Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Everybody saw this coming.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

We still have time to mess this up!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Governed By Toddlers

Governed By Toddlers

by | 60 Comments

This post is in: 

Try to read this without cursing. Jesus wept.

***Update***

The story in a nutshell:

Although the president was publicly polite, few of the key Baker-Hamilton recommendations appealed to the administration, which intensified its own deliberations over a new “way forward” in Iraq. How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.

As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton.

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  1. 1.

    ThymeZone

    All in all, it sounds like a promising strategy. After all, if history has taught us nothing else, it’s that military strategies with no empirical basis adopted out of pride and vanity are usually phenomenally successful.

    And there you have a short, concise history of the Iraq war.

  2. 2.

    Mike

    Why do people still have the wrong idea on the role of the commander-in-chief? He is the commander-in-chief of the military, not America. If you are not a “troop”, he has not authority over you.

  3. 3.

    Zifnab

    Honestly, John, this is about par for the course. I’m just glad all the time and money spent pimping developing the ISG results didn’t go to complete waste.

    Oh wait…

    See, if the ISG was really clever, they would have declared opposite day when they released their report. Bush would have immediately gone along with it.

  4. 4.

    Jake

    Try to read this without cursing puking.

    I’m sure no one surprised that the over-hyped scion of the Royal House of Bush is willing to ignore the advice of experts and kill more faster in hopes of securing his precious legacy as the War President.

  5. 5.

    TenguPhule

    became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton.

    Bush Administration as Defined by a Dictionary from the Future:
    Bunch of Jerks who were first up against the wall when the Revolution came.

  6. 6.

    Tsulagi

    Try to read this without cursing. Jesus wept.

    Would you really have expected anything different? Soon as I heard McCain right after the midterms say we needed 20k more in Iraq, I knew the dipshit would grab onto that “thinking” that’s a great idea. Now, of course, straight-talker is saying that is not what he said.

  7. 7.

    Myrtle Parker

    If nothing else, this President has proven that government by childhood tantrum is disastrous.

  8. 8.

    Keith

    I don’t know specically why, but I am starting to feel like Bush’s world is about to implode. It’s the irrestistable force vs. the immovable object yet again, but this time, it just seems like critical mass is about to be achieved where the Administration collapses. I’m putting my money on a mass resignation (in under a Friedman) as being the spark.

  9. 9.

    ThymeZone

    I thought I’d never see American government worse than it was under LBJ and his tinhorn machismo in Vietnam, fueled by the insanity of McNamara and the others.

    The I thought I’d never see American government worse than it was under Nixon and Agnew and Mitchell and the insane Kissinger.

    I was wrong both times. Now I am tempted to think this MUST be the worst it can get, but I’ve learned that these fuckers still have it in them to prove me wrong yet again.

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    the president will explain “that we have to go up before we go down.”

    Translation from Bushspeak: “I must get it up before you go down on me.”

  11. 11.

    Faux News

    If nothing else, this President has proven that government by childhood tantrum is disastrous.

    Even Newt learned that painful lesson after the Train Wreck of shutting down the Federal Gub’mint back in 1995. I think it was over Newt being snubbed by Clinton by being forced to use the back door of Air Force One coming from Yitzak Rabin’s funeral.

  12. 12.

    Tax Analyst

    ‘twould that it be so, Tenguphule…they sure deserve it. So tonight we will be treated to more in the continuing game of charades Mr. Bush had decided to impose on us. Oh, joy. If you want the wrong thing done at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, well, Dubyah’s your man. Oh, and you know all the things that he will say he’s gonna do in tonight’s speech? Well, he’s really only gonna do a couple of them, kinda-sorta, as usual,and those will be done in his typically half-assed, incoherent way.

  14. 14.

    ThymeZone

    Thanks, Myrtle, your Gallup poll indicates that 81% are now saying that this war has gone “worse than expected.”

    In the face of that kind of support, where does this alcoholic little prick get the chutzpah to go on tv and ask for anything except that we accept his resignation?

    Can we point to a single assertion these idiots have made in four years that has turned out to be true?

    These are fascinating times, indeed.

    Reminding me more and more of Nixon’s summer of 1974. The fog of bizarritude getting thicker and thicker by the day.

    I think today will be remembered as the last day of his presidency for all intents and purposes. The day when pretty much everybody except the paid liars just said, aw, fuck it, this guy’s just a disaster. Time to bail.

  15. 15.

    Jake

    It’s the irrestistable force [reality] vs. the immovable object [Bush’s mind]…

    Agreed. This isn’t just a case of a person unwilling to compromise, which would be disastrous in a leader, this is a person who goes out of his way to be contrary…because he can. We might be better off with a toddler running the show.

    Don’t ask me to say how a toddler would be different just now. I’m drawing a blank.

  16. 16.

    stickler

    Your lips to God’s ears, Ppgaz.

    I think today will be remembered as the last day of his presidency for all intents and purposes. The day when pretty much everybody except the paid liars just said, aw, fuck it, this guy’s just a disaster. Time to bail.

    I’ll be watching the speech just to see how out of touch the rat bastard really is. I still don’t quite believe the GOP is going to turn on him. But they turned on Tricky Dick, so anything is possible. (curious personal aside: my first memory is of Nixon on the TV, and my father yelling a lot of short Anglo-Saxon words at him. I must have been 2, so that would have been 1970.)

  17. 17.

    stickler

    Holy crap, I just looked over at Sadly, No!, and they have excerpts of a Frum column where he (apparently seriously) suggests how Bush’s speech should go:

    Hang a map of Baghdad on one wall. A map of Iraq on another. Have the president stand between them with a laser pointer. Let him show where the sectarian fighting in the city is occurring, let him detail where US troops are currently deployed. Then he can explain the new plan: Where the extra troops would go, what they would do, where the new checkpoints would be placed, how the city would be cleared, how it would be held.

    Honest to Zarathustra, I’d pay a thousand dollars to watch George W. Bush stand between two big maps with a laser pointer. While explaining his “strategy” to the American people. Holy crap would that be a hoot. Can you imagine? The humor of it… sublime.

  18. 18.

    jg

    TenguPhule Says:

    became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton.

    Bush Administration as Defined by a Dictionary from the Future:
    Bunch of Jerks who were first up against the wall when the Revolution came.

    That has a Douglass Adams ring to it.

  19. 19.

    scarshapedstar

    I’m not usually a man of prayer, but please, God, if you’re out there, rapture this man. It’s time.

  20. 20.

    ThymeZone

    I’d pay a thousand dollars to watch George W. Bush stand between two big maps

    Now over here, heh heh, that’s the Green Zone, see? Now it’s safe there, and that’s what we want to do, is turn all the rest of this here

    { points to thermostat on wall }

    …uh, here … green too. ‘Cause, see, this over here is the red part where the fassissssssssssssssssssssssstssssss are killin people and destroyin freedom, see.

    Now, my new generals are tellin me that we can take the greeniness of these green parts and bring it out here into these red parts and make them more green, or at least brown. See, brown is safe.

    That’s our ageNNNNNNNN-dah. That’s what we mean when we say “you don’t lose unless you quit.”

    See.

    Heh.

  24. 24.

    Teak111

    Ok, so we clear Baghdad, then what, the insurents wave a white flag and Bush has a ticker tape parade? Maybe the idea is to kill all the insurgents in Baghdad, then there won’t be anymore. Insurgents are like cockroachs in a Westside apartment building, you can only hope (and barely) to contaiin them, never eliminate them. What I want out of Bush tonight is not that we are sending more troops, but WHAT that stop-gap measure is intended to accomplish. Buy more time for Maliki? CYA for Bush til 08? Secure Baghdad to oil company execs have a nice place to stay? Train more troops? Blow the AEI? Give daddy’s “Fixer” the finger. Find the missing WMD? Secure Bush’s place in History? What will securing Baghdad accomplish (other then scattering insurgents)? IOWs, sending 20k troops is not a plan. I, as an American citizen with children footing the bill for this FUBAR, want a f’ing long term plan. I’m prepared to be utterly diapointed, of course.

  25. 25.

    Teak111

    It pretty obvious, Baghdad is the next Fallujha. Get out while you can. Pretty sure this whats about to happen. Sunnis sections will be demolished, rendered uninhabitable. Baghdad will become a Shite city.

  26. 26.

    ThymeZone

    WASHINGTON — President Bush’s promise to send more troops to Iraq if U.S. commanders request them still may not stabilize the country, many military analysts say.
    In his news conference Tuesday, Bush said he would be willing to give Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, more troops if he asked for them. “If that’s what he wants, that’s what he gets,” Bush said. Though Bush pledged no specific number, Abizaid told reporters Monday that he wants another two brigades of combat troops to help deal with rising violence in Iraq.

    But those additional troops — between 5,000 and 10,000 soldiers — still might not be adequate to stem an increasingly bold insurgency, the analysts say.

    Charles Pena, director of defense studies at the Cato Institute, says that adding more U.S. troops will only “make the problem worse” and increase Iraqi resentment.

    The decision by Bush to abandon a plan that would have reduced U.S. troop levels from 135,000 to 105,000 undercuts earlier U.S. predictions about the force size needed for Iraq and was prompted by disturbing developments:

    • The Iraqi insurgency has moved into a more deadly phase in which massed attacks on U.S. troops have replaced isolated ambushes with homemade bombs.

    • U.S. troops, working with Iraqi forces, have been unable to seal off Iraq’s borders and prevent foreign fighters from entering. Bush said he was “disappointed” in the performance of some Iraqi troops.

    • New guerrilla tactics, including the taking of dozens of hostages has threatened everything from foreign investment to the U.S. military’s ability to supply troops.

    • American forces have been forced to engage in deadly urban warfare in Iraqi cities.

    Oh, heh heh. Sorry.

    That story is from 2004.

    USA Today April 13 2004, to be exact.

    See, he told us that this was going to be hard.

  27. 27.

    TenguPhule

    See, he told us that this was going to be hard.

    See, you misunderinterpreted him.

    What Bush really meant was that he was getting a *hard-on* for all the gynecologists who need to share their luv.

  28. 28.

    jg

    Apparently the predictions of house to house fighting in Baghdad are going to come true after all. Just 3 years later than we thought.

    Where were you when the Battle for Baghdad started?

  29. 29.

    chriskoz

    Sunnis sections will be demolished, rendered uninhabitable. Baghdad will become a Shite city.

    Then will we be able to declare victory and go home?

  30. 30.

    Krista

    A map of Iraq on another. Have the president stand between them with a laser pointer. Let him show where the sectarian fighting in the city is occurring, let him detail where US troops are currently deployed. Then he can explain the new plan: Where the extra troops would go, what they would do, where the new checkpoints would be placed, how the city would be cleared, how it would be held.

    That would be seriously painful to watch.

    And I’m with Dave. I’ve never met Bush, but I cannot think of anybody else who fills me with such utter loathing. All those troops he’s gotten killed? He’s not worthy to lick the soles of their boots.

  31. 31.

    ThymeZone

    On June 28, 2005 — just 18 months ago — Bush said that sending more troops to Iraq would ” undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead “

    Being run as a video cut on CNN and apparently available as a video on the tubes.

  32. 32.

    Tulkinghorn

    Then will we be able to declare victory and go home?

    Let’s just declare bankruptcy and go home.

  33. 33.

    Brian

    As an open-minded and tolerant liberal, I try to be civil towards people around me no matter what their political leanings, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to politely disagree with people around me who support this joker.

    Is it safe now to simply call Bush supporters deranged?

  34. 34.

    ThymeZone

    Is it safe now to simply call Bush supporters deranged?

    It was sensible four years ago.

    It was safe three years ago.

    It’s mandatory now.

  35. 35.

    Dave

    Then will we be able to declare victory and go home?

    Of course not, there are a ton of countries in that region that are threats to America ..err.. have WMDs ..um.. are godless commies ..shit..um..tried to kill my Daddy..no..no..no..Give me big wood when I think of sending in the military after them…fuck…um…Hate Freedom (or God I forget which, eh same thing)…damn…I’ll get it, hold on..um…Need to be Democratized in our image!

    That’s it, yeah that’s it!

  36. 36.

    Dave

    Here’s the thing that completely galls me.

    Maybe he could be forgiven for buying into PNAC (silly and flawed that it was), maybe he originally did think invading Iraq was an acceptable response to 9/11. Maybe. Maybe all the mistakes that he made could be forgiven; IF he’d admit he’s fucked up, that Iraq is a mess and a lost cause.

    The problem is he’s either so stubborn and incapable of accepting failure (both?) that he is going to keep us in Iraq until he leaves office, no matter what the cost in lives and treasure, world be damned. It’s as scary as it is frustrating.

  37. 37.

    TenguPhule

    It’s mandatory now.

    In the near future we will issue hunting licenses with quotas to fill.

  38. 38.

    J. Michael Neal

    Can anyone explain to me the differences between what Bush is proposing now, and what John Kerry was advocating during the Presidential campaign in 2004? Other than the fact that we’re two years deeper into the hole and what might have worked then won’t work now?

  39. 39.

    raj

    Whatever. How things developed in the Middle East was ctually was fairly obvious, not only in Iraq, but also in the forgotten country–Afghanistan.

    It is interesting that those of y’all among the right-wing Bush-near blogosphere might have believed that things might have been different. Sadly, they weren’t, as some of us might have told you.

  40. 40.

    CaseyL

    Is it safe now to simply call Bush supporters deranged?

    I think what we’re seeing is a real-life illustration of just what “the average IQ is 100” means. In this case, an inability to accept and deal with facts that contradict passionately-held preconceptions.

  41. 41.

    Krista

    Try to read this without cursing.

    But why? Reading it is already enough to enduce an embolism. Why add the extra frustration of not being able to swear like a sailor?

  42. 42.

    ConservativelyLiberal

    Anyone still wonder how Bush ran his oil company, Arbusto/Bush Exploration/Spectrum 7/Harken (in its various flailing attempts to survive) into the ground?

    This guy has always been a loser, even as a so-called winner. And you can’t teach that old dog any new tricks. The man is as dumb as a stump, and his friends are sly wolves.

    It is going to take years for us (and the world) to recover from this history making screwup. I thought the Soviets blew it in Afghanistan, but this is a spectacular failure. Each time this guy has failed, it is more spectacular than his last failure. God, I hate to see what is coming after this…

  43. 43.

    Barry

    J. Michael Neal Says:

    “Can anyone explain to me the differences between what Bush is proposing now, and what John Kerry was advocating during the Presidential campaign in 2004? Other than the fact that we’re two years deeper into the hole and what might have worked then won’t work now?”

    As ConservativelyLiberal, Bush has a long history of running things into the ground, and getting bailed out by his family connections. In other words, he’s had a long conditioning to the assumption that screwing things up won’t hurt him. Bad for a leader.

    Since 2004, from what I know, the government of Iraq has become a Shiite militia/separatist Kurd phenomenon. If you’re a Sunni Arab, it exists to exile, torture and/or kill you – period. The Sunni guerrillas have undoubtedly had a grand time recruiting for the past year, after Shiite government forces started going into Sunni neighborhoods and killing all of the men. This means that the Sunni guerrilla movement isn’t really pacifiable now, except by genocide and exile, because they’ve been given d*mn good reasons not to trust the Iraqi government.

    In addition, since the Iraqi government is now a militia phenomenon, it’s not possible to depower the militias, since this would involve destroying the entire Iraqi government. A do-over of 2003, except that we wouldn’t have shock and awe on our sides, and would have *seriously* pissed off everybody in Iraq except for the Kurds – and quite possibly them, as well.

    According to the UN, there’ve been millions of Iraqis who’ve fled to neighboring countries. This probably means that the upper-middle class of Sunni Arab (and probably Shiite Arab) Iraq is now mostly gone. Doctors, engineers, accountants, etc. Makes it hard to get things done.

    In addition, the Shiites militia leaders have had two years of successfully manipulating the USA. They’re probably in much less awe of the US than they were in 2004; they’ve figured our weaknesses, and have exploited them successfully. When Bush says that the government of Iraq must purge itself of militias and disarm them, all that he does (IMHO) is show further that he’s all hat and no cattle.

  45. 45.

    Pb

    J. Michael Neal,

    Here’s a summary of what Kerry’s position was–it called for extra elements heretofore missing from Bush’s campaign, such as diplomacy, competence, and results. And here’s Kerry more recently:

    The only hope for stability lies in pushing Iraqis to forge a sustainable political agreement on federalism, distributing oil revenues and neutralizing sectarian militias. And that will happen only if we set a deadline to redeploy our troops.
    […]
    Last week in Damascus, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and I met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. We were clear about U.S. expectations for change in his regime’s policies, but we found potential for cooperation with Syria in averting a disaster in Iraq — potential that should be put to the test. Washington can’t remain on the sidelines, stubbornly clinging to a belief that talking to our enemies rewards hostile regimes.

  46. 46.

    Mr Furious

    But why? Reading it is already enough to enduce an embolism. Why add the extra frustration of not being able to swear like a sailor?

    LOL! Thanks, Krista. I needed that.

  47. 47.

    Punchy

    Now over here, heh heh, that’s the Green Zone, see? Now it’s safe there, and that’s what we want to do, is turn all the rest of this here

    That’s a genius proposition. Just declare the entire area of Baghdad a “Green Zone”. That way, nobody will be allowed to plant any bombs, kidnap any citizens, or forment any violence. After all, the Green Zone is SAFE!!

    Then, hopefully, they can declare Detroit and South Central Green Zones, too, if they have any Magic Pixie Dust left over.

  48. 48.

    Face

    Then, hopefully, they can declare Detroit and South Central Green Zones,

    Seriously…fuck this “21+K troops to pacify Baghdad” shit. Send these troops to crime-ridden areas in America (uh, N’awlins?) first. Fix our own fucking crime and violence issues first before sending some grunts to knock brown guys around.

  49. 49.

    mclaren

    Hey, guys. You had a choice.
    Yes, everyone in America had a choice.
    Remember the debates?
    Remember back in 2004?
    Remember when John Kerry said, “You can choose to vote for change — or you can choose more of the same.”
    Yep.
    More of the same.
    The American people, in their glorious wisdom, chose.
    They chose more of the same.
    Learn to like it, fucktards. You wanted more of the same?
    You got more of the same.
    And now you’re going to _keep_ getting more of the same until you gag and choke and puke and fall down screaming like animals, begging for someone to kill you to end the pain.
    But it won’t end.
    It’ll just be…more of the same.
    My sympathy for the infantile American people, banging their little spoon in their little highchair, dropped to zero after the 2004 election.
    Don’t like your current situation, folks?
    Tough tit.
    Learn to like it.
    You voted for it, now you’ve got it, and now it’s going to corrode you down to the bone like flesh-eating bacteria. You all decided you wanted more of the same.
    Hey, jerkoffs…here you go! Order number 47 — number 47, the American people, your order is ready!
    More of the same coming up!

  50. 50.

    Pb

    My sympathy for the infantile American people, banging their little spoon in their little highchair, dropped to zero after the 2004 election.

    I take it you don’t live in Ohio?

  52. 52.

    Krista

    Chill out, mclaren. Most everybody here voted for Kerry, from what I gather.

    So they DIDN’T vote for it, they DIDN’T want more of the same, but that’s what 51% of their countrymen foisted upon them.

  53. 53.

    Sherard

    I hate to break it to you, but this story is complete horseshit.

    I quote page 50 of the Iraq Study Group report:

    We could, however, support a shortterm
    redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the
    training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would
    be effective.

    And, as posted in another retarded thread on this bloated, self-important sack of crap, the command in Iraq has asked for that very thing.

    Toddlers indeed. Toddlers with a blog, that is.

  54. 54.

    Sherard

    Seriously…fuck this “21+K troops to pacify Baghdad” shit. Send these troops to crime-ridden areas in America (uh, N’awlins?) first. Fix our own fucking crime and violence issues first before sending some grunts to knock brown guys around.

    Wow. Now THERE is a brilliant idea. New Orleans cops killing civilians isn’t enough, you would actually impose the US military on the average civilian I guess. Punish petty theft and drug offenses with, what ? – a double tap to the head with an M16 ?

    You armchair generals are hysterical.

  56. 56.

    TenguPhule

    the command in Iraq has asked for that very thing.

    So were they lying to Congress when they aid they said more troops wouldn’t help or did they lie to the ISG when they said they did?

  57. 57.

    Sherard

    Oh, sorry if the level of discourse is so putrid that no idea would seem out of place here. I am quite sure that are any number of moonbats that would prefer that.

    Anyhow, I would suggest some of you doom and gloom, Iraq is lost, repent now and get out fools read some of the citizen reporting coming FROM Iraq. The people there don’t think this is lost.

    You MIGHT consider expanding your list of inputs on this beyond being spoonfed by the Washington Post that hasn’t ventured outside their hotel in Baghdad in, well, since 2003.

    Please let me know when sockpuppet Greenwald embeds with a unit in Iraq. The vast majority of the people of Iraq want a unified Iraq free of murdering assholes, the military on the ground believes it is achievable, but all you leftards read and swallow what the Washington Post has to say from their Marriot Hotel byline and you call for retreat.

    Awesome.

  58. 58.

    Tim F.

    2:40 pm

    another retarded thread on this bloated, self-important sack of crap

    2:52 pm

    Oh, sorry if the level of discourse is so putrid that no idea would seem out of place here.

    We call that a self-fulfilling prophesy. Hilarious.

  60. 60.

    demimondian

    But don’t you understand?

    Sherard is clapping louder, just like he’s supposed to. Back when the 101st Chairborne was first pursuing it’s strategy of shock and awe, before the President was bombing, its members assumed that their eMission was accomplished. Now, though, an insurgency has risen up, the members of which insist on fighting by using “Integral Environmental Data”, which keeps blowing his sallies out of the water. So he’s taking up residence here among the insurgents, spending more time and effort here, trying to control the situation.

    I don’t know what the reminds me of….anyone able to help?

Comments are closed.