6.04.2004

One in the Hand, Is Worth Two In Teh Boosh

(Not every title can make sense....)


Perhaps an apt title would be "Holy Paranoia Complex, Batman!"

Capitol Hill Blue isn't the most trustworthy website, but they have run two explosive articles in the past two days that, if true, demonstrate that the wheels have fallen off the Bush Admin's wagon.

President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state
.”

...
"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now." - CHB


Sounds like Bush has been hitting the 'Jesus Juice' a little too hard lately. Which you can take to mean that he's drinking again, drinking wine supplied by Michael Jackson, or is getting 'drunk' on his imagined relationship with an invisble deity. Take your pick, they're probably all valid.

Of course, Bush has some more problems of his own (if CHB can be trusted):

Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.

Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak. The move suggests the president anticipates being questioned by prosecutors. Sources say grand jury witnesses have implicated the President and his top advisor, Karl Rove. - CHB

If this is true, then Bush should really be in trouble. Because he, of all people, should have known better. As the son of a former head of CIA, Bush knew right from wrong. And he chose wrong. Of course, one could argue that his father was a screwup at the CIA, and was directly responsible for allowing foreign terrorists to assasinate Letelier on American soil, and covering US culpability in Pinochet's assasination... So perhaps W. is just living up to the lofty standards set by his father...

And yet, I still can't imagine that GH Bush would have sat passive in the Oval Office while his aides outed a CIA officer. H Bush is old school, where the rules are different... and when examining US involvement in South American politics in the mid-1900's, one could argue that most rules were 'soft' or even non-existent: they were making them up as they went along. Now, this isn't to excuse our activites in Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, or even Cuba or Mexico. However, our standards have greatly changed since then.

I don't have much respect for George H Bush's record in the CIA or the White House. But I do have respect for him as an individual. He took a lot of nasty hits in public, and still rolled with the punches. Could you imagine W going on SNL with Will Ferrel like H did with Dana Carvey? And say what you will about the 1991 Gulf War, but it was an ugly necessity and H certainly used diplomacy to his advantage to build a true coalition. And when H saw that he was going to be slaughtered by Clinton, he took it like a real man. It's unfortunate that he never taught that skill to his children...

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