MSRNC: "Bush lets silence fill Ground Zero"

[leftchick]

:puke:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14771810/

President George W. Bush has spoken 22,000 words in the past week in a series of speeches on the "war on terror" but on Sunday he let a carefully posed silence remind Americans of September 11 2001 as he laid a wreath at Ground Zero.

Faced with criticism from Democrats that he was politicising the day, the White House said Mr Bush would make no prepared remarks on Monday, as he marks the fifth anniversary of the attacks with a meeting of emergency personnel in New York and holds further moments of silence at the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The return to Ground Zero will revive images of the day that Mr Bush's presidency, and his personality, were transformed, and whose "bullhorn moment" on top of the smouldering rubble became an enduring image of a resolute leader. Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, denied, however, that the aim was to evoke those memories or "draw on some atavistic sense of nostalgia about the date".

Even so, Mr Bush who has let the last two anniversaries pass without much fanfare, has spent the past two weeks framing the debate on the midterm congressional elections in quiet but clear political tones.

In the speeches he has used every opportunity to cast himself and the Republican party as the best hope to secure the US from future attack.



This one makes me :puke:....



New York Police create an honor cordon during a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush at a ceremony to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, at the site of the World Trade Center in New York September 10, 2006. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

[mduffy31]

1. Makes me sick also

But the NYPD does have to respect the office and do that for him.

[Mika]

2. Puke/hurl. n/t

[TAPat]

3. Oh, PUKE is right!

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

That's 11 pukes, btw...

[madrchsod]

4. did not his government cut the funding to new york city?

but maybe i could be wrong.......nah

[leftchick]

10. no shit!

:grr:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053101364.html


Anti-Terror Funding Cut In D.C. and New York
Homeland Security Criticized Over Grants

By Dan Eggen and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page A01

The Department of Homeland Security yesterday slashed anti-terrorism money for Washington and New York, part of an immediately controversial decision to reduce grant funds for major urban areas in the Northeast while providing more to mid-size cities from Jacksonville to Sacramento.

The announcement that the two cities targeted on Sept. 11, 2001, would suffer 40 percent reductions in urban security funds prompted outrage from lawmakers and local officials in both areas, who questioned the wisdom of cutting funds so deeply for cities widely recognized as prime terrorist targets. The decision came less than five months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff unveiled changes in the grants plan intended to focus funding on areas facing the gravest risk of attack.

<snip>

New York's grant plummeted from about $207 million to $124 million. A DHS risk scorecard for the city asserted that the home of the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge has "zero" national monuments or icons.

[Lisa]

18. and cutting the health care for the WTC workers ...

Didn't one firemen's organization refuse to pose with him in photo-ops because of that?

[babylonsister]

5. 'Bout time he kept his yapper shut. nt

[1620rock]

6. "Honor" cordon??...oh please. n/t

[Ezlivin]

7. Like the silence that FILLS HIS HEAD?

The one thought he has each day must echo.

[Human Torch]

8. "...an honor cordon..."

...for a guy who sat on his prep school ass trembling in fear when the attacks happened.

Magnificent. Simply magnificent.

PT Barnum was right.

Maybe the Twin Towers Memorial should be surrounded by thousands of little chocolate gold foil wrapped bullhorns to commemorate what he actually accomplished...he stood on a pile of rubble, bullhorn in hand, told the world he was gonna get Osama, and then went in the opposite direction to chase Saddam so he could prove he was better than his pappy.

Yep. Little gold bullhorns. Chocolate. I'm gonna e-mail Bloomberg right now.



:eyes:

[soup]

16. "Little gold bullhorns"

I am loving your post. thank you.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

9. Caption for pic 1

Pickles: "George, stop snickering, you promised you wouldn't"


:puke:

[rodeodance]

11. This is sheer studpidity on the part of the WH. He is the Pres. and the

president should have f few prepared remarks for the victims on the 5th anniversary!

[ComerPerro]

12. I will believe it when I see it

[Contrary1]

13. What...No bullhorn?

I'm amazed.

[rodeodance]

14. drats. whey does Newt get space for commentary so often:

....."I just read all the speeches in one sitting this weekend. They set out the mortal threat to our civilisation that America and our allies have to wrestle with," said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. "The president is staking his presidency and his place in history on his courage to tell the truth, even if at times it is politically inconvenient. These speeches were a deliberate, systematic effort to reframe the threat for the country, at an historic level, which went beyond partisan politics."

[rodeodance]

15. Osama bin Laden.----was cited 17 times in a speech last Tuesday.

....The White House strategy has been crafted to blunt efforts by Democrats to turn the mid-term elections into a referendum on the Iraq war. The aim is to dent the political potency of Iraq by placing it in a wider context of the "war on terror". Polls, however, show that the majority of Americans do not agree the two are connected.

A key part of the strategy has been to use the anniversary to revive fears of Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaeda leader, who has been largely absent in Mr Bush's speeches for the past few years, was cited 17 times in a speech last Tuesday. "They have gone back to the world's leading bogeymen," said Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A leading Republican strategist who attended a dinner last week with senior White House advisers said the mood in the party remained bleak. "It is the only card Republicans have to play. The country may well say they are not buying it another time."

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. Well at least he didn't fart

I guess that's something of an accomplishment for him.

[LostInAnomie]

19. The silent ones stink the worst.

Come to think of it the metaphor of "Silent but Deadly" pretty much fits Bush* on 9/11.