the number one republican blogger of all time had 35 posts today.

he began at 8:35 am and stopped at 11:26 pm.

fifteen hours of mostly political blogging for your ass. more than two posts an hour on this, the first day of the republican national convention.

the convention that among other things will rally the troops to re-elect the president of the united states, george bush.

and yet prof. reynolds mentioned “Bush” a mere half dozen times today, on what for even the prolific blogger was an impressively productive day.

what were the six times the blogfather mentioned bush? once to link the spoof Cheerleaders For Truth webpage; twice to get last night’s MTV Video award booing story wrong three times (could it be that i was the only person who actually watched the stupid thing?); once to link to a blog that speculates that the president somehow got an olympic bounce; twice in reference to a blog that reported that there were some absurd obscure leftists in the quarter million protestors yesterday including “a coven of conspiracy theorists” who had signs that accused the president of having advance warning of 9-11.

so cheerleaders for truth, the mtv booing, the olympic bounce and yesterday’s protesters saying that bush knew

35 posts and yet not one about what the President actually said today?

Did he say anything today?

yes, fellow readers of the instapundit, my favorite blog, he did.

George W. Bush began his morning on the Today show where he told Matt Lauer that we cannot win the war on terrorism.

Lauer: “You said to me a second ago, one of the things you’ll lay out in your vision for the next four years is how to go about winning the war on terror. That phrase strikes me a little bit. Do you really think we can win this war on terror in the next four years?”

Bush: “I have never said we can win it in four years.”

Lauer: “So I’m just saying can we win it? Do you see that?”

Bush: “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world –- let’s put it that way.

sen john edwards put that little quote in a press release at 1:30pm and later declared, “John Kerry and I believe that this war on terror is winnable; they don’t.”

in 35 posts, the worlds most popular blogger mentioned “Kerry” eight times. (swift boat, “distance itself from Kerry“, daughters getting booed, kerry lied, kerry mia, kerry should take speech-making lessons from mccain)

but strangely nothing about kerry and edwards saying that the war on terror was winnable.

earlier in the interview, the president explained how the $455 billion deficit was pretty good… or something

Lauer: “Let me ask you about deficits –- this year $445 billion. That’s ballpark? You think that’s pretty good?”

President Bush: “Yeah. I do. I do.”

Lauer: “Alright –- and by the way less than projected –- at that time we were projecting…”

President Bush: “Five.”

Lauer: “Five-hundred and fifty.”

President Bush: “Yeah, something like that.”

Lauer: “Does the deficit matter?”

President Bush: “Well, I think it does in the long run. I really do. And I think it’s very important for those of us running for office to explain how we’re going to deal with the deficit. I’ve laid out a specific plan that shows the deficit being reduced by half in five years. It’s going to require fiscal sanity in Washington, D.C.”

Lauer: “If the deficit does not come down, if you can’t pay it down in half by 2008, will you raise taxes?”

Bush: “It’s going to come down in half. That’s the goal. I mean I …”

Lauer: “If it doesn’t?”

Bush: “There’s no need to answer a hypothetical, cause it is going to. That’s what we’ve got in place and that’s what we’ve got in mind. Raising taxes now would be a disaster.”

because a $455 billion deficit after a $5.8 trillion surplus somehow isnt a disaster?

i suppose it all depends on what your definition of disaster is.

the president’s Time magazine interview might very well turn out to be… not so good. today it was embarrassing twice for him, but you’d never know if you only read the instapundit’s 35 posts.

according to the australian, the interview includes president bush admiting they hadnt planned properly for the iraq war, a “catastrophic success”, he called the $130 billion venture and cause of 975 US military deaths, 6,323 american wounded soldiers, and 12,000 iraqi civilian deaths

edwards, the australian reports, also jumped on that quote as well. handilly.

thirty five posts today, and yet the instapundit hasnt mentioned edwards once in three days.

president bush also unfurled a beautiful gem when he said “I’m not the historian – I’m the guy making history.”

Iraq success ‘catastrophic’: Bush

by Roy Eccleston

The Australian

August 31, 2004

[NEW YORK] George W. Bush has admitted the US failed to plan for a speedy victory in Iraq, describing the sudden collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime as a “catastrophic success”.

In a rare concession from the President, who dislikes admitting error, Mr Bush told Time magazine that his planners had not considered the prospect of a quick collapse.

“Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success – being so successful, so fast, that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in, escaped and lived to fight another day,” he said.

Mr Bush sought to blame the prolonged war – in which 969 US troops have been killed so far – on an over-quick victory that meant the US ended up having to fight “a third more” of Hussein’s Baathist supporters than military planners had expected.

Democrat vice-presidential candidate John Edwards seized on the comment, made as the President prepares for a high-profile week with the Republican Party’s national convention in New York.

“President Bush now says his Iraq policy is a catastrophic success,” Senator Edwards said yesterday. “He’s half right. It was catastrophic to rush to war without a plan to win the peace.”

Mr Bush said he believed the war on terrorism would be a long-lasting ideological struggle, but he declined to call it a fourth world war, saying: “I’m not the historian – I’m the guy making history.”

indeed.

ken layne + jim gilliam + fimoculous is back, thnx buzzmachine + flagrant airways