Reality?

Todays Laugh,
A senior citizen in Florida bought a brand new Corvette convertible. He took off down the road, flooring it to 80 mph and enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left on his head. "This is great," he thought as he roared up I-75. He pushed the pedal to the metal even more. Then he looked in his rear view mirror and saw a highway patrol trooper behind him, blue lights flashing and siren blaring. "I can get away from him with no problem" thought the man and he tromped it some more and flew down the road at over 100 mph. Then 110, 120 mph.Then he thought, "What am I doing? I'm too old for this kind of thing." He pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the trooper to catch up with him. The trooper pulled in behind the Corvette and walked up to the man. "Sir," he said, looking at his watch. "My shift ends in 10 minutes and today is Friday. If you can give me a reason why you were speeding that I've never heard before, I'll let you go." The man looked at the trooper and said, "Years ago my wife ran off with a Florida State Trooper, and I thought you were bringing her back""Have a good day, Sir," said the Trooper
____________________________________________
Todays Quote,
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."...George W. Bush
__________________________________________________
The president put it far more bluntly when leaders of Congress came to visit Mr. Bush at the White House earlier today. "I said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out," the president told the Congressional leaders, according to two officials who were in the room. Pressed on why he thought this strategy would succeed where previous efforts had failed, Mr. Bush shot back: "Because it has to."
Why does it have to Mr President? To save your ass ?
_______________________________________



As I have noted in the past Bush said last year that it will be up to his successor to clean up the mess in Iraq. Nothing I have heard from him changes that. But here are a couple of intellligent thoughts on that speech last night


Byron Dorgan (D-ND) One point the President will have to explain is the testimony that was given less than 2 months ago before the Senate by General Abizaid, the top military commander in Iraq. I am talking about the top military commander of American troops in Iraq. Here is what General Abizaid said in November, less than 2 months ago. He said:"I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey. We all talked together. And I said, 'In your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does that add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?' And they all said no. The reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon us to do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.That is something I believe has to be reconciled. Has that changed? Has something changed in 2 months?At this point, we have America's troops in the middle of a civil war. .The question for us now is, Should American troops be in the middle of that civil war? Should we send additional troops to that circumstance? If so, for what purpose? And if so, why do we do it less than 2 months after General Abizaid said the commanders do not believe additional troops will be effective?
________________________________________________

Promises, PromisesWhat happens if the Iraqis fail again?
By Fred KaplanPosted Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007, If George W. Bush had delivered Wednesday night's speech two years ago, he would have deserved praise for candor, equanimity, and breadth of vision. But given its actual timing, one can only wonder about his grip on reality..
This leads to the cynical interpretation of tonight's speech: The benchmarks place such an overwhelming burden on Maliki's government, he'll unavoidably fail to meet them; when this failure becomes clear, and the American surge does little to improve matters, Bush—or, better still, his successor—will pull out with a shrug and the patina of good conscience, absolving himself of blame for the deluge that follows. Whether or not the leaders of the White House devised the new plan with this scenario in mind (and I don't think they did), it offers a tempting way out if worse comes to dead worst.
But here we come to this speech's most dreadful shortcoming: Bush's failure to outline any backup plan at all if his plan comes to naught. Worse still, he strongly suggested that he will resist such a plan. A realistic backup plan would rely on region-wide diplomacy to keep the conflagration of all-out civil war from spreading across the Middle East.
Halfway into the speech, it seemed for a moment that Bush might address this issue. "Succeeding in Iraq also requires … stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge," he said, a task that "begins with addressing Iran and Syria." But then, instead of calling for, say, talks with those countries, Bush said that their regimes have provided material support to the insurgents. "We will disrupt the attacks on our forces," the president warned. "We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
Really? All we can muster for Iraq is a paltry 20,000 extra troops; even they will accomplish little without massive infusions from a dubious Iraqi military and miraculous political breakthroughs from a faltering Iraqi government—and President Bush, at such a desperate moment, talks about expanding the war to Iran and Syria? It's shiveringly scary.
_____________________________________________________

Bush’s tax cuts benefit — wait for it — the very wealthy
During a Face the Nation interview yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested she has not ruled out repealing some of the White House’s tax cuts, particularly for the very wealthy. "It may be that [repealing] tax cuts for those making over a certain amouIt’s a good call, especially when one considers just how good millionaires have had it lately thanks to Bush’s breathtaking generosity towards those at the very top.
Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts, according to a new Congressional study.
The study, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, also shows that tax rates for middle-income earners edged up in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, while rates for people at the very top continued to decline.
Based on an exhaustive analysis of tax records and census data, the study reinforced the sense that while Mr. Bush’s tax cuts reduced rates for people at every income level, they offered the biggest benefits by far to people at the very top — especially the top 1 percent of income earners.
It’s nice of the CBO to spell all of this out for us, and this certainly comes as a surprise to … absolutely no one. The results are as most would expect — households in the top 1% of earnings got a break of about $58,000, which is more than most middle-class households earn in a year.nt of money, $500,000 a year, might be more important to the American people than ignoring the educational and health needs of America’s children," Pelosi said.
________________________________________