Last night the President had a so-called "news" conference. I was unable to watch it live, so I purposely avoided any coverage in order to make up my own mind about it. I watched the C-SPAN replay at midnight. It was an hour long, and he had an opening statement then took 15 questions. I watched the whole thing, and for the first time took notes (partly because my wife didn't want me yelling at the tv in the middle of the night) during the press conference. Here are some of the things I noticed:

• This man has no humility; he cannot admit he made a mistake
  
• They are going to plant WMD in Iraq
  
• There will be no change of current policy in Iraq
  
• He kept mentioning the loved ones -- 9/11 victims, soldiers
  
• Oceans can no longer protect us
  
• The FBI will take the fall for 9/11
  
• Would not answer why he and Cheney have to testify together
  
• I thought this was an interesting line, "Most of Iraq is relatively stable".
  
• On 9/11: "We knew he hated us. But there was nobody in our government at least -- and I don't think the prior government -- could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."
  
• On oil revenues: "What else, part of the question? Oh, oil revenues. Well, the oil revenues are, they're bigger than we thought they would be at this point in time. I mean one year after the liberation of Iraq, the revenues of the oil stream is pretty darn significant."
  
• He wants a new UN Security Council resolution
  
• He laid out the PNAC vision in one question; I call it question 11
  

My wife asked me this morning what I thought, and I said, "He is an ignorant arrogant asshole!"

We will be at war forever if this guy is reelected. He is trying to show he cares by mentioning the troops and loved ones so often, but he still will not go to a funeral. He won't even go to Dover and watch them unload the bodies. He is completely unaware of Middle East history, duh! And what the hell does this from his opening statement hope to prove?

Now is the time and Iraq is the place in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world. We must not waver. The violence we are seeing in Iraq is familiar. The terrorist who takes hostages or plants a roadside bomb near Baghdad is serving the same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid and murders children on buses in Jerusalem and blows up a nightclub in Bali and cuts the throat of a young reporter for being a Jew. We've seen the same ideology of murder in the killing of 241 marines in Beirut, the first attack on the World Trade Center, in the destruction of two embassies in Africa, in the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and in the merciless horror inflicted upon thousands of innocent men and women and children on Sept. 11, 2001.

Is he saying that the Iraqi people who want the US occupiers out are enemies of the civilized world? It sure sounds like it. Then he links the insurgents to the terrorists of all these events and drops in a religious code word--Jew--to incense the Muslims. Niiice!

Let me ask a question: Did you ever think that an ocean could protect you? Maybe back in Columbus' time this was the case. Well, this simpleton obviously did. He used this line, or some variation, three times, "We can no longer hope that oceans protect us from harm." If that's not the biggest piece of simpleton crap, I don't know what is. Another interesting thing was when he referred to our government as "my government". But his biggest problem is that he is completely unable to admit that he and his administration may have made a mistake.

There is an enormous amount to take apart in this press conference. It was a complete sham. I will post more later on it.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:06 AM