04/06/2002 Archived Entry: "Strings: Bush-Blair, Bushspeak, & still stuck on blaming Clinton"
"One of the problems we have in the military is we're in a lot of places around the world."
George Bush, during the 2000 Presidential 2nd debate.
Reading through the Text of Bush-Blair News Conference one surely catches the arrogance of Bush, but that's normal. Tony Blair is rightly being labeled as a puppet in Europe, his comments are nothing but Bushspeak. He publicly seems to add nothing to Bush's globalist military order of thought. There is a rumbling at Downing Street that Blair's undivided support of Bush's military interventionism could break the Labour majority in GB. Right now, all the talk about a "change of regime in Iraq" looks like just talk. This brings up another point.
Where did the new word come from, regime change? Let's look at the transcript for clues:
BUSH: Maybe I should be a little less direct and be a little more nuanced and say we support regime change.
QUESTION: That's a change, though, isn't it, a change in policy?
BUSH: No, it's really not. Regime change was the policy of my predecessor, as well.
QUESTION: And your father?
BUSH: You know, I can't remember that far back, but ... it's certainly the policy of my administration. And I think "regime change" sounds a lot more civil, doesn't it?
Yes George, it sounds cool and nifty, you and Tony think up that one together? No, we know, your money spent on focus groups of single working mothers appears well spent. Your polling efforts found a nice sounding word to describe a militaristic invasion & coup by the US & GB in Iraq. How will this administrations preoccupation with the entire destabilization of the middle east, via militaristic actions, result in peace? Through change of regime, i.e., the installation of more puppets. Authoritative gov'ts that will rule the land backed by US military strength. Dictatorships. Welcome, to the new regime. It's a little bit like the old one, but at least we own it. George Bush couldn't give a flip about Democracy, equality, or global peace. Those concepts carry no weight with him. Think Blue vs Red, politics as sport, us vs them, and you'll be closer to the context of his mental framework.
The other notable thing is how Bush tries to two-step away from his laying fault on Clinton for the problems occurring during his own administration. Bush Says He Wasn't Blaming Clinton, but he really was, and is just trying to weasel out of it now. Bush's lack of historical context is quite evident here. He isn't even aware of what the US policies toward Iraq have been over the past decade. Reminds me of when Dubya said he supported the military going into Lebanon during the second debate between Bush and Gore. It seemed that all he could remember about it was that it occurred during Reagan, and was therefore good, nevermind that it was a horrific failure in which dead Marines had been victims of Reagan's myopic Middle Eastern policy. Of course, Jim Lehrer moved on without comment, and the press let Bush's gapping historical ignorance slide, they had the color of Gore's tie to fret about.
Republicans, good. Democrats, bad. A problem? Blame it on Clinton. That's about the extent of the historical reference for Bush.
So, here's how it played out this time.
Bush played the blame Clinton card:
"Well, we've tried summits in the past, as you may remember. There wasn't one all that long ago where a summit was called and nothing happened. And as a result we had a significant intefadeh in the area," Bush replied.
"The only time that's appropriate for a U.S. president to call a summit, when it looks like something can get done."
Clinton's former press secretary, Joe Lockhart said in response:
"He'll learn at some point that you have to face problems rather than to blame others, and the only thing more glaring here than his lack of leadership is his lack of knowledge."
Bush spun in return:
Somebody told me there's a story floating around that somehow I am blaming the Clinton administration for what's going on in the Middle East right now.
Let's make this very clear, that in my speech I said that Mr. Arafat has not lived up to the promises that he made at Oslo and elsewhere to fight off terror. He hasn't performed.
However, as the AP wire notes:
According to the White House transcript of Bush's ITV interview, the president made no reference to Arafat when discussing the failed summitry that preceded this latest rash of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.
Once again, who Bush did reference:
"The only time that's appropriate for a U.S. president to call a summit, when it looks like something can get done."
The access press that regularly edits Bush's grammatical errors and mistakes will accept Bush's revision of his prior statements. All around us, the puppets only speak the strings being pulled.
Replies: 1 Comment
The NYT's does mention Bush's latest lie near the bottom of their "Balky" article. Mostly, it's about how Bush is getting boiled that no one is listening to him in the ME --it's that dictator of the world complex-- but in the closing paragraphs, it's noted:
Balky Players Are Defying the Bush Game Plan
He suggested several times that President Bill Clinton's failure to reach peace at Camp David was disastrous.
"As a result we had a significant intifada in the area," he told an interviewer, correcting his statement at the Saturday news conference to say he did not mean to blame Mr. Clinton, but rather Mr. Arafat.
It is clear, he said the other day, that presidents should not organize a summit mmeting unless they know for certain they can get a deal. "This doesn't have nothing to do with reputation," Mr. Bush said, according to a transcript released by the White House. "It has everything to do with the consequences if it fails."
"If a summit fails, if the president lays it out there and nothing happens, generally the status — the follow-up is worse than the status quo," he said. "And that's what presidents must understand."
They didn't even edit the double negative out. Oh my, new heights of national media criticism! It sounds like the real George is starting to emerge. The arrogant, my-way-or-the-highway, who, as a know-it-all doesn't need to understand nothing. The guy is still stuck in the "if Clinton did it I won't" mode.
Posted by myDD @ 04/08/2002 07:33 AM PST
