Heads up, everyone!
It seems the WMD / connections to Al Qaeda connetion to Iraq is oozing into the Bush administrations spin again. Or is it spin?
Yesterday, to an audience of reporters in the East-Wing of the Whitehouse — with the Afghanistan President looking on beside him — Chuckle-nuts told the world that the reason the U.S. invaded Iraq is due to
“…people who want to do harm to the American people.”
In 2006, after all we’ve read / seen, is this evidence that the President’s thinking is “irrational”?
(continued, with video…)
It’s a strange (but somewhat familiar) statement, indeed. Here’s the full excerpt of that part of his speech yesterday:
Some people have guessed what’s in the report and have concluded that…uh…going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree. I think it’s naive. I think it’s a mistake (pause) for people to believe that…uh…going on offense against people who want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe.
Here’s the video:
(click HERE or on pic to view)
First of all, who the hell are these “people” that he refers to?
If it is the Hussein government, then he is, indeed, making the case again — albeit in a more diffuse way — that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. This conclusion would fly in the face of multiple reports and official documents that say exactly the opposite. Saddam Hussein was contained and was, in no way, an imminent threat to the United States of America.
If he is referring to the members of terrorist organizations, such as Al Qaeda, then this again flies in the face of evidence and logic. As we all know, it has been concluded that Saddam Hussein had no operational ties to terrorist organizations according to both the 9/11 Commission Report and the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq.
I’ll raise a third possibility. The President of the United States of America has lost his rational train of thought. The speech seems scripted, but was it? Did he, in fact, confuse the reason the U.S. is in Iraq NOW with the reason the U.S. invaded Iraq in the first place?
As I mentioned in my previous diary, this man seems “unstable” to put it mildly. He giggles and smiles at highly inappropriate times and makes deeply offensive comments about the deaths of thousands. He even described the Iraq war as a kind of game:
Bush: “I strongly stand by my decision to remove Saddam Hussein.”
Blitzer: “And you don’t look back with any regrets?”
Bush: “I regret when people lose lives, but…uh…you,know…Presidents don’t get to do ‘do-overs’ (smiles).”
You may find this shocking video compilation here:
(click HERE or on pic to view video)
Should we be now seriously questioning the President’s mental state? A quick search reveals to me that the only way to remove the President due to mental or physical incapcity would be to use the 25th Ammendment. However, involuntary removal requires the cooperation of the Vice President and the members of the executive. So, I guess this idea dies a quick death. Alas, it really was no solution to begin with, since I doubt any of us believe the operations in the White house would change in any way with only the removal of the President.
Interestingly, I came up with a precedent in another country after doing a google search. The removal of the President due to his mental state occured in Equador. The year was 1997.
Ecuador’s Congress voted Thursday to remove President Abdala Bucaram for “mental incapacity,” exasperated by a stint in office in which the president sang and pulled political stunts while the country fell into economic crisis.
Members of Congress voted 44-34 to remove Bucaram, with two congressmen abstaining. Bucaram, who cheerfully had referred to himself as “El Loco,” or “the Crazy One,” called the vote on his incompetence a “coup by Congress” and said he would not recognize it.
Back to Chuckle-nuts. Let us consider this. Would it be a good “political” strategy to question the President’s mental health — even if it serves no interest for us to do so in any constitutional sense? I’m certainly convinced that the man is not mentally sound.
1. In recent comments, the President has ignored and blatantly contradicted well established hard evidence and logic.
2. The President has shown himself, repeatedly, to be insensitive in the extreme with his off-the-cuff remarks.
Should we lay this seed for others to explore?