Tuesday 23rd of April 2024
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atta boy george .....

not happy george .....

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah denounced the "American military presence in Iraq as an "illegitimate foreign occupation" and called on the West to end its financial embargo against the Palestinians."

Yesterday, the Bush administration responded with shock to Abdullah’s declaration. “We were a little surprised to see those remarks,” said Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns. White House spokesman Dana Perino went so far as to claim, “It is not accurate to say that the United States is occupying Iraq.”

Abdullah's remarks were just the latest instance of the Saudi's public distancing from the Bush administration. Earlier this week, the Washington Post's Jim Hoagland reported that the Saudi government rejected an offer to attend a White House state dinner with President Bush. Prince Bandar, “the Saudi national security adviser, flew to Washington last week to explain to Bush that April 17 posed a scheduling problem. ‘It is not convenient’ was the way it was put, says one official.” "I think he was concerned that he was seen too much as Bush's friend," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The Saudis have expressed repeated concerns over Bush's Iraq policy.

The day after last year's Thanksgiving, Vice President Cheney was "summoned" to Saudi Arabia to "read him the riot act." The Saudis expressed their concerns that the United States might take the Shiite side in Iraq's civil war, disregarding the safety of the Sunni Arab community.

Fluff and ballons

From the NYT

APRIL 2, 2007, 4:17 PM
Campaign Cash Comparisons: McCain Falters
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
For all the parsing of fundraising numbers that has been going on over the past 24 hours – should Hillary Rodham Clinton have raised more than $26 million? How did Mitt Romney come from nowhere to raise more than $20 million? — a first-quarter fundraising report came out today that defied the effort of even the best political operative to spin it as anything but very bad news.

Senator John McCain of Arizona – who for so long has stood in the wings as the presumptive frontrunner for his party’s nomination, who is running for the White House for a second time – reported that his campaign had raised $12.5 million. That is less than Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Romney, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, John Edwards and – almost without a doubt – Barack Obama.

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Gus: Quite no so amazingly, the presidency of the US is mostly linked to the candidates' ability to "raise" cash. The way they (or their parents in the case of Bush the minor) organise their troops and advertising for cash rules the psyche of the Yanks... Nothing to do with their integrity, their acumen or understanding of humanity. No. The genius of the next president is measured in cash. Basically in their ability to con people from parting with cash. With this cash, they can run a campaign of fluff and balloons better than the fluff and balloons campaign of the other candidates. I suppose that one would not like to see a great presidential candidate fluff the religious question of cash. That would show an inability to con(vince) people to dig in their pockets... Thus all's well in the cash bloomin' industry of rowth and bigger is always better than the next guy... The one with the most cash has a better chance to collect the grand prize but, who knows, who can buy enough voters with the biggest show of balloons and streamers?