Given the track record of Bush + The Rubber-Stamp Congress on these sorts of reports, I think it's worthwhile to examine this one closely. I take a tiny stab at such examination below and offer the diary as a place for others to share their thoughts.

In a press conference last month, Bush refused to give a reporter a straight answer about whether there will, "come a day when there will be no more American forces in Iraq." Bush said, "That, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future Presidents and future governments of Iraq." When pressed on this point, Bush could only say that plans for withdrawal by the end of his term would amount to a "timetable."

GREISING [Chicago Tribune columnist]: I don't think that's a terrible thing. But I think when you like thinking about what is happening at 2:00 a.m. in the Situation Room, and somebody has to make a decision as to whether to give a call to Ehud Barak or not, whether talk to Yasser Arafat or not...

O'REILLY: Well, they will wake up Governor Bush and he'll tell them what they decided. I mean, that's what they'll do. They'll say: Hey, Governor, you're making a call. And here's the briefing sheet.

So I dug around in the old archives and pulled up a transcript (Nexis) of the "Capital Gang" from July 31, 1993--back when Vince Foster's suicide was a hot topic. You know, as a sort of prelude to the discussion we can expect this Sunday. Follow me through the jump, dear reader, for a trip down memory lane....

Q Last year the President lauded the Patriot Act for giving him tools to track terrorists that he never had before, including roving wiretaps and other such tools. If the President has what he needed in the Patriot Act, why the need for this NSA program that he authorized?

McCLELLAN: Well, the NSA authorization that has been talked about over the past couple of days is vital to our efforts to prevent attacks. The President believes we need to use all lawful tools within our powers to prevent attacks from happening.

It's "vital to our efforts to prevent attacks." He's serious. That's why the secret NSA program instead of what's specified in the Patriot Act. Try again, Scotty. Why break the law to do something you surely knew would piss a lot of people off when there are so many other "efforts" you could have undertaken to "prevent attacks?" Pick apart the rest of Scotty's dipshit answer in the extended text and comments... plus a pointless bonus poll.

Mr. DeLay, designated an "enemy combatant" in the War on Criminality, has been in solitary confinement at an undisclosed location since February, when a federal appeals court stripped him of his rights as a U.S. citizen. After today's refusal by the Supreme Court to hear an appeal, the February ruling will now stand. Mr. DeLay's status remains unknown.

"We're obviously disappointed," said one of the attorneys who filed the appeal on Mr. DeLay's behalf. "We don't know where Tom is, if he's being treated humanely, whether he has access to medical care--anything. And now, I guess, we never will know."

I am no expert in what constitutes a good response to a hurricane (though I think I know a bad response when I see it). And I'm also no expert in not getting bamboozled by deceptive official testimony to Congress. Those disclaimers aside, I have to say that it sounds like Tolbert and FEMA did a pretty good job with Isabel.

October 7, 2003:

Good morning, Chairman LaTourette and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Eric Tolbert, Director of the Response Division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On behalf of Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response Michael Brown, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today on the operations of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA in response to Hurricane Isabel.

More below the fold.

BROWN: [...] I said in introducing you that everything seems political to people these days. I know this will be perceived as a political question; it's not meant that way. To what extent does the fact that there are 135,000 troops in Iraq and troops in Afghanistan--to what extent, if any, impact the ability of the military, the Pentagon, to respond to this crisis?

McINTYRE: [...] And as to your question about political--I talked to a lot of people at the Pentagon today who are very frustrated about the fact that the perception is being created that the military didn't move fast enough. And they did see it somewhat as political. They thought that part of the motivation was for critics of the administration to make the President look bad.

I know you can't take the politics out of politics. I'm from Texas; I'm a realist. But I'm convinced our government can show more courage in confronting hard problems, more goodwill toward the other side and more integrity in the exercise of power. This isn't always easy, but it's always important.

It's what the people expect of their leaders, and it's what leaders must require of themselves. My administration will provide responsible leadership.

And finally, a leader must uphold the honor and the dignity of the office to which he had been elected. (APPLAUSE) In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal, but what is right. (APPLAUSE) Not just what the lawyers allow, but what the public deserves. (APPLAUSE) In my administration, we'll make it clear there is the controlling legal authority of conscience. (APPLAUSE) We will make people proud again, so that Americans who love their country can once again respect their government.

Just a little stroll down memory lane in the extended copy.

Grave violations of human rights
The United States has committed "grave violations of human rights" against prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament said in a report on Friday.
--Reuters (March 25, 2005)

Plenty more below the fold. Oh--and I'll delete this (angrily) if the diary police deem it too devoid of my own commentary to merit a diary.

I can't resist. A force far beyond my control compels me--fully understanding the futility of the effort--to take a painfully obvious stab at this.

Front-page article by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: Democrats Question Iraq Timing. The article ran on Sept. 16, 2002. That is, several months after July and several days after Bush's "show the world you're not irrelevant" speech to the UN General Assembly.

For an advertisment to state, "Our vehicle meets or exceeds all federal safety standards," the vehicle must pass the roof-crush test outlined in Rule 216. The test involves pushing on one side of the roof, up front by the windshield, until the force applied is equal to 1.5 times the vehicle's weight. If the roof doesn't crush in by more than five inches during the test, the vehicle passes. (Aside: vehicles above a 6000 lb "GVWR" weight don't have to pass this test at all--the Hummer H2, for example, has a GVWR of 8600 lb so it isn't subject to the test.)

If you don't plan to read this entire, longass diary, this article from late March, Memos: Ford made Explorer roof weaker; Automaker says SUV exceeds federal safety standards and is a safe vehicle is excellent and probably contains everything you need to know. Diehards, read on.

OK, so an anonymous briefer gets to write the lede. That's no big deal, I guess--surely the remainder of the article is built upon a more substantive foundation than just this one guy's anonymous briefing....

I must say that the "new" Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom show is vastly inferior to the "old" Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom show--the one I watched as a child (I'm 33) and have subconsciously and nostalgically built up in my mind as The Greatest Nature Show History Has Ever Known (assuming you don't count The Life Of Mammals, which I discovered much later in life, after my nostalgic take on MoO'sWK had already been formed.)

But I digress. We were talking about bears and sex and (in particular) bear sex.

Nobody passes the buck with the same flair as President Bush:

"Well, I don't know about the lawsuit; I'm not a lawyer. But, you know, I'll ask my lawyers about the lawsuit....

"But I'm an optimistic fellow -- based not upon my own economic forecast -- I'm not an economist -- but based upon the experts that I listen to." This week's press conference

Beyond the jump, a quick collection of more things Presdient Bush has said he isn't. They all come from a crude search of the White House website; I'd love it if people more adept with the internets dug up and added similar quotes as comments.

As a service to any anti-PDF luddites who might be lurking out there (you know who you are... I call you "anti-PDF bigots" behind your backs), I've "unPDFed" the text of the calendar below the fold.

Notes: (1) I have no commentary to offer on this, so it's basically one of those repugnant, 1-line diaries; (2) I neither sought, nor secured permission to do this from Hoyer's office; (3) If I detect even a hint of grousing about either (1) or (2), I will delete the diary. It only took me about 10 minutes to "write," anyway.

Bush out lying today: Bush, on Road, Pushes Warning on Retirement

Same old, same old. Quick comments in extended text.