That’s a doctrine

McCain says he’d have been happy to go to the Baghdad market without any protection at all, but Petraeus insisted.

The Iranians taunted captured sailor Arthur Batchelor by saying that he looks like Mr. Bean. Now that’s just cruel.


George Bush has generously extended an offer to congresscritters to come to the White House to be pissed on. “At this meeting, the leaders in Congress can report on progress on getting an emergency spending bill to my desk. We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill, a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground.” That last part is just kinky.

If this weren’t condescending enough, White House spokesmodel Dana Perino said this would not be a negotiation, adding “Maybe they need to hear again from the president about why he thinks it is foolish to set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal.” Yes, that’s probably exactly what they need.

At that speech, to an American Legion post, Bush says that our era was “defined” on 9/11. “See, that’s a date that reminded us the world had changed significantly from what we thought the world was.” How dare reality contradict what George Bush thinks the world is! You can see why he’s so pissed off.


“I vowed that if you harbor a terrorist you’re equally as guilty as the terrorist. That’s a doctrine.”

Okay, this one is the transcriber’s fault, not Bush’s. Still: “it’s in our interest to spread an alternative ideology to their hatful ideology.” So that would be a hatless ideology.

IN OTHER WORDS: “And in the face of the violence -- in other words, there was reprisal...” “In sending more troops -- in other words, in sending troops in...” “Our troops are also training Iraqis. In other words, part of the effort is not only to provide security to neighborhoods, but we’re constantly training Iraqis so that they can do this job.”

A DOUBLE DOSE OF OTHER WORDS: “[At Fort Irwin] I tried to put this war into a historical context for them. In other words, I told them that they’re laying the foundation of peace. In other words, the work we’re doing today really will yield peace for a generation to come.”


He says of the“surge,” “I made the decisions after -- to reinforce. But I didn’t do it in a vacuum.” So you didn’t do it your own head. (Little-known fact: the space between George Bush’s ears is the most perfect vacuum known to science.)

Says if we let the bad guys win, “They would have been able to more likely recruit.” And “If we retreat -- were to retreat from Iraq, what’s interesting and different about this war is that the enemy would follow us here.” Interesting. And “If this scenario were to take place, 50 years from now people would look back and say, ‘What happened to those folks in the year 2007? How come they couldn’t see the danger of a Middle East spiraling out of control where extremists competed for power, but they shared an objective which was to harm the United States of America?’” Dear god, is he saying that if we lose in Iraq, 50 years from now everyone will speak just as badly as George Bush? “That’s what went through my mind as I made a difficult decision, but a necessary decision.” And it went through his mind quickly because of the lack of wind resistance. Most perfect vacuum known to science.

It worries me that I’ve read so many of these transcripts that I actually know what he means by this: “They understand that when we said we were going to send more troops in, you need to send more troops into Baghdad, that we expect them to, and they have.”