Maybe they should have gotten the extended warranty

Circuit City is closing all its 567 stores.

Mmm, bitter swill

In his inaugural speech, Obama said that it is time to put away childish things. In Crawford.

George didn’t have the grace to keep his mouth shut today, giving a speech at a “welcome home” rally in Texas. He declared that he’s “coming home with my head held high and a sense of accomplishment.” One of the things he said he’s accomplished: “we liberated 50 million people from the clutches of terrorism.” That’s the combined populations of Afghanistan and Iraq, who were in the clutches of unpleasant regimes, not of terrorism.

One interesting factoid: he’s the only person ever to leave the presidency with both his parents still living.


Obama’s speech wasn’t hugely interesting (not a single “in other words” and he didn’t remind us of anything!), although he did both quote a Depression-era Astaire-Rogers musical (“we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off...”) (I can’t have been the only one watching the speech who sang the next few lines) and use the phrase “bitter swill of civil war and segregation”.

“With old friends and former foes, we’ll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.” Because our way of life has nothing at all to do with the nuclear threat or the specter of a warming planet.

Also, it’s not a specter. The planet is actually warming.

But enough of criticism, for on this day, we are united; on this day, we are all secret Muslims.

Caption contest:

Metaphor alert

Mein führer, I can walk!

Cheer up, George, there are worse ways to be removed from public life

(I originally composed this post, prematurely, on November 2, 2004)

Miracle whip

Flight 1549 wasn’t such a “miracle” for the geese, now was it?

Miscellaneous Last Saturday of the Bush Era Blogging

Will people stop dying already? First Patrick McGoohan, now John Mortimer, Claude Berri and KHAAANNNN!

John Oliver on The Bugle: Bush apologizing for the “Mission Accomplished” banner is like apologizing for spelling someone’s name wrong on a birthday cake you made them out of shit.

By popular demand, more cat pictures.

You have to admit this is a brilliant idea, and look at the happy faces I see now

Kallyfawnia Governor Schwarzenegger gave the State of the State address yesterday, talking only about the need for a budget deal.

He had an explanation for the failure thus far, and it wasn’t the ridiculous requirement that budgets must be passed by a 2/3 vote of the Legislature. He explained with the aid of a helpful metaphor: “for too long we have been split by ideology. Conan’s sword could not have cleaved our political system in two as cleanly as our own political parties have done.”

The multi-millionaire had a solution to the problem of late budgets: whenever the deadline is missed, the legislators and the governor forfeit their pay and expenses. “I mean, you have to admit this is a brilliant idea, and look at the happy faces I see now. I love that.” He added that he realized that legislators whose only income came from their salaries could be coerced by wealthy politicians, so he offered to give up all his royalties, merchandising and investment income as well.

No, of course he didn’t.

But you have to appreciate how he’s modeling his idea for persuading the Legislature to accede to his will on the methods he used to sexually harass economically vulnerable women. Who says Hollywood isn’t like the real world?

Shorter Bush Farewell Speech: Smirk

For the last time tonight, a man with nothing to say addressed a nation that doesn’t care what he has to say and a posterity that won’t be looking to his words for inspiration. So it wasn’t Washington’s farewell speech, is what I’m saying.

It was primarily about justifying the past (i.e., praising himself) rather than looking forward to the future, and as such you’ve heard most of it before. He got to his first mention of 9/11 with unseemly speed. He seems to have said that the reason there hasn’t been another terrorist attack is because we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.


He didn’t use his old messianic language of generational ideological crusades, and he didn’t bring up The War Against Terror (TWAT), which already seems like a quaint concept of a bygone era, but he did continue to push the view that the US is a benevolent spreader of liberty throughout the world. Evidently, “If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be lead.” He has such a truly impoverished concept of freedom.

He compared “two dramatically different systems.” In one a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology (for those keeping track at home, that’s the other side), while the other is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God. He gave no options for a system not centered on a belief in God and an attribution of ideological preferences to Him. I’ll leave it to someone else to count up the total number of religious references in this speech.

A few scores to settle

Goodbye, Number Six.

Dick Cheney gave more interviews in his Legacy of Shooting Things in the Face Tour, with doughy wingers Sean Hannity on Monday and Bill Bennett and Fox on Tuesday and McNeil-Lehrer today.

He said that he plans to write a book because “I’ve got a lot of stories to tell, and a few scores to settle.” Charming. He added, “I’m going out with a good heart.” He did not say who it used to belong to.

He scolded members of Congress who were briefed on warrantless wiretapping but who refuse to defend it in public, accepting (“Exactly”) Bennett’s characterization of their stance as “political cowardice.” It’s interesting that George Bush’s pseudo-Wilsonian idealism and Cheney’s Machiavelli-with-extra-douchebaggery pragmatism lead them to an identical denial of the validity of any position than their own. Cheney says that the Obamaites need to “overcome their campaign rhetoric,” and “be objective” about torture and surveillance and the Patriotic Act: “if they’re fair-minded about it, they’ll recognize that it’s important to continue those policies.”

Were the deaths of 4,500 Americans, 100,000+ Iraqis worth it? Yup, totally.

Jim Lehrer asked some basic political theory questions, like, should a government in a democracy implement policies the people disapprove of? Cheney: “That’s what elections are for”. Ah yes, the “accountability moment” theory, otherwise known as elective dictatorship.

Anyway, he says, he doesn’t “buy” that the Bush admin is so unpopular. “I find, when I get out and talk to people, that that’s not the unanimous view as you would have -- the things that count for me in terms of the people I want to make certain are with us are, for example, the American military -- the young men and women who serve, the folks who go out and put their lives on the line to carry out the policies we’ve decided upon.” You’re not unpopular if the people with guns are behind you.

Shame on Cheney for attempting to attribute political opinions to the United States military.

He also denies being highly partisan. After all, “Joe Lieberman is my favorite Democrat.” So that settles that.

Bush’s last press conference: I don’t know why they get angry

This morning Bush held his last (yay) press conference.

IN OTHER WORDS: “I have talked to the President-elect about this subject. And I told him that if he felt that he needed the $350 billion, I would be willing to ask for it. In other words, if he felt it needed to happen on my watch.”


He talked about the lunch he and Obama had with the ex-presidents, and highlighted a, to him, surprising point of commonality: “And one common area, at least the four of us, we all had different circumstances and experiences, but one thing is we’ve all experienced what it means to assume the responsibility of the presidency.”

On peace in the Middle East: “And I know we have advanced the process.” So that’s okay, then.

PASSING ON HIS INHERITANCE INTACT: “In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession.”

THE BUCK STOPS. “When people analyze the situation, there will be -- this problem started before my presidency, it obviously took place during my presidency. The question facing a president is not when the problem started, but what did you do about it when you recognized the problem.” Also possibly significant: how long did it take you to recognize the problem. And you’re saying it took you at least eight years to do so.

WELL AT LEAST HE PREVENTED THERE TO BE A CRISIS: “You know, one of the very difficult parts of the decision I made on the financial crisis was to use hardworking people’s money to help prevent there to be a crisis”.


Why do people really really hate you? “You know, most people I see, you know, when I’m moving around the country, for example, they’re not angry. And they’re not hostile people. ... I’ve met a lot of people who don’t agree with the decisions I make. But they have been civil in their discourse. And so, I view those who get angry and yell and say bad things and, you know, all that kind of stuff, it’s just a very few people in the country. I don’t know why they get angry. I don’t know why they get hostile.” Yeah, it’s a mystery all right.


Asked if there were any mistakes he wanted to acknowledge now, he mentioned the “Mission Accomplished” banner. “We were trying to say something differently, but nevertheless, it conveyed a different message.”

He thoughtfully added that he has pondered whether he might have made any mistakes over Katrina. But he didn’t. “I’ve thought long and hard about Katrina -- you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and -- is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission.”

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY TO THE CHOPPER DRIVERS?: In fact, people should really stop bitching about Katrina already: “But when I hear people say, the federal response was slow, then what are they going to say to those chopper drivers, or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?”


IN OTHER WORDS: Another possible mistake: pushing his failed Social Security ideas rather than his failed immigration ideas after the 2004 elections. “And the reason why is, is that -- you know, one of the lessons I learned as governor of Texas, by the way, is legislative branches tend to be risk-adverse. In other words, sometimes legislatures have the tendency to ask, why should I take on a hard task when a crisis is not imminent?”

MISTAKES, DISAPPOINTMENTS, OR JUST WACKY HAPPENSTANCES, YOU BE THE JUDGE: “There have been disappointments. Abu Ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were -- things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way.”

But he doesn’t think that torture and Gitmo have hurt America’s reputation, except among the elite, and you know how picky those people are: “I strongly disagree with the assessment that our moral standing has been damaged. It may be damaged amongst some of the elite, but people still understand America stands for freedom, that America is a country that provides such great hope. You go to Africa, you ask Africans about America’s generosity and compassion; go to India, and ask about, you know, America’s -- their view of America. Go to China and ask. Now, no question parts of Europe have said that we shouldn’t have gone to war in Iraq without a mandate, but those are a few countries. ... In certain quarters in Europe, you can be popular by blaming every Middle Eastern problem on Israel. Or you can be popular by joining the International Criminal Court. I guess I could have been popular by accepting Kyoto ... And in terms of the decisions that I had made to protect the homeland, I wouldn’t worry about popularity. What I would worry about is...” wait for it... “the Constitution of the United States”.

A LOT OF EMOTION: “Even in the darkest moments of Iraq, you know, there was -- and every day when I was reading the reports about soldiers losing their lives, no question there was a lot of emotion, but also there was times where we could be light-hearted and support each other.” Like when they watched Rumsfeld’s blooper reels of soldiers losing their lives, with the funny sound effects.


THE GEORGE W. BUSH CENTER FOR REMINDERING: “And that might be a good thing for the Bush center to do at SMU, is to remind people about the benefits of free and fair trade”.

HE’S THE REMINDEDERER: “And when you get a national security briefing, it is a reminder of the responsibilities of the job. It’s just a daily reminder about what may or may not happen.”

PEDALING TO FORGET: “And there’s not a moment where you don’t think about being president -- unless you’re riding mountain bikes as hard as you possibly can, trying to forget for the moment.”

After leaving office, he intends to stay out of the spotlight, unless of course he has something really important to talk about: “And so I wake up in Crawford Tuesday morning -- I mean, Wednesday morning, and I suspect I’ll make Laura coffee and go get it for her. And it’s going to be a different feeling. And I can’t -- it’s kind of like -- I’ll report back after I feel it.” You do that.

I am going home with my head held high

An email from RNC chair Mike Duncan to my last cat asks her to sign an electronic thank you card to George Bush, who, after all, “restored honor and integrity to the White House and protected America from another terrorist attack.” A cash gift to the Republican Party would also be nice. The subject line of the email: “Grateful Gratitude to our President.” As opposed to ungrateful gratitude, which would just be ungrateful.

Bush gave an interview to several Texas news organizations as part of his Legacy Tour, Texas-style. He began by calling one of the interviewers ugly.

WHAT HE HAS A GREAT SENSE OF: “I have a great sense of accomplishment and I am going home with my head held high.” Is it wrong of me that I immediately pictured his head being held high on a pike?

JUST LIKE THE ROCKING CHAIR INCIDENT: “Many friends have said, why didn’t you just let them [financial institutions] fail? And the answer was because letting them fail could have caused the average cat a lot of pain and agony.”

WHAT HE’LL MISS: “And I’ll miss ‘Frenchy’ L’Heureux, the colonel with whom I ride my mountain bike.” That probably only sounds like some sort of kinky gay sex thing, right?

Did he ever ask McCain about the sure-fire plan to capture Osama he claimed to have during the election campaign? No. “[B]ut we have - we’re on the hunt and have been on the hunt ever since September the 11th, 2001.” Of course if you’d started a little earlier...

He reiterated his enthusiasm for nuclear power: “but there’s a lot of resistance because there’s still a generation of people concerned about the engineering and the safety of nuclear power plants.” Evidently concern about the engineering and safety of nuclear power plants is purely a generational one and will go away when all the hippies die out.

EVERY SO OFTEN, EVEN GEORGE BUSH SAYS SOMETHING WE CAN ALL AGREE WITH: “And the less I’m on TV the better.”

George and the easiest children to forget about

Today Bush gave what he called “my last policy speech” (yay) at the General Philip Kearny School in Philadelphia, on the subject of No Child Left Behind. Naturally, he wants it to be continued in its current form. He said nothing about maintaining school funding, under threat by budget cuts all across the country (California’s robot governor just announced plans to cut funding by five school days a year. Rich districts will be able to keep their schools open those days, poor ones will not.)

WHAT BUDDY MEANS: “I’m proud to be here with my buddy. I guess it’s okay to call the Secretary of Education here ‘buddy.’ That means friend.”

THE EASIEST CHILDREN FOR WHO TO FORGET ABOUT, GEORGE? “It’s unacceptable to our country that vulnerable children slip through the cracks. And by the way, guess who generally those children are? They happen to be inner-city kids, or children whose parents don’t speak English as a first language. They’re the easiest children to forget about.”


IN OTHER WORDS: “When schools fall short of standards year after year, something has to happen. In other words, there has to be a consequence in order for there to be effective reforms.”

WHAT ACHIEVEMENT GAP IS: “Achievement gap is -- it means this: White students are reading here, and African American students are reading here, and Latino students are reading down here. And that is unacceptable for the United States of America.”


IN OTHER WORDS: “In the classroom, students are learning from highly qualified teachers. In other words, that’s part of the reforms of encouraged -- the focus on highly qualified teachers.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “There’s a new Teacher Incentive Fund in place, as a result of No Child Left Behind reforms, and a city like Philadelphia are rewarding educators for taking jobs in this city’s toughest classrooms, and those who are achieving results. In other words, there’s an incentive to make sure good teachers get in the classrooms all throughout the city.”

Damn, when they said the president was coming, I thought they meant Obama. I got totally screwed.

Noble ambitions

Sorry about the radio silence. Last week I went to a pot-luck party. I brought apple cider, someone else brought influenza virus...

Finally today, Obama had something to say about Gaza, evidently flushed out by the bombing of a UN school, with dozens of children killed: “The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me and after January 20, I’m going to have plenty to say about the issue.” Well, by then there’ll be a lot more loss of civilian life in Gaza, if not in Israel, for you to say plenty about.

Meanwhile, Bush spokesmodel Dana Peroxide warned us not to jump to conclusions about the school-bombing. You know, conclusions like, it’s a bad thing to bomb a school.

Bush gave this sophisticated analysis of Gaza yesterday: “Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to launch rockets to kill innocent Israelis.”

“I know people are saying let’s have that cease-fire, and those are noble ambitions. But any cease-fire must have the conditions in it so that Hamas does not use Gaza as a place from which to launch rockets.” No one ever accused Bush of having noble ambitions.

What we did was modest by those comparisons

This morning, Dick Cheney continued the Legacy of So What tour with an interview on Face the Nation.

He said that Israel did not ask for permission before attacking Gaza. And he told us that “it’s important to remember who the enemy is here. The enemy is not the Palestinians, from the perspective of the Israelis; it’s Hamas.” So that’s okay, then.

Like other Bushies, he is against a ceasefire in Gaza unless it’s “sustainable” and permanent.

He says that Iraq is better off today than it was before the invasion.

He says of George Bush, “Now you look back on it, he clearly was into self-deception in a major way.” Oh, all right, he said it about Saddam Hussein.

Did we invade Iraq with too few troops? “Well, we could debate that forever, and we may well.” Then he said that more troops probably wouldn’t have helped, but that it was the surge that accomplished all our goals. Huh?

He still claims that congressional leadership approved of warrantless wiretaps and that the letter Jay Rockefeller wrote disapproving of them “was a bit of a CYA letter”.

Asked the Frost/Nixon question again, this time he says, “I can’t say that anything he does is legal.” But he can suggest that it’s irrelevant whether it’s legal or not: he again justified the Bush admin actions by bringing up Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus. When Bob Schieffer pointed out that nobody thinks that was actually, you know, legal, Cheney responded, “Well, no. Well, it certainly was, in the sense he wasn’t impeached.” So it’s not that anything the president does is legal, it’s that anything he isn’t impeached for is legal. Also, “history” says that suspending habeas was a good thing.

He also again compared Bush admin actions to the internment of Japanese-Americans by FDR. It’s hard to know why he thinks that’s a winning argument. He even admits that “Most people now look back and say that was wrong.” Schieffer didn’t think to ask if Cheney thinks that was wrong, and I’d really be interested in the answer to that one.

But here is evidently Cheney’s point in bringing up the internment: “But what we did was modest by those comparisons.” Yes, and you didn’t kill the first born in Afghanistan or bring every Iraqi to America in chains to sell them into slavery. What’s your point?

Regrettably, Palestinian civilians have been killed in recent days

Obama continues his famous “message discipline” on the subject of Gaza, by not saying a fucking word. Remember, when he attempts to adopt a position of moral superiority in order to lecture, say, China or Zimbabwe about human rights, that his silence at this time demonstrates clearly that his adherence to humanitarianism, like that of Bush and every other president, is purely instrumental.

George Bush, however, has finally made a statement of his own, in the form of tomorrow’s weekly radio address.

He got right to the most important issue in analyzing any event in the Middle East: who started it. “This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas”. They did so with “a barrage of rockets and mortars that deliberately targeted innocent Israelis.” He didn’t get around to mentioning the rather more numerous Israeli rockets or whom they might be targeting. (Also, what mortars?)

He did say that “Regrettably, Palestinian civilians have been killed in recent days.” Somehow, it’s always the passive voice when Palestinians “have been killed,” isn’t it? He put the blame for these deaths on “Hamas terrorists” who, “as part of their strategy” (8 years as commander in chief and he still doesn’t know the difference between strategy and tactics), “often hide within the civilian population, which puts innocent Palestinians at risk.” Some of them were “hiding” within their own homes, the sneaky so and sos.

He claims that “The United States is deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation facing the Palestinian people,” which seems a dubious proposition, and mentions the decline of Gazan living standards, without mentioning the Israeli blockade. Rather, “By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people.” Imagine, if you can, what it would be like to have a government that prioritized rocket launchers over roads and schools.

Bush does offer words of reassurance, words that have never failed to be followed by swift action and positive results: “Secretary Rice is actively engaged in diplomacy.”

No humanitarian crisis

Tzipi Livni, rejecting a proposal for a truce to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza: “There is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce.” So that’s okay then.

One of the many casualties of the war on terror

Poor, poor Gonzo. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who cannot find a job, is writing a book for which he cannot find a publisher, possibly because the outline reads “Chapter 1: I don’t recall. Chapter 2: I don’t recall. Chapter 3: I don’t recall...”, and is whining to the Wall Street Journal (link, other link) about his undeservedly poor reputation.

“For some reason,” he says, “I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.” But where’s his plaque, huh, huh?

I love that more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger “for some reason.” He does, however, suggest one reason, and of course it had nothing to do with anything bad he might have done, because of course he never did anything bad: “I have been treated differently because of my relationship with the president. People thought that they could hurt the president by hurting me.”

He insists: “I didn’t leave in disgrace.” Ignominy, opprobrium, infamy, contempt and dishonor, sure, but not disgrace.

We don’t just want a ceasefire for the sake of a ceasefire

Today, Deputy Press Secretary Gordon Johndroe said of Gaza (Bush couldn’t comment, he was busy clearing brush), “We don’t just want a ceasefire for the sake of a ceasefire, only for violence to start up immediately, or within the next few weeks. That serves no one’s interest”.

No, a ceasefire certainly wouldn’t serve anyone’s interest, or at least not the interest of anyone who, you know, counts.



Barack Obama: still missing in action.

You never write, you never call

Headline of the Day (The Indy): “Man Jailed for Beach Sex Blames Media.”

Obama’s complete silence on the assault on Gaza continues unbroken.

This is probably a good time to be reading Juan Cole’s blog, but subscribers to his RSS feed might assume he’s on vacation. He is in fact blogging away, but his feeds haven’t been working for a few days now. Funny that.

Israel has been phoning families in Gaza. Isn’t that nice?

No borons

More personal ads from the London Review of Books (the complete WIIIAI collection of LRB personals is here.) After that, because it’s our 6-month anniversary today, and as a special treat for the almost three of you who have asked for new pictures of Christabel, there will be some.

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I hate you all. I hate London. I hate books. I hate critics. I hate this magazine, I hate this column and I hate all the goons who appear in it. But if you have large breasts, are younger than 30 and don’t want to talk about the novel you’re ‘writing’ I’ll put all that aside for approximately two hours one Saturday afternoon in January. Man, 33. Box no. 31/04

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