There is no media bias.

Just ask Dan Rather. You'd take his word for it, wouldn't you?

Right on annie, you're the best!

I was fortunate enough to see Bush's speech in its entirety, and the Q and A which followed. Bush kicked ass! He even used threatened Syria and Iran. Today I glanced at The Ft. Worth Star Telegram, and the front page was filled with dreck, including a story which could've been run on any day, but just HAPPENED to bump Bush's speech off the front page:

"Iran-backed militia gains power in Iraq"

Bush's speech rated a 1"x1" photo in the bottom right, directing me to an account of his speech on Page A15. The headline to the article on 15A:

"About 30,000 Iraqis have died in the war, Bush says"

The article, by Ron Hutchinson of Knight-Ridder, said nothing positive until the final sentence of the 5th paragraph:

"Although the crowd of several hundred in Philadelphia's Park Hyatt Hotel seemed generally supportive, there were dissenters."

Nice qualifier. I consider even the assertion in this sentence to be spin. On TV, a strong majority of the crowd seemed supportive. Paragraphs 6-11 covered the speech and the Q&A, then Rep. John Murtha made an appearance in paragraph 12&13. Paragraph 14&15 talked about the Iraqi elections.

Typical MSM - shove Bush's outstanding performance under the rug. When OIF success becomes obvious, and the public figures out how badly they've been misled, their relationship to the MSM will be forever altered.

It is astounding that they have lied to our faces for so long, and now they just cannot understand why everyone is abandoning them for the alternate media.
Here is a little secret that the libbies dont want discussed. A lot of them now get most of their news from Fox. The way I know this is that on any liberal blog they will go on and on about things that appeared on Fox the night before. They bitch about it but Fox has the best coverage so they watch.

good point Kyle.

And I had heard that they just read Annika's Journal and skip Fox...

I certainly hope the REAL media is on the side of the brave and noble insurgents - I certainly am!

Free Palestine!

Anni,

You get twitier every day. There was no enemy in Iraq. We invaded and called the people who want us the fuck out the enemy and you have the audacity to split hairs with the MSM's depiction of 30,000 deaths? And, what? This sham democracy that's forming gives you a good feeling
deep inside but 30,000 dead makes you angry because the MSM did not qualify that the Criminal said "citizens" which could include republican guard killed in their barracks, regular army slaughtered as they retreated, women, toddlers, infants, teenagers, elderly, and a host of others? This by you is a problem? Gosh, the enemy loving MSM chose not to listen clearly to our lying sack of shit commander and chief whilst he once again repeats his hollow pledges, purile simplifications about government, democracy and elections, the sorry state of the state of Iraq, the readiness of the "soldiers" we are training, and basically every other aspect of this criminal transgression against all that is decent and moral, and because the MSM has stopped buying this barrow of crap they are the "friends of our enemy"

Would this have pleased you?

DEAD Description
1,650 children between 5 and 7
1,125 men employed as shop keepers
2,500 stay at home moms
9,250 men and women over 65
27 men in american custody
7,345 women who held civil service jobs
5,345 children between 7-19
2,758 men fighting to repel occupation

30,000 total

Your right I guess, anything other than this is a clear demonstration of liberal bias and deep unabashed love of our "enemy"

I went to hear Bush speak in Minneapolis last week. The new information I heard from his speech that Al Qaida has decided that Iraq is the battlefield where they plan to fight the US to the bitter end.

He said he would rather fight them in Iraq than fight them on American soil. I agree. He spoke with no notes or teleprompter for 25 minutes. His eloquence surprised me.

Strawman:

90% of the civilian casualties are from Al Qaida and Sunnis targeting women and children for execution with car bombs and suicide bombers.

Bombers that are cheered on by the Democrats and their leadership. These bombers would have given up long ago if they had not had encouragement from the left.

Your head butcher, Howard Dean and the bloodthirsty tribe he leads are more responsible for those vaporized children than the suicide bomber who pulls the trigger. At least the bomber does not live on to cheer the results as the Democrats do.

Hey JAke,

Who told you Al Qaida was going to fight to the bitter end in Iraq? I rest my case.

strawman:

Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri has said that if Al Qaida loses in Iraq there goal of ruling the Middle East is lost. When President Bush and al-Zawahri say the same thing, I believe it.

Jake, we all ignored the nut case from left field, and he went away with his crap for a while.

Now that you have noticed his prattling and even worse, responded to it, is just like How Weird Dean and his merry gang of lost souls. You are encouraging him.

Just ignore him and maybe he'll go away again.

It's a waste of time to try converting us "Reich-whingers". Strawman would be better off finding women bloggers that share his views such as this one......

http://raymitheminx.blogspot.com/

She's bashed Bush on occasion and she often shows her T&A.

I'm sure Tony Pierce's blog could hook him up with other similar links.

I think Strawman's comments are great. I love Strawman, Air America, and all the other moonbats who promote the left's opinions. It shows how far off the deep end they have gone and actually helped the Republicans win the Presidency, House, Senate, and more governorships. Keep up the good work! Where can I make a donation to Air America?

Call Al Franken (if you can find him).

> 3. Bush explains Iraq policy in a major speech.

I've seen a number of speeches where his speechwriters employ the usual rhetorical tools that are simply intended to rally rather than inform.

That's why you see a lot of;

> 2. Republicans admit Bush hasn't done a good job of explaining Iraq policy.

Now he has taken responsibility for the decision to go to war. Funny, I would have thought that was obvious from day one. I suppose that means that he is relieving Cheney from the pressure of having made that decision.

There might be some who believe that the Administration did not steer the prewar Iraq intelligence analysis, but those 'some' are becoming a tiny, strident, increasingly bitter minority.

what percentage, do you think, is made up of folks who believe the administration did "steer prewar Iraq intelligence analysis" and don't have a problem with that?

Your question is a good one, but "steer" is not the best grounds for the question. Where there is no smoking gun, there are only educated guesses and probabilities. Bush looked at the available info and made his decision. Most of America has no problem with that. We voted him into office to do that very thing.

The left complaint is really this:
"Bush succeeded at leading us into war in Iraq."

They are actually arguing that Bush was unfairly effective at the difficult task of moving the nation to war. They are arguing that the nation deserved for Bush to lay out the negatives more clearly, effectively undermining his goal of moving the nation to invasion.

The left argument is illogical and laughable. Its also incorporates lies - especially the part where they morph Bush's assertion that we would definitely succeed in Iraq into an assertion that we would easily succeed. Bush could not move the nation to war w/o asserting that we would definitely succeed. That he said easily is a lie - although, by historical standards, we are succeeding easily. And that is not to take anything away from the incredible difficulty of the task. It is, instead, a compliment to our forces and our strength, and a compliment to the Iraqis for taking to democracy.

That the Iraqis actually have taken to democracy - albeit an Iraqi style democracy that includes some violence - is the ultimate comment on Bush's correct strategic vision; and on his reading of the intelligence tea-leaves he was dealt.

Recall the Senate voted 77-23 in Oct 2002 to authorize the President to attack Iraq. The House approved an identical resolution, 296-133 (the resolution became Public Law 107-243). If you have read the law (a big assumption I know for those who don't want facts to cloud their opinion), you would note the following section:

"Whereas in Public Law 105–235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international
peace and security, declared Iraq to be in ‘‘material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations’’ and urged the Presi-
dent ‘‘to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations’’"

** Note the date of 1998 - I'm waiting to hear how then Gov Bush et al manipulated the intelligence during the Clinton Administration so Congress would reach this conclusion **

Also, Congress was well aware the law authorized the use of force

"section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution."

"I believe we have an obligation to protect the United States by preventing him from getting these weapons and either using them himself or passing them or their components on to terrorists who share his destructive intent," said Gephardt, who helped draft the measure.

From CommonDreams (hardly a supporter of Bush to say the least). "It should also be remembered that it was the Clinton administration, not the current administration, which first insisted-despite the lack of evidence-that Iraq had successfully concealed or re-launched its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. Clinton's fear-mongering around Iraqi WMDs began in 1997, several years after they had been successfully destroyed or rendered inoperable. Based upon the alleged Iraqi threat, Clinton ordered a massive four-day bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998, forcing the evacuation of inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) and the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."

and

"Clinton was egged on to take such unilateral military action by leading Senate Democratic leaders -- including then-Minority Leader Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Carl Levin, and others who signed a letter in October 1998 -- urging the president "to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspected Iraqi sites, to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Meanwhile, Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was repeatedly making false statements regarding Iraq's supposed possession of WMDs, even justifying the enormous humanitarian toll from the U.S.-led economic sanctions on Iraq on the grounds that "Saddam Hussein has . . . chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction."

and

Even some prominent congressional Democrats who did not vote to authorize the invasion were willing to defend the Bush administration's WMD claims. When House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi appeared on NBC's Meet the Press in December 2002, she claimed: "Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There is no question about that."

If you claim that the President "skewed" the intelligence, then why would the Administration allow the 2002 NIE, a primary source given the Congress to justify military action, to contain in the document a much stronger dissent within the intelligence community than any other NIE in history?

Look at David Kay's testimony in 2004:

"As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It's typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies.

In the course of doing that, I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance.

And never -- not in a single case -- was the explanation, "I was pressured to do this." The explanation was very often, "The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it."

And each case was different, but the conversations were sufficiently in depth and our relationship was sufficiently frank that I'm convinced that, at least to the analysts I dealt with, I did not come across a single one that felt it had been, in the military term, "inappropriate command influence" that led them to take that position.

It was not that. It was the honest difficulty based on the intelligence that had -- the information that had been collected that led the analysts to that conclusion.

And you know, almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence because we know how to correct that. "

I'm waiting to see how the MSM media report the Iraqi elections. Had some peers send aerial photos showing long lines of Iraqis waiting to vote. Pretty remarkable considering that the whole time those folks were in line waiting, they were exposed targets for terrorists. Some Americans would see that line and think “What a hassle!” Iraqis see the line, get right in it, and think “What an opportunity!”

Will,

You see, Annika thinks that OBL might have gone to Iraq and conspired with SH to cause tons of grief for you and me here at home. SHe thinks this because a traitor she otherwise loaths and has repeatedly called a liar, RIchard Clark, wrote a memo suggesting this was a possibility. Annika, quivering in her boots, was grateful that Clark didn't suggest OBL would consider going back to SA and hooking up with his family since that would have precluded Bush from acting. He gets all whinny and cranky without Prince BAndar or a Bin Laden shoving a crude oil slathered dick up his ass. But,lo, out of the loop/in the loop, Clarke said "Iraq", Annika was pleased, and Bush could continue directing the Prince toward his magic walnut. "Push overs", Anni said, (or maybe that was just Bush giving Bandar a hint) "me and my sig could tear Saddam a new one in two or three days" she cried stomping an 8 x 10 of Rummy hugging Saddam, breaking the heel on a new pair of 600.00 dollar Choo's. Surely, she thought, Rummy will have no trouble with these Iraqi son's of bitches. He'll kill 50,000 with or so with precision bombing and the rest will throw flowers and swirl cognac in our honor. And most importantly Osama will be rendered toothless in a desert abattoir like beef trimmings to tallow. (its a little mixed up I know but you get the point.)

How's it working out Annika? Smell any tallow yet?

So far as I can tell, it worked out really well. Only a few of the dead Iraqi's are voting today, the country is thriving;plenty of fresh water and electricity, oils-a-pumping paying back America for all it's help, kids are back in all new refurbished schools they now call Madras's and the artifacts from the museums are being auctioned off by Christies to buy arms for those pesky insurgents. Oh, and George is having a tough time sitting still but at least he isn't bleeding.

"The President reads tea leaves not books" nice bumper sticker.

THe fact that quasi intelligent people like your selves still think it was just our dumbass anal ysts (not George thank you) at the myriad of over funded but understaffed intelligence agencies that got it wrong, is astounding. Dozens of people who work there have come foward to say just the opposite, that the cabal willfully rejected contrary to invasion intel and cherry picked or badgered people to re-evaluate. I know this don't bother our hostess but she has other- worldly ideas about morality.

Anni, if Clark had said Osama was potentially heading for Pakistan (where, BTW,he most surely is) should have we have invaded prophylactically?

these days, i always suggest using a prophylactic whenever invading a new territory.

Ooops, bad experience I guess. It happens to the best of us.

Pakistan is kind of arid. No one wants to invade that.

Iraq, conversely, has the lush and fertile crescent between the rivers. Invading Iraq is a natural act - sanctified by God.

Col Steve:

Please stop confusing our leftist friends with the facts. It tends to make their pitiful arguments even more more pitiful, and thus, they cannot even consider reconsideration.

In the future, please stick to rumor and obfuscation, in order to leave them with a possibility of consideration.

I mean, a good rumor beats the facts every time in their world.

Just be thankful that when the chips are down, there are more of us than of them.

"Iraq, conversely, has the lush and fertile crescent between the rivers. Invading Iraq is a natural act - sanctified by God."

LMAO...that is so wrong.....

Let's see, if raping and beating young Australian girls who do not cover their heads or their faces is sanctioned by God, maybe invading Iraq is as well.