And While We're on the Subject...

With 51 (yes - 51!!!) days left of the Bush administration, it's no big surprise at this point that he's completely out of touch with reality. Still, it is rather risible that Bush believes that "when people review the history of this administration, people will say that this administration tried hard to get a regulator", particularly following on the heels of reports to the opposite effect. And claims that he wants to be remembered for "achieving peace" would be funnier if his actions hadn't already cost such a large number of lives.

And just when you think even he can't outdo himself, Bush claims that "he would like to be remembered as a commander-in-chief who remained faithful to his values and 'did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process'." This from a man whose job as head of the executive branch was to work with the legislative branch in a little thing called "the political process." So just to be clear, he actually hopes to be remembered as a stubborn, bull-headed person who was repeatedly wrong on things like war, helping disaster victims, education, foreign policy, etc. because refused to participate in the "political process" and listen to the different ideas and opinions that entailed? And he believes this to be virtuous?

Even after 2,870 days of this stupid, despicable man, he still amazes me with the depths of his stupidity and willful ignorance.

Sarcastic "You're KIDDING!!" Moment of the Day

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that the Bush administration sat back and did nothing when warned about the possibility of an economic collapse tied to the housing-credit-banking mess! Inaction on the part of the Bush White House?? A standard without precedent!

The New York Times' Disgraceful Role as a Bush Mouthpiece against Venezuela

Rob links to Glenn Greenwald's great post on the New York Times' disgraceful editorial supporting the coup of Hugo Chavez back in 2002. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Times failed as miserably as any news agency, "legitimate" or not, could, totally pushing the Bush line on the coup even while contradicting itself repeatedly within its own editorial:

The Times -- in the very first line -- mimicked the claim of the Bush administration that Chavez "resigned," even though, several paragraphs later, they expressly acknowledged that Chavez "was compelled to resign by military commanders" (the definition of a "coup"). Further mimicking the administration, the Times perversely celebrated the coup as safeguarding "Venezuelan democracy" ("Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator"), even though the coup deposed someone whom the Times Editorial itself said "was elected president in 1998" and -- again using the Times' own language -- "handed power to" an unelected, pro-American "respected business leader, Pedro Carmona," who quickly proceeded to dissolve the democratically elected National Assembly, the Supreme Court and other key institutions.
Worse still, the Times Editorial mindlessly spouted the administration's claim that "Washington never publicly demonized Mr. Chávez" and "his removal was a purely Venezuelan affair." Yet less than a week later, the Times itself was compelled to report that the Bush administration "acknowledged today that a senior administration official [Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich] was in contact with Mr. Chávez's successor on the very day he took over"' -- a disclosure which, as the Times put it with great understatement, "raised questions as to whether Reich or other officials were stage-managing the takeover by Mr. Carmona."[all bolds from the original post]

I was in Costa Rica at the time, and the media there did as great a job as the U.S. media didn't. It was immediately clear that the U.S. was supporting the overthrow of Chavez and was in a large part behind the coup, as it had been in Chile in 1973, and as it had been prepared for in Brazil in 1964, in addition to dozens of other cases throughout the world in the 20th century. The Costa Rican media, which was neither pro- nor anti-Chavez, was rightfully condemning of the U.S. for overthrowing a leader who (at the time) had been popularly elected only four years before. Venezuela occupied the front pages and lead stories in the newspapers and television news for the next four days (a rarity in Costa Rica), and the media (again correctly) lauded the return of Venezuela's popularly elected leader. It covered things fairly and pointed out issues such as the U.S.'s hypocrisy in claiming to want "democracy" in Afghanistan (then just getting rid of the Taliban in government) while undermining democracy in Venezuela. In short, the Costa Rican media was a way better guage of the happenings in Venezuela in April of 2002 than the Times, which was little more than a Pravda-style mouthpiece for the Bush administration's efforts to legitimize the coup (and, by implication, its involvement in it).

There are two other aspects worth pointing out about the Times' article and what it signifies. First, April 2002 was still only 7 months after September 11, 2001, and the Times' open failure to question any aspect of the Bush administration in regards to Venezuela I think really gets at something we've lost sight of: how much good will, not just internationally but domestically and within the media, even the New York Times, now one of the wingnuts' main targets of the "liberally biased media," had towards Bush, and as a result, how much he really pissed away with the Iraq War and subsequent disasters climatic, economic, and otherwise.

Secondly, Venezuela really is the first example of the simultaneously arrogant and blockheaded foreign policy decisions that have dominated Bush's administration. When the U.S. was barely beginning to rattle the sabre for Iraq, Bush was already pushing a foreign policy with Venezuela (with whom the U.S. had had cordial relations for the first two year of Chavez's administration) that threw dialog aside and sought only to put in leaders that would be totally subservient to the U.S. and Bush's vision of free-market economic policies that perpetuated the gross inequalities in Latin America.

In short, before we went in and knocked out Hussein and and declared "Mission: Accomplished," only to find the Iraqi people further divided, we were already blockheadedly trying to overthrow popularly elected leaders, thinking the Venezuelan people would just go along with the coup and the U.S. could get what it wanted (in this case, oil and a free-market servant). But it didn't work out that way. Instead, Chavez only gained in popularity, bolstered by the fact that he had withstood a U.S.-supported coup, and the pie-in-the-face that his return represented for Bush quite probably gave Chavez a staying power in Venezuela that he arguably might not have had if it weren't for Bush's quick embrace of the coup.

And the Bush administration could have learned from this, just as it could have learned from the case of North Korea, when it lumped that country in with the "Axis of Evil," only to end up having North Korea develop a nuclear power plant in order to be prepared for a possible U.S. invasion. But instead of learning from their mistakes and trying to consider what other countries might actually want for themselves or considering the power of dialogue, the Bush administration continued down the same path of bullying, only to lose more "legitimacy" and heft in the world and to give further popularity to the very people it opposed simply by openly opposing those leaders. Iraq wasn't the first example of the sheer wrong-headedness and at times sublime idiocy of the Bush administration in terms of policy and planning; it was just one of the brightest stars in what has turned into a constellation of disasters. And, in the "united we stand" mist immediately following 9/11, the Bush administration didn't just find its mouthpieces on Fox News or talk radio; it found them throughout the media, including the New York Times. And for that, we should not let the Times or others escape the burden of guilt.

Just for Fun

Who says pundits are never held accountable?

And things like this always cheer me up a bit, not because the country is in such bad condition, but because the man with 74 days left before retirement is convinced that history will redeem him. And I certainly don't buy into the notion of "bad luck" that some raise in the article. Luck does not determine deregulation policies that allow banks to wield their purchases and spending in such a way as to put the entire economy at risk; luck has nothing to do with how a government deals with disasters like Katrina; and luck has nothing to do with taking an attack on your country and using it to increase the authority of the executive in ways that often violate the constitution. Hopes for history's redemption is all Bush has to lean on at this point, but part of me hopes he lives to be 250 years old to see that, no, George, history will never redeem you.

If You Ever Had a Mind, You Have Officially Lost It, Sir

Not me, Mr. Fish, not me. I most certainly will never feel any kind of nostalgia for the past 8 years in terms of politics. Good day sir!

More Border Fence Stupidity

Again, the border fence is a terrible idea.

This story discusses how the Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville is basically going to end up in Mexico since the wall will be built north of it. Let me reiterate, this wall is going to do NOTHING to stop illegal immigration. And yet again, I'll say that most people on the border oppose the wall because they know that it is completely worthless. By all accounts, this is a very neat place in a very poor area. I will be visiting this area on Memorial Day weekend and I plan on going to Sabal Palm. I might as well see it while it is of value for conservation.

It's also worth noting that poor people in this country have almost no access to natural places. This border fence is not only an environmental disaster, but of course, it is also a structure of racism. Moreover, it is an example of environmental injustice, as it clearly prioritizes the desire of white people in Nebraska to feel that this is still a white country over the actual needs of local residents to experience something other than a degraded urban nature.

To top it off, it's not even necessary to build a fence in this area. As the article states:

A decade ago, he says, federal agents intercepted hundreds of illegal immigrants a month on Sabal Palm grounds. But as border security increased, and as patterns changed, the number of interceptions dropped dramatically. Now, he says, not even 20 a month are caught, with very few carrying contraband like marijuana.

Of all the stupid ideas of the Bush Administration, the border fence may actually be the stupidest. And that is really saying something.

Torture and the Bush Administration

Yep.

Flypaper Update

This 60 Minutes segment on Hassan Butt, a former militant jihadi fund raiser who now speaks out against violent Islamism, is well worth the time. Butt gives a fascinating account of how young British Muslims like himself are being recruited into the network, how the network raises funds, and how he now feels that Islam is being misused.

I think it's obviously in our interest to support those who challenge the Koranic justification of terrorism. There's a lot in the segment to discuss, but I found the following very interesting in regard to the question of whether U.S. involvement in Iraq is helping their work, aiding the promotion of democracy, or bolstering our security in any way. It's not encouraging:

The London bombings changed him. He began asking questions of his handlers, theological questions. He wanted to know whether the bombings could ever be justified in Islam. He waited and waited for answers. Months later, he was summoned by his handlers to a meeting in the Middle East. But he wasn’t given answers, only new orders.

"They were trying to force me into Iraq to fight basically," Butt says.

"So, to summarize, you're asking, basically, why should we be killing innocent people?" Simon asks.

"That's correct," Butt replies.

"And the answer you eventually received is go to Iraq and perhaps carry out a suicide mission?" Simon asks.

"Go to Iraq to basically – the actual word that they used was that I needed 'reprogramming.' And Iraq would give me the opportunity to basically be reprogrammed for what I needed I mean. I was quite shocked at the analogy," Butt says. "To think that will, firstly, I'm neither a computer nor a robot. And I don't know on your say so, I do on God's say so. And if you can't justify to me or prove to me that this is what God wants, then I'm gonna have to go my separate ways."

Despite Bob Simon's suggestion, I find it unlikely that al Qaeda would send one of their top fundraisers, a person in whom they'd already invested considerable training and resources, to Iraq just to kill himself, though I suppose that is possible. More likely, they wanted him to go to Iraq to experience their jihad up close, to get his head straight and recommit himself to the struggle, and his particular role in it, as a result of linking up and forming relationships with comrades in arms. In other words, Iraq has become like a Boy Scout Jamboree, except instead of vague Christianity and Pinewood Derby, it's militant Islamism and IEDs. Come to Iraq, get fired up, go back home to carry on the fight.

To point out the staggeringly obvious, this represents (yet)a(nother) significant failure in the Iraq strategy. Flypaper Theory held that the war in Iraq would serve as a shiny object to distract terrorists intending to attack inside America: They would go to Iraq, and they would never leave. Instead, Iraq has become a terrorist training camp and proving ground, an anvil upon which new militant jihadis are being forged every day. The reverberations of this, as with the similarly galvanizing events which took place in Afghanistan in the 1980s, will be felt for decades, as these highly motivated and trained activists return to their home countries, in the Middle East and beyond.