Two jokes from MHS (gracias!). mjh

One sunny day in 2005, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, ”I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine looked at the man and said, ”Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The old man said, ”Okay,” and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, ”I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine again told the man, ”Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.” The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U. S. Marine, saying, ”I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, ”Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?”

The old man looked at the Marine and said, ”Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.”

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, ”See you tomorrow.”

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Subject: The GOP Told Us So

The GOP warned us what would happen if Gore was elected in 2000:

1. We would go to war.
2. The national debt would soar.
3. The US economy would plummet.
4. The stock market would plunge.
5. Unemployment would be rampant.
6. The US dollar would quickly decline in value.
7. We would have a huge budget deficit.

They were right. Gore won, and all those things happened.

New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan

New Mexico is going Kerry, if a new interactive poll from the Zogby group has it right. The poll, conducted May 18 thru the 23, shows the Prez losing his grip fast on our swing state. Kerry pulls 48.4% to Bush’s 43.3. Independent Ralph Nader grabs 2.9% and just a slim 5.4% are undecided. The margin of error in the poll is pegged at 4.6%. …

Among men the Prez garners 55% of the vote, but only 32% of the females. Kerry gets a whopping 62% of the women, but falls to 35% of the men.

Here’s pollster Zogby’s analysis of the Prez race here with Kerry leading by about five points:

”While President Bush predictably lags here in the state’s big cities, the good news for his re-election campaign is that there aren’t many of them. Instead, this southwestern state shoehorned between the vacation mecca of Arizona and the president’s home state of Texas is dotted with small towns and rural life, which treat him better, the poll shows. While Democrat John Kerry leads in the big cities, 54% to 33%, Mr. Bush leads in small cities, 50% to 45%, and by an even greater margin, 56% to 40%, in rural New Mexico.”

Bush trips over Abu Ghraib pronunciation Reuters.com

Two rehearsals for his prime-time speech were not enough to keep U.S. President George W. Bush from mangling the name of the Abu Ghraib prison that brought shame to the U.S. mission in Iraq.

During the half-hour televised address, Bush mispronounced Abu Ghraib each of the three times he mentioned it while announcing U.S. plans to tear down the infamous jail and replace it with a new facility.

The prison, the scene of torture under Saddam Hussein and the setting for the Iraqi prison abuse scandal under the U.S. military, has a name that English speakers usually pronounce as ”abu-grabe.”

But the Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it ”abugah-rayp”. The second version came out ”abu-garon”, the third attempt sounded like ”abu-garah”.

White House aides, who described the speech as an important address on the future of Iraq, said Bush practised twice on Monday before boarding his helicopter for his trip to the speaking venue at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Bush’s Remarks on Iraq at the Army War College (washingtonpost.com)

I’ve come here tonight to report to all Americans, and to the Iraqi people, on the strategy our nation is pursuing in Iraq and the specific steps we’re taking to achieve our goals.

Five Points of Reality That Bush Overlooked (washingtonpost.com)By Jim Hoagland

Dear Mr. President:

I write as someone who has supported regime change in Iraq far longer than you or your aides. I have given your policies the benefit of the doubt….

[Your recent speech shows] a willingness to see the world as you would like it to be rather than as it is, and a readiness to hope that the gap goes unnoticed or unexamined. With all respect, sir, that is not leadership. …

This steadily wavering image is at the core of the decline in your approval ratings. Americans stop supporting wars not because of body counts alone but because they become convinced their leaders do not know what they are doing. They then stop supporting the leaders. …

Most important, move away from the obsession with secrecy that is a cancer at the center of your administration.

washingtonpost.com: Bush Approval Ratings

CBS News | Poll: Iraq Taking Toll On Bush | May 24, 2004 23:51:30

The President’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of 41 percent, and more than six in ten say the country is heading in the wrong direction. …

DIRECTION OF THE COUNTRY
Right direction
30%

Wrong track
65%

The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high as it is now was in November 1994, as Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades. …

WAS U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN IRAQ A MISTAKE?
Yes 50%
No 46%

Lots more figures in this poll (see link above; link below it to a separate Washington Post poll). mjh

Washington Post/ABC News poll

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

Approve STRONGLY 31%
Approve SOMEWHAT 17%
Disapprove SOMEWHAT 14%
Disapprove STRONGLY 36%
DK/No opinion 3%

Report: al-Qaida Ranks Swelling Worldwide By BARRY RENFREW

[International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual survey of world affairs] that the two military centerpieces of the U.S.-led war on terror — the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — may have boosted al-Qaida.

Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the story said.

And the Iraq conflict ”has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable” after the Afghan intervention, the survey said.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought al-Qaida recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said. …

The London-based institute is considered the most important security think tank outside the United States. Its findings on al-Qaida’s expanding structure and growing support by allied terrorist networks around the world track with similar assessments from governments and other experts.

Are you safer than you were 4 years ago? Of course not! Given unprecedented power and money, Bush has made things far worse. You want 4 more years of this? mjh