So, George Bush's State of the Union address tonight
won't focus on Iraq. Duh.
Instead, the President is going to roll out a series of domestic proposals, like his health-care [sic] plan.
Some plan. One that won't cover a single additional person among the 50 million presently without insurance. And one that will levy a punishing tax on those 30 million Americans lucky enough to have a generous plan.
What a guy. He asks no sacrifice for a war which he claims is central to the continuation of western civilization but wants to
take thousands away from your tax deductions if you've got a low deductible and high hospitalization limits.
Talk about
DOA.
Fact is, doesn't much matter what George Bush says tonight. Only those who believe in the Tooth Fairy will be listening with any real intensity. He might as well be the deranged, bearded autocrat in Woody Allen's classic
Bananas who, having assembled the masses before him, decrees they shall now wear their underwear on top of their street clothes.
Not since Richard Nixon on the eve of impeachment has an American gone into a state of the union address with such
abysmally low poll numbers. A
CBS survey has Bush at an approval rating of 28%. A similar sounding by
ABC News/Washington Post shows that a whopping 71% of Americans believe the country is seriously headed down the wrong track.
A 65-34% majority opposes the Bush plan for escalation in Iraq. Meanwhile, our erstwhile stand-ins on Capitol Hill
are struggling to patch together a resolution that would catch them up with the rest of us.
Fielding Mellish, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
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January 22nd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Jim R and I have had an exchange at the end of the previous thread about what the appropriate response of Democrats should be during Bush’s speech, not just after it (when Jim Webb will do the response.) Jim R calls for politeness and decorum, I call for catcalls. I wonder which one would best reflect where most Americans are at right now.
Speaking of Democrats, the profile of Hillary that Michael Turmon linked to in the Atlantic is required reading for those who cling to the “lesser of evils” theory.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Here are the first graphs of a NYT piece today. It looks like even leading Republicans will treat the occasion of Bush’s speech as an opportunity to reject his policies. That’s not very polite, now, is it?
WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 — Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, one of Congress’s leading authorities on the military, presented a bipartisan proposal on Monday that soundly rejected President Bush’s plan to send more American troops to Baghdad and urged the administration to find a new course in Iraq.
“Mr. President,†Mr. Warner declared, “go back and look at all the options.â€
On the eve of the State of the Union address, the proposal by Mr. Warner and two fellow Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Norm Coleman of Minnesota, along with Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, was offered as an alternative to an Iraq resolution backed by Democratic leaders and is to be debated this week by the Foreign Relations Committee.
While details of the competing Iraq plans varied, one point could not be mistaken: a growing number of senators in both parties find the president’s strategy flawed. While some Republicans still vow to back the White House, the tough language from Mr. Warner, a former chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a onetime Navy secretary, dealt a blow to administration officials trying to salvage the Iraq plan.
“The American G.I. was not trained, not sent over there — certainly not by resolution of this institution — to be placed in the middle of a fight between the Sunni and the Shia and the wanton and just incomprehensible killing that’s going on at this time,†Mr. Warner said. “We don’t lessen importance of that mission, but it should be performed by the Iraqi forces and not the coalition forces.â€
The new resolution reflected Mr. Warner’s typical style — in their public comments, he and his allies took a diplomatic tone and sought to play down friction with the administration. Yet the language of the proposal itself was clear in declaring opposition to the troop buildup and urging the Iraqi leaders to seek a political solution to the sectarian violence.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am
All children under the age of sixteen are now sixteen years of age.
The national language is now Swedish.
Underwear must be changed every half hour and be worn on the outside…so we can check.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:10 am
Tax people for their health benefits ????
Why not end home mortgage deductions to help pay for the war while he’s at it…
Bush may become the first President whose approval numbers dip into the low teens.
I’m starting to wonder whether this George W. Bush character might not be a “Manchurian Candidate” programmed by a sinister Democrat cabal to destroy the GOP for at least a generation.
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:52 am
Can you say LAME DUCK??
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:55 am
Bush made a curious comment after winning a second term: he said he’d earned political capital, now he was going to spend it. I don’t care how poorly he did in getting his MBA, I don’t care how absurdly malaprop he can be, he must have known he meant, “I got popular enough to survive into a second term, and now I’m going to do some things that make me very unpopular indeed.”
And he has! He’s a man of his word after all. We shouldn’t be in the least surprised.
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:01 am
Bush’s failure to ask for any sacrafice from the rest of us for this war, in fact the opposite with tax cuts instead of say a war tax, has been very disappointing to me. It has left him wide open for accusations of lack of sensitivity to our troops, who are doing all the scraficing, while our fat business and political pigs are left to selfishly slop at the Washington trough, running our debt even above that required for this war.
This, along with other screw-ups, was no way to run a war. Sad for us all, and if we are forced to abandon Iraq to the Iran and Syria radicals, will be very sad for our children, and probably their children also.
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:25 am
Well, a post from Jim R that I agree with from top to bottom–including Jim’s concerns that an American withdrawal will leave Iraq in the hands of Shiite radicals and fundamentalists. While I am personally for withdrawal and quickly, because I think the US presence is just making things worse, I fully understand the concerns expressed in the past by Marc–for which some self-righteous lefties continue to blast him–as well as reg and others about precipitous withdrawal. Some mistakes are so bad they can’t be fixed, and Jim R and other conservatives on this blog should be thinking deeply about how they came to made, and how the ideology behind them might be seriously flawed. That would be at least one good thing that might come out of this disaster.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:03 am
“our erstwhile stand-ins on Capitol Hill…”
If they are our ERSTWHILE stand-ins, why are they still on Capitol Hill? Perhaps you mean our ESTIMABLE stand-ins?
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 am
Marc wrote: A 65-34% majority opposes the Bush plan for escalation in Iraq.
So? Why don’t we let generals decide how to fight a war rather than always take polls of people that includes many who are too lazy to vote and have no idea who are their elected representatives, much less know anything about warfare?
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:11 am
Woody our generals have spoken and if it were up to them we would be in Afghanistan, and maybe Somalia, cleaning up the Al Queda threat and capturing you know who. I’m glad we have civilian control of the military but this is one of the prices we pay for that –
“Waist deep in the Big Muddy
and the damn fool says to keep on!”
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:23 am
Several years ago it became obvious that Iran would be the “external” winner of the Iraq war as the Shiites assumed political power. I used to think that might not be such a bad thing and that a dominant Shia Iraq might have a leavening effect in the long term on an Iran that had been brutalized in the past by Saddam’s regime. That was before the thing reached civil war proportions. Now we’ve provided a locus for al Qaeda to recruit cadre and do their worst, created the inevitability of a fairly militant Shiite state with the hardest men dominant and offered our troops as targets for a continuing Sunni insurgency. We’ve managed to do the worst thing imaginable – destabilize a pressure cooker of a country and then stay in for years as an occupation force, but an ineffectual one.
The hubris behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been truly stunning. America is a powerful nation that I believe, unlike some, can have a positive impact in the world. Bush’s boys (and girls – let’s not let Condi, Karen Hughes, Tori Clarke, Danielle Pletka, etc. off the hook) have made us weaker strategically and amped up all of the familiar “negatives” as regards the way we are viewed in the world and often, in fact, act in the world. I also can’t for the life of me figure out why Bush would want to take troops from Afghanistan when we’re on the verge of watching that country also fall apart as the Taliban regains strength. What the hell have these guys been thinking ?
Jim R and others (although Jim, even when I think he’s totally off base manages to maintain a degree of ironic detachment from the full tilt craziness that some others do not) have accused “us” over the years of being against this thing because we “hate” Bush.
I’ll admit I hate Bush – but I’d submit that watching this disaster unfold has been the main cause and totally justifiable. I’d be shocked if some of the saner folks on the right like Jim who are stepping back from the brink don’t find Bush far more repellent than I ever could. Sort of the way one might hate a lover who you caught cheating and who spent all of your savings and ran up a huge credit card debt behind your back.
I’ve probably said this before, but it still may come as a shock, I actually was telling friends and family right after September 11th that we had to chill out, let go of the feeling that Alfred E. Neuman had managed to stumble into the White House and take heart that Bush had an experienced national security team in place as we faced down bin Laden. My attitude toward the usual suspects on the “left” was identical to Christopher Hitchens – I was avidly agreeing with him and quoting him in casual conversation with “lefties” of my acquaintance (although I’d never really paid attention to him before because he’d struck me as a something of a self-publicizing crank during the Clinton brouhaha and left-over British marxists put me to sleep.)
Then came Tora Bora, at which point I began wondering if these “national security tough guys” knew what the hell they were doing – although it wasn’t a definitive feeling because eveyone makes mistakes. But when Bush offered us his “Axis of Evil” speech I became convinced that some dangerous and possibly delusional idiots were in charge. Granted it was just an attempt at a metaphor or sloganizing or some such. But that was one of the dumbest, most incoherent bits of nonsense I’d ever heard from the mouth of a President. Particularly given that the most immediate threat we faced was from a shadow terrorist organization. Reagan’s Evil Empire cartoons were reminiscent of George Kennan compared to the utter stupidity and strategic uselessness of that particular proclamation that twit David Frum managed to inflict on our country’s consciousness. Useless, crackpot nonsense that betrayed strategic incoherence of the first order.
From there it was all downhill as the Iraq “intel” got ginned up by Cheney & Friends and I watched a country – and a world – that was, tragically but undeniably, unified by bin Laden’s terrorist attack on the U.S. proceed to be torn apart by a cabal of far-right ideologues in effective control of an administration at one of the most critical moments of our history.
And, yes, I began to hate Bush – far more than my initial dismay and disgust at his ability to grab the 2000 election – for using an office that was barely his, if at all, to govern from some bizarre combination of the far-right and the neo-conservative idelogogy factories. The Democrats, defying common sense, mostly treated him as though he were, in fact, some kind of unifying figure who the entire country should be standing behind. Of course, most of them have lived to regret it, but post-911 it was a totally predictable mistake for a gang of professional pols to make.
A very bad man, Bush. I have no idea what constitutes his inner life and I don’t care. (I’ll leave that kind of speculation to Norman Mailer’s next novel if he lives that long.) But he’s done terrible damage to the United States of America. Worse than Nixon, because for all of the evil of Nixon’s extending the Vietnam war solely for political reasons, Nixon also managed to do one brilliant thing that changed the course of history for the good by opening our doors (doors he had also, ironically, previously held shut at least partly out of partisan perversity) to negotiation and trade with China.
As Michael Balter suggests, conservatives should take pause, drop some of the taunts directed at us (not all of them, of course) and start looking long and hard at the ride they’ve been on – even going back to 2000 and before. They should also question why they invested so much with such zeal in someone who has turned out to be so small, misguided and undeserving of trust.
(I was disappointed by Clinton, but only because he rarely rose above the guy I knew was being elected in 1992, not because I thought he was great and he turned out to have shallow character. And his intellect never disappointed me. The rest of it wasn’t bitter disappointment, it was a deal where you nod your head and shrug because you had hoped for more than what was obviously there. Bush makes me really miss him. Another reason why I’ll hold my nose and vote for Hillary if it comes to that. While we’re on the subject of Bill Clinton, I’m waiting for the first articles out of the Weakly Standard and other sewers of “conservative” opinon to claim that “Clinton’s generals” lost Iraq. it’s absolutely inevitable from this crowd of soulless cowards.)
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 am
I can’t believe Woody made that comment. Stunning ignorance…
Fred Kagan actually had to seek out a retired General, Jack Keane, to help give legitimacy to his “surge” plan. This has been a civilians war. A gang of civilians who, if there were real and rough justice in this world, we’d line up to be shot.
(Even Tommy Franks intitial run to Baghdad was devised because he knew Rumsfeld was demanding that style of warfare and would sack anybody who argued for large forces and a systematic occupation plan.)
That bit reminds me of why the only rational reaction I’ve ever had to Woody is when I try to ignore him. Because, frankly, there’s nothing there.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:30 am
“While we’re on the subject of Bill Clinton…”
I’m sorry. That line should have read, “While I’m off on a crazy tangent…”
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I didn’t get a chance yesterday to reply to a taunt from Marc about my noting that Matt Stoller at MYDD had agreed that the “100 days” could have been stronger. My point, which you missed Marc, was simple. Stoller is a partisan Democrat. He makes no secret of working for canidates he likes like Mark Warner. But that dosn’t mean he’s an uncritical supporter. When he thinks they screw up he lets his readers know. Somehow I find that makes his words more convincing than the constant refrain of the Dems are a bunch of bums who couldn’t organize a two car funeral. That’s all. Sorry you missed the snark.
Is Bush speaking tonight? Gee I can haedly wait!
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Re BANANAS: will Scooter Libby crossexamine Dick Chaney while bound and gagged?
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
“Somehow I find that makes his words more convincing than the constant refrain of the Dems are a bunch of bums who couldn’t organize a two car funeral.”
Amen. The notion of some that they have deep insight into the deficiencies of the Dems and that those of us who wear the “dark mantle” don’t get it and constitute a circle-jerk or a cheering section is absurd. Yes, there are times when I’m all for circling the wagons. It’s called “taking sides”. Something I also did when I was active in the labor movement, even though I knew that it was fraught with huge problems and absurdly incompetent characters. But I didn’t bring my really deep dismay at “my side” up at the negotiating table. Or suggest that we form an alternative union which would consist of me and a couple of friends.
The best and most telling critiques of the Democrats are those that come from the inside – from people who actually have something at stake. And know what they’re talking about from experience.
The notion that the Democrats, of all people, are a bunch of kneejerk cheerleaders for themselves is preposterous. If anything the Useless Pundit’s Recycled Image of the circular firing squad has more resonance. But both of these images, I believe, are in the process being proven the stuff of lazy minds (Cokie Roberts ? Are you reading this ? Not likely…)
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Let’s take a poll and tell Marc how to run his blog. I’m sure that uninformed and biased opinions (certainly not mine) could make this better. Everyone does believe that international decisions should be based on polls, so why not something simpler like this?
I quit reading reg’s serial comments because they generally exceed my 400 word limit of interest–which is more like 50 words with his commentary.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Please never read nor refer to my comments again. Do me that favor. Because I’ve wasted a lot of time on useless banter with a total fool. A weakness of mine.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Sorry to change the subject, but I’ve been thinking lately about the leader of the successful revolution in Bananas (“All children under the age of sixteen are now sixteen years of age”) as an apt portrayal of Hugo Chavez, whose nuttiness seems to increase in direct proportion to his power. It works less well for W., who has apparently been a complete and utter nitwit from the moment of his birth.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Michael Ledeen in his Pajamas:
I am told that we have discovered truly explosive information about the Iranian role in Iraq in the recent raids in Baghdad and Irbil, the raids that led to the arrest of high officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. I believe we are all entitled to that information. To be sure, some of it may be “actionable intelligence,†which must be kept secret—even from the New York Times—until we have acted on it. But the American people are entitled to know the big picture, which is the one some of us have been painting for many years: Iran is waging war on us, killing our soldiers, slaughtering Iraqis, enabling Hizbollah in Lebanon, empowering Hamas and Islamic Jihad in their war against Israel. END CLIP
This is the direction Bush’s speech will take as regards Iraq…
The really crazy people are still in charge and guiding policy. Of course the Iranians are aiding the Shiite militias in Iraq. Today’s LA Times:
“Few doubt that Iran is seeking to extend its influence in Iraq. But the groups in Iraq that have received the most Iranian support are not those that have led attacks against U.S. forces. Instead, they are nominal U.S. allies.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two largest parties in parliament, is believed to be the biggest beneficiary of Iranian help. The Shiite group was based in Iran during Hussein’s reign, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard trained and equipped its Badr Brigade militia.
But the Supreme Council also has strong U.S. connections. Bush played host to the head of the party, Abdelaziz Hakim, at the White House in December, and administration officials have frequently cited Adel Abdul Mehdi, another party leader, as a person they would like to see as Iraq’s prime minister.
The Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq’s current prime minister, Nouri Maliki, also has strong ties to Iran.”
This is a completely chaotic situation, one with no possiblity that our forces can control it militarily, that Bush brought on us. I would say “deliberately”, but I’m not sure that anything like “deliberation” went into the crackpottery and wingnuttery which drew us into this mess. “Delusion”, yes.
The disaster in Iraq itself aside, Bush and his cohorts have done unbelievable damage to this country’s ability to respond strategically to real enemies and complex, looming threats in the wake of 9/11. GOPer nitwits should stop their shouting or finger-pointing and embrace the shame. I don’t believe they are “The Worst People In The World”, as Olberman would have it, but they’re sure as hell the worst people who maintain the pretense of being on “our side”, because they’ve couldn’t have aided our enemies more if they were suicide bombers in our midst.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Because Barney can’t hold a pencil in his paw, we’re treated to this wisdom from the BushCo Bunker:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/
01/22/AR2007012201103_pf.html
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:28 pm
sorry about that- you need to paste it – for some reason my “tiny URLs” aren’t getting through marc’s filter
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
As a lifelong Bananas fan can’t help but enjoy the post; but another black comedy ilusion seems timlier.
All of the mainstream news shows are going with a puff piece about American Idol. “Has the show gone too far?” which you can translate to: Has an already debased and degraded form of entertainment simply reduced iteself to: “Let’s poke a stick at the retard?”
That, it seems to me, is about what your left in trying to take apart Bush. America has only itself to blame; it reduced it’s politics to a flattery contest, let the greediest shill win. The right wing smugfest of the Limbaugh era has poped all it’s Woodies, there’s just nothing much left to say.
We will split our vigelence between the weakness of the Democrates and the perversity of their critics. Whitewater: Never again.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Reg the LAT has a story on page one saying that no evidence has been found of an Iran-Iraq link with the insurgents. Score another scoop for Ledeen and Pajamarama. And Marc and Max think I only object to their ads!
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Doncha just long for the revolution?
Against a Rapid Stream
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Is “reg” on antipsychotic medication?
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Btw, Bananas was assigned by me last week in one of my classes (I teach during the day, something that can change the World more for good than say, typing without medication) and I had some very thoughtful student essay responses on US support for dictators based on Fielding Mellish’s canonical experience.
Gracias como siempre, Marc.
Yma’ tarde (cuando tenga tiempo, compa, po’que tra’ajo po’ un distrito escola’ muy conoci’o por su derechi’mo ) re’pondere’ a tu criti’ade Howard Zinn. Ya sai’s que, alguno’ chilenos querian destrui’ este pais de’ pue’ de 1973 ( yo me coverti’ aun cabro totalme’te enojao), pero no’ tomamo’ el tiempo.
‘Cuer’ate que Chile no apoyo al de’graciao’ crimina’ lide’ tejano en 2002 cuando rogo a la’ Nacione’ Unida’ pa’ ju’tifica’ su’taque cont’a Irak. Es’yel precio del co’re, elvino, y la fruta que ‘tai comiedo hoyson la’ mejore’ venganza’ contra cierto’ gringo’ hueone’ .
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Sergio Says: Is “reg†on antipsychotic medication?
If he is, he needs to change prescriptions.
(Hey, reg, I’ve asked you to quit commenting on my remarks many times in the past, yet you still do it. Forgive me for defending my remarks against your phony arrogance, complete irrationality, and delusions of reality.)
More on polls: DAMN THE POLLS
January 24th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Reg –> if you choose political expendiency over integrity … fine.
But to act like anyone who doesn’t make the same choice is somehow some type of stakeless Quisling is pure bovine scatology.
Get Feingold running for Prez … and I might be a little less disaffected. But Hillary … if I wanted Republican-lite, I’d vote Republican.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:50 am
“Get Feingold running for Prez … and I might be a little less disaffected.”
I’m sorry that Russell Feingold didn’t take your angst into account when he decided not to run.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
This Channel 4 film report shows what Bush and Blair have been ducking and diving to avoid in the last 2 days/4years:
http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=4457
January 24th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I found some short, but good, down-time between local campaign gigs and thought I heard a fimiliar voice on KPCC this morning with Larry Mantel.
Appreciate the opening comments of this thread between Michael and Jim R. Jim, I second your disappointment.
Must admit that this morning’s luxury of down-time devolved into a mildly vegatative state — C’mon Sergio, please don’t dis ‘the medicated’ — and caught myself watching Kerry’s speech today. I actually thought Kerry was very good. On this site I have previously called Sen. Kerry a jackass, and kind of regret that now. Sen. Kerry impressed me just a little that he’d try to be an adult about his responisbilities as a Senator, put aside his Presidential aspirations, and work for the good of the country. It was Kerry-esquely long and windy, but still….
On a note of high annoyannce, when money-bag men like Terry McAuliff (when does Dennis Kucinich’s fund raiser get ‘equal time’?) get scheduled to prattle on shamelessly on all the talk shows…well that’s when the tube gets silenced and I did the dishes. Reg, your pretty good at covering all the angles on all things Clinton, but I’m sorry to say I’m beyond being able to hold me nose and support her.
Of course, if faced with even the worse reality of say, “President Frist”…
January 25th, 2007 at 8:59 am
“
January 25th, 2007 at 9:12 am
“Jim, I second your disappointment.”
Would you also second my disappointment with the NYT, and other left wing media mistakes, undermining a war we needed to win, from the beginning, with loose lips and one sided reporting……unfortunately not their own countries side.
That would be ‘loose leafs’, technically speaking.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I not sure I’d follow you, Jim, on disappointment with the NYT — although a handful of supposed lefty (if they could be could be called that) have been dreadful…
Actually, Jim, these are the newspapers that I rely on for news regarding Iraq: NYT, LAT, the Economist, WAPO, WSJ, and the Detroit Free Press. NYT, LAT, and WAPO, could agree have a mildly liberal bent. Not so the Economist & WSJ. The DFP (www.freep.com) is worthy of review for its coverage of the Arab-American community in SE Michigan.
It’s fundamentally hard to criticize the media covering Iraq when journalists face death if they try to ply their craft outside the green zone.
March 14th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Susan Boyle is an incredibly talented lady who’s been subjected to considerable ridicule in the media. IMHO she deserves every bit of success that she is having.