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Bush on Bridging the Gap

From amidst the contradictory, robotic remarks the President made this morning (transcript). I cringe every time he alludes to an individuals well-being hinging on their private assets. What if we’re all not born with a padded savings account?

BUSH: You can’t divorce bridging divides from economic vitality. You just can’t. It’s a part of how we enable people to realize dreams: by having a growing economy.

Secondly, I don’t think you can divorce bridging divides from ownership. In other words, I think it’s essential that people own something if they’re going to have a stake in the future of the country…. I think there’s something so powerfully healing about a society in which more and more people have ownership.

BUSH: But I was disappointed, frankly, in the vote I got in the African-American community. I was.

I’ve done my best to elevate people to positions of authority and responsibility — not just positions, but positions where they can actually make a difference in the lives of people.

I put people in my Cabinet. I put people in my sub-Cabinet. I’ve elevated people from all walks of life, because I believe there’s a responsibility for the president to reach out. And so it’s not a matter of tone, it’s also a matter of action.

And just got to keep working at it.

—-

but clearly not the concern/responsibility of the POTUS?!?

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Harriet Miers: Putty for Bush Corp’s Breached Levee

Harriet MiersRemember when Dick Cheney was named candidate Bush’s counsel charged with the responsibility of finding a suitable Vice Presidential running mate?

This morning President Bush named Harriet Miers, White House counsel, considered one of the most powerful unknowns in the Bush Administration, has been named to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor as Supreme Court Justice. Miers has been a Bush confidant dating back to Texas and played a key role in the president’s vetting process to select Chief Justice John Roberts.

Conservatives and Democrats are stymied by this decision, one that will most likely lead to a lengthy vetting process in the Senate Judiciary Committee. In his announcement, Bush noted that he had discussed the nomination with 80 members of Senate. It is likely she will be confirmed in time. Miers was previously Bush’s personal lawyer and filled the shoes of Alberto Gonzales when he was named Attorney General earlier this year. She was president of the Texas Bar Association and the managing partner of a 400 partner firm.

Miers has never been a judge (Bush pointed out that neither had Rehnquist) and is described by many as shy and somewhat indecisive.

The Miers nomination will swing attention away from the multiple scandals that the Bush corporation, er, um administration is embroiled in, not to mention, the unravelling security situation in Iraq.

Over the weekend, speculation grew on talk shows and in the Washington Post that Bush and/or Cheney may be implicated in the Valerie Plame leak case by Pat Fitzgerald.

Early feedback from the blogosphere and wires:
Washington Post has a rolling blog with official feedback on the nomination and links to video of the announcement.
RedState.org – “was joking when suggested Miers would be good”
Bill Frist “expresses support” (and he can use some in return…)
Power Line: “a dissappointment”
Stone Court Blog: A Lexis search shows that she played a big part in covering up Bush’s National Guard service.
Wonkette: scroll down for the full resume. Texas Lottery Commission?
Right Wing News: “Disaster, Thy Name is Harriet Miers.”

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DeLay, Frist, Plame, Myers, Katrina, Iraq: is this the Denouement of the Republican Party?

The October 10 issue of The Weekly Standard is titled “Scandal Season.” It promises to be a remorseful introspection of the current state of the republican administration its bottomless pit of scandals.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard – a pointedly Conservative rag – is quoted in The Australian: “Even though DeLay has nothing to do with Frist and Frist has nothing to do with Abramoff, how does it look? Not good.”

Weekly Standard staff editor Matthew Continetti notes with pride that the Republican’s have once again bested the Dems, although as a young conservative, he admits: “looking at your party’s troubles, you see perverse confirmation of conservatism’s animating idea: that as the sphere of public decision-making expands, so do the opportunities for graft and wrongdoing.” Daily Kos has great insight on this.
Patrick J. Buchanan, in the National Conservative Weekly, evoked the words of Claudius in getting a handle on the disintegration within the Republican Party: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”

Frank Rich contends that conservative chronies have been flipping on their party for months now and many are tired of sleazy scandals. He points to conservative columnist Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard, who announced the beginning of the end of the Republican Party as we know it in an article he wrote on Jack Abramoff nearly a year ago.

there is MUCH MORE to this story… click to read on.
Down with Tommy D

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Journalists react to Miller statement

Stateside and abroad, the abrupt change of course of the Judith Miller proceedings have been more than a bit curious.

Could it possibly be that Miller spent 12 weeks in jail to protect the confidentiality of a White House aide that didn’t even want protecting? Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post wonders…

Arianna Huffington wonders why the New York Times sat back and allowed the Philly Enquirer to break the story.

Arianna goes even further to the point in an editorial for the L.A. Times, “Who is Judy Miller Kidding?”

Power Line Blog has published copies of a September 15 letter from Libby to Miller, urging her to come forward.

Wayne Madsen reports on the Center for Research on Globalisation website that the sudden change in events with Miller may be a result of Patrick Fitzgerald “flipping” Libby as a witness in his ultimate motive of nabbing Cheney as the source of the leak.
In Financial Times, Marvin Kalb sniffs the repugnant odor of Watergate coming back to life: “Somebody is lying.? London Times wonders where Patrick Fitzgerald and Robert Novak have been throughout this “sleaze probe.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists is digusted by how “The U.S. prosecutor and courts have sent a terrible message that has reverberated across the world.”

Reporters Without Borders expresses regret that Miller “has been forced to violate
the principle that journalists’ sources are confidential.”

We anxiously await comments by Patrick Fitzgerald, the White House, and Novak. It seems evident that criminal charges should be coming in the direction of Cheney, Libby or Rove, and we must hope that President Bush sticks to his word and cans the evildoers.