Supporting the troops?

This is one more thing to put in the "Worst President Ever" file for George W. Bush. He gave up golfing... to support the troops.

A Prediction of the Bush Administration

Looking back as the Bush era enters its final year, I reread this article from The Onion, it's sadly prescient. A sample:

"During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years."

Like I said, prescient.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass

That's the sort of sentiment that I sort of feel is emanating from many corners of the US after Bush's last State of the Union address. Here Juan Cole marshals his arguments against Bush one last time. Meanwhile, BAGnewsNotes remarks on Bush as a sort of eternal fratboy. The sense of fatigue that people have from this man's time as president is palpable. I suppose that someone somewhere down the road will attempt to rehabilitate his reputation.

Good luck.

The Lies that put the US in Iraq

Juan Cole has a post on the false statements that paved the path to war. According to the study cited by Cole, there were some 935 false statements made by the Bush administration.

Guantanamo Before the US Supreme Court

Again. At some point you would think that someone in the Bush administration might realize that this is just not the way to do things. Except that's not how they do things. Sigh. Another year and a bit...

The Last Dash for a Legacy

Is this a trend? It feels a little like deja-vu to see Bush, in the last year or so of his presidency, groping for a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. Bill Clinton tried to used the last year or so of his presidency to get a deal - and I suspect that Bush, like Clinton, will fail at this.

It's odd to look at these very different presidents attempting to achieve similar ends in the last months of their respective reigns. Clinton was never as unpopular as Bush is now - but he did seem to be aware that his legacy would be his impeachment. What he had accomplished in Kosovo or in Bosnia was probably not enough to cleanse the public memory of his various indiscretions. If Clinton were able to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to get some kind of deal on a "final status" for the occupied territories he could cast himself as a sort of flawed-hero statesman. Instead he was staring at legacy of being little more than a philanderer.

Bush is in worse shape. His legacy is one of squandering global sympathy after 9/11 for the pursuit of an invasion that was ill-considered at best and criminal at worst. Clinton was respected in many places outside of the US where it was not apparent why the public should become embroiled in a scandal over sexual favours. Bush is widely disliked though - some of his cabinet minister may very well one day be in the position that Henry Kissinger is in today where they cannot travel safely for fear of war crimes indictments in old Europe. What Bush is hoping for I suspect is a deal. This way he can attempt to cast his other Middle Eastern mis-adventures in the light of an honest (if horrendously executed) concern for democracy.

What might be nice is if presidents did not wait till they were in search of a legacy to do something about the festering problem of Israel and the Palestinians.

Lately one or two have fully paid their due...

...for working for the clampdown.

Iraq-invadin', climate change denin' John Howard is done down under. And for those who don't see a way to defeat Harper here any time soon, it should be noted that the CBC reports:

"The win marked a humiliating end to the career of outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, who became Australia's second-longest serving leader - and who had appeared almost unassailable as little as a year ago."

As recently as earlier this year, people like Mark Steyn loved to speak of the "anglosphere" as a cohesive unit - to them it must have seemed that now that a Conservative was running Canada it could join the US, UK, and Australia (though curiously New Zealand never gets mentioned) in making the world safe, for democracy or at least whatever the hell Bush thinks it is that Musharraf is doing in Pakistan.

Today one wonders if there was ever such a cohesive thing as a unified anglosphere as conservatives might have imagined it - rather than just coinciding right-wing governments.

Repeat as Necessary

Can you tell what war David Frum is talking about?

"You want realism? It's this: The emerging US-____ confrontation is a confrontation of ___'s choice and ____'s making. It is ____ that has determined to seek nuclear weapons, ____ that has declared it will use those weapons aggressively against its neighbors, and ____ that has made a nonsense of the long negotiations with the UK, France, and Germany. We are rapidly reaching the point - maybe we have reached it already - where ____ has succeeded in reducing our choices to two: acquiesce in a nuclear bomb or stop it by force. As for the idea that the present ____ regime can be a negotiating partner - a constructive force in the region - or anything other than a menace to its neighbors or its own people, well we need another term for that. How about "fantasy"?"

(HT) I pretty much have nothing more to add to that. That said, George Bush thinks an old saying applies here:

Spreading democracy? Psssh, that's so 2003!

Remember all that talk about remaking the Middle East as a democratic paradise? Forget that, authoritarianism is the new rage! The new hot trend spreading on the right is ignoring democracy.

Consider:

In Canada the Conservatives have appointed an unelected party hack as the extra-special government representative for a riding that already has a member from another party. They may have done this in several ridings. Why have an election when you can just appoint these sorts of people?

In the US a credibly mainstream right-wing think tank has published a piece calling on Bush to become President-for-Life. Because it worked for the Caesars in Rome. Seriously.

Good Cop/Bad Cop in the Americas or Why Harper is on Tour

It's curious how the siren call of foreign affairs can lure a leader. Bush famously called for a "humble" foreign policy but has since evolved his position into spreading democracy to everyone everywhere. Or at least he's spreading something around. Likewise Stephen Harper made very little mention of foreign policy while campaigning yet it is growing into one of his favourite topics.

So why is Harper touring Latin America? He's making a big show about how Canada's role in the region will be different than that of the US. No imperialism thanks, we're Canadians. Now if we allow that Harper's foreign policy people have bought into the contradictory right-wing meme that the only way for Canada to have a strong, independent foreign policy is to cleave to the US, that doesn't make sense.

Hmmm, well let me put on my cynic hat here and see what I can think up. What Harper is really doing is putting a friendlier face on essentially the same policies that the US has advocated for the region. Harper is playing the good cop, he'll reference Venezuela only in the most oblique way and he'll stick to talking about how good free trade is for everyone. I'm sure Harper's vision for the future of the region could probably have been written in the US State Department, but he's putting a nicer face on it. See? It's good cop/bad cop, and Canada is supposed to be playing the good cop. Soon we may offer Latin America a cigarette or a cup of coffee, we understand it, we're on its side.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats?

That's the line that you hear often enough when dealing with economics, but is it true. In the case of the United States since 1973 Eric Nilsson begs to differ. He isn't done crunching the numbers but from what he has so far it looks like we are just getting back to the early 1970s in terms of real hourly earnings.

For a narrower study here's Eric's take on the 2003 Bush tax cut.

Putin and Bush get along - so?

It's curious that every time that Bush or Putin are asked about each other they seem to stress their personal affability with each other. Is it not infinitely more important to note that their governments are working on plans that will inexorably bring the two countries into greater conflict?

While you were out...

So I go away for one day to have an engagement party with the fiancee's family and mine and I come back to find that, amid all the sun stroke, Bush has commuted Scooter Libby's sentence. I suppose that I cannot say that it's shocking, Bush does not have to stand for re-election and I don't think that Cheney will ever run for elected office either so no one really has to answer for this one. It seems that clemency for friends is a characteristic behaviour for second-term lame duck presidents (Bill Clinton, I'm looking at you).

Just now: Jeffrey Toobin on CNN says that the Libby commutation sort of falls outside of the justice department guidelines and the conviction itself was hardly a Democrat hit-job as the prosecutor was a Bush appointee and the judge was a conservative Republican. Anyway, I'm tired, I'll look into this tomorrow.

Oh the Irony! Turkey/Kurdistan Edition

Remember how the US invaded Iraq ostensibly to limit terrorist threats - something trumpeted as the Bush Doctrine? Remember how Bush said he would not make a distinction between terrorists and those that harbor them?

Well now the Turkish government is accusing US-occupied Iraq of harboring terrorists! By the Bush Administration's own foreign policy doctrine, Turkey is able - nay ought - to invade and occupy Kurdistan to deal with the PKK.

Of course the reality is much more complex than that. The Turkish government hasn't exactly treated its Kurdish minority with the utmost of fairness and the US does regard the PKK as a terror organization. On the other hand the reality in 2003 was more complex too.

Newspeak Alert! Bush is on the "front lines" in Iraq "every day"

Tony Snow made that claim to the press the other day (HT). Being in an office thousands of miles away does not constitute being on the front lines. It does matter if you are politically responsible for the outcome, you are not on the front lines.

Why Shakespeare still matters

From The Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene II:

"In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,"

If I were to write a book on the political culture of the US under the Bush administration, this would probably be on the shortlist to be chosen as the epigraph.

Cringing

Watch Tony Blair's face as George W tries to defend him against *horror* reporters asking questions.

That's Quite an Accomplishment

Juan Cole disassembles Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech four years later. Taking the most cynical, bleak view of the Bushies' Iraq misadventure has proven to be the most prescient position. Gary Trudeau is rerunning some of his pre-invasion Iraq cartoons this week and they are pretty much entirely predictive.

Pay no attention to the man behind the shrubbery

I found this image on Atrios' site. I'm not sure what to make of it, did Dick Cheney not realize he was in the shot?

You could write a whole novel about this image. There's Bush at the podium, trying to salvage the last shreds of his presidency, while over there in the middle distance, Cheney looks on.

What is that look? Is it the envy of the balding, heart-disease-riddled man with the permanent sneer who knows how unelectable he is?

Showdown of the Under-Qualified Premillenialists

This is what seems to be happening now between Ahmadinejad and Bush, or at least Bush's proxy, Tony Blair. Or not.

The office of president in Iran is rather unlike the office that goes by the same name in the United States. Ahmadinejad is not the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and he therefore may not have a whole lot of say in the fate of the British sailors held in Iran. Ahmadinejad may be a terrible person, but at least his power is limited under the Iranian constitution.

Moreover, it appears in an article that Juan Cole linked to that Iran is simply looking for the British to admit wrongdoing in the affair, i.e.: admit that they were in Iranian waters. It is also worth remembering that the waters in question have been subject to boundary disputes, and that makes me wonder whether the maps that are constantly put in the newspapers and on TV are of the Iraq territorial claims, or of the Iranian territorial claims. Are they some melange of both sets of territorial claims?

Of course, it may be that the British were indisputably in Iraqi waters, but the question of where the boundary is has been cast aside - perhaps in the hope that we'll just start assuming that the British were correct. The Iranian offer to free the soldiers may be a ploy, but regardless, it's interesting that that element of the story has been far less reported than images of Tony Blair looking indignant on TV.