Drudge says * is headed to the Olympics.

Just like Hitler. He also wants to watch the Iraq soccer team. The Iraq soccer players are such strong supporters of *, who can blame him for wanting to bask in their glory.

<sarcasm off>

http://www.drudgereport.com/

Members of the Iraqi soccer team have already stated that they didn't like being used in Bush's campaign ad.

I'd love to see him humiliated in front of tons of people from around the world. Sweet indeed!

except the one in Moscow in 1980 following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Sydney 2000 when Bill Clinton sent Chelsea.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1020605/front_page.htm

Clinton sent Tipper Gore to Nagano in 1998, and daddy Bush sent Arnold Schwarzenegger to Barcelona in 1992.

http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/VP_Wife/trips/column1.html

him.

Unless, of course, he's just there for 2 hours, the soccer game is held in an airport hanger and there's a fake turkey involved.

Where will the "Mission Accomplished...this time it's for real!" banner be?

I almost had a "pretzel" incident, only with a Goldfish! :D

till the games are over!

and they know the Boy King delivers!

on the inside of his jacket.


:puke:

There is no way he'll go anywhere that they don't control. The cult of infallibility won't allow for the possibility for Bush to be publicly booed.

The American ATHLETES received a warm welcome. But the Euros HATE Bush even more than we do.

Oh please oh please oh please oh please make him do that!!!!!

The Iraqi soccer team has already expressed in no uncertain terms what they think of the leader of the free world. Unless they've had these atheletes' wives and kids thrown in Abu Ghraib and are threating to let Charles Grainer and Lyndie England have their way with them, I can't see them letting Shrub anywhere near these guys.

Glory days well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days*

-----

President Bush to Olympic Athletes: "Let's Roll"
President Speaks to Olympic Athletes
HPER Complex
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah

>snip<
And as you know, they brought with them one of the flags that flew in front of the World Trade Center on September the 11th, which will be carried into the Olympic Stadium today. This flag serves as a symbol of this nation's strength, of our resolve, of our determination to fight for freedom. These Games come at a perfect time for the country. In our time of sadness and determination and resolve, our Olympic athletes will represent the best of America. I can't wait for Americans to see our flag fly. It is such a proud moment for all of us. This nation is steadfast and unified and you, the athletes, are going to represent us with such class and dignity and courage.

It's a chance for the world to see that in times of war, we can come together in friendly competition to promote the peace. So not only you represent the greatest nation on the face of the earth, you represent a spirit that is much bigger than evil and terror: you represent peace.

A lot of people are going to be watching you, particularly a lot of kids. You'll become heroes overnight. That's an awesome responsibility. I know you'll handle it with grace. I know you'll set the best example possible.

And so we're here to wish you all the best, to congratulate you. Let's roll. God bless. (Applause.)
END 5:13 P.M. MST
>transcript:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020209.html

-----

Saturday, 9 February, 2002, 10:18 GMT
America welcomes Olympic Games

The 19th Winter Olympics has officially opened in Salt Lake City.
President George W Bush declared the Games open at an emotionally-charged ceremony, which was a mixture of the poignant and the patriotic.

President Bush, who was given a rapturous welcome, walked out into the arena at the start of the ceremony.

Eight US athletes followed him into the Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium, with the tattered American flag that had been recovered from the rubble of New York's World Trade Center.
BBC Sports News

-----


President George W. Bush waves to the crowd as he walks across the ice during the opening ceremonies for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, Feb. 8. White House photo by Eric Draper.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/images/20020208-7.html

-----

Axis of Weasels

By Barry Crimmins

>snip<
It was a friendly and warm story. The prez sat down next to a young skater and took time to chitchat with her mother on a cell phone. It would have been nice if we all could have listened. Considering her mother's immigrant status, maybe Kaiser Ashcroft or Fatherland Security Chief Rigid will release tapes of the impromptu moment.

Cohen, already a very recognizable member of the high profile US figure skating squad, immediately graduated to media darling status. The story of her encounter with Dubyahoo burnt up the newswires. Video of the cell phone chat bounced off satellites and into homes all over the world.

The next day a breathless Cohen was taken to do an interview with NBC's Bob Costas. This was when the most indelible moment of the Salt Lake Games occurred. After recounting those parts of the story we had already heard too many times, Cohen added a detail for NBC that had escaped earlier coverage.

She told Costas that she had asked the president if he planned to stay and watch any of the athletic events. Bush said he couldn't because "I have a war to fight."
Axis of Weasels commentary

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Why Did Bush Sit Next To Sasha Cohen At The Olympics? Just Ask "Where's the Beef"?

February 26, 2002

By BuzzFlash Reader Alan Balch

On the afternoon of Friday, February 8th, George W. Bush spoke at the National Cattlemen's Beef Associations annual meeting in Denver. "We want the people in China eating U.S. beef" the President stated to thunderous approval. He reminded them that he has done much for the beef industry and cattle ranchers, and that he plans to do more (see http://199.117.58.133/newsroom/ncba/2002/02_0208a.htm).

No doubt, Bush's appearance at this event netted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for the GOP. In each of the last three election cycles, the National Cattleman's Beef Association gave nearly a half a million dollars in political contributions, for a six-year total of nearly $1.3 million. Roughly 85% percent of these donations in each of the last three election cycles have gone to Republicans.

Later that same day, Bush traveled to Utah and participated in the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. After appearing in the national anthem ceremony, Bush showed up sitting in the stands amongst the US athletes. NBC showed him humbly perched next to a shocked and giggly young lady who handed Bush her cell phone so he could say hi to her mommy. The young girl was figure skater Sasha Cohen. A few nights later, NBC interviewed Sasha and played up the Presidential encounter including a quick interview with the mother. Sasha gushed about her fondness for the President. While endearing, NBC's somewhat over the top coverage of the entire event and Sasha's almost too glowing endorsement of the President prompted the eternal political cynic in me to do a little digging.

Of the 211 members of the US Olympic squad, guess which one has the unique distinction of being the official youth spokesperson for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association? A shiny new donkey for anyone who answered Sasha Cohen.
>full article:
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/2002/02/022602_Cohen_Beef.html

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Olympic Victories For Beef

Millions of dollars in free publicity. That's what the U.S. beef industry received during NBC's internationally televised coverage of the winter Olympics' opening ceremony.

For one, Sasha Cohen, the teenaged Olympic figure skater and beef spokesperson, drew extended camera time as she watched the festivities with President George W. Bush.

In addition, the song “Rodeo” — the theme music for the checkoff-funded “Beef. It's what's for dinner” promotion campaign — was played to open the festivities. Upon hearing it, NBC anchor Katie Couric observed: “That's the beef music!”
http://beef-mag.com/mag/beef_convention_highlights/

-----

Dubya's Dayly Diary
Madeline Begun Kane
Dubya's White House Daze -- Week 56

Feb. 11, 2002

>snip<
While I was out in Salt Lake I met that cute Sasha Cohen, who supposedly skates real good. I don't know bout that. But like I told her mother on the phone, that's one well behaved little girl. Maybe we shoulda given the twins skatin lessons.

I wanted ta keep hidin out in Jackson Hole on accounta this week's campaign finance reform vote. Cause the Shays bill is givin Hastert a hissy fit, & he's takin it out on me. But like I keep tellin him, though I'd really like ta help, he's mostly on his own. Cause my twistin arm's been Enronized.

And there's more bad news -- the FBI didn't get Johnny Walker Lindh's confession in writin. If that screwup gets him off, I'm gonna be real steamed. But Poppy says don't worry, cause no juror'll feel sorry fer that poor, misguided Marin County hot tubber.

I sure hope he's right. But just in case he isn't, I'm keepin my spankin new cowboy hat handy. Cause modelin that $2500 gift from the Beef Association is a surefire way ta cheer myself up.
http://www.madkane.com/bushweek56.html

-----
http://www.redangus1.org/newredsite/themagazine/march02/BUSH,%20GW.GIF
>snip<
At that point, Lynn introduced President George W. Bush, and as the President made his way to the microphone, he placed on his head a cowboy hat that had been custom made for him. "I really appreciate my new hat. I'm looking forward to wearing it in Crawford," said the President. The entire crowd came to their feet, removed their cowboy hats and spent the next several minutes applauding and cheering for President Bush.

"Cattle raising is not only a big part of America's past, I view it as an incredibly important part of America's future. This nation's gotta eat. It's in our national security interest that we're able to feed ourselves,"
http://www.redangus1.org/newredsite/themagazine/march02/2002ncbaconv.html

-----

Glory days well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days*

-----

02/14/2002
Transcript: Bush Announces Climate Change, Clean Air Initiatives
(Plans aim to reduce greenhouse gases, and other pollutants) (3180)

>snip<
Today, I'm announcing a new environmental approach that will clean our skies, bring greater health to our citizens and encourage environmentally responsible development in America and around the world.

Particularly, it's an honor to address this topic at NOAA, whose research is providing us with the answers to critical questions about our environment. And so I want to thank Connie for his hospitality and I want to thank you for yours, as well. Connie said he felt kind of like Sasha Cohen -- I thought for a minute he was going to ask me to talk to his mother on his cell phone. (Laughter.)
>full transcript:
http://usinfo.org/wf-archive/2002/020214/epf416.htm

-----

July 05, 2002

Utah chambers join fight against Yucca
Salt Lake City Council also opposes plan
By Richard N. Velotta
<velotta@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN

Salt Lake City's chamber of commerce hopes a resolution unanimously approved by its influential board will convince Utah's two senators to vote against establishing a high-level nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

The 35-member board of governors directing the 100-year-old Salt Lake Chamber -- the largest business organization in Utah with more than 2,000 member firms -- approved a resolution opposing Yucca Mountain last week.
>snip<

Steve Erickson, director of the Citizens Education Project, a Utah environmental group, said the federal government "could just as easily screw Utah as they've screwed Nevada" on forcing nuclear waste to the state.
>snip<

Later this month, the Senate is expected to take up debate on Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of President Bush's order approving Yucca Mountain as the site for storing the waste. The House voted 306-117 to override the veto, but Nevada leaders think their best chance to stop the repository may be in the Senate.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/special/2002/jul/05/513674887.html

-----

>snip<
As President George Bush opened the Games "on behalf of a proud, determined and grateful nation," more than 50,000 Army and Air National Guard men and women were engaged at home and abroad in his war against terrorism.

Nearly 10 percent of that force, from 25 states as far away as Massachusetts and Florida, was committed to the Salt Lake City Games, helping to make it one of the most thoroughly protected areas in the world as part of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt’s $310 million security plan. He has vowed that the Salt Lake City Games will be safe, secure and successful.

There were more American military people on duty around Salt Lake City than there were in Afghanistan, remarked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Utah is supplying about a third of the National Guard force.

"Seventeen percent of the Utah National Guard has already been activated for the war against terrorism," said Lt. Col. Craig Morgan, the state’s Guard spokesman. "With the Olympics, more that 62 percent of our people are on duty."
>full report:
http://www.ngb.army.mil/news/story.asp?id=544

-----

We just sit around talking about the old times,
She says when she feels like crying
She starts laughing thinking about

Glory days well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days*

-----

Tour of duty grows 120 days for SLC-based unit

By Dawn House
The Salt Lake Tribune

Nearly 170 Army Reserve soldiers from the Salt Lake City-based 419th Transportation Company have had their tour of duty extended for up to 120 additional days in the Middle East, Army officials confirmed Friday.
The company, deployed in February 2003, has been in Kuwait and Iraq for the past year. The 419th soldiers had turned in their equipment to other units arriving in the region and were preparing to return home this Sunday when they were issued a troop "stop movement" order.
On Friday, officials from the 96th Army Regional Readiness Command announced that orders for the 419th have been extended.
The Army Reserve soldiers are the second group from Utah ordered to remain in Iraq and Kuwait, breaking a pledge from the Pentagon this summer that all GIs would serve no longer than 12 months in the war zone. Earlier this week, 450 soldiers in the Utah National Guard's 1457th Battalion also were ordered to remain in the region.
>snip<

Sharon Blackburn, West Jordan, said the troop extension has disheartened her son, who is serving with the 419th.
"How long will their families, their jobs and their lives have to wait?" asked Blackburn. "Our government is asking more than these soldiers are capable of doing. They are being abused."
Salt Lake Tribune cached article

-----

OUCH! #93 -- February 15, 2002
CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS GO FOR GOLD

The new three-and-a-half mile road connecting Utah Highway 167 to Snowbasin Ski Resort, venue for the 2002 Olympics' downhill and Super-G skiing events, looks ordinary enough, even if the scenery it winds through is extraordinary. The two-lane road clings to the side of snow-drenched foothills, rolling like ocean waves in every direction, while serrated peaks loom in the distance. This used to be the domain of intrepid backcountry skiers; now tens of thousands of fans, lucky enough to afford at least $45 apiece for tickets to these iconic Olympic skiing events, are being shuttled up and down the road.

Few of the American fans in the Gore-Tex-clad, cowbell-ringing crowds probably know that as taxpayers, they have paid $15 million to build this new access road that Snowbasin's billionaire owner, Earl Holding, had once pledged to pay for himself; that the road had been exempted from basic environmental reviews; that in addition, Holding had secured 1,320 acres of the land near the resort for real estate development in a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service; and that Utah's congressional delegation, recipients of Holding's campaign contributions, ensured that all this came to pass with special riders tucked neatly into massive spending bills and other complex legislation, where nobody would pay much attention. Nor do they know that Holding and the politicians who championed his concerns wrapped their advocacy nicely in the Olympic flag, arguing that the land swap and road were necessary for the Games' success--even though most of the building on the land he acquired is years away from completion.

Holding's private empire includes Sinclair Oil, Little America (a hotel chain), and Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho, in addition to Snowbasin. He, his family, and executives for his companies have been generous to Utah's state politicians and congressional delegation. They gave $30,000 in 1993 to Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch for the legal defense fund he set up to defend himself in the BCCI banking scandal. Two years later, Hatch introduced legislation for the land swap. Utah governor Mike Leavitt received $20,000, and a trip on Holding's jet to Budapest in 1995 to announce the selection of Salt Lake City as the site of the Olympic Games.

While Holding may be the poster child for how to turn the Olympic games to personal gain, he is hardly the only campaign contributor to benefit. After Salt Lake City won the contract for the Winter Olympics, the Utah congressional delegation lobbied Washington hard for massive amounts of public funding to help pay for roads, buses, parking lots, sewers, tree planting, and so on-much of the costs for putting on the games. They were hugely successful. The price tag for taxpayers for the 2002 Olympics is some $1.5 billion, according to a special report in Sports Illustrated by award-winning investigative reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. That's one-and-a-half-times more than the amount spent by the government on all seven Olympics games in the U.S. since 1904, combined, even after adjusting for inflation. And private beneficiaries reap much of the benefit from increased tourism and Olympic contracts.
>full article:
http://www.publicampaign.org/publications/ouch-cpi/081-100/ouch093.htm

-----

Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
A little of the glory of, well time slips away
And leaves you with nothing mister but
Boring stories of glory days*

Glory Days - Bruce Springsteen
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bruce-springsteen/25324.html

How Queasey and Ewww-day always tortured the team if they lost.

I can't blame the team for liking * except they don't realize that * did not invade the country so they can go lose and go back without having to kick a concrete soccer ball as one form of punishment. :eyes:

try to get everybody in the stands sign loyalty oaths - ha!!! hope his insurance is up to date - as if.......

spits in his face. I know, I know! They would never be allowed to get that close to boy king, but it's a nice thought. I would LOVE to see his ass HUMILIATED! I hate that SOB.

But he did say he is not the pResident's travel agent.

I don't think he's going.

I'd really love to see Bush go to the olympics. It would be hilarious. Oh yes..he should go. Please do President Bush..show the world how much you're loved. :puke:

Welcome to DU!! :toast: