[snugs]

QUOTE OF THE DAY
President Bush's Statement on North Korea Nuclear Test
Diplomatic Reception Room

THE PRESIDENT: Last night the government of North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had conducted a nuclear test. We're working to confirm North Korea's claim. Nonetheless, such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The United States condemns this provocative act. Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond.

This was confirmed this morning in conversations I had with leaders of China, and South Korea, Russia, and Japan. We reaffirmed our commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and all of us agreed that the proclaimed actions taken by North Korea are unacceptable and deserve an immediate response by the United Nations Security Council.

The North Korean regime remains one of the world's leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action.

The United States remains committed to diplomacy, and we will continue to protect ourselves and our interests. I reaffirmed to our allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan, that the United States will meet the full range of our deterrent and security commitments.

Threats will not lead to a brighter future for the North Korean people, nor weaken the resolve of the United States and our allies to achieve the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Today's claim by North Korea serves only to raise tensions, while depriving the North Korean people of the increased prosperity and better relations with the world offered by the implementation of the joint statement of the six-party talks. The oppressed and impoverished people of North Korea deserve that brighter future.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

President George W. Bush speaks with Chinese President Hu Jintao from the Oval Office, Monday, Oct. 9, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

[MamaB]

Hi.

[snugs]

Dose going up please wait for all clear before posting or reposting any photos or graphics

[snugs]

Weekend

Saturday 7th

President George W. Bush carries his sister Doro Bush Koch's book "My Father, My President: A Personal Account of the Life of George H. W. Bush" as he walks to presidential helicopter Marine One at the White House in Washington

President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush stand for the National Anthem during the Christening Ceremony of the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in Newport News, Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

President George W. Bush delivers remarks during the Christening Ceremony of the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in Newport News, Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

[PajamaTruthMafia]

"It was a dud? Really?"

[snugs]

President Bush listens to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as he makes remarks at the christening ceremony of the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush carrier in Newport News, Va., Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006

Former President George H. W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush react during remarks by President George W. Bush during the Christening Ceremony for the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in Newport News, Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

President George W. Bush hugs his father, Former President George H. W. Bush, after delivering remarks at the Christening Ceremony for the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in Newport News, Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

[NordP]

top ten?

[snugs]

President George W. Bush joins his father, Former President George H. W. Bush and Northrop Grumman President Mike Petters, as his sister Doro Bush Koch breaks the bottle to christen the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in Newport News, Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

President George W. Bush, father President George H. W. Bush and brother Florida Governor Jeb Bush depart at the conclusion of the Christening Ceremony for the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in Newport News, Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

[snugs]

Saturday 8th

President George W. Bush (R) walks with First Lady Laura Bush to attend Sunday morning services in Washington, DC

[Kaslin]

10?

[GretchenM]

Thanks for another edition, Eleanor.

[snugs]

President George W. Bush (C) bids farewell to Rev. Luis Leon (R) after attending a Sunday morning service at St. John's Church in Washington October 8, 2006

President Bush waves to the media as he departs St. John's Church near the White House on Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006

[Just A Nobody]

Hi snugs! Thanks for the Dose!

[what's up]

I would like to see more pics of Doro.

Caught here on LKL with her Dad the other night.

[Chuck54]

Thanks Snugs. Hope you, your Dad, and the new "cooker" are all doing well. :)

Very interesting and dangerous times we live in. Wish you had a district over here to vote.

:)

[luvie]

The concern he has for the duplicity and stupidity of the North Koreans is so apparent on our President's face! Also, the translator must speak in a loud voice...he is having to hold the phone away from his ear.

It's a good picture....as they all are! Thanks, Snugs!

[DrDeb]

MORE FROM THE CHRISTENING CEREMONY:

NEWS AND NOTES FROM THE CHRISTENING
October 8, 2006

John Cole, 73, was in town from Swindon, England, to visit friends Sandra and Tom Madren of Tappahannock. "I'm here on holiday, and I couldn't resist the temptation to see your president," Cole said with a laugh. "This was a bonus - a wet bonus."

He added, "I think he's a good president."

. . . WORTH THE EFFORT

"It was worth coming out to see the entire Bush family," said Song Vick, 44, who came to the christening with her husband, an engineer at Northrop Grumman, and two children. "The speeches were excellent."

Six-year-old Becky and 8-year-old Matt said their favorite part was the smashing of the bottle. Matt said he also liked seeing the president because, well, "He's the president of the United States!"

. . . LANGLEY VOLUNTEER HONORED

For his roughly three-hour visit to the Peninsula, President Bush flew into and out of Langley Air Force Base - and handed an award to an airman's wife there.

Air Force One landed at Langley about 8:50 a.m. Saturday. Bush then spent about one minute with Leah Hunkins, who received the President's Volunteer Service Award.

"He said, 'Thank you,' for my service. 'Thank you for volunteering,' " Hunkins said. "I'm not sure how it's going to be topped, to be honest with you."

Hunkins netted the honor for her volunteer work with several military programs, including one - "Heart Link" - that supports new Air Force spouses.
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-47692sy0oct08,0,3505136.story?page=2&coll=dp-widget-news


OFFICIAL CHRISTENING WEBSITE:
[To view the video, click on the link entitled "Christening of the George H. W. Bush CVN 77 Aircraft Carrier"]
http://tvworldwide.com/events/Northrop%5FGrumman/061007/default.cfm?id=7463&type=wmhigh



MUST READS . . .

THE SIXTH YEAR SLUMP
[. . . some much needed historical perspective!]
Bush may be down, but don't count him out.
by Noemie Emery

. . . Since 1933, eight different men have served more than one term in office, and all had some measure of grief . . .

RONALD REAGAN
In his second term, that film star also seemed the consummate fumbler, having started his presidency off in the time-honored fashion by shooting himself in both feet. He accepted the ill-advised job switch of Treasury Secretary Don Regan for the more gifted James Baker, his first term chief of staff, ending up with a chief of staff who was both crude and arrogant. A trip to honor the "boys of Pointe du Hoc" on the 40th anniversary of D-Day stood out as one of the high points of his first term; a second-term trip to a German war cemetery was a disaster, when it turned out that senior SS officers were buried there. His chief message guru was convicted of perjury. He took a bath in the 1986 midterms, losing the Senate to Demo crats. But nothing would harm him as much as the Iran-contra scandal, which reads now like an opera bouffe production, but was considered so serious when it broke just after the '86 elections that the word "impeachment" was uttered.

In their book Landslide, published in 1988, Jane Mayer, now of the New Yorker, and Doyle McManus, then and now of the Los Angeles Times, would devote 393 pages to the claim that Iran-contra had destroyed Reagan's career and his legacy, revealing him as the doddering fool and the cipher they had always known him to be. The curtain was down, they maintained, in a flurry of theatrical metaphors; the show was over, the makeup was off. "Reagan could still walk through the practiced motions of his office, but the performance would never be as convincing. It was as if the houselights had come on too early, the artifice laid bare." At the same time, his Latin American policy had unraveled: In Nicaragua, the contras' guerrilla army had begun to disintegrate, as the Sandinistas prepared for the inevitable victory. Reagan's summit in Moscow in the summer was portrayed as a failure, in which he surrendered his most cherished principles. He had lost everything, including his power to talk to the country. Clearly, the whole jig was up.

Mayer and McManus were hardly alone. In a collection of essays called The Reagan Legacy, also published in 1988, David Ignatius of the Washington Post would call Reagan a failure, a sheep in wolf's clothing, a Rambo afraid of the dark. "During the Reagan years, America often displayed a reality of weakness," he argued. "The rhetorical assertion that 'America is back' was accompanied in practice by an actual foreign policy that was often vacillating, ill-planned, and poorly executed. . . . The military build-up of Reagan's first term was immensely costly, poorly managed, and added only marginally to America's military readiness." His speeches were unduly bellicose; his diplomacy, when he used it at all, was lacking in nuance, and made Carter look masterful. "Foreign policy during the Reagan years was largely a holding action. . . . Because he concentrated so much on image . . . Reagan leaves behind an array of unresolved substantive problems." Ground was lost most in the Cold War, vis-à-vis a revitalized Soviet Union, in which a dynamic Mikhail Gorbachev was poised to run rings around the "stodgy" American leadership. The biggest chore facing Reagan's successor would be to "find a stable relationship with the new Soviet leadership," no easy chore in view of the harm done by Reagan's malfeasance and the "skillful and potentially dangerous" nature of the resourceful and wily foe.

With this sorry record, it was really no wonder Reagan was also politically spent. "As a commanding political force, Ronald Reagan was unmade," said McManus and Mayer. "When GOP voters were asked if they would vote for Reagan again, only 40 percent said yes." Polls taken that spring showed that most voters wanted the next president to "set the nation on a new direction"--a "blunt rejection" of Reagan's agenda, and surely of Reagan himself. Yet in November 1988, Reagan's vice president beat Democrat Michael Dukakis by a seven-point margin. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, taking with it the Communist empire. In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the formidable Gorbachev was a frightened man in captivity. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas lost in a free election to a center-right party, and El Salvador stabilized. When Reagan died in 2004, he would be eulogized as the liberator of Eastern Europe and Central America, and one of the most important leaders this country has seen.

You can read the entire article at
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/794zveoi.asp?pg=2


SECURE FENCE ACT HAS SECURE SUPPORT

Yesterday I analyzed the possibility that the lack of a presidential signature on the Secure Fence Act (HR 6061) might be an attempt at a pocket veto. President Bush has never given very enthusiastic support to any border solution that didn't include a plan for normalization for illegal immigrants already inside the US. Mickey Kaus started counting the days since Congress passed the bill and wondered whether the White House had decided to simply ignore the bill to death.

I took a few minutes at my lunch break to contact a senior staffer on the Hill who has worked the immigration issue. He told me that, as some CQ commenters had speculated, Congress has not formally sent the bill to the President. That means the clock has not started for his signature. The 10-day period starts only after Congress formally prints and delivers the bill for the President to sign into law.

You can read the entire post at
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/


POLLS, SCHMOLLS . . .

In full RAT campaign mode, the MSM and their pollsters are manufacturing polling data at a rapid clip for one purpose: To suppress Republican turnout! AFTER 2000, 2002, and 2004, we should all know better -- NAME THE GAME AND IGNORE THE POLLS!

GALLUP'S BOGUS POLL: Just remember October of 2004 when Gallup gave us all a severe case of polling whiplash!!

10/10/06 48% Bush 50% Kerry (-2)
10/16/06 52% Bush 44% Kerry (+8)
[--a 10 point swing in 6 days . . . NOT!]
10/31/06 49% Bush 47% Kerry (+2)
[--staring at this data, Gallup then proclaimed that the undecideds would break overwhelmingly for Kerry and predicted a KERRY VICTORY! . . . Gallup's state polling was even worse!]
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04gen2.htm

Ignore the polls and remember the following:

VOTERS LIKE PRESIDENT BUSH
Despite bogus MSM polls to the contrary (ESPECIALLY Newsweek and CBSNews), the new Battleground Poll has confirmed AGAIN that American VOTERS approve of GWB as a person . . . And this has and will continue to make ALL the difference relative to the President's ability to govern (as I indicated in 2004)!

BATTLEGROUND POLL:

JOB APPROVAL
45% approve
52% disapprve

LIKABILITY/PERSONAL APPROVAL
"Whether you approve of the way George W Bush is handling his job as President, what is your impression of George W Bush as a person? Do you approve or disapprove of him?"

61% approve (41% strongly)
32% disapprove (25% strongly)
http://www.tarrance.com/10862Q.pdf

It's this PERSONAL approval of the President that explains why the number of protesters at his events are ALWAYS dwarfed by the number of his supporters (whether the MSM choses to report this or not) and why anti-Bush/anti-war/anti-American 'mass' protests like those planned this weekend ALWAYS fizzle!!!

BOTTOM LINE: Ignore the MSM polls -- they're actively attempting both to advance Democrat talking points and suppress Republican turnout. Instead, volunteer for GOTV efforts and REMEMBER: The majority of the voters in this country like our president ALMOST as much as we do!

[Unfortunately, some in our party are NOT as enthusiastic about their reps and senators as they are about the President -- November will be tough and we will lose some seats . . . We just need to make sure our losses are minimal!!!]