Why 'significant progress' sounds kind of familiar
Yesterday, speaking from the White House, the president boasted, “American and Iraqi forces have made significant progress” in Iraq. It got me thinking, haven’t we heard that phrase before in relation to Iraq?
* White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on October 27, 2003: “In the north and south [of Iraq], we have made significant progress.”
* President Bush on November 13, 2004: “Fighting together, our forces have made significant progress in the last several days.”
* President Bush on June 28, 2005: “In the past year, we have made significant progress.”
* Vice President Cheney on October 19, 2006: “[W]e’ve made significant progress.”
* President Bush on February 23, 2007: ” I think we have made significant progress in Iraq.”
Indeed, it’s a phrase the White House has used to describe events in Iraq several hundred times over the last five years. I can’t imagine why anyone would be skeptical about the claim now.


Primero?
We need "significant progress" in impeachment proceedings for this criminal asshat.
Oh...I'm sorry...such disrespect of the Prez.
I meant...MISTER Criminal Asshat.
"significant progress" is about as annoying as "make no mistake" just empty sound bites from an empty man.
Those who believe the administration's false claims of progress are the ultimate examples of truthiness. They ignore the unwanted realization in their mind of a truth they do not want to accept and instead prefer to believe with their gut the same lies repeated over and over because it is what they want to hear.
"significant" I do not think this word means what you think it means.
Bush would never say, "we've made insignificant progress."
I keep telling my wife that I've made "significant progress" putting our first million in the bank. She believes that just about as much as we all believe pResident Bunny Pants. (by the way Chris, if you read this...I have even less respect for Bushie than I have for either the Crock or Betrayus)
> 'American and Iraqi forces have
> made significant progress” in Iraq
--laugh-- Um, no, ya frothing insane Christian terrorist pile of treasonsous shit, you haven't. Your baby killers have not managed to seize control of Iraq's oil, and you mass murdering terrist shits never will. The Iraqi people kicked your terrorist ass good.
Not a good week to be at the mercy of America's floundering air travel program.
I caught only a few snippets of Warpig's speechifyin' yesterday. My gawd, it was like watching the same speech he's given for the past 5 f*cking years!
What a delusional mental midget.
O.T., Did anyone catch Hardball yesterday with Tweety, Buchanan, and Cilizza casually discussing how an October strike on Iran would serve both Dubya and McCain by rallying Americans against a perceived threat?
Why isn't anyone hitting the roof on this?
"Significant progress" like swimming against the incoming ocean tide. Liar liar pants on fire.
But the fundies will accept it if spoken w/sincerity and conviction.
liberalHUSSEINmoderation @ 3:
At least we're not turning the corner anymore. I was getting dizzy.
Wrong.
Listen closely, its:
Significant profits
Dr. Acula @ 10:
Hmmm...so we can drink a beer with and dwarf toss the same person!
If the progress in Iraq gets any more significant our country will go belly up.
How many significant progresses does it take to make success?
You would think that with all these significant progress reports we would have had this thing wrapped up by now.
earl @ 14:
Good point!
amilius @ 11:
Jeeeezus!!! I didn't catch that...what a bunch of assholes! WTF is wrong with these people....ah wait, I remember...they're tools of the xtianofascist cabal that is destroying this country.
America has not made any 'significant progress' on anything since the Bush administration began. But, significant progress will be made in January, 2009. Bye, bye, Bushie.
We've made significant progress "TAKING THE USA INTO A DITCH"
Meanwhile my ranch in Paraguay is waiting-where there is no extradition laws and
I won't face a war crimes trial.
kit wilson @ 21:
I'm sure the next prez will send some...associates to Paraguay to pay them a visit.
liberalHUSSEINmoderation @ 19:
Just wow.
Another Day Another War Crime.
Does that make him a Significant Progressive?
pissed off patricia @ 18:
Its the slurring ... its hard to tell these days.
kit wilson @ 21:
You'd better check who owns the land around you. Might find a lot of brush being cleared and if you're not careful you could end up with an "accidental" load of buckshot in your face.
I agree with Leslie from another thread...when I watch and listen to this serial killer, I want to destroy my television. I only own one and this murderer isn't worth it. I just can't take him and his babbling bullshit anymore.
My favorite part was when he said if Iran could learn to get along with its neighbor Iraq, then we could stop worrying about Iran, but if they kept basically "attacking" Iraq, we would have to move to protect our interests.
Is he talking about the same Iran whose president visited Iraq recently with the red carpet treatment, embraced by the Iraqi Prime Minister, cheered by throngs of citizens. Yeah, he better cut that shit out!
Wonder why he didn't pull out the old "stand up stand down" line again too?
That's right everyone knows the Iraqi army can't stand up on its own.
Sigh @ 28:
We can invade a country but Iran better not try to do the same thing. It's our country now and we make the rules. I mean how bizarre is that?
For more, see:
"'We're Making Progress' - Bush's History of Iraq."
"Haven't we heard that phrase before..." You can go back a lot further, to the mid 1960s, to hear people like McNamara and LBJ say virtually the same thing "we can see the light at the end of the tunnel" "we are this close to bringing democracy to the Vietnamese people", etc. It does not seem to matter if it is a Democrat or a Republican in office, as both parties will seemingly say anything in order to advance the cause of either the need of American imperialism and/or the need to control oil in the Middle East. Yet many liberals remain convinced that the [alleged] agent of hope and change is their best choice in 2008, despite the fact that he wishes to leave the roughly 160,000 civilian contractors in Iraq even after his phased [not immediate withdrawal] takes place and despite the fact that he also wishes to leave "some troops" in the region.
What he does not say is that the phrase some troops actually translates into 40,000 to 60,000 American troops remaining in places like Kuwait or Qatar, where they can be called back into Iraq, thus inflicting more death and destruction upon the Iraqi people. It should be obvious that Obama's proposal is not the best way to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. But apparently this does not cause too much of a concern for the agent of hope and change, as he would seem to believe that the "strategic interests" of the United States are more important than the needs and desires of the Iraqi people.
pissed off patricia @ 17:
We're very slow winners!
.
Significantly progressing nowhere!
.
I still hold aout a better chance for Vietnamization.
Sigh @ 28:
It's not as if Iran and Bush both support Maliki and the Badr Brigade, you know.
Leslie @ 33:
LOL
Yes, "my" President has made signicant progress: 1 Euro = .55 American cents. That means, Americans paying 900 Euros
for rent, must come up with 1395 dollars. That means 495 dollars out of the window.
Gallon of gasoline: $ 3.98. Lettuce head: 3.48 (I felt on ass today when I saw that!) Everything in the grocery store
went up 50 cents up. Liter of oil went from $3.75 to $8.50
The only thing that makes me feel a little bit better, is the fact that the Germans pay 9.75 dollars a gallon, but at least they have free health care, and I coverered under my wife. Life is a bitch, and Bush is an asshole! And the Americans...?
A herd of pussies!
Kinda funny is a dark way. Bush couldn't find oil in Texas and now he's invaded a country with a whole lot of oil and he still can't get his hands on it.
President Clinton has made a bunch of money from his speeches. Is there anyone who would pay bush an equal amount to hear him speak? People might pay him to shut the hell up, but that's about the best hope he has.
Teleken @ 29:
Like the Prez after tapping a keg.
"Significant progress" is still just another cheap political slogan used by the Bush Administration for its weekly or monthly war pep rallies and nothing more. Nothing has changed. They keep paying off and arming the Sunnis, gave the Shia the majority in the Government and pretty much let the Kurds do as they would if they were a seperate nation. The Bush Administration has achieved nothing of great importance.
Liberal AND Proud @ 2:
My first thoughts on the matter as well. How about Significant Progress towards getting this gang of criminals a vigorous trial at The Hague?
Now that would be significant progress worthy of the phrase!!
Next year, and for years after that, you will hear the VastRightWingNoiseMachine claiming "President Bush had the Middle East stabilized and on the verge of Democracy all around, but then the Democrats took over and screwed the whole thing up!!" Repeat in various formats and ad-waybeyond-nauseum.
Catapaulting the propaganda again.
pissed off patricia @ 39:
I'd pay a lot to hear hims say:
"Guilty, your Honor"
pissed off patricia @ 39:
You're talking about a man who couldn't find his ass with both hands.
You are probably not looking at the right place if you want to find the meaning of the words "significant progress" . As contardapedia would define it, the meanings is: "flailing helplessly in endless darkness with no direction home" . Hope that clears up the confusion.
pissed off patricia @ 39:
Aaaah...Bill Clinton...the man got the moves, the talk, the ladies and now the money.
No wonder the GOP hates him. Granted, they have the money part, but they never had to work for it.
pissed off patricia @ 39:
I'm thinking comedy specials. Especially improv. I'd pay good money to hear that man speak unprepared. Look how unintentionally funny he is with a hand up his ass.
Because you WANT to be skeptical, you would rather deny the hard earned gains the admit Bush and McCain was right!
Where is you from Chrissy? Didja finish hah skool?
We are making progresses in Iraq and it drives you guys crazy.. Can't you just be pro American for a few months?
chris @ 50:
Which hard earned gains? Leveled cities? Tens of thousands of innocents killed? Higher infant mortality? No electricity? Limited drinking water? Daily explosions in the streets?
Oh...I know...it's hard work...it takes time. Riiiight. This was is going on longer than the second world war. Oh geez...but that was just a skirmish. We only leveled all of Europe in that one.
GW's job is to stand in front of us and throw BS.
Of course it all gets re-cycled.
Like a D+ student BS-ing his way thru a class report he knows nothing about.
That is his only real skill in life - sounding convincing to other D+ students, of whom we have way too many in this fair land of ours.
chris (Real Chris) @ 52:
Look, being conscious and criticizing a quagmire that your beloved selected Presidunce got us into does not equate to being anti-American!
Think for YOURSELF and stop being such a fucking parrot. The surge has NOT accomplished what Georgie stated were its goals.
Tell me otherwise with some FACTS.
chris (Real Chris) @ 52:
No chrissy, what's making "us guys" crazy is we aren't making progress. A relatively small number of determined and fanatical individuals are playing whack-a-mole with idiot George. We hit them one place, kill and piss off the local innocents (creating more terrorists), the bad guys run away and pop up some place else.
Chrissy, repeat after me......No one in the history of mankind has ever defeated this sort of enemy using conventional military tactics. Based on the events of the last 5 years we aren't going to be the first.
Meanwhile over 30,000 young men and women have come home injured or in a box. Billions and billions of dollars have been wasted. If there's any good news chrissy, it's that even though you and those like you haven't had to make a personal sacrifice for this insane occupation, that's changing.
As you watch your dollar become less valuable than toilet paper. As you watch the roads, bridges and infrastructure crumble around you. As your friends and family can't get health care. As you watch this great nation implode we'll see how "pro Bush America" you remain.
Be sure to stay in touch and let us know how you're doing.
Significant progress. What does that mean? I could bash my head against a wall and claim I've made "significant progress" since the wall has blood stains and maybe some marks from my skull.
Dr. Acula @ 55:
Chris, maybe you should move to Iraq...I hear that opportunity is booming there.
Fraud Guy @ 5:
That's inconceivable! :)
Significant Progress?
2003 - 486
2004 - 850
2005 - 846
2006 - 822
2007 - 901
2008 - 127...
4032
$510,332,863,305.00
Chicken "Hussein" Little - Not!! @ 56:
When I'm thriving under the capitalism and freedom of John McCain I will get on this site and wave my flag proudly!!! Also, when did you become an expert of military affairs, just because they tell you something on C&L's, MSNBC or common dreams does not make it true
PS. You and your family don't rate health care, get a job and buy it yourself.
chris (Real Chris) @ 61:
Just who the fuck are YOU, Chrissy? People don't "rate" health care? Millions of people HAVE jobs and don't have health care.
All you do is spew bullshit and parrot back what Busholini spoon feeds you. Do you have any thoughts of your own?
chris (Real Chris) @ 61:
Oh I look forward to that day chrissy. Don't need to be an expert skippy, just need to read a few history books. Didn't want to but one of those snotty nosed liberal professors at the university I attended said we had to learn about the mistakes made in the past so we'd recognize ones being made in the present.
Funny thing about health care, we get our insurance through the Grange, have for 3 generations that I know of. Course the fact that I'm sitting here enjoying a spinach salad made from our vegetables, pork and eggs grown and raised on land that's never seen an herbicide, pesticide or chemical fertilizer might explain why we are hardly ever sick. Course we do get injured from time to time, doing work can have that effect. I suspect you wouldn't have experienced anything like that.
You just keep laughing at us poor, dumb yokels chrissy boy. My wife told me that battery cage raised eggs are up to $4 a dozen at the local IGA and gas just hit $3.67 a gallon in town. You just keep enjoying your republican driven "capitalism" hot shot.
Just who the fuck are YOU, Chrissy? People don't "rate" health care? Millions of people HAVE jobs and don't have health care.
All you do is spew bullshit and parrot back what Busholini spoon feeds you. Do you have any thoughts of your own?
First of all lets erase the hate and increase the peace here. We can RESPECTFULLY disagree on this site without using hurtful words. I believe that we should privitize health care which will drive prices down and people buy there own coverage with the money we give them back from ending socialized medicine programs. Each person can be in control of there own life.
amilius @ 11:
I AM
I want all the GOP accomplices and excuse makers for this lying specimen to suffer what they deserve. Marching in lock step to defend the thugs in this crime family is an act of treason and history will judge them that way.
chris loves JFK's values @ 64:
First of all lets erase the hate and increase the peace here. We can RESPECTFULLY disagree on this site without using hurtful words. I believe that we should privitize health care which will drive prices down and people buy there own coverage with the money we give them back from ending socialized medicine programs. Each person can be in control of there own life.
What socialized medicine programs should we end? The US military's? Congress's? What makes you think privatizing healthcare will drive down prices? We already have privatized healthcare and prices are so high millions of Americans can't afford it.
george w bush Worst President EVER!
MountainMan23 @ 54:
Bingo. Toss 'em a $600 "rebate" check borrowed against their kids' futures so they can
pay their delinquent sub-prime mortgage for a monthget another half ounce of crystal meth and buy a couple of rounds of Bud for their fellow Bubbas at the Dew Drop Inn.Let me see 100 years divided by 6 months to each progressive moment, now that is real progress!
chris (Real Chris) @ 61:
You can't buy it yourself you sociopathic imbecile!! And I haven't been unemployed one day in my life! Why do you hate the american people, and love the corporate fascists?
Thriving under McInsane? Just like Bush? Have you ever lived in the reality based community? Everyone I know, everyone, has been devastated by the idiot policies of GWB and the GOP. And lots of them voted for him. Although, they will never vote republican again thanks to this anti-american administration.
Republican policies destroy everyone except the super rich! This is a historical FACT! The only thing they offer guys like you Chris - are slogan's. Catchy little ditty's like "free markets" to full chumps like you into voting for your own economic destruction. And when that destruction comes, you are so ignorant, you can't even figure out who it was that just screwed ya'!
"Significant progress" means...... only months to go and I am still in charge!
chris (Real Chris) @ 61:
Chris...so what's it like? Being a traitor to this country? How do you rationalize your transparently jingoistic flag-waving rhetoric, while supporting the most corrupt and anti-American administration in this nations history?
When (if) the revolution starts...you better find a nice, comfy spider hole...because it will be open season on traitors like you.
Believe that.
Newsflash for you Neocons, the Surge isn't working, got it! Now what's your Plan 'C'?
Thanks C&L for reminding us of all the "significant progress" that has been made in Iraq (sarcasm alert). Bush's pronouncements of "significant progress" have been echoed by Senator McCain.
A few examples via think progress and media matters:
McCain: "I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks because I think Saddam Hussein is very weak." [MSNBC, 1/28/03]
– I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short. [NBC, 3/30/03]
– It’s clear that the end is very much in sight. … It won’t be long. It, it’ll be a fairly short period of time. [ABC, 4/9/03]
– Listen, my friend, we’re going to be there for five or six years. A little straight talk. [Hardball, 2/25/04]
March 7, 2004 - McCain: "we're on the right track" in Iraq. (I guess because we are making so much significant progress)
March 1, 2006 - McCain: Our strategy in Iraq "is on the right track."
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