Bush admits having difficulty connecting Iraq to war on terror.

[BurtWorm]

:wtf:

From the interview with Katie Couric, an instance of unintentional honesty?:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/06/five_years/main1980074.shtml

COURIC: You have said we can't cut and run on more than one occasion. We have to stay until we win. Otherwise, we'll be fighting the terrorists here at home on our own streets. So what do you mean exactly by that, Mr. President?

BUSH: Well, I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy and will provide the enemy – more opportunity to train, plan, to attack us. That's what I mean. There – it's – you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror. I believe it. As I told you, Osama bin Laden believes it. But the American people – have gotta understand that a defeat in Iraq – in other words, if this government there fails - the terrorists will be emboldened, the radicals will topple moderate governments.

[Kagemusha]

1. So it's hard selling his fervent belief to a skeptical public.

I don't see the grounds for shock.

[BurtWorm]

5. Your elegant words convey something very different from Bush's twaddle.

He didn't say it's hard to convince others of his fervent belief. He said it was hard connecting Iraq and the war on terror. If it's his fervent belief, it wouldn't be hard to connect them, would it?

I think he gave us a peek behind the curtain with this. It was another Bushian "message: I care" moment.

PS: I.e., Bush the idiot robot knows he is supposed to convey in this interview that Iraq and the WOT are connected, but all he can say is it's difficult to connect them. It's like his father's lame recitation in 1992 of his handlers' instructions to come across as caring.

[Kagemusha]

9. But I know from his words now and before that in his mind....

Iraq is connected to the War on Terror, and that is an indisputable, unalterable fact which in his own mind, he knows with absolute certainty.

Knowing this, how can I take what he said as meaning anything but, he finds it hard to connect the two in the minds of regular American citizens, and that it is his duty to do so, so that they do not lose their will in the struggle between good (him) and evil (Osama)?

Edit: Because he thinks being the President is about being the national priest, fortifying the moral fibre of America so that it fulfills its God-given role in a struggle between God and Satan.

[BurtWorm]

11. If he saw a connection, wouldn't he be able to show what it was?

Wouldn't anyone be able to help him make that connection for us if they saw it?

He doesn't see it. He only believes it. At best, assuming he's "honest" about this belief, he's saying, "If only you all had the same exact belief I had that it has always been connected. " He is not saying, because he's incapable of saying--as would anyone but the most talented sophist or illusionist be able to say--"Here is the connection." And he can't say it because the connection didn't exist until the war he made there brought it into existence. He can only say, "Believe in the connection, as I do."

[Kagemusha]

13. Not that I like quoting the man but, this is public record.

Saddam was taken down just in case. Saddam is evil. Osama is evil. The possibility, however remote in the minds of rational people, existed that Saddam might devote the resources of Iraq to supporting WMD terrorism by Al Qaeda, for the simple reason that they are both evil and in service of the same Satan. Therefore, they are allies. Therefore, there is a constant, open-ended threat that the two will work together to harm America. Therefore, taking Saddam down by invading Iraq was linked to the War on Terror, by eliminating a potential threat before it emerged as an actual threat. And in his own mind he would be negligent to do any differently.

He's said this. Why isn't what he's said in the past the context for what he says in the present?

[BurtWorm]

16. Because he has also said Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11

and even that they were wrong about WMD in Iraq. That's another part of the past that must be context for the present. Now the CIA is even admitting that Saddam wanted to capture Zarqawi just as badly as the US did. In other words, each skin of the onion peeled away reveals that only belief and not a shred of evidence connected Saddam with terrorism.

This is why Bush has difficulty connecting it. Because Iraq and terror were two separate concepts before 9/11. Only 9/11 gave anyone the chance to connect them through trying to will the connection to be so.

[Kagemusha]

17. I see what you're saying, but that's not the point to Bush.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had everything to do with the NEXT 9/11, so it had to go down. Just because I disagree with him doesn't mean I feel comfortable just ignoring the substance of his argument... that's all.

Edit: And that includes Iraq needing to be taken down because absence of evidence was not evidence of absence and waiting for clear evidence risked waiting until it was too late to save America from an Iraq/ Al Qaeda joint terror operation.

Which means that the connection is therefore, by the necessity of his argument, purely in his own mind and the minds of those he can manage to convince of the correctness of his viewpoint.

[BurtWorm]

18. How do you know what's in his mind?

You can only go by what he says, not what he thinks. Even he probably doesn't know what he thinks.

[Kagemusha]

19. Because his actions show complete consistency with his story?

Anyway, if you're going to argue he doesn't know what he thinks, and therefore what he says he thinks is of no importance, but only the fact what he says makes no sense to you is relevant and the fact he says it makes TOTAL sense to him is completely irrelevant to you, then I see no point continuing this.

[BurtWorm]

20. He contradicts himself again and again.

How you can construct a consistent ideology out of those contradictions is beyond me.

What Bush constructs with his words is a consistent *persona*: the tough, shoot-from-the-hip, gut-instinct decider. He's not a thinker, we're supposed to believe, but a feeler. He feels there's a connection, we're supposed to believe. And he feels it's hard to make it for us, try as he might.

But this persona is at the service of an agenda. He feels whatever the agenda calls for. And how do we know that? Only by his fumbling words.

[spanone]

25. .

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

2. Where's the follow up question? This is yet another profound indicator of

the cabal's policies and it goes unremarked upon.

Good pick up. Will it get the attention it deserves? MKJ

[OwnedByFerrets]

3. Yeah, happened two

days ago and you wont hear anything about it unless you read it here. Bill just mentioned it, but you wont hear about in the MSM. And, just the opposite should be happening. HE LIED, WE DIED.

[MichaelHarris]

4. ya know

that whole "if we don't fight them there we'll have to fight them here thing doesn't really work unless you talk about football. In football home field advantage is worth a couple of points but no one dies.

In bushes mind taking the game to a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 is a good thing. He got to buy the play-by-play guys.

[tjwash]

6. Maybe we should send him this picture...

[XOKCowboy]

7. What a tortured speaker...

How do they transcribe his ramblings. There are about 5 unfinished thoughts in that paragraph. How did that moron ever get elected?

Oh ya. Forgot

[BurtWorm]

8. It is truly amazing that anyone lets him speak.

Least of all the Lord God Karl Rove...


<<I'm worried, Katie, strongly worried about a world if we – if – if we lose, you know, our confidence and don't help – defeat this ideology, I'm worried that 50 years from now they'll look back and say, "How come – Bush and everybody else didn't see the fact that these – this group of people would use oil to affect our economy?"

<<Or, "How come he didn't confront the Iranian threat and its nuclear ambitions?" Or, "Why didn't you support the moderate governments there in the region?" And – I – I truly believe this is the ideological struggle of the 21st century. And the consequences for not achieving success are – are dire.>>


What utter crap--including all the ands and thes.

[filer]

10. Follow up:

COURIC: Mr. President, what you just said was incoherent babble. Would you like to try again?

[CarlVK]

12. Talk about giving away the store!

And he's too stupid to know how he put his foot in his mouth. This is akin to "Why don't you just sit still while I rob you?"

[newyawker99]

22. Hi CarlVK!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[niyad]

23. welcome to DU-- a most apt analogy.

[subterranean]

14. Haven't we turned Iraq into one big terrorist training camp?

[Kagemusha]

15. But Iraq's government is unwilling and incapable of supporting terror.

So in Bush's mind, it's still better.

[Bucky]

21. Shhhh. Quiet, you.

[spanone]

24. It's hard to sell a lie Katie, can you help? Love, george.