The Line

It sure was nice of the President to put the fact that he doesn't believe in democracy or constitutional government out in the pre-Thanksgiving news dump. Seriously, wtf is this about:

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."

I can understand (though not, I think, agree with) deciding to ultimately take an "our S.O.B." point of view on this. But that hardly commits us to embracing an up-is-down view of what it takes to be someone "who believes in democracy." It should seem obvious that reacting to an adverse Supreme Court ruling by suspending the constitution, having the head justice fired and arrested, and then ordering mass arrests of political opponents and civil society leaders is not consistent with a "no line crossing" policy.

Comments

It's a bit foreboding for what our President, who is truly someone who believes in democracy, is going to do when a Democrat wins the '08 election. Whatever he does, he surely won't cross the line.

Posted by neil | November 22, 2007 10:41 AM

I took it as an unintentionally frank declaration that with regard to Musharrif there simply were no lines.

Posted by aleks | November 22, 2007 10:55 AM

It is probably a mistake to assume the airhead President even knows what he is saying. "believes in Democracy" is just one of the cliches stuffed into his grab-bag of a brain.

Posted by bob h | November 22, 2007 10:55 AM

Bob H is right.

Watching Junta Boy speak reminds me of someone noodling around with a 'Refrigerator Poetry Magnets, Politics Edition'.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | November 22, 2007 11:10 AM

Pretty much every president in recent times has praised some tyrant or other as a "friend of democracy" or some such claptrap because the guy was our ally and Americans simply can't deal with the gritty realism that sometimes one must shake hands with and even buddy up to butchers, so if the guy is our friend he must be a good guy.

Posted by JonF | November 22, 2007 11:22 AM

It's all so stupid. Pakistan expert, and Brookings scholar, Stephen Cohen says that the relying on the PK military is the only option because PK has no rule of law. The country has no rule of law because the military jailed all the independent lawyers and judges!

Biden says Pakistan's future lies with Pakistan, not Bush. Sure, that's why the Sharif and Benazir campaign for the PK leadership by writing op-eds in the Washington Post. Because the WaPo is the newspaper most read by ordinary Pakistanis.

Anyway, it may all be moot. Google Iskandar Mirza. Liberal, dog-owning, Urdu-speaking ex-miitary politicians don't have a strong political constituency in Pakistan. Once Musharraf resigns (takes off his uniform, in Condeleeza-speak), he will be the emperor with no clothes.

One catch -- as President, Musharraf will still haves the power to dissolve Parliament, but that power is subject to a veto by the PK Supreme Court. Which is why Musharraf needed to pack the court with loyalists before resigning the military -- its the only way to preserve that little bit of power he will have once he becomes an ex-General. That explains why he used the Emergency to torture lawyers and judges, not mullahs and terrorists.

Posted by Iskander mirza | November 22, 2007 11:30 AM

Musharraf "truly is somebody who believes in democracy"?

Truly, ignorance is strength.

Posted by lambert strether | November 22, 2007 11:38 AM

Personally, I think Bush gets a kick out of being able to say the craziest stuff and getting away with it. The statement is effectively daring his audience with, "What are you going to do? Disagree with me in public? I'm the one with the microphone and the TV cameras!"

Posted by Tyro | November 22, 2007 12:11 PM

Well, his dad praised Marcos for the same thing, so I guess only the stupid genes get passed on in the Bush family.

"It is probably a mistake to assume the airhead President even knows what he is saying. "believes in Democracy" is just one of the cliches stuffed into his grab-bag of a brain.

Posted by bob h | November 22, 2007 10:55 AM"

I'm going to have to use "grab-bag of a brain" in everyday conversation from now on.

Posted by Reality Man | November 22, 2007 12:30 PM

So, based on his reading of what constitutes "crossing the line" and "believing in democracy", we can state as fact that if Al Gore had decided to secure his election to the Presidency back in 2000 by arresting political opponents, jailing most of the Supreme Court, then filling it with cronies who would vote to legitimise his coup, El Residente would have been okay with that?

After all, any other response would have been hypocritical. Wouldn't it?

Posted by Tony J | November 22, 2007 1:39 PM

Maybe Musharraf "believes in" democracy, but, you know, just doesn't act on that belief. Or something.

Posted by Adam Villani | November 22, 2007 2:22 PM

"After all, any other response would have been hypocritical. Wouldn't it?"

That would be true if Bush actually believes what he says. But I don't think that's the case. Bush has a corporate executive mentality. Corporate executives don't say something to convey facts or opinions. They say something because they think the board of directors will fall for it. It's not really a lie, it's just bullshit. Apparently, the American people are just as slow to figure that out as most directors.

Posted by fostert | November 22, 2007 2:25 PM

Yeah, I think what you're feeling here, MY, is a difference in POV on 2 counts.

First, from the POV of somebody like Pres. Bush, Musharraf's record on democracy doesn't look all that bad. He's just burning democracy in order to save it. Much the way the Bush admin. believes must be done here at home, and has done it's best to do.

Second is our old friend: reality-based vs. faith-based. Pres. Bush said Musharraf "truly is somebody who believes in democracy." See, what matters isn't what he does, but what he believes in. That's part and parcel of the faith-based worldview. (I don't mean that to sound flippant or sardonic; I mean it quite literally, as a simple statement of sociological fact.)

Posted by urbino | November 22, 2007 2:33 PM

Pakistan is tricky. The military holds everything together and has effectively taken over the role of the government. It is also a co-owner of many businesses. On one hand this guarantees some form of stability (and some control over corruption) but it is easy to attack this as an absolute regime.

The sad fact is that Musharraf is among the most moderate players in Pakistan and has done an amazing job holding the country together. There are assignation attempts every couple of months from extremist. The 1994 India-Pakistan conflict has shown what can happen when religion takes over politics - or was the nuclear show-off really only about Kashmir?

Democracy in Pakistan is a great idea(l) and goal but I fear that first more economic freedom must take root (such as in Singapore or China) before political freedom can be introduced. Economic freedom connects people of different ideological and religious believes. It decentralizes power and interests (in Pakistan this has nothing to do with fears of big business by liberals). Without shared self-interests - religion mixes all too often with politics? (Iraq was more secular than Pakistan although this is tough to judge and maybe irrelevant).

The main pressure, at this point, that should exercised on the military and Musharraf is to introduce more and more economic openness and not political one. More civil rights before we talk about the right to vote. In the country side - women are nowhere equal (Turkey pre-1920). A class system exists everywhere - also in the cities. Many military people might be secular but are uncertain why they would benefit in case they get out of business interests.

We in the West often mention the WTO as a carrot in foreign relations. I recall how we have played with China in the past. We offered it to Pakistan after they agreed to cool of the nuclear crisis with India? Now it is being mentioned for Iran. I never understood that strategy.

Trade and free markets are a prevention strategy and not a treatment? We should be happy when non-democracies open up to free trade and other economic freedoms. We do not demand democracy from China as we do from Pakistan? Why?

I assume that we know that once the economic and civil soil has been freed - political oppression will not hold long or can only improve.. It is not necessarily the other way around?

Either way - I am not too worried about president Bush's comment at this point. I am slightly worried about a post-Musharraf period.

I am even slightly worried about him leaving the military. Could be a good thing (as it was for Turkey after Atatürk), could be a bad thing (and the military will have to come in again as in Turkey in 1997 in order to prevent an Islamist from mixing religion and politics)...

Speaking of Ataturk. I am not sure that Musharraf can fill his footsteps but he might come as close as possible? It has taken Ataturk a mere 26 years but it has worked?

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | November 22, 2007 3:25 PM

I'm not sure Dubya is really capable of hypocrisy or lying for that matter; could be wrong about that of course. I've thought for some time he might be pathological, a narcissist w/ sadistic tendencies or even a sociopath say, but such guesses aside I am fairly certain that, whatever else he is, Dubya is a bullshitter.

As Harry Frankfurt phrases it (http://tinyurl.com/3598j8):

"The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. ... The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides ... is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor co conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. ... Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are..."

Posted by RW | November 22, 2007 3:39 PM

It's all a question of definitions. For President Bush, a "democracy" is any state that (a) aligns with U.S. foreign policy, and/or (b) is in a fight with Islamic fundamentalist opponents. And this definition, I think, is derived from the goal of making the world permanently safe for democracy by winning the War on Terror. It is the end that justifies all of the means that Bush and Musharraf are using. The big omelette at the end of all this egg-breaking, in other words.

And of course, if it all goes south, the neo-cons are standing by with a helpful plan to invade.

Posted by Ian Garrick Mason | November 22, 2007 9:48 PM

Uh, Hugo?

" 'assignation' attempts?"

Posted by ferd | November 23, 2007 9:28 AM

I don't have the energy to comment, I'll just repeat what I wrote on washingtonpost.com:

"The Supreme Court he himself appointed approves of Musharraf!

Haha."

Posted by Bengt Larsson | November 23, 2007 10:42 AM

It's weird - two years ago, a post like this would have attracted at least a handful of rabid Bush defenders.

None left, I guess?

Posted by Jason C. | November 23, 2007 4:29 PM

I believe in the Tooth Fairy, but I still try to avoid getting my teeth knocked out.

Posted by Hedley Lamarr | November 23, 2007 6:26 PM

As I've said a hundred times, Bush DOES NOT CARE what you think, therefore he DOES NOT CARE what he says to you.

He simply babbles on, then goes back to stealing you blind, like any con artist. Except he has enough power that he doesn't have to even make the con remotely believable, which most con artists have to deal with.

It's more like he expects you to believe the standard extortionist/protection racket line: "Pay up, or something bad could happen to you."

And you pay up every time you treat anything he says like it was related to reality.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 23, 2007 10:10 PM