Well, all of us here over at The Scotty Show hope you all had a very Christian Christmas that was absent of all mention of heathen phrases such as "Seasons Greetings", "Happy Holidays", or... God forbid... "Happy Solstice." But now that we have all opened the Isotoner gloves we received in honor our Savior's birth, it's time to return to The Scotty Show.
But where's Scotty? Apparently, he thinks he gets to take a vacation for Christmas. So in his place, he sent the slightly more eloquent Deputy Press Secretary, Trent Duffy, to do his dirty work.
But we don't need Scotty right now anyway. We have good ol' White House bullshit and our trusty new Bullshit Detector (along with the snazzy new Bullshit Overload Buffer that I got for Christmas).
Press corps comments and questions are italicized for her pleasure.
Duffy's bullshit is thick and bold, like in real life.
Translations are in plain text, which I'm sure signifies something suitably profound.
And now... The Duffy Show!
Good morning. Let me update you on the President's schedule. Yesterday, after arriving, he went out and did some cutting and clearing brush and then was at his home on the ranch.
The president went outside in blue jeans so he could get pictures taken of him pretending to be a rancher.
And this morning he had his normal intelligence briefings
But they were all historical. Nothing actionable.
and he was out this morning clearing some brush
He likes to play pretend.
and is right now -- or has just recently concluded a bicycle ride
and he'll be spending the rest of the day at home with his wife and mother-in-law.
Listening to constant bitching about how Laura could have done better.
I've got a couple of books that the President brought with him to read over the holiday. One is, "When Trumpets Call, Theodore Roosevelt After The White House," by Patricia O'Toole, recommended to him by Brian Williams. The other is, "Imperial Grunt, The American Military On The Ground," written by Robert Kaplan.
Does the White House still stand by the claim that the order that he issued only allows eavesdropping on a limited number of people with al Qaeda links?
This is a limited program. This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner.
Rest easy, Middle America. If you're not a liberal, a Democrat, a war protestor, someone who might have once said something disrespectful about the president, a black person, someone who opposes torture, an Arab, a person with relatives overseas, a person who checked out dangerous books from the library, someone who opposes Social Security reform, someone who opposes tax cuts for the rich, a Muslim, a homosexual, or an environmentalist, then you have nothing to worry about.
These are designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings, and churches.
Survivors Describe Wedding Massacre as [US] Generals Refuse to Apologize
US Bombards Iraq Mosque
US bomb blunder kills 30 at Afghan wedding
Very bad people with a history of blowing up weddings and churches... and if they'd put a few more commuter trains in Iraq, we'd get them, too.
And the President believes that he has the authority -- and he does -- under the Constitution to do this limited program. The Congress has been briefed. It is fully in line with the Constitution and also with protecting American civil liberties.
Just don't ask me which part of the US Constitution gives the president the authority to ignore the Fourth Amendment.
One more thing. Did the telecommunications companies that were helping out, did they know what they were helping out with? Were they briefed about the program?
Again, I'm going to decline to comment on any specific aspects of the program.
In fact, I'm going to decline to comment on any question that includes one or more of the following words or phrases: NSA, wiretapping, spying, eavesdropping, impeachment, indictments, investigation, or illegal. Next question.
If I could just follow up on that for a second. In the briefing we had at the White House last -- a week ago, Monday, I think it was General Hayden who said at that time that the technology of the program was such that you could only pick up international calls. And he seemed to suggest at the time that a broader program would not have been technologically possible, even if authorized. Your unwillingness to go repeat that, and not discuss the operational details after the story might be interpreted as suggesting that General Hayden's comment no longer stands. Would that be reasonable?
I don't think so. I pointed back to the briefing on Friday by General Gonzales and also by General Hayden. I have nothing more to add to it. I mean, his comments stand. I'm declining to go into any specific operational aspects of the program because General Hayden and General Gonzales briefed on it and I don't have anything more to say. That's all.
Yes, we're just the most technologically advanced country in the world, with one of the most extensive spy programs known in the history of the world. We have satellites and computers and trackers and translators and wiretaps and GPS and even sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads. But we just don't have the technology to intercept any calls except international ones, even if that were authorized. Also:
Was the President accurate in the news conference when he said that the eavesdropping program only focuses narrowly on people with al Qaeda ties or affiliates?
Yes, the President was accurate.
peo*ple with al-Qae*da ties (pē'pəl with ăl-kā'də tīs)
n.
Anyone who disagrees with the president, as determined by the president.
See Also: Democrats, liberals, commie pinko fags.
UPI is reporting that the reason that the U.S. decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging President Bush at an unprecedented rate.
The President has already addressed how this program was done within the law, and I don't have anything more to add to that.
The president makes the law. The president IS the law.
So no comment on the specific of -- was the President being challenged at an unprecedented rate?
I'll leave it where the President left it in his news conference.
You remember that news conference, right? It was that one where the president didn't address that issue because it hadn't been brought up by the media yet.
When the President said that -- described this program the way he did in his news conference, did he mean to suggest that it is only limited to eavesdropping on ongoing phone calls, or did he not mean to sort of limit it to just that? I mean, the impression that he left was that the program is just about eavesdropping on conversations as they happen.
I'll have to get back to you on that question, Dana. I'll take that.
Yeah, I'll get back to you on whether it was limited only to ongoing conversations or if we're going to start using new technology to eavesdrop on conversations that will happen next week.
The administration has made an attempt to stress that this only involves people with ties to al Qaeda. Might it also include others who would have intentions to harm the U.S. who are not explicitly tied to that organization?
I'll leave it to where the President and the General and General Hayden said; it's people with ties to al Qaeda and terrorist activity.
ter*ror*ist ac*tiv*i*ty (tĕr'ər-ĭst ăk-tĭv'ĭ-tē)
n.
SEE: groups, antiwar; and queers, advocacy for.
Trent, will the announcement by Bulgaria and Poland and Ukraine about troop withdrawals from Iraq affect America's ability to begin withdrawing its troops next year?
I'll decline to speculate about U.S. troop deployments. Those are questions that the President has always left to his military commanders in the field. The President has said repeatedly that as the Iraqi forces are stepping up and are trained and are capable of protecting the Iraqi people and doing the security mission, that U.S. forces will step down. International countries' obligations or commitments to Iraq are those countries' decisions to make -- decisions to be made by those countries.
We should be fine as long as the four soldiers from the Netherlands and the 27 soldiers from Kazakhstan stick around.
Was the White House aware of the troop withdrawals that they announced earlier today? Or was there any communication between the White House and --
I don't know. I can check on that, Warren. But, typically, it's as we've said all along -- a country's decision on whether, or what level to support the mission in Iraq, either with troops or with money, or with other resources, is the country's decision to make on its own. And we respect those decisions.
And they are either with us or against us, and these guys are obviously against us, and we have put them on our List, and we will hunt them down and destroy them in due time.
Trent, is the President or his senior staff doing much work on setting and planning for the agenda for the New Year?
I think the President will begin the new year very much in the way he left -- or he will end 2005, which is to discuss the country's two top priorities, being keeping our economy strong and growing stronger and creating jobs, and also winning the war on terrorism. And that specific front in the war on terrorism is the conflict in Iraq. So he finished the year discussing those two top priorities and he will begin next year continuing to talk about those two top priorities. And he is in the process, as he always is at this time of the year, reflecting on 2005 and looking forward to 2006 and what he wants to accomplish for the American people.
Speaking about the economy, early surveys show that the retail spending is up, but not as much as analysts hoped it would be. How does that fit in with the administration's feeling that the economy is growing strong?
Obviously, the reports are still coming in. The retail sales, at least we know appear to be up, projections are.
Talk like Yoda, I do. Downplaying economic data that do not fit our agenda, we are.
But one of the things that we do know is it takes quite a while really before all the data is in. But the fact is the retail sales are up, and that's in line with all the very good, strong data that we've seen in the past several months, which are increased job creation, lower gas prices, increased business and personal investment. So all the signs are pointing to a very healthy and strong economic outlook for the near-term.
People spent more money at Christmas time this year. If that isn't proof that we are in a booming economy, I don't know what is.
As you know, members of Congress, especially many Democrats, are gearing up for the hearings on the spy issue, and on the limits of presidential power. There's a lot of political tension around this issue. Has the President, himself, reached out to any Democrats in the Senate to discuss this with them personally?
I'll check on the President's specific involvement. The White House has briefed the leaders in Congress, as the President indicated, repeatedly, over a dozen times, as has been noted. And we continue to do that. This is a war on terror that requires different thinking and a desire to connect the dots ahead of time. That's what the 9/11 Commission showed; that was the collective view of people in and out of government after the 9/11 attacks. So the President is doing all he can to make sure that the U.S. government doesn't fail the American people again.
The president also has decided to rape your mother. He believes that he has the authority to do this under Article II of the Constitution of the United States. He believes he has further authorization to rape your mother under the Iraq war resolution. He will brief Congress on the ongoing rape of your mother. He will brief them a dozen times, if necessary. Certainly if he goes through all that effort to safeguard our nation's systems of checks and balances, you can't get upset about him raping your mother. Right?
Trent, should we read anything into the fact that he's got three years left and he's already reading a book about what it's like to be out of office?
The President is a history buff -- you know that as well as anybody. He does read a lot of books based on recommendations, and Brian Williams recommended it to him, so he picked it up and he's reading it. He is an avid reader. And the President knows full-well that he's got a lot of time left in this second term and he's going to accomplish big things, as he has talked about repeatedly.
The president is a major history buff and an avid reader. He also has tutored Stephen Hawking on the quantum mechanics of wormholes and singularities. And he has developed a cure for juvenile diabetes. Plus he writes beautiful sonnets. And I almost forgot that he can paint a landscape of an oceanside cliff that will make you cry. He's an esteemed architect and is a scholar in the field of advanced trigonometry and calculus. Oh, and once again:
Why "Imperial Grunt"? Kaplan is pretty critical of Iraq. Do you have any idea why he picked that book?
The President is an avid reader. He reads books of all kinds and stripe and persuasion. And he decided to read it.
It had a picture of army guys on the front and he thought it would make him look cool.
On the Patriot Act, how are you guys going to go forward on that? How is the White House going to go forward on getting what they want on the Patriot Act?
The White House is going to continue to push for what the President said. He wants a permanent extension of the Patriot Act and those 16 provisions. The Patriot Act is a vital tool in combating terrorism.
How can we ever combat terrorism if we don't know what books you're checking out of the library?
No new strategy there? Same strategy going forward?
The new strategy is the same as the old: Give law enforcement the tools to defeat terrorism.
We're gonna stay the course.
How far along is the budget planning? And do you have a date yet for the release of the budget?
The budget is in production, I guess is the way to put it. It is typically released the first or second week of February, and that process is underway. I think one note about the budget, before we look forward too much to next year's budget, is to celebrate what happened in this year's budgeting process, in which we had an actual freeze on non-defense and non-homeland security spending, and we also had some significant reductions in growth in entitlement spending for the first time since 1997, which are both key to helping cut the deficit in half by 2009, as long as they are coupled with strong economic growth.
So one of the key principles in next year's budget will be to fund our key priorities like winning the war, and domestic priorities like education and health care, but also continuing to keep the budget on a path that will result in cutting the deficit by 2009.
We maintained spending levels for the organization that fucked up Iraq, operated secret torture prisons and spied on American citizens. We maintained spending levels for the organization that colossally fucked up the government response to Katrina, that bungled the evacuation, that is even now trying to kick the victims while they're down. We also are aiming to jack up tax breaks for rich investors.
On the flip-side, we attacked spending for old people in nursing homes, for kids of divorced parents receiving child support, for kids in Head Start, for poor people on Food Stamps and subsidized housing. So that gives you all an idea of the budgetary priorities of this administration.
Trent, to follow up on that. Has the President issued any marching orders about reducing the budget for fiscal '07 to, say, below the rate of inflation in some areas? Any kind of marching orders at all?
I think the marching orders are what I just described, which are fund our nation's priorities, win the war on terror, keep the economy strong, keep job creation growing, fund education and health care, and those important priorities; but in other areas, slow the growth so that we can continue to stay on the path to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
Let's not overlook the fact that an important part of cutting the deficit is strong economic growth, and the strong economic growth that we've seen in 2005 has led to increased revenues in the treasury, some $100 billion just this year alone. So it's those two priorities of keeping spending in check while also keeping a strong economy that are going to bring us toward our deficit reduction goals.
It's like this... we cut $40 billion in programs for the poor. We're spending $70 billion on tax cuts for the rich. But the result won't be a net deficit of $30 billion dollars... as long as this guy:
can really get the economy going great. So, in summary: we're all fucked.