Bush in Canadaland: In other words, there’s a process taking place

Bush met with the prime minister of Canada and president of Mexico in Quebec.

IN OTHER WORDS: “It’s our people’s interests that Canada and Mexico work closely together. In other words, there’s a good reason why our leaders should come together on a regular basis.”

WHAT ELSE IS OUR PEOPLE’S INTERESTS? “It’s in our interests that the Canadian lifestyle be as strong as it is”. Who knew there was a “Canadian lifestyle”?

He was asked about Carl Levin’s call for Maliki to be replaced. He responded with a meandering 684-word answer that hit every Iraq cliché in his repertoire (the surge, safe haven, young democracy, most modern constitution in the Middle East, Petraeus’s report, bottom-up reconciliation, etc), but somehow failed to allude to Maliki even once.


IN OTHER WORDS: He said the “surge” is working: “It appears to me -- and I certainly don’t want to prejudge General David Petraeus’s report back home -- but there is some progress being made. In other words, one aspect of my decision is working.”

“There’s bottom-up reconciliation taking place,” he said (my, that sounds kinky). “It’s noticeable and tangible and real”.

IN OTHER WORDS: “people at the grassroots level are sick and tired of the violence, sick and tired of the radicalism, and they want -- and they want a better life. And they’re beginning to reject the extremists that have the desire to have a safe haven, for example, from which to launch further attacks on America. In other words, there’s a process taking place.”

Asked about cooperation with Mexico against drug trafficking, Bush came over all Cheech and Chong: “The United States is committed to this joint strategy to deal with a joint problem.”

Hurrah! The US is at last making significant progress against Al Qaida in Iraq! It must be true because Joe Lieberman says so!

The American Psychological Association decides not, after all, to ban its members from participating in interrogation at places like Guantanamo where there are inadequate protections for human rights. However, they’re supposed to intervene if prisoners are subject to mock executions, stress positions, sexual & religious humiliation, waterboarding, etc. Col. Larry James, a psychologist stationed at Guantanamo, says that it’s only the presence of psychologists that prevents interrogators doing even more unpleasant things to the prisoners: “If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die.” You know, psychologists probably have a term for people who engage in that sort of thinking.

Holy Joe Lieberman has an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal (doesn’t he always?). He begins (doesn’t he always?), “The United States is at last making significant progress against al Qaeda in Iraq”, and advises (doesn’t he always?) that Congresscritters “should set aside whatever differences divide us on Iraq” in order to target Syria (this part does vary, because he has such a long list of Muslim groups and nations he wants to target).

Democratic debate: words do matter

The head of the OSCE election monitors in Kazakhstan says yesterday’s parliamentary elections “continue to move Kazakhstan forward in its evolution towards a democratic country.” Hell, maybe next time an actual member of a party other than Nazarbayev’s might even be elected. Just one, there’s no need to go crazy.

I’m sure absolutely every one of you was riveted to your television during this morning’s Democratic debate, so I don’t have to tell you about it, because you’re still in a coma.


Short version:

If you’re tired of the backbiting in Washington, Obama is your guy (I assume any reader of this or any other blog actually rather enjoys a bit of backbitery).

Most of them think it will take a long time to pull the troops out of Iraq.

Hillary’s against hypotheticals, because words do matter.


Edwards also doesn’t like hypotheticals, because he might want to nuke someone.

Biden made a mention of Vlad the Impaler, which would have been a welcome first in a debate, except he seemed to think Vlad Draculya had something to do with Yugoslavia.

The most decisive moment in Edwards’ life was coming downstairs and seeing his father watching public television. Also, he doesn’t believe in the power of prayer.

But how else would we know if he’s presidential material?

Favorite half-sentence of the day, from the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of Fred Thompson’s visit to the Iowa state fair: “Thompson, who at one point tried to get a herd of photographers to stop filming him as he entered a bathroom...”

What? Oh, you’re expecting pictures of Fred Thompson entering a bathroom, aren’t you? Well, I couldn’t find any that would just be beneath me.

I got nothing’. So here’s another New York Magazine competition. 3/21/94, prequels:

Kindergarten for Scandal.

Two Dalmatians.

Prince Kong.

Malcolm IX.

Little Richard III.

We’re Running Low on Mohicans.

Wee Willie Loman.

Mrs. Warren’s Entry Level Position.

The Personal Ads of J. Alfred Prufrock.

The Baggage Check-In of the Bumble Bee.

Cogito Ergo Subtotal.

A Man Called Horsie.

Other NY Mag comps here.

A people person, redux and reduced

Following up from the previous post, in which Twitt Romney was heard to declare:

I have a real hard time thinking of people other than as people.

Shorter Twitt Romney:

I have a real hard time thinking of people.

Even shorter Twitt Romney:

I have a real hard time thinking.

A people person

Asked how he would improve race relations as president, Mitt Romney declared himself to be color-blind, claiming, “I have a real hard time thinking of people other than as people.” Er, Twitt, if they’re black or Hispanic or whatever, they are actually, technically, still people too.

No title immediately suggests itself for this post

Follow-up: fans of sex, especially sex between strangers who meet over the internet, will be happy to hear that the British transport police inspector who had sex while on duty, but kept his earpiece in the entire time in case of emergencies (which is one definition of safe sex, I suppose), was acquitted of wilful misconduct. The jury deliberated only 10 minutes, half as long as the sexual encounter.

Forgot to mention one thing in my previous post: Giuliani claimed in his article that the US was on the verge of winning the Vietnam War in 1972 because it had recently changed its tactics, just like, you know, the Surge, but then we lost our nerve and pulled out just like Democrats want to do now... That was the point when my eyeballs started to bleed.

Hugo Chavez is proposing various changes to the Venezuelan constitution, including ending the independence of the Central Bank, a 6-hour work day, nationalization by executive order, without the involvement of the courts, the creation of a “popular militia,” and, of course, ending term limits for the office of president and extending the length of those terms to 7 years. But he insists that this is actually all about real democracy and “people power” – although anyone who opposes him, “without exception, is... aligned with the interests of the empire.”

Gen. David Petraeus insists that the killing of all those Yazidis was the work of Al Qaida in Iraq. He offers no proof.

The Danish Minister of Culture, Brian Mikkelson, visiting Ireland, apologizes for the Viking raids on that country in the 8th and 9th centuries. Gen. David Petraeus insists those raids were actually the work of Al Qaida in Scandinavia.

The Terrorists’ War on the 9/11 Generation

Rudy Giuliani has a foreign policy article in Foreign Affairs. It amounts to Bush’s foreign policy, with all its jingoism and aggression, but with a slightly different smirk. And a few more 9/11 references. The first sentence: “We are all members of the 9/11 generation.” They used to tell me I was a member of the Pepsi generation, but I can’t say I find either product, Pepsi or 9/11, all that tasty and refreshing.

The article’s not worth a close analysis because 1) it made my eyeballs bleed, 2) I doubt much of it was written by Giuliani himself.

He does attempt to re-brand The War Against Terror (TWAT) as “the Terrorists’ War on Us,” a rather silly phrase I’ve heard him use several times before, but I hadn’t seen it in print, so I didn’t know it had those initial caps. In contrast to Bush’s “War on Terror,” it sounds passive, ceding the initiative to the other side; more 9/11 victimology, I guess. And it depends on the correct placement of an apostrophe; he really doesn’t know Americans at all, does he?

Scared straight

The alliterative Peter Pace, still chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was in Djibouti yesterday, talking to the American troops stationed there. If you don’t know where Djibouti is, then they’re doing their job: “What you are doing here is making it so that the Horn of Africa does not appear on the front page of the Washington Post or your local newspapers.” I like how he makes our ignorance of a region the key index of how well things are going there.

He told the soldiers, “We are operating in Afghanistan and Iraq right now because the international community was not able to get those nations straight before it was necessary to use force.” A whole universe of reflexive, arrogant American imperialism is contained in that single word “straight.” He added that those American military personnel were helping the nations of the region conform to the standards of straightness we have laid down for them, to “develop the skills, the capacities, the kind of good governance that’s required so we don’t have to do here what we’re doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

It would be great if we could just leave it at that

From the London Times: “A senior police officer accused of criminal misconduct after meeting a woman for sex while on duty told a jury yesterday that he kept in his radio earpiece during the ten-minute encounter in case of emergencies.” You’re thinking that that’s not especially romantic, but in fact they met through a website for people who want to have sex with people in uniform, and he never took his off, so this was actually precisely the “encounter” the woman involved was looking for.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told Congress not to require that troops be given a year off between deployments to one of our many fine war zones: “We prefer not to be limited or restricted by any kind of congressional action.” Gosh, me too.

Surge Alert: the US, in what the $300 million Random Operation Name Generator in the basement of the Pentagon has named Operation Marne Husky, will bomb the shit out of a region of Iraq too dangerous for the military to go to in person. Col. Daniel Bell calls this an “air surge.” It’s like air guitar, but with more civilian casualties.

Mitt Romney (at some point I’m going to have to make an executive decision about whether to call him NitWitMitt or Twitt Romney) snapped at reporters, “I’m pro-life; it would be great if we could just leave it at that.” Really, would everybody just stop asking Romney any questions about his positions on issues, he doesn’t like it.

Fast track

The LAT finds another unnoticed provision of the renewal of the Patriot Act: the authority to decide whether prisoners in death-penalty cases received adequate counsel is no longer held by federal judges, but by Alberto Gonzales, who in his own person epitomizes the words inadequate counsel. The Justice Dept is also writing new regulations designed to speed up executions, by, for example, reducing the time limit for filing in federal court after state appeals have been exhausted, from 12 months to 6, and limit the time judges could take deciding on petitions. It sounds like states would have to opt in to this “fast track” procedure, but I think we can all imagine the campaign ads against any politician who opposed opting in.

Yes, by all means let’s bring the entire country’s judicial standards down to those of Texas, the “cowboy gulag,” as Molly Ivins called it..

Enormous sacrifices

This morning, Bush visited the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center, which he called “a building full of compassion”. He said, “there’s a lot of amazing things taking place here in this facility.”


It’s a little hard returning to work at the “in other words” coal-face after the Daily Show swept in and grabbed all the glory, and indeed I skipped a perfectly good “in other words” in Saturday’s weekly radio address, but, well....

IN OTHER WORDS: The secretaries of war and veterans affairs are “looking at the recommendations that the Dole-Shalala commission put forward, and they’re implementing them. In other words, the commission did really good work.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “When they come back in September, we want to work with Congress to pass that which is necessary to make sure that the Dole-Shalala commission recommendations are fully implemented. In other words, there are some aspects of the commission recommendations that require congressional approval.”

Then it was back to the White House, where he appeared on the South Lawn with Karl Rove, saying, “This is a family that has made enormous sacrifices not only for our beloved state of Texas, but for a country we both love.” Enormous sacrifices. This is literally not twenty minutes after leaving a facility for wounded veterans. Maybe Karl and his family can try some of that kayaking therapy.


So sad, so sad.


You’ll never leave me, will you Barney? What, you think I should invade Iran, Barney?

Bush’s Brain resigns

Karl Rove gives a hilariously smug, self-satisfied interview with Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal. He will be leaving the White House at the end of the month. “I just think it’s time,” he said. “There’s always something that can keep you here”. Iron bars, razor wire and armed guards, for example, but perhaps that can still be arranged.

An act of war, followed by an act of douchebaggery

Israel is still trying to expel Marya (also spelled Mariya) Aman, the Palestinian girl I mentioned a week ago, who was turned into a respirator-dependent quadriplegic by an Israeli missile attack on an Islamic Jihad leader’s car that also hit her family’s car. They want to send her to Ramallah in the West Bank (the Amans live in Gaza), where she would almost certainly die because the Palestinian health-care system can’t cope with her injuries. Israel says it was never under any obligation to give her medical treatment in the first place because its attack on her family’s car was an “act of war.” So that’s okay then.


Must-read: Frank Rich’s Sunday column (link to a version not behind the pay barrier).

Tommy “Thomas” Thompson drops out of the presidential race: we hardly wanted to know ye.

Department of Be Afraider, Be Very Afraider

Tropical Storm Flossie has been upgraded to Hurricane Flossie.

A lot of opportunities to bring peace

Today Bush met with new French President Sarkozy in Kennebunkport. While awaiting Sarkozy’s arrival, he told reporters, “We’re going to have a heart-to-heart talk.” Uh oh. Is that anything like the heart to heart you threatened two days ago to have with Maliki if he dared say that Iran was a constructive influence? Reporters took the rare opportunity to question Bush extensively about whether there would be both ketchup and mustard available for Sarkozy to put on his hamburger (or hot dog, because America is all about free choice, if not haute cuisine) (that’s Frog talk) (Bush made fun of his father for speaking two words of French) (“le signe”), and “Do you think he’s bringing cheese?”

Bush said, “This is a complicated world with a lot of opportunities to bring peace”. Not many people can make peace sound so chilling. Well, you bring the “peace,” Sarkozy can bring the cheese, and we’ll see which one makes the world a better place.

Bush said, “I respect the French people, I respect the history of France.” Sadly, no one from what he called the “Fourth Estate,” a term which is derived from French history, gave him a pop quiz in French history, “what happened in 1789?”, “who called himself the Sun King?”, “who invented the guillotine?”, that sort of thing.

Then Sarkozy arrived, kissed all the women (he’s French, you know)



(Some days it’s harder to be French than others), and said a few words, while Bush got increasingly impatient, finally interrupting: “Beautiful. Thank you. We’ve got to go eat a hamburger. We’ve got to go eat a hamburger.”

Bush had said that he wasn’t sure if they would be going out fishing, but Sarkozy started doing a little “fishing” of his own.


(He’s French you know.)

Caption contest:

Ensuring fair treatment

An email from the Fred Thompson campaign begins a section, “Fred on the Issues” thusly: “Whoa now. Let’s hold our horses a minute and think about the calls for new tax increases to fix our infrastructure problems....” That’s just the sort of ersatz folksiness so sorely missing from this campaign. Can you imagine the drawl-off of an Edwards-Thompson debate?

Headline of the day: “Accused Says He Was Just Milking Goat.”

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who seems to have extensive powers to prevent carriages, if you will, of justice, let two of those convicted in the killing of Awad the Lame, Tyler Jackson and Jerry Shumate, go free 4 months early from their plea-bargained terms of 21 months. The release, according to a statement from the Marines, was to “ensure fair treatment.” To whom, they did not say. Mattis also granted clemency to another participant, Robert Pennington, who was given an 8-year sentence just 6 months ago. Mattis cited his age and lowly rank, failing to note that it is generally young people of low rank who are sent into combat. If 21 was below the age at which Pennington was expected to be responsible for his actions, maybe he shouldn’t have been given a gun and sent to Hamdaniya in the first place. Awad the Lame (whose 4 grandchildren are pretty young too, if anyone cares, which one might have cause to doubt given that Awad the Lame is referred to only as “an Iraqi man” in the NYT, San Diego Union-Tribune, and LAT articles I consulted) was killed 16 months ago, in April 2006. Of the 8 men tried in 2007, all of whom pleaded or were found guilty, only 1 is still in prison. And Mattis is still reviewing his sentence.

On Thursday’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart did a segment on Bush’s use of “in other words.” Stewart gets upwards of a million bucks a year, I get the satisfaction of a job well done. Life is just so completely entirely fair. The clip is on the Daily Show website, for however long those things stay up. He explains to Chimpy, “We understand what you’re saying. The look on our face isn’t confusion, it’s disbelief. In other words, we understand, we just don’t fucking get it.”

If I can serve as unpaid gag writer/researcher for the Daily Show, the least you people can do is complete one joke for me (I can’t seem to think of a punchline worthy of the set-up). Giuliani says that he misspoke when he claimed yesterday that in 2001 he was at Ground Zero “as often, if not more, than most of the workers.” So what did he really mean to say? I was at my cigar club as often, if not more... I was at my mistresses’ apartment as often, if not more... I was giving interviews to Fox News as often...

Democrats discuss gay issues: semantics may be important to some

Some of the Democratic presidential candidates went to a Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/whatever-the-term-is-for-“I’m not really gay, I just offered that guy twenty bucks to blow him ‘cause I’m afraid of black people” forum, which turned out not to be an actual debate. (For anyone reading this in another country or twenty years from now, here’s a link to explain that reference.)

Biden and Dodd skipped the event, then decided that skipping was itself kind of gay and decided to hold their own belching contest to prove who is the more manly. Jeez, between the hair plugs and the fathering a child in your sixties, I think you two have the over-compensation thing pretty well covered.

Since Dodd claimed a scheduling conflict, I hope someone tracks down what he was actually doing last night.

Obama is playing the race card for all it’s worth, and quite a bit more. Evidently he understands everything the LGBTW community goes through because he’s black and his name is “Barack Obama” and his parents couldn’t have gotten married in some states. (Later he says that isn’t what he was saying and that he’s not into “comparisons of victimology.”) But he is not in favor of letting gay people marry, says civil unions, “As I’ve proposed it, it wouldn’t be a lesser thing, from my perspective,” and the difference is just “semantics.” “Semantics may be important to some,” he said dismissively. He says he would have advised civil rights leaders in the 1960s not to bother trying to end miscegenation laws, but to focus on issues that have “real consequences.” And he reassured churches that no one would force them to perform gay marriages. In retrospect, I think he was saying that as long as everyone gets full legal rights, the state shouldn’t really have an opinion about what constitutes a marriage because the bond of marriage is a purely religious one. Maybe someone should ask him if atheists should be allowed to marry.

He even repeated the famous sentence from his 2004 convention speech, about which I wrote, “You’ll notice his ‘We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states’ line carefully avoided creeping out the homophobes of Middle America by keeping the Little Leaguers and the gays in separate states.”


As John Edwards walked in, the camera focused on an audience member with weird hair. He also understands what it’s like to be different, because he’s so pretty. Lord, right after I wrote that, he did actually say that he understands it because he grew up in the segregated South.

He repudiated his previous statement that he opposes same-sex marriage because of his religious views. But he still opposes same-sex marriage. “All I can tell you is where I am today.”

Asked what he’d do if one of his staff said they were trans-gendered and thinking about making the “transition,” Edwards says he’d help them “in every possible way.” Fine, you hold the penis while the doctor cuts it off.

He said he’s perfectly comfortable around gay people, no matter what you’ve heard.


Dennis Kucinich, who understands what it’s like to be different because he’s an elf and is the favorite of this crowd and of Melissa Etheridge, keeps talking about the power of love. He loves love (although he’s not in love with it).

This is not proving as entertaining as I anticipated.

Mike Gravel also loves love. Melissa Etheridge asks him how he can be so gay-friendly when he’s like really really old, and if there are many gay people in Alaska. Three, as it turns out, and they’re all in the front row.


He says all gays should come out of the closet. I don’t know why, but that’s the only thing I’ve heard so far that surprised me.

Do igloos have closets?



The non-debate format allowed me to fast forward through Bill Richardson (but not in a gay way). I put it back on play while I fed the cat, and he was so laughably out of his depth that I had to go back and listen to the whole thing. He said (sigh) he understands what it’s like to be different because he’s Hispanic. Asked whether homosexuality is a choice or inborn (sadly, no one else was asked this), he seemed never even to have heard of the issue before, first mumbling that it was a choice, then that it was a scientific matter and he doesn’t understand science. Gay people befuddle him (but not in a gay way). He refuses to say if he’d sign a gay marriage bill if one were passed by the New Mexico Legislature, just as Obama refused to say if he’d have voted for one when he was in the Illinois lege.

Hillary talked about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act as “transitional” policies to fend off far worse Republican moves, trying to make essentially anti-gay measures sound progressive. No one is buying. Although they’ll probably vote for her anyway, and then act surprised when she does little if anything for them. She opposes gay marriage, and calls that opposition a “personal position.” Like Edwards, she seems to think that’s relevant, but a presidential candidate’s positions on public policy issues are not “personal.” She said prefers to think of her position not as anti-gay marriage but as pro-civil union. Margaret Carlson prompted her to say, “I’m your girl,” just as she did to the AFL-CIO two days before. She said it (I could swear I heard Kucinich say it too), but she isn’t. Her and Obama’s sort of “pragmatism,” their willingness to compromise with other people’s rights... hey, I was expecting to blog this forum with nothing but double entendres!


I don’t think there was more than that one question about transgendered people, and I’m quite sure there were none about bisexuals.

Living up to the standards of the Marine Corps

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis drops the charges against Lance Corp. Justin Sharratt for his role in the Haditha Massacre (click on the H.M. label at the bottom of this post for more on Sharratt), saying he lived up to the standards of the Marine Corps when he mowed down a family of civilians. Mattis accepts the disproved premise that “combat” was going on in Haditha, that the Marines were under fire.

This is very good, but is it really the only Nichols and May sketch available on YouTube?



Fifty religious quotes from the Rev. Chimpy.

Bush press conference: there’s no proof of wrong

Bush held a press conference this morning. Hilarity ensued.

THAT THING YOU DO: “The American people need to know that we’re working hard to find out why the bridge did what it did so that we can assure people that the bridges over which they will be traveling will be safe.” Or you could actually make them safe.


A HUMAN POST-IT NOTE: “In my discussions with President Musharraf, I have reminded him that we share a common enemy”. On the one hand, that “reminded him” thing is pretty condescending. On the other, isn’t it nice that he shares?

WHY, I CAN MAKE A HAT OR A BROOCH OR A PTERODACTYL...: “We spend a lot of time with the leadership in Pakistan, talking about what we will do with actionable intelligence.” His own intelligence, by the way, indicates that Pakistanis like to be called “Paks.”

MR. EMPATHIC STRIKES AGAIN: “I can understand why Pat Tillman’s family, you know, has got significant emotions”. We know. “And I’m confident the Defense Department wants to find out the truth, too”. And then lie about it again.


WHAT THE IRAQIS NEED: “these folks need to trust each other more.” He says of the Iraqi government, “a lot of Americans look at it and say, there’s nothing happening there; there’s, like, no government at all, I expect they’re saying.” But actually, he says, the Iraqi parliament is passing many laws, “some of which are directly relevant to reconciliations”.

IN OTHER WORDS: “But one of the things I found interesting in my questions was there is revenue sharing -- in other words, a central government revenue sharing to provincial governments.”

“My belief is that people will make rational decision based upon facts.” He really has no self-awareness whatsoever, does he? That was in response to a question about the financial sector and the sub-prime-loan issue. Asked whether the government should help the recipients of those loans who are about to lose their houses, he said fuck no, but “obviously anybody who loses their home is somebody with whom we must show enormous empathy.”


IF ONLY BUSH WERE A MAN OF AS FEW WORDS AS MALIKI: “Prime Minister Maliki is visiting in Tehran today. His message, I’m confident will be, stabilize, don’t destabilize.” If not, little Nouri will get a talking to: “Now if the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a heart-to-heart with my friend, the Prime Minister, because I don’t believe they are constructive.”


“I don’t think he, in his heart of heart, thinks they’re constructive, either. ... So the first thing I looked for was commitment against the extremists. The second thing is does he understand with some extremist groups there is connections with Iran, and he does. And I’m confident.”

Interestingly, he’s careful this time not to repeat the lie that Iran has a stated policy of building nuclear weapons: “They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program.” Still, he says Iran, you know, hates Israel and funds Hezbollah and “It’s a very troubling nation right now.”

IN OTHER WORDS (on Guantanamo): “I also made it clear that part of the delay was the reluctance of some nations to take back some of the people being held there. In other words, in order to make it work, we’ve got to have a place for these people to go. ... In other words, part of the issue, Peter, is the practical issue of, what do we do with the people.”

As for the new Red Cross report about torture practices in Gitmo, “I haven’t seen it. We don’t torture.” Except for grammar, which he waterboards with every sentence he speaks: “One of the things I’m anxious about, want to see happen, is that there to be trials.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “And therefore, what we’d really be talking about is a simplification of a very complex tax code that might be able to lower rates and at the same time simplify the code, which is like shorthand for certain deductions would be taken away -- in other words, certain tax preferences in the code.”

Honestly, how do you get past the age of 7 with such a poor grasp of singular and plural? “[T]he reason there is tax preferences in the first place are there are powerful interests that have worked to get the preference in the code.”

Asked how he can afford the war and fixing all the bridges and whatnot, he said, “One can meet priorities if they set priorities.” “They” being Congress, which he proceeded to lecture like little children, which is of course the best way to persuade them: “The problem in Congress is they have trouble actually focusing on priorities. ... And we’ve proven that you can set priorities and meet obligations. And so the Congress needs to learn to do that itself.”


He said that “Lewis Libby was held accountable” and that Gonzales doesn’t need to be held accountable because “There’s no proof of wrong. Why would I hold somebody accountable who has done nothing wrong?” Why indeed. “And as a matter of fact, I would hope Congress would become more prone to deliver pieces of legislation that matter, as opposed to being the investigative body.” I’ll bet you would.

Bush admits that he bases his evaluation of Iraq entirely on ideology, and assumes everyone else does the same: “But for those of us who believe it’s worth it, we’ll see progress. For those who believe it’s not worth it, there is no progress.” A few seconds later he repeats that “This is an ideological struggle.” Against reality.

Stoopid reality.