Take That, Mr. President
For the last question in Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, Hardball host Chris Matthews asked each of the ten GOPers on the stage how they would differ from George W. Bush. Here's Senator John McCain's answer:
I would not have mismanaged the war.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani mentioned no difference between himself and the current president and instead praised Bush for being such a decisive leader after 9/11.
Let's look forward to more tussling on this point in the months ahead. Here's a key question: how far can McCain go in distancing himself from Bush's past management on the war while embracing Bush's current handling of the war and the so-called surge?
Posted by David Corn at May 3, 2007 09:42 PM
10 comments:
McCain is running a losing campaign from the git-go. He cannot have it both ways, criticizing bush on the handling of the war, but supporting the surge. What is this guy thinking?
Oh, so he can mismanage a campaign, but he would not mismanaged a war? LOL!
He's not only lost his mojo, he's lost his marbles. Seriously.
He already has little appeal to the Republican base: READ: GOPers who vote in the primaries -- but he has little appeal to the Repugs, in general. Independents are not interested either. McCain is toast.
But...IMO, Rudy is toast, too. So, the GOPers have someone else up their sleezy sleeves.
Take it to the bank.
Hey, Saladin, give us a report on how your hero Ron Paul did tonight.
I didn't watch the circus.
How far can McCain go in distancing himself from Bush's past management on the war while embracing Bush's current handling of the war and the so-called surge?
Only as long as the public is buying it. The surge started out with a 40% approval rating and its dropping as US soldier death rates rise and Bush sells it as a success based on a decline in sectarian violence.
There are still Americans who buy the construct that fighting them there... these folks will gladly trade the deaths of American soldiers for our "safety" here.
Snark alert: Imagine if this Gen. Patreus had never come along to save our democracy. Meanwhile, those terrorist loving Democrats want to send al Qaeda a candy gram in the form of a withdrawal date.
Is this the best political debate we can muster? It's disgusting.
David Corn,
Thanks for writing about the war and not just the campaign for President Nov. '08.
More Moon Money Flows to Bush Family
In Virginia, where the Washington Times Foundation tax form lists IPF's current address, the Virginia State Corporation Commission records show the status for IPF as revoked in 2004. The Commission's online database of corporate registrations indicates the online record details for the entity have been purged from their system as of 12/31/2004.
This revelation of money donated to a charity associated with the Bush family is just the latest in a string of donations and payments dating back more than ten years. George H. W. Bush has had a long association with Moon going back to just after he left office. In September 1995 Bush and his wife gave a number of speeches in Asia for the Women's Federation for World Peace an organization headed by Moon's wife Hak Ja Han Moon. In November 1996 Bush spoke in Buenos Aires at a banquet honoring the opening of Moon's South American newspaper Tiempos del Mundo Bush refused to disclose how much he was paid for his Moon-sponsored speaking tour.
In 2003 the Washington Times Foundation funneled a $1,000,000 donation to the Bush Presidential Library through the Greater Houston Community Foundation. In 2005 the Moon sponsored Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace made a donation of $1,000,000, it's largest donation of the year, to the senior Bush's Points of Light Foundation for Hurricane Katrina relief.
The Bush 2005 Inaugural Committee received the maximum $250,000 donation from Moon's Washington Television Center the entity that owns the large office building at 650 Massachusetts Avenue in the District of Columbia. In December 2005 the President's younger brother, Neil, was spotted touring Taiwan and the Philippines with Moon. Less than a year later Business Week published an article titled "No Bush Left Behind" profiling Neil Bush's company Ignite!, Inc. The company sells a high tech teaching aid called "Curriculum on Wheels" or COWs. The article states "A foundation linked to the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon has donated $1 million for a COWs research project in Washington ( D.C.)-area schools."
From non-profit tax returns and media reports we see that at least $3,335,000 has flowed from the Unification Movement to Bush family members or charities since George W. Bush has taken office.
More HERE
1. The CO2 rise. Who dunnit?
Here at RealClimate, we have been (naively, apparently) been operating under the assumption that climate change contrarians had long ago moved on from the untenable position that humans are not even responsible for the observed increase in CO2 emissions over the past two centuries. The dubious paper by Ernst Beck we commented on the other day indicates that there is indeed still a rear guard attack being waged. As if to drive the point home further, pundit Alexander Cockburn, known generally for his progressive views, has perplexingly disputed the existence of any link between CO2 emissions and rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere in a screed he penned this week for the online journal "Counterpunch" (also printed in The Nation). It's hard to know where to start, since his piece is so over the top and gets just about everything so thoroughly wrong, it's almost comical. So we'll just hit the low points: (a) Cockburn claims that there is zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend, despite the fact that not even such strident climate change contrarians as Pat Michaels dispute that there is a measurable influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on global temperature. Plus there's all the empirical evidence of course (see the new IPCC report). (b) Going further, Cockburn brazenly opines that 'it is impossible to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from human burning of fossil fuels' despite the fact that there is an isotopic smoking gun for this connection. He then (c) fails to understand that water vapor is a feedback not a forcing, and citing 'expert' Dr. Martin Hertzberg, quite remarkably states that 'It is the warming of the earth that is causing the increase of carbon dioxide and not the reverse.' Never mind that isotopic evidence proves otherwise. Upon what evidence does he base this assertion?
More HERE
Beck's global warming special dominated by industry-funded "experts," serial misinformers
CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck's May 2 hour-long special, Exposed: The Climate of Fear, purported to present the "other side of the climate debate that you don't hear anywhere." Introducing the show, Beck stated: "I want you to know right up front, this is not a balanced look at global warming." Indeed, Beck relied heavily on people with energy industry ties and others espousing positions on global warming that have been soundly debunked or rejected by the overwhelming majority of scientists studying climate change.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
This is CNN?
capt
Climate Change Is Happening, Effects Will Be Severe, Now What Will It Cost to Fix It?
Could it be true that staving off the severe effects posed by climate change won't impose ruinous costs? The IPCC thinks so
Bangkok, Thailand, represents one future for global transportation. Short trips last hours, whether by bus or car, and by evening traffic can average half a mile an hour in some spots, far slower than walking speed. Bangkok's nine million or so denizens support two million personal vehicles, as the car has become a sign of personal prestige. "Unfortunately, the personal vehicle has become sort of synonymous with being a rich, civilized person," notes Steven Plotkin, a transportation energy analyst at Argonne National Laboratory. "It's one of the first things you buy when you get some money together."
Worldwide, the desire for automobiles and the traffic it inspires burns fuel at an alarming pace, contributing to an ever-increasing amount of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. As the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released today in Bangkok reveals, cutting back on those emissions is a critical task.
Worldwide emissions of all greenhouse gases have nearly doubled since 1970 thanks to a rise in the worldwide use of energy, whether fuel in cars or electricity from a coal-fired power plant. In that time emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) alone rose by "about 80 percent," according to the report, with 28 percent of that increase occurring since 1990 alone. Nothing in sight will check this rise: cars are only getting more popular and more of the world is consuming coal-fired electricity. China alone added 90 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants in 2006, roughly equivalent to the total power production of Germany, according to Richard Bradley, head of the energy efficiency and environment division at the International Energy Agency (IEA).
More HERE
From Media Matters:
On the April 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck likened former Vice President Al Gore's fight against global warming to Adolf Hitler's use of eugenics as justification for exterminating 6 million European Jews. Beck stated: "Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government." He continued: "You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy: global warming." Beck added: "Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists who say, 'That's not right.' And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did."
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