« What Does The UN Block? | Main | Against Marriage » Credibility07 Aug 2007 07:25 am
Another classic "me or your lying eyes" moment as George W. Bush decides to contradicts Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the question of Iran's role in Afghanistan. Karzai, who only lives in Afghanistan and runs its government, calls Iran "a helper." Bush, though, says he's got it wrong. Comments (18)
OK, I know it's tedious, but really, didn't they teach you in school that "decides to contradicts" is not proper? You really must cut down on the caffeine, soon. 
It seems that Mr. Yglesias is a lost cause on the Better Grammar For America front. Attempting to correct his spelling mistakes is about as likely to yield a positive result as humping sand is. On a lighter note, I've got to get me one of those hats Karzai is wearing. Anyone know what it's called?
Karen, Gordon, surely you know the difference between grammatical and editorial mistakes. That sentence changed forms at some point during the composition. There is a world of difference btw a lazy writer who doesn't proofread and a grammatical idiot. (Except he's not lazy per se, but would rather produce more posts than proof the ones already produced.)
I have to say that I feel it's a little petty to point out minor grammatical and spelling mistakes on a blog (Matt's or anyone else's.) If journalism is the first draft of history, blogging is the first draft of journalism, and should be treated accordingly.
Of course Iran is interested in helping Afghanistan - they hate the Taliban and al Qaeda and the Karzai government is specifically battling both of them. It's in Iran's best interest to have a friendly Afghanistan on its border and Tehran knows it - the more the US and allies fall down in the region, the more Iran will step up to be the "good neighbor" to the Afghans. This is Bush's binary thinking at work - Iran is a nuisance in some areas of US foreign policy so they must be a nuisance in every area of US foreign policy. There are only white hats and black hats and anyone in a black hat must have an insidious motive if they look helpful. A stunningly useless foreign policy for a world more complex than a Mort Weisinger comic book from the 50s. I suspect that Iran is interested in undermining US foreign relations in the region (after all, the US has openly stated that we are interested in undermining Iran's foreign relations in the region), but I suspect that they also would really, really like to have a stable neighbor who isn't run by a bunch of thugs likely to send money and weapons to revolutionaries and terrorists inside Iranian territory - which is what life was like when Afghanistan was under Taliban rule in the last decade or so. The whole Bush administration seems to have a real blind spot in understanding that sometimes other countries really do act in their own best interest and that they don't do things just to piss off the US.
The really weird thing about that news conference is the part where Bush claims Iran has admitted trying to develop nuclear weapons. This is news to me; I thought they're still insisting their nuclear program is peaceful. Here's the transcript.
Chris, I saw that, too, and am shocked that none of the big bloggers seemed to have picked up on it. As always with our president, we get to decide: is he ignorant, confused, or lying? But of course, "gaffes" in the service of increased belligerance are seldom called out anymore.
I looked it up. Karzai's hat is called a "karacul hat". Apparently it's made from wool culled from lamb fetuses. I haven't decided whether that bothers me or not.
"Chris, I saw that, too, and am shocked that none of the big bloggers seemed to have picked up on it. As always with our president, we get to decide: is he ignorant, confused, or lying? But of course, "gaffes" in the service of increased belligerance are seldom called out anymore." Much like the social evolution enjoyed by any village idiot, George Bush's apparent cognitive and linguistic handicaps have ceased to become notable over the years, and everyone has finally come to accept him for what he is.
Lets see - Karzai has to live with Iran as a neighbor, and - seeing the unwillingness of the left in the US to support Iraq, he figures that we might well bail on him, too - and lots of the left does want out of Afghanistan. In his position, given the lack of support from people like you, what would you do? Ironically, the lack of support from the left is one of the things that keeps our enemy going - so long as they think they can get a political win out of the US, they stay in the fight. If they didn't believe that, and instead saw nothing but the US military coming at them, they wouldn't hold up as well. Congratulations for making the world just a little bit worse.
Or maybe James, he sees us wasting enormous amounts of resources in Iraq to the detriment of our ability to help in Afghanistan and sees the writing on the wall- Bush doesn't give a shit about making the situation better for Afghanistan. Congratulations for increasing the level of stupid in the world.
> Ironically, the lack of support from the left is If the American people kept re-electing George In essence, your complaint is that the public has Wouldn't it be great if Dear Leader could just
James Robertson: "Ironically, the lack of support from the left is one of the things that keeps our enemy going - so long as they think they can get a political win out of the US, they stay in the fight. If they didn't believe that, and instead saw nothing but the US military coming at them, they wouldn't hold up as well." Just in case you haven't noticed, these guys were fighting like motherf*ckers back in late 2003. They're fighting quite nicely on their own - well, with a huge dose of help from people like you, who f*cked Iraq up so badly.
I've seen many comments similar to James Robertson's and no longer think of them as simply stupid or even merely duplicitous. First they are clearly part of a developing dolchstosslegende (e.g., http://harpers.org/StabbedInTheBack.html) but this is also connected I think to a kind of psychosis, a belief in facts that are not only highly questionable but mutually contradictory. There used to be an email making the rounds that attempted to illustrate this albeit imperfectly. I think I kept part of it, let me rummage ...ah: To be a Republican you must believe that: In this case *The Right has held virtually exclusive power for nearly seven years and implemented policies as it saw fit, but the failure of those policies is largely the fault of the Left (who stabbed 'us' in the back). Within that framework I have only one prediction to make regarding the outcome of the Republican War on Terror: The ghost of Timothy McVeigh will return; Al Qaeda will re-enter our shores within the bodies of our children.
Bravo RW, right on the money. I went to the code pink anti war rally right before the war, or right after. I can't remember the date but it was in DC and a sweet young man had a home made sign that made a list of all the "blowback" moments from the last set of wars including Tim McVeigh. It was an astonishingly prescient piece of writing and thinking for such a young kid at such an early stage of the war to be. I remember reading it and thinking "if only some of the talking heads who are explaining to us that thisis going to be another grenada had an ounce of your historical sense!" aimai
That was indeed perceptive. McVeigh's history as a vet WRT Gulf War 1 was widely reported but not many put two-and-two together; I know I didn't, at least at the time. Unfortunately a friend recommended I terrify myself by visiting some blogs frequented by active and recently returned vets: Some of the threads included comments that were so violent, paranoid and/or retributive that I could only think, this vile conflict has infected at least some of our troops with demons that only death will exorcise. Note: Harpers has apparently reorganized their archives so the link I gave above WRT dolchstosslegende is now at http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/06/0081080 - it's an article many of you are probably familiar with by Kevin Baker: "Stabbed in the Back! The past and future of a right-wing myth." For those who haven't read it I recommend it; we will be hearing the stabbed-in-the-back theme increasingly as time moves on so might as well understand its origins.
Matt needs a copy of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, as well as that author's other books.
Comments closed August 21, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
I don't see how Bush can make these sweeping generalizations without even looking into a guy's eyes to see what his soul says.
Posted by Dave B. | August 7, 2007 7:43 AM