Bush: Jesus Made Me Do It!
Are you talking about Antonin Scalia, George?? Heh heh heh
The most amusing thing about the flap over Woodward's Plan of Attack is the spin that it's all about Powell spilling the beans on his reservations concerning the Iraq invasion.
The real story about PoA is...Blabby Bush!
Bush was so sure that after our troops entered Baghdad he would be declared the 21st century Boy Caesar by acclamation, he wanted to make sure that the full measure of his genius and resolve was captured for posterity by that eager Boswell of the Beltway, Bob Woodward.
He cooperated big time for Plan of Attack and proudly confided to Woodward that he got the war ball rolling against Saddam Hussein...pronto:
That should be an unimpeachable source.
So what's with that whole vendetta against Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke for claiming the Prez was obsessed with Iraq from Day One?
They were telling the truth!
The desperate flailing over Condi's testimony to the 9/11 commission?
The human and financial resources of our national security apparatus really were diverted from terrorism to Iraq war planning!
Holy Smoking Gun!
Imagine the consternation of the White House as they realized that the story was going to come out anyway, in Bush's own words...because he didn't have the sense not to brag about it to Woodward.
Maybe Plan of Attack wouldn't take its expected place in the ranks of triumphant electioneering military tomes like Caesar's Gallic Wars...
...what if it winds up on the legal affairs/impeachment shelf next to GULP! All the President's Men instead!
What to do?
Quick!
Bury the Iraq-first story in the slime thrown at O'Neill and Clarke...
...and morph Plan of Attack into "Sour Grapes by Carpin' Colin Powell".
One more thing:
Better pile on the evangelical liberation shtick during George's press conference.
Because it's in the book, and it's the only justification left for the Iraq invasion that hasn't been discredited yet.
I can imagine Karen Hughes and Karl Rove huddling with George before the press conference:
The result: during the notorious 30 seconds of excruciating dead air during his press conference, Bush couldn't come up with a single mistake he had made.
Now we know why...
...It's because he's channeling the strength of his higher father...
...and He never makes mistakes.
That approach might work in the closed-loop world of evangelical theology, where even Hitler and the Holocaust can somehow be shoehorned into the Almighty's wonderful plan for us earth folks.
But the real world is another matter.
Our Great Helmsman's inability to recognize any mistakes probably accounts for the press's growing skepticism at Bush's insistence that we trust him and "stay the course".
After a year of bloody ineptitude in Iraq, it's hard to believe that Bush knows where we are, let alone where we are going. And turning the dial on the war machine up to 11 a la Nigel Tufnell is an act of desperation, not confidence.
Thanks to the LA Times editorial page for tossing a bit of heat George's way:
Nevertheless, the press was still willing to give Bush the Messiah with the tie of many colors the benefit of the doubt on matters of faith. It straight facedly broadcast his assertions that our two-year detour into Middle Eastern hell sprang from his profoundly religious compulsion to deliver freedom to the Iraqis at gunpoint.
Bush doesn't even deserve the credit for being a misguided fanatic.
Bush didn't go into Iraq because he knew it was right. He went in because he thought it would be easy.
And good for George W. Bush.
And if it's good and easy for George, well, God must be on board.
Lucky for George.
Because when things really go wrong, it's time to pass the buck...upstairs.
"Jaysus made me do it!"
As Sam Spade said, "The cheaper the gunsel, the gaudier the patter".
That's the Bush way in a nutshell: lofty professions, base aims, disreputable acts.
Ask Tony Blair.
He thought that he was Bush's best friend.
The UK, after all was the loyal English bullpup that pumped 4 billion pounds, 45,000 troops (of whom 11,000 remain), and 59 dead and who knows how many wounded into our Iraq adventure, providing Bush with invaluable diplomatic cover at the cost of irreparable damage to Blair's domestic political standing and international stature.
The only bone Tony asked for in return was a token commitment to the Israel/Palestine peace process.
Then Blair could join in the America First! Invasion of Iraq but sell it as a Good Thing for Palestinians and the Arab World, and bolster UK pretensions to being a geopolitical player and honest broker in the Middle East that could moderate the behavior of the United States.
No such luck.
Bush's real best friend is an obese, venal thug skating an inch ahead of a war crimes indictment and a corruption conviction. He nurtures a misguided group inside the US executive branch that believes that the promotion of his party's agenda is a necessary precondition for the successful execution of American policy in the Middle East. He colluded in the false case for the Iraq war with tainted intelligence and dishonest advocacy. Then he passed on the Iraq invasion (tooooooo risky!) but still soaked up an extra 1 billion of US aid (and 9 billion in loan guarantees) in return for sitting on his ass.?
Yes, it's Ariel Sharon.
In the final sign that Bush has no understanding or appreciation of who his real friends are — and who are the cynical opportunists manipulating the credulity of this increasingly isolated and friendless president — he allowed Condi Rice, Elliott Abrams and company lead him by the nose to deliver a completely unnecessary endorsement of Sharon's unilateral annexation of West Bank territories.
Call me hypercritical, but in the same period we let the Iraq occupation go to hell through a combination of incompetence and malign neglect, the Bush administration spent half a year painstakingly orchestrating something that was little more than an election-year windfall for Ariel Sharon.
Of course, there's farce as well. The April 16 New York Times article by James Bennet pretty much says it all:
Wait a minute. Who's got the leverage here? The world's only superpower in the person of one G.W. Bush, or the politically vulnerable Israeli PM who desperately needs US support to win re-election?
Whatever!
Naysaying State Department/Arab/Euro opinion got steamrollered Stat! for the umpteenth time so Bush and Sharon could achieve their yearned-for union, with the serendipitous effect that...
...the Arab world becomes terminally alienated from the United States as an uncritical and dishonest supporter of Israel...
...just as our military adventure in Iraq morphs into a politically explosive, crusader-style conquest of hostile Iraqi cities and holy sites.
But look at what we got out of it!
Bush gets a crack at the Jewish vote in Florida, and Sharon thoughtfully delivers assassinations that push the mounting US casualties in Iraq off the front pages.
And Tony Blair — well, Tony Blair gets to eat...crow for his two years of defiant loyalty to Bush and the insane Iraq adventure.
He probably realizes now that Bush's ostentatious solicitude for Blair's political standing — and the repeated offer to let the UK sit out the first wave of the invasion — reflected the fact that Bush didn't want to feel he owed the UK — or that unctuously ingratiating Clinton retread Blair — anything.
No wonder the UK press is reporting affection for Kerry inside the ranks of the Labour Party and profound emotional turmoil within Blair over his unrequited Bush-love.
Well, God works in mysterious ways.
Who knows where this might all end?
Maybe after all this the American people will decide that...
...instead of simple-minded dingbat who fantasizes that his desires and delusions carry the force of God's will and must be indulged, no matter what the cost to American citizens, our national interest, truth, or democracy...
...they want a president who listens to and serves them...
...or at least one who says he listens to God but doesn't pretend to always understand what He's saying.
If George wants another term, I think he'd better start appealing to his higher father ASAP.
Maybe invite him to go duck hunting.
