Philip J. LaVelle writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune:
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean accused President Bush last night of being weak on national defense and absent in the escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
In remarks at San Diego State University, Dean urged activists to fan across the nation – including deep into the heart of Republican-rich “red†states – to tell voters that Bush has failed as president – including in national defense, which Republicans tout as their core strength.
“There are a lot of things we can say when we knock on the door (of voters),†Dean told hundreds at San Diego State’s Open Air Theatre.
“You know, people say the Republicans are tough on defense. How can you be tough on defense if five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still at large, the Iranians are about to get nuclear weapons, North Korea’s quadrupled their nuclear weapons stash. . . .“Explain to me how it is that this president is tough on defense? I think this president is weak on defense and he’s hurt America because he hasn’t done the right thing,†Dean said.
Dean was especially pointed in an area the Bush administration has long claimed as its home turf – a muscular national defense.
Dean said the Bush administration’s decision to go to war against Iraq and its overall foreign policy have hurt America’s standing in the world.
“This country is in the worst shape since Richard Nixon, and probably before that,†Dean said.
“We’ve lost the high moral high ground everywhere in the world. We want to be respected around the world again.
“We want our moral authority to be restored, because part of defending America is not just well-armed troops; it’s having the high moral ground.â€
In an apparent reference to Israeli military action deep inside Lebanon, Dean said:
“If you think what’s going on in the Middle East today would be going on if the Democrats were in control, it wouldn’t, because we would have worked day after day after day to make sure we didn’t get where we are today. We would have had the moral authority that Bill Clinton had when he brought together the Northern Irish and the IRA, when he brought together the Israelis and the Palestinians.â€
Righties commenting on this story made the usual juvenile excuses, but the fact remains that the President of the United States was prancing around Europe and Russia, riding his bicycle and making smarmy jokes about pig slicing while the Middle East blew up in his face. The best excuse a couple of righties came up with is that the current crisis would have happened anyway, no matter who was President. So (I counter), if the President of the United States is, in fact, impotent to effect change in the Middle East, why are we in Iraq?
Past presidents of both parties would have been actively — hell, pro-actively — engaged in the current conflagration. Bush doesn’t appear even to be trying. Other than his lame statement that Israel has a right to defend herself — which of course she does, but that’s not exactly the issue at hand — he’s sitting the whole mess out.
Oh, correction — Bush cursed Hezbollah yesterday during a G8 lunch — he didn’t know the microphone was on —
Bush expressed his frustration with the United Nations and his disgust with the militant Islamic group and its backers in Syria as he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the closing lunch at the Group of Eight summit.
“See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive) and it’s over,” Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.
He told Blair he felt like telling U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who visited the gathered leaders, to get on the phone with Syrian President Bashar Assad to “make something happen.” He suggested Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might visit the region soon.
In other words, Bush is whining that Kofi Annan should do something. The righties ought to love that.
So far, righties aren’t bothered by President Bush’s inaction; they’re just upset that Howard Dean called Bush a weenie. So this genius blames the current crisis on Bill Clinton (I guess if he’d just left well enough alone, the Israelis and Palestinians would be buddies now), and this one complains that the Dems have “No solutions, plans, or solutions, etc.” But I don’t see why that’s a slam on the Dems, since it’s obvious Bush doesn’t have solutions, plans, or solutions, either. He’s a whiz at slicing roast pig, though.
An ankle biter proclaims that we don’t need no respect.
And when did “high moral ground†and “respect†of others ever win a war? I’m not saying these are bad things, but the world is a place in which might, power, and the ability to rout another are far more relevant. I don’t think what keeps Kim Jong Il, the nut in Iran, and others like them from striking at us is our “high moral groundâ€, but rather our overpowering military force.
Clue: Our “overpowering military force” is, um, rapidly becoming as impotent as the rest of Bush’s foreign policies, thanks to Iraq. And these days the smart guys are talking about Fourth Generation warfare, which is all about pulling “opposing states apart at the moral level,” says William Lind. Thinking of war as only applying firepower to targets is so over. It’s way pre-9/11. See also Tom Engelhardt on why force ain’t what it used to be.
As a public service for other bloggers writing commentary on President Bush’s foreign policy, I dug out the thesaurus to find synonyms for impotent. Here are some: powerless, helpless, inadequate, ineffectual, incapable, inept, weak, lame. Or, just stick with weenie.
Dean and the Dems should be running a split screen ad — on one side, Bush making sliced pig jokes and getting slapped around by Vladamir Putin; on the other, the Middle East going up in flames. Scrolling across the bottom of the screen: This is being tough on national security?
And they could replay the “mission accomplished” clip a few times, while they’re at it. The scrolling message should be something like He acted like a hot dog, but he’s only a weenie.
Update: See also Michael Stickings.
Even Putin’s dog is bigger stronger faster, than Bush’s as Putin himself reminded George.
Is anyone else bothered by the fact the moron is always absent when crisis occurr? When the US needs a leader, it has none.
What we need is a series of photos of Witless Bastard ™:
– reading “My Pet Goat” with the caption: “America is under attack!”
– Strumming a guitar with the caption: “Deaths of evacuees push Katrina toll to 1577”
– riding his dirt bike in Saint Petersburg with the caption: “G-8 Leaders Consider Mideast Peacekeepers”
Funny how “morals” only matter regarding sex (Clinton, abortion, etc.) to the Right, isn’t it?
Maha (and all), just FYI … a fairly amazing thread HERE (starting at post 25)…
A traveler’s forum website, a thread where two friends report being woken up first thing in the morning by explosions … one of the friends in a small Kibbitz in Israel right on the Lebanese border, the other friend being in downtown Beirut… That thread truly makes me hopeful that maybe things can eventually turn out right…
-me
Rock on Howard Dean! You think any other Dems will grow spines?
Also, I like “impotent.” It’s succinct, particularly in describing a group of men who are all about macho masculine cowboy prowess.
The Dems need to stop playing games. Attacking Bush is all well and good, but they should also offer a tangible alternative. “Bush is about as strong on defense as a box full of kittens. We’re gonna get us out of this mess finally because we have a plan, we’re strong on X, Y, and Z, and your life will get better if you vote Democrat in the fall. Wooo!”
I’m glad to hear Dean say this.
As for Bush and the Middle East –
1) yes our country is tremendously weaker today because of Bush’s actions, both in a fighting capacity sense but especially in a morally corrupted sense, a palpable sense of impotence indeed.
2) Nonetheless, I believe Bush’s hands off stance in the Middle East is exactly what he and the neocons want at this time. They don’t want peace, they want to see things escalate to where “we have no choice” but to be drawn into the fight, guns a blazin. They’re looking for an excuse to fight, and waiting for their opening, much as the neocons waiting for “the New Pearl Harbor” to invade Iraq. If they can get others (Israel) to do the fighting for them, so much the better.
Earlier this month Kevin Drum posted parts of an interview with Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, who said that it helped him enormously in his work that the WEst held the moral high ground in the Cold war, because it made it much easier to recruit spies. People would volunteer to work for him because he represented a cause they wanted to support. He also said that the US and UK HAD to change their conduct to reclaim that moral high ground.
There is one important question to ask about every position/action taken by the Bushites and neo-cons and war-mongering Israelis who damn well chose to be raining terror onto others right now: CUI BONO?
CUI BONO? is a latin phrase that translates as ‘who profits?’ or ‘who benefits by it?’
moonbat speculates that this conflict is designed to get America ‘drawn in’ to a war wanted by the neo-cons. Could be that, or it could be a big political ploy, the timing of which eyes polls before our midterm elections, to have Bush come in later as a heroic broker to settle the conflict.
After studying the Israel wars with its neighbors, I can easily see that Israel always benefits with increased territory and resources and more military and financial aid from America. And guess what, Israel is right now, under the excuse of ‘defense’ clearing the Lebanese side of the border. But just a few years ago, Israel was alarmed enough about that same border [and threatening conflict then] because Lebanon was planning to use some of the border river Wazzani’s waters….which would have left less of those waters for Israel’s water needs….Israel gets 10% of its water from that river. The clearing of the border on the Lebanese side might be a ‘hidden agenda’ plan to keep the Lebanese from using their share of the waters of the Wazzani.
It is also clear that Israel and America did all they could since Hamas was elected to increase pressure on that fledgling government. No news accounts are adding to the story of the Israeli soldier’s kidnapping that that kidnapping was done a day after the Israelis kidnapped and ‘disappeared’ two Gaza citizens. I for one can smell the phoniness of all the spin about Israel being the victim here….when the story line leaves out such an important provocation. Also, it is amazing that the news I have listened to on NPR while I drove cross-country never ever tells the death totals in a way that the listener can compare who is doing the most killing and destruction of livelihoods.
Just the spin of the news is enough for me to ask what the hidden agenda is for this latest ‘created war’. But always, I ask, CUI BONO? That is the question that gets my feet on the ground when I get sick of listening to the latest propaganda designed to cover the motivations behind the scenes.
Two examples of propaganda ‘logic’ which make me sick.
1] “Israel has a right to defend itself” [said to justify Israel’s engaging in despicable levels of destructive force]. Following this logic, I guess it is alright for a much bigger person [like a parent] to respond to being kicked in the shins by a much smaller person [like a child] by sustained bone-cracking beatings, starvation, and locking up the ‘offender’ in a closet.
In my moral sense of right and wrong, whomever has the advantage of bigness, whether that is physical bigness or military might, also has a commensurately greater responsibility to use that power advantage with restraint and ultimate fairness. Otherwise, the bigger one is a situation-grabbing bully who deserves condemnation.
2] ‘We will fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.’ I wince every time I hear this statement. It is the moral equivalent of saying we choose to allow the destruction of war to affect others rather than ourselves. This ‘logic’ is morally equivalent to me saying, ‘Oh, I hate the weeds in my lawn, but I don’t want to put toxic poisons out there where my kids play…..so, I will spray the poison on my neighbor’s lawn [where their kids play]’.