Category Archives: Bush

Bush’s Freudian Faux Pas

It’s getting harder and harder for Bush to keep his ducks in a row and give the appearance that he isn’t lying. In addition to slight retardation, as Borat would say, could the above explain Bush’s accelerated stuttering and malapropisms?

Check the latest Bushism, reported by WorldNetDaily:

“While President Bush has insisted the immigration reform package he’s promoting in the Senate does not provide amnesty for illegal aliens, he made an apparent slip of the tongue today that suggested otherwise, catching the attention of the bill’s fervent opponents.

At a briefing today at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the president said: “You know, I’ve heard all the rhetoric – you’ve heard it, too – about how this is amnesty. Amnesty means that you’ve got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that.”

Updated: If Americans Were More Like Israelis…

Bush, Israel, War

If Americans were more like Israelis, Bush’s popularity at the polls would be at…0 percent. That’s where Ehud Olmert’s approval rate is among Israelis, said CNN today. Olmert’s position at the polls had hovered between 2 and 3 percent, before bottoming out.

The anger is over the Second Lebanon War last year. Israelis are furious not only over the execution of the war, but over the fact that it had been prosecuted at all. Whereas large segments of the fantasy-based community in the US see great benefits to the destabilization of Iraq, or at least so they say—Israelis in overwhelming numbers believe leveling Lebanon was a horrible thing to do. Oddly enough, here at home, harpies for Bush continue to talk up the Second Lebanon War, even though Israelis have long since disowned it and the president who prosecuted it. “You’ve failed; go home” is the rallying cry across Israel.

The Winograd Report on that war, unparalleled in the US, has placed “the primary responsibility for these failures on the Prime Minister, the minister of defense and the (outgoing) Chief of Staff. All three made a decisive personal contribution to these decisions and the way in which they were made.” What simple, clear truths, the kind that evade us in the US.

The preamble to the Winograd Report states:

“We believe Israeli society has great strength and resilience, with a robust sense of the justice of its being and of its achievements.”

I have to agree—all the more so given that four years hence and most Americans still refuse to process what Bush wrought by invading Iraq and how corrupt that endeavor was.

Update: Bush vetoed the Iraq War Supplemental today. I think it’s his first veto in office. He blamed “members of the House and the Senate” for passing “a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders. Contrast that with the Israeli Winograd Report which accused Olmert of “acting in effect as a rubber stamp for the army.” Funny that. In Israel they think the people, represented (allegedly) by the government and parliament, ought to make decisions; in the US we think it’s the generals (who, face it, give dumb a new meaning, if to judge by their acumen thus far).

Update II: The footage of 100,000 Israelis—of the left, right and center; religious and irreligious—gathered at Rabin Square to call on the government to resign warms the cockles. Author Meir Shalev derided the government thus:

“We do not seek compensation, not even remorse for your sins of lack of judgment, your arrogance. You ran headfirst into battle with the gaiety of fresh recruits, without a plan or an objective. You squandered Israel’s power of deterrence, you squandered our chances of bringing back the captives and worst of all – you squandered the lives of soldiers and civilians.”

They mention civilians! What will it take for conservative in this country to mention the poor, dying people of Iraq, upon which we’ve unleashed death and destruction, and who will probably never know peace again.

Anyone who has lived in, or visited, Israel knows that it is a country of independent-minded, anti-authoritarian, critical and demanding people. What can I say? Jews! Anyone who conflates the common American neocon with the regular Israeli has never encountered that odd creature, the Sabra, that prickly pair.

The assorted Hebrew signs read: “Failures, Go Home!”, “Elections Now!” These are all very tame, but things are sure to heat up…if I know Israel.

Updated: Bush Should Slither On His Belly to Bashar

Bush, Democrats, Iraq, Middle East

The White House is furious that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has traveled to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus. Assad is not the only Middle East leader Pelosi is speaking to. Omigod! Diplomacy!

Trust Pelosi to give as good as she gets; she has pointed to the hypocrisy of the administration, having said nothing about the “the recent visits by Republican members of Congress.” The U.S. also participated “in a regional security conference in Baghdad last month that also included representatives from Iran and Syria.”

But here’s the real difficulty, as the press sees it: “The United States has poor relations with Syria, accusing it of interfering in Iraq.” Come to think of it, Bush, like the snake he is, should be slithering on his belly to Bashar to thank him for serving as the US’s pressure relief valve vis-a -vis Iraq.

Although the cable cretins don’t bother to report about them, and the administration smears reporters who try —millions of Iraqis have been displaced and uprooted in the aftermath of our invasion. Syria has been incredibly generous to these poor refugees. Together, Jordan and Syria have taken in 1.6 million fleeing Iraqi refugees. “On 20 October, Ron Redmond, UNHCR chief spokesman, said some 40,000 Iraqis are now arriving in Syria each month.” Take into account that these figures date back to October 2006.

Pelosi ought to thank the Syrian president for extending to the Iraqi refugees the use of its public schools and the health care system, although they “have to travel out of the country every six months to renew their visas and cannot hold work permits, resulting in high unemployment.” [I’m sure they don’t risk popping back to Iraq when visa renewal falls due, despite McCain’s assurances.]

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) reports that “the majority of Iraqi refugees in Syria live in the suburbs of Damascus, in deteriorating socio-economic conditions.” That’s where Pelosi should be headed.

Update: Of course, American interests in the Middle East are not to be conflated with Israel’s. The two countries have completely different interests in the region (the one “lives” there, so to speak; the other often makes life impossible for those who live there). The fact that Bush should be speaking to Bashar doesn’t mean that Israel ought to be doing the same. Israel would be in better shape if it didn’t aim above all to please or emulate the US. Syria wants Israel to return territory acquired due to Syria’s aggression. Israel should reject this “option” if it cares to survive. However, time and again Israel has shown that it is no more than an American satellite.

Further reading:

From Russia With (Less Than) Love

Who’s the Boss — Israel or the U.S.?

Slouching Towards Socialism

Bush, Socialism

“Bully for Bush. The president has achieved another milestone in his mission to bridge the philosophical gap between conservatism and left-liberalism. ‘The Decider’ recently endorsed the socialist concept of a wealth gap, and promised to do his level best to level the playing field through the familiar distribution schemes…””A more meaningful measure of economic health is the ability to afford basic necessities: food, housing, clothing, hygiene, health care, telephone and transportation, to use the Fraser Institute’s gauge. More crucially, the freer a society, the less likely government is to placate the envious by taking from those they envy. In unfree societies, that’s precisely what governments do: pacify the multitudes by mulcting the few…”

“Whether he is addressing the ‘wealth gap,’ galvanizing government to ‘create jobs’; capitulating to climate-change crazies or rabbiting on about renewable energy —Bush just cannot tell his left from his right.”The excerpts are from my new column, “Slouching Toward Socialism.” It leads the Commentary Page on WorldNetDaily today. Discuss.