Bush Says He's Not A Golfer In Wartime

[Alonzo]

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/05/13/PH2008051302936.jpg
President Bush said yesterday that he gave up golfing in 2003 "in solidarity" with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq, concluding that it was "just not worth it anymore" to play the sport in a time of war.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," Bush said in a White House interview with the Politico. "I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Bush said he decided to stop playing golf on Aug. 19, 2003, when a truck bomb in Baghdad killed U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and more than a dozen others.

He said he received word of the attack while playing golf during a stay at the family ranch near Crawford, Tex. Press reports at the time indicate he took the call from Condoleezza Rice, then his national security adviser.

"They pulled me off the golf course, and I said it's just not worth it anymore to do," Bush said in yesterday's interview.

Democrats have criticized Bush for allegedly not requiring Americans to sacrifice enough while waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for urging people to keep shopping as a way to fight terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush was also widely criticized in August 2002 when he decried terrorist bombings in Israel while golfing and then told reporters: "Now watch this drive."

Although Bush says he has given up golf, he is a mountain-biking enthusiast who has been photographed taking part in rides. He took up biking after an injury sidelined him from running.

Nearly every president of the past century, including Bush and his father, has been a regular golfer. Presidential historian Robert Dallek noted that Dwight D. Eisenhower's golf habit was so advanced that Democrats accused him of neglecting his duties.

But Dallek, who is critical of the current president's legacy, said Bush's remarks about Iraq "speak to his shallowness." Dallek added: "That's his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/13/AR2008051302783.html?hpid=moreheadlines

I wonder if he even thinks he's not a joke at this point.

Seriously, he gave up golf to support soldiers? That's like Trump saying "I gave up yachting to show sympathy for the homeless".

[suedanim]

:lmao:

Fine, but he didn't give up fishing did he? Fishing just before 9/11. Fishing during the Katrina aftermath. He should've given up fishing out of solidarity for those victims.

Bet he still plays with Saddam's pistol in private.

Freak.

[Mouth Full Of Teeth]

Bush has made such sacrifices!

[Elrathin]

It's HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD Work folks lol.

[apdst]

Fine, but he didn't give up fishing did he?

The troops didn't give up fishing, either. There's been a fishing tournament in Baghdad for the past two, or three years.

[Elrathin]

In other words giving up golf was an idiotic gesture.

[Buck Laser]

The troops didn't give up fishing, either. There's been a fishing tournament in Baghdad for the past two, or three years.
But Bush gets to take a whole lot more vacation time than they do, doesn't he? I think the record shows that he's taken more time on vacation than any president in history. But that's all right. He gave up golf. And yes, I think I heard that they built a golf course somewhere in Iraq.

[apdst]

But Bush gets to take a whole lot more vacation time than they do, doesn't he?

The President of The United States is never on vacation.

[Elrathin]

The President of The United States is never on vacation.

YEAH RIGHT. So where was he again when Katrina was going on?

[Drocket]

YEAH RIGHT. So where was he again when Katrina was going on?

Fulfilling his Constitutionally mandated duty of having cake with McCain.

[apdst]

So where was he again when Katrina was going on?

Where was he supposed to be when Katrina made landfall?

Tell us, oh great one, what is the president's official post during hurricane landfall?

I can't wait to hear this one.

[Elrathin]

Where was he supposed to be when Katrina made landfall?

Tell us, oh great one, what is the president's official post during hurricane landfall?

I can't wait to hear this one.

Not playing a guitar, that is for sure.

He won't golf during a war, but he'll play the guitar while thousands suffer lol.

[apdst]

Not playing a guitar, that is for sure.

Well, where then? Tell us, exactly, what the president's duties, during hurricane landfall are.

[Elrathin]

Well, where then? Tell us, exactly, what the president's duties, during hurricane landfall are.

Paying attention. Not playing guitar. You know at the White House, not his ranch and not anywhere else. It was a CRISIS. Playing guitar showed exactly how much he REALLY cared about the people of Katrina.

[apdst]

It doesn't matter what the president's physical location is, he's always just a phone call away. Oh, wait, dammit! Aunt Kathy didn't make that damn phone call for, what? FIVE hours? Levee breaks at 10. Kathy says everything is cool at 12. Wait, who wasn't paying attention?

[Elrathin]

It doesn't matter what the president's physical location is, he's always just a phone call away.

LOL where was his phone while he was playing guitar?

Sorry but in times of crisis APPEARANCE is EVERYTHING. Playing guitar while Katrina was happening was a BAD MOVE. PERIOD.

What he showed is he doesn't give a shit about people.

[NDNdancer]

AND where was he when 9/11 happened and how long did he just kind of sit blinking while his handlers decided what he needed to do?

[Alonzo]

Well, where then? Tell us, exactly, what the president's duties, during hurricane landfall are.

Well I don't expect him to do what Gore did and physically go down and rescue people, but eating cake at mccains birthday bash isn't what I Expect either.

Al Gore:

http://aycu27.webshots.com/image/12706/2003531740937946298_rs.jpg

http://aycu11.webshots.com/image/10570/2003523641554143900_rs.jpg

George Bush and McCain:

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/bushcake.jpg

http://talkleft.com/bushplaysguitar.jpg

[apdst]

LOL where was his phone while he was playing guitar?

Obviously, not far, because he'd already called Kathy and told her to make the proper requests for federal aid. She ask to actually request the help. It's the law, ya know.

Well I don't expect him to do what Gore did and physically go down and rescue people

I didn't even know Gore had gone to New Orleans, after the storm hit. Obviously, it was just a photo op. Kinda like Geraldo totin' that old lady down the stairs. But, hey, good for him. When you're a multi-millionare private citizen, you can cut a check for two charter planes and move about as you please, without restrictions set down by the secret service. Are you telling me that it's the responsibility for the president to write a personal check for charter aircraft to evac storm victims?

[Elrathin]

Obviously, not far, because he'd already called Kathy and told her to make the proper requests for federal aid. She ask to actually request the help. It's the law, ya know.

So the proper thing to do as president was play a little guitar right?

[apdst]

So the proper thing to do as president was play a little guitar right?

Until the state and local authorities do what they're supposed to do, he has to do something. What would you rather him have been doing?

Liberals are so rediculous. Ya know that? Bush could shit gold and you would bitch because the gold turds smelled bad.

[Elrathin]

What would you rather him have been doing?

Sit in the white house like a president SHOULD. Not go on vacation.

During the crisis we had when North Korea crossed the NLL in 1999 I was alerted to go to our command station. There wasn't a damn thing I could do there, but I was alerted there.

Guess what, the same thing should happen with Bush, get your fucking ass back to the white house where it belongs.

[apdst]

During the crisis we had when North Korea crossed the NLL in 1999 I was alerted to go to our command station.

Command station? Where? Kunsan air base? LMAO!!! Sorry, I just couldn't pass on that one.

[Elrathin]

Command station? Where? Kunsan air base? LMAO!!! Sorry, I just couldn't pass on that one.

Yongsan actually, point being we were alerted and had to go while Pres Bush during Katrina decided his best talents were spent playing guitar.

No way you can spin this, Bush was WRONG in where he was at during Katrina. Even if he was in transit to the White House would have been better than playing guitar.

Sad that you support Bush that much you excuse the action of playing guitar while Katrina happened.

[apdst]

Even if he was in transit to the White House would have been better than playing guitar.

What if he'd been playing his geetar, while in transit to The White House? Would that be ok?

[Elrathin]

What if he'd been playing his geetar, while in transit to The White House? Would that be ok?

Maybe he should have been looking at the situation as HIS JOB REQUIRES.

But I guess playing guitar was more important right?

[lily]

Until the state and local authorities do what they're supposed to do, he has to do something. What would you rather him have been doing?

Liberals are so rediculous. Ya know that? Bush could shit gold and you would bitch because the gold turds smelled bad.

Apdst........he admit it......he didn't have a clue



"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." —President George W. Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned 10 days later amid criticism over his job performance, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005

[lily]

http://talkleft.com/bushplaysguitar.jpg

I love this picture.......he looks so scared that Bush is going to break his guitar.:lmao:

[Phyxius]

The troops didn't give up fishing, either. There's been a fishing tournament in Baghdad for the past two, or three years.


Considering that the troops might get killed at any time, and Bush is in complete safety, I don't see the comparison. Weak, dude - but typical... :ponder:

[apdst]

The whole Libbo hoop-la about what Bush was doing while Hurricane Katrina was making landfall is what's weak.

[Phyxius]

From: A Special Comment

By: Keith Olbermann



Then came Mr. Bush's final blow to our nation's solar plexus, his last reopening of our common wounds, his last remark that makes the rest of us question not merely his leadership or his judgment but his very suitably to remain in office.

"Mr. President," he was asked, "you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?

"Yes," began perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans on our history. "It really is. I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died, to see the Commander in Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as... to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Golf, sir? Golf sends the wrong signal to the grieving families of our men and women butchered in Iraq? Do you think these families, Mr. Bush, their lives blighted forever, care about you playing golf? Do you think, sir, they care about you?

You, Mr. Bush, let their sons and daughters be killed. Sir, to show your solidarity with them you gave up golf? Sir, to show your solidarity with them you didn't give up your pursuit of this insurance-scam, profiteering, morally and financially bankrupting war.

Sir, to show your solidarity with them you didn't even give up talking about Iraq a subject about which you have incessantly proved without pause or backwards glance, that you may literally be the least informed person in the world?

Sir, to show your solidarity with them, you didn't give up your presidency? In your own words "solidarity as best as I can" is to stop a game? That is the "best" you can do?

Four thousand Americans give up their lives and your sacrifice was to give up golf! Golf. Not "Gulf"-- golf.

And still it gets worse. Because it proves that the president's unendurable sacrifice, his unbearable pain, the suspension of getting to hit a stick with a ball, was not even his own damned idea.

"Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?"

"I remember when [diplomat Sergio Vieira] de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf, I think I was in central Texas, and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it any more to do."

Your one, tone-deaf, arrogant, pathetic, embarrassing gesture, and you didn't even think of it yourself? The great Bushian sacrifice-- an Army private loses a leg, a Marine loses half his skull, 4,000 of their brothers and sisters lose their lives-- and you lose golf, and they have to pull you off the golf course to get you to just do that?

If it's even true.

Apart from your medical files, which dutifully record your torn calf muscle and the knee pain which forced you to give up running at the same time-- coincidence, no doubt-- the bombing in Baghdad which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello of the U.N. and interrupted your round of golf was on Aug. 19, 2003.

Yet CBS News has records of you playing golf as late as Oct. 13 of that year, nearly two months later.

Mr. Bush, I hate to break it to you... 6 1/2 years after you yoked this nation and your place in history to the wrong war, in the wrong place, against the wrong people, but the war in Iraq is not about you.

It is not, Mr. Bush, about your grief when American after American comes home in a box.

It is not, Mr. Bush, about what your addled brain has produced in the way of paranoid delusions of risks that do not exist, ready to be activated if some Democrat, and not your twin Mr. McCain, succeeds you.

The war in Iraq, your war, Mr. Bush, is about how you accomplished the derangement of two nations, and how you helped funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to lascivious and perennially thirsty corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater, and how you sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths for nothing.

It is not, Mr. Bush, about your golf game! And, sir, if you have any hopes that next Jan. 20 will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heart-felt thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice:

When somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss you have placed us at...

When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation …

When somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abdicating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead.

This advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up!

We don't need a Chickenhawk in office, which is another reason why you should vote Democrat in an election.

[Buck Laser]

Thank you for posting that, Phyxius. It puts things in a little different perpsective, doesn't it?

[Alonzo]

I didn't even know Gore had gone to New Orleans, after the storm hit. Obviously, it was just a photo op.

Umm... no. Al Gore has refused to speak publicly about the events, which is why it got so little press.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans

http://www.detnews.com/2005/nation/0509/09/nat4-309467.htm

[suedanim]

I listened to Olberman give those special comments last night and was amazed at what he said and his anger too. I guess its anything goes now, since Bush has now decided to act as a McCain surrogate and sling mud a la Karl Rove. But, who'd be surprised at George Bush sinking down to the lowest common denominator level, in morals, bad taste or dishonesty?

Obama must be stopped at all costs, eh? After all, he has stated he will seek to investigate pre Iraq war intelligence. Bush and all who fear their own bad judgment might be revealed...and that just cannot happen.

Expect serious dirty tricks... perhaps even violence against Obama. The hard right is that desperate.

[Elrathin]

The whole Libbo hoop-la about what Bush was doing while Hurricane Katrina was making landfall is what's weak.

Yeah Bush playing a guitar while a hurricane was hitting is ok, but damn if he ever didn't wear a flag pin that will piss conservatives off LOL. We know the priorities of some conservatives.

[lily]

Apart from your medical files, which dutifully record your torn calf muscle and the knee pain which forced you to give up running at the same time-- coincidence, no doubt-- the bombing in Baghdad which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello of the U.N. and interrupted your round of golf was on Aug. 19, 2003.

Yet CBS News has records of you playing golf as late as Oct. 13 of that year, nearly two months later.

Mr. Bush, I hate to break it to you... 6 1/2 years after you yoked this nation and your place in history to the wrong war, in the wrong place, against the wrong people, but the war in Iraq is not about you.

Oh Christ.........he can't even lie right about supporting the troops.......what a douche.

[Scribbler1]

LOL where was his phone while he was playing guitar?

Sorry but in times of crisis APPEARANCE is EVERYTHING. True. Appearance was what gave Rudy Giuliani his popularity because he appeared to be a "take charge guy" after 9/11.

Bush, OTOH appears to be retarded.