Clipmarks | merrie's 'president bush' clips

Now The Surge Is Succeeding?

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:13:43 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: .......continued... But the National Intelligence Estimate of Jan 2007 said this:

Coalition capabilities, including force levels, resources, and operations, remain an essential stabilizing element in Iraq. If Coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the term of this Estimate, we judge that this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the Iraqi Government, and have adverse consequences for national reconciliation.

OK, so Obama opposed a surge that succeeded and advocated a policy that the NIE said at the time would lead to a disaster in Iraq.

As to whether anyone could have predicted that the surge would be effective - well, Bush did introduce it this way in his January 2007 speech:

President's Address to the Nation

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html

Clip Source: justoneminute.typepad.com

As recently as July, the Democratic presidential candidate declined to rate the surge a success, but said it had helped reduce violence in the country. On Thursday, Obama acknowledged the 2007 increase in U.S. troops has benefited the Iraqi people.

Here is an old post with links to the vast Obamafuscations last July when Obama struggled to pretend that (a) the surge was not successful and (b) he had always said the surge would succeed as it had. John Dickerson raised an excellent question about Obama's judgment:

If Obama was wrong about the tactical gains that would be made by the new strategy and wrong about how the Iraqi political leaders would react, can his larger theory about how Iraqis will respond to a troop pullout remain intact? Perhaps, but he has the burden of explanation.

Right - Obama will be in a big hurry to tackle that hypothetical "what if?" puzzle - how might Iraq have developed if his "surrender now" policy had been adopted in the winter of 2007? Who can tell?

Tags: obama concedes, surge successful

McCain's Gamble On a Woman Create Headache For Obama

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:31:31 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: As governor of Alaska she is about as far removed from Washington as it is possible to be. The McCain campaign intends to contrast that with the inside-Washington double-ticket of Obama and Biden.

Perhaps most impressively, in just a year and a half in office in Alaska she has established a reputation as a tough reformer.

She is also a staunch advocate of expanding domestic drilling for oil, popular among oil-rich Alaska and among Americans as a whole. At her first appearance on the stump yesterday alongside her running-mate, she seemed assured and steady.

But her selection adds a startling new uncertainty into the presidential race, a risky gamble for the Republicans but a complicating headache for the Democrats.

THROUGHOUT their long primary campaign this year, Democrats made much of the fact that their progressive party was presenting a historic choice to the nation; the first black man or woman in the Oval Office.

Clip Source: www.independent.ie

In her first appearance beside her running-mate yesterday she immediately drove home the point, paying tribute to Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro, who ran as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, saying: "The women of America are not finished yet. We can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."

Mrs Palin is a strong conservative. She is fervently anti-abortion and this year gave birth to her fifth child, who has Down Syndrome. After the birth she and her husband said: "We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives."

Mrs Palin brings advantages to the campaign as it seeks to defy the odds and win a third straight presidential victory for the Republicans.

She has no connection to the Bush administration, which will help to deflect the Obama campaign's charge that Mr McCain is running for President Bush's third term.

Tags: gov. sarah palin, strong conservative, anti-abortion, gun rights advocate, outside beltway, hillary clinton, geraldine ferraro

Putin: Bush Tricked Me Into Invading Georgia To Help McCain Beat Obama

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:25:39 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Does the US have close ties to Georgia? Yes. Has the US been instrumental in modernizing and backing Georgia’s military? Yes. But did the United States instruct Georgia to use such blunt force against separatists in the areas Russia now wants to be independent? Absolutely not. That was Georgia’s call as a sovereign nation, and Putin’s attempt to lay the blame with President Bush is simply a feint to cover his own country’s aggression in this matter.

A feint that smells suspiciously Soviet. Remember when the Soviets would back rebels and invade countries all over the world and then claim they were just opposing American imperialism? Well we’re back to that again.

Clip Source: sayanythingblog.com

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of instigating the fighting in Georgia and said he suspects a connection to the U.S. presidential campaign — a contention the White House dismissed as “patently false.”

[...]

Putin, the former president and architect of an assertive foreign policy that has stoked East-West tension, suggested in an interview with CNN that there was an American presence amid the combat with a potential domestic U.S. political motive.

“We have serious grounds to think that there were U.S. citizens right in the combat zone” during Russia’s war with the U.S.-allied ex-Soviet republic, he said the interview broadcast on state-run Russian television. “And if that’s so, if that is confirmed, it’s very bad. It’s very dangerous.”

It sounds nutty, sure, but you know this will end up in a DNC press release sooner or later.

I think Putin is the one playing the game here.

Tags: putin, president bush, georgia, ossetia

K Streeters Bring About a Little Bipartisan Comity To "Mile-High City"

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:56:29 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Home Run. More than two dozen corporations and associations rented out Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, for the day on Tuesday, giving Members, lobbyists and little kids the chance to take in some batting practice on real major league grounds.

The highlight of the day: Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) hitting one out of the park.

Like any good ballgame, the event featured beer and burgers — all courtesy of a long list of sponsors. They included Citi, Consumer Electronics Association, BNSF Railway, AT&T, AstraZeneca, Amgen, American Chemistry Council, Brown Rudnick, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, U.S. Telecom, Qwest, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, National Association of Manufacturers, Lilly, Koch and Comcast.

The names of those sponsors rotated throughout the event on the scoreboards.

Clip Source: www.rollcall.com

The rhetoric from the floor of the Democratic National Convention may be purely partisan, but leave it to the K Streeters here in Denver to bring about a little bipartisan comity.

Citi’s top lobbyist, Nick Calio, joined two of his Democratic colleagues, Jimmy Ryan and Colin Dowling, in throwing a cocktail reception Monday evening at Sullivan’s of Denver, a dimly lit 1940s-style steakhouse that would feel like home to any D.C. lobbyist.

“Where else would you expect a guy named Jimmy Ryan to hold a party?” Ryan quipped.

Calio, the former top Congressional liaison for President Bush, wasn’t the only Republican there.

The bipartisanship continued outside Sullivan’s, where AT&T’s top lobbyist and a loyal supporter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Tim McKone, chatted it up with Bert Carp, a Democratic lobbyist from Williams & Jensen.

“I have a lot of friends who are Democrats,” Calio explained.

Tags: denver, dnc, k streeters, citi, at&t, astrazeneca, amgen, blue cross blue shield, qwest, natl association of manufacturers

The End of The Fairy Tale by Ralph Peters

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:59:58 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Putin went to war and the American president went to a basketball game--reinforcing the Kremlin's conviction that it could do as it pleased and get away with it. (Bush's gravest flaw is that he's a dreadful judge of character, stubbornly trusting undeserving men, from Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, through the incompetent Alberto Gonzales, to Vladimir Putin, who played Bush for a fool.) French president Nicolas Sarkozy, well-intentioned and inadequate [..]

The Putin regime was perfectly willing to let Monsieur le President return to Paris with a signed piece of paper. The Russians have drawn the lesson from Western efforts to negotiate with Iran and other rogue states that Europe can be narcotized with empty agreements and nebulous promises and that Europe has become a continent of bureaucrats who much prefer paperwork to reality. And there are no penalties when the agreements prove worthless.

Clip Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

A specter is haunting Europe-the specter of Putinism. Confronted by a masterful Russian leader without living peer in brilliance or ruthlessness, the continent sorely lacks leadership and a sense of common purpose. In their muddled reactions to the Kremlin's invasion of Georgia, European states revealed a gap in perceptions that threatens to deepen: Those who suffered under the Soviet yoke sense the return of an existential threat, while those who thrived under the Pax Americana are merely annoyed at being disturbed. As Russian troops and their mercenary auxiliaries savaged a free, democratic country yearning Westward, the world got another lesson in how ineffectual Europe is in a crisis without American leadership.

The United States performed no better. Scorned for his aggressive behavior in the past, President Bush spent the first crucial days of the Georgia crisis as a bewildered observer reluctant to recognize the gravity of the problem.

Tags: georgia, president bush, president sarkozy, putin

McCain Showed Best How to React to Russian Force

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:02:09 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Obama’s initial reaction was to urge both the rapist and the victim to show restraint, while McCain spoke forcefully to denounce the invasion and to call for specific actions, including withdrawal from “sovereign Georgian territory,” an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, action by other official bodies and the creation of “a truly independent and neutral peacekeeping force.”

Ten days later, McCain’s first response appears to have been the right one. Obama reflected uncertainty in part because of inexperience and in part, too, because he was responding as events unfolded. He is far more comfortable, as indeed the administration’s critics are, in letting President Bush act and then declaring that he or they would have been smarter, wiser and righter had they been making the decision.

President Bush’s strongest response was to reach agreement with Poland last Thursday to base 10 interceptor missiles to protect Europe from those fired by Iran or Nort

Clip Source: www.ajc.com

The invasion of Georgia is, like 9/11, a defining moment — less consequential, obviously. A military response to the invasion is not an option.

While Georgia is a beacon of aspirational democracy that suffered for generations in Communist bondage, the strategic interests of the United States in the republic of Georgia are circumscribed by its location and by more direct threats to our national security elsewhere.

Still, the entire world — and the Western world in particular — has to assert every noncombat effort possible to enforce a cease-fire and to replace Russian “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia with an international force. The United States and other nations cannot look away while Russia effectively annexes the two regions — not now and not two years from now.

In the initial U.S. response to the invasion, the clearly decisive leader was McCain, not Obama or President Bush.

Tags: putin, the invasion of georgia, south ossetia, abkhazia, international force, mccain, president bush, poland, interceptor missiles, obama

Invading Georgia Was Easy, Mr. Putin Will Pay A Political Price

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:11:30 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The Russians said their General Prosecutor's Office would undertake a "genocide probe" in South Ossetia, and they called for putting President Saakashvili on trial at the Hague for "war crimes." As it happens, Chapter 1, Article II of the U.N. Charter, signed amid the smashed borders of World War II, forbids Members from the "use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." The U.S. and France should force Mr. Putin's U.N. ambassador to veto a Security Council resolution describing his week-long mockery of those words.

Additionally, a genuinely independent prosecutor investigating war crimes might examine the Russian bombing runs over Georgia and the looting of Georgian villages by Ossetian militias. An intriguing article by Pavel Felgengauer in Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper, argues that an examination of the movement of the ground equipment and ships used in the strike against Georgia required planning that predated August

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

In Washington yesterday, President Bush issued a statement of precisely the sort the world expects from American leadership in such circumstances.

"The United States and our allies stand with the people of Georgia and their democratically elected government," Mr. Bush said. In other words, the Russians have made no pretense that their purpose in Georgia is to remove President Mikheil Saakashvili from the office to which he was elected in 2004.

Mr. Bush also noted pointedly that "The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us." It has become clear through this week that Mr. Putin's rationale for the invasion extends beyond Georgia's violated borders. His intent is to convince independent nations on Russia's periphery -- Ukraine, the Baltic states -- that persisting as Poland has to deepen formal ties to the West, particularly NATO, will cost them dearly. In crudest terms, it will be fatal.

This would be a reversion to the vassal-state relationship of the Cold War

Tags: georgia, president saakashvili, president bush, sec-def robert gates, secretary of state rice, putin

Russians Defy Cease-Fire: Troops In Georgia Digging In

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:30:37 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Elsewhere in Georgia, it appeared very clear that Russian troops were staying put, building ramparts around tanks and posting sentries on a hill near Igoeti, a central Georgia town only 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tbilisi.

Russian troops still effectively control the main artery running through the western half of Georgia because they surround the strategic central city of Gori and additionally the city and air base of Senaki in the west. Both cities are on the main east-west highway that slices through two Georgian mountain ranges. Russia also confirmed Sunday that it had taken over a major power plant in western Georgia.

Rice noted that the text of the cease-fire, negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current leader of the European Union, outlined a very limited mandate for the soldiers that Russia calls peacekeepers who were in Georgia when hostilities escalated. She said these soldiers can go on limited patrols within the two separatist areas but in Georgia

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

August 16: Russian armored vehicles move in Orjosani, between the capital Tbilisi and strategic town of Gori, Georgia.

MOSCOW — Russian military authorities issued a flurry of conflicting reports Sunday about whether Russian troops had begun to pull out of South Ossetia, one of Georgia's two separatist provinces.

Western pressure has been increasing on Moscow to withdraw its forces under a cease-fire deal signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The United States and France have already charged that Russia is defying the truce, as Russian tanks and troops continue to roam freely across a wide swath of Georgian territory.

• Click here to view photos of the conflict in Georgia.

• Click here to view a video report of the conflict.

• Bush Accuses Russia of 'Bullying and Intimidation' in Georgia Conflict

• U.N. Reports Over 118,000 Georgians Have Fled Fighting

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was flying into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi for more talks Sunday

Tags: tbilisi georgia, cease-fire, medvedev, u.s./france, chancellor merkel

Beijing Olympics-- Opening Ceremony ...Update: Iraqis Given Rousing Ovation

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:54:10 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The beautiful woman in the Iraqi delegation is sprinter Dana Abdul-Razzaq.
President Bush and Laura Bush joined in the ovation.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/07/olympic-panel-lifts-ban-on-iraq-allows.html

Final thoughts on the Opening Ceremony-- Amazing! China put on a wonderful show.

UPDATE: I posted the Iraqi version video after the NBC clip was yanked.

Clip Source: gatewaypundit.blogspot.com

The Beijing Olympic Games opened today---

Nine-year-old earthquake survivor Lin Hao joined Yao Ming (R) during the opening ceremony. Lin Hao is a primary school student from the quake-affected zone of southwest China's Sichuan Province. According to media reports, when the May 12 tremor struck, Lin risked his life and suffered multiple injuries for rescuing his schoolmates from the collapsed buildings. He was later awarded the title of "Teenage Hero in Earthquake Rescue and Relief." (China Daily)

Lopez Lomong, a survivor of the violence in his native Sudan, now a U.S. citizen, was selected by his teammates to lead the U.S. Olympic team

The Iraqis were allowed into the games just last week after the IOC originally banned the delegation... The IOC wanted the original Iraqi committee members to represent the team. But, 4 members were kidnapped two years ago and have not been seen since that time.

UPDATE: I posted the Iraqi version after the NBC clip was yanked

Tags: beijing olympic games, opening ceremony, yao ming, 9-year-old earthquake survivor-lin hao, lopez lomong, sudanese survivor, iraqi ban revoked

Bush and Blacks

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:29:25 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The message—both in words and action—is clear, consistent, and stirring.

This year he joined forces with Washington D.C.’s black Democratic mayor, Anthony Williams, to win passage of the first federally funded voucher program, which will provide $7,500 each to poor minority children in the nation’s capital, giving them some of the same educational options that their wealthier neighbors enjoy.

The Bush administration has also tried hard to help lift Africa out of its deepening misery. Last year, the president pledged $15 billion—a twenty-fold increase from Clinton-era funding levels—to help stem the AIDS pandemic sweeping the continent, and he has sent troops and diplomatic envoys to try to quell violence in Liberia and Sudan.
African-relief activist Bob Geldof recently acknowledged, “The Bush administration is the most radical—in a positive sense—in its approach to Africa since Kennedy.”

Clip Source: www.city-journal.org

21 July 2004

“We’ve got a president that’s prepared to take us back to the days of Jim Crow segregation and dominance,” says NAACP president Kweisi Mfume. Republicans’ “idea of equal rights is the American flag and Confederate swastika flying side by side,” says NAACP chairman Julian Bond. And the leaders of this supposedly nonpartisan organization are surprised President Bush declined to attend their convention last week?

Instead, tomorrow the president will address the National Urban League, a black organization whose mainstream leadership is focused on ideas for improving life in inner cities rather than on politics and racial demagoguery.

Issues number one and two on his domestic agenda have been education reform and his faith-based initiative, both specifically targeted to help inner city minority residents, and both implemented by two accomplished African-American cabinet members, education secretary Rod Paige and HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson.

Tags: president bush, racial equality, voucher program, aids funding in africa, liberian/sudanese violence

Rice Arrives in Georgia With Cease-Fire Concessions

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:34:00 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Meanwhile, a flurry of international diplomacy was set in motion, even as regional tensions escalated dramatically over a missile defense deal between the U.S. and Poland — with a top Russian general saying the pact exposes Poland to attack.

Gori, about 45 miles west of the capital Tbilisi, is key to when — or if — Russia will honor the terms of a cease-fire that calls for both sides to pull their forces back to the positions they held before fighting broke out last week in the separatist region of South Ossetia.

By holding Gori, Russian forces effectively cut the country in half because the city sits along Georgia's only significant east-west highway. Russian military vehicles were blocking the eastern road into the city on Friday, although they allowed in one Georgia bus filled with loaves of bread.

President Bush video statement

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

Breaking News >> Bush Makes Statement on Situation in Georgia at 8:15 a.m. EDT: Watch Live

Rice Arrives in Georgia With Cease-Fire as Russian Blockade Continues

Russia Invasion of Georgia Sparks New Cold War Rhetoric

FOX FACTS: 6 Points in Russia-Georgia Cease-Fire Pact

Senator: Georgia Fighting Could Shut Down U.S. Space Program

Russia, Georgia Trade Ethnic Cleansing Accusations as Bodies Burn in Streets

Georgian Ambassador to U.S.: Russian Attack Resembles Past Soviet Invasions

Georgia Files Suit Against Russia for Alleged Ethnic Cleansing

Georgia's Kodori Gorge Virtually Cut Off

Commander: Georgia to Remove All Troops in Iraq to Join South Ossetia Conflict

RAW DATA: Russian President Medvedev's Statement on Georgia Crisis

FAST FACTS: South Ossetia at a Glance

Video

Dangerous Situation

'Get Out Now’

Russia Calls Halt to Fighting

Border Battle

Urging Restraint

Breakaway Battle

Photo Essays

Georgia Conflict Grinds On

Violence in Georgia

Tags: secretary of state rice, president saakashvili, tbilisi georgia, gori blockage

After Russia's Invasion Of Georgia, What's Next?

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:37:54 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: – and in precarious regions such as the Middle East – will remain.

Obviously, not all former Soviet states are as critical to Nato as Ukraine, because of its size and strategic location, or Georgia, because of its importance to our access to the Caspian Basin’s oil and natural gas reserves.

By its actions in Georgia, Russia has made clear that its long-range objective is to fill that “gap” if we do not. Accordingly, we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members.

Second, the United States needs some straight talk with our friends in Europe, which ideally should have taken place long before the assault on Georgia. To be sure, American inaction gave French President Sarkozy and the EU the chance to seize the diplomatic initiative. However, Russia did not invade Georgia with diplomats or roubles, but with tanks.

Clip Source: atlasshrugs.bustablog.com

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

So, as an earlier Vladimir liked to say, “What is to be done?” There are three key focal points for restoring our credibility here in America: drawing a clear line for Russia; getting Europe’s attention; and checking our own intestinal fortitude.

First, Russia has made it clear that it will not accept a vacuum between its borders and the boundary line of Nato membership. Since the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union collapsed, this has been a central question affecting successive Nato membership decisions, with the fear that nations in the “gap” between Nato and Russia would actually be more at risk of Russian aggression than if they joined Nato. The potential for instability and confrontation was evident.

Europe’s rejection this spring of President Bush’s proposal to start Ukraine and Georgia towards Nato membership was the real provocation to Russia, because it exposed Western weakness and timidity. As long as that perception exists in Moscow, the risk to other former Soviet territories

Tags: president saakashvili, putin, nato membership, georgia/ukraine/turkey, baku-tbilisi-ceyhan pipeline, caspian sea region

You remember Al Qaeda, right?

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 08:07:40 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The Anchoress, who came to kick ass and chew bubblegum.

And she was fresh out of bubblegum.

Yeah, that guy! The guy who does more than just talk about freedom and progress. The guy who has brought real hope and change to people all over the world, and yes, here in America. But you don’t want to hear it. It’s the wrong and inconvenient narrative, the embargoed one.

Clip Source: theanchoressonline.com

You remember AlQaeda, right? Ten years ago this week, they bombed US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Not that we did much about it at the time. But it is worth noting, they haven’t done that to us again, nor any of these other things, since 9/11. I blame Bush.

You remember Bush, right? The guy who goes to Asia and tells China to free her people, while the press jeers, the guy who, while in Asia also meets with Democracy Activists in Burma and gets ignored for it, the guy who drew enormous and supportive crowds in Korea, while the American press yawned?

Sure, you remember Bush! He’s the guy whose life was threatened along with Barack Obama’s but only the threat to Obama was newsworthy for a very long time at CNN. Bush? You mean the creepy moron who will be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as soon as congress can figure out how to do that without exposing itself or having to put some of its own members under oath?

Tags: al-qaeda, us tanzanian and kenyan embassies bombed, president bush, chinese dissidents, burmese activists

The Existing Ban On Drilling Expires Sept 30, 2008

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:43:11 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Now, here's (excerpt) of the letter from AFP

On behalf of our millions of members and all American consumers suffering from high energy prices, we urge you to allow the current restrictions on much-needed American energy resources to expire as scheduled under current law. Unless Congress acts affirmatively to prevent it, October 1st, 2008 will be a day fittingly described as "American Energy Freedom Day" as those restrictions expire.

Now that President Bush has lifted the executive branch moratorium, the only thing prohibiting development of these energy resources is a temporary ban that is set to expire at the end of this fiscal year.

We urge you to oppose the creation of any new moratorium for fiscal 2009, even if it is attached to what some people in Washington consider "must-pass" legislation.

Clip Source: rightwingnews.com

Americans for Prosperity alerted me to the fact that the election issue of all election issues has been dumped into the GOP's lap.

October 1st, 2008, "the existing bans on Outer Continental Shelf drilling and oil shale leasing expire -- unless Congress specifically votes to extend the bans."

according to AFP is that "Congressional leaders will likely try to sneak an extension into supposedly 'must-pass' last-minute spending legislation."

Republicans, including most importantly, John McCain, should refuse to support ANY legislation that extends the drilling ban. That means they should speak out against it, they should vote against it, and George Bush should veto it if it comes across his desk.

This should not be a issue in the 2008 election, the GOP should make it THE ISSUE of the 2008 elections.

Even with gas prices as high as they are, the Democrats want to keep a drilling ban in place while Republicans want to take action that will help reduce prices, in the short and long term.

Tags: drilling ban, gop, ban expires sept 30

Beijing Olympics Not So "Dazzling"

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:47:11 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Last week, Bush met with several Chinese dissidents in Washington, signalling that he would take a hard line on human rights.

That sparked a harsh response from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which said that Bush had "rudely interfered in China's internal affairs."

Clip Source: www.ibdeditorials.com

Clip Source: www.canada.com

Bush to denounce China's human rights' violations

In an unusual move Wednesday, the White House released an advance copy of Bush's speech, an apparent attempt to counter critics who say the president is being too soft on China and is more interested in being a sports fan at the games.

"I have spoken clearly, candidly, and consistently with China's leaders about our deep concerns over religious freedom and human rights. And I have met repeatedly with Chinese dissidents and religious believers," says Bush's prepared text.

"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates, and religious activists. We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labour rights, not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential."

Bush said the "constructive relationship" between the two countries allows the U.S. to be "honest and direct" with China.

Tags: olympics, beijing, human rights abuses, president bush