Bush on the NIE (or Pathology of a President)

Bush serves up a rare naked lunch: in today's press conference, he quite baldly offered two amazing bits of reasoning related to the Iran-ain't-got-no-stinkin'-nukes National Intelligence Estimate. I summarize.

One

Q: So it turns out Iran has no nukes. The attack's out, right?

A: The NIE proves that Iran is extremely dangerous and we'll probably have to attack, just as I have always said and believed.*

Two

Q: There's no nukes, but you warned darkly of WWIII. What the hell?

A: I didn't hear about it until last week.

Q: So while you were warning of WWIII, no one from intelligence mentioned that Iran was no danger?

A: Yup. And anyway, this NIE doesn't change anything; Iran is still trying to enrich uranium and bomb soccer moms on their way to pick up groceries.**

A couple things bear mentioning. Bush could not have more clearly described his mental pathology had he been Sigmund Freud. One has belief, which is real, and facts, which must serve the reality of belief. Iran is dangerous because he believes it is; whether they have nukes is wholly beside the point. This has not been in dispute since mid-2003, but rarely have we had such a clear view of it.

Speaking of 2003, the second point is this: Bush's madness is abetted by those who pretend it's not madness. Chief among the enablers are the members of the press corps, who seem to write around the strange insanity of the most powerful man on the planet. It will be interesting to see whether they report this as dire evidence that our president is disconnected from reality, or the usual Bush-said, facts-say formulation.

____________________
*Actual exchange:

Q: Mr. President, a new intelligence report says that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago, and that it remains frozen. Are you still convinced that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb? And do the new findings take the military option that you've talked about off the table?

A: Here's what we know. We know that they're still trying to learn how to enrich uranium. We know that enriching uranium is an important step in a country who wants to develop a weapon. We know they had a program.... And so I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program. And the reason why it's a warning signal is that they could restart it. And the thing that would make a restarted program effective and dangerous is the ability to enrich uranium, the knowledge of which could be passed on to a hidden program.

**Actual exchange:

Q: On October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in '03 had already come to light to this administration. So can't you be accused of hyping this threat?

A: In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze. Why would you take time to analyze new information? One, you want to make sure it's not disinformation. You want to make sure the piece of intelligence you have is real. And secondly, they want to make sure they understand the intelligence they gathered: If they think it's real, then what does it mean? And it wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.

Q: Mr. President, thank you. Just to follow, I understand what you're saying about when you were informed about the NIE. Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as "World War III" was making it into conversation, at no point nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, maybe you want to back it down a little bit?

A: No, nobody ever told me that. Having said -- having laid that out, I still feel strongly that Iran is a danger. Nothing has changed in this NIE that says, okay, why don't we just stop worrying about it. Quite the contrary. I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. My opinion hasn't changed.

Now, the Iranians -- the most difficult aspect of developing a weapons program, or as some would say, the long pole in the tent, is enriching uranium. This is a nation -- Iran is a nation that is testing ballistic missiles. And it is a nation that is trying to enrich uranium.

Bizarro World

“Earlier in the day, before a crowd of New Hampshire college students, Romney said that the policies of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards were similar to those of a Communist dictatorship. Their ideas, he said pointedly, 'didn’t work for the Soviet Union.'”
--Mitt Romney, quoted in the New Yorker, Oct 29, 07

“Shirley MacLaine writes in her new book that you sighted a UFO over her home in Washington state, that you found the encounter extremely moving, that it was a triangular craft, silent and hovering, that you 'felt a connection to your heart and heard directions in your mind.'”
--Tim Russert to Dennis Kucinich, Oct 31, 07

One candidate is consistent, straightforward, humorous, and serious about policy issues; one will say whatever leaps to his mind to win a convert, is evasive, slick, and wholly unserious about policy issues ("we ought to double Guantanamo"). One is a vegan, one lies about having been a hunter. One candidate is regarded as a lunatic for proposing a department devoted to actively spreading peace in dangerous regions of the world; the other is taken seriously despite believing that an illiterate in upstate New York found gold plates left by an angel that detail the history of a lost tribe of Israel's visit to North America and resulting war with Native Americans.

Dennis Kucinich is a national laughingstock, and Mitt Romney is the front-runner in the first two primaries.

There are times when I think we are at the moment when the scales fall from our eyes as a nation and we are re-introduced to reality. Then there are times when I think the madness is so profound that we will henceforth dwell in our own private bizarro world. Today I am not hopeful.

Metaphor for a Failed Regime

Vincente Fox, on Real Time last week:

"You know in that visit, when I took him to see this beautiful stallion that I ride--and have ridden all my life, since I was two years old--I noticed that he was a little bit trembling, a little bit afraid of touching the horse. And then when I invited him to ride it he said, "No no, no--security will not allow me to ride that horse. And then I paid a visit back here in Texas and he invited me to go around his farm there. By the way, a very modest home that he's got there. And he was driving this pick-up, this beautiful pick-up. And so, I could notice that he knows how to drive a pick-up, but he doesn't know how to ride a horse."

Story of this administration: all Levis and no balls.

The Fundamental Question

Bush may have unwittingly outlined the Democratic strategy for 2008:

But he said he saw his unpopularity as a natural result of his decision to pursue a strategy in which he believed. “I made a decision to lead,” he said, “One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?”

Let's see, how many incumbent GOP lawmakers agreed with his unilateral arrogance? I believe I'd be asking them all whether this fundamental question is the one they're running on. Or away from.

A Final Rant . . . For Now

Blogging has changed enormously in the four years since I started Notes on the Atrocities. In January 2003, the lefty political blogosphere was small enough that you could actually have a reasonable sense of everyone in it. I had regular conversations with Atrios, Kos, Kevin Drum and a host of other less-known or less-remembered bloggers. When the DNC started its blog, Notes scored recognition as one of about 30 blogs to be linked there. This was definitely cool, but also indicative of just how small the blogosphere was.

I traipse down memory lane not only for self-congratulatory reasons. The reason there were so few bloggers created the context for why bloggers were necessary in the first place. We were about to go to war and almost no one, from the leaders of the Democratic Party (remember kindly, compliant Tom Daschle?) to the editorial boards of the Times or Post, was willing to condemn the damn thing.

This is a remarkable fact. We were about to invade a country on a purely racist premise, having confused one group of brown non-Christians with another ("they attacked us first!"), led by a man whose father had been humiliated in this country and his group of insiders (Perle and Wolfie, where have you gone?) who had been agitating for a decade in the Weekly Standard before 9/11 to invade it. It is true that everyone assumed our erstwhile ally had WMD, but so what? Lots of countries had them, and they were, so far as anyone could tell, not "gathering threats."

So blogging seemed to be important. In any case, it provided an outlet for outrage, and for a certain segment of cranky lefties, that seemed like reason enough.

But outrage always seems to be competing with cynicism. So many of the really good independent bloggers either went pro and became party insiders (which was good for them and good for the party) or were crushed by cynicism. It's bad enough that Bush is corrupt and imperialistic and monarchal, but it's far worse that he and his GOP cohorts are stunning ideologues, who always--and I seriously mean always; it's the first play in a one-play GOP playbook--politicize decisions. Every decision is made with an eye toward how it will punish the Dems. The major scandal of the day, the prosecutorial firings, have emerged as a scandal because people can't believe that the White House would actually try to use the US prosecutors to exact revenge. But for those of us who watch, it's the least surprising thing about this scandal.

The media didn't really know how to handle this level of corruption and manipulation. It took them four years to tumble to the fact that this is SOP for the GOP, but it seems that they have finally tumbled. The Post is no-longer pro-war; Sean Hannity is no longer regarded as a journalist, and the he-said, she-said regurgitation of fake arguments for the GOP's benefit seems to be a vestige of a naive past.

Democrats finally seem to have their heads in the game. Or at least know what the game is, whether they have learned how to play it. I used to say that the Dems were in a back alley knife-fight with Karl Rove, and they thought it was a game of chess. At long last, Nancy Pelosi has handed out the Leathermans.

And bloggers? They are ubiquitous: not only are there literally thousands of good and hundreds of excellent political blogs, but now everyone has a blog--the MSM, magazines, Arianna Huffington. We even have the emergence of the blog-as-newspaper.

For the indie blogger with a readership of 50, it's far harder to imagine that you're saying anything important. Blogging has become a burden and an act of conspicuous vanity (whereas in 2003 it was virtuous vanity). Some blogs still have critical relevance--BlueOregon provides political news that would otherwise go missing--but some, like Hog, are pretty obviously redundant.

I wouldn't care so much if my outrage were greater than my cynicism, but at the moment, it's not. The scrum between the forces of truth and lightness and darkness and autocracy just makes me tired. I can't say that the outrage won't bubble up again--it always seems to--but for now it is swamped by cynicism. As a parting example, a coda, if you will, I will offer you one of the most cynical spectacles I have ever seen, courtesy of the crown prince of darkness and autocracy, Tom DeLay.

He has a new book out, the purpose of which is to give relevance to his struggle to inject ideology into all things Republican. As was the case throughout his career, nothing mattered except the supremacy of the GOP--certainly not little things like facts. In an act of mesmerizing idiocy, he tries to deny the words in his new book in an interview with Chris Matthews because they failed to suit his argument at the time.

And that's why I'm tired. Good night and good luck.

Creepy Right-Wing Bloggers

Andrew Sullivan sussed out an interesting survey of right-wing bloggers. 240 were sent an eight-question survey, and 63 responded. The results were . . . bizarre.

1) Do you think the surge should go forward?

Yes (61) -- 97%
No (2) -- 3%

2) Do you think that a majority of Democrats in Congress would like to see us lose in Iraq for political reasons?

Yes (53)-- 84%
No (10) -- 16%

4) Do you think mankind is the primary cause of global warming?

Yes (0) -- 0%
No (59) -- 100%

Some of the responses weren't as unhinged--but they were interesting:

7) If you were grading George Bush on his foreign policy for his presidency so far, would you give him an:

A or B (35) -- 56%
C (18) -- 29%
D, E, or F (10) -- 16%

8) If you were grading George Bush on his domestic policy for his presidency so far, would you give him an:

A or B (17) -- 27%
C (26) -- 41%
D, E, or F (20) -- 32%

By way of assessing how nutty these views are, here's some polling data on similar questions:

• 31% - In favor of the surge (61% oppose) (Pew)
  
• 47% - Americans believing global warming is caused by humans (Pew)
• 31%, 46% - Americans approving of Dubya's handling of the war and terror (WaPo)
• 43% - Americans approving of Dubya's handling of the economy
  

Analysis: right-wing bloggers are paranoid, scared of both the larger foreign world and Democrats, and they don't understand science. (Probably they're paranoid about it, too.)