Bush's Best. Week. EVER.

[Vyan]

Crossposted on Truth 2 Power

Ok, so let me get this straight.



In the last week we've had Iraq finally complete it's government by finding a Defense and Foreign Minister, Turdblossom's impending indictment and frog-march has fizzed just in time for him to bitch-slap liberals for being "cut and run cowards", the so-called "most dangerous man in Iraq" was taken out by a 500-lbs that left the building he was in a pile of rubble (but left the man himself in prestine condition ripe for a snuff photo orgy around the globe), Ann Coulter has finally put those "Jersey Girl Harpies" in their place, and the President just had a fabulous photo-op doing laps and shaking hands around the Green Zone before turning tail getting his ass out of dodge before somebody blew it off.

The Net result?

He's up all of two-points in the polls. So naturally the right is besides themselves with high-fives, "In your Face" and "Liberals are Demoralized" comments - is it just me or is anyone truly buying this pile of perfumed horse-shit?



Just look at what Glenn Greenwald has to say.

No matter how many times one flips through news channels this morning, one hears the same thing. The new Iraqi government has been formed. We killed Zarqawi. Bush has a "new team" in place. Karl Rove has been "cleared" in the Plame matter. Polls after Zarqawi's death show an "uptick" in support for the war. And now the President plans a secret mission to visit Iraq in order to meet with the new Prime Minister. Happy days are here again.

Or are they?

Our occupation of Iraq is three years old. As of two weeks ago, the long-standing consensus outside of the ever-dwindling circle of True Believers is that the Iraq invasion was a failure -- a mistake -- and the best we could hope for was to figure out a way to extricate ourselves from that country without triggering even worse disasters. For months and months, polls have showed that solid majorities of Americans believe the war was a mistake. That consensus didn't arise as a result of a single event, or a report of a car bomb, or because one bad thing happened. It was because the war itself has been failing fundamentally. Nothing that we wanted to accomplish was actually being accomplished. Everything we said before the war about why we needed to wage it turned out to be false and has been discredited. Far from winning "hearts and minds" in the Muslim world, few things have harmed how we are perceived in that part of the world (supposedly the current aim of our war effort) more than our occupation has.

These are fundamental, deeply entrenched problems with our war effort. But to the media, a photo op here, a cosmetic personnel change there, and the death of a single terrorist -- and all of those problems magically vanish. In two short weeks filled with melodramatic, exaggerated media events, both the Iraq war and the president's deep political problems have fundamentally improved. Big news! The President has turned all of this around. He is now bold and successful again.

We have to remember who we're dealing with here. This is an Administration that is addicted to theatrical bullshit. Codpieces and "Mission Accomplished" banners.

This is an administration that has been presenting fake news from fake reporters and pundits (Williams, Gallagher, McManus, Guckert) for years now. It's an admiinstration that http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/1988/06a.html&e=9797">rehearses supposedly spontaneous interviews with the troops.

It's been long argued that the Falling of Saddam's statue was http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002081.php&e=9797">staged. There even some surprising credible reports that U.S. Forces did not Capture Saddam, and instead he was captured by Kurds first.

By early Sunday - way before Saddam's capture was being reported by the mainstream Western press - the Kurdish media ran the following news wire:

"Saddam Hussein, the former President of the Iraqi regime, was captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. A special intelligence unit led by Qusrat Rasul Ali, a high-ranking member of the PUK, found Saddam Hussein in the city of Tikrit, his birthplace. Qusrat's team was accompanied by a group of US soldiers. Further details of the capture will emerge during the day; but the global Kurdish party is about to begin!"

But it didn't stay that way for long.

By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the emphasis had changed, and the ousted Iraqi president had been "captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters."

Now, I'm not trying to be Mr. Conspiracy Theorist - I happen to be a skeptic about just about everything, but some coincidences are just a little too conincidental to be true.

Let me just point to one conversation I heard this weekend between Mort Kondrake and Fred Barnes on The Beltway Boys.

The two were celebrating the killing of Zarqawi and saying that "if we'd followed Jack Murtha's plan to leave in 6-months -- this wouldn't have happened". Never mind the fact that Zarqawi was killed via an air-strike, something that can be accomplished from the deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise - not from the Green Zone.

Then they went on to argue that we just can't leave now because the Iraqis simply aren't capable of handling things on their own. "If the President leaves Iraq, he'll be a failure".

No, if the President doesn't to get the Iraq Military to Stand Up and Take Responsibiity for their own country - he'll be a failure and so will the fledgling Iraqi state. It seems amazing to me that Conservatives who were frequently one for the old metaphor "Give a man a fish and he eats for day, teach a man to fish and he eats everyday..." seemed to have completely forgotten it's meaning. Our single shiny goal should be to make them self-sufficient, period.

Greenwald is right. This is a Pageant as Dustin Hoffman's character in Wag the Dog would say. The President tosses the softball, and Barnes/Kondracke/Hume try to hit it out of the park. But it's all a load of bullcrap. If we really have trained over 250,000 Iraq Troops, and both Saddam and Zarqawi could have been captured and killed by local forces and/or remote airstrikes -- why the holy fuck are we still there?

This is pure stagecraft. The Theater of Pain. And we're all trapped in the audience watching the slow motion trainwreck as it continues on it's merry way to hell.

"Happy Days are Here Again".

woo hoo. Hey, is that light the end of the tunnel or an oncoming train?

Vyan

[Virginia Dare]

1. Hurricane season is upon us...

the Dow is taking a nose dive and the civil war in Iraq rages on...yep, it's like putting a stick of air freshener in a pig sty.

[Wetzelbill]

3. well, that is one way to put it

:rofl:

[okieinpain]

25. never smelled a pig style is that anything like the water treatment

plants. because this * up tick sure smells like a bunch of rancid shit...

[Wetzelbill]

2. he has little or no chance for a big turnaround

because the most some of this good news can do is just give a slight bump for a short amount of time. As long as troops are in Iraq and people are wondering why this economy isn't working for them, Bush is going to have a hard time making people approve of the job he's doing. That's how it is for any president, especially one this late in the game. Not much you can do to reverse six years of bad policy etc and people know that.

[underpants]

4. Can they hear CNN from the backyard hammocks?

I thought people usually had classic rock or a ball game on the radio if anything.

These morans don't even know enough to spread things out they just dumped the whole bag at once. So much for the "genius".

All this is said to agree with you. This ship has sailed and people have just had it with them. I don't know that it will translate into control of the House or Senate but W's legacy is in the crapper and there is nothing that will bring that back. At this point even finding OBL would only get him to about 42% or so.

OVER

[Wetzelbill]

5. totally agreed

most people really don't care enough about little political things anyway. Most people probably couldn't even say who Rove is, or even would remember Zarqawi's name by next week. You're right, if anything they are watching or listening to a game or whatever. What they do know about this administration doesn't exactly give them a positive opinion that is for sure.

As for the House or Senate, I can't say it will give Dems control either. About the only thing I say on that is things look solid poll wise, but I'll believe it when I see it. Hopefully I will be seeing it the day after the election. :)

[underpants]

6. We are playing in their home field

basically we have to beat them by 8 points (as the old sport saying goes) to beat them because of their built in advantage. In Bill Cosby's old gym it was a steam pipe that ran around the court about eight feet off the floor, for the Repubs it is ready to flip voting machines.

[butterfly77]

7. They figure if they dump a lot of things at once..

that will show everyone they have accomplished a lot and we will forget all of the lies and dead bodies.

[Ian_rd]

8. Rove is now free to do his magic - and that means that none of us ...

... should underestimate them. Their failures now are nearly identical to their failures in 2004, and they won (Diebold of course giving a tiny but vital boost).

No one can turn the United States into Oceania quite like Karl Rove, and he will be working 24-7 to do just that. I don't know about you all, but I am very worried indeed.

[okieinpain]

26. I don't exactly agree, yeah things were looking bad in 04

but * could go give it time, well he's had time and it's only getting worse. there is nothing they can do that can hide this pile of shit..

[ZanyPlebeian]

31. I'm in definite agreement...

...the Rove propaganda machine should not be underestimated. It can do A LOT.

[stevietheman]

9. Just a temporary reprieve for * before the shitstorm resumes.

I ask everyone again to consider: How many "good weeks" has King George had in the last year?

Am I demoralized? HELL NO!

[liberal N proud]

10. Excellent article.

Thanks

[nxylas]

11. Where was the second quote from?

The one that begins "Our occupation of Iraq is three years old"? Is it a continuation of the Glenn Greenwald quote or from another source? Sorry for being thick, but the article doesn't make it clear.

[Vyan]

32. It was Greenwald. n/t

[Deep13]

12. So he's gone from 39% to 41%?

How many more Al Qeada #2 guys are out there to kill?

[Deep13]

33. Oops, I meant 29% to 31%.

I guess I just can't believe that any politician can only be supported by less than a third of voters.

[Pacifist Patriot]

13. So THAT explains the explosion of W stickers on the cars around here.

:sarcasm:

[Brigid]

14. Of course it's horse shit.

And no matter how much perfume is spritzed on it, it's still horse shit and it still stinks.

[gatorboy]

15. It's telling that when Bush is considered in a "Turn Around"

is involves death and destruction (9/11, Zarqawi...).

[Johnny Noshoes]

18. Death and Destruction is what they're all about.

Its all part of the Neocon Christo-Fascist Zombie Brigade Death Cult Extravaganza End Times Review. If you can't impress the sheeple with your brilliant plans you dazzle them with your bullshit and hope that it kinda sorta works for just enough time to sneak past.

"We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You even think like the tube. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion." Howard Beale

[jean]

24. He thrives on and revels in death and destruction.

edit: forgot to say ... that's why he is acting so giddy and using his cowboy swagger. He believes he hasn't 'lost it.'

[Norrin Radd]

16. "snuff photo orgy"

I'm glad you said it. I don't care how criminal or murderous someone may be, I thought it terribly inhuman and uncivil--not to mention impolite displaying it without a warning--to parade that photo around. And they call themselves "Christian?"

[nxylas]

21. They may call themselves Christian, but we don't have to

I learned a new word today at the Guardian blog, "Dominionist". It strikes me as a much better word to describe these creatures than "Christian", especially when some of those who actually try to live by the teachings of Christ are disassociating themselves from the word due to its appropriation by the reich wing. Seems unfair to me that those who use a word which has meant the same thing for roughly 2000 years should be forced to abandon it when a vocal minority tries to make it mean something else.

[glitch]

30. Excellent idea and welcome to DU! nt

[mnhtnbb]

23. They call themselves "Christian" Yes, as in Crusaders.

[Fire Walk With Me]

17. Note about the toppling of Saddam's statue from the film "Control Room".

There are three or so pages of footage not used in the film, if you haven't availed yourselves... Deema pointed out that it was really quite odd that one of the protesters leading the march into the square happened to have a pre-Saddam Iranian flag with him, ready to fly.

You never know.

[swimboy]

19. No really. Soon this will be the most popular war, ever!

:sarcasm:

a veritable chasm of sar, in fact

[McCamy Taylor]

20. Oh man! I thought Zarqawi would get him 3 points. Must be gas prices.

[mnhtnbb]

22. Once an a$$wipe, always an a$$wipe.

The whole lot of them. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove ad infinitum. Oh, and how could I forget Rummy?

[DoYouEverWonder]

27. It's all an illusion

and they are pulling out all the stops for their final magic trick.

[whathappened]

28. my take on this dip stick for a resadent

why in the world would this so called human being be willing to put more of our young men and women in the cross hairs of these people over there in iraq , this dam place is'nt nothing but a sand pit with dirty sand oil in the ground , i just don't get it , as he was running his mouth on the radio about no matter how we the people fell about this war , he is in charge and he will stay as long as he is breathing , dam , why are'nt these so called rep's of our looking at this little dictater and telling him to chill out and set down , the people of this coutry have spokeing and they do not want any more killings.

[ihelpu2see]

29. All organized to take attention away from Hadietha Marine issue.

Remember the MSM wants the "Come Back Kid" type of story line. They need it to keep the mid-term election exciting. But I have hope that the other shoe will drop in the Plame case.... meaning more info on Cheney and Bush selective use of declassifying stuff. And of course the Marine issue in Hadietha and there is the Guantanamo thing, cause torture and indefinite confinement is so Christian like. Not to mention his domestic policy, or lack of one.... I mean is gay marriage, a senior citizen drug plan that does not work and my put my wife the pharmacist out of a job, and a flag burning amendment really great stuff to campaign on!!!

But worse is EVERY DEM. should be shouting all of these things from roof tops but I seem to hear only whimpers. Get some ca-hones and step up!!! Especially Joe Lieberrepug. I hope Lamont wins and sends DLC and whoever else a big Memo that liberal / progressive dems. are the real deal and need supporting in the party NOT Repuglicant lite.... Candidates who are rational humanists not religious wannabes!