That’s a doctrine

McCain says he’d have been happy to go to the Baghdad market without any protection at all, but Petraeus insisted.

The Iranians taunted captured sailor Arthur Batchelor by saying that he looks like Mr. Bean. Now that’s just cruel.


George Bush has generously extended an offer to congresscritters to come to the White House to be pissed on. “At this meeting, the leaders in Congress can report on progress on getting an emergency spending bill to my desk. We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill, a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground.” That last part is just kinky.

If this weren’t condescending enough, White House spokesmodel Dana Perino said this would not be a negotiation, adding “Maybe they need to hear again from the president about why he thinks it is foolish to set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal.” Yes, that’s probably exactly what they need.

At that speech, to an American Legion post, Bush says that our era was “defined” on 9/11. “See, that’s a date that reminded us the world had changed significantly from what we thought the world was.” How dare reality contradict what George Bush thinks the world is! You can see why he’s so pissed off.


“I vowed that if you harbor a terrorist you’re equally as guilty as the terrorist. That’s a doctrine.”

Okay, this one is the transcriber’s fault, not Bush’s. Still: “it’s in our interest to spread an alternative ideology to their hatful ideology.” So that would be a hatless ideology.

IN OTHER WORDS: “And in the face of the violence -- in other words, there was reprisal...” “In sending more troops -- in other words, in sending troops in...” “Our troops are also training Iraqis. In other words, part of the effort is not only to provide security to neighborhoods, but we’re constantly training Iraqis so that they can do this job.”

A DOUBLE DOSE OF OTHER WORDS: “[At Fort Irwin] I tried to put this war into a historical context for them. In other words, I told them that they’re laying the foundation of peace. In other words, the work we’re doing today really will yield peace for a generation to come.”


He says of the“surge,” “I made the decisions after -- to reinforce. But I didn’t do it in a vacuum.” So you didn’t do it your own head. (Little-known fact: the space between George Bush’s ears is the most perfect vacuum known to science.)

Says if we let the bad guys win, “They would have been able to more likely recruit.” And “If we retreat -- were to retreat from Iraq, what’s interesting and different about this war is that the enemy would follow us here.” Interesting. And “If this scenario were to take place, 50 years from now people would look back and say, ‘What happened to those folks in the year 2007? How come they couldn’t see the danger of a Middle East spiraling out of control where extremists competed for power, but they shared an objective which was to harm the United States of America?’” Dear god, is he saying that if we lose in Iraq, 50 years from now everyone will speak just as badly as George Bush? “That’s what went through my mind as I made a difficult decision, but a necessary decision.” And it went through his mind quickly because of the lack of wind resistance. Most perfect vacuum known to science.

It worries me that I’ve read so many of these transcripts that I actually know what he means by this: “They understand that when we said we were going to send more troops in, you need to send more troops into Baghdad, that we expect them to, and they have.”

A clear need

The US military is putting a positive spin on the demonstrations in Najaf (which the BBC says involved hundreds of thousands and the Pentagon says was 5,000 to 7,000) marking the 4th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. Spokesmodel Rear Admiral Mark Fox said, “That is their right in the new Iraq. And, it’s only fair, however, to note that they exercise that right because coalition forces liberated them from a tyrannical, barbaric regime that would never have permitted such freedom of expression.” Oh, I think Saddam wouldn’t have objected too strongly to a protest against American occupation of Iraq. In Baghdad, the anniversary of the advent of freedom, liberty and democracy was celebrated with a curfew and a complete ban on motor vehicle traffic.

Today George Bush re-visited a section of the border with Mexico in Arizona which he visited last year, explaining, “We have come back to this spot because it’s where I was the last time.” At the end of the photo op he answered just one question:

Q What most impresses you, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: The hard work being done.


Later he gave a speech. “The Border Patrol is really an important agency. I know some people are wondering whether or not it makes sense to join the Border Patrol.” I will not leave you in suspense: he does in fact think it makes sense to join the Border Patrol.

He went to the border to promote immigration reform, pardon me, comprehensive immigration reform, the issue he thinks will restore his effectiveness as president. He said, “I hope by now the American people understand the need for comprehensive immigration reform is a clear need.” If they don’t understand that the need is a clear need doesn’t it pretty much by definition mean that the need is not a clear need?

Illegal immigration, he said, is a problem. It “puts pressure on public schools and the hospitals,” he said, and putting pressure on public schools and the hospitals is a job that Americans are actually willing to do (George is, anyway).


Furthermore, he continued, “It drains the state and local budgets. I was talking to the governor about how it strained the budgets.” Which is it George? Drains or strains? Or... ohmigod, could it be both?

The rest of this speech was the same old boiler plate, which drained and indeed strained my patience, so how ‘bout we just skip it and see what Laura was up to today?


Or maybe not.

I view that as a sign of progress

John McCain on 60 Minutes conceded that the majority in the US opposes the Iraq war but said, “I disagree with what the majority of the American people want.” He was not asked why, then, the majority of the American people would want to vote for him. I’d actually be interested to hear how he’d answer that one. He also acknowledged the heavy security for his trip to the market, but said, “I can tell you that if it had been two months ago and I’d asked to do it, they would have said, ‘Under no circumstances whatsoever.’ I view that as a sign of progress.” Or a sign that, given his call for never-ending war, they no longer care whether he lives or dies.

Wait a minute. Why does the “kevlar” in this vest smell exactly like Velveeta?

(I just spent two minutes trying to decide whether Velveeta was more or less comical than Cheez Whiz, and I’m still just not sure. This is another of those choices which confront the owner of a blog every single day. It is not for the faint of heart.)

We are living in a dying situation

Yesterday I heard what sounded like fireworks around here. Is this some sort of Easter thing I don’t know about? Are people booby-trapping Easter eggs? Because that would be awesome, I mean terrible.

Anyway, happy Sopranos Easter! Woke up from the dead this morning, got yourself a gun. Mama always said you’d be the Chosen One...

Bush and family went to church for Easter services at Fort Hood, where “I had a chance to reflect on the great sacrifice that our military and their families are making.” Yes, the soldiers died for your sins, George.



The father, son and holy spirit

The NYT reports “Hunger Strike Breaks Out at Guantánamo.” What they actually mean is that 1) a new outbreak of hunger striking began in December that they’re just finding out about now, 2) hunger striking has been continuous for several years now, but they haven’t reported on it in a while. Since prisoners now cannot communicate with each other, hunger striking seems (from the glimpses that make it past military censorship) to be less an organized resistance tactic than the product of despair and isolation-produced insanity. Said one hunger striker to his lawyer, “My wish is to die... We are living in a dying situation.”

Non-follow-up: there is still no news out of Iraq about those policemen arrested, released and possibly re-arrested for participating in massacres in Tal Afar. Or about the policemen who allegedly gang-raped that woman back in February.

Theatrics, why one of those sailors deserves £70,000, exuberance with the holy water, a dead rat in an old guy’s mouth, and of course John McCain

The US has called the accusations of Jalal Sharafi, a functionary in Iran’s embassy in Iraq who was kidnapped by people he claims were CIA and that they interrogated him with the, you know, torture and stuff, “theatrics.” Theatrics! “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show! Joe’s uncle has a barn we can use, and I can borrow a cattle prod from my dad...”

One of the purposes of the mission those 15 British sailors were on was indeed to spy on Iranian activities. Which the Iranians knew because British television had broadcast an interview with the crew in which one of the guys who was captured a few days later said as much. The 15 are being given permission (which is irregular for serving members of the military) to sell their stories to the tabloids. The Sunday Times notes that some of them will earn more than the compensation if they had, for example, lost an arm. One of them says that he wants at least £70,000, reasoning “I am worth it because I was one of only two who didn’t crack.”

The archbishop of Chicago has been hospitalized with a hip injury after slipping on some spilled holy water. I believe that’s what is called a negative job review. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese blamed the fall on “his exuberance with the holy water.”

So a lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a 90-year old man against an old persons’ home in Mission Viejo, California, asserting that it “so literally ignored the needs of their residents ... as to allow vermin in the form of a rat to become lodged in the mouth of Sigmund Bock and die therein”. You have to go to law school for years to be able to write a sentence like that. One of the points of contention is whether the trap that killed the rat used glue or poison (since they put it in the room of a demented man known to put things in his mouth). The spokesmodel for the company, Dr. Melody Chatelle, complained that the “negative publicity” about the dead rat in the 90-year old guy’s mouth was a “disheartening affront to our professional caregivers”. It turns out, when I googled her, that Dr. Chatelle is not a medical doctor but has a doctorate in communication studies, and doesn’t actually work for that nursing home, but rather runs a PR firm operating out of Texas which handles PR for these places all over the country. Further googling shows that Chatelle (who used to work in the Texas state legislature, which readers of Molly Ivins will not be surprised to hear) turns up to do spin control like this whenever a patient dies of infected bedsores in one of these facilities, or a patient with dementia wanders away, or a patient is allowed to die because they thought she had a DNR but didn’t, or is raped by a nurse’s assistant, etc etc.

I am now going to write about John McCain’s happy talk about Iraq, and at this point I’d normally try to insert a clever segue from the last item, but I can’t decide if McCain is analogous to 1) the person putting a positive spin on the facility where a demented 90-year old guy was found with a dead rat in his mouth, or 2) the demented 90-year old guy with the dead rat in his mouth, or 3) the dead rat in the demented guy’s mouth. When you have a blog, this is the sort of choice you are faced with every single day.

Anyhoo, McCain (who will appear on 60 Minutes tonight with footage of his trip to that Baghdad market), has an op-ed piece in the WaPo, about the wonderful progress in Iraq. He’s decided that the way to deal with the criticisms of and revelations about that trip is to ignore them. What else can he do? He can’t pretend that when he said that his little shopping excursion proved that everything is now much safer he was simply unaware of the fact that he was wearing body armor and guarded by a small army (complete with air cover). So, like Bush, he just blunders grimly forward. Here’s as close as he comes to reality: “Today the market still faces occasional sniper attacks, but it is safer than it used to be.” Maybe they can make that into a banner or something.

McCain laments that “most Americans are not aware [of progress] because much of the media are [sic, but at least he recognizes that “media” is plural] not reporting it or devote far more attention to car bombs and mortar attacks that reveal little about the strategic direction of the war.” Is “down the toilet” a strategic direction?

I recognize that Democrats are trying to show their current opposition to the war in Iraq

Bush’s weekly radio address segued with all the grace we’ve come to expect from the master of graceful segues from celebrating Easter and Passover (which “remind us of the presence of a loving God who delivers His people from oppression, and offers a love more powerful than death”) to celebrating the war and the people fighting it: “we give thanks for the many blessings in our lives. One of our greatest blessings as Americans is that we have brave citizens who step forward to defend us.” See how he did that?


So clearly, I mean clearly, the proper way for Congress to celebrate Passover and/or Easter is to give George all the money he wants to fight his little war. It’s what Jesus would want. “I recognize that Democrats are trying to show their current opposition to the war in Iraq.” See that little dig: “their current opposition.” “They see the emergency war spending bill as a chance to make that statement. Yet for our men and women in uniform, this emergency war spending bill is not a political statement, it is a source of critical funding that has a direct impact on their daily lives.” It’s a dessert topping, it’s a floor wax!

“We have our differences in Washington, D.C., but our troops should not be caught in the middle.” I think many of our troops would be happy to be caught in the middle between Democrats and Republicans in D.C. rather than caught in the middle between Shiites and Sunnis in Baghdad.

And he ends with a sincere plea to put partisan politics aside.


Mr. Fish

John McCain likes fishing, chocolate ice cream, pizza with pepperoni and onions, and self-delusion

Headline of the day, from the BBC: “Lost Frenchmen Ate Jungle Spiders.”

The latest email from the McCain McCampaign informs us of these “fun facts” about the Maverick: he is an avid fisherman, he likes chocolate ice cream and pizza with pepperoni and onions. Hold the anchovies and jungle spiders (which, by the way, the BBC informs us are “hairy.”)

It also quotes him on the “early progress in Iraq” (he means early in the “surge,” not stuff that happened in 2003): “You read every day about suicide bombings, kidnappings, rocket attacks and other terrible acts. What we don’t read about and what is new is a lot of the good news - the drop in the murders in Baghdad etc etc”. That’s not really good news so much as bad news, but somewhat less of it.

A great reluctance to engage in happy talk

Headline of the week, from the Press Association: “Slavery Shame of Easter Eggs.” However, don’t click on the link unless you want to feel depressed about eating chocolate, which will just make you want to eat more chocolate.

Moronic right-wing talk show question, Laura Ingraham interviewing Secretary of War Robert

Wednesday on the consequences of Congress cutting off funding:

SEC. GATES: Well, if there were a complete cut off of the funds, I mean, there’s no question that that would bring an end to the war. We would have to come home if there were no funds at all.

INGRAHAM: Would you even have money to come home at that point? I mean, coming home costs money. I mean, really.

SEC. GATES: Well, I think we’d find the money to bring them home...

Ingraham’s interrogation also extracted from him vital information on his barbeque preferences (pork ribs).

And in a press conference today Gates said that it will be impossible to make “any real evaluation” about the “surge” for several more months, and “there is a great reluctance to engage in ‘happy talk’ about this.”

Happy hour, on the other hand...

Bad behavior

In a true meeting of the repellant minds, Dick “Dick” Cheney was interviewed by Rush Limbaugh, who invited him to attack the Democrats about Iraq. Cheney laudably refrained from doing so for several long microseconds: “I’ve got some friends on the other side of the aisle, and I don’t want to question everybody’s motives -- I do believe that a significant portion of the Democrats, including, I think, Nancy Pelosi, are adamantly opposed to the war and prepared to pack it in and come home in defeat, rather than put in place or support a policy that will lead to victory.”

Support a policy. But what else must they support? It’s on the tip of my tongue... “You cannot pursue this fiction that some of them like to pursue, that they ‘support the troops,’ but they’re opposed to everything the troops are doing. That’s just a non-sensical statement.” Again, supporting the troops means everything they’re ordered to do. Anything else is just non-sensical. Also non-sensical: Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to mediate between Israel and Syria: “It was a non-statement, non-sensical statement and didn’t make any sense at all”.

You know, Cheney pretends to despise Nancy Pelosi, but he reveals his true feelings when he describes a visit from her as a reward: “She’s not entitled to make policy. In this particular case, by going to Damascus at this stage, it serves to reinforce, if you will, and reward Bashir Assad for his bad behavior. ... This is a bad actor, and until he changes his behavior, he should not be rewarded with visits by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.” He just seethes with jealousy. Nancy never rewards him with a visit. “I’m obviously disappointed. I think it is, in fact, bad behavior on her part.”

I leave it as an exercise for the reader whether Cheney thinks Assad’s “bad behavior” is worse than Pelosi’s “bad behavior.”

[P.S. Incidentally, when I originally wrote this, I left out, from a perhaps misplaced sense of fairness, every instance where Limbaugh said repugnant things (the D’s are devoted to the concept or American defeat, the Senate Judiciary Committee is Stalinist for objecting to the illegal recess appointment of Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium, etc), and Cheney merely expressed his complete agreement.]

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

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

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


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

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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


and they let him play with a surveillance aircraft,


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

Meet the loser lesser Republican candidates

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


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

Bush press conference: cauldron of chaos

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

(Fun with perspective, from Reuters photographer Larry Downing)

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mixed signals

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

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


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


Here, she accepts some nuts. Totally mixed signal.


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

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

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

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

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


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

The full picture

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

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

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

I’m a Plan A man

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

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


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


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

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


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


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

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

George Bush likes peanuts as much as the next guy

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every time I come to Walter Reed my spirits are lifted

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

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

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

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

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

Potential

Yesterday Secretary of War Robert

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