by Damozel | Did you know that George W. Bush is still president? It's true. And it turns out that Scott McClellan isn't the only Bush Administration official who didn't work out the ramifications of Bush's implacable determination to go to war with Iraq till it was too late. Bush himself seems not to have fully understood them.
According to The Times of London --- follow me closely here --- 'President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a "guy really anxious for war" in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.' (ToL) In other words, he now realizes that he shouldn't have lied and manipulated Congress --- and therefore you and me --- into war with Iraq when in sober reality he really just wanted encourage the rest of the world to use diplomacy to sort out Iran. All along, he's been a 'man of peace.' He's really sorry about any rhetoric he used that suggested otherwise.
Um---? Um----? Um----? I'm sorry; I just can't get my head around this. Here, read this:
In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. "I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric."
Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. (ToL)
You think? And though he doesn't say so, his having done his little all to get us and Britain embroiled in Iraq only added to that impression. Note that he doesn't say he regrets getting us and them actually involved in a war or concede that it hasn't actually worked out: just that he's sorry it sounds as if he liked doing it.
Brad at Sadly, No! remarked:
Yeah, you know, I don’t think it was saying things like “bring it on” that made people think you loved war, George. Indeed, I think it might have had more to do with the fact that you, you know, started a war. For, like, no discernible reason. And it’s still going on, like, five years later. That to me is a better indication of why people think you’re really into war.
The Talking Dog wrote:
It seems that the Presidsent may have "inadvertently" convinced, say, everyone else on Earth that he wasn't "you know, a man of peace" and actually wanted to have a gratuitous, unprovoked war with Iraq. Funny how being reelected as "the war president" and beating your political opponents with the club of accusations of their being traitors and terrorist sympathizers will do that kind of thing.
Amen.
I assume this is just a further example of the extent to which Bush --- as we've seen illustrated time and time again --- thinks that just saying something makes it true and doesn't fully grasp that it's only when your words and your actions are consistent that you get what the rest of us call 'reality.' As this article illustrates: as a man of peace, 'the President was keen to bind his successor into a continued military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq....' (ToL) Yep, sounds like 'peace' to me.
Perhaps he really even believes that the worst aspect of his own legacy will be the cowboy rhetoric.
FYI, he took a few whacks at Barack Obama.
Mr Bush is concerned that the Democratic nominee Barack Obama might open cracks in the West’s united front towards Tehran’s nuclear ambitions...
[H]e delivered a thinly veiled warning to Mr Obama that his promises to renegotiate or block international trade deals were already causing alarm in Europe and beyond.
“There is concern about protectionism and economic nationalism,” he said. “Leaders recognise now is the time to get ahead of this issue before it becomes engrained in the political systems of our respective countries.”(ToL)
Whatever: Bush really isn't the right guy to deliver warnings to anyone, including Obama, about policies that cause alarm and consternation in Europe.
More blogger reactions at Memeorandum....
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