The universal scorn which is applied these days to virtually everything the President says is certainly warranted and well deserved but the head shaking and tsk-tsking is truly infuriating as are some of the complaints of military families about their never ending service in Iraq.
Again, I expect personal attacks for writing this, but, before they come my way, I ask of all those who voted for George W. Bush, wither in 2000 or 2004, what it is they expected.
We got what we deserved. (Yes, yes, I know that a majority of us voted for Vice President Gore and that it was by trick and the Supreme Court that this all resulted in this horrible presidency, but the election should not have been close---however silly the Vice President seemed at times-- and, in fact, George W. Bush should have been laughed out of the race by, at the very latest, the North Carolina primary. More on this later.)
Early in 2000, a reporter interviewing the son of a president who thought he, too, should be President, tried to ask him about the Taliban and drew a blank stare (although, in fairness, a few minutes before that question was asked, the "Governor" seemed to have never heard of the HBO program called "Sex and the City,"either, though I think a potential president should probably know more about the Taliban...). The reporter, David France, later wrote that
Finally ... I slid him a clue: 'Because of the repression of women -- in Afghanistan?'"
"Oh," Bush blurted. "I thought you said some band. The Taliban in Afghanistan!" His assessment? "Repressive."
Salon, 5/22/00
Several months later, during the general election campaign, a television reporter for WHDH-TV in Boston was roundly lambasted for springing a pop quiz on this same son of a president who wanted to be elected president himself. This is not a quiz show, the pundits said. Why does he have to know these things, others asked. After all, we were assured, if he is elected, he will be surrounded by “advisors” who will set him straight and, after all, both President Clinton and Vice President Gore appeared to know everything and that has not solved all the world’s problems.
The son of a president disagreed that he was weak on foreign policy issues because “I've got a clear vision of where I want to lead America." This caused the reporter, Andy Hiller to ask him to name the leaders of four countries which, in 1999, were “hot spots” about which a president might need information: Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. (The president of Chechnya was a former colonel in the Soviet army named Aslan Maskhadov who had instituted Islamic law in 1997 leading to a marked increase in violence).
Hiller
"Can you name the president of Chechnya."
Bush
"No, can you?"
Hiller
"Can you name the president of Taiwan?"
Bush
"Yeah, Lee...Wait a minute...Is this 50 questions?" [Not bad. The president of Taiwan at the time was Lee Teng-Hui].
Hiller
"No, it's four questions of four leaders of four hot spots."
Bush
"The new Pakistani general -- just been elected -- he's not been elected... the guy took over office...it appears he's going to bring stability to the country and I think that's good news for the sub continent. " [Good one there! The presidential nominee of one of the two leading parties in the United States essentially expressed the view that the overthrow of a democratically elected government was a good thing if it brings “stability” to the country. Given who Musharaff, that’s who it was, by the way, this was not a completely ridiculous idea though not one a presidential candidate should express and, indeed, the candidate basically denied that he made any such suggestion when asked about it on the ABC News Sunday morning program soon thereafter . By the way, Musharraf has more recently claimed that his government was pressured by ours after 9/11 to help us attack the rock band in Afghanistan which harbored Al Qaeda]
Hiller
"And you can name him? "
Bush
"General, I can name the general... "
Hiller
"And it's..."
Bush
"General."
Hiller
"And the Prime Minister of India?"
Bush
"The new prime minister of India is...uh....No...Can you name the foreign minister of Mexico?"
Hiller
"No sir, but I would say to that I'm not running for president."
Bush
I understand. But the point is, if what you're suggesting is...What I'm suggesting to you is that if you can't name the foreign minister of Mexico, therefore you're not capable of what you do, but the truth is you are...whether you can or not."
WHDH-TV
But you know, as Senator Lott said when asked about his candidate’s, uh, weakness, this was just so much nonsense:
''strictly a media thing ... a Washington, D.C., thing.'' Told that the interview aired in Boston, Senator Lott said : ''Well, that's even worse...I mean, if there's any place in the country worse than Washington, it's Boston, for goodness sakes.... They are known for, you know, their liberalism and for that sort of activity in the media.''
Boston Globe
Several years later, The West Wing television show, put this ridiculous idea that a person who knows nothing will make a better president because his ignorance makes him more like everyone else, rather than some, uh, leader:
On the West Wing a somewhat idealized President Clinton was portrayed as a former New Hampshire Governor (a Democrat, oddly) who also won a Nobel Prize for Economics and whose name was identical to that of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Josiah Bartlet. The Bush “stand in” was called Governor Robert Ritchie.
BARTLET [sighs] We should have a great debate, Rob. We owe it to everyone. When I was running as a governor, I didn't know anything. I made them start Bartlet college in my dining room. Two hours every morning on foreign affairs and the military. You can do that.
RITCHIE How many different ways you think you're gonna find to call me dumb?
BARTLET
I wasn't, Rob. But you've turned being un-engaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn't enjoy it so much is all, and if it appears at times as if I don't like you, that's the reason why.
RITCHIE You're what my friends call a superior sumbitch. You're an academic elitist and a snob. You're, uh, Hollywood, you're weak, you're liberal, and you can't be trusted. And if it appears from time to time as if I don't like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.
Later in this fictitious campaign, Bartlet advisors were discussing the same general issue:
JOSH
Why is it we cite Ritchie's advisors by name? The Milton Friedman economic plan? The Leonard Tynan education plan?
TOBY
I give credit where credit's due.
JOSH
It's our way of calling him a puppet, right?
TOBY
Josh, he cites them more then we do, which is his way of saying, "I want to be President the same way you want a cold beer."
JOSH
No. It's his way of saying, "I think it's great that Bartlet's a Nobel Prize winner. When I'm elected, I'm going to hire me some of those."
TOBY
No, no. Should be what he's saying. What he's saying is, "Eastern education isn't for real men, but don't worry. I'll have Jews for the money stuff."....
JOSH
That line from the convention speech-- "challenges too great for a Potemkin presidentcy?"
TOBY
It is true.
JOSH
Most people weren't the smartest kid in the class. Most people didn't like the smartest kid in the class.
TOBY
Yeah?
JOSH
I don't care how subliminal it is. This can't be a national therapy session.
...
TOBY
Frivolous law firms.
JOSH
What?
TOBY
He meant to say "frivolous law suits" and he said "frivolous law firms."
JOSH Who?
TOBY
Benjamin Disraeli.
JOSH
He misspeaks.
TOBY
Yes, he does. He also thinks Sarajevo and Bosnia are two different contries, so that's bit of a
setback for the region.
JOSH
Yes.
TOBY Chamberlain led England in World War II. I don't mind that he doesn't know history, I mind that he hasn't seen a movie. "Mexico is part of NATO."
JOSH
He meant they were an ally.
TOBY
What, did they lob a chalupa at the Warsaw Pact?
J OSH
I agree, it's not impressive but as you pointed out he's going to be surrounded by...
TOBY
Do you think he ever disagreed with one of his advisors? Do you think-- honestly-- do you think he's ever said to one of his advisors "I've got a different idea?" I-I don't care if he thinks Luxembourg's an uptown stop on the IRT. And I don't care about the Greco-Roman wrestling matches with the language-- not that polished communication skills are an important part of this job-- what I care about is when he was asked if he'd continue the current U.S. policy in China he said, "First off, I'm going to send them a message-- meet an American leader." I don't know what that means, but everybody cheered.
JOSH
Which is one of the reasons that I work full-time for his opponent. I don't know what gave you the impression that I had to be convinced, but I want to win. You want to beat him, and that's a problem for me, because I want to win.
...
TOBY
"A rising tide sinks all boats."
Then there’s this story from real life as we call it told by the former United States Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, the son of the late John Kenneth Galbraith. In his book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Ambassador Galbraith apparently claims that one “year after his ‘Axis of Evil’ speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites. Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam–to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!’ ”. True or not, George Packer wrote a similar story as far back as 2003.
Raw Story
New York Times (subscription required)
And so what did you expect? The guy runs in the South Carolina primary, in a state with a large military populsation, against a bona fide war hero and his supporters push poll a vague claim that the war hero adopted a black child, giving them a big win. The Republican party goes for the fool whose father was president and rejects the war hero.
And then, because his opponent’s obvious qualifications to be president were less important than the fact that he seemed a bit too smart for the job, see above, the election was close enough that it could be stolen and the riots long expected if ever a candidate with fewer popular votes became president through the operation of the electoral college failed to materialize, we got this guy as President...
who was reading a book with elementary school children to make a political point while the country was attacked, then flew pell mell throughout the country before landing in various places to look scared and lost...
But recovered sufficiently to scare the country into this complete disaster. All told this horrible foolishness was as predictable from the foregoing as anything anyone could imagine.
Which brings us to Wednesday’s speech.
One of the president’s enablers, perhaps reformed by the events of recent weeks, is David Brooks, a New York Times columnist with apparently solid White House sources. His is one of the best explanations of the sham spread out before us on Wednesday:
New York Times, Jan 11, 2007 (subscription required):
“On Nov. 30, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented Bush with a new security plan for Baghdad. It called for U.S. troops to move out of Baghdad to the periphery, where they would chase down Sunni terrorists. Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish troops, meanwhile, would flood into the city to establish order, at least as they define it.
Maliki essentially wanted the American troops protecting his flank but out of his hair. He didn’t want U.S. soldiers embedded with his own. He didn’t want American generals hovering over his shoulder. His government didn’t want any restraints on Shiite might.
Over the next weeks, Bush rejected the plan and opted for the opposite approach. Instead of handing counterinsurgency over to the Iraqis/Shiites, he decided to throw roughly 20,000 U.S. troops — everything he had available — into Baghdad. He and his advisers negotiated new rules of engagement to make it easier to go after Shiites as well as Sunnis. He selected two aggressive counterinsurgency commanders, David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, to lead the effort. Odierno recently told John Burns of The Times that American forces would remain in cleared areas of Baghdad “24/7,” suggesting a heavy U.S. presence.
Then came the job of selling the plan. The administration could not go before the world and say that the president had decided to overrule the sovereign nation of Iraq. Officials could not tell wavering Republicans that the president was proposing a heavy, U.S.-led approach.
Thus, administration officials are saying that they have adopted the Maliki plan, just with a few minor tweaks. In briefings and in the president’s speech, officials claimed that this was an Iraqi-designed plan, that Iraqi troops would take on all the primary roles in clearing and holding neighborhoods, that Iraqis in mixed neighborhoods would scarcely see any additional Americans.
All of this is designed to soothe the wounded pride of the Maliki government, and to make the U.S. offensive seem less arduous at home. It’s the opposite of the truth.
Yesterday, administration officials were praising Maliki lavishly. He wants the same things we want, they claimed. He has resolved to lead a nonsectarian government. He is reworking his governing coalitions and marginalizing the extremists. “We’ve seen the nascent rise of a moderate political bloc,” one senior administration official said yesterday.
But the selling of the plan illustrates that this is not the whole story. The Iraqi government wants a unified non-sectarian solution in high-minded statements and in some distant, ideal world. But in the short term, and in the deepest reptilian folds of their brains, the Shiites are maneuvering amid the sectarian bloodbath all around.
This is not a function of the character of Maliki or this or that official. It’s a function of the core dynamic now afflicting Iraqi society.
The enemy in Iraq is not some discrete group of killers. It’s the maelstrom of violence and hatred that infects every institution, including the government and the military. Instead of facing up to this core reality, the Bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin.”
If you remain a doubter, then read what the Times’ Baghad reporter, the great John Burns, has sent in recent days:
1/15/06:
First among the American concerns is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan.
1. “We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan. “We are being played like a pawn.”
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.
[Burns again, either Thursday or Friday of last week]:
While senior officials in Washington have presented the new war plan as an American adaptation of proposals that were first put to Mr. Bush by Mr. Maliki when the two men met in the Jordanian capital of Amman in November, the picture that is emerging in Baghdad is quite different. What Mr. Maliki wanted, his officials say, was in at least one crucial respect the opposite of what Mr. Bush decided: a lowering of the American profile in the war, not the increase Mr. Bush has ordered.
These Iraqi officials say Mr. Maliki, in the wake of Mr. Bush’s setback in the Democratic sweep in November’s midterm elections, demanded that American troops be pulled back to the periphery of Baghdad and that the war in the capital, at least, be handed to Iraqi troops. The demand was part of a broader impatience among the ruling Shiites to be relieved from American oversight so as to be able to fight and govern according to the dictates of Shiite politics, not according to strictures from Washington.
What transpired, in Mr. Bush’s speech on Wednesday night, appears to have been a hybrid: a plan that aims at marrying the Maliki government’s urgency for a broader license to act with Mr. Bush’s determination to make what American officials here see as a last-chance push for success in Iraq on American terms. And that, as Mr. Bush made clear on Wednesday, implies objectives that will be difficult — many Iraqis say impossible — to square with Mr. Maliki’s goals.
Then , finally, the gibberish on 60 Minutes last night, when the President was interviewed by CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley:
PELLEY: The troop levels . . .
BUSH: Could have been a mistake.
PELLEY: Could have been a mistake?
BUSH: Yeah. [General] John Abizaid, one of the planners, said in front of Congress, you know, he thought we might have needed more troops. My focus is on how to succeed. And the reason I brought up the mistakes is, one, that's the job of the commander-in-chief, and, two, I don't want people blaming our military. We got a bunch of good military people out there doing what we've asked them to do. And the temptation is gonna find scapegoats. Well, if the people want a scapegoat, they got one right here in me 'cause it's my decisions.
...
followed by:
PELLEY: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?
BUSH: That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job?
PELLEY: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.
BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq. ...
PELLEY: You seem to be saying that you may have been wrong but you weren't dishonest.
BUSH: Oh, absolutely. Everybody was wrong on weapons of mass destruction. I would ask people to go back and look at the comments of many of the Democrat leadership prior to my arrival in Washington, DC, people who'd looked at the same intelligence I looked at. I'd look at the people's comments when the run-up to the war. They had looked at the same intelligence I had looked at. It was pretty well universally thought he had weapons. And there was an intelligence failure, which we're trying to address. But I was as surprised as anybody he didn't have them.
PELLEY: What would you say right now in this interview to the Iranian president about the meddling in Iraq?
BUSH: I'd say, first of all, to him, "You've made terrible choices for your people. You've isolated your nation. You've taken a nation of proud and honorable people, and you've made your country the pariah of the world. You've threatened countries with nuclear weapons. You've said you want a nuclear weapon. You've defied international accord. And you're slowly but surely isolating yourself." And secondly, that "it's in your interest to have a unified nation on your border. It's in your interest that there be a flourishing democracy." And thirdly, you know, "If we catch your people inside the country harming US citizens or Iraqi citizens, you know, we will deal with them."
And in the immediate aftermath of the Wednesday speech, the odd “capture” of Iranians in the Kurdish territory against the opposition of the supposedly sovereign authorities there:
New York Times, Jan 12, 2007
Tim Russert of NBC News, one of the several television correspondents who were allowed to meet with a “senior American official” who used to be Governor of Texas, shortly before the Wednesday speech, warned after hearing the threats directed to Iran that “there's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue – in the country and the world – in a very acute way.”
It is time to do something about this guy, don't you think? President Clinton was impeached for something which did not threaten our survival on this planet, to borrow President Kennedy's phrase. Take a look at my earlier proposal on this blog under which, perhaps, we could restore Bush I to finish out the term. I think it is even ore a brilliant idea than when I first hatched it.
Again, I expect personal attacks for writing this, but, before they come my way, I ask of all those who voted for George W. Bush, wither in 2000 or 2004, what it is they expected.
We got what we deserved. (Yes, yes, I know that a majority of us voted for Vice President Gore and that it was by trick and the Supreme Court that this all resulted in this horrible presidency, but the election should not have been close---however silly the Vice President seemed at times-- and, in fact, George W. Bush should have been laughed out of the race by, at the very latest, the North Carolina primary. More on this later.)
Early in 2000, a reporter interviewing the son of a president who thought he, too, should be President, tried to ask him about the Taliban and drew a blank stare (although, in fairness, a few minutes before that question was asked, the "Governor" seemed to have never heard of the HBO program called "Sex and the City,"either, though I think a potential president should probably know more about the Taliban...). The reporter, David France, later wrote that
Finally ... I slid him a clue: 'Because of the repression of women -- in Afghanistan?'"
"Oh," Bush blurted. "I thought you said some band. The Taliban in Afghanistan!" His assessment? "Repressive."
Salon, 5/22/00
Several months later, during the general election campaign, a television reporter for WHDH-TV in Boston was roundly lambasted for springing a pop quiz on this same son of a president who wanted to be elected president himself. This is not a quiz show, the pundits said. Why does he have to know these things, others asked. After all, we were assured, if he is elected, he will be surrounded by “advisors” who will set him straight and, after all, both President Clinton and Vice President Gore appeared to know everything and that has not solved all the world’s problems.
The son of a president disagreed that he was weak on foreign policy issues because “I've got a clear vision of where I want to lead America." This caused the reporter, Andy Hiller to ask him to name the leaders of four countries which, in 1999, were “hot spots” about which a president might need information: Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. (The president of Chechnya was a former colonel in the Soviet army named Aslan Maskhadov who had instituted Islamic law in 1997 leading to a marked increase in violence).
Hiller
"Can you name the president of Chechnya."
Bush
"No, can you?"
Hiller
"Can you name the president of Taiwan?"
Bush
"Yeah, Lee...Wait a minute...Is this 50 questions?" [Not bad. The president of Taiwan at the time was Lee Teng-Hui].
Hiller
"No, it's four questions of four leaders of four hot spots."
Bush
"The new Pakistani general -- just been elected -- he's not been elected... the guy took over office...it appears he's going to bring stability to the country and I think that's good news for the sub continent. " [Good one there! The presidential nominee of one of the two leading parties in the United States essentially expressed the view that the overthrow of a democratically elected government was a good thing if it brings “stability” to the country. Given who Musharaff, that’s who it was, by the way, this was not a completely ridiculous idea though not one a presidential candidate should express and, indeed, the candidate basically denied that he made any such suggestion when asked about it on the ABC News Sunday morning program soon thereafter . By the way, Musharraf has more recently claimed that his government was pressured by ours after 9/11 to help us attack the rock band in Afghanistan which harbored Al Qaeda]
Hiller
"And you can name him? "
Bush
"General, I can name the general... "
Hiller
"And it's..."
Bush
"General."
Hiller
"And the Prime Minister of India?"
Bush
"The new prime minister of India is...uh....No...Can you name the foreign minister of Mexico?"
Hiller
"No sir, but I would say to that I'm not running for president."
Bush
I understand. But the point is, if what you're suggesting is...What I'm suggesting to you is that if you can't name the foreign minister of Mexico, therefore you're not capable of what you do, but the truth is you are...whether you can or not."
WHDH-TV
But you know, as Senator Lott said when asked about his candidate’s, uh, weakness, this was just so much nonsense:
''strictly a media thing ... a Washington, D.C., thing.'' Told that the interview aired in Boston, Senator Lott said : ''Well, that's even worse...I mean, if there's any place in the country worse than Washington, it's Boston, for goodness sakes.... They are known for, you know, their liberalism and for that sort of activity in the media.''
Boston Globe
Several years later, The West Wing television show, put this ridiculous idea that a person who knows nothing will make a better president because his ignorance makes him more like everyone else, rather than some, uh, leader:
On the West Wing a somewhat idealized President Clinton was portrayed as a former New Hampshire Governor (a Democrat, oddly) who also won a Nobel Prize for Economics and whose name was identical to that of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Josiah Bartlet. The Bush “stand in” was called Governor Robert Ritchie.
BARTLET [sighs] We should have a great debate, Rob. We owe it to everyone. When I was running as a governor, I didn't know anything. I made them start Bartlet college in my dining room. Two hours every morning on foreign affairs and the military. You can do that.
RITCHIE How many different ways you think you're gonna find to call me dumb?
BARTLET
I wasn't, Rob. But you've turned being un-engaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn't enjoy it so much is all, and if it appears at times as if I don't like you, that's the reason why.
RITCHIE You're what my friends call a superior sumbitch. You're an academic elitist and a snob. You're, uh, Hollywood, you're weak, you're liberal, and you can't be trusted. And if it appears from time to time as if I don't like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.
Later in this fictitious campaign, Bartlet advisors were discussing the same general issue:
JOSH
Why is it we cite Ritchie's advisors by name? The Milton Friedman economic plan? The Leonard Tynan education plan?
TOBY
I give credit where credit's due.
JOSH
It's our way of calling him a puppet, right?
TOBY
Josh, he cites them more then we do, which is his way of saying, "I want to be President the same way you want a cold beer."
JOSH
No. It's his way of saying, "I think it's great that Bartlet's a Nobel Prize winner. When I'm elected, I'm going to hire me some of those."
TOBY
No, no. Should be what he's saying. What he's saying is, "Eastern education isn't for real men, but don't worry. I'll have Jews for the money stuff."....
JOSH
That line from the convention speech-- "challenges too great for a Potemkin presidentcy?"
TOBY
It is true.
JOSH
Most people weren't the smartest kid in the class. Most people didn't like the smartest kid in the class.
TOBY
Yeah?
JOSH
I don't care how subliminal it is. This can't be a national therapy session.
...
TOBY
Frivolous law firms.
JOSH
What?
TOBY
He meant to say "frivolous law suits" and he said "frivolous law firms."
JOSH Who?
TOBY
Benjamin Disraeli.
JOSH
He misspeaks.
TOBY
Yes, he does. He also thinks Sarajevo and Bosnia are two different contries, so that's bit of a
setback for the region.
JOSH
Yes.
TOBY Chamberlain led England in World War II. I don't mind that he doesn't know history, I mind that he hasn't seen a movie. "Mexico is part of NATO."
JOSH
He meant they were an ally.
TOBY
What, did they lob a chalupa at the Warsaw Pact?
J OSH
I agree, it's not impressive but as you pointed out he's going to be surrounded by...
TOBY
Do you think he ever disagreed with one of his advisors? Do you think-- honestly-- do you think he's ever said to one of his advisors "I've got a different idea?" I-I don't care if he thinks Luxembourg's an uptown stop on the IRT. And I don't care about the Greco-Roman wrestling matches with the language-- not that polished communication skills are an important part of this job-- what I care about is when he was asked if he'd continue the current U.S. policy in China he said, "First off, I'm going to send them a message-- meet an American leader." I don't know what that means, but everybody cheered.
JOSH
Which is one of the reasons that I work full-time for his opponent. I don't know what gave you the impression that I had to be convinced, but I want to win. You want to beat him, and that's a problem for me, because I want to win.
...
TOBY
"A rising tide sinks all boats."
Then there’s this story from real life as we call it told by the former United States Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, the son of the late John Kenneth Galbraith. In his book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Ambassador Galbraith apparently claims that one “year after his ‘Axis of Evil’ speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites. Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam–to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!’ ”. True or not, George Packer wrote a similar story as far back as 2003.
Raw Story
New York Times (subscription required)
And so what did you expect? The guy runs in the South Carolina primary, in a state with a large military populsation, against a bona fide war hero and his supporters push poll a vague claim that the war hero adopted a black child, giving them a big win. The Republican party goes for the fool whose father was president and rejects the war hero.
And then, because his opponent’s obvious qualifications to be president were less important than the fact that he seemed a bit too smart for the job, see above, the election was close enough that it could be stolen and the riots long expected if ever a candidate with fewer popular votes became president through the operation of the electoral college failed to materialize, we got this guy as President...
who was reading a book with elementary school children to make a political point while the country was attacked, then flew pell mell throughout the country before landing in various places to look scared and lost...
But recovered sufficiently to scare the country into this complete disaster. All told this horrible foolishness was as predictable from the foregoing as anything anyone could imagine.
Which brings us to Wednesday’s speech.
One of the president’s enablers, perhaps reformed by the events of recent weeks, is David Brooks, a New York Times columnist with apparently solid White House sources. His is one of the best explanations of the sham spread out before us on Wednesday:
New York Times, Jan 11, 2007 (subscription required):
“On Nov. 30, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented Bush with a new security plan for Baghdad. It called for U.S. troops to move out of Baghdad to the periphery, where they would chase down Sunni terrorists. Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish troops, meanwhile, would flood into the city to establish order, at least as they define it.
Maliki essentially wanted the American troops protecting his flank but out of his hair. He didn’t want U.S. soldiers embedded with his own. He didn’t want American generals hovering over his shoulder. His government didn’t want any restraints on Shiite might.
Over the next weeks, Bush rejected the plan and opted for the opposite approach. Instead of handing counterinsurgency over to the Iraqis/Shiites, he decided to throw roughly 20,000 U.S. troops — everything he had available — into Baghdad. He and his advisers negotiated new rules of engagement to make it easier to go after Shiites as well as Sunnis. He selected two aggressive counterinsurgency commanders, David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, to lead the effort. Odierno recently told John Burns of The Times that American forces would remain in cleared areas of Baghdad “24/7,” suggesting a heavy U.S. presence.
Then came the job of selling the plan. The administration could not go before the world and say that the president had decided to overrule the sovereign nation of Iraq. Officials could not tell wavering Republicans that the president was proposing a heavy, U.S.-led approach.
Thus, administration officials are saying that they have adopted the Maliki plan, just with a few minor tweaks. In briefings and in the president’s speech, officials claimed that this was an Iraqi-designed plan, that Iraqi troops would take on all the primary roles in clearing and holding neighborhoods, that Iraqis in mixed neighborhoods would scarcely see any additional Americans.
All of this is designed to soothe the wounded pride of the Maliki government, and to make the U.S. offensive seem less arduous at home. It’s the opposite of the truth.
Yesterday, administration officials were praising Maliki lavishly. He wants the same things we want, they claimed. He has resolved to lead a nonsectarian government. He is reworking his governing coalitions and marginalizing the extremists. “We’ve seen the nascent rise of a moderate political bloc,” one senior administration official said yesterday.
But the selling of the plan illustrates that this is not the whole story. The Iraqi government wants a unified non-sectarian solution in high-minded statements and in some distant, ideal world. But in the short term, and in the deepest reptilian folds of their brains, the Shiites are maneuvering amid the sectarian bloodbath all around.
This is not a function of the character of Maliki or this or that official. It’s a function of the core dynamic now afflicting Iraqi society.
The enemy in Iraq is not some discrete group of killers. It’s the maelstrom of violence and hatred that infects every institution, including the government and the military. Instead of facing up to this core reality, the Bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin.”
If you remain a doubter, then read what the Times’ Baghad reporter, the great John Burns, has sent in recent days:
1/15/06:
First among the American concerns is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan.
1. “We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan. “We are being played like a pawn.”
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.
[Burns again, either Thursday or Friday of last week]:
While senior officials in Washington have presented the new war plan as an American adaptation of proposals that were first put to Mr. Bush by Mr. Maliki when the two men met in the Jordanian capital of Amman in November, the picture that is emerging in Baghdad is quite different. What Mr. Maliki wanted, his officials say, was in at least one crucial respect the opposite of what Mr. Bush decided: a lowering of the American profile in the war, not the increase Mr. Bush has ordered.
These Iraqi officials say Mr. Maliki, in the wake of Mr. Bush’s setback in the Democratic sweep in November’s midterm elections, demanded that American troops be pulled back to the periphery of Baghdad and that the war in the capital, at least, be handed to Iraqi troops. The demand was part of a broader impatience among the ruling Shiites to be relieved from American oversight so as to be able to fight and govern according to the dictates of Shiite politics, not according to strictures from Washington.
What transpired, in Mr. Bush’s speech on Wednesday night, appears to have been a hybrid: a plan that aims at marrying the Maliki government’s urgency for a broader license to act with Mr. Bush’s determination to make what American officials here see as a last-chance push for success in Iraq on American terms. And that, as Mr. Bush made clear on Wednesday, implies objectives that will be difficult — many Iraqis say impossible — to square with Mr. Maliki’s goals.
Then , finally, the gibberish on 60 Minutes last night, when the President was interviewed by CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley:
PELLEY: The troop levels . . .
BUSH: Could have been a mistake.
PELLEY: Could have been a mistake?
BUSH: Yeah. [General] John Abizaid, one of the planners, said in front of Congress, you know, he thought we might have needed more troops. My focus is on how to succeed. And the reason I brought up the mistakes is, one, that's the job of the commander-in-chief, and, two, I don't want people blaming our military. We got a bunch of good military people out there doing what we've asked them to do. And the temptation is gonna find scapegoats. Well, if the people want a scapegoat, they got one right here in me 'cause it's my decisions.
...
followed by:
PELLEY: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?
BUSH: That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job?
PELLEY: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.
BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq. ...
PELLEY: You seem to be saying that you may have been wrong but you weren't dishonest.
BUSH: Oh, absolutely. Everybody was wrong on weapons of mass destruction. I would ask people to go back and look at the comments of many of the Democrat leadership prior to my arrival in Washington, DC, people who'd looked at the same intelligence I looked at. I'd look at the people's comments when the run-up to the war. They had looked at the same intelligence I had looked at. It was pretty well universally thought he had weapons. And there was an intelligence failure, which we're trying to address. But I was as surprised as anybody he didn't have them.
PELLEY: What would you say right now in this interview to the Iranian president about the meddling in Iraq?
BUSH: I'd say, first of all, to him, "You've made terrible choices for your people. You've isolated your nation. You've taken a nation of proud and honorable people, and you've made your country the pariah of the world. You've threatened countries with nuclear weapons. You've said you want a nuclear weapon. You've defied international accord. And you're slowly but surely isolating yourself." And secondly, that "it's in your interest to have a unified nation on your border. It's in your interest that there be a flourishing democracy." And thirdly, you know, "If we catch your people inside the country harming US citizens or Iraqi citizens, you know, we will deal with them."
And in the immediate aftermath of the Wednesday speech, the odd “capture” of Iranians in the Kurdish territory against the opposition of the supposedly sovereign authorities there:
New York Times, Jan 12, 2007
Tim Russert of NBC News, one of the several television correspondents who were allowed to meet with a “senior American official” who used to be Governor of Texas, shortly before the Wednesday speech, warned after hearing the threats directed to Iran that “there's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue – in the country and the world – in a very acute way.”
It is time to do something about this guy, don't you think? President Clinton was impeached for something which did not threaten our survival on this planet, to borrow President Kennedy's phrase. Take a look at my earlier proposal on this blog under which, perhaps, we could restore Bush I to finish out the term. I think it is even ore a brilliant idea than when I first hatched it.
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