The Decider

When the going gets tough, George W. Bush digs deeper into the cocoon of ignoramous conservative journalism, hunkering down for a lengthy chat with die-hard administration loyalists from inside the print media universe. As Mike Crowley notes, you can't get this much raw transcript of Bush without a good dose of hilarity. You also can't get this much Bush without noticing that, like Rick Santorum, the President of the United States is conducting national security policy under conditions of truly frightening ignorance and dangerous analytic errors.

Here's Bush on the Israel-Lebanon War: "Iran empowered Hezbollah, Hezbollah takes the attack, and – which creates an interesting dynamic, and it gives us an opportunity to fashion kind of – an alliance of reasonable people headed toward a clash – all kinds of different ways, by the way – with extremists and radicals." It's easy to get distracted by the fact that Bush doesn't seem familiar with the English language and miss the fact that beneath the garbled syntax Bush is making a clear -- and utterly incorrect -- factual claim here that the upshot of the war was to cement an alliance between the United States, Israel, and moderate forces in the Arab world.

He calls John Abizaid "one of the great thinkers" and attributes to him "this construct: If we leave, they will follow us here . . . As a matter of fact, they'll be more emboldened to come after us. They will be able to find more recruits to come after us." He seems unaware that his National Intelligence Council has concluded the reverse (IISS in London, too, along with, I think, just about everyone). In a hilarious reprise of his earlier Lebanon remarks he enjoins the government of Syria: "do not destabilize Siniora . . . helping the Siniora government is in this country's interests and it's a priority." We, um, had our local proxy ally strangle the Lebanese economy and launch airstrikes against its basic infrastructure and military facilities, but stabilizing the government there is a priority?

It goes on and on like this. The President, it seems to me, entered office in January 2000 utterly ignorant of foreign affairs and has spent the past six years filling in the blanks with pleasant illusions and straight-up misinformation.

10/27/06 9:56AM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Simplistic thinking is its own reward.

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on October 27, 2006 10:53 AM

Yeesh. I thought it was bad under Reagan, who several years into his term, indicated that he believed that nuclear missiles, once launched, could be recalled in mid-flight.

Posted by: FMguru on October 27, 2006 10:56 AM

He never said he was The Thinker.

Posted by: dynamicinfo on October 27, 2006 12:08 PM

January 2001, the election was in november 2000.
Other than that, I agree.

Posted by: Travis on October 27, 2006 12:30 PM

This stuff has entertainment value, to be sure, but anyone to whom Incurious George's bone-ignorant simplemindedness might possibly matter has long since absorbed the lesson. The sheer mass of people for whom it is, at best, irrelevant, and, at worst, a positive strength, remains depressing to contemplate.

Posted by: CJColucci on October 27, 2006 12:32 PM

"The President, it seems to me, entered office in January 2000 utterly ignorant of foreign affairs and has spent the past six years filling in the blanks with pleasant illusions and straight-up misinformation."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Actually I think Bush entered LIFE doing pretty much the above.

Posted by: steve duncan on October 27, 2006 12:36 PM

Bush reminds of the way my 15-year old talks when he tries to explain something that he doesn't really understand. As he speaks his subconscious realizes that doesn't know how to bring his sentence to a conclusion, so he interrupts himself with irrelevant interpolations, and by the time he gets back to the sentence he's sufficiently lost touch with the beginning that he can bring it to a close without having permitted himself to understand that what he's just said makes no coherent sense at all.

Posted by: JR on October 27, 2006 01:24 PM

"We, um, had our local proxy ally strangle the Lebanese economy and launch airstrikes against its basic infrastructure and military facilities

I smell a little too much of the Chomsky cool-aid in this one. I would imagine that the evidence that the United States government directed the Israel-Lebanon war, assuming it exists at all, is pretty thin. Seems to me we spent our time sitting around in uncomfortable silence. And surely that silence was uncomfortable--as a student, if not proponent, of realist foreign policy, MY, surely you agree that it wasn't in America's best interests to support this war, let alone orchestrate it.

Posted by: DJ Ninja on October 27, 2006 03:15 PM

While Bush blathers, those less addled (and fatter) than he are still mixing politics and foreign policy. Although we're going right down to the wire on Iran and that October Surprise thing, remember -- the month is not over till the Fat Man sings. Naval exercises in Persian Gulf on October 31st. Honest to God. October surprise as Halloween nightmare? It couldn't possibly happen, could it? Can you spell LBJ?

Posted by: Madison Guy on October 27, 2006 03:35 PM

DJ, I'm sure MY would agree that America's interests weren't served by that war. But Bushco sure as hell thought they would be. They thought Hezbollah would be dismantled if we just let Israel off the leash for a couple of weeks. Didn't make any bones about it, either.

Posted by: SqueakyRat on October 27, 2006 07:46 PM

But Matt is the charade of Bush really being the actual 'decider' not completely, totally, irreversibly destroyed at this point? He doesn't understand things, he has things understood for him (by Cheney and Rumsfeld).

I'm actually pretty shocked they even let him do these puff puff interviews, as he really lets his guard down and shows that he's obviously either ill or on some kind of heavy medication.

I am fairly certain that Bush would resign rather than face impeachment.

Posted by: Murph on October 27, 2006 08:22 PM

I am fairly certain that Bush would resign rather than face impeachment.

Only if conviction looked likely (which it isn't). Otherwise it's just another assault by reality on Bush's delusions, which is about as uneven a contest as possible.

Posted by: jimBOB on October 28, 2006 03:35 AM

I hope that Abizaid isn't too dumb to be able to count. Let's see. Just how many "terrorists" does it take to keep the US military pinned down in Iraq? Most of those doing the pinning down are not terrorists who would come to the US, but instead sectarian militia engaged in a civil war in which the US military is mired. And just how many terrorists were required on 9/11? Nineteen or twenty?

The idea that the US is fighting them there (in Iraq) so that the US doesn't have to fight them here (in the US) is dumb as heck.

Posted by: raj on October 28, 2006 09:00 AM

Assuming that there was a liberal media bias, we didn't believe the media, even though they were correct. The obvious solution, now that the media is vindicated and we were proven wrong, is to correct the liberal media bias which, as I just stated, only existed in our imaginations

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