GEORGE BUSH, A DISGRACE TO THE MILITARY HE NEVER SERVED IN, ABANDONS AN AMERICAN SOLDIER IN SADR CITY-- BEYOND COMPREHENSION

I find it bizarre that the media was all over John Kerry's gaffe for two days-- to the point where nothing of substance was being discussed by that and related junk-- and yet when Bush decides to hand over military decisions in Baghdad to some two-bit trumped-up puppet and makes U.S. soldiers stop a search and rescue operation for a kidnapped G.I.... silence. To me this is the biggest story out there. My mind boggles and my blood boils. One of our soldiers is in al-Sadr's hands and the Bush Regime says "stop looking for him!" To me this is as bad as anything this monster has ever done to our nation.

Meanwhile Wolf Blitzer had another proven military hater, House Majority Leader John Boehner, on his show and he gave Boehner a quote from Virginia's conservative Republican Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis agreeing with Hillary Clinton about the unsuitability of Donald Rumsfeld to keep the Secretary of Defense job. Boehner said the mess in Iraq isn't Rumsfeld's fault. Who's fault is it? The military on the ground. You don't believe Boehner said that? Watch:



Most Americans agree with Hillary Clinton and Jo Ann Davis on this one. But, of course, Bush doesn't. He couldn't wait to jump on a microphone and say he doesn't give a shit what public opinion thinks about Rumsfeld-- or Cheney-- they'll be staying in office as long as he does. (No cheap comments from me on that.)

I think Harry Reid took Boehner's outrageous remarks more seriously than the media. "John Boehner ought to be ashamed. He's blaming our troops for failures in Iraq. If he wants to cast blame, he can start by looking in the mirror because he and his Congressional Republican colleagues have rubberstamped the Bush Administration's failed policy for nearly four years. Our troops in Iraq have performed bravely. It's political leaders like Congressman Boehner and Donald Rumsfeld, who have failed. I expect President Bush and Congressional Republicans, who demanded John Kerry  apologize, hold their own party's majority leader to a much higher standard. There's no spinning his disparaging comments. He made them. He needs to apologize."

Well, perhaps this is why a large and growing majority of Americans-- and particularly voters-- think it's time for a change in DC. Today's New York Times reported that "A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end American military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress next Tuesday, and say  Republicans would maintain or increase troop levels to try to win the war if they hold on to power on Capitol Hill, according to the final New York Times/CBS News poll before the midterm election. The poll found that just 29 percent of Americans approve of the way President Bush is managing the war in Iraq, matching the lowest mark of his presidency. Nearly 70 percent of Americans said Mr. Bush did not have a plan to end the war, and an overwhelming 80 percent said Mr. Bush’s latest effort to rally public support for the conflict amounted to a change in language but not policy."

Kai Stinchcombe, a friend of mine at Stanford, was as infuriated as I was about Bush abandoning the American soldier in Baghdad and he wrote 3 ads for 3 of the Blue America candidates in California:

George Bush and John Doolittle told us over and over again they want to "stay the course." They said if you don't agree with that plan you don't support our troops. But now Bush has showed that it was never about our troops. He doesn't care about our troops-- in fact, he's ok leaving an American behind in the most dangerous part of Baghdad. Turns out he was saying "stay the course" because he didn't want to admit that he didn't have a plan. Congressman Doolittle, our troops are dying over there because George Bush won't admit his mistakes, and you weren't there to stand up to him. Vote for Charlie Brown-- he supports the troops, so he will demand a new direction in Iraq.

Buck McKeon is a rubber-stamp Republican-- he voted with the president 92 percent of the time! In the last four years, Congressman McKeon has failed to hold even one hearing on the direction the president's war in Iraq was taking. Now things are so bad that militias are running out of control and the president is leaving our American troops behind. It's time to take off the blinders-- "stay the course" isn't working. Vote Robert Rodriguez to change the course in Washington.

George Bush never served a day in the military. That's why he doesn't know the first rule-- never leave a fellow American behind. George Bush called off the search for a United States Marine in the most dangerous part of Baghdad. Congressman Pombo, things have gone horribly wrong in Iraq. Every day we're seeing more bad news-- suicide bombings, militias running rampant, the country teetering on the brink of civil war. Congressman Pombo, where have you been as all this has been going on? The people of the San Joaquin Valley elected you to do a job, and you haven't been doing it. Seems like you were too busy cozying up to lobbyists and you forgot the most important part of your job-- keeping America safe, and keeping our troops safe. Vote Jerry McNerney for Congress-- he'll do his job. Democrats want to set a timetable to pull out and bring our troops home. Bush calls it cut and run. So, Mr. Bush, what's it called when you decide to pull out and leave our troops behind?

Jack Cafferty and Ned Lamont felt as angry about this as Kai and I do. Those two links go to videos of each of them explaining way.


UPDATE: A CODE OF DECEIT

Olbermann says it best-- as usual. This was one of his most powerful indictments of Bush's continuous outrages yet. Watch it all... Keith works himself up into quite a lather as he goes on.


KERRY APOLOGIZED; BOEHNER WON'T. REPUBLICANS NEVER APOLOGIZE UNTIL IT'S PART OF A PLEA BARGAIN

The Army Times doesn't seem pleased that Boehner won't say sorry.