If that's not enough to get your dander up, how about this exchange at a recent whitehouse press briefing:
Helen.
Q Is the President still going to veto anything from the Hill that sets a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, despite the belief of the public that we should pull out?
MS. PERINO: I think that -- let me try to unpack that. The President has said that if the Democrats decide to insist on sending him a bill that includes a deadline for withdrawal, that he will veto the bill. And I understand that there are many people who are in this country that are frustrated with the war. I do think that you have to be a little bit careful in blanketing everybody that they want to pull out quickly from Iraq and with an arbitrary deadline or a rash decision, and leave that vacuum that we believe is going to be left there, if we leave that quickly.
Q Well, if the majority of people really wanted to pull out, would the President pull out? And what kind of a statistic do you have that they don't want to?
MS. PERINO: As the President has said many times before, he does not make decisions based on polls. He understands as Commander --
Q Did he make decisions based on what the American people want?
MS. PERINO: He makes decisions based as the elected President of the United States and the Commander-in-Chief and his main priority is the protection of the American people, and that's what he --
Q How do you protect the soldiers who are over there dying every day?
MS. PERINO: That is the President's gravest concern, and he talks to the commanders on the ground to make sure that they are protected and that they are doing their jobs. He understands that he has asked them to do a very, very difficult mission. It's very dangerous in Baghdad. We do have a new Baghdad security plan that's underway, being led by General David Petraeus, who is up on the Hill today providing an update to the Congress on the status of that Baghdad security plan.
Q But a hundred people are dying in Iraq every day.
MS. PERINO: It's a very tragic situation. I don't know if that number is accurate, but obviously it's not only our troops that are dying, but very many -- too great of numbers of innocent men, women, and children in Iraq, as well.
1 comment:
Call me irresponsible
MS. PERINO: Well, look, the President has said that we are going to be facing very real dangers about the possibility of more servicemen from -- men and women from the United States facing possible death or injury because of our new Baghdad security plan, and he understood that.
General Petraeus's plan is to trade dead Americans for live Iraqis. He is moving troops out of their fortified bases and into the community. He expects that more will be killed that way, but security for the local population is the #1 Geneva responsibility of an invading army.
Four years too late.
Clearing brush in Crawford
MS. PERINO: I just know what this President will do, and he will protect the American people and fulfill the mission to the troops.
MS. PERINO: These are all issues [education, energy, immigration, 'a nation of laws'] that the President is focused on, as well -- not to mention protecting the American citizens from terrorists who are a very real threat.
Four years too late.
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