Happy 4th birthday, Iraq War! They’re so cute at that age.

Bush gave a little speech for the 4th anniversary (8 Friedman Units) of the Old Iraq War, with a painting of Teddy Roosevelt, presumably in Cuba, behind him. He didn’t spend much time on the Old Iraq War, which was initiated “to eliminate the threat [Saddam Hussein’s] regime posed to the Middle East and to the world.” He moves right on before you can ask, “Without the WMDs you said he had, what threat was that, monkey boy?”


It’s another clean-slate moment for George, like quitting drinking and 9/11. He wants us to forget the boring Old Iraq War and focus on the New Iraq War, the “Baghdad security plan.” The New Iraq War is bright and fresh and, ya know, new, and isn’t bogged down after four long years, no, it’s “still in the early stages,” so what are you people being all impatient about? It will “take months, not days or weeks.” So, 4 or 30 times longer.

“It can be tempting,” he says, “to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home. That may be satisfying in the short run” but blah blah contagion of violence blah safe haven blah blah. Yes, opposition to the war is all about giving in and doing what’s “satisfying,” it’s just self-indulgence and you people make me sick.

I think that the way I would characterize it is so far, so good

I’m half-way through watching An Inconvenient Truth, so it’s cheering to hear Hillary Clinton talk seriously about energy conservation: “I turn off a light and say, ‘Take that, Iran,’ and ‘Take that, Venezuela.’ We should not be sending our money to people who are not going to support our values.” I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which “values” her comment illustrates.

She also said that the war in Iraq should never have been started but that now, “we have to end the war in the right way.” I wonder how many people throughout history have died pointlessly because someone wanted to end a war “in the right way.”

---

On Face the Nation (pdf), Secretary of War Robert

adopted the cheery optimism about Iraq that made his predecessor so beloved: “I think that the way I would characterize it is so far, so good.”

He did, however, distinguish himself from Rumsfeld in one respect. Where Rummy had his staff affix his signature to letters of condolence to the families of dead soldiers with an autosigner, Gates says, “I always add three or four lines in handwritten personal feelings at the end.” It’s the least he can do. The very least.

He utilized what is evidently a new bit of Pentagon terminology, for the practice of insurgents leaving Baghdad during the “surge” and carrying on as usual elsewhere in Iraq: “a squirting effect.”

Speaking of surge ‘n squirt, Gates said he had “too much on his plate” to think about revising Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Yeah, yeah, you were all thinking it.

---

Are the protesters all gone yet?

If you’re going to San Francisco, Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

The agreement forming the new Hamas-Fatah Palestinian government includes a standard phrase that there is a right to resist Israeli occupation. The United States opposes this, a State Dept spokesmodel saying, “The national unity government’s platform reference to the right of resistance is disturbing and contradicts the Quartet principles of renunciation of violence”. So it is official US policy that Israeli occupation of and military actions in Palestine may not be resisted.

The LAT has an editorial about the 2,264 ethnic Japanese people that the US took from Latin America, mostly from Peru, during World War II and interned in Texas. 13 countries cooperated with the US in this mass kidnapping, usually without putting anything down on paper, since it so blatantly violated international law. A few of them were exchanged for Americans captured by Japan, some were still interned in 1948, and very few were ever allowed to return to the countries that had connived in their seizure. When the US started paying reparations to interned Japanese-Americans in 1990, it refused to pay these internees (eventually some did get paid, 1/4 as much) for the reason – which the LAT doesn’t make clear enough – that they had been... illegal immigrants.

Moving on without any ironic segue whatsoever, Republicans are gearing up to object to any move to close down Guantanamo and move those prisoners into US military brigs on the mainland. Various congresscritters are saying they don’t want them in Florida or South Carolina or wherever. Says John Boehner, “If Democrats seriously want to import known terrorists -- captured in the field of battle against American troops -- perhaps we can set them up with a nice sunny spot in San Francisco?” Sunny spot? Has he ever been to San Francisco?

How come the WaPo quoted only part of a pro-war banner held by counter-protesters in Washington, “You dishonor our dead on Hallowed ground” (meaning Arlington), and left out the words above that, visible in a picture in the LAT, “Go to hell traitors”?

The WaPo, in an unrevealing article about how McCain is joined at the hip with the Iraq war, quotes a stump speech in Iowa, in which he claims that the people fighting us in Iraq aren’t really interested in Iraq per se: “I am convinced that if we lose this conflict and leave, [the terrorists] will follow us home. It’s not Iraq they are trying to take.” Then why don’t they just skip the Iraq segment of what McCain calls “this titanic struggle between good and evil” and come here now?

No, George, no you shouldn’t

Bush, at a “shamrock ceremony” with Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, proved that he speaks Irish just as well as he speaks Spanish: “good morning --or should I say, ‘top o’ the morning.’” (At 5:18 into this video)

Way too happy about getting a bowl of weeds shamrocks.

In Britain, the coroner in the “We’re going to jail, dude” case, in which American planes fired on a British convoy in Iraq, has ruled that the pilots acted unlawfully by disregarding their rules of engagement.

Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s office sent a letter to the editor of the house organ of an Arab political party, saying, “The Shin Bet security service will thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law,” with the “force of the principle of a democracy that defends itself.” I assume that’s a misprint and they intended to say “the farce of the principle of a democracy”.

Worth it

The Pentagon finally admits that “Some elements of the situation in Iraq are properly descriptive of a ‘civil war,’” (crappy writing: the term civil war describes Iraq, not the other way around), although they add “The term ‘civil war’ does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq.” I’m telling you: crapfest.

Tony Blair, on the other hand, won’t (Word document): “it’s not a country at civil war. The majority of people in this country [Iraq] don’t want this violence. ... What is happening is that small numbers on either side of extremists – no, hang on a minute – who don’t represent the majority, are trying to provoke people into a civil war. That is a completely different thing.” Are referenda usually held before the start of a civil war, and they’re called off if there isn’t an absolute majority in favor?

Asked a couple of times if the Iraq war “was worth it,” he answers that it was and is the “right thing” to do, which isn’t exactly the same as being worth it. His shying away from the phrase is an interesting mirror-image of the outcry in the US when Obama and McCain said that soldiers’ lives were “wasted.” I want McCain and every other supporter of the war to be asked if the deaths of American soldiers was worth it.

The Sky interviewer, Adam Boulton, asked if Blair thought Maliki is a democrat. Blair: “I do believe he is a democrat, he was elected, right, and he was then chosen as the President...” Boulton points out that Robert Mugabe was also elected and “just being elected doesn’t make you a democrat does it?” Blair: “Er, well I think it is quite a good indication”.

We’ve secretly replaced the president of the United States with a bowl of shamrocks. Let’s see if anyone can tell the difference.

Responsibility

The word of the week: responsibility. As we’ve seen in previous posts, Bush used it repeatedly in Mexico Wednesday, and Gonzales claimed he was accepting responsibility, a term, as I said, stripped of any meaning by the Bushies. And now Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has declared himself “responsible” for every terrorist action ever. Is he a megalomaniac or a fantasist? Was he acting under pressure? Was it a cunning scheme to make a “confession” so obviously over-blown that it would be dismissed as unreliable by most Americans while at the same time convincing Muslims that it must have been the product of torture? Since he knows he will be getting a show trial that could never lead to his release, he knows whatever he says will not affect his fate one iota, so he can speak to serve other ends: disinformation, propaganda, self-aggrandizement, whatever.

What I like is how they asked him if he was confessing under duress. He answered no. The real answer is yes. He is in a secret prison with secret courts, where he has already been tortured, anything he says can be and has been censored by his captors, and he will remain in the place where he was tortured after his “trial.” So duress permeates everything that happens there. Guantanamo is one giant machine of coercion, and anything he or any other prisoner says reflects that fact. The one thing a “trial” taking place in the heart of that machine cannot do is determine facts and evaluate evidence.

Bush met Iraqi’s Shiite Vice President Adil Abd Al-Mahdi yesterday and told him, “It’s hard work to overcome distrust that has built up over the years because your country was ruled by a tyrant that created distrust amongst people.” Yes, there has certainly been no reason for distrust amongst people in Iraq since Saddam fell.

Rituals

A quick all-photo post.

Bush and Patrick Leahy at a St Patrick’s Day luncheon, both clearly hammered.


And on the way to that luncheon, Bush passed (that’s his limo) some PETA protesters nakedly protesting seal-hunting in front of the Canadian embassy.


The Mayan cleansing ritual in Guatemala.

Bush in Mexico, where the inflamed passions come from

In Mexico, one last press conference, one can only hope, in which Bush attempts to speak Spanish. You’d think being surrounded for the better part of a week by people speaking Spanish would finally disabuse him of the notion that he can speak Spanish, but evidently not.


(I’ll also be happy to see the back of my own not very funny running “where the ____ comes from” gag, which started so innocently with a reference to an 1890s play about cross-dressing 95% of you have never seen anyway, although it’s been filmed about 1,000 times.)

Lamest example of Bush using Spanish, just from this one event: when a reporter asked Calderón what he talked about during lunch with former president Fox, a lunch at which Bush was not present, Bush popped up with, “They talked about carne.”

He talked about drugs. See if you can spot what the key word is regarding drugs: “I made it very clear to the President that I recognize the United States has a responsibility in the fight against drugs. And one major responsibility is to encourage people to use less drugs. When there is demand, there is supply. ... So we have a responsibility. Mexico has a responsibility, as well, and the President is working hard on that responsibility.”


“Mexico is, obviously, a sovereign nation, and the President, if he so chooses, like he has, will lay out an agenda where the United States can be a constructive partner.” You just blew my mind.

Bush proclaimed himself “a big believer in student exchanges between our two nations, on both sides of the border. And one reason I am is because I think it’s important sometimes for people to gain an accurate perception of my country by coming to my country.” Indeed, earlier in the day he had “met with some students, that are funded through USAID programs, who have come to the United States to take different courses in different subjects, and then have come back to Mexico to lend the expertise that they have gained to improve the communities in which they live.” Note his paternalistic assumptions about who has “expertise” to teach whom. Nothing about what Americans might have to learn from their little brown brothers.


He called immigration a “sensitive issue... I say, sensitive, because obviously this is an issue that people can use to inflame passions.” In other words, people don’t have real grievances, they aren’t really exploited and screwed over, and if they think they are, it’s because wicked people (who he does not name) are inflaming their passions and their hot Latin blood.

Asked some question about internal Mexican oil issues, Bush said, “And I’m confident that the President will make the best interests for the people of Mexico”.


Asked about OverblownPersonnelMatterGate, Bush insisted that the firings were entirely “appropriate” and a “customary practice,” and the only mistake was not explaining it well enough. And even that he acknowledged in a form that didn’t actually admit that the problem was at the executive branch’s end: “the fact that both Republicans and Democrats feel like that there was not straightforward communication troubles me” (emphasis added). And boy was he peeved that it was intruding on his little junket: “And yet this issue was mishandled to the point now where you’re asking me questions about it in Mexico”.


Later, he added that the US attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the president,” which I guess means that when he says “what was mishandled was the explanation of the cases to the Congress,” the only explanation he thinks was required was “We fired them because we could and we felt like it, nyah.” The bright side (because to Bush the Teapot Dome is always half full) is that Gonzales is now handling his previous mishandling perfectly: “And the thing I appreciate about the Attorney General was, he said publicly he could have handled it better, mistakes were made, and took action.” Action? What “action” would that be? The nine-minute press conference?

Meet your new neighbor

It’s been a mixed day. I had some not very good pizza, but on the other hand there were ducks (live ducks, not as a pizza topping), I caught Trader Joe’s trying to overcharge me 20¢ on butter and they didn’t have my preferred brand of cheddar cheese, so I bought some New Zealand grass fed cheddar , which I don’t like at all, but on other hand there were ducks. So with all the ducks and whatnot, I’m a little behind on blogging.

Dan Bartlett, yesterday: “So the President has all the confidence in the world in Alberto Gonzales”. That’s all the confidence. In the entire world. Man, leave some for the rest of us.

Bush, in Mexico: “We are a rule of law.” Whatever.

Gen. Petraeus dragged Maliki to Ramadi yesterday to show that he wasn’t afraid of going to mostly Sunni Anbar province. Maliki went, but he wouldn’t set foot outside a US military base. Petraeus was braver (and heavily guarded). Last sentence of the WaPo article: “As he headed back to the convoy, he stopped at a house, spoke a few words in Arabic and, looking at his soldiers, told the family: ‘Meet your new neighbor.’” And then, I assume, he urinated on their front stoop, just to drive the point home.

Bush and Calderon in Mexico yesterday at some Mayan pyramids.


Mayan pyramids with Secret Service sharpshooters.

Alberto Gonzales: smug asshole, or the smuggest asshole?

Alberto Gonzales called a press conference about the firings of those 8 US Attorneys, and the lies told to Congress about those firings, passive-voicedly acknowledged that “mistakes were made” while refusing to admit that Congress was lied to (“I believe very strongly in our obligation to ensure that when I provide information to the Congress that it’s accurate and that it’s complete, and I am very dismayed that that may not have occurred here”), insisted that the US attorneys were fired for being “weak performers,” absolved himself of responsibility (“when you have 110,000 people working in the department, obviously there are going to be decisions made that I’m not aware of in real time”), and uttered the most meaningless words a Bush cabinet official can ever utter: “I accept that responsibility.”


Wonkette asks, “Is Gonzales somehow the smuggest asshole in this administration? Is that even possible?”

Actually, that’s a fair question. With Rummy retired, who does hold that title?

Who's the smuggest asshole of all?
	George Bush
	Laura Bush
	Gonzales
	Cheney
	Condi
	Tony Snow
pollcode.com free polls

Bush in Guatemala, where the evil spirits come from

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune (whose website, by the way, has a short audio clip which is misquoted several times in the article; makes you wonder about the accuracy of newspaper interviews generally), the alliterative asshole Peter Pace complains about Al Qaida and Taliban members using Pakistan as a safe haven for their operations in Afghanistan: “It is proper for us to point out to President Musharraf that people are continuing to come across the border.”

Speaking of not liking people continuing to “come across the border,” if you know what I mean, Pace also strongly supported the continuance of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, repeatedly using the word “immoral,” as in, “I believe homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts”. Which is of course a misrepresentation of the policy, as was his comparing it with the military prohibition on adultery with the spouse of another member of the military. He also attributed his position to his “upbringing,” as if the source of his personal homophobic bigotry had any relevance to... oh, honestly, enough.

Also... “homosexual acts between individuals”? Would he be happier with group orgies?

Bush was in Guatemala today, and held a press conference with President Oscar Berger. Again, the translation in the transcript is not that good, as it has Berger saying “thank you for your visit. Guatemala feels honored.” That just can’t be right.

He observed a program with a US Navy medical ship. “The American people would have been incredibly proud of watching our military folks dispense with basic health care needs to people who needed help.” Sounds like Walter Reed. Dispense with basic health care needs, indeed. “Imagine not being able to see, and then all of a sudden somebody appears in your life, gives you an eye test and fits you for glasses so you can see better.” Imagine if the first thing you see is George Bush.


In the village of Chirijuy, they made him do the first useful work he’s done in his entire life: “As a matter of fact, I got to pack some lettuce. The President and I were hauling boxes of lettuce, we were putting them in the truck.”


Scab.

A lot of the concern in Guatemala is about American immigration policy and some recent raids that resulted in Guatemalans being seized and deported. And Bush referred to... well, I don’t actually know: “He also mentioned to me that there’s some conspiracies about how children are being left behind in Guatemala. No es la verdad. That’s not the way America operates.”

He was asked about the Salvadoran members of the Central American Parliament killed in Guatemala: “As to the Salvadorians [sic], of course, I’m deeply concerned about their death, as is the President. And we have sent, I think, four FBI agents down here to help with forensics and to help track down the leads, so that wherever those killers may light, the authorities can go get them. And that’s what we need to do.” Or would need to do, if the killers hadn’t been caught and killed in their prison cells last month.

He praised Guatemala’s democracy, but sadly no one took opportunity of what I believe is the first visit by a sitting US president since the ‘54 coup to ask him to apologize for the CIA’s role in it.

Nor did anyone ask him about the Mayan site that will be cleansed of evil spirits after his visit. Reporters. Feh.

Self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly

Dick Cheney gave a speech to an AIPAC conference today, where he was evidently crowned.


Or possibly given a Lisa Simpson haircut. (A bored AP photographer must have had a bit of entertainment lining up this shot.)

He said that in The War Against Terror (TWAT) we have to face “the threat directly, patiently and systematically, until the enemy is destroyed.” This is necessary because “An enemy with fantasies of martyrdom is not going to sit down at a table for negotiations.”

He did not talk only about fantasies, but also myths, specifically the “myths about the war on terror.” For example, “The most common myth is that Iraq has nothing to do with the global war on terror. ... We hear this over and over again, not as an argument but as an assertion meant to close off argument.” Because if there’s one thing Dick Cheney hates, it’s assertions meant to close off argument. 9/11! 9/11! Cheney refuted that “myth” by quoting Loki Bin Laden, because if there’s anyone who eschews myths and looks at the world with crystal clarity more than Dick Cheney, it’s Osama Bin Laden.

Myth number two, according to Bullfinch Cheney, is that you can support the troops without funding every Bush budget request to the last penny. “When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that’s been called slow bleed, they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them.” Cheney’s mouth watered in a creepy way when he used the words “slow bleed.”


Myth number three is that “getting out of Iraq before the job is done will actually strengthen America’s hand in the fight against terrorists.”

Myth number four is that withdrawing from Iraq won’t lead to a domino effect. “Moderates would be crushed, Shiite extremists backed by Iran could be in an all-out war with Sunni extremists led by al Qaeda and remnants of the old Saddam regime.” The AIPAC members’ mouths watered in a creepy way when he mentioned Muslims fighting other Muslims.

Speaking of myths, Cheney says that Bush “understands, as Ronald Reagan did, that if history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.” Funny, I thought “self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts” was the Bush administration motto. Wasn’t it on the bumper stickers in ‘04?

Speaking of myths, Cheney called Ariel Sharon “a man of courage and a man of peace”.

He said, “Either we are serious in fighting the war on terror or not.”

Serious face.

We want the American people to see us sitting side by side

Headline (AP) of the day: “Israel Recalls Naked, Drunk Ambassador.” To be fair, he wasn’t entirely naked: there was some bondage gear...

Oddest choice of verb in a headline of the day (also AP): “Bush Pushes U.S. Compassion in Guatemala.”

By the way, have there been any mass demonstrations against Hugo Chavez’s tour? Clashes with police? Burnings of Venezuelan flags and effigies in red shirts? Maybe there have been, and they just haven’t been reported in the, you know, Liberal Media. Funny, that.

Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate homeland security committee, has come up with an audacious scheme to secure the homeland: members of the committee will henceforth sit not by party but either by seniority (as Al Kamen reports) or alternating (Wall Street Journal) rather than party. According to Lieberman, the 2006 elections showed that Americans are sick of partisanship, “So, as a start, instead of sitting on opposite sides of the room like a house divided, we want the American people to see us sitting side by side”. That’s so crazy it just might work!

Bush in Colombia, where the blow comes from: Words are easy to say in politics in the international diplomacy

In Bogota, Bush praised Colombia as “a fine democracy,” but didn’t dare stay there more than six hours.

The White House transcript of his press conference with Uribe is not a good one, especially the translated bits. Uribe, facing the recent revelations about links between senior officials and right-wing death squads (revelations, that is, to anyone who’s been paying absolutely no attention for the last five years), ranted on and on about the need to crush guerillas and paramilitaries and root out Marxists from universities, the media, the labor movement, etc. But not, of course, root out right-wing paramilitaries: “But we cannot fall into the trap of the guerrillas, that we should weaken the armed forces.” Scary.


Bush, standing next to him, pretended nothing was happening, and spoke dipshitily about shared values. How should these revelations be handled? “I support a plan that says that there be an independent judiciary analyzing every charge brought forth, and when someone is found guilty, there’s punishment. That’s the kind of plan I support. It happens to be the kind of plan the President supports. In other words, there’s no political favorites when it comes to justice, that if someone is guilty, they will pay a penalty. ... and I believe that’s the kind of justice this government will do.”

Asked about American hostages held by the FARC, Bush had a simple solution: “Their kidnappers ought to show some heart, is what they ought to show,” adding, “It’s amazing, isn’t it, that we live in a society where you’ve got part of your country where people just kidnap somebody who is here trying to help, without any regard to whether or not -- how their family feels.”

Asked about the statements made by Syrian and Iran at the Baghdad conference, Bush said, “Words are easy to say in politics in the international diplomacy.” Sure they are, George, sure they are.

I really want me one of them hats.

I got me one of them hats! And a poncho! And some (wink wink) “coffee”! And some... hello, there!



From the New Yorker, Steve Martin, “Seventy-two Virgins.”

Who’s having the better vacation?

Bush in Colombia
Chavez in Bolivia

Sometimes when you go through things like that in your life, you can become a better person

Afghanistan’s anti-corruption chief (and a former provincial governor) Izzatullah Wasifi was once caught selling 23 ounces of heroin to an undercover cop in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and spent several years in prison. Wasifi insists that, actually, it was cocaine not heroin, it was his wife and not him, it was buying rather than selling, it was for personal use, and anyway George Bush was arrested for drunken driving, so that’s okay then. His qualifications for his roles in Karzai’s administration, besides his familiarity with the drug-trafficking trade, include running an Ameci Pizza & Pasta franchise in L.A. and being a childhood friend of Hamid Karzai.

And the London Sunday Times catches up with Hazem Shaalan, Iraqi Defense Minister during the Alawi regime 2004-5, who quickly left the country immediately after leaving office and before it could be discovered that a few hundred million dollars worth of those shrink-wrapped bills Paul Bremer sent to Iraq had wound up in his pocket (I suppose not literally in his pocket, since $800 million in $100 bills would require rather a large pocket in what the Sunday Times notes is a Savile Row suit and might make it hard to walk). He got his contracts exempted from auditing, bought the cheapest possible broken-down second-hand equipment for Iraqi soldiers and pocketed the difference. Not surprisingly, his pre-invasion qualifications included selling used cars and running, what else, a pizza parlor, in Poland.

I’m suddenly hungry for pizza. Can’t think why.

The “surge” will be larger than it was sold as, with Bush adding another 4,700 troops. I believe this includes the 2,200 military police we were told this week are needed to guard prisoners who will be seized during the operations in Baghdad but who weren’t included in the original proposal because... well that’s the question I haven’t actually seen asked. Did the Pentagon simply forget that the point of the surge was to capture bad guys who would then need to be guarded?

Apartheid-era South African president F.W. de Klerk complains that affirmative action policies are making white people feel like second-class citizens. De Klerk was awarded the Nobel Prize for Irony in 1993.

Giuliani, moral arbiter of all things matrimonial, says that Gingrich should be forgiven for cheating on his wife. So that settles that. “Sometimes when you go through things like that in your life, you can become a better person.” Well, if adultery makes you a better person, Giuliani and Gingrich must be veritable gods amongst men. After also praising Gingrich’s alleged smarts, Giuliani was asked whether he was considering Gingrich as a running mate. He said such talk was premature. A Giuliani-Gingrich 2008 ticket, that’s simultaneously the most hilarious and the most nauseating idea I’ve ever heard.

Bush in Uruguay, where the, um, software comes from

In a press conference with Uruguayan President Tabare Vázquez, Bush said something that was entirely truthful: “I think many people in my country don’t know that Uruguay is the leading exporter of software in South America.”


He continued to search desperately for other tidbits in a failed attempt to make Uruguay interesting: “Interestingly enough, we both have gotten rid of colonial powers in our past, and it is -- I think it is that heritage that makes Uruguay and the United States such natural partners.” You could say the same thing about Zimbabwe or Burma or Cuba or the majority of nations in the world.

Hugo Chavez, speaking to a large rally just one country away in Argentina, referred to George as “the little imperial gentleman from the north” and “a political corpse.” Bush’s Latin American tour has him scheduled to address no public crowds, of any size. Funny, that.

A reporter asked Bush, “Hugo Chavez suggested that you are afraid to mention his name. So, are you?” In his response, Bush did not mention Chavez’s name. To be fair, Chavez is a pretty scary fellow.


Asked about the FBI abuse of national security letters, Bush said, “My question is, what are you going to do to solve the problem and how fast can you get it solved? And I was pleased by Director Mueller’s answer, that he had already begun to address some of the problems, but there’s more work to be done.” Bush was pleased with that answer, aren’t you pleased with that answer, knowing you can go about your business, safe in the reassuring knowledge that Robert Mueller has already begun to address some of the problems, but there is more work to be done.

Bush in Brazil, where the nuts come from, part dois

At a press conference with President Loooooola, Bush gave his personal definition of democracy: “I think it’s great to be able to say a good friend won reelection because it confirms the fact that democracy is alive and well in Brazil.” But there are concerns: “I share your concerns about the people in democracy not receiving the benefits of democracy.”

You’d think that it would be hard to mistake Brazil for the United States, but... “And so, Mr. President, I’m so glad you’re here -- I mean, so glad I am here.”

Why is he in, um, Brazil or wherever? “I’m reminding people that which is pretty evident, that a lot of people know that there are direct ties between our countries.” So he’s reminding people that people know something which is pretty evident. Anything else? “I bring the goodwill of the United States to South America and Central America. That’s why I’m here. I don’t think America gets enough credit for trying to help improve people’s lives.” That’s a pretty quick transition from “goodwill” to whining petulantly about ingratitude. “And so we fully understand that if there’s illiteracy, it will affect our country eventually.” Especially if you’re the one with the illiteracy. And you are, George, you are. Indeed, one of the things I’ve observed in Bush’s speeches is just how large a proportion of the English language is “fancy” to him. He added another one to that list: “There is a lot of investment in the region, as the President noted. Oh, for some, that’s just a fancy word, but for others who benefit from the investment through jobs, it’s a central part of their life.”



His weekly radio address gives a preview: on Monday he will visit a great Guatemalan success story, a poor farmer who switched his crops and now sells them to... Wal-Mart.

And then, it was time to dance! (I was finally able to view this video on the third browser I tried, fucking Internet Explorer. And then they made me watch an ad first.)

George goes to Brazil. Where the nuts come from.

You know how Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld etc are always making “surprise” trips to Baghdad? Today someone visited Baghdad and it was a genuine surprise: Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki actually took a trip outside the Green Zone, unannounced and during the Friday ban on vehicle movement and not, of course, to a Sunni neighborhood, but still it was pretty darned brave of him.




Bush is in Brazil, meeting with President Lula, who wouldn’t shut up about biofuel, although from the pictures I’ve seen, Brazil is powered entirely by the burning of American flags and kind of lame effigies. Bush agrees with Lula that alternative fuels are important: “In other words, dependency upon energy from somewhere else means that you’re dependent upon the decisions from somewhere else.” And, as a former Texas oil-man, he knows where gasoline comes from: “And so as we diversify away from the use of gasoline by using ethanol we’re really diversifying away from oil.” And it’s all about the incumbentosity: “we all feel incumbent to be good stewards of the environment.”

In the last paragraph I quoted one of Bush’s famous “in other words”’s. Here’s another (he was speaking at a Petrobras plant): “One of the things I like, as the President noted, is that a good ethanol policy and good alternative fuel policy actually leads to more jobs, not less. In other words, at this plant there are jobs.”

He uttered another sentence that does not need other words, because it is perfect just the way it is: “I appreciate so very much the fact that much of your energy is driven by sugarcane.”

It’s not just the fuel, but the vehicles the fuel goes into: “Well, most people in America don’t know that there are millions of flex-fuel vehicles on our street today. Just people don’t know it.” I’m pretty sure I got stuck on that street once. It’s in LA, right?

The last time he was there, Bush memorably exclaimed “Wow, Brazil is big.” Today he said, “You know, Brazil and the United States are the two largest democracies in our hemisphere”. Somewhere, a Canadian is thinking of writing a mildly cross letter pointing out the fallaciousness of that statement but, being Canadian, will no doubt decide to “let’s not get excited, eh.”

If I declare a caption contest for this picture (original caption here), how much am I going to regret it?