The Madness Of King George

As expected, Bush is openly defying and challenging the new, not-so-rubberstampy Congress by reiterating his Decidery perfectitude. It does not matter anymore what the clear majority of American citizens want; if nothing else, we should all be clear on that, regardless of our opinions about the war or anything else. This is a naked assertion of power by one supposedly equal branch over the other two.

Rest assured, though, just as soon as a Demonrat gets back into their Reagan Shrine White House, they'll suddenly remember why this "unitary executive" bullshit is precisely that. They're nothing if not intellectually consistent, which is a completely different thing from being intellectually honest.

Now, take a quick look at how the Post describes the money quote of this little putsch:

Asked why he was going ahead with his plan without congressional support, Bush said, "One of the things I've found in Congress is that most people recognize that failure would be a disaster for the United States. And, in that I'm the decision-maker, I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster."

He said he worked with the U.S. military and his new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, "to come up with a plan that is likely to succeed, and the implementer of that plan is going to be General Petraeus."

Now check out how Chicago Tribune's The Swamp transcribes the complete quote [emphasis mine]:

Bush, who asked Congress to have patience with this deployment during his State of the Union to a joint session of Congress address this week, was asked today if he believes it’s “Okay’’ to proceed without their support.

“One of the things that I've found in Congress is that most people recognize that failure would be a disaster for the United States, and in that I'm the decision-maker, I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster,’’ he said. “In other words, I had to think about what's likely to work. And so I worked with our military and I worked with Secretary Gates to come up with a plan that is likely to succeed. And the implementor of that plan is going to be General Petraeus.’’

First and foremost is that obnoxious, fucking condescending tone of his again. I have no idea who told him he thinks he needs to "explain" what he think words happen to mean, as if we're all just as intellectually stunted as he is, but it drives me up the fucking wall, and I wish to hell someone would call him on that shit. It's bad enough that he doesn't know how to pronounce "dissemble"; the real problem is that he seriously thinks we don't know what it means.

But let's dissect that important sentence -- which, recall, is missing from WaPo's account of the contextual quote -- from a practical, operational angle. What is it about this particular plan that makes him think it's "likely to work", considering that almost no single person with military knowledge who doesn't work directly for him or for one of his butt-boy "think tanks" thinks this is anything but a kick-the-can tactic? Seriously, why specifically does he think this is "likely to work", when everything has failed? He keeps insisting that his opponents should have to come up with a plan if they disapprove of his; the least he can do is elaborate as to exactly how this plan is superior to the others he supposedly sifted through en route to this one.

And again, keep in mind the sentence leading up to that, the one that he supposedly had to explain what it meant, because we're all stupid. "Precludes disaster". I don't think "precludes" means what he thinks it means. I think he means "hopefully mitigates" or "stops the bleeding", or something along that line. Because if he seriously thinks that this is something designed to "preclude" disaster, then he really is delusional.

I know this hurts the tender wittle feewings of the 82nd Chairborne, but there is no "moving forward" anymore, nor is there any "precluding disaster". It's already a disaster; that these people need to be told this, over and fucking over, demonstrates how completely vestigial they have become to serious debate about this. They're a withered pinkie toe on the body politic, and there'd be lot less future bloodshed in these misbegotten petrocracies if they'd just recognize this at long last, and do us all a favor and step the fuck off.

I can't reiterate strongly enough just how central I believe those couple sentences are to how Bush's mind works. He literally tells Pelosi this will work because he told them it had to work. He thinks this latest surge will not only allow things to "move forward" and "preclude disaster" but that it's integral to doing so. But again, those days are gone. There is only triage now, and minimizing needless death and destruction.

It's out of our hands, it has been for some time. The political solution -- a Shi'a-dominated parliament that barely convenes in the Green Zone anymore -- is driving the military solution, which is a death-squad infiltrated military, using us as its enablers in what will eventually be witnessed as a massive sectarian cleansing, if not outright genocide.

Their big "solution" is expanding the chaos outward. It doesn't matter anymore whether continuing developments are by design or incidental. The "accidental" is now intentional, for all practical purposes. Chuck Hagel cannot be the only one who realizes this, and the Democratic senators who stand with him are standing tall, which is great. Hopefully they also understand that, given Bush's attitude, it is going to get worse before it gets better, because they are dealing with people whose guiding principle is that power belongs to those who exercise it.