Dogged

Tony Blair is visiting George Bush, who described him as “dogged.” Yes, yes he is.

Who’s a good prime minister? You are, you’re a good prime minister, yes you are.
(More, no doubt, later when the transcript is out.)

I’m not going to speculate on what I’m going to be voting on in the future

How did I not know that Jerry Falwell’s father shot his own brother to death?

At yet another event focused on immigration, Bush again came out for comprehensive immigration reform without amnesty, without animosity, and without amniocentesis, but said, “With us are people who are employers, people who provide work for citizens who are in our country legally.” He seems to have engaged in a little verbal amnesty of his own there, promoting people with green cards to the status of citizen, or he simply doesn’t know what the word citizen means.

Hillary Clinton, on the front page of her campaign website: “I will cast my vote to send the President a clear message: Democrats are united in fighting to change course, redeploy our troops out of Iraq, and end this war as soon as possible.” Hillary Clinton today, answering a reporter’s question about the Iraq withdrawal legislation: “I’m not going to speculate on what I’m going to be voting on in the future.” Leadership!

Hillary’s website also asks us to decide for her what her campaign song should be. She’s provided some options, but you can, heh heh, suggest one yourself.

Republican debate: I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of

Another Republican debate! Yay!

On Iraq, McCain said, “I will be the last man standing if necessary.” Now that’s a surge I’d like to see!


Romney talked about the “global jihadist effort” to establish a caliphate and destroy the West. “And they’ve come together as Shi’a and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda with that intent.” He sees “Shi’a and Sunni” as terrorist organizations just like Hamas and Al Qaida.

Brownback blamed environmental problems on teenage girls: “My family, we have a hybrid car. In that car you can get up to 42, 43 miles to the gallon. Now my 17-year-old daughter does about 25 on it, so it does matter how you drive it.”

Romney is running against the state he governored, repeatedly calling it a “pretty tough state.” “You’ve heard of blue states. If you ever bought a suit and you look at it and you can’t tell if it’s blue or black, that’s how blue Massachusetts is.” That’s pretty fucking blue. Or black. Anyway, I’m pretty sure what Romney is saying it that he hates black people, just like the Mormon church used to.


Huckabee, who said that Congress spends money like John Edwards at a beauty shop, ha ha, said that opposition to abortion, like looking for lost hikers, shows we value life, “and it’s what separates us from the Islamic jihadists who are out to kill us. They celebrate death. They have a culture of death. Ours is a culture of life.” Funny, because I think he’d find that he’s very much on the same page as the Islamic jihadists about abortion. And they probably don’t like John Edwards’s haircut either.

Brownback, asked how he would tell a pregnant rape victim she’d be forced to give birth: “Will that make the woman in a better situation if that’s what takes place? And I don’t think so, and I think we can explain it when we look at it for what it is: a beautiful child of a loving God”. I’m pretty sure Brownback just called God a rapist.

Tancredo on how all the other candidates are stealing his platform of hating hating hating immigrants: “I’m glad they happen. But I must tell you, I trust those conversions when they happen on the road to Damascus and not on the road to Des Moines.” They have roads in Iowa now?

Ron Paul said something or other about terrorists acting in response to American foreign policy, and Giuliani took umbrage, “as someone who lived through the attack of September 11”. Remember when Dan Quayle called himself a “Vietnam-era veteran”?

And of course the hypothetical “What Would Jack Bauer Do” question. If there were terrorist attacks just like at the beginning of this season of “24,” would you torture someone to get information? They all (of the ones asked) agreed that they would torture someone, but call it something else. I include John McCain in that: he made a strong case against torture but said that Army Field Manual interrogation procedures “would be adequate in 999,999 of cases”. Out of 1 million, I’m assuming, although it could have been out of 10 million, he didn’t say. Still, even McCain wanted to leave himself the option.

Giuliani said “I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn’t be torture, but every method they can think of...” It’s Giuliani time!

Romney liked the mention of Guantanamo in the hypothetical, because “they don’t get the access to lawyers,” and said we should double Guantanamo. There was applause. And we should use enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used -- not torture but enhanced interrogation techniques”.

Duncan Hunter says he’d order the use of “very high-pressure techniques” and get the information within an hour.

Then the hypothetical was added to. The terrorists are being trained in camps in a West African country. We’re looking at you, Togo! Should we go the UN before nuking it? Brownback says no.

By the time they got to him, Tancredo was upset. “[I]t’s almost unbelievable to listen to this in a way. We’re talking about -- we’re talking about it in such a theoretical fashion.” Because it’s a hypothetical? Tancredo asked, with outrage in his voice, why are they even discussing whether waterboarding would be bad? He wants to waterboard someone now, now dammit! I’m looking at you, Huckabee!

Tom Tancredo thinks that “24” is a documentary.

Chris Wallace asked if candidates worried about all ten being white (or as Romney might put it, so white they’re almost pink). He did not think to ask if they worried about all ten being male. Nor did it occur to any of the candidates to talk about that.

I have been here ever since I’ve been the president

From the London Times, a headline that may or may not have been an intentional joke: “Children Who Miss Numeracy Targets to Get One-on-One Help.”

Mitt Romney received a draft deferment so that he could be a Mormon missionary in France rather than a soldier in Vietnam.

Today George Bush attended the annual Peace Officers’ Memorial Service. He said, “We thank them for their lives of service and we pray to an Almighty God that He bring comfort to you during this time of sorrow.” The time of sorrow speech lasted seven minutes. But even to George, it seemed much longer: “I have been here ever since I’ve been the president, in an event like this, and it’s fitting because this is a really important day for our country.”



That rarest of White House photographs in which Chimpy is not the smuggest-looking person in the shot:

Wherein the death of Rev. Falwell is treated with the utmost respect and subtlety

Jerry Falwell, God’s messenger on earth, is dead. Dead dead dead. Dead.


When reached for comment, John McCain said, “Great, can someone pull me out of his ass now? I seem to be stuck. Little help here.”


When reached for comment, gay Teletubby Tinky-Winky said, “Eh oh,” adding, “I say, Senator McCain, most peculiar to see you here.”

We’ve got al Qaeda in both places right now

Condoleezza Rice says of talk that there is a “new Cold War” with Russia, “I think the parallels just frankly have no basis whatsoever,” adding that it’s just too bad that she spent all those years studying the Cold War, since that information is of no use in her current job, for which she therefore has no qualifications, and will be resigning at once.

Dick Cheney, still in the Middle East, went on Fox News to give his usual forthright, transparent insights into governmental activities: “I don’t want to characterize the conversations I had with any of the leaders.”

He said of American opponents of the Iraq war, “I think they have to be responsible for the consequences of the policy recommendations they make. ... accountable for what would happen when that policy followed, what happens inside Iraq, what kind of encouragement that might give to al Qaeda.” He added, “a responsible public official has to accept the responsibility for the consequences of what they recommend.” So presumably he’ll also be resigning at once.

He also said that “some people want to say they want to fight the good war in Afghanistan, not the bad war in Iraq. Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way in the real world. We’ve got al Qaeda in both places right now.” Funny how that happened.

What’s more obnoxious, Cheney lecturing other people about taking responsibility for the consequences of what they recommend, or Cheney lecturing about how things work in the “real world”?

Jeopardizing what is already in jeopardy

John McCain went on Meet the Press today.

He said that people who oppose the war are just plain ignorant: “My point is, and I’m sure we’ll get into it, and that is we have a chance of success, and I don’t think that a lot of Americans are as fully aware as they should be of the consequences of failure in Iraq.” For example, “You’d have to partition bedrooms in Baghdad because Sunni and Shia are, are married.”

Not that the war couldn’t have been run better: “You know, in hindsight, if we had exploited the initial success, which was shock and awe, and we succeeded, and we had done the right things after that, all of us would be applauding what we did. We didn’t. It was terribly mismanaged.” What with the not exploiting shock and not exploiting awe.

Asked if we won’t have to leave if the Iraqi parliament tells us to, he said no, referring to that august body as “the Iraqi, quote, ‘parliament’”. He said of the signatures of the majority of the Iraqi Quote Parliament on a petition calling for a timetable for withdrawal of occupation troops, “there is some, a certain amount of domestic political calculations involved”. That certainly put them in their place.

McCain really is a puffed-up little toad, isn’t he? He says of, I’m not even sure what, something manly about Iraq anyway, “that’s my duty. That’s my obligation. It’s not my privilege.” Even when talking about the Iraqi parliament’s proposed two-month vacation, he doesn’t just oppose that, he is “unalterably opposed to it.” “So if I’m the last man standing, I have an obligation to do what my conscience and my knowledge and my background and everything I’ve known through my well-experienced life is best for this country.”


He says that unless the Iraqi regime acts on various things, “it could jeopardize what is already in jeopardy.” Yeah, hate for that to happen.

Asked if he isn’t planning for Americans to occupy Iraq for a decade or more: “We’ve had troops in South Korea for 60 years, and Americans are, are very satisfied with that situation.” So that’s okay, then.

Russert read him a statement about the uselessness of continued occupation and nation-building and the need for Congress to pull the troops out. McCain responded, yeah and what happens after we leave and blah blah blah, and Russert told him that the quote he’d read was...oh the irony... McCain in 1993 about Somalia, gotcha. McCain said he doesn’t see any comparison between Somalia and Iraq.

Russert read him some quotes about his April visit to the Baghdad market, and McCain responded to one quote about security being a smidge higher than usual, “I don’t know who Mr. Faiyad is, and I’m sorry that I didn’t see him.” McCain is lying. How do I know that? Because Russert never said the name Faiyad, just “the owner of an electrical supply shop.” I had to google Faiyad to identify which quote was his.

He added, “I was glad to walk through that market. I will go walk through a market as often as I can. It was not allowed to go through a market a short time before that. ... I didn’t call for the kind of, quote, ‘protection’ that was around me.” There are those air quotes again. “But I am not afraid... And I’ll be glad to go back to that market with or without military protection and, and humvees, etc.” Cool, is Tuesday good for you?

Evidently in 1999 McCain said that he worried that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, women would have illegal, dangerous abortions. Asked if he’s still concerned about that, he said no, he “would hope” they’d just go ahead and give birth instead. So that’s okay, then.

HANGING AROUND WITH BUSH TOO LONG? “There are some progress being made”. “and this now is got to do with vital national security interests.”

I think you’ll be amazed at how our country got started

Today George and Laura visited Jamestown, Virginia. Would it have killed them to dress up as John Smith and Pocahontas?



Reuters captions the following picture, “President Bush discusses the length of sailmaker Josiah Freitus’ needle...” Yeah, sure, whatever.


AFP captions this one, “US President George W. Bush listens to an explanation of the use of a pistol...”


Ohmigod they just let him pick up a gun. Can you think of anything more dangerous than George Bush with a gun?


Oh, yes I can. George (shudder) spoke.


“I think you’ll be amazed at how our country got started,” he said. Mass murder, like every other country? (Gee, I was going to do some sort of birds and bees joke, but then I just went to the dark place.)

The story of the Jamestown settlement, he informed us, “is a story of hardship overcome by resolve” which “laid the foundation of our great democracy.” Oh brother, everything is a metaphor for Iraq for him now, isn’t it? Oh yes: in 1610 “They were prepared to abandon the settlement, and only the last minute arrival of new settlers and new provisions saved Jamestown.” Ye Olde Surge. “As the colony grew, the settlers ventured beyond the walls of their three-sided fort...” Ye Olde Green Zone. Then, Bush didn’t mention, they started planting tobacco to feed the unhealthy addiction of their brethren back home...

Best Taliban name ever

Mullah Dadullah.

I can’t think of a more noble cause

This morning, George Bush gave the commencement address at St. Vincent College.


Here he talking with its chancellor, Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, while Secret Service agents look on.


Isn’t that a great picture?

He talked a lot about volunteering and service and Mother Theresa and dying AIDS victims and blah blah blah. Three hours later he was back in the White House, celebrating Military Spouse Day and saying “I can’t think of a more noble cause than for people to volunteer” for the military. Clearly the hand holding a rifle is performing more noble work than the hand holding the hand of a man dying of AIDS. “I marvel at how fantastic our military is,” he said. Also, he thinks Martha Washington was George Washington’s “husband.”

A bonus picture, which I have entitled, “Don’t look back, it’s gaining on you.”

Brevity

At the Haditha hearing today, military intelligence officer Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore said that his report on Haditha failed to mention that civilians were killed in their homes rather than, as the Marines were claiming, out in the open during a firefight, for the sake of... brevity.

Well thank you Gary fucking Cooper. I’m all for economy of language, but there is such a thing as over-editing. In fact, I see that I over-edited myself in the previous paragraph. Let’s try again: “At the Haditha hearing today, military intelligence officer and cocksucker Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore said...”

Much better.

Hand on heart

It seems to be naked art week here in the WIIIAIosphere. This 70-foot balloon is a self-portrait of Pawel Althamer on display in a park in Milan. And yes, the only picture I found had this strategically placed bicyclist in it.


(Update: an alert reader has sent me the URL of some better pictures of the balloon [from this Flickr account). This is precisely why I have a blog: so that people will provide me with pictures of anatomically-correct balloons.)




In the last days of his premiership, Tony Blair is still focused on the one thing that really matters: his personal reputation. “I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.” Hand on heart? After ten years in power (and with more power than was exercised by any previous prime minister, Thatcher included), his greatest worry as he leaves office is that people believe he was not sincere. Don’t know, Tony, don’t care.

Bush gave a speech to a Republican party fundraising gala tonight. He gave the traditional Republican party salute.


$10.5 million was raised. So Bush delivered $10,500,000 worth of speech:

“The enemy we face is fearless. They’re mean. They know new -- they know new -- they know no boundaries of civilization as we know it, see.”

“[T]he enemy that is causing the spectacular deaths of the innocent is al Qaeda, the very same people that launched the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 citizens on our soul -- soil.”


On AIDS assistance to Africa: “People have questioned, is it a necessary action to take. I say it’s necessary.” Who exactly questioned whether giving antiretroviral drugs to people with HIV is necessary? I want names. “I say it’s necessary to help relieve human suffering. I also say it’s necessary to make sure our soul is strong.” Or possibly our soil.


“There would be a vacuum in Iraq, and in that vacuum would flow extremists.” Honestly, I thought I knew how a vacuum worked. My 11th-grade physics teacher really should have covered the flow of extremists through a vacuum.

If Blair is still protesting his sincerity, Bush has to continuously reassure us that he “understands” things. “I understand the consequences of this historic moment.” “I understand the consequences of a pandemic like HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa.” Of course you do, George. Call up Tony. Maybe if you tell him you believe he always did what he thought was right, he’ll tell you that he believes you know what the word “pandemic” means.

We’ve seen the extent that the enemy’s willing to go to

The Haditha hearing continues. Today Lt. Adam Mathis, the executive officer of Kilo Company, said that he and other officers didn’t consider the deaths of 24 civilians worth investigating (even after Kilo Comp’s first cover-up story, that 15 of them were killed by an IED, fell apart, a detail I’m repeating because the newspapers haven’t been mentioning it) because “the point of view was, we’ve seen the extent that the enemy’s willing to go to. The events of Nov. 19 was a demonstration of how cheap they considered human lives, that they would conduct attacks from a populated area.” Er, you all shrugged your shoulders when you heard that 24 civilians had been massacred, including children, and it’s because the other side considers human lives cheap?

You could have put me down as part of the disapproval process

Today Bush went to the Pentagon for a briefing on Iraq.


Evidently we’re winning in Baghdad. “And what happens with increased presence, there’s increased confidence, and with increased confidence becomes increased information”. Yoda has nothing on this guy.

However, he really suggests everyone just wait until Petraeus reports back in September (“And no better person to report about the conditions on the ground than somebody who was there, and that would be General Petraeus”), that is, when Corporal Combover will objectively assess whether the plan that he formulated and he implemented has succeeded or on the other hand whether his life work is a sham and a failure and he must cover his head in shame for the rest of his days. You know, that report. “My attitude toward Congress is, why don’t you wait and see what he says?”


When addressing the Democrats, he adopted a stance for which I believe the technical term used by rhetoricians is prickish. “The interesting thing about the Iraq debate, by the way, is I don’t hear a lot of discussions about what happens if we fail. I hear a lot of discussions about maybe we can make good political progress based upon this issue, or let’s just make sure that we constantly achieve -- make political hay based upon Iraq. I hear a lot of that.” I’ll bet you do, I’ll bet you do.


“IN OTHER WORDS” ROUNDUP:
1) “And they patrol streets to build trust and increase local cooperation. In other words, there’s active engagement by Iraqi forces and coalition forces in neighborhoods throughout Baghdad and the area.”
2) “The nations assembled in Egypt pledged to support Iraq in these efforts. In other words, the Iraqis said, we need help, and these nations pledged support.”
3) “It was a robust international meeting where Iraqi leaders expressed their determination to meet a series of benchmarks they have set for political progress. In other words, they have not only told me that they’re going to meet benchmarks, they’ve not only told Secretary Gates that they intend to meet benchmarks, but they’ve also told the international community they intend to do so.”


The line being quoted in the press as a sign of a possible willingness to compromise is this one: “One message I have heard from people from both parties is that the idea of benchmarks makes sense. And I agree.” No one asked him to define the word, but I assume it doesn’t involve timetables or deadlines that would provide a standard for measuring success or failure. Or penalties for failure. So what we’re left with is this: “And they must understand that we are very serious when it comes to them passing law that enables his country to more likely reconcile.”

He said that he will miss Tony Blair. “We’ve got a relationship such that we can have really good discussions.” “He is a political figure who is capable of thinking over the horizon.” George, on the other hand, falls off the edge.


“I remind people -- I reminded them that last fall, late fall -- I had been one of these people that get endlessly polled -- you know, these surveys and the pollsters calling people all the time, it looks like -- and if they had asked my opinion, I’d have said, I disapprove of what was going on in Iraq. You could have put me down as part of the disapproval process -- and, therefore, had put a plan in place that would more likely cause me to approve of what’s going on in Iraq. That’s why I made the decision I made.” Because you were endlessly polled?

Some pictures from Cheney’s trip, the first in Tikrit, the second in the more congenial climes of the United Arab Emirates.

I know it was a bad thing what I’ve done

I knew the Haditha massacre story was missing something. BBC headline: “Marine Urinated on Haditha Victim.” According to Marine Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, testifying under a grant of immunity, “I know it was a bad thing what I’ve done, but I done it because I was angry T.J. was dead and I pissed on one Iraqi’s head.” That one sentence sums up the entire war.

One can only hope the rhyming was unintentional.

The NYT, by the way, primly cuts that quote off at “dead.”

Not a culture of benchmarks

Iraqi politicians are pushing back in defense of their two-month vacation. (Honestly, what’s the big deal? It’s not like half of them show up anyway, and many MPs and even cabinet ministers live permanently in other countries. In the end, they’ll say they’re canceling the vacation and no one will show up.) The speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, decried demands that the vacation be canceled: “I think this attitude is crude and unacceptable.” He demonstrated his own sophisticated and acceptable attitude by suggesting that they “had better try and control Nancy Pelosi rather than Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.”

And Iraq’s national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie was in Washington today telling members of Congress to get over themselves and not try to make Iraqi politicians move any faster than they feel like moving, or as he put it, “ramming it down our throats by midnight on September 15”: “this is all about Iraq. This is not about Washington. We need to sync the Washington clock to the Baghdad clock.” Clock? Surely you mean perpetual calendar. He added that Iraq’s is “not a culture of benchmarks.” He seems inexplicably proud of that, doesn’t he?

Hopefully touching somebody’s soul by representing our country

Bush went to Greensburg, Kansas in order to be photographed stepping over tornado damage


and hugging and generally comforting the victims.



And what sight could be more comforting than George Bush with a dangerous power tool?


He then told us that “A lot of us have seen the pictures about what happened here and pictures don’t do it justice.” Pictures... about... he’s talking about The Wizard of Oz, isn’t he?

BAD TOUCH: “My mission is to -- today, though, is to lift people’s spirits as best as I possibly can and to hopefully touch somebody’s soul by representing our country, and to let people know that while there was a dark day in the past, there’s brighter days ahead.”

Speaking of dangerous power tools, Dick Cheney informed the press that he told various Iraqis to, um, do stuff. “During the course of the meetings I emphasized the importance of making progress on the issues before us”. Good, because I’m sure they couldn’t have realized the importance of making progress on issues all by themselves, Dick. But what sort of issues? “I think they recognize that it’s in their interest as well as in our interest that they make progress on the political front just as we deal with the security issues.” Oh, political issues, why didn’t you say? And did your message about the importance of making progress on political issues sink in, Dick? “I do believe that there is a greater sense of urgency now than I’d seen previously.”


Really, the entire purpose of the trip was to stop the Iraqi National Assembly taking a two-month break from its busy schedule of doing whatever it is that the Iraqi National Assembly actually does.

Encouraging reconciliation

An AP story this morning begins: “Vice President Dick Cheney sought to encourage reconciliation among rival Iraqi factions on Wednesday in an unannounced visit to Baghdad...” I do not think it is very nice of the AP in the middle of hay fever season to run a phrase as calculated to induce snorts of derision in the runny-nosed reader as “Dick Cheney sought to encourage reconciliation...”

Here the Great Reconciliator arrives and... OH MY GOD! HE’S GOTTEN HIS ARMS LOOSE FROM THAT STRAIT JACKET! RUN, GENERAL PETRAEUS, RUUUUUUN!


And here he is encouraging reconciliation with Maliki.


I think everything’s gonna be just fine.

Wherein Bush thinks up a new slogan for Haiti

The latest email from the Biden campaign quotes a JoAnna Graller of Davenport, Iowa, who used to support Edwards but changed her mind because of the $400 haircut. Yes, clearly a sign of vanity and self-indulgence unlike, say, hair plugs (or running for president). Biden said that when he becomes president, “It will be my chance to make hope and history rhyme.” Also vanilla.

And yes I know it’s a Seamus Heaney quote although I don’t believe Biden attributed it to him. Funny, that.

Bush met today with Haiti’s “elected” “president,” Rene Preval.


It was that most rare of events, where Bush was the most honest person in the room. Preval said about Haiti, “Peace has been restored, and the conditions for investment are here. Haiti is awaiting American investors.” Bush, reaching a little to find the sunny side, said about Haiti, “The security situation is improving somewhat”.

I got through that paragraph without a single voodoo joke.

The Afghan people are our center of gravity

Today Col. John Nicholson gave a tele-briefing from Afghanistan on the war there, which he “humbly suggests[s]” we’re winning. He also said that “the Afghan people are our center of gravity” and “We feel genuinely appreciated by the Afghan people.” At least, the ones they haven’t shot up in hysterical rampages, as they did in March.

Nicholson just met with the families of the 19 civilians killed in that incident, “and I would comment that the response by the people was very positive. Showing them the appropriate respect is culturally significant, and seeing the genuine remorse that we have for incidents such as this is important in terms of keeping them with us.” He told the families that he “stand[s] before you today deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that Americans have killed and wounded innocent Afghan people.” He said that when such regrettable incidents occur, “we go to great lengths to try and make it right” and so we’re giving the survivors $2,000. Don’t spend it all in one place.

(Update: the Pentagon website’s article about Nicholson’s briefing is entitled “U.S. Soldiers Continue to Gain Trust of Afghan People.” Guess those $2,000 checks didn’t bounce.)