WTF Is It Now?!?

Quotes of the Afternoon

"Mr. Bush has occupied his lofty office for sixteen months now; during which time he has used as his guide to decision-making, regarding Middle East policy, the "any way but Clinton's" way. That is a pretty poor substitute for actually KNOWING why one is doing what one is doing.
"[S]uch reasoning on the part of Mr. Bush demonstrates only too well how lacking in maturity, dignity and honesty he remains.
"Sad for America, and sad for the poor souls in the Middle East who have been harmed, maimed, killed and betrayed by Mr. Bush's year-long inability to come up with a better solution to any crisis than to NOT do anything Clinton did or would have done." - Lois Erwin at SmirkingChimp.com

"In Washington, we have a somnolent president who still can't believe how easily he went from barroom drunk to Leader of the Free World. It occurred to him Thursday that perhaps he ought to take the Israeli-Palestinian crisis seriously, so he's finally (and far too late) dispatching the one reasonable man he knows to try to get people to talk to one another.
"An Israeli once told me: 'In the Middle East, Clinton walks on water.'" - Harley Sorensen in The San Francisco Chronicle



'Thank God for the International Media' segment: Robert Fisk kicks chimp butt!

So what's the surprise? Suddenly Israel doesn't want to take our advice. Ex-general Ariel Sharon prefers to go on wrecking the Palestinian Authority, tearing up the Oslo agreement in the name of his Holy War on terror. Why should he worry about the scandalous number of civilian casualties among the Palestinians? After all, didn't America wreak its own revenge - killing thousands of innocent civilians in one of the poorest countries on Earth - after the crimes against humanity of 11 September? I must admit, though, to a grim satisfaction when I heard President George Bush's puzzled, uncomprehending response to Mr Sharon's refusal to withdraw his army from the West Bank.

Even Mr Bush's speech last week in which he dispatched Mr Powell on his "urgent" mission of peace - allowing him a lazy seven days to reach Israel, reserved its venom for the Palestinians. And yet, after all that, he fails to see why Mr Sharon might choose to keep his army in the field.

- - Read the whole thing at The London Independent (with thanks to SmirkingChimp)



"Nakedness, shame, and stunning shallowness "

[T]he cynical Bush readily exploited and accepted the political benefits of being a "wartime president". Bush eagerly decided to wave the bloody shirt and march off for vengeance, instead of engaging the American and world public in a debate and discussion about why such monstrous acts could be committed. So, Bush's act now, think later decisions satisfied the immediate desire for battle, but built no philosophical foundation for the deeper and longer term causes of international chaos and terrorism.

Now, the clothes have fallen away from the emperor. What the skeptics feared from the beginning is being made manifest in US policy in the Middle East.

The juvenile Bush, petulantly rejected almost everything elected-president Bill Clinton put in place during his eight years, preferring instead a foolish and counterproductive 'new' policy of letting Israel and Palestine sort out their own problems. Imperiously, Bush asserted that a president should only attend a summit and place his seal of approval on an agreement already worked-out by underlings. In other words, the 'emperor' must be protected from risk or failure. But what Bush truly discloses about himself is his guilt by omission for dropping the ball President Clinton had carried for peace for eight years. "Real men" -- a notion in which Bush seems to place a great deal of stock -- don't cast about looking to blame others for their own shortcomings, doing so is done by those with something to be ashamed of.

- - Read it all at Earthside.com. And thank you, Dave Chandler!