Bush's speech

[Leo Hubbard]

released before he's finished it.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040903/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_bush_text_1

[Thanatoast]

i'm watching right now, and he's speaking a lot, but saying little. (surprise) he keeps saying what he's gonna do, without saying how he's gonna do it. most things you can read between the lines, but it really bugs me. "i'll make the economy stronger!" yeah? tell me how. bet it has something to do with tax cuts for rich people.

sometimes he'll say something completely contradictory to all evidence, like "democracy is coming to the middle east". except that we've ditched afghanistan and iraq is falling apart at the seams. but the crowd is eating it up.

two protestors so far :)

[Leo Hubbard]

i'm watching right now, and he's speaking a lot, but saying little. (surprise) he keeps saying what he's gonna do, without saying how he's gonna do it. most things you can read between the lines, but it really bugs me.

:)
Same thing Kerry did :( However, he did state that details were at his site.
http://www.georgewbush.com/Agenda/
At that site if you wait till the end of the animation it brings up a link where you can download his plan.

[Thanatoast]

you're right, no politician is ever big on specifics (lord forbid!) but kerry at least gave an extra sentence in his speech to most of his grand thoughts.

[Bobcat37]

What's sad is Kerry's little "rebuttle rally" he is having right now (which is unprecedented btw). If that doesn't scream desperate and worried, I don't know what does... :confused:

[Sayhey]

What's sad is Kerry's little "rebuttle rally" he is having right now (which is unprecedented btw). If that doesn't scream desperate and worried, I don't know what does... :confused:

Not sad, but very, very mad. The gloves are off. Expect to hear more and more about Cheney's five deferments (he had "other priorities,") Bush's family influence to get into the Guard (and his lack of attendance for his duties,) about the corruption (Halliburton) in this administration, and most importantly the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq. If Bush thinks Kerry is another Dukakis and won't fight back he is sadly mistaken.

[IJ Reilly]

Speaking of Dick Cheney...

Halliburton Role in Probe Criticized

A Nigerian report on allegations of bribery by consortium accuses the firm of playing games with parliamentary investigators.
By Ken Silverstein
Times Staff Writer

September 2, 2004

WASHINGTON — A Nigerian parliamentary report on allegations that a consortium that includes Halliburton Co. made vast illegal payments to win multibillion-dollar deals accuses the company of playing "hide-and-seek games" with local investigators.

The payments were reportedly made between 1995 and 2002, as the consortium, known as TSKJ, won three contracts worth a combined $7 billion to build a natural gas plant and related facilities.

The report, which was released Wednesday, sharply criticizes Halliburton, the energy services firm, calling on Chief Executive Dave Lesar to come to Nigeria to "make necessary clarifications" before parliamentary investigators.

It also recommends that Halliburton receive no further contracts in Nigeria until all international inquiries have been concluded. French authorities, the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also have ongoing investigations.

Halliburton has denied the bribery allegations. Wendy Hall, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that the Nigerian report "contains numerous inaccuracies and is based on secondhand information." She said the company was working with "all government agencies to achieve resolution on this matter."

The company's chief executive during some of the time covered by the investigation was Vice President Dick Cheney, who resigned from Halliburton in 2000 to run for the office he now holds. The Nigerian report does not name Cheney, and no evidence has emerged that he knew of any payments that might have been made.

Cheney's office referred questions about the Nigeria case to Halliburton. Hall said the company had no "information that would implicate" Cheney.

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits American companies from bribing foreign officials. Cheney would be liable only if he knew that such payments were made.

...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-halliburton2sep02,1,4843183.story

[Leo Hubbard]

I wonder how many of those bribes were paid during Clinton's Reign? After all Halliburton had an almost exclusive setup with the Clintons.

[Thomas Veil]

What struck me most about Bush's speech was some of the more foolhardy stuff. I'm not sure it was smart to remind people, on national TV, of better days, when Dad worked, had one job, and had it for life if he wanted it. It just served to remind us of how low the Republicans (and to be fair, centrist Democrats) have brought us.

I'm not sure what he was thinking in other parts of his speech either. Bring small companies together to buy insurance? We have that. Cleveland's version is called COSE (Council of Smaller Enterprises), and they've been doing that for a couple of decades now. Create retirement accounts independent of Social Security? Uh, that's called a 401k or an IRA, George.

The crowd was obviously lapping it up, but I couldn't help wondering if Bush was fully in touch with reality.

[Chip NoVaMac]

Very disappointed how low Bush and company went compared to the DNC.

[Thanatoast]

What's sad is Kerry's little "rebuttle rally" he is having right now (which is unprecedented btw). If that doesn't scream desperate and worried, I don't know what does... :confused:He's desperate alright. You would be too if 47% of the country still backed Bush after all the ************** he's pulled. I mean, giving enormous tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of the nation while simultaneously starting a war, leaving two countries in rubble, selling off national parks to the highest bidder and pushing the biggest crackdown on civil liberties since...ever, and there are still people out there who would follow this guy straight over the cliff. WTF?

[takao]

hm have watched and wasn't really impressed ... this saying 1 sentence...cheering crowds (with 1 second gap between sentence and him stopping to talk...yeah that is spontanous )...1 sentence..etc. was very annoying (at least to me)

and hearing him nearly stumble when he said "free afghanistan" and "free iraq" was worth a smile
and his talking about "accountable governments" was of course full of irony..had there to grin too ...

[kuyu]

Tax reform, keeping dividend taxes low, personal social security accounts. Sounds good to me. Although, I'm taking a class on investments this semester and we are playing this online investment game. If we beat the S&P we get 15 extra credit points. Talking to my professor and classmates, we all will have an easy time doing so if Kerry wins. How? Short drug stocks and blue chips with high dividends just before the quarter ends. The market will lose ground and there's money to be made if you know the prices will fall.

Food for thought: The average American makes ~$31,000/year. If we work for about 40 years how much does the avg person contribute to social security??? $99,200

8% FICA = $2,480/year. The market averages ~9.5% after inflation. So, the avg person would have a tax free account at their bank worth... $958,569.58. Put that into a gov't bond at the risk free average rate of ~3% and.... You get $2,396.42/month forever and never touch the million bucks!!! Beats the $1,100 we get today.

The break even point: To not benefit from the elective process Bush is advocating, you have to make $14,229.54 a year (or less) for your entire working life. Sounds good to me.

[themadchemist]

Was it just me or did others think that Bush's oratorical presentation was kind of dry? Especially toward the end, I thought, when he should have reached a forceful climax, he simply toned it down and ended pretty boringly.

[wwworry]

The break even point: To not benefit from the elective process Bush is advocating, you have to make $14,229.54 a year (or less) for your entire working life. Sounds good to me.

You can ask Paul O'Neill and Alan Greenspan about this and they will tell you that the US will need about a trillion dollars to make the shift to private Social Security Accounts. You have to be able to fund the people who do not have the accounts while at the same time put revenue from younger workers into accounts (the younger workers will not be funding the older workers as much, to put it simply).

At the beginning of the Bush term this might have been possible because of the projected surpluses but now, in light of recent huge deficits, it is really not fiscally possible/responsible to start individual SS accounts.

You can argue all you want about the relative merits of the plan but to do it you need some extra money which the USA does not have.

end of story

[skunk]

You'll probably just borrow it from the rest of the world, as usual.

[Rower_CPU]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned the 2 protesters who were escorted out during the speech. With all the protests going on I wondered if someone might get in but was shocked to see them actually get onto the convention floor.

[blackfox]

Excerpt from Wash. Post "Whitehouse briefing" Column regarding notable omissions from Bush's speech:

...From Milbank and Allen: "The speech dealt lightly with some of the more vexing issues facing the Bush campaign. The president dealt only briefly with jobs and the economy, and the Democratic National Committee was quick to point out that he made no reference to Iran, North Korea or Osama bin Laden."



From Balz: "Nowhere did he confront directly what he has heard along the campaign trail in battleground states such as Ohio and Michigan, which is the loss of jobs during his presidency and uneven economic recovery that casts a shadow over his hopes for reelection. . . .



"Bush also did not confront the enormous fiscal problem that has been created during his presidency, an explosion of the deficit brought about by recession, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the massive tax cuts he pushed and promoted even as he dramatically boosted spending on defense and homeland security."



From Tom Shales in The Washington Post: "Bush, however, did not address his own recent flip-flop on whether the war on terrorism is winnable."



From Howard Kurtz on washingtonpost.com: "There was, you might have noticed, no mention of the nearly half-trillion-dollar budget deficit."



From Nagourney and Stevenson: "[T]here was one notable omission from Mr. Bush's speech. The president made no mention of the foreign figure who arguably most influenced his first term in the White House: Osama bin Laden, the yet-to-be-captured leader of Al Qaeda."



From Fournier: "He didn't mention Kerry's combat service in the Vietnam War or his rivals anti-war protests, issues that have dominate the political debate the past month. "



From AFP: "Bush's speech was as notable for what was not in it: He did not mention the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction he cited as the reason for the war in Iraq, which has eroded US credibility. . . .



"Bush offered no new details on when the roughly 130,000 US troops in Iraq or their comrades in Afghanistan might return home, saying only that their goal was to help both war-torn nations 'get on the path of stability and democracy as quickly as possible.' "



And, for the record, here are a few other things he didn't mention:



• The prison abuse scandal or allegations of torture in Iraq.



• His proposed mission to Mars.



• The value, past or future, of having a Republican-controlled Congress.



• His "miscalculation" in Iraq.



• A headcount of the dead in Iraq.



• The flawed intelligence that he used to justify the war in Iraq.

The Details as Released



At the same time that the White House released Bush's prepared text, it also released six "fact sheets," on



Social Security, tax reform, health care, affordable housing and homeownership, education and job training and "opportunity zones."



The campaign also called attention to this page on the campaign Web site.



But John Tierney and Sheryl Gay Stolberg write in the New York Times: "The Walter Mondale Where's-the-Beef Award [goes to]: George W. Bush, who told the conventioneers, 'Anyone who wants more details on my agenda can find them online.' Ever the wonks, we followed the directions to georgewbush.com, seeking the details of the crowd-pleasing promise in his speech to 'lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code.' Here's all we found: 'President Bush will work with Congress to make the tax code simpler for taxpayers, encourage saving and investment, and improve the economy's ability to create jobs and raise wages.' "



Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post that "some of Bush's proposals, including revisions to the Social Security system and new types of 'lifetime savings accounts,' have been gathering dust for years. Some daunting barriers stand between the president and what he has dubbed his 'ownership society,' including a record budget deficit and rancorous partisanship in Washington."



When it comes to Social Security, "Bush pledged to seek adoption of that proposal four years ago, and so far it has gone nowhere because of strong political resistance," Weisman writes.



"Bush's plan to create personal investment accounts to augment the existing system would require the diversion of some Social Security payroll taxes that otherwise would have gone to existing retirees and other beneficiaries. Given his promise not to cut those benefits, that diversion will have to be made up, probably through borrowing that would only add enormously to the government's $4.3 trillion public debt."



Could this language, from the fact sheet, be much more vague?



"Any fix will require choices, bipartisanship, and public discussion. There are a variety of good plans that have been proposed to fix Social Security and to establish personal accounts, including a number of options presented by the bipartisan President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security."



Anticipating all this, Jackie Calmes wrote in Thursday's Wall Street Journal: "The project faces huge hurdles with enormous consequences for American politics and society. Mr. Bush's speech tonight isn't likely to get into the troublesome details that a credible fix for Social Security's long-term finances probably requires: some mix of retirement-age shifts, payroll-tax increases, benefit-level changes or further government borrowing.



"Meanwhile, gone are the budget surpluses that might have paid the huge cost -- up to $2 trillion -- of a transition to a system that permits private accounts. And this cost clashes with an even-higher Bush priority, making his tax cuts permanent. Finally, the rocky stock market after the Internet bubble burst took away some of the allure of private accounts, which would probably be invested in stocks."



So why did Bush say it?



Calmes writes: "Some aides felt Mr. Bush should skip this nest of controversy. Economic adviser Stephen Friedman and Chairman Gregory Mankiw of the Council of Economic Advisers, among others, argued that he had a good first-term record and should run on achievements, notably tax cuts, with a promise to protect them. This was even though the aides themselves believe in Social Security reform.



"Overpowering the stay-the-course faction was an influential big-idea camp. It argued that Mr. Bush needed a compelling domestic agenda, in part to offset the predominant focus on the war in Iraq. In this group were political advisers Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, Treasury Secretary John Snow and budget director Josh Bolten."

Some Truthsquadding


Calvin Woodward writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush glossed over some complicating realities in Iraq, Afghanistan and the home front in arguing the case Americans are safer and his opponent cannot deliver."


For instance: "On Iraq, Bush talked of a 30-member alliance standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States, masking the fact that U.S. troops are pulling by far most of the weight. On Afghanistan and its neighbors, he gave an accounting of captured or killed terrorists, but did not address the replenishment of their ranks -- or the still-missing Osama bin Laden."...

Decent points, I would say...typical Bush...sweeping rhetoric, little tie-in to reality. In fairness, Kerry, and indeed most politicians fall into this trap, but Bush and Co. seemed to talk very little about their accomplishments and mostly about why Kerry was no good and the implied suggestion that America would be weaker vis-a-vis terrorism with a change in the Oval Office.

Something that perplexes me, however...(though this is partially rhetorical)...most journalists and pundits explain that Bush is (wisely) campaigning on his strength in fighting the WOT, as opposed to the Economy, Iraq, or indeed anything else...but what has he done? I don not understand how he can be seen to have done anything against the WOT. At least w/ regards to Iraq, whether you agree or not, you can point to things done by the Administration...

It is ridiculous...anyway, just mentioning...that a candidate can manage to run a campaign solely on vapor and slight-of-hand...crazy.

[zimv20]

notably absent from any pundit anywhere, afaik (and i'd like credit for coining this if i'm the first), is any reference to Madison Square Garden as "the Green Zone".

[solvs]

Same thing Kerry did :(
And this is why I've decided to vote for Kerry. He may not say much, but neither did Bush, and he's had 4 years to do something. I keep hearing Bush make his promises, but it's the same thing he said 4 years ago and things have just gotten worse. Economy, education, enviroment. National Security. Are things better now than they were 4 years ago? Do you really see things improving now after this long decline?

If Kerry just does nothing with his presidency, and is simply adequate (or even sub-average), he will be a better Pres. than Bush. And that's just sad. I'd love to love Kerry, but like so many other people, I just say "anybody but Bush".

[Neserk]

A leader who had been a good leader would talk about what he had already done. SEems to me that even Bush realizes what a lousy job he has done. Why should he get four more years? So he can completely destroy the country and the world?

[wwworry]

A leader who had been a good leader would talk about what he had already done. SEems to me that even Bush realizes what a lousy job he has done. Why should he get four more years? So he can completely destroy the country and the world?

How about this:

4.4 million first-time homeowners, "hundreds of thousands" of new women-owned businesses, 10 million new jobs, and 10 million recipients of a recently increased minimum wage. xxxxx told the country of 25 million Americans with new protections on their health insurance, 40 million with pension protections, and 15 million who had received a tax cut. 12 million had taken advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act and life expectancy for those infected with HIV had doubled in just four years. 10 million students were saving money on college loans, 100,000 new police officers were on the streets, and 60,000 felons were prevented from purchasing handguns due to the Brady bill. 1.8 million fewer people were on welfare than when he took office and child support collections had increased 40%. The federal budget deficit had been cut by 60%. 197 toxic waste dumps were cleaned up in three years, more than the previous twelve years combined. And a 40% funding increase was modernizing weapons systems.

oops, sorry that was 1996...

Today Bush asks for a do-over.

[Neserk]

*sigh* I know... Bush will go the way of his father (who was benign in comparison) 1 term loser.