White House Press Secretary Perino: Americans' say in Iraq war ended in 2004

[meegbear]

At a White House press briefing today, Press Secretary Dana Perino effectively tells veteran correspondent Helen Thomas that the American people's say in the Iraq occupation ended after the 2004 election.

"The American people are being asked to die and pay for this," probes Thomas. "And you're saying they have no say in this war?"

"No," Perino responds, "I didn't say that, Helen. But, Helen, this president was elected--"

Thomas interrupts: "But it amounts to it. You're saying we have no input at all."

"You had input," Perino says. "The American people have input every four years and that's the way our system is set up."

Perino's statement comes on the heels of a direct assertion by Vice President Dick Cheney that he doesn't care about public input on Iraq.

"I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls," said Cheney to ABC's Martha Raddatz on Wednesday. "There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That's a huge accomplishment."

Video of the exchange between Thomas and Perino is available at Think Progress.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/White_House_Press_Secretary_Perino_Americans_0320.html

[Mountainman]

1. Let's see, a government for, by and of the people right Dana?

Didn't I read that somewhere when I was in school? I guess my teachers were lying to me. It's on a paper somewhere. I think it was a repub president too.



Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion


- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Abraham Lincoln

[JohnnyLib2]

2. !!

:banghead: :grr:

[dsc]

3. actually were it not for the interviening 2006 elections

she would have a valid point. Elections have consequences which is why we should stop letting our press corps treat them like personality contests.

[havocmom]

4. We the People didn't steal Ohio

The neocons seem to have done that.

Elections are not valid when the will of the people is decided in little black boxes with software secrets deemed more important than democracy.

[dsc]

6. that is a different arguement altogether

[havocmom]

7. Not an argument at all. It's fact

Your terse dismissal of it is not an argument either, but does speak volumes.

[dsc]

8. I meant that arguing the 2004 election was illegitimate is one thing

arguing that one has to take public opinion into account between elections is another.

[meegbear]

5. kick