The inaugural Warrior Open golf tournament, presented by the George W. Bush Presidential Center, was held at Las Colinas Country Club Oct.10-11, 2011. Photo by Eric Draper

President Bush talks with warrior Dale Beatty and his son Lucas, who was also his caddy, during the practice round of the Warrior Open, Sunday, October 9, 2011. Photo by Grant Miller.

President Bush played a few holes during the practice round with warrior Dan Nevins on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011. Photo by Eric Draper — at Las Colinas Country Club.

President Bush will host the Warrior Open golf tournament in Dallas, Texas October 10-11. To learn more and to apply, visit http://warrioropen.com/. Photo by Grant Miller

President Bush and Dan Nevins walk to the next hole during the practice round of the Bush Center inaugural Warrior Open Golf Tournament, Las Colinas Country Club, Irving, Texas, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011. Photo by Eric Draper

President Bush celebrates a warrior's putt during the practice round of the inaugural Warrior Open Golf Tournament on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011. Photo by Eric Draper

HuffPo:

the former commander-in-chief tells The Associated Press there’s one aspect of his presidency he still misses: interaction with U.S. troops. And Bush, who sent them to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, says that despite his desire to remain largely out of the public eye, he wants to make sure veterans and military members know they still have his support.

“I was a little concerned that our veterans don’t think that I still respect them and care for them a lot,” Bush told the AP. He added later, “There’s nothing as courageous in my judgment as someone who had a leg blown off in combat overcoming the difficulties.”

Bush is hosting next week’s Warrior Open golf tournament in suburban Dallas, an event featuring members of the U.S. Armed Forces wounded while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, including those who lost limbs and suffered brain injuries. Bush joined more than a dozen wounded military members in the Warrior 100 – a 62-mile mountain bike ride he hosted in West Texas last spring.

These public appearances are the exception to the lifestyle Bush has led in his post-presidency.

After leaving office two years ago, Bush and former first lady Laura Bush bought a house in Dallas and started work on the George W. Bush Presidential Center, slated to open in 2013. He has attended select events relating to the center, as well as a ceremony with President Barack Obama marking the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But he has largely remained out of the public eye.

Bush said he doesn’t want veterans to mistake his private nature with a lack of appreciation for what they’ve done on the battlefield.

“They hadn’t seen me and they hadn’t seen me with the troops,” he said. “So therefore I am using mountain biking and golf to stay connected with the military, people who served during my presidency.”

Military members and veterans groups have generally held Bush in high regard, despite the nationwide protests and international controversy that grew more fervent as the American death toll grew in Afghanistan and Iraq under his command.

~~~

Bush, who since leaving office also has made appearances at events for organizations that benefit troops, said he gets inspiration from meeting members of the military who have overcome serious injuries. He said there’s not much he misses about the presidency, but added he does miss being commander-in-chief because he has “great respect for those men and women who wear the uniform.”

Brian “Ski” Donarski, 43, is among the veterans Bush has invited to the two-day golf tournament that starts Monday. The Army first lieutenant was seriously wounded when a mine blew up in Iraq in 2006 and spent 13 months rehabilitating from a traumatic brain injury, a fracture in his neck, bulged disks in his back and undergoing shoulder surgery.

Though Bush has spent most of the past couple of years out of the limelight, Donarski never doubted the former president’s commitment to the troops.

“I know he didn’t forget us,” he said.

David Hartley, police chief of the small southeast Texas town of Hempstead, also supports Bush, even after losing his 25-year-old son, Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Lee Hartley, in 2008 in Iraq. For the last two years, the chief has organized the Watermelon Run for the Fallen in Hempstead to raise money for organizations that help veterans and their families. Hartley, whose last run drew about 3,500 people, also said he’s never doubted the Republican president’s commitment to the troops.

“The man literally cares for our troops and I have the upmost respect for him,” Hartley said. “Everything he does, he does from his heart.”

Besides interacting with veterans and service members, Bush plans to stay involved in public policy through his already-active institute, which focuses on education reform, global health, human freedom and economic growth.

But, he makes clear, “I don’t miss the fame.” He said he and Laura are content with their life back in Texas, where he served as governor for six years before winning the presidency.

Ironically, that would be Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell. Say what you want about them, but they are consistent.

We live in a Bizarro world at the moment. Good is bad, down is up and night is day. The Obama zombie supporters voted for a candidate who was against rendition, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, black prisons and military tribunals and they have gotten the diametric opposite. They now applaud him and themselves, covered in the slime of their denials that all the infrastructure leading to the death of Osama Bin Laden was set in place by George W. Bush and that, from a foreign policy perspective, Barack Obama has become Barack Bush.

There is one sentence in this report that reall explains it all

For the past two years, American spies had been monitoring the courier, known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, after learning his name four years ago, according to US officials.

They learned his name four years ago, as in George W. Bush was President. They had to wait four years for him to make a mistake.

When al-Kuwaiti made a phone call in 2010, he unknowingly led the Americans to the doorstep of the world’s most wanted terrorist. He was said to have been among those killed alongside Osama bin Laden in yesterday’s dramatic raid.

And it was during the Bush Presidency that Al Kuwaiti’s value was learned:

The CIA gained crucial information confirming the role of al-Kuwaiti from two inmates at Guantanamo Bay – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi.

But at the moment virtually all liberals gush with adoration for Obama, with a couple of notable exceptions.

Michael Moore disapproves of the killing of Bin Laden:

Film director Michael Moore, in an exclusive interview Wednesday with The Wrap, said Osama bin Laden wasn’t killed, but executed. “Common sense tells you he was executed. That was the plan all along. Just tell us that and quit treating us like children,” Moore told The Wrap’s Brent Lang. “I have a lot of faith in Obama, but we’ve received three different stories in three days. We heard, ‘There was a firefight.’ ‘He used a woman as a shield.’ Now it turns out none of these things were true. He wasn’t armed.”

Moore says something was lost in the process of killing Bin Laden

“We’ve lost something of our soul here in this country…something that separates us from other parts, other countries where we say everybody has their day in court no matter how bad of a person, no matter what piece of scum they are, they have a right to a trial…after World War II, we just didn’t go in and put a bullet to the head of all the top Nazis. We put them on trial.”

And if you were against a trial for Bin Laden?

He said people who did not want a trial for Bin Laden were “saying that you hate being an American. You hate what we stand for, you hate what our constitution stands for. We stand for something different than that and we’re better than them.”

Hmm.

The other liberal worthy of your respect is Rosie O’Donnell. She was unhappy that Bin Laden did not get a trial.

Why is it, if people question whether or not filming Americans in the streets chanting ‘USA!’ and a lot of the coverage of the White House protesters [sic] seemed to be drunken fraternity boys, why this is in some way determined to make you un-American if you don’t support that. You can be happy for the death of the person because he no longer walks the Earth. That he quote-unquote ‘didn’t deserve to live.’

You can also be upset about the fact that he didn’t have due process, that he didn’t get tried, that he wasn’t brought to The Hague for war-crime tribunal [sic].

and

Many, many people, including now on the Twitter feed say, ‘Now, Rosie, it was illegal for them to fly planes into the Twin Towers.’ I’m fully aware of that. Because other people are capable of criminal acts on our soil doesn’t equate to ‘therefore, we are allowed to do criminal acts on their soil.’

America has always been the beacon of light and hope for the world, right? We’re supposed to be the leader in terms of our morality and our democracy and our fairness, right, so saying the reason that it’s all right for us to do that is ‘look what they did to us,’ well, that does not equate, because you don’t want to become what you loathe. Wasn’t the whole point of this is that we are not monsters?

I now have a grudging respect for these two in spite of how repulsive I otherwise find them. They, unlike virtually all other Obamatons, remain true to their core values.

Interesting to watch the changes coming in the middle east and to think….President Bush was behind much of this.

We have seen our vulnerability – and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny – prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder – violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
- President George W. Bush (Second Inaugural Address)

Egyptian President Mubarek’s days are numbered it appears, under strong pressure from the Egyptian people and the U.S. to make an orderly transition to democracy.

The Bush Doctrine….that doctrine which was his justification for toppling the Taliban and Saddam. It wasn’t enough to destroy al-Qaeda and the Iraqi WMD’s but to turn those countries into strong democracies so that they could be a beacon for the rest of the middle east.

President Bush (2003) –

“Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?”

Both Iraq and Afghanistan have had free elections and are on their way to democracy, albeit slowly and with a few bumps in the road….as our country had. But look towards Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen….

Can you tell me that President Bush’s doctrine didn’t play any part in moving towards this point? The same doctrine that was sneered at by the left as unrealistic and naive.

Rory Steele – 2004:

The fragile balance of race and religion, managed by rulers of Mesopotamia for centuries by repression, has been destroyed. The invaders did this in the name of democracy, a concept unaccepted to date in the Arab world and one that is totally unrealistic for Iraq.

Totally unrealistic that human beings would want to live free?

Well maybe it wasn’t until Obama gave his speech that the Middle East then decided that “hey…maybe freedom isn’t unrealistic!”

Yeaaaaah.

It is not just a happenstance that the last four letter in “Democrats” are “rats.”

At a recent new conference Claire McCaskill (D-MO) let us know what Democrats really believe. McCaskill is the loathesome scumqueen who spit on the earpiece she handed to Mitt Romney.

It wasn’t simply that she called for violence if tax cuts are not ended for those making more than $250,000 per year.

Amid the posturing and hard bargaining in Washington over extending tax cuts, McCaskill, D-Mo., said this afternoon that if Republicans sacrifice the middle class in order to protect the wealthy “it really is time for people in America to take up pitchforks.”

A Democrat calls for violence against lawmakers. Hmmm. It seems like only yesterday that Democrats were aghast at the possibility of violence against lawmakers.

Pelosi was careful to avoid blaming Republicans directly for inciting the harassment, though she said that words “weigh a ton.” Such threats of retaliation “have no place in a civil debate in our country,” she said.

It also seems like only a few days ago when a certain President issued his own threat of violence.

But, President Obama cut them off.

“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” the president told them.

And it seems like only a few days later when a certain President referred to some Americans as “enemies.”

This argument is wrong on a number of levels, not the least of which is who these tax increases really impact. Those in the $250-750,000 range are generally hard working employers. They are doing well but they put in many hours and have done so for a long time. They are the job creators. They are the employers. Tax increases will hit them hard and will not help job creation.

McCaskill referred to the really high level wealthy and inadvertently made a good point. There are some, like the Kerry’s and the Buffett’s and the Kohl’s and the Rockefeller’s whose money is largely untouchable. Sometimes I really want to punch Warren Buffett in the mouth. He says that really wealthy Americans should pay more in taxes.

‘But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.’

But Buffett doesn’t pay more. He is free to cut a larger check any time he wants to but he doesn’t do it.

Why? Why don’t these execrable creatures put their money where their mouths are? Why don’t the Kerry’s and the Kohl’s and the Rockefeller’s pay more when they can?

These hypocrites are the best and proper targets for your pitchforks.

To put it clearly, they suck.

But we still haven’t yet exposed the Democrat psyche. We need to get back to McCaskill. Take this in carefully.

“…they’re gonna pout if we don’t give more money to millionaires…”

“if we give more money…”

And there it is.

All your base are belong to us.

Democrats think it’s all their money. It’s not yours. When you go to work and earn money, you are earning their money. You are working for them. They own it all. It’s not yours.

But I have news for McCaskill.

Its not your money!

It’s our money!

This explains the mindset of Democrats who never seem to care that with each new law they pass they cause the creation of countless new agencies with more employees who add nothing to the economy. Those new employees will demand benefits and pensions and the costs of each agency will double each twenty years as people retire. But Democrats don’t care- they think it’s all their money. They think it’s their money they’re handing over to illegals with their DREAM act. The problem is, they’re DREAMING.

It’s my money, Claire. MINE.

Tell you what, though. If they extend the tax breaks, I’m going to get into the business of making pitchforks.

You have no chance to survive. Make your time.

President George W. Bush signs the $700 billion US financial bailout bill in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington Friday. (Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)

Most conservatives just slapped their heads and groaned in consternation over the above statement; and probably also wanted to slap silly the president they’ve otherwise supported and defended for the last nigh 8 years in office.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program was heavily criticized by many conservatives. In light of the stimulus spendings and expansion of government under the current PotUS, some Americans even forget that TARP was initiated under Bush and Paulson’s leadership, not Obama’s (although he did support it, as a U.S. senator).

2 years later, in handling the 2008 financial crisis in the twilight of his presidency, was Bush right?

When the bill was being voted upon 2 years ago, I nervously and unconfidently wrote this:

Republicans who stand opposed do so for ideological reasons: Let the free market run its course, and those who made bad decisions suffer the consequences of having made bad decisions. Democrats oppose the bill for ideological reasons as well, thinking this is a bail-out for Wall Street. Caught in the cross-fire of this mess, is all of the rest of us. If we simply stand aside and allow financial institutions to fail on free market principle, we will all suffer together for the mistakes of others.

“Today”:

Medved writes:

“Two years after it began, the controversial TARP program—the bailout of the financial system—concludes operations with much-better-than expected results. Most money invested in the rescue has been repaid, often with interest: of the $700 billion originally authorized, taxpayers remain on the hook for less than $66 billion, according to the Treasury Department.

This shows the Bush Bailout starkly contrasting with Obama’s Stimulus, which authorized $864 billion in spending, with no pay back. The stimulus permanently shifted money from private sector to government, while TARP temporarily transferred funds from public to private sector. TARP was also bipartisan: most Congressional Republicans supported it, while the stimulus drew united GOP opposition from 214 of 217 Republicans then in Congress.

Short term loans to save private businesses may be debatable but long-term explosions of spending to grow government are always disastrous.”

Latest bailout loss estimate: $29 billion.

Wall Street Bailout Returns 8.2% Profit Beating Treasury Bonds:

The U.S. government’s bailout of financial firms through the Troubled Asset Relief Program provided taxpayers with higher returns than yields paid on 30- year Treasury bonds — enough money to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission for the next two decades.

The government has earned $25.2 billion on its investment of $309 billion in banks and insurance companies, an 8.2 percent return over two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That beat U.S. Treasuries, high-yield savings accounts, money- market funds and certificates of deposit. Investing in the stock market or gold would have paid off better.

When the government first announced its intention to plow funds into the nation’s banks in October 2008 to resuscitate the financial system, many expected it to lose hundreds of billions of dollars. Two years later TARP’s bank and insurance investments have made money, and about two-thirds of the funds have been paid back.

This is a 2008 video I did to remember 9/11 and its aftermath effect.

A day after Gallup put out this bombshell:

Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP’s largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.

Comes this one:

We’ll start rolling out our Ohio poll results tomorrow but there’s one finding on the poll that pretty much sums it up: by a 50-42 margin voters there say they’d rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.

Independents hold that view by a 44-37 margin and there are more Democrats who would take Bush back (11%) than there are Republicans who think Obama’s preferable (3%.)

In case you don’t know that polling firm, its a pollster that includes KOS as one of their customers.

Allah linked to this piece from the liberal John Dickerson from Slate in which he, quite unsurprisingly, shoots daggers at President Bush for the typical reasons, but also points out that Obama has continued the same policies that President Bush put in place regarding Iraq, and handled the oil disaster as bad as Bush did with Katrina….meaning, not bad at all. It’s the limit of federal government that was to blame. Of course the liberals conveniently FORGOT that fact when Katrina happened, and gave Obama a pass when the oil spill occurred.

Hot Air:

The great knock on Bush, of course, was that he was so singularly incompetent that replacing him with anyone would necessarily mean a better economy and progress in the war. Replacing him with a global messiah, though? Big improvements in both areas. And yet, 18 months later, here we are facing a double-dip and ever-rising pessimism about Afghanistan. The “it’s all Bush’s fault” meme will be evergreen on the left, but the more trouble Obama has, the less singular Bush’s incompetence looks, which is bound to mean an uptick in Strange New Respect for Dubya.

President Bush was a man with conviction, values, and a true love for his country. He wanted this country to be strong. He wanted to protect this country. He never apologized for America. We now have in a office a man who lacks all those traits, doesn’t love this country unless it looks like a mediocre European Socialist “utopia,” and is a true empty suit. Bush lowered our taxes and helped strengthen our economy. Obama raised taxes and helped turn our economy into the dumpster it currently is. Bush could make fun of himself and understood his limitations. Obama is like an immature little brat who gets mad at the slightest insult.

The Anchoress:

One of my husband’s friends–hated Bush, loved Obama and defended him vociferously for the first year, less passionately the second–told him over lunch this week that he’s done with Obama and “I never thought I’d say this but I miss Bush. We knew that he said what he meant, even if we didn’t want to hear it. We knew who he was, even if we didn’t like him. And we never had to wonder whether he liked us. He always did.”

And that is it, in a nutshell. Bush is missable, because we miss having a president whose affection for his country and its people–even the ones who hated him–was never in doubt.

We miss Bush because he never lectured us or harangued us, and when people disagreed with him, they were not immediately called names in an attempt to simply shut up debate.

Is it there any surprise the “Miss Me Yet?” movement-is-growing?

More here.

Thank you troops and thank you President Bush

In yet another demonstration of what it means to be a class act, President Bush made a surprise trip to the USO at Dallas/Fort Worth airport to greet US troops who were returning home.

“What an AWESOME moment,” Robert Rowe wrote. “If anyone can’t see the President and First Lady’s love for our nations troops, they must be dead or blind. May God Bless them ALL !” Richard Cruz wrote: “The look on that kid’s face says it all….”

And Shirley Lovely Fry added: “A President and First Lady who love their country and their country’s military.”

The USO posted some of the pictures on their Facebook page.

Thank you President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush for taking the time to show the appreciation that you, and the rest of us, feel for our fine men and women in uniform.

Damn Bush!

Iraqi Women Break Barriers, Waitress at Coffee Shop

Believing in the right of women to change the character of Iraqi society, and with the decline of Islamist violence in the country, an Iraqi woman and journalist, Hind al-Bedairi, opened the first coffee shop in Baghdad with only female wait staff.

The coffee shop is open to families but also to single men, provided they maintain proper rules of etiquette. That means that if a man flirts with a waitress he is asked quietly to leave the coffee shop and not to return again.

Some clients have called the coffee shop “the empire of women.”

What was he thinking? The Middle East will never be free, never have Democracy. Women will always be subjugated to the medieval Arab thinking.

Right?