Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Embarrassing Us All, As Usual

by digby

Reader RM translated the first part of Bush’s German magazine interview for your reading pleasure. Try to keep your eyes from rolling back in your head. He mentions once again that he knows nothing about the carpet, leaving out the fascinating detail that he “delegated” the chore of picking it out to Laura. I do not know why he finds this story so interesting.

“This Office is the Shrine of Democracy”

BILD and BILD am SONTAG in the White House! For 45 minutes the most powerful man of the world took the questions of BamS publisher and BILD editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann.

But the president didn’t only give a big interview – he also led us personally through most famous office of the world: the Oval Office!

Washington, 2 o’clock local time. The creme door opens. US President George W. Bush greets BILD head Kai Diekmann and BILD second Jörg Quoos with a firm handshake.

Bush wears a dark-blue suit with thin brown stripes, a light blue shirt, a blue-striped tie. On the reverse: a pin with the US flag, also the dial of the simple golden clock shows the flag.

The Oval Office is classically, simply furnished. Before the fire-place two striped armchairs, next to them two creme sofas, a dark wooden living room table.

Bright sunlight falls through the low-earth(?) bullet-proof glass panes, through which the president can look into the enormous garden of the White House.

Bush points at the crème-colored carpet woven with the US coat of arms, and says laughing: “I have no inkling about carpets.

In order to be a successful president, you must constantly think strategically. And therefore I said to my wife: You select the colors, you are responsible for the policy, but I want the carpet to spread optimism. Here lay the results. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Then the president points to the slightly curved wall, on which oil paintings with Texas motif landscapes hang. “They reflect the lifestyle and viewpoint of a Texan.”

Bushs view falls on the large portrait of George Washington over the white fireplace. It shows the first President of the USA as a rider. Bush: “I read three or four books about him in the last year. Isn’t it interesting that they still analyze the presidency of George
Washington?”

Then he adds thoughtfully: “you never know as a president, how your history will be written – until after your departure. Therefore presidents should not think about their historical image. You must do what you consider correct! And if you think in categories that are large enough, history at the end will show whether you were right or wrong.”

The president points to a smaller picture showing Abraham Lincoln: “I think, he was the most influential president of all times.

In the middle of civil war, in which Americans killed Americans, he had the vision of the United States. It is even conceivable that this country at the end would have disintegrated into two states, if he had not had this clear vision.”

Bush explains, moved, what this office means to him. “It is a shrine of democracy. This room is respected and esteemed, because the office of the President is larger than the person who holds the office.

Some presidents forget that they are not larger than their office. But all presidents must always respect their office and remember that it is their holy obligation to maintain the honour of the presidency.”

Suddenly Bush stops and says very seriously:

“I know that in parts of Europe some make fun of my beliefs! That does not disturb me. But for me personally faith is a way to guarantee that my moral concepts remain intact.”

“While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. ‘Did you meet with any of them?’ I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. ‘No, I didn’t meet with any of them,’ he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. ‘I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’

‘What was her answer?’ I wonder.

‘Please,’ Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, ‘don’t kill me.'”

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There’s Something Truly You-Know-What About This Story

by tristero

Bush claims he caught a 7 1/2 pound perch* in his very own lake.

Yeah, right. Gotta picture? But just for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s true (but see below). He really did catch that large a fish and that was his happiest moment in five years. Does he realize what this says about him and his presidency?

With all the daily opportunities available to do such good for your fellow country-folk, and the world, the only thing Bush specifically mentioned that made him happy is catching a big fish. In his own lake. Which could very well be deliberately stocked with big fish.

There are, imo, only three ways to understand this comment, assuming it’s true. Quite possibly it’s the pathetic whine of a deeply, perhaps clinically. depressed man who believes himself a total failure. Or maybe this is a man so uninterested in his job, let alone in serving his country, that he has no business whatsoever being president. Or perhaps this is simply an arrogant bastard who holds in utter contempt anyone who dares to ask him a question, so he responds with the stupidest thing he can say. (Obviously, nothing precludes all three or some combination of two.)

To be all pre-emptive about it, someone’s bound to comment that maybe this just shows how much of a down-to-earth regular guy Bush is. Yeah? All the down-to-earth regular guys I know don’t have their own lake, fer chrissakes. Those people are filthy rich, even if they wear jeans on their estates. But there’s a character thing here, too. The down-to-earth people I know who hold important jobs are mighty proud of of what they do and mighty happy with their achievements. And they can tick them off without thinking too hard about what they might be. And, even as a joke, they don’t talk about catching a big perch when a newspaper asks them to name their best moment in more than five years. They name their accomplishments. Or, if they’re trying to play up the down-to-earthiness, they name their children or something they did with their spouse.

Oh, by the way, check this out. Turns out the BBC also has an article about the same Bild am Sonntag story. Here is more of what the president of the United States said to the German press:

In a more serious moment, he said he understood German opposition to the war in Iraq.

“The Germans today simply don’t like war… And I can understand that.

“There is a generation of people whose lives were thrown into complete disarray by a horrible war.”

It’s sad, isn’t it? I count at least two reasons weep your eyes out after reading this.

First of all, who knew? The Germans today simply don’t like war. Unlike we Americans, who still really, really dig war. That poor, traumatized country. They have no idea all the good times they’re missing.

But more importantly, we have a president who actually said to a German newspaper, “The Germans today simply don’t like war…” That’s why everyone I know who travels abroad makes a point of telling the people they meet within twenty seconds that they didn’t vote for George W. Bush, ever. I’m far from ashamed to be an American, but I’m thoroughly ashamed that this malicious moron is the leader of my country.

(And let’s pass over in silence that the generation thrown into complete disarray is retired. Or that that horrible war, unlike the pretty good war in Iraq, was in fact started by the Germans).

But we digress. Let’s get back, shall we, to whether or not we should believe Bush actually caught a perch weighing 7.5 pounds. (See update at the *) I’d like to caveat this by saying I am not a fisherman, so if I’m wrong, please correct me.

It is true: the perch record in Texas is for a 12 pound 1 ounce Nile Perch caught in 1980, . But I gather that’s very small, actually, for a Nile Perch (the fish itself is, via its introduction where it’s not supposed to be, a textbook example of an ecological disaster). So if Bush caught a Nile Perch in his own lake, that is nothing to brag about.

But here may be the smoking fish. According to this link of perch fishing records, which goes to 2003, the heaviest perch officially caught in the US (besides the Nile mentioned above) was a Sacramento Perch from 1971 weighing 4 pounds, nine ounces.

LIke I said, I don’t know enough about fishing to know whether I’ve been swimming up the wrong stream. But even if I”m way wrong, I wanna see a photo of this fish Bush is all boasting about catching all over the world.

One last thing: A long time ago, when the country was led by a qualified and patriotic American, Candidate George W. Bush memorably said, “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”

Well, if you believe the president’s latest fish tale, apparently not.

Hat tip to Peter Daou.

[Edited slightly after original posting.]

[UPDATE: More proof that Bush never did believe that human beings and fish could peacefully coexist. Check it out:

A story on the front page of today’s paper reports that “the Bush administration proposes to roll back ‘critical habitat’ for the ever-declining salmon and steelhead trout by 90%. Developers applaud the plan.” Who on earth could possibly think this is a good idea? Do millions of Bush supporters have some personal vendetta against fish? Does Bush have something against fish? Like I said, it’s a mystery. I don’t understand the country or the times that I’m living in.

]

Update: Digby here, rudely horning in on tristero’s post.

Julia from Sisyphus Shrugged emailed me with this little gem from January of 2003:

THE PRESIDENT: This is pretty good (inaudible) in there.

Q Is this man-made, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Man-made.

Q How many acres?

THE PRESIDENT: About 11 acres lake, 17 foot deep. The deepest spot, I put 600 black bass in there a few years ago, and about 30,000 bait fish. And they’re about two-and-a-half to three pounds now. A bad time to fish, because the fish are lethargic during the cold. We’ve got blue gill and shad and perch.

*[UPDATE: According to Salon, it was a large-mouthed bass. According to the commenters to this post, catching a 7 1/2 pound bass in an artificial lake stocked with bass is not a big deal. A few points:

1. I still wanna see a pic of that fish before I’ll believe it.

2. One of the trackbacks informs us that Bush was laughing when he boasted of this. As if that makes it any less bizarre a statement – that’s just the old “I’m jes’ regular folks” nonsense Bush pulls, to distract people from the fact that he’s a rich prick who has an artificial lake stocked with sport fishes on his private estate.

On the other hand, Salon also reports that Bush feels that part of the toughest moment of the past five years was trying to “be empathetic for those who had lost lives.” I believe that. Bush has always had problems empathizing with people and I’m sure it was real tough for him to try to do that.

3. Notice, in Digby’s update to this post that Bush is quite specific about the number of Bass and bait fish added to his pond. He is also clear and his thinking is organized. A far contrast to when he is talking about taxes or anything connected with the job of being president. Fishing: Bush really cares about that and pays attention.

4. The translation issue here is a minor one – in fact, obviously the whole thing is trivial when measured against the monstrous problems Bush has created and lied about. But it does highlight how important language fluency is, and that reminds me, again, that those who don’t speak Arabic or Persian well have no business passing themselves off as experts on the Middle East. They may be knowledgeable about US foreign policy towards the Middle East, but they are in no better position to make specific reccomendations about what to do than I am. They really don’t know what they are dealing with, only how the US has dealt with the Middle East, which is a very different matter.]

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“Real Conservatism Has Never Been Tried”

by digby

That has a kind of familiar ring to it doesn’t it? Get used to this new permutation of a very old trope. It’s about to enter the lexicon. Predictably, like the Trotskyites about whom the fathers of the modern conservative movement obsessed, (and the fathers of the neocons were) the modern conservatives are reaching the point at which that sad rationalization is all they have to hang on to.

There is a very interesting discussion taking place all over the left blogosphere about how the conservatives have discovered that the entire Republican establishment, particularly the George W. Bush administration, are liberals. Glenn Greenwald has been directly taking on Jonah Goldberg on this subject (which is something like my cat “taking on” his toy mouse), Hunter at DKos has written a lengthy and fascinating explication of the process, and Kevin Drum, in a different vein, discusses political Lysenkoism as the consequence of conservative loyalty over policy.

Those who have been reading this blog for a while know that I’ve been talking about this for some time as well (here, here and here) as has my pal Rick Perlstein, an expert on the conservative movement, who went into the belly of the beast last fall and talked about it right in front of the grand poohbahs of the conservative movement. (An academic version of the Colbert Miracle, IMO.)

This has been percolating for a while, but is now exploding in full effect as the fog of 9/11 lifts and Bush’s failure becomes manifestly obvious to the vast majority of Americans, including many who voted for him.

This is still a work in progress. The “L” word is being hurled about willy-nilly at anyone who looks at a self-described “conservative” sideways these days, especially fellow conservatives.

Going back to the days when the it failed to back up the Committee For A Present Danger predictions that the Soviets were planning to kill all of us in our beds any day now, the CIA has been seen by the Cheney cabal as a determinedly cowardly bunch of liberal elites who refused to see the true dangers lurking in the world — a problem they were determined to finally fix by naming loyal GOP hack Porter “Brownie” Goss to purge the institution of all non-believers. (Never mind the fact that while the CIA was often wrong — the Cheney cabal and the neecons were never, ever right.)

“The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,” said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. “Goss was given instructions … to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president’s agenda.”

And how about those retired generals who spoke out against Rumsfeld? As Rhandi Rhodes said, they are all a bunch of acid loving hippies:

Nothing inspires liberals in the press more than the opportunity to glorify liberals in uniform. Conservative military or ex-military types are just jingoistic hacks. But those critical of the military in general or of the Iraq War qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize or Time’s Man of the Year.

“Liberal” you see, is the all purpose epithet used to insult anyone who crosses a self identified conservative — no matter what their politics. It is a particular fighting word when used against people who consider also themselves conservatives. (Remember how fiesty Bush go when McCain “dared” to compare him to Clinton?)

As we all know, conservatism itself cannot fail. It can only be failed. And it isn’t just the mediocre conservatives think tank intellectuals who believe this. Here’s a commmenter on the blog Parapundit writing about Bush and the US Military:

It would still be possible to win if Junior was willing to brutally prosecute the war, as Roosevelt or Truman would have done. It is clear now that Shrub is way too liberal for that. It is not clear if he could have gotten away with it even if he was not a modern liberal. It is not clear if US Army is capable of prosecuting a brutal war now (but Marines probably could do it), way too many officers are squishy liberals in various stages.

This is a version of my father’s favorite Vietnam War rant, taken one step further. He never blamed the military — he said they’d had their hands tied behind their backs and should have been allowed to bomb the Viet Kong back to the stone age. Now the conventional wisdom is that the Army has been infiltrated with cowardly liberals who couldn’t prosecute a real war if they had to.

(Notice too that Truman and Roosevelt are much less liberal than Bush. But then they are seen by history as successes and that means they can’t actually be liberals.)

Today, the CIA is crawling with liberals. The military is crawling with liberals. The Bush administration itself is nothing but a bunch of liberals as must be the GOP congress since they signed off on everything Bush has proposed. The media are, needless to say, nothing but squishy liberals.

The country is going to hell in a handbasket. The president and the congress and all their policies are dramatically unpopular. This, then, is just further proof of the failure of liberalism.

The only thing that can save us is conservatism.

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Spinning Class

By digby

Referring to Laura Rozen’s provocative post (linked below) Kevin Drum wonders what’s up with the press corps. Why are they buying this pile of sliced and diced baloney?

Two words: Tony Snow.

They are giving him “the benefit of the doubt.” He’s a nice guy. They are establishing a new relationship — it wouldn’t be nice to be skeptical of him before he’s even had a chance to prove them wrong.

Snow knows exactly how to feed the cocktail weenies to the little baby birds waiting to be fed pre-masticated explanations that they can say are “insider” scoops.

Tony Snow was Linda Tripp’s good friend. He put her in touch with Lucianne Goldberg. He’s a member of the club.

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That’s The Ticket

by digby

Laura Rozen raises all the right questions about this Porter Goss snowjob. I too found it a bit hard to swallow that the reason he was forced out was because of his fierce loyalty to the CIA in his turf wars with Negroponte. His rep was just the opposite — he was a wrecking crew at langley. It’s possible that both could be true, but Rozen points out all the reasons for skepticism, and there are a lot of them:

So then he was forced out on very short notice? No notification to the House Intelligence committee? Not a single newspaper report in the past few months about the tension between Goss and Negroponte? (Indeed check out the recent coverage about Congressional raised eyebrows over the empire Negroponte is building, and his alleged visits to a fancy DC club for swim and cigar breaks). On the contrary, can anyone remember a single article about Goss fighting for his folks at the Agency?

I don’t. Much of the operative camp of the Agency perceived Goss as a political enforcer, someone who wasn’t just not looking out for them, but who almost leaned towards suspicion of them, someone who was rather passive and out of touch and who delegated day to day affairs to his staff, “the Gosslings,” led by the fiercely partisan Patrick Murray. I don’t believe I have ever heard from people in that world a sense that Goss was looking out for them or the Agency, and not seen a single article where anyone ever suggested that. The newspaper coverage has suggested rather that a lot of the experienced bench strength cadre at the Agency had left in fights with Goss and his staff during his rocky tenure, and that the Agency had never been more demoralized. So all that time, during all those departures, Goss was covertly fighting for his folks against the new intel reorganization? He was a misunderstood champion of the Agency?

Does something about this story line that Goss suddenly left because of his long-standing tension with Negroponte, his fraternity brother from Yale, over Goss fighting to hold CIA turf seem a bit canned to you?

(More…)

Yeah. With botulism inside. I suspect this is Snow taking out his new toy for a spin — and the press corps, thrilled to give the Bush administration a 276th chance, have all piled in the back seat.

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Heckuva Limo

by digby

The limousine company run by a convicted felon who ferried the Dukestir to his poker games and inexplicably won 25 million dollars in Homeland Security Department contracts denies ever bringing hookers to the parties. That’s a relief.

You have to read this article to believe it:

Shirlington Limousine had financial troubles for years before winning two transportation contracts from the Department of Homeland Security in 2004 and 2005 worth $25 million. Department officials said that Baker’s company was not the low bidder on either contract, but that they were awarded for “best value,” based on Shirlington Limousine’s past performance and technical ability.

Homeland Security officials said they did not know that Shirlington Limousine lost a contract for shuttle bus service with Howard University in 2002 amid charges of poor service. Baker did not cite the university contract on his bid proposal, despite instructions to list recent contracts involving similar services.

If Homeland Security had known about the Howard contract or other previous financial problems of the company and its owner, officials said, Shirlington Limousine’s bidding score might have been lower — but not necessarily enough to give the contract to a competitor.

Officials said Baker’s criminal record, which includes numerous misdemeanors and two felony convictions, would not have affected the company’s bid. When the agency contracts with a company, officials said, they do not check the criminal backgrounds of its executives — nor do they run their names against the government’s terrorist watch list. In Shirlington Limousine’s case, only the drivers’ backgrounds were checked.

Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general for Homeland Security, said the vetting process was badly flawed because it left security gaps and failed to turn up readily available information about Shirlington Limousine’s finances and performance.

“At best,” he said, the agency was guilty of “really, really poor — textbook poor — due diligence.”

No kidding. I’m beginning to think Brownie was the cream of the crop.

This is the kind of thing that makes you very comfortable giving the executive branch unfettered power. Aside from the principles involved, they are just so good at the job of “pertektin’ the Amurikin people.”

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The War On Fucking

by tristero

It’s not online yet, but the Sunday New York Times Magazine has a long, and I mean very long, article detailing the rightwing’s attempt to limit access, if not entirely ban, contraception. Those of us who’ve been saying all along that the pro-coathanger crowd aren’t anti-abortion but anti-sex were, of course, right. The right is trying to start a discussion as to whether it is possible to be a Christian and use a condom – and not only if you’re Catholic, mind you. Tellingly, the White House won’t respond to the question as to whether or not George W. Bush believes in the use of contraception.

Me, I don’t think the article, at least as much as I’ve read of it, goes far enough. So-called “Christian” sex manuals go into considerable detail as to what intimate activities are permitted or not – to opposite-gender married couples only, naturally. Speaking about one rather popular leisure activity, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, “don’t recommend or advocate oral sex” but they can find nothing in the Bible that prevents a married couple from “enjoying” it. Actually, this is a bit of a dodge, because if you read what Tim LaHaye has to say elsewhere, it’s clear he finds oral sex disgusting. These clowns not only want to limit sex to state-approved coupling, but also dictate to the rest of us where we can put our lips, vulvas, penises, hands, asses, and breasts. And if we don’t do sex their way, we are immoral. They fervently hope, once again, we’ll be subject to arrest.

Oh, about the title of this post. I originally was going to call it “The war on sex,” but changed my mind because that simply isn’t accurate. It is fucking the rightwing opposes. The ecstatic, transgressive, transcendent, life-affirming, overwhelmingly selfish and also ego-obliterating ecstasy that is sex.

It is this the rightwing wants to deny us. And they can go to hell. Because what else could hell be but a place that bans fucking?

And The Corpse-Pile Gets Higher

by tristero

10 US soldiers died in a helicopter crash.We’re assured it wasn’t “the result of hostile fire.” Of course not. Otherwise, it might seem like Afghanistan is in just about the same disastrous shape as Iraq.

And speaking of Iraq:

A British military helicopter crashed in the southern city of Basra on Saturday, and a crowd of Iraqis cheered and threw stones at British forces who raced to the scene to seal off the area.

Police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim said the helicopter crashed into a two-story house in a residential area of the city, apparently after being hit by a missile or a rocket. He said the four-member crew had died but that no Iraqis were hurt on the ground.

Onward Christian Flyboys

by digby

Is there any less appropriate place for religious proselytising and political campaigning than in the active duty military? It boggles my mind that this is going on:

The Air Force is investigating whether a two-star general violated military regulations by urging fellow Air Force Academy graduates to make campaign contributions to a Republican candidate for Congress in Colorado, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

Maj. Gen. Jack J. Catton Jr., who is on active duty at Langley Air Force Base, sent the fundraising appeal on Thursday from his official e-mail account to more than 200 fellow members of the academy’s class of 1976, many of whom are also on active duty.

“We are certainly in need of Christian men with integrity and military experience in Congress,” Catton wrote.

Defense Department rules prohibit active-duty officers from using their position to solicit campaign contributions or seek votes for a particular candidate. An Air Force spokesman said yesterday that “appropriate officials are inquiring into the facts surrounding these e-mails.”

[…]

Both Catton’s e-mail and an accompanying note from Rayburn portrayed him as a candidate who would represent the military and conservative Christians.

“The lack of any Air Force presence within the Congress was particularly telling over the last few years,” Rayburn wrote, referring to controversy over proselytizing at the Air Force Academy and new Air Force regulations on religious expression. “For those of us who are Christians, there is that whole other side of the coin that recognizes that we need more Christian influence in Congress.”

He defends himself by saying his only offense was sending the email from his work computer. Apparently, the substance of the thing was just fine.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the Air Force. This stuff keeps coming up over and over again. It’s apparently turned into a Christian Right organization openly affiliated with the Republican party — probably affiliated with Focus on the Family which is located in Colorado Springs as is the Air Force Academy.

It’s quite clear that the highest reaches of the Air Force simply do not understand that they cannot inflict their religious and political views on others. Their allegiance is to the constitution and the office of the president, not to a political party or their church. If they can’t understand that they need to find another line of work. This is ridiculous.

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Good People

by digby

So the big kahuna they are talking about to replace Porter Goss is General Michael Hayden. Yes. That General Michael Hayden:

Gen. Michael Hayden refused to answer question about spying on political enemies at National Press Club. At a public appearance, Bush’s pointman in the Office of National Intelligence was asked if the NSA was wiretapping Bush’s political enemies. When Hayden dodged the question, the questioner repeated, “No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration?” Hayden looked at the questioner, and after a silence called on a different questioner. (Hayden National Press Club remarks, 1/23/06)

And this General Hayden:

I’m disappointed I guess that perhaps the default response for some is to assume the worst. I’m trying to communicate to you that the people who are doing this, okay, go shopping in Glen Burnie and their kids play soccer in Laurel, and they know the law. They know American privacy better than the average American, and they’re dedicated to it. So I guess the message I’d ask you to take back to your communities is the same one I take back to mine. This is focused. It’s targeted. It’s very carefully done. You shouldn’t worry.

All those pesky laws are for bad people, you see. Good people don’t have to follow them. People like John “death squads” Negroponte, Hayden’s good friend and boss. You shouldn’t worry.

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