Optimistic

The abortion issue really makes the antis feel okay with expressing their normally better-hidden contempt for women. SD state Rep. Roger Hunt, for example, said that the SD law didn’t provide for the prosecution of women who have abortions because “the woman may be getting so much pressure she’s not thinking clearly,” while the doctor “should be operating in a calm and collected manner, have identified all the risks to the woman; he’s counseling the woman. We think it’s appropriate to place a greater burden upon the doctor.” You will have noticed which gender Hunt assumes the doctor belongs to, because the boys become doctors and the girls become... incubators.

Speaking of condescending attitudes towards your citizens, China’s Supreme People’s Court votes to retain capital punishment because, they say, China has a low level of socialist development, and much of the population supports an eye for an eye (of course, a pretty good percentage of death sentences are for non-violent crimes such as corruption). But appeals court cases involving the death penalty will, so they say, henceforth be held in open court.

Bush met the prime minister of Slovakia today. Big, big news event, as you can imagine. Here’s Reuters’ take: “Bush Challenges Slovak Leader to Foot Race” (Dzurinda has a broken leg from a skiing accident). And Bush has basically stopped changing the statement he makes whenever he meets some national leader, in the same way that he can never meet a mayor without advising him to “fix the potholes” (that one never gets old):

Thank you for coming. I always enjoy being with you because you’re an optimistic, upbeat believer in the people of your country and the possibilities to work together to achieve peace. And so thanks for coming.

Speaking of optimistic, Bush said Saturday about Iraq: “I’m optimistic that the leadership recognizes that sectarian violence will undermine the capacity for them to self-govern.” So a civil war would make governing more difficult, huh? You’ve really got that post-presidential teaching gig at the Harvard School of Government nailed down, don’t you, oh master of the fucking obvious?

Robert Parry says of Bush’s aforementioned optimism about Iraq, “For Bush, the Iraq glass is always one-tenth full, not nine-tenths empty.”