Just One of the [Commander] Guys

Reuters:

The White House is trying to clarify something: President George W. Bush is "a commander guy" but not "the commander guy."

Or something like that.

On Wednesday, speaking to a friendly audience, Bush talked about his troop buildup in Iraq and rejected efforts by the Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress to force him to accept a withdrawal timetable.

"The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear -- I'm a commander guy," Bush said.

That's not what I heard when I watched the event.

I heard "The Commander Guy." In fact, I was already envisioning Bush in a red leotard with a blue cape and knee-high blue boots, a large gold "C" emblazoned upon his chest.

The official stenographer of the event recorded Bush as having said he was "the commander guy" and some reporters did as well. It was not far off from his past description of himself as "the decider."

But the quote prompted chuckles around Washington that Bush had given a new nickname to his constitutional role as the commander in chief.

So the White House sprang into action to try to put the toothpaste back into the tube.

"It's been reported that the president said, 'I'm the commander guy.' He did not. What I recalled was that he said 'I'm a commander guy,' meaning that he's one of the people that listens to the commanders on the ground," [White House spokeswoman Dana] Perino said.

Did The Decider's handlers decide to rewrite history again? You be the judge. View the transcript and a link to the video of the entire speech here. [The relevant part begins at 53:30.]

Additionally, here is the context of the whole quote.

By the way, in the [Iraq Study Group] report it said, it is -- the government may have to put in more troops to be able to get to that position. And that's what we do. We put in more troops to get to a position where we can be in some other place. The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear -- I'm [the] commander guy.

[emphasis added]

I can imagine tens of thousands of our soldiers would like to be in some other place, too, Mr. President.

And just for ships and giggles, here are the hardball questions the president faced from the Association of General Contractors.

Q. Thank you. In May of 2006, my second cousin was on his second tour in Iraq. Corporal Cory Palmer, he's in the Marines, he was on patrol in a Humvee, and they ran over a roadside bomb. He and many others in that Humvee perished. What do I need to do, what does the media need to do to help you, so that my second cousin, and others like him, have not died or been injured in vain?

Bush's answer: (1) We must have the will and determination to succeed. (2) You must remind your legislators to renew my blank check to fund the war. (3) The Iraqis won't commit themselves to their new government unless we stand with them.

Correct answer: The media needs to continue to report both the good and the evil from the front lines. Lying about what happens in war, like our government did regarding Pat Tillman, abuses the memories of the dead and insults the intelligence of the survivors. And you, you need to continue to challenge your government on the spending of your money and your loved ones' lives.

Q. I'd like to know, like a lot of other people in this room, we have family members -- we have family members who are actively involved in the security of this country in various ways. From them, we've received positive information that we consider credible, who say about the success and the good things that are happening as a result of us being in Iraq. I would like to know why and what can be done about we, the American people, receiving some of that information more from the media, or (inaudible.) (Applause.)

Bush's answer: (1) Freedom of the press is great, even though it has "inherent dangers". (2) I'm the Commander Guy. (3) What was the question?

Correct answer: If you are concerned about media portrayals of your loved ones, tell the media, not the president.

Q We're General Contractors of America, and what are we doing -- I don't hear anything about the reconstruction of Iraq. Could you fill us in on that? Are we doing enough, as general contractors? And we are at your disposal.

Bush's answer: "[O]ur reconstruction strategy initially was to do big projects, and then those big projects would be destroyed by the enemy." (In other words, we're going to give no-bid contracts to friends of mine to build things that will get blown up right away, so that we can give more no-bid contracts to friends of mine to rebuild the new stuff that got blown up.)

Correct answer: Great, thanks for volunteering! As a sacrifice for our country and our men and women in uniform, I want you to offer up your services to the Iraqi government at a 50% discount rate.

Q. And second is a personal question. What do you pray about, and how we can we pray for you?

Bush's answer: Millions of Americans are praying for me and Laura.

Correct answer: Millions of Americans are praying for me and Laura to go.

Oh, and what the hell kind of Christian are you, that you don't know how to pray for me?

Q. You talked about the terror of 9/11, and what I wanted to share with you, my wife and I had our first child two months after 9/11. We named her Grace, because we felt that the world needed some grace at the time. And what I wanted to (inaudible) is the fact that our appreciation and keeping my family and also the families of America safe for the past five years is (inaudible).

Bush's answer: "Grace will live -- the question is, will Grace live in a peaceful world, today and tomorrow?"

Correct answer: Yeah, I've been fairly inaudible in my leadership, too. I probably should have done more, given my pro-life and pro-family platform. I guess I realize that my war has cost many lives and destroyed many families. But I am not worried, since there's not much you can do about it.

[Cross-posted at dailykos.]

Blue in the face over a Purple Heart

clipped from www.kdhnews.com Copperas Cove man to give president his Purple Heart April 16, 2007 COPPERAS COVE – History will be made today when Copperas Cove resident Bill Thomas and his wife, Georgia, present President George W. Bush with a Purple Heart at the Oval Office. Thomas said he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office. "We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds," Thomas said. He has drawn criticism from some locals who have learned of his actions, Thomas said. Nevertheless, he said he earned the Purple Heart and it is his to do with it as he sees fit. "I feel the President deserved one," he said. "The bottom line is, I paid for these Purple Hearts with my blood."

Wow...where to begin?

Let us begin with Army Regulation 600-8-22 (Military Awards 11 December 2006):

The Purple Heart is awarded in the name of the President of the United States...after being wounded: (1) in any action against an enemy of the United States.

A wound is defined as an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent...the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer...

Examples of injuries or wounds which clearly do not qualify for award of the Purple Heart are as follows: (e) battle fatigue...(h) self-inflicted wounds, except when in the heat of battle and not involving gross negligence...(i) post-traumatic stress disorders.

The president was not physically wounded by the criticisms he has received. And Mr. Thomas insults all holders of the Purple Heart - more than a quarter million men and women since 1958 - by equating "foreign and domestic" critics with enemies of the United States.

Next, Army Regulation 672-8 (Manufacture, Sale, Wear, and Quality Control of Heraldic Items 27 November 1989):

[Chapter 2-7b] Mere possession by a person of any of the articles prescribed in paragraph 2 (except identification cards) is authorized provided that such possession is not used to defraud or misrepresent the identification or status of the individual concerned.

Mr. Thomas was not prohibited by law or regulation from giving his Purple Heart away. But President Bush's possession of the medal defrauds the American people by portraying the president as a war hero, and it misrepresents the president's status as someone who has physically suffered as a consequence of his own decisions.

Laura Bush:

[B]elieve me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this, and certainly the commander in chief, who has asked our military to go into harm's way.

The president has not suffered like war widows and widowers have, whose only memories of a lost spouse are a triangular folded American flag and a Purple Heart. The emotional wounds of a commander-in-chief are part of the job, and not worthy of public honoring or recognition.

As asked on Real Time with Bill Maher this week, how does one turn down an offer from a wounded Vietnam veteran to donate one of his Purple Hearts to you? What would the proper response have been? Ask yourself this, then: in a similar situation, what would Winston Churchill have done? Can you imagine Sir Winston having a photo op, focusing the nation on his own suffering, and taking the spotlight off the sacrifices of soldiers and citizens?

Class, dignity, and even common sense would have told anyone else that this is inappropriate. Mr. Thomas, if this is what you think of the Purple Heart, and the hundreds of thousands of fellow members of the Order, then you should take the two medals you have left and throw them over the fence at the White House before you go back to Texas. You earned three Purple Hearts. But you have no moral authority to be passing them around to people who have not earned them.

The only thing I can hope for is that a photo emerges from this farcical ceremony, showing Mr. Thomas pinning the Purple Heart on President Bush. Army Regulation 672-8 Chapter 2-7a:

The wearing of any decoration, service medal, badge, service ribbon, lapel button, or insignia prescribed or authorized by the DA and the Department of the Air Force by any person not properly authorized to wear such device...is prohibited [and] subject to punishment as prescribed [by 18 USC 1704; a fine, six months in jail, or both].

Come to think of it, hasn't President Bush been through this once before?

[Cross-posted at dailykos]

The Diet Coke Presidency

It is hard to believe that six years have passed since W. was inaugurated and our country began its descent into Hell. I'll grant you, it was titillating during the Clinton years to wade past Limbo and dabble our toes in the Second Circle (lust). But W. and his entourage have created an express lane to the Eighth Circle and beyond, stacking up a lifetime of sins in only half a dozen years, or roughly the length of a Mel Gibson movie.

But six years is a long time in both the practical and the institutional memory of a country, and it is difficult to think back to the time when there used to be more than one issue on the table; a time when policy and substance were roots for debate, and not partisanship and slander. I'd venture to say even some moderate Republicans yearn for the days when we could actually get things done.

The Hundred Hours notwithstanding, it has been little ado about nothing since 2001, and I think it is easy to see that most of America has been lulled into a sense of comfort with an impotent government - or at least an impotent legislature. We go to bed at night wrapped in a blanket made of faux security, believing that as long as the government talks the hard line, we will be "safe," and all the other issues will take care of themselves. And while the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but so does a journey of a thousand errors. When a critical mass has failed to stand up and stop the incremental annexation of our rights, we all look up six years later in shock at how many steps into the journey we now are.

With the exception of the War on Terror (tm), little progress has been made on any other front, leaving critical domestic and foreign issues to wither on the vine. And W. has been satisfied to keep it that way. Sex sells, and fear wins. Does the average American (read: non-Kossacks) have any idea of the administration's policy on welfare? Health care reform? Job creation? Trade relations? Diplomacy with non-Middle Eastern nations? Tax code upgrades? Higher education? Labor-management relations? Corporate governance and taxation? Decaying infrastructure - roads and bridges? (Feel free to add your own to the list.)

I miss those days, and I bet most Americans do, too. The problem is in the meaning of the word "miss". I actually remember the days when issues were important, and when we weren't single-minded and double-barreled in pursuit of one issue to the neglect, even exclusion, of all others. Most Americans miss those days in that they cannot recall them so long ago, so they forget there was once a time when great leaders had great debates about great issues; when neither candidate was a bed of roses, nor were they piles of slop; when whether D or R won the election, our country would probably still be in pretty good hands. And those days aren't as long ago as they may seem.

W. made us accustomed to getting less when we thought we were getting so much more, the best of both worlds. He would steer us right on the main issue - national security - and we were free to give up worrying about the other issues, confident that his paternal instinct and constitutional values would lead us to the promised land. Too many abdicated their roles as citizens when it became too hard to fight back. And maybe we walked right into a trap.

Maybe we do not give Those Who Shall Wish Us Harm - the terrorists - nearly enough credit. Our government's imagination was not broad enough to visualize planes crashing into buildings. What if the next terror step is hiding in plain sight? What if the approach is to take advantage of a belligerent yet bereft president and his misplaced values to undermine the entire nation at once? Is it so hard to imagine? Terrorists focus our attention and our money on Iraq and global security; they use the passions of the sitting president to exacerbate the situation to the neglect of all other issues; and our nation slowly dies from internal bleeding.

What has sparked this stroll down Amnesia Lane is the rapid-fire announcements of four candidates for president in the last week - Sens. Obama, Clinton and Brownback, and Gov. Richardson. While each announcement contained boilerplate drivel, each also focused on specific issues, and issues other than Iraq or national security. Without a clear heir to all of W.'s policies, foibles, and fraud, there is a genuine chance for real issues to hit the airwaves again. With the class of much of the Democratic field, there is a prospect of lots of meat and little mud. The orphan issues that have been ignored can receive the love and attention (and money) they so desperately need.

And so in spite of the extreme imbalance of power generated by the administration, for the next two years we are stuck with W. and his Diet Coke Presidency. He pledged to take out all the bad, unhealthy, and inconvenient things, and replace them with just one sweetener that will actually be better for us. In the end, we miss the other ingredients that weren't so bad for us in moderation, we are not that much healthier, and we have this bad taste in our mouths.