Letters to the Editor
Little Miss Patriot
Published Letters: 52 Editor's Choice: 4
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yes, but in death
[Read the article: Ohio congressman found dead in Washington]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]he can't change his mind or his heart. (Or, maybe he can, but it won't do us any good.) So while he may have been heartless about the war, his death doesn't help anything, so I have trouble not being saddened by it. On the other hand, it might make room for someone who will make changes. Anyone know who gets his spot?
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that Chertoff isn't on the list
[Read the article: Judge strikes down Patriot Act provision]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is the best news I've heard all day. It would be like Harriet Miers holding hands with the Ghost of Katrina.
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transcript?
[Read the article: Report: Bush said he'd invade Iraq no matter what]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wanted to read the article because I'm fascinated with the way Bush talks to leaders when he's not in front of the cameras, like that disgusting show at the G8 where he smacked his food and cussed with Tony Blair. Well, it didn't work. I followed your link, and let Google translate the page for me. OK, that's never going to be that reliable, I know, but when I got to the "undoing of Saddam" part, and read this quote from Dubya, I fell apart laughing. This isn't the Pres I know, in any language!
PB [Pres. Bush]: Saddam Hussein will not change and will continue playing. The moment has arrived for undoing of him. It is thus. I, as for me, will from now on try to use the possible subtlest rhetoric...We have shown an incredible degree of patience until now.
"It is thus", I'm going to laugh about that all day. Subtlest possible rhetoric? Who is this guy?
But the chilling part came later, when he described his military plans for Iraq (I tried to clean up the translation a bit):
PB: If we acted militarily we will do it with high accuracy and focusing much [on] our objectives... We know that there are accumulated an enormous amount of dynamite to [blow up] the bridges and other infrastructures and [blow up] petroliferous wells. We have predicted to occupy those wells in a moment. Also the Saudis would help us to put in the market the petroleum that was necessary. We are developing a package of humanitarian aid very hard. We can win without destruction. We are already [elevating] Iraq post-Saddam, and I believe that there are good bases for a better future. Iraq [is relatively tough] but has a good bureaucracy and a civil society. It would be possible to be organized in a federation.
So, this pie-in-the-sky, amorphous, detail-less psuedo-plan really was all he had, because he never pitched anything better, not even behind closed doors. And I don't know if it's the translation, but notice that he's worried about them using DYNAMITE to blow up bridges. Apparently that was WAY scarier than WMD-- or Bush knew there wasn't any. Oh, and apparently no one every described for Bush what a civilized society becomes when they don't have electricity, sewers, trash collection, or clean water for 5 years. Moving on.
And in trying to assuage President Aznar that he's not doing this just because he can (har, har):
PB: I do not want the war. I know what war is. I know the destruction and the death that [comes with war]. I am the one that has to console to the mothers and the widows of the dead. By all means, for us that [scaring Saddam out of the country so we could go in without a shot fired] would be the best solution. In addition, it would save us $50,000 million.
So, there's Bush's price tag for the war. And maybe he was thinking back to having said this while he was hiding in the Western White House from Cindy Sheehan. That was President Aznar's little Saddam-escapes fantasy (they talk at length about how he wouldn't get far without being assassinated), I tend to agree that more inspectors and UN pressure would not have likely made Saddam and his sons run off like grifters in the night, but at least this guy Aznar was trying to, as he said, not go against 200 years of Spanish policies overnight.
Here's the part where Bush confuses himself with Colin Powell:
PB: I made the decision to go to the Security Council. In spite of the divergences in my Administration, I said to them to my people that we had to work with our friends.
It's not in the transcript but I think Condi kicked Bush under the table and whispered, "That's not you, that's Colin."
There are some other tidbits, like calling the run-up to the war "Chinese water torture" (I don't know who he thought was torturing whom) and that he and Tony Blair were playing "good cop/bad cop" and he didn't mind being the bad one. Then he said something that I can't figure out. After accusing the Europeans of ignoring the Saddam threat because the Iraqis were "brown, Muslim, and far away" and saying basically "everyone thinks you're racist", Bush said, "Cuanto más me atacan los europeos tanto más fuerte soy en los Estados Unidos," which Google translated as, "The more they attack the European as much to me the more hard I am in the United States." Anyone want to help me with that? Was he talking about being hard on us, as in justifying the dismantling of our civil liberties as he roots for homegrown terrorists? Or did he just mean that he gets harder on "them" (the bad guys, I guess) from where he is, which is here?
Yes, we can't say much, but we can say, our President can lie like a rug in any setting. I didn't care about the Clinton/Obama will-we-talk-to-leaders debate, but now I realize, we really need to. Not just the "mean" ones, but we're going to have to do a whole tour of our allied leaders to, to apologize and restore relations! Maybe we should make Barabara Bush take her son by the ear and make him apologize in person.
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Welcome to America, Bill.
[Read the article: Bill O'Reilly explains the African-American]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Next, we'll work on accepting Democrats. I don't want to scare you, but they're people too.