]

37. Good more steady leadership. All George needs to do is keep showing the

American people that he is firmly in control. He can by force of will impose his views on the world. If the world does not like it they just have to lump it. George is the leader of the last Superpower and the whole world should just kiss his a$$. For the debate :puffpiece:
George just needs to show his friendly face to the people. You know that cowboy next door. Kerry's IQ and gravitas can't compete with Georges charm and whit. :toast:

[demwing]

38. This Is News? Bush STILL Clueless?

Wow, what a shock!

Bush attacks Kerry? Whoa, there cowboy! What a reversal!

Bush ignores his errors? I am STUNNED.

STUNNED I SAY!

Thanks god we have a free press in America, eh?