Don't even bother to ask

Culled from AP and Reuters today, regarding Preznit's big press conference before he goes off to the ranch for a nice Christmas vacation. Guess he has to escape from the war and all. Too bad our troops and the Iraqis can't.

I felt ill and angry after reading his statements. It amazes me how the press seems to let these statements by, unchallenged.

I added bolding/emphasis to particularly notable statements. I also added my own commentary.

"Don't bother to ask me," Bush told reporters at a year-end news conference when pressed for the specifics of his plan to overhaul Social Security to allow personal investment accounts similar to a 401(k).

Bush made clear he would not engage in a public debate about how to shore up Social Security's $3.7 trillion, 75-year shortfall until he gives Congress "a solution at the appropriate time." The administration has said a plan is still being crafted.

Yeah, just fahgittabouddit. We peons whose money funded Social Security and whose futures are tied to it don't need to know anything. The shrub has no accountability to the citizens of this country. He'll tell us what he's going to do with the remains of our future when he's good and ready.

Concluding his remarks on the budget came the following:

"The temptation is going to be ... to get me to negotiate with myself in public. To say, you know, 'What's this mean, Mr. President? What's that mean?' I'm not going to do that," Bush said. "The law will be written in the halls of Congress. And I will negotiate with them, with the members of Congress."

What?? What is this -- some new level of schizodom? Does Bushy need his meds? His megalomaniacal tendencies are showing, too.

President Bush defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war on Monday and said training Iraqi police and army to take over responsibility for the country's security from U.S. troops has been difficult...

Several Republican lawmakers have expressed doubts about Rumsfeld's performance and many Democrats want him fired, but Bush rejected such criticism.

"I believe he's doing a really fine job," Bush said.

"Sometimes, perhaps his demeanor is rough and gruff. But below that rough and gruff, no-nonsense demeanor is a good human being who cares deeply about the military and deeply about the grief that war causes," Bush said.

Rumsfeld did not sign condolence letters to the families of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, having them machine-signed, instead. Bush's aides said personally signs condolence letters he sends to the bereaved.

On relations with Russia, Bush said he would not let policy differences undercut close relations with President Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian's recent moves seen by critics as potentially damaging to democracy. They plan to meet Feb. 24 in Slovakia as part of a Bush Europe tour, a U.S. official said.

"As you know, Vladimir Putin and I have got a good personal relationship. ... I intend to keep it that way," Bush said. "Obviously we have some disagreements. ... But this is a vital and important relationship."

Isn't it heartwarming to see how the fascistatolitarian boys stick together? All for one and one for all! Maybe Bushy should let Saddam out of the slammer so he can hang with Bush and the boys.

Bushy did stoop to admit that things are going all that great in the War on Iraq:

Bush is often accused of sugarcoating the Iraq situation, but at his 17th solo news conference he talked at length about the difficulties facing the country as it prepares for Jan. 30 elections that the insurgents are trying to derail.

"These people are targeting innocent Iraqis. They're trying to shake the will of the Iraqi people and, frankly, trying to shake the will of the American people. And car bombs that destroy young children or car bombs that indiscriminately bomb in religious sites are effective propaganda tools," he said.

Car bombers struck the Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Sunday, killing 66 people.

Bush said "life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein" in the year since Saddam was captured but that "it's important for the American people to understand" that the Jan. 30 elections are only the start of a political process that will see a constitutional government elected in a year.

Who did they survey to determine life is better now? The upper echelons of the Defense Department?

Ain't it strange how the prez allows "policy difference" in some parts of the world and not others?

The President acknowledged the central U.S. goal of training Iraqi police and army so U.S. troops can leave has had mixed results.

"There have been some cases where, when the heat got on, they left the battlefield. That's unacceptable," Bush said.

You mean those Iraqis won't stand up and be shot to please the White House and Rummy?

He would not give a timetable on when U.S. troops might return home but said top U.S. generals are "optimistic and positive about the gains we're making."

Yeah, yeah. I wonder which top generals?

Oh, don't even bother to ask.

Addendum 12-21-04: Sigh. This is the 'moral prez, keeping those Christian values.' Oh, yeah. I can hear the snickering wafting up from the bowels of hell.