posted on December 28, 2005 08:37:17 AM
OH BROTHER! Bush learns to read ?????
They REALLY are desperate to make bush look like he can read and think
Quite a jump from the goat book:
White House Details President's Vacation Reading
Updated 11:11 AM ET December 28, 2005
President Bush is doing some reading on his Texas vacation, cracking open a volume about one president's life after the White House and another about the lives of U.S. troops -- written by someone who has criticized the Bush administration.
A spokesman said this week that the commander in chief is reading "When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House" by Patricia O'Toole.
The book details Roosevelt's attempt to win back the presidency in 1912 as well as his post-White House African safari. Roosevelt was 50 when he left office. Bush will be 62 when his term is up. He has said he'd be happy to retire to his Texas ranch.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy insisted we should read nothing into the president's interest in Roosevelt's later years. Describing Bush as a history buff, Duffy said, "the president knows full well that he's got a lot of time left in this second term and he's going to accomplish big things, as he has talked about repeatedly." The book was recommended to Bush by NBC's Brian Williams.
The president's other vacation read is "Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground." The book, almost a travelogue, gives glimpses of life for troops dispatched to fight the war on terror, from Iraq to the Philippines. Author Robert Kaplan celebrates the work of the everyday "grunt" but criticizes the politicians and bureaucrats who craft America's foreign policy, which he views as imperialist, even if necessarily so.
When asked why the president is reading a book by an author who has criticized the administration's post-war planning, Duffy said, "The president is an avid reader. He reads books of all kinds and stripe and persuasion."
posted on December 28, 2005 09:24:09 AM
Sure, ron, just as soon as you furnish proof that your Christmas was ruined by the "War on Christmas" and the ALLEGED refusal of a clerk to wish you a Merry Christmas.
posted on December 28, 2005 09:45:00 AM
This is good to hear, because I'm sure most of us actually believe that the man who was twice elected as the most important and powerful man in the world is really and illiterate monkey.
Because we all know that miraculously, he's both the biggest idiot who ever lived and the sneakiest, craftiest, most deviously ingenious dictator who ever held the White House.
Right. Get over it.
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Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum sonatur.
posted on December 28, 2005 12:10:06 PM
Bush has publicly boasted that he doesn't even read newspapers (he relies on staff to tell him what's going on in the world, which could account for a lot). So I am sceptical about his actually reading this book himself.
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posted on December 28, 2005 12:35:11 PM
By admitting that he is briefed on the news by others it means that he allows others to filter what he reads. It means that he is allowing others to control him and he is out of the realm of the real world.
A good leader would want to read it all, good and bad. That way he would have a better sense of the media and the direction they may be taking towards him and his administration. Perhaps that's why he looks so clueless on occasion.
If he reads so much he would perhaps have a better grasp on the English language? But it's never too late to learn.
posted on December 28, 2005 12:37:30 PM
from U.S. News [online]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
U.S. President George W. Bush said on Monday that he does not live "in a bubble" and that he is well aware of what is going on outside the White House, rejecting critics' claims that he is out of touch with public opinion.
"I don't feel in a bubble," Bush said in an interview on "NBC Nightly News."
Bush said he gets "really good advice" from "very capable people" and that people from all walks of life provide information to him and his advisers.
"I feel very comfortable that I'm very aware of what's going on," Bush said.
But Bush did acknowledge the bubble of security that prevents him from enjoying ordinary experiences.
"I mean you feel in a bubble in the sense that I can't go walking out the front gate and you know, go shopping, like I'd love to do for my
wife," he said.
Asked how much television news and newspapers he regularly consumes, Bush moved to dispel a myth that grew a few years ago after he told an interviewer that he does not read newspapers.
"Every morning I look at the newspaper," Bush told NBC. "I can't say I've read every single article in the newspaper. But, I definitely know what's in the news."
"Occasionally, I watch television. I don't want to hurt your feelings. But it's occasionally," Bush said jokingly.
"But I'm very aware of what's in the news. I'm aware because I see clips. I see summaries," he said, adding that staffers also brief him on "what's brewing today."
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posted on December 28, 2005 12:45:42 PM
He didn't even realize how serious Katrina was until days later so I would say that he is definitely out of the loop.
All this news about him reading books and Laura giving him one for Christmas is just part of the campaign to get his ratings up again because they've fallen so badly.
It's the 'feel good' season so people will be more forgiving towards him.
posted on December 30, 2005 03:59:07 PM"I feel very comfortable that I'm very aware of what's going on," Bush said.
No wonder why there was a flood in New Orleans. He was aware and fully briefed by his advisors.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 30, 2005 04:39:05 PM
This is getting funnier and funnier the more I read ld's posts.
NOW he thinks the President could have somehow prevented the floods......like God....just called on the heaven and earth to STOP with all that rain-fall.
OR maybe he could have set crews in there to shore up the levies that their own state didn't take care of....when they've gone through all this before.
Nope....according to THIS bush-bashing....EVEN the rains from the heaven are now his fault.
Can you spell l-u-n-a-t-i-c????? Looks like another one to me.
[ edited by Linda_K on Dec 30, 2005 04:42 PM ]
posted on December 30, 2005 04:47:55 PM
"NOW he thinks the President could have somehow prevented the floods......like God....just called on the heaven and earth to STOP with all that rain-fall"
ya mean to tell me he CANT do this??
what the hell good is he???
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Beauty is only a light switch away
[ edited by classicrock000 on Dec 30, 2005 04:53 PM ]
posted on December 30, 2005 05:08:13 PM
lol classic.....according to them and all their continuing petty threads....absolutely nothing.
But the voters showed them how much they cared about what makes them whine all the time. Just think....only three more years to listen to whatever they can find to blame on him that to them IS EARTH SHATTERING....like this thread...etc...lol.
posted on December 30, 2005 07:29:23 PM
Well I, for one, certainly got a kick out of this thread about the MYTH our President doesn't read.
And here THEIR side voted FOR the original Patriot Act....but now they're against it. Most claiming they didn't know/weren't aware 'this or that' was in it's text.
Maybe because THEY didn't bother to read it before passing it/voting for such important legislation themselves....lol....the dem leaders who represent THEM????? OMG!!!!
And the same thing with saying they voted FOR this war....but now they're against it. WHY? Did they read what that important document/bill said either???
Think some dem leaders had better start doing some 'reading' of their own, BEFORE they agree with and pass legislation that they later claim they didn't understand fully.
posted on December 30, 2005 07:45:26 PMNOW he thinks the President could have somehow prevented the floods......like God....just called on the heaven and earth to STOP with all that rain-fall.
No stupid only Moses could have done that.
"I feel very comfortable that I'm very aware of what's going on," Bush said.
If this was true, Bush would have known what was going in New Orleans and not waited to go see the destruction there. His advisors told him every thing was ok and that N.O. was spared.
It is no wonder why you have your head in a cloud like Bush, you get your news from his advisors as well.
"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." –President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005
From a Newsweek article on Hurrican Katrina:
How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.
President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn't read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.
But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.
Do you need more proof that Bush does not know what is going on?
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
