Five years ago today, a president costumed in a flight suit gave a speech declaring mission over, beneath a banner that simply said "Mission Accomplished". That is probably the defining image of his presidency, and not just because this was a photo-op that backfired. George W. Bush's presidency has been all about image. Bush has never sought to govern, or even to solve problems. Bush was the permanent campaigner, and campaigning is all about selling an image of yourself.

When Bush gives a press conference or holds a public event, the surrounds are always dressed with slogans of some such. "No Child Left Behind". "Securing our Economy". "Strengthening Social Security". Beyond that, he used federal documents as campaign propaganda. The 2001 tax rebates had a note serving as a campaign and GOP ad for George W. Bush. Beyond that, Bush does not govern. John J. Diiulio resigned in disgust when he discovered that Bush was more concerned with looking like he was helping the poor with his "Faith Based Initiatives" rather than actually helping the poor. That he treated matters of war and peace the same way is disgusting. I cannot really continue this post. Maybe I can collect my thoughts tomorrow.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, a young, callow man was thrust onto a great stage. On that great stage, he made a great many accusations and a great many promises.

We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence. Our military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, "Not ready for duty, sir.". . .

The world needs America's strength and leadership. And America's armed forces need better equipment, better training and better pay.

We will give our military the means to keep the peace, and we will give it one thing more: a commander-in-chief who respects our men and women in uniform and a commander-in-chief who earns their respect.

A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam: When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.

And that young callow man went on to become a young callow monarch, using his kingdom's knights as playthings for not well-thought-out adventurism. And with that, we have Thursday's story:

'Appalling Gap' Found in Homeland Defense Readiness
National Guard, Reserve Forces Lack Sufficient Personnel, Training to Respond to Crisis in U.S., Report Says

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 1, 2008; A04

The U.S. military is not prepared to meet catastrophic threats at home, and it is suffering from an "appalling gap" in forces able to respond to chemical, biological and nuclear strikes on U.S. soil, according to a congressional commission report released yesterday.

The situation is rooted in severe readiness problems in National Guard and reserve forces, which would otherwise be well-suited to respond to domestic crises but lack sufficient personnel and training, as well as $48 billion in equipment because of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report by the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves.

This anecdote comes from a book that I'll probably read someday soon. It was posted in Slate yesterday, and it pretty much serves as the defining delusion of this Administration.

In an April 1995 memo, Bush invited his staff to come to his office to look at a painting. … The picture is a Western scene of a cowboy riding up a craggy hill, with two other riders following behind him. Bush told visitors—who often noted his resemblance to the rider in front—that it was called A Charge To Keep and that it was based on his favorite Methodist hymn of that title, written in the eighteenth century by Charles Wesley. As Bush noted in the memo, which he quoted in his autobiography of the same title: "I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves." Bush identified with the lead rider, whom he took to be a kind of Christian cowboy, an embodiment of indomitable vigor, courage, and moral clarity.

He came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled "The Slipper Tongue," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: "Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught."

The Slate article brings to mind the infamous quote from the 2004 NYTimes profile of Bush written by Ron Suskind with this iconic passage:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."

And this is the pathology that leads to the actions cataloged here.

Headline at WashingtonPost.com

Warnings Unheeded on Contractors in Iraq

U.S. government disregarded numerous letters of caution over past two years about the risks of using private security firms, officials say.

Why does this no longer surprise me?

This is what I get for stepping out for 30 minutes. Gonzales now choses to resign. What did they find in his bed last week: A dead girl or a live boy? He couldn't be shamed by the fact he tried to take advantage of a deathly ill man in order to authorize a secret spying program he knew (or at least feared would be seen as) illegal. Essentially all of his defense for his tenure while Attorney General was that he had no clue what his office was doing. We went through six months of "Who am I and why am I here?," and now he decides to go?

So, where's the body?!

I asked in my previous post, after reading this article:

I honestly wonder if future civilizations will ever fully comprehend the stupidity that led grown men and women to rename snacks.

Apparently they already can. Reminding people that they will die will lead them to wall themselves into tribalistic defenses.

Mortality reminders not only enhanced the appeal of Bush's political style but also deepened and broadened the appeal of the conservative social positions that Republicans had been running on.

For instance, because worldview defense increases hostility toward other races, religions, nations, and political systems, it helps explain the rage toward France and Germany that erupted prior to the Iraq war, as well as the recent spike in hostility toward illegal immigrants. Also central to worldview defense is the protection of tradition against social experimentation, of community values against individual prerogatives--as was evident in the Tucson experiment with the judges [where a group of judges who were reminded of man's mortality set fines against a hypothetical prostitute at over $450, while the group given no such reminder set the fine at just $90]--and of religious dictates against secular norms. For many conservatives, this means opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

I honestly wonder if future civilizations will ever fully comprehend the stupidity that led grown men and women to rename snacks. I honestly had to stop reading this article when we got to the line "Rove recommended the 'chocolate freedom tart,' a French desert renamed during the Iraq invasion." Note that we weren't even at war with France at the time, yet we had to protest the country by refusing to call the snack a chocolate éclair.

Years ago, I came across a saying, paraphrased, that essentially says that if you come across a guy who point at the sky and calls it "the ground", there is just no point in debating him. That was pretty much my reaction when I saw a link in small type on WashingtonPost.com with the words Why Bush Will Be a Winner. Later on, I learned it was a piece written in earnest by William Kristol of The Weekly Standard, who on matters of the war in Iraq is the pundit who points to the sky and calls it ground.

Which leads to the quote of the day from him:

I've been pretty consistent, pretty upfront and straightforward about my views. I had the same views when they were reasonably popular as I do now when they're unpopular. It would really be pathetic to adjust one's analysis based on public opinion.

Not as pathetic I guess as revising opinion based on public fact. It's not like those views became unpopular by happenstance. But I'm not a highly paid pundit (and if they hire you on output of commentary, I wouldn't even be highly paid if these words appeared in the Washington Post itself).

In other news, I caught my first debate -- the CNN-YouTube debate. I'm still split between Obama and Clinton, which I have been throughout the year. Like I said in a chat, Obama is my choice in idealism, while Clinton is my choice in pragmatism.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 George W. Bush said this:

The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.

On May 8th, a woman died in an emergency room because no one would treat her. It was covered on the news for weeks. Yes, MLK Jr-Harbor Hospital was a particularly egregious case, but emergency rooms are overcrowded and understaffed everywhere in this country, and this is because our health care system is fundamentally-broken, and as Mark Evanier notes (whom post on this led me to look for the recent Harbor Hospital case), the fact that you can't turn people away from medical care is one of the types of laws people fighting against "socialized-medicine" are fighting against.

Sally Quinn made me question my thinking with something of a bizarre dream-sequence she concocted, but Bruce Fein managed to bring me back to my position for wishing for Cheney's impeachment.

In summary:

Cheney is impeachable for his overweening power and his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law.

Dick Cheney and George Bush are now arguing that their respective offices -- the Vice Presidency and the Presidency -- are not part of the executive branch of government.

Laughable, but true.

But still, I say we should humor them, and let it be so.

By now, it shouldn't surprise me that the Bush Administration's efforts for anything never reaches beyond the words people use to describe things. People like to call these people, the faith-based administration, playing on both how the administration panders to the Christian-right as well as their comments they made years ago when they dismissed critics as being trapped in the "reality-based community".

Let's remember what Ronald Suskin wrote:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Today, from the realm of the folks who (used to) think they can create their new reality are now trying to will-away the reality of the problems in Iraq. This came a head largely because NBC largely said "Screw the euphemisms, this is a civil war."

Today's analysis in the Post tries to argue that this semantic point is actually important. It's not really, and in fact some of the reasons to fight the US news media on this are bizarre -- such that a graphic on MSNBC could cause Iraqis to take sides, which is particularly interesting since they haven't really solved the electricity problem in Iraq, much less the cable-TV issue there.
It's almost surreal. We seem to have a war being run by advertising executives.

This will be an entertaining two years at least. . .

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

More from the Washington Post

I know, as an alledged 'blargher', I am supposed to be nothing but critical of the so-called 'mainstream media', but honestly, I'm enjoying the knife-twisting being served up by this morning's Washington Post A1 over the administration's attempt to unremember everybody of its rhetorical history. The piece opens:

President Bush and his aides are annoyed that people keep misinterpreting his Iraq policy as "stay the course." A complete distortion, they say. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," White House press secretary Tony Snow declared yesterday.

Where would anyone have gotten that idea? Well, maybe from Bush.

...followed by three examples of Bush saying that he's staying the course, a clarifying tact usually reserved for The Daily Show. Then they twist the knife further with:

But the White House is cutting and running from "stay the course."

This is an abject lesson in the hazards of bumper-sticker policy and governance. Now that he painted all criticism of his policies and suggestions for reassessment as "cutting and running", he's stuck with either "staying the course" or with trying to explain why he is "flip-flopping". His rhetoric has boomeranged on him.

Here lies the phrase stay the course, found with a pillow over her head. Prime suspect George Walker Bush denies having ever known the lass, despite video and audiotape evidence of an extended relationship.

Honestly, it is hard to tell whether or not he is this stupid, or if he just thinks we are that stupid.

Why is the most vocal defender of the US Constitution writing for a British publcation?

Why can't American editorials be this forceful?

I think it was a grave mistake back in 2000 when we all dismissed Bush's interpretation of Constitutional law as a goofy "Bushism". It's his governing philosophy.

...at least to those of us who believe there are protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, or any sort of right to privacy. The NSA has -- with the cooperation of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth -- collected the phone records of most anyone who made a telephone call, anywhere! Remember those statements by the president asserting this program was constrained to suspected terrorists making an international, and that they are only done after a warrant was granted? I can't imagine any administration more dishonest than this one.

The one tiny bit of good news in this is that Quest managed to stand up for the privacy of its customers, even in the face of an administration willing to exploit both fear and nationalistism for such unamerican means.

...anything in variance to the Eternal Sunshine in George Bush's Spotless Mind.

Remember those mobile trailers that had those biolabs which could be used to make WMDs? (With even this being a severe step down from what fears were told to fear from Iraq.)

Well, um, that turned out to be untrue as well.

But hey, it's those things that makes performances starring George Bush so very popular.

Fred Kaplan responds to the story by Hersh in the New Yorker in the only possible way someone could: "Is Bush out of his mind?!"

Pre-emptive war—attacking a country to keep it from attacking us or an ally—is sometimes justifiable. Preventive war—attacking a country to keep it from developing a capability to attack an ally sometime in the future—almost never is. And preventive war waged with nuclear weapons is (not to put too fine a spin on it) crazy.

In the 60 years since, the world has declared and observed a clear threshold between the use and nonuse of nuclear weapons. To violate that threshold—for a purpose that falls far short of pre-empting an imminent threat or protecting our national survival—would not only be immoral; it would incite outrage across the Middle East and the Muslim world; it would inspire vast recruitment drives by anti-American terrorists (and any resulting sequels to 9/11 would be seen, even by our friends, as just deserts); and it would legitimize nuclear weapons as everyday tools of warfare and spur many nations into building their own arsenals, if just to anticipate and match their neighbors' impending arsenals.

In short, it would be a disaster of head-spinning proportions.

Of course, Kaplan wonders if this is chess playing by either the Bush administration (play the madman, so that cooler heads are forced to opt for the policy you were gsming for -- in this case, tougher sanctions), or by military officials (to make a conventional attack look like a gesture of goodwill or to derail the Dr. Strangelovian plans in the deep of the Pentagon). Unfortunately, I'm not inclined to think Bush has suddenly learned tatical diplomacy -- he doesn't seem to plan his next move when it is his turn.

So, my answer to Jason Spalding of Just Curious at JadeCastle.com, attacking Iran with nukes would be absolutely worse than doing nothing. It will lead to everybody else to launch nuclear programs, and simply destabilize relations between every single nation in the world.

PS: Bush today said he's not planning on going to war with Iran. He pretty much said the same thing with regard to Iraq, the entire time he was planning on going to war with Iraq -- possibly going so far as suggesting to Blair that we should provoke Iraq into attacking us.