The Opinion of Those Who Do Count

They say the first hundred days of a President are indicative of whether he will or will not succeed in the Office of the Presidency.  Well, I am sure that there are naysayers to this barometer; I personally have no way of interpreting the next four years of a President’s tenure in office by his first one hundred days, but I can say that I like the methods utilized by this President most recently in Europe and again here in the American hemisphere more than I did those of the other President.

We can all remember with disdain the swagger of the ‘Texan’ born in Massachusetts.  We can easily recall the President that always walked around like he had two six guns strapped to his sides.  We remember these things because other world leaders remember them as well and they are on record for not liking it very well.  Some even challenged his swagger and won in a face down – the tiny Republic of Georgia can tell you very well.

The United States ‘was’ always known before the tenure of the forty-third President for its willingness to negotiate from a point of strength, its intense desire to use force only as a last result that is until 2003.  Surely we were attacked and mortally wounded on September 11^th, 2001 and we did something about it – sort of, but what followed gave America a new dogma that did not fit with the dogma of the previous two centuries.  We became warmongers and those launching us onto this path showed little insight.

Most recently, we have had critics of this President, chiefly among the opposition party; voicing their opinions in the negative against the attempts by this President to reverse the image that was held about the United States over the past eight years.

 

"Meanwhile, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich charged Monday that Obama's cordial greeting with Chavez sent a poor message to enemies of America by giving legitimacy and credibility to the fiery Venezuelan leader.  "What I find distressing, is that the administration opposes opening up oil exploration," but yet Obama "bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia" and now has reached out to Chavez, Gingrich said on NBC's "Today" show.  "Cuba releases zero prisoners," he said, "yet we make nice with Cuba. I'm for doing things methodically and calmly ... things that will work, but I'm not for deluding myself about smiles and words."

 

I am trying to make the connection here… help me if you can?  This President’s bow to the Saudi King was not normal posture, but surely did not denote the belittlement of the Office of the President anymore than the previous President’s offer of twenty million dollars to the richest producer of oil during a time when that United States badly needed a break in the price of oil per barrel.  That President promised American businessmen that he would go to Saudi Arabia and get the Saudis to increase their production of oil – they didn’t, and the President came away twenty million less and totally belittled by the incident.  

And, of course, we all remember the incidents leading up to the United Nations confrontation between Chavez and Bush… there can be no doubt that Presidente Chavez had stoked this confrontation with then President Bush and the United States for personal reasons, but as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.  More to the point, Bush could have been the bigger man by giving Chavez a smile and a handshake which would have defused the entire matter – just as Obama did at the Summit of the Americas, instead, he turned his back and ignored Chavez - solid diplomacy if I ever saw it.  Smile and the world smiles with you is what Obama accomplished with his greeting to Chavez.

 

America’s policy toward Cuba has been in existence since the failed invasion of Cuba some fifty years ago.  It has changed nothing, yet Mr. Gingrich decries the current administration for opening the rusty door of old dead diplomacy and shedding some new optimism on Cuban-American relations.  The Cuban government is more receptive now to the idea of solid relations with the United States than ever before – Obama's overture to the Republic of Cuba was received overwhelmingly by the other members of the OAS.  Again, consensus of opinion overrules in diplomatic situations.  Whether the Cuban leaders will reciprocate remains to be seen; however, by virtue of its statue, America gains much from being the first to extend the hand of friendship.

 

Mr. Gingrich says “I'm for doing things methodically and calmly ... things that will work, but I'm not for deluding myself about smiles and words”, but we never saw much of this in the way things were done when Mr. Gingrich and his fellow Americans were in a position to do so.  In fact, America became known for its willingness to disrespect its counterparts around the world with this phrase… “If you are not with us, then you are against us”.

 

The ability to get to a point of consensus with those considered to be your enemy is a difficult task, one that requires the use of every method or means at your disposal.  To be respectful of another is not demeaning.  Extending your hand in genuine friendship is not belittlement of yourself.  Flashing a smile with each person that you greet is an ice-breaker, and Obama uses all of these tactics well.  I commend you Mr. President for your ability to show America’s strength by flexing the muscles we use to make a smile with each person that you greet.

 

In a democracy, silence is not golden; it is condonance in the face of injustices; it is fear, where the thought of reprisal fosters control – Rodney A. Davis

Guantanamo Bay - The Al Qaida Issue

Oh! What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Who decided to take captives from a warfront and house them in another country? What was the purpose for housing those prisoners at Guantanamo? Those are the questions that were never asked of President Bush. I believe that in the hasty confusion to exact a punishment against those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay the President, and all of his men, lost track of the big picture and were caught up in a quagmire of their own doings.

The Bush administration has maintained that these individuals are extremely dangerous and must be isolated in such a manner that they can never do us harm again. The Bush administration notes that previously released Guantanamo prisoners have gone back and joined the fight against American troops. They cite at least sixty-one incidents wherein prisoners that were released have become suicide bombers, have been recaptured, or have shown up on video tapes recruiting for the jihadist.

I believe that there is some truth to what is being reported by the troop commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan with regard to the return of released prisoners to combat, but I question if any of this would have been the case if these prisoners had been incarcerated in-country rather than at Guantanamo Bay. I wonder what would have been the outcome had we not been exposed at Al Ghraib? What if we had expeditiously carried out the military tribunals? Obviously the decisions were made by someone positioned to formulate a policy, but the policy, we are seeing now was very flawed.

Al Qaida uses Guantanamo as a badge of honor, a recruitment tool. Those having been there for any length of time are looked upon as having been in the den of the infidels and lived to tell the tale – an exaggerated tale, I am sure. But, why give the enemy additional ammunition to be used against you in the psychological warfare that is always associated with armed conflict. We have created a two-headed monster that will not die no matter what we do from this day forward.

Had the United States proceed with military tribunals against these individuals as originally stated, the matter would have been over… instead, it has drawn on with disastrous propaganda permeating everywhere. In defense of the President, I submit that he had every right to remove the prisoners from the warfront, incarcerate them at Guantanamo Bay, and send them to a military tribunal. The President’s rights can be reviewed from similar incidents, the first being the incarceration and military trial of Germans caught after they had entered the United States during WWII…

The Court first carefully traced the President's power to issue the July 2 order back to the Congressional "war powers" provided in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, and the President's executive powers under Article II. It held that the Articles of War were an appropriate constitutional exercise of power by Congress, and fully provided for the trial of enemy spies by miltary tribunal. As a final step, the Court affirmed that the July 2 order was a valid implementation of the Articles of War.

The Court stressed that the procedure being followed was a well-accepted implementation of the universally accepted laws of war:
By universal agreement and practice the law of war draws a distinction between..... those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful.
According to the court, unlawful acts of war include "an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property". It noted that the Hague Convention, adopted by the United States in 1909, adopted the pre-existing distinction between lawful and unlawful belligerents, protecting only the former.

Notwithstanding this lawful position, the Bush administration delayed the execution of the Military Tribunals, creating a situation that is to be decided by another President who is either unaware of these statues, or simply does not want to entertain the matter further.

The other example involving the German prisoners of war is put forth in the article Ex Parte Quirin and it details how, with reason, the prisoners were denied Habeas Corpus…

The President, as President and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, by Order of July 2, 1942, appointed a Military Commission and directed it to try petitioners for offenses against the law of war and the Articles of War, and prescribed regulations for the procedure on the trial and for review of the record of the trial and of any judgment or sentence of the Commission. On the same day, by Proclamation, the President declared that 'all persons who are subjects, citizens or residents of any nation at war with the United States or who give obedience to or act under the direction of any such nation, and who during time of war enter or attempt to enter the United States ... through coastal or boundary defenses, and are charged with committing or attempting or preparing to commit sabotage, espionage, hostile or warlike acts, or violations of the law of war, shall be subject to the law of war and to the jurisdiction of military tribunals'.

It is obvious that the United States was, and is, within its rights to expose the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to military Tribunal. There is a choice… we can free these individuals and reap the havoc as a result of their being used to recruit others to Jihad, or we can just as easily commence the Tribunals and sentence them as would be the discretion of a Military Judge. 

There is another way if we free them; we must extract a solemn oath from them to never again pursue jihad against any government again – to be sworn to in the name of with Allah. No self-respecting Muslim will commit a violation of an oath sworn to in the name of Allah.

In a democracy, silence is not golden; it is condonance in the face of injustices; it is fear, where the thought of reprisal fosters control - Rodney A. Davis

Katrina - One Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Six days later...

It’s been twelve hundred forty-six days since Katrina made landfall along the Louisiana coastline – the storm that many predicted would one day hit New Orleans had arrived. I was born in New Orleans, but I have never been there during a major hurricane. I don’t have first-hand knowledge of the discomfiture humans endure when they are forced to seek higher ground in a city that is sixteen feet below sea-level, but if it is anything like what I saw on national television – I am glad that I was never around when a major hurricane came ashore in New Orleans.

What I can remember about Katrina is that my seven brothers and sisters live in New Orleans and I had no idea what they were experiencing that night. All of my childhood friends, well, most of them still live in New Orleans. I thought of and worried about their welfare. Did they evacuate the area as advised? If they stayed, were they able to survive the hurricane only to drown because a ‘barge’ broke loose from its moorings and battered the 9th Ward levee until it gave way? I seem to remember a barge breaking its moorings once before during a hurricane in New Orleans - happens all the time - not. In fact, most recently, hurricane Ike caused a ship and barge to break their moorings at the height of the storm as it passed New Orleans. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there?

At this moment, I am most interested in the recovery of New Orleans; how the people of New Orleans are truly fairing as far as getting on with their lives? My parent’s house was destroyed. The house was located midway between North Caliborne and St. Claude Avenues and butts against the Industrial Canal... ground zero for the flooding of the Lower Ninth Ward. From the levee at Dauphine and Sister, I have been able to look over the house tops of all of lower New Orleans as far as my eyes could see. And if I turned around and looked at the Mississippi River, the banks of the river were just as far down as the streets of New Orleans on the other side. Many times during a spring thaw, those waters have been higher than the streets of New Orleans.

As a child growing up in New Orleans, I remember the sounds of my neighborhood. The family on the corner could never talk to each other without screaming, and Saturdays were the worst. As ships and barges moved through the Industrial Canal on their way to the Gulf using the man-made shortcut, I could hear the clanging of the warning bells as the guardrails were lowered and the St. Claude Bridge opened to let shipping into the Intracoastal Waterway. The ground was so soft that the cavitations of the propellers on the big ships actually vibrated through the ground and into my body when I was lying under the big pecan tree in our front yard.

On a good day, when my pigeons would return to the roost after feeding at the local grain and feed elevator unloading docks, I would watch as they circled the house waiting for the dominate male to lead them home and into my coop were they would feed their young. Every day was a good day for fishing, and I did more than my share of fishing. With seven brothers and sisters, my parents were extremely happy when I brought home three or four large yellow catfish from a short trip to the Intracoastal Waterway. The water was clean and flowed slowly toward Lake Ponchartrain and the Gulf. Shrimp, crabs, speckled trout, perch, and more were there for the offering. As I grew older, I always appreciated having grown up in New Orleans. Life was easy and slow, hence the ‘Big Easy’.

I return to New Orleans shortly after hurricane Katrina. I had moved to Cozumel, Mexico and all of our household goods were in a container that was supposed to leave Pearlington, Mississippi for Progresso, Mexico within weeks of the storm hitting the Gulf Coast. The storm damaged the loading docks and I was forced to return to the Gulf Coast area in February of 2006 to unload the container into a U-Haul truck. I missed my exit onto Interstate 12 and entered New Orleans East by mistake. I saw the devastation up close. I cried as I traveled the length of Interstate 10 until I could turn the truck around at Reed Blvd. I thought to myself, New Orleans will never be the same. Sho’nuff, I was right, New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward is still desolate and abandoned. The neighborhood where I grew up is no more. Of all of the houses that were there, only two have been rebuilt.

This video was taken from the Claiborne Avenue Bridge where the levee failed - three blocks from my parent’s home.



In a democracy, silence is not golden; it is condonance in the face of injustices; it is fear, where the thought of reprisal fosters control - Rodney Davis

Twin Towers - The Bush Legacy

While I am greatly appalled at the destruction of the Twin Towers, I am also astounded by the circumvention of our system of justice, a cornerstone of the American way, as it is presented to the world by the Bush Administration. We are no better than the President of Zimbabwe if we are to allow this sort of injustice to prevail.

I include this excerpt from an article written by Mr. Horton of Harper’s Magazine which conveys my interest in the outcome of the political travesty that is the imprisonment of a group of men at Guantanamo under such bizarre circumstances.

Sabotage at Gitmo

By Scott Horton, Harper’s Magazine – December 9, 2008

“They warn that if the trials move to federal court, defendants might actually be acquitted (an outcome which they apparently believe can be foreclosed entirely in a military commissions process, which notoriously was the view of Goldsmith’s erstwhile boss, Jim Haynes) or get short sentences. The pair disclose a distinctly low level of confidence in the federal criminal justice system.”

Americans ought to be outraged that the Bush administration did not locate and bring to justice the one person that is deeply responsible for September 11 – Osama Bin Laden. America should be profoundly concerned that the man lodged in the White House, in this case – George W. Bush, having recited the following oath, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" has failed to even come close to upholding the Constitution of the United States".

Mr. Bush, as President promised to pursue Bin Laden to the gates of hell if necessary to avenge an American tragedy – he didn’t! He should have tried harder over the eight year period that he was in office to keep his promise to you and me. His promise to get Bin Laden is just another reminder of just how inept he and his administration have been when it comes to the welfare of America. During the Bush-Kerry presidential election, Osama Bin Laden challenged America “saying that the safety of America is not in Bush’s hands, but in the hand of America”. This tape was carried on Al-Jezeera and broadcasted to the free world four days before the election. Many wonder if this was not by design to ensure that Bush gained another four years in office! Surely we can say that we were not protected.

Of late, Mr. Bush has been saying in interview after interview that the intelligence that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq was faulty, and as such, should be considered when historians are writing entries into the history books concerning his presidency. Mr. Bush reminds us that Congress voted overwhelmingly to support his decision to invade Iraq. I remember it differently. I remember the skewed and clumsy attempts to present evidence that an educated public could see readily through. I remember the lies that were pressed into the hands of Congress that persuaded them to give carte blanche permission to the ‘Commander-in-Chief to invade another country – contrary to any precedent in American history. With some degree of authenticity we can say that Mr. Bush abused the Constitution.

President-elect Obama is inheriting all of the problems that have been caused by the Bush Administration. Obama is being urged to disregard the Constitution and assume more control of the economy, of the situation in Iraq, of all the things that should be addressed daily by Mr. Bush. There are those that say that Obama is not moving fast enough with his cabinet selections – untrue; he is moving faster than any President- elect before him. Many say that Obama is not keeping promises made during the run up to elections – he is; he continues to adjust to the changing situations in our economy and the many other things that will confront him on DAY ONE.

Mr. Bush is attempting to rush to completion the task of punishing the prisoners at Guantanamo and that will be part of his legacy. All of us should keep in mind that each President has the legal right to readdress anything that his predecessor did. Mr. Obama can pardon, commute, or rescind any part of anything that Mr. Bush has done. In my opinion, the individuals incarcerated at Guantanamo have not been given due process. If they are guilty as charged, then try them, convict them, and send them to prison, but by all means get rid of Guantanamo and the constant reminder of American injustice represented there.

Bush's Final Fiasco

By Harold Meyerson - Washington Post

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

As he prepares to move back to Texas, our 43rd president is the beneficiary of Bush fatigue. The nation has long since repudiated him. Americans are looking ahead to the promise of Barack Obama.

And it's lucky for George W. Bush that they are, because his handling of our plunging economy is Hooverian in both its substance and inadequacy.
Herbert Hoover, we should recall, had a program for dealing with the Depression. It consisted of lending to banks but opposing fiscal stimulus or direct aid to individuals. Which is why Hank Paulson's frenzied endeavors to prop up the banking sector and Bush's dogged resistance to assisting anybody else amount to pure neo-Hooverism.

As the 1930s began, Hoover believed that the coordinated actions of the private sector could save the beleaguered economy. It soon became apparent that the only action that private-sector businesses could agree upon was closing down factories and offices and throwing people out of work. Under immense pressure to do something, in late 1931 Hoover asked Congress to establish the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to provide funds to banks it deemed creditworthy.

By 1932, the RFC was making loans. Yet with the economy in free fall, the rate of bank failures increased until Hoover's successor, Franklin Roosevelt, created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Having done his bit to bail out the banks, however, Hoover rested. He opposed provisions that would have enabled homeowners to hang on to their homes.

As breadlines lengthened, he vetoed a bill appropriating funds for public works on the grounds that it was inflationary and contained pork-barrel spending. Bankers would be saved; everyone else was effectively damned.
Sound familiar? The Bush administration's approach to today's meltdown is to direct all its energies and largess to lending institutions. There is, as yet, no program to help floundering homeowners renegotiate the terms of their mortgages. The president is opposed to further stimulus programs, even though private-sector investment in the United States has all but ceased.

It's becoming increasingly clear, however, that while saving the banks may limit further calamities, it doesn't really save anybody else. Even with government-guaranteed lines of credit, financial institutions are refusing to lend money. With the banks effectively on strike, an economic recovery, if there is to be one, must begin with the government injecting funds to those parts of the economy that need it most: infrastructure development, state and local governments, an alternative-energy sector. These are all programs to which Bush is firmly opposed.

In a sense, Bush's inactivity is even less excusable than Hoover's. Unlike Hoover, Bush could learn from the successes of New Deal and World War II-era programs to revive the economy. Keynes's general theory of how to defeat depressions wasn't around when Hoover was president, but it's been with us now for 72 years. What's more, virtually every reputable conservative economist, from Martin Feldstein on down, now supports a government stimulus program. But Bush, drawing on no known body of economic thought, remains opposed. (So does Republican House leader John Boehner, who seems determined to elevate stupidity to a party principle.) And with each passing day, the economic hole out of which we will have to climb grows deeper.

So where's the outrage? Why aren't demonstrators besieging the White House? Where are the "Welcome to Bushville" signs in those neighborhoods where abandoned homes outnumber the occupied ones?

The answer, I suspect, is that you can only irreversibly give up on a president once. Further catastrophic failures on the president's part elicit only diminishing returns. Buchanan did nothing while the South seceded: That was it for him. Hoover did nothing as farmers, workers and middle-class America got wiped out: With that, he was beyond rehabilitation. Nixon had Watergate: Enough said. One mega-strike and you're out.

Bush, however, has had three. He misled us into a nearly endless war of choice to disarm a threat that never really existed. He let a great American city drown. And now he stands by while the economic security of tens of millions of Americans is vanishing.

Yet in the hearts of his countrymen, Bush's place is already fixed. Even before the financial collapse, he was in the ninth circle of presidential hell, with Buchanan and Hoover. At his own party's national convention this summer, his was the name that no one dared speak. And so, though his mishandling of the economy is criminally inept, he is being spared one more outbreak of public rage by two countervailing public sentiments: Americans' relief that he soon will be gone and their kind reluctance to kick a corpse.

meyersonh@washpost.com

Mr. Bush No Longer Lives Here!!!

One sunny day in January, 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, 'I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.'

The Marine looked at the man and said, 'Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.' The old man said, 'Okay', and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, 'I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.'

The Marine again told the man, 'Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.' The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying 'I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.'

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, 'Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president, and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?'

The old man looked at the Marine and said, 'Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.'

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, 'Sir, see you tomorrow, Sir.'

How To Rescue The Economy

I want to share with you my thoughts on this bailout situation. We don't need seven hundred billion dollars to repair this problem. In fact, we don't need any money at all. This is why...

1. We should renegotiate all of the loans that are sub-prime and get rid of the ARM forever. All of the loans that are delinquent, or borderline should be extended so that the borrower can meet the payments. In other words, if it takes more than thirty years to repay a loan at three hundred dollars a month, as oppose a fixed thirty year loan with payments of nine hundred, then restructure the loan so that the person can make the payments.

2. Identify all loans and the circumstances that are presently making the borrower delinquent in payments - resolve it by one of two ways. Re-finance the loan terms in such a way that the borrower can make payments, or place that loan at high risk for further evaluation and resolvement.

3. Those mortgage lenders that stretched the parameters for making loans to borrowers that were marginally qualified should be prosecuted for fraud.

4. No golden parachutes for CEOs and administrative officers that were at the helm of companies that failed - retroactive. In other words, if the culprit is gone, go get him! Limit the retirement package for all CEOs.

5. No money to investment banks that are going under.

6. Re-instate the regulations that were withdrawn with the Commodity Futures Market Act of 2000. Increase the transparency of all markets wherein there is the possibility for speculation - oil, electricity, etc. Severe penalties for violators.

7. Institute national projects that would create jobs (bridge and road repair, technical skills) Setup centers dedicated to the re-tooling of the job market so that individuals can make themselves employable. Make it a goal to reduce the pollutions of automobile by setting the bar for carbon reduction and using the money that was accepted by the auto industry to retool that industry.

8. Re-structure the tax code so that the taxes for those making less than fifty thousand are not taxed as much as those making between fifty thousand to one hundred fifty thousand, and those making more than one hundred fifty thousand will pay a little less than those making more than one hundred fifty thousand. Let's rebuild the tax structure in the shape of a vase - small at the bottom, fat in the middle, and somewhat bigger than the bottom at the top.

9. Increase Social Security taxes by raising the taxable group to those making two hundred seventy thousand.

Those in a position to set policy should began to understand that this economy is not trickle down, it is trickle up. The reason that you don't have cash flow is because the work force is reduced and can't spend enough money to support a substantial cash flow. With a reduction of the people that were making fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year, we lost cash flow.

We should, all as one, resist the notion that if we don't do something tomorrow, the world will cease to exist as we know it. The Bush administration has used 'fear' tactics more than enough times to let me know that it 'ain't so' folks. Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq. Bush lied about Al Qaeda in Iraq. He has not kept his promise to get Osama Bin Laden. The Bush administration cannot be trusted with seven hundred billion dollars just before they walk out of the door. Personally, I think Bush and Cheney and the rest of the gang are seeking their severance pay (golden parachute) before bailing out.

Here is your cue... the banking system was supposed to have crashed last weekend - it didn't. It was supposed to crashed on last Monday - it didn't. Now it is supposed to crash on this coming Monday (September 29, 2008); my prediction - it won't!

Don't believe the hype; we don't need a bailout! If you agree with me, send this letter to your Congressional representatives in both houses asap!

Has President Bush been telling the Truth to the American People

Recently, I received a comment from one of my readers. In the comment, the reader was offended by statements that I made with regard to whether I thought that President Bush was telling the truth to the American people. Of course, it is never my desire to offend anyone during the course of relating how I feel about a given subject. For that reason, I am apologizing to 'Sandra' for having offended her, however; I feel it is imperative of me to explain why I wrote that I thought that the President of the United States is a liar.

President Bush took office in January of 2000 with a mandate of presenting an openly honest government. He promised that none of the dishonest tactics that characterized the Clinton administration would be attributed to his administration. However, over the course of his eight years in the White House, Mr. Bush has presented a much different modus operandi. He has hidden many of his actions behind the curtain of ‘executive privilege; it is a position that does not lend itself readily to the original promise to be open and honest with the American public.

While the use of ‘executive privilege’ is not, in and of itself, reason to believe that the President has lied; it does however, contradict the ‘promise’! I have decided to ‘google’ the some of the instances where what the President promised and what he actually did are in conflict with his promise to the American people to be open and honest. In doing this, I want to dispel the notion that I have a personal vendetta against the President Bush.

Let’s get started by defining the term 'executive privilege' and whether, or not it is address in the Constitution. We will then discuss how it is being applied by the Bush administration. Looking at the Congressional Library for guidance, we see that its definition is as follows: EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE - exemption from legally enforced disclosure of communications within the executive branch of government when such disclosure would adversely affect the functions and decision-making processes of the executive branch - Merriam-Webster.

That is the definition; now let's look at what, how, and under what circumstances that the President can apply 'executive privilege'.

Executive Privilege was first invoked by President George Washington. Washington's invokement of executive privilege set the precedence which modern day Presidents have continued to enjoyed, much to the chagrin of the American public. Just what are the rights involved with this privilege?

I present excerpts from Michael Dorf's article, A BRIEF HISTORY OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE, FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON THROUGH DICK CHENEY

1. The Constitution nowhere expressly mentions executive privilege. Presidents have long claimed, however, that the constitutional principle of separation of powers implies that the Executive Branch has a privilege to resist certain encroachments by Congress and the judiciary, including some requests for information.

2. Presidents often assert executive privilege even if the information or documents sought are not matters of national security. They argue that some degree of confidentiality is necessary for the Executive Branch to function effectively. Key advisers will hesitate to speak frankly if they must worry that what they say will eventually become a matter of public record.

The Supreme Court considered this argument in the 1974 case of United States v. Nixon. A grand jury convened by Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski issued a subpoena to President Nixon requiring that he produce Oval Office tapes and various written records relevant to the criminal case against members of Nixon's Administration. Nixon resisted on grounds of executive privilege.

The Court recognized "the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties." It noted that "[h]uman experience teaches that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decision-making process."

Nonetheless, the Justices concluded that the executive privilege is not absolute. Where the President asserts only a generalized need for confidentiality, the privilege must yield to the interests of the government and defendants in a criminal prosecution. Accordingly, the Court ordered President Nixon to divulge the tapes and records. Two weeks after the Court's decision, Nixon complied with the order. Four days after that, he resigned.

I am quoting Mr. Dorf, a Harvard Professor of Law, because of his distinguish credentials with regard to Constitutional Law. I also want to point out that there, technically, is no constitutional basis for any President to withhold information from the American people under any circumstances - unless - you don't want the truth to be known. Yet, the other two branches of government have relinquished their right to question the authority of the Executive branch in its assertion of executive privilege as a tool in denying everyone the access to information that was used to develop policy, or make decisions that effect us all.

President Bush has invoked 'Executive Privilege' on more occasions than any other President - four times! Obviously, he has a lot to hide.

Bush's Lies About Iraq
Lie #1--They Attacked Us: Iraq Supported Al Qaeda. Astonishingly, President Bush, in a rare moment of candor, finally admitted half a year after the invasion that there was no evidence Saddam Hussein's Iraq had any links to the 9/11 attacks, undermining eighteen months of implying the exact opposite. Yet in both of his recent big speeches--a brief and rather reserved statement after Saddam's capture and his macho 2004 State of the Union address--Bush again dished out the fundamental lie that the war and occupation of Iraq can reasonably be linked to the "war on terror," even as a new book by ex-Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill described the Bush foreign policy team's consistent obsession with Iraq from the first days of the Administration.

Lies #2 and #3--Imminent Threats: Iraq's Bio-Chem and Nuclear Weapons Programs. A year after using his 2003 State of the Union address to paint Iraq's allegedly vast arsenal of WMDs as a grave threat to the United States and the world, Bush wisely avoided mentioning anything about uranium there--though he did spend a great deal of his latest SOTU defending the war on the grounds that "had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day." Dick Cheney, in interviews with USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, echoed this fudging--last year "weapons," this year "programs"--declaring that "the jury's still out" on whether Iraq had WMDs and that "I am a long way at this stage from concluding that somehow there was some fundamental flaw in our intelligence."

Only days later, chief US weapons inspector David Kay quit and began telling the world what the Bush Administration had been denying since taking office: that Saddam Hussein's regime was but a weak shadow of the semi-fearsome military force it had been at the time of the first Gulf War thirteen years ago; that it had no significant chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs or stockpiles still in place; and that the UN inspections and allied bombing runs in the 1990s had been much more effective than their critics had believed at eroding these programs.

Lie #4--It Will Be Easy: Iraq as a "Cakewalk." "The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq," Bush admitted, putting the lie to the idiotic and arrogant statements by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others that policing Iraq would be a simple matter that could be quickly delegated to Iraqis as soon as they stopped celebrating the US military's arrival and cleaned up all those flowers they were going to throw.

Reality has continued to diverge from the White House's neat depictions of inexorable progress. In the weeks after Saddam's capture, the number of US soldiers killed actually increased, several helicopters were downed by enemy fire, and on Christmas Day alone there were eighteen attacks, including nine nearly simultaneous rocket grenade launches on embassies, apartments and the "green zone," which houses the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters. American KIAs have passed 500, while uncounted Iraqis continue to die in undocumented skirmishes.

Lie #5--The Moral Justification: Iraq as a Democratic Model. As the other lies upon which this war were based have been crumbling, this one has moved to the forefront. For war apologists such as the New York Times's Thomas Friedman, if we can "bring democracy to Iraq," all those immoral means will justify this noble end. Here, too, we find grave problems continuing to frustrate the fantasies of neocons and neoliberals alike: The Kurds want to retain the large de facto autonomy they've achieved in the north; the Sunni areas continue to be extremely hostile to the occupation; and the long-oppressed majority Shiites are protesting in the streets in the tens of thousands, demanding one-man, one-vote elections. The CIA now considers civil war in Iraq a serious possibility.

Just as it didn't solve the stunning array of problems facing Iraq, the capture of Saddam did nothing to heal the rifts in our own country, where the lies of this Administration have so polarized the populace that this election year promises to be extremely nasty. We Americans now have but three options: We can deny that the Administration lied and continues to lie about Saddam's ties to terror and the threat he allegedly posed to the United States; we can be aware of the lies, but cling to a faith that good things will come from them, that the ends justify the means; or we can get angry about the lies and how truth has become a casualty of 9/11.

The lies of this Administration concerning Iraq rise to the level of the greatest scandals in American history. Now it is time to clean up the mess and reinvigorate our democracy.

In an article dated September 25, 2003 and entitled The Other Lies of George Bush, David Corn writes "Does Bush believe his own untruths? Did he truly consider a WMD-loaded Saddam Hussein an imminent threat to the United States? Or was he knowingly employing dramatic license because he wanted war for other reasons? Did he really think the average middle-class taxpayer would receive $1,083 from his second tax-cut plan? Or did he realize this was a fuzzy number cooked up to make the package seem a better deal than it was for middle- and low-income workers? Did he believe there were enough stem-cell lines to support robust research? Or did he know he had exaggerated the number of lines in order to avoid a politically tough decision? It's hard to tell.

Bush's public statements do suggest he is a binary thinker who views the world in black-and-white terms. You're either for freedom or against it. With the United States or not. Tax cuts are good--always. The more tax cuts the better--always. He's impatient with nuances. Asked in 1999 to name something he wasn't good at, Bush replied, "Sitting down and reading a 500-page book on public policy or philosophy or something." Bush likes life to be clear-cut. And perhaps that causes him to either bend the truth or see (and promote) a bent version of reality. Observers can debate whether Bush considers his embellishments and misrepresentations to be the honest-to-God truth or whether he cynically hurls falsehoods to con the public. But believer or deceiver--the result is the same.

With his misrepresentations and false assertions, Bush has dramatically changed the nation and the world. Relying on deceptions, he turned the United States into an occupying power. Using lies, he pushed through tax cuts that will profoundly reshape the US budget for years to come, most likely insuring a long stretch of deficits that will make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for the federal government to fund existing programs or contemplate new ones.

Does Bush lie more than his predecessors, more than his political opponents? That's irrelevant. He's guiding the nation during difficult and perhaps perilous times, in which a credible President is much in need. Prosperity or economic decline? War or peace? Security or fear? This country has a lot to deal with. Lies from the White House poison the debates that must occur if Americans are going to confront and overcome the challenges of this century at home and abroad.

Presidential lying, in fact, threatens the country. To render informed and wise choices about the crucial and complicated controversies of the day, people need truthful information. The President is generally in a position to define and dominate a debate more than other political players. And a lie from the White House--or a fib or a misrepresentation or a fudged number--can go a long way toward distorting the national discussion.

Bush campaigned for the presidency as the fellow who would bring honesty back to the White House. During his first full day on the job, while swearing in his White House staff, he reminded his cadre, "On a mantelpiece in this great house is inscribed the prayer of John Adams, that only the wise and honest may rule under this roof." But Adams's prayer would once more go unanswered. There has been no restoration of integrity. Bush's promise was a lie. The future of the United States remains in the hands of a dishonest man."

Most notable in David Corn's article is his prediction that the financial situation of the United States would be in a terrible deficit - how true that we have come to realize this predicament about the economical practices of George W. Bush – 43.

To summarize Bush's prevalence to lie, I submit the following: He fired Doanld Rumsfeld after saying that he was going to fire him, Osama Bin Laden is still at large, there never were any WMDs, the Iraqis did not dance in the streets when our troops liberated them - so to speak, he reneged on his promise to hold an honest and open government, and he still has not fully funded No Child Let Behind.

Those are just the ones that I can remember at this moment!