Re: A bike ride to nowhere

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 13:38:16 -0400, "Winston Smith"
<smith_w@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> posted

>he should stay in washington DC and *** a barely legal government employee
>in a government office building

..in lieu of fucking the country? then yeah!!!
>
>"Lex Dysic" <nobody@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:jm3cg1leohg1kq64m77893isof7m03rja1@xxxxxxxxxx
>>A bike ride to nowhere
>>
>> WASHINGTON How could President Bush be cavorting around on a long
>> vacation with American troops struggling with a spiraling crisis in
>> Iraq? Wasn't he worried that his vacation activities might send a
>> frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in
>> harm's way?
>>
>> "I'm determined that life goes on," Bush said stubbornly.
>>
>> That wasn't the son, believe it or not. It was the father - 15 years
>> ago. I was in Kennebunkport, Maine, then to cover the first President
>> Bush's frenetic attempts to relax while reporters were pressing him
>> about how he could be taking a month to play around when he had
>> started sending American troops to the Gulf only three days before.
>>
>> On Saturday, the current President Bush was pressed about how he could
>> be taking five weeks to ride bikes and nap and fish and clear brush
>> while his occupation of Iraq has turned into a fiasco. "I think it's
>> also important for me to go on with my life," W. said, "to keep a
>> balanced life."
>>
>> Pressed about how he could ride his bike while refusing to see a
>> grieving mom of a dead soldier who's camped outside his ranch, he
>> added: "So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand,
>> I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."
>>
>> Ah, the insensitivity of reporters who ask the President Bushes how
>> they can expect to deal with Middle East fighting while they're off
>> fishing.
>>
>> The first President Bush told us that he kept a telephone in his golf
>> cart and his cigarette boat so he could easily stay on top of Saddam's
>> invasion of Kuwait. But at least he seemed worried that he was sending
>> the wrong signal, as his boating and golfing was juxtaposed on the
>> news with footage of the frightened families of troops leaving for the
>> Middle East.
>>
>> "I just don't like taking questions on serious matters on my
>> vacation," the usually good-natured Bush senior barked at reporters on
>> the golf course. "So I hope you'll understand if I, when I'm
>> recreating, will recreate." His hot-tempered oldest son, who was
>> golfing with his father that day, was even more irritated. "Hey! Hey!"
>> W. snapped at reporters asking questions on the first tee. "Can't you
>> wait until we finish hitting, at least?" Junior always had his
>> priorities straight.
>>
>> As W.'s neighbors get in scraps with the antiwar forces coalescing
>> around the ranch; as the Pentagon tries to rustle up updated armor for
>> our soldiers, who are still sitting ducks in the third year of the
>> war; as the Iraqi policemen we train keep getting blown up by
>> terrorists who come right back every time U.S. troops beat them up; as
>> Shiites working on the Iraqi constitution conspire with Iran about
>> turning Iraq into an Islamic state that represses women; and as Iraq
>> hurtles toward a possible civil war, W. seems far more oblivious than
>> his father was with his Gulf crisis.
>>
>> This president is in a truly scary place in Iraq. Americans can't get
>> out, or they risk turning the country into a terrorist haven that will
>> make the old Afghanistan look like Cipriani's. Yet his war, which has
>> not accomplished any of its purposes, swallows ever more American
>> lives and inflames ever more Muslim hearts as W. reads a book about
>> the history of salt and looks forward to his biking date with Lance
>> Armstrong on Saturday.
>>
>> The son wanted to go into Iraq to best his daddy in the history books,
>> by finishing what Bush senior started. He swept aside the warnings of
>> Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell and didn't bother to ask his father's
>> advice. Now he is caught in the very trap his father said that he
>> feared: that America would get bogged down as "an occupying power in a
>> bitterly hostile land," facing a possibly "barren" outcome.
>>
>> It turns out that the people of Iraq have ethnic and religious
>> identities, not a national identity. Shiites and Kurds want to
>> suppress the Sunnis who once repressed them and break off into their
>> own states, smashing the Bush model kitchen of democracy.
>>
>> At long last, a senior Bush official admits that the administration
>> can no longer cling to its own version of reality. "We are in a
>> process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and
>> shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning," the official
>> told The Washington Post.
>>
>> They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many
>> more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better
>> tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion,
>> hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as "a tribute
>> to democracy."
>>
>> The president's pedaling as fast as he can, but he's going nowhere.
>>
>> WASHINGTON How could President Bush be cavorting around on a long
>> vacation with American troops struggling with a spiraling crisis in
>> Iraq? Wasn't he worried that his vacation activities might send a
>> frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in
>> harm's way?
>>
>> "I'm determined that life goes on," Bush said stubbornly.
>>
>> That wasn't the son, believe it or not. It was the father - 15 years
>> ago. I was in Kennebunkport, Maine, then to cover the first President
>> Bush's frenetic attempts to relax while reporters were pressing him
>> about how he could be taking a month to play around when he had
>> started sending American troops to the Gulf only three days before.
>>
>> On Saturday, the current President Bush was pressed about how he could
>> be taking five weeks to ride bikes and nap and fish and clear brush
>> while his occupation of Iraq has turned into a fiasco. "I think it's
>> also important for me to go on with my life," W. said, "to keep a
>> balanced life."
>>
>> Pressed about how he could ride his bike while refusing to see a
>> grieving mom of a dead soldier who's camped outside his ranch, he
>> added: "So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand,
>> I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."
>>
>> Ah, the insensitivity of reporters who ask the President Bushes how
>> they can expect to deal with Middle East fighting while they're off
>> fishing.
>>
>> The first President Bush told us that he kept a telephone in his golf
>> cart and his cigarette boat so he could easily stay on top of Saddam's
>> invasion of Kuwait. But at least he seemed worried that he was sending
>> the wrong signal, as his boating and golfing was juxtaposed on the
>> news with footage of the frightened families of troops leaving for the
>> Middle East.
>>
>> "I just don't like taking questions on serious matters on my
>> vacation," the usually good-natured Bush senior barked at reporters on
>> the golf course. "So I hope you'll understand if I, when I'm
>> recreating, will recreate." His hot-tempered oldest son, who was
>> golfing with his father that day, was even more irritated. "Hey! Hey!"
>> W. snapped at reporters asking questions on the first tee. "Can't you
>> wait until we finish hitting, at least?" Junior always had his
>> priorities straight.
>>
>> As W.'s neighbors get in scraps with the antiwar forces coalescing
>> around the ranch; as the Pentagon tries to rustle up updated armor for
>> our soldiers, who are still sitting ducks in the third year of the
>> war; as the Iraqi policemen we train keep getting blown up by
>> terrorists who come right back every time U.S. troops beat them up; as
>> Shiites working on the Iraqi constitution conspire with Iran about
>> turning Iraq into an Islamic state that represses women; and as Iraq
>> hurtles toward a possible civil war, W. seems far more oblivious than
>> his father was with his Gulf crisis.
>>
>> This president is in a truly scary place in Iraq. Americans can't get
>> out, or they risk turning the country into a terrorist haven that will
>> make the old Afghanistan look like Cipriani's. Yet his war, which has
>> not accomplished any of its purposes, swallows ever more American
>> lives and inflames ever more Muslim hearts as W. reads a book about
>> the history of salt and looks forward to his biking date with Lance
>> Armstrong on Saturday.
>>
>> The son wanted to go into Iraq to best his daddy in the history books,
>> by finishing what Bush senior started. He swept aside the warnings of
>> Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell and didn't bother to ask his father's
>> advice. Now he is caught in the very trap his father said that he
>> feared: that America would get bogged down as "an occupying power in a
>> bitterly hostile land," facing a possibly "barren" outcome.
>>
>> It turns out that the people of Iraq have ethnic and religious
>> identities, not a national identity. Shiites and Kurds want to
>> suppress the Sunnis who once repressed them and break off into their
>> own states, smashing the Bush model kitchen of democracy.
>>
>> At long last, a senior Bush official admits that the administration
>> can no longer cling to its own version of reality. "We are in a
>> process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and
>> shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning," the official
>> told The Washington Post.
>>
>> They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many
>> more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better
>> tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion,
>> hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as "a tribute
>> to democracy."
>>
>> The president's pedaling as fast as he can, but he's going nowhere.
>>
>> http://iht.com/protected/articles/2005/08/17/opinion/eddowd.php
>>
>>
>>
>

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