Arbitrary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No two snowflakes are completely different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because the pig is really more of an autumn

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

It soothes my spirit to be with you

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


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


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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

The madness of anti-war crowds on the internet

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

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

You’re welcome, Jon Stewart

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

I’m sure my check is in the mail.

Been in this process too long

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quite a considerable Tonga population in the U.S.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I enjoyed walking up and down the line, shaking people’s hands

Today, Bush went to a Ford assembly plant in Missouri at which they make hybrid SUVs and suchlike.

I’ve always assumed that Bush’s grammar is so bad in part because he never actually listens when other people speak and thereby learns how English am to be spoken, but mostly because he’s lazy and sloppy and can’t think two words ahead. From this speech, for example, “it makes sense for us to promote that kind of technologies” and “it’s now becoming in the marketplace” and “in a relatively quick period of time.” Sloppy. Here, though, he actually stops and uncorrects himself: “My impressions are -- is that American automobile companies are essential to keeping us competitive”.

Simple pleasures for simple minds: “I enjoyed walking up and down the line, shaking people’s hands.”

He said that one way to reduce gas use 20% in 10 years – “I call it Twenty Ten” – is “to encourage consumption of hybrid automobiles.” They’re delicious with steak sauce. Although they’re not exactly “zero emissions,” if you know what I mean.

He wisely informed the plant workers, “Remember, oil is the feedstock for gasoline.”

“It may sound far-fetched to some that one of these days we’ll be making a product that can go into a Ford pickup truck out of wood chips”. Wait, is the fuel made out of wood chips, or the pickup truck?

He finds himself sooooo interesting: “It’s really interesting, isn’t it, for the President to be talking about one of these days people driving pickup trucks driven by ethanol -- fueled by ethanol from wood chips? Is it real? I think it is. Otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you about it.” Well, I’m convinced.

Caption contest:

The proposal I put forward is the proposal

While I was taking a nap, Bush spoke to reporters about the firing of the US Attorneys. Of course, the only error was in the PR, not the policy: “Neither the Attorney General, nor I approve of how these explanations were handled.”

And of course we can’t have anyone testify under oath with transcripts: “if the staff of a President operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the President would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served.” If the possibility of having to repeat what you say privately in public produces “constant fear” in you, maybe you shouldn’t be saying that stuff in private either.


“Yet, in this case, I recognize the importance of members of Congress having -- the importance of Congress has placed on understanding how and why this decision was made.” Phew, for a minute there, he almost acknowledged that there exists a right of Congressional oversight, before he caught himself and said that it’s only Congress that places importance on this. Even then, he notes that Republicans don’t believe in this, describing his offer of limited, secret, unsworn, interviews as being “offered to the majority in Congress”. But “we will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants.” The word “partisan” in this context is a gratuitous insult of the motives of members of Congress, more so when coupled with a description of Karl Rove et al as “honorable.” The denunciation of “fishing expeditions,” of course, is the last refuge of people with a whole lot of rotten fish to hide (is that a mixed ichthyological metaphor?). He went on to warn Democrats against “head[ing] down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials”. Will a reporter ask him who is demanding show trials? I can’t wait to get to the Q&A part of the transcript and find out.


He says it is common for people to complain about the US attorneys. “Some complained about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases, while others had concerns about immigration cases not being prosecuted.” The choice of the word “cases” suggests that there in fact were cases, i.e., violations of the law requiring prosecution, which the attorneys chose to ignore.

He tells Democrats it’s “not too late... to drop the partisanship” and not “waste time and provoke an unnecessary confrontation”. Wow, that wasn’t partisan and confrontational at all.

In the Q&A, he repeats that the admin did nothing improper, but since the US attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the president,” this is rather like saying the US doesn’t torture, using a ridiculously high standard for what constitutes torture. Bush repeated the “pleasure of the president” thing, adding, “I named them all.” You know, Stinky and Big Guy and Lammikins and Igloo-man...

“And I put forth what I thought was a rational proposal, and the proposal I put forward is the proposal.”


Bush is, of course, the only person in government who matters. Asked if Gonzales can be effective when no one supports him, Bush said, “Yes, he’s got support with me. I support the Attorney General. I told you in Mexico I’ve got confidence in him; I still do.”

Q: How about now, Mr. President?

Bush: Yes.

Q: And now?

Bush: Yes.

Q: Well, what about now? ...


His eyes are following me, aren’t they?

Chimpy & the Gators: I congratulate all those who pick up the towels

On the presumably solemn occasion of the beginning of the 5th year of the war in Iraq, Bush scheduled a visit, not to Walter Reed, not to a military base, but with a college football team, the Florida Gators, in which he told jokes and generally yucked it up. And he got a t-shirt and a football. He’d show up at the amputee wing of Brooke Army Medical Center more often if they gave him a t-shirt and a football.


He called the Gators “a well-coached team.” Compare and contrast with the US military. And indeed, compare and contrast his speech earlier in the day – “I’m grateful to our servicemen and women... I’m grateful to our military families for all the sacrifices they have made for our country” – with the photo op with the Gators: “And so I congratulate not only the players, but I congratulate the coaching staff. I congratulate all those who pick up the towels and make the program run.”

Caption contest:

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.