The Page – by Mark Halperin – TIME

REMARKS BY THE VICE PRESIDENT AT THE CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE

President Bush has been tough and courageous. He’s made the right decisions for the right reasons, and he always reflects the best values of the American people. I’ve been proud to stand by him and by the decisions he’s made. And I would support those same — and would I support those same decisions again today? You’re damn right I would. (Applause.)

The important thing to remember, six and a half years after 9/11, is that the war on terror is still real, that it won’t be won on the defensive, and that we have to proceed on many fronts at the same time. …

[W]hen the last chapter is written, it’ll be said that our nation became more prosperous and more secure because George W. Bush was President of these United States. (Applause.)

Cheney At CPAC: Would I Do It Again? “You’re Damn Right I Would” – Politics on The Huffington Post

The crowd was adoring. There was a standing ovation as Cheney entered, and a woman shouting: “We Love You!” Attendees clamored for a good “Cheney shot,” with one young conservative pumping his fist after catching an unobstructed wide lens take of the Vice President on his camera.

And they got some red meat. …

The crowd loved it, and him. As Cheney said upon entering the room to a grand applause:

“A welcome like that is almost enough to make me want to run for office again.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/07/cheney-at-cpac-would-i-d_n_85514.html

TheHill.com – Clinton, Obama steal Bush’s final show

“After his speech, Bush sought out Kennedy, his former partner in education reform, to exchange greetings. He also shook Obama’s hand and said hello in typical Bush fashion: “Hey buddy, how’s it going,” he said, according to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who also sat next to Obama for the speech.”
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ConservativesBetrayed.com: Let the lame duck fly! By Jeffrey A. Rendall

A seemingly calm and relieved George W. Bush made his final trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to deliver his final State of the Union speech on Monday night, and there was one thing that everyone in the House chamber could probably agree upon – they were glad this was the last one.

There was no sentiment, no long, drawn out ovations, no calls of ‘four more years,’ no urgent push to amend the Constitution to somehow keep this man in power.

George W. Bush has exhausted the nation with his presence. He’s alienated his conservative base, isolated the executive branch from the rest of government, wore out his welcome with the citizenry and made a mockery of the constitution’s separation of powers.

Bush came to Washington on a set of assumptions, few of which ever came true – he was supposed to fight for a more Reagan-esque conservative set of ideals, and instead we got warmed over cooperation with Democrats in expanding the welfare state, a war that we started (Iraq) and can’t seem to end, and a conservative movement that’s so fractured that we’re having a difficult time selecting a successor to Bush.

No wonder there’s such Bush fatigue – and it’s not just on the faces of the Democrats.
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Richard A. Viguerie, issued the following statement regarding President Bush’s policy announced in the State of the Union address regarding earmarks in appropriations bills:

“Instead of killing the earmarks in last year’s huge omnibus appropriations bill, President Bush will leave in place all of the 11,735 earmarks, totaling $16.9 billion.

“And instead of saying that he would veto any bill containing earmarks, Bush said he would veto legislation that did not reduce the earmarks by 50 percent.

“Whoop-de-doo.

“President Reagan vetoed the Highway Bill in 1987 because it contained 121 earmarks. But President Bush has given the go-ahead to 5,867 earmarks–half the current number. Obviously, the Republican team in the White House and Congress has abandoned all pretense of governing as fiscal conservatives.

“President Bush came into office sounding like a conservative Republican. He is leaving sounding like a liberal Democrat. Bush seems disinterested in the future of the GOP, as it drifts without leadership and is in danger of imploding. [mjh: Damn, Duhbya did one good thing, after all!]

Think Progress » FBI agent: Saddam viewed bin Laden as a threat.

Last night, CBS’ 60 Minutes aired an interview with FBI agent George Piro, the man who was charged with interrogating Saddam Hussein over the course of seven months. Piro reported that he asked Saddam whether he had any relationship to Osama bin Laden. Saddam responded by saying he was “wary” of the 9/11 mastermind and “didn’t want associate” with him. Moreover, Saddam viewed bin Laden “as a threat to him and his regime.”

PELLEY: Among the most important questions for U.S. intelligence was whether Saddam was supporting al Qaeda as had been claimed by some in the Bush administration.

PELLEY: What was his opinion of Osama Bin Laden?

PIRO: He considered him to be a fanatic. And as such was very wary of him. He told me, “You can’t really trust fanatics.”

PELLEY: Didn’t think of Bin Laden as an ally in his effort against the United States in this war against the United States?

PIRO: He didn’t wanna be seen with Bin Laden. And didn’t want to associate with Bin Laden.

PELLEY: Did he think bin Laden was a threat to him and his regime?

PIRO: Yes.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/28/fbi-agent-saddam-viewed-bin-laden-as-a-threat/

Think Progress » Bush, Congressional Conservatives Fearmonger On FISA: ‘The American People Should Be Frightened’

In his weekly radio address this weekend, Bush ominously threatened that “we cannot afford to wait until after an attack.” Speaking to NPR today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell bellowed that “the American people should be frightened”:

“It’s not about frightening the American people. The American people should be frightened and remember full well what happened on 9/11. They also remember with gratitude that this has not happened again for six years.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/28/bush-gop-fisa-fearmonger/

Iraq: The War Card – The Center for Public Integrity
By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/