A Bush Neologism

Stability-ites

which he defines as --

people who say, you just got to worry about stability.

as opposed to --

And I'm saying, we better worry about the conditions that caused 19 kids to kill us in the first place.

Such as the lack of freedom in the home country of 15 of them, Saudi Arabia? But then there's that pesky oil market, which needs "stability", if you will. It's all very confusing. But that's why we need a strong leader --

you know, I guess the best to describe government policy is like a person trying to drive a car on a rough patch. If you ever get stuck in a situation like that, you know full well it's important not to overcorrect -- because when you overcorrect you end up in the ditch. And so it's important to be steady and to keep your eyes on the horizon.

And not worry about who's getting crunched underneath the car.

UPDATE: Bush's speech was sufficiently disastrous even by his standards that Gail Collins devotes a column to it. But he loved his car line so much, he used it again in the radio address.

The Burgundy Revolution

George Bush --

The situation in Tibet* remains deplorable. The regime has rejected calls from its own people and the international community to begin a genuine dialogue with the opposition and ethnic minority groups. Arrests and secret trials of peaceful political activists continue, such as the recent arrest of journalists Thet Zin and Sein Win Maung.

No, wait. That's his most recent statement on Burma, the other monk-beating regime. But Burma is not a huge net lender to the USA and is not hosting the Olympics. So that's different.

Photo: AFP/Mark Ralston

Dept. of idle speculation: New York edition

Why would George Bush, without much fanfare, suddenly yank his nomination of Charles Gargano, highly connected New York City property developer, to be his Ambassador to Austria? Usually such jobs are a lock once you've ponied up the requisite Republican fund-raising and/or satisfied the right connections, which as a George Pataki operative, he surely has.

Perish the thought that he's one of those clients with a number.

No name delegation

The annual White House announcement of junketeer extraordinaire Bertie Ahern's visit --

In keeping with a decades-old tradition, the two leaders will participate in the "Shamrock Ceremony," symbolizing the deep cultural roots and close ties of friendship between the United States and Ireland. The President and the Prime Minister ("Taoiseach" in Gaelic) will meet before the ceremony to discuss a range of issues.

More interesting is the reference to the Northern Ireland contingent --

After their meeting, President Bush and Prime Minister Ahern will greet U.K. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward and representatives of Northern Ireland's political leadership, civil society, and business community who are leading the way in promoting a new chapter in Northern Ireland's history built on peace, reconciliation, and economic prosperity.

So Shaun Woodward, who doesn't even take a salary for what is any case a diminished job with Sunningdale devolution up and running, gets billing ahead of any of the locals. The backlash against the Chuckle Brothers routine continues.

UPDATE: Bush's St Patrick's Day greeting comes with no indication that's it's actually observed on the 17th and not today, the 14th.

The oil envy never stops

George Bush --

President Bush Attends Kuwait-America Foundation's Stand for Africa Gala Dinner
Residence of the Ambassador of Kuwait
Washington, D.C.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for the invitation. You've got a beautiful place here. (Laughter.)

Isn't that what Saddam said about Kuwait in 1991?

Also, an insight into Bush-style parenting --

So the guy comes to see me, and he says, I want to marry your daughter. I said, done deal. (Laughter.)

Which, according to one recent biography, is about the level of parenting that Bush himself received. Little consolation for the rest of us.

Unhappy few

What is it about English teams -- national or club -- and penalty kicks?

Not yet operational

Dick Cheney continues his tour of safe audiences -- military bases and loyal Bushies -- with a trip to the Heritage Foundation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's announcement of the Strategic Defense ("Star Wars") Initiative. Which 25 years and billions of dollars later, still can't do anything like its original vision of intercepting unannounced ballistic missiles headed towards the USA. But the issue is not whether it felt short of that technological goal, but whether the goal is even relevant now, if it ever was. Dick has no doubts --

But in 2000, George W. Bush campaigned on a promise to build missile defenses, and in 2001, he made the wise decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. It was an act of great courage, and it opened the way for major advances in our ability to stand up a defense against missile attack. (Applause.)

The decision made even more sense in light of the attacks of September 11th. As President Bush said, 9/11 "made all too clear [that] the greatest threats to both our countries come not from each other, or other big powers in the world, but from terrorists who strike without warning, or rogue states who seek weapons of mass destruction."

In fact, 9/11 showed the irrelevance of missile defence. The missile was a hijacked plane. No rogue state, no WMDs, nothing. And the biggest threat to life in Iraq now is not Iranian missiles, but simple bombs made from stuff left lying around during the Bush occupation. The one advantage that Reagan and his hare-brained scheme has is that, by the standards of George Bush, it seems like a harmless folly.

Finally a limit

So it turns out that extradition from Britain to the USA is not open-ended after all. Ian Norris has won his appeal to the House of Lords against extradition on the basis of a wheeze in which price-fixing -- not a crime in the UK when he allegedly committed it -- was redefined by the US Justice Department as "conspiracy to defraud" so as to meet the requirement that the alleged criminal act must be an offence in both countries.

The US will apparently still try to extradite him for obstruction of justice. Hopefully the Norris lawyers will have a field day with the arguments made during the Scooter Libby case that if there is no underlying crime, there can't be obstruction of justice. The argument was of course shite, since the point of obstruction of justice is to obscure determination of whether there was an underlying crime, but for Ian Norris, it seems by definition there was no underlying crime under UK law.

It's not much help to Babar Ahmad, who faces a whole different class of problems, being accused of terrorism-related offences, but at least it means that the UK courts, unlike the government, are alert to the problems that the aggressive extradition policies of the US have created.

Any colour so long as it's black

Andrew Sullivan, outraged at Geraldine Ferraro's suggestion that Barack Obama's success in the Democratic primary is due to him being black --

So when, one wonders, will Clintonite [Wesley] Clark call for Ferraro to be fired from her campaign position? Or is Rush Limbaugh now held to a higher standard than Geraldine Ferraro? ... The racial polarization in the exit polls is depressing; but when you have Clinton surrogates like Geraldine Ferraro reveling in racist condescension and resentment, as she did today, I can understand a little

Andrew Sullivan, explaining that the redemptive power of an Obama candidacy lies in him being black --

Electing a half-African president, with Hussein as a middle name, who attended school in a Muslim country: it's almost a p.r. agent's dream for America. It would instantly give this country a fresh start in the world after the disaster of the Bush-Cheney years.

It's particularly bizarre for Sullivan to be tossing accusations of racism when someone brings up the topic of race, given his history with The Bell Curve.

UPDATE: For the record, a prediction that we meant to make before -- come the general election, Sully will dump Obama for McCaim, which will be astounding given the way he's made his blog into all-Obama-all-the-time. Here's the latest hint --

I guess I should reiterate that I am undecided about the general election if it turns into a McCain-Obama battle. There are aspects to both men that I deeply admire. Oddly, I find McCain more persuasive on domestic policy and Obama more realistic when it comes to foreign policy.

FINAL UPDATE: Mickey Kaus finds another Sully segment with the same contradiction.

Pentagon insurgency

US Admiral William Fallon was forced out of his job as chief of the Pentagon's Central Command because he disagreed with George Bush's policy on Iran and Iraq. The Wall Street Journal ("The Pentagon vs. Petraeus") considers the problem --

A fateful debate is now taking place at the Pentagon that will determine the pace of U.S. military withdrawals for what remains of President Bush's term. Senior Pentagon officials -- including, we hear, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, Army Chief of Staff George Casey and Admiral Fallon -- have been urging deeper troop cuts in Iraq beyond the five "surge" combat brigades already scheduled for redeployment this summer.

Last month Mr. Gates agreed to a pause in these withdrawals, so that General David Petraeus could assess whether the impressive security gains achieved by the surge can be maintained with fewer troops. But now the Pentagon seems to be pushing for a pause of no more than four to six weeks before the drawdowns resume.

So everyone who ranks above Petraeus wants more withdrawals from Iraq as soon as possible. A tricky one for Bush who has always talked about listening to the generals, not one subordinate general. For the WSJ, the way forward is clear: Bush must overrule everyone who doesn't agree with him. And/or force them out of their jobs. It's a strange way to run a country.

Incidentally, the aforementioned Bob Gates was forced into at least one misleading statement at the news conference announcing that Fallon was out --

Q Did you discuss this with the president before you accepted it?
SEC. GATES: I had -- the president has made clear all along that these matters are to be handled strictly within the Department of Defense. I communicated -- the president's traveling today; I communicated this morning, through the national security adviser, what Admiral Fallon had informed me and what I intended to do.

By "these matters", Gates can only mean the specific business about offering to retire and it being accepted. The idea that Bush had no role in Fallon quitting, not least given what the WSJ says about the rampant disagreements within the Pentagon, is preposterous.

Tremble at the word of the Feds

Of all the possible aliases he could have picked from his acquaintances for his prostitution solicitation, why did Eliot Spitzer use "George Fox", the name of the founder of the Quakers?

UPDATE: One theory -- that Quakers are not guilt-ridden about sex. Slate's Tim Noah also notices the allusion.

Image source

Early adopters

It's true as a rule that Americans haven't embraced text messaging the same way as Europeans. But the criminal complaint that forms the basis of the Eliot Spitzer scandal shows, among other things, that the "classy" prostitution business is a text-message intensive operation.

With some dead people

Interesting phrasing from a US military spokesman going beyond their previous description of such events as (using the IRA term) "spectaculars" --

"We have some indicators that they may be planning on executing kind of a large media type event," said Major General John Kelly, commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force in western Iraq.

It likely indicates that the White House strategy for the inevitable upward spike in violence as the surge impact wears off will be to blame the media for covering it. Which was also their strategy before the surge.

Not bloody likely

George Bush -- The Vice President will be taking a very hopeful message to the Middle East ...

Photo source

The audacity of audacity

Bill Kristol's Monday New York Times column starts out as the same analysis he had been giving on Fox News earlier in the day but then descends into his fantasy presidential tickets, disguised as advice to John McCain --

Perhaps the most obvious way McCain could upend the normal dynamics of this year’s election would be a bold vice presidential choice. He could pick a hawkish and principled Democrat like Joe Lieberman. He could reach beyond the usual bevy of elected officials by tapping either David Petraeus or Raymond Odierno — the two generals who together, in an amazing demonstration of leadership and competence, turned the war in Iraq around last year. He could persuade the most impressive conservative in American public life, Clarence Thomas, to join the ticket. There are other unorthodox possibilities.

He grounds "advice" this in a quote from Danton -- another weird choice of quote, since as Wikipedia tells us:

Georges Danton (October 26, 1759 – April 5, 1794) was a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the First French Republic".[2] A moderating influence on the Jacobins, he was guillotined by the advocates of revolutionary terror after accusations of venality and leniency to the enemies of the Revolution.

What is about these neocons and leftist revolutionaries?

Can the Mark Ronson-produced album be far behind?

Young people move to Washington DC, share a house, and use the Internet a lot.

Apparently this is the epitome of style, judging by the prominence it gets in Sunday's New York Times.

Election catwalk

Two electorally chastened conservatives head to vote today -- the ever stylish Jose Maria Aznar and Sarko Junior (Jean), running for mayor in his dad's old fiefdom in the Paris suburbs.

Results due for both tonight. It's interesting that Aznar doesn't seem ready to leave the limelight, even though he's not the party leader anymore.

Photos from El Pais

There's still time to impeach him

In this morning's radio address explaining his veto of a bill that would ban waterboarding and other "alternative interrogation techniques" that other countries consider to be torture, George Bush said --

The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied. Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we've developed to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists. This would end an effective program that Congress authorized just over a year ago.

However, Bush also said that the program has been in place since soon after 9/11, well before the supposed Congressional authorization in 2006. By his own logic, the program was therefore operating without Congressional authorization for 5 years. One might think that the program was therefore illegal. But in Bush's mind, it's that Congress has no power to regulate his conduct of "war" in the first place. It's thus amazing that he even bothered to veto the bill, since even had he signed it, he has claimed the power to ignore it.

A little too earnest

Irish-born Samantha Power was due to appear in a RTE documentary called The Importance of Being Irish, a four-part celebration of the achievements of the Irish dispora. Presumably the spot has already been taped, although the series only begins to air during "St Patrick's Week". One wonders therefore how RTE will handle Power's loss of one of her job titles, as a foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama following the Scotsman's publication of her comment describing Hillary Clinton as a monster. Which, for someone who writes about genocide, is a strange comment to make.

Only one state has the blues

Andrew Sullivan cheers on an attempt by Barack Obama through a link to fellow Hillary-hater Mark Halperin, reproducing an Obama press release --

Today, the Obama campaign in Mississippi held a press conference calling on Senator Hillary Clinton to explain derogatory statements made about Mississippi.

In October, Senator Hillary Clinton told the Des Moines Register newspaper that “I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here…when you look at the numbers, how can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That’s not what I see. That’s not the quality. That’s not the communitarianism. That’s not the openness I see in Iowa.”

If this is "going on offense", God help Obama (and by extension, his boosters like Sully). Simple question: in which state, Iowa or Mississippi, would you rather live? Here's a table with median household income in every state in 2006. Mississippi is lowest. Iowa is respectable upper-middle. You could pull just about any economic or social outcome and the result would be the same.

There are multiple reasons for this. But one is the social ethos of Iowa, where there is a presumption that public services should be delivered for everybody. Mississippi spent most of its recent history excluding many people from those services. One might say that Iowa is "communitarian".

Perhaps Obama doesn't trust the economists who might have told him this, after the Goolsbee/NAFTA fiasco.

King of the slow learners

The Irish Times has a roundup of reflections on the career of Ian Paisley. It's an excellent cross-section and the remarks make for very different reading than the backslapping "tributes" from the likes of Bertie Ahern; indeed, signs that Unionists tired of the so-called Chuckle Brothers routine between Paisley and Martin McGuinness show that the person in the street has a bit more sophistication about these things than the suits at the top.

Anyway, the recurring feature of from the Irish Times roundup (subs. req'd) is the references to Sunningdale -- a deal on the table 3 decades before Good Friday implementation and not much different from it. But who blocked it? Ian Paisley. So --

David Trimble
Northern Ireland first minister, 1998 to 2001

One thing we can be sure of is that without Ian Paisley, there would have been a political settlement in Northern Ireland a generation earlier. And if Tony Blair had kept his promises to me at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, his (Paisley's) political demise would have come a decade ago.

Séamus Mallon
Deputy first minister to David Trimble

... Yes, he brought unionism into a powersharing arrangement with Sinn Féin, but to do that he had to destroy, as he had destroyed Terence O'Neill, as he destroyed Faulkner, as he destroyed Chichester Clarke - he had to destroy the unionist leader David Trimble. It tells you about the paradox of all this, that the creativity which he undoubtedly gave the political process in Northern Ireland in his later years was achieved as a result of the destructive element in his approach to politics and this type of political atavism which demanded absolute and total power.

Ruairi Ó Brádaigh
Former chief of staff of the IRA and currently president of Republican Sinn Féin

The great unanswered question before history is why did not Paisley, on the one hand, and the present Provo leadership, on the other, accept and work the Sunningdale agreement of 1973 which offered more and for which less was to be paid than the 1998 Belfast Agreement? Did we, as a people, have to endure 25 years more of sacrifice and suffering until both elements were poised to divide the major share of the spoils of office between them?

From their very different perspectives, they can see what Tony Blair can not --

The man famous for saying No will go down in history for saying Yes. He did so personally convinced it was right and in reaching that conviction, consigning to the past the feelings he once so trenchantly articulated.

That trenchant articulation made him the dominant figure in Unionism. Then he did the same deal that was available in 1974. So did Sinn Fein. Is it any wonder that people outside the self-congratulatory circle feel bitter?

AP Photo/Peter Morrison

Quitting his day job

John McCain mentioned several times during his endorsement by George Bush that he would be campaiging with Bush to the extent that Bush's "busy schedule" allowed.

Take a look at Bush's schedule for October 2004, the height of the last general election campaign season. Multiple election events in multiple states, every day. September was nearly as busy.

This was the period when Iraq was descending into the abyss. If ever he would have a busy schedule, that was it. So what is the Straight Talking Maverick^TM afraid of?

Belated election reaction

Hillary Clinton is now claiming credit for the Northern Ireland peace process. Perhaps she should show up with Bill to the Good Friday 10th anniversary observance.

And among the strange things about John McCain: you'd think someone who has run for elected office so many times would have his speaking technique sorted out by now. But take note the next time one of these addresses to a crowd is on TV -- who is McCain looking at as he speaks? Clinton, Obama, and Huckabee all have the standard eye-contact-with-crowd manner and they are good at it. McCain always seems to be looking into an upper corner of the room.

On the march along with freedom

George Bush, during a Q&A with Jordan's King Abdullah (who predictably wimped out on mentioning his previous criticism of Israel) --

He [King] also pointed out something which I knew, but I wasn't exactly sure how it was affecting his country, that there are roughly three-quarters of a million Iraqi citizens who have moved to Jordan.

The population of Jordan in 2003 was about 5 million, so having 750,000 refugees show up since then is a 15 percent increase in population -- and not an immigrant worker population, but victims of war.

But George Bush "isn't exactly sure" what effect that might have.

Trade barrier terrorists

George Bush has just said that if the US Congress fails to pass the US-Colombia free trade agreement, the FARC would be emboldened. This on the day when the FARC are being accused of hatching a dirty bomb plot, complete with shaky evidence of an attempted uranium purchase. No mention of Niger yet.

Bush also signalled his support for Colombian president Alvaro Uribe by saying that America stands with democratic leaders in the region -- apparently forgetting that Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa (President of Ecuador) are democratically elected. The GWOT template imposed on yet another complex situation.

Incidentally, lest any readers think we have much sympathy for the FARC, read this.

UPDATE: Bush laughably referred to "provocative maneuvers by the regime in Venezuela" when the cause of the current tension is a Colombian incursion on territory of Ecuador.

Contra Iran

Condi Rice has essentially admitted, in Cairo, that the US hatched a plan to subvert the election victory of Hamas by having our new friends Fatah mount an armed takeover in Gaza. Her justification was that if Iran smuggles weapons to Hamas, then the US gets to do some dodgy stuff as well.

Euro conservative

Apparel not likely to be seen on the US campaign trail anytime soon, especially on the Republican side: former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, defeated in the election following the 11-M bombings, campaigns for his party successor Mariano Rajoy sporting a pink V-neck and quite a mane to go with it. One wonders if his US neocon friends would interpret attention to casual style as a sign of weakness in the face of Islamo-fascism.

Photo: REUTERS/Eloy Alonso

The Iraq theory of relativity

We've had multiple central fronts in the War on Terror. We've had various decisive blows against al-Qaeda. Now the US military has come up several centers of al-Qaeda gravity: Baghdad, where the Surge was concentrated, but also northern Iraq, where the bad guys are concentrated --

"Mosul is the center of al-Qaida's terrorist activities today. Mosul is a critical crossroads for al-Qaida in Iraq. Baghdad has always been al-Qaida's operational center of gravity, but Mosul remains their strategic center of gravity as it provides access to the flow of foreign fighters," [US Navy Rear Admiral] Smith said.

Mosul is located at the locus of roads that connect Iraq with Syria to the west, Turkey to the north and Iran to the east. Many fighters smuggled in from Syria make their way through Mosul, where they can easily blend in with city's ethnically and religiously diverse population.

"It is their strategic center of gravity. One-half to two-thirds of attacks in Iraq today are in and around Mosul," Smith said.

Of course one problem with these centers of gravity is that the US attempts to chase them brings the opposite polarity (to botch the physics metaphors) and the centre of gravity moves. Does John McCain really think this futility will not be an issue in the November election?

Incidentally, the news story linked above has a little detail at the end symbolic of the quagmire. A US helicopter fired at teenagers digging at a roadside in the belief they were planting a bomb. They were looking for roots to burn as fuel. In oil rich Iraq.

Hoping he won't notice?

If Jordan's King Abdullah really believes that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is "a massacre" and "a violation of all international conventions", why doesn't he tell George Bush that on Tuesday when he meets him at the White House? Better still, why doesn't he say it in public if the visit includes the customary brief Q&A with reporters?

Blocking it out

It's not clear that the White House or State Department (with Condi Rice apparently still sticking blithely to the "peace process") really understand the impact of the latest Gaza crisis on public opinion in the Middle East. In particular, they don't seem to have thought about the implications of the fact that the media in the Middle East run far more graphic images of the aftermath of Israeli attacks (or wayward Hamas rockets) than anything that would be aired on western news outlets. 10 minutes of al-Jazeera and the front page of any Arab newspaper can be a stomach-churning experience.

Now, are they being "inflammatory"? Well, this stuff is actually happening. Arab fury might be more restrained if there was more outside acknowledgement of what is going on in Gaza.