Bush's isolation portends even greater ugliness

Good god. Now Bush has trouble even getting his friends to talk to him.

"The first meeting in a scheduled two-day summit between President Bush and Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq," reported the NYT, "was canceled at the last minute today, against the backdrop of threats by a radical Shiite cleric to boycott the Maliki government and the disclosure of a classified White House memo that was highly critical of Mr. Maliki."

Some are saying the White House deliberately leaked the classified memo as a less than subtle shot over Maliki's bow prior to high-level discussions. That may be, but if true, the tactic was a spectacular flop on several fronts.

For starters, Maliki's pique at the memo's personally humiliating contents and disclosure only whiplashed as a personal humiliation of Bush. The prime minister's no-show at the kick-off confab was a public refutation of the president's attempt at looking tough -- and in terms of leverage, a tough posture was just about the last card Bush had left to play.

Second, the memo's disclosed contents gutted the next day's talks of any fresh substance. The summit was billed as an eyeball-to-eyeball sorting out of an unsteady power relationship, but if Bush had anything new to bring to the table as an eyeball-opener, so much for the surprise. Maliki was permitted to come loaded for bear. If the memo's disclosure was a leak with the highest approval, it was a damn foolish one.

Furthermore, the principal danger to Iraq's "government" was not only not averted, but exacerbated. The Bela al-Lugosi of Iraqi power politics, the lugubrious Moktada al-Sadr, was treated to a public display of the White House's discontent and frustration with Maliki -- one that stripped bare two paper tigers. The overt rift surely thrilled and emboldened Mr. Sadr, whose subsequent walkout from Parliament -- as promised, should the summit go forward -- was pretty much the last nail in the bloody coffin that is Iraq.

In short, forget the controversy over whether the memo was leaked. The summit itself was a doomed proposition. It guaranteed that Bush would take incoming from all sides now.

Which is precisely what's happening even at home -- literally his own home. One of the country's newly elected U.S. senators was seen ducking and hiding from POTUS at a White House reception, but ultimately James Webb ran out of luck.

As has been widely reported, Bush immediately -- characteristically -- asked the worst possible question he could put to Webb. "How's your boy?" who happens to be stuck in Iraq, courtesy Mr. Bush.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb answered more inclusively.

"That's not what I asked you" said Bush, obviously relishing the opportunity to piss off yet another potential ally. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb retorted, openly disrespecting the most deservedly disrespected man on Earth.

Webb later revealed "that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief," which, sadly, was a missed opportunity for Webb and an admiring world. Jury nullification at his criminal trial would have reigned supreme.

Bush slapped Maliki, Maliki slapped him right back. Bush jabbed Webb. Webb jabbed him right back. Bush has isolated and alienated himself from the planet. The planet welcomes and encourages his isolation and alienation. Seemingly no one cares any longer what or who Mr. Bush is.

If freedom is indeed just another word for nothing left to lose, Bush now has it in spades. And given the hardware and manpower still at his disposal, that's a scary thought.

Comments

[Dot]

Ordinarily I would agree with your conclusion. All the Bushites deserve the hangman's noose as far as I am concerned.

But with all due respect to Janis Joplin, "nothing left to lose" is a sacry state of mind in a man with his finger on the "nukular button."

God help us and the rest of the planet.

[Susan Jolly]

Great post -- you made me wonder what Bush told Maliki in order to coerce him to finally come to the table... another version of "how's your boy?..."

Or maybe Bush told Maliki that the dirty Democrats leaked that "fake" memo about him?

Bush and his minions belong in straitjackets before they do any more harm to themselves and everyone else. The blare of their insanity is deafening.

[CV]

At least we can say we live in interesting times

[Jay Randal]

I do not care if Bush is isolating himself, but it does give more importance to him resigning from the presidency. Dubya is a complete failure, so he needs to return to his Texas ranch, or he can go into exile in Paraguay!

[Pastor Doodah]

Nobody will want to stand anywhere near him soon. He's become more radioactive than Alexander Litvinenko. Even to rabid supporters it must now be obvious that he has nothing add to any conversation beyond tired slogans and empty platitudes delivered with a tough-guy stance that is becoming more cartoonish by the day.

[Mark]

George W. is the worst president I've seen in my lifetime. In fact, I hate to call him President, for I believe he stole both elections. My disgust at seeing him take office in the White House has only grown daily. The truly frightening part is that there is no limit to how bad he can really be. You won't hear the MSM saying anything of the kind. And W. has oceans of money behind him. But I shudder at the thought of what W. can still accomplish in the way of mischief in the next two years or so. The good news is that Nancy Pelosi needn't reach back into the past to dredge up articles of impeachment. Dick Cheney is so arrogant he'll proudly provide ammunition for further subpoenas anytime Congress asks him to do anything at all. The bad news is Bush may use the new powers he's arrogated himself in the Patriot Act to remove any Congress member whose opposition he finds annoying. We're about to find out just how binding the provisions of the Patriot Act really are. That'll be a constitutional crisis of the first order. Note, by the way, that Republicans have craftily anchored the third branch of the government in their favor: the Supreme Court. Yet I still hope that their own incompetence will be the ruin of these vicious pricks. Cheney's watchword, since appointing himself Vice President, has been that Richard Nixon lost through being too open and bipartisan. He has clung to this arrogant pose with a tenacity which begs to be slammed in his face. This, after six years of a Republican congress that thought it quite appropriate to rummage through the First Lady's underwear drawer. Although the impending downfall of George W. Bush has a satisfying karmic rightness, I fear that the doom W. has brought on himself will be in far too great a measure visited on the rest of us too. Yes, those who voted for him got what they deserved, but what about the rest of us?

[Don Robertson]

Bush is quixotic to a fault, one who seemingly flippantly can say the wrong thing at the wrong time almost every time he opens his mouth. As one with a similar fault in temperament, I would advise anyone seeking to analyse who this man is, and what his motivations might be for being so abrupt and insensitive, the wrong impression is too easily taken from these briefly reported exchanges. Reported as such they carry a wrong conclusion of intention, but these are not his intentions. This is the way of his interpersonal style.

However faulty this style may seem in public, at press conferences, and read second hand in the media, reported by someone who is not so intimate with Bush, it should be noted, Bush has also the reported ability of an uncommon manager. He appears an insensitive and caustically abrasive man in public to bystanders and reporters, however, to his intimates, those who deal with his temperament on a daily basis, his awkward approach allows, even invites them to be similarly less restrained in the messages they might convey. This is indeed the key to his managerial success, pulling all the ideas out of those who advise him, and giving them the go-ahead.

It is only unfortunate that meeker voices tend to get lost in such an exchange. These are men in the White House, or women who have the ability to act like men.

If there is a fault in the Bush cadre, it is that there are such strong men, voices like that of Colin Powell get left aside, and outside, despite their clear betterness at times. Powell grew despondent enough at this, knowing he was right, but unable to carry the day, he left the fold.

We can only wonder, had Powell had better advisers, could have they reinforced his ego to get him to assert what he knew was right, that we should not go in there, into Iraq. We then had enough just standing right on the border when we were ready to invade Iraq, to extract from Saddam everything required under the circumstances of ultimate superiority. And Powell also seemed to have known, by crossing the border into Iraq, by rushing to Baghdad, we would be immediately surrounded, and put into the position of ultimate inferiority, an occupier of a foreign land.

I'm not sure Powell could have been a good President. I know Bush could have been one, were his keaner advisers willing to risk their embarrassment and dishonor, by simply speaking up forcefully and demanding an acounting of the faulty ideas that were ultimately put into effect.

And there were many who knew it too.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher
Limestone, Maine

An Illustrated Philosophy Primer for Young Readers
http://www.geocities.com/donaldwrobertson/index.html