Gonzales wishes Bush admin had gotten to bin Laden first
Andrew Longstreth in New York interviewed the former Attorney General.
Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he was grateful for the killing of Osama bin Laden even if he would have preferred it to have happened under the Bush administration.
“It was an important day,” Gonzales told Reuters on Wednesday. “We worked very hard to make this come about. I wished it happened under the Bush administration. But I’m grateful it happened when it did.”
Before Gonzales became attorney general, he served as White House counsel. In that position, he ordered a legal memo that was used to justify harsh interrogation techniques of terrorism suspects.
While Gonzales declined to weigh in on the effectiveness of such techniques and said he had no idea whether they helped commandos to find and kill bin Laden, he insisted they were legal and that was paramount to former President George Bush.
“What mattered to him was that they were lawful,” Gonzales said. “If he had been told they were unlawful, it wouldn’t have mattered whether they were effective or not.”
CPAC victory in hand, Ron Paul takes on Tea Party
Libertarian Ron Paul, a godfather of the Tea Party movement, isn’t altogether happy with his political progeny these days.
Fresh from victory in last week’s CPAC presidential straw poll, the Republican congressman from Texas laments to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that some Tea Partiers aren’t measuring up when it comes to the tough defense and entitlement program cuts he believes are needed to save the United States from economic cataclysm.
“They don’t want you to touch Social Security. They don’t want you to touch anything but Obamacare,” Paul says. “Some of them are real Republicans and they wouldn’t dare touch Bush’s increase in medical care costs, you know, prescription health programs.”
“They treat the symptoms and they don’t look at it philosophically,” he adds.
This sounds like a new fissure in the divisions emerging among Republicans. The Tea Party movement swept Republicans into the majority in the House of Representatives last November, while narrowing the Democratic Party’s hold on the Senate.
This year, newly elected Republicans with Tea Party backing have embarrassed the party leadership in the House on high-profile votes and pushed to expand initial 2011 spending cuts of $40 billion to more than$60 billion.
Differences between Republicans have appeared to turn on degrees of conservatism and aggressiveness about spending cuts, with some balking at the prospect of reducing popular programs that could cost votes.
Fox News has been busted yet again editing video to misinform its viewers.
“Fox News. We distort, you buy it.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwo0Iyrh1 Zk
Bush daughter backs gay marriage
Former President George W. Bush’s daughter Barbara is speaking out in support of same-sex marriage.
“I’m Barbara Bush and I’m a New Yorker for marriage equality. New York is about fairness and equality and , everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love. Join us,” she says in a brief video released by the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
In a break with her father, Ms. Bush, who lives in Manhattan, joins other prominent New Yorkers in calling on New York to legalize gay marriage, The New York Times reported Monday.
Human Rights Campaign said Barbara Bush’s position reflects a generational attitude, with a majority of young adults (18-34) supporting marriage for same-sex couples in New York.
She’s not the only daughter of a prominent Republican to be on the other side of what’s been a wedge issue in U.S. politics and red meat for conservative voters.
Meghan McCain, daughter of Arizona Senator John McCain, has also spoken out in support of gay marriage.
During his presidency, Bush called for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.
I always knew she was the smart one. And pretty, too. Couldn’t Reuters have found a better photo?
Rising above politics … in Washington
President Barack Obama seems to want to rise above politics in the tax debate. Good luck with that.
When Obama announced the White House’s tentative tax deal with congressional Republicans, he said he had agreed to compromise rather than “play politics” at a time when Americans want problems solved.
The president gave every impression of bowing to the verdict that voters delivered on Nov. 2, when they evicted so many Democrats from their lodgings in the House of Representatives and handed the time-share keys to the Republicans.
But whether voters are grateful enough to reward Obama’s thoughtfulness in 2012 is another story.
Many Democratic voters are likely to be aghast at his willingness to accept continued tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
Democratic lawmakers, mindful of those same voters, may show their own distaste for the deal by walking out on the debate.
“There’s a group that may walk and say at some point, you’ve gone too far,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told National Public Radio after Obama announced the tentative tax deal. “If the Republicans overreach, if they start including some of their pet projects into this compromise, when it comes to the tax code, you could find a walkout on the Democratic side, people saying you’ve just pushed it too far.”
Barbara Bush says Sarah Palin should stay in Alaska
Former President George W. Bush has carefully steered around the subject of Sarah Palin during interviews about his memoir. But his mother, Barbara Bush, aka the “Silver Fox,” is showing no restraint.
“I sat next to her once,” Mrs. Bush told CNN’s “Larry King Live” in an interview that also included her husband, former President George H.W. Bush. “Thought she was beautiful. And I think she’s very happy in Alaska — and I hope she’ll stay there.”
Palin is weighing a run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination,telling ABC’s Barbara Walters last week that she thinks she could defeat President Barack Obama. She has a book, “America by Heart,” coming out Tuesday and is starring in a reality TV show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”
A Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday showed a close contest between potential Republican candidates for 2012, with Palin gaining 19 percent to 18 percent for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and 17 percent for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Barbara Bush with son George at n the deck of the US Navy aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia)
Barbara Bush said the right words about Sarah Pelin! She is a wise mother and has her own experience with George W. She allowed him to go out of Texas, and look what the guy made out of the USA and its influence in the world. Another one of those and the usa would come under UNO sanctions.She is now making sure that George is not on his own for shopping or even a harmless stroll. Good advice from the former first lady!
Rex Minor
Dick Cheney: The Thin Man
I almost didn’t recognize him.
Watching Dick Cheney, one of the most recognizable political figures of the decade, on television speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, I did a double-take.
He is about 30 pounds lighter, after being in the hospital for five weeks this summer for a procedure to improve his heart function, according to someone close to him.
The former vice president and president appear to have moved beyond the end-of-term friction over Bush’s decision not to pardon Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
Cheney in a television interview last year, and Bush in his newly released book, both said they hadn’t seen eye-to-eye on the former president’s decision to commute Libby’s sentence but not pardon him. Bush also wrote in his memoir “Decision Points” that he once had considered replacing Cheney as vice president.
But in a rare public appearance together since they left office, both seemed to have left past disagreements in the past.
Cheney praised Bush for being a president who did not “put on airs,” and said that ”history is beginning to come around.”
Missourimule; You have to be kidding, right??
American Hero?? What did Cheney ever do that was Heroic? He has never served in the Militaty, He has never done anything that would remotely be called Heroic, unless you count his shooting of his “friend” and then waiting until after supper to even check on his condition.
Someone in Cheney’s Office outted a Covert CIA Operative during a time of war. Unless the defination of treason has changed dramatically “Giving aid and comfort to the enemy during a time of war” is still defined as treason.
The fact thst Scooter Libby was the fall guy for this does not change the fact. Cheney should have been brought up on charges over this crime.
Cheney was upset that Bush didn’t pardon Libby — president’s memoir
George W. Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” is full of newsy tidbits, and there’s a lot of material about his relationship with his vice president, Dick Cheney, whom Bush considered dumping from the 2004 ticket.
In the book, which hits bookstore shelves on Tuesday, Bush describes how upset Cheney was at him for his refusal to give a full pardon to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the senior Cheney aide who got caught up in the Valerie Plame scandal and who in 2007 was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Bush commuted the sentence, but refused entreaties to give Libby a full pardon.
Bush writes that in the closing days of his time in the White House in early 2009, Cheney pressed his case that Libby should be pardoned, and was angry when Bush refused.
“I can’t believe you’re going to leave a soldier on the battlefield,” Cheney told Bush.
“The comment stung,” Bush writes. “I had never seen Dick like this, or even close to this. I worried that the friendship we had built was about to be severely strained, at best.”
Bush tells NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview to air tonight that their friendship survived the dispute. “I’m pleased to report we are friends today,” Bush said.
George you are still there? Give us a break please. We know that Mr Obama is proving even worst than your draconiac rule, please give him another two years to sort out the mess you left for him!
Rex Minor
No politics or punditry for George W. Bush
When George W. Bush says he’s done with politics — believe it.
Not even the queen of daytime TV could draw the former Republican president into commenting on the current political scene when Bush sat down with her to discuss his new book.
He makes it clear he has moved on from politics and that punditry is not his thing.
“I’m through with politics. It’s hard for people to believe. I already said that. I am through. I enjoyed it,” Bush says in excerpts of an upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey released Thursday.
Winfrey asks if that’s why he’s made no public comment on President Barack Obama’s job performance.
“No. Because I want to treat my successor the way I’d like to have been treated. I don’t think it’s good for a former president to be out there opining on every darned issue. He’s got a plenty tough job. Trust me. And there’s gonna be plenty of critics and he doesn’t need me criticizing him. And I don’t think it’s good for the presidency. Other people have a different point of view,” Bush explains.
The sneak peek of Bush’s sit-down with Winfrey came two days after his Republican Party gave Obama a “shellacking” in Tuesday’s midterm elections, seizing control of the House and picking up a half-dozen seats in the Senate.
Has the decision maker reached the Winfrey’s level now? Is larry King no longer interested in him. Bill Clinton is still asked by John Stewart!
Rex Minor
Bush memoir includes some unexpected moments
Who would have thought former President George W. Bush would publicly admit that he had actually thought of dumping Dick Cheney as his veep?
But that’s just what he does in his memoir “Decision Points,” according to my colleague Steve Holland who obtained a copy of the book which is coming out next Tuesday.
And the worst moment of his presidency? When charges of racism were flung at him over Hurricane Katrina.
In an interview with NBC’s “Today” show, to be aired on Monday, Bush says he hit an ”all-time low” after critics like rapper Kanye West said his handling of the disaster showed that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
That comment still rankles Bush. “I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now,” he tells NBC.
“I resent it, it’s not true,” he said of the accusation of racism. “And it was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency.”
There are also some lighter revelations, like when Bush writes of being surly while growing up. “I poured vodka in the fishbowl and killed my little sister Doro’s goldfish.”
Washington Extra – The relative merits of Obama, Stewart, Palin and baseball
It is unclear to me if appearing on “The Daily Show” will have done much for President Barack Obama’s ratings. But it doesn’t seem to have helped Jon Stewart’s much. Nielsen data just in shows last night’s episode attracted 2.8 million viewers (minus TiVo data), compared to the show’s average of roughly 3.6 million an episode. Not sure if it says much about the president, except that people probably watch the Daily Show for Jon Stewart, not for his guests. Or maybe they were just watching the World Series.
That said, I suspect Sarah Palin would draw higher ratings if she ever graced Stewart’s studio. Instead, the former vice presidential candidate will be on air on Entertainment Tonight this evening. Asked bluntly if she planned to run for president, Palin said she would take a look at the lay of the land, to see if there was anyone else with the “common sense, conservative, pro-Constitution passion” she believes in.
If so, they would get her wholehearted support. If not: “if there’s nobody else to do it, then of course I would believe that we should do this.” As our blogger Toby Zakaria observed, it may come down to a definition of “nobody”, because there is of course likely to be a healthy Republican field, many of whom may indeed share that passion.
Finally, an interesting poll from long-time Democratic pollster Doug Schoen via US News and World Report. The highlights: more voters think George W. Bush was a better president than Obama than the other way around. And a majority think the president does not deserve a second term.
Ironically, of course, he might still get one. Half of the voters surveyed wanted a third party in American politics, and, even now, in the depth of his midterm blues, Obama might still win a three-way race. In a contest between Obama, Republican Mitt Romney and Palin, for example, Obama would sneak through with 40 percent of voters, ahead of Romney with 32 percent and Palin with 17.
Here are our top stories from Washington today…
US election ads turn personal — and brutal
The “enhanced interrogation techniques” Gonzales says are legal are SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED in the Geneva Convention, which also specifically states that those methods are prohibited under ANY circumstances, and the U.S. entered into that agreement knowingly and willingly. I’m sure the Bush admin wishes Gonzales had gone into the intelligence field so he could tell them what they wanted to hear prior to the invasion of Iraq. I wouldn’t care if leprechauns had shoved their shalele sticks so far up bin Laden’s backside that he glowed in the dark – he’s not dead enough to suit me. If Ganzales had a nonpartisan spine, he’d defend the legality of the SEALS having shot it in a dark, hostile environment without knowing what bin Laden and his Mrs. had hidden under their robes.