Michael Bérubé - American Airspace

Almost forgot!

My single favorite moment of the debate:

LEHRER: New question, Mr. President, two minutes. You have said there was a, quote, ��miscalculation,�� of what the conditions would be in post-war Iraq. What was the miscalculation, and how did it happen?

BUSH: No, what I said was that, because we achieved such a rapid victory, more of the Saddam loyalists were around. I mean, we thought we’d whip more of them going in.

But because Tommy Franks did such a great job in planning the operation, we moved rapidly, and a lot of the Baathists and Saddam loyalists laid down their arms and disappeared. I thought they would stay and fight, but they didn’t.

And now we’re fighting them now.

I thought they would stay and fight, but they didn’t, and now we’re fighting them now. I think that pretty much sums up Bush’s Iraq policy.

Posted by on 09/30 at 06:26 PM

Favorite moment: Bush’s pause as he tried to enumerate his coalition ... Tony Blair ... and, and, and ... Alexander Kraznieweski of Poland!

I wondered if he spent that pause trying to remember the name of his #2 ally, Australia’s PM John Howard, who faces his voters on Oct 9 and is probably honored to have been forgotten at this point ...

Peace, JW

Posted by on 09/30 at 07:50 PM
I kinda liked this part:

You know, I think about Missy Johnson. She��s a fantastic lady I met in Charlotte, North Carolina. She and her son Brian, they came to see me. Her husband PJ got killed. He��d been in Afghanistan, went to Iraq.

You know, it’s hard work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm��s way.

What, does Bush think he’s an OB/GYN now?

Posted by on 09/30 at 08:10 PM
My Favorite:

And now we’re fighting them now. And it’s hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it’s necessary work. I watch the TV screens everyday. Everyday. I work and watch the screens. It is hard work watching them. The screens.

And I’m optimistic. See, I think you can be realistic and optimistic at the same time. I’m optimistic we’ll achieve—I know we won’t achieve if we send mixed signals. Mixed signals cause bad reception. Crossed lines. I know we’re not going to achieve our objective if we send mixed signals to our troops, our friends, the Iraqi citizens. The hard working TV people of Iraq.

We’ve got a plan in place. The plan says there will be elections in January, and there will be. I saw it on TV. The plan says we’ll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are. I see it every day on the TV screens, watching the TV. The hard work. See, it is hard.

And it’s not only just America, but NATO is now helping, Jordan’s helping train police, UAE is helping train police. NATO has so many TV’s. Broadcasting. Watching. Seeing it on the screens.

And our alliance is strong. And as I just told you, there’s going to be a summit of the Arab nations. Japan will be watching on TV. I will have TV screens. We’re making progress.

It is hard work. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy. It’s hard work to go from a place where people get their hands cut off, or executed, to a place where people are free. Free to work hard. To watch TV screens. Freedom is hard work. The work. I work. It is hard. See, it is hard to get your hands cut off. No TV.

No Flip-Flopping.

Posted by on 09/30 at 08:37 PM
In fairness to Tommy Franks, he was out sick the day they covered Insurgency at the War College.

Posted by on 09/30 at 09:39 PM
To paraphrase:

“We were shocked that the Iraqi Army didn’t want to get themselves blown up when they saw us show up with a massive ground-and-air campaign that would have been been impossible to resist on any conventional battlefield. We never contemplated that many of them still hated us and would instead hide in cities and engage us in urban guerilla warfare, killing hundreds of American service men and women, not to mention over 10,000 Iraqi civilians. Nobody’s ever heard of such a thing before. The enemy is tricky. I have to give them that.”

Posted by EB on 10/01 at 05:26 AM
One thing that hasn’t gotten a mention in any of this morning’s fact-check scorecards.

I came across a link to a report that suggests that Bush’s “10 million registered voters in Afghanistan” statistic might deeply flawed.

There aren’t that many *eligible* voters in Afghanistan. Though there is no good census data on Afghanistan, the 6.2 million male registered voters represent, according to one report, 120% of the eligible population!

http://www.tcf.org/afghanistanwatch/main.htm#voterregistrationfraud

While the data probably needs further verification, it’s yet another sign that what Bush is saying about Afghanistan is disconnected from the facts on the ground.

Posted by Amardeep on 10/01 at 05:59 AM
You all remember the endlessly repeated observation of the pundits on how bush is so “comfortable in his skin” and a regular guy.Well last night he looked like he wanted to crawl right out of his skin .
Bush is like a regular guy.Dull,uninformed,and narrow-minded which is why he should not be president.

Posted by on 10/01 at 07:44 AM
Paul Leslie posted this comment: “Bush is like a regular guy. Dull uninformed, and narrow-minded which is why he should not be president.”

Golly, I wonder, just why has the populace for the most part written off liberals as elitist snots? Furthermore, why has the power base for liberals done nothing but shrink in America?

Answer: Paul Leslie

Semper plebeius,
JD

Posted by on 10/01 at 08:39 AM
EB, the scary thing is, they’ve actually been saying that, as a defense. I have wanted to throw coffee cups at the radio in the morning so much over the past year, shiouting things like “Don’t you guys study the Partisans and Maquisards in the War College? WTF are they teaching at West Point these days?”

Posted by bellatrys on 10/01 at 08:44 AM
I guess Bush has been so busy (proxy)fighting “Saddam loyalists” that he accidentally forgot all about the battle against Al(Saddam killed my father)-Sadr and his Shiite militias. The problem might just be a little bigger than cowardly Baathists, but of course denying you even have a problem also pretty much sums up the Bush policy.

Posted by on 10/01 at 08:57 AM
Favorite moment: Bush��s pause as he tried to enumerate his coalition ... Tony Blair ... and, and, and ... Alexander Kraznieweski of Poland!

Of course, in the words of President Mushmouth, the latter name comes out sounding something like “Kvshnashchvkhik--shnick--kishchkee.”

Posted by on 10/01 at 09:35 AM
"But because Tommy Franks did such a great job in planning the operation...” “...it turned into an unmitigated f*** up”.

ok, so the last bit is a paraphrase. But seriously, does anybody actually fall for this “catastrophic success” nonsense? I can’t believe Bush actually tries it.

I kind of thought the first time I heard it that it must be some spur of the moment damage control attempt that went horribly wrong. Now I’ve heard it for the second time, I can’t believe it isn’t a deliberate answer.

Awfully funny, but still awful.

Posted by on 10/01 at 12:02 PM
As a point of information, does the term “catastrophic success” originate from Tommy Franks’ book?

Posted by EB on 10/01 at 12:08 PM
I’ve heard its a real strategic term - it means when you make a breakthrough that you are not expecting, and therefore cannot follow up on because you haven’t got the logistics ready. Say your enemy breaks and flees, leaving you with a clear path to the capital, if you can only dash after them before they regroup at the next stronghold, but you don’t have enough fuel to take you that far.

A civilian example might be a small company that gets featured in the news, and then is overwhelmed with orders they can’t fill, and then they buy more equipment, and then they’re not popular any more *and* their regular customers are angry with them and they tank.

Or when a site gets TORN’d/slashdotted.

Posted by bellatrys on 10/02 at 01:28 AM
"I thought they would stay and fight, but they didn��t, and now we��re fighting them now.”
-- Gen Thomas Gage, Oct, 1775, 6 months after Concord

Posted by Mick on 10/02 at 08:23 AM

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