McCain is now officially Bush backed.
If “bad to the bone” Bush, the man who destroyed the GOP—the political instantiation of the conservative movement—says McCain is a “true conservative,” then he must be, right?
How will conservatives reconcile this endorsement from hell?
Haven’t they generally given Bush a pass, and faithfully touted him as the real deal?
A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s dormant nuclear program confirms the following:
* If a Pinocchio proboscis that grew with each lie uttered was a feature on the faces of political leaders, the Cheney-Bush-Rice gang would put the Ahmadinejad-Hussein knaves to shame in the nose department.
* The Intelligence community has been somewhat deterred by its failures in Iraq; not so the brazen Bush Administration.
* Since the Iranians halted their weapons program well before this latest unjust round of sanctions, economic punitive measures penalizing all Iranians seem more unjust than ever, to say nothing of futile.
* Americans remain criminally clueless about the Arab mentality and culture: Since national pride and honor are at stake, Arab leaders would sooner lie and claim to have the know-how to manufacture WMD, than admit to lacking it. Therefore, when habitual blowhards such as Saddam and Mad Mahmoud tone down their truculence and confess to having no weapons, they’re probably being truthful because truly terrified of an American invasion.
* Hillary has been a hawk on Iran except when the political expediency of the campaign has dictated otherwise. The new intelligence discredits the Democratic frontrunner—and all the GOP candidates bar Ron Paul.
Update #I: I just KNEW someone would take issue with my tagging of the Iranian leadership as typifying the Arab mentality. Everyone knows Ancient Persia was not Arab and that the Iranians are descendants of a medley of non-Arab people. However, since the Islamic conquest, the place has gone the way all places under Islam have gone—to the dogs.
With respect to more recent developments, I’ve written this on BAB: “Reza Shah and son hated Arab culture and identified themselves completely with pre-Islamic Persia. Not so the clerics who came to power after the Islamic revolution in 1979; they endeavored to expunge the Achaemenids, the Sassanids, and Zoroastrianism from Iran’s historical memory. To Islamists, history begins with Mohammad and his exploits; all that went before doesn’t count.
Shortly after the revolution, Islamic mobs in Iran tried to Talibanize Cyrus’s tomb. Persian names were changed to Islamic names, and references to the Achaemenid kings were banned on the state broadcaster. In post-revolutionary Iran, children were no longer named Darius or Cyrus (but Mo and Hussein, like one presidential candidate).”
In any event, I’m sticking with the “Arab-mentality” appellation for Iran’s leadership. It fits.
Update # II (Dec. 5): The neocons are still in power among the punditocracy. Their adherents are hanging on for dear life too. Not that they’ve been truly challenged; reality doesn’t seem to interfere with hereditary rights in American media. Still, I thought that by now they’d have the decency and sense to steer clear of the “left-liberal” libel when it comes to my views—and certainly not expect to be hosted on my blog. Alas, hubris is another of their distinguishing trademarks.
Libel aside, I’m extremely cautious about Iran, but I’d like to see other powers do the heavy lifting—let Israel take care of itself. The IAEA is a good option too, so long as an American president doesn’t kick them out of the inspected region to start a war.
Here are my pieces on the “Persian Pussycat”:
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.”
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.