posted October 11, 2004 07:45 PM              

Given his fumbling response, you might think that this is the first time Bush has been asked such a question. But it isn't: at a news conference a few months ago, he stammered and stuttered for almost 45 seconds, unable to come up with even a small mistake he's made in the last four years.

100 Mistakes for the President to Choose From
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=64326

May 3, 2004

During a prime time press conference on April 13, President Bush was asked to name a mistake that he has made since taking office and what he has learned from it. Bush, who was unable to answer the question, admitted "maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with [a mistake]." But weeks later, Bush still hasn't answered the question. In the interest of assisting the President with this surprisingly difficult task we've compiled this list of 100 mistakes he has made since taking office:

Iraq

1. Failing to build a real international coalition prior to the Iraq invasion, forcing the US to shoulder the full cost and consequences of the war.

2. Approving the demobilization of the Iraqi Army in May, 2003 – bypassing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reversing an earlier position, the President left hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis disgruntled and unemployed, contributing significantly to the massive security problems American troops have faced during occupation.

3. Not equipping troops in Iraq with adequate body armor or armored HUMVEES.

4. Ignoring the advice Gen. Eric Shinseki regarding the need for more troops in Iraq – now Bush is belatedly adding troops, having allowed the security situation to deteriorate in exactly the way Shinseki said it would if there were not enough troops.

5. Ignoring plans drawn up by the Army War College and other war-planning agencies, which predicted most of the worst security and infrastructure problems America faced in the early days of the Iraq occupation.

6. Making a case for war which ignored intelligence that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

7. Deriding "nation-building" during the 2000 debates, then engaging American troops in one of the most explicit instances of nation building in American history.

8. Predicting along with others in his administration that US troops would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.

9. Predicting Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction.

10. Wildly underestimating the cost of the war.

11. Trusting Ahmed Chalabi, who has dismissed faulty intelligence he provided the President as necessary for getting the Americans to topple Saddam.

12. Disbanding the Sunni Baathist managers responsible for Iraq's water, electricity, sewer system and all the other critical parts of that country's infrastructure.

13. Failing to give UN weapons inspectors enough time to certify if weapons existed in Iraq.

14. Including discredited intelligence concerning Nigerian Yellow Cake in his 2003 State of the Union.

15. Announcing that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, below a "Mission Accomplished" banner – more U.S. soldiers have died in combat since Bush's announcement than before it.

16. Awarding a multi-billion dollar contract to Halliburton in Iraq, which then repeatedly overcharged the government and served troops dirty food.

17. Refusing to cede any control of Post-invasion Iraq to the international community, meaning reconstruction has received limited aid from European allies or the U.N.

18. Failing to convince NATO allies why invading Iraq was important.

19. Having no real plan for the occupation of Iraq.

20. Limiting bidding on Iraq construction projects to "coalition partners," unnecessarily alienating important allies France, Germany and Russia.

21. Diverting $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress.

22. Shutting down an Iraqi newspaper for "inciting violence" – the move, which led in short order to street fighting in Fallujah, incited more violence than the newspaper ever had.

23. Telling Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan about plans to go to war with Iraq before Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Counterterrorism

24. Allowing several members of the Bin Laden family to leave the country just days after 9/11, some of them without being questioned by the FBI.

25. Focusing on missile defense at the expense of counterterrorism prior to 9/11.

26. Thinking al Qaeda could not attack without state sponsors, and ignoring evidence of a growing threat unassociated with "rogue states" like Iraq or North Korea.

27. Threatening to veto the Homeland Security department – The President now concedes such a department "provides the ability for our agencies to coordinate better and to work together better than it was before."

28. Opposing the creation of the September 11th commission, which the President now expects "to contain important recommendations for preventing future attacks."

29. Denying documents to the 9/11 commission, only relenting after the commissioners threatened a subpoena.

30. Failing to pay more attention to an August 6, 2001 PDB entitled "Bin laden Determined to Attack in U.S."

31. Repeatedly ignoring warnings of terrorists planning to use aircraft before 9/11.

32. Appointing the ultra-secretive Henry Kissinger to head the 9/11 commission – Kissinger stepped down weeks later due to conflicts of interest.

33. Asking for testimony before the 9/11 commission be limited to one hour, a position from which the president later backtracked.

34. Not allowing national Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to testify before the 9/11 commission – Bush changed his mind as pressure mounted.

35. Cutting an FBI request for counterterrorism funds by two-thirds after 9/11.

36. Telling Americans there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

37. Failing to adequately secure the nation's nuclear weapons labs.

38. Not feeling a sense of urgency about terrorism or al Qaeda before 9/11.

Afghanistan

39. Reducing resources and troop levels in Afghanistan and out before it was fully secure.

40. Not providing security in Afghanistan outside of Kabul, leaving nearly 80% of the Afghan population unprotected in areas controlled by Feudal warlords and local militias.

41. Committing inadequate resources for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

42. Counting too heavily on locally trained troops to fill the void in Afghanistan once U.S. forces were relocated to Iraq.

43. Not committing US ground troops to the capture of Osama Bin Laden, when he was cornered in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in November, 2001.

44. Allowing opium production to resume on a massive scale after the ouster of the Taliban.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

45. Opposing an independent inquiry into the intelligence failures surrounding WMD – later, upon signing off on just such a commission, Bush claimed he was "determined to make sure that American intelligence is as accurate as possible for every challenge in the future."

46. Saying: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."

47. Trusting intelligence gathered by Vice President Cheney's and Secretary Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans."

48. Spending $6.5 billion on nuclear weapons this year to develop new nuclear weapons this year – 50% more in real dollars than the average during the cold war – while shortchanging the troops on body armor.

Foreign Policy

49. Ignoring the importance of the Middle East peace process, which has deteriorated with little oversight or strategy evident in the region.

50. Siding with China in February, 2004 against a democratic referenda proposed by Taiwan, a notable shift from an earlier pledge to stand with "oppressed peoples until the day of their freedom finally arrives."

51. Undermining the War on Terrorism by preemptively invading Iraq.

52. Failing to develop a specific plan for dealing with North Korea.

53. Abandoning the United States' traditional role as an evenhanded negotiator in the Middle East peace process.

Economic

54. Signing a report endorsing outsourcing with thousands of American workers having their jobs shipped overseas.

55. Instituting steel tariffs deemed illegal by the World Trade Organization – Bush repealed them 20-months later when the European Union pledged to impose retaliatory sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in exports from the United States.

56. Promoting economic policies that failed to create new jobs.

57. Promoting economic policies that failed to help small businesses

58. Pledging a "jobs and growth" package would create 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of 2003 and 5.5 million new jobs by 2004—so far the president has fallen 1,615,000 jobs short of the mark.

59. Running up a foreign deficit of "such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy."

60. Issuing inaccurate budget forecasts accompanying proposals to reduce the deficit, omitting the continued costs of Iraq, Afghanistan and elements of Homeland Security.

61. Claiming his 2003 tax cut would give 23 million small business owners an average tax cut of $2,042 when "nearly four out of every five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less" than that amount.

62. Passing tax cuts for the wealthy while falsely claiming "people in the 10 percent bracket" were benefiting most."

63. Passing successive tax cuts largely responsible for turning a projected surplus of $5 trillion into a projected deficit of $4.3 trillion.

64. Moving to strip millions of overtime pay.

65. Not enforcing corporate tax laws.

66. Backing down from a plan to make CEOs more accountable when "the corporate crowd" protested.

67. Not lobbying oil cartels to change their mind about cutting oil production.

68. Passing tax cuts weighted heavily to help the wealthy.

69. Moving to allow greater media consolidation.

70. Nominating a notorious proponent of outsourcing, Anthony F. Raimondo, to be the new manufacturing Czar—Raimondo withdrew his name days later amidst a flurry of harsh criticism.

71. Ignoring calls to extend unemployment benefits with long-term unemployment reaching a twenty-year high

72. Threatening to veto pension legislation that would give companies much needed temporary relief.

Education

73. Under-funding No Child Left Behind

74. Breaking his campaign pledge to increase the size of Pell grants.

75. Signing off on an FY 2005 budget proposing the smallest increase in education funding in nine years.

76. Under-funding the Title I Program, specifically targeted for disadvantaged kids, by $7.2 billion.

77. Freezing Teacher Quality State Grants, cutting off training opportunities for about 30,000 teachers, and leaving 92,000 less
teachers trained than the president called for in his own No Child Left Behind bill.

78. Freezing funding for English language training programs.

79. Freezing funding for after school programs, potentially eliminating 50,000 children from after-school programs.

Health

80. Not leveling with Americans about the cost of Medicare – the president told Congress his new Medicare bill would cost $400 billion over ten years despite conclusions by his own analysts the bill would cost upwards of $500 billion over that period.

81. Silencing Medicare actuary Richard Foster when his estimates for the Administration's Medicare bill were too high.

82. Letting business associate David Halbert, who owns a company which stands to make millions from new discount drug cards, craft key elements of the new Medicare bill.

83. Underfunding health care for troops and veterans.

84. Allowing loopholes to persist in Mad-Cow regulations.

85. Relaxing food labeling restrictions on health claims.

86. Falsely claiming the restrictions on stem cell research would not hamper medical progress.

87. Reducing action against improper drug advertising by 80 percent.

Environment

88. Abandoning the Kyoto Treaty without offering an alternative for reducing greenhouse effect.

89. Counting on a voluntary program to reduce emissions of harmful gasses—so far only a tiny fraction of American companies have signed up.

90. Gutting clean air standards for aging power plants.

91. Weakening energy efficiency standards.

92. Relaxing dumping standards for mountaintop mining, and opening the Florida Everglades and Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest to mining.

93. Lifting protection for more than 200 million acres of public land.

94. Limiting public challenges to logging projects and increased logging in protected areas, including Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

95. Weakening environmental standards for snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles while pushing for exemptions for air pollution proposals for five categories of industrial facilities.

96. Opposing legislation that would require greater fuel efficiency for passenger cars.

97. Reducing inspections, penalties for violations, and prosecution of environmental crimes.

98. Misleading the public about the Washington mad cow case and the likely effectiveness of USDA's weak testing program.

99. Withdrawing public information on chemical plant dangers, previously used to hold facilities accountable for safety improvements.

Other

100. Cutting grants to state and local governments in FY 2005, forcing states to make massive cuts in job training, education, housing and environment.

To the environmental mistakes I would like to add another mistake:

101. Taking the ban off of aerial shooting of wolves which are now allowed to be hunted by chasing them in airplanes until they are exhausted and then shooting them. Wolves are an endangered species.

If you have any other mistakes to add to the list please do. I think as American citizens we should help the President out so that next time he is asked this question he will be prepared to name at least one or two mistakes he has made.

posted October 11, 2004 09:12 PM            

You know Mirandee, posting something like this from such a site destroys any possibility of it's credibility, when absolutely no backup is given for the bare allegations.

Nevertheless Mirandee, I'm going to run through the allegations and without checking any facts either, assign them a value based on what I've read checking facts on these and other issues. You will then be free to refute, hopefully with some source other than this so called "progressive" site.

Lie
Possibly true
Distortion
True

Lie and Distortion
1. Failing to build a real international coalition prior to the Iraq invasion, forcing the US to shoulder the full cost and consequences of the war.

Possibly true
2. Approving the demobilization of the Iraqi Army in May, 2003 – bypassing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reversing an earlier position, the President left hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis disgruntled and unemployed, contributing significantly to the massive security problems American troops have faced during occupation.

Distortion
3. Not equipping troops in Iraq with adequate body armor or armored HUMVEES.

Distortion
4. Ignoring the advice Gen. Eric Shinseki regarding the need for more troops in Iraq – now Bush is belatedly adding troops, having allowed the security situation to deteriorate in exactly the way Shinseki said it would if there were not enough troops.

Distortion, Lie
5. Ignoring plans drawn up by the Army War College and other war-planning agencies, which predicted most of the worst security and infrastructure problems America faced in the early days of the Iraq occupation.

Lie, Distortion
6. Making a case for war which ignored intelligence that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Distortion, Lie
7. Deriding "nation-building" during the 2000 debates, then engaging American troops in one of the most explicit instances of nation building in American history.

Lie...they were in some areas
8. Predicting along with others in his administration that US troops would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.

Distortion...the job continues on the oil fields
9. Predicting Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction.

Lie
10. Wildly underestimating the cost of the war.

Distortion
11. Trusting Ahmed Chalabi, who has dismissed faulty intelligence he provided the President as necessary for getting the Americans to topple Saddam.

Possibly true
12. Disbanding the Sunni Baathist managers responsible for Iraq's water, electricity, sewer system and all the other critical parts of that country's infrastructure.

Lie, 12 years is plenty
13. Failing to give UN weapons inspectors enough time to certify if weapons existed in Iraq.

Lie, the British were the source and they stand by their intelligence.
14. Including discredited intelligence concerning Nigerian Yellow Cake in his 2003 State of the Union.

Lie, Distortion. Major combat operations were over and Saddam was no longer in charge.
15. Announcing that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, below a "Mission Accomplished" banner – more U.S. soldiers have died in combat since Bush's announcement than before it.

Lie, the existing Halliburton contract was extended to include Iraq. Further, Halliburton is one of only 2 companies in the world with the capability to provide the services.
16. Awarding a multi-billion dollar contract to Halliburton in Iraq, which then repeatedly overcharged the government and served troops dirty food.

True but then why should a nation who risked none of their troops and spent none of their money share in any of the reconstruction contracts?
17. Refusing to cede any control of Post-invasion Iraq to the international community, meaning reconstruction has received limited aid from European allies or the U.N.

Lie
18. Failing to convince NATO allies why invading Iraq was important.

Lie
19. Having no real plan for the occupation of Iraq.

True but again, they didn't help in Iraq
20. Limiting bidding on Iraq construction projects to "coalition partners," unnecessarily alienating important allies France, Germany and Russia.

Distortion
21. Diverting $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress.

True but still a distortion of the truth
22. Shutting down an Iraqi newspaper for "inciting violence" – the move, which led in short order to street fighting in Fallujah, incited more violence than the newspaper ever had.

Possibly true but Powell says differently
23. Telling Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan about plans to go to war with Iraq before Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Counterterrorism

Lie, Richard Clarke approved the flights
24. Allowing several members of the Bin Laden family to leave the country just days after 9/11, some of them without being questioned by the FBI.

Lie
25. Focusing on missile defense at the expense of counterterrorism prior to 9/11.

Lie
26. Thinking al Qaeda could not attack without state sponsors, and ignoring evidence of a growing threat unassociated with "rogue states" like Iraq or North Korea.

Possibly true, but Homeland security was not the issue. Civil service status was the issue.
27. Threatening to veto the Homeland Security department – The President now concedes such a department "provides the ability for our agencies to coordinate better and to work together better than it was before."

True, he thought it would be a circus and there were already House and Senate committees dealing with the same issues.
28. Opposing the creation of the September 11th commission, which the President now expects "to contain important recommendations for preventing future attacks."

Distortion, the committee had no right to classified materials and when provided some classified documents...promptly leaked them to the press.
29. Denying documents to the 9/11 commission, only relenting after the commissioners threatened a subpoena.

True and distortion both. There was nothing new in the RDB that wasn't old intelligence.
30. Failing to pay more attention to an August 6, 2001 PDB entitled "Bin laden Determined to Attack in U.S."

Lie, unless you can prove the President knew about the warning to use aircraft.
31. Repeatedly ignoring warnings of terrorists planning to use aircraft before 9/11.

True but then, the President had no way of knowing there were conflicts of interest.
32. Appointing the ultra-secretive Henry Kissinger to head the 9/11 commission – Kissinger stepped down weeks later due to conflicts of interest.

True
33. Asking for testimony before the 9/11 commission be limited to one hour, a position from which the president later backtracked.

True
34. Not allowing national Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to testify before the 9/11 commission – Bush changed his mind as pressure mounted.

Lie
35. Cutting an FBI request for counterterrorism funds by two-thirds after 9/11.

Lie, there was a proven link between Saddam and al-Queda
36. Telling Americans there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

True, an ongoing problem since they are run by a University same as when Clinton was Prez.
37. Failing to adequately secure the nation's nuclear weapons labs.

Lie, there was a plan finalized on how to go after al-Queda and other terrorists that hit the President's desk on about Sept 1, 2001
38. Not feeling a sense of urgency about terrorism or al Qaeda before 9/11.

Afghanistan

Distortion
39. Reducing resources and troop levels in Afghanistan and out before it was fully secure.

Lie, security in Afghanistan is NATO's responsibility
40. Not providing security in Afghanistan outside of Kabul, leaving nearly 80% of the Afghan population unprotected in areas controlled by Feudal warlords and local militias.

Lie
41. Committing inadequate resources for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Lie, troops are being trained and again, there's NATO forces on the ground there.
42. Counting too heavily on locally trained troops to fill the void in Afghanistan once U.S. forces were relocated to Iraq.

Lie, Distortion, unless you and Kerry have a crystal ball letting you see where bin Laden was and is.
43. Not committing US ground troops to the capture of Osama Bin Laden, when he was cornered in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in November, 2001.

Lie, Distortion....Letting!!!!
44. Allowing opium production to resume on a massive scale after the ouster of the Taliban.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Distortion, several Committees were examining the very same issue.
45. Opposing an independent inquiry into the intelligence failures surrounding WMD – later, upon signing off on just such a commission, Bush claimed he was "determined to make sure that American intelligence is as accurate as possible for every challenge in the future."

Lie, unless you can put those words in the Presidents mouth
46. Saying: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."

Lie
47. Trusting intelligence gathered by Vice President Cheney's and Secretary Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans."

Lie
48. Spending $6.5 billion on nuclear weapons this year to develop new nuclear weapons this year – 50% more in real dollars than the average during the cold war – while shortchanging the troops on body armor.

Foreign Policy

Lie, Libya has given up it's nuke program, Syria is beginning to make nice too toward Israel, cutting Arafat the terrorist out of the peace equation.
49. Ignoring the importance of the Middle East peace process, which has deteriorated with little oversight or strategy evident in the region.

Distortion, it has long been US policy that Taiwan not be declared independent of China and that didn't start with Bush
50. Siding with China in February, 2004 against a democratic referenda proposed by Taiwan, a notable shift from an earlier pledge to stand with "oppressed peoples until the day of their freedom finally arrives."

Lie, Iraq is ground zero in the war on terrorism
51. Undermining the War on Terrorism by preemptively invading Iraq.

Lie, you mean giving in to North Korea, giving them what they want as Clinton and the disasterous Carter did.
52. Failing to develop a specific plan for dealing with North Korea.

Lie, stating you will no longer deal with the terrorist Arafat is not abandoning even handedness.
53. Abandoning the United States' traditional role as an evenhanded negotiator in the Middle East peace process.

Economic

Lie
54. Signing a report endorsing outsourcing with thousands of American workers having their jobs shipped overseas.

True but a Distortion nevertheless since other nations subsudize that industry which permits them to sell cheaper.
55. Instituting steel tariffs deemed illegal by the World Trade Organization – Bush repealed them 20-months later when the European Union pledged to impose retaliatory sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in exports from the United States.

Lie, absolute lie
56. Promoting economic policies that failed to create new jobs.

Lie, absolute lie
57. Promoting economic policies that failed to help small businesses

Lie
58. Pledging a "jobs and growth" package would create 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of 2003 and 5.5 million new jobs by 2004—so far the president has fallen 1,615,000 jobs short of the mark.

Lie
59. Running up a foreign deficit of "such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy."

Lie
60. Issuing inaccurate budget forecasts accompanying proposals to reduce the deficit, omitting the continued costs of Iraq, Afghanistan and elements of Homeland Security.

Distortion or Lie
61. Claiming his 2003 tax cut would give 23 million small business owners an average tax cut of $2,042 when "nearly four out of every five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less" than that amount.

Lie
62. Passing tax cuts for the wealthy while falsely claiming "people in the 10 percent bracket" were benefiting most."

Lie, absolute lie
63. Passing successive tax cuts largely responsible for turning a projected surplus of $5 trillion into a projected deficit of $4.3 trillion.

True for workers in some employment situations
64. Moving to strip millions of overtime pay.

Lie, absolute lie
65. Not enforcing corporate tax laws.

Lie, absolute lie
66. Backing down from a plan to make CEOs more accountable when "the corporate crowd" protested.

Lie, absolute lie
67. Not lobbying oil cartels to change their mind about cutting oil production.

Lie
68. Passing tax cuts weighted heavily to help the wealthy.

Possibly true
69. Moving to allow greater media consolidation.

No opinion
70. Nominating a notorious proponent of outsourcing, Anthony F. Raimondo, to be the new manufacturing Czar—Raimondo withdrew his name days later amidst a flurry of harsh criticism.

Lie
71. Ignoring calls to extend unemployment benefits with long-term unemployment reaching a twenty-year high

Lie
72. Threatening to veto pension legislation that would give companies much needed temporary relief.

Education

Lie
73. Under-funding No Child Left Behind

Lie
74. Breaking his campaign pledge to increase the size of Pell grants.

Lie, absolute lie
75. Signing off on an FY 2005 budget proposing the smallest increase in education funding in nine years.

Lie
76. Under-funding the Title I Program, specifically targeted for disadvantaged kids, by $7.2 billion.

Distortion, possible lie
77. Freezing Teacher Quality State Grants, cutting off training opportunities for about 30,000 teachers, and leaving 92,000 less
teachers trained than the president called for in his own No Child Left Behind bill.

Lie
78. Freezing funding for English language training programs.

Possibly true
79. Freezing funding for after school programs, potentially eliminating 50,000 children from after-school programs.

Health

True possibly but time will tell
80. Not leveling with Americans about the cost of Medicare – the president told Congress his new Medicare bill would cost $400 billion over ten years despite conclusions by his own analysts the bill would cost upwards of $500 billion over that period.

True but no one can know what the true cost will be in advance.
81. Silencing Medicare actuary Richard Foster when his estimates for the Administration's Medicare bill were too high.

Lie
82. Letting business associate David Halbert, who owns a company which stands to make millions from new discount drug cards, craft key elements of the new Medicare bill.

Lie, absolute lie
83. Underfunding health care for troops and veterans.

Lie
84. Allowing loopholes to persist in Mad-Cow regulations.

Lie
85. Relaxing food labeling restrictions on health claims.

Lie
86. Falsely claiming the restrictions on stem cell research would not hamper medical progress.

Lie
87. Reducing action against improper drug advertising by 80 percent.

Environment

True, no treaty based on junk science should be signed
88. Abandoning the Kyoto Treaty without offering an alternative for reducing greenhouse effect.

Possibly true
89. Counting on a voluntary program to reduce emissions of harmful gasses—so far only a tiny fraction of American companies have signed up.

Lie, Distortion
90. Gutting clean air standards for aging power plants.

Lie
91. Weakening energy efficiency standards.

Lie
92. Relaxing dumping standards for mountaintop mining, and opening the Florida Everglades and Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest to mining.

Possibly true but we do own that land..not the enviornmental groups
93. Lifting protection for more than 200 million acres of public land.

Possibly true
94. Limiting public challenges to logging projects and increased logging in protected areas, including Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

Possibly true
95. Weakening environmental standards for snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles while pushing for exemptions for air pollution proposals for five categories of industrial facilities.

Possibly true
96. Opposing legislation that would require greater fuel efficiency for passenger cars.

Lie
97. Reducing inspections, penalties for violations, and prosecution of environmental crimes.

Lie
98. Misleading the public about the Washington mad cow case and the likely effectiveness of USDA's weak testing program.

Lie
99. Withdrawing public information on chemical plant dangers, previously used to hold facilities accountable for safety improvements.

Other

Lie
100. Cutting grants to state and local governments in FY 2005, forcing states to make massive cuts in job training, education, housing and environment.

To the environmental mistakes I would like to add another mistake:

Distortion..Wolves are only an endangered species in some locals. However, if you can show me where Bush signed off on recreational hunting from airplanes for any species, I'd like to see it.
101. Taking the ban off of aerial shooting of wolves which are now allowed to be hunted by chasing them in airplanes until they are exhausted and then shooting them. Wolves are an endangered species.

posted October 12, 2004 03:19 AM              

Feds Shoot Down Wolf Hunt Challenge

DENIED: Department of Interior rejects petition filed by Defenders of Wildlife

Mary Pemberton / AP / Anchorage Daily News / April 9, 2004

The U.S. Department of the Interior has rejected a petition filed by a national wildlife group challenging a program in which Alaska hunters shoot wolves from airplanes.

Defenders of Wildlife said Thursday it received a letter from Interior Secretary Gale Norton's office that says the aerial wolf control program operating in the McGrath area is allowed under exceptions contained in the Airborne Hunting Act of 1971.

The wildlife group is considering further legal action.

"The Airborne Hunting Act doesn't let you mow down predators from the air just to radically reshape the entire wildlife profile of a whole area," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of the 465,000-member group.

The federal law says that states cannot issue permits for airborne hunting for the purpose of sport hunting. But it says exceptions are allowed for the protection of "land, water, wildlife, livestock, domestic animals, human life or crops."

Defenders of Wildlife contends that the intent of Alaska's aerial wolf control program is not to protect wildlife but to boost game populations for hunters.

"Because the programs are for the purpose of enhancing hunting and other recreational opportunities, unrelated to protecting wildlife, they violate the Airborne Hunting Act," the Washington, D.C.-based group said in the petition filed in February.

The state has a different view. It contends that aerial wolf control is a predator control program designed to protect moose calves in the winter when they are most vulnerable to being eaten by bears and wolves.

The program is under way in two areas of Alaska where residents have long complained wolves and bears kill too many moose calves, leaving them with too few to hunt and eat. The Game Board wants 40 wolves removed from the area near McGrath in the Interior and 140 wolves from the Nelchina basin near Glennallen in Southcentral.

As of Thursday, 20 wolves had been killed near McGrath and 120 near Glennallen. Department of Fish and Game officials said, with the programs ending April 30, it looked like neither one would reach its goal. Both programs are expected to start up again next winter.

When Defenders of Wildlife filed the petition, state Attorney General Gregg Renkes said the Game Board specifically designed the program to be a predator control program, not a hunting program.

Defenders of Wildlife lawyer Susan George said the group will consider going the next step and filing a lawsuit.

"We think the Department of the Interior has a responsibility to enforce the act," she said. "When you are talking about boosting game populations, that's not wildlife protection."

Another group, Darien, Conn.-based Friends of Animals, with 200,000 members, has tried unsuccessfully to challenge the aerial wolf control program in state court. A Superior Court judge in Anchorage ruled that the Game Board acted legally in approving the program.

Friends of Animals late last month filed an amended complaint that says the Game Board lacked "sound biological data" needed to approve the program, and therefore it is illegal.

I knew about this because I signed the petition. I get DenLines from the EPA delivered to my email box and the articles are loaded with things that the Bush administration has done against the environment. I could have put a lot more here instead of just the one about wolves. But I was being nice.

posted October 12, 2004 02:40 PM              

Definition of Lie: "any topic, fact, or article that may shed criticism of the current administration. alt. def: anything jwhop decides is false."

Nice to see you havent embraced any new idea this decade, my friend. No wonder you dig Bush so much. Follow the course, even off the cliff.

posted October 12, 2004 03:17 PM            

In this case, your argument is that Bush "lifted the ban" on hunting from aircraft.

The story you posted notes that hunting from aircraft has been banned since 1971 by an act of Congress called the Airborne Hunting Act of 1971. The story goes on to say there is an exception to the ban for the protection of land, water, wildlife, livestock, domestic animals, human life or crops.

The story points out that it is the State of Alaska who issued the permits permitted under this exception, not the federal government and certainly not the President.

Neither the Department of the interior or the President has any "legal" right to intervene. Neither can the President overturn acts of Congress. The President is the Chief Executive of the Federal Government, the Chief Executive being coequal with the Congress but obligated by law to carry out the legislative acts of Congress.

Further, the ban was not lifted as you allege. The exception to the ban has been in place since the origination of the legislation in 1971.

Your wild and wholly off point allegation is not backed up by your source, indeed, your own source destroys your own argument.

The proper place to settle the issue or correct the legislation is the courts, not the White House. You know, the courts, the 3rd coequal branch of the federal government.

Motherkonfessor, how cozy it must be to live in a world where truth and lie are so easily interchangeable, where the truth doesn't matter nearly so much as the seriousness of the allegation.

Sorry Motherknofessor, we live in two different worlds. I'm comfortable with mine and have no intention of crossing over to yours. In mine the truth is NOT malleable, fuzzy, indistinct or coequal and interchangeable with lies.

posted October 12, 2004 03:18 PM            

The clause states that the airborne hunting technique is only used to protect wild life, humans, livestock or land. Where does it give permission for anyone to start blasting wolves from the sky for sport?

You are aware that the wolf relocation program has exploded in some areas to 10 times more wolves than expected right? Now we have small farms, populated areas and ranches losing animals (domestic), livestock and people being mauled by such an over-population of wolves?

Don't get me wrong. I believe that wolves represent something sacred, but please - even American Indians knew when it was time to kill or be killed. This emotional blackmail being used to "save all animals" is really putting others in danger.