Bush: "Don’t tell me about f—— polls"

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20251378/site/newsweek/page/2/
<snip>

At one point that year, Rove presented Bush with poll numbers showing the public misgivings about an Iraq invasion. “The public isn’t buying it,” he told the president in an Oval Office meeting. Bush exploded. “Don’t tell me about f—— polls,” Bush replied, according to a then-White House official who asked not to be identified talking about internal deliberations. “I don’t care what the polls say.” It was Rove’s job to move those numbers, the president made clear. “If there is a way to make the case more clearly, you tell me what it is,” Bush told Rove.

In fact, Rove had already begun to shape the political environment to help make the war possible. That January, he had given an important speech to the Republican National Committee where he signaled that the White House planned to politicize the terrorism issue in the upcoming fall election campaign. “We can go to the country on this issue,” Rove said, because the American people “trust the Republican Party to do a better job of … protecting Americans.’’ In June, Rove prepared a PowerPoint slide for GOP donors on his strategy for the 2002 races. “Focus on war,” it read in part.

But it was still necessary to link Iraq to the public’s legitimate security fears–and there again Rove played a key part, just as the president wanted. That summer, the former White House chief of staff Andrew Card created the White House Iraq Group – a collection of senior advisers, including Rove, who met regularly in the Situation Room to craft a public relations strategy that would play up pieces of intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and supposed connections to international terrorism.

It was this group that seized on reports that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program – reports that were highly disputed and the subject of significant internal debate–and then approved the memorable phrase crafted by chief speechwriter Michael Gerson: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun— that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

[indepat]

1. Junior doesn't give a fu*k what the people think

[bdamomma]

15. that is what makes him so vile, and arrogant beyond words

every dog has its day, I hope his day is soon.

[JimRob is a Douche]

2. Cons LOVED the polls...

...right after 9/11, when favorable for Bush was close to 80%. Even Rush "Polls don't matter" Limbaugh likes to toss around the Bush favorable numbers. They just don't trust them when they head south.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. It was Rove's job to move those numbers?

What did he do? Call his friend Joe Gallup and teach him how to inflate his polls by over-polling Republicans so that it looked like Bush had support where he didn't?

[cui bono]

4. Remember when he said something about his math before the Nov. elections?

That time his math failed. He forgot to add large disgusted Dem voter turnout into the equation.

[Hydra]

5. The really scary part about this

is not that he doesn't care about the polls. We already knew that. It was this tidbit:

It was Rove’s job to move those numbers, the president made clear.

That states it as clearly as it can be stated. Reality doesn't matter to these people. It was Rove's job to change reality, which was that we weren't buying it.

This puts a proper perspective anyone who says "They can't do that!" That's reality talking, and they simply change reality when it becomes inconvenient to their goals.

Mass murder? No Problem. Torture? Of course we do(n't)! Illegal invasion? Congress approved. Imprisonment without charge? They're TERRORISTS for godsakes! Wiretapping peaceful Americans? It's the American Way!

How are you enjoying having your world redefined by these people?

[sandnsea]

7. They told us in 2004

Or maybe as early as 2002.

"The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?ex=1255665600en=890a96189e162076ei=5090

[Hydra]

8. Good link

and now many more of us understand the bitter truth of that. I recall when I read that article the first time, a bunch of people commented that these people were loons, and would screw everything up with that kind of thinking.

They were half right. They ARE loons, but they CAN do that. No disputing that now.

It's time for those of us who disagree with their world to do some reality changing of our own.

[sandnsea]

9. "history will be the judge"

This is exactly what Bush is referring to when he says that - which just dawned on me. It's all about power and empire. They really believe they're some kind of ordained rulers of the world who have an obligation to 'act', regardless of the worldly constraints in place now. Who cares about current laws, ethics, morals. Just act to the benefit of money and power, create your own reality. Let the intellectuals study, let history be the judge. It's really mind-blowing when you fully grasp it. It's extra scary when you consider Prescott Bush's support of the Nazis, and wonder whether this is just a continuation of Aryan ideology.

[Hydra]

11. Seen that way

it most certainly was and is the past coming back to bite us.

And it's true- if Bushco gets their Fascist America Totalitarian Empire(FATE, inc. :D), history will indeed be what they say it is. Hitler always planned it that way. Messy path to world rulership, and nice clean books proclaiming the moral rightness of what happened. Think "Boston Tea Party" on a bigger scale.

New laws, new powers, new reality. As you say, it's really something when you grasp it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. "create our own reality" They should be called creationists, not realists.

[EVDebs]

6. Reminds me of that old French (gasp !) proverb

'Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it.' The other good one is from Balzac, 'Behind every great fortune lies a scandal'

The Bible's stuff about how hard it is for a rich man to get to heaven doesn't even register with this crowd of neoconnuts so we won't go there.

[Cha]

10. Fucking frat boy tantrum in

the oval office..Clinton had a blow job and bushit is blowing off the Planet Earth.

[TwilightGardener]

12. So...Chimpy, the Poo-Flinging ShitMonkey, threw a tantrum because his Porky Pig

sidekick couldn't find a way to package his steaming turd of a war in a way that the public would believe. Our President, ladies and gentlemen--the Leader of the Free World. Weep for us.

[Hydra]

13. Leader of the Free World

Not a leader, and this isn't the free world.

Where the hell did Kansas go?

[devilgrrl]

14. At least he didn't crack any jokes about prison sex.

:sarcasm: