In His Defense, He's Been Leader of the Free World for Only Six Years

"The United States salutes the nations that have recently taken strides toward liberty, including Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan [KEYR-geez-stan], Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a], Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Morocco."

From a leaked draft of President Bush's speech to the United Nations, complete with phonetic guide

"I think that's a offensive question. I'm going to just decline to comment on it."

Press Secretary Dana Perino at a White House press gaggle, responding to a question on whether Bush has "a hard time pronouncing some of these countries' names"

Just Plain Ghoulish

It is no secret that Rudy Giuliani has based his presidential campaign solely on the fact that he was Mayor of New York on September 11, 2001. He's not even bothering to mention anything else, and the fear-and-loathing rhetoric of his speeches gives even Karl Rove's wettest dreams a run for their money. He stops just short of saying, "Vote for me, or Osama bin Laden will come to your house, kill your kids and shave your cats." He's pretty shameless, and his wholesale expropriation of the terrorist attacks as his personal property is, to say the least, unseemly.

But this one is just plain ghoulish.

Abraham Sofaer, a Giuliani supporter in Palo Alto, California, is hosting a fundraising party for the campaign tomorrow night in his house. No problem there. The kicker is that he wants his attendees to each chip in nine dollars and eleven cents for the campaign.

That's right: "$9.11 for Rudy."

Even by this campaign's standards, that's pretty darn awful. And it's telling that while the Giuliani campaign has made the occasional clucking noise of disapproval, they're notably silent on whether they're going to accept the money.

Then again, what do you expect from a guy who dumped his second wife via press conference?

Because One Pointless War Just Isn't Enough

It's no secret that the warmongers in the White House are itching to attack Iran before President Bush's term ends in January 2009. They've certainly tried hard enough to sell the American public on the necessity of bombing Tehran and taking out the Middle East's new Public Enemy #1, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He's building nukes! He's in bed with Al Qaeda! He was part of the mob that took over the American Embassy back in 1979!

Fortunately, the public ain't buying this time. We already got lied into supporting one war by this crowd, and we're not inclined to believe them again.

But that doesn't mean they're not trying.

Newsweek is reporting that Vice President Darth Cheney tried to manufacture an excuse to attack Iran:

A few months before he quit, according to two knowledgeable sources, [David] Wurmser [Cheney's Middle East adviser] told a small group of people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and perhaps other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out. The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran.

This is truly scary. Cheney is already salivating over the prospect of using tactical nuclear weapons in Iran, a move which is quite simply madness. Has the Bush Administration really become so power-mad that they would really nuke a country which has not attacked us and is not developing nuclear weapons (according to the UN nuclear watchdog group that was enimently correct in saying the same thing about Iraq)?

I have the sinking feeling that they really are that nuts.

Hiding Behind the General

General David Petraeus has been good for President Bush. As the public face of Bush's Surge™ in Iraq, Petraeus did his master's bidding and provided a medaled front man behind whom Bush can hide when the going gets tough.

As is happening right now.

Prior to Petraeus' dog-and-pony show before Congress last week, the Washington Post revealed how he manipulated Iraqi casualty figures to make it look like the violence was decreasing when in fact the country remained as bloody as ever. This sometimes took truly ludicrous forms, such as how deaths were counted if victims were shot in the back of the head but not if they were shot in the front. Polls both before and after the PR stunt said a majority of the American people didn't believe a word he said.

Then MoveOn.org put in their two cents with their "Petraeus or Betray Us?" ad and the world exploded.

Well, not literally. The sun continued to rise and the sky remained blue. But from the GOP's temper tantrum, you'd think that's what happened. Republicans took to friendly media outlets (including, to no one's surprise, Fox News) demanding that MoveOn be kicked out of the country and that the New York Times be investigated for running the ad in the first place.

Amid all the brouhaha, one should not lose sight of the simple fact that the ad's assertion - that Petraeus deliberately fudged the numbers so his political bosses in the White House could look good - went entirely unchallenged. Indeed, all the evidence supports it.

Yesterday, the Senate demonstrated its support of freedom by passing a resolution condemning MoveOn for daring to criticize Bush's fig leaf. And in an effort to further milk the righteous outrage, Bush took to the airwaves in a rare press conference.

It cannot be a coincidence that the very last question was a softball from Bill Sammon, a faithful stenographer who writes for the hard-right Washington Examiner:

What is your reaction to the MoveOn.org ad that mocked General Petraeus as General "Betrayus," and said that he cooked the books on Iraq? And secondly, would you like to see Democrats, including presidential candidates, repudiate that ad?

With the planted question phrased in just that manner, Bush had his cue to get into his carefully scripted snit, with no follow-up questioning allowed:

I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. military. And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat[ic] Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad. And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org - or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal. It's one thing to attack me; it's another thing to attack somebody like General Petraeus.

The hypocrisy is staggering even by Bush's standards. After firing principled officers for refusing to put a happy face on Iraq, he finds one to be his personal PR flack in selling the Surge™ to a skeptical public. (Not to mention the professional Pentagon brass, which warns that the military is in real danger of breaking due to the war.) And when the Surge™ goes sour, Bush uses Petraeus to deflect disapproval and proclaims that any criticism is an attack on the entire military.

In other words, shut up and salute. No criticism of the armed forces is allowed, regardless of how richly it's deserved or whether the military is being used for political cover. How easily we forget that Republicans routinely attack military figures - and more harshly than MoveOn did - whenever it suits their purposes to do so.

Bush's handlers obviously realize that hiding behind Petraeus gives him the best chance of keeping his poll numbers from sinking any lower. If that means turning a decorated Army officer into just another political hack - well, that's life.

The Whole "Cratering the Economy" Thing Was Someone Else's Fault

"You know, you need to talk to economists. I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with the people's money."

President Bush, forgetting that he took a $230 billion budget surplus in 2000 and recklessly blew it on endless war in Iraq and tax cuts for the rich, turning it into a $9 trillion national debt

Except Your Kids Are Dead

"Every day is Mother's Day as far as you're concerned, isn't it?"

President Bush to mothers of soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan

Besides, Getting Killed in Iraq Is Your Job

"One, I'm too old to be out there, and two, they would notice me."

President Bush, making excuses as to why he talks tough on Iraq (e.g., "bring them on" and "we're kicking ass") but won't do any of the actual fighting and dying

Imagine How Democrats Would Make Out

"You're basically saying that we should take our marching orders from Al Qaeda?"

Fox News "journalist" Chris Wallace, on the attack during a Fox-moderated GOP Presidential debate after candidate Ron Paul advocated withdrawing all American forces from Iraq

Oh Yes, That Makes All the Difference

"If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian. If it went through the front, it's criminal."

A "senior intelligence official" quoted in the Washington Post, explaining how casualty figures were manipulated so the White House could claim that fewer Iraqis were being killed; other officially uncounted deaths include Iraqis killed by car bombs, Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, etc.

Jews Aren't Part of His Base Anyway

"I send greetings to those around the world celebrating Rosh Hashanah."

President Bush, announcing the Jewish New Year one week early

So Why Not Ban Straight Divorce?

"In countries that have redefined marriage, where they've said, okay, it's not just a man and a woman, it can be two men, two women, the marriage rates in those countries have plummeted to where you have counties now in Northern Europe where 80 percent of the first-born children are born out of wedlock. We don't need more children born out of wedlock; we need more children born into wedlock between a mom and a dad bonded together for life."

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), explaining why he opposes marriage equality for gays and lesbians

"Slow News Weekend" My Fanny

Good Lord - go away for a holiday weekend and everything happens at once.

First off, President Bush's "surprise" visit to Iraq. Notice that he stayed far away from Baghdad, where some of the sectarian civil war's worst fighting has been happening and where the Iraqi "government" is in shambles. No, he went to Al-Asad Air Base, a gigantic and heavily guarded American military outpost with a thirteen mile fortified perimeter. Thus kept far away from any of the actual Iraqis whom he claims to have liberated, Bush shamelessly exploited the thousands of soldiers stationed there for a photo op.

"Those decisions [on finally leaving Iraq] will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground," he said manfully, "not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media. In other words, when we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure. To do otherwise would embolden our enemies and make it more likely that they would attack us at home."

That pretty much sums up Bush's presidency right there. Set up other people to take the fall when your policy decisions go bad. Smear anyone who disagrees with you as spineless wimps. And use psychological terrorism of your own to scare people into supporting you even though everyone knows you have no idea what you're doing.

Once again, we see how Bush is so hopelessly delusional he can't recognize reality even when it walks right up and bites him.

Second development, also from the Bush Administration. We're seeing a level of rhetoric against Iran that's heightened even by this crowd's standards. Speaking to the friendly American Legion, Bush said that "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere."

And where have we heard this one before? "We will confront this danger before it is too late."

Yes, Bush is trying to repeat the very same act that deceived us into invading Iraq when no threat was present.

Who cares that nuclear engineers and inspectors all insist that Iran is maybe a decade from developing such weapons? Who cares that Iran scholars both inside and outside the Beltway all say that an attack would be, to put it lightly, counterproductive? That Iran's production facilities are too widespread to be destroyed by anything other than a massive and sustained invasion? That it would cause the Iranian people to rally round the Tehran government? And that it would give Al Qaeda yet another recruiting poster?

And finally, the hypocritical moralists of the Grand Old Party forced Senator Larry Craig to resign for being gay. Let's not beat around the bush here (as it were, har!) - Craig was shoved out not because he covered up a disorderly-conduct arrest but for being homosexual. After all, the GOP was just peachy with Senator David Vitter's commerce with various ladies of the night. What's worse - patronizing prostitutes or cruising airport bathrooms?

OK, they're both pretty icky and not very defensible. But it's just wrong that the Republican Congressional Caucus gives Vitter a standing ovation and then gives Craig the heave-ho.