President Bush Announces Resignation of Tony Snow

James S. Brady Briefing Room

12:45 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Good afternoon to you.

Tony Snow informed me he's leaving. And I sadly accept his desire to leave the White House, and he'll do so on September the 14th. He is -- it's been a joy to watch him spar with you. He's smart, he's capable, he's witty. He's capable of -- he's able to talk about issues in a way that the American people can understand.

And I don't know what he's going to do -- I'm not sure he does yet, either. But whatever it is, it's going to be -- two things: One, he'll battle cancer and win. And secondly, he'll be a solid contributor to society.

I do want to thank Jill and Kendall, Robbie and Kristi. They have watched a man they love take on a big job, and at the same time, fight disease -- with a lot of courage. And so I accept, I love you, and I wish you all the best.

And so I had to make a choice, who to replace Tony, and I've chosen Dana Perino. I did so because Dana is a smart, capable person who is able to spell out the issues of the day in a way that people listening on TV can understand. She can handle you all. She's capable of handling your questions.

Press conference with remarks here URL and Tony's comments here

Vietnam Era Is SO Over

Bill Kristol went to Iraq recently and wrote this generally uplifting opinion piece upon his return..

[..]
It's true that Iraq is an unpopular war. But hostility to President George W. Bush, or to the war, hasn't spilled over onto the military. A few weeks ago, the Washington Post Magazine featured an article on the military and its relationship with the broader society. The cover line was alarmist--"Us and Them: As mistrust, resentment and misunderstanding grow between the civilian and military communities, can America wage a just and effective war?" But when you read the piece, the only place you find mistrust, resentment and misunderstanding is among some liberal élites. In fact, in most civilian communities there appears to be pretty unambiguous admiration for the military.

While in Iraq, I kept thinking back to a story that Dean Barnett reported in a recent article on the "9/11 generation" in the Weekly Standard. Barnett attended the commissioning of a Marine Corps lieutenant who had just graduated from Harvard. After the ceremony, the young man returned to his dorm room in full dress uniform and received a spontaneous round of applause from classmates. A campus police officer took him aside to shake his hand. The young man's father observed, "It was like something out of a movie."

Out of a World War II--era movie, to be precise. Whatever the other ways in which one can try to compare Iraq to Vietnam, in this important respect, here at home, the Vietnam era is over. The post-9/11 era is well under way.

Friends Indeed

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown rejected on Tuesday a call to pull troops out of Iraq, insisting they still had an important job to do battling militias and providing security.

In an open letter to an opposition party leader, he argued it was wrong to say the continued presence of British troops would achieve little, or to say that they were severely restricted in what they can do.

"UK forces in Basra continue to have the capability to strike against the militias and provide overall security," he said in the letter to Menzies Campbell, leader of Britain's third party, the Liberal Democrats, which opposed the Iraq war.

Campbell had called for a timetable to pull out, saying casualty levels were now unacceptable, but Brown said this would "undermine our international obligations, as well as hindering ... our armed forces and increasing the risks they face".

more

It's good to see that the UK will continue to be a steadfast ally.

"Public Service Is Honorable And Noble"

President Bush reluctantly accepted the resignation of Alberto Gonzales stating, "After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position and I accepted his decision."

It is effective September 17.
Video here and here

President Bush Attends VFW National Conference

The President was truly inspired today giving this speech.
Listen here.
Read here.







*************************UPDATE**********************
Here's a small clip I found.

No Comment?

Hm..

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish authorities in northeastern Iraq said on Tuesday they were investigating the authenticity of leaflets warning villagers to evacuate ahead of an Iranian military offensive against Kurdish rebels.

Hundreds of villagers have fled their homes in Iraq's mountainous northeast while others hid in caves after what local authorities said was days of intermittent shelling by Iran across the border.

So far there has been no official comment from either Tehran or Baghdad about the shelling.

Cross-border skirmishes occasionally occur as Iraq's neighbors Turkey and Iran combat Kurdish separatist rebels operating from bases in Iraq's mountainous and remote north and northeast.

More [...]

The leaflets didn't have the official mark of the government or military of Iran, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

This Ain't No Party

I anxiously await the MSM picking up this story but I won't hold my breath:

ANKARA, Turkey, (AP) - One of the hijackers of a Turkish plane received training at an al-Qaeda camp and wanted to be flown to Iran so he could eventually join al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported Monday, citing police.

Authorities didn't say at which al-Qaeda camp 33-year-old hijacker Mommen Abdul Aziz Talikh, an Egyptian of Palestinian origin, received training.

Police said Talikh, along with Mehmet Resat Ozlu of Turkey, wielded a fake bomb and claimed al-Qaeda ties when hijacking the plane early Saturday after it took off from northern Cyprus. The pair held passengers and crew hostage for more than four hours before surrendering peacefully at the Turkish Mediterranean resort Antalya, where the plane had been diverted after taking off.

Dozens of Turks have joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Iraq, police have said. Suicide bombers linked to al-Qaeda hit Istanbul in 2003, killing 58 people in attacks that targeted two synagogues, the British Consulate and a British bank. In February, a court sentenced seven people to life in prison for the bombings.

More [...]

I miss the innocent days when a hijacking was an isolated incident and Al-Qaeda didn't exist (at least we didn't know about it).
h/t: S & L

Word to the Kooks

If you need any more proof that the lefty online kooks affect the polls, look no further.



The "Reality Based" Community's perfect election: Ron Paul v Dennis Kucinich. Too funny.

President Proudly Pronounces Positives Provincially

Now this is what I'm sayin! I've been talking about the provincial governments kicking ass and taking names for awhile now. I'm glad the President is finally touting it now, too.

When Bush announced the buildup in US troops in January, he also said the administration would double the number of provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq. These are units of US civilian, military, and diplomatic workers who help Iraqi communities rebuild infrastructure, create jobs, and encourage reconciliation from the bottom up.

Bush cited Anbar Province, where local sheiks joined US forces in driving out terrorists. Bush said that today the provincial council in Ramadi is back, and that last month, provincial officials reopened parts of the war-damaged government center with the help of a provincial reconstruction team.

"Similar scenes are taking place in other parts of Anbar," the president said. "Virtually every city and town in the province now has a mayor and a functioning municipal council."

[more...] w00t! Go Iraq!

Michael K. Deaver 1938 - 2007

Michael Deaver, Vice Chairman of Edelman International, passed away on August 18, 2007 at 8:00am. Mike was diagnosed with a form of pancreatic cancer last fall, and passed away at his Bethesda home in the company of his loving family.
Mike Deaver was a giant in our field. His professional career spanned five decades, on behalf of heads of state and captains of industry around the world. He will be remembered for countless contributions to the art of communications, and for his years of service to our country in the stead of his longtime friend and boss, President Ronald Reagan, whom he started working with shortly after Reagan was elected California governor in 1966.

For the past 15 years we had the tremendous fortune of knowing Mike as one of our family members at Edelman. He sat at the head of the table here in the Washington office, and was a beloved and deeply valued colleague to our agency friends around the world. From the moment he joined Edelman in the spring of 1992 he changed the way we were perceived by the outside world and how we felt about ourselves. He immediately elevated our standing in the public affairs arena and gave us instant credibility, enabling us to take on the toughest public relations challenges.

For all of these reasons, Mike Deaver was viewed as the wisest of the wise men, and all of his colleagues and clients marveled at, and benefited from, his counsel. In our profession, one which he took great pride in being part of, he was and will always remain the master.

The time has come to rest sweetly, dear friend. Your job is done, the race is won. God bless you always.

Nancy Reagan

Chocolate City Ugly

h/t: bottomolineupfront

***Update!***

A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld the verdict that Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan violated civil rights law by firing dozens of white employees after taking office, marking the final automatic appeal of a jury award that now tops $3.5 million after accruing interest for two years.

In 2003, days after becoming the city's first black district attorney, Jordan fired dozens of longtime employees -- including clerks, typists, investigators and other support staff -- to make room for loyalists and others who worked on his campaign.

While Jordan said he was applying his political prerogative to build his own staff after taking the helm of an office led for decades by Harry Connick, a federal jury in 2005 found him liable for employment discrimination for firing all white people and replacing them with black people.

More [...]

Pat Dollard: Young Americans (again)

Pat Dollard's outstanding documentary as he travels with the Marines in Iraq.


This is what he has to say at this point in the docu, although it's an ongoing project from what I can tell:

**Rolling With the Suicide Squad** says Pat Dollard
"Dressed in civies and running around with a video camera, I stuck out. And the soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines had far more important matters on their minds than entertaining outsiders. One of my first interviews, a Cpl. Gilbert Jensen, summed it up: "Don't talk to me. I have nothing good to say." Still, they let me tag along. When I wasn't filming a patrol in the Triangle from the back of a Humvee, I went along on IED-hunting missions with the Suicide Squad in a convoy of LAV-25s. That's short for light armored vehicle, but the marines just called them pigs"
**************************************
Few of the troops understand that the news business is driven by dramatic events, not the tedious kind of process the troops go through every day to defeat the terrorists. To the troops, the war is being won. They see bad guys killed in large numbers, and few Americans getting hurt. The troops see tangible evidence, every day, of Iraqis having a better life. The troops cannot understand why that is not news, and why journalists always seem to be looking for a negative angle. To the average G.I., the attitude is, "what are these reporters looking for?" They are looking for a story, and bad news is a story. Good news is not. As a result of this clash of cultures, reporters are increasingly seen as a potentially dangerous enemy. For the troops, this is already accepted as true for many Arab journalists. Some of those have been arrested for hostile activity, or later revealed as al Qaeda agents. European journalists are seen as particularly clueless, so wrapped up in their anti-American fantasies, that communication is nearly impossible. But after watching a CNN clip on the net, or viewing an online story from the New York Times or Washington Post, it's hard to view U.S. journalists as fellow Americans.

God Bless Pat and our boys.
h/t: Dollard

Working Together

Boston native Staff Sgt. Robin Johnson (left), with Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, and an Iraqi army soldier from 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, 11th Iraqi Army Division, work together during Operation Tiger Hammer, a combined cordon and search mission in Baghdad's Adhamiyah District June 7.

U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael Pryor.

Trusted Advisor and Friend

Thank you for your service, sir.

Pat Dollard: Young Americans

Pat Dollard is embedded with our troops and is making a documentary film called Young Americans. This is the opening sequence of said film. Be warned there are combat scenes and graphic language, but it gives an initial view of what it's like for some of our boys 'over there'. Well worth viewing. More can be seen at his link below.



h/t: Pat Dollard

Iraqi Terrorist Says al-Qaeda Trained in Iraq Under Saddam

The interrogator said it best. "You bastards."

Full version here.


h/t bottomlineupfront

Yeh Hum Naheen

Yeh Hum Naheen means "this is not us", and that is what one Muslim foundation is saying about terrorism committed in the name of their religion.



h/t: bottomlineupfront

Progress continues in Iraq

Great news:

BAGHDAD — Military officials discussed progress in several aspects of Iraq Wednesday at the Combined Press Information Center.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox, a spokesperson for Multi-National Force-Iraq, Mr. Marcus Sani, Gulf Region Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, commanding general of Gulf Region Division, outlined many advancements in the security and stability of Iraq.

[...]

“We are seeing increasingly positive trends in terms of the number of weapons and explosives being taken away from the enemy,” Fox said. “We have seized more weapons caches in the first six months of 2007 than we did in all of last year. The reason for the dramatic increase, the volume and accuracy of tips, now over 23,000 per month.”

Fox also credited Iraqi Security Forces for their efforts in the fight. An example of their support and growing independence, he said, was an instance last week when an alert Iraqi Air Force pilot flying a helicopter in Basra noted thieves siphoning oil from a pipeline break in west Neisseria. The Iraqi quickly notified the appropriate authorities who rapidly responded, arrested the thieves, confiscated their vehicles and foiled an attempt to still oil from the Iraqi people, Fox said.

Fox commented on the importance of a “one team, one mission” approach before turning the conference over to Sani, who provided an update on Iraqi reconstruction efforts. The GRD has conducted numerous operations over the past four years, Sani said.

“We had around 35,000 projects that has been accomplished and the work is continuing over 2,000 other projects that will cost about $7 billion,” Sani said. “And we will start also with other projects that will cost for about $2 billion. And the total number allocated for that exceeds $26 billion that are being disbursed for 40,000 projects.”

[...]

Slow and steady wins the race.
Press Briefing Aug 5 2007

Apollo History Online

Too cool!

TEMPE, Ariz. - Nearly 40 years after man first walked on the Moon, the complete lunar photographic record from the Apollo project will be accessible to both researchers and the general public on the Internet. A new digital archive - created through a collaboration between Arizona State University and NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston - is making available high-resolution scans of original Apollo flight films. They are available to browse or download at: http://apollo.sese.asu.edu.

The digital scans are detailed enough to reveal photographic grain. Created from original flight films transported back to Earth from the Moon, the archive includes photos taken from lunar orbit as well as from the lunar surface. This is the first project to make digital scans of all the original lunar photographs from NASA's Apollo missions.

[...]

h/t: XisDshizL

Democrats Invested in Defeat

How much clearer can it be? Good news in Iraq is bad for Democrats:

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.

Clyburn, in an interview with the washingtonpost.com video program PostTalk, said Democrats might be wise to wait for the Petraeus report, scheduled to be delivered in September, before charting next steps in their year-long struggle with President Bush over the direction of U.S. strategy.

Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

"I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

Now, I realize Clyburn is just trying to break it to the nuts in his party that the Democrat Party doesn't have the courage of its convictions, nor the ability to sell said convictions in order to get enough votes to do what they promised to do, but this is just pathetic.