It’s not just car bombs

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

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


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

Force has kind of a negative connotation

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

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

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

It didn’t sound like a joke to me

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

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

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

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

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

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

What they really believe is they believe freedom is bad

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

So vote Democratic – if your will has been broken.

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

Lieberman and Lieberman

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

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

In other words, Congress voted on these tools

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

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

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

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

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

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

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

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

You also have to wonder about the audience:

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

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

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

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

The principles we hold dear

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

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

They now want ammunition

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

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

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

Just say no to drapes

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

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

AUDIENCE: Booo --

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

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

AUDIENCE: Booo --

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

AUDIENCE: Booo --

...Just this week in New Jersey --

AUDIENCE: Booo --

And so on.

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

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

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

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

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

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

AUDIENCE: Just say no!

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

AUDIENCE: Just say no! (Applause.)

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

AUDIENCE: Yes!

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

AUDIENCE: Yes!

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

AUDIENCE: Yes!

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

AUDIENCE: Yes!

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

AUDIENCE: Yes! (Applause.)

Maximum care

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


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

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

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

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

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

Staying the course

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See, they try to hide behind the language

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

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

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

Rumsfeld warns reality: just back off

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

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

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


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


The key exchange of the briefing:

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

(No audible response.)

We have upheld doctrine

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

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

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

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

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

It would also be an interesting national anthem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Civility

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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