Wednesday, February 01, 2006

i personally would be much more hard-hitting than this editorial from the chronicle today ('disconnect'? more appropriate language would be 'outright lying'), but at least it does a good job of showing his lies and audacity in detail here:

...BUSH'S bemoaning of America's addiction to oil last night was just one measure of his disconnect with the effects of his administration's policies.

Yes, this nation does need to push more aggressively conservation and alternative-energy technologies to break its dependence on oil that is "often imported from unstable parts of the world," as Bush observed in his State of the Union address. Yet this is the same [guy] who began his administration by inviting energy industry executives to meet behind closed doors with... Dick Cheney. It's fair to say the industry recommendations -- many of which were incorporated into the Bush plan -- were not aimed at easing this nation's addiction to oil.

The Bush administration's energy-policy emphasis to date has been on feeding the nation's oil addiction by pushing for greatly expanded drilling on public lands, from the Rocky Mountains to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Once again, Bush blended the invasion of Iraq with the war against the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Yes, the war-ravaged Iraq is now a cauldron of violent chaos and magnet for terrorists. He raised the specter of an Osama bin Laden taking control of Iraq if U.S. forces were to suddenly withdraw. Yet he tried to wave off continuing criticism of the pretext for a war that is proving so costly to this nation, in lives and dollars, by admonishing, "Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy."

His defense of warrantless eavesdropping was flat-out disingenuous. His suggestion that the Sept. 11 attacks might have been averted if authorities had been able to wiretap two al Qaeda plotters who were making overseas calls was a perfect example of activity for which a warrant would be approved -- assuming U.S. authorities were bothering to keep track of terrorists they knew had entered this country. A Presidential Daily Briefing that declared that bin Laden was "determined to strike" in the United States, perhaps with hijackers -- such as the one sent to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001 -- was plenty of evidence for warrants on known al Qaeda operatives.

Bush talked about being "good stewards of tax dollars" and cutting deficits in half by 2009, even though deficits have soared on his watch -- and even as he asked Congress to make tax cuts permanent.

He paid tribute to retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the late Coretta Scott King, even as he introduced two new Supreme Court justices who may steer the court away from O'Connor's centrism and King's quest for social justice.

He talked about the rebuilding of New Orleans without a hint of regret about his administration's disgracefully torpid response to the disaster.

Audacity seemed to be the theme of the night.

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