Today, Bush met with Hamid Karzai, whose country may be going through its seventh year of war and occupation, but Bush is having a fine time: “I’ve had a grand experience in dealing with President Karzai.”
Possibly because Karzai, at least in his public statement sitting next to Bush, didn’t mention all the recent civilian casualties he usually claims to hate, and just profusely thanked him and the US. Not that it would make a difference if he did bring it up: “It’s an honor to have associated with you, to have had your friendship, and to have had your support, and to have had your patience with me. Very, very nice of you. I’ve yelled at times, I’ve been angry at times, but you’ve always been smiling and generous, and just so nice.” That must be so incredibly annoying, him just smiling stupidly while you’re yelling at him. Reminds me of my last cat.
Then he met with Not-Tony-Blair, Prime Minister Brown (Brown by name, brown by nature).
GREAT: “The United States has got a great friendship with Great Britain.”
ASKED AND ANSWERED: “What the Prime Minister wants to know is, is the plan we’ve devised big enough to make a difference, and is it going to be passed. And I told him the plan is big enough to make a difference and I believe it is going to be passed.”
Brown: “We talked about a number of issues -- Iraq, Afghanistan, the trade talks, what’s happening in Russia vis-a-vis, I think, Georgia, and about the general situation in the world economy.” He thinks Georgia? Is no one even pretending to listen to Bush anymore?
ALWAYS? BECAUSE I DON’T THINK “DON’T SHOOT UNTIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES” COUNTS AS “STANDING TOGETHER”: Brown: “America and Britain have always stood together as one in times of difficulty and challenge.”
Bush made a statement this morning on the Wall Street bailout, saying that basically nothing was happening. “And we need a rescue plan. This is -- it’s hard work.”
OH, THAT’S DIRTY: “The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we are going to get a package passed. We will rise to the occasion.” Just so dirty.
Then it was on to the Smithsonian to talk about oceans.
HE’S NOT AQUAMAN: “First of all, you got to know I like oceans. I didn’t grow up in the ocean -- as a matter of fact -- near the ocean -- I grew up in the desert. Therefore, it was a pleasant contrast to see the ocean.”
Bloomberg: “JP Morgan Chase & Co., the third-biggest U.S. bank by assets, agreed to acquire Washington Mutual Inc.’s deposits and branches for $1.9 billion...”
I’m sorry, they agreed to “acquire” whose fucking deposits? Because I’m pretty sure some of that is my fucking money you’re talking about.
Some people would blame over-expansion, or its increasingly risky mortgages in an increasingly shaky housing market. Still more say it was doomed the moment it started calling itself WaMu (actual slogan, up on its website right now: “Feel the Whoo hoo!™”)(“feeling the Whoo hoo” is actually illegal in many states). Me, I’d go further back, to this moment.
I simply must quote the WaPo about WaMu: in their story on this, they bury this at the very end: “The Washington Mutual-J.P. Morgan deal is not subject to any of the reviews that normally attend a major bank merger. ‘When you have a failing institution, you don’t have time for that,’ [FDIC chair] Bair said.” How very reassuring.
Incidentally, a lot of people have been bringing up McCain’s membership in the Keating Five lately, but let’s also remember Bush’s brother Neil’s adventures in the savings and loan field.
The Sarah Silverman “Great Schlep” video, in case you’ve somehow missed it.
Before the conference with congresscritters over the Wall Street bailout, Bush spoke to the cameras.
WHAT HE WANTS TO THANK: “I want to thank the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that’s taking place here in Washington.”
Sarah Palin went to Ground Zero today to thank the spirit of 9/11, or something.
NEVER FORGETTING: “Every American student needs to come through this area so that, especially this younger generation of Americans is, to be in a position of never forgetting what happened here and never repeating, never allowing a repeat of what happened here.”
And there’s more to that Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin (note: the link is to excerpts, not a complete transcript, but CBS doesn’t make that clear). 10½ car-crash-can’t-turn-your-eyes-away minutes.
This morning, Bush took some time out from solving the financial crisis to meet with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman.
WHAT LEBANESE-AMERICANS CARE DEEPLY ABOUT: “There are a lot of Lebanese Americans who are paying attention to this visit. They care deeply about their ancestors.”
TALKING ABOUT, YOU KNOW, PRESIDENT STUFF: “You and I have met a lot since I have been the president and you have been the president.”
IT’S HARD WORK: “no doubt it must be frustrating at times for you, because it’s hard work to get a state after all these years.”
WHAT THERE IS A FIRM DETERMINATION TO DO: “But nevertheless, there is a firm determination on your part and on my part to give the Palestinians a place where there can be dignity and hope.” So they met in the Bush White House?
WHAT OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS MANY AMERICANS HAVE FELT: “Over the past few weeks many Americans have felt anxieties about their finances and their future.” John McCain, for example, is worried about his future; everyone else is worried about their finances. (That semi colon was in celebration of National Punctuation Day).
A LOOOONG PERIOD, NOT MY FAULT AT ALL: “Well, most economists agree that the problems we are witnessing today developed over a long period of time.”
HE WAS FOR IRRESPONSIBLE ACTION BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: “I faced a choice: To step in with dramatic government action, or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all.”
NOT NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES? YOU’RE PLANNING TO GRAB BILLIONS FROM THE TAXPAYERS AND GIVE THEM TO YOUR RICH FRIENDS. SOUNDS LIKE NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES TO ME. “I’m a strong believer in free enterprise. So my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business. Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There’s been a widespread loss of confidence.” I wonder why....
THE GOVERNMENT HAS PATIENCE, SEE? SO PASS MY BILL NOW! NOW! NOW! NOOOOOWWWWWW!!!! “The government is the one institution with the patience and resources to buy these assets at their current low prices and hold them until markets return to normal.”
MORE FINANCIAL BUBBLES FOR EVERYONE! “As they do, they must ensure that efforts to regulate Wall Street do not end up hampering our economy’s ability to grow.”
SO THAT’S OKAY THEN: “Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised.”
Today Bush met in New York with leaders of countries in the Western Hemisphere, and talked about trade.
IN OTHER WORDS: “In the five years since the free trade agreement between the United States and Chile took effect, trade between our two nations has increased by more than 180 percent. And that’s positive. In other words, these agreements are mutually benefit.”
OBVIOUSLY: “There are three free trade agreements pending in the Congress today: South Korea, Panama and Colombia. Obviously, two of those are with nations in our own hemisphere.”
“The Colombia free trade agreement will be good for Colombia; it will be good for America ... and Congress needs to pass it. The Panamanian agreement is good for Panama, it’s good for America, and Congress ought to pass that agreement, too.” He did not say whether the South Korean agreement is good for South Korea, good for America and whether Congress ought to pass it. Now we may never know.
In the afternoon, Bush, along with Laura and Condi, met with various dissidents from Russia, Burma and I don’t know where else (not from the US, of course), then posed with them with the Statue of Liberty in the background, which is kind of faulty imagery because they want to breathe free in their own countries, not here. Bush said of the meeting, “I assured them that this government, my government, believes in the universality of freedom. We believe there’s an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child is freedom.” So Bush’s government, his government, believes there’s an Almighty. It’s official.
“Say there, little guy, you Buddhist types don’t believe in an Almighty, do you? Then how can you believe in freedom, I don’t get it.”
To further show his commitment to freedom and democracy, later in the afternoon Bush met with Ugandan President Museveni, who he praised as a “strong leader,” which I guess is one way of putting it.
He praised Uganda’s efforts against AIDS: “infection rate went from a lot to, you know, a much smaller number.” I trust Bush will apply that same command of higher mathematics to the financial situation.
NO DOUBT: “there is no doubt that the situation in Iraq has changed substantially. There’s no doubt that mothers are able to send their child to school without fear of carnage.”
In his next sentence, see if you can spot the word that gives something away: “Oh, there are still killers amongst your -- in your midst, but your government has been steadfast in bringing people to justice who are trying to undermine your democracy.” The word is “Oh.” Re-read that sentence, and imagine if the leader of a country whose troops invaded and occupied your nation spoke of the continuance of murder so dismissively.
This morning, he met new Pakistani President Zardari (aka, Mr. Benazir Bhutto). He expressed condolences from the “collective heart of the American people” about the weekend bombing in Islamabad that the collective brain of the American people never heard about or paid attention to.
WHAT WE WANT: “We want our friends around the world to be making a good living.”
Later, he attended a meeting on food security, a personal concern of his since that pretzel tried to kill him.
“The United States is a compassionate nation,” he proclaimed. “When citizens around the world suffer, we suffer with them.” And when they go hungry, we...um...
But we’re doing something about it. “We’ve committed about $5 billion of taxpayers’ money over the next two years to make sure people don’t go hungry.” In fact, CEOs of financial institutions will get $5 billion each just to make really quite sure that they never have to miss a meal.
It’s just not the week to really impress anybody with that $5 billion figure, is what I’m saying.
And he addressed the UN General Assembly. He told it that “the ideals of the Charter are now facing a challenge as serious as any since the U.N.’s founding -- a global movement of violent extremists. By deliberately murdering the innocent to advance their aims, these extremists defy the fundamental principles of international order.” Dude, murdering the innocent to advance aims is the fundamental principle of international order. You could look it up.
Anyway, the speech was about how terrorism is bad and should be dealt with pre-emptively, democracy and freedom are good, “clarity of vision” is required and so on.
See if you can spot the word that gives something away: “In the decades ahead, the United Nations and other multilateral organizations must continually confront terror. This mission requires clarity of vision. We must see the terrorists for what they are: ruthless extremists who exploit the desperate, subvert the tenets of a great religion, and seek to impose their will on as many people as possible.” The word was “a” in “a great religion.” Just one religion. He’s pretending to be talking about the evils of terrorism, but what he means is Muslims.
WHAT SOME MAY BE TEMPTED TO ASSUME: “As the 21st century unfolds, some may be tempted to assume that the threat has receded. This would be comforting; it would be wrong.” How does he know what will happen as the 21st century unfolds? “The terrorists believe time is on their side, so they made waiting out civilized nations part of their strategy.” See, they’re especially dangerous when they’re not doing anything at all.
WHO SOME? WHAT SOME? WE WANT NAMES ALREADY. “Some question whether people in certain parts of the world actually desire freedom.”
NOT PATERNALISM: “Experience also shows that to be effective, we must adopt a model of partnership, not paternalism. This approach is based on our conviction that people in the developing world have the capacity to improve their own lives -- and will rise to meet high expectations if we set them.” And our setting high expectations for them to meet is not paternalism how exactly?
FOR EXAMPLE, I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE AND NO ONE IS PUTTING ME UNDER ARREST: “For example, there should be an immediate review of the Human Rights Council, which has routinely protected violators of human rights.”
Laura Bush, Ban ki-Moon’s wife, and Carla Bruni (Sarkozy’s wife) listen to Bush’s speech being simultaneously translated into French, Burmese, and Percocet.
Sarah Palin never gave what would have been her first foreign policy speech, at the anti-Iran protest at the UN, the one from which Hillary Clinton withdrew when she found out Palin had been invited, and then Palin was disinvited. But the text of the speech has been released. She calls Ahmadinejad “the Iranian dictator” who “dreams of being an agent in a ‘Final Solution’ - the elimination of the Jewish people.” Also, that he showed up for a test completely unprepared and in his underwear.
Of course the most important way to stand up to Ahmadinejad, sez Sarah, is to achieve victory in Iraq. Stands to reason. “If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be bolstered.”
And of course he should be arrested. “President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.”
So sad that she’ll never be able to give that speech, huh?
I got nuthin’ today, except a backlog of pictures of McCain and Palin and the kiddies out on the town, with McCain just biding his time, waiting for Obama to take any position on the financial bailout so that he can take the other side.
He started out the week so well. Here he was yesterday after his weekly bowel movement.
This next picture is entitled, “Are you my new daddy?”
Introduced, in Media, Pennsylvania, by one of his many friends in the bikers-with-oversized-mustaches community.
Wait, I just stopped to look that guy up. His name is Paul Teutul and he has a show on... the Learning Channel. And because 13 cars aren’t enough vehicles for one man to own, Teutul gave McCain a motorcycle.
McCain responded, “Sarah and I are going to get on that chopper and ride it straight to Washington!” Quite an image. Sarah seems happy with the idea, or perhaps she is looking at Teutul and asking, “Are you my new daddy?”
Always happy to meet and/or lick his supporters.
Possible images of McCain for his presidential commemorative 5½ cent stamp.
Oh no! Sarah Palin is trapped inside a Teleprompter! Her ability to field dress a moose cannot save her now!
Today Bush met with Colombian President Uribe. He even, for the first time in weeks, took a couple of questions.
WHAT EMPTY PROMISES WON’T BE: “In the last few years, thousands of members of FARC have deserted. They’ve realized the empty promise of the leaders of -- you know, won’t be met.”
He lectured Congress about the importance of ratifying the free-trade treaty: “And members of Congress from both parties have got to understand the following facts.” There were three of them.
IN OTHER WORDS: “First of all, about half our growth last year, Mr. President, was because of exports. In other words, exports have affected our economy in a positive way.”
There were two more facts that members of Congress from both parties have got to understand. See if you can follow along with the MBA president’s sophisticated analysis: “Secondly, a lot of small businesses trade -- send goods and services to Colombia. It’s important for the small business sector to be vital and strong. Thirdly, a lot of jobs depend upon exports.”
STRUTTING OUT: “Dos preguntas por cada lado. Deb. That’s two questions per each side. (Laughter.) Just strutting out my Spanish here.” (Later, he will beg Colombian reporters not to speak in Spanish.)
OF HOW SIGNIFICANT: “My first instinct was to let the market work until I realized, upon being briefed by the experts, of how significant this problem became. And so I decided to act and act boldly.” You know, I can picture him standing in front of the mirror saying to himself, “I must act. And act boldly!”
WHAT IT TURNS OUT: “It turns out that there’s a lot of interlinks throughout the financial system. The system had grown to a point where a lot of people were dependent upon each other”. Yes, a lot of people are dependent on each other now; the economy has changed since you went to Harvard Business School, back in 2000 B.C.
IN OTHER WORDS: “In other words, the system risk was significant, and it required a significant response, and Congress understands that.”
HEH HEH, HE SAID BIG PACKAGE: “This is a big package, because it was a big problem.”
HE’S THE REMINDERER: “And, you know, I tell our -- I will tell our citizens and continue to remind them that the risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package, and that, over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.” Heh heh, he said “the risk of the package.”
THEY’RE THE REMINDERERS: “We’re going to go to New York and talk to -- and remind people here in the nation’s capital that this is an issue that affects a lot more than countries than just Colombia.”
FABULOUSNESS ALERT: “And therefore, I asked Hank Paulson -- who, by the way, in my judgment, is doing a fabulous job”.
WHAT HE UNDERSTANDS: “And I understand it’s important to have confidence in a financial system.”
HE HAS AN MBA, YOU KNOW: “At first I thought we could deal with this -- deal with the problem one issue at a time. We made the decision on Fannie and Freddie because there was systemic risk to our mortgage markets. And then obviously AIG came along -- and Lehman came along and it was -- it declared bankruptcy; then AIG came along and it -- the house of cards was much bigger, beyond -- started to stretch beyond just Wall Street, in the sense of the effects of failure. And so when one card started to go, we were worried about the whole deck going down, and so therefore moved, and moved hard.” Because when you’re worrying about a house of cards going down, you move, and move hard.
WHY IT’S BIG: “And you bet it’s big, because it needed to be big.”
BUT YOU’LL TELL US WHEN IT IS THE TIME, RIGHT? “Now is not the time to play the blame game.”
McCain said that if he were president, he’d fire Christopher Cox, the chair of the SEC.
Presidents do not have the power to fire the chair of the SEC.
Reached for comment, George Bush just said, “Chairman Cox,” then giggled helplessly for ten minutes.
McCain has a new ad today saying that, “on the biggest financial issue of the day,” Obama would not say if he supported the AIG bailout. McCain, of course, has had more than enough positions on that issue this week for the both of them.
Human Rights Watch accused Hugo Chavez of human rights abuses. So he threw them out of the country, which was possibly intended as ironic commentary.
This morning, Bush gave a 1,270-word speech about the economy. In the afternoon, he gave a 1,209-word speech about the Boston Celtics. Somehow he seemed happier at the latter. Maybe Ben Bernanke should have given him a basketball and a jersey with the number 43 on it.
He also sounded more engaged and like he might actually have known what he was talking about.
Not that he feels that knowing anything about, say, how this financial crisis occurred, might be of any particular use in getting out of this financial crisis. “There will be ample opportunity to debate the origins of this problem. Now is the time to solve it.”
Ah, Christians. A poll of white Southern evangelicals (defined as attending church at least once a week) finds (pdf) that 57% of respondents think that torture of suspected terrorists is justified (“often justified” = 20%, “sometimes justified” = 16%). 34% oppose torture, but if asked whether the US should “use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers” (i.e., the Golden Rule), that goes up to 50%. In other words, 16% of white Southern evangelicals want to torture our troops.
Tonight Fox aired Part II of the epic Sarah Palin interview by Sean Hannity in which “no topic is off limits.”
ON TRACK PALIN: “He’s independent and he’s strong and he’s serving for the right reasons.” She’s said this before. What are the wrong reasons and how many troops does she think joined for the wrong reasons?
IT RHYMES, SO IT MUST BE TRUE: “Retreat is defeat in Iraq.”
WHAT’S GOTTA BE OFF THE TABLE: “No Cold War. That’s gotta be off the table.”
LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURFUIT OF HAPPINEFS: “Being an optimist, I see our role in the world as one of being a force for good and one of being the leader of the world when it comes to the values that, it seems that just humankind embraces the values that encompass life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that’s not just in America, that is in our world. ... We being used as a force for good is how I see our country.”
WHY SHE REALLY ADMIRES JOHN MCCAIN: “I so respected John McCain, his, his, maverick streak in him there really being made manifest in choosing someone who has a track record of that commitment to reform...” Oh, etcetera. She respects him because he chose her, is what she’s saying.
SHE DIDN’T MEAN TO OFFEND ANY COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS, JUST LAUGH AT THEM: “Oh, I certainly didn’t mean to hurt his [Obama’s] feelings. Didn’t mean to offend any community organizers, either.”
Asked why women’s groups don’t support her: “This campaign is about important, very important issues which are not necessarily gender-specific”. As opposed to the very unimportant issues which those hairy-legged feminists support.
ON BIDEN: “I think he was first elected when I was like in second grade. He’s been in there a long, long, long time.” Enough longs in that sentence, Sarah? (she really emphasized the longs, too).
SARAH SHOWS SOME SKIN: “I was telling a couple of our campaign people the other day. I said, you see this? You think this is just baby fat, right, from having Trig four months ago. No, it’s some thick skin in there also.” First, what part of your body were you showing to your campaign people? Second, don’t blame your weight on the media.
Says she had no desire to ban any books.
Says she wasn’t part of the Alaska Independence Party.
Says she supports the teaching of evolution.
Says she wore that Pat Buchanan button just because she was being polite and she was very excited that he was visiting her small city.
Says that fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was “insubordinate” and that the investigation of Troopergate has been “captured” by “excessive partisanship.”
“This trooper tasered my nephew... His threats against the first family, his death threat against my dad. All that is in the record. And if the opposition researchers are choosing to forget that side of the story, well that’s, they’re not doing their job.” Sarah, “this trooper” isn’t running for vice president. Indeed, the truth of your allegations against him is entirely irrelevant to the question of your abuse of power in trying to get him fired. As is the fact that he’s still a trooper, which doesn’t prove anything except that you’re not all that good at carrying out your petty vendettas.
SHE’S ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE: “I’m one of those people, you know, I see a soldier walking through the airport, and, you know, I, my heart does a little double-take”.
(Update: forgot to add the response given at a town hall meeting today by Palin, who McCain said last week “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America,” to a question about how drilling would benefit American consumers:
Oil and coal? Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It’s got to flow into our domestic markets first.
This morning, Bush gave a very brief statement about the financial situation.
SELL! SELL! SELL! “I’ve canceled my travel today to stay in Washington, where I will continue to closely monitor the situation in our financial markets and consult with my economic advisors.”
SELL! DID YOU HEAR ME? SELL EVERYTHING! “[M]y administration is focused on meeting these challenges.”
But everything you need to know about the economy, you can tell...
And do you concur with that assessment, Secretary Paulson’s face?
Sarah Palin’s second interview tonight. Tough questions from... Sean Hannity.
WHAT GETTING THE NOD FROM MCCAIN TO BE VICE PRESIDENT WAS: “Getting that nod was quite an experience.” He not only gave her a nod, but a tap: “And that’s why John McCain tapped me to be a team of mavericks”.
Much of the interview focused on the economy.
WHAT YOU KNOW WHEN WE SEE THE COLLAPSE THAT WE’RE SEEING TODAY: “When we see the collapse that we’re seeing today, you know that something is broken”.
The capitalist system is, of course, fine, it’s just... corruption: “I think the corruption on Wall Street. That’s to blame. And that violation of the public trust.” Hannity didn’t ask her who specifically she was accusing of corruption.
ON THE FUNDAMENTALS: “Well, it was an unfair attack on the verbage [sic] that Senator McCain chose to use because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people.”
WHAT THE ECONOMY IS: “Certainly it is a mess though, the economy is a mess.”
WHY WE DON’T HAVE AN ENERGY POLICY, UNLESS YOU COUNT THE ONE CHENEY CREATED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: “Yes it is gridlock and it’s ridiculous. That’s why we don’t have an energy policy. That’s why there hasn’t been the reform of the abuse of the earmark process.” Actually, the reason there hasn’t been reform of the earmark process isn’t because of partisan gridlock but the opposite: because both parties benefit from it.
“We sort of have a do-nothing Senate right now where nobody’s wanting to really pick up the ball and run with it and take the steps that we have to take to become more energy independent.” Does her plan for energy independence involve people running with balls, possibly on giant wheels?
