White House launches “blog” for Mideast trip

January 8th, 2008, filed by Jeremy Pelofsky

The White House is trying out a blog approach to President George W. Bush’s Middle East trip this week.

The new tactic comes as Bush competes for media attention with presidential candidates who want to succeed him.

While Bush is visiting six countries trying to sell his plan for Middle East peace and to isolate Iran because of its disputed nuclear energy program, his staff will be filing dispatches from the road that will be posted on the White House Web site.

We encourage you to log on and to check back often to read some of the updates that the staff will be posting throughout the trip.

So it will be just a little bit of a blog,” said White House spokesman Dana Perino.

When asked who would be providing the tidbits, Perino said senior White House aides including national security adviser Stephen Hadley, chief of staff Josh Bolten and even Perino herself. “They’ll be available at whitehouse.gov, and we hope to do something daily, but we’ll just see how the trip goes,” she said.
No word on whether Bush himself would turn into a blogger. –

Photo credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas

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THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE - (Rewritten)

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

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I Think Bush Has Lost It or Is He Crazy Like a Fox?

The white House is hiring for the Position of War 'Czar' according to the Washington post.

The White House has not publicly disclosed its interest in creating the position, hoping to find someone President Bush can anoint and announce for the post all at once. Officials said they are still considering options for how to reorganize the White House's management of the two conflicts. If they cannot find a person suited for the sort of specially empowered office they envision, they said, they may have to retain the current structure.

The administration's interest in the idea stems from long-standing concern over the coordination of civilian and military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan by different parts of the U.S. government. The Defense and State departments have long struggled over their roles and responsibilities in Iraq, with the White House often forced to referee.
Three Generals have spurned the offer!

All three generals who declined the job have been to varying degrees administration insiders.

Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff, was one of the primary proponents of sending more troops to Iraq and presented Bush with his plan for a major force increase during an Oval Office meeting in December. The president adopted the concept in January, although he did not dispatch as many troops as Keane proposed.

Ralston, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was named by Rice last August to serve as her special envoy for countering the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a group designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Sheehan, a 35-year Marine, served on the Defense Policy Board advising the Pentagon early in the Bush administration and at one point was reportedly considered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He now works as an executive at Bechtel Corp. developing oil projects in the Middle East.

CZAR
Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus
Main Entry:
autocratic
Part of Speech:
adjective
Definition:
dictatorial
Synonyms:
absolute, all-powerful, arbitrary, bossy, czar, despotic, dictatorial, domineering, driving, imperious, monocratic, pushing, tyrannical, tyrannous
Antonyms:
democratic, lenient, tolerant
Source:
Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)Copyright © 2007 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

It could be me but the last time I checked this was the United States of America - not Russia! Bush just keeps getting stranger and stranger all the time. I think he has convinced himself that he is a King rather than a President.

Addendum:
I have had two of my readers point out to me how really smart this is in reality as it gives Bush a way to protect himself and they are right. I hadn't thought of it this way.
Thanks Kellypea and Jeff for pointing this out to me!

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