I’ve been waiting all day to say, Hoo-ah!

Some of our brave troops made the ultimate sacrifice today: listening to a speech by George Bush. They listened to him over there (in Fort Irwin, California) so that you don’t have to listen to him here.

He opened his remarks thus: “I’ve been waiting all day to say, Hoo-ah!” What a rich, full, rewarding life he leads.


He thanked the troops for joining the army, which evidently people don’t do in other countries: “Ours is a remarkable country when people volunteer to serve our country in a time of war.”

He thanked the families of the troops who joined the army: “I understand that when a loved one is deployed, it creates anxiety.” Actually, now that I read that sentence again, it sounds kind of dirty. “You’re an integral part of making sure this volunteer army is as successful as it is today.” Dude, you’re blaming them for that?


He says that on 9/11 “my attitude about the world changed that day”. Really? Wasn’t his attitude about the world pretty much always that it revolves around him? “Like many Americans, we struggle with understanding with what this attack meant.” Duuur, big buildings fall down boom. “See, what changed on September the 11th is oceans can no longer protect the people in the United States from harm.” I think the Indian Ocean just hasn’t been pulling its weight. Stoopid Indian Ocean.


Oh, let’s just skim quickly through the rest of the speech: “make no mistake about it, these extremists believe things -- for example, they don’t believe you can worship freely; they don’t believe you should speak your mind; they don’t believe in dissent; they don’t believe in human rights.” I don’t think you need me to MST3K that sentence for you.


If we pull out of Iraq, “The enemy that had done us harm would be embolden.”

On Iraq: “it’s not a civil war; it is pure evil.” He’s not the messiah; he’s a very naughty boy.

On Congress: “Then, instead of sending an acceptable bill to my desk, they went on spring break.” And didn’t invite him. DIDN’T INVITE HIM!

“The enemy does not measure the conflict in Iraq in terms of timetables.” They probably use the metric system, those bastards! Stoopid metric system.

At Fort Irwin, they let him play with the bomb detonation robot,


and they let him play with a surveillance aircraft,


but all he really wanted to do was rub that big old bald head.

Meet the loser lesser Republican candidates

Thomas “Tommy” Thompson announced his candidacy this weekend. To be president. Just thought I’d mention it because, well, someone has to. TomTom says that he is the “reliable conservative” candidate, as opposed to a wild and wacky conservative, and predicts that he will win the Iowa caucus because “I’ve been in Iowa every single week since the first week in December.” John McCain spent five years in a Vietnamese prison camp, and even he’s not willing to do that. Also, McCain has a job that he occasionally shows up to, and TommyTom is unemployed, which brings up the question: if you have to put that much work into winning the Iowa caucus (not that he will), does it still count? Also, shouldn’t he be saying that Iowans will vote for him because they like his policy positions, not just because he spent a lot of time in their state?


Nativist swine Tom “Please ignore the vowel at the end of my name” Tancredo also announced. “The melting pot is cracked, and our Founding ideals are leaking through,” he said, instantly proving his unfitness for political life, because if there is one person who should not be using the words “cracked” and “pot” in close proximity to each other...

Bush press conference: cauldron of chaos

This morning Bush castigated the “Democrat leaders” for being “more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq,” and suggested sending the troops to fight political battles in Washington and the Democrat leaders to Iraq. Okay he didn’t, but you know he was thinking it.

(Fun with perspective, from Reuters photographer Larry Downing)

He went on: “If Democrat leaders in Congress are bent on making a political statement, then they need to send me this unacceptable bill as quickly as possible when they come back. I’ll veto it, and then Congress can get down to the business of funding our troops without strings and without delay... and we go about our business of winning this war.” See what he’s doing here? He’s suggesting that the Democrat leaders are acting childish and he’s the mature, responsible one.

He repeated the assertion, previously made by others, that Nancy Pelosi is sending “mixed signals” in Syria: “photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they’re part of the mainstream of the international community, when, in fact, they’re a state sponsor of terror”. I always get those two confused myself.

Continuing about Assad, Bush lets loose with an “in other words”: “There have been a lot of people who have gone to see President Assad -- some Americans, but a lot of European leaders and high-ranking officials. And yet we haven’t seen action. In other words, he hasn’t responded.”

And another, about former aide Matthew Dowd’s criticism of his policies: “Matthew’s case, as I understand it, is obviously intensified because his son is deployable. In other words, he’s got a son in the U.S. Armed Forces”.

And another: “Again, Plante mentioned that people don’t think we can succeed -- in other words, there’s no chance of succeeding.” There were 5 more “in other words”’s during the press conference.


Things that would happen if we withdrew from Iraq: “watching the country go up in flames,” “Iraq becomes a cauldron of chaos which will embolden extremists, whether they be Shia or Sunni extremists; which would enable extremists to have safe haven from which to plot attacks on America.” So they’d be emboldened by the cauldron of chaos, and they’d have safe haven in the cauldron of chaos.

Ken Herman of Cox asks him if he knows the current price of gas. $2.60, he says. Herman asks where he’s shopping.

Asked if the, how you say, Democrat leaders aren’t simply doing what they were elected to do in November, Bush interprets: “I think the voters in America want Congress to support our troops who are in harm’s way. They want money to the troops.”

You know, I hear people equate supporting this war with “supporting our troops” twenty times a day, but every so often it just pisses me off all over again.

Asked about Peter Pace and the gays (sounds like a bedtime story) (which I suppose, in a way...): “I will not be rendering judgment about individual orientation. I do believe the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy is good policy.”

In case you were wondering why we have a Department of Homeland Security: “We do everything we can here at the homeland to protect us. That’s why I’ve got a Homeland Security Department.”

That’s also why we have an Iraq, there in the, you know, uncivilized world: “Iraq is a very important part of securing the homeland, and it’s a very important part of helping change the Middle East into a part of the world that will not serve as a threat to the civilized world, to people like -- or to the developed world, to people like -- in the United States.”

(More fun with perspective, from AP photog Gerald Herbert)

No one asked him about the naked chocolate Jesus, which was disappointing.

And no one asked him about “comfort women,” a subject he evidently discussed today with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has denied that women were forced into brothels for Japanese soldiers. Bush evidently told Abe that he appreciated his “candor” and that Japan today is not the Japan of World War II.

Mixed signals

The Bush admin warned Nancy Pelosi that visiting Syria would send “mixed signals.”

Here she is sending mixed signals by eating a dried fig.


And here, she sends a mixed signal pointing to some dried fruits and herbs.


Here, she accepts some nuts. Totally mixed signal.


Here, she looks at the tomb containing the head of St. John the Baptist. Class, what sort of signal is she sending?

I can’t think of a post title, but I’ve got a picture of Bush looking silly, which is really all you need to know, right?

Robert Fisk writes about how the Iranians are using the footage of the 15 British sailors to humiliate the West: “Blair will fulminate and Bush will roar and the Iranians will sit back and enjoy every second of it.” This was obvious when they chose to display the one woman captive first. Bush’s casual (I assume) use of the word “hostages” Saturday, by the way, ratcheted up the diplomatic tensions in a way that makes it harder for Iran to back down. Almost as if he wanted a crisis for some, you know, reason.

Though Fisk points out that Iran understands us much better than we bother to understand Iran and is using this knowledge to manipulate Western reactions, he doesn’t explain something that’s been bothering me for days: the first letter ostensibly written by captive Faye Turney was obviously written for her by someone with a less than fluid grasp of English. [Update: here’s an analysis by a linguist.] That was pointed out in every story about it, Iran must have been following those stories, but the 2nd and 3rd letter were no better. They didn’t care that the letters weren’t even slightly plausible, and I’m not sure why.

Here’s the thing about George Bush: you can photoshop him to make him look stupid, like this picture illustrating The Onion’s story “Bush Refuses To Set Timetable For Withdrawal Of Head From White House Banister,”


but you really just cannot make him look stupider than he does naturally (Reuters, yesterday):

The full picture

John McCain was in Iraq today, complaining during a press conference in the Green Zone that Americans aren’t getting the “full picture” from the media about how safe Iraq is now. “Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able go out into the city as I was today”. How did he (and other congresscritters) go out into the city? If you guessed wearing body armor, in armored vehicles, with helicopters flying overhead, accompanied by many, many soldiers, you guessed correctly. Isn’t that how everyone goes to market? The delegation went rug-shopping in the largest Baghdad market, where the AP notes that some sellers “would not take money for their souvenirs”. With all those men with guns sweeping through their stalls, they probably thought it was a stick up.

[Update: Newsweek reports: “‘I bought five carpets for five bucks,’ Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina gushed at a presser shortly after the visit.” Ah, the spoils of war! That makes it all worthwhile.]

I asked about the Iraqi police who participated in the massacres in Tal Afar. Still no news, but their very existence is now being denied by the local American commander, Lt. Col. Malcom Frost, Military Moron: “As we investigate this, there’s no indication that this was an inside job... As much as we want war to be, it is not a zero-defect exercise, and unfortunately the enemy sometimes finds a seam. This is the case in this incident.” He went on, “Sometimes you must take half a step back to take two steps forward.” It is unclear if that half a step was the market bombing, which killed 152, or the reprisal massacres of 50 to 70 (such counts are highly political in Iraq, with Frost and the Tal Afar city government giving lower figures than the interior ministry). Like McCain, M.M. Frost chided the media and told it to just grow up already: “It is both foolish and immature to let this one event represent the progress Tal Afar has made.”

I’m a Plan A man

Today Bush was visited at Camp David by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Said Bush, “You come as a friend, we welcome you as a friend, and our discussions were very friendly.” You know, according to the WaPo, Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat using a vocabulary of only 236 words. Just saying.


You know what’s not so friendly? Malaria. “There is no excuse for malaria to continuing to kill as many people as it does.” That malaria sure does need a good talking to.


As does Iran: “the British hostages issue is a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi water. ...They’re innocent, they were doing nothing, and they were summarily plucked out of water.” Summary plucking, a fate worse than death. And out of water, to boot.

Then he went on about Iran and nukes for a bit, concluding, “And I’m hopeful that the people of Iran will be tired of the isolation. I would hope that there would be some rationality amongst their leaders in choosing a better way forward for the people.” Funny, because that – and you’re all way ahead of me on this one, aren’t you? – is what I’ve been saying about the United States for years.


However, he went on, “the United States does believe that it’s in our interest that we have people-to-people exchanges.” He’s not referring to exchanging the British sailors for the Iranian diplomats or whatever they were who were seized in Iraq in January and still held by the US. No, he means wrestlers: “As I say, we have no problem with the Iranian people. As a matter of fact, we just sent a wrestling team to Iran, all attempting to make it clear to the Iranian people that we’re interested in having a constructive relationship, and it is the decisions of their government that are preventing that from happening.” Because nothing says constructive relationship like homoerotic grappling wrestling.


Speaking of constructive relationships, he reiterated his eternal support for the Gonzolator: “Attorney General Gonzales is an honorable and honest man, and he has my full confidence. He is providing documents for Congress to find the truth. He will testify in front of Congress, and he will tell the truth. ... But I will remind you, there is no credible evidence that there has been any wrongdoing.” So that settles that.

Asked if he had a Plan B if the Doha trade talks fail, he said, “I’ve been asked about Plan B’s before, on different subjects. And that kind of means you’re willing to retreat. I’m a Plan A man”. 236 words. Just saying.

George Bush likes peanuts as much as the next guy

Bush’s weekly radio address attacked the “emergency war spending bills” just passed, including their “arbitrary deadline for surrender and withdrawal in Iraq” and, once again, “secure peanut storage.” He needed to add the word secure so he could get to this little joke: “I like peanuts as much as the next guy...” (They’re not like those pretzels, which you think are your friends, then they try and choke you. Stoopid pretzels.) “...but I believe the security of our troops should come before the security of our peanut crop.” (What he may be admitting here is that the reason he was initially so slow to provide the troops in Iraq with the proper body armor was that he just assumed that, like peanuts, they came with their own natural protective shells.)


Also, the Democrats want to raise your taxes, we need to cut entitlements, special interest projects, reckless taxing and spending, yadda yadda yadda.

What’s wrong with putting a bag over her head?

We knew that members of the police were involved in the reprisal killings in Tal Afar earlier this week. There were even reports, which I haven’t heard confirmed, that the Iraqi military and police shot at each other as the military tried to stop the massacres. 18 of the police were arrested. And very shortly afterwards, the government, provincial rather than national near as I can make out, simply ordered them released. They may or may not have been re-arrested since then.

It’s disheartening when a thuggish and criminally stupid regime that is starving to death those of its citizens it doesn’t beat to death gets the unanimous public backing of its neighbors, as Zimbabwe’s Mugabe just has from the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (listen to its anthem here). That’s all I have to say about that.

Monty Python’s Terry Jones expresses his disgust at the Iranian treatment of the British sailors & marines: “And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? ... It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives...” You get the idea.

Speaking of putting a bag over her head, the Bushies are bitching about Nancy Pelosi’s planned trip to Syria, which sends the wrong message. As opposed to Bush’s meeting this week with Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, the “Butcher of Chechnya.” While they’ve acknowledged that that meeting was a mistake, I haven’t noticed them doing anything to clarify their attitude towards the Butcher.

From the Butcher of Chechnya to the Kangaroo Skinner from Oz. David Hicks, the Australian who fought against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in 2001 before fleeing and selling his guns, being captured and spending 5 years in Guantanamo, plead guilty after his lawyer was kicked out of the military tribunal for refusing to sign an agreement to abide by rules that had not been written yet. The plea agreement includes provisions that he renounce all his previous claims about being beaten and tortured in Gitmo, declare that his detention was entirely lawful, not speak to the media for one year after his release, not sue the US for having been tortured, and not profit from, say, a book deal. And you know something? It’s kind of refreshing. At long last the US has stopped pretending that it doesn’t torture or that it has any interest in investigating allegations of abuse or torture. That the prosecutors had the authority to make such a deal, threatening Hicks with more years of confinement if he persisted in his claims of torture, tells you everything you need to know. He will serve out his sentence in an Australian prison, John Howard being willing to imprison one of his nationals on the basis of this miserable excuse for a trial. One wonders if he’s also promised to arrest Hicks if he violates the gag order.

Every time I come to Walter Reed my spirits are lifted

Bush went to Walter Reed today. “Every time I come to Walter Reed my spirits are lifted,” he said. So that makes it all worthwhile. Also, no one beat him death with their new prosthetic limb, so all in all a very successful visit.

He acknowledged the failures of Walter Reed and put the blame firmly on the non-humans responsible for them: “The problems at Walter Reed were caused by bureaucratic and administrative failures. The system failed you, and it failed our troops.” Also, a building failed our troops and it has been properly punished: “Building 18 has been closed. We’re fixing that which needs to be fixed, including, interestingly enough, putting a new roof on it.”

“This military system of ours, when you really think about it, just across the country, it’s very complex and it’s large.” Sir, you just blew my mind, sir!

“It requires a unique person to come here on a daily basis, and to heal the hurts of those who served our country.” I mean, he added, I only come here once a year or so for a photo op, and afterwards I have the willies for a month.

No, sorry, not the willies: he has his spirits lifted for a month.

Potential

Yesterday Secretary of War Robert

suggested to Congress that Guantanamo could be closed if only they changed the law to “address the concerns about some of these people who really need to be incarcerated forever, but that doesn’t get them involved in a judicial system where there is the potential of them being released, frankly.”

You have to keep explaining to them, very patiently, what it is necessary to do

Astonishingly, Blair did not win over the Iranians with his devastating argument: 29 degrees 50.36 minutes north, 048 degrees 43.08 minutes east. Both sides are taking umbrage at a fearsome rate, breaking it down into its constituent particles of outrage and processing it into great steaming piles of righteous indignation. The Iranians had promised to release the chain-smoking sailor Faye Turney, but backtracked when Britain refused to admit it was in the wrong. Then it released a letter written by Turney (assuming her native tongue is Persian-badly-translated-into-stilted-English), admitting the incursion and calling on Britain to pull out of Iraq. Blair said it was a “disgrace actually, when people are used in that way.” He explained his tactics: “What you have to do when you are engaged with people like the Iranian regime, you have to keep explaining to them, very patiently, what it is necessary to do and at the same time make them fully aware there are further measures that will be taken if they’re not prepared to be reasonable.” I don’t know how they can fail to respond favorably to such an approach.

Interesting story in the Indy about how Turkey has restored a 1000-year-old Armenian Christian church abandoned during the Armenian genocide as a symbol of Turkey’s new-found tolerance, but won’t allow it to have a cross or be re-consecrated.

Marijuana, like Viagra, is evidently not kosher for Passover (which the pro-cannabis Green Leaf Party in Israel points out means that it must be kosher the rest of the year). Probably just as well: the munchies and gefilte fish are not a good combination.

Speaking of not a good combination, George Bush spoke today. About the war supplemental bill. “[W]e expect there to be no strings on our commanders,” he said. Really, he should take that up with their tailors.

He also attended a ceremony at which Congressional Gold Medals were awarded to some of the Tuskegee Airmen. For your captioning pleasure, some pictures of Bush with Nancy Pelosi and Robert Byrd.

How to get the attention of the American people in a positive way

As he so fearsomely threatened, Tony Blair has released hard evidence that the British sailors were seized within Iraqi waters (actually, floating on top of Iraqi waters, one would assume). Here is that hard evidence: 29 degrees 50.36 minutes north, 048 degrees 43.08 minutes east. Pretty much conclusive, huh?

Title of a Bush speech: “President Bush Discusses Economy, War on Terror During Remarks to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.”

“It’s good to be with fellow conservationists,” he told the ranchers.

“[T]here’s a fundamental debate in Washington, when you really get down to it,” he told them, “and the debate is who best to spend your money. And I believe a cattleman can spend their money better than the government can.” So there’s a fundamental debate in Washington over whether cattlemen can spend money better than the government. This was in fact a point of division between Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers (Madison, not surprisingly, said it was the cattlemen).

“I say the tax cuts work. Since we enacted major tax reform in 2003, in response to recession and a terrorist attack, this economy of ours has created more than 7 million jobs”. Tax cuts were a response to 9/11?

“When I’m talking to [foreign] leaders and they’ve got an issue with American beef, it’s on the agenda. I say, if you want to get the attention of the American people in a positive way, you open up your markets to U.S. beef.” Also, “Every time we break down a barrier to trade, it makes it more likely somebody who’s raising a cow will have an opportunity to sell that cow into a better market.” Not better for the cow, mind you.

He did not say whether the Iraqis have gotten the attention of the American people in a positive way by opening up their markets to US beef, but he did say – and in this case his inability to correctly use prepositions is accidentally revealing – “And then they elected a government underneath that constitution.”

He’s also not good with verb forms, saying twice that “The lesson of September the 11th must not be forgot.” Or possibly he’s confusing the lesson of September 11 with old acquaintance and auld lang syne.

The Iraqi people, he says, “see positive changes.” In proof of this, he quoted... wait for it... “two Iraqi bloggers -- they have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we’ve got here”. He didn’t mean Riverbend, who hasn’t posted in more than a month. Actually, I don’t know who he meant, since the alleged quote he gave from these alleged Iraqi alleged bloggers about how everything is so much better now, is nowhere to be found on the web, according to alleged Google.

[Update: It’s evidently the blog Iraq the Model (which I don’t know, although its blogroll is entirely right-wing and, while long, fails to include Juan Cole or Riverbend), but the quotes he used seem to be from a Wall Street Journal op-ed by the two rather than the blog. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the NYT points out that the bloggers met Bush in the White House in 2004.]

“If the House bill becomes law, our enemies in Iraq would simply have to mark their calendars.” And they’d probably mark them with smiley faces. SMILEY FACES!

He doesn’t recall having recollections

Dana Perino clears up the question of whether Alberto Gonzales was involved in the decision to fire the US attorneys: “he says he doesn’t recall having recollections about having deliberative discussions about the ongoing process”.

How many of these stupid alternative fuels photo ops can Bush hold? Today he went to see some Post Office and FedEx trucks which are powered by electricity or switch grass or clean coal technology or possibly windmills. He said, “The goal I laid out of reducing gasoline by 20 percent over 10 years is a realistic goal. In other words, this isn’t a pipe dream,” adding, “In other words, this isn’t a dream about a pipe.”

Don’t make him cartographical. You wouldn’t like him when he’s cartographical

Tony Blair says that if Iran doesn’t hand back the 15 British sailors, “this will move into a different phase.” He may be forced to bring out... the maps. And coordinates. Which will prove (somehow) that they were in Iraqi and not Iranian waters. Said a Blair spokesmodel early in the day, “We so far have not made explicit why we know that, because we don’t want to escalate this.”


Blair said, “In the end, it is a question really for the Iranian government as to whether they want to abide by international law or not.” After all, it’s not like the British military is in Iraqi waters as part of a war that violates... oh, you know.

Tuesday Blair also attended a service at Westminster Abbey to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. A black protester shouted that the queen should apologize, both for the slave trade and for what she was wearing.

Condi does it in parallel and with each of them bilaterally

At the last press conference (I pray to great muppety Odin) of Condi’s triumphal trip to the Middle East, she repeatedly called Abbas and Olmert “serious people.” Maybe the joke was just too subtle for her.

NO USE SITTING ALONE IN YOUR ROOM: “And so I think the really important thing that we’ve done over the last few months is that they’re not in their corners; they’re in the same room and they’re going to walk down a path together.”

NOT, REPEAT, NOT A DOUBLE ENTENDRE: “As you will remember, when I came here I talked a lot about doing this in parallel and doing it with each of them bilaterally”.

REALLY, NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY A DOUBLE ENTENDRE: “But last time I was here, I think we were able to regroup in a sense. We were able to hold the trilateral. But then the question became what would the Palestinians and Israelis be able to do together.”

Fixating and sensationalizing

The city of New York is asking federal court to keep the records of police surveillance and infiltration of activist groups prior to the 2004 Republican National Convention sealed. It offers superb arguments: 1) the media would “fixate upon and sensationalize them”. Yes, that would be just like the media (at least, now that the long national nightmare of waiting to find out what drugs were in Anna Nicole Smith’s system is over). They might indeed “fixate” on them rather than, as the NYPD would prefer, “ignore” them (and the details I’ve seen so far do not require further sensationalization). 2) The “documents were not written for consumption by the general public.” So, if I’m following this logic correctly, they should be kept from the general public because the spies didn’t want the public to see them.

Another George Monbiot article on why biofuels suck. Judge it for yourselves.

Odd headline in the WaPo about the referendum on various authoritarian measures in already authoritarian Egypt: “Apathy Marks Constitutional Vote in Egypt.” The opposition called for a boycott, so maybe the low turnout is just possibly the result of something other than apathy.

Headline of the day (AP): “Report: Boy Competent in School Killing.”

Alberto Gonzales and his (snicker) integrity

Alberto Gonzales was interviewed by NBC today (the link is to the transcript. The 10-minute video on the page is only viewable 1) after watching a commercial, 2) on Internet Explorer. I’m not sure which is more obnoxious). He says that he and his family have been “pained” by the attacks on his credibility. “I grew up with nothing but my integrity. And someday, when I leave this office, I am confident that I will leave with my integrity.” Well, can you remember when you last saw it?

He denied that he personally had any improper motives in firing the attorneys. “I know the reasons why I made the decision,” he said several times, although he doesn’t actually say what those reasons were and he’s claiming a Reaganesque management style such that he didn’t know anything at all about the work of his US attorneys and left the decisions on who to fire up to subordinates who do. One wonders what he actually does all day. Looks under couch cushions for his integrity, I guess.

He also said, repeatedly and specifically, that there was “nothing in the documents” to prove improper motives. If that isn’t reassuring enough, “I’ve asked the Office of Professional Responsibility at the department to look into this. And — they will be working, along with the Office of Inspector General, to make it clear and reassure the American people that nothing improper happened here.” Because nothing is more reassuring than the investigators’ boss telling us what the results of the investigation will be before it has taken place.

Gonzo & Goodling & Die Yort

Alberto Gonzales’s senior counsel Monica Goodling will refuse to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Goodling took a leave of absence earlier this month. Whether that’s paid or unpaid I don’t know. It should be paid since she’s doing the same job, ensuring that the truth is not told to Congress, that she did before going on leave.

Okay, regular readers will have figured out right away that the reason I’m writing about this is because I want to point out that if there was ever a perfect name for an employee for the Department of Justice (she used to be its spokesmodel, too), it is Monica Goodling.

The Justice Dept website’s front page currently shows Gonzales putting a, ah, er, good face on things (click to enlarge, if you dare).


See, that’s what he and the US attorneys should be doing, is the message here, combating the sexual abuse and exploitation of children in Colorado. Troy Eid is not as justice departmenty a name as Monica Goodling, but it is Die Yort spelled backwards, for whatever that’s worth.

I’m quite flexible on what geometry we use

Some more diplo-gibberish from Condi in the Middle East, much of it about the “road map.” She explained, “The roadmap is really a kind of framework.” How will we use this roadmap, which is really a kind of framework? “We’ll use many different geometries, I’m sure, as we go through this process, but the key is to continue down this road toward a two-state solution.” And in a press briefing, she added, “I’m quite flexible on what geometry we use.” I’m not sure, but the different “geometries” may have something to do with the “political horizon” she keeps talking about (“if you’re going to talk about a political horizon, you have to know what issues people think are blocking the horizon”), or possibly about her holding talks with Abbas and Olmert separately, that is, “I think they have to move more also in parallel”. Somehow, I don’t think Condi remembers any more of her high school geometry than I do.

She accused Iran of “putting negative Iranian influence into an already difficult situation”.

She says Bush is really quite involved in the Middle East process, really he is. “[A]nd you know I’m with the President a lot, and it is almost always a subject when we are together.” Hoo baby. “He is, after all, the author of the two-state solution more than you will probably ever know because when he was putting that speech together, it was the President who insisted on being clear that we were talking about the formation of a Palestinian state and even clearer what it would be called.”

Readers may suggest in comments what Bush wanted to call the Palestinian state. Not-Jew-istan?

Asked in Egypt why the US didn’t pressure Israel to give up its nukes, Condi replied, “we’ve long said we hope that the day will come when there is no need for any state to contemplate the need for weapons of this kind in the Middle East.”

So while I was looking for a nice picture of Condi to put on this post – you know, this sort of thing...


... I ran across this picture, which the AFP has captioned, “Members of the Hamas security forces show off their combat skills during their graduation ceremony in Gaza City”.


Reading three of these transcripts in a row is doing funny things to my brain. A reporter, following up about Saudi Arabia’s role, said, “Yeah, but you said hope and assume...” At which point I thought, “Yes, and if you assume, you make an ass of u and me; and if you hope, you make a ho pee.” I think it may be time to lie down and watch tonight’s Simpsons.

Talking about the political horizon in parallel

Condi Rice is in the Middle East, doing her darndest to solve that region’s problems. While Israeli PM Olmert is insisting that Palestine shouldn’t even have formed a government before the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Condi is spewing platitudes and inanities about “establish[ing] a common agenda” and how “I think it can help all of us to have a destination in mind. I think this time it is best to talk about that political horizon in parallel. But I sincerely hope in the future the parties themselves can talk about the political horizon themselves.”

Fareed Zakaria lists the many promises the Maliki regime has made about reconciliation which have not been kept.

The Novgorod police broke up the demonstration yesterday, with great violence. A spokesmodel for the city claimed it was necessary to protect the children in the area. But as I mentioned yesterday, it was the government itself that put them there, in a children’s festival they scheduled in the location the demonstration organizers had announced they would be using.

In a statement about the British sailors seized by Iran in the Tonkin Gulf the territorial waters of Iraq and/or Iran, Tony Blair seems rather worried that Iran isn’t getting the message that he doesn’t, you know, like that sort of thing: “I hope the Iranian government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us. We have certainly sent the message back to them very clearly indeed. They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which is unjustified and wrong.”

Caption contest:

Arbitrary

Once again in today’s radio address, Bush attacked the Iraq bill for including funds for non-war-related things such as peanut storage. Peanut storage is sort of a sore subject for Bush, who as a child had to be taken to the hospital 57 times after stuffing peanuts up his nose.

Speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition Leadership, Dick Cheney demanded “that Congress should make all the tax cuts permanent -- and that includes ending the federal death tax.” The death tax is sort of a sore subject for Cheney, because he is one of the undead, which is kind of a gray area, death-tax wise.

Cheney went on to accuse Congress of “not supporting the troops, they’re undermining them.” He went on, “And when members of Congress speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines, or other arbitrary measures, they’re telling the enemy simply to run out the clock and wait us out.” It’s interesting that it’s deadlines he labels arbitrary, since there are hardly any objective criteria for the achievement of “victory.” If Bush declared “victory,” it would be (to quote the dictionary definition of arbitrary), “based on random choice or personal whim... contingent solely upon one’s discretion.”

The Sunday Times of London says that Russian tv stations have been given lists of politicians who may not ever be mentioned on-air. Un-persons, if you will. And up in Socialist Heaven, George Orwell is saying, “1984 wasn’t meant to be a user’s manual, you know.”

The WaPo Style Invitational is good this week. Unreal facts. Some of them:

A man in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, has created a ball of string the size of the planet Jupiter.

The plays of Shakespeare were actually written by a different person with the same name.

In Kenya, the native land of Barack Obama's father, the word "barack" can be translated as either "clean" or "articulate."

In France, the musical "Les Misérables" is known as "The Miserables."

One out of every 14 e-mails offering big money for help in an African currency exchange is genuine.

An unopened can of Spam found in a pharaoh's tomb was still edible after 4,000 years.

No two snowflakes are completely different.

Before World War II, Almond Joy candy bars contained real joy.

Eskimos have more words for "snot" than for "snow."

Of course they couldn’t have done the children’s festival thing with Chavez, because everyone knows he eats babies

From the Guardian, more on the increasing authoritarianism of Russia. Lots of details, including the banning of yet another party, but here’s my favorite bit:

The mayor’s office [in Nizhny Novgorod] announced a children’s festival on the site of the proposed march, and blocked off the road to carry out what it said were urgent repairs.

Speaking of rallies, the US’s Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, at the Council of Americas, said that Argentina shouldn’t have allowed Hugo Chavez to hold his rally in Buenos Aires at the same time as Bush was in Uruguay earlier this month. “I didn’t think that was the right thing to do.” Really, when George Bush is speaking, it’s just good manners for everyone on whatever continent he’s speaking on to keep quiet and still and listen respectfully. Were you people born in a granero?

Because the pig is really more of an autumn

Tom Tancredo says of proposed immigration legislation, “It’s another attempt to change the color of the lipstick they keep putting on the pig.” You know, putting lipstick on a pig really sounds like a job you’d hire an illegal immigrant to do.

It soothes my spirit to be with you

Today George Bush celebrated Greek independence day, the anniversary of the day Delta House declared independence from the tyrannical rule of Dean Wormer.


And then he looked into the big brown eyes of Archbishop Demetrios...


“One of the joys about being the President is you get to meet some pretty interesting people,” he said. “And it gives me great -- it soothes my spirit to be with you,” he said. “I thank you for your spirituality,” he said. And then he celebrated a little Greek independence of his own, if you know what I mean.

The Democrats have sent their message, now it’s time to send their money

The House passed its war spending bill, such as it is. Bush was furious. He was furious in front of that painting of George Washington, and some guys in funny hats, and little girls dressed identically.



The “narrow majority,” he exclaimed, had “abdicated its responsibility” to do what he told them to do. It was “political theater” “to score political points” because the bill “has no chance of becoming law” (remember, when he persists in something that has no chance of succeeding, it’s principled steadfastness, when others do so, it’s theater, and you know what sort of people do theater: homosexuals!) (I may be over-interpreting here).

Congress “set rigid restrictions that will require an army of lawyers to interpret.” Dude, I have a compromise: send the army of lawyers to Iraq and bring the regular army home. That way, everyone’s happy (except the lawyers, who don’t count). As Shakespeare said, “Let’s draft all the lawyers.”

“Democrats want to make clear that they oppose the war in Iraq. They have made their point. For some, that is not enough.” I know! like impotently making their point wasn’t enough for these people, they actually wanted to translate it into concrete action of some sort. “The Democrats have sent their message, now it’s time to send their money.” Whose money?

Interesting typo in the transcript (I hope it’s a typo, I haven’t seen the video): “Our men in women in uniform should not have to worry that politicians in Washington will deny them the funds and the flexibility they need to win.”

Anyway, Congress “needs” to send him a “clean bill.” Because cleanliness is next to godliness, or something.

Bush doesn’t make it explicit here, but the new line from the Bushies is that if funding is delayed, new troops won’t be trained for Iraq, so they’ll have to extend the tours of the soldiers over there now, and it’ll all be the Democrats’ fault.

The madness of anti-war crowds on the internet

With all his folksy mannerisms, Bill Clinton could make you forget that he was very much an elitist, top-down type of leader, not at all welcoming of activists and activism. He reminded us of this yesterday when he suggested that poor Hillary is being portrayed, in relation to the Iraq war, in a way that’s “just not fair,” in order “to allow [Barack Obama] to become the raging hero of the anti-war crowd on the Internet”. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which phrase is more condescending and/or contemptuous, “anti-war crowd” or “on the Internet.”

He went on to insist (in a conference call to Hillary fundraisers) that the 2002 resolution wasn’t really a vote for war but for “coercive inspections.” I guess it all depends on what the meaning of “coercive inspections” is. Still, I don’t recall her saying “Wait, that’s not I voted for” when Bush used that resolution as permission to invade Iraq. Bill says that Hillary’s refusal to apologize for her vote is from concern that future presidents might need similar resolutions for coercive inspections. Wonder which countries he has in mind to be coercively inspected?

You’re welcome, Jon Stewart

Couldn’t help but notice that last night’s Daily Show (the clip “Reasonable Proposal”) contained the exact same response to Bush’s remark about the US Attorneys – “I named them all” – as I posted Tuesday, a joke about Bush’s propensity to assign nicknames to people, right down to one of those nicknames being “Stinky.”

I’m sure my check is in the mail.

Been in this process too long

As the talks with North Korea are on the verge of breakdown, US chief negotiator Christopher Hill comments, “The day I’m able to explain to you North Korean thinking is probably the day I’ve been in this process too long.” That’s actual Bush administration policy, you know: on the actual day you finally master the skills necessary to do your job competently, they fire you.

Which brings us to the US attorneys, specifically a WaPo editorial telling everyone to just calm down, to let go of the “stubbornness and overheated rhetoric on both sides,” which “threaten an unnecessary constitutional crisis that would only bog down the inquiry in a distracting fight over process.” I really dislike these lazy editorials that come up during every scandal – or “supposed scandal,” as the editorial calls this one – accusing both sides of being equally unreasonable. It’s the editorial equivalent of a Joe Lieberman “oh everybody in Washington (except me) is just so unreasonable and partisan” speech. The authors could write them in their sleep, and most likely do.

You know there’s something seriously wrong with it when the piece characterizes Bush’s take-it-or-fuck-off offer as “Alberto R. Gonzales would set the record straight in new hearings...” Yeah, Gonzales... record... straight...

The Post suggests that Gonzales and other Justice Dept officials testify first and then, only “if questions remain” should Karl Rove and Harriet Miers be interviewed. Of course, any familiarity with the facts makes it clear that the decision to fire the attorneys was made in the White House rather than the Justice Dept, that Gonzales has never made a big decision by himself in his whole career, so it is clearly impossible for Gonzo and the Gonzettes not to leave questions remaining (which is why I’ve sadly had to forgo calling this scandal GonzoGate).

The WaPo thinks Rove and Miers should testify on the record but needn’t do so under oath because it’s already illegal to lie to Congress. If it really makes no difference either way, there’s no reason not to swear them in. Makes you wonder why anyone is ever sworn in. (I’m not sure what the legal difference is, possibly that the oath to tell the whole truth is a higher standard, that the statute against lying to Congress doesn’t cover lies by omission.)

The Post thinks Bush should accept its eminently reasonable recommendations: “If Mr. Bush is serious about wanting the truth to come out, he will relent on this issue.”

You know someone’s been in the editorial-writing business too long if they can write, without laughing uproariously for hours, the phrase “If Mr. Bush is serious about wanting the truth to come out...”

Elsewhere in the paper, the WaPo reports on political interference in the government lawsuit against the tobacco companies. But what you never hear much about is the policy, dating from Ashcroft, of Justice systematically ordering US attorneys to demand the death penalty in cases where they didn’t think it warranted, as part of a policy to spread the federal death penalty evenly over the country, imposing it on non-death-penalty states, in other words overriding the prosecutors because of policy rather than the facts of the individual cases. I know of no case in the last 6 years that went the other direction, with a US attorney who wanted to seek the death penalty ordered not to.

Quite a considerable Tonga population in the U.S.

Today Bush met with New Zealand’s prime minister, Helen Clark.

Bush said of their discussions, “We talked about the South Pacific.” No doubt he gave a rousing rendition of “There is Nothing Like a Dame.” “And I praised the Prime Minister on her leadership in dealing with some difficult issues. I assured her that our government would want to help in any way we can. We understand this is a -- some of the countries there have got difficult issues”. There was no Q&A, perhaps because they were afraid somebody would ask him to name some of the countries there in the South Pacific, and give a précis of their difficult issues.

Clark informed him that there is “Quite a considerable Tonga population in the U.S., as well as in New Zealand.” Lord only knows what Bush thinks a Tonga might be.

She also made this unlikely statement: “The president is very familiar with the work New Zealand has been doing in Afghanistan”. Really, any statement about Bush containing the words “is very familiar” is by definition unlikely.

Bush summarized their discussions thus: “All in all, I found it to be a constructive conversation, such a good conversation I’ve decided to invite her for lunch.”

We can only conjuncture whether she found this condescending and obnoxious. Nevertheless, I entitle this series of photographs, “Dear God, how I loathe him.”