Finally, George Bush helps out the troops

AP headline: “Army Program Teaches Troops to Recognize Brain Injury.”

Guilty-ish

Corp. Trent Thomas has been convicted of kidnapping and conspiring to murder Awad the Lame, but not for premeditated murder, making a false official statement, housebreaking or larceny. Now, if he was guilty of the things he was convicted of, then he was guilty of all the other charges, which were elements of the same crime. So what the jury did was to “compromise” with the facts in order to avoid the mandatory life sentence attached to the premeditated murder charge and allow themselves to give Thomas what I predict will be an insultingly light sentence.

Fun fact about courts martial: the jurors vote by secret ballot.

Two more courts martial in this case will begin later this month.

Unfiltered

News Story That Makes Us Feel All Conflicted of The Day: “A new prosthesis under development will give servicemember amputees more flexibility and...” wait for it... “help them better perform their military jobs if they choose to stay on active duty.”


Usually when I think about commenting on a David Brooks column, I take a deep breath and decide that life is too short. Tuesday, however, he wrote about that Bush meeting with right-wing journalists. Brooks quotes Bush as saying that his belief in the inevitable progress of freedom and democracy is a “theological perspective.” You know, gift from the Almighty, that kind of thing. The rest of the column is about how Bush believes in leaders. “When Bush is asked about military strategy, he talks about the leadership qualities of his top generals. ... When Bush talks about world affairs more generally, he talks about national leaders.” Brooks, being a nitwit, doesn’t perceive any contradiction between Bush’s talk about democracy and his upholding of the führerprinzip.

The most interesting sentence in the column is “Bush said he will get General Petraeus’s views unfiltered by the Pentagon establishment.” He probably used that word too, since during the meeting he also talked about promoting the good news about Iraq, “tangible evidence that even the filter can’t filter out”. He still hasn’t learned a thing about the need to get multiple points of view, and still automatically discards any analysis that comes from an institution rather than an individual.

Today, Bush visited a company that makes underwater computer keyboards.


And just as this fabulous product gives people the choice of surfing the internet beneath the sea, Bush talked about giving people more choice in health insurance. He’s against it. Well, he’s against it if one of the choices is provided by the government. He opposes the proposed expansion of the S-CHIP program because it “would cause people to drop their private insurance in order to be involved with a government insurance plan.” Is it me, or is he saying that the possibility that people might prefer it is a reason it’s a bad idea? Also, “I believe government cannot provide affordable health care.” Which would astonish the citizens of every other advanced industrial country in the world, but again, it’s a voluntary program; if it’s not affordable, people won’t sign up for it. “I believe it would cause -- it would cause the quality of care to diminish. I believe there would be lines and rationing over time.”


A Bush line I didn’t catch in yesterday’s session with Ban-Ki-Moon until I heard it on the BBC: Al Qaida is weaker now than in 2001 “because we’ve been working with the world to keep the pressure on”. Evidently he doesn’t realize that the United States is, actually, part of the world. Which would explain a lot.

This one’s for you: ||||||||||||||||||||||||

The Haditha Massacre hearing for Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum heard today from another corporal who shot a few people that day but was given immunity. Cpl. Humberto Manuel Mendoza says that when they raided a house, shooting a man in the house for, you know, looking at them, he found two women and several children in a bedroom, informed Tatum, who said, “Well, shoot them.” Tatum then went back and did it himself (in the news reports I’ve read, the names and ages of the dead are nowhere to be found). Tatum would later tell investigators, “women and kids can hurt you, too,” adding, “I stand fast in my decisions that day, as I reacted to the threats that I perceived at that time.” Threats like women and kids. Which are the sort of people you tend to find in, you know, homes. Tatum was known to opine (this is after the massacre) that the way to fight a war is to go into a city and kill every living thing.

You’ll remember that the Haditha Massacre began after a roadside bomb killed a Marine. When the unit sent the Marine’s pack to his parents, they signed it, Tatum adding 24 hatch marks, representing every civilian massacred at Haditha, and the words “This one’s for you.” Tatum’s lawyer suggested the marks referred to a rosary.

And in the other war crimes trial I’ve been following, Trent Thomas’s court-martial concluded today, with his lawyer claiming that the prosecution never claimed that the man Thomas murdered was in fact Awad the Lame or even an Iraqi, so he should be acquitted. Not sure I follow the logic. “There was not murder. There was a killing,” he said. Well that’s okay then.

Vanity Fair has an article on the development of torture techniques by a couple of Mormon psychologists the government hired with your tax dollars. Subtle stuff, as you’d expect from a psychologist. Actually, the authors don’t know if the CIA actually did use that coffin they built to soften up Abu Zubaydah by burying him alive... but the idea was approved by White House lawyers.

So which candidate is in favor of indolence and perversions, ‘cause I’d totally vote for that guy

In a new ad, Mitt Romney says that he wants to engage in a culture war, get rid of sex and violence on tv and in the movies, cancel “Big Love,” and eliminate “indolence and perversions.” For the children. For the children.

If you eliminated indolence and perversions, what would Americans do in the evening? There’s only so much Scrabble you can play, and he probably wouldn’t even allow Strip Scrabble.

I just thought up Strip Scrabble, right then, but I’ve googled it and there are 675 hits. Romney has his work cut out for him.

Today Bush met with UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon. Evidently they “discussed a lot of issues.” Such as “the potential trial for -- about Hariri.” Trial? Of whom?

“And one of the things I briefed the Secretary on was my views about extremism and these radicals that will do anything to disrupt the goals set by the United Nations and/or disrupt the advance of democracy in peaceful societies.” 1) In normal usage, you “brief” someone about something factual, not about your views. Like his use of “remind” (discussed here yesterday), he is failing to distinguish reality from opinion. 2) What peaceful societies?

He said that Al Qaida is much weaker than it was before 9/11, and that it “would have been a heck of a lot stronger today had we not stayed on the offense.”

Let’s compare and contrast Bush’s remarks with the National Intelligence Estimate released today, entitled “The Terrorist Threat to the Homeland,” or at least the two-page summary of the NIE we’re allowed to see (pages 6-7). It says that “the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment” and strongly indicates that the war in Iraq is the thing heightening the threat environment. (Threat environment is a weird little phrase, isn’t it?) How does that work?

we assess that al-Qa’ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.

While Bush says “these killers in Iraq... have sworn allegiance to the very same man who ordered the attack on September the 11th, 2001, Osama bin Laden,” the NIE uses the words affiliate and association to describe the relationship, highly imprecise words that don’t say much about the nature of that connection. Although my favorite near-meaningless word in that paragraph is “leverage.” We’re meant to understand that AQ can order AQI to send people to the US, excuse me, the Homeland to engage in terrorist attacks, but they’re rather careful not to say that AQ has that sort of control over AQI.

Also, of course, it was the American occupation of Iraq that produced this entirely new body, Al Qaida in Iraq, and what is “energiz[ing] the broader Sunni extremist community” is not either group using the name Al Qaida, but the occupation itself.

Bush said that “these killers in Iraq... want us to leave parts of the world, like Iraq, so they can establish a safe haven from which to spread their poisonous ideology.” But the report says that no safe haven is actually required:

globalization trends and recent technological advances will continue to enable even small numbers of alienated people to find and connect with one another, justify and intensify their anger, and mobilize resources to attack – all without requiring a centralized terrorist organization, training camp, or leader.

You know what else recent technological advances are good for? Indolence and perversions. Just sayin’.

Deadly force is the proper response to a threat

Today in the court-martial of Corp. Trent Thomas for the murder of Awad the Lame, a doctor at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda claimed that because Thomas was so often exposed to bomb blasts in Iraq, he may have received a hitherto unnoticed brain injury that caused him to be incapable of saying no to orders.

But how does that explain the same symptoms in [insert name of idiot pro-war politician of your choice here]?

In another war-crimes trial, that of Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum for his part in the Haditha Massacre, Tatum’s lawyer insisted that he was under attack, or at least that he’d heard a metallic sound which might have indicated that he was under attack, or at least that he knew a house was “hostile” because his squad leader was shooting at it, so he did too. The lawyer argued, “He was taught that deadly force is the proper response to a threat.” Actually, his rules of engagement said he also had to know what he was shooting at, it was written down on a card and everything, but his lawyer says they can’t prove he actually had the card at the time. He added, “We would have chaos on the battlefield if every lance corporal questioned every order given by a staff sergeant.” Yes, much better to have a mass slaughter of civilians than to have chaos on the battlefield. Chaos is so... chaotic.

Securing the security of others

The alliterative Peter Pace says that he won’t predict the future in Iraq because things could magically improve, you just never know: “Look at al Anbar province. All it took was about 27 sheikhs to decide they had had enough of al Qaeda, and very quickly things changed.”

This morning, Bush met with Lech Kaczynski, the tiny adorable (but evil) twin president of Poland. He thanked him for “working on behalf of securing the security of others.”


Said Bush, “there’s no better symbol of our desire to work for peace and security than working on a missile defense system -- a missile defense system that would provide security for Europe from single or dual-launched regimes that may emanate from parts of the world where leaders don’t particularly care for our way of life, and/or in the process of trying to develop serious weapons of mass destruction.” As opposed to the frivolous weapons of mass destruction. And no, I have no idea what dual-launched regimes means, but I’m sure it’s very very important to keep them from emanating from parts of the world etcetera.

In a little speech about the Middle East today, Bush said, “This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians.” Bushies (especially Condi, who probably wrote that line) like to talk about moments of clarity, by which they mean events which should prove even to the complete morons who somehow didn’t already agree with them that they were right all along. The phrase “moment of clarity” betokens an unwillingness to accept the legitimacy of other interpretations of reality than their own. Or even to recognize the difference between interpretation and reality. In his Friday meeting with conservative journalists (which I discussed 2 posts ago), Bush said he will “remind my fellow citizens of what the consequences of failure [in Iraq] will be.” “Remind” is a word Bush frequently misuses in this way, to blur fact and opinion. You can remind people of something factual, such as that Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, but not of a speculation about the future.

The moment of clarity for the Palestinians is that they must now understand that Hamas are evil, evil I tell you. And they can either follow Hamas, which would “guarantee chaos, and suffering, and the endless perpetuation of grievance... surrender their future to Hamas’s foreign sponsors in Syria and Iran, [and] crush the possibility of any -- of a Palestinian state” or they can follow Abbas’s “vision of a peaceful state called Palestine”. So “the Palestinian people must decide that they want a future of decency and hope -- not a future of terror and death.” Also, paper or plastic.

For no particular reason, here is Condi Rice during the Bush/Kaczynski meeting,


and during Bush’s speech on Palestine.



So lonely, so lonely.

Brother from another planet

Yesterday, the White House hosted a game of tee ball or, as Bush called it, baseball. The event also honored Jackie Robinson. One of the guests was Marc Morial, president of the Urban League. Here is how Bush addressed him: “Marc, how you doing, brother?” George is so down with the homies.

You don’t know what it’s like to be commander-in-chief until you’re commander-in-chief

Friday, Bush spoke for an hour with some conservative journalists, to encourage them to cheer-lead for the war. Since there’s no transcript, I’d hoped to read reports by participants before posting, but Michael Barone believes it was against the rules to directly quote Bush, so I’m left with the account by Kate O’Beirne and Rich Lowry, who have a different understanding of the rules.

He began by saying that everything would turn out okay because “I strongly believe that Muslims desire to be free just like Methodists desire to be free.” Of course (some) Muslims also desire to kill people with whom they have ideological differences, just like (some) Methodists do.

He claimed to understand the frustration of the American people with the war, but said he still has “tools” such as “the bully pulpit and the ability to convince the American people.” Awww, he thinks he still has the ability to convince the American people. Isn’t that adorable?

That was a rhetorical question.

O’Beirne & Lowry say Bush “marveled” at a question he was asked in last Thursday’s press conference: “They asked me yesterday ‘Are you sure it’s al Qaeda [in Iraq]?’ ‘Yeah, how do you know?’ ‘Because they swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden is how I know. Yeah, it’s al Qaeda.’” Quod erat demonstrandum. Really, sometimes you just have to marvel all over again at the shallowness of his thought processes.

Bush, they say, “talked of a ‘ground-up’ approach to reconciliation [in Iraq].”


He’d also like reconciliation here, a “bipartisan consensus” to keep troops in Iraq for “a while.” “We need to be in a position that can sustain a long-term troop presence.”

And where are those troops coming from, since we’re going to run out of fresh troops in spring? “People said we couldn’t find the troops for [the “surge”] as well.” So that proves that we can always find more troops if he wishes really hard. Or something. Anyway, that sort of thing is for the little people to deal with: “I’m sure that in the bowels of the Pentagon people are looking at troop rotations and troop movements, but that is not the primary objective of our commander on the ground – next question!” So the bowels of the Pentagon will simply shit out more cannon fodder.

It’s so very lonely at the top: “You don’t know what it’s like to be commander-in-chief until you’re commander-in-chief.”

If somebody is worth shooting once, they’re worth shooting twice

Another corporal in Trent Thomas’s unit, Saul Lopezromo (who did not participate in the killing of Awad the Lame), testified that their unit had been criticized for not beating up enough Iraqis during their patrols. He also said that when Thomas shot Awad seven times after he had already been shot by others in the unit, he was engaging in what Marines call “dead-checking” (i.e., killing off the wounded rather than, say, providing medical care). “If somebody is worth shooting once, they’re worth shooting twice,” said the corporal, who said that dead-checking is routinely taught at Camp Pendleton boot camp. Um, someone might want to check into that.

He also said that shooting a random Iraqi was in fact “killing the enemy... Because of the way they live, the clans, they’re all in it together.” I see a bright career ahead of him in anthropology. Or genocide.

Awad the Lame, we hardly knew ye

The court-martial of Corp. Trent Thomas seems to be going pear-shaped. Prosecutors are saying that the murdered Iraqi may not have been Awad the Lame, although they’re also saying they have DNA evidence that he was, but they are changing his name on the charge sheet to “an unknown Iraqi.” I don’t know what that’s all about, and it doesn’t help that the only news source covering this case is the San Diego Union-Tribune. The defense is jumping on this confusion to claim that the guy killed in Awad the Lame’s home on the last day Awad the Lame was ever seen alive could have been anyone, even, Dum Dum DUMMMMM... an insurgent! Specifically, the cousin of the man the Marines intended to kidnap, frame and murder. Thomas’s lawyers seem to think that if the man his unit chose at random to kidnap, frame and murder when they couldn’t find the guy they wanted to kidnap, frame and murder was in fact an insurgent, then no crime was committed.

Is everyone ready? Then let’s begin.

In the weekly radio address, Bush said, “To begin to bring troops home before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for our country.” It used to be that we’d leave only after “victory.” Now, it’ll just be when we’re “ready.” And that judgement will be left to the people below him in the chain of command.

Another key word in that sentence: begin. It appears again a few sentences later: “Most Americans want to see two things in Iraq: They want to see our troops succeed, and they want to see our troops begin to come home.” Actually, I think most Americans want to see them actually come home. All of them. You, George, are the one who wants a permanent military presence.

In his press conference Thursday, Bush denied that Al Qaida is stronger now than it was before 9/11, but today he said that withdrawing from Iraq “would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda”. Dunno, seems to me that if that were true, then they’re at least a teensy bit stronger than they were six years ago.

$25 million? I don’t get out of bed for less than $40 million.

South Dakota resumes executions after 60 years.

Headline of the day, from the BBC: “Czech Castration Raises Worries.”

(Later): spoke too soon. Also from the BBC: “Pygmies Housed in Congo Zoo.”

The Senate voted to double the reward for the capture, dead or really, really dead, of Osama bin Laden, in case there was someone capable of doing that, but for whom $25 million was chump change.

Another New York Magazine competition. I only have three more. Does anyone have some old clippings (or a large stack of pre-2000 back issues in a closet somewhere) they’d like to share with the class?

11/1/99, new magazines.

Drunk Car & Driver.

Roughage Digest.

Big Fat Bride.

Today’s Governess.

Rod Stewart Living.

Popular Creation Science.

Nouveau Riche.

Power Luncher.

Schadenfreude.

Online Boyfriend.

Too Much Money.

Trophy Wife.

Alternative Lifestyles Bi-Monthly.

Loo Magazine.

Ennui Enthusiast.

Hats and Cattle.

Osama Bounty Hunter Monthly.

The last one is my addition, although if it had existed when the comp ran in 1999...

The complete collection of New York comps here.

Bush press conference: respecting the command structure

Bush held a press conference today, and this time there were no 13-year-old girls for him to make cry.

Really, he didn’t have anything new to say, though his faith in his old material is touching. So you might want to just look at the pictures, which pretty much tell you everything you need to know about George W. Bush.


He attacked the integrity of everyone who disagrees with his assessment of the war in Iraq. “When we start drawing down our forces in Iraq it will be because our military commanders say the conditions on the ground are right, not because pollsters say it will be good politics.” If you want to name the people you think are opposing the war because the pollster say it will be good politics, name them, otherwise just shut up. Also, a democracy doesn’t turn over its decisionmaking to its military commanders. (Indeed, he said that his waiting until David Petraeus reports in September before making any decisions is “respecting the command structure.”)


Congress, of course, is not actually in this command structure of which he speaks: “Congress has all the right in the world to fund. That’s their main involvement in this war, which is to provide funds for our troops.”

Later a reporter asked why, when he failed to send enough troops initially, and did everything else wrong since then, we should believe he has the “vision for victory,” he said historians will analyze that, and then blamed Tommy Franks and the commanders, which I guess is what he means by respecting the command structure. “I went to commander and commander that were all responsible of different aspects of the operation to remove Saddam. I said to each one of them, do you have what it takes?”


It’s not just poll-watching politicians whose integrity he questions: “I understand why the American people are -- you know, they’re tired of the war. There is -- people are -- there is a war fatigue in America. It’s affecting our psychology.” Personally, I’m not tired of the war, because I was never bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about the war, but it’s just plain insulting to claim that those who turned against the war did so because their “psychology” was “affected,” that they have no rational basis for their views.


And when asked later about the unpopularity of the war, he said, “And of course I’m concerned about whether or not the American people are in this fight. I believe, however, that when they really think about the consequences if we were to precipitously withdraw, they begin to say to themselves, maybe we ought to win this, maybe we ought to have a stable Iraq.” See, they just haven’t really thought about the consequences. When they do that, obviously they’ll agree that he was right all along. You wait and see.


“I cannot look a mother and father of a troop in the eye and say, I’m sending your kid into combat, but I don’t think we can achieve the objective. I wouldn’t do that to a parent or a husband or wife of a soldier.” No, he’d lie to them.


Maybe he’s not really saying that everyone we’re fighting is a member of Al Qaida, but that they’re actually the same 19 guys over and over, taking over new bodies every time the old one is killed, like some crappy horror movie. Or he’s like one of those girls who keep dating guys just like their abusive fathers, or something: “And one of the reasons it is hard work is because on our TV screens are these violent killings, perpetuated by people who have done us harm in the past.” “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th”.

Asked specifically, “are you saying, sir, that al Qaeda in Iraq is the same organization being run by Osama bin Laden, himself?” he responded: “Al Qaeda in Iraq has sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden.” Er, not really the same thing.


IN OTHER WORDS: “There are still car bombs, most of which have the al Qaeda signature on them...” Look for the union label, when you are buying explosives or bombs. “...but they’re declining. In other words, so there’s some measurable progress.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “In other words, sectarian violence was really raging.”


On Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby etc, and whether he’s disappointed in the behaviour of any of his advisers: “I’m aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I’ve often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, I did it.” Or if you’d actually asked them to do so. And... perhaps somebody in the administration disclosed her name? PERHAPS!?! “Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter?” Remember when he claimed to hate leaks? Now the only thing he deplores about the whole affair is the “endless hours of investigation” it exposed his staff to. “But it’s been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House...” though not as tough for Scooter as it should have been, “and it’s run its course and now we’re going to move on.” Considering that at one point he makes fun of his father’s phrase “kinder and gentler,” what he just did is right out of Poppy’s Iran-Contra playbook: for years, Bush the Elder said that he’d love, really and truly love, to talk about his role in that, but there were still legal processes going on. When those were played out or thwarted by pardons, suddenly it was “old history” and not worth speaking about.


IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME: He said he would “consult with members of the Congress, both Republics and Democrats”. (The transcript says “Republicans.” The transcript lies.)

The Iraq benchmarks report, satisfactory progress, and the winds of Chamberlain

Israeli Minister of Evil Strategic Affairs, Unholy Avigdor Lieberman, told Israeli Army Radio Tuesday that Israel has been given permission by the US, NATO and Europe (he didn’t name actual names) to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. “If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the US will support us,” he said. In an example of how different news sources can cover the same thing entirely differently, an AFP report on the interview skips that part but stresses Lieberman’s attack on the EU as appeasers of Iran: “The wind of Chamberlain is blowing over Europe.” I just got an image of Neville Chamberlain unfurling that rolled-up umbrella and flying away, Mary Poppins style, on the wind of Chamberlain.

The White House report on how Iraq is meeting those benchmarks is out, and rather than saying that Iraq has failed to meet any of the 18, it says that it’s “satisfactory” in 8, although its standards suggest that the Bush administration is very easily satisfied indeed. Mostly it achieves this by saying that “satisfactory progress” is being made towards the benchmark, which is as close to a meaningless standard as they could get. To be fair, this was the standard Congress asked for in the legislation mandating this report, which is therefore able to say “This report provides, consistent with the Act, an assessment of how the Iraqi Government is performing on 18 specified benchmarks, rather than the effects being generated.” So the tiniest move is considered progress, which is considered satisfactory. Sometimes just talking about it. While the progress towards achieving even-handedness by the security forces is rated satisfactory (but only because our standards are so very high), the government is praised because “Iraqi officials continue to communicate the importance that all terrorist organizations be targeted, regardless of their affiliation or ethnic background.” I think communication is so important, don’t you? The report adds coyly, “there remains one individual that Prime Minister Maliki has made the decision to delay targeting.”

One measure of success: “The [Anbar] provincial government -- for the first time in a year -- is now able to meet in the province”.

In other cases, it decides that the benchmarks are unimportant or even bad ideas, like amnesty (“there is no group for which amnesty would be appropriate”) or disarming the militias (“the necessary preconditions... such as political reconciliation and security provided by the government, do not yet exist”).

Many of the failed benchmarks are ones involving reconciliation, or the government ceasing to act in a sectarian fashion. These are deemed “lagging indicators,” a term I assume they focus-grouped and will be using often. This means that we shouldn’t take them as signs of failure because they will progress only after every last terrorist is hunted down and killed.

Bush’s press conference on this subject in my next post in a little bit. First, I have to lie down until that Neville Chamberlain image goes away.

Douchebag of the day

Lindsey Graham, yesterday, opposing a measure to give troops as much time out of combat zones as in them: “if you want to take care of the troops, let ‘em win.”

I just brought terror to someone under the American flag

Harriet Miers: from nominee to the highest court in the land to contempt of Congress in two short years. It would be so ironic if she wound up in jail. And by ironic I mean hilarious.

The Nation interviews some Americans who served in Iraq. “We always got the wrong house.” “I guess while I was there, the general attitude was, ‘A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi.’” “I just remember thinking, ‘I just brought terror to someone under the American flag’.” Etc.

Sam Brownback is campaigning in Iowa accompanied by the brother of Terri Schiavo, a former Sudanese slave, and an aborted fetus. I’m making up the last part, but maybe I shouldn’t give him any ideas.

And Tom Tancredo is proposing refusing automatic citizenship to children born in the US unless one of their parents is a US citizen. This would leave millions stateless.

Hey, McCain, if you put on “gay sweaters” because your campaign staff tells you to, maybe the real problem is with you and not the staff?

Lady Bird Johnson, and friends:


Opening the new White House press room:

I’m a high expectations person

Oh sure, many of the top positions in the Department of Heimat Security remain unfilled, but who needs them when you’ve got Michael Chertoff, who is able to predict terrorist attacks in the US this summer because he has a “gut feeling.”

Bush spoke today to the Greater Cleveland Partnership. CLE+! CLE+!


He talked tough, even violently, about taxes: “we acted and cut taxes -- and cut them hard”.


Talking about taxes brought out the exceedingly rare triple – yes, I said triple – In Other Words: “Most small businesses are Subchapter S corporations or limited partnerships. In other words, they pay tax at the individual income tax rate. So, therefore, when you cut income taxes on everybody who pays taxes -- in other words, when you lower the rates, it affects the ability of small businesses to keep capital; in other words, keep more of what they earn.”

After that, the single In Other Words he used talking about health care was rather unsatisfying: “And the reason I emphasize private insurance, the best health care plan -- the best health care policy is one that emphasizes private health. In other words, the opposite of that would be government control of health care.” I think be believes that was some sort of logical argument. He says that he will “resist Congress’s attempt to federalize medicine.” You didn’t even know Congress was trying to federalize medicine, did you?

He mentioned that he’d visited the Cleveland Clinic, where they let him play a video game at the Center for Advance Study of Therapies for Brain Injury.


I assume the video game must be one of their therapies for brain injury. Sadly, they could not help with his, for lack of a better word, brain, and after a few moments he got bored and wandered away.


Anyway, he said the Clinic had something called outcome books. “In other words, we’re willing to be measured, says the good doc.”

He again complained about sick people not having to pay their own medical bills: “How many of you have ever actually tried to price a medical service? Probably not many. ... Well, if somebody else pays the bills, why do you care what the cost is at the time of purchase?” Er, who is this argument aimed at? Why would anyone want to be price a medical service, or to have to care what the cost is at the time of purchase? Is anyone clamoring for a system under which they make decisions not based solely on medical needs, but financial ones?

He also said, “we’ve got to relieve the pressure on the pig farmer.” How true. How very true.

He talked about energy. He said, “If you’re really interested in the environment, like a lot of people are...” then you have to support nuclear power. But only if you’re really interested in the environment.

Before turning to the war portion of the speech, he said, “So my stop here has been really aimed at heralding technology. You got to be optimistic about America’s future, because of some of the great technologies that are taking place.” For example, this fuel cell forklift they let him play with.


He had some bad news to break: “I regret I have to tell you we’re in war.” Although it’s okay if you don’t believe him: “Some in America don’t believe we’re at war, and that’s their right.”

He talked about the enemy: “These folks aren’t isolated folks, you know, they just kind of randomly show up. They have an objective.”

He said about Iraq, “And I fully understand how tough it is on our psyche. I fully understand that when you watch the violence on TV every night, people are saying, is it worth it?” Dude, watching violence on tv is always worth it.

“I want to tell you, yes, we can accomplish and win this fight in Iraq.”

He says Congress should “give General David Petraeus a chance to come back and tell us whether his strategy is working.” “That’s what the American people expect. They expect for military people to come back and tell us how the military operations are going.” (Update: having now seen the video, I’ve added italics to show the strong emphasis he put on both instances of the word military in that sentence, indicating that mere politicians should not itch to interfere with matters which they do not understand.)


YOU GOTTA BELIEEEEVE! “And I strongly believe it. And I strongly believe we will prevail. And I strongly believe that democracy will trump totalitarianism every time. That’s what I believe. And those are the belief systems on which I’m making decisions that I believe will yield the peace.”

In the Q&A, someone asked him about NASA, and he said that he, personally, had changed NASA’s mission to make it more “relevant.” What it used to do: “orbiting in a space shuttle – in a space station.” What it will do: Mars, baby!

A Pakistani asked about public diplomacy in the Muslim world, and how when he visits Pakistan, they tell him he’s crazy to live in the US. Bush says that no doubt the questioner tells those Pakistanis, “I love living in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave,” then asks him if he’s a Muslim, and tells him the US is a great country where he can worship freely, although I’m pretty sure he’s free to be a Muslim in Pakistan. Then he said that the US isn’t at war with Islam, because “we’re not facing religious people, we’re facing people whose hearts are filled with hate, who have subverted a great religion.” Yeah, ‘cause hate and religion have always been totally incompatible.

I haven’t seen the video, but I gather he made a 13-year old who asked a question about immigration cry by responding sarcastically.

About education: “And so I strongly believe it’s in the national interest to say, we expect you to read -- unless, of course, you happen to believe they can’t. I’m a high expectations person.”

A high expectations person! That’s the funniest thing we’ve ever heard!

Myths refuted!

The White House issues another of its hilarious “fact checks” refuting “key myths” about Iraq, such as the one that Iraq was formed out of Zeus’s snot.

Also, Myth 1: “The war ‘is lost.’” It so is not. We know exactly where it is.

Myth 3: The U.S. is playing “whack-a-mole” in Iraq. It’s really more like that game where you try to pick up a teddy bear with a claw.

Myth 9: Maliki is an agent of Iran and/or Sadr. In fact, “There is no evidence that Maliki or his wing of the Da’wa Party is an agent or puppet of Iran.”

Read the whole thing; it’s chock-full of bitter laughs.

You don’t surge on a permanent basis

A court martial has begun in the murder in April 2006 by 7 Marines and a Navy corpsman of a man in Hamdania, Iraq. They came up with a plan (without orders) to kidnap and kill a suspected insurgent, then plant an AK-47 and a shovel on the body, to make it look like he was caught in the act of planting IEDs. Not finding him at home, they mulled it over and decided (this is the part I want to hear more about during the trial) to go ahead with their cunning plan, only with whoever they could randomly snatch from a nearby house. Who turned out to be known as Awad the Lame. The lawyer for Corp. Trent Thomas said he simply “had no choice but to do what he did” because “Marines in combat don’t challenge orders.” Well, when the order is to murder a civilian in cold blood (which, by the way, is not my idea of “combat”), maybe it’s time to start.

By the way, since this is a crime of xenophobia, it might affect our perception of the story to know, as none of the wire services report, that Corp. Thomas is black. I’m not saying that’s explanatory of anything, just that race is not irrelevant in this country, this world or this war. They did manage to mention the less salient fact that he has two children (Awad the Lame had 11, and I forget how many grandchildren; the stories mention that he was a grandfather without giving either number, being more interested in humanizing the American killer than the Iraqi victim).

Excuse me, I meant to say alleged killer. The BBC a couple of days ago reported that police somewhere or other had “foiled an alleged plot.”

This weekend, Karl Rove was at the Aspen Ideas Festival, one of whose ideas was, hey, let’s invite Karl Rove. Karl Rove came with his own ideas: 1) Al Qaida is responsible for 80-90% of the bombs killing American soldiers in Iraq (complete nonsense, of course, but weren’t the Bushies trying to blame all those bombs on Iran?), 2) “we will be redefining the mission because the goal of the surge was to get us to a place where we could redefine the mission”; 3) Guantanamo is the bestest prison camp ever: “Our principle health problem down there is gain of weight, we feed ‘em so well.” Sometimes through tubes inserted in their nostrils.

The odd idea that the purpose of the “surge” was actually to give the White House time to think up a purpose for the surge was repeated by White House spokesmodel NEW NICKNAME ALERT! NEW NICKNAME ALERT! Tony “Frat Tony” Fratto: “It shouldn’t come as any surprise that we here in the Administration . . . are thinking about what happens after a surge... A surge, by definition, is temporary in nature. You don’t surge on a permanent basis.”

Palestinian president-for-life Abbas accuses Hamas of letting Al Qaida into Gaza “and through its bloody behaviour Hamas has become very close to al-Qaida.”

It’s a transforming strategy

Today something called the “White House Conference on the Americas” was held. Bush described it as “a conference to promote best practices, which really says, how best can the United States help people in our neighborhood.” By “neighborhood,” he means the Western Hemisphere. And by “United States,” he mostly meant private charities, although he did issue a command to Congress to “honor” the trade deals he’s negotiated with Peru, Panama and Colombia. By “honor,” he means ratify, that is, exercise their constitutional function as an equal branch of government as it relates to foreign treaties. “I’d like to see the Peruvian deal done by the beginning of August,” he said. They’ve got “ample days on the calendar,” he said, although he was berating them just Saturday for not having passed appropriations bills.

When I say jump, I mean this high.
Evidently, “We believe strongly in helping teachers teach”.

Bush’s Word of the Day was “objectives”: “And part of our discussions today will be how best to -- how best can the United States and faith-based groups and private groups and NGOs work collaboratively to achieve important objectives.” “[A]n objective of our country and this government is for there to be a healthy, educated and prosperous neighborhood”. “And we’re spending a fair amount of taxpayers’ monies to achieve those objectives. And so one of my objectives is to explain to the American people...”


On the day his lawyer informed Congress that he was (illegally, I believe) ordering former staff members not to testify before Congress (and reproving Leahy and Conyers for their “tone” and for their presumption in doubting the “good faith” behind the invoking of executive privilege), Bush said, “we expect governments to be honest and transparent and open. We reject the notion that it’s okay for there to be corruption in government. We really believe that open, transparent societies are those that lead to hopeful tomorrows.”


Representatives of various NGOs had scintillating back-and-forths (backs-and-forth?) with Chimpy.

THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you a question. So, you started this group initially to -- what’s the name of it?

MS. PACHECO: Keij de los Bosques.

THE PRESIDENT: Si. (Laughter.)

MS. PACHECO: It’s a Mayan word. (Laughter.)

What else did he learn from his exchange with Ms. Pacheco? “So, lesson one, by the way, there is such thing as social entrepreneurs.”

Pacheco said, “trade can be beautiful,” and Bush responded, “So I appreciate you bringing up the importance of markets, and providing -- giving people just a basic opportunities in life, and it will make it -- it’s a transforming strategy.”


In the middle of this meeting, Bush suddenly had a brain storm:

Do we have a website, for example, as a result of the meeting? I might ask my friend, Karen Hughes, to think about this. She probably has already thought about it, knowing her -- and that is to think maybe about a listing of different ways our fellow citizens can get involved in helping different programs, either financially or through time and effort. Maybe we ought to think about that. I know you already have.

Man, a website, Bush is a fucking genius. That is soooo why he’s the president, and you’re not.


Bush talked about capitalism with a conscience: “I think one of the things that our citizens have got to understand here, there’s a lot of corporate America that are very much involved in the communities, of which they’re active.”

BUSH: A healthy society is one in which people are responsible for their behaviors. A healthy capitalist society is one in which corporate America, in this case, is responsible for -- becomes a responsible citizen. And we have got such a soul here in Vivian Alegria. She is from Mexico.

MS. ALEGRIA: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Welcome. You work for?

MS. ALEGRIA: For the Coca Cola Foundation in Mexico.

If by healthy society, you mean a fat, toothless, diabetic one.

Did you notice how he almost said what corporate America is responsible for, and then stopped himself in the nick of time?

Bush told a guy from Brazil, “And when you say countrywide, first, you’ve got a big country.” Brazil being big is still a source of endless wonderment to him.

Evidently, money has something to do with, um, something: “You know, our government and the people -- the generosity of the Americans, American people can be -- as manifested by just money, spending money.”

He asked a Haitian doctor working on AIDS in her country, “You upbeat? You feeling all right about things?” and demonstrated his thorough command of detail: “She mentioned PEPFAR. That’s, like, initials for the AIDS initiative, and we’re making a big difference.”

He said, “You know, it’s interesting, our country has got certain images that -- some are true, some aren’t true.” That is so true.

Most appropriate acronym ever

“Post-surge redeployment” (PSR).

A well-regulated militia

Iraq’s Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi says that since the Iraqi government can’t protect Iraqis, as was amply demonstrated over and over this weekend, “the people have no choice but to take up their own defense.” He says the government should hand out weapons to communities and “regulate their use by rules of behavior.” Rules of behavior? Why has no one thought of this before? It’s so crazy it just might work!

The Bushes returned to the White House from Camp David. After all that fishing, George seems to be having some trouble getting his land legs back. You know there’s a problem when Laura’s the most lifelike one in the picture.



Many couples decided that 7/7/07 was an especially auspicious day to get married. These seven lucky couples entered an essay contest and won marriage ceremonies at a Six Flags amusement park performed, I guess, by the Rev. Bugs Bunny.


And just for the hell of it, here are a couple of pictures I took earlier. A few minutes later she threw up about a foot to the right.

It would be a mess

Yesterday, Gen. Rick Lynch, Military Moron, who says he is “blessed to command Multinational Division Center and Task Force Marne,” gave a press briefing via satellite. Blessed?

The goal of Task Force Marne (is “Operation Marne Torch” named after the river in France or the incredibly bloody Battle of the Marne in World War I?), he says, is to “block accelerants of violence into Baghdad”. What might those be? “Accelerants are defined as anything -- insurgents, weapons, materiel, IEDs, VBIEDs, ideology, anything -- that, left uncontrolled, would affect the security in Baghdad.” Oddly, he talked about how many caches of weapons and IEDs they’ve been finding, but not so much about stockpiles of ideology. And you know how dangerous that stuff is left uncontrolled.

Military codename of the day: Operation Stampede 3.

I think I’ve said before, Lynch loves to talk about “my battlespace.” He gets positively tingly. He said it eight times during the briefing, and “our battlespace” five times.

He also enjoys talking about “detailed kinetic strikes.” Which is something to do with killing people.

Operation Marne Torch is all about location, location, location: “We have taken real estate from the insurgents, and will now hold on to this terrain until competent, capable Iraqi security forces can provide the sustained security presence that’ll keep the extremists away from the people of Iraq and from the government.” That’s the problem with these real estate deals. You acquire this “prime” piece of real estate, thinking that some competent, capable prospective buyers will just show up and take it off your hands, and then you wait, and you wait, and you wait....

He says he “senses” a “growing discontent” among Iraqis with Al Qaida, which he believes has “worn out its welcome.” He’s just jealous that they got a welcome, and we’re still waiting for the flowers and dancing in the streets we were supposed to be greeted with in 2003.

He touted his “economic engagement strategy,” which entails giving funds to state-owned businesses (gasp! socialism!), which could give jobs to as many as 2,800 military-age males (sorry, gals!). “Now, you might say that’s not a big number, but that’s 2,800 people who aren’t going to be planting IEDs, because they got proper employment.” What, they couldn’t do it on the weekends? And is he saying that they’ll only be hiring people who write “planting IEDs” on the form under “previous job experience”? Or maybe that every single unemployed man is an insurgent?

There will also be a “scrap metal initiative,” because, for some reason, “there’s a lot of scrap metal in Iraq”.

Some of the reporters asking questions had names like Courtney Kube and Mike Mount and Guy Raz.

Some of the reporters had clearly been covering the military just a little too long. Mike Mount of CNN asked, “Do you have any MRAPs in your AOR?” I don’t know what it means to have MRAPs in your AOR, but it sounds incredibly dirty. Sadly, Lynch replied that he has no MRAPs, but “we’re all excited about getting the MRAPs.”

Asked what would happen if the “surge” troops were brought home, Lynch said (three times), “It would be a mess.”

My battlespace, all mine!

This moment is a test

In his weekly radio address, Bush took the Congressional Democrats to task for ignoring his budget requests (just as when Republicans controlled Congress, he acted as if Democratic congresscritters were irrelevant, he now does the same for Republicans, saying, for example, “I urge Democrats in Congress to step forward now and pass these bills...”).

“This moment is a test,” he says. And if there’s one thing George Bush enjoys, it’s, um, a test. And he doesn’t think the Dems are going to pass, accusing them of “working to bring back the failed tax-and-spend policies of the past” and saying that “By failing to do the work necessary to pass these important bills by the end of the fiscal year, Democrats are failing in their responsibility to make tough decisions and spend the people’s money wisely.” The D’s failed twice in that sentence! What incredible failures they are!

But he generously offered extra credit: “Democrats have a chance to prove they are for open and transparent government by working to complete each spending bill independently and on time.” How does “open and transparent government” enter into this? Also, why is he insisting that each appropriations bill be passed “independently” and “one at a time”?

It is time to restore that fear

Another Joe Lieberman Wall Street Journal op-ed article. Hands up, anyone whose mind has been changed, or who knows anyone whose mind has been changed, or has heard a rumor of anyone whose mind has been changed, by the surgical application of logic, the devastating deployment of expert knowledge and keen insight and rapier-like wit that mark all such offerings from the distinguished senator from the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.

He has abandoned all attempts to convince us that we’re winning in Iraq or that we can and will establish a democratic utopia there. No, now it’s all about Iran and the need not to send a “message throughout the region that Iran is on the rise and America is on the run.”

To prove that Iran is behind all of our military woes, he cites one Gen. Kevin Bergner, who earlier this week claimed that Iran’s secret agents are funding Hezbollah’s secret agents who are doing bad things in Iraq. He knows all about this because they caught some Lebanese guy in Iraq in March, who’s been a member of Hezbollah for 24 years and this terrorist mastermind kept... wait for it... a diary.

Incidentally, Holy Joe massaged Gen. Bergner’s claims a little bit. Where Bergner said that Iran trains 20 to 60 Iraqi insurgents at a time, Lieberman says “up to 60,” and where Bergner said that Iran sends $750,000 to $3 million a month to the insurgents, Lieberman says, “Iran has also funded its Iraqi proxies generously, to the tune of $3 million a month.” Somehow I failed to gasp in horror. Holy Joe, who gasps in horror at the perfidy of Muslims six times before breakfast, says that Iran plans with this rather modest investment to push the US out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and “dominate” those countries through its “proxies.”

Iran, “by its actions, has all but declared war on us and our allies in the Middle East.” He says they believe they can operate “without fear of retaliation. It is time to restore that fear, and to inject greater doubt into the decision-making of Iranian leaders about the risks they are now running.”

Restoring fear is, of course, Holy Joe’s raison d’être, his work and his hobby and his constant joy. The people he would really like to restore fear to are members of Congress (the article really isn’t aimed at the general public at all). He believes that focusing on “the fanatical regime in Tehran” will restore a little fear, or at least make them a little less relieved at the prospect of extricating ourselves from the slaughter: “I hope the new revelations about Iran’s behavior will also temper the enthusiasm of some of those in Congress who are advocating the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.” Temper that enthusiasm! It emboldens Iran, which “is betting that our political disunity in Washington will constrain us in responding to its attacks.” In other words, Pete Domenici is an agent of Iran. I’ll bet it says that somewhere in that diary. Has anyone checked?

Unclear on the concept

A panel of the US Circuit Court in Cincinnati dismisses an ACLU suit against Bush’s program of warrantless wiretapping, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing because they couldn’t prove that they’d been subjected to the secret surveillance. Yeah, that was kind of the whole point of the lawsuit.

Chris Floyd refers to “gangster moll Tony Blair.” I wish I’d said that.

New York Magazine competition, 10/18/82, a familiar line, title etc, updated and downgraded by the insinuation of a trendy [in 1982, anyway] word or phrase:

To be or not to be, that is the bottom line.

When shall we three interface again?

Something is grody to the max in the state of Denmark.

Give me liberty or gag me with a spoon.

Cry “God for Harry! England and Saint George! Go for it!”

Take a number, Satan.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, or what?

Beware of Greeks bearing free gifts.

Hi! Call me Ishmael.

Love is visually impaired.

What airheads these mortals be.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, check this out.


The complete collection of New York comps here.