Politics: George Bush is priceless … away from the pesky media
This is the Los Angeles Times take on Bush’s visit to Peoria:
For the first time in 14 years, George W. Bush’s name is not on the ballot. Not in Texas. Not anywhere in the United States.
And, given President Bush’ low approval ratings, Republican John McCain might be forgiven if he hopes the president will stay off the podium too.
So the Republican Party is using Bush where it can — in private fundraisers in private homes at events closed to the media.
Today was no exception. Bush flew to Peoria, Ill., to headline a fundraiser for Aaron Schock, who is hoping to fill the seat of Rep. Ray Lahood, who is retiring, and the Congressional Trust, a party committee.
Lunch: $500 a plate. Photo with POTUS: $5,000. No press in the room: priceless.
Quite a difference from the fawning coverage Bush and Schock are getting from the local media. BTW: Sen. Dick Durbin and Ill. Attorney General Lisa Madigan are going to be at the Colleen Callahan’s fish fry in Brimfield. No doubt they will be happy to talk to anyone who shows up, news media and bloggers included.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
You couldn’t pay me to have my picture taken with Dick “Jack-Booted Thugs” Durbin. The man posed, smiling, with the 2-130 INF Illinois National Guard a few years ago and then a few months later branded them “jack-booted thugs.”
The man disgusts me.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
All I’ll say is… You get what you pay for.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Have to agree with Anon….I’d pay $500 to ensure I never ran into Durbin. No use for him at all.
July 25th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
The Schock fundraiser was beyond awesome. You can see my update at Peoriarocks.blogspot.com
July 25th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I don’t see what the big deal is about media not being allowed in. It was a private event. Are you telling me the PJ Star couldn’t have ponied up the $500 to get a seat?
July 25th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
They wouldn’t even let the media purchase a ticket. Apparently if there is no recording of the event the president is much more casual and relaxed. He was in rare form today…very funny!
July 26th, 2008 at 3:56 am
good god, diane’s blog sounds as if she met a rock star. Hope she didn’t throw her panties on stage…
July 26th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Didn’t want to risk it… no sudden moves… the secret service would have taken me out.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:04 am
“Fawning covering?” Anything but from the PJS. Must be in the eye of the beholder.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Uncommon honor. Yes to prostitute the President for $500 dollars.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Fascinating that Diane Vespa was able to take pics inside the event. She’s lucky she wasn’t declared an enemy combatant on the spot and whisked off to Gitmo. Can’t happen? Wrong. Under Bush, that’s now being done. I didn’t say it was legal, just happening. Like warrantless wiretapping, torture, and the other Bush crimes that should have been prosecuted with impeachment. Diane and all the other naive Peorians worshiping Bush as if he were King George need more information about the Bush administration’s violation of the law and civil liberties. Bush has violated the US Constitution he swore to uphold. Very sad, and worse yet how people don’t care.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Suffice it to say, Elaine, we have a difference of opinion on this subject.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:33 am
“a difference of opinion.”
We have an administration that displays every key trait of fascism, but to call them out on it and label them as such is just a matter of opinion. Oh, that’s rich.
Keep fighting the good fight, Elaine.
–
Bill, you passed me on your way out while I was being directed to a parking spot. You can’t avoid me forever, Mr. Dennis! *cue Bond-villain laughter*
July 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Re: “Difference of opinion.” Well, there are those who insist that Bill Clinton committed impeachable offenses while in the White House. There’s a difference of opinion about that as well. His admitting to having lied under oath — and the fawnign reaction of most elected Democrats — is what drove me out of that party.
Reno: Sorry I missed you. The heat and the crowds started getting to me, so I had to go sit in my air-conditioned car for a while, and I just decided to leave.
July 26th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Lying about a blow-job and lying about reasons for going to war. Hmmm…..
July 26th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hey all you King George worshipers, don’t take my word for it. Watch the Bill Moyers interview with Jane Mayer author of THE DARK SIDE: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE WAR ON TERROR TURNED INTO A WAR ON AMERICAN IDEALS, at
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07252008/profile3.html. I’d be interested in your reactions.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Oh, please. I didn’t equate the underlying crimes from a moral standpoint. I simply said Clinton lies under aoth, which i consider an impeachable offense. Bush has violated the civil rights of Americans, authorized torture and behaved in all sorts of scummy behavior — and Americans loved him for it, at first. Yeah, I’d say lying to Congress about the grounds for goign to War with Iraw might be considered impeachable, as distasteful as that option is.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
They impeached Clinton, when are they going to impeach Bush? I wouldn’t pay $500 to see Bush. I wouldn’t pay $50 to see Bush but it was comforting to know that most of the Bushies were in one spot for a short period of time and that maybe a crack in the Earth would open up and relieve us of most of them but that didn’t happen.
Oh well, only to hope.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Bill — Yeah, wife almost pulled us out of there because of the long lines and the heat. But we eventually found our way back outside and saw some people speak. Gary was there, too. Well, I think it was him. I didn’t see his face, but I’d recognize that hairdo anywhere.
Funny how all the Republicans who were running an inquisition against Bill Clinton seem to have dropped their rhetoric about government corruption, big spending and overreaching powers once Bush, Inc. took office and made Janet Reno look like an anarchist by comparison. That’s what drove me out of that party.
Emtronics – I was placing my bets on a meteor. Unfortunately, as we’ve discovered, God is cruel and unjust. I’m with Elaine, though. Wonderboy’s campaign ought to pay for the all the manpower that was required to secure their event. Amazing how the cons are so eager to decry all things “public” in favor of all things private, yet didn’t hire, say, Blackwater to do their security. Hypocrites!
July 26th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Just a little perspective:
From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access
[CITE: 18USC1623]
TITLE 18–CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I–CRIMES
CHAPTER 79–PERJURY
Sec. 1623. False declarations before grand jury or court
(a) Whoever under oath (or in any declaration, certificate,
verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under
section 1746 of title 28, United States Code) in any proceeding before
or ancillary to any court or grand jury of the United States knowingly
makes any false material declaration or makes or uses any other
information, including any book, paper, document, record, recording, or
other material, knowing the same to contain any false material
declaration, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than
five years, or both.
(b) This section is applicable whether the conduct occurred within
or without the United States.
(c) An indictment or information for violation of this section
alleging that, in any proceedings before or ancillary to any court or
grand jury of the United States, the defendant under oath has knowingly
made two or more declarations, which are inconsistent to the degree that
one of them is necessarily false, need not specify which declaration is
false if–
(1) each declaration was material to the point in question, and
(2) each declaration was made within the period of the statute
of limitations for the offense charged under this section.
Know anybody whom this could appy towards?
July 26th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
http://www.calicocat.com/2004/06/bill-clintons-memoirs-reveal-he-lied.html
Bill Clinton’s memoirs reveal he lied to grand jury
This is actually non-news, because we all know that Bill Clinton lied about everything related to his sex life. But since I like to cover political sex scandals, and the Bill Clinton Monica Lewinski relationship is the mother of all political sex scandals, it deserves a mention in the blog.
And I might add that this sex scandal produced the Starr Report, the most entertaining document ever created in the history of the United States government. It was well worth all the taxpayer money used to produce it.
According to today’s Washington Post:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59217-2004Jun21.html
Clinton’s own legal battle with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr accounts for one of the book’s more peculiar revelations. In his August 1998 grand jury testimony, Clinton said he began an inappropriate sexual relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky in “early 1996.” His testimony, as was widely noted at the time, was in conflict with Lewinsky’s story: She testified the relationship began on Nov. 15, 1995, in the midst of a government shutdown.
Starr’s prosecutors, in their report to Congress, accused Clinton of lying about the date of their relationship in order to avoid admitting that he had sexual relations with an intern, as Lewinsky still was in the fall of 1995 before being hired for a paying job in the winter.
Without explanation, in his memoir Clinton departs from his grand jury testimony and corroborates her version: “During the government shutdown in late 1995, when very few people were allowed to come to work in the White House, and those who were there were working late, I’d had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April, when she left the White House for the Pentagon.”
And there you have it. Clinton said one thing to the grand jury, and another thing in his book. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Just a little perspective.
From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access
[CITE: 18USC1623]
TITLE 18–CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I–CRIMES
CHAPTER 79–PERJURY
Sec. 1623. False declarations before grand jury or court
(a) Whoever under oath (or in any declaration, certificate,
verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under
section 1746 of title 28, United States Code) in any proceeding before
or ancillary to any court or grand jury of the United States knowingly
makes any false material declaration or makes or uses any other
information, including any book, paper, document, record, recording, or
other material, knowing the same to contain any false material
declaration, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than
five years, or both.
(b) This section is applicable whether the conduct occurred within
or without the United States.
(c) An indictment or information for violation of this section
alleging that, in any proceedings before or ancillary to any court or
grand jury of the United States, the defendant under oath has knowingly
made two or more declarations, which are inconsistent to the degree that
one of them is necessarily false, need not specify which declaration is
false if–
(1) each declaration was material to the point in question, and
(2) each declaration was made within the period of the statute
of limitations for the offense charged under this section.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
He LIED ABOUT FREAKING SEX. Who among us hasn’t? Seriously, raise your hand if you’ve NEVER lied about a sexual situation.
I was mad at him for lying, too. I wanted him to just come out and say, “yeah, you damn right she did, and it felt good, too!”
Millions were wasted to impeach a man who was having an affair. Meanwhile billions have been spent killing innocent people (and some not-so-innocent), we were lied to bald-faced as to why, and “Precinct Committeeman” comes on a blog with a couple of legal briefs to explain why a hummer is worse than a war. Fucking amazing.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:12 am
BJ – The only effective weapon against irrationality is ridicule.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Mr. Stone,
The comparison you make is not contained within the citatation. The statute in legal and specific terms talks about grand jury or court appearances. On the stump you are not bound by the restriction.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
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