Bush Insults BBC Political Editor at Press Conference:
At a recent press conference at Camp David, President George Bush insulted BBC political editor Nick Robinson, the Daily Mirror reports.Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld is still alive, and still pedaling shit:
Robinson, who has asked Bush pointed questions in the past such as whetherthe president was “in denial” over the Iraq war, posed a question to Bush about whether he could trust visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown not to “cut and run” from Iraq.
Bush replied with a dismissal: “Are you still hanging around?”
Later on, Bush poked fun at the bare-pate of Robinson, joking, “You’d better cover up your bald head, it’s getting hot out.”
The respected British reporter shot back, “I didn’t know you cared.”
Bush responded with a cool, “I don’t.” The Mirror reports that Bush then “snorted disdainfully” and “walked away to laughter.”
"I know that I would not engage in a cover-up," Rumsfeld told the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee.The failure to prevent 9/11 was just an "error". Fabricated intelligence on Saddam's WMDs was just an "error". One million Iraqi deaths are just an "error".
"I know that no one in the White House suggested such a thing to me. I know that the gentlemen sitting next to me are men of enormous integrity and would not participate in something like that," he said referring to retired former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers and other generals.
"Of course, there's a difference between error and cover-up," Rumsfeld said.
Hey! How's that surge going, George? Not too good, according to Juan Cole:
2007 saw the deadliest July for US troops since the Iraq War began. It also saw a 23% rise in Iraqi deaths over June. July is like a blast furnace in Iraq, with temperatures approaching 120 degrees F. in the shade. Guerrillas typically lie low in this unfavorable environment, compared to other seasons, and so the casualty rates go down. Instead, this year the killing season has gone on as if it were spring.
Number of US troops killed in Iraq, July, 2007: 78
Number of US troops killed in Iraq, July, 2006: 43.
Not only were the US deaths unprecedentedly high in July, the March through June death statistics were also very high.
And, June saw the highest number of over-all attacks since the war began.
AP adds: "Iraqi deaths rose, with at least 2,024 civilians, government officials and security forces killed in July, about 23 percent more than the 1,640 who died violently in June, according to Associated Press figures compiled from police reports nationwide."
Pentagon spokesmen are attempting to portray this near doubling of July troop deaths as a sign of improvement on the security side, counting from June rather than looking at past July figures-- and I fear some corporate media are falling for it.
