Religions > Atheism > Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
22 May 2004 10:58:58 AM |
| Object: |
Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator |
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2004/05/21/notes052104.DTL&nl=fix
Bush: Dumb Like A Bullet
Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator who
smirked at tortures in Iraq?
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, May 21, 2004
When last we left our sneering caped crusaders, Rummy had testified
under oath that he didn't really know who ordered what at Abu "Tortures
'R' Us" Ghraib prison, and George "Wha Happun?" Bush was mumbling into
his hand puppet about how he was utterly shocked and appalled and was
blaming the whole thing on "a coupla bad apples" and gul-dangit, he
warn't gunna stan' fer it.
And while he still loved Rumsfeld like a drunken frat brother and swore
Rummy was doing a "superb job" and stood by him 'til death or
impeachment they do part, something must be done and some heads were
gonna roll and it would definitely be some sad pregnant trailer-park
chick from West Virginia ha-ha snicker.
What a difference a couple weeks make. Now word is emerging like ugly
greased lightning that not only did Rummy himself order the Abu Ghraib
tortures, but it was also a long-standing super-secret plan based on
ultra-vile (and morally repugnant) interrogation techniques already
employed in Afghanistan.
Not only that, but the plan was authorized across the board, from the
Pentagon to the National Security Council to the CIA and then on up the
ladder to where Bush his own dumbstruck self was fully informed and
fully aware of the general plan to make a sad mockery of the "quaint"
and "obsolete" Geneva Convention.
Remember that piffling thing? It basically states you gotta treat all
war prisoners with a shred of humanitarian dignity or you can't call
yourself a fair and civilized Christian superpower, and if you don't
follow those basic rules you are, in essence, no different from the
terrorists and the dictators you claim to abhor and you are bombing the
crap out of.
Let's just say it again: Rummy allegedly ordered the torture plan.
Rummy's undersecretary, Stephen Cambone, ran it. Bush knew about it,
even way back in February. As did all of his senior staff. As did the
CIA and the NSC and even the Red Cross.
They knew of the torture and humiliation techniques. Knew of the secret
beatings. Knew of the electrodes and the snarling dogs and the pistol
whippings and, very possibly, of the forced sodomy and the rapes. Not of
suspected terrorists, but of people. Men. Women. Young boys. Suspected
Iraqi "insurgents," many of whom were, by the military's own admission,
wrongly detained in the first place. What fun.
Word has it Bush probably didn't hear the actual details, of the
specific brand of U.S.-made hoods or of the rape techniques employed,
because, as everyone knows, Bush is a "big-picture guy" who likes only
the general Cliff's Notes overviews of world events and can barely find
Baghdad on a map and can't really handle too many simultaneous thoughts.
But here's where it gets sticky. Here's where the smell of rot starts to
really singe your intuitive nose hairs. Because every president, no
matter how unsophisticated or perpetually tuned out (Hi, Mr. Reagan) or
disconnected from what's actually happening in his regime, must get
briefed. Every day.
And when you're a president who lusts after war the way Bush does, you
gotta hear all the grisly facts, the various actions and tactics and
super-secret operations, lest you seem completely out of touch during
one of your incredibly rare press conferences wherein you scrunch your
face all tight and furrow your brow and wag your finger and say things
like, "My job is to, like, think beyond the immediate."
It is the eternal Bush conundrum. How to appear sort of blank faced and
ignorant of the true atrocities your administration commits so as to
avoid any sort of direct accountability, and yet still pretend to be a
savvy, aware, tough-guy leader who gets things done and takes no bull
and launches unprovoked wars on anything that stands in the way of his
dad's portfolio.
After all, it has always been far too easy to smack BushCo around as
being an aww-shucks dumb-guy AWOL simpleton daddy's boy with a low-C
average and a painfully inarticulate approach to the world, coupled with
an astounding, world-famous ability to mangle both the English language
and every foreign policy ever implemented.
It's always felt like a bit of a grand ruse, Bush's Forrest Gump-style
dunderheadedness, a clever (if entirely plausible) way to deflect much
of the responsibility for his regimes's carnage, all designed to make
the nation believe that this guy simply couldn't be all that bad
because, well, he just ain't all that bright.
But, ironically enough, as far as the Abu Ghraib mega-scandal is
concerned, Bush has dug his own hole. It is his very own bull-headed,
infantile, stay-the-course, admit-no-mistakes,
bomb-first-ask-questions-never approach that has caged him in and makes
any move toward getting the U.S. out of the Iraq quagmire nearly
impossible. It's not the sign of a dimwit. It's the sign of a dimwit
with delusions of shrewdness. Which is, of course, far more dangerous.
Any major moves now -- like firing Rummy, or Wolfie or Uncle *****, or
even apologizing for all the Saddam-grade rapes and tortures -- would
make Dubya appear contradictory or unstable or inconsistent, which is
exactly the mass illusion he simply must maintain right now lest his
approval rating drop even farther, to where it finally matches his IQ.
Whoops, sorry. Cheap shot. See how easy it is?
Probably doesn't help that Colin Powell has stepped up and admitted how
he was deliberately deceived about WMDs in Iraq, and how he's pretty
much sick of being treated like a BushCo lackey and a footnote and a
scapegoat errand boy who puts out piddling fires and has to step in
front of the U.N. and present reams of bogus CIA data and blurry
satellite photos and silly cartoon graphics to try to prove the
existence of nonexistent nuclear arsenals in Saddam's rec room.
And then comes word of how Michael Moore's somber new film "Fahrenheit
9/11" illuminates, in painful and appalling detail, Bush's $1.5 billion
connection to various Saudi families -- including the chummy bin Laden
clan -- and how, even while all commercial aircraft across the U.S. were
grounded just after the WTC attack and millions were stranded and the
nation was on high alert, Bush had planes sent around the country to
pick up his Saudi buddies to fly them home.
So then. You gotta admit, maybe Bush isn't all that stupid after all.
Maybe he's not the smirking aww-shucks born-again simpleton he
constantly appears to be, the one who sits back and lets his henchmen do
all the dirty work and all the complex thinking while he lets Condi Rice
massage his ego and fill him in at the ranch while taking more vacation
time than any other president in history.
Or, rather, maybe Dubya really is that stupid, just not in the ways
anyone really imagined. Maybe Bush is stupid in a way that is far worse,
and far more dangerous for the health of this planet, than mere
inarticulate, nonintellectual, semiliterate Texas cow-pie bumbling.
It is, in short, the stupidity of the indignant and the self-righteous,
of the morally arrogant, of someone whose power base is threatened and
yet who is still blindly forcing America down this nightmare path, even
when all signs and all leaders and all U.N. councils and all weapons
investigators and all flagrant U.S.-sanctioned rapes and tortures are
veritably screaming in his face that it is a mistake of increasingly
epic, treacherous proportions.
And so maybe, ultimately, it all comes back to us. Maybe it is the
majority of people in this flag-wavin', happily deluded, fear-drenched
country who can't believe it could happen, who simply, you know,
"misunderestimated" just how poisonous Bush's savage brand of stupidity
really is.
(c) 2004 SFGate
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator |
22 May 2004 05:35:22 PM |
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On Sat, 22 May 2004 08:58:58 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2004/05/21/notes052104.DTL&nl=fix
Bush: Dumb Like A Bullet
Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator who
smirked at tortures in Iraq?
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, May 21, 2004
IMHHO:
Both. That should be the official definition of a wolf in sheep's
clothing. OK I know this is alt.atheism. Just because that phrase is
in the Bible doesn't invalidate it.
Sort of like OPEC saying today that they are concerned about oil
prices being too high. That's tantamount to the foxes reporting that
they are worried about the henhouse's security.
Watch those oil prices as we get closer to November. Vote carefully.
We have the best politicians money can buy. Vote for the cheapest
ones, as we might someday be able to afford them.
drift
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator |
22 May 2004 08:44:34 PM |
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<drift@lost.net> wrote
Watch those oil prices as we get closer to November. Vote carefully.
If you haven't noticed, high energy prices are a goal of this
administration.
As a wise man once stated (testifying in front of the
Watergate committee), "Watch what we do, not what we
say."
Early on, back in 2001, the Bush administration got
involved in California's energy crisis. They investigated
allegations that the energy brokers (Enron was one of
them) had bribed California's power companies to shut
down plants in order to create artificial shortages, forcing
California to buy out of state energy at hugely inflated
prices.
No sooner did California get suckered into signing
long-term contracts forcing the state to buy this energy
at hugely inflated prices, Bush comes to the rescue.
Yup, they "Uncovered" all kinds of evidence, promptly
sealing it away.
It's a federal crime to make sealed evidence public, like
in a civil or criminal case against Enron or other energy
brokers.
Not that there weren't any prosecutions. Perish the thought!
The power companies that accepted the bribes are being
prosecuted. Not the energy brokers (like Enron), but the
power companies that accepted the bribes from Enron &
others!
Now, morons will insist that this is "Sound public policy."
That, energy costs in this country are too low, way lower
than in the rest of the western world, and it's killing our
incentive to conserve & find alternatives. Highers prices
is good for our economy, long term, they would argue.
This is *****.
Our energy costs are no lower than in Europe or the rest
of the western world. The difference in price stems from
TAXES. Their energy producers make as much or less than
the energy producers here.
This is good for their economy.
It pays for healthcare, so businesses can hire new employees
without having to worry about the huge costs of benefits. It
pays for education, in many cases even higher education, so
they don't have to graduate college with decades worth of
debt to pay off.
Put simply: The taxes pay for things which Americans must
pay for out of their discretionary income, and businesses must
pay for out of their working capital.
It helps their economy.
Bush's actions, though, are *Hurting* our economy.
The higher energy prices in California are a win-fall for out
of state energy producers. Every penny of the inflated cost
is pure profit.
The money is coming out of the discretionary income of
California's citizens, and the working capital of California's
busineses. It's coming out of the economy. And, in return,
the economy gets nothing back. It's a net loss.
Consumers have less money to spend on other things because
their energy bills have more than doubled. Business have
higher operating expenses, forcing them to either cut back or
to raise prices (or both).
The exact same thing is true for gas prices.
There is no shortage. There is no "Excess Capacity" going
unused in refineries. We could flood the oil companies with
oil, and they really don't have the capacity to produce any
more gas than they already are.
Every penny in higher gas prices today is pure profit. It's
speculation. It's a "Premium" charged on a barrel of oil
because maybe -- just maybe -- there could be a shortage at
some point in the future.
"Paying the same price as Europe" means getting value back.
It means paying for services through energy taxes that would
otherwise come out of discretionary income. It DOES NOT
MEAN hugely inflated profits for politically well connected
energy producers who bribed the Bush administration.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator |
24 May 2004 05:50:32 PM |
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On Sat, 22 May 2004 18:35:22 -0400, drift@lost.net, Message ID:
<gikva0t3er9i6nhgkm44r8kart37brfvhp@4ax.com> wrote in alt.atheism;
On Sat, 22 May 2004 08:58:58 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2004/05/21/notes052104.DTL&nl=fix
Bush: Dumb Like A Bullet
Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator who
smirked at tortures in Iraq?
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, May 21, 2004
IMHHO:
Both. That should be the official definition of a wolf in sheep's
clothing. OK I know this is alt.atheism. Just because that phrase is
in the Bible doesn't invalidate it.
Agreed-both. The phrase is also in Aesop's Fables.
Sort of like OPEC saying today that they are concerned about oil
prices being too high. That's tantamount to the foxes reporting that
they are worried about the henhouse's security.
Like Asscrack being head 'law enforcement.'
Watch those oil prices as we get closer to November. Vote carefully.
We have the best politicians money can buy. Vote for the cheapest
ones, as we might someday be able to afford them.
Disagree. Politicians aren't bought. They're rented for a period of
time until a better offer comes in.
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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