posted on May 10, 2007 12:28:16 PM new
Published on Capitol Hill Blue (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont)
Republicans tell Bush Americans no longer trust him
Created 05/10/2007 - 6:27am
In a blunt face-to-face meeting in the residential area of the White House this week, moderate House Republicans told President George W. Bush he no longer has the trust of them or the American people.
The "come to Jesus meeting" with Bush reminded veteran political observers in Washington of 1974 when then-Senator Barry Goldwater met with President Richard M. Nixon to tell him he no longer had enough support on Capitol Hill to survive as President.
While no one at the meeting called on the President to resign, the Republicans told Bush his administration lacked any credibility when it came to statements about "progress" in the Iraq war and said the American public did not believe the President on the war and other issues.
Unless the war shows "significant progress" by September 1, they warned, Bush faces "massive defections" within GOP ranks from support for his war.
Report Carl Hulce and Jeff Zeleny [1] of The New York Times:
Moderate Republicans gave President Bush a blunt warning on his Iraq policy at a private White House meeting this week, telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war.
The White House session demonstrated the grave unease many Republicans are feeling about the war, even as they continue to stand with the president against Democratic efforts to force a withdrawal of forces through a spending measure that has been a flash point for weeks.
Participants in the Tuesday meeting between Mr. Bush, senior administration officials and 11 members of a moderate bloc of House Republicans said the lawmakers were unusually candid with the president, telling him that public support for the war was crumbling in their swing districts.
One told Mr. Bush that voters back home favored a withdrawal even if it meant the war was judged a loss. Representative Tom Davis told Mr. Bush that the president’s approval rating was at 5 percent in one section of his northern Virginia district.
“It was a tough meeting in terms of people being as frank as they possibly could about their districts and their feelings about where the American people are on the war,” said Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois, who took part in the session, which lasted more than an hour in the residential section of the White House. “It was a no-holds-barred meeting.”
Several of the Republican moderates who visited the White House have already come under political attack at home for their support of Mr. Bush and survived serious Democratic challenges in November.
Representative Charles W. Dent of Pennsylvania, a co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, an alliance of about 30 moderate Republican lawmakers, helped arrange the meeting. He said lawmakers wanted to convey the frustration and impatience with the war they are hearing from voters. “We had a very frank conversation about the situation in Iraq,” he said.
Even so, the Republicans who attended the White House session indicated that they would maintain solidarity with Mr. Bush for now by opposing the latest Democratic proposal for two-stage financing of war, which is scheduled for a vote on Thursday in the House.
Report Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman [2] of The Washington Post:
Participants in Tuesday's White House meeting said frustration about the Iraqi government's efforts dominated the conversation, with one pleading with the president to stop the Iraqi parliament from going on vacation while "our sons and daughters spill their blood." The House members pressed Bush and Gates hard for a "Plan B" if the current troop increase fails to quell the violence and push along political reconciliation. Davis said that administration officials convinced him there are contingency plans, but that the president declined to offer details, saying that if he announced his backup plan, the world would shift its focus to that contingency, leaving the current strategy no time to succeed.
Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also presented Bush dismal polling figures to dramatize just how perilous the party's position is, participants said. Davis would not disclose details, saying the exchange was private. Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone.
Snow, who sat in on the meeting in the president's private quarters, said it should not be overdramatized or seen as another "marching up to Nixon," a reference to the critical moment during Watergate in 1974 when key congressional Republicans went to the White House to tell President Richard M. Nixon that it was time to resign.
"This is not one of those great cresting moments when party discontents are coming in to read the president the riot act," he said. But Snow acknowledged that the meeting included some blunt, if respectful, discussion.
Davis stressed that Republicans will remain united against the Democratic bill in the House today. But the search for an exit is almost inevitable. "The key for everybody is to try to find a way to declare victory and get out of there," he said.
posted on May 10, 2007 03:11:21 PM new
Well, we knew it was coming, right?! So now the Republicans here will have to back Bush's "plans" (whatever that means) at the expense of abandoning their support of the Republicans in Congress. Interesting.
_____________________
There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Mahatma Gandhi
posted on May 10, 2007 03:34:32 PM new
That is SO silly. lol
IF this doesn't change by 'then'....
only stupid people would say something so assinine.
IF HE could change it....he'd change it NOW. HE doesn't.
But with the idiot liberals STILL working for our SURRENDER....trying to limit FUNDING.....they're sure working for our DEFEAT.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 10, 2007 03:51:27 PM new
One ALWAYS has to keep in mind, when the WA POST, the NYT or any OTHER liberal report/article says ANYTHING......just who's making these statements. LIBERALS....anti-Bush, anti-war LIBERALS. lol lol
Especially when they're not directly quoting what the President ACTUALLY stated.
They have a GREAT way of mis-representing most everything. And ALWAYS give their opinions in a VERY biased manner.
With that in mind....I take what they SAY vs what REALLY happened to most likely not be very true at all. Especially when a liberal is telling the 'story'. LOL LOL
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 10, 2007 04:13:13 PM new
Linda, In case you have been in a cave, this meeting has been all over the news today. There have been quotes from the President and Republicans who attended. Listen to a few news casts. It has also been reported by Reuters, CNN, CBS, NBC...
posted on May 10, 2007 04:18:15 PM new
CC, no I haven't heard any news TODAY. lol
That has NOTHING to do with what he actually has SAID....vs what they report he said. I believe direct QUOTES only.
Are YOU a liberal, Catholic 'Jesus' believer CC?
You mentioned you were in church on a Saturday. For confession???
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 10, 2007 04:24:04 PM new
Well, Linda, that is absolutely none of your business. I SAID I attended my niece's First Communion. And, what has that to do with this thread? Trying to change the subject again?
posted on May 10, 2007 04:31:13 PM new
You may have SAID that.....I didn't read where you said THAT. I just read where you said you were in 'church'....on a Saturday.
Nope...not chaning the subject. It's part of your title to this thread.
I was trying to determine if you are a person of faith....or just another liberal faith basher. "come to Jesus meeting".
lol
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 10, 2007 04:31:21 PM new
Linda posted:
Nazila Fathi, New York Times
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
(05-08) 04:00 PDT
Tehran -- Students at Amir Kabir University fended off club-wielding university guards on Monday and went ahead with elections for a pro-democracy association.
Despite the successful election at Amir Kabir, it is not clear that balloting for student associations will be allowed at other universities. The associations, a powerful center of support and communication among student democracy advocates, are a constant irritant to the government, which seeks to maintain strict control over politics and cultural norms.
The University of Science and Industry, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad taught before he was elected, has not been permitted to hold elections for the past two years.
Students at Tehran University have vowed to hold a ballot but have yet to do so.
Amir Kabir University has long been a center of student political activity.
Students there chanted against Ahmadinejad when he visited the university late last year and set fire to posters bearing his likeness.
A student leader, Mehrdad Khalilpour, was arrested Monday by security officials, but two of his comrades managed to escape. Among other student leaders, Babak Zamanian was arrested late last month and Ahmad Ghassaban was arrested Friday.
However, the student democracy advocates said they scored a victory Monday when they managed to hold their annual elections.
"The students reached the conclusion that the only way was to resist," said Ehsan Mansouri, a student leader who has been banned from attending classes. "The students guarded the ballot boxes as they were attacked and clubbed severely by the university guards."
Protests erupted last week after four student publications had appeared with articles that offended religious sensibilities.
Student advocates denounced the articles, saying the publications had been forged in an effort to frame the students.
Under Iran's Islamic law, punishment for the offense, technically "insulting religious sanctities," can be death.
One of the articles had raised what were seen as offensive questions about the return of the 12th Imam -- the messiah in Shiite Islam.
Conservatives protested last week inside and outside the university, calling for a second cultural revolution.
Under the first, which followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution, universities around the country were closed and liberal students and professors were purged.
The pressure on student advocates seems to be part of a major social and political crackdown.
Women and younger men have been the target of the vice police in the past two weeks, with officers patrolling the streets and cautioning or arresting people they accused of looking immodest.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 10, 2007 04:34:14 PM new
"Nope...not chaning the subject. It's part of your title to this thread."
If you read the article, the title is a quote from the article:
The "come to Jesus meeting" with Bush reminded veteran political observers in Washington of 1974 when then-Senator Barry Goldwater met with President Richard M. Nixon to tell him he no longer had enough support on Capitol Hill to survive as President
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 10, 2007 05:43 PM ]
May 10, 2007 G.O.P. Moderates Warn Bush Iraq Must Show Gains
By CARL HULSE and JEFF ZELENY
WASHINGTON, May 9 — Moderate Republicans gave President Bush a blunt warning on his Iraq policy at a private White House meeting this week, telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war.
The White House session demonstrated the grave unease many Republicans are feeling about the war, even as they continue to stand with the president against Democratic efforts to force a withdrawal of forces through a spending measure that has been a flash point for weeks.
Participants in the Tuesday meeting between Mr. Bush, senior administration officials and 11 members of a moderate bloc of House Republicans said the lawmakers were unusually candid with the president, telling him that public support for the war was crumbling in their swing districts.
One told Mr. Bush that voters back home favored a withdrawal even if it meant the war was judged a loss. Representative Tom Davis told Mr. Bush that the president’s approval rating was at 5 percent in one section of his northern Virginia district.
“It was a tough meeting in terms of people being as frank as they possibly could about their districts and their feelings about where the American people are on the war,” said Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois, who took part in the session, which lasted more than an hour in the residential section of the White House. “It was a no-holds-barred meeting.”
Several of the Republican moderates who visited the White House have already come under political attack at home for their support of Mr. Bush and survived serious Democratic challenges in November.
Representative Charles W. Dent of Pennsylvania, a co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, an alliance of about 30 moderate Republican lawmakers, helped arrange the meeting. He said lawmakers wanted to convey the frustration and impatience with the war they are hearing from voters. “We had a very frank conversation about the situation in Iraq,” he said. Even so, the Republicans who attended the White House session indicated that they would maintain solidarity with Mr. Bush for now by opposing the latest Democratic proposal for two-stage financing of war, which is scheduled for a vote on Thursday in the House.
Lawmakers said Mr. Bush made no commitments, but seemed grateful for their support and said a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq could cause the sort of chaos that occurred in Southeast Asia after Americans left Vietnam. The lawmakers said that Mr. Bush and others at the meeting — including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the political adviser Karl Rove and National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley — appeared to appreciate the political reality facing Republicans who will be on the ballot next year.
“It was very healthy,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, who attended but let the moderates do most of the talking.
“I walked away from it feeling I got a chance to make my points,” Mr. Davis said.
The delegation included Representatives Mark Kirk of Illinois, another leader of the moderate coalition; Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania; James T. Walsh of New York; and Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri. Mr. Kirk, Mr. Walsh and Ms. Emerson declined to discuss the meeting.
White House officials said Mr. Bush welcomed the observations of the lawmakers. “The president encouraged the members to give unvarnished opinions and views,” said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. She also noted a “persistent push” by the administration in recent days to put new pressure on the Iraqi government via a secure video conference by Mr. Bush with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the surprise visit to Iraq by Vice President Dick Cheney.
The White House on Wednesday promised a veto of the emerging House bill, which would essentially provide financing for combat operations through midsummer, but require the president to provide a series of reports on the state of the Iraqi military and the progress of the government in achieving political unity. Congress would then vote a second time in late July on releasing the rest of the money sought by the administration, or restricting its use to redeployment and more limited operations in Iraq.
Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said White House officials, led by Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, would try to reach a compromise with Congress. Mr. Bolten met Wednesday with Senate leaders.
While the Pentagon awaits the money, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told a Senate committee on Wednesday that the military continued to shift funds, terminate contracts and slow spending so troops in Iraq and Afghanistan did not run out of money. The cost-cutting measures could sustain the troops until July, he said, “if we pulled out all the stops.”
Mr. Gates, who also attended the White House meeting on Tuesday, told lawmakers that the Pentagon would evaluate the violence in Iraq and the progress of the administration’s troop buildup plan by early September to determine the next phase of the military strategy.
“I think if we see some very positive progress and it looks like things are headed in the right direction,” Mr. Gates said, “then that’s the point at which I think we can begin to consider reducing some of these forces.”
Senators vigorously questioned Mr. Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the Pentagon’s announcement on Tuesday of potentially mobilizing 35,000 more troops by December. Mr. Gates said the decision to send those forces to Iraq was not “foreordained,” adding that a decision would be made after the September review.
“There’s a sense here certainly by the Democrats and growing among Republicans that there has to be some progress, significant progress to sustain it beyond September,” said Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican. Lawmakers said there was strong emphasis that they would be formulating their future position on the war on the basis of what Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, says in a report this summer.
“I think people want to hear what the general says,” said Representative Gerlach, of Pennsylvania. “We will all go from there.”
Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.
[url]
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 10, 2007 06:36:31 PM new
Coincoach, not only did she question your url, she questioned if you were a person of faith as if that's any of her business and then she bashed the NYT for it's LIBERAL reports and then she turned around and copied and pasted HER report which is from the NYT but she didn't post the url.
posted on May 10, 2007 06:52:40 PM new
It was a little hard to follow the posts--they were all over the place. I believe she is having difficulty putting a spin on this one.
[ edited by coincoach on May 10, 2007 06:53 PM ]
posted on May 10, 2007 11:51:18 PM new
Yup, old linduh just doesn't know what to do about this little situation
Either her bishgod got a little spanking or those Republicans are lying AGAIN to make people think they want to do something to end the war so they have a slight chance of getting elected.
posted on May 11, 2007 07:07:19 AM new
kiara's so slow she couldn't even recognize that the article I posted, from the NYT, was what CC's op was referencing on capitolhillBLUE.com. LOL LOL LOL
You two are confusing YOURSELVES....don't blame me.
The url would have been included had a thunderstorm not taken my ISP off line last night as soon as I posted the copy and paste and before I could enter the link.
But we all KNOW that has to be Bush's fault.
What clowns.
And in the NYT there is no reference to the "come to Jesus meeting". Only in the liberal 'rag' site...CHB.
edited to add:
CC - I have told you THREE times how to post a link. Last time you SAID you were going to copy and save the instructions.....and you STILL can't. LOL
AND I was referencing the FIRST LINE of your opening post. S L O W L Y......
lol
Take it s l o w l y and you MIGHT not confuse yourselves again. lol lol
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 11, 2007 07:10 AM ]
posted on May 11, 2007 07:31:01 AM new
Just because YOU missed it, sybil....doesn't mean it's NOT there.
LOL LOL LOL
Must be why you continue making FALSE statements all the time.....somehow you can't see what IS posted.
tsk sk tsk
Another problem of YOURS.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 11, 2007 07:44:31 AM newYou were WRONG, again, sybil
Live with it.....accept it....it's common behavior in your case.
FALSE ACCUSATIONS.....yours. And they have gone on for years and years.
Try and PAY ATTENTION next time.
You only embarrass yourself....over and over and over again.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 11, 2007 07:56:57 AM newkiara's so slow she couldn't even recognize that the article I posted, from the NYT, was what CC's op was referencing on capitolhillBLUE.com. LOL LOL LOL
Nowhere did I say the one article did not reference the other, nor did I think otherwise.
But no one should be surprised that Linda_K would fabricate such thoughts or statements and make other excuses trying to blame others - only to cover her own embarrassment and ignorance for once again being confused and unable to read or comprehend.
posted on May 11, 2007 09:37:28 AM new
No need for me to, kiara....you're the QUEEN of projection.
You and your broken crystal ball.
Now....you children continue on.....discussing the topic. LOL LOL LOL LOL
how funny.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
