Month: July 2006

The old misdirection: As the rockets continue to fall on Israel and the Israelis continue to bomb Lebanon back into the Stone Age, Bushco’s mouthpieces continue to yammer on about something called a “sustainable cease-fire” as opposed, apparently, to a “cease-fire.” Indeed, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said she would not engage in shuttle diplomacy or even get down to brass tacks with leaders of the region until a “sustainable cease-fire” was in place.

Here’s how Bush meat puppet Tony Snow not-so-eloquently explained the Bushco position yesterday at a White House press briefing:

Q: On Lebanon, there seems to be two tracks that have emerged. There are those calling for an immediate cease-fire; there are those calling for a sustainable cease-fire. And the sustainable camp says there’s a risk — if you just call for an immediate, you’ll be back here in three weeks or three months. Isn’t it worth the risk if you stop innocent Israelis and Lebanese from being killed; isn’t it worth taking that risk while you try to bang out something more sustainable?

So the sustainable cease-fire is one that is not going to enable Hezbollah to declare victory, but instead will allow the people of Lebanon to look forward to peace and prosperity.

MR. SNOW: The question is whether that’s a fool’s errand, Jim. The idea that you suspend — number one, there’s a notion that somehow both sides are going to suspend, and we remain deeply skeptical that Hezbollah is going to abide by any such agreement. But the more important thing is, sustainable really does matter, because as we’ve seen in some places, if you allow terrorists to proclaim victory and to continue to take root within a country, you actually encourage further misbehavior. There’s no place on the record where as a result of a negotiation a terrorist organization has said, okay, we give up, great treaty.

So instead I think the most important thing is to put into place conditions where you’ll have a sustainable cease-fire. What does that mean? It means that Hezbollah not only returns the soldiers, not only returns the rockets, but either decides or lacks the capability to weaken the government of Lebanon by operating independently of that government and serving as a rogue force that is capable of not only seizing territory, destabilizing within Lebanon, threatening the Lebanese government, threatening the Lebanese people, but also threatening the peace of the region.

So the sustainable cease-fire is one that is not going to enable Hezbollah to declare victory, but instead will allow the people of Lebanon to look forward to peace and prosperity.

Go ahead.

Q: If you — I don’t think there’s any disagreement about the goal, even the folks calling for an immediate cease-fire want to see something sustainable. The point is, what do you do in the interim — this risk everyone is talking about, that you could be back there in three weeks? So what? So you’re back there in two weeks. In the meantime, you’ve had three weeks less of —

MR. SNOW: No, you’re assuming that there are three peaceful weeks. And I’m not going to take out the crystal ball. I’m telling you what our position is, which is —

Q: About your position, though, if they’re not peaceful weeks, doesn’t that, in some way, also insulate the administration, the Israelis from criticism from people saying that response is disproportionate. Doesn’t that improve and strengthen your position to say, hey, we tried it, we called for it, and it didn’t happen?

MR. SNOW: I don’t think continued civilian deaths strengthens anybody’s position. What you’re saying is if there are further civilian casualties, it strengthens our position from a debating point of view.

Q: (Inaudible.)

MR. SNOW: Well, no, that is — no, that is if you call for a cease-fire that is unenforceable, that is not enforced and people suffer, that is the practical consequence. The point is, there’s no give on this. The United States believes in a sustainable cease-fire. Secretary Rice is in the region talking about it. She had a very good meeting today with key leaders in Lebanon and they talked about that. They also talked about humanitarian assistance and a number of other topics.

So I think the notion that you have a cease-fire that, at this point, is unenforceable, does not really get us to the point we need to be at. You do not want to give — you simply don’t want to go there.

The “sustainable cease-fire” is a red herring. It’s not a viable political goal given the way Bushco has defined it — Hezbollah giving up its rockets and basically ceasing to exist, rather than just agreeing to not fire its rockets at Israel, which would just be a “cease-fire.” By insisting on an outcome that is not realistic, Bushco can continue to back Israel in its excessive counter-offensive and continue to supply the very weaponry with which the Israelis are blowing Lebanon back to the Old Testament.

Now we’re going in with googobs of humanitarian aid for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese, so we’re actually the heroes and we could broker a peace deal if only there was a “sustainable cease-fire.” This is what passes for the foreign policy of an administration for which “surprise visits” equal diplomacy.

Point is, Bushco doesn’t much care what happens to Lebanon as long as Iran and Syria get the unequivocal message that unless they want to join their Lebanese neighbors in the Pleistocene Era, they’d better reign in Hezbollah and stop striving for political ascendency in the Middle East.

Time Magazine:

The Bush Administration’s message went through a dramatic evolution over the weekend. Last Friday, describing her upcoming mission to the Middle East, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said dismissively, “I can guarantee you, if you simply look for a ceasefire that acknowledges and freezes the status quo ante, we will be back here in six months again or in five months or in nine months or in a year, trying to get another ceasefire because HIzballah will have decided yet again to try and to use southern Lebanon as a sanctuary to fire against Israel.”

But on Sunday, as Rice’s U.S .Air Force 757 headed for the Middle East, she told reporters, “We believe that a ceasefire is urgent.”

So what changed? Officially nothing, most notably the U.S. position. Rice said that her own idea of a ceasefire involved “a cessation of hostilities that is going to last…The south [of Lebanon] can’t be a kind of haven for [Hizballah] to launch attacks.”

What doesn’t seem to matter is the fact that hundreds of innocent citizens are being killed on both sides. Shouldn’t Bush and Condi at least pretend to care about civilian casualities?

Numbskull nation: A new Harris poll disproves the theory of evolution — we are not progressing as a species toward some perfect form of homo sapien. Instead, we are devolving into hulking lunks without the ability to discern between truth and obvious Republican spinmeistery. How else explain today’s PollTrack from National Journal?

Despite conclusive reports that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led war, a new survey reveals that a substantial — and growing — portion of the American public believes otherwise.

Half of respondents to a new Harris poll said they believed the statement “Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded” was true. That’s a dramatic jump from the last time Harris pollsters asked the question in February 2005, when just 36 percent said the statement was true.

More than seven in 10 said Iraqis are “better off” now than in the Saddam era.

Sixty-four percent also said that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had strong ties to al-Qaida, the same percentage that deemed the statement true last February. More than seven in 10 said Iraqis are “better off” now than in the Saddam era.

Numbers on the success of the war, however, have dipped significantly since last winter. Just 55 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “History will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.” That’s down nine points since the February poll.

Majorities agreed with other statements showing concern about domestic security with respect to the war overseas, with most respondents saying the war has “motivated more Islamic terrorists” to attack the United States and that “spending huge sums of money” in Iraq means fewer resources are available to protect the homefront. Nearly seven in 10 said the war made their country less respected internationally.

From Fox News, so you know it’s true:

Bush expresses amazement that it will take some leaders as many as eight hours to fly home — about the same time it will take Air Force One with Bush aboard to return to Washington.

“You eight hours? Me, too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country,” Bush said, at one point telling a waiter he wanted Diet Coke. “Takes him eight hours to fly home. Russia’s big and so is China. Yeah Blair, what’re you doing? Are you leaving.”

Later, he says to his host, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin:

A stickler for keeping to his schedule, Bush could also be heard telling Russian President Vladimir Putin, “We’ve got to keep this thing moving. I have to leave at 2:15. They want me out of town so to free up your security forces.”

We can surmise that Bush needed to get back to his gym at the White House to work on his abs.

William F. Buckley was the face of East Coast establishment conservativism back in the day. Now Buckley, who founded the National Review in 1955, is suggesting that Pres. Bush should resign:

“If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign,” Buckley says.

Where did the president go wrong? According to Buckley, George Bush has not been conservative enough:

“I think Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology — with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress,” Buckley says. “And in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge.”

But what about the legacy of the man we call the Worst President Ever? Buckley whiff it, saying the view of future historians toward President Bush’s tenure in office is unclear:

“There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don’t believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable.”