Awe and reverence

Atrios asks, about Iraq, “Isn’t there a wee contradiction between spreading freedom and democracy and turning a country into a terrorist battlefield?” It’s called multi-tasking.

This is, as you know, the Blog of Record, so occasionally I must risk boring y’all by repeating something every other blog has, in this case Bush saying that “years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.” The only awe I feel is at the sheer scale of Bush’s assholery in making that comparison. What the hell does he think happened in Fallujah that we’d ever revere?

In that speech, at the dedication of the Marine Corps Museum, he also said that the Japanese on Iwo Jima “had learned from costly battles that they could not defeat American forces. Yet, they believed that by inflicting maximum casualties on our forces, they would demoralize our nation and make America tire of war.” Of course he’s really talking about Iraq. Iwo Jima was in 1945, the Japanese did not think they were going to “demoralize” the United States into cutting and running.

The alliterative Gen. Peter Pace (who should be made to follow Rumsfeld out the door) today defined “winning” downwards yet again, to “provid[ing] governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere with enough security capacity to keep the [terrorist] acts below a level at which their governments can function.” Dare to dream, alliterative Peter Pace, dare to dream!

The problems haven’t gone away

Bush and Cheney met with Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin today. Afterwards, Bush said, “The elections are over, the problems haven’t gone away.” Reid and Durbin refrained from saying, “No kidding, dickwad, we just met with two of them.”

Speaking of dickwads, if I announce a caption contest, can I trust you people to refrain from pointing out that both Bush and Reid brought a Dick to the meeting?

Historic

Bush met with Nancy Pelosi, and even used her name, out loud and everything, something he never did when attacking her during the campaign. He noted that she will be the first woman Speaker: “This is historic for our country. And as the father of young women, it is -- I think it’s important.” I like how he’s pretending that the silver cloud in Republo-Thumpin’ 2006 is that it opens doors for Jenna and Not-Jenna to stumble drunkenly through, so it will all have been worth it.

(Conrad) Burns and (George) Allen both conceded today. Say goodnight, Gracie.

I’m sure that joke isn’t original, but it was still satisfying to say.

For more on Robert Gates’s history, see this David Corn article and this one by Robert Parry. Gates is probably the best nominee we could have expected from Bush, but that’s not exactly setting the bar high.

I’m not sure what sort of Iraq exit strategy Gates is supposed to be coming up with. I’ve been seeing a worrying number of people arguing, most recently Thomas Friedman in his column yesterday (Times Select is free this week, by the way, although you needn’t bother with the Friedman) for attempting one big final push before giving it up as a bad job.

Meant to mention a commercial I heard from Florida’s 16th district, where Mark Foley was still on the ballot. It was informing voters that to vote for his replacement, they had to “punch Foley.” I detected a slight hint of glee in the emphasis on “punch.”

America at its best

Some random thoughts:

Holy Joe Lieberman was never going to be named secretary of war. You don’t think the Bushies actually have any respect for their useful idiot, do you?

Wouldn’t it be nice if the “independent” the D’s in the Senate had to court was Bernie Sanders rather than Holy Joe?

In his intelligence and national security posts under the Reagan and Bush I administrations, Gates was responsible for 1) passing intel to aid Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War (and overriding Commerce Dept calls for restrictions on sales of high-tech military hardware to Iraq in 1990), 2) trying to orchestrate the overthrow of Saddam after the Gulf War. Flip flopper.

I’ll be interested to see if Gates’s Iran-Contra role comes up, or whether American amnesia has consigned that sordid chapter to the misty past, like the Thirty Years’ War and the Battle of Hastings.

Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation has a newspaper column entitled, “A Tour of Guantanamo Prison Shows America at its Best.” I’d hate to see America’s worst.

Congress doesn’t just have its first Muslim member, but also its first Buddhists, Hank Johnson, replacing Cynthia McKinney, and Mazie Hirono in Hawaii.

In some sort of web epidemic recently, many bloggers seem to have lost the ability to distinguish between “whose” and “who’s.”

Thank you for playing Posture Play-Off

Care and restraint

Israel shelled a town in Gaza, killing 19, most of them women and children. The White House promptly issues a statement calling for both sides to “act with care and restraint.” I’m pretty sure those dead Palestinians are as “restrained” as they could possibly be.

The most important job Rick Santorum will ever have

So a fellow blogger who may not wish to be named sent me this picture of Rick Santorum and some of his huge creepy family gathered around him as he conceded, much as they once gathered around the corpse of their brother who died a couple of hours after his premature birth and whom the Santorums brought home to meet the family anyway.


At first I didn’t think I could post it because I would feel obligated to make fun of his... emotive 8-year old daughter Sarah with the doll wearing the same ugly dress she is, and like a sport fisher I generally like to throw the little Republicans back so I can mock them when they get bigger. Then I ran across this Santorum campaign ad featuring the Santorum children, and figured they were more or less fair game. Also, looking at some more pictures, I realized... she’s faking it.



If your face looks like that, but there is not a single tear, you are acting (also, you’d turn away from the crowd). Now, whether she figures that’s how she’s supposed to react, or she was given specific instructions to weep for the camera, I cannot say. Her brother, who is just old enough to remember the fetus incident, seems to have no trouble crying on cue.


Last year, Little Ricky published a book called It Takes a Family. Which is actually not a riposte to Hillary Clinton but, I believe, the last part of the old adage, “To err is human, but to really fuck someone up...” In that ad, little Sarah says that Rick always tells them that being their dad is the most important job he’ll ever have. I think we can agree that he’s just as good a dad as he was a senator.

(Update: Bob provides us with the theme song of the altogether ooky Santorum family [though personally I think Rick more resembles Fred Munster].)

Bush press conference: This enemy’s not going away after my presidency

Bush admits the election’s cumulative effect was a “thumpin’” for his side. Thump thump thump thump heh.

He said he’d offered to give Nancy Pelosi the name of some Republican interior decorators. I’m not even sure how to unpack the homophobia from that one, and I’m not gonna try.

Like all losers, he insisted that the lesson of the election was that the American people want politicians to set aside partisan differences.

He also accused the electorate of ignorance saying more in sorrow than in anger (I’m using my own scribbled notes, there isn’t a transcript available yet) (update: transcript) that he had “thought the people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security.” Once again, we have disappointed him.

On the other hand he dismissed his own campaign comments that if the Republicans lose the terrorists win as mere politics (“What’s changed today is the election’s over”), which everyone should forget now.

The relationship between politics and foreign policy was a major theme of the press conference. Bush told several conflicting versions of the decision to fire Rumsfeld, so it’s hard for me to know which one I should express indignation about. Before he spoke, I was planning to write that the decision to replace Rummy mere hours after the polls closed suggested that it was based entirely on politics and did not reflect any new thinking or change of strategy, that he was in fact doing what he said he would never do (although he does it every day), subordinate Iraq policy to American domestic politics.

In the presser, he did admit that the electorate voted to “register displeasure with the lack of progress being made” in Iraq. Although he didn’t take any personal responsibility for that lack of progress, the admission by itself was kind of stunning. Later, he said that “Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.” I hope he kept the receipt.

On Rumsfeld, he admitted having lied last week about keeping him in office until 2009, that he had already made the decision to get “fresh eyes,” but didn’t want to “inject the matter into the election.” This version of the story involves a theory of politics that the way to depoliticize important issues is to lie about how you intend to handle them. I’m pretty sure that was in the Federalist Papers somewhere. He also said that it would be a bad signal to the troops that he was “constantly adjusting tactics and decisions based on politics” (he temporarily forgot that constantly changing is now a good thing).

Still later, he said that he didn’t lie last week, that he hadn’t made a final decision and hadn’t even talked to Robert Gates yet. It’s so ingrained to his way of governing that Bush didn’t consider that you could announce a resignation before a replacement has been decided upon. It’s not like a smooth transition would be disrupted: Rummy will be a lame duck for weeks of hearings and voting on Gates, a few extra days would make no difference. The decision to announce both Rummy’s ouster and Gates’ nomination at the same time was another sign of Bush’s commitment to opacity – an important choice made entirely in secret, without public input, without Congressional consultation, and presented as a fait accompli. The choice fits in with that, Gates having been up to his eyeballs in Iran-Contra and especially the coverup of Iran-Contra.

He said something how great it was that Eisenhower continued Truman’s wars, both Cold and Korea, because “This enemy’s not going away after my presidency.” Just as long as you do, George, just as long as you do.

Deciding Bush’s potency

Unfortunate AP headline: “Voter Results Will Decide Bush’s Potency.”

With Rick Santorum out of the Senate, who will protect our dogs’ anuses?

Honestly, I will miss Little Ricky, who provided all of us with so much blog-fodder and who made his side look bad every time he opened his mouth. His replacement, Bob Casey Jr., is no friendlier to homosexual (or reproductive) rights than Santorum, but he’ll undercut them quietly, without that hilarious gay panic: the “man on dog” comment, the blaming of sexual abuse by Catholic priests on the permissiveness of Boston (“If you have a world view that... affirms alternative views of sexuality, that can lead to a lot of people taking it the wrong way.”). So yeah, I’ll miss the neckless one; his idiocy was actually a service to the republic.

Katherine Harris is less of a loss in that sense, because mostly when she spoke she only made herself look like a jackass.

Would have been nice to knock out George Allen, but it was, after all, Virginia (state motto: “Sic Semper Macacas”). (Update: sorry, this one is now too close to call. Got a little confused there.)

The prospect of Joe Lieberman even more smugly self-righteous is not a pleasant one.

Chimpy Votes!

The notoriously susceptible George W. Bush casts his vote...




...for Dr. Pepper.

Hey, I understand there’s an election of some sort today....

Why couldn’t somebody have called me up to inform me of that fact? They could even have used some sort of robotic calling machine.

And as you go to the polls, remember, we’re at war

Unclear on the concept: hundreds of applicants to join the police in Uttar Pradesh, India rioted to protest an application test they considered too hard.

In a rally in Florida, Bush appeared with his brother Jeb, who he pretended to hug, while swiping his wallet. What, like your family dynamic isn’t complicated?


He began by predicting, “We’re going to win because we have a hopeful, optimistic agenda” – and then launched into the usual fear-baiting crap. The first person plural in that sentence obviously refers to the Republican party. We’re so used to this that it may need pointing out: for every moment of the election campaign, the president of the United States spoke as a Republican, to Republicans. He made no attempt to persuade his audiences because he never spoke to a group of just-plain citizens. This may be how things are done these days, but it is not healthy for a democracy, and it is not okay.

Bush described the Dems’ strategy thus: “They don’t have a plan, but they’ve got a principle around which they’re organized, which is, it’s too tough, get out before the job is done.” He also deployed his ability to express complex political philosophies in insultingly simple terms when he spoke about “a brutal enemy that has an ideology, an ideology so backwards that many of our citizens can’t possibly comprehend it.” And yet he gamely attempted to make it comprehensible for them: “See, we believe in basic freedoms; they don’t.”

He ended with this advice: “And as you go to the polls, remember, we’re at war.”

It is hard to plot and plan America when you’re hiding

Another Bush rally, woe is me, in Nebraska. Which sort of explains the corn stalks.


And the corn hats.



Incidentally, all these events have the word victory in the title, Nebraska Victory 2006 Rally, Montana Victory 2006 Rally, etc. Which is also the word Bush uses over and over in relation to Iraq: “And we got one goal in Iraq, and that is victory”, “We got a strategy for victory that will work”, Dems “have no plan for victory,” and so on. A coincidental wording, you say? Maybe, but it’s not the only place he borrows rhetoric from his war speeches. At this rally he said, “You know if you’re wondering what -- where the Democrats stand on a major issue, there’s an easy formula to figure it out: No matter what the issue, if the Republicans are for it, they’re against it.” And how does he describe the Enemy in The War Against Terror, just a couple of minutes later? “They believe the exact opposite of what we believe.”

Which is so not the case. He and Osama both believe, loudly, that God is on their side. Here’s a paragraph he’s used in every recent speech, which creeps me out every time: “You know when nearly 12 million Iraqis voted, I was pleased, but I was not surprised, and I’ll tell you why I wasn’t surprised. I believe there is an Almighty. I believe a great gift of the Almighty to every man, woman, and child on Earth is the desire to be free. And so when the Iraqis said we want to be free, it is part of my belief in the universality of freedom.” That either creeps you out too, or it doesn’t, I suppose.

I’m almost getting bored with the mangled Bushisms, but what the hell:

“the Democrats believe they can spend their money better than you can.”

“It is hard to plot and plan America when you’re hiding.”

Ain’t it the truth.

That says to them that their strategy is working

We’ve now got the transcript of Cheney’s ABC interview, bits of which I commented on yesterday. As ever, I’m amazed what he’s able to get away with unchallenged. For three months, the Bushies have been using the word “purged” to describe Lieberman’s defeat on August 8th, which I seem to recall involved 146,587 people voting for another candidate and not, say, a Moscow show trial. In the interview, Cheney uses that purge as an example of exactly the sort of thing the terrorists are trying to influence the American voters to do. “That says to them that their strategy is working.”

Another thing they’re always allowed to get away with is the “I haven’t read that article/report, so I can’t comment on it.” This was not a live interview, it was taped days ago, so why couldn’t Stephanopoulos have said, “Oh, well I happen to have a copy of Vanity Fair right here, why don’t we stop the cameras while you read it, and resume when you’re ready”?

Cheney says if a Democratic Congressional committee subpoenas him, he will refuse to testify.

Cheney, by the way, will be spending election day hunting. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

The martyrs of Iraq now have the right to smile

Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead dead dead. PM Maliki says, “The martyrs of Iraq now have the right to smile,” adding, “Maybe this will help alleviate the pain of the widows and the orphans, and those who have been ordered to bury their loved ones in secrecy, and those who have been forced to suppress their feelings and suffering, and those who have paid at the hands of torturers.” Yes, thank god those days are long behind us.

Protecting you and your cowboy hat

In Colorado, Bush used his “it’s good to be in country where the cowboy hats outnumber the ties” line in the third state this week (Nevada, Montana). Yippee ki yay.

He keeps pushing the twin messages of taxes and terror, which sort of point in opposite directions. He presents tax cuts as increasing personal freedom, but combines it with the deeply disempowering, not to say infantilizing, argument that the government and its “professionals” need all sorts of augmented powers in order “to protect you” (a phrase that he used seventeen times in this speech).

This time, he had the audience chant “What’s your plan?”, directed at the Democrats, who he is accusing of being unclear on their “plan for victory.” Bush, of course, is the master of clarity:

I can’t look at the mothers and fathers and husbands and wives of those who wear our uniform who may be in Iraq, and say, it’s noble, but not think I can -- we can win the -- the only way we can win is if we leave before the job is -- I mean, the only way we can lose is if we leave before the job is done. That’s the only way.

Full speed ahead

In his most recent campaign speeches, Bush has been accusing Dems of not having “a plan for victory” in Iraq (no one ever wonders whether we have a plan for victory in Afghanistan, have you noticed that?), just as if every member of his administration hasn’t made it clear repeatedly that the opinion of Congress, and indeed of the American people, is irrelevant. Cheney, even while repeating the they-don’t-have-a-plan talking point in an interview to air on ABC Sunday, made that position clear yet again: “It may not be popular with the public. It doesn’t matter, in the sense that we have to continue what we think is right” (which he says is to go “full speed ahead” in Iraq). What the American people as a whole might think is right does not – you heard it hear first – matter. I’d love to be able to force the Bushies to sit down and write an essay on what they believe is the meaning of representative democracy, the will of the people, and all that Poly Sci 101 stuff. But I think we get a pretty good sense in the binary opposition Cheney created in his next sentences: “That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re not running for office; we’re doing what we think is right.”

We’re not running for office; we’re doing what we think is right.

See, if he ordered the first attack, he might know something about another attack

Mind-boggling statement of the day: a spokesmodel for the Israeli military attacked Hamas for calling on women to protect besieged Hamas fighters, “knowing the IDF would not shoot at women and children”.

Except of course they did. With machine guns. Killing two. Wounding 17.

Bush rally Iowa: “The interesting thing about campaigns, if somebody is going to raise your taxes, they don’t want you to know about it.”

He reminisced about his experiences in the high-stakes, wheels-within-wheels world of international intrigue: “One day the -- came in the Oval Office and said, Mr. President, we have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. ... I told the CIA that I think it’s important for them, the professionals, to figure out what he knows. See, if he ordered the first attack, he might know something about another attack.” George Smiley, eat your heart out!

“Oh, I’ve heard them in Washington; they say Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror. Well, we just have a difference of opinion. I believe Iraq is central to the war on terror. Our troops believe Iraq is central to the war on terror. And so does Osama bin Laden. ... But they think differently in Washington, particularly the Democrats.” So it’s not just the Democrats, it’s “Washington” that’s all gooey-headed on The War Against Terror (TWAT). Also, he claims to be speaking on behalf of the troops, telling us what they “believe.” Stop that. Just fucking stop that.

And from earlier in the day, here he is campaigning for Sen. Jim Talent, or making fun of Talent’s glasses, or whatever the hell he’s doing.

Speed bumps and blobs of paint

Julian Borger in the Guardian covers Gen. William Caldwell, Military Moron, exquisitely, starting with the headline: “Iraq a ‘Work of Art in Progress’ Says US General After 49 Die.”

“Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture. Blobs of paint become paintings which inspire,” Maj Gen Caldwell told journalists in Baghdad’s fortified green zone.

Dude, those blobs... they’re not... paint.

Caldwell says the final test won’t be these “isolated incidents” (Borger notes there were 1,272 isolated incidents of Iraqi deaths reported in October), but “the country that the Iraqis build.” In another not-entirely-felicitous metaphor, Caldwell added, “A transition is not always a pleasant thing to watch as it happens. But when common goals are achieved, speed bumps and differences of opinion along the way are soon forgotten.” Speed fucking bumps.

Extracting blackmail

Bush was in Montana today, campaigning for firefighter-hater and general schmuck Conrad Burns in another of his Just-Say-No, Hey-Did-You-Hear-About-The-Time-I-Went-To-Graceland-With-The-Japanese-Prime-Minister rallies. He’s confining his campaigning entirely to traditionally Republican states, and I’m not sure how much of that is the Republicans being on the defensive, and how much is Bush’s unwillingness to look like a lame duck by campaigning for a lot of people who then lose.

He began, “It’s good to be in a part of the world where the cowboy hats outnumber the ties.” I had been planning to mention the fact that when he goes from the White House to Air Force One, his traveling attire is always formal...


(God, I can’t even look at him anymore) ...but he arrives at the rallies in his brush-clearing clothes (the hat is borrowed).



Increasingly, his bad grammar is grating on my nerves. “You see, we not only got great assets in our military, we got a fantastic asset in the power of liberty.”

He painted a dark picture of what would happen if we withdrew from Iraq: “I want you to envision a world in which extremists battle for power, in which moderate governments have been toppled, in which these radicals are then capable of using oil to extract blackmail from the West.”

Are you doing it? Are you envisioning radicals using oil to extract blackmail from the West?

It’s not just car bombs

On a visit to France, Iraqi President Talabani (seen below arriving at Orly) says that in only two or three years, Iraq will be ready to say “Bye bye with thanks” to American troops. Bye bye?

He also said, “There is no civil war. The media is focusing only on the negative side of Iraq. ... We need to give the real picture. It’s not just car bombs. Visit Iraq from the north to the south. Never mind Baghdad.” Iraq’s new motto: “It’s not just car bombs.” Iraq’s other new motto: “Never mind Baghdad.”


Bush characterized the chart that appeared here and in every other blog yesterday, showing the descent of Iraq into color-coded chaos, as “one of those mysterious charts that somehow appear.”

Force has kind of a negative connotation

Two of the Guantanamo prisoners are still on hunger strike, and still being forcibly fed. Although, because their torturers are nothing if not culturally sensitive, during Ramadan they were not force-fed during daylight hours.

The torturers are also sensitive about the term force-feeding, preferring “involuntary feeding,” because, as one nurse explained to Reuters, “Force has kind of a negative connotation.”

Prisoners not on hunger strike were fed the traditional Eid al Fitr feast at the end of Ramadan, although a second feast had to provided for prisoners who chose to fast an additional day, believing that the military lied about the date in order to trick them into breaking their fast early.

It didn’t sound like a joke to me

The closer we get to the elections, the more trivial the political discourse gets. When Bush denounced Kerry’s “joke” during a rally yesterday (note to Kerry: leave the jokes about Bush being stupid to those of us who have honed our craft by making jokes about Bush being stupid day after day after day), he alerted the media to exactly when he’d be doing it so they could run it live. Today Bush said, “It didn’t sound like a joke to me; more important, it didn’t sound like a joke to the troops.” It’s bad enough that he hides behind the troops at every opportunity, but when he purports to speak for them, to know their minds...

Elsewhere in that AP interview (I’ll include a link if I ever see the full transcript), he says the number of troops in Iraq won’t be increased: “They’ve got what they can live with.” I’m guessing that won’t sound like a joke to the families of the 104 soldiers killed in Iraq in October.

On Iraq and Afghanistan, “I’m pleased with the progress we’re making.” He couldn’t hear a joke but he can see progress in Iraq and Afghanistan; he clearly needs his hearing and vision checked out, pronto.

And Cheney and Rumsfeld “are doing fantastic jobs,” and he will keep Rummy in his fantastic job until 2009.

Bush was also interviewed today by Rush freaking Limbaugh, so he doesn’t really get to be morally outraged by anything Kerry has to say.

He says he has no plans for how to deal with a Democratic-led House and/or Senate, because it won’t happen. “So when I say that, you asked why I’m optimistic, because when I spell it out to the people I’m in front of, they fully understand. People come up to me all the time and say ‘Thank you for protecting us.’” Sarcastically?

What they really believe is they believe freedom is bad

From various pundits I was led to believe that there would be a stream of scantily dressed “vixens” coming to my door on Halloween. Once again I have been let down by the media.

Bush, at one of his Just Say No rallies in Georgia yesterday, described the enemy (the ones in Iraq, not the Democrats): “Make no mistake about it, they believe things. What they really believe is they believe freedom is bad.”

In a further victory for sophisticated analysis, CentCom has developed a method for charting precisely how close Iraq is to a complete crapfest. Juan Cole, Today In Iraq, you’ve been replaced; you can never compete with the awesome power of the chart. It’s color-coded and everything.



I’d be interested to know if Maliki “ordered” American troops to lift their siege of Sadr City yesterday before or after his meeting with Stephen Hadley.

A few pictures of Bush and, um, friends, for your captioning pleasure:

They are, very, very cognizant of our schedule, if you will

Cheney, interviewed on Fox, repeats that attacks in Iraq may very well be intended to influence American elections.

I think they are, very, very cognizant of our schedule, if you will. They also -- you’ve got to remember what the strategy is of the terrorists. They specifically can’t beat us in a stand-up fight. They never have. But whether it’s al Qaeda or the other elements that are active in Iraq, they are betting on the proposition they can break the will of the American people.

So vote Democratic – if your will has been broken.

Another Bush rally, this one in Texas. Okay, George, just repeat after me: Charlie Rangel. Just four syllables, as opposed to “the man who would be the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee -- the Democrat, who will be the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, if the Democrats were to take over the House -- which they’re not”.

Lieberman and Lieberman

Metaphor of the day, from Dan Gerstein, Holy Joe Lieberman’s communications director, responding to the NYT endorsement of Lamont: “You clearly wanted another finger-pointer in the Senate, and Ned Lamont wins that contest hands down.”

In news from other Liebermans, Unholy Avigdor Lieberman was sworn in as deputy prime minister of Israel and also, appropriately enough for a man who has repeatedly threatened to expel or execute Palestinians, as Minister for Strategic Threats. The Labor party went along meekly, the only resignation being the minister of culture and sport. There’s probably a joke in there, but I’m not in the mood to go looking for it. The only world leader who voiced an objection to the inclusion of this racist in the government was Germany’s Angela Merkel – in case the minister for strategic threats thing wasn’t bitterly ironic enough.

In other words, Congress voted on these tools

Bush attended another campaign rally today, in Georgia, for Max Burns: “I’ve been in Washington long enough to know that it makes sense to have people who live on a family farm in the halls of the United States Congress.” I wonder what they grow?

I mentioned that he never names Pelosi or Rangel when he’s attacking them. Maybe he should. Today he slipped and called Rangel “the man who is going to be running the tax committee.”

Elsewhere, though, he went out of his way to simplify: “recently, there were votes in the floor of the House of Representatives, in the floor of the United States Senate to provide these critical tools. In other words, Congress voted on these tools.”

I was so focused on the “in other words” bit that I didn’t notice until just now the part about the vote “in the floor of the United States Senate.” Also, “Iraq is the central front for the war on terror” and “I want the folks all throughout America to envision a Middle East where extremism are battling for power”.

He did another of those pep rally call & response things:

THE PRESIDENT: When it comes to trying the terrorists, what’s the Democrats’ answer?

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

Which Democrats opposed putting terrorists on trial? We want names. And what does Nancy Reagan think of all this “just say no” business?

You also have to wonder about the audience:

You know, in Washington you hear people say, well, Iraq is just a distraction from the war on terror. I believe it is a central part of the war on terror. (Applause.)

Applause. Yes, let’s give it up for a central part of the war on terror.

Pelosi (“a senior Democrat in the House of Representatives”) disagrees, though. “She said, the President says fighting them there makes it less likely we will fight them here. The opposite is true, she said, because we are fighting them there, it may become more likely that we have to fight them there [sic].”

According to him, “The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.” So he’s finally admitted he doesn’t plan to get out of Iraq ever.

The principles we hold dear

My cat, who is on the Republican Party email list, has received an email from Newt Gingrich (if Bill Frist ever emails her I’m calling the police at once). Although they know my cat lives in California (they required a zip code so I, er, she, told them 90210, which she has somehow memorized despite the fact that neither of us have watched that show even once), Gingrich kept talking darkly about “San Francisco values”: “There is a very real chance that San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi could pound the Speaker’s gavel [is that some sort of gay reference?] next January -- the same Nancy Pelosi who said ‘I don’t really consider ourselves to be at war.’ Take a stand for the principles we hold dear by supporting the Republican Party in this fight with your contribution...” So the principles the Republicans hold dear = being at war.

Alternative slogans: “Beyond staying the course”; “Hey, you guys, look at the cool course over there. How ‘bout we go there instead of this course with the dead bodies on it?”; “Of course we’ll stay!”

They now want ammunition

Interesting London Sunday Times portrait of a “pacified” Iraqi town, where the police are so outgunned that when “they stop expensive cars... where once they demanded money, they now want ammunition.”

OHMIGOD, have you heard about this? Evidently some mad fools tried to literally save daylight, and we’ve all fallen backwards through time. They’ve broken the space-time continuum, people! AAAARRRRGH!

I’m going to Krispy Kreme while there’s still... time.

Just say no to drapes

Bush attended a rally in Indiana on behalf of Rep. Mike Sodrel today. For some reason, the audience was strongly opposed to drapes (possibly they all work in a venetian blind factory):

BUSH: They think the election is already over. As a matter of fact, some of them in Washington are already measuring the drapes for their new offices.

AUDIENCE: Booo --

Actually they booed a lot of things (twelve, according to the transcript):

BUSH: The Democrats believe they should raise your taxes so they can spend your money.

AUDIENCE: Booo --

... the Minority Leader in the House, who wants to be the Speaker --

AUDIENCE: Booo --

...Just this week in New Jersey --

AUDIENCE: Booo --

And so on.

If you think the president of the United States throwing out boo, excuse me, booo lines is a little crass, just a little bit beneath the dignity of the office...

THE PRESIDENT: When it comes to listening in on the terrorists, what’s the Democratic answer? Just say no. When it comes to detaining terrorists, what’s the Democrat answer?

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

THE PRESIDENT: When it comes to questioning terrorists, what’s the Democrat answer?

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

THE PRESIDENT: When it comes to trying terrorists, what’s the Democrat’s answer?

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

THE PRESIDENT: So when the Democrats ask for your vote on November the 7th, what are you going to say?

AUDIENCE: Just say no! (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Here are some questions we’re asking all around the country: Do you want your government to listen in on the terrorists?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE PRESIDENT: Do you want your government to detain the terrorists?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE PRESIDENT: Do you want your government to question the terrorists?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE PRESIDENT: Do you want your government to do whatever it takes to bring justice to the terrorists?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE PRESIDENT: And so when Republicans ask for your vote on November 7, what’s your answer?

AUDIENCE: Yes! (Applause.)

Maximum care

NATO airstrikes in Kandahar, Afghanistan Tuesday killed dozens of civilians.


And a bunch of livestock. NATO spokesman Mark Laity (used to be the BBC’s military correspondent) says that NATO did everything right: “President Karzai quite understandably and correctly wants us to show maximum care - that’s what we do.” So that’s okay, then. Naturally, he blames the guys we were trying to kill for not making it easier to kill them: “With insurgents who regard the population as a form of human shield for themselves, it obviously makes life very difficult for us, but it does not stop us from making every effort to ensure that we minimize any problems.” What I like about that sentence is that Laity starts by suggesting that the Taliban are self-centered callous bastards who only see civilians instrumentally, and then goes right ahead and says that this mass slaughter of civilians is “making life difficult for us.” Yes, it’s all about yoooouuuuuuuu. I’m guessing that the life of the 75-year old who lost every one of his relatives, 19 of them, might be just that little bit more difficult now too.

Look around the table and multiply the number of children you have by $500

Bush’s radio address, the penultimate one before the elections, focuses, not surprisingly, on tax cuts, the need for which he describes as his “philosophy.” His version of Shrubonomics (Chimponomics?) certainly isn’t the practical science that economics should be, and his supporting statistics are massaged within an inch of their lives, designed to dazzle rather than inform, and what else is new. But when he actually wants us to follow along, he spells it out so a six-year old could get it: “Next time you’re having dinner at home, look around the table and multiply the number of children you have by $500. That’s how much more you will be sending to Washington in taxes if Democrats take control of the Congress. If you have two children, that is an extra $1,000 the Democrats will add to your tax bill every year. If you have three children, that’s an extra $1,500. If you have four children, that’s an extra $2,000.” And if you have five, buy a fucking condom already.

His message between now and November 7, he says, will be “Whether you’re a worker earning a paycheck, or a small business owner who’s thinking about hiring more workers, or a family worried about gas prices or health care costs, the last thing you need now is a higher tax bill.” Earlier he was taking credit for every new job and every wage rise, but if you have to sign over your tax cut to Exxon-Mobil and Blue Cross due to the skyrocketing prices of energy and health care under his Chimperorship, I’m pretty sure he’ll be accepting none of the blame.

Also, Bush is incapable of referring to the “death tax” without saying that Republicans put it “on the road to extinction.”

Staying the course

At that meeting with right-wing commentators, Bush said, “This stuff about ‘stay the course’ — stay the course means, we’re going to win. Stay the course does not mean that we’re not going to constantly change.”

It’s a miniature golf course, isn’t it, George?

Sometimes a dunk in the water is just a dunk in the water

Today’s Gaggle is a delight, as reporters question Tony Snow endlessly about what oh what Cheney might have meant when he agreed that a “dunk in the water” was a “no-brainer.” One might say that they snowboarded the press secretary. The White House line is that Cheney was talking in general about interrogation and wasn’t specifically endorsing waterboarding, and that “dunk in the water” could have meant anything, really.

Q I haven’t drawn any conclusions. I’m asking for an explanation about what “dunk in the water” could mean.

MR. SNOW: How about a dunk in the water?

Snow goes so far as to say that we know Cheney wasn’t talking about waterboarding because he’s such a consummate professional that he wouldn’t “slip up” and talk about specific techniques. In an all-too-rare instance of a reporter giving exactly the response that went through my head, someone pointed out that Cheney was the guy who told Leahy to fuck himself and was the guy who shot his friend in the face, so he may not really be all that perfect.

Now I said yesterday that Cheney was asserting that waterboarding is not torture, but today George “No Brainer” Bush was asked, “do you agree with the Vice President that a dunk in the water is a ‘no brainer’ when it comes to interrogating a terror suspect?” and he answered, “This country doesn’t torture, we’re not going to torture.” Note that the question didn’t contain the word torture, so Bush is the one equating waterboarding (or “a dunk in the water”) with torture. I assume any CIA interrogators who have used the technique will now be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

See, they try to hide behind the language

Bush is running from one campaign fundraiser to another like they’re going out of style. Which they aren’t. He seems to be enjoying himself, which is another sign that he is a sick, sick individual. I’m pretty sure if you phone up the White House, he will be happy to come and act out his visit to Graceland with Koizumi in your living room. Today he told that story in Iowa, where he was campaigning for Jeff Lamberti (or, as he called him, Dave Lamberti), and in Michigan, where he was campaigning for Mike Bouchard. At the former, he said, “You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. [sic]” At the latter, he praised Bouchard’s family, and, er, some of his own: “And I know what it’s like to have a loving wife and kids that love you because I’ve got a loving wife.”

He said of Al Qaida: “Look, it’s hard to plan, plot and attack if you’re running or hiding in a cave.” They are fearless, aren’t they? Running in a cave just does not sound safe.

He seemed confused by the way Democrats use words. Nancy Pelosi, he says, “said, It is ‘not right’ to say that, ‘Iraq is part of the war on terror.’ In other words, they don’t believe Iraq is a part of the war on terror.” Er, those are the same words. He continued, “They believe it is a separate theater of some kind. I’m not sure what they believe.” Sad, really. He says Charlie Rangel (by the way, he goes far out of his way not to actually utter the names of Rangel and Pelosi) “couldn’t think of one of those tax cuts that he would extend. In other words, by not extending, he’s raising your taxes. See, they try to hide behind the language.”

Rumsfeld warns reality: just back off

The Nicaraguan national assembly has voted 52-0 to ban abortions in all cases, including when the mother’s life is in danger.

Rumsfeld has been doing lots of interviews on right-wing talk radio and elsewhere, while pretending that it has nothing to do with electoral politics. Here he is explaining to someone with the bestest right-wing talk radio name ever, Inga Barks, explaining that the negative perception of the situation in Iraq is due to high-tech news sources. Why, in the good old days, “the newspaper would get a story and people wouldn’t read it for a week, and then they’d see it once. Here, anything that’s on is on -- every 15 minutes it’s on, if something’s burning in Baghdad.” (Rummy flashback, the looting of the Iraqi National Museum, April 2003: “The images you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over. It is the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase and you see it 20 times. And you think, my goodness, were there that many vases?”)

He continues, “I mean, I fly over Baghdad frequently, and it’s where -- within 30 miles of Baghdad is about 90 percent of the violence in the country. And you fly over it and there are people waiting at gas stations, there are people out eating and doing things. The place is not in flames.” He does paint a picture, doesn’t he? People out eating and doin’ things. And they all look like ants from up there. I love how he thinks flying over a place adds authenticity to his description of quotidian life there.


And in a briefing today, a reporter asked Rummy if “benchmarks” have any meaning without consequences for failure. Rummy told the reporter to “just back off”: “I mean, you’re trying to add a degree of formality and finality and punishment to something. My goodness. So you ought to just back off, take a look at it, relax, understand that it’s complicated, it’s difficult, that honorable people are working on these things together; there isn’t any daylight between them. They will be discussing this and discussing that”.


The key exchange of the briefing:

Q Are the people of Baghdad safer than they were six months ago?

(No audible response.)

We have upheld doctrine

Okay, now there’s a transcript available of Bush’s meeting with right-wing commentators I blogged in my last post. Compared to this event, the press conference earlier in the day was a model of clarity:

“Well, on North Korea, we’re putting in the places to — putting in the parts to make sure that, to the extent that he’s got capabilities of launching a weapon or preventing him from selling the weapon, we’re putting those in place. The missile defense system was designed precisely for this kind of situation, the one we’ve got now, which is ones, twosies, or threesies — it’s not a multiple launch regime, but it’s getting pretty accurate. And all of a sudden, somebody stands up a weapon and aims it and says, “Hands up,” and we say, they’re not coming up, because we’ve got the capacity to stop it.”

On Democrats: “I’m not casting dispersion,” but “it’s an interesting world in which people are not willing to listen to the words of an enemy”.

Earlier in the year the Bushites had moved towards a more realistic assessment of Iraq, acknowledging that every enemy wasn’t a foreign jihadist or a member of Al Qaida. But now, they’ve been reverting, arguing that withdrawal would lead, not to a Shiite-Sunni civil war, but to an Al Qaida takeover. Bush describes the enemy: “They morph. You know, they kind of — there is al Qaeda central, there is al Qaeda look-alikes, there is al Qaeda want-to-bes. They’re dangerous. Some are more dangerous than others.” Probably the ones who can morph are the most dangerous.

Iraq can still avoid civil war: “I think there are two elements around which the country can unite: the army and the oil.” I wonder what the flag would look like?

It would also be an interesting national anthem.

As for us, “And we’re pretty successful. We have upheld doctrine.”

Relating a conversation with some American who’d been kidnapped in Iraq: “I said, what’s it like to be kidnapped, man? It must have been weird – Baghdad, to be kidnapped.”

And this is the helpful part in which he casually threatens a whole country:

Q: Instead of talking to Syria — can’t Syria get some payback for sending all these guys over the border to subvert Iraq? Can’t — shouldn’t Syria be getting subverted in return, in some way?

THE PRESIDENT: Now you’re thinking. (Laughter.)

I’m trying to figure out a matrix that says things are getting better

Cheney, interviewed by radio station WDAY’s Scott Hennen:

Q Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It’s a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President “for torture.” We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in.

It’s official: Cheney thinks water-boarding is not torture.

Headline: “Bush ‘Not Satisfied’ With Situation in Iraq.” But he’s still self-satisfied, right? Really, really self-satisfied?

Yesterday Bush met with a bunch of right-wing columnists and broadcasters. There’s no official transcript – funny, that – so we must rely on Byron York’s account. Bush seems to have spent much of the session vexed (York’s word) that the Iraq war isn’t being perceived as a success. The problem, as he sees it, is that without body counts – “We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team” – there is no way to measure that success. You know, like No Child Left Behind, but for imperialist wars. No Quagmire Left Behind. The Soft Bigotry of Low-Intensity Warfare. Without a score card, Bush said, people get “the impression that [U.S. troops] are just there — kind of moving around, directing traffic, and somebody takes a shot at them and they’re down.” So “the enemy gets to define victory by killing people... And if there’s a lot dying, it means the enemy is winning. (Pause) That doesn’t mean they’re winning.” “And I’m trying to figure out a matrix that says things are getting better. I think that one way to measure is less violence than before, I guess...” And thus “benchmarks” to measure progress in oil, federalism, oil, constitutional reform, oil... “There’s like twenty different things,” Bush said.

I’m a little tired today, and my pancreas (which is the organ in the human body that excretes snark) is a little stressed out, as it always is in a week with a Bush press conference, so I’m just going to repeat without comment: “And I’m trying to figure out a matrix that says things are getting better.”

He also said that he wouldn’t continue this fiasco if he didn’t think it was all noble and shit: “I’m not going to keep those kids in there and have to deal with their loved ones. I can’t cover it up when I meet with a family who’s lost a child. I cry, I weep, I hug. And I’ve got to be able to look them in the eye and say, we’re going to win. I have to be able to do that. And I’m not a good faker.”

In deference to the state of my pancreas (or is it the left kidney?), I’m going to leave it to you, the reader, to complete this paragraph:

He said, “I cry, I weep, I hug.” But to be fair, he also does that when...

Civility

Dick Cheney, asked by Sean Hannity about the bad things Nancy Pelosi has said about the Republicans, says, “Well, it would seem to be a little inconsistent to use that kind of language on her adversaries and then talk about trying to restore civility.” Dick Cheney talking about restoring civility is like the pot telling the kettle to go fuck itself.

I haven’t said anything about Israeli PM Olmert’s decision to make racist pig Avigdor Lieberman (who wants, among other things, Palestinian members of the Knesset executed for treason for not participating in Israeli independence day celebrations) his deputy prime minister, mostly because I haven’t decided whether or not to call him “Holy Avigdor” Lieberman. The life of a blogger is made up of decisions like these.

Bush press conference: And the reason I’m confident we’ll succeed in Iraq is because the Iraqis want to succeed in Iraq

Caught some of Chimpy’s press conference, which, with the normal press room still under construction, was held in the Hideous Yellow Drapes Room of the White House. No transcript yet available, just my notes, so let’s wing it. (Update: transcript.)

Iraq is “tough for a reason.” There’s a significant difference between benchmarks and a timetable, evidently. The former is so Iraqis know “when are you gonna get this done.” One benchmark will be when the Iraqi troops are able to drive themselves. He did say he wouldn’t put more pressure on the Iraqi government than it could bear. Isn’t that what religious types tell people at funerals that God wouldn’t do to them?


He said something about convincing Iraqis that a civil war would be “not worth the effort.” (Update: “It’s one of the missions, is to work with the Maliki government to make sure that there is a political way forward that says to the people of Iraq, It’s not worth it. Civil war is not worth the effort -- by them.”) A question on what we would do in the event of a civil war was rejected as “hypothetical.” He told the reporters that he could see how people would think Iraq was in bad shape when they “watch your tv screens,” but reminded us that 90% of the – and he actually used this word – “action” takes place in just 5 provinces.

Ah, now I’ve got a partial transcript from CNN. The best bits all seem to have been before I tuned in. “We must not look at every success of the enemy as a mistake on our part, cause for an investigation or a reason to call for our troops to come home.” Notice how he slipped in the bit about no need for an investigation.

Bush’s attempt to formulate a Zen koan: “And the reason I’m confident we’ll succeed in Iraq is because the Iraqis want to succeed in Iraq.”


He explains that the Iraq war is different from World War II, but his grasp on what exactly World War II was seems a bit tenuous: “We were facing a nation state -- two nation states -- three nation states in World War II.” Also, WW II was easy: “We were able to find an enemy by locating its ships or aircraft or soldiers on the ground.”

Iraq’s long national nightmare is over

On Monday, Prime Minister Maliki issued this statement: “The Iraqi government hereby warns all groups with illegal weapons to refrain from any armed activities that undermine public security.”

I don’t know why no one thought of doing this before.

Peace, ain’t it grand.

Wherein I make a joke you will find totally tasteless, and repeat to everyone you know

Usually when I pick up a phone you have 2 seconds to speak or I hang up – I hate those automatic dialing machines. Just now I failed to hang up fast enough and got to speak all too briefly with a chirpy young woman with slurred California vowels. She told me that she thought children should have playgrounds instead of prisons, and she knew I felt the same way too. I said “Nope” and hung up.

An Austrian man cut off his finger and presented it, with his wedding ring still on, to his ex-wife, after what Reuters helpfully describes as “an acrimonious divorce.” “He was charged with harassment and assault” – assault? well, to be fair, you can’t say he didn’t lay a finger on her – “but told a preliminary court hearing that he did not regret cutting off the finger and did not plan to get married again.” That’s probably a good plan.

You choose, and I support you

In Florida for another round of fundraising, Bush stopped off at the facility of Gyrocam Systems Inc., which describes itself as “rapidly becoming the industry-leader in airborne surveillance solutions for law enforcement and homeland security.” Spying on people from helicopters, in other words. Bush said, “And in order to make sure that companies such as this little company continue to expand you got to keep taxes low.” Somehow I don’t think it’s the tax cuts that are keeping Gyrocam Systems, which has recently moved into the exciting new field of IED detection devices, expanding.



In an interview with CNBC, Bush described his meetings with his generals: “the role of the commander in chief is to say to our generals, ‘You adjust to the enemy on the battlefield.’ ... I know there’s a lot of speculation about the tactics, but the – what you got to know is the meeting I had with the generals on Saturday was – the meeting went like this: ‘We want to win.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘What are we doing to adjust to the enemy?’ ‘And here are some options, Mr. President.’ And my answer is, ‘You choose, and I support you.’”

I don’t anticipate losing

Knew I forgot something: part 3 of Bush’s interview by (shudder) Bill O’Reilly.

Bush claims to have recently read three books on George Washington and came to this conclusion: “if they’re still analyzing the first president, the 43rd president ought to be doing what he thinks is right.” Of course Bush could read a Harlequin romance, a Spiderman comic book, or the back of a cereal box, and see them all as parables showing that he should go ahead and do whatever the hell he wants to do.

Bush called a routine question about how a Democratic Congressional victory would affect him a “trick question” and has no plan for that eventuality. “I don’t anticipate losing,” he said. No, wait, let’s edit that quote for clarity: “I don’t anticipate losing.”

O’Reilly insisted that he was the second most criticized person in the country, and Bush is the first. And being O’Reilly, he brought up the “culture war.” They both agreed that secular leftists dislike Bush because he believes in God. “And if people want to ascribe all kinds of, you know, all kinds of motives to my thinking, they just don’t understand me.” Dude, we don’t even ascribe thinking to your thinking.

Benchmarks are from Mars, timetables are from Venus

In today’s Gaggle, Tony Insert-Snow-Related-Pun-Here said that there are indeed benchmarks (“benchmarks” is the word Bushies are using because evidently “timetables” are the devil’s work, or only pussies have timetables, or timetables, we don’ need no stinkin’ timetables, or something) for progress in Iraq: “For instance, by the end of the year, there will be a hydrocarbon law.” See, and you thought it was a quagmire.

Elsewhere in the Gaggle:

Q Is the President responsible for the fact people think it’s stay the course since he’s, in fact, described it that way himself?

MR. SNOW: No.

All right, then.

Mike Nelson and some of the old Mystery Science Theatre 3000 gang, seeking publicity for their new business, which is a lot like the old one but downloadable and without the bots and not free, have alternate voiceovers for ads for Schwarzenegger

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and Angelides.

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Waiting for the adults

See Billmon’s post “Babbling Idiots” (tell us what you really think of them, Billmon) and George Packer in the New Yorker about the Iraq Study Group and the paucity of options remaining in Iraq.

I know I can’t wait. What will it be? Partition? because imperialists drawing lines on maps has always been an excellent way of resolving conflicts forever and ever. Pick a new Strong Man? because sooner or later things will get so bad that Achmad Chalabi couldn’t make them any worse. Oh, I just can’t wait.

In the meantime (and for Iraqis, it’s been a very mean time indeed), James Baker and Lee Hamilton have been making numerous appearances on news shows, evidently just to say that they’re not ready to discuss their conclusions and suggestions yet, don’t even bother asking them, and then fill the remaining 10 minutes showing Jim Lehrer pictures of their great-grandchildren. These are election campaign appearances and nothing else, a repeat of the 2000 strategy of surrounding Shrub with “adults,” who would save him from his own callowness. Of course those adults turned out to be Cheney and Rumsfeld. Adults, to be sure, but batshit-insane adults (someone said in 2001 of the Bush Cabinet that there hadn’t been so much pseudo-gravitas in one room since Henry Kissinger dined alone).

Did I say arrogance and stupidity? I meant stupidity and arrogance

A statement issued by Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy for the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs: “Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase ‘there has been arrogance and stupidity’ by the U.S. in Iraq. This represents neither my views nor those of the State Department. I apologize.”

I don’t go back and look at those decisions

We seem to be hearing lately of more “bicycle bombs” in Iraq, suggesting that while they’re not running out of bombs, and they’re certainly not running out of people willing to be suicide bombers, they may be running out of cars.

Israel admits having used white phosphorus bombs in Lebanon.

In the New Yorker, Jane Mayer adds a detail to the story of Khaled el-Masri, that German national kidnapped by the CIA because of mistaken identity, flown to an Afghan prison for months of “interrogation,” then dumped on a mountain road in Albania: the plane that transported him to Afghanistan stopped off at Majorca on the way back, the crew treated to two nights’ at a luxury hotel, on us.

Time magazine has a softball interview with Dick Cheney, even trying to convince him to run for president. They did ask if he regretted dodging military service: “No, I don’t go back and look at those decisions.” I believe him. If there’s one thing he shares with Chimpy, from whom his persona otherwise differs so enormously, it’s that complete lack of self-reflection. Also, they’re both Bubble Boys: asked about the Iraqis not being sufficiently “grateful” to us, Cheney responds, “Well, I talk to a lot of Iraqis, and the ones I talk with have been very grateful and expressed their gratitude.” See, and you thought Iraqis weren’t grateful for all we’ve done to for them.

Constantly changing

Paul Richter and Doyle McManus write in the LAT about the likely change in course in Iraq after the November elections. It starts by pointing out a recent addition to Bush’s speeches I’ve been meaning to mention, a claim that “Our goal hasn’t changed, but the tactics are constantly adjusting”. They suggest that this is his way of making changes without admitting to the failure of his old policies. That’s part of it, but I’d highlight the function of that adverb “constantly,” which is to fend off proper analysis and debate. Every time he’s used the strategy/tactics distinction recently, he’s said that tactics are “constantly” changing. While the strategy and goals are (the Bushies insist) beyond debate because of their set-in-stonedness, there is no point for Congress or anyone else to discuss tactics for the exact opposite reason: they’re changing all the time; by the time you’ve discussed one failed tactic (Operation Forward Together, which was to restore stability to Baghdad, for example), they’re already on to the next one, because they’re “flexible,” see, and they react according to events in Iraq, not Washington.

Speaking of omerta, Bush spoke at the National Italian American Foundation dinner. Here he is doing his Don Corleone impression:

“Some day - and that day may never come - I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”

Go to GOP.com, the Republican party website, and watch their ad “These are the stakes.”

You can also buy an “I am proud Bush is my president” mouse pad for only $25.