Tag Archives: George_Bush

Is that really part of the President’s job?

I was watching the news on TV on Friday morning (the Today Show to be exact). I always come away with stuff to talk about after watching any TV, and yesterday was no exception. The clip that peeked my curiousity was about the President traveling around the country on Air Force One doing last minute campaign stops for close Republican senate races. This news bothered me a little bit (and this is not a rant against Bush, this goes for any president). Here are a couple of reasons:

  • I understand the President has some political party ties before he is actually elected as President. But once you are President, my understanding is that you represent ALL the people, not just those from your political party. It seems to me that if your going to be using your clout as President to endorse political candidates, then you should probably be doing it during your time off.
  • That being said, do President’s get time off? It does seem like one of those “always on” types of jobs.
  • For example, does the president have his own personal car or plane? If he does, I’d much rather he use his own plane, then Air Force One, which I helped pay for and all the fuel our tax dollars are going to go to, if he’s going to fly around the country promoting politicians. Personally, it sort of seems like stealing paper clips from the office or writing off a meal out as a “business meeting.” Using Air Force One as a backdrop for someone else’s campaign sort of seems like cheating.
  • Finally, and this is direct to our current president. The polls seem to indicate a lot of people don’t think President Bush is doing a very good job in office right now. That being said, you would think he might consider spending a little more time there, rather then flying around the country preparing campaign speeches to help ensure his Republican chums win their states.

Am I the only one who think’s it’s a little wrong, unfair, disappointing, waste of money, unethical and terribly misrepresentative for Bush to be wasting his time on this?

Ahmadinejad’s Letter to Bush

I received this email a while ago about a letter from the President of Iran to President Bush. It was interesting, but I didn’t think much of it except that it was just a forward someone had written themselves, not a factual letter from the real Iran President.
Well, it turns out the Washington Post believes it’s real, so I’m going with them on this one. It’s a long, but easy to read letter and I would strongly encourage you to do so.

Read the Complete letter here.

Below are some excerpts:

After 9.11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people — who had been immensely traumatized by the attacks — some Western media only intensified the climate of fear and insecurity — some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?

The question here is “what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?”

As Your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist — to a larger or lesser extent — in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign — paid from the public treasury — be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles?

Are you pleased with the current condition of the world?

Do you think present policies can continue?

If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production, development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between disputing states, and extinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts, were would the world be today? Would not your government and people be justifiably proud?

Would not your administration’s political and economic standing have been stronger?

And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American government?

Stem Cell Research and the War on Terror

Jon Stewart gives some wonderful perspective on this recent development in two rather amusing segments.

UPDATE: There are some parts of these two videos one might cringe at a little. I’m not necessarily advocating everything that was said, but I think it made some valid points.
Mindy pointed out that Invetro Fertilization, the procedure that has created the majority of these frozen embryos, is a commodity available only to the rich. These embryos are really the ‘children’ of rich couples who had this procedure done. I guess that just was interesting to me. Maybe they should be taking care of all their embryos if they want them.

In the news today…

At work today, I happened to catch the news and there where a few things I thought worth commenting on.

Bush and Blair on the war in Iraq. I want to believe, and I do to some degree, that the statements Bush shared in a press conference yesterday were sincere. Bush acknowledge regret for saying things like “Wanted, Dead or Alive,” and “Bring it on.” He also acknowledge the setback and wrongdoing that occurred at Abu Gharib. I saw a couple of clips of Bush speaking and he definitely seemed candid and sincere.
This seems to be a different Bush then the steadfast and unwavering Bush of the last six years. Yet, I can’t help but think what has caused this change in Bush’s attitude. You might know that the polls show Bush losing support, and any politician knows they need to do something about that. So, Bush needed to do something about that, and maybe that meant putting on a regretful face for the camera.
What do you think? Was Bush’s regret sincere or just a political ploy to garner some more supporters?

Enron Verdict. I wrote about watching the documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, not too long ago. Yesterday the verdict was reached convicting Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling of multiple accounts of Fraud and more. They could each face life in prison for what they’ve done. I heard someone make a statement about how this shows that we treat Corporate Fraud by CEO’s as severely and seriously as street criminals. Ironically, both Lay and Skilling are still roaming free today on $5 million bond. Thousands of Enron employees lost their pensions, or should I say had their pension’s stolen by Lay and Skilling. Does anyone else find it wrong that these guys can be roaming around on $5 million of money they are guilty of stealing?

Teacher and student. The Today Show interviewed the now married teacher and student whose affair started when the student was just 13 years old and the teacher 34. The interview was not negative, it was sincere, and came across kind and positive. I can’t help but think this sort of thing would never have happened if the teacher had been a male. And before you misunderstand me, I believe that in both situations the wrong doing should be taken more seriously. I fear this is one of those situations where the stereotype of males being the more powerful and dominating, as well as sex hungry, diminishes the wrong doing that was committed in this situation.