In the Christmas Spirit

In the spirit of Christmas reconciliation, here are two positive articles showing signs of President Bush's late-developing conscience. (though Cheney remains an ass) ~Merry Christmas~

Grinch Bush Revokes Real-Estate Crook’s Pardon

-Ken Layne from Wonkette.com

Brooklyn fraud king Isaac Robert Toussie got the gift of Innocence from George W. Bush on Tuesday. But just a day later, on Christmas Eve, mean old Grinch W. Bush’s heart shrunk three times. Even thought Toussie’s dad sent the GOP a $28,500 “reminder” that his convicted felon son really needed a presidential pardon for running an elaborate and cruel housing/mortgage scam that pretty much defines the amoral real-estate boom & bust of this miserable decade, the White House suddenly decided they really didn’t fully understand how this famous crook screwed over hundreds of working-class and low-income minority families.

The Bush Administration claims it learned from news reports, yesterday, that Isaac R. Toussie is a criminal who did terrible things in Suffolk County, New York, as well as being a convicted mortgage-fraud ringleader who falsified stacks of loan applications for HUD-backed home loans.

What’s shocking is that the Bush Administration is suddenly sensitive to a flood of outraged blog posts and news stories about whatever corrupt thing the Bush Administration just pulled. They weren’t bothered by the outrage over Iraq or domestic spying or Halliburton or Katrina or Abu Ghraib or Enron or Waterboarding or … jesus christ, do we really want to list all this stuff, again?

Let’s all hope President Jenna Bush will finally bring justice to the world and pardon this great man, the real-estate crook, in 2020.

Pardon Lasts Just One Day for Developer in Fraud Case [New York Times]

Looking Back, Bush and Cheney Reveal Different Views

- Sheryl Stolberg from NYtimes.com

WASHINGTON — President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been unusually talkative in recent weeks, sharing candid thoughts in a string of exit interviews. But after eight years of a tight partnership that gave Mr. Cheney powerful influence inside the White House, the two are sounding strikingly different notes as they leave office, especially on one of the most fundamental issues of their tenure: their aggressive response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Bush defends his decisions as necessary to keep the nation safe, yet sounds reflective, even chastened. He has expressed regrets about not achieving an overhaul of immigration laws and not changing the partisan tone in Washington. And the man who got tangled up in a question about whether he had made any mistakes — he could not come up with one in 2004 — recently told ABC News that he was “unprepared for war,” and that “the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq.”

Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end. He called the Supreme Court “wrong” for overturning Bush policies on detainees at Guantánamo Bay; criticized his successor, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and defended the harsh interrogation technique called waterboarding, considered by many legal authorities to be torture.

[story continued here]

You know it's election time when...

Apparently marriage in our country is only threatened during even-numbered years.

Legalese or How to Justify Evil

As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn’t talk, the Bush administration’s highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army’s own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure—then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war crimes charges.
story continued:
The Green Light [Vanity Fair]

Doug Feith Loves Reminiscing About Allowing Torture

"Former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith — the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth — is prominently featured in a new Vanity Fair feature about all the lying he, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and Jim Haynes translated into sketchy (at best) legalese in order to torture other humans. In reference to the administration's decision to disregard the Geneva Conventions for prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, Ol' Dougy clearly has mixed feelings about it! And by mixed we mean not that at all: "'This was something I played a major role in,' he began, in a tone of evident pride." It gets... it just gets so much worse. Guy's a real hoot.

Oh it was the Golden Age, 2002 was, when international law was fucked sideways by the piercing idiocy of Douglas Feith:

Feith was animated as he relived this moment. ...It all turns on what you mean by "promoting respect" for Geneva, Feith explained. Geneva didn't apply at all to al-Qaeda fighters, because they weren't part of a state and therefore couldn't claim rights under a treaty that was binding only on states. Geneva did apply to the Taliban, but by Geneva's own terms Taliban fighters weren't entitled to P.O.W. status, because they hadn't worn uniforms or insignia. That would still leave the safety net provided by the rules reflected in Common Article 3— but detainees could not rely on this either, on the theory that its provisions applied only to "armed conflict not of an international character," which the administration interpreted to mean civil war. This was new. In reaching this conclusion, the Bush administration simply abandoned all legal and customary precedent that regards Common Article 3 as a minimal bill of rights for everyone. [...]

As he saw it, either you were a detainee to whom Geneva didn't apply or you were a detainee to whom Geneva applied but whose rights you couldn't invoke. What was the difference for the purpose of interrogation?, I asked. Feith answered with a certain satisfaction, "It turns out, none. But that's the point."

It really was an Endless Summer for Douglas Feith in those halcyon days:

"This year I was really a player," Feith said, thinking back on 2002 and relishing the memory. I asked him whether, in the end, he was at all concerned that the Geneva decision might have diminished America's moral authority. He was not. "The problem with moral authority," he said, was "people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely."

Ha ha, he's a war criminal."

from wonkette.com

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further reading:
Genocide Survivor decries U.S. torture tactics as "severe torture":

I stared blankly at another of Van Nath's paintings. This time a prisoner is submerged in a life-size box full of water, handcuffed to the side so he cannot escape or raise his head to breathe. His interrogators, arrayed around him, are demanding information.

I asked Van Nath whether he had heard this was once used on America's terrorist suspects. He nodded his head. "It's not right," he said.

But I pressed him: Is it torture? "Yes," he said quietly, "it is severe torture. We could try it and see how we would react if we are choking under water for just two minutes. It is very serious."

Back then, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cadres recognized this for what it was and used it with brutal efficiency. The Cambodian genocide ultimately killed 2 million people.

story continued:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/amanpour.pol.pot/index.html

Since the last one was heavy

4,000 Lives & $5000 per second: Free from what?

Iraq War Numbers:

• 4,000 US soldiers lives lost (30,000 US soldiers seriously wounded)

• nearly 1 million Iraqi lives lost (civilians & soldiers)

• 3 trillion dollars spent ($12 billion per month / $5k per second)

• 40% increase in debt to foreign countries

  QUALITY OF LIFE INDICATORS

  Iraqis Displaced Inside Iraq, by Iraq War, as of May 2007 - 2,255,000

  Iraqi Refugees in Syria & Jordan - 2.1 million to 2.25 million

  Iraqi Unemployment Rate - 27 to 60%, where curfew not in effect

  Consumer Price Inflation in 2006 - 50%

  Iraqi Children Suffering from Chronic Malnutrition - 28% in June 2007 (Per CNN.com, July 30, 2007)

  Percent of professionals who have left Iraq since 2003 - 40%

  Iraqi Physicians Before 2003 Invasion - 34,000

  Iraqi Physicians Who Have Left Iraq Since 2005 Invasion - 12,000

  Iraqi Physicians Murdered Since 2003 Invasion - 2,000

  Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 1 to 2 hours, per Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (Per Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2007)

  Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 10.9 in May 2007

  Average Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 5.6 in May 2007

  Pre-War Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 16 to 24

  Number of Iraqi Homes Connected to Sewer Systems - 37%

  Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies - 70% (Per CNN.com, July 30, 2007)

  Water Treatment Plants Rehabilitated - 22%

  

'Iraq, $5,000 Per Second?'

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: March 23, 2008
(c) New York Times

The Iraq war is now going better than expected, for a change. Most critics of the war, myself included, blew it: we didn’t anticipate the improvements in security that are partly the result of last year’s “surge.”

The improvement is real but fragile and limited. Here’s what it amounts to: We’ve cut our casualty rates to the unacceptable levels that plagued us back in 2005, and we still don’t have any exit plan for years to come — all for a bill that is accumulating at the rate of almost $5,000 every second!

More important, while casualties in Baghdad are down, we’re beginning to take losses in Florida and California. The United States seems to have slipped into recession; Americans are losing their homes, jobs and health insurance; banks are struggling — and the Iraq war appears to have aggravated all these domestic woes.

“The present economic mess is very much related to the Iraq war,” says Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. “It was at least partially responsible for soaring oil prices. ...Moreover, money spent on Iraq did not stimulate the economy as much as the same dollars spent at home would have done. To cover up these weaknesses in the American economy, the Fed let forth a flood of liquidity; that, together with lax regulations, led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom.”

Not everyone agrees that the connection between Iraq and our economic hardships is so strong. Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International and author of a book on how America pays for wars, argues that the Iraq war is a negative for the economy but still only a minor factor in the present crisis.

“Is it a significant cause of the present downturn?” Mr. Hormats asked. “I’d say no, but could the money have been better utilized to strengthen our economy? The answer is yes.”

For all the disagreement, there appears to be at least a modest connection between spending in Iraq and the economic difficulties at home. So as we debate whether to bring our troops home, one central question should be whether Iraq is really the best place to invest $411 million every day in present spending alone.

I’ve argued that staying in Iraq indefinitely undermines our national security by empowering jihadis — just as we now know that our military presence in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s was, in fact, counterproductive by empowering Al Qaeda in its early days. On the other hand, supporters of the war argue that a withdrawal from Iraq would signal weakness and leave a vacuum that extremists would fill, and those are legitimate concerns.

But if you believe that staying in Iraq does more good than harm, you must answer the next question: Is that presence so valuable that it is worth undermining our economy?

Granted, the cost estimates are squishy and controversial, partly because the $12.5 billion a month that we’re now paying for Iraq is only a down payment. We’ll still be making disability payments to Iraq war veterans 50 years from now.

Professor Stiglitz calculates in a new book, written with Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, that the total costs, including the long-term bills we’re incurring, amount to about $25 billion a month. That’s $330 a month for a family of four.

A Congressional study by the Joint Economic Committee found that the sums spent on the Iraq war each day could enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start or give Pell Grants to 153,000 students to attend college. Or if we’re sure we want to invest in security, then a day’s Iraq spending would finance another 11,000 border patrol agents or 9,000 police officers.

Imagine the possibilities. We could hire more police and border patrol agents, expand Head Start and rehabilitate America’s image in the world by underwriting a global drive to slash maternal mortality, eradicate malaria and deworm every child in Africa.

All that would consume less than one month’s spending on the Iraq war.

Moreover, the Bush administration has financed this war in a way that undermines our national security — by borrowing. Forty percent of the increased debt will be held by China and other foreign countries.

“This is the first major war in American history where all the additional cost was paid for by borrowing,” Mr. Hormats notes. If the war backers believe that the Iraq war is so essential, then they should be willing to pay for it partly with taxes rather than charging it.

One way or another, now or later, we’ll have to pay the bill. Professor Stiglitz calc

ulates that the eventual total cost of the war will be about $3 trillion. For a family of five like mine, that amounts to a bill of almost $50,000.

I don’t feel that I’m getting my money’s worth.

--------------------------------------------------------
Excellent film documenting Iraq war management and timeline:

"No End In Sight" ....Netflix it.

Nearing the Five Year Anniversary...

Toxic world fallout from Iraq invasion

By Paul Reynolds World affairs correspondent BBC News website

Bush saw the war of the "advance of freedom"

The war in Iraq was supposed to be over long before now.

It was not supposed to provoke a conflict between Sunni and Shia or stir up an al-Qaeda hornet's nest.

Nor was it supposed to alienate much of the rest of the world from US foreign policy, which post 9/11 was on the crest of a wave of sympathy.

It was intended, its proponents argued, to remove a threat to world peace and to plant the flag of freedom in a Middle East democratic desert.

The critics countered that the threat was an illusion, that the US was invading illegally and sought control over the region and Iraq's oil.

Bush doctrine

The Iraq invasion was also part of President Bush's doctrine of pre-emption and of his hopes for what he called the "advance of freedom".

The war was not supposed to provoke several years of bloodshed

In a speech in November 2003 he declared: "Iraqi democracy will succeed - and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran - that freedom can be the future of every nation."

His doctrine, under which a pre-emptive attack is justified even if the threat is not critical, has been another casualty of the war.

Dr Dana Allin, Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said: "All three candidates in the US presidential election will move away from it in significant ways.

"To a significant extent the experience in Iraq has discredited the doctrine of pre-emption, though it has not killed it off. But the US will not naively invade again and simply hope everything will turn out OK, as seems to have happened in Iraq."

Hopes rise again

The last chapter on Iraq of course has not been written. After the recent improvements, there are claims that it will still all work out, not unlike the Korean War, which went through its own disastrous phase.

"This has to be the worst managed foreign policy of any president since the Second World War" David Rothkopf, Carnegie Endowment

The former White House economist Lawrence Lindsey, who believes the financial cost of the Iraq war is "relatively minor in budgetary terms", still hopes for the best.

He wrote in Fortune magazine: "A stable Iraqi government selected by its own people would be a first in the Arab world. It would suggest that there is a third alternative to the current choice between repressive regimes and Islamic fundamentalism."

One of those who called in 2006, not for a withdrawal but the surge, was Washington writer Frederick Kagan. In the neo-conservative bible, the Weekly Standard, he says it has worked and credits the American commander General David Petraeus and his subordinate General Raymond Odierno:

"When General Odierno relinquished command of MNC-I [Multi-National Corps Iraq] on February 14, 2008, the civil war was over. Civilian casualties were down 60%, as were weekly attacks. AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] had been driven from its safe havens in and around Baghdad and throughout Anbar and Diyala. The situation in Iraq had been utterly transformed."

The cost

However, even if the war turns out to be "winnable", its critics dismiss any suggestion that it was "worth it".

The Bush administration has faced a public opinion backlash

David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and now with the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, said: "Declaring this to be a success based on recent improvements is like saying that a person badly disabled by gunshots has seen his wounds heal. The damage has been done.

"Bush's foreign policy has been a failure and it will be judged on Iraq. He will bear responsibility for an unnecessary and costly war that violated international law, alienated allies and distracted us from the core issues of terrorism, Afghanistan and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

"This has to be the worst managed foreign policy of any president since the Second World War. Even if in the medium term Iraq becomes comparatively peaceful, would it be worth the cost? I do not think so."

The diplomatic fallout

As for America's standing around the world, the war alienated some major American allies, France and Germany most notably. Others did send troops after the invasion - Spain and Italy among them - but then left as public opinions at home turned hostile.

The war's critics dismiss suggestions that it was "worth it"

On the other hand, a number of smaller countries, many of them from the former Soviet block, saw an opportunity to show their loyalty to the US and sent contingents - the Czech Republic, Poland, Georgia and others. For them, a strong and active United States bodes well for their future security.

In turn, Britain's support for the United States has led to further divisions within Europe. These had an impact in the Lisbon treaty talks about a future foreign policy for the EU, strengthening the British determination to keep it firmly in the hands of individual governments.

The invasion of Iraq also caused alarm bells to ring in Russia. There, a new mood of hostility to the West has developed and the Russians have become wary of American power.

Nor has Iraq sparked the democratic revolution in the Middle East that Mr Bush hoped for. And the Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.

Ironically it is Iran, with which the US shares a mutual hostility, that has emerged with greater strength, to the concern of the Gulf Arab states.

The fallout continues.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7293689.stm
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Interesting video on CNN:
When interviewed Iraqi soldiers all want a democrat in office to take over, but not for the reasons you might think. They don't mention wanting the US to get out immediately and are hopeful about their democratic prospects, but just wish to see change in the mismanagement of the current situation. They are hopeful for something better.

Click the following to access the link:

Talking with Iraqi soldiers*

The Bush Disconnect

In a telling and witty article by Bob Geldolf in Time Magazine last month, Geldolf brings attention to President Bush's successes in Africa but in doing so shows the tragic disconnect between Bush's wisdom on Africa and his policies both at home and abroad and his understanding of himself.

Bush states things in the article like,

• "One thing I will say: Human suffering should preempt commercial interest."
• "Stop coming to Africa feeling guilty. Come with love and feeling confident for its future."
• "When we see hunger we feed them. Not to spread our influence, but because they're hungry."
• "U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders."
• "Africa has changed since I've become President. Not because of me, but because of African leaders."
• "[Evil] people prey on the hopeless. Hopelessness breeds terrorism. That's why this trip is a mission undertaken with the deepest sense of humanity, because those other folks will just use vulnerable people for evil."

Why these thoughts never bled into his actions in the rest of the world, we may never know. Bush's legacy will not be remembered for his aid to Africa but rather for his pride, mismanagement, co-opted religious messaging, Constitutional violations, destruction of America's moral platform in the world, and all-out crimes against humanity.

Part of me wants to celebrate Bush's successes in aiding Africa more so than any other US President in the past, but I end up more distressed because it makes me unable to write him off as insane. He's not, (no more than anyone else at least). But why the leader of the free world can't see the disconnect in his actions is mind-blowing. It makes the sins of his presidency all the more tragic.


Geldof and Bush: Diary From the Road
By BOB GELDOF
Time Magazine - Feb. 28th 2008

I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. "Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?" I replied. No response.

The Most Powerful Man in the World studied the front cover. Geldof in Africa — " 'The international best seller.' You write that bit yourself?"

"That's right. It's called marketing. Something you obviously have no clue about or else I wouldn't have to be here telling people your Africa story."

It is some story. And I have always wondered why it was never told properly to the American people, who were paying for it.

Continue reading the rest of the article here.

A New Day

Checks and Balances Restored. Monologue ended. Bush left impotent. Rummy resigns. Haggard ousted [or outed...either way he won't be whispering in the president's ear any longer]. Foley exposed. Delay politically dead. Santorum 'santorumed' [haha, thanks chris]. Incumbents relieved of their "duties". House and Senate with a Democratic majority. The world breathes and trepidly hopes the new guys are maybe just a little better the old ones, and that K-Fed and Rummy find each other. John Bolton, you're next.

No Small Thing

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

"We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived as people in fear.
And now, our rights and our freedoms in peril, we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid... of the wrong thing."


Since the last video is pretty sobering, here's one more for relief:

The Rule NOT the Exception

"What you thought of as civics turns out to be a basic service industry, like bartending but without the jokes. Politics today is about money. Abramoff was the rule, not the exception. The cultural issues, the Christian values, they are pure camouflage, and so is national security. Congress is mostly about serving its clients, who are not you or me, and now this gang of misfits, nitwits and yahoos is hoping that the arrest by British police of a band of terrorists might enable Rep. Blimp and Sen. Foghorn to play the security card once more. There is no limit to their brazenness. They would swipe your wallet and then return it for the reward. Lord, have mercy.

We have never (in my years anyway) seen this level of open cynicism in the White House – Congress, maybe, but not the White House. Not even in the Nixon Adminstration who at least had a sense of shame when they broke the law and the decency to try to hide their crimes. But these guys . . . When I see what they do in public, i cringe to think what's going on out of sight."
-Garrison Keillor

Well, Mr. Keillor, now we know what they they do out of sight.

If you read my blog...

...and my last post, there is a charge now:

We have a chance to bring our voices to a conversation about the next steps in ending the genocide in Darfur. Everyone (I mean it) should write a short letter saying that you care about the people of Darfur, and want the U.S. to be a part of the initiative to end the violence taking place in the Sudan. This is our time to weigh in, and show them we care. Tell President Bush, he can't campaign saying, "Not on my watch," and then do nothing. Tell him to keep his promise. Sudan's not an OPEC nation, but supposedly the man is supposed to have some ounce of conviction in him somewhere. Let's see if we can't find it, shall we? Time is running out.

mail to: comments@whitehouse.gov

or make a phone call to President Bush: 202 456-1111

Emperors Undressed

Cartoon by Lee Judge in the Kansas City Star, July 13, 2006

Finally some explanations:

In all truthiness...

Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner -- President Not Amused?

Stephen Colbert's keynote address/roast at the White House Correspondents Dinner

Partial Transcript:

COLBERT: Wow, what an honor. The White House Correspondents' Dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.


Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.


By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.


Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up.


I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.


I'm a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow.


Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible. I said it's a celebration. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.


I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.


Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.


Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.


So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.


Okay, look, folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull before a comeback. I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." All right. The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is -- everything else in the world. It's the tenth round. He's bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he's yelling, "Cut me, Dick, cut me!," and every time he falls everyone says, "Stay down! Stay down!" Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie.


OK. Doesn't matter. The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.


I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.


Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car!


And I just like the guy. He's a good Joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am. I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I'm sorry, I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American! I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.


The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.


As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.


But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished.


Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.


But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!


Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!


Now, it's not all bad guys out there. Some are heroes: Christopher Buckley, Jeff Sacks, Ken Burns, Bob Schieffer. They've all been on my show. By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.


See who we've got here tonight. General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld.


Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys. I've seen Zinni and that crowd on Wolf Blitzer. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle. Come on.


Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.


John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.


Mayor Nagin! Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar, I guess is what I'm describing.


Joe Wilson is here, Joe Wilson right down here in front, the most famous husband since Desi Arnaz. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god! Oh, what have I said? [looks horrified] I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along "Joe Wilson's wife. "Patrick Fitzgerald is not here tonight? OK. Dodged a bullet.


And, of course, we can't forget the man of the hour, new press secretary, Tony Snow. Secret Service name, "Snow Job." Toughest job. What a hero! Took the second toughest job in government, next to, of course, the ambassador to Iraq.


Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Big shoes to fill. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else.

-----------------------------------------------------------
THE Video:

You were able to view the video from the event yesterday. However, most internet streams have "mysteriously" disappeared.

except for this one:
Part 1
Part 2

you can also find links to it here:
http://www.thankyoustephencolbert.org/

also, here are some great response letters worth a read and Wikipedia.org has a good write-up...

However the best commentary of the aftermath I've read so far goes to this fantastic little article from Salon.com by Joan Walsh. She really cuts to the heart of the matter and through all of the typical self-appreciating and polarized bullshit.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/03/correspondents/index.html