Tag Archives: george w. bush

Open Thread: George W. Bush Greets Troops at DFW

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: George W. Bush greets returning troops from Iraq. Try to get through this without shedding a tear: Thoughts?

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WaPo’s Eugene Robinson: Obama Is On A ‘Winning Streak’

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

What kind of shameless shill do you have to be to claim the President is on a winning streak as his poll numbers plummet, the economy teeters on a double-dip recession, and his Party is facing historic losses in both chambers of Congress? A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former managing editor of the Washington Post, that’s who. Consider that just days after numerous polls were released showing America’s confidence in Barack Obama at an all-time low, and stallwart supporters such as CNN and the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd claimed that even George W. Bush was better at delivering a coherent message to the American people, Eugene Robinson wrote the following Friday: This is a radical break from journalistic convention, I realize, but today I’d like to give credit where it’s due — specifically, to President Obama. Quiet as it’s kept, he’s on a genuine winning streak. Robinson then listed the following items by way of recent headlines: “Last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq” “General Motors to launch stock offering” “Gulf oil spill contained” But here was the best one. In fact, it’s so good it requires a serious warning to remove all fluids, combustibles, and sharp objects from proximity to your computer: And finally, “President wades into mosque controversy”: Yes, I’m serious. Supporting the mosque in Lower Manhattan didn’t score any political points. But Obama saw his duty to uphold the values of our Constitution and make clear that our fight is against the terrorists, not against Islam itself. Instead of doing what was popular, he did what was right. He still hasn’t walked on water, though. What’s wrong with the man? Yep. Robinson is so captivated by this President that he even believes Obama has handled the Ground Zero mosque situation well. Now THAT’S some impressive shilling, wouldn’t you agree? This is sooooo good it requires what Hillary Clinton would call a willing suspension of disbelief. For instance, here are some recent headlines one would have to ignore to come to the conclusion Obama is on a winning streak: Jobless claims hit 500K, a nine-month high New jobs numbers: Bad for economy, worse for Democrats US unemployment figures increase fears of double-dip recession Critics say Obama’s message becoming ‘ incoherent ‘ If polls are any indication, GOP can expect big gains in the fall Even the Poor Are Abandoning Obama , According to Gallup Poll Data ‎ Obama Sees New Lows in Job Approval Obama Receives Low Marks in Economic Poll ‎ Poll: Majority now disapprove of Obama’s job performance 1 in 5 Americans Thinks Obama Is Muslim If this is what Robinson thinks is a winning streak, I can’t imagine what losing looks like to him.

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WaPo’s Eugene Robinson: Obama Is On A ‘Winning Streak’

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Olbermann Uses Words of U.S. Soldier to Bolster Anti-War Agenda, Ignores Soldier’s Support for Iraq Mission

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann used a clip of U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Tim Osborn, stationed in Iraq, commenting on how he had previously felt that the war in Iraq “wasn’t ever going to stop,” to fit into the Countdown host’s suggestion that American troops had remained in Iraq too long. But what Olbermann did not show his viewers is that Staff Sergeant Osborn had also expressed strong support for the war effort in a clip which was shown earlier that evening on the NBC Nightly News during a piece which correspondent Richard Engel filed from Iraq: RICHARD ENGEL: He tells me his greatest accomplishment: giving Iraqis a chance. STAFF SERGEANT TIM OSBORN, U.S. ARMY: If what was going on here was going on in America, I wouldn’t want my kids to grow up in that world. I would want somebody else to come in and help. And if it took them doing what we did here, then I would welcome that. But Olbermann was apparently only interested in using a clip of Staff Sergeant Osborn that would fit into the MSNBC host’s characteristic anti-war shtick: KEITH OLBERMANN: One “Mission Accomplished” banner, 4,415 military fatalities, and 7 1/2 years after the previous administration led us into the war under pretenses and intelligence that proved to be undeniably false, the end of the Iraq war now finally in sight, at least from the combat operations standpoint. Our fourth story: the time remaining in a conflict that has dragged on for the better part of a decade, most accurately measured tonight not in months, nor in weeks, but in days At Camp Liberty in Iraq, soldiers lowering the flag of the last combat bridge in that country. One soldier fighting the war since 2003 telling our embedded chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, that the conflict he lived for most of his 20s, that appeared to be endless. STAFF SERGEANT TIM OSBORN, U.S. ARMY: I never dreamed I’d be one of the last ones out, sir. In all honesty, when it started up, it felt like it wasn`t ever going to stop. Engel’s piece on the NBC Nightly News also featured a second soldier who voiced support for the war effort in Iraq: SERGEANT FIRST CLASS JOE HUFFMAN, U.S. ARMY: Absolutely, for me and for my country, it was worth it. The sacrifice to the soldiers was worth it and what we came to right now at the end, the sacrifice was worth it.  Below is a complete transcript of the Monday, August 16, NBC Nightly News, followed by a transcript of the relevant portion of the same day’s Countdown show on MSNBC: #From the August 16 NBC Nightly News: BRIAN WILLIAMS: Now we move to Iraq, where a milestone is fast approaching: After more than seven years of war, the end of U.S. combat operations. Our chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is with the Fourth Stryker Brigade as they carry out one last mission, to get out and come home. RICHARD ENGEL: At Camp Liberty in Baghdad, soldiers lower the flag of the last combat brigade in Iraq. STAFF SERGEANT TIM OSBORN, U.S. ARMY: I never dreamed I’d be one of the last ones out. In all honesty, when it started up, it felt like it wasn’t ever going to stop. ENGEL: For 31-year-old Staff Sergeant Tim Osborn from Ohio, the war has been his twenties. He was here in 2003 to topple a dictator, called back in 2007 to stop a civil war, and now to end combat. He tells me his greatest accomplishment: giving Iraqis a chance. STAFF SERGEANT OSBORN: If what was going on here was going on in America, I wouldn’t want my kids to grow up in that world. I would want somebody else to come in and help. And if it took them doing what we did here, then I would welcome that. ENGEL: But Osborn has had four friends among the more than 4,400 American troops killed in Iraq. STAFF SERGEANT OSBORN: The blue and gold stars for my four brothers that I lost. ENGEL: By an almost impossible coincidence, Osborn has been in the same platoon for three tours with Sergeant First Class Joe Huffman from Batesburg, South Carolina. In his trailer today, Huffman waits for orders home. Everything is already packed except his computer, with pictures of family he’ll soon see. He, too, believes he’s leaving Iraq better than he found it. SERGEANT FIRST CLASS JOE HUFFMAN, U.S. ARMY: Absolutely, for me and for my country, it was worth it. The sacrifice to the soldiers was worth it and what we came to right now at the end, the sacrifice was worth it. ENGEL: Osborn and Huffman, who started the war together, will be leaving together, too. SERGEANT FIRST CLASS HUFFMAN: Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. STAFF SERGEANT OSBORN: Yo, hurry up! Get the ramp up! ENGEL: A friendship seared in war, ending a combat mission that has defined a generation of the U.S. military. Richard Engel, NBC News, Baghdad. #From the August 16 Countdown: KEITH OLBERMANN: One “Mission Accomplished” banner, 4,415 military fatalities, and 7 1/2 years after the previous administration led us into the war under pretenses and intelligence that proved to be undeniably false, the end of the Iraq war now finally in sight , at least from the combat operations standpoint. Our fourth story: the time remaining in a conflict that has dragged on for the better part of a decade, most accurately measured tonight not in months, nor in weeks, but in days At Camp Liberty in Iraq, soldiers lowering the flag of the last combat bridge in that country. One soldier fighting the war since 2003 telling our embedded chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, that the conflict he lived for most of his 20s, that appeared to be endless. STAFF SERGEANT TIM OSBORN, U.S. ARMY: I never dreamed I’d be one of the last ones out, sir. In all honesty, when it started up, it felt like it wasn`t ever going to stop. OLBERMANN: Soldiers from the Fourth Stryker Brigade combat team, Second Infantry Division, departing from Baghdad over the weekend to make that long and long overdue trip home to Fort Lewis, Washington, having spent almost a year in the Iraqi capital. By the end of the month, some 50,000 American troops will be left in Iraq, down from a maximum force strength of around 170,000, reached during the so-called “surge.” Under a security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, the rest of the troops are to be out of the country by the end of next year, 2011.

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NYT Worries Rich Win Even If Bush Tax Cuts Expire Just For Them

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In today’s “It Took You Long Enough To Figure It Out” segment, the New York Times is seriously worried that if the only Bush tax cuts that expire in January are those for the wealthiest Americans, the rich still win. Not surprisingly, Jackie Calmes’ piece on Wednesday also referred to extending existing law as “tax cuts,” a neat little trick the Left employ to give the appearance new cuts are being discussed when in fact the only thing on the table is whether what’s on the books will continue to be so. But facts aren’t important in this debate. Scaring folks into believing rich people are taking money away from them is: Given the progressive nature of the federal income tax system, in which tax rates increase with income, even the richest households would continue to pay the four lower rates on up to the first $250,000 of their income, under the approach being pushed by Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress. What Calmes was doing here was explaining to most of the likely ill-informed Times readers – after all, they probably only get their “news” from this propagandist source! – that marginal tax rates go up with income and that higher wage earners pay at those same lower rates on their initial earnings that qualify. As such, they pay ten percent on earnings up to a defined amount, then fifteen percent up to another, then 25 percent, etc. As the President is proposing extending all of the Bush tax cuts except the ones on the two top brackets, those in these upper brackets would still benefit by the lower rates applied to the lower brackets: Taxpayers with income of more than $1 million for 2011 would still receive on average a tax cut of about $6,300 compared with what they would have paid under rates in effect until 2001, according to the analysis, which was prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation at the request of the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee. That compares, however, with the roughly $100,000 average tax cut that households with more than $1 million in income would receive under current rates. Filers with taxable income of $500,000 to $1 million would still get on average a tax cut of $6,700 compared with pre-2001 rates, according to the data from the tax analysts. But that compares with roughly $17,500 if the top Bush tax rates were maintained. Of course, the other way of putting this is that if the President gets his way, those making over $1 million a year on average would see their taxes rise by $93,700; those making between $500,000 and $1 million on average would see their taxes increase by $10,800. Can’t you just hear all the cheering from the nicer neighborhoods in America? To give you an idea of how the far-left views this, the Huffington Post offered its readers the following headline and picture to get them to read Calmes’ piece: This is from a woman that believes income and taxes have nothing to do with a business owner’s decision to hire more employees. So, what do you expect?  On the other hand, if the “rich” benefit from cuts in those lower brackets, doesn’t that mean the Bush tax cuts weren’t just for the rich and that lower-income folks benefited from them, too? As always, this ironically inconvenient truth was lost on Calmes just as it is Obama, the Democrats, and a media that have been misrepresenting this from the day it was first proposed.  Think about it: if these cuts really were just for the rich when they were implemented in 2003, why bother keeping any of them now? If the poor and middle class are going to benefit from them being extended, doesn’t that mean they benefited when these cuts were first implemented, and that these weren’t just tax cuts for the rich? Of course, if the Times and its colleagues were honest about this in 2003, maybe Americans would have a far different view of the Bush tax cuts – but that would be too much like journalism for these shills. 

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Obama Admin’s IT Outsourcing Assistance to Sri Lanka, Armenia Gets Little Press Notice

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On August 3 (“U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers”), InformationWeek.com’s Paul McDougall reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development is operating at cross purposes with the Obama administration’s stated goal to keep high-tech jobs in the U.S. USAID has since attempted to do some backing and filling about the assistance it is providing in Sri Lanka, but its arguments may ring hollow, given McDougall’s report two days later that the agency is also helping to fund IT outsourcing efforts in Armenia. Here are the first four paragraphs of McDougall’s original August 3 report : Despite President Obama’s pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia. Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent’s low labor costs. Under director Rajiv Shah, the United States Agency for International Development will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java (Java EE) programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support. USAID will also help the trainees brush up on their English language proficiency. USAID is contributing about $10 million to the effort, while its private partners are investing roughly $26 million. A short time later, Patrick Thibodeau at Computerworld (“Basic skills, not enterprise Java, in Sri Lanka”), relayed USAID’s contention that relevance of java to the Sri Lankan effort would only be in whatever coffee might be used to keep students awake and alert (that’s my “clever” interpretation, not his). He also offered a humanitarian justification for the effort: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is helping to fund development of Sri Lanka’s offshore outsourcing industry, says it made a mistake in announcing that it would provide training on enterprise Java as part of a basic IT work skills program, an agency spokeswoman said today. … The inclusion of enterprise Java was curious because the USAID also said, in a subsequent follow-up blog post about this training, that the population in this area has “not been exposed to even basic IT technology.” … A USAID spokesman wrote this: “USAID’s partner in the project, a Sri Lankan company, initially requested to teach Enterprise Java to students that may qualify. However, after conducting due diligence, the partner found that the training programs must focus on fundamental computer skills, as the majority of prospective trainees lacked even basic experience with computers.” … The Northern area of Sri Lanka has seen much killing, including massacres. The war has been particularly brutal, with as many as 100,000 people killed over the course of the war and this in a country with a total population of just over 21 million. The war was settled last year and now the government is trying to stabilize this area with some economic development assistance. A correct translation of the bolded paragraph would be: They really wanted to do it, but they couldn’t. Even if the effort in Sri Lanka isn’t harmful to U.S. economic interests, the same probably can’t be said of what McDougall reported on August 5 (“Now It’s Armenia: USAID Funds IT In Eurasia”) about USAID’s involvement in Armenia: Even as controversy mounts over its funding of IT outsourcers in South Asia, the U.S. Agency for International Development has announced a program under which it will partner with the government of Armenia—a nation anxious to lure computer work from American shores–to promote the development of the country’s information technology industry. Jonathan Hale, USAID deputy assistant administrator for Europe & Eurasia, is on a four-day trip to Armenia to meet with government and private industry leaders in the country. On his agenda is a meeting with Armenian economic minister Nerses Yeritsyan. “We look forward to partnering with USAID on the IT sector, which has great potential as Armenia has an advantage in this sector,” Yeritsyan said in a statement released by USAID. “We want companies to come to Armenia and create their innovative environments,” Yeritsyan said. Among other things, Armenia is looking to establish itself as a center for low-cost IT and engineering work outsourced from the U.S. and other Western countries. … USAID, a taxpayer-funded federal agency, did not disclose how much it’s contributing to Armenia’s efforts to become a global IT competitor. Among the U.S. companies participating in the project is Oracle’s Sun Microsystems unit. Apart from what the Obama administration appears to be doing to ruin it, the more recent trend has been to pull call center work, much of which is related to IT support, back from overseas installations. I noted in a May 30 post (at NewsBusters ; at BizzyBlog ) industry reports that the call centers actually grew during the worst of the 2008-2009 recession as normal people define it . More tangible evidence of this trend is found at this link . Though it goes back to March of 2009, it cites eight specific and significant instances of companies each deciding to “onshore” hundreds of jobs in the U.S. that either had been outsourced overseas, or would have been in previous years. In the AT&T case cited at the link, thousands of jobs are involved. Though there have been stories in other tech publications about the Sri Lankan and Armenian situations since McDougall’s reports, the U.S. establishment press appears to be disinterested. A Google News search on “Sri Lanka outsourcing” (not in quotes) comes up with few results. A deeper dig into those results shows no U.S. establishment newspaper coverage. There is a mention at a blog post at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer , but it turns out to be from a commenter. Associated Press searches on ” Sri Lanka ” and ” Armenia ” (neither in quotes) return nothing relevant. Given “how American jobs disppearing overseas” was a popular establishment and sometimes valid media and Democratic Party theme during the Bush 43 years, it’s a little hard to handle any journalistic contention that a clearly proactive, government-sponsored effort to do just that isn’t sufficiently newsworthy. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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‘Recovery Summer’ vs. ‘Mission Accomplished’: Will MSM Immortalize Obama’s Laughable Proclamations?

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

For the media, “Mission Accomplished” represents everything that was wrong with the George W. Bush administration and its war policy. The image of Bush declaring unequivocal victory mere weeks after the invasion of Iraq has been ballyhooed as a visual representation of Bush’s arrogance, naivete, even dishonesty (the media contrived most of this meme – more on that below). Will Barack Obama have a “Mission Accomplished” moment? That is, will the media seize on something he or his administration has said as evidence of the large gap between his rhetoric and the effects of his policies? In fact, the gap already exists. The White House’s ” Recovery Summer ” initiative and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s statement, ” welcome to the recovery ” are completely divorced from economic reality. The only question is whether the media will seize on the catchy and baseless slogans (the two criteria of the “Mission Accomplished” media standard) coming from the White House to illustrate the sizable gap between this administration’s rhetoric, and the facts on ground, so to speak. First, it should be noted that the “Mission Accomplished” meme, as trumpeted by the media since May, 2003, is largely a myth. Bush never delivered those words in the context portrayed by many media liberals. The phrase was never actually uttered on the USS Abraham Lincoln, where Bush spoke in front of a banner displaying the infamous phrase. In fact, the banner was draped from the ship with little involvement or input from the White House. And Bush, during the speech on May 1, 2003, made sure to note that “Our mission continues” and that “We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide.” In other words, Bush plainly stated that the overarching mission was not  accomplished. Granted, he did say the following to a group of troops a month later: “America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished.” But in the context of the time – when the search for weapons of mass destruction was still ongoing and Saddam Hussein had just been deposed – that statement was true. A grave threat in the Iraqi dictator had been removed, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that bore the brunt of his dictatorial rule had been liberated. The lesson: truth matters less than perception and a coherent narrative in the creation of iconic images that promote or dog entire presidencies. The media’s “Mission Accomplished” meme abandoned truth in favor of a pithy and memorable way to get across a point they were already trying to make: the war effort was a bad idea. The Chicago Tribune channeled the media’s less flustered critics of the “Mission Impossible” statement, calling it ” dramatically premature .” The New York Times, on the other hand, labeled it a product of the president’s ” Never Never Land ” mentality on Iraq. “Welcome to the recovery” is certainly no less deserving – more so, in fact – of the iconic status afforded “Mission Accomplished” and the media’s disdain. Short, catchy, and lacking any real basis in reality, the phrase perfectly captures the Obama administration’s fingers-in-the-ears attitude towards their own economic policies. Three days after Geithner made his “welcome to the recovery” proclamation in the op-ed pages of the New York Times, the economy shed 131,000 jobs. The administration and its left-wing media cheerleaders touted the 71,000 private sector jobs created, not mentioning of course that about double that number would need to materialize for the economy to keep pace with new entrants in the job market. Ed Morrissey explains the numbers in more detail: This isn’t a Recovery Summer. It’s a slow slide, certainly better than the rapid disintegration of 2009, but we haven’t replaced those jobs yet, either. Job losses are cumulative. In a normal recovery with proper economic policies of lower barriers to investor entry, we would see a rapid replacement of jobs in this time frame that would take us back to somewhere around 80% of what was lost, with the remaining 20% being the most difficult to recover. We have not yet even begun that ascent. I’ll update this with a couple of slides later this morning to demonstrate the problem. Expect the White House to hail the best private-sector job creation numbers since March, but economists won’t get fooled. We’re still descending, and will until we get job creation solidly above 100,000 new additions per month. That Geithner’s “welcome to the recovery” statement was “dramatically premature” seems an understatement. is Tim Geithner stuck in Never Never Land? The Treasury Secretary’s declaration of the non-recovery recovery came in the middle of what the White House has formally dubbed its “Recovery Summer” campaign. The effort aims to promote “the surge in Recovery Act infrastructure projects that will be underway across the country in the coming months – and the jobs they’ll create well into the fall and through the end of the year,” according to a release. “Summer 2010 is actually poised to be the most active Recovery Act season yet,” the White House claimed in June. Total job losses during “Recovery Summer” have totaled 352,000 so far. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, has declined slightly, indicating that thousands of Americans have given up on their searches for jobs. Meanwhile, only a fifth of Americans believe the economy is improving, while three quarters believe the stimulus either had no effect on the economy, or has actually made things worse. In short, the “Recovery Summer” label is a joke, even given the modest (and that’s putting it generously) private-sector job creation so far this year. But will the media treat it with the disdain they did Bush’s “Mission Accomplished”? Will they call out Geithner for welcoming Americans to a non-existent recovery? If the economy doesn’t start gaining some steam, media neutrality will truly be put to the test.

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CBS Continues to Defend Obama Vacation Time With Bush Comparison

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Following a report on Saturday’s CBS Evening News , in which White House correspondent Chip Reid defended President Obama’s Maine vacation with a comparison to President Bush’s vacation time, Monday’s Early Show took the same approach as correspondent Michelle Miller reported: But it’s not just where and when presidents travel, it’s how often. Ronald Reagan took 349 vacation days at his California ranch during his eight years in office. In his first year and a half as President, George W. Bush vacationed 96 days. Over that same time period, President Obama has taken 36 days. On Saturday, Reid had similarly noted: “Whatever criticism there may be of the President’s vacation choices, he’s spent 33 days on vacation in his first 18 months. His predecessor, Bush W. Bush, spent 96 in the same period.” When Obama vacationed on Martha’ Vineyard in August of 2009 , Reid highlighted how it helped the local economy: “One thing that’s going to give a huge boost to the economy is all the Obama paraphernalia…t-shirts, it’s baseball caps and magnets and coffee mugs and glasses. And restaurants are selling the ‘Baracko Taco.’ Bars are selling ‘Ale to the Chief.’ And all of it is selling like crazy.” In the Monday Early Show report, Miller cited liberal presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who further defended Obama’s decision to vacation in Maine, rather along the tourist-starved Gulf coast: “Sure, people might wish that Obama had gone to the Gulf, but had he gone to the Gulf, now people would have said he was going there for politics.” Goodwin went on to declare: “I think presidential vacations are essential. It allows a President to relax, to replenish his energies, to think. Something they sometimes can’t do enough of in Washington.” At that point, Miller observed: “Despite any criticism, presidential vacations leave indelible images.” Goodwin chimed in: “JFK sailing is forever in our mind, that rugged JFK.” Miller concluded: “Only time will tell how President Obama’s hike in his dress shoes will compare with President Nixon’s similar walk on the beach.” Following Miller’s report, fill-in co-hosts Jeff Glor and Erica Hill shared their thoughts on the presidential vacation controversy. Glor sympathized: “I mean, the camera’s always on….I mean even when he’s there, they’re there following from spot to spot. So, you’re never really off that job.” Hill agreed: “No, no. And that kind of comes with the territory.” Glor then remarked on the First Family’s choice of getaways: “And not quite as hot there. Only high 80s, I think.” Hill added: “Oh, it’s so relaxing. Plus that nice breeze off of the Atlantic, it’s fine.”    Here is a full transcript of the Early Show’s July 19 report: 7:17AM TEASE ERICA HILL: Plus, why the first family is under fire for enjoying a little R&R. [FOOTAGE OF OBAMA EATING ICE CREAM] HILL: The ice cream gets you every time. 7:30AM TEASE HILL: Speaking of vacations, the first family spent a fun-filled weekend in Maine, a little mini vacation, but their time in the sun is stirring up plenty of controversy. So we’ll take a closer look at that as well. 7:46AM SEGMENT ERICA HILL: President Obama catching a little more flack from critics this morning. But not for his policies this time, it’s for taking a family vacation in Maine. CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports. MICHELLE MILLER: The First Family returned to the White House Sunday from a weekend vacation, a getaway that included hiking, boating, and eating ice cream in quaint Bar Harbor, Maine. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: First Family’s Maine Event; President’s Getaway Draws Criticism] UNDENTIFIED WOMAN [BAR HARBOR ICE CREAM SHOP]: I think everybody needs a weekend off to recharge and get some ice cream. MILLER: Given the ongoing crisis in the Gulf, the President’s weekend escape received a good share of criticism. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN [PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN]: Sure, people might wish that Obama had gone to the Gulf, but had he gone to the Gulf, now people would have said, he was going there for politics. MILLER: Questioning presidential vacations is a time-honored tradition. The Clintons frequently sailed off of Martha’s Vineyard. But after polling the public, they switched to middle-America-friendly Wyoming. George Bush senior took heat for golfing in Kennebunkport, Maine as troops were deployed to the Persian Gulf for the Iraq war. But it’s not just where and when presidents travel, it’s how often. Ronald Reagan took 349 vacation days at his California ranch during his eight years in office. In his first year and a half as President, George W. Bush vacationed 96 days. Over that same time period, President Obama has taken 36 days. GOODWIN: I think presidential vacations are essential. It allows a President to relax, to replenish his energies, to think. Something they sometimes can’t do enough of in Washington. MILLER: Despite any criticism, presidential vacations leave indelible images. GOODWIN: JFK sailing is forever in our mind, that rugged JFK. MILLER: Only time will tell how President Obama’s hike in his dress shoes will compare with President Nixon’s similar walk on the beach. Michelle Miller, CBS News, New York. HILL: That may be the strangest thing, taking a hike in dress shoes. Out of all of this, all the criticism aside, it’s not very comfortable. You could slip very easily. JEFF GLOR: But there’s the thing, I mean, the camera’s always on. HILL: Always there. GLOR: I mean even when he’s there, they’re there following from spot to spot. So, you’re never really off that job. HILL: No, no. And that kind of comes with the territory, which- GLOR: Which he knew that. HILL: Which everybody – which everybody knows going in. GLOR: They all knew that. HILL: It’s true. GLOR: And not quite as hot there. Only high 80s, I think. HILL: Oh, it’s so relaxing. Plus that nice breeze off of the Atlantic, it’s fine. GLOR: Yes, with dress shoes.

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Eleanor Clift: Obama’s Poll Numbers Down Because He Hasn’t Blamed Bush Enough

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

After the release of a number of polls Tuesday showing President Obama’s favorability rating plummeting, his minions in the media were out in force trying to blame the slide on something or someone else. Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift, ever the dutiful shill always at a Democrat’s service when the chips are down,  took a predictably absurd tack: Obama hasn’t blamed George W. Bush enough for all that ails the nation. “Obama hasn’t done as good a job as Reagan of blaming his predecessor,” wrote Clift after sharing some of Obama’s dismal poll numbers. For our sins Clift elaborated: Jimmy Carter for years served as the GOP’s version of Herbert Hoover while Obama let George W. Bush slip away into the ether, a former president so invisible that he might as well be in a witness-protection program. Bush’s upcoming book,  Decision Points,  won’t be released until a week after the November election, reinforcing the GOP’s decision to keep the unpopular president out of the mix in the midterms.  Readers are reminded that another Democrat media shill Bill Press told his radio listeners Tuesday that Obama’s declining poll numbers were due to Americans being spoiled, impatient children.  What do we learn from this? That no matter what the current president does, and no matter what happens to the economy, in Iraq, in the Gulf of Mexico, or anywhere on the planet, Obama has media minions that will quickly be out in force trying to deflect blame from him without regard to facts or reason. After all, as it pertains to Clift’s argument, there likely hasn’t been an administration in history that has spent more time blaming the country’s problems on the previous president. To suggest otherwise is what Hillary Clinton would say requires a willing suspension of disbelief. But Clift knows her role, and she plays it well. Of course, the magazine she writes for is in terrible financial condition desperately looking for a suitor to save it from extinction, but that’s beside the point. Despite the inanity in her position, Clift must be given an “A” for tossing such nonsense at her readers with a clear conscience and a straight face. That is certainly something she can always be counted on for. 

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Chris Matthews Calls George W. Bush and Sarah Palin ‘Know-Nothings’

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Chris Matthews on Friday called George W. Bush and Sarah Palin know-nothings.  Chatting with California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown on “Hardball,” the MSNBC host also called the Republican candidate for governor in that state Meg Whitman a know-nothing. “What is it in the American psyche or character that says, if you don`t know anything, you`re somehow an average person or average guy and you have horse sense?” asked Matthews. “What is it about people that keep picking people like George W. Bush to be president? And you see these people like Sarah Palin out there with fans.”  It seems in Matthews’ view, governing Texas, Alaska, or running one of America’s leading Internet companies requires zero intellectual capacity (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Weekly Political Review via Twitter’s @ndgc12dx): CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Former California governor Jerry Brown is currently the state`s attorney general. Governor Brown, it`s great to have you on. I just want to ask you, do you think the last seven years have been good for California with Schwarzenegger? Here`s a business guy and movie star, a business guy, who said, I can take business sense, like Meg Whitman, and make government work. It hasn`t — well, has it worked? I`ll leave it as an open question. Has he been a net plus or a net negative? JERRY BROWN (D-CA), ATTORNEY GENERAL, FMR. GOV., CANDIDATE FOR GOV.: Well, certainly in terms of the budget, blowing up the boxes, reorganizing government, it hasn`t. Now, Arnold Schwarzenegger has pioneered the environment and climate change legislation that is really path-breaking, so I give him full credit for that. But in terms of the crisis we`re in now, the idea that not knowing anything, not even caring enough to vote for 28 years, gives you the equipment, the skill, to wrestle those 120 legislators to the ground, get them on your team and deal with this deepening crisis — I doubt that. And if these surveys are any indication, Ms. Whitman has hit a wall for the last — probably since March, not moved forward. And I think we`re in a very strong position to win the confidence of the people and get down to brass tacks here of solving the problem.  MATTHEWS: What is it in the American psyche or character that says, if you don`t know anything, you`re somehow an average person or average guy and you have horse sense? What is it about people that keep picking people like George W. Bush to be president? And you see these people like Sarah Palin out there with fans. Why would anybody like somebody who the campaign manager for John McCain said, “She doesn`t know anything?” Why is not knowing anything — why does the know-nothing candidate, like Meg Whitman, a person who doesn`t have any government experience, have the appeal to be even with you in the polls? The know — the person that doesn`t know anything about government! How disgusting. It’s one thing to make such comments about a former President and a former governor, but to similarly disparage the Republican gubernatorial candidate while interviewing her Democrat opponent demonstrates absolutely NO journalistic impartiality by Matthew. Maybe he should just endorse Brown so that his few viewers would fully understand why he’s so hostile to Whitman. Come to think of it, that could be the next step in MSNBC’s activism. Stay tuned. 

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Arianna Huffington Whines When PolitiFact Doesn’t Support Her Half-Truth

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In today’s “Careful What You Ask For” segment, liberal publisher Arianna Huffington is crying at her website because the folks at PolitiFact didn’t back up her statement that Halliburton has defrauded American taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq. Making this most delicious, Huffington asked to be fact-checked by the group! For those that have forgotten, the former outspoken conservative was a guest on ABC’s “This Week” on June 6 when she get into the following squabble with Liz Cheney (video and transcript follow with commentary, relevant section at 7:30): ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Right here, we have the poster child of Bush-Cheney crony capitalism. Halliburton involved in this, and we haven’t said about that. They after all were responsible for cementing the well. Here’s Halliburton, after it defrauded the American taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars — LIZ CHENEY: Arianna, I don’t know what planet you live on, but that’s not — HUFFINGTON: — it’s involved again. I’m living on this planet. You’re living in a planet that is — CHENEY: — it’s — Arianna, what you’re saying — HUFFINGTON: — continuing — CHENEY: — has no relationship to — HUFFINGTON: It is completely — CHENEY: No relationship to the effects — HUFFINGTON: — Halliburton was involved in this. How can you say it is not? TAPPER: Well, Halliburton was cementing the pipe. HUFFINGTON: How can you say Halliburton has no relationship? CHENEY: Her assertion that Halliburton defrauded the U.S. government — HUFFINGTON: It did. It did. CHENEY: It was Bush-Cheney cronyism is the left talking point — HUFFINGTON: It was — hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq. CHENEY: Arianna, is absolutely not true. It is absolutely not true. HUFFINGTON: OK, I’m so glad Politifact is going to be checking this. I’m so glad. CHENEY: Good. On June 9, PolitiFact acceded to her request: In evaluating Huffington’s statement, we’re most bothered by her use of the word “defrauded.” Some of the overbilling in Iraq appears to have been done from haste or inefficiency, or even in a desire to please military officials in the field without regard for cost. Whether the waste in contracting constitutes fraud is still being examined. “It’s a lot money being spent in a region of the world where we don’t have a lot of infrastructure for accounting for how the money is being spent. It will take years before we fully determine how we spent the money,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget studies at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. In ruling on Huffington’s statement, we find much in the public record to support her statement, most notably the Justice Department lawsuit. Certainly there have been hundreds of millions of dollars that Halliburton’s KBR attempted to charge the government that have been denied. Government audits of KBR’s work in Iraq will likely continue for some time, and we do not expect a final accounting on these fronts anytime soon. Huffington glossed over some of these points in her back and forth with Liz Cheney. There’s also much evidence that makes us believe that hundreds of millions of dollars were lost to waste and inefficiency, not deceitful fraud. So we rate Huffington’s statement Half True. Almost a month later, Huffington is whining about it at her website: Whenever I speak about the future of media, I get the most positive reaction when I talk about the urgent need to create an online tool that makes it possible to instantly fact-check politicians and commentators as they speak (a bubble pops up, containing the actual facts supporting or contradicting what’s been said). Truth 2.0. That’s why I had such high hopes when it was announced that PolitiFact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking project of the St. Petersburg Times, was going to evaluate the truthfulness of statements made each Sunday an ABC’s This Week. It wasn’t going to be instant, but it was a step in the right direction. Then my dust-up with Liz Cheney on the show last month was given the PolitiFact treatment — and I saw firsthand why the pursuit of Truth 2.0 is going to be harder than we think. PolitiFact’s finding that my statement that Halliburton had defrauded American taxpayers of “hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq” was “Half True” — after first documenting example after example of why it was completely true — was an object lesson in equivocation, and a prime exhibit of the kind of muddled thinking that dominates Washington and allows the powerful to escape accountability. Despite the ludicrousness of the Half True rating — and since I was in the final throes of finishing my new book — I let it stand, feeling that the absurdity of PolitiFact first making my case for me, then falling back on the safety of a split-the-baby conclusion spoke for itself. Then, over the weekend, I read this entry detailing PolitiFact’s readers’ reaction to the Half True finding. Rummaging through its Mailbag, PolitiFact quoted three readers who said I was right (while castigating the site for “rhetorical tap-dancing” and “falling victim to the ills of pious fairness”), one who said I was wrong, and one who thought Half True was “right on.” Because this kind of hedging-your-bets thinking runs rampant in our media and political circles, and allows the corrupt no-accountability status quo to continue wreaking havoc on our country — and with my book at the printers, and a long weekend on my hands — I’ve decided it’s worth returning to the scene of the crime to do a little CSI exam of the evidence and see what we can conclude from PolitiFact’s head-scratching conclusion. After equivocating her case, Huffington concluded: Which is why I’d like to borrow two of the busiest letters of the day, and take this BP: Beyond PolitiFact. In the end, this is not about me, or Liz Cheney, or even Halliburton. It’s about our accountability double standard. It’s actually not that complex, nor is it ambiguous. It’s plainly obvious and the American people know it. And the refusal of our political and media leaders to acknowledge it is contributing to the widespread anger and cynicism sweeping the country right now. As long as we allow truth backed up by a mountain of evidence to be, in the name of “pious fairness,” downgraded to Half True, that’s the way the planet we’re all living on is going to continue to operate. And that’s a fact. I guess she’s no longer “so glad Politifact is going to be checking” her!  In the end, Huffington asked PolitiFact to access the veracity of her statement. They complied, and came to the conclusion that she was only half right. And like a true liberal, she whined about it claiming that it’s an example of everything that’s wrong with the world. Don’t you love how the mind of a liberal media elite works?

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Arianna Huffington Whines When PolitiFact Doesn’t Support Her Half-Truth

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